I'm one of those who really does like to visit antique stores. I like to walk around in them and look at what's there. Some items there are just relics that maybe are not worth much, but they depict what life was like at some point in the past. I did that over the Christmas break, went through a couple of old antique stores. I don't buy, I just look. Some antiques, of course, are beautiful pieces of furniture. Beautiful clocks, the kinds of things you'd like to have in your home. Not everybody likes to do that. Not everybody's interested in old things. Not everybody appreciates antiques. Some think it's pretty boring, actually, to look at things from the past. And that's okay if we're talking about antiques because it's just stuff. But there is something old that we cannot just dismiss, and that is God's eternal moral law. However, to many people, his moral law, summarized in what we call the Ten Commandments, are just relics of the past, relics of past history, relics that are of little use to us. I'm submitting to you, however, that the commandments are indeed very relevant for us today. And I trust that this series on the Ten Commandments that we have introduced partly a couple of weeks ago and that we are still introducing today, I trust that this series over the next several weeks will prove that to be true, that God's law is relevant. A couple of Sundays ago when I started this, I pointed out that it's important for us to make a distinction between three different aspects of law that we find in the Old Testament so that we're handling it rightly. Not that the Jews, the nation of Israel, divided it in their own minds, but we see when we get back from Scripture now and what we find in the New Testament, we do see that there were three different aspects to the Mosaic law. There were regulations that we would classify as civil law. There was that aspect of the Mosaic covenant that we would call now the ceremonial law. And then there was this element, this aspect that we're calling moral law. That civil law aspect would be found in all the legal codes that we see in the Old Testament that were given to the nation of Israel, legal codes that governed Israel as a state, as a nation under God, regulations that provided guidance for their lives, their daily life. The civil law, that aspect of Old Testament law has expired. And that's because we are the church, the New Testament church, is not a state. Therefore, God's people are no longer bound by the specific regulations of that aspect of Mosaic law, the civil law. The ceremonial law, I pointed out to you, consisted of regulations more for their religious life, Again, in their own minds, everything was together, but there were these religious festivals, there were regulations guarding that, regulations of their worship. Specifically, there were many regulations related to the system of sacrifices. The ceremonial law is also no longer in effect. All of its regulations really just shadowed or pointed forward to Jesus Christ. The moral law, however, is still in effect. That is the law we find summarized in the Decalogue. The ten words is what that word means. The ten words, the ten commandments. The Decalogue represents God's moral code. A moral code that existed far before the Mosaic Law. Moral code that is found in the Mosaic Law when you examine it and moral code that is in force Even still, once the Mosaic Covenant ended, a code of morality that is for all people of all times. Now, building off that distinction of the three aspects of the Old Testament law, I then, a couple of weeks ago, began presenting to you more specific reasons for understanding the Ten Commandments and prioritizing the Ten Commandments, studying the Ten Commandments as Christians today. There are five of these specific reasons. I gave you three of them last time. Today I'll give you two more, but let me review those three with you. One reason to study the two commandments is this, number one, because studying any portion of scripture is profitable. Now think about our faith as Christians, using the word religion in the best sense, the Christian religion. It is a religion based upon revelation from God himself. The God we serve, who is the only true and living God, revealed himself. He has revealed himself to us. In other words, he has spoken to us so that we can know him and know what is true. He spoke to Adam and Eve, obviously, in the garden. He spoke to others along the way in different ways. He spoke to Noah. He spoke to Moses in the burning bush. Definitely at Mount Sinai, or as it's sometimes called, Mount Horeb, he spoke to the nation of Israel and gave them the Decalogue. He spoke to many prophets. He spoke to the New Testament apostles in his final revelation. is the fact that he spoke to us in his son, Christ. And that's an incredible thought when you realize that the creator of the world, the transcendent God, who's the ruler and creator of all things, has spoken to us, frail human beings. And that makes him so different than all the false gods and all the idols that man has created throughout human history. False gods and idols that he still creates. They don't speak. They don't reveal things. They don't speak these false gods. To borrow a line from a children's video about pirates, they are the gods who don't do anything. Think of that one scene back in the Old Testament, 1 Kings chapter 18, that scene with Elijah, when