Well a few weeks ago we were
looking at the book of Ecclesiastes, one of Solomon's wisdom books,
and particularly his life experiment, if you remember that message
in particular. Because the life experiment was
asking the question, whereabouts do you find fulfillment in this
life? You know, some of you are young,
you've got the whole of life looking like it's lying out there
in front of you, others of us are getting older, some of us
longing for that day to come when we're taken from this place
to one which is much better. And how is it going to be when
you get to the end of it that you say, well that was a fulfilling
life, I ticked all the boxes. How are you going to do that?
So Solomon does his experiment, if you remember. And his experiment
tried various ways of achieving fulfilment and purpose and meaning
in life. So he tried the pursuit of knowledge.
I know you've heard this before but I'm just reminding you because
it was a few weeks ago and it's very relevant to what we're going
to do next. He tried knowledge. He tried education, he tried
getting, now education's a good thing, as I said. Very, very
good thing. Get whatever education you can.
But the end of his pursuit of knowledge, if it was just knowledge
in a vacuum as it was, his conclusion was vanity. Vanity. All is vanity. And then he thought, well, Let's
try pleasure. Let's try every form of pleasure,
because there was nothing that stopped him from having whatever
he wanted. He was supremely rich. He was blessed with so much from
God. He hadn't asked for things, he'd
asked for wisdom. But God blessed him with so much.
And he used his resources in his experiment to pursue pleasure. Pleasure of every kind. Pleasure
of the senses, pleasure of seeing things, pleasure, all around,
just like this world all around us, the philosophy of most of
the people you meet is one of pursuing pleasure. Where can
I get the next kick from? Where can I get the next thing
that's going to make me feel good? He tried pleasure, and
his conclusion at the end of it, did you have a fulfilling
life, Solomon, pursuing pleasure? Vanity, vanity, all is vanity. And so then he thought, let's
try creative labour, you know, Creatively making things it's
very satisfying to creatively make things it really is to produce
a work of art or compose some music or to design a building
or to fix something that's broken or in little Isaac's case, to
make a little Lego toy. It's very creative, it's wonderful.
But again, Solomon's conclusion at the end of it all was vanity. Vanity. All is vanity. And his final conclusion, you
might remember, is this. To remember. Remember your Creator
in the days of your youth. While you're still young, don't
leave it till you think you're going to die, which is years
away. It might not be. Remember your Creator in the
days of your youth. He says, fear God, for the fear
of the Lord is the beginning of true wisdom, of true knowledge.
He says, keep his commandments. Which commandments? Well, you
can flog yourself to death trying to keep the ten commandments,
and you will find that you fail again and again. They're good.
They're right. They're just. They're holy. But
in the flesh, you cannot keep them. You cannot keep them. What's
the commandment that you should keep? Believe the gospel of his
grace. That's it. Remember your creator
in the days of your youth, fear God, keep his commandments, believe
his gospel. There is only purpose, this was
Solomon's conclusion, there is only purpose in knowing God in
this life. In knowing God. So you believe,
it says somewhere else in the scripture, you must believe that
God is. You must believe that there is
a God, you must believe that God exists. But what is God? What is God? What are we talking
about? We're talking about the creator.
Ours is modern science. We don't need a creator. We know
that it all just happened. This is totally wrong. No, no.
We can't stand any talk of there must be a creator. Absolutely
not. You cannot be a... I'm sorry. That line of reasoning
is from nothing other than Satan himself. That is Satan's kingdom
of Antichrist. Common sense, natural sense,
everything that you've ever known from the moment you emerged from
the womb and started to sense things around you tells you,
if you're honest, it is all fearfully and wonderfully made. God is
the creator of this universe. God is the upholder. of all things. It didn't put itself together.
Have you ever known anything put itself together without intelligent
input? No, you haven't. And it didn't,
and it doesn't, and it can't, and it won't. God is creator,
but God is holy. Ah, now we need his word. We
need his word to know that God is holy. And God is a judge,
because God is the moral standard of this universe. And this verse
I keep quoting to you, Hebrews 927, it's appointed to man to
die once and then the judgment. We all have that appointment. And we're sinners. Because we're
not holy. God says, Be ye holy for I am
holy. And we try and we try and we
try but we're not, and we're not because we've got the genetic
makeup of Adam who sinned, who fell, along with everybody else.
