Well, it's good to be back with you all. Thank you, Matt, for filling in during this time while I was gone. So we are on the bottom of page 64 in your book. 64. beginning in paragraph six. And if you're in your study guide, we're on page 21, still looking at number two, the law as a rule of life for the Christian. And now we've shifted from warrants and motives to believe to now evidences of true faith. So that's what we're looking at here is the evidences of true faith. Having looked at why you should believe, now we're basically looking at now that you believe, how does that faith manifest in the life of a believer? And so we're considering this first evidence of true faith, which is the Christian's obligation to keep the law. So we will pick up at paragraph six on page 64. But before we do that, Brian, can you open us in prayer? all here safely. Now we have the privilege of taking this class and worshiping you, our brethren. We pray that you would soften our hearts and open our minds to understand the truths of your word. Thank you for this book. We pray that, Lord, those of us that you would teach us how we are to live our life aware of the fruits of the faith that you have gifted us. If we can be with us, with us all by your spirit, we give our pastor Josh the words to teach and may he be glorified in all that he's done here in this room. In Jesus' name, amen. In Jesus' name, amen. The obligation of the moral law in all its points, binding to all holy duties, is perpetual and shall stand to the world's end, that is, till heaven and earth pass away. that just as God has protected the scriptures from the beginning, so shall he protect them still to the world's end, so that one jot or tittle will by no means pass from them. Now if you remember, we're looking at this evidence of true faith, the Christian's obligation to keep the law, we're looking at it by considering Matthew chapter five, verses 16 through 20. Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your father in heaven. Do not think that I came to destroy the law or the prophets. I did not come to destroy, but to fulfill. For assuredly I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled. Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven. But whoever does and teaches the He shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I say to you that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. So we've seen here in Matthew that the Lord God will not pass away. That the moral law of God remains binding upon all men until the end of the world, till heaven and earth pass away. And if that's the case, if the moral law of God remains as perpetually binding then that means that the obligation to obey that moral law also remains perpetually binding. So why is it that this part of the law of God is what remains perpetually binding? Because you remember, there's a threefold division of the law. You have the ceremonial law dealing with the sacrificial system. You have the judicial law dealing with the national laws of Israel as a geopolitical entity. And then you have the moral law. And we believe that the ceremonial and the judicial passed away because the ceremonial law was fulfilled in the sacrifice of Christ, who fulfilled, accomplished all that the ceremonial law pointed towards, and we believe that the judicial law passed away with the end of that political entity of Israel, So why is it that the moral law continues to the end of the world? That's God's character. Yeah, the moral law is rooted in God's character, and therefore it cannot be changed, it cannot be altered, and it remains perpetually binding because God remains the same yesterday, today, and forever. So if the moral law, it remains perpetually binding and the obligations of it remain perpetually binding, then what does that mean for you as a Christian? You have to obey it. And that's why we talk about the moral law of God. When you hear preaching and you hear that exhortation to obey the law of God, that's what's being spoken of. When I as the minister call upon you to greater obedience, I'm not speaking of obedience to ceremonial laws. because those things have passed away. And if I were preaching obedience to ceremonial laws, well, now I've fallen into what's known as the Galatian heresy, which is Judaizing. It's imposing Jewish law, ceremonial law upon you, which is not binding upon you. And if I preached Obedience to the judicial law, well, now I've fallen into the error of the theonomists, because they teach that the judicial law remains and is perpetually binding upon all people. But we know that that was unique to Israel as a body politic, as our confession states. So when you hear the preaching of the word and you hear that exhortation, that call, that charge to greater obedience to the law of God, it's not in reference to those two aspects of the law, it's in reference to the moral law of God. Well, where is the moral law of God found? In the Ten Commandments. The Ten Commandments is our summation of the moral law of God. Now, we know that the Ten Commandments, just at face value, doesn't reach the depth of what the moral law extends to. And we see that in scripture. That's what we see Christ preach in Matthew chapter five. You have heard it said, you shall not commit murder. But I say unto you, that if you have hatred towards your brother, you've committed murder with your heart. You've heard it said, do not commit adultery. But I say unto you, that if you look upon a woman with lust, you've committed adultery with her already in your heart. So we know that the moral law of God is not is not exhaustively listed in the Ten Commandments, but there are deeper applications of those moral laws that extend to greater areas. But later on, or 12, I guess, it would have been like soul-crushing. It wouldn't have been good. He didn't do away with those aspects in the Ten Commandments. Instead, what we see there is him expounding upon it, showing its fuller application. And one thing that's helpful