Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Glad to see everybody here tonight. Those still a few gathering in. I guess they didn't read Ezekiel. But anyway, glad everyone's here. We had a. For those of you online, you missed a great night of fellowship. I didn't take a picture. I should have. We had a full house of hamburgers and hot dogs and root beer floats and, you know, Mac and cheese and potato chips and barbecue beans. They were great. And one good thing after another. It was all wonderful. And to top it off, we have musicians here tonight, which means we can sing. Kevin speaking. Been great having you and your family here. Why don't you. What do you want to do? Lead us in some congregational singing and let's do it. And we've got a pianist, too. Lou is here. I've been trying all week to get Lou to move here. Jane, you could come too, but take it away here. 499 victory in Jesus. You can stand up with me because we definitely can't sing the next song standing. Sitting down. You'll see why in a minute. But victory in Jesus. I heard an old story. How a savior came from glory. How he gave his life on Calvary to save a wretch like me. Hash turn about his woeing of his precious blood untold. Hash. And I repentant of my sins and won the victory. O victory in Jesus, my savior forever. He saw me and he bought me with his redeeming glory. He loved me and I knew him. And all my love is to him. He punched me to victory, gave me the cleansing blood. I heard about his healing. I heard about his healing of his cleansing power, revealing how he made the lame to walk again and cause the blind to see. And then I cried to Jesus, come and heal my broken spirit. And somehow Jesus came and brought to me the victory for victory. Jesus, my savior forever. He loved me, I knew him. And all my love is to me. He punched me to victory beneath the cleansing throne. All right. While you're standing once you stay standing for. Stand up for Jesus. That's 657 in your hymnal. 126. For us that are a different book. Here. Stand up, stand up for Jesus. Stand up, stand up for Jesus. Ye soldiers of the cross. If I is royal banner. It must not suffer, Lord, from victory unto victory his army shall be lead till every bo is vanquished and Christ is Lord indeed. Stand up, stand up for Jesus. Stand in his strength alone. The arm of flesh will fill where duty calls your danger be never wanting them last. Stand up, stand up for Jesus. A strife will not be long this day. The noise of battle connects your soul to him and overcome. And the crown of life shall be with the king of glory shall reign eternally. Amen. That was good singing. Let's have a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, thanks for an opportunity to worship. To have a song leader and a pianist. And the blessing that that is. And just the sweet fellowship here of this place. And we ask this in Jesus name. Amen. You may be seated. It was good to have Jeannie tonight after her fall last week. She's looking pretty good, isn't she? And glad for that. Good to have each one of you. And glad to have our guests with us. Kaylee. It's first time. Thank you for being here tonight, Kaylee. She is here for the University of New Mexico studying art. Kaylee, I cannot tell you how many times you see, on Sunday sermons we show art up here. That goes with the sermon. And too many times I have to say, no artist has ever painted this. Do you do that kind of art? Depending on what it is, maybe I could do. You paint then. Good enough. Good enough. Or you could do sculptures if you want. Or, I don't know, you can finger. I'll send the commission to you. The art commission for finger painting. There we go. Glad you're here. Kayleigh and Lou and Jane. Glad you're here. Headed back tomorrow. And the peapols are headed back. Is it tomorrow, too? Friday. Friday. It's been good having you for this very short time. But they'll be back in September and so all that'll be good. And the Zander family plus. Plus, it's been good to have you as well, you know, before. I'm gonna have them come and sing a special. But first, a little bit of an announcement. I've been busy writing books. These have just come out almost. I'm going to have them in Branson for those at our Branson conference. And you won't be able to get them until after that. But. Shadows of the coming king. A journey through biblical prophecy. We go through Old Testament prophecies about the Messiah and it's already a best seller. The Davidic Chronicles, volume one. Hey, most of you have sat through those sermons. Here they are in book form up through when David became king in Jerusalem. Now that was back a couple months ago for where we are, but it is in book form and I. Oh, look at this. The gospel according to Mark, volume one. Because we're living volume two. We'll get to chapter twelve tonight. This one just goes through chapter eight. We have the watchman's cry. That was a Wednesday night study at 1.2. The book of Habakkuk. Verse by verse. It is there and ready to go. How about this one? Tracing Cain. Some of you were here while I taught. Tracing Cain, studying the lineage of Cain through the biblical narrative. That was fun in book form. Now we've got Paul's epistle to the Romans. Volumes one and two are out. I only have volume one right here, but it's out. And that one's incidental. But there they are, the new books, plus one. Maybe there's another one. I can't remember all these new books. I've been saving them up and now they are in print and ready to go. You can get them in Branson and then after that you can get them here. And