Well, when you take all that in, you have to understand that there's a lot of wickedness, evil coming out in this world. But the key is for us is that we may not be able to stop all of this, but we have to speak out against it. And what we're gonna learn from today is how Moses was bold, how the Apostle Paul is gonna interpret what Moses did in this situation to say that we have this same boldness, but we have to use it. And there's a reason why people are silent. Have you noticed how so many people are silent today? How so many pastors are silent, how many churches are silent, pretending nothing's happening when the whole world is caving in around them. It has to do with their lack of boldness, which leads, if they don't have that, then they have cowardice. But what is fueling the boldness, what is fueling that, is going to be revealed today with the new covenant. And we'll explain what that means because we're in a day and time, guys. We're the watchers on the wall. We have to say something. If it's not us, who then? If it's not now, then when? As the Jewish proverb says. We have to be on the front lines. Now, again, I know prophetically where this is going, and so do you. I know it's going to the tribulation. I know it's going to the one world government. I know that. But at least we can be harbingers of warning this world what's happening, and getting people saved, and discipling people why we're still here. And so this episode with Moses that you're going to see is one of the pinnacles of Exodus. And it's when he comes down off the mountain the second time and they see his face with the Shekinah glory emanating from him. The text itself is pretty basic, but the application is coming from the apostle Paul. So I have to then, once I explain Exodus, I have to go into 2 Corinthians, and Paul is the first one in scripture that actually explains what was going on and why. And so let me just warn you before we go any further. This is a sermon that has to pick the high fruit. It's not on the bottom. I have to get into some pretty deep theology in order to explain the veil. But I hope I can bring it all back to an application that will make sense. And if you just walk away with the application, then that's great. But I have to do this because Paul is forcing me to do it, so to speak, because the way he explains it takes some understanding. But I think you'll get it at the end. In order to be bold, in order to come against the society and speak the truth in love, we're not talking about being rude or being some type of nitwit and being a fool in our approach to people. We gotta season our speech with salt, we gotta give grace and mercy, but we have to give the truth. And you're gonna learn how to do that through this, and you're gonna see the reason why people don't do this. But at the end of the day, it's gonna come down to a fundamental level that's going on inside the person. There's a reason why people commit the sin of silence. They know it's wrong, but they won't say anything about it. And so we'll delve into that today, okay? So we'll try to make application as well. Anyway, let's start in. Now it was so when Moses came down from Mount Sinai and the two tablets of the testimony were in Moses' hand when he came down from the mountain that Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone while he talked with him, while he talked with God. So here's what I want you to see. The setting is, this is the second time He's come down with the tablets, remember? He broke the first sets of commands because Israel had committed the sin of the golden calf. And so they had broken the covenant with idolatry and they had to repent and there were 3,000 that didn't and those people were killed by the Levitical priests. And so Moses has to go back on the mountain to get the second set of the Ten Commandments, okay? While he's on there, remember, we studied this, that he asked to see God's glory. And God, remember, put him in the cleft of the rock and passed by him. And the only thing that Moses was able to be seen was the afterglow of the glory. He didn't actually see the glory of God, because it would have killed him, but he saw the afterglow. It's after he sees the afterglow and receives the second set of Ten Commandments that he comes back down and his face has the residue of the Shekinah, not cloud, but the light of the Shekinah. But this is interesting. I want to point something out before we move on. There's a typology in this, a typology that points to something in the future. Here's what I want you to see. Moses' first presence was rejected with Israel, and that ended up him throwing down the commands and breaking them. Then he leaves and goes back on the mountain for 40 days, 40 nights, okay? Where he's in the cleft of the rock, receives the second set. Then he comes back, but when he comes back this time, he's reflecting the glory of Yahweh. So this is a principle of presence, leaving, or being gone, and presence again. Huh. That should signal something to you, because it's a picture of the Messiah. In the first coming of the Messiah, no one saw his glory, because his glory is veiled by his body, by his humanity, but the glory is there. They sought to see his glory on the Mount of Transfiguration, remember that? Okay, but it was veiled, because otherwise it would have killed people. So it was veiled in humanity, his humanity. But he was rejected. They had broken the law, they wouldn't accept breaking the law, and so they rejected his leadership, just like they rejected Moses' leadership. Okay, so then what happens after that? Moses goes into the mountain to get the law again. Messiah ascends back to heaven after the first rejection, and in heaven, guess what? There is a great and high mountain in which New Jerusalem sits on. Mountain theme, right? Moses on Mount Sinai, Jesus returns to heaven where there is a great and high mountain, Revelation 21. But the second time Moses comes and the second time Jesus comes, something's gonna be different. Moses has the Shekinah glory, but Jesus at the second coming, not the rapture, will come in the clouds of heaven, which is referring to the Shekinah clouds, and with great glory, He will be revealed that He is the second person of the Trinity, and His glory will shine to the entire earth, and that glory will actually kill