I don't know why my mind was
brought to this, but while I was listening to that song, after
I graduated from high school, me and a friend of mine went
backpacking, and it was with a Methodist group of some kind. You were by yourself, but there
were these Methodist leaders, and I remember the first night,
they were trying to have a devotion, and they said, what we want you
to do tomorrow is look under rocks, and see what you can find
out about God under a rock, I thought. But I remember at that time,
I quoted that hymn. I didn't know what else to say,
but I thought, that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. But I
quoted that hymn, and that hymn has always resonated so much
with me. Why I said that, I don't know. I've entitled this message, Worship
Contrary to the Law. And there's a question mark after
that statement. Worship contrary to the law. Now this is what Paul was accused
of in verse 13. This zero persuadeth men. to worship God CONTRARY to the
law. Now, look back at Acts chapter
6. Stephen was accused of the same thing. Verse 11, Then they suborned
hired men, which said, We have heard him speak blasphemous words
against Moses and against God. And they stirred up the people
and the elders and the scribes and came upon him and caught
him and brought him to the council and set up false witnesses which
said, this man ceaseth not to speak blasphemous words against
this holy place and the law. For we have heard him say that
this Jesus of Nazareth shall destroy this place and shall
change the customs which Moses delivered to us. Now, if you
go on reading when Paul is arrested in Acts chapter 21, they said
concerning him, this is the man. THAT TEACHETH ALL MEN EVERYWHERE
AGAINST THE PEOPLE. HE'S SAYING IT'S NO ADVANTAGE
TO US TO BE JEWS. HE'S TEACHING AGAINST THE PEOPLE.
AND HE TEACHES AGAINST THE LAW. HE SAYS IT'S INCONSEQUENTIAL
AS TO WHETHER OR NOT YOU TRY TO KEEP THE LAW. AND HE PREACHES
AGAINST THIS PLACE, THIS TEMPLE. HE MAKES IT A PLACE OF NO IMPORTANCE. And every time somebody preaches
the gospel, they will be accused of this. It was Martin Luther who first
said, if you've not been accused of being an antinomian, you've
never preached the gospel. Now, somebody says, what's an
antinomian? Well, antinomian means antinomos, that's the Greek
word for law. You're against law. You think
law is utterly inconsequential. You think since salvation's by
grace, it doesn't matter whether you seek to obey God's laws. It's called antinomianism. And
every time the gospel is preached, if somebody's an unbeliever there,
they're going to take what they're hearing being said as, well,
that's antinomianism. That's lawlessness. You're saying
acts of obedience, works, and so on are inconsequential. They are not important. Would
you turn with me for a moment to Jude, right before the book
of Revelation, Jude chapter four. Jude verse four, there's only
one chapter. Jude verse four. For there are certain men crept
in, unawares, creeping into the church, who were before of old
ordained to this condemnation. What in the world does that mean?
Exactly what it says. I give no apology for that. Whatever
God does is right. Whatever God does is just. Whatever
God does is holy. Whatever God does is good. And
these men were before of old. ordained to this condemnation. Now, I've had people say, well,
you believe in double predestination. I believe this. I don't know
why, I don't know what you mean by that, but I believe this.
These men were before of old ordained to this condemnation. And that's the word of God. What did they do? Well, these
are ungodly men turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness
and denying the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ. Now,
your average person, when he gives his interpretation of that verse,
they say, well, this is men who say you can live a lascivious
life since salvation is by grace. It doesn't matter how you live,
doesn't matter how you conduct yourself, any sin is not off
limits, go for it because salvation is by grace. You don't need to
worry about the commission of sin. Go ahead and live a lascivious
life because salvation is by grace. Now let me ask you a question.
Have you ever heard anybody say that? Now you may have, you may
have, but I don't remember anybody putting it like that. There might've
been people that live that way, but I don't remember anybody
ever saying that. Now, see that word turned, turning
the grace of God into lasciviousness? That is a word that is not the
word generally translated, turned. This word is actually translated,
translated. Enoch was translated that he
should not see death. Now, what these fellas do is
they hear of grace and here's their translation of it. That'll
lead people to sin. That'll lead people to lasciviousness.
That'll lead people to an ungodly life. Now, these are the men
who were ordained of old to this condemnation. Here's their message.
