If I can figure this out. All right. That should be doing
something. Is that coming through? There
we go. Technology is wonderful, isn't it? I haven't been here for about
four years. Life makes changes. Things happen,
and kids grow up, move away, and parents pass away. And it
changes your traveling patterns. Whereas it used to be very common
for me to be going back and forth on I-64, and of course I always
loved to make a stop by here, now there isn't anybody over
there for me to go see. My parents have passed away in the last
couple of years. And two of our three children have moved, one
of them to Cape Girardeau. Missouri and attends a church
where Brother Drew Dietz is pastor. And another, there's south of
Nashville, where Brother Chris Cunningham is pastor. So we have
this tendency to take that route when we come this direction,
which we did visit one on the way out. We're going to visit
the other one on the way back home. But it is just a great joy to be
here in this area. Having said all that, you might
wonder, why in the world are you here then? I was in this area to perform
a wedding for the daughter of some dear friends. And they were
married down there in Stanton. And I had the privilege of spending
the weekend with some friends in a nice resort-type thing there
at Natural Bridge State Park. So really, everything's been
going just great. And I hope that it continues
to go great through this message. if you'll open your Bibles first
to Romans chapter 6. Romans chapter 6. I want to speak
this evening on the subject of the ministries of law and grace. The ministries of law and grace. And we'll be spending most of
our time in that scripture that Todd read. But I want to start
here. In verse 14 of Romans 6 we read,
For sin shall not have dominion, that is, jurisdiction over you.
For you are not under law, that is, you are not under the jurisdiction
of the law, but under grace. Now, in saying this, Paul makes
it rather clear, doesn't he, that there's only two conditions
in which a man may be found. He is under law. or he is under
grace. Now it's one or the other. There
is no transitional state between those two options, if we can
use the word option. There's not a middle ground between
law and grace. You cannot be partly in one and
partly in the other. You can't be moving from law
to grace or grace to law. You're either all together in
one or altogether in the other. The book of Galatians is devoted
to the subject, to that very point, that it is a one or the
other matter for every man, woman, and child. You cannot lay hold
of both covenants. Right now, in this congregation,
Everybody here that's gathered tonight is at this moment under
law or under grace. And nobody's moving from one
to the other right now. Because if there is a change,
it's instantaneous. Are you under law or are you
under grace? There is one single condition
under which Everyone exists, and that is under God. Everybody here is under God. Everybody in the whole world
is under God. They put that phrase in our National
Pledge of Allegiance back in the 50s, I think. One nation
under God. Now there's some people that
want to take it out. Well, Let me tell you something,
putting that phrase in didn't make it so, and taking it out
isn't going to make it not so. Because every man, every woman,
every child, every nation, every club, every political party,
everybody is under God, whether they're under law or under grace.
Both of these covenants are equally the product of the living God. It's not as though, and we must
be careful when we talk about these things or think about them,
as grace believers, we tend to think that the law somehow is
a lesser thing and that really it's not so much
of God as the gospel is. No, both of them came from God. Both are expressive of His nature. Now, if you'll turn back to Romans
chapter 3, verse 19, it says, Now we know
that what thing soever the law saith, Romans 3, 19, It saith
to them who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped,
and all the world may become guilty before God. Therefore
by the deeds of the law shall there no flesh be justified in
his sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin. Now beginning
with these verses, Paul begins to describe the powerful and
terrible ministry of the law. Now there are some things the
law can't do. It says, for what the law could
not do. You find that in scripture. There's
some things the law can't do. But don't kid yourself, there's
some things the law can do. and does them very powerfully
and does them eternally. And here we find a beginning
of the description of the ministry of the law. What it does is terrible,
it is horrible, it is awful, it is not evil, not the least
bit. Remember, it's God's law. So
it's not evil what it does, but it's horrible. And I tell you
this, if there's anybody here that has any desire to be under
the law, I do pray that by the end of this message, you don't
want to have anything to do with God's law. When God gave His
law, He gave this strict commandment, don't let anyone come near the
mountain if a man or an animal even touches this mountain. Now,
not even the stone tablets themselves. He didn't even talk about breaking
the law. This is just at the giving of it to show how powerful
it is, is that if anybody even touches this mountain, he's to
be killed. The law has a ministry. It has
a testimony. It has something to say. But here is an important point. It doesn't have something to
say to everyone. Whatever it has to say is only
for those who are under it. If you're not under the law,
the law has nothing to say to you. Now, that's not too difficult
to figure out from this scripture. I will admit, it's a little scary
to say that. Something so momentous, something
that we count, well, it's called righteous and holy and good and
all that, and we say there are people to whom the law has nothing
to say? Well, if there's anyone who's
under grace, he's not under law. And what the law has to say is
for those who are under the law. There are those who would like
to say that the law has something to say to people who through
the grace of God are under grace. And yet Paul says that the law
has something to say only to those who are under the law. So if this day you are under
grace, the law has nothing to say to you. Now there's a very wonderful
reason And the reason is very simply this. It's finished. Whatever ministry the law has
and whatever it had to say, it said it to you. It did what it
was supposed to do. And when you're done, you quit. And when the law was done. It
quit. But there are some for whom the
law is never done. Because the work of the law is
never accomplished in them. It's never perfected. It's never
finished. So it goes on and on and on. And the law keeps speaking. But
they don't listen. Law is natural to us. And it's
scary to believe and to say that there is a people free from the
jurisdiction of the law. But there is. And there are folks
that would get all excited if you made a statement like that,
but brethren, if we're under the jurisdiction of the law,
here's what the law has to say. You're guilty. You're going to
die. And that's all it's got to say.
It can't say anything else to people like you and me. And if
you're under that jurisdiction, you are under that curse. Consequently, I really don't want to be under
the law. It's very natural to us to believe
that since our problem, our situation as sinners before God came because
of the breaking of the law, that the proper way to repair that
is to try to keep it. That's just natural to us. We
were born thinking like that. That is the way of the flesh.
That's why all natural religion has a law to keep. That's what
actually distinguishes the gospel from all other religions. All
other religions put you on a path of producing and rendering a
righteousness to God. Now that's the pattern of the
law. That's the essence of what law is. You produce and render
to God a righteousness. But it says in verse 21, The
righteousness of God. And what that means is the righteousness
from God. Now, what's the law? It's righteousness
to God. What's the gospel? A righteousness from Him. Big
difference. But this is what sets the gospel
apart from all the other religions. The other ones, you're rendering
a righteousness to God. In hope that He'll render blessings
to you. And in the gospel, God provides a righteousness and
then blesses us as though we ourselves produced it. That's unnatural to our way of
thinking because we don't treat anybody like that. It's too hard
for us to believe God would. Who of us? When have we ever
really been absolutely gracious to someone? That they gave us
absolutely nothing and we gave them absolutely everything. We may be able to think of an
isolated moment. You know, you go and mow the
neighbor's grass for free. You say, well, that was a work
of grace on my part. But let your neighbor cross your
way and see if you ever do it again. You know, we don't do
anything by grace. It's not natural to us. and therefore
we think it's not natural to God, because we cast God in our
image. But God is truly a God of grace,
and He does things that are contrary to our nature, because our nature
is contrary to Him. Obtaining God's favor by the
obedience to the law has divine sanction. I'm pointing out here
why law is so natural to us. You know, if you said to God,
I will try to get to heaven by keeping the law. God would not
say to you, well, you're not allowed to do that. If he said anything, he'd say,
well, have at it. There's nothing evil about the
attempt. For after all, our Lord Jesus was righteous before God
on that very basis. Jesus Christ had the earned favor
of God. It says he grew in wisdom and
stature and in favor, and that word is normally translated grace.
Grace with God and men. Why? Because he did everything
that pleased the Father. We get free grace, he got earned
grace. He got favor under the law, he's
the only one that's ever done it. So there's nothing essentially
evil about that system that says do this and live. The problem with that system
is it depends on us. It's a beautiful house on a really
sorry foundation. Nothing wrong with the law. What
the law could not do, it says, in that it was weak through the
flesh. And that teaches us, really, the weakness was not in the law.
