Okay, let's turn to Matthew 5,
verse 17. The Lord Jesus Christ speaking
says, Think not that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets. I am not come to destroy, but
to fulfill. For verily I say unto you, Till
heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise
pass from the law till all be fulfilled." Now, this morning
I want to consider the law and the prophets. And what I want
you to see in this lesson this morning is that everything that
is written in the law and in the prophets was given by God
to declare the glory of the person and work of His Son, and to declare
that His salvation is worked for His elect by His Son, and
is accomplished by His Son. Salvation is of the Lord, Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit. We are sinners. We need to be
saved by grace. And it's only by grace that we're
saved in Christ through faith in Christ apart from any works
of our own. I want you to see something of
that in this lesson. Now, first of all, let me make
this point. Why would the Lord say, think
not that I have come to destroy the law or the prophets? Well,
one of the reasons is, is the Lord Jesus Christ knew the hearts
of those to whom he spoke. And he was talking to his disciples,
but there were some who were accusing him of being against
the law and against the prophets. When he came to this earth, the
Jews, the Pharisees and the scribes had been working for so long
and were so outwardly zealous for the law of God, appeared
to be so, that Christ Jesus came to them, and they were too busy
with their own works, with their own obedience, with their own
self-righteousness, their own self-sanctifying works, to behold
Christ the life. And when he began to preach to
them and to declare that there is no way to God but through
the Son of God, through the blood and righteousness of Christ,
their first accusation against him was, he's against the law.
He's against what Moses wrote. They often questioned him. They'd
come to him and they'd say, Master, Moses said. Or they'd come to
him and say, Master, Moses wrote unto us. And the scribes charged
him with intending to destroy their law and abolish the customs
given to him by Moses. And the Lord states clearly,
he didn't come for that end. He didn't come for that end.
And men in our day say the same thing. Men in our day who are
busy with works and religion and say the same thing when they
hear someone declare Christ is all. They begin to hear it for
a while, but then they begin to say, you're against the law.
You're speaking against the law. No, we're speaking of Christ
who is the fulfillment of the law, who honored and magnified
the law, who established the law, who fulfilled everything
that's written in the law and the prophets concerning Him.
And as John said, we're crying out for men to be ye reconciled
to Him and turn away from the works of righteousness which
we've done. When our Lord was on the road
to Emmaus, He said this that He preached the Gospel to. It
said, Beginning at Moses and all the prophets, He expounded
unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself.
And He said unto them, These are the words which I spake unto
you while I was yet with you. This is what I preached when
I was with you, that all things must be fulfilled. which were
written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the
Psalms concerning me." Now, let's take this first word, the law. Now, he says, think not that I came
to destroy the law. Now, when the Pharisees and scribes
were accusing him of being against the law, they were primarily
speaking in reference to the law of commandments, to the law
of precepts, to the law included in the blessings and cursings
delivered to them by Moses. But the words of Moses that Moses
wrote is the law of God. Everything Moses wrote is the
law of God. And the law of God is the law
of the Son of God. It's the law that Christ Jesus
our Lord, who is the Son of God, it's the law He gave Himself. And everything that Moses wrote
was written to show that man can in no way come to God by
anything he's done. He must come to God in Christ
alone. So this word, law, It really
takes in everything Moses wrote. The first five books of the Bible,
Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, are all written
by Moses, given by God, written by Moses. It begins in the beginning. and begin speaking of what God
does for sinners. We're going to see something
of that in creation in our message this morning, but in Genesis
3.15, Moses wrote, according to what God had him to write,
that there was going to be a seed of woman. There was going to
be one that was going to be born without the aid of a man. Christ
is that seed. And he wrote that this one would
be Satan and his seed, Satan and his children. God's declaring
election at the beginning of the world. He's declaring there's
some that are going to hate this one that's going to be born.
They're going to hate him because they're not his children. They
haven't been given to him. They're the children of Satan.
