Scott Brown's sermon explores the applicability of God's law, emphasizing its importance in the context of 1 Timothy 1:8, which states that 'the law is good if one uses it lawfully.' The sermon is part of a series on the pastoral epistles, focusing on the law's beauty, applicability, and the sufficiency of Scripture. Brown highlights the urgency in Paul's letters to Timothy, addressing the misuse of the law in the church at Ephesus and stressing the importance of lawful use. The sermon delineates the three purposes of the law: to reveal the need for a Savior, to constrain evil, and to guide believers. It discusses the three divisions of the law — moral, ceremonial, and judicial — and their relevance today. Brown explains how the moral law is perpetual, the ceremonial law was fulfilled in Christ, and the judicial law expired with Israel, yet its principles apply broadly. The sermon references the 1689 Baptist Confession to illustrate the law's role in church life and personal conduct, advocating for the harmony of the law and the gospel and encouraging believers to cherish and adhere to God's law.

Please open your Bibles of 1 Timothy chapter 1 and find verse 8. 1 Timothy 1 verse 8. This is the inerrant, all-sufficient, sweeter than honey word of God. The law is good if one uses it lawfully. Let's pray.

Father, thank you so much for giving us your word, these ancient words that are ever true, changing me and changing you. We're so grateful for your giving us such a law. Amen. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever. Please be seated.

We're making our way through the pastoral epistles. We started with Titus. We finished that. We're now in 1 Timothy, and then headed into 2 Timothy. Paul's writing these pastoral letters at the very end of his life.

I feel like This is the sense of urgency. He's getting ready to leave this world and he's really trying to tie up the ends for the churches that remain until Christ comes again. And in this series here, We're camping on this phrase in 1st Sympathy 1-8, the law is good if one uses it lawfully. We began really in part one to really explain the beauty of the law and we camped on that for an entire Sunday just how beautiful it is and then here in part two we're focusing on the applicability of the law with lots of details and then finally on next Sunday we're going to conclude this time with the doctrine of the sufficiency of Scripture. But why are we doing such a thing?

Well it's right in our way here in First Timothy, but at the same time we've got lots of young people in our church that grew up here and it was a long time ago that I preached through the book of Deuteronomy and everybody got kind of an advanced degree on how to use the law of God. But so I what I really hope you young people will do is take really good notes because their distinctions and helpful classifications of how to use the law of God that that is really really important and this this these letters are some of the most complete and important guidance for local church life in the whole Bible. And the organization of the church, the challenges of the church, the worship in the church, men and women in the church, and these verses here launch the whole discussion. But the problem with this church in Ephesus, because Paul is speaking, he's writing to Timothy, who's the pastor in the church of Ephesus, is that there was tumult in the church because there were teachers of the law that were misusing the law of God. And it was such a serious matter that the Apostle Paul had to tell Timothy, remain on in Ephesus.

In other words, don't leave, stay, stick it out, and teach this church how to use the law lawfully. And there was idle talk and focus on myths and genealogies and fantasies and all kinds of stuff that's supposed to you know relate to the Word of God and it was very harmful and it was and it was unprofitable for them. And so what the Apostle is doing is he's setting the record straight talking about the law. Now, tis the season of the midterm elections where Americans are going to go to the polls and we're going to elect lawmakers. And hopefully law keepers, often the lawmakers aren't the law keepers, but the laws of God actually most of them were adopted by American lawmakers and incorporated into our law codes.

We'll get to that here in a little in a minute but we are a nation and this is so critical that believes in the rule of law. We believe that no man is above the law. And this is a really critical principle in our times. The survivability of a nation is dependent upon this. And that means the survivability of a church is dependent upon this.

And that means that the survivability of a family is also depend depending upon this and at the same time the last hundred years in America particularly has witnessed what I'll call the rise of evangelical antinomianism, in other words, no lawism, where the law has been treated as irrelevant and this was fomented particularly through the Schofield Study Bible and the Rirey Study Bible many years later and then the rise of New Covenant theology, which is a movement that says the only Old Testament laws that are valid today are repeated in the New Testament. So we have a moment in history that it's critical to address these type of things. Well at the same time there are many around us who have been taught that Jesus softened the law and that the because the law was too hard for imperfect beings and therefore God sent Jesus to send a milder version of the law and of course I think the scriptures contradict that very very clearly So you have you have Protestants that don't believe the law is applicable today and I wanted to just drive a stake in the ground to try to explain why we don't believe that here.

