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It’s absolutely amazing sometimes how it comes out that you come across information, or you come across something that fits right in exactly with what you’re doing or thinking. Today I’m going to start some sermons showing what is the true teaching of Atonement, whether we should fast or not, because there are some people who are claiming now that we shouldn’t fast. And let’s see if that teaching holds up in the light of the scripture. Now we’ve provided for you two tapes which gives the account, and the lesson, allegedly showing that you don’t have to fast on Atonement. But that is only one teaching among many in a society in which we are living today. So I want to ask you a question: Since there is Satan the devil, and we just covered the long series, “Satan’s Ten Most Believable Lies”, and I think we’ll find out how important that that is really going to be in the long run as we go down the road here in the future.
But let me ask you a question concerning studying the Bible, concerning what we are going to do here: What is it that Satan would like to do to you? Now we found out that Satan would love to make you give up on God, number 1. That is his whole goal, right? And then right after that is to commit the unpardonable sin, correct, so that you will be lost, and hence in the future thrown into the lake of fire. That is Satan’s goal.
Now, in order to have that goal, since we saw in the series “Satan Ten Most Unbelievable Lies”, that he did not destroy Jesus Christ, that he couldn’t stop God’s plan from being in effect. Jesus Christ, we know, is risen. He lives. He’s at the right hand of God. He’s our High Priest in heaven right now. And He is there advocating for us. We know that, we understand it. However, we still live in the world in which there is Satan the devil going around as a roaring lion, as we saw, seeking whom he may devour. So the question is: Since Satan cannot get us, on say over occultism, since Satan cannot get to us concerning some of the doctrines in the Bible that we know are absolutely sure, what would Satan like to do most of all since he can’t get you directly?
(Audience comments) Ok, get people against each other. That’s one. Wreck your faith. Now you’re right on. Let’s take that a little bit further. Give you the wrong doctrine, or subvert your faith step-by-step. How then can he subvert the faith step-by-step? Mix truth with error, or misapply truth. Misapply truth, or make an application of truth, which is not correct for the proper circumstances, which then ends up being false teachings. Exactly correct.
Now, when you go to Revelation 2 and 3, we find that that is exactly the problems that happened to the churches of God listed in Revelation 2 and 3, correct? Yes. I won’t go through and enumerate all of them except to say that there were false apostles, there were the doctrines of the Nicolaitans, there were the doctrines of Baalam, there were the doctrines of idolatry. There was the plain weakness of faith to where they almost died, to where it says you have a name that you live but you’re dead. There is mentioned twice the synagogue of Satan, which is active and alive and well, especially now at the end, which is coming after the whole world and especially anyone who stands for any kind of Christianity. And then we find at the end that we have a condition in the church where they are lukewarm. They need to be zealous for God. They’re neither rejecting, their neither in the world, and so you have two classes of people here. Those that are about to be ready to be spewed out of the mouth of God because they say that they are “…rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked:…” (Rev. 3:17).
Now if you are blind, and obviously this blinding comes in degree, ok? Who do we find in 2 Corinthians 4 who blinds the minds of people from the gospel? None other than the god of this world, Satan the devil. Alright, we’re going to cover verses and scriptures and principles here without getting into verse and turn here and turn there, because we’ll have plenty of that later. So what I want to do is kind of lay the background here.
Now, all subverted doctrine comes in the guise of new truth. Always remember that. And that in itself is a misnomer because truth is truth, and because you haven’t understood it does not mean that it is “new” truth. It may be newly discovered truth, or it may be that which has been discovered which is proclaimed new truth. And that which has been discovered is in fact a distortion of truth. Now we will see that this was a problem in the church of God right from the very start, ok?
Now I would like to read you an article that came in, lo and behold, this morning’s paper. So like I say, it’s interesting how these things come along. What is truth and what is illusion? Now the whole world’s having a problem with this. And we might apply this to doctrinally - what is truth and what is an illusion. The headline says: “Fakers Epitomize Eroding Reality.” So I think this is really fitting for what we are going to get into here. Because what we are going to cover, as I mentioned before, is not suddenly discovering that you ought to keep the Sabbath. Alright? It’s not suddenly discovering that there is sin. It’s not suddenly discovering that you need to repent of sin. It’s not suddenly discovering that you need to be baptized. It is the subtitles of sophistication, which are eroding the reality of the truth in the Bible by using pitting the Bible against the Bible, one sanction against another sanction, to erode faith and truth and create the illusion of new doctrine.
“Milli-Vanilli.” [You’ve heard that just recently. And these long-haired freaks were out there mouthing their songs and didn’t sing.] “Milli-Vanilli, Milly’s Book. The first is a singing duo that really doesn’t sing. The second, a memoir, written by a dog. Both happened to us in 1990. Any fool can see that this is a part of some larger uglylier phenomena, a deterioration of authenticity. A breakdown of the barrier between truth and illusion.”
And remember, CBS was trying to show…what was this Ambassador Block who was supposed to be passing secrets to the Russians? So they set up a fake news report and they allegedly showed Block passing a briefcase to some surly looking person, and it was staged. But they didn’t say it was staged until they were caught later, because they were trying to show that they had the goods on Block passing this from himself to an agent, who looked like a Soviet espionage type. You know, collar up, dark-looking, hat pulled down, you see. And now we’ve got the goods on Block. Well that turned out to be a fake. So you can’t even believe what you see on the news always. Keep that in remembrance when you watch the news.
It is an “…uglier phenomena, a deterioration of authenticity, a breakdown of the barrier between truth and illusion. Forget world hunger and global warming, and war and disease, and poverty. This is a deeper, vaster, stranger reality erosion. Reality erosion is a major trend affecting our life as we know it. A mysterious and terrible thing is happening to us. And even if it’s not happening to us, nevertheless it is happening to us, because truth and untruth have become so fuzzy that the veracity of something is not damaged by it’s being a lie.” [Now these are profound words.]
“There was a time when the Milli Vanilli case would have been called a hoax, or perhaps even a fraud. Now it’s just a too clever marketing scheme. A tad outrageous but somehow unsurprising. Predictable, even tolerable. We are desensitized and battle hardened. The fact is we like illusion. We like those fake foreign villages in the Epcot Center. They are better than the real ones. Cleaner, more shops, and Italy, after all then, is only five minutes from Japan.” [Now the Epcot Center, that’s where they have shops from all around the world.]
