So we're on 16.5. We haven't started working it apart yet. We've just read through the section here. Who wants to take Romans 3 verse 20? Okay, Lynn. Ephesians 2, eight and nine. Who's got that? Tim. And then Romans 4 verse six. Kenan. Okay, so I will read the statement that leads up to that and then we'll work through it here. We cannot, even by our best works, merit pardon of sin or eternal life from God's hand, due to the huge disproportion between our works and the glory to come, and the infinite distance between us and God. By these works, we can neither benefit God nor satisfy him for the debt of former sins. And so go ahead, Romans three, verse 20. For by virtue of God, no human being is justified in his sight, Okay, very good, thanks, Kaylin. Then Ephesians 2, eight and nine. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. Okay, thank you, Tim. In Romans four, verse six. Yep, go for it. Okay, so pick up with Kenan's verse there. Kenan, do you mind if I put you on the spot? All right, so David was born before Jesus, so there was no cross, there was no grace available, so David was still saved under works, right? Incorrect, okay, good. That's right, it says here, even David, pre-Christ, pre-cross, pre-resurrection, pre-incarnation, that God counted David himself, and David knew this, David speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works. Abraham was counted righteous. Now, was Abraham righteous in himself? Was Abraham righteous in himself? No, he was not. He was counted righteous by faith. But that's impossible, Matt. How could Abraham have faith in Jesus Christ? Yes, that's right. He trusted the promise, right? And that's what it says in Genesis. He trusted the promise. He was working with as much light as God had revealed at that time. He trusted the promises of God. And there is a big difference, practically speaking, and I want us to think about this. There is a difference between believing in God and believing God. Two different things. There's lots of people who believe in God that don't actually believe God. They don't take him at his word, right? Oh yeah, there's some higher power out there, and they might even give him the correct name. But do we believe God? Do we believe what the word says about who God is? Abraham did, and it was counted to him as righteousness. David did, and it was counted to him as righteousness. And so even in the old covenant, even pre-Christ, pre-cross, pre-resurrection, eternal life has always been by faith and not by good works. And I'll maybe stop there and ask if there's further discussion on that point. I've shared before my own answer that I got as a kid that in the old covenant people were saved by works and in the new covenant they're saved by faith. That's verbatim the answer I was given as a kid. Of course I've recovered from that view but I'm curious if that, is that more widespread? Am I the only one that got that answer? Yeah? Good, good. I will happily humiliate myself for the sake of everyone's spiritual benefit. Yeah. That was the answer that confused me. Dave. Yeah, I would agree. Covenant theology is deeply important. I think covenant and kingdom are actually the two, and they're closely related to each other. Those are the, that's the thread. that runs from Genesis through to Revelation, and without that, without seeing the harmony of the parts, we tend to see the Bible as disjointed, kind of dismembered pieces, right? And it keeps us from seeing, no, there was only one plan of salvation ever. Jesus Christ was the Savior from before the foundation of the world. It's one story, it's not separate, you know, isolated bits of history. It's one story unfolding more and more. And the lights keep getting brighter, the curtain keeps, whatever picture works for you, right? The curtain, God's pulling the curtain apart more and more, the floodlight on the story of redemption is getting more and more focused. That's what's happening, but it's not that there was plan A and then there's plan B, not at all. There's one story in the Bible, just one. Okay, yeah, so Tim's saying, those of us who are farmers are used to working with money that doesn't exist yet. So, okay, it's like a line of credit, right? And that's not a hard concept. Many of us actually work with lines of credit. So the salvation that happens pre-cross is like a line of credit. Christ's merit is applied retroactively to those saints because God's not handcuffed by working in time as we are. So God applies that what happened in time, in history, gets applied to the saints of old. In Christ, the deposit is made, and now we're obviously working on the other side of the cross. But the line of credit analogy to understand how Christ's blood could be applied to saints of old is, for me, that's a helpful word picture. Emma, I saw your hand was up. In the Old Testament, did they know of Jesus? Well, here's what I think. If you would have asked Abraham or Moses who Jesus of Nazareth was, I don't think they would have had any idea. If you would have asked them if God was going to send a man to save them, I think they would have had a very clear picture of that. God