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🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 Here's the problem. They can't get in by their works though. Their works are actually evil. Verse 7. Now some people, again, if you just want to believe in work salvation, you can twist any passes that you want. But this passage is clearly articulating the distinction between those who are the saved and those who are the not saved. And we already know what it takes to be saved because Romans chapter 1 already told us it was by faith. So we're not wondering in chapter number 2 how to get saved all of a sudden. We already know how to get saved. But what is it saying? It's saying those of us that are saved, what are we looking forward to? We're looking forward to the glory, honor, immortality, and eternal life. That's what we're looking forward to. And guess what? Our judgment is a judgment of rewards. Their judgment is a different judgment. Theirs is a day of wrath. And notice what they're going to get. They're going to get tribulation and anguish. Now notice this is a key phrase here in verse 8. And do not obey the truth. There's a hint for you. These people didn't get saved. They didn't believe the gospel. They didn't trust in Jesus Christ for salvation. So therefore, they're going to have to experience the wrath of God. And of course, the saved are the only ones that do good. The unsaved are incapable of doing good. We also see the tribulation and anguish is also probably in some reference to what's going on on earth. I mean, you're going to experience, you're going to reap what you sow even in this life to some degree. But ultimately, it's kind of talking about an end times perspective, judgment day in general. And notice those of us that we're doing good, we're going to get glory, honor, peace, and that is not limited to a specific group of people. It is for both the Jews and the Gentiles. It's interesting how Romans talks because it really goes back and forth between Gentiles and Greeks. Because it's the same word. And God's not a respecter of persons, which is a really great thing. Meaning that He doesn't care what environment you're in, what nationality, what people group. It's just simply those who trusted in Christ are saved and those who didn't are going to hell. What about the guy in Africa? If he didn't believe, he's going to hell. What about the guy that was raised Presbyterian? He doesn't believe, he's going to hell. What about the savage out there that believes in Jesus that murdered people? He's going to heaven. Because God's not a respecter of persons. So it doesn't really matter who you are or where you're from or what your past is. It doesn't matter if you believe in Christ or not. Now he says in verse 12, For as many as have sinned without law shall also perish without law, and as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law. For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified. For when the Gentiles which have not the law, due by nature, the things contained in the law, these having not the law, are a law unto themselves, which show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts, the mean while accusing or else excusing one another, in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my gospel. Now what he's saying in this passage here is he's trying to make it really clear that it doesn't matter that you're a Jew or not. And this is really important because we're coming right on the heels of the Old Testament, we're coming right on the heels of the nation of Israel, and for many Jews they tried to make this distinction of Jew good, Gentile bad. But he's trying to really break down that wall and show that's not true, that's not really how God views these things. No, everybody's judged by the same God, and God has the same laws, and whether you were given it to you in writing and you had a physical copy or not, you were all kind of the same anyways because the law was written in your heart. And the Gentiles always had the law even when they didn't have it physically. Yeah, was the law given to Herod? No. But you know what John the Baptist preached to Herod? That it was not lawful for him to have his brother's wife. Why? Because the law was already written on his heart. And the law didn't just apply to the Jews in the Old Testament, it applied to every single person. It's not like, oh well, I'm not under the law because I'm in the Gentile in the Old Testament. No, the law's in your heart. And he gives this illustration which is kind of interesting. He says in verse 14, For when the Gentiles which have not the law do by nature the things containing the law. He's saying, just naturally speaking, people know that lying's wrong. You know, they talk about, I think it's Hammurabi's law or something. Hammurabi's code is like some of the earliest laws. And they're like so close to the Bible. And people will act like, oh the Bible came from it. No, it came from what was inside man's heart which was the law of God already written there. And they just already knew like, hey, lying wrong, stealing wrong, murder wrong, adultery wrong, all these different things. Being a faggot is wrong. You know, they just knew that. And it was just codified in everybody's heart and everybody just knew that that was wrong. He says, even to the most basic person, he says in verse 15, Which show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness in their thoughts, the mean. Now the word mean, I only ever think naturally or initially when I hear the word mean is someone being rude. This is not what it ever means in the Bible. The mean means average. So you have to think about it from a mathematical term. The mean is the average of a certain number. And in the context of the Bible, it's just talking about an average, basic person. So