Sinner is he, a rebel in chief. He feels himself guilty, and
what can he do? He's unsound and filthy, and
no good can show. Thanks be to the Lamb, The great
King of Kings, who comes just in time, and glad tidings brings,
applies peace and pardon with power from above. The poor soul to gladden and
calls him his love. These tidings that Christ brings
and they reach the heart, the spirit he sends. is true to impart. The sweet spirit seals him asundined
on air, and comforts and cheers him, and banishes fear. Then ravished with joy, and or
come with love. A father he'll cry, my Lord and
my God. My friend and my portion, my
head and my all. Thou art my salvation from guilt,
sin, and thrall. Amen. Let's bow and have a word
of prayer. Father, we just come to you this
morning thanking you so much for the grace and the mercy of
the Lord Jesus Christ. one who has delivered us from
the curse of the law, the one who has forgiven us of all of
our sins and by his blood has redeemed us to God. Father, we
are truly humbled by the grace that has been bestowed upon sinners
like us. Father, we just pray this morning
as we enter into worship today, as we gather for the singing
here, for the preaching of the word, for the fellowship together,
Lord, we just pray that we will exalt and honor Christ alone
and all the things that he has done for us. And Lord, that we
might be given encouragement, that you might help us, Lord,
in understanding that the Spirit might be here to help us and
enable us to worship from the heart, Lord, in spirit and in
truth. We thank you, Father, this morning
for Kevin and Jacqueline and Alessandro to be back with us,
Lord. We thank you for the safety in their travels that you give
them and the time that you allow them to be with their family.
Lord, we just thank you for this day that you've given us to meet.
Once again, we pray and lift up Daniel to you this morning,
Lord, for his health. You are the great physician,
and you control all things in health and sickness. And so,
Father, we pray, if it be your will, that you'll just lift this
time of sickness away from him, that he might not experience
this horrible virus that that people are getting, and Lord,
that he might be healed by your touch. Father, we just ask that
you just might be with his family as well, Lord, and we pray. We
don't know his conversion, whether or not he has been converted
of you or not, whether he's one of your children, but Father,
we pray for him. We ask, Lord, that if he is yours,
that you would bring him to yourself by the preaching of the gospel,
Lord, that he might repent, and by faith, look to Christ alone
for his salvation. Lord, we just continue to ask
that you be with this church and that you guide us and direct
us in this place, that you have us in here in Joplin, and that
if there's others, Lord, in our town that love the truth of God's
word, that are your sheep, Lord, we pray that you might bring
them to us, Lord, that we might cross paths, Lord, that they
too might come and be able to fellowship in the gospel of Christ
Jesus. And Lord, we just thank you again
for all that you are and all that you do for us. And it's
in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. We'll turn now, if you
would, over to hymn number 579. Hymn number 579. Sing this to
joy to the world. Salvation, O my soul, rejoice. Salvation is of God. He speaks, and that almighty
voice proclaims His grace abroad, proclaims His grace abroad. Proclaims, proclaims His grace
abroad How wonderful, how grand the plan All deities engaged
To rescue rebel ruined man From Satan's power and rage From Satan's
power and rage From Satan, Satan's power and rage The Father loved
us ere we fell And will forever love Nor shall the power of earth
or hell His love from Zion move His love from Zion move His love,
His love from Zion move T'was love that moved Him to ordain
a shirt he just had good, and on his heart inscribed the name
of all for whom he stood, of all for whom he stood, of all,
of all, for whom he stood. Nor is the surety short of love
He loves beyond degree No less than love divine could move The
Lord to die for me The Lord to die for me The Lord, the Lord
to die for me And oh what love the Spirit shows When Jesus He
reveals To men oppressed with sin and woes, He, all their sorrows,
heals. He, all their sorrows, heals. He, all, He, all their sorrows,
heals. The three in one and one in three
In love forever rest And Zion's child in glory be And with his
love be blessed And with his love be blessed And with, and
with His love be blessed. Does anybody have a song they'd
like to sing in the hymn books? Put out 326 then back into Gatsby. Just saying. Let me but hear my Savior say,
Strength shall be equal to thy day, Then I rejoice in thee,
Distressed, leaning on all suffixion. I glory in infirmity, that Christ's
own power may rest on me. When I am weak and I have strong
graces, my shield and Christ my song. I can do all things, or can bear
all sufferings if my Lord's there. Sweet pleasures bingo with the
pains while His let hand my head sustains. But if the Lord be once withdrawn,
and we attempt the work alone, When new temptations spring and
rise, we find how great our weakness is. Amen, brother. Whenever we try to do things
in the flesh, it doesn't profit anything, does it? We need the
Lord's sustaining hand and he does the work in us. Alright,
one more opportunity if you have a song or hymn, a song, a verse
of scripture, a little baby placed on your heart. 114 and the blue
one. All right, 114, we'll sing this
to the last day of my sacred week. I have a hope both strong and
sure, a hope within the veil. Tis Christ the Lord my advocate,
he pleads and I prevail. My name is written on His breast,
inscribed by love and grace. In Him my heart finds peace and
rest, He does my soul embrace. Midst tribulation, pain, and
torque, He is my hope and say. I trust His gracious prominence
to guide me on the way. I have no hope within myself,
Christ is my all and all. My care I cast upon my Lord,
and for His grace I call. And when my time on earth is
done, and all my care shall cease, I'll see my Savior as He is,
my hope I shall embrace. That's the day we're looking
for. Alright, anyone else got one? Versus scripture or anything? Alright, we'll turn to Galatians
4 and we'll read the section of scripture that we're in. Galatians
chapter 4. Then after we read that, then
we'll be going into Romans. So as you're passing through
Galatians, you might stick a pen or a piece of paper in at Romans
because we'll be going back to Romans. But Galatians chapter
4, Chapter 4, and we'll start reading
in verse, well, let's go ahead and move back up. Verse 6, we'll
read from 6 down. It says, And because ye are sons,
God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts,
crying, Abba, Father. Wherefore, thou art no more a
servant, but a son. And if a son, then an heir of
God through Christ. How be it then, when ye knew
not God, ye did service unto them, which by nature are no
gods? But now, after that ye have known
God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak
and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage? Ye observe days, and months,
and times, and years. I am afraid of you, lest I have
bestowed upon you labor in vain. Now we've been looking at this
part here in verse nine where Paul is talking to the Galatians
in the aspect of, and we look, if you remember back up in early
in verse, chapter four, he said, starting in verse one, now I
say that the heir, as long as he is a child, different from
nothing from a servant, though he be lord of all, but his other
tutors and governors, until the time appointed of the Father,
even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements
of the world. And if you remember, whenever
we was going through those passages there, we learned that the elements
of the world, and now, here in verse nine, the beggarly elements
that is being talked about here, or the rudiments of the world,
or the rudiments, the beggarly rudiments, the word elements
there can mean rudiments, What that's talking about is elementary
things, okay? Or first beginnings. In other
words, it can mean like, whenever we first begin to learn as a
child, what's the first thing you start learning in school?
A, B, C, 1, 2, 3. Okay? But what we learn is the elementary
things, or the rudiment things, the things that are the very
basis things, right? And Paul is saying that we were
given the law for a purpose. There was a rudimentary reason
for the law to be given to us. And the first thing we learn
in becoming, or not in becoming a Christian, in being a Christian,
the first thing we learn whenever the Lord grants us repentance
and faith is He shows us by the law of God that we are incapable
of keeping the law of God. That there is no hope for us
of righteousness in trying to keep the law. That's the rudiment,
that is the elementary, that is the beggarly elements, the
base elements of Christianity is knowing that I can't do anything. None of my works will satisfy
God. None of my works will please
God. None of my works can merit a salvation of a holy God. That's the very base thing. Now,
a lot of people think that the base thing is God loves you and
has a wonderful plan for your life. But the base thing of understanding
the salvation that's in Christ, the gospel, the basis thing is
to know that we cannot, by law keeping, please God. the law
was not given to us to bring in righteousness or holiness
in us at all. And so that's what Paul is referring
to when he is referring to these elements of the world or the
base and beggarly elements wherein ye desire to be admonished. And
so basically his His questioning of the Galatians here is he's
saying listen You've been preached the gospel you was shared with
this glorious gospel that Christ has been your substitute that
he lived the perfect life of obedience and that Obedience
all that law keeping was placed to your account as if you have
kept all the law Because you can't keep it. He kept it for
you that he died the death that you deserve because of your sin.
So he died in your place. You don't have to experience
that death. And he raised for your justification. He came back
alive for your justification so that God being satisfied with
all that Christ did is now satisfied with you because you have been
united with Christ Jesus from the foundation of the world.
You've been united in Christ. And so what he did for you goes
to your account. So God looks at you as he did
on Christ Jesus. He looked on Christ Jesus and
his perfect obedience. He looked on Christ Jesus and
his death for sin, and he accounted that to you. That's the glorious
gospel that was told to the Galatians. And now Paul is saying, now you
are free from the law. You never, the Galatians remember,
now there were some Jews among the Galatians in their churches,
but for the most part, the Galatian churches were Gentile churches.
And these Gentiles never was under law. They never had been
given the law of Moses or any other law. They were not under
the Mosaic law. And the Judaizers that were coming
to their churches, they were coming and telling them, hey,
you got to be circumcised and you got to keep the law of Moses
to be saved or to stay saved. And Paul's coming back and saying,
anybody that preaches that gospel is not a servant of Christ. and
let him be anathema, let him be cursed because that is not
the gospel. And so he said the gospel that
I preach to you is a gospel of free grace, the gospel of Christ
alone for your salvation. He did everything for you and
all you have to do or all you do is look to him. Trust him
as your salvation. Look to him for your obedience.
as your obedience. Look to Him as your substitute. Look to Him for everything that
God demands, requires, everything. Look to Christ, He fulfilled
that for you, and not to the law. And so Paul is saying, why,
since you heard that message, since you received that message,
since you rejoiced in that message, how come you're wanting to go
back to the law that you never was under, plus that law is the
very elementary things that we learned that we can't keep it.
And so Paul here again is questioning these people. If you remember
back, I think it was back in Galatians 3 verse 1, he said,
O foolish Galatians, whenever we have this mindset that we
can perform a righteousness by keeping the law or doing good
deeds before God, it's foolishness because the Bible has clearly
taught us That the flesh profits nothing. It can't do anything
good. The only thing that is good is what has been born in
us. That new creation that is from
above. The Spirit of God in us. That
is what is performing all the works that God requires in us.
The ordained works that God has ordained for us from the foundation
of the world. It's the Spirit of God who does those works in
us. By growing us in the grace and the knowledge of the Lord
Jesus Christ. joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, meekness,
temperance, faith, the fruits of the Spirit. Those are the
works that have come out in our heart, and it's not the outward
fleshly works of law-keeping. But Paul said, O foolish Galatians,
who hath bewitched you? Remember, we talked about that.
Whenever they heard this message from these men, these men were
bewitching them. They were leading them away that ye should not obey the truth
before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth,
crucified among you." What was obeying the truth? You remember,
we talked about that. How is it, how do we obey the
truth? Well, we obey the truth, not in law keeping, but by believing
on Christ Jesus. That's what obeying the truth
means. Jesus' commands to us is believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ. That's what our command is, and
love your brother. We are to love the brethren,
and we are to look and believe on Christ Jesus. That's the way
that we walk as a Christian. We don't walk by the rule of
law, but we walk by the rule of faith. We walk in faith, trusting
Christ Jesus. That's how we obey the truth.
It says, you should not obey the truth before whose eyes Jesus
Christ hath been evidently set forth crucified. This only would
I learn of you. Received ye the spirit by the
works of the law or by the hearing of faith? So see we didn't receive
the spirit by doing law keeping And so now he says are you so
foolish having begun in the spirit? Are you now made perfect by the
flesh? see we were saved in the aspect
of experiential and I'm gonna pause here for just a minute
because this is seems to be a an ongoing debate that I keep getting
wrapped up in and dragged into from men, is we need to be careful
and not confuse being quickened of God and being converted of
God. Those are two separate works
of the Spirit. And we need to not be confused in the difference
between salvation and conversion. Salvation, we are saved by what
Christ did. Okay, Christ, whenever he died,
was buried and resurrected, that saved every elect child of grace
before the cross, after the cross. Now I hold to the, and I believe
that the Bible bears this out, that that was laid to the accounts
of everybody before the cross and everybody after the cross,
before the foundation of the world. God declared that, decreed
that, predestinated that, and that was the basis of the new
covenant. And Christ stood as our surety
even before the foundation of the world, so that all the elect
before and after the cross stood as God's children before we ever
fell in Adam. So I believe that our salvation
began in eternity. Christ came in time to secure
that. That's what it was based upon.
