October 8, 2023

The following transcript has been electronically transcribed. Any errors in spelling, syntax, or grammar should be attributed to the electronic method of transcription and its inherent limitations.

 Well, I'll invite you to open your copy of God's Word if you like this morning to Mark chapter seven. If you don't want to open to Mark chapter seven this morning, I guess that's okay because our entire text is found in the title of the message this morning because you will probably hear the most unique message.

This morning that you perhaps have ever heard, at least in one sense, because this, for me, at least, will be the first time I have ever taken an entire text from a parenthetical phrase. But this morning, we will return back to Mark chapter seven, and we're going to refocus our thoughts this morning on this one little phrase found in verse 19 and our text in the phrase that we will look at is thus he declared all foods clean.

So we are. A church that we are founded upon a number of solid biblical doctrines and one of those doctrines is the doctrine that we believe fully and firmly we are fully convinced that the only appropriate way for God's people to really open the word together and study the word together is something we call expository preaching.

Expository preaching, as most people here have heard me say on more than one occasion, is simply if you want to boil it down into one little phrase or one nutshell you might call expository preaching. Preaching that takes the main point of the passage and makes it the main point of the sermon. That might seem like something that's almost just a given, but you would probably be surprised to find out how often God's Word is taught and preached and which the main point of the message is not the actual main point of the text.

So in a very simplistic way, we think of preaching in that way, that the true, right preaching of God's Word takes the main point of the passage And makes that the main point of the message. So that's what we're exactly not doing this morning, actually, because we're taking this parenthetical phrase as our text, and by definition, a parenthetical phrase is not the main point of the writing.

That's what a parenthetical phrase means. If something is in parentheses, it cannot be the main point. If it is the main point, then take it out of the parentheses because the parentheses mean that this is a side point. This is a tangential thought that goes along closely related with the main point, but it's not the main point.

Our New Testament contains many such parenthetical phrases. We recognize, of course, that parentheses are a modern introduction, just like all of. Grammar and sin or not grammar, but syntax and punctuation marks. All of these are modern, relatively modern inventions. And so when the biblical writers wrote the original gospels and the original pistols, there was no such things as punctuation marks, certainly not parentheses.

So these are modern inventions, but nevertheless, when parentheses are added by the editors and translators of our Bibles, they do so because they recognize that the writer is giving us a. parenthetical thought or a thought that is an aside to the main flow of thought. And so Mark does that here, our New Testament does that quite frequently, actually about 335 times we find a parenthetical phrase in our New Testament.

And so because we are focused on making the main point of the text to be the main point of the sermon, parenthetical phrases are those types of phrases that we give attention to. But rarely, if ever, would we say, let's make the entire message a parenthetical phrase. However, this parenthetical phrase is one of probably, probably the most unique parenthetical phrase in the New Testament, because I know of no other How many times can I say that?

Parenthetical phrases in the New Testament that carry the same degree of importance and significance as does this one. This is arguably by far the most significant and the most important parenthetical phrase found in all the New Testament. And all the Bible. Indeed, this is a phrase that is only added by Mark.

The other gospel writers, when they include this incident, they do not include this phrase, this aside note, but Mark does. And so let's now turn our attention to this. Let's now turn our attention, our thoughts here to this. We touched on this this past Wednesday night as we come together each Wednesday for one of the most important, significant things of the week for us as a church body in which we take the message that God brings to us on Sunday morning.

And after praying on that, thinking on that for a couple of days, we come back together and we revisit that, what God has brought to us the previous Sunday morning. And in so doing this past Wednesday evening, we brought this phrase up. We touched on it last Sunday, but we brought it up this past Wednesday.

The question was asked, great questions are always asked, or the question was asked, can we think about this? phrase that Mark includes, thus he declared all foods clean. So we spent a little bit of time on this this past Wednesday. But after concluding that, I'd mentioned that, that this was actually what I thought I would perhaps preach on this Sunday, but after spending some time on this, this past Wednesday night in discussion with those who are here.

I came to the conclusion that it had not been fully explained, and the off the cuff remarks that we made on Wednesday night were good and helpful, though far from being completely explanatory. So it's worth our time to revisit this topic this morning, to revisit the topic of how Mark says, and so doing this, Jesus declares all foods clean.

So in The phrase that's given here, Jesus declares all foods clean. Let's just begin by revisiting the context and the flow of what Mark is saying to us. So in this section, as Jesus is confronted once again by the Pharisees and the scribes who are taking exception to the fact that His disciples and He are not ritually or ceremonially washing their hands before they eat, they've come up from Jerusalem to confront Jesus about this, because remember, they have So they're actively looking for reasons to condemn Jesus in such a way as to have him put to death.

And so they come up and they confront Jesus about this. Jesus responds to them that you are hypocrites. And Isaiah was right when he said about you that you honor me with your lips, but your hearts are far from me, because you take the teachings, the commandments of men, and you turn them into doctrine.

And so then Jesus goes from there to declare how Quite plainly and quite completely, Jesus says how that they have taken the commandments of God and not just lowered them to a lower level or even put them on the same level of scripture, but they have completely annulled them. They have completely negated the commandments of God, the written commandments of God.

They have taken them and made them to themselves to be worthless because the scriptures, the commandments of God cannot share a co authority with any other authority. So Jesus says, you have made them as nothing in order to cling to your traditions, your man made teachings, these traditions that surround the commandments of God, which are the traditions of men that they have taught.

And so after saying that, then Jesus is, is then, takes the people aside, and he says, to them that, that, taking them aside, he says, hear me, and he gives them this teaching, hear me. He says, nothing that goes in defiles you. Because what you eat... Just simply comes in your mouth and then goes out the other end.

So Jesus in doing this He's teaching them as we said last Sunday that he's not saying that that you can just Take anything you want into your mind and into your brain and sort of ideas take them uncritically without discernment And they will do no harm to you. That's not what Jesus is saying.

Jesus is saying in the context here food Doesn't defile a person because spiritual defilement comes from within it comes from the heart So that's what Jesus says it is what comes out. It's what's in the heart It's what defiles a person not what you put in your mouth That's not what defiles you.

Spiritual contagion or spiritual infection, spiritual disease. Doesn't come from failing to ceremonially. Wash your hands instead, spiritual disease or or to use another word, sin comes from the heart. And so then in saying this, Jesus then goes on to describe how the heart of all people, Contains within it the seeds of all of these sins that Jesus talks about.

