Worship Call 0708 A Higher Standard part 2

leave your sledgehammers home! 1 Cor 3:16-17 Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? If anyone defiles the temple of God, God will destroy him. For the temple of God is holy, which temple you are. Ephesians 2:21-22 in whom the whole building, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit. What an amazing thought that a holy and infinite God dwells within our bodies when we come to faith! This awesome God so desires to inhabit our very beings ... wow! Now imagine how that God is constructing this magnificent temple of living stones, believers around the world, and fitting us together into a masterpiece; stones of every color, every size, and differing weight, and fitting them TIGHTLY and perfectly together for His glory! Imagine walking into a glorious Temple, a visual masterpiece exemplifying His temple of Living stones…and gazing at the splendor of gold, silver and precious gems … imagine the awe of the beauty you're taking in! Now brace yourself and imagine a person entering this glorious place, taking a sledgehammer and smashing the walls ... hitting every stone ... doing all he can to desecrate and destroy all this wonder and beauty … you'd say it's the height of insanity, a massive blasphemy against the magnificent work of the Creator! But how often do we ourselves as His body pick up our hammers, big and small, and do this destructive work? There is a proverb of Solomon – “Life and death are in the power of the tongue”. Our tongues can become "hammers" of destruction and death to His precious children, His Holy Bride. in the Temple of God, His Body. Words can build up … and sadly, can also destroy! Friends, use words, not as hammers of destruction, but as skillful building tools inspired by the Holy Spirit to build one another up … polishing each and every precious stone in God's Temple. Our Lord is a builder, the Living Word who says, "Let there be! And it IS! …so let us also be aware before we open our mouths to speak, as we will be judged for every idle word! We have the words of life to speak into anyone's life today. And "A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in settings of silver." [Proverbs 25:11] Your family in the Lord with much agape love, George, Baht Rivka, & Obadiah (Elianna is attending Christian College in Dallas) Dallas, Texas

And this is another fine day in the Lord!

How does this all tie together?

Peace maker

Salt and Light

The fulfillments of the Law

And an exceeding righteousness

It is a curious question that I had been asking myself when we went from letting our light shine to the statement that Jesus did not come to abolish the Law.

The Law and the Prophets is what we generally refer to as the Old Testament. Along with the wisdom literature the three sections make up the Tanakh.

Jesus is referring not to specifically to the Law of Moses, but to the book of the people.

The opposition will be from the Pharisees, which for so long was the religious authority over the Jews. They had built up over time a fence that around the Law by adding to the Law to such a degree that the people may have not known whether they were keeping the word of the Lord or the Law of the Pharisees.

Then comes Jesus who spoke with such clarity and authority as he taught the pure word of God, minus the legalism taught by their leaders. It was refreshing to hear. Many Jews and pagans were gravitating to it.

It was not that Jesus brought anything new but only that he stripped away the legalism from the word.

With the advent of Christ there was a change in order, and it might seem that the Tanakh was dismissed or done away with to make room for the new.

If you believe that the Old Testament was for the Jews and no longer relevant and that it was replaced by the New Testament. You are mistaken.

ON the other hand, if you think that we as Christians are to keep all ordinances and rites the feasts the holy days and live as Israelites in the ancient world, you are also mistaken.

First Paul writes to Timothy

2 Timothy 3:16 (NASB95) — 16 All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness.

Emphasis placed on “ALL”

In the time of writing there was just the Tanakh and scattered letters from the Apostles throughout the ancient world. But even when the canon of Scripture was completed, the new Testament stands with the old as one book from Genesis to Revelation.

The Law and the Prophets has taught about salvation. They had looked forward to the work of Salvation and the glorious kingdom to come. How can we come to understand Salvation if we are ignorant of the origin of sin and through the knowledge of the Prophecies, the types, the rites? We follow the thread of Salvation starting with God in the first line of the bible to the place where Jesus Says on the Cross, “It is finished!” the completed work of Christ as the end of the path followed throughout scriptures.

Galatians 3:24–29 (NASB95) — 24 Therefore the Law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ, so that we may be justified by faith. 25 But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor. 26 For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. 27 For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s descendants, heirs according to promise.

Paul wrote this in the counter to the Judiazers who were advocating that all must follow the Law to be saved. That they must follow the ordinances of the Jews to include circumcision, keeping dietary laws and so forth.

There are those who continue to this day that believe that the Christian should be following the Mosaic law. and folks, it is much more than following the ten commandments there are a total of 613 commandments that would have to be followed. Including the obeying the Holy Days.

