Apr 3, 2021 - The Worst Pandemic of Them All

the worst epidemic of them all pandemic actually because it's not just local all right let's take a look at the torah partial that we just read deuteronomy 16 2 3 it says you are he's obviously talking to israel to sacrifice the pesach offering from flock and herd to ought to know your god in the place where adonai will choose to have his name live you are not to eat any comets that's leaven okay it's just hebrew with it for seven days you were to eat with it matzah that's unleavened bread the bread of affliction as it's called in the bible for you came out of the land of egypt in haste quickly thus you will remember the day you left the land of egypt as long as you live god's very big on remembrance he tells us all over the bible like 286 times remember remember the word zachar because look one thing we have in common i don't care your cultural background i've been all over the world and i've lived in new york city and it's very different megan is about as different as new york city is night and day um we have all the cultures all the creeds all the colors and that's just the way it is it's a melting pot and we're okay with it it's the way we're raised but one thing we all have in common here no matter you know there's a lot of different person personas a lot of different strengths and weaknesses personality defects and all kinds of things you've all been scripted your own way you're who you are by the way you've been scripted your life your experience but we all have a human nature and that human nature is the same and that's what connects us also what makes us the same in this place is that we all have a super nature and therefore we're brethren we're legitimate in the spiritual realm brothers and sisters closer than your biological brothers and sisters are to you in many ways so god wants us to remember because what human nature does is we tend to forget what we should remember but we're really good at remembering what we should forget everybody's head's going yep yeah because it's true you can't deny it right that's human nature um feasts and this is the the portion it was chosen for me to speak on i didn't choose it but it's a good portion feces used to distinguish god's people from the people of the world i mean the people of the world don't do god's peace i don't want to get into it too much because i've taught this you know a gazillion times i don't want to get into it but a lot of people say well are the feasts for for me as a gentile well first of all they're not jewish feasts they're god's feasts the bible is very clear on that and if you belong to the same god that the jews belong to the god of abraham isaac and jacob why wouldn't they be a feast what feasts would you have are there other feasts that you would have besides the lord's peace i know i'm it's kind of rhetorical and it's jabby a little bit i don't mean to do that but it's just so ridiculous to me it's so nonsensical that we would point our finger at the lord's face and and think of them in a negative connotation but the feasts we made up those are the right ones those are the good ones it's kind of crazy it's crazy so yeah the world doesn't celebrate these you know what i mean i mean to be perfectly frank with you i have no problem with what feasts i'm i'm not i'm not nope i'm not going there tomorrow you're a church celebrity so i'm not going there it's not my concern i'm here to speak about god's word and the truth and that's it but with that being said you know on christmas time you're competing on easter you're competing with tons of secular people who are celebrating it and it makes you angry because you're like this is the this is the resurrection lord how dare you just make it into a hunt for eggs how dare you it's it's it's it's such a disrespect right well if you celebrated tabernacles which is when he was born and if you celebrate first fruits when he rose you wouldn't be competing with anybody in the world because the worldly people don't celebrate those just something to think about we keep remembrance as new covenant believers again that's who we are of the benefits we've already received passover has been fulfilled but we also are remembering the prophetic benefits to come the fall feasts there will be a time when we hear god's trumpet blown there'll be a time when yeshua comes down there'll be a time when people will look upon him and mourn like one mourns for an only son and there'll be a time when he takes his throne and tapping apples among us for a thousand years so we have benefits but we look to the prophetic benefits passover bottom line guys is to remind us of our redemption our deliverance and our salvation really in a nutshell that's what it's all about right so if that's what passover's about then the feast of unleavened bread which is kind of part of passover but its own feast in a way it's to remind us of the way redeemed delivered and saved people are supposed to live you follow you can't stop at passover you can't stop at justification you know yes yeshua did pay for it all and and you can't mess with that and i'll get into that in a little bit keeping the feasts though are much better than arguing about the dates there are people that just freak out like when exactly is the 14th of nissan what is that don't get too crazy i mean you got a jewish calendar we know we don't have to look at the lunar calendar anymore you know there was a time when that's all we had and so they had to send smoke signals up and they'd go from mountain to mountain but then the samaritans who hated the jews would send up fake signals that's why they have two two seders just in case they didn't get the day right but now we have a calendar we we know when the 14th of nisan is we know and we know when the 15th of nissan is we we have the dates now so don't get too crazy about that in reality though remembrance should always lead to obedience that's the point ultimately that's the goal the goal of god is to get us to obey him because that's where we're safe and if you love your children like i love mine i want them to be safe well god loves us a whole lot more than i love them so bottom line is he's just looking to protect you and he wants you to prosper he wants you to have a good life but you can't have a good life outside of his commandments this is the whole secular humanism they're teaching our children and they're teaching us how to have a good life without god it's poison poison the new testament reading we read first corinthians 5 6-8 it might be a little long uh today for some of you some of you that are used to the 15-minute drive-by i'm okay you're okay god loves you go home eat um if you have to leave you're not gonna embarrass me you're not gonna embarrass yourself it's not like that there's no condemnation here it's not like that we don't have membership so you can't withdraw your letter because i never gave you one just come and go as you like don't worry