He gives us a list of sins. And so he says the hearts of all people contain the the seeds, the foundations for all these sins. And so the defilement, the true defilement of a person is something that comes from within. So then in this passage marked in, of course, as this parenthetical phrase that we've been talking about, as Jesus says, it's nothing that you put into your mouth that defiles you.

It's what comes out of your heart that defiles you. And then he gives the side phrase, which the side phrase is to say, and so doing he declared all foods clean in verse 19. And so that's where we want to land our focus this morning on that phrase, because that one phrase there is he declares all foods clean.

It's hard to overestimate it. The impact that that statement needs to have or must have had for Mark's original readers, even the first and second century church. Because as we recognize what Mark just noted as, as Peter Peter, of course, is the source of Mark's words, of Mark's gospel. Mark is writing down Peter's experiences.

And Peter is remembering, of course, that incident that will take place decades later with the sheep that comes down and how he's told in the vision that these animals that you've been calling unclean all this time, they're not unclean. And all that was... A prefix, so to speak, for him to go to the Gentile, centurion, Cornelius.

And so as Peter is recalling this and Mark is writing this down, the two of them together probably say, and this was the point, this was the point at which Jesus declared that all foods are clean. Now all foods being declared clean, put to an end. A practice of some 4, 000 years that God's people had been recognizing these Jewish dietary laws.

So this is a monumental thing that was just given. And so, as such, even though it's a parenthetical phrase, we'll turn to this this morning and let's focus our thoughts on this because there's two things that I really want to come across this morning. Two things that if we spend our time looking at this this morning.

Two things that I hope that everybody leaves this morning thinking. And if you leave thinking these two things, then we've succeeded this morning. So those two things are, are this. First of all, I want you to leave recognizing the power and the authority of Christ. In fact, that, that's the point of every message.

Every message, when you come together in this context here, you should leave Having heard and having thought of the power and the majesty and the authority of Christ. So that's one thing we want to make sure comes across, is the power and the authority of Jesus Christ this morning. But in addition to that, there is another goal that we have this morning, and that goal is this.

We all live today in a society that, quite frankly, before our eyes, is changing values at such a rapid pace. The societal values around us are changing at such a rapid pace that literally, I think most everyone in the room, or maybe just one or two exceptions, most everybody in the room can say, within my lifetime, the societal values have been completely reversed.

Within my lifetime. In fact, within my recent lifetime. We have gone from a society that, for the most part, affirmed most biblical values. Now, it's not to say that our society was a few decades ago, a Christian society. We've never been a Christian society in the sense that the majority of the people in our society were Christians, were true born-again Christians.

We've never been that society. Nevertheless, we were, in most of our lifetimes, just somewhat recently, a society that for the most part affirmed and valued most biblical values. And so within the last 10 years, maybe, we've gone from that to a society that now is the complete reverse of that, disdains biblical values, and in fact rejects them nearly outright.

So we are in a point in history, I don't think I'm overestimating to say that we are in a point in history that most likely, if we were to transport ourselves to the future, 30, 40, 50 years, and we were to see what people said and wrote about this period in history. I think that most people would be, most historians would be looking at this period in society to say that was a period of great upheaval.

That was a period of great change. A lot of changes were taking place during that decade, 15-year sort of period right there. And as these changes are taking place, we who are true, born again followers of Jesus Christ, we are finding ourselves in a place in which these scriptures are being attacked and perverted in ways that are increasingly radical and increasingly poignant.

And we're being faced with attacks upon the scriptures, upon which we base our lives, that some of them are new and some of them are not so new, but they are all increasing in frequency and increasing in force. And so one of these things that I often hear, I've heard this for years, this is not new, I've heard this for many years, you have too.

It's the criticism that kind of goes something like this, and once you hear this you'll say, Oh, I've heard that before, and I've heard it in this context, and I've heard it in that context, and I've heard it in this context. It goes like this. When we look at the things that the society around us at large are now making approval of, and we say, well, the Bible condemns that, the Scriptures condemn that, then oftentimes the response is, oh, you mean the same Scriptures that you say condemn The practice of homosexuality, those same scriptures say that you can't eat shellfish, right?

Am I right about that? The same scriptures that say you can't eat bacon also say that, for example, Deuteronomy chapter 20 and verse 8, that a man shall not dress as a woman and a woman shall not dress as a man. So you're saying the same scriptures that say a man should not dress as a woman also say you can't eat shellfish.

So there you go. So, what you're doing is actually picking and choosing those commandments in Scripture, those regulations in Scripture that you like, that fit your agenda, that fit your perspective, while the rest of the world around us will say, well, we'll just throw the whole thing out. Because the same book tells us that, that you can't eat, shellfish, that you can't eat pork, that you, that you have to follow these dietary rules.

And then that book is going to go on to say in places like Leviticus, That a man shall not lie with another man as with a woman or a woman shall not lie with another woman as with a man And so you're talking out of both sides of your mouth here So if you've heard that argument, I'm sure that most everyone here has it's not a new one It's been around a long time, but it's one that is gaining increasing traction and quite frankly It's not the easiest argument for many Christians to counter with Now, I don't for one minute think that we're going out during the week and we're going on to CNN and debating atheists or we're debating atheists on the street corners.

That's not what I'm, what I'm getting at here. But the goal, and here's the goal. The first goal is this. to leave thinking highly of Jesus and His authority and His power. Number two, to strengthen, to shore up your confidence in the Scriptures and to strengthen your resolve, your confidence that the Scriptures are reliable and trustworthy and that what the Scriptures teach us about sinful behavior and non-sinful behavior can be trusted.

By understanding something about how the regulations and the laws of God come to us. Those are the two goals this morning. To leave thinking highly of Jesus Christ, and to leave having your confidence and your assurance in the trustworthiness of the Scriptures, to be strengthened, to be bolstered. These inerrant, infallible, Sufficient scriptures that we affirm are without error of any kind and are sufficient for all things having to do with faith and salvation.

These same scriptures, we will leave here this morning saying, yes, God has given us the perfect scriptures. We need nothing more. We can trust what they say to us. So in order to do this. We need to work through some things that have to do with the laws that God has given to His people through His Word.

