Welcome to Reign of Grace. This
program is brought to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries,
an outreach ministry of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany,
Georgia. It is our pleasure and privilege
to present to you the gospel message of the sovereign grace
and glory of God in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray that today's program
will be a blessing to you. Thank you for listening and now
for today's program. Let me welcome you to our program
today. I'm glad you could join us. And it's my prayer and my
hope that you will study the word of God in its context and
that God will reveal himself to you and to me in his glory
and in his truth as it is in Christ. And today I'm going to
be preaching from Romans chapter seven, beginning at verse seven
and go through a few verses concerning this subject, the goodness of
God's law. the goodness of God's law. Have we really seen the true
goodness of God's law? Normally we would think about
that in terms of society. We live in a society that is
governed and guided by law. Our constitution, for example,
has laws that we are to abide by. We have statutes, and we
thank God for that law. We thank God that he's given
us a sense of that law, even in the natural conscience. And
we know that it would be terrible if there were no laws. There'd
be anarchy. But that's not what I'm talking
about. And the law is good in that way in society because it
keeps checks and balances upon men and women. And of course
we know there are law breakers as far as the civil law is concerned. But when it comes to God's law,
and when it comes to the righteousness that is required by God's law,
and when it comes to a sinner, who has broken God's law, and
that would describe all of us by nature and by practice, wouldn't
it? If you don't agree with that, then don't ever quote Romans
3 23 again. All have sinned and come short
of the glory of God. The wages of sin is death. The
gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. But when
we talk about the law, we're talking about that which condemns
us as sinners, okay? And that's what the law says.
The law condemns sinners to whom sin is imputed, charged, accounted. That's why in salvation, those
who are truly saved can say with the Apostle Paul, who shall lay
anything to the charge of God's elect? It's God that justifies. When God justifies a sinner,
He does it based on law, justice, satisfied, so all of that, okay? So what I'm talking about, when
I talk about the goodness of God's law, I'm talking about
in light of that, how is it possible for a sinner who deserves damnation
and eternal death to have a right relationship with God? Does God
set aside His law? Well, the answer's no. Does God
ignore His law? Does God pervert His law? Does
He break His law? And the answer's no, none of
that. But God shows the goodness of
His law, and that's what the Apostle Paul is describing here. He's talking about when he was
an unregenerate person, an unbeliever, and how God brought him to see
the goodness of God's law and the sinfulness of his sin. He
talked about how those who are in Christ, sinners saved by the
grace of God, are dead to the law. The law cannot condemn them. The law cannot charge them with
sin. And so he says in verse seven,
now this is Romans seven and verse seven, What shall we say
then? Now he talked about in verse
six, he said that those who are dead to the law, justified before
God, not guilty, righteous in Christ, they have life from God
and they serve God in newness of the spirit and not in oldness
of the letter, the written law. To serve in oldness of the letter,
that is legalism, mercenary promise of earned reward, that's bad.
That's an unregenerate person, that's a lost person, that's
a legalist, that's a self-righteous sinner. So in verse seven he
asks this question, what shall we say then? What are we gonna
conclude about this? Is the law sin? Now you remember
back in verse five, Romans seven and verse five, he says, for
when we were in the flesh, meaning when we were unregenerate, not
born again, in unbelief, the motions or the passions of sins
which were by the law did work in our members to bring forth
fruit unto death. And remember I told you that
that works in one of two ways. An unregenerate person looks
at the law and either responds to the law in total rebellion,
like a criminal. I'm gonna break the law, you
know. In other words, you draw the line, God draws the line
in the sand and they've got to cross it. Or it works in the
self-righteous religionist who determines, like the Pharisees
of Oda, I'm going to keep the law to make myself accepted with
God, to be righteous. That's a sinful passion too. I went back, I think, to Cain
and Abel. Cain approaching God based on his works. See, he knew
he had to be right with God. He knew he had to worship God,
but he worshiped him in a sinful way. But here's Abel who brought
the blood of the Lamb, which is Christ. So Paul says, is the
law therefore sin? Is there something wrong with
the law? Is the law bad? And he says, God forbid, verse
seven, nay, no, I had not known sin, but by the law. Now, Paul, I don't think there's
very many people who would speak of themselves as being sinlessly
perfect in themselves. Most people, especially those
who call themselves Christians, say, I'm not perfect. I've seen
that bumper sticker. I can't remember what all it
said, but he says, I'm not perfect, but I'm a work in progress or
whatever. We're all sinners. And I've said it often on this
program that there are only two types of people in this world.
