In the sermon, Paul Carrington explores the crucial relationship between the law of God and the gospel, emphasizing the need for a proper understanding to prevent the gap between love for the gospel and godliness. The speaker critiques Charles Finney's approach to evangelism during the Second Great Awakening, which led to superficial conversions and the 'burned over district' phenomenon. The sermon delves into the importance of the moral law, its origins in Adam's heart, and its continuation post-fall as a reflection of God's character. Carrington addresses the dangers of neglecting the law in favor of antinomianism or legalism and explains the distinction between moral, ceremonial, and judicial laws. The ceremonial and judicial laws are abrogated in Christ, while the moral law remains binding. The sermon urges believers to use the law to reveal sin and the holiness of God, delight in it personally, and repent if they are outside of Christ.

Well this evening, as our brother prayed and as he mentioned, we're going to be taking a deeper look into the law of God. We're going to be looking at it in two parts. I hope to get through four of the paragraphs tonight, but I'm not sure, so we may have to stop at three. But Let's see what the Lord has for us. But yesterday actually one of the brothers in the church, he sent me an article from the founders website and it was an excellent article of a man who was really mourning the gap that exists between our love of the gospel and our love for godliness.

We all love the gospel, but when he looked at our love for godliness, it was this gaping wound between the two. And one of the paragraphs I just want to read, He went through to diagnose what the problem could be and he gave about 13 reasons. But the very first reason that he gave as to why there's this gap between our love for the gospel and our godliness, the way that we live. The first one was this. He says, because we no longer understand the complementarity of law and gospel, either because the Old Testament is viewed as archaic and useless or out of an underlying fear of promoting legalism, law and gospel are seldom seen together.

Yet as John Bunyan wrote, if you would know the authority and power of the gospel, labor first to know the power and authority of the law. That man that does not know the law does not know in deed and in truth that he is a sinner. And that man that does not know he is a sinner does not know savingly there is a Savior. And so what Puritan preaching aimed to do is really to crush the sinner and understand that they are utterly without any help, without any ability to save themselves, so that the gospel could come in and make amends for it. And you know today we're going to be talking about some of the real-life examples, but I want to start with one in particular, a particular man that lived maybe 200 years ago or so.

In fact Billy Graham called him the the greatest evangelist since the Apostle Paul. And here was a man who he embraced God in a spasm of emotion. He quickly left his profession to be a lawyer, went off to Bible college, took a quick course in theology, and then went right away to begin preaching the gospel. And this man's name is Charles Grandison Finney. And in his autobiography Charles Finney wrote of this state where he lived up in in New York, kind of the central part of New York, that he called the burnt over district and this is during what we call the second great awakening he called it the burned over district where he had preached the gospel the gospel so-called had gone to every single person in that state or in a certain region of that state that there was no fuel, right?

There was no other people that actually had not heard the gospel and turned. There was no one left to convert in this entire state. That's how he looked at it. And it might have been well intentioned, but it was a very fluffy, shallow, superficial gospel that was put forward. And this idea, Finney himself, he actually denied justification.

He had a very poor view of what Christ actually came to do for sinners like us. He had a very low view of God, but he also had a very low view or a wrong view of the law of God. And so this is what he said about the new birth in terms of it depending entirely on God. He said this, no doctrine is more dangerous than this to the prosperity of the church and nothing more absurd. That a sinner would be born again solely by the hand of God.

Well of course we know that to be entirely true. And so while these men went about aiming for converts, they went about aiming for spraying the masses with a light sprinkling of the gospel, they did not fulfill the Great Commission. And what is the Great Commission? When we look at it, the last words of Christ in Matthew 28, where he says, after all authority has been given to me both in heaven and earth, he says, go ye therefore into all the world, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded." And so we see in the work of men like Finney and all the offshoots of what he preached, really a half gospel. And of course a half gospel will only produce half Christians.

Like Charles Spurgeon says, he says, sermonettes produce Christianettes, people that aren't actually truly saved and brought to Christ. And so millions had been inoculated by the preaching of Phineas, but precious few had really received the real disease of salvation or biblical Christianity. So indeed it was a burned over district, but not in the way that he thought in that no one was left to be evangelized. It was burned over because people had been inoculated to the truth of the gospel because it wasn't properly promoted and preached and it didn't stop with him. You see this dangerous disease all the way through American Christianity to the point where I was just looking through a number of statistics and this is one in particular.

