Psalm 146. The 146th Psalm. Psalm 146 verse 1. Praise ye
the Lord. Praise the Lord, O my soul. While I live will I praise the
Lord. I will sing praises unto my God
while I have any being. Put not your trust in princes,
nor in the Son of Man in whom there is no help. His breath
goeth forth, he returneth to his earth. In that very day his
thoughts perish. Happy is he that hath the God
of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the Lord his God,
which made heaven and earth, the sea and all that therein
is, which keepeth truth forever, which executes judgment for the
oppressed, which giveth food to the hungry. The Lord looseth
the prisoners. The Lord openeth the eyes of
the blind. The Lord raiseth them that are
bowed down. The Lord loveth the righteous. The Lord preserveth the strangers.
He relieveth the fatherless and widow. But the way of the wicked
he turneth upside down. The Lord shall reign. Forever,
even thy God, O Zion, unto all generations, praise ye the Lord. If you would, turn with me in
your Bibles to Romans chapter 7. As your attorney, let me express
my thanks for the invitation to be here. It's such an honor.
It's been such a blessing to me and Janet, this whole weekend. Appreciate your warmness, your
hospitality, your friendship. A special thanks to the ladies
of this congregation. If there's ever anything that's
pretty and comfortable and tastes good, a woman's behind it. And
I know you all put a lot of work in on this conference, and we
are very grateful. The title of message this evening
is Four Lessons from the Law. I have a very specific goal in
preaching. I pray that the Lord will use
this message to make every one of us here this evening flee
to our Lord Jesus Christ as fast as possible. If you've never
yet come to Christ the Savior in faith, I pray that this message
will remove every hope that you have and cause you to run to
him. And if you have come to the Savior
in faith, I pray this message will make you come to Him again.
Coming to Christ is not a one-time thing. Janet and I were watching
a little bit of a show this afternoon. This young man said, well, he's
getting ready to die, and he was fine with it. When I was
eight, I made my decision for Jesus. That's not coming to Christ. Coming to Christ is a continual
thing, continual coming to Him, continual dependence upon Him. Peter said, to whom coming? And
that's just what we'll do if the Lord's the one who teaches
us these four lessons from the law that's found in our text.
The first lesson I want us to see from the law is the law is
discovering. The law will discover the truth,
not only about what we do, but what we really are. Romans 7
verse 7 What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid! Nay, I had not known sin, but
by the law. For I had not known lust, except
the law had said, Thou shalt not covet. And we can't say that
the law is sinful, or the law is what makes me sin, can we?
God forbid we say that. Verse 12, Paul says the law is
holy, the commandment holy and just and good. So the law is
not my problem. My problem is me, my sinful,
rebellious nature. And Paul uses the law to prove
to us our own nature is our problem. He quotes the 10th commandment,
thou shalt not covet. Now, why did Paul choose to quote
that commandment? Why didn't he quote, thou shalt
have no other gods before me? Saul of Tarsus would have said,
I've never worshiped an idol. Why did he say, thou shalt not
take the name of the Lord thy God in vain? Saul of Tarsus would
have said, the name of almighty God has never escaped my lips
in vain. He said, I'm not guilty of that.
Why didn't he say, thou shalt keep the Sabbath day, honor your
father and mother, thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not commit
adultery, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not murder. Saul of
Tarsus would have said, all these have I kept from my youth up.
See, a person could look at those commandments and say, well, that
all has to do with outward action. Since I've never committed those
things outwardly, I'm innocent. Now that would be a mistake,
but people think that. The law requires inward perfection. And it's the 10th commandment
that shows that to us. The 10th commandment, thou shalt
not covet, deals exclusively with the heart, with the inward
desire. Even Saul of Tarsus had to admit
he broke that. Yeah, we all see somebody's car,
so I like to have a car like that. Paul, he saw somebody's
donkey. He said, well, that looks like
a better donkey. I like to have that. You know, he's, he envies
to somebody else's house. He, you know how old, how he
prospered in that religion, but somebody else had more honors
than him. Somebody else prospered more. He envied their gifts.
Even Saul of Tarsus had to admit, I broke that one. I broke that
one. That commandment reveals to us our sin nature. Now, you
might be able to stop from acting upon those sinful desires outwardly,
but you can't stop them from being in your heart, can you?
