I want you, if you will, to turn
with me to Romans chapter 10 this evening, and I hope that
the Lord will enable me to declare to you that which is plainly
revealed in the fourth verse, that Christ is the end of the
law. Christ is the end of the law. Would to God I could get the
ear of every human being on this earth, particularly of every
religious man or woman, every preacher, every person who imagines
that somehow by his doing, by his work, by something that he
does, he can attain God's favor and God's salvation. From the
very beginning of time, Since the fall of our father Adam,
man has attempted to justify himself by what he does. It is the innate religion of
fallen, depraved human beings. We have a God consciousness that
makes us by nature dread, fear, and even be in terror of God,
of eternity, and of judgment. And man yet supposes that somehow
he can, by some work of his own, lift himself by his own bootstraps
and find favor again with God. Adam in the garden, as soon as
he had sinned against God, got him some fig leaves, started
stitching together some fig leaves to hide from God. What utter
nonsense. And yet that's exactly what he
presumed he could do. And the Lord God stripped him
of his fig leaves and clothed him with a robe made out of the
skins of a sacrificed animal. And thus demonstrated to Adam
that the only way man can approach God is on the blood and by the
righteousness of another sacrifice, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lamb
of God. There's no other way to God.
When the children of Israel heard Moses, I read it to the men back
here in the office a minute ago, they heard Moses in Exodus 20,
give the law which God spoke. They heard God's requirements.
And they understood to some measure what the law said. The law said,
be holy for God's holy. The Lord God said, you obey me
and all these details. Love me supremely. Love one another
like you love yourselves. Then you can walk with me. And
when the children of Israel understood that the breach of the law, to
any degree, meant damnation forever, they said to Moses, Moses, you
go talk to God, don't let Him talk to us. We've got to have
a mediator. We've got to have someone stand
between us and God. And I want you to understand
that the only way you and I can ever draw near to God and be
accepted of Him is through a mediator, Jesus Christ the Lord, our Savior
and our Redeemer. Some of you sitting here may earnestly desire salvation
and eternal life. And though you may earnestly
desire it, yet perish forever under the wrath of God. You mean,
preacher, God will let a man go to hell who earnestly desires
to be saved? He'll send a man to hell who
earnestly desires to be saved if he seeks righteousness on
the footing of his works. No greater form of blasphemy,
no greater iniquity, no greater sin can a man commit than to
so despise the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, God's dear son, as to
set himself up as a rival to Christ and say, I'll take myself
and my righteousness and I'll go to God. There are many who
are thoughtful, zealous men and women, very eagerly seeking salvation,
who will perish under God's curse, the curse of His holy law. They
want to be saved, but they have a problem. You have it here in
Romans 10, look at verse 2. Here's the problem. They simply
will not bow to God's way of salvation. They won't do it. Remember when Naaman came with
his leprosy and the prophet of God said to him you go over and
dip in the River Jordan seven times and you'll come out clean
and Naaman said, but I thought That's your problem That's exactly
I thought you're gonna have to bring your thoughts to this book
and find out what God says Are you gonna perish in your leprosy?
Listen what it says. I bear them record. You see that
in verse 2. I That they have a zeal of God. But not according
to knowledge. For they being ignorant of God's
righteousness. And this is the only reason for
it. Men are ignorant of God's righteous character. They really
think God's righteousness is kind of like their own. And that's
not much. They really think God's righteousness
is really sort of a mixture between righteousness and unrighteousness.
And therefore, since that's the way we are, that's the way God
must be, then he will accept a little mixture. As long as
we have some sincerity, it'll be all right. As long as we think
good things and want to do good, it'll be all right. They're ignorant
of God's righteousness and have not submitted themselves unto
the righteousness of God. Now, you mark those words, submitted
themselves. Many will not be saved. Multitudes
will perish forever in hell under the wrath of God because they
will not submit to God's righteousness, to that righteousness which was
established by God's dear Son in the person of Jesus Christ
Himself, our Lord and our Redeemer. I have no doubt some of you sitting
here right now are not yet saved simply for this reason. You will
not submit to salvation by grace alone through the merit of a
substitute, Jesus Christ the Lord. You won't do it. You will
not submit to salvation purely, purely, entirely by free grace
through the imputed righteousness of the Son of God. You talk about
grace. If you didn't talk about it,
you wouldn't come listen to me preach much. You talk about waiting
for grace. praying for grace. You talk about
maybe even wanting to trust Christ. Oh, I want to trust him. You're
lying to yourself. Now, I'm just telling you the
truth. You're lying to yourself. You're still wanting to trust yourself.
