I draw your attention this morning back to our text 2nd Timothy chapter 4 reading verses 1 through 5. Paul's final admonition to his son in the faith, Timothy. I charge thee therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom. Preach the word. Be there when it is convenient or when it is inconvenient. I will change some of the words to bring out the force of the original. Reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long-suffering doctrine for the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers having itching ears and they shall turn away their ears from the truth and shall be turned unto fables but watch thou in all things endure afflictions do the work of an evangelist completely fill up your ministry. Within a few years after the Apostle Paul's death, even before his death, but a few years afterwards, we find the onslaught of Gnosticism. Well before the end of the first century, we find the arrival of Gnosticism. early Gnosticism by 50 AD, full-fledged Gnosticism, 16 schools of Gnosticism by the end of the first century. This would be the great threat to Christianity for the first three centuries. It sought to refine biblical Christianity into a religious philosophy. One major school denied the deity of our Lord, Valentinian Gnosticism. The other major school denied the humanity of our Lord, Docetic Gnosticism, from the Greek term doceo, to seem Our Lord only seemed to have a true human body and human nature. He was a phantom being. Salvation was through esoteric knowledge, not through the person and work of Christ. Throughout the history of Christianity, something has always sought to modify and to deprive Christianity, biblical Christianity, true Christianity, its saving essence. By 150 AD we have the entrance of baptismal regeneration. By the early 4th century we have the institution of the state church under Roman Emperor Constantine. He wanted to use Christianity to unify the Empire. This state Christianity would develop by the 5th to the 7th century into the Church of Rome. This would continue on despite those Anabaptist groups and others as the Waldenses who sought to retain New Testament Christianity. This would continue until the Protestant Reformation. the 16th century. The persecuted church becomes the persecuting church. The history of Christianity far far departing from her Lord would be written in blood. Evangelical Christianity is revived at the Protestant Reformation, however the black mark against Protestant Christianity would be a rival state church system, and sadly the Reformers as well as the Romanists persecuted New Testament believers. But the greatest war against evangelical or gospel Christianity would come in the 17th century through the present time. It goes by many names. We have called it easy-believe-ism or decision-ism. Various groups have arisen that have drained a Christianity of its saving virtue and in many so-called evangelical churches in our day The unconverted merely professing Christians probably outnumber those who are truly converted. How did this take place? The great period of revivals began at the end of the 17th century through the early to mid 19th and early 20th century. great times of revival. We find evangelical or gospel religion emptying the old apostate churches. George Whitefield and the Great Awakening, Jonathan Edwards and the Great Awakening, the Wesley's and all of the great evangelical preachers of the 18th and 19th century. Names that are renowned. Great revivals took place and yet the seed was sown. Out of Wesleyanism came Wesleyan perfectionism. One must be saved and sanctified. A two-stage Christianity followed by many of the Pentecostal groups that followed Wesleyan perfectionism. Sinless perfection, a possibility. We receive Jesus as our Savior and later we receive the Holy Spirit, a second work of grace. And so one must be saved and sanctified. He can lose his salvation if he loses his sanctification. In other words, he may be justified, but he still loses his salvation. Great departures from the faith. We find a high antinomianism among the extreme Calvinists in Britain. We are justified from all sin. Therefore, they reason, sin is not to be counted in the Christian experience. Sin! We will never lose our justification. Then we find the revival of Pelagianism, a fifth century heresy. Man is not depraved. His will has never fallen. The will is free. Adam was only a bad example. How then is a person saved? By redirecting his will. I've heard it preached from pulpits. Man's will is like the walls of Jericho. Fallen except Rahab's place on the wall. So man's will is not fallen, man has a free will. He has no need to repent. There's no place for great conviction of sin. What he needs to do is redirect his will. And he is aligned with God once more. easy believism as we call it today. He can choose against contrary choice and will against his own nature. This has almost consumed modern evangelical Christianity. Repeat this prayer Lord, I'm sorry for my sin. That is not repentance. Not only do we grieve over our sins, we turn and forsake our sins. It is not metamelomai, Judas experienced this and his grief was so great that he committed suicide, but metanoia, to turn from sin, to have a complete change of mind, that has been lost. Go to Jesus and say, I'm sorry for my sin. I want you to receive me for Jesus sake. And with this is usually the inherent teaching that we take Jesus as our savior and later we may take him as our Lord. So we have many who believe in Jesus as Savior but they remain unconverted and sin continues to reign in their