It says a leading US denomination reported that during 1995 they secured 384, 000 decisions but retained only 23, 000 in fellowship. They could not account for 361, 000 supposed conversions. This is a 94% fallaway rate. Think about that for a second. People making decisions without actually ever following Christ.

And so even at the end of his days, Finney came to that realization that maybe only one to five percent of all the people that actually received the gospel under his ministry might have been saved. And you get this whole wash of false converts that swept through America, through all the United States, and they, a lot of people were simply just disillusioned. I tried Christ, it didn't work, and there was no sense of true discipleship. That was on the one hand, but on the other hand, If you look at the region where this burned over district originated, you know what you'll also find there? The spawn of almost every cult that you have in America.

If you look right there, what you'll find is these perfectionist cults that go about not preaching the gospel to make disciples, but to make proselytes to a false belief. And so who do we find just coming out of that, you know, this cauldron, this massive mess that was created but men like Joseph Smith, the father of the Mormons. Or you get another man like William Miller who's really, he was the one who said that in October 22nd 1844 Jesus Christ was gonna come back and when it didn't happen what you got was the birth of the Seventh-day Adventists and then you got the birth of Jehovah's Witnesses this this whole mess that was created because an improper preaching of the gospel without any understanding what the law is. And if this is the divine mandate to go into all the world to preach the gospel, commanding men to obey all things whatsoever I have commanded you, to make disciples, then we ought to take this seriously. What a difference it would have actually made if that mandate was obeyed instead of ignored when people were just interested in decisions and salvations quote-unquote instead of true disciples.

And so it's terrifying when you think of it like this, what the Lord Jesus himself said when he ended the Sermon on the Mount. This is what he said, he said, not everyone that says to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name, cast out demons in your name, and done many wonders in your name? And then I will declare to them, I never knew you. Depart from me, you who practice lawlessness.

You who practice lawlessness. And of course, what was Jesus preaching in the Sermon on the Mount? He was expounding, he was laying open the meaning of the law, the moral law of God. And so what does he say here? You lived your life as though I never gave you a law by which to live.

You built your house but not on the foundation that I laid for you. So this centrality of understanding the law of God, It is so important for us as believers and we want to contend tonight that the Word of God, the Words of Christ, are not only those that you find in in red letters in your Bibles, but it's the whole or the entire counsel of God revealed and as we heard about this afternoon in both the Old and in the New Testaments. And so tonight we're going to be looking at the law of God and this is a quote from one of the Puritans. He says, it's one of the hardest tasks in all divinity to give the law and grace their proper bounds. It's a very difficult task.

Where are the lines drawn? And so as a result of confusion you get the birth of antinomianism, you know, under the gospel dispensation. They say that the law has absolutely no use. In fact, the law is abrogated entirely by the gospel. You get the rise of legalism on the other side where they say that the law justifies by keep the law.

You get the rise of things like new covenant theology where only the words or the commands of Christ actually matter. And then you get all sorts of numberless cults that are promoting perfectionism, something that can never be attained on a foundation that is entirely faulty, but all of them have a common thread, and that is that they have a total misunderstanding of the law and therefore of the gospel and of God himself. And when we think of Christ, right, if you look at the law, how important is the law? Well, the law serves as that great backdrop of Christ's glory. If you want to see Christ more vividly and more powerfully and see him more importantly, then you need to understand the law because that's the backdrop that allows him to shine fairer.

It's the wonderful goodness on the one side, but on the other side the inflexible severity of God. And so this is what One writer said, Ernest Kevin said this in his book, and look at this when he's talking about the law, how central it is. He says, sin is the transgression of the law. The death of Christ is the satisfaction of the law. Justification is the verdict of the law, and sanctification is the believers fulfillment of the law.

