How You Can Tell Which Laws in the Bible to Keep

We have a handout that accompanies this sermon. We're going to be using a technique called Manautics, which has to do with an easy way to memorize the subject that we're going to be covering today. I've done this with several different subjects. This is the first time I'll be doing it with this subject, which is titled, How Can You Tell Which Laws in the Bible to Keep? That is a question that comes up time and time again. When a person starts reading the Bible and starting to follow a certain amount of what it says, you find out there is an Old Testament and a New Testament.

According to the different churches you go to, some basically say they keep only the New Testament. Others, like the Messianic Jews, will actually keep many of the rituals as well. So it's a confusing situation. Needless to say, it's a very important subject because back in 1995, our entire church was challenged. Which laws should we keep? We are here today because we believe that God's laws should be kept throughout the Bible, although there were some that were temporary in nature. So what I want to cover today is a way that if you ever come up with a person that questions this, asks you how you can tell, if you can remember one word and then use it as a key to develop each argument.

So I did this, for instance, this summer. I was asked by Mr. Ed Dowd to teach a class on how to show that evolution is false. And so what I did is I gave a whole lecture with the word false for the youths to be able to remember that because it's called an acronym, which each letter is a memory jog. And to this day, we had a young boy who afterwards went to the youth weekend that we have in Orange County. And this was about a week later, and we have the kids give speeches, kind of a little informal brunch that we get together.

And they have several of the older ones that have gone to ABC. They've given a couple of speeches. And I just said to him, I said, could you go ahead and give what I gave? Just like that. He just finished eating brunch, and he said, sure. Now, he did win an award doing it, but you know that he recited each one of those. You remember the word false? And F is for fossils, that the fossils show that evolution is not true, because you do not have all of these transitional... You should have millions of different gradual changes, and you don't.

You have different species that appear or disappear, but no gradual changes. Then you have the word A, which is assumption. And actually, Charles Darwin, in his book, On the Origin of Species, he had over 800 assumptions where he said, this could be or this may be... He used all of this. He never could say, this is the fact. He said, this possibly could or may or likely. He used that 800 times to show how much in doubt what he was saying. If you have somebody that's giving you it, and he's saying 800 times, well, this could be or this possibly, or we think it's pure speculation.

Then the word L comes from life. And life, the law of biogenesis that is taught in biology, is that only life comes from life. You don't have rocks coming to life. You don't have any type of sand developing the creature. You have organic material, organic beans that produce. And so we don't have things spontaneously arising from inorganic material. Then you have the word S, which is symbiosis, which is a biological explanation of how different creatures depend on others to survive.

For instance, bees need flowers to feed and to receive their nectar, but then flowers need bees to pollinate. And there are certain flowers that without bees, they couldn't survive. So then, how do you have these flowers without the bees having existed at that time, and how could you have bees without the flowers? So you need both. So that's called symbiosis. And then finally, you have the word E, which is for engineering. That everything that is engineered, which means that it's a sophisticated system that has backup systems, like for instance, a space shuttle.

It had five computers that if one failed, they had a backup system. Well, they found that our body has backup systems. That if something fails, something comes up. And how can you have something that was by chance a mutation that has backup systems? This has all had forethought. Organic beings, a creature, we all have backup systems. Even the genetic transmission in the cells, they have editors where they can pick up the errors, and they can eliminate the errors that go through.

To the point where only one in ten billion of these chemical letters are able to pass as a mistake. Ten out of ten billion. That's a pretty good system. Because you see it has a backup to be able to remove any other errors in the system. So anyways, I can give that whole speech again, with the illustration and everything. So this is what I want to do today. Because if somebody comes up to you and says, well, we don't think the Sabbath should be kept. Or maybe the feast days, or the food laws, or tithing, or we're in the new covenant now, we don't have to worry about those things.

This is a way of showing six proofs of which laws we should keep. And the key word, as you have here, is the priest used a scroll to write God's law. And to this day, synagogues need to have one of those scrolls in order to function.

And the key word is scroll. So if you think of God's law, which was written in a scroll, you have this key word. And that is, we're going to use the word as an acronym. Scroll has six letters, and those letters are going to be the key to explain each one. And I'll just go over to them real quickly. The six letters, and then we'll be covering them in the sermon. And first of all, S is for spiritual, because God's law is spiritual.