about it seriously and i mean that i mean that nobody should control you except god it says your boasting is not good don't you know the saying it takes only a little leaven to live in a whole batch of dough get rid of the old leaven so that you can be a new batch of dough because in reality in reality you are unleavened for pesach lamb the messiah has been sacrificed so let us celebrate the seder not with leftover leaven the leaven of wickedness and evil but with the moths of purity and truth um this section just so you know even though everybody uses it for passover and you can teach about passover this section of first corinthians 5 if you really want to know the context is dealing with sexual immorality that's what's going on there's he found out you know paul found out after visiting them there's a guy sleeping with his mother-in-law and he's he's you know attending their fellowship i don't know how many people are in the fellowship it really doesn't matter but he's you know fairly irate about this and so there's immorality in the church which there's immorality in the church like wow yeah and when publicly known you know sometimes i will have to talk to somebody and i will have to ask them to leave and it's very hard because they go you think i'm the only one when i find out the other one i'll ask him to leave too i can only address what comes to me i don't know what you do when you're you know behind closed doors but when publicly known sin in the church is not subjected to church discipline it will silently spread its destructive consequences throughout the whole fellowship that's what he's talking about when he come when he's talking about levin okay he's talking about something that will just be contagious and um church discipline is nowhere to be found i mean some little country churches i'm sure it's there but the big ones no you can't upset anybody no and everybody is so big that everybody has anonymity so nobody knows what anybody's doing and and if you should leave your wife or your husband without just cause then you know they got seven services so what you say is well you go to the earlier one sugar the late one that's the best discipline there is sad really sad but he is talking about not just practical sin he's also talking about doctrinal sin you should know some doctrine is just wacky today so that's that's part of the sin issue too let's take a look at it a little bit more first corinthians 5 6-7 we read it your boasting is not good it only takes a little leaven i just want you to see these words leaven and unleavened for a minute okay let's look at leaven we're going to look at the greek because the new testament is written in greek you got it there you go okay 11 means not much to go on huh in a way in a way obviously when yeshua taught he taught agriculturally today sometimes people go well god is downloading and and because you know yeshua died we're wireless and because we're using technology terms because everybody understands technology today well back then it was all agriculture so used agricultural terms so that all these farmers and everybody was a farmer could understand what he was saying he was speaking metaphorically he was speaking symbolically he was speaking figuratively to drive home the message because people need a vision they they need something to see and so levin means levin but there's a metaphor for actual leaven in the greek and let me show it to you it's metaphorically of inveterate and i'll tell you what that means in a minute because you know there's not too many people that know what that means inveterate mental and moral corruption viewed in its tendency to infect others that's how he's using the word he's saying this in veteran mental and moral corruption is infectious listen i know we just went through a pandemic but i'm telling you sin is so much worse than covert will ever be worse than the spanish flu worse than the bubonic plague worse than anything you could think of there's nothing worse than sin nothing is worse than sin and sin is crazy infectious crazily so now let's look at the word inveterate so you know what kind of sin we're talking about we're talking about chronic habitual deep-rooted diet in the world we're not talking about when you lose your temper and then you repent we're talking about a lifestyle of sin it's different i don't want you to come under condemnation because you just sin this morning because yelled at your wife that's not what i'm talking about although if this is something chronic you need deliverance this should be not all the time when i saw died in the wool it hit me hard because it's hard to get die out look i did one wash in my life back in 1985 when i moved out 1984 i moved out i was 24. i moved out bought a condo i was living with my mom outside of college i stayed two years it was just me and her my dad was passed away when i was very young my sisters were married it was just me and her i loved her she loved me we had a great relationship and so i was saving some money i had a very good job outside of college because i want to get my own place i didn't want to rent so i was there and i i got out so i was like i got to do a wash mom used to wash my clothes it's a great deal and so i did not know that whites and dogs don't go and that was back in the day i mean thank god those days are over where the only underwear you had for a man back in that day was white pretty much there was a couple of freaks that were all leaving stuff but that wasn't me and so i put my underwear in with this red blanket and you know what happened right pink underwear and it was dyed in the wool i couldn't i couldn't really get it out and so when i saw that i thought about that wow that's a mean sin that's died in the world but then i thought wait a minute look at what isaiah 1 18 says it says come now says illinois can you imagine let's have a talk that's crazy this god who you know we fear this this omniscient omnipotent omnipresent god the creator and the sin of the universe is talking to really sinful people and saying let's have a cup of coffee that's what he's saying let's talk talk to me i want to talk to you let's let's think this through and then he says even if your sins are like scarlet they'll be white as snow even if they are red as crimson they'll be like well the the people here people in general are urged by god to consider thoughtfully their position before god god doesn't send anybody to hell he ha he because he loves you he has to honor your choice he can't force himself on you you know false love is disgusting i mean it's deplorable it's horrific it's it's it's illegal and because of who god is he can't do that so he's just saying let's consider where you are here because it's out of my hands once you close your eyes it's out of my hands i'm not going to laugh at you and say head to part for me your bum no i'm going to weep but it's out of my hands at this point because i'm holy and i'm just i i can't i can't