And if you recognize a lot of those terms, right, justification, sanctification, those are all things we've covered so far, but all of them have a tie-in to the law of God. And so without the law, understand this, there is no gospel. And so tonight we're going to be taking a look at a few of the paragraphs, I'll try to get through four, but paragraph one, really paragraph one of the second London Baptist confession here in chapter 19, it speaks of the origins of God's moral law in relation to mankind and we'll deal with it in stages. I'll read it first and then we'll go through each phrase but it says this, God gave to Adam a law of universal obedience written in his heart and a particular precept of not eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil by which he bound him and all his posterity to personal entire exact and perpetual obedience promised life upon the fulfilling and threatened death upon the breach of it, and endued him with power and ability to keep it." And so we look at that first phrase where it says, God gave to Adam a law of universal obedience written where?

In his heart. And someone might say well when did this giving of the law of universal obedience actually take place? I thought you didn't see the law until Exodus, maybe Exodus 20 when when the law was given at Sinai, how is it that God gave Adam a law? Well it tells you right here it was written in his heart. And if you look in Genesis, the creation of man, right in chapter 1 verse 27, it says this, then God said let us make man in our image according to our likeness.

And so though it's not explicit in Genesis that there was a law written on Adam's heart, what we do know is that man was created in God's image. And what is the law? Well the law is a reflection of the character of God. It's not some arbitrary list of rules that God gives us to keep us in bounds. It's actually something that reflects the holiness and the beauty and the wonder of God.

And so that's one thing I want to make sure you take away. And this is really serving as the foundation of the conscience of all men. God has given man a natural knowledge. And if you want to dispute it or you're unsure, how do we make this grand leap that Adam had a law written in his heart? Well, a key text that you may want to look at is Romans chapter 2, 12 to 16, and this is what it says, and this is the Apostle Paul writing after talking about the Gentiles.

He goes on further to really look at when this actually happened. When did God write the law on the hearts of men? Well he says this, for as many as have sinned without law will also perish without law, And as many as have sinned in the law will be judged by the law. For not the hearers of the law are just in the sight of God, but the doers of the law will be justified. For when Gentiles who do not have the law, by nature do the things in the law, these although not having the law, are a law unto themselves who show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and between themselves their thoughts accusing or else excusing them, in the day when God will judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my gospel and so while they lack the written law in terms of it being on tablets of stone they didn't lack the Word of God the law of God imprinted on the heart.

You can no more escape the law of God written in your heart. Then a leopard can change its spots. It's actually one of the things that you would say is the atheist's greatest dilemma. They can't explain morality and the universality of morality that wherever you go in the world there's certain things that are universal. And I've talked to so many atheists and you talk to them and you say well you know tell me where in the world someone would say that it's okay to steal.

Well people steal all over the world, but tell me a place in the world where someone, if they're stolen from, does not feel violated. You won't find the place. Tell me a place in the world where one man can take another man's wife and go off with a clear conscience, but if his wife gets taken by another man, all hell would break loose. Because he understands it's a violation, something is happening that's not correct. And so God has put his law in the hearts of every man and it's impossible to escape.

This is also by the way the evangelist's best friend because when you talk to people, when you speak to them about their heart condition and you begin to peel back the layers little by little by questions and having discussions with them before you know it. They're left hopefully with an understanding whether they receive the gospel or not they understand that there's a standard outside of them by which to which they are accountable and the standard that they thought they were measuring up to, all of a sudden they see they fall dramatically short, and it's because God has put the law in their hearts. But not only did God give Adam a universal law, he also gave him a particular precept of not eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. And so this particular precept obviously doesn't apply to us today. We have the law of God put in our hearts as did Adam, but Adam also received this particular precept of not eating the fruit.

And so we find that also in Genesis chapter 2 this one and it says and the Lord God commanded the man saying of every tree of the garden you may freely eat But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil You shall not eat for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die And what was God doing? What's the purpose? You know one of the purposes of the knowledge of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was to show God to say to Adam that I want you to find all of your identity, your purpose, and truth in me. And eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil would essentially be saying, I'm going to turn to another source for my identity. I'm going to turn to another source for truth.

I'm going to turn to another source for my purpose. And if you begin to think about the gravity of what Adam did when he turned and committed this sin, it wasn't just plucking a fruit, but what he what it was representing in terms of him turning away in his heart from God. It's one of those most crucial tests where God was essentially asking Adam, will you rest content in the creator, creature, relationship, or framework that I have designed? And of course we know the end of the story where man, man rebelled. And we'll talk about this more in paragraph two, but the second part of this, it says this, by which he bound him, Adam, and all his posterity or his offspring, to personal, entire, and exact, exact and perpetual obedience.

