Published: October 27, 2024 | Speaker: Chuck Hartman | Series: Romans - Part 54 | Scripture: Romans 10:5-8
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turn with me to Romans chapter 10 again this
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morning be looking primarily at verses 5 through 8 where Paul quotes very enigmatically from enigmatically from Deuteronomy I'm going to read uh beginning in verse three from Romans
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chapter 10 for not knowing about God's righteousness and seeking to establish their own they did not subject themselves to the righteousness of God for Christ is the end of the law for
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righteousness to everyone who believes for Moses writes that the man who practices the righteousness which is based on laww shall live by that
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righteousness but the righteousness based on faith speaks thus do not say in your heart who will Ascend into heaven that is to bring Christ down or who will
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descend into the abyss that is to bring Christ up from the dead but what does it say the word is near you in your mouth
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and in your heart that is the word of faith which we are preaching let us
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pray father we do ask that you would open the ears of our spirit our spiritual senses to hear the word that your spirit gives to us
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through your Apostle Paul In this passage help us to understand his meaning as he reaches back into the writings of
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writings of Moses to explain to us as he did to his first readers your work of Salvation through Jesus Christ and how what you
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accomplished in him was what you had promised to do all along strengthen our faith as well as our understanding help us to give a
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defense for the hope that we have within us for your glory and for our good we ask in Jesus name
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amen one of the most consistent features of human society is religion and I have I have been humored over the years in reading the various ways in which the evolutionary theory
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tries to account for the uni universality of religion among ancient people as well as modern people people of all different cultures people all
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over the world it it is true that there have always been atheists and that there are atheists today but even atheism is framed as an
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argument against argument against religion and as a rebellion against the majority view within any particular culture atheism itself kind of highlights as an exception the rule
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which is that mankind is in innately religious and so this is a a fact of human society that Evolution seems to be
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powerless to powerless to explain some of the ways that the evolutionists account for the evolution of a religious
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Consciousness is to insist that it was needed for Social cohesion that we needed somehow to to invent a religion that relied on beings
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Beyond Society in order to provide cohesion within Society the dark side of that same force is the the need to
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exercise power over that Society or that culture and to use religion as a means of coercing and establishing a hierarchy and a Dominion
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within that Society very very similar to The evolutionary view on the Advent of of government but these ideas that this is how uh religion came about it evolved
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within Human Society for social cohesion and for the dominance of a particular social class known as the priesthood actually all these are are
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descriptions of the historical manifestation of religion in human society throughout history these aren't really theories of how anything started they're simply descriptions of what
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actually was what we have today and what we've always found in human society what they don't answer are two very significant questions that to me don't
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seem to have an answer within the the Paradigm of evolution first of all the existence of a Transcendent being I I struggle to think how mankind
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if truly evolved from animals would have somehow evolved a sense of a Transcendent being it it it seems like a leap that
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takes a lot more faith than I have in evolution the other one is the idea of Life Beyond
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Death why how would an evolving man come up with this concept ccept that after he died his soul would then live on in some
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state or form and that these two concepts of course go together that the transcended being and the life after death are related to one another to me that's creation EX niilo
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in fact the only reason that evolutionists conclude that mankind evolved a sense of a Transcendent being and of life after death is because the
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EV is is that man has always known of a Transcendent being and that there is something after the grave so this it's not that we evolved
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these thoughts these thoughts have been derived from our earliest ancestors and this I think is what kohelet is teaching Us in Ecclesiastes
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chter 3: 11 where he says he has set eternity in their heart yet so that man will not find out the work which God has done from the
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beginning even to the end he has set eternity in the heart of His Image Bearer man now that seems to me a more logical
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explanation that we have derived a religious Consciousness we have derived a sense of a transcended being we have derived a sense of some form of life
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after this life in which which is also included some form of moral judgment all of those things are
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something that we did not evolve for some time in which we are no longer here because we've died but rather as the writer of Ecclesiastes says it's always been in there but I think it's
