Good morning, everyone. As always, it's wonderful to be with you here today. God gave us another beautiful and glorious Sabbath day to worship on, and we're going to be continuing our sermon series in the book of Hebrews, the faithful outcasts. This is installment number 12. We've been going slowly through the book because we need to truly appreciate what's being said in the book, what it means for the Lord Jesus Christ to be the High Priest. We have to appreciate that nothing we are experiencing now is new, it's occurred before, but the problem for you and for I, as I've said, it's new to us. So I've had grandparents that have lived through the Great Depression and World Wars, but I haven't. So I don't know what it is to live through a Great Depression. But if we were hit with another Great Depression, which we're going to be, as we've been saying for the last 10 years, I would need to learn how to live during a time period like that. I haven't experienced it before. So although it's occurred before, it's new to me, but it's nothing to be scared about. It's the same thing for God's people in general. Our people have gone through trials and tribulations. constantly. And we're at one of those inflection points in history, big changes, which happens about every 500 years or so, where the church, the visible church, is a mess. Governments are a mess. The environment, the morality of people in general, is a mess. Common grace, what men have regarded throughout the centuries as natural law in the West, which people could respect. They never had a problem with, you shouldn't commit murder, or you shouldn't steal. They've gotten creative with, you shouldn't commit adultery and things like that. But we're able to agree on what right and wrong was. Well, that whole framework is being torn down. So that's the challenge for you and I. We were weird before as Christians in our Torah, in our way of living. We're going to explain that again today. In the way we saw things, in the way we acted. That's why the Bible was able to express that we'll know people by their fruit, by their actions, by what they bear in their lives, not just an empty confession. But we've lost that because we've lost that concept. We've lost our way. We were the people of the way. We need to recover it again. And today's sermon is titled, Explaining Why Our Torah is Weird. And when we read this part of Hebrews, you'll understand why that's today's title, the title of the sermon. So explaining why our Torah is weird. As faithful outcasts, we are outcasts. We need to profess why we behave the way we do. why we've changed our cultural customs from whichever ethnic group you come from to line up with the gospel. We've kept the good things, but we've had to eliminate some of the bad things, some of the evil things. So this is the situation we're in. So we'll be going through Hebrews chapter four, verses 14 through 16. Then I'll give you some cross-references And we'll also, from the Jewish Virtual Library, I'll have a link to an article for you. Again, on what Torah really means. It was lost a little bit in the Septuagint translation of what Torah meant, what it encompassed. So let's pray. We'll read Hebrews verses 14 through 16, and then get into our exposition. So let's pray. Almighty God, the great and living God, we thank you, Lord, for this opportunity today to exist and even more to exist as your people. We thank you for the opportunity to praise and worship you. We thank you for all the experiences you've allowed us to have. We thank you, Lord, that we are still here. After all these years of being faithful outcasts, you have always preserved your people. I pray, Lord, that all of us, including myself, would have your covering for our sins of the week and thought, word, and deed. And I pray, Lord, that your Holy Spirit would embolden me today and that you would guide my lips, my tongue, that I wouldn't say anything mistakenly that would Blaspheme your name or take glory away from your son in whose name we pray the lord jesus christ amen so open up with me to hebrews chapter 4 we're going to go through verses 14 through 16 and then we'll get into some explanation. So as we're towards the end of the chapter, we went through how God provides a rest for his people, that rest is being in Christ, not just a physical land, a physical inheritance, but a real rest. We are saved in Messiah, you're safe. As bad as things might become in this present world, you are safe in Messiah. We will all be reunited again. the essence of who we are will be preserved by God, our souls, there will be a resurrection. We will get a glorified body and this new creation will take place where the dimension we can't see in heaven, that parallel dimension that exists and what we are experiencing now on earth, both are real, they're not fake. They will be combined as we see in the book of Revelation, the veil is broken down and God will recreate things the way they were meant to be because our sins are covered, because we rest in Christ. We have that inheritance and we will live again, all of us, all those that believe we will be the family of