And so, this is what Al Martin says, he says this, man as created by God is under an inescapable obligation to render perfect obedience. This is so critical. We have an inescapable obligation to render to God perfect entire obedience. And I would like to say to any of us that are sitting here today or tonight that are unsaved, whether a young man or young lady, those that are still outside of Christ, do you see and feel this inescapable obligation that you must render to God perfect obedience, that you must keep every single one of his commands perfectly. Of course from the day that you're born to the day that you die in order to be acceptable with God.

Well of course we know the impossibility of that. It's this great conundrum. We're guilty of transgressing a law that we have no ability to keep because of the sin nature working within us, but yet God still demands perpetual obedience. He doesn't tone it down or adjust his standard of righteousness because of our fallen state. God still holds up the standard of what his righteousness is.

This is the great dilemma, the great problem. So Adam falls, he falls from all the happiness and perfection that he enjoyed in creation. He rendered himself totally corrupt and miserable. And what does he do? He passes or transmits this depravity onto all of his offspring.

And so here's the great problem that you have if you do not know Christ is that you are right now abiding under the wrath of Almighty God because of his hatred of sin. It's one of the things that we need to really ponder. It doesn't get spoken about a whole lot. In fact, that was the great problem in the days gone by and even if you look in Our last century people didn't really get a sense of their own sin Jesus can offer me a better way a better life fix my marriage help me with my finances fine I'll check that box But there was no sense true sense for so many And when I look here even in North Carolina, you go out and you preach the gospel, it's not too far off from being a burned over district where a false gospel has gone out and people have checked that box. Would you believe it that even yesterday at the abortion mill, I'm talking to a young man who is there professing his own goodness and I had to stop him and say Aaron, Aaron you do know where we are don't you?

Look behind you. You're at an abortion mill killing your only child. By the way, who did you bring? Your girlfriend? The sin of fornication?

See, there's no sense of combination. He made a decision when he was little, but the life to live and obey? What is that all about? The other day I was talking to two lesbians just downtown in Wake Forest. One of them saying how much she loves Christ.

And I didn't say anything about them being lesbians, you could tell by their look. But one of them just partway through the conversation said in passing my wife and I said pardon me and she said my wife Again, blah blah blah carried on but they were somehow able to separate their love for the gospel With their actual obedience and following the commands of Christ. It's a terrible, terrible thing. We're not too far from it, maybe 200 years later after Phineas, because of the problems that have been promoted. And so God was never a debtor to sinful men.

He could have left us all to perish. Remember the angels that kept not their first estate? They're held under chains of darkness. They have no recourse at all. And God, He interposed His mercy.

He didn't have to, but He did. And he spared not his own son to save us in a way consistent with his perfections and so John Bunyan wrote this wonderful little just quick one sentence he says this is what he understood before he came to Christ run John run the law commands but gives me neither feet nor hands Far better news the gospel brings it bids me fly and gives me wings May God touch your heart as a young person or whoever you are do not hide Do not cover yourself with the figlies of your own righteousness proclaiming to live one way when your heart is in an entirely different place. And so he says this that they promised life upon the fulfilling and threatened death upon the breach of it and endued him with power and ability to keep it. Well Adam had it all didn't he? He had the ability and power to keep the law of God.

But of course we see the fact that he didn't do that but today even now before you today God puts the tree of life see two thousand years ago when Christ came it's as though the way back to God that was barred by the seraphim and their swords flaming had been reopened with the coming of Christ And so while Adam totally ruined everything with his sin, but we'd be entered into those sins and have entered into those sins willfully, the way to the tree of life has been open today. And the question is what will you do? How will you leave this place? How will you leave Jesus Christ when you can see on the one side the condemnation that you deserve and on the other side the offer of free grace to those who will repent and believe the gospel? And so we're gonna look, that's the first paragraph, The next three paragraphs, they break out the classification into three different aspects of the law.

We have the moral law, the ceremonial law, and the judicial law. And well, Two of those aspects, the judicial and ceremonial, have been abrogated or done away with or annulled. We'll talk about the actual definition of abrogate in Christ. They've been done away with. The moral law is still binding upon all men.