We're sinners before the holiness and the justice and the righteousness
of the holy God who we must meet. We're sinners and we're guilty
and he is the judge and for our sin there is a penalty and the
penalty for our sin is death. The soul that sins, it shall
die. What sort of death? We all die,
don't we? Yes, this is the second death. The death of eternal separation
from God. That's it. And we start to realise,
if God is gracious and opens our eyes, we start to realise
that we're in peril. We're in mortal peril. We're
in deadly peril. We're in a state of utter lostness. We are, as the New Testament
says, without Christ and without hope in this world. We are not
only neutral as far as God is concerned, we are God's enemies. Enemies. We're at enmity with
God. And Paul Pointing this out to
people, 2 Corinthians chapter 5, in verse 20 he says this,
we pray you, we implore you, we plead with you, on behalf
of Christ, in Christ's stead, as if he's speaking to you now,
we plead with you, be reconciled to God. Make peace with God. Don't go through this life and
go into death. At enmity with God, be reconciled
to God. And so then comes the question,
how? can I be reconciled to God? How
can I, a sinner, be reconciled to God who is holy? And the answer
is this. I must find a ransom that satisfies,
that calms, that soothes, that pays the offended justice of
God. It's in the oldest book in the
Bible, the book of Job. Job asked the question early
on when he's being put through those severe trials, how should
a man be just with God? That's it. How can I be reconciled
to God? How should a man be just? You
must be just, you must be holy. Pursue holiness, follow holiness,
without which no man shall see the Lord. How can I be reconciled
to God? How should a man be just with
God? And then later in the book, Job
gives the answer. Job 33, 24. Then he, God, is gracious to
him, the sinner. God is gracious to a sinner and
says, This is what God says. Deliver him, the sinner, from
going down into the pit. Which pit? The pit of hell. Deliver
him from going down into the pit. Why can God deliver a sinner
from the just punishment that's due? God says this, I have found
a ransom. That's it. Praise God. I have found a ransom. What is
the ransom that God has found? Who is the ransom that God has
found? You see, to each of us, as Galatians
3.10 tells us, that cursed is everyone that does not continue
in all things written in the book of the law to do them, to
keep God's law perfectly all the time. If you don't, you're
cursed. And James says, if you offend
in one point, then you're guilty of all. Cursed. But then, three
verses further on, verse 13, Christ has redeemed us from the
curse of the law. He has bought us back from it.
He has paid the penalty to the law of God. Christ has redeemed
His people from the curse of the law. How? By He Himself being
made a curse for us. So Romans 8 verse 3 says this,
what the law could not do, what our keeping of the law could
not do, why not? Because it was weak. Why was
it weak? Because our flesh is weak. in this our flesh. New
Year's resolution, every morning resolution, today I'm not going
to do any sin, I really am, I'm not going to do it, and by the
end of the day you have to confess you've completely failed. Every
thought, every action, every word, has not only been blatantly
contrary to God's law, but in so many ways you have contravened
God's law. In motive, in intention, everything
about it. No, what the law could not do
in that it was weak through the flesh, God. Sending his own son
in the likeness of sinful flesh, because when they looked at Jesus
of Nazareth they saw an ordinary man just like us. He sent his
Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned
sin in the flesh, in the flesh of Jesus Christ. That's where
his law was satisfied. So John 3.16, ah, they would
say, ah, you're hyper-Calvinist, you won't ever dare go near the
verse John 3.16, will you? Well, I am doing now. For God
so loved the world God so loved a world of people without distinction,
doesn't mean without exception, without distinction, of race,
tribe, kindred. God so loved the world, a people,
that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth
in him should not perish but have everlasting life. Through
believing Christ and the gospel of his grace, I have assurance,
you have assurance, that he, Christ, by his death, has paid
your debt, my debt, to God's law. Not the debt of everybody
as we saw last week. No. The debt of his people. So that the result of it is,
as that verse tells us, I now, you now, believing, have, present,
present, now, have everlasting life. And all that tells me to
do is this. Believe. Believe. Believe on
the Lord Jesus Christ. What should I do to be saved,
said the Philippian jailer to Paul and Silas. What should I
do? What must I do to be saved? Believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved. My gospel,
what must I do? Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
Is that the authentic biblical gospel of salvation from sin?
