We have been talking about the law, and I hope it has not been confusing for you all. I wish sometimes that we didn't have to spend as much time on things like the law, and the reason that we do is because we live in an age where people either on the one hand want to make the law the salvation of the believer, or on the other hand, they want to say that the believer does not have to follow the law. When they make it the salvation of the believer, that's called legalism. And when they say that the believer doesn't need to follow the law, that's called antinomianism, or against the law. And of course, we all like to believe that we're right in the sweet middle. And I hope that we are. I hope that our biblical position is. I do believe that it is. But the psalmist says something in the law multiple times. He says this, he says, Oh, Lord, how I love your law. It is my meditation day and night. Now, if I took the antinomian position, I could not say that because the antinomians think that the law is literally bad. And that's why we always have to go back to Paul, where he says in Romans 7, the law is good and holy and right. Paul was the one, remember, who the Jews were claiming was an antinomian. It was the Jews that were saying that Paul was disregarding the law. In fact, we've been going through Acts, right? And almost every riot that has started is because what? He disregards Moses. He disregards Moses. But he's the one that said in Romans 7, the law is holy and good and just. It's just what you do with the law that's really important, right? So we want to avoid legalism, we want to avoid antinomianism, and you know, that lesson that I gave last week or two weeks ago in the law, the first time I taught through the catechism, I did that in eight weeks, okay? And the reason was is because it's so complicated to understand the place of the law for the Christian as it differs from the old covenant and how it exists in the new covenant. So I tried to do all of that in one lesson, and so what I want to do today as we simply consider two questions, which are the preface to the Ten Commandments, is do a review of what we've said up until this point, just four simple points, and then we'll jump into the preface of the Ten Commandments, okay? So in this review, four simple points, any questions you have, shoot, okay? And I'm serious, anything that is muddy or ambiguous about the law and how we understand it as Christians, please ask, okay? So four things by way of review, number one, We talked about the law as being enshrined in three covenantal arrangements, okay? So the law in the covenant of works, the law in the Mosaic covenant, and then the law in the new covenant. The law in the covenant of works, do this and you shall live, it was a works-based covenant, and what it promised was eternal life. It was very similar in the Mosaic Covenant, do this and you shall live, but it wasn't eternal life, it was life in the land, right? But life in the land was one level, a typological level, and then Christ came in the New Covenant and fulfilled the Mosaic Covenant at the anti-typical level, which means what was Palestine for the Israelites, and they had to do good works to enter into Palestine, now Jesus, the true Israel, does good works and is obedient and enters into the fulfillment of Palestine, which is the new heavens and the new earth. And now in the new covenant, Christ is our mediator, no longer Moses. We are not Israel. Okay? We are not a racial, national, geopolitical people. We are, and this comes out beautifully in Revelation chapter four and five, an international people that make no claim on any particular square footage of land here on this ball of earth. No, we say we want the whole thing. And it'll come in the new heavens and the new earth, and that is what is promised to us. But in what we call the semi-eschatological state, which is Right now, up until Christ comes, we don't claim any land. We are the church, we're international, we're multiracial, we are an international people. So we talked about the law being enshrined in three different covenant arrangements, and it's important to recognize which covenantal arrangement you're a party to. Okay, so number two. We noted that the law is to be understood according to covenants. So remember I said, you don't understand the law as through the prism of the Mosaic covenant. You understand it according to the covenant to which you're a part of. So very simply, well, I'll get to that in a second. The old covenant was made with geopolitical, national, ethnic Israel. And as I said, it foreshadowed or typified the church. We are not Israel, but we are what we call the anti-type of Israel, which means the fulfillment of Israel. And that's why what I read, 1 Peter 2, verses 9 and 10, before we began this morning, or this evening, isn't it interesting that Peter used categories that the Old Covenant referred to Israel in and he transferred them to the church. You are a holy nation, a holy race, he didn't mean that literally, a holy priesthood, a people of God's own possession. Now that can be said only about those who believe in Jesus Christ. Okay, so number three, since laws enshrine differently and with different purposes for each covenant, it's important to recognize which covenant you're a party to. If you are not in Jesus Christ, you're not a believer, which of those three covenants are you a party to? If you're not a believer in Jesus Christ, are you a member to the covenant of works, the Mosaic covenant, or the new covenant? Somebody, huh? Covenant of works, right? This is Romans 5. So if you're not in Christ, you're in Adam. And Paul took the whole human race of all times, all peoples, and all places in Romans chapter five, and he cut them right down the middle, those who are in Adam and those who are in Jesus. So if you are not in Jesus, you're in Adam, which means what you must do to be accepted before God is fulfill his law perfectly, perpetually, and personally, which everyone is literally damned because you can't do that. Okay? So if you're not in Jesus Christ, you're an Adam. If you are in Jesus Christ, what party are you a covenant to? Or what covenant are you a party to? the new covenant, right? Jesus Christ has kept the law for us, so as Paul says in Romans 6, 14, you are no longer under law, but under grace. So by grace through faith, God has given you the righteousness that Christ obtained through his law keeping, and has atoned for our sins and taken them away. So you're no longer, listen, here's the key, you're no longer expected to keep the law for justification. You're no longer expected to do that. Israel was expected to do that in order to get into the land. Adam was expected to do that in order to obtain to a higher level of life, what we call today eternal life. But if you're in Jesus Christ, you are no longer expected to keep the law for that purpose. That's why Paul says, you are no longer under law, but under grace, okay? But now, does that mean that we can just go on sinning and do whatever we want? No, in the very next verse, Romans 6.15, Paul says, does this mean we can go on sinning? He says, may it never be, and we'll come back to that in a little bit. So number four, the last point of our little review here, and this is really important. We concluded last time that we do not receive the law from the hand of God out of Christ, nor do we receive the law at the hand of Moses, but we receive the law from the hand of Christ, okay? So here's God, okay, that's the Greek term for theta, which is the first letter of God, theos, and here's the law. If we receive the law, here's us, if we receive the law directly from God, what do we not have? We, who said it? Mediator. We don't have a mediator. Now, if you receive the law from God without a mediator, what kind of covenant are you in? A covenant of works. So that would mean we're in the covenant of works with Adam. We're not in that covenant. So we never want to receive the law from God without a mediator. Now, what was the second option? We receive it from God, the law, but at the hand, there's a hand, Moses well it seems pretty good we should save it for Moses right I mean five books are talking about Moses and how he received the law from God and gave it to the people so what's wrong with receiving the law from the hand of Moses he was a man he was a mediator but he wasn't a good meter that's right but was he a type of a mediator Yeah, he was a type of a mediator. He was a type of Christ, right? But now here's the thing. The most important and crucial issue in understanding the relationship between old and new covenant is types and the fulfillment of the type. And let me give you two examples, okay? To say that we received the law from the hand of Moses is similar to saying we can have our sins forgiven as the people of Israel did in the Old Covenant by slitting the throat of a lamb and having that blood atone for our sins. Does the blood of bulls and goats atone for sin? No. Why? Because the bulls and goats are what? Types. They're types. They point to Jesus, but they are not the substance. And this is why Paul says in Colossians chapter two, all these things in the law, the sacrifices, the priesthood, they are the shadows, but Christ is the substance. That's what he says in Colossians chapter two. So if, like the Jews were doing in the whole book of Hebrews, you're going back to the types, you're going back to the shadows, the author to the Hebrews says you're damned, because you're going back to the things that have no substance and they can't fulfill what God is promising to do in Jesus Christ. Because the fulfillment comes in Jesus, not the blood of bulls and goats that can atone for sin, it's the blood of the Son of God. His precious blood, more precious than gold, Peter says. So in the same way that the blood of bulls and goats cannot atone for sin because of their type, Moses is a mediator, yes, but he's a type of the ultimate mediator. And so you would be receiving the law from a type, not the fulfillment of the type. And so that brings us to the, I think, the New Testament answer. We receive the law, this is the symbol for Christ, from the hand of Christ because he is the fulfillment of the promises. And by the way, he is the ultimate covenant that God has made with mankind, the ultimate and last covenant. And we find ourselves in that covenant through faith. OK, so. To sum it all up, these four points, do we follow the law? Yes. Do we do it in order to be saved? No. But should we be serious about keeping the law? Absolutely. Should we understand the law the way Israel understood it in the old covenant? No. Should we understand the law the way that Jesus expounded the law in the new covenant? Yes. And that's what we're going to be looking at in the weeks and months to come. All right. So any questions about our review before I very briefly touch on the preface to the Ten Commandments? Any questions about the law? Yeah, I had that and I cut it out, but I could do that real quick. That's a good question. So in the Reformed tradition, we have typically distinguished between three different uses of the law. And this is important because you need to know it's one thing to have a law. It's