My text this morning is from
Romans chapter 7 and verse 23. But I caution you that you need
to be looking at the outline in the bulletin because we have
a lot of scriptures this morning. Some have already noticed that
we have a lot of scriptures to look at. So try to keep up. I won't announce them all, but
I'll try to highlight the ones that I think you might want to
turn to if you do. We're going to be looking at
the law that was in Paul's members, which every child of God has.
And because by God's grace, he's been born again, giving him a
new nature. He has the law of love. And yet
there is a law. It's the law of sin that opposes
the law of love. Two natures in one. One person with two natures. Turn please to Romans 7 and verse
5 if you've opened already to Romans 7. I'm wondering if each
of you have a war that goes on within you. A war that goes on
like Paul said that he had. I certainly have such a war that
goes on within me. You see, I can't keep the law.
That's why I need a Savior. because I can't keep the law.
I would hate for you to be able to see my private thoughts. Or
even worse, I'd hate for you to know the content of my dreams
while I'm asleep or even my dreams while I'm awake, for that matter.
But what you do see is my behavior. And that's bad enough. In Romans
7, Paul has been talking about the power of the law over a man.
as long as he lives under the law. In Romans 7, verse 5, Paul
tells us what we were without Christ. He says, for when we
were in flesh, the motions of sins which were by the law did
work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death. But then he goes on to explain
that if we are born again in Christ, We are no longer under
the law. In Romans 7.4, he had said, we
are become dead to the law by the body of Christ. Because as
Romans 10.4 says, Christ is the end of the law for righteousness. Then in Romans 7.23, Paul says,
but I see another law in my members warring against the law of my
mind and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in
my members. Now turn, please, to 1 John 4. You might want to keep your finger
in Romans, but turn to 1 John 4 and verse 7. It was true in
the Old Testament, and it's still true today, that love is of God,
as 1 John 4, 7 says. And that everyone that loveth
is born of God and knoweth God. Those that love God are born
again. Not of corruptible seed, but
of incorruptible by the Word of God, which liveth and abideth
forever, as 1 Peter 1.23 says. They have a new nature. And all
things have become new, those that are born of God. Now turn
to 1 John 3, verse 9. And it's also true, as 1 John
3.9 says, Whosoever is born of God does
not commit sin. For, or I like to use the word
because, although the scripture says for, or because his seed,
God's seed, remains in him. This then is that charity. This
then is that love which never fails. As 1 Corinthians 13 says,
charity or love never fails. But whether there be prophecies,
they shall fail. Whether they be tongues, they
shall cease, and where there be knowledge, it shall vanish
away. I am more and more convicted, convinced
by Scripture, that a big part of being born again, being born
again in Christ, is that we not only receive the indwelling of
the Holy Spirit when we are born again, but we also receive the
love of God as a result of our new birth. What a powerful thing
the love of God is. Think about how powerful the
love of God is. Turn to Romans 5 and verse 5.
The love of God rules over our new lives and it passes into
heaven when every child of God is drawn up into heaven. Love
becomes our strength. Love becomes our joy. Love becomes
our comfort. This love which we are given
in the new birth is expressly called in Scripture the love
of God in contrast to all of the other kinds of love that
the world knows and as the second half of Romans 5 verse 5 says,
it is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given
unto us. I'll turn to Matthew 22, verse
37. God knows our hearts if we're
born again in Christ. He also knows that we love Him
because God has caused us to love Him. He gives us loving
hearts. But we know that we don't love
God like we should, don't we? We don't love God like He deserves
to be loved. But as our Lord declared in Matthew
22, verse 37, Thou shalt at some point in the future, God's born-again
people will love the Lord thy God with all their heart, with
all thy soul, with all thy mind. And what's more, you'll love
your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang
all of the law. God created Adam after his own
image. And God is love. God put His
love in Adam when He created him, and then God placed Adam
under the law. The law that most men live under
actually began with Adam. And when God said to Adam in
Genesis 2, verses 16 and 17, of every tree of the garden thou
mayest freely eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of good
and evil thou shalt not eat of it, For in the day that thou
eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die." Now turn to Romans 7.14. By giving the law to Adam, God
placed Adam under the law. And then Adam broke that law.
