basically where Paul was coming back and basically he was talking about where he was, his locations, he was in Arabia, he was in Corinth, he was all over and he's basically making a case for himself with the Judaizers and also those of the circumcisions that are Christians. So while you're turning, I'd like to give this little preview. We will read and then we'll talk. There's a lot to go over here. So in Galatians chapter 2, we pick up at verse 11. But when Peter was come to Antioch, I withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed." Before I read any other verses, can you please etch that in your mind? This is going to be the hinge point on this message today, or our session. And I'll read it one more time. And how many times do you read verses in Scripture that have the apostolic wherefore, or the apostolic but? But when Peter was come to Antioch, I withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed. This is pretty big. For before that certain came from James, he did eat with the Gentiles. But when they were come, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing them which were of the circumcision. And the other Jews dissembled likewise with him, insomuch that Barnabas also was carried away with their dissimilation. But when I saw that they walked not uprightly according to the truth of the gospel, I said unto Peter before them all, If thou, being a Jew, livest after the manner of Gentiles, and not as do the Jews, why compelst thou the Gentiles to live as do the Jews? That's a massive question. We who are Jews by nature and not sinners of the Gentiles, knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law, for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified." And then I got to stop there because I'd love to go further. If you hit the last verse in here, it brings it all together and we're going to get to that later. You hit that last verse, verse 23 and 24, It brings together what Paul's trying to talk about, that if all of his work as a Christian missionary, pastor, teacher, friend, is all about the works of the law, what did he say? He says, then the gospel of Jesus Christ is in vain. That's pretty big. And the reason I'm having a hard time this morning, I got started on this. I got 11 pages of notes, reduced it to eight. And there's so many different types of doctrinal patterns in here and just practical applications. It's hard to know where to start. So we're going to get started. And if you have anything to say about it, we will go down that rabbit trail. We will stay on that, talk about it, and we'll try to get to all these points. But I can promise you I'm not rushing through Galatians 2. That's not something... This is so massive and this is so important for us to understand with our personal relationship between us and Jesus Christ, to understand what justification by faith is. I found in here, in our creeds and confessions, I believe, are the most important things below, underneath the scripture in church, and the creeds and confessions in here deal with justification by faith. And I really don't believe that today many people, sadly, that didn't know many hundreds of years ago what justification by faith was, I don't believe a lot of people know what it really means. It's extremely important to understand how we can be just and sinner at the same time. But I can promise you this. If you can believe you're just and sinner without Christ, You've already fallen by your own weight. It's all about Christ. So anyway, and there's a whole other part of this I want to talk about. At the time that the council was convening regarding these ceremonial observances, Paul had a concern, going all the way back, starting in the beginning of the chapter, about what was happening regarding the Judaizers And what they were doing is they were going behind Paul's back, going into that vast region of Galatia where Phoenicia was and all these incredible towns. They were coming back and the Judaizers were coming and saying, this thing about Jesus Christ is a joke. The man died, he was nothing more than a man, he was buried, and their great Messiah is completely gone. And they were totally, completely saying that he did not resurrect from the dead. And they're saying, don't give up all of your traditions, don't give up on going over to the ceremonial walls, to the Feast of the Gentiles, all the Passovers. The sacrifices of animals. You've been doing it all these years. This thing is just a passing fancy and this little man from Nazareth means nothing. And then Paul heard that. The last thing you ever wanted to do was go up against Paul the Apostle. You never wanted to do that. And now somebody did. And look what happens here. We'll get to that. These verses, we see a stern rebuke which proposes another calumny that Paul was nothing but an ordinary disciple and not an apostle. We look at the level that Paul here, we see Paul is rebuking another apostle. And we see an administration here where there's two men who are on the Jerusalem council. They're part of a presbytery, but these two men were personally called by Christ. What's the problem we're seeing here that we've been discussing that we're seeing in here again? In verse 11, it says, because he was to be blamed, Peter was to be blamed. What problem have we seen so far with the Judaizers in the way they