Published: December 4, 2025 | Speaker: Chuck Hartman | Series: Biblical Theology 2 - Exodus, Exile, and Eschatology - Part 13 | Scripture: Exodus 24
Transcript
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My goal in this biblical theology uh course, and we've been progressing u I think a bit deeper as we've gone, but it's primarily to show that everything we read in the Old Testament
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is historical. It actually happened. But as historical, it is also
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typological and prophetic. and prophetic. And so that phrase is is somewhat of my summary of what biblical theology is all about. And that is recognizing that God
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has revealed himself and his purpose through the events of history. Not through even I shouldn't say how do I say this?
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say this? Not even just through giving us a book because that book is about the history that he has created and governed from
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creation all the way through to the the work of Jesus Christ and then forward to the new creation. And and so I I don't want to by saying that I'm in no way diminishing the Bible because if it
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weren't for the Bible, we wouldn't know this history. But it too often New Testament believers, evangelicals
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look at the Old Testament as simply that it's history. it's history. If we're conservative, and really they're that's kind of a a contra just a tautology to say a
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conservative evangelical. Um, but if you're conservative, you believe that history actually happened against the liberals who say that it's mythological or legend didn't really actually happen.
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No, we believe it actually happened. But that's often as far as we go in con as concerns our relationship with the Old Testament. It's background story and we
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use it for Sunday school. We use it for VBS and we try to glean life lessons out of it. Okay. Um, and often those are completely wrong. Uh, but we don't
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really see what that history really was because the history itself was revelatory. The history was revelation. And so this
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phrase that I I used a few weeks ago, the idea of
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three words I think help protect us from common errors. For example, For example, the last word history
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protects us from allegorizing. It protects us from looking at these stories as nothing more than springboards into imaginative
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interpretation and application allegorizing. So we it's the it's really the bedrock of the whole hermeneutic is that this history really
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happened. Okay. So this protects us from so we have no
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And when I say no allegorizing, I mean no allegorizing that the Bible doesn't do itself. All right? We're not going to counterman Paul here. Um but he also tells us in that very passage in Galatians 4 that that's what he's doing.
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Um but we really shouldn't do that. The the idea of typological
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protects um protects us from a um an extreme literalism. In in other words, we don't we don't just simply take the word at face value and say that's all it means because we
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can go to the New Testament and see countless examples of how the New Testament writers didn't just take the historical events of their country's
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past and say, "Well, that's all that it means." And again, I think the classic example is when um Matthew quotes Hosea 11. When Joseph and Mary are coming back
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from Egypt, Matthew quotes Hosea 11, out of out of Egypt I've called my son. That has everything to do with the
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Exodus. Okay? And so, and Matthew knows that. I mean, he's not just taking a verse and manipulating it to his own purpose. Underlying all of that
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is the fact that Jesus himself is Israel. He's the culmination of Israel. So, as Israel was God's firstborn, it
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was actually typological of the eternal begotten son who would come in the flesh. And so it's both historical and therefore and it's
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typological and therefore we don't just simply um say well you know Matthew was just you know he was just um what's the word taking things out of context in order to fit his purpose. No he wasn't
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doing that. He was recognizing something much deeper in the whole idea of Israel as God's son. Okay. So that that's that's the typological and then the
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This protects us from dispensationalism because it forces us to see that God has only ever had one redemptive plan from start to finish. And so this typological history again,
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if all we have is the typology and we we even accept it as history, then we have nothing more than interesting stories and we're left to
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apply them as we will. But when we recognize that they are all prophetic and that all the promises of God are yay and amen in Christ, we realize that
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there's there's no separate means of salvation under Adam or under Noah or under Abraham or Moses. It's all one plan. It's all one narrative. It's all
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one book. And it all points to Jesus Christ. And in him, everything that is typological is fulfilled. and then flows out of him into the new
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creation. So I I think this is a a pretty good phrase for me at least to kind of sum up what biblical theology is all about. And I think as I've said from
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the first session that I've come to the conclusion that systematic theology really should not be drawing the cart.
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I really think systematic theology, if the church were to be benefited from our theological teaching, especially out of the seminaries, the seminaries, systematic theology should take a
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backwards step and yield to biblical theology and then the systematic theology can stand on a firm whole council of scripture interpretation
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rather than in the the Lelayan classification that we like, okay, what what does justification mean? Well, let's look all the verses that say justification and we'll find out what it
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means. But that's not how the Bible was written, and it's not the way the Bible should be interpreted. We need to we we kind of as readers and believers, we need to insert oursel into the flow of
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this history as we are going so that we can understand the the both the typological and the prophetic significance of it. Tim
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Yes. I think that's the hammer shapes the hand and and that that is true. Um and any the tool will will shape the hand that uses it. That's that's a good analogy of hermeneutics and and I've I I
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appreciate that because it it kind of says in a in a nice pathy way um what I've said in the past and that is the the hermeneutical framework you adopt
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will become self-fulfilling. You know, if if you adopt covenantalism, then you will read covenantalism out of the scripture. If you adopt dispensationalism, then you will read
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dispensational. You will simply not read or not understand as you read those passages that go against the paradigm. It's the same way that again the the
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classic analogy is the is the the solar system. You know those who adopted the tomic paradigm tomic paradigm saw in the motions of the celestial
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objects tomic arcs and tables and you know that's what they saw. It took somebody to see differently to make that
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paradigm shift. And the the fundamental question I think of biblical theology from our perspective, each one of us as believers, am I
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reading the Old Testament the way the New Testament writers read it? That to me is is like the fundamental litmus test of whether or not you and I are reading the Old Testament correctly. Am
