Let's all stand together and
sing hymn number 263. 263. The Lord's our rock, in Him we
hide, A shelter in the time of storm. Secure whatever it'll
be tied, A shelter in the time of storm. Oh, Jesus is a rock
in a weary land, A weary land, a weary land. Oh, Jesus is locked in a weary
land. A shelter in the time of storm. Day shade by day, deep it's by
night. A shelter in the time of storm. No fears of alarm, no foes of
fright, A shelter in the time of storm. Oh, Jesus is rocked
in a weary land, A weary land, a weary land. Oh, Jesus is rocked
in a weary land, A shelter in the time of storm. The raging
storms may round us be A shelter in the time of storms We'll never
leave our safe retreat A shelter in the time of storms Oh, Jesus
is a rock in a weary land A weary land And though Jesus is a rock in
a weary land, A shelter in the time of storm. Rock divine, O refuge dear, A
shelter in the time of storm. Be thou our helper ever dear,
A shelter in the time of storm. Oh, Jesus is a rock in a weary
land, a weary land, a weary land. Oh, Jesus is a rock in a weary
land, a shelter in the time of storm. Be seated. We'll sing
hymn number 49. Hymn number 49. you Jesus, what a friend for sinners,
Jesus, lover of my soul. Friends may fail me, foes assail
me, He, my Savior, makes me whole. Alleluia, what a Saviour! Alleluia, what a Friend! Saving, helping, keeping, loving,
He is with us. ? With me to Thee ? Jesus, what
a strength in weakness ? Let me hide myself in Him ? Tempted,
tried, and sometimes failed ? He my strength, my victory wins
Hallelujah, what a Savior. Hallelujah, what a friend. Saving, helping, keeping. He is with me to the end Jesus,
what a help in sorrow While the billows o'er me roll Even when
my heart is breaking He, my Comforter, heals my soul. Alleluia! Saving, helping, keeping,
loving, keeping. He is with me to the end Jesus,
Lord, our guide and keeper While the tempest still is high Storms
about me glide or takes me. He, my pilot, hears
my cry. Hallelujah, what a Savior. Hallelujah, what a friend. Saving, helping, keeping, loving. to be in Jesus I do now believe
Him more than all in Him I find He hath granted me forgiveness
I am His and He is mine Hallelujah What a Savior! Hallelujah! What a friend! Saving, helping, keeping, loving,
He is with me to the end. Romans chapter 7, Romans chapter
7. Read the first six verses and
hopefully by God's grace have some things to say about it. Romans 7. Know ye not, brethren,
for I speak to them that know the law, how that the law hath
dominion over man as long as he liveth. For the woman which
hath a husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as
he liveth. But if the husband be dead, she
is loosed from the law of her husband. So that if, while her
husband liveth, she be married to another man, she shall be
called an adulteress. But if her husband be dead, she
is 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 unto God. For when we were in
the flesh, the motions, the passions of sins, which were by the law,
did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death. But now
we are delivered from the law that being dead when we were
held, that we should serve in newness of spirit and not in
the oldness of the letter. Our blessed God and our Father
and our blessed Lord Jesus Christ, our Savior. Oh, what a Savior
He is. What a redeemer, what a mediator,
what a surety, what a righteousness. Lord, we really indeed find in
you all that we need for time and eternity in this world. We
find you to be everything we need. God made you to be unto
us everything that our heart and soul could possibly need
to be accepted of God Almighty, to be made righteous, to be made
holy, to be sanctified, to be alive unto God through our Lord
Jesus Christ. And Father, we've gathered here
tonight to look into your word, to study it, and we ask for your
blessed presence. We ask for your help. Lord, who
is sufficient for these things? Who is sufficient? So Lord, I'm
not sufficient, but Lord, you are. So by the Holy Spirit of
God, please enable me to speak tonight, enable the hearers to
hear, save you people in this place, continue to meet the hearts,
the needs of the heart and the needs of the body. We ask these
things in our Savior's name. Amen. In our course books, we'll sing
number 23. We'll just sing the first and
the third. One of these days, we'll get
around to going over, putting the insert in on the second verse. We've got it rewritten here.