We need to be clear. Many claim to preach the true
biblical gospel when in fact they preach a fake gospel. Remember
I'm continuing this series which is effectively my gospel, genuine
or fake. What is it, genuine or fake?
Is my gospel the gospel of the Bible, of the scriptures? Is
it the genuine gospel of the scriptures, the gospel of God?
Or is it fake? Like the Antiques Roadshow, looking
at something that looks like the genuine article painting,
it looks like a Rembrandt. Is it really an original Rembrandt? And they get the experts in.
And sometimes it can take them a long time. But when they find
a flaw in it that says no it's not it's a fake it's painted
by somebody that was very good the value of that which looks
so valuable turns out to be worthless it has no currency it has no
purchasing power but the genuine article oh wow take it to Sotheby's
take it to the auction room millions and millions of pounds will be
paid possess that. And so it is with the genuine
article of the gospel. It has currency. When it comes
to that appointment with death and judgment, it has currency
in eternity. So this is what we're doing.
We're examining things that sound like the Gospel, because only
the Gospel saves, with the Scriptures to see whether they're genuine.
We're putting it under the magnifying glass of the expert, the Scripture. Last week we looked at the Gospel
of Universalism, the Alpha Course, the Billy Graham kind of thing,
all of that sort of stuff, and we concluded without any shadow
of a doubt Whatever that might sound like, however successful
they say they're being and behaving and bragging on, it's fake. It is not the true gospel. It's
a gospel which, when you get to that appointment with death,
will be proven to have no value whatsoever. Well, this week I
want to examine another gospel, and it's, I would suggest, even
more deceiving than that gospel of universalism. It's the gospel
of Christ plus legalism. We need to be aware of it. We
need to recognize it. We need to avoid it, because
it's all around. So what I'm going to do is identify
what I mean by legalism. Then talk about mankind in general
and their relationship with the law of God, and then talk about
the believer's relationship with the law of God. This is legalism
identified. Now a man called Samuel Bolton,
who lived between 1601 and 1654, so a long time ago, 400 years
ago, He said this, he said, the law,
by which he meant the ten commandments of God, the law sends us to the
gospel to be justified, for our justification. And in that, he's
quite right. That's absolutely true. The law
is our schoolmaster to drive us to Christ. Because we know
we can't be saved by keeping the law. So the law drives us
to Christ, the gospel. And then he says, And having
been saved, having believed the gospel, the gospel sends us to
the law to frame our way of life. So having believed, we're then
sent back to Mount Sinai to be told what to do and how to live. That is not true. And yet, that
is believed by so many who call themselves Orthodox. That is
not true. You see, this so-called Gospel
of claimed reconciliation with God for the sinner places the
one who believes it under the constraint of the moral law,
the Ten Commandments. The person who believes it believes
Christ's death, paid his debt, his sin debt, to God's law, to
God's justice, but from now on, henceforth, he must be directed
and motivated and constrained by the Ten Commandments. And
so this is what they say. For example, I'll just choose
one or two examples. Let's say there's a married man,
married to a wife, in his place of work he becomes attracted
to another woman and his flesh is very tempted to commit adultery
and you know she looks willing to go along with him and oh dear
his heart is yearning, although he's married his heart is yearning
what stops him and this is what they say the seventh commandment
thou shalt not commit adultery oh gosh well I better not commit
adultery then because the seventh commandment is going to punish
me it's threatening me with punishment if I do It's binding my behaviour. It's forbidding. Think of another
example. You want something and you're
tempted to steal or defraud. This is a believer. You're tempted
to steal or defraud. But you read the Ten Commandments
and the eighth one says, thou shalt not steal. Better not steal
then. I mean, I really want that thing,
but thou shalt not steal. All right, that's forbidding
me to do that. Sunday, I want to live how I
want on a Sunday. Ah, no, no, fourth commandment,
remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy, because they say that
Sunday is the Sabbath day in its Christian form. It isn't,
of course, it's nothing of the sort. If you read the scriptures,
honestly, Hebrews 4, it's nothing of the sort. The Sabbath day
was just for the Jews, the nation of Israel in the Old Testament.
The Sabbath day was abrogated. We now have the Lord's day when
we meet like this to worship God. But they live under a kind
of a deprive yourself of the things you really want to do
because it's called the Sabbath day. And for some reason God
is pleased by being very mean and making you spend your life
in a way that you don't really want to. But it's the law that
tells you you've got to behave like that. And it's all the constraint
of threat, of punishment, or loss of reward. And the thing
that motivates and binds and drives is fear. Like Mount Sinai
fear, you know when the people stood before Mount Sinai, they'd
come out of Egypt and God's giving the law on Mount Sinai to Moses
and there were thunderings and lightnings and the people were
terrified. And Moses came down and they said, please, please,
you interface for us to God because we're so terrified. We're so
terrified. The law engenders fear. It threatens. It promises rewards
and loss of rewards. And so they come up with a doctrine,
a teaching, of striving to get better at keeping it. You know,
you start out and you're not in very good condition, but gradually,
you know, you get better at not stealing, and you get better
at not committing adultery, and you get better at keeping a good
Sabbath day, and all of these things, and progressively you
become more and more sanctified. That teaching is nowhere in the
scripture. I defy anybody to find that teaching
and they'll say, ah, but there's the Savoy Confession, the Westminster
Confession says it is. Oh, such and such a Puritan said
that was the case. Does that mean they're right?
to the law, and to the testimony. If they speak not according to
this word, I don't care who they are. As Paul says, God is no
respecter of persons. What does his word say? His word
does not say that we progressively get more sanctified. Oh, it definitely
says, grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our God and Saviour.
Grow, grow, strive to grow, seek to grow, But nowhere does it
say you progressively get more and more holy until you're fit
to be taken to heaven. You're fit to be taken to heaven
the moment you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. What about
the thief on the cross? How long did he have to progressively
get sanctified? Lord, remember me. In a moment,
Lord, remember me. Verily, verily, I say to you,
this day you shall be with me in paradise. This doctrine of
legalism, gospel of Christ plus legalism, gospel of justification
but now go back to the law for your rule of life to be told
how to live, it's the basis of the Westminster Confession of
Faith? Gosh, dare we say anything against the Westminster Confession
of Faith? Oh, the great divines that wrote it! It's the confession
of Presbyterianism. It's the confession that is just
plain wrong. It does not reflect the Scriptures. Ah, what about the 1689 Baptist
Confession? Oh, they love the 1689 Baptist
Confession. Sorry, same thing. It's the Westminster
Confession, but with baptism in it. Where the Presbyterians
don't have baptism by immersion, it's the Presbyterian Confession
with baptism in it. And there are others, the Savoy
and others. It's the creed of almost all Presbyterians and
what are called Reformed Baptists. But is this the authentic gospel
of the Bible? Or is it just a very good forgery?
It sounds like it. It looks like it. They sound
so authoritative when you hear what they're saying. Is it true?
Or does it accord with this word? So let's think, so we're clear,
about mankind in general, without exception, their relationship
with the law of God. And you say, well, most of them
say they don't have any relationship with it because they just choose
to opt out of it. I'm sorry, but God does not choose
to opt everybody out of it. Everybody is opted in by default. Everybody is. Romans 3.19, now
we know that what things soever the law says It says to them
who are under the law, who's that? Everybody. That every mouth
might be stopped. You know when your mouth, what's
your excuse for doing this? Nothing to say. Because you know
you've got no excuse. You cannot bring anything back
about what you've done. Every mouth stopped. And all
the world, that's without exception, guilty before God. That's it. Revelation chapter 20 says about
the judgment, the final judgment, that the books will be opened.
That is a picture of the fact that God keeps a perfect record
of everything. Revelation 20 verse 12, the dead
were judged out of those things that were written in the books
according to their works. And we know from elsewhere in
scripture, our God is a consuming fire. Oh gentle Jesus meek and
mild. No, our God is a consuming fire. God is angry with the wicked
every day. It is a fearful thing to fall
into the hands of the living God So how can I be right? How can I be just with God? Where
can I hide? How can I be reconciled? World
in general, there is only one answer to that question. If you
see where you stand before the law of God, there's only one
answer. The answer that Paul and Silas
gave to the Philippian jailer. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
and thou shalt be saved. And anyone else in your household
that believes too. So then, that's the world, the
world in general, their relationship to the law of God. All are to
be judged by it, and there's only one escape, and that's believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ. So if you've believed, if you've
embraced this gospel of salvation in Christ, what then is your
relationship as a believer with the law of God? What does God's
word say? Let's look briefly at what God's
word says. What is the purpose of God's
law? What's the purpose of it? Is
it a rule to live by? No, because you can't. You can't
live by it, because of the weakness of the flesh. In Acts chapter
15 and verse 10, the apostles are discussing what requirements
they should place on the new Gentile churches. And the apostle
Peter stands up and says to them all, in the hearing of Paul and
all the others, he says, He's saying to the ones that want
to put a burden of law on the Gentile believers in the Gentile
churches, you know, in Rome and Thessalonica and Colossae and
Galatia and all of these other places, they wanted to put a
burden of law on them. And Peter says to them, why are
you tempting God to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples,
a burden on the neck of the disciples which neither our fathers nor
we were able to bear? What are you saying Peter? You
couldn't keep the law of God? No, he says, I couldn't keep
the law of God. And our fathers, the patriarchs,
they couldn't keep the law of God, and they didn't keep it.
So why are you trying to put a burden on the necks of these
new believers who've believed Christ, that they are under an
obligation to keep that law? You see, they're misusing that
law. They're misusing that law because
When you come to Timothy, he talks about such that try and
impose these burdens. He says, desiring to be teachers
of the law, understanding neither what they say nor whereof they
affirm. We know the law is good if a man use it lawfully. Right,
okay. What is it to use it lawfully?
Well, knowing this, the law is not made for a righteous man,
the law isn't made for somebody who is made righteous in Christ,
but the law is made for the lawless and the disobedient, for the
ungodly, for sinners, for unholy and profane, for murderers of
fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers, for whoremongers,
and so he goes on. That's what the law's for. It's
a word of constraint. It defines the holiness of God,
but as a word of constraint. So what is the conclusion of
this? Romans 3 20. By the law is the knowledge of
sin. That's what it's for. Do you
know that the law of God in the 10 commandments, the ceremonial
law, the judicial law of the country, the moral law, which
they say is still binding on believers now. Do you know that
that law was only ever given by God to Israel wasn't given
to any other nation. And it was only given by God
to Israel from Moses to Christ. Do you know that's barely 1,500
years? It probably isn't even. 1,450
years. That's it. Before Moses, there
was no law given as such. Obviously, people knew what was
right and wrong. People knew what was sin. God kept records.
But a law written down, given to a people, was only given to
that nation, and its purpose was for what? It was to define
sin. It was to make it clear what
sin is. It was to drive to the remedy. The law given to the
Jews, the Israel in the Old Testament, what did it do? It drove them
to God's remedy, which was the temple, and the sacrifices, and
all the things that pictured blood atonement that Christ would
accomplish. That was the blueprint, that
was the pattern for God's salvation of his people. The purpose of
the law, you see the people gathering in the temple at the feast. Why
are they there? because there atonement is made
for the sins of the people. And it all points to Christ coming.
Christ, our Passover, is sacrificed for us. The law exposes sin. Look at Romans chapter 7. Romans
chapter 7 and verse 7. What shall we say then? Is the
law sin? God forbid, says Paul. Of course
not. Nay, I had not known sin, but
by the law. I didn't really know for sure
that I was a sinner, except the law had said, for I had not known
lust, except the law had said thou shalt not covet. It was
the law that defined that as sin for him. But sin, taking
occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of consupiscence. immoral behavior for without
the law sin was dead for I was alive without the law once I
lived as if it didn't have any effect on me but when I heard
it and when it spoke to me sin revived I knew I was a sinner
and I died and the commandment which was do this and live ordained
to life I found to be unto death you see how clear that is Romans
3.20, by the law, is the knowledge of sin. The knowledge of sin. Psalm 20, think of the Old Testament.
Think of the way God spoke to his people. Psalm 24, verses
three and four. Who shall ascend into the hill
of the Lord? Who's going to go to heaven?
He that has clean hands and a pure heart. Right, hands up, all that
have got clean hands and a pure heart. Of course, you haven't,
I haven't. We haven't. In our flesh, in
ourselves, there dwells no good thing, said Paul. We haven't. We're sinners. We're sinners.
Our every righteousness, Isaiah 64 verse 6, all our righteousnesses
are filthy rags. So as Galatians 3 tells us, verses
24 and 25. In Galatians 3, Paul tells his
hearers there who are trying, who are listening to peddlers
of a false gospel, he says, wherefore the law was our schoolmaster
to bring us unto Christ. And you know the schoolmasters
that Paul was talking about are not the the kind of the soft
ones that you get very often these days. No. These were harsh
schoolmasters with a cane and they drove you. The law, it says,
was our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ. The child's tutor
in the ancient household would be what was called, if I'm getting
it right, the paedagogos, I think it was, something like that.
And this was a strict, with a cane, and the parents expected that
paedagogos to drive them, to make them behave, to whip them
into submission, to make them behave themselves. and he says
the law did that very job to bring us to Christ because we
know we can't be justified by works of the law we can only
be justified by the faith of Jesus Christ not our faith that
we do the faithful work that he did but listen to this after
that faith is come we are no longer under a schoolmaster you
might have heard this story before I remember when I was at Heversham
Grammar School, and I remember there was Mr Willett, the headmaster,
and he was so adept at wielding the cane, the boys were terrified
of getting a caning, because the stories that went with the
caning were ones of supreme agony and unpleasantness. And so everybody
avoided, if they possibly could, getting caned, because it was
the most unpleasant of experiences. You see, it drove us to better
behavior. Right. So now I've graduated
many, many years ago from that school, and that man is dead
now, but let's say, for example, he was still alive. When I was
a schoolboy at Heversham, I was terrified of getting the wrong
side of him and his cane. But as an adult, having graduated
from that school, I'm not under his rule anymore. After faith
has come we're no longer under the schoolmaster. I don't fear
him and his cane because he's not in a position to inflict
it on me because that relationship is broken and that is exactly
what Paul is saying. He's saying exactly that. After
faith has come we no longer are under the schoolmaster. Has God's
law stripped you? of any hope or pretense of the
holiness God requires, because it should do. There's only one
thing that can give you the holiness, the righteousness that God requires.
He who knew no sin was made sin for us, that we might be made
the righteousness of God in him. That's it, not by law. were dead
to the law. Again in Romans 7, the first
four verses, Paul uses the analogy of a woman married to a husband,
and she's bound by the law of that marriage to that husband
as long as the husband lives. But if the husband dies, she's
loosed from the law, she's freed from the law of her husband,
and she's free to marry another. And he says that's exactly as
Christ has freed us from the rule of the law. In Romans chapter
6, verses 14 and 15, what's the believer's relationship with
the law? Verse 14, sin shall not have dominion over you, for
you, believer, are not under the law, but under grace. And
what then? Shall we sin because we're not
under the law but under grace? Of course not. God forbid. Of
course not. They accuse us of being antinomian,
but they don't know what they're talking about. No. We're not
justified by the law? Not at all. Galatians 2.16. We're
not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of
Jesus Christ. We're not sanctified by the works
of the law. Galatians chapter 3. You know
this progressive sanctification? Listen to this, O foolish Galatians,
who have bewitched you that you should not obey the truth, before
whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth crucified
among you? This only would I learn of you.
Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing
of faith? Are you so foolish then? Having
begun in the Spirit, Are you now being made perfect by the
works of the flesh, the works of the law? No, of course not.
Of course not. The law, you are not under the
law. The law isn't the thing that
will make you more holy. The law is good, and right, and
true, and proper, but it is not the believer's rule of life.
Contrary to what all of those confessions say, all those creeds
say, it is not What is it that motivates the believer? It is
not constraint of law. It is not threat of punishment
or promise of reward. You read the New Testament, 2
Corinthians 8-12, a willing mind. You know, God even speaking to
the Israelites when they were bringing things to make the first
tabernacle, he only wanted them to come with a willing mind,
with a willing heart. 1 Corinthians 6, 19-20, flee
from sin. He says, why should you flee
from sin? Because the law constraints. Paul doesn't say that. Paul says
this, your body as a believer is the temple of the Holy Spirit.
It's where the Holy Spirit of God lives. That's why, that's
your motivation. You're bought with a price. You're
not your own, you're bought with a price. Ah, see, law isn't motivating
behavior. to flee from sin? Your standing
in Christ is motivating. Romans 12, 1 and 2, I beseech
you, brethren, present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy and
acceptable to God. It's your reasonable service,
not constraint of law. Don't be conformed to this world.
Be transformed by the renewing of your mind, not by conformance
to law, by the renewing of your mind in the Lord Jesus Christ.
2 Corinthians chapter 5 verse 14. What is it that constrains,
motivates, directs the behavior of those who believe Christ,
who are justified in the gospel of His grace? The love of Christ
constrains us. Why does the true believer not
commit adultery? For love of his wife. It isn't
because of fear of the law, it's love of his wife. Why do you
not want to steal and defraud? For love of Christ, because Christ
has given you everything. Why should you want to grab that
which is somebody else's? You're not judged by it. Not
judged by it at all. The law does not judge believers.
It doesn't. Why? Because, this is my text,
Christ is the end of it. Romans 10.4. He talks about the
Jews, the Israelites, having a zeal for God but not according
to knowledge. He says Christ is the end of
the law. to everyone that believes. As a rule of life, as a legal
requirement against which we shall be judged, it is ended
for all who believe. Is that not a wonderful lifting
of a burden? That law which will condemn you
will cause you to lose part of your reward in heaven, this is
the way they speak, you're not going to have a bigger crown
as somebody else because you've slipped up on this point and
you've not been consistent on that. No, it's ended. Christ
is the end of the law to everyone that believes. We are delivered,
says Romans 8 21, from the bondage of corruption into the glorious
liberty of the children of God. So the legalists They accuse
all who hear God's word regarding the law and believe it, they
accuse us of being antinomians, of being lawless, of being unconstrained
in sin. Is that correct? No. Quickly,
my final point. How is God's law honoured? Romans
3.31. Do we then make void the law
through faith? God forbid. through faith in
Jesus Christ, that's the only way actually we establish the
law. That's the only way we fulfill
the law. Do you know what Romans tells
us is the fulfilling of the law? Obeying all the commandments.
It doesn't say that. It says love is the fulfilling
of the law. It says the kingdom of God is
not rules and regulations about meat and drink, but it's righteousness
and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. The law that the Bible
calls on believers to obey is the royal law, as James calls
it, James 2 verse 8, the gospel law, God's salvation law. Oh how love I thy law, it is
my meditation, what's he talking about? Not talking, the whole
of scripture is the law of God, the word of God, the testimony
of God, to the people of God, all of it is, all of it is. What
is the law that we have to obey? They said to Jesus, what is the
work that we should do to do the work of God? He said, this
is the work of God, that you believe on him whom he has sent. And so, Remember the verse that
we had a few weeks ago in the Ecclesiastes series, Ecclesiastes
9 verse 7. Believer, in Christ, not under
law but under grace, go thy way, eat thy bread with joy, drink
thy wine with a merry heart, for God now accepteth thy works. This is the life of faith in
Christ, constrained by his love and seeking nothing but his glory
and conformance to God's holiness. Not licensed to sin, absolutely
not. But the law, we're not under
it. The scripture couldn't be clearer. You're not under law,
but under grace.