So, that's how we're going to kind of come at this. And this is the perfect opportunity. As Mark has this little parenthetical phrase, Thus He declared all foods clean. That's the perfect opportunity for us to say, let's take that. Because in this instance, Jesus has just... Set aside a whole list of Old Testament laws and regulations.

So this is the perfect opportunity for us to say, let's make sure that we understand God's words to us, and that we understand why and how it is that we can stand firm on what the scriptures say to us and why. So, as we begin, And let me just say right up front that portion of what we say this morning, really, there's no way around this.

A portion of what we say this morning is going to sound a bit technical and less than exciting. And I apologize for that. You know, if we were, if we were compiling, I don't know, some exciting sound bites from Disciples Fellowship, then we probably wouldn't have any this morning because a good portion of the work that we need to do this morning is just, it's going to feel kind of technical.

But there's really no other way because here's what we have to do. We have to start from a particular starting place and the starting place is this. We need to understand the nature of God's laws or to say it another way, we need to understand something called, I'll call the, the categories of God's laws.

God has given us a book that contains many writings, stories, gospel accounts, letters to churches. It also includes much sections that gives to us regulations and those regulations come to us in categories. And if we fail to understand that God's word comes to us, that God's regulations have different categories and those different categories mean for us that we are to understand them differently, they relate to us differently, some of them have no impact upon us at all.

Others still have great impact. And to understand why there are differences and what those differences are, and how we can be assured of that, that's the place that we have to start. Otherwise, we won't get anywhere to a satisfactory answer to, well, why can the Bible say not to eat shellfish? Or why can the Bible say not to eat pork, but also say that a man is not to lie with another man as he does with a woman?

And why is one a law that we don't follow and the other is? That's the only way to come at this answer. Okay, so God's Word contains for us a number of rules and laws and regulations, right? As we mentioned last week, the scriptures have gained a reputation. Somewhat falsely, I believe, undeserved, I believe, a reputation of being full, a book that's full of rules.

And as we said last week, I don't think that that's really the case in reality. I think if we were to look at the collection of regulations that the Old Testament offers for us and compare those to the endless list of regulations that

it's really not that many at all. By comparison, but nonetheless, the Bible is a book that contains a number of regulations and rules for us. Those rules fall into different categories. Now you might say, okay, where does Scripture teach that? Where does Scripture say to us that there's different categories, that the different rules that God gives in His Word that they fall into?

What's Scripture? What book of the Bible, what chapter says that? And the answer would be none. There's nowhere in the Scriptures that say to us that when God gives the command, Thou shalt not murder, that that fits into one category and then God gives this other command over here that, you shall not eat shellfish, that that falls into a completely different category.

Where's the Bible verse that says that? And there is not. Instead, the Scriptures come to us with an understanding, with an assumption that any reasonable reader of the Scriptures can clearly and plainly see that the rules that God has set forth in the Scriptures plainly and clearly fall into not only different categories, but categories that are easily defined, easily recognized, and are nearly impossible to confuse once you see how God has done this.

So when God gives certain regulations, such as, well, let's just start with the Ten Commandments. If we start with the Ten Commandments, we would recognize that those would fall into a category of God's commands that I think are best termed as God's moral law. God's moral law governs the heart. It governs the souls of men and women.

It says to us things such as you shall not commit adultery, that you shall not steal, you shall not bear false witness, you shall not murder, you shall not covet. What is your neighbors? You shall have no other gods before me. You shall have no graven images. You shall not take the Lord your God, the name of the Lord your God, in vain.

You shall honor the Sabbath and keep it holy. And those ten commandments given to us in Exodus 20 and again in Deuteronomy 5, those ten commandments, the Decalogue, the ten words, They serve for us as a summary, so to speak, of God's moral law. And God's moral law is binding on all people who have ever lived for all time and for eternity.

God's moral law is binding on every person who has ever been born. And furthermore, it's binding upon every person for eternity. There will never come a time in which God's moral law Is then set aside because God's moral law is the summary of what governs the life of all people. Now, if we were to think back to a message that probably goes back about a year and a half, I think this came to us when we were in Daniel, but if we were to think back, we're not, we won't go through this completely now, but let's just quickly revisit what God's moral law is or what it represents.

So when we think about the moral law of God, Take, for example, Thou shalt not steal. Don't steal. We recognize a couple things. First of all, we recognize that all those laws, those rules, so to speak, they come to us, most of them come in the negative form. Meaning, don't do this, don't steal. Don't lie, don't covet, don't commit adultery.

A couple of them are in the positive, honor the Sabbath and keep it holy, but then also that has the negative side, you shall not do any ordinary work on this day, okay? So even though they come to us mostly in the negative, we recognize that they also have a positive side to them. So the command that says, the sixth commandment, don't murder, the positive of don't murder would be honor life.

Don't dishonor life. Don't murder. Instead, honor and protect and uphold life. So all the commandments have that. They have this positive and negative. You shall not commit adultery. The positive of that would be, you shall be faithful to those with whom you are in covenant relationship. So what is this moral law of God?

It's helpful to just think of it this way. Is this moral law some sort of universal code? For what's right and what's wrong, what's eternally right and what's eternally wrong. Something that exists outside of God. It's just a universal code. And the universal code says it's right to honor life. It's wrong to wrongfully take life.

And being this universal code, God, who is all wise and all knowing, is good enough to tell us about this universal code that is outside of Himself and above Himself. Is that what God's moral law is, or rather is God's moral law something that he establishes? Is it wrong to lie because God says it's wrong to lie?

Which is it? Is lying wrong and God is just the one who tells us it's wrong, or is lying wrong because God says it's wrong? And the answer is neither. The moral law is not some code that exists outside of God. Some code that the universe lives by. Because if the moral law was some code that the universe lives by, and God is just the one who tells us of this, then when we violate that moral law, and find ourselves as transgressors of the moral law, then what could God do to give us forgiveness?

To purchase forgiveness? When the law is not His to begin with. So God could not purchase forgiveness for us if this moral law was something outside of himself. Furthermore, if the law was something that God created, if God says, Hmm, when I create this world, let me make a world in which adultery is wrong.

That doesn't work either because if the moral law is something that God created, that when we find ourselves as transgressors of that moral law, And God says forgiveness for your transgression requires the life of my son. Then what kind of God is that who kills his son when he didn't have to? Because if the moral law was something He created, when we transgress that law, forgiveness of that transgression should not require the death of His Son.

