God said he was going to be preaching
from here real soon. Told him I was going to be preaching
from it. But now it says there in verse 5, The end of the commandment is
charity out of a pure heart and of a good conscience and of faith
unfain. You know, when you use the law, and he
talks about using it rightly here, and this law And he comes
down to the gospel. The gospel and the law is not
at enemies with one another. The gospel no more excuses sin
than the law does. But it's how you use the law
and what the law means and how you, it's effaced. Paul told
Timothy, you know, to study, to show thyself approved unto
God. Rightly dividing. A workman needs
not be ashamed. Rightly dividing the word of
truth. And here's one place where it needs rightly divided. He
says, now the end of the commandment. Now when we talk about the end
of something, we're talking about the aim or the purpose of it.
What's the aim or the purpose? The end. The goal of the law. Well, it tells us here is charity.
It's love. That word charity is the same
word as love. You know, the law tells us to love God and love
our neighbor. Now you keep here and look over
with me in Matthew chapter 22. Look in Matthew 22 and verse
35. They all, a whole bunch of people
came to ask the Lord questions, and finally there's one man come
to ask his last question, a lawyer. Now a lawyer, somebody who is
like the same thing as a rabbi, same thing as a master in Israel,
they studied the law. They studied the law. And then
one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question. And look
what it says, tempting him, and saying, Master, which is the
great commandment in the law? I'm sure he had his own idea.
I'm sure he had his own opinion. I'm sure he thought of something,
you know. But Jesus our Lord said unto
him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and
with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and
great commandment. Love. Love God. and the second
is like unto it. Thou shalt love thy neighbor
as thyself. On these two commandments hang
all the law and the prophets. Love, love. The gospel goes farther
and tells us to love our enemies. Pray for them which despitefully
use us. The Lord won't tell you that.
The Lord won't tell you that. And you know our Lord Jesus Christ,
and it tells us also this, you know, if you have the voice of
an angel, have the voice of an angel, and have not charity,
you're a sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal. So the aim and purpose
of the law is love. Love is charity. In fact, this
is called the Royal Law. Now, I want you to keep 1 Timothy,
and I want you to look in Romans chapter 13. You've got to see
this. Romans chapter 13. You know, I get on the internet,
and I listen to some messages, and the thing is, is that whenever
you see a Reformed church, you can always count on this. that
they go to Calvary to get their sins forgiven, and they go to
the law to get sanctified, to learn how to live. Now there's
no love in that, but we'll get to that. But look what he said
here in verse eight, Romans 13, eight. Owe no man anything but
to love one another. And I'll tell you what, when
you get that debt paid, you've really done something. That's
a debt we all owe one another, to love one another. For he that
loveth another hath fulfilled the law. Ain't that what it says? He that loveth another fulfills
the law. He honors the law. He honors
God. Look what it says now. Thou shalt not commit adultery,
thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not bear
false witness, thou shalt not covet, and if there be any other
commandment is briefly comprehended in this saying, thou shalt love
thy neighbor as thyself. Now look here, if you, you wouldn't
lie to your neighbor, you wouldn't covet what your neighbor has,
you wouldn't commit against, steal from him or commit adultery
against him. So you love him, so you wouldn't
do that. And then look what the next verse says. Love worketh
no ill to his neighbor. He's not going to do anything
to harm his neighbor. I'm not going to do anything
to harm you. And you're not going to do anything to harm me. We
don't even want to have ill feelings toward anybody. And that's what
he says, no ill feelings. Therefore love, love is the fulfilling
of the law. Now back over in Timothy with
me. Then he said, this is the royal law. I tell you, the love
of God, love is what the law, is the end of the law, the purpose
of the law, the aim of the law. Then he says, out of a pure heart. Now, wait a minute, where in
the world are we gonna get that? Well, thy Lord Jesus, you know,
he taught on the Sermon on the Mount. He said, blessed are the
pure in heart, for they shall see God. Now let me ask you something. We can't purify our hearts. You
know, Peter says, you know, that he purified our hearts by faith.