even just the most basic, blue collar, low income person was accusing or else excusing people based on the law of God. Saying, how is it then if we just went to the most Gentile city, the most Greek city that doesn't even have the Bible, and we just went into a village and we just find Joe Plummer back then, and yes, they had plumbing back then, wearing pants. Men were wearing pants, okay? Joe Plummer, and we asked him about this, he'd be like, yeah, being a faggot is wrong. Yep, lying is wrong. And he would look at his neighbor and say, you're stealing. They were already accusing and excusing one another, and they already knew the law. And he's saying, hey, they're going to still be judged according to God's word. They're still going to be judged according to, thou shalt not bear false witness, and thou shalt not steal, and thou shalt not commit adultery. They're all going to be judged by that. He's what he's saying. In the day, what? When God shall judge the secrets of men, so he's going to judge everything that ever happened, even all the secret things, all your thoughts. How? By Jesus Christ according to my gospel. So, what is going to be the standard of whether or not you make it in? Whether you believe the gospel or not. Not how good you were, because no one is good enough. Not by your works. You want to be judged by your works? Alright. Day of wrath. You want to believe in Jesus Christ? Now you get the judgment seat of Christ where you get rewarded according to your works. Obviously you could suffer loss in the sense that maybe you didn't serve God so you don't have any rewards. But he's not going to sit there and be like, I remember when you said this, you did this sin, you did that sin. No, he already covered that, his blood. And your sins have separated you from as far as the east is from the west. And that is obvious that that can only be in reference to the judgment seat of Christ. You know why? Because we're still punished for our sins here. Like when you sin now, God can still punish you. It's not like you were just separated. It's not like if you go commit adultery tomorrow, Jesus is like, oh it's separated as far as the east is the west. No, you're going to suffer consequences for that. God's going to punish you for that. You know what you escaped? You escaped a place called hell for that sin. That's what happened. And you escaped the judgment seat of God. You escaped the great white throne judgment. But you didn't escape the judgment seat of Christ. So those are different things that are described in the Bible. Now verse 17 is kind of trying to make a little bit of a change. I think when you look at the book of Romans, you have to understand that he's kind of talking to the audience in general. And I think that Paul is just addressing different types of people. Think about it this. When I'm preaching to this crowd, sometimes I might kind of address the husbands. Or sometimes I might kind of address the wives, or the children, or this section, or the soul winners, the non-soul winners, or whatever. You might start kind of addressing different groups within a larger group. And I think that's just what Paul is kind of doing in general. If you think about what he said in chapter number one, he had talked about how he wanted to actually preach the gospel and that he wanted to have some fruit among them. So in his mind, he probably even, I believe, that the book of Romans is partially intended to talk to an unsaved audience. And that's what chapter two was doing. It was kind of addressing the people that were unsaved amongst them. And that's why Romans is such a great book for trying to get someone saved. Because a lot of it's kind of seemingly addressing just an unsaved person, or at least an unsaved person's mindset. Because an unsaved person's mindset is believing in works and being better than other people, whereas he's trying to help them realize, no, no, no, you're not even saved, and you're really just looking forward to the day of wrath here. So I believe that when we've gone to verses one through sixteen, it's just kind of addressing just an unsaved person, and more likely a Gentile. But now, in verse seventeen, he kind of makes a transition, Behold, thou art called a Jew. Obviously, he's not referencing Gentiles at this point in time. He's obviously making kind of a distinction. You could also argue that the beginning of chapter two was only addressing the unsaved Jews. But it was for sure just kind of in general addressing unsaved people. And he's trying to tear down that wall between the Jew and the Gentile, and here he's getting really specific. He's like, let me really address the Jews here. And of course, that makes sense, because when they visit these areas, a lot of times they're going to the synagogues, there's a lot of Judaizers, a lot of people that are Jewish, Hebrews that are there, and he has a heart for them, he wants to get them saved. That's what Romans even tells you very clearly later in this epistle of his strong desire to see Jews being saved. So of course, it makes sense that he wants to address them and talk to them one on one here. Verse seventeen, Behold, thou art called a Jew. Notice this phrase, and rest is in the law. So what do Jews believe in for salvation? They don't rest in Jesus, they don't rest in the gospel, they rest in the law. What is the law? Keeping the commandments. And so we see the mindset of Jews is what? Keeping the law gets them saved. What did the Pharisees believe? They believed that they were saved because they kept the law. They were willing to justify themselves, as the Bible says, over and over again. So this group of people think that they're saved because they're resting in the law. That's why it was important to understand that he was tearing it down previously, in the previous