there was this confrontation with the other, the prophets, the false prophets of Baal. They're out there, you know, going to compete with one another, so to speak. Elijah's there waiting and watching as all these false prophets of Baal were jumping around. They were lacerating themselves, doing all sorts of things like that, just trying to get their God's attention, trying to get their gods to somehow speak. But no one answered. And that's because there are no other gods. There's only the one true living God. Idols don't speak. Scripture says elsewhere in the Psalms, they have no ears, they have no hands, they have no mouth. But God speaks. And everything that he has revealed to us that he wants us to know for all time has been given to us, preserved for us in his word, the scriptures. I reminded you two weeks ago, and I'll remind you again of 2 Timothy 3.16. All scripture is inspired by God, breathed out by God, and profitable, it says, for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness. Scripture then represents the mind of God, the voice of God. Scripture is how God speaks to us. It is his voice, as it were. And since it is, it is profitable for us. So when we study the Ten Commandments, we're listening to the voice of God, the voice of the living God. I mean, what's more profitable than that? That's enough reason right there to study the Ten Commandments. But second, and more specifically, Because studying the Ten Commandments will help us understand God's character. When you study the Ten Commandments and see what they're really about, you see the imprint of the perfections of God. The Ten Commandments are expressing the very being and attributes of God. And that is why Paul said this in Romans 7.12 about the law. The moral law of God, he says there in Romans 7.12, it is holy, it is righteous, it is good. Why? Because that's who God is. And the moral code flowed out of the very character, eternal character of God. And since the moral law is based on God's character, that makes it perpetually binding. As I said, it remains in force for all persons, in all places, all cultures, of all times. What we find in the Decalogue is an objective standard of righteousness and so it does apply to us. It applies to your neighbors. It applies to your co-workers. It applies to everyone where you work. Your employers as well. It applies to the school systems. This moral code is meant to apply to our government. And that implies something very significant. When we break God's moral code, we are spitting in the face of God. We are launching a direct assault on God Himself when we dismiss His moral code. Third, a reason for studying the Ten Commandments, because there is a relationship between the law and the gospel. the Ten Commandments show us what perfect righteousness looks like. The kind of righteousness, the only kind of righteousness that is accepted by God. And it is as well the Decalogue that ultimately shows us that we do not possess, we do not have that perfect standard of righteousness. So the Ten Commandments end up being this teacher, this leader, They lead us to knowing what God requires. They lead us to knowing that we do not possess what God requires. They lead us to knowing that the absolute only solution to the problem is trusting in Christ alone for the forgiveness of our lack of perfect righteousness, our sin. And that's exactly what we find expressed in Paul's letter to the Galatians, Galatians 3 verse 24. Paul writes, therefore the law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ so that we may be justified by faith. As I said though, today I want to present two final reasons for studying the Ten Commandments. Number four, because there is a relationship between the moral law and our sanctification. There is a relationship between the moral law and our sanctification. Now, I want to review a little bit of theology, gospel-related theology with you for a minute or two here this morning. Scripture is clear that every person since Adam has been born in a state called spiritual death. People are born spiritually dead, every person, every baby. No exceptions. Every human being is born spiritually dead. Scripture says that people are not good, they're not innocent, they're not neutral. Scripture says that people aren't even sick really, metaphorically just out there languishing in a hospital. People are dead lying in a morgue. That's different. But God Because He is a gracious, merciful God, God by His sovereign grace draws a dead sinner to Himself. And He does that by bringing that dead sinner under what we call the external call. The external call of the Gospel. The Gospel being preached to all people in all nations. And then, at God's determined moment, He extends what we would term the internal call, the effectual call. That means that at his sovereign moment, his spirit, John chapter three, causes a dead sinner to be born again, to be made spiritually alive. That's the doctrine of regeneration. He regenerates a dead person. And that just means in other terms he gives the person something new, a new heart, a new heart. And due to this conviction of their sin that the Holy Spirit works, this conviction of their sin, and due to this new ability now to see Christ for who he is and to see the beauty of Christ. This quickened person responds to this effectual call. He or she responds with what scripture calls repentance and faith. In