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Empowering multimedia ministry for bold Christian living: Weekend Messages, Deep End Podcast, Deep Dive Bible Study. Tim Hatch, Lead Pastor, Waters Church, 26 years of pastoral ministry, book author.
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Understanding the Torah 0:00 Alright, everybody. Welcome into a brand new style of show here on the deep dive. We're gonna do the Torah in just 30 seconds. Let's get this started.0:40 Alright. Good evening, everybody. Welcome Tuesday night, 7 30, in the home studio for the deep dive season 7. We are going through the0:52 Torah part 1, and I wanna talk to you about why you need the Torah. My name is Tim. Click that like button, the subscribe button, and the notification bell get notified when we go live. You will enjoy this1:03 content and the best part is this show, this season, is gonna be different than any other season that we have done, deep dive or deep end stuff with. The reason why is because1:16 we're gonna be going through some complicated material, and I'm gonna wanna talk to you about it. I'm gonna wanna talk to you about, your questions concerning the content, Some of the crazy laws in the Old Testament. How1:27 do we handle them? What do we do with, laws about rape that don't seem very civil according to our 20 first century sensibilities? What do we do with the laws about1:39 tattoos or different threads of garments? That kind of content, we wanna have a discussion about. So on a regular basis, make sure that you're doing doing your best to keep up with the content because I'm gonna do1:51 some live chat nights. I'm here in my home studio and that gives me a lot of capacity to connect with you personally because I can do this in the comfort of my own home. You're probably at home too.2:03 And so I'm glad to start this journey with you guys, and I'm looking forward to the future of this channel and this, this content this bible study,The Purpose of God's Law 2:16 night, Wednesday night, 7 30, the deep dive on Tim Hatch Live. So like I said, part 1, Torah. Why do you need the Torah? The reason why you need the Torah is because there's2:28 a lot of Christians, there's a lot of nominal Christians, there's a lot of non Christians who have this view that there's 2 different gods in the Bible. Right? There's the Old Testament God. He's holy. He's distant. He2:39 he's wrathful. He's very specific in his, you know, laws and stipulations. Then there's the judgmental God, the angry with sinners God, the God who, you know, he's going2:51 to really strike you dead quickly if you get in his way. And then there's the New Testament God or some people make this assumption that after3:02 Malachi God just is like, well, I guess angry didn't work. Let's try being nice. And so you have the New Testament God, graceful, merciful, kind, loving, good, generous, friend of sinners. Jesus ate and drank with3:14 sinners and a lot of people, that's what they love most about him. Well, can I tell you that that's not true? There is 1 God and the same God of the Old Testament is the God of the New Testament3:26 and that is so important for us to, start off with in this in this chapter of the deep dive. Let's lay that foundation first. We are not talking about3:39 a different kind of God, a different God, a different season in which God was, like, really angry and then he softened up a bit. Like, you know, like parents, when you're a father, you're really angry and tough on your3:50 kids, but then when you have grandkids, you're kinda like, yeah, whatever. Let them have chocolate at 11 PM. No. No. No. That is not, how scripture speaks to God,4:02 and this is absolutely essential. In Malachi chapter 4, God says, I am the Lord. I do not change. Or old King James, I am the Lord. I change not. So there is no4:14 dichotomy of gods. By the way, those who believe that is not new idea, that's an ancient heresy from the early church, Marcion was 1 of them who believed that there was an Old Testament god and there was a New Testament4:26 god. And so I think he even caved the New Testament god's name, Jesus, obviously, and then the Old Testament god, Jehovah, so there are different names, according to the Marcion heresy. So that is important to4:36 understand. And why does that matter for our study on Torah? I'm going to tell you why that matters on our study on Torah, is because when we study Torah, listen to this very4:47 carefully, we are getting to know that God. We are getting to know the God. We are getting to know Jesus as we study Torah. That's the first thing you gotta know4:59 about this content is this is gonna help you understand Jesus. Right? You wanna know Jesus. You wanna get closer to Jesus. I wanna get closer to Jesus. And the more we study the Torah, the law,5:11 Right? We get to know Jesus, and this is, so important for our understanding of the Bible because I wanna do something else here, and I'm gonna give you a little tour here5:23 of the home studio setup. So, of course, we have this shot. We have something new this season on the Deep Dive. It's called Sinai time, and here I am in the Sinai5:34 desert, and there you see over here on your left, right, the, Sinai smoking mountain. Isn't that fun? But we also have this. This is the5:46 Logos Bible split screen and also with the Sinai mountains below. Let me know in the comments what you think about the new setup. Anyway, Jesus said to the Pharisees, the religious leaders of his day, you,5:58 John chapter 5 verse 39, you search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life, but it is they, what? What's the they? The scriptures, the Torah, that bear6:10 witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life. I do not receive glory from people, but I know that you do not have the love of God within you. So right there, Jesus is6:22 making it clear. The scriptures, including Torah, testify to who I am. So do you wanna know Jesus? Get to know the law. He is the fulfillment of the law. I can give you another passage of6:34 scripture. We can go to Matthew 5 17 Right after the, Beatitudes and the salt of the earth and light of the world content, the very next phrase in Matthew 5 17, do not think that I have come6:46 to abolish the law of the prophets. I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of the law and the prophets. You say, I thought it was just the prophets just6:57 kind of informing God's people that Jesus would come. No. It was the law and the prophets. The prophets and the law both point to Jesus. By the way, when Jesus is on the Mount of Transfiguration with,7:10 Peter, James, and John, who shows up? You have Moses who represents the law of the Torah and you have Elijah, and and they're talking and the scripture is very clear about this. They begin to talk about his7:21 exodus. I think it's in Matthew chapter 18. Don't quote me. In so it's kind of interesting how you have 3 Old Testament concepts merging on the Mount of Transfiguration.7:33 Jesus revealed in his glory. He is joined by Moses. He is joined by Elijah and they are talking about the Exodus which is a reference to the deliverance of the Israelites from the land of Egypt. The Bible is 1 whole7:45 piece, 1 single author. The Holy Spirit inspired 40 different human authors over 1500 years to teach us about God, and we learn about God through Torah. Now we've gotta get moving and7:57 I wanna discuss this question. What is Torah? What is what is Torah? Let me move on. Torah from the Hebrew word meaning, to guide or to teach8:09 is really just that. It is teaching. It is God's guidance in our lives. Exodus chapter 35 34, I have this verse here, and he has inspired him to teach both him and Oholiab, the son of Ahishamach8:21 of the tribe of of Dan. That's the word Torah there, teach. Leviticus 10 verse 11, and you are to teach the people of Israel all the statutes that the Lord has spoken to8:33 them by Moses. So Torah, you have to understand, is teaching. It's guidance. I always like to talk about this idea. Raise your hand if you like to swim because8:45 I like to swim. Raise your hand if you've ever been to a public school public pool. At a public pool, you will see 2 things, usually. You will see a sign called pool rules,8:57 and the rules are do not run, you know, do not skip, do not chew gum, do not dive, do not blah blah blah. No roughhousing, all that stuff. Those are rules. Now usually at a public pool, you will also see9:10 pool instructors, teachers, swim train teachers. I had a swim teacher growing up, and I will never forget it. I I grew up in a very small town. I went to a public pond. We didn't have public pools, but we went to a9:21 public pond, and I was taught how to swim with a public pond, swim instructor. So Torah is not the sign9:33 on the wall saying do not run, do not roughhouse, do not dive, do not do not do not do not. That's not Torah. Torah is the swim instructor getting into the water with you and helping you swim. That's how9:45 you have to see Torah. It is God's guidance to you. It is God's instruction for how to live well, how to live well with him and with his9:57 people. And those 3 concepts are gonna come into play repeatedly as we discuss the 613 laws of Torah. Let's go on10:09 and let's discuss a couple of verses. Well, let me look at 1 verse with you that is a descriptive verse of Torah. Proverbs 3 18 says the Torah is the tree of life to those who embrace it. Notice10:21 the qualifier there. It's not just the tree of life to people who hear it. It's the tree of life to those who embrace it. That is what Torah does. It brings you life. Where do you find the tree of life in the Bible10:33 first? You find it in Genesis chapter 2 in the Garden of Eden. The tree of life is sitting there in the Garden of Eden. Well, what happens? They eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and they die10:44 spiritually and then eventually we all die physically. Jesus comes. He's the new Adam according to Romans and he is the fulfillment of the law and the prophets and remember the Torah is what? It is a tree of10:56 life. Well, Jesus died for our sins to bring us back to God, bring us back to that paradise with God, and where does he die? Not at a gas chamber, not in11:08 an electric chair, not in a lethal injection. He dies on a cross. He dies, Galatians chapter 3 says, on a tree. Isn't that interesting? So right there in Proverbs 3 18, we11:19 have a pro a prophecy about Jesus. The Torah, which we've already discussed, is pointing to Jesus, is a tree of life,11:31 Jesus, who will die in a tree to bring us life for those who embrace it. This is why we must embrace Jesus because he is the fulfillment of the law and the tree of life if we do.11:43 This is this is why I love studying the Bible because so many things and images and metaphors that the Bible uses and physical it's historical events the Bible uses tie11:54 together to bring us to God. Now when we talk about Torah, I want 3 definitions to be in your head because these are the 3 technical definitions of Torah. The first 5 books of Moses, that would be Genesis, Exodus, the12:05 Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. Number 2 is the law, all the, scriptural teaching of Moses to the people of Israel, and then some people say the Torah is the teaching. Although there's another word for teaching,12:17 it's called halakah, that would be the way of teaching in the, in the Jewish sense of the word, and so there's many ways that people can refer to Torah. Sorry. I12:29 just lost the keynote. There we go. But those are the 3 ways predominantly that we speak of when we the 3 the 3 things that we speak of when we speak of Torah. So it's important that12:41 we have our concepts down, and now let's move on to the big question, the big why. Why do you need this study? Notice I did not say why do you want this study because12:53 I don't care what you want. I care what you need, and what you need is God's law. I got 3 reasons why you need to study Torah, And I can attest to this for myself13:04 personally. I have gleaned tremendous benefit in my own personal life getting to know my father, God, through13:16 his law to ancient Israel. You learn about him, and it's kind of confusing sometimes. Right? That's that's13:28 what we have to understand is that because he is god, he is not simple. A simple god is a god of your own making. A simple god is a god that13:40 you can define, and we cannot define this god. We cannot wrap him around our containment of understanding. We must surrender our understanding to who he13:52 is, who he has chosen to reveal himself to be, and, most importantly, how he has chosen to reveal himself, to us. Okay? So 3 things about why you need this14:03 study. Number 1, because the Bible can be confusing and and people will use the confusion of the Bible to deny the Bible. Number 2, because the Bible critics use that or the Bible,14:15 because Bible critics use the confusion of the Bible, I just said this, to accuse us. Okay. And forgive the fact that it says us. It's it should be critics use that to accuse us.14:27 Number 3, and this is probably the most important, because God wants you to know the answers to the questions. He he wants you to know why those laws are there14:39 and how they were referring to ancient Israel and then how do we apply them to ourselves today. K. Let's start about and 1 final thought about this because God wants you to know and14:51 relate to him. This is why you need to study Torah. Again, I've said this already, but I'll I'll repeat it again. The Torah shows us who God is. Second Timothy, 3 16. All15:03 scripture, not some, all scripture is God breathed, breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for review, for reproof, sorry, for correction and for15:15 training in righteousness that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. This is why you need this study because15:27 the laws of ancient Israel are indeed breathed out by God and they are profitable for us to teach us, to train us, to correct us, and to rebuke us. So that's the why you need15:39 this study. Let me dive into another concept that is more maybe relational to where we are as a people and that question is why are we studying Torah because there are so15:51 many ways we can study the Bible. We can study the Bible verse by verse. We can study the Bible, character studies. We can and I've done that. And we can study the Bible concept by concept, topical Bible studies. Maybe16:01 your preacher wherever whatever churches you go to, he's a more, you know, topical guy where he's talking about topics and then lifting passages of scripture that refer to that topic. Maybe you've got a a real die hard16:11 exegetical guy, you know, fundamentalist kind of guy who wants to go verse by verse with the Bible and and believes that topical studies are unbiblical. Okay. I I wanna just, absolve you of that concept. I16:23 believe in both exegetical and topical teaching or concept teaching or even character study teaching. The reason why is because if you read how Jesus preached, he was a very topical preacher. Even even Paul, when he is16:35 unpacking the Old Testament, it is topically based. There is no exegetical teaching recorded in the Bible, except you could say Ezra. Ezra went through the law and made it known to the people, Ezra chapter 10.16:47 So, yes, there is that, but the New Testament scholars re recorded in the 2 New Testament narrative are topical guides. But I bring that up because we have to study Torah as a concept. This is16:59 a concept. It's not a topical study. This is a concept study. It's not a character study. It's not an exegetical study. We will be going through verses. Make no mistake. But we will be we will be studying the concepts of17:11 Torah, and the concept of Torah is God's law. And so I'm really excited to show you this this, dichotomy. Let's talk about this. This is so important. There are 217:22 laws that every American is dealing with, wrestling with, and this is a lot of our conflict in life. There is the American law and then there is God's law. The American law and God's law are17:34 not the same. Now some of you will say, but I thought that America's laws were based on the Bible. They were, but there was an added ingredient17:47 given to the American law from through, from the Bible that eventually led to the modern laws that we have today and our concepts about laws.17:59 So let me show you the differences between American law and God's law right off the bat. First is this idea. American law deals with my rights. Okay? American law18:11 deals with my, my privileges, what I want, you know, my country to do. So it's written right here, and I have it on my desk, my handy dandy18:23 copy of the American constitution and the declaration of independence. Okay? What is on the first page of the, declaration of independence? I believe it is the declaration of independence.18:36 We are we believe that all men have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That is the declaration's intent. That is what our country set it out set out to do,18:48 and we believe that is imperative for all people. K. That's not god's law because god's law is not about your rights. It's about your responsibilities.19:00 I'm gonna show you why this is so important because the dichotomy is real. And if you're going to be a good citizen of America, you have to understand that you gotta go beyond American19:12 law to be a good citizen of American society. You gotta go God's law. What we have right now is far too many people who want rights. Rights rights rights rights rights. Don't step on my rights. Don't19:24 tread on me. Right? I I deserve life. I deserve liberty. I deserve happiness. Well, it doesn't even say happiness in the constitution. It says the pursuit of happiness.19:36 But that's American law because it is focused on the individual, and I'm going to show you in just a moment how that happened and how that American law diverged from God's law. God's19:47 law is responsibilities. You're going to do these things to carry my name forward. That's in the third of the 10 commandments. Thou shall not take the name of the lord thy god in vain. The word19:59 take the name is literally carry my name. Don't carry my name in vain. Represent me well. Right? When we pray the Lord's prayer, hallowed be your name, we are asking God to be hallowed20:11 through our lives. And then the very next line, after hallowed be thy name is your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. And think about earth. Where does mankind come from? He comes from the dust20:22 of the earth. When we are praying, your kingdom come and your will be done on earth, we are actually praying, god, hallowed be your name by letting heaven come into this, into my body20:34 so that I might represent heaven to earth, and my body will reflect your name, your character. Powerful stuff, but imperative for us to understand what it really means to be good20:46 citizens in our country. So we've gotta get away from this idea as Christians that it's about my rights. No. Secular people are obsessed with their rights, with what they should have, with what they deserve. God's20:58 people are obsessed with what must I do for the sake of the name of my God and my own welfare and my belonging21:10 to a community larger than myself? So the divergence happens through something called the European Enlightenment because, yes, American law was founded on the moral precepts of the21:22 Bible, but around the 18 hundreds, 17 hundreds in France and and, Western Europe, the Enlightenment was happening. Philosophers were rising up and they were talking about the elevation of the individual, the21:34 individual rights individual's rights are most important, the individual is everything and it's all about individual happiness and the pursuits of individual happiness and and that trickles right into our constitution21:43 and right into our laws and right into our arguments of the day. Right? What is the argument about homosexual marriage? What is the what is the argument? Well, don't deprive me of my happiness.21:55 Or what is the argument about abortion? I have the right to do with what I want with my body. What is the argument around divorce? Well, they just aren't making me happy. All of22:07 those things are the fruit of a of a root that took God's law and reoriented it away from the community and onto the22:19 individual. I cannot stress how important this is, and I hope that you're already starting to get fired up for why this is important because we need to do some deconstruction. I know that deconstruction is a big22:30 catchphrase in this in the in the world right in this in the church world right now with the young people deconstructing from Christianity. I want to encourage you to hashtag deconstruct from Americanized Christianity.22:42 Please do that. You have my permission to deconstruct from Americanized Christianity. Now all this to be said leads me to this last point I wanna put up on the screen here. So American22:54 law focused on my rights, and the laws are written, look at this, to protect the individual from the community. The community is the danger, and23:06 the individual is kind of the, you know, the the faultless 1, the the holy 1, the pure 1. And and now our parenting,23:18 standards have fallen into this idea. You know, we have parents who abdicate the role of discipline because they want to understand their child and they wanna let their child and John Chris does the great bit23:30 about this in his latest comedy routine. My wife and I were watching it the other day where, you know, you get on the floor with your child and you say, speak your truth. What are your feelings? Tell me, you know, gone23:40 are the days where we just told our children, you know, be quiet. Right now, you're causing a commotion. You're being disrespectful to everybody around you. And that was about understanding their truth and their23:49 feelings. It's ridiculous. Anyway, back to this idea, look at the other side, of how we approach God's law. It is protection of the community from the24:01 individual. Now that is not to say that the community is the innocent 1. No. No. No. No. Many times in the Old Testament, God did chastise the entire community.24:13 Absolutely. But, and this is a big but, the community is made up of individuals. So individuals cause communities to get bad. It is it is24:25 not, communities, in god's opinion, that cause individuals to get bad when when God's law is administered. Yes. Bad company corrupts good character. I know some of your heads are going there24:37 right now. But when it comes to the laws of God and their underpinnings, when you read them, you're going to see, oh, wait a second. God is protecting his24:49 community from me. My heart's the problem. You let's just do a little log us screen, dive deep dive here into this. Genesis25:01 chapter 6 verse 5. Look at this verse and and and tell me that the individual is, justified in his own heart. The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every intention of25:12 the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. You can't get more adverbs and adjectives packed into that sentence to describe the evil of the human heart.25:24 By the way, there's other verses that speak to this, throughout the Bible, most notably, Jesus' chapter 15 Matthew chapter 15 verse 19. For out of the heart25:36 come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person, but to each eat with unwashed hands does not defile anyone. This is why Jesus was able to hang out25:47 with sinners and tax collectors and prostitutes and not be defiled because he he knew that the community didn't defile. The heart of man defiled the community. You get it? So when we approach God's law,25:59 we are looking for we are looking for protection of the community from the individual. Now let me show you a couple of examples why that matters and26:11 how some of the things in the Bible refer to this or speak to this. You you don't get divorced in God's community because it will hurt the community. It will hurt children. It will26:23 hurt the women who in the ancient world didn't have rights, didn't have, the ability to stand up for themselves, couldn't work. Okay? And remember when we talk about the law, God is speaking into that generation. He is26:33 not speaking into 20 first century American lives. Okay? So you don't get divorced because your happiness is not the goal. And I know this is hard for Americans to understand because we are westernized.26:45 We are in European enlightened individuals where the individual is God. King is the most important, and your personal happiness comes first. That's not how God wrote the Torah. Those are not the people26:57 for whom God wrote the Torah. God wrote the Torah, the law, for the sake of the community to be protected from people hurting the community. I don't get divorced because it will hurt my kids. Anybody who's on the verge27:09 of divorce or suicide for that matter. Let's take an an even let's bring this the tension up a notch. Suicide. Oh, they must have really were unable to cope with life. Well, maybe, but they were27:21 also entirely selfish, and they were not interested in protecting the community. I mean, really, that's really what's happening when people take their own lives because they are being you are being relied27:32 on. No matter how you feel, people are relying on you. No matter how hard it is, people are depending on you. And if you're going to have an attitude where I'm just gonna take my life because I can't take it anymore, you27:44 are basically telling people, I don't care about you. I don't give a rip about your life. My happiness, my feelings are the only thing that matters, and so here I go. I'm gonna do what's good for me.27:56 You don't murder, right, because you are protecting god's protecting the the community from the individual. And in the heart of man are murderers right there in Matthew28:08 chapter 5 19. Right there. By the way, I'm really just loving this bounce around effect being a little bit more relaxed tonight, on the deep dive. Let me know in the comments if it's working for you. I I28:20 feed only on positive affirmation. So anyway, back to the thought. I don't murder because murder hurts people. Now here's another 1. Number 10 on28:32 the list of God's top 10. I don't covet because why? Because that person in my community needs me to love them, not be28:44 jealous of them. That person in my community needs me to be happy for them, okay, not measure my life against them. My28:56 friends, if we could get the the people of America to embrace this ideology, neighborhoods would change. Instagram Reels would be29:08 transformed. You've got to see that god's law is beautiful because the intention of god's law is for the benefit of29:20 God's community. You are not an island. You are not, you know, on your own in the middle of the the sea, traveling alone with God. No. No. No. No. You're part of a29:31 community that needs you. So all the laws of God are in place to do that, and I cannot stress enough that that is going to underpin the entire study.29:43 I guarantee you that most of the time, why people are going to be struggling with the Torah and his commandments is because they are on that left side there of the American law and the American mindset, my29:55 rights, individual is king, idea concerning the the text. And we're going to deconstruct the American in you through the study, and we're going to look at it, through the30:07 lens of the right hand side. How is God protecting the community from the evil heart of the individual? It's a paradigm shift and it doesn't happen30:18 overnight. You're not gonna be like, okay. Great. You know, this is this is done for me. No. No. It's going to take a long time. Right? So let me put this on the screen. I've already kind of discussed it, but I'll put it30:29 up on the screen anyway. In American law, the protection of the individual from the community. I will do what makes my life be my best life according to my own ideas. If the community threatens my instinct, community30:38 must be adjusted. So my feelings are all that matter. And some of you, you might you might need to be pinched here because you're raising your kids like that. Your kids' feelings are all that matters. No. No. No. That's30:48 not true. Your family and, your, peace and your your neighborhood's peace, that matters. That matters. And if your child's31:00 feelings are upending the harmony of your neighborhood and your Christian community, your child needs to be disciplined. The consequences of my own ideas are the responsibility of someone31:12 else. That's totally American right now, isn't that? That's oh, man. That's American 1 0 1. If if I have caused pain to my life because of my my31:24 ideas and my concepts, somebody needs to pay for it. So now we need we need universal health care paid for by the government because why? Because I smoked too much marijuana when I was 17. Actually, from 17 to 37, I31:34 smoked too much marijuana. Now I have all this anxiety. And there's scores of studies that link anxiety to marijuana or depression to marijuana or alcohol. I I wrecked my family through alcohol use. And now so31:46 now the community needs to step up and pay. Now, again, I'm not against welfare. I'm not against community safety nets. I think those are important, and I think those values are also under,31:58 underscored by this undergirded by the Torah. But to the extent that we focus on the individual, these these problems, these these symptoms of the, the the corruption32:10 of our culture are only going to exacerbate, and that's the seriousness of this teaching. Let's switch over again back to God's law, the protection of the community from the individual. So again, you don't divorce32:21 divorce because it will hurt people. You don't murder because there are family members attached to that person and and the law will talk about the avenger of blood for unintentional killings, which we will get to, and32:30 then you don't covet because that person needs your community, not your jealousy. Man, that'll preach right there. So this is why we're studying Torah. 1 more thing I want to say about why we're32:42 studying Torah, and, again, this is an introduction. We're we're we're just laying the foundation of this talk, so please understand we haven't even really discussed the Bible yet and I understand that, but I'm just32:51 giving you underlayment for the teaching. Let me get to this content. In God's law, God reveals his character to his people so that his people are a blessing to all people. Un an ultimate goal of God's law, and you're33:03 gonna see this so beautifully in just a moment. The ultimate goal of God's law is that God's character is revealed to His people, and then His people, listen, participate33:15 in His character, and that participation turns into a blessing for people beyond God's people. Can't tell you how cool this is going to be in just a moment.33:27 Why does God give the law to ancient Israel? As crazy as it sounds to us 20 first century Americans. Let me show you. Deuteronomy chapter 4, yeah. Deuteronomy chapter 4 verse 5. Look at this verse. Very beautiful33:39 verse. He says, see, I have taught you statutes and rules as the Lord my God commanded me that you should do do them in the land that you are entering to take possession of. Keep33:51 them and do them for that will be your wisdom and your understanding, look at this, in the sight of all the peoples who when they hear all these statutes will say, surely this nation is a wise and34:03 understanding people. For what great nation is there that has a god so near to it as the lord our god is to us whenever we call upon him? And what great34:14 nation is there that has statues and rules so righteous that as all this law that I have set before you today. Are you seeing that? Because it is so cool.34:27 God is making absolutely clear. You do this stuff, and the ancient peoples around you are gonna say, wow. Those people, what is it about them? And34:39 why is their god so near them? Because 1 of the stipulations of the law is if you if you keep this law, I will dwell among you because god cannot dwell amongst sin. So he is saying, you keep the law, I will dwell among34:50 you. I will sit and live with you. We will do life together, and the people will see it, and you will be blessed, and you will be expanded in your life, and they will say, what's going on in your nation? Understand,35:01 modern 20 first century Christian, the evangelical view of the law from God's point of view. The evangelical. In other words, this law being practiced should be good news for the people around you. I said35:13 this to my church on Sunday. The good news cannot just be good news for us. It must be good news for everybody around us. Because when you don't murder, when you pay your taxes, when you don't cheat, lie, and steal, when35:23 you don't commit adultery and wreck 2 families, when you don't, bear false witness, your community is better off. Who who do you wanna trust with fixing your kitchen? The35:35 the the the the questionable character plumber or the plumber who has that good 5 star reputation on, Angie's List or whatever, and and you know they get the job done for a fair price at a in a in a reasonable35:47 time. People who obey these laws are better for their community. The good news cannot just be good news for us. It must be good news for everybody around us. So, ultimately, that is the35:59 heart of God for his law. He wants to be among his people. That is where his heart is. What does Jesus say when he ascends36:11 to the right hand side of god the god the father? Lo, I am with you always even to the very end of the age. God's desire from Genesis chapter 1 and 2 where he creates paradise with Adam and Eve to the36:23 tabernacle in Exodus in the Torah to the temple in David's and Solomon's day, to the person of the Lord Jesus Christ in the gospels, to the person of the Holy Spirit36:35 in the life of the church, and then ultimately to the new heavens and the earth new earth where righteousness dwells forever and God and people dwell together in perfect harmony and there is no sin and there is no36:45 darkness and there is no shame anymore. That is God's heart from beginning to end. He wants to be among you, and so that's why you needed this. You need this study. You need this study because god wants to36:57 be with you. And the more you study Torah, the more you're going to see that. I wanna put a picture up here from my Logos Bible software. This is the Israelite encampment, and you can see thereShow more In this video 0:00 Understanding the Torah2:09 The Purpose of God's Law37:02 The Relevance of Torah Today
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