God. Unfortunately for many of our loved ones, close acquaintances, even good friends that don't believe in Christ, they will get what they wished for, separation from God. And it was never meant to be, but they'll wind up in the lake of fire with the devil, with the fallen angels, with the Nephilim, and every other evil group. But for us, we have rest in Christ. And now, As Hebrews is explaining in the last three verses, and I'll let the book of Hebrews chapter four, let the Bible speak for itself, we're told, Seeing then that we have a great High Priest that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession. We profess, we confess something, what we believe in. For we have not a High Priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Amazing statement. Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. Amazing passages. So seeing then that we have a great high priest that is passed into the heavens, Jesus, the son of God, let us hold fast our profession. What does that mean to hold fast our profession? Well, in the age of easy believism and being saved in a second, saved on tap, the age of the crusade, the Billy Graham type Christianity, which helped push the downgrade, we've lost that ability to give a profession. Now, we need an individual faith and we are saved by faith, but we're still attached to the group. So we don't sacrifice one for the other. But our skills in giving a profession of our faith have become weakened and we don't bear fruit. This is one of the reasons why the church is dying, the visible church. We have no roots. So we are Like the rest of the culture, we have the microwave, the conveniences, the prepared food. We want our gospel the same way. And we want to be able to explain our faith in three and a half seconds and then move on to the next video or next article. And it doesn't work like that. The Christian life is a life of study. and growing, and we are part of a group. We've forgotten that. That's why so many of us feel isolated today. So what I'm doing today is an exercise in fellowship. I want to be part of God's effort in preserving a group that will continue this civilization as we go through the digital currency and the continuation of World War III and everything else that could discourage us as the elites try and get their next new world order. America was the boss for a while, we were chosen. by these people to spread the banking system, to project power. They used our military and they're like a whore that has been used. They're finished with us. So they want to push us back, keep us in North America by ourselves. Well, that has implications for you and I. the world will be turned upside down. So how do we survive? We do it this way. I speak to you, you speak to other people, or those who are faithful, regardless of denomination or what church you attend, we use this technology to communicate with one another. And when the time comes, as need be, we'll gather wherever we need to go. And that's my message for everyone. You cannot be afraid, you cannot back down. You need to have your profession. Now what that meant to profess, it's something that you could explain what you believed in, why you did things the way you did. And as I said, because we are really outcasts today, even amongst the apostate, those who use the label Christian, but they have nothing to do with Christianity or with Jesus Christ, We really need to understand what we're professing. So we are a people. We have a way of life. We're professing that Jesus Christ is the promised Messiah. And that makes us an outcast with every group. I was speaking to a friend this week about Islam. If you listen to the description of the Mahdi in Islam, this great leader that will bring world peace at the end, it's basically the Antichrist. If you speak to Orthodox Jews, who believe that Messiah is a special person, He will have special powers, but He's not the Son of God, and He's not God. Well, in making a description like that, you're basically describing Antichrist. So our profession, our distinct profession as Christians, that is, it is the son of God, the son of God himself, who was our high priest, the one who ministered for us, the one who paid for our sins, he did what no other priest can do. He's the one that will be there at the end of time. And the Messiah is, he is God, he is the God man, and all in him is good. We stand opposed to these other teachings. Even those in Satanism, Luciferianism, those in high-level Freemasonry, they understand. What Albert Pike was speaking about in his book, Morals and Dogma, the crew of the message, was that you would have this great leader, or as Nietzsche said, this ubermensch. You would have this great leader at the end of time, which would unify the nations for Lucifer, for Satan, who would be Satan's servant. And it's not going to be a nightmare. People are going to believe because it's going to be real smooth. those that believe. There will be benefits. There'll be many promises made, just like we have today in the world. Why do people reject Christ, look at us as weird? Their lives are very comfortable. They live like no emperor did. Even the person with the lowest salary can live the way a Caesar did. They can get food, from the Chinese culture, they can get food from the Jamaican culture, the Italian culture, food on tap, there's food everywhere. They don't grow anything, they don't make anything, they don't do anything the whole day, but yet they eat, and they eat pretty well. So this is the position we're in. And with the Antichrist, it'll be the same way. Things will be comfortable for a while. It'll seem pretty legitimate. And that's how they're sucking us into their new system. is it's very comfortable, it feeds the ego. But we have someone that we need to explain our profession about and that's the Lord Jesus Christ. That's why the title of today's sermon is explaining why our Torah is weird. Our Torah, our profession, our way of life is what made us outcasts in the first century, those first Christians, mostly of Hebrew descent, and why we're outcasts now. It's a complete way of life. It's not just a confession after Billy Graham crusade, or watching something on YouTube and saying, okay, you know what? I feel like I'm a Christian today. And nothing about you changes, nothing. That's not the faith. Even the reformers, The main doctrine they were pushing, that we're justified by faith alone, it doesn't mean a life doesn't go along with it, or that a walk in our faith doesn't go along with it. That expression just meant that being justified wasn't locked up in a physical church or with a person. Whether it's a Pope or a pastor, they don't have a monopoly on our justification. The Lord Jesus Christ does. And the way our journey begins, on our walk in faith is our personal profession of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. But it doesn't stop there. It doesn't stop there. And the Reformation was never meant to accomplish what's been accomplished today, where people are basically lawless. They don't even know what it means to be a Christian, but they made a profession at one time, and they equate that to justification by faith. That's not what it means. That's absolutely not what it means. And that's why many people struggle with the book of James, because all James is saying is that we're the changed life. there will be evidence. And even if you are one of those believers, the Samson type, that you're going to make it in by the skin of your teeth, there are those. There are some very badly behaved Christians and they will be saved because it is by grace, but they're the exception, not the rule. So we need to be mature. We need to be able to profess our faith. So the first point we're making based on verse 14, Jesus being a high priest, having this profession, what does it mean? Well, in the first century AD, the first group of, quote, Christian outcasts were exhorted to occupy until the Lord comes. Well, how do we do that? We don't know how to occupy. We can't even occupy our own block, our own family. And our own family stand up for Christ and set down ground rules for behavior and for worship. But what this meant was these people of the way, and I'm not making this up, this is in the book of Acts, they were known as the people of the way, would have to profess why their Torah was different than other Hebrews. So Christians must give witness and explain why we live the way we do. Our basic moral practices are now seen as weird to a lawless generation. I want to read an article to you from the Jewish Virtual Library. This is a Jewish source, but it's accurate. And I want to show you what was lost in the Septuagint. It wasn't a fatal error, but it was a problem. And I give a direct link in the outline in the PDF. I've used this before. Jewish Virtual Library. And in the discussion, it's Judaism, the written law, Torah. Now we've lost the meaning of Torah in the sense that the Hebrews knew it. The writer of the book of Hebrews, which I will say is the Apostle Paul, was explaining to the people when he was talking about Torah, when he was talking about the law. In many of his books he wasn't saying the ceremonial law. He meant Torah as a way of life for the people. Jews today call it halakha or halakhic teachings, your practice, the way you do things. We were called people of the way. That's what that means. Halakhic teachings, the way it was synonymous in that we were known by the way we lived as Christians. That title Christian came up as we were being made fun of in the book of Acts, but we were known as people of the way, this certain way. We need to be able to profess that again, and we need to profess how great Christ is, what he did for us, and why we live according to his way, and why we are weird. And not only are we weird by those who don't claim to be Christian, but look at many churches today. We are weird because we don't put an LGBTQ rainbow flag in front of our church. We are weird because some churches who think they're conservative and they swear alliance with the Republican Party, even a Mormon like Mitt Romney or a degenerate like former President Trump, we don't do that. We're a people of the way. So if it's a Democrat that's against wars and foreign