The weakness is in what the law depends upon. For the law may
be 10 links, but it must be 10 links held up by one more link,
which is us. And we are the weakest link. And we break every time. And there is no way for a man
to take himself from being under law to being under grace. Right now, if you are under law,
you cannot put yourself under grace. Let me illustrate what
I mean here, and you'll see why I would say a thing like that.
Imagine a man has committed a capital crime, murder, capital murder. And I mean, it's not one of these
things that there's any doubt about the evidence. They caught
him with the blood on his hands. They got the DNA. They got everything
that you could think of. And he didn't have any kind of
alibi or nothing. He is guilty. And it comes time for sentencing. And the judge says, you have
been found guilty of capital murder. And I sentence you to
death. Now, imagine that that fellow
says, well, I no longer recognize the authority of this court. For I decided no longer to be
under law. I'm now under grace. You'll have
to let me go. You know what the judge would
say? Bailiff, cuff him. Turn him over to the warden.
And in due time, the governor will give a warrant to proceed
with his execution. You can't decide. You can't make
it happen. You're under law or you're under
grace. You were born under law and if you ever are under grace,
it's going to be by another birth accomplished no more by you than
your first birth. Now, who is under the law? Look over at Romans 7. Paul says, know you not brethren,
verse 1, Romans 7 verse 1, know you not brethren, for I speak
to them that know the law, how that the law has dominion, jurisdiction
over a man as long as he lives. Now we're establishing some basic
points that really can't be argued. They're so plain and simple.
You're under law or under grace, one or the other, and everybody
alive. is under law. We've got two statements
from scripture, can't be argued with. So if you're alive, you're
under law and not under grace. You say, now you got me confused.
Well, hold on. I hope to get that little unconfusion before
it's done. Now what then does it mean to
be under the law? You're under one or the other.
You're born under law. You can't change it. In fact,
everybody alive is under law. Well, what does it mean to be
under law? It means to have all your blessedness
determined by your success at keeping that law. That's what
it is to be under law. It means that if you hope for
the least goodness from God, it must be based upon your performance
of the obligations of God's law. And let me tell you this, that
law given on Mount Sinai is just a sampling of God's law. Those Ten Commandments, They
try to say, well, that covers all human activity. I can think
of a lot of ways to go wrong that, strictly speaking, doesn't
cross any one of those laws. That was a bare bones minimum
of a law to keep that nation together and keep them from going
completely nuts, like the Gentile nation did, until such time as
Christ would come. Now I'm not faulting the law
here, I'm just saying, when we're talking about finding favor under
God's law, we're talking about the perfection of God Himself.
He is the law. To be accepted of God by your
works, you can't just be as good as you can be, you've got to
be as good as God. And so to get your blessedness
under the law, it means to have how much you're going to be blessed
determined by your success at keeping the law. You do not become righteous by
the law by knowing it, acknowledging its goodness, or even loving
it. Moses said he described that
righteousness, which is by the law, The man that does these
things will live by that. Now, it's good that you and I
recognize good intentions. And if someone tries to do well
by us, tries to treat us right, fails sometimes, we let it go.
Our children, we don't expect perfection from them. We shouldn't.
We weren't perfect. We shouldn't expect they should
be. They give it a good shot. Send them out to mow the grass,
okay, they didn't do it like a golf course, you know, lawnskeeper,
but it's good enough, they tried. God doesn't do that. If it's
law, it's altogether law, and it has to be absolutely right,
done perfectly. I'm tempted to ask the question,
in fact I will fall to the temptation, To ask that question from that
popular psychologist, if you're trying to gain righteousness
by the law, how's that working for you? How's that working? There's nothing that we can do
to transfer ourselves from the law to grace. The law has a threefold
ministry, and it will accomplish this ministry in every person. Paul, as he describes these three
things, begins with the fruit and works his way to the root.