“Reality erosion has become so widespread that it has spawned a small academic cottage industry. There are people who monitor such things as bogginess as the Milli Vanilli scandal. They work in universities and write ominous books with terms like “hyper-realism”, and “boundary warping”. They agree that there is nothing aberrant in the Milli Vanilli case because that is what America is all about. What most disturbs them is the possibility that people will assume that the problem is gone, now that Milli Vanilli have been humiliated and de-Grammyized. ‘I think in some weird way the punishment they are getting, the Grammy being taken away, creates the impression that under normal circumstances these kind of charades don’t take place’, said Stewart Edwin, co-author of All Consuming Images, the political style and contemporary culture. ‘But within the music industry, and within the entertainment industry, within the publicity industry, and within politics it’s become standard to sort of pre-fabricate, and sort of engineer images for public consumption.”
And those are accommodated through public relations firms, right? Yes.
“Neal Postman, author of Amusing Ourselves To Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business, summed up the situation - ‘The whole culture is becoming kind of a pseudo-event.’”
Now that’s very interesting because where does the word “pseudo” come from? It comes from Greek. The Greek word pseudo, which means “fake”. And when you come here to Revelation 2 and it talks about the false apostles, it is the pseudoapostolos, which is the fake apostles.
“’The real question”, he said, “is, do people care enough really to give a damn? People have lost the ability to differentiate, and do they care to differentiate any longer?’”
Now that’s something, isn’t it? We today are in the midst of banning smoking everywhere. But on the verge of legalizing pot and cocaine. Do they care to differentiate at all? I mean, think about it. You talk about being cross-eyed just trying to follow the logic of one to the other, huh? Really makes no sense.
“The pioneering work in reality erosion came in 1962 when historian Daniel Vorstein published the book called “The Image:A Guide To Pseudo Events In America”. The book foresaw the manipulation of the electronic media by political operatives. Vorstein wrote, ‘We suffer primarily not from our vices or our weaknesses, but from our illusions. We are haunted not by reality, but by those images we have put in place of reality.’ Into this picture stepped the guileless, handsome, semi-intelligent singers of Rob Pilotes and Fabrice Morvan. They were, or are Milli Vanilli. At a recent news conference Pilotes tried to apologize for the sham. He says, ‘We really love our fans. We just hope that they understand we were just young and just wanted to live life the American way.’”
And the American way has become that, we try and delude ourselves that reality doesn’t exist, and we will create our own reality for us. Now we just have a case of this with Mary O, right here in this area. Remember, she was allegedly abducted, allegedly forced with sexual assault, allegedly taken all over the western United States, allegedly let go and given some money so she could call the police and go. Well as it turned out, her illusion was that she would do this, and say all of this, but now she’s gotten caught and she still doesn’t want to admit that it was a big sham. And she rode on a Greyhound bus between Salt Lake and Cheyenne, Wyoming, and stayed with this guy in his apartment for about three weeks, see.
And there are a lot of things that are said of people which are reality erosions. And they become commonplace on the news. And right now the Democrats are the ones who are most heinous in this. They are saying that George Bush has not stated that he has made his case for what we’re doing over in Saudi Arabia. And I thought he made it very clear. Now, I think the whole thing is a complete sham, a complete set-up, to bring on now the total, the total reality erosion, which is - let’s have a one world government.
So, let’s see if we can find out in this whether we can, with God’s Spirit and God’s Word, do some things to understand where we are in, as we could put it without putting anyone down or being cynical or anything, but seeing if we can find the Milli Vanilli of the doctrinal errors. Not just in Atonement but in other things, because we do have to cover the three days and three nights, and we do have to cover the reality of who Christ really was. And so let’s begin where we started last week.
I told you this week I would review this scripture. Let’s go to 2 Corinthians 2:17. Now we’ll just cover some of these because you see, the church of God after the apostles died suffered from reality erosion. “For we are not as many, which corrupt the word of God: but as of sincerity, but as of God, in the sight of God speak we in Christ.”
Now let me read it to you in the English translation of the Interlinear. “For we are not as the many, making gain by corrupting the word of God, but as of sincerity, but as of God, before God, in Christ we speak.” Now that has to be whole motivation of a minister. And I think one of the ways that you’ll understand some of this is to become victimized by it, so that you can be aware of what’s going on. And I think we’ve been victimized enough by it.
Let’s go to 2 Corinthians 4:1, “Therefore having this service [of the spirit of teaching people to look to Jesus Christ], according as we received mercy, we faint not. But we [have] renounced the hidden things of shame, not walking in craftiness, nor falsifying the word of God,…” (2 Cor. 4:1-2, Berry’s Interlinear Greek New Testament). Is it possible to falsify the word of God, though appear true? The answer is, yes, if it’s done skillfully. Alright, how can you tell who’s skillful and who’s not?
Let’s go to 1 Timothy 1. And you might do this as a study for yourself. Go ahead and do a swift review - and what I mean by that is, read very rapidly until you come to places in the New Testament that talk about false doctrine, people twisting the scriptures, and so forth. And then zero in on those scriptures and mark them down and create a little list for yourself. I didn’t have time to do it this week so I’ll let you do that in your own Bible study.
Ok, 1 Timothy 1:3, “As I besought thee to abide still at Ephesus, when I went into Macedonia, that thou mightest charge some that they teach no other doctrine,…” That is, no other teaching. They had doctrinal problems there. “…Neither give heed to fables and endless genealogies, which minister questions, rather than godly edifying which is in faith: so do” (1 Tim. 1:3-4). So they had the problem back there, didn’t they? Someone has an idea. You know, not all ideas are inspired by God, and not all ideas are good ideas. It may be well to explore them, but if you do so you better make sure you do it fearfully and know from where you’re coming and going, ok?
“Now the end of the commandment is [love] charity out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned:…” And that’s what it has to be. “...From which some having swerved have turned aside unto vain jangling; desiring to be teachers of the law; understanding neither what they say, nor whereof they affirm” (vs. 5-7). And I will have to say there are a lot of would-be preachers out there.
