ATONEMENT - Fast or Not #1

Fred Coulter - December 1, 1990

It’s absolutely amazing sometimes how it comes out that you come across information, or you come across something that fits right in exactly with what you’re doing or thinking. Today I’m going to start some sermons showing what is the true teaching of Atonement, whether we should fast or not, because there are some people who are claiming now that we shouldn’t fast. And let’s see if that teaching holds up in the light of the scripture. Now we’ve provided for you two tapes which gives the account, and the lesson, allegedly showing that you don’t have to fast on Atonement. But that is only one teaching among many in a society in which we are living today. So I want to ask you a question: Since there is Satan the devil, and we just covered the long series, “Satan’s Ten Most Believable Lies”, and I think we’ll find out how important that that is really going to be in the long run as we go down the road here in the future.

But let me ask you a question concerning studying the Bible, concerning what we are going to do here: What is it that Satan would like to do to you? Now we found out that Satan would love to make you give up on God, number 1. That is his whole goal, right? And then right after that is to commit the unpardonable sin, correct, so that you will be lost, and hence in the future thrown into the lake of fire. That is Satan’s goal.

Now, in order to have that goal, since we saw in the series “Satan Ten Most Unbelievable Lies”, that he did not destroy Jesus Christ, that he couldn’t stop God’s plan from being in effect. Jesus Christ, we know, is risen. He lives. He’s at the right hand of God. He’s our High Priest in heaven right now. And He is there advocating for us. We know that, we understand it. However, we still live in the world in which there is Satan the devil going around as a roaring lion, as we saw, seeking whom he may devour. So the question is: Since Satan cannot get us, on say over occultism, since Satan cannot get to us concerning some of the doctrines in the Bible that we know are absolutely sure, what would Satan like to do most of all since he can’t get you directly?

(Audience comments) Ok, get people against each other. That’s one. Wreck your faith. Now you’re right on. Let’s take that a little bit further. Give you the wrong doctrine, or subvert your faith step-by-step. How then can he subvert the faith step-by-step? Mix truth with error, or misapply truth. Misapply truth, or make an application of truth, which is not correct for the proper circumstances, which then ends up being false teachings. Exactly correct.

Now, when you go to Revelation 2 and 3, we find that that is exactly the problems that happened to the churches of God listed in Revelation 2 and 3, correct? Yes. I won’t go through and enumerate all of them except to say that there were false apostles, there were the doctrines of the Nicolaitans, there were the doctrines of Baalam, there were the doctrines of idolatry. There was the plain weakness of faith to where they almost died, to where it says you have a name that you live but you’re dead. There is mentioned twice the synagogue of Satan, which is active and alive and well, especially now at the end, which is coming after the whole world and especially anyone who stands for any kind of Christianity. And then we find at the end that we have a condition in the church where they are lukewarm. They need to be zealous for God. They’re neither rejecting, their neither in the world, and so you have two classes of people here. Those that are about to be ready to be spewed out of the mouth of God because they say that they are “…rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked:…” (Rev. 3:17).

Now if you are blind, and obviously this blinding comes in degree, ok? Who do we find in 2 Corinthians 4 who blinds the minds of people from the gospel? None other than the god of this world, Satan the devil. Alright, we’re going to cover verses and scriptures and principles here without getting into verse and turn here and turn there, because we’ll have plenty of that later. So what I want to do is kind of lay the background here.

Now, all subverted doctrine comes in the guise of new truth. Always remember that. And that in itself is a misnomer because truth is truth, and because you haven’t understood it does not mean that it is “new” truth. It may be newly discovered truth, or it may be that which has been discovered which is proclaimed new truth. And that which has been discovered is in fact a distortion of truth. Now we will see that this was a problem in the church of God right from the very start, ok?

Now I would like to read you an article that came in, lo and behold, this morning’s paper. So like I say, it’s interesting how these things come along. What is truth and what is illusion? Now the whole world’s having a problem with this. And we might apply this to doctrinally - what is truth and what is an illusion. The headline says: “Fakers Epitomize Eroding Reality.” So I think this is really fitting for what we are going to get into here. Because what we are going to cover, as I mentioned before, is not suddenly discovering that you ought to keep the Sabbath. Alright? It’s not suddenly discovering that there is sin. It’s not suddenly discovering that you need to repent of sin. It’s not suddenly discovering that you need to be baptized. It is the subtitles of sophistication, which are eroding the reality of the truth in the Bible by using pitting the Bible against the Bible, one sanction against another sanction, to erode faith and truth and create the illusion of new doctrine.