nations, then, well, we support them. If it's a Republican that's against abortion, then we support them. If it's an independent, it doesn't matter the label of the party, they have to match our way, our beliefs. Christians, are issue voters, we're not party voters. Now the only way you know this is by identifying with the Torah, the way of life you live by. So it encompasses more than just the law. This is the part of the article I want to get to right away. In the Bible, The Torah is referred to both as the Torah of the Lord and as the Torah of Moses. We see this in the Bible, the law of Moses is an expression. And it is said to be given as an inheritance to the congregation of Jacob, the Jewish people. Its purpose seems to be to make Israel a kingdom of priests and a holy nation, amen. And the fulfillment was in Christians. We are to behave differently. We're to behave like high priests, like a holy people, and holy means set apart, sanctified. These are all synonymous meanings. They all mean the same thing. So after I make my profession, in my profession, I could also explain to people why I am separated as a Christian, why I can't do the same things the world does. The Septuagint, this was the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, of the Hebrew Old Testament. And the reason why this was done is because most Jews, when Christ came, it's a lie that Christ came and destroyed Jewish culture. Most of it was already destroyed. Most Jews spoke Greek because the Greek Empire was the dominant empire. Rome was an extension of Greece. The Romans were the Greeks, physically, many of them, from Magna Graecia. So this was the domination of their culture. So because most Jews understood Greek, were Greek-speaking, it was translated to the Greek. Septuagint is a Greek translation. Now listen closely. you'll understand where the problem is for us today. The Septuagint rendered the Hebrew Torah by the Greek nomos, which means law, probably in the sense of a living network of traditions and customs of the people. The designation of the Torah by nomos and by its Latin successor, lex, whence the law, has historically given rise to the misunderstanding that Torah means legalism. So Torah didn't just mean the law, it meant the entire way of life for the Hebrew people. And for Christians, it's the same with us today. When I say we need to have a Torah for ourselves, when Jesus is the fulfillment of the law, what that means is that the ceremonial laws have gone away. Jesus wants to live in the spirit of the law. But we still have a way to follow. That's why Jesus never rejected the word commandments. He gives his own commandments. He gives direction. We have to live in Christ. So we have to be able to explain this to people, why we behave the way we do. It's not an emotional feeling that I'm against committing adultery or stealing or perverted sexual lifestyles. It's a command from the Lord Jesus Christ. that even if I break some of those commands I have to repent and profess it's wrong. The church no longer professes that these things are wrong. They lie and make it like Jesus tolerates everything. So I know how to explain my faith because I understand this. You need to understand it too. It was one of the very few real dogmas of rabbinic theology that the Torah is from heaven. The Torah in its entirety was revealed by God. So the message of the Torah is for all mankind. Remember, this is a Jewish website. They get it. They don't get it as far as accepting Messiah the way they should. They're going to pay for it. They're paying for it now. But they get it. And Christians used to get that. Our Torah. We were people of the way. We had a certain walk. We did things a certain way. We weren't just individuals saying, oh, I believe in Jesus, and then disappearing into the fog somewhere. We had communities. We had fellowship. The message of the Torah is for all mankind. Before giving the Torah to Israel, God offered it to the other nations, but they refused it. And when he did give the Torah to Israel, he revealed it in the extraterritorial desert and simultaneously in all the 70 languages so that men of all nations would have a right to it. Alongside this universalism, the rabbis taught the inseparability of Israel and the Torah. One rabbi held that the concept of Israel existed in God's mind even before he created the Torah. Yet were it not for its accepting the Torah, Israel would not be chosen nor would it be different from all the idolatrous nations. So you see that in the rabbinic tradition there's also Nonsense nonsensical teachings, but they're right About the Torah being accepted as a way of life. So now you truly understand what's meant in Hebrews Verse 14 Seeing then that we have a great high priest that is passed into the heavens. She's the Son of God Let us hold fast our profession it encompasses everything we we're supposed to occupy till The Lord comes. This is what makes us different. Now, we need that identity again. And we need to form real friendship, real fellowship. This is something that's needed. And we need to not just be a Christian that professes faith in