treated Paul as opposed to James, Peter, and John? What was the problem? Anybody remember? Well, circumcision was the issue. But what happened was, the Judaizers, if you read the verse that we read about James, you have to dig. And when you dig, you find out that one of the most highly regarded apostles out of them all was James. And what they were saying was, we're Judaizers, that we literally have eaten and we have worshipped with James, and James is telling us that the Jews of the circumcision are the ones that are to be worshipped with, and the Gentiles are still not to be part of us. That's what they were saying. What happened to Jonah? Does anybody remember what happened to Jonah? Remember how Jonah was furious? I come to find out that Jonah was not hiding from the Lord in the book of Jonah because he was afraid, because he was trying to be afraid. He literally was hiding from Christ, the Lord himself, because he hated the Gentiles. He did not want any of the Ninevites to come to the Lord. He didn't want that. And this proposes a big problem that's caused massive problems in pretty much every church I've ever seen. There's always a division. There's a division of doctrine. And that division of doctrine can cause real separations. And so basically what Jonah was saying is, God, I do not care what you're saying. That's another thing you don't ever want to do. I don't want the Ninevites. And since I don't want the Ninevites part of the Israelite Christians, I'm going to go to Tarsus and I'm going to hide from you and I don't want to hear from you anymore. That didn't work out too well for him, did he? He wound up right in the belly of a great fish, which was not a very comfortable ride through the ocean, but it did spare his life. And the Lord eventually had him go into the Ninevites, and over two million were brought to the household of faith. And that was of the Lord. Well, this is what's happening here. Peter did something that infuriated the Christian church. We would never know about this if it wasn't for Paul the Apostle, because he's the only one that rode on it, basically. And Peter did something and he was being blamed. Now, first of all, it's hard to know where to start with this because there's so much, but I'd like to go, I'm going to start with the end of my notes here because there was a reason why this becomes a real problem. Let's all go back right now. We've done this many, many, probably four years ago. Acts chapter 10, let's all go back to Acts chapter 10 and let's just see where this all started and what the problem was here. I think you all know what it is when we read it, you'll know it a lot better. I know it's hard to remember, it's a lot of stuff. So, we go back here, remember when Paul, when Peter was going with Cornelius. And Cornelius was a Greek. So picking up here, let me see, we pick up in verse 10, and it says here in Acts chapter 10, verse 10, And he became very hungry, and would have eaten. But while they made ready, he fell into a trance, and saw heaven opened, and a certain vessel descending unto him, as it had been a great sheet knit at the four corners, and let down to the earth. Wherein were all manner of four-footed beasts of the earth, and wild beasts, and creeping things, and fowls of the air. And there came a voice to him, Rise, Peter, kill and eat. Now what was the problem with that? At this point, Jews weren't supposed to eat this. This was regarded unclean. But Peter said, not so, Lord. Once again, there's Peter rebuking the Lord. Not so, Lord, for I have never eaten anything that is common or unclean. And the voice spake unto him again the second time, what God hath cleansed, that call not thou common. This was done thrice, and the vessel was received up again into heaven. Now while Peter doubted in himself what this vision which he had seen should mean, Behold, the men which were sent from Cornelius had made inquiry for Simon's house and stood before the gate." What happened here was this sheet comes down, and it's a vision from the Lord showing all of these unclean items basically for a very large menu. And the Lord was saying to him very simply, you're going to go witness to the Gentiles. So with Paul here in verse 11, Galatians 2, verse 11, is bringing up something that happened that was extremely, very divisive. And so what happens here? Here we see there was a conundrum. Would Peter receive Cornelius? He went to go stay with him. Would he go to him, and could Peter have this inclination to reach out to Cornelius? Could Peter have been concerned that they had a different doctrine? Was Cornelius, or was he not circumcised? All these things came into Peter's head when the Lord told him to go stay with Cornelius. And this is the inception of all of this, because here's what happened. Paul says here very plainly, you took Barnabas with you and you created dissimilation. What does that mean? Dissimilation. Paul says, Romans 12, I think it's verse 10. Let love be without dissimilation. A poor that which is evil cleaves to that which is good. Dissimilation came from the original Greek word for hypocrisy where you had two masks. You ever seen that in theater? You had a mask with a smile and a frown. And basically what that was, that's where the word hypocrisy came from. And that's basically in theater because in theater it's almost a way of