Let's be turning to Luke chapter 16 Luke 16 We'll be looking at verses 13 through 18 and These come in between while right after what our Lord had just said in the parable of the unjust stored

Now as we looked at that parable, we considered how that all men in every generation are stewards, and all are going to give account. All will stand before the throne of our God. And when you read that parable of the unjust stored, you can see in one sense how this is speaking of the stewardship of the scribes and Pharisees, the rulers over Israel. And they were soon going to have their stewardship removed from over the people. And that did happen. In 70 AD, it was entirely removed from them. And the temple was destroyed. And so they fit that profile in that sense, but it's also true of the publicans and the harlots, the sinners that were also stewards over their lives and the things which they were doing. They were unjust in their stewardship also.

And the point that our Lord is emphasizing is that just as we see the unjust store who his whole life lived in wastefulness, in wastefulness, he was wasting and not faithful in his stewardship whatsoever. He's a sinner. He's a sinner. But just like that man who, when he heard that his Lord was calling him in to give account, And he said, you're no longer going to be stored. It's over. And that permanence there is the permanence of death. It's a picture of us standing before the true and living God in the day of judgment. When that man heard that he was being called in, he stopped everything and began to make preparations for his future habitation.

Now, he did it in a worldly sense, with worldly things. It was about financial things of the world, the riches of this world which are passing and fading. And Christ was pointing out that if men do that today in financial things, which are stolen, and rusting, and being destroyed, and fall apart, and pass away very quickly, and will not be yours when you die. They're going to be someone else's when you die. Be diligent in that manner. Even if you've wasted your whole life as a fool, as a sinner, as a waster of things, in all that God has given you, stop. and begin to seek Christ. Look to Christ. Look to Him. Beg Him for mercy and grace. Beg Him to receive you and to give you the riches of eternal life. He's able, brethren. He's able.

And so our eyes, what He's showing us is our need of Him, our need of His grace and mercy. And He tells us to seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, is the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. You seek him first, and all the other worldly things that men and women labor and spend on and strive for and sacrifice for, the things that you need will be given to you. God will provide for you sufficiently, because we don't need many things. We don't need a lot. He knows what we need and what's for our good and how he purposes to use us in the kingdom. Trust him for those things and beg him for Christ. Seek him for Christ. That's what we need more than anything.

Now, at the conclusion of that parable of the unjust stored, our Lord presses home the need for the singleness of heart, for a new heart and a single heart, a heart that is fixed on Christ, fixed on serving Him, on knowing Him, on hearing from And he says in verse 13, Luke 16, 13, no servant can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will hold to the one and despise the other. He cannot serve God and mammon. That is the unrighteous things of this world. The riches and glory and power and influence of this world, you cannot serve this world and serve God. It cannot be done. He's telling you it's an impossible thing. You're either serving God or you're serving this world. It's one or the other. It's not both. You're not going to figure it out. No man has and no man will. What door God opens, what Christ opens, no man can shut. And what he shuts, no man can open. And he says, you cannot do it. It's shut. your servant, one or the other, one or the other.

And by his grace and power, he's speaking of a new heart, of a new spirit that he gives to his child. He must be born again. And to those that he gives life and salvation, he promises that they who do the will of God abideth forever. And what is it to do the will of God? To believe on him whom he hath sent. It all begins with Christ. It all ends in Christ. It's all of Christ. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, whom God hath sent, and you shall live forever. You shall have abundantly, and that life which is given to you will never be taken away from you. The things of this world are taken. Those things can never be taken from you. They are yours, given to you in and by the Lord Jesus Christ. And so he's repeating this over and over to his hearers. His whole ministry is drawing and calling sinners to himself and revealing to them, you need a new heart. You need a new heart, you need the spirit of God, you need this salvation which only God can give and what he works in his people. Now, when I say believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved, people always think, the carnal man always thinks, but don't I gotta do something? Tell me what I gotta do. What do I need to do to show or to prove that I'm a Christian?

Don't worry about what you got to do. Look to Christ. That's what you got to do. Look to Christ, begging him, Lord, reveal your grace in me. Teach me what I have need of learning. Give me a heart for you, Lord. Because by nature, I don't have that heart. I don't have that desire. But by his grace and power, he gives the desire in the heart. And then he nurtures that. He fertilizes that desire in the heart. He ministers the spirit to you.