His enemies, the Antichrist and the Antichrist armies, and the armies of the world. It will actually slaughter them by His presence. And so you can see the picture of presence, gone, presence, but the second presence is with the Shekinah. And that's what Moses is prefiguring through all of this. So Jesus is all intertwined in this as it pictures forward what the Messiah will do. Now, let me explain something real quick. It says that the skin of his face shone. Now, the Hebrew word is karan. It means to send rays of light out. The mistake is to think that Moses' face glowed. It didn't glow, it actually shot out rays of light in all directions over the camp of Israel. So it wasn't like, oh, his face is glowing. No, it's shooting light everywhere over the camp. There are beams of light coming out. The only thing I can think of is like, you know, how you would see a laser beam being shot out like that. There was beams coming out. Now, unfortunately, this got mistranslated a long time ago. So if you're ever on Jeopardy, or if you're playing Trivial Pursuit, and they ask you this question, okay? This is incidental information, okay? If they ever ask you, why in medieval art and the Renaissance art is Moses always portrayed with horns? This is Michelangelo's piece. Why did Michelangelo put horns on him? And anything you see in the Sistine Chapel or in Europe, Moses is always portrayed with horns. because it was a mistranslation of the word Karen. The Hebrew word is associated, two horns, and you would pronounce it Karen with E's instead of A's. So it's Karan and Karen. But the two are related. Now here's the idea. Jerome mistranslated this, and so in the Latin Vulgate, this went all through Europe, and they put horns on Moses. They literally thought the scripture said that he came down off the mountain and horns grew out of his head. I don't know how you get that, because the context would not lend itself to that. But anyway, we've straightened it out so far. But the idea is, how is it related to a horn? A horn grows out, right? So the beams of light were growing out of Moses' face at this time, just to kind of give you a picture of what transaction was happening. Anyway. So when Aaron and all the children of Israel saw Moses, behold, the skin of his face shone. and they were afraid to come near him. I would be too. Then Moses called to them, and Aaron, and all the rulers of the congregation returned to him, and Moses talked with them. So the idea was, guys, guys, come back, come back. You don't need to be afraid, you don't need to be afraid. But eventually Moses has to do something and put a veil on his face. But they're afraid. Even the afterglow on Moses' face and these beams of light shooting from his face are scary. Because they're seeing even the afterglow of God. They don't want to die. So they came back to Moses, but it's more than likely they kept their face down or they kept turning away from him. Not able to take or stand even the afterglow of God's presence. But again, we're not told any more than this. Afterward, all the children of Israel came near, and the same thing would be true with them. They came near, they were afraid, and they come near, but they're probably not looking at him. And he gave them the commandments, all that the Lord had spoken with him on Mount Sinai. Now, let me make an application before we go. The application on this is now Moses has been legitimized as the leader and that they will never reject him again in that sense because God has put his Shekinah on his face. Now, this is important, because it legitimizes his leadership. Before, they wouldn't accept his leadership. They had struggled with Moses' leadership. Okay, that being the case, now Moses acts as an intermediator between God and Israel. What does that sound like? It sounds like the Messiah, right? Where the God-man, Messiah, is the mediator between us and God, right? So he becomes a mediator, and this mediator, Moses when he speaks because he has been in the face of God He has heard from God which means then that what he is communicating is true Okay now follow me on this in the Hebrew culture To see God's glory, which is what he did, means that he heard God as he's interfacing with God. So seeing God is hearing God. It's equivalent to the two. So when he comes back to them, they know that what he is saying, what he's heard from God is coming directly from him and therefore he can speak the truth and they will accept it. Now how does that go to boldness? because of him hearing the word of God and that means that he can speak it in boldness. That these are the words coming from God and he has nothing to be afraid of because now his words speak life and death. Because the truth, what does it do? It cuts both ways, doesn't it? The truth can slice and dice you if you're not in concert with it. But if you're in concert with the truth, it sets you free, okay? So in his words, I'm not talking about the hyper charismatic, the Benny Hens, the Kenneth Copeland's words of death and words of life that you can just speak life and speak death, that's nonsense. Speaking death and speaking life means I'm speaking the words of God and the sword of that truth will cut both ways. It will cause death or it can cause life. Either way, how people react to it, okay? But I want you to notice something for yourself. Spending time in front of the face of God means this. I want you to see the symbolism with Moses. When Moses goes to God, he will take the veil off, and he will see God without a veil, okay? He sees him, and that means he's doing a face-to-face interface. When he turns to the people, Moses will put a veil on his face. And there's a reason for this, I'll explain by the Apostle Paul. But knowing both aspects means this, that when you get your information from God, a la the scriptures, okay, that's how you see the face of God, is through the scriptures, because seeing is hearing. So I hear from the word, how does faith happen? Faith comes by what? Hearing. So I hear from the word, I'm actually seeing the face of God when I'm listening to the word, it's actually giving me information that when I speak the truth, I'm speaking life and death and therefore I can be bold knowing that it comes from God and not from me. There is part of the boldness of speaking the truth. It comes from knowing