expounding and showing what hypocrisy is when you're wearing a certain mask and you feel a different way. That's where it came from. Dissimilation is a very heightened degree of hypocrisy. And when Paul says, let love be without dissimilation, it says here Peter and Barnabas were being hypocrites. What they were doing was something that was extremely dangerous. When they were eating, the Lord had given Peter all of these means of eating many different dishes and different meats and different seafoods that had once been declared unclean. Remember, one of the unclean was eating anything from a pig, or eating certain kinds of seafood. I mean, it's a whole list of things. And the Lord says, now I am declaring these common, because if they are common, you can now reach out to the Gentiles, and you can now bring them to the gospel. But then something happened in Antioch. When they were in Antioch, and that was the third largest province, it was the third largest area in all of Rome, Peter's ministry was there. And what they were doing, word came back that when the circumcised Jews, who were now Christians, wanted to eat, Peter would sit down with Barnabas and eat with them. He would eat with the Gentiles, but when those of the circumcision came up, they literally got up and walked away from the table, and they wouldn't eat with them. Think about that. Here, if you are a new Gentile convert, and you're hearing the gospel of Jesus Christ, and this massive, massive presence in the Christian church gets up and walks away from you, what are you thinking? What would you think? I mean, I think this is very divisive. We see in verse 12, for before that certain came from James, did eat with the Gentiles. Now, here's where in verse 12, it's very interesting. But when they were come, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing them which were of the circumcision. So they're sitting there eating with the Gentiles that were not circumcised like Titus. And all of a sudden, these Jews of the circumcision come in and they just get up and leave them there. And basically what Paul is saying is, you're living among the Gentiles. The Lord tells you to eat what they're eating and to have fellowship with Him, and you're doing that. And then all of a sudden, you start feeling extremely embarrassed to be around them, humiliated. And you're going to get up and go with your Jewish friends and your Jewish converts, and you're just going to leave the Gentiles basically sitting on the curb. I mean, I have an example of what happened when I was about 18 or 19 years old. My father had a radio broadcast, and it was an incredible little broadcast. And he would have it all throughout southern Pennsylvania and northern Maryland. In fact, that's where we first met Brad Zell. Brad Zell used to listen to it when he was 16 years old, and he would call in, he and his father. And it's kind of incredible. And he would have these rallies. And he would have them like once every so many months. And he would rent these little halls and all these people would come. And I remember one time, a bunch of my friends in the neighborhood, all of them were Roman Catholic. We were friends. We played ball together. We played sandlot baseball and stuff. And I had been inviting them. It was on a Friday night. And I asked them if they'd like to come. And I'll never forget, I was completely baffled that they talked to me in the neighborhood and they said, hey, we're coming this Friday night. I mean, they've been Roman Catholics their whole life and here they're coming to a Christian rally. They knew my father was on the radio and my father had opened up the house many times on Wednesday evening. We had prayer meetings at the house and he would buy these big things of pizza like this and anybody wanted to eat, they could come over and hear the Bible and he would have a Wednesday night prayer meeting. Sometimes, actually, they were coming every now and then. So anyway, there was one, there was always one, there was one man that knew three of my Roman Catholic friends were coming. He took it upon himself to be there to make sure that he walked in front of that whole congregation and he stood there and for some reason he had a problem. Something came up about John F. Kennedy. He starts talking about John F. Kennedy. He was all into this political stuff and all this conspiracy theory stuff. And he stood there and he blasted the Roman Catholic Church. I mean, tore them apart by piece by piece. And my three friends never came back again ever. That's what I'm talking about. That's a little example. You may have seen that in churches. And what we're learning here by these verses is how to create unity and fellowship amongst Christians by being patient, by being loving, not being finger-pointing and divisive. And I'll never forget that. To this day, I'll never forget how they never came back from that. And, you know, it took a while to get them interested, to get them out of their masses and get them out of their parishes and to come in and to just hear the gospel. And it's just, you know, I can see where Paul's coming from here. This has always been a conundrum in the church. Peter is being sat down by the Lord himself all the way back in Acts chapter 10, and the Lord lays out to him exactly what he wants him to do. And what does he do? He turns right