So the moral law is neither beneath God as something He makes, nor is it something above Him as something that He lives by Himself. Instead, the moral law... is a description of God's character. And so that's where we start. We start by understanding that the moral law of God, that law that governs life, that's summarized for us in these Ten Commandments, that law is a description of who God is.

And by connection, because we're made in His image, it's a description of how our lives should be. And so when God tells us, You shall honor life, He tells us that because He Himself is a God who honors life Himself. When He tells us be faithful to those with whom you are in covenant relationship, He tells us that because He Himself is the God who is faithful to those with whom He's in covenant relationship.

Okay? So this moral law summarized in the Ten Commandments is a description of God's character. Now, the Bible goes on to give us a further summary of this. The, the Ten Commandments are, we understand those to be just summarizing all aspects of life, but the Bible goes on to summarize it even further.

In Deuteronomy chapter 5, the Ten Commandments are given, and in the very next chapter, Deuteronomy, Deuteronomy chapter 6, we find something called the Shema, and you're probably familiar with the Shema. Here, O Israel, the Lord your God is one, you shall, and here it is, love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength.

Jesus then takes that when He's asked, Teacher. What's the greatest law? What's the greatest commandment? He answers to say, Here, O Israel, you know this, the Lord your God is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and he adds a mind, with all your mind and with all your strength, and you shall love your neighbor as yourself.

He says when you keep that and you do it perfectly, you keep the entire law. All of the moral law of God you keep by perfectly, genuinely from your heart. Loving God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength and loving your neighbor in the same way that you love yourself. You keep the law by doing that.

So that's the moral law of God. Never passes away. Jesus came and kept this moral law on our behalf. But then we find in the scriptures a second category of law, and I would call that the civil law, or the civic law. Now, what the civic law, or the civil law, would mean, if we were to think of the moral law as the principle, say, for example, the principle of you shall not murder.

When that principle is applied in a specific situation, then that becomes the civil law. So the Old Testament is full of what we think of as these civil laws. And all they are is God simply saying, I'm going to take the principles of my moral law, and I'm going to tell you how to apply it. to your life living there in ancient Israel.

Here's how you apply this principle. Here's how you apply this moral law. Here's how you apply that one. Here's what it looks like when you keep this moral law. And that is the civil law. So that's the application of God's moral law. The civil law was binding upon a certain people who lived in a certain time period in a certain society.

And it applied to a specific society in a specific time period. And so that is the, the application of God's, of God's moral law. And so this moral law applied to the people of Israel. What's called the CI civic law, and as you read through your Old Testament, you'll find large, large sections of this civil law that's governing life in ancient Israel.

Large section of sections of Exodus. From Exodus chapter 20, 21. On through about chapter 35 or so, most of the book of Deuteronomy and large sections of the book of Leviticus. You find this law that says, God has given us the principle and He's applied it to us in this way. For example, we talked Wednesday about, one of the laws that God gives, of, of, Moses gives in Deuteronomy chapter 22.

He says, when you build a house and you build this house in such a way as people did in that time, you build the house in such a way that the roof is another room. You have stairs and you can use the roof as another room. He says, what you're to do is you're to build a parapet wall around the roof. So when you build a house, Moses says it's a law, it's a rule.

You have to build a fence, a parapet wall around the roof. Now what is that saying? That's an application of the sixth commandment. The sixth commandment says you shall not murder or to state it positively you shall honor and protect life. And so the way that you honor and protect life when you build a house is you build a fence, a wall around the roof so that people don't fall off by accident.

Now, that's what it looks like to take the moral law of God and apply it to a civil law. We do the same thing today. In fact, we have similar laws. We don't typically have houses today that have flat roofs. We can, but we don't typically have houses that have flat roofs, but we do have porches. And we do have balconies.

And it is a code that if that porch or balcony is a certain distance off the ground, guess what you have to have? You have to have a handrail because people will fall off and get hurt. And so that is the same thing. That's the application of the moral law that says, you, being created in my image, shall value and protect life.

You shall honor life in this situation by building a railing. And so we are sixth commandment keepers when we do that. I once knew a Christian couple who built a pool. In their backyard, and they, one of their neighbors, had a little small young girl at the time, and so this Christian couple built a pool in their backyard, and they got the pool done.

It was a really nice pool, but they didn't have a fence around it. You know, it's a law in North Carolina, if you have a pool, you have to have what? A fence around it. Well, they didn't have a fence around it. They said, well, we don't have the money for the kind of fence we want yet, so we'll just kind of wait a while.

And I said to them, that's a violation of the Sixth Commandment. Because whether or not the county official comes by and says, hey, where's your fence around the pool, whether or not he says that or not, it's a violation of the law of God that says honor and protect life when you knowingly have a pool and a neighbor that has a little six-year-old girl.

So that's what it looks like to apply the moral law of God. This is why all laws are fundamentally based in the moral law of God. You've ever heard it said you can't legislate morality? Who's ever heard that said? That's a bunch of hogwash. Because every law, every law, is an attempt to do just that. To legislate morality.

The Speed Limit Law is an attempt to legislate morality. The Speed Limit Law says, in order to honor and respect life, both the other people on the road and yours, Then here is the law that we feel will keep you reasonably safe. That is an extension of, thou shalt not murder, but instead thou shalt respect and honor and protect life.

And to one degree or another, sometimes some laws can be hard to find a connection, some can be easy. But to one degree or another, every law of mankind is some sort of an attempt to legislate the morality of the moral law of God that God has given us. That's why it is right for the Ten Commandments to be posted in a courtroom.

Not that we're, that I'm here to carry that banner or fight that battle, but nevertheless it is to say that all of our laws are ultimately derived from the moral law of God. Which says it is right to refrain from stealing. And the way that that law looks in society may be different in different societies, but it's the same moral law.

So if we took a look in your notes, we would notice that For example, I've got some examples in your notes. You're probably familiar with the first four commandments being commandments that regulate our relationship to God. You shall have no other gods before me, not take the Lord's name in vain, you shall not have graven images, and honor the Sabbath and keep it holy.

And then the commandments 5 through 10 regulate our interpersonal relationships. So just some examples. I just pulled one example for each commandment. There's literally dozens and dozens and dozens and dozens. We wouldn't have had enough paper to print them all. But just one example to just show us how this, this looks, how this plays out in the scriptures.