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I coming up with the same conclusions that Paul did? Am I interpreting the Old Testament the same way that Peter did? Can I draw out of the Old Covenant the
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same things that the writer of Hebrews does? If I can't, then one of us is wrong. I'll give you a
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hint. If you have the slightest respect for the inherency and inspiration of scripture, it isn't the writer. It's you. And it's probably your
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hermeneutical framework. Okay. So, as we come we come to the close of this session and as I mentioned I'm looking toward one more because I feel like to wrap up the whole I hope to wrap up the
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whole idea of what God is doing in in one particular institution or I I I hate to use the
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word metaphor because metaphor implies something that isn't real but that's the kingdom. When Jesus came, he came preaching the kingdom. Repent for the kingdom of God
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is at hand. The kingdom is is really from start to finish the whole idea behind what God is doing. And so that's going to be Lord willing our third
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session. But this idea here,
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the way the New Testament writers read it? I think that's a question that you can ask yourself when when you're reading the New Testament, which it's very hard to read a single chapter of the New Testament without at least one
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citation, illusion, or echo of the Old Maybe I can't think of a chapter. I mean, you might get Jesus wept. Okay, there may
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not be a citation there. Jeremiah the weeping prophet. Okay, there's the echo. All right. So, not even that one. Okay. Even with So, I I don't think that you're going to find
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too many chapters in the New Testament that you can read where there isn't going to be some reference as we've talked early on about the idea of citation or illusion or echo. If you
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remember, we talked about the the you can train your ears to hear those things just as you can train your ears not to hear them. Okay? I mean I I I don't want
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to offend anybody but you'll you'll experience some of you will experience this someday this someday and that is that the point at which children's voices and noises will come
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back into your auditory system. As parents we of necessity block some things out. We can actually be conditioned not to hear. When you're working in an office
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environment that is a bunch of cubicles, you learn how to block out those other noises. I wonder how people do it at Starbucks, for example. When I go into one of those coffee shops and I see all
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these people sitting there, the two thoughts I have is, how does this guy make any money when all of his tables are taken up for eight hours a day by people who buy one cup of coffee? I
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don't understand the business model. And the second thing is, how are they getting any work done? But we can train our hearing even
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subconsciously to hear or not hear what is not important to our particular process or what interferes with our that's goes back to the the paradigm you assume will
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block out all noises from scripture that in any way contradict it. That's you get a classic example in the debate between the sovereignty of God and of human free
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will. Everybody has their own pet verses. And so what happens in the church is we just become a battlefield of proof texts and we're really not talking to each other. We're talking at each other. And in some
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sense, we're all wrong because we're all operating according to a paradigm of human making and not of the scripture
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itself. So, biblical theology is an attempt to hear the scripture as it is written and hear it as it was meant to be heard. Which means that everything
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we've been talking about in the life of Israel is historical. It happened. But it's also symbolic.
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It's typological. It's typological. And as we've seen, for example, last week with the Sabbath, it points forward to its fulfillment in Jesus Christ. Everything does.
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I just get through it. Yeah, I know. Yeah. You remember the comment I made, you know, forgive me, father, for I have skimmed, you know. Yeah. So, it's hard. Oh, yeah. To read some of the Old
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Testament. Well, I don't think every single word I I don't think we need to do that. I I think it's what I'm saying. It's the It's the living history. Okay. It's the history. Now, I'll give an example. I
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mean, I'm I'm with you there. I when you read the the long lists in, you know, of the of the tribes and all the different I don't know that we can um get much
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significance out of it. And and I have maintained from really since homalytics in seminary in seminary and and I I don't say this dogmatically, but personally, I'm not I'm not sure I
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could preach effectively out of the Old Testament. I think it can be taught but to preach from it is is really really a challenge because I think what the tendency is and
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you read this in the commentaries especially the Puritans the tendency is to try to find Jesus in every single word or passage try to find meaning and application out of you know Joo driving
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like an idiot you know he drives like Joo you know whatever the son of what his nameshi yeah um okay what does that have to do with anything. One thing, you
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know, as you continue to read, what you're doing is you're building the same redemptive context that the New Testament writers were immersed in.
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Okay? So, certain illusions and echoes will start to sound clearer the more you're in the Old Testament. Now I don't know that I in fact I don't believe that
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everything you read in the Old Testament is then in any way echoed but there is a certain logic behind the genealogies
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the logic of God's preservation of Israel the logic of God's institution of mediation we'll talk about tonight and the example I use is Samuel because it
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tells us that Samuel's parents were from Ephraim. Is that right? I think Ephraim, the Hill
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Country. That's what I'm getting at. But it it kind of sounds like they were Ephraimites, you know, and the next thing you know, Samuel is ministering in the tab in the temple or the tabernacle.
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And for years, I thought, what's up with this? What's he doing there? He's not a not a Levite. He's an Ephraimite.
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Well, in Chronicles, in the genealogy, we learn, and it took me years to stumble on this, but we learn that he was in fact of the tribe of Levi, whose
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family was stationed in Ephraim. Okay? He wasn't he was a Levite. And that's just a small thing that you're as you continue to read, you're building the
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backstory that then sheds light on so many other things. To think that you're going to get that every time you read anything, I think that's naive. And to think you're going to get it out of
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every passage you read, I I think that's also naive or even perhaps dangerous because if you are expecting to get any something out of everything, you're
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probably going to be a self-fulfilling and destructive prophecy and you'll get things out of what you're reading that aren't actually there. So, we continue to read. And I think this encourages us
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to continue to read in the right way. And that is just keep just keep tuning our ears to hear the
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echo of God's salvation in Jesus. Again, not from every single passage, but maybe just from the the fact through the lineage that God has preserved his seed
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every generation through until the advent of Christ. Uh, I don't know that I can get much more out of it than that.