around and turns his back on the Gentiles. And Paul here, he says in verse 13, and the other Jews dissembled likewise with him. They all went, insomuch that Wow, another name comes up. Barnabas also was carried away with their dissimilation. Well, at this point in Paul's ministry, he's already had a real problem with Barnabas. Now we can see maybe a little bit of a window of what he had a problem. Remember back in Acts? He and Barnabas were supposed to go to the famine together and they were supposed to give some of the elderly and some of those that were hurting, take money to them and food all the way back. And then all of a sudden we see that there was great dissension between Paul and Barnabas and they parted ways. Well, it takes a while later when we do read how Paul writes about Barnabas and says how extremely important his ministry was and he lifts him up. Others he did not. He called out those that had hurt the ministry. But here we see Barnabas. He's part of the dissimilation. And you want to know what's sad about that? Guess who would have been with Peter and Barnabas? Yes. Mark would have went back to Cyprus, but he would have been in these meetings with them, no doubt. I don't have confirmation of that, but Mark spent most of his time with Barnabas. They were related. But Mark, I will give this, the Lord used Mark in a great way because during this period of dissimilation, Mark did write, the Lord had him write the Gospel of Mark, and that's an incredible work that we see in the Synoptic Gospels. But this is where we're at here. This is kind of difficult. So we remember the reaction of the Jewish council at the trial of our Lord. In John 18, 28, Then led they Jesus from Caiaphas unto the hall of judgment, and it was early. And they themselves went not into the judgment hall, lest they should be defiled, but that they might eat the Passover. See, even the Jews themselves, they thought of Christ as unclean. They thought He was defiled. And when they took Christ into the judgment hall, they went and sat down and ate and got away from Him because they did not want, quote-unquote, Jesus, who was supposed to be unclean, to affect their perfect Passover. Who is the Passover? Here Christ Himself is the Passover. And they considered Him and they took it upon themselves that He was unclean. So what lesson here is there? We see there's a thunderbolt here. Now we're going to have to switch gears for a minute. Before we do that, anybody have any questions? Anything they'd like to add? Anything? Before we go forward. You're certainly welcome to. Love the correspondence. John Calvin brings up something very, very incredible. I'm going to read you something. Well, I didn't bring it, but I'll go over it with you. Basically, something comes up, and I'm going to read you a quote from Calvin. He talks about what we find out here in the presence of this basic quarrel, and it's more on a real high council kind of level, because here you have two apostles going at it back and forth. Two apostles, one is an elder, one is a theological giant, both of them are called by Christ, both of them are preachers, both of them are teachers, and one of them is openly calling out another one. You want to know what Calvin says about this? This flies in the face of the Roman Catholic Church. Because Peter, who was supposed to be the ultimate pope of the Roman Catholic Church? Peter, right? Well, according to Calvin, the calumny here, is that Calvin says Peter would have had divine rights. Divine rights. What does that mean? You know what divine rights are? It means that the Pope cannot be questioned. He cannot ever be subverted. You cannot go against him. You cannot correct him. You can do nothing at all on that level, ever. You cannot do that. The very fact, I went into a Catholic Bible last night and I read all of Galatians 1 and 2, and in Galatians 2, these verses, now it's more of an ESV type of writing, but still, the verses are there in the Catholic Bible that Paul went after Peter. If Peter had divine rights and he was a true pope, Paul would have not been able to touch him. He would have not been able to go near him. And that papal right that Peter had, We can see here, Peter is not a Romanist, he's not a Catholic, because we do not read about this event anymore in Scripture, which leads us to believe that when Paul and Peter had this conversation, Peter himself repented. Many times Peter was very impetuous and he did many things that even the Lord himself, our Lord Jesus Christ, He was really furious many times at Peter. Peter said things, he rebuked the Lord, and the Lord came back at one point and said to him at the Caesarea Philippi confession, Get thee behind me, Satan. Remember that? And then remember when Peter denied Christ three times in that courtyard there, and the Lord looked back at him. You see that in the book of Luke. What an incredible, dramatic moment when Christ turns around and looks at Peter. Like, I told you. It was like, I guarantee that. I told you you were going to do this. But he says, I prayed for you, Peter. Do you know in your heart the Lord's prayed for you? You know. If you're a Christian, you know that he has. Do you love that he's on the right hand of the Father? Do you know that in the most horrible ebbs of your life, and there are going to be other trials that you're going to have in your life. I hate to say it, but they're coming. Do you know that he's on the right hand looking down, praying for you? Because if you do, you'll know something that Peter knew. Paul knew, and they could get through this, even though this was such a problem. It's amazing how this flies in the face. Let me read you this. What lesson can we heard here, Calvin says, about a thunderbolt which strikes at the papacy of Rome? According to their defiance of judgment, the whole church is never to be questioned, according to the Catholic Church. Paul chastises Peter. Remember how Peter is considered the Pope of the Catholic Church. The fact that Peter would receive the rebuke from Paul, and this works out, shows that Paul was not subservient to Peter, and Peter was not subservient to Paul. They're on the same level, and they're able to talk about that. We see this at the Christian Council. And basically, Calvin says, He's not standing up as a pope in defiance of the challenge. And he says, remember the Romanists foolishly have all of their leaders alleged to be founded on divine right, not just the pope. They are not to be questioned. They are not to be subverted. And we see that this little part of Scripture teaches us church government and how it is supposed to be handled, that everyone should have accountability. And if the Roman Catholic Church wishes to have God appearing on their side, and they do not wish to have the enemy of God, they must repent, and he says they must throw their Bible out. Because the Bible that they have totally changes. It changes the law, it changes the doctrines in their Bible, and he says if they're going to have any type of love of God at all, they need to stop what they're doing and they need to repent. And that's what he's saying in the situation that Peter, being such an example, they should look at him and say, he was a humble Christian who loved Christ. They should look at his example. They should not lift him up on a pedestal and say that they can give him divine rights and he has absolutely no responsibility to what the truth is. That's what's being said here. I think that's why it's so important. So we go back here in verse 14. He says, But when I saw that they walked not uprightly according to the truth of the gospel, I said unto Peter before them all, If thou, being a Jew, livest after the manner of Gentiles, and not as do the Jews, why compelst thou the Gentiles to live as do the Jews? We who are Jews by nature and not sinners of the Gentiles, knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law." And Paul is bringing this together. He is saying what you're doing by separating to Peter and no doubt getting to Barnabas, what you're doing is you're taking works and you're using that to divide the congregation of Christ. Those of the circumcision, those that are not of the circumcision, once again, this is under that word, adiaphorous, where the Lord could use both for His glory, but they both have a common goal. To obey that beautiful gospel of Christ, which Paul said that if there's any other gospel, let it be accursed. And that's what he's talking about. I truly believe Paul's demeanor is one of sadness, of love for Peter, and he really was trying to reach his heart. I do. Lisa. Right. Right. But if it was, the thing is, is that we are not using that as a work, as a work to justify. That's the difference. And in the ceremony of law, that's what the Jews became convinced that this was something to do to remain clean and pure in the eyes of the Lord, and the Lord is clean. tearing that all apart and saying, no, that is not at all what, you know, in Hebrew we read about how everything that was done on earth was to show us what the heck was going on in heaven. You know, that was showing us those things. But here, he's trying to show us that, you know, the works of Christ were sufficient for all things. We don't have those laws to follow anymore because we're not justified by them at all. We never were. Right. That's right. Well, we have our warnings here in scripture, and that's a very good point. We have to live as Christians. We have to live by example, and by looking at those others that have example. And one of the things that we have promoted in this Sunday School class for many years is looking back at the life of King David. Now, when Paul, who is a theological giant, comes back and says, oh, wretched man that I am, keep that in your mind. Why? Peter comes back. He's crying to the Lord. And he repents of what he did when he denied the Lord thrice. And then other times, Peter had his problems. Wonderful. I don't like the fact that in theological and evangelical ranks, whenever you're listening to anything about Peter, the first thing anyone ever talks about is how he denied the Lord thrice. That does not define him. That was a tiny, weak moment that it was impulsive. As opposed to Judas, who Judas had premeditated what he did to Christ, and Christ said to Peter, I have prayed for you. Lisey. Amen. It should. Right. Right. That's right. Right. Right. That's right. That's that's a very good point. And I think as Christians, what we learn from this, outside of this church, always remember, we come into the Lord's house on Sunday, we're all dressed, we're all trying to be on our best behavior, and we might go out in the public sometime