You can't get away from the cross. There has to be the death of
Christ, right? That is what is the basis of that. And nothing
that we do gets us there. We can't do anything to get us
into that. Only Christ, by election and by His work on the cross,
are we saved. So there's this ongoing debate
that we are saved at the moment that we believe. That's when
we're saved. And there's guys going out saying,
well, you can't be saved unless someone preaches to you. And
you hear the gospel, Christ can't save you apart from that. And
I don't believe the Bible bears that out. I believe that a man
can be saved without hearing the gospel. I believe the Holy
Spirit does that. The Holy Spirit quickens the
child of grace. The Holy Spirit teaches the child
of grace, the Holy Spirit. Now, we might not have full knowledge
of that information, but whenever we do, whenever Christ grants
us repentance and faith, then we begin to believe the gospel.
I'll give you a good example. You remember Cornelius. Cornelius,
he was a man, and the Bible says that he was a man who feared
God, and he gave his alms unto the Lord and unto the poor, and
that God seen that, that he feared him, which the Bible says that
the reprobate cannot fear the Lord. They do not fear the Lord.
So the very fact that Cornelius was fearing the Lord means that
he had been quickened of God, because a person that is not
quickened does not fear the Lord. It's only whenever we're quickened,
made spiritual, that we begin to fear the Lord. But Cornelius
has said that he feared the Lord, he gave alms to the brethren,
or to the people, and then the Bible says that the Lord heard
his prayers, He said, your prayers have come unto me as a memorial. So God is saying that, hey, your
prayers is a memorial to me. Now, only a quickened person
can do that. Only a quickened person can have
prayers that are a memorial to God. So Cornelius had every sign
of being a quickened man, but he had never heard the gospel.
But Peter came later. preached the gospel and what
happened when it first came? Cornelius even bowed down to
him. Peter said, hey, don't bow down
to me. Why? Because Cornelius hadn't
been granted repentance and faith to understand the truth of the
gospel. The gospel was preached to Cornelius and what happened?
He repented of his wrong thinking and he began to believe the right
thinking about the gospel. Now, he was already quickened
before the gospel got to him. And then whenever preached the
gospel, because he was already quickened, because he already
had a spiritual understanding given to him, a spiritual ability, he was then able to
hear and see spiritual things. Then whenever the gospel was
preached to him, he understood and he believed because he was
given faith. Faith is what reached out and
believed that truth. But that truth was already in
his heart. That truth was already there, he just hadn't heard it.
The Spirit had already taught him those things, but yet he
had not heard it to believe it. And so, there's this issue of thinking
that we are saved at a moment in time whenever we believed
on Christ, repented of our sins, come to the front of a church,
was baptized, joined a church, whatever thing, light candles
or whatever it is that you think that you have to do, that it's
at that point that we're saved. But brethren, we are saved by
Christ alone. What happens when we believe
and repent are fruits of that salvation. It's fruits of the
Spirit. The Bible says that faith is
a gift of God. It's a fruit of the Spirit. Repentance
is granted. You are granted repentance, the
Bible says. That means that repentance isn't
something that we can do in our flesh on our own. That it's something
that only the Spirit can produce in us, and that is to turn us
from the wrong thinking of false, self-righteous gospel. And that's
basically what repentance is all about. You hear preaching
all over the place, and I used to be one of these types of preachers,
that repentance is all about, we need to repent of our sins.
Repent, turn away from it, and don't go back to it ever again.
But how many of us, the dog returns to its fallen, doesn't it? We
continue to go back to our sin. Why is that? It's because our
flesh can't do anything else. Repentance isn't so much about
repenting of your sin. Surely we should ask God for
forgiveness and turn from that and try as much as we can to
not do those actions again. But brethren, in our flesh dwells
sin. Our flesh has sin and dwelling
in it to where that's all it is. It's not just the actions
we do that are sin, but it's the nature that we have. The
nature of Adam is a sinful nature. So whether or not we do those
actions, the sinful nature in and of itself. That's why the
Bible says that the wages of sin is death. Not the wages of
sins, plural, but the wages of sin is death, singular. The wages
of being a sinner that has a sin nature that produces sins, plural,
is death. See, everything that we are apart
from Christ Jesus is sinful and it is deserving of death. Whether
we're actually making the action of sin or just being who we are,
we are worthy of wrath and damnation. So whenever we talk about being
saved and whenever we talk about being born from above and repentance. Repentance is a change of mind
because we think in religion thinking, we think that we can
please God by doing good or please God by keeping the law. And that
is self-righteousness. The Bible calls that self-righteousness.
And that is a sin against God. To actually think that you can
keep the whole law or keep the law for righteousness is a sin.
Now I'm not saying that we don't desire to do righteous. We do
desire to do righteous. We continue to talk about Paul
in the seventh chapter of Romans where he says, you know, I want
to do good, but I find that I can't do it. I desire in my inner man
to do the things of the law and to do the things that are right
and that are holy, but I can't do it because my flesh cannot
perform those things. And so he says, I will serve
the law of God, with my mind, but I'll serve the law of sin
with my flesh. All I can do is want to and desire
to be holy and righteous, but in this flesh I'll never be that
way. We don't progressively become
more holy. We don't progressively sin less
and less and less and less because this flesh, all it can do is
sin. The only time that we get to that point is whenever we
are glorified at the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ and this
body is put down and that glorified body is put on. Then we will
be without sin. So repentance isn't so much about
repenting and quitting sin. And I've heard this, I've said
this, I have friends and family who believe this and teach this,
that they believe that we can sin less and less and less. Brethren,
I don't know about you, but my experience has been that I still
sin. I still struggle with sin. I
still struggle with the same sins that I had even before I
come to know the Lord Jesus. I still struggle with those things.
Can I outwardly refrain from things? Yes, anybody can. Even a non-believer can do those
things. I mean, we know lots of people
that are not Christians, that have quit being drunkards, you
know, they got sober, quit doing drugs, no longer a drug addict,
you know, that don't mean anything. Moral reform is not proof that
we are born again, that we are converted of God. Repentance,
what repentance shows is not a quitting of sin, but a looking
to Christ who took our sin and trusting Him alone. That's what
we repent from. We repent from thinking that
we can quit sinning and do righteousness and look to Christ alone as our
righteousness. That's what walking in obedience
is and that's what repentance is all about. Repentance is turning
that way. And so we have this confusion
that if we quit doing this and start doing this, then we're
alright. But the case is we're going to
continue to do this It's our mindset or it's the faith that's
given us by Christ Jesus to trust that all of that has been taken
care of by Christ and that we will just trust in his righteousness
alone and not try to earn that righteousness before God by our
law keeping, by our own self-righteousness. See, that's what the Pharisees
was trying to do. They was trying to earn their
way into heaven by their own righteousness. And they thought
that they could do it. Jesus said, you know, you search
the scripture in hopes that you can find eternal life, but those
scriptures speak of me. See, they're saying if you were
hoping for a righteousness that's going to get you to heaven, you
need to look to me, not to your law keeping, not to your obedience
to a law, because nobody can keep the law. And so there's
this confusion out there that salvation requires some conditions. But salvation doesn't require
any conditions, brethren. Salvation is completely objective
to all of us. It's not subjective to whether
or not you hear the gospel or you don't. And Cornelius was
that man. He heard the gospel and he repented
from what he thought was religion and righteousness, and he turned
to Christ and began to believe on Christ alone for his righteousness
whenever he heard that. And that may be like that. Now,
to some people, that may happen all at the same time. They may
come and whenever they're converted, they begin to believe. God may
quicken them and immediately have the gospel preached to them.
Some people may be over time. I grew up in an Armenian church
environment my whole entire life, but it wasn't until my 30s or
so, I think it was my 30s, around 2000, year 2000, that I believed
that I was converted. So all that time, was I quickened? I don't know. I was doing a lot
of religious things. I thought I loved the Lord. I
thought I loved His word. I studied it all the time. But
that still don't mean anything. Was I converted then? I don't
know. But I do know I was converted whenever I stopped believing
that I could gain a righteousness by the law. I know I was converted
whenever I looked away from all that and began to believe the
gospel of Christ alone for salvation. So how long was I quickened before
that? I don't know. I'll be honest,
I don't know. Just like Cornelius, how long was he converted before
he actually believed the gospel? I don't know. John the Baptist,
he was filled with the Holy Spirit before he was even born. When
did he begin to start believing the gospel? I don't know. We
know that he left in his mother's womb whenever the word of Christ
came. But had he heard a preacher preach
to him? Had he heard the gospel preached to him? Did he make
a profession of faith and believe in order to get that? No, he
didn't. See, that's what we're trying
to say is the work of salvation is not only monergistic in the
way that Christ was the one who died for us, but it's monergistic
in the way that it's brought to us experientially. We begin
to be, we are quickened by Christ alone, that's outside of any
work that we do, and we are converted We're given repentance and faith
and understanding by the sovereign grace of God at the appointed
time that He desires to give it to us. And that's a work of
His either. We can't do all the studying.
We can't convince people. I'm preaching. And that's not
to try to convince you of what's right and wrong. It's just to
confirm to you something that the Holy Spirit has already taught
in your heart if He has done so. You remember the Bereans? What
did the Bible say about the Bereans whenever Paul came and preached
to the Bereans? It said the Bereans were more noble than those who
were in Thessalonica. Why were they more noble? Well,
it says that they were more noble because that they received the
word of the Lord. And then afterwards it says that
they went home and that they studied or that they went home
and they searched the scriptures daily to see whether these things
be true. Now, a lot of times what we do is we put that backwards. We say, well, they listened to
Paul and then they went home and then they searched the scriptures
to see whether or not what Paul said is right or wrong. Now,
what did it say? It says that they heard the word
of the Lord and they received it. So that meant that they heard
what Paul was preaching and they received it in their heart as
truth, even though they probably had
not even heard it. But they went and then they searched the scriptures
daily to learn the truth that they already received as truth,
but they went and searched the scriptures to see whether these
things be the truth. See, that's what I'm saying is the Holy Spirit
teaches us first. Has there ever been a time, and
I've gotten way off of where I was going today, but have you
ever heard something or read something, studying God's Word,
or listening to a preacher, and there's been something that maybe
the Lord has put in your heart, you've thought about something,
and you've not ever heard, really heard anybody else talk about
it or something, then all of a sudden you heard a preacher
preach that, and you're like, you know what? That sounds right.
You know, I think that sounds right. So you go and you get
your Bible out and you start looking through it and studying
through there to see, you know, is it, does it seem to be the
truth? It was already truth in your
heart. You already felt that. There was a few things that whenever
I came out of the Southern Baptist churches and I began to go to
Sovereign Grace conferences and preach in Sovereign Grace and
things like that, there were things that was in my mind that
I'd never heard growing up. There were things in the scriptures
that I had questions about, but I didn't quite know how to put
them together. But I knew that it seemed that
this was right. that this was the truth. And
then all of a sudden I come across a preacher that preached it,
or come across a group of people that believed it, or some other
churches that believed it. I mean, we found churches that
we didn't even know existed that were holding the truths that
we were believing and seeing in the scripture, but not able
to fully put together everything, and had never heard before, and
because of our upbringing, you have doubt. I don't know, that's
just not what I've ever heard, but that's what seems to be here
in the Scripture, but it goes against everything that I've
ever been told. Well, what had happened? Well,
the Spirit had begun to teach you the truth, and then He brought
somebody that God had ordained to preach those things, or to
teach those things, to confirm that truth to our hearts. This is what Paul is doing here.
Paul is coming again to confirm to them the truth of God that
had already bore witness in their heart, but they had been bewitched.
The law keepers had come back in and they began to bewitch
them with the law, and it kind of sounded right, as it does
to all of us. All of us want to keep the law, right? We all
desire to be righteous. We all desire to be holy and
want to obey Christ. But what happens? The law keepers
come in and they tell you, oh yeah, you've got to live by this
law, you've got to keep it strict, you know. You're going to lose
fellowship with the Lord and all this kind of stuff. And Paul
came in and said, listen, it's never been about your law keeping.
From the start to the finish, it's not about that. And so what
have we been doing? We've been looking at why is
Paul so adamant about this? Why is Paul so hard about attacking
the law keeping? Is it because the law is bad?
No, we learned that, right? We learned that the law isn't
bad. Long as you preach and keep the law, in what it was intended
to do. And so we started looking at
that, and that's kind of what we've gotten off on, is looking,
and starting in Acts, we look first that the disciples, or
the apostles, made mention that the law is something that we
cannot keep, that all the forefathers couldn't keep it, and why should
we bear that on the Gentiles? Because they won't be able to
keep it anyway, because it's an issue with our It's an issue
with who we are in Adam. We have an inability before God
to keep the law. We cannot keep it. And so they
said, you know, and we went to Acts chapter 15, and we see where
they said, you know, hey, this is a yoke that is put upon the
necks of these people. If we do this, it's putting a
yoke. It's putting a burden. It's putting something on them
that they will not be able to keep, and they will constantly
be in fear. They will constantly be discouraged. And brethren, listen, that's
what the law does to the child of grace. After the child of
grace has been converted and knows that Christ is his salvation,
if you start putting law upon him, what does that do? It begins
to hurt the conscience. Why? Because we know in our heart,
and all of you guys know, if you're a child of grace, you
know you sin. Whether it's outward sin or it's
the thoughts of your mind, the intentions of your heart, you
know you sin. But then we try to justify how
good we are based upon somebody else's scene, right? Well, I'm
better than so-and-so. I may not be perfect, but, you
know, so-and-so over there, look at him, you know, he's worse
than I am. We start measuring the standard by everybody else. But the standard is keep it all
or die. That's the standard. The standard
is keep the law perfectly all the time, never breaking it ever
one time or die. That's the standard, brethren.
The standard isn't keeping it a lot or keeping it most of the
time. Keeping it 99.9% of the time. That's not the standard.
The standard is 100% perfection. That's the standard. And if you
can't keep that, the curse of the law is death. The curse is
death. The wages of sin is death. And
so we've seen that the law, one of the reasons Paul is so adamant
in telling these people about keeping the law for righteousness
is because it's a bearing yoke upon you that will continually
have your conscience weighted down that you're not keeping
the law. And so you're always wanting, thinking you're having
to do more or are always in despair because you're not doing enough.
Okay? And then we also looked in Romans
chapter three, And we've seen that the purpose of the law was
to reveal sin, not to cancel sin or to keep us from sinning.
The law was never given to keep us from sinning or to make us
righteous. It was there to show us how sinful
we really was. It's like a light. The light
is there to shine on us. The kids went to the dentist
this week. Whenever they go to the dentist,
they got this big light that's over the top of them that they
bring down to shine in their mouth, right? Now whenever that
light comes in, it's kind of, you know, offensive. It's bright.
It's right in your face and everything. That light isn't there to make
the cavities go away. What's that light there for?
It's to let everything be seen to show your teeth has cavities. Or your teeth doesn't have cavities,
It's to show what's there, right? The law was given to us to show
us what was already there that we in our own minds don't think
is there. Right? We think we're righteous. We think we're pretty good people.
We think we're okay. But the law is there to remind
us, to show us, to shed light on the fact that you can't keep
this law. And we looked at that. In Romans
3, we also talked about that in Romans 5, which I'll get to
in just a minute. We also looked at Romans chapter
4, that the Scriptures tells us,
Romans 4, 14, that the Scriptures tells us that if then, if the
law worked, if the law produced righteousness, then there is
no need for us to have faith. There's no reason for God to
give us faith. If righteousness comes by works,
then we don't need grace and we don't need faith. We have
law and we have works. Law and works is all that we
need if that's the case. And everybody just has to get
in there and do their best to try to live that perfect life.
Okay? So the Bible tells us that whenever
we preach that you have to keep the law for righteousness, then
it's essentially saying then there is no need for you to live
by faith. But the scripture repeatedly over and over and over again
tells us that the just live by faith, right? They live by Christ's
faith. They live upon His faith. Who
do we look to? Do we live, do we walk by our
living or His living? We walk looking to what He did,
His life. his debt for us. We don't walk
looking at ourselves and what we can do. That's what these
scriptures are. And see, we've got, because we've
been programmed in our mind so much by works teaching that it's
hard whenever we come to these verses to look at that and say,
you know, man, I just, it's hard for me to grasp that because
it just don't seem right. You're telling me that I'm just
to look at Christ's life and death is all, that I don't have
to do anything to be pleasing to God. And that's exactly what
I'm saying. That's exactly what the Bible
teaches. Is that this life that we live, we live by His faith,
not by our faith. When you try to keep the law,
essentially you're saying, I'm putting my faith in my works
and not in the finished work of Christ. You understand what
I'm saying? If I'm becoming confusing, just
stop me and ask me to clarify. Whenever we think that we can
perform a righteousness to get saved or to stay saved or to
have some fellowship with God by keeping the law of God, then
what we are saying is we are putting faith, not in Christ,
but in what we do, in our works. And that's why Paul said that
if it's not of faith, then it's of works, and it's no more of
grace, because if it's by grace, it's gonna be by faith. For by
grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourself. It's the gift of God. That faith
is something that is a gift of God. Everything that that faith
done for us, which is Christ, done for us, is a gift to you. It's not by your works. So you
can't have a mixture of grace and faith, okay? I mean, you
can't have a mixture of faith and works, grace and law, okay? It's one or the other. It's one
or the other. It ceases to be that. We looked
also while we were there in Romans chapter 4 that because faith
or that salvation is by grace and through
faith, and that it is all not by works, we found that for those
who try to keep the law, the only thing that it can bring
on you is wrath. It's because you can't keep the law, and so
the only thing that the law does, if you try to keep it, the only
thing it's going to do for you is not make you righteous, but
it's actually going to bring wrath down upon you. And then we ended up last week
talking about the purpose of the law was to expose sin or
to show sin. And we went to Romans chapter
5, and I spent a little bit of time on that. We recapped a teaching
that I did a while back that the offense, Romans chapter 5
and verse 20, it says, moreover the law entered that the offense
might abound. And we've seen that the context
of that offense, going all the way back to verse 12, was the
offense of Adam. That's Adam's offense. By one
man, sin entered into the world, death by sin. By one man's offense. Wherefore, as by one man sin
entered into the world, death by sin, so death passed upon
all men, for that all have sinned. But not as the offense, so also
as the free gift. For through the offense of one,
be dead, much more the grace of God and the gift of thy grace,
which is by one man Jesus Christ hath abounded unto many. Verse
17, for if by one man's offense death reign by one, much more
they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness
shall reign in life by one Jesus Christ. Not by their own merit,
they're gonna reign in life by Jesus Christ. Verse 18, therefore
as by the offense of one judgment came upon all men, to condemnation,
even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon
all men and the justification of life. For as by one man's
disobedience or offense many were made sinners, so by the
obedience of one shall many be made righteous. See, it's not
by your obedience that you're made righteous, but it's by his
obedience that you're made righteous. And that brings us to verse 20.
Moreover, the law entered that the offense might abound. So
the offense here Speaking of Adam's offense, and the law came
in, why did God begin to give law to men? The law that he gave
to Adam was what? Don't eat the tree, right? Don't
eat of the tree. That was the law that he gave
to Adam. Don't eat that, eat everything else. What happened? Adam lusted in
his heart, was tempted, lusted in his heart, was drawn away,
and was enticed and that temptation, that lust conceived and it brought
forth sin. He took the apple, or fruit,
whatever it was, he ate it and sinned. James tells us that's how sin
happens, right? So we learned last week that
there was already lust in Adam's heart even before he ever sinned
against God. Ever before He did the action,
the nature was already there to bring forth the action. We
sin because we are sinners. We don't become sinners because
we sin. See, sin comes from within. Sin
comes from the lust of the heart. So Adam, before he could ever
have sinned, had to have a nature that had a propensity to sin,
that had an ability to sin, that was not able to keep the law
of God. That's how God created Adam.
