So please go and read John chapter
6. The words of our Lord are spirit
and they are truth. It's the spirit that quickeneth,
the flesh profiteth nothing. The words that I speak to you,
they are spirit and they are life. Such are the words of our
Lord Jesus. And before us in Galatians chapter
3, if you turn there, we have the remarkable testimony, don't
we, of God and His purposes of salvation, of God and His purposes
in sending the law of Moses on Mount Sinai. One of the things
that is so revealing of it is that it really, in remarkable
ways, reveals those that are taught of God. Taught of God
to know themselves. Taught of God as we read in John
Chapter 2, that He manifested His glory. When His glory is
manifested, His people believe in Him. A very simple message of Galatians
in a nutshell is, does anyone here today think that they have
one tiny deed, the best that they have ever done, the best
that they have ever prayed, the best that they have ever thought. Is there one tiny deed you have
that you think that you could take into the presence of God? That's really what these Galatian
false teachers were saying, wasn't it? It's all very well. It's all very well for the Lord
Jesus to come. It's all very well for the Lord
Jesus to fulfil all the promises. It's all very well for the Lord
Jesus to be the Messiah. It's all very well for Him to
reveal Himself as God in human flesh. But you must do something. You must. Galatians is about
the recovery of the gospel and God the Holy Spirit led our brother
Paul to write as clearer instruction and as clearer demonstration
of the difference between living under the law, those who are
of the works of the law, that's where their origin is, that's
what their word of means, and those who are the children of
God. We just go back to chapter 2
verse 16 because in 3.19 there's a question. The question is,
wherefore then service the law? Why was the law given? In 2.16 we've been looking at
these verses over the last little while and I'll just show you
the things that Paul has revealed, the Holy Spirit has revealed
to these Galatians and to us. about what the law can and cannot
do. In verse 216, a man is not justified
by the works of the law. There is no justification before
God by any works of the law. Justification is purely the grace,
gift of God. It's by the faith of Jesus Christ,
justified by His faith. by the works of the law shall
no flesh be justified." So no justification, no righteous standing
before God, no sentence of perfect innocence in the courtroom of
God himself if you turn to the law at all, ever. Verse 19. to live unto God. Just look at it. For through
the law I am dead to the law, that I might live unto God. If you are alive to the law,
you cannot live unto God. Life is in that glorious verse,
isn't it? I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless
I live, Yet not I, but Christ liveth in me." This is real life,
isn't it? Christ liveth in me. Graham was
talking about that in John 6, reading to us. Isn't it? You
actually take into yourself His very flesh and His very blood
and you live on it. Christ liveth in me and the life
which I now live in the flesh. How do you live? Christian life
is lived by the faith of the Son of God. who loved me and
gave himself for me." God's children are saved by grace. To go back
to the law, if righteousness, any sort of righteousness whatsoever,
come by the law, you have frustrated the grace of God and for you
Christ is dead in vain. O foolish Galatians 3.1, who
has bewitched you? Who has, like a serpent, like
a deceiver, come and spun a web of deceit before your eyes that
you should not obey the truth? Before whose eyes Jesus Christ
has been evidently set forth, he's been placarded, he's been
put up for all to see, evidently set forth crucified among you."
Then he asks these questions, doesn't he? Who's bewitched you?
Find out who they are. Know them and identify them and
beware of them. And the Spirit, verse 2, is received,
not by the works of the law, but by the hearing of faith.