at some point and see some one of us do something that maybe we shouldn't be doing, and you can come back and say, well, he did that, boy, forget that church. This is not what the Christian church is about. It's about us lifting each other up, praying for each other, and not sitting there grading everybody all the time. We have, you know, I know in some areas of your Christian life you might have seen that. But we're talking about what we were talking about here, and that's a great point, Lisey. We're talking about Paul saying, a wretched man that I am. Peter begged for the Lord to pray for him, and he reduced himself to a very, very humble servant. But then there's Psalm 51. Then there's Psalm 51, and it goes right along with Psalm 6, Psalm 32, Psalm 51, Psalm 102, and there's two other penitential psalms. The greatest king of the northern and the southern kingdom commits adultery with Bathsheba, he turns around and he sins horribly, and what does he beg the Lord in Psalm 51? He says, "'Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean. Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Make me to know gladness, that the bones that thou hast broken may rejoice.'" What's David saying here? "'Make me to know joy and gladness, that the bones that thou hast broken may rejoice. Hide thy face from my sin, and blot out mine iniquities.'" Think about that. He's not talking to himself. He does not have divine right in and of himself. He's not saying, David, kick yourself in the butt and get back up and do this on your own. You have the power to atone for your own sins. The king of really at this point in his life, he was the king of the whole free world. He has someone else that he's petitioning. He goes on and says, Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation, and uphold me with thy free spirit. Then will I teach transgressors thy ways, and sinners shall be converted unto me. No, he says unto thee. He's talking about Christ. All the way back thousands of years before all of this takes place, even David himself says, I need a savior. I need someone. Not someone, the one. And basically, this is what Paul is talking about. He is saying, our justification is not predicated on the works of the law or the ceremony and all. Paul says, if it's that case, then anything I'm doing out here, writing 60% of the New Testament, three missionary journeys, beating 175, lashes on my back, being stoned. I've never heard of anyone else being a surviving a stoning. The only person I ever heard of ever was Paul. Survives all of that, and he says, with all of that, I need a Savior. And he goes back and he says, all the things that I've done, all of that would be nothing but done in vain if the works of the law are how I become a saved Christian and push Christ aside. He says, I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me. Lisa. That's right. to all, and they don't rely on the works of Christ to be the sole work that they rely on. That's the problem, and that's why justification Yes, they're Presbyterians, but they also believe that their works follow your salvation. You want to naturally do things because Christ is in your heart. He doesn't come before that. And it's not just Christian. The encyclicals, the sacraments, all of that is all part of the works that come into there. Right. And that's where, and because of the ways that the churches, you know, have evolved, and they have grown away from what the Reformation was really all about, which was the education, with the Al-Quds, you know, that's where we've come a long way away from what the truth was. That's right. Well, well. What was the big thing about the Notre Dame church that burned down? It goes along with what you're saying. What was the big thing? This is 500 years after Martin Luther calls out the reliquaries. At one point he said, and he was actually being very sarcastic, he was talking about how they were basically, the Roman Catholic Church was trying to dumb down on Christ's gospel and they were saying, we don't need that, but we have Joseph's pants. That's exactly what he said to us word for word. We literally have the physical pants that Mary's husband Joseph has. We have that. We have spikes. We have to get into this. We had to talk about that another minute. We started that a few weeks ago. Go ahead, Leah. I'm sorry. Read how many churches have the spikes that have been driven into Christ's hands. There must be 10,000 different nails around the world that were in Christ's hands. He only had like five. You know, that's just the beginning, Lisey. Oh. it's no different than relics. It seems like pagan religions do that, real pagan religions do that. And it just goes to show, they're doing something like that with a tooth of Buddha. They're doing that with everything. I don't see anything, that's why I also personally have a problem with crosses and things like that, anything that could even date. Right. Well, and that goes back when you see the crosses. How many times do you see in these churches? Christ is always being crucified on the cross. But you see no representations of the resurrection. The only time I've ever seen representations of the resurrections in stained glass windows is the Evangelical Baptist Church. I've never seen that. Maybe a Lutheran or two, but mainly Baptist churches. You know, most Presbyterian