But we'll just do the first and the third. Number 23 in the course
book. In Jesus I found a sweet rest
From sorrow, from toll, and from cares In Him I am happy and blessed
For He all my burdens doth bear With my Savior so kind I have
found a sweet rest On Jesus, Savior's dear breast Though many
the troubles I meet He'll keep and carry me along I'll sit at
His glorified feet For He is my joy and my song ? With my Savior so nice ? I have
found a sweet rest ? On Jesus my Savior's dear breast ? The first time I heard that song
was up in Indiana. Need to get the girls to sing
it sometime. All right, I'm going to deal
with these first six verses if God will help me. And our motive for obedience. What
is it? Law or love? And that's the thing. In the preceding chapter, you
know, we went through that last Wednesday night. And we start
out in verse 14 where it says, SIN SHALL NOT HAVE DOMINION OVER
YOU, BECAUSE YOU ARE NOT UNDER LAW, BUT UNDER GRACE. And I tell
you, believers ARE NOT UNDER LAW! And he knew this would be
an offense to the believing Jews, they still held a high opinion
of the law. And as a lot of people have a
high opinion of the law, I've met several of them in my lifetime,
And therefore at the beginning of chapter 7, he explains his
MEANING of what it means to be not under law, but under grace.
And I'll tell you, the law which he's referring to here is not
the ceremonial law, not the tithing and all that, and not the holy
days and feast days and that kind of thing. No, he's talking
about the moral law of God, the Ten Commandments, that's what
he's talking about. And that s the whole will of
God manifested to man. You know, God gave the law as
a universal rule of obedience, and He bound EVERYONE, everyone
from Adam to obedience to that law. And if you don t be obedient
to that law, death is the result of disobedience. And all men
were placed under that covenant. We saw that earlier. You know
it says in Galatians 3.10, that cursed is every one that
continueth in all things not written in the book of the law.
And here s another thing, remember in Romans 2 it says that the
Gentiles which did not have the law, They did not have the Ten
Commandments, they didn't have what God gave to Israel on the
mountain of Sinai, but God said He wrote it on our hearts, He
wrote it on our hearts, and that's why Gentiles who did not have
the Law done the things contained IN the Law. And either when something
come to them, it either condemned them and tell them that they
were guilty, or it would excuse them and tell them they were
NOT guilty, but God wrote it on the heart. And I'll never
forget a fellow called me, and I may have told you this before,
called me on a Saturday night and said, Oh, I'm planning on
being with you all in service in the morning. I said, Good,
good. He was from a Reformed Baptist
church, and I said, Good. Then he asked me, He asked me,
he said, how do you all, how do you, how do you discipline
your church? I said, I don't, I don't. I said, you know, I don't. He
said, well, what do you do about people who commit adultery and
lying and steal and all this? I said, well, listen, I said,
I knew all that was wrong before God ever saved me. I didn't need
a law to tell me that those things were wrong. I rebelled against
them, I resisted them, and I broke them, but I didn't need a law
to tell me how bad things was. And after 40-something years,
46 years in March, nobody, I've never, ever had to put anybody
out of a service, never, ever had to bring charges against
anybody. If the gospel won't keep them, then they won't stay.
Why would you want to run somebody off? That's a sinner! Why would
you want to run somebody off and bring charges against somebody?
That's a sinner! That's what this place is for,
for sinners! Could you imagine, boy, getting
up here and start going, well, let's confess our sins, let's
confess to one another. Well, we come to Scott one time
and said, I believe we ought to confess our sins to one another.
That's what John said. Scott said, let's start with
you. Let's start with you. But oh, but that's what I'm talking
about. He's got it on our hearts. And
every one of you know that before God ever saved you. And this
law that s written on the heart continues to be the perfect rule
of righteousness and pronounces a curse on all who fail in the
smallest measure. James said it like this, he said,
If you offend in one point of the law, you guilt him of all. If you break the law in one spot,
in one commandment, then you broke them all. God said you
re guilty of all of them. That s all it takes is just breaking
it once, breaking it once, and then you re guilty of the whole
thing. And I tell you it s only, ONLY when the believer is united to the Lord Jesus Christ,
which I ve tried to preach on the last couple of weeks, and
that only when we re united to Christ are we FREED from this
covenant of law. And oh, the language of the law
is DO, DO, DO, and you ll live! And if you don t, it s like that
young ruler that come to the Lord Jesus and said, Master,
what good thing must I do to inherit eternal life? He said,
well, you know the commandments, and Christ went over the commandments.
He said, all these I've kept from my youth up. And our Lord said, I'll tell
you what you need to do, since you've kept them, and you love
your neighbors yourself, and you love God with all your heart,
sell everything you got, and go distribute it to the poor.
I don't know if I love God that much. I don't know if I love
my neighbor that much. and he went away sorrowful. And
oh, my, the language of the law is do and live, and if you would
enter into life, keep the commandments. But remember, the law not only
reaches the ACTS, the things that a man does, but his attitude,
his manner, and his motive. And let me show you that in Matthew
chapter 5. I want you to see this in Matthew
chapter 5. The law goes much more than what we do, it deals
with our attitude, it deals with our motives, it deals with our
manners. Look in Romans 5.21, this is
what I'm saying. And look what He said here, You
have heard that it was said by them of old time, this is the
law, Thou shalt not kill, and whosoever shall kill shall be
in danger of the judgment. But now He goes on and carries
it to something else. But if whosoever is angry with
his brother, and here s the thing, without a cause, without a cause,
that goes to your motive. I don't know if it goes to what
you're doing, that goes to WHY you're going to do what you're
doing. You know, anger without a cause, he's in danger of judgment.
Whosoever sayeth to his brother Rokkah, that is a vain, foolish
man, he's in danger of the council. You call him a fool, you're in
danger of hellfire. So you see it deals with the
inward man, it deals with the heart, it deals with motives.
And look down here in verse 27. This is what I'm talking about.
It goes to the secrets of men's hearts. It goes to the motives
and the manner of a man. And He said, Ye have heard it
said by them of old time, Thou shalt commit adultery. But I
say unto you that whosoever LOOKS, LOOKS on a woman to lust after
her hath committed adultery already. Where at? In his heart. in his
heart. Now, that gets right down to
where the rubber hits the road, and that's what we're talking
about. That's why this law, that's why it does something besides
just deal with how it would act. Look down at verse 38, You have heard that it hath been
said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. That's absolute
justice. But I say unto you, that when
you do this, you're not resisting evil. But whosoever shall smite
thee on the right cheek, turn to him the left also." You know,
if somebody smites you, just give them the other cheek. Don't
go back for an eye for an eye. Don't go for an eye for an eye.
If somebody hurts you in any way, you just give them the other
cheek. So you see, it goes, and we're bound to this law. We're
married to it. and it s a covenant we re under
until Christ frees us from this law. Now, let s start here in
verse 1, and how many times has He said, you know, He said this
twice in Romans 6, No you not, no you not, No you not, brethren,
you know this, brethren, for I speak to them that know the
law, how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he lives.
Now, as long as a man's living, that law has dominion over him,
that law has power over him, and as long as he lives, the
only thing that'll free him from that law, free him from the dominion
of it, and have power over a man as long as he lives, is to be
dead. Death frees a person from the
obligation of any law to which he's rightfully subject, nothing
else can. And when you look at the Law
as a principle of justification and sanctification, it has dominion
over a man UNTIL he s united to Christ in the death and burial and resurrection
of our Savior, that s when he becomes dead in reference to
the Law. And if you look back over here
in Romans 6, this is what I m saying. You know, when a man is joined
to Christ, Death is the only thing that can free us. It has
dominion over us until death sets us free. And our union with
Christ and His death and His burial and resurrection, we become
His dead men, knowing what He said here in verse 6 of Romans
6, Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that
the body of sin," remember, that s a MASSIVE sin. It says the
same thing in Colossians 122, that the body of sin might be
destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. Now, watch
this, For he that is dead, he s free from sin. Is death going
to come and ask you for anything? Well, if you re dead and you
die, what do you owe? What s going to come after you? everything that you had against
you died with you. And look what I said, if He that
s dead, now listen to this, Now if we be dead with Christ, we
believe we shall also live with Him. How do we live with Him?
