Let's open up this morning's
service to the hymn on number 485, 485, Revive Us Again. If
you could all please stand. We praise Thee, O God, for the
Son of Thy love, for Jesus who died and is now gone above. Hallelujah, thine the glory. Hallelujah, amen. Hallelujah, thine the glory. Revive us again. We praise Thee, O God, for Thy
Spirit of life, who has shown us our Savior and scattered our
night. Alleluia, thine the glory! Alleluia, Amen! Alleluia, thine the glory! Revive us again! All glory and praise to the Lamb
that was slain, who has borne all our sins and has cleansed
every stain. Alleluia, thine the glory. Alleluia, amen. Alleluia, thine the glory. Revive us again. Revive us again. Fill each heart with Thy love. May each soul be rekindled with
fire from above. Hallelujah, thine the glory. Hallelujah, amen. Hallelujah, thine the glory. Revive us again. Be seated, please. That's what I need. I'm so thankful
that the Lord has given us a place to come where we can sing those
kind of hymns from our hearts and call upon Him to turn us
again, turn us again, revive us, Lord, that Christ will be
made known to our hearts, will be revived if He's pleased to
do that. I can remember back in religion
scheduling revival meetings so presumptuous, and yet we're here
this morning to beg his mercy to that end. So let's pray together. Our Heavenly Father, we're so
thankful that we have a throne of grace that we can approach. We thank you that we have one
who has satisfied all the demands of the holy law and who intercedes
on our behalf. We pray, Lord, that you would
cause him to be known in the hearts of your people or that
you would bless your word to reveal to us the face of the
Lord Jesus Christ. We confess to you, Lord, that
so oftentimes we seek you for those benefits that might come
from thy hand. But Lord, truly, revival is to
see your face and to be made like you. And so we ask now,
Lord, that you would do that for your glory and for the good
and the salvation of thy people. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen. If you'd like to turn with me
in your Bibles to 2 Corinthians chapter 3, 2 Corinthians chapter
3, you are not under the law, but under grace. You're either under one or the
other. You can't be part under grace and part under the law.
If it is of grace, it can no longer be of works. Otherwise,
grace is not grace. It's all of grace or it's all
of works. I don't suppose there's a clearer
passage of Scripture than we have here in 2 Corinthians chapter
3 that declares that glorious truth with such clarity and with
such simplicity. And I'm so hopeful that the Lord
will make it clear to our hearts because we'll confuse it, we'll
mix it, and we'll not be able to see the glory of Christ for
the veil that'll be placed over us as the scripture speaks of
here. For by grace are you saved. If you, like me, are in need
of God's salvation, it will only happen by His free and sovereign
grace. For by grace are you saved, through
faith. And that, not of yourself. The
grace is not of you, and the faith is not of you, but is a
gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. The Lord
takes away all boasting from us and gives all glory to Christ."
And that's what he's dealing with here. as it's dealt with
so many times in the scriptures because the Lord knows that by
nature we're prone to look to the law. We're prone to look
to ourselves. We're prone to try to figure
out a way that we can make some contribution to our salvation.
And if the Lord doesn't intervene, We'll die in our sins and we'll
die believing that there's something that we had to do in order to
make what God did work for us. This passage of scripture is
so, so clear. We begin reading in verse 6 and
recap just for a moment what we dealt with last Sunday who
also hath made us able ministers of the New Testament." Now, the
New Testament is not new in the gospel. The Lord has never saved
anyone by the law. The Old Testament was types and
pictures of Christ, and now it's new in its accomplishment, it's
new in its fulfillment, and it's new and fresh in the revelation
that God has given us of His Son. Hebrews chapter 1, God who
at sundry times and in divers manners spake unto our fathers
by the prophets, half in these last days spoken unto us by His
Son, who is the express image of His person. And so the New
Testament is called new in that the Lord Jesus Christ has come
and fulfilled all the promises of the Old Testament. It's not
new in that there's a new covenant. There's always only ever been
two covenants. The covenant of works, which
is what Adam was put under, and he wasn't able to maintain obedience
to that covenant, and he died. And you and I, when Adam died,
we died in him. And then there's the covenant
of grace. It's an eternal covenant that God had established before
time ever began when he ordained the Lord Jesus Christ as the
Lamb that was slain before the foundation of the world. It's
an eternal covenant. It's an everlasting covenant.
It's not God's plan B. The new covenant was before the
old covenant. The covenant of grace was before
the covenant of works. The Lord put us under the covenant
of works in order to show us our need for the covenant of
grace. And that's what the law is all about. And that's what
he's saying here. Who also hath made us able ministers
of the New Testament, not of the letter. We're not interested
in just knowing doctrine and discovering truths from the Bible. You can have a lot of truths,
small t plural, and not have the truth, capital T singular. And that's what he's talking
about here. It's not by your knowledge of truths. You can
be a flaming five-point Calvinist and not know Christ. Well, I
say that. You can declare yourself to be
a flaming five-point Calvinist and not know Christ, but if you
don't know Christ, it's for one reason. God has yet to make you
to be a sinner. You might give lip service to
the doctrine of total depravity, but when God makes you totally
depraved, that's when he saves you. That's when he saves you. Salvation, it happens instantly. when the Lord makes you to be
a sinner, all the rest of it. He says, this New Testament is
not of the letter, but of the Spirit. For the letter killeth,
but the Spirit giveth life. Oh, that which is of the flesh
is flesh. The flesh profiteth nothing. You can have lots of knowledge
and lots of information, which is nothing more than flesh. The
Spirit giveth life. Nicodemus, you've got to be born
of the Spirit. The Spirit's like the wind. He
listeth withersoever he wills. Oh Lord, would you blow the breath
of life into my sin-sick soul and deliver me, deliver me from
the rigors and the condemnation of the law. That's what I need.
I need the Spirit of God to do that for me. But if the ministration
of death, now he's talking about the law, look at verse 7. He's
talking about the law as a minister of death. That's all the law
can do. There's no mercy in the law.
There's no help in the law. There's no pity in the law. The law maintains its standard
of perfection and it condemns everybody that falls short of
that standard. I told someone recently, this
past week, I said, I said, you're not going to get to heaven unless
you're perfect. And they knew me very well. And they said,
well, you're not going to heaven then, huh? And I've already explained the
gospel to them. So they said to me, well, you don't believe
you're going to heaven. I said, oh no, I am. I am. My perfection is in another. One who has fulfilled all the
demands of the law on my behalf. I have an advocate with the Father,
Jesus Christ, the righteous one. And now he calls the law the
ministration of death. He's come to minister death.
The law is the grim reaper. That's all he does. All he does
is slay and kill. But if the ministration of death
written and graven in stone, why did God write the law when
he gave it to Moses? The law was given by Moses, but
grace and truth came by the Lord Jesus Christ. Why was the law
written in stone? to show that it's immutable. It can't be changed. It can't
be deviated from. It can't be lowered. If a person
thinks that they've somehow been able to maintain some obedience
to the law, all they've done is taken the law off the tablets
of stone and made them something fleshly. The law is not fleshly. The law is perfect. The law is
holy. The law is just. And the law
is good. But the law has never made one
single person holy. It's never justified anyone in
the sight of God, and it's never added an ounce of goodness to
anyone's life. The law is a ministration of
death, written and engraven in stone, and it was glorious. He's talking about the glory
of the law. What is the glory of the law? What is the glory of the law?
It portrays the perfection of God. That's the glory of the
law. The law doesn't lead us to Christ.
Christ leads us to Christ. The law reveals the glory of
Christ. And standing in His presence
and seeing His glory, we can only come to one conclusion.