We cannot stop those sinful desires and thoughts. How often have
you been sitting in the worship service, hearing the gospel preach,
sitting at home, praying and reading your Bible, and thoughts
run through your head that scare you to death. Where'd that come
from? It's our nature, our sin nature. And when the Holy Spirit
showed the Apostle Paul the meaning of this commandment, thou shalt
not covet, then suddenly Paul understood the whole law. The
law doesn't just apply to our outward actions. The law is spiritual. It applies to our thoughts. It
applies to our desires. Our Lord clearly taught us this
in Matthew chapter 5. He said if you're angry with
your brother without a cause, you're guilty of murder. If you
just look on a woman to lust after in your heart, you're guilty
of adultery. Every honest person here will say, I'm guilty. I'm
guilty. If the law ever lets us discover
who and what we really are, we're going to see the problem really,
the root of the problem, not the sins that I commit. It's
the sin that I am what I am. Oh, if we see, if God ever shows
me what I am, this is what I'll discover about myself. There's
no hope of salvation could possibly be found in anything I do. There's
nothing I can do that could reconcile me to God. The problem's not
with the law. I'm the problem. All the law
is doing is giving me an accurate picture of me, letting me discover
what I really am. The same thing is true physically. When I get up in the morning,
I look in the mirror. I see somebody who's older and
grayer and whiter than he used to be. Now I kind of like the
vision of that younger, thinner, darker fella, but that's not
what I see when I look in the mirror. And it's not the mirror's
fault. The mirror's giving me an accurate
picture of what I look like. That's what the law does. The
law lets us discover what we really are. The problem's not
with what we do. It's what we are. What we do is dependent
upon what we are. It's discovering. It lets us
discover what we really are. Alright, here's the second lesson
of the law. The law is humbling. It's humbling
to learn what we really are. Verse 8. But sin, taking occasion
by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence.
For without the law, sin was dead. Now Saul of Tarsus really
did think he was righteous. He would say the exact same thing
that rich young ruler said. All these have I kept from my
youth up. And he would have been so confident. I can do anything
else you throw at me to. He was so self-righteous. He
was so self-reliant. He was confident of that. But
when the Holy Spirit showed Paul what the law really said, that
the law requires perfection in the heart. You just, you can't
even want to do these things. Oh, he was humbled. He was brought
down in the dust. Brother Larry read it to us this
morning, both literally and figuratively, he was put in the dust because
the law is humbling. When Saul saw that the law speaks
to the heart, it's not just that you can't do these things. You
can't even want to do these things. And if you even want to do that,
you're guilty of the whole law. You know what Saul suddenly found
himself desiring? He suddenly found himself desiring
every sin, every sin. This concupiscence means to desire
or to lust after. Paul found himself just lusting
after every sin, not just one, but all of them. His problem
wasn't just with coveting, it's that he desired every sin. And if we really see that about
ourselves, now, that's humbling. If we've been relying upon our
own righteousness, our own goodness, our own obedience, and we realize
what we are, oh, that's humbling. And I tell you how sinful our
nature is. Our sin nature takes the holy
law of God to make us want to sin even more. That's the nature
I have. That's how depraved you and I
are. Now that's humbling, isn't it?
But until we see what the law really says about us, We think
sin's dead. We think, I don't have a real
problem with sin. But as soon as we see what the
law demands, suddenly all we'll want is sin, sin, sin, sin, sin,
and more sin. We just can't stop those sinful
desires because sin's not just what we do. Sin is what we are. Now that, I wish I could describe
that as awful as it is. That's humbling. And you know
that's true. You know this is true. Soon as
somebody tells you you can't do something, that's all you
want. If you want everybody to go through this door, all you
have to do is put a sign on it, do not enter. Everybody will want to
go through it. Isn't that our nature? Somebody starts a club
and says, and you don't have any interest in it, but if they
say it's private and you can't join, you'll pay any amount of
money to join it. That's what the law does to us. The law says
you can't even desire this. So all we do is desire every
sin we can think of. You think of the most vile sin
you can think of, we're more vile than that. That's what the
law, now that's humbling, isn't it? Before we know what the law
says, we're religious and we think, I'm okay. I think I've
got a free will. And I think that I can decide
to accept Jesus and be saved. I think somehow, I know I've
sinned, but somehow I think I can choose not to sin and do better
tomorrow. We don't think that anymore if
the law ever shows us what we really are. We're humbled. It's
all I am is sin. So that's all I want is sin.
