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[0:00] The message is the law of love, non-retaliation. Please turn to the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 5.

[0:15] And there we'll be looking at Matthew, chapter 5, verses 38 through 48.

[0:33] You have heard that it was said, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. But I say to you, do not resist an evil person.

[0:45] But whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also. If anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, let him have your coat also.

[1:00] Whoever forces you to go one mile, go with him too. Give to him who asks of you, and do not turn away from him who wants to borrow from you.

[1:15] You have heard that it was said, you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.

[1:29] So that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he causes his Son to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.

[1:48] For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?

[1:59] If you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same?

[2:11] Therefore, you are to be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect. There are actually two segments here that Gary just read.

[2:28] That is, two different laws. And the first has to do with the law of non-retaliation or the law of non-resistance. And it is followed immediately thereafter with the law of love.

[2:40] But I had them read together, and we'll probably do so again next week, because in a certain sense they are inseparable. They are all connected. In fact, if you look at the text carefully here in the Sermon on the Mount, and we've already treated this aspect of it, but I want to just mention it again to get it on the table.

[3:01] We have six areas that our Lord covers, and I am convinced that the reason he covers these six areas is because they are the most crucial for all of life and living.

[3:15] They have to do with murder in 521 through 26, adultery in 27 through 30, divorce in 31 and 32, the law of oaths in 33 through 37, and non-resistance 38 through 42, and the law of love in 43 through 48.

[3:36] All six of these areas are inseparably bound to each other, and they comprise the whole gamut of human relationships. These areas, these six, represent the whole warp and woof of man conducting himself with his fellow man.

[3:55] These six areas are designed to be very comprehensive in addressing the way society was to be conducted in Israel.

[4:10] Those two words may be the most important of this whole thing. In Israel. But isn't that the way it's supposed to be across the board?

[4:21] No. And I trust we will be able to show you why. But it is in Israel. Each of these six segments would be found to spill over into the other five in one way or another as regards the way society was to be conducted in Israel.

[4:44] Now, that is very, very key, and it is so often overlooked. And overlooking the strict geographical aspect of Israel being part and parcel of this will lead to all kinds of misunderstanding today.

[5:01] And there is a great deal of misunderstanding regarding the Sermon on the Mount. You would be surprised how many people say, well, I live by the Sermon on the Mount. They don't have any idea what they're saying.

[5:13] In the first place, well, you'll see as we move on. These requirements, and I'm talking now in particular the one we're going to be dealing with today, the requirements of non-resistance, provision was made for redress and justice to be done when and if this principle did not resolve the issue.

[5:54] Then there was provision for going to court. But I cannot emphasize or overemphasize how important it is and how strategic it is to keep in mind that these things in the Sermon on the Mount were all predicated upon the previous giving of the Law of Moses.

[6:16] And where the difficulty arose as far as the people who were hearing the Sermon on the Mount was concerned, I mean the original audience, was that they already had in place what they had been taught for years, that the Law of Moses meant by way of interpretation as it was given by the scribes and Pharisees who constituted the religious establishment.

[6:49] But they were terribly wrong. And yet they imposed their interpretation upon it. In another place, later on, I think it's in maybe Matthew 22 or 23, where Jesus charges a religious establishment of making the Law of None effect by your traditions and your interpretations.

[7:12] So they effectively gutted the Law of Moses in its intent and in its spirit, and they replaced it with a law of nitpicking details that were impossible for the people to keep.

[7:30] And this is why Jesus said of them, that you place burdens upon the people which neither you nor they are able to bear.

[7:40] And when they got through interpreting the Law, it just left people almost in despair. How can we ever do this? And one reason was because they became so overly impressed with the detail and minutia and slicing it thinner and thinner and thinner, it became inoperable and impractical.

[8:00] But the Law of Moses, as it was given by God on Mount Sinai, was designed for Israel to be able to conduct itself in the land in an orderly way and to receive the blessings and benefits that come from living that kind of life.

[8:16] That's what that was all about. But they had so distorted it and rearranged it and rewritten it and redefined it that it was just impossible. Has anybody ever called the Internal Revenue Service and asked for their interpretation of a given passage in a tax law?

[8:40] And see what they tell you? And then call another IRS office in another jurisdiction and ask them the same question and see what they tell you? And then call a third one and see.

[8:52] And the likelihood is you're going to get three different answers. What's a poor taxpayer supposed to do? How many thousands and thousands of pages make up that tax code?

[9:05] And even the tax lawyers can't agree as to what it means. Well, that by way of application is a similar situation they were dealing with regarding the Law of Moses.

[9:18] So what I want to do is take you into some initial groundwork as regards the Law and we'll see how these things played out and where they erred.

[9:30] So let's go first of all to Exodus chapter 21. We'll be back to Matthew later. Exodus chapter 21. This is in connection with the first giving of the Law.

[9:42] And I say the first giving because the Law is going to be given again. Deuteronomy, the word of which means the second law or the second giving of the Law.

[9:53] That's what Deuteronomy is. And it is going to be given to the children of Israel again. Why do they need to have the Law given to them again when they got it back in Exodus chapter 20?

[10:05] Why repeat it in Deuteronomy 5? And the reason is simple. It's because it's a new generation. The original generation that came out of Egypt is going to die off in the wilderness.

[10:20] And before the children of Israel, their descendants, are going to go into the land to possess it, the Law is going to be reiterated again and given again because it's a new generation of people.

[10:34] So in the first generation, we find in Exodus 21, beginning with verse 18, and I'm not going to comment on these verses.

[10:44] I'm just going to read them rapidly because we have a great deal of material to cover. Chapter 21, Exodus, beginning with verse 18. And if men have a quarrel, and one strikes the other with a stone or with his fist, and he does not die but remains in bed, if he gets up and walks around outside on his staff, then he who struck him shall go unpunished.

[11:11] He shall only pay for his loss of time and shall take care of him until he is completely healed. And if a man strikes his male or female slave with a rod and he dies at his hand, he shall be punished.

[11:27] Now just let me insert one thing here. I know I said I wasn't going to elaborate on this, but slavery in the land of Israel was totally different from what we think of as slavery in the Old South with African slaves.

[11:43] Entirely different. I won't go into the differences, but please don't equate them and think that Moses here is talking about Israelites owning slaves the way southern plantation owners own slaves in the United States.

[11:59] Very little to do with that. So don't make that equation. It is an inaccurate one. Verse 21. If, however, he survives a day or two, no vengeance shall be taken, for he is his property.

[12:16] And if men struggle with each other and strike a woman with child so that she has a miscarriage, I guess you would call this a couple of men fighting, and a woman is injured as collateral damage.

[12:29] She has a miscarriage, yet there is no further injury. He shall surely be fined as the woman's husband may demand of him, and he shall pay as the judges decide.

[12:43] Now here is provision for a duly constituted court to be convened. And sometimes that was necessary because differences that arose between parties could not always be resolved by the parties.

[12:57] So they had to take it to court. And there were judges in place for doing that. In fact, the whole book of Judges that follows the book of Joshua places an emphasis upon the responsibility that these leaders in Israel had to judge the people.

[13:14] That's what they did. They literally judged. They heard disputes. They heard arguments. They rendered verdicts and so on. And we have a long list of judges, some of whom served on the bench, if you will, for 40 years or so.

[13:27] Probably none of them were as efficient or as well-liked or as accomplished as a judge by the name of Samuel. And he was the last of Israel's judges before the monarchy was instituted.

[13:42] So verse 23, But if there is any further injury, then you shall appoint as a penalty life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.

[14:00] And if a man strikes the eye of his male or female slave and destroys it, he shall let him go free on account of his eye.

[14:11] And if he knocks out a tooth of his male or female slave, he shall let him go free on account of his tooth. And if an ox gores a man or a woman to death, the ox shall surely be stoned and its flesh shall not be eaten.

[14:31] But the owner of the ox shall go unpunished. If, however, an ox was previously in the habit of goring and its owner has been warned, yet he does not confine it and it kills a man or a woman, the ox shall be stoned and its owner also shall be put to death.

[14:56] This is because, obviously, the owner knew that the ox had a penchant for goring and goring people and this was a previous existing condition and he did not exercise due diligence to prevent that from possibly happening again.

[15:11] So there was a stiff penalty to be paid. Now, if we may, let's come over to another. Leviticus chapter 24 and then we'll start drawing some conclusions. Leviticus 24 and 17.

[15:27] Leviticus is described as the handbook of the priests. It was given to instruct the priests how they were to conduct their priestly office regarding the sacrifices and all that that involved.

[15:42] Leviticus 24 and verse 17. If a man takes the life of any human being, he shall surely be put to death.

[15:58] And the one who takes the life of an animal shall make it good life for life. And if a man injures his neighbor just as he has done, so it shall be done to him.

[16:11] Fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, just as he has injured a man, so it shall be inflicted on him.

[16:22] Thus, the one who kills an animal shall make it good, but the one who kills a man shall be put to death. There shall be one standard for you.

[16:33] It shall be for the stranger as well as the native, for I am the Lord your God. Then Moses spoke to the sons of Israel. Who did Moses speak to?

[16:45] Sons of Israel. And they brought the one who had cursed outside the camp and stoned him with stones. Thus, the sons of Israel did, just as the Lord had commanded Moses.

[17:00] Now, our final Old Testament reference is found in Deuteronomy 19. Over just a few pages. Deuteronomy 19 and verse 15.

[17:19] I'm just selecting some of these specific verses because we just simply do not have time to read all of the law. Of course, that would take a considerable amount of time.

[17:30] So let's begin with verse 15. A single witness shall not rise up against a man on account of any iniquity or any sin which he has committed.

[17:42] On the evidence of two or three witnesses, a matter shall be confirmed. If a malicious witness rises up against a man to accuse him of wrongdoing, then both the men who have the dispute shall stand before the Lord, before the priests and the judges who will be in office in those days, that is, whoever it might be because they will come and go and die off and new ones will be appointed and so on.

[18:12] And the judges shall investigate thoroughly. And if the witness is a false witness and he has accused his brother falsely, then you shall do to him just as he had intended to do to his brother.

[18:27] Thus, you shall purge the evil from among you and the rest will hear and be afraid and will never again do such an evil thing among you.

[18:39] That is establishing the basis for a deterrence. There is a verse, I think it's in Ecclesiastes, it says, because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore it is set in the heart of the sons of men to do evil.

[19:06] In other words, justice delayed is justice denied. It becomes so irritating sometimes to see people here in the United States on death row under sentence for 12 years.

[19:23] This is patently ridiculous. It's unfair to the American taxpayer and it's unfair to the man who is scheduled to be executed. Justice that is not executed speedily encourages more injustice.

[19:39] There needs to be swift punishment. And of course, the case needs to be thoroughly tried and the defense needs to have ample opportunity to present a defense and all of the rest of it.

[19:50] But this nonsense of cases dragging on for years and years and years is just absolutely ridiculous. Verse 21, Thus you shall not show pity life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.

[20:08] Now, I want to share with you from the pen of Arnold Fruchtenbaum noted authority on all things Israeli, both ancient and modern.

[20:26] And this is comments that he makes regarding this law of non-resistance. The next example Jesus dealt with was the Mosaic commandment that spoke of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.

[20:43] Some have misinterpreted his words, that is Jesus' words, as a repudiation of the Mosaic law. But he did not come to repudiate the law.

[20:53] He came to fulfill the law. And this was part of the law. Again, in its context, a distinction was made between his interpretation and the Pharisaic interpretation of the righteousness which the law demanded.

[21:08] The Pharisees interpreted an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, as grounds for personal vengeance and retaliation. As far as the Mosaic law was concerned, this commandment had to do with judicial aspect.

[21:26] Punishment had to be by a proper court of law and the punishment had to fit the crime. It was never intended that this commandment be taken as grounds for personal vengeance because as far as personal vengeance is concerned, the commandment was, Vengeance is mine, says the Lord, I will repay.

[21:49] No one had the right to take personal vengeance upon someone else, for this would mean taking the law into his own hands. The commandment, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, was never intended for the purpose of personal vengeance, but rather for proper punishment to fit the crime as passed by a court of law.

[22:12] This was the righteousness that this commandment demanded. It demanded that the punishment be carried out in a proper way, not in the sense of personal vengeance or retaliation.

[22:24] Now, when you take that into consideration, you will see how closely tied this is with the law of love, which is coming up, and they are virtually inseparable. The punishment fitting the crime is very critical to be understood, and it's not being understood has led a lot of people to mistaken notions and ideas.

[22:48] If two men are engaged in the scuffle, and one of them knocks the tooth out of the other, what is to be the punishment?

[23:04] Well, the one who still has all his teeth is supposed to be brought before the court, and they stand him up against the post, and somebody takes a chisel or a hammer or whatever and says, open your mouth, and they proceed to remove, after all, it's a tooth for a tooth and an eye for an eye, and that's the way they interpreted it.

[23:26] But that was not the intent of the law. The intent of the law wasn't to say that it was to be exactly the same thing, but it means that the punishment is to fit the crime.

[23:38] The sentence is to be commensurate with the offense. It doesn't require that somebody who put out the eye of another person, okay, now you're going to have to have your eye put out. There is a fine sometimes involved, and there are times when the person who had their eye put out would much prefer to have the money from the fine than he would to have the one who put his eye out to have his eye put out.

[24:01] You see what I mean? So the thing begins to break down, and when people try to implement this, it becomes very, very difficult. And when you bring this teaching over into modern day, like some try to today, to apply the Sermon on the Mount, it just absolutely falls apart.

[24:23] These principles, and this is really, really important. I hope you get this. These principles were all in place and being utilized when Christ was here, and when he delivered the Sermon on the Mount.

[24:40] The issue was never regarding their authority, but their interpretation, and how these laws were being applied in Israel. The original intent of the laws, and the spirit of them, had been replaced by the rigid and burdensome literality of the religious establishment.

[25:00] it was this which Christ repeatedly contradicted, and I remember telling you from the outset of our study several sessions ago, that this was the principal area of conflict regarding Christ and the religious establishment.

[25:18] They consistently accused him of teaching against the law of Moses. He never did. did.

[25:30] He revered the law of Moses. He supported it. He endorsed it. He obeyed it. He advocated it. He said repeatedly, he did not come to destroy the law, but to fulfill the law.

[25:44] And somebody else is going to be accused of the same thing. Any idea who? Paul the apostle is going to be charged by the Jewish religious establishment as teaching those things contrary to the law of Moses.

[26:05] And on one occasion, he's going to be persecuted, well, persecuted multiple times. And in each instance where the Jews are behind the persecution, which isn't in every instance, but is in most of them, he is charged with disregarding or teaching against the law of Moses, which, as I mentioned, he never did.

[26:28] The law of Moses was given exclusively to Israel in a special covenant relationship with Jehovah in anticipation of their moving into the land of Israel.

[26:45] And God is telling them through Moses, and when you get there, when you get into the land, this is how you are to live in the land and conduct your day-to-day business.

[26:58] That was what the whole law of Moses was given for. It was given for a specific people, in a specific place, at a specific time, and to no one else.

[27:11] God will never call on the carpet, Egyptians or Babylonians or Assyrians, for not obeying the law of Moses. they were never given that law.

[27:21] It was never intended for them. It was given exclusively to Israel for their orderliness and well-being and for their blessing and benefit while they were in the land.

[27:35] It was never given to you. It was never given to me. Now, as we've gone through this Sermon on the Mount, we have noted, nonetheless, several abiding principles, which we feel are very, very important.

[27:48] And we adhere to them in principle, but not in detail because they were not given. And yet, there's always wisdom behind them that is to be instituted and followed.

[28:01] But insofar as the interpretation of the law and the application of it to us, it never was given to us. And nobody spells that out more carefully than does the Apostle Paul, beginning with Romans chapter 2.

[28:16] So I want you to go there now. We'll spend a little bit of time in the New Testament. This is really critical material, and I cannot estimate how many people are hung up on this and really in confusion over the law and how it is to be implemented today.

[28:36] Romans chapter 2 and verse 14.

[28:48] 14. For when the Gentiles who are Gentiles in Paul's day and in our day today, a Gentile is anyone who is not a direct descendant of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

[29:13] They are Jews. everyone else is a Gentile. Probably 99.9% population of the world is Gentile.

[29:26] Only a small, tiny minority are Jewish. And when Paul says here in verse 12, I'm sorry, verse 14, when Gentiles who do not have the law, the law, why don't they have the law?

[29:47] Because they were never given the law. The law was never entrusted to them. The law was never given to them with these things you must do, and there will be blessings that follow if you do them, and there will be cursings that follow if you don't.

[30:06] That's all Jewish. That's all Israeli. Now, make no mistake about it, world systems of jurisprudence, including ours here in the United States, in many instances, is predicated upon the Ten Commandments, the Mosaic Law, etc., and upon Roman law, and much of the Roman law was tied in with this law.

[30:27] But that does not mean that these commandments, of which there are in reality 633, not 10, 633, were given to Israel, and they involve everything from soup to nuts, from sacrifice to kosher kitchens, to the way an animal was to be killed, to what could be eaten, and what couldn't be eaten.

[30:49] All of those added up come to 633. But the Gentiles never had that law. When the Gentiles who do not have the law, do instinctively the things of the law, these not having the law are a law to themselves, in that they show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness, and their thoughts alternately accusing or else defending them.

[31:17] So even though the Gentiles, non-Jews, never had the law of Moses given to them, never addressed to them, never required to fulfill it, they had nonetheless a law in their internal being.

[31:34] God put it there. there. It is innate to humanity, and it is a law that is enabling us to determine right from wrong.

[31:46] There is a moral imperative that God has embedded in the heart of every human being. I don't care how immoral they are. They have a law of morality embedded within them.

[32:00] God put it there. Everyone has that. We have an innate sense of right and wrong. You cannot find a culture or a people anywhere in the world who do not recognize that it is wrong to take another person's life.

[32:23] But where did they get that idea? They were never exposed to any law. They don't even know how to read and write. They've never heard anything about the gospel, about the law, or anything else.

[32:35] And yet, even within their culture, there are certain rules of behavior that are established and acknowledged by everyone. How did they come up with those? Where did they get those?

[32:46] How did they arrive at the idea that it was wrong for one person to take something that belongs to another person? That's stealing. Where did they learn that?

[32:58] They didn't learn it anywhere. It was inbred. We all have this sense of right and wrong. And it becomes a basis for accountability. They show the work of the law written in their hearts.

[33:15] Now, another puzzling passage that I think needs to be brought into the fray on this is in Romans chapter 6. Romans 6 in verse 14.

[33:29] 13. I'd like to read the entire context, but trust me when I tell you I am certainly not taking this out of context. This is rather a conclusion to the verses that precede, and it is a grand conclusion that Paul is arriving at here in verse 14 when he says, For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law, but under grace.

[33:56] Now, to whom is that written? It's written to believers. Well, what if you're not under grace?

[34:14] If you are not a believer, then you're not under grace, right? And what law are you under? You're under that innate law.

[34:25] that God placed within you. You're under that sense of right and wrong that is embedded in the human heart. But for the believer, we are not under that law.

[34:41] We are, does this mean that believers are antinomian? This is a charge that is often leveled against grace believers. Grace believers are accused of being lawless because they repudiate the idea of legalism and being under law that they are lawless.

[35:00] Grace believers have an entirely different law under which we operate. Come over another page, if you will, to chapter eight. chapter eight and verse, well, let's just read a little bit.

[35:24] There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Now, right there, we are establishing believers are in question. this is pertinent to believers.

[35:38] Believers are equal to those who are in Christ. If you are a believer, you are in Christ. If you are in Christ, you are a believer. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

[35:52] Here's the law we're under. For the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death.

[36:03] everyone who is not in Christ is under the law of sin and death, whether they are a Jew or whether they are a Gentile. This simply means that because of our sin, the wages of sin is death, that's what they are under.

[36:20] That which brings you out from under death and brings you into a realm of life is being in Christ. And when you are in Christ, you are not under this law, you are under the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus.

[36:36] That's entirely different. This is to be the modus operandi for the believer. And if you want to know what those principles are of the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus, you read those things that are pertinent to believers living in the church age.

[36:53] And where are they? And what are they? They begin right here with Romans, and they go right on through until you come to the general epistles. They are the writings of the apostle Paul.

