I'd like to give you all a warm
welcome to our worship here this morning. Let us ask the Lord's
blessing, let us come before him in prayer. O Lord God of
heaven and of earth, we come before thee seeking thy blessing
in the house of God this day. Lord, you come help us to sing
thy worthy praise and above all to come with the preaching of
the word and apply it with power And do grant, Lord, that Thou
wouldst get to Thyself honour and glory as Thou art lifted
up on the pole of the everlasting Gospel. Do bless us through our
Lord Jesus Christ, in whom we ask these things. Amen. Hymn, 113. Tune, Mainzer 364. This morning we wish to read
from two portions of God's holy word. Firstly, the book of Exodus
and chapter 20, the first 21 verses. If you have one of our
free Bibles, that's page 81. 81, what we're reading is the
moral law, the den commandments. Exodus chapter 20 from verse
1. And God spake all these words,
saying, I am the Lord thy God, which hath brought thee out of
the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt
have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee
any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven
above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water
under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself
to them, nor serve them. For I the Lord thy God am a jealous
God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children,
unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me, and show
mercy unto thousands of them that love me and keep my commandments. Thou shalt not take the name
of the Lord thy God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him
guiltless that taketh his name in vain. Remember the Sabbath
day to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour and
do all thy work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord
thy God. In it thou shalt not do any work,
thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant,
nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates. For
in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all that
in them is, and rested the seventh day. Wherefore the Lord blessed
the Sabbath day and hallowed him. Honour thy father and thy mother,
that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God
giveth thee. Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt
not commit adultery. Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt
not bear false witness against thy neighbor. Thou shalt not
covet thy neighbor's house. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's
wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox,
nor his ass, nor anything that is thy neighbours. And all the
people saw the thunderings and the lightnings, and the noise
of the trumpet and the mountain smoking, and when the people
saw it, they removed and stood afar off. And they said, Unto
Moses speak thou with us, and we will hear, but let not God
speak with us, lest we die. Moses said unto the people, Fear
not, for God is come to prove you, and that his fear may be
before your faces, that ye see not. And the people stood afar
off, and Moses drew near unto the thick darkness where God
was. Now let us turn to the New Testament,
to Paul's epistle to the Galatians, And chapter 3, page 1083, in our free Bibles. Galatians chapter 3, we'll read
the whole chapter from verse 1. O foolish Galatians, who hath
bewitched you that ye should not obey the truth, before whose
eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified among you? This only would I learn of you,
received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing
of faith. Are ye so foolish, having begun
in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh? Have ye
suffered so many things in vain, if it be yet in vain? He therefore that ministereth
to you the Spirit, and worketh miracles among you, doeth he
it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? even
as Abraham believed God and it was accounted to him for righteousness. Know ye therefore that they which
are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham. And the
scripture foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through
faith, preached before the Gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee
shall all nations be blessed. So then, they which be of faith
are blessed with faithful Abraham. For as many as are of the works
of the law are under the curse, for it is written, Cursed is
everyone that continueth not in all things which are written
in the book of the law to do them. But that no man is justified
by the law in the sight of God, it is evident, for the just shall
live by faith. And the law is not of faith,
but the man which doeth them shall live in them. Christ hath
redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for
us, for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on
a tree. That the blessing of Abraham
might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ, that we might receive
the promise of the Spirit through faith, Brethren, I speak after
the manner of men. Though it be but a man's covenant,
yet if it be confirmed, no man disanotheth or addeth thereto. Now to Abraham and his seed were
the promises made. He saith not, and to seeds as
of many, but as of one, and to thy seed, which is Christ. In this I say that the covenant
that was confirmed before of God in Christ, the law, which
was four hundred and thirty years after, cannot disannul, that
it should make the promise of none effect. For if the inheritance
be of the law, it is no more of promise, but God gave it to
Abraham, by promise. Wherefore then serveth the law. It was added because of transgressions,
till the seed should come to whom the promise was made, that
it was ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator. Now a
mediator is not a mediator of one, but God is one. Is the law
then against the promises of God? God forbid, for if there
had been a law given, which could have given life, verily righteousness
should have been by the law. But the scripture hath concluded
all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might
be given to them that believe. But before faith came, we were
kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards
be revealed. Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster
to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after that faith is come,
we are no longer under a schoolmaster. For ye are all the children of
God by faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as have been
baptised into Christ have put on Christ, where there is neither
Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither
male nor female. For ye are all one. in Christ
Jesus. And if he be Christ, then are
ye Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise. The Lord bless
to us that reading of his holy word and help us now in prayer. Let us pray. We come to Thee, our loving and
heavenly Father, through Thy beloved Son. We thank Thee for
the Gospel, we thank Thee for Thy Word that we have read. And O Lord, do be pleased to
grant unto us that faith that we have read of, the faith in
our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Grant, Lord, that we might clearly
understand the role of the law and what it is unto Christ. O Lord, we do pray to be taught
by thy spirit and to know the secret of godliness and to know
the purpose and the reason why thou didst come into this world. O Lord, do grant that we might
be bound up with faithful Abraham and with those who have seen
thee from the foundation of the world and trusted and believed
in Thee. O Lord, we do thank Thee for
a faithful translation of Thy holy word into our own tongue. But Lord, we do pray You might
not just have it as to understand it in a natural way. For Lord,
Thou hast said that the natural man Receiveth not the things
of God, neither can he know them, because they are spiritually
discerned. Lord, we do pray for thy Holy
Spirit to be given to open blind eyes, to unstop deaf ears, and
to instruct and teach in the way of righteousness. O Lord,
do grant that we might not only Know these things in our head,
but feel them in our hearts, that it might transform our lives,
our outlook, that we might have that blessed assurance and comfort
of good hope through grace, that we are Thine, and that Thou hast
reserved a place in heaven for us. O Lord, bless our gathering
together in Thy name, to each Lord that gathers those in the
sanctuary here and those online, that Thou wouldst through Thy
Word bring faith to the joy and rejoicing of Thy people, Lord,
that we might view thee and see thee as set forth before us in
the gospel. We come confessing our many,
many sins. Lord, we have broken all of thy
laws. We have transgressed and we continue
to do so. And O Lord, we continually are
reminded that we are sinners and fallen and that by nature
we are under thy wrath and under the law of God. O Lord, do grant
that we might more and more prize and value our Lord and Saviour,
Jesus Christ. Do be pleased then to grant the
Holy Spirit, the Teacher and Instructor this morning. And
O Lord, do deliver us from living a careless life, a life that
sins that grace might abound, to make us tender in thy fear,
give us a hatred of sin, a desire to follow and keep after thy
law, and yet not trusting in that keeping for our salvation. O Lord, do sanctify us and make
us holy, make us to be of all people upon this earth, those
who esteem all thy words to be right, and thy laws to be good
and upright, and that we might walk in that way that pleases
thee. O Lord, do grant us a tender
spirit, a teachable spirit, a tender conscience. Do grant that grace
might work in our hearts, bring forth fruit to thine honour and
glory, and that none could point at our lives, as being licentious,
loose, careless, ungodly lives. Lord, do grant that we might
live to thine honour and glory, that all men might take knowledge
of us, that we have been with Jesus. Lord, save us from our
besetting sins, deliver us from our evil heart, and do grant
unto us to be set free with the liberty that thou dost give thy
people. If the Son shall make you free,
ye shall be free indeed. Lord, we do pray for those that
are awakened to a need of a Saviour, awakened to their condemnation
under the law, and that thou lead them on to a full knowledge
of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Remember those that are
yet dead in trespasses and sins, and do open their eyes, show
them their state by nature, show them the danger that they are
in. And O Lord, do have mercy also on those that may have made
a profession entrusting in that years ago, and yet not walking
in accordance with that profession. O Lord, we do seek that daily
we might Repent of sin, and daily be found walking in thy ways. Leave us not to drift further
and further from thee, like thy ancient people did, but do bring
us back and do revive us. And may we know that thou art
close to our reins, and does correct us whene'er we stray. We do thank thee for every blessing,
the temporal mercies and blessings that we have. We pray for those
in other lands, and even in this land, that do not have these
blessings. Lord, we do seek that thy goodness
might lead us to repentance, give us day by day thankful hearts,
that we might be led from the bread that perisheth to that
which endureth unto eternal life, and that we might desire that
which the world does not desire, that we might be satisfied with
living bread. And Lord, remember all in affliction,
do grant thy kind, healing, hand, blessing, medication, and treatment,
giving grace and help through debilitating treatment. Lord, do give that needful lengthening
of days. And Lord, we do commit each into
thy hand in this way. Thy servants laid aside, do recover
them and do Grant health and strength again to stand on the
walls of Zion. And O Lord, do be pleased to
be with those that near their journey's end. And Lord, bless
them in their souls and do bring safe home to glory. We lay our
prayer for that day that we know must come to us each, that heart
and flesh shall fail. Do grant, Lord, it might be well
with us. Let not this world, with all
its bewitching snares and all its allurements, rob us of that
eternal praise. O let not this our rest appear. Lord, help us to look unto Thee
and to long for a heavenly country and home, and to long to be with
Thee. We pray for greater communion
and fellowship with Thee and Thy people here below, that we
might be spiritually minded, not calmly minded. and do deliver
us from every snare, and whether those things that are sapping
our spiritual strength, do deliver us from them, and set us free.