That is how Christian life is begun, verse 3. And now, having begun, are you
now made perfect? Do you see what an affront it
is to God to say that the work of His dear and precious Son
is somehow inadequate and insufficient, and you can now be made perfect
by your works of flesh? He ministers to you the Spirit,
He supplies the Spirit and He works miracles among you. Does
He do it? By you going back to the law
or by the hearing of faith. The Jews boasted about their
relationship to Abraham. But the children of Abraham are
faith children. His faith children, not his flesh
children. He had two sons, in fact he had
others as well. We'll see more of that as we
go on. They which are of faith are the
children of Abraham. And to be a child of Abraham,
to be of faith, to have your origin in faith and not in something
you've done, verse 9, are blessed with faithful Abraham. And this, those who are of the works
of the law, verse 10, are under a curse. Cursed is everyone that
continueth not in all things which are written in the book
of the law to do them, to have done them and to continue to
do them. No man is justified by the law
in the sight of God, for it is evident, for the just shall live
by faith. Verse 12, the law is not a faith. but the man that doeth them shall
live in them." Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law
being made a curse for us. Saving faith, redemption, the
blessing, the belonging to Abraham, the Spirit, Obedience, grace,
life, justification, all flow as a grace gift to God's children
purely on the basis of the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ. In verse 14, we receive the promise
of the Spirit through faith. These promises are received. These promises are made. And verse 16, they are made to
the seed. The promises are made to Christ. Isn't it lovely, brothers and
sisters, to think that all of the promises of blessing and
sustenance and providence and every step of your journey between
here and eternity. Those promises aren't in the
hands of the man, they're in the hands of the God-man, our
Saviour. That's the place I like them
to be. This covenant, verse 17, is confirmed before of God in
Christ. The law, which was 430 years
after, cannot dis-annul The covenant is sure, and the
things that came after that covenant were signed and sealed, cannot
disannull it. For if the inheritance be of
the Lord, it is no more of promise. But God gave it to Abraham by
promise. So the question is, you cannot
get justification from the law, you cannot get life, you cannot
receive grace, you cannot be obedient to the Gospel, you cannot
receive the Spirit, you cannot attain any perfection, you cannot
be a child of Abraham, you cannot receive the blessings, you cannot
be redeemed and receive the promises. to be a participant in a covenant
sure, that sure covenant that David died in. God has made with
me an eternal covenant, ordered and secure in every detail. It's all my joy, it's all my
salvation. You cannot have the inheritance
of the law, you have the inheritance through the promise. And so the
question, it's a natural question. It's a good question for us,
isn't it? Why then? Wherefore then serveth
the law? And here the law that the Holy
Spirit is referring to is the law that God gave Moses at Mount
Sinai. the Ten Commandments. In fact,
there are 613 commandments. And he gives us these answers,
doesn't he? And he adds more as he goes on
in the Book of Galatians. Firstly, he says, it was added. Secondly, he said, it was added
because of transgression. And it was added because of transgression
for a time. It was added till the seed should
come to whom the promises were made. It was ordained, it was
charged through angels and it was added, ordained to be in
the hand of a mediator, to be governed by a mediator. Why then the law? God's children
love his law, don't you? I love the law of God. I love
reading Exodus and Leviticus and Numbers and Deuteronomy.
I love reading Psalm 119 and the other Psalms that talk so
gloriously of the children of God and their relationship to
the law. We love it, but we love it in
the hands of our Saviour. We love it in the hands of He
who perfectly fulfilled it on our behalf. See, we don't try,
brothers and sisters in Christ, we don't try to keep the law,
we kept it perfectly. What does Romans 3 say? Romans
3 makes it so abundantly clear, isn't it? Do we then make void
the law through faith? God forbid, yea, we establish
We establish the law, as Romans 7 tells us, it's a holy law,
and it's a just law, and it's a good law. We establish it in
the hands of our sovereign saviour. He fulfilled it. It is completely
fulfilled. In all of its promised blessings
and in all of its promised cursing, it's fulfilled. So let's just
look at some of these things just briefly. It was added, Paul
speaks of someone making a covenant in 315, signing a will. in Galatians 3.15, and once it's
been made, no one can add to it or subtract from it. But here in 3.19 we have a different
word for added, and it's the word that's used in the parables
like the one in Luke where the Lord Jesus is speaking about
sending servants and he speaks of sending yet another. The law was added. It was yet another to the covenant
of promise made to Christ. revealed to Abraham. That's the
promise that we've been talking about, isn't it? That's the covenant
that God made with Abraham, that eternal covenant that God made
with Abraham, that covenant which was made by God. It was God in
Genesis who said, I will, I will, I will, I will. And when the
covenant was cut in Genesis 15 and that smoking pot went through
the carcasses of the animals, what was Abraham doing? He was
asleep. He was deeply asleep. He was
showing us that the covenant is made by God to God. It was made by God, it was revealed
to Abraham. So to say that it's added means
that it's not part of the promises and not part of the provisions
of the eternal covenant. Gospel promises and gospel blessings
are remarkably different from the blessings under the law.
Completely different. The blessings of the gospel.
The blessings of the gospel are always without one little word. and the blessings and the curses
of the law always have this word in them. And the little word
is IF. Because IF. Abraham was blessed of God and
the children of God are blessed in Christ without an IF. It's God's promise to bless them.
He's done it in His Son, and He will do it in the lives of
all His people. It's an addition, isn't it? It's
added. It's not added to it. It's separate
from it. For the sake of transgression. It was added. What serveth the
law then? It was added because of transgressions. It was not added to limit transgressions,
it was added to make them palpable, to make them evident and to magnify
them. From that time on, from the moment
those people agreed with that covenant at Mount Sinai, They had, from there on in, a
legal and a moral bondage that they were under to keep that
law, to keep it perfectly. We do have to keep saying in
this world of ours that wants to divide the law up, as I was
taught at Bible colleges, You can divide it up into the moral
law and the ceremonial law and the civil law and the dietary
laws and then you can choose which ones of them that you might
wish to keep. Not a single word in the word
of God allows people to say that with any justification. James
2.10 says, for whosoever shall keep the whole law yet offend
in one point, he is guilty of all. Break one, you have broken them
all. Even in the Ten Commandments,
there's a ceremonial law about the Sabbath. Break one, you have
broken them all. These people parade them around
as a believer's rule of life. They are an indictment of our
sins, aren't they? rather than something that guides
us. Something that this verse is
saying is added because of transgressions. All sensible human beings have
a law written on their hearts. Turn to Romans chapter 2 verse
14. For when the Gentiles, which
have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law,
these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves. which show the work of the law
written in their heart, their conscience also bearing witness,
and their thoughts the meanwhile accusing or else excusing one
another." People know People know that
it's wrong to lie and to steal and to commit adultery. They
know it's wrong. God says it is. They'll either
be accusing themselves or they'll be finding an excuse, which is
what we have in this world. We legalise the excuses for sins
in this society of ours. They have the law written on
their hearts. What serves the law? What purpose
is the law? Verse 21 of Galatians 3 is the
law against the promise of God. God forbid if there had been
a law which could have given life verily righteousness would
have come by, it should have come by the law, but the law,
the scripture has concluded all under sin. Romans 3 makes it very clear,
doesn't it? Having proceeded through Romans
to show that all the world knows of the law of God, and all of
the world breaks it all of the time. In Romans 3.9 it says,
What then? Are we better than they? No,
in no wise, for we have before proved, both Jews and Gentiles,
that they are all under sin. As it is written, there is none
righteous, no, not one. There is none that understandeth.