I've never kept the law. Not for a moment. Not one iota,
not one bit of it have I ever been able to kept, but he kept
it perfectly. It's called the ministration
of death in that it kills us, but it's glorious in that it
reveals the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, who himself is
our life. Look what he says. For if the
ministration of death, written and engraven in stones, was glorious,
so that the children of Israel could not steadfastly behold
the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance, which glory
was to be done away." When's the glory of Moses going
to be done away? when Christ comes as the end
of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth. Turn with me to John chapter
5. John chapter 5. There's a verse here that we
quote often, but I want to read a few verses after it to show
you The Pharisees were lawmongers,
just like religious men today. They promote the law, they pretend
to keep the law, they put men under the law, and they are ministers
of death. That's what they are, ministers
of death. And the Lord says to the Pharisees
in John 5, verse 39, search the scriptures. For in them you think you have
eternal life, and they are they which testify of me." That law
never saved anyone. Never. Ever. It was given to declare the holiness
and the glory of God to show sinners their need for a substitute. And so the Lord says, you search
the Scriptures. Oh, you're diligent students
of the Bible. You've put yourself under the
rigors of the law and you pretend to be keeping the law. But you've
missed the meaning of the Bible. These are they which testify
of me. And you will not come to me that
you might have life. Why not? Because they're too
concerned in getting honor from men. Religious people want to
promote themselves as holier-than-thou, and they want to compete with
one another to see who's doing better. And that's what the Lord
said, you will not come to me that you might have life. Why?
Because I receive not honor from men, but I know you that you
have not the love of God in you. I am come in my Father's name,
and you receive me not. If another shall come in his
own name, him you will receive. Isn't that amazing? These ministers
of death can stand and tell lies and men will believe it. But
when they hear the truth, they won't believe it. That's what
he said. You'll follow another because
you value the glory of men. How can you believe? which receive
honor one from another, and seek not the honor that cometh from
God only." If you love the praise of men
more than the praise of God, you're going to be pretending
to be something you're not in order to get the approval of
your peers. That's exactly what they were
doing. He said, you won't come to me because you value the honor
of men rather than the honor that comes from God only. The
honor that comes from God only comes through His Son. This is
my beloved Son in whom I'm well pleased. God's not pleased with
you. He's not pleased with me. He's
pleased with Christ. Christ gets all the glory and
all the honor. That's the honor that comes from
God only. Look what else he says. Do not
think that I will accuse you to the Father. I've not come
here to kill you. I've not come here to accuse
you. The Lord came to give life. You already have one who kills
you. Look what he says. I do not think that I came to
accuse you to the Father. There is one that accuseth you,
even Moses, in whom you trust. You're not trusting in Christ
alone for your salvation. You're trusting in Christ plus
your works, and that makes you under the law. Under the law. That's all you've got. And that
law condemns you. For had you believed Moses, you
would have believed me. For he wrote of me. When Moses
wrote the law, He wasn't giving men a pattern to live by in order
to earn their salvation. He was revealing the glory of
Christ. Moses believed in me. If you
were really students of Moses, if you really believed in Moses,
you'd believe me because Moses believed me. Moses wasn't trusting
in the law for his salvation. But if you believe not his writings,
how shall you believe my words?" What the Lord is saying to these
lawmongers is, you don't believe Moses. You say you're students of Moses.
You say you're disciples of Moses. You're looking to the law, but
you don't believe Moses. Not really. Not what he said.
You've perverted the truth of the gospel and lowered it to
a standard of law that you can measure up to. And that's all
religion is. All right, go back with me to
our text. Glory was done away. Men go about
trying to establish their own righteousness, being ignorant
of the righteousness of God. For Christ is the end of the
law for righteousness to everyone that believeth. That's what this,
the glory of Moses is going to go away. How shall, verse 8,
how shall not the ministration of the Spirit be rather glorious? The gospel is so much better
than the law. They say, well, I need the law
to restrain me. The law never restrained anybody.
Not really. The strength of sin, the scripture
says, is the law. It might restrain your outward
behavior from time to time, like you would take your foot off
the gas pedal when you see a police officer pulling up behind you.
But as soon as he's out of the way, you're right back to your
lawless ways, aren't you? And if it does restrain your
outward behavior, all it does is excite your self-righteousness,
which is worse than your outward behavior. So the law makes you
a worse sinner. It never restrained anybody.
Oh, but grace, the love of Christ constraineth me. That's what
I need. I need a work of grace in my
heart. I don't need tablets of stone.