lives. We have left off man's need of righteousness to be justified in God's sight and man is now informed as a sinner in his sin that God loves him and has a wonderful plan for his life. No need to repent, no great conviction of sin, just redirecting the will. It was Charles Finney, beginning in 1824, who took up this Pelagian doctrine, and the doctrine that has become known as easy-believism. He refined the extremes of frontier revivalism. They marked off a place with a rope. You went there, that was the mourner's bench, that's the place you went to be prayed for and to make a decision. They spoke in tongues in those early days, in those frontier and Kentucky revival meetings. They ran about on all fours barking like dogs. Extremes and excitement pass for conversion. Finney took some of these and refined them into a system, and so we have the altar call, the invitational system, and the call for rededication. As I have mentioned in this series, I grew up in this. And when God converted me after an agonizing night in prayer and argumentation alone with God, I began by seeking rededication and God saved me from myself and changed my life. I've been there. Many of my family members have been there and died unconverted. After God saved me, I went to some of my family members and I told them you need to be converted, you need to repent. They said I remember the night I made my decision. When you went forward I'm as saved as you are. I said you're living in adultery. Of course modern evangelical Christianity at least 35% say that's okay today to live together without the benefit of marriage. 33% of so-called born-again Christians say that Satan does not exist. Many of them believe that Jesus sinned when he was here on earth. I read you the statistics in our previous studies. Many believe that looking at pornography is okay. These are all born-again Christians. Well, who and what then is a born-again Christian? Someone who has made his religious decision, never repented, and holds Jesus as his Savior but not necessarily as his Lord. I want to read once again the quote from William Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army. interviewed by an American newspaper man on the 5th of January 1901. What are the chief dangers ahead for 20th century Christianity? This was his reply. The chief dangers that confront the coming century will be religion without the Holy Ghost, Christianity without Christ, forgiveness without repentance, salvation without regeneration, politics without God, and heaven without hell. And we are told today that regeneration is God's response to man's faith. So saving faith is now human trust. William Booth was a prophet of doom. He was correct. and we have inherited this in this generation. I've seen it in my own family. I've seen it in many others. Ten years after I went forward for conversion, Billy You haven't committed any big sins, have you? Well, I don't know. From the beatings I got, I thought they were pretty good size. Well, you've never killed anybody, have you? No. You haven't done thus or such, have you? No. Then God can save you. That's how they dealt with me. Ten years later, God dealt with me, and my life was radically changed. This is what we've inherited. We have considered antinomianism, Pelagianism, dispensationalism, repentance is for the Jews because they rejected our Lord's offer of the kingdom, the carnal Christian heresy, a two-stage Christianity, Let me quote from one of their leading teachers, it is not too much to say that the believer may live his entire life in the realm of spiritual death. Louis Sperry Shaffer, volume 7, page 70, and that's not the worst of this quote. The Christian may function in his life either in the realm of spiritual death, separation from God, or in the realm of things related to the Holy Spirit. The Christian is saved and safe in Christ, yet in his manner of life he may prove sarkikos, that is, carnal, manifesting the characteristics of the flesh, or pneumatikos, spiritual. The continue calls for rededication, and we have considered emotionalism, pragmatism, and a doctrinalist religion. It is repentance that comes from a saving conviction of sin, conviction of sin, life-changing conviction of sin, bringing us to repentance and bringing us to the Lord Jesus Christ as a changed individual. Up until the last two centuries, the moral law has had its place in gospel preaching. Our subject has been now for seven Sundays, the moral law and the gospel of grace. And God has ordained the moral law, especially as expressed in the Ten Commandments, as his God-ordained tool to bring about conviction of sin and repentance. And this has held true. We see it throughout the New Testament. We see it in our Lord dealing with individuals. We see it in the writings of the inspired apostles. This was the method of our Lord. This was the method of the apostles. and this has been the method of the great evangelical preachers down to the centuries until the last 200 years. The moral law has its place as the God-ordained means of preparation for faith and conversion. We've looked at biblical statements showing that the moral law was not extinguished as it were when the gospel came. The change between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant is that in the Old Covenant the law was written on tables of stone but under the New or Gospel Covenant prophesied in the New Testament the law is written on fleshly tables of the heart. You see the Jews had a formal external religion But believers have an internal religion by the truth and spirit of God. We saw how our Lord used