one thing that the law says what's right and what's wrong. It's another thing that the law says if you do it, this is the blessing. If you don't do it, here's the curse. But then it's another thing to talk about the function or use of the law, okay? So in the reformed tradition, we've typically understood, and by the way, this is in the Lutheran tradition too. Philip Melanchthon was the one who developed the third use of the law. I take that back. It was in 1517 when the first edition of the Institute of the Christian Religion came out by John Calvin, that John Calvin made mention of the three uses of the law. Melanchthon loved it so much that he incorporated it into the Lutheran Confession of Faith, the Osprey Confession, which would later become the Osprey Confession under Luther. So, it is a trans-traditional, reform-traditional, categorical understanding of the law. So, here's what it is, the three uses of the law. The first use is what we call pedagogical. Pedagogical. Teaching, okay? And you can see this in Galatians 3. Paul says the law is our tutor to lead us to Christ. So the first use of the law as understood by the Reformed tradition is really summarized also in Romans 3.20. Through the law comes the knowledge of sin. So the law is meant to show you your ugliness, show you your failure and your frailty, and in order to then bring the gospel so that the gospel can say, here is the solution to the problem that the law has shown you. So the purpose, the main purpose of the law is to drive us to Christ, and therefore we can call it pedagogical or a teaching instrument to show us our need of Christ, okay? And this second one, just let me finish, OK, because there's going to be questions and that's fine. The second one is civil use and what the reform tradition meant by that is the Lord uses the law to restrain sin in society. OK, now immediately, if you're like me, your antenna goes up and you're like, wait a minute as I'm thinking about the Ten Commandments. First one is you shall have no other God before me. You should not make an image. You should not bow down to it. Don't use the Lord's name in vain. Sabbath is number four. None of those laws are being upheld in our culture today, right? Well, in the time of the reformers, they would enforce those top down. I don't think that that was a good idea. And in fact, much of the reform tradition since then has said that it probably wasn't a good idea. This second use gets fleshed out in many different ways, but the basic idea is the natural or moral law that Romans 2, 14 and 15, we believe is engraven on the heart of every man, woman, and child. The basic things like do not steal, do not kill, those types of things. It's that law that they're talking about is used by the civil government to enforce justice in society and try to restrain evil. It's not clean and simple, but it's a basic understanding or conception of morality that each government and each country then takes and applies to their particular nation, okay? More can be said about that, but then, We have what we call the normative or the third use of the law. Normative or moral use of the law. Another author has called this the evangelical use of the law. And here's what this means. The law is not used to justify us before God, but now that we have been justified, the law serves as God's holy will to show his people how he expects them to live. And we are bound to that. We're bound not to be saved again. You always have to make that qualification, especially in reformed circles. But we are bound to it for the sake of sanctification, for the sake of knowing what God's will is for our life, for the sake of obedience, okay? So pedagogical, civil, and normative. Any questions? Yes, sir. So I'm a little confused why Jesus comes before You mean how I put Jesus before Moses? This is not a diagram of salvation, this is a diagram of revelation. So what I mean by that is, do we obey the law as it was revealed through Moses? Or do we obey the law as it is revealed directly from God without a mediator? Or do we obey the law as it is revealed through the mediator of Jesus? So it's not so much a salvation thing as it is in what administration are we following its commands. Does that make sense? Okay. Was there another question over here? Yeah. Yeah. It could be either way. He's giving the law is what I'm trying to communicate. He's giving the law. So do we receive the law as given to God by Moses or to God, or excuse me, as the law as given by God to Jesus for us? And I'm saying that's the one that we should follow. That makes sense. Yeah, just don't worry. It could be either way. It was an off-the-cuff diagram. Okay, so now, We're going to consider the Ten Commandments in the weeks and months to come, but we're going to understand them as they are refracted through the person, work, and teaching of Jesus. So imagine a diamond, if you will, and the law comes through that diamond, and as it is refracted through that diamond, those rays that come out of that diamond is how we understand the law. if you will, you've got a diamond that is Moses's, so the law comes through Moses and it's refracted that way, and then you've got a law that comes through the diamond of Christ and it's refracted a different way. We want to follow the law as it is refracted through the person, work, and teaching of Jesus Christ. So, to consider the law of God from the hand of Christ means that we take those Ten Commandments and run them through the grid of the person, work, and teaching of Jesus Christ. And what we're going to find, and this is where you need to listen very carefully, is that Jesus puts a different emphasis on the law. Now, it's not a matter of there was something absent in the old covenant that now Jesus says, They didn't do that then, but now do this now. He's not doing that. It's a matter of emphasis. You might say once since he broadens the scope of the commands. So for example, the seventh commandment, you shall not commit adultery. In the old covenant, most of the emphasis in the old covenant was placed on the outward act. So outward, external, physical, copulation, that was adultery if you did not do it with your covenant partner in marriage. And Jesus, of course, thinks that that is an infraction of the law, but he now expands it. And he says that if you just lust in your heart, you are committing adultery. And again, he's not saying this doesn't mean that lust in your heart in the Old Covenant wasn't bad. Of course, it was bad back then. But he's trying to raise the emphasis on the internal heart matter rather than simply the external matters, okay? So generally speaking, the greater emphasis in the Old Covenant was on external obedience. Let me just give you an example, okay? You know in Sermon on the Mount when Jesus says, you have heard it said, but I say to you, okay? For the longest time, I thought, and maybe you still think this, maybe you thought that, I thought that what he was saying is, you have heard Moses said in the law, but I'm saying to you something different. That's kind of the case, but it's not really the case. And I'll give you the main reason why that can't totally be the case. Because in Matthew 5.43, he said, you have heard it said, you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. Well, you can pour over the whole Old Testament Pentateuch law, and you will never find the law from the lips of Moses saying, hate your enemy. You'll never find it. You say, well, then what is he talking about, Josh? This is what I think he's talking about, and I think I'm right. Of course I do. When he says you have heard it said, you know what he's saying? He's saying you have heard your scribes and your Pharisees and your teachers teach you this, or teach you this about Moses and how to understand it. But I'm saying to you this, you see, because the scribes and the Pharisees, they loved Moses, they honored Moses, they had great respect for Moses. So if Moses said, don't violate the Sabbath, you know what they'd do? They'd say, okay, here's the commandment, don't violate the Sabbath, keep the Sabbath day holy. Just in case we might be tempted to break this law, let's make a bunch of laws around this law, like a fence, and then another fence around that law, and all these different laws so we don't even get close to breaking this law, the fourth commandment. And what happened is all this emphasis was put on the external behavior, which by the way I'm not saying is wrong. What Jesus was saying was wrong is that all the emphasis gets put on that, and what it detracts from is the internal obedience. And so I believe what Jesus is saying is you have heard your scribes and Pharisees and teachers tell you this about how to interpret Moses, and I'm telling you the right way to interpret Moses, and he puts a greater emphasis on the heart, okay? So this brings us in our study then to the Ten Commandments, and we're just gonna very briefly consider the preface. Because a lot of times we just get to the preface and we just pass over it, but the preface is actually very important. So let's just read questions 49 and 50 and answer them, okay? So number 49, what is the preface to the Ten Commandments? And we answer, The preface to the Ten Commandments is in these words, I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. And number 50, what does the preface to the Ten Commandments teach us? The preface to the Ten Commandments teaches us that because God is the Lord and our God and Redeemer, therefore we are bound to keep all His commandments. All right, so since this preface of the Ten Commandments, and remember, the Ten Commandments serve as a summary of the whole covenant between God and Israel. In fact, in Exodus 34, the Ten Commandments are called the covenant, okay? So if this preface is attached to the Ten Commandments, which is the covenant, here's the question in the Old Covenant. Does it have any application to the church under the new covenant age? I know you had that question. And the answer is, yes, it does, for a few different reasons. Here's the first one. Though God was dealing with Israel at the typological level, The preface of the Ten Commandments is picked up by New Testament authors, and it's cast in these spiritual terms, okay? So, for example, Jude 1.5, well, there's only one chapter in Jude, so Jude, verse five. He tells us that it was Jesus, our mediator, who delivered Israel from the house of bondage. He says, now I want to remind you, although you once fully knew it, that Jesus, who saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe. Now what do we see there? We see a unity to the work of God, right? It's not this like, well that was then, this is now. No, Jesus is throughout. He is God. He is Yahweh. It was Jesus who redeemed them from the house of Israel. But then secondly, the second reason why the preface has application to the new covenant people of God is, again, it is understood in spiritual language, And what Paul says in Romans 6, and this comes up elsewhere, is that we were slaves to sin. So you see the correlation. Israel were literal slaves in Egypt, and now the New Testament picks up that theme, it's called a motif, and they say you were slaves to your sin, and then God came and redeemed you. So Romans 6, verse 14 and following. for sin will not have dominion over you since you are not under law but under grace. What then? Are we to sin because we're not under law but under grace? By no means. Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness. But thanks be to God that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. So the third reason why this has application to us is the same God who saved Israel is the same God who saved us. We don't understand this preface in physical terms. God physically saved us from slavery. We understand it in spiritual terms. So He is our Lord. We are His servants. He is our Creator. We are His creation. He's our Redeemer and we are His redeemed. So let me just end then tonight with three reasons why the preface to the Ten Commandments are important, okay? Three reasons why the preface to the Ten Commandments are important. Number one is simple. It identifies the Lord who bought us and the Lord to whom we owe our allegiance. What does he say? I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. So he identifies himself. Secondly, Its order highlights the motive of our obedience. Look at the order. You have the preface, which is, I'm the Lord your God who saved you, I redeemed you, I brought you out of the land of Egypt. In our terms, that's gospel. I condescended through the person and work of my son, Jesus Christ, and I saved you. And now what follows? Commands, law. So gospel and then law. Now you might say that's kind of interesting, because don't we always do it the reverse? And we do. When we think about justification, we think of law first, we're not worthy, we need a savior, you know, first use of the law, and then gospel, God has saved me in Christ. But now we're talking about sanctification and it's reversed. Gospel is the motive, what God has done for us in Christ, and that is the reason why I obey. And this is what God gives us. He gives us the gospel, I have redeemed you, and now as a result of that, out of gratitude, here's 10 commandments I want you to follow. So it highlights the motive of our obedience. And then thirdly, it reminds us that God is to be loved for who He is and what He has done, and not just the temporal blessings that He gives. Sometimes, I remember a pastor I used to sit under, he was a mentor years ago, and he was pretty hardcore. This guy was a big-time fan of Jonathan Edwards. And, you know, Jonathan Edwards is, you know, I love Jonathan Edwards, but that dude was hardcore. I mean, he, in his membership meetings, would tell people, what if God—I'm quoting here, okay? Would you still love God if he took all of your children, took all of your possessions, made you lame and paralyzed, and left you with nothing? Would you still love God? That's a hardcore question for a new members interview, right? You kind of wonder how many are going to stick around after you ask a question like that. But what was he getting at? What he's getting at is, do you love God just for the perks? Or do you love God because he has descended down into the pit of hell and saved you from your sin? And I do think it's an important question. Maybe I wouldn't put it in those terms, but I do think it's a very important question. People talk about in the church today, the mushy middle. And Albert Moeller, I saw this on a video just recently, somebody was asking Albert Moeller at a conference, what's going to happen to the mushy middle now that the heat has been turned up from the homosexual agenda and liberal agenda, where basically it's going to cost you now to be a Christian? The mushy middle are the people that came to church basically for what they could get out of it. I remember seeing a spoof one time about seeker-sensitive churches, and they're like, Yeah, I'll come to church if you give me tickets to the Super Bowl." And then everybody laughs and they're like, no, I'm serious, I want tickets to the Super Bowl. And there's a lot of people that, maybe not that extreme, but there's a lot of people that are out there like that. What can God do for me? And if God's not gonna do the things that I want, if he's not gonna give me healthy children, healthy lives, you know, be influential and be successful in my job and all, if he's not gonna answer my prayers, I don't wanna follow God. Well, I think what the preface teaches us, if you look at it, again, if this is the motive for our obedience, it's not, look at all the things that I've given you. It's I am the Lord your God who saved you from the slavery of your sin. Obey me. It's what the psalmist says in Psalm 73, 25, and 26. Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. So it's not wrong to love God for what he gives you or how he blesses you, but here's the thing. Be careful that that is not the center, because what happens when he rips all of those things out of your hands? And that's what we see in Job, right? And yes, we do see at the end of this, this really painful story with Job that he gets all these things back. And a lot of people just kind of on the surface say, well, he got everything back. He got different daughters. He didn't get his daughters that the Lord ripped out of his hands. And, you know, that's Job's story. What about the people in life and in history as Christians who didn't get everything back? What about the people in life who died of cancer? Do they have a reason to still love God? Absolutely. Because the Lord gives and the Lord takes, and may the name of the Lord be praised. Our love towards God must primarily be fixed on Him. He's the most beautiful, He's the most powerful, and He's the most