FOUR WAYS

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FOUR WAYS

• OF SETTING ASIDE GOD'S LAW

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SETTING ASIDE GOD'S LAW

• The Bible contains God's law.
• As long as man lives in harmony with that law, he
  pleases God.
• When he violates that law, he sins.
• Sin is the transgression of law, or lawlessness.

3
1 John 34

• Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the
  law for sin is the transgression of the law.
  (KJV)
• Whoever commits sin also commits lawlessness, and
  sin is lawlessness. (NKJV)

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SETTING ASIDE GOD'S LAW

• The Bible contains God's law.
• As long as man lives in harmony with that law, he
  pleases God.
• When he violates that law, he sins.
• Sin is the transgression of law, or lawlessness.
• The Bible is plain as to the penalty assessed for
  sin.

5
Ezekiel 1820

• The soul who sins shall die. The son shall not
  bear the guilt of the father, nor the father bear
  the guilt of the son. The righteousness of the
  righteous shall be upon himself, and the
  wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself.

6
Romans 623

• For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of
  God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

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SETTING ASIDE GOD'S LAW

• Let us study how God's law was set aside in olden
  times.
• The Old Testament - which was "written for our
  learning" - contains many examples of this.
• God's law was set aside in four ways.
• Deliberate Sins
• Sins of Neglect
• Sins of Substitution
• Sins of Deluded Hearts

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DELIBERATE SINS

• And the fire on the altar shall be kept burning
  on it it shall not be put out. And the priest
  shall burn wood on it every morning, and lay the
  burnt offering in order on it and he shall burn
  on it the fat of the peace offerings. (Lev. 612)
• With this prohibition before them, it would be a
  deliberate sin for the priests to put out the
  fire.
• It would be to sin with full knowledge of the law
  and its penalty.

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DELIBERATE SINS

• This is also seen under the New Testament.
• Baptism is a condition of salvation.
• He who believes and is baptized will be saved
  but he who does not believe will be condemned.
  (Mark 1616)
• You see then that a man is justified by works,
  and not by faith only. (James 224)
• To teach the doctrine of "faith only" - which
  sets aside baptism as a condition of pardon - is
  to deliberately set aside God's word.

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SIN OF NEGLECT

• A fire shall always be burning on the altar it
  shall never go out. (Lev. 613)
• To neglect the fire and let it die would be a
  sin.
• Carelessly permitting the fire to go out would be
  as surely sinful as deliberately putting the fire
  out.

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SIN OF NEGLECT

• Therefore, to him who knows to do good and does
  not do it, to him it is sin. (James 417)
• So many today know their duty but keep neglecting
  and putting it off.
• If the sins and the transgressions of the Old
  Testament were punished,
• How shall we escape if we neglect...? (Heb. 23)

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SINS OF SUBSTITUTION

• This is committed by those who thought something
  else was just as good.
• To substitute their ways for God's was a terrible
  sin.

15
SINS OF SUBSTITUTION

• Notice a case in Leviticus 101-2.
• Then Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, each
  took his censer and put fire in it, put incense
  on it, and offered profane fire before the Lord,
  which He had not commanded them. So fire went out
  from the Lord and devoured them, and they died
  before the Lord.

16
SINS OF SUBSTITUTION

• These two priests offered fire which God had not
  commanded, and which, therefore, was "strange
  fire."
• Physical death was the penalty.

17
SINS OF SUBSTITUTION

• This case serves to condemn all other
  substitutions which men have introduced.
• That which Jehovah has not authorized is sinful
  even though it may not be expressly prohibited.
• The absence of authority to do a thing makes the
  doing of that thing wrong just as surely as if
  there was a prohibition against doing it.

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SINS OF SUBSTITUTION

• God's law relative to music in worship is found
  in the New Testament.
• Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all
  wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in
  psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing
  with grace in your hearts to the Lord. (Col.
  316).
• To use some other kind of music would be to offer
  that which God commanded not, and, therefore,
  "strange music."

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SINS OF DELUDED HEARTS

• In this, the offender thought he was doing right.
  God's law was set aside in ignorance.
• A case to illustrate in 1 Kings 13, the young
  prophet.
• He thought he was doing God's bidding, but was
  told
• "Thou hast disobeyed the command" (V.21).

21
1 Kings 131-2

• And behold, a man of God went from Judah to
  Bethel by the word of the Lord, and Jeroboam
  stood by the altar to burn incense. Then he cried
  out against the altar by the word of the Lord,
  and said, "O altar, altar! Thus says the Lord
  'Behold, a child, Josiah by name, shall be born
  to the house of David and on you he shall
  sacrifice the priests of the high places who burn
  incense on you, and men's bones shall be burned
  on you.'"

22
1 Kings 133-4

• And he gave a sign the same day, saying, "This is
  the sign which the Lord has spoken Surely the
  altar shall split apart, and the ashes on it
  shall be poured out." So it came to pass when
  King Jeroboam heard the saying of the man of God,
  who cried out against the altar in Bethel, that
  he stretched out his hand from the altar, saying,
  "Arrest him!" Then his hand, which he stretched
  out toward him, withered, so that he could not
  pull it back to himself.

23
1 Kings 135-6

• The altar also was split apart, and the ashes
  poured out from the altar, according to the sign
  which the man of God had given by the word of the
  Lord. Then the king answered and said to the man
  of God, "Please entreat the favor of the Lord
  your God, and pray for me, that my hand may be
  restored to me." So the man of God entreated the
  Lord, and the king's hand was restored to him,
  and became as before.