How does he minister the spirit to you? Through the hearing of faith. What is the hearing of faith? The preaching of the gospel. Hearing the gospel. And by that, that's where he sows that word in your heart. That's where he prepares the good ground. That's where he stirs up the desire, opens the ear to hear, wait a minute. I'm not like that. Lord, help me. Save me. Turn me from death. Turn me from sin and wickedness.

He's the one who cultivates that and works that in his people by a new and living way. That way doesn't come because we light candles or show up in fancy robes. or swing incense around on poles and do religious things. That's not how it comes. It's a new and living way. It's not through form. It's through the Lord's grace and mercy poured out upon his people in grace and power and by his spirit so that he works salvation in the hearts of his people. He's the one that forms this love in the heart.

This is why our Lord said, ye must be born again Because that which is flesh, that which is born of the flesh, is only flesh. And that which is born of the spirit, that's spirit. That's how you're gonna serve and worship God in spirit and in truth. And the response of the Pharisees, they didn't like it. They didn't like what they were hearing from Christ. It says in verse 14, the Pharisees also who were covetous, They heard him going after that which they loved, this world, and they thought they could have their cake and eat it too, as it were, right, have both things. Things in the kingdom to come and things here on earth and to satisfy their lusts upon these things.

And the Pharisees also who were covetous heard all these things and they derided him. They derided him. And that is the response of dead letter religionists, to deride the grace of God. To deride, what it means is to mock. It means to sneer at. If someone brings a food that you don't like and puts it in your face, what do you do? You turn your nose up at it. Oh, get that out of my face. I don't like that. You sneer at it. You don't want it. That's what they were doing when Christ spoke. of the power of God, of the need of a new life, of the need of salvation. They saw they weren't measuring up to what he was saying, and so they mocked him. They spoke against him. They opposed the things that Christ was saying.

This was their response. They scoffed at his words. They hated his teachings. They hated his words. They hated his parables. They hated his works. going around and healing people and doing good for people. They hated that. And they fought against it. They opposed everything that Christ did and everything that he said. And they hated grace because it renders the works of man to have no bearing on life. The works of man have no bearing on the merit of God. It doesn't earn the favor of God. It doesn't make us better or raise us up in the kingdom. We are entirely dependent upon the grace of God and the Lord Jesus Christ.

What have you that wasn't given to you? If you do excel in many things, what are you glorying in about that? It was given to you of God to use in his kingdom. We have nothing to boast in except the Lord Jesus Christ. Today, it's no different. Modern day scribes and Pharisees, lawyers and doctors of the law, they mock and they sneer at grace. They hate grace. They deride this grace because the natural man doesn't believe that God is able to save his people by the Lord Jesus Christ. That if you're a sinner, it's God that turns the heart from that sin. It's God that makes you to hear. That's sin. Don't do that. He makes you to know it's sin. And to see in yourself, Lord, I love that thing. I don't know how to turn from it. Save me. Have mercy.

He's the one that breaks us. He's the one that brings us low. And you continue in it, and he'll humble you. If you're his, he'll humble you. He'll cause you to fall on your face and bring you low to see your need of him. So you're crying and begging him, Lord, please save me from this. Please, Lord. I fear I'm going to hell. Have mercy on me, Lord. He does it. He's able. All through the preaching of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, he is able to work that grace in your hearts. He's able to give you a desire. of love for his people, a desire to hear the word, not just because mommy and daddy bring you, but because you want to come. You want to hear from the Lord and hear his words to you.

Lord, teach me. Give me a heart. Conform me to Christ, because I don't understand it. I don't know what that means. I don't know how to do it. He does, and he's able. He's able. And he works that desire in the heart of his children by power, by his spirit, by his grace. Trust him for it. That's what he's teaching. Look to Christ. Look to Christ. He's able.

Because when we hear these words, we see that ain't me. I'm way far away, Lord. Save me. Have mercy upon me.

Now, our Lord exposes the works of the Pharisee plainly here. He says in verse 15, And he said unto them, Ye are they which justify yourselves before men, but God knoweth your hearts, for that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God. God doesn't like it. God's not pleased with it. He's not fooled, and he counts it as abomination. It's an offense to God. It's an offense to God.

And we see there's plenty of people out in religion that can run circles around us in good works, who appear to be good, who look really good compared to us because we know ourselves. And they look great. And they put us to shame in a lot of ways. They put us to shame, but what The reason why they do that, if it's not of grace, if it's not of God's power, the reason why they do that is because they're focused on and worried about how others perceive them. They do what they do to be seen of men, not because they have a heart or desire to serve the Lord, not because they are being taught of the Lord and patiently laboring in that which is good and right and hearing and adding to those things as the Lord teaches us and grows us by His grace.