There is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of
the way. They are together become unprofitable. There is none that doeth good,
no, not one. Their throat is an open sepulchre. With their tongues they have
used deceit. The poison of asps is under their
lips. whose mouth is full of cursing
and bitterness, their feet are swift to shed blood. Destruction
and misery are in their ways, and the way of peace have they
not known. There is no fear of God before
their eyes." Now we know that what things soever the law saith,
it saith to them who are under the law that every mouth may
be stopped. Its purpose in exposing and magnifying
sin is to shut the mouths of people. Every mouth may be stopped
and all the world may become The reason the law came as it
did on Mount Sinai, with such extraordinary force and such
extraordinary demonstration of the power and the wrath and the
holiness and the sovereignty of God, was that the law had
to deal with an extraordinary enemy. So people think that sins
keep people out of heaven. And they do. But it's self-righteousness. It's self-righteousness which
the law is aimed at. It's extraordinary. The people,
when you go back to the history of Israel, There are so many
amazing pictures in the giving of the law and then the entailments
that flowed from that period under Moses. Not only does the
scripture give us clear written statements as we have with Paul,
but we have some most remarkable pictures. One of the shocking
statements in the Bible, and it's repeated in these passages
in Exodus on many occasions, is that these people who had
been through the plagues in Egypt, how did they survive the plagues
of Egypt? Because they were good or because
they were better or because they were obedient? Because God preserved
them. How did they get across the Red
Sea? God took them across the Red Sea, not because they were
good or obedient or stronger or wiser than any others. Who
fed them in the desert? Who turned the waters, the bitter
waters of Mara, into the sweet waters that they could drink
and live by? Who gave them water out of a rock in the middle of
a desert? It was all representative of Christ who feeds and sustains
His people. And here they are, these people,
He'd been carried by God through all of these situations, had
Him reveal Himself in the most remarkable way, and they get
to Mount Sinai, turn with me to Exodus 19, I just want you
to see it, Exodus 19. I'll go back to verse 7. And
Moses came and called for the elders of the people and laid
before their faces all the words which the Lord had commanded
him. And all the people answered together and said... What a remarkable statement.
by a bunch of helpless, hopeless sinners. All that the Lord has
spoken, we will do. And Moses returned the words
of the people unto the Lord. What remarkable arrogance. Again and again, if you keep
reading, you'll see that they say, you just tell us what to
do, God, and we will do it. Everywhere we read in the scriptures
where man says he will, God will make it very evident that he
will not, and ever. Here are these people in Galatia
coming out of Jerusalem where the Lord Jesus had witnessed
the most remarkable redemptive acts and displayed his glory. in bearing the sins of his people,
in bearing the wrath of God for them, and raising majestically
and magnificently and revealing himself to his people. And these
people want to go back and trouble the churches of God by putting
them back under the law. What happened when these people
1500 years beforehand got to Mount Sinai? They saw that mountain,
didn't they? They saw that mountain. What
did they do? They came out of their tents. The law brought them out of their
tents. And there they were, maybe two
million of them, standing before God, absolutely terrified. And Moses, absolutely terrified. And they say to Moses, you speak
to God on our behalf, we will flee. And here are people 1,500 years
later after the Lord Jesus has revealed God's holiness, revealed God's justice. in the punishment of sin, bearing
the infinite, eternal wrath of God for His people in His own
body on the tree. And people just years afterwards
say, now we can do something else. And 2,000 years later they
are doing it in the churches all over this land and all over
this world, taking people back to Mount Sinai. taking their
eyes off the Lord Jesus Christ, putting their eyes on themselves
and on others. We're all under sin. By the law there is the knowledge
of sin. The law was added for the sake
of transgression. It was added to expose sin, to
magnify sin, that sin might be seen as exceedingly sinful and
that God in His holiness must punish it. Romans 3.20 says,
for by the law, by the law is the knowledge of sin. Turn over the page to Romans
5.20. It says, the law entered, this is what Paul is talking
about here, the law entered that the offence might abound, that
the sin might be seen to be exceedingly sinful. In Romans 7, Paul says,
What shall we say then, is the law sin? God forbid, nay, I had
not known sin, but by the law. For I had not known lust, except
the law had said, Thou shalt not covet. And listen to Paul. Saved Paul the Apostle, now saying,
but sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all
manner of evil desire. That's what that word concupiscent
means. For without the law sin was dead. But then he gives his own history.
For I was alive once without the law. He was alive as a Pharisee. He was alive and righteous in
his own sight as a Pharisee. I was alive without the law once,
but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died. And the commandment which was
ordained to life I found to be unto death for sin. taking occasion
by the commandment deceived me, and by it slew me." doesn't sanctify. Paul goes on
to say, wherefore the law is holy and the commandment holy,
just and good. Was then that which is good made
death unto me, God forbid, but sin that it might appear sin,
working death in me by that which was good, that sin by the commandment
might become exceedingly sinful. For we know that the law is spiritual,
but I am carnal, sold unto sin. You add law to the flesh of human
beings and what happens is sin. Simon might remember that last
month we had one of those fancy little signs that as you drove
around the corner of the end of our street and drove up towards
the high school, it actually told you how fast you were going.
It told you how fast you were going, and it told you what the
speed limit was. It was reminding us that it was 50. And it's confusing
often, isn't it? I used to drive through the Blue
Mountains years ago, and it was an absolute pain in the neck,
because you always were saying, how fast am I supposed to be
going? Because you didn't know whether it was 60, 70, 80, 90,
100. And you're always caught. For
me to go into town at school time, I leave my house and it's
40. I get to the end of the road and it's 50, I drive a little
bit further and it's 60, and then I come back and it's 50,
and then it's 40 at the high school, then it becomes 50 just
past the high school, then it's 70 as I cross the freeway, then
it's 50, and then it's 40 and I'm into coffins. And you can drive up our road. And you can be breaking the law
daydreaming these days with these modern cars. But this little
sign was around the corner there. I don't know how you responded
to it, Simon, but I love to see it flashing. And I had all sorts of... you
put a wet paint sign and you want to touch it, won't you?
I had that little sign there and I had thought of all sorts of
things. Wouldn't it be wonderful if I could drive around that
corner without looking at my speedo and I could see how fast I could
drive around that corner and I'd have this wonderful magic
machine which would tell me how fast I was going. And then I
could test myself. I didn't do it, but I had those
thoughts. And yet in the religious world,
having seen all these things and witnessed all these things
in our own lives all the time, we think that we can add to the
work of the Lord Jesus by bringing people back under the law. The law works wrath, Romans 4.15. The law is holy. The law is spiritual. The law is good in that it reflects
the holiness of God. The law is good in that it reflects
that God will be just. God must be just. And when he gives laws and these
people, as we read in Exodus 19, said, we'll do them, don't
you worry, you just tell us what to do, we can do them. God kept
his word. And there's that remarkable story
in Numbers 15 of that man that went out to pick sticks up on
a Saturday morning. And he's arrested and put and
locked up. And all of the nation in Israel
waits for God to tell them what to do with that man. And God
says, you must stone him. He was someone's son, possibly
someone's husband, someone's brother, someone's father. You take him out and you stone
him. You stone him. Abraham and Isaac
and Jacob and Noah and thousands of others went out and picked
up sticks on Saturday morning for years and years and years. and nothing happened to them.
The law works wrath. They were put under the law,
not as a guide to how they could live a righteous life. They were
put under the law to send them, to send them again and again
back to the one who sanctified and justified Abraham by simple
faith. So the law does not sanctify
people. We have this notion, don't we,
in this world, we have this notion because it's in our flesh, that
if we can just do some things we will get ourselves more sanctified. Now I can encourage people to
do some more things, they can be more sanctified. No one is
justified in the sight of God, it is evident, Galatians 3.11. And the law doesn't deliver anyone
from the dominion of sin. Romans 6.14 is a remarkable verse,
isn't it? For sin shall not have dominion
over you. Why? For you are not under the
law. but under grace. You are not under the law but
under grace. The law was added. It was added
for the sake of transgressions. It made transgressions to be
so deep and so serious and so all-encompassing that any hope
of self-salvation was put to death The law was added because
of transgression, and it was added for a time, wasn't it?
The law had a purpose for a time, till the seed should come to
whom the promise was made. That seed was Christ. And soon as the seed had come,
soon as the seed had said, it is finished, It was one of the
things that was completely finished. Why the law? The law preserved
that Jewish nation. It preserved them as 12 tribes. As John says in 117, for the
law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. And the Lord Jesus himself says,
the time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent
ye and believe the gospel. The law have a specific function
for a specific time. The law never produces love. The law never produces faith. Saving faith. comes as a gift
of grace by our God on the basis of the work of the Lord Jesus.
Verse 22 of chapter 3 of Galatians, but the scripture has concluded
all under sin that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might
be given, might be graced to them that believe. Christ is the end of the law. He's the terminus. He's as far
as it goes. We establish, we fulfil the law
by simply trusting Him. And it holds no terrors for God's
people. Law and terrors do but harden
when attended all alone, but a sense of blood-bought pardon
will dissolve a heart of stone. It was given for a time and it
was ordained through angels in the hands of a mediator. It was written and spoken by
them. Psalm 68 says, the chariots of God are 20,000, even thousands
of angels. The Lord is among them as in
Sinai in the holy place. the law, the angels were there
witnessing the disposition of the law. Stephen speaks of it
in Acts 7.53, who have received the law by disposition of angels,
and then he goes on to say what the Jewish history was and have
not kept it. Hebrews says that this word was
spoken, Hebrews 2.2 says this word was spoken by angels, it
was steadfast and every transgression and disobedience received a just
recompense of reward. There were two perfect copies
of the law written by God, weren't there? When Moses came down from
the mountain, he had in his hands the two tablets written on both
sides by the finger of God. And he saw all that wickedness
and idolatry at the bottom of the camp, and in the hands of
Moses, the law was broken. But there was another law, wasn't
there? Another copy of that law perfectly kept for a thousand
years. Where was it? Where was that
perfect copy of God's law? It was in the Ark of the Covenant. And what was on the Ark of the
Covenant? On the Ark of the Covenant was that glorious depiction of
our Lord Jesus on that Mercy Seat. And overshadowing the Mercy
Seat were the angels looking down on it. They are ministering
spirits. But Hebrews goes on to show us
again and again that Christ is much superior to the angels,
is much superior to Moses. They are ministering spirits.
But this law was added because of transgression, it was added
because of a time, it was ordained through angels in the hand of
a mediator. The scriptures make it clear
that the Lord Jesus was at Mount Sinai. But he's the mediator
of a better covenant. Hebrews goes on to say again
and again, he's the better one, isn't he? He's the better covenant
between God and man. And he had the law in his hand
and he fulfilled it. And he delivered his people from
its curse and its condemnation. But I think the mediator that's
being spoken of here is Moses. and here referred to as inferior
to angels. The angels hand the law to him. It's through angels in the hand
of a mediator. I'll just read some verses out
of Deuteronomy chapter 5. You don't have to turn there,
but I can just read you some of them just to show you Moses'
role in this. In Deuteronomy 5 verse 5, I stood between you, the Lord,
and you at that time to show you the word of the Lord, for
you were afraid by reason of the fire and went not up on the
mount. in the same chapter in verse
23, and it came to pass, when you heard the voice out of the
midst of the darkness, for the mountain did burn with fire,
that you came near unto me, even all the heads of your tribes
and your elders, and you said, Behold, the Lord our God has
shown us his glory and his greatness. And we have heard his voice out
of the midst of the fire. We have seen this day that God
doth talk with man and he liveth. Now therefore, why should we
die? Unbelief. For this great fire
will consume us. If we hear the voice of the Lord
our God any more, then we shall die. For who is there of all
flesh that hath heard the voice of the living God speaking out
of the midst of the fire as we have and lived?" Moses had. Joshua had. Go thou near, verse
27, and hear all that the Lord our God shall say, and speak
thou unto us all that the Lord our God shall speak unto you,
and hear thou make this promise again, and we will hear it and
do it. There are so many pictures, as
I said earlier. of the law and its place. You see, Moses didn't go into
the promised land. Who took the men into the promised
land? Joshua. What's his name in Greek? Jesus
took them into the promised land. Joshua led the people into the
Promised Land. These false teachers were saying
that you must be circumcised and then you enter into the law
of Moses as a good Jew. But those people that entered
in, the ones who made these promises, 600,000 of them died in the desert. Two, two of the men of our age
at that time went in. And of the young ones that went
in, when did they get circumcised? They were circumcised after they
crossed the Jordan. It was a sign to all of those
people, just like Abraham. When was Abraham circumcised?