The problem. That's the problem. When you want to trust the Son
of God, you'll trust him. When you want to turn loose of
everything and fall down on Christ alone, you'll turn loose of everything
and fall down on him. Pastor, you mean you'd question
my sincerity? No, I don't question it. I tell
you plainly, you don't have any. You're dishonest with yourself.
Your heart's deceitful above all things and desperately wicked.
And that which keeps you from trusting Christ is you will not
submit to His righteousness alone. That's exactly right. This is
what Paul tells us right here in this text. Your problem is
that you keep trying to do something. Find something. Feel something. Learn something. Experience something. Anything. Anything. Just any
little thread of your own righteousness with which you can come to God
and say, now, I trust Christ because I've got this. Now, I'm a child of God because
I believe on Jesus Christ and you missed it. You missed it. Now I know I'm accepted of God
because I believe on Christ in man. I had an experience, let
me tell you about it. You missed it. I know I'm a child
of God because I have now come to deep, deep conviction. You missed it. Last salvation
is Christ, period. That's all. That's all. Christ
plus anything? Christ mixed with anything, Christ
and anything, is damnation, not salvation. But proud man wants
to save himself. You think you can do it, and
I can't convince you otherwise. You will not submit to the righteousness
of Christ and to being saved by Christ the Lord if you would.
If you would be saved, I'm going to tell you something, you're
going to have to make your suit for mercy. on the grounds of
Christ's obedience and blood. As you stand before God and fall
on your face before Him, a helpless, bankrupt, hell-bent sinner, hell-deserving
sinner, God, give me mercy, else I die. You will never find mercy
otherwise. If you would be saved, you're
going to have to throw away all those beautiful, good, wonderful,
filthy rags of your self-righteousness. And I throw them away. And you'll
never do that. You won't do that. I know you
won't. Nobody will. It's not within the realm of
man's ability to do so. The only way you'll ever throw
them away is if God takes the finger of His grace and strips
off your fig leaves and makes you naked before Him. You'll
stand before the Lord God and say, nothing in my hands I bring,
simply to thy cross I cling, naked come to thee for dress,
helpless look to thee for grace, follow I to thy fountain fly,
wash me, Savior, else I die. The only way for a sinner to
obtain the righteousness of God is by submitting himself to Jesus
Christ the Lord for all righteousness by faith. Now let's look at this
statement by the Apostle Paul. Christ is the end of the law. I realize every time I preach
on this subject, if I talk about it, if I write just one sentence
about it, if I preach a sermon on it, write an article, somebody's
going to misunderstand or misrepresent what I'm saying. Let me be perfectly
clear. Let me be crystal clear. Folks
will get this tape and somebody will pass it around and say,
you see, Fortner's an antinomian. Fortner's promoting licentiousness.
Well, the fellow who does it knows he's lying because I'm
telling you ahead of time. I am not saying that the believer
looks upon the law as an evil thing. Oh, a thousand times no. The law of God's holy, just,
and good. The Apostle tells us in 1 Timothy
1 that the law is good if a man use it lawfully. But men who
use the law as a rule of life, as a covenant of life, as a measure
of life, for God's people, use it unlawfully. Paul tells us
the law is not made for a righteous man. How much plainer could language
be? That means, Bob, if you're righteous in Christ, the law
is not made for you. If God's given you a righteous nature
before Him so that He has given you the nature of Christ, the
law is not made for you. It is not made for a righteous
man. I certainly am not saying that
the believer is free to break the law or that he wants to. Certainly not. Not only is the
believer not free to break the law, he has no desire to. To
those who believe God's commandments are not grievous, John says in
1 John 5. If we could, we would love God with all our
hearts. If we're His. Bobby, if you and I both know
God, I'm speaking for you just like I speak for myself. If we
could, we'd love each other with a pure heart perfectly. Perfectly. Like we love ourselves.
