Duty and Responsibility of Sons

First Harvest Ministries International DUTY, RESPONSIBILITY, AND THE HUNDRED-FOLD BELIEVER A Bible Lesson on the Difference Between Keeping the Commandment and Knowing the Father's Heart First Harvest Ministries International Rev. John Shane Vaughn KEY TEXT "But he that received seed into the good ground is he that heareth the word, and understandeth it; which also beareth fruit, and bringeth forth, some an hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty." — Matthew 13:23 "So likewise ye, when ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants: we have done that which was our duty to do." — Luke 17:10 OPENING: I KEPT GOING BACK TO THE SAME ROOM I recently visited the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit in Washington, D.C. Rev. John Shane Vaughn • Page 1 First Harvest Ministries International I want to tell you what happened to me there, because it is the reason you are getting this lesson. There is a great deal to see. Fragments of Torah that men copied by hand two thousand years ago. Jars. Ink. The calendar we keep, written down by priests who kept it before we did. I walked through all of it. But there was one room I could not stay out of. It was the room with the Community Rule. The constitution of that priestly community. I would move on to the next section, and twenty minutes later I would find myself standing back in front of that scroll. Three times. Four times. My wife will tell you. And what kept pulling me back was one thing. A man could not simply join that community. He could not walk in and say, "I keep the Sabbath, I keep the feasts, I eat clean, write my name down." They would not write his name down. They examined him first, and the scroll says what they examined him for: his understanding and his deeds. Then he waited a year, kept from their table, and they examined him again. Then he waited a second year, and they examined him a third time. Josephus says the whole thing took three years. Only then was his name written into his rank. And every year after that, every member, no matter how long he had been there, was examined again. By the same standard. Understanding and deeds. Picture it. A group of ministers sitting around a table, Sabbath-keepers, calendar-keepers, men who have spent their lives trying to restore what was lost. And one of them says, "I wonder what life was actually like in that early Zadokite community Rev. John Shane Vaughn • Page 2 First Harvest Ministries International we are the heirs of. I wish we knew. If we knew, we would know how to govern our own assembly. We would at least know the principles." Brother, you do not have to wonder any longer. It was revealed to the world in 1948. The same spring Israel was reborn as a nation, the Community Rule came out of a cave in the Judean desert and was announced to the world. Nineteen centuries of silence, and then the constitution of that community was handed back, whole, at the very moment YAHWEH began regathering His people. That is not an accident of archaeology. That is a Father putting the house rules back on the table before the family comes home. And here is what struck me standing there. We are not guessing about this. We are not reconstructing how a Torah-keeping, Zadokite-calendar community governed itself from a few scattered hints and hoping we got it right. We are READING it. In black and white. In their own ink. How they admitted a man. How they tested him. How they ranked him. How they held him to account year after year. The scroll is not Scripture, and I will never put it beside Torah. But it is a record, and a record of the very thing FHMI and The Apostolic Assemblies have been trying to rebuild. The pattern of how a set-apart community ordered itself is sitting under glass in Washington, D.C., and we have it to study and to emulate. We do not have to wonder what it looked like. It has been handed back to us. I stood there and I realized these men already knew the commandments. They knew Torah better than anyone in this room. You could learn the rules of that community in a weekend. So what took three years? They were not waiting to see if he knew what to do. Rev. John Shane Vaughn • Page 3 First Harvest Ministries International They were waiting to see if he COMPREHENDED it. And that is when the scroll stopped being about them and started being about me. I have been in ministry nearly forty years. I have kept the Sabbath longer than some of you have been alive. I know the commandments. But standing in that room I had to ask myself a question I did not enjoy: if I were examined by that standard, not on what I know, but on whether I comprehend WHY YAHWEH gave what He gave, and whether that comprehension shows up in what I do when nobody is reading me the rule, what would the examination find? I could not answer that quickly. And that told me something. So I brought the question home, and now I am bringing it to you. And I am bringing it for two reasons. First, I want you to understand how it is possible for someone to be a Sabbath-keeper and comprehend nothing about the Sabbath. You have seen it. You have sat next to it. Maybe you have been it. Second, I want to clear up a mystery that has troubled some of you for years. You have watched people walk in this truth, keep the Sabbath, keep the feasts, eat clean, stand in this room and weep, and then walk away from all of it. And you have asked, "How? How can somebody walk in this and walk out of it?" Tonight you will know how. It is not a mystery. The scroll knew the answer. YAHSHUA gave the answer. And once you see it, you will never wonder again. Rev. John Shane Vaughn • Page 4 First Harvest Ministries International TWO WORDS THAT LOOK ALIKE AND ARE NOT That question is really a question about two words. Most believers think DUTY and RESPONSIBILITY are the same word wearing two different suits. They are not. Duty is the task you were assigned. You are answerable for the act. Responsibility is the outcome you were entrusted with. You are answerable for the result. Duty ends when the task is done. Responsibility does not end until the purpose is accomplished, and it holds you accountable for everything in between, including the things nobody told you to do. Understanding WHY you were told to do it is the doorway into responsibility. But understanding is not responsibility. A man can understand perfectly well what his master wants and still say, "That's not my door." Responsibility is when the outcome is on YOU, and you know it, and you carry it. Duty can be measured with a checklist. Responsibility is measured by what you are willing to answer for. YAHSHUA drew the line between them in Luke 17. He said that after you have done everything commanded of you, the honest confession is: "We have done that which was our DUTY to do." Notice what He did not say. He