few verses. Trying to say, like, well, okay, you have the law, but even the Gentiles had the law inside. And they were trying to keep the law and doing the same thing, so what's making you special? Oh, you rest in the law? How about this? And makest thy boast of God? Oh, you're God's children! Isn't that what the Jews say? They're the children of God, they boast of God, and knowest his will. Hey, we have the Word of God here. Just saying, you guys have the Bible. That's what he's just saying, like, over and over in different ways. They have the truth, they have the law, they're resting in it. And they think that they're so smart, they think they're better than the Gentiles. They're the ones going to teach them how to be godly. And he says in verse number 20, Which hast the form of knowledge and of the truth of the law. Meaning that they do have some semblance of truth. They have some semblance of law. Because obviously, when they get up and they say, Honor thy father and mother, they're right. That's true. Didn't Jesus say that whatever the Pharisees bid you, do and observe? Why? Because whenever they were giving the law or saying the things that the law said, they were right. It wasn't like they were wrong. And to me, this makes me think of fake Christianity today. There's a lot of preachers today that are not saved. But you know what? Sometimes they say the right thing. And that's what confuses people. People that are saved that should know better but go to these churches or listen to these people. They'll be like, yeah, but he said this and I like that. And it's like, okay, yeah, but he's also teaching work salvation. But he's also a heretic. But he's also using the wrong Bible version. But he's also doing all these other wicked things. And we shouldn't judge a preacher only by his good statements. We should also judge him by the bad statements. And well, what else is he preaching here? And once they start preaching a bunch of heresy, you just get rid of them no matter how much good they've said. Oh, you have a form of knowledge and of the truth and law. Thou, therefore, which teaches another, teaches thou not thyself. So he's saying, hey, you're teaching these Gentiles how to be good. Okay, thou that preaches a man should not steal. Does thou steal? Then he's thinking, was there anything wrong with preaching against stealing? No. But he's saying, wait a minute, do you guys actually do that? And the rhetorical question, obviously for Jews, is that they steal. Because Jews steal. They're thieves. He's like, hey, you Jew, you teach the people you shouldn't steal, how about you? How are you doing on that one? They're like, uh, yeah, they steal everything. Verse 22, thou that sayeth a man should not commit adultery. Does thou commit adultery? Hey, how did Jews do on that one? Oh, yeah, ringer, ringer. Okay. Thou that abhors idols, does thou commit sacrilege? So he's trying to show how they're giant hypocrites. Thou that makest thy boast of the law through breaking the law dishonors thou God. So he's saying, you guys go around pretending like you're so wonderful because you have the law of God and you preach the law of God, but none of you even do the word of God. You're not following the commandments. And, you know, when we think about this list, he's not even bringing up minor things. These guys are stealing and adulterous and committing sacrilege. I mean, that's some serious stuff that he's calling them out for. But that's what it's really like. These fake religion types, the Jews, they're some of the most wicked people. They're committing some of the worst sins. And, you know, because they're doing this, it just makes the religion of God look bad. There's an example of this. I want you to keep your finger. Go to 2 Samuel, chapter number 12. It's frustrating how fake Christianity makes Christianity look bad. And then you get losers like Andrew Tate saying, oh, Islam's so much better than Christianity because they're not changing what they believe. Yeah, I'm sure that nobody in Islam's ever changed anything, right? I mean, they're just exactly the same and Muhammad never changed on anything. I mean, that's just a lie. He said no girl of Islam is a whore. Like, what in the world? Liar. That's the dumbest thing to say that's never happened, okay? I mean, your own prophet is committing adultery and pedophilia and you're going to tell me there was no whores? Come on. You know, your whole religion is based on getting a bunch of just women to shack up with in heaven. That's your religion's basis. Good night. Islam is so stupid and literally the people that believe it are stupid because they can't even read many times just like their prophet. It's like a religion of illiteracy. But, you know, bad Christianity and Christianity that's fake and worshipping the devil and embracing sodomy and embracing filth and embracing alcohol and embracing whoredom makes just Christianity look bad. And then they'll make these statements. There's no Christians standing for their faith. How about the ones that are constantly on the news? How about the ones that are being protested by the people that you claim that we embrace? It's like they just don't want to mention us, right? Because they just don't want to really mention true Christianity. Because, look, there's millions of people that are actually legit Christians in this country. There are millions of people that are saved and believe the Bible and probably a lot of them go to a church where they have to hold their nose at some stuff. But there's still even 7,000 fundamental Baptist churches in America. I guarantee there's hundreds and hundreds of churches that are doing soul winning and preaching the Bible and standing on a lot of biblical morals. Are they perfect? No, we're not perfect either. But we're so much closer to perfection than any Islamicist, than any Muslim. To say that the Muslims are so righteous, I mean, they have to put their women in trash bags and hide them from society to show how they're not lusting after women. It's like, good night. You have to cover them up that much because you're so hard up. I mean, look, you're a pervert if you have to have all the women dressed that way not to just have righteous thoughts. You're a pervert. You know, if you have to have, I mean, and look, you know, even the eyeballs. I mean, is that going to, you know, oh man, those brown eyes. It's like, you know, there's that Adam Fanon said you had to cover your elbows. And I was just thinking like, what guy has ever been like, have you seen the elbows on her? He doesn't know what locker room talk is because I've never heard that. Okay. And, you know, I'm not saying that women don't have good looking elbows. I'm just saying I've never thought it ever. Okay. It's like, do we really have to have women wear these like ninja costumes and hide in the bushes or something like that? No, that's stupid. Okay. Can you, Matt, how would you feel if that's how you had the date? You're always like, what does it really look like in there? You know, I mean, you have to just date a tent. It's like a tent with eyes moving around. It's like, which tent do you like? I don't know, man. You know, that would be scary. You know, it'd be nice to actually see what the, you know, what you're working with a little bit. Okay. Because there'd be a lot of, it would be kind of like Jacob waking up in the morning. Like, who is this? You know, I thought I was getting Rachel, you know. This is not what it's cracked up to be. But, you know, it's this over the top, you know, fake religion that makes Christianity look bad because they're a bunch of hypocrites and they make all these over the top ideas and statements. And the microwaves are bad and lemons are bad and, you know, you can't even see a woman's elbows and you're just like, what's wrong with these people? You know, Mormons saying you can't drink coffee, which look, I hate coffee, but you know what? We have coffee in the building. Okay. You can have coffee. All right. You can even put beans in your chili at home. You know, you can do it. It's possible. Okay. It's not like, you know, we have these over the top standards you can't even find in the Bible. Coca-Cola's bad or something like that. Or are you celebrating birthdays? Right? I mean, some fake religions, they can't even celebrate birthdays. Or they observe a Sabbath on the Saturday, but they don't really even do that. Or, you know, what modern Christianity is doing today is they're like, they just randomly picked when to do their Sabbath. It's like the dumbest thing. They're like, well, I'm having my Sabbath on Tuesday. It's Tuesday. It's like if your religion has devolved so much to where you can just pick and choose when your Sabbath is, it's like it's all fake. You know, they look at the Catholics and they have lint and they have to eat fish on Friday. So lame. It's lame when you live in one of these small towns and you go to the only steakhouse in town on Friday night. Isn't that the date night? And then they only have fish. And you're like, what is this? What's happening? You know, it's like it makes me not want to be that type of religion. And you know what? Praise God I'm not a Catholic. Praise God I'm a Baptist. You know what? Catholics make Christianity look stupid with their fish. Okay? They look stupid when they take an infant baby and they drown it three times in a row and call it baptism. They're like, in the name of the Father, in the name of the Son, and the Holy Ghost. And they're just drowning a screaming baby. Or they buy these fancy outfits to christen them in or whatever. It's stupid. And it just makes Christianity look bad, let alone all the pedophilia in the Catholic Church. Let alone all the sodomites in the United Methodist Church getting up and dressing like a clown and wearing devil's horns. And singing Madonna in a church and claiming that it's a church service. Just making Christianity look bad. Ted Cruz claiming he's a Baptist. Making Baptist look bad. But you know what? Even us could be guilty of this. And shame on us if we do so. But look what it says in 2 Samuel chapter 12 verse 14. Howbeit because by this deed thou is given great occasion to the enemies of the Lord of blasphemy. Because David had committed adultery and murdered the husband, he gave the enemies of God a great occasion to blaspheme God. Why would anybody want to be a Christian when your leader is like that? And you know what? Islam always loves to do this. Go back to Romans chapter 2. They'll be like, oh, how can I follow a religion where Noah gets drunk and Moses commits murder and they bring up all the sin of man. And they try to say like, why would I follow this religion? But really it's just a prideful attitude because they don't realize that they're sinners too. And that their sin is also going to be judged and that Christianity is the greatest religion ever because Jesus Christ paid all your sins. And you know what? God can use sinful men and of course all of us are sinful. Therefore if God used anybody it was because of his grace because no one deserved it. No one earned it. No one was righteous enough. He just can use us despite our pasts. But I'll tell you what, we shouldn't let that embolden us to do wicked and evil things because when we do that it just makes Christianity look bad. It makes our church look bad. It makes us look bad. And of course these Jews make the religion of God look bad. Why? Because Jews are wicked and everybody hates them. And you can't even say it out loud, they'll censor you. Jews are the scummiest people ever. I mean I don't know how anybody would want to be having anything to do with them. You know, praise God today they don't even claim to believe in the Bible anymore. They have the Talmud and they have their fake religion, the synagogue of Satan. But the Jews at this point you have to understand are a little bit different than some of the Jews today because the Jews back then, they didn't have the Babylonian Talmud. That was later. So they literally did have the Bible. And there are some Jews that are copying this. They're actually copying the Torah. They're actually copying the real Old Testament and keeping that pure. And there's some quote Orthodox Jews that still have that. But you know what, they're resting in the law. And they're still hypocrites and they're not saved. Now of course that doesn't mean they couldn't be saved. We would love it if any Jew would get saved and come out from that disgusting false religion. But unfortunately a lot of the people in that religion are probably reprobate. And they're very wicked. And you know they're already ministers of the devil. But of course at this time in history a lot of Jews are getting saved. A lot of Jews are still getting used by God. Albeit it's the remnant. Albeit it's the small. And of course many of the Jews that get saved end up being the greatest Christians. Have you noticed that? I mean if you're going to say who is the greatest Christian in the New Testament? Probably Paul. And let me tell you something. He's of the children of Israel. He's of Benjamin. And that's Jew quote unquote. Obviously he's not of Judah. But how about other great Christians? Peter, of the children of Israel. James, John, of the children of Israel. I mean when we look at some of the greatest Christians that ever lived, they were of course coming from the children of Israel specifically. So there's nothing wrong with the children of Israel. Many of them were greatly used by God. If not some of the greatest Christians to ever live. But obviously we had great Gentiles coming along. We had half-breeds like Timothy. We had other people like Apollos and we had Priscilla and Aquila. And we had other great Gentiles come along that did some great works for God. But frankly speaking the apostles are vastly just Jews. I mean they're the ones that are doing the greatest works and the greatest Christians and some of the greatest martyrs. So there's nothing wrong with being a Jew. And look what he says in verse 25. For circumcision, verily provative, if thou keep the law. Meaning, hey, there was nothing wrong with being a Jew. There's nothing wrong with being the apostle Paul. And it's great if you're keeping the law. But if thou be a breaker of the law, thy circumcision is made uncircumcision. Therefore, if the uncircumcision keep the righteousness of the law, shall not uncircumcision be counted for circumcision? And shall not uncircumcision, which is by nature, if it fulfil the law, judge thee, who by the letter and circumcision dost transgress the law? For he is not a Jew which is won outwardly, neither is that circumcision which is outward in the flesh, but he is a Jew which is won inwardly. And circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter, whose praise is not amenable to God. Here's a common theme in the book of Romans. Paul will use one word and mean it in two completely different ways. Now, when we see it in verse 25, for circumcision, verily provative. What he's talking about there is physical circumcision and he's relating it to those who are the children of Israel or the Jews, quote, unquote. But then, when he brings it up in the latter portion, thy circumcision is made uncircumcision, he's talking about it in a spiritual context. So, in the exact same verse, he's using the exact same word to mean two completely different things. Because, let me tell you something, after you've been circumcised, there's no way to, like, go back. I mean, I don't want to know if there is, okay? My understanding is there's no way to go back. Just like, you know, they keep trying to make men and women, women and men, it doesn't work, okay? You can tie a branch to my body and I'm not a tree. Okay? You could glue it. You could do whatever you want. You could probably even get Elon Musk to attach it to my arm socket and it might even move a little bit. It might, like, wave the leaves at you with Neuralink. But I'm still not a tree, okay? And what he's saying, he's not talking about going back from physical circumcision to physical uncircumcision. What he's trying to say is that circumcision was not really about a physical thing, it was about a spiritual thing. And the spiritual picture of circumcision is being saved. Just like, I believe, in the Old Testament, circumcision was kind of a picture, the outward sign of being saved. And in the New Testament, our outward sign is baptism. Now baptism, again, there's not a physical change. Did you get wet? Yes. But that's not the important part. The important part was the spiritual change, meaning that you're wanting to die to yourself and die to the flesh and walk into this life. What does circumcision do physically? Circumcision physically is taking away flesh. So what was it a picture of? Dying to the flesh, removing the flesh, getting rid of the flesh so that you would walk in the spirit and the inward man. Okay? But what did the Jews do? The Jews just made it only carnal and only physical. And they only cared about the carnal and only the physical. And notice in verse 29 it says, So there is a spirit of the law and there is a letter of the law. What is the letter of the law? What the law is saying carnally. What is the spirit of the law? What it was saying spiritually. Now there's nothing wrong with the carnal aspect of the law. So was there anything wrong with Jews getting physically circumcised in the Old Testament? Nope. Nothing wrong with it. In