Matthew 1.1, and then we're going to talk about Jesus as true Israel. So Matthew writes, the book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. Most people, when they come to the book of Matthew, they might, if they knew the book of Matthew somewhat, they might explain to somebody that this book was written to Jews, that it was written, it's the only one of the four gospels that talks about the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of God. as much as it does, it's really emphasizing the kingdom. And so most people say Matthew was the gospel of the kingdom for the Jews. I think that's partly right. But when Matthew opens his gospel, the thing that he is focusing us in on at the outset is Jesus as the son of David, the son of Abraham. Now it's interesting because if you looked at Luke, where does Luke take the genealogy of Jesus back to? Adam. But Matthew takes it back to Abraham, which is important because who is Abraham? Abraham is the father of the Jews. There is no Israel. There is no Jewish nation. And so God calls the Gentile Abraham and justifies him and turns him into the father of the nation. And so to understand Israel, you have to understand Abraham. And to understand Abraham, you have to understand God's covenant plan of redemption. that he is working out this plan of redemption after the fall, and that as the covenant promise moves from Adam to Noah to Abraham, God decides to gather together a church that's going to be visible on earth. That's what old covenant Israel was, the visible church on earth, that people could see that God has a people on planet earth who are going to reflect his purposes and proclaim his redemption. So Abraham stands at the head of that, God gave promises to Abraham and to his seed, Paul will say in Galatians, to Abraham and to his seed. And that seed, Paul says, is Christ. So God gave promises to Abraham and then through Abraham to Christ. Now, this may confuse you at the outset, but I'm going to say this if you've never heard this. The Bible is first and foremost written to Jesus. Now, it's not just first and foremost about Jesus. it is first and foremost written to Jesus, because Jesus as Son of God became man, became an Israelite, was the Son of Abraham, had the Scriptures, was born under the law. And Paul will say in Galatians 3, I believe verse 16, the promises were made to Abraham and to his seed, who is one, who is Christ. So that means in the Old Testament, everything that seems to be for the nation of Israel is really for Jesus. That's super important. Before we say anything else, super important. The promises were made to Jesus because he is. In the very true sense, the last Israelite, the last man of Israel, when he dies on the cross, he is the son of Abraham. He is the true Israel. Now, that may not make sense to you at first. But note where Matthew moves from Matthew 1. He says that Jesus is the son of Abraham, which is the fulfillment of the covenant promise. It wasn't Isaac. Ultimately, it was Jesus. And that means everything from Abraham to Jesus was preparatory for Jesus. And then notice in Matthew 2, there's a little detail. This is super important for us tonight. Matthew 2, verse 15, Jesus is born. Herod hates him, wants to kill him. Herod tries to kill all the little baby boys. God protects Jesus. God sends Joseph and Mary down to Egypt. And then notice verse 15, that after Herod dies, they come back from Egypt. But notice in verse 15, they were there, they were in Egypt. until the death of Herod, that it might be fulfilled, which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying, Out of Egypt I called my son. Now, who was in Egypt in redemptive history? Israel. Israel was in Egypt. And in Hosea 11.1, to whom were these words spoken about? Out of Egypt I called my son. They were spoken to the nation of Israel about the nation's history when God brought them out of Egypt. In Matthew 2, Matthew is saying they were really about Jesus. He is God's son. Israel was God's son, collectively, as a type. God will say in Exodus 4, 20, I believe, Israel is my son, my firstborn. But we know that Jesus is really the firstborn son of God, the eternal son of God. So Israel was just a living, historical, preparation for the coming of the Son of God into the world. And so Jesus, in his actual life in history, he recapitulates, he redoes Israel's history. Now, here's where I'm going to go. And if you have questions, hold them and I'll give you a second. Jesus, in a sense, relives Israel's history to show that it's really about him. And here's how he does it. So he's born. He's the son of Abraham. He goes down into Egypt. He comes out of Egypt. And what happens in chapter three? He goes into the water of baptism, which is what the Red Sea was according to Paul in first Corinthians 10. And then he goes through the waters. And where does he go into the wilderness? Chapter four, just like Israel went through the waters of the Red Sea into the wilderness. And what happens in the wilderness? He is tempted by the devil and he battles the devil with what? The Word of God and specifically from what book? Deuteronomy, which was given to Israel