is going to send a man to save us, and Moses knew It says, Moses himself writing says that he wishes that all Israelites were like him. He knew he was special among the men of Israel. He said, I wish that all God's people would be prophets like I am. But then he says, I believe it's in Numbers. No, maybe in Deuteronomy. It doesn't maybe matter right now. It's in Numbers or Deuteronomy, where he says that there's a prophet greater than I that's coming. And when he comes, listen to his words. So Moses knew that much. He knew that someone better than him was on the way. And that's, I think, about it. But I think there was lots of confusion because those people didn't see the whole picture. I think, actually, that idea that a man from God was coming, actually, already Eve knew that. When she gets cursed, and the serpent gets cursed. In that curse, God tells Eve that she is going to have a son, she's going to bear a seed, and he will crush the head of the serpent, but the serpent will bite him on the heel. And then, when Cain is born, you know what his name means? A man from God. I think, for the first time in history, imagine being the first woman in history and a human being falls out from between your legs. Imagine figuring that out. Wouldn't that be bizarre? The curse only had so much time to operate. I don't know how Cain came out. Did he just drop out or was it an agonizing night or day? I don't know. It would have been painful. But just, I'm pointing to the freakishness of it. Your grandma and your mom can't tell you anything about this. But your body is changing week after week. You feel something moving inside you. And this goes on for month after month after month. And then let's assume there's an agonizing night of just intense pain and you have no idea what's happening. You've maybe seen it in the animals a little bit, but no human has ever experienced this. And then you finally think, okay, God tells stories slowly. Think of how slow God was on delivering his promise to send me a man. It took nine months. Can you believe how God works so slowly? Nine months to fulfill his promise, but here's my savior. And that's how she names Cain. I think she thinks this is the savior. This is the man from God. This is the one who's gonna crush the serpent's head. And if you're Eve, that would have made a lot of sense. Right, you remember the serpent, he was just here causing trouble. And now this, if you're watching the animals, and I think that's why God did the animals first, and then man, so man can learn from the animals how things work. Just because this little man is here, he's not ready to crush a serpent on the head yet. Okay, you watch a calf be born, it takes a long time before a little calf is a strong bull. So this is gonna take way longer than than Eve would like. But she knew a man was coming. So I think that's the level at which the Old Testament saints knew. They knew the promises of God, they trusted it, but they saw it much more fuzzy than what you're able to see it. On this side, we have all the scriptural testimony, so we know. And that's why people sometimes say, oh, wouldn't it have been a blessing to be Moses or Abram and talk with God? Absolutely not. It would have been terrible. Think of how much more you know about the gospel than Abram or Moses ever knew. Think of how much more you understand Job's life than Job did. Job didn't get to read Job chapter one to know the contest that was happening over his life. Job just got thrown into the pressure cooker. Everyone in this room understands Job's life better than Job himself did. And everybody in this room, I trust, knows the gospel much more clearly than Abram or Moses ever did. Why would you need an extra word? We have far more than Moses ever got, including what Moses got. That's a long answer. I'm sorry, Emma. I didn't have time to think of a short one. But does that answer your question? Someone much older than you would like me to repeat it, but he can go back and listen to it. Does that kind of answer your question? Yeah? Okay. Yeah. So in short, I think they knew something, someone was coming, but they didn't have as clear a picture of who he was or when he would come. Right, yeah, so two or three Sundays ago, I forget now, two Sundays ago, When Jesus traps the Pharisees on the question about Psalm 110.1, Jesus is actually showing the Trinity from the Psalms. Which is interesting, because if you'd ask David, so the son of yours, he's triune? My guess is David would say, what are you talking about? But as he was carried along by the Holy Spirit, everything about the Trinity shows up in his writings. Right? So is the Old Testament Trinitarian? Yes, absolutely, 100%. Because it's God's Word. Did the people writing it understand always the full implications of what they were writing? My guess is probably not fully. God put more in their pen than what they fully had worked out probably in their head, at least in some cases, would be my guess. Yeah, if you're saying could they have committed Trinitarian heresies in the Old Testament, I don't think so, because their understanding wasn't that clear yet to even