Welcome to Sacramento central Seventh-day Adventist Church. Wherever you're joining us from - across the country and around the world - we are so excited to have you. Whether this is your first time tuning in or you are a regular - and we are just thrilled that you have decided to spend the next hour with us as we sing songs and we open up God's Word and we study together. Today is no exception - we always start with your favorite requests and I will tell you that this song we're going to sing, 'a child of the King' is a huge favorite. It's right up there - right behind 'amazing grace' which is like the most popular song request that we get.
But 'a child of the King' - there must have been at least sixty requests for this song so we are absolutely going to sing that with you right now. So if you are at home, pull out your hymnals, join us - #468 - 'a child of the King' and of those sixty names I picked the most exotic locations: edward in belize requested this, melanie in china, melkius in Ethiopia, charlie in fiji, elsa in macau, billy and marine and lecca in new zealand, and francis in sri lanka. So thank you to everybody that sent in that request. I cannot say all of your names, but you know who you are and so does the Lord. #468 - First, second, and fourth stanzas.
Join with us. I love four-part harmony and it's so exciting to have a real bass and tenor and alto and, of course, then you get brothers and their harmony already is great. So, I love it! I love it! I love hearing from so many of you with your favorite requests and, of course, we are learning our new song which is #97 this week. Number 97 is 'the Lord of the boundless curves of space' and two people actually did request this song. We've never heard this one.
Jaqu in New York and joyce in kenya - so we are going to learn this all together and we are going to sing all four stanzas of #97. Join with us. The words to that song - that second stanza - 'your mind conceived the galaxies and each atom's secret plan.' The huge expanse of space and then the little atoms and no matter where you fall into that spectrum - we're down on the atom side of it - that he knows everything about you and, you know, even the sparrow that falls, the hair that falls from your head - he is aware of that and he knows that. Let's bow our heads for prayer. Father in Heaven, thank you so much for loving us, for being our - truly our loving heavenly father.
You love us. You watch over us and you know everything about us and we thank you for your love, for your mercy - and I pray that you will speak to our hearts today. Help us to be open and receptive to what we hear. Be with Pastor Doug. Thank you so much for his ministry here and around the world and each of our extended Sabbath school family wherever they are.
Thank you for each one. In Jesus' Name, amen. At this time our lesson study is going to be brought to us by - yep - Pastor Doug Batchelor. Thank you to our musicians. Debbie said that like she wasn't sure I was here - she had to look - 'is he here? Yeah.
' Happy Sabbath, friends. Good to see each of you here and, again, I want to welcome the extended class that is watching via satellite or internet around the world. We've been traveling a lot this spring doing afcoe - afcoe stands for 'Amazing Facts center of evangelism' - or college of evangelism. We take evangelism training around the country and last week we were with our friends in Kansas city. We had over 1300 people show up.
Next week we're down in the southern California area at the indonesian church in redlands. And so, there'll be a lot more than our indonesian brothers and sisters there and we're going to come together and study so I want to greet - everywhere I go people say, 'oh, I want to study with you.' We're continuing with our new study dealing with Christ and his law and in a moment we'll get to lesson #4 but we always offer something that helps compliment the lesson and we have a free offer today. It's called, 'a love that transforms'. This really is a good lesson. It talks about the principles of the law - holy living - and, you know, we talk about grace and justification but there's also sanctification.
This talks about that - the power of that grace and that love transforms us. We'll send you a free copy of this - 'a love that transforms' - just call the number on the screen which is 866-study-more - that translates to 866-788-3966 - and when you do, ask for offer #710. We'll be happy to send that to you. Alright, the lesson is 'Christ and the law in the sermon on the mount'. This is very important.
I'll explain why in just a minute. The memory verse is Matthew 5:17 and 18 - most of you should know that but I'd like you to say it with me - are you ready? And this is from the new king James version, "do not think that I came to destroy the law or the prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled." Now this is a very important study because - how many of you have heard before that yes, in the old testament God had his law and you've got the ten commandments, but then Jesus came and now we're living under the new dispensation where Christ gave us a new law and that the law of Jesus is different from the ten commandments in the old testament law. How many of you have heard that before - some variation of that before? That is categorically not true.
That, actually, is a doctrine of devils because it almost makes it sound like you've got different Gods. You've got the God in the law of the old testament and then Jesus came to really straighten things out. They were saved by works in the old testament but we are saved by faith in grace now. Have you heard that before? Nobody's saved by works. Nobody can be saved by works.
Nobody ever could be saved by works. In the old testament, they were saved by faith. Abraham believed God and it was counted to him for righteousness. They were saved by faith looking forward - all the sacrificing of lambs, that all pointed forward to the coming of the lamb of God. And it wasn't a different God that thought up the sacrificial system, it was Jesus.