the moral law with the rich young ruler, with the Samaritan woman at Sychar. We have seen how Paul said, the law is good if a man uses it lawfully. To do what? To convict of sin. We've searched it throughout the New Testament and we've searched it throughout history. Now this morning some concluding pertinent considerations concerning the moral law. I draw your attention to the book of Romans. If indeed the moral law as contained in the Ten Commandments is God's tool for saving conviction of man, conviction of conscience, to bring him to saving faith in Christ. If the moral law is the God-ordained means of bringing people to conversion, we ought to find it very clearly. We see it in our Lord's work with the rich young ruler. We say it in the Samaritan woman. We see it in the preaching of the apostles. Then we ought to see it in their writings. If the moral law is active and essential today, and we should see it in the book of Romans. For the sake of visitors, I'll ask for a raise of hands. How many of you have seen this very thing in the opening chapters of the book of Romans? You haven't? We're going to see it now. Paul, in the opening verses of Romans chapter one, defines and describes the gospel. verses 16 and 17, for I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth, to the Jew first and also to the Greek, to the Gentile, for therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith, ek pisteos es pistein, it's all by faith from start to finish, as it stands written the just shall live by faith, Now, in Romans chapter 1, he deals with the Gentile first. He deals with the Gentile first, and what we find is the implicit preaching of the Law. He shows that the Gentile is steeped in sin, although he knows better, he's in rebellion against God. Let us read, For the wrath of God stands revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who habitually suppress the truth in unrighteousness, they know better. The Gentiles, not having the Ten Commandments, not having the laws, do the Jews, have the law written on their hearts because they're made in the image of God, and that is sufficient to bring them to repentance. Verse 19, because that which may be known of God is manifest in them, for God hath showed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world, his eternal power and Godhead, are understood by the things that are made, so that they are without excuse. What is the word excuse there? Anapologeto. they are without an apologetic they are without a defense the law of God written on man's heart as the image bearer of God is sufficient to convict him of sin and teach him that he is in rebellion against God because that when they knew God they glorified him not as God when they knew God they glorified him not as God neither were thankful, but became vain in their imagination, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things. Paul begins with idolatry. Man knows better. He told them that on Mars Hill. You know better. than to think that the Godhead is made like under silver and gold by man's device. What we see here is a description of the Ten Commandments impressed upon man's heart and mind as a Gentile because of the law written on his heart. They changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man and to birds and four-footed beasts and creeping thing. Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own heart to dishonor their own bodies between themselves. Wickedness and perversion against nature is the result and man knows better. He's held as completely responsible through this entire dark passage. Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts to dishonor their own bodies between themselves, who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. They know better. They're responsible for their idolatry. For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections, for even their women did tange the natural use into that which is against nature. prostitution, lesbianism, they know better, it's against nature. Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another, men in men, literally males in males, working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was meat, And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind to do those things which are not convenient, being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness, full of envy, murder, debate, dispute, malignity. Whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, without understanding, covenant breakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful. Who, the judgment of God, fully comprehending, literally, that they which commit such things are worthy of death. not only do the same but have pleasure in them that do them. Take all of these sins and you can categorize them according to the Ten Commandments. He has now dealt with the Gentiles and they are condemned under his law. Now chapter 2, Therefore thou art inexcusable, O man, Whosoever thou art that judgest, for wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself. For thou that judgest doeth the same things. Who is this man? He is now named in verse 17. Behold, thou art called a Jew, one of God's chosen people, and restest in the law. and makest thy boast of God, and knowest his will, and approvest the things that are more excellent, being instructed out of the law, and art confident that thou thyself art a guide of the blind, a light of them which are in darkness, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of babes, which hast the form of knowledge, and of the truth in the law. Thou therefore which teachest