Paul is giving a little history of himself here. He was a very brilliant scholar under Gamaliel. He was an outstanding Pharisee and a leader of the Pharisees, and he's going to tell us about it. His home was full of tradition from the fathers, from the Talmud, And they just literally breathed and lived the Old Testament, but it wasn't enough. And Paul's going to tell us that. It just wasn't enough. He talks about true righteousness, and he talks about man's righteousness. There's so many people today, and I talked about a couple earlier today, that that were so uh such good church members in the church wherever they were and serving and everything else but they had never come to the saving knowledge of Christ and they had put service before the sacrifice of Christ service before the sacrifice now Paul's going to talk about that again here in three in verse one and I want to read that in the amplified Bible. We're going to go about number, I think number eight is what we'll try to go to here in this class. Finally, my fellow workers and believers, continue to rejoice and delight in the Lord, to write the same things again. It is no trouble for me and is a safeguard for you. Look out for the dogs. the Judaizers, the legalists. Look out for the troublemakers. Look out for the false circumcision. And he included himself in this at one time. Those who claim circumcision is necessary for salvation. For we who are born again have been reborn from above, spiritually transformed, renewed, set apart for his purpose, and are the true circumcision. who worship in the Spirit of God in glory and take pride and exalt in Jesus Christ, Christ Jesus, and place no confidence in whatsoever we have or who we are in flesh. Though I myself might have some grounds for confidence in the flesh, if I were pursuing salvation by works, if anyone else thinks that he has arisen to be Confident in the flesh that is in his own efforts to achieve salvation. I have even more Circumcision when I was I was circumcised when I was eight days old of the nation of Israel of the tribe of Benjamin a Hebrew of Hebrews an exemplary Hebrew as to the observance of the law and Pharisee as to my zeal for the Jewish tradition a Persecutor of the church and as to righteousness supposed right living which my fellow Jews believe is in the law, I proved myself blameless. But whatsoever former things were against me, as I thought them at that time, these things once regarded as advancements in merit, I have come to consider as loss and absolute worthless for the sake of Christ and the purpose which he has given for my life. But more than that, I count everything as lost compared to the priceless privilege and supreme advantage of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord, and of growing more deeply and thoroughly acquainted with him, a joy unequaled. For his sake I have lost everything, and I consider all garbage so that I may gain Christ. Now let's go back from the original language here and look at that. To Loi Pone, Adelphoi Mu, Karete N. Curio, Ta Alta, Graphane, Hemone, Emoy Man Uke, Skye Narone. It's written up a little bit. I couldn't hardly see it. Oh, Skye Narone. The ones remaining brothers of me, look at that word, the ones remaining brothers of me, ye rejoice, second person, plural, present, indicative, active, ye rejoice and keep on rejoicing in the Lord. The things, the same things to write, graphene, we get word graphics from this, and it's a present infinitive active from Graffo, to write to you, to you all, that's plural, that's native plural, second person pronoun, for me, indeed, man, a little particle of affirmation there, 263, man, ook, advergon of negation, notly, actually, irksome, ognerone, ognerone, for ye, and safe, And moreover, safe. That word ospheles there means to don't slip. It is a safeguard for you. It's like you go into some buildings where there are steps going up to them and they'll have a type of rough surface there where you won't slip. He said, I'm writing these things to you so you won't slip. It's a safeguard for you. And then verse number three and two, blepete, toes, kenas blepete tus kakus ergates blepete ten kata tomen. Kata tomen. That's quite a statement right there. You see the dogs, the kainain, we got a word kainain out of that, kainain, you will look at the word kainas, kainas, dogs. Now what he's talking about, he's using a figure of speech here. He's using a figure of speech, he's calling the Jews called the Gentiles dogs. Now Paul is turning the tables on them and he's calling the Jews the dogs. The Jews were the untamable, or the dogs, the Gentile dogs were the untamable wild killers of mankind. And the Jews looked upon themselves as civilized. But now, Paul has turned the table on them, and he talks about the Jewish laws. Paul's gonna call the Gentiles, the good, and the Jewish