did not say you had become profitable. He did not say you had become a son. He said you had done your duty. Duty is the floor of the Kingdom, not the ceiling. Rev. John Shane Vaughn • Page 5 First Harvest Ministries International And then in Matthew 13, He explained why some seed produces thirty, some sixty, and some a hundred. Same seed. Same sower. Same Word. Different ground. The difference was never in the commandment. The difference was in the one who received it. This lesson is going to show you that the thirty- fold believer, the sixty-fold believer, and the hundred-fold believer are all keeping commandments. But they are not seeing the same thing. And by the end of this lesson, you are going to know which one you are. THE DAY THE APOSTLES ASKED FOR MORE FAITH Before I give you the pictures, I have to give you the text, because this whole lesson stands on Luke 17, and most people have read Luke 17:10 without ever reading Luke 17:1-9. Here is what happened. YAHSHUA had just told them that if a brother sins against them and repents, they must forgive him. And if he does it seven times in one day, and seven times says "I repent," they must forgive him seven times. And the apostles, hearing that, did not say "Amen." They said: "And the apostles said unto YAHSHUA, Increase our faith." — Luke 17:5 Do you see what that is? That is not a request for miracle power. That is the reaction of men who had just been handed a commandment they did not think they could keep. "If You expect us to live like that, we are going to need more than we have." "Increase our faith" is the cry of a man Rev. John Shane Vaughn • Page 6 First Harvest Ministries International standing in front of a commandment that feels too big. And watch what YAHSHUA does. He does not say, "All right, here is more." "And YAHSHUA said, If ye had faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye might say unto this sycamine tree, Be thou plucked up by the root, and be thou planted in the sea; and it should obey you." — Luke 17:6 They asked for QUANTITY. He answered with KIND. He told them a seed the size of a speck was enough, if it was the real thing. And notice the last word of that verse: obey. The tree would OBEY you. And then, without taking a breath, He tells a story about a servant who obeys his master. That is not an accident of arrangement. Faith and obedience are the same subject in His mouth. Faith is not believing something extraordinary can happen. Faith is trusting the Master enough to do what He said. You do not need more of it. You need to act on the grain you have. Then comes the story, and it is a hard one. "But which of you, having a servant plowing or feeding cattle, will say unto him by and by, when he is come from the field, Go and sit down to meat? And will not rather say unto him, Make ready wherewith I may sup, and gird thyself, and serve me, till I have eaten and drunken; and afterward thou shalt eat and drink? Doth he thank that servant because he did the things that were commanded him? I trow not." Rev. John Shane Vaughn • Page 7 First Harvest Ministries International — Luke 17:7-9 A servant has plowed all day. He is tired. He comes in from the field. And the master does not say, "Sit down, you've earned it." The master says, "Gird yourself and serve my supper first." And YAHSHUA asks: does the master THANK the servant for that? Does obedience put the master in the servant's debt? No. The servant simply did what belonged to his position. And then the verse you have heard all your life: "So likewise ye, when ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants: we have done that which was our duty to do." — Luke 17:10 Now put it together. The apostles said, "Give us more faith so we can obey." YAHSHUA said, "You have enough faith to obey. Obey. And when you have obeyed everything I commanded, do not walk before YAHWEH and say, 'Look how obedient I have been. Now You owe me something.' Say, 'I did my duty.'" Hear me carefully on this. YAHSHUA is not condemning duty. Duty is honorable. Duty is necessary. Duty is where faithfulness begins. The servant who plowed and then served supper is a GOOD servant. But YAHSHUA is naming duty for what it is: the lowest legitimate level of obedience. It is the floor. And He is telling you what the floor cannot do. It cannot earn you leverage. It cannot make YAHWEH your debtor. It cannot be cashed in. The man who has done everything commanded has done exactly what he owed and nothing more. Rev. John Shane Vaughn • Page 8 First Harvest Ministries International And that is where the tension of this lesson lives. Because YAHSHUA did not train those twelve men to remain servants who did their duty and asked for nothing. He told them later, "Henceforth I call you not servants, but friends, for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you." The servant knows the command. The friend knows the mind behind it. He was moving them up, from duty to something higher, and Luke 17 is the first rung. So here is the ladder, and I want you to carry it through every picture I am about to give you: THE SERVANT SAYS: "TELL ME WHAT TO DO." THAT IS DUTY. THE STEWARD SAYS: "I KNOW WHAT HAS BEEN ENTRUSTED TO ME." THAT IS RESPONSIBILITY. THE SON SAYS: "I KNOW WHAT MATTERS TO MY FATHER." THAT IS LOVE. Duty responds to the command. Responsibility responds to the purpose behind the command. Sonship responds to the Father Himself. And the highest form of it is a man in a garden saying, "Not my will, but Thine, be done." At that level, obedience is no longer something imposed on you from outside. His will has become something operating inside you. That is where this lesson is going. Now let me show you what each rung looks like. Rev. John Shane Vaughn • Page 9 First Harvest Ministries International PART ONE: THE EMPLOYEE EVERY EMPLOYER IS LOOKING FOR Every employer alive knows there are two kinds of workers. You tell the first worker: "Sweep the floor." He sweeps exactly where you told him to sweep. Then he puts the broom down. There's trash underneath the counter. He sees it. There's a box blocking the doorway. He sees it. There's water on the floor somebody could slip on. He sees it. But his answer is: "Nobody told me to do that." Now here is the problem. He performed his duty. You cannot say he disobeyed you. You told him to sweep the floor, and he swept the floor. Take him before any judge and he will be acquitted. But every employer on earth is desperately searching for the second kind of worker. You tell that worker: "Sweep the floor." And while he's sweeping, he notices the trash underneath the counter. He gets it. He sees the box blocking the doorway. He moves it. He sees the water where somebody might fall. He cleans it up. Why? Because somewhere along the way he understood WHY you told him to sweep the floor. You were never after a man pushing a