“Milli-Vanilli.” [You’ve heard that just recently. And these long-haired freaks were out there mouthing their songs and didn’t sing.] “Milli-Vanilli, Milly’s Book. The first is a singing duo that really doesn’t sing. The second, a memoir, written by a dog. Both happened to us in 1990. Any fool can see that this is a part of some larger uglylier phenomena, a deterioration of authenticity. A breakdown of the barrier between truth and illusion.”

And remember, CBS was trying to show…what was this Ambassador Block who was supposed to be passing secrets to the Russians? So they set up a fake news report and they allegedly showed Block passing a briefcase to some surly looking person, and it was staged. But they didn’t say it was staged until they were caught later, because they were trying to show that they had the goods on Block passing this from himself to an agent, who looked like a Soviet espionage type. You know, collar up, dark-looking, hat pulled down, you see. And now we’ve got the goods on Block. Well that turned out to be a fake. So you can’t even believe what you see on the news always. Keep that in remembrance when you watch the news.

It is an “…uglier phenomena, a deterioration of authenticity, a breakdown of the barrier between truth and illusion. Forget world hunger and global warming, and war and disease, and poverty. This is a deeper, vaster, stranger reality erosion. Reality erosion is a major trend affecting our life as we know it. A mysterious and terrible thing is happening to us. And even if it’s not happening to us, nevertheless it is happening to us, because truth and untruth have become so fuzzy that the veracity of something is not damaged by it’s being a lie.” [Now these are profound words.]

“There was a time when the Milli Vanilli case would have been called a hoax, or perhaps even a fraud. Now it’s just a too clever marketing scheme. A tad outrageous but somehow unsurprising. Predictable, even tolerable. We are desensitized and battle hardened. The fact is we like illusion. We like those fake foreign villages in the Epcot Center. They are better than the real ones. Cleaner, more shops, and Italy, after all then, is only five minutes from Japan.” [Now the Epcot Center, that’s where they have shops from all around the world.]

“Reality erosion has become so widespread that it has spawned a small academic cottage industry. There are people who monitor such things as bogginess as the Milli Vanilli scandal. They work in universities and write ominous books with terms like “hyper-realism”, and “boundary warping”. They agree that there is nothing aberrant in the Milli Vanilli case because that is what America is all about. What most disturbs them is the possibility that people will assume that the problem is gone, now that Milli Vanilli have been humiliated and de-Grammyized. ‘I think in some weird way the punishment they are getting, the Grammy being taken away, creates the impression that under normal circumstances these kind of charades don’t take place’, said Stewart Edwin, co-author of All Consuming Images, the political style and contemporary culture. ‘But within the music industry, and within the entertainment industry, within the publicity industry, and within politics it’s become standard to sort of pre-fabricate, and sort of engineer images for public consumption.”

And those are accommodated through public relations firms, right? Yes.

“Neal Postman, author of Amusing Ourselves To Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business, summed up the situation - ‘The whole culture is becoming kind of a pseudo-event.’”

Now that’s very interesting because where does the word “pseudo” come from? It comes from Greek. The Greek word pseudo, which means “fake”. And when you come here to Revelation 2 and it talks about the false apostles, it is the pseudo apostolos, which is the fake apostles.

“’The real question”, he said, “is, do people care enough really to give a damn? People have lost the ability to differentiate, and do they care to differentiate any longer?’”

Now that’s something, isn’t it? We today are in the midst of banning smoking everywhere. But on the verge of legalizing pot and cocaine. Do they care to differentiate at all? I mean, think about it. You talk about being cross-eyed just trying to follow the logic of one to the other, huh? Really makes no sense.

“The pioneering work in reality erosion came in 1962 when historian Daniel Vorstein published the book called “The Image: A Guide To Pseudo Events In America”. The book foresaw the manipulation of the electronic media by political operatives. Vorstein wrote, ‘We suffer primarily not from our vices or our weaknesses, but from our illusions. We are haunted not by reality, but by those images we have put in place of reality.’ Into this picture stepped the guileless, handsome, semi-intelligent singers of Rob Pilotes and Fabrice Morvan. They were, or are Milli Vanilli. At a recent news conference Pilotes tried to apologize for the sham. He says, ‘We really love our fans. We just hope that they understand we were just young and just wanted to live life the American way.’”