people, the dogs. Ye see the dogs, the Jewish dogs. That was a pet word for the Gentiles. And ye see, Ye see, second person plural, present indicative, active, that word verbete, and that comes from blepo, and we got it here two times in a row. Ye see the dogs. Ye see the evil workers. Ye see, again, the dogs, second person plural, present indicative, active, the ones kakos. That is an accusative plural, and it means dogs out to kill and murder and lacerate from the inside out. You see the evil workers, the Judaizers. And you see the mutilators. Now, there is a group of people today that try to stop circumcision of males. The circumcision of males, they call it mutilation. Because it takes away something that where you're naturally born and you're cut this Skin away, and and you're circumcised. It's more healthy for you, etc The evil workers you see the mutilators he talks about them mutilating the flesh now the if you go back to The Old Testament up there on Mount Carmel where we had the prophets of Baal and the prophet of God in the contest up there with Elijah. You know, we have these terrible prophets of God up there and they lacerated themselves in 1 Kings 18, 20-24. We could go back there. This is what he's talking about. He's turning the tables on them. And he's telling them, you act like a bunch of heathens. Back here to 1 Kings. 1 Kings, the 18th chapter. We're going to read this. Start with about number 16 so Obadiah went to meet with Ahab and told him that Ahab went to meet Elijah and Came about when Ahab saw Elijah that Ahab said to him is it you you troubled who troubled Israel and He said I have not troubled Israel, but you are your father's house have because you have forsaken your the commandments of the Lord and you have followed the Baals, the masters. You know, Baal were the false gods. Now, by the way, the word Baal means Lord. That's what it means. You followed the wrong Lord. Because sometimes God is referred to as Baal, great master. But these are talking about these false gods. You followed after the Baals. Now then, send and gather me all of Israel up Mount at Mount Carmel together with 450 prophets above all. 400 prophets of the Asherah who eat at Jezebel's table. And Ahab sent a message to all the sons of Israel and brought the prophets together at Mount Carmel. And Elijah came near to all the people and said, how long would you hesitate between two opinions? If it the Lord is God, follow him. If Baal is God, follow him. But the people did not answer a word. Then Elijah said to the people, I alone am left a prophet of the Lord, but Baal's prophets are 450. Now let them give us two oxen, and let them choose one ox for themselves, and cut it up and place it upon the wood, but put no fire under it. And I will prepare the other ox and lay it on the wood, and I will not put a fire under it. And then you will call on the name of your God, Baal, and I will call upon the name of the Lord. And the God who answers by fire, he is God." And all the people answered him, said, that's a good idea. That's a good idea. So Elijah said to the prophets of Baal, Choose an ox for yourselves, and prepare it first for you or many, and call upon the name of your God, but put no fire under it. And then they took the ox which was given to them, and they prepared it, and they called on the name of Baal from morning until noon, saying, Baal, answer us. But there was no answer. There was no voice, and no one answered. And they leaped upon the altar which they had made. They leaped. Now, they're going into what we might call in a modern Pentecostal fallen out. It's land and the spirit. That's what they're doing right here. See, this did not come from Christianity, this modern charismata. It comes from the same group right here. That's what they did. And it came about at noon that Elijah mocked them, saying, call out with a loud voice, for your God, either he's occupied in the outhouse," that's what he's talking about, and he's gone outside in the outhouse, or he's on a journey, or perhaps he is asleep and needs to be woken up. And they cried with a loud voice, and they cut themselves. They mutilated themselves, according to their custom, with swords and lances, until blood gushed out all over them. And it came about, when midday was past, that they raved. Now this, they went into talking to the spirits. Word here is Mantua Manet. Acts 16, 16, the same thing there with that girl in the book of Acts. They're going into a temporary madness. They're talking in tongues to the gods. Not to God, but to their gods. But there was no voice answered, and no one said or paid any attention to them. And Elijah said to all the people, come near to me. So all the people came near to him, and he prepared the altar of the Lord, which had been torn down. And Elijah took twelve stones, according to the number of the