Good evening. Let's open tonight's
service with hymn number 24 from your Spiral Gospel Hymns hymn
book, number 24, Jehovah Sidkenu, the Lord our righteousness. ? Jehovah's sin can do ? ? The
Lord our righteousness ? ? We love to call you by that name
? ? Our Savior Christ Jesus ? ? Jehovah's sin can do ? bringing eternal righteousness
which God imputes to us. Jehovah's sin came to our sons
due to time. Your blood has put away our sin
and we are justified. Jehovah Sidkenu, your love has
won our praise. Trusting your blood and righteousness,
we're saved by your free grace. Jehovah Sidkenu, we stand in
you alone. ? Defend us before God, please
? ? Have hope of sin, can you ? ? Christ Jesus, you alone we call
? ? The Lord, our righteousness ? Jeremiah chapter 23, you don't
have to turn now, I just want to read this one verse in light
of that hymn we just sang. In his days, Judah shall be saved
and Israel shall dwell safely. And this is his name, whereby
he shall be called the Lord, our righteousness. And then in
Jeremiah chapter 33, And this is the name whereby she shall
be called the Lord our righteousness. Our union with Christ is the
hope of our salvation. He makes his righteousness to
be our righteousness. Stand accepted before God in
the beloved. What a blessing. Good evening. Let's open our Bibles together
to Psalm 86 for our scripture reading tonight. Psalm 86. A prayer of David. Bow down thine ear, O Lord. Hear me, for I am poor and needy. Preserve my soul, for I am holy. O thou my God, save thy servant
that trusteth in thee. Be merciful unto me, O Lord,
for I cry unto thee daily. Rejoice the soul of thy servant,
for unto thee, O Lord, do I lift up my soul. For thou, Lord, are
good and ready to forgive and plenteous in mercy unto all them
that call upon thee. Give ear, O Lord, unto my prayer,
and attend to the voice of my supplication. In the day of my
trouble I will call upon thee, for thou wilt answer me. Among
the gods there is none like unto thee, O Lord, neither are there
any works like unto thy works. All nations whom thou hast made
shall come and worship before thee, O Lord, and shall glorify
thy name, for thou art great, and do us wondrous things. Thou
art God alone. Teach me thy way, O Lord. I will
walk in thy truth. Unite my heart to fear thy name.
I will praise thee, O Lord, my God, with all my heart, and I
will glorify thy name forevermore. For great is thy mercy toward
me, and thou hast delivered my soul from the lowest hell. O
God, The proud are risen up against me, and the assemblies of violent
men have sought after my soul and have not set thee before
them. But thou, O Lord, are a God full of compassion and gracious,
long-suffering and plenteous in mercy and truth. O, turn unto
me and have mercy upon me. Give thy strength unto thy servant
and save the son of thy handmaid. Show me a token for good. that
they which hate me may see it and be ashamed because thou,
Lord, hast opened me and comforted me." These are every believer's words
of prayer as we approach the Lord. And this is also Christ
praying to his father. And in that last verse, I want
to bring this out, verse 17, show me a token for good. The
token for good that the father gave to his son was the resurrection. That was the token for good that
they which hate me might be ashamed because thou, O Lord, has helped
me and comforted me. We are by nature God haters. And yet when the Lord shows us
the token for good that the Father has given to him, we're shamed
of our hatred of him and we fall in worship of him. Let's pray
together. Our Heavenly Father. We find our comfort and hope
and assurance of our salvation in the perfect prayer and perfect
righteousness and perfect sacrifice that our perfect Savior made.