There are a lot of people who know their Bibles reasonably well, well enough to give the appearance that they are experts. But I will give you one clue as to tell whether they really know anything or not. And we did this the other night. I forgot to bring it. But you do this: you take a Strong’s Concordance and you look at some of the major definitions. Just open it up and turn it anywhere. I don’t care where you turn it. Hebrew/Greek section - it really doesn’t make any difference, ok. Pick out a big block definition of a major prime root. You can establish no doctrine on it. For example we’ll use this: what if you use the prime word in the English “to see”? That does not tell you who is seeing; when they are seeing; what they are seeing; was it a glance; was it a glimpse; was it a stare; was it they saw; they had seen; will see; are going to see? What is it? You can’t tell by reading the English definition of “to see” if you get a number out of the concordance and you look up the word, because it doesn’t tell you under what circumstances that word was used, ok? It only gives you the root. So whenever you hear anyone give you a number in Strong’s Concordance and sound very authoritative, and try and establish a doctrine on Strong’s Concordance, you know that they don’t have the expertise to understand what they’re saying, though they may sound very authoritative.
Just like these people I talked to yesterday. They said, “Well when do you think Christ is returning?” And I was being a little fictitious. I said, “I can tell you exactly the year that Jesus is going to return. I choose every year between now and when He puts His foot on the earth.” I said, “We’ve heard ‘75’, we’ve heard ‘82’, we’ve heard ‘88-89-90-91-92’, and there was someone who wrote recently that ‘Brethren, the tribulation has started and we are in the first year of the last seven years’.” And I said, “Don’t believe it because Matthew 24 says [as we covered last week], ‘When you see the abomination of desolation stand in the holy place, then shall be the great tribulation’.” So that’s why you have to know your Bible. But there are people who write letters and say, “Brethren, send in all your money because we are beginning the last seven years now.” And then the one that says, “I have new truth. I know exactly when Christ is going to come.” Usher’s chronology, which was done by Bishop Usher, what, over 200 years ago, that is a correct chronology. Number one, it’s not new truth because Usher did it over 200 years ago. And number two, if that was so then that would go against the scripture which says, “and no man shall know the day or the hour of the coming of the Son of man”, alright? So you see, when someone says a statement that is not true in the Bible, or they try and make something true by showing they have knowledge of something, if they say that this is out of Strong’s Concordance, be on guard. It may or may not be right. You don’t know for sure, see. “…Desiring to be teachers of the law; understanding neither what they say, nor whereof they affirm” (vs. 7).
Now you also have another condition that we need to look at too. 2 Chronicles 18:21. Ok, now this is when Ahab and Jehoshaphat, who was the king of Judah, Ahab was the king of Israel. Let’s go here to verse 17, and this is after one of the prophets came. Yes, Micaiah came and said, verse 13, “…As the LORD liveth, even what my God saith, that will I speak.”
Let’s pick it up here, verse 14 now. “And when he was come to the king, the king said unto him, Micaiah, shall we go to Ramoth-gilead to battle, or shall I forbear? And he said, Go ye up, and prosper, and they shall be delivered into your hand. And the king said to him, How many times shall I adjure thee that thou say nothing but the truth to me in the name of the LORD? Then he said, I did see all Israel scattered upon the mountains, as sheep that have no shepherd: and the LORD said, These have no master; let them return therefore every man to his house in peace. And the king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, Did I not tell thee that he would not prophesy good unto me, but evil?” (2 Chron. 18:14-17). See, this guy liked to be stroked. (Chuckle) He wanted to have the reality erosion in front of his own mind, you see, that he didn’t want to accept the reality.
“Again he said, Therefore hear the word of the LORD; I saw the LORD sitting upon His throne, and all the host of heaven standing on His right hand and on His left. And the LORD said, Who shall entice Ahab king of Israel, that he may go up and fall at Ramoth-gilead? And one spake saying after this manner, and another saying after that manner. Then there came out a spirit, and stood before the LORD, and said, I will entice him. And the LORD said unto him, [Now, how are you going to do this?] Wherewith? And he said, I will go out, and be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets. And the LORD said, Thou shalt entice him, and thou shalt also prevail: go out, and do even so. Now therefore, behold, the LORD hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of these thy prophets, and the LORD hath spoken evil against thee” (vs. 18-22). And then of course Ahab was mad and said, “…Put this fellow in the prison,…” (vs. 26), get rid of him. Now, see you have to be careful that you don’t come to a point that God is going to have a lying spirit added to the spirit even in you.
Let’s go to 2 Thessalonians 2 and see that when people love erosion reality so much, when they want to have it their own way in spite of what the Bible clearly says, that they could end themselves up in some difficult situations indeed. 2 Thessalonians 2:11, “And for this cause…”, the cause of what? For this cause, because they didn’t love the truth, they received not the love of the truth. “…For this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie:…” Now what if you believe the lie is the truth? See, because you can believe with the same conviction of mind something that is not true, as though it were true. Didn’t we see that in World War 2? Yes, we did. Didn’t we see that in the Soviet Union? They’ve accepted the lie that they could have a society, an egalitarian society, which means equality of everyone, by doing away with God, number one. And have the state control everything, number two. Now they’ve had to admit they’re totally defeated, and they’re begging for Bibles to be sent to the Soviet Union. They were given over to a lie. So there’s always that part of it.
Now, let’s go to 2 Timothy 1, since we’re right close here in 2 Thessalonians - just a few pages over. 2 Timothy 1, and let’s see what Paul admonishes Timothy. He says, after he was not ashamed of the gospel. Verse 13, “Hold fast the form of sound words, which thou hast heard of me, in faith and love which is in Christ Jesus. That [the] good thing which was committed unto thee keep by the Holy [Spirit] Ghost which dwelleth in us. This thou knowest, that all they which are in Asia be turned away from me; of whom are Phygellus and Hermogenes. The Lord give mercy unto the house of Onesiphorus; for he oft refreshed me, and was not ashamed of my chain:…” (2 Tim. 1:13-16). So apparently while he was in prison these people, who were mentioned here as well as others, went around and said, “Well now. What do you think of the apostle Paul. His is in prison.” I’m sort of filling in a little bit here in between, so allow me a little license because why would he say that all those which are in Asia had left him? There had to be a reason. Someone was going around saying, “Well, you know, surely God must not be with him if he’s in prison. He must have done something wrong. You know, those authorities can’t be all that wrong, can they?”