I know that goes against a lot of teaching that I grew up under
and a lot of teaching. Matter of fact, a lot of teaching
that most Sovereign Grace preachers even preach. But we've got to
see what the Bible says here. The Bible says that God gives
the law So that Adam's sin would increase or be shown, be made
manifest. So the sin was there, it just
was hidden. It wasn't seen. And another example was Satan,
right? Remember whenever the Bible talks
about Satan? Whenever he in pride come and
thought he could place himself above God? And the Bible said
that he was perfect or that he was right and perfect and upstanding
Until what until sin was found in him Now Sin was found in him
that means that sin had already be in him to be found I give
you remember I give you that illustration one time that if
we go out there with my daughter's Metal detector and start combing
the ground out there and we hear beep beep beep beep And we dig
that up and there's a gold coin out there We found that gold
coin, but her sweeping that thing over there didn't put that gold
coin in the ground. The gold coin was already there,
it just needed to be found. It needed to be made manifest.
It needed to be brought forth to be seen. Same thing with the
non-elect angels, which Satan is the head of that. The non-elect
angels were never intended to stay in their habitat, was never
to stay in their first estate. They was elected to fall. That's
why the Bible calls them elect angels and non-elect angels.
They were non-elect. They never was ever was decreed
to stay in that same estate. And so they were created different
than the non-elect angels. They were created with sin in
them. And so that that sin would be
found whenever Satan rose to himself, thought he could be
above God. The rest of them followed after
him. Same thing with Adam. The nature was already there,
it just had not been made manifest. So whenever the law came in,
the offense abounded. The offense came forth. It showed
forth the inability that Adam had. And so whenever we preach
the law, all the law is going to do is expose our inability
to keep it. That's the purpose of the law.
That's why God gave the law. The law was never given to make
us holy. When God gave that law or any
command, it's to always show us that we cannot keep it. Now, briefly today, let's look
at one more verse, and let's go to Romans chapter 6. Why is Paul so emphatic to tell
these Galatians, remind these Galatians, confirm to them the
truth. Why is he so emphatic against
it? You'd almost think that Paul hates the law, but he doesn't.
He just puts it in its place. See, we don't hate the law. We
love the law of the Lord. It is holy and good, but it's
got a purpose. And that purpose isn't for our
salvation or to make us righteous or keep our fellowship with God.
We've got to keep it in its place. So in Romans chapter 6, and look
with me if you would, down at, oh, let's start reading in verse 11. It says, likewise reckon
ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto
God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Let not sin therefore reign
in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in its lust thereof. Neither yield ye your members
as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin, but yield yourselves
unto God as those that are alive from the dead, and your members
as instruments of righteousness unto God. For sin shall not have
dominion over you, for ye are not under the law, but under
grace. I don't know how much simpler
or how much plainer the scriptures can be. The child of grace is
not under the law. You have been freed from the
law. You have been freed from its
demands. You have been freed from its
curse. We are freed from the law. You are not under law but
under grace. We see here that we are no longer
under the law. What does that mean, to be under
the law? Well, whenever we are under the
law, the law is there, as I said, to crush us, to expose us, to
manifest who we are in Adam, to manifest our inability, and
to show for the child of grace who has spiritual eyes, it's
there to show us our need for Christ Jesus. See, whenever the
law comes in with this crushing blow to devastate us and leave
us without hope, because that's what it does. If we're given
spiritual ears, what we're hearing is, what the law is screaming,
is that you can't keep me. I am holy, I am righteous, I
am just, and you're not. And all your efforts to try to
keep me are going to fail. But it never does give us any
hope. The law never gives us any hope.
It never does tell us, but if you'll be all right, you'll just
think this way. No, all the law does is expose
our inability. It curses us. It's a curse. It's just a heavy weight on us
all the time. And so to be under the law is
to be under its curse. That means that we are under
its curse, the curse of the law, and the wages of that is sin,
I mean, is death. So if we try to keep the law
and want to be under the law, then we have to abide by the
dictates of the law, right? If we say, okay, well, I don't
want to do this whole thing because I don't think it's right that
we just have to trust in Christ alone and not do anything. So, I am going to try to keep
the law so that I can be pleasing to the Lord. Okay? You want to go back under the
law. That's what Paul's saying in
our verse this morning, right? He was saying, you know, how
turn ye again to the weak and beggary elements, whereunto ye
desire again to be in bondage? You desire to be back under the
law. Well, if so, you're going to
be in bondage again. You've been freed, but you want
to be in bondage. Now, I've never been to jail, but if I've been
to jail and they've been set free, I'm sure I don't want to
go back there. I know people and have family
members that have been in jail, and that's one of the things
that they say. You go there, you don't want to go back. You
don't want to go back. That don't mean that don't go
back. Some of them has gone back, but you don't want to go back,
you know? then why do the Gentiles, why
do these Galatians want to go back under bondage? Well, because
they are being bewitched. And whenever you think that you're
wanting to go back under the bondage of the law for righteousness,
then you've been bewitched. You've been bewitched. And so
why is Paul being so emphatic about this? Because there is
no hope under the law. And so he's saying here plainly,
You are not under the law anymore. It doesn't have any binds on
you. God is not requiring you to keep anything anymore for
righteousness, for holiness, for fellowship. In the Old Testament,
under the Old Covenant, the law was given to them and then a
sacrificial system was given to them to follow. It wasn't
to take away their sin. It wasn't to reconcile them to
God. The Bible clearly states that
by the blood of bulls and goats, that no man was ever saved, that
God was not happy or pleased with the shedding of the blood
of bulls and goats. It was there to point and to
constantly remind them that they were sinning. The sacrificial
system was set up and the law system was to remind them over
and over and over again. Every time I have to take in
this sacrifice means that I've missed it again. Miss it again.
Another year that I didn't keep the law. Another year I didn't
keep the law. Another year I didn't keep the
law. But they were taught the gospel through that sacrificial
system that there would be a Messiah coming. That would be the end
of all this law keeping and sacrificial system. It would be put away
for He would come and He would be our obedience. He would be
our sacrifice once for all. Once for all time. And the Bible clearly states
that, right? That Jesus is the end of the law. That he fulfilled
the law. He said, I did not come to abolish
the law, but to fulfill it. And he did fulfill it. Now some
people say, well, there you go. He said he didn't come to abolish
it, so we're still under it. No, we're not still under it
because he fulfilled it for us. He came to fulfill the law for
all that he was assured before. And so you're not under that
law system anymore. Some people say, well, that just
means the sacrificial system. That just means the civil law. That means the sacrificial laws. But we're still under all these
other laws. Brethren, show me anywhere in
Scripture where the Bible delineates that there's differences between
them. It's all or nothing. The moral law, the civil law,
The ecclesiastical laws, the priesthood, all that stuff, all
those things were all tied together one law. And he came and fulfilled all
of them, all of it for us. And we are no longer under that.
The only law that we are under now is the law of Christ, which
is the law of faith, which is believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
Love your brother as your neighbor. That's what we are under. That's
the rule of faith. We are no longer under it. We
are not under law, but under grace. We now live under the
grace system, not the law system. We live by the grace that was
given to us in Christ. The grace of election. That was
truly a grace. God wrote down names before the
foundation of the world in a book. And he also did not write down
names in a book according to Revelation. There were names
that he did not write down, meaning that known unto God were all
his works, the end from the beginning, known unto God were all the people
that he would ever create and all their names and who they
would be. And in the book of life, he wrote names and then
there was people that he did not write names. Election and
reprobation began in the eternal counsel of God. And so with Christ, being our
surety, Christ being our substitute, he stood in our place
before the foundation of the world. We were elected in Christ
Jesus. So we see that grace was given
to us before anything was ever made. But brother, grace was
given to us here whenever Christ came and died for us. And now
grace is being given to us whenever he gives us repentance and faith
to trust in Him. He gives us faith that whenever
we are walking and we sin, the conviction of the Holy Spirit
comes and we go to Christ and acknowledge our sin and we ask
Him to forgive us and we always hear the sound from His voice
crying, the blood has covered it all. We never go to God and
He says, you've sinned too many this time, I can't cover that.
No, it's all been covered in the blood once for all. That's
grace. That's grace that's being given
to us. For us to think that we're a
child of grace, that's grace. Christ has graced us with the
Spirit of God in us to convince us of sin and to give us assurance
of our kinship or our heirship with Christ Jesus. So brethren,
if you want to go back under the law, you lose all that stuff.
You lose that because for one, you're going to be under the
curse. You have to keep it all or die. If you go back underneath
that, You will not have, you can't have grace because it's
all of works. And if it's all of works, it's
not of faith and it's not grace, because grace is how you're saved.
If you want to go back underneath that, you're not going to have
assurance because you're going to constantly be bombarded with
the fact that you can't keep the law. There will be no assurance
in your heart. The only way that we can stand
with full assurance is looking unto Christ, our Savior, as our
only hope. Our hope is in Him, not in our
law keeping. Our hope is in what He done and
not what we do. So Paul has been emphatically
telling these Galatians, listen, on every level, this is wrong. On every level, this is wrong.
Why do you want to go back under that system that does nothing
for your spiritual good? It will not get you any closer
to God, make you any more righteous or holy in yourself. All it's
going to do is be bad for you. So that's why Paul continues
this message. Now, we're going to stop right there and we'll
pick up again here in Romans next week, Lord willing. But we're going to continue on.
Like I said, I'd like to just kind of keep trucking through
all the New Testament. And the reason I'm doing this
is to solidify what Galatians is teaching us, that any teaching
of law keeping is another gospel. It's not found in the gospel.
The gospel is completely opposite of law keeping. The gospel is
a gospel of grace. The law is a gospel of works. Okay? The law, all it preaches
is works, works, works. And the Bible is clear that no
one is going to be saved by works. So that's why it's so emphatic.
I also want to do this because I want to show that all of the
scriptures are teaching this. Not just a little segment to
one particular group of people who was being bothered by Judaizers. This is for us today. We still
have Judaizers today that are preaching these things to us.
That we still need to keep these laws. That we still need to continue
and make a righteousness for ourselves that will keep us pleasing
before God. No, Jesus is what makes us pleasing
before God. His righteousness imputed to
us is the righteousness that we stand before God in, not our
own. And so, to some this may seem
like, you know, well, why are you so much against the law?
And again, I want to reiterate, I've said it now two or three
times even today, we are not against the law. We just want
to make sure that we keep it in its context, that the scripture
keeps it in, and what its purpose is there. And it is in no way
me telling you, well, go out and sin all you want, because
it's all right. That's not what I'm saying either.
I have been in conversations with people before who call me
an antinomian, and they just tell me, well, you just want
to go out and sin all you want. I said, I don't know about you,
but I don't want to sin at all. I sin more than I want. I asked
them, I said, do you sin as much as you want? I don't want to sin. But I do. That's the nature of who we are.
But the law isn't there. And they think that that's the
end of this teaching, that this teaching will breed that in people's
hearts. And I pray that God would keep
us from that mentality. For those that are watching or
listening to this on Sermon Audio or in an audio here, the preaching
of the gospel and the preaching of the distinction between the
law and grace, is not there to give you a license to go out
and just sin as much as you want. But if you are a child of grace,
your conscience is going to bear upon you on that. The Holy Spirit
is going to bear upon you. We don't want to sin. The law
doesn't. I mean, the preaching that we
are no longer under the law has not made me just say, hey, I
want to just go out and do all the sinning that I want to do.
Now, I will say this, it has freed me up on some things that
man's tradition And man's laws have been put upon me that have
burned on my conscience before. But whenever you see that, hey,
we're not under the law, including the traditions of men, you know.
Men's traditions get ingrained in our mind just as much as the
law does sometimes. Things that aren't even in scripture.
You know, we've not really discussed this with you guys, Kevin and
Jacqueline, but you know, our church believes that whenever
we take the Lord's Supper, we have it with unleavened bread
and wine. But there's a lot of churches that believe that Christians
shouldn't even drink alcohol, period, even in the Lord's Supper
and everything. Well, that used to be a conviction
of mine, that I can't drink that, because that's got alcohol in
it. And whenever the Lord taught me from his scriptures, That
freed me in my conscience from that. And it was the same thing
here at our church. We had people that was in our
church that their conscience told them that they shouldn't
be drinking wine because it had alcohol in it. And so we did
a study through the scriptures about that and whenever they
heard those things, the Holy Spirit brought them to an understanding
of that and it freed them where they were able to partake of
the Lord's Supper biblically, scripturally, without their conscience
being bothered. See, where the Spirit of the
Lord is, where the truth is being preached, there's liberty. You
shall know the truth and it shall set you free. See, whenever we
preach Christ, it sets us free from the bondage that men put
upon us and the law puts upon us. So, that's what I mean by
that. We don't want to do unrighteousness.
We don't think that we have to go out here and sin all that
we want to sin. We don't want to do that. but we just understand
the purpose of the law and why it's given to us. So anyway,
does anybody got any questions or comments or anything that
you'd like to add to this or any other point that you'd like
to make about it or questions that you got about what's been
said? Maybe confusion about something that I've said or I always want
to give that time. I don't know if you read it,
but Paul answered that question in the verse 15 and 16, right? So that's clear that not because
we are in grace, we are allowed to sin like yourself. And that's my comment. Shall we sin in grace
by the vow? God forbid. That word God forbid,
that word is meganoito. in the Greek, it is like a really
strong, absolutely, positively not. No, we don't sin that grace
might have bound. Matter of fact, what grace does
is restrains a lot of times. We have that restraint. See,
that's the good thing about not being under the law and not being
under the dominion of sin anymore, is before all we could do is
sin. But now God is restraining. Now He restrained sin in the
in the reprobate as well. Remember Abimelech. He restrained
Abimelech's sin where he didn't lay with Abraham's wife. But He restrained sin all the
time. The Bible says that the wrath
of man shall praise him the remainder of wrath. That word wrath there
means sin or it means iniquity. The remainder of wrath God restrains. So there is some sin that God
has decreed to take place for his purposes, just like the crucifying
of Jesus, but the remainder of wrath, the wrath that man could
incur, the sins that man could do because of the depth of their
depravity, God restrains those because they're not in his purpose.
And so he restrains that sin. But see, from the child of grace,
we're not under the dominion of sin. It no longer has its hold
on us that Christ now and grace now reigns within us. And so
we have that grace that God has given us to overcome that sin. Now that doesn't mean that we
can control that. We still are at the benevolent
hand of God in giving us grace. If I overcome a sin, if I refuse
and, you know, if I'm being tempted and then I, you know, overcome
that temptation and don't do that, Well, that wasn't because
I was so strong in my will to do that, that was because God
gave me grace and He restrained me. It's always about what God
does. Remember, brethren, He is the
potter and we are the clay. He's molded us into whatever
it is that He desires and He's the one that makes us the way
that we are and do the things that we do. Some people call
that being a puppet, but the biblical term is being a clay
pot. We're clay pot. And we do whatever He has designed
us to do. The Bible says that he is doing
all things after the counsel of his own will, not after your
own will. That he's doing all things according
to the counsel of his will. And so, but yeah, brother, I
appreciate that. That is the truth of those things. Paul said, you know, the preaching
of grace alone does not put within the heart of the child of grace.
It puts within the heart of the religionist, the heart of the
Pharisee, Oh, good, then if I'm not under the law, then I'm going
to go out and sin, because that's what the person wants. See, that's
what the Pharisees were so uptight about. They were so mad at Jesus
and those disciples because they wanted to do that, but they couldn't
because the law was telling them, you can't do that. See, they wouldn't be religious
if they did that. They wouldn't be those whitewashed
sepulchers that everybody saw on the outside as these big holy
men that was admired by all the people, you know, as being the
most obedient ones of all of them. No. They wanted to do those
things, and they were mad because they couldn't do those things
because the law was bothering their conscience. But see, the
disciples, they were free. Remember whenever they walked
through that field? I don't mean to keep going on, but remember when they walked
through the field and they was gathering that wheat to eat with
their hands, and the Pharisees said, What are you doing, man?
These guys are breaking the Sabbath. And he reminded them about David
eating of the showbread. See, the Sabbath was made for
man, not man for the Sabbath. See, Jesus was telling them,
listen, the law was made for a purpose. Anyway, we'll get into some of
that other stuff also as we go on. Matter of fact, the verses
that Kevin brought up is in my list of verses to look at. coming
up soon. All right, anybody else got any
questions or comments or corrections? All right. Let's have word of
prayer. Father, we thank you for the
word of God. We thank you for the scriptures that you have
preserved for us that reveal your son, that reveal your righteousness,
that reveals your salvation. Father, we thank you for these
cherished words that we have to look at as reminders, as encouragement,
as exhortations to us. Lord, we are so grateful for
them. We are thankful for the work of Christ Jesus and that
he has cleansed us of every sin, that he has made us justified
before God. And Father, we thank you that
we are no longer under the the curse and the bondage of the
law, that we have been given freedom in Christ Jesus. And
so, Father, I pray that all those that are here, as they hear these
things preached, as oftentimes, as we've mentioned, we can become
confused and think that, well, that's just gonna lead to a life
of licentiousness. But, Father, we know that for
the child of grace, there is that restraint of the Holy Spirit.
There is that desire in the inward man for righteousness, and for
serving the law of God. And so, Lord, we know that many
times that we will be restrained because of what the Spirit does
within us. And so, Lord, we pray that there will not be confusion
on that. And those that are listening or watching, Lord, that they
might understand that the reason that we are to preach this is
not to exalt our sin or to exalt the ability to sin or even to
exalt being out from under the law, although we should rejoice
that we are not under it. But Lord, it is the preaching
and teaching is to exalt the work of the Lord Jesus Christ,
who has accomplished all these things for us, that we don't
have to worry about trying to keep these things for righteousness,
that He has secured that righteousness for us, and that He has given
us justification before God because of His faith. And so, Lord, I
pray that people will see and understand that as the Spirit
gives them revelation of it, that this is for exaltation of
Christ and not a license to sin. Lord, we just are so grateful
today to be able to meet once again, and we ask, Lord, that
you just might bless this day and be with us this week as we
leave this place, that you would not only keep us in safety, Lord,
but you might give us opportunity to share and minister the gospel
to those that we are around, and that if any be of your sheep
that hear that, Lord, that you might draw them to yourself,
that you might draw them to this place of worship where we meet
together in this gathered assembly, Lord. Again, we wanna lift up
Daniel to you today, Lord. We just pray for him and his
healing. Pray for his family, Lord, as
well. We pray if they are yours, Lord, that you would bring them
into conversion. We ask, Lord, that you would minister to them
and through them We especially ask the Lord for Daniel as he
comes. Lord, we pray that our church here would be a ministry
to him as well, seeing the things that he has to live through.
Lord, we just ask that you just be merciful to them and gracious. Thank you again, Lord, for the
salvation that we have in Christ. And it's in his name that we
can pray. Amen.