But where do you get a pure heart? We're not born with it. And it's
not natural to us. So Christ in his precious blood
purifies our heart, purifies it by faith, and a pure heart. Now how in the world do we see
God? I see God now. I'm not, we're not talking about
seeing God when we get into eternity. Moses endured us seeing him who
is invisible. Where do we see God? We see him
by faith. How can you see him unless you've got a pure heart?
So this pure heart means having an honest heart. And Christ purifies
our heart. Now I do know this, that you
cannot know God unless, you can't see God unless you've got a pure
heart. And you know how in the world, how you reconcile that
when we got this flesh to deal with? I don't know, but I know
that's what it says, and I know that's what the scriptures teaches
us. People, they're striving to have a pure heart, and beloved,
where they want to end up at is where we start. We start with
a pure heart. We don't want to end up with
a pure heart. We start with one. We start with seeing God. We
start with knowing God. We see God in his word. We see
God in one another. We see God in his gospel. We
see God in creation. We see God in the salvation of
his elect. We see God. Now look what else
he says now. And then out of a good conscience.
Oh my. People say, well, you know, I
trust my conscience. Listen. A good conscience. They didn't say a perfect conscience,
a good conscience. Paul talked about having a conscience
void of offense toward God and offense toward man. And when
you take the blood of sprinkling and it applies it, the scriptures
tells us in 1 Peter, he said he applies it to our conscience.
The blood of sprinkling applies to our conscience. And a conscience,
as of a good conscience. Now how do you get a good conscience? Where do you get it at? The same
place you got faith, the same place you got grace, the same
place you got everything else. From the Lord Jesus Christ. You
know, when Scott Richardson used to say this all the time, you
know, when your conscience bothers you, when your conscience accuses
you, conscience tells you that you're guilty, conscience tells
you you've done wrong. Well, you know what in the world
will quieten the conscience? is a perfect sacrifice will quieten
a screaming conscience. When you've got a perfect sacrifice,
like the Lord Jesus Christ, who's perfect in his sacrifice, and
when God requires no more sacrifice, my conscience can ask for no
more. So my conscience becomes good. It don't accuse me anymore. It can't accuse me of sin. Christ
put it away. And I'm not going to trust my
conscience for nothing. I'm not gonna trust my, you know
what I'm gonna trust? I'm gonna trust Christ. You know,
Bruce told me today, he said, Martin Luther, you know, Luther
said this, he said, if I look at myself, there's no way in
the world I can be saved. But when I look at Christ, there's
no way in the world I could be lost. Ain't you glad we got somewhere
to look outside? Huh? Then oh, a good conscience. Your conscience right now, before
God Almighty, does not bother you. Does not trouble you. And you know why it doesn't?
Because you've got a perfect sacrifice that God Almighty has
accepted. And that's why we can come boldly,
freely, with liberty into the very presence of God. Huh? And then look what he says here,
of a good conscience and a faith unfeigned. You know, feigned
means to pretend, to put on. He's talking about a faith that's
not feigned, it's a real faith, genuine faith. Faith that's not
hypocritical, faith that's not put on, faith that's not a sham
faith. A real genuine belief of the
truth. a belief in the Word of God,
a belief in the Lord Jesus Christ. And when He says the end of the
commandment is charity, and where there's charity, where this love
is, where this law brings you to this place, it'll make in
you, it'll put this faith in you, it'll put this charity in
you, it'll put this good conscience in you, a pure heart in you,
and where there's love, all of these things abide. Abide. They're fruits, they're fruits.
Now look what it says next now. Talking about law now, talking
about the commandment, the end of the commandment, the end of
the moral laws, what he's talking about. From which having swerved,
have turned aside unto vain jangling. Now what in the world does it
mean some of them which have swerved? Well, we're talking
about the law, we're talking about the commandments. And it
says what they do is they shoot at the law. And when they get
there, they miss the mark and they go this direction. You know
why they go this direction? When what mark they miss, they
miss Christ. And Christ finished work. They
miss the gospel. They, when they try to use the
law as anything other than what God intended it to do is produce
love and cause us to love God and love our neighbor and He
puts that in our heart. So these fellas, they go this way and
then, phew, go off that way. I'll give you an illustration.