No, no, no, that's not what they're thinking. They're thinking, I've got to show that I am a Christian. And so they do things just to be seen of men. And what the Lord is saying here is that God knoweth your hearts. We can deceive men. We can put on a good show. We, by nature, we're good hypocrites. By nature, Christ said, men turn to thorns and thistles for grapes and figs, to bring forth spiritual fruit from the flesh, the cursed flesh, the thorns and the thistles. You can't do it. You can't do it. But you can put on a good show before others. But God knows the heart. He knows the heart. He knows what you're thinking. He knows whether you have a spirit or no. He knows whether your heart is new or not. He knows whether you love the Lord or not, whether your heart is single or not. He knows. We can fool men, but we can't fool God, who knows all.

We can put on a good show, but without the grace of God, without the blood of Christ, without His Spirit and power, we're nothing. We're just vain, religionist hypocrites without His grace. We're nothing apart from him. And so what man thinks is his high mark of religion, what religious men speak of the most and say, this is how I know I'm a believer, if it's not of his grace and power, it's abomination to him. It's abomination. And if it is of his grace and power, we don't boast of ourselves in it. We boast of Christ in it and what he did for a sinner like me. He teaches us that. We may start out talking of ourselves, but the Lord will correct that. He's able to humble us and to make us to serve our brethren in spirit and in truth and in sincerity, in a genuine heart of grace.

Now, the Lord adds in verse 16, He adds in verse 16, the law and the prophets were until John, And since that time the kingdom of God is preached, and every man presseth into it."

Now, John the Baptist was a herald for Christ. First, he was a harbinger, meaning that when he came, Christ was right behind him. And he was also a herald for Christ, meaning that he pointed out Christ to men. He spoke of Christ who should come so that men would know this is the Christ. He was a herald for Christ.

And from the day that he pointed to Christ, after his baptism, from that day when he pointed to Christ and said, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world. From that time forward, all that was spoken of in the Law and the Prophets was fulfilled. It was fulfilled in Christ. There were some things to be worked out, but it was it was done. Christ was come and he was finishing it. He was doing the work for which he was sent to do and it will be brought forth.

Even that promise to give life to his people, that's still being worked out. He's still calling in his sheep because nothing can stop it. Nothing can stop the grace and power of God. His word will not fall down His word will not fall down short. He shall accomplish that which he purposes to do in heaven and in earth, and in the hearts of his people, and in the hearts of men. He does it. He does all things as it pleases him.

And so now, we don't enter into the kingdom of God by an outward form, through outward practices of religions, of going to the temple, and the slaying of beasts. And the various forms that they worked and did, which were types and shadows and pictures of what Christ himself fulfilled for his people. It is a new and living way by which we serve him.

And we can do the outward form, but that doesn't mean that we have life. And we can stumble and look weak, and that person may indeed have life. We don't know the heart. The Lord knows. And so we preach Christ. We minister that grace. knowing that the Lord saves whom he will. And he is able. He's able to do it. That's our confidence. That's our confidence that he's able to save his people and to do it to the uttermost and to work life and grace and salvation in their hearts and to bless his people.

And so The meaning, that meaning of verse 16, turn over to Matthew 11. Let me just show you something from Matthew 11, because he also speaks, the Lord speaks of this here in Matthew 11, what he says, and it'll help us a little more, I think, to understand what our Lord is saying. Matthew 11, verses 12 and 13. And from the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force. For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John." So he's talking about the same thing here in Matthew 11 as he is in Luke 16.

when you look at the parables of our Lord that he spake, and you look at his works, and he went around all of Israel, through Judah and Israel, and what he did there, you see his compassion, his healing, his teaching, his receiving sinners and eating with them, and you see this. And where he was calling the poor, the maimed, the lame or the halt, and the blind, those that are sinners, and he's calling them to himself and refused none who came to him, and all that desired him. It didn't matter what their background was, he received them to himself. Those that heard and trusted him, he received them to himself.

And the self-righteous did what? They found fault with that. This man receiveth sinners and eateth with them. They found fault with Christ receiving sinners to himself. People that never did any good up until that point, who lived wicked lifestyles and were clearly sinners. He received them and they found fault with that. And they found fault with the Gospel. They found fault with the grace of God. They derided Him. They hated Christ and His Gospel and they persecuted Christ for that.