[37:05] This man was raised up to be the apostle to the Gentiles. And he had a special message for the Gentiles.

[37:17] And his message to the Gentiles will not square with the message to Israel in the land in the Sermon on the Mount. You cannot make them fit.

[37:29] You shouldn't even try. We see here a clear-cut example of a progression of revelation. No one is saying what is in Matthew and the Sermon on the Mount was wrong.

[37:42] Nobody is saying that at all. It was right, but it was right for its time and for its people. When you move on through the New Testament and the transition that follows, moving from the dispensation in the age of Israel, and the gospel of the kingdom, over into the dispensation of the grace of God, and the gospel of the grace of God, where Jew and Gentile are put together in one new body, making one new man, it's a whole new ballgame.

[38:17] And if you try to live by the dictates of the Sermon on the Mount, you are living not by the basis of the latest orders given, you are living on the basis of orders that were given earlier.

[38:30] What I'm saying is, what Paul is going to be giving us in his epistles is an update. Now, that ought not to be too hard to understand for a computer-savvy age.

[38:44] We're always getting all kinds of updates in our computers. Get a new program. This updates the old program. That simply means what was in vogue before for that computer is now out of it.

[38:57] It has been replaced by something newer and better, so you need to uninstall the old and install the new and go on from there because you've got something to work with now that you didn't have before. Same thing applies to the interpretation of Scripture.

[39:13] We've got doctrine on the move. We've got the Gospels being updated. The Gospels are going to be updated by the book of Acts. And the book of Acts is going to be updated by the writings of the Apostle Paul.

[39:32] Paul, being the Apostle to the Gentiles, has written letters to whom? To Gentiles, to the churches. Now granted, in virtually all of these churches, Corinthians, Romans, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and all of them, there are going to be some Jews, some Jewish constituencies in all of those, but the majority is going to be Gentiles.

[39:55] And it's a whole new ballgame. And issues like circumcision, keeping a kosher kitchen, eating or not eating certain animals, Sabbath keeping, all of those things are going to come into play, and they are all going to be updated.

[40:12] But you know our problem is? So many believers, so many Christians, have not made or allowed for or even recognize any updates.

[40:24] And what you get is a cumbersome attempt to try and observe the laws of Moses, the Old Testament, etc., and things like the Sermon on the Mount, and we have great difficulties squaring these.

[40:37] Let me tell you some of the first examples that come to mind with this. People with great hearts, and great minds, and great fortitude, and great courage, but also great confusion.

[40:53] Go back to the Puritans, pilgrim fathers. They tried to apply the laws of the Old Testament, which were never intended to be applied by them, and passages in the Gospels to the people who were present at their day.

[41:18] And I'm talking about 1500s and 1600s. And they came upon the idea regarding Sabbatarianism, they came upon the idea that as the Jews were required to keep the seventh day, and it began at sundown Friday and continued until sundown Saturday, Christians are under obligation to do the same thing, except we do it a different time.

[41:51] And we do it on the first day of the week, and that commemorates the resurrection of our Lord from the grave on the first day of the week. Some believe that whoever the Pope was who was in charge of the chair of Peter at this time changed the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday.

[42:14] I've never researched that. I don't know that there's anything to buttress that or support that. But I do know that through the ages, it came to be the right thing to do to take everything that was required of the Jews on the Sabbath and transfer it to Christians on Sunday.

[42:34] Some of you are old enough to remember the blue laws. They call them the blue laws. I don't know how they got that name, blue laws, but they did. And what it meant essentially was that all the business establishments, stores, etc.

[42:49] were to be closed on Sunday in observance of what they call, and what many of them still call, the Christian Sabbath. Do you know that there has never been a Christian Sabbath, that the whole concept is Jewish?

[43:06] There is a day of rest for those who are in Christ. That's true, but that's a spiritual rest. It has nothing to do with the physical rest, although that's certainly advisable, too. So, in an effort to implement those laws, there were local ordinances, city and municipal ordinances, that were in effect that even required places to be closed.

[43:31] And I can remember hearing a couple of baseball announcers talking during rain delay. You know, these guys, they called the game, the balls and strikes, the outs, et cetera, you know.

