In his sermon titled 'Conflicting Instructions?', Peter Allison delves into the complexities of scriptural teachings, focusing on Luke 22 where Jesus gives seemingly conflicting commands to his disciples regarding carrying swords and supplies. Allison highlights various biblical instances where Jesus' instructions might appear contradictory, such as teachings about retaliation, swearing oaths, and personal possessions. He emphasizes that these apparent contradictions are not inconsistencies but should be understood in their proper context, often addressing specific circumstances or teaching deeper spiritual truths. The sermon warns against the extremes of absolutizing one command while ignoring another and the danger of dismissing biblical absolutes altogether. Allison urges listeners to discern the practical and spiritual applications of Jesus' teachings, asserting that the scriptures are harmonious and call for a balanced approach to obedience, combining personal responsibility with reliance on divine wisdom. He concludes by encouraging believers to seek God's guidance in rightly dividing and applying the Word in their lives.

Please turn in your scriptures to Luke chapter 22. I'd like to begin reading verse 35. He said to them, when I sent you without money bag, knapsack and sandals, did you lack anything? So they said Nothing. Then he said to them, But now he who has a money bag, let him take it, and likewise a knapsack, and he who has no sword, let him sell his garment and buy one.

For I say to you that this which is written must still be accomplished in me, and he was numbered with the transgressors, for the things concerning me have an end. So they said, Look, Lord, look, here are two swords, and he said to them, It is enough." And skipping down to verse 49, When those around him saw what was going to happen, they said to him, Lord, shall we strike with the sword? And one of them struck the servant of the high priest and cut off his right ear. But Jesus answered and said, permit even this. And he touched his ear and healed him.

May we speak of his testimonies before kings and not be ashamed. Heavenly Father, your word is true and it endures forever, unchanged. Though heaven and earth pass away, it is not. We ask now that as we look into your word, as we hear your word preached, we ask for your Holy Spirit to work in us what is well pleasing in you, to give us understanding that we may rightly apply, rightly divide your word. And I ask that you would sanctify my sinful lips for this task in Jesus' name, amen.

Conflicting instructions. Conflicting instructions. Have you ever been given what you thought were conflicting instructions? If you've ever filled out an IRS form, you might have had that experience. One day things are supposed to be done this way, and the next day the same task is supposed to be done another way.

Any mother or father on giving a direction to one of their children has probably encountered a response like that. Like, the last time, but the last time you told me to do it this way. Or, the last time you said never to do this. Or maybe that's happened at work with a boss. Or directives, policies.

Well there are a number of places in the scriptures where it would appear that Jesus gives instructions that appear to conflict. He said in one of his sermons, You've heard it said, an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth, but I tell you don't resist an evil person, but whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also. Then you heard it said was from Leviticus 24 and and other places 24 verse 19 says if a man causes disfigurement of his neighbor as he has done so shall it be done to him fracture for fracture eye for eye tooth for tooth as he has caused disfigurement of a man so shall it be done to him. Fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, as he has caused disfigurement of a man, so shall it be done to him." Yet that very night in which Jesus was betrayed in His trial before Annas the high priest, when they didn't like one of His answers to the high priest and he had just been asked about his doctrine and he said, well I was teaching publicly. Always you could have asked at any time, they didn't like that answer.

One of the officers took his hand and struck him. Doesn't say if it was across the face or not, but most likely was. But Jesus didn't turn the other cheek and say, you can hit that one too. Jesus said to them, If I have spoken evil, then bear witness of the evil. But if well, why do you strike me?

And the next day the soldiers struck him again with their hands and mocked him. We don't read anywhere that he turned the other cheek to them. Or stealing. In the same sermon that we just read from, Jesus also said, if anyone wants to sue you, take away your tunic, and take away your tunic, let him have your cloak also. And whoever compels you to go one mile, go with him too.

But in another sermon at a later time, Jesus said, if your brother sins against you, rebuke him. And if he repents, forgive him, you've won your brother. But if he won't listen, take two or one or two others with you and go to him to confront him. And if he listens, you've gained your brother. But if not, if he doesn't listen to you, then tell it to the church.

And if he doesn't listen to the church, then cast him out and let him be like a heathen and a tax collector to you. Or Jesus in this same sermon that we've been looking at or referring to said again, you've heard it was said of old, you shall not swear falsely but shall perform your oath to the Lord. But I say to you, do not swear at all, neither by heaven, for it is God's throne, nor by earth, for it is footstool, nor by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great king nor shall you swear by your head because you cannot make one hair white or black but let your yes be yes and your no no for whatever is more than the these is from the evil one don't swear by anything in heaven or earth or heaven or earth themselves But then we read that Abraham made Eliezer swear not to take a wife for Isaac from among the people in Canaan. And Jacob made Joseph swear that he would not leave his bones in Egypt but bury them with his fathers in the land that was being promised to him.