And there is some sense in which that word there, that the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, could refer to the Pharisees in some sense, right, that they're the ones hurling insults and coming violently against the kingdom of God. But it also, another sense of that is that it suffers them. The grace of God suffers sinners to come, those that don't look so great, those that are not perfect, those that do stumble and fall, those that are weak and are but a smoking flax. They're not well formed. There's still a long way to go. It suffers violence because it receives them. It suffers the violence. It suffers the sinner to come.

Come, you that taste Christ. And I've heard him come, draw near to him and continue to eat. Just eat Christ. Just fill up on the Lord Jesus Christ and what he does for sinners. Trust and believe him. Venture wholly upon him to do everything that he says in his word for the sinner, to save us to the uttermost. to teach us, to keep us, to form Christ in the heart, to conform us to the image of Christ.

And so, in that sense, the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence. Christ suffers sinners to enter in, and in that sense, the violent, the offender, the violent offender presses in, enters into the kingdom under the preaching of the gospel, the good news of the gospel, and the pouring out of the Holy Spirit upon his people to deliver us, to pluck us out of the fire, to pluck us out of death and damnation, to pluck us out of ruin and darkness, and bring us in to the kingdom of light. And he opens the ear to hear what the Spirit saith, and he gives the Spirit to make us to hear what he says, to hear the mystery, to understand the mystery of God hid from ages. to see that all our salvation, and all our hope, and all our righteousness, and all our peace is found in the Lord Jesus Christ. And He's everything, everything to me. And that's what He does in blessing His people.

And when a sinner hears that, they press into the kingdom. They want to hear more. Tell me more. Tell me more of what Christ has done. Tell me the old, old story. Tell me the good news of what Christ has done for me. Lord, have mercy on me. And the Pharisees and the scribes who had an evil and unconverted heart, where there's no life, no spiritual life there, they can make it look good on the outside. And we can do it. By nature, we're hypocrites. We're in danger of these things, if not for the grace of God. keeping us and turning us from it.

But it says, our Lord said to them in Matthew 23, 27 and 28, woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites. For ye are like unto whited supplicants, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones and of all uncleanness. Even so, ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.

Next, our Lord addresses the law, which the Pharisees were so concerned with. All right, so back in Luke 16, verse 17, he says, it's easier, it's easier for heaven and earth to pass than one tittle of the law to fail.

Now, the self-righteous will charge us who preach grace, who preach the grace of God and exalt Christ and exalt the grace of God to save sinners. They would charge us with destroying the law. They say, well, you're destroying the law. You're not fulfilling the law. You're not keeping the law. You're doing poorly under the law. And they would charge us as destroying the law and the prophets and not not being righteous, but that's simply not so.

Only the preaching of God's grace in the Lord Jesus Christ maintains the integrity of the law, maintains the strict, perfect righteousness of the law only through the preaching of Christ, only through the preaching of Christ. And it's the self-righteous, it's the workmonger, that one who labors and does business in the law, the workmonger, that one destroys the law. Because if you're boasting that you are now keeping the law, and by the law you justify yourselves, or by the law you sanctify yourselves, all you're doing is lowering the law down to your standard, to get it to a point where you can meet it. And you'll lower that thing and justify yourselves and justify your not keeping it as low as you need to in order to feel good about yourself. and justify yourselves before God. Despising Christ. Despising Christ is what they're doing.

But the law is clear that none are righteous. And none of us keeps the law. Even Paul said, they that are circumcised, they don't even keep the law. They don't even measure up to the standard of the law. They're coming short of the glory of God in that, and they're boasting of it, and they're despising Christ, and they're not even keeping it. They're not even keeping the law. And so the law is clear that none are righteous.

In Galatians 3.22, it says, the scripture, this book right here, Old and New Testament, the scripture hath concluded all under sin, every one of us. that the promise of faith of Jesus Christ might be given, freely, sovereignly given to them that believe. He's making us to see that when we look here, we can see sin in everyone. Even the best of the best were sinners. We see how all are sinners. And it's not that we are making ourselves perfect by the law. We are made perfect by the Lord Jesus Christ. We are perfect in Him. We are accepted in Him who accomplished our salvation righteously, righteously, in perfect righteousness, perfect faithfulness. He did it all.