the family, the Xanders, plus. Plus who have been staying here, they helped me out. When was it? Tuesday morning. These are hot off the press. They said, hey, we'll help you publish books. I said, I'll give you ten minutes of a lesson and it's all yours. And so I gave them ten minutes of a lesson about that, right? And said, you do this, you do this. You do this, you do this, you do this. There it is. And look what happened. They did these books. Every one of these books they have touched. And so, Kevin, I'm giving this set to you as a. You can put that on your shelf and say, I published that book, except the ones that messed up. I didn't do this. That's why this one was here, because this is not actually one I wrote, but it's a good one. The teacher's guide to the book of Revelation, volume three by Lee Alstrom. But I can't sell it because they messed it up. So I'm sticking that in the stack also. Yeah, that's right. I don't know how many books you made the other day, do you? Hundred, somewhere like that. It was. It was nice. I came out of ask the theologian and boom, there they all. It was all done. So they're coming back every Tuesday. Thanks. Thanks for that and for. For your. Your companionship here this week, too. It's been a blessing. The fellowship and the music. God bless you. Why don't your family come and sing before we have Bible study? Finding your. Finding your hymnals there. 625. And we'll just do it a capella, because that's what you guys are used to around here, right? A little acapella. I will sing of the mercies. Everybody there. I will sing of the mercies. Of the Lord forever I will sing I will sing I will sing of the mercies of the Lord forever I will sing of the mercies of the Lord. With my mouth will I make known thy faithfulness thy faithfulness with my mouth will I make known hash. Thy faithfulness to all generations. Hash I will sing of the mercies of the Lord forever I will sing I will sing I will sing of the mercies of the Lord forever. I will sing of the mercies of the Lord. Amen. This song is about his faithfulness. I hope it's his joy. Tonight, morning by morning I wake up to find the power and comfort I watch in my face in all of the mystery of his birthday all I am his hand will provide to he's always been thankful to me. I can't remember a trial or a pain he did not recycle to bringing me gain I can remember single regret in serving God only and trusting his hand my hand needle his hand will provide he's always been faithful to hash me great is thy faithfulness o God my father there is no shadow up turning in thee thou changest but thy compassions they fail not as thou hast been thou forever will be. This is my anthem. This is my song. The theme of the stories I've heard for so long. God has been faithful he will be again his loving compassion, it goes nowhere. Oh, I am need of his hand will provide he's always been faithful he's always been faithful he's always been faithful to me. Amen. God bless you. And indeed, that is what he has been. Let's turn to mark the 12th chapter tonight for our study. There's some handouts in the back there. Those of you online have those available as well. And we're going to look at verses 28 through 34 of mark the 12th chapter. As we have been walking through. It says here we're in our 48th time of walking through. And we'll take a look. You remember that we're in the last week of Jesus life. They are staying in Bethany, going into town every day. And on this particular day, probably Tuesday, but the day of the week doesn't completely matter. They encounter a lot of the religious leadership which is strongly against Jesus. And so there's a group of scribes and elders that come to him and ask about John the Baptist. And to make a long story short, he says, I ain't answering you. That was a good study, wasn't it? And then he hits what? Oh, then he gives a parable about the scribes and the Pharisees and they knew exactly who he was talking about them. And then another one comes up, or the Sadducees come up and they talk about something they don't believe in. They ask a question to trap him about the resurrection. And then after that, there is, I believe some Pharisees and Herodians come up. I may have those out of order, but some Pharisees and Herodians come up. They ask him a question about, you know, should we pay tribute or not? Should we pay taxes or nothing? And on all of those, I will say he was. Jesus was either. Is evasive the right word? It sounds kind of negative, but with those who ask, is John the Baptist of heaven? Is he from heaven? He didn't answer them. So we'll go with evasive on that in a positive sense. To those who. To the sadducees who asked about resurrection, he was blunt. He said, you're wrong. If you knew the scriptures, you'd know the answer. So let's put. If it was on CNN, Jesus, in answering questions, was evasive and rude. There we go. He's evasive and rude so far. And then on the Pharisees, on the question about paying tribute. And, you know, and it gives the answer up there about what give to Caesar the things that are Caesars and God the things that are gods. That's a. As we talked about, I think that was last week. That's somewhat of a non answer. It's. It's quotable. You know, you can put it on the bumper sticker, but it's a little bit obvious. If it's Caesar's, give it to Caesar's. If it's gods, give it to gods. Doesnt get into any. It doesnt. It doesnt say enough to be able to trap him. And thats what they wanted to do. Now we come to this one and things change a little bit. It says one of the scribes. Weve come full