just overlook it it's not right you don't go to a court of law and have the judge go you know what i think the guy has some remorse let's let him slide let him slide he was drunk and he killed my daughter and wife he's got to pay he's got to pay his debt to society if you will we can't stomach that when the punishment doesn't fit the crime we go crazy but why don't we go crazy when it's our own crime it's a double standard but i want you to see verses 19 and 20 because people don't always see that right it says if you are willing and obedient you will eat the good of the land but if you refuse and rebel you will be eaten by the sword for the mouth of honour spoken he reasons he explains he tells the gospels out there their hands are stained with blood but he's saying they can be cleansed but ultimately it's your choice the choice is yours and this my friends is the gospel right there in the first chapter of isaiah it's about as succinct as it comes so we've got this 11 situation in our hearts but god's asking us to be unleavened let's take it to work look at the word again it's free from levin unleavened no eleven but he's using it metaphorically and the metaphor is this it's free from fault and this is right in the lexicon i'm not making this up it's not like i'm grabbing a metaphor because i'm applying it this is the definition it's a metaphorical definition it says free from faults or the leaven of iniquity the leaven of iniquity of own twisting is sin god wants us to be free from sin i i know it sounds crazy because what we say today in the modern church is uh i'm just i'm just a human being i'm just human that's a lie that's that's a satanic lie how could you be just human if you're born again and you have the spirit of god in your tabernacle how dare you say you're just human that's not even true it's not even true right it's just not a true statement but we say it and satan wants us to say it because then it's like you know what intoxicated people say hey man i was just drunk last night i don't blame it on the liquor idiot you drank it you keep just blaming human nature well maybe we need to destroy that nature so that this supernature could take the helm the letter um that xiaohu paul wrote to the messianic community in rome it's probably the most important theological book in the new testament bar none and i want to show you something in chapter five where paul states emphatically that grace superbounded over all man's sins i know he talks a lot about grace in his letters he does but he doesn't stop short there you have to understand who this guy was okay this guy was so brilliant that at times in his letters he had to say i've got to speak in common language you're not getting it peter a great disciple said in his letter paul's very hard to understand look um jewish people tend to be very educated highly educated there was no different back then this guy was highly educated he was hand-picked by this rabbi it says so in acts gamaliel who studied under the greatest rabbi in judaism except for yeshua of course but i'm talking traditional junior hillel hillel taught gamaliel the marielle was a brilliant man and they were looking for some jew somewhere in the diaspora could have been from so to to bring to school and train somebody incredibly gifted you know what i mean you you you know what i'm talking about somebody who gets the perfect score on the s.a.t and gets the 4-0 and i knew these people when i went to school and so he was hand chosen he was brilliant but he was brilliantly wrong dead wrong and he wasn't just killing believers he was killing god's remnant he was killing jewish believers like a double whammy killing god's chosen and then killing the chosen who became the remnant killing him he gave the order to have stephen take it out he took a hit out a contract on stephen the only guy in the bible that got yeshua to stand i mean i don't know how many people maybe there's others throughout history that we don't know about that as they're being killed says father forgive them they know what not what they do but we do know yeshua said it which was impeccable and we know that stephen said it so this guy's in a league of his own and they brought his clothes before him as a trophy hey you nailed the good one here so when he met yeshua he was so humiliated and embarrassed and disgusted with himself that it was almost like he was begging yeshua kill me show me some honor like a samurai show me a little bit of honor because i have no honor right now i thought i had this right i am steadfast i am a jews jew from the tribe of benjamin i am circumcised on the eighth day bomb mitzvah in the 12th year i know my lineage i studied under the greats and i missed it take my head take my head and then go back and tell him you took my head so i have some honor with my people i'll be remembered somehow with some sort of dignity you follow the story i know this isn't the story you get taught in in most places but this is what's going on guys and then when he gets on his knees and he leans down to have his head lopped off he feels a hand underneath his chin and it lifts his head and as he's crying he looks in his eyes and says i'm not going to kill you i'm going to save you and you're going to become the apostle to the gentiles you're going to have the honor of bringing the good news to the gentiles so you couldn't mess with salvation you couldn't mess with it with him god forbid you try and do that okay this says all this happened the death of yeshua the salvation all this happened in the first four chapters so that just as sin ruled by means of death so also grace might rule through causing people to be considered righteous so that they might have eternal life through yeshua the messiah our lord he's saying grace reigns through righteousness the lord's righteousness not ours not even close it still doesn't all the demands of god's holiness have been met and the penalty of the law not the law he didn't die for the law he died for the penalty the law is still good yeshua said himself i didn't come to bury the law i didn't come to crucify the law i didn't come to abolish the law it's right there in his only sermon how does that get missed you know he nailed the law to the cross no my friend he nailed our sins to the cross and in the new testament sin is defined as lawlessness he nailed all lawlessness not the law the bible says he died for the penalty of the law which is death so now because of yeshua's sacrifice god can grant eternal life to all who completing not come up hip and cool cleaning the merits of messiah pleading the merits of messiah before our holy god you follow because he's he's our substitute a zobach in hebrew is an innocent victim slain for someone else for someone else's death an innocent victim this is the doctrine of imputation that you hear in theological circles charging his account you know i'll pay there's times i'm i'm in a restaurant i don't know how and somebody that