for you in seeking greater obedience to the law of God is understanding those deeper applications of the moral law. Because very easily we can get into this pharisaical mindset of saying, oh, well, I don't have any other gods before God. He is the only God in my life. I'm not worshipping Thor, Odin, or any of these other false gods. I'm not worshipping Vishnu. Yeah, we can say, oh, I'm not killing people. So we can really easily get into this pharisaical mindset. But when you get to those deeper applications of that moral law of God, you see how often every one of us violates that law. Having no other gods before him doesn't just mean not worshiping Vishnu. It also means not elevating things to a place of prominence in your life above God. You know, so many people will elevate their families to those place of prominence. They'll elevate their jobs to that place of prominence. They'll elevate money to that place of prominence. They'll even elevate their religious observance to that place of prominence. And that becomes the god in their life. It drives what they do. And you've experienced this with some people that you know I'm sure. where the number one priority in their life is their job or making more money. But that's having another God. That's making a God in your heart. And I love what John Calvin says. He says that the heart is a factory of items. Your heart can devise all different kinds of false gods. And unless you're in tune to that, unless you're examining yourself, you're not going to see that. And one way that'll help you in being able to see these things and help you towards greater obedience to the moral law of God is understanding those deeper applications. And that's why it's really important and helpful for you to utilize something like the Westminster Larger Catechism. If you go to the Larger Catechism, it doesn't just stop at not making an idol. It goes so much deeper. I'll actually, I'll pull up a sample and read to, if you'll give me a moment. So Westminster Larger Catechism, question and answer 109. What are the sins forbidden in the second commandment? The sins forbidden in the second commandment are all devising, counseling, commanding, using, and anywise approving any religious worship not instituted by God himself. So right there we see a greater application of the second commandment. It's not just don't form this idol. It's don't devise, counsel, command, use, or approve of any worship that's not commanded by God. I've never experienced an issue with this in my personal life. I think it's called... They just commit themselves to what the Ten Commandments are, and anything that is an abstract form of counsel or structure, they would say, and not be felicitated expressively saying it, so something like, they would almost throw out the confession, they would almost throw out It's a big problem in the church, biblicism, where, you know, if you can't show me chapter and verse that explicitly says what you're saying, then I'm not going to believe it. And at face value, that sounds like a good thing. That sounds like you're elevating the word of God, but it's actually diminishing the word of God. because it's not taking in the whole counsel of God. It's saying, I need it to say black and white explicitly right here, but it's not factoring in all of scripture. It doesn't factor in the teaching outside of that particular verse. It doesn't factor in the apostolic example. It doesn't factor in the good and necessary inference of scripture. And so we can't become Biblicists in our understanding of the Word of God. Yes, we believe in sola scriptura, that the scripture alone is the infallible rule for faith and life, that it is the ultimate authority in all matters of faith and life. So we believe in sola scriptura, but we don't believe in solo scriptura. And that's a distinction. Because we don't believe in only scripture and nothing else. And that Biblicist mindset is how you get all kinds of aberration of doctrine. because there are a lot of things taught in the word of God that you must believe and know and obey that aren't explicitly word for word written down in scripture. Continuing on in Westminster Larger Catechism 109, included in the sins forbidden in the second commandment, tolerating false religion, the making of any representation of God, of all or any of the three persons, either inwardly in our mind or outwardly in any kind of image or likeness of any creature whatsoever. Well, there's one that we don't think about often. You know, modern evangelicalism will say, it's okay if you make a painting of Jesus. But the second commandment forbids all making of images of the Godhead. There are further extensions of it. So like, Do you know what the Agnus Dei, that picture of the Lamb of God that's used in a lot of Anglican and Catholic imagery? That would be a violation of the Second Commandment as well. While it's not a picture of a man and they're calling it Jesus, it's a picture of a lamb and they're saying that's the Lamb of God. Well, who's the Lamb of God? It's Jesus. So it doesn't just have to be a picture of a person and say this is one of the members of the Godhead. It can be a representation of anything and saying this is a representation of God. But it's also not just making pictures physically. It's also in your mind. And this is where a lot of people will give pushback to this catechism answer, because they'll say, well, how can you read the scriptures and not have a mental image of Christ? It's called discipline. It's called training your mind not to devise images. It's difficult. For a lot of people, it's difficult. There are some people, myself included, who we just naturally don't create mental images. Like, my brain doesn't work that way. So it's a little bit easier there. But for most people, if you read something, you're getting a visual in your mind of what's happening. And you have to discipline your mind and your heart not to create even a mental image of any member of the Godhead. why I could see it a bit more difficult in our day because of all the images that have been created, I think movies and all, it's like, I think naturally we'll think of that even though, you know, we're against it, but like the mind will just go there, but if we had never seen not one of them, I wonder what we would think. You know, I think this is important as well. All superstitious devices corrupting the worship of God, adding to it, or taking from it, whether invented or taken up of ourselves, or received by tradition from others, though under the title of antiquity, custom, devotion, good intent, and other pretense whatsoever." That's a big one. Think of how many superstitious devices have infiltrated the church. You know, I know Presbyterians that'll make the sign of the cross. It's a superstitious device that's come into the church. We just got through a holiday season. The imposition of holy days is a superstitious device that's infiltrated the church from the tradition of men. And the argument that a lot of people will make for why it's okay to observe man-made holy days is, well, the church has always done it. Look at how ancient this is. We have recordings of observance of the Nativity, the Feast of the Nativity, all the way back to the 300s. How can you say that it's wrong? Well, that's That's bringing in a superstitious device received by the tradition of others under the title of antiquity. Just because something's ancient doesn't mean that it's right. Just because something is ancient and the church has always done it doesn't mean that it's warranted in the word of God and should be done by us. And then another one that I think we actually hear a lot more, even within reform circles, is dealing with good intent. Oh, well, yeah, it's a little weird, but God knows the heart. God knows that they're just trying to worship him. Good intent doesn't make sin not sin anymore. I don't care how good your intent is, it's still a violation of the law of God. And then, go ahead, I'm sorry. Yeah, it's superstition. It's crazy how much superstitious devices have come into the Christian church. And if you start examining your own life, you'll start seeing the things that you do as well. Here's one, and I think we've talked about it before, that you may not even think of. Someone sneezes, what do you say? Why? It's tradition, but it's a superstitious device because that came into the church through a false understanding that sneezing was expelling demons. But I literally, in my vocabulary, say, when something good happens, I still say, like, rather than saying, like, I'm blessed, I say, I'm lucky, or I was so lucky that this happened. And I'm consciously trying to work this on my vocabulary, but it's just a very mundane example of superstition. Yeah, I mean, you're driving somewhere, and you pass by an accident on the interstate, and you say, Man, luckily, I wasn't there. Luckily, that wasn't me. What is luck? Luck is pagan superstition. Note, by the providence of God, you weren't there. Providentially, the Lord preserved you from that accident. Those are the types of things that we have to be thinking about. And you don't think about those things as violation of the law of God, but they are. You see how much deeper even just the second commandment reaches. And then the catechism ends with Simoni, which if you don't know what Simoni is, it's named after Simon Magus who asked the apostles to give him the Holy Spirit and he would pay them for it. So it's seeking to buy the will of God or buy the blessings of God. It's also seeking to use the ministry of the gospel for your own personal advantage. All neglect, contempt, hindering, and opposing the worship and ordinances which God hath appointed. neglect of the ordinances of God is a violation of the second commandment. Now, we do kind of tie that to the moral law of God, and we think, oh, that's violating the fourth commandment, because it is. It's not keeping the Lord's day, it's not keeping the Sabbath holy, but it's also a violation of the second commandment. So, I hope that that just gives you a small sampling of how much deeper the moral law of God goes and how all-encompassing it is. And if you are truly seeking to live in obedience to the moral law of God, as you're commanded to do as believers, as you're obligated to do, then you really need to know those ways in which the law of God penetrates deeper than just surface level. Obviously, I'd recommend to you utilizing the larger catechism in your life, specifically that section on the Ten Commandments. I would also recommend to you James Durham's exposition of the Ten Commandments, where he goes into those deeper applications and actually draws them out to how it looks in your own life. But if we are to be serious about our faith, and if we are to evidence true faith, our lives must reflect an obedience to the law of God. And that's not legalism. And I know last time I was here and I was teaching, we talked about how when you're trying to do this, when you're striving after good works, like you're commanded to do, the accusation's going to be you're a legalist. But obedience to the moral law of God, if done out of a desire to serve him and live in that new obedience of life that you've been called to having been redeemed by Christ, that's not legalism. Any other comments on that? And then we'll close with just a word about the providential preservation of the scripture. So paragraph seven says that just as God has protected the scriptures from the beginning, so shall he protect them still to the world's end, so that one jot or tittle will by no means pass from them. This is getting into something that is controversial in the church today. especially in Reformed churches, and may even strike some of the understanding of some of you here in this room. What this is saying is that God has always protected his word, and you see that in the scripture. There was a time where the law of God was lost to Israel, hundreds of years where they did not have the law