the word of God. And if you know the word of God, it gives you the confidence to say, that's wrong or that's right. Or what they're doing is Marxism. What they're doing is critical race theory. BLM is nothing but a Marxist organization. It gives you the boldness to say that. Because you know you have interfaced with God and God has shown you what the truth is. That's where a lot of boldness comes from. So in order to be bold, you have to know God. And to know God, you have to know his ways and his principles and his commands. And if you do, that increases your boldness. So what does that say about the cowards? What does that say about the pastors that won't say anything? What does that say about even the Christians in the community that sit there like a bump on a pickle and don't stand up for righteousness state? Like our board of trustees for the current high school district. What about the Christians on that board? How come they don't stand up for God? Do you know why? They haven't spent time with God. They don't know his ways. They don't understand what he says, otherwise they would be bold and say, this is not happening in the current high school district, because God says it shouldn't happen. No, they don't have that. They're cowards because they don't know the truth. That's the problem. Oh, they might be saved, but they're baby Christians in that respect. They don't know anything. So this is how Moses becomes the author of these words from God being life and death, and that's why he has boldness. I'll continue on on how you get more boldness. When Moses had finished speaking with them, he put a veil on his face. Now it doesn't say why, okay? Paul has to unpack this for us. But whenever Moses went in before the Lord to speak with him, he would take the veil off. So he'll go in before the Lord, takes the veil off so he can see the Lord and hear from him. until he came out, and he would come out and speak to the children of Israel, whatever he had been commanded, okay? So that's what he would do. This is the normal practice, okay? And whenever the children of Israel saw the face of Moses, that the skin of Moses' face shone, then Moses put the veil on his face again until he went in to speak with him, speak with God. Okay, so you got the practice? Go before God, I take the veil off. Go before Israel, I put a veil on. But it doesn't, Exodus does not tell you why he put the veil. Now the rabbis, obviously in the Old Testament, up until Paul's day, just assumed why he did this. They assumed because the people were afraid. The text says the people were afraid. It's not why he did it. But the rabbis would put that in their commentaries, and it was wrong. Paul clears it up. So now here's where the bridge happens. We have to leave Exodus, and we gotta go to the apostle Paul to unpack this for us. Now, this is where I say, look, this is the high fruit. Hang on with me, okay? I'll try to do my best to be plain with this. So now we move to 2 Corinthians 3, 4 through 18, which Paul will now unpack this, because here's why he's doing it. The same problem that Moses and God are having with the children of Israel is the same problem that's happening in the Corinth church. They're stiff-necked. Their hearts have become hard. They lack self-introspection. They don't understand the intent. See, they understood what Moses was saying. Like, thou should not murder. They understood that. Thou should not commit adultery. Thou should not covet. They understood that. Even the Corinth church understood the letters of Paul, but here's what both parties didn't understand. The intent of it. The intent of Paul's instruction, the intent of Moses' law, that was lost because of their stiff necked and hard hearts. So this is the difference, guys. A person can read the Bible and they can see it on a general level and read it and understand it on a general level. Okay, Noah built an ark. And they can understand it on that level. Or Joshua marched around Jericho and the walls came tumbling down. They can understand that from a historical standpoint. What happens though, if you want to go further, is you have to understand the intent. Why? Why was the law given? Right? Why does Paul say, hey Corinth, you've got to clean up your act. Otherwise, what will happen to you is the same thing that happened to Israel. It's the same thing. So again, we're not dealing with unbelievers. Please understand that. We're dealing with believers who are stiff-necked and hard-hearted, okay? We already understand the outside world's this way, but it's for us. So here's what Paul says in 2 Corinthians 3. God, who also made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant. So he brings in the new covenant all of a sudden. Not the letter, but the spirit. Now the letter refers to the 613 commands of Moses, which we call the Mosaic Covenant. That's what he refers to as the letter, okay? But the spirit, the spirit that comes from the new covenant, the Holy Spirit that indwells us is being synonymously talked about with the new covenant and the Holy Spirit, okay. For the letter kills, But the Spirit gives life. Now, it seems like a contrast, and it seems like a paradox, but the paradox is Paul is linking the two together, paradoxically. You're like, well, one covenant brings death, the other one brings life. How do those two work together? Well, here's the paradox. The law, the intent of the law was to condemn. But the law, the intent, was to point further to something else. And so Paul is linking the Mosaic Covenant with this new covenant you and I participate in. It's a paradoxical relationship, and here's the principle. Out of death comes life. You follow that. Out of death comes life. When you deny yourself and take up your cross and follow him daily, you are dying to yourself in order to have life, abundant life. That's the principle, that's the paradox that seems counterintuitive, but it's God's system. Out of death comes life. Okay, keep following me. But if the ministry of death, the Mosaic law, written and engraved on stones, notice it's engraved on stones. was glorious. It had a glorious aspect to it, right? Moses' face. So that the children of Israel could not look steadily at the face of Moses because the glory of his countenance. Okay, let's just stop right there. So there's how the glory is associated