Page 84 - Laying Down the Law

His rest has himself also ceased from his works as God did from His.

Christians can make a good showing in the flesh by not working one day a week,
but they have not experienced Sabbath rest until they have ceased from their own
works on a daily basis. The substance of Sabbath rest was observed in Christ. He
testified repeatedly, “I never do anything of My own initiative. I only do the will of the
Father.”
People of God, please hear me! It is this SUBSTANCE of God’s will that He has
now written on the hearts of men who have received the Spirit. God has not written
the shadow of the Mosaic Law on man’s hearts. Why do men fail to perceive this?
Because they are looking outwardly to the Law, rather than inwardly to the Spirit.
Consider also that there were things written in the Law of Moses that made
concessions for man’s stony hearted condition. The Spirit, revealing the will of the
Father in the hearts of the saints, makes no such concessions. The Spirit testifies as
did Christ, “Therefore you are to be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.” What
the Law of Moses permitted stony hearts to do, the Spirit will most definitely not lead
the saint in Christ to do. Let me give you an example.

Matthew 19:3-9
The Pharisees also came to Him, testing Him, and saying to Him, "Is it lawful
for a man to divorce his wife for any reason at all?" And He answered and said
to them, "Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning 'made
them male and female,' and said, 'For this reason a man shall leave his father
and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh'? So
then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined
together, let not man separate." They said to Him, "Why then did Moses
command to give a certificate of divorce, and to put her away?" He said to
them, "Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, permitted you to divorce
your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. And I say to you, whoever
divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits
adultery; and whoever marries her who is divorced commits adultery."

These words of Christ reveal that the Law of Moses made allowances for men
with stony hearts. Christ said that Moses permitted a man to divorce his wife “because
of the hardness of your hearts.” Christ revealed that this ordinance contained in the
Law does not constitute the perfect will of God. To arrive at the perfect will of Yahweh
we have to go beyond the commandments of the Law.
Remember what the Scriptures declare. The Law made nothing perfect. God sent
forth His Son so that men could be perfect. In the Sermon on the Mount, Yahshua
repeatedly showed that the Law for stony hearts is insufficient to make men perfect.
Christ, in delivering what has been called the Sermon on the Mount, said: