8/24/05 & 8/28/05 - “When Grace Becomes Disgrace– Part 3”
Victory Ministries International presents:
Awesome Truths and Amazing Facts  
Treasures of awesome truths from God’s Word 
and facts that affect you!

Hello!  This is Richard Vaughn

Today’s subject – “When Grace Becomes Disgrace– Part 3”

Before we begin today’s program, shall we reverently seek God’s presence. Heavenly Father we ask for divine guidance as we open the word and continue to study this subject of Your grace and how modern Christians unaware, have turned it into disgrace. In Jesus name Amen.

I continue to keep my pledge to lift up my voice like a trumpet and to show God’s people where they are going against God’s Will.

Last week we cleared up a lot of confusion regarding the law. We found out that there are two laws, God’s moral Ten Commandment law and the handwritten Law of Moses.
We were able to show in Colossians 2:14, where it reads, “Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing to his cross.” 
We knew this to be Moses’ law, because it says it was the “handwritten.”  The Bible told us that Moses law was done with the “handwriting of ordinances.” There are no ordinances in the Ten Commandments. Ordinances are, according to the dictionary: “Requirements regarding religious festivals, feasts and sacrificial offerings.”  
Moses’ law had that in it!  It says, “... that was against us.”  Whose law did we specifically read was against the people God’s or Moses’?  Moses’ law.  And it says, “... took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross.”  
That’s why verses 15 and 16 read as they do.  “And having spoiled principalities and powers, he (Jesus) made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it. 
Let no man therefore judge ye in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday (feasts), or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days: which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ.” 
These are shadowy Sabbaths— they pointed forward as a shadow does to that which is the reality. Christ and the cross. Now these shadowy Sabbaths are not to be confused with the weekly Sabbath of the 4th commandment, which is a weekly memorial and points us back to creation.
Whose law dealt with meat and drink offerings, and assorted ceremonial sabbath days, and all those other requirements?  God’s or Moses’?  Moses’ law!  Then whose law was nailed to the cross and done away with?  Moses’!    That’s crystal clear.  
Now with that background, this next text becomes so simple.  Ephesians 2:15.   Let’s let it explain itself.   “Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained (in what?) in ordinances.” Whose law contained ordinances?  God’s or Moses’?  Moses’.  
Then that’s the law that was abolished by Jesus’ death on the cross. And, quite frankly, I’m very thankful I don’t have to carry out those ceremonial rituals anymore – the slaying of the innocent lambs and so on.  You are going to see how Jesus totally fulfilled the ceremonial aspects of Moses’ law, by His first coming.  
We’ll take it step by step.  First of all, in Moses’ law, you were required to celebrate Passover. When Jesus came to this earth, they had already been celebrating Passover for many years. That’s why it surprised the people so much when Jesus came down to the river Jordan and John finally announced, “Behold, the lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world.”  
The Jews had been sacrificing Passover lambs for hundreds of years, and their faith was in literal lambs, rituals and in sacrifices. At Passover time, there were thousands of lambs being sacrificed in Jerusalem.  And when it came time in Jesus’ life to celebrate the Passover for the last time, He told His disciples “Go prepare for the passover,” (Luke 22:12).  And they knew exactly what to do.  They had celebrated several Passover’s before with Jesus. Their mothers, fathers, grandparents, great grandparents, and beyond had all celebrated the Passover for many centuries. But when they got to the upper room, they noticed that this Passover was different for Jesus said, “For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.” (Matthew 26:28)  And Jesus went out to Calvary and was crucified on the day of Passover according to Moses’ law and became the Passover Lamb.  
When Jesus died, the Bible tells us that the powers of heaven moved immediately and came straight down to that sanctuary in Jerusalem where everybody was gathered together and split that veil in the temple wide open from the top to the bottom, exposing the Most Holy Place.  The people were horrified because no man but the high priest was to ever look into the Most Holy Place, and the high priest only on the Day of Atonement.  But now there it was—open in front of all the people, and they knew God had moved. 
If a man would have torn that veil, he would have torn it from the bottom to the top, but this was of God.  He tore it from the top to the bottom, and folks, it is recorded the lamb was never sacrificed in Jerusalem that night because the true Lamb of God was out on Calvary. Jesus died fulfilling ALL these sacrifices, and He nailed Passover to the cross.  That’s why you don’t have to celebrate it anymore.
1 Corinthians 5:7     
It’s a beautiful passage.  “Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened.  For even Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us.” 
That’s why Jesus in the New Testament is called the “lamb that was slain,” because He the antitype, fulfilled the type of the Passover lamb.   I’m so glad He did.  Wouldn’t it be terrible if every time you sinned you had to get a little lamb, and put it on an altar, and confess your sins, and cut its throat and sprinkle blood, and pour blood, and burn blood ... I’m so glad tonight we plead the blood (death) of Jesus Christ!—the One sacrifice for all.
We read in Hebrews 9:8-10 “The Holy Ghost this signifying, that the way into the holiest of all was not yet made manifest, while as the first tabernacle was yet standing: Which was a figure for the time then present, in which were offered both gifts and sacrifices, that could not make him that did the service perfect, as pertaining to the conscience; Which stood only in meats and drinks,and divers washings, and carnal ordinances, imposed on them until the time of reformation.”  
Hebrews 9:11 “But Christ being come an high priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building;”  
Hebrews 9:12 “Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us.”  
We claim Jesus’ blood once and for all, through His sacrificial death for us.  He was the true Passover lamb.  He abolished that ceremony in His death, and you don’t have to keep it anymore.  
Another holy day in Moses’ ceremonial law that you were required to keep every year was the Wave sheaf offering. (Lev.23:10-12). That always came the third day, following Passover. Think about it very carefully.  Jesus died on Passover, and Jesus rose on the third day.  Isn’t that right?  Have you ever wondered about that?  Why didn’t Jesus die Friday and rise Saturday?   He knew Moses’ law, and He knew that He had to fulfill the type that was given in Moses’ law.  Moses’ law was the type.  Christ was the fulfillment, or the Great Anti-type.  
       1 Corinthians 15:3,4   “For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures;	
                   And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures:” So Jesus chose purposely to rise on the day of the wave sheaf offering in Moses’ law.  Why? 
In Ancient Israel’s time, on this ceremonial day, they would go out in the field, and they would cut some of the grain that were ripening there.  That was the “first fruits” of the harvest.  They would take this grain into the temple and wave it before the altar to symbolize their faith in God as the Provider.  And because the “first fruits” were already gathered into the sanctuary, they looked with promise towards a bountiful harvest in the near future.  
Jesus died on Passover.   He rose on the day of the wave sheaf offering.  And the Bible tells us when Mary came to Him, He said, “Don’t touch me, Mary, because I have not yet ascended to my Father.”  But that day, Jesus went to heaven and He presented Himself to the Father as the first fruits of the righteous that died and shall rise again.  Let’s read this beautiful truth in our Bibles.
1 Corinthians 15:20-23 All these events in Moses’ law, called types or shadows, just pointed forward to Jesus and what He was going to do.  We find this beautiful typology or symbolism in Jesus given by Paul. “But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the (what?) firstfruits of them that slept.  For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.  But every man in his own order:  Christ the firstfruits; (the earnest, the promise) afterward they that are Christ’s (when?) at his coming.” In other words, Jesus, when He fulfilled the wave sheaf offering, presented Himself as the firstfruits of the harvest. 
And we know “the harvest is the end of the world;”  Matthew 13:39
When Jesus fulfilled this part of Moses’ law, the wave sheaf, He also left us an assurance or promise.   All of us have loved ones, fathers, mothers, husbands, wives, and children, who have passed away, and we miss them, and long to be with them.   We long to be reunited with those we love, and Jesus has given us the assurance that we can be, in that He died, and rose again. 
And since Jesus, the first fruits is already in heaven in the sanctuary and Christ has presented Himself there, we know there’s also going to be a great harvest of redeemed souls someday.   Jesus is going to come again and the resurrection is going to take place and all those that died in the Lord are going to come forth.
Revelation 14:14-16. 
 “And I looked, and behold a white cloud, and upon the cloud one sat like unto the Son of man, having on his head a golden crown, and in his hand a sharp sickle.  And another angel came out of the temple, crying with a loud voice to him that sat on the cloud, Thrust in thy sickle, and reap: for the time is come for thee to reap; for the harvest of the earth is ripe. And he that sat on the cloud thrust in his sickle on the earth; and the earth was reaped.”
Jesus is the firstfruits, and there’s going to be a harvest as He reaps all the faithful dead that die in the Lord.  Jesus then, nailed the wave sheaf offering to the old rugged cross, type met its anti-type, and you don’t have to keep that in Moses’ law anymore.

Well the clock on the wall says time is up, so be listening next week as we continue studying the awesome truths in God’s word, our subject, “When Grace Becomes Disgrace– Part 4”. 

Until next week, Jesus said in John 5:39, “Search the Scriptures, for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me”. Even so, Come Lord Jesus.