There are sinners lost in their sins and then there are sinners
saved by grace. So he says, I had not known sin
but by the law. Now Paul's going to show here
that what he's talking about is not just that he didn't understand
that he wasn't a perfect person or that he was a sinner in some
ways. What he's going to prove here
is that he did not see the exceeding extreme sinfulness of sin, but
by the law. And it was the law, not as he
naturally saw it, because the law as we naturally see it, that's
described in verse five, when we were in the flesh, the motions
of sins, which were by the law, did work in our members to bring
forth fruit unto death. He's talking about the law as
God revealed it to him in the power of the Holy Spirit as it
relates to Christ. Now let me show you that. He
says, verse seven, nay, I had not known sin but by the law,
for I had not known lust, except the law had said thou shalt not
covet. Now that word lust there, it's
translated in one other place as the word concupiscence. And
what it means is unbridled lust and unlawful desire. And what
he's talking about, thou shalt not covet, covetousness is not
a sin of action, it's a sin of the heart. It's a sin of attitude,
sin of spirit. And so what Paul's talking about
here is he saw how the law not only forbids sinful actions,
But it forbids sinful thoughts, sinful desires. It's a matter
of the heart. Now Christ taught that in the
Sermon on the Mount. And also Moses taught it in the
Law. The summary of the Law is love
God with all your heart, soul, mind, and spirit. Love your neighbor
as yourself. The whole Law summarized in one
word, love. It's not just taste not, touch
not, handle not. It's not like people who define
righteousness by what they don't do. You heard the old poem, we
don't smoke and we don't chew and we don't go with girls who
do or boys who do, all that kind of thing. That's the way a lot
of people wanna measure righteousness, by what they wear. Like Paul
wrote in Colossians, taste not, touch not, handle not. You know,
we wouldn't have this. We wouldn't have a television
in our house. We wouldn't have this, all that kind of stuff.
Well, Paul understood here that the law reached the heart and
Christ taught that. He said, it's not only a sin
to commit the act of murder, it's a sin to think it, it's
a sin to desire it, to be angry with someone to the point that
you wish them dead. It's not only a sin to commit
adultery, it's a sin to lust. And so he covers that under covetousness,
which is the unlawful desire, the greedy desire for things
that we don't have, something that someone else possesses.
And so he's showing here how the law reaches the heart. And
then Christ, you remember he taught his disciples that when
he told them, he said, look, it's not what goes into your
mouth, what you eat or drink, that defiles you. The devil's
not in the bottle, friend. The devil's in you and in me.
It's what comes out of the heart. So if we choose to abuse whatever
we drink or eat, That sin was already in our hearts. Now, yes,
like for example, drunkenness is a sin, but that sin is already
in your heart if you choose to abuse that. I see on the internet all the
time, these Bible diets. And they say, if you eat a diet
prescribed by the Bible, well, I don't think, you know, I know
there's stuff about food in the Bible and all that, but I can
give you the Bible diet in one word, moderation, temperate,
being temperate. That's the Bible diet, moderate
in all things. All right, not excesses. All
right, but Paul says, thou shalt not covet. But look at verse
eight of Romans seven. He says, but sin, taking occasion
by the commandment, wrought or worked in me all manner of concupiscence,
all manner of unlawful desires, lust. In other words, the law
wasn't my problem. Sin within me, sinful desires,
sinful motives, sinful goals. That was my problem. The problem
wasn't with the law. The problem was with me, sin. And he says in verse eight, for
without the law, sin was dead. Now what he's talking about there
is that in some respects, to some degree, before he understood
the reality of the spirituality of the law, he didn't see himself
as a sinner. Now, I don't believe that Paul
would have said he was sinlessly perfect, but he's kind of like
a man told me one time when I was trying to talk to him about the
gospel. He said, well, I know I'm not
perfect, but I've never done anything bad enough to be sent
to hell. Now, that's the kind of attitude.