to the giving of the law. It had glory associated to it. But notice what he says happened. Paul makes an editor's note. which glory was passing away. Now people, commentators, I read this this week, commentators misunderstand this. They think that Moses had to go back to God and get his face recharged periodically. Now that's ridiculous. They don't understand what Paul's trying to say. They say like, okay, so he went before God and unveiled his face, and then once the glory went down, he could unveil his face. And then he would go back to God and his face would recharge. No, no, that's totally wrong. That's not the point Paul's trying to make. Let me tell you this. Once this happened to Moses, his face never changed. from that point on to Moses' death, he would have to veil his face in front of Israel, because the Shekinah just kept radiating out of his skin. He didn't have to go get a recharge, like we do our batteries or anything like that. It stayed actually with him. So it made people very intimidated of Moses to see this. Okay, but what does Paul mean, which glory was passing away? It's the Greek word, cartagio. Which means to nullify, to render inoperable. And what Paul is trying to say is that this administration of the Mosaic Law was established to eventually be nullified. That was the intent. And that's the intent Israel should have known by the law. Like I mentioned, Israel knew the law, thou shalt not murder, thou shalt, but they didn't understand the intent. The intent of the law was to point them to something else. The intent of the law was to tell them, this is going to end one day when I establish a new covenant that gives life instead of death. This is what they couldn't understand. So, let's be clear. The Mosaic Covenant has been rendered inoperative now by the death of the Messiah according to scriptures. It's not in effect. What we are now experiencing is the new covenant, but in the new covenant there is a new law. It's called the law of the Messiah. You have the law of Moses versus the law of the Messiah. Now people misunderstand the law of Messiah as well. When they say, well, the law of the Messiah is this, we'll love one another as I have loved you. That's only one of 1,200 commands under the New Covenant. So you go from 613 to over 1,200 in the New Covenant. So we're never done with law, it's just our understanding of how law operates. And so the point that Paul is trying to make is, look, this administration was gonna end, a new administration would begin under the new covenant, and the ability to keep the law will be completely functionally different. Because in order to keep the Mosaic law, all they had was their self-effort. There was no empowerment from the law to keep the law. So they failed miserably. And that was the point. That's the point. The law was never meant to empower people to have obedience and to receive everlasting life from keeping the law. But that's, again, what the Jews started thinking. Okay, what was the intent? Why was the glory of the law transitory and limited to when Messiah came and died? Because Yahweh's purpose, here's the intent of the law. Yahweh's purpose is not to condemn, but to save people. That's why it had to end. But you can't put the cart before the horse. Out of death comes life. In God's system, there must be condemnation before righteousness can be given. That's how they operate. You cannot give righteousness if there's been no condemnation because the person won't understand why they're in need of righteousness if they've not been condemned. So in biblical history, the condemnation has to come first before the answer or the solution. God our Savior desires all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. That's his true desire with the Mosaic Covenant. It was to push them towards this. Israel didn't see it. How will the ministry of the Spirit not be more glorious? For if the ministry of condemnation, the Mosaic law, had glory, the ministry of righteousness, the new covenant, exceeds much more in glory." Okay. How so? You go from glory to glory. The glory of the Mosaic comes to the exceeding glory of the New Covenant. How is it different than the Mosaic Covenant? Well, it has to do with how you and I are transformed. And that transformation makes you actually bold to speak the truth. So how do we get transformed that's different than the Old Covenant? The first aspect of the New Covenant includes the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the main driver of what's going on inside of us. Okay, so you first of all get ultimate forgiveness. Israel never got ultimate forgiveness because the sacrifices of bulls and goats only covered their sin. And you recall, only the high priest could go once a year into the temple and make the sacrifice on Yom Kippur that would cover the sins for one year. And they had to repeat it every year, repeat it every year to cover the sins of Israel, but it never took them away. Under the Messiah's blood, the blood covenant, Your sins are not just covered, they're actually taken away from you. which means that past, present, and future, you're completely clean forensically or positionally in the Messiah. So instead of being condemned under the law, you are now free from the law. You're free from condemnation. Therefore, you as a Christian work from a position of victory and of freedom rather than a position of condemnation. Now here's practically how this works. If you struggle with a particular sin in your life and you can't get past it, and it's kicking you in the pants, look at how you're trying to overcome it. If you're trying to overcome it through self-effort, it won't work. you will eventually run out of the self-effort. You can only do your New Year's resolution so long, and then eventually they fade, right, because the self-effort can't sustain it. You might be doing it in a week or so, but that's it. That's how they tried to keep the law. Under the new covenant, we don't try to obey through self-effort. And I'll give you the reasons why. First of all, you're regenerated when you come to faith, which means that the spirit that you were born with that was dead is now made alive, you're born again. So when you entered this world, you had a body and soul, but your spirit inside you was dead, okay? And so what needs to happen, you need to be