We're in Deuteronomy chapter 14, if you'll turn with me. In Galatians chapter 3, verses 23 to 25, Paul makes an interesting comment about the law of Moses. And what he says, he says that the law was a tutor for the nation of Israel. Galatians 3 verse 23 says, before faith came, when he says before faith came, this doesn't mean that people didn't have faith in the living God before the coming of Christ, but he's especially talking about faith in this Son of God who has now come, has now given his life on the cross, conquered the curse of sin with a perfect sacrifice, conquered death, rose again. So he's talking about faith in Christ. He says, before faith came, he says, we were kept in custody under the law. being shut up to the faith, which was later to be revealed. Therefore, the law has become our tutor until Christ, that we may be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor. You look at this word tutor here, you know, the Greek word is paidagogos. You know, we have an English word, a pedagogue. A paidagogos in ancient times, it would be comparable to something like the butler that a rich family, a rich, wealthy Roman family had to watch over their kid. All right, your job is to watch over Johnny, make sure that Johnny makes it to his instructor, his teacher, make sure that Johnny doesn't get in trouble, make sure that Johnny does his work and gets home without getting in trouble. That was a Paitugas. So not exactly a teacher per se, but kind of like a butler. And Paul says that's what the law of Moses was for the nation of Israel. Now, the law of Moses gave instruction, but Paul uses this particular word, paragogos, to convey the idea that the law was like a custodian for the nation of Israel. And what he says right here, he says, this tutor, this paragogos, is until the coming of Christ. Now, some of your translations will say, to lead us to Christ, conveying the idea that, well, the law is there to teach us all about right and wrong, to help us understand who Christ is. Now the law does do that, but the expression right here really is not saying it's a teacher to lead us to Christ, but it's a custodian until the coming of Christ. The law had a temporary function for the nation of Israel to give Israel commandments about worship, to teach Israel how to live and obey God, to teach Israel about true worship, but it was only for a time period. Now another thing that the Law of Moses did for the people of Israel and for us today, and that's why we're studying it, the Law of Moses and the worship system teaches us about the holiness of God and it teaches us that there's only one way to approach God and that is through a an acceptable, innocent sacrifice that can take our place. This is something that comes out. So now you see this come out through the worship system. I mean, you know, God says, hey, don't come to me unless, you know, you're coming according to a sacrifice. And so, so much of the worship system, now there were non, blood sacrifices that Israel would give, grain offerings, and so on. But, you know, the law of Moses taught them the only way to approach a holy God is on the basis of an innocent victim. And that got communicated through the sacrificial system. Now, that sacrificial system, if you were living, you know, 3,000 years ago, 3,500 years ago, You and I would not have looked at the Law of Moses with things like the Passover and the Day of Atonement. We would not have looked at that and said, well, clearly this is teaching us that one day God is going to send the Son of God, and the Son of God is going to die as an innocent victim on our behalf. You just would not have walked away from the law of Moses based upon the worship system. As we look back, and when you also take into account the things that God did teach in addition to, if you look at the things that were taught in addition to the sacrificial system, there was teaching that one day, God says, I am going to send somebody. He's gonna destroy the enemy, And it's going to be a very costly blow when he destroys the enemy. Where do we first see that idea that it's going to be a costly blow? In Genesis 3.15, it says the promised one's gonna crush the head of the serpent, but it's going to crush his heel in the process. So there was additional messianic prophecy in the Old Testament that indicated that the promised one was going to somehow suffer a big blow to bring redemption. So you do see those things come out in the sacrificial system. All I'm trying to do is to kind of make it clear that the sacrificial system itself really was not a direct prophecy about Christ. However, it is a shadow. It's like a shadow. We call it typology, where we find out that the Old Testament foreshadowed the promised Savior. And so when God gave these commandments and laws to Moses, and Moses passed them on to the people of Israel, Moses knew that somehow this was all pointing to Christ. Look with me back before we kind of dive into Deuteronomy. Look with me at Exodus chapter 25 for a moment, but I also want you to have you ready to look at Hebrews chapter 8. So Exodus chapter 25. This is when God is giving Moses instructions to build the tabernacle, the worship center. In an Exodus chapter 25 in verse 8, God says, let Israel construct a sanctuary for me that I may dwell among them. God says, I want to dwell with my people. But you guys are really sinful, so I can't really you know, rub shoulders with you. I can't be directly in your presence. So you need to make a tabernacle, a tent structure, so that I can be with my people, but I'm going to be dwelling inside of the tabernacle. So Moses, make a tabernacle so that I can dwell with my people. And then in verse nine, it says, according to all that I am going to show you, my translation says, As the pattern of the tabernacle and the pattern of all its furniture, you shall construct it. What God is saying here, and there's some translation issues, but what he's saying is, I want you to make this tabernacle and it's going to become a pattern. It's going to become a pattern of what I showed you when you were on Mount Sinai. Now, I've used this example before. I had a client back in the 80s that was in, they were actually building these things back in the 80s. They had like a national contract to build these things that, well, they were called video stores. I don't think there's any of them left in the world today. I don't know, at least not in America. But I think they had a contract with Blockbuster Video or one of the big chains. And they were building all the video stores across the whole country. And they were going nuts back in the 80s, building these things. And what they would do is they had this computer system. And they would go in, and they would video something, like the inside of a building. And then they would go back to the shop, and they could print. a plastic injection mold, an exact replica of whatever they wanted to build. This is basically what God did with Moses on Mount Sinai. God said, Moses, come here into heaven. I'm going to give you a sneak preview, glimpse of Christ and his redemption. And then I want you to make an earthly worship structure that is going to, the way that I tell you to make it, it's going to be an earthly worship structure that will communicate in an earthly way the redeeming work of my Son, Jesus Christ. So you think about the way that you had the tabernacle and they would walk into the holy place, the priest would, and then there was only, the high priest could go into the Holy of Holies behind the curtain. And when the priest, when the high priest went into the Holy of Holies, He was going into the presence of the Shekinah glory of God to bring an offering that would bring atonement for the entire nation. Well, in Hebrews chapter 8, we find out that's exactly what Christ did on the cross. The Son of God, our High Priest, went into the very presence of God, offering Himself. And so, Jesus Christ was foreshadowing excuse me, the high priest in the Old Testament was foreshadowing Jesus Christ. But also, the sacrifice that he brought was being foreshadowed by the sacrifice. So there's all sorts of imagery, we call this typology. Now when