Well, my friend, if you understand the goodness of God's law, you'll
understand this. that if God were to judge you
or me based upon our works and our efforts, we would all deserve
to be sent to hell. Now that's right. You say, well,
you don't agree with that. Well, you haven't seen the goodness
of God's law. And that's what Paul's saying
here, for without the law, when I didn't see that, when I didn't
see the extent, the perfect righteousness that God's law requires, I didn't
see myself as the sinner that I am. The perfect righteousness
of the law, the goodness of the law, where is that to be found? Well, the Bible says this in
Acts 17 and verse 31. It says that God has appointed
a day in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by
that man whom he hath ordained, in that he hath given assurance
unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead. If
you wanna see the perfection of righteousness of God's law,
the real goodness of God's law, you know where you're gonna find
it? In Christ, the perfect God-man. The perfect God, the perfect
man who never sinned, never had a sinful thought, a sinful motive,
a sinful desire, or a sinful goal. And who kept the law perfectly. Romans 10, 4. Christ is the end
of the law, the fulfillment, the perfection, the finishing
of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth. And
so what he's saying here is without the law, sin was dead. Verse
nine. He says, I was alive without
the law once. In other words, I thought I was
spiritually alive. I thought I was okay. I thought I was saved. I thought I was right with God.
But I judged all of that without seeing the reality and the goodness
and the spirituality of the law. But he says, but when the commandment
came, In other words, when the reality, the truth, the severity,
the justice, the righteousness, the perfection of the law came
to me, sin revived. I saw myself in reality of what
I was and I died. Now that's a good death because
it's dying unto self. Now, when is it that the commandment
comes to a person? Well, it comes in Holy Spirit
conviction, and if you'll look over at John chapter 16, I want
to show you that. In John chapter 16, Paul said,
when the commandment came, when I saw what the law really requires,
I thought I was okay before that. I thought I was saved. I thought
I was righteous. I thought I was right with God.
Thought I was accepted with God. But then the commandment came.
Somebody brought the commandment to my mind to show me the reality. Who was that somebody? It was
the Holy Spirit in the preaching of the gospel who shows that
God is just and must punish all sin. And wherever sin is charged,
God must condemn that person. And this is what he's saying
here. Look at John chapter 16. Christ is talking about his death
on the cross. His death is the accomplishment
and establishment of the righteousness which God has imputed to his
people. And out of his death and out
of that righteousness, out of Christ, comes life by the Spirit. And so he says in verse eight,
when he is come, when the Holy Spirit is come, that's what he's
talking about. He will reprove, now that word
reprove means to convince. The Holy Spirit comes and he
convinces God's people of something they were not convinced of before. For example, if you're ignorant
of the righteousness of God in Christ and not submitted to Christ
as your whole righteousness before God, you see, And yet you're
convinced that you're saved? You're convinced that you're
right with God? It's going to take a work of
the Holy Spirit to convince you otherwise. And that's what he's
talking about. He will convince the world of
sin. Now the world there doesn't mean
everybody without exception. It's talking about those who
are reproved, convinced, convicted God's elect Jew and Gentile all
over the world. He's gonna convict them of sin
and of righteousness and of judgment, look at verse nine, of sin because
they believe not on me. Here's what he's talking about.
Now that's talking about the sin of unbelief, which is the
mother of all sins, but here's what it really means. My friend,
if I don't have Christ as my righteousness before God, If
I'm not washed in His blood and clothed in His righteousness,
my whole life is sin in the eyes of God now, not in the eyes of
men. I may be the pillar of society
in the eyes of men. I may be a Pharisee of Pharisees
as touching the law, but if I don't have Christ as my Savior, as
my Lord. If I don't have Him as revealed
by believing in Him, then my whole life is sin. Nothing but
sin. I have no righteousness. And
then he goes on to say in verse nine, or verse 10, of righteousness
because I go to my Father and you see me no more. The Holy
Spirit convinces that the only righteousness that will make
me right before God is the imputed righteousness of Christ. Write
that down. The only righteousness, the only
perfection, the only goodness by the standard of God's law
that will save me and declare me not guilty, that will wash
away my sins, that will enable God not to charge sin to me but
to charge righteousness to me is the imputed, the accounted,
the reckoned righteousness of Christ. And we do receive it
by God-given faith, when the Holy Spirit comes. And then in
verse 11, he says, of judgment, because the prince of this world
is judged. And that's talking about the judgment of God, of
my sins in Christ, my sins imputed to him. And when Satan, the prince
of this world, charges me, or accuses me, his arrows of accusation
do not stick. because I'm washed in the blood
and clothed in the righteousness of Christ. We'll go back to Romans
7 now. So he says in verse 9, for I
was alive without the law once, but when the commandment came,
when the Holy Spirit brought me to see the reality of my condition,
sin revived. Everything that I thought was
good and recommended me unto God, I found to be unto death.
