The Obligation to Testify

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Pentecost was amazing. Pentecost in the park was awesome. We had so many donations that not only were we able to meet the needs of every single person who came into the park, we were able to actually put teams together who put bags together and went out into the city, not only to the homeless shelter, but then also throughout the seats, throughout the streets, handing out stuff to those in need. We actually had so much left over that we had an expedition and a minivan that was full as well. We took that over to First Baptist Church in Norman and dropped it off to them.

They do an amazing job throughout the year of doing homeless outreach. And then we also got hold of a need at Food and Shelter, which is another ministry in Norman that does homeless outreach and does homeless ministry as well. And in that time, we were able to purchase a couple hundred pairs of socks for those who had needs as well. So to every single person who worked, to Annie and her spreadsheets and her formulas, thank you. The feasts are times where we can come and we can talk about how awesome it is for us to be with the Lord and.

And there's a part of that, but there's a part of the feast that is to go out to the people who maybe feel far off from the Lord, who maybe feel like the Lord isn't in their midst or isn't in their presence. The less fortunate, the ones who don't necessarily feel like they're blessed that day, and to be able to go out and to minister to them as well. Because, after all, we're starting the Kingdom in Action series where Jesus comes off of the mountain and he comes down, and the first thing he starts to do is everything that the religious Pharisees of the days refuse to do.

And so when we struggle to think of how do we minister to an individual who maybe hasn't showered in a couple of days, or someone who maybe has a drug addiction or has these things we should not think about. How do we do it? We have a testimony of how to do it. Scriptures. And that's where we're going to be this week.

So through the Tour of the Kingdom series that Brent finished off, he said it was 15 weeks. Those 15 weeks flew by very, very fast for me on the operational side of the church. But 15 weeks, he said we were in the Tour of the Kingdom series where he laid out exactly what Jesus said were my commandments. What were the teachings of Jesus? After all, most of the people in this room love this verse.

If you love me, you will keep my commandments. How do we please Jesus? If you love Jesus, you will keep my commandments. And then we immediately go. And we quote Moses or we go quote David, or we go quote what one of the prophets did, or we immediately go do something other than take the time to sit in the words of Jesus and just.

Just do something simple, listen and do. Now, most of the people, as we all just watched as all of those 60 to 80 children walked out that door, when you tell your kids, hey, look, don't you come in that house with those muddy shoes. You expect them to listen. You don't expect them to say, yeah, well, I was talking to the Edwards family this week, and they're absolutely okay if I come into the mudroom with my shoes. I told you to keep them in the garage.

Oh, I was talking to the Smilovichi family, and they let them run wild with mud in their house. Well, I don't care. It's my house. Well, guess what? Jesus is saying the same thing.

I appreciate all that you've done. I appreciate everything that you try to do to honor what I've asked you to do, but I've had to come and I've had to kind of lay the groundwork down. You're not taking out the trash. Right. You're not mopping the floor the way you should.

You know that. Loving your brother or sister. Yeah, you're not good at that at all.

And rather than just preach at us, he speaks and then does. I love how Jesus does this. As we go through the. As we finish through the Torah of the Kingdom series, it was important for us to not only hear what his commandments were, but. But to hear why his commandments were.

And Brent did a phenomenal job in laying that out. Now we're going to continue with the kingdom in action. In Matthew chapter eight, we see that Jesus immediately comes down the mountains and goes on mission. Jesus was better than me. Way better than me.

After I preach almost till Sukkot, I'm going to need a couple weeks off. Jesus didn't take a couple weeks off. He didn't go down to Sulphur and hang out in a bed and breakfast. He didn't go on airplane mode for two days and sleep. Jesus comes off the mountaintop and goes right on mission for the kingdom in action.

After all, we already know what the mission is. It was laid out in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew, chapter 5:17. Do not think that I had come to abolish the law and the prophets. I. I did not come to abolish I came to fulfill.

So everything Jesus is going to do is not to abolish the Torah or the prophets. It is to finally teach them what it was supposed to do with the only person who could ever do it. I want us to think about that for a second. I love the Torah, I love the prophets. But no person can keep the Torah and the prophets perfectly, except for the one who spoke it into existence.