Or marriage. God ordained marriage, brought Eve to Adam as a wife and commanded Adam and Eve to be fruitful and to multiply and he repeated that same mandate to Noah but in 1st Corinthians 7 Paul says to those who are not married that it is better if the unmarried remain as he is unmarried it's better He said. Or here in this passage. Jesus reminds them of the time that He sent them out without swords and money belts and supplies, but now he tells him to take those things. And then he adds, and if you don't have a sword, sell your garment and buy a sword.

In other words, a sword is more important than your coat at this point. Peter's answer to that is Lord we have two swords. And Jesus doesn't say no Peter you didn't understand what I'm talking about you know just like that time you didn't understand when I was talking about leaven and it meant the doctrine of the Pharisees. Jesus didn't say that. He didn't say no I'm not talking about that thing you have strapped on your waist.

I'm talking about the sword of the spirit, the word of God. He never said any of that. He just said it's enough. It's enough. But when Peter tried to use the sword just a few hours later and did it and cut off the ear of the high priest servant Jesus said no no you didn't you're not doing it right And he put the ear back on.

And in and in Matthew, well, the gospel of Matthew, Jesus even said, well, if you live by the sword, you're going to die by the sword. And of course, it was illegal for the Jews to even have a sword. So why was Jesus saying? Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities. There is no authority except from God, except that which is ordained by God.

And that authority is saying it's illegal to have a sword. Jews couldn't carry them. The law forbade it, but Jesus is telling them to have one. And his disciples have one. He had two of them, in fact, in their party.

How do we handle these parent conflicts? They're apparent, right? We all know that the scriptures are true, every word of them, and that there are no conflicts in the word of God. God is not conflicted with himself, but that every passage, every command of scripture is true and consistent. So there's two errors that we can fall into in this situation.

That is, on one hand, we can hold to one absolutely and spiritualize the other one away. We can grab one and say this is the one that we keep and look at the other one and say well this is the one this is a metaphor. This is a figure of speech or this is just speaking spiritually, not something we do physically. And so we can cling with both fists to one and have nothing, no hand available for the other one. For example, some absolutize the Jesus first command not to take anything with them.

Don't take a knapsack. Don't take a money bag. Don't take supplies. Don't take a sword. So they absolutize that.

That the ideal Christian evangelist shouldn't have any purse. Certainly not a sword. Some teach that even that poverty is the proper station for a Christian. And there are those who have taken vows of poverty. They believe that this is how we should obey Jesus' command.

This is how we should devote our lives to God and to follow in the path of Jesus, whose life they believed was defined by detachment from earthly possessions and worldly pleasures. And that it's our that we need to follow. If we're going to follow Him, that should be the way we live as well. And so they reject the acceptance of any personal material profit. If they do work, they don't want any personal profit from that work.

They won't take any personal gain. They want to hold all things in common so that nobody owns anything. Because isn't that what the early church did in Jerusalem in the days immediately following Pentecost? Shouldn't we want to be like them? Weren't they following this ideal that Christ said?

Don't take the knapsack. Don't take money bags. And you didn't have any need, Christ reminded the apostles. You didn't need anything. They believe that since God is the source of all wealth, materialism simply distracts people from focusing on God and building treasure in heaven.

After all, that's what Jesus did say. Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy and thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven where moth and rust can't destroy and where thieves can't break in and steal. You know, there's no safe on earth that's safe from thieves, except in heaven. Or what about marriage? Some would elevate Paul's instruction to the unmarried into the widows in the Corinthian Church that It was good for them to remain even as He was.

And they've taught that, well, the most holy people shouldn't get married. That's if you're not as holy, then you can get married. But the ideal for the holy person is that they shouldn't be married, but be celibate for life like Paul because he said that was better Because the man or woman that's not married is able to devote themselves fully to the Lord That's what Paul said to the Corinthians. I want you to be without care because he who is unmarried cares for the things of the Lord. How he may please the Lord, but he who is married cares for the things of the world.