commit heresy. A lot of things get clarified once Jesus actually comes, and I think a lot of our experience works much the same way. Once you understand a concept, the steps in the last eight years that went into making that concept suddenly all fall into place like how did I It was there all along and I missed it And I think that's much of how the Old Testament pieces come together in Christ now that he's here. Oh, well yeah, of course and But that's different. Historians are great at saying, oh, well, what happened here in World War I was inevitable, except that nobody living then thought it was inevitable. It's always easy to say after, oh, well, yeah, if you look at, of course it wasn't, well. Hindsight is 20-20. So I think the theology is always there, but it gets focused. Once Jesus comes, it's crystal clear, or it ought to be. Mr. Weave had his hand up here. He wanted to say something. Right. Yeah, so Mr. Wiebe is just bringing up kind of the same thing. Looking back always brings things into focus. It's always clear when we look back with understanding. So Mr. Wiebe's comment is that should we expect any different from God's people in the Old Covenant when they're forced to look forward and they can't see all the pieces looking backward as obviously as we can? And I think yes and no. What did they have? Water coming out of a rock, a pillar of fire, lots of life turning into salt, fire from a mountain. It's not that their senses weren't involved in what God was telling them, but I think the challenge then actually remains the same now if we're talking about evidence. And I know many people do apologetics with evidence, but I actually don't find evidence to be particularly compelling. Well, what kind of a statement is that? Evidence doesn't exist in a vacuum. Evidence is always being interpreted. One guy stands at the Grand Canyon and sees billions of years in a trickle of water. Another guy sees several weeks in a catastrophic global flood. They're looking at the exact same evidence, but their minds are doing different things with it because before they got to the evidence, they already had a world picture, a world view shaped in their head. And so I think evidence is helpful as supporting, it supports the Christian case. There was an empty tomb, there were eyewitnesses, that's all true. But I think the challenge for us remains the same as it did back then. This is our final presupposition. Everything rests on this. And then we must interpret evidence in light of this. I think I shared one time the criticism I got from a church leader that I interpret church history theologically. And I will say yes, guilty. I interpret actually all history theologically because this is my starting point. So when something happens in 15th century England that the Bible doesn't talk about, I see it through the lens of the Bible. So I will say, yes, guilty. I'm interpreting, and I will also grant I have presuppositions that I'm starting with. And we all do, including ancient Israelites. So I think the challenge is a real one, because we do see through a glass dimly, right? And they for sure did. But still, what is our final authority? Is it the word of God, or is it my own interpretation of what I'm doing with the evidence around me? Because many people could see fire on a mountain, for example, and thunder, and think this is a good time to make a golden calf. that could happen. Other people could say, wow, God is powerful and terrifying. Whatever Moses comes down with, we better listen to. Two different ways of putting the evidence together, right? And I don't know if I'm maybe understanding where you're going with that, but my point would be then or now, scripture comes first, that forms the world picture, and then we go out into the world and start interpreting the world. through the lens of what God has revealed at that point in history. And granted, they had a lot less than we do. They had a lot less than we do. There was Grant, and then Tim, and then Dave. and seasons and how to identify seasons, but specifically verse 27, and I, Daniel, fainted in a certain days. Afterwards, I rose up and did the king's business, and I was astonished at the vision, but no one understood it. They had no understanding at the time. They had miracles. Well and Daniel is actually a fascinating study because the prophecies in Daniel are so precise that after that what I understand to be the tail end of Daniel is the Romans taking over the Holy Land That's the feet that are partly clay and partly iron. People said these prophecies are so exact, somebody wrote the book of Daniel after and made it look ancient. That's how precise it is. It's so precise that when there's a leopard that comes from the east with just great rapidity and just cleans up everything in military conquest going from east to west, Alexander the Great understood that was him. There's a high priest in Jerusalem. When Alexander the Great, on his conquest, gets to Jerusalem, there's a priest named Jeduah standing there and says, I want you to read something. Alexander the Great's never seen Daniel. This high priest shows him the scrolls of