And so the second paragraph starts like this. It says, the same law that was first written in the heart of man, like we just spoke about, continued to be a perfect rule of righteousness after the fall. And was delivered by God upon Mount Sinai in Ten Commandments and written on two tables, the first four containing our duty towards God, and the other six our duty toward man. And so that first phrase, the same law that was first written in the heart of man, continued to be a perfect rule of righteousness after the fall. We've just covered this, right?

God did not lower his standard of righteousness after the fall. And so behold man's terrible, wretched, undone state. It's absolutely terrible. All he awaits is eternal damnation because of his terrible state. And it's still a perfect rule of righteousness even now and the reason being is that again the moral law of God is what it's a perfect reflection of God's holy character and righteousness and all you have to do is consider the opposite that if God lowered his standard of righteousness because man fell, or God just let man kind of go until Exodus 20, and that was the first giving of the law, then what would you do with the account of Cain, where God tells him that sin lies at the door.

If it wasn't written on the heart of man, what would Cain know about sin? Why would he be guilty of murder if there was no such thing as the law of God until later on in Exodus 20? Or what would you do with God destroying the earth in the days of Noah. Why? Because the earth was filled with violence.

It was set in the heart of men to do evil continually. On what basis would God justly condemn the world except the law of God was written in the hearts of all men. What would you do with the account of Sodom and Gomorrah where it says in Jude that their sin is set forth as an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire. In other words, the scriptures bear themselves out that of course the law of God was written on the hearts of men and so this is what the the author it's an it's an actually an anonymous author of a great book called the marrow of modern divinity and then speaking of of the law or what was delivered by God upon Mount Sinai, and says this, the Lord saw it needful that there should be a new edition in publication of the Covenant of Works. So we had it written on our hearts, But the Lord saw it needful in Exodus 20 To republish the covenant of works that they by looking upon this covenant might be put in mind What was their duty of old?

When they were in Adam's loins and what their duty still is. And so the the Ten Commandments that we're dealing with in this particular paragraph is really it's not an exhaustive treatment right the Ten Commandments is not an exhaustive treatment of the moral law of God. The laws of love that it's not exhaustive it doesn't cover every single aspect but it gives us a summary of God's law. But the key thing to know here is that the law did not originate in Sinai. That's not where it started.

It's rather a renewal of God's gracious relations with men and that's very important for us to understand. It's rooted actually back in Genesis and so we've got the Ten Commandments as we as we've most of our children would know if you ask a child what's the Fifth Commandment? Hopefully they know what that commandment is and we should pretty much know all of the commandments going through you know from one to ten it's amazing how many times you ask someone out in public they think they obey God and you say well what what are the commandments and they can't even tell you one if maybe they can tell you one or two from Sunday school from years gone by but they have no it's a very fuzzy recollection of a lot now it's written on their hearts but it's been effaced over the course of time men have suppressed the truth and unrighteousness they've gone their own way and so while it's still there they don't understand the full the fullness of it And so what does society try to do? These laws that God has given. Think about it.

Four laws that are dealing with God and six that are dealing with man. But what are these laws at their essence? They're laws of love. Love toward God and love towards your neighbor. And you would think well why would man find fault with that?

Well that's because man is so depraved and undone that he would go to any lengths. And this is what Robert Mount says, society set free from God is its own worst enemy. And I think we're seeing that in our modern day today, that men are running so far away, they're fugitives from the grace of God going headlong. And this is the problem. It's like a raft in the middle of the Pacific.

People are trying to paddle as far away and as fast as they can from the shore, thinking that they're going to be profited when all they will be is destroyed in the end. This is the society, this is man's heart, not just our modern day, but man's heart. And so man hates God in his heart. Man is accountable to God and for man to no longer be accountable to God. God must cease to be God or man must cease to be man but you will not have both.

You can't have both. So what does man often chose to do? Man debases himself. We see that in Romans 1 right? Serving the creature rather than the creator who's blessed forevermore.

Man would much rather put himself on a plane with apes and monkeys, say, you know, dog, whatever it is, he would rather reduce himself to that state than acknowledge that he is accountable to a creator. And all of these are smoke screens. When you think to what I was saying earlier, this whole thing with this LGBT thing, what is it at its core? It's a declaration of rebellion or independence against God. That's what it is.