It's not man-made. They didn't have a committee come up with this. Moses didn't come up with it. God transmitted it. C is for commandments. God's Ten Commandments overarch both of the covenants, and the Old and New Testament. The Ten Commandments are the main law that God gave with his very finger, and then we have all of the rest that hang on those laws.

O is for origin. You have to know the origin of the law. So some of the laws originated before Mount Sinai, and some started in Mount Sinai, and they ended at the time of Christ's sacrifice. There were temporary laws that were there based on rituals and things. Then we have L, which is love, because it says that God's laws are based on love, keeping the commandments. This is to love God and to love man. And then finally, L is for legacy, which is what the Apostolic Church of the first century bequeathed to all of us. The legacy that was given to us to be able to continue, and the word there is decree, because that's dealing with the decree in Jerusalem that was set up in the Jerusalem Conference.

They came out with a decree that is still binding to this day. God's church continues to use that as the basis for what we teach. So that, in a nutshell, are the six points that we want to cover. Let's go to the first one, S, that represents spiritual. And then there's a key scripture. Actually, I was thinking about this. It's like in baseball.

You have four bases, and each one of these bases represents the six points. So if you get to first base, if you remember the word scroll, you get to second base if you remember the scriptures, the six key scriptures. Then you get to third base if you remember the six key illustrations, and then you hit a home run if you remember the six scriptures that back the illustration.

And I'll tell you, this is a pretty shut case as far as it's pretty foolproof and waterproof that basically covers the arguments that people have posed through the years. So the first one, God's law is spiritual, and we need to elevate this to its rightful place. God's law is not man-made. It is God-made. And the real culprit is our human nature, not God's law.

It is God's holy, just, and perfect law, given for our own good. So we only start out explaining, look, we're not dealing here with some thing that Buddha came up with, or the Hindu Vedas, religious books. And we're talking about here what the very God who created us and created the universe gave us this law that proceeds from himself. And the key scripture here is Romans 7. So in a sense, if you were students, I'd give you credit if you can just at least get Romans 7.

Now, it's 12 through 14, because there are three verses here, but if you can just remember to accompany spiritual with Romans 7, 12 through 14, it says, "'Heather has then what is good,' I'm sorry, and let's start verse 12, it says, "'Therefore,' Paul is saying, "'the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just and good.'" So this completely destroys the argument that the law is evil or bad, or that Paul was trying to overthrow the law.

There was only one part which Paul focused on, which was the temporary law, and that is the truth. That's where people conflate one thing with the other. See, they mix the spiritual law with the temporary ritual law, and then they all lump it together so they can throw it out the window. You don't do that.

You separate the two. Because here, he himself is saying, the law is holy, and the only thing that can be holy is something that proceeds from God. He's the only one that can make it separate that way, and it is just. That means it is fair. It is something that applies to everyone, and good. Not bad. It's for our own good. Verse 13 says, "'Has then what is good become death to me?' Was it designed then to slay me? He says, certainly not. But sin, that it might appear sin, was producing death in me through what is good." So that sin, see that human nature through the commandment might become exceedingly sinful.

Knowing God's law, then we recognize what sin is and what our human nature causes us to go against God's holy, just, and good law. Verse 14 is the key verse. It says, "'For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin.'" So, let's not blame God's law. If I had to be in an interview with some evangelical guy, or whatever, and he's asking, well, why do you keep this? Are you a legalist or something?

Oh, wait a minute now. God's law is spiritual. Can we agree with that? He would have to, because if he believes the Bible, he knows God was the one that gave it. And he says, and you know, we both sin, and it's not because the law is causing that, it's because we're breaking it with our following, our carnal human nature.

That's what the culprit is. And so, the key illustration for this, the word is mirror. A man don't like to use mirrors very much. Women do. We get into trouble, because we don't use mirrors enough. Sometimes we can look pretty disheveled and everything. We don't have any idea about things. Sometimes we can come, and your wife says, you know, you're your tie is crooked.

You've got, you know, toothpaste in your mouth. You forgot to shave on this side. You got hairs coming out, whatever. That's one of the things God provided us to domesticate us a bit, because we would still be swinging from trees, kicking coconuts, and having a good old time, if it wasn't that women civilized us, they're able to become something more than just guys swinging on vines in a jungle someplace. So, the key word is mirror, because God's word compares God's law to a spiritual mirror.