Paul says that this law is spiritual. This law reaches into the soul,
so Adam must have had something spiritual in him, It wasn't until
after Adam broke the law that God revealed Christ to him. Paul
understood this. He says in Romans 7.14, For we
know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, Paul says. I
am sold under sin, and so are we all. Turn to 1 John 2.10. This is exactly the problem that
every natural-born son of Adam has. As the descendants of Adam,
we are born under the law. But this wasn't the case with
Adam at first, when God first created him. Adam wasn't born
under the law. He was born into a loving relationship,
a loving fellowship with God. In his state of innocence, Adam
was made in the image of God. As John tells us, God is love. And God's image in Adam was love. And it wasn't anything else.
It was love. In 1 John 1.5, the Apostle says
that God is light. And this light is the same as
love because in 1 John 2.10 it says, He that loveth his brother
abideth in light. So God made man upright. God
made Adam upright. As Ecclesiastes 7.29 says, But
they have sought out many inventions. They have fallen in Adam. We've
all fallen in Adam. But as Song of Solomon says in
chapter 1 and verse 4, the upright love thee. God's image is not
only love, but God's image also includes knowledge because as
John 4, 7 says, everyone that loveth is born of God and knoweth
God. And as Romans 13, 10 says, Love
works no ill to his neighbor. Therefore, love is fulfilling
of the law." Did you hear that? Love is fulfilling of the law. That's what Paul says, and Paul
is speaking inspired by God. So when we're born again, after
God's image, as Ephesians 4.25 says, so that he put on the new
man which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.
And so the saints of God are made to be, as Ephesians 1 verse
4 says, holy and without blame before him in love. This love of God is a powerful
thing. This love of God working in the
heart of a born-again believer by faith is a powerful thing. it rules over his life. So I
pray that you can see that man was created in the image of God,
and God is love. And yet, God's image was something
distinct from man because Adam still remained a man after he
lost God's image. When God first breathed life
into Adam, the Holy Spirit entered into him, created his soul, quickened
his body, and gave him life. as Job 33 verse 4 says, the Spirit
of God hath made me, and the breath of the Almighty hath given
me life. The Most Holy Spirit of God,
as He entered into Adam, formed Adam's soul within him, and God
adorned every power of that soul with His divine love. And it
is this love of God that the Law of Adam still calls It's
this love that the law of Adam still calls for from everyone
that is under the law. We need the law of God in order
to live for God. And we find that love in Jesus
Christ. The Spirit not only adorned every
faculty of Adam's soul with love, but God put His love on Adam
as his righteousness. Turn to Revelation 3 verses 17
and 18 and let's look at that. When Adam sinned, Adam lost his
righteousness. Adam was said to be naked when
he lost his righteousness. It wasn't only Adam's body that
was naked, but Adam's soul was naked too. And this is the case
with all of Adam's children today. Because in Revelation 3, verse
17, Christ declares that without Christ we are blind and naked. Revelation 3, verse 17, Christ
says, Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods,
and have need of nothing, and knowest not that thou art wretched,
and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked, I counsel thee
to buy of me," and it's Christ speaking. He says, I counsel
thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest
be rich, and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that
the shame of thy nakedness do not appear and anoint thine eyes
with eyesalve that thou mayest see." In 1 Timothy 2.14, it says
that Adam was not deceived. The woman was deceived, but Adam
was not deceived. So because Adam wasn't deceived
when Adam broke the bounds of the law, he broke God's law contrary
to his own judgment. He wasn't deceived. He understood
exactly what he was doing. The result was that Adam's better
knowledge and his good conscience, which both the Holy Ghost and
the love that God had placed in his soul, they left him. God gathered in himself the spirit
of life that was in Adam. And Adam died. And this is the
sin nature that we have inherited from Adam. We are born spiritually
dead. We are born, we come out of the
womb speaking lies. and at enmity with God. But, oh, please, I hope you can
understand this. I pray that you can understand
this by the teaching of the Holy Spirit. To love God is contrary
to our fleshly nature. As we read in Job 34, verses
13 to 15, it asks, Who has given Him a change over the earth?
Or who has disposed the whole world. If He set His heart upon
man, if He gathered unto Himself His Spirit and His breath, all
flesh shall perish together and man shall turn again unto dust."