And they're going to hate him. They're going to be enmity against
him. He declared that in Genesis 3 15 in Genesis 3 21 after the
fall immediately God slew an animal he stripped Adam and Eve
of their fig leaves and he put a coat of skins on Adam and Eve
he clothed them declaring loud and clear in his word declaring
that he's going to provide himself a lamb and And he's going to
take the righteousness of Christ and impute it to his people and
robe his people in the righteousness of God. Because we couldn't obtain
any kind of righteousness ourselves. Then in Genesis 4-4, Abel came
to God with an offering, the blood of a lamb. And God had
respect unto Abel's offering because when Abel came in the
blood of a slain animal, Abel was confessing, I can't come
to God by anything I've done by my life. I have to come to
God through the death of a substitute who washes me and makes me clean
and it makes me accepted with God. He declared that early on. In Genesis 6, when God purposed
to destroy the world with the flood, Genesis 6, 8 says, Noah
found grace in the eyes of God. It doesn't mean Noah did something
to obtain grace or Noah did something to search out grace. It means
God was gracious to Noah. Out of all the people in that
whole land, God came to Noah. Noah only. He came to Noah and
He made His grace known to Noah that He had favored toward Noah.
Noah was just like everybody else in that land that was going
to be destroyed. But He comes to Noah and He provided
Noah with an ark. And He shut Noah up in that ark. And when the rains of God's justice
came down and poured out on the land, condemning his people unto
death, destroying his people in a flood, Noah was safe in
that ark. And that ark, Peter tells us,
is a picture of Christ, who was baptized in the flood of God's
justice, and we in Him. And that's what water baptism
typifies. That's what it shows, going into
that flood and being buried and coming out of it in Christ. When
judgment ceased and the waters dried up, Noah comes out. God
gives Noah a rainbow in the sky. You know how you see a rainbow?
He made a covenant with Noah. He said, I won't ever destroy
the world with water again. He made a promise to Noah. And
he said, I'm going to give you a covenant, a token of my covenant.
And he put a rainbow in the sky. You know how you see a rainbow?
You see a rainbow when light shines. If light's not shining,
you don't see a rainbow. But when the light shines in
the heart of a sinner, That sinner beholds those seven colors, that
perfect perfection of God's everlasting covenant. And he said, I gave
my son for a covenant. That son delights his son. The
covenant is made in his son. And when he writes his law in
our hearts, it's the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus. And we behold Christ, the one
in whom we're forever, eternally secure. And we declare salvation
is of the Lord. But this is all the law of Moses,
and Moses was writing of these things from the very beginning. Moses wrote these things, showing
all the way through, God was declaring salvation is of the
Lord, of His Son. And we can go all the way through,
even Genesis 49, 10. Christ Jesus is the Lion of the
tribe of Judah. He's the one that's declared
there. The scepter won't depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from
between his feet until Shiloh comes. He's Shiloh. He's the
Lion of the tribe of Judah. And there's so many more examples,
but now let's move on to the Law of Commandments. Now, this
is the law the Pharisees and scribes and their followers were
so ignorantly zealous of when Christ came. Now, men divide
the law into the moral law, the Ten Commandments, and they divide
it into the civil law, those blessings and cursings which
were given by Moses, and they divide it into the ceremonial
law. But the truth is, the law of God is one law. The law of
God contained in commandments set forth In the moral law and
the civil law, they set forth the monumental offense of that
one transgression that Adam committed when he sinned against God in
the garden and we sinned in him. If you read the law, you have
to come to the conclusion that there was never any purpose of
God in giving that law to say to men that they could somehow
actually live by obeying that law. If you look at the law and
you read the law, you will get exhausted reading the law, not
much less trying to keep it. And the law is given for that
purpose. It was given that every mouth may be stopped and all
the world become guilty before God. It was given to reveal the
knowledge of sin. That's why God gave it. Christ
didn't come to destroy His law. He didn't come to do away with
His law. God is holy and His law has got
to be fulfilled perfectly. Every little jot, every little
dash, every little mark of His law from the least to the greatest
has got to be fulfilled in the perfection of holiness in thought,
in word, and in deed. So Christ, far from coming in
to do away with that law, He came to fulfill it, and He fulfilled
it. Christ fulfilled the law in the
way that He taught the law. He's going to receive the glory
for being the preeminent teacher of His law. The only one who's
ever perfectly taught the meaning of the law is Christ. We're going
to see that as we go on in this chapter. But we're also going
to touch on it today in our message too. But the law speaks of a
spiritual sin. The law speaks of an inward heart
pollution. And it convicts a man when it's
taught by God in the heart. It makes a man to see that he
is truly unrighteous and he's come short of the glory of God.
But until Christ enters in and teaches us that law in the heart,
we really are so ignorant and so blind. We think we can come
to God by our obedience to the law. put Christ in this Sermon
on the Mount. You remember, He's gone up into
a mount and He sat. I keep making this point to you
because I want you to get it. He went up into a mountain and
He sat down. And He drew His disciples to
Him. And He's teaching His disciples.
And Christ Jesus is doing the same thing right now from Mount
Zion in Heaven's glory through the church, through the Gospel,
through the Holy Spirit. And He's teaching His children
Drawing them to himself and he's teaching his children in the
heart He's the teacher. He's the prophet come from God
now. He fulfilled the law of God Magnified
made it honorable in every precept in perfect obedience He fulfilled
the justice of it the penalty of it. He went to the cross and
and took the sin that was His people's and He had it laid upon
Him. God won't pour out His wrath
upon someone who has not had sin laid to their charge. He
won't do it. The soul that sinneth, it must
die. Christ took His people's sin
to Himself and He went to the cross and Justly God poured out
his justice on Christ because Christ took the place as The
in the place of his people as the sinner Before God in place
of those he represented and God justly poured out his wrath upon
him until Christ Gave up the ghost and died and was buried
so that the law said case closed. It's done. It's fulfilled and
Now, God's law has been honored. It has been magnified. His justice
has not been swept under the rug. His holiness is maintained. He's a just God. And because
Christ has done this, He's a Savior. He is the just God and the justifier. He is the God who is the God
of truth, the God of justice, and He is the God who is the
God of mercy, who can shed His grace upon His people. That's
why we read, when the fullness of time was come, God sent forth
His Son, made of a woman, made under the law. The law speaks
to those who are made under the law. And He came made under the
law. to redeem them that were under
the law that we might receive the adoption of sons. So he bought,
he purchased, he paid the sin debt of those that were under
the law, indebted to the law, and bought them out from under
the law where the law has no more, nothing to say to them,
nothing to say against them. And he fulfilled the ceremonial
law. Everything about the ceremonial
law was written of him Hebrews 10 1 says the law having a shadow
of good things to come You know what a shadow is that was what
the law did it was foreshadowing Christ who would come it was
showing us who he is what he would do. He's the high priest.
He's the lamb. He's the he's the Mercy Seek. He's the ark of the covenant
in whom the law of God is maintained and preserved. His blood is the
blood that was shed. Scripture says those sacrifices
that they offered every year in that old ceremonial law could
never take away the sins of the people. Never. But this man,
Christ Jesus the Lord, the Son of God, after he made one offering
for sin, set down at the right hand of God from henceforth expecting
till his enemies be made his footstool for by one offering
by his one offering he hath perfected forever them that the Holy Spirit
are calling out by the Gospel and setting apart in Him. He
perfected them all. He perfected them by His one
offering. And it says, and the Holy Ghost is a witness to us. When the Holy Spirit enters in
and we're sanctified by the Spirit and washed in regeneration, the
Holy Ghost is a witness to us. that the covenant that He makes
with us is, He says, I'll put my law in their hearts and their
minds while I write them. And He writes this law in our
heart telling us that our sins and our iniquities, He'll remember
no more. The law is satisfied. And where
remission of our sins is, there's nothing else to offer. Nothing
else to offer. Christ is the offering God is
satisfied with. So, when the Lord says here,
I didn't come to destroy the law. We see that everything that
was written in the Law of Moses, in the first five books of the
Bible, were written to glorify the Son of God, and He came to
fulfill everything that was written. Because it was all settled before
the world was ever founded in the covenant of grace, and everything
that was written was showing us what He would accomplish.
Now, let's move to the prophets. I'll be a little faster with
you. I've got that handout there that you can go home and look
some of these things up, but I'm going to go through these
with you just so you can get an idea of this. Now when he says the prophets,
Our Lord is including the prophets and the Psalms. He said on the
road to Emmaus, He said, all things must be fulfilled which
are written of Me in the law of Moses, in the prophets, and
in the Psalms. Isaiah 7.14, the prophet Isaiah
proclaimed that a virgin would conceive and would bring forth
a son and his name would be called Emmanuel, God with us. and it
came to pass. We find that he was born of Mary
the Virgin. His name is Immanuel. He is God with us. His name shall be called Jesus
for he shall save his people from their sins. Micah, in Micah
5.2, the prophet Micah proclaimed that the Savior would be born
in Bethlehem. Where was he born? He was born
in Bethlehem. In Daniel 9.25, the prophet proclaimed
the exact time that the Savior would be born. And he was born
at that exact time. In Jeremiah 31.15, the prophet
said that the children, there would be children that would
be massacred, killed, when he was born. Herod, when he was
born, made a decree. And Matthew 2.17 says, Then was
fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet, saying,
In Ramah was there a voice heard, lamentation, and weeping, and
great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, and would not
be comforted because they are not. It came to pass. He fulfilled
it. Isaiah 9.1, the prophet said
that those who sat in darkness in Galilee would see great light. In Matthew 4.14 it said that
it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet
saying the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtalim by the
way of the sea beyond Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles, the
people who sat in darkness saw great light. He came to Galilee
and they saw great light. Zechariah 9.9 the prophet said
he would come into Jerusalem riding on a lowly ass's coat.
