What Laws Should We Keep?

Good afternoon to everyone. Nice to see everyone again. Beautiful decoration here. Thank you for the flowers and everything. Looks very nice, the decoration on stage. We can start handing out some labels so the ushers can do so. It's actually a summary of what I'm going to be going over because, in a sense, you can reduce the whole sermon into just this label that you can have.

You might be able to put it... it has a sticky backing so you can put it in your Bible or somewhere else afterwards. And while you are receiving that, I send you greetings from the brethren in Latin America, 500 brethren, approximately, that we have in nine churches and eight outlying church areas as well. And they're very enthusiastic. We see peace. We see a very positive attitude. And as you know, that's the cultivating ground for God to give growth, spiritual growth. And we're very thankful to have those brethren there.

We have 2,000 good news subscribers in Latin America. We also have the Beyond Today program being translated, and it's in YouTube, so people can go right in and listen to the Beyond Today program in Spanish. We also have an ABC graduate, Jaime Selec, who is now serving in Bogota, Colombia, and that is helping stabilize the area. So a lot of youth is coming along, and we do have more trainees, and God offers opportunities to serve Him in different areas of the world. So I'd like to begin the sermon now, and it has to do with a question that specially came up in 1995.

It confused a lot of people. And we should always know that Satan has his way of tricking people with such a question, which is, how can you tell which laws in the Bible to keep? Sooner or later in your life, if you are following the Bible, people are going to ask you about that. You're going to be challenged by that. It's one of the oldest tricks that Satan has to confuse people. And some people say, well, you don't have to keep any of the laws anymore. Some say you have to keep every single law, including the ceremonies.

Some say the Old Testament is no longer in effect, and so now you just have a New Testament to follow. But how can we be sure? How can we have a very simple and accurate way to be able to explain this question, to be able to give it a proper answer? And it is something that if we don't learn to do it well, sooner or later, Satan is going to try to trip you up.

Because this world, as it was mentioned in the sermon, has religious confusion. You look in areas like in England, where the King James Bible came from. And yet today, people just say, well, we don't care about keeping God's laws anymore. They told us now we're living under grace. So all of these things always come up. And so I've tried to reduce this in such a way, just like we did for the youth at camp, when a question came up.

How can you refute evolution in a simple way? It came up with just a word acronym, which is a way to jog your memory. They're called memory hooks. And I never forget it, because we had a youth that learned that lesson. He just listened to it once. And then he gave it to another in a youth weekend, and he went point by point. He didn't miss one point.

He didn't miss one illustration. The word at that time was false. And to this day, I can give you that lecture because of these memory jogs. False means, first of all, the fossil record does not show that creatures are evolving over time. You have new creatures appearing. You have old creatures disappearing. But you do not have them merging into other types of creatures.

You don't have them transforming that way. Then A is for the assumptions that they assume many things that they do not happen. Things are not evolving into one million species that we have approximately on Earth. We don't have any of those creatures evolving into other creatures. And those are the ones that are alive today.

But they assume, well, given enough time, that will happen. Well, if it's that way, why is it not happening with all of the laboratories of the world? They have still not come up with some chameleon slowly turning into a snake or a lion even turning into a tiger.

You do not see that type of change. And then you have L, which has to do with the principle of biogenesis. Life begets life. Non-life cannot beget life. So where do you start? How do you have the chicken without the egg or the egg without the chicken? And then you have S, which has to do with symbiosis, which is many creatures depend on others, just like the flowers need bees to pollinate and bees need the flowers to feed on and to survive.

So how could one appear without the other? And then finally you have the E for engineering, which is that the engineering involved in something like a tree, all of these elaborate systems all working together, the water coming up all the way to the top of the trees, photosynthesis through the leaves, the fruits that fall on the ground. They know exactly how to have the roots come out, and then it becomes another tree. Elaborate engineering. How could that happen by chance and just some type of natural selection?

So anyways, those are the type of things that you can also do today with this about which laws to keep. And the word that we want to keep, as you know, that the Bible was originally written in scrolls, and the key word is scroll. If you remember those six letters, you're going to be able to also remember how to refute people that try to confuse you about what kind of laws to keep.

So if you keep that in mind, as you have here in the labels, you'll see that word is a mental jog to come up with the first letter, which is the S in scroll, and it represents spiritual, the word spiritual. God's law has a spiritual origin. It does not have a human origin. So the first thing, when people try to attack God's law, first of all, sir, this comes from God. It does not come from man. So if you're going to start refuting and attacking, remember, you are human. God is divine, and the law comes from God. And there's a key scripture that shows that in the Bible.