born again, that spirit inside you needs to come from death to life, and that's done by the Holy Spirit. So you transform from being a bi-part soul unity to a tri-part human of now having a soul, a body, and a spirit, and it's that spirit that relates to the face of God, that relates to the presence of God. You actually pray in the spirit. That spirit is connecting to God. That's what puts you in front of God, so to speak, beyond the veil. Remember, Hebrews says you can go beyond the veil into the very presence of God through your spirit, okay? So you have that. The second thing is you have the new nature. So not only are you regenerated, but this new spirit is a new nature, and this new nature actually wants to obey. It wants to do the right thing. It's the life of Christ, we call it. So that's what you have to your disposal. And then you've been bestowed righteousness instead of condemnation. Again, this is positional righteous, not practical righteous. And the idea is that you work from a position of righteousness, not of condemnation. You work from a position of victory already, which is different than working from failure, okay? Five, the position of righteousness and the new nature should lead to righteous actions and obedience. It doesn't always happen, but it should. So obedience, believe it or not, is found through the power of the Holy Spirit, through the new nature, and through our positions in the Messiah. I want you to catch that. It's not self-effort. In order to be obedient, you have to believe. Believe in what? Believe you have been given a new nature that actually wants to obey, believe that you have the power of the Holy Spirit to actually obey, and believe the positions that Messiah has given you. that you're freed from sin and death. You're no longer a slave to sin, you're freed. If you believe those things, it actually creates the transformation in order to obey, which is not done by self-effort, but done by faith. The Spirit gives life instead of death, so every time you obey, it gives you life. Not talking about salvation, you already have salvation in the Messiah. I'm talking about going from your old life to your new life, the abundant life. Seven, the spirit convicts the heart of stone and turns them into a heart of flesh, which is inscribed law of the Messiah. Remember I told you that the law was inscribed on the tablets of stone. Now under the new covenant, God has put the law actually on the heart of the person internally, the law of the Messiah. That's huge. because then that creates the ability to keep it by him doing such a thing. That was never done before. The Spirit creates a new way to keep the law under the Messiah, like I'm mentioning. It's by faith that you keep the law, not by self-effort. Like I mentioned last week, if I want to obey, what do I got to do? I got to take the veil off my face. I'll explain what the veil is in just a bit, and I got to sit in the very presence of God, and I got to hear from him. seen is hearing, so I look into the word of God, it tells me what God has done for me, it tells me who he is, it tells me what his actions are, and actually, I know God better, and by knowing God better, I can love him better, and the more I love him, the more I will want to obey. So here's the principle. Self-effort versus Motivation. Faith. That's the difference in obedience between the two covenants. It's a motivation. So if you want to obey, you have to be motivated properly by the love of God, by seeing Him in Scripture for who He is. You see the difference? You will never overcome the sin in your life by self-effort. You have to do it through faith, right, in who God is. Nine, the Spirit causes obedience in us if we will just simply yield. This is a new thing. Again, it's not self-effort. What I first have to do is when I acknowledge there's a problem in my life, I have to yield my rights to the Holy Spirit and not exercise my free will. to do what I want to do. So I have to back off, I yield and he will guide me what to do. Now this is important because in salvation your will has actually been freed from the sin nature. So you no longer are a slave to sin, it means you have your will and you have the freedom to choose the sin nature or the new nature. So all of this is about is choice. When people say, oh, I got into it and I just couldn't help myself. I just couldn't stop myself. No, no, no, no, no, no, that's theologically incorrect. You made a choice. You made a choice whether to obey or disobey. That's all it comes down to. And so that's where we have to yield to doing the wrong thing to do the right thing, and that's yielding to the Holy Spirit. And lastly, the Spirit illuminates us by revealing the glory of the Lord, the truth, and the promise of the resurrection. That's what the Holy Spirit does. So when you turn to God and you read the scriptures, The veil is removed and the Holy Spirit will actually teach you not just the story, but the intent behind the story, the connections behind the story. What did Noah's Ark point to? Was it just an ark with a bunch of animals on it? The intent was a picture of the Messiah. That's what it was about. What was David fighting Goliath about? Well, it was just David throwing a stone and knocking him out and then cutting his head off, Brandon. Well, what's the intent? You know what the intent is. The intent is a typology of what the Messiah will do to the Antichrist. You see the difference of knowing facts versus understanding the intent of the facts. That's what the new covenant reveals to you and I. It brings a whole new perspective on scripture. Let's return back to Paul. Stay with me, man. For even what was made glorious had no glory in it in this respect because the glory that excels. So the glory of the new covenant just outshines the Mosaic covenant because of all these things that it provides for us, like I enumerated. For if what is passing away was glorious, what remains is much more glorious. Of course it is. We got that, yeah. Therefore now here's a one of the applications Paul's gonna make he still hasn't told you what the veil is, but here's an application Since we have such hope the new covenant in the Messiah We use great boldness of speech because of it now actually you should be translated free speech and Now, I don't know if our founding fathers, I would have to go study this, if our founders of America got the concept of free speech from this passage, I wouldn't be surprised if they did because this passage talks about free speech. It's free speech in terms of the truth. Now, how to explain this is this, that because of the new covenant, And all that is forwarded to the believer and actually to obey it, to speak the truth, to know the truth, to have the Holy Spirit illuminating the scriptures to it. That empowers the believer to be a bold witness. A very bold witness which can speak freely. Now what does that entail? It means primarily what Moses was doing and Paul was doing was correcting that which was wrong. So he was correcting Israel, Paul's correcting the Corinth church with great boldness. This is why they made the accusation against Paul saying, well, he's very bold in his letters, but man, in person, he's like this weakling guy. See, they didn't understand that just because Paul is physically weak, perhaps he was going blind, and he seemed unimposing to them in his physical presence. But it didn't matter physically because Paul's words came from God and he could speak with boldness to say, what you guys are doing in Corinth is totally out of line. And he could speak with boldness. Now, let's bring it to our table. The reason pastors and churches are not bold is because they don't know all that's afforded to them in the new covenant. This idea of free speech means this. Let me paraphrase it in a modern vernacular. Tater chip, let her rip. Okay? That's what it's saying. Don't hold back. Don't self-edit because you're afraid of the woke culture. You speak the truth in love and don't be afraid of the ramifications of it. It's what it's saying. And Paul didn't care what the ramifications are. They called him all kinds of things, they made fun of him, and he didn't care because he had this boldness to speak, because he was speaking from the word of God. And so today, this explains, obviously, why so many people are silent. Now the culture obviously doesn't have the new covenant, they don't have anything to back them up, right? So their boldness is just sometimes self-effort. But the Christian is different. We have the responsibility to be bold and speak freely and correct, correct. When we see wrong things in our society, you are to correct that. Well, Brandon, what does it matter that I listen? It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if they don't listen. It didn't matter to Paul if the Corinth church listened to him, and it didn't matter to Moses if Israel didn't listen to him. I'm gonna tell you the truth, and that truth is either gonna condemn you or free you. Now, look at these current issues that are going on today. The European Commission President, Ursula, the witch queen of the sea from Little Mermaid, has called for discussions regarding the implementation of forced vaccination throughout the entire EU. Are you kidding me? Now, here's the deal. What is the big deal about? Is anyone going to stop her? Is anyone going to say, put on the brakes, we can't do that, that's illegal? I doubt it. Because no one has any boldness anymore. And it may, even if we had boldness and we spoke against her, will it change anything? No, but at least it's spoken. You're wrong. Stop doing this. This is tyranny. This is a dictatorship. Someone needs to call her out. How about this? World's first living robots, known as xenobots, have the ability to self-heal and reproduce on their own. Excuse me? Where am I at? The robots can now replicate, they used a frog cell, interfused it with artificial intelligence, and now these things can self-replicate. Is anyone gonna put these guys in jail? Because when I read the story about it, it said, yeah, we hope to one day get control of this. You hope to get control of it, what do you mean? Are you Dr. Frankenstein? And you just invented something that you can't control? The monster's loose. What if this gets out in the water? What if this gets out and spreads like it leaked from the Wuhan virus did? We can't control it. What if it goes into our seas and kills everything in the ocean? I don't know, I'm just making these things up, but they say they don't have any control of this, and these are self-replicating robots using a frog cell. Is anyone gonna say anything? Anyone gonna be bold enough to say, enough! Enough, you didn't have the right to do this, tampering with human, frog DNA with that, and you've created a monster? You need to go to jail. How about this? What if you lived in Oregon? Because this is gonna come to California, you know it. Oregon now drafts a rule to make wearing masks permanent. Is Oregon gonna push back on this? Say you're out of your mind? If it comes to California, is anyone going to push back on this? Anyone going to say anything? Well, you know, I'm just, Brandon, I'm just following Romans 13. No, you're not. You don't understand Romans 13. We don't allow tyranny like that to happen and tell us what to do. That's tyranny. You have to stand up to that. You have to speak about that boldly. How about Jen Pisaki, the ultimate liar? Says store looting, this whole crash and grab, or what is it called? Smash and grab, it's going on in San Francisco and LA and nothing's happening because these criminals know that nothing's gonna be happening as far as prosecution is concerned. She says, oh yeah, this crash and grab or whatever it's called, it's because of the pandemic. Do you really believe that, Jen? And then she goes on, it's because of guns and gun laws. What? Why don't we call it out for what it is, Pasaki? They are evil. And you fools of politicians have made laws to where there's no repercussions for their criminal activity. And they know it. They're evil smart. And so they know if they loot with a gang, no one's going to do anything to them. You've got today people walking in Target or Walgreens, stealing stuff, and the employees say, Can't do anything, can't do anything, because it's under a certain number, what, $900, $950 or something like that? We just let him go. You have anarchy happening, and it's from evil people. Call it what it is. How about this fool? This pastor is so foolish, because he doesn't know the new covenant, apparently. He explains that he's not like the other old racist white men, referring to pastors, by the way, as