And it wasn't a different God that gave the Ten Commandments, that was Jesus. And the teachings of Jesus perfectly compliment the teachings of the old testament. And so, it's important to understand that when we talk about Christ and his law - even the title of the lesson - I was afraid some would misunderstand. 'Christ and his law is not just talking about the new testament laws, because who was it that gave the old testament law? Christ. And so when you talk about Christ and his law, don't be thinking in your mind, 'well, this must just mean the new testament law.
' The quarterly does principally deal with that, but it's the same law and that's something that's brought out powerfully, I think, in this study. For instance, our memory verse - Jesus says, 'do not think' - now what does that mean? Don't think this, right? I mean, just simplest reading - can't misunderstand - 'do not think I've come to destroy the law or the prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill.' Okay, stop. Some people think that Jesus came to fulfill the old testament law and that means he came to abolish or do away with it. Now, if Jesus saying 'I came to fulfill the old testament law means 'I came to abolish it' - listen to how silly that'll sound: 'do not think that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets.
I did not come to abolish but to do away with.' Wouldn't that be the same thing? That would be a contradiction. So what does fulfill mean? When Jesus came to John the baptist to get baptized, and John, recognizing he was the Messiah, said, 'Lord, what's going on here? I need to be baptized by you.' - I'm paraphrasing - and Jesus said to John, 'suffer it to be so now for thus it's appropriate to fulfill all righteousness. Now, does 'fulfill' mean 'do away with'? Does 'fulfill' mean 'abolish'? Would Jesus have said to John, 'you need to baptize me to abolish all righteousness and do away with all righteousness.' No. Fulfill all righteousness - it means 'to fill full'. It means to complete.
So Jesus didn't come to do away with the law, he came to fill it up in his life - to make it complete. See, the old testament law still was not complete in that they didn't understand all the underlying principles. In the sermon on the mount that we're going to study this morning, Jesus takes the law and he unpacks it and he makes it complete so that they can comprehend it. Someone look up for me - let me just see where the microphones are - okay, we've got one here. Someone look up for me psalm , verse 142 - who has that? Hand right here - we'll get you a microphone.
And I don't know where you might be that has Isaiah 40, verse 8 - is that a different side? You have that verse? Okay, so you'll be up next but it'll be a minute, melissa, okay? Now, here's a very important verse: Isaiah 51:7 - oh, Isaiah :21, sorry - go with me to Isaiah 42, verse 21, "the Lord is well pleased for his righteousness' sake; he will magnify the law, and make it honorable." Now, this is a section that is talking about the Messiah. What would the Messiah do? Magnify. Is that like 'delete' - the 'delete' key on your keyboard? I've got another function on my keyboard where if I press the 'control' button and I scroll it makes anything on my screen get bigger - it's wonderful. Because as you get older you use that more - magnify - and so what does 'magnify' mean? Make bigger or make smaller? Does it make something more blurry - obscure - or does it make something more clear and sharp? So did Jesus come to do away with or to make it more clear? That's what it means to fulfill it - to make it more crisp. He came to magnify the law and make it honorable.
Why did he make it honorable? Because some of the man-made traditions that the religious leaders had put on the laws, brought shame and reproach. The Sabbath law is good and Jesus often had conflict with others because he'd heal somebody on the Sabbath. And he became angry with them. One day there was this man who had a withered hand - in the church - on the Sabbath - and Jesus asked them, he said, 'is it better to do good on the Sabbath or evil?' And they wouldn't answer him. 'How many of you that has a sheep or a donkey that falls into a pit on the Sabbath they will not pull it out?' They wouldn't answer him and it says, 'Jesus was angered' - he was grieved at the hardness of their hearts and he told the man, 'stretch forth your hand' and he healed him.
Because the idea that a donkey or a sheep was more important than a man - the pagans would laugh at the way some of the religious leaders kept the law. It was dishonored because of the traditions that eclipsed the commandments. So Jesus came to make it honorable so that others would say, 'oh, it's a beautiful law. It's a wonderful law. It's a fair law.
' Alright, go with me now to psalm 119 - you're going to read that for us aaron - verse 142, I think. Psalm 119:142, "thy righteousness is an everlasting righteousness, and thy law is the truth." Now, the first part of the sermon on the mount deals with something called 'the beatitudes' - matter of fact, if you look in your lesson, you'll see in the first page of your lesson it says that the sermon on the mount is really divided up into four or five sections - if you can count the conclusion as a section. You've got the beatitudes - Matthew 5:1 through 12, you've got the section on light and salt in Matthew 5:13 through 16, and then there's a long section where Jesus gives a deeper perspective on the law, and then you've got a long section on Christian behavior and that's Matthew 6 through the end of the sermon on the mount and he concludes then with the wise and foolish builder and whether or not you will listen to what he had said previously. If you have a red-letter version of your Bible, you'll notice that the longest uninterrupted red-letter section is the sermon on the mount. It is a sermon that Jesus preaches and it's - it doesn't take that long for you to read through it, but it's pretty powerful.
Look how often it's quoted. But the first part of that sermon - we just told you - is the beatitudes. Do we see the Ten Commandments listed in the beatitudes? Is the law of God reflected in there or is he doing away with it? Well, we just heard aaron read, 'thy righteousness is an everlasting righteousness. Thy law is truth.' Is there a beatitude that talks about righteousness? 'Blessed are those that hunger and thirst after righteousness' - they will be filled. Isaiah 51:7, "hearken unto me, ye that know righteousness, the people in whose heart is my law;" - is there a connection between righteousness and the law? Yeah, we just read that.
And so, the beatitudes are connected with the law. Let me give you another example: what does the beatitude say in Matthew 5:7? "Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy." Alright, if you look then, for example, in Exodus 20, verse 6 - in the Ten Commandments: "showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me and keep my commandments." What commandment is that in? That's in the Ten Commandments and, more specifically, that's in the commandment about idolatry - 'visiting the iniquity of The Fathers upon the sons unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me but showing mercy' - everyone gets hung up on the third and fourth generation - they don't read the rest of it - 'showing mercy unto them that love me' - see, do you know in the ten commandments it says, 'love me and keep my commandments'? The key to the Ten Commandments is in the Ten Commandments. 'Love me and keep my commandments' - it's right in there. Is there a beatitude that talks about purity? Matthew 5, verse 8, "blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God." And is there a connection between purity and the law? Peter 1:22 - I know, I'm going to the new testament - "since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the spirit in sincere love of the brethren, love one another fervently with a pure heart," - obedience and purity - there's a connection there with the law. And then Jesus goes on to say in Luke 16 and this is under the section - actually, everything I said thus far was an introduction.
In Luke chapter 16, verse 17 under 'one jot or tittle': "and it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one tittle of the law to fail." Now in our - just to make this similar to our vernacular - when we write, you've got a little dash or the crossing of the 't' - that was the Jewish equivalent, in their characters, for a tittle. It was a little - like an accent Mark - and a jot was like what we would call the period that we use on a sentence. In Hebrew writing they did have these little - the very smallest Marks they would make in their writing - Jesus said it would be easier for heaven and earth to vaporize and pass away than for even a jot or a tittle to fail from the law of God. So is Jesus saying that 'I came to change or do away with the law'? And yet, do you hear Christians teach that? Now there are things in the law that Christ replaced in that they were symbols that pointed to him: the laws about sacrificing lambs. Do we need to sacrifice lambs anymore? No? We do - it's Jesus is our lamb.
We accept him as our sacrifice, right? And so it's really - those things still apply but Jesus is the lamb. And you can look at the laws that they had about the feasts and circumcision and Paul is very clear - those laws that came later, they were symbolic. Matter of fact, the ceremonial laws and the feast days, they all came after sin entered the world. The Ten Commandments really existed from the very beginning. Was it wrong to commit murder back in the days of adam and eve? Did God look down on cain killing his brother? Was adultery wrong before the Ten Commandments were written? Did God tell Joseph that, you know, misbehaving with potiphar's wife would be a sin? Isn't that what Joseph said? 'How can I do this thing and sin against God?' So they knew that stealing was wrong before the ten commandments were written.
They knew that lying was wrong. And you can find examples of this even long before the ten commandments were written. And so these are eternal principles. The ceremonial laws and some of these things relating to sacrifices that were shadows - yes, they were nailed to the cross. They were written on paper.
They point to Jesus. But the principles that Jesus gives on the sermon on the mount, they're eternal principles. Alright, read for us Isaiah 40, verse 8 please. Isaiah 40, verse 8, "the grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever." The Ten Commandments are eternal principles. It is true that Jesus has summarized the Ten Commandments.
Matter of fact, someone look up for me Matthew 7, verse 12. Who got that? Got a hand over here. Let's get you a microphone. Matthew 7 - we'll get to you in just a moment - Matthew 7, verse 12. Jesus did summarize the ten commandments - if you were to summarize the Ten Commandments in one word, what would it be? Love.
How many agree? And then if you were going to summarize the Ten Commandments - if you were going to divide that into two principles, what would it be? Love God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength and love your neighbor. Well, that's the new commandment that Jesus gave that replaces the old. Have you heard that? We don't need to keep the ten commandments because Jesus gave us a new commandment. Because he said, 'a new commandment I give unto you.' I mean, he said it. But then when he articulates the new commandment - when he states it, what is he doing? Love the Lord God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength.
He's quoting Deuteronomy chapter and he says 'love your neighbor as yourself' - he's quoting Leviticus 19:18. So Jesus, when he says, 'a new commandment' and then he quotes the old testament, he quotes Moses, more specifically, how new was it to the jews? It wasn't new. He said 'it's a new principle for you to understand that all of the law is summarized in love, right? This would probably be a good time to read that next verse if we're ready. Yeah, Matthew 7:12. "Therefore, whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them, for this is the law and the prophets.
" All of the law and the prophets are not done away with, Jesus said, they are summarized in 'do unto others as you would have them do unto you'. There's a law that says if you find your neighbor's donkey wandering out on its own, even if he's your enemy, the Bible says 'take it back to him.' It's someone you can't stand - you've just got this difficult neighbor and he just makes you miserable and you see his donkey's wandered off - you can say, 'oh great, I'm glad it's happening to him.' No, God says that's not the right attitude. Go get his donkey and bring it back to him. Overcome evil with good. Well that's the teaching of Jesus.
That's in the law of Moses. Whatever you would have others do to you, do also to them. It summarizes love for God and love for your fellow man. Now, one reason we know the law is not done away with is if you look, for instance, in Revelation 11:19 - Revelation :19 - it says, "then the temple of God was opened in heaven, and the ark of his covenant was seen in his temple." Now, when is this happening, prophetically? This is happening, you know, in the sequence of Revelation it's not in the early days of the earth's history, it's in the final events. 'The temple of God was opened in heaven' - certainly it's after the time of Christ.
How did the ark get to be in heaven? Now, I'm going to - I'm going to get some letters on this. Where is the ark now? The ark - the ark, you know, the golden box - not Noah's ark - the golden box that has the ten commandments in it. As near as we can tell - and I think there's a reference to this in 'Prophets and Kings'. Before Nebuchadnezzar conquered - before he destroyed Jerusalem - Jeremiah, knowing it was coming, he conspired with some of the loyal priests - not wanting the most sacred national object to be taken captive - you see, the ark was taken captive once by the philistines - they didn't want that ever to happen again. They knew that the Babylonians were going to take the city.
Jeremiah told them it was going to happen. They couldn't hide everything in the temple, but they took the ark and they hid it in one of the many caves - there is an absolute honeycomb of caves and tunnels underneath Jerusalem. Every time they start building under Jerusalem they find another cave or tunnel. They had - they had graves that they dug in and around the city. They hid it somewhere.
They found a very good, obscure spot. They blocked the entrance somehow - covered it with dirt - and it has never been found since. No, it's not in Egypt. It's not in Ethiopia. It is still secreted somewhere in a cave, probably within a stone's throw of the walls of ancient Jerusalem.
So, when it says 'the temple was opened in heaven, I saw the ark.' Which one is that? Everything in the temple on earth was patterned after the original in heaven. Now, what's in the ark? The words of God. Just thinking to myself right now - I don't know so don't say, 'Pastor Doug is teaching heresy.' How many stones were there in the Ten Commandments? Two, right? Is that right? It says, 'on two tables of stone'. And which side of the stone was written on? Both sides. So what did God do? Did he put the first four commandments on one stone and the last six commandments on the other stone, front and back? Maybe.
Let me give you something else to think about. What is a covenant? A covenant's a contract. How many of you have ever signed a covenant to buy a house or to borrow money from a bank or to sell a car - something like that? Every now and then we'll wear out a car and Karen and I will sell it to somebody - at least we wear it out for what we want to use it and we're looking for another one - and I'll sell it to a private party. And when we have an agreement of sale I explain, 'I'm not an auto dealer. I'm not selling it with a warranty.
' I'm as honest as I can and say, 'here's the car. Let's write this out. I'll sign it. You sign it. I get a copy.
You get a copy.' Isn't that what you do with a covenant? You can think about any covenant you can think of is that you both have a copy so you can prove this was an agreement that you both agreed to and you both signed both copies. Right? So if God made a covenant with Israel, how many copies are there? Must be two. Now, I don't know what that means - again, I don't know. I don't know if that means that the Ten Commandments were two copies of the same that were put in the ark or if it means that it took two stones, both sides for one copy and God has the other in heaven. The one in heaven may not be written on granite.
God doesn't need to carve it out of a stone. I don't know what it's written on. It could be. It could be written on some gem. It could be on sapphire or something.
But why does Jesus say it will be easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one tittle of the law to fail? Because you would have to go to heaven and take his copy to destroy it, right? So I heard one pastor say, 'if you look up and the heaven's still there - if you look down and the earth's still there, that means God's law is still there and it has not changed.' And, as I've often said, the law doesn't need changing, the purpose of the Gospel is to transform or to change us. Alright, now we're going to talk about the section of the law in the sermon on the mount. If you look, for instance, in Matthew 22 and we read through verse 40 - no, I'm sorry, Matthew 22, verses 37 to 40, "Jesus said to him, 'you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.' This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: 'you shall love your neighbor as yourself.' On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets." Now I've heard some pastors say, 'see, God hung the law.' Like you might hang a horse thief. That it's been destroyed somehow - hung up and shot down.