And so the believer's faith rests upon the faith and obedience of the Lord Jesus Christ, who himself fulfilled every jot and every tittle of the law perfectly without fail. Without fail. And not one law failed of perfect righteousness by the Lord Jesus Christ. And he did that because, one, he is perfectly righteous. He's the Son of God. He's the eternal Son of God. There is no darkness in him. There is no sin in him. There is nothing wrong or evil in him. He is the perfect Lamb of God, sent to take away the sins of his people. And as such, he willingly went to the cross, bearing the sins of his people in his own body on the tree, to put it away, to put it away as our sacrifice, to put away that sin and to obtain eternal redemption, to obtain forgiveness for our sins.

Romans 3, 24 through 25 affirms that we are justified, believers are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, period. Right there in him, whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past through the forbearance of God, to declare I say at this time, his righteousness, that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus. Christ is the propitiation, and what that means is that he turned the wrath of God, which was against us for our sin, and turned that wrath against himself, put it upon him, and he put away the wrath of God, which was against us. He delivered us and obtained forgiveness. That's what remission means, forgiveness. for the forgiveness of our sins.

Now, the holiness of the law was strictly upheld, was perfectly, justly upheld. God is just to forgive his people, and he does so justly. He does so justly.

Now, we'll see this here in this next verse, in verse 18, Luke 16, 18. Whosoever putteth away his wife, and marrieth another, committeth adultery. And whosoever marrieth her that is put away from her husband, committeth adultery." Now, at first glance, this seems out of place. Why did Luke drop this in here? Why did Luke bring this law in here at this point? It has everything. Let me assure you, it has everything to do with the context of the unjust stored that was before and the parable of the rich man and Lazarus that follows right after this. It has everything to do with that.

Now, first of all, because of the infirmity of man's flesh, let me just say that Brethren, don't even put divorce in your vocabulary. Let me just address this. Divorce was only permitted because of the wickedness of man, because of the infirmity of man and of his sin. But you that believe Christ, don't even think about divorce. Put that out of your vocabulary. Don't go into marriages thinking that, well, there's always the option of divorce.

I remember when I worked back in computers about a decade ago, there was a young woman that I worked with. She was a project manager, and so I had to work with her once in a while. And she had gotten married. And I never heard of her even being engaged or anything about this marriage. She never spoke of it or said anything about it to anybody. But she said, oh, yeah, I got married. And I said, oh, that's really nice that you got married. And the next thing out of her mouth is, yeah, well, if it doesn't work out, I'll just divorce him. And I said, no. Don't talk like that. You shouldn't say that. If you just got married and things are good, what are you going to do when things are bad? And you've already decided that this is an option for you. Don't talk like that. And I don't know whether she's still married to this day or not. But the point is that we ought not to even have that on our lips. And if you're getting married, it's a serious thing. It's a serious thing. And hold on to that.

And even the scriptures show that God always purposed for there to be one husband, one wife. When he made Adam and Eve, he made Eve and brought Eve to Adam. He didn't make Eve and Louise and Colette and say, well, just cycle through them if things don't work out. He gave them one wife. one wife. He gave him one wife, and that's one husband, one wife. That is how the Lord intended it to be. One man, one woman, and no other option. And this is why he said, Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh. Why? Because the whole of it speaks of Christ. It speaks of the grace of God revealed unto us in the Lord Jesus Christ, who left his father and came to the earth and served for his bride, served for his bride faithfully, laying down his life for her, loving her, providing for her all that she needs, bearing her sins in his own self on the tree and put them away forever.

And so And now we see how he ministers grace to his bride, how he sweetly, graciously, powerfully, wondrously ministers that love and that grace to his bride. But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us. Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, by grace are ye saved. It's a sweet mercy of the Lord to labor with us and to minister this grace in our hearts. Through love, mercy, and power, he manifests this grace. He turns the heart, he gives us a desire for him, not through the force of the law, Not by constraint, Paul said, not by threatenings and beatings and harsh words toward us, but rather he works that desire in the heart. And then he brings the preaching of the word, and he skillfully draws down the roots into the vine, and we are knit and formed with Christ in love and grace and power. And he does it miraculously, wondrously. It is a miracle of his grace to give us a desire for Christ. And he sows his grace through the word in the heart to nourish that new man, the new creature in us. to feed upon the Lord Jesus Christ, born of his grace and power, for we're his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained, that we should walk in them.