in the wilderness when they were being tested and tried. Now they failed and he quotes three verses out of Deuteronomy to show that he is the true Israel obeying where Israel disobeyed. identifying with his people. And then where does Jesus go in Matthew's gospel? After he goes through the water into the wilderness, he goes up on the mountain, chapter five. Just like Moses went up on the mountain and gave the law, Jesus, who gave that law to Moses, goes up on the mountain. He expounds the true intention in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew five through seven. Then he comes down from the mountain and, in a sense, redoes the whole history of Israel with regard to its kingly and priestly history, so that in chapter 23, what does Jesus say repeatedly to the Pharisees and the scribes? Woe to you, woe to you, woe to you. Where does that come from? Well, that's first found in Amos and Obadiah. Woe to you, Isaiah. Woe to you to the nations. Woe to you to Israel. Those woes are found in Isaiah and major and minor prophets. Jesus is the great prophet and he rails against the false shepherds of Israel. in recapitulating or redoing the prophetic ministry to show that everything you find in your Old Testament is redone in Jesus and done right and is effective until what's the last thing that happens to Israel in the Old Testament? What's the last thing that happens to them as a nation that we really hear about? They go back into the land, the temple and the walls. Well, first, the last thing we hear about, they're kicked out of the land. They go into exile. They go into exile. They're cut off from the land and they are judged. They are just like Adam was kicked out of the garden. They are kicked out of the land. They are exiled. They're sent to Babylon. Covenant curses on Israel. God does promise restoration. Now, check this out. What happens at the cross? Jesus is exiled. He's outside the city, outside the camp. He is crucified. He is cut off. He gets all the covenant curses for his people in our place. He is dealt with as if he were the greatest covenant breaker. The true Israel is exiled, and then he is restored in his resurrection. And we now, who believe in him, are true Israel in him, because we are restored in his resurrection. Now, let me stop. Questions. Because I'll go through a lot of this. Isn't it? That's wild. Questions. Clarifications. It's Christian, so that's just wild, you know? And you know, it's interesting. Notice this quote here. Notice on page, I think it's page two. No, I'm sorry. Notice page. I'm sorry, it's a good way and here's under the section on Jesus through Israel. You'll find that heading. A few pages past that heading, you'll see a quote by a guy named McLeod. I want to talk about a little bit just bolstering this Jesus in the wilderness, because the baptism and the wilderness accounts are crucial to really understanding Jesus as true Israel. Let me talk about the temptations and the wilderness first. McLeod says the events in the wilderness have profound significance when viewed against the Old Testament stories of Adam and Israel. In the Garden of Eden, Satan attempted to undermine Adam's confidence in God as well. And the temptations involved food. Interesting connection that the temptation of food in the garden. Jesus is tempted to turn the spins into bread. Then he says there were differences. Of course, Adam was well fed and physically fit. Jesus was hungry and weak. Adam was the object of Satan's initial seduction of human beings. Jesus was attacked after his opponent had thousands of years of practice. But then notice this. Israel's rebellion in the wilderness was likewise related to food. Their dissatisfaction with the manna the Lord had provide. They did not believe in God, did not trust his salvation. The devil's name is clear. He wanted Jesus to repeat the unbelief and rebellion of Adam and Israel. Now that's, it's profound because in a sense, the temptation in the wilderness is both a reflection on the garden of Eden and on Israel in the wilderness. Because what happened when Adam sinned, the garden was turned into what? A wilderness, right? The world God will oftentimes speak of the fallenness of the world under a wilderness with no streams, no rivers, parched places. And Jesus, we're told in Mark's gospel, is in the wilderness with wild beasts. Adam was in the garden with animals, but they weren't wild. Jesus is in the wilderness with wild beasts. He is there as second Adam in that cursed place to undo what Adam did. But he is also true Israel in the wilderness. And just as Israel had complained, was tempted, and they complained about the bread, the manna, Satan comes and tempts Jesus to turn these stones into bread, and he won't, because he obeys. His obedience is representative obedience. Now, there is a link between Israel's history and Jesus' fulfillment of all things and the Exodus account specifically, because if you think about Israel, if you're an Israelite, what's the most significant thing to you in your history? The Exodus. That's the Old Testament redemption. That's the biggest gospel in the Old Testament, even though it's all through it. God delivering Israel out of bondage as a picture of God delivering us out of the bondage of Satan and the world and our sin is the big picture of the gospel in God's acts in the Old Testament. And constantly God's reminding them about it. We'll turn to Luke chapter 9 real quick. Luke 9. And this is the account of the transfiguration starting in verse 28. Luke 9, 28. Now, Jesus is on a mountain. He takes his disciples up. Yeah, he takes the three with him and he goes up on this mountain. And there's some verse 28. Eight days later, he took Peter, John and James. He went up on the mountain to pray. As he prayed, the appearance of his face was altered, and his robe became white and glistening. And behold, two men talked with him who were Moses and Elijah." Now, why Moses and Elijah? Well, you have the law and the prophets. Exactly. They're representatives of the Old Testament revelation. He is the fulfillment. They're there witnessing to him the law and the prophets speak of me, he said. And notice that Luke tells us in verse 31, Moses and Elijah appeared with him in glory. And what did they talk to him about? About the coming. About his work. Well, what specifically? I haven't. Yet, literally in the Greek, it's Exodus. They spoke to him. So Moses and Elijah have been with God in glory for 1500 plus years, they show up in glory with Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration and they talk with him about his exodus, which he was about to accomplish in Jerusalem. So he is the greater Moses, his death and resurrection of the greater exodus. He is the true Israel. He is the greater Moses leading his people out. And he is the true Israel undergoing that exodus first and foremost for his people. Now we undergo it by union with him, by faith. But he has to undergo it first. The Bible is first and foremost written to Jesus. It's about Jesus, but it's also written to him. Jesus will constantly say, I have to do all things. I have to fulfill all things. It's necessary that this happens to me. He's reflecting on the things written in the Bible. That's a crucial step almost every Christian misses, sadly. I don't think the apostles missed it. I think we often miss it. And we often rush to, OK, what are some applications from the temptation account? You know, I'm tempted to look at this girl in lust. I'm tempted to spend money sinfully. I'm tempted not to be thankful. All legitimate things, but not the first and foremost intention of the temptation account. First and foremost, we're to see Jesus there in our place as the covenant keeper, obeying for us, fulfilling the law. Remember, Israel was given a law. Galatians 4.4 says that Christ was born under the law. At his baptism, what does he say to John the Baptist? It's fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness. Did Jesus need to repent of sin? But he underwent a baptism of repentance. I remember watching the show Lost, and there was a priest on there, an African guy that played a priest. And yeah, Mr. Echo. And I liked Mr. Echo until he said to one of the characters, even Jesus needed to be baptized for the forgiveness of his sins. And it made me so angry inside because the whole point is that he's the only one that didn't need it. John the Baptist told him he didn't need it and he underwent it because he was undergoing it for his people as their representative. And to miss that is to miss everything. He underwent a baptism that said he needed repentance when he didn't need repentance because he would go in there for us. He would be tempted in the wilderness for us. Had Israel obeyed perfectly, they would have merited the covenant blessings. But they didn't. They got covenant curses. He obeys that law perfectly. He then gets the curses. He's made a curse, Galatians 3.10. He's exiled at the cross. He gets the covenant curses, the darkness overshadows the land when he's crucified. But then he gets the blessing. So he says yes to the covenant curses. And then God says, here are the blessings to give your people. So he is the center. And to miss that and then to look at Israel and say, well, what about the nation of Israel, is to miss the whole point of the nation of Israel in redemptive history. It's to miss the whole point of the Old Testament. Well, you know, it's been said the Bible is a hymn book. it's all about him yeah and and that's right that is you know we see in psalms uh 47 he speaks about how he comes in the fullness of the volume of the book or the fullness of the scroll it's written yeah yeah it's written in me the amazing road you know that's why i feel like i'm on right now and that's why this is so important it's not the only thing we do care about application yeah but the problem with too many churches today is it's all about practical application for you well this is the big practical application Jesus Christ has in Himself everything because He is all things for us. And my burden tonight is just to help us see more clearly that even the nation of Israel's history in the Old Testament was typical of Jesus. And so, O. Palmer Robertson has a little book, Understanding the Land in the Bible, something like that, and it