Lord, we know that being found in him, we have the
hope that your love for us is no different than your love for
him. Lord, we pray tonight that your
Holy Spirit would comfort our hearts and that we might be found
in him, not having our own righteousness, which is of the law, but that
righteousness which is by the faith of Jesus Christ. For it's in his name we pray,
amen. Let's stand together again. We'll
sing hymn number 374 from your hardback hymnal, 374. Jesus calls us o'er the tumult
of our lives while restless sleep. Day by day his sweet voice sounded,
saying, Christian, follow me. Jesus calls us from the worship
of the main world's golden store. From each idol that would keep
us, Saint Christian, the keeper. In our joys and in our sorrows,
Days of toil and hours of ease, Still he calls in fears and pleasures,
Just to love me more than these. ? Jesus calls us by thy mercies
? Savior, may we hear thy call ? Give our hearts to thine obedience
? Sermon of the best of all Please be seated. Let's open our Bibles again to
first Peter chapter two. We've been in verse nine now
for a couple of Wednesday nights and I want us to look at what
the Lord says about his people being a holy nation, a holy nation. Surely the Lord is comforting
us in assuring us that all the promises that he made to Abraham,
to Isaac, to Jacob, through Moses, that those promises are all fulfilled
in Christ so that the church of the Lord Jesus Christ is the
true Jew. Jerusalem, we are Zion, we are
God's chosen people, and all these glorious promises, the
scripture says, are yea and amen in Christ. And so, what the Lord
says about His church, He's causing us to look back all the way to
Genesis chapter 12, when the Lord called Abraham and said
to him, I'm going to make you a great nation. And those who
bless thee, I will bless. And those who curse thee, I will
curse. And in thee shall all the families
of the earth be blessed. Now, there are those who believe
that that blessing still relates to to national Israel, but we
know it doesn't. We know from Galatians chapter
three, turn with me there if you will. Look at Galatians chapter three
at verse 16. Now to Abraham, and his seed
were the promises made. He saith not unto seeds as many,
but as of one, and to thy seed, which is Christ. So when the
Lord says that you are a chosen generation, he's talking about
how God chose Abraham and how the fulfillment of that election
is completed in Christ and all those that are found in him by
divine election. When he calls us a royal priesthood,
he's taking us back to that to that covenant priesthood of Aaron
who made sacrifices and that being fulfilled in Christ. And
now when he says you are a holy nation, it's the Lord is looking
back to the promise that he made to Abraham and to his seed. And the Lord is very clear that
the seed of Abraham is not plural, it is singular. that the Lord
Jesus Christ is the one who brings all the promises of God to fulfillment
for his church. And so this is, turn with me
to Deuteronomy chapter 32, Deuteronomy 32. We'll begin reading at verse
8. When the Most High divided to the nations their inheritance,
when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the
people according to the number of the children of Israel. For
the Lord's portion is his people. Jacob is the lot of his inheritance. Isaiah tells us that the nations
are a drop in the bucket to God. They're like a speck of dust
on the scale. They're insignificant. There's
only one nation that the Lord has called His inheritance. There's only one nation that
He does all the dividing of other nations for. And that nation
is Israel. That nation is Jacob. And it's
not, you know, I'm thankful that we have an ally in the Middle
East amongst all the turmoil that goes on in that part of
the world. And I think, you know, it would be good for us to maintain
a good relationship with Israel. But to think, most Americans,
most religious Americans think that somehow by treating Israel
well, they're going to obligate God to bless them, to bless us
as a nation. That's not, this promise is made
to Abraham and to his seed, and that seed is Christ. That's it. And here the Lord tells us that
this is the nation that is his inheritance. Look at verse 10
in that text we were just reading, Deuteronomy 32. He found him
in a desert land and in the waste howling wilderness. He led him
about, he instructed him, he kept him as the apple of his
eye. Oh, believer. Those that are looking in faith
to Christ and resting the hope of their salvation in Christ,
God says that we are his inheritance, that we are the apple of his
eye. that we are his holy nation. Out of all the nations, that
word holy means, of course, to be set apart, and that's what
the Lord has done. He has set apart his people and
his church from all the other nations of the world. And whatever
dividing he does among the other nations, it is always for the
benefit of his people. They're the ones he's doing everything
for. Turn with me to Hebrews chapter
eight. Hebrews chapter eight. You know, this is what our Lord
is telling us here in our text. You are a chosen generation.
You are a holy priesthood. a royal priesthood, you are a
holy nation, you are a peculiar people. And we're reminded that
what God says about his people is what they are. And so, here's
our hope. Hebrews chapter 8, let's begin
reading at verse 6. But now, hath he obtained a more excellent
ministry by how much also he is the mediator of a better covenant
which was established upon better promises. Now we know that the
law is for the lawless and that the vast majority of the Israelites
in the Old Testament throughout their entire history were unbelievers. And so they were under a covenant
of works Israel was kept under the law until the time of reformation,
the scripture says, until the time that Christ came. And then
he established a new covenant based on better promises. What are those better promises?
Well, it's the fulfillment of all that God required Israel
to do that they never did was fulfilled in what Christ did.
And so here's the new covenant, here's the church, here's the
holy nation. For if that first covenant had
been faultless, he's talking about the covenant of works that
God made with Israel. Do this and you shall live. Do this and you shall be blessed. If you obey me, I will bless
you. And the blessings and the curses that Israel as a nation
experienced in the old covenant was largely determined by their
obedience to the law. And now what the Lord's saying
is, there's a better covenant based on better promises. For
if the first covenant had been faultless, which it wasn't, there
was nothing wrong with the law. The problem was their ability
to keep the law. There's nothing wrong with the
law between, for us, we love God's law. We just can't keep
it. And if the hope of our salvation
is determined by us keeping God's law, then we'll be judged by
God's law and we'll be condemned by God's law. God's law requires
absolute perfection. You know that. And the Lord Jesus
Christ came in order to fulfill the demands of God's law. For if the first covenant, verse
7, had been faultless, then should no place have been sought for
the second. For finding fault with them,
he saith, Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make
a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house
of Judah. So here's the Here's the fulfillment
of all those Old Testament promises that God made from Abraham forward. I have made for myself a holy
nation, not according to the covenant that I made with their
fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them
out of the land of Egypt, because they continued not in my covenant. I regarded them not, saith the
Lord. They didn't obey my law. For this is the covenant that
I will make with the house of Israel. After those days saith
the Lord, I will put my laws in their mind and write them
in their hearts. And I will be to them a God and
they shall be to me a people. I will be their God and they
shall be my people. I'm going to fulfill both sides
of the covenant. I'm going to satisfy the requirements
of God's justice and God's righteousness and then I'm going to make them
willing to look to me for the hope of their salvation. So I
will be their God and they shall be my people. I'm going to make it so. And they shall not teach every
man his neighbor and every man his brother saying, know the
Lord for all shall know me from the least of them, even to the
greatest. In the old covenant, how many times you read the prophets
and the fathers, the fathers of Israel, commanding the people,
Moses, commanding the people, Aaron, commanding the people,
obey the Lord, obey the Lord. And now what does he say? They
shall all obey me from the least of them even unto the greatest.
What does that mean? What does that mean? Does that
mean that we're somehow keeping God's law? Let's read on. For I will be
merciful to their unrighteousness and their sins and their iniquities
will I remember no more. In that he sayeth a new covenant,
he hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth
old is ready to vanish away. He's talking about that old covenant
of works. And so I'm gonna establish a
covenant of grace. A covenant whereby all the obligations
of ordering that covenant and making it sure I'm going to bear
myself, I'm going to carry it and they're going to be made
holy. They're going to be a holy nation, a set-apart nation. This word holy is certainly a
reference to being set apart. The temple was called holy and
that it was set apart. It was a sanctuary. The instruments that were used, the
vessels in the temple were called holy. They were anointed and
set apart for holy purposes. But there's so much more to this
word holiness than that. When the seraphim hovered over
the throne of God in Isaiah chapter 6 and they cried, holy, holy,
holy is the Lord God of hosts. Holy Father, the Holy One of
Israel, the Holy Spirit, our triune God is holy. He's holy. He's other than we
are. He's separate from sinners. And that's what he requires.
His eyes, Habakkuk tells us, are too pure to look upon anything
that's not holy. The word is iniquity, too pure
to look upon iniquity. Iniquity is all that that falls
short of his glory and his holiness. So God can only fellowship with
that which is as holy as he is, as perfect and sinless as he
is. The scriptures are called holy.
Holy men of God wrote as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.
And scriptures are not by private interpretation. They are all
profitable for doctrine and for reproof and for correction and
instruction in righteousness that the man of God may be thoroughly
furnished unto all good works. God's Word is holy. It's perfect.
It's without error. and God's church and God's people
are called a holy nation. Now the scripture says without
holiness, no man can see God. So we cannot come into the presence
of God unless we are as holy as he is. Be holy, for I am holy. How can that be? How can that
be? It's what the Lord demands. That's what he requires. And
that is what the Lord Jesus Christ provided. He made this new Israel, this
new covenant of a nation that is holy. A nation that is made
up of believers, a nation of those who are found in Christ,
not having their own righteousness, which is of the law. Our holiness
is not determined by our law keeping, but that righteousness
which is by the faith of Jesus Christ. Here is where, this is
why he calls us a holy nation. How can those Jeremiah says in
Jeremiah chapter 17 verse 9, the heart is deceitful above
all, desperately wicked. Who can know it? What does the
world say? What do we hear men in the world
say? Follow your heart. Follow your heart. Trust your
heart. So-and-so's got a good heart.
That's not what God says. Not what God said. As a matter
of fact, in Proverbs 28 verse 26, it says, He that trusteth
in his heart, in his own heart, is a fool. Our hearts are deceitful. And the more we grow in grace
and in the knowledge of Christ, the more painfully aware we become
of how deceitful we can be. How much pride and self-righteousness
there is in our hearts. This is what we are. Let the
world talk about following their hearts. They can be foolish. God says, don't follow your heart.
Don't follow your heart. Your heart will deceive you.
Follow Christ. He's the only one that has a
pure heart. He's the only one. Every time we follow our hearts. We end up away from God. We have proven our hearts. You
have, child of God, haven't you? You've proven your heart to be
bad, unreliable source to follow. You can't follow your heart. Genesis chapter 6 verse 5 says
that when God looked down from heaven, he saw that the wickedness
of man was great in the earth. And that every, every imagination
of the heart, of the thoughts of the heart was only evil and
that continually. Now who wants to follow that
kind of heart? This is what God says about our hearts, that every
thought that we have, every imagination we have is fraught with evil
and sin and self-righteousness and pride and lust and self-promotion. You know, that's
our heart. Oh, don't follow your heart.
Don't follow your heart. Follow Christ. Out of the heart precedes evil
thoughts, murders, adultery, fornication, thefts, false witness,
blasphemies. Out of the heart. So if this
is the condition of our heart, how is it that God can call us
holy, sinless? Isaiah chapter 1 verse 6 says,
the whole head is sick. The whole head is sick. In other
words, every thought that we have is because we had it. We can't separate our sin from
our thoughts. The whole head is sick. And the
whole heart is faint from the sole of the foot even to the
head. There is no soundness in it but wounds and bruises and
putrefying sores. This is what God says about you
and me. And we've had a little taste
of it. You can't see this old man until
God gives you a new man. Only when you find yourselves
in the presence of God will you cry out with Peter, depart from
me Lord for I am a sinful man. Only then will we cry with Isaiah,
woe is me. I saw the Lord high and lifted
up and what do you say, woe is me, I'm undone. I'm a man of
unclean lips, I live among a people of unclean lips, my eyes have
seen the King. And as glorious as he is and
as sinful as I am, surely he has no choice but to slay me. Isaiah chapter 64, verse 6, we
are all as an unclean thing. All our righteousnesses are as
filthy rags. Our iniquity, we do all fade
like a leaf. and our iniquity like the wind
has taken us away. All we like sheep have gone astray,
each into his own way. If this is an accurate description
of what we are, then how is it that God can call us a holy nation? A holy nation. Turn with me to
Job chapter 15, Job 15. Look with me in verse 14. What
is man that he should be clean? And he which is born of a woman
that he should be righteous? Behold, He, speaking of God,
putteth no trust in his saints. Yea, the heavens are not clean
in his sight. How much more abominable and
filthy is man, which drinketh iniquity like water? In another place, God says, man
at his very best state. The very best thing that you
and I have ever done is altogether vanity. It's empty. If God judged you and me based
on the best, the best prayer we ever prayed, the best thing
we ever did. If you just picked out one moment
in your life and said, God, judge me on that, you go to hell for
it. That's the truth. That's how
sinful we are. God says when he looks down our
throat, Romans chapter 3, it's an open sepulcher looking into
the dark recesses of our heart. And yet how we want to try to
find something good in us. Oh may the Lord convince us once
and for all that in me that is in my flesh dwelleth no good
thing, no good thing. Romans chapter three, verse 10,
there is none righteous. No, not one. There is none that
understand that they are all gone out of the way. There is
none that do it good. No, not one. So how is it that we can be holy? If there's nothing holy in us, You know, we try to find something good in
yourself and you're either going to deceive yourself or you're
going to get horribly, horribly depressed, horribly discouraged,
horribly defeated. If you go down in a well and
the deeper you go, the darker it gets. You know, the only hope
is to look up. Look up. Because only by virtue of our
union with Christ, only by the imputation of his righteousness,
can we be called a holy nation. And yet what great hope we have.
Hebrews chapter 2 verse 11, he that sanctifyeth. You know that
word sanctify means to be made holy. You know the most often
word used in the Bible to describe believers is holy? Saints. Over 60 times the scriptures
refer to the believer as saints. Only twice do they refer to us
as Christians. Saints. And here in Hebrews 2,
verse 11, he that sanctifyeth, he that has set you apart and
made you holy, and they which are sanctified are all as one,
whereby he is not ashamed to call them his brethren. We are
accepted before God in the beloved and in Christ as he is, so are
we. in this world. Holy nation, our
holiness has absolutely nothing to do with anything that we have
ever done or could do. To the contrary, everything that
we have ever done or could do is unholy, sinful. Of him, 1 Corinthians chapter
1 verse 30, of him, speaking of God the Father, are you in
Christ? When did God put his people in
Christ? In the covenant of grace before
time ever began. God chose a people and put them
in Christ. And so he's loved them with an
everlasting love. And before God Almighty, God's
sinful, People have always been holy in Christ. In Christ. And of him, of the father, are
you in Christ who is made unto us. He is made unto us all our
wisdom. All our righteousness. All our
sanctification, that word is holy. All our holiness, Christ
is made to be our holiness before God. And all our redemption,
that according as it is written, he that glorieth, let him glory
in the Lord. Oh, we're so, We're so proud and
we're so prone to glory before men in something. You know, we highly esteem and
value the opinions of men. Yet, when we find ourselves by
God's grace in his presence, we have nothing to glory in,
absolutely nothing. Let him that glorieth glory in
the Lord. Turn with me to Ephesians chapter
five. I think we looked at this past Sunday, but I want us to
look at it again. Ephesians chapter five. I try to read this passage every
time I perform a wedding. And certainly it does. enumerate
the responsibilities that husbands and wives have. But this is a
passage concerning Christ and his church. We know that the
end of this, the end of this chapter says, but I speak a great
mystery, a great mystery, a mystery that cannot be understood by
the natural man concerning Christ and his church. So the husband
is Christ and the bride is the church. And here's what God says
in verse 25, husbands love your wives even as Christ also loved
the church and gave himself for it that he might make it holy,
sanctify it, washed in the blood of Christ, made holy before God,
a holy nation, a holy nation, a sinful people made holy by
the sanctifying work of the shed blood of the Lord Jesus Christ,
that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water
by the word, that he might present it to himself, a glorious church,
not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that it should
be holy and without blemish. God says we're a holy nation.