But that's not at all what it means. It means - it's kind of like, have you ever gone into someone's house - especially in colder climates - and, you know, I just came from Kansas and you go up to Michigan and a lot of the houses there - you don't walk - open the front door and walk in like you do here in California - into the living room. You open the front door and you walk in like a vestibule because it's so much cold weather that you need a place to kind of shake the snow off and hang your jackets up. Yeah, how many of you know what I'm talking about? It's like you almost have two entrances to the house. Otherwise, you open the cold door and the 40-below-zero wind whistles right through the house in an instant.
And you hang up your coat - it's a place of respect to keep it off the ground, away from the mud. It means everything is held up by these two commandments. These are the two laws upon which all the other laws hang. You can find some way - let me say this differently - people are always saying, 'you know, there's nothing in the Bible that says, 'thou shalt not smoke cigarettes. Nothing in the Bible says 'thou shall not gamble.
' I get these kind of statements. Nothing that says, 'you shall not use heroin or marijuana. I actually picked up a hitchhiker one time - serious - absolutely serious - it was on highway 101. He was dressed all in white, he had long hair, and he was barefoot and he was wearing a white robe. And as I saw him standing on the road I thought, 'you know, I've got to find out what the story is behind this so I've got to pick this guy up.
' I knew I was in for something, but I thought, 'he's hitchhiking. He doesn't look dangerous. He's pretty spartanly dressed. So I picked him up and we drove down the road for a little while and he said - somehow the subject of religion came up. I don't know, I think I had a Bible on my dashboard.
He said, 'oh, you're a Christian.' I said, 'yeah.' And he said, 'do you believe the Bible?' I said 'absolutely. Every word.' He said, 'then why do you got leather on your Bible?' I said, 'pardon me?' He said, 'if you really believed the Bible' - he says - 'you shouldn't have those filthy leather shoes on.' He says, 'you're probably wearing a leather belt too.' 'As a matter of fact, I am.' And he said, 'you know, you're killing animals by doing that.' And I said, 'it might surprise you to know I'm a vegetarian.' He says, 'why are you doing all that?' And he was of this group of Christians that not only believed you should not wear any leather, but he also believed that we're supposed to smoke a lot of marijuana at the same time. And so - and I don't remember how that came up but he said, 'do you partake of' - but it was his religion - he said, 'you know God reveals himself through the things he's made and he said he made every herb for us.' And so he smoked marijuana. A lot of it. And when he got in the car - I could tell right away.
Because I remember what it smelled like. And I thought, 'boy that was very interesting.' He was using the Bible. But I meet people that say - they try to use the Bible to say that. Well, you know, there's principles in the Bible. I used to use the Bible to say, 'it's not what goes in your mouth that defiles you so there's nothing wrong with smoking.
' But if what goes in your mouth defiles what comes out of your mouth, then it's wrong. First of all, what it does to your breath is one thing. But when a person drinks - does what goes in defile what comes out? Yeah. And so I - I was trying to share some of the other principles with this fellow that - of natural living - anyway, it was just very interesting. But I don't really think that there's a sin you could name that is somehow not covered under the canopy of the Ten Commandments.
I believe the Ten Commandments are so beautifully written - they're concise, they're succinct, but they are comprehensive in that in some way, the principle 'thou shall not kill' - when you do things like smoke cigarettes and other things, you are slowly killing yourself. You can't really name a sin - thou shall not steal - gambling - you're trying to get rich quick at the expense of others who are becoming addicted and losing everything. And so for you to get rich quick, another person gets nothing for their money. It's not like making a purchase. They get nothing for their money and you do nothing to get their money - if you happen to win that way.
And so, there's a principle in the Ten Commandments that would virtually cover anything and so I've actually heard young people say, 'well, yeah, the Bible says 'don't commit adultery,' but it doesn't say you can't sleep with another person if neither of you are married. I said, 'no, the 'thou shall not commit adultery' commandment covers fornication as well because Jesus uses it that way too. And so, the Ten Commandments are broad and comprehensive and they cover everything. Luke chapter 24, verse 27. Christ, when he began to teach, "and beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded to them in all the Scriptures' - how many of the Scriptures? All the prophets, all the Scriptures - the things "concerning himself.
" That was Luke 24:27 - the statement Jesus makes to the two disciples on the road to emmaus. This is very important. So the law of Christ, does it conflict with the law of God in the old testament? The law of Christ and the law of God in the old testament are in perfect harmony. When Jesus wanted to prove he was the Messiah, he took those two disciples and he pointed them back to the law and the prophets. And he said, 'all of this was pointing to me.