Let's go to Romans 7. Romans 7, verse 12. Romans 7, verses 12-14. And we see here the origin of God's law, where it proceeds. It says here in verse 12, Therefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, just, and good. So here the Apostle Paul, supposedly the one that was going to change the laws, is saying that the law is holy.

Only God can create holy things. When Abraham was given the commandments to keep, and he was able to, as Genesis 26.5 says, that he kept all the commandments of God even before Mount Sinai. Also, when Moses came up to the mount where he was tending his sheep, and when he came before that burning bush, God said, take your shoes or your sandals off, because the place where you are is holy. What made it holy? God's presence makes it holy. So God's law has a holy origin. So we should tread very carefully. So somebody that comes in and just is attacking God's law, he is not respecting it.

So let's treat it, first of all, with great respect, because of where it came from. It is, as it says here, the commandment is holy and just. So it is something equitable. It is something that is proper and good. Not bad, not evil. Then he goes on to say, verse 13, Has then what is good become death to me? Is that where to put the blame? He says, certainly not. But sin, that it might appear sin, was producing death in me through what is good. So that sin, through the commandment, might become exceedingly sinful. For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin.

So you see, the real culprit is not God's law. It is our human nature. That is part of the conversion process when you realize the problem is not with God's laws. The problem is with us, our carnal, selfish nature. Paul admitted that his human nature had to fight, struggle, overcome, and he did not blame God's law for it. So when somebody comes up and says that the problem we have is with God's law, you say, no.

The Bible shows it is our human nature, the real culprit. Let's put the blame where it belongs. So any discussion, and if we could have done this back then in 1994 and 95, when they started attacking, this law is holy, it is just, it is good, and those that attack it, it's their human nature that is being exposed. They are the ones that have that carnality.

And so this is where the discussion has to begin. Now, it's not just this point that we're going to cover, but this is where we should begin. Exacting and demanding respect. If you call yourself a Christian, if you want to follow the Bible, then you should accept the origin of God's law as it being spiritual and that it is holy, just, and good. Now we can discuss the rest of the details, but I refuse to deal with somebody that trashes God's law and calls himself a Christian because it's incompatible. It is not proceeding from a converted mind, but a carnal mind who's looking for excuses and ways to attack God's way of life.

So what is the illustration that we have for this first point, just as we have a key scripture? Romans 7, 12-14. That's where we start the discussion about what laws we should keep. But what is the illustration that we can use?

Well, there is a wonderful illustration in the Bible, and it is the spiritual mirror. And that is used by James in chapter 1, starting in verse 22. So let's go there. James chapter 1 and verse 22. He says, But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. So if you're just listening to the word of God and not applying it, you're deceiving yourself.

For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he's like a man observing his natural face in a mirror. For he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the word of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does. So James is putting his stamp of approval, and God's law can be described as a spiritual mirror, and he calls it the perfect law of liberty.

In other words, there's nothing wrong with a mirror. There's a problem with the person looking into the mirror and not liking what he sees. So some people want to throw the spiritual mirror away. That's not going to solve the problem. You're going to have the same blotches whether you have the mirror or not. And so God's law is a spiritual mirror that we should always respect. Anybody who wants to throw that spiritual mirror out throws God's standard of what is sin and what is righteousness away as well. Now, this spiritual mirror is limited because it can show us what is sin and what is righteousness in God's eyes, but it cannot erase sin and it cannot fulfill righteousness.

It can show you the way, but it will not do it for you. And so this is the problem that the spiritual mirror, just like if you have a blotch, you can't take the mirror and try to remove it. That's not the function. That's not the purpose of it. It shows you, but then you have to do your part and you have to go before God to have that blotch or that mark or whatever it is, that smudge removed by God through the forgiveness of sin and the sacrifice of His Son. So God's spiritual mirror is something that should be respected.

And when you have that in mind, when somebody attacks it, throwing that spiritual mirror is going to complicate and compound the problem. It's not going to solve it. So please leave the spiritual mirror alone. It does its work. And you know what? It liberates us from all that is evil, that is error-filled. The more we look intently, as James says, and use it properly, then it's going to please God.

We're going to be able to walk closer to God. We're going to become more what God wants us to be. So that is the first letter, S, that we have to focus on. The second one has to do with the letter C for commandment, talking about the Ten Commandments of God. So when you see C has to do with the commandments of God, and basically the ten principle ones, which are the divine backbone of God's law.

It's used as the backbone to be able to put all the rest of the bones in place. And so they are at a different level. They were put on the tablets of stone with the very finger of God. And those Ten Commandments express God's love toward us and our love toward God.

It's the basis for that relationship. And of course, it's not only the letter, but the spirit that is involved. But as we have this spiritual mirror, the central part of that mirror has to do with those Ten Commandments, which are permanent. They have not changed, and they will not change. They are the basis for God's kingdom in the future, as well as the basis for our spiritual conversion. And so we also have a key scripture, which has to do with Hebrews 10, verse 14. Hebrews 10, verse 14. Notice what it says here. It says, Talking about Christ's sacrifice.

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.

I will put my laws into their hearts and in their minds I will write them. And then He adds, Their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more. So here we have the focus on the Ten Commandments and God's law being inscribed in our hearts. So that's the ultimate purpose of having us internalize the Ten Commandments and the extensions of them. So if that is the purpose that God is going to inscribe in our hearts, how can we remove those laws from being active today?

If that is the goal in God's kingdom and the resurrection is to have these internalized, permanently, God's way of life in us, how can you then question its application for today? He goes on to say, Now, where there is remission of these, talking about sins, there is no longer an offering for sin. Therefore, brethren, having boldness to enter the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He consecrated for us through the veil that is His flesh, and having a high priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart and full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water.

So He says here that Christ's sacrifice is the way to solve the problem of erasing our sins. But at the same time, God is going to add His laws in our hearts. He's going to inscribe them. So the second point is, not only is it a holy origin, not only is the law spiritual, but the purpose for our lives is eventually to have God's law living in us.

We're not going to have this carnal human nature forever. When we are transformed, and when God's kingdom comes, that is going to be removed. And what is going to replace it is God's very nature, based on this divine backbone.

It's the way God expresses His love toward us, and how we can express our love to Him. So how can they be abolished? How can anybody think that we are not to keep the Sabbath, which is one of the Ten Commandments? And by extension, the Holy Days, which are God's annual Sabbaths. That is part of God's permanent laws that are going to be inscribed in our hearts. And Jesus Christ in the kingdom is going to continue with the Sabbath day, and we all know eventually there's going to be even a greater plan and greater things that God is going to do.

But right for now, we have God's laws, which have to be slowly internalized through the Holy Spirit in us, because that is the ultimate goal. Now, I don't want to be fighting my carnal nature for the next thousand years. That's not part of the deal. I want that removed. And I don't want to struggle against God's laws or having a problem not internalizing them completely. I want that to be solved. I want God to know, you know what? This is the way that I want for the rest of eternity, and I want that internalized.

I have freely chosen it. Now you do the rest, because I want that to just be a way of life. We don't want sin in God's kingdom and in God's future plan. He doesn't have that in mind. So that takes us to number three, a third letter. R is for rituals, and it has to do with the law of rituals that are in the Bible. Because now that we have, we're going from greater to smaller. Greater, the spiritual law, the Ten Commandments. But what do we do with this ceremonial law?

What do we do with the rituals and the sacrifices? They are part of God's laws as well that are in the Bible. So what purpose did they serve? That's what we're going to answer here. And this was laws that were established until Christ would come, and His sacrifice superseded. It replaced. And it improved upon the former sacrificial system and ceremonial process.

All of that was just a temporary system until this greater and improved system, based on Christ's sacrifice, was going to be established. Now, when I say that it's temporal, I'm just saying for the time being it is.

Because as we have the church age, we're going to have a kingdom age. And Christ is going to establish His headquarters in Jerusalem. He says He's going to have temples. And He's going to have a priesthood, according to Zadok and his descendants. Because God's sacrifices can also look back toward the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. And as all the nations come, they're going to learn that sin does have a payment. It has a penalty that will be exacted, and so it looks back. But again, that is another time, another period. We're talking about now the church age and what it tells us in the New Testament.

For our times, these rituals are temporary. They were superseded and replaced by a better system. And for that illustration, the key is circumcision. The word circumcision. We can turn to 1 Corinthians 7, verse 19.

1 Corinthians 7, verse 19. Here, the apostle Paul summarized this principle because one of his great purposes and why he was selected by God was to explain the difference between the temporary and the permanent. The ceremonial and was God's spiritual and eternal law. He was the one that God chose primarily to explain this.

In 1 Corinthians 7, verse 19, he said, Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing. But keeping the commandments of God is what matters. He was teaching them that Christianity is based on keeping the commandments of God in the spirit and in the letter, and that circumcision and all that body of law was not necessary. It was temporary. It was to lead to Christ. And so he said, it doesn't matter anymore whether you're circumcised or not. Now, what superseded the circumcision?