Without the love of God, without the presence of God's Spirit,
we are without life. Now turn to Colossians 3 verse
14. As we learn of Christ, and we
learn of Christ by the teaching of the Holy Spirit, by the preaching
of gospel, as we learn of Christ, we begin to love by God's grace. With our new birth, which is,
of course, a work of God in us, we are made able to see God and
the things of Christ, and to see Christ, we see that Christ,
to see Christ is to love God. The Word of God makes this divine
love to be three things to men. First, God's love is called the
bond of perfectness. In Colossians 3 verse 14 it says,
And above all these things put on charity, put on love, which
is the bond of perfectness. Love which God calls the bond
of perfectness was the bond of union between God and Adam. All of Adam's communion with
God was based on this love. But when enmity was conceived
in Adam's heart, this union was dissolved and Adam died, and
he died spiritually. God was displeased with man,
and man's mind was at enmity against God. Turn please to Amos
3 in verse 3, right at the end of the Old Testament. This was the change that was
in Adam. Adam not only didn't love God,
he loved himself. And he hated God. In Amos 3,
verse 3, God Himself asks, Can two walk together except they
be agreed? And Adam immediately revealed
the truth of this because as soon as Adam heard the voice
of God in the garden, he ran away. He fled from God. And he hid himself. Adam showed
that he loved darkness and that he hated the light of God's countenance.
He no longer wanted union or to be in close communion with
God. And so Adam ran away from God
seeking to escape from God. That's not love, is it? That's
hate. To run away from God. That's
hate. Second, you remember that I said
that God Love in Adam was the image of God in Adam's soul,
and that this love was Adam's robe of righteousness. And so
it is that without God's righteousness, Adam saw himself, and he saw
himself to be naked. And Adam immediately began to
substitute something of his own making in the place of the righteousness
of God. Turn to Isaiah 30 in verse 1,
please. To cover their nakedness, Adam
and Eve made for themselves aprons out of fig leaves. Making those aprons set a very
sad example to all of Adam's children, who down to this day
walk in the same steps that Adam walked, trying to clothe themselves,
covering their own nakedness, covering their own sin. But it's
a covering that is not of God's Spirit. It's a covering that
isn't from God. As God says in Isaiah 30 in verse
1, Woe to the rebellious children, saith the Lord, that take counsel,
but not of me, and that cover with a covering, but not of my
spirit, that they may add sin to sin. Now turn to 1 Corinthians
12 in verse 31. And the third love, according
to Scripture, is the way of God, and love is the way which exceeds
all others. So in 1 Corinthians 12, verse
31, Paul calls charity, or love, the more excellent way. He says,
covet earnestly the best gifts, and yet show I unto you a more
excellent way. The Spirit of God shows us the
way of love. And He declares that all gifts,
all knowledge, language, and even miraculous faith are nothing. They're nothing without God's
love. Without God's love, we are nothing. We're nothing but noise and self-righteous
works. Turn please to Exodus 20 in verses
5 and 6. Can you see it? Can you see what
I'm talking about? It was in complete happiness
and in perfect freedom that our first parents were turned adrift
on this most excellent way of God's love at the beginning. And so we can safely conclude,
based on Scripture, that the image of God in man when God
created man was love. And the image of Satan in man,
which was acquired when man fell in Adam and as men continue to
sin against God, that nature is enmity against God. It's hatred of God. Oh, there
may be love in the things of the world, but there isn't the
love of God until you are dwelled by God's Spirit, until God puts
His love in you. And the law itself confirms this
because lovers of God and haters of God are the only two characters
which the moral law describes and rewards. Listen to God's
law. As Exodus 20, verses 5 and 6
says about false gods and idols, Thou shalt not bow down thyself
to them, nor serve them. For I, the Lord thy God, am a
jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children
under the third and fourth generation of them that hate me, and showing
mercy unto thousands of them that love me and keep my commandments. Now turn please to Deuteronomy
30, verse 6. The whole world is divided into just two kinds
of people. The people are divided into those
who love God and those who hate him. The moral law only knows
these two kinds of people. It doesn't describe any other
kind of people and it rewards no other kind of people. So it's
plain to see what the two images are. The saints always bear the
image of the heavenly Adam, who is Jesus Christ. They have God's
love. All other people bear the image
of the earthly Adam. On the great day of judgment,
which is coming, God will despise those proud souls who despise
Him, and He will show mercy to them that love Him because of
Christ. Adam, by his fall into sin, lost
the Holy Spirit, that Holy Spirit that formed his soul and quickened
him, and he lost the love of God, which is God's image. And he lost the life of God,
which always goes with God's love. Nor will any man find the
life of God again until his heart is circumcised, enabling the
love of God with all the heart and all the soul. As Deuteronomy
30, verse 6 says, and the Lord thy God will circumcise thine
heart and the heart of thy seed to love the Lord thy God with
all thy heart and with all thy soul that thou mayest live."