And so we're taken from being servants under the oldness of the letter. We're taken from being servants, and we're not spoken to as servants, but he calls us friends. And he calls us his bride. And he draws us sweetly to himself. And he does this lovingly and sweetly.

Why? Because if you can't, and he shows us that as husbands, right? Because if you can't love your wife, if you can't patiently minister to your wife and be kind and long-suffering, what's in your future? Divorce, right? Divorce, it all comes crashing down. Eventually she's gonna leave you, right? And so this is where the love of Christ is sown in our hearts. And we see how he ministers to us, that same grace that he ministers to us, we minister that same grace to one another, right? And serve and minister to one another in that same thing.

Now, coming back to our text then, to see what our Lord is teaching us here in this context, right, of why he said this here. Why did you say this here? Or why did you bring out that, you know, just don't even talk about divorce, right? Because it's there because of the infirmity of the flesh. But it wasn't meant to be. But why did you bring this up here? Well, it's that we would, A, see that we're all sinners, right, that we would see that we are all sinners in need of his grace and mercy. And whether you're a harlot Or a thief, or a murderer, or you're a self-righteous person, far, far away from the Lord. We're all sinners in need of the grace of God. We need His mercy.

And when he says here, in verse 17 and 18, it's easier for heaven and earth to pass away than one tittle of the law. It's not gonna fail, you're not gonna lower it, and God's not gonna be pleased with it if you lower it, and you're not gonna get one over on God. Whosoever putteth away his wife, and marrieth another, commiteth adultery, and whosoever marrieth her that is put away from her husband, commiteth adultery. What is he saying there? He's addressing, how are we going to be delivered from the law? What he's teaching us here is you must die to the law. You must be put to death to the law. You must be put to death with Christ to be delivered from that law. Because that's what he's talking about here. What he's really addressing here is the new heart. He's addressing we must be born again. And the only way we're going to serve God in newness of spirit is if we die with Christ to the law. We must be delivered from that law, out from under that law, because we cannot be saved otherwise.

Let me show you this and what Paul said in Romans 7. Turn over to Romans 7. I'm just going to read the first six verses with you, because he's speaking here of what our Lord said. He's making it known why Christ is saying this here and what it means.

Romans 7, verse 1. Know ye not, brethren, For I speak to them that know the law, and how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth. For the woman which hath an husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth. That's the plainness of the teaching of the law. She's bound as long as he liveth. But if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband. So then if while her husband liveth, she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress. But if her husband be dead, she's free from that law, so that she is no adulteress, though she be married to another man. Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law. by the body of Christ, that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit, righteous fruit unto God. For when we were in the flesh, the motions of sins which were by the law, right, that stirred up enmity, when the law said thou shalt not, don't get, you can't do that, right, don't do that. They did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death. All of our motivations were twisted, all of our desires were twisted and confused and clouded with sin and why we did things and what we thought we were getting out of doing certain things were all leading unto death. But now we are delivered from the law. that being dead, wherein we were held, that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter."

That's what the Lord is teaching here. You want the law? Well, here's the strictness of the law. And you better do it perfectly. As I understand it, the Pharisees were in love and divorced at that time. They would divorce a woman at any time. He was just using one example, but the example is very relevant to us that we too, if we're going to serve in singleness of heart, we must be dead to the law. We need the spirit of God. We need his grace and power to deliver us, to pluck us entirely out of that body and that inheritance in Adam and put us in the inheritance in the body of the last Adam, the Lord Jesus Christ. We have to be born again, and we don't do it. We don't do it by our works. He does it by grace and power. He does it. Paul said, I'm crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live. And the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. And he works that, he puts us to death in ourselves, death to the world, death to the body of the law, to the body of sin, puts us to death to that, and gives us life in the body of Christ, an inheritance in him. So that's what he's saying. That's why that's put there, is to say, I've got to die to that law, that I might be married to Christ my husband, the husband of the faithful, the savior of the faithful, Lord save me. It's to drive us to Christ. It ain't going to be by constraint of the law. It's not going to be by the works of the flesh. We're not going to do it. We'll come up short. But by grace, hear Christ, hear Christ. Believe him. Don't mock him. Don't deride him. He's the only thing that saves a sinner. He's the only one that saves a sinner. Don't speak against your own selves. Embrace him. Seek him. flee to him, run to him, and cry out for mercy and grace. I pray he do that for each of us here always, brethren, always unto the end. Amen.