But we can't do it. We can't love God with all our
hearts and we can't love our neighbors ourselves. That's not
within the realm of possibility while we live in this flesh.
No, we we do not suggest that the believer is free to or in
any way wants to violate God's holy law But I am saying this
in Christ every child of God is Entirely free from the law
because Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to
everyone that believe it now the language of the Bible is
so crystal clear that mistake in this matter is absolutely
inexcusable and Nowhere, not one time, in all the New Testament,
are we as believers admonished to do or be anything because
the law says do it. Not even one time. Not even one
time. But repeatedly throughout the
New Testament, we hear we are not under the law, but under
grace. You're dead to the law. We're free from the law. I mean,
that's language that any child can understand. A child's got
handcuffs on, or a child's just out playing with his buddy, and
his buddy puts those play handcuffs on him and puts some shackles
on his feet. And then somebody comes and opens them up, and
the child says, I'm free now. I'm not in bondage anymore. And
he understands what that is. But religious folks can't understand.
We're not under the law. We're not under the law. The
scriptures are so plain, there is no sense whatsoever in which
God's elect, believing on Christ, may be said to be under the law.
We are dead to the law by the body of Christ. Now, when the
scripture speaks of the law, there are numerous things represented.
Let me be sure you understand. For example, in the Psalms where
it says, the law of the Lord is perfect converting the soul,
that's talking about the whole revelation of God. So that the
whole word of God is sometimes spoken of as the law of God.
It is his whole revealed will. Many times the law represents
the moral law, the Ten Commandments, or the ceremonial law of the
Levites, or the priesthood law, or the various civil laws and
dietary laws by which the children of Israel were required to live.
But there is no place in scripture where you can find any sense
in which the moral law, the Ten Commandments, are separated from,
or in any way parted from, the dietary laws, the civil laws,
the Levitical laws, all those things go together. So that to
be free from the law is to declare that we are entirely free from
a code of conduct, a rule of conduct, a motivation of conduct
by the legal principle of the Mosaic law. Whether you're talking
about ceremonial law, the Ten Commandments, Levitical law,
dietary laws, we are entirely free from the law in Christ.
This is what that means. We have no covenant with the
law. We don't live under a legal covenant. We live under a covenant
of grace. We have no commitment to the
law. None. I have great commitment
to God, but none to the law. I have great commitment to my
Redeemer, but none to the law. The law of God demands two things
from me. Two. It demands complete satisfaction
for sin and perfect righteousness. And I've already fulfilled both
entirely. Do you understand that? Christ
is my satisfaction, and Christ is my righteousness. His name
is Jehovah Sentenu, the Lord our righteousness. And we are
made the righteousness of God in Him, because He put away our
sin. He satisfied the justice of God,
and He has robed us in His perfect righteousness. He paid all our
debts. And because we have no commitment
to the law, and no covenant with the law, we have no constraint
by the law. Now, I often use the illustration. I'm thankful I don't have the
problem. My wife does things for me because she just thinks
it's what I like. She'll bend over backwards. She'll
work herself to death trying to do something just because
she thinks I like it. I like it this way. Even if I don't,
if she presumes I do, she'll break her back trying to get
things the way she thinks I like them. And I love it that way.
I like it real well. But now, if she were to come
in and scrounge around in the house and say, well, I've got
to get some dinner on the table, well, he's going to be upset if I don't
get some dinner on the table. Man, I've got to get up and fix him
some coffee because he's going to be mad if I don't get him some coffee. I'd just
assume she'd stay away. I don't want it. Who wants that
kind of service? And yet people presume that God
does? He won't have legal obedience. God won't have that obedience
that comes from a sense of obligation and a sense of duty and a fear
of judgment and a fear of wrath or the promise of reward. Oh,
no. God Almighty demands a willing heart or he'll never accept anything
from us. We are free then from the constraint
of the law for the love of Christ constraineth us. The love of
Christ. What is it that constrains you?
Constrains you to just do right. What is it that constrains you
to give, to be in the house of God, to study the Word of God,
to seek to know Christ? What is it that compels you?