How he may please his wife. And there is a difference. Paul said between a wife and a virgin, the unmarried woman cares about the things of the Lord that she may be holy both in body and spirit, but she who is married cares about the things of the world, how she may please her husband. And I say this for your own profit, Paul said. Not that I may put a leash on you for what is proper, but that you may serve the Lord without distraction.

Well, that's a pretty strong endorsement, pretty strong statement. Paul says it's better not to be married. And so they absolutized that instruction and entirely set aside the cultural mandates given to Adam and to Noah. Of course, many of these you'll recognize are things that are done in the Roman Catholic Church, but not just them. Not just them.

These ideas on poverty, they're prevalent in the Protestant side as well in some segments. Rejection of anything material, Rejection of any outward beauty. Touch not, taste not. Describe it there. Or what about swearing?

Some have taught, some have absolutized Jesus' command that it's wrong to ever swear an oath by heaven or earth or anything in them, even the temple and the altar, and they ignore the commands in the Old Testament that tell us to swear by God's name and they ignore the examples of godly men doing just that. In fact, God himself swears. In fact, actually Paul swears in the pages of Scripture in two places. To take an oath is to call God as a record against your soul. And that's what Paul writes.

It's not he writes that he did swear. In the pages of Scripture, he takes an oath in the very words of Scripture. And so these who would absolutize this command never to swear, they resolve the difficulty by classifying the commands and examples of swearing as Old Testament commands that don't need to be obeyed anymore. And then of course we have this passage about arms. And many commentators do the same thing with this passage regarding Jesus' instructions about swords.

He said once to the disciples to carry a sword, or to not carry a sword, and now He's telling them, carry a sword. And so what some people do is to absolutize the one command, not to carry a sword, and somehow spiritualize this command. And so they believe that Jesus' command to take a sword here is referring to the sword of the Spirit. And the immediate context would seem to support that. Because just a little while later when Peter tries to use this metal sword that they have, he has, Jesus rebukes him and says, no, put that away.

And so they say, well, Jesus obviously then isn't referring to swords when he tells them to sell their garment and buy a sword. He must be referring to the sword of the spirit. So effectively we've spiritualized away this command to carry a sword. And there are many people who believe that, that it's always wrong to take up arms. Sergeant Alvin York of World War I fame, won a Medal of Honor, was of this persuasion when he became a Christian.

Desmond Ross, a Medal of Honor recipient in World War II, was another example of someone, a Christian, professing Christian, who believed it was wrong to ever use a gun. He's the only person to ever win a medal of honor and never use a weapon. He won the medal of honor because he saved the lives of some 50 or 100 people. And so the Lord can use people, even if we have mistaken ideas about His word. The Lord honors those who seek to honor Him.

But the question is, all of God's Word is for us. And if we are ignoring any part of God's word, then we aren't, then we're ignoring something God has called us to do. Now on the other side of absolutizing one command, and more or less ignoring or spiritualizing the other command. The other extreme, thankfully far less common among Christians, but the other extreme is to simply say, well, there are no absolutes. It really all depends.

And this is, you know, far worse than the error of absolutizing one and not the other. These people say there are no absolutes. Everything depends. They make God's Word and His Law, His commands, His precepts, into general propositions that are good wisdom, generally true, instead of commands that endure as the word of God forever. So the command not to commit adultery becomes a general principle.

That's good to keep people from getting hurt, to keep families together, to keep people from being heartbroken and betrayed and so on. But it's not an absolute. What about two people who really, really love each other? And they plan to get married. What's the big deal if they live together?

How's that hurting anybody? I had a friend a number of years ago who was on the vestry of a modern church and one evening before their meeting he was talking with another member of this vestry board and was quite surprised to find out that this man, he was an older gentleman as I recall him telling me, that This man didn't really think it was wrong to commit adultery if no one was really hurt by it. He didn't think that was a problem at all. Because God's commands have become generalities, no absolutes. It all depended on the circumstances.

Or What about the command, you shall not kill? Well, these people would say, well, that's generally good, but it's not absolute. And those who are frequently in the, working with mothers of boarding babies, talk about this being even pastors even teaching people these things. What about an old person who's lived a full and adventurous life, but who now is wracked with chronic and unrelenting pain, excruciating pain? How could it be so wrong to relieve their pain in a safe and loving way, free them from the body of misery and unspeakable agony.

How could that be so wrong? Wouldn't that actually be a kindness to them? You wouldn't have to see them suffer Day in and day out and be utterly helpless to do anything about it? Or what about a young person who is injured and unable to move any more than even their tongue? They can only lie in bed helpless.

Everything has to be done for them. They can't even talk. How could it be so wrong to let them pass away? See, if we remove the absolutes of God's law, this is where we end up. Or a person who's unconscious, unable to give or show affection, unable to communicate in any way.

Is it really wrong simply to not feed them so they can escape such a hopeless life when helping them be the kind thing to do? Surely these people say That can't be wrong. That's not a loving thing. Or what about convenience? A young lady about to finish law school who has an opportunity to clerk for a Supreme Court judge and A promising career with a prestigious firm right after, but an unwanted pregnancy will completely derail and ruin her life.

Surely it can't be wrong to remove this baby so he doesn't get in the way of this talented young lady and her full potential. Like I said, even pastors, we've known of even pastors of churches who have gone along with this kind of thinking and thought nothing wrong with what these young women were doing. That it's okay to kill their unborn baby. Of course we know that the work of the law is written on our hearts and these people live often for the rest of their life with the work of the law, accusing them of their sin. But maybe to bring it a little more closer to our more everyday experience, What about the Sabbath and keeping the Lord's day?

How could it be wrong to go to the grocery store? Or how could it be wrong to keep a grocery store open? Or a drug store? People need to eat. People need medicine.

How can it be wrong to have these stores open? How could it be wrong maybe to keep my shoe store open on Sunday afternoon after I go to church? My tenant contract with the mall requires I be open on the Lord's Day at least four hours. What's so wrong with that? People can spend an afternoon at the mall on Sunday.

My pastor, when I was growing up in San Jose, California, said that in his day in San Jose, there would be one drug store open each Sunday. One drug store. That duty drug store would rotate every week so if you happen to need medicine on the Lord's Day for some emergency you would call a number to find out which store was open that day. Some states still have vestiges of these laws, like selling alcohol on the Lord's Day. They reason that's not a necessity.

Food maybe is a necessity, so we'll allow grocery stores to be open, but alcohol, that's not a necessity, so you can't sell that on Sunday. It's where some of these laws have come from. As people have given up the absolutes in God's law, and the first absolute to go is not murder, and it's not theft, It's the Lord's Day. That still is a command in God's law. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.

See, it's very dangerous to go down the road of no absolutes. And while it may seem a little less dangerous to absolutize one command over another, it still leaves us not obeying some part of Scripture. The Scriptures are there to thoroughly furnish us to every good work. If we're missing some part of them, if we're not following them, if we're not rightly dividing them and obeying them, then we won't be fully equipped for every good work. We might be equipped for some, and maybe many good works, but We won't be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

And so the church is weakened because the church is the people of God. And the church is nothing more than you and I United in Jesus Christ. So where we are weak, the church is weak. If you see the church weak somewhere, start with yourself. How am I a reflection of this?

Because the church is just the composite of all of God's people. So how do we handle these apparent conflicts? Jesus saying on one hand, not to take a bag of money and supplies them, and on the other hand, to take these things. Well, obviously some are very straightforward, like the marriage situation. That was dealt with a special circumstance in the church in Corinth.

Paul had a right to take a wife. He said that, do I not have a right to take a wife, a believing wife, as do the other apostles, the brothers of the Lord and Cephas? He had a right to do that. And in the right time he did. Or the or the vows of poverty, right?

The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein, the power to get wealth comes from the Lord himself. And he But He gives that power to get wealth so that we are enabled to serve Him. That's why He gives us that power. That's why He gives us anything. Deuteronomy 8 says, and you shall remember the Lord your God, for it is He that gives you power to get wealth that He may establish His covenant which He swore to your fathers." The Lord gives us the power to get wealth so that we can serve Him, so that we can be equipped to advance His kingdom.

A good man, Proverbs 13 tells us, leaves an inheritance to his children's children, but the wealth of the sinner is stored up for the righteous. It costs money to do things. Even good and spiritual things, it costs money. But money is an instrument. It's a tool.

It's not the end in itself. The purpose of gathering wealth is to put it to kingdom use. And one of those purposes of gathering wealth for kingdom use is raising families. Strong families need strong financial backing. You have to buy land.

If you're going to feed a family, you have to have land to grow food. You have to have a house to live in. You need to be able to pay medical expenses. These are all obligations that every father has and their wife by their side. Education is expensive.

Families are to teach their children. And that costs money. So there is a need to have wealth. There is a need for families to have wealth. And Proverbs says a godly man has that wealth.

Paul urged churches to give to the work of the gospel to give to to them into other churches that had need He didn't condemn those churches that were that had wealth that had material wealth But rather he urged them to use that wealth properly for the glory of God. And so Jesus' command here is very real. It's not a spiritual thing. We need money. We need supplies.

And we need, and that takes capital to gather the supplies and to fund the work that we're called to do. And so the idea of a vow of poverty is really not scriptural at all. What we are to remember is the purpose for our wealth. Our purpose isn't simply to gather up wealth here on earth so that he who has the most toys when he dies wins, but rather to gather up wealth for the kingdom, for our children, for our godly children so that they can exercise a godly dominion in this earth. What about Jesus' instruction on personal assault?

Turn the other cheek. I think Jesus' instruction here is to turn the other cheek, is teaching us how to respond when assault is legal, and we are faced with police injustice. Don't get angry and shoot back as a citizen. Turn the other cheek. I remember about 20 years ago when airport searches came into being, routine airport searches.

Before that you would go through a metal scanner, but you pretty much walked through, and only occasionally would somebody be searched. It was generally rare if you were careful to get all the metal out of your pocket. But after 20 years it became a routine thing and of course I didn't want to participate in these new x-ray machines that they had put in and so I never have gone through them. And so every time there would be the search, I was a bit conflicted with this. This is a violation of my rights.

This right is a God-given thing. This man standing in front of me is breaking his oath, his duty. And what do I do? How do I resist this? Why do I just stare him down?

Not blink, expressionless, to show that I'm not pleased with this? And I realized, I can't really do that. How am I witnessing as a Christian in that situation? I realized, no, this is what Jesus is saying here. That the context of that was a soldier commanding you to go a mile.

He could command you to carry his things a mile. It wasn't just. Jesus said, carry him a mile and offer to go the second mile. It wasn't just, but Jesus is telling us here how to handle these injustices when we have no other authority to resist them and no other way to resist them. So don't get angry and mad and fight back because you just hurt yourself.

I remember I just saw recently a 60 Minutes in Australia. A man was unjustly charged with rape by his fiance. And it is a horrific tale, I won't give you all the story, but this fiance absolutely ruined their family with with this endless list of chart false charges that she kept giving to the police and the police were listening to her. Of course she was sleeping with one of them. But they were listening to her and this man ended up in jail and his family, his parents actually, who'd been married for over 30 years, his father got started getting charged because remember she'd been a fiance they were going to get married and and it destroyed their family they ended up getting a divorce the parents ended up getting a divorce and in the 60 minutes interview the interviewer asked him, the father at one point, about if he could just describe how he felt.

You know what his word was? Anger. Anger. That's all he felt, anger. He didn't know Christ.

Their family was destroyed. They spent half a million dollars. Their marriage is gone. Their son was a police officer. His career is ruined.

He lost everything he owned. He just felt anger. Yes, it was a gross, gross injustice, but there have been worse injustices. Look at what happened to the worm brats. What happened to them didn't even begin to describe what happened to the worm brats.

Yet they could turn the other cheek because they had the Holy Spirit, they had Christ to enable them to do that. And instead of anger that destroyed their family, their son who grew up from much of his life without a father because his dad was in jail getting beaten and he was left and his mother was in jail at one point at the same time and he was left to starve with nothing as was his mother and him when his father was in jail they could grow up and change the world because they could turn the other cheek and instead of being just filled with anger by the grace of God they were able to forgive these people and and I highly recommend you watch The second movie that they just came out about Sabina because in there she is able And this is this is what she did she there was she said there were two men that she kissed in her life She lived there. She had a rather immoral life before she was a Christian. But after she was a Christian and was married, she said there weren't two men she ever kissed.

One was her husband. And what was the man that killed her family? That's turning the other cheek. But Jesus says an eye for an eye. The Bible says an eye for an eye.

We are to resist tyranny. We are to prosecute people who do evil. The eye for an eye is the instruction for judges in setting just punishments. And it's an instruction for us as citizens that we should prosecute these people who assault us and who injure us. Not out of anger, but out of kindness, out of love to see justice done.

And so we see we separate, we have to then distinguish between our duty as individuals when we are helpless before injustice of the law and our duty as individuals, as citizens, to help the civil magistrate participate in him carrying out God's wrath on those who do evil. Now, what about carrying a sword? I mentioned how some people understand this passage, that this is a spiritual sword Jesus says, is saying to get. And they have some basis for that when Jesus rebukes Peter for using it. But a sword is necessary for self-defense.