broom. Rev. John Shane Vaughn • Page 10 First Harvest Ministries International YOU WERE AFTER A CLEAN AND SAFE BUILDING. The first employee understood the COMMAND. The second employee understood the PURPOSE BEHIND THE COMMAND. The first performed his DUTY. The second accepted RESPONSIBILITY. And here is the test that proves which one you are hiring. Somebody slips on that water and breaks a hip. Ask the first employee about it. He says: "I swept the floor. That's all I was told to do." He is not lying, and he is not accountable. Ask the second employee about it and he doesn't say a word about the floor. He says: "That was my building. I should have caught it." Nobody handed him that. He took it. Responsibility is when the outcome is yours to answer for, and you know it. And if you own the company, which one are you going to promote? The man who constantly asks, "Do I HAVE to do that?" Or the man who has learned your purpose so well that you don't have to give him instructions for every little thing? THAT IS SPIRITUAL MATURITY. Some believers have spent forty years asking YAHWEH: "Where exactly does the Bible say I HAVE to do that?" They are still looking for the minimum requirements of the job description. They are still standing in the middle of the shop with a broom in their hand saying, "That wasn't in my job description." The hundred-fold believer has started asking a different question: "Father, what are You trying to accomplish here?" Rev. John Shane Vaughn • Page 11 First Harvest Ministries International The Scripture Behind the Picture "He made known his ways unto Moses, his acts unto the children of Israel." — Psalm 103:7 Read that verse slowly. Israel saw the ACTS. Moses knew the WAYS. Two million people watched the Red Sea open. One man understood why. Israel saw what YAHWEH did. Moses understood how YAHWEH thinks. That is the difference between the man who swept the floor and the man who cleaned the building. "Whom shall he teach knowledge? and whom shall he make to understand doctrine? them that are weaned from the milk, and drawn from the breasts. For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little." — Isaiah 28:9-10 Precept upon precept is how a child learns. It is not wrong. It is where everybody begins. But Isaiah calls it the diet of those still on milk. YAHWEH intends to wean you. PART TWO: THE CHILD CLEANING HIS BEDROOM A father tells his son: "Go clean your bedroom." Twenty minutes later the boy comes back. "Finished!" Father walks into the room. The bed is made. But every dirty sock, toy, candy wrapper, and piece of garbage has been shoved underneath the bed. Rev. John Shane Vaughn • Page 12 First Harvest Ministries International The child protests: "But you told me to clean my room. You didn't tell me I couldn't put it underneath the bed!" There is the mentality of duty without responsibility. He is interpreting Father's words as narrowly as possible. He is asking: "What is the absolute minimum necessary for me to say I obeyed?" That boy is not lying. He did what the words said. But he does not yet know his father. Eventually that boy matures. Father says, "Clean your room." And now Father doesn't need to explain: make the bed, pick up your clothes, empty the garbage, vacuum the carpet, put everything where it belongs. Why? Because the son has learned what Father means by CLEAN. That's maturity. At first we need commandments for everything. Eventually we begin understanding the mind behind the commandments. The Scripture Behind the Picture "Now I say, That the heir, as long as he is a child, differeth nothing from a servant, though he be lord of all; But is under tutors and governors until the time appointed of the father." — Galatians 4:1-2 Paul says the heir and the servant look identical from the outside while the heir is a child. Both are under instruction. Both are told what to do. But the servant will always be told what to do. The heir is being trained to take over the household. Torah is not the problem. Torah is the tutor. The question is whether you are growing up under the tutor or hiding under the bed. Rev. John Shane Vaughn • Page 13 First Harvest Ministries International "For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith YAHWEH; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts." — Hebrews 8:10 Notice the promise. Not "I will take My laws away." He says, "I will put My laws INTO THEIR MIND." The commandment does not disappear in the New Covenant. It moves from the page to the mind. The son who knows what "clean" means no longer needs the list, not because the list was abolished, but because the list has been written on him. PART THREE: THE RESTAURANT SERVER Imagine a waitress. Her job description says: •Take the customer's order. •Bring the food. •Refill the drinks. •Bring the check. She does every one of those things. But an elderly customer accidentally drops his cane. She walks right past it. Why? "Picking up canes isn't in my job description." Technically, she performed her assigned duties. But she completely misunderstood her responsibility. Because her responsibility was never merely MOVE FOOD FROM THE KITCHEN TO THE TABLE. Her responsibility was CARE FOR THE GUEST. Rev. John Shane Vaughn • Page 14 First Harvest Ministries International Once she understands the larger purpose, she begins doing things nobody specifically instructed her to do. And that's when management notices her. There is a Kingdom principle here, and I want you to write it down: RESPONSIBILITY BEGINS WHERE "NOBODY TOLD ME TO" ENDS. The Scripture Behind the Picture "Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone." — Matthew 23:23 The Pharisees were the waitress who refilled every drink and stepped over the cane. They tithed the garden herbs. YAHSHUA did not tell them to stop. He said, "These ought ye to have done." But they had reduced the entire Torah to a job description, and in doing so they missed what the Torah was FOR: judgment, mercy, and faith. They served the food. They never cared for the guest. Here is what the thirty-fold believer never hears in that verse: YAHSHUA did not condemn them for keeping commandments. He condemned them for keeping commandments without understanding what the commandments were protecting. PART FOUR: THE SECURITY GUARD A security guard is told: "Guard this entrance." Rev. John Shane Vaughn • Page 15 First Harvest Ministries International At midnight he sees someone climbing through a window on the other side of the building. And he says: "That's not my door." Did he remain at his assigned post? Yes. Did he fulfill the purpose for which he was placed there? Absolutely not. Because eventually responsibility requires you to understand: the door was never the ultimate concern. THE BUILDING WAS. The door was simply his assignment within the larger purpose. Likewise, commandments are not arbitrary