O Lord, we do pray then that Thou wouldst bless and be with
us as a church and people, bless the ministry here, we thank Thee
for tokens for good, be pleased to fill the house of God here
with hungry, thirsting souls, We do pray that Thou hast blessed
those that join with us online and those that hear the services
afterwards. Be with them in other lands,
we thank Thee for those that we know and love in the truth
in other lands. Lord, do be pleased to be with
us now and open up Thy Word and do bless us with faith joined
with what we hear. Help us by Thy Spirit, forgive
our many sins, what we ask amiss. and do magnify thy beloved Son
in our midst and in our hearts this morning. We ask through
thy name, Lord Jesus. Amen. The announcements, God willing,
I'm expected to preach here this evening at 6.30pm. on Thursday
at seven o'clock and next Lord's Day morning at 11 a.m. As Mr. Seymour, who is due to
preach next Lord's Day evening, is still recovering from an operation,
our preacher will be Mr. William Arrowsmith. I will be
preaching with Lord Will at Arkfield next Lord's Day evening. Seeking for the help of the Lord,
I direct your prayerful attention to Galatians, Paul's epistle
to the Galatians, chapter 3, and reading from our text, verses
24 and 25. Wherefore, the Lord was our schoolmaster
to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith,
but After that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster. Galatians 3 verse 24 and 25. The law unto Christ. Tracing the law of God unto Christ
in the word of God and in our experience, the law and gospel,
and what is to be understood by them, is absolutely vital
for us. It is not an unimportant thing,
it is a vital thing. We are saved not by the deeds
of the law, but by faith in what the Lord Jesus Christ has done
for us. And in our text, it traces a
use of the law and how it is used in bringing us unto Christ. But once it has been used in
that way, then we are not under that law as a condemning law
under its curse, even though we still break it and we still
sin, but we are under Christ, trusting and believing in his
finished perfect work at Calvary. So I want to trace with the Lord's
help this morning just in four heads. Firstly, the law in the
Garden of Eden. And then secondly, the law at
Mount Sinai, at which we read the Ten Commandments there in
our portion in Exodus 20. Then thirdly, the law and Jesus Christ. And lastly, the law is used in
these gospel days, the days that we are in now. But firstly, we go right back
to the beginning of the Word of God. And we read of God giving to
Adam, a command. In Exodus chapter 2 and verse
16, we read, The Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree
of the garden thou mayest freely eat, but of the tree of the knowledge
of good and evil thou shalt not eat of it. For in the day that
thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die. So this is before
Eve was formed. This is to Adam, our federal
head, the head of the whole human race. There was a command, a
prohibiting of eating of the tree of knowledge of good and
evil. There was also a sentence prescribed
that should they break that command, then this would be the sentence,
in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. So there in the Garden of Eden,
in the very beginning of the world, even before Eve was brought
unto Adam, we have our Creator, our God giving us a law. Then in the next chapter, in
chapter 3, we have the breaking of that law, a taking of that
forbidden fruit and alienating then our first parents from their
God. fearful now of his approach in
the Garden of Eden, the evidence immediately of a breaking of
that law, and then God himself enacting the punishment. Spiritual death immediately followed,
The natural man receiveth not the things of God, neither can
he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. We died
spiritually in Adam. And in due time, Adam was then
to die and all his race and return to dust. Dust thou art, unto
dust shalt thou return. And then we're told that after
death comes the judgment, and then there is eternal death. Man was made a living soul, and
that which is sentenced upon him, it affects not just this
life, but that which is to come, because the soul does not die,
that continues to live. And so in Adam, all men die. Paul is very clear in this, in
his teaching to the Romans, in the Book of Romans, as in Adam,
all die. And we know by experience that
natural man, he hates God, he does not walk in his ways, he
does not obey God's laws, Who shall, why should we have this
man to reign over us? That is the pattern throughout
history. We know of the death that we
all behold and every graveyard and every death that we see bears