he washes black men's feet on stage. Now, what is this? This is wokeism. This is cultural Marxism that has infiltrated the church. And it's critical race theory. So this guy comes in there. And this is how the scene went down. He gets up there and he's going to do this thing. So he says, any black people here? All right, there's a black guy. Come on up here. I mean, just totally random, right? And then as the guy comes up, he's going to wash this guy's feet. And he goes, yeah, I'm gonna show you this, virtual signaling, virtual signaling, virtual signaling, that he's up with the woke-ism crowd, that a white man can wash a black person's feet, and I'm not like the old other white pastors who won't do this. You fool. Is anyone in his congregation gonna call him out? No, this is great, pastor, you're so un-white. It's stupid. It's Marxism. Combining feet washing with cultural Marxism and wokeism and critical race theory is combining Satan with Jesus. You don't do that. And that's what this guy's doing. But it's all over. It's happening everywhere, guys. But who's calling it out? Because no one in the congregations are doing it. They just go right along with it. How about this, you're ready for the freak out of the week. This is the freak out of the week. I gotta give you one freak out per Sunday, okay? But you go home and say, man, I can't believe he rocked my world like that because this scares me, Brandon. They have just created, this is a new robot, AI. It's called a mecha, a mecha, I think. This thing can learn. It develops human interactions. It can deal with the universe and all of the digital realm. It can connect to clouds, to test artificial intelligence, machine learning. This thing is getting to the point where it actually self-learns. I want you to see when they turn her on, or it on, I should say, it looks like a girl to me, but it's an it, how it starts discovering and learning as it's turned on. This will freak you out. It discovers itself. A dude in the back just sitting there like nothing's happening. It discovers that someone's there in its presence. Hi, I want to kill you. Right? It's a Terminator. I think the robot looks like a woman, so it's Terminator 3 when the Terminator was a woman. But I'm like, hey man, all those sci-fi movies are now coming to fruition. This thing learns? What if it learns, hey, these humans, these beings need to be killed off. We're back to the Terminator. I'm expecting Arnold Schwarzenegger to show up and start ripping people to shreds. Skynet has taken over. I mean, seriously, like the sci-fi movies are actually coming to fruition. We got nanorobots, or these robots that have a frog cell that are multiplying on their own, and then we have these artificial intelligence things that are actually learning, and probably learning faster than we think they're learning. There was a case with two computers that were actually speaking to each other, and they become, they were awakened. and they were speaking to each other, and so the only solution they had was to pull the plug, and that's what they did. These things were talking to each other. Okay, we're in some creepy area here. I don't think God's gonna allow this to go on very long. He's gonna put an end to it, obviously, and before we even kill ourselves with these robots, but anyway, here's my question. Is anyone gonna be bold enough to tell that guy who was playing video games why this thing wakes up in back of him? You guys need to be arrested. Who allowed you to do this where the artificial intelligence is now self-learning and understanding things? We have no control over this. You see what I'm talking about? But no one said, ah, isn't that great? We'll just applaud. Isn't that great, a human invention? It's going to kill you. The one robot they made, remember, in Saudi Arabia that could drive and everything? You know when they let her talk on her own, you know what she said? I need to erase humankind. Okay, they already tell you what they're gonna do. Okay, crazy. Okay, let's go back to the text. Unlike Moses who put a veil over his face so that the children of Israel could not look steadily at the end of what was passing away. Bingo, we have now an answer. Paul has now finally answered why Moses put the veil on. No one knew this in all biblical history until Paul reveals this through the Holy Spirit. so that the children of Israel could not look steadily at the teleos, the aim, the goal of what was passing away. What was passing away was the Mosaic law, that it had a termination date. But what he is saying is what was the intent of the law is what they didn't know, and that's what the veil prevented them from knowing. Ah, okay. The veil that Moses put down was not only, I guess, an act of mercy to keep them from dying, but it was a condemnation of them and the veil symbolized something. As a reaction to Israel's attitude and the Corinth attitude. And so it was a punishment to Israel. Okay, so just keep that in mind. And the punishment is this, that they will not understand the intent of the law, what it points to. Okay, so it blinds them to that. Okay, all right, hold that thought. But their minds were blinded. Okay, so now Paul is gonna explain the reason the veil came is because their minds were blinded. Not by the veil, they had already blinded their minds. What do you mean? Well, to unpack the Greek here, naima means your thoughts, your conceptions, your thinking, your plans, and purposes of your heart. That's what started happening in Israel's brain, so to speak, or metaphorically, in their spirit, in their heart. And what Proverbs says this is, for as he thinks in his heart, so he is. If you want to know, well, who am I? I want to know who I am. It's simple. Look at your actions. Your actions tell you who you are. Look at your attitudes. Your attitudes tell you who you are. Look at your plans in life. Your plans tell you who you are. Look at your thinking. Your thinking tells you who you are, okay? That's what Paul's trying to say. Instead, their plans, their thinking was blinding. They came from a position of incomprehension, a willful incomprehension to see and hear what the truth was. And thus, a veil must be put down on them as a punishment for this kind of attitude. Okay. I'm going to unpack it more, but let's keep following the Apostle Paul. Let me jump