They hear of the grace of God and they say, that will lead
to sin. When they hear of the freeness,
the completeness of God's grace, the saving nature of God's grace,
how your works have nothing to do with it. These are unbelieving
men who don't have the Holy Spirit, who don't have any understanding,
and all they hear that is you're saying that how you live isn't
important. Why, that will lead to lasciviousness. That is the response of the natural
man to the grace of God. And let me repeat, Now, we're
not antinomians in the sense that, grace that makes sin okay,
and we don't say our sin's okay in any way, it's wrong, we hate
sin. And we don't use grace as an excuse for sin, we just don't
do that. We're not antinomians, but I tell you what, if somebody's
not calling me an antinomian, I'm scared. That means I'm not
preaching the gospel. I'm preaching and say if I'm
not preaching in such a ways to be misunderstood by unbelievers
to say well, he's he's not He's saying lasciviousness is okay.
He's saying how you live is of no Import I tell you what. I want people to make that accusation
against me. I Not that I believe that way,
but that's the way the natural man hears the gospel. Someone
that's not taught of the spirit of God. Someone who hears with
natural understanding. That's all they get out of it. And that is what they accused
Paul of. This man is saying to worship
God contrary to the law. Now in verse 12, this is after
Paul had been preaching 18 months in Corinth. And there was a man
named Gallio. He was the deputy of this place.
He was a Roman governor. And as a matter of fact, he gets
a lot of press in secular history. You can read about this man in
Josephus. If you've ever heard of the Greek philosopher Seneca,
he was a Stoic philosopher. He was a Roman statesman. And
you probably somewhere along your readings have heard his
name. Gallio was his brother. And he was a very famous man.
And like I said, he's got a lot of press in extra biblical literature
as being somebody in the Roman government. Now, when Galileo
was the deputy of Achaia, the Jews made the insurrection. They made a rush with one accord
against Paul. And they brought him to the judgment
seat with this man, a Roman deputy named Galileo was in charge. Now this man was like most every
other Roman. They despised the Jews. They
didn't like them. And they would use any kind of
opportunity to speak ill of them. Pilate was that way. I think
when Pilate put this accusation of Christ the king of the Jews,
he was doing that because he hated the Jews, and he said,
here's your king. And he was doing that out of
wanting to trouble them, because they said, don't say. He's king,
he said he's king. And he said, what I've written
stays written. Well, Galileo was a man similar to this. And
he did not like the Jews. That's the way most of the Romans
were during this time. They considered them troublemakers
and so on. And so verse 14, They come to
Galileo with this accusation against Paul, this fellow persuaded
men to worship God contrary to the law. And when Paul was now
about to open his mouth, he was gonna defend himself. Galileo
opened his mouth. And he said unto the Jews, if
it were a matter of wrong or wicked lewdness, O ye Jews, you
can feel his contempt in the way he says that. O ye Jews,
reason would that I should bear with you. If this man had committed
some kind of crime, if he'd done something wrong, he would only
be reasonable for me to listen to this complaint and have him
brought before the judgment seat. But, now here's the attitude
of non-religious people, defined so clearly. You know, I read
this week where for the first time, less than half of Americans
are religious. I guess if you're not religious,
you're probably atheist or agnostic or you don't care one way or
the other. It's just not important to you.
It's not relevant to you. And you come across people like
that all the time. Look what he says. He says, what's
going on here is a question of words and names. And of your
law, look you to it. I'll be no judge in such matters.
You're just talking about words and names out of your law that
has absolutely no importance and no relevance to me. I could care less about what
you're talking about. It's just not important. Now that would be the response
of Over half, maybe more than that of the population. If you
go into some other countries, it'd probably be the response
of 95% of the people. It's just not important. We don't care. You're just talking
about words and names of some document that means nothing to
me. Look what he did in verse 16. He draved them from the judgment
seat. There's almost a thought of with
force, get out of here, get out of here right now. I'm not going
to listen to anything like this. Then all the Greeks, the Romans,
the people who were allied to Galileo, what did they do? They
took Sosthenes, the chief ruler of the synagogue. who had brought
these accusations against Paul and beat him before the judgment
seat. Paul didn't have to answer himself.