witness of that. But also a reminder is all our
sicknesses, our sorrows, our pains, the curse upon the ground
as well, affecting the whole creation. Paul says, the whole
creation groaneth together until now. And it is important for
us to realize that this is the holy law of God that our first
parents broke, that it cannot be mended, that in our fallen
state we cannot obey it. Adam had the ability to do so
in his innocency. He had a free will. He exercised
that and broke the law of God. The sentence then has come upon
him and all the human race. We are what we are because we
are under the sentence of God. If we were to go to the prisons
of this land and we'd ask an inmate why were they in that
prison, they might say, well, I broke into a house, I stole
things. And you would say to them, how
is it then that there's a link between you breaking into that
house and coming into this prison. Did you automatically just go
straight from that house as soon as you broke into it and into
this prison cell? No, he would say, I came before
the judge and the judge condemned me to this time that is in prison. And so it is the state, the condition
that we are in. We are in because we are under
the sentence of God. It is God's law that was given,
it is God's law that was broken, and it is under the sentence
of a holy righteous God that we live and are born into this
world under that broken law and under its curse and under its
condemnation. If you were to read further on
in Genesis, we read that man was driven out from the garden
and a flaming sword to keep the way of the tree of life. There
is no way back. There's no reversing of that
sentence by obeying that law. It's too late. is already broken,
no life, no eternal life, no deliverance by anyone that will
say, I want to change this, I want to obey the law, and I want to
gain God's favour and gain eternal life by obeying that law. We cannot do that. That will
never be a means of saving any at all. It's already broken,
we're already under the sentence of it. So that is the Garden
of Eden and the law in that garden. So then we come to the law at
Mount Sinai. So here we have come on some
1,600, 1,700 years. And we have come to the
children of Israel, more than that, more than 2,000 years.
And they've been brought out of Egypt. They've been brought into the
wilderness as God's chosen people. and brought to Mount Sinai, and
then they are given there the law of God in the Ten Commandments. They're given it by God as we
read, and then they were written on tables of stone. You might say that what then
is the purpose of the giving? of this law. We are told that death reigned
from Adam until Moses. Now that is significant because
sin entered into the world and death by sin. So even though
there wasn't a written law, yet death reigned during that time. We are also told that sin is
not imputed when there is no law. If the courts in our land
is to have any authority to execute a judgment against people, there
needs to be a written law. And those people then are convinced
of being breakers of the law because they see that law written
down. It is evident that they have
broken that law. Now, we all have broken the law
in Adam. We are all under that sentence
of death. But God has a purpose so that
he might bring in all guilty. under that law. Sin is not imputed. So the reason why the law then
was given was that all the world might be brought in guilty before
God. By the law is the knowledge of
sin. It never, ever was God's intention
that man should attain heaven by the deeds of the law. He showed
this because he promised life to Abraham, he promised it in
his seed which was Christ, and he gave that 430 years before
Mount Sinai, before the law of God. It is by promise, by faith in
the coming Messiah, the seed of the woman, that there is the
promise of life, not through the law. But Israel and all the
people of God must be convinced and shown first that there is
no way back God's law is a righteous law, a holy law, that no man
can fulfill that, that we need salvation in another way, God's
provision, not in our deeds. And so, the law then was given
in writing, as we have read in the Ten Commandments, It was
shown to be broken when Moses went up into the mount and he
received the tables of stone. While he was forty days in that
mount, the children of Israel made a golden calf. They said
that Moses, they didn't know what had happened to him, and
so they immediately turned to idolatry, When Moses came down
from the mount and he saw what they'd done, that terrible sin,
then he cast the stones down and the stones were broken at
the mount. And so a real demonstrative way
of highlighting, showing this, even why the law was being given