Christ, and then our Torah, our halachic way, our walk, our teaching, our practices match the world. So I claim to be a Christian, but all my culture comes from Walt Disney, Marvel comic movies, whatever the latest trend on TikTok is, whatever the celebrity preachers are teaching. I have no identity. I have no identity. I have nothing. Well, that's not the Christian walk, the Christian life. I know from the Bible, I came from a certain group of people. This group through struggles has brought me here today, thousands of years later, my past mothers and fathers in my ethnic group. What will bring me into the afterlife is my faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. I teach this to my children. We don't do certain things because Jesus commanded us. We have a real culture. We have a real center. And our culture is dictated by the Lord Jesus Christ. So as far as cooking certain ethnic foods, there's no sin in that. We do that. Certain ethnic customs, we can observe. It's okay. Certain things that might have been lustful in the culture or idolatrous, we do away with. So certain things we don't do because the Lord commanded us. So that's how we see that Christianity, we can't even explain this anymore. Like I don't need to defend the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ and his movement was the only movement that completely eventually outlawed slavery and human sacrifice. We don't realize how much blood, how many people were killed. I've done sermons on this in every culture. It doesn't matter, northern Europe, Africa, the Middle East, the new world, South America. So God has done great things for us and Jesus has done great things. Messiah has been a blessing for the whole world. So we need to accurately profess our faith. So I want you to understand, once again, Torah is not just the law. In the biblical sense it could also mean the fruits of the law, everything about the law, what it means to be a Christian, our way of life. This is why they will see us as weird. And if people don't see you as weird in the world by your practices, then you're not faithfully walking in the Lord Jesus Christ. Especially in this generation that is burning out, death all around us. with their lifestyles of death. So if the world is perfectly comfortable with you today, there's something wrong. Now, the second point I'd like to make concerning verses, well, actually, let me read the Isaiah chapter nine. This was part of the profession of Christians in the first century. This is what made them weird, and I'll read it in context. This is what made Jesus the great high priest, the promised Messiah. Turn to Isaiah chapter 9, and I'll read it in context to confront some arguments we have against these verses. Verses 1 through 7, what are we told in Isaiah chapter 9? Nevertheless, the dimness shall not be such as was in her vexation, when at the first he lightly afflicted the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, and afterward did more grievously afflicted her by the way of the sea beyond Jordan and Galilee of the nations, the people that walked in darkness have seen a great light. They that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined. Thou hast multiplied the nation and not increased the joy, the joy before thee according to the joy in harvest. And as men rejoice when they divide the spoil, for thou hast broken the yoke of his burden and the staff of his shoulder, the rod of his oppressor, as in the day of Midian. And this is where the prophets will inject these messianic verses that make no sense unless they're speaking about the Messiah. For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace, of the increase of his government and priests, peace there should be no end upon the throne of David and upon his kingdom to order it and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even forever the zeal of the lord of hosts will perform this some teachers some rabbinic teachers some christian teachers extremely confused will try and say that this spoke about a king at that time in Israel. This is nonsense. They would have killed the king as well as his offspring. No king would have been allowed to say that he would be called by the people or known as the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. This is blasphemy. This is the quickest way to get yourself killed. During the time that this this scroll was prophesied and written out this speaks about Messiah This is what made the Christians weird during their time because they said we know who the Messiah is It is the Lord Jesus Christ Look at the scriptures. This is what made them outcasts and as well as their practices getting back to a faithful walk, rejecting what many Jews were doing in the first century, syncretism, combining perverted Greek Gentile practices with their Judaism, What they don't tell you, and I remind Jewish people when I debate them, in the first century, the office of the high priest became political. It was paid for, it was bought. It wasn't a pure knesset haggadah. All these positions were bought with money, with influence, just like they started to experience