I will determine who I am, not God. Yesterday we're at the abortion mill, one lady's giving us all sign language you can imagine, and she's driving, all of a sudden her car has to come to a stop because someone's pulling out, and she's there and we ask, well why are you so angry? It's my body, I decide what I want to do with my body. What is that? It's a declaration that I have no one above me.

At root, abortion, LGBT, even environmentalism, I must save the planet, I must do this. All of these are this elevation of man and a rejection of God at their root. An attempt to escape the inescapable obligation that all men have and it's this breach of this creator-creature relationship that God put all the way back in the days of Adam, that we are obligated to obey and keep his commands. And we would, the sad thing about man is we would rather worship stone, animals, and all sorts of other things, than turn our hearts to the living God. May God give us understanding.

And so the next two paragraphs deal with the ceremonial law and the judicial law. We'll see if we can get through these here. These are much shorter in terms of content. Paragraph three says this, that besides this law commonly called moral, God was pleased to give to the people of Israel ceremonial laws containing several typical ordinances, partly of worship, prefiguring Christ, his graces, actions, sufferings, and benefits, and partly holding forth divers instructions of moral duties, all which ceremonial laws being appointed only to the time of Reformation are by Jesus Christ, the true Messiah and only lawgiver, who is furnished with power from the Father for that end abrogated and taken away. And so we can look at this and say one of the more modern renderings of that first line when you look at second London Baptist confession it can be a little confusing because of that word typical well it's really you can read it like this besides this law commonly called moral God was pleased to give to the people of Israel ceremonial laws containing several typological ordinances, right, types.

Partly of worship, prefiguring or foreshadowing Christ, his graces, actions, sufferings, and benefits. And if I were to ask even some of the children today, what are some of the the pictures in the ceremonial aspects of the law that represent Christ? One of the first ones that might come to your mind is what John the Baptist said when he saw the Lord Jesus coming in the distance. Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world this unblemished sacrifice that was a type in the ceremonial law all the way through was obviously just a type of the one true thing to come, this foreshadowing. Even the feast days when you think of things like the feast of unleavened bread, right, you think of things like the feast of first fruits.

Well Christ is the first fruits and things like the Passover, the day of atonement, all of these things are pointing, they're not the substance like it says in Hebrews for the law in 10 1 it says this for the law having a shadow of the good things to come and Not the very image of the things it would be terrible to try to cling to a shadow. What would happen if you tried to do that? If you tried to put your weight on a shadow, you would fall through. Because it's not the thing, it's a reflection, it's a shadow of the real thing that's coming. And that's exactly what Christ is.

And Colossians says the same thing, that these things are a shadow of things to come but the substance is of Christ and so all that means to foreshadow means to indicate beforehand and Paul does this many times when he writes right He writes many times where he picks elements of the ceremonial law and then applies it to the way that people were living in the days, for example, in Corinth where he quotes from Isaiah 52. He says, come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord, do not touch what is unclean and I will receive you." Well that's a direct quote from Isaiah. And what he's basically saying is you need, he's pleading with the people to live separate holy lives by referring back to the book of Isaiah. And Paul also says this in regards to circumcision when he talks about how he is not a Jew. Remember in Romans?

He is not a Jew, who is one outwardly, but he is a Jew who is one inwardly, whose circumcision is that of the heart. In the Spirit, not in the letter, whose praise is not of men but of God. And so you see these aspects all the way through, whether it's the lamb, circumcision, the feasts, all these things, all of these things point to the thing that should come. Well the word abrogate is how this ends here, and it says, abrogate, it says, all which ceremonial law is being appointed only to the time of Reformation and are by Jesus Christ the true Messiah and only lawgiver who is furnished with power from the Father for that end abrogated and taken away. And all that word means, abrogate means to annul or to repeal by the authority of the maker or his successor.

And so that's exactly what has happened. They came to an end in the establishment of the new covenant. And you can think of things like Peter and Joppa, right, where you know he had never ever tasted anything unclean, and the Lord has to come down three times I think it is, in a trance to convince him that this is different. And of course we heard today how Peter fell back into that when Paul was writing to those in Galatia and he's talking about how he had to withstand Peter to the face because of his hypocrisy, because he was trying to please men at the same time as please God, which he could not do. And so we see that all the way through.