circles because. Full circle. Because we had some of the scribes at the beginning. But this is one of the scribes came and mark 1228. Having heard them reasoning together and perceiving that he, Jesus, had answered them. Well, now I want to talk about that before we even get into the question. Just from this point, it looks to me like it's saying, this guy's different than all of the others. You remember? You remember. Did you have Sesame street in Ireland? No. Okay. We in the United States used to have this song. It had four things here. And it said, one of these things is not like the other. You remember that, don't you? And you had to pick which one was not like the other. This is the one, guys, right here. Okay? I should have had you sing that song. And can you play that song? Okay, no, we'll skip it. But this guy looks different. All of the others, there is some indication, usually it's explicit. Other times you can just tell through the tone of the deal that they are coming to trick him and to trap him. So we know it up front. This one, it says he's a scribe. We're immediately thinking he's coming. Here comes the next one to trick him or trap him. But it says of this one scribe here that he heard them reasoning together. He was sitting back listening and saying, hmm, there's something different here. And perceiving he had answered them well, as he thinks about it, he says, I am not so sure that this stream of thought of my fellow scribes is right. I think Jesus might be saying the right thing. So perceiving that he had answered them well, he asked which is the first commandment of all. Now let me tell you a little bit about that word first. It is in Greek, it's the word protoss. We get things like prototype and some of those proto words that have to do with first, there are two ways you can use it. You can use it in the sense of first chronologically, or you can use it in the terms of first in terms of priority. If you want to look at an interesting place where it's used both ways very in one verse after another, Paul says, I am the chief of sinners. Remember that? First Timothy, chapter one, verse 15. I am the chief of sinners. That is the word protos. And that's a, depending on how you take it as it's translated. Chief there, okay, that's the, there's a priority here that we're talking about. Not that he was the very first sinner in original sin. He didn't do the original sin, the protoss sin, the very first sin. So it's much more of a priority kind of issue. And then he says, so that Christ in me first, there, it's translated first. It's the same word protos in me first. And then he talks about becoming the pattern, the Pauline pattern, that you come by grace, through faith, outside of the law, outside of the covenants of Israel. And he started this thing that we call a proprietary program. Right, but that's 15 is protoss chief. 16 one Timothy, chapter one is protoss first. So you can use it both ways here because I've already read the answer, and you probably have, too. First is not talking about chronologically. This is not the first commandment that was ever given, but this is the priority commandment. So which is the first commandment of all? Might I add that Jesus, just as a reminder, Jesus is a minister of the circumcision, confirming the promises to the father. Jesus is under the law, living under the law. There's not been a freedom under the law. So it's important to know. Hey, in the prioritization of commandments, which one should we put first? Now, Jesus answered him. Ah, just like that. Jesus answered him, all of the others. Again, Jesus replied back with a question. Or Jesus said, well, if you'd have read, you'd know. Or Jesus sort of, again, gave, gave a non answer. Here. Again, we sense this is different. Jesus answered him. I think Jesus knows, I know that you would rather answer a question from somebody who is honest in their question and honest in their heart as they come. They're not, they're not trying to trick anybody or pull the wool over anybody eyes. And so Jesus obviously knows this. And so Jesus answered them. He said, the first, the protoss, we'll make that priority. The first of all commandments is right here. Hear, o Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord. That is a quote from Deuteronomy, chapter six, verse four. It is called. Many of you perhaps know this. Our jewish friends across the street would call it the Shema. Shema. And the reason is, the word here in Hebrew is Shema. And so still to this day, and I am convinced in Jesus's day also, because we've got enough evidence from Josephus, who lived just shortly after the time of Jesus, and from the Mishnah, which is about 200 BC, excuse me, 200 AD, but it's giving oral history that has been a long time. Jewish people then and now would recite the Shema twice a day, morning and evening. They would start the day, they would end the day. And I put it for you on your outline, if you would like to see it in Hebrew. But there it is transliterated, Shema Israel Adonai Elanahu, Adonai Echad. If you have been around any jewish people, you may have heard them say that often in a morning prayer, they will say that Jama Israel, you know, and the rest of it, and it's this right here. Hear, o Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord. Now, in other words, that was foundational for the jewish people. They would begin their day with that. They would start their day with that. And Jesus is confirming, yeah, this is the most important commandment. But so far, we don't really have a commandment, do we? The Lord our God is one, is what it says there in Deuteronomy, chapter six, verse four. And it goes on verses four through six, and then going on into verse 30. This is actually a quote from. What is it? Deuteronomy, chapter eleven, verses 13 through 21. This actually is just verse 13 that he quotes. And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy mind, and with all thy strength. This is the first commandment. Now he puts two things together and says, this singular is the first commandment. But that would be not unusual, again, for a modern hasidic Jew or an ancient first century Jew, or probably even going well before that, because as part of their daily recitation or their daily prayers, they would put these two together and they would recite. They would recite the whole thing. Deuteronomy six, four, six, and deuteronomy eleven. Whatever those verses are on your outline there, they would recite the entire thing. This is the first piece of both of that that would come together. And so the command there, thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy mind, with all thy strength. This is the first commandment. Or that's where the quote ends. And he says, this is the first commandment. Now then, not only does he answer by explaining what the first commandment is, but he goes on. But before we do that, I do want to add one more thing. The Deuteronomy passage. This Deuteronomy passage, 1113 through 21. That is also the passage that talks about binding them on your arms and on your foreheads. And then they would also quote at the same time the numbers 15, passage 37 through 41. You can go check that out. Jesus did not mention that here, but I think in everyone's mind, these three things went together. Really. It was, if you want to think about it in a logical sense, the way it went is we've got one lord, and so we should love him with all that we are. And the numbers 15 passage had to do with, have you seen an orthodox jew walking around and they have strings hanging out, two strings on the front and two strings on the back. You'll see it. If you see the rabbi across the street coming out of the Chabad house, or if you go to someplace where there's an orthodox jew, they will often have that, whether they're a rabbi or a worker even, you will see sometimes just in business attire, like I've got, and yet they'll have a t shirt under, and they'll have those hanging out. It comes from that numbers passage that has to do with the. It's a symbol of the commandments. So they put all this together to say, this is the first commandment. But don't forget, it's not the only one. All those strings are a reminder. They're knotted in certain ways, so that there's actually 613 reminders there. If you went into it with all of the way, they have enumerated the commandments. And some of that is more rabbinical than biblical, but it starts out in numbers, chapter 15. Now, so that's his answer. But he doesn't stop there. He even goes on and elaborates or adds to the answer when he says, and the second. Now, the other guys basically didn't even get an answer to their question, and this guy gets an answer. Plus, he only asked, what's the greatest commandment? And Jesus told him. And now he says, let me add to that. You want another one? I'll give you the second. And he quotes from the Book of Leviticus. The second is like, namely this, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these. Here's the two. They are the greatest two commandments in that order. Now, it makes pretty good sense, doesn't it? Pretty logical sense. Love the Lord your God with everything you got, and then love your neighbor as yourself, and you've got this. Now, Jesus says, I want you to note. Jesus says what? There is none other commandment. What? Greater. Greater is what kind of a word? I. This is your grammar class. It's. Well, it's an adjective, I believe. Or is it an adverb adjective? And it's a comparative adjective. Greater than, less than, or equal to. Right. That word right there reminds us that this right here cannot stand on its own. There is none other commandment. We're going to see in a moment that some people, I think, take this the wrong way and say, that is the. That's the whole of the commandments. It's not what Jesus says. He says, there is none other commandment greater than these. There are some other commandments, of course, but they are not greater than these. And so we see, again, a generosity of response. Now, I'll probably speak to this at the end, but let me go ahead and say we could spend time looking at those two commandments, but my guess is on a Wednesday night, here for the advanced class. We don't need to. As a matter of fact, if we were in the beginner's class, I don't think we would need to because you can pretty well figure out love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind and love your neighbor as yourself. That doesn't take. We don't have to parse it out. We don't have to look into the Hebrew and figure everything out and get all. You know, it's pretty self explanatory in what it is. Maybe not so simple to do, but it's plenty self explanatory. And so I'm not going to spend time looking at it. But I do want to go on to the scribe's response. The scribe said unto him, well, master, now we might not talk quite like that today. Well, is an adverb. I remember that. How are you all doing tonight? Good. I'm glad. You're doing very well. One of the reasons I remember that well is an adverb is because after I graduated with all my distinguished degrees, I kept using good when I should have used well. And Misses Covington was in our church. And Misses Covington said, I don't mean to be a grammar Nazi. Can you guess the next word? But you don't do good. You do well. Well, is an adverb. There you go. Do you have that, Jack? Okay, take notes. Yes. Okay. It's the same in Ireland. So Shelly told me not to pick on you anymore. I know. Anyway, well, that's the way he answered. In other words, I agree with you. Yes, exactly. Amen. We might say, well, master, thou hast said the truth. It goes with said. And we would even say today what? Well said. So he comes out and says, well said. And then he says, for there is. The scribe is saying this, there is one God and there is none other. But he. Okay. No surprise there, really. That's what we. It's obviously what Jesus said. It's what we expect the scribe to believe because the scribes are amazing students of the word. Honestly. I mean, they know what the Bible says better than anyone else, I would suspect. And so. Yeah, and I have no doubt that the scribes would sit around when they were not scribing. They would talk about the word and say, hey, you know, what do you think? Which is the greatest commandment would have these discussions? And I'm sure they would have answered exactly the same way. So you come in here and again he gives this response in verse 32. And he says, hey, well said. There is one God, but there is none and there is none other. But he. Now, I want to point out just a little bit of a textual issue. You probably know that there are two underlying texts to the greek scriptures. There is what's called the textus receptus, which the King James is built upon. And there is the critical text, which is the one the professors made. And the critical text actually removes this word right here, God. So it says here, we'll put it in red in all the other versions, which every modern version is built upon, other than new King James built upon. The critical text says something like, there is well said. There is one and there is no other. But he. Now you'll hear it said, there's no doctrinal issues at all between the various translations. They all say the same thing, they just say it in different words. Some of them are more easy to understand than others, but there's no doctrinal difference. Now on this one, I will say, okay, as long as you read it in the right mindset. There's no doctrinal difference here because we're talking about God. The context is goddesse. There is none other but he. Who else are we talking about? The problem is that really does open up a door that you can go a long way if you just want to be a believer in the divine, okay? There is a singular divine out there, a singular even being. He just out there. I think that in removing that word, and I am convinced that God was not the one behind finagling with all the text there, that it was more satan than it was God. And so in getting that out of there, it just gives an opportunity for somebody to go through. And I can promise you, if you will go do a little searching out there, you will find the person who went through it. I didn't do the searching. But there are so many people who want to discredit the Bible and discredit God and discredit a singular being that is God that has expressed himself in time and space. They want to get away from that so much that they will do it. And an unsuspecting person who hears this taught wrong would say, oh, well, yeah, you know, that is what the Bible says. It's not. The Jews take it this way, but we could take it this other way. And so it really does open up a wild door there. But we've got the Texas receptor, so there is one God. You can't. I learned a new word a few weeks ago when I was learning about the US Constitution. Constitution, you're supposed to say, I'm glad, pastor, you're learning about the US Constitution. It was in an audiobook and I woke up to it because I fell asleep and. And I thought, I've got to use that word. And Thomas Jefferson coined the word, according to the book, anyway. Thomas Jefferson coined the word and it was about the misuse of the constitution. And his word was twistifications. Twistifications. Lots of twistifications. He said, now, when you state it like this, there is one God. There's no way to do any twistifying. It is what it is. It's solid. You can't go anywhere with it. I like that. So there is one God. Now the scribe is continuing to talk in verse 30 33. Let me back up here. There's one God, none other, but he. He's repeating after Jesus, basically, or paraphrasing what Jesus said. And the scribe says to love him with all the heart, with all the understanding, with all the soul, and with all the strength, and to love his neighbor as himself. So same thing. Then we get into this little phrase right here at the verse end of verse 33. And I'm going to highlight that. And we want to spend a little bit of time like that. So he says, that package, the greatest commandment and the second, that package is more than all what? Whole burnt offerings and sacrifices. I wanted you to read it because I didn't want you to read it wrong. Lee. Wrongly read it. Wrongly read it wrong. Incorrectly read it. It would be so easy here to read that is greater than the whole of all the sacrifices. But that's not what it says. It says it is more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices. Now guess what? Go to the book of Leviticus and we could study this. There are burnt offerings and sacrifices that are not whole. There are whole ones and there are partial ones. May be a surprise to you to know that the vast majority of sacrifices were