in the Roman Catholic Church, where we get the word simony from, which meant to buy a high office in the church. So once God's people... reach a level, certain level of success, material success, temptation comes in, the church starts to look like the world, and they maneuver like the world. There are gangsters in the church, there is money exchanged, and certain people are promoted, not because they're faithful, but because they bought their position or they're pushing a message that the world powers want to hear, just like Trinity Broadcasting Network. Jan and Paul Crouch. Paul Crouch was extremely friendly with communist China, said wonderful things, would never criticize them. So a lot of the money, he was bankrolled by these, many of these communist groups. And there's other names that I won't get into now. But we don't function like that. And this is what made us weird. We have found the Great High Priest and King combined into one. That which was forbidden in God's Word, in the Torah, except for the Messiah, only the Messiah could be the King, the King of Judah and the High Priest of Judah, of his people and of the world. Only Jesus could fulfill that. So that's our profession. We need to know how to explain this, especially today, and especially to fellow Christians. Many are back to the Corinthian church. They're very immature. They've only been fed milk week after week. Are you saved? Okay, I'm saved. Are you saved? Okay, I'm saved. Oh, that's great. We're saved. God is love. God loves us. That's great. Jesus is king. Yes. Yes. So what does it mean? Well, it means that I'm saved. Okay. And God loves you? Good. God loves me too. We're all good. Let's go back to watching Disney programs and going to sports ball events on Sundays when we should be at church and let's just live in the culture. Let's be like first century Jews again, trapped by Gentile practices. So that's not the way. we're supposed to live. So we need a faithful profession. Point number two in our sermon. When it speaks about in verses 14 and 15, again, we have to appreciate this. That's why I'm going slowly. verses 15 and 16. For we have not a high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need. So what does this mean? Well, one of the most significant stories in scripture is when we had this great showdown between Jesus Christ and the devil himself. So point number two, the Messiah defeated Satan himself in a one-on-one showdown. The greatest duel, D-U-E-L, my speech, my Brooklyn accent, I wanna make sure you understand what I'm saying. I'm not saying duel, duel as in duel, high noon, cowboy movies. The sheriff's in white and he's fighting the bad guy all in black, 12 o'clock noon. They have a showdown, see who's gonna take control of the town. Well, the greatest duel in history of creation occurred in the first century. Movies and cinema, in a way I just described, pay homage to this event today with the showdown between the hero and the villain. This is in us that we need a savior. This is in our being that we need a Messiah. The hero is usually victorious and defeats a villain no one else could. Jesus Christ in the flesh, tired, hungry, and thirsty, overcame every human temptation and resisted the devil where Adam had failed. One of the greatest narratives. One of the greatest instances where we could be a fly on the wall, as they say, where we could see things that we really wanted to see, it's in Luke chapter four, verses one through 13. So you could turn there with me now, Luke chapter four. This is why Jesus is our high priest, our king. He's the ultimate prophet, not just a prophet, the way Islam describes, but the prophet, the main prophet, the God-man, God himself. Jesus fought the devil in this great showdown. And he was tempted in every way, tempted through his physical body, tempted with pride, tempted with spiritual pride, physical pride, emotional, through emotional weakness. Everything that Adam could not resist, Adam and his wife Eve, who he was supposed to guide as his helpmate, Jesus was able to overcome. You know the old expression, I could beat you in a fight with one hand tied behind my back, meaning the other opponent is so weak. Jesus fought the devil with one hand tied behind his back. He had fasted, he was hungry, he was depleted, and he was still able to beat Satan. This is why we love him and admire him. This is our profession of faith. Not just, oh yeah, it sounded good, I felt bad one day, Just gave my heart to the Lord. I let Him come into my heart. No, Jesus, the Messiah, the Son of God, the one who smashed the devil, the one who did everything that we could not, the conquering King. That's my Jesus. That's my Messiah. I profess faith in Him because He's the King. He's the boss. He's the man. He's the God-man. I love Him and I fear Him. And He will bring me into eternal life. Let's read this story together. It's wonderful. This is the Lord Jesus doing battle. So we're told, Luke chapter four. And Jesus, being full of the Holy Ghost, returned from Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness. Now wilderness in this context usually means a desert