When you believe that type of thing, there's actually a residual effect that's very dangerous to all of us, and that is it leaves us to our feelings to interpret what to do, and that's usually pretty dangerous because the heart is obviously wicked. Now there are three purposes of the law that I want to state very clearly if you're taking notes especially you young people I want to see all you young people taking notes. First of all the first purpose of the law is to know our need for a Savior, to know our need for a Savior. The second purpose of the law is to constrain evil, to act as a curb, And then the third use of the law is to guide and to instruct believers on the ways in which they should live. So the first purpose of the law to show us our need of a savior acts like a mirror.

It shows us who we are. The second use to constrain evil. It's it's like a curb. And the third use it's like a light unto your path. That's what David said.

So Paul is correcting these unhealthy uses of the law. And I want to just reiterate just how beautifully the Bible speaks about the law of God and how it interplays with the gospel of Jesus Christ. And you know the Bible has so many clear representations of what the law of God is to the human. It's treasure like gold. It's sweet like honey.

It's refreshing like water. It's purifying like fire that scatters evil in your life. It shapes you like a hammer. It's nourishing like manna. There's just so many compelling images.

It's almost like God wants to give you 50 reasons to love his law to show you how good it is for you. Lewis Galson in one of my favorite books I've ever read called God Breathe, he wrote it in the 1800s, he said, the word of God is a compass to steer you to eternal life. It is a heavenly magnet. I really hope that's what the law of God is for you. And all of the promises of God's blessing will fall upon you as you have, I'm sure, read many times Psalm 1.

Blessed is the man who loves the law of God, the whole song. But Jesus said in Matthew five, 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, not 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 shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. Those are astounding words. And of course, David made it so clear in Psalm 19, 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 and he just goes on and on and on.

David said in Psalm 119, 92, unless your law had been my delight, then I would have perished in my affliction, for by them you have given me life. And of course the Lord Jesus Christ said, if you love me, you will keep my commandments, John 14, 15. So this is what the Bible says about the law. And yet it's confusing for some people because they think of statements like from the apostle Paul, we are not under law but under grace. And what the apostle meant by that is that we're not under the condemnation of the law, and we are not under the law as a method of salvation or credit before God but we delight in the law because it exposes our sin because it leads us to Christ because it teaches us how to live.

But even more than that, the law of God, every single law of God, is a descriptor of God's character. It tells you something about God and what holiness looks like. So freedom from the law of course is not freedom from obedience. That's not what the Apostle was talking about because he makes that very very plain And he makes it very plain that God's commandments are not arbitrary restrictions imposed on us to impair our happiness, but they're actually expressions of goodness and love and wisdom and moral beauty. So that's what the Bible says and that's why David said, how sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth.

And I pray that's really the whole culture of your heart and the culture of our church as we continue to move forward. But I want to use the our confession of faith the 1689 Baptist confession to help us to get some more detail on how to use the law because that's what the the Apostle is addressing in 1st Timothy 1 8. The law is good if one uses it properly. It really matters how you use it and our confession is a brilliant picture and description of how you use it. You know over the years as I've had interns here of some of the classes I've asked them to memorize this chapter, chapter 19 in the confession because it's so clear.

And here's just kind of a quick summary of it. It speaks of the usefulness of the law first, and secondly, the harmony of the law and the gospel. And so I want to refer here to the 1689 Baptist Confession. On the back of your outline it's printed out so you can follow some of the words if you'd like to do that. And this confession teaches the positive usefulness of the law of God.

And it's interesting the way that it's organized. The first five paragraphs, there are seven paragraphs, the first five paragraphs deal with the law in redemptive history from the very beginning and then the final two paragraphs place the law's importance in the believers life very explicitly So that's how it's arranged. And reform Protestants have contended that the Bible explains the uses of the law by distinguishing between three different categories. The ceremonial law, the judicial law, and the moral law. And so that's what we're going to talk about here this morning.