tribes and sons of Israel, and to whom the word of the Lord had come, and saying, Israel shall be your name. And with all the stones he built on the altar in the name of the Lord, and he made a trench around the altar, and large enough to hold two measures of seed, about 22 quarts of seed. And he arranged the wood and cut the ox in pieces and laid it upon the wood. And he said, fill your pitchers with water and come and pour it on the burnt offering. Make it a little harder for me. And all the wood. And they did it a second time. They did it a third time. And the water flowed around the altar and filled all the trench with water. Then he came at the time of the offering of the Evening sacrifice, the Elijah prophet came near and said, O Lord God, Jehovah Elohim, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, or Israel, today let it be known that thou art God in Israel and that I am your servant. And now it says the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the burnt offering, the wood, the stones, and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench. Now, What Paul is referring to here is this incident, right here, this incident. And the evil workers, those that mutilate the flesh, the priest of Sibyl, the priest of Baal, they lacerated themselves, they cut themselves. God never requires your blood for your salvation, he required the blood of his son, his dear son for salvation. shed your blood for salvation is a blasphemy. Three and three. Hemos gar esmen he peritome hoi numate theou laturantes kai kakomenoi en Christo esu kai uke en sarche pepoisotes. Four, a little casual particle again, page 75, page 1175 in A.T. Robertson's big Greek grammar. Four, we, we have. First person plural, present indicative, active, the, circumcision. The ones in spirit. We have. Now, we continue to have this. A Jew every year had to go and make a sacrifice for his sins of that year. Once you've been saved, there is no more sacrifice. You don't have to do that again. It's done. The circumcision of the ones in the Spirit of God. Worshipping. Laetriontes. Nominative, plural, masculine, present, participle, active. Worshipping and, that little conjunction there, and boasting in Christ Jesus, not in themselves, not in their flesh, not in their works, but in the Lord. and not in flesh having trusted, not in self-sacrifice having trusted. Paul or Saul, by the way, Saul was of the tribe of Benjamin and the first king of Israel was named Saul, one asked for. And Paul was named after that first king of Israel. He was from his same lineage, the tribe of Benjamin. And he was a great man among the Jews. But he was a small man when it come to Christ. And he became a great warrior for the Lord. After the Lord saved his soul, and he put away all the works of the flesh, and followed in Jesus. 3 and verse 4, Kai per ego econ. Pempoi esesen, kai ensarke etis, dokete, or doke that is, pepoithene in sarce ego malone. Even though I, having trusted also in the flesh, sense anyone thanks other than that to trust in the flesh, I even more. Peritome oicta te moros The battle cry of Israel, you know what it was? The battle cry of Israel was, whoa, Old tribe of Benjamin. Whoa, old tribe of Benjamin. That was their battle cry. And that's Paul's lineage, too. And that's what, when Saul would go out to war, he said, old tribe of Benjamin, follow me. The peripone, the circumcision, locative singular, sign of Israel. On the eighth day. Circumcised on the eighth day out of the race of Israel. the highest honor of honors, a tribe, Phileas, a Benjamin. Benjamin means what? Son of the right hand. A Hebrew, Hebreos, a Hebrew, someone speaking Hebrew, out of Hebrew parents. Paul said, I spoke Hebrew. Not many of you did. You know, most of the people in Israel During the time of Jesus when he was on the earth did not speak real Hebrew They thought it was too holy of a language to speak but Paul's parents spoke Hebrew Different than all the rest I spoke Hebrew. I was a Hebrew speaking person They were Hellenistic Jews and they were Hebrew Jews and he was a Hebrew of Hebrews Hebrew of Hebrew parents according to the law caught up with Page 213 there, that's accusative singular according to the law, no moan, a Pharisee always. Page 360, 649, Pharisee now. A Pharisee was one that separated himself from all the other people. They were better. higher educated, they were more holy than all the rest. They wore their phylacteries, they had their little, and they stood out on the street corners and they prayed. They were like street preachers. And they got out and they prayed. They amplified their good works. Remember, you know, in the Bible, it tells about Jesus talked about the Pharisee sat on the corner. He said there was a Pharisee standing there and there was a tax collector there. The tax collector was praying to God, but he wouldn't open his eyes up to look up. He looked down. He was downcast. He was repentant. And the Pharisee stood there and said, I thank God that I was born Jew. I thank God that I wasn't born a woman. And I thank God that I have kept the law, and I fast twice a week, and I do this, and I do that. He's not praying to God. He's saying, God, look how good I am. Move over. I'm coming up. 3 in verse 6 now. Kata zelos dookon ten ekliseon. Kata dikova unison ne. Ten en nomo genomenos. a memptose. According to a zeal, persecuting, kada, that little preposition there, page 213, zeal, zealos, that means to boil, that means to be extremely excited, be zealous, persecuting, running down, like a dog on a track, like a dog on the trail of an animal, running them down. Nominate singular, masculine, present participle, active. I was constantly running it down and persecuting the assembly, the church, the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. He was a ringleader of murderers. He was a religious persecutor. He was like the Catholic pope. Assembly, according to righteousness in the law, having been blameless, unspotted. Righteousness of the law, the dikaios sine of the law. In the law, having been spotless. Ghenomenos, nomine singulare masque, secundaris participum, middle voice. Having been blameless for myself, I was blameless, I did not do anything wrong. I kept the law, but that's not it. He didn't trust in God. Everyone in the Old Testament was supposed to trust in God. Everybody that was ever saved in the Old Testament was saved by grace, not by works. Of course, they tried to do the great works. They tried to be sinless as much as they could, but still they were sinners. Paul said, I was better than all of them. 3 and verse 7 now. And all of there is in double brackets, so it's probably, it wasn't there in the original language, but they just started it that way. What things there kept on being to me gain? What things? Hatina. And then word aim, third person singular, person indicative, active. It, they kept on being to me, that's dative singular, first person pronoun, gain, kerde. Gain means all the interest paid at once. Everything it was gained to me these things And I have counted for myself All these things were gained that I had counted for myself because of the Christ loss all these things that were very important to me I counted as Loss Damaged goods This word used three times in the New Testament not as gain, but as total loss, bankruptcy, to throw away. A throw-away society, a throw-away religion, a religion that ought to be thrown away. He said, I was the shining star of Gamaliel. I was the shining star of the Sanhedrin court. I was the shining star among the Pharisees. But I counted all of this as loss, as gain, as damaged goods, throw-away. As the fleeing, throw away. As the fleeing, damage goods. You know much of the things that we have today in society. I remember I was a mechanic and I taught mechanics how to be mechanics. I lived in a society where they fixed things to begin with. They fix things. I grew up here in Fish Lake Valley, and we had to do everything. I was an electrician, a plumber, I was a welder, whatever I needed to be, a veterinarian, whatever, I did it. Because we didn't get anybody to come out here. You didn't get somebody to come out here and operate on a cow or do whatever. You had to do it yourself now. You had to fix whatever needed to be fixed, because things were still fixable back then. I went to school in high school, and first year I went into auto mechanics. I had already been working in a wrecking yard. I had been building engines and stuff here in Fish Lake Valley, and I knew how to make a car fire up, and I knew how to put a cam in it, and put the crankshaft in, and time it, and take the heads and put valves in them, and springs, and valve strength keepers, all this, and even the valve guides. I knew how to do all this stuff. I was in high school. I was a sophomore. And I hadn't been in this guy's class before. I went in there, and we had a whole bunch of boxes, great big boxes. And they had engine parts in there. And a whole engine was in a box. The whole engine would be the block and everything you had to do, all the valves there. But it was completely disassembled. It was not all there at all. It was disassembled, disassembled. They took me up to this one, and there was a 235 Chevy six-cylinder inline overhead valve. He said, you got all year to put this engine together. But I want you to put it together. All the valves are in there. I want you to grind the valves. I want you to put them in there. And I want you to put new valve seats and umbrellas on all this and do all this stuff. And so anyway, I said, OK. So I had a couple of the guys working with me. And I went in there, and in two weeks, I had that engine running on test stand. The guy, the teacher came over to me, and he said, Jim, he said, you've done this before. I said, yeah, I have. I've built a lot of engines. Briggs and Stratton, Chevy V8s, Pontiacs, whatever, Cadillacs, whatever I've worked on, I've worked on the things. OK. He said, well. You teach the rest of them how to do that now. So I got to be the assistant teacher, because I knew how to fix things. Fixing things. Now it's a throwaway society. When I was working at Ace Hydraulica, then I began to realize that they didn't fix things anymore. They built pumps that weren't supposed to be fixed. We didn't fix them. You threw them away and got another one. They put them together in such a way that it didn't mean to be fixed. It was a throwaway society. Now, the throwaway society that we live in, the hydraulic cylinder, everything, the throwaway cylinders, they just don't fix a lot of things. Some of the gigantic equipment they do, but most of it today is just the throwaway society. They just buy another pump, whatever. I knew how to fix sun strands and hydrostatics and all this kind of stuff back then, but now a lot of this stuff is just throwaway, throwaway society. Paul says that Everything that I deemed as precious was a throwaway society. It's refuse. It's garbage. Three and eight now. Ola. Men. Unge. Kai. Hegemai. Ponta. Damion. Ena. Dioto. Hiper. Dracon. Tes. Nosios. Christoesu. Tukrio. Yes, indeed. But yes, indeed. Yes, indeed. Also, I deemed, I calculated, I set my ducks in a row, that's what it means here, first person singular, present indicative middle voice, all things as refuse, as garbage, as the fleeing to the dogs. That's the word samion here, it means either refuse or it can mean you go into the, palaces back that time, you go into the rich man's homes or whatever, or even a poor man's home, and you pick up the garbage off the floor. People that, they would lay up to a table. They didn't sit up to a table, they laid up to a table. They'd lay on their right side, left side, and they'd feed themselves with the right, and they'd pick out there, and they ate with their fingers. And they dipped bread in salsas or whatever, and they ate with their fingers. And if it wasn't edible, if something was in there, if it was real burnt piece or something that was stunk or whatever, they took it and threw it over their shoulder. And then servants would come and they'd pick it up and they'd take it over there and throw it over the fence out to the dogs or the beggars. He said, yes indeed, also I calculated, I considered all things, all things that I had practiced as the fling, as garbage. went out in the outhouse, throw it in the toilet, or whatever, to be, because of, that little D yet told, because of the surplus abounding excellence, accuses singular neuter, present participle active, the exceeding abounding excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, the Lord of me, Because of whom all things I suffered loss, and I counted it as kibbele, fiendlings, dog food, scraps to be thrown away in order that Christ I might gain. First person singular, first person subjunctive, active. If the word of God is misinterpreted, it is no more than taking dog food flinging the dogs. You have the Jehovah Witnesses, you have the Mormons, you have the Catholics. They will preach the word of God, but it is useless. It's just like, and these Jews would recite the word of God to each other, they would argue over the smallest points of the law, but it might as well have been dog food, because it was useless in that context. Mormons talk about God. But to God, to them, is an exalted man. I don't know how far back they have to go before they don't find an exalted man. Adam was an exalted man and created this whole universe that we live in. Joseph Smith said, I have no other God today, anything to do with any other God but Adam. And same thing with Brigham Young. to misinterpret, to preach the word of God in vain, to say to you that Jesus Christ was a created being, to say to you that you've got to go to Mary instead of coming to Christ, you've got to go to a priest instead of coming to God. And the Bible said there's no intermediate between God and man except Christ Jesus. Paul called the Jews dogs. And the law, they're dog food. The law was a perfect, it was perfect, but to them it became dog food. That's all it was, dog food. Nothing more, just dog food. Our Father, we come to you and we thank you for your word. We thank you how you set us in it. You explain it to us through your word, word for word. and make known unto us the ways of life, and that you yourself sent your own son to die for us, that we might have life freely through that sacrifice. Father, please forgive me where I fail you, and use this word wherever it goes throughout the world for your honor and glory. In Jesus' name I pray, amen. Which one did you stop at, honey?