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Yeah. Yep. That's right. He by name. That's another thing you can get out of it because he does know everybody by name. And name. And so I I I appreciate you raising that point because I don't want to be misunderstood as as if I'm saying that
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every passage in the Old Testament is enlightening and illuminating. I think you know me well enough to know that I don't believe that. In fact, I don't think that every passage in scripture is enlightening and
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illuminate. It's enlightening, but I don't know the light. I don't see the light yet. It's all it's all God breathed. It's all profitable, but it's not necessarily all profitable in the
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same way. And some of it is profitable in the in the in the aggregate as opposed to the individual that we look at. And and that's why we have four
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gospels. That's why we have first and 2 kings, 1 and 2 chronicles. We have the history in perspective. And so it's not it's it's not just one person's
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perspective as it would be for example in the Quran. It's all these different mediation of God's revelation through the history of individual people and of
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a people of a nation. And it all points to its fulfillment in Jesus Christ. So, as we've been talking about all these things, that's really the underlying philosophy is that it it is
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all historical. It I think every bit of it happened. It is all typo for the most part typological even if we can't yet see the exact symbolism. And so, it's
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not a matter of trying to find the symbolism. It's a matter of recognizing that there is typology there and then listening for it in other
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passages of the Old Testament and especially in the New Testament. So it's that's it's more of a of a process than than a me a mechanical way of
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reading. If you if you go looking for symbolism that's going to lead you into allegorizing. That's not how we approach it. It's it's really a matter of listening because we
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know the sound is there. And then as we continue to tune our ears to the to the method of God's
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self-revelation, we begin to hear the illusions maybe first. Or maybe if if we're starting with baby steps, we we we don't just hear the
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citations as we read them. we hear why that passage has been cited. Okay, the specific citations that we have in the New
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Testament. Then as we as we attune ourselves to that, we begin to hear the illusions. But it really means you've got to be in the Old Testament as well as the New. You really have to be in the Old
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Testament. And I'll tell you, one of the most important books in the Old Testament to familiarize yourself deeply is Genesis. is Genesis. Genesis is far more important than we give it credit for. It's it's the
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foundation of the entire revelatory house and if it's not laid firmly and well that it is unlikely that we will come up with an interpretive structure
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that's going to stand. It it really is very important. Um in fact I think it's one of the first books that a believer should read and reread and read often is the book of Genesis. So um and that's
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not dogmatic. That's just my experience. So tonight we're going to talk about the kind of the flip side of the two weeks ago and that is we talked about sacred time and today we're going to talk about
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sacred space and I I left it for this because next week Lord willing we're going to go back to that concept that I touched upon a few weeks ago and that is
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how do we determine which parts of the law still apply and and that's been a perennial debate within Christianity as to what what am I
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still obligated to do? And for the most part, the the manner in which I've seen people parse Torah to determine whether it is or isn't, we talked about the the
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idea of the moral, the ceremonial, and the civil. the civil. Those are totally constructs. There's no scripture that recognizes
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that three-fold division of Torah. But I do think that when we go to the New Testament, we can begin to see two
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in which any ordinance, statute, or law or law becomes either completely abregated, don't you do it at all, or a matter
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indifferent as to whether you do it or not. And those are mediation and separation. Now we'll talk more about separation next week and and just
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to we had that conversation. I mean basically physical distinction as a different type of people than the rest of the people around us in terms of
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separation to holiness. We're just as much called to that as the Israelites were. That has not been abregated. But the idea of of being something different in the way that we eat or or
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circumcision or the one day a week that we do not work the Sabbath. We'll see in the New Testament that these things for a good reason,
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a redemptive reason, a new creation reason, these things no longer apply. And so the attitude of the New Testament writers to things that are so sacred and
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crucial in the Old Testament is often ambivalent at best. For example, we talked about this last week, the Sabbath.
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It is really hard to create a New Testament case for the Sabbath. It really is. In fact, every passage I can think of quickly somewhat negates
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that whole that whole paradigm, that whole orientation that we are supposed to still assiduously observe the Sabbath. That's not what Paul says. Circumcision,
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I circumcision was obviously of the very essence of being a Jew. And then we go in the New Testament, it's neither here nor there. Circumcision means nothing. Unircumcision means nothing. But
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ironically in in um second Corinthians where Paul says that I think it's second maybe first he said what matters is obeying the commandments of God like
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they are the commandments of God right so obviously Paul is parsing things differently and the only reason he could be is because circumcision and Sabbath
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and the dietary laws and the land were typological and prophetic. And once the typ once the anti-ype arrives and the prophecy is fulfilled,
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then the type itself goes away. That's that's really what the writer of Hebrews is saying is when the when the fulfillment has come, when the
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light has come, the shadows dissipate. To go back into the shadows is the wrong direction. But do we re do we recognize the light?
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the light? And I think if we read the Bible in a typological prophetic manner, we will better recognize the illumination of the writings of the New Testament. And then we won't get hung up as to and guilt
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feel guilty and and about things that uh we don't understand and burden ourselves with ordinances that frankly we don't want to keep and
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even more frankly we don't keep very well as Christians. So I'm not saying in any way, shape or form that the law is
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in any way abrogated. Jesus himself said that not one jot nor tit of the law shall pass away until all things be fulfilled. And so however we
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read it, we have to recognize that it is from God. It is holy and righteous and good. And therefore we got to figure out what to do with it. Sabbath questions
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Or or the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath.
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Right? It's the concept that matters, not the day. Not that the day was insignificant or could be ignored because when it was in place as the type and the prophecy, it could not be
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ignored without repercussion. It feels like it could have been would have been so simple for him just to say, well, actually
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it's okay. issue. Yeah, it it does seem like he could have taken a casuistic approach and said, "No, you're you can do good on the Sabbath. You can get your ox out of a dish." And in a sense, some places he
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does say that uh about the woman who had been bent over in in pain and the daughter of Abraham. Um and so in some case, I mean, he knew the law better than any of the Pharisees. So uh in some
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but but his in everything in which they attacked him and tried to trip him up, he would always go to the very heart of the matter and that is what was the Sabbath all about. And we talked about
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that last week. He was about much more than observing nonwork on the seventh day. It goes all the way back to God's rest which points all the way forward to the
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rest that yet remains. And that see that's all from the Bible. Okay, the reference to Genesis 2 and also the writer of Hebrews referencing the the rest that yet remains. So none none of
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this is made up. None of this is allegory. None of this is is just interpretive imagination. It's it's there in the scriptures. And so we just
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have to allow ourselves to be challenged, sometimes uprooted, shaken as long as we're in the
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scripture. we're okay. The Holy Spirit will guide us into truth. That's what he was sent to do and he will not fail in that mission. So, we don't we don't have to
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be be scared that we're moving away from something as long as we're in the scripture. We're not moving away from God. We might be moving away with some
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from something we were taught, but if it was wrong, we should move away from it as long as we're moving with the scripture. So, that's really the challenge in biblical theology is to
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make sure you're still within the flow of the Bible. And and that's kind of the critique that you should always have when you either hear me or read something along these
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lines is is that person still on the highway or have they taken an exit somewhere? And that's why we need to be in the word so that we know what the highway looks
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like and and recognize when a writer, a commentary or a preacher has taken an exit that is that is not right. You know, it's it's like hiking. You know,
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when we when we hike our civilized trails, which are the only ones I'll hike, right? What do they call them? Uh the blazes. Okay. You said it's like
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where in the blazes am I? That's what they I think that's why they're called that. Paint marks on the trees, right? And they basically tell you if if you've walked 15 or 20 minutes and haven't seen
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a blaze, you're lost. Now, it's pretty hard to get lost at Paris Mountain. Um, but you know, we we've been on some trails that like Jones Gap, you can get
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lost. Caesar's Head, you can get lost. And I think in the Bible, you can get lost. You can get lost. But I think biblical theology is like those tree blazes. I really do. And they're
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different colors, too. We've talked about the different threads that that weave through the whole of Revelation. And and so as we're reading, we're we're on the path as long as we keep seeing
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these markers that we're learning and that we learn sometimes primarily from reading the New Testament and then we go back and see them in the Old Testament. So to me, it's it's liberating. It's
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exciting. I've been a believer for over 40 years. I think close to 45 years. And scripture has never been as exciting to me as it is now. I mean, it just it it just keeps
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opening up. opening up. And it also means that, you know, I listening to Sunday school or or Mark preaching or just the discussion in Thursday night can be so exciting as it
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as you can see it opening up to your brothers and sisters. And to to me that's that's kind of at the heart of the Christian life is man does not live
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by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. And that's what we have. So that's what we're trying to do. And and yet we live in an
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environment modern American evangelicalism that is a far distance from that. We live in a time of of of refrigerator
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magnet verses of books written ostensibly by Christians for Christians that barely touch upon scripture much less the meaning of it.