you look at what the book of Hebrews says about this whole thing, in Hebrews chapter eight, one of these days we're gonna get to the book of Deuteronomy, but in Hebrews chapter eight, what it says is this chapter 8 verse 1 now the main point in everything I've been saying is this we have such a high priest who has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of the majesty of the heavens a minister in the sanctuary the true tabernacle we have the one on earth but it's all ultimately pointing to Christ ministering in the presence of God the true tabernacle which the Lord pitched not man And then he says this in verse four, now, if Christ were on earth right now, and he wasn't, he had already ascended back to heaven. If he were right here right now, he would not be a priest because the priesthood of Israel was still ministering at this time. Book of Hebrews was written about 69. And he says, these priests who minister in the tabernacle, verse five says, they serve as a copy and shadow of the heavenly things. And then he quotes from Exodus chapter 25. the priesthood, the tabernacle, the worship system. It was all a copy and shadow of Christ and his redeeming work. So, why do I say all of this? It's because when we look at our studies in Deuteronomy, come back here to Deuteronomy chapter 14, and we look at the commandments that God gave to Moses for Israel, we can look at them at one level and say, here is how God gave Israel a worship system, and they were to follow it, but we wanna try to look and see how does this all point to Christ? That's what we're going to be doing tonight. Now, so far in chapter 12 and 13, we looked at two commandments or stipulations for worship. In chapter 12, God said, I'm going to choose the place where you do national worship. And that place was Jerusalem. And it was not until really under David that that place became identified, but God told David, this is where I am going to have my temple. But in Deuteronomy 12, in the days of Moses, God said, I am going to tell you where to worship. And in Deuteronomy 13, he says, and there's to be no other gods. So don't listen to the charismatic false prophets who are telling you, oh, hey, listen to this. God says, no, you only worship according to my word. Now in chapter 14 through 16 verse 17, we're gonna find five more specific instructions about worship. Chapter 14 deals with the issue of clean and unclean foods, clean and unclean foods. Now he's already given us instructions about clean and unclean foods back in Exodus and back in Leviticus. The issue here is not about what kind of food is healthy. Some people say, well, maybe this is like for dietary health reasons. There's really not a very good argument for that. Now, somebody might say, oh, well, pork can contain certain kinds of bacteria, and so God kept them away from pork. But the issue here is not about health kinds of reasons, it's about teaching them, there is such a thing as holy and unholy, clean and unclean. So it's not like bacon has an intrinsic problem with it. So don't worry about it, you know? You know, when we met together, we had some people up to the house a week ago, Saturday, that Dave Boyd did a concealed carry class up at my house for a group of people. And so I got a bunch of breakfast from the Hungry Bear restaurant. They have great bacon. They gave me double order. Sean piled it at double, but nice, tasty bacon. Oh, man. Anyhow, Israel had these commandments, and the reason why is because God was teaching them, there is such a thing as clean and unclean, so I'm gonna tell you what kinds of food you cannot eat. Why did God do this? He has every right to. He's God. And he gave Israel particular kinds of commandments on how he wanted them to worship. So let's go ahead and read this. So these are things that we've looked at before. And so through chapter 14, 15, and into 16, we're going to read through it. And then we're going to try to mine the golden nuggets out of it and make the particular points of application that really we want to see. So, chapter 14, verse 21 to 21, you are the sons of the Lord your God. You are God's children. You're his chosen nation. Therefore, you shall not cut yourselves, nor shave your forehead for the sake of the dead. For you are a holy people to the Lord your God, and the Lord has chosen you to be a people for his own possession out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. You shall not eat any detestable thing. Now, these are the animals which you may eat, the ox, the sheep, the goat, the deer, the gazelle, the roebuck, the wild goat, the ibex, the antelope, and the mountain sheep, and any animal that divides the hoof that has the hoof split in two and chews the cud among the animals that you may eat. Nevertheless, you are not to eat Ye of these among those which chew the cud, or among those which divide the hoof in two, the camel, the rabbit, the rock badger, for though they chew the cud, they do not divide the hoof. They are unclean for you. And the pig, because it divides the hoof, but does not chew the cud, it is unclean for you. You shall not eat any of their flesh, nor touch their carcasses. Now these you may eat of all that are in the water. Anything that has fins and scales, you may eat. But anything that does not have fins and scales, you shall not eat. It's unclean for you. You may eat of any clean bird, but these are the ones which you shall not eat. The eagle, the vulture, the buzzard, the red kite, the falcon, and the kite in their kinds, and every raven of its kind, and the ostrich, and the owl, and the seagull, and the hawk in their kind, the little owl, and the great owl, and the white owl, and the pelican, and the carrion, and vulture, the cormorant, the stork and the heron in their kinds, and the hoopoe and the bat, and all the teeming life with wings are unclean to you, they shall not be eaten. You may eat any clean bird. You shall not eat anything which dies of itself. Now you can give it to the alien who is in your town so that he may eat it, or you may sell it to a foreigner, for you are a holy people to the Lord your God, You shall not boil a kid in its mother's milk. Well, interesting, detailed commandments on what is clean and what is not. What God is doing is, God is, again, the main kind of thing that's happening in these clean, unclean laws, God is teaching His people about the issue of being holy and set apart to God. To be a people, says one commentator, holy to the Lord, meant being set apart. So here in chapter 14, you have commandments about how to live everyday life, your food, that really is going to set you apart so that you're different from everybody else. God wanted his people to be separate as his own treasured possession. And that meant that they were not to follow any of the ways of the Canaanites. Now, that begins right here in chapter 14, verse 1, where it talks about cutting yourself, self-laceration, or shaving the head. Don't do those things. Those are Canaanite practices. And we're not exactly sure, as we look at historical studies, exactly what these things dealt with, but the Canaanite religion, in terms of some of their demonic kinds of religious activities, involved slashing themselves and shaving the head. Remember in the days of Elijah, how you saw these false prophets were calling upon Baal to come and answer them, and they were gashing themselves with stones? That'd be the kind of thing you're talking about. And that also included things like shaving the head. God says, I don't want you doing those kinds of things. Don't do those things. Those are Canaanite practices. And then he goes into all these food laws with all those details about what is holy and what is unholy. You know, the Law of Moses, if you want to think about it this way, it's almost like it is a little children's picture book. You can't give a little kid a book with a bunch of words in it. You give them pictures and it works. You show a picture of a dog and whatever, and that's how you start off. In a sense, that's kind of what the Law of Moses was. God gave them this law to instruct them about His holiness, to instruct them about the way that they could approach Him in