This guy was so irritated that they did this. All the Greeks
took this Jewish leader, Sosthenes, who will later be mentioned in
1 Corinthians 1 as possibly somebody the Lord saved after this. But
at this time, he was the leader of the synagogue and they beat
him. I don't know what all was involved
in that beating, but I guarantee you, it hurt. And look what it
said of Galileo. Galileo cared for none of these
things. They just weren't important to
him. Now you take any natural man, he cares about pleasure,
he cares about popularity, he cares about pride. Power. He is into the lust of the flesh. He's into the lust of the eyes,
what people see. He's into the pride of life,
power. I've got power over you. Every natural man is interested
in things of that nature. But with regard to the things
of God, he cared for none of these things. Now, what's interesting
about this godless man We know from ancient history, from Josephus,
that this man ended up committing suicide. Now there's something
very terrible about having no God, no concept of God in your
life. This world is a lonely place.
It's a meaningless place. And I can see why his life ended
in that way. But we're going to dismiss Galileo
right now. I kind of like the way he, had
the Jews beaten at this time when they were trying to bring
these accusations against Paul, but let's consider this accusation. This fellow persuaded men, verse
13, this fellow, this zero, this miscreant, this doesn't even
deserve to be called by any name, this fill in the blank, whatever
you would say about this man, this persuadeth men to worship God
contrary to the law. Now, my question is, was that
true? Did Paul persuade men to worship
God contrary to the law? Now, in reality, the opposite
is true. And I hope by the end of this
message, you're going to see that very clearly. The opposite
is true. Now what is meant by the law?
Well, the law could mean all of inspiration. Now the new Testament
had not yet been written, but we had the 39 books of the old
Testament, all of revelation. It could mean the law of Moses
contained specifically in Exodus when God came down on Mount Sinai
and gave Moses the law. The finger of God wrote down
the Ten Commandments, and you also have in that period what's
known as the Civil Law. The laws regarding the civil
laws of Israel, how they could get along. And you had the ceremonial
law. You had the sacrifices. You had
the feast days. You had all these things that
were involved in the ceremonial law. And I think it's interesting
that men, I've heard men do this all my life. They try to separate
the law of God. They say, well, we're still under
the moral law. We're not under the ceremonial
law anymore. We're under the moral law. So you can stand in
judgment of God's Word, decide which part's good and which part's
not, which part we are under, which part we're not. You know,
in the Ten Commandments, destroys that notion. Because in the Ten
Commandments, you have a ceremonial law, don't you? You have the
Sabbath. Now, can you just pull that one
out and just put the nine commandments? We don't need to worry about
the law regarding Sabbath. I think it's insane when you're
riding along the highway and you see on the billboards the
ten commandments. And I think, do you have any
idea what it is you're putting up? No idea at all. The law, God's law delivered
to Moses that men speak of the moral law, the Ten Commandments,
the ceremonial law, the sacrifices, the feast days, the Sabbath days,
and the civil laws. Now, the accusation was he persuaded
men to worship contrary to the law. What did you have to have to
worship in the Old Testament under the Levitical law? What
was absolutely necessary for worship? Well, number one, you
had to have a priest. You could not come to God on
your own. Number two, you had to have a
sacrifice. That priest had to present a
sacrifice for you. And number three, you had to
have an altar upon which that sacrifice was put to death. And
you know it's no different in April 18th, 2021 than it was
then. In order to worship God, I have
to have a priest. I have to have a sacrifice that
God will accept. And I have to have an altar,
and it's not some silly man-made thing put down in the front of
the church. I'm talking about the altar of God. Every believer
has all of that. I've got a priest, and I've got
a sacrifice that God accepts, the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus
Christ. And the altar that he offered himself up on was his
own body. He is priest, he's sacrifice,
and he is the altar that every believer possesses. Now, the
law. tries to persuade men to worship
God contrary to the law. One of my favorite definitions
of sin is sin. First John chapter three, verse
four, sin is the transgression of the law. Whenever there's
a transgression of the law, there's sin. You know the Ten Commandments. I love the Ten Commandments.
I love to think about them in the sense that they reflect God's
holy law. And every time I think about
the Ten Commandments, all I see is how I've broken every one
of them. Love God with all your heart. Have you ever done that?
Love your neighbor as yourself. You've never done that. Have
you ever put anything before God? Every day, every minute,
every hour. Have you ever concocted a false
view of God to make yourself comfortable? Idolatry. Have you
ever taken his name in vain? Have you ever arrested? Have
you ever given authority if proper due? Have you ever murdered anybody
in your heart? Spoke ill of them? Have you ever
committed sexual sin in your heart? Have you ever lied? Have
you ever stole, robbed, brought that to yourself which didn't
belong to you? Have you ever coveted? My soul,
the Ten Commandments, if you believe you've kept one commandment
one time, you demonstrate you're completely ignorant of the law
of God. You don't have any understanding
of it. If you understand the law of God, you know that all
you do is break it nonstop. Now, somebody says, I'm not like
that. Well, you're blind then. You've never been born again.