has a chapter When he comes to the New Testament and he's talking about the land, the first sentence says, the land was made for Jesus Christ. It's one of the most profound sentences in any book in this whole library. The land was made for Jesus Christ, which means when he came to the land of Israel, the purpose was not that the land would be holy forever, but that he would bless the world. And Romans 4 says that the promise to Abraham was that he would be heir of the world, not just the land of Israel, but the new heavens and the new earth. And Jesus said, the meek shall inherit the land of Israel. No, he said the meek shall inherit the earth. So it was never just about the land of Israel. The land of Israel, if you could think of the globe, was just a tiny microcosm for the Messiah to come to bless the world with everything through his work. So what that does is it helps us go back to the Old Testament and instead of, in the words of Edmund Clowney, reading it biographically. So here's a biography about Abraham, and here's a biography about Isaac, and here's a biography about Jacob, which doesn't really put anything and answer anything for us. It tells us it's a covenantal book about Jesus, and all those things are related to him. Yeah, I think it is better seen as them as those types. Right. You see what I'm saying? That they constantly point to the anti-type. Right. Just to prove typology, and I think that's why this is so important, turn to Matthew 12 real quick. That's good, yeah. And we'll wrap it up, we'll keep this briefer tonight, but I just wanted to kind of lay the groundwork for this because the apostles never say Jesus is true Israel. There's no explicit verse, I can't give you a chapter and a verse, but what I can do is I can give you verse upon verse upon verse upon verse that intimate that He is, clearly. That He spoke about His exodus. Out of Egypt I called my Son. He was born under the law. The promises were given to Abraham and to his seed, who is Christ. All those things are telling us. I mean, he goes down to Egypt, out of Egypt, through the water, into the wilderness, up in the mountain, down from the mountain, and then recapitulates Israel's history. So it's all tied together beautifully in the scriptures, but there's no one verse. Like there is the first Adam, the last Adam. That's explicitly taught in verses of scripture. This is not, but I think that it is everywhere in the Bible. Now, Matthew 12, Naz brought up typology. A lot of people have a hard time with typology, so I'll just close with this. Jesus taught typology, which is why I believe it, not just because the writer of Hebrews and Paul saying Adam was a type of Christ, but because Jesus teaches typology in Matthew 12. Notice what he does. First, he says that Um, basically a greater than David is here. So he says greater than the temples here in verse six. He's, Oh, check. This is amazing. Check this out. Jesus recapitulate David's ministry. Yeah. David has mighty men. David's king of Israel. David's the head of the covenant. David's men are tired and hungry. By the way, the kind of people that came to David, 1 Samuel 22, 1 and 2 says, everyone who was distressed in debt and discontented gathered to him and he became captain over them. That's my church planner verse. Everybody distressed in debt and discontented came to him and David became captain over them. Look at the disciples. They were basically fishermen, uneducated men. You know, there's nothing remarkable about them, just like David's mighty men. David and his men were like being chased. They were hungry. They went in, they ate the showbread. Jesus and his disciples had been ministering. The people were hating them. They were tired and hungry. They walked through the grain fields. And Jesus used that to teach about the purpose of the Sabbath. And then he says, that the priest in the temple profane the Sabbath and are blameless. And then in verse six, he says, should I say to you in this place, there is one greater than the temple. What he's saying there is that the temple in Israel was a type of him. He is the one in whom God dwells fully. What was the temple was a place where God's wealth fully. Yeah. In him dwells all the fullness of God bodily. Yeah. And then notice this. Then he goes on. And in the same chapter towards the end, when they demand a sign, notice this in verse thirty nine. And evil and adulterous generation seek after a sign and no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. So Jonah existed to foreshadow the death and resurrection of Jesus. Jonah was disobedient. in God's sovereignty to foreshadow the death and resurrection of Jesus. Jonah, in a sense, dies in the belly of the fish and then is resurrected out. And where does he go when he's resurrected out? To the Gentiles. Jesus dies, is resurrected, and where does he go? To the Gentiles. Through the apostolic ministry. So Jesus clearly says that Jonah was a type. And then notice this. Then who does he say is a type? In verse 42. We'll go through another Old Testament example. So he's already said the temple. He's already intimated David. He said David was a type. The temple was a