worship with sacrifice. But that law was only going to be mandated upon the nation of Israel until the coming of the Messiah. This is what Paul says in Galatians 3. Turn with me to the book of Hebrews again. Keep your spot right here, but look at Hebrews chapter 7. There are a multitude of times when you see the idea that the law of Moses had a temporary function for the people of Israel. It's never been something that has been mandated for the church. But for Israel, it even had a temporary time period. Matter of fact, the reason why it came to an end, in part, is because Israel broke the law. They broke the covenant. And that's what you read in Jeremiah chapter 31 verse 31. God says, the days are coming when I'm going to make a new covenant. with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. The old covenant, the law of Moses, was to administer his blessings to a nation. Well, that's what the new covenant does, is to administer blessings to his chosen people in the nation of Israel. God says, I'm gonna make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah because you guys broke the first one. I was faithful. But you guys broke it. So notice over here in chapter seven of Hebrews, what it says down here in, if you come down to like, let's say, verse 15, he talks about the coming of Christ. Hebrews 7, 15. He has come in the likeness of Melchizedek. Melchizedek was that king back in Genesis 14. He was the king of Salem. which is Jerusalem, but it also says that he was the priest of the people, a priest of El Elyon, the God Most High. So he says, Christ has come, in verse 16, he has become this king priest, not on the basis of a law of physical requirements, In other words, it's not because he's from a certain bloodline, like the tribe of Levi and the family of Aaron. He didn't become this high priest because of physical requirements, but according to the power of indestructible life, for it is written of him, you are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek. Now, verse 18, for on the one hand, there is a setting aside of the former commandment because of its weakness and uselessness. What does he mean when there's a setting aside of the former commandment? The law of Moses is gone, it's done. Now really the final nail in the coffin, so to speak, when it came to the end of the law of Moses was at the death of the Messiah. When Christ died, that put a complete permanent abolition of the old covenant. But the book of Hebrews here, that's what it's reflecting on. There's a setting aside of the former commandment. You go a little bit further. Notice here in chapter 8 in verse 13. And he's quoting here from Jeremiah 31. When God said that he's going to bring in a new covenant, he has made the first covenant obsolete. But whatever is becoming obsolete and growing old It's ready to disappear. Now, by the time you get to the book of Hebrews, this is, you know, 35, 36 years after the crucifixion, the temple was still in service. The priesthood was still operating. So you still had the worship structure going on of the old covenant. Even though the death of Christ put an end to it in the eyes of God, but they were still carrying it out. But within about one year, the Romans were going to come in and completely demolish the Jerusalem temple. And that's what he's talking about right here. It's about ready to disappear. God put an end to the old covenant, and it was really because of the finished work of Jesus Christ. God is going to establish a new covenant with the nation of Israel, but the death of Christ put an end to the old covenant. Go back with me to Ephesians chapter two for just a minute. And this was such a hard thing for the early church to understand because it was an entirely new, it was bringing an entirely new era of God working here on the earth. Now here's a question, okay. So are people today in the church more holy than people who lived 3,000 years ago? Are we more holy than Moses or David or Job? No. But God is working through the church, the body of Christ at this present time. So there is a different administration of how God is carrying out his purposes. But people in the Old Testament were no more or no less holy than we are. And people in the tribulation period or people in the messianic kingdom that come to faith, they're not going to be any more or less holy than we are today. But God is working at this present time through his church. Now, if you come to Ephesians 2, notice what it says. Verse 11, he says, remember, he's writing to a church that has come to have a significantly heavy Gentile composition. There were Jews in the church of Ephesus, but he says, remember that you, the Gentiles in the flesh, You guys are called the uncircumcision by the so-called circumcision. So the Jews, they say, ah, that's the uncircumcision. Remember, he says in verse 12, that in former ages, you were separate from Christ, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel. You were strangers to the covenants of promise, and you had no hope. You were without God in the world. you Gentiles that were not part of the covenant nation had basically no kind of status in terms of relationship with Yahweh, the living God. But now that you have come to faith in Christ, verse 13, in Christ, you have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who made both groups into one. Both groups, Jew and Gentile. He made both groups into one, and he broke down the barrier of the dividing wall. It's talking about the law of Moses, verse 15. He did this by abolishing in his flesh the enmity, which is the law of commandments contained in ordinances. And in himself, he might make the two, Jews and Gentiles, into one new man, establishing peace. The death of Christ abolished that old covenant. Now, do we have benefit from the law of Moses? Yeah, that's why I'm preaching through the book of Deuteronomy right now. There is all kinds of stuff to learn. And when Paul said in 2 Timothy 3, all scripture is God-breathed and it's profitable, that's exactly why we believe that there's value in teaching through this. But what we have to make sure is that we're understanding that the covenant that Israel was under, that covenant is gone. It's even gone for the nation of Israel. And it has never been something that the church is under. So in coming back to Deuteronomy now, what God was doing through the law of Moses, he was teaching them about things like clean and unclean, holy and unholy. And in much of this, as God says in the beginning of this chapter, he says, don't do anything like the Canaanites. Don't be like them, don't live according to their ways, be separate, be my people. How do those food laws apply to us today? Is it righteous and permissible for us to have bacon or ham or lobster, fried catfish? Yeah, all those things were out of bounds for the Jews. But those things are completely open. In Mark chapter seven, it makes a comment in Mark's gospel, and it says, Jesus declared all foods clean. And then when God gave Peter the vision in Acts chapter 10, and God brought down this vision to Peter, and Peter saw things like pigs. And God said, go ahead, Peter, do a sacrifice and eat it. He says, I've never eaten anything unclean. And three times, God says, if I say it's clean, don't let anybody say that it's unclean, right? What was the point of that vision? It was about Jews and Gentiles, because the next thing that happened is that God sent Peter to the house of Cornelius. Cornelius and his household heard the gospel. They believed, they got saved. God was teaching Peter, the apostle, don't have this idea of trying to look at the Gentiles as somehow being unclean or second-class citizens who are, you know, don't match up to Jewishness. So the food laws very much did these things. We are not under that law, we never have been. Israel was at that time. So that gives us in verses one to 21, another instruction. God says, Israel, keep kosher. Verses 22 to 39, come back with me. Verse 14 to 22, here's another stipulation of worship. This one deals with the tithe. That's a big issue. It's repeated many times, just like the food laws. Let's read these verses right here, 22 to 29. You