hoops YAHWEH created for us to jump through. They reveal something about His order, His holiness, His character, and His purposes. When you keep the Sabbath, you are guarding a door. But what is behind the door? Rest. Trust. The testimony that YAHWEH created and YAHWEH provides. When you keep the dietary laws, you are guarding a door. But what is behind it? A body set apart, a people distinguished, a witness that YAHWEH decides what is clean. The door matters because of what it protects. The guard who never asks what he is protecting will one day watch the thief climb through the window and congratulate himself on holding his post. The Scripture Behind the Picture "Son of man, I have made thee a watchman unto the house of Israel: therefore hear the word at my mouth, and give them warning from me." — Ezekiel 3:17 The watchman is not on the wall to stand on the wall. He is on the wall to protect the city. Ezekiel was told that if the watchman sees the sword coming and does not blow the trumpet, the blood of the people is on the watchman's hands. Not Rev. John Shane Vaughn • Page 16 First Harvest Ministries International because he left his post. Because he stood on his post and the city fell. Read that again. YAHWEH did not say, "The watchman failed to understand his purpose." He said, "His blood will I require at thine hand." That is accountability. The watchman is not answerable for standing on the wall. He is answerable for the city. The guard who says "that's not my door" has just discovered that YAHWEH never assigned him a door. He assigned him a building, and He will require the building. "And YAHWEH said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not: Am I my brother's keeper?" — Genesis 4:9 "Am I my brother's keeper?" is the oldest version of "that's not my door." It is the first recorded attempt in Scripture to shrink responsibility down to duty. And YAHWEH's answer was to hold him accountable for the blood anyway. "The law of YAHWEH is perfect, converting the soul: the testimony of YAHWEH is sure, making wise the simple." — Psalm 19:7 The law is meant to make the simple WISE. Not to keep them simple forever. If forty years of Torah has not made you wiser about what YAHWEH is doing, you have been guarding a door and never once looked at the building. PART FIVE: THE HUSBAND AND THE ANNIVERSARY Imagine a husband whose wife tells him: "Our anniversary is Friday. Please don't forget." Rev. John Shane Vaughn • Page 17 First Harvest Ministries International Friday comes. At 11:45 that night he walks into the house with flowers. He says: "See! I remembered!" Technically? Duty accomplished. But if his entire attitude is, "There. I did what you required. Are you satisfied?" then something fundamental is missing. She doesn't want flowers because flowers are prescribed by matrimonial law. She wants the flowers to reveal something in his heart. Eventually love understands what duty alone cannot. That's why YAHSHUA could say: "If ye love me, keep my commandments." — John 14:15 Look carefully at that verse. The commandment remains. He did not say, "If ye love me, you won't need commandments anymore." The commandment is still there. But now love has changed the character of the obedience. The flowers are the same flowers. The heart that carries them is not. The Scripture Behind the Picture "For this is the love of Elohim, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous." — 1 John 5:3 The commandments are not grievous to the one who loves. They are grievous only to the husband who walks in at 11:45 and wants credit. That husband keeps the commandment and resents it the whole way home. John says that is not love, Rev. John Shane Vaughn • Page 18 First Harvest Ministries International and if it is not love, it is not the obedience YAHWEH is looking for. "Wherefore YAHWEH said, Forasmuch as this people draw near me with their mouth, and with their lips do honour me, but have removed their heart far from me, and their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men." — Isaiah 29:13 Lips present. Heart absent. That is the anniversary husband. That is the thirty-fold believer who has never moved past the ledger. PART SIX: THE SPEED LIMIT Here is one everybody understands. The sign says: SPEED LIMIT 55. Duty says: "I'm doing 55. Therefore I'm obeying." But suppose you're doing 55 in a violent thunderstorm where you can barely see twenty feet ahead. You may be technically within the posted limit. But you are driving irresponsibly. Why? Because 55 was never a command that you MUST drive 55. It established the maximum permitted under appropriate conditions. Responsibility understands the purpose behind the regulation: SAFETY. Sometimes responsibility requires MORE of you than the bare wording of the rule. That's exactly why spiritual maturity cannot consist merely of asking, "Where does Torah specifically prohibit this?" Torah does not have a verse for every situation you will face this week. It was never meant to. It was meant to teach you Rev. John Shane Vaughn • Page 19 First Harvest Ministries International how YAHWEH thinks so that when you face the situation that has no verse, you will already know what He would say. The mature question becomes: "What principle of YAHWEH's government applies here?" The Scripture Behind the Picture "Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment: But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment." — Matthew 5:21-22 This is YAHSHUA teaching the speed limit. The commandment says do not murder. The thirty-fold believer says, "I have never murdered anyone. I am doing 55." YAHSHUA says the commandment was never merely a prohibition on the act. It was a revelation about the value of your brother's life. And if you understood that, you would know that the anger which leads to murder is already a violation of the purpose behind the command. He did not lower the standard. He revealed what the standard was always protecting. The sixty-fold believer hears that and slows down in the storm. "For the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life." — 2 Corinthians 3:6 The letter is the sign on the side of the road. The spirit is the reason the sign was posted. Paul is not saying throw the sign away. He is saying the man who reads the sign and never understands the reason for it will drive himself into a ditch while obeying the law. Rev. John Shane Vaughn • Page 20 First Harvest Ministries International PART SEVEN: THE BABYSITTER VERSUS THE MOTHER You hire a babysitter. You leave instructions: •Feed the baby at six. •Bath at seven. •Bottle at eight. •Bed at eight-thirty. The babysitter needs the list. And there is nothing wrong with that. But does Mama need a checklist telling her, "If the baby is crying, determine what's wrong"? No. Why? Because Mama isn't merely completing assigned duties. THE CHILD HAS BEEN