We re joined to Him, we re united to Him, and that s the only way
that we become dead to the law and free from the law is through
our death with the Lord Jesus Christ. And then when we are
united to Christ, not under law, but under grace, you know, then
a man when he's dead and he dies with Christ, this union with
Christ, we're free from the guilt. We're free from the guilt. Like
I told them here a couple of weeks ago, maybe last week even,
I don't feel any guilt. What have I got to be guilty
for? You know, that's why Paul said,
Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? Who is
it? Who's going to lay anything to
the charge of God's elect? What? Because Christ died and Christ is risen again and
says that God's right hand. So who's going to let Christ
die to put away our sin? Christ died to set us free. Christ
died to bring us out from under the curse. And I'll tell you,
we're free from the guilt, and we're free from the curse. And
the Lord has no dominion over us whatsoever. None, none. Oh my, you know, when I first went to Indiana,
everybody prayers under the law, wasn't they, Stevie? I preached
to folks who's under the law, and they had dress codes. They
had these dress codes up there, just about almost as Amish and
Mennonites. But I mean, you know, you had
to dress a certain way, you had to wear your hair a certain way,
and oh my goodness, all that rigmarole. And they really, really
was high on the law. And you know, you'd talk to them
and they would say, that's just too good to be true. I can?t
stand the freedom. I?ve got to do something. I?ve
got to have something to do. I can?t stand the freedom. I?ve
got to be able to feel good about what I?m doing.? Oh, and when Joe Terrell went
to Iowa, they had the Netherlands reformed up there. There?s not
a stricter bunch of people on the face of the earth than the
Netherlands You know them folks, they'd have a 300-member church,
and only about five or six of them was fit to take the Lord's
table. The rest of them wasn't fit. They'd come into your home,
they'd come into your house, and go through your house to
try to surprise you, see if you're dressed right, see if you've
not got a television, see that you've got a Bible where it's
supposed to be, and you're praying like you're supposed to be. I
know a couple that they was so dealing with them in this church,
and now this man, of course, he believes the grace of God,
saved by the grace and preaches grace now, but he said they put
us in a place and shunned us and wouldn't have nothing to
do with us and wouldn't let us have nothing to do in the church
because of the elders found something wrong with them. Boy, wouldn't I be a sight? Knock
on your door. Oh, it's the preacher. It's the
preacher. Hurry up. Hurry up. Hide that TV. Put it
in the closet. That's how stupid people are.
They really are. And another, a dear man that
I know him, and he was a song leader in a great church, and
he decided to quit because he'd come to the conclusion that the
Ten Commandments is the believer's rule of life. Now, how would
you like it to be YOUR rule of life? You take the Ten Commandments,
how would you like them to be YOUR rule of life? That's the rule we've got to
go by. Oh, no, no, I don't want that, do you? Oh, my! But I tell
you, look what He goes on to say here now in verse, He gives
us an illustration of marriage to show us how that death sets
us free. For the woman which hath a husband,
He gives this illustration here, the woman," this is an illustration
that He used, "...for the woman which hath a husband is bound
by the law to her husband as long as he lives." But if the
husband be dead, not the wife, but the husband be dead, she
is LOOSED from the law, the principle of law to her husband. So then if while her husband
is alive, and she be married to another, you are come dead
to the law." How? By the Body of the Lord Jesus
Christ. Huh? That we should be married
to another. Who are we married to? To Christ! Even to Him who is raised from
the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God. You see,
Our freedom from the law as a covenant of life and death, or even as
a principle of justification and condemnation, is as complete
as a dead man is free from the laws of the state, or a woman
is free from the law of a dead husband. And this freedom from
the law is not by our death, but by Christ s death. Oh, however,
however, WE ARE CONSIDERED TO BE IN CHRIST, AND CHRIST IN US,
AND OUR DEATH, AND I WANT YOU TO KEEP ROMANS 7, GO TO GALATIANS
CHAPTER 2, GO TO GALATIANS CHAPTER 2, I QUOTE THIS ALL THE TIME,
BUT I WANT YOU TO LOOK AT IT THIS TIME, GALATIANS CHAPTER
2, AND THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT THEYRE
TALKING ABOUT, GALATIANS CHAPTER 2, Look what he says here in verse