And we are to look at. Notice the key scripture here is James 1. So we've got two scriptures that are key. Anybody know the first scripture? The key scripture? What is it? Romans 7, 12-14. This is the second one, which is James 1, verse 22. Sometimes these things can help out, because we don't know what is in store for us in the future. We might not even have Bibles anymore.

But if we could jog our minds and say, you remember that? And I remember these key scriptures. They can really keep us anchored and grounded in the truth. In James 1, verse 22, it says, He who looks into the perfect law of liberty, that's the mirror of God, and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does. So we're to use that spiritual mirror, and we're to be consistent and perseverant at it.

Because a person sometimes doesn't like what he sees. And he can look at God's law and what happens. This has happened even back in 1995. Some people were not happy with what they saw of that spiritual mirror. And so, somebody said, well, guess what? You don't have to use that mirror anymore. People took it and they threw it away. Oh, we're free. We're free. You're not free from sin.

You just gave yourself license to sin now. And so, God says we are to persevere in looking at this perfect law of liberty. See, the mirror doesn't have any distortions. It's perfect in the way it looks at us. And, of course, it doesn't make us feel very good many times. And so, the idea is, you know, when I have something smudges or something, I say, well, you know what? I'm going to throw the mirror away. That way, I'll be free. I'm going to look pretty stupid coming out.

The mirror is a help. But, and this is true, the mirror cannot remove the smudge. So, it's limited. It tells us what sin is. It can show us what righteousness is, but it can't fulfill it. That's where God's mercy, Christ's sacrifice, forgiveness.

See, that's a whole set of other parts that God's law by itself cannot do. And so, we have the spiritual mirror to help us understand that we should never touch God's law in an improper way. I still remember back in 1995, I'll just tell you just a little anecdote. I was pastoring the churches in Chile at that time, and I received a letter that said, well, you know, now you don't have to keep up. You can keep some of these laws, and even the fourth commandment is not binding. It doesn't matter now. And I remember having a dream, which really filled me with fear, which was that here I was feeding some sheep, and there were bales of hay, and there were some poison plants inside it.

And they were telling me to go and to feed this to the sheep. And I said, you know, if I ever feed them with that type of hay, I do not deserve to have their trust again. I said, I will not feed them any of that poisonous plants. And I remember I woke up that morning, and I said, no way. And there was a movie coming out that was called Jurassic Park.

Remember the one with the dinosaur? Remember that fence that was like 10,000 volts? And that little kid grabbed it with electricity, and he just got shot out because of the charge, the jolt that he got? Well, I'm thinking, these guys want me to touch that 10,000-volt spiritual fence, and he says, oh, you're going to be fine. I'm not going to get electrocuted. I've got to respect this law. It is holy. It is just. I know what the problem is. It's me.

It's not God's law. If I make it out of here into God's kingdom, it's going to be because I was able to follow, and I was able to subject that human nature, and to keep it under wraps from wanting to do other things that were against God's law. So that is the first point. The second one, the word see, is for commandments. And so, it's important to start with the Ten Commandments.

God's Ten Commandments are at the highest level of God's law. They're the divine backbone for the rest of the laws. They were given by God and written with his finger on two stone tablets. And so, God's Commandments are part of the New Covenant as well. They actually transcend. They go in the entire Bible, and we're going to see how that is the fact. The key scripture is 1 Corinthians 7, 19. So we got one scripture in Romans, got one that is in James. Now we have this third one, 1 Corinthians 7, 19. When the word commandment comes up, this is the key scripture to remember. 1 Corinthians 7, 19. The apostle Paul made a separation between the permanent law of God and the temporary part of the law. This is what he said in verse 19. Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing, but keeping the commandments of God is what matters. So here he separated the two major parts of God's law, one based on the Ten Commandments, and the other one, circumcision, the rituals, the ceremonies, the civil laws given to Israel as a nation. He said, look, there is one part that was temporary. So circumcision is no longer required for salvation. The Pharisees actually overemphasized circumcision. And Christ criticized them. He said, you know, even the Sabbath day, which is the fourth commandment that you're supposed to rest, you authorize people to have a surgery on that day and become circumcised because you consider the eighth day to have the child circumcised more important than the Sabbath day. And of course, then in the New Testament church and the Council of Jerusalem, you saw a group who said, they must be gentiles, must be circumcised, and be part of this and keep all of the ritual law. And they were requiring that for salvation. And Paul is saying, no, that part is not essential. It's not necessary. And so here we have the Apostle Paul separating God's law, the permanent from the temporary. The key illustration, the word is heart, because these commandments are being written in our hearts. So it's not something temporary. God is internalizing in us. And when the kingdom comes, we'll have it completely internalized, etched in our hearts. It's God's commandments of God and all that derive from it. And the scripture is Hebrews chapter 10, verse 14 through 18, Hebrews chapter 10.