type. Jonah was a type. Now all in the same chapter, Jesus is going to say he was a type. Solomon. How? He was so wise that this queen came from halfway around the face of the earth to come and hear it. And Jesus is like, I'm infinitely more wise than Solomon or greater than Solomon's here. And you hate me and reject me. But the queen of the South is going to judge you because I'm greater than Solomon. He was a type of me. So Jesus teaches typology everywhere from the Old Testament. One of the difficulties with typology is that Some people have, you know, you've kind of had typology gone wild. You know, some people have gone too far, got too crazy with stuff. The classical example is some dispensationalists will talk about like Rahab, Scarlet, the blood of Christ. There's nothing about that. Yeah. But we are to go and we are to look at all these things. The Passover lamb, Paul says Christ Our Passover, not one of his bones was broken, they went to the tree, they saw that he was dead, they didn't break his bones. Exactly like the institution of the Passover, Psalm 22, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? He is the year of Jubilee. He is also, the festivals typified him and his work. The year of Jubilee happened once every 50 years. Once in a lifetime, in an average lifetime. Every debt was canceled. Everybody went free. Now, that wasn't just that God cared about personal property and wanted people to have their land back. What it was about was sins forgiven. And so Jesus' first sermon in Luke 4, he gets up and he says, to proclaim liberty to the captives, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, the year of Jubilee, that when Jesus came, it was the year of Jubilee. Debts canceled, sins forgiven, and inheritance restored to people that had sold themselves into sin, who had put themselves into debt. Every feast, every festival, every sacrifice, and I think, arguably, every Old Testament individual At least who was godly was a type of Christ. You know, you know, the types are always imperfect. That's right. That's right. You know, because here you have Moses, who was a type of Christ, right? And Isida, you know, a leader, you know, shepherd. Also, you have Joshua, who's a type of Christ. But both of them together, even in imperfect, you need more than one because you see how Moses brought them to the promised land. Joshua led them in. That's right. That's right. And David and Solomon, same principle. And Elijah and Elisha. And Elijah and Elisha. So exactly what Nod said, that David was the king of righteousness, in a sense. Solomon was king of peace. David was a warrior. Solomon was a lovemaker. But both of them reflected different dimensions of Jesus, the greater beloved, the greater Solomon. And Elijah and Elisha, Both the miracles paralleling the miracles of Jesus. Many of them fall in the same category as preparatory. And this is cool. I think Elijah is a type of John the Baptist, because John the Baptist is called the Elijah to come. And Elisha did twice as many miracles as John the Baptist, and Jesus is twice as great as John the Baptist. And John is called the Elijah to come, and so Elisha becomes a type of Jesus in that he follows Elijah, the greatest Old Testament prophet. John is the last Old Testament prophet. saying this is the one behold the lamb which is which is beautiful because um types can follow up on the people events um ceremonies that's right as well as places things yeah take take erin's rod right yeah how erin's rod budded right beautiful picture of the resurrection because that rod had no life in it And it shows God's choice of the high priest. You have fruitfulness and life and blessing. The Ark of the Covenant we were talking about earlier. OK, so Bill and I were talking about this the other night. The Ark of the Covenant was the box overlaid with gold in which God's presence showed up. And there were two cherubim, two angels overshadowing the mercy seat and the blood went there inside. They put the Ten Commandments, Aaron's rod, and the bowl with the manna. Well, the bowl with the manna reminded them that God was provider. Aaron's rod said God chose the high priest, it was God's doing, no man takes that office to himself, and the law was God's holy standard. In order for us to have the presence of God, there has to be blood between the law and his presence, because we've broken that law. And so the blood went on the mercy seat, and the law was inside, and the presence of God appeared when the blood went on the Day of Atonement, on Yom Kippur, when the blood went on there. And the angels overshadowed it. Well, the Ark is a picture of Christ, in that he keeps the law, the law is kept in him, he sheds the blood, he is the presence of God, And this is really cool. When he's in the grave, he rises, Mary Magdalene goes to look for the body. She doesn't find the body of Jesus, but she finds two angels, one at the head and one at the feet where the body of Jesus lay. Because the resurrection glory is manifested. Angels, these are things which angels long to look into. So everything in the Old Testament is preparing us for something about the person and work