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interesting the way calet says yet so that he will not find out the things that God has done from the beginning even to the end that seems rather despairing as does the whole book of
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Ecclesiastes so God has set eternity in our heart and yet no you're not going to be able to figure it out that's that's rough but there's a point and the point
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of all of this is what Paul's getting at here that uned human reason or even uned human desire cannot
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desire cannot find God a finite being cannot discover an infinite an infinite one an imminent and mundane creature
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cannot attain to the Transcendent through the exercise of his mind and yet the heart seeks it that's what the writer is saying there that setting
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eternity in the heart of man is not just some hollow space within us it's a driving force that that causes us to seek out
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the Transcendent but we can't find him why because he's Transcendent he's infinite and we are finite now you may be wondering how this
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applies to Romans chapter 10 but let's consider the purpose of religion just religion in general not Christianity in particular or Judaism just just religion
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in general and and again I'm not speaking of the negative aspects religion has always been used through fear and guilt to oppress people even
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within Christianity Even in our churches today so I'm not talking about that I'm just talking somewhat generically and clinically about the purpose of religion
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well the purpose of religion is to make something tangible and practical of the common religious
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consciousness of human society it's to unite within a particular culture or Society or Nation it's to unite that common religious
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sentiment into a practical and beneficial and even applicatory form that we all kind of do it and we do it
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together and that provides the social cohesion frankly cohesion frankly um common religion has always been a necessary glue for any human
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society we're coming apart at the seams in our in our country Europe has already frayed irreparably because we have through our
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freedom through our Constitution and don't get me wrong I'm not saying we shouldn't do it but we have granted freedom of Rel religious expression in our country as if that will allow our
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society to society to survive when no other Society in history has survived without a rigid commonality of religious belief okay even Pagan
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polytheism had its supreme god of a particular Town emus of the Ephesians for example for example and it was the emis worship in Ephesus
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that held Ephesus together not just epes Ephesian religious soci and social order but also its economic order as we read in the book of
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Acts we taking that away we think it's a virtue and in a sense it is a virtue not to compel anyone to believe anything against their own will but do we
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understand the price that we are paying and will pay for the freedoms that we have to worship as we see fit again don't misunderstand me I do not want the
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government to establish a religion and enforce it I don't want that I don't think that that would be anything uh beneficial but it's more to explain what we see in history cons especially modern
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history concerning the social cohesion of cultures that introduce alien religions and give them legal stat standing and freedom equal to those of
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the traditional religious underpinnings of that Society Europe today is moving toward Islam the influx of immigrants into
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Europe which the European countries have largely for a long time welcomed with open arms mainly because their own populations are declining it is
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predominantly Muslim in our country the predominant immigrant is Roman Catholic okay now that's not quite the same Stark difference Christianity and
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Islam but between the Protestant Heritage of our country's history and Roman Catholicism there's a pretty wide Gulf and that's where we're
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headed I'm not commenting on immigration law I'm simply talking about social evolution if I may use the word but what didn't evolve was the sense the
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religious Consciousness that all men have the consciousness of transcendence and of immortality that religion then organizes
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within a culture to provide that cultural and social cohesion that every society needs but are we really able to
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do this is it possible for the ated mind of man to come to a true knowledge of a Divine being never mind the added dimension of sin okay let's just talk
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about man as created in the image of God even before his fall and if we can project that image of an unfallen
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created Humanity can we conclude that that Humanity in and of itself uned could achieve the true knowledge of its
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creator I don't think so I think there is an unbridgeable Gulf between the finite and the infinite between the imminent and the
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Transcendent between the creature and the Creator so what we are concluding what what we arrive at is that the very nature of divinity
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precludes its Discovery by Humanity we're heading that way in in this section of Romans in chapter 11 where Paul kind of concludes with the
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doxology oh the depths of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God how unsearchable are his judgments and
