SPEAKER_00: Ministering to the heart of Western Arkansas's River Valley for over 165 years.
SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Chapter and First, the Bible Teaching Ministry of Fort Smith's First Baptist Church.
SPEAKER_00: You'll find sermons and teachings from Pastor Greg, our ministry staff, and guest speakers.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening.
SPEAKER_01: I want you to turn with me in your Bibles to Leviticus 19.
SPEAKER_01: And here's what I want to talk to you about today: the purpose and power of time in God's Word.
SPEAKER_01: I just want to say again thank you to you as a church family for how you've jumped into reading the Bible recap and all of that.
SPEAKER_01: It is so wonderful to hear people talking about it, sharing, you know, asking questions.
SPEAKER_01: We had questions at the Ask the Pastor thing last weekend, all kinds of those things.
SPEAKER_01: Everyone's so many people are doing this.
SPEAKER_01: We're so excited.
SPEAKER_01: Listen, if you have not gotten started, that's okay.
SPEAKER_01: Your deadline is at the end of February.
SPEAKER_01: After that, we send Matt and a team of deacons to everyone's house.
SPEAKER_01: They have a big brick.
SPEAKER_01: All right.
SPEAKER_01: No, I'm kidding.
SPEAKER_01: But we are excited about it.
SPEAKER_01: So if you have not jumped in, you've been a little hesitant, jump in with us.
SPEAKER_01: We're about to move into March.
SPEAKER_01: We're soon going to finish the book of Leviticus, so it's safe to read, you know, all that.
SPEAKER_01: And uh so it's really fun.
SPEAKER_01: So I hope you're jumping in it.
SPEAKER_01: But it's been exciting, and it is really difficult preaching through this because you think, man, I read this morning and I go, well, there's three sermons, and I read the next morning, and there's two more sermons.
SPEAKER_01: I read the next morning, I think, man, y'all gonna have to sit here five hours while I try to capture up all this stuff.
SPEAKER_01: And somebody said, Well, it sounds like five hours every week, Pastor.
SPEAKER_01: That's what it always feels like.
SPEAKER_01: But uh, it's just awesome all of that in.
SPEAKER_01: And so, you know, I've had this conversation, it's really fun.
SPEAKER_01: Man, Greg, I got behind.
SPEAKER_01: I just got bogged down in some of that.
SPEAKER_01: It was just too much, and I it was fun.
SPEAKER_01: I was reading all this, and I got that's okay.
SPEAKER_01: Nobody look, the whole point of this is getting into God's Word.
SPEAKER_01: And I just want to give you a blessing for doing that today.
SPEAKER_01: And I want to just encourage your time with the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: I want to tell you that what you're doing is incredibly valuable.
SPEAKER_01: I hope you've felt that.
SPEAKER_01: I want to excite you, I want to keep you motivated, diving in.
SPEAKER_01: If you're new with us, if you're visiting with us, what we're doing is we're reading the Bible chronologically.
SPEAKER_01: We started on January 1.
SPEAKER_01: We have a plan.
SPEAKER_01: It's available online, it's available on our website.
SPEAKER_01: We've got the plan in this little room off our lobby over here.
SPEAKER_01: We call our recap room.
SPEAKER_01: There's so many ways.
SPEAKER_01: It's so easy to do this.
SPEAKER_01: It's about three or four chapters a day.
SPEAKER_01: It's not hard.
SPEAKER_01: There are supporting podcasts that go along with it, and every week we're kind of moving through this journey together here in the services.
SPEAKER_01: But really, as I was reading through Leviticus, I kept thinking, why do we not love Leviticus?
SPEAKER_01: Why is that, you know, a thing that we don't spend time there?
SPEAKER_01: Like, how many times as a pastor do I stand up and go, turn with me in your Bibles to Leviticus?
SPEAKER_01: Not very often, right?
SPEAKER_01: But we should.
SPEAKER_01: And I've gotten an even deeper love for God's word as we've been going through this, and things I begin to recognize and see.
SPEAKER_01: And so I just want to encourage that in your life today, right?
SPEAKER_01: The purpose and power of time with God's word.
SPEAKER_01: Let me uh encapsulate a couple of things here for you.
SPEAKER_01: First of all, Leviticus chapter 19, verse 1.
SPEAKER_01: Here's what we're doing.
SPEAKER_01: Remember the context of this.
SPEAKER_01: God has redeemed his people out of Egypt, and he's brought them, he's heading them towards the land of Canaan, where we're going to go in and become a nation, and he's preparing them to be a nation.
SPEAKER_01: Now, you can't just create a nation by just throwing a bunch of people in the same geographic area and go, y'all go figure it out.
SPEAKER_01: That's not what God's doing because he has a purpose in what he's doing.
SPEAKER_01: This nation is different, as we've talked about the last couple of weeks.
SPEAKER_01: This is unique in the world at that time.
SPEAKER_01: He is establishing a culture that is radically different than anywhere else.
SPEAKER_01: And that culture points to how much he loves us.
SPEAKER_01: That culture points to sin and redemption and to the person of God.
SPEAKER_01: That culture is built in such a way so that people will know that God desires a relationship with them and wants to provide a redeemer to create that relationship for them.
SPEAKER_01: And so here's what I want to show you today.
SPEAKER_01: First of all, in Leviticus 19, verse 1, the Bible says, The Lord spoke to Moses, and here's what he tells Moses.
SPEAKER_01: Moses, you speak to the entire Israelite community and tell them this.
SPEAKER_01: Now, just in reading that, I'm thinking this is awesome.
SPEAKER_01: God's word is not for the priests or pastors or Aaron or Moses.
SPEAKER_01: God is destroying any kind of class system that existed in all the nations and cultures at that point.
SPEAKER_01: He wants everyone to know that his word and his promise is for every single person.
SPEAKER_01: And he wants them to know that his plan of redemption is for every single person.
SPEAKER_01: There is nothing hidden.
SPEAKER_01: There are no people who are special, above, below, anything else.
SPEAKER_01: This nation is different because God is showing he desires a relationship with you.
SPEAKER_01: And so he makes it clear to Moses listen, I want you to speak to the entire Israelite community.
SPEAKER_01: Every single one of them.
SPEAKER_01: This message is for them.
SPEAKER_01: And then he says, Be holy, because I, Yahweh, your God, am holy.
SPEAKER_01: And so he begins his statement to the children of Israel with this name, Yahweh.
SPEAKER_01: Now we've studied that before, and we understand that that name, really, that's Americanized as we've translated it.
SPEAKER_01: That name was so holy and precious for the name of God.
SPEAKER_01: It's the name that he taught them who he was, that they didn't even have vowels in that name, so it was unpronounceable, so you couldn't even pronounce it.
SPEAKER_01: It was such a holy name of God.
SPEAKER_01: It is the covenant name of God.
SPEAKER_01: And he is saying, Listen, my people, I am making this covenant by my holy character as your covenant God, what this means for us.
SPEAKER_01: And so then he goes to unpack the Ten Commandments with more detail.
SPEAKER_01: He puts a lot of other stuff in there.
SPEAKER_01: If you've been reading, you read all that.
SPEAKER_01: We go everything from adultery to weights and measures, and if you're stealing folks from stuff, or you're not honest in your business, to you steal your neighbor's goats and cows or whatever.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, there's all this kind of stuff in there.
SPEAKER_01: But it all has a purpose, and he's all designing it.
SPEAKER_01: And then you get into Leviticus 20, and he reminds us of his purpose.
SPEAKER_01: Here's what he says again to all the people of Israel.
SPEAKER_01: You are to keep all my statutes and ordinances and do them, so that the land where I am bringing you to live will not vomit you out.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 23.
SPEAKER_01: You must not follow the statutes of the nations I am driving out before you, for they did all these things, and I abhorred them.
SPEAKER_01: So let's stop there for a minute.
SPEAKER_01: Here's what he's saying.
SPEAKER_01: Listen, I am bringing in you into this land, and there's a lot of wilderness in all this real estate.
SPEAKER_01: You're going to be conquering a land that is wild to some degree.
SPEAKER_01: But then you're going to encounter an enclave of people here and an enclave of people here and an enclave of people here.
SPEAKER_01: And you're going to have to defeat them as well.
SPEAKER_01: And they are evil.
SPEAKER_01: And when you go in as a people, if you don't obey me and follow me, this thing about the land will vomit you out.
SPEAKER_01: How are you going to conquer a land of wilderness with enclaves of evil, empire, enemy kind of things around, unless I am with you and you are following my instructions and how to do this?
SPEAKER_01: And he reminds them, the people that were here, man, they were evil.
SPEAKER_01: The beginning of this chapter, Leviticus 20, he talks about Molech, who was a false god of some of the Canaanite tribes or people groups that were in Canaan at that time.
SPEAKER_01: And he begins that this chapter, verse 20, you will not sacrifice your children the way the pagans do it to Molech.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, they are giving their babies in sacrifice to this false God.
SPEAKER_01: It's a horrible, evil, reprehensible culture and thing.
SPEAKER_01: And so God is saying, listen, you're going to have to conquer people like that.
SPEAKER_01: We're going to have to set up holiness.