another, teachest thou not thyself? Thou that preachest to man should not steal, dost thou steal? Thou that sayest to man should not commit adultery, dost thou commit adultery? Thou that abhorrest idols, dost thou commit sacrilege? Thou that makest thy boast of the law through breaking the law dishonest thou God? For the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles through you, as it is written. Verses 28 and 29 For he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly, neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh, but he is a Jew, which is one inwardly. And circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter, whose praise is not of men, but of God. Here in chapter two, he takes the Judah task. The Jew possessed the word of God. Chapter three, verses one and two. What advantage then have the Jew Or what profit is there of circumcision? Much every way, chiefly because that unto them were committed the oracles of God. But possession is not performance. What was the result for the Jew because he made his boast in the law? A wicked, sinful, self-righteous spirit We have the law. We are God's people. We're not like you wicked, sinful Gentiles. So Paul, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, takes the Jew to task in chapter 2, and he finds no difference. The Jew is just as wicked as the Gentile. So in Romans chapters 1 and 2, first the Gentile, now the Jew, and now All will be brought together. Look at chapter 3 verse 9. What then? Are we better than they? We, Jews, better than the Gentiles? Or we, Christians, better than Gentiles and Jews? He's going to bring all humanity together now, and he's still using the law of God as the means of conviction of sin to bring sinners to repentance. What then, are we better than they? No, absolutely not. For we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles that they are all under sin, under sin, under its reigning power. Sin rules over them. The Gentiles, with the law of God written on their heart, as the image bearers of God, and the Jews with their high and holy privilege of having the law expressly spelled out on tables of stone. So there's no mistake, both are equally condemned before God. As it stands written, there is none righteous, no, not one. Jew or Gentile, no, not one. There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable. The word unprofitable refers to putrid, sour, sour milk, rotten food, incurable in their sin by virtue of God's law that they prided themselves in. he's taking verses from the Psalms and from Isaiah showing that the Jew is just as condemned as the Gentile. You thought that I was astray from the truth when I said that the moral law is the God-ordained tool that God has ordained and always ordained for conviction of sin to bring sinners to repentance, and here it is in the words of the Apostle Jew and Gentile both. The Jew with his high and holy privilege, the Gentile in his pagan blindness, only knowing the law written on his heart. This sins of nature, now verses 13 and 14, sins of the tongue, their throat is an opened sepulcher. It's a grave left standing open, emitting the foul odors of death. With their tongues they have used deceit. The poison of the Egyptian cobra is under their lips, whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. This is the privileged Jew who prided himself in knowing God through his law as well as the benighted Gentile. Perhaps for six weeks you've been sitting here with this series, and when I say that God ordained the preaching of the law to bring about conviction of sin, you're mumbling to yourself and saying he doesn't know what he's talking about. Jew and Gentile both. Paul is spelling it out very clearly in Romans chapters 1, 2, and 3. He'll spell it out in First Timothy chapter one, the law is good if a man uses it lawfully because it's made for all these classes of sinners to do what? To bring about conviction of sin. Let us continue to look. In verses 15 through 18, sins of action and activity. Their feet are swift to shed blood. The Jew with all of his knowledge, knowing the law of God, still a murderer. Human nature under sin, unchanged, with nothing but an external formal religion called Judaism, and it never saved a soul. Destruction and misery are in their ways, and the way of peace have they not known. there is no fear of God before their eyes. And now we're back to familiar territory, are we not? Verses 19 and 20. Now we know that what things soever the law saith, the law, the law is pronouncing condemnation, it saith to them who are under the law, that who? that the whole world may become guilty in his sight. Jew and Gentile both. Our very argumentation for the last several weeks is spelled out here very clearly. And all, every mouth may be stopped and all the world guilty may become. Guilty is emphatic by position. in the original language, guilty may become before God. Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight, for by the law is the epignosis, the true, complete, full knowledge of sin. The Jew had the law, a place of holy privilege. It made him self-righteous in his blindness, and as unrighteous and condemned as the Gentile. But now, verse 21 and following, but now, now that the Lord Jesus has come, now that he has lived among men, now that he has given us his truth, now that he has suffered and died, now that he has been raised from the dead and ascended to glory, but now the righteousness of God apart from the law stands revealed, being witnessed by the law and the prophets. Our Lord came and fulfilled the Old Testament prophecies. even the righteousness of God which is by faith in Jesus Christ, an objective genitive, which is by faith in Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe, for there is no difference. How is a man justified? By faith. He believes. The law has shut him up to conviction of sin. The law has condemned him. He's fled to Christ in repentance and now he's been justified. The righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ has been imputed to him. Even the righteousness of God which is by faith in Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe. For there is no difference. For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. The self-righteous Jew, the pagan Gentile, being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God has set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are passed through the forbearance of God, to declare, I say at this time, his righteousness, that he might be just and the justifier of him which believeth Jesus through faith. We are saved by grace through faith, through faith. Works do not enter in to one's justification, works enter in through one's sanctification. Those whom God justifies or declares right in his sight through the imputation of the righteousness of his Son, he makes righteous in sanctification through the indwelling ministry of his Spirit. Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without or apart from the deeds of the law. Is he the God of the Jews only? Is he not also of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also, seeing it is one God, which shall justify the circumcision by faith, and the uncircumcision through faith. Do we make void the law through faith? I thought that when Christ came, the law was done away with. I thought the dispensation of law had given way to a dispensation of grace. I had an argument the day before yesterday with a man on this very point. He said, we've always believed in grace. I had given him a tract. Are you good enough to be saved by Mr. Comfort using the Ten Commandments to bring about a conviction of sin? He says, we're not under law, we're under grace. He said, I've always gone by the four spiritual laws. God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. He could not see what I've been preaching on for seven weeks. And he once attended here, and the second Sunday he was here, He jumped up from the pew, put his hands over his ears, and screamed as he went out the door. That was several years ago. Now we've become friends, and I see him every week. Let us look to Paul. Do we make then the void of the law through faith? God forbid. Yea, we establish the law. Grace establishes the law. The Ten Commandments have not been passé. They're still here to drive a man to Christ in conviction and repentance so he may be justified by faith. Of course you already knew this before I preached this message. You were waiting for this message to be preached, weren't you? You knew the book of Romans so well Sid, now he's going to go to Romans and tie it all together, isn't he? I warrant you that very few have seen this until today. Interesting, is it not? Edifying, is it not? And yet there are multitudes of Christians who believe that the law of God is passé. The law of God was put away at the cross. Just grace and salvation is what? making the wonderful discovery that God loves us and has a wonderful plan for our lives. Not understanding, not considering that God has given us his law as his provided tool in evangelism so men can know sin as God sees sin and it becomes its proper size It grows to its full size and its hideousness that their consciences might be convicted. All of the sins imaginable, we can foot them into the Ten Commandments and we will have God's tool for evangelism, for conviction of sin, that they might come to Christ in saving faith and be justified by faith alone. And I close with my friend Matthias The law of God is good and wise and sets his will before our eyes, shows us the way of righteousness and dooms to death when we transgress. Its light of holiness imparts the knowledge of our sinful hearts that we may see our lost estate and seek deliverance ere too late. To those who help in Christ have found and would in works of love abound, it shows what deeds are his delight, and should be done as good and right. When men they offered help disdain, and willfully in sin remain, its terror in their ear resounds, and keeps their wickedness in bounds. The law is good, but since the fall, its holiness condemns us all. It dooms us for our sin to die, and has no power. to justify. To Jesus we for refuge flee, who from the curse has set us free, and humbly worship at his throne, saved by his grace through faith alone. And yet there are Christians who say that that hymn is filled with rank heresy. I've been told this. saved by his grace through faith alone. May God bring you under the authority of his law. Might you see yourself a sinner as God sees you. May you not be seduced by modern evangelical religion. And may you be brought to repentance and saving faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. I trust this has been an enlightening, awakening, and profitable series of studies. Let us pray. O Lord God, we pray for those among us who are unconverted. Might even these messages be the means of their conversion? Might they see sin as you see it? and might they see that the only hope of salvation is to repent and forsake their sin and to savingly flee to the Lord Jesus. This is our prayer. Honor it, we ask. Glorify yourself. Through Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen.