Source note: Based on the supplied Teaching transcript. Standalone timestamps and non-content markers were removed for readability; the spoken wording is otherwise retained.

Chapter 1: Introduction to sin

Amen. Thank you, David. Um, why don’t you tell the group what you’re saying in Hebrew there at the beginning of your prayers so everybody can be filled in.

Yeah. Au shabbash shamim. Our father in heaven. Say it slowly.

Au. Au is our father. Aba. Au.

Okay. And that is that is in the sky or that is in heaven.

Okay. Okay.

All right. Well, here we are guys. Uh topic is sin today. And uh as I said uh last week, we probably should have done

this back before we celebrated Yong Kapoor, but it’s okay. We can look at this. This is not going to be uh what

you would consider a hell and you know sulfur hell and brimfire uh type of

lesson. Um anytime you hear the topic of sin being discussed, that’s kind of where our brains go. No, I wanted to I

wanted to have more of an educational study on on this topic. And as you know,

sometimes my lessons are targeted to us the group who are faithful

followers of the way. And other other times my lessons are more targeted to

the random YouTube viewer who might happen upon one of my lessons.

And and this is that kind. This is the kind that is really targeted more towards

uh somebody who doesn’t have a solid understanding of this topic. I think some of the things that we’ll look at

this morning will be old old news, old school, so to speak for some of you, but

hopefully it’ll be fresh enough that you’ll take away something and that you’ll learn something uh in regards to

the topic of sin. So, let’s jump into it.

Chapter 2: The first recorded sin

I wanted to start by asking this question.

What is the first recorded sin in scripture?

Anyone of you want to take a stab at that in my little gallery here? Cain and Abel.

Cain and Abel. Okay. No. Glenn. Number two. The first recorded sin. Mhm.

You know, I’ve got all a lot of thoughts buzzing through my mind.

But uh are you talking about when when um Adam listened to his wife?

Yeah, I’ll just kind of maybe covet covet covetedness.

Okay. Okay. So, when you ask people that question, most people would tell you, well, of course it’s Adam, right? Adam,

Adam Adam was the first person to sin in the Bible. Uh well, yeah, okay, you can look at it that way or you can look at

it the fact that the ser serpent did what he did, right? That could be considered the first sin.

Uh but if we don’t include the serpent and we look at a little closer then we see this in Genesis chapter 3

and this is the woman talking to the serpent and said to the serpent we may

eat the fruit of the trees of the garden but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden. God has said you shall not eat it nor shall you touch it lest you die.

Why is that the first sin recorded in the Bible? Well, it that’s that’s the

first sin recorded because God never said you shall not touch it.

There in the verse below it says, “Of every tree,” and these are God’s words, “Of every tree of the garden, you may freely eat, but of the tree of knowledge

of good and evil, you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die.” So there is the command that she is referencing.

But notice that nowhere in that command is the command not to touch it.

So this is classic humanity putting words in God’s mouth

claiming that he said something that he actually did not say.

I write about this in my book and how this really sets the path uh for humanity. We’re going to touch on that um on this slide, but this is it.

This is that moment where where Eve basically is saying that God said something he didn’t say.

And we all know just from our own Bible study that that is very serious.

a prophet or a teacher or a pastor or a minister or an author or anybody for

that matter who says thus saith the Lord when he didn’t say it that’s a big deal

right so that’s the first sin so the first human sin is altering what God said

became the seed of every deception that followed from Eden to Now, every fall of

man begins with the same impulse to reshape God’s word to suit his or her preference.

It’s the quiet voice that says, “Did he really say that? Did he really mean that?”

And the subtle act of reinterpreting his command to justify our desires.

Every false doctrine, every corrupt system, every moral decay is born from

this initial defiance.

Whenever man edits, softens, or redefineses what God has spoken, he or she exalts

his own will above his, above God’s.

So at its core, every selfish failure is not a result of

our ignorance so much as it is rebellion disguised as interpretation.

Now, that’s a very important little statement right there because everybody likes to say that

they’re interpreting the scripture or this is how I see it or this is what I say.

But if anything that that person does as a response to what they have read and

what they do is actually in opposition of what the word actually says

that is this person claiming interpretation when in reality they are in rebellion.

So it is rebellion disguised as interpretation.

Once God’s word was altered, truth lost its authority.

When divine truth is no longer absolute, and it is, I encourage you to do a word

study on the word truth in your Bible so that you can see first and foremost who gets to own the truth. It’s not you and me. We don’t get to have our own truths.

He gets alone gets to own the truth and it is absolute.

But when divine truth is no longer absolute, man becomes his own law. And this is what happened in the garden.

It wasn’t just one person sinning, one person creating the first sin.

What was actually happening in the garden was man becoming his own god. Man

following his own law. And that’s the pattern that we see in the next few pages of Genesis. In Genesis 3 6 we see

the woman saw that the tree was good for food, was pleasant to the eyes, desirable to make one wise. She took it.

She ate it. She gave it to her husband.

He ate. All of those words that we see, good for food, pleasant to the eyes, desirable, that’s all self-focused.

The Apostle John would later in his epistles use the premise, the basis of

this verse to describe the entire failure of man.

So this issue of man becoming his own law really is the backbone, the spine if

you will, of sin.

And that’s how we’re going to look at it in the course of our lesson. We’re really going to be using Genesis as kind of our foundation to

look at all of this. And by the way, let me say this. Sin topic of sin is one of those topics that we could spend days on.

So this is not going to be a comprehensive lesson on sin. There’s so many rabbit holes, so many different

angles that we could have looked at in this topic. So I really had to narrow myself down here and think to myself,

okay, what is it that I want to communicate above all? because there’s a lot of stuff that we can get into that we just don’t have time to. Okay, the first mention is in Genesis chapter 4.

Chapter 3: Defining sin and law

You know as well as I do, as well as I often teach that when we look at topics like this, we like to go back to the

first time it was mentioned in scripture because the logic is when you can see a

word used initially for the first time in scripture and look at how it’s used, you can then learn how to use it

throughout the rest of scripture. And the first time that we see the word sin

appear is in Genesis 4. Genesis 4. Abel also brought of the firstborn of his

flock and their fat. And the Lord respected Abel and his offering. But he did not respect Cain and his offering.

And Cain was very angry and his countenance fell.

So the Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry and why has your countenance fallen?

If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin

lies at the door, and its desire is for you, but you should rule over it.” That

last statement there is going to be at the heart of what we look at from this point on. Sin lies at the door. And that

word David is that correct?

Yeah. Or is is the word a sin or transgression. Yeah.

Okay. Yeah. An offense, guilt. It literally means to miss the mark. And this was something I learned very early on in my, you know, Christian days. Sin

is to miss the mark. Okay, that’s that sounds right. If if we’re trying to think of what the mark is, if the mark

is to be righteous, okay, I didn’t quite know. It sounded awesome.

And we hear it used quite often. But when you consider the definition of this word, you you have to ask these questions.

If it’s guilt, if it’s an offense, if I’m missing the mark, then I have to ask

offense against what or who? Guilt for what?

And which mark am I missing?

It sounds basic. It sounds simple. But if you don’t ask those questions, then

you won’t find the answers. And the answers that you need are going to determine how you live.

We have to ask those questions. And of course, we know the answer is what?

Well, offense against him, guilt against breaking his ways,

and the mark that I’m missing is his laws.

Okay, follow me along here. We know in 1 John 3, the only place in scripture, by the way,

is in the New Testament that gives us a explanation, if you will, a definition,

if you will, beyond what we see in Genesis 4 of sin. John the Apostle has

written, “Whoever commits sin also commits lawlessness.” Sin

is lawlessness and you know that he was manifested to take away our sins. Now

stop right there and follow along with me viewer who have accidentally found

this this lesson. He was manifested to take away sin. Okay, again go back to the top. What is sin?

Sin is a violation of his law. So what was he taking away?

He was taking away your guilt for violating his law. And in him there is

no sin. Whoever abides in him does not sin. That right there is perhaps one of

the most curious slash challenging verses in all of scripture.

Whoever abides in him does not sin.

Now wait a minute. You and I both know that even after we became believers, we’ve sinned.

So how do we reckon this? You know h how do we how do we explain John’s absolute statement here that

whoever abides in him does not sin and then he doubles down by saying whoever sins has neither seen him nor known him.

You have this uh chest cat grin on your face that you you’re you want to say

something. Well, when you know when you asked me the question originally, I I felt like I was kind sort of being ambulin

really was self-determination.

And even though, you know, uh, today we’re doing our best to to to not be led

by our own self-determination, but to be led by the laws of God by God, even though we try that, you know, we don’t

always succeed in abiding where we want to abide. Mhm.

And you know, if if we were perfectly abiding where we should, then we would be sinfree. Yeah.

But but we’re not. Yeah.

We’re battling and all all kinds of things to knock us off.

So that’s that’s what was going through my mind.

That’s your two cents. And David, do you have something, brother?

Yeah. I think that the intent here or maybe the the spirit is as expressed in Hebrews 10. If we deliberately keep on

sinning after having the knowledge of the truth, right? Uh it’s it’s intentional. I know that this is what God wants and expects from me, but you

know what? I’m going to again uh exercise my supremacy above God and do things my way.

Yeah. Yeah. And I’m in agreement with both of you guys. If if um if there was no sin possible for him who believes, then why are all the scriptured on repentance?

Yeah.

Right. We have to have scripture on repentance. So I I don’t think John is saying that once you become a believer, you no longer sin.

I don’t think that’s what he’s trying to convey. I think he’s trying to convey exactly what David just said, what Glenn just said. However, it does give us a

baseline to work off of. What is that baseline?

The baseline is it’s possible to be less quote unquote sinful than you realize.

Say that again.

It’s possible to be less sinful than you realize.

Well, how can I make such a statement?

I’m not in any way, shape, or form saying that we can be sinless. No, we can’t.

And Yeshua is the only person who’s ever been sinless.

But we’re going to see here in the course of this lesson that in our culture, we have grown up in under the

Christian umbrella with some very bad teaching about sin, about what sin is and about what sin isn’t.

And we’ve been conditioned is the right word I want to use to believe that we

are just sinful wretches who are sinning every moment of the day and we’re just these terrible beings that can’t go a minute without sinning.

That’s kind of how the church has taught us. That’s how I kind of grew up believing about myself until I learned how to define sin

by using the the Bible’s definition of sin. And we’re going to look into that.

Chapter 4: Ways of the Lord

Now, when you look at this sin is lawlessness. You look at Genesis 4, the

first recorded sin, the person watching may say that there was no such thing as God’s laws at this point in history.

which point all the way back in Genesis 4, right?

If sin is lawlessness and sin is violating his law, then you might look at Genesis 4

and in your dispensational mind, you might claim that there was no law to be

violated in Genesis 4. Why do you say that? Well, because God’s law was quote unquote

not made known until Israel, right, David? Is that what you were getting ready to say? Yeah. Given at Sinai. Yeah.

Yeah. At Sinai. Right.

And it’s a common fallacy. It’s a common Christian fallacy that believes that he didn’t have laws until he made them up at Sinai.

as if God was over there thinking, “hm, these people should probably have some laws. I should probably sit back here

and think really hard about giving these people some laws, and these laws I’m going to give these people are only going to be for them, right? I’m doing that in a mocking way.

Forgive me, but that’s kind of where the Christian world went when it went this

way, right? So if it’s true that God’s

laws didn’t exist until Sinai, then you have to ask, how did Abel know what a better sacrifice was?

How did he even know about sacrifices at all?

How could sin be knocking at Cain’s door? Remember, if you look at sin as the definition of lawlessness,

then how could sin be knocking at Cain’s door if there was no law to be violated?

How did Noah know which animals were clean and unclean?

And how can it be said that Abraham obeyed God’s commandments if they were not there to be obeyed? Mhm.

So this is a challenge for you viewer to consider these things as you’re

looking at this topic of sin. I want you to have a full picture. Now as I said at

the onset of the lesson, some of this stuff is going to be very basic to some of our members eyes and they should be.

Hopefully you’re further along than that. But I wanted to make sure that everybody was on board with this topic before we went any further.

Psalm 103:7, it says he, who’s he? Yah, God. He made

known his ways to Moses, his acts to the children of Israel. What is the implication of that verse?

The implication of that verse is that his ways were already there

and he simply made them known to Moses and Israel. The phrase David say that

for me is to announce to Yeah. reveal if you

will literally means he caused his ways to be known to Moses. The verb hodia is causitive meaning to make known or to reveal.

So what does that mean then? That means his ways.

Another way of saying his laws, his commandments, his decrees, his statutes were revealed to Moses and Israel.

They already existed.

So when you look at this word in Psalm 107, weigh his ways, you have to ask, at least I do. I don’t

know about you, but what way was this?

He made known his ways to Moses. Well, what way? Well, the earliest place in

scripture that we see this show up is again back in Genesis

speaking of Abraham. I have known him in order that he may command his children and his household after him that they

keep the way of the Lord to do righteousness and justice. And it was it dawned on me the other day, Glenn,

number two, as I was thinking through this lesson today in this religious world that we have. Everything is categorized.

You have Lord knows how many denominations and Lord knows how many splintered factions of these denominations and

everybody wants to call themselves something, right? I can drive down the street that I live on and within five minutes

identify four, five, six different godoriented institutions, be they churches or synagogues or otherwise. And

they all have a different name. They all have a different way of categorizing themselves.

So it dawned on me that this way back in Genesis 18 or even earlier, there was no such categories.

You either kept this thing called the ways of the Lord or you didn’t.

Right? And so it’s up to us to discover what these quote unquote

ways are and forget about the categories.

And that’s my advice to you viewer. Forget about your category.

I used to tell people all the time when people were were bringing up the question with all the garbage that’s out

there, how do I know what’s right? How do I know who’s right? Is this church right? Is that church right? Should I

follow this group? Should I follow that group?

And I used to tell him, I used to look him right in the eye. And I say, “Listen, you’re asking the wrong question.

What you need to do is to turn your eyes into the word and find out what’s right according to him.

And then once you have determined what’s right based on scripture alone, you can

then look up and find out who is right or who’s the closest to being right.

Because we all mess up. Yeah, we all make mistakes. Make sense? Okay, let’s continue.

Chapter 5: Distinguishing sin from tradition

When sin is not sin. Okay, time for a disclaimer.

Um, I’m I’m going to go into stuff in this slide that’s going to be controversial.

I’m not trying to be controversial. I had a conversation with my wife about this over the weekend.

I am not trying to be controversial. and we can discuss what I’m about to show you all you want in the fellowship afterwards.

But please be patient as we go through this, okay? When sin is not sin. We’ve

all heard people call certain things sin that God never called sin.

Over time, man-made traditions crept into the church and started carrying the same weight as God’s commands. Where do

we see that? Mark 7, the washing of the hands.

Sin isn’t defined by church culture or denominational opinion. It’s defined by Torah.

And let me just make this emphatic statement.

If it isn’t a violation of Torah, it ain’t sin.

Now that will ruffle a lot of dispensational feathers and it does.

We had just looked at in the previous slide what John’s definition of sin was.

Sin was lawlessness is lawlessness. Where do you find the law but the Torah?

Right? My son is over here laughing. I know this is very basic for some of you, but it’s not going to be for everybody.

And that’s why I want to make sure we we we define terms. If it’s not a violation of Torah, it ain’t sin. What did Paul say in Romans 7?

I would not have known sin except through the law.

Okay, so this isn’t Ed Doss’s opinion. This is Paul’s opinion.

he wouldn’t have known sin except through the law. And of course, there’s our verse in in 1 John 3 that says sin is lawlessness.

So, let’s briefly talk about the things that the church has called sin, but is not sin according to the Torah.

Okay? Dancing.

When I first became a member of my church back in 1988, we were a small group. Glenn and Joan

Garrison were just married. And we had a small singles/campus ministry, five or 10 people, maybe a

little a few more. And we weren’t allowed to dance with one another. Now, that slowly changed over time, but initially there was no dancing. Why?

Well, because it’s lustful, right? And that that exists in a lot of churches today, especially Baptist

churches. You’re not allowed to dance for that very reason. It’s a sin that they’ve created that the Torah

actually doesn’t say anything about drinking alcohol.

Now, when I say drinking alcohol, some groups won’t touch alcohol, period, because it’s from the devil. Other

groups will drink wine because it’s in the Bible. Jesus drunk wine, but they won’t drink hard liquor or beer. Right?

So, that’s something that they’ve called a sin that the Bible is actually silent on.

Missing church Sundays and Wednesdays, if you’re, you know, in the Christian church, it’s a sin to miss worship on Sunday.

It’s a sin to miss worship on Wednesday.

It’s a sin to miss whatever quote unquote meeting of the body they have created. That’s something that does not

exist in Torah working on Sunday. They have called a sin before. Caffeine.

I know there’s a lot of groups including the Mormons who will not have caffeine as Glenn here sitting sipping on his

coffee. And while I’m talking I’m going to sip on mine. But there are some groups who think that caffeine is a sin

when the scripture, the Torah says nothing of it. Tobacco is the same. Have you ever wondered why so many rabbis andic Jews smoke?

Well, it’s because the scripture actually doesn’t. The Torah does not forbid it.

Gambling is another one thing that the church has called sin, but it is not in the Bible.

tattoos.

Wait a minute, Dad. Leviticus 19. No, Leviticus 19 forbids being tattooed for the dead.

Not tattoos as a general rule of thumb.

Okay? So, I’m just trying to make things clear as to what the Torah actually says and doesn’t say. Makeup and jewelry.

Paul has some words about modesty in the New Testament, but in the Torah, there

is no specific instruction about makeup and jewelry. Now, I know that some of you are automatically going

to be thinking about Enoch here, the book of Enoch.

And the reason I know you’re thinking that is because in the book of Enoch, it says that these fallen angels in Genesis

6 introduced makeup to women and jewelry to adorn themselves to women.

Okay, that’s fine. If that’s the stance you want to take, if you want to if you want to hold Enoch as divine cannon,

then you can you can go there. I certainly don’t. And I think you all know my position on that. It’s not in Torah.

Here we go. Contraception not addressed in Torah.

How about this one?

Yeah. I’m not going to say it. We’re not going to focus on it. We’re not going to camp on it.

But this has become a sin in church when the Torah is silent on it.

Same thing with divorce. 1 Corinthians 6.

All things are lawful for me, but not all things are helpful.

All things are lawful, but I will not be brought under the power of any.

Okay, so this is Paul’s commentary on the quote unquote freedom that we have in Torah.

And you should consider this wisdom when looking at that list. Now,

for the sake of covering my uh bases, let’s put it that way.

I am not condoning the practice of the things listed above.

I’m not saying, “Oh, yeah, you’re free to go and do all that stuff.

I’m not telling you that. These things simply aren’t mentioned in Torah directly.” The argument could be made that it

indirectly talks about these things in some verses. Okay, we can look at that.

But we have to let the Bible define sin and not us.

We can’t define sin. When Paul says, “I will not be brought under the power of any,” he means even in things that are lawful.

things like food, things like marriage, things like freedom or possessions.

I will not let any of them become my master.

It is a Torah based ethic of disciplined liberty. What do I mean by that? Lawful does not equal beneficial.

Permitted does not equal profitable.

And free does not mean you are not enslaved by these things

or can be enslaved by these things. We have to let the Bible teach what the

Bible teaches and us be silent. I hope I’m not losing anybody here, but I

wanted to look at this from the exact opposite side of the coin.

Chapter 6: Practical applications of Torah

Let’s talk about things that actually are in the Torah. Torah, but most people don’t even realize it. Here’s one.

Prompt payment of wages. Leviticus 19:13. How is this um unfolded? Well, delaying paychecks. I have employees.

And as a rule of thumb in my business, I will never ever never pay myself before I pay my employees.

Even if that means there’s nothing left for me at the end of the week.

I will never not pay what my employees are due.

I will never underpay what they are due.

If my employees get tips and they’re unaware of it because I took the payment

and the customer said, “Oh, here’s an extra hundred bucks for the fellas.” I don’t just take that 100 bucks and fill my pocket.

I make sure it goes to the fellas because it’s Torah.

And the same thing with tips. In the world that we live in, the waitresses and waiters, their payment is tips. We

think it’s just extra. Sometimes we make the mistake of thinking, “Oh, it’s just fluff on top of their already awesome salary.”

Well, one, they don’t have an awesome salary.

And two, it’s not. The tip is a very important thing. I never withhold those because of Torah.

What else? Number two, how about rising before the elderly?

Leviticus 19, self-explanatory. Did you know that?

Did you know in Torah it says to rise before your elders? To rise before the gay-headed. That’s why I stand up every time Glenn walks in the door.

Oh, yeah.

Uh, it’s all it’s the reason I st I stand up every time my mother-in-law walks in the door or anybody that’s

elderly because of Torah, respecting property boundaries in Deuteronomy 19.

Things like altering survey lines, stealing intellectual property, or digital plagiarism. That’s huge

in our world. We honor it because we’re obeying Torah. How about returning lost property?

How many of you have found money, a lost wallet, or had a package delivered at your house by Amazon that actually belonged to your neighbor? This is Torah.

And as those of us who are are trying to obey Torah, these things need to matter to us. We don’t keep lost things or

found money. We don’t get a bonus just because someone delivered a package to me that wasn’t doesn’t belong. Oh, look

at this. Yes, I got a new toaster when it actually belongs to my neighbor across the street, but we didn’t tell him.

That’s sin.

And we obey those things because of Torah. What about showing impartial justice? You shall not show partiality

to the poor, nor honor the person of the mighty. That’s a direct quote from Leviticus 19. Man, how many times we have violated that in our life, right?

We we tend to show partiality to the person with the most money, with the person with the most influence, with the

most pull and do the opposite with the person who is on the opposite side of that scale.

This is Torah. And it actually is sin. And a lot of people don’t realize it.

And here’s a big one. gossip, idol talk, sharing rumors,

defaming people or or shaming people incorrectly or ungod in like an ungodly way on social media. Gosh,

this the whole world is guilty of that sin.

So, these are things that we can actually see in Torah that actually are considered to be sin when the rest of

the world doesn’t even know it. And maybe some people in this very room may not know it.

Let’s continue. We’re having fun on this topic, aren’t we, Glenn?

Chapter 7: The nature of temptation

What about Galatians 5? My wife has asked this. She asked this in a discussion that we had over the weekend on sin.

We’ve looked at Galatians 5 19 through 21, I believe it is, um, several times and several different lessons. It’s a

it’s one of Paul’s lists of sins. He’s got a couple of them.

What we have to realize when we look at Galatians 5 and verses like them in the New Testament is these are not new sins that Paul is inventing.

Every single one of the sins mentioned in Galatians 5 can be found in Torah.

And some of the sins have been redefined based on the translator or the publisher. We looked at the word unclean

that Paul uses in the original Greek uh has been changed to impurity.

And from impurity that’s where we get things like lust, pornography, masturbation that you know that the church uses.

They’ve they’ve used that word impurity improperly when it actually means to be biblically unclean.

But the bigger point about Galatians 5 is that every sin that you see in the

New Testament has its anchor, its lineage from Torah. There is no such

thing as invented sin or things the New Testament calls sin that the Torah does not call sin. Okay, let’s look at this.

Its desire is for you. Genesis 4. If you do not do well, sin lies at the door and

its desire is for you, but you should rule over it. How can we understand this? How can we better understand what

Moses is saying here in Genesis 4 when he says its desire is for you? How can

we explain that, Glenn? Number two, uh what comes to mind is when uh Peter was going to refuse to let Christ wash

his feet and Christ looked at him and said, “Get behind me, Satan.” Okay. Yeah. All right. That’s smart. How about you, David?

It sounds like it it’s sin is maybe it’s uh self focus. It’s something that you are thinking for your own benefit, if you will.

Something that you desire.

Yeah. Yeah. It’s always going to be coming after you. My wife said, and you know, it’s a strange verse to be sure.

Its desire is for you. Who’s the it?

Well, sin. So, he’s saying that sin’s desire is for you. But how how can what’s the best way to understand this is we always let scripture interpret scripture. It’s in the previous chapter.

In chapter 3 and verse 16, it says, “To the woman, he said, I will greatly multiply your sorrow and your

conception. In pain, you shall bring forth child birth or child uh child children. Your desire shall be for your

husband, and he shall rule over you.” H it’s the same language. Mhm.

Now, a lot of people, we look at Genesis 3:16, we go, “Oh, that desire must be that she’s he’s talking about a woman’s

romantic desire or sexual desire will be for her husband. It’s not.

This is a part of the curse that the women received for their part

of the fall, right? Painful childbirth.” And this desire shall be for her husband isn’t romance. It’s control.

And you can see the language is the same. Sin, its desire is for you, but you should rule over it.

Her desire is for him, but he shall rule you. It’s the same phrasiology. It’s the same language.

So that’s how we let scripture define scripture. The identical wording shows us the same principle.

In both verses, desire represents a drive to influence and or control.

After the fall, the woman’s natural partnership with the man becomes a tension of power.

Likewise, after sin entered the world, man’s natural harmony with his own moral nature became a tension of will.

The flesh began to crave mastery over the spirit, something that we call the sinful

nature. And we’re going to look at that a little bit more in a second.

Just as the woman’s desire turned toward controlling the man, what was once cooperative,

humanity’s inner alignment with God’s command became adversarial.

Okay? So if that’s true, then its desire is for you is meant to convey.

Its desire is to control you. Its desire is to influence you,

but you should rule over it. Now, before we go into Paul’s thoughts in Galatians 5,

we have to talk about that because there’s a lot of people who simply do not believe that we can rule

over sin, that we are somehow at its mercy.

when way back in Genesis, he’s telling Cain that he has the ability

to rule over it. But supporting everything that we’re talking here on this slide is Paul’s words in Galatians

5\. The flesh lusts against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh. and

these are contrary to one another so that you do not do the things that you wish. So there in in that verse we can

see that as much as we have the power to control there’s going to be times when we

actually do the things that we don’t wish to do. James supports it in J in in

chapter one of his letter when he says each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed.

Then when desire desire has conceived it gives birth to sin and sin when it’s

fullrown brings forth death. Now, an interesting way to look at some of these

verses now that we’ve defined what sin is is to replace the word sin with its definition.

So, when we look at James 1 in the second sentence, then when desire has conceived, it gives birth to lawlessness.

And lawlessness when it’s full grown brings forth death.

And that’s what we saw in the garden.

Adam and Hava or Eve, their fullgrown lawlessness brought them death.

So both Galatians and James follow the same pattern that we see introduced in Genesis 4.

Temptation arises. It seeks control. It seeks dominion.

But righteousness or our goal of righteousness

demands that we somehow master i.e. rule

over sin, which we’re going to see involves self-governance

through obedience.

Are we all following along here? Because we’re going to get into some real fun stuff here in the next slide.

Chapter 8: Interpreting Romans 7

The Hebrew phrase, David literally means you must rule over it.

The verb mashall means to quote have dominion, to govern, and to exercise control.

So Genesis 4 is saying all of this, have dominion, govern, exercise control. I

asked the question, does that sound anything like this?

No, it does not. Sin is control.

For the good that I will to do or the good that I want to do, I don’t do the evil I will not to do that I practice.

They appear to be opposing teaching.

if we’re following the traditional understanding of Romans 7.

Now, we all shared, I think Glenn shared, and I think Sky shared about Romans 7

being one of those verses. How did you put it, Glenn? What’s Paul hiding here? Right. Is that what you said? I was wanting to know what’s he hiding.

Yeah. Yeah. Because these two verses, they don’t sound they don’t they don’t sound like they belong together. You can’t say in Genesis 4 that we’re

supposed to have dominion over to govern and to exercise control over sin and then read all of Romans 7 and walk away feeling the same thing.

And I think it’s because we’ve misread Romans 7.

I’m not sure that I necessarily think that they’re opposing. I think that the expectation is for us to rule it. I think Paul is is very realistic on who

we are as human beings and saying I really want to do this. He says there later on what I desire to do in my mind

right I don’t end up doing right so his desire is to control it to please God to

follow the law but his flesh is weak and that’s where then he puts him says you

know what a wretched man I am right and that’s where then he puts he’s saying I can’t do this on my own I need Jesus so I think he’s just being he he’s he’s

explaining yes I am totally aware aware of God’s expectation of us to follow his to follow his law. I really want to do

that but I am a sinful wretched man and unfortunately I’m not able always

successful in doing that and thank God that you know Jesus that God provided Jesus to cover over my shortcomings and my shortfalls.

Yes, without question. When you get to the end of that section in Romans 7, he

asks the question, “Who can save me from this body of death? What a wretched man I am. Thanks be to Christ Jesus.” Right?

And we can all relate to that conclusion without a shadow of a doubt. 100%.

And we are all grateful for that conclusion without a shadow of a doubt.

Amen. Why do I think we’re misreading Romans 7?

A lot of Christian teaching completely accepts the perceived failures of Romans

7 as an inevitable condition of the believer’s heart. This kind of teaching makes it sound like we’re helpless

against sin and that grace is just there to cover our failures.

But Paul wasn’t describing a spiritfilled believer in Romans 7.

He was showing what it’s like to live under the law without the power of the spirit.

I was alive once without the law.

Okay. But when the commandment came, sin revived and I died.

Why did sin happen as a result of the commandment?

Because once someone says you can’t do something, that’s what you do.

When my son was a toddler or my daughters were a toddler, the first time I said they can’t do something,

their heart, the moral decay in their human heart, that’s the one thing they wanted to do.

My youngest daughter, I would say, “Stop touching your brother.” And she’d get her hand all the way up to

his face almost in defiance. She’s not touching him, but boy, she’s trying.

Okay, that’s how sin is revived as a result of the commandment. But Paul’s

talking about something that I I think we miss. Paul isn’t talking about the spiritfilled believer here. He is

showing the futility of trying to please God through obedience without the spirit.

He’s using himself as an example to demonstrate the conflict of someone who knows what’s

right but lacks the power to do it, lacks the power to accomplish it.

He’s not trying to describe the normal life of a believer, but to expose the weakness of the flesh

and point the reader toward the ultimate solution which he goes into in Romans 8,

the victory and freedom that comes from the indwelling Holy Spirit.

Amen. So Romans 7 isn’t there to teach you believer in Christ that you have no hope against sin.

He’s there to show us what these religious Jews were trying to accomplish.

They were trying to accomplish their righteousness through obedience. And Paul is trying to say, “You cannot do it.

You have to have the spirit to accomplish these goals.

So it’s it’s our it’s important for us to have a right understanding of Romans 7,

Chapter 9: Corruption versus original sin

the sinful nature. We talked on it a moment ago. It’s important to note that the words sinful nature are not found in

your Bible. That’s an important thing to understand. Okay. So how do we explain something that we all seem to know so

much about but has no origin in the scripture by word by by definition I should say

even though it’s not in the Bible we do after Adam’s fall see in scripture a

fundamental corruption of human nature not a change in human design

but in human disposition toward God. Now before I go any further,

I want to make sure I make this disclaimer.

I am not talking about the doctrine of original sin, which I happen to strongly disagree with.

The doctrine of original sin asserts inherited guilt from Adam or quote unquote being born in sin.

I do not believe that humans are born sinful.

However, humanity didn’t inherit Adam’s sin. We inherited a fallen

condition, corruption, and more uh mortality.

Each person becomes guilty by their own transgression. In Ezekiel 18, the soul

who sins is the soul who shall die, and the son shall not bear the guilt of

the father, nor the father bear the guilt of the son.

So, Cain was not born a sinner because of Adam’s sin. What he did inherit was corruption.

and mortality, the ability to sin. So corrupted flesh

automatically equals hostility with Yah.

In Genesis 21:17, it says, “In the day that you shall eat of it, you shall surely die.” We know that Adam’s

physical death, I have a typo there. Adam’s physical death would happen later, but his

spiritual death or his separation from God or hostility with God occurred immediately.

How do we know that? Well, in Genesis 3, what do we see? We see that when the Lord was walking in the garden in the

cool of the day after they fell, the Bible says they hid themselves from the presence of the Lord.

Adam says, “I was afraid, so I hid myself.”

Before sin, there was fellowship with Adam, not fear.

After sin, he felt dread, shame, and no reverence.

Adam’s fear arose from guilt and self-conscious exposure and not holy respect.

Now for the first time he viewed Yah as a threat and that is the sinful nature.

The best way I can explain it is at this very moment I’m sitting here teaching my

lesson. I have a 75 pound labradoodle with her face on my lap.

And when she goes outside, there’s certain things that she does because it’s her flesh, her instinct that tells her to do them.

When she sees a squirrel, her instinct is to immediately chase it. It’s just within her, okay? To chase something that runs from her. That’s her instinct.

In our human flesh, we have a very similar drive. Because of the fall, we

have this instinctual corrupted tendency to rebel, to do something that we’re not

supposed to do. So, what is the nature of the sinful nature? Well, in Genesis, Genesis again, it says, “The Lord said

in his heart, I will never again curse the ground for man’s sake. Although the imagination of man’s heart is evil from

his youth. Notice it didn’t say birth because original sin, the doctrine of original sin wants you to believe that

you’re sinful at birth. Doesn’t say that.

Says the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth. None are born in sin, but all are born separated from

God, possessing the same inward tendency to rebel.

Romans 7:18, Paul says, going back to Romans again, 7, I know that in me, that

is in my flesh, nothing good dwells. So in your flesh, nothing good dwells. In

your flesh, as we saw in Galatians, that flesh lush against the spirit. The flesh

used in Galatians 5, Sarkcs can be interpreted is interpreted in the

Greek as the fallen human nature that lusts against the spirit. So Paul

is explaining the postfall condition of redeemed humanity.

The spirit has re-entered the human life, but the corrupted flesh still remains. The two are in continual

opposition until you are freed from the body of death. The believer’s job is not to destroy the flesh by human effort,

but to submit to the spirit so that desires of the flesh are overruled. And this is what I wanted to end on, guys. I

wanted us to understand sin, what it is, what it isn’t. I wanted us to understand the nature of the sinful nature, what it is.

But I also wanted to us to understand this whole idea of submitting to the spirit so that the desires of the flesh can be overruled.

Chapter 10: Walking in the spirit

Here’s a question that I had so many times in the course of my walk or especially in my early days in my

early Christian days. We see things about walking in the spirit in the scripture.

We see things about submitting to the spirit in scripture, but man, what in the world does that mean?

I don’t know about you, but I’ve asked these questions.

What does h how does one quote unquote submit to the spirit? How does one walk in the spirit? Entire denominations have been created on that verse.

charismatic type denominations.

But is that the truth? Is is that what it means to walk in the spirit? And I want you to understand what it means to

walk in the spirit. And the answer is this. Be blameless.

What Ed? What are you talking about? Be blameless. How can I be blameless?

Many people today dismiss the call to live blameless lives because they mistakenly equate

blamelessness with sinlessness.

Scripture, however, never presents blamelessness as moral perfection, but as wholehearted devotion before God.

It means being free from accusation because you walk in obedience and repentance.

Think about it.

Noah, Abraham, Daniel, Job, David, Assa,

Paul, Zachcharias, and Elizabeth, elders, and the elect

are all either called blameless in scripture or are being called to be

blameless in scripture in the course of their lives.

Why can’t we can we can we live what could be called a

blameless life if inspected by an outsider?

Now, if we’re inspected by God Almighty, we are not blameless because he knows the intents of our

heart. He knows the secrets. He knows the smallest of errors. But as it

pertains to our life amongst others, can we be blameless?

Blameless in Hebrews, tamim, it portrays men and women whose lives exhibit moral wholeness before God and man, before God

and neighbor. It does not mean faultless. It does not mean sinless.

Again, in case you’re wondering, there’s only one who fits that category, and that would be our Lord Yeshua.

But can we be blameless? How does blamelessness and walking in the spirit? Because remember, that’s that’s the question we’re asking.

How do I walk in the spirit? How does blamelessness and walking in the spirit connect to each other from a purely biblical standpoint?

To walk in the spirit means to live according to the mind and instruction of

God that his spirit imparts. What does that mean? Romans 8,

for those who live according to the flesh have set their minds on the things of the flesh.

But those who live according to the spirit, that’s the question we’re trying to answer,

the things of the spirit. How does one live with their minds set on things of the spirit?

Any thoughts on that, Glenn? Number two or David? If Paul says what he says in Romans 8, the question is in conjunction

with the question I’ve already asked about walking in the spirit. How does one set their mind on things of the spirit?

Practice. Okay. Practice and stay in the word. Practice. You get better and better. Yeah. Yeah.

Repentance.

Okay. Amen. David, you said stay in the word.

Stay in the word. Okay. Well, let’s look at this from a biblical standpoint.

The spirit and the spirit alone writes God’s laws on the heart.

Jeremiah 31 said, “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts

and causes a person to obey them.

I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and you

will keep my judgments and do them.” So connect the dots.

Paul says, “The person who lives according to the spirit is the person

who has his mind and his heart set on things of the spirit. The only way that

you can have those things set on the spirit is if the spirit puts them there

and then you have the desire to walk in that spirit.” So to be blameless

means that one’s actions align with the inner instruction that we just looked at in Jeremiah and Ezekiel.

Whole, upright, and without deviation from God’s commands. And believe it or not, this is attainable.

Otherwise, it would not be commanded.

If God commands that we be blameless, after all, what did Yeshua say? Be

perfect as I am perfect. Then we have to believe that it’s attainable.

That we can be blameless, that we can have our minds and our hearts set on things of the spirit.

Otherwise, it would not be commanded.

He’s not going to set us up and make us fail.

Walking in the spirit is the process. And I love the way Glenn number two just put it. It’s running the race.

It’s making mistakes. It’s trusting in repentance.

It’s believing in the one who’s called you and pursuing blamelessness.

Walking in the spirit is the process.

Being blameless is the condition it ultimately produces. And that’s the thing I love about my faith more than

anything else. I mean, aside from the fact that my soul is saved, what I love about my faith more than anything else

is how much I learn and grow and build upon the foundation of the previous lesson.

It’s like I love the process of maturation.

I love knowing that this time last year I knew a whole lot less than I know now.

Glenn walked in this morning and sat down and said, “Man, I’ve been studying Sukkot all week. I have learned so much

about Sukkot that I never knew before.” And Glenn’s been Torah pursuant for 56

years, which means what? He’s still learning.

He’s still a child at heart.

He’s still learning what it means to walk in the spirit and to be blameless.

It’s a process that we chase and we never stop chasing.

But anyway, that’s the lesson.

And I’m thankful that you guys stuck around and listened to that. I’m sure we have questions. I’m sure we have comments.

I’m dying to hear them. Um, let’s start with Robert from Florida. You’re going to have to unmute yourself, Robert.

Hey, Ed. Thanks. U thanks. I think it’s a great lesson. And u I just wanted to touch on some things uh about the

garden. Um uh it it their sin started with doubt. They they doubted God’s word

and then the desire because she saw the fruit that it was good and then they became defiant to to God which um while

you were teaching made me think about what John talked about the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh and the pride of life which were their sins in

the garden which were also the same temptations that Yeshua had in the wilderness.