fact, it was great. It was wonderful. What was more important than that was being spiritually circumcised. And being spiritually circumcised was believing in Jesus Christ and being saved. And by being saved and being spiritually circumcised was the essence of what God wanted and what it means to really be a Jew. So let me tell you something. I'm a Jew. Those who call themselves Jews today, they're not even Jews. They're fake. They're the synagogue of Satan. I have more right to the land in the Middle East than any of those Israelis. Any of those hair dangling, bobbing, and sculpt hiding freaks. None of those people have any right to that land. I have more right to it because I'm a Jew. Because I believe in Jesus Christ. And you know what? That land is not theirs. It's Jesus. It's the land of Jesus. It's His Holy Land. And He was the one who the promise of the covenant was made. Now, I want to make just a couple quick parallels and we'll be finished. When we talk about the spirit of the law, it's important to understand that this is a concept that can be understood anywhere in the Bible. And Jews and unsaved people, they can only ever seem to understand the letter of the law. Even then, a lot of times they get goofed up. But they try to carnalize the Bible too much and they don't spiritualize it at all. And we want to do both. We want to make sure we're doing both. Now, I was thinking of a couple examples of this. Go if you went to Exodus 34 for a moment. We'll go to Exodus 34. One of the most clear pictures of this is the Sabbath. Now, they were really big on observing the physical Sabbath. Meaning doing no work on the sixth day. Or on the seventh day, I'm sorry. On like Saturday, what we consider the sixth day. But it's the seventh day is the Sabbath. And they did that. In fact, they were a little bit over the top with it in some cases. They probably were going a little above and beyond. But they were really concerned with observing a physical Sabbath. Is there anything wrong with observing a physical Sabbath while in the Old Testament? No, you should. You should observe the Sabbath. That was the right thing to do. But what was more important was observing the spiritual Sabbath, which was believing in Jesus Christ and getting saved. Resting in Jesus, not resting in the law. So they totally missed the spirit of the law and only accepted the letter of the law. And unfortunately, by embracing the letter of the law, they're going to be under the curse, as Galatians 3 says. And they're going to receive the curse of the law. Because they didn't believe in Jesus Christ. But there's other things in the Bible like this. I was thinking of this verse in verse 26. Exodus 34, verse 26. The first of the first roots of thy land thou shalt bring unto the house of the Lord thy God. Thou shalt not see the kid in his mother's milk. Now here's something that even the Jews still do today. Is they will not eat things that they don't deem kosher. And aspects of this... Who's heard of kosher, right? Some aspects of kosher law or kosher diet is that you can't mix dairy and meat. And that's based on this principle. Now again, did this say thou shalt not mix dairy and meat? No it didn't, okay? So they're really still screwing up the letter of the law. But I'll say this. Was there anything wrong with in the Old Testament not literally seething a kid in his mother's milk? No. You wanted to not do that. Now why? Let's talk about it carnally for a second. Carnally, if you're taking the goats of your field and their birthing children and instead of feeding that baby kid the milk and nourishing it and replenishing your flock, you're killing the kids in the milk. You're ruining the milk and you're killing the next generation. So as soon as you're done with all the kids that's going to produce, then the mama dies. Now you have no flock anymore. So you've just basically just ruined the entire flock for the next generation and for your children or for their children or something. You're basically squandering all the resources, the natural resources of your community. So it's saying you can't just waste all of the resources and just burn all of them so that the next generation has nothing. You know what? Jews love to do that today, don't they? Called the national debt, which they love to just keep raising the ceiling on that, don't they? And you know what they're doing? They're just burning all of the natural resources in America and in our country and just trying to seed every kid and his mother's milk. And you know what? They might be laughing it up now and enjoying all the good now and just saying, hey, I'm having baby kid for dinner, but pretty soon we're going to run out of kids. Pretty soon we're going to run out of meat. Pretty soon we're going to run out of milk. Pretty soon we're going to run out of debt. You can't just borrow forever, folks. It's just like the lady who said, you know what? I still have money in the bank because I still have checks in my checkbook. Y'all are too young to know what a checkbook is, all right. Hey, as long as you have a credit card, you have money, right? No. Eventually it hits a limit, doesn't it? Now, credit card companies like to do this. Oh, well, we'll increase your limit. You know what? They won't be that nice to you forever. Pretty soon they'll be like, yeah, we can't increase your limit anymore. Oh, and by the way, it's 25% interest on those purchases that you have. So we'll be hitting you really hard really quick. And you know what? Credit cards will just destroy you super fast if you're not paying that thing off, if you're allowing that interest to come in. In fact, they're designed to never be paid off. They're designed, if you pay the minimum payment on a credit card, if you max it out and you're just paying that $25, in some cases you're