Well we are continuing the Westminster Confession of Faith. Tonight we come to chapter 19. Look how far we've come. Which is of the law of God. Now that means we've hit a transition. We had initially, we had the doctrine of scripture, we had the doctrine of God, some issues there, doctrine of Christ, then we had the doctrine of salvation, we did saving faith, justification, sanctification, assurance. Now we're entering a fairly lengthy section on Christian, on law and liberty. And the first chapter, chapter 19, a very important chapter is rightly understanding the law of God. And I will say, that Reformed Presbyterianism has a very distinct view of the law, in many cases not widely held by fellow evangelicals, but it happens to be, as I think it will show, the view that the Bible teaches about the law of God. I think it will be a blessing to you. Okay, well first, there are six paragraphs here. The first deals with the law as it was given to Adam in the garden, the law as a covenant of works, and it reads this. This is chapter 19, paragraph one. God gave to Adam a law as a covenant of works by which he bound him and all his posterity to personal, entire, exact, and perpetual obedience. promised life upon the fulfilling, and threatened death upon the breach of it, and endued him with the power and ability to keep it." That's a very good summary of the giving of the covenant of works and the law in the garden. A few things about it. First of all, the implications of the fact that Adam is the image bearer of God. Adam was made in knowledge and righteousness, as Ephesians 4 says. I think Robert Shaw put it well, the law was founded in the infinitely righteous nature of God and the moral relations necessarily subsisting between him and man. So when God makes the creature and places his image upon him, there is a communication in his conscience and in his mind of the moral character of God. The very fact that he's made in God's image means that he has a reflection of that and an understanding of it. It was originally the law was originally written on the heart of man as he was endowed with such perfect knowledge of his maker's will as was sufficient to inform him concerning the whole extent of his duty. The point of which was Adam was made it with the law and you get like in Romans 2 Paul talks about The conscience, even the unbeliever's conscience, now this is post-fall, so it's going to be corrupted, but the image of God continues that there's a conscience with the knowledge of God's law. In Romans 2 he says, when the unbeliever fulfills a law without knowing it, it's the conscience written upon by God. Romans 2.15, the work of the law is written on their hearts while their conscience also bears witness. Ecclesiastes 7.29 says God made man upright. And so what this means is while the Ten Commandments comes later, and we're going to talk about the Ten Commandments, and it's not spelled out in Genesis 3, but bound up in the communication between God and man, Adam, as he gives the law and the covenant of works, is the ability, the knowledge of these things. Now, God then formulated what we call the covenant of works, and it's these two verses in Genesis 2, 16 and 17, a big moment in human history. The Lord God commanded the man saying, you shall surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die. So there Adam is in the Garden of Eden with all of its delights and wonders, and there is a certain tree. which is called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Now, there's no reason to believe that there was something wrong with its fruit. It may have been a tree, I think very likely was a symbolic tree. But it says that tree, and the whole issue of the knowledge of good and evil, I would put it this way, Adam is to make God his epistemic center, rather than himself the epistemic center. Epistemology is the theory of knowing. And so truth is going to be truth as it comes from God, not as it is decided upon by Adam. Boy, there's a big issue for our world today. and at the very essence of it is to recognize the authority of God, the lordship of God, the perfection of God. And so he was not to embark on a path whereby he would know and determine good and evil, but he was to attend upon the word of God. That's what's going on there. As you know, he did poorly in that covenant. He assisted by his wife. He ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Now, a few things about it. Now, as law law involves commands and prohibitions, thou shalt not. Here's an thou shalt not. But when you bring in covenant and he makes a covenant, certainly the covenant of works is the law, but there's a promise attached to it. There's the promise of life, and so when God gave the prohibition to Adam, the Reformed faith rightly teaches that while the obedience was to be perpetual, the actual covenant fulfillment itself had a certain period of time after which he would have entered into eschatological life, eternal life. And we see that because Romans 4, 5 calls Adam a type of Christ. He's in the