They failed in the garden. Yeshua didn’t fail. He defeated he defeated the enemy

with with the word of God. And I I just, you know, I just like kind of was putting that together as as you were talking. I thought it was a great lesson though.

Um and I appreciate I appreciate y’all having me here. Thanks. Thanks, Robert. Appreciate you, brother. Okay, Michael Gman.

Thank you. Really valuable lesson. uh especially I’m really gleaning from the definition given about um blamelessness.

I hadn’t realized some of those points.

I I I I wrote it down so I’m going to review it. So u I can’t even re repeat it right now but I know who that was

new. So, but uh one of the things that came up because I I’ve been really relishing um like the the door of

liberty in Romans 6 and 7. How that you know we can exchange

like our sin nature for our quote unquote heaven nature every day. That’s

what taking our cross, taking up our cross means. We can exchange. So now,

okay, we’re not calling it sin nature. I have a question about that. But it’s like it’s a glorious thing. If I reckon myself, like Paul said, dead to sin,

dead to the world, dead to the dominion of darkness every morning. If I reckon myself by faith in that, I have a

glorious death. I’m baptized into that death uh of Jesus, you know, and alive. Then

that’s the door to being alive to the faith life.

So this is uh Romans 6 and7 has been like a just like a a secret liberty that

I take hold of somehow. But um what do we do w with this statement about we

don’t have a we don’t have original sin if we remember Psalm 51 where David says

I was born in sin my or is it my mother conceived me in sin was that what was

said that’s yes he says I was conceived in sin I almost shared that verse so he’s not saying I was born in sin I

don’t just remember no so if We if we look at I didn’t I’m sorry I wasn’t sure if you were asking a question or not. When you look at

David’s words about being uh conceived in sin and then you look at Ezekiel’s words about being only the man who sins

is the one who dies. Um and then you see in the garden that death happened as a

result of sin. Then you can’t you have to you have to unify them. Which which

one is right? Right. So from a from a purely logical perspective,

Michael, how would you feel if you were standing in front of a traffic court judge

and he’s saying you’re you’re you’re guilty before the even the case was even made, right?

What do you mean I’m guilty? I I find you guilty. Well, we haven’t had a trial. I I there’s no accuser. Uh guilty. Sorry. Well, I’m guilty of what?

What did I do? I said you’re guilty.

From a logical perspective, that just doesn’t register, right?

And that’s what the doctrine of original sin wants us to accept.

The doctrine of original sin wants us to accept that we are born guilty.

Well, if that’s the case, then so many other scripture is wrong or that is wrong. One of the two are wrong, right?

When when David says a lot of the things he says, a lot of it’s hyperbolic. Uhhuh.

Because he’s David, right? He’s passionate. He’s emotional.

And I think that’s why so much of his writings are in scripture because it expresses these emotional truths about God. But I don’t think David meant to

say that he was a sinner at birth. He was conceived by a sinful woman and a sinful man,

therefore conceived in sin. But it doesn’t mean that he was born in sin. Does that make sense? Can I can I make that any clearer?

forward if you disagree with me, you know, by all means share your thoughts. I really go ahead, Michael.

I really welcome that as a a added aspect of like the liberty we have and when I communicate like when I witness

to people so to say I will no longer say we’re born in s

we’re all born use that word innocent but we have a corrupted uh corrupted how did you say it corrupted nature.

Mhm. corrupted uh setup uh instincts. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Thank you.

Oh, you’re welcome. Thanks for your comment, Michael. It’s always great to have you. Brother Barnes is in the house.

That’s right. I’m in the tabernacle. Shabbat shalom. Shalom. Shabbat shalom.

I’m going to say something I think that a lot of people may find controversial and that is desire is not sin.

And I think one of the the the key things to pick up on what David was saying in that psalm is that he was conceived in sin. He he didn’t say I was conceived with sin.

There’s a difference.

Now what what was he actually talking about? What was he referring to? I mean, we can have discussions around that. You call what David said hyper hyperbolic.

There’s some truth to that, but I want to say it’s more parabolic because scripture is parallel. And when you are

not trying to walk in the ways of Yhovah and you’re not trying to obey, you miss

out on the spirit that informs you through your humility and your seeking

to obey. So the so we’re born with desire. The question is where do we

train our desire? Do we do we align our desire with the father or do we choose

to be self-willed and fulfill our own desires? He gives us the choice.

The question is what will we choose? It’s placed before us life or death. What tree do we wish to eat from?

Um, you know, the one thing I will say is that the the the problem with the Pharisees, and the Pharisees had a lot

of issues, but a lot of that was born out of the fact that while in the captivity in Babylon,

while dispersed, while scattered, there was the need to try and get back into the ways of Yhovah.

And that’s where you get the Mishnas. That’s where you get the takeno.

Because when you’re not in a land and you have to deal with the imposition of

the the laws and the the chains of a captive nation, you’re trying to do the

best that you can do. The issue was that once they were back in the land, they didn’t try to go back to the original meaning and the understanding.

They decided that we are going to be that um that rule

and we’re going to continue to apply our guard rails as opposed to following in the true ways of Yhovah and going back

to the original understandings. And that is what Yeshua restored.

not deviating to the left or to the right, but walking a narrow path straight way and not adding additional

baggage and and the yoke of men to our burdens.

And that’s what it was. And you see the equivalence of that with the idea that

as opposed to understanding that obedience is better than sacrifice, we’re going to place the emphasis on the

ritual in order to seek atonement.

So it it it no longer becomes about repentance. It’s about who’s bringing the fattest bull to be slaughtered in order to show that they’re sorry.

And this is where you get the practices of the faithful indulgences that you see with the Catholic Church.

All you got to do is is, you know, give a substantial donation to to a cardinal

to give to the pope to submit to the church and you can go ahead and get wild and do anything you basically want to

1. And that shows a misalignment of desire.

So the idea is to seek to obey, to make it our desire to obey.

And you ask, okay, well, how does this mesh with the fact that we’re going to fail? Because the Apostle John, Apostle

Johann said, he who says he’s without sin is a liar and the truth is not in him.

Right? Because yes, we are going to er we’re going to fail. But it’s about our

desire to do right. So when you truly repent, that means you are not only sorry for

what you did, but you’re seeking to atone for it and to straighten up your walk.

And that’s what it’s really about. When Paul says, and I I’ll end with this.

when Paul says talks about um you know the whole idea of

not being subject to to the law and that all things are

lawful that whole piece I think what he means is and you can you can connect this with what he states I believe in

Galatians when he talks about the fruit of the spirit if you’re walking and you’re producing the fruit of the spirit.