[43:45] And they were talking about the difficulty that schedulers had. This was years and years ago. I won't tell you how many, but a bunch. About the difficulty that schedulers had when they would try to schedule baseball games, and this was in the 40s, 40s and 50s, 1940s and 50s, the difficulty they had trying to schedule baseball games in Pennsylvania for the Philadelphia Phillies and the Philadelphia Athletics, before they even moved to Kansas City.

[44:20] Because in those two towns, you were not allowed to play baseball on Sunday. So they had to schedule all around those, and it became a scheduling nightmare for getting these teams moved around and who was supposed to play who.

[44:32] Now, every other city you could, but Pennsylvania was the last holdout for the blue laws, and you know why that was? Because of the influence of the founder, William Penn, and William Penn was a Quaker, and they took those things very seriously.

[44:51] Quakers had a unique interpretation of the law of Moses in that they tried to apply as much of it as possible, and they did so with great discomfort, may I say.

[45:03] Even in the idea of swearing, and we talked a little bit about that, about the swearing of an oath, Herbert Hoover, who was sworn in as president right before Franklin Delano Roosevelt, was a Quaker, and he refused to even repeat the words, I do solemnly swear that I will uphold, protect, defend the Constitution of the United States, and they had to change it for him, and he said, I do solemnly affirm, he wouldn't even use the word swear.

[45:35] Now, as far as I know, Richard Nixon, who had a Quaker background, didn't go that far, but all of this is tied in with the same thing, this is a hangover, a carryover, and now the blue laws are what?

[45:49] Virtually non-existent. Everybody's open on Sunday, it seems like, and there's an upside and a downside to that. Because, when Paul wrote to the Romans, he used that as an example in chapter 14.

[46:04] He talks about dietary regulations and some for vegetarians and some were meat eaters, etc. And then he came to the day, and he said, in writing to the church at Rome, he said, one man, one man honors one day above another.

[46:22] What was he talking about? He's talking about, I know you've got Jews there in your congregation, and they're still hung up on the Sabbath. One man regards one day above another, and another man regards every day, and there is a little italics word that is put in there, it doesn't belong there, it's alike.

[46:45] and that's in most of translations, but literally what he is saying is, one man regards one day above another, another man regards every day.

[46:59] And all that means is what Paul is saying, some would isolate one particular day of the year, or one particular day of the week, and they would do certain things, obligated to do certain things on that one particular day, and another man, and I think there he's talking about the mature believer, he's saying another man regards every day.

[47:19] In other words, every day is the Lord's day, and he doesn't live differently on one day than he lives on other days. Every day is the day the Lord has given, and he reserves it for right living and right behavior, regardless of what day it is.

[47:35] So there are certain no hoops to jump through. Now, this is going to be connected to the law of love that is coming up because this law of retaliation and the law of non-resistance has not been adequately dealt with, and I want you to see how it connects with chapter 6, or with the next item number 6, which has to do with the love of your neighbor, and how the law of non-resistance comes into effect there, and it is a marvelous thing, and from that we will be able to extract some really important principles that I feel are very wise and even binding for believers today.

[48:16] So next week, I will do my best to leave a generous portion of time for Q&A. I'm sure that this is going to generate all kinds of questions, and if it would help you, it would certainly help me.

[48:32] If you have questions, feel free to write them out, drop them in the offering box. You don't have to sign them. I don't need to know who wrote the question. Unless you want to sign, it doesn't matter. Drop them in the offering box and you'll get a better answer if I have time to think about it and prepare for it than you will off the top of my head.

[48:49] Because answers that I give off the top of my head sounds like that's just where they came from. And that's not always a good thing. So we have gotten about halfway through what we intend to bring and we'll tie it in with the law of love in our next session.

[49:05] Would you pray with me? Father, we are grateful for the update of revelation that we have. How difficult, how cumbersome, how impossible it would be if we were expected to live under the laws, the rules, and regulations that you gave to another specific people for a specific purpose at a specific time in a specific place, almost none of which applies to us.

[49:35] Yet it is valuable because whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope.

[49:47] So we pray that you will take this seed material that we have sown today and use it in such a way in the minds and hearts of people that we may see it bring forth fruit and be profitable to all in the near future.

[50:01]  We thank you for it in Christ's name. Amen.