Oh, what a wonderful and powerful thing God's love is. It was when the Spirit left Adam
that he became carnal. He was sold under sin. That's
when God's love left him and his carnal mind became enmity
to God. Adam could no more be subject
to the law because the law requires love to be fulfilled and when
divine life departed from Adam, death seized him and everything
that he loved had death in it. All they that hate me love death,
God says in Proverbs 8.36. This is our morality. This is our obedience to the
spiritual law of God, and this is all of the obedience that
our corrupt nature has to boast of. Enmity and hatred. Hatred for God. Where there is
no love, there is only sin and death and hatred for God. In John 15 verse 24, Christ says,
They have seen and hated both Me and My Father. And in Titus
3, verse 3, Paul says that they are hateful in hating one another.
Our corruption takes its title as the old man as a reference
to the first Adam through which we became corrupt and also to
distinguish our corrupt condition from the grace of Christ which
we receive from the fullness of the last Adam. We receive
that from the Lord Jesus Christ, the last Adam. Our old man is
without the love of God. Christ's incarnation or birth
is called a new thing in Jeremiah 31 verse 22. And His covenant
is called a new covenant. So His grace is called the new
man. Though in one sense the new man
is much older than the old one because the mercy of God that
is displayed in our new birth, our regeneration, is from everlasting
to everlasting upon them that fear Him as it says in Psalm
103 verse 17. But in the order of time, our
sin nature is the old man. Because we were the servants
of sin before we were made partakers of God's grace in our new birth
experience. In Romans 17.23, Paul says, But
I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my
mind and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in
my members. Turn please to Ephesians 4, verses
20-24. It was Paul's corrupt, and I'm
going to use a new term here, it was Paul's corrupt affections
and nothing else which caused his law and Paul's members to
war and to wrestle against the law of his mind. In Ephesians
4, verses 20-24, Paul says to us, but we have not so learned
Christ if so be that ye have heard him, and have been taught
by him, as the truth is in Jesus, that ye put off concerning the
former conversation, the old man, which is corrupt according
to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your
mind, and that ye put on the new man, which after God is created
in righteousness and true holiness. Paul is saying to those who are
without Christ, But because you haven't learned of Christ, you
haven't put off the corrupt nature of the old man. You need to be
renewed. You need to be born again. You
need to be made in God's image, and God is love. You need to
be born again in Christ, putting on His righteousness and His
true holiness, because your love isn't the love of God, it's the
love of the world and the things of the world. Now turn please
to Jeremiah 17 in verse 9. It's your corrupt affections
that are the problem. If you are without Christ, without
the love of Christ, I know this about you. You have a corrupt
love. You have a deceitful heart which
is affecting, craving, desiring, lusting and fulfilling your carnal
mind with imaginary delights about pleasures and satisfactions
and sins. And you have that because you
love your sin. As Jeremiah 17, verse 9 says,
the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked.
Who can know it? Because of your corrupt affections,
you are being deceived by your own heart. But at the same time,
you are being deceived by your love for the world and your sin
as well as your deceitful heart. It is a deceit that is Deceitful
as the devil himself, because this corrupt love is exposing
your souls to God's sore judgments. You're exposing yourself to God's
displeasure. You're exposing yourself to nakedness
and shame and disgrace and contempt, and the result is going to be
eternal death, unless you find a Savior. You desperately need
God's love. But unless God is merciful, you
won't even seek Him. And that's where you find God's
love. But the problem is even worse than what I'm telling you.