Now let’s come down here and pick it up in 2 Timothy 2:14. It talks about being a good soldier. Consider the things I’ve said, and so forth. You read all the rest of it. He said in verse 9, “…I suffer trouble, as an evildoer, even unto bonds; but the word of God is not bound.”
Now let’s come down to verse 14. “Of these things put them in remembrance, charging them before the Lord that they strive not about words to no profit, but…” And we can insert there, “…[in reality it is ] to the subverting of the hearers.” And that’s what’s happening in the church of God right now. Hearers of slightly twisted doctrine are being subverted. So he says verse 15, “Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.” Which tells us then that there is a wrong way to divide the word of truth. And it’s interesting, the Greek means “straightly cutting” the word of truth. Now this also substantiates the fact that, as we read earlier, that there are those who falsely divide the word of God for their own profit. And we will see some examples of that in this study as we go along.
Now, let’s continue on here in 2 Timothy 2, and let’s see what else that Timothy is told to do in being able to avoid these things. And let’s keep in mind where we read earlier that Paul said all the churches in Asia had turned from him. So, they were experiencing the same thing that many of the church of God are experiencing today, that you have a lot of people out there who claim to be ministers, who were ministers, or ministers at one time, and they are going ahead and saying that “Oh, we have new truth.” And they twist the scriptures.
Now let’s see what else it says here. It says, “…rightly dividing the word of [God] truth.” As we mentioned that means “straightly cutting”. That is properly putting it together. And as we know, the Bible says that it’s line upon line, here a little, there a little, and you put it all together. And that’s the way that it has to be done. But notice verse 16, “But shun profane and vain babblings:…”, which a lot of these doctrinal things are. They are profane because they are not holy. They are vain babblings because they’re not preaching the word of God. And so a person who’s in the church of God has got to be able discern what will happen. “…For they will increase unto more ungodliness.” And that’s exactly what is happening. Stop and think. How many people do you know that have changed the Passover? And then follows along with that, other changes in clear doctrine, and pretty soon you’re going to get to the place that a lot of the Protestants are, which is: why should you keep any of the commandments of God anyway because you’re saved through the sacrifice of Christ only? Now we’ll cover a little bit of that later and make sure we understand the whole thing, however it increases to more ungodliness.
Now verse 17, “And their word will eat as doth a canker:…” And that means that it’s not apparent right away. It is eating away in rottenness and then turns into gangrene. “…Of whom is Hymenaeus and Philetus; who concerning the truth have erred, saying that the resurrection is past already; and overthrow the faith of some.” Now that’s a pretty drastic doctrine, to say that the resurrection is already past. Now remember in 1 Corinthians 15, Paul was saying that there were those who said that there is no resurrection. So twisting and changing of doctrine is nothing new. That’s why the foundation of the word of God, verse 19, “…standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are His. And, Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity” (vs. 17-19). What kind of iniquity? Iniquity from teaching false doctrines, which is in the context here, not only just the iniquity of sin, but also the greater sin of twisting and distorting doctrine.
Now let’s go on. Let’s come down here to verse 24. “And the servant of the Lord must not strive; but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient, in meekness instructing those that oppose themselves;…” And in many cases this is exactly what people are doing. They’re opposing themselves because they’re changing doctrines, and in doing so then what they are doing is setting up themselves to incur more and more sin. “…Instructing those that oppose themselves; if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth; and that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will” (vs. 24-26).
So right here at this point, since we’re talking about the devil, let’s ask the question: what is it that the devil would like to do to those who are in the church, and how would he do it? Well, he wants to get people to commit the unpardonable sin. Now what if you are highly knowledgeable, and what if you are converted, how are you going to then be a victim for Satan the devil? Well, you’ll be a victim for Satan the devil because he would like you, through the vanity of your own intellectualism, to rip you away just a little bit from the doctrines. Take you away just a little bit, as a first step, so then that becomes the entrance of the canker which will work and breed to more ungodliness.
Now let’s go to Titus 1, and we find that, just turn the page there right after 2 Timothy. Titus 1, and let’s see what Paul also admonished Titus, so we can see that this was a widespread problem. And so here’s what he told Titus. He says concerning a minister. Let’s pick it up in verse 7. “For a bishop [which means, an overseer] must be blameless, as the steward of God; not selfwilled [that is, to bring his own doctrine - to do his own thing], not soon angry, not given to wine, no striker, not given to filthy lucre; but a lover of hospitality, a lover of good men, sober, just, holy, temperate;…” Now notice verse 9. “…Holding fast the faithful word as he hath been taught, that he may be able by sound doctrine [or, teaching] both to exhort and to [convict - not necessarily convince] convince the gainsayers” (Titus 1:7-9). And people become gainsayers against God when they presume to take upon themselves the changing of the doctrines of God.
“For there are many unruly and vain talkers and deceivers, specially they of the circumcision:…” Now let’s apply this today. He was talking there of the circumcision, he was talking about the Jews going around and causing a lot of problems. You can see that in the book of Acts in all the things that were happening there. But let’s apply that to the church of God today. Most of the problems concerning doctrinal error have been arising from people who were in the church of God. Whether they be ministers or lay-members. So we have especially the same problem today. It says, “…specially they of the circumcision:…” (vs. 10). Because you see, as we mentioned before, the false prophet, which could deceive people in the church of God very handily, and very readily, would be someone who had been in the church of God. Someone who had been a minister. Someone maybe who had been a minister for a long, long time. But you see, faithfulness in the past does not necessarily equate to faithfulness in the present. And faithfulness in the present does not guarantee faithfulness in the future, necessarily. So you see, that’s how we need to look at it today.