You've never been given a holy nature. It's only a holy nature
that recognizes that in the first place. As long as you're an unbeliever,
you can... Give me five seconds, I can be
obedient. If you're a believer, you know
that in your flesh dwells no good thing. Now, would you turn
with me to Matthew chapter five? This is the first public message
of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's what's known as the Sermon
on the Mount. And he says in verse 17 of Matthew
chapter five, think not that I am come to destroy the law
or the prophets. Don't even think anything like
that. I'm not come to destroy, but to fulfill. For verily I
say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle,
shall in no wise pass from the law." That's the comma, the dotting
of the I, the crossing of the T. That's what that's talking
about. The most insignificant things that we would think are
in the law. Nothing will be over. It's not going to pass from the
law till all be fulfilled. For verily I say unto you, till
heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall no wise pass
from the law till all be fulfilled. He said in Luke chapter six,
verse seven, it's easier for heaven and earth to pass away
than for one tittle of the law to fail. That's how important
this holy law of God is. I think of what the Lord said
after His resurrection to His disciples. He said, These are
the words which I speak unto you, while it is yet with you,
that in all things All things must be fulfilled which were
written in the law and in the prophets and in the Psalms concerning
me. It was prophesied of him in Isaiah
chapter 42, verse 21, he shall magnify the law and make it honorable. You know, he's the only man to
ever do that. He's the only holy man to ever live and nobody got
it. He was living in perfection, and his brothers and sisters
didn't see it. I don't know that his mom and
dad really saw it. But the one time holiness walked upon this
earth, natural man couldn't recognize it. You know why? Because they
don't have any idea what holiness is in the first place. But he
kept God's law perfectly. And this is the righteousness
that the believer is justified by, the law keeping of Jesus
Christ. He kept God's law perfectly. For 30 years living in obscurity,
nobody else could see it, but oh, his father could see it.
His father looked at every second of his life and he was pleased. He said, this is my beloved son
in whom I'm well pleased. Oh, the pleasure the Father had
at beholding the obedience, the law-keeping of the Son. And every
believer is justified by that perfect law-keeping of Jesus
Christ being theirs. God's law looks me over and says,
I find no fault. No fault. Nothing but perfect
obedience. I think of the publican going
down to the temple, and this is the most glorious thing. He was beating on his breast,
crying, God, be merciful to me, the sinner. And Christ said regarding
that man, I tell you, that man went down to his house, not forgiven,
not shown mercy, justified. perfect before the holy law of
God, God's law being honored completely. When Paul was charged in Acts
chapter 24 with all kinds of things, I think it's interesting,
they hired him an orator, Tertullian, He says this pestilent fellow,
I like the way they call him, Paul, he's a pest. He's a ringleader
of the sect of the Nazarenes. He's brought Gentiles into this
holy place. He's not respected the law of
God. Paul said they can't prove a
thing they're saying, but this I do confess to thee. After the
way which they call heresy, so worship I. The God of my father's
believing all things which are written in the law and in the
prophets. Now with regard to God's law,
if you understand it, you know that all it does is condemn you. If you don't have that understanding
of God's holy law, you don't have an understanding at all
of God's holy law. Now I'm gonna look at some scriptures.
Turn to Romans chapter three. Verse 19, now we know. Who's the we? Everybody who knows
it. Everybody who knows it. We know that what thing soever the law
saith, it saith to them who are under the law that every mouth
may be stopped and all the world may become guilty before God. Now, if there is some condition
I must meet, some act of obedience that I must perform before I
can be saved, I will not be saved. And neither will you. All the
law does, it gives no power to obey. All it does is expose guilt. By the law is the knowledge of
sin. Look over in Romans chapter seven,
verse seven. What should we say then, is the
law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but
by the law, for I had not known lust, except the law had said
thou shalt not covet. But sin, taking occasion by the
commandment, using the commandment as a base of operations, the
scriptural commentary on this is the strength of sin is the
law. Have you ever thought about that?
The strength of sin. Somebody says, well, the strength of sin
is a perverted nature, an evil nature. No, the strength of sin
is the law. All the law does is expose the power of sin. Now, let's go on reading. I had
not known sin, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet.
But sin, taken occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all
manner of concupiscence, wicked desire. For without the law,
sin was dead. But for I was alive without the
law once, I thought I was a pretty good fella. But when the commandment
came, sin revived, and I died. And the commandment which was
ordained to life, I found to be unto death. For sin, taking
occasion by the commandment, using the commandment as a basis
of its operations, deceived me, and by it slew me. Wherefore
the law is holy, the commandment holy, and just as good was then
that which is good made death unto me, God forbid. But sin,
that it might appear, sin working death in me, by that which is
good, the law, that sin by the commandment might become exceeding
sinful. Now, when you understand that,
here's what you'll say. Here's another we know, verse
14. I ask again, who's the we? Everybody who knows it. Every
believer. We know, here's Paul's assessment. We know that the law is spiritual,
but I am carnal. Now, he didn't say I used to
be carnal before God saved me. present tense, right now. He was aware of his old nature.
I am carnal. That sold under sin means sold
as a slave to sin. Sold as a slave to sin. He said in Romans chapter eight,
verse seven, The carnal mind, that's the way you were born.
That's your old nature. The carnal mind, notice the word
is as an italics. Let's just go ahead and leave
it out. The carnal mind, enmity against God. For it is not subject
to the law of God Neither indeed can be. Listen to this scripture. This scripture says so much.
First Timothy 1.8 says, the law was not made for a righteous
man. That little box back there that
you put your money in, you know what we do with it? Lock it. Got a key and a lock. Now, these
are good, honest people, aren't they? Well, I hope you are, but
let's keep it that way. Let's keep the lock there. The
point is, honest people do not need law. Isn't that so? Good people do not need rules. Who needs them? Bad people. The law was not made for a righteous
man, but for the lawless and the disobedient, for whoremongers,
for them that defile themselves with mankind, for perjures, for
perjured person, and if there be anything else that is contrary
to sound doctrine. Now, when somebody says we need
to be under law, what are you saying about yourself? You told
on yourself. I won't trust you for a second.
The law was not made for a righteous man. Galatians 3.10, as many
as are of the works of the law are under the curse for it's
written, cursed is everyone that continueth not in all things
which are written in the book of the law to do them. I think
of what Paul said in the next chapter. Galatians 4.21, tell
me, you that desire to be under law. Don't you hear it, the law? Don't you hear what it says?
All it does is condemn you. That's it. Nothing else. It exposes sin. It gives no power
to obey. Now these people making this
accusation against Paul, As teaching men to worship God contrary to
the law proved they had no understanding at all of the law of God. They're very much like the rich
young ruler. All these have I kept from my
youth up. Now let me close with a few more
scriptures to show how Paul did not teach people to worship contrary
to the law, but in the only way the law could be honored. The
only person that honors God's holy law is the person who believes
the gospel. Everybody else dishonors God's law, brings it down to
human standards, defiles it. Paul said in Romans chapter five,
verse 20 and 21, moreover, the law entered that the offense
might abound. Not the law entered to restrain
sin and to keep it in check. The law entered that the offense
might overflow, abound. But, but, but where sin abounded. where it bubbled up and overflowed,
where you had someone who said, I know that the law is spiritual,
but I'm carnal, sold under sin, where sin abounded. In that very
place, every time, grace did much more abound. That as sin
hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign. Anybody know the rest of the
verse? Through righteousness. THROUGH RIGHTEOUSNESS. THROUGH THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF
JESUS CHRIST, BEING MY PERSONAL RIGHTEOUSNESS BEFORE GOD. WOULD
YOU TURN TO ROMANS 8, VERSE 1, THERE IS THEREFORE NOW NO CONDEMNATION
TO THEM WHICH ARE IN CHRIST JESUS, WHO WALK NOT AFTER THE FLESH,
BUT AFTER THE SPIRIT. 4. THE LAW the Spirit of life in
Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death."
The law of life and the law of death. Gospel and works. One's a law of life, an irrevocable law of life, and
the other's an irrevocable law of death. Now let's go on reading.
For what the law could not do, What could the law not do? Couldn't
save anybody. Couldn't make you holy. Couldn't
make you acceptable before God. Couldn't make you pleasing to
God. What the law could not do. And here's where the problem
was. The problem's not with the law itself. The problem's with
me and you. Is weak through the flesh. My
flesh, my sinful flesh that cannot keep the law. Cannot, that's
what the scripture says, cannot. 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. Now he wasn't sinful, but he
had flesh, unfallen flesh, like he was born with. born of a virgin. He didn't have sinful flesh the
way you and I, but he looked like us. You know, when people
looked at him, they didn't know that he was without sin. They
looked at him and were critical of it. They couldn't, they didn't
get it. He was in the likeness of sinful
flesh and for sin as a sin bearing
substitute as a vicarious propitiation for sin. God condemned sin in
the flesh by what Christ did on the cross for what reason?
That the righteousness of the law, the righteousness of the law
might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh but
after the spirit. Now what does it mean to walk
not after the flesh but after the spirit? It means to look
to Christ as your righteousness before God. It's not that you
get in some kind of spiritual, ethereal, otherworldly, you're
just walking above on some higher ground and then you fall back
into walking in the power of the flesh. That's not what that
means at all. To walk in the spirit is to look to Christ only
and really believe he's your only righteousness before God.
Paul put it this way, Christ is the end of the law for righteousness.
to everyone that believeth. Now, one last scripture. Turn
to Romans chapter three. Well, let me take that back.
I'm gonna give one more after this. I don't wanna disappoint
anybody, so one more after this. But look what it says in Romans
chapter three, verse 31. Do we then make void the law
through faith? God forbid we establish the law. The only people who honor the
law are the people who look to Christ as their only righteousness
before that law. Do you? Do you right now? Do you look to the righteousness
and merits of Jesus Christ as your standing before that holy
law, his perfect obedience? Well, I do. I don't wanna be
seen in any other way than His righteousness only. Now the last
scripture. Turn to 1 Timothy 1. Now the
end, verse five. 1 Timothy 1, verse five. Now the end of the commandment,
the goal, the purpose of the commandment, God's holy law,
Here's its purpose, charity out of a pure heart and a good conscience
and a faith unfeigned, unfaked, the real thing. Now, the first
thing that the law has for its purpose is charity out of a pure
heart. Now, as long as there's any law
for you to keep, you will not have any love for God at all. You're gonna resent him, you're
gonna think he expects too much out of you, you're going to be
upset, you're going to think all kinds of horrible things
about him. If what was really in your heart could be seen,
there would be no love. The only place there's love is
where the law is completely fulfilled and there's nothing for you to
do. Now you love. Not before then. Now you love. You have nothing to fear. There's
nothing for you to live up to, nothing for you to reach out
for. Now you love out of a pure heart, that heart that he gives.
Now the end of the commandment is a good conscience. Now I've
said this before and let me say it again. The only good conscience
is a conscience that does not have anything to feel guilty
about. It's got a perfect standing before
God's law. Somebody says, my conscience
is clear. No, it's not. It's defiled. It's no good. Your conscience has quit working.
If you go, I've got a clear conscience about that. Well, here's the
problem. Your conscience quit working.
It's hardened. It can't see. That's not, I've
got a good, I'll tell you what a good conscience is. Something
that has absolutely, positively nothing to feel guilty about.
I stand before God's holy law. God's law looks me over and says,
I'm pleased. There's nothing to be condemned
for. Now that's a good conscience.
And the last thing he says at the end of the law is faith unfeigned.
Now, unhypocritical faith, unfaked faith. Now, I'm not faking when
I say Jesus Christ is the only righteousness I have. I'm not
saying that by way of being feigned and hypocritical. I really believe
that Christ Jesus is all I have. And he's all I want. And he's all I need. That's the
end of the commandment. Charity out of a pure heart,
a good conscience, and faith unveiled. So, when these accusations
are made, he's against the law. No, he wasn't. He's the only
one there who's for the law. All those other fellas, they're
against the law. They just don't know what it
means. If they did, they would be proved to be totally against
the law. The only people who are for the
law are the people who have a perfect standing before that law and
have kept it perfectly nonstop. And that describes every believer. It's called justification by
faith. Let's pray. Lord, how we thank you for your
holy law, and that we delight in your law,
knowing that we stand before your holy law without guilt,
because the perfect merits of thy son, his law keeping, that
perfect white robe, belongs to every one of your people. We thank you for the gospel of
your son. Lord, we would especially remember
Dawn Miller at this time. We pray for your healing hand
to be upon her according to your will. And we pray that this might
be used for her good and your absolute glory. Now bless us
for Christ's sake. In his name we pray.