What replaced circumcision? It was baptism. So there was a requirement for Christians, just as there was a requirement to become a Jew before you had to be circumcised. Circumcision opened the way so you could be ritually pure, so you could offer your sacrifices in the temple. And all that system of law came into effect by being circumcised. But now there is a new requirement, which is baptism and laying on of hands, receiving God's Spirit.

That is the requirement to become a true Christian. And he mentioned we can just go there at Scripture in Colossians 2, verse 11. He explains this very principle. In him, speaking about Jesus Christ, you were also circumcised with a circumcision made without hands by putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ. What is the circumcision of Christ? Buried with him in baptism. So that is a circumcision. That replaces the former type of circumcision. So when Paul is saying here, it doesn't matter whether you are circumcised or not, what matters is, are you going to keep God's commandments?

Is that the commitment? And that's what you do when you become baptized. It's a lifelong commitment to perfecting yourself through God's law, through God's grace, through God's Spirit. And guess what? Nobody is going to make it to the top. Only Jesus Christ kept him perfectly.

But he wants us to climb that mountain of truth and to do our best. And we will be rewarded according to the way we climb that mountain of truth. And whether we make it up 50% or 60%, he will add the rest. He will push us and he will pull us up to the top. But if we don't make an effort, just like the parable of the talents and the pounds, if we don't make the effort, then he says, well, you didn't do your part. And so you're not going to be blessed. So it's a concerted effort. It's a partnership between you and God.

He will do his part. You have to do your part. There's a comment by George Ladd in a theology of the New Testament about this Scripture, 1 Corinthians 7, verse 19. And he hits the nail right on the head when he says this. He says, although circumcision is a command of God and a part of the law, Paul said circumcision in contrast to the commandments and in doing so, separates the ethical from the ceremonial, the permanent from the temporal.

So people say, oh, well, we can't figure out what is the permanent or what is the temporal. You can. Here we have the key to understanding how to do it, that the circumcision was the body of law that was going to be temporal. And we're going to cover now a little more about that.

In Galatians chapter 3, verse 17, that's another Scripture that we have here in the Scripture card, Galatians 3, verse 17 through 24. We're going to again see what is the separation between the ritual and ceremonial on one side and what is the moral and spiritual law on the other side. Verse 17, he said, and this I say that the law which was 430 years later, talking about the one that was added at Mount Sinai, cannot annul the covenant that was confirmed before by God in Christ, that it should make the promise of no effect.

So he's saying here that what was promised to Abraham and the blessings and all of this, just because more of these laws were added at that time, they cannot annul the overall covenant that was made with Abraham. He says, for if the inheritance is of the law, if it's based on all of this ceremonial law that was added, it is no longer a promise. But God gave it to Abraham by promise, because you see, the ceremonial law limited God's promises to Abraham because of circumcision, because you had to become basically converted into a Judaism.

Or into the faith there, if you were going to partake of it. He says, you know what? That inheritance is not limited to Abraham's descendants with circumcision. And he says, what purpose then does the law serve? And why was this added then? He said it was added because of transgressions, because God was going to dwell with an impure and polluted people. And in Mount Sinai, he needed a separation. The holy from the unholy, he needed an area of separation, because he knew it was a carnal, unconverted people that he was working with.

And so the ceremonial system separated the holiness of God from this unholy and polluted people. He goes on to say, and it was appointed through angels by hand of a mediator. And so all of this was done with an intermediary. Now a mediator does not mediate for one only, but God is one. Is the law then against the promises of God? Again, in Galatians, he is separating the temporal law from the permanent law. He's explaining time and time again, if you go the route of circumcision, then you're going to have to follow that whole ritual system.

He knows that whole rituals and purification system on the Gentile Christians. And he and the apostles had been revealed, and then in Jerusalem, the conference there was reconfirmed that the Gentiles didn't have to follow that ritual law.

He goes on to say, but he said, is the law then against the promises of God? Certainly not. For if there had been a law given which could have given life, truly righteousness would have been by the law. But the Scripture has confined all under sin that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe. So even if you were a Jew and circumcised and an Israelite, you still were a sinner and you still needed Jesus Christ's sacrifice.

The rituals could not substitute. They could not erase sin. He says, but before faith came, faith in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, we were kept under guard by the law, kept for the faith which would afterward be revealed. 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.

For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ, there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, neither male nor female, for you are all in Christ Jesus.

And if you are Christ, then you are Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise. There's an interesting comment by A.T. Robertson in his Word Pictures of the New Testament talking about this word tutor here. Our tutor, Pidagogos, is 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 as to school. So this was a way, again, to maintain discipline. And the Israelites, they were like unruly children. They needed that system of law to show them the penalty for sin, what holiness was, that God was in their midst, and so it was a whole system.