doesn't even know me i go to pain they go it's taken care of that's what yeshua did he paid your account in other words god's love provided what his holiness demanded and people say you ever hear the saying oh my this this this employee of mine he gives me 110 it's paradoxical it's it's an enigma there's no such thing as 110 you can only have a hundred percent and when yeshua paid he said it is finished because he paid it 100 not 99. you can't even put a percent up you can't add to that sacrifice you cannot it's an insult to the cross it's an insult and you can't take away from it it's absolutely positively complete and that's that don't mess with it i know what we try to do i've been trying to do it my whole life i i beg people not to do it but i do it i've been working my tail off just just so i can look up and feel like god's going okay you weren't a waste mike i thought you know we have four children um we hadn't miscarried so we should add five but it didn't work out but that will work out when the kingdom comes um i thought that my daughters were gonna because i was a man's man you know my dad was a freak of a man i know everybody thinks that their dad i'm telling you my dad he was a ranger but not a different day world war ii ranges were different i met one in the bahamas you know how they did the ranges back then there's a volunteer force and they used to take these 18 year olds and line them up 10 of them and they used to point to two of them take a step forward and they took a step forward she had two and eight in the back and this is what the guy would say the guys in the back you won't come home eighty percent of you will absolutely die over there only two of you will make it home do you still want to volunteer missing in action got hit with a grenade purple heart marksman bronzed off of bravery that's what i was raised by you think you could be a slacker yeah try it and he was 10 during the depression not not like the gas crisis when we had to wait online when there was no food a legitimate depression anyway i don't say that to boast i'm just saying he was um a pretty intense guy uh to say the least [Music] if we stop right there which a lot of people stop jesus paid it all i'm not going to mess with it saved by grace that becomes the ending for most people who get saved where all it is is the very beginning of your journey the it's it initiates it all it does is get you through the door right your shoe is the door so you can't hold on to the door if the children of israel held onto the door and didn't go inside the house the angel of death would have nailed them they had to go inside they couldn't hold on to the door you can't be i'm holding on to your shoe no you've got to go through yeshua into the kingdom and then when you get into this new place like what do i do go forward go forward press on you know it comes in you it's inward and then it comes outward but you got to go forward you got to and so he didn't stop there he didn't stop there look at romans 6 1 the very next chapter so then are we to say let's keep on sinning you've read this a million times it's almost silly at this point but he wasn't being silly because there's people that didn't understand they thought so all i have to do is say a prayer there's people today that think that some of them have been going to church or synagogue their whole life and they are absolutely not safe so then are we to say let's keep on sinning so that there can be more grace almost like well the grace is so amazing if grace is so amazing shouldn't we bring more grace by sinning that's what he's saying it's he's being sarcastic a little rhetorical but he's raising an important question in their day it's a very important question does the teaching of the gospel or salvation by grace through faith permit or even encourage sinful living let's go on a little bit 6 17-19 by god's grace you who will once slaves to sin listen i remember it i try not to think about it because i just don't want to resurrect the old greg but i remember how much of a slave i was to sin i thought about it all the time i plotted it like i i was you know figure out how to do more how to do it better how to be slicker did anybody know what i'm talking about i was a slave to sin i didn't realize it but i was you don't realize what you're enslaved to until you get freed you don't realize your addictions until you try to give them up oh i'm not addicted give it up can't you're addicted slaves to sin obeyed from your heart the pattern of teaching to which you were exposed that was my exposure that's all i knew that was the pattern of my heart that's the way my heart operated but after you have been set free you're still a slave see we think we're free to do what we want no no you're a slave you're just a slave to righteousness but people think they don't see themselves as a slave when paul said he's a bond servant that's just a fancy term to say i'm a slave almost i'm a slave there's a reason why they call yeshua master he says i'm using popular language because your human nature is so weak now some would think he's a big shout out that's just the way it was he had to make it simple for just as you used to offer your various parts as slaves to impurity and lawlessness which led to more lawlessness so now offer your various parts of slaves to righteousness which leads to more rights this or being made holy set apart this is listen guys once we're saved we're justified done deal locked nobody can take it away from you you have security people do i have security is god going to leave me no no what about losing my salvation show me where it even talks about it you can't lose what you did it's a gift it you didn't gain it it's not income it's not renumeration you didn't earn it it's a gift it's yours you got it but act like you got the gift your life hasn't changed much that's scary because of their intellectual and spiritual difficulty in understanding truth paul was using an illustration from everyday life to drive home a point this is the bottom line the lord wants our state to correspond to our standing you can't just say you sit in heavenly places you can't just say you're positionally righteous it's not good enough to him he wants our practice to correspond to our position he wants our character to line up with our creed in other words he's trying to prevent us from this syndrome which is very prevalent it's called high talk low walk and i just want to show you a couple of the scriptures i know i'm belaboring it a little bit forgive me but i just want to show you that this isn't just romans okay look quickly we'll run through these i won't i won't keep you here too long although some of you probably thinking i could have gone a half an hour ago first thessalonians 4 3 7 and you know that's kind of a shame hopefully it's because you're not saved because if you're saved you should love the word of god and if you can't handle the word of god i even question your salvation just saying what god wants is that you be holy this this this has been around forever sexual immorality is crazy today just absolutely crazy so god did not call us to live an unclean life but a holy one you're gonna see this all throughout after the gospels after you're saved you're gonna see it all throughout the letters it's just in every letter you can't get away from it so paul only spent three shabbats in thessalonica i know that from the book of acts but this letter is chock full of eschatology chock full little little letter little nothing leather that he spent three little shabbats talking to these people set up a little fellowship i don't know 15 people 20 people wasn't huge and he fills it up with eschatology about the end days namely the return of messiah so i think he's saying in this letter in light of the fact that yeshua is returning he wants us to be in good standing he wants us to be legit that's what he's looking for legitimacy first peter he said the same thing as people who obey god do not let yourselves be shaped by the evil desires you used to have when you were still ignorant ignorant meaning you didn't know but listen is ignorance any excuse for breaking the law no no leave here leave here we have a cop right here and and i know him well i'll get him to go on price road do 45 you're getting a ticket tell him you didn't know that it was for you didn't know the speed limit tell him i didn't know first time on the road okay you still broke the law and roman says nobody's really ignorant you know that god exists but okay i'll give it to you i didn't know i didn't know but now if you're born again what is the process of being born again it says so in jeremiah 31 god literally takes and inscribes the law on your heart so it's not even on the outside you don't have to go run and see somebody go is this kosher like can i do this you know it's on the inside if you're born again you know i don't have to be up here like a like a you know principal talking to little kids and go you know you shouldn't do that you know what's right and wrong you absolutely know i don't have to tell you that you're grown-ups i would never do that he says on the contrary though see it's not only not good to not do these things on the contrary following the holy one who called you become holy yourselves in in your entire way of life this is the most comprehensible definition of the gospel the gospel comes in you and it comes out of you everywhere you go not just church not just retreats not just bible study not just fellowship not just seders not just synagogue every dang place everywhere you ought to be holy because i am holy you want to be a chip off the old block you're not going to be a block but you want to be a chip right you want to kind of resemble them sort of right i mean there are people out there secular people they're very difficult they're just waiting for you to go off why because they're as dumb as a suitcase full of rocks because they're expecting you they're holding you to a standard of yeshua first of all they don't even know yeshua once they do know him they won't hold anybody to that standard they're holding them to a standard that they could never hold themselves to that's dirty pool but they're ignorant they're ignorant to that truth right so here peter's talking he's talking about the whole beginning of the letters the glories of salvation the glories of salvation and the incredible position we have as believers incredible then he moves on the discussion from positional righteousness to practical righteousness he's saying look man if you call yourself a believer then you should probably patent your lives after the ones whose name you bear he's also telling us that we are empowered to live these holy lives by the indwelling of the holy spirit we point our finger at the children of israel but we forget that old testament saints did not have this help or blessing so be careful when you point the finger because since you are more privileged you have more responsibility way more hebrews 12 14 we don't know who the author is some people will argue all day long and how to be paul who cares keep pursuing shalom with everyone read it read it read it and the holiness without which no one will see god make no mistake in the midst of persecution the jewish believers will be encouraged on not to make it not to hang in there they weren't like don't worry you're going to make it they were encouraged to be holy in the midst of persecution is that what you want to tell somebody like they're being beaten and persecuting you like stay holy that's what he was saying he was saying keep pressing forward in light of god's great mercy the thought here really guys if a person is not growing in holiness he or she might not be saved now i'm not scaring you it's scary i warn you to be careful listening to me because i'm not the greasy grace guy i'm not my brain doesn't work like that i mean i think sometimes i need something for my brain but truthfully i think if i did i wouldn't preach the way i preach and i think i'm just trying to figure out what this says and communicate it i'm just sticking with this i'm not trying to doctor it up practical holiness on the outside is proof of new life on the inside now i'll i know i could see some of you just a couple of you going i'm not there we'll join the club i'll get to that i'm not going to leave you on a bad note trust me and then of course after reading hebrews and after reading peter and paul's letters i think we should look at what yeshua had to say because he's most important this is the end he's going to be taken away and murdered on our behalf it says in john 17 his last will and testament basically i don't ask you he's talking to the father to take them out those his disciples of the world but to protect them from the evil one they do not belong to the world i mean some of us are just like spiritual schizophrenics we have this great relationship with god and we have this great relationship with the world sometimes you can't tell the difference between believers and worldly people because they're mixing so much set them apart that's what sanctification is defined as to be set apart that's what it means holy fancy set apart like yeah you don't have nothing to do with that no that's not that's not your lane that's not the way you should be rolling in your life set them apart for holiness by means of the truth your word is truth so yeshua is asking the father for his disciples preservation not for their escape preserve them although i walk through the valley of the shadow of death he flat out praise for sanctification last words on his mouth flat out sanctify him how will they become sanctified the same way we are through the word of course for the word of god when read and obeyed sanctifies us that's the only way we can be holy not by giving money secular people give money not by helping out the homeless there's tons of secular people that do that really honestly