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unfathomable his unfathomable his ways we ways we can't find him out we can't F that Eternal void in our hearts through our
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reason or through our religious experience we can't come up with a God that suits our needs although we do it all the time
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one of the prophetic um indictments against Israel was that you think I am just such a one as you and that is what human religion is all about even within
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Christianity we create an image of God that mirrors that mirrors ourselves we think of God as we would think rather than thinking his thoughts
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after after him so left to ourselves we're going to come up with a god with Gods with some form of religious worship or practice and ritual but it won't be
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true it won't won't even be remotely true or we'll take revealed religion Judaism Christianity according to the
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Bible and we will corrupt it and mutilate it by molding it into our own image and our own thoughts about
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God so the point here is that underlying Paul's use of Moses from Deuteronomy In this passage in Romans 10 is the fact that God remains unknown
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and unknowable until he reveals himself this was the point of Paul's speech to the Greek philosophers on Mars Hill he noticed as he walked through the
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town and saw all of their little temples and all of the little Idols that were in the alcoves along the streets he said you are a very religious people in fact
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I notice you even have a temple to the unknown God that which you Worship in ignorance which is not something that a friendly person would call the
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philosophers on the areopagus you who are without are without knowledge that I declare to you that God is what I declare to you because unless
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he's declared to us we'll just grope around in the darkness we we'll come up with our own God and maybe we won't mold him out of
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of of gold or silver or carve him out of wood but it' be just an idol like the rest aw toer said the essence of idolatry is thinking thoughts about God
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that are Unworthy of him well what I'm adding to that is unless we think God's thoughts after him unless we think thoughts about God that he has revealed about himself then our thoughts about
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God are God are Idols because we can't get there from here we can't fill that void Only God Can Feel fill it and he does though so
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through Revel through Revel Revelation so in Deuteronomy 30 which is being quoted here by Romans Moses says for the Commandment which I command you
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today is not too difficult for you nor or is it out of your reach the word is very near you in your mouth and in your heart that you may observe
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it now there's a context there that is very very very very important and I also want to say to those of you who are attending the plumline class session right now he who has ears to hear Let Him hear this is an
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excellent example of what we've been learning concerning reading the scriptures here in in Romans 10 and Paul's use of Deuteronomy
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30 but his use of the Mosaic language here is tricky and it's easily misunderstood and Misa applicated I'm not going to go into great detail but
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the general contemporary interpretation of Paul is to say that we are no longer under law but under grace is to say that there is now an unbridgeable divide between legalism and
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the grace of faith and within the dispensational teaching this also divides the era of Mosaic dispensation
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from the church age and they turn to verses like this to say okay that's what Paul's doing that Paul is not actually quoting Moses he's changing
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Moses and while I would agree that he's changing Moses it's not the way the dispensationalist thinks he's changing him but in trying to understand this passage we start by realizing that God
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has revealed his will and his purpose through his through his word his son Jesus Christ the
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logos that we do not in our own ability seek that word we do not rise up to the heavens we do not cross the abyss to find it but God has brought it near into
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our mouths into our minds into our hearts and that's what Paul is bringing out here regarding his gospel the gospel that he preaches that it was foretold by
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Moses all the way back in Deuteronomy 30 some of you will remember a a television program from the 1980s I
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believe maybe late 70s it was hosted by um Spock Leonard Spock Leonard nemoy and the title of the series was in search of anybody remember that inserch
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of Spar would I'm sorry Leonard neoy it's must be rough for an actor to get it cast like that uh Leonard neoy would every weekly episode he would go
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in search of some uh famous um occurrence um occurrence that there is some doubt whether it
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actually exists for example The Lochness Monster that was one episode um Bigfoot that would be another episode um Atlantis the the the lost city of
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Atlantis lard nemoy would go in search of Atlantis Christianity in the modern era has had a very similar program it's called the search for the historical
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Jesus where Scholars have have gone in search of Jesus because they don't believe that the Jesus were given in the gospels is actually the historical Jesus
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rather it's a construct of the early Church in the 2 century and so these men have gotten and women have gotten together and said okay we're going to tell you which of the passages in the