You may, if you see your sin, decide that you're going to obey
God's law. You may try to make yourself
into a better person. And that would seem like a good
idea. You may say to yourself, I'm going to love God. Religion
calls that repenting. an article by Dr. Hawker in our bulletin about
repenting that you might be interested in. But here's the problem with
repenting as religion teaches to us. All who are without Christ
can't be subject to the divine law of God, which means that
they can't enjoy the things of God because they are at enmity
with God. They are at enmity with His Spirit
and with His grace. Outside of Christ, You can never
affect, delight in, or call for or crave anything but the obedience
or the compliance to your own fleshly lusts. You know, a sinner
isn't a sinner because he sins. He sins because he's a sinner. He loves his sin. Turn to Romans
7, verse 25, please. The only purpose of the law is
to show you your need for Christ. The purpose of the law is to
lead you to Christ because you can't keep the law. How can the
law do anything else but convict you and show you your need for
Christ when it isn't the moral law or the law of faith, but
it's only the law of sin? And sinful flesh will serve this
law of sin and no other law because without God's love, you only
love your sin. As Paul said in Romans 7 verse
25, So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with
the flesh the law of sin. With my flesh I serve the law
of sin. Paul is saying in Romans 7 that
these corrupt affections are the heart and life of the old
man. Because sin by itself has no
life except in the corrupt love of the unsaved sinner. And so
Paul describes the old man as being corrupt according to deceitful
lusts. Craving desires and imagining
evil things is the life and the labor of the law of sin and death.
Turn please to Romans 7 verse 18. There is not one natural
power, not one ability in the human soul that can stand against
a man's corrupt affections. How can you stop sinning when
you love your sins? How can you stop sinning when your affections are corrupt? The Jewish rulers, against their
conscience, against their convictions, those Jewish rulers who crucified
Christ, some of them even said that they believed on Christ.
But they didn't confess Christ as their Savior. They didn't
love Christ. They loved the praise of men
more than praise of God, and so they did not confess Christ
as their Savior. Men will often determine in their
minds that they're going to keep the law. But they have no power
to keep God's law. As Paul says in Romans 7, verse
18, For I know that in me, that is in my flesh, dwelleth no good
thing. For the will is present with me, but to perform that
which is good I find not. Why is that? Well, it's because
evil is present with me. What evil is that? It's a law
in my members that wars against the law of my mind. My mind is
engaged in serving. It's serving the law of God,
but my flesh is still serving the law of sin. And what I would
do according to my mind, I am unable to do in my flesh. I can't
keep the law. This law of sin prevails not
only over the will of man, but also over the mind of every natural
man. So in Colossians 2.18, you read
about being vainly puffed up with a fleshly mind. And this
evil affects the judgment of a natural man too. As Christ
said to the Jews in John 8.15, you judge after the flesh. I
judge no man. Turn please to Matthew 23, verse
5. This is only my opinion, but
I believe that these corrupt affections are the principal
force in all unbelievers and in all false or natural religion. Some religious people may be
driven by their fears and terrors of punishment in hell and the
reproaches of their consciences for a while. They may make a
public profession of what they call faith, but these things
don't destroy their legal pride. The love of praise and the applause
of men are still things that motivate them. The love of Christ
doesn't motivate them, but the love of the world motivates them. Their corrupt affections rule
over their minds, and that is what has to change, and only
God can change it, and it takes a miracle. we must look to Christ. We must find in Christ God's
love. As our Lord declares about the
Pharisees in Matthew 23, verses 5-7, all their works they do
to be seen of men. They make raw their phylacteries
and enlarge the borders of their garments and love the uppermost
rooms at feasts and the chief seats in the synagogues, and
greetings in the markets, and to be called by men, Rabbi, Rabbi. That's love of self, isn't it?
It's not love of God, it's love of self. It's love of sin. And so from experience, your
experience and my experience, I think it's plain that our corrupt
affections and the lust of the flesh makes some people labor
very hard in religion, as the Judaizing preachers did, who
followed Paul, but they don't lead us to Christ. Paul said
in Galatians 6, verse 12, that as many as desire to make a fair
show in the flesh, they constrain you to be circumcised. The question
then really is, what is it that truly motivates us? Is it the
love of self or the love of God? We all enjoy the praise of men.