it's not just in works it's more in character character that's what he's after speaking of character second corinthians 2 15 it says for to god we are the aroma of the messiah both among those being saved and among those being lost so everybody's got an odor to god everybody look at the word it's a sweet smell aroma in the greek but again it's not used as that it's used metaphorically let's look a thing well pleasing to god that's what it is he's using it metaphorically so as we move from this position of righteousness to salvation to practical righteousness ascent becomes more and more pleasantly flagrant fragrant to the lord but this is the thing guys if you stink on the inside you can spray yourself all day long i've been in cabs in new york where they've got that big container and all it is is cherry b.o they haven't showered in two weeks the cherry's not taking it away it's just making like a sweet horrific smell you know what i'm talking about so you can't just perfume yourself it's not on the outside that he's talking about here he's not it's all inside to the lord it's all inside to him and we are so external it's all about how our house looks and how we present ourselves it's all about external that introduction firm handshake and god's not looking at any of it it's all internal to the lord that's why you could see a guy driving a certain car live in a certain house and there could be no peace in his home he could be filthy rich and be be you know domestically violent a lot goes on behind closed doors a lot goes on behind closed doors here there's a lot that goes on behind closed doors in my house that you don't know about i am being abused by bernadette i want to come out and say it there's no question about it she knows we got married in 1989 we met the lord on the transfiguration mount i'm telling you if i would have pushed her off the transfiguration in 89 i would have been out of jail 12 years ago i sure did um romans 12 1 this is this is a key verse in this theological book the first 11 chapters was all about god's greatness and goodness and mercy and deliverance and there's no condemnation and all these unbelievable doctrinal wonderful things and then we're ready to run with it right because that's what we want to do we want the prize he's like hold on time this is where it transitions for you he says i exhort you what's he saying he's saying i'm instructing you i'm encouraging you but he takes this step further he goes i'm begging you i'm begging you brothers in view of god's mercy in view of the first 11 chapters offer yourself are you you're not going to offer me nope it says humble yourself before the lord nope he's not gonna grab you and throw you on the fire nope or for yourself that's your call your choice as a sacrifice living and set apart same word same thing same principle that we've been talking about being unleavened same thing that's what this holiday is about this holiday isn't about eating matzah all that's going to do is constipate you which gives a whole other meaning to the term let my people go right [Laughter] it's a jewish joke by show of hands how many people went to a seder all right maybe he'll get this i don't know i don't know because this is a no offense but there's a very non-jewish crowd and jewish humor is jewish humor so this i'm going for it lily so she's like don't do it dad so this jewish guy is getting knighted by the queen of england first time in the history and um you have to kneel and you have to say this sentence in latin as she puts a sword on your shoulder and he panics he totally panics and he forgets what he's supposed to say so he's thinking oh no what do i do quickly he responds you think i know what i'll do from the passover seder i know a foreign language and he says and she turns so advised and goes why is this knight different than rabbi how do you go from talking about holiness to that because because this is a very intense subject and i don't want to have you because i know the people we attract we don't attract the people that you know what i mean that the blacked out churches are attracting we don't i'm just saying we don't they're like you know young with the skinny jeans and they go into the gym and everything's perfect and you know what i mean they know how to work all the apps and they're cool they know how to say cool things all the sayings they got all the sayings down and and and they're being misled they're really being deceived and the sad thing is they don't know they're being deceived and that's why deception is so insidious because satan doesn't want them to know they're being deceived otherwise they won't be deceived and so we get the people that are like hungry and thirsty but the danger is we also get the people who's used to beating themselves up and i don't want to be the guy that beat you up because i've beaten myself up so bad you have no idea and i beg god please help me to be the teacher you want me to be because i'm okay beating myself up but i don't want to beat these good people up and i definitely don't want to put on them what i can't do myself so where do i go with this how far do i take it god i see the bible as i see it you see the bible as you see it people that are just grace without truth they pick up all the great scriptures people that are truth without grace prick of all the truth scriptures you need both and there's very few people that that go at it that way because it's hard because it's not 50 50 it's a hundred hundred i'm being very very very honest with you but by the same token you can't deny things like this because every time we sear our flesh every time by obeying the holy spirit in the word of god god just goes it's beautiful it's beautiful you know that's his favorite cologne burnt flesh almost done just two more verses second corinthians 5 17 therefore if anyone is united with the messiah he is a new creation the old has passed look what has come as fresh and new obviously there are many people that are uninstructed right and they think that old habits evil thoughts lustful looks are forever done away with when they get saved and everything literally becomes new at the time of salvation sadly enough this is not true not even close to being true we must be sanctified the israelites came out of egypt but egypt needed to come out of them they were steeped in this culture in this pagan culture this anti-god culture steeped in it and it doesn't come out overnight no it doesn't if you were orthodox the way i was raised and i wasn't ultra orthodox but orthodox not ultra but orthodox when passover came around we would scrub the place the apartment would be scrubbed down all the leaven wherever it was kept until not a trace remained some i'm sure in a lot of our homes we still have 11 but we're just not eating it right and i'm not saying that's a violation i'm telling you how we did it they would search the house my my bubba would search the house with a lamp in the cupboards to make