My will is to not seek righteousness. My will is not to seek salvation.
My will is to seek sin. Now that's humbling. Oh, that's
humbling. It hurts. But that's conviction
of sin. It's not just the conviction
of sins that we've committed. It's the conviction of sin that
we are. Now, that's painful and that's
humbling to find out what we really are. But God's got to
teach us that before he'll ever save us. It's like Larry's reading
my notes this morning. God's got to get us lost before
he'll ever save us. He's got to do that. We've got
to be lost before we can be found. We've got to be lost. We've got
to be made sin before we can ever be made righteous. And God
uses the law to humble his people, to show them what they really
are by nature. Right, here's the third thing.
The law is killing, verse nine. For I was alive without the law
once, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died. And the commandment which was
ordained to life, I found to be unto death. For sin, taking
occasion by the commandment, deceived me and by it slew me. Now you and I have been spiritually
dead an awful long time. We died in our father Adam in
the garden. So that when we were born into
this world, we were born spiritually dead. But here's our problem. Since we're dead, we don't know
we're dead. A dead man doesn't know anything, does he? He doesn't
know anything going on around him. He doesn't know anything
about himself. He doesn't know anything about the people that
he cares about. He's dead. You and I are dead,
so we don't know that we're dead. We don't know that we're stinking
and rotting, horrible, disgusting flesh. Just because we're alive
physically, don't think that means we're alive spiritually.
Just because we're alive physically, we can walk where we want to,
go into another room if we want to. Don't think that means we're
alive spiritually to decide to do something spiritual, because
we're dead. We cannot do those things. Paul
said that was my experience. Before God showed me what the
law said, I thought I was alive. But as soon as the Lord showed
me what the law really said about me, I found out I'm dead. Oh, I'm dead. It wasn't the law
that killed me. The law just revealed to me I'm
already dead. And that comes as news to most
people, that we're already dead. And you know why that comes as
news to them? Because we're deceived. We're deceived by sin. And it's
not hard to do. Sin is deceptive. It promises
life, but it only gives death. It promises fun, but it only
brings sorrow. And dead people can't see that.
Our sin nature tricks us into thinking that we can keep the
law ourselves. And when we start to try to obey
the law, the law says, you've disobeyed, you've got to die. And we think, wait a minute,
I thought you promised me life if I could obey it. The law says,
but you can. So you've got to die. My friend,
if there's anyone here who thinks that you can make God happy with
you by keeping the law, by being a good and upright moral person,
you're deceived. Your sin has deceived you. And
unless God does something for you, you're going to die in your
sin. Sin is deceptive. It's killing. The law can never,
ever give a sinner life. It can only give us death, because
you and I can't be perfect. The law. Don't think after the
Lord saves you, then you go, okay, well, yeah, I didn't use
the law to make myself righteous. I didn't use the law to justify
myself, but I'll use the law as my rule of life in order to
keep me holy. No, sir. The law can't be our
rule of life. We're dead. We can't follow it. The only place the law can lead
you and me is to hell, never to heaven. The law is killing. Right, here's the fourth lesson.
The law is revealing. There are several things that
the law reveals. First, the law reveals, we've already touched
on this. There's nothing wrong with the law. The problem is
all with me, verse 12. Wherefore, the law is holy, and
the commandment holy, and just, and good. See, there's no problem
with the law, is there? The law is holy. The law is holy. You read the law of God. It reveals
our nature, doesn't it? But it also reveals God's nature.
God's holy. It reveals the holy nature of
God. Nothing wrong with anything the
law commands, is there? It only commands holy things.
It never tells you to do anything bad or wrong. It commands holy
things. And you will be holy if you keep
them all perfectly. The law's holy. And the law's
just. The law only demands just things. The law only tells you to do
what's right. And the law gives everyone just things. The law
gives everyone absolute justice. If you keep the law of God perfectly
all the days of your life, the law will demand that you have
life. It's only just. But if you break
the law even one time, in thought, just in thought, the law will
demand eternal death. And it's only just. It's sin
against the eternal God. The law is just and the law is
good. The law is good for man, isn't it? You think how horrible
this place would be if there were no law, just even man's
law. If there were no threat of justice,
you'd think that how horrible this place would be. Everybody
would be better off if we just do what the law says, wouldn't
we? But we can't. That's what the law reveals to
us. We can't do it. So here's the second thing the
law reveals to us. The law reveals what great sinners
we are. Verse 13. Was then that which
is good made death unto me? God forbid. But sin, that it
might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good,
the sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful. Exceeding sinful. The law reveals
the exceeding sinfulness, the exceeding vileness, the exceeding
filth of who I am, of my sin nature. The Apostle Paul was
a smart man, wasn't he? I mean, he was educated, he knew
language, and even this brilliant man, writing under inspiration
of the Holy Spirit, couldn't think of a worse word for sin
than sin. He just said it's exceeding sinful. There's nothing worse
than sin. There's no worse word for it.
And that's all I am. Do you know what that says about
me? There's nobody worse than me. Nobody worse than me. All I am is sin. The law reveals
that truth about me. But now here's the third thing. I want you to get this. Now listen.
This is what the law reveals. This is the most important lesson
of the law. This is the whole purpose of
the law of God. The grand design of God's law
is this. To reveal to sinners that the
only hope of salvation there is to be found is in our Lord
Jesus Christ. That's the purpose of God's law.
The law takes away all hope. from anything about us because
everything about us is exceeding sinful. So the law reveals this
ought to be so obvious to us. There's no hope outside of the
Lord Jesus Christ. Then let's run to him. Let's
run to him. Every sinner God saves is going
to be brought to this point. This is conviction of sin. Nobody's
worse than me. And this conviction of sin makes
us desperate. Desperate. I said this earlier,
God's got to get us lost before we'll ever be saved. Well, God's
got to make us desperate. He's got to show us how awful
and vile and filthy and what a rebel we are. He's got to make
us desperate without hope before we'll ever cry for mercy. Isn't
that true? Nobody will ever beg for anything
until they're desperate. I would not beg for food if I
had just scraps at home. I wouldn't beg for food. I don't
care how hungry I am today. If I had the thought that I can
get more food tomorrow, I wouldn't beg for food. I am so proud. The only way I would ever beg
for food is if I thought I'm going to die right now without
it, I'd have to be desperate. That's the point that God's got
to bring us to for whatever beg for mercy. He's got to make us
desperate. He brings everyone he saves to
that point. There are several examples of
this in scripture, but let me give you one I love. That's Syrophoenician
woman. Oh, that poor, I feel my heart
goes out to her every time I read that story. I've got two daughters.
You can imagine what I'd do to try to help one of my daughters
who was so sick. This woman came to the Lord,
begging him for mercy. Oh, she begged him and the Lord
ignored her. She kept begging. Then he said,
it's not right for me to bless you. It's not right. She kept
begging. Oh boy. Then he called her a
dog. Mm-mm-mm. My wife doesn't even like me
to call our dogs dogs. She says, don't talk mean to
him, call him a dog. The Lord called this woman who's
at his feet begging. He called her a dog. It's not
right for me to give you scraps. It's not right. This is children's
bread. She just kept begging. True, Lord. Everything you say
is true. I'm begging for scraps. I'm your
dog. Just get me some scraps, some
crumbs. Now, why would a woman do such a thing at the feet of
a man? She's not a very good woman's
liver, is she? Why would she humble, humiliate herself like
that? She's desperate. She's desperate. That's where Lord's got to bring
you and me. For whatever begged for mercy. I've got to have your
mercy right now, Lord. You've got to reach down and
save me now or I'll be eternally lost. I need you now, this moment. That's the purpose of the law.
The law is the schoolmaster to teach us Christ, to drive us
to Christ. Now, Paul told Timothy, the law
is good if a man use it lawfully, if man use it right. Well, how
do we use the law right? How do we use the law like God
intended for us to use it? By seeing what the law says about
you and me. That we're just, I can't paint
a picture despicable enough so that we see that about ourselves.
And we run to Christ. Just run to Him. Christ is my
only hope. So I run to Him. Now, if God's
going to accept me, I've got to have a perfect obedience to
the law. So I'm going to run to Christ. because his obedience
to the law is the only obedience I'll ever have. I gotta run to
him. The only way I can be cleansed
from my exceeding sinful nature is to be washed in his blood.