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We um at the Airbnb that we stayed in last week, the owner was very much of this stripe and there was a lot of
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sayings and things posted, you know, the things you can buy at Hobby Lobby. Um and there were books, some books, and there was one book and the book was called Deep and Wide.
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Um, as Abigail began to read from it, I realized that it was a description of a manure pit on a dairy farm, deep and
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wide. It was really, really bad. I mean, it was it was heretically bad. And yet, this guy is incredibly popular.
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He's got a mega church. In fact, well, it's North Point. If you've seen any of the satellite churches, that's it's North Point. Um,
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and that is a bad thing. Okay. So, but We are We are uh full of sound and fury signifying nothing in the modern church.
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There's a great deal. Was that Shakespeare? Something anybody? Yeah. Okay. Um Oh, I wanted to give credit, you know. Didn't want anybody to think I came up with
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that one. Um it's it's sad. It's distressing and I don't mean and I've said this before, we also have to be careful that we don't
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think ourselves the holy remnant, you know, and start looking down our noses at other people. But on the other hand, just as the prophets did, we need to recognize when there's bad juju in the
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church and and there's a lot of it really a lot lot of it.
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Otherwise, are we not
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Yeah. Oh, thank you. U if your method doesn't Yeah. If if it doesn't check out biblically, then then it's not only useless, it's dangerous. But that reminds me of some things we've talked about before, and that is if you follow
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your your perspective to a logical conclusion, where does it end up? Does it end up with man's sovereign and God subordinate?
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God subordinate? Well, that's not the right place to end up if you follow and and the idea of of um the the the I've said this before, the idea that the um assemblies of God
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who are Armenian and believe that you can lose your salvation. That is the logical conclusion of free will. The Baptist who believes once saved
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always saved is just a hopeful thinker because his actual doctrine does not lead to it's a nonsequittor. And so if you follow the logic the logic of your thinking where do you end up? And then
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the the second one that I've said over the years is
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And it is duct t by the way. See all these ducks. Um we have talked about the idea of just look at how much duct tape do I need to hold my theology together
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and and these two are really like checking your work. And I think we we we just don't think that understanding what God has done and revealed of himself is
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really all that important. What's important is getting other people saved, right? What what's important is doing good and not sinning. That's what's important.
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I don't think so. I I think that when when Jesus said that the comforter will come to you and he will lead you into all truth and that God is seeking worshippers who will
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worship in spirit and truth. I think that puts a pretty high priority on knowing the truth. When when the Bible speaks so much of wisdom, isn't it
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something we ought to seek after? You know, so I I think that the whole idea of of and and I don't like the idea of an academic approach to the scripture, but the idea that we really
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don't need to know doctrine. We don't we don't need to know what the Bible what we need to know is that Jesus loves me because somewhere in the Bible it tells me so.
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But most of the people who say that could not put together an effective apologetic Jesus's love. they just accept it because that's what they want to to believe. And and so I
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the church has always been this is the irony or the not so much the irony but the conundrum of Christianity is that God is God who has begun a good
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work will perfected to the day of Jesus Christ and in inaugurating the new creation through the church by the Holy Spirit. He will bring awesome glory to
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his name before all of creation. But no one in the history of the church has seen much of that in their
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We tend to see it in past generations, don't we? the Reformation or the Puritans or whatever or the Isuza Street
41:45
or right we see it in past generations but when we go back and read the writings of that generation they didn't see it what they saw is what Jeremiah saw what Isaiah saw what Hosea what what
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they saw were people professing to be the people of God but living very much of the people of this world and so I I I think that's a very important historical
42:08
corrective to prevent prevent us from being proud and thinking that we are the the holy remnant or thinking that our time is somehow worse than anyone else's. Now, if if there's any value in
42:22
history, it's to teach us that nothing changes under the sun. Okay? That's that's what history at at the very minimum teaches us that. And that's a very important lesson because otherwise
42:33
we get very arrogant and pompous about our era or very discouraged and depressed about it and think that it's never been as bad. I hear that now. Never been as bad. I can remember times in my life like the 1970s
42:45
when it was absolutely worse than it is now. So and and there there were times when it was better than it is now. But the the fact is that that this is this is
42:55
the conundrum is God is doing a work but it's like leaven. It's it's in the dough and we don't see it but it's working. It's still working and it will be
43:06
manifested at the peruseia and it'll be manifested in such a way that the church will never say we did it and yet the church will see how she did do it by the
43:19
grace of God. It is important to get people. Are you saying it's not that important?
43:29
No, I'm saying it's not the essence of the church. I'm saying that those who think that's what the church is about are wrong. That is part of what the church does. But the the the classic
43:40
evangelistic passage, evangelistic passage, the the great commission is first of all misinterpreted because the imperative in that passage is not the word go.
43:52
It's the word make disciples. The go is actually a participle. It's as you go. It's not go. So all
44:02
those missionary exhortations using Matthew 28 Matthew 28 are based on very poor Greek. It's as you go. That's your evangelism.