We're going to go the other way around. The first thing the law
does, the foundational thing the law does, is give the knowledge
of sin. Verse 20 of Romans chapter 3. Therefore by the deeds of the
law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight, for by the law
is the knowledge of sin. Now what does it mean to have
the knowledge of sin? Does it mean to know what is
right and wrong? Well, it involves that. It involves
that. Does it mean doing what is wrong? It involves that, but that's
not all it is. It's interesting that in the
Garden of Eden, they were not to eat of which tree? The tree
of the knowledge of good and evil. Now you can't tell me that
Adam didn't know what good and evil is. It was good to not eat
of the tree, it was evil to partake of it. He already knew that. But it wasn't until he ate of
the tree that he came to know good and evil. The knowledge of sin. What does it mean to know sin?
It means to come under its condemnation. It means to be made aware that
you are a sinner in the sight of God. Let me give you an example. In
2 Corinthians 5.21, it describes Christ with these words, he knew
no sin. I used to think that that simply
meant he'd never done any sin. No, he knew no sin. He knew what
sin was. He saw people committing it all
the time. He read men's hearts. He knew what was going on in
there. He knew what sin was, but he didn't know sin. Why? Because he never did any, never
got caught, never had to face God with it. That's why. Christ did no sin, so even though
he was born under the law, the law could not make him no sin. To no sin in the way the scriptures
mean it here, what the law is able to do is to make us no sin
by experience. illustration here. You can teach
a blind man about light. You could actually send him to
school and he could get a PhD in the study of light. He could
tell you more about it than you know. He could devise instruments
to investigate light. He could teach a course on light. But for all that, he could not
know light. And when that baby comes forth from the womb and
opens his eyes, that baby right then knows light in a way that
that blind man never can, because he sees. To know sin is to know what is
right and wrong, to do what is wrong, and to be caught up in
it. For example, A little boy sees
a cookie jar. Mom's just made some cookies.
Chocolate chip. They're still warm. Still soft. She's got them in a jar and he's
in the kitchen. She's about to leave. She said,
don't you eat any of those cookies. They're for later tonight. You
leave them alone. All right. He already knows what's right
and wrong. Mom has just laid down the law. But she leaves
the room. And he's looking at the cookies.
And he just can't stand it. And so he gets him a chair. He
shoves it over by the countertop where the cookie jar is. He climbs
up on that chair so he can reach. And he takes off the lid. And
of course that smell comes out of there, you know. It's only
getting worse. And he reaches in there and he gets a hold of
one of those cookies. Now he knows what's right and
wrong. He's already doing wrong. He doesn't yet know sin. Do you
know when he knows sin? That's when mom walks in the
door and they're eye to eye with his hand in the cookie jar. Brethren,
that's what it is to know sin. I use that little example of
children. But we've been caught with our hands in the cookie
jar. Some serious cookie stealing. And it isn't just a matter that
we knew it was wrong and that we did it, we know If the law
has done its work in us, we have been brought face to face before
God with our sin. And there's no way to get out
of it. The law makes a man no sin. Secondly, it says the law makes
the whole world guilty before God. Now this is just not a sentence
of guilty. The word actually means under
sentence. The law puts every man under
a sentence. Cursed is everyone that continues
not in every point of the law to do it. And when the law makes
you to know sin, you are immediately in your conscience under sentence
of death. That's why you realize that these
men who tried to live under the law and actually boasted that
they were righteous under it, the law had evidently not worked
its ministry among them. And they were still under it. And in due time, the law will
do its work within. But as long as a man can boast
in his own righteousness, the ministry of the law has not been
accomplished in them. When the law works, People are
brought under sentence and they know it. And they know there's no way
out from under it. And then thirdly, that every mouth may be stopped. Now, this is not a matter of
convincing someone to shut up about their own righteousness.
The law doesn't convince a man to do that. We're too wicked
for the law to be able to do that. The word means to block
up. Using a semi-contemporary phrase,
put a sock in it. Man starts to boast, that's what
the law does. You've got nothing to boast in.