I need for the Lord to put a love for His law and a love for Christ
in my heart. Write it on fleshy tablets. For if the ministration of condemnation,
the law is called a ministration of condemnation. That's why Paul
said in Romans chapter 8 verse 1, who is he that condemneth? Well, that's Romans 9. Who is he that condemneth? It
is Christ that justifieth us. There is now therefore, Romans
8 chapter 8 verse 1, there is now therefore no condemnation. No condemnation to who? To them
who are in Christ Jesus. That's what I need. I need to
be found in Him, not having my own righteousness which is of
the law, but the righteousness which is by the faith of Jesus
Christ. He's comparing law and grace
here, isn't he? It's so clear. He's saying the
law is glorious in that it declares the glory of God and the holiness
of the Lord Jesus Christ, but it's a minister of death. It's
a grim reaper. It cannot save you. It can't
even help you in any way. If the ministration of death,
of condemnation, verse 9, be glory, much more doth the ministration
of righteousness exceed in glory. The ministration of righteousness,
that's Christ. He's the minister of righteousness.
He's the only one that can give us righteousness before God.
He's the only one that can represent us before God in a righteous
way in which God is pleased. Our only acceptance before God
is to be found in Him. How much more glorious is the
ministration of righteousness than the ministration of condemnation?
There's nothing wrong with the law. If there was a law that
could save, God would have given it. The problem is not with the
law, the problem is with us. The problem is with the weakness
of our flesh. Our complete and total inability to ever measure
up to anything in God's law. Christ kept it perfectly. Not
just in his outward behavior, in his heart, in his thoughts,
in his motives, in the intents of his heart. Verse 10, for even that which
was made glorious, talking about that minister of death now, the
law, the minister of condemnation, that which was made glorious, for if that, I'm sorry, verse
10, for even that which was made glorious had no glory in this
respect by reason of the glory that excelleth. What he's saying
is, the law can't be compared to grace. As glorious and holy
and righteous as it is, there's no comparison. There's no comparison. The glory of Christ far exceeds
the glory of the law. For if that which is done away
was glorious, much more that which remaineth is glorious.
Christ is the one that remaineth. He's the one that you and I need.
Oh, come to Christ, flee to Him, to be delivered from the judgment
and the wrath of God, because the law will kill you. The law
will send you to hell and never shed a tear. Never shed a tear. The law will do it righteously.
And it'll not have one ounce of pity for you. That's how rigorous
and glorious this law is. But that which remaineth is more
glorious. Oh, I need one to keep the law
for me. I need one to deliver me. Look, verse 12, seeing then that
we have such hope, we use great plainness of speech. We're not speaking out of both
sides of our mouth. We're not saying you're not under
the law, but you're under grace, but you know what? You need to
go back to the law in order to make sure that you're a Christian.
You need to measure yourself by the law. You need to do some
fruit inspecting. Make sure you're doing your best to keep the law.
That's a contradiction. Paul says we use great plainness
of speech. We're not contradicting the message
of law and grace. We're not saying you're saved
by grace, but somehow you've got to do your part. We're not
saying that you're dead in your trespasses and sins, but you
know what? Even as a dead man, you've got
a spark of life in you that can exercise your will to make to
make grace work for you? We're not saying that. It doesn't make sense. We use
great plainness of speech. You're either under the law or
you're under grace. You're either dead in your trespasses
and sins or you're alive in Christ. It's one way or the other. There's
no middle ground. There's no gray area here. It's
black and white. We use great plainness of speech
Religion's not a plain speech, is it? We'll deal with that in
a few moments when we get to Genesis chapter 11, but we'll
leave that for now. This word plainness can also
be translated boldness. Boldness. We don't make apologies
for the gospel. We don't somehow take the edge
off the gospel and make it palatable to everybody. We're not trying
to win friends and influence enemies here. We're trying, we're
looking for God's sheep. And we know that they need the
gospel preached boldly and plainly. And when they hear it, it'll
be by God's grace and they're gonna believe it. They're going
to believe it. Do you believe the gospel? Do
you believe on Christ for all your righteousness before God?
Do you believe the only hope of having your sin put away and
having acceptance before God is to have them covered by the
blood of the Lord Jesus Christ? There's nothing you can do, nothing
you can do to make up for what you've done. Nothing you can
do. You can't make your peace with
God. That's why the Lord Jesus Christ is the Prince of Peace. He is our peace with God. And the only hope that you and
I have for peace, and this peace passes understanding. The natural
man doesn't get it. He doesn't get it. He'll hear
the gospel and say, well, yeah, but... Still got to do something. I still got to, I still got to
make some contribution. He can't, he can't hear it. Is there any passage of scripture
more clear describing the difference between law and grace? Look at,
look at verse 13. And not as Moses, which put a
veil over his face that the children of Israel could not steadfastly
look to the end of that which was abolished. When Moses came
down off that mountain, the scripture says that his skin radiated so
that the children of Israel couldn't look at him, and so he had to
put a veil over his face. And he spoke to them through
a veil. And now the Lord's saying, the veil's been taken away. Why? Because the intimidation of the
law has been taken away. It's been abolished. The law's
been silenced by Christ. The law's been satisfied by the
Lord Jesus Christ. So the veil's no longer on the
face of Moses. Look what he goes on to say.
But their minds were blinded for until this day. Now this
was written 2,000 years ago, but we can say until this day.
Today, the veil remains over their face. Look. But their minds
were blinded, for until this day remaineth the same veil untaken
away in the reading of the Old Testament, which veil is done
away in Christ. If you search the Scriptures
because thinking in them you have eternal life, and you don't
know that these are they which testify of me, If you don't know
that in the volume of the book it is written of Him, if you
don't know that He came to do God's will and make the law of
God honorable, if you're looking to anything other than Christ,
I don't care how good of a student you are of the Bible, the veil
is still over your face. You can't see. But even unto this day, when
Moses is read, the veil is upon their heart. The natural man
can't see Christ. He can't see Him. And you won't
be able to see Him. And I won't be able to see Him.
And the Lord gives us enough, even as His children, He gives
us enough experiences, He gives me enough experiences every single
day for me to lose sight of Christ, for me to know that if the Lord
doesn't make Himself known to me, I'll lose Him completely. Every day, I lose sight of Christ. Every day I'm tempted to look
at something other than Christ for the hope of my salvation.
And I need for Him to take the veil away. Nevertheless, verse 16, here's
the hope, when it, what is it? The heart. You see verse 15? The veil is upon the heart. Nevertheless,
when the heart turns to the Lord, the veil's taken away. So I say, you're either looking to
Christ or you're looking at something else. Now the Lord is that Spirit. The Lord Himself is that Spirit. And where the Spirit of the Lord
is, there is liberty. Do you want liberty? I need liberty. What did Paul say in Galatians
chapter 5? Stand fast, therefore, brethren,
in the liberty with which Christ has made you free. And be not
entangled again with the yoke of bondage. Don't go back to
Egypt. Don't go back to the law. Oh, who have bewitched you? I need to be free from the burden
of sin, the guilt and the shame of sin. I need to be free from
the penalty of sin. I need to be free from the dominion
of sin. It was a time when I could not
believe. Sin had absolute, total dominion
over me. Couldn't believe. Where the Spirit of the Lord
is, there is liberty. Free from the wrath that is to
come. Free from the fear and the judgment
of God. free to love Christ, free to
believe, and the longing hope, the longing
hope that every child of God has that one day I'm gonna be
free from the very presence of sin. Oh, what a glorious day
that's gonna be. But we all, verse 18, with open
face, beholding as in a glass." Now,
that's a mirror. You remember James, it says,
we look through a glass dimly now. And in other words, that's
a mirror. Mirrors back then were not glass,
actually. They were polished metal, and
the metal would tarnish. And so on those mirrors, they
would have a towel there for polishing the mirror. And if
you didn't polish it frequent enough, the mirror would tarnish
and the distortion would be... And that's what James said. We
look through a glass dimly now, but then face to face. Actually,
Paul dealt with that in Romans chapter 8, didn't he? But you
understand what he's saying here. He said, you look now beholding
as in a mirror the glory of the Lord and are changed into the
same image from glory to glory even as by the Spirit of the
Lord. How am I going to look into the face of the Lord Jesus
Christ and see Him looking back at me? Only by the Spirit of
God. And the Spirit of God convinces
me that as He is, so are we right now in this world. Let's take
a break. th th