Was he circumcised to receive the promises? He was circumcised
years after receiving the promises. It was a seal of the covenant,
the promise that God had made with him prior to it. They're in the promised land. There's a beautiful picture on
the Mount of Transfiguration when the Lord is manifested in
His glory. And there appear with Him on
that mountain both Moses and Elijah. And then a cloud, Shekinah
glory of God, descends on that mountain. And who is left there? just the Lord Jesus and his people. Moses and Elijah, the law and
their prophets, they have done their deed and they take their
place, which is to be out of the way that people would see
the glory of the Lord Jesus. We have a mediator, don't we? That one mediator between man
and God, the man Christ Jesus. The law doesn't sanctify. The law doesn't justify. Before I finish we'll just look
at a verse in 1 Timothy 1 verse 8. I'll go back to verse 5. Now
the end of the commandment is charity, is love out of a pure
heart and a good conscience, and faith unfeigned, from which
some having swerved, having turned aside unto vain jangling, desiring
to be teachers of the law, understanding neither what they say nor whereof
they affirm. But we know that the law is good,
If a man use it lawfully. I love the laws of our land.
Isn't it wonderful that we have a death toll in this country
on the roads, which is equivalent to the death toll that we had
in the 1920s. When you think of population,
isn't it great that drunks are mostly kept off our roads? Isn't
it great that if you can drive around this country of ours,
in relative peace, knowing that the police are restraining the
wickedness of the people of this world. But in spiritual things,
we know that the law is good if a man uses it lawfully, knowing
this, that the law is not made for a righteous man. but for the lawless and disobedient,
for the ungodly and for sinners, for unholy and profane, for murderers
of fathers and murderers of mothers and manslayers, for whoremongers,
for them that defile themselves with mankind, for man-stealers,
for liars, for perjured persons, and if there be any other thing
that is contrary to sound doctrine." according to the glorious gospel
of the blessed God which is committed to my trust." So knowing this,
that the law is not made for a righteous man. So someone who
puts themselves or wants to put others back under the law is
saying that they're not righteous. They're not righteous in the
Lord Jesus Christ. They need some whip. They need some way of constraining
people. Why then the law? The law was
added because of transgressions. It was added to magnify transgressions. It was added to show that all
self-righteousness is an absolute deceitful lie. It was added to
reveal the absolute holiness of God. It was added to reveal
that God is a just God and a Saviour. It was given that people might
see that law and flee away from it to Christ. It was given so that God's children
would say, there it is, I need someone, I need a saviour, I
cannot save myself. Children of God have the laws
of the Gospel. I love the laws of the Gospel,
the laws of the promise that God will bring into the hearts
of His people. I'll just go through them quickly.
You can look at them at your leisure. But there is the law
of sin in Romans 7. Only a new and a holy nature
sees that everything that we do is sin. Romans 9.31 is the
law of righteousness. Though there is no righteousness,
No satisfaction in anything I do, but I have in the Lord Jesus,
I am the righteousness of God. Romans 3.27, there is the law
of faith, an operating principle in the hearts of God's people
that they will just simply believe. We establish the law through
faith. James speaks of the law of liberty. The children of God are set at
liberty by the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. They look to Him
and their burdens fall off. James also talks about the royal
law of love. Believers are constrained and
moved by God the Holy Spirit. to love God and to love His people. And we have the law of Christ
in Galatians 6. We are to bear one another's
burdens, to help falling brothers, and
so fulfill the law of Christ. We don't have a mediator who's
apart from us, brothers and sisters in Christ. The eternal covenant
is mediated to us by the blessed Holy Spirit who lives in us. If any man love me, says the
Lord Jesus, he will keep my words and my father will love him and
we will come unto him and make our abode with him." Moses, after
the giving of the law, set up his tent separate from the camp
of God's people. God dealt with him there. We have God in dwelling us. He makes his abode with us. Peace I leave with you, my peace
I give unto you. Not as the world give us give
I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled,
neither let it be afraid. Let's pray.