I heard a A man preached, and I mean he preached the gospel
right down the line. I mean just got right down there.
And then he got down to the last couple of points that he had,
and he says, now here's what I want to tell you. So then he
started talking about how women's supposed to dress, and how that
you're supposed to be separated from the world. Now that's swerving. That's missing the law. That's
going that direction. The gospel takes you one way,
Christ takes you one way, the law takes you one way, it takes
you to Christ. And I tell you, they've swerved,
they've missed the mark, they've turned aside, and that word bang-jangling
means that they talk like a fool. You ever heard somebody talk
so much, you just get to where you don't even pay attention
to them? That's the way these fellas are about the law. Just wear
you out. You know, so that's what they're
doing. They're vain janglers. They talk foolish. When we hear
somebody talk about the law and tell us how we're supposed to
live by the law, that's a vain jangler. That's a fool. We're
not going to listen to him. Not doing it. And they missed the
end of the commandment. And I tell you, you missed what
God intended for the law to do. He told that lawyer, love God. That's the first commandment
to God, to love the Lord thy God. Have none before me. And the second table, the first
word out of the second table, which deals with men, is love
your neighbor as yourself. He said that you do that, and
you've already fulfilled the law of God. And that's why he
talked about the fruit of this, but who in the world can put
a law against love? What law would go against love? And oh my. You missed the end
of the commandment. You are a sounding brass and
a tingling cymbal. Missed the mark of Christ, His
finished work, the gospel of grace, and the marks of a vain
jangler. First of all, he swerves. He
ain't standing straight. He's swerving. He's swerving. Second one, he turned aside.
You notice he said there, he turned aside. He'd go this way
and then he turns that way. He turns away from the reign
and the purpose of the law. He turns a different direction.
Turns completely aside. I used to tell Larry that all
the time. Whenever I got a question or something, I want to ask somebody
a question, I'll say, turn aside. Turn aside, I got a question,
you know. And ask them about a car, something needs to be
done, can this be done or something. And if I ever tell you to turn
aside, that means I got a question for you. And that's what these
fellas did, they turned aside. And there's vain janglers, talk
like a bunch of fools, that's what it means. And then look
what else it says about them. And this is why they're vain
janglers, they desire to be teachers of the law. They want to teach
the law. And let me say something right
here. You know, when you go in, when you went through the Old
Testament and the New Testament, you go in there where the Pharisees
and the Sadducees and the Rabbis and all them treated the Lord
Jesus Christ. That's why that law, you're tempting
Him. Every one of them come to tempt Him, to try Him. And they
try to tempt Him so many different ways. Because they set anybody
that's trying to be saved by the law and be justified by the
law and be accepted of God by the law, they set as a jury. They set as somebody on a jury.
And they watch you. And they pass judgment on you.
They pass conviction on you. They pass the law. They use the law against you.
And that's what they desire to be teachers of the law. And James
says this, he said, oh, don't be many masters. Don't stand
up and say, listen, I want to be a master. I want to be a teacher. He said, oh, don't do that. He
said, you know who's going to receive the greatest judgment?