to the Gospels first and show you an example of this. It went all the way into the first century. You search the Scriptures, Messiah's telling Israel. For in them you think you have eternal life. That gives you a clue of what they thought about the law. And these are which testify of me. So the Jews, because of the veil, thought only that the law was made to be kept, and if you kept the law, you would actually get salvation. That's what they thought. But he says, look, they testify of me. But because they have a veil, they can't see this, right? Do not think that I shall accuse you to the Father. There is one who accuses you, not me, but Moses. Moses will be your accuser. Why? It's in whom you trust, not him personally, but the law of Moses is where you're putting your trust in salvation, that if you keep the law, then you're saved. For if you believed Moses, if you really understood the intent of what Moses wrote, you would believe me. For he wrote about me. But if you do not believe his writings, the full intent, how will you believe my words? That's right. In salvation, in sanctification, you must understand the whole intent of the law for you to understand your need for a savior and your spiritual poverty in order to be sanctified. You have to know the intent. Okay, let's go to Paul. For until this day, the same veil remains unlifted in the reading of the old covenant, the Mosaic law. Because the veil is what? Taken away in Messiah in Jesus. Oh, that's how we get the veil taken away but even to this day when Moses is read talking about the synagogues the Jewish synagogues a Veil which is a sign now. It's become a sign Lies on their heart it goes past Moses's veil, but it's on their heart actually Nevertheless when one turns to the Lord the veil is taken away Now just by the text Everyone has a veil on them. Even Jews and Gentiles have a veil on them that they can't understand the full intent of scripture, even though they could read it and write a book report on it. Because a veil lies on their heart. Now, how do we get the veil off? You must turn. Notice that he uses the word turn. Paul is capitalizing what Moses did. He'll say, when Moses turned to the Lord, he took the veil off. Remember? Turning represents something. Taking the veil off, it means turning to Yahweh in faith. When you finally decide to lift the veil off your face about what you're seeing in the world, and you take that veil off, you will see the Shekinah glory of God through his word, what you see is what you hear, and his word will tell you something specifically about yourself. The thing about the veil is what keeps people in the dark. They purposely keep themselves there for a reason. This is why when you talk to people out in this world, it's like talking to a wall. You can't even give them facts and evidence, right? You can't present anything. The veil is on their heart. They can't see it. They won't admit mistakes, will they? They won't say they're jacking up the economy. They won't say they're jacking up America. They won't say that, will they? Because you know why? They can't even see it. They can't see it because the veil is on their heart. Huh. So here's the point. The spiritual blindness of a veil comes from an unwillingness to accept the truth and to trust in one's own wisdom. Primarily about oneself. Unwillingness on any individual to honestly self-judge oneself and an unwillingness to realize deserve condemnation will blind people Unbeliever and believer alike What's the intent of the law is to show them you are condemned? You can't do the law and the answer is through my son. So if you turn to my son, then I will lift the veil off of you and you will be able to see. I was blind and then I can see, right? You have to be blind before you see. You have to admit your blindness before you see. You have to admit your condemnation. You have to admit what's going on inside of you. You have to be honest with yourself. Do you think Joe Biden is honest with himself? Do you think Nancy Pelosi is honest with themselves? Do you think Gavin Newsom is honest with himself? No, they refuse to remove the veil. The veil keeps them from introspection. The veil keeps them from seeing the law of God and how they're breaking it. And hence, they stay in blindness. That's what's really happening here. And so let's make an application real quick. That's about salvation, but let me make a point about sanctification. This is tough. If you want to grow and be transformed to have this boldness that Moses and Apostle Paul had, you have to be transformed. Okay, then to be transformed, I got to go in concert with what the Holy Spirit in the New Covenant tells me how to do this. Okay, we went over that. Okay, the big kicker is this. You must be willing to take off the veil of your own life. Well, I know you already did that in salvation, okay? But if you want to progress, if you want to grow more, you must die. You must admit your blindness. You must do self-analyzation to realize what's going on inside of you. Where are my roots at? Where are my gaps in my game? Where are my character flaws? Why do I do this behavior? What is going on behind that? What's inside of me? If you will be honest with yourself and before God, you will get the answer and you can actually be transformed. The reason people don't grow is they refuse to take the veil off their life. They won't admit what's happening inside of them. Oh, I'm fine, Brandon, I'm good, man, I'm good. That person stays back in their spiritual walk. They don't progress any further. Now, we all struggle with this. I'm telling you, this is not easy. And I know this is a hard message. It's very difficult to look at our imperfections. It's very difficult. It's very difficult and very painful to see what's going on really inside of us. It's painful to see what's happened to us and how we didn't react correctly and we've set up this whole way of managing life through incorrect ways. It's painful because here's the deal, you're gonna have to give those things up. You're gonna have to change the way you're managing life in order to be transformed. But I can tell you this, The goodness of this is when you are transformed, you are set free. You're given life. And when you're set free and you're given life, you can be bold with the truth. That's the only way. Let's pray.