We're a holy nation without blemish. We're just as spotless as that
lamb is spotless. Just as without sin before God
as that lamb was without sin before God. That's what our Lord
said. You are a holy nation. That holiness has absolutely
nothing to do with anything you've done. He did it all. Look at verse 28, sought men
to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his
wife loveth himself for no man ever hated his own flesh, but
nourishes and cherishes it even as the Lord the church for we
are members of his body and of his flesh and of his bones. So when the Lord loved his body,
his bride, he's loving himself. He only has one way of loving
and it's perfect love. First John chapter 3 verse 9,
he that is born of God doth not commit sin. Now, I know there are those who
would take this passage of scripture and say, well, you know, the
general direction of your life is not a pattern of sin. That's
not what it says. Listen, he that is born of God
doth not commit sin for his seed remaineth in him and he cannot
sin because he is born of God. What's the Lord talking? He's
talking about this new man. sinful nature that we have in
Christ. When we look at our lives, all
we see is the old man. You can't see the new man unless you look to Christ. You
look at yourself, you'll never be able to see Christ, not in
yourself. You start looking at your own
life and your own motives and your own thoughts and all you're
gonna see, if you're an honest person, all you're gonna see
is your sin. The only way to believe this
is to set your affections on things above where Christ is
seated at the right hand of God. And believe God. By God's grace,
we just believe God. Lord, I can't see it, I don't
understand it. But you have made me to believe
it. And that's my hope. That's my
hope. Colossians chapter one, turn
to me there. We dealt with this some time ago. Colossians chapter
one, look at verse 20. Verse 19, for it pleased the
father that in him should all fullness dwell. all the fullness
of the Godhead bodily was in Christ and all the fullness of
the law was in Christ and all the satisfaction of justice was
in Christ and all the promises that God made to Abraham and
to his seed is in Christ and so it pleased God that in him
should all fullness dwell and having made peace through the
blood of His cross by Him to reconcile all things unto Himself. By Him, I say, whether it be
things on earth or things in heaven, and you that were sometime
alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now
hath he reconciled in the body of his flesh through death to
present you holy and unblameable and unreprovable, and don't miss
that last phrase, in his sight. In his sight. This is how God sees us in Christ. Second Thessalonians chapter
2. Can't wait to get to this passage
of scripture as we go through the letters to Thessalonica. But 2nd Thessalonians chapter
2, look at verse 13. But we are bound to give thanks
always to God for you. God did this. God made you a
holy nation. Brethren, beloved of the Lord,
he did it because he loved you. Because God hath from the beginning
chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the spirit
and belief in the truth. He has sanctified us. He has
made us holy. He has placed us in Christ. And
as sinful as we are, left to ourselves, and as sinful as our
old man remains to be, God says, you are a holy nation. You've
been sanctified. And what's the evidence that
we've been sanctified? We believe the truth. We believe the truth. We can't
not believe. That's the evidence. The evidence
is that, Lord, I can't see these things in myself and I don't
understand how they could be, but you have convinced me. You have made me. to believe
you. And the hope that I have is that
I believe everything that you have said about yourself. I believe that you are sovereign.
I believe that you are immutable. I believe that you are holy.
I believe that you are omnipotent. I believe that you do what you
do and because you do it is right. No man can stay your hand. Lord,
I believe that you are the glorious self-existent I am. The creator and sustainer of
all of life. You have made me to believe that
you are God. And you have also made me to
believe that I'm sinful. Sinful. That everything about
me is sinful. That, you know, let's go back
to, I want to close by looking at this passage one more time
in Hebrews chapter 8, Hebrews chapter 8, verse 10. For this is the covenant,
this is a quote from Jeremiah chapter 31. For this is the covenant
that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith
the Lord. I will put my laws into their
minds and write them in their hearts." Now, what law is that? Is God, when he saves us, he teaches us the Ten Commandments?