And just like the ability to get money comes from the Lord, the ability to wage war, to defend ourselves, comes from God. David said, Blessed be the Lord my rock, who trains my hands for war my fingers for battle David was a mighty warrior. He killed a number of people in his life. I don't know how many Hundreds as a warrior on the battlefield, not for his own personal vengeance. And he said it was the Lord Himself who taught his hands how to make war, how to fight.

It was the Lord who gave him that skill. And so it is necessary for us when we live in a dangerous place to be prepared to defend ourselves, to defend our families and our children, our wives, to be able to defend the weaker. So why is Jesus rebuking Peter? Well, if we look in the Matthew passage, this is what we read, suddenly one of those who were with Jesus stretched out his hand and drew his sword and struck the ear of the high priest and cut off his ear. But Jesus said, Put your sword in its place for all who take the sword will perish by the sword.

Or do you think that I cannot now pray to my Father and He will provide me with more than twelve legions of angels? How then could the Scriptures be fulfilled that it must happen thus? There is the key answer. How then could it happen that the Scriptures be fulfilled? That this is what has to happen.

I need to be arrested. I need to be tried and put to death. That's what Jesus has been telling His disciples all along. This is what I came to do. I came to die.

As He set His face to go to Jerusalem, He started telling them, I came to die. And so Jesus' answer here, his explanation is, this is necessary that the Scriptures be fulfilled. This is necessary that the will of God be done. This is necessary for me to go through this. And So therefore it's wrong for you to use a sword to seek to stop this.

That was God's purpose. He came here to die. If it's not your purpose to die, then this situation, this command, isn't directly applicable to us. But What Jesus does here is he totally refutes any idea of fatalism. Fatalism is the idea that, well, if God has ordained it to happen, then it's going to happen, and I don't have to do anything.

I'm just going to sit here, and whatever God has ordained is going to happen. You ever hear that? That's obviously a gross oversimplification and misapplication, but that's a common idea that well if it's ordained to happen it's going to happen and I don't have to do anything about it. I don't have to worry myself about making it happen. That's not the attitude that Jesus takes at all.

He looks at what God has ordained and says, don't do that because how else would the Scriptures then be fulfilled? How then could the Scriptures be fulfilled that it must happen this way? In other words, what God has ordained, where we know God has commanded something or ordained something, we ought to be working for that thing. How else could the Scriptures be fulfilled? If it's not us, who?

So Jesus completely repudiates and refutes any idea of passivity with respect to things that are foreordained. But he explains then this principle that the scriptures need to be fulfilled. And That is why it wasn't right at that point to use a sword. But he told the disciples earlier, you need a sword. It's important, you have to be able to defend yourselves.

And when He says he that lives by the sword will die by the sword. He's speaking there of those who use the sword just to get their way. That's what nations are fond of doing. That's what great dictators have done, right? They use the sword to get their way.

But that's what the mafia does. They use their guns to get their way. Jesus is saying that's not why you should have a sword. That's not what you should be using it for. It should be for defending yourself.

Defending yourself. If you don't have a sword, sell your garment and buy one, because you're going to need it. And these are practical commands that Jesus gives to us that we should take practically, should obey them. There is a need for money, there is a need for supplies, and there is a need to be able to defend ourselves. In other words, we have not all the time, not everywhere we go, But it's something that we need to keep in mind.

It's something that we need to be prepared for. Jesus has told us that. And we're not being spiritual to simply ignore these physical commands. Gnosticism says the body is unimportant. It's only what counts spiritually.

It's only the spiritual reality, the spirit that counts, the body, the flesh is nothing. But the scriptures give us a very different picture. The body is made by God as much as our spirit was. And God is redeeming our body as well. It's important to him.

In heaven, our bodies will be redeemed. Paul talks about this in Romans 8, we creation groans waiting for the redemption of our body. And so the physical world is important to God. What we do with our body is important. And it's not wrong then to look out for these material needs of money, capital, of food, supplies, of land, and of the ability to defend ourselves.

May God give us wisdom. To walk in his precepts, to be thoroughly equipped for every, every good work to which he calls us. Let's pray. Gracious Father in heaven, we thank you for your great wisdom that you have displayed not only in the heavens, but here in Your Word. Your Word speaks to every area of our life.

How though it is thousands of years old, yet it is never one second out of date. Never obsolete. Never overcome by events and irrelevant. But Lord, Your Word is powerful. Dividing us under soul and spirit, even of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of our hearts.

Father, sanctify us by your word and equip us that we may rightly divide your word and rightly obey. And Lord, we do love you and ask that you would dwell and walk with us in Jesus' name, amen.