not a whole sacrifice. Even a sin sacrifice was a burnt offering. But when you brought your sin sacrifice, let's say it's a lamb, and you bring your lamb to the temple as the sin sacrifice, as you're supposed to do as a jew in. I think it's Leviticus, chapter five, but it's definitely one through five in there. When you bring your sacrifice as a jew, your sin sacrifice and lay it to the. To the priest's feet, they take it, they take out the insides and they put the insides, the guts onto the altar. And that is burned up. What do they do with the rest of it? Eat it. It's their food. That's what they do with it. It's nothing burned up in the offering. It's part of eating. There's other offerings. There's a fellowship offering that you can bring in. A fellowship or a peace offering is actually what it's called in bringing a peace offering. When you bring it, let's say you bring a lamb. Again, that particular offering, it is eaten also. But guess what? You eat it too. It's the only one that you also eat. You sit down with the priest and you have, you know, Israel night at the church potluck supper. And we should do that. How did we miss getting Israel music? And we'll add it addendum. But anyway, here it says it's more than all whole burnt offerings. Now the reason that is important is because we. Because we live in the dispensation of the grace of God and we're not under the law, we're not under commandments. It's so easy for us to read our dispensation back to them and say, look, you satisfied all the demands of the law if you'll just love God and love others. That's the heart of it. That's not what this guy says. And when you look in Matthew, Mark and Luke as well, it's not what it says. But guess what? That word, whole burnt offerings, it's a singular greek word that takes three english words to get out. Whole burnt offerings. But it's about that many letters, if you look it up. I might have put it on the outline there. Whole burnt offering. There are some of the translations. Nasby is one of them. And I've got formerly Nasby stained fingers. But the new american standard bible is one of them. Quite a few others that actually drop the word whole. Now here it is. I'm going to go ahead and put that in red also and then back up a little bit. The red word here we had that is taken out is a completely underlying textual issue. This. It's a different text. This is not. This all has the same words in it. But some of the translations decided not to put whole burnt offerings, just to put burnt offerings and sacrifices. Now I would say it's a very different thing to say. This. This package deal that you just gave us is more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices. That's different than saying it's more than whole burnt offerings and sacrifices. Have you ever. Have you ever said something? This happens especially in text. You texted something and then they went with it. And then you said, I should have said that differently. Because I see what. I see where they went with that. That's not at all what I meant by that. And again, by dropping the word whole, and I don't think there's any excuse for it, because the word is. The prefix on it is holos. Holos is where we get our english word whole. And so to drop that just because doesn't sound good to you, or whatever it is, I think is honestly quite irresponsible. But I've got the NASB translation there somewhere. Where is it? Top of page three, I think it is. Nasby, for example, says that following these commands is, quote ize, much more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices. Much more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices. Now the problem is it's just patently wrong. It's not at all what the text says, and it completely gives the wrong theo. What it does is take the dispensation of grace and put it back to those, those people. And the Lord hadn't even died here. There had been no death. Burial and resurrection. I gave. We're not going to go through it on the outline, but just for your reading pleasure, I gave a list of the whole burnt offerings and sacrifices on your outlines. Most of them are, I would say, national sacrifices. There was a daily morning and evening sacrifice, but that was something, that was one sacrifice for the nation. So it was a daily sacrifice in the morning, a daily sacrifice in the evening. The day of atonement was a whole sacrifice for the nation. You can go through there, the new moon sacrifices. Some of these, they're not sacrifices that for the vast majority of them, you would never bring that as an individual. That's what a nation does. Collectively, the nation does it. The one exception in there is there's an opportunity for an individual, if they want just to bring a, let's say, a blessing sacrifice. I just love God so much that I want to bring this. So they are much more symbolic in nature and much more national in nature. So there's no way, really, you can take this, love the Lord, your God, and love your neighbor as yourself, and say, do that and you're okay with the law. Do that and you've done it. It's just, hey, all these national sacrifices, this is better than that. And you take that and you would have to say, well, let's just suppose you come from a wonderful family and your family loves the Lord, and they go to Taos First Baptist Church, of course, America's greatest tiny church. And they are there Sunday morning and they're there twice Sunday morning, actually, and they come and help us, the youth group, on Sunday night and they bind books on Tuesdays and they come Wednesday night and