“…Whose mouths must be stopped, who subvert whole houses, teaching things which they ought not, for filthy lucre’s sake.” Or in a case if it’s not money it could be people, or following, or power, or control, you see. And then it says, “One of themselves, even a prophet of their own, said, The Cretians are always liars, evil beasts, slow bellies. This witness is true. Wherefore rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith; not giving heed to the Jewish fables [and let’s say any other fables], and commandments of men, that turn from the truth” (vs. 11-14). Not only turning from the truth in the sense that you are turning from the truth as it is written, but turning people from the truth.
Now let’s continue on here, and in the situation of whether to fast or not fast on the Day of Atonement, let’s just review how it has been presented by some people claiming that now we don’t have to fast on the Day of Atonement. The basic instruction runs something like this: number one - all sin in the Old Testament was just physical sin, so therefore whatever sin they sinned was not a spiritual sin, because the blood of bulls and goats cannot forgive sin. Now that is basically a true statement - that the blood of bulls and goats cannot forgive sin. However, we are going to see that sins in the Old Testament - there were spiritual sins as well as physical sins.
(go to the next track)
…continues and says another true statement. Since Jesus Christ, with His offering once for all covered all our sins, therefore since we keep the Passover, which pictures the forgiving of our sins, and we accept Jesus Christ as our Savior, therefore we don’t have to fast on the Day of Atonement because there is an overlap of Passover and Atonement. And since the fasting had to do with the Day of Atonement and the putting away of sin, since we accept the Passover, and that puts away our sins, therefore we need not fast on the Day of Atonement. Also, it shows in a prophecy in Zechariah that God said the feast of the fifth month, the seventh month, and the ninth or eleventh month (I forget which), that these instead of being fasts will now be feasts of joy. Which is leading one to believe that they won’t fast on the Day of Atonement.
Then the teaching goes that if you go to the book of Ezekiel, chapters 45 onward, concerning the temple, which is going to be in the millennium, that there it doesn’t mention about keeping firstfruits, it does not mention about keeping atonement, it does not mention about keeping trumpets, so therefore the doctrine goes that since this is in the millennium and Christ is on the earth, since He is here, therefore we don’t observe these things. The firstfruits are those from the first resurrection now reigning with Christ. And so we don’t observe it. And we no longer need to fast if we’re in a millennial setting, because at that time it doesn’t show them keeping the Day of Atonement so therefore today, why should we do it? Well now, there are many errors in that line of reasoning. So what we’re going to do is begin like we always have to with the very beginning, the very simple things to understand. So what we need to do is answer the sin question. We need to find out what does the Bible tell us what sin is.
Alright, now let’s go back to the basics. And this something that you should have been convicted of when you were first being called. Let’s begin to answer the question concerning sin. Let’s go to 1 John 3. And with anything else, when you begin answering any doctrinal question you must always go back to the basic, go back to the foundation and go step by step from there. That way you are dealing with things that you know of, you’re dealing with things that you’re sure of.
Now, 1 John 3:4 says, “Whosoever committeth sin…” Now notice the “eth”. That means “committing”, or as the Greek is “practicing” sin. And that means living in sin if you could even phrase it that way. “…[Is transgressing] transgresseth also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law.” And that’s exactly what it is. That’s basic. That’s foundational and this is something that should have led you to repentance when God was calling you, and should continue to lead you to repentance even after you were called because you’re not perfect yet, and you sin and I sin, and it is all the transgression of the law.
Now let’s continue here in verse 5. “And ye know [this is something you need to know and understand and realize to the very depths of your being] that He [Jesus Christ] was manifested to take away our sins;…” And of course, that agrees with the book of Hebrews we’ll get into a little later. “…In Him is no sin.” And of course we understand that.
Now verse 6. “Whosoever [abides] abideth in Him [is not sinning] sinneth not:…” And the way the context is and the way the verbs are laid out in the Greek shows that that refers back to “is not practicing sin”. “…Whosoever [is sinning, practicing sin] sinneth hath not seen Him, neither known Him.” This also tells us something about some of the problems that even John was having at a later time, than Paul. That there were those who were going around claiming that they had seen Jesus, they knew Jesus, but obviously were not keeping the commandments of God.
Verse 7, “Little children, let no man deceive you:…” You do this for a Bible study, which is very interesting. You go back and you look up all the places - let no man deceive you, beware lest a man deceive you - and study through the New Testament from the point of view that you find out what was really going on there. And also do this, maybe just do a fast survey - read through the Bible very quickly so you can cover it quickly, otherwise it would take a long time, and just zero in on those places that have to do with people teaching wrong doctrines, men deceiving people, and so forth. Now continuing verse 7, “…he that [is practicing] doeth righteousness is righteous, even as He is righteous.” Which means that Christ is the one in you giving you the ability to live in God’s way, and you then are righteous even as Christ is righteous.
Now verse 8. Here’s the first place that we need to begin to answer the sin question. We already know what it is. Sin is the transgression of the law. Now notice verse 8. “He that [is committing, or practicing] committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil [is sinning] sinneth…” Notice again the “eth”, is sinning. “…From the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil.”
Now let’s ask the question: what is God going to do about sin - our sins and also Satan’s sins? Is the sacrifice of Jesus Christ going to cover the unpardonable sins of Satan the devil? The answer: no! Is the sacrifice of Jesus Christ going to cover the sins unpardonable of any of us, if we would so commit it? The answer is no. There is no sacrifice for those sins.
Now let’s find out something that is very fundamental about sin. First of all God has got to take care of the problem of sin concerning Satan. So you can’t answer the sin question unless you answer what is God going to do with Satan. And that is tied up intrinsically with the Day of Atonement. And we will see later on that is also tied up intrinsically as to why we should still fast on Atonement today.