of God, and yet God still protected the scriptures during that time, and he preserved it within the church, and that's why you see In 2 Kings 22, I believe, under the reformation of King Josiah, that I believe it was Hilkiah, entered into the temple and was renovating the temple and found the law of God. God didn't let his word pass away. It wasn't lost. and how we think of lost. It was just basically put away and forgot, but it was still there, it was still true, and none of it passed away. And that's why when it was recovered under King Josiah and then it was read to the people it brought about reformation because the word of God remained true and pure and preserved even during that time of corruption within the church. And that's why, and I know this is changing a little bit and I'm getting a little intellectual, a little academic here, so I apologize, but that's why Up until very recently, all scholars understood that the Masoretic text of the Hebrew Old Testament was the providentially preserved Word of God. And so it doesn't matter what Bible you have. you're starting to see some changes in some of the very recently modern translations, but almost every Bible translation there is, the Old Testament is based on the same manuscripts. It's based on the Masoretic text, that text that was preserved through the Jewish church even after the opening of the New Testament age, still providentially preserved by the Jews, such that it's handed down from the Jewish church to the Christian church, and that's what we have today. And up until very recently, every scholar understood that. They understood that there was a received text of the Old Testament. Now, in recent times, scholars are beginning to change their views. They're bringing in a lot more of the Septuagint readings, those Greek translations of the Old Testament. They're starting to bring in some of the Targums, which are variant manuscripts in other languages, and they're starting to create more of a critical text of the Old Testament. But that's very recent, and when I say very recent, I mean in the last 20 to 30 years that started happening with the Old Testament. But when it comes to the New Testament, for some reason, we don't take that same view of providential preservation of a received text and apply it to the New Testament. And I say we, I'm talking about the church at large. But God promises that he protects his word. And we see in scripture that he protects it through the church, and he preserves it through the church. And up until about 200 years ago, this was understood of the New Testament as well. That's why we have what's called the received text. because it's that text that was preserved through all ages, that was kept pure, and it was received by the church as the word of God. But about 200 years ago, some people started finding manuscripts that were corrupted, that had differences, that had variants, and they started utilizing those to make what they called corrections to the text of scripture. And now we have what's known as the critical text. And almost all of your Bible translations now, the New Testament's gonna be based off of the critical text. Unless you're utilizing the King James, the New King James, the modern English version, all of your other Bible translations, NASB, ESV, NIV, NRSV, all of those, LSB, the one that was put out by John MacArthur, they all use what's known as the critical text. And the critical text, I don't know if you know this, it's always changing. So there are two different critical texts. There is the Nestle-Aland. and there's the United Bible Societies. The Nestle Alond is on edition 29. So 29 times the text of the New Testament's been changed. The UBS is on version seven or eight, something like that. And now they're actually using what's called the, what's it called, the coherence-based genealogical method, which is weird because it's basically using a computer program to analyze all these variants and then decide what the computer thinks is the original text. And you're going to start seeing Bible translations come out that are based upon that, too. And if you know anything about the coherence-based genealogical method, that computer is spitting out versions of texts that there's actually no recorded account in any of the manuscripts of it existing. Now, if you read this, if you read scripture in Matthew, And you hear Christ say, one jot or tittle will by no means pass from them, speaking of the Scriptures, speaking of the law. And then you pick up a copy of the received text and a copy of the critical text, and you just turn to 1 John 5, 7. If you do that in your received text, you're going to read, and there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost, and these three are one. If you pick up your critical text, you're going to read, there are three that bear record in heaven. Full stop. Now, you may not know what a jot and a tittle are, but those are the tiniest markings in the Hebrew scripture. A jot or a yod is the tiniest letter in the Hebrew scripture. It looks like a little apostrophe. And a tittle is a tiny little vowel marking. It looks like dots. And Christ is saying that even the tiniest markings will by no means pass from the scriptures. And yet the critical text throws out entire verses. Not just a jot or a tittle, entire verses. So tell me, does that actually line up with the providential preservation of Scripture? Does that actually line up with what Christ says here in verse 18, that one jot or tittle will by no means pass from them? So why in the world are Christians today looking to academia to tell them what the Word of God is instead of looking to Jesus Christ to know what the Word of God is? Why is the church embracing this en masse as though this is the truth, when scripture very clearly teaches against it? And if you ask even the most conservative, scholar who holds to a critical text position, and I'll use Dan Wallace as an example. He's known as one of the most conservative critical text scholars there is. He will tell you we can be 98% certain that what we have is the word of God. 98%. Do you want 98% of the word of God or do you want 100% of the word of God? And then you look at someone like James White, if you know who he is, very big proponent of the critical text. And he said flat out that there is not a verse in scripture that if the evidence presented to him warranted, he would not take out of his pocket. That's what critical text scholarship gives you. It is contrary to the word of God It is a violation of the law of God, and it's making God a liar. It's making Christ Jesus a liar. Yeah. Yeah, there can't be an end to it because The logical conclusion is what James White said, that all verses in the Bible are up for debate and up for cutting from scripture. That is the only logical step that this leads to. Well, how in that position can you have any confidence that what you have in your hand is the very word of God? Oh, you can have 98% confidence according to Dan Wallace. The critical text position is nothing more than a continuation of the lie of Satan hath God said. Yeah, they utilized it because that was their common translation. You can utilize bad translations, but when they're utilizing those bad translations, the Septuagint, they're not building doctrine off of things that were added or removed from the Hebrew scriptures that's found in the Septuagint. You know, I did an internship in Pennsylvania, and during my internship, I had to preach from the ESV. Well, I preached in such a way that I did not build doctrine or build exhortation to the saints off of changed, altered, removed texts. So, when you're looking at purity of scripture, yes, an ESV Bible or even an NIV Bible is better than no Bible. And it still contains the Word of God, and it still has what's necessary for salvation in it. But there's so much that's been cut out. And so if God has providentially preserved his word and kept it pure in all ages, and we have received today that providentially preserved word of God, and you have it available to you, why would you use a corrupted text? Why would you use something that Satan has used time and time again to instill doubt in the hearts of men. I've told some of you my story. I was a big critical text proponent. I've read every book there is on critical text. I know all the scholars' arguments. I've read Bart Ehrman, Michael Kruger, James White, Dylan Wallace, and all the guys. I know their arguments, and I believed it wholeheartedly. But Satan used that to tell me, well, if this passage isn't the word of God, how do you know that this passage is? And if you can't be sure about this, then how can you be sure about any of it? And if you can't be sure about any of it, then why even believe at all? I was at a point in my life where I came to a crossroad And by the Lord's providence, he preserved me on that crossroad, because I had two paths to take. And it was either fully embrace the critical text and come to its logical conclusion that we can't be certain, so what does it matter? Or believe what God actually says, that he has preserved his word and hold to a received exposition, which is strengthening of the faith. I can't tell you how many people I've talked to personally that have walked away from the faith because of textual criticism. And some of the most profound scholars for textual criticism are atheists who have walked away from the faith because of textual criticism. Bart Ehrman was a member in the church, in good standing, when he came to understand critical text position, and that drove him away from the church. Now he's a professing atheist who is touted and quoted by conservative reform theologians in regards to the text of scripture. I'm sorry, but if you have to quote atheists to defend your position, you might be wrong. What Christ said is true. One jot or tittle will by no means pass from the scriptures. You can take that to the bank. And if you don't believe that, if you believe that there are things that have passed away, if you believe that there are things that have been corrupted and changed and lost to the times of history, then how can you believe that the moral law was still binding on you and you still have an obligation to obey it. How can you even know that the moral law of God is what God actually said? Exactly. Why would you believe anything in scripture if you can't have confidence that what you have in your hand is the word of God? If there are things that passed away from the scriptures, then God is a liar. And that's hard to hear, especially when you have the majority of reformed theology, modern reformed theology, the majority of reformed theologians and scholars and academics all telling you the opposite. All right, bye. I can't believe what Nelson is telling us. And I saw where it got wet and I repented for it. Yeah, doubting one part of scripture leads to doubting everything. You believe in Christ? Yeah. That's why so many people, when they start down that road, they end up to see. And the church has failed in protecting the people from it. I would rather be kicked out of this church, kicked out of this denomination, than stand here and not warn you and protect you from dangers and the evils of modern textual criticism. because I would rather lose everything than see you walk down that path that leads to apostasy. We will pick up with paragraph eight next week. Matt, can you close us in prayer? that it will ever pass away. We thank you, Father, that you have given us teachers, and you've given us the examples to follow concerning your good work and what we are asking of you, and help me to understand what it is you're doing. We pray, Father, that this nation as a whole, and in this church, Your true word will be against all who pray against you. In the name of the protective privilege of the Lord, we come forward in our activity to the truth of the English nation. May we repent and be baptized. Turn off these things and turn to our true word. Praise the Jesus name. Amen.