And it is through him, his spirit, his power, that we can walk in the blessings that he spoke for us. So Jesus speaks clearly and plainly that he came to this earth and what he intended to do. Isaac, two main things he came to do in that statement of the Sermon on the Mount. Fulfill the law to make whole the instructions of God that were given during the Mosaic covenant to fulfill the prophets. I don't talk about that one quite as much.

To walk out, not just merely teach that he was the righteousness of God, that the prophets said would come, and he's now here, thus fulfilling the words and the testimonies and the things that the prophets spoke to Israel and to anybody else who would listen. These two missional elements frame the foundation of Jesus very mission on earth. Jesus was the one who taught with a different authority. He was one who taught with an emphasis on his authority on the law through living and bearing the righteousness of God and forsaking no one.

This is countercultural to what we had experienced in this time. There's many who taught the law. The Sadducees taught the law, the Pharisees taught the law. The scribes, they got together, they debated the law. People would come together and they would argue and they would fight and they would debate.

And we like to use the term midrash, which is just a different word for fight. Somehow it makes it sound better. Isaac and I are going to get together in midrash, and we're like, oh, that's holy. That's a holy convocation. But if you say Isaac and I are gonna get together and fight over Matthew 5, nobody's like, oh, that sounds fun.

Let's do that.

But it's basically the same thing. They're debating over a scripture. It's funny if we just take the English word and we put it into Greek or we put it into Hebrew, and we're like, oh, that sounds so smart. That sounds so holy. No, they came together to argue, to fight verbally over what was the meaning, what was the interpretation, how do we do this?

This is not new. And it's not going to end until Jesus comes Back. Why? Because we're not God and God is smarter than we are. It's that simple.

But as we transition into chapter eight, we will now see that Jesus actions testify to the promised Messianic kingdom and the kingdom that was foretold by the prophets. Through the testimony of Jesus, we see a power that no other man could have, but a power that comes from a heavenly father who is manifesting himself through his Son. And these actions and these powers are the testimony of Yahweh, about his son.

For 20 years, I have been a part of an element of Christianity that loves to put an emphasis on the front of the book and the prophets and that shapes the Gospels. And. And one of the things that I've tried to fight against for so long is this overemphasis on the Father. Well, if something in the Gospels seems to contradict the Father, then we have to go with the Father. Okay, let's just think about this for a second.

If you have seen me, you have seen the Father.

Why do we keep trying to put Yahweh and Jesus opposed to each other when literally, the apostles go to great lengths to say that he only did what his father told him to do, and then he got angry.

Our father is Abraham. Your father's the devil.

I mean, how many of you. Mikel, we're meeting in the lobby after service. How was your week? You know, it was okay. It wasn't bad.

You know, it's been pretty wet for Oklahoma. Kind of feels like Tennessee. Hey, did you know Tornado Alleys moved over to Arkansas? Great. Arkansas can keep them.

That's awesome. Hey, your father's the devil.

I don't think we're going to be friends. I think you might be like, what did I do to you? You must be misunderstood. Jesus calls out the religious Pharisees of this day and says, your father is the devil. When they said that their father is Abraham, he separates very cleanly.

He doesn't say, no, you've misunderstood Abraham. Or, you're right, your father is this way. But you're not carrying on the family name, right? No, your father is the devil. And he shifts this focus back to the fact that he was the manifestation of the Father, not the Pharisees, not the Sadducees.

This should be a model and a picture. As we continue to watch the actions of Jesus, that we are to find ourselves in a place where we understand well, we're grafted in and heirs according to the promise. Hallelujah. You are. They thought they were, too.

Our eyes should always be Focused on the king of the kingdom. Brent has gone to great lengths for us to talk about this. Whose kingdom do you serve? What kingdom do you serve? If you don't serve King Jesus, then you serve a different king, which means you live as a part of a different kingdom.

It's that simple. Now, using a similar pattern found in the Old Testament, Jesus had gone up on a mountain, gave his commandments and his teachings, his Torah, then came down and immediately went into actions to implement what he had just talked about. He gives these examples specifically to show people that the kingdom of God is at hand and what the kingdom of God should look like. Now remember, I need to put into context what this was like in these days. If you were a part of the kingdom of God and you were the religious leadership, or you were the righteous, you were the holy, you were the set apart ones, you would sequester yourself in rooms and you would argue over how do we keep this?

What should we do? What does this look like? It's not exactly the same, but it is still similar in Israel where the orthodox a lot of times are kept from having to be a part of the military. I heard that there's maybe some, some passages or some things that are happening over in political Israel right now, but the ultra Orthodox did not have to serve in the idf. There was exclusions for them because they were the righteous and the holy.