But let’s go to 1 John 5:16, and this becomes important because it is also true we have the same principle in the Old Testament and in the New Testament. 1 John 5:16, “If any man [or anyone] see his brother sin a sin which is not unto death,…” Now that is any sin which is not the unpardonable sin. Now what could that sin be? Well, we find in the New Testament that that also included incest. And the man was forgiven upon repentance, correct? That was a sin close to being a sin unto death, so he was put out of the church until he repented. But it became a sin not unto death when he repented. And he continues and he says, “…he shall ask, and he shall give him life for them that sin not unto death. There is a sin unto death: I do not say [to you] that he shall pray for it.” Now this is the same principle that we find with the sins in the Old Covenant too. Anyone who grievously broke the commandments of God was under the death penalty. That was a sin unto death, and there was no sacrifice for that sin unto death, except the sacrifice of the Day of Atonement, which cleansed all uncleanness as the result of sin in general. And so when you have an unpardonable sin, even though there is not a sacrifice to forgive it, it still leaves uncleanness in the land. So we are dealing with the same thing in the New Testament only on a higher level, that if you commit the unpardonable sin it is a sin unto death. If you sin otherwise it is not a sin unto death.
Now, why do you have sins that are sins not unto death, even in the Old Testament and the New Testament? Let’s go to Romans 7 because this becomes very important. And when we find in the Old Testament, you see… So, number three we have to understand that there is a sin unto death in the Old Testament, and there is a sin not unto death. And what causes those sins not unto death? Alright, what causes it is human nature. What is human nature? Did the people under the Old Covenant have human nature? Yes, they had human nature. Did they have forgiveness of sins in heaven above? No, they did not have sins forgiven in heaven above. We’ll see that when we get to the book of Hebrews here in just a little bit. However, they did have forgiveness of sin to the temple for all sins which were not sins unto death. Now we also know that the Israelites under the Old Covenant were not operating for salvation, so therefore those sins which were even sins unto death with stoning and execution, or hanging, or burning, they may have an opportunity to repent of in the second resurrection if they repent. But nevertheless they still transgressed the spiritual laws in a lesser degree than a sin unto death, if they had an offering, which they could offer at the temple. Granted it was not forgiven in heaven above at the throne of God, but only to the temple.
Now let’s go to Romans 7 and we will see the things concerning human nature and how that the same thing happens today. And we’re going to see when we get back here (I’ll just preface it with) where the King James says that if anyone sins a sin in ignorance… Now that doesn’t mean they had absolutely no knowledge of the laws of God. It just means from the weakness of human flesh, and as a matter of fact we will see that the proper translation from the Hebrew really means “and if anyone sin in error”. Now they may not have had their conscience convict them at the time they did it, but it’s the same thing that we’re talking about here in Romans 7.
Now let’s pick it up in Romans 7:12. “Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good.” There’s nothing wrong with the commandments of God. They are good. They are righteous. They are holy. They are true. And by the knowledge of the law is the knowledge of sin. For by the law is the knowledge of sin. It tells us what sin is. So that is just and good.
Verse 13, “Was then that which is good make death unto me? God forbid. But sin [which is the transgression of the law], that it might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good; that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful.” That you might understand the great gravity of sin. “For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin” (vs. 13-14). He has human nature.
So then he’s confounded with the same thing that many people are confounded with today, verse 15. “For that which I do I allow not:…” He doesn’t want to sin. And so he’s saying…Paul, converted, though he has the Holy Spirit, is still sinning but not a sin which is a sin unto death, because now he’s dealing with the conviction of God’s Spirit to bring out the fact that these things are sin. And of course that kind of knowledge was not revealed to the people back unto the Old Covenant. But here it is now, you see.
“…For what I would, that do I not;…”, and which any of us keep the commandments of God that we really desire to, in the way that we desire, to the degree that we desire. “…But what I hate [that is, the things that cause me to sin], that do I. If then I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law that it is good.” Then is Paul committing the unpardonable sin? No, he is not because he says, “Now then it is no more I that [is doing] do it [he’s not committing the unpardonable sin], but sin that dwelleth in me” (vs. 15-17). And we see in Romans 7 and 8 that we have the law of sin and death within us, which is part, intrinsically part of our human nature. So therefore we sin sins not unto death, which can be repented of.
Now verse 18. “For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will [or that is, the desire - it doesn’t mean the will-power, but the desire] is present with me; but how to perform that which is good [that is, of himself] I find not. For the good that I would [or, want to do] I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do. Now if I do that I would not [or, which I don’t want to do], it is no more I that do it, but sin that [is dwelling] dwelleth in me” (vs. 18-20). Now then, even though we have the sacrifice of Christ to forgive our sins, and even though before God we have the righteousness of Christ imputed to us, does that mean then that we do not sin? Well, of course not. Could we still commit the unpardonable sin? Yes, that is possible. A person could commit the unpardonable sin because even Paul said that he needed to bring his body into subjection lest he would find himself a castaway. So this is the same problem with human nature that they had under the Old Covenant or Testament.
Now granted, they were not given spiritual salvation, but that does not mean that the sins that they committed were only physical sins. Let me ask you a question: is adultery a spiritual problem? Yes, it is a spiritual problem. But what is it? It is a physical act. Is stealing a spiritual problem? Yes, it is a spiritual problem, but it is a physical act. So you can’t separate and say all transgressions under the Old Covenant were merely physical things. Now it is true, as we will see a little later on, that there were certain things such as uncleanness of touching a dead body, or childbirth, or a menstrual period, or leprosy, and those were physical things which also required sacrifices.
Now, let’s go to the book of Hebrews and let’s see some very profound and important things that we need to learn. Let’s stop by chapter 3 first of all because we want to take part of the warnings that the apostle Paul gave as he was leading up to the explaining of the changing of the functioning of the Old Covenant and the New Covenant.
He says, Hebrews 3:12, “Take heed [that is, beware, pay attention], brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God.” Now how does one begin to depart from the living God? You must take the first step. And the first step, because man has to be justified in his own mind, may be very justified in the minds of the people taking the first step. Then has to come the second step. Then has to come the third step. And little by little it can develop in a heart of unbelief. But verse 13 he says, “But exhort one another daily, while it is called Today; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.” Which for those in the church of God then can begin with the deceitfulness of changing clear scriptural doctrine. “For we are made partakers of Christ, if [notice it’s conditional] we hold the beginning of our confidence stedfast unto the end;…” (Heb. 3:12-14).