For example, the fifth commandment, which is honor your father and mother. The fifth commandment, now I'm sort of backwards here. Because, my editor, my editor really failed, this week. So my editor failed to con to catch the fact that Exodus 21, verses 12 and 13 actually applies to the next one. So look over on the next page under the sixth commandment and look at Exodus 21, verse 15, which really belongs on the first page.

you, you guys really need to hire me a new editor. So the sixth command or the, the fifth commandment says, Honor your father and mother. Look over at Exodus 21, verse 15. Whoever strikes his father or his mother shall be put to death. You see that that is an application of the moral law that says honor your father and your mother now Are we bound by the law that says whoever dishonors their father or mother or strikes their father and mother should be put to death?

Are we bound by that law?

I ask you are we bound by that law? Yes, and no we're not bound by it in the sense that if a child were to Dishonor or strike their mother or father they have to be put to debt to death Because that was an application of the moral law for that society in that time. However, we are bound by the principle behind it which says, eternally and forever honor your father and your mother.

You see how that works? Now, let's take another look at, the sixth commandment, Exodus 20, verse 13, You shall not murder. Now, the example of this one is back on the first page. Exodus 21, verses 12 and 13, Whoever strikes a man so that he dies shall be put to death. But if he did not lie in wait for him, but God let him fall into his hand, then I will appoint for you a place at which they may flee.

Okay, so God is making this, a distinction there between the circumstances that surrounded the wrongful death. So, just like we have in our laws today, laws that regulate the circumstances of a wrongful death and determine different degrees of guilt. So, first degree murder, second degree murder, manslaughter, etc.

The scriptures have the same thing. And so this is what God is doing. The command is, thou shalt not murder. The civil law that applied that was, well, in this situation, if this happens, here's what happens. If, if this happens, here's the other thing that happens. Or the seventh commandment, you shall not commit adultery.

Exodus 22 and verse 16 and 17, If a man seduces a virgin who is not betrothed and lies with her, he shall give the bride price for her, make her his wife. If her father utterly refuses to give her to him, he shall pay money equal to the bride price for virgins. You see how that's an application of you shall not commit adultery.

The eighth commandment, you shall not steal. If a man gives to his neighbor money or goods to keep safe and is stolen from the man's house, then if the thief is found, he shall pay double. That's an application of you shall not steal, Ninth Commandment. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

So the application, or one of the applications is you shall not pervert the justice due to your poor in his lawsuit. Keep far from a false charge. Do not kill the innocent and righteous, for I will not acquit the wicked. And you shall take no bribe, for a bribe blinds the clear sighted and subverts the cause of those who are in the right.

So the command is, you shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. One of the many applications is... You shall not take a bribe because taking a bribe perverts justice or is another way of saying Bearing false witness against your neighbor. You see how that works out now far far more of the regulations of the rules the laws found in the Old Testament are an Application of the moral law than are the moral law itself.

So as you read through your Old Testament, you're meditating on Deuteronomy chapter 12. And you just find rule after rule after rule after rule. Or Exodus chapter 36. And you just find sort of the same thing. And you're wondering, how does this apply to my life? How do I understand? Am I supposed to keep these rules and these laws just like this?

Not necessarily. Instead, as you read and meditate, as that, as those scriptures come up in your Bible reading time, you are to recognize these are ways in which the moral principle is lived out in the ancient culture of Israel. Our culture today is different in different ways, yet we are still bound by the same moral principles.

And so we try our best not to put on our superior modern day air, our false notion that really just drives me crazy, that we want to take modern day societal standards and apply them to other societies, particularly societies from the past. It drives me nuts. When we take modern day social mores and we want to apply them to ancient cultures in the same way.

Just stop doing that. Instead, just recognize this was a different culture in a different day bound by the same moral principle to which we are bound. Nevertheless, the application in that day might have looked different, but our job as we study our scriptures is to see the principle behind it, to see the moral law behind it that's binding upon all people for all time.

You follow what I'm saying? Okay, so now in those two laws, the moral law, Jesus perfectly kept the moral law for us. The civil law, Jesus also perfectly kept the civil law. But the civil law doesn't apply to us in the same way because it was the application of God's moral law in an ancient society. We can learn from that.

We can see how the law was applied in Israel and we can make correlations and we can understand things about the law, but not necessarily on a one-to-one ratio. You follow what I'm saying? Okay. So now let's really cut to really the core of the issue. because the core of the issue is the third category of laws in God's word.

And the third category of law in God's word is totally different from the first two. Because the third category, I'll call it the ceremonial law or the ritual law. So if the moral law is the moral principle, you shall not steal. And the civil law is, don't take from your neighbor, and if you do, here's what needs to happen.

The ceremonial law is in a class all by itself. The ritual ceremonial law... is not the applied moral law, neither is it the moral law itself. Instead, it's something altogether different. For example, let's just pull an example of one of the ceremonial laws. We'll talk about these more as we, as we go on just a little bit.

But for example, Leviticus 12 speaks of one of the ceremonial laws that has to do with sacrifices. And in Leviticus 12, it talks about the woman who becomes pregnant and gives birth. And how after giving pregnant, that woman is ritually or ceremonially unclean for 7 days if the boy, if the baby is a boy, on the 8th day it's circumcised.

And then the woman remains ceremonially unclean for another 33 days. If it's a girl, she remains ceremonially unclean for another 66 days. So that the woman, after giving birth, is ceremonially unclean for 40 days if it was a boy, 80 days if it was a girl. At the end of that period, the woman is to then come to the temple and sacrifice either a lamb or, if she can't afford a lamb, two turtledoves.

So that's one of the ceremonial laws. So, answer this question. Is that law an application of the moral law? It's not. In fact, what does it have to do with the moral law? In a sense, everything has to do with the moral law because we live in a world created by the God who is the moral law. So in a sense, all of our life relates to it.

But in a real way, that ceremonial law has nothing to do with the moral law at all. Instead, the ceremonial law has a purpose that's different altogether. In fact, they have two purposes. The purposes I'm going to call instructive and sanctifying or consecrating. Now, consecrating, sanctifying, that's a biblical word that just means...

Distinguishing, set apart, to make different, to distinguish. And so now we begin to get to really the crux of the issue. So turn over in your notes. And now let's look at these ceremonial laws. Because what we're driving at is when Mark says, Jesus declared all foods clean, what was he setting aside? What was he nullifying?