churches really don't believe in all the stained glass and all that kind of stuff. That's kind of like there wasn't a Reformation. But you see it in Baptist churches. Lisa. Right. Right. Well, what about, remember the Shroud of Turin? Remember that came out and they had that? Remember Leonard Nimoy given away many years ago? He had that thing about how the Shroud of Turin was this incredible... that was the actual robe that Christ wore before He went to the cross. And people were literally worshipping this Shroud of Turin. And they still have this thing. Who knows what happened? They probably cut it out of an old blanket or something, knowing what happens a lot of times. People were worshipping that. And here's a big one. I don't know that I'm going to sit there and I'm going to down this guy at all. I don't want to down anybody. Because I think actually, I believe the man's getting saved. I've been reading things that is incredible. But that Jim Caviezel that played Christ in The Passion, he's come out and said some incredible things. But when he had that first movie, I never saw the movie. I don't want to see it. I don't want to see representations of people pretending to be Christ. I don't think it's right. I don't like it. I personally don't like it. Other people, that's whatever. After that first movie, people were going up and touching him. They were touching him and he was accepting it at the time. Has he changed since then? I hope. But they were touching him. That's a reliquary. That's basically trying to have something physical in order to connect you to God. That's not good at all. Very serious. Lisey. Right. Apparitions and toast. Yeah. Right. And then they see pictures like in walls and stuff like that. Anyway, we're going to have to finish, but I did want to read this to start out with. Thank you all for your correspondence, but I'm going to read this and we'll get moving next week. We'll get back into this also. Here's a question from the Constitution of our church here. And I'm going to start with one question and one answer, and we can read a couple of verses. I would like to ask someone right now to look up 2 Corinthians 5, verse 19, and then jump to verse 23. You don't have to read 19 to 23, just read 19 and 23. Someone get that, and then someone read, someone go to Romans chapter 3, verses 22 to 25, and we'll end with that, okay? All right, here's the first question. What is, now this is going to transfer over, Later on, we're going to be looking at what is justification by faith, but we're just looking right now at justification. What is justification? And we just read that in verse 16, Paul speaks about justification. What is justification? Here's the answer. the first part of the answer. Justification is an act of God's free grace unto sinners. That's the beginning. It's free grace, it's grace unto sinners. That is what justification, as we open this incredible doctrine, the first thing we learn, what is being justified? What is justification? It's an act of God's free grace unto sinners, which shows that He is not a sinner, because it's an act of free grace to the sinners. Okay, who has 2 Corinthians 5.19 and then 23? And then go to verse 21, not 23. Jump ahead to 21. That's it. That's the answer. That we are made righteous in Him because of His imputed, His work. Not ours. We can be made righteous in Him. That's our cleansing power. That is our unlimited power, that our faith and our righteousness is because of the blood of Jesus Christ and His resurrection. What more do you need? Rahuh has Romans chapter 3, verses 22 to 25. which is by faith of Jesus Christ of all, and upon all men that believe. For there is no difference, for all have sinned against the Lord God, to be justified freely by His grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God hath sent forth to thee a propitiation through faith and in blood, to declare His righteousness, through the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance And then Paul goes on to say in verse 27, where then is their boasting? Where can we boast about ourselves? That's why we're to witness. We're to boast about Christ, not ourselves. And then he says, he says by the it's by the righteousness of Christ himself. Where can we boast? I mean, what Paul says, what more do we need? And then he says it over and over. That's love. That's love that that man would write 60 percent of the New Testament. to illuminate that and to drive it into our hearts. How can you not sit and read it? How can you not want to run home and read that? You're talking about eternal life. And what does he say? What did Paul say in these verses? All you have to do is what? And this is life eternal, that they might know me, the only true Son of God, Jesus Christ. That is John 17 verse 2. He says to believe. Is that so hard? Well, you might not think it is sitting here amongst other Christians, but you go out there and start talking to people about it. Who's that? That's just another. That's your faith. It's not mine. You know, that's what you get. So next week, we're going to look at more justification, a little more about this incident. We're going to move forward towards these last verses in chapter two. And I think that we'll get some more incredible doctrine from this. My name is Matthew. Could you close us this morning? Thank you.