conjunction with this expression now of repentance and faith, in conjunction with that, God justifies the person. And that just means that he gives them a totally new record. In regeneration they have a new heart. In justification now they have a new record. By that I mean their old record is done away with. What's the old record? Disobeying the moral law of God in every way. In thought, in action, in motive, externally and internally. Their record is one of failure. I'm not saying there's never a spike on the screen of some sort of goodness. People can do some quasi-good things for all sorts of reasons. But it doesn't match what God requires. It's a record of perfect righteousness. So what God does is give that person a new heart, but he justifies them, he gives them a new record. It's a new list, it's a new record, and that record doesn't list sin. That record lists righteousness because he takes the righteousness of Christ who has perfectly obeyed all of God's law and imputes it to that dead sinner, counts it as if it belongs to that person. What a gift. And in conjunction with the expression of repentance and faith, God also gives this person something else new. a new family. He adopts that individual into his own family. Where now he's no longer their judge, now he's their father. And others that he adopts, they are our brothers and sisters in the family. But here's my point for you this morning. This new heart And this new record and this new family position all end up then being evidenced in something in this person. And that is a new life. And that's because the new heart that God gives us is a heart on which is written the very moral law of God. When we talk about then all of this related to our position, being now evidenced over time in our practice. When we talk about that, evidencing itself in a new life, we are discussing then the process of sanctification. To say it another way, a regenerated converted person begins a new life that displays some spiritual fruit. Of course, The reality is, and we see it when we look around us, people we know, we see it in one another, we see it in our own lives, we certainly see it in Matthew chapter 13 in the parable of the soils, that different believers display differing levels of fruit. And you remember what Matthew 13 says, some 30-fold, some 60-fold, some 80-fold, etc. Different levels of fruitfulness, no doubt. And the reality is there are different seasons that come along in our own lives. And different evidences, different manifestations of fruitfulness. But the bottom line is this, as more than one preacher has said, if there's no fruit, then there's no root. So think of it this way. Past grace, the past grace we have received from the Lord. to draw us to Himself and to open our dead eyes to see the beauty of Christ and to want to follow Him, this past grace that has regenerated us and justified us and adopted us. Past grace that we've received from the Lord inevitably is manifested by the works of present grace. The works of present grace are not improving upon the past grace in any way. The present grace is not adding anything to the past work of grace. It's just that the past work of grace assures the ongoing work of present grace. Another way to describe this new life or our present sanctification is to say this, that we grow in holiness. Or even another way to say it, and one of our favorite ways to say it around here, our present growth, our present sanctification is an ongoing growth in Christ-likeness. But here's the question, what does that look like? What is Christlikeness? I mean, are we talking about just some ethereal sort of non-defined general idea of Christlikeness that we're just kind of somehow morphing toward? Are we talking about some abstract emotional change? No. We find what holiness is, we find what Christlikeness is by looking into scripture so that God's word defines it. And certainly we can read the New Testament and we find there much in the New Testament as to what Christlikeness looks like, but I'm submitting to you by preaching through the Ten Commandments. that we can also look at the Decalogue and see Christ likeness. And this fits with what biblical scholars, I guess in the South they're biblical, biblical scholars. This fits with what biblical scholars have traditionally said about the moral law of God. Throughout the centuries, the church has recognized that the law serves three uses. It serves as that sort of a guide to society, yes, for controlling society and preventing anarchy. Yes, it does that, the moral code of God. Many nations reflect the moral code of God in their laws, even though they don't give God glory for it. That's one use of the law. Yes, it has an impact on our culture in that sense. The second use of the law is what we saw in Galatians. It leads sinners to Christ. It convicts sinners. But the third use of the law is that it teaches believers and exhorts believers then onward to do God's will. So we don't look at the law, the moral code, as a way of justification, a way of somehow getting new life, regeneration, a way of getting a new record, that somehow if we do enough of these things, we'll one by one erase the entries in our old record and have a right standing before God. No, we don't look to the law as a way of justification. And we're certainly not under the law in the sense of its condemnation to those who do not obey it perfectly