shall surely tithe of all the produce from what you sow, what comes out of the field every year. You shall eat in the presence of the Lord your God at the place where he chooses to establish his name, the tithe of your grain, your new wine, your oil, the firstborn of your herd and your flock, so that you may learn to fear the Lord your God always. Now, if the distance is too great for you and you're not able to bring the tithe, in other words, you got to travel, you know, 100 miles and you don't want to carry your 2,000 pound, you know, ox to sacrifice it. If it's too far, then, he says, you can exchange it for money, you can sell it, bind the money in your hand, and then go to the place which the Lord your God chooses. And then you come to Jerusalem, and then you can spend the money for whatever your heart desires. Oxen, sheep, wine, strong drink, whatever your heart desires, and there you shall eat in the presence of the Lord your God and rejoice, you and your household. So when you come for the festivals and you're bringing your tithe, and the tithe would be given to the temple and the priesthood, but the tithes would end up being sacrifices. So if you brought, let's say, your sheep, and you bring it to the temple, and you brought one out of 10 of your sheep, and you offered it up, well, that would become a sacrifice, and it would become a meal to celebrate. And when the sacrifice was made at the temple, the priest would share in that sacrifice. So you're supplying them their food. You're the caterer, so to speak. So here in verse 27, you shall not neglect the Levite who is in your town, for he has no portion or inheritance among you. The Levites did not have land inheritance. At the end of every third year, you shall bring out all the tithe of your produce in that year, and you shall deposit it in your town. the Levite, because he has no portion or inheritance among you. And the alien and the orphan and the widow who were in your town shall come and shall eat and be satisfied, in order that the Lord your God may bless you in all your work. of your hand, which you do." So the idea of a tithe is one-tenth, right? So, you know, they had a tithe system where they would give these tithes to the temple, to the liturgical priesthood, and this was the way of supplying the worship system. But the tithe was not only a tithe. This is kind of a debated thing among scholars, and it's not even settled among Hebrew-Jewish scholars, but many people think that there was actually three different tithes that happened. There were two annual tithes, and then here in Deuteronomy 14, it speaks about a third tithe that came at the end of the third year. So that would be 23 and a third percent. That was your, basically, your taxation system that came from the federal government. A 23 and a third percent taxation system that supported all of the worship of the nation. supported the Levites, supported the priesthood. One writer here says, the tithe specified here in chapter 14 was only that of the agricultural produce which the land would provide. The second tithe was used for the celebration of the convocations of worship at the sanctuary In addition to the first tithe mentioned, that was called the Levitical tithe, which went out to support the priests and the Levites. And then a third welfare tithe is what we see right here was offered every three years. And this was what, when you read in this first century writer by the name of Josephus. Josephus seemed to indicate that you have these three different ties, the third one at the end of the third year. Now, you know, there's kind of some debate on this, so I'm not going to die on any hill, but this is what it kind of looks like as far as how it worked. In any case, what you had, though, is you had commandments to give the tithe to support the church, so to speak. I mean, you're supporting the church. That was the worship system. But it also covered the Levites and the priests who came out of the Levites. They didn't have farms. They didn't have a land inheritance. God designed it that they would survive, you know, So the priesthood lived off of the gifts that came from the rest of the nation. So as you look at this as a pattern, and Paul talks about this in 1 Corinthians 9, he says, when you give to the work of the gospel, what you're doing is you're supporting people who dedicate their lives to the ministry of the word. Same thing happened in the Old Testament. It also says here that this worship system provided basically a welfare safety net for people in intense need. And it specifically makes mention of widows, orphans, and aliens. Very vulnerable elements of society. Now, the Bible says quite a bit about laziness in the Proverbs. And it says, well, if you get people who are lazy, they're gonna really have a tough time. They're not gonna have any food when it comes to the rest of the year because they didn't work during the harvest period. So it does not support, I don't believe that the Bible at all gives us a picture of saying, well, hey, whoever's poor and starving and they're just lazy people, it doesn't say that you're supposed to go out and just support laziness. Matter of fact, when Paul dealt with this in 2 Thessalonians 3, he says to the church, he says, if any man will not work, let him not eat. If somebody is lazy and they won't work, Paul says, well, let them go hungry. But when we look at the dynamics of life in a fallen world, there is all sorts of bad things that happen in a fallen world. So maybe you have the death of a father, of a husband, and all of a sudden, they're plunged into poverty. You've got an orphan whose parents have gotten killed. When you look at these kinds of things that have just come upon people, God says, you had better have a tender, compassionate heart for these people. And the commandment here about giving this tithe was that there could be a storehouse to be able to minister to these people. Now, there was also another provision that said that when you do your harvest and you go through, let's say your wheat fields, and then you do all the harvesting, and then there's stuff that fell on the ground. God says, leave that on the ground. Don't go back up and squeeze every penny out of your harvest. Leave the stuff that fell on the ground. And then other people like widows and orphans and aliens, they would have the right to be able to come through your field and pick up anything that was off the ground. It was called gleaning. And that's one of the ways that God provided. All right, how does all of this apply today? First of all, is the church commanded, as Israel was, to give a tithe? Whether it was one tithe or two tithes or two and a half, two and a third? The answer is no. We are not under the law of Moses. We're not under a commanded tithe. Now, there's a lot of teaching about giving in 2 Corinthians chapters 8 and 9. And the reason why Paul gave this instruction is because he was taking a huge offering from the entire Gentile world, and he was going to bring it back to Jerusalem to help the poor saints in Jerusalem. And it was being taken from that wider Mediterranean Gentile world. So he gave, you know, a tremendous amount of instruction about giving in those chapters. I'm not going to take us through it at a verse-by-verse basis, but let me give you eight characteristics of faithful giving that come out of this in 2 Corinthians chapters 8 and 9. In 2 Corinthians 8 verses 1 to 5, we see that it has a history of sacrificial character in the body of Christ. So he speaks to the people in Corinth and he says, I tell you what, those guys up in Macedonia, like the Church of Philippi, these guys were begging us to share in this offering. You know, we sent back a couple months ago, we sent $26,000 into the Ukraine church. In two different offerings, we sent $26,000, which, you know, this is not a fortune, but tell you what, over there, that's a lot of money. You know, they have brought in, Greg, my friend over there, they have brought in close to 20 tons of food and medicine. They have to take it from the Polish border and bring it into Kiev. The seminary over in Berlin, they have sent over 100 tons of food and medicine and other kinds of supplies into Kiev to help. This is very much the same kind of thing that's happening right now. So Paul says to the Corinthians, he says, man, look at those guys up in Philippi. They were begging us. So he kind of says to this to the Corinthians, do the same thing yourself, okay? Be eager to share in this. In 2 Corinthians 8, verses six to nine, he says, good giving, Christian giving overflows with generosity. It's not because somebody's twisting your arm. It overflows because you say, I love Christ and I love his people, and I wanna be a part. I got a message the other day from Slavic Krupa, Pastor Slavic, and he kind of brought me up to speed, because we sent one of the offerings to him and to his group of people, and he kind of filled me in with all the different things that they have done with it, a whole lot of food, a whole lot of medicine. You know, these are people who've lost everything. Slavic, his house got bombed and with a missile and so, you know, he doesn't even have a house anymore. We are loving them with our generosity. Here's a third thing that comes out there in 2 Corinthians 8-12. He says it's driven by willingness according to ability. He says the gift is acceptable if it's done willingly. If somebody says, well, I don't want to give, then God doesn't want your money. Now just know this, God sees our heart if we're stingy and selfish, right? He says, though, he says, if it's willing, it's acceptable. Here's a fourth characteristic in verses 13 to 15. It produces loving care for the needs of the body of Christ. So in other words, the stuff that we have sent over to help these guys, that produces love. because you're helping to meet needs, pressing needs. Now, as you look at normal kind of giving that happens in the body of Christ, what you're doing is you're supporting people who are dedicating their lives to the ministry of the gospel, and faithfulness in that produces love. Here's something else, Corinthians 8, 16 to 24, giving as you look at that section right there, should be handled with the highest integrity. I'll say this, you know, we have some pretty careful oversight with the funds of the church. There's always a multitude of people who watch the money from the moment it comes in and gets recorded and gets deposited. You don't have one person that kind of like takes and does stuff. And that's a good thing. It takes extra work. But you don't want something where somebody abscounds with money, and those things do happen. This is what Paul talks about there. Here's something else, 2 Corinthians 9, verses one to five, Christian giving reaches its maximum effectiveness when it's done with foresight and planning. So Paul says, I'm gonna be coming through Corinth, so I want you guys to be making these offerings for months, for a year, until I come. So as we look at, let's say, how we carry out ministry today, It's a good thing when we can look and say, OK, I know there's going to be some needs. I want to plan for that right now. So it's not just last minute kind of stuff. Now, if it's last minute, that's OK, too. But planning stuff out is good. 2 Corinthians 9, verses 6 through 11, good Christian giving is done freely with a view towards God's promise to reward faithfulness. And one of the things it says in Proverbs 11, it says that he who waters will what? will himself be watered. Talk about giving. If you are watering others by being faithful in the way that you meet needs, God will water you. Now, you know, this gets, unfortunately, this gets perverted and twisted so badly with the prosperity gospel movement, where their message is, hey, you know, just give us some money and you're gonna get rich. That's not what I was saying. I saw this thing the other day where it was talking about some of these TV faith healing charlatans, and it talked about this guy Kenneth Copeland. Guy's worth $760 million, you know? He's got multiple private jets. That's really sad. That's a black eye on the church. Here's the last thing, and in 2 Corinthians 9 verses 12 to 15, giving is always done as a response to the grace of God himself. Consider the Lord Jesus Christ, even though he was rich, for your sake he became poor, so that you, through his poverty, might become rich. So we don't give, we should not give because, oh man, I really feel guilty, and the other guy's making me feel guilty from the pulpit, no. Give because Christ gave 100% for you, right? Anyhow, the tithe was covered right here in chapter 14. That brings us to another worship stipulation here in chapter 15, verses one to 23. This is called the sabbatical year. The sabbatical year is the year that came at the end of every seventh year. It's kind of curious the way that God gave Israel this pattern of life. Work six days, take the seventh day off. I mean, you guys were slaves for 400 years. You didn't have days off. I'm giving you a day off. Take it every week. So you had the sabbath every week, but then at the end of every seven years was the sabbatical year. In the sabbatical year, two things happened. Number one, you had an end, a release of all debts, and you had a release of all Hebrew slaves. You had a release of debts and a release of slaves, but then there was another big seven that took place, and this was at the end of every seven sevens of years. In other words, at the end of 49 years, you would come to the 50th year. What was that called? The year of Jubilee. And in the year of Jubilee, not only did you have the release of debts and slaves, which happened every seven years, but you also had the return of all land to its original Jewish families. Because God's design is, hey, you may get into hard times, you lose the farm, Don't worry, I'm gonna make sure that at the end of the 50th year, it's going to revert back to your family so that even if you fall in hard times, there's a guarantee that there's going to be a permanent possession of the land for every tribe of Israel. God's really smart. God's really smart. But here in chapter 15, it's dealing with the sabbatical year and the release of debts and the release of slaves. So let's read here in verses one to 11. At the end of every seven years, you shall grant a remission of debts. This is the manner of remission. Every creditor shall release what he has loaned to his neighbor. He shall not exact it from his neighbor and his brother because the Lord's remission has been proclaimed. Now, from a foreigner, you may exact it, but your hand shall release whatever of yours is with your brother, and others your fellow Hebrew. However, there will be no poor among you since the Lord will surely bless you in the land which the Lord your God has given you as an inheritance to possess. If only you listen obediently to the voice of the Lord your God to observe carefully all this commandment which I'm commanding you today. For the Lord your God will bless you as he has promised you and you will lend to many nations and you will not borrow. You will rule over many nations and they will not rule over you. So if there is a poor man with you, one of your brothers, in any of your towns, in your land, which the Lord your God has given you, you shall not harden your heart, nor close your hand from your poor brother, but you shall freely open your hand to him, and he shall generously lend him sufficient for his need in whatever he lacks. beware that there is no base thought in your heart saying ah the seventh year the year of remission is close is near and then your eye is hostile toward your poor brother and you give him nothing then he may cry to the lord against you and it will be a sin in you you shall generously give to him and your heart shall not be grieved when you give to him because for this thing the lord your god will bless you in all your work and in all your undertakings for the poor will never cease to be in the land. Therefore, I command you saying, you shall freely open your hand to your brother, to your needy and poor in your land." So the basic command right here is this. release the debts of any fellow Hebrews at the end of the seventh year. Now, there's something else that is not mentioned right here. The other thing that is part of the