They were the ones who were the set apart, who were studying. Well, this was exactly what this culture was looking like, where the religious ones, they were the ones who hid in rooms, they didn't talk to people, they weren't out drinking coffee. In fact, they would go so far sometimes as they would teach their people to walk on the other side of the road from a gentile or a goy or somebody who had leprous spots or had sickness or wasn't a part of the holiness culture that they had. They would go so far as to basically exclude those people and to outwardly show that we had to be separated.

And I honestly believe that they thought that they were doing what was right. I know the Pharisees get a really, really bad rap, but not all Pharisees were bad. And I believe that their intentions to set out were to uphold the commandments and the holiness that God himself is. They just got it wrong like so many other people. And they got Jesus to come into their midst and they got the opportunity to see the contrast and make a different decision.

Yet unlike the Israelites, when Jesus came down from this mountain, the Israelites had to Learn how not to be slaves and how to walk as free bond servants of the kingdom. Jesus was God in flesh and he was not enslaved.

And thus he needed no time to unlearn the ways of the kingdoms and the culture by which they were a part of before he immediately could come down from the mountain and he could go to work.

Before we dive exclusively into the text of Matthew 8, I want to first draw your attention to another group of lepers that were healed by Jesus. In Luke's writings of chapter 17, Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem when he passed between Samaria and Galilee, and there he met a minyan of 10 men who were leprous. I think we're going to start calling our men's group a minion, a min yan. 10 guys. I mean, we got to have 10 guys that show up for the thing.

Otherwise it doesn't work. Otherwise it's just weird.

We got together for a minion and they were like, yeah, but you had four guys for coffee this week. It's like six were there in spirit, the same same. But there was a minion of 10 lepers. 10 is the highest number of witnesses. And some of our Jewish prayers can only be recited with 10 men present.

Think of that for a second. When it comes to witnessing something, 10 in Judaism is the highest number of witnesses. A minion Jesus proceeds in Luke chapter 17 to heal 10 men with a form of leprosy. I also need, so I don't get weird emails. Leprosy in the New Testament was multifaceted.

So the leprosy we talk about in Leviticus chapter 5 and we talk about in the Torah, that is more of what would be known today as like a Hansen's disease. Leprosy in the Greek actually was multiple different things and there was various forms of it and it wasn't necessarily like full on Old Testament leprosy, but it was elements of that. And so when I say leprosy, that's not really the point. Like, I mean, we can argue over the nuances, but if somebody came in with a big white boil on their arms, Isaac would be like, oh, stay away from me. That's weird.

Ew. Let alone if I had 100 all over me, like, then he would just be like, hey, can we like have the elders tell him to stay home this week something? So either way it would just be awkward. So now that you know, I understand that leprosy in the Greek is a little bit different than what was in the Old Testament, but it doesn't change the point. The Point is, is that he healed ten men of leprosy.

And this should have been a nuclear bomb of a testimony at the temple. It should have been an absolute explosive testimony at the temple when 10 men, a minion of 10 men, went to the temple to present themselves no longer having skin infirmities or leprosy.

Now that I've left that out there, I'll talk about that a little bit later. After this healing, only one returns to worship Jesus. And he was a Samaritan, yet all of them were told to go to the temple and and to present themselves following the holiness code that we find in Levitical priesthood, writings of Leviticus. I love that holiness code. But the holiness code should point to how we interact with God, not how we interact in a 21st century church.

They're not the same. This isn't the temple. You're the temple. But yet, following this encounter In Luke chapter 17, Jesus begins to question the Pharisees. And he says now, having been questioned by the Pharisees as to when the kingdom of God was coming, he answered them and said, the kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed.

Nor will they say, look, here it is or there it is. For behold, the kingdom of God is in your midst.

When you're looking for all these signs and these wonders, every stinking war, every stinking argument and country, when you're looking for all of these earthly conflicts, sometimes you miss the very sign that's in front of you, say, well, we would never do that. Yeah, I think the Pharisees knew the Torah better than us. And I think they knew the testimony of who would be Mashiach, and they would, for the most part, missed it. So the 21st century believers in Oklahoma City, Norman, Edmond, Midwest City, Stillwater, all those areas, it is highly likely that we are focused a lot of times on the wrong things.

For behold, the kingdom of God is in your midst. Jesus says, the kingdom is here. Now, think of just how extravagant of a sign that was in Leviticus. Leprosy held high standards and instructions for being cleansed and what you were allowed to do while you were unclean. There was 10 lepers walking in the temple courtyard.

Healing them sent a pretty big symbol to the priesthood.

Even the Torah keepers of that day were looking for a different kingdom with a different king than what they thought the scripture had told them was coming.

Just like in Luke's testimony of the healing, many who claim to believe that the kingdom of God actually testified with their words and their actions that they didn't believe in the kingdom of God. And this should be something that causes us to look inwardly in our life. Just because we say we believe in the kingdom of God means nothing if our actions testify that we do not.

You can have faith, and you should have faith, but faith without works is dead. If you believe in the kingdom of God and you believe that the only way you're going to be righteous with God is to do something on your own, then you are putting a higher level of righteousness on who you are and less of a righteousness on who he is.

No matter how loud you testify about the kingdom, if you have no testimony through your walk and through your actions, then you deny the kingdom has already come and you deny that Jesus manifested the kingdom on earth and that he was the king through his death, burial, and resurrection. Not only was Jesus showing kingdom signs to the temple priests in the moment he was setting the stage for Luke's writings in Acts, chapter 6, verses 7, where many of the priests would come to believe that he was the Messiah. The ones who had served faithfully in Leviticus now had seen Yahweh in the flesh. Jesus had so many mic drop moments. There was all these times where Jesus would say something or do something.

And you could literally live on that one point for a long time. Why? Because of the context of how important and how did they get there and how did we think about that and all of those things so that you potentially could adjust how you live your life and how you go about your life. Today I want to pull ourselves back into Matthew, chapter eight. I want to set up this portion of Matthew.

Matthew's writing style was narrative. This is important because Luke's writings are not exactly the same as Matthew's writings. And the reason why is no different than if Isaac is teaching building blocks or I'm teaching building blocks, or Matthew is teaching building blocks. We have a different way of going about public speaking and teaching, and we also have a different way about writing. Doesn't make one right or one wrong.

Doesn't mean that we should become the same person, but we have an emphasis and see things differently.

We can all be in the same room and experience the same thing, and we can all have a little bit of a different testimony or an emphasis on what is the most important part of that testimony. This is no different than what happened with the apostles. And so Matthew's writing style was narrative. He wrote in a way that he focused on presenting a series of events that were all interconnected to convey a specific story.

So this is why you can't go into Matthew and treat Matthew the same way that you would go into Isaiah. If they have different writing styles and they're trying to convey different things, you can't just go in and say, well, everything in this scripture is literal. Based upon my understanding, this is how cults happen. This is how you have people moving into the woods and all that kind of stuff. This is how you have abuse.

This is how you have all of these things. Well, see, the Bible says right here, it's literal.

That might actually be figurative. It might be there to help you get to another point. So understanding the writing style of the various different writers of the Gospel will help you also understand why they're not all identical. Not every nuance of every testimony of every interaction with Jesus is identical. And the reason why is because each author heard something different and was trying to convey a point that was crucial to them.

Matthew was intentional in his writing style of getting across the point that Jesus was the Messiah, that Jesus was the fulfillment of all the things that had come before.

And we see through the Sermon on the Mount. Matthew's recording of that is to lay out the fact that Jesus was intentional about his Torah. He was intentional about that. We knew exactly what his purpose was. And Matthew will start with three specific miracles.

In chapter eight, he'll start with healings and then wrap up in the section of Matthew 8:17 with these specific words. This was to fulfill what was spoken of through Isaiah the prophet. He took our infirmities and carried away our diseases. Isaiah 53:4.

When Jesus came down the mountain, large crowds followed him, and a leper came to him and bowed down before him and said, lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean. And Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, saying, I am willing be cleansed. And immediately his leprosy was healed. And Jesus said to him, see that you tell no one, really, Jesus. When we had the rabinos and they had the issue when they were pregnant with their little one, as soon as she called us and told us that she was healed, I was Michael W.

Smith from the late 80s or late 90s, early 2000s. I was like, I want to tell the world.

And Jesus says, tell no one, tell no one.

But go show yourselves to the priests and present the offering that Moses had commanded and a testimony to them. And everybody's like, see, this is Jesus saying, we have to be Torah observant, we have to go to the temple, we have to do these things. That's not the point of what he's doing. Here, leprosy was despised by the Jewish people. It was considered a curse directly from God.

In Leviticus, one with leprosy was considered ceremonially unclean. And all who came into contact were ceremonially unclean as well. So, again, this is why, you know, if somebody has leprosy, like, we're not hanging out. We have 18 pages of a children's policy that says, hey, if you have this fever, don't come here. Don't do this.

Like, stay out for this time. Don't. They're saying, if you potentially have leprosy, like, don't even call me on the phone. Cause it might travel through the phone. See, we didn't just lose our minds with COVID We were losing our minds beforehand.

They would be on the other side of the street from these people. Sometimes, if it got worse, they would actually put them in colonies outside of the camp, outside of the city, so that there was no way there could be contamination. Now, this wasn't forever. Sometimes people were ceremonially unclean for one day. Sometimes they were ceremonially unclean for seven days.

There is extensive stuff in Leviticus. You should all read them, because it's fascinating how extensive the clean and the unclean are.

And I need you to understand that's not the point of what's happening here. That's not the deeper thing. That Jesus is here. He's not like, I know you would have been clean in seven days. Like, I'm just gonna speed this up for you.

That's not what's happening here.

This wasn't a small thing. The Jewish people, when it came to any form of leprosy, this was a big deal for how they interacted and how they thought about a person.

I'm not from first century Judaism. I don't understand this. I didn't live in that culture. But I'm going to ask you a question. When you drive off the interstate in Oklahoma City and you see somebody going like this, it looks like they hadn't showered in a couple of days.

Who looks like they might be on something. Who maybe is asking for money that one time? The only. The one time you looked at them, you're like, ooh.

I liken to how the Jewish people saw leprosy to that one time.

I hope every time you pull off there, you think about it differently. Look, I can't stop every time. I don't have money every time. But I no longer look at them, and I'm like, hmm, ew. Ew.

I used to, until I had to repent because I Started reading the Bible, and I was like, oh, you're judging them rather than helping them. You're a Pharisee.

We can't help them every time, but we can absolutely not condemn them, and we can absolutely not judge them as if they're some sort of lesser human being.

Leprosy was despised by the Jewish people. It was something that would cause them to banish people to the outward portions of the city. Sometimes husbands or wives would not be able to be with each other. Sometimes parents would be separated from their children. Sometimes they would be separated from the ability to go to the temple for a period of time, some for a prolonged period of time.

And it definitely wasn't something that they would take lightly. Why? It wasn't just a matter of opinion. Leviticus, chapter five says if you are called to testify about something you have seen or that you know about, it is sinful to refuse to testify. And.

And you will be punished for your sin.

Hold on. Wait a second.

What does that have to do with leprosy? Clean and unclean.

Very next verse. Or suppose you unknowingly touch something that is ceremonially unclean. Oh, you mean before we start talking about what's clean and unclean, can I eat something clean or unclean? Can I touch something clean or unclean? There was a verse before there was a context and a commandment.

Before we start talking about what's clean and unclean. Yeah, let's go back. Before you supposedly unknowingly touch something that is unclean, it says if you are called to testify about something that you have seen or something that you know, it is sinful for you to refuse to testify and you will be punished for your sin.

Or suppose you unknowingly touch something that is ceremonially unclean, such as a carcass of an unclean animal. When you realize that you have done so, you must admit your defilement and your guilt. This is true whether it is a wild animal, a domestic animal, or an animal that scurries along the ground, or then stop there. Or suppose you unknowingly touch something that makes you, as a person, unclean. When you realize that you have done that, you must admit your guilt.

I think. I think. I think they might have had bacon on that grill yesterday, and then they just cook my fajita beef on there and we have to repent to the Lord. I think. I think we've completely missed the clean and unclean.

We've completely missed what the testimony is. We are not walking around and saying, hey, by the way, If I touch something or I do something that causes me to be ceremonially unclean, I need to admit that. Nor are we talking about what comes before that. If you're called to testify on something that you have seen or you've known about, it is sinful to refuse to testify and you will be punished for your sin.

I have to tell you, I wrestled with this for 30 days when I was studying this while Brent was still working on the Sermon on the Mount series. I've seen some things.

I've seen some things and I haven't fully testified about them in my life. I've done some things I haven't fully testified about in my life. There's been years and years and years where I was very, very worried what you were eating.

I completely missed the point. I completely missed why Jesus is interacting the way he's interacting with them. And notice that the section about clean and unclean in Leviticus chapter 5 does not start off with clean or clean, clean or unclean. It starts off with an obligation to testify if you have been a witness.

It's important not only because of the Torah command, but also what the sages had written after the time of Jesus about the origins of leprosy.

The section of Leviticus chapter 5 starts with a testimony. In the middle is our clean and unclean, and ends with a testimony obligation as well. It talks about two ways a person can become unclean, because all four of these things place the burden of the testimony on the person who comes to know that something but does not act accordingly to the rules. Giving a testimony and you could say, oh man, I can think of multiple times where I saw somebody do something that they shouldn't do and I should have given a testimony. That's not exactly what that means.

There's multiple portions to that. I know right now that the Davis family has overcome massive generational curses. They didn't do it by snapping their fingers and waking up one morning and be like, lord, send the blessings. They did the hard work, they prayed, they changed their actions. They put in the work together, they prayed.

They did the hard work, they put in the actions together, they prayed, they did. The cycle continued and they did the hard work. The power of your testimony is when you see something, you're not only speaking about what is negative or what is wrong, but also what is good.

That's the power of your testimony, is the power of your testimony has the ability to speak not only into, I saw something that was inappropriate, but I saw something that was life giving.

And when you Speak out of the abundance of your heart and your soul that Jesus has saved you the time when you thought you weren't going to have any money to pay your bills, or when you were sick and you woke up the next day and you weren't. When all these things. There is power in the testimony of what you speak. But I've been studying the Torah for over 20 years, and I've glossed right over the obligation to testify. We didn't, as a corner of Christianity, gloss over, well, can you eat pork?

We beat that sucker to death. We're still beating it to death. We are digging up the grave, bringing it back and re beating it again and digging it up. What about the obligation before that to testify?

Well, that's a little bit harder. Might make us feel uncomfortable. I don't like talking in front of people.

Funny, Erica, read today from the Book of Revelation. The Book of Revelation says the only way we're going to overcome the things we see in this life is through the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony. Oh, wait, that's not a New Testament concept. In Leviticus, chapter 5, it says that if you see something, you have to testify when you're called on to testify.

The Torah command doesn't just prohibit touching or coming into contact with things that are unclean. They prescribe the rules on how someone who has done so can become clean again.

If a person knew they had touched something unclean and went to the temple anyway, then they would be in sin because their testimony was a lie. So if the lepers still had leprosy and Jesus told them to go to the temple and to do all that Moses had prescribed to them, and they were still unclean and they weren't healed, then their testimony would be a lie and they would be bearing false witness inside the temple, and they would be causing the temple to be defiled. Jesus knew the magnitude of what he was doing.

He was sending people who I promise you, they were known in the temple courts. He was sending them to the temple courts not to speak publicly, but to go to the priesthood. What do you think the priesthood is thinking when a leper walks through the door? Somebody with a leprous element to their skin is like, oh, don't you walk through that door. Don't you defile the holy place?

This was the holy place and they were in charge of that. So when a leper comes, I bet you he's like, these are fighting words. But what happens when he goes, don't you walk through that threshold? And he Examines and there's nothing there. He knows there was something there.

They know that man or that woman had this problem, but it's gone.

The law of the testimony is important to know because if we're going to understand what we just read about Jesus, what he was doing, we need to understand that. Because sometimes the emphasis is on did you know that Jesus broke the law because he touched. He touched somebody who was unclean? Jesus broke the law because he touched somebody he was unclean. Shows they don't understand the Scripture.

Leprosy was one type of healing that required the testimony of the priesthood to be healed. They had to testify what they saw so that the nation, the people, could re establish them with the community. It required the power of the testimony. Why? Because later, after the time of Jesus, the Jewish sages write in commentaries that they believed came from the scribes and Pharisees.

Now believed, can't quantify it, believe. They wrote that leprosy was a punishment of sins of the mouth, gossip, slander, bearing false witness and failing or refusing to bear testimony to something that you witnessed. The large crowds followed Jesus off the mountain because they heard the authority of the teachings by which he spoke.

And now they were going to see the authority by which he acted out the commandments that he spoke on the mountain. A leper approached Jesus. And some translations say that he bowed down. Others say that he worshiped him. Either one shows that he recognized Jesus authority.

There was no question in his mind on whether Jesus had the authority to do these things. He either bowed or. Or he worshiped him.

And his posture showed that with his testimony he was honoring the distance and walking in humility of the authority of Jesus Christ. He says, lord, if you are willing. The Lord the leper did not question whether Jesus could do it. He said, if you're willing to do it. He had great faith.

He believed in the testimony and the authority of Jesus. He didn't question it. Notice he doesn't talk about whether or not Jesus can heal him or whether he's following the proper protocols for Jesus to heal him. He's not arguing with Jesus over the Torah commandment of this. He is simple.

He's confident in Jesus authority. He's confident in Jesus ability. He asks him if he's willing. Are you willing to do this? It's not can you do this?

It's not anything else. Are you willing to do this? Lord Jesus had the power to speak, blink and do all kinds of things. He could have done that and the guy could have been healed. Yet Jesus was Intentional.

He reached out and he touched him.

We see in Matthew chapter 7, do unto others as you would have them to do unto you. And this is the law and the prophets. Jesus was sent as a testimony of the Father and the Father's kingdom. If he fails to testify through word and deed when called upon, he would be violating the very reason why he was sent into this world. Healing the leper gives the testimony of the Father and his kingdom being at hand.

We also see later in Matthew, Jesus being asked, what is the greatest commandment? Life is the greatest commandment by loving God and loving others that leads them into a life abundantly, a great life. This is what the Jewish sages refer to as pekuach nephesh, or the preservation of life. The pekuach nephesh would trump all of the laws of clean and unclean, the preservation of life. We see this still operating today in Judaism.

This is why in certain areas there's not an issue if they were to use a pig stem as a valve in the heart. The preservation of one's life is more important than whether you're clean or unclean. The PI kuach nephesh. Because when Jesus touches him, he's healed, he's cleansed and now has restoration to the temple, to to the synagogue and to his family. Jesus then continues to not nullify the commandments.

He tells them, go quietly, do not testify and show yourself to the priest and take your offering. This was a healing testimony not only for the leper, but for the priest. The priest knew longstanding. One of the signs that the mashiach would be there would be that leprosy would be healed. This was common knowledge in the priesthood.

So when lepers start showing up to the temple healed, they should have known.

There's no plausible deniability here. They should have known. But it was only the priest who could confirm that these healings had happened and testify. Anybody want to show me where the rest of the Gospel of Matthew testifies that the priest testified that the leper was healed? I can't fund it.

Yet. Luke in Acts, chapter 6, verse 7 tells us that after the day of Pentecost, many priests came and gave their life and converted to being Jesus followers. Remember, the Sadducees didn't believe in the resurrection. So for them to hear this testimony and go through the process of completely changing their doctrine and their theology, that's a lot. But the Sadducees had to admit that they were wrong about the resurrection when they came to believe in the Messiah and Luke's Writings in Acts, chapter 6, verse 7.

After the day of Pentecost, Jesus told the man to go and do all that Moses had commanded him to do as a testimony to the priesthood. Jesus gave them every opportunity to believe in. And in that moment, we have no record of them fulfilling the obligation to testify.

Worship team, you can come back. Jesus overcame the leprosy of the flesh with the power of the testimony of the Spirit. We must be a people, we must be a kingdom of people who manifest the spirit of God, Jesus Christ by overcoming the self righteousness of saying, I don't want to give the testimony of this, I don't want to give the testimony of that. How many times it's hard for you to give the testimony of somebody because they wronged you or they were, they were bad to you or they were mean to you or whatever. And you don't want to give a testimony that they did something really, really nice or kind.

Well, I still don't like them. Still not going to dinner with them. Great, they're probably not going with you either. But can we at least be honest? There's a Torah command to give a testimony.

We're very quick in America and in the Christian church, we're very quick to give the testimony when somebody does something wrong. Did you know? Did you hear what so and so did? Did you know the Frankies got a pit bull?

Dealt with that one this week. Survey says false.

I didn't say there was anything wrong with pit bulls. Did you say there was something wrong with pit bulls? Okay, then you obviously weren't listening. See, I'm giving the power of the testimony that you only heard part of what I said. Funny how the Lord does that.

Ouch.

But we're almost always looking exclusively for negative things.