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New Testament can be believed as accurate historical information and which cannot and they actually had different color strips of paper that when someone would read a verse they'd
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all hold up what they thought was was I mean how that's authoritative is beyond me um but to every I think um to everybody's blessing whether they know it or not the search for the historical
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Jesus has uh proven bankrupt and is no longer happening they've given up the search but we we like to search for things within Judaism and often too
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often within Christianity the search is for how man can justify himself before God you think of the Pharisee and the Publican at prayer the the story that
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were told how the the Pharisee looked up into heavens and and thanked God that he was not like this Publican that he was very religiously devout that he tied the tenth of his his his mint and his dill
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and his cumin and and he did everything just right he was seeking to justify himself before himself before God whereas the Publican could could not
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even look up into heaven but rather beat his chest and cried out be merciful on on me a sinner and it's interesting what Jesus said they both went down to their houses
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but only one went down Justified and it wasn't the Pharisee spoiler alert in Moses's day in Deuteronomy 30
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of course Deuteronomy that's kind of the end of the story as Moses is concerned Deuteronomy literally means the second law the second giving of the law Moses is is giving a uh a prophetic overview
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of the history of the people in the land and having been brought to that point where they can now see the land Moses is going to be departing from them
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Joshua is going to lead them in the promises of God has sustained them through the Wilderness his presence has been with them through the shikina in the Tabernacle and basically what he
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says now is Don't Put It Out Of Reach don't say that who's going to go up into heaven and get the word of God for us or who's going to cross over the sea literally the sea which also in the
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Hebrew means the abyss and bring it back to us that we may observe it he says no it's it's here it's very near you it's in your mouth
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it's in your mind it's in your heart that you may observe it that you may obey it so don't put it out of reach the tendency of of
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angelical Christianity is to put God Out Of Reach of the average believer Jesus condemned the scribes and Pharisees for laying upon the people burdens that they could not bear and
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that they weren't willing to lift a pinky to help bear James said of the Gentile Christians why should we lay upon their shoulders a burden that neither I us nor
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our forefathers have been able to bear but isn't it true that within religion there's a putting out of reach that the
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clergy withholds the the sanctification the blessing the Salvation puts it Out Of Reach and then dispenses it sometimes very miserly to the people
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and and within the congregation there's a sense of it's being out of my reach we can do this through ritual we can do this through education you know I I don't have a
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seminary education therefore I I it's out of my reach we can do it through legalism we can say well you you need to do this this and this in Roman Catholicism you could do it by
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vocation to be truly anointed you needed to have to you took orders as a a priest or a nun a Convent
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or a monastery and and that's out of reach for most people we could do it through layers of saints through which you pray or then Mary the mother of
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Jesus of course because again the way to any man's heart is through his mother of being factious but that's what Pope John Paul said okay it's a quote but do you
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see how that's putting God Out Of Reach okay there's a veil before the presence of God in the Tabernacle and there's another tent
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outside that holy of holies into which only the ironic priests could go and then there's a courtyard Beyond which no Israelite except the Levites
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could go and then there's a place that no female Israelite could go and then there's a a wall and a gate Beyond which no Gentile could
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pass so there was a visual putting out of reach as it were and so I think it's very important what what Moses is saying he saying yes visually the presence of
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God Is Out Of Reach and he's Out Of Reach because you are not yet circumcised of heart that's Deuteronomy 29 right in front of Deuteronomy 30 okay
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you you're not yet ready so in your eyes as you watch what's going on with the sacrifices God Is Out Of Reach but his word is
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not his word is near you it is in in you that you may observe it and don't let anyone Put It Out Of Reach how did how
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did Christianity Put It Out Of Reach by insisting upon the Latin Vulgate right and how many people in the world in Europe knew Latin well only the
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priesthood and so that's putting it Out Of Reach and one of the things the Protestant Reformation did was not only return the church to solar scriptura but
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translated the scripture into the language of the people the Roman Catholic Church said that the murals and the frescos and the stained glass all of those paintings were the Bible for the illiterate the
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reformer said teach them how to read so that the heritage of protestant Christianity throughout northern Europe and into North America has been what very high literacy rates why so that
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people could read their own Bibles don't put it out Out Of Reach Moses says and Paul is echoing but he's echoing it in a different way he's saying Don't Put It