because the law includes that as well. Judgment, condemnation, punishment. But as Christians, as believers, we do see the law, the moral code of God, as a standard that God still uses to promote something and that is righteous living Christ-likeness. Luther worded it this way. He affirmed, of course, the third use of the law. He wrote, it is like a compass indicating the general direction of a journey, not like a detailed map, perhaps, prescribing particular roads. But again, that compass that gives us the general direction of a journey. And he went on to teach that the Holy Spirit then is the one who makes heart, soul, body, works, and manner of life new. It's the Holy Spirit who does that. It's the Holy Spirit who writes God's commandments on the hearts of flesh, according, he wrote, to 2 Corinthians 3. Calvin as well put much stress on the role of the law. Not for justification for believers, but instruction. Instructing believers in the way of spirituality, of spiritual life, of Christlikeness. So I'm just saying, it can't save anybody. It can point you to the one who can save you. But once saved, the law then shows that saved person, the believer, what Christlikeness is. What living for the glory of God looks like in tangible terms. And I believe that fits then with what Jesus said in Matthew chapter 5, 17 through 20. Matthew 5, 17 through 20. He says, do not think that I came to abolish the law or the prophets. I did not come to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the law until all is accomplished. whoever then annuls one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven. But whoever keeps and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. Verse 20, for I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. In other words, there is evidence of a relationship with Christ, evidence of regeneration because regeneration It's not just a blip on the screen. It's not a decision you made. There is no such thing as decisional regeneration. Not in scripture. In man-made religion there is. And that spirit-worked generation does result in a growth in righteousness that's totally different than what the scribes and Pharisees understood. I believe because of what Christ says, we can say that the moral code of Moses is not just simply the law of God, it is what the New Testament means when it says the law of Christ. Now obviously you could hear that and think that, well, wait a minute, doesn't Doesn't thinking in terms of obedience to the Ten Commandments, I mean, doesn't that end up just being a legalistic approach to the Christian life? Well, it could, but it doesn't have to be. Because it is the Holy Spirit who infuses grace, enables a person to live a holy life in obedience to the moral law. I love what Thomas Watson, said in the 1600s, not sure what year he said this, somewhere in the 1600s, Thomas Watson wrote, as the teacher guides the child's hand and helps him to form his letters so that it is not so much the child's writing as the master's, so our obedience is not so much our working as the Spirit's co-working. So we call this enabling grace from the Lord. enabling grace, the Holy Spirit works in our hearts now, our new hearts, to produce something, to produce gratitude in our hearts for what Christ has done for us that we could never do. He works that gratitude in our hearts and he works this amazement in our hearts as we look back over those theological gospel related truths, the doctrine of regeneration, even before that, his calling of us We're amazed at our effectual calling, our regeneration. We're amazed at our justification. The Holy Spirit works that in our hearts. He works this amazement in our hearts at our adoption and our new family position. And out of this gratitude and amazement and the knowledge that we are completely accepted in Christ, not because of anything we do, We have this growing love then for something, God's moral law. And we have a desire in our hearts to obey. You see, grace doesn't negate obedience. Grace increases our obligation to obey God. Because willful and joyful obedience to the moral law of God and all of his implications is a way to please the Lord who made us right with himself. You see the converted heart is the one that says what we find in scripture. The psalmist saying, I delight to do your will. So obedience is not something that we do begrudgingly. We don't obey and then we go, glad that's over. I love what another Puritan said, Richard Baxter, he said that it is a contradiction to be happy and unholy at the same time. It's a contradiction. You can't be unholy and happy, not truly happy. And the difference in all that is the supernatural enabling grace from God. For this reason, what we really should be praying for daily is not just something mechanical that will just do the things that are commanded. Don't pray for that. I'll tell you what you pray for. Pray for enabling grace from God. Because the result of enabling grace from God is gonna be a delight in God's law. And again, get this, it's so important. Others have said it, I'll just repeat it. We do not obey in order to be accepted by God. We are accepted by God in Christ. Therefore, we want to obey. I've been reading this anonymously written book back in, I think it's the 1500s. It's called The Marrow of Divinity. It's a classic Christian work. They think a man named Edward Fisher possibly wrote it. He was a tailor in London. But he has this imaginary conversation between these two people, this legalistic person and this antinomian person that he calls nomista and antinomista. That's their names. And this third person, evangelista. This gospel-centered pastor is guiding them in their debate with one another of what is the true gospel and how do we live our lives. It's a great read. And he makes the point in there more than once, Evangelista does, that it is not do this and live, but live and do this. So is the moral code of God still binding today? Of course it is. And a proof that God's moral law, as it is found in the Ten Commandments, is still binding in some way today is the fact that in one way or another, all ten of those commandments are repeated in the New Testament, addressed in the New Testament, either by Jesus himself or the teaching of the apostles. No doubt, I do believe we need to exercise some special care when it comes to the fourth commandment that deals with the Sabbath. And I hope we're able to do that when we get to it. But in essence, there is something about God's moral code, all of it, that applies to us. The question just becomes how, and that's the reason we're having this series. And as we study the Ten Commandments, I believe we're gonna find something else, that obedience to God's moral law is not just something external for us. The law's demands, when you understand them, are something inward, something internal. They touch the very motive and desire of our hearts, not just our behaviors. Another work I've been reading, written in the 1600s, 1603, written by two men named John Dodd and Robert Cleaver. It's a book called The Ten Commandments. They say this. Interesting way to put it, the law reaches, meaning the moral law of God, the law reaches to the inward parts of every man and lies close upon his conscience. It does especially then differ from the laws of men, for they impact the hand, but they meddle not with the heart. Therefore, all obedience performed to God must proceed from within and come from the heart, else it will be no way acceptable to him. No doubt, one way the law helps us to grow then in our sanctification, one way it helps us to grow to be more like Christ is its continual ability to help convict us of our sin. That's a good thing. For believers, it's good. Because that then brings us to something good. Confession and repentance. It's not that we just respond one time to the work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts at our conversion with repentance and faith. That begins a whole life then of many times of repentance and faith. Somebody asked me, have you had the second experience? Second work of God's grace. I go, oh yeah, I have. And the third, and the fourth, and the fifth, and sixth, and seventh, 150th, 2030th. I'm at about one million and something right now. It's good that it brings us to confession and repentance because conviction of sin and confession and repentance are very important elements in growing in Christ's likeness. Here's what happens when we repent of our sin, we experience something. Our consciences are unburdened. And that is incredibly important in our spiritual growth. Because that, our conscience being unburdened, is what continually then leads us again to the restoration of something that David prayed for in Psalm 51 when he was unburdening his conscience. He prayed that the joy of his salvation would be there. You see, as we're growing in Christlikeness, it's because we're recognizing our sinfulness, our ongoing sin, and confessing and repenting, and that unburdens our conscience and that restores the joy of our salvation. So let me just summarize this aspect of the law's role in our lives. And I'm going to quote a verse of a song I found, also written a long time ago, looking at a lot of antique things today. It's a song written by Ralph Ertskine. In 1720, called Gospel Sonnets, this is just one line, one stanza. When once the fiery law of God has chased me to the gospel road, then back unto the holy law, most kindly, gospel grace will draw. What a picture. So four reasons so far to study God's law, because studying any portion of scripture is profitable, because studying the Ten Commandments will help us understand God's character. Because there's a relationship between the law and the gospel. And because there's a relationship then between the moral law and our sanctification. And fifth and finally, we ought to study the Ten Commandments, number five, because of the nature of the times in which we live. Because of the nature of the times in which we live. We're living in an age that has been labeled, I'm sure you've heard this, labeled post-modernism. What is it? Defining that term is like the proverbial attempt of nailing jello on a wall. But I will do my best to try and explain something about it. And there are many nuances I can't address. And many misunderstandings I can't address in either. First of all, the word postmodernism just means after modernism. So it's saying that we are in a time period of living in an age that's after another period called modernism, okay? So that's what it means, literally. What does modernism mean? It just means something modern, you know, something like contemporary, like computers or a new car. No, modernism in this usage is not a synonym for contemporary. Instead, modernism refers to a particular time period that can be dated all the way back to the 18th century, the 1700s, in a period of history called the Enlightenment. And a philosophy that is associated with the Enlightenment, a philosophy that sought to account for all reality within the boundaries of natural human reason. There was this belief in the concept of truth in the age of modernism. Not everybody, but overall, modernism, the period of modernism for several hundred years, didn't deny a concept of truth. It's just what they said was the way to know truth, at least the worldly form of modernism, that there was a strong emphasis on objective human rationality to determine and define truth. And as well, the ability through human efforts and objective, measurable, rational efforts to determine what happens in history and to program history and to bring about progress through the advance of science and math and technology and so forth. And this philosophy is what prevailed on through the 19th and the 20th centuries with a lot of trust being put in. at least the extreme form of it, trust being put in human effort, trust being put into the liberation of people and humanity and cultures through the progress of science and technology and even through the arts and through political ideologies that promise that we can get rid of ignorance and poverty and backwardness and oppression. There's still some of that today. There's not a clear-cut distinction between modernism and postmodernism. It didn't happen, you know, on December 31st at midnight in a certain year, then January 1st, now we're postmodern. In fact, postmodernism is really just a subset of still modernism. The philosophy the world believed, this philosophy of human effort and human ability would produce fulfilled individuals. Especially modern education would produce enlightened people who'd be the masters of their own destiny. So to summarize, there was a belief in something called truth, but it was believed that human beings had the ability to define it, to discover it, to measure it, to quantify it, to use it. But eventually there was this growing dissatisfaction with the modern way of viewing things because the world is not becoming a better place. It hasn't become a better place, it's worse. So a discontent with the reality or the idea of rational thinking and science and institutions can solve problems. So another sort of period began to emerge slowly, gradually, influenced by, especially by certain French philosophers. And I've done some reading on those guys and it's more Jell-O actually, but Derrida and Lyotard and Foucault. I think his name is. Influencing this period we call postmodernism. There's some elements of postmodernism that are actually just extreme forms of modernism. But nevertheless, in one sense, one aspect of postmodernism is this. It's this vision of moving away from progress myth that we're gonna solve all these problems the way we've been doing it. I mean, in one sense, we as Christians could even say we're postmodern in that sense. Yeah, we don't buy that either, that humans are able to solve their problems. But it's something beyond that that we're concerned about as Christians. It's this vision of moving away from that myth that's been driving the West for all these years. Reacting to the failure of modernism rejecting the the modern emphases on objectivity and certainty and rationality It's one thing to object to reject the idea that that human certainty can produce answers But some not all but some who call themselves postmoderns in their philosophy have rejected the idea of all certainty and and have even come to the place of saying they're skeptical of any ideology that espouses certainty, any idea that you can define truth and discover truth. In fact, they would say, the extreme forms of this would say, if you believe in the idea of certainty in something, you got that from modernism. And we as Christians would say, no, we actually didn't. That idea existed before modernism. It goes back to scripture, but they would say that not only have you imbibed modernism, you Christians in the church, but you are evidencing arrogance to say that you can know truth and define it and quantify it. That really you're just a victim of ethnic myths that came out of our European culture. So here's what is significant about postmodernism as far as Christians are concerned. that there's this element of that worldview that's saying there is no fixed or moral spiritual framework. Not all say that, but some do. And you know what that means, ultimately? Postmodernism is nothing new. It's really nothing new. But they just sort of say it differently, that truth is something constructed in any given community across the world. if you can even construct it. Postmodernism. And they would say that a real sign of humility and maturing is to reject the idea of arrogant certainty. Absoluteness, they would claim, is a form of intolerance. Absoluteness needs to be rejected, which means their pushing of tolerance is a new absolute. It goes against the very thing that they're reacting against. Well, what's sad is the fact that there are some Christians in churches that have adopted this whole idea of this approach to scripture that, you know what, we can't be authoritative. That's just so arrogant to say that we know some things. We really don't know anything. We can't be for sure about anything. And even in the church and some Christians, truth has become more subjective and more about feeling good and individualism. So not only has the postmodern, the extreme forms of it, affected everything in our culture, art, music, education, fashion, literature, politics, law, theology, philosophy, architecture, entertainment, everything, but the church, our culture is decimated by modernism and postmodernism. And my conclusion is somehow what's wrong with modernism and postmodernism is nothing new at all. It's all the same. It all goes back to even what is expressed in Judges chapter 17 verses five and six, where everybody just does what's right in their own eyes. So we don't, as Christians, we don't want to be saying that Moral law is just no longer needed that we just need to take a different approach to things We as Christians don't want to be guilty of the quintessential American pursuit of we just need to find ourselves and we need to Somehow do away with objective moral goodness and forsake it for something more subjective and more cultural and more individual So my final point is what's happened in modernism and what's happening in post-modernism. Together is a good reason to study something as old as the Ten Commandments. The moral law of God that is eternal. Every society does need a moral code to survive. Otherwise, things just unravel. The whatever makes you happy type of philosophy sort of appears to be liberating. It's liberating me, it's only true for a season. And then a society and you as an individual will just end up being like Rome, falling apart. So because of the times in which we live, I believe we as Christians have an obligation to be salt and light. But we do that by knowing what is true and then by living and proclaiming what is true, even as we do then go about showing care and concern and love to those around us. And that necessitates, I think, for my own life and for yours and for this church, a massive re-education in the basics, getting back to something old, getting back to the basic truths that in some sense have been ignored and neglected. There is a sense in which we need to take the moral code of God and bring it out of hibernation. Because I believe the truths that are there end up bringing us true freedom then, true freedom. I hope we'll take it seriously. Sadly, many churches have emphasized the love of God at the expense of holiness. They haven't really shown unbelievers that God hates their sin. They haven't really showed believers that God demands and loves holiness and righteousness. The result is that the sins of society can be found in many congregations. Philip Rikens said it this way, people are behaving badly even in the church. I don't want us to buy into this postmodern sort of way of viewing reality. I want us to go back to what is old. I don't want us to be ever guilty in this church, and I know we won't be, but guilty of what is true of a lot of preaching out there, the downplaying of morality, the downplaying of doctrine, the downplaying of certainty and authority and objective thinking that's given away to sort of heart-tugging messages, you know, to make people feel good, or psychological messages to promote psychological well-being, where truth is not the controlling value of the sermon. My point is that without a return to our biblical roots and an emphasis on God's moral law, we can end up as a church then sort of being like a ship without a rudder at sea. We have to recover our moorings. So the Ten Commandments must be excavated. How ironic that in order to be truly relevant in this world in which we live, to be truly up to date and impacting the world around us, to be truly relevant. And on the cutting edge, what we have to do is retrieve a moral code from the past. And that's what we're gonna do over the next several weeks. Let's pray. If you're here and you're one of those that's never really come to grips with your lack of perfect righteousness. You can't argue with God and bargain with Him and try to say, well, look at the good pages of my record. If you've never come to deal with the fact that you are spiritually dead and destitute before God, then our prayer for you is that God's Spirit would convict you of your sinfulness, your love of self. God would convict you of your individualism and your self-sufficiency and your self-opinions. That God would convict you by His eternal moral law. That you lack the righteousness necessary to know your Creator. and that God's Spirit would give you that ability to turn, to repent from that sinful way of thinking and to place your faith in Jesus Christ alone for your salvation. Our prayer for you is that God would give you a new heart. Father, I pray for anyone here who doesn't know Christ that you would bring about that work in their hearts that you do by your Spirit and your Word. You would draw them to the Savior and give them the ability to repent and believe. Lord, anyone here that's pondering that and questioning that and curious about that or concerned about that, Lord, I pray that you would motivate them to want to talk to us, to sit down with us, so we can discuss the state of the eternal souls. For us as believers, Lord, I pray that you would renew within our hearts a delight and a love for your law and the implications of it, your eternal moral code that reflects your eternal moral character. May it change us as individuals and may this study change us as a church to be more like Christ. In our Savior's name, amen.