Now, let’s go to chapter 8, and it’s talking about Jesus Christ Who is the High Priest, better than the things of the Old Covenant. So what we are going to do now is answer the question: what did God do with sin under the Old Covenant in relationship and comparison to sin under the New Covenant? And so that’s the whole thing that Paul is telling us here in the book of Hebrews beginning with chapter 7, 8, 9, and 10. So let’s pick it up here in chapter 8.
“Now of the things which we have spoken this is the sum: We have such an high priest, Who is set on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens; a minister of the sanctuary, and of the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, and not man. For every high priest is ordained to offer gifts and sacrifices: wherefore it is of necessity that this man have somewhat also to offer. For if He were on earth, He should not be a priest,…” Now why should He not be a priest? Because He was not a Levite, or of the house of Aaron. It’s says back in chapter 7, verse 14, “For it is evident that our Lord sprang out of Juda;…” So if He were on the earth He would not have been a priest in the physical sense of the Old Covenant. “…Seeing that there are priests that offer gifts according to the law: who serve unto the example and shadow of heavenly things,…” (Heb. 8:1-5). So they were a shadow, they were an example, they were leading to Christ. But they were based on the same Ten Commandments, they were based on the same laws. And what we need to do then is rightly divide the word of God so we can see what God has said that He no longer requires in the New Covenant verses the Old Covenant.
“…As Moses was admonished of God when he was about to make the tabernacle: for, See, saith He, that thou make all things according to the pattern shewed to thee in the mount. But now hath He [that is Christ] obtained a more excellent ministry, by now much also He is the mediator of a better covenant, which was established upon better promises.” Now notice, not different laws. A better covenant with better promises based upon the same laws. “For if that first covenant had been faultless, then should no place have been sought for the second. For finding fault with them, He saith, Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah: not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they continued not in My covenant, and I regarded them not, saith the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put My laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to Me a people:…” (vs. 5-10). And that is what God is doing to us now. He want’s His laws written in our hearts and in our minds. And we’re a foretaste of this New Covenant to be fully activated and put in place when Jesus Christ returns, when then all of Israel and all of Judah will be under the New Covenant which they are not now. Only the church is under the New Covenant.
Now let’s go to chapter 9 and let’s get just a little review of some of the things in the operation of the tabernacle, the temple, and the sacrifices. Hebrews 9:1, “Then verily the first covenant had also ordinances of divine service, and a worldly sanctuary.” And then he gives a whole description of it, which I will let you read going all the way down. Verse 8, “…The Holy [Spirit] Ghost this signifying, that the way into the holiest of all…” And we can put in there “in heaven above”, “…was not yet made manifest, while as the first tabernacle was yet standing:…”, although there was a forty year overlap between the sacrifice of Jesus Christ and the destruction of the temple. “…Which was a figure for the time then present, in which [that is, in this tabernacle and the temple] were offered both gifts, and sacrifices, that could not make him that did the service perfect, as pertaining to the conscience;…” (Heb. 9:1, 8-9). Now as we’re going to see, it doesn’t mean that they weren’t forgiven at the temple. What you really need to understand, and I’ll prove this in just a minute, all sins committed under the Old Covenant were forgiven at the temple on earth. And we will see that the sacrifice of Jesus Christ had to make that forgiveness complete with His sacrifice. Now it didn’t change the conscience, and that’s the whole difference. Without the Holy Spirit you cannot have a conscience to lead you or keep you to God.
Under the Old Covenant then, verse 10, “…Which stood only in meats and drinks, and divers washings, and carnal [or that is, physical] ordinances, imposed on them until the time of reformation. But Christ being come an high priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building [which was still existing when he wrote this]; neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by His own blood He entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us.” Now I want you to notice verse 13. “For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean,…” Now whenever anyone sinned any sin, they were unclean. Any sin that was not a sin unto death, they were unclean. It doesn’t matter if it was a physical law, as I mentioned, or the breaking of one of the Ten Commandment in a lesser degree than that worthy of death, which we will see. And whenever you break the Ten Commandments, you are breaking the spiritual law even though you may only know the letter of the law. You’re still breaking the great spiritual law of God, and even though it was in the letter of the law there still had to be forgiveness to the temple. And that’s what he’s saying here. “For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth [that is then, made holy] to the purifying of the flesh: how much more shall the blood of Christ, Who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, purge your conscience…” It’s a difference as to what was being accomplished. “…Purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?” (vs. 13-14). So there is the difference between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant. But we cannot dismiss and say that the forgiveness was only for physical sins of their physical uncleanness, having nothing to do with breaking the Ten Commandments of God. And we will prove this later as we go on.
Now verse 15, “And for this cause…” I want you to understand very carefully and listen very carefully to what it says here. “And for this cause He is the mediator of the new [covenant] testament, that by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament,…” Now the sacrifice of Christ also finalized the forgiveness of those sins under the New Testament. So then if those sins were only the physical things of uncleanness because of touching a dead body, or because of having intercourse during the time of a menstrual period, or because of childbirth, or because of leprosy, if it only pertained to that, why then did Christ have to die for the transgressions under the first covenant if it was only for physical sins? They were only forgiven to the temple, and that is why you had to have the Day of Atonement in the way that it was listed in the Old Covenant. And we will see there is a reason why we need to keep the Day of Atonement and fast on the Day of Atonement today, even under the New Covenant, because you must answer the question: what is God going to do with the sins of Satan the devil? Nowhere in the Bible do you find that the death of Christ pays for the sins of Satan the devil.
So these sins, this redemption… And of course that also can mean, atonement, because redemption, reconciliation, and atonement are very synonymous. “…For the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament, they which are called [that is, today] might receive the promise of eternal inheritance. For where a testament is, there must also of necessity be the death of the testator” (vs. 15-16). Now the death of Christ not only paid for all sins of all human beings, who repent, for all time - past, present, and future - when they come to the knowledge of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Though that sacrifice did not pay for any unpardonable sin, nor any of the sins of Satan the devil. However those sins still left, an uncleanness, as we will see when we continue here.
Now then, the death of Jesus Christ also accomplished the thing, that with His death we not only have the forgiveness of our sin, but we also have the death of the testator so that the testament is in full effect now. So the death of Jesus Christ accomplished many things.
Now let’s come down here to verse 22. “And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission.” And then it shows, verse 24, “For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us: nor yet that He should offer Himself often, as the high priest entereth into the holy place every year with blood of others; for then must He often have suffered since the foundation of the world: but now once in the end of the world hath He appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself” (vs. 22, 24-26). Now all of that should be very clear to us who understand the difference between the Old and the New Covenant.
Now let’s take this one step forward here. Let’s go down to the last verse in chapter 9. “So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for Him shall He appear the second time without sin unto salvation” (vs. 28).
Now chapter 10. “For the law [that is, the Old Covenant] having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect.” Because they had no connection with God in heaven above. But their perfection was perfection in the flesh. Their perfection was in the letter of the law. And their perfection had to come through the actual final sacrifice of Jesus Christ, as we saw in Hebrews 9:15. “For then [if it could have brought perfection] would they not have ceased to be offered? because that the worshippers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins. But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every year.” That is before God. “For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins” (Heb. 10:1-4). Now, we understand that. And we understand how it functions at the temple, which we will get in and describe a little bit more as we go along so we know exactly what we’re dealing with in the temple service.
Now let’s go back and we will examine the scriptures to see that in the Old Testament there were sins unto death, and there were sins not unto death, which violated the spiritual Ten Commandments of God. Go back to Exodus 21. Now Exodus 21, as you know, comes right after Exodus 20 which are listed all the Ten Commandments of God. Now then, he says that these are the judgments and statutes and ordinances which are what? These are delineation’s between sin unto death, and sin not unto death.
Now let’s see it right here. Let’s pick it up in Exodus 21:12. “He that smiteth [or that is, slays] a man so that he die, shall be surely put to death.” There is a sin unto death - pre-meditated murder. “And if a man lie not in wait, but God deliver him into his hand; then I will appoint thee to place whither he shall flee” (Ex. 21:12-13). This has to do with revenge by a family member of a known murderer. And if that took place, and if God delivered him into his hands and he didn’t sit around and wait for him, then he would flee to one of the cities of safety and the elders appointed in that city of safety, would have a complete hearing to see whether this was murder or whether this was in fact a bonified revenge killing, which God allowed.
Verse 14, “But if a man come presumptuously [that means with a high hand, predetermined, calculated murder] upon his neighbour, to slay him with guile; thou shalt take him from mine altar, that he may die.” They couldn’t even go appeal to God directly at the altar, that he then could escape the death penalty. No, he was to have his hands ripped off that altar and executed. Furthermore, verse 15, it says, “And he that smiteth his father, or his mother, shall be surely put to death. And he that stealeth a man, and selleth him, or if he be found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death. And he that curseth his father, or his mother, shall surely be put to death” (vs. 14-17). Now that’s obviously a very severe cursing, a very severe thing.
“And if men strive together,…” Now we’re getting into something less than premeditated murder, less than a direct violation. A severe 100%, if we could say, violation of one of the Ten Commandments. Now, “…if men strive together, and one smite another with a stone, or with his fist,…” So God knew there would be fistfights. God knew there would be. Here you think about all these fights that go on in these western movies, with all those bars, and you wonder…when I look at it I wonder, “Who on earth is going to pay for all that damage?” Ok, so they had them back then. Now why would they get into fights? Well, maybe they were drinking too much, or maybe they were arguing, whatever the case may be. “…Or [hit him] with his fist, and he die not, but keepeth his bed: if he rise again [that is, he’s healed from the injury] and walk abroad upon his staff,…” At least he’s able to function. Walking on his staff shows that he’s recuperating just like one would be on crutches. “…Then shall he that smote him be quit:…”, that is, of the death penalty. He won’t suffer the death penalty. “…Only he shall pay for the loss of his time, and shall cause him to be thoroughly healed” (vs. 18-19). Ok, so there would be monetary remuneration now when he did this. Then we’ll see a little later on he had to go offer a trespass sacrifice for that specific act. But is this then breaking of one of the Ten Commandments in a lesser degree than murder? Yes, it is.
Now verse 20 we have another situation. “And if a man smite his servant, or his maid, with a rod, and he die under his hand; he shall be surely punished.” God didn’t want slave beating. God didn’t want people killing their own slaves. They would pay the penalty for it. Now if you had a conflict with your slave, take him down to the slave market and sell him. That’s what they should do. “Notwithstanding, if he continue a day or two, he shall not be punished: for his is his money” (vs. 20-21). Obviously then if he continued for a day or two and lived, he won’t be punished for he is his money.
Now verse 22. “If men strive, and hurt a woman with child,…” Now we’re dealing with a third life, aren’t we? One yet unborn. “…So that her fruit depart from her [that is, she gives a premature birth], and yet no mischief follow [that is, the baby is well, the mother is well, and they survive it]: he shall be surely punished, according as the woman’s husband will lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine.” So all this had to come before the judges to make a judgment concerning it. Not much different than we would have today. You would go to the court and there would be the plaintiff, there would be the defendant, they would present the evidence, they would present the witnesses and so forth, and the judge would say, “Yes, you did it, but he’s alive. You’re going to pay so much because you caused the pain, the agony, and premature birth, and now you have to pay.”
“And if any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life,…” So then if the child dies, or the mother dies, you get the ax, or the hanging, or whatever it would be. Life for life. How? As the judges determine. “…Eye for eye,…”, which then is monetary. You don’t gouge out an eye. Nothing is accomplished by gouging out the other’s eye. You pay for the loss of the eye. “…Tooth for tooth [you pay for the loss of tooth], hand for hand [you pay for the loss of hand], foot for foot [you pay for the loss of foot], burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe” (vs. 23-25). Now these are all lesser degrees of breaking the commandments of God. They had to have a sacrifice for it. Question: is this only a matter of little physical uncleanness, such as touching a dead body, such as a menstrual period? No, these are pretty serious crimes. Were they crimes to be forgiven? Yes, as we will see.
Now we will continue on there next time, and we will cover it very thoroughly so we will know. And the reason I’m covering these things is so that we will understand that the command to fast on Atonement has nothing to do with the sacrifices. We will see that is a separate individual command that God gave for all to do. So we’ll pick it up there next time.
