We read God's word in Psalm 147. Praise ye the Lord, For it is good to sing praises unto our God, for it is pleasant and praises calmly. The Lord doth build up Jerusalem. He gathereth together the outcasts of Israel. He healeth the broken in heart. He bindeth up their wounds. He telleth the number of the stars. He calleth them all by their names. Great is our Lord and of great power. His understanding is infinite. The Lord lifteth up the meek, he casteth the wicked down to the ground. Sing unto the Lord with thanksgiving, sing praise upon the harp unto our God, who covereth the heavens with clouds, who prepareth rain for the earth, who maketh grass to grow upon the mountains. He giveth to the beast his food, and to the young ravens which cry. He delighteth not in the strength of the horse. He taketh not pleasure in the legs of a man. The Lord taketh pleasure in them that fear him, in those that hope in his mercy. Praise the Lord, O Jerusalem. Praise thy God, O Zion. For he hath strengthened the bars of thy gates. He hath blessed thy children within thee. He maketh peace in thy borders and filleth thee with the finest of the wheat. He sendeth forth his commandment upon earth. His word runneth very swiftly. He giveth snow like wool. He scattereth the hoarfrost like ashes. He casteth forth his ice like morsels. Who can stand before his cold? He sendeth out his word, and melteth them. He causeth his wind to blow, and the waters flow. He showeth his word unto Jacob, his statutes and his judgments unto Israel. He hath not dealt so with any nation, and as for his judgments, they have not known them. Praise ye the Lord. With especially verses 19 and 20 of the Salmon Mind, we turn to Lord's Day 34 of the Heidelberg Catechism. We'll treat the Lord's Day in two sermons. And today we'll have a big picture look at the law of God, reserving the exposition of the first commandment for next week. So today it's questions and answers 92 and 93. Question 92 asks, what is the law of God? You know the 10 commandments, you hear them every Sunday morning, and they are set forth in full in answer to the question. Question 93, how are these commandments divided into two tables? The first of which teaches us how we must behave towards God. The second, what duties we owe to our neighbor. And as much as the law of God given from Sinai was the substance of God's revelation to Israel, it's no surprise that many of the Psalms refer to God's law. There are Psalms that recount the history of God giving the law to Israel. Think of Psalm 77, rather 78. 81, 105, and 106. They're Psalms that express the love of the believer for the law of God. Think of Psalm 119, but also in Psalm 40, and in Psalm 37, and elsewhere. There are Psalms that reprove the wicked in the sphere of the covenant who know the law and do not do it. Think of Psalm 50. But then there are three Psalms especially that have love for that law as their theme. Psalms 1, 19, and 119. Yet the psalm that we read before us doesn't fall exactly into any of those categories. It wasn't one of the specifics that I mentioned to illustrate that point. What happens in the psalm, the 147th psalm is that the psalmist praises Jehovah God for all his works which have his love and care for Israel as their heart and their purpose. As you read through the psalm, you should think of the psalmist beginning early on with his main theme, praise Jehovah, and then especially because the Lord builds up Jerusalem and gathers together the outcasts of Israel. And then you see him taking a big picture approach. This is the God who controls the heavens. The one who tells the number of the stars and calls them all by name. The God whose understanding of the whole universe is infinite and comprehensive. And then the God who now turns his attention toward earth and the psalmist goes on to speak of him covering the heavens with clouds, giving rain, giving the beast their food. And then more narrowly on the whole of the earth, there's a specific place a specific land and it was called Israel that Jehovah especially has his eye on and the psalmist brings his attention there now from verses 12 and following and then with regard to Israel the special indication of the grace of God to them he ends with is this he gave them his law He showeth his word unto Jacob, his statutes and his judgments unto Israel. And so the perspective that this psalm takes of the law of God is, it is a peculiar treasure to the people of God. Oh, every human knows the law of God, or at least that there is some law in a general way, but the specific knowledge of the Ten Commandments is a treasure given to God's people, to Israel of the old. and to the church of Jesus Christ in the new. When you understand that one of the graces God has given us, distinguishing us from others, is his law, do you not praise him? The point of the psalmist is not to extol that we are exclusive, that is, we have his law and they don't. the purpose of the psalmist is to underscore that we are distinctive. That is to say, because God has set us apart by giving us his law, because we are a different kind of people, a blessed people, let us be sure we're living in accordance with that treasure he's given. And so, he showeth his word unto Jacob, his statutes and his judgments unto Israel. It's from that viewpoint that we're going to examine the law of God, the overview of God's law today under the theme, God showing his law to Israel. First of all, notice what he showed. Second, to whom he showed it. And thirdly, why he showed it. Well, the Bible's clear. God showed Israel his law. In the psalm, the three words that are used to refer to his law are word, and statutes, and judgments. And each of those words underscore that Jehovah showed Israel his law in order to reveal himself to them. That, in essence, is what God's law is. God's law is not, first of all, a list of do's and don'ts, but God's law, first of all, is the revelation of the holy God to sinners. with whom he delights in fellowship and which fellowship he makes possible in Jesus Christ. In the first place, notice then that he's revealing himself in the law. Although the word law is not used in the psalm, the word law means instruction. I'm referring to the Hebrew word Torah. the word that refers to the first five books of the Bible really and the word means instruction and the instruction of the law is fundamentally instruction about Jehovah God so that as we proceed in the next few months to unpack each of the Ten Commandments we're going to be asking the question what do they make known about Jehovah God? You miss the point of the commandment If you come away simply saying, I have to do this and I may do that. You're good if you do, you're bad if you don't. You miss the point of the commandment if you do not say, I saw my God. Because every commandment he gives us reflects his own character. It's grounded in his own nature and being. So that in the first place, but in the second place, it is certainly true that the law of God also reveals his will regarding how his people live. And that idea is embedded in the word statutes. Statutes are decrees or ordinances, but what they really do, especially as they say, we're going to define a limit and we're going to set a boundary. You may live within this boundary. You may not go outside of that boundary. If you go outside of that boundary, do not claim to be a covenant child of God. Because outside of the boundary, and especially living outside of the boundary, are all those who are ungodly and unbelievers, everyone who is in Adam a sinner, but not saved in Christ. In order to separate us from the world around, and in order to provide us with means to encourage us in a godly and holy life, Jehovah God says, I'm gonna build a fence, and you're gonna live within that fence, And you may go outside the fence. Statutes. It isn't only the word statutes, but it's also the form of the law that indicates that God is here giving us or revealing to us His will regarding how His covenant people will live, how we will live in praise of Him. The form of the law, of course, consists of thou shalt's and thou shalt not's. Having already said that's not all the law is, a bare list of do's and don'ts, we have to recognize that it's in that form that the law comes. And why would a God who desires us to be happy give us a list of do's and don'ts? Of course, the world asks the question. Maybe even the child asks the question, as if to say, see, he doesn't want us to be happy. I know very well how I'll be happy. And he's telling me how I have to live. That's not how I want to live. I can't be happy living his way. But the true God says, true joy is not getting what you want. True joy is living in communion with him. Therefore, when you keep the law which sets forth his character and life, you will enjoy true joy. And when you violate the law and do not live in accordance with his being, you will not know true joy. So the law reveals Jehovah in his being, in the second place it reveals his will regarding how his covenant people live, and in the third place the law of God reveals to us God's view of sin. Lest you and I suppose that to go outside of the boundary is just an oops, a little mistake, didn't really mean it, no big harm done, Jehovah God says in his law that he takes sin seriously. Begging the question when you hear the law, the thou shalts and thou shalt nots, the question is begged, well, what if I do? What if I do what I'm not supposed to? What if I don't do what I'm supposed to? And Jehovah answers in the Ten Commandments, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me, that's what if we violate his law. The Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain. That's what happens if we do not keep his law. And then the positive promise added to the fifth commandment underscores that if we don't keep the