Verse 14 through 18. It says here, For by one offering he has perfected forever those who are being sanctified. Talking about God here, that he is sanctifying by one sacrifice, which is Jesus Christ. But the Holy Spirit also witnesses to us. For after he had said before, This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, says the Lord. This is the new covenant. I will put my laws into their hearts and in their minds I will write them. Then he adds, their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more. Now, where there is remission of these, there is no longer an offering for sin. So we don't have to go through rituals. But God's laws are being written in our hearts. They are part, they are central to the new covenant. So that was the greatest error and heresy that happened back in 1995. When they declared that those laws that were supposed to be written in our hearts were no longer binding. The Sabbath is the fourth commandment. It is one of those that is being written in our hearts. We're going to continue through the millennium, keeping the Sabbath day, the feast days by extension, which are Sabbath days as well. So this is part of the permanent aspects of the law. They're not temporary. So let's go to the third, which is the R of the word scroll, which signifies rituals.

This has to do with the ritual law. These were temporary laws imposed until the coming of Christ and his sacrifice superseded them, replaced them with something better. So this is important to understand. And the key scripture is in Hebrews 9. Remember, we have one in Hebrews 10. Now we have Hebrews 9, which explains this. Let's go to verse 6 of Hebrews 9.

It says, Now when these things had been thus prepared, the priests always went into the first part of the tabernacle, performing the services. But into the second part, the high priest went alone once a year, not without blood, which he offered for himself and for the people's sins, committed in ignorance. The Holy Spirit indicating this, that the way into the holiest of all was not yet made manifest while the first tabernacle was still standing. Something better was going to replace it. And so it says, It was symbolic for the present time in which both gifts and sacrifices are offered, which cannot make him who performed the service perfect in regard to the conscience. Only Christ's sacrifice can do that. And these ritual laws, as it says in verse 10, concerning only with foods and drinks, various washings and fleshly ordinances, which means all the flesh offered in sacrifice, imposed until the time of Reformation. So this was something imposed, it was something to be kept until the time to reform that. With Christ's sacrifice, the Levitical priesthood being replaced by the priesthood of Melchizedek, you don't have to be of a certain lineage anymore to be a minister of God. I couldn't be standing here if I was still part of the Levitical system. So all of this had to be reformed. It had to be replaced by something better.

So this was part of the Old Testament law that was temporary. But not all Old Testament law was temporary. The New Covenant includes the rest of the laws that should be kept now in the letter and the Spirit.

That's what the Sermon on the Mount is about. He's basing it on the commandments of God, but now he's amplifying it, magnifying them. Now it's not just, don't commit adultery, but you shouldn't commit adultery in your mind. See, in the Spirit, that's not abolishing, that's magnifying the Ten Commandments of God.

So the key illustration is the word tutor, the word tutor, which is a private teacher, contracted usually for a temporary time. I know some of my daughters were tutors after they graduated from college. Some of them had jobs as tutors with this no child left behind and they'd go to a certain... Even my wife was a Spanish tutor for a while there in Anaheim and drive at night. She'd teach classes to help students that were falling behind in Spanish. So here the Bible uses this to represent the temporary law of God, which the Apostle Paul was chosen by God to explain this, which is part of the Bible. And so let's look at Galatians chapter 3, verse 24.

This is the key scripture that accompanies it.

Galatians 3, verse 24.