The same argument is in the Westminster Confession of Faith and the Savoy as well. That the moral law is perpetual, that the ceremonial law is a shadow picture in Christ, and that the judicial law was designed for the nation of Israel and is applicable according to what the confession calls general equity or the general principles. We don't live in Israel today but there are principles of the law of Israel that we can apply in our nation and they can be applied in every nation. Every nation needs to create its own laws to address the particular things that are going on in their culture according to the principles of the Ten Commandments. And so what you find here is first of all the law in the garden.

So let's talk about that and it's very important that we understand how critical It is that we find this understanding of the law in the garden. In the first paragraph of the confession, I'll just read the first phrase. God gave to Adam a law of universal obedience written in his heart. This is Adam before the law was given on Mount Sinai. God implanted the law in his heart.

This means that the first Adam had the law of God imprinted and implanted in his conscience and this is often called natural law. Laws that everybody everybody knows. Romans 2, 14 speaks of this, for when Gentiles who do not have the law, the written law, by nature do the things in the law, these although not having the law, are a law to themselves who show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness. And that's why it is that every nation in the world understands that and they frown, they frown on stealing, they frown on lying, they frown on adultery, they frown on the things that are in the Ten Commandments, They're violated in the Ten Commandments. And while not every nation has the same sensibility of law, they are very, very similar all over the world.

And the reason is that every person is similar all over the world. And it's because the law of God was implanted into the heart of the human soul and that was passed on generationally from one family to the next. There's a wonderful description of this in C.S. Lewis's book, Case for Christianity, in the first section. It's actually quite humorous where he talks about how it's so clear that everybody believes in law.

You know, and every child believes in law, every adult believes in law, and you can tell because they might say that's mine. They believe in a law or I think I should get be first. Well what does that mean? Everybody believes in law. So this means that in the garden, mankind was aware of the Ten Commandments.

And that's why in Deuteronomy 30 verse 14, we read these words, But the word of God is very near you, in your mouth, and in your heart, that you may do it." So the second part of this disclosure of the law in the garden. The next phrase is, and a particular, so not only was the law of God implanted in the heart, but a particular precept of not eating the fruit of the tree of the 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 the ability to keep it. In other words, Adam was threatened that if he broke the law, that he would die. And this is often called the covenant of works, that God made a covenant with man that if he kept the law, he would live, but if he even broke that single command, do not eat, that he would die. And this is the principle that God required a perfect and personal obedience, promising life for obedience and threatening death for disobedience.

And it really serves as a warning to mankind of how dangerous sin is. It must be punished. Something must die. And then You also have, you know, particularly in Genesis 315, God promises a way of grace. This is called the covenant of grace.

So you have the covenant of works and the covenant of grace. And under Jesus Christ, Mankind is under the covenant of grace for those who believed and God freely grants forgiveness and righteousness and eternal life to all who believe in Jesus Christ. So this is the unity and the continuity of the Old and the New Testaments. You have the law written in the heart. Here's a lesson.

Here's a lesson. God has been very kind to you to implant in your heart a sense of right and wrong. You think what you would be like if God had not implanted his law, if he had not written his law in your heart, what would you be like today? You would be a wild animal because there is a constraint in the heart of every human being that God has placed there. And of course, The conscience can be seared and people can rebel obviously, but this is something that no person can get away from is the voice of the law of God in their hearts.

They might try to suppress it, but they will never be able to extinguish it. So the next paragraph. This is about the delivery of the law on Mount Sinai. Paragraph two, the same law that was first written in the heart of man continued to be a perfect rule of righteousness after the fall and was delivered by God upon Mount Sinai in Ten Commandments and written in two tablets, the first four containing our duty towards God and the other six our duty toward man." Now this might sound revolutionary to you but the Ten Commandments given on Mount Sinai were not new. They were already delivered to Adam.

They were written on his heart. Adam and Eve knew the Ten Commandments. But now the law was written in stone. And of course Satan has rebelled against the Ten Commandments from the very beginning and so God wrote them on two tablets and you know why did God give the Ten Commandments I think to particularly define and clarify so that every man would know in stone what was right and what was wrong And this is a contradiction to the whole spirit of the age of following your heart and doing your own thing and finding your own truth and all of these things. The great Satanist of the 20th century, Alistair Crowley, said it like this, Do what thou will, shall be the whole of the law.

That's Satanism. Do whatever you want that is the law. So you have these two tablets and you have the first four are duties toward man or toward God and then the final are duties toward one another. This is called the two tables of the law. It's really important that you young people understand that there are two tables of law, your duty toward God, that's the first table, and the second table, your duties toward man.

So the moral law was written on human hearts in the garden, and then the moral law was codified in tablets of stone. The the Ten Commandments themselves they're like it like a full body scan to help you determine your spiritual health. I'll say that again. The Ten Commandments are like a full body scan going all through your whole spirit and soul and life to understand your spiritual health. They're like this portable MRI that's detecting imperfections in your soul.

Here's a lesson. In order to give you a lifelong measure to keep you from leading, to keep you from being led astray. God gave you specific commandments in stone to keep you from straying from the very specific commandments of God. You can just consider how good God is to do such a thing for mankind. The reason that there's any love alive in the world is because of the law written in the heart of man.

That's the only reason. The only reason you see kindness, the only reason you see grace and mercy anywhere in the world, wherever you see it, it came from somewhere, and it only came from one place. It came from the law of God written in the heart of man. Now I want to make a little transition as we move to the next paragraph because we now turn to the ceremonial and the judicial laws And this is what's really critical to understand. And we find that the Bible deals with the moral law and the ceremonial law and the judicial law differently.

And The reformed understanding that's codified in our confession makes it clear that the moral law is perpetual and that the ceremonial law was fulfilled in Christ and abolished. That's why you don't have the sacrificial system today. And the judicial law expired with Israel, but is profitable for all nations in principle. So why three divisions of the law? I'm going to give you four reasons why we believe that there are three divisions of the law.

So I know this might seem a little ponderous for a minute but I want you to try to track with me on this. The first reason is that the Old Testament itself distinguishes the Ten Commandments from all the other laws. The Ten Commandments were spoken by God, they were written by his finger on stone, and they were placed in the Ark of the Covenant. None of the other categories of the law experienced that same treatment. The second reason is that the Old Testament distinguishes between moral obedience and sacrificial observance.

The Old Testament distinguishes between moral obedience and sacrificial observance. And it's very clear that there is a prioritization in the Old Testament of morality over ritual. And you find this in different places in 1st Samuel 15 22. To obey is better than sacrifice. It's a higher morality than the ceremonial law to obey God.

Psalm 40 verses 6 through 8, the sacrificial system is again distinguished from the moral law. Here's what he says, sacrifice and offering you did not desire. My ears you have opened. Burnt offering and sin offering you did not require." In other words the moral law is superior to the ceremonial law even in the Old Testament. In Psalm 51 we read that God desires a broken and contrite heart.

He says this in Psalm 51, 16. For you do not desire sacrifice or else I would give it. You do not delight in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart. These, oh God, you will not despise." So there is a distinction, even in the Old Testament, between the ceremonial law and the moral law.

And then the third, the third reason is that the New Testament as well treats ceremonial requirements differently than the continuing moral commands. Even the New Testament has this distinction. In 1st Corinthians 7 19, Paul takes an element of the ceremonial law, circumcision, and he says that it's inconsequential, but at the same time he's insisting on keeping God's moral law. In Hebrews 9 verse 9 all the way to chapter 10 verse 10 we learn and this is so clearly stated the ritual regulations were temporary and they were fulfilled in Jesus Christ. And yet in Ephesians six, one through three, the apostle takes one at one of the commandments, one of the Ten Commandments, and he brings it over.

And it's the fifth commandment. He invokes the fifth commandment in the moral law of God as authoritative for Christian children and their parents. So the moral law of God is very clearly brought over into the New Testament. Here's the fourth reason. The New Testament applies judicial laws through their underlying principles.

The New Testament treats judicial laws according to their underlying principles And I'll give you a couple of examples. One is the un-muzzled ox is used in the Old Testament law in Deuteronomy 25 to support payment for ministers. The law says do not muzzle the ox while he treads out the grain. In other words, don't starve your ox. That's the Old Testament.

The apostle Paul uses that for pastors. Don't starve your pastor. That's what he uses. But he uses a principle of the law. It's kind of odd, isn't it, that he would use that one.

But he uses a principle of the judicial law and he applies it. It applies its general equity, its general principle for the paying of pastors. Another requirement of the law was multiple witnesses for accusations in Deuteronomy chapter 19 verse 15. This is the law of witnesses of the Old Testament. This is a judicial law out of the case law in Deuteronomy.

And 1 Timothy 5 19 carries that principle over in the, if there's an accusation against an elder. There must be multiple witnesses. He's carrying over that judicial law, not in its literal nature, but in its principial nature. And he applies it to when there's an accusation against an elder there must be multiple witnesses so the The New Testament applies judicial laws Not literally but through underlying principles. So that's why we believe in the three divisions of the law.

And so then let's turn now to the ceremonial law. That's in paragraph three in chapter 19 of the confession. So let's read it. Besides this law, commonly called moral, God was pleased to give the people of Israel ceremonial laws containing several typical, in other words, they are types, typical ordinances, partly of worship prefiguring Christ, His graces, actions, sufferings, and benefits, and partly holding forth diverse instructions of moral duties all which ceremonial laws being appointed only to the time of reformation which is the time of Christ and his resurrection are by Jesus Christ the true Messiah and the only lawgiver who was furnished with power from the Father for that end abrogated and taken away So the sacrificial system ended in 70 AD. The Jews can no longer practice their religion.

It's impossible. They're left to drift with no religion like of their heritage. And so the ceremonial law was a system of temple sacrifices, of priesthood requirements, of ritual purity, of food laws, no pork, no shellfish, festival calendars, the Passover, circumcision, animal sacrifice, all of that, every bit of it was swept away by Jesus Christ when the curtain of the temple was rent and the sacrificial system ended forever in 70 AD. So this is the the ceremonial law. Hebrews 10 says that these were types, they were pointing to something better.

They were temporary, they were temporary and they were typical that's a way to think about it they were temporary and then they were types of Jesus Christ. In Colossians 2 17 they were a shadow but the substance is Christ and remember in the book of Acts Trent preached on this in Acts 10 where this was with the apostle Peter's sheet vision where the food laws were proclaimed to be no more. And this was the ceremonial wall separating Jews and Gentiles was torn down by Jesus Christ. The Passover is the same way in 1st Corinthians 5 7 we learn that the Passover meaning has changed or the celebration of it. It's still profitable for teaching, but not for duplication.

1 Corinthians 5, 7, therefore, purge out the old leaven that you may be a new lump since you are truly unleavened, for indeed Christ our Passover was sacrificed for us. In other words the Passover was abrogated by Jesus Christ but the symbol the picture is the cleaning out of the leaven of the house. Leaven is symbolic of sin in that context. And what the Jews would do is that they would scatter leaven around the house. It symbolized the sin in the house.

They would sweep it up and they would throw it out. They would get the sin out of the house, that was the symbol of the Passover. And that's why he says, there purge out the old leaven that you may be a new lump. In other words, he's saying, sweep the sin out of your house, we should be doing that every day, sweeping the sin out. And that broom is the law, it's the moral law of God.

And so we keep the shadow of the Passover by cleansing ourselves from undefilement from watching what we set our eyes upon, watching what we hear, watching what we do. You know, this whole information world that we're embroiled in right now is implied in getting the leaven out rather than letting the leaven sit around on your floor all the time. Hebrews 9 verse 8 says that this was appointed until the time of reformation. Now then you have all kinds of other laws, threads, food laws, shellfish. What were all those about?

It's very clear in those contexts that God was making a holy people. He was making a people that don't eat like everybody else. They don't dress like everybody else. They are a holy people. It wasn't morally wrong to eat shellfish as it is not morally wrong to eat shellfish, but it was ceremonially wrong for a season in order to distinguish the people of God, that they would be a holy people.