fifth commandment, we won't have that promise. Our days will not be long upon the land which the Lord our God gives us. That's what will happen if we do not keep His law. Once again, there's a word in the psalm that underscores the point I'm making and that's the word judgments. The word judgments indicates that God's law is his declaration of how he will view you and me. That is, if we don't keep his law, if we are careless with regard to his law, he will view us as sinners, he will treat us as sinners, but in the way of keeping his law, Now I have to be clear, of course, not in the way of keeping his law or because I've kept his law, suddenly he calls me righteous, not that, but he works in those whom he has given the righteousness of Christ and the life of Christ to keep his law, to demonstrate his grace. The law of God, in other words, reveals three things about God, to summarize all that I've said so far. the kind of being he is, the way he would have us live, and what he thinks when we don't live that way. That was the function that the law played to Israel in the Old Testament and that it played and plays to the Church of Jesus Christ today. Do you stop and consider then how blessed you are to have this law and to know this law? Do you understand that those who don't have this law are those of whom God says, I really don't care how they live? It isn't my interest to have covenant fellowship with them. But when God says to you and to me, here's my law, he's saying to us that he delights in fellowship with us, that we are the objects of his grace. Now having set forth the essence of what the law makes known about Jehovah, let's look at the form of the law. 10 commandments put into two tables. And answer 93 says that those two tables can be summarized this way, the first of which teaches us how we must behave towards God, and the second, what duties we owe to our neighbor. Now you understand that when the psalmist speaks of the judgments of Jehovah and his word and statutes, he does not have in mind only the Ten Commandments. Because Jehovah gave to Israel more than just Ten Commandments in his law. Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy contain, in addition to the moral law of the Ten Commandments, also the ceremonial laws. regarding how Israel was to worship Jehovah God. The ceremonial laws were really an outworking or an application of the second commandment of the law, how we worship Jehovah. Therefore, in the keeping of the ceremonial laws, Israel was also showing her love toward God and keeping the first table of the law. In addition to the moral and the ceremonial, there are the civil laws. How Israel was to live in the land of Israel as God's distinctive people and his nation, a holy nation. In keeping at least some of those civil laws, Israel was being given applications of the fifth and sixth commandments and eighth commandments of the law regarding love for the neighbor, honor for authority, and respecting the neighbor's possessions. So that the civil laws underscored that the Israelite was to love his neighbor as himself. But all of those laws The civil and the ceremonial and then many other statues given in the Pentateuch have at their very heart and center the Ten Commandments, which have at their very center the command to love. There are some today who want to take all this revelation of God, all this revelation of himself, his revelation about how we must live, and his revelation about how he views us if we don't live that way, and say it just boils down to love as if there's a really simple method to know whether you're pleasing to God. Do you love? And then I'm referring to those for whom love is really defined in accordance with whatever my heart wants or whatever motives are in my heart. In other words, they're ready to throw away even the 10 commandments because they say at the heart of them is love, just love. But you and I in the New Testament understand that Jehovah has not gotten rid of and dismissed his Ten Commandments. Although the ceremonial law is abolished in the coming of Jesus Christ, and the civil law also in the form it was given to Israel does not apply to citizens of the United States of America, yet the Ten Commandments do apply. That's why I read a little earlier from Exodus 31 verse 18 which records that Jehovah gave Moses two tables of testimony, tables of stone written with the finger of God. And in that verse is embedded some principles regarding the law and its permanence for the Church of Jesus Christ even in the New Testament. First of all, written with the finger of God. Just to say that if you can say the whole scripture is inspired when you come to the law of God and the Ten Commandments, you really must say it is inspired. It wasn't even a human who wrote that. It was Jehovah God who wrote it on tables of stone. The authority of the law abides in the second place. Those 10 commandments fit on two tables and in both of those thoughts is encompassed the idea of completion. The Lord made known his full, perfect, and complete will in giving the law of God. There need not be added to the 10 and 11th, and there must not be subtracted one from them, so that you have only nine. The all-wise Jehovah gave us 10. as if to say, there is not a part of your life or my life that is not somehow encompassed in those 10. Young people, we have to take that point to heart. Adults do too, of course. If you think there's a part of your life that's not included in the 10, then in fact, you don't understand the law of God very well. Because in the 10 are principles regarding everything I say, everything I think, and everything I do. Everything I do within the church, everything I do within society and the world, everything I do toward my superiors, and everything I do toward my equals and inferiors. There is nothing in my life that is not encompassed in the law of God. of God. Thirdly, and as much as Jehovah wrote those in stone, he means to say this law will not be over or abolished until the earth is removed. It's true that Moses broke those tables of stone. as he came down from the mountain and saw the Israelites fornicating and dancing and having made a golden calf. But the Lord didn't view Moses throwing down those tables and breaking them as if the law itself was gone. He said, we're going to do this again. You will have two tables which will be in the Ark of the Covenant as long as Israel is a nation. Now probably by the time the psalm was written, those two tables are gone too. Because it seems that Psalm 147 is written after the return from captivity. The Lord doth build up Jerusalem, he gathereth together the outcasts of Israel. That seems to be a later date in Israel's history. And the two tables of stone are no longer to be found in the Ark of the Covenant, which the Babylonians had destroyed, burned, captured, or whatever. But the law of God abides. There will be a time when the Ten Commandments in the form in which we have them are no longer binding on you and me. If the ceremonial and civil layers of the law have been stripped away. And if we have now the Ten Commandments and the summary, then in heaven also the Ten Commandments, I mean now in the form we have them, are going to be removed. And the calling to love is the law that will remain, as well as the power Jehovah God gives us to keep that law of love. But what I'm trying to do in all of this is underscore the relevance of the law of God for us today. Because we live in a world, we live in a society that is quick to disregard Jehovah's law and even say it really doesn't apply. It doesn't apply because we're not Israel. It doesn't apply because after all, Jesus Christ has come and he's taken away some of the Ten Commandments too. It doesn't apply because now in the New Testament, this would be an Arminian presentation for instance, the law is gone and the need to believe in Christ replaces the law. In answer to all of those arguments that the law of God does not apply, the child of God, the covenant believer in a reformed church says, oh no, I stand before that law, I hear it read every Sunday morning and I understand. It still applies to me. It is the word of Jehovah God for me. And then to move to the second point, the reason why you know it's his law for you is that he showed it to Israel. He hath not dealt so with any nation, and as for his judgments, they have not known them. First of all, the psalmist is setting forth a historical fact that it was to Israel, gathered and encamped at the foot of Mount Sinai, that the holy God thundered forth his word. Philistia wasn't gathered there. Edom wasn't gathered there. The Amalekites were not gathered there. The Egyptians were not gathered there. Only Israel was gathered there. But the psalmist isn't meaning just to give this historical fact that really everybody knew. He means to underscore the reason why Jehovah God gave his law to Israel and not to any other nation. And the reason why is in the first place that Jehovah has chosen Israel to be his people. Those who are the recipients of the law of God have been chosen from eternity to be the covenant people of God. Moses speaks of that in Deuteronomy 7 and Deuteronomy 10 in a way that I won't read right now, but he underscores to the people as they're about to enter the promised land. What God did at Sinai and how he's treated you subsequently in the years of the wilderness is because he chose you to be his own. In the second place, the reason why he gave this law to Israel is that he would bring Jesus Christ through them. That's why even among Israel are some who are not of Israel. And even among the Israelites will be some who are reprobate unbelievers and don't care for the law. The purpose of Jehovah never was to save each and every Israelite, but his purpose in creating a covenant relationship with the nation of Israel was to provide