in that written form, It was broken by the people, it was
broken symbolically by Moses breaking the tables of stone. A message again and again is
that we have broken and will continue to break the law of
God. Then God at Mount Sinai gave
Moses a command to make two more tables of stone. and to bring
them up to the mount, and that he would write again on those
tables. And so we read that in Exodus
32 verse 19. And verse 19 is when the stones
were broken, Moses anger waxed hot, cast the tables out of his
hand, break them before the mount. And then if we go on to chapter
34 and verse 1, the Lord said unto Moses, Shew thee two tables
of stone like unto the first, and I will write upon these tables
the words that were in the first tables which thou breakest. And then Moses did that and went
up into the mount and we read later on that he was again 40
days 40 nights and he wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant
the 10 commandments but then when we go further on we have
in exodus 40 where those tables were then
to be put In Exodus 40 verse 20, And he took and put the testimony,
that is the Ten Commandments, into the ark, and set the staves
on the ark, and put the mercy seat above upon the ark. And he brought the ark into the
tabernacle, and set up the veil of the covering, and covered
the ark of the testimony, as the Lord commanded Moses. If we go further on to the book
of Deuteronomy, the second giving of the law, and chapter 10, in
the first verse, we read, at that time the Lord said unto
me, this is Moses speaking, Hew thee two tables of stone like
unto the first, and come unto me into the mountain, make thee
an ark of wood, and I will write on the tables the words that
were in the first tables, which thou breakest, and thou shalt
put them in the ark. And we have there a beautiful
time of the completed law, the unbroken law, in our Lord and
Savior Jesus Christ. The ark was a rectangular box,
about four foot by two foot by two foot, and it was covered
with gold. It was made out of wood. The
lid of it was a mercy seat. It had two cherubims on it. They
also covered with gold. and the ark was to be carried
by two staves and on the shoulders of the Levites. Whenever they
moved, it was to be covered with the veil of the tabernacle so
that it was not seen, only the form of it under the veil, but
in that ark, in what it sets forth, the Lord Jesus Christ,
is the completed law of God. And it's vital for us to be able
to look past that type, that shadow, that illustration, see
on one side us breaking the law, see on the other side the Lord
Jesus Christ fulfilling the law in that time at Mount Sinai. So the law at Mount Sinai broken
and also set forth as fulfilled. So on to look then, thirdly,
at the law and Jesus Christ. When God sent forth his Son,
his promised Son, Emmanuel, God with us, he was to be made under
the law, He was to be born of a woman, fulfilling the word,
the promises, that the seed of the woman should bruise the serpent's
head. He was made under the law and
therefore, when he was to be named, he was brought into the
temple and what the law required of the sacrifices was performed
for him. And again, symbolically, showing
that he voluntarily had put himself under the law of God. And he was then in a position
to obey that law, obey his own law. Our Lord Jesus Christ is
the lawgiver, it is his law. He is the eternal God. He is
one with the Father and the Holy Spirit. Great is the mystery
of godliness, God manifest in the flesh. It is in the Lord
Jesus Christ coming under the law that he is then to be set
to do what we could never do. The first thing then he did was
to keep that law in all of his life, never Did he once transgress
in thought, in word, in deed, anything of that holy law of
God? He kept that law. He lived a
perfect life. He had a righteousness of his
own, not a righteousness that belonged to him as truly God. Yes, he had that, but now he
had a righteousness. that belonged to him as Jesus,
the God-man, and in a way that he could then impute, impart,
put to the account of another. And so, while he lived on this
earth, he kept the law of God. He fulfilled the law of God. In all that had been set forth,
in all that had been promised, the Lord fulfilled that which
was written in the Scriptures. Also, He satisfied the law of
God. The law of God says that without
the shedding of blood there is no remission. So the Lord Jesus
Christ, on behalf of His people, shed His blood. He, as the spotless
sacrifice, He laid down his life, a willing ransom. It was not
a death like us that must die. We must return to the dust because
we have sinned. The Lord said, no man taketh
my life from me. I have power to lay it down. I have power to take it again.
This commandment have I received of my father. He was under no
constrained to do so. It was a free will offering. It was his choice to do so. It was his ability to do so and
to take his life back again. That in scripture is recorded
as a deed done by the father who raiseth the dead, by the
son who said I have power to take it again, by the Holy Spirit
who quickeneth the dead, a work of a triune God. And so our Lord Jesus Christ
pays that debt, but he didn't have to pay the debt. There was
no requirement. His life was perfect. His life
was spotless. He was under the law. And the
law demanded that those that were sinners under the law be
punished. But our Lord was punished, but
He hadn't sinned. But what He was punished for
was in the place of those that had sinned. It was an offering. It was a substitutionary offering. It was doing for his people what
they could not do for themselves. And it's very important for us
to realize this. In all the ordinances of the
house of God, we have baptism, buried with him by baptism into
death, risen again in newness of life. It is setting forth
an identity with Christ. a soul that is realising that
Christ's death and his resurrection was for them. In the ordinance
of the Lord's Supper, this do ye in remembrance of me, ye do
show forth the Lord's death till he come. It is Christ that died,
yea rather, that is risen again, who sitteth on the right hand
of God. And so with the Lord Jesus Christ,
that law that in all the Old Testament looks so severe, so
impossible for us to observe, so easy to break, that law, our
Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ fulfilled in every jot and tittle,
every small part of it. He so transgresseth in one point,
is guilty of all, The Lord did not transgress in any point. And we might say, how do we know
that? How do we know that he was spotless? How do we know that that sacrifice
indeed satisfied the law on behalf of the people of God? It wasn't
to be satisfied on behalf of Jesus because he did not need
to die. He did not need to pay the price. but that we know it was satisfied
on behalf of the people of God is because of the empty tomb. God hath raised him from the
dead. He hath given assurance unto
all men in that he hath raised him from the dead. Satisfied. He did what he said he would
do. That he would die. That he would
rise again on the third day. He did. He did that. And so we
have that assurance that the law was fulfilled on behalf of
his people. And also that he fulfilled it,
because if he hadn't, if he had been a mere man, if he had been
under the curse as we are, then he would never have risen from
the dead. He could not have done so. And
so he did. You know, the two things are
bound up together. If the Lord Jesus, and we say
with reverence, if He had have broken the law, not only would
He not have risen from the dead, but He wouldn't have put away
anyone else's sins either. But because He was spotless and
didn't break the law, He did rise from the dead, So then there's
left an imbalance of justice because a punishment has been
meted out that should not have been if it was on the Lord. Pilate said, I find no cause
of death in him. And there wasn't. He was a spotless
son of God, the Lamb, the Lamb that had to be spotless in all
the types and shadows. And so in that rising from the
dead, there is salvation, there is the deliverance from the curse
of the law. The whole secret of the gospel
is at Calvary, is in the Lord Jesus Christ, is in His perfect
life of obedience and in His death. His shed blood puts away
our sin, it atones for sin, it redeems from sin and from the
curse of the law. His perfect life is a righteousness
that then is put to our account, is imputed to us, so that we
can stand before God as clothed in His righteousness, not our
own. So instead of being brought to
heaven, and we say, well, we are here because our sins have
been put away. And then we're asked, but what
about your life? What's that? And you hang your
head in shame, and you think of all the sinful deeds and all
the things you've done. But instead, we point to the
Lord Jesus Christ and say, he is our life. The Apostle Paul says, when Christ,
who is our life, shall appear, and it is then His righteousness,
what He has done. You know, if we were to be trying
to curry favour with someone and we were telling them of all
wonderful things that we had done, but we hadn't done them,
then we'd be found out a liar and an imposter But if we had
authority to say that we have not done these things, but this
other person has done them on our behalf, then that would make
all the difference, wouldn't it? So when we get to heaven,
we're not saying, this is all what we have done. Look how good
what we have done. we are lifting up the Lord, what
he has done, his goodness, his works. So the law and Jesus Christ
upon the earth is all about him fulfilling the law, about him
paying the debt that he did not need to pay but is paid for us. So what about the law then lastly
that is in these Gospel days. How is it to be used in these
days? Well firstly in Romans chapter
3, then we have told this, the reason the law being given. As by one man's disobedience,
is verse 19, many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall
many be made righteous. Moreover, the law entered that
the offence might abound, but where sin abounded, grace did
much more abound. That as sin hath reigned unto
death, Even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal
life by Jesus Christ. The law entered and it was that
all the world might become guilty before God. By the law is the
knowledge of sin. It is the law of God that tells
us our malady, that tells us and explains why, why there is
death, why there is suffering, why there is alienation from
God. It is vital we know the malady,
what is wrong, before we can know what is right, or what the
remedy is. And we know this in our lives
all the time. You know, when you go to a doctor
with symptoms, He needs to get from those symptoms, he wants
to find out what is wrong, what is causing those symptoms. And so there are things used
like an x-ray machine or an MRI, echocardiogram, all sorts of
things. And their sole purpose is to
try to find out what is wrong. What is causing these symptoms? Put that in the way of the law.