seventh year, he says, don't work your fields, okay? So just imagine, if you will, that, okay, I'm gonna, for the sake of, let's say, analogy. Let's suppose that the entire inside of this church building here is part of your whole farm. And you've got different things that are planted. Let's say on that side you've got wheat, on this side you have barley, up on the top you've got other kinds of things planted. The commandment for the sabbatical year is this, is that you would let portions of your field go unplanted in the seventh year. In all likelihood, this did not mean everything in your whole estate, but you would take and give your land a sabbatical year. Now, from a farming perspective, my understanding is that there's some value to that to allow soils to replenish as far as their minerals. But here's what God said, don't plant and so allow your fields to have this sabbatical year rest. So you had the release of debts. mentioned in other places like Leviticus chapter 25 is where it talks about leaving the land rest here. Why did God give this command? Well, this right here is a compassionate way of helping people who have fallen into hopeless situations. Listen, life is tough. I was talking to somebody recently who just is getting out of prison, because he messed up. And I told him, I said, hey, it's all right, man. It's like, we all messed up. And if God gave every one of us what we deserve, every one of us would be in a world of hurt, right? That's a fact. If God gave you and me what we deserved. So I just said, hey, just wanted him to know. He's a professing believer. I said, time to get back on your feet. Don't go back in the other direction. We want to help people get back on their feet. And so the release of the deaths right here was God's way of a compassionate way of God providing so that if somebody fell into hard times for whatever reason, they would be able to get back on their feet. Why did God do this? He's a compassionate God. This is the character of our God. All of this teaches us about the heart of our God. He is a compassionate God. So, therefore, he commands us in his word, he says, I want you to be compassionate and caring about people in their hurt. Now, like I said a moment ago, we have quite a bit of teaching about laziness. And so repeatedly in the Proverbs, for example, it says, hey, if somebody's lazy, well, that's gonna be really hard on them, but it's their own fault. They were lazy, they didn't work. But God wants us to be compassionate. So in this case here, the sabbatical command said deaths were released, Now, there's something else that comes along with this as well. Look down here, verses 12 to 18. Not only were the deaths released, but, verse 12, if your kinsman, a Hebrew, A Hebrew man or woman is sold to you. Then he shall serve you for six years, but in the seventh year, you shall set him free. And when you set him free, you shall not send him away empty-handed. You shall furnish him liberally from your flock and from your threshing floor and from your wine vat, and you will give to him as the Lord your God has blessed you. You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt and the Lord your God redeemed you. And therefore I command you at this today, Now it'll come about that if your slave says to you, I will not go out from you, because he loves you and your household, since he fares well with you, then you shall take an awl and pierce it through his ear into the door, and he shall be your servant forever. Also, you should do likewise for your maidservant, and it shall not be hard for you when you set him free, for he's given you six years with double the service of a hired man. And so the Lord your God will bless you in whatever you do. In our society today, it's like there is kind of a revisionist history attitude when it comes to human history and comes to issues of slavery. So short answer, is slavery good? I don't think so. The Bible never really commends slavery in itself as a good thing, but we have a perspective in American culture that says, oh, slavery, this is the most evil, worst thing of all times. This is not how it's been throughout human history, though. As you see right here, there were times when being a slave was actually a great way of improving your lifestyle. You could work for somebody who's wealthy and generous, and it's a way of getting on your feet, and you can get out of your slavery and come out further ahead. And this would happen in the Roman culture. I mean, if you just think about the classic example, it would be Ben-Hur, right, the movie? How Ben-Hur had been sold as a slave and became a slave, but then he got adopted by this wealthy, noble Roman, and he ended up becoming this, you know, very, very powerful, influential individual as this adopted son. This is how it worked throughout history. So what he does right here is he says, okay, you know, he's not, God is not commending slavery as a good thing, but it has happened. Somebody has fallen into hard times. They come to the wealthy Hebrew, and these are all Jews, it's talking about right here. So the impoverished Jew comes and says, hey, you know, can I, you know, become your slave? Sure thing. You come, you become part of our family, you work, We pay you, we take care of you, and you do this. But then at the end of the seventh year, God says, okay, now it's time for the slaves to be set free. But he says, when you set your slave free, you don't just set them free, but you give them a really generous parting bonus. Doesn't tell you how much it's supposed to be, but give them a really nice parting bonus. Really what you're doing is you're giving them a stake, so to speak. Here's your stake to start getting back on your feet. God says, if you think this way, and you live your life and practice your life this way, I will see your kindness, I will see your obedience to my commands, and I'll bless you. I'll take care of you. Eugene Merrill comments on this whole thing. He says, extreme case of poverty sometimes resulted in voluntary servitude in which a man or woman would come under the care of a benefactor who would provide for all the needs of their destitute individual until either he had paid off his obligation or served the six-year period. Thereupon, he was to be released from his economic bondage so that once again he could be free and independent. Moreover, he was to be provided with a stake, as it were, with supplies that would make it possible for him to begin again. And then he compares this with Egypt. He says, you guys were slaves, and then I set you free. And remember, when Israel came out of Egypt, the Egyptians said, get out of here. Here, take some money, take some cows, take some sheep, just get out of here. God says, well, that's what I did for you. I gave you a nice stake. You have to think the same way. Why? Because our God is a God of compassion. I'm glad he is. And we're supposed to be people of compassion. Not indiscriminate with a wicked world, but we are to be compassionate. Now, by the way, all of this, when you look at what happens, how in the end, at the end of the 50th year, complete release of debts, complete release of slavery, everything restored. This is messianic. Michael Card had a song, Jesus is our Jubilee. He indeed is our Jubilee. That brings us down to verses 19 to 23, a sixth worship stipulation. This one here is about consecrating the firstborn. You shall consecrate to the Lord your God all the firstborn males that are born of your herd and your flock. You shall not work with the firstborn of your herd, nor shear the firstborn of your flock. You and your household shall eat it every year before the Lord your God in the place which the Lord your God chooses, in Jerusalem at the temple. But if it has any defect, such as lameness or blindness or any serious defect, you shall not sacrifice it to the Lord your God. Now, you shall eat it within your gates. So don't take it to the temple to give an offering, a firstborn offering, but you can have it for dinner there at your house. The unclean and the clean may eat it alike. So you're not talking about something in the temple of Jerusalem. You're just there at the house. So you