It says, Therefore the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor. And so he is explaining here that, yes, there was a temporary law enacted to bring us to the sacrifice of Christ, to bring us to the teachings of Christ, to bring us to what Christ represented. But once you start with the faith, being justified by faith, I don't have to go every time I sin and go and offer in my backyard some type of a lamb, or I have to go through offerings and purifications over that.

So you see, one thing replaced it with something better. That's why it was such a burden for the Jews in Christ's day. You had to go to the feast, and guess what? Everybody brought sacrifices with them. And that's what the priest did. Thousands of animals. Blood running all over because everybody sinned. And so you had to be caring. And of course, you never were able to do fully. Can you imagine every time we sinned, we had to sacrifice? We'd all be broke, wouldn't we? So we're thankful that we have something much superior. Christ sacrificed once for all, and we can go to Him.

And so notice here what Robertson's word pictures. He was a Greek scholar. In his commentary, he says, our tutor, piedagogos, that's where we get our Spanish, pedagogo, which is our teacher. I think we use it in Spanish, I mean in English, pedagogue, too. The word just means a tutor. He says, it's a common word for the slave employed in Greek and Roman families of the better class in charge of the boy from about 6 to 16. The pedagogue watched his behavior at home and attended him when he went away from home to school.

So he was in charge, keep the kid in the straight and narrow. Well, we could have used one of those, couldn't we? Have somebody in the home from 6 when they start getting ornery to 16 in teenage years, and to have somebody accompany, we wouldn't have so many juvenile delinquents. I wouldn't have got myself into so many stuff when I was running around, too. So we all had teens, a little bit of that time, boyish things that you do.

But here, this was for upper families, they wanted this kid to turn out right. So they had an actual slave who also was educated, and he would actually teach the kid and keep him on the straight and narrow.

And in a way, the rituals were designed to do that, to keep us in the straight and narrow. Because you lived in an Israeli community, Israelite community, and people would watch. Oh, yeah, look what happened to Charlie. He's going to have to go up to the feast, and he's going to have to sacrifice. Now, Charlie, remember your sacrifice now? And so there was this whole thing about sin having a cost. It was expensive. It was something costly.

And so it helped us to realize the seriousness of sin. Yet, as it says here, going on in chapter 4, verse 1, But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, which means that Christ was subject to God's law, just as we are. He could have sinned, but he never did. So he never was under the penalty of the sin as we are.

It says, And so he mentions here how there is a redeeming value to the ritual law. It was good for us. But there was something better ahead. So we need to understand the difference here with the rituals, that they were replaced by a more advanced and spiritual aspect, which is through faith in Christ and his sacrifice. So that takes us to the fourth point, which is O. We have to look at the origin of the law to help us understand. Was it temporary or is it permanent? We have to look at when the certain law was given and for what purpose?

This key scripture here is Jeremiah 7 verse 22, because God did not give the rituals at first. Notice Jeremiah 7 verse 22. I will reiterate how important this is because even some ministers that I went to school with were bamboozled. They had not prepared. When the law came, and they were challenged in this, many of them just weren't prepared.

They just said, I guess the law has been done away. Now we're just abolishing the Sabbath and others. Within a week, they had flip-flopped on things that we never imagined could happen. We should never underestimate Satan's subtle attacks on God's law. Jeremiah 7 verse 22. In verse 21, it says, Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, Add your burnt offerings to your sacrifice and eat meat. He says, in a way, just saying, okay, well, you think you're so wonderful because you're doing all these sacrifices. He says, here, add to your burnt offerings more sacrifice.

And then he says, wait a minute. Realize this isn't what it's all about. He says, For I did not speak to your fathers or command them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt concerning burnt offerings or sacrifice. But this is what I commanded them, saying, Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people, and walk in all the ways that I have commanded you, that it may be well with you. There are commandments that you were to walk.

But you see the sacrifices and all of that, I gave that to you later on, especially after seeing the rebellious streak they had and all the disobedience. They needed a tutor. And God gave them a tutor, which was about a year later at Mount Sinai, where he started giving them all the laws that had to do with sacrifices and things. They needed sacrifices and priests to intercede for the sinful people. So this is an important aspect of it. The key illustration is Mount Sinai.

Think of Mount Sinai, because that has to do a lot with the origin of the temporary laws. That's when God established and officially codified them. There were many temporary laws given there about the tabernacle, Levites, the rituals, civil laws, which had to do with what they wore, things that had to do with their dwellings, and civil life as such. They were a mixed people. They were carnal. So they needed these rituals afterwards. The key scripture here is Galatians 3, verse 19.

So we have actually two key scriptures in Galatians 3. The previous ones, Galatians 3.24, about the Tudor, and now Galatians 3.19, which was the law added at Mount Sinai. Galatians 3, verse 19. Paul here is talking basically about circumcision and the ritual law that was no longer a requirement. The Galatians had some Judaizers come from Jerusalem and other parts that had not been authorized. They were trying to impose that on the Galatian brethren.

So he's explaining here the purpose for this ritual law. Let's start in verse 37 with the context of it. It says, God of the law in Mount Sinai had to do with a national charter. It had to do with the Israelites having a Levitical system, rituals, and many things. But to Abraham, that was for the whole world, the promise of being an inheritor of the coming world tomorrow.

It says here, for if the inheritance is of the law, it depends on the genealogy of the person. Now when you get an inheritance, it's because you're a descendant of someone. So he says, well, if this inheritance is just based on that you have to physically be part of Abraham's law, I mean Abraham's descendants, then everybody else would be excluded. But he is saying here, it is no longer a promise, but God gave it to Abraham by promise. And then he says, well, then what purpose, then, does the law serve? These laws that were added at that time. He says, it was added because of transgressions, because of the way the Israelites were. They needed a tutor.

Till the seed should come, to whom the promise was made. And it was appointed through angels by the hand of a mediator. Talking about Moses. Now a mediator does not mediate for one only, but God is one. There's a greater mediator, Jesus Christ, that came with a better system. He says, is the law, then, against the promises of God? Are these rituals and everything against the promises? Certainly not. For if there had been a law given, which could have given life, truly, righteousness would have been by the law.

So if the ritual law would have actually forgiven sins, then what do you need Christ's sacrifice for? He said, but the Scriptures has confined all under sin, that the promise by faith in Christ Jesus might be given to those who believe. But before faith came, we were kept under guard by the law, kept for the faith, which would afterward be revealed. Therefore, the law was our tutor. So we go, see, we join the two parts together, talking about the ritual law. And of course, circumcision is, circumcision, the ritual law, is what Paul is explaining in Galatians, was of temper. And that's what Satan was able to use this Scripture to then add it to the rest of the law to throw it out, as that's happened.

And of course, that's part of the evangelical movement and basis on it. So let's go now to the fifth point, which is L, which the word is love. Because God is love, God's law expresses His love toward us. The key Scripture is 1 John 5.3.

We all have read this many times. It says, for this is the love of God. This is how it's expressed. This is how He projects it. It says that we keep His commandments.

That's what God wants us to do. If we show love toward Him, and His commandments are not burdensome. So you see, the permanent law is not burdensome. Ten commandments are not burdensome. Is it burdensome to honor your father or mother, or not to steal, or not to lie, or not to lust? Nobody says that's burdensome. That's liberating for us to be able to keep His law, to keep us out of jail, out of divorces, out of being crooks, out of all kinds of things that society is constantly falling into because they keep breaking these commandments.

So here we have the expression of love. It is a law of love that God has given us. The first four commandments are upward. It's the way we love God. We honor Him, not having any other gods but Him. We don't have any physical objects because we honor Him in spirit and in truth. We don't have to have any type of idols or any type of human-made representations of God or anything that surrounds Him. As well, we're to keep God's name honorable. We shall not take His name in vain. That's why we don't use curse words. We don't use God's name in vain.

And the fourth, we are to keep God's day holy. That's a way to honor Him. You are honoring God by keeping this day. You will be blessed by God by keeping this day because it is part of His law of love toward us. And then the six other commandments are not so much upward. They are what I have written out here, which is outward.

It is outward. It's out to our brethren. You honor your father and your mother. You don't murder. You don't kill another human being. You don't commit adultery. You don't steal. You don't lie. And you don't lust after other things and other objects. We don't go after strange flesh, as it says. When God gives us a wife, that is our flesh and blood. That's what we should keep holy and wonderful. You shouldn't go after strange flesh. That's how the Bible calls it.