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Out Of Reach because God has brought it near to near to us do not say that that we must take a pilgrimage to Rome that was the the
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thing in the Middle Ages that if you wanted to have true blessing you would go to Rome and you would do the different stations do not say that we have to go to a banner of Truth conference that was very popular among
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reformed people and reformed congregations or today we have to go to a family life conference that's where we get our blessing or we need to travel to the Holy Land and walk the streets that
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Jesus walked and somehow that gives us some closeness to God that we don't already have that's these are all forms of putting God Out Of
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Reach and Moses and Paul say don't do that so we read Deuteronomy the middle chapters of or verses of the passage I already read Moses says it is
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not in heaven that you should say who will go up to heaven for us and get it speaking of the word of God Commandments and make us hear it that we may observe
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it nor is it beyond the sea that you should say who will cross the sea for us to get it and bring it to us make us hear it that we may observe
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it now just a little bit of a of a foretaste of where Paul's going hearing the word of God is at the core of what Moses says in
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Deuteronomy 30 in Romans 10 where are we going faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God but how should they
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hear unless someone preach you see where he's going he's he's putting us all back into do Deuteronomy 30 and he's saying that which you need to hear is pardon
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the pun the pun here it's not there but we do need to hear it that we may observe it because faith comes by
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hearing and hearing by the word of God Paul's logic here is very very tight and his use of the Old Testament is in my opinion just just
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remarkable but the point he's making is it has always been near to Faith and very far from
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effort it's in the Old Testament that we read that the righteous man shall walk by faith and Moses says he who will observe the law must keep all of it James picks
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up on that in his letter that if you are a violator of one part of the law you're guilty of the whole but we we we've been taught that faith is a new testament
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thing that faith is kind of a church age thing that replaces the law and replaces the Commandment no it never did because
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to Faith the Commandment of God was always near to Faith the Commandment was God was always in the mind and the heart that one might observe it and that's what Moses is saying in
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Deuteronomy 30 Deuteronomy 30 and what Paul is reiterating in Romans 10 Adolf schlutter writes that faith is not Merit nor a human effort presented to
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God for faith is the entrance of the Divine word into the individual and is made effective by what Christ bestows
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upon the upon the believer now I know that there is a difference between being saved in the Old Testament and being saved in the New Testament and it's a difference that we often struggle to understand we know
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that we have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and that we have been regenerated by the Holy Spirit two things that could not happen until Christ died and rose
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again and was glorified but we also know that the Old Testament Saint was justified by grace through faith no less than the New Testament Saint how that
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worked out is in the mind of God it's Deuteronomy 29 29 that we read the secret things belong to the Lord that which is revealed is for us and for our children to observe forever so all of
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this is is part of the context that Paul is referring is referring to and so that reality that salvation is by grace through faith is not just in
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Ephesians chapter 2 but it's also in Deuteronomy chapter 30 salvation has always been the gift of God by grace
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through faith one writer says Paul did not suppose that salvation was a final gift that came to Crown a life of uned virtue Paul did not believe that such a
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life could ever be lived except the life that was the light of the world Jesus Christ but many professing Christians need to hear this
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truth no less today than in Paul's day do not say in your heart Paul quotes that here in verse um six but the
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righteousness based on faith speaks thus do not say in your heart now what's interesting and and this is where I'm I'm clicking into Thursday night folks do not say in your heart is not
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from Deuteronomy from Deuteronomy 30 it's from Deuteronomy 9 you don't find that phrase at all in Deuteronomy 30 but Paul's use of it and
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Deuteronomy 9 tells us why he's using Deuteronomy 30 because the whole context of Deuteronomy 9 is God's promise to
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deliver all of the land promised to Abraham to the armies of Israel that their enemies will not be able to stand against them and that they will crush
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them in God's name and then he says do not say in your heart when the Lord your God has driven them out before you quote
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because of my righteousness the Lord has brought us to possess the land do not say in your heart when all of this has come to pass
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that had anything to do with you okay that's that's reiterating that what I started with and that is we cannot attain to God unless God reveals himself to us we cannot reach the