And the American way has become that, we try and delude ourselves that reality doesn’t exist, and we will create our own reality for us. Now we just have a case of this with Mary O, right here in this area. Remember, she was allegedly abducted, allegedly forced with sexual assault, allegedly taken all over the western United States, allegedly let go and given some money so she could call the police and go. Well as it turned out, her illusion was that she would do this, and say all of this, but now she’s gotten caught and she still doesn’t want to admit that it was a big sham. And she rode on a Greyhound bus between Salt Lake and Cheyenne, Wyoming, and stayed with this guy in his apartment for about three weeks, see.

And there are a lot of things that are said of people which are reality erosions. And they become commonplace on the news. And right now the Democrats are the ones who are most heinous in this. They are saying that George Bush has not stated that he has made his case for what we’re doing over in Saudi Arabia. And I thought he made it very clear. Now, I think the whole thing is a complete sham, a complete set-up, to bring on now the total, the total reality erosion, which is - let’s have a one world government.

So, let’s see if we can find out in this whether we can, with God’s Spirit and God’s Word, do some things to understand where we are in, as we could put it without putting anyone down or being cynical or anything, but seeing if we can find the Milli Vanilli of the doctrinal errors. Not just in Atonement but in other things, because we do have to cover the three days and three nights, and we do have to cover the reality of who Christ really was. And so let’s begin where we started last week.

I told you this week I would review this scripture. Let’s go to 2 Corinthians 2:17. Now we’ll just cover some of these because you see, the church of God after the apostles died suffered from reality erosion. “For we are not as many, which corrupt the word of God: but as of sincerity, but as of God, in the sight of God speak we in Christ.”

Now let me read it to you in the English translation of the Interlinear. “For we are not as the many, making gain by corrupting the word of God, but as of sincerity, but as of God, before God, in Christ we speak.” Now that has to be whole motivation of a minister. And I think one of the ways that you’ll understand some of this is to become victimized by it, so that you can be aware of what’s going on. And I think we’ve been victimized enough by it.

Let’s go to 2 Corinthians 4:1, “Therefore having this service [of the spirit of teaching people to look to Jesus Christ], according as we received mercy, we faint not. But we [have] renounced the hidden things of shame, not walking in craftiness, nor falsifying the word of God,…” (2 Cor. 4:1-2, Berry’s Interlinear Greek New Testament). Is it possible to falsify the word of God, though appear true? The answer is, yes, if it’s done skillfully. Alright, how can you tell who’s skillful and who’s not?

Let’s go to 1 Timothy 1. And you might do this as a study for yourself. Go ahead and do a swift review - and what I mean by that is, read very rapidly until you come to places in the New Testament that talk about false doctrine, people twisting the scriptures, and so forth. And then zero in on those scriptures and mark them down and create a little list for yourself. I didn’t have time to do it this week so I’ll let you do that in your own Bible study.

Ok, 1 Timothy 1:3, “As I besought thee to abide still at Ephesus, when I went into Macedonia, that thou mightest charge some that they teach no other doctrine,…” That is, no other teaching. They had doctrinal problems there. “…Neither give heed to fables and endless genealogies, which minister questions, rather than godly edifying which is in faith: so do” (1 Tim. 1:3-4). So they had the problem back there, didn’t they? Someone has an idea. You know, not all ideas are inspired by God, and not all ideas are good ideas. It may be well to explore them, but if you do so you better make sure you do it fearfully and know from where you’re coming and going, ok?

“Now the end of the commandment is [love] charity out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned:…” And that’s what it has to be. “...From which some having swerved have turned aside unto vain jangling; desiring to be teachers of the law; understanding neither what they say, nor whereof they affirm” (vs. 5-7). And I will have to say there are a lot of would-be preachers out there.

There are a lot of people who know their Bibles reasonably well, well enough to give the appearance that they are experts. But I will give you one clue as to tell whether they really know anything or not. And we did this the other night. I forgot to bring it. But you do this: you take a Strong’s Concordance and you look at some of the major definitions. Just open it up and turn it anywhere. I don’t care where you turn it. Hebrew/Greek section - it really doesn’t make any difference, ok. Pick out a big block definition of a major prime root. You can establish no doctrine on it. For example we’ll use this: what if you use the prime word in the English “to see”? That does not tell you who is seeing; when they are seeing; what they are seeing; was it a glance; was it a glimpse; was it a stare; was it they saw; they had seen; will see; are going to see? What is it? You can’t tell by reading the English definition of “to see” if you get a number out of the concordance and you look up the word, because it doesn’t tell you under what circumstances that word was used, ok? It only gives you the root. So whenever you hear anyone give you a number in Strong’s Concordance and sound very authoritative, and try and establish a doctrine on Strong’s Concordance, you know that they don’t have the expertise to understand what they’re saying, though they may sound very authoritative.

Just like these people I talked to yesterday. They said, “Well when do you think Christ is returning?” And I was being a little fictitious. I said, “I can tell you exactly the year that Jesus is going to return. I choose every year between now and when He puts His foot on the earth.” I said, “We’ve heard ‘75’, we’ve heard ‘82’, we’ve heard ‘88-89-90-91-92’, and there was someone who wrote recently that ‘Brethren, the tribulation has started and we are in the first year of the last seven years’.” And I said, “Don’t believe it because Matthew 24 says [as we covered last week], ‘When you see the abomination of desolation stand in the holy place, then shall be the great tribulation’.” So that’s why you have to know your Bible. But there are people who write letters and say, “Brethren, send in all your money because we are beginning the last seven years now.” And then the one that says, “I have new truth. I know exactly when Christ is going to come.” Usher’s chronology, which was done by Bishop Usher, what, over 200 years ago, that is a correct chronology. Number one, it’s not new truth because Usher did it over 200 years ago. And number two, if that was so then that would go against the scripture which says, “and no man shall know the day or the hour of the coming of the Son of man”, alright? So you see, when someone says a statement that is not true in the Bible, or they try and make something true by showing they have knowledge of something, if they say that this is out of Strong’s Concordance, be on guard. It may or may not be right. You don’t know for sure, see. “…Desiring to be teachers of the law; understanding neither what they say, nor whereof they affirm” (vs. 7).

Now you also have another condition that we need to look at too. 2 Chronicles 18:21. Ok, now this is when Ahab and Jehoshaphat, who was the king of Judah, Ahab was the king of Israel. Let’s go here to verse 17, and this is after one of the prophets came. Yes, Micaiah came and said, verse 13, “…As the LORD liveth, even what my God saith, that will I speak.”

Let’s pick it up here, verse 14 now. “And when he was come to the king, the king said unto him, Micaiah, shall we go to Ramoth-gilead to battle, or shall I forbear? And he said, Go ye up, and prosper, and they shall be delivered into your hand. And the king said to him, How many times shall I adjure thee that thou say nothing but the truth to me in the name of the LORD? Then he said, I did see all Israel scattered upon the mountains, as sheep that have no shepherd: and the LORD said, These have no master; let them return therefore every man to his house in peace. And the king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, Did I not tell thee that he would not prophesy good unto me, but evil?” (2 Chron. 18:14-17). See, this guy liked to be stroked. (Chuckle) He wanted to have the reality erosion in front of his own mind, you see, that he didn’t want to accept the reality.

“Again he said, Therefore hear the word of the LORD; I saw the LORD sitting upon His throne, and all the host of heaven standing on His right hand and on His left. And the LORD said, Who shall entice Ahab king of Israel, that he may go up and fall at Ramoth-gilead? And one spake saying after this manner, and another saying after that manner. Then there came out a spirit, and stood before the LORD, and said, I will entice him. And the LORD said unto him, [Now, how are you going to do this?] Wherewith? And he said, I will go out, and be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets. And the LORD said, Thou shalt entice him, and thou shalt also prevail: go out, and do even so. Now therefore, behold, the LORD hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of these thy prophets, and the LORD hath spoken evil against thee” (vs. 18-22). And then of course Ahab was mad and said, “…Put this fellow in the prison,…” (vs. 26), get rid of him. Now, see you have to be careful that you don’t come to a point that God is going to have a lying spirit added to the spirit even in you.

Let’s go to 2 Thessalonians 2 and see that when people love erosion reality so much, when they want to have it their own way in spite of what the Bible clearly says, that they could end themselves up in some difficult situations indeed. 2 Thessalonians 2:11, “And for this cause…”, the cause of what? For this cause, because they didn’t love the truth, they received not the love of the truth. “…For this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie:…” Now what if you believe the lie is the truth? See, because you can believe with the same conviction of mind something that is not true, as though it were true. Didn’t we see that in World War 2? Yes, we did. Didn’t we see that in the Soviet Union? They’ve accepted the lie that they could have a society, an egalitarian society, which means equality of everyone, by doing away with God, number one. And have the state control everything, number two. Now they’ve had to admit they’re totally defeated, and they’re begging for Bibles to be sent to the Soviet Union. They were given over to a lie. So there’s always that part of it.

Now, let’s go to 2 Timothy 1, since we’re right close here in 2 Thessalonians - just a few pages over. 2 Timothy 1, and let’s see what Paul admonishes Timothy. He says, after he was not ashamed of the gospel. Verse 13, “Hold fast the form of sound words, which thou hast heard of me, in faith and love which is in Christ Jesus. That [the] good thing which was committed unto thee keep by the Holy [Spirit] Ghost which dwelleth in us. This thou knowest, that all they which are in Asia be turned away from me; of whom are Phygellus and Hermogenes. The Lord give mercy unto the house of Onesiphorus; for he oft refreshed me, and was not ashamed of my chain:…” (2 Tim. 1:13-16). So apparently while he was in prison these people, who were mentioned here as well as others, went around and said, “Well now. What do you think of the apostle Paul. His is in prison.” I’m sort of filling in a little bit here in between, so allow me a little license because why would he say that all those which are in Asia had left him? There had to be a reason. Someone was going around saying, “Well, you know, surely God must not be with him if he’s in prison. He must have done something wrong. You know, those authorities can’t be all that wrong, can they?”

Now let’s come down here and pick it up in 2 Timothy 2:14. It talks about being a good soldier. Consider the things I’ve said, and so forth. You read all the rest of it. He said in verse 9, “…I suffer trouble, as an evildoer, even unto bonds; but the word of God is not bound.”

Now let’s come down to verse 14. “Of these things put them in remembrance, charging them before the Lord that they strive not about words to no profit, but…” And we can insert there, “…[in reality it is ] to the subverting of the hearers.” And that’s what’s happening in the church of God right now. Hearers of slightly twisted doctrine are being subverted. So he says verse 15, “Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.” Which tells us then that there is a wrong way to divide the word of truth. And it’s interesting, the Greek means “straightly cutting” the word of truth. Now this also substantiates the fact that, as we read earlier, that there are those who falsely divide the word of God for their own profit. And we will see some examples of that in this study as we go along.

Now, let’s continue on here in 2 Timothy 2, and let’s see what else that Timothy is told to do in being able to avoid these things. And let’s keep in mind where we read earlier that Paul said all the churches in Asia had turned from him. So, they were experiencing the same thing that many of the church of God are experiencing today, that you have a lot of people out there who claim to be ministers, who were ministers, or ministers at one time, and they are going ahead and saying that “Oh, we have new truth.” And they twist the scriptures.

Now let’s see what else it says here. It says, “…rightly dividing the word of [God] truth.” As we mentioned that means “straightly cutting”. That is properly putting it together. And as we know, the Bible says that it’s line upon line, here a little, there a little, and you put it all together. And that’s the way that it has to be done. But notice verse 16, “But shun profane and vain babblings:…”, which a lot of these doctrinal things are. They are profane because they are not holy. They are vain babblings because they’re not preaching the word of God. And so a person who’s in the church of God has got to be able discern what will happen. “…For they will increase unto more ungodliness.” And that’s exactly what is happening. Stop and think. How many people do you know that have changed the Passover? And then follows along with that, other changes in clear doctrine, and pretty soon you’re going to get to the place that a lot of the Protestants are, which is: why should you keep any of the commandments of God anyway because you’re saved through the sacrifice of Christ only? Now we’ll cover a little bit of that later and make sure we understand the whole thing, however it increases to more ungodliness.

Now verse 17, “And their word will eat as doth a canker:…” And that means that it’s not apparent right away. It is eating away in rottenness and then turns into gangrene. “…Of whom is Hymenaeus and Philetus; who concerning the truth have erred, saying that the resurrection is past already; and overthrow the faith of some.” Now that’s a pretty drastic doctrine, to say that the resurrection is already past. Now remember in 1 Corinthians 15, Paul was saying that there were those who said that there is no resurrection. So twisting and changing of doctrine is nothing new. That’s why the foundation of the word of God, verse 19, “…standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are His. And, Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity” (vs. 17-19). What kind of iniquity? Iniquity from teaching false doctrines, which is in the context here, not only just the iniquity of sin, but also the greater sin of twisting and distorting doctrine.

Now let’s go on. Let’s come down here to verse 24. “And the servant of the Lord must not strive; but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient, in meekness instructing those that oppose themselves;…” And in many cases this is exactly what people are doing. They’re opposing themselves because they’re changing doctrines, and in doing so then what they are doing is setting up themselves to incur more and more sin. “…Instructing those that oppose themselves; if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth; and that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will” (vs. 24-26).

So right here at this point, since we’re talking about the devil, let’s ask the question: what is it that the devil would like to do to those who are in the church, and how would he do it? Well, he wants to get people to commit the unpardonable sin. Now what if you are highly knowledgeable, and what if you are converted, how are you going to then be a victim for Satan the devil? Well, you’ll be a victim for Satan the devil because he would like you, through the vanity of your own intellectualism, to rip you away just a little bit from the doctrines. Take you away just a little bit, as a first step, so then that becomes the entrance of the canker which will work and breed to more ungodliness.

Now let’s go to Titus 1, and we find that, just turn the page there right after 2 Timothy. Titus 1, and let’s see what Paul also admonished Titus, so we can see that this was a widespread problem. And so here’s what he told Titus. He says concerning a minister. Let’s pick it up in verse 7. “For a bishop [which means, an overseer] must be blameless, as the steward of God; not selfwilled [that is, to bring his own doctrine - to do his own thing], not soon angry, not given to wine, no striker, not given to filthy lucre; but a lover of hospitality, a lover of good men, sober, just, holy, temperate;…” Now notice verse 9. “…Holding fast the faithful word as he hath been taught, that he may be able by sound doctrine [or, teaching] both to exhort and to [convict - not necessarily convince] convince the gainsayers” (Titus 1:7-9). And people become gainsayers against God when they presume to take upon themselves the changing of the doctrines of God.

“For there are many unruly and vain talkers and deceivers, specially they of the circumcision:…” Now let’s apply this today. He was talking there of the circumcision, he was talking about the Jews going around and causing a lot of problems. You can see that in the book of Acts in all the things that were happening there. But let’s apply that to the church of God today. Most of the problems concerning doctrinal error have been arising from people who were in the church of God. Whether they be ministers or lay-members. So we have especially the same problem today. It says, “…specially they of the circumcision:…” (vs. 10). Because you see, as we mentioned before, the false prophet, which could deceive people in the church of God very handily, and very readily, would be someone who had been in the church of God. Someone who had been a minister. Someone maybe who had been a minister for a long, long time. But you see, faithfulness in the past does not necessarily equate to faithfulness in the present. And faithfulness in the present does not guarantee faithfulness in the future, necessarily. So you see, that’s how we need to look at it today.

“…Whose mouths must be stopped, who subvert whole houses, teaching things which they ought not, for filthy lucre’s sake.” Or in a case if it’s not money it could be people, or following, or power, or control, you see. And then it says, “One of themselves, even a prophet of their own, said, The Cretians are always liars, evil beasts, slow bellies. This witness is true. Wherefore rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith; not giving heed to the Jewish fables [and let’s say any other fables], and commandments of men, that turn from the truth” (vs. 11-14). Not only turning from the truth in the sense that you are turning from the truth as it is written, but turning people from the truth.

Now let’s continue on here, and in the situation of whether to fast or not fast on the Day of Atonement, let’s just review how it has been presented by some people claiming that now we don’t have to fast on the Day of Atonement. The basic instruction runs something like this: number one - all sin in the Old Testament was just physical sin, so therefore whatever sin they sinned was not a spiritual sin, because the blood of bulls and goats cannot forgive sin. Now that is basically a true statement - that the blood of bulls and goats cannot forgive sin. However, we are going to see that sins in the Old Testament - there were spiritual sins as well as physical sins.