SPEAKER_01: You're going to have to conquer this wilderness and settle it.
SPEAKER_01: But it is an incredible land that I'm giving you.
SPEAKER_01: And there is so much blessing in there, but you have got to follow me, or it's not going to work.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 24.
SPEAKER_01: And he then reminds them, I'm bringing you to this land, is what he says.
SPEAKER_01: I promised you you will inherit their land, since I will give it to you to possess.
SPEAKER_01: And then he describes it, a land flowing with milk and honey.
SPEAKER_01: And he reminds them again, this is sealed by his character as a covenant God.
SPEAKER_01: I am Yahweh your God who set you apart from the other peoples of the world.
SPEAKER_01: And he reminds them of this purpose.
SPEAKER_01: Now, that is important to remember when you come to God's word.
SPEAKER_01: Because so often, as a New Testament Christian and an Americanized sort of a culture of Christian, we look at this and we go, yeah, I don't want to really read Leviticus.
SPEAKER_01: And then we get this stuff about, you know, we're saved by grace and grace covered, and we don't the Old Testament doesn't matter anymore, all this kind of stuff.
SPEAKER_01: Well, that's not accurate.
SPEAKER_01: That's not true.
SPEAKER_01: That's not a that that doesn't help us embrace and love God's word and understand the foundation of it.
SPEAKER_01: What happens is as you read this, there's all kinds of things that are revealed.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you're revealed, it reveals to you things that I've seen in here, like, oh, that's why we think that.
SPEAKER_01: This is why we revere families, because of how God has set up families.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, this is how we think about individual responsibility and people responsible for their choices, because it's made very clear in here that every person, this is written for every person, every person has to obey, every person is responsible.
SPEAKER_01: When it says, if you did this, you bring this particular offering to ask for forgiveness for that.
SPEAKER_01: Every person is individually responsible.
SPEAKER_01: There's so many things in here that are our worldview, and they are first established here as God is establishing his word.
SPEAKER_01: And then he's establishing the law which teaches us that we need a redeemer.
SPEAKER_01: And then every time you see one of these sacrifices, and then there is absolution of your sin, forgiveness of your sin after you've done the sacrifice, it calls us to be reminded.
SPEAKER_01: Man, God forgives our sin when we confess our sin.
SPEAKER_01: It's part of that love that God has for us, that's drawing us into relationship with him.
SPEAKER_01: Now, we get this idea Leviticus.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, I'm reading all this stuff, and I don't read all that thou's and shall nots, and don't do this, and don't do all that kind of.
SPEAKER_01: But listen, that's not the way the children of Israel embraced the law, embraced God's word.
SPEAKER_01: I want you to turn with me in your Bibles to Psalm 119.
SPEAKER_01: Psalm 119 is an incredible psalm.
SPEAKER_01: I've spoken about it before in the past, but as I was reading through this, I kept being drawn back to this.
SPEAKER_01: And I want to bless your quiet time and reading of God's word.
SPEAKER_01: Here's what I want you to see.
SPEAKER_01: Psalm 119 is a song.
SPEAKER_01: So every word, Psalms, is actually the word song.
SPEAKER_01: So this is like a hymnal, and these are all like different songs.
SPEAKER_01: So Psalm 119 is a teaching song.
SPEAKER_01: So when we're, my grandson Killian loves music.
SPEAKER_01: So we're singing Old McDonald had a farm, and then Bomber, that's my granddad name, I'll make up weird animals and weird noises, and like we oh yeah, yeah, oh, and all that kind of stuff.
SPEAKER_01: He loves that.
SPEAKER_01: He loves the wheels and the bus go round and round.
SPEAKER_01: For whatever reason, he loves the Wellerman song.
SPEAKER_01: Do y'all know the Wellerman song?
SPEAKER_01: About the Irish fishing singing Diddy where you go and wailing and all that.
SPEAKER_01: Something about the rhythm of that thing, man, he just loves it.
SPEAKER_01: He'd be crying and we'd turn on the Wellerman song, and immediately he'd stop.
SPEAKER_01: He was hooked.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's awesome.
SPEAKER_01: And now he's old enough that we're doing these teaching songs, right?
SPEAKER_01: So A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L M E.
SPEAKER_01: Nobody sings with me.
SPEAKER_01: Y'all sing with Jacob, but you don't sing with me.
SPEAKER_01: Like, really?
SPEAKER_01: If anything, you sing so you cover me up when I sing, right?
SPEAKER_01: So we're singing this A, B, C, D song, right?
SPEAKER_01: He loves it.
SPEAKER_01: He'll do it.
SPEAKER_01: A, B, C, D.