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Salvation that God has brought unless God first called calls us there's the election there's the grace of our salvation of the Gospel the Gentile
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Believers he's moving here in Romans 10 and then more so in 11 he's he's explaining to the Roman Church which consists of both Jew and
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Gentile Believers why Israel has not believed and how that unbelief has not changed the faithfulness of God but then he's going
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to say to the Gentiles do not boast he could rephrase that couldn't he he could say do not say in your heart which is actually what he says branches
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were cut off that I might be grafted in little uh lockart there no branches were cut off because of
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unbelief you were grafted in because of Grace and he says if you do not remain in that Grace you too will be cut off so do not say in your
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heart and one way that we do say in our heart that it has something to do with us is by erecting those levels of religious barriers between the plebes
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and God those priesthoods those intermediaries those popes those Saints or the rituals or the education or
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whatever we erect or even speaking in tongues you know even the gifts we can create create we can put God off we can say in our heart I speak in
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tongues you see you see what I'm getting at it is very subtle and yet we can say in our hearts it you know is my free will I I believed I heard the gospel I
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thought it was right I believed and you know I did it or what I'm doing for the Lord you know what are you doing for the Lord again I said last week I'm not doing anything for the Lord but
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hopefully thanking him for what he's done for for me okay if we were honest and someone said what are you doing for the lord well I'm generally getting in his way and disobeying his
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Spirit okay I I don't want to I mean that's Romans 7 right I'm paraphrased it of course but isn't that basically what Paul's saying that there's this law at
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work in our members that works against the law of God that we rejoice in in our minds so that I do not do what I wish but that which I do not wish I do that's what we're doing for the Lord folks
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so don't get puffed up don't say in your heart that when God has led you out of this deep dark Exile of sin and death
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into the promised land of his redemption in Jesus Christ don't say in your heart that it had something to do with you don't say in your heart that it you know
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that word is still a far off you need four years of Seminary degree to to to reach it you need to get this podcast you need to read this author you need to memorize this confession or
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catechism no the word is near you even in your mind and in your heart that's that's what he's driving at here that is the message of his gospel
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it's the message of the true gospel and so Paul takes Moses in Deuteronomy
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30 and he changes the wording so if you've if you've read this passage in Romans 10 and you've gone back to Deuteronomy 30: Deuteronomy 30: 11-14 you have noticed that Paul has
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changed some changed some words for starters he is talking about the Commandment in Deuteronomy 30 whereas in Romans 10 he's talking about Christ so where Moses says who will go
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up into the heavens to get the commandment and bring it down Paul puts in a parenthesis and he says that is to bring Christ down when Moses says who will go across the
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sea and bring the Commandment to us Paul says who will go into the abyss that is to bring Christ up from the
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dead very quickly the sea even the Hebrew word for sea is very close to the Hebrew word for the abyss and in the
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ancient world as well as in the biblical world the sea was the representation of all that was dark and evil in Daniel's vision of the beasts in Daniel 7 the
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Beast coming out from what coming out from the from the deep and in Revelation the vision of the new Earth there is no sea in it and so
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the interchanging of abyss and sea and Grave was very natural Paul wasn't rereading Moses but he is reinterpreting Moses in
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the light of what God has done through Jesus Christ who has come down from heaven and has come up from the abyss and so he answers to that that
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question that rhetorical question in Deuteronomy 3 who will go Jesus has already come who will go down and come back up Jesus has already
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risen but the important interchange is between the between the commandment and the Christ because he's just said in verse four this is where you have to kind of keep the context Christ is the end of the law
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for righteousness to all who believe Christ is the Telos the goal of the law and so Paul immediately goes back to the Mosaic era back to the pentet took the
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Books of Moses and he says the Commandment is Jesus Christ the goal of the Commandment is the Messiah Christ
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and so don't say in your heart so where is this who's going to bring it because Paul is saying it's already here it's already done these have been
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accomplished and completed that that's the good the good news that is the good news for Jew the Jew first and then for the
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Gentile now to refer to our Thursday night class Paul's use of Deuteronomy 30 actually I shouldn't say that Paul use of Deuteronomy because as I mentioned part of it from chapter 9 and most of it
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from chapter 30 this is an EXC excellent example of quotation type two anybody remember that the quotation that is clear but not