But what about when somebody does something kind for you?

What about when somebody sends you a kind text? We become so desensitized to what's happening around us that we're not using the power of our testimony. No wonder people don't want anything to do with Jesus or his kingdom or his churches. Because the power of our testimony is to also speak life. And most of the time we're not speaking life.

We're struggling to even testify of the things that he's done. We're waiting for these big signs and these big miracles to happen. But sometimes the greatest miracle and the greatest sign is the power and the testimony that says, 18 years ago I was a complete butt face and Now I'm not 10%.

I used to be lost, but now I'm found this person used to be really, really rude, but now they're kind. This person was struggling to meet their financial means that God stepped in and gave them this blessing that was in their life. This marriage was falling apart, but now it's been healed.

We want to talk about the negative things that happen in life, but what seeds are we sowing with the obligation of our testify to testify of the good things that have happened? What about the temple priesthood? The people entrusted the temple priesthood to speak. They entrusted them to know the Torah. They entrusted them to know what was happening.

And here comes Jesus. He heals a leper, which is a sign that Messiah is here. The kingdom of God is at hand. He sends the leper to the temple priesthood to show respect, honor, and authority of the earthly realm. And those people are like, you did not see that they were the original shredders.

They were out on the altar, like, get rid of your testimony. He wasn't healed. He never actually had leprosy. Come on. We can't.

The people entrusted them to testify that Jesus was here. They were looking for Mashiach. There's a really, really cool video that came out years ago where the Jews are dancing in Israel like, what? We want Mashiach now. They still want Mashiach.

What would have happened differently if the priesthood, who were entrusted to protect that house would have testified what they had saw? Mashiach is here.

What would have happened? How many more Jewish people who have grown up or have passed on who didn't know that Jesus was the Messiah? How many more of them would have potentially come to Christ?

You say it's. Well, it's really easy to think about the Jewish people. How many people in your family don't hear the testimony of the blessings you have in your life? We talk a lot about, like, if we stop eating pork or we stop doing something like, oh, man, I got in a fight in my family. Where's the testimony of your marriage with your family?

Where's the testimony of your children to your family? Where's the testimony of your marriage and your children and your family and your finances and everything that you to the people you work with? Your testimony and the power of the testimony you have either draws people closer to Jesus or further away.

Why is this important? Because Jesus is getting ready in the Kingdom and Action series in Matthew, chapter 8 to accomplish an awful lot in a short period of time. We're not talking about Donald Trump in the first 100 days. He's going to accomplish more miraculous things in a short period of time than even Donald Trump did in 100 days. From a political standpoint, he's going to touch people and they're going to be healed.

He's going to speak and they're going to raise. He's going to do all of these things, and he's going to do it as a testimony of the kingdom of God is at hand.

But he starts by laying the groundwork, by going to the priesthood.

What are you doing with your lips?

Are you fulfilling the obligation to testify? Are you bearing false witness through your silence?

Jesus cleansed the leper to be restored to a community. He was already outcasted from portions of that community. He didn't cleanse the leper to be restored to a community. Just so 2,000 years later, we. We could find 2,000 ways to speak negatively about the kingdom of God, the community of God, and divide away from the community of God.

It's very popular today to talk about church hurt and to talk about this and to talk about that. These people were not allowed to regularly be in community with people. Sometimes it was simple as they weren't allowed to be involved with a dinner or with a temple court or something for a day or seven days or 10 days, depending upon what it was. But these people were desperate to be made whole, to be able to be involved with their community. And nowadays in America, first thing we say is, well, if the community isn't what I like, I'm immediately leaving.

We'll go find another place.

The kingdom of God requires action on your part, and Jesus sets this out in front of you. And the first action you have to do is you have to start to testify with your lips about what you've seen God do in your life.

Man, I had a horrible first marriage. Okay, what has God taught you in there? Where's the blessing? Where's the silver line? Man, I had this.

Where's the blessing? There's a blessing in everything. We just have to be looking for. And this helps us lock into the kingdom of God, the power of the kingdom of God and away from our trauma drama.

I'm not really interested in teaching on the gospel of gossip, but I'm absolutely interested on hearing the testimonies of how the gospel has changed your life.

There was kings and kings and kings and kings and kings that came, that still come, but there never was, there isn't, and there will never be another king like Jesus. And that's my testimony, and I hope it's yours. Stand with me and let's respond.