I mean compels you to endeavor to honor God everywhere. What is it? Answer that question,
and I'll tell you exactly the shape you're in spiritually.
I'll tell you exactly. You answer it honestly, and I'll
tell you exactly whether you're saved or lost, whether you know
God or don't. Believers are constrained by
the love of Christ, just gratitude to Him. That's all. That's all. Not only that, but we fear no
curse from the law. For Christ hath redeemed us from
the curse of the law, being made a curse for us, for it is written,
Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree. Now, men may accuse
us of being antinomians. They may accuse us of promoting
licentiousness. They may censor us and warn others
to avoid contact with us as though somehow our liberty in Christ
was some kind of a spiritual leprosy. But that didn't change
anything. I'm not going to, as a preacher
and we will not as a body of believers, become entangled again
with the yoke of bondage. We will not attempt to reach
the throne of God by climbing up Mount Sinai. We will simply
trust Jesus Christ, the Son of God and the grace of God streaming
to us through the merits of Christ's precious blood as our only acceptance
with God. There's no other gospel, there's
no other salvation, there's no other true religion in this world.
As for those who seek God's favor by their obedience to the law,
let them be warned. This is what the scripture says.
Christ is become of no effect unto you. Now Sam, that doesn't
mean Christ has become of no effect. That's going to make
him of no effect. He's of no effect unto you. Whosoever of
you are justified by the law, you have decided by your self-righteous
judgment against God, you've decided that the blood of Christ
is a worthless thing, and it is thus worthless to you. Because
you've chosen to be justified by the law. You've fallen from
grace. You've fallen from grace. Silly
religious folks get a hold of that text in Galatians 5, verse
4 and say, there, Scripture says you can be saved today and lost
tomorrow. That's not what it's talking about. It's talking about
this whole religious generation has fallen from the gospel, the
doctrine of the grace of God. For they've made justification
to be something that a man does. Christ is the end of the law. The law of God. That which we
ought to dread above everything. For the sting of death is sin
and the strength of sin is the law. The law condemns and demands
our execution in the most solemn terms. It appoints for us a place
among the damned. For it is written, Cursed is
everyone that continueth not in all things which are written
in the book of the law to do them. And yet man has some strange
infatuation with the law. You ever watch gnats or just
most any bugs at night, if you've got a candlelight or a bright
light, they'll flirt with that thing and fly around it, fly
around it, flitter around it, until at last it gets them. They
just can't stay away from it, but it's going to kill them.
That's exactly the way man is with regard to God's law. The
law of God can do nothing else but reveal sin and pronounce
condemnation to the sinner. It'll kill you. And yet man just
keeps flirting with it, flirting with it, until at last he goes
to hell clinging to it. And yet we can't get folks to
flee from it. They're so enamored with their
own self-righteousness and their own self-worth that they will
cling to the law of God with a death grip. rather than let
go of the law and cling to Christ. They'll hold to Sinai and turn
away from Calvary, though Sinai offers nothing but death. Listen
to the Word of God. I want you to listen carefully.
Turn to Galatians chapter 2. I want us to just look at a few
references in the Scriptures, and we'll come back to this another
time. But I want you to see clearly
what the Word of God says about this matter of the believer and
the law. Galatians chapter 2. The law was never given to save
sinners, and it can't serve that purpose. Look at verse 16. Peter,
you'll remember the context, Peter was with his Gentile brethren, and
he had learned already in Acts chapter 10 how he was not to
call anything common or unclaimed. This is a fellow who had never
tasted pork chops in his life. I mean, he had never wrapped
his lips around a piece of pork of any kind. And he's sitting
down, man, he's enjoying this stuff. He's enjoying it. He's just, he's having a good
time. And some of the Judaizers come down. Some of these folks
from Jerusalem. And Peter got up and washed his
hands and walked away. Got him some Listerine so he
wouldn't smell pork chops on his breath. And he just walked
right back as though he had never eaten the pork chops. Now you
say, well, that's not much. By that act, Peter said to those
folks sitting at the table with him, there's something you can
do. And Paul said, you let away even Barnabas in your dissimulation.
And look what it says in verse 16. Knowing that a man is not
justified by the works of the law. Well, Peter didn't say that.