20. This is exactly what we're talking
about here. We're dead with Christ, and you
know Christ is in us, and we're in Christ, and it was the death
of Christ that set us free. I am crucified with Christ. I died when Christ died. Nevertheless,
I'm alive, I live, yet it's not I. Who is it then? Christ living
in me. And the life, I now live in this
old flesh, in this old body here, I live by the faith, not MY faith,
but by the faith of faithfulness of the Lord Jesus Christ who
LOVED me and GAVE Himself for me. Huh? That's exactly what
He's talking about. When Christ died, He died unto
sin once. When we died in Christ, WE died
unto sin once. When Christ was raised, we was
raised up with Him. Everything that Christ did, we
identified with Him. And I'll tell you, the death
of Christ, listen, it answered ALL the law's demands. There's
only one man, one man ever on this Earth that kept the law
of God perfectly. It demanded, and not only did
He do it with the moral law, but He done it with the ceremonial
law. He done ALL of it, and our Lord Jesus Christ, when the law
made demands, Christ met all them demands. So if He met them,
when they come demand something from Me, only thing I can do
is point to Him, point to Him. Oh my, and the law has no further
demands on him and it can have none on us. Look what it says
in Romans 8.1. Oh my, look what it says in Romans
8.1. This is what we're talking about. There is now no condemnation. To who? To them which are in
Christ Jesus. There s no judgment, no condemnation
for the believer. No, no. You see, we re no longer
married to the law, but married to the Lord Jesus
Christ. That s who we re married to.
Our dependence is upon Him. Our happiness is upon Him by
wearing His name. Oh, to wear the name of our Lord
Jesus Christ. Our JOY, our joy is in His love
and fellowship, and to believers, to believers, this is so comforting. We are so completely and blamelessly
free from the covenant of the laws if we had NEVER, ever been
under it. Martin Luther, If you ain't got
his thing on Galatians, you need to get it. I mean, you know,
of course, I don't know if you should or not. But anyway, when
Martin Luther discovered this, it gave such a relief to him
that he thought he was at the gates of paradise when he found
out, because this man, this man was crawling on his knees up
the Spanish steps when God came to him and made Romans 3, 24
real to him. being justified freely by the
grace that's in Christ Jesus. That verse came to him and he
realized, What am I doing on my knees? He would beat himself
on the back till blood come out, trying to make himself live holy
life, and then he's on his knees and that verse scripture comes
to his mind, he got up, And he wrote down 95 things and
put it on the door of Wittenberg Church in Wittenberg, Germany,
called a Wittenberg, and knotted it up there, and from then on,
that started the Reformation. Him and Calvin, they started
preaching justification. How? By faith. In who? In Jesus Christ. And
that's what we're talking about. He said, Our sins are ours no
more, but Christ, for God laid on Him ALL of them. And on the
other hand, Christ s righteousness is ours! It s ours! And oh, look what he goes on
to say now, there in verse 4 again, back over in Romans 7. Oh, we are married to him, to
another, even to him who is raised from the dead. Who is that was
raised from the dead? The Lord Jesus. And listen to
this, that we should bring forth fruit unto God. You can't bring
forth fruit to your life. You can't. You got no fruit.
But oh my. And I tell you what, everything
that's done as a result of our relationship to the Lord Jesus
Christ is done in faith. And you know faith works by love.
You know, that's how faith works. Faith works! It springs, it comes
out of LOVE! And oh, and I tell you, the only
fruits of righteousness that are true is those that s done
from a heart of LOVE, from a heart that has FAITH in it, from a
heart that needs Christ, from a heart that WANTS Christ! Oh
my! Oh, you know, That's the only
fruits of righteousness they are. There's nothing, no, there's
not a work that you and I can do that'll bring forth any fruit
to righteousness. Christ brings it forth. And I'll
tell you what, the fruits of righteousness is, it comes out
of love. It comes out of love. And that's
what, you know, they come to some folks and Our Lord Jesus,
in Matthew 25, He said, you know, He talked about people doing
things. And there was a group, you know, that He said, He told
His disciples, He said, when I was hungry, you fed me. When
I was naked, you clothed me. When I was in prison, you visited
me. And all the believers said, Lord, when did we do these things?
When did we do these things? There's not a soul in this building
that would stand up and say, I've done good works for Jesus.
I've done good works for Christ. Not one that'll do it. But then
this other group over here, they said, oh Lord, we've done all
these things. They talked about all the wonderful
things they've done. The only people that done anything
that Christ would commend is the people that said, Lord, what
have we ever done? What have we ever done? But the folks that
talk about doing, they're the ones that ain't done nothing.
And that's the ones that Christ's gonna say, depart from me, you
workers of iniquity, I never knew you. And I'll tell you, I won't go
so much to say this, that if you even think you've done something
good, you messed it up by thinking it. Ain't that right? Every one of
you agree with me on that. If we even think, you know, you
ladies fix meals and stuff. You don't feel like you HAVE
to do it if you have company or something. You want people
to come and eat at your table because you LOVE them, and you
want to fix for people because you LOVE them! And that's the
way it is in this business of worshiping Christ, this business
of knowing Christ and having fellowship with Christ. It's
born out of a HEART OF LOVE! And God gives us love. He puts
this love for Christ in our hearts. And I tell you, let me tell you
something, deliverance from the law in Christ is NECESSARY for
our justification, but it s also necessary for our sanctification.
Justification and sanctification go together. Wherever you find
one, you find the other. You can t be justified and not
be sanctified. Can t do it. who got so upset the other day
talking about progressive sanctification. They talked about, you know,
getting better. You know, how in the world? We've
been believers for a long, long, long time. Are you better now
than you was when you first started? You know, our sanctification
and our justification go exactly hand in hand. If you're justified,
then you're sanctified. If you're sanctified, you're
justified. They go together. Don't never separate them. And
I'll tell you something, beloved, you know, the law, a man in his
natural state can't be justified by the law in their natural state,
and they can't be sanctified by the law in their unregenerated
state, but people want to do that, The law can t make an evil
man good, and it cannot make a saved man holy. You know, look
over in Galatians 3. I want you to look at this. If
I didn t know so many people that was dealing with these things
under the law, Look what he says here, O foolish
Galatians! That's what THEY wanted to do,
they wanted to go back under the law. Remember in Acts 15 when
they said, Accept you, be circumcised, and keep the law of Moses, you
can't be saved? No, Paul said, No, we ain't going
to put up with that. O foolish Galatians, who hath
bewitched you, that you should not obey the truth, before whose
eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth crucified among you,
preaching the gospel to them. This only would I learn of you.
I want you to tell me this. Did you receive the Spirit by
the works of the law? Did the Holy Spirit come to you
by the works of the law, or did He come to you by the hearing
of faith? what you heard, hearing. Is that
how the gospel come to you? Is that how the regeneration
come to you? Is that how salvation come to
you? And look what he goes on to say, Are you so foolish? You started out in the Spirit,
you begun in the Spirit, the Holy Ghost done something for
you, now you going to try to turn around and be made perfect
by your flesh? Oh my, and then look what he
said back over here in Romans five, I mean seven, excuse me,
Romans seven. I'm gonna wind this thing up
here in a minute. I love talking about these things, I really,
really do. You know, I've talked to so many
people, even out at the gym and around here and different places,
and people make some of the, awfulest mistakes, and this one
fellow, a couple of fellows where I work out at, they talked to
me a little bit and brought up things and stuff that I wouldn
t agree with, and now all they do is say, Hey, Pastor, hey,
Pastor, they don t want to stop talking anymore. My neighbor,
oh, my, when I told him that no, Armenians are not saved,
Pentecostals are not saved. It'd be impossible for a man
to be saved and not be joined to Christ. The only difference
between them, to Him, and us was they didn't know they were
saved eternally. If you don't know anything about
Christ and you think you've got to work to get what you want
from Christ, THEN YOU DON'T KNOW CHRIST! And now I ain't seen
Him or heard talk to Him in over two months. I don't agree with
him, I'm not going to agree with a man just to get along with
him. By God's grace, and I don't mean
to be mean about it, but I don't want to face God for agreeing
with a man with something that I KNOW is a LIE! But look what he goes on to say
here now in verse 5. talking about when we were back
under the Law, when we were in the flesh, in this old fallen,
fallen flesh, this old human nature, the motions of sins,
what s the motions of sins? The PASSIONS of sins, the LUSTS
of sins, all the sins that aggravates us, which were by the law." What
did they do? They worked in your members,
and what did they do? They brought forth fruit to death.
The law all it done was turn us up to be mean! You get around
a bunch of Pharisees and they re mean! Look how mean they are
to Christ! You get around religious people
and they re mean! They re mean! And I tell you
what, all the law did just irritate us. irritate us. Oh, we were filled with displeasure
toward the law and the lawgiver, but now in verse 6, and we re
done. But now we are DELIVERED from what? The law, SAVED from
the law, DELIVERED from the law, THAT BEING DEAD WHEREIN WE WERE
HELD, WHEN YOU'RE DELIVERED FROM IT, YOU'RE NO LONGER DEAD TO
IT, YOU'RE DEAD TO THE LAW NOW, WHEREIN WE WERE HELD, AND LISTEN
TO THIS, THAT WE SHOULD SERVE IN NEWNESS OF SPIRIT, NOT IN
THE OLDNESS OF THE LATTER. OH, THE LAW IS TERMINATED, AND
IT HAS NOTHING FOR US, THAT OUR RELATIONSHIP IS TERMINATED WITH
THE LAW THROUGH OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST. WE'VE DIED to what once
restrained us and held us captive. We serve our Lord Jesus Christ
and we obey our Lord Jesus Christ. We don't have to go to rules
and regulations to tell us how to live. Don't have to go to
law. But oh no, we got a new life. We have a new life. Ain't that
what he called about newness of life? Newness of love? Oh, that's what he's talking
about here, not in the newness of the Spirit. Our spirit's new,
our hearts are new, our lives are new. When a man's under the
law, the forced obedience of a man under the law is the obedience
of a slave. But the obedience of a man set
free and adopted is the obedience of a son. And the obedience of a wife is
an obedience of love, and that's what it is. The love of Christ
constrains us, constrains us. There's a little bulletin, I
don't know if it's in this week's bulletin or next week's, but
Bruce Crabtree was getting out of the pulpit and the fellow
asked him, he said, Do you believe the, He said, do you believe you're
under the law? And he says, no, no, I don't believe one of that.
And he said, well, how then do you live? He said, I live the
same way Abraham did, by faith, by faith. I live the same way
Isaac, by faith. We don't need, oh boy, God save
us. From ever, ever, ever, ever thinking
we can earn anything by what we do. Christ earned everything
for us. We're not under any bondage to
anybody except Christ himself. And that's a bondage of love.
And oh, what a wonderful bondage it is to love Christ. What a sweet bondage it is. Our Father, thank you and blessed
be your name for letting us look into your word tonight. Thank
you for saving us, keeping us saved, preserving us. And Lord,
thanks for bringing us out from under this awful bondage that
we were under for so many years. Oh, when we were in religion,
we were under bondage. And oh Lord, we were under legalism. But Lord, you saved us. You showed
us that we're complete in Christ. That we're free in Christ. That
we're justified in Christ. We're sanctified by Christ. Everything
is perfect and complete in our Savior. And we're perfect and
complete in Him. One of these days, oh Lord, you'll
present us faultless, Unblameable, unreprovable in your sight. And right now, that's the way
we stand. Unblameable, unreprovable, and
faultless right now in your presence. God bless these dear saints as
they go their way, meet the needs of their homes and their hearts,
and help us all to live to your glory. and to manifest love not
only to you, but to one another. We ask these things in Christ's
name. Amen. We'll sing a couple of verses
of 205, and then you'll be at liberty to go. 205. We'll stand on this, and
then when we're done, you can go. 205. You know what that is,
don't you? Just sing. Well, sing. 205. Free from the law, happy condition. Jesus hath fled and there is
remission. ? There's good to know when bruised
by the fall ? Grace hath redeemed us once for all ? Once for all,
oh sinner, receive it ? Once for all, oh brother, believe
it Linked to the cross, the burden will fall. ? Redeemed us once for all ? Third
verse. ? Children of God, O glorious
calling ? ? Surely His grace will keep us from falling ? ?
Passing from death to life at His call ? ? Bless His salvation
? Once for all ? Once for all, oh, sinner, receive it ? Once
for all, oh, brother, believe it ? Lean to the cross, the burden
will fall ? Christ hath redeemed us See you Sunday, God willing. Oh, y'all, the ladies have lunch
Friday.