He was eating with the Gentiles as soon as the Judaizers appear, wipes his mouth from the pork, and you know cleans up and looks like everything was fine. He wasn't even with them. And so that's the problem that this man had because he didn't understand at that time, or he was wrestling with it, that the ceremonial aspects have been abrogated in Jesus Christ. And so the last paragraph we'll deal with very quickly is paragraph four. And it says, to them also he gave sundry judicial laws which expired together with the state of that people, not obliging any now by virtue of that institution, their general equity only being of moral use.

And so he gave them judicial laws which were to apply to the governing of the theocratic nation of Israel. These were given specifically to Israel, but of course when Israel expired as a nation under the judgment of God in 8070, so did these laws. And many people have tried to kind of bring it back, you know, you've got theonomy, you've got all these different ways, and a lot of confusion, I think, a lot of times in regards to the judicial law. But what the Second London Baptist Confession is saying here is that these expired. Now that doesn't mean that there's no proper use.

That's how this paragraph ends. Their general equity only being of moral use. Well of course we can learn from the judicial laws of God, but in terms of them being in full force and effect, that's another thing altogether. You might be able to look at, for example, the in Deuteronomy 22 where it talks about the the law the judicial law saying that when you build a new house along the rooftop you've got to build a parapet so if someone were to come to your house you know what do you do in those days and when it's hot in the middle of summer cool off in the night you might go up on the roof. Well the parapet was there to protect people from falling off the edge of the roof.

Well you can take that principle and you can apply it in our modern day. If you've got a swimming pool you might say well the responsible thing to do would be to build a fence around my pool, or if you've got a deck or a balcony or something else you're gonna put a fence or some sort of means of keeping people from from falling over in respect. It's not necessarily bound by this law but you can use the principles from that and apply it. And so you can implement these things in churches, you can implement them in states, of course, in countries, and we can look and see the wisdom, the equity, the justice of God, in many of these different laws. And so we've covered off the moral aspect of the law.

There's so much there. I mean there's so much we could talk about the ceremonial aspect of the law and the judicial aspect of the law. And because I said again, because there's so much confusion in our day, you get all these sorts of different thoughts, different viewpoints coming out with new covenant theology, antinomianism that's run absolutely rampant where the people actually feel that there's no law at all to obey and that it's legalistic if you even say there's a law to obey. Well when God became a Savior He did not cease to be a sovereign. Remember that, that He is both Lord and Savior.

And so just three quick things to think about in terms of conclusion here that we may want to apply to ourselves. And one of the things I would say is use the law whether you're a mother at home or you're out preaching the gospel use the law to show the sinfulness of sin and the holiness of God to show the the gap is entirely impassable between man and God. And even in a burned-out district like we live in the South, it's probably no more appropriate to actually preach and tell men where they stand before the Living God. Let's say leaving or deceive that making a decision or walking an aisle or saying a prayer is their means of justification. The other thing we want to remember is that we ought to delight in the law of God also in our personal lives.

I mean, what does it show when you look at the law of God? You see the perfection and the goodness of God. You know that you're not justified by the keeping of the law. God forbid that any of us would think that we're justified, but because God is living within us, it becomes a delight to want to obey. However imperfectly and stumbling along the way, we want to obey the laws of God and apply them in our daily lives.

The last thing I would say is that if you are outside of Christ altogether, repent, because you are in dire, dire need. And if you don't see that, may God give you eyes to see, a heart to understand that you may not be judged by the law, but rather come into Christ. Repent, put your faith and confidence in him, and he who kept the law perfectly, he becomes your righteousness. So may God help us. Father, we we do thank you for your law.

Lord, your law is perfect and holy and good. Lord, you tell us, blessed is the man that loves your law and keeps your law and walks in your ways. Lord, we do want these things to be in our heart. We want your law to be a delight. Lord, we heard the words of Christ who said, come to me all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

Take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I'm meek and lowly and hard, and you shall find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Father, may that be the experience of each of us as we live for you and walk in your ways, O Lord. We do pray, Lord, that the words preached today, even at the hospital, as Lester is lying there, Father, that he would see his condition before you as a lawbreaker, as a man undone without any recourse, except Jesus Christ the righteous. Oh Father, granted we pray in Jesus name amen