sure now that chrome was overlooked i mean it gets crazy in the ultra ultra orthodox world if a mouse ran across with a crumb into a hole they'd there's leaven in the house then after they'd finished this process this arduous process they would lift their hands up to god and is what they say quote oh god i have cast out all the leaven in hebrew of course from my house and if there is any leaven that i do not know of with all my heart i cast it out too see the intensity of this now i'm not saying they didn't do this but guys what's the good of casting out the leaven from your house without casting out the living from your heart does it really make sense no no when people fight over it so to me all this does is picture the kind of separation from evil to which believers christians are called to today it hasn't changed god hasn't changed but the question is how far do we take it and that's i was trying to tell you before i don't know i don't know you know there were loaves of bread in our house that we can get rid of that's obvious right there's loads of bread in our life like well i don't murder anybody i'm not a thief and i don't commit adultery so i got rid of the loaves what about the slices what about things like malice and putting other christians down how many of you might not want to admit this but i know some of you you meet another christian and instantaneously you think they don't get it because they're christian they're not messianic true yes you do you immediately think as you talk to them even if they go yeah i go to church you think i'm i'm they're weak i'm stronger than them they don't really get what i get man that's messed up that's sick believing pride and it's insidious so that's like a slice what about you know nobody likes the end of the bread i always eat the end of the bread because i told you when my father was my father would have punched that mouse on the head and grabbed that crumb and eat it [Laughter] there's no way he would have let that mouse get away with that crumb so yeah i've sat at the table in my house for six hours because i took too many meatballs i couldn't finish six hours i know it sounds kind of abusive but my father was teaching me something you know you can take as much as you want but you better eat what you take don't waste anything and i don't waste i come here on a sunday i'll shut off lights why why not rabbi we got money coming in waste is waste didn't you she will multiply the lows and didn't tell him to pick up the excess can he just multiply more teaching something man don't be wasteful by the same token don't be a cheap state wait not being wasteful is not the same as being a cheapskate that's different okay not being willing to give but then you've got the crumbs you got the loaves you got the slices you got the crust the com what about like gluttony what about when we say we don't love money but we absolutely do there's no question about it what about unforgiveness no no i forgave them no you didn't because when you see them in the store your heart just go far competition there's so much so when i think about me and i don't want to make this about me but i think there's still so many crumbs and i don't feel good about me at that point i don't know what to tell you i don't know exactly what to tell you um except that if you've gotten rid of some loaves and some slices don't forget about that when you're just looking at the crumbs because sometimes satan will highlight the crumbs i was prayer walking this morning and i heard a voice saying certain things to me and i knew it wasn't god i knew i knew it was the enemy and i know that god has shut them out the lions and this is the worst line of them all this is the roaring lion prowling around looking for someone to devour other lions just eat because they're hungry and i want to pray for god to just have satan's tongue cleaved to the roof of his mouth but he he won't let me pray that because we need this adversary because if we don't have an adversary then we could say to god you made me make these choices i didn't have a choice you follow it's in god's infinite mercy and love that he allows us to choose so we almost need the adversary to see the contrast and the goodness and greatness of god when we make the wrong decisions with that being said um i think there's people here unless i heard wrong who are under like intense guilt and not necessarily because they're doing anything more wrong than anybody else it's not that in fact some of the people god told me that are under guilt are more righteous than some of the people that are not under guilt and so um i don't do this often and not because i don't want to do it because i only try to do i know this is going to sound very arrogant i know i'm sorry what god tells me to i'm going to i'm kind of a i'm kind of a blank slate when it comes to god i don't really have an agenda i don't except to to hear from god or to glorify god very basic things i love god i even question i ask bernadette a lot of times she's she's much way more normal than i am way more even killed um um not because she's my wife i know some people just brag on their wife and you know i've seen this too like what you know the wife's miserable and she's wonderful i'm like you're out of your mind but i'm not saying that because of that because that she's who she is it's not like i'm married and made a wonderful um but she's easy going you know i could say like well man i've had eight aneurysms ago but you're still here she always sees this and she's not this this you know optimist from the midwest that's you know it's the artery spewing she goes oh it'll be okay not like that you know she's she's legit but she always seems to see the bright side of things and there's people their mind doesn't work like that their brain is different and they just see the negative side of things so even when they look at themselves they see just the shortcomings they don't see uh how far they've come i mean on paper i should be like one of the happiest guys in the world you know this this ministry which is ridiculous and the people i get to talk to and hang out with which is ridiculous you guys are soul for the earth and a wife like burn who just goes with it and kids that are really normal and funny and happy but my brain doesn't always work like that and there's probably not a pastor in the world that would say that and i say that only because i'm just being honest i don't want to be so flagrant that if i need to get rid of a crumb i don't do it because you know i want to just be positive god loves me just the way i am but i also don't want to go on a hunt every day for every little crumb in my heart and feel like unless i get rid of all those crumbs i can't go before god's thrown to grace does this make any sense to anybody so i'm just going to finish up with a scripture and then for you guys and now i know why it's open so much i i know there's not just one of you that falls into this category