they bring potato chips and you know, on and on, they do everything. But you personally are kind of wretched. Your family is wonderful. You go along with your family, but you're kind of wretched. Now what this says is what you do on an individual level is better than what the nation is doing. That's what the scribe is saying here. What we individually do in loving our neighbor, that's better than all these national. I don't want to say they're symbolic sacrifices because certainly they were required. They were things that were carried out. But this is the individual versus the nation, if you will. And so it goes on. Then when Jesus saw that, he answered discreetly. I haven't picked on the seminary boys yet, the Bible college student boys. But Carter, we'll go with you today. If someone answers a question discreetly, what does it mean secretly? Okay, that's discreet. Hey, you know, come over here a minute. That's being discreet today. This is not how that is used. And you can actually look it up in the dictionary. And especially in 1611, discretely could, could involve that. But that's a, that's kind of one little aspect of discrete that we take it. The word discreetly is wisely. He answered wisely. He put a lot of thought into it. What word did I use on the outline here? I said that he answered prudently or with thought. Prudently or with thought. The word actually, let's see, I forgot. I forgot the full word, but it has the word new. N o u is how we spell it, which is the word for thinking. It's like Jesus saw that this scribe put some thought into this. He didn't just parrot something. He didn't just pull it out of the hat. This is a well thought answer. In fact, from discreetly we get the word discretion. And that word comes from Latin, which means dis. You know, dis is to cut apart. And so discretion is to order things. Rightly. So. Hey, this guy's got it together here. When Jesus saw that, he answered discreetly. He said, thou art not far from the kingdom of God. Now he's not obviously talking about distance. Well, the kingdom of God is just over the hill, right over there. You're not far from it. He's not talking about distance, he's talking. You understand what it takes for this nation to receive its kingdom? Your part, the national part, you get it? That says to me, this scribe, this unnamed scribe is questioning the assumptions. He's going against the flow here because the scribes as a whole have been against Jesus, but so was the Sanhedrin. And you remember two guys named Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea. And this kind of tells me, hey, even in this move in the last week of Jesus life, where all the leadership seemed to be up against him, it wasn't really all. There was a scribe over here. There was a Sanhedrin over here. You know, there was an elder over here. There were people who were saying, oh, wait a minute, we're going down the wrong path here. And this is one of the guys that got it. I would love that it had his name here. If we had his name, I would invite him to be the guest speaker next week and say, hey, tell me more. But whoever this unknown guy is, Jesus really gives him this high word of praise here. Thou art not far from the kingdom of God. I think, again, he means understanding the concepts of the kingdom, understanding the purpose of the kingdom, understanding your requirements of the kingdom. You got it. You are on the right path. And then just a little word from the narrator, and no man after that. Durst, ask him any question. I don't know. I can't say Durst without thinking of Ireland. Do you say Durst in Ireland if you're extremely angry? Okay, we don't even say it if we're extremely angry, because I don't know what it means. Well, I think I do. I don't know what it means. This is the end of the questions. We've had four of them, three of them to trap one of them honest. By the end of the four, the crowd says, we're not getting anywhere with questions. In fact, it looks now like we're losing ground. Maybe we should call off the press conference. Let's not go any farther on this. And so they don't ask him any questions, and yet it's not completely over. The questions are over, but Jesus is going to begin to ask them some questions, put them on the hot seat, and go with it. And we will pick up on that next Wednesday night. And that concludes mark 1228 through 34. We'll pick up in verse 35 next week, and I'll look forward to that. Look, Betty, she asked for a book, and I said, I'll get you one after church. And lo and behold, one came down from heaven. Let me lead us in order prayer. Heavenly Father, thanks for the fellowship tonight, the good time we've had together in our wonderful little church fellowship. Pray that you'd bless us. Pray that the children have grown in the Lord tonight and in their knowledge of his word, as we have as well. Thank you for our friends and friends and visitors and colleagues that have joined us here tonight and for these online who have joined us as well. We ask your watch care as we go from this place and we ask it in Jesus name, amen on Sunday 945. Why? You're not going to ask why? Because we need to understand how other people are thinking, that's why. But I don't know the topic this week. I'll know by Sunday why at 945. And King David's going to come back into Jerusalem, back on the throne on Sunday, Absalom, we had his death last week and so King David will come back. It's worth not going back to North Carolina or Texas or Texas. Texas or Texas. It's just worth staying. Thanks, everyone. God bless you. And you are dismissed.