There’s no law against that because you’re walking the law. You’re doing those things that

obey the two great commandments and all that hangs upon them. Thank you for allowing me to share. Shabbat shalom.

Well, amen, brother. Anytime. Glenn number two wants to make a quick response and then we’ll hear from Jasper and brother Snow.

Yeah. What I was going to throw in here is just an overview of the whole subject today.

We we know that Satan is right now the prince of the power of the air. He’s the god of this world. And that is the world

that we are born into. And so we’re born with antennas that are absolutely tuned into Satan’s wavelengths.

And you know, we you you can’t get away with it. Now to bring it into uh what

we’re celebrating now, the feast of tabernacles, that is a time when Satan is removed.

And so the prince of the power of the air, those broadcast are absolutely gone. And that matches up with the uh

the scriptures that talk about uh a time in the future when God will give us take away the stony heart and give us a heart of flesh.

Well, what what did we have before Satan uh entered the picture? We had a heart of flesh. And then after he entered the

picture and became the god of this world, then we’re born with a stony heart.

But um you know, once you enter into the uh the new covenant, then uh that stony heart

is changed to uh where God writes his laws in our hearts and our minds. M

uh but until that until u we enter into the new covenant relationship with Jehovah

it’s it’s you know it’s really a battle that can’t be won. Okay, brother Jasper.

Sister Jasper. Oh, Sister Jasper. Sorry.

That’s all right. I I am looking at John chapter 8

uh about the woman who was caught in adultery.

The scribes and the Pharisees took took her to the Messiah

and they said to him, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery.” No.

They were able to bring this person.

We’re having a hard time hearing me now.

Jasper, you’re not hearing me.

Yeah, I can hear you now. I couldn’t hear you before.

So, do I need to repeat what I was saying? Yes, please. Okay.

The scribes and the Pharisees took a woman to Yeshua

claiming she was caught in the act of adultery. Mhm.

And they refer to the Torah that Moshe wrote

that a woman should be stoned if she’s caught in such an act.

Mhm. But they they were asking Messiah, “What then do you say?”

And funny enough, I don’t know what Messiah was writing on the ground,

but they kept on pressing on him to give an answer. And what did he say?

He said those of you who have not sinned, you cast the first stone and they were not able to.

One by one they dropped the stone that they were ready to destroy this woman’s life because she

was caught in an act of adultery. But who was she committing this adultery with?

So it I I always ponder on this because if you caught a woman in adultery, in

the act of adultery, it had to be someone that she was committing this act with.

So these Pharisees and these scribes being members of the Sanhedrin,

they thought that they were above the very law that you the very law.

Excuse me, please.

Yes. So they were ready to to um stone the woman.

Why?

Where is the person she committed the act with?

Yeah, that whole that whole interaction is a curious one, isn’t it, Jasper?

Because of what you stated. Uh the Torah provides u specific instruction on

handle how to handle a situation like that. They were not following the Torah and how they handled the situation. Um,

as as you noted, and what were they writing in the sand? H well,

Yeshua was always obeying Torah, wasn’t he? Uh, in Jeremiah 17, it says that the

names of those who departed the truth, their names would be written in the sand. So, I’m willing to bet that Yeshua

was down there writing their names in the sand. Um, that’s just my hunch. But thank you, Jasper. Okay, brother Snow.

And then we’ll go to Emily and then we’re going to probably have to wrap up here pretty soon because we’re running long. Go ahead, Tim.

Okay. I uh Can you hear me? Okay. Yes.

Okay. I I was excited that you covered um this lesson specifically at the end.

you you said, “How do we submit to the spirit?” And uh I I had that on my mind all week. Uh I was in conversations with

some other people to try to talk about this. But I, you know, I got to thinking because there’s there’s misconceptions.

So people think, well, I you know, I just I just worship and I I worship in the spirit or I meaning sing. Uh you know, that there’s a lot of different

ideas. But I I went back to the scripture and I I realized like Romans Romans 89, you know, it says if if you are if

you’re in the realm of the spirit, if you have the spirit, then you’re in the spirit. Um but you know, Galatians 5:16

I was looking at it says you have to walk by it. You got to have to, you know, keep your mind on it. Um Galatians 5:25 says you have to keep in step with

1. Um, and then I was reminded I saw Ephesians 6:10 that it says um when

we’re when we’re battling or when to put on the full armor of God, it says that the that the the sword of the spirit is the word of God. Like David had

previously mentioned uh when you cover that point, just to use the word of God as the spirit’s weapon, I find fascinating.

And I say all this just to say I’m just trying to incorporate more of this in in my life and in you know and just to to really really really understand. I think

it’s so, you know, we just think, oh, I’m just going to I’m in the spirit. This is nebulous uh this nebulous thing.

And I don’t think it’s nebulous. So anyway, plus it’s in I’m encouraged to to know that I’m no longer in the realm of the flesh. Praise God. Amen. That’s all I want to say.

Amen. Thank you, Tim. Yeah. Hence my comment at the beginning. There’s so many rabbit holes you could chase on this topic and we just didn’t have time

to cover them, but your comments are helping. Uh Emily, last comment. Give us give us a thought.

Yes, I’ll be very quick cuz I know it’s gone long. Um so just at the very beginning where you were discussing um

Genesis 3:3 with Eve um um speaking with the serpent and how you you know you um

pulled out the verse and talked about how she added perhaps about not touching. And so

um the verse says God has said you shall not eat from it or touch it or else you will die. Um that word touch um is the

Hebrew naga and it doesn’t necessarily I guess from what I’ve studied mean to actually physically touch it. It can

also mean just draw near or join yourself unto.

Um the 2 Corinthians 6:17 says therefore come out from among them and be separate

and do not touch what is unclean and I will receive you. And so I guess that verse kind of reminds me, you know, how do we separate ourselves from being

tempted and just even just, you know, the act of drawing near or joining ourselves unto unclean things. Not sure

if that’s related to that verse, but I just thought I would throw it out there.

Related or not, it’s awesome a thought and a great verse to share, and I’m I’m very grateful that you do. Um, okay guys. Well, listen. Great time together.

I hope and pray that you have a a wonderful Shabbat today and the rest of

your SEO celebrations go well. We will be gathering on Tuesday night for the

final holy convocation of the year, that being the sacred assembly.

Um, so I’ll send out a link for that. um probably sometime over the weekend. And um any other thoughts? Glenn number two.

Okay, guys. Listen, have a great weekend. Love you all. Thank you for your wisdom, your thoughts, your input, and most of all for sitting around listening to this old guy for an hour.

Shabbat shalom. Shalom. Shabbat. Thank you.