' In fact, if you look - this is a verse, I think, is often misunderstood - Matthew 11:13 - Matthew 11:13 - you'll find a parallel verse for this in Luke also. "For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John." Now what did he mean by that? You know what I've heard? I've heard people say, 'with John the baptist, the ten commandments in the old testament law ended.' They say, 'with the Ten Commandments' - I'm sorry - 'with John the baptist's ministry - when he introduced Jesus' - he says, 'all of that stuff reached until the time of Christ and then it ended with John the baptist.' Really? Then why did Jesus keep it? And the other thing is - it's really saying all of the law and all of the prophets pointed to the time when John would announce, 'here is the Messiah. Here is the fulfillment of all that the law and the prophets have spoken about.' It doesn't mean that all of the law and the prophets ended with John the baptist, it means that the announcement of John the baptist pointed to all that the law and the prophets had encompassed. So Jesus fulfills all that - meaning he fills it all full - he doesn't do away with it. That's again - it says he came to magnify the law and to make it honorable.
Alright, someone - who has John 15, verse 10? We've got a hand over here. We'll get you a microphone. John 15, verse 10. Now, if you look, for instance, in the beatitudes. When we read Mark 7, verse 9 - what is the fifth commandment? 'Honor your father and your mother' - actually I was talking about - I said, when we look at the sermon on the mount - I'm looking in Mark's version of the sermon on the mount and Jesus says, in Mark 7, verse 9, "all too well you reject the commandment of God that you might keep your tradition.
For Moses said, 'honor your father and your mother';" - isn't that one of the ten commandments? "And, 'he who curses father or mother, let him be put to death.' But you say, 'if a man says to his father or mother, 'whatever profit you might have received from me is corban' - (that is, a gift to God). Then you no longer let him do anything for his father or his mother, making the Word of God of no effect through your tradition." Now, what does Jesus call the law of Moses? The Word of God. He said, 'you are making the Word of God of none effect.' He didn't say 'that old law of Moses'. He talks about it as it is still in force. Should people still honor their father and mother? Let me explain what Christ is talking about here.
The Jewish leaders had fabricated a law where you could pronounce 'corban' - you would make this oath and pronounce 'corban' over your property and that meant, 'I'm giving all of my estate to the church - to the temple - when I die.' And people did this because it created a loophole. That meant you could use it as long as you live, to take care of yourself, but you couldn't give it to anybody else because it had been dedicated to God. Meaning, when your mom and dad got old and they couldn't work anymore, you'd say, 'mom, dad, I'm sorry, I can't help you with my estate because I've given it to God.' Now, doesn't that sound outrageous? But the priests had developed this law so that people could use their money as long as they would give the - when they died they would give it all to the church - whatever was left - their property - their house. And they couldn't help their mother and father in their old age and Jesus said, 'you're hypocrites. You're breaking the commandment of God that says, 'honor your father and mother' and you're not caring for them in their age and infirmity and you're claiming piety and you're putting tradition ahead of the commandment of God.
' So, how did Jesus feel about the ten commandments in his teaching? Did he do away with it? Or was he saying, 'no, you've got to sweep aside the man-made traditions and make it honorable. He came to magnify the law and make it honorable. Okay, we have John 15:10 - where was that? Over here, mike. John 15:10, "if you keep my commandments, you shall abide in my love, even as I have kept my father's commandments and abide in his love." Alright now, if you think old testament got the law of God the father - new testament got the law of Jesus Christ - they're different laws - which law did Jesus keep? Christ said, 'if you love me you'll keep my commandments even as I have kept my father's commandments.' So, did Jesus keep the laws in the old testament? Did he? And then the Bible says, 'whoever says that he follows him ought to walk even as he walked.' So, if Jesus kept that then we should keep it. Now, it's not talking about the sacrificing of lambs, it's talking about the principles of the law that you find in the old testament.
He didn't do away with it. Look - again, John 14:15 - how many believe it's important to receive the baptism of the holy spirit? How do you get the Holy Spirit? John 14:15, "if you love me keep my commandments" - and what's the rest of that say? - "And I will pray my father and he will send you another comforter, even the Spirit." The Bible tells us that God gives his spirit to those that obey him - acts chapter 4. the Spirit's a power. God cannot entrust that power to people that will not submit to his will. And the perfect expression of God's will is his law: 'yea, I love to do thy will; thy law is in my heart.
' Think that's psalm 119, verse 45 - huh? , Verse 8 - psalm 40, verse 8 - that's what it is, yeah. So, yeah - psalm - the other one I gave you is 'I will walk at liberty for I keep thy precepts.' And so the law of God needs to be in our hearts. One more: 1 John 5, verse 3, "for this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome." Now is John - this is John, the apostle of love - is he making a distinction between the law of God - the Ten Commandments - and the law of Jesus? Or is he saying they're one and the same? And this is how we show the love of God, by obeying his commandments. If you love someone - especially if they're a superior - and you know that you're doing something that disappoints them - that is good to do - then you're not showing love for them.
Alright, let's go to verse - Matthew 15, verse 9, "and in vain they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men." Whenever we put man-made doctrines ahead of the commandments of God, Jesus says we're worshiping him in vain. Can you think of some laws that people are keeping in vain? Do sometimes people keep the wrong Sabbath? And they think they're keeping the commandments of God. It's man made. Alright, just to quickly show you some of the other examples of how the sermon on the mount supports the teachings of Christ in his law, if you look, for instance, in Matthew chapter 5, verse 21 - let's go there real quick. Matthew 5, verse 21 - it says, "you have heard that it was said to those of old, 'you shall not murder'" - now where is that written? That's in the Ten Commandments, right? "You have heard it said by those of old, 'you shall not murder', and whoever murders will be in danger of the judgment.
' But I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment. And whoever says to his brother, 'raca!' Shall be in danger of the council. But whoever says, 'you fool!'" - That word 'fool' there means 'you're worthless' - "'shall be in danger of hell fire.'" I've just got to pause right here and explain something: did Jesus ever call the disciples fools? He said, 'oh foolish ones' - he did several times - it's a different kind of emphasis. Christ is saying, 'don't ever say to someone 'you're worthless'. And the other one is really talking about somebody just not knowing the word.
It's an ignorance or lack of faith. Otherwise it would seem like a conflict here. "Therefore if you bring your gift to the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there" - now he's talking about murder. Why does he say, 'bring your gift to the altar'? Where did the first murder take place? Two brothers brought gifts to the altar and they had animosity between themselves and one killed the other. Do people sometimes come to church that are brothers and sisters that have anger towards each other? And Jesus - they've got murderous thoughts in their hearts.
So is Jesus doing away with the law that says, 'thou shall not murder' in the Ten Commandments? Or is he expanding it? See, he's showing there's not only the letter of the law, there's the Spirit of the law. There's not only the action of disobedience, there's the attitude of disobedience that first happens that leads to the action of disobedience. And I'm running out of time but I want to say this to just make it clear. Some people say, 'you guys - you Seventh-day Adventist Christians you make a big deal about keeping the letter of the law. I keep the Spirit of the law.
You worship God on the seventh day. I worship God every day. I keep the Spirit of the law.' And I say, 'well, no, you're not really keeping the Spirit or the letter. Yes, it is true, "come unto me and I will give you rest' - and that's the spirit of the law, but whenever you keep the Spirit of the law you'll always keep the letter of the law. Follow me.
The letter of the law says, 'do not commit murder'. the Spirit of the law says, 'do not be angry with your brother without a cause.' If you say, 'I'm more spiritual than you and I keep the Spirit of the law - I'm not angry with my brother in my heart - yes, I may actually murder him or her, but I'm not angry in my heart.' You're a liar because if you're breaking the Spirit of the law - if you're breaking the letter of the law you are definitely breaking the Spirit of the law. The letter of the law says 'thou shall not commit adultery.' The spirit of the law says - Jesus says this on the sermon on the mount - 'if you look upon a woman to lust after her, you're committing adultery with her in your heart.' And, by the way, that works both ways - man with a woman, a woman with a man. So if a person says, 'oh, I just keep the Spirit of the law. I don't look and I don't lust.
I don't think it in my heart. Yes, I am actually committing adultery every day but I don't think it. I'm breaking the letter but I'm keeping the Spirit.' Can you do that? So, people who say, 'oh, I'm keeping the Spirit of the law. I'm resting in Jesus. Yes, I break every Sabbath.
I work every Sabbath but I'm resting in Jesus.' No you're not. You're not keeping the Spirit and you're not keeping the letter. By the way, the commandment doesn't say 'worship God seven days a week, it says, 'work six days a week and rest on the seventh day.' And if a person says that they're worshiping God seven days a week does that mean that they're resting seven days a week? They're not holy, they're lazy - if they're not working six days a week. See, there's a big twist. And when people say, 'you believe you're saved by works and I believe I'm saved by faith.
' I'm telling people to rest and they're saying to work on the Sabbath - so now they're works oriented. I'm rest oriented. So they twist it completely around. Everything you're going to find in the sermon on the mount, Jesus is supporting the ten commandments. He's magnifying it.
He's not doing away with it. He said, 'do not think' - matter of fact, he goes on to say, 'if anyone thinks I've come to destroy the law and the prophets, whoever will do this and teach it will be great in the Kingdom of heaven but whoever will break it will be spoken of as the least in the kingdom of heaven. That doesn't mean they're in the kingdom, it means those in the kingdom point to those people and speak of them as the lowest. He said, 'whoever will break my commandments and teach others to do so will be the lowest in the kingdom.' That means the people in the Kingdom consider that person the lowest person. They're not saved.
I've heard some people say, 'well, yeah, if you break it and teach others to break it, you'll just have a low position in the Kingdom.' No, you're not in the Kingdom. Those in the Kingdom are speaking of you as the lowest kind of person. Those who do it and teach it will be spoken of as great. So, yes, the devil will have even Christians accuse you of being a legalist if you teach the law, but Jesus taught the law. But we need to teach the Spirit and the letter of the law - the whole thing.
That's what Christ did, amen? Now don't teach just the letter of the law or you do become a legalist. You also need to teach 'it's not just an action, it's an attitude.' And we've got a lesson that we'll offer you for free that explains that. All you've got to do is call and ask for it. It's called 'a love that transforms'. Call the number on your screen: -788-3966 - ask for offer #710.
We'll be delighted to send it to you for free. And God bless you, friends until we study together again next week. But time is up for now. Did you know that Noah was present at the birth of Abraham? Okay, maybe he wasn't in the room, but he was alive and probably telling stories about his floating zoo. From the creation of the world to the last day events of Revelation, 'Biblehistory.
com' is a free resource where you can explore major Bible events and characters. Enhance your knowledge of the Bible and draw closer to God's Word. Go deeper. Visit the amazing Bible timeline at 'Biblehistory.com'. Amazing Facts changed lives.
I felt like I was receiving some angel messages in around my son's death. My son jessie was just 31 years old so I didn't expect him to die before I did. But in November of 2009 we decided to have thanksgiving with him and - when we normally go to a family to have thanksgiving. I didn't know it was going to be the very last time that I was seeing my son alive. In April of 2010 I was urged to call him on the day that he died.
I didn't make that call. I was too busy. I thought I had 'til the next morning to call him. And it turns out that I didn't. And then my husband's father was passing away in a nursing home slowly - not eating, taking his medicine - just wasting away.
We were looking at amazing facts Bible study guides and we had sent out cards and we had this card, but when I knocked on sue and kirk's door by mistake - and we were convinced that this was the right house and it obviously turned out, to our surprise, to be the wrong house. When they came by we weren't expecting them. He told me about these pamphlets - these Amazing Facts that explain their doctrine. Well, to our surprise, when they answered the door, the gentleman, when he saw what we were doing, he said, 'well, we would like to take these studies.' Anything about the Lord that increases my faith is always open.' These lessons came at a time when we didn't know we were searching. We didn't know what we needed.
We were just hurting from the grief that we'd been through. When I saw the studies by Amazing Facts, about the Sabbath, it struck a chord with me because I remembered when I had talked to my mother as a child about the Sabbath - about seeing that truth when I was only eight years old and asking her why we didn't honor the Sabbath day and she told me that it was just not the way that they did things. Well that wasn't a good enough expression - a good enough explanation. There was no scriptural basis for what she told me. She just said to forget it.
And I'd went through all of the studies that we had gotten and I wanted more. So I decided that - well, if they put out these Amazing Facts Bible studies, there must be something online about them. So I decided to check it out. I went on the computer to Amazing Facts and it said it right down at the bottom of the Bible studies: 'amazingfacts.org'. I checked it out and there was free Bible studies there.
It's the very same ones that we had been studying. After finding the Amazing Facts Bible studies online and I did them all - I think there were 27 or 28 Bible studies - I felt like I was finally seeing the truth after all these years. We ordered the Amazing Facts dvds like the 'cosmic conflict' and the 'final events' - 'prophecy foundations' and different materials like that. Went through them - enjoyed all of them and they impacted our lives even more. Well I worked at the post office.
I knew kirk and sue for a very long time and I wasn't allowed to talk to anyone about the Bible and Bible studies and things like that because they told us not to. But anyway, when sue came in and talked about it, she talked about the Sabbath and I told her, I said, 'well sue, I go to church on Saturday.' So I invited myself. She was excited, of course, to have me go - my husband and I both started going that very next Sabbath and it wasn't but just four months after that that we were baptized in the church. And it felt like the most glorious experience I could have ever had. The thing that touches my heart the most is irwin and I had been doing this for oh, the last year and a half to two years and sue is not the only one who has responded to Amazing Facts.
We've had several others that have responded and been baptized. So this is what really makes it exciting. There's times it's discouraging but the bottom line is: every time you see somebody in the water being baptized, it's a thrill. I know that Jesus loves me. After all of the tragedy that I've been through, he made sure that the two men came and brought the Amazing Facts Bible studies to me and my husband.
My life will never be the same. It is forever changed and I am forever part of the family of God.