Be quiet. And you may still hear them trying
to boast through a sock in their mouth. No good. It's not going
to work. But this I'm certain of, if the
law is perfected in a person, he will get very quiet. Very quiet. Have you ever noticed
how quiet it is in an execution chamber? Sometimes they say, you got any
last words? What surprises me is how few do this. You say,
no. got nothing to say. There is nothing to say at that
point. Some may make apologies or something like that. Very few proclaim their innocence
at that point. Every mouth is shut. When the
law finishes its work, people get quiet. Then there are some
who are under grace. Now, how can it be, and you'll
be turning over to Colossians chapter 3, how can it be that you're either
under law or grace, and everybody alive is under law, but there
are some people who are under grace? Verse 3, Colossians 3,
the first four words. for ye are dead. Now, I don't know when that would
ever be good news other than right now. Everybody lives under
the law but ye are dead. I look out over this crowd this
evening. A lot of you And accordingly we believe you
are under grace, so I may say, as that famous line from the
movie, I see dead people. Ye are dead. You say, dead, that's not very
good. It is, if he gets you out from
under the law. But imagine now, when the law
is done with a man, who's been found guilty of a capital crime,
he's dead. And what does the law do? Throw
him back in the cell? Family, you can come pick him
up. I know this sounds silly, but he's free. He's free. He that is dead is free, and
the word really means justified. He's justified from sin. The
penalty's been paid. That means the sin is gone. He's
free from it. And if the family could get in
there real quick and pull him out and do some CPR and give
him another life, he'd still be a free man because he's dead
so far as the law is concerned. Everyone in Christ is dead. Galatians chapter 2. Verse 19, Paul says, For I, through
the law, am dead to the law, that I might live unto God. Now here's the thing, he's dead
to the law, but how did he get that way? Through the law. The
law killed him, and thus released him. How did that happen? Later he says, for I am crucified
with Christ. Why are you dead and no longer
under the law, you who believe? Because Christ was born under
the law. He died and he's no longer under
the law. And you were in him when he died. And he took you with him. And
you died. And you're not under the law.
And Jesus Christ came out of the grave a new man. You say,
well, he was the same Jesus. Yeah, so far as this person is
concerned. But he's a new man. It says he
died under sin once, which means he died under the law once. But
now he lives under God. The reason we're new creations,
newly constituted people, is because Christ is. Now, people
that want to say, well, yeah, but the believer's still under
the law's rule of life. And I just want to say, well,
is Christ? Up there in heaven, one day out
of seven, do they stop? Does everybody sit around? Does the Lord Jesus Christ observe
a Sabbath day? If he doesn't, I don't need to
either. If He's not under that law, neither
is anybody in Him under the law. Now, Galatians 4.4 says that
Christ was under the law, yet all His life the law says He
was righteous. But there came a day when sin
was laid upon the Lord Jesus Christ. When he who did no sin
was charged with the sin of an innumerable host of people. I'm not even going to pretend
to understand how that happened. I just know it did. And it was done so completely
and so justly that even while we know that historically speaking,
we are responsible for those sins. I mean, we're the ones
that did them, yet they became his. He owned them. He freely took them to himself.
And when that happened, the law began its awful, horrible, terrible
ministry on him. He who knew no sin was made to
know sin. Once again, we're venturing here,
I realize, into some territory that I don't want to pretend
like I really understand what I'm saying. I'm just putting
the words together as they seem to appear to me in the scriptures.