covenant of works, a type of the one to come, namely one who both can be either through his obedience or his disobedience, all those in him, literally in Adam, we are his natural progeny, that we would either die or that we would have life. And of course, Adam having failed, we look to the second Adam, the Lord Jesus. And so the law first comes into the Bible in terms of the covenant of works. Now, again, here's the principle that there's a strand of theology that says, you know, it looks upon law as a mainly negative thing and says, no, we're for grace, not law. Well, law is a merely a refraction of the Lord's lordship. When you are the Creator, when you are the Lord, then it is your will that is to be done. And the expression of God's will is always the law of God. Well, paragraph two is on the Ten Commandments. This same law, after the fall, continued to be a perfect rule of righteousness and as such was delivered by God upon Mount Sinai in ten commandments and written in two tables. The first four commandments containing our duty towards God and the other six, our duty towards man. Now, one thing they're saying is, while the Ten Commandments were not spelled out in Genesis 2, but the substance of them were what God meant. The law is always God's morally perfect being being honored and respected, His authority being adored and yielded to. And that's just spelled out more clearly in the Ten Commandments. And the fact that Adam broke God's law, and here's an important principle, The law of God does not depend on our ability to keep it. People say, God would never command what we cannot do. Yes, he does. He bases his law not on what you and I like or can do or cannot do. He bases his law on his own moral perfections. And so the fall did not change the law of God. It's his own perfect nature. Now for this reason, what we call God's moral law, and here's the Ten Commandments, they are perpetually and eternally binding on all persons and all times. Now dare I say that, can you see this with my screens moving around? Okay, my screen's back up. You're not being affected by what I'm seeing. Even the way the law was given, it was written by the finger of God on tablets of stone. What's that symbolism getting at? Not something that's transitory. Not something that's merely situational. No, the whole manner in which it's being done, it's to convey permanence. And of course, one of the things, one of the two main things, the Ark of the Covenant was for, was keeping the law of God. And so when Israel marched through the wilderness at the very center of the nation, in the middle of the 12 tribes, was the law of God. And so the reverence is to be due. And the law of God does not fundamentally change. Now, I emphasize this because there's a big challenge to this among even Reformed evangelicals today. There's a thing called New Covenant theology, and this is a particularly Reformed Baptist configuration. And there's a reason for that because I don't mean this snarkily, I mean it truthfully. If you take the Old Testament seriously, you end up doing infant baptism. And they want to take the Old Testament seriously, but they don't want to do infant baptism. I don't mean that as a cheap shot, I think it's actually true. And so the nature between the Old Testament and the New Testament gets a bit skewed. And it's actually being argued that the Ten Commandments are not valid today. And every time I hear that, I go, what are you thinking? The Ten Commandments are, Westminster Standards declare rightly, the Ten Commandments are eternally binding. They are always true. They are always valid. Why? Because they are an expression of the unchanging character and will of God. And the problem is when these things get debated, people start doubling down. And some people who I otherwise greatly respect have been saying things like, oh, the Ten Commandments, it was just for that particular cultural moment. In that era of redemptive history, for what was going on in the exodus, and you're going, The Bible has never treated the Ten Commandments that way. Now, one of the really important things is most evangelicals don't know the Ten Commandments. I remember being at a Ligonier conference years ago, and there were maybe 6,000 people there, and R.C. Sproul was making a big deal about it, and Jonathan Gershner had just published his massive two-volume set of Jonathan Edwards' works, and he said, I'll give you anyone in this room, if you raise your hand, if you can recite the Ten Commandments in order, we'll give you the brand new set of Jonathan." That was a highly prized thing at this conference. There must have been 6,000 people and something like, you're looking, maybe 12 hands went up. Evangelical Christianity does not know the law of God because we have become largely an antinomian movement. We think of the law as legalism. Well, there is a thing called legalism, but honoring the law as God's law is a way of honoring God. And that's one of the reasons, for instance, in our worship service, one of two reasons that we have the reading of the law. The other reason is so we know what sins to confess. So before we do the confession of sin, it's important that we come to God as sinners coming by the blood of Christ. But if we just, you know, I've had people say to me, not many, usually visitors, instead of the law of God, could we just have a moment of silence where we confess our own sins in the pews? And my answer to that is, well, it's so typically American evangelical, we do private things in public and public things in private. So do your private piety, but this is corporate worship. But the second thing is you'd confess the same thing over and over. But the law shows us what our sin is. And so that's important to know what the law is. And there's an explanation of it. The other reason is, I want the children of this church to know the law of God. And our church should not be a church where children do not know the Ten Commandments. This is the expression from God's own finger written on tablets of stone of His unchanging moral nature. Now, when we use the term law, what happens in the Reformed faith is we look back on the Old Testament and we realize that the term law is used differently in different contexts. And so when someone refers to the law or to laws and precepts, there are in fact different categories of law. I've given you the main one, the moral law. The moral law, the Ten Commandments, never changes, ever. eternally in heaven, the Ten Commandments will still be the expression of God's will. But there's also all those religious regulations, the feast schedule, the Feast of Tabernacles, the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the rituals and the sacrifices and the rites, that is also the law. And we refer to those as the ceremonial law. Here's what the confession says. Beside this law, commonly called moral, God was pleased to give to the people of Israel as a church under age, ceremonial laws containing several typical ordinances, partly of worship prefiguring Christ, his graces, actions and sufferings and benefits, and partly holding forth the verse instructions and moral duties. All of which ceremonial laws are now abrogated under the New Testament. And so there is a category of Old Testament law that is, in fact, no longer in effect. And there's two categories. One is the ceremonial law. I praise the Lord just for the laundry bill that I'm not a priest of the old covenant because just the goo of sacrificing sheep and all of that. Why don't we do that? Well, because Christ has fulfilled what they symbolized. And when the reality comes, the sign passes away. And so the church no longer observes all these types of Christ now that Christ has come. Robert Shaw says the ceremonial law respected the Jews in their ecclesiastical, their church capacity. and prescribed the rites and carnal ordinances which were to be observed by them in the external worship of God, these ceremonies were chiefly designed to prefigure Christ and lead them to the knowledge of salvation through him." Now, as you're studying the Old Testament, and we do a lot of that here, you know, you start to realize what gospel literature it is. I mean, Jeremiah, wait till this Sunday's sermon. I mean, it's Christ. And it's not some other religion. And they're being taught, but the way they're being taught is through rituals, through the sacrifices, the rites, through the feast schedule, all of those sorts of things. I give an example, Psalm 51 7, how the gospel is preached in the Old Testament. In Psalm 51, David's prayer of repentance, he says, purge me with hyssop and I will be clean. And you're going, that's clearly another religion. He's got this thing, hyssop, and he thinks that's going to cleanse him. Well, it turns out that hyssop was the, it's the spongy plant that even today grows on the wailing wall in Jerusalem. And the priests used it to sprinkle the blood. And it's very likely that the sponge put in Jesus' mouth was a hyssop sponge. And so when David says, purge me with hyssop, he means sprinkle the atoning blood on me. He means forgive my sins for the sake of the atoning work of Jesus Christ on the cross. But he says that in an Old Testament way by means of the types of the gospel then. Now the ceremonial law of the Old Testament is explicitly abrogated in Hebrews chapter 10. The law, and here's talking about the ceremonies, has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities. They have ceased to be offered. And so you go, why don't we do the Passover? Because Christ, our Passover lamb, has come. Why aren't we doing Yom Kippur? Why don't we do it? Because we believe there's a continuity, there's an organic connection that's hugely important to us, the Old Testament to the New Testament, but there's also discontinuity. Something has happened, Christ has come, and there are things about that old era that they've come to maturity. In fact, the way the writer of Hebrews puts it is so good. The law is not the shadow, it's the shadow cast back by the gospel. He says that the law has but a shadow of the good things to come. The good things to come are Christ. And it's like someone is standing there, and the sun shines on him or her, and they cast a shadow back. What you have in the Old Testament is the shadow of Christ cast back into the ceremonies of the Old Covenant. Well, therefore, we do not do them. Signs are abolished when the thing signifies, appears. Now if you say, now what then is the new, what do they become in the New Testament? Well, they become the sacraments. The sacraments are, and notice there's a simplicity to it. Why? Because Christ has come. But the old, circumcision gives way to baptism. The Passover gives way to the Lord's Supper to show completion. Then there is the civil law, paragraph four. To them also as a body politic he gave sundry judicial laws which expired together with the state of that people, not obliging any other now further than the general equity thereof may require. We need to remember that Israel was a political entity. It was a nation, and there were regulations for that nation. They were called the law. But we look back and go, okay, that's a category of law. It's not the moral law. It's not the ceremonial law. We refer to it as the civil law. Christians, these are applications of the Ten Commandments to their own particular time. For instance, if your axe head flies off and it was an accident and it kills somebody's cow, then you need to reimburse the cow. If it was not an accident, so on and so forth. If someone falls, this is a good one actually, if someone falls off your roof and you didn't have a rail around the roof, then you're gonna pay the damages. And there's other ones, stoning homosexuals. I used to say to my children when they were little, if you hit me, I can have you put to death under the old covenant. And that was not a threat that went far. They knew we're not, they were too well trained. It didn't work. Dad, we're not under the old covenant. We're not theonomists. Therefore, you're not going to stone me to death. Ah, all those rules. Now, this is where skeptics, and it's usually somebody who grew up in a pretty fundy Baptist church, and they became a famous singer, and then they discovered the world, and then they write a book about what hypocrites Christians are, and then one thing they mock is they say they believe the Bible. Why aren't they stoning homosexuals then? Well, because that was the civil law. And so there are principles that are good, but the actual, one woman wrote, Rachel Held Evans, she wrote a book, and you know, why aren't the wives in the front yard at certain times of the month? And it was like this big splash, oh, we've really showed these Christians are hypocrites, they don't really believe the Bible. And our response is, do you mind if we ask you to interpret it competently? before you mock us. So you have all these regulations. Now, often there's a general equity to it. Let me give you a good example. Paul, oh, in 1 Corinthians 9, eight to 10, Paul says, do not muzzle the ox when it's treading the grain. That was a precept of the civil law. And Paul says, that's why you pay ministers, because, you know, if they're starving, they can't work very hard. So that's the New Testament use of it. Not that this, civil law is explicitly binding, but there's a certain wisdom there that we should observe. Now, the poem makes an important statement in Galatians 4, because so many of the civil law restrictions had the effect of culturally isolating the Jews. The food restrictions, while they love to talk about, oh, if you really believe the Bible, you wouldn't eat shrimp. And I go, well, Acts 10, baby, one of the great moments of redemptive history, when slay and eat, he tells Peter. But we're like, no, would you please competently interpret it before you mock us over it? But it's interesting. They wore funny clothing. They weren't allowed to sit at a table with Gentiles. They had the cleansing rituals that were very restrictive. And what was going on with those? Well, Paul explains in Galatians 4. It's a very important statement. He says, I mean that the heir, as long as he is a child, he's referring to the old covenant, as the church in its youth age, is no different from a slave, though he is the owner of everything, but he is under guardians and managers until the day set by his father. In the same way, we also, Israel, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world. He means those restrictions, that asceticism of the old covenant civil law. But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those that were under the law that they might receive the adoption as sons. There's a lot going on there. But one of the things going on there is Paul says, one thing to understand about the law, not the Ten Commandments, but the civil law, it's kind of the rule book for Israel from Moses to Christ, was God had to get them there. So many of those laws were to keep them from assimilation. Why? Because we needed the generations to go on. Israel needed to continue. We couldn't have them assimilating