This happens in families all the time, where they set up rules for their families that distinguish them from the rest of the world and it's actually a good thing that families do that but this is what God did in the Old Testament. He distinguished his families by their behavior and even what they eat But there's a very interesting picture of this in Deuteronomy chapter 14. Some things were wrong for the Jews, but not for other people. For example, animals dying naturally could not be eaten by the Jews, but they could be eaten by the Gentiles. Deuteronomy 14, 21.

You shall not eat anything that dies of itself. You may give it to the alien who is within your gates that he may eat it or you may sell it to a foreigner for you are a holy people to the Lord your God. Now we know from Acts chapter 10 from the Apostle Peter that there was nothing wrong with shellfish and pork. But it was a particular law for the people of Israel at that time. God was creating a holy people for his own possession.

Okay, so here's a lesson on the ceremonial law. Are you ready? Here's the lesson. God has given you in the ceremonial law dozens of pictures, dozens of metaphors and rituals to show you his grace in pictures. He wants to give you a constellation of physical pictures to show you his mercy and grace towards sinners.

That's what the pictures in the ceremonial law were written for for the New Testament Christian. So you should read the ceremonial law, you should revel in it, you should look at the the candles and the showbread and all the things that are in the ceremonial law and look and say Look at how wonderful Jesus Christ is. It is profitable for you to understand the ceremonial law. But God is so kind to give us so many pictures of these things. And then in the fourth paragraph we turn to the judicial law.

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. So there are there are dozens of judicial laws. They're also called case laws in the Old Testament. They're found in Deuter Exodus and Deuteronomy. And the Confession says it like this, they ceased at the same time with their nation.

So the principle of the judicial laws of the Old Testament can be applied in principle but not with exactitude. And many of our civil laws are derived directly from Old Testament case laws. When I was preaching through Deuteronomy, it was astounding to me. It seemed like every chapter there was some reflection of some law in our civil law code in America because our founding fathers derived our laws from Blackstone and other other biblical streams of law keeping but you think about the laws of our nation, the responsibility for injuries, that goes right out of Deuteronomy. Laws of restitution right out of Deuteronomy.

Protection of property right out of Deuteronomy. Honest dealings, accurate weights and measures right out of Deuteronomy, justice in the court, paying prompt wages. In the law it said pay your labor the same day. Well we're very rich in America and we don't need, most people don't need to be paid the same day. But they need to be paid in a timely manner according to grace and the blessing of the employee and that's how employers typically pay their employees.

They don't pay them the day that they work, but the principle is there is to pay what you owe and don't abuse. Laws of bribery right out of the Old Testament, punishment for false witnesses right out of the Old Testament, laws which are being compromised today on murder right out of the Old Testament, kidnapping, adultery. You know, the law of God in the Old Testament and its general equity is being applied in this nation. If anybody says, well, the Old Testament laws don't apply here, well, guess what? Our judicial system believes they do because they're practicing them and hopefully upholding them.

We saw in the news last week this announcement of a public execution of a murderer and people are asking if we should have capital punishment. Well look look at the law of God and look at the general equity of the law. There are many examples that are given in Deuteronomy where we learn how to apply the general equity. Maybe one of the most popular is the parapet law in Deuteronomy 22. Back in those days, houses had flat roofs and people spent time out on their flat roof.

And So the law was you should build a parapet around your roof so that people don't, they're not injured or die falling off of your roof. Well we don't have roofs like that but we have all kinds of safety codes that really flow directly out of the general equity of the law on the parapet. That's why we have rails around decks and things like that. That's directly out of Deuteronomy. We take precautions to keep people from danger on our property.

We cover up holes. We do all kinds of things like that. If you have a pool, you know, the county is going to make you put a fence around it for safety. That's applying this parapet law today. You have the restraining of the dangerous ox in Exodus 21 verse 28 and 29 means that you have to accept responsibility for real hazards that you know about and you might be culpable if you have a dangerous animal and you know about it and it hurts somebody, you are liable and you're going to kill the animal as well.

But how do you apply this general equity? Well, we believe that there's particular liability for safety. The law of witness is another example of as a means of establishing guilt through reliable evidence in Deuteronomy 19. You have the do not muzzling the ox. You have these laws that we've already mentioned in the ceremonial law about shellfish and food laws.