24
1 Kings 137-9

• Then the king said to the man of God, "Come home
  with me and refresh yourself, and I will give you
  a reward." But the man of God said to the king,
  "If you were to give me half your house, I would
  not go in with you nor would I eat bread nor
  drink water in this place. For so it was
  commanded me by the word of the Lord, saying,
  'You shall not eat bread, nor drink water, nor
  return by the same way you came.'"

25
1 Kings 1310-12

• So he went another way and did not return by the
  way he came to Bethel. Now an old prophet dwelt
  in Bethel, and his sons came and told him all the
  works that the man of God had done that day in
  Bethel they also told their father the words
  which he had spoken to the king. And their father
  said to them, "Which way did he go?" For his sons
  had seen which way the man of God went who came
  from Judah.

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1 Kings 1313-16

• Then he said to his sons, "Saddle the donkey for
  me." So they saddled the donkey for him and he
  rode on it, and went after the man of God, and
  found him sitting under an oak. Then he said to
  him, "Are you the man of God who came from
  Judah?" And he said, "I am." Then he said to him,
  "Come home with me and eat bread." And he said,
  "I cannot return with you nor go in with you
  neither can I eat bread nor drink water with you
  in this place.

27
1 Kings 1317-19

• "For I have been told by the word of the Lord,
  'You shall not eat bread nor drink water there,
  nor return by going the way you came.' " He said
  to him, "I too am a prophet as you are, and an
  angel spoke to me by the word of the Lord,
  saying, 'Bring him back with you to your house,
  that he may eat bread and drink water.' " (He was
  lying to him.) So he went back with him, and ate
  bread in his house, and drank water.

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1 Kings 1320-21

• Now it happened, as they sat at the table, that
  the word of the Lord came to the prophet who had
  brought him back and he cried out to the man of
  God who came from Judah, saying, "Thus says the
  Lord 'Because you have disobeyed the word of the
  Lord, and have not kept the commandment which the
  Lord your God commanded you,

29
1 Kings 1322-24

• but you came back, ate bread, and drank water in
  the place of which the Lord said to you, "Eat no
  bread and drink no water," your corpse shall not
  come to the tomb of your fathers.' " So it was,
  after he had eaten bread and after he had drunk,
  that he saddled the donkey for him, the prophet
  whom he had brought back. When he was gone, a
  lion met him on the road and killed him. And his
  corpse was thrown on the road, and the donkey
  stood by it. The lion also stood by the corpse.

30
1 Kings 1325-26

• And there, men passed by and saw the corpse
  thrown on the road, and the lion standing by the
  corpse. Then they went and told it in the city
  where the old prophet dwelt. Now when the prophet
  who had brought him back from the way heard it,
  he said, "It is the man of God who was
  disobedient to the word of the Lord. Therefore
  the Lord has delivered him to the lion, which has
  torn him and killed him, according to the word of
  the Lord which He spoke to him."

31
1 Kings 1327-30

• And he spoke to his sons, saying, "Saddle the
  donkey for me." So they saddled it. Then he went
  and found his corpse thrown on the road, and the
  donkey and the lion standing by the corpse. The
  lion had not eaten the corpse nor torn the
  donkey. And the prophet took up the corpse of the
  man of God, laid it on the donkey, and brought it
  back. So the old prophet came to the city to
  mourn, and to bury him. Then he laid the corpse
  in his own tomb and they mourned over him,
  saying, "Alas, my brother!"

32
1 Kings 1331-32

• So it was, after he had buried him, that he spoke
  to his sons, saying, "When I am dead, then bury
  me in the tomb where the man of God is buried
  lay my bones beside his bones. For the saying
  which he cried out by the word of the Lord
  against the altar in Bethel, and against all the
  shrines on the high places which are in the
  cities of Samaria, will surely come to pass."

33
1 Kings 1333-34

• After this event Jeroboam did not turn from his
  evil way, but again he made priests from every
  class of people for the high places whoever
  wished, he consecrated him, and he became one of
  the priests of the high places. And this thing
  was the sin of the house of Jeroboam, so as to
  exterminate and destroy it from the face of the
  earth.

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SINS OF DELUDED HEARTS

• Let us modernize this case.
• Suppose God had told the young prophet to
  believe, repent, confess and be baptized.
• The world ridicules but he believes his friends
  chide but he repents he is offered power and
  position if he will deny the Lord but he
  confesses he makes preparation to be baptized.

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SINS OF DELUDED HEARTS

• But he meets an old prophet who tells him it is
  not essential.
• He believes what he is told and fails to obey.
• God does not punish instantly as He did then, and
  He does not punish in the same way.
• But if He punished every transgression then, how
  can we hope to escape?

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SINS OF DELUDED HEARTS

• Many are traveling ways that seem right.
• There is a way that seems right to a man, But its
  end is the way of death. (Prov. 1412)
• God has appointed a day of judgment.
• Truly, these times of ignorance God over-looked,
  but now commands all men everywhere to repent,
  because He has appointed a day on which He will
  judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom
  He has ordained. He has given assurance of this
  to all by raising Him from the dead."

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Conclusion

• These things were written for our learning.
• Our blessings and opportunities are much greater
  than were theirs.
• If they could not sin with impunity, neither can
  we.
• We should take heed lest we fall "after the same
  example of unbelief." (Hebrew 411).