not even paying the interest due. In fact, your total will just keep getting bigger over time. Some cases it's a 25-year plan. And if you really do the math on these things, sometimes people that have a credit card maxed at $2,000, if they just pay the minimum payment until they pay it off, they'll pay like $100,000 or something like that for the $2,000 over the life of their loan, quote, unquote. But what I'm saying is our country is run by Jews financially speaking. It's called the Fed. It's called the Presidential Cabinet. It's called Janet Yellen. She's not Gentile, okay? She is, but she calls herself a Jew. She's of the Jewish nature. And you know what? They're destroying our country. And you know what? Our country today, our generations today are doing the same thing where the baby boomer generation is blowing their inheritance on casinos and timeshares and reverse mortgages on just living it up right now so that they can just squander it all and hand to the next generation nothing. Hand to the next generation. Well, have fun living in your Black Rock apartment. Have fun having no inheritance, no land, no house with skyrocketing inflation, skyrocketing money. And you know what I hear from so many old people? Well, I'm not worried about it because I've lived a good life and I've lived for a while and peace and truth are in my days. Well, I'm not worried about it because Jesus is still on the throne. Oh, well, thanks for setting the house on fire and then telling me that you're not worried about it. I mean, it's ridiculous. How cold-hearted are you to just ruin the world for the next generation and then just say, oh, Jesus has got it. What do you mean Jesus has got it? I mean, what if I did that to my children? Hey, my children are at home by themselves tonight with no food, no electricity, no water, but Jesus has got it. That's stupid. You know, the Bible says that if a man does not provide for his own, he is worse than an infidel. It doesn't say like Jesus has got it. It says you're a scumbag. It says you're a loser. You know, a good man leaves wealth, leaves, under the next generation, wealth unto his children's children. He doesn't say, he just says, oh, I don't really care that the country's being ruined. I don't really care that I have terrible views. I don't really care that I allowed church to get way out of control. I don't care that I go to a church full of false prophets. Jesus has got it. You know what? You're just seething the kid that you have in your mother's milk. And you're just ruining the world that we have. You know, we should take some of what we have and set it aside for the next generation. And invest in the next generation. You know, if you have a business, don't take every single profit and just selfishly spend it. Reinvest some of that money back into the company. Don't seed the kid in his mother's milk. What's the spiritual picture here? Well, what's the spirit of the law when we talk about this? You know, we're talking about sustainability. And when we talk about Christianity, we don't want to just ruin the next generation by just having all the cake and eating it ourselves too, spiritually. And we want to set aside for the next generation. You know, even conferences and stuff. You know, we had the Heritage of the Lord conference because I want to invest in the next generation. You know, even if, let's say church, I'm saved. And I've listened to probably, I don't know, a thousand sermons of Pastor Anderson's. I mean, who in here would say I've listened to hundreds of Pastor Anderson's sermons? I've listened to thousands of sermons. You know, I've read the Bible cover to cover more than once. It's like, lots of us have already done all this. So we could say, you know what, if this church goes away, I'm good. Okay, but what about your kids? Okay, what about the next generation? What about this world? You know, let's not just say, well, I got the kid and I got the milk and I have all the things. No, no, no, let's set aside some kids for our kids. Let's try to actually, you know, bless the next generation. And, you know, here's another thing, here's my last thought I had. It's just in reference of letter versus spirit. When we talk about soul winning, soul winning is such an important work that we can do. But I don't want us to have the mentality of a church is that soul winning is only by the letter of the law. And this is what I mean by this. Well, you know what, I just show up and I go soul winning twice a week. But, you know, when I go soul winning and I knock on the door, I'm like, I'm real steadfast. You want to go to heaven? You don't want to hear the gospel, do you? And then they're just like, no. And then they just close the door. Or you're like, open up. You know, it's the police. You know, it's like, they're like, ah, who is it? You know, it's like when we go out soul winning, we should actually put a lot of effort and energy into trying to get people saved. And actually caring and being nice. You know, I'd rather the person that's like genuine and sweet go out sparingly than the person that's just the robot. We're in steadfast, want to be saved? You know, like you're the guy, you're the alien from Men in Black. He's like, water. You want to hear the gospel? Hey. You know, you're dressed like a weirdo. You know, you're dressed in your pajamas. You want some water? Your hair's all like weird. You're slobbering all over yourself. And right before you knock on the door, yeah, I hate faggots. Yeah, faggots are gross. Go to hell. Hey. Hey, how's it going? Want to hear about the gospel? Well, Pastor Shelley, you know, I show up every single time, you know. I'm there, you know, and I just, I'm looking really good, you know. I'm here to get you saved. You know, it's like, is that really the spirit of the law here? You know, look, I