SPEAKER_01: Bomber, A, B, C, A, B C, Bomber, Bomber, A, B C, A, B, C.
SPEAKER_01: This song is built on that same structure.
SPEAKER_01: So if you took A, B, C, D, E, F, G, and you did the Hebrew alphabet, this first stanza you'll see separated by a Hebrew word.
SPEAKER_01: That's actually the letter of their alphabet.
SPEAKER_01: This would be like A.
SPEAKER_01: Verses 1 through 8 would be the A song.
SPEAKER_01: And then verses 9 through would be B verse.
SPEAKER_01: And then the C verse and the D verse and the E verse.
SPEAKER_01: That's the way that's structured.
SPEAKER_01: And here's what they're teaching.
SPEAKER_01: They are teaching their children to love the Word of God and the law.
SPEAKER_01: Now I want you to think about what we think about Leviticus.
SPEAKER_01: And then I want you to listen to Psalm 119, just this B stanza, if you will, if we translate to English.
SPEAKER_01: Think about this.
SPEAKER_01: We're reading the law, and here's what they're teaching their children about it.
SPEAKER_01: How can a young man keep his way pure?
SPEAKER_01: By keeping your word.
SPEAKER_01: Those things we've been reading, by keeping your word.
SPEAKER_01: I have sought you with my whole heart.
SPEAKER_01: Don't let me wander from your commands.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, God's word, God's presence is over there in the tabernacles we talked about last week, and the pillar of fire at night in the cloud, and then the pillar of the cloud by day, and you see all of that, and all this is happening, and it's right in the middle of the people, and we're learning the word, we're teaching our children, and the Bible says, I have sought you with my whole heart.
SPEAKER_01: Do not let me wander from your commands.
SPEAKER_01: I have treasured your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you.
SPEAKER_01: That's how they're teaching them to love these passages we've been reading.
SPEAKER_01: He says in verse 12, Lord, may you be blessed.
SPEAKER_01: Teach me your statutes.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, I want you to teach me from them.
SPEAKER_01: I want you to reveal yourself in them.
SPEAKER_01: With my lips I proclaim all the judgments from your mouth.
SPEAKER_01: Listen to this verse.
SPEAKER_01: I rejoice in the way revealed by your decrees as much as in all riches.
SPEAKER_01: That's what, that's what they're looking at, the passages we've been reading.
SPEAKER_01: That's what that is in their life.
SPEAKER_01: It is more valuable than gold.
SPEAKER_01: It is how we know who God is and how he builds a life and a culture for us, and how he teaches us how to function, and how he is constantly reminding us that when we sin, there is payment for our sin, forgiveness in God's plan of redemption.
SPEAKER_01: I will meditate on your precepts and think about your ways.
SPEAKER_01: I will delight in your statutes, I will not forget your word.
SPEAKER_01: Now, sometimes we think about this law and we think about all this, and we talk about Pharisees and they're keeping the minutiae of the law and all this kind of stuff, and we think, oh, that's just too much.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, I'm just so glad I live under grace and I don't have to worry about all those rules.
SPEAKER_01: Well, first of all, all of the teaching in the New Testament is built on the same set of principles and teaching.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, Paul wrote to all of the Christians reading his letters all of the law is summed up in love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor like yourself.
SPEAKER_01: We are doing exactly the same thing under grace, under the New Testament culture of things that God was teaching them to do in the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_01: And it's all working the same.
SPEAKER_01: Beforehand is pointing to Jesus and redemption through him, and where we are now, it points back to the fact that Jesus paid the price for our sins.
SPEAKER_01: But we should love all of God's word in this way.
SPEAKER_01: And that's what he's saying.
SPEAKER_01: It is so fabulous in God's word.
SPEAKER_01: And so, what I want you to think about, I just want to encourage you in your reading today, and I hope this will sort of add to your paradigm, give you a little bit of a paradigm shift when you're approaching all this.
SPEAKER_01: Now I want to read through Leviticus and Numbers and Deuteronomy, and I'm not going to get bogged down in that because there are wondrous things I learn in that.
SPEAKER_01: There are pictures of God that I see in that.
SPEAKER_01: I recognize the structure of families and culture and law and all these kinds of things.
SPEAKER_01: I recognize it all came from God's word.
SPEAKER_01: It all came from His developing a structure to point us to redemption through Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: There's a couple of things in the last week, ten days have I been reading through this.
SPEAKER_01: First of all, I want to point this out to you.
SPEAKER_01: We, the Bible says here in Psalm 119, how can a young man keep his way pure?
SPEAKER_01: I have sought you with all my heart.
SPEAKER_01: Don't let me wander from your commands.
SPEAKER_01: I have treasured your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.
SPEAKER_01: Man is a sinner.
SPEAKER_01: Sin has stained every single person's mind and heart.
SPEAKER_01: We are sinners by birth, by nature, and by choice.
SPEAKER_01: And left to our own devices, we will look as bad as all those other evil nations that he was talking about all around them.
SPEAKER_01: Sin is sin, and we're all there, and sin must be dealt with.
SPEAKER_01: You cannot walk away from the fact that man is a sinner.
SPEAKER_01: You cannot look in the mirror in the morning without recognizing that there's sin in my life or the propensity to sin today as I go through this day because of who I was before Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: It reminds us that we are sinners and have to be redeemed.
SPEAKER_01: All through these statutes, you run across them.
SPEAKER_01: One of the things I read in here are the standards of life and how in our culture we have deteriorated from them.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you read things like adultery, they killed them.
SPEAKER_01: That's kind of harsh, right?
SPEAKER_01: No, he's setting a standard for families and the structure of families.
SPEAKER_01: And you think about how we have throwaway families, and you think about the structure of things in our culture today, where families are weak and people being raised without families, and statistic after statistic after statistic tell us that the breakdown of the family is devastating to our culture and to lives of individuals.
SPEAKER_01: And when you put all those individuals together, it's devastating to a culture.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: Now, I'm not trying to have a message on divorce or whatever kind of thing I'm doing.
SPEAKER_01: What I'm trying to do is when you're reading through this, you think about the standards that God has set, and you think about even in a Christian nation or whatever that discussion is, how far we have walked away from God's standard.
SPEAKER_01: And when you read through here, you are struck with the fact that, left to my own devices, I am going to sin.
SPEAKER_01: And it happens from day one in our lives.
SPEAKER_01: We've been, I'll use another grandson illustration because it's my favorite illustration in all of life, right?
SPEAKER_01: So we're out now playing in the yard.
SPEAKER_01: He's about, uh he turned two on December 1, and so he's talking and communicating with us, and we're running around playing in the yard and all that kind of stuff.
SPEAKER_01: And so he's having to learn boundaries.
SPEAKER_01: So he runs out there and he'll get to the a particular boundary that we've chosen at the end of the driveway and the sidewalk so it doesn't get near the street.
SPEAKER_01: And he'll go up to that and we go, nope, not going in the street.
SPEAKER_01: Play in the yard, not going the street.
SPEAKER_01: Y'all have all taught your kids this, right?
SPEAKER_01: Not going in the street.
SPEAKER_01: And what is my precious, perfect, greatest child ever born, grandson, that offends my daughter every time I say that.
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, you get credit for having the first perfect child.
SPEAKER_01: Why does that not?
SPEAKER_01: You know?
SPEAKER_01: She still gets offended by that.
SPEAKER_01: So here's what you get with my precious Killian who loves Bomber.
SPEAKER_01: He'll walk up to that and he'll look at me and he'll go.
SPEAKER_01: No.
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
SPEAKER_01: No.
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
SPEAKER_01: Don't we do that in life?
SPEAKER_01: Don't you do that?
SPEAKER_01: Don't you have temptations in your life?
SPEAKER_01: You leave some open hole for you to kind of go like that?
SPEAKER_01: Don't you know that we, you look in the mirror, people would be horrified if we could see what's in our hearts, actually.
SPEAKER_01: This is the old story my pastor used to tell all the time.
SPEAKER_01: The illustration about a kid, and he's all wiggly, and they come down to family dinner, and he can't sit in his chair, and he's standing up out of his chair.
SPEAKER_01: Sit down, son.
SPEAKER_01: Sit down, he wiggles around, it stands up again.
SPEAKER_01: He's walking around.
SPEAKER_01: Sit down, son.
SPEAKER_01: And you know, he's all if you don't sit down in that chair, you're going to get grounded, and there's no more television for two days.
SPEAKER_01: So he sits down in the chair, like this, looks at his parent, and says, I'm sitting down on the outside, but I'm standing up on the inside.
SPEAKER_01: And when you look in the mirror, when I look in the mirror, we all have some area that we're standing up on the inside.
SPEAKER_01: Sin is sin.
SPEAKER_01: And it has to be dealt with.
SPEAKER_01: God points out our sin through these don't do this and don't do this, and this is how it's supposed to work, and here's the standard of that.
SPEAKER_01: But in every one of those, you're struck every time he gives a rule, every time he gives a punishment for that rule, he also gives a means of forgiveness.
SPEAKER_01: You sacrifice this, and this is what happens with it.
SPEAKER_01: You sacrifice this and this is what happens with it.
SPEAKER_01: If you do this, you sacrifice this, and here's what happens with it.
SPEAKER_01: And God is constantly pointing out our sin, but he is constantly pointing out, I am providing a means of forgiveness and salvation for your sin.
SPEAKER_01: And you are not struck when you start understanding and have a paradigm shift.
SPEAKER_01: Teach me your word.
SPEAKER_01: I've hidden your word in my heart so that I wouldn't sin against you.
SPEAKER_01: How can I cleanse my way by taking heed according to your word?
SPEAKER_01: And I am reminded that it is there not just to deal with my sin, but to show me forgiveness of my sin.
SPEAKER_01: And to draw me from that.
SPEAKER_01: I want you to listen.
SPEAKER_01: This is one of the verses that I pray a lot.
SPEAKER_01: I've shared with you before, but Psalm 119, the next stanza in that verse.
SPEAKER_01: Here's what he says open my eyes so that I may, this is verse 18, so that I may contemplate wondrous things from your instruction.
SPEAKER_01: Wondrous things.
SPEAKER_01: In every one of these stanzas, as they are teaching their children, in every single one of them, there is a verse just like that about how wonderful God's word is and what it means.
SPEAKER_01: And so when we come to God's word, if we will ask him to open our eyes, we will see so many things.
SPEAKER_01: Another thing I saw in God's word as I'm reading through that.
SPEAKER_01: The incredible protection of life.
SPEAKER_01: God is serious about protecting life.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, he is the author of life.
SPEAKER_01: It is his creation.
SPEAKER_01: And how many times do you see severe penalties when it involves the damage or destruction of a life?
SPEAKER_01: He points out this Molech culture in that deal and says, they have destroyed the value and sanctity of life, and we're going to push them out because of that.
SPEAKER_01: I abhor them doing that.
SPEAKER_01: God is serious about life.
SPEAKER_01: And you think about it, we've mentioned this before, I won't get bogged down, but when a culture devalues human life, all other morality begins to fail.
SPEAKER_01: Because what does it matter if you're willing to kill 63 and a half million children since 1973?
SPEAKER_01: No wonder everything else struggles.
SPEAKER_01: God is the author of life.
SPEAKER_01: He protects life, he values life.
SPEAKER_01: Again, when he tells Moses, you tell everyone this.
SPEAKER_01: God is wiping out the caste system that exists in every other culture and even today still exists in so many cultures.
SPEAKER_01: God has rules in here for the poor and for aliens who are traveling, immigrants or people passing through what will be their nation, going to somewhere else.
SPEAKER_01: And in all of those, he provides protection and value, and God values life.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: Because he's the author of life, and he's trying to teach us when sin brings death as the author of life, I bring eternal life through forgiveness in my plan of redemption.
SPEAKER_01: Life is an incredibly important thing throughout Scripture.
SPEAKER_01: That's why Jesus said, I am the resurrection and the.
SPEAKER_01: You also read this.
SPEAKER_01: God teaches so many incredible things.
SPEAKER_01: If you think about family and the structure of family, God teaches the structure of family.
SPEAKER_01: And family creates in the Jewish nation, and as you run through in the Christian church and in our culture, for example, whatever, wherever you find that structure of the nuclear family as God created it, it brings life and riches and value, and children are raised in the nurture and admonition of the Lord and people are healthy and everything works because God has created family, and you see all kinds of rules and standards and structure of family, and you read that in there.
SPEAKER_01: You read in there relationships, how you do relationships, how you do business, how you deal with your neighbors, how you ask for forgiveness, how you make restitution if you've harmed someone.
SPEAKER_01: He talks about the structure of how our relationships work.
SPEAKER_01: And you think about when we come to God's word and we see that and we think, we read something like weights and measures and all that, we don't do all that anymore.
SPEAKER_01: But listen, we pay taxes, we engage in contracts, we buy and sell.
SPEAKER_01: All those things.
SPEAKER_01: They're all about the honesty and the integrity of how we function in commerce and in the workplace and in business and how we do all of that.
SPEAKER_01: And if I'm asking the Lord to open my eyes to see wondrous things from the law, every time I cross one of these topics, it speaks to my heart.
SPEAKER_01: That's why we do that that way.
SPEAKER_01: It is creating a worldview, a structure of how life functions that becomes ingrained in us, and it's how we think, it's how we process things happening.
SPEAKER_01: It's the perspective and the view of how we look at things.
SPEAKER_01: I want to just read you another one of these.
SPEAKER_01: I just want to read you another one of these stanzas.
SPEAKER_01: This is Psalm 119, beginning in verse 97.
SPEAKER_01: Don't change, just listen to it.
SPEAKER_01: Now keep in mind, this is, I'm reading this as a Jewish father to my children to teach them how much God loves us and how to walk with him.
SPEAKER_01: I'm teaching them, just like we teach killing, you know, don't go in the street and don't play there, and that's going to hurt you and all that.
SPEAKER_01: I'm teaching my children.
SPEAKER_01: And I want my children to know that God, we are his people and he loves us.
SPEAKER_01: I want them to know that the tabernacle, you see that cloud, God is right there, he's with us.
SPEAKER_01: Dad, we like it here.
SPEAKER_01: Why are we picking up the tent and moving?
SPEAKER_01: Because the cloud, God is moving and we're following them, children.
SPEAKER_01: And he's teaching them, and I want you to listen to it from that perspective.
SPEAKER_01: How I love your instruction.
SPEAKER_01: It is my meditation all day long.
SPEAKER_01: Your commands make me wiser than my enemies, for they are always around me.
SPEAKER_01: I have more insight than all my teachers, because your decrees are my meditation.
SPEAKER_01: Listen, there's nothing in what we do in church that's me, I'm more spiritual and no more than you, and I'm dumping this information on you or whatever.
SPEAKER_01: That is not how church works.
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't work that way because God has designed how it works.
SPEAKER_01: Remember, he has given the law to the entire congregation, the entire community.
SPEAKER_01: They all have it, and they are all living by it, and they all have access to the Lord and an understanding of relationship with him through that.
SPEAKER_01: And every parent is teaching every child.
SPEAKER_01: And there's what he says: I have more insight through reading your word, through understanding your law.
SPEAKER_01: I have more insight than all my teachers because your decrees are my meditation.
SPEAKER_01: In the New Testament, it says it this way in 1 John chapter 2.
SPEAKER_01: You don't even need a teacher because you have the word of truth and the Holy Spirit to guide you.
SPEAKER_01: Listen, I'm not up here trying to just tell you whatever.
SPEAKER_01: We are all learning together.
SPEAKER_01: We're sharing, you're sharing things with me, I'm sharing things with you.
SPEAKER_01: I may start the conversation on Sunday morning, but then you keep going and we back and forth and we're walking through this together, and we're all helping each other.
SPEAKER_01: One of the things I love about us reading on this thing together is I'm reading one thing and I'm sharing this, and somebody's coming up to me and they're going, Hey, Pastor, I read this, and I'm thinking, I totally missed that.
SPEAKER_01: That's awesome.
SPEAKER_01: I keep trying to get people to say, Well, why don't you preach that next week?
SPEAKER_01: And they're like, No, I don't want to do that.
SPEAKER_01: Well, you really should.
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to start recording all those things, and we're going to have one message one week is like all the smart people in our church with all the incredible things they see in God's word.
SPEAKER_01: That's how that works.
SPEAKER_01: Listen, there's no priest that stands between you and God.
SPEAKER_01: There's no one that stands between you and God.
SPEAKER_01: You are every bit have the full access to God that I have.
SPEAKER_01: All of us do.
SPEAKER_01: We are all his children.
SPEAKER_01: We are all walking with him.
SPEAKER_01: When we read his word, he speaks to us directly and teaches us through his word.
SPEAKER_01: We have insights through him.
SPEAKER_01: This is one of the most beautiful things I love about being a pastor is watching your spiritual life flourish.
SPEAKER_01: It's awesome.
SPEAKER_01: And nothing speaks more to the truth of redemption in Jesus and the power of God's word than watching all of you out there growing and spiritually flourishing as you read God's Word.
SPEAKER_01: I understand more than the elders because I obey your precepts.
SPEAKER_01: Now that elder word kind of has a two-thing.
SPEAKER_01: Part of that is people are in charge.
SPEAKER_01: In our church, you might think ministers, deacons, Sunday school teachers.
SPEAKER_01: It also has the context of people who are experienced and all that.
SPEAKER_01: So, kids, I just want to share a word with you here.
SPEAKER_01: Listen to what he says.
SPEAKER_01: I understand more than the elders because I obey your precepts.
SPEAKER_01: When you get in God's word, you are as smart and as knowledgeable and growing as any adult in this room.
SPEAKER_01: That's how much God loves you and speaks in your life.
SPEAKER_01: Man, you there is nothing held back from your life.
SPEAKER_01: God will reveal all of himself to you through all of that, and you don't have to be old, gray-haired, a teacher, or anything else.
SPEAKER_01: If you can read, if you can listen to God's word, man, you can walk with him, and the full experience of being in a relationship with him is yours.
SPEAKER_01: It's incredible.
SPEAKER_01: Imagine a dad teaching a child that.
SPEAKER_01: That God loves us enough to have made a provision to deal with our sin.
SPEAKER_01: That he has sent Jesus to come and be our ultimate sacrifice, that we don't have to go back time and time again.
SPEAKER_01: That when you come to Jesus and you give your life to him, he pays the price for all of your sins and you enter into that relationship with God.
SPEAKER_01: And now these standards don't become things that point out when we've sinned.
SPEAKER_01: They become standards that bring life that we love and we're drawn to and we live out and we see God transform and bring into our lives as He's bringing life into our lives.
SPEAKER_01: That's how much God loves you.
SPEAKER_01: If you've never understood that's what God's word is, I pray the Holy Spirit can help you understand that and turn that light bulb on in your life.
SPEAKER_01: My brothers and sisters in Christ, you're reading, it is my prayer for you that you will flourish in the reading of God's word.
SPEAKER_01: That you will see those wondrous things, that you will embrace it as greater than riches.
SPEAKER_01: You will see the life that it brings, that God will reveal Himself to you.
SPEAKER_01: And if you've never been saved, you've never trusted Christ as your Savior, listen, there's no better day to understand what that means than today.
SPEAKER_01: As we read those Old Testament things, every time they had to sacrifice, every time they have to sacrifice, all of those things involve blood and the shedding of life and the giving of life.
SPEAKER_01: Because God teaches us that sin takes our life away.
SPEAKER_01: But Jesus came and gave his life for us so that we could be saved and have eternal life, have a new life, be born again.
SPEAKER_01: And if you've never trusted Christ as your Savior, I want you to know that Jesus will save you.
SPEAKER_01: Not because I said it, God's word says it.
SPEAKER_01: He says, I am Yahweh, covenant name of God.
SPEAKER_01: I am Yahweh, covenant name of God.
SPEAKER_01: And every promise written in this word is sealed in the blood of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: And that means if you will give your life to Him and confess your sins to Him, He will save you and forgive you and give you new life in eternal life.
SPEAKER_01: And He will walk with you in relationship and He'll grow you and bless you and guide you and give you the hope and the promise of an eternity spin in heaven.
SPEAKER_01: When this physical life ends, an eternity for you begins.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna ask you to bow your heads.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna pray.
SPEAKER_01: Praise team's gonna come up and sing.
SPEAKER_01: It's just an opportunity for you to respond to the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: If you've never been saved, I'm gonna invite you to come and give your life to Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: If you've never been saved, listen, what happens when you come down?
SPEAKER_01: There'll be a deacon or a pastor here in our aisles.
SPEAKER_01: Listen, we're not gonna arm twist you.
SPEAKER_01: Nobody's gonna, you know, guilt you in anything or whatever.
SPEAKER_01: We're here to walk that journey with you so we can answer questions.
SPEAKER_01: We can give you more scripture promises to stand on of salvation.
SPEAKER_01: If you're in a journey and you have questions, listen, make an appointment.
SPEAKER_01: We love to sit down with you.
SPEAKER_01: Matt's always good to buy steak dinners.
SPEAKER_01: And he'd love to buy you a steak and tell you about Jesus and sit down and talk with that journey with you.
SPEAKER_01: Come and give your life to Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: If you need a church family, church home, come.
SPEAKER_01: We'll talk to you about how to do it.
SPEAKER_01: It's easy to join the church.
SPEAKER_01: You sit down with one of our pastors and we just talk through your salvation decision.
SPEAKER_01: We talk about church, answering questions you have, and you join.
SPEAKER_01: It's not hard.
SPEAKER_01: We'd love to have you come be a part of our church family.
SPEAKER_01: If you want us to pray with you, you come.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, we thank you for today, and I thank you again for your word, and I ask that you bless your people through your word, just as you promise to do.
SPEAKER_01: As we close this morning, Lord, if there's someone who's never been saved, Lord, I pray that they will see in your word that you are the author of life, that you have promised a way to deal with our sin so that it can be forgiven and we can be in relationship with you.
SPEAKER_01: I pray they see how much you love us and you are calling to us to that plan of redemption.
SPEAKER_01: And if there's someone who needs to be saved, I pray this morning they'll give their life to you.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, I pray as our people continue to read and study, you will open their eyes to see wondrous things from your word.
SPEAKER_00: We pray this in the saving name of Jesus and all God's people said.
SPEAKER_00: We pray this message has been a blessing to you and helped to strengthen your walk with Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Please know we want to minister to you and pray for you.
SPEAKER_00: Send an email to contact us at fsfbc.org and let us pray for you and help you in any way we can.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening to chapter and first, the Bible teaching ministry of Fort Smith at First Baptist Church.