of Jesus. Beautiful, another beautiful picture. You take the ark that Noah built, right? how I like to say, Noah prepared the ark, God prepared the body. We see how the wrath of God fell on the outside of the ark. That's right. Everybody inside was saved. Yep. You see how the wrath of God fell outside of Christ. The ark had one door. Christ is the only way. That's right. We see how the ark had three levels inside, the three in one. We see the trinity representing God. Also those we understand at that time it had never rained from the sky, but they do from the ground So it took faith in turn into the heart. So it is such a beautiful Yeah, the ark is clearly a picture of everybody in Christ is saved even though the wrath of God comes crushing down Right Remember, everybody lived 600, 700 years before. Bill thinks that explains the shortening of lifespans. Because of the radiation and the canopy's gone, and the sun, lifespan goes to 120 years. And I think, you know, even thinking about that when he speaks about that, yeah, the days of man should be 120 years. Yeah, yeah, it makes you think about it. You know, Noah's a type of Christ in that his name means rest. Everybody with Noah gets saved. He is the covenantal head. They all get saved as through water. When he steps off the ark, he steps off the ark as kind of a second Adam, type of the last Adam. In a sense, stepping into a new creation, though it's not a new creation because there's still sin in his heart, his son's heart, his wife's heart, as you see from Ham and the rebellion of Ham. He is still a type of the covenant head through redemption, entering on the new creation. So all of that, I guess the big thing I wanted to just stress today and going in on true Israel is that when we look at typology, we don't want to just limit it to these people or to these places or to these events, but to really God's plan in the Old Testament. Adam was God's son. Luke 3 31, he's called Adam, the son of God. Israel is the typological son of God. Jesus is the son of God, the anti-typical. So Adam's the first son of God. Israel is the typological son of God. Jesus is the true son of God. We are the sons of God in union with him. We are adopted in him. I think this will help us. One application I want to make. A lot of Christians, when they read about the covenant blessings and curses, this is where they trip up. So they read Deuteronomy 27 to 31, and they read about, curse be your kneading bowl, curse be the fruit of your womb, curse be this, curse be that, curse be the ground, curse, curse, curse, curse if you disobey, blessing, blessing, blessing if you obey. And I have heard Christian after Christian after Christian apply that wholesale. If you're obedient, blessing. If you're disobedient, cursing. Well, if you're in Christ, you have every spiritual blessing, Ephesians 1, 4, because he's the blessed one and he gives us every blessing in the heavenly places. And it's true if we obey, God will bless us even temporally, though a lot of times we're going to suffer if we're obedient. But there are no curses for a true believer. And that's where understanding this whole thing that Jesus as true Israel gets cursed and gets the covenant curses. when he is cut off from God on the cross. That's what the cross is. He is being exiled. He is being cut off. That's the darkness. Darkness was a plague in Egypt. Darkness was one of the covenant curses. You'll grope around in the daytime like it's night. And darkness covered the land when Jesus died. Covenant curses were falling on him. What was the last plague of Egypt? The firstborn son dies. The firstborn son dies at the cross. He gets the plagues. He gets the curses. It falls on him so that we get the blessings. That's why this is important. And I think so when we're wrestling with sin, when we're repenting, when we're we're seeking to grow and we fall, we remember we're justified in him. We're accepted in him. We're blessed in him. He was cursed for us. Forgetting that is to forget Christianity. I mean, if you forget that, we will either become self-righteous in trying to be better than other people, or we will become paralyzed because we keep falling. A righteous man may fall seven times, yet the Lord restores him. Why does the Lord restore him? Because Christ was made a curse. We may feel forsaken at times. But he was forsaken, so I will never leave you nor forsake you is an absolute promise to Nick because Jesus was forsaken. That's why I know God will never forsake me. So that's why this is so important. Thoughts? I'm done. So thoughts? Conversation? Nobody's Spanish here, buddy. That's a different tongue. But I think it's been real rich. You know, just what I believe. It was crystal clear. I don't believe, you know, it was cloudy. Good. I hope this will be helpful. I know it was a lot, but I wanted to really... Oh, man, brother. It's goosebumps. It's like... It's treasures that most people don't get the opportunity to hear and see this stuff. And it makes God more glorified because of the redemptive history and how stunningly he plays it out. It's like, wow. You know how Jesus is called the root and the branch? Like the