The more teachers you want, the more you want to be a teacher,
the more judgment you're going to have to deal with. And oh,
they desire to be teachers of the Lord. That desire means to
be desiring, to love the preeminence, to love prominence, to love to
be recognized. It's like those fellows in the
Gospels. They love to stand on the street
corners with their robes making long prayers, making long prayers. Oh, when they come in the house,
they can't touch nothing or nobody. They're unclean until they go
to wash, and wash all over, and all of this, and they can't even
be around nobody without washing. Even Jews today, they're that
way. They're that way. The wives have to dress a certain
way. They got to shave their head and put a, put a, a, a,
a, a, We're going top of their head. They're not even they got
they got to that's how subjection They've got to come under to
that law. I heard one of them say there's
six hundred thirty-something laws I got to keep and I'll tell
you what I just keeps me busy just studying which ones I need
to be studying Desire to be teachers of the law I've told you this before as
a fellow named Ted Christman and We was in a meeting up at,
when Daniel Parks pastored Redeemer Baptist Church before they moved
to another place. And this Presbyterian and them
was there and they had this meeting. Me and Tim James and Todd and
Don and, but this one fella, he was out of Reformed Church
out of Owensboro, Kentucky. He got up and he said this, he
says, you know there's, The righteousness, you know, we've got a righteousness,
and then we've got the righteousness of Christ. The first thing he
said was wrong. We have a righteousness. And
he said, and what you have to do, it said walking, you know,
said, if you don't walk a tightrope and walk that straight up tightrope,
if you go too much to your righteousness, then you'll fall off. If you
go too much to the righteousness of Christ, you'll fall off. So
you got to keep a balance in your righteousness, righteousness
of Christ. What would you call a fellow like that? A vain jangler? A fool? Tim James said, anybody got a
gun? Needless to say, Don Fortner
got up behind him, and I'm telling you what, I'd hate to be in that
fellow's sitting there listening to that. Don took him to... But anyway, they desire to be
teachers of the law. to be called teacher, to be called
rabbi, to be called doctor. Oh my, and I tell you just the
fact that you want to be recognized, recognized, right reverend, reverend,
Dr. Sound and Blast, Dr. Doom, Dr. Newgood, Dr. Long, just keep on going with
all the doctors and just keep on your doctors and all that.
But I tell you, legalism takes on many forms. If you want to
be recognized, that's legalism. And Nick says they desire to
be teachers. Now look what it says. Understanding
neither what they say, they don't have a clue what they're talking
about, nor what they're affirming. They don't understand. They truly
don't understand what they're talking about. They really truly
don't understand. Huh? Oh my, they don't preach and
teach the purpose of the law, the aim or purpose of the law.
They don't understand what they're talking about. They don't understand
what they're affirming. In fact, when these law keepers
come around, Paul withstood them to their face, and he says they're
troublers of the peace of God's elect. They're the troublers
of the peace of believers, and troublers of the church. Now
look over here in Acts 15. You know this Look what it said here in verse
1 of chapter 15, Acts chapter 15. Now they're going to have
the first church council right here. And certain men, which
came down from Judea, taught the brethren and said, except
you be circumcised after the manner of Moses, look what they
said, you can't be saved. You Gentiles, you've got to do
exactly what the law says. You've got to be circumcised
after the manner of Moses. Circumcision started with Abraham.
But anyway, look what it says down here now in verse 10. Now this is Simon Peter talking
now. Now therefore, why tempt ye God? to put a yoke upon the
neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were
able to bear. Why do you want to put that yoke
of the law on them? I couldn't bear it, you couldn't
bear it, and our fathers couldn't bear it. But now look what he
says down in the next verse. But we believe that through the
grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, we're going to be saved like
them Gentiles are going to be saved. We're going to be saved
by the grace of the Lord Jesus. My I tell you I'm not gonna I've
told you this before I'm not going under the law Nobody's
gonna bring any law in here. Nobody's gonna bring any rules
in here. Nobody's gonna bring any Regulations in here. Nobody's gonna bring any we're
not gonna bring don't dress codes in here We're not going to I
went through that rigmarole years ago and we're not bringing nothing
in here but the gospel of the grace of God the free grace of
God in Christ and salvation of the Lord from Alpha to Omega
We're not going to put nobody under any kind of bondage. If
the Lord Jesus can't take care of His sheep, I sure would be
a sore excuse trying to do it. Ain't that right? I'll tell you,
He can tell you what's right and He can tell you what's wrong.