Daniel. Alexander says, yeah, I'm the leopard. I am that guy. Which is remarkable. Yep. And did the Babylonians know to make an emblem with a bear and a lion because in fulfillment of the book? No. No, they had no idea when they made their flag and their emblem. Daniel saw it. Yep. Whoever thinks the 400 years between Old and New Testament are years of silence, just read the book of Daniel and then pick up a book of history and it's meticulous in how it plays out. Even the way the Roman Empire gets divided into ten little horns. The Decapolis, ten. Yes. Well, and we can, of course, make application, yes. But the history itself is meticulous, absolutely meticulous. And those who had eyes to see it saw it, and those who don't, won't. They won't. Sorry, I get so fired up about that intertestamental period, I've got to get back here now. Sorry. Absolutely fascinating period of history. Oh, Tim, sorry. Yeah, and once you do have eyes to see it, and I wonder, I mean, we're Tim is just saying, you see some of these miraculous signs while they're happening. People with hearts of flesh will see it and people with hearts of stone will not, right? And I sometimes wonder how little we still see this early on in church history. We've only had 2,000 years to work on it yet. What are we not seeing yet of the significance of those things that happened? Like exactly the rock in the desert. I remember the first time it was Jim Jordan who pointed out that's what happens when you try to prematurely crucify Christ. The rock wasn't ready to be struck so that water could come out of his side yet. I think it was Tyson who said, I thought I knew the Old Testament stories until I read Jim Jordan's Primeval Saints book. And it's just fascinating. What are we missing in these stories? And what will we know in another 5,000 years that no one's had the insight to see yet? What historians and what theologians are coming that are going to help us? How did we miss it? How did we miss it? So let's not be judgy about the Israelites, because there's a whole bunch of our Bibles that we still don't catch on to. Yep, that's right. Yep. Yeah, and you're right. So Dave's saying we're still looking forward in some sense, and that's true because Christ's kingdom is here, but it's not yet consummated, right? So there's still things that are, we're still looking ahead to the final consummation of things, right? So, yeah. No, that's good. Let's keep going here. Unless there was anything else. I don't want to cut it short, but we've parked out there for a bit. Oh, Margaret. of the prophecy, one of the lessons that I have recently been learning is God's prophets never recalibrated. Once it was written down, it was written down. So the difference between our modern people prophets that constantly go back to the Yep. Yeah. And that is a difference between actual prophets and so-called modern day prophets, right? Yeah, so Margaret's just saying that one thing that has impressed her is the meticulous sovereignty of God. There is no such thing as a prophecy that's 93% accurate. There's no word from the Lord that is 74% authoritative. If it's a prophecy, if it's a word from the Lord, Moses' own test is if anything is wrong, whoever said it needs to get hauled out back and put to death. It's a false prophet. 99.99% accuracy in prophecy means death penalty, right? And one of my guilty pleasures, I follow Charisma News on Facebook, which is sad and amazing at the same time because... It's amazing how something that somebody said in 1998 turned out to be a Donald Trump prophecy. And it's like these people are so beyond lost that it's kind of a guilty pleasure for me, but really it's just sad. Like imagine living your life that way. Imagine living with an insufficient Bible, that we need modern day prophets to keep us on the edge of our seat about something that's about to happen. God's word is God's word. Was there a hand back? No? I did not see that hand. All right. Let's keep going then. When we have done all we can, we have only done our duty and are unprofitable servants. Since our good works are good, they must proceed from his spirit. Galatians 5, 22 and 23. Who would like to take that? Howard. Joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such things there is no law. Okay. So they proceed from the Spirit. And that is the fruit of the spirit, of course, is called the fruit of the spirit. Proceeds from the spirit. One side note, I know this isn't directly on it. The fruit of the spirit, if I'm correct, there's nine listed. And fruit is singular. The fruit, singular, of the spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control. Nine, if my counting is right. Those nine things are the singular fruit of the Spirit. What do we do with that? What's that? Well, we don't have a problem. I guess I'm asking why we don't have a problem. Why are nine things counted as one? Is this a menu that you can pick off of? It's a buffet. Self-controlled, no thanks. Love? Yeah, I'm a nice guy. I'll take some love. And then you keep sliding your tray along. Faithfulness? Yeah, sure. Whatever. Kindness? Okay. You don't get to slide your tray along and pick and choose. from a menu of nine and say, well, I'll take three. Thank you very much. Because, hey, I was just born this way. It's who I am. And so I'll just pick the things that come natural to me. No, no. It's the fruit, singular, of the spirit. Once the root of God's spirit is in you, all these things need to start growing. It is fruit, singular. It's a package deal. Godliness is a package deal. Will some of us struggle in some ways and excel in other ways and someone else will find my weak spots easier and my strong spots tougher? Sure. But it's not a menu to order off of. It is a package deal. The Spirit goes to work in the whole person. And so we can never hide behind, well, that's just who I am. That's the way I'm wired. We can't do that. That's not the way it works. More on that. Has anyone ever wondered why the fruit of the Spirit is nine things? Or has that never caught anyone before? No, I'm not. I'm sure James Jordan would have a great answer for you. I don't know. Yeah. Yeah, I can be. Yep. No, but you'd say to Apple. And if you'd have. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But even in that, We're talking now in English. Sometimes you pluralize with an S in English, and sometimes you don't. One die, two dice. Right? One octopus, two octopi. But one dog, two dogs. One mouse, two mice. One fruit, two fruit. Or fruits, depending on if you're talking about it across different genres, or different types or not. One deer, two deer, yeah. English is, English is a, people say it's actually the hardest language to learn is the second language, and I don't doubt it, because it is just a quilt work of Latin and German and Greek. So I don't doubt it's hard. But even in the sense in the Greek, it's singular. It is singular, and it comes across that way in our English as well. But the sense is singular. Why are there nine? Well, okay, is that an exhaustive list? One thing. Probably not. A lot of lists in scripture, including like gifts of the spirit, here in Corinthians it'll be one thing, and in Timothy it's something else, right? I don't think we should see them as exhaustive lists. I think you could say this is a sampling or... Right, yeah, so here's an example of the kinds of, as Kenan just said, here's an example of the kinds of things of which there is no law against them. But I don't think it's necessarily exhaustive. I'm sure we could all think of virtues that are not in that group of nine. And qualifications for elders, there's lots of overlap between Timothy and Titus, but it's not exactly the same list. So I think we see sometimes samplings of ideas rather than entire exhaustive lists. But to go back to Lisa's point, it is singular in whichever language. R, yep. And that's RQ in English, because again, English limits our understanding. It's why we have to do little things, and it's good to notice that in the text, right? Like two weeks ago, the Lord Lord, uppercase and lowercase Lord, Different concepts. Same word in English. We run into the same problem with hell. We have one word for hell. What does the Bible have? Gehenna, Hades, Sheol, the Lake of Fire. We have one word to describe all those things, and they're not actually all the same thing. They're different things, and we are limited to one word. Okay, let's keep going here. I think we can get this section done. And since they are performed by us, they are defiled and mixed with so much weakness and imperfection that they cannot withstand the severity of God's punishment. Isaiah 64.6, who wants to take that? Howard? And Psalm 143.2, Carter? Thank you. I've mentioned this before, but I'll belabor it again because this is important. Isaiah's polluted garment that Howard just read about is actually what? It's a menstrual cloth. Polluted one not a clean one that we're starting with a dirty one that we're finishing with That's graphic language The Bible's full of graphic language actually and barn talk And I've also pointed out the significance of this so one it's not just a repulsive image What could a woman not do when she was on her menstrual cycle when she's using this polluted garment? Where could she not go? to the temple She's kept away in her time of impurity. This word is doing two different things. One, it's repulsing. That's what your righteous deeds look like to God. And two, you don't get access. Remember, it's a menstrual rag. You're impure right now. Your husband can't touch you, and neither can God. Stay away. If you're a Jew reading this, it's doing things in your head that we have to think about. This completely keeps you away from God. Your good works keep you away from God, not your bad works. This is your righteous deeds that keep you away from God. Your righteous deeds are a polluted menstrual garment. And so there's gonna have to be a way to close the gap between me and God that's not my good works. It's not my good works. I was reminded of a conversation Well, it was more of a comment that Howard made on the golf course once. But if we go back to the beginning of the statement, where it says here, due to the huge disproportion between our works and the glory to come, and the infinite distance between us and God. The comment Howard made to me on the golf course was that anyone in Southeast Manitoba who is the best golfer, and he can win every tournament, in Southeast Manitoba, and he's a scratch handicap. And you compare him to the guy who's a 30 handicap, and if you don't play golf, a 30 handicap is not a particularly great golfer. Okay, so you compare the scratch handicap at Quarry Oaks to a 30 handicap. Those two guys are much, much, much, much closer together than the scratch handicap and the guy you watch on TV, who's also a scratch handicap. The distance between those two scratch handicapped guys is much greater than the distance between the really good golfer at quarry and the hacker. And there's a pretty noticeable difference between those guys. How do we do that with morality? Well, in the modern conception, who's in hell? Hitler? Stalin? Maybe Stalin, because no one even knows who he is. Hell is reserved for those really bad people that are so unlike me. Okay? Well, now let's make a continuum again. There's Hitler. And here's God. Where are you? Here? Okay? The infinite chasm is between God and man. Not between a good man and Adolf Hitler. Not between a good man and Joseph Stalin. Okay? Not between a good man and, take your pick of Lenins, Vladimir or John, okay? Both bad guys. The chasm is great between God and any human being. That's where the chasm lies. You are much closer to Joseph Stalin than you are to God. Much. There's such a gap here that works, we can't even get a start. swim across the Atlantic Ocean, jump across the Grand Canyon. You can't, there's no point in starting. It's nonsense. That's the chasm that has to be crossed and that will not be crossed by any man apart from Jesus Christ. And then our union with him through saving faith. And Isaiah sees that. You're righteous. The good things that you do keep you out of the temple. The good things that you do are so mixed with bad motives that they're repulsive on their own. Are good works actually good works? Yes, to the degree that they're produced by the Spirit in us. Let's keep reading, Psalm 143. Who had that? Okay, Carter. Okay, so again, this goes back maybe to Emma's question. What did they know? Well, they knew this much. David knew that no one living is righteous before God. David knew that if God would count us according to our works, we'd be dead meat. David knew that, and he knew that before the time of Jesus. And so again, should this send us into a tailspin of self-despair? Well, no, because this should point us to Christ. Our works in ourselves are filthy. They are completely incapable of satisfying God. We are much closer to the 30 handicapped golfer. We are much closer to Joseph Stalin. The gap, the distance is meant to drive us to Christ, not to make us in such despair that we think there's no way. No, there is a way. But the way is through Jesus Christ and Him alone. It will not be by us manufacturing our own good works. More discussion on that. Got through that question. It's 10.13, so we're in good time here. More discussion on any of this. Audrey. So... Yep. Yeah, so Audrey's just pointing at consistent theme all through scripture is that God desires his name to be made great. And you see that over and over again. It's not for you that I'm acting, oh Israel, but for my name. For the zeal of my name, I'll do it. And when we talk, I like John Piper's explanation or his definition of glory. Glory is one of those concepts when we use the word glory we can all think of something but now define it. What is glory? John Piper's definition I think is excellent. It's God going public with his holy character. God showing the public who he is. That is glory. And I think that helps us to focus that it's all about glory and that should all point us ultimately back to the one true God. Why don't we close in prayer, and then we've got time for coffee and visiting here. Father God, I want to thank you for your word, and I want to thank you for the way that it shows us not only who you are, but also who we are. And Lord, as we consider our inability to please you in ourselves, of our inability to produce holiness by our own energy and by our own bootstraps, I pray that we would not ultimately despair but that this would drive us to you and see that there was in fact a man who did this perfectly on our behalf and that everything he did is credited to our account if and when we receive him by faith. And I pray for each one here, I pray that those who do not know your son in a saving way, Lord I pray that they would come to know him that way. that they would see that all his righteousness is applied to cover us and to make us not only not guilty, but also perfectly innocent and holy and pure and righteous in your sight. Lord, help us to always be focused on your glory, on what you are doing, that we would get over ourselves and reach out to the Savior. I pray now that you'd be with us as we go into a time of coffee and fellowship. I pray that you would feed us there and then also prepare our hearts for corporate worship later on. Pray this all in the strong name of Jesus, and amen.