root, he's God. And he's the branch, he's man. And that's a picture of him as true Israel too. He's the God of Israel and he is the true son of Abraham. The washstand, for instance, inside the tabernacle. Yeah. The laver. The laver. Yeah. They washed their hands after they... Some people say, well, that's just a picture of God washing away your sins. What if they just wanted to wash their hands because it was bloody? Now, I'm just saying, how do you know when to take it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is... Okay, so this is a good question. There are. Well, this is where it's hard because, okay, for instance, Do y'all have another like 10 minutes? I know everybody's been working the night, but... So Travis's question is the big million dollar cash value question. How do we do this? How do we know when we're not allegorizing? Most, a lot of knowledgeable, even Reformed guys are going to be like, medieval allegorizing, fourfold interpretation, that's not legitimate. They don't know what they're talking about, number one, because most Reformed guys in the history of the church understood typology until about a hundred years ago. Yeah. So there are books, Travis, like Fairbairn on typology. There are really good books that have been written that help with those, really knowing the scriptures, knowing the book of Hebrews, seeing how the writer of Hebrews does, it helps. But it doesn't make it absolutely easy. And there are some things we're never going to know. Like, why blue in the tabernacle? Well, a lot of guys will say, well, the sky was blue and God is intimating. He dwells in the heavens. Maybe. Well, you know, two things I would say. One, God doesn't do anything arbitrarily. That's the big principle. There's nothing in the Bible. So, for instance, circumcision. Eighth day. Why the eighth day? Well, most Christians are going to say, most Christians are going to say because clotting is highest on the eighth day and God knew that clotting would be highest and your baby boy would heal up good down there on the eighth day. I don't think that's why. On a seven day week in scripture, God clearly says seven is the number of holiness, perfection. In the Old Testament, there were eighth day Sabbaths. All through the law of Moses, there was 8th day Sabbaths. Well, on a 7 day week, what is the 8th day? The first day. The first day is creation. The 8th day is new creation. It's showing forth the new creation. Circumcision was a sign of the new creation of regeneration. What Christ would accomplish through his bloody death on the cross, the bloody circumcision was a picture of the cross and that Christ would accomplish the new creation. So God said it should be on the 8th day. Dietary laws. Loads of books by emergent people right now coming out saying, we should not eat shellfish because Israel didn't eat and it's healthier and God wants you to be healthy. No, that's not why God gave it at all. It doesn't, eat whatever you want. Eat bacon. I mean, eat it to the glory of God. Eat it with prayer and thanksgiving. Paul says it's sanctified, but it was not for dietary purposes. It was for redemptive purposes. The clean and unclean animals showed forth jew and gentile and the clean animals also were sacrifices preparing us for the spotless lamb jesus um god gave noah meat to eat that's good why did god give noah meat to eat but after the fall after the fall they could only eat vegetables before why could they only eat meat after because he was going to institute the Passover lamb and they would have to eat meat redemptively because Jesus would say, he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood. So in order to understand that sacrificial eating in the Old Testament, they had to be able to eat meat. So my point is, Travis, nothing's arbitrary in the Bible. Everything has a purpose. The question is, Is that purpose just mere physical cleanliness in the Old Testament? I don't think so. Although obviously they need to get the blood off their hands. I think it probably has to do with ceremonial cleansing, because if they had blood on their hands and they touched something else, just like if they touched a body, they were unclean ceremonially. That would not apply today. So I think there are just principles of holiness that were sort of typified under washing in the Old Testament various washings the writer of Hebrews will say right various baptisms that stuff was called baptism would stretch what eighth-day circumcision Here's what I'd say to them, I'd say, you tell me why the eighth day. And they'd be like, Claudius, no. I mean, it's the burdens on them to answer. I see what you're saying. Well, but my interpretation is not. infallible. Of course not. What I'm saying is though, at least it's about Jesus and not something else. I like it. Yeah. Well, but there are principles I'm guiding with, like Paul saying in Colossians 2.16, let no one judge you in festivals, new moons or Sabbaths, which are shadow of Christ, but the substance is of Christ. Paul clearly gives us a verse that says every festival, every ceremonial feast and festival were prefigurations of the person and saving work of Jesus.