It's something that's not for you. That's a stranger. That's flesh that just don't fool around with. That's the way God has taught us. And so the key illustration is fruit. The fruit of God's Spirit. When you think of love, it is the first fruit of God's Spirit. And so, again, God's laws of love produce this type of fruit. They were made for this purpose. And the key scripture is in Galatians 5, verse 22. Galatians 5, verse 22. It says, but the fruit of the Spirit, in other words, it's like a cluster of grapes. In this case, we have nine grapes.

It's not separate fruit. The fruit, the cluster of God's Spirit produces these fruits, just like different grapes. It says, is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such, there is no law. There's no law in the Bible that goes against these qualities. Because this is the intended purpose of these laws to produce this. Certainly, if you're keeping God's Ten Commandments in the letter and the Spirit, you are going to be producing this. You're going to love your neighbor as yourself. You're going to love God above all things. You're going to have that love of God in you.

You're going to express joy. Not a negative spirit, not some things. Osteer and negative. Joy is one of God's great fruits, which fills you with positive thoughts. Even when you get down, you're able to bounce back up, just like the proverbial cork. You can push it down, but you know what?

Once you let it go, it's going to pop right up to the surface again. It's the way God's Spirit keeps us going. It's the inner joy of knowing God loves us. He's going to take us to His Kingdom. No matter what happens, we've got a wonderful future ahead if we just are faithful to the end.

That produces peace in our hearts, patience toward others, in ourselves, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. That comes from the word love, God's law. I never had a problem with God's law because I thought once I was converted, and that was a very early stage in my life.

I was only 17 when I came into the faith, and God opened my mind. It didn't have anything to do with me, but it had to do with His calling. But you know what? At 17, I had broken God's Ten Commandments. If I hadn't gotten to do them physically because I was too young, I had done it spiritually.

But you know, I was toast! When I repented, I felt I was toast. I had broken every one of them, either spiritually or physically. So I just realized I was lost, I was defeated, and I needed to be picked up and cleaned up and used in a proper way. So this is the same way it says here that God's law produces the good fruit. That takes us to the last scripture, El, for the word legacy, which means something that is inherited from a previous generation.

The legacy that is left behind. And that is what the Jerusalem Church left for us to follow. Now, this isn't rocket science. It doesn't take a genius. If you look at the decree in Jerusalem, this is what they said the church should do. And basically, that is the key to knowing what kind of church you should be in. Now, let's look at that decree.

And there is a key scripture. You know what? Let's use Acts 15 and verse 23, the key scripture. Acts 15 and verse 23, because here is the Jerusalem decree. You know, after this, we really don't have any real changes in what was applied. That's why it is so important. Verse 23 says, they wrote this letter by them. It says, the apostles, the elders, and the brethren. Very interesting here. They have this service-like or Christ-like service that they were involved.

The apostles, learning Christ's selflessness for three and a half years, they didn't want to do everything like the humans by a dictatorship or tyranny or something. Sure, the apostles were there, but they got the elders involved. They even got the congregation. They said, well, what do you think, brethren?

And they came together. They had a consensus. They worked things out. Every time we've had problems, it's because we haven't had a consensus and worked things out. And breaking apart when people are not willing to work together, work through things. Just like in a good marriage. You're not always going to agree. You're not always going to win. As they say, I make all the big decisions in my family.

My wife makes all the smaller ones. But you know what? 30 odd years later, I still don't have a big decision that I've made. My wife keeps saying, that's a small decision. No, I'm just kidding. We get along and basically she takes care of all the domestic stuff, and I take care of all the other financials and everything else that has to do with it. It works out just fine. But here, it shows. It says, the apostles. It didn't say Peter. The apostles, they were 12. They worked as a team. You're in God's kingdom. We're going to work as teams. Christ is not going to be there just lording over everybody.

That's why he says, I appoint you a kingdom. He's going to be there to back, to support, but he's there to develop us. He washed the feet of the brethren. He had that loving spirit. He says, to the brethren who are of the Gentiles in Antioch, Syria, and Cilicia.

This was all the areas that Paul and others had developed. They had Gentile brethren. He says, greetings. Since we have heard that some who went out from us have troubled you with words, unsettling your soul, saying, you must be circumcised and keep the law.

Now, of course, we're not talking about Ten Commandments. You look at the context of the whole... it's talking about circumcision and being under all of that ceremonial law, what the Pharisees had taught, all of that. This is what it's all about. He says, to whom we gave no such commandments. So those that were harassing Paul and others, following him, like in Galatians, where he had to face them, because they were trying to impose circumcision and the ritual law upon the Gentiles, he says, we didn't give them such commandments.

It seemed good to us being assembled with one accord. So this is what they came to. They didn't come immediately, but they finally did. They came to one accord to send chosen men to you with our beloved Barnabas and Paul. You see here, respect.

Paul was quite innovative and quite a large-minded person. Paul was a real thinker and he was a doer. And yet, these apostles, who were basically fishermen, had been with Christ three and a half years. Paul was at the feet of Gamaliel. He knew Jewish law backwards and forwards. He could speak Greek. He could speak Hebrew. He knew everything backwards and forwards. But you know what? They all worked together. They let Paul do what he could do best. Paul let these do what they could do best. You separate according to the gifts and the abilities of each one.

So he says, our beloved Paul, we're sending him. He's the best one. And Barnabas as well. Men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. We have, therefore, sent Judas and Silas, who will also report the same things by word of mouth. For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit, which is what was guiding them and to us, to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things.

So here they're separating the permanent law from the temporary. And what they're doing, as good legislation, it doesn't categorize everything you can do. It tells you what you are not to do. You're to do everything up to this point. And so what they did is they enumerated the smallest laws that were still permanent and everything else, the ritual law was not applicable. They didn't have to say, well, you have to honor your parents and your mother. And please don't murder as Gentile Christians and don't steal. No, that is a given. What they were concerned about is, what about the gray areas?

Where will you get into the borderline of the permanent and the temporary? And so they said, this is still permanent here. And this is what he said. So this is important to, he says, that you abstain from things offered to idols. So things, food offered to idols, see, it didn't have to do with having idols. They already knew they couldn't have that.

But you were not to eat food that had been offered to an idol. So that still had that taint to it. He said, from blood, so this is a food law. So the food laws are still binding up to the point where an animal had to be properly drained. You had to not eat blood because the Gentiles were used to that. They said, well, what if I had cow blood?

Cows are clean. Can I have cow blood? They said, no. See, that's part of the permanent law. That's not part of ritual law. And he said, from things strangled, so you had to properly drain the animal. So again, talking about food laws and from sexual immorality. That included marrying your sister and other clothes of kin that many times Gentiles would do.

They didn't have these laws which cause hemophilia and other things. God said, no, you're not supposed to have anything to do with sexual immorality and not marry within close family ties. He said, if you keep yourself from these, you will do well. And of course, he said here, verse 21, he says, for Moses has had throughout many generations those who preach him in every city being read in the synagogues.

And at that time, the word synagogue was the same as church. It was gatherings, every Sabbath. So he said, look, everything else will be explained in the Sabbath services, every Sabbath you have. But this is the decree. So what do we do? This is exactly what we do. We keep the Ten Commandments, we keep the feast days, which are not part of the ritual law. They're part of the Fourth Commandment, the Sabbath rest. We keep the food laws. We don't eat pork. We don't drink blood. We don't have strangled animals that we have blood in the systems. And we avoid things like close marriages. We don't marry sisters. We don't get very close because it causes all kinds of genetic problems.

We have tithing, which is not part of the ritual law. So that helps illustrate it. So just like Robertson mentions as well in word pictures, he says this is a flat disclaimer of the whole conduct of the Judaizers in Antioch and Jerusalem. What this decree did was a flat disclaimer of the whole conduct of the Judaizers in Antioch and in Jerusalem. A complete repudiation of their efforts to impose the Mosaic ceremonial law upon the Gentile Christians. Now, even a man who's not converted comes to this conclusion after studying in the Greek.

He's an expert and comes through exactly the same thing that we do here. This is talking about the Mosaic ceremonial law. So these are the six points. These are the six key scriptures. We have six key illustrations and scriptures to back them up to just realize that God's law is not the problem. It's us, and we can be rest assured. We have this decree. We are keeping the same thing that Jesus Christ established that the apostles did in the first century, and we're keeping the same things in the 21st century.

So, brethren, it's been a pleasure to be with all of you. We're going to be going to Oklahoma City and getting to know the brethren there as well. It's been a pleasure being with all of you.