If one personally wanted to keep the ordinance of the old the best that could, then I’m sure the Lord would honor the heart of that person who does it for the love of the Lord.

The problem comes when legalism creeps in and that person expects and teaches others that the Christian is unfaithful when he does not do these things. this lays down a stumbling block for the believer who cannot possibly do what even the Jewish people could not do in the first place.

That is keeping the Law perfectly.

It would seem to some that the Law was set aside, and that as we said is not right either.

Matthew 5:17–18 (NASB95) — 17 “Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill. 18 “For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished.

The Pharisees attacked Jesus for breaking the Sabbath.

Mark 2:23–24 (NASB95) — 23 And it happened that He was passing through the grainfields on the Sabbath, and His disciples began to make their way along while picking the heads of grain. 24 The Pharisees were saying to Him, “Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath?”

But Jesus corrected the Pharisees way of thinking by talking about what King David did when he ate the consecrated bread and then says to them…

Mark 2:27–28 (NASB95) — 27 “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath. 28 “So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.”

Jesus did not break the Sabbath which Jesus himself was the Lord of. He just did not hold himself to the law of the Pharisees.

Jesus did not cast aside as worthless the Law which is the word of God.

Isaiah 40:8 (NASB95) — 8 The grass withers, the flower fades, But the word of our God stands forever.

No, Jesus did not do away with the Law or the prophets, but he takes it up to new heights. What was dealt with in the past was in light of the flesh and its failures to live up to the Law.

It is now the spiritual that comes to light.

It is not for the Gentile to keep that which was that which is exclusive to the priestly nation Israel. Whether we are talking about what day is the Sabbath a Saturday or Sunday or whatever day. Not that the Sabbath was done away with but taken to higher standard.

Hebrews 4:9–11 (NASB95) — 9 So there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God. 10 For the one who has entered His rest has himself also rested from his works, as God did from His. 11 Therefore let us be diligent to enter that rest, so that no one will fall, through following the same example of disobedience.

The other commandments are also taken to a higher level, to the level of the heart.

Jesus says that the Law says you shall not murder. But if you are angry at your brother, you are guilty of murder.

Jesus says that the law says you shall not commit adultery, but if you look at woman with lust for her, you have already committed murder.

The Sacrifices that were brought to the alter, while we can look back to those days and see the example the Typology, we have the propitiatory offering which settles the matter.

Hebrews 10:1–7 (NASB95) — 1 For the Law, since it has only a shadow of the good things to come and not the very form of things, can never, by the same sacrifices which they offer continually year by year, make perfect those who draw near. 2 Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered, because the worshipers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have had consciousness of sins? 3 But in those sacrifices there is a reminder of sins year by year. 4 For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. 5 Therefore, when He comes into the world, He says, “Sacrifice and offering You have not desired, But a body You have prepared for Me; 6 In whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin You have taken no pleasure. 7 “Then I said, ‘Behold, I have come (In the scroll of the book it is written of Me) To do Your will, O God.’ ”

As far as the Holy Days Paul says

Colossians 2:16–23 (NASB95) — 16 Therefore no one is to act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day— 17 things which are a mere shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ. 18 Let no one keep defrauding you of your prize by delighting in self-abasement and the worship of the angels, taking his stand on visions he has seen, inflated without cause by his fleshly mind, 19 and not holding fast to the head, from whom the entire body, being supplied and held together by the joints and ligaments, grows with a growth which is from God. 20 If you have died with Christ to the elementary principles of the world, why, as if you were living in the world, do you submit yourself to decrees, such as, 21 “Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch!” 22 (which all refer to things destined to perish with use)—in accordance with the commandments and teachings of men? 23 These are matters which have, to be sure, the appearance of wisdom in self-made religion and self-abasement and severe treatment of the body, but are of no value against fleshly indulgence.

Old things have passed away, behold new things have come.

The Entire council of God’s word the Old and the New is the Bible of the Christian. It is edifying to the soul to understand it especially for the matters of Salvation. The Old also gives examples of how we are to live by faith. it also warns us of unfaithfulness.

But we must always be discerning of who Jesus speaking to throughout for not every ordinance applies to all people in all places,

Be of good cheer. Enjoy your bible both old and new and give glory to God for the treasure that he has given to us.

How does this all tie together?

Peace maker

Salt and Light

The fulfillments of the Law

with the fulfillment of a Law a higher standard is established the Spiritual life of the believer in Christ by which it is over the religious systems of man due to all Christ had accomplished to the Glory of God and for our so great salvation.

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