okay that's obvious and i know that one person who thinks it's only them is gonna have a hard time coming up but i would just like to pray over you um i don't know exactly the prayer it's not going to be long and i'm sure god can do all of this without my prayer but he asked me to pray for whatever reason and the way god operates is he works through people he just works through people to people that's the way he chooses that's that's the way his system works so um i'll give you an opportunity to come up and then um maybe that's why where we have the space maybe because it's it's not one person maybe it's 100 people i don't know but nevertheless god asked me to do this once once in a while and every time he asked there's always fruit i mean ridiculous fruit so i'm not saying because he asked me there's going to be fruit i'm saying because he's god there's going to be fruit so we'll we'll make that happen in a minute last verse first corinthians 5 8 so with all that's we said right wow so let us celebrate the seder now this is what the complete jewish bible says they say the sadist so they're saying this refers to passover that's kind of a little questionable i know some of you gentile folk who found your way and they go no rabbi it's absolutely passover i'm not so sure it's passover but it's more than passover are you saying that we should only act not wicked and evil on passover come on it's more than the passover the seder should be the sata of your life the order of your life how you that's what satan means it's hebrew for order how you order your life okay this word sincerity is a beautiful word it's hard to come by it means purity it doesn't mean perfection pure motives there's no way that another human being understands the motives of your heart now bernadette and i've been together 35 years so after 35 years of being with me i think she knows even if i'm off the motivate where my motivation of the heart is but when you meet somebody you don't know and you draw a conclusion based on just meeting them there's no way you could pull that off not on your best day don't do it again there's another metaphorical term for sincerity means found pure when unfolded and examined by the sun's light and i've told you this a million times some of our spanish-speaking people you know in spanish it's sincere sincere means without wax so if i was to say to our spanish-speaking people and uh and pray about this i think we're going to be starting a spanish-speaking congregation um esso esta sincere so what'd i say this one is without wax well back in the day in the first century you had these vases everybody had these vases that they stood oil and different liquids in and unscrupulous businessmen would put paraffin wax on some of the cracks so you couldn't see it and then after time you'd bring it home and you know something would leak out you're like oh man the guy took me for a ride but sometimes they would put out this sign you know that that this one is without wax and a person could hold it it was lit up not in the dark like the unscrupulous merch merchants had the vases in the dock they'd have it in the light you could hold it up and you could see maybe where the imperfections were you know maybe get a deal on it i don't know but it was out in the open that's let me show you a picture this is what god wants to do with us you got the picture oh i'm only kidding see the picture the father wants us he's the potter master he's more than aware of our cracks he just wants to be able to hold us look even if i'm a crackpot i'll be a crackpot all day long as long as i have the father's hand on me and he wants to hold this up to yeshua that's sunlight but he's not going to go aha aha he's gonna say if you repent from your cracks i'll put you up on the wheel and i will fix you and then i'll put you on your way as you're leaving you'll think to yourself i'm not going to get this right i'm going to get cracked again right and it's almost like you turn to him and i'm describing you a vision i had when i first got saved he brought me in and he put me on the wheel and he started to spin me and i felt out of control but he said i've got my hand on you he never took his hand off me while i was spinning and he started to fix some stuff and when i walked out of that room i started to cry and i looked back and my expression was i'm not even though i'm fixed right now i'm going to break again i know it and i didn't say anything but he said it's okay i'll be here every time i'll be here i'll put you back on the wheel i'll fix you and get you back in the game i'll put you back on the wheel we we can't embrace that we try so hard to be perfect it's just not possible guys i have i'm a lunatic i'm about as much as a lunatic as you'll meet very dedicated not just to god just to stuff that i've done like crazy intense extreme i don't know anything else and i've tried my best to be perfect i have tried i just want to give it up i just want to stop i'm tired of trying to be perfect and i'm not trying to be perfect for you i'm not that's obvious so i think most of us are tired of wearing a mask i know i was very belligerent i almost never wore one ever i had guys running after me in the airport sir sir but i know for a lot of us it's just it's it's just come on what's going on here really the mask isn't prevented what's going on so as passover comes to a close which tonight it comes to a close i say we take off the masks next week don't come in with a mask don't do it and we live our lives not as raised bred swollen with the leaven of evil but as flat bread simple genuine and real um i don't know whether to should i pray for the people after the iranian benediction what do you think why are your two heads like yeah yeah we heard enough of you i was kind of but i was hoping that you would go no let's um is that is that okay because i know some of you have to go probably you you wanted to go a while ago i get it i'm sorry that it was a little uh longer than usual we had a dance we had the torah parsha there was just some other things um involved um let's stand together and then i don't know how this will transition but again i don't set things up well um we'll close the service and then for you guys that want to come up and and have me pray over you and it's not going to be you know it's going to be a very simple prayer um it's not going to be like rabbi can you pray for my when i'm not doing that sadly enough i just don't feel led to do that today um and so i'll just stay up here okay it won't take long two minutes really may the lord bless you and keep you may the lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you and may the lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you his peace in the name of the principal peace yeshua [Music] i love you guys shabbat shalom

Channel: Getzel

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Length: 67min 15sec (4035 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 03 2021