We find that in John 12, 12, he came riding on an ass's coat.
In Psalm 41, 9, it said he would be betrayed by his familiar friend. Mark 14, 10 says, and Judas Iscariot,
one of the 12, went unto the chief priest to betray him unto
them. See, one thing I want you to
see is these things that I've mentioned to you so far, These
are things that happen. What I'm saying is it's not something
he could have read in the Scriptures and then went and fulfilled them
himself just to say after the fact, well, I'm just... Some
might say he's just doing what was written. These are things
that were done when he was born and was yet still an infant.
and when he was growing up. These are things that happened
that God brought to pass that were fulfilled because He must
fulfill everything that's written of Him. Then we read here in Zechariah 11-12, the prophet
said that Christ would be sold for 30 pieces of silver. Christ
was not around. He wasn't pulling the strings
of the people to covet for this. It was written that it would
be. But as God foreordained everything to come to pass so that we find
in the Scriptures, in Matthew 26.15, Judas came to Him and
said, what will you give me? And I'll deliver him unto you.
And the ruler said, we'll give you 30 pieces of silver. You
see the sovereignty of our God? You see how that Christ said,
I came to fulfill the prophets. And He fulfilled them, just as
He fulfilled the law. Psalm 27.12, they said that false
witnesses would be set up against Him. And Matthew 26.60 is fulfilled. His silence when He was accused,
His being smitten and spat upon, His being hated without a cause,
His sufferings in the place of His people, His being crucified
with sinners, His hands being pierced, His being mocked of
men, being given gall and vinegar to drink, His mockery, His intercession
for His enemies, His pierced side, all was proclaimed by the
prophets and all was fulfilled. every bit of it. The psalmist
wrote of men that men would gamble for his coat. Matt Mark 15, 24,
that's exactly what they did. Psalm 34, 20 says, not one bone
of his would be broken. They came out to break the bones
of the three that were on the cross because the Sabbath day
was coming and they didn't want to break the Sabbath. And they
broke the bones of the others, but when they came to Him and
saw that He had already given up the ghost, they didn't break
His bones. There wasn't a bone broken. And
it was written in Isaiah that He would be buried with the rich. one of the rich men came and
took him down and took him and had bought a sepulcher and had
bought him a grave plot where he was going to be buried and
he went and buried Christ in that grave plot. And then his resurrection and
his ascension was proclaimed in the Psalms and every bit of
it was fulfilled just as he said it would be. So when Christ says
Think not that I came to destroy the law or the prophets. I came
not to destroy, but to fulfill. The world, heaven and earth,
can pass away before one jot or tittle of his law can go unfulfilled. Everything, if even the things
other than the law of commandments and the legal binding law that
God placed upon Israel. If even those things, beyond
those things, the words that He wrote from Genesis all the
way through the five books, all the way through the Prophets
and the Psalms, if one word that He wrote concerning Christ is
not fulfilled, it's the same as if the whole law of God went
unfulfilled. Everything that was written was
written to declare, my Son is the salvation of my people. And
therefore, everything that was written came to pass, fulfilled
according to the Scriptures, because Christ Jesus the Lord
is the salvation of His people. So, we'll pick up there next
time, but I want you to see everything, everything God promises, Everything
that God has written, everything that God manifests in His law,
everything is written to teach us. There's one thing you can
walk away from this lesson learning. It's this. When God makes a promise,
That promise is not yay and nay. That promise is not, well, if
or maybe or based on some condition that some little fickle sinner's
got to perform. It is yay and amen in Christ
Jesus the Lord. Everybody wants somebody they
can trust. As you grow older, you're going to find out that
you can't find very few people in this world that you can trust.
Somebody that you can really count on and depend on. What
Christ reveals in the heart of His people is this. There's one. Though my mother and my father
forsake me, He'll take me up. He won't forsake you. He will
not forsake His own. His blood won't allow it. His
promise won't allow it. His faithfulness won't allow
it. His holiness won't allow it. His love won't allow it. Everything that He has said concerning
His people shall come to pass and you can cast all your care
on Him and trust Him. All your care.