awesome. So, if we see the Christian life as a set of do's and don'ts, we will inevitably grow bitter, angry, and disillusioned. Why? Because love isn't obey me or else. Love is based on action and passion. God saved us from eternal damnation. And when and if we ever get to the point where we hear ourselves saying, well, do I have to do this command or why can't I do this? Well, the answer is that God saved me. And you say, yeah, I know that. That's old news. Okay. He saved me. Great. But why can't I do this? And if we say that, you know what we're really saying? We're saying, okay, this redeeming me is old news now because I've paid him off. I've been a Christian for X amount of years. I've kind of put in my time. I've paid him off. But we can never pay God off. To the degree that you think you could pay God off for what he's done, you might as well go to Rome and kiss the ring of the Pope, because you believe in works righteousness. You believe that you can work your blessing off that God has given you. We are eternally indebted to our Father. So let me end with a quote from Siren Kierkegaard that I think captures this. He says this. If a lover had done something for the beloved, something humanly speaking so extraordinary, lofty, and sacrificial that we men were obliged to say, this is the utmost one human being can do for another, this certainly would be beautiful and good. But suppose he added, see now I have paid my debt. Would not this be speaking unkindly, coldly, and harshly? Would it not be, if I may say it this way, an indecency which ought never to be heard, never in the good fellowship of true love? If, however, the lover did this noble and sacrificial thing and then added, but I have one request, let me remain in debt, would not this be speaking in love? Or if the lover in every sacrifice complied with the beloved's wish and then said, it is a joy hereby to repay a small part of the debt in which, however, I still wish to remain, would not this be speaking in love? If this is true, it really is an expression of the inconceivability of a literal bookkeeping relationship, that such a thing is the greatest abomination to love. An accounting can only take place where there is a finite relationship, but the relationship of the finite to the finite can be calculated. but one who loves cannot calculate. When it is a duty to remain in the debt of love to everyone, there must be eternal vigilance early and late, so that love never comes to dwell upon itself or compare itself with love in other men, or to compare itself with the deeds it has accomplished." So what can we say? At the end of the day, when the Lord says, I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the house of slavery, Here are the commandments that I want you to follow. We hear the voice of our Lord. If you love me for what I have done for you, you will keep my commandments. And at the end of the day, there should really be no complaining like, oh, you're just trying to gain salvation by works. No, I'm obeying my Savior. That's what I'm doing. I'm obeying my Savior who has redeemed me from the pit of hell. And it's really as simple as that. And with the psalms, we could say, oh, Lord, I love your law. It is my meditation day and night. Yes. Uh huh. Uh huh. uh... yet there is that they do use the minor profits to uh... to give them a loophole for not making literal sacrifices. So I'll get to that in just one second. They don't make literal sacrifices because obviously the Muslims own the Dome of the Rock, the place where the temple was built. And according to the Pentateuch, the place where the Lord sets his name, which we know from history was there in Jerusalem on Mount Zion, That is the place where sacrifices are to be made. And since they don't own that land, the only thing that they have access to is the Western Wall. That's why all the Jews go there at least three times a day, the Orthodox Jews, and they pray and they bob back and forth. That's the closest thing they have to the actual place. Well, I was looking for it, I couldn't find it. There's a place, I believe in Hosea. It's in Hosea somewhere that says, we will offer the sacrifice of our lips. And when I was in Israel, I sat under a Christian, but he was a rabbi, who had been steeped in Judaism. And he explained to me that because they don't have that land, two things. Number one, they're doing everything politically they can to get that land back so that they could rebuild the temple. That's been the plan of the Jews ever since, what, 1973, when they had to give that land back. Well, 1948 when they came back into the land. But secondly, in the meantime, since they can't make those literal sacrifices, they've taken something of a figurative interpretation of sacrifice until they could reinstitute the temple. But I think, just to give you a simple answer, you can press them with, look, your own Pentateuch says you have to offer these sacrifices. And blood is for sin. Grain offerings are like thank offerings, but they're not for sin necessarily. So, but it would take time. I'd love to sit down with you a little bit later, but yeah, go ahead. Right. I would just ask him, show me in the Hebrew Bible where that's the case. And when he doesn't come up with it, you can just go to the Pentateuch where it demands blood for a covering for sin. Alright, any other questions? All right, let's pray. Father God, thank you for your grace. Pray that you'd forgive us of our sins and give us energy as we go into this week and bring us back in another week to worship your name. We ask these things in your son's name. Amen. Have a good week.