place, deserted place. Being 40 days tempted of the devil, and in those days he did eat nothing, And when they were ended, he afterward hungered. Now, you know, you and I, if we skip a meal, if we don't eat for a day, we're not thinking correctly. We're a little dizzy. And I practice intermittent fasting and it's rough. I can't even picture 40 days. And the devil said unto him, if thou be the son of God, command this stone that it be made bread. And Jesus answered him saying, it is written that man should not live by bread alone, but by every word of God. And the devil, taking him up into a high mountain, showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. And the devil said unto him, all this power will I give thee and the glory of them. For that is delivered unto me, and to whomsoever I will give it. If thou therefore will worship me. all shall be thine.' And Jesus answered and said unto him, Get thee behind me Satan, for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve." So here we see Jesus being tempted in his pride, being tempted in his body, his physical hunger, as the Bible describes as the belly, the base temptations. Now his pride, he's being tempted in his pride, in his mind, in his psyche. Now the devil, he's going to quote scripture. He's going to pull out the ace. He's going to prove to Jesus from scripture why he's right. And he still tries to do it today. As I've told people before, you want a faithful pastor? Pick a man with a family, the way the Bible says. And your congregation who's faithful, who loves the word, train him and he's your pastor. The devil's very good with scripture, so are his servants. Why would you go and get somebody from seminary, an external seminary, to come in to your church? He has no family, he lives in his mother's basement, but he's had plenty of time to go to seminary, and that's who your pastor's going to be. And even better, he went to Harvard Divinity school he spent two hundred fifty thousand dollars quarter of a million dollars on a degree So he could tell you that homosexuality in the Bible is beautiful and it's wonderful and it's okay to be practiced So watch with the devil trying to use scripture. That's why we need to know our Profession what we profess we have to get off the milk and eat the meat So, what does the devil say and he brought him to Jerusalem, and set him on a pinnacle of the temple, and said unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down from hence, for it is written, this is from the book of Psalms, he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee, and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone. The devil, Satan himself, Mephistopheles, Hex us down, giving a great quote from scripture. But the Lord shows us how we ought to respond. Use scripture correctly against those that twist scripture. And Jesus answering said unto him, it is said, thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. And when the devil had ended all the temptation, he departed from him for a season. Amen, amen, and amen. So this is what the tales from antiquity, the stories of heroes and heroism, they're all copies of the Messiah story. It's in us. So this is why our Torah, our way of life is weird. We have the God-man, the true hero that we follow, that did everything for us. And he's reigning now. And we need to love him and respect him enough to take time to learn his word and to be able to accurately express our faith. And that's why we're working slowly through the book of Hebrews, the magnum opus, the main work on why Hebrews in the first century changed their faith to respond and be true Jews and to suffer as people of the way and to eventually be called Christians. Because the Messiah really came. He really was the high priest, the hero, the true hero that we needed, the God-man. And all successful movies, have some type of storyline like this. It's blatant, it's in your face. And that's why even people that claim to reject God, they go to the movies, they read books, they engage in fantasy because they know in their wretched state, they need a savior. And this is where Antichrist and Antichrist step in like the devil himself. They want to pretend to be Messiah, Moshiach. They want to pretend to be the Savior, but they're not. We only have one. So remember that. Explaining why our Torah is weird. Next week, Lord willing, we'll move into chapter five of the book of Hebrews. But for now, let us pray. Almighty God, we thank you, Lord, we have the opportunity to worship and that we have the opportunity to study your word. We pray, Lord, that we would have a peaceful Sabbath the rest of the day. We thank you for this day of rest where we can focus on you. We pray, Lord, that you strengthen us all for the coming temptations. We pray, Lord, that you would keep us all mature, that you would help us to grow, to be more perfect like our Father in heaven, to mature in our faith and our walk. And we thank you, Lord, that we have you and that you've given us one another. And we always pray in the name of our great king, our great high priest, Jesus Christ, amen. God bless you and be well.