You can read about that in Philippians chapter three where Paul talks
about all the things that I used to believe were good and right
with God and recommended me unto God, made me righteous before
God. I count them all but loss that
I may win Christ and be found in him. You see, I counted all
but dumb, dead stuff. And he says, he says, I died,
it killed me. That's the goodness of God's
law when it brings in guilty. And with no hope of salvation
in yourself, but look at verse 10, and the commandment which
was ordained to life, I found to be unto death. Now what does
that mean? Well, when God gave the law to
Adam, It was the law of life. He says, you can eat of all the
trees, but this tree of knowledge of good and evil, you cannot
eat. In the day that you eat thereof, you shall surely die. Dying thou shalt die. And the
law wasn't originally given just to kill people or anything like
that, but we sinned in Adam and we fell. And so those who are
trying to be saved by their law keeping, like Paul was before
he was converted, He says, that which was ordained to life, I
found to be undead, to death. You see, the law condemns sinners
where sin is charged. It's death. And so he says in
verse 11, for sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived
me and by it slew me. Now, Paul was deceived. Any sinner
who seeks salvation to attain it, to maintain it, the reward
of it by their works, is deceived. And you know what deceives them?
Their sin, their selfishness, their self-righteousness, their
self-worth, their self-love. And he says, that'll be the death
of you. So verse 12, he says, wherefore
the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, and just and good, the
law is good. This is the goodness of God's
law. So look at verse 13. Was then that which is good made
death unto me? God forbid. But sin, that it
might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good,
that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful. Now what Paul was saying there
is this. The goodness of God's law is
what showed him how much of a sinner he really was. And my friend,
that's my prayer for you, for anybody. You who don't know Christ,
you who don't know the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ,
you who are in religions, even if you call it Christianity,
where you're trying to save yourself or keep yourself saved by your
works, it's my prayer that the commandment that which is good,
that the Holy Spirit will reveal to you the perfection of God
to show you that that is all sin working in you and you need
a righteousness you can't produce. That's why salvation is by grace
and not by works. The book says, by grace are you
saved, through faith, that not of yourselves, it's the gift
of God. Not of works, lest any man should boast, for we are
his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus. Christ who kept the law. I didn't keep the law, and I
don't keep it now. Should I try to obey God? Should I try to
be the best I can be? Yes, but that won't save me. That won't make me righteous
in God's sight because I still fall short. I can tell you by
the grace and the power of God, I do love God, but I don't love
him perfectly. I still have problems with myself. There's a warfare, a struggle
within me, and that's what I'm gonna talk about next time in
Romans 7. That's where Paul says, the law
still, even as a sinner saved by grace, the law still, the
law still brings me in as a sinner who deserves nothing but death
based on my works, but thank God. Thank God I have a righteousness
that answers and equals the demands of God's law and justice. And
it's a righteousness that Christ, as my surety and substitute,
worked out for me on the cross by himself. And it's given to
me by the grace of God. I didn't earn it, didn't deserve
it, had nothing to do with it. If I had anything to do with
it, it'd be tainted, it'd be contaminated. But it's Christ. and Him crucified and raised
from the dead. He is my righteousness. If you
wanna see the goodness of the law, look to Christ. He's the
goodness of the law. He's the righteousness of the
law. He's the fulfillment of the law. He's the end of the
law for righteousness to everyone that believeth. And my friend,
that's to anyone who wants it. Anyone who desires, anyone who,
like Paul, sees the exceeding sinfulness of sin and the goodness
of God's law. Hope you'll join us next week
for another message from God's word. We are glad you could join us
for another edition of Reign of Grace. This program is brought
to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries, an outreach ministry
of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany, Georgia. To receive
a copy of today's program or to learn more about Reign of
Grace Media Ministries or Eager Avenue Grace Church, write us
at 1102 Eager Drive, Albany, Georgia. Contact us by phone at 229-432-6969
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today and may the Lord be with you.