ENTRUSTED TO HER. That's responsibility. And notice what comes with it. If the babysitter follows the list and the baby still gets sick, nobody blames the babysitter. She did what she was told. But if that baby is neglected under Mama's watch, the whole world holds Mama accountable, and she holds herself accountable more than anyone. Nobody wrote that on a list. It came with the child. Entrustment and accountability are the same thing viewed from two sides. What YAHWEH entrusts to you, He will require of you. "For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required: and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more." — Luke 12:48 Rev. John Shane Vaughn • Page 21 First Harvest Ministries International The babysitter asks: "What am I supposed to do?" Mama asks: "What does my child need?" Now we're getting somewhere spiritually. A servant needs instructions. A son learns Father's heart. The Scripture Behind the Picture "Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you." — John 15:15 There is the whole lesson in one verse. What separates the servant from the friend? The servant knoweth not what his lord doeth. The servant has the list. The friend has been told what the household is FOR. YAHSHUA says He moved His disciples from the first category to the second by making known to them what He had heard from the Father. That is what this lesson is trying to do to you. Not give you a longer list. Make known to you what the Father is doing so that you stop being a babysitter in His house and start being family. "For as many as are led by the Spirit of Elohim, they are the sons of Elohim." — Romans 8:14 Led. Not listed. The son is led because the son knows the Father's voice. The babysitter cannot be led. She can only be instructed. Rev. John Shane Vaughn • Page 22 First Harvest Ministries International PART EIGHT: BACK TO THE ROOM I told you at the beginning that I kept going back to one room in that exhibit. Now that you have seen the employee, the bedroom, the waitress, the guard, the husband, the speed limit, and the mother, I want to take you back into that room with me, because now you will see what I saw. The document is called the Community Rule, catalogued as 1QS. It is the constitution of the priestly community that preserved the Zadokite calendar we keep. It is not Scripture, and I do not cite it as authority. I cite it as a witness, the way you would call a neighbor to the stand who saw what happened. Doctrine comes from Torah alone. But this witness saw something. Here is the ladder as the scroll lays it out. He was not handed a rulebook and a membership card. He was first brought before the Overseer, and the scroll says he was examined "concerning his understanding and his deeds." If he passed, he entered the covenant. And then he waited. For a full year he was kept out of the Purity, the shared meal of the community. At the end of that year he was examined again. If he passed, he entered a second year, and now he could eat, but he was still kept from the Drink, and his possessions were registered but not yet merged with the community's. At the end of the second year he was examined a third time. Only then was his name written into his rank. Josephus, describing the Essenes, says the process took three years in total: one year outside, two years inside under testing. Now ask yourself again the question I asked in that room: why? These men already knew the Sabbath. They already knew the food laws. They already knew Rev. John Shane Vaughn • Page 23 First Harvest Ministries International the calendar. Most of them could recite Torah better than anyone in this room. A man could learn the rules of that community in a weekend. So what took two or three years? The scroll tells you. The recurring phrase, written again and again, is that a man was measured by his understanding and his deeds. Not one or the other. Both. They were not waiting to see if he knew the commandments. They were waiting to see if he COMPREHENDED them, and whether what he comprehended showed up in what he DID when nobody was reading him the rule. Now hear the pair. Understanding and deeds. That is the same pair I have been putting in front of you for the last hour. I just gave it different clothes each time. Deeds and understanding. What and why. Duty and responsibility. Servant and steward. Milk and meat. Laying bricks and building the house. The command and the purpose behind the command. Every one of those is the same two-sided line drawn in a different place. Paul drew it in Hebrews 5. YAHSHUA drew it in Luke 17 and Matthew 13 and Matthew 23. And a community of Zadokite priests drew it as the entrance requirement of their assembly two centuries before He was born. Deeds without understanding is the thirty-fold worker with a broom in his hand. Understanding without deeds is a man who walked off the job site and calls himself an architect. The scroll would Rev. John Shane Vaughn • Page 24 First Harvest Ministries International not admit either one. It demanded both columns, and it went back and checked both columns every year. They were waiting to see whether he would sweep the floor or clean the building. And here is the part that should shake you. In 1QS 5:23-24 the scroll says that every member, every year, was examined again, and moved up or down in rank according to his understanding and his deeds. Nobody's position was permanent. The man who had been in the community for twenty years stood before the same examination as the man who had been in for two. There was a yearly reckoning. There was accountability, standing, institutional, unavoidable. That is Matthew 25 as a way of life. The lord of the servants "cometh and reckoneth with them," and this community did not wait for the end of the age to begin the reckoning. They held it annually. The Scripture Behind the Witness "For every one that useth milk is unskilful in the word of righteousness: for he is a babe. But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil." — Hebrews 5:13-14 "By reason of use." "Senses exercised." Hebrews says maturity is not acquired by information. It is acquired by USE, by practice under examination, over time. That is exactly what the two-year probation was for. You cannot examine a man's understanding on the day he arrives. You can only examine it after he has had to act on what he knows without anyone standing over him. Rev. John Shane Vaughn • Page 25 First Harvest Ministries International "Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves." — 2 Corinthians 13:5 Paul commands the examination the Community Rule institutionalized. Prove your own selves. Not "review your own selves." Prove. Test. Stand before the standard and give account. Do not miss the lesson in the sequence. The candidate could keep the Sabbath before he was ever admitted. The Sabbath was duty, and duty could be verified on day one. What could not be verified on day one was responsibility, and the community refused to write a man's name into the book until his responsibility had been tested by use. They understood that a man who knows WHAT to do is a beginner. A man who knows WHY, and can be held to account for the outcome, is a member. Thirty-fold ground can be measured in an afternoon. Hundred-fold ground takes years to prove. PART NINE: THE SABBATH-KEEPER WHO COMPREHENDS NOTHING Now I can answer the first question I promised you. How can a man keep the Sabbath and comprehend nothing about the Sabbath? The same way a man can sweep the floor and comprehend nothing about the building. Deeds without understanding. He has the first column and not the second. And because the first column is visible, everybody around him, including himself, mistakes it for the whole examination. Rev. John Shane Vaughn • Page 26 First Harvest Ministries International The Sabbath can be kept as pure duty. Stop working Friday at sundown. Start again Saturday at sundown. Show up. That is verifiable on day one, and the scroll would have let him keep it on day one. But ask that man WHY YAHWEH rested, why He blessed the seventh day and not the first, why Israel was told to remember it in Exodus 20 and to observe it in Deuteronomy 5, why the reason given in Exodus is creation and the reason given in Deuteronomy is redemption from slavery, and what those two reasons together say about the Elohim who gave it, and he cannot tell you. He guards the door. He has never looked at the building. YAHWEH already showed us this man in Scripture. "Saying, When will the new moon be gone, that we may sell corn? and the sabbath, that we may set forth wheat?" — Amos 8:5 Those were Sabbath-keepers. They kept it. Amos never accuses them of opening the shop. He accuses them of standing in the shop doorway watching the sun, waiting for the Sabbath to be OVER. That is a man who keeps the commandment and comprehends nothing about it. He is the husband at 11:45 with the flowers. Lips present, heart absent. And YAHWEH, through Isaiah, told that same kind of people that their new moons and Sabbaths had become a burden He was weary of carrying (Isaiah 1:13-14). Not because they failed to keep them. Because they kept them without understanding. "If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the sabbath a delight, the holy of YAHWEH, honourable..." Rev. John Shane Vaughn • Page 27 First Harvest Ministries International — Isaiah 58:13 A delight. That is the word of a man in the second column. Nobody has ever called a bare duty a delight. You only delight in what you understand. So when you see a Sabbath-keeper who has kept it thirty years and can tell you nothing about it beyond "the Book says to," you are not looking at a hypocrite. You are looking at deeds without understanding. Thirty-fold ground. Real seed, real growth, no root. THE MYSTERY OF THE ONE WHO WALKED AWAY And that brings me to the second question, the one that has troubled you. How can a man walk in this truth and walk away from it? Go back to Matthew 13. The same parable that gives you thirty, sixty, and a hundred also gives you the answer, and it is standing right beside them. "But he that received the seed into stony places, the same is he that heareth the word, and anon with joy receiveth it; Yet hath he not root in himself, but dureth for a while: for when tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the word, by and by he is offended." — Matthew 13:20-21 Read it slowly, because every word describes somebody you know. He HEARD the word. He was in the room. Rev. John Shane Vaughn • Page 28 First Harvest Ministries International He received it WITH JOY. He was excited. He was the loudest one at the feast. He sprang up. Fast. He kept the Sabbath the very next week. He ENDURED FOR A WHILE. Months. Years. Maybe decades. And then tribulation came because of the word. A family member turned on him. A job was lost. A persecution arose. Somebody in the assembly wounded him. And he was gone. Now here is the mystery solved: he never left the truth, because he never had it. He had the DEED. He never had the UNDERSTANDING. "He hath not root in himself." Root is what goes DOWN, underneath the visible, into the WHY. The plant was real, the growth was real, but everything was above ground. And a plant that is all above ground is one hot day from death. This is why the Zadokites would not write a man's name into the book on the day he arrived. They knew what stony ground looks like on the first day. It looks BETTER than good ground. It springs up faster. It is more enthusiastic. It keeps every rule with more visible zeal than the man who has been there twenty years. And they knew it would not last, because they were not measuring deeds. They were measuring understanding AND deeds, and understanding only shows itself over time, under pressure, when nobody is reading you the rule. So the man who walked away did not fall from the hundred-fold. He was never on it. He was a thirty- fold worker with a broom who was told the building was on fire, and since nobody had ever explained to him what the building was FOR, he put down the broom and left. Why wouldn't he? Sweeping was all he ever understood. Rev. John Shane Vaughn • Page 29 First Harvest Ministries International "They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us." — 1 John 2:19 John is not being cruel. He is being precise. Continuance is the evidence of root. And root is understanding. Here is the sobering side of it, and you need to hear this: the man who walked away is not a mystery, but he IS a warning. Because the difference between him and you is not that you keep the Sabbath and he stopped. On the day he left, you were both keeping it. The difference is whether you have root. Whether you comprehend. Whether, if the tribulation that took him out came for you tomorrow, you would know WHY you are standing here well enough to keep standing. That is the examination. Understanding and deeds. And the scroll would have re-examined you this year. PART TEN: THE THREE WORKERS Now I bring you to where this whole message lands. Three men are working on the same construction site. Someone asks the first man: "What are you doing?" He says: "Laying bricks." Ask the second: "What are you doing?" He says: "Building a wall." Ask the third: "What are you doing?" Rev. John Shane Vaughn • Page 30 First Harvest Ministries International He says: "Building a house where a family will live." All three men are laying the same bricks. But they are not seeing the same thing. And that gives you the thirty, sixty, and hundred- fold progression of Matthew 13. THIRTY-FOLD — "I'M LAYING BRICKS." Tell me the commandment. Tell me where to put it. Tell me exactly what I have to do. DUTY. This man is not lost. He is on the site. He is working. His bricks are real bricks and they are going into a real wall. But he cannot see past the trowel in his hand. He keeps the Sabbath because the Book says keep the Sabbath. He avoids pork because the Book says avoid pork. Ask him why and he says, "Because it says so." That is a true answer. It is also a thirty-fold answer. SIXTY-FOLD — "I'M BUILDING A WALL." Now I understand how my commandment connects to the larger structure. If something isn't exactly right, I correct it because I understand what we're building. RESPONSIBILITY. This man has begun to see how the commandments fit together. He sees that the Sabbath and the Feasts and the dietary laws are not separate rules but one structure. He understands that a crooked brick ruins the wall, so he does not need the foreman to tell him to straighten it. He straightens it because he can see the wall. Rev. John Shane Vaughn • Page 31 First Harvest Ministries International HUNDRED-FOLD — "I'M BUILDING A HOME." Now I see the architect's vision. I understand why the wall matters. I understand why the foundation matters. I understand why every brick matters. I HAVE BEGUN TO SEE WHAT THE ARCHITECT SEES. SONSHIP. This man knows there is a family coming. He knows there is a Kingdom being built. He knows that every commandment he keeps is a brick in a house where YAHWEH intends to dwell with His people. He is not laying bricks to satisfy a foreman. He is building the place where his Father will live. And when he understands that, nobody has to tell him to sweep under the counter. Nobody has to tell him to pick up the cane. Nobody has to tell him to slow down in the storm. He already knows. Because he knows the Architect. There is the ladder from Luke 17, standing on a job site. The servant lays bricks because he was told. The steward builds the wall because it was entrusted to him. The son builds the house because it is his Father's house, and his Father's purpose has become his own. That is the man who can say "not my will, but Thine," and mean it, because there is no longer any distance between the two. The Scripture Behind the Picture "Behold, I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." — Matthew 16:18 Rev. John Shane Vaughn • Page 32 First Harvest Ministries International "Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to Elohim by YAHSHUA Messiah." — 1 Peter 2:5 You are the bricks. You are also the bricklayers. And the house being built is a dwelling place for YAHWEH among men. The hundred-fold believer has read the blueprints. "Unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given. For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance." — Matthew 13:11-12 Notice this is the same chapter as the thirty, sixty, hundred. YAHSHUA says the mysteries of the Kingdom are GIVEN. The one who has understanding is given more. The one who only has the list is given the list. What you see determines what you receive. WHERE THIS MESSAGE LANDS YAHWEH is not merely looking for people who can say, "I KEPT THE COMMANDMENT." He is developing sons and daughters who understand WHY HE GAVE THE COMMANDMENT. Thirty-fold says: "WHAT DID FATHER SAY?" Sixty-fold says: "WHAT IS FATHER TRYING TO ACCOMPLISH?" Hundred-fold says: "I KNOW MY FATHER'S HEART." Rev. John Shane Vaughn • Page 33 First Harvest Ministries International What and why. Deeds and understanding. Milk and meat. Duty and responsibility. One line, drawn by Paul, drawn by YAHSHUA, drawn by the priests at Qumran, and drawn tonight through the middle of this room. And when you know Father's heart, you stop asking, "How much do I HAVE to do?" You begin asking, "Father, what are You trying to accomplish—and how can I help accomplish it?" That is the difference between DUTY and RESPONSIBILITY. DUTY DOES WHAT IT WAS TOLD, AND ANSWERS FOR THE TASK. RESPONSIBILITY UNDERSTANDS WHY IT WAS TOLD, AND ANSWERS FOR THE OUTCOME. MATURITY GOES BEYOND WHAT IT WAS TOLD BECAUSE IT HAS LEARNED THE HEART OF THE ONE WHO GAVE THE INSTRUCTION, AND IT WILL STAND BEFORE HIM AND GIVE ACCOUNT. "So then every one of us shall give account of himself to Elohim." — Romans 14:12 "After a long time the lord of those servants cometh, and reckoneth with them." — Matthew 25:19 The servant with one talent in Matthew 25 did his duty by his own definition. He did not lose the Rev. John Shane Vaughn • Page 34 First Harvest Ministries International money. He did not steal it. He gave back exactly what he was handed. And he was called wicked and slothful. Why? Because he had been entrusted with an outcome, not a task. He was accountable for increase, and he brought back the list. The hundred-fold believer knows a reckoning is coming, and he knows what he will be reckoned for: not whether he held the coin, but what he did with the house. A WARNING BEFORE YOU LEAVE Do not walk out of here and misuse this lesson. The enemy of this message is not the thirty-fold believer. The enemy of this message is the man who hears "the purpose behind the commandment" and decides that means the commandment itself can be dropped. That man is not hundred-fold. He is not even thirty-fold. He is the worker who walked off the job site entirely and is telling everyone he understands architecture. The third bricklayer still lays bricks. The mother still feeds the baby at six. The mature son still cleans his room. YAHSHUA said, "Think not that I am come to destroy the law." He said the man who breaks the least commandment and teaches men so will be called least in the Kingdom. Knowing the purpose of the Sabbath does not exempt you from the Sabbath. It makes you keep it better. Responsibility never does LESS than duty. It always does MORE. If understanding the Father's heart has caused you to keep fewer of His commandments, you have not understood His heart. You have understood your own. Rev. John Shane Vaughn • Page 35 First Harvest Ministries International WHY YOU CANNOT DO THIS ALONE Before I give you the charge, I have to close one door, because some of you will try to walk out through it. Some of you are thinking, "I'll go home and examine myself. I'll search my own heart. I'll make sure I understand." And you should. Paul said to. But I want you to notice something about the scroll and something about every picture I gave you tonight. The Zadokites did not send a man home to examine himself. He was examined by the Overseer. Then he was examined by the Many. His understanding was tested in front of the community, by the community, over years of living inside the community. Why? Because they knew what you need to know: there is no other way to determine a man's understanding. Think about it. Every single analogy tonight required another person. The employee's understanding was revealed by the customer who might slip. The son's understanding was revealed when his father walked into the room. The waitress's