In his sermon titled 'The Law is Good,' Scott Brown emphasizes the importance and goodness of God's law, especially as elaborated in Romans 7. He begins by addressing the misconception that the law is synonymous with sin, asserting instead that the law reveals sin and incites self-righteousness and rebellion. Brown explains the multifaceted nature of the law, describing it as holy, just, good, and spiritual. He stresses that while the law has condemning power, it also provides guidance and directs believers toward Christ. Brown argues that a proper relationship with the law can lead to a more Christ-like life and significant blessings. He highlights that the law reveals God's righteousness, convicts of sin, constrains evil in society, and serves as a rule of life. Additionally, Brown discusses the pivotal role of fathers in teaching their children the law of God, emphasizing that obedience to the law brings numerous blessings, including prosperity, divine protection, and happiness. Through various scriptural references, he underscores that the law is integral to a believer's life, offering spiritual and practical benefits.

After seven and find verse seven. This is the inerrant, all sufficient, sweeter than honey, word of God. What shall we say then? Is the law sin? Certainly not.

On the contrary, I would not have known sin except through the law, for I would not have known covetousness unless the law had said, you shall not covet. But sin, taking opportunity by the commandment, produced in me all manner of evil desire. For apart from the law, sin was dead. I was alive once without the law, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died. And the commandment which was to bring life I found to bring death For sin taking occasion by the commandment deceived me and it killed me Therefore the law is holy and the commandment holy and just and good.

What then is what then has has then what is good become death to me? Certainly not. But sin, that it might appear sin, was producing death in me through what is good. So that sin, through the commandment, might become exceedingly sinful. For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin.

The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for these words to direct our hearts, to teach us in the ways in which we should go. So Lord, lift your shepherd's staff, the staff of your word, to help your people, to help all of us understand your will. I pray, oh Lord, that you would create in us, among us all together as a family here, a holy church who loves your law, who's been freed from the condemnation of the law.

Amen. Please be seated. Of course, the focus of Romans seven is the law of God. And the truth about this whole matter is that your relationship with the law of God will have massive consequences in your life. And It will either make you a legalist, or it'll make you an antinomian, or it'll make you a holy man or a woman of God.

It will make you one of the blessed on the earth, because there's so many promises for those who keep the law of God. And if you use the law rightly, as the apostle Paul told Timothy, the law is good as long as you use it lawfully. If you use it lawfully, you'll become more like Jesus Christ, as we'll see later. I was reading a book on the law of God by Ernest Reisinger. He said, the law of God is often crucified between two thieves, legalism and antinomianism.

But your relationship with the law will depend what kind of person you will be, what kind of citizen you will be, what kind of husband you will be, what kind of father you will be, what kind of child you will be, what kind of worker you will be. And your relationship with the law will determine how to engage every situation in your life that you'll ever face. And if you understand God's laws and God's ways, you'll always know what to do. Because you'll understand the principles and the commands and the precepts of the law of God. So when we come to Romans 7, we see this really brilliant flow.

In chapter 6, the apostle is defending the grace of God. And then, so that people don't conclude that the law of God is meaningless to them, In chapter 7, he defends the law of God, and he's explaining the purpose of the law. And in the previous verses, he has said, we are not under law, but under grace. And to be under the law is to rely on the law for justification and salvation and therefore to be under the condemnation of the law. That's what it means to be under the law.

To be under the law doesn't mean that you love the law and you keep it. He says that rather we are under grace, that we have been saved by grace, not by any works of the law, and are no longer under the condemnation of the law, which is so thrilling to me when I think about this community called the Church of Jesus Christ. They're no longer under condemnation. What a blessing that is. At the same time, true believers keep the law of God, yet always imperfectly, and by the power of faith through the grace of God.

In chapter five, we saw that the believer is standing in grace. It's like he's in this ever-flowing cascading shower of grace wherever the believer walks and that grace is and a really a transmission of God's truth and love and all of his kindnesses and the ways of his law. So what we've been saying is, you know, the believer is happiest under the consultation of the law, and the believer is happiest when he's out from under the condemnation of the law. And That's what the apostle has been saying and of course the the the life-giving power of the law if you could call it that is really that it draws us away from our greatest enemy, which is sin and compromise And the law shows us how much we need Jesus Christ. And the law is designed to teach us how to live.

So for the believer the commanding power of the law is still applicable, but for the believer, the condemning power of the law is ceased. And so in Romans seven, the apostle Paul, he's giving his personal testimony. This is, he's talking, his personal experience with the law of God and the difficulties and the conflicts and the condemnation, the failures that he's personally had in the law. And then we're gonna get to the next section, the next time I preach on this, we're gonna hear Paul say, wretched man that I am, who will deliver me? He's talking about his experience.

And you see these personal pronouns all the way through. I, I, I. And so he's actually giving this biographical picture in doctrine that the law was his tutor to bring him to Christ. So that's what he's saying here. We started this section last week.

I got to the first point I got to verse 7 and but we'll continue on this morning verse 7 if you have an outline in front of you you'll see this matter of the The way I'm gonna progress through this message here first of all the law reveals sin We won't camp on that so much because we spent all our time on verse seven last week. Second, the law incites myself righteousness and rebellion. And then third, the law is holy. Fourth, the law is just. Fifth, the law is good.

And sixth, the law is spiritual. So these are really six arguments for the goodness of the law of God, And of course the first is the law reveals sin. But let's look at verse eight. The law incites and kills my self-righteousness. Verse eight, But sin, taking opportunity by the commandment, produced in me all manner of evil desire, for apart from the law, sin was dead.

So what he's saying here is that The law reveals an occasion for sin. It's how sin is stimulated in us. And I think there are two parts to this. First of all, the law commands you. The law commands you, and at the command, sin is activated.

And yes, God is telling you how to live. He says, do this, don't do that. And we bow up and we resist. And the law reveals the rebellion, but we say, no, I'm okay. And, you know, the law is a little bit kind of like the check engine on your light on in your engine.

You know, it's like the overheat light. You get in your car and then there's the fastened seatbelt, bing, bing, bing, bing. It's like the low tire pressure gauge in your car and it's telling you something. It's inciting your self-righteousness and you say, well, I don't wanna put my seatbelt on, I don't wanna change my oil, And I'm just too busy to do all these things. And the law's like that.

And the Puritans said that the law slays the wicked. And that's what the law's designed to do. It's like a laser blaster in your soul, to incinerate what's not good, because we need that. And so, but then Paul verse 9 he says, but I was alive without the law, but when the commandment came sin revived and I died. What does it mean?

I was alive once without the law? Here's what I think he's saying. That he was alive but not spiritually alive. He was saying, I thought I was alive, I thought I was good, I thought I was keeping all the laws, I was doing everything right, and then the commandment, you know, thou shalt not covet, fell on his head and he realized that covetousness ran through his whole life, even though he was doing all the right things outwardly. And he's kind of like the rich young ruler came to Jesus, and he came saying that he had life, but he went away a dead man because he thought he had done everything that was right and I think the truth here is that that we we must be crushed before we can bear fruit unless unless we fall unless we're killed by the law we cannot have life And so it's important to preach the law to deflate our opinions of ourselves.

Because here the law deflates your self-righteousness. So then, but then, so the law incites self-righteousness, but let's move on, verse 12. But the law is holy as well. This is the third descriptor of the explanation of why the law is good. Therefore, the law is holy.

In other words, The law is like no other. The law reflects the holiness of God. It reflects the transcendence of God. It reflects the purity of God. And it reflects the equity of God and the demands of God.

And like someone has once said, you know, God is holy, but the bad news is we are not holy. So we need the law to direct us. We grew up thinking all kinds of ridiculous things. And we need to sort of be hemmed into what's not ridiculous. What's holy.

To begin to cleanse our minds, to wash our hearts in the water of the word To so that we are not conformed to this world but being transformed By the Spirit of God So the law is holy and that's why that's why in Psalm 19, you know, David, he says the law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul. The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart. The commandment of the Lord is pure and lightening the eyes. The fear of the Lord is clean and enduring forever.

The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. He says, more to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold, sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb. Moreover by them is your servant warned and in keeping them there is great reward. I'm going to elaborate more on that later. But you have this the law is holy.

David in Psalm 12 said that the words of the Lord are pure words like silver tried in a furnace of earth purified seven times. So first of all, the law reveals sin. Second, the law incites myself righteousness. And third, the law is holy. Fourth, the law is just.

The law is just. The law points to righteousness and justice. The law actually defines justice. Our sense of justice is all wacky, But God's sense of justice straightens it all out. You know, it's Father's Day.

By the way, God tells Abraham the purpose of his life, and one of the great purposes of his life is to teach his children justice. That's what dads are supposed to do. If you're a mom, head of your household, that's what you're supposed to do. Teach your children justice. Because the law defines justice.

You know, I was delighted last month, we had several of our men stand in front of the Wake Forest Board of Commissioners and they instructed the civil magistrate on the Word of God. And I heard all their messages, they were fantastic. But it's appropriate for the church to preach the law of God to the civil magistrate. This is one of our functions, this is actually one of our duties in the world, to instruct them in the ways of their creator. That's why in Deuteronomy 17, God commands the civil magistrate to write the law in his own hand, and to, And he's to do it all the days of his life So that he's careful to to observe.

I'm just quoting from Deuteronomy 17 18 observe all the words of this law and these statutes that his heart might Not be lifted up So it's appropriate to preach to the civil magistrate. And and as it turns out, you know, our local governors have an events policy that if you interpret it one way makes it think that you can allow evil in the streets of Wake Forest. And they're interpreting their policy that way. And you know, this is an event that's a celebration of pride, sexual perversion, same sex marriage, drag queens, torquing in front of your children, indecency, pedophilia. This is what the LGBTQIA2S plus movement, as it's now known, because this is a progressive movement, it keeps going.

You know, This is indecency in the streets. This is evangelists for puberty blockers and advocates of irreversible surgeries on men and women. And this is bringing evil into, this is bringing the idea that it's just fine for a man to be in a woman's locker room and watch her undress. I mean, this policy has, the way that it's being interpreted, if it's being interpreted rightly, is an evil policy because it allows evil in the streets. So does a civil magistrate have the right to bring evil into the streets.

No, it doesn't, regardless of its policy. So it's right that we observe the laws of God. Now, as you know, there are three categories of the law of God. We have to understand how to interpret them properly. You have the moral law, the civil law, and the ceremonial law.

The moral law is perpetual. The ceremonial law has been abrogated and fulfilled in Jesus Christ, the judicial laws, I'll just read out of our confession how to understand the civil laws. To them he gave them 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. In other words what's what a legitimate use of the law of the judicial laws of God is not that we must duplicate every law of Israel, but at the same time there is a moral equity, there's a general principle in every law of God. Every law of God is a good law.

Every single law in the Old Testament is a good law. In Jesus Christ, it's the law of Jesus Christ. So we don't want to say that any law of the Old Testament was bad. But these laws, as you read them, were designed specifically for the nation of Israel. But they have principles that we should be applying.

This is why we have laws of witnesses, this is why we have building codes and things, we have all kinds, this is why we punish criminals and there's restitution. There's so many of our laws that are derived from Deuteronomy. That's the general equity of the law. So the law is just. The law of God brings justice into your heart, into your family, into your church, and into your into your civil state.

That's what the reason God designed His law. The law is good for all those purposes. And then fifthly, the law is good. Verse 12. Now the Pharisees were twisting the good laws and making them mean what they didn't mean.

And that was the problem. But the law is good for everything. There's a general principle of equity in every law of God to inform our conscience, to help us to think rightly about the things that are happening in the world. The law of God teaches you how to raise your children. The law of God teaches you how to manage your emotions.

The law of God teaches you all kinds of things and it keeps you away from various traps. The law of God keeps you from worldliness. The law of God keeps you from syncretism. The law of God keeps you from immorality. The law of God keeps so many things in right order because the law is good.

And it's unfortunate that in evangelicalism you can find many people who will read an Old Testament law and they'll say, I don't like that law. But when they say that, they're only revealing that they don't have the heart of God. Because every law of God is a representative of the character of God. They emanate from him. This is why Moses in Deuteronomy 8, he said, every commandment which I command you today must be careful to observe that you may live and multiply and go in and possess the land which the Lord swore your fathers." He says observe carefully.

If you read Deuteronomy you'll see this whole idea of careful, be careful, be careful over and over again. He says be careful, be careful, be careful, and he says it here in Deuteronomy 8, every command which I command you today you must be careful to observe. You see the Lord Jesus Christ, he quotes this chapter when he's standing before the devil. And then six, the law is spiritual. The law is spiritual.

That's verse 14. For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal under sin. So I believe there are several implications of this statement and the first is that God is spirit and therefore his law is spiritual. And secondly, the law was designed to penetrate to the innermost meditations of the heart. The law is not wooden.

The law does not stop without outward behavior. The law moves into the deepest meditations of our hearts. You know, some of you have had leaky roofs. The law is like water. Water will find the hole when it drops on your roof.

It was somehow it just finds the hole. You know maybe you have a hole over here but the leak is over here because the water will find the leak, find the hole. The law is a little bit like, well, what we call nanotechnology, you know, these electron microscopes that have a magnification of 50 million times, right? And they start out with this cell. See, we used to only think that there was just a cell in their cell division and on our little micro, little, you know, baby microscopes that we had in the 1970s, you know, but now we have microscopes that are 50 million times magnification.

So there's some remarkable videos on this, but It just, the depth just keeps going deeper and you see more and you see more and you see more. And you finally realize it's infinite. You can't get to the bottom of it. But I think the law is a little bit like that. It's meant to penetrate every corner of your conscience, to teach you in the way in which you should go.

Not to save your soul, but to teach you in the way you should go. That's the purpose of the law. But the law is like God the Spirit. In fact, Jesus said my words are spirit and they are life. They go deep.

They weren't meant just to say, hey, Stop stealing. They weren't meant to say, you know, you're gonna be just fine as long as you don't murder anybody. The law's a lot deeper than that. It goes into the innermost meditations of your heart. And that's why the writer of Hebrews said in Hebrews 4, he said, for the word of God is living and powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword, even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart but then he says and there's no creature hidden from his sight But all things are naked and open before the eyes of him who must give an account." You know, God and his law is like that electron microscope.

He sees deep. You know, this is why real Christians, they often wonder if they're saved because they see remaining corruption in their heart. The law of God is revealing it to them. And the danger is that you'd become so depressed at your imperfections. And that's why we have the gospel of Jesus Christ.

And I think that's why for the first, you know, six and a half chapters of Romans, the apostle Paul is pounding away at justification by faith alone, not according to your works. But, you know, when you read Matthew five, it's very clear that Jesus is saying that The law is actually a lot stricter than you thought, because it covers everything. You run into people on the street, they're feeling so good about themselves. I've never killed anybody, I haven't even committed adultery, But they have no idea who they really are. But there is an electron microscope with 50 million X magnification that sees everything.

So the law is spiritual. So there you have six reasons the law is good. Now I want to just spend the rest of the time in application and just further talk about how to interpret the law of God. And the first application is that, is really a question, You know, has the law killed your self-righteousness? You can be a church person and keep congratulating yourself you know, that you're such a good law keeper.

But do you know Jesus Christ? You know, do you delight in the law of God, in the inward man? Do you love his law? Do you want to follow him with all of your heart? Or are you still resisting him?

You know, has the law killed you yet? Are you condemned yet? Because no one really becomes a Christian unless they understand that they're hopeless and And they only, their only hope is the righteousness of Jesus Christ, that there is only one law keeper. Jesus Christ kept every law. And that's our problem, is that we can't keep every law.

James says if you've broken one law, you've broken them all. So has the law killed your self-righteousness? You know, mankind has this tendency. He would like to, you know, shoot an arrow and wherever it lands, just paint a bullseye around it. Yeah, I'm fine.

This is what man does. So the first application is, has the law killed your self-righteousness? The second application here is really maybe more informative. Whatever you say about the law of God, it should be what Jesus Christ and the prophets and the apostles said about the law. And it's very interesting if you look at Jesus Christ, how did Jesus Christ use the law?

By the way, Jesus quoted from Deuteronomy more than any other book of the Bible. It was the book that Jesus loved. He loved to quote from Deuteronomy because he loved the law. But when he was tempted by the devil for 40 days in Matthew chapter 4, he quotes Deuteronomy 8.3, man shall not live by bread alone. He rejected the temptation to jump off the temple by quoting Deuteronomy 6.16, you shall not tempt the Lord your God.

He rejected the temptation to worship Satan by quoting Deuteronomy 6.13, you shall not worship, you shall fear the Lord your God and serve him only. And when teaching about the family, Jesus is almost always quoting Deuteronomy. He quotes Deuteronomy 5 16 when he's talking about a matter of taking care of your older parents when when teaching about owes he quotes Deuteronomy 23 verse 22 and teaching about how hard it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven in Matthew 19, he quotes Deuteronomy 5, 16-20. When he's teaching about genuine love toward God in Mark 12, he quotes Deuteronomy 6, the Shema. When he's teaching about the resurrection in Matthew 22, 23, he quotes Deuteronomy 25, verse five through 12.

In John 3, 14, Jesus compares himself with the bronze serpent. You know, when Jesus is teaching his disciples about the relationship between love and obedience, he quotes a Deuteronomy. And then in Matthew 5 he says, Do not think that I came to destroy the law or the prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. For assuredly I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled.

Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches men so shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven But whoever does and teaches them he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven so In applying this How whatever you think or say about the law of God, it should be consistent with what Jesus says about the law of God. Here's another application. The law of God should engage the soul in four things. First of all, a revelation of the righteousness of God. What is God like?

Because every law of God is a reflection of the character of God. And as a result of that, not only should the law of God take us into awe and devotion and worship of God, but what happens is that it should lead a person from guilt and condemnation to repentance and faith, to justification and forgiveness, and then finally to guidance and obedience. That's the progression. And so it discloses the righteousness of God. That's what this should do to the soul.

Secondly, it should convict of sin. We've already talked about that. By them is your servant warned. The laws should be doing business with your soul to convict you of sin. And the third is that it constrains evil in the personal realm and in the civil realm.

You know, I was just reading recently in Kings and Chronicles, and every king, every nation, every people either rises to prosperity or is destroyed by God if they keep the law or not. Keep the law or not or if they tamper with the worship of God. You tamper with the worship of God, you despise the law of God, God will destroy your nation. It's remarkable, read the history of the nations. And that should prevail.

But the law, God's laws constrain evil in the society. Now, I was reading this book called The Book That Made Your World by Vishal Maungalwadi. He's an Indian who talks about how the Bible impacted Indian culture. But he tells this story of he's on a train, he's talking to this, he's in England and he's talking to a Sikh, an Indian businessman. And he couldn't, this businessman couldn't understand why Malgavati didn't, he wanted to go back to India.

Why do you want to go back to India? And the businessman said, the man said the reason that I don't go back to India to do business is it's so easy to do business in England. And he said why is it so easy to do business in England instead of India? He said because in England, everybody trusts you. He's, and then he tells this story of, of he later, he goes to, Maghavati goes to a dairy in a dairy farm in Holland and he was with a friend.

And his friend said, hey, let's go get some milk. So they drove over to the dairy, walked in the door, went over to the spigot, filled up their jug. He took his, the friend took his money out, put it in the, put it in the bucket and there was a bunch of cash there and, and, and Malgawadi said if this was India and I walked out with the money and the milk, the dairy owner would have to hire a cashier. Who would pay the cashier? I, the consumer, would and the price of milk would go up.

But if the consumer were corrupt, why would the dairy owner be honest? He would add water to the milk to make more money. I would then be paying more for adulterated milk. I would complain the milk is adulterated and the government would appoint inspectors. Who would pay for the inspectors?

I, the taxpayer, would pay. But if the consumer, producer, and the supplier were corrupt, why should the inspectors be honest? They would extract bribes from the supplier. If he didn't bribe them, the inspectors would delay the supply and ensure that the milk was curdled before it got to me. Who would pay for the bribe?

Again, I the consumer would pay the additional cost. By the time I paid for the milk, the cashier, the water, the inspector, and the bribe, I would have little money left to buy chocolate milk. So my children would not drink the milk that would be weaker than the Dutch children. Having spent extra money on the milk, I would not be able to take my children out for ice cream. The cashier, the water, the bribe, the inspector add no value to the milk.

The ice cream industry does. So hey the whole idea here is if you have a corrupt society, the society is in a state of collapse. But if you have honest people, if you have people who actually are governed by the law of God and they will not steal, the blessings flow and you trust one another. And you can have a bucket full of cash and you know that no one will steal from it because you have a holy people and This this point here, you know is that the law of God constrains evil in the culture. And then fourth, the fourth impact on the soul, the law is a rule of life.

So, the law is good. The law is a blessing. And I want to spend, I would like us just to understand what blessings that flow from the law of God. In Joshua 1-8, God promises prosperity to those who meditate on the law of God this book of the law shall not depart from your mouth but you shall meditate on it day and night that you may observe to do all that is written in it for then you will make your way prosperous and then you will have good success. In Exodus 19 verse 5, God promises to treasure a people who keep his law.

In Exodus 23 22, God promises to stand against your enemies if you keep the law of God. He like puts a force field around you. In Isaiah 1 19 God promises to sustain you in the land if you obey Him. In Deuteronomy 28 1 through 68 It's a long treatise on the blessings and the curses, the blessings of those who keep the law and the curses upon those who do not. And he opens up with, if you diligently obey the Lord your God to observe carefully all his commandments, which I command you today, that the Lord your God will set you high above the nations of the earth and blessing shall come upon you and overtake you because you obey the voice of the Lord your God.

Blessed shall you be in the city. Blessed shall you be in the country. Blessed shall be the fruit of your body, the produce of your ground, and the increase of your flocks. Blessed be your basket and your kneading bowl. Blessed shall you be when you come in and blessed shall you be when you go out." That's six verses out of 68 verses of declaring what a blessing it is to follow the law of God.

In Ephesians six, one through three, God promises children that it'll go well with them if they obey the fifth commandment. In Matthew chapter seven, you have the story of the man who built his house upon the rock. And by the way, in Matthew seven, the rock is not Christ. The rock is obedience. It's the one who obeyed the law of God.

That's the one whose house was preserved when the rains came and the floods came upon that house. Those who did not keep the law of God, their houses were swept away. Those who did keep the law of God, their houses stood. In Luke 11 28, Jesus promises happiness to those who keep the law of God. In John 14, 21, Jesus promises his love would fall down upon those who keep his commandments.

In John 14, 23, Jesus promises that if anyone keeps his word, he and his father will come and make a home with him. In John 15, 10, Jesus promises that if you keep his commandments, you will abide in his love. In John 15, 14, Jesus promises friendship to those who obey him. In Psalm 1 and 1 and 2, God promises happiness and fruitfulness and prosperity to those who delight in his commandments. Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the ungodly.

But you had this other man who's like a tree planted by rivers of water who's bearing fruit in his season. In John 3 22 the Lord promises to answer the requests of those who keep his commandments. In John 5 3 we are told that the love of God causes you to keep his commandments. I could go on and on. I could go on and on.

I could go on and on. I think I could go on for another 40 minutes with references like that. Get the point? Get the idea? What I'm hoping from this message and from our time together is that anyone who does not know the relief of being freed from condemnation would come to Jesus Christ and love the law of God with all your heart and follow him all the rest of your days.

You won't regret it. Come to Jesus Christ and receive the bountiful grace and stand in it every day for the rest of your life. But also, it is Father's Day. And God has given fathers the responsibility to teach their children the law of God. Deuteronomy 6 makes this very very clear.

God prioritizes men in many ways in terms of leadership. Men are shepherds. A father is like an anchor in his family. A father set the tone. Are you setting the tone for delight in the law of God and the Rejection of anything that contradicts the law of God in your family.

It's so critical that you do that God for some reason has given parents tremendous influence and they need to be careful how they wield that influence and So I'm here to say you fathers and mothers that are here, saturate your families with the law of God. Make sure your children know that the law's not wooden, but that it's spiritual. Tell them that it reveals sin. Show them that it unravels their self-righteousness. Teach them that the law's holy, that the law's just, that the law's good.

Teach them that the law's spiritual and it's meant to change them right from the inside out and that God sees all the meditations of their hearts at 50 million X magnification. And so they might as well just follow him because there's nothing hidden from his sight. Let me read you an excerpt from a poem I received from a little girl in our church just this last week and it really captures really everything I wanted to say today. The poem is called Sweeter Than Honey. The Word of God is sweeter than a honeycomb.

It dwells richly in my heart. I like to read it everywhere. If I did not know the Word of God, then my heart would break apart. Thus saith the Lord." Something very consistent with the word of God. I commend to you the law of God.

Let's pray. Father, we thank you for the penetrating nature of your word. We are so thankful for the cleansing power. We are so thankful that your law has been a tutor to lead us to Jesus Christ and all the relief that we have to stand in grace. Lord, I pray you'd bless this congregation with such an ardent and careful obedience to your law and love for it with all the heart.

Amen.