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Whatever you're doing in life, whether it's your family, in your workplace, what is your responsibility? Make disciples. Which means don't just make babies.
44:24
Make disciples. Make disciples. Don't make converts. Make disciples. But you see what I'm saying is that we truncate it at the making converts
44:36
and oftenimes they're not really converts at all. What happens to a baby who is not raised?
44:49
I'm not saying we don't evangelize. Please I I I don't think you can get there from what I'm saying. But evangelism is merely one of the functions. Paul himself said, "Not all are evangelists."
45:00
are evangelists." Evangelism has become the essential function of the modern American church. My contention is these people are not actually getting saved because they're
45:11
not actually hearing the gospel. And it's the gospel that is the power of God unto salvation. unto salvation. To a to hear me that way is to hear in
45:24
extremes. To say that evangelism is not the essential purpose of the church is not logically the same as saying the church should not evangelize.
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Those are two completely different statements. I'm making the one, not the other. Evangelism is not the essential purpose of the church.
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It is a function of the church and I would say it is actually an outcome of the church being the church as Acts
45:59
says God added daily to their number. Does that make sense? If we are doing what the church is supposed to do, being what the church is
46:10
supposed to be, I believe God will add to our number those who are being saved.
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I'm not saying that. Luke says that and God was adding to their number daily those who were being saved. Right. Oh, I think we do. Not sometimes. I think and I think that has been
46:47
influenced by Armenian theology. Again, your paradigm, the tool will mold your hand. We want the results. We want the results. And we might want the results for very good and sincere,
46:58
at least mostly sincere reasons, as sincere as our depraved hearts can actually pull out. Okay, we we sincerely want some people saved. Okay, fine. Um,
47:09
we don't have the power, and I don't think anybody here would say that we have the power to do that. But again, Psalm 73 tells us, I think it's 73, maybe it's a different one, 49, that we
47:20
don't have the power to save anyone else. Okay? So, and yet when you what you just did was you put what I said in context, that's Acts two, that when they were
47:31
doing these things, God was adding to their number daily. If we recognize this as God's house, God's temple, then we understand that the one who will add the buildings, the living stones to
47:43
that temple is the Holy Spirit. But if that place is a den of iniquity, then God will not add any more blocks to it. He will take the lampstand away.
47:54
Okay. But but God is in control of he knows those who are his. So um I I understand the the emphasis that has
48:04
been put on evangelism since the day of of Charles Finny in the early 1800s has molded the American church into its image. And now it it is it it is grading
48:18
to a believer's ear for someone to say what I said that evangelism is not the essential purpose of the church.
48:38
No, they didn't. No, that's not true. Paul did. Paul did. Peter didn't. He stayed in Jerusalem a long time. long time. He was there when Paul showed up. As he
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went, as he went, he made disciples. Paul was set apart with Barnabas. The others weren't. The others in Antioch weren't.
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I'm saying not Paul says this, not me. Not all are evangelists. And and nowhere does Paul when he's writing to the churches does he tell
49:12
them that they're to be evangelists. All of you to be evangelists that that he doesn't what he says is essentially how to do what we read in
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Acts chapter 2. James and then oh Abigail go ahead.
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I don't think what is passed for the gospel and I'm by no means alone. This is a fairly common statement in um modern evangelicalism but the the modern gospel is not the gospel of Paul.
50:31
It's not Paul's gospel. If it's not Paul's gospel, it's not God's gospel. It's not God's gospel that has no power unto salvation. What I'm trying Did you have a comment?
51:08
I think it is, but some would say that's just a pastoral verse because it's in a pastoral epistle. I I I agree that that that's actually a verse for for all. Maybe not to the same intensity, but
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still to the same ultimate goal is that we all rightly handle the word of truth because that is our sustenance. That is our training. Um Anna
52:06
They they need to be and the church's actions are the greatest evangelistic witness. Now that is not to preclude those who do go out or that Paul told Timothy to do the work of an evangelist.
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Evangelism is absolutely a spiritual gift, a charismata. The the idea that has been I think foisted on the modern
52:27
church is that we all have it and must have it. have it. The great commission as we call it in at Matthew 28 is not the great commission.
52:41
It does not apply to every single believer because Paul makes it clear elsewhere that not all are evangelists.
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Many have gifts of works, helps, gifts of service, not of speaking. But many have been misdirected by being told that
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we are all evangelists. Have Have you ever heard that? Is that not diametrically opposed to what Paul actually does say? The
53:14
preacher says, "We are all evangelists." And Paul says, "Not all of us are evangelists. You choose once again whom you will
53:24
serve." Okay, the ID and we I fight against this because of two reasons. One, it misrepresents the purpose, the plan of the church. And
53:36
two, it puts Christians into areas of ministry that are not meant for them by the Holy Spirit. The missionary preacher is not the one
53:48
who distributes the gifts of God. And I don't see does anybody disagree with me when I say that evangelism is one of the charismata. Does anybody
54:00
disagree with that? Okay. Which means we were all in agreement that it is one of which means yes it is vital for the church as all the other ones are but it is also part
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and if we look at biblical theology we see that God never sent Israel out. They were meant to stay as a community
54:26
of obedient believing Jews. And in doing so, they would bear witness to the power and grace of almighty God.
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And what we see in the Old Testament is what we then see in the book of Acts. That Israel, if it had done what it was supposed to do, and I'm maintaining that
54:47
if the church does what scripture calls us to do in Acts chapter 2, in Peter's letters, in Paul's letters, the same thing will happen that occasionally
55:00
happened to Israel. to Israel. But what was prophesied by the prophets of Israel to happen in large numbers in the age to come. And that is Israel bore
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and God added to their number. Not many. But the fact that they're there, the Rahabs, the Ruths, even Non the Syrian, okay, um the Roman centurion. These are
55:41
these are all examples of the principle of witness that then by the power of the Holy Spirit draws all men unto Jesus
55:54
Christ. Now, what I want to get to tonight is the fact that we have the same place in God's redemptive plan that
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Israel did, but it is no longer
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It's no longer a land. Does that make sense? It has gone out from Jerusalem first to Judea, then to Samaria, and eventually to the uttermost parts of the world. But the methodology,
56:30
I maintain, hasn't changed. We've been told that we need to train people in seminary on how to evangelize. We need to have seminars on how to
56:41
evangelize on how to do the the the the four steps or the the Roman road or what whatever you know the the particular uh evangelism explosion. We've been given
56:51
methodologies of how to evangelize when when we read the scripture the way that we evangelize as the people of God is being obedient to God.
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That is the way that Israel witnessed the glory and grace of God was by being obedient to God. So that God could then do with Israel what he promised to do.
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And all of the nations could see and observe and say, "Wow, this is a wise and understanding people. For what people has their God so close to them as
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ours is to us today." And that was with the law. Okay. So that's what that's what biblical theology teaches me at least that there
57:37
is a pattern of evangelism and that is the church being the church which means each of us with one mind striving for the faith of the gospel. Each of us
57:50
operating within the gifts that the Holy Spirit has given each individual. every joint and ligament providing what the body needs as it builds itself up in love. We don't even understand the
58:02
evangelistic power of that. Does that does that make sense? I mean, I'd like to give it a try
58:15
because I think we would see revival like the church has never seen if the church were simply the church. If we did dedicate ourselves to the teaching of the apostles, to prayer and the breaking
58:26
of bread, to bearing one another's burdens, to praying for one another, and yet bearing our own burdens, operating within the gifts instead of foisting it all off on a clergy, I just
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I I I don't think we could comprehend what would come of that in terms of evangelism. I really don't. I think what we do is
58:50
poultry compared to what would happen if we did it God's way. Okay. So, I mean, that was a sermon. I'm
59:00
sorry. In fact, we haven't even talked about the topic tonight. Um, no. No, it's just gonna be one more session. Christmas is coming. I got
59:11
decorating to do and shopping to do. Um, I have to delay it till after the first of the year. Not going to do that. Um
59:21
the idea of sacred space um this does tie in
59:37
this does tie into what I'm saying because it it ties into all that I've been saying tonight for several reasons. First of all, it shows us one of the ways in which the typological paradigm
59:48
of Israel of Israel which was geocentric, I mean it was geolog geographically oriented in the promised land whose boundaries were
59:59
specifically laid out to Abraham and then repeated as to the domains conquered by David. We talked about this last week or two weeks
1:00:11
ago that the temple wasn't to be built so long as the people were still wandering. And they were still wandering until they had control of the full promised land.
1:00:25
The fact that they didn't get it under the judges was because of their own disobedience and unbelief. God had promised them the land and commanded them to take it.
1:00:38
And just as the spies in the wilderness, the later generations of Israel perished because of unbelief. They did not take the land because they
1:00:48
were afraid of the inhabitants of the land. And it took until David hundreds of 4 500 years later until they finally possessed. And there it is right there
1:01:00
in the annals of Solomon in the context of the building of the temple is the passage that tells us this is why we read everything that the domains that he
1:01:10
inherited from his father David stretched from the river Euphrates to the river of Egypt almost verbatim what God had promised Abraham back in Genesis 12:15
1:01:24
Genesis 15. Okay. So, it wasn't until then, okay, you got the land, now you can have a temple in Jerusalem. That's where I'm going to, okay, that's going to be the new paradigm here, expanding
1:01:34
off the old one, but we're going to have a sense of permanence, at least while you're reigning, Solomon. And then, right after that, you're going to lose it all. You're going to start losing first of all 10 tribes. Then, you're
1:01:44
going to start losing land as your enemies chop off this bit and that bit. Eventually, you're going to go into exile and lose it all. So even the land as such a major part of the promise was
1:01:55
only held for about 40 years out of 1,500 years of a nation's history. So for being as important as for example dispensationalist believes it to be and
1:02:07
many modern American Christians still have this idea in their mind that that that geography over there on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean,
1:02:18
you know, you know the land where Jesus walked is holier is holier than every other place on the planet.
1:02:30
No, it's not. There's nothing in scripture that indicates that. In fact, I would challenge you to read the New Testament and find a single passage that deals
1:02:41
with the land of Israel. That's the promised land. It is remarkably silent remarkably silent in all that the writers of the New Testament say.
1:02:53
Testament say. In fact, the closest you'll get is Hebrews 11 where it says, "And they were not looking for a land that you could return to, but rather for a city whose builder and maker was God." Okay. So,
1:03:07
this whole idea of Israel, the state of Israel, the Holy Land, and and in your notes, I I go over some of the advertisements as you can see online for Holy Land tours, and it's enough to
1:03:17
throw up in your mouth. It really is. But we do have this idea that if we could walk where Jesus walked, that that would somehow lift us up spiritually
1:03:28
somehow. I don't know. It might be neat to see the place, you know, to see the the ruins and and all of that, just like I think it's neat to see Gettsburg. Okay. Little, you know, I I Devil's Den. I,
1:03:39
you know, it's kind of neat to see these things because it really was history. It did happen. You know, I'm not diminishing that. If you want to go there, fine. I don't. But because it's hot there, but but a you can go.
1:03:52
You know, if Jesus had walked in Norway, I'd be there in a New York minute. But he did. Well, he does now, too. Um, but, you know, I I don't really have a desire
1:04:03
to go there, but except I think it'd be neat to see the the the walls of Jerusalem, to see Petra, to see all that ancient history personally, but there's
1:04:13
nothing special, nothing holy about that land. We talked when we did the Leviticus study last, we talked about holiness zones. And indeed, when God at
1:04:23
Si put together these people as a nation, he called them a holy nation. And then he established a wilderness camp that had zones of holiness that
1:04:35
radiate radiated outward from the Holy of Holies. of Holies. And that was a paradigm. It was a type.
1:04:45
The writer of Hebrews tells us that it was patterned after the true tabernacle into which Jesus has now gone bearing his own blood. The temple veil has been
1:04:58
torn. And the writer of Hebrews tells us that the entire mediatorial system is becoming obsolete in his day. That temple was destroyed. That priesthood
1:05:08
was abolished because the whole paradigm which was typological and prophetic has been fulfilled in Christ. And so now he
1:05:19
can say go making make disciples. You will be my witnesses again that's this. You will be my witnesses in Judea and Samaria and to
1:05:30
the uttermost parts of the world. So the the idea is still the same and that is God's people are witness of his grace and his glory
1:05:41
but the geography has been exploded. That's the point. And now there is no such thing on this earth as a holy
1:05:52
place. Okay. So that that whole mindset and we think oh yeah that's what the Catholics do you know Fatima and Lord you wherever Mary's crying Mary's crying we we go pilgrim pilgrimages but what
1:06:04
what is a holy land tour if not a pilgrimage? I mean why not stop by Mecca while you're at it because that's what it is.
1:06:15
I mean it's it's not just a Catholic thing or or an Islamic thing. It's very much a Protestant thing. And that is this mindset
1:06:33
Okay. um this mindset that for our own spiritual well-being we need to go to these places and and feel the presence of God in the church of the holy sepller
1:06:46
which I really doubt is anywhere remotely close to where Joseph's tomb was. Okay. The church of the ni nativity right I'm sure there was a billboard
1:06:57
marking that one for the last 2 you know. No I don't think so. Okay. all these spots. The one I love is the the Holy House of Lorettto, which is the
1:07:08
house that Jesus grew up in, but it's in Italy because God miraculously moved it to protect it from the the Islamic hordes and armies that were overwhelming. So
1:07:20
God picked the thing up and moved it, of course, to Italy. I mean, people believe this. They do. They do believe this. It's it's part of our the whole idea of
1:07:31
sacred space sacred space is woven into the human consciousness through the garden of Eden where it all started
1:07:43
and philosophers and theologians have spoken about this throughout history and not just Jewish or Christians. It's called the axis
1:07:59
mundi. The center of the earth where heaven bows down and touches earth. The place where the deity dwells and where man encounters God.
1:08:12
That's pervasive in all human religions. And so it's it's natural for us to think this way, but it's wrong.
1:08:23
It's wrong because of what God has done in Christ in Christ that he has bowed the heavens and he has come down. And from that point at
1:08:34
Golgtha where he came down in his resurrection, that whole event has now blown away geographical limitations.
1:08:46
So now Jesus could say, "Wherever two or three are gathered in my name, there I will be with them." Or, "Lo, I am with you always, even until the end of the age." So it's like there's no place
1:08:58
where he isn't as long as there are believers there. Because if there are believers there, there's the Holy Spirit. So there can be no sanctuaries,
1:09:10
there can be no cathedrals, there can be no holy places. because all of God's redeemed have now become that holy place.
1:09:24
Okay. So the idea of center of the
1:09:36
yes, the altar, right? And Jesus himself says to the Pharisees, you hypocrites, you swear by the the the the gift by the altar or the gift. And he says, "You you don't even pay attention to the altar that makes the gift holy." Their whole
1:09:46
idea as as he was he was uh chastising them for the way they they swore by the heaven or swore by the earth that their whole their whole mindset was wrong.
1:09:58
Again, he didn't he he didn't deal with anything in particular. He dealt with their mindset and that mindset is naturally to consider things and places
1:10:08
as being holier than others. But that is all even when it was true. It was only ever typological.
1:10:18
Okay? It was only ever showing forward to what God was going to do in his son Jesus Christ. Okay? And so, so now again, I have if you book a tour to
1:10:30
Israel, I could care less as long as you don't call it the Holy Land. The only reason it's a Holy Land is because of all the gunfire. All right? But other than that, there's nothing
1:10:40
holy about that land. All right. And and let's not go there. Um I got trouble.
1:10:55
Yeah. Take off the the sandals from your feet for the pl and that's probably the verse that they would go to for the place on which you stand is holy ground. Okay. And where Jacob and the latter in a vision he said Bethl, this is God
1:11:06
dwells in this place. So there we see the the typological actual history that was prophetic to what God would do in Christ. Now that he has done as he says
1:11:19
to the woman at the well, he says salvation is of the Jews. The prophet Isaiah speaks of how the the law will go forth from Zion. Okay? It's all it was
1:11:30
all prophesied that when the culmination of the promises came to pass, then the salvation of God would go forth into the world unto the ends of the earth. But in
1:11:44
doing so, it was not Christians going forth as much as it was God, the Holy Spirit going forth in the church through the gospel.
1:11:55
the gospel. And there was no land that could then be called holy called holy because God had now come down and dwelt in the midst of his people.
1:12:06
Okay. So, um that kind of is a is in a nutshell the whole idea of of holy land. And I don't know where I put my glasses. Um okay.
1:12:18
Um okay. Um actually they're my sight glasses, not my reading glasses. So, doesn't do me much good. Let me make sure I didn't
1:12:35
I don't do me much good in my jacket either. Okay, any comments? Any
1:13:04
Yes. Well, I think you made a comment several weeks ago about the or one of you did at least about the the cloud and the pillar moving. I think maybe that was you, Aaron, but the idea that that God has moved on and and and I made the
1:13:17
comment that if if we don't if the Israelites did not move on when the cloud moved, they were lost. I don't know that any of them ever did that. I think I would move. Um
1:13:36
lost. And so the Jews today who did not move on with the revelation of God, the unbelieving Jews are lost. And and even those of us in the church who move back,
1:13:48
that's what we do. We move back and and we we we recreate the some vestage of the old covenant, whether it's the church as an institution, the
1:13:59
sanctuary, the the holy place, all of that. That's just moving back into the shadows. And that's not that's not what God has done in Christ. He's now moving forward
1:14:10
in Christ through the church. And again, I think that is the essence of evangelism of evangelism is another
1:14:43
that that what God has done in and through Israel was coming to an end. Yeah. And the kingdom will be taken from them and given to a people worthy of it. And many will come from all over to the
1:14:54
feast and and sit and dine with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. And you will be outside where there's weeping and nashing of teeth. Yeah. Yeah. And we talked about uh when we talked about
1:15:05
that generation that perished in the wilderness because of unbelief parallels the generation that did not believe in Jesus upon whom he said all the blood from righteous Abel to Zechariah will be
1:15:17
held to account. Okay. So yeah there there again this there's history and then there's there's prophetic fulfillment that is also history. But again, those are the kind of
1:15:27
passages that you hear. You hear as you read the New Testament, you don't hear anything about Israel being restored to the physical land. That is a complete
1:15:38
fabrication of church theologians and and Bible scholars. It is not. And it and it comes from Old Testament prophet and the whole idea of dispensations.
1:15:49
Okay. Sorry about that. Okay. Um, so it it again it's how the the the hammer molds the hand is if we if we believe
1:15:59
that God has dealt with us through different dispensations over the course of history then we can take scripture and we have to we have to take it out and put it under that particular
1:16:10
paradigm. But if we understand that God has always dealt the same way progressively, then we realize that, oh no, this was all just pointing forward to what God
1:16:21
has now done in Christ.
1:16:40
We Hebrews 12 tells us that we have come to Zion. to Zion. We have not come to Sinai. We have come to Zion and to the general. So, pardon
1:16:58
No, what Revelation does say is the the angel says to John, "Come with me and I will show you the bride of Christ and he sees the heavenly Jerusalem coming down out of heaven."
1:17:09
So the bride of Christ is in fact the church and the church is the heavenly Jerusalem that Paul in Galatians 4 says is our mother, the heavenly Jerusalem,
1:17:20
not the Jerusalem that is geographically in the land. He says that's that's that's now Hagar. Okay, so he even he even dismisses the actual physical
1:17:31
Jerusalem in Galatians 4 and says that's who we are, the true Jerusalem. So that's a very good point because what it's showing is that those those
1:17:41
historical paradigms, those actual places were typological and prophetic just like the tabernacle was. Okay? The tabernacle was an actual
1:17:53
place. And yet the writer of Hebrews makes it clear that it was typological and that Jesus having now as the great high priest gone into the true tabernacle, we're not building another
1:18:05
one down here made with human hands. The actual physical places were real and had meaning, but their meaning was typological and prophetic. When the
1:18:16
fulfillment has come, the physical loses that meaning is what I is what I'm saying. So I don't believe there's any meaning to Mount Zion, to Mount Mariah,
1:18:26
to Mount Si, to Jerusalem as physical places on this planet.
1:19:12
he named it after some place, it's someplace else. And and that would help to also explain that the Jews and and I actually the scripture as well, the temple was not built on Mount Zion. It was built on Mount Mariah. And Mount
1:19:23
Mariah was considered to be by the Jews, not biblically, but in their tradition to be Eden, the Axis Mundi. They believe Mount Mariah was the center of the earth, the place where Abraham offered
1:19:36
up Isaac, Mount Mariah. And so I appreciate that that that Zion itself is not a physical place. It's always and you can see that as you read the Old Testament that Zion is really
1:19:50
personified dwelling of God. It it's actually never treated as an actual physical place. It's a concept. Moriah is a physical place. Si is a physical place. And
1:20:02
apparently Zion is a physical place but someplace else. Not actually there. Um I there were years that I was confused by the interchange between Zion and Mariah
1:20:13
as if they were two different mountains or the same mountain under different names. Um but my my point is that all of those places whether they were spiritual and metaphorical at the time or actually
1:20:24
places they were typological and prophetic. And now when we read the New Testament there's no mention of such places.
1:20:35
And even Revelation, you have to be careful with Revelation because Revelation is apocalyptic. And I and I am moving toward maybe teaching on Revelation someday.
1:21:04
added to that the apocalyptic which is a genre and if I did teach on revelation the first session would be on apocalyptic literature because it's not it's a genre like any other and like
1:21:14
poetry you you read it a certain certain way and not the same way that you read pros or historical narrative. If you don't read apocalyptic, which we're not
1:21:26
familiar with, although dystopian writing can get that way. Um, if we if we're not familiar with a form of writing, then we're not likely to interpret it correctly.
1:22:08
Yes. But and exactly. Um, and if it's Zechariah, then of course we're still under the old covenant when the places were both perhaps physically real but also prophetically typological. My point is is that if we recognize the
1:22:19
the physical reality, the historical reality, then we can understand the meaning of the original passages, but we never forget that they were typological
1:22:30
and prophetic. And so we begin to hear even as we move through the Old Testament and we hear in the prophets who are using these place names and persons like David for example in the
1:22:41
use of of in Ezekiel that there will be one shepherd over them David. Well there are people who believe that David is going to be resurrected and he's going to be the king in Jerusalem because
1:22:52
that's what Ezekiel says. That's crass literalism. I think we all recognize that that the king is not David. It's David's greater son. So though after
1:23:03
David's life, when we read the name David, those of us who are on this side of the cross, think of Jesus. Okay? But there are still many who profess to be Christian who say, "No, no, no. It says
1:23:15
David. It's going to be David." They believe that the two witnesses in Revelation are going to be Elijah and Enoch because those two men did not die. So they have to come back to die. What a
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bum wrap.
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right. Mortification. Okay. Yeah, exactly. But that that's again that's that crass literalism that doesn't recognize the apocalyptic nature of Revelation. It doesn't recognize the two olive trees of Zechariah. There's so
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much that they don't see because they don't see the picture. They just see the brush strokes. And and this is really what lies behind this idea of sacred space and it's something that that we
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really need to deliver our own thinking from that we are living stones being fitted together as a holy habitation. Okay. So if we talk about the tabernacle
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then we're talking about the church of Jesus the body of Christ. If we talk about the land which was seemingly so central to the promise itself, that land
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has become the new earth that we will inherit. And and the idea of land in the in the biblical Old Testament and in the ancient world was the idea of
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inheritance. So that every 50 years in the year of Jubilee, theoretically, everybody's inheritance was restored to them. And this is exactly how Paul interprets all
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of that in Christ. He says, "We have an inheritance with the saints. We have an inheritance in the heavenly places." Okay? We have an inheritance, but it's
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not a physical piece of land. Ours is, Peter says, you know, what are we looking forward to returning? I mean, Peter was a Jew. Was he looking forward
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to returning to Palestine? No. So he was looking forward to a new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. So if we look for holy space or sacred
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space in this world today, then we're going back into the types and shadows. But if we recognize what God has done in Christ, we realize that that he has not
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just bent the heavens and come down. that from that place where he has come down, he is now spreading out through the world through the gospel. Let's
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close in prayer. Father, we do thank you for your word and its revelation and and the the Holy Spirit that you have given us to guide us into all truth. We pray that every
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day of our lives, we would be desirous of knowing more, not just to to fill our own heads, but rather to glory in your greatness and your grace. And we pray,
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Father, that as we grow deeper in your word, our witness to others might become more meaningful and more powerful. That we would be ready to give a defense for
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the hope that we have within us. But even so, that you would bring those to us who ask for that defense, that we might have opportunity and the power and
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the courage to take that opportunity for your glory, for their good, and for our pleasure, we might say. We thank you again for for your word and for your
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Holy Spirit in Jesus name. Amen.