understanding was revealed by the old man who dropped his cane. The guard's understanding was revealed by the man coming through the window. The husband's understanding was revealed by his wife. The mother's understanding was revealed by a crying child. Not one of them could have demonstrated understanding alone in a room. Deeds can be done Rev. John Shane Vaughn • Page 36 First Harvest Ministries International alone. You can keep the Sabbath by yourself on a mountain, and nobody will ever know whether you comprehend a word of it, including you. But understanding only shows itself when somebody else is depending on the outcome. It shows itself when the cane drops. When the brother is wounded. When the assembly needs something nobody assigned to you. When the tribulation comes because of the word and the people beside you are watching whether you stand. That is why YAHWEH gave you a community. Not so you would have somewhere to sit on Sabbath. So that your understanding would have somewhere to be SEEN, and somewhere to be tested, and somewhere to be held to account. "And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works: Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is." — Hebrews 10:24-25 Consider one another. That is examination. The man who forsakes the assembly is not just missing a service. He is removing himself from the only place his understanding could ever be proven. He has walked off the job site and is telling everyone he understands architecture. Nobody can check. "Iron sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend." — Proverbs 27:17 Iron does not sharpen itself. A WORD FROM YOUR FOUNDER Now hear me, and hear me as the man who founded this house. Rev. John Shane Vaughn • Page 37 First Harvest Ministries International It is my duty as your founder to ensure that every single one of you is truly comprehending. Not merely keeping. Comprehending. Demonstrating understanding AND deeds. Not deeds alone. I have not been placed over this house to count Sabbaths. I have been placed over it to see whether the people keeping them know why. And I want you to notice the word I just used. Duty. Because if it were only my duty, I could hand you this lesson, check the box, and say I have told you. But it is not only my duty. It is my responsibility. I am accountable for the outcome. "Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves: for they watch for your souls, as they that must give account." — Hebrews 13:17 As they that must give account. I am the watchman on this wall, and YAHWEH told Ezekiel what happens to the watchman who sees the sword and does not sound it. If one of you is standing here on stony ground, springing up with joy, keeping every commandment, and I do not examine you, and I do not tell you that you have no root, and the tribulation comes and takes you out, that is on me. I will answer for it. So I am going to examine you. Not to shame you. Because I will stand before Him and be asked about you. That is what the founder of this house owes you. Not a rulebook. An examination. The same one the Zadokites gave, in the same two columns. THE CHARGE Every one of you is on the site today. Some of you are laying bricks. You came here because the Book said to. Good. Stay on the site. But lift your eyes. Rev. John Shane Vaughn • Page 38 First Harvest Ministries International Some of you are building a wall. You have begun to see how it all connects. Good. Keep straightening the crooked bricks nobody told you about. And some of you are ready to see the house. YAHWEH is looking for the worker He does not have to instruct on every detail. He is looking for the son who has learned what "clean" means. He is looking for the one who picks up the cane, guards the building and not just the door, drives responsibly in the storm, brings the flowers with his heart in his hands, and hears the baby crying without needing a list. He is looking for hundred-fold ground. Stop asking where the Bible says you have to. Start asking what your Father is trying to build. STUDY QUESTIONS FOR THE FHaMIly 1.In Luke 17:10, YAHSHUA says a servant who does everything commanded has only done his duty. Why is duty the floor of the Kingdom rather than the ceiling? What lies above it? 2.Psalm 103:7 says Israel saw YAHWEH's acts but Moses knew His ways. What is the difference between seeing what YAHWEH does and knowing how YAHWEH thinks? Which one describes your walk right now? 3.Galatians 4:1-2 says the heir "differeth nothing from a servant" while he is a child. What does it look like when a believer stays a child under Rev. John Shane Vaughn • Page 39 First Harvest Ministries International the tutor for forty years instead of growing up into the heir? 4.In Matthew 23:23, YAHSHUA told the Pharisees "these ought ye to have done." How does this verse prove that the answer to legalism is not less obedience but more understanding? 5.Pick one commandment you keep. Now answer this without quoting the verse: What is that commandment protecting? What is behind the door? 6.Matthew 5:21-22 shows YAHSHUA revealing the purpose behind "Thou shalt not kill." Choose another commandment and do what He did: state the letter, then state the purpose the letter was guarding. 7.John 15:15 says the servant "knoweth not what his lord doeth." What has YAHSHUA made known to you about what the Father is doing? If you cannot answer, what does that reveal? 8.Where in your life this week did you say, "That wasn't in my job description"? What would responsibility have done instead? 9.Which of the three bricklayers are you? Be honest. What would it take to move to the next one? 10.Why is the man who drops commandments in the name of "understanding the heart" Rev. John Shane Vaughn • Page 40 First Harvest Ministries International actually further from the hundred-fold than the man who simply obeys because it is written? 11.Ezekiel 3:17-18 and Luke 12:48 both tie responsibility to what will be REQUIRED of you. What has YAHWEH entrusted to you that you have been treating as a task instead of an outcome you will answer for? Name it. 12.The Community Rule examined men by "understanding and deeds," and re-examined every member every year. If the FHaMIly held such an examination this year, what would yours show? What could be verified in a day, and what would take years to prove? 13.Exodus 20:11 gives creation as the reason for the Sabbath. Deuteronomy 5:15 gives redemption from Egypt. Without looking, explain what those two reasons together reveal about YAHWEH. If you cannot, you have found where your understanding stops. 14.Matthew 13:20-21 says the stony-ground hearer "dureth for a while." Think of someone you watched walk away from this truth. Looking back, what was above ground, and what was missing underneath? Now ask the harder question: what is underneath in you? Rev. John Shane Vaughn • Page 41