No. No, those laws are put. Romans chapter 2 verse 15 says
that the moral law is written from birth on all men's hearts. Men know right from wrong. They
know right from wrong. You don't have to tell a person
that murder's wrong or that stealing's wrong or lying's wrong or adultery's
wrong. You don't have to. Men know that. So when God says, I'm gonna write
my laws upon their heart, well, the scripture speaks of the law
of righteousness. The law of righteousness, in Romans chapter nine, verse
31, Israel, which followed after the law of righteousness, hath
not attained to the law of righteousness. Why? Because they were ignorant
of the righteousness of God, which is in Christ. And they
went about trying to establish their own righteousness. So when
God writes the law of righteousness on the heart of a believer, what
do we know now that we didn't know before? That all of my righteousness
before God is in Christ. I have no righteousness outside
of him. He is Jehovah said, Kenya, the Lord, my righteousness. And
the only hope that I have, all of my righteousness is all of
my righteousness are as filthy rags before God. But the law
of righteousness has been written on my heart. Israel didn't attain it because
they did not seek it by faith. They sought it by works. They
tried to earn the righteousness of God. The law of righteousness is written
on our hearts and we know that we can't perform a righteous
deed. If I'm going to stand righteous before God, I must be found in
Him. Christ must be my righteousness
before God. James speaks of the law of liberty.
The law of liberty. How do I know that this law has
been written on my heart? Because when I hear a message
of salvation that puts me under the law, and that requires me
to do something in order for me to earn God's favor, it takes
away my liberty. It takes away my freedom. I can't
sit under that. God's made me free. And a free
man won't be put back in bondage. And so this is the law of liberty
that's written on our hearts. I have a freedom from the slavery
of sin and the yoke of the law. Galatians chapter 6 verse 2,
the scripture says, bear ye one another's burdens and so fulfill
ye the law of Christ. And the verse before that says,
if a man be overtaken in a fault, you which are spiritual restore
such a one in a spirit of meekness considering yourself lest you
be also tempted. So the law of Christ is that we don't hold others to a higher standard than we
hold ourselves. We don't require When we speak a word of encouragement
to the brethren, we consider our own selves. We know that whatever another
person can do, I'm capable of doing. We know that. Lord, if you don't restrain me
and keep me, you with your spirit shall restore such a one in the
spirit of meekness, considering yourself, considering yourself, Romans chapter 7 verse 25 speaks
of the law of sin. The law of sin. That's the law
that's written on it. You see, these are the laws that
God writes on our heart, not the moral code, not the Ten Commandments. Those are on all men's hearts.
But when God writes the law of sin on your heart, what does
that law say to you? What's it say to you? It says
that you're a sinner. It says that you have no holiness
outside of Christ. You have no righteousness outside
of Christ. You have no hope of salvation
outside of Christ. You have no acceptance before God outside
of Christ. The only hope you have to be loved of God is to
be found in Him. You're a sinner. The law of sin's
been written on your heart and you know that you believe. Oh, we're not consciously aware
of our sin as we ought to be, but we know. That when God looks down our
throats, he sees an open sepulcher. We know that every imagination
of the thought of the heart is only evil on that continually. Scripture speaks of the law of
faith. The law of faith, faith is trusting Christ. Faith is an empty hand, an empty
hand. It reaches out with nothing to
give only to receive, only to receive. I've got nothing to
give God. I'm a receiver, I'm a taker. God must provide to
me. That's faith. It's an empty hand. And then Malachi speaks of the
law of truth, the law of truth. And this is what we just read
in second Thessalonians. that we've been sanctified by
the Spirit unto the truth. The truth of who God is, the
truth of who we are, and the truth of how it is that God is
able to call someone like me and someone like you holy. Holy. How can we be holy? What can
wash away my sins? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
What can make me whole again? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
All precious is that flow that makes me white as snow. White
as snow. Number 212. Let's stand together. Tom you come please. 2.12 What can wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. What can make me whole again? O precious is the flow that makes
me kind as of no other fount I know, nothing but the For my heart, of this I see,
Nothing but the blood of Jesus. For my cleansing, this my plea,
Nothing but the blood of Jesus. ? How precious is the flow ? That
makes me white as snow ? No other doubt I know ? Nothing but the
blood of Jesus ? Nothing can pour sin a toll ? Nothing but
the blood of Jesus Not a good that I have done, Nothing but
the blood of Jesus. How precious is the flow, That makes me white
as snow. No other doubt I know, Nothing but the blood of Jesus. This is all my hope and peace,
nothing but the blood This is all my righteousness,
nothing but the blood of Jesus. Oh, precious is the flow that
makes me white as snow. Jesus.