But it was, in that way, for spiritual children. Again, the idea was to bring the Israelites from that system to learn obedience through this discipline. I tell you, if you ever have to sacrifice an ox and pull him up in all of these, the lambs, the sheep, everything that had to be sacrificed, it was a very burdensome system. And people said, you know what? Sin has a very bad penalty. And we are responsible before God for what we have made. But again, once Christ's sacrifice came, then this inferior sacrificial system was no longer necessary to be applied.

And so this is what he is explaining here. It's a tutor. It is to guide us up to a point. But then he says in chapter 4, verse 1, Now I say that the heir, as long as he is a child, does not differ at all from a slave, though he is master of all, but is under guardians and stewards until the appointed time by the father. Even so, when we were children, we were in bondage under the elements of the world, but when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law that we might receive the adoption as sons.

And so the whole explanation here, the tutor, the guide at that time, was necessary for that period of time so they eventually would be led to Christ's sacrifice. But what happened? They rejected Christ and his sacrifice so they never grew up, and he had to call other people that would understand and follow this superior system with Christ's sacrifice, which was the whole purpose of all of this law that was ritual and ceremonial to lead them to that acceptance. So that takes us to the fourth letter, which is O, which is for origin. And again, when you're trying to figure out which laws to keep in the Bible, it's very important to take into account when those laws were given and for what purpose. We can mention, for instance, in Genesis 1-4, that's where God gave the law about the Sabbath. The origin of the Sabbath law is not in Sinai. It wasn't added with the ritual law. It wasn't ceremonial. It was given to Adam and Eve. And you can make the case that this was the first thing that God explained. He also explained about the tree of good and evil and the tree of life, yes. But he said, this day, the seventh day, is a day of rest. And so the origin of the Sabbath is not involved in all of this sacrificial and ceremonial law that was given 430 years after Abraham was given the promise. Also, if you look in Genesis 7-9, talking about the flood, and here we find out that Noah had to bring in seven types of clean animals and one type of unclean animals. Why? One of the purposes is that so they could eat the clean animals while they were there. Just about a year that they were in the ark. And, of course, they had to eat. So if they would have just had one pair of unclean animals, and all the animals would have been one pair, they would have eaten and you'd never had them come out of the ark. So there was a plentiful supply of clean animals. See, God gave the laws of clean and unclean foods not there in Mount Sinai. It was way before there. It does not have to do with a ritual law. Those laws still apply today. And so the origin of the law and its purpose is very important to understand in this way. The key scripture in Jeremiah chapter 7 verse 21, notice again God making a separation between the ceremonial and the spiritual law. Jeremiah chapter 7 verse 21, Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, Add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices and eat meat. 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 sacrifices. Yes, when he prepared God's people and he got them to keep the Passover and to leave Egypt, it was based on obedience to him, to follow him. He didn't give him a lot of elaborate rituals. He had to do that later because when he saw, after the first year of the rebellion and carnal-mindedness, he sets up the tabernacle. He says, I've got to separate these people from the holiness of God. And so he says here that I didn't tell you anything about building these things and the tabernacle and all of that. If you would have been obedient.

Verse 23, but this I say, 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. Based on the Ten Commandments, based on those principles that already had been established beforehand.

He says, yet they did not obey or incline their ear, but followed the counsels and the dictates of their own evil hearts and went backward and not forward. Since the day that your fathers came out of the land of Egypt until this day, I have even sent to you all my servants the prophets daily, rising up early and sending them. Yet they did not obey me or incline their ear, but stiffen their neck.

They did worse than their fathers. And so again, you see the origin of the rituals and the ceremonies had to do with the carnal-mindedness of the Israelites. It had to do that they weren't obedient. They needed a disciplinarian, a tutor to walk along the way.

And anyone that's had children know that from 6 to 16, it's a tough row to plow there. And you know that that's the time when they start veering, they start feeling their oats, they think they can do so many things, and they get themselves into a lot of trouble. It would be nice to have a tutor like that, and make sure they keep on the straight and narrow.

Well, that's what God did with the Israelites. And eventually, even that didn't work. Even with the tutors, they never really understood the purpose of God's child-rearing practices. The key illustration about the origins has to do again with Mount Sinai. That's where we have the laws dealing with sacrifices, purifications, establishment of the tabernacle, the Levites, the rituals, civil laws. It was all for sinful and unconverted people to keep them disciplined until the coming of the Messiah, where they could then mature spiritually and have His sacrifice instead of all of this other.

That's why the apostles were so elated when they realized that all of this system of purification and sacrifices were not going to just continue on forever. And there are ideas of it. And we're going to cover that as well, because it was a big relief to just realize with Jesus Christ's sacrifice, that is what is necessary. And of course, it would take yet several decades from the time of the Jerusalem Council until the temple would be destroyed and the whole sacrificial system would be over. But it was a better way, as we read in Hebrews.

So that takes us to the fifth point, the fifth letter, L, which is what the sermonette was about. L is for love, because God is love, and God's law expresses His love toward us, and us keeping it expresses our love toward God. It's that simple. And the key scriptures, the first one, 1 John 5, verse 3. So God's laws are not based on some negative attitude. God is not this harsh, imposing tyrant putting on this hard law.

Have you ever lived under a system where you have had to chafe under hard law? I did. Natasha doesn't want to admit. In Russia, that was the way. We have a discussion. But you know, I lived in Cuba under communism for one year, from 1959 to 1960, when Fidel Castro took over. And our whole world changed. I still remember how the immorality started growing. And we had people that were scam artists. I remember after Fidel took over the schools, the educational system, and going to school, first grade. And they replaced the teacher with one of their communist teachers.

And I'll never forget that first day. The teacher said, we want you to learn two things today. Number one, God does not exist. And number two, you have to tell us what your parents are doing in your home. So they wanted us to become an atheist and a spy on the first day. You know, that's the first time I started despising, and that's the rejection. Because that's what they tried to impose. And you know, 50 years later, those people are still being brainwashed. They still cannot leave that country. It's like they have barbed wire across the coasts. Nobody can leave there.

They have about 3,000 Cubans that try to escape every year. 2,000 get eaten up by sharks or drown. Only 1,000 make it to the shores of the U.S. or other countries. But they're that desperate to leave a system like that. So, see, God's laws, they liberate. They produce love. They don't produce fear. They don't produce lies. They don't produce control. And it says here in 1 John 5, verse 3, it says, For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments, and his commandments are not burdensome.

That's a very key part there at the end. See, they're not burdensome. If you are converted, if you are following God's way of life, they are liberating. They are, instead of being burdensome, they are very light, agreeable, and positive. And so they express the way we should all be, and what a world if people could apply that. We wouldn't have wars. We wouldn't have thieves. We wouldn't have any type of adulterous conditions. We wouldn't have gambling and alcoholism and all of these things, because people would say, You know what?

This is the way to live. Instead of loving the bottle, I'm going to love God. I'm going to love my neighbor. I'm going to see how I can do better. So it eliminates all the evils in this world, if we could just keep it in the proper way. God's law of love is, first of all, upward. How we express our love toward God through the first four commandments. And then the last six commandments are outward.

Instead of upward, it's toward our neighbor. How we express our love toward our neighbor. And every crisis our church has gone through, because some of these commandments have been broken. We have not been honest. We have not been sincere. We have not followed through. And so we suffer the consequences of it. In Romans 13, verse 10, we see here the inextricable link between love and law. In Romans 13, verse 10, it says, Love does not harm to a neighbor. Therefore, love is the fulfillment of the law. And you can turn it around. And law is the fulfillment of love.

See, they're inextricably linked together. You cannot break that link. At least, the Bible does not break that link. Man does. And that takes us to the final, the key illustration, which is the Lamb of God dealing with Jesus Christ. The law was expressed by Jesus Christ the way His love was manifested.

He is the essence, and He exemplifies love. In John 1, verse 29, we read what He came to do and exemplify that love for us. Verse 29, the next day, John saw Jesus coming toward Him and said, Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

He did that because He wanted to show obedience to God to that ultimate degree, His love for us, God's love toward us, and the sacrificial love that Jesus Christ exemplified. So again, it's just a key ingredient. When we're talking about law, we have to talk about love. And as a sermonette, when we talk about love, we have to talk about law. So, law and love, or love and law, they're all inextricably linked together. And that takes us to the final letter, which is L for legacy. The word legacy means what you transfer from one generation to the next, what is inherited. The legacy of a person is given to their children, or the legacy of a nation to the next generation. So it's something that's transferred from one generation to another. And what was the legacy? It was what the Jerusalem church left for us to follow. They left us a legacy, a written record of what we should keep. God inspired all the apostles, agreed and certified it, as well as the church members. So the key scripture is found in Acts chapter 15, verse 4. Because here, the key illustration is the Jerusalem decree. This was the decree, emitted, sent from Jerusalem. The apostles were there, all the elders, the church members were there, and under the inspiration of God, they established the separation between the temporal and the permanent parts of God's law. And if people would just focus on that, they wouldn't have a conflict. Because God had this decree, it was sent out to the Gentile churches, so they would all understand the difference between temporal, ceremonial, and ritual, and Jewish civil law involved with the way they would dress and all of this. This was all part of just the civil system that didn't apply to the Gentiles. And so, let's go to Acts chapter 15, verse 4.

It says, And when they had come to Jerusalem, this was the apostles Paul and Barnabas, they were received by the church and the apostles and the elders. Notice, they weren't received by Pope Peter, they weren't received by one man. The apostles worked as a team. Jesus Christ did not want one person over his church at that time. Now, there are periods in history where maybe there wasn't anyone more available, and he had to call one man. But here, he called twelve because he knew what would happen with just one man having all the power and authority.

And so, he distributed among the twelve, and they learned from Jesus Christ's example of servant leadership how not to abuse that authority. So, they came, again, with the apostles and then the elders, which was the ministry, and they reported all things that God had done with them.

But some of the Pharisees who believed rose up. So, here were some Pharisees that had been converted to the faith. These Pharisees had been baptized, and not only that, they were quite influential. And so, boy, wouldn't you like to have a Pharisee that accepted Jesus Christ and became a converted person? He would have been a big asset. But, they had a problem. They wanted to impose the ritual law under Gentiles, just as it was done under Judaism.

And, although Peter had already been shown by God that the centurion in Acts 10 and others, that it was not necessary for them to be circumcised, they had this problem. So, this group of the Pharisees said it was necessary to circumcise them, which is to put them under this whole body of ceremonial and ritual law. And, of course, to keep the law of Moses, which was their key word for the system that they had elaborated, which had to do with all of this oral law, and all of the sacrifices, and everything else involved. Now, the apostles and elders came together to consider this matter.

And, when there had been much dispute, Peter rose up and said to them, "'Men and brethren, you know that a good while ago God chose among us, that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe.'" He's mentioning about the incident with Cornelius. So, God, who knows the heart, acknowledged them, which were the ones who converted along with Cornelius, by giving them the Holy Spirit just as He did to us, and made no distinction between us and them purifying their hearts, not by circumcision, not by ritual law, by faith.

They accepted Jesus Christ's sacrifice by faith. That is a key scripture to understand Acts 15, because it was about purity. The purity laws, the purity system, based on all the rituals and all of this, and He says, you know what?

They received God's Spirit without going through circumcision. They didn't have to purify themselves. They didn't have to offer sacrifices like all of the Gentile proselytes had to do. He says, now therefore, why do you test God by putting a yoke on the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear? Which was this whole ceremonial system that Jesus Christ mentioned about the Pharisees imposing on the people, that nobody could keep it in the same way.

It was just a complete works-based system. Purifying prayers that you had to do in the morning, you had to do all this ritual washing of the hands, you had to be out here offering all kinds of sacrifices, you had to be going in these purifying pools, because you touched the person that was unclean, so you had to go. And all of these things that Peter said, look, we ourselves weren't able to keep all of these things, and now you want the Gentiles to have this imposed on those that are believing?

He goes on to say, but we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, we shall be saved in the same manner as they. They don't have to go through all of these rituals and ceremonies. Then all the multitude kept silent and listened to Barnabas and Paul declaring how many miracles and wonders God had worked through them among the Gentiles, showing that God's Spirit is in them, it's working through them.

So what are you going to do? Are you going to retrograde and reverse the gears? So now they have to go through circumcision and ritual law to try to purify themselves when they already are accepted by God. And after they had become silent, James answered, saying, men and brethren, listen to me.

Simon has declared how God at first visited the Gentiles to take out of them a people for His name. And with this, the words of the prophets agreed, just as it is written, and this I will return. After this I'll return and will rebuild the tabernacle of David, which has fallen down. He's talking here prophecy of how God was going to lift up a people again, which is going to do His work. I will rebuild its ruins and I will set it up so that the rest of mankind may seek the Lord, even all the Gentiles who are called by my name.

He says the Lord who does all these things. So Gentiles, we're going to be called by God, and this is part of the church history. It says, known to God from eternity are all His works. Therefore, I judge that we should not trouble those from among the Gentiles who are turning to God, but that we write to them to abstain from things polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from things strangled, and from blood. So what He did here was, since He was separating the temporal from the permanent, He drew the borderline. And He said, now, the borderline, circumcision, rituals, purifications, they're all on this left side, but do not confuse the ritual law with these, these are from this borderline to the right, they are to keep.

And what it was, it was those areas in Leviticus, which had to do with the food laws, which He mentions here, to abstain from things polluted by idols. So the meat that was sacrificed to idols from sexual immorality, which included a lot of parental or family involved in marrying sisters and brothers, which was one of the big problems in Gentiles, from things strangled, so you were not to eat blood, and from blood itself. And then He says, for Moses has throughout many generations those who preach Him in every city being read in the synagogues every Sabbath. And at that time, it's talking about the Christian assemblies, that the law of God was going to be taught to the Gentiles who would be in the churches, the rest on the right side, it's going to be explained.

So He draws a separation, the temporal from the permanent. Then it pleased the apostles and elders with the whole church to send chosen men of their own company to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas, namely Judas, who was also named Barsadas, and Silas, leading men among the brethren. So what did they do? They ruled on this, and they sent out this decree to separate the temporal, starting with circumcision and that whole body of ceremonial law from God's permanent law.

He says here, they wrote this letter by them. This is the Jerusalem decree. The apostles, the elders, and the brethren. Notice again, no one person is in charge here. The apostles all work together. That's the way we want the council and the administration to work together. Nobody's here trying to get the credit. We want God to get the credit. We just want to do God's will, and not our own, and work on that. Hammer it time and time again, so we don't have any prima donnas, we don't have any special groups.

We can all work together. The apostles, the elders, and the brethren. To the brethren who are of the Gentiles in Antioch, Syria, and Cilicia. Greetings. Since we have heard that some who went out from us have troubled you with words unsettling your souls, saying, You must be circumcised and keep the law, to whom we gave no such commandment. Of course, they're not talking about, oh, should you honor your father or your mother? Or can you lie now? See, it's not talking about that. It's talking about, okay, the Pharisees who believed were the ones that were promulgating this idea that you have to submit them just like the Gentile, proselytes. You have to have them be circumcised, and then they have a purification bath, and then they can offer at the temple, and then they're fine.

Now, yes, they are Christian Jews. And they said, that is not what God required. And so, he goes on to say, we gave no such commandment. It seemed good to us, being assembled with one accord, to send chosen men to you with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. We have sent, therefore, sent Judas and Silas, who will also report the same thing by word of mouth.

For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay upon you no greater burden. So, we're now going to impose circumcision, ceremonial law, and all of this, that was a whole body of the temporal sacrifices and rituals that with the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, they were superseded. They were replaced. He says, that you abstain from things offered to idols. Notice here that he doesn't say, well, you abstain from idols. Why? Because that's the second commandment. They already knew they couldn't adore or worship idols.

But the problem is, what about clean meat offered in the temples where people lived in Gentile lands? And that was good meat. But then people would say, well, we've got to find the origin of this meat. Where was it offered or not? And so, there was the problem that those temples were sacrificing to a lot of false gods. And so, they said, look, this is dealing with the second commandment. So, just like you shouldn't have Christmas decorations, you shouldn't have any of these things, you don't go to these temples and you eat this type of meat.

Of course, Paul then got into the minutiae, the details of it, explaining that in 1 Corinthians 8 and 10 later. And so then he says, from blood, so again, the food laws are in effect. And, of course, they don't have to talk about pork, because blood is the minimum of the food law that is still applicable. See, all of that was still part of the ceremonial law. He's saying, brethren, don't eat blood. And, just like continuing on, he says, from things strangled, so you are to drain the blood from the animal before eating the meat, and from sexual immorality.

If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well. So again, it was just a separation. And so that Jerusalem decree should clear up the question about which laws we should keep. Again, A.T. Robertson, that famous Greek scholar in the word Pictures in the New Testament, says this about this section. He says, this decree is a flat disclaimer of the whole conduct of the Judaizers in Antioch and in Jerusalem, a complete repudiation of their effort to impose the Mosaic ceremonial law upon the Gentile Christians. And this was written by a Protestant, but he knew. He said the truth there.

So, we have these categories of laws that are still in effect. God's commandments, His feasts, the food laws, tithes. None of that had to do with the ceremonial law that was going to be replaced by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. So now, if you memorize the word Scroll, remember each one of those points. Remember, S is for spiritual, C is for the commandments, R is for rituals, R is for origin, L is for love, and the last L is the legacy that the apostles left us. And to finish, let's go to 2 Timothy 2, verse 15. Why we should learn these things?

2 Timothy 2, verse 15. This is the reason. So we are not fooled when people try to confuse us about whether we should keep the Sabbath or not. He says, Be diligent to present yourself, approve to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. So hopefully this will be a good mental jog, so you will know what laws to keep in the Bible.