a way by which Jesus Christ can come, be born in the world, be born in the human flesh, and therefore die on account of sin. And then thirdly, the reason why he gives the law to Israel is that he's a covenant God, a God of friendship. And friendships require living toward each other and with each other in a certain way. Even on earth a friendship is not possible if I lie about the one who thinks he or she is my friend and of whom I said they would be my friend. But I go around lying about him or her. There can't be a friendship now. The deepest enjoyment of friendship in a marriage on earth is not possible. The marriage abides, but the deepest enjoyment is not possible. When I say of my spouse, she's not the only one in my life. There's another woman in my life that rises either up as high as or is more important than her. You can't have friendship when we go around killing one another and slandering one another. Friendship, even on earth, requires love and understanding there are certain boundaries and parameters outside of which you cannot go and call yourself a friend. And Jehovah's making clear to Israel that that is true of his friendship with her as well. No, the point, of course, is not that the friendship of Jehovah with Israel is conditioned on her obedience. But you see, the people understood that very well by the time the psalmist writes this psalm. because they already have the history of the Israelites in the wilderness formed at Mount Sinai to be God's covenant people and then proceeding almost immediately to live in contrary to the law of God and God saying, but I'm still going to save you. And they have the history of the working of God and the dealing of God with Israel at the time of the judges, when again the people, time and time again, 14 cycles, if I have it right, in which Israel departs from God. At least a segment of Israel departs from God. in which God lets her wallow for a while in her misery, 14 cycles of Jehovah God saying, but now enough is enough. Have you learned your lesson? I'm going to send a judge. He's going to deliver you from your enemy nation, and we're going to renew a covenant friendship. And by now, the psalmist and the people of his day have lived through the captivity. If ever there was a time when Jehovah God would have said, you know, that's past history. I showed my word unto Jacob, my statutes and my judgments unto Israel. That's past history. You have violated my law so fully that I no longer reveal it to you. But in demonstrating that the giving of the law and this covenant relationship of God with Israel was not conditioned on her obedience, Jehovah gathers the outcasts of Israel again into the promised land and reestablishes the worship of Jehovah in the tabernacle and temple. He loves Israel. and therefore why has he not done the same to other nations? Isn't Jehovah the kind of God who gives everybody a fair chance at salvation? Isn't Jehovah the kind of God who wants all men to know him and worship and serve him and potentially be saved? Well, in the Old Testament, evidently he was not that kind of God. His purpose in not giving the law to other nations was not that they had the mental ability on their own without the law to come to understand his love and to worship and serve him, but his purpose was rather that he never chose them. He never intended to send Christ for them, and he desired no covenant fellowship with them. That God, has made known to you his law. Once again, I'm underscoring that this doesn't make us exclusive. There are many in the New Testament who also know the law of God. It is not a gift only to this congregation or the denomination of which we're a part. Not exclusive, but distinctive. That's the point the Holy Spirit is driving home. Although you are not the only ones who know the law of God, there are many who have not been given that law and who do not know Jehovah the way you do. What effect does that have on you? The verbs in the Psalm showed, especially, I drive home that Jehovah took pains to make his law known to his people, as he does to you and to me too in the preaching of the gospel. All of the work of Jehovah's grace in calling, in calling his people to faith and to obedience through the proclamation of the gospel is embedded in that word, showeth. And so it is to the church of Jesus Christ, to believers, not because we are believers, but rather because he makes his people believe that the law of God comes. And those who don't know it, you could pity. Oh this is a reason to do mission work too because some who don't know it actually are chosen in Christ. And covenant fellowship with God in Christ is reserved for them and they must hear the gospel to come to know of that. But then there are many either who will not hear the gospel or others who do hear the gospel and will not believe and obey it, of whom Jehovah essentially is saying, it never was for you. I want to drive this point home. A little while ago, I went through Israel's history and showed how Jehovah again and again renews his covenant, really maintains his covenant with Israel. And the psalmist praises Jehovah, the covenant-keeping God, for it. The psalm is a praise psalm. Do you see how that's true in your and my life? Fallen in Adam, let's begin there. Fallen in Adam. And yet Jehovah said, but I will renew a covenant with them. Make my new and everlasting covenant of grace. Then, having been regenerated by the Spirit, and yet from that moment have you and I kept the law perfectly, Is it not even true that having been regenerated by the Spirit, we have disobeyed this law, sometimes very blatantly and willfully? And yet Jehovah says, but I will renew my covenant with him or her. And so he's brought some of us who have lived blatantly in sin for a while to genuine sorrow for sin. And then I see in myself and you see in yourself that even though I've been brought to a genuine sorrow for sin, still I've transgressed the law of God. And today, as the church comes to worship, as it were, the same way Israel came to Mount Sinai, God says to you and to me, but I maintain, From our viewpoint, we think of it as renewing his covenant. In essence, he's maintaining and preserving his covenant with us. Do you understand what a blessing it is? Not only that once we were separated from the world around, but that remaining sinners, God gives us the law, reminds us of the law, as if to say to us, you still are my covenant people. That doesn't mean you and I may live in sin. We may not. But when we sin, Jehovah says, that didn't break the two tables of the law. That didn't break my love for you. I love you yet in Christ. And therefore, in the third place, the answer to the question, why? Why does Jehovah show the law to Israel? And the answer is to declare that she is his covenant people. There at Sinai, he organized her as a nation. She'd been an ethnic people before. She'd been a blood relatives, those who descended from Abraham. But there at Mount Sinai, God organized Israel to be a nation. a royal nation, a peculiar people, he says in Exodus 19. And you and I are part of that nation with Jesus Christ as our King. I say part of that nation, of course the nation isn't anywhere found in a certain locality in the world. It's not an earthly nation anymore. But you and I are brought into that spiritual nation, which has boundaries. The blood of Jesus Christ is shed for some, for a very definite number of people, and thereby the boundaries of the kingdom are ensured, which has an enemy. And that's the reason why we must take the law of God to heart. Love it, live in accordance with it, because it's our enemy and Christ's enemy who is saying to us, you do not need to keep the law. The keeping of the law is overrated. You cannot find happiness in it. That's warfare, beloved, and you and I must steal ourselves for and then seek the grace of God to engage in that warfare. But also, he gives the law so that I don't have to and you don't have to figure out how do I serve my best friend. Sometimes you begin a new friendship, a new earthly friendship. Maybe even it's a very special friendship and you're a young man and it's about Valentine's Day and you think to yourself, how am I going to show to this young lady on Valentine's Day how very special she is for me? And it requires you knowing something about what she likes and what she doesn't like. So a man takes a risk. Maybe he's got to ask her best friend. Does she like flowers? Does she not like flowers? Does she like Mexican food? Does she like Chinese food? If I take her to a restaurant and it serves the kind of food she does not like, that thing, a nice budding friendship might go sour fast. Jehovah does not leave us guessing what he likes, loves, requires. He tells us There is two. a little practical lesson for us who are friends. We must also open up our heart to our friends, the husband to his wife and the wife to the husband so that we need not keep guessing, but we can serve one another more and more in love. The point now is he shows his law to Israel so she doesn't have to decide how to live as his nation. She knows what he wants. And then finally in this connection, to underscore the antithesis, thou shalt not and not, eight of the 10 commandments are negative. There's of course a reminder in that that sin is so bound up in my own heart and nature and in yours that if the Lord did not say don't, we would. But there's also a reminder that all the nations of the world do. What Jehovah told Israel she may not do is what every other nation will do. It's in the way of living antithetically, different from those nations around, that she will also live distinctively as the covenant people of God. And I need those nots. Young people, we need the thou shalt nots. Again, let me use an example. There is a young man driving a car. He's cool. His car is a cool car. And