because Christ had to come. And so this is why there's this change. When Christ comes, why, and this is some of the conflict with the Pharisees, not that they were biblical, they were not, but one of the things they were on, you're not, and even in Galatians where the Judaizers are upset by the Gentiles coming into the church and they're not washing their hands a certain way, we're not supposed to sit at a table with them. And the apostles go, no, no, we're not, the infancy's over. We're no longer youths under a governess. The church in Christ has come of age. And so many of those civil law things fell away because now the purpose is not to avoid, but we are to avoid assimilation, but we're to go out into the world. and were to proclaim the gospel. And so the coming of Christ takes us out of our infancy. And so many of those restrictions were designed to protect a juvenile church whose Messiah had not yet come to keep them from being assimilated. I think it's very interesting. Now this view is contra what is called theonomy. Theonomy is a reformed false teaching that says that these civil regulations should be all established today. And they're laboring for the state governments to apply the Bible in all these matters, but in many cases the Bible they're wanting to apply is Bible passages that pertain to the civil law of Israel as a nation that no longer are enforced. Now by the way, the New Testament analog to the civil law is church discipline. So there's still the same principle, but the civil law, so someone says to you, if you really believe the Bible, then you wouldn't eat any shrimp. You say, just say to them, please go back and competently interpret the scripture, read chapter 19 of the Westminster Confession, and then we'll have a good discussion about it. Or maybe you could just explain it to them. Paragraph five then, the moral law doth forever bind all. as well justified persons as others to the obedience thereof. The Ten Commandments require everyone to obey them, including believers, the justified. And that not only in regard to the matter contained in it, but also in respect of the authority of God the Creator. The Ten Commandments are to be obeyed. As is often said, they're not the Ten Suggestions. They're to be obeyed because they are God's law. They reflect God's character. His authority is to be respected. Neither doth Christ and the gospel any way dissolve but much strength in this obligation." Now this is a huge issue. Now first of all, the law as a covenant of works has been fulfilled by Christ. When Paul says, for sin will have no dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace, he's not saying let the law go out the window. He says that, and this is the good news of the gospel, I no longer have to be justified by works, which I cannot do. I'm justified by Christ who did the works for me. And so the covenant of works offers eternal life based upon perfect, perpetual, personal obedience. We fell from that, but Christ fulfilled the covenant of works, both its penalty by dying on the cross and also its positive obligation by achieving all righteousness, so I am no longer under the law as a means of justification. That's called the gospel. That's called the good news. The good news is the law no longer condemns me, though apart from Christ, it rightly would. So it's the law for a Christian is no longer a way of salvation. We are saved through faith in Christ alone. But Christians still live under God's rule and law as a way of life. And here's a vitally important thing, that Christians are to obey the Bible. Christians are to obey the commands of God. Christians are to know and obey and follow the 10 Commandments. I love how Spurgeon once put it. He said that we are no longer under the law as if it were to condemn us. Now the law is under us that we would walk by it. And that can be proven because the New Testament is filled with applications to the 10 Commandments. It's constantly referring to the Ten Commandments. First John 2.3, John says this, and by this we know that we've come to know him if we keep his commandments. And so proof that you're a Christian is seen in a changed life, and it's changed in terms of loving and obeying God's will, the summary of which is the Ten Commandments. Romans 3.31 says, do we then overturn the law by this faith? By no means, on the contrary, we uphold the law. Romans 8.3-4 says that God condemns sin in the flesh in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us. So one of the goals, and we've been seeing this in the New Covenant in Jeremiah 31. What was wrong with the Old Covenant? Well, the people were wrong, that was the thing. That the law was written on tablets of stone, but not on their hearts. I will put my law in your minds, I will write it upon your hearts. God, by the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit, has made us able and willing to keep God's law. Now, none of us ever perfectly keep God's law. But to be a Christian is to embrace the Ten Commandments as our duty and obligation and blessing. We live by the law and we are able to do so. Let me say this, the Ten Commandments should be coming into our minds, like if we're going to lie to someone. We should go, you know, I'm not supposed to lie. And that's an offense to God. God's a God of truth. By the way, the 10 commandments, in my new members class, I go through all this, the 10 commandments are 10 categories. And everything in that category is included. So Jesus says, if you lust, you've committed adultery. So the sexual purity category is the seventh commandment. It's not just the outward behavior. It's the inward disposition. It's everything along those lines. It calls for sexual purity. It forbids adultery. pornography and all of those things. Well, we are to be guided and restrained by the 10 commandments of this. This is this is really helpful because someone will come to me and say, Pastor, I've got like a really tough moral quandary. Well, thank you for coming and talk to me before you commit the sin and ask for forgiveness. What's the problem? My boss wants me to lie to my customer. Oh, that's a really tough one. Let's turn to Exodus 20 and see what it has to say about this. Thou shalt not bear false testimony. Thou shalt not steal. And our lives, as Spurgeon said, The Ten Commandments become for us a manner of living that we glorify God and we express the obedience of our faith by embracing the Ten Commandments. Now, I realize that none of us do it perfectly, but one of the biggest problems of our generation is how many churches, so-called reformed churches included, who deny that that is true. who would argue against the Ten Commandments. Now, one of the arguments is that the Ten Commandments are not all replicated in the New Testament. They are all 10 in the New Testament. Every one of them is exhorted or mentioned. Now, they say the one that they argue is the Sabbath. And the New Covenant theology position, they constantly say the Sabbath is never repeated in the New Testament. And I kind of wait and I go, except for the place where Jesus does, which is in the Olivet Discourse, when he's predicting the fall of Jerusalem, and he says, pray that does not happen in winter or on a Sabbath. And there's Jesus looking ahead 30 some years to an event that's going to happen, this tragedy. He's telling them in advance, and by the way, they believed him and they weren't there. And he says it'd be good if that didn't happen on a Sabbath. The reason he says that is because the Sabbath is still valid. It's like the fourth commandment. It didn't just fall out of the stone. And so all the 10 you'll see in the New Testament, let him who steal no longer steal, but rather work with his hands to give to the needy. And so the 10 commandments are just, they fall off the lips of the apostles. Why? Because it's the moral law of God. You and I are not judged by the law. We're not going to go to hell anymore because Jesus bore our hell. He paid the penalty our law-breaking did. But Christian parents must absolutely raise their children with the law of God. It needs to be pressed upon the consciences of ourselves and of our children. Well, that's a lie. It's not just that, you know, you lied to mommy. Just a great day in parenting, the first time your little sweet child looks you in the eyes and just flat out lies to you, and you're like, it wasn't even skillful. That little sinner, totally depraved child of mine, where did he get the sin? From you. And we don't just say, you lied to me. Sweetheart, you have violated the law of God. And God is a God of truth, and you're the child of truth. We are under God's rule and law as a way of life. Now the confession says Christ not only does not abrogate this, he upholds it and strengthens it. That is absolutely true. Consider the famous words of Matthew 7, 21 to 23. Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but who? The one who does the will of my father who is in heaven. Now Jesus is not saying you're justified by works. He's not saying you're justified by the law. He says those two go together. And so just an outward profession of faith, when there's no lifestyle that is conformed to God, which means to God's law, Jesus says that person is not the one who enters the heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. And so to be a Christian is to be saved by grace alone, through faith alone, by Christ alone, His work, not mine. Amen, amen. And then I am to live according to the law of God. How am I to do that? By the Holy Spirit that's within me. What's gonna make me want to do God's law? Christ living in me through the Holy Spirit. Then he says, then I will declare to them, I never knew you, depart from me, you workers of lawlessness. The Greek there is anomia. Namas is law. You anti-law people, you antinomians. So you got all these people out there promoting antinomianism against the law. and saying, oh, no, the law's bad. It's illegalism to say we're to obey the Bible. I mean, I can't tell you how many times people say to me, you're a legalist. And I go, okay, here we go again. Why am I a legalist? I teach justification through faith alone. I preach sanctification by grace alone. Oh, you said we're to obey the Bible. The law of the Lord is good, reviving the soul. Jesus says, I never knew you, you antinomian. And so people who want to name the name of Christ, they want to be forgiven of their sin, and then they want to indulge themselves. There's just no restraint on it. They're just washed like the rest of the culture. Christ's assessment of that category of person is, I don't know this person. I don't know who this person is. I think of Calvin during the Libertine crisis, so much what we deal with today. We had that very situation, affluent people in the city of Geneva, and they were demanding the Lord's Supper when they had mistresses. They had illegitimate children. They lived in adultery and theft. It was just open. Like many professing evangelicals today who were binge drinking and who were on the Tinder app at college. And they're doing all the wickedness of our society. And they demanded to go to Lord's Supper. And Calvin literally defends the table with his body. I will not let you take communion. And that's why they kicked him out of Geneva. They kicked him out of Geneva, but then they had him come back. That's a typical problem, but listen to what Jesus says. I never knew you, you workers of lawlessness. To be a Christian is not to be lawless. We're saved from the law by Christ, who sends us back to the law. I forgive you, now go and sin no more. Hope that's helpful. Then lastly, the great value of God's law. This is a long one. Although true believers be not under the law as a covenant of works, we're not condemned for our sins because Christ died for us. To be justified or condemned, yet it is of great use to them. This is great. as well as to others, in that as a rule of life, informing them of the will of God and their duty, it directs and binds them to walk accordingly, discovering also the sinful pollutions of their nature, hearts, and lives, so as examining themselves thereby, they may come to further conviction of, humiliation for, and hatred against sin, together with a clearer sight of the need they have of Christ. That's great. and the perfection of his obedience. It is likewise of use to the regenerate to restrain their corruptions, in that it forbids sin. And the threatenings of it serve to show what even their sins deserve and what afflictions in this life they may accept for them, although free from the curse thereof threatened in the law. The promises of it in like manner show them God's approbation, his approval of obedience and what blessings they may expect upon the performance thereof, although not as due to them by the law as a covenant of work. See how careful they are from legalism. So as a man's doing good and... It shows you they had to deal with what we're dealing with. Here's how they wrap it up. A man's doing good and refraining from evil because the law encourages him to the one and deters him from the other is no evidence of his being under the law and not under grace. You're not a legalist. They have to say that just because you want to honor God through His law. Okay, real quickly. It's a rule of life. We've been talking about that. It informs us of the will of God and therefore our duty. You know, we need to embrace the concept of duty. We are disciples of Christ. We are the people of God and He is our Lord and King and Creator, the people of Christ. We have a duty to Him to keep the law. Therefore, it ought to press upon our consciences. It directs and binds us to walk accordingly. Here's an example, Galatians 5, 13 to 14. Do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another, for the whole law is fulfilled in one word. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. That's the second tablet of the law, love for God, love for man. And Paul's saying, yeah, you're saved by grace alone. You're no longer under works as a covenant law. Yeah, but that doesn't mean you don't... Love God? You love your neighbor? People say, I believe in love, not law. Well, Jesus says the law is how to love. Pastor, I want to love my neighbor. Here's the commandments. Honor your father and mother. Do not kill. Do not commit adultery, so on and so forth. And it discovers the sinful pollutions of our nature's hearts and lives. You know, it is so good for us to be reminded of what sinners we are. Because what happens is, we get converted to Christ, there's usually a pretty big change in our lives, and we start to think that we're righteous people. And the truth is that we're sinners. I need the blood of Christ for today as much as I did the day before I was converted. And the whole nature of our spirituality, in fact, this view of the law, keeps us from self-righteousness. Because I see the law, I see its commandments. I hear Brendan giving us a short, pointed instruction during the worship service, and I go, man, I'm a sinner. I need Christ. I need Christ. Paul says, if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For