What is causing illnesses? What is causing death? What is
causing men to hate God, to turn away from Him, to worship all
things like idols of stone? What's the cause of this? And
so we're brought to the law of God. Here is the cause of it. And we're brought to view it
that we cannot fulfil it at all. Now, Paul, who wrote to the Galatians,
we read of his own experience of this, what he says in Romans
7. He says, I was alive without
the law once, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died. He was a Pharisee. He is a religious
man, very religious man. He thought that he was obeying
the law of God. He thought he would get to heaven
by his own deeds, his own efforts. But God showed him by one commandment,
and that was thou shalt not covet. He showed him that he had broken
that commandment, that he broke it in his lusts, his evil concupiscence,
and when he was convinced of that, he died. All of his hopes of heaven, all
of his hopes of his own goodness and righteousness vanished, and
he was brought in guilty before God as a convinced sinner. That happened in Paul's case.
And this is what the apostle says then, is the role of the
law. In our text we read this, that
the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ. The law was our schoolmaster
to bring us unto Christ. It is teaching us something.
It is preparing us for something. It is not the way of salvation,
but it is a vital step towards it. It is shutting up one way
that is not really a way at all. Those of you may remember the
account in the book of Ruth, when Ruth asked Boaz to redeem
her. And Naomi had said that he was
a near kinsman. And so she asked him to do that
part of a near kinsman and marry her. But when she said this to
him, he said there was something he needed to do first. And the
first thing he had to do was to make sure that the person
that was a nearer kinsman that he didn't want to redeem her. There was another person that
could have married her that had the first option, if you like,
and that had to be dealt with first. So Boaz took care of that,
and he asked that one, would he, would he take the part of
a near kinsman? And at first he said he would,
when it only related to land. But when it meant marrying Ruth,
then he said he couldn't do it, because it would ruin his own
inheritance. So then, that made room for Boaz
to marry her. Now, that nearer kinsman is like
ourselves. It is like us fulfilling the
law. We've got to be very clear If
we are to pay the penalty that is owed because of our sin, we
will die, but we won't rise again. We won't live eternally. We will
mar our own inheritance. No man can redeem his own soul. And so in the same way that in
the book of Ruth, that Nero Kinsman had to be silenced, had to be
stopped, had to own and admit, I can't redeem. A soul under
the gospel must say, with the hemorrhoid, if ever my poor soul
be saved, tis Christ must be the way. I cannot obey the law. I cannot fulfill the law. In
my thoughts, my feelings, in my life, my deeds, everything
I do, I break the law of God, and Paul said that, the good
I would I do not, the evil that I would not that I do, a wretched
man that I am, who shall deliver me from this body of death? You
can read it in Romans 7. So Paul says that the law then
is a schoolmaster, it is teaching us where we must not look for
life, where we cannot look for life, it's teaching us how helpless
we are, how we need help outside of ourselves. We need someone
to save us by their deeds, by their works, and putting that
on our account. They need to redeem us, set us
free by the payment, by a price of that condemnation that we
are under. And so we have it beautifully
set forth in verse 13, of Galatians 3. We read it in our reading. Christ hath redeemed us from
the curse of the law, being made a curse for us. For it is written,
Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree. Now what does our text say? The
schoolmaster brings us unto Christ, that we might be justified by
faith, that is accounted free from guilt and condemnation by
faith. And what is that faith? That
faith believes the message of the gospel. It believes what
the Lord Jesus Christ has done for us. It embraces it. It sees it as the only hope of
that soul. And it sees in what was done
at Mount Sinai, the promises back in the Garden of Eden, and
what the Lord Jesus Christ has done, it sees this beautiful
plan, a plan of God, a plan of redemption, a plan of saving. And this in the Gospel is lifted
up, the Lord Jesus Christ is lifted up, as I do this morning
before you, that you may view him, the Lord says, I, if I be
lifted up above the earth, will draw all men unto me. And may
you, may I be drawn to the Lord Jesus Christ, to trust in him,
to trust in his message that whosoever believeth in him should
not perish, but should have eternal life. As Moses lifted up The
serpent in the wilderness, even so must the sudden man be lifted
up, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but
should have eternal life. This is the end of the law. Christ is the end of the law
to them that believeth. This is the rest of the gospel. This is what we rest our hope
for heaven upon. is what Christ has done, not
what we have done. Now our text goes on, but after
that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster. The law has done its work. Does that mean then that we live
carelessly, live how we like? Disobey God, break His commandments,
thinking, well, it doesn't matter now because Christ has fulfilled
it. No. Where there is true faith,
it will never make us act like that. In Proverbs, we read of those
that would turn away their ears from hearing the Lord. There's
a curse upon them. Would we willingly, would we
in a provocating way, break that law that our Lord Jesus Christ
fulfilled and suffered, bled and died to release us from? Paul said, O wretched man that
I am. Those that believe in Christ,
they mourn over their sins. They feel their sins, they acknowledge
their sins. But they're thankful for that
word in 1 John chapter 1. If we confess our sins, he is
faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us
from all unrighteousness. What a difference it is to be
a child of God, to believe in Christ, what Christ has done,
What a different relationship to the law does a child have. We might have someone come to
our house and we give them lodging in a room and we write out some
laws and say that on condition of obeying those laws they can
stay in our house. And if they break those laws
then we show them the door and say, out you go, you can't stay
here anymore. But the children in your house,
they look at those laws that the lodger has to obey, and there's
times they break them. But does the parent say to the
child, you've broken that law, out the house you go? No, they chasten the child, they
correct the child, but they don't throw them out. In one sense,
You might say they're under the law, but they're not under the
law. Because they love their parents, because they are children,
they do what pleases their parents. But there'll be many times they
break what law the lodger is supposed to be keeping, but it
doesn't mean that they're cast out. And that is what it is to
be under Christ. to be believing in Him and have
faith in Christ. We are trusting in Him. We are
under that covenant of grace. We're not under the law. We are
not thrown out because we have broken the law and continue to
break the law. Because our hope for heaven is
not resting upon that. It's resting upon Christ's finished
work. And so that is why the scriptures
teach this, that the rule of life for a believer is the gospel,
not the law. It contains everything in the
Word of God. We live by the Word of God, but
we're not under the law as a condemning law. We're not under its terms
for our hope for heaven. We're under the promises of God. which all of them are yea and
amen in the Lord Jesus Christ. And so, but after faith is come,
we are no longer under a schoolmaster. The relationship with that law
is changed completely. We do not need that anymore.
You think of someone that's been through all sorts of tests to
find out what is wrong. All sorts of medical investigations. And then they're brought to know
what is wrong. And they're brought to a wonderful
surgeon. And he operates. He deals with
them. He makes them whole. And someone
says, well, you'd better go back and start having all these investigations
again. You say, I've gone through that
way. I now know the remedy. I don't need to be under all
these investigations again. And with the Lord Jesus Christ,
he is the end of the law to those that are living by faith. That
is the whole object, the whole way, the whole purpose of the
word of God, the giving of the law, the preaching of the gospel,
is to bring poor sinners to Christ and to trust in Him and for the
Lord to bring them then safely to heaven. If you and I are brought
under the law, we'll know it, we'll feel it, a burden, a heavy
load that we cannot possibly bear. If we are brought then
by faith to view what Christ has done for us, that load will
be taken off. The difference will be felt,
will be known. The joy will be realized. The
blessing will be ours. The hope of heaven is ours. This is a Christian experience,
to be brought from the Lord to Christ, from condemnation to
therefore there is now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus. The Lord bless us then, with
being believers, being brought to believe and trust in our Lord
and Saviour, Jesus Christ, and seeing him our only hope for
heaven. Amen. Hymn, 746. Tune, Zundel 664. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ,
the love of God the Father, and the communion of the Holy Spirit
be with you all now and evermore. Amen.