don't have to be ceremonially clean. You shall eat it as a gazelle or a deer. Only you shall not eat its blood. You are to pour the blood out on the ground like water. Firstborn males had a very special status among the Hebrews. And one of the reasons why is because God says, the cost of your salvation, now going back here to Egypt, right? They were slaves and God gave them redemption from Egypt. What was the cost of their redemption? It was the firstborn male. God took the life of every firstborn male Egyptian that would not obey God in the Passover. Whoever obeyed God at the Passover, on the night when God struck Egypt, if you were a Hebrew and you obeyed God and gave a Passover lamb and stayed in your house, the death angel would pass over. That also applied to the Egyptians. If the Egyptians would submit to Yahweh and believe his warning, and if the Egyptians would worship God, obey God by giving a Passover lamb and staying in their house, the death angel passed over them. But the cost of redemption for Israel was the firstborn son. Wow, we got any kind of connection there? Obviously this is all pointing to Jesus Christ. So here he's giving this commandment to Israel. And I'm going to read from one writer right here, very briefly here. This law regarding firstborn animals occurs here because it's talking about things like releasing debts and releasing servants. So here, sacrificing your firstborn animal is really sacrificing one of your possessions. This law was first recorded in Exodus, but now it's being repeated here 40 years later in Deuteronomy. You know, you would sacrifice that firstborn animal on the eighth day. And we call that a veal, right? A calf, that's where you get veal. This is a really young animal. An eight-day-old sheep, an eight-day-old calf, that's a really, really young animal. And part of this, God says, you obey me, because you're honoring me, because I set you free with the cost of the firstborn, the death of the firstborn. So as you give your firstborn from the flock, you are recognizing and remembering my freedom that I gave you, plus you're gonna have a barbecue. Really tasty meal. And that would also be done at Jerusalem in the temple, and you would get to share in the meal, but the rest of it would be for the priesthood. So again, this is providing to the Levites and the priesthood as part of the entire process. God's really smart. And what God is also teaching them, remember, He's teaching them through all of this. It's a form of worship, but it's also bringing in all, especially as we look back, we see that all of this ultimately is telling us about God's redemption through His only Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, amen? All right, now that brings us to a final stipulation for worship, because when you get to chapter 16, verse 18, it kind of shifts gears from worship to more kind of national regulations. But this final stipulation of worship is here in chapter 16, verses 1 to 17. It's a review of the annual festivals. Now, if you really want to get a good kind of concise, summarized picture of the worship system in Israel, go to Leviticus chapter 23. Because Leviticus chapter 23 lays it out. Well, there's Passover and unleavened bread, and then you have the first fruit offering, and then comes the Feast of Weeks, and then comes the Harvest Period, and then comes the Blasting of Trumpets, and then comes the Day of Atonement, and last comes the Feast of Tabernacles. Seven major events that gave them their annual worship calendar. And it starts in the worship in the harvest period in the spring, and then it ends with the harvest period in the fall. When I did that conference out in Kansas a few years ago, and some of you grew up on farms, it's a big deal when you're finished with the harvest. That's a really, really big time of rest and celebration. And so God gave them this worship system. Now, you had this entire series of events that took place throughout the year, but The three major ones were Passover, which is sometimes called Unleavened Bread, because the Passover happened on the first day, and then it was followed by seven more days of celebration. So it's sometimes called Passover. Unleavened Bread was the seven days that followed. The next thing that is mentioned right here is what's called the Feast of Weeks. or sometimes this Feast of Weeks was called the Feast of Harvest. This came 50 days later after the Passover. And then those were both in the springtime, like March, April, May. You had the wheat harvest, the barley harvest, and then the wheat harvest in March, April. When you come to the fall, this is when you have the rest of the harvest of all your various kinds of crops, including things like the vineyard harvest. So they had the feast at the end of the fall, and that was called the Feast of Booths, or sometimes called the Feast of Tabernacles, or if you say it in Hebrews, it's Sukkoth, which means the Feast of Booths. These three major festivals were the ones that required, by commandment, Jewish males were supposed to come to Jerusalem for these three festivals. Every year, three times a year, you were to come as a way of honoring God. Okay, so we're going to look at this really briefly. We've talked about these at a couple points in our studies of the Torah so far, but let's read these and make some brief comment. Hebrews Deuteronomy 16 verse 1. Observe the month of Abib, this is the Passover, and celebrate the Passover to the Lord your God, for in the month of Abib The Lord your God brought you out of Egypt by night. You shall sacrifice the Passover to the Lord your God from the flock and the herd in the place where the Lord chooses to establish his name, Jerusalem. You shall not eat leavened bread with it. Seven days you shall eat it with unleavened bread, the bread of affliction. For you came out of the land of Egypt in haste. so that you will remember all the days of your life when you came out of the land of Egypt. For seven days, no eleven shall be seen with you in all your territory, and none of the flesh which you sacrifice on the evening of the first day shall remain overnight until morning. You are not allowed to sacrifice the Passover in any of your towns which the Lord your God has given you, but in the place where the Lord your God chooses to establish his name. You shall sacrifice the Passover in the evening at sunset at the time that you came out of Egypt. You shall cook it and eat it in the place which the Lord your God chooses. In the morning you are to return to your tents. Six days you shall eat unleavened bread, and on the seventh day there shall be a solemn assembly. Do no work." This was God's way of saying, I want you to remember what I've done for you. And that's why we're here tonight. We're here because we want to remember. and nurture in our heart what the Lord our God has done. Now, how does this point to Christ or does it point to Christ? The answer is it absolutely does point to Christ. Remember that God gave the commandment in Exodus chapter 12. He says, bring this lamb, this unblemished lamb into your house. What day of the month? on the Jewish calendar, the 10th day of the first month. So Abib is basically our springtime, like our March, April, okay? So bring the lamb, this one-year lamb, unblemished into your house on the 10th day of the month, and then you keep it in your house for five days. And what do you do on the fifth day, which is the 14th, because it's inclusive counting, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14. What do you do on the 14th day after keeping this little lamb in your house? You slaughter it. this little lamb that has become so precious and dear to you, you kill it. Well, guess what? When Jesus came into Jerusalem in the triumphal entry in Luke chapter 19, he came into town, his home, on the 10th day of that first month. And then on Friday, the 14th, the day of the Passover lamb, he was slaughtered. See, all of that, ultimately, it's It's Christ. By the way, in Exodus chapter 12, verse 46, there was a commandment, and it said, when you kill the lamb, do not break any of its bones. You know, those guys back then must have been saying, what is