he's driving like he's a cool guy with a cool car. He has a mission. He wants to get somewhere. And he comes to a road closed sign, which is really the policemen's or the road department's way of saying, thou shalt not. But he says, I'm going to. But you see, the thou shalt not, the road closed sign was not put there arbitrarily. The bridge is out. There's danger ahead. And so though he thinks he's cool and his car is cool, he shows himself a fool for going through the road closed sign. And that's what God does when he gives us the thou shalt not. Danger ahead. Not just you might find a joy that I don't want you to enjoy. You might find that I'm the kind of God who's sort of restrictive in what I require of you, and you might decide that there's more to serving me than I've made known in my law. That's not why God gives a thou shalt not, but there's danger ahead. The world is over there. Your sinful nature leads you that way, but you've been made not an exclusive, but a distinctive people. So obey that thou shalt not. So the word of God and the law of God comes to us today also, and it has actually a saving purpose. Part of that purpose in saving is to cause you and me to behold the glory of the true God, as the psalm leads us to do. Praise ye the Lord, it calls us to praise him. It then points out not only his works that are praiseworthy, but even his very being, the kind of God he is. The infinite wisdom of Jehovah God. He is of great power and his understanding is infinite. And so behold him. Know him more and more. In the second place, the saving purpose of the law that is to enable us to see how much we need him. Because our nature is not to keep the law, there is that function of the law, set forth in Lord's day two, that underscores our misery, how far apart from him we are of ourselves, and how greatly we need him. Therefore, in the third place, the law has a saving purpose because it points us to one, and only one, who kept it. And that's something we have to see too. Every time we go through the commandments this time is not only what do they make known about Jehovah, but now look around in society all around you and find how many people have ever kept the law. On the one hand, what that will do to you and to me is reassure us that God doesn't save. about 100,000 unique and exclusive people who've really done it. Those whom he saves have not done it. But then at the same time, we must in every commandment see and behold one who kept it perfectly. and understand that in him alone is our salvation, that his righteousness becomes ours, and that therefore though we've grossly transgressed the law, God will say of us, does say of us in the preaching of the gospel, and will again in the day of judgment, you are righteous. In the fourth place, this law has a saving purpose for you and for me because it reminds us that I cannot find salvation in myself but must always look outside myself. In the fifth place, it has a saving purpose. As the Reformed preacher takes another step, The law of God did not only say you're guilty and in Christ is your righteousness. But the law of God, the Ten Commandments comes to Israel in the wilderness and says you must live this way and you will begin to. And in that sense the law comes to us as well. Though I cannot keep it perfectly, there must be in me a genuine beginning, a new beginning at keeping the law, and that's why it's good we hear the law. You heard it a year and a half or so ago, but it's good we hear it again. There must be in us a new beginning of keeping the law, which new beginning is possible because of the sanctifying power of Jesus Christ by his Holy Spirit. And then finally, Giving of the law has a saving purpose, and our contemplation and preaching of it will as well, as it points us to the day when we will keep it perfectly. Reminds us that here on earth we are but pilgrims and strangers. We will only be pilgrims and strangers here below, nothing more than that. There will always be a struggle with regard to the keeping of the law and a pulling of the old man in one direction and of the new man in the other. But there comes a day, beloved, when the fight is over, when we are perfected and glorified and live in perfect obedience to two commands. Love God and love your neighbor. to all eternity. God gave us his law for those purposes. Are you indifferent to that? Or do you too praise him? Amen. Our Father, which art in heaven, work in us the salvation which we sorely need. Continue to work it in us, to see that in us there is no hope, but in Christ is the fullness and completeness of salvation, both our righteousness and the power whereby we can live a new and holy life. And in as much as he now sits at thy right hand in heaven, also the certain assurance that one day we will dwell there with thee. not only no longer sitting, but unable to sin. Praise be to Thee, the covenant-keeping Jehovah God, for giving us Thy law. Amen.