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clearly understood the quotation that we can go back to the Old Testament and find but that we don't necessarily understand immediately what the New Testament writer is doing with it and that's why
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we have to be careful to go go back to the context of the Old Testament quote and then realize that the New Testament writer is recognizing the Fulfillment
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not only of the passage but of the context of that passage in the Old
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writer the context of Deuteronomy 30 is the return from Exile that is Promised in Deuteronomy 29 now if you remember Deuteronomy 28
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and 29 are the blessings and the curses right Mount gazim and mount ebal that's the context Moses goes on prophetically and says y'all aren't going to do it
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you're going to fail you're going to rebel and God is going to be deeply upset and here's what he says toward the end of chapter 29 in veres 27 and 28
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therefore the anger of the Lord burned against the land to bring upon it Every curse which is written in this book that's what he had just recited
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leading up to this prophecy and the Lord uprooted them from their land in anger and in Fury and in great wrath and cast them into another land this is all in
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the past the past tense he's talking about what's going to happen to Israel with such certainty that he uses the past
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tense and it's the Exile that he speaks of now most scholars believe that it's the Babylonian exile because it it is brought about in the prophets as the
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land spewing them out and taking them to another land but of course they came back and yet the Jews who came back to
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the ex from the Exile and every generation since that up to the time of Jesus and Paul understood that the Exile was still
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was still continuing that the temple for example had not been Revisited by the shikina glory god had not come back to the Temple and so the rabbis would write of being still in
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Exile well Paul's saying Deuteronomy 30 it it's over the Exile has been restored we have been brought back to the true
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Temple which is the body of Jesus Christ so what he's saying here is it's now all about the church about the one Olive Tree from which natural branches have
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been cut off that unnatural Gentile branches might be grafted in but it's one olive tree that is to bear fruit to the glory of God all of these metaphors that come from the Old Testament Paul is
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using them to say this is the true return from Exile this is the promise of Deuteronomy 30 it's Beyond The Return of the Jews
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zerubabel but this return and this is what the Jews were looking for this return would be marked by the writing of God's law upon the hearts of every Israelite that's the New
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Covenant that's what Paul that's what Jeremiah promises in Jeremiah 31 that that no man will teach another saying know the Lord because all will know him from the youngest to the oldest from the
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poorest to the greatest that's the New Covenant but this return from Exile would also be marked by the true circumcision that would be made without
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hands Paul refers to that in Romans Chapter 2 he's he's reaching back to that but he's also reaching back to Deuteronomy where that promise is first made and interestingly it's made in
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Deuteronomy chapter Deuteronomy chapter 30 in verse 6 we read moreover the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants to love
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the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul that you may live this is what the righteous Jew after the Exile was still looking for
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this is what Simeon was looking for when he held the baby Jesus this is what Anna was looking for as the prophecies foretold the time of the coming Messiah
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this is what Jesus brought he brought that circumcision that is without hands the circumcision of the heart that we now call regeneration that by grace through faith
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God gives us a new heart and he writes his law upon that heart not that we would seek after doing things that God wouldn't be upset with us not that we
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come up with our own new rules but rather that God's word lives within us and through us to his glory and to our
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good this is the goal that Paul is referring to in verse four that the that Christ is the goal of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes
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this has been fulfilled in Jesus Christ who is the Lord Our God let us pray father we give you glory and
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gratitude for what you have done that you laid it out thousands of years ago that through Moses you showed the Exile through Moses you showed our state of
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being uncircumcised in heart and unable to obey your word and to observe it but then immediately you promis to circumcise our hearts and the hearts of
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our children and we pray father that you would continue to do that work in our families that by grace through faith we would see that circumcision without
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hands and that we would honor that in our lives by not saying in our heart that there is anything that we have brought any Merit in us that has motivated you
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in your mercy and Grace but rather all glory goes to you and you alone for you alone are the great savior of mankind
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through Jesus Christ Our Lord amen please rise for the benediction from first Thessalonians chapter
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5 now may the God of Peace himself sanctify you entirely and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ Faithful is he who
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called you and he will bring it to pass