might be exaggerating a little bit, but I'll tell you, there's some people, it seems like you don't even want them to go to heaven. You know, it just doesn't seem like you even care about the person. And it's like, let's not look at the commandment of the letter of the law like, well, I physically went out there and I knocked on the door, you know. I had an invite in hand. It's like, why don't you actually try to witness this person like it matters? Why don't you actually put a little bit of zeal in your tone? Don't be like Bill Nye. Dry eyes, get clear eyes. Would you like to come stand fast? Yeah, okay. You wouldn't want to know how to go to heaven, would you? Okay. Can I show you something in the Bible? Okay. Where's that verse again? I don't know. You know, there's a verse in the Bible somewhere. It's like, you can't even be a little bit more prepared than that. You can't even try a little bit harder than... And look, we can all get better at soul winning. But I'm like, let's have the spirit of soul winning in mind. And it's like, you know how to be... Like, why don't you put a little bit of tear behind the eye and actually care about the person, look them in the eye, try to engage them, try to be on their level, condescend them in of low estate, but act like it's something that you really want to happen. Don't just, hey, here's a Bible about faggots. Here's a movie about faggots. It's like, that person's probably not going to want to hear anything else he said. You know, are people just kind of minding, hey, how's it going? Oh, you don't want to hear? Okay, fine. Hey, you want to know how to go to heaven? No, it's like, oh, you're a reprobate then. It's like, dude, you were super weird. Look, I'm telling you, it's out there, okay? Try to communicate with care and attention, have some confidence, have some boldness, have some zeal, love the person. Don't just go through the motions. Don't just show up to show up. In fact, if you're not going to even show up mentally, don't show up physically. You know, just like if you're playing on my basketball team, I don't want you to just be dead space on the court. You know, it's like try to win the game. Try to score a bucket. You know, try to get something done here. You know, put some effort and energy into it. You know, soul winning from our church should not be like, wow, they don't really want to go soul winning. When someone goes soul winning from our church with another person, they should say, wow, they really cared. Wow, I really liked how you were enthusiastic. Wow, I really liked how you tried there. Wow, I'm going to get some tips from you. Not just like, man, that was a train wreck. Or like, I don't even know how that person stood and talked to you for that long. Let's be honest, people only give us a short window of time. Use your time wisely. When you have an opportunity to preach the gospel, I could go on this for forever, but, you know, I probably need a different sermon for it, but I just want to at least put it out there. Hey, put some effort and energy in your soul winning. Try to look them in the eye. Get the spirit of soul winning, you know, not just the letter of it. And actually care about these people's souls, because they're going to burn in hell if you don't get them saved. Many of them. They're not going to get another opportunity. My life church is going to go give them a lifeline. This is a lot of times one of the only opportunities these people might even get. Let's put some real effort and energy into it, all right? Let's close in prayer. Thank you, Heavenly Father, for giving us this great book of the Bible, for helping us make it clear that we're not judged according to our works, but rather we're saved by your grace. I pray that we wouldn't take for granted the grace you extend us, and we wouldn't look at the evil in the world as you being slack, but rather we'd see your goodness in it, and we'd see the opportunity we have to go out and preach the gospel. And I pray that we wouldn't go and preach the gospel out of just pure obligation. We wouldn't do it just as mindless robots, but rather we'd have a spirit of love and charity in our hearts, that we would have zeal in our minds, and that we would preach with boldness and confidence, and that we could see many people saved. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Closing, let's go to song number 227. Song number 227, Saved by the Blood. Song number 227, Saved by the Blood of the Crucified One. Song number 227. Sing it out in the first. Saved by the blood of the crucified one, now ransomed from sin and a new work begun, sing praise to the Father and praise to the Son. Saved by the blood of the crucified one, Saved by the blood of the crucified one, Saved by the blood of the crucified one, Saved by the blood of the crucified one, Saved by the blood of the crucified one, the angels rejoicing because it is done, a child of the Father joined air with the Son. Saved by the blood of the crucified one, glory I'm saved, glory I'm saved, my sins are all part and my guilt is all gone, glory I'm saved, glory I'm saved, I'm saved by the blood of the crucified one, Saved by the blood of the crucified one, the Father he spake and his will it was done, great price of my pardon, his own precious Son. Saved by the blood of the crucified one, glory I'm saved, glory I'm saved, my sins are all part and my guilt is all gone, glory I'm saved, glory I'm saved, I'm saved by the blood of the crucified one, Saved by the blood of the crucified one, all hail to the Father, all hail to the Son, all hail to the Spirit, the great three in one, Saved by the blood of the crucified one, glory I'm saved, glory I'm saved, my sins are all part and my guilt is all gone, glory I'm saved, glory I'm saved, I'm saved by the blood of the crucified one. .