We all are sinners. We enjoy our sin and we enjoy
the praise of men because it appeals to our sin nature. But
what motivates you and what motivates me? I insist that a born again
child of God, a man who trusts only in Christ, is motivated
by his love for Christ. far more than the praise of men
or his corrupt affections. And the more we learn of Christ,
the more we will love Him. At least that's been my experience,
and I pray that it is yours as well. Turn, please, to 1 Timothy
1, verse 5. It's remarkable that by whatever
name the love of God goes by in the world, this law of sin
goes by the same name, only with different attachments. I believe
that the love of God which is shed abroad in the heart by the
Holy Ghost is the fulfillment of the moral law, and that God
has decreed it to be the end result of the preaching of the
everlasting gospel of Jesus Christ, which is called the end of the
commandment. In 1 Timothy 1, verse 5, Paul
says, Now the end of the commandment is charity. The end of the commandment
is love. out of a pure heart and of a
good conscience and of faith unfeigned." Unfeigned is a word
that means sincere faith. Corrupt affections or a love
of death, darkness and the praise of men all go by the same name. They are called a law which is
said to be the law of sin. The law of sin and death and
the law in the members. But the love of God is called
the bond of perfectness. which unites living souls to
God, to Christ, and to the Spirit, and the saints of God to each
other, and to the angels in heaven. The love of God is the bond that
exists between the king of kings and his subjects. It's the bond
that exists between the Lamb of God and His wife, the Church.
It's the bond that exists between God the Father and His family,
making every union that is based on the love of God perfect and
complete. But corrupt affections are a
bond also. Only they're a bond with this
addition. Corrupt affections are called
the bond of iniquity. This bond was strong in Ananias
and his wife who were hypocrites, tempting the Spirit of God, counterfeiting
the hospitality of the saints and lying to the Holy Ghost in
an attempt to live in the reputation of those poor saints when they
kept back for themselves a part of the price of the land that
they have sold. Turn to Ephesians 3.17, please. The love of God, which is shed
abroad in the hearts of God's people, is called the root of
the matter by Job and is explained by the Apostle as being the love
of Christ. Paul prayed in Ephesians 3, verses
17-19, he prayed that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith. that you, being rooted and grounded
in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth
and length and depth and height, and to know the love of Christ
which passes knowledge, that you might be filled with all
the fullness of God. Love is the incorruptible seed
which is lodged in the soul by the Holy Spirit, and love is
intended to abolish death It's intended to set sinners free
from legal bondage and from all of the slavish fears which are
administered to the soul by the law and which are peculiar to
servants who serve God. Not serving God in the exercise
of grace and with the powers of the soul, but serving God
with bodily exercise only, an outside God's power kind of a
service. not in the newness of spirit,
but in the oldness of the letter of the law, and that not in the
power and life of godliness, but with an external form only.
But the love of God and the saints is the living principle and the
constraining power that influences, actuates, allures, attracts,
and compels with an invincible sweetness the soul to deny self,
loathe the world, and to follow through fire and water through
the shadow of death and death itself, rather than come short
of the desired and expected end, which is to be with God for all
eternity. But how do you find this love? How do you find this love of
God? How do you get it? This love
of God is produced by the work of God in the hearts of His people. As Jesus said in John 3.6, That
which is born of the Spirit is spirit." Or in other words, the
love of God which is a gift of grace from the Spirit of God
and a grace that is born of God is spirit. It's called the love
of God and it is from God. It's an incorruptible seed from
the incorruptible God. It's the divine nature from the
divine being which shows us that God will be worshipped with nothing
but His own and the love of God is found. in Jesus Christ. But
by God's own Spirit, the men of God are furnished for every
good work, as Paul describes in 2 Timothy 3.17 when he says
that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all
good works. And then he adds in 2 Corinthians
3.5, our sufficiency is of God. And indeed, In God's light, men
are able to see the light of the Gospel. The light of the
Gospel is Jesus Christ. When God shines the light of
the Gospel into their hearts, His glory is seen in the face
of Jesus Christ. And it is the life of God in
the soul which gives us all our spiritual ability and knowledge
as we are given a sense of our spiritual needs, all of our appetites
and cravings for spiritual things, and all of our hungering and
thirsting. than is to find the bread of life and the water of
life which is all in Jesus Christ. To find the love of God, to find
the love of God, you need to seek Jesus Christ. You need to
learn of Him. And if what Paul says is true,
when he says in Galatians 2.20, I live, yet not I, but Christ
liveth in me, then it is the life of Christ in us that is
fed and nurtured by the love of God. In short, God is worshipped
in his own spirit and by his own truth. God is admired and
adored by his own love, which he has put into our hearts. God
is confessed and he lives in us by his own strength. We wait
for God with his own patience. We submit to God in Christ's
own submission. God is approached in his own
meekness and he is exalted by his own humility. God is confided
in by his own confidence, hoped for by his own hope, honored
in faithfulness by his own faith, because every good and perfect
gift is from the Father of lights, and Jesus Christ is the light
of the world. And so we need to constantly
seek after Christ, because all things that we need are in Christ. And that is most especially when
we look at Christ, we see the love of God. In 1 Corinthians
4-7, Paul asked, For who maketh thee to differ from another?