He said it when he got up from the table and walked away. By
his actions. Paul said, I was stood into the
face. But we're justified by the faith of Jesus Christ. Justified
by our faith in Him, but justified by the faithful obedience of
Jesus Christ to the law as our substitute. Even we have believed
in Jesus Christ that we might be justified by the faith or
faithfulness of Christ and not by the works of the law. For
by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified. For surely
it's alright to use the law as a as a sort of a motive for God's
people. Just kind of inspire them a little
bit, you know. You threaten them. Boy, if you
don't come to church, God will take it out of your head. Boy,
if you don't tithe, God will make your cargo sick. If you don't do right, the Lord
will get you. Turn to 2 Corinthians 8. This
is what Paul is talking about here in 2 Corinthians 8. He's
talking about giving. Giving. And this is what he says, verse
12. If there be first a willing mind. If there's a willing mind. Now
with every believer, there's a willing mind. If there be first
a willing mind, then it is accepted. According to that, a man hath. And not according to that he
hath not. In other words, It doesn't matter whether the person
giving is a pauper and brings his two pennies and drops them
in the offering plate, or whether the person giving is a millionaire
and brings a thousand dollars a day, drops it in the offering
plate. Doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is
a willing mind. That's all. Because the love
of Christ constrains us. You're not your own. You've been
bought with a price. Here's your motive. Here's your
motive. Christ loved us. Now prove your
love for him. The law of God, moreover, was
never given to be a rule of life or a standard of conduct for
the believer. And it can't serve that purpose.
God's rule is his entire word. This is his commandment. This
is it. And this is how we fulfill the whole law, that you believe
on his side. That's it. Paul, when a man tries
to obey the law, whether for justification or sanctification,
and brings the law down to his standards, and says, now I'm
going to come up part of the way, but I can't reach the perfection
of the law, so I'll give my sincere best. That man's an antinomian,
for he says the law can come down. That man has denied the
law altogether. How on earth can you fulfill
God's law? Romans 3 verse 31 declares that
we establish the law by faith. What? By faith? I bring to God
in the person of his son everything he requires. Righteousness and
satisfaction. Everything. So that in the day
of judgment I have no fear. that God Almighty shall somehow
find something against me when he searches the books that will
call for my condemnation. The law of God has been satisfied
in the Christ of God, and we're free. We're free. I picked this
up from Ken Wymer's bulletin. I'd seen it a long time ago,
but it's so good. Sam Houston, you'll remember,
led the battle to defeat Santa Ana and the Mexican army in the
Battle of San Jacinto. And after Texas became a state,
Sam Houston became president of the republic. I'm sorry, before
it was a state, when it was just a republic. And on his requirement,
he fixed it so there was a law established that any man who
had fought with him in that tremendous battle could obtain property
free of charge. Well, on one occasion, a man
by the name of Nobby Horsham, and I don't have any idea what
kind of name that is, but his name was Nobby Horsham, and he
was accused of defrauding another farmer. When the farmer who had
accused Nobby of fraud appeared in court, he was very surprised
to see that the man representing this man who was known as a scoundrel,
he was a bit of a disreputable fellow, but the person representing
him was President Sam Houston. The jury was seated. Now, this
is a true story. Nine of them were farmers who
had themselves been defrauded by the likes of Nobby Horsham.
And so witnesses were called, and then came time for Nobby
to be defended. And the judge asked Sam Houston
if he had any witnesses. The judge's name was Finnessy. And Sam Houston said, just one,
your honor. And he called Nobby Horsham. And that fellow came
up, dragging his right foot behind him, because he had been crippled
since the day of the battle. And when he was seated and everybody
got quiet as they could be, Houston asked him a question. He said,
where were you on the afternoon of April 20, 1836, and this is
what he said, I was with you in the front line
at San Jacinto, and the judge said, case dismissed. Case dismissed. Will you listen to me? Child
of God, you who It's time. Look away to Christ. Listen to me. I was with Christ. You were with Christ on the front
line bearing the wrath of God at Mount Calvary 2,000 years
ago. And this is what God says, there
is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus.
And that's the way it is. Amen.