Ceremonial law, all right? That's what we're driving at. So as we think about the ceremonial laws, the ceremonial laws also themselves fall into three distinct, clearly understood, clearly defined categories. Remember how I told you for a while this would sound really technical? No way around it. But the ceremonial law also falls into three distinct categories that are very easy to see, very easy to define, impossible to mix up once you see them.

Those three categories are, first of all, Circumcision. Secondly, sacrifices. Thirdly, dietary. All the ceremonial laws fall into one of those three categories. They are ceremonial laws regarding the practice of circumcision for the Jew, or the sacrificial laws, what required a sacrifice, how the sacrifice was to be made, how the priests were to do it.

What qualified, on and on. And then thirdly, the dietary laws, which are, which happen to be, that which are up for discussion in Mark's Gospel. So these three types of laws, these ceremonial laws that God gives, they have essentially nothing that relates them to the moral law or the application of the moral law.

Take, for example, the laws regarding circumcision given to us in Genesis chapter 7, or rather given to the Jewish people in Genesis chapter 17, verses 10 and 11. Here we're clearly told the purpose of circumcision. This is my covenant which you shall keep between me and you and your offspring after you.

Every male among you shall be circumcised. You shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins. And here's the purpose. Do you see the purpose? You see, the reason that God says, Here's why you circumcise your boys. It shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you. In other words, this is a distinguishing mark.

This is to set you apart from the rest of the people. This is to set you apart from the rest of the societies, the rest of the ancient cultures. You're to practice this practice of circumcision as a mark of a covenant between you and I to distinguish or to use a biblical word sanctify or consecrate or another biblical word that means the same thing, be holy as I am holy, to separate you, to distinguish you from the rest of the peoples of the earth.

Now take a look at the sacrificial laws. The sacrificial laws would have much of the same purpose. Although we're not going to point to a specific instance in scripture that shows us that they are there. For example, Exodus 20, right after the Ten Commandments are given. As God begins to describe some of these sacrificial laws, He begins by saying, here’s how you're to offer the sacrifices.

You're not to offer the sacrifices, specifically, He says, like the other people do. Other ancient people would give sacrifices. God says, don’t give my sacrifices like they do. Don't do it on an altar with hewn stones or dressed stones. Don't build an altar up. Instead, make your altar out of earth. You are to not do it, God specifically says, like the people.

In other words, you're to be distinct. You're to be separate. Take a look at, the, third category, the dietary laws. Look at the dietary laws. Look at verse 26 of Leviticus chapter 20. You shall be holy to me, or separate or distinct. You shall be holy to me, for I the Lord am holy, and have separated you from the peoples.

So that you should be mine. The purpose of the dietary laws, or at least one of the purposes of the dietary laws, was to distinguish you from other peoples. The purpose, or at least part of the purpose of the sacrificial laws, was to distinguish you from the other peoples. The purpose behind circumcision was to distinguish you from the other peoples.

God was fanatical about distinguishing His people. Take a look at Exodus 19, verses 5 and 6. Therefore, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, you shall be My treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is Mine, and you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.

Deuteronomy 14 in verse 2. You are a people holy to the Lord, and the Lord has chosen you to be a people for His treasured possession out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. God distinguishes His people. That's a theme that we could trace literally All through the scriptures from Genesis to Revelation.

Too many scriptures to name. I would have ran out of time this week listing them all. We would have ran out of paper printing them all. Because it's a theme that's consistent from Genesis to Revelation. God delights in distinguishing His people. from not His people. So the ceremonial laws, one of the purposes, I would say the main purpose of the ceremonial laws was to distinguish His people from not His people.

To make His people look different, act different from those around them, in the way that they offer their sacrifices, in this odd practice of circumcision, in this, these odd dietary laws. Why would God, therefore, Tell His people, you're to eat in funny ways, you're to do this thing to your baby boys, and you're to do your sacrifices in this peculiar way.

Why would God tell them that? Because when Messiah would come, we needed to know how to recognize Him. We needed to know. All people of all ages needed to know Messiah was coming from this group of people who are different. They eat differently. They behave differently. In fact, God says many times, for example, in Leviticus, He says, keep my statutes, so that you may be different from other people.

Do not marry the people of the land, so that you may be different from other people. Keep the Sabbath holy, and honor the Sabbath, so that you may be different from the other people. Again, and again and again, we see that, but specifically in the ceremonial laws, God says there are these distinct practices that have no direct correlation to the moral law.

Instead, you are to keep these practices to make you different and distinguishable, because when Messiah comes, all people need to recognize That's who he came from. John chapter 4, verse 22. Jesus says to the Samaritan woman at the well, that salvation comes from who? From the Jews. The birth of Jesus comes, there's a star, wise men come from the east, seeking the king who is to come from the Jews.

And so God says, I want my people to be different, to be set apart, to be distinguished. Not only by how they live, how they behave, the laws they keep, the principles they adhere to, but also just these other practices. In fact, centrally, these other practices of the dietary laws, the ceremonial laws, the circumcision laws, because God wanted His people to be recognizable so that when Messiah came, He would be recognized.

So do you see how Jesus fulfilled that law? Once He comes... Once he has arrived and he's recognized, what further purpose is there for the ceremonial law? If the ceremonial law was to distinguish his people so that we would recognize when he came, once he comes there's no more purpose for the law. That's why Jesus is so adamant to say, now that I'm here, for you to keep on Keeping this ceremonial law, which was to show my arrival, that's not only pointless, but that denies that I'm here.

Now, the second purpose to the ceremonial law was an instructive purpose, to teach. And this is something that the New Testament really picks up on, is the teaching nature, the teaching value of the ceremonial laws. Two things that the ceremonial laws taught us about. First of all, they taught us about the nature of sin.

The nature of sin. Romans 3 verse 20. Through the law comes the knowledge of sin. Romans 7 verse 7. If it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin, for I would not have known what it was to covet. If the law had not said, you shall not covet. They teach us of our sin. They point to our need for Christ.

They point to the sacrifice who is to come. This is something the New Testament picks on, picks up on strong and clear, particularly Hebrews chapter 10. The entire chapter of Hebrews chapter 10 is focused on the fact that the Old Testament law is a shadow, is a pointer to say the sacrifice is coming.

He's the one that's coming. That's why we're doing these sacrifices now. To teach us of the, the, Violence of sin, of the bloodiness of sin, the bloodiness of those sacrifices taught the people this is the result of sin. This is what sin caused. Sin causes death, sin brings destruction, and it requires a life to take it away.

And the life to take it away is the life that is to come. Romans chapter 10 and verse 4, For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes. John chapter 1 and verse 29. Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. That is the sacrifice that is to come. That is the sacrifice that all of these sacrifices point to.

Additionally, the dietary laws also had instructive value as well. We touched on this Wednesday night. Leviticus chapter 20, verses 25 and 26. Once again, you shall therefore separate the clean beast from the unclean and the unclean bird from the clean. You see the instructiveness there, the distinctiveness, the setting apart, all right?

So this is the purpose, these are the purposes of the ceremonial law to set aside and identify and distinguish the people that Messiah would come to so that He would be recognized. And secondly, to teach us of the destructiveness of sin, the nature of sin, and the need for the sacrifice to take away sin.

And so when those would take these laws... And as the passage is really revolving around, what's the main point of the passage? The main point of the passage is the darkness of the human heart. And how the source of that darkness is the heart. And because the heart is the source, then you can't eat clean food to take away the darkness.

Nor can you eat dark food to add to your darkness. Because the source is not outside you, the source is within you. That's the point of the passage. And Jesus comes along to say, you're taking something that's purely external for different purposes. And you're perverting that, you're twisting that to become something internal.

Something that speaks to the internal pureness, the purity of the heart, and it can't speak to that. Food cannot speak to the purity of the heart. look at, well, this is not in your notes, but if you wanna turn with me to Colossians chapter two, I'm going to flip over. You can listen or you can turn with me to Colossians chapter two.

Paul picks up on this theme. There's many places that the New Testament picks up on this theme, but just listen to Paul's words. I'm going to begin reading in verse 16. Therefore, let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink or in with regard to a festival or a new Moon or a Sabbath. But these are, these are shadows of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.

Let no one disqualify you insisting on asceticism. Asceticism is the separating of one from society. Because you feel like that separating yourself from society makes you holy. Asceticism, or the worship of angels, going into detail about visions, or puffed up without reasons by his sensuous mind, and not holding fast to the mind, and not holding fast to the, I'm sorry, to the head, from whom the whole body is nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments, grows with a growth that is from God.

If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, Why, as if you were still alive to the world, do you submit to regulations? Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch, referring to things that all perish as they are used according to human precepts and teachings. These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body.

But they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh. Did you hear what Paul said? He couldn't have been plainer. These are of no spiritual value, but they have an appearance of wisdom because they promote self-made religion, asceticism, and severity to the body. So these dietary regulations, these ritual regulations, the regulations which weren't the commands of God, but the traditions of men.

Paul says, plainly, they promote self-made religion. They promote asceticism. Asceticism, again, is the practice of thinking, I can separate myself from dirty people and I'll be clean. I can separate myself from unholy people and I'll be holy. And they promote the practice of severity to the body. So think about this.

There are really two kinds of people. There are really two kinds of people that want to flee from the Messiah. Those two kinds of people are number one. There are people who want to flee from the Messiah by following all their passions, by indulging all their desires, by making the most of this life and giving themselves what they deserve.

Paul calls them the people whose God is their Billy. You get it? The appetite? Fulfill the appetite, worship the appetite. You are fleeing from God by feeding your passions and feeding your pleasures. That's one kind of person that runs from God. The other kind of person that runs from the Savior doesn't pursue their passions.

Instead, they pursue severity to the body. They pursue asceticism and the denying of pleasures. Because that's what the dietary laws are. Apart from the purpose of God, once that purpose was fulfilled, the dietary laws only serve the purpose of being severe to the body. Deny yourself something good to eat, and you're being severe to the body.

Now, does anybody find it ironic that every world religion, every world religion that I can think of, and I know there's probably thousands of different... False religions, and I don't, I'm not familiar with them all, but I'm speaking of the central, the main world religions with which you're familiar. The false religions of the world, does anybody find it ironic that every single one of them has dietary laws?

Every single one.

Starting with Judaism, which today is a false religion. Judaism still follows the kosher laws. Kosher just means, it's a word that comes from the word clean in Hebrew. And so they follow no pork, no shellfish, no, no fish that doesn't have scales and fins, all of those. The Muslims, they have their halal laws, which are very similar to the Jewish kosher laws.

Or just think about Hindus. Hindus, of course, will not eat beef. But most Hindus today take it far beyond just eating beef. Most Hindus today are vegetarians. Because that comes from this sort of nonviolence aspect of Hinduism. So the vast majority of Hindus won't eat meat at all. Or Buddhists, the same way.

Sikhs, and I know we live in an area, we probably don't know any Sikhs in this area. I don't think there are very many in this area. But trust me, if you lived in Detroit, or if you lived in San Francisco, or if you lived in New York, you would most likely know some practicing Sikhs. Same thing. Dietary laws.

Mormons, same thing. Jehovah's Witnesses, same thing. Seventh day Adventists, same thing. Dietary laws. Roman Catholics, same thing. Dietary laws. Roman Catholics are required by the Roman Catholic Church to not eat meat on Fridays during Lent. Why? Because Jesus was sacrificed on Friday and so they do penance.

They literally say they're doing penance by not eating meat on Friday during Lent. What an insult to the sacrifice of Christ to say, I will add to His sacrifice by refraining from eating a burger on Fridays. Oh, during Lent only. I know of no false religion that does not have dietary regulations. Why?

Because you can flee from a Messiah by pursuing your passions, but that doesn't fit very well with the false religion. Or you can flee from a Messiah by pursuing asceticism and severity to the body. And the easiest way to do that is dietary regulations. Regulate what you eat. Meanwhile, The Scriptures say to us in places like 1 Timothy 4, verses 7, it says that God created all things.

He created all things good. And nothing is to be rejected that's not received with thankfulness. Romans 14 tells us the same thing. 1 Corinthians 8 tells us the same thing. We see this principle many times in the Scriptures. The Christian is free to eat anything they want. Spiritually speaking, the Christian is free to enjoy all of God's creation and to attach a spiritual value to what you put into your body is to deny that Christ has fulfilled the ceremonial law when He came and when He sent forth Holy Spirit to be the instructor from that point on, Christ fulfilled the ceremonial law by His appearance and by His sending of the Spirit.

And for the Christian to say, I make myself holier by refraining from this pleasure, is to deny His fulfillment of the ceremonial laws. Now, there is a place for the Christian to be led in the Spirit for a time of fasting in order to... Tune the thoughts to God, to direct the thoughts to God.

But that's a different thing altogether than a regulation. Fasting is never regulated for the Christian. Never. It's never required for the Christian. And so for the Christian to say, I'll deny myself this. Now, along with that, of course, comes wisdom. All right, because it is not a godly thing for you to eat four hot dogs for lunch.

All right, I'm just going to be honest with you. That's not a very godly thing to do because it's not very wise for your body. You're not being a good steward of your body. You're not caring for your body, which is a violation of which commandment? The sixth commandment, you shall honor life, including your own.

God has blessed you with life, He's blessed you with the body, and you are to care for it by not eating six hot dogs for lunch. Now, there's also some, another wisdom thing that comes along as Paul says that there's something else to be considered. That's your witness. It's your witness, how other people see what you put into your body.

That's a witness to others, and you can make others stumble by that, or you can edify others by that. But in and of itself, there is nothing that God has created, that He created good, that is not allowed for the Christian. This speaks to so many issues of life today for us, doesn't it? What is the, I'm going to show my ignorance, CBD?

Is that the right initials for medical marijuana? Alright, so this speaks something to that. It says to the Christian, if God has created something that genuinely, honestly, in your heart, alleviates physical pain, and it's not a stumbling block to other believers, then there's nothing in the scriptures that says you cannot partake.

If it's wise and it's not a stumbling block to others. This is why it's dangerous for Christians to declare themselves, or not themselves, but for Christians to declare that all believers should be teetotalers. You know, there's a lot of wisdom in saying that the scripture absolutely condemns drunkenness.

Absolutely condemns drunkenness. And there's a lot of wisdom in saying that my witness is at stake here. I need to guard my witness and protect my witness. But to take it beyond that to say, listen, all Christians should be teetotalers. You are denying that Christ fulfilled the ceremonial law by saying, I will deny myself something and make myself closer to God by doing it.

So do you see how Christ come? His coming fulfills the ceremonial law. He both fulfills it and he declares it over It's obsolete. Jesus kept every civil law. Jesus kept every moral law. Jesus fulfilled the ceremonial law and set it aside. So now do you see how the whole thing comes together? You shall not eat shellfish, those things that live in the water that don't have scales and fins.

The bottom feeders, the lobsters, the, the shrimp.

You shall not lie with another man as a woman. A man shall not lie with another man. A woman shall not lie with another woman. What's the difference between the two? Are they the same thing?

No, they're not. One was a ceremonial law that was given for a purpose that Christ fulfilled and set aside. The other is an application of the moral law that still applies today. Now, that might not be something that you can articulate to somebody in the Walmart line in three minutes or less, but it dang sure should be something that helps solidify your trust in God's word.

And in your heart, in your soul, says to you, Listen, when the person with the YouTube video that's read six or seven chapters of the Bible and thinks that he knows the Bible is going to say to you, Hthe same book that says you don't eat shrimp says that homosexual behavior is wrong. Who's going to trust a book like that?

Now, at least in your heart, you can say, Listen, you don't, you don't know the Scriptures at all. The scriptures are plain and they're clear. These are not artificial categories that we're creating. This is plainly given to us in the scriptures and Jesus fulfillment and setting aside of one is just as plain as His keeping of the other.

Now, having said that, I hope that that serves to boost, to solidify, to strengthen our confidence. The last thing that we want to see, the last thing we want to see is this. I want us to just finish by noticing The power and the authority of Christ, thus he declared all foods clean. The staggering implication of that for the first century reader is difficult to overestimate.

But you know, Mark has portrayed from the beginning, Mark has portrayed two things about Jesus. First and foremost, above all else. Mark is writing to a Roman audience and remember what the Romans appreciated? The Romans didn't appreciate tradition. The Romans didn't appreciate wisdom. The Romans appreciated power and authority.

And that's what Mark's been focused on. From the very beginning, his prerogative has been to show Christ as powerful. And it's possessing of all authority. He possesses the authority to speak to the wind and to the waves. Peace, be still. He possesses the authority to declare the leper free from his curse from God.

He possesses the authority to cast out demons. Demons, he can say one word, go, and the demons flee. He has been portrayed from the beginning as the one possessing of all authority. Now he has the authorities demonstrated here to declare what is unclean to be clean. He is the authority over the Sabbath.

He's the Lord of the Sabbath. He declares the paralytic forgiven from his sins. He declares the sick to be healed, the blind to now see, the deaf to now hear. And now he declares that which was unclean is now clean. The staggering, staggering implication of this had to see this. All we have to do is just connect the dots and trace this over to how Peter saw this played out.

Remember in Acts chapter 10, Peter's waiting for lunch to be made, goes up on the roof, kneels down in prayer. In the prayer comes the vision of the sheep and the unclean animals, the, the reptiles and the, and the, crawling animals and, and the, the, the pork and everything comes down and the, the voice says, take and eat.

No, never. Vision comes again. Take and eat. What I have declared clean, let no one declare unclean. Then Peter then goes to Cornelius's house, preaches the gospel. The Holy Spirit falls powerfully upon all who are there. And they are Gentiles, powerfully, visibly converted to the family of God. And Peter makes the connection.

That which I have declared clean, let no one declare unclean.

So the small little jump, the small little step, that we must all take in our heart, is just to see this. The one who declared what foods are now clean, Now declares you clean. If you are united to Christ, He declares you to be clean. And just like His words to Peter, let no one say that what I've declared to be clean is unclean.

The same thing is what He says over you. Think of the end of Romans chapter 8. What shall separate us from the love of God? Famine, starvation, war, sickness, disease, attacks from the enemy. What shall separate us from the love of God? Nothing will separate us from the love of God in Jesus Christ. Because He who gave His Son for us, how will He not give everything that's needed?

And so if He has declared you clean. The image that you have in your mind right now as we finish this, the image that I want to just leave you with is just the image of the accuser coming before you and saying, he's unclean. She is unclean. Do you know the thoughts that are in that, in her head? Do you know the thoughts that are in his head?

Do you know what he does? Do you know what this person has done? Do you know this person's past? And then comes the answer. Let no one declare unclean. What I have declared to be clean.