That's the only way I can be made clean. I'm gonna flee to
him. Look back a few pages at Romans
chapter three. This is what Paul tells us. Sinners
like you and me, we can't be made righteous by trying to obey
the law. Righteousness can only be had
in Christ's obedience to the law, not in our obedience. We
don't even help him out. We don't contribute anything.
It's all the obedience of the Lord Jesus Christ. Romans 3 verse
20. Therefore, by the deeds of the law, there should no flesh
be justified in his sight, for by the law is the knowledge of
sin. But now, the righteousness of God without the law, without
your obedience to the law, is manifested, being witnessed by
the law and the prophets, even the righteousness of God, which
is by faith of Jesus Christ. Unto all, upon all them that
believe, for there is no difference. This is salvation. by faith of
Jesus Christ. Now, yes, it's faith in Christ.
We must have faith in Christ, but our righteousness is accomplished
by the faithfulness of Christ to obey the law for his people,
to satisfy the law for his people, to go to the cross and suffer
and die to satisfy the law's last demand, death for sin, so
that everyone he died for is accepted, made righteous and
perfect in him. So whenever you're tempted to
try to earn God's favor by keeping the law, I have a phrase for
us that I'd like for us to keep in mind. It's just not going
to happen. This has become my favorite phrase
recently. It's just not going to happen.
I'll tell you how this became my favorite phrase. Earlier this
year, I went to a high school basketball game where my niece,
Colleen, was a cheerleader. Her team had come back to play
my alma mater, so I went back to watch her. My three-year-old
nephew, Gavin, was there. Gavin, we're pretty serious in
my neck of the woods about basketball. and people cheer loud and he
all the loud noises bothering the buzzer going off and he cried.
So being the good uncle, you know, I want to be, I said, Gavin,
come on, let's go for a walk. And we went out into the hallway
and walking around the school and I hoped he was still here.
The people cheer and hear the buzzer and eventually get used
to it. You know, we come back. So we walked around, took him
to the concession stand, got him a sucker and we walked around
and uh, I was holding his hand. I said, Gavin, you want to go
back in and see Colleen Cheer? And he took his hand and stuck
it in his pocket. He had a sucker in his hand.
He said, Uncle Frank, it's just not going to happen. But I'll tell you what I found
out. That's his daddy's phrase. There's to be no more discussion. There's to be no more asking
to stay up five minutes later. There's no more asking for ice
cream. This discussion is over. There's not to be another word.
It's just not going to happen. That's our relationship with
the law. I can't be saved by God looking down through the
telescope of time to see if I'll choose him so then he'll choose
me. Because brethren, that's just not going to happen. No.
I need God to elect me. and put me in His Son. I need
that. I can't be saved if God is just going to wait on me to
decide to accept Jesus as my personal Savior and let Him in
my heart. No. That's just not going to happen.
I can't wait on God to decide or for God to wait on me to see
if I'll decide to accept Jesus and make his sacrifice effectual
for me, because that's just not going to happen. I need God the
Father to send his precious son to be my sacrifice, to die for
me, to put my sin away without any input from me whatsoever.
I can't be saved by God waiting on me to make any decision because
I'm not going to make any decision. It's just not going to happen.
I need the Holy Spirit to come and give me life, to give me
faith. I need Him to call me to Christ. I need Him to give me faith so
that I run to Christ. I need God to save me against
my will with my full consent. That's the only way a sinner
like me can ever be saved. I can't be saved if God depends
on me to keep myself holy by not obeying the whole law, but,
you know, by obeying two or three of them, you know, to keep myself
holy. I can't be saved like that because that's just not going
to happen. I need God to keep me by his power, by the power
of his grace, by the power of his love unto salvation, ready
to be revealed at the last time. If God ever shows you that that's
what he's done for you, what he sent his son to do for you,
nobody will be able to stop you from running to Christ. Nobody's
going to have to beg you. Nobody's going to be able to
stop you. You'll get to him as fast as you can. Our law keeping,
our religious activity, our morality is never going to add one whit
to our righteousness. The just shall live by faith. The just shall live by faith.
The just shall live by faith, not our works, by faith in Christ. Then let's run from the law. Let's flee from it. Let's flee
from having any relationship with the law whatsoever and run
to the Lord Jesus Christ to find in Him everything we need, everything
God requires. I pray the Spirit will make it
so for every one of us that we run to Christ. You know, you
can run to Christ right where you sit. I pray a spirit will
make it so. Lord bless you.