He knew no sin because he'd done no sin, so the law couldn't make
him no sin. But when my sin was put on him,
And put this way, he got caught with my hand in the cookie jar. And eye to eye with God, as it were, he bore my sin in
his presence, in the presence of God. And the Lord Jesus Christ
came to know sin in a way he'd never known it before. Our Lord
Jesus Christ's character was not changed in the least through
the whole process. He was in his nature and desires
the loving, submissive Son of God. And yet before God, the
judge of all the earth, he was perceived as a wicked man and
dealt with as a wicked man. He who knew no sin was made to
know sin. And have you noticed how quiet
the Lord was in this process? I know he said a few things,
but he didn't say one thing to defend himself. Why? I almost hesitate to say this,
but this is why. There is no defense of the guilty. So if Christ wasn't guilty, then
why did God punish him? He was guilty with my sins. He was put under sentence. The curse that should have been
on me fell on him. And his mouth was silenced. And so Christ died. Died under sins that he never
committed but were made to be his own and which he gladly received. as his own for the love of his
people and the honor of his father. And he died. And as I wrote this
down, when I first made up this set of notes, it occurred to
me, he's the only one who ever fully died. Shortly before this, on the Mount
of Transfiguration, it says that Moses and Elijah spoke to Him
about the death He would accomplish. And later, our Lord says, it
is finished. It is the same word both times,
same Greek word. The death He would finish, the
death He would accomplish, the death He would perfect. And when
He perfected that death, what did He say? It's done. It is perfected. You see, we're
such miserable failures we can't even die right. Why do you think
hell lasts forever? Because we're never done. The curse falls upon us. Hell
is not just a death from which you never recover. Hell is a
death that goes on forever because you never can perfect death. Only Christ can do that. He's
the only one ever accomplished it. And when you've accomplished
something, there's no more left. There's no more death. Death and the curse were in our
cup. O Christ, it was full for thee. And he drank it down. all of it, and there's not one
drop left for any of his people. He finished death. Christ is dead to the law, and
if we are in him, then we are dead, and not under law, but
under grace. Very quickly now, in just a couple
of minutes. Law has a ministry, so does grace. The ministry of the law was to
make us to know sin. The ministry of grace causes
us to no longer know sin. Now I realize in this present
condition we're in, when salvation has not been fully applied to
us, I mean, literally, thank God, this isn't all that salvation
is going to do for us. There's more to come. So we still feel guilt. There
are times when we come under a sentence of condemnation even
though we read there is therefore now no condemnation of them that
are in Christ Jesus. But have you ever noticed this,
child of God? When someone preaches the gospel to you and the Holy
Spirit is pleased to add His power to that preaching, you
don't know sin. You're free. Yes, you know you sinned, but
you don't know sin. And one of these days, when the
gospel's finished with us, we'll never know sin again. Not the least sense of guilt,
not the least twinge of fear, not the smallest sense of being
cut off from God. They sing in heaven, worthy art
thou, for thou hast redeemed us by thy blood. So obviously
they remember that they sinned, but they don't know sin. Because
grace teaches us to no longer know sin. And that's why the
Lord said concerning this new covenant of the gospel, there
are sins and iniquities I will remember no more. I'm not going
to bring it up anymore. It's over, it's gone, it's done. Secondly,
law puts us under sentence grace delivers us from that sentence.
Not in an unjust way. It's not a reprieve from the
government, governors, not a pardon, not just a pardon. It's a satisfaction
of the sentence by Christ. And therefore, there's no sentence
left. The reason we have no debt to pay is not because God simply
said, I'm not going to make you pay it. The reason that believers
have no debt to pay is because it's been paid. That's why. And thirdly, the ministry of
law shuts the mouth. Look over at Psalm 51. The ministry
of grace opens the mouth. Verse 15, Psalm 51. O Lord, open thou my lips, and
my mouth shall show forth thy praise. We come into this world
loudmouths. God, I thank you I'm not like
other men. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
With all our religious righteousness, And God, having intentions of
grace toward us, begins the ministry of His law in us. And we become
knowledgeable of our sin, become aware of the sentence against
us, and our mouths are shut. But once He's done that, He removes the knowledge of sin, removes the sentence, that we
feel upon us, and opens our mouth, and we show forth His praise. We start talking, but it's, we
start singing, but it's a new song. A new song nobody else
knows. A new song all those lawmongers
don't even understand. We sing it, and when we get done,
they go, well, that was sweet, but you know, you gotta, They
always want to add another verse on the end about what you've
got to do. Law or grace, it's one or the
other. I told you that you can't do
anything to get yourself from law to grace, and that's true.
By that I mean there's nothing you can do to obligate God to
move you from one to the other. But I do know this, he's made
some promises. And God always makes good on
his promises. And he says that the one who
trusts in Christ is justified from all those things they can
never be justified from in the law of Moses. They're made free
of them. Free of all those sins. Free of all that guilt. Free
of all the condemnation and the sentence that comes with it.
They are free. So I'm not going to call on you
to do something except to look to Him who already did it all
and trust Him and call on His name. Oh, He's a merciful God. More than you and I can imagine. I don't know if we'll ever know. He does. He knows what it cost. He knows what he paid. But there's no use us living
in the squalor of a law life while the Son is here. The Lord
bless you.