And these were just about being a holy, holy people. You know, one of the interesting laws was about mixing threads. It really was about holiness. It was really about my people are gonna dress differently. They're gonna look differently and they're gonna handle their fabrics differently.

So here's the lesson. You do not need the social justice movements. You need the case laws of Israel to help you discern the principles of justice and mercy. They're all there for us to grab and then the moral law the fifth paragraph And he's really speaking here about the perpetuity the moral law the moral law does forever bind all as well as justified persons as others to the obedience thereof and that not only in regard to the matter contained in it but also in respect to the authority of God the creator who gave it, neither does Christ in the gospel any way dissolve it but much strengthen this obligation. So this is this is the perpetuity of the moral law.

It was implanted in the heart, it was written in the heart of Adam, and it continues until this very moment until the end. Here's the lesson. Don't ever be ashamed of the Ten Commandments in the face of secular culture. These laws are for believers and unbelievers. All of God's laws are not just for the church.

The Ten Commandments are for the church and for every pagan on the planet, and they should be measured according to those laws. That's what the Bible says. And then the sixth paragraph is the usefulness of the law as a rule of life. This is the longest paragraph. It's really very beautiful to look into.

But what this paragraph makes very clear, The law of God exposes our sin, shows us our need for Christ, and teaches us how to live. That's what this long paragraph means. And we're not left to our own wisdom, We're not left to our own hearts to know how to walk through this world. We have the law of God. Here's the lesson.

God has given you moral laws to guide you through every temptation. He's given you everything you need to discern what to do in the Ten Commandments. And then the final paragraph is short but it's really very beautiful. It speaks of the harmony of the law and the gospel. Neither are the aforementioned uses of the law contrary to the grace of the gospel, but do sweetly comply with it.

The Spirit of Christ subduing and enabling the will of man to do that freely and cheerfully which the will of God revealed in the law require it to be done." He's saying here that it's the law and the gospel that they work in harmony. The law and the gospel, they do sweetly comply. Isn't that interesting the way they said that? The law drives you to recognize your sin, to turn your heart to Christ, and then Christ turns your heart to the law. Isn't that wonderful, what God has done?

And God, there are things that you cannot separate. You cannot separate the law and the gospel. And in the environment that we live in, the religious environment we live in, there are many who want to separate the law and the gospel. They cannot be separated. People talk as if the Law and grace are separate categories, but there are things that you cannot separate.

Faith cannot be separated from works. God calls you to combine truth and love. These things cannot be separated. You cannot separate divine sovereignty and human responsibility and you cannot separate law and grace any more than you can separate man and woman. They are two complimentary principles.

So the lesson is we have the armor of the law and the gospel to work together for our good. So there you have it. How do you use the law of God? You've got six, seven paragraphs to help you to understand how to interpret the law of God. I'm gonna give you, I'm gonna close with nine checkpoints.

Are you ready? I'm gonna go really fast. Here's how you interpret the law of God. Ask this, what kind of law is it? Is it moral, ceremonial, or judicial?

Second, What does this law reveal about the heart of God? Third, who is given the responsibility to carry it out? The individual, the family, or the state? Next, how is it fulfilled in Christ? Next, how does it explain love?

Because every law of God is a law of love. Next, how does it reveal sin in mankind? Next, what is the applicability of that law? What do I do to put it in practice? Next, what happens when this law is ignored in the family and in the church and in the state?

And then finally, how will this law be used by the Lord to transform me to the image of Jesus Christ? So all this to say, the law of God is useful and it's a wonderful gift to mankind. The law of God is like an operator's manual in your life to teach you the way in which you should go. And here's the question, do you love it? Do you seek it?

And does your schedule show that you really do love it? And I pray that all of us, as we leave this place today, we would continue to incite our hearts in the love of the law of God. That we would be a law-keeping people under the rule of law in our families, in our church, and in our individual lives. And I hope you young people particularly are wise to understand the distinctions of the law so that you know how to read your Bible more accurately. Let's pray.

Lord, thank you for giving us your law. It is a delight you've told us that the man who loves the law of God will flourish and will be strong and will be happy. And so I pray, oh God, that you would give to us a happy people who love your law. Amen.