And what hast thou that thou didst not receive? Now if thou
didst receive it, why dost thou glory if thou hast not received
it? Whatsoever is more than these things that God has not given,
isn't worship in the Spirit, but it is only human invention
and superstition. And all that is less than what
has been given by God to us in Christ. It is just religious
and bodily exercise. It is not the love of God. and
to find the love of God we need to look to Christ. The saint's
living law has two branches. The two branches are faith and
love. And faith always works by love. Whatever faith brings in from
God, love admires and love works to cast out and to keep out slavish
fear and so that such fear may not clog or hinder faith. The
giver of this law is the Holy Ghost, and so it is called the
Law of the Spirit in Romans 8.2. And the Holy Spirit describes
Himself as the Spirit of Faith in 2 Corinthians 4.13, and the
Spirit of Love in 2 Timothy 1.7. Not only because the Spirit of
Love works these graces in us, but because He is the Spirit,
the life and the power of them that love God, and all that they
do for good depends on the Spirit's influences and operations. So
I've called this love of God a living law, because wisdom
says in Proverbs 13, verse 14, that the law of the wise is a
fountain of life. Because faith and love ascend
and descend from the fountain of God, and in the exercise of
faith and love, we go in and out and find pasture. As Jesus
said in John 10, 9, I am the door. By me, if any man enter
in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out and find pasture.
Jesus Christ is the source of all the love that God has for
His people. It's in Christ's death for our
sin that we see that love and that love rules over God's people.
But on the other hand, Satan has by deceit taken for himself
an empire over the children of men. He has filled them with
sin and with the love of sin so that poor sinners are his
subjects and his slaves because sin rules in them. So in Romans
5.21, we see that sin is set forth as a king or sovereign,
reigning and ruling. Sin, Paul says in Romans 5.21,
has reigned unto death. What we need, what we desperately
need, is the love of God. And to find that, we only need
to look to Christ. In this mass of sin and corruption,
there is a law. It's a law which the Apostle
mentions three times. First, in Romans 7.21, Paul says,
I find in a law that when I would do good, evil, or the law, is
present with me. Here the Apostle calls this law
evil. The law is evil because it depends
on me doing it, and I can't keep the law. Second, in Romans 7.23,
Paul says, but I see another law in my members, warring against
the law of my mind and bringing me into captivity to the law
of sin which is in my members. Here the apostle calls this law
the law of sin that warred in his members against the faith
and love of God, which Paul calls the law of his mind, which depends
not on what we do, but on the love of God. And for the third
time in Romans 7.25, Paul says, So then with the mind I myself
serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin. This
law of sin is the corrupt affections which are contrary to God and
which are at enmity with Him, and which never were subject
to God's law, nor can they be. These corrupt affections, because
they are corrupted, affect and desire nothing but what God hates.
And so men are said to love death, to love darkness rather than
light, and to love the praise of men more than the praise of
God. What we must do, what we must do is to seek Christ, because
in Christ we find the love of God. The world loves its own. Sinners love sinners. But they
hate God. They are called lovers of pleasure,
lovers of themselves, lovers of the world, and lovers of money.
Indeed, these corrupt affections never can delight in or be entertained
with anything but the works of the flesh, the lusts of the flesh,
or in the things pertaining to the flesh. But we serve a risen
Savior. We serve God in the power and
in the love of Jesus Christ. There is life in Christ for those
who see the love of God in Christ. I pray that God enables you to
see Christ. I pray that God enables you to
look at Christ dying on the cross and see that he died for you.
Because in that, you can't help but see the love of Christ if
you believe by faith that Jesus Christ died for you. That's a
gift of God. It's a gift of God's love. Oh,
dear Lord, I pray that You might stir up Your love in our souls,
that You might draw us to Christ, teaching us of Christ that we
might, in the exercise of faith, love You more and our neighbors
as ourselves. I pray, Lord, that You might
show sinners their sin, giving them the love of Christ as You
show them Christ dying for their sin. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.