You read the Bible, it'll tell you what's right for you and
what's wrong for you. God, He can do that. Now look what it
says. I got to hurry off. Look what it says. These fellows,
they've done all they swerve, turn aside, because I'm to be
teachers of the law. But we know that the law is good if a man
use it lawfully. Now there's the key. We know that the law is good
if a man use it lawfully. Now he's talking about the moral
law. It's good because God's the author
of it. It contains good and excellent
things. And it's really good if a man uses it lawfully for
the purpose which God sent it to do. Now I want you to look
in Romans chapter 7, and here's a perfect illustration of what
we're talking about. Romans 7, 12. We know that the law is good
if a man use it lawfully. Now look what the apostle says.
Wherefore the law, Romans 7, 12, Wherefore the law is holy,
and the commandment holy, and is just, and is good. Now watch
this now. Was then that which is good made
death unto me? That law that was good, that
law that was just, that commandment that was holy, is that made death
unto me? God forbid. What made death unto
you, Paul? Sin. Well, how did you know it
was sin? That it might appear sin. How
did it appear to sin? Sin working death in me by that
which is good, that law. That law, that's what the law's
for. It brings a man to make him understand. We're over the line that the
offense might abound. And he says, working death in
me by that which is good, by that law. And that the sin, that
sin by the commandment, by the law, by a commandment, they became
exceeding sinful. For we know that the law is spiritual,
but I'm carnal, sold under sin. Now, you know, how do we use
the law lawfully? Well, I'll tell you how we don't.
We don't use the law to obtain life. righteousness, salvation,
or acceptance with God. All that moral law do is condemn
us. We don't use it as a rule of
life. No, no, no. The legalists would
have us go to the law to be holy and to be sanctified and to be
made pure before the law. But God gave the law. Listen
to me now. God gave the law The commandment came, sin revived,
and I died. And it's by the knowledge of
the law that sin came. You know, and that's why the
law, when we talk about the law, what it does is it comprehends
what you think, what you say, what you feel. It comprehends
everything about you. And it's not a rule of life.
You that desire to be under the law, don't you hear the law?
The law demands perfection. We can't do it. But now I tell
you, the lawful use of the law for unbelievers is for the knowledge
of sin. The knowledge of sin, the conviction
of sin. And what the law does, Romans
3 tells us, you know, that moreover the law entered. The law came
to prove to a man how sinful sin is. And so here it comes,
and I tell you what, it shuts men up to Christ. Shuts men up
to Christ. And I tell you, what about believers
now? What's the lawful use for us? Well, I done told you it's to end the
commandments, charity out of a pure heart. But now I want
you to see this in 2 Corinthians 5. 2 Corinthians 5, I want you
to see this. You know faith worketh by love. Faith worketh by love. Now look what it says here now.
2 Corinthians 5.14 For the love
of Christ constrains us. Constrains us. You know what
that means? That means it lays hold on us
and lets us, it compels us, it constrains us, it pulls us, it
tugs us. And here we are, because of a
principle of love we have in Christ, because we thus judge
that if one died for all, that if Christ died for all, Then
all that he died for died with him. That's what that's telling
us right there. Now watch this. And that he died
for all that they which live should not henceforth live unto
themselves, but unto him which died for them and rose again.
So you see our faith, we're not going to the law to know our
sin. We know our sin, we know our inabilities, we know what
we got to have, we know what we need. And then let me hurry
on here. Now look what it says in verse
9. Knowing this, that the law is
not made for a righteous man. Now when he talks about a righteous
man here, that means, you know, that's like those Pharisees and
them, they thought they were righteous, you know. So the law
is made for somebody else besides them. But the law's not made
for a righteous man, and no man's righteous in himself. The righteous
man here is the man who trusts Christ, believes Christ with
his heart, and he believes under righteousness. He knows that
he has no righteousness but the righteousness of Christ. And
that man who comes to Christ and lays hold of Christ, the
consequence has been that he lives in this world, Soberly
that means that he don't act like a fool all the time Righteously
and godly and he understands that he's got this flesh to deal
with and that's why he comes to needs the gospel He got to
come to have the gospel got to have it And I tell you God's
law don't weigh on us as a weight. You don't lay on us as a burden
It's curse and penalty is not against us. Don't lie on us the
punishment We're going to have to and it's not a terrifying
law to us Bring them into bondage and fear. And it's not a despise
law. Bring people into a life that
they detest. You know how many people live
under the law and the law is a rule of life and try to be
justified by the law, and you know that's a hard, hard, hard
taskmaster. Oh my goodness. You can't do
it. I tried it. I tried it one time. And I found out that, I mean,
it was a hard taskmaster. You're just constantly trying
to satisfy it. And you can't, you can't. Oh
my. But the law is for, look who's
for. People that are lawless. They don't want God, they don't
want nothing about God. Disobedient, ungodly. For sinners, profane sinners,
unholy, profane. For murderers of people who murder
the fathers, murder their mothers, people who kill people. For whoremongers,
men who just cannot just go after women and women after men. For
them that defile themselves with mankind. Men after men, women
after women, for men stealers, that means people that go out
here and kidnap somebody and use them as a, you know, like
they do now in this slave trade and all that kind of stuff. Perjured
persons, you know what a perjured person means here? Somebody that
swears to something and then don't keep that oath. That's
a perjured person. That's a perjured person. You
swear to something and you don't keep it. And if there be any
other thing, listen to this, contrary to the doctrine of Christ,
the sound doctrine of God Almighty. And I love this right here. Anything
that's contrary to the gospel, the gospel of our Lord Jesus
Christ, the gospel of grace. And that's what he goes on to,
anything that's contrary to sound doctrine. And then what sound
doctrine is he talking about? According to the glorious gospel
of the blessed God, which was committed to my trust." He said, law, if you use it lawfully,
wonderful. Not made for a righteous man,
made for this group over here. Anything that's not according
to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, which was committed
to my trust. You know, Paul, he say, let's
continue, people say, let's continue in sin that grace may abound.
God forbid. He rebuked people doing that.
Oh my. Suggested that life, that grace
would lead you to a life of sin. He rebuked that. The gospel reveals
God's glory. The love of God, the grace of
God, the righteousness of God, the holiness of God. And it's
sufficient. And we've been entrusted with
it. The scriptures tells us, and I'm done, that we have this
treasure in earthen vessels in an old clay pot. Boy, what a
treasure it is. God trusted us with the gospel.
Here we are, old clay pots, and he put treasures in clay pots.
Huh? We don't have to hedge in the
gospel with laws and rules and ceremonies. No, no. No, we're
saved by grace and grace is, faith comes by grace. Everything
we have is by the grace of God. And oh God, work in us love,
love, love, love. The end of the commandment, charity. Love God, love your neighbor. Old Maurice Montgomery says,
love God, believe the gospel, trust Christ and do as you will. Do what you will. If you love
Christ and trust Christ, do what you will. Our Father, oh, blessed Lord
Jesus, thank you for allowing us to meet here tonight. Thank
you for your truth, oh, your truth. I pray that what I said
tonight was a blessing, was encouraging. I know it helped me in studying,
preparing it. And Lord, we do so want to honor
you and glorify you. And Lord, more than anything
in this world, we want to love you more. We want you to draw
out our hearts after yourself. Draw out our hearts to one another,
to pray for one another, love for one another, bear one another's
burdens, lift one another up before the Lord Jesus Christ.
Never let us sit in judgment on one another. Don't let us
be jurists, sitting using the law against anyone at any time.
Oh, don't let us do that. Oh, God, keep us from that. Bless
these dear saints. Bless those that are listening
tonight and watching. God bless them. Bless our dear
brother and dear sister that we mentioned before. Thank you,
Lord Jesus. Amen. Amen. He's the Savior of my soul. He's the Savior of my soul. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus, He's the Savior of my
soul. He's the Savior of my soul. Well, I'll see you next Wednesday
night. Cody will be here Sunday.