this deal about? Why can't we break any of his bones? Why is this? Well, you know, when you get to John chapter 19, verse 36, and you come to the cross of Christ, when the soldiers came to Jesus, they were going to take him down. They were breaking the legs of the crucified people, because when you break the legs, they slump over and then they suffocate. They came to Jesus, but he was already dead. So they did not break his legs. And it says, guess what? Here's fulfilling what God said about the Passover lamb. All of this. pointing to Christ. So here you've got the Passover. Secondly, you have the Feast of Pentecost. Now, in the Hebrew, it's called the Feast of Weeks because you would count for seven weeks. Seven sevens, 49 days, and then go to the next day after that, you've got 50 days. So Pentecost, what we call Pentecost, back then was called the Feast of Weeks or the Feast of Harvest, came 50 days after the Passover. Now, what happened historically, if you go back to the Passover in the days of Moses, what happened 50 days after the Passover? That was the day at Mount Sinai when God gave Israel the law. Moses came down from the mountain with the law, the tablets, and what did Moses find the nation doing? Throwing a big party, a bad party. And what happened to 3,000 people? They died. Come to the day of Pentecost in Acts chapter 2, when God gave the spirit to his church at the day of Pentecost, how many people lived? 3,000 were added to the church that day. So Pentecost was that festival in Old Testament Israel that ultimately had a corresponding complementary event on what we call Pentecost. All of this is pointing to Christ. Lastly here, verses 13 to 15, we come to what's called the Feast of Tabernacles or Booths. Tabernacles. This is the last of the fall festivals. It's the end of their religious calendar. Tabernacles has a kind of a two direction perspective. One direction is looking backward because God gave the Feast of Tabernacles and he said, what I want you to do is I want you to remember that when I brought you out of Egypt, You guys were living in booths, little huts made out of branches and leaves and branches. So they would take and they would basically make a little tent out of whatever kinds of plants they could find. And they were living in the presence of God. So that's what tabernacles was. It's a way of looking back to remember what God has done. how he brought them out of Egypt and how he dwelt in their presence. But it also looked ahead as well. So I want you to close as we kind of look at a couple of passages here really quickly. Turn with me to the book of Ezekiel, and I want you to turn to Ezekiel 37, and then I'm gonna have you look at a couple other chapters, but be ready to turn to Zephaniah and also to Zechariah. So coming down to Ezekiel chapter 37. Now remember when I read to you, for you, just a minute ago from Exodus chapter 25? And do you recall that God said, build a sanctuary so that I can dwell with my people, all right? God says, I want to dwell with my people. Now, you notice right here that God did dwell with his people in the tabernacle. And during the days of Solomon's temple, God dwelt within the Solomonic temple. The glory of God was there. What happened to that glory of God, though? Before the Babylonians came and destroyed the temple, the glory of God left. So in Ezekiel chapters 10 and 11, in a vision, Ezekiel saw the glory leaving. And if you say there's no glory, how do you say that in Hebrew, Simon? Ichabod. Ichabod. No glory. There is no glory. So the glory departed, but God promises, I am going to return and dwell with my people again. The glory will return. And I'm going to dwell with my people. So Ezekiel chapter 37. Let's just look really quickly here, because I've got to wrap it up. Ezekiel 37, verse 21. Ezekiel, I'm going to take the sons of Israel from among the nations where they've gone, and I will gather them from every side. I'll bring them into their own land, and I will make them one nation in the land on the mountains of Israel, and one king will be king for all of them. And they will no longer be two nations, and they will no longer be divided into two kingdoms. They will no longer defile themselves with their idols or their detestable things or with any of their transgressions. but I will deliver them from all their dwelling places in which they have sinned, and will cleanse them, and they will be my people, and I will be their God. My servant David, this is best understood as being Christ, the son of David, will be king over them, and they will have one shepherd, and they will walk in my ordinances, and keep my statutes, and observe them. They will live on the land which I gave to Jacob my servant, which your fathers lived, and they will live on it, and they and their sons and their sons forever, And David my servant will be their prince forever. And I will make a covenant of peace with them. It will be an everlasting covenant. That's the new covenant. And I will place them and multiply them and set my sanctuary in their midst. My dwelling place will be with them. I will be their God. and they will be my people and the nations will know that I am Yahweh who sanctifies Israel when my sanctuary is in their midst forever. God is promising to come and dwell with his people again. And there was a strong understanding among the Jews that Tabernacles was always looking ahead to this day when God would come and dwell with them. This is going to happen on this present earth during the millennial kingdom with Christ dwelling and ruling in the presence of his people in Jerusalem. But ultimately, it's gonna be a final fulfillment in a new heavens and a new earth. I was gonna take you to some other passages, but I wanna bring you instead to one final one. Turn with me to the book of Revelation and look with me at chapter seven. When you look at this scene in heaven where believers are being slaughtered for their faith in Christ, we see here in Revelation 7 as these believers are going into the presence of God in heaven. It says in verse 15, these believers are before the throne of God and they serve Him day and night in His temple. And He who sits on the throne will spread His tabernacle over them. The verb is skena'o. The Hebrew word for tabernacle in the Hebrew Old Testament was mishkan, because shakan is a word that means to dwell. Shakan. Here is the Greek word skena'o, to spread your tent. In heaven, he's going to spread his tabernacle over his people. no more hunger, no more thirst, no sun beating down on them. For the lamb in the center of the throne shall be their shepherd and guide them to springs of water of life. And God shall wipe away every tear from their eyes. This is the last stop on the tracks right here. Coming in glorified resurrection presence. And ultimately, that's going to include a new heavens and a new earth. Last spot, Revelation chapter 21, and we close. Revelation 21, verse 1, I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first earth, first heaven and first earth had passed away, and there's no longer any sea. And then I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband. And then I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, behold, look at this, the tabernacle of God. The Greek word is skene, tent, the tabernacle of God, is among men. And he will dwell among them, the verb skenao, and they will be his people, and God himself shall be among them, and he will wipe away every tear from their eyes, no longer any death, no longer any mourning or crying or pain. The first things have passed away, and he who sits on the throne said, behold, I'm making all things new. John, wait! These words are faithful and true. John is probably getting caught up, and Jesus says, hey, you're supposed to be writing this down. Easy to get caught up in that, right? Well, all right. Whole lot of stuff here. Whole lot of stuff. Thank you, oh God, for giving us your word that shows us that even though you are a holy and righteous God, and our sin deserves death, you are a merciful and compassionate God, a saving, redeeming God, and in Jesus Christ, we can have this redemption. We thank you in his name, amen.