we know the law is spiritual, but I'm of the flesh, sold under sin. It's actually to grow in your appreciation of your own wickedness. of your own loathsomeness actually leads to a healthy, happy spiritual life because you place your value on Jesus and his blood and his finished work and you're delivered from the hypocrisy and the falseness of self-righteousness and comparing yourself to others and thinking how much better you are. You see this great, the cross becomes this great glorious thing and it better be and it is when you see the truth as a Christian of the sinner that you are. And sometimes you'll hear some eminent Christian, some great preacher, some great missionary, and they'll go, oh, if you knew what a filthy sinner I am. And you're going, I don't believe that. Well, you may be relatively speaking, or worse, but see, that's their, that's their, as Paul's saying, of whom I am the foremost. And their spiritual growth has given them the appreciation. It's me talking to Bobby Houser, and I was joking with her. I said, Bobby, how can I, 95, how can I pray for you? pastor, pray for my sins. And I teased her and said, I mean, how much can you send in the nursing home was joking. And she said, you'd be surprised. Well, she, they probably thought she was the most godly woman they ever met, but she was, she had a sense of her sinfulness and that was good. like Paul in Romans 7. So it's a rule of life. It's also a mirror. We're kind of going there already. It humbles us for sin, a clear sight of our need for Christ. Wretched man though I am, who shall deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ. And we see in the law the perfections of Christ because he did keep it. What would it be like? Keep the law. Wouldn't you love to no longer have the inward corruption of sin? And Jesus, every moment of his life, his desires and his motives were the right motives. It's the glory of the Father. And he kept the law, both in his outward observance and his inward disposition. He is holy, holy, holy. For God has done what the law weakened by the flesh could not do. He sent his son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh. And it shows us what our sins deserve and what afflictions we may expect from them. Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, just as it is written, cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree. I deserve to be under the curse. This is the last slide. And we see the blessing of keeping the law. The blessing of keeping the law. God's approval, God's blessing on obedience Here's where James 1, and this is not legalism. The one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty. I think it's a good stage in your Christian life when you understand what that means. Because at first you're like, the law's bad. The law does nothing but bad mouth me. It makes me feel bad about myself. How's the law of liberty? No, it's because it sets you free from sin. And it's the way that is no longer in bondage. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer but forgets, but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing. Obeying God's word is a blessing. You know, we all want our spouse to keep her marital vows. or his marital vows. It is better if we do. It is better if we all act with integrity. It is better if we are sexually pure. It is better if we don't lie. And so we will be blessed in our lives by keeping God's law. Psalm 34. Here's Ephesians 6 too. Honor your father and mother. This is the first commandment with the promise that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land. Well, there's the first America needs to know. Little boys and girls who are raised to obey their parents don't want to lead productive lives. Why? Because good things happen to those who obey God's law. And what man is there who desires life and loves many days that he may see good? Keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking deceit. Turn away from evil and do good. Seek peace and pursue it. Well, obedience is not legalism. I'll conclude with the second to the bottom one. Here's the benediction of the book of Hebrews. Now may the God of peace, who brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, may he do what? May he equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us what is pleasing in his sight through Jesus Christ. That's not legalism, that's grace. That's what God wants for you. And he gives you the grace to do it, that you would have the ability to live out the law and you would be pleasing in his sight. Oh, how I love thy law. Father in heaven, I've gone a little long, I'll stop. Bless these dear people and those who may watch this online. Cause us, Lord, to a biblical view of your law. Lord, we thank you that we're not saved by the law except as Christ kept it. Except as it now judges us righteous because in Christ we have been cleansed of all of our sins and he is our righteousness. And so be with all of us as we go our ways. Hear our prayers, Lord, we ask in Jesus' name, amen.