Death of Legalism | Sermon 04/13/2024

All right, guys, my aim here today is to encourage us, right, through God's Word to help us understand the miracle that has occurred in our lives in which the gospel has truly set us free by the blood of Jesus Christ.

In that freedom, the Spirit of Life, who is God, now dwells within us. And He is the access, the very access to the mind of God, not by man or precepts according to the law, but according to His Spirit, in which the flesh, apart from God, has no access whatsoever.

You, Christian, if you sit here, you have passed from death into life. Yet you live a life in which in you, right, the heavenly reality of your salvation, it's the here and not yet. So what do I mean by that?

What I mean is that we live in a fallen world and we have a body that is decaying because of sin, right? We're not yet sinless. Furthermore, Christ has not returned yet, meaning that all things, though being in subjection to Him, are not yet under His feet.

It's happening now, Psalm 110 .1. His kingdom is still conquering through the power of redemption. So in this reality, we live around fallen people who live according to the flesh, and in every relationship we have here on this side of glory, sin has already tainted it and crept in.

Anger, malice, envy, strife, jealousy, sexual immorality, death, sinful desire—these are all things in which our world and our relationships are a captive audience, too. Scripture highlights that we once, too, walked according to the deeds of the flesh, but now we have passed from death and into life.

So living in the here and the not yet, we are saved, are being saved, and will be saved. It's the threefold plan of salvation, and we're going to talk about that today. 1 Ephesians 2 .8 states that we have been saved, right?

You were once dead in your trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of the world, following the prince of the power of the air, right? But God has made you alive together in him, meaning that death no longer has a hold on you.

You have been saved by Christ from your sins, and you are no longer condemned. You have been declared righteous by the blood of Christ, covering you for your sins, and now you are indwelt by the Holy Spirit, who then sanctifies you in this fallen world, which means we are then being saved.

1 Corinthians 1 .18 points to that. In our sanctification, since we are indwelt by the Holy Spirit, God begins a process in us in which we were very first set apart from the world and sealed to God, by God, and for God to the benefit of our neighbors.

To be what? To be conformed, not to the world, but to the image of Christ, in which the Holy Spirit is at work in the lives of all believers, meaning that what God has started, he will bring to completion.

He tells us that in his word in Philippians 1 .6, meaning that we are promised glorification through the Holy Spirit, which is what? We will be saved. We have a resurrection promised to us. Christ was the firstborn from the dead so that in all things he will be preeminent.

Because of Christ's resurrection, we have 100 hope and certainty that one day we too will have resurrected bodies. We will be saved in the future, and that is that glorification in which we will be sinless and live within resurrected glorified bodies in which Christ, again, was the firstfruits from the dead.

So it's important to have this threefold understanding of our salvation. We have been saved, you are being saved, and you will be saved, because it can help us grasp that here and not yet in which we are living in.

Why? Because again, we live within a fallen world that is being renewed by the power of Jesus Christ. The hope is one that is also predicated not on things on earth, but through a promise from heaven made known through the incarnation, death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, not by the legal precepts of man, okay?

Not through the law of men. So the success of my salvation and the success of the gospel of the kingdom is predicated on the perfect, completed work of Jesus Christ. He is both the just and the justifier.

So understanding the gospel, we can understand the death of legalism, and that is the title of the sermon today, and that's the first step to living in freedom through God's word, understanding what it means to walk in the newness of life, like we're told in Ephesians.

Because the truth is that the gospel is from God, whereas legalism is from man. So let me read our scripture that we're going to go over today, and then we're going to pray. So if you'd like, in your Bibles, you can turn to Colossians 2.

We're going to be in verses 13 through 15. Here are the words of the living and true God. And you who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all of our trespasses by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands.

This he set it aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame by triumphing over them in him. Lord, we come before you today humbly, knowing that there's nothing that we have done to deserve this salvation, Lord.

And we praise you for that, God, because if this was something that was attained through our own hands, we would have never obtained it, Lord. We were dead in our trespasses and sins, in a position before you from birth as enemies of God, deserving of your wrath, not deserving of your grace or your mercy.

But Father, you loved us so much so that you had predestined us before the foundations of the earth to be adopted into the sons of God through the blood of Jesus Christ, and that Christ, you love us so much that you came to die for us, Lord, to be obedient to the will of the Father, to humbly take your position away from heaven, and veil your glory in the form of a servant.

You are fully God and fully man, in which you can be a propitiation for our sins in your flesh by the blood that was spilled on the cross for us. So we praise you, Jesus. Without you and your perfect work, we would still stand condemned.

And without your resurrection from the dead, without conquering the grave, we would have no hope because you wouldn't be God. We trust in you, Jesus, and we know the scriptures of old foretold the fact that you would rise from the dead.

And we have full certainty in who you are because there is an empty tomb, Jesus. And Holy Spirit, we thank you for dwelling within us. Thank you for sealing us, being that pledge of our inheritance to come, for giving us every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places because of our faith in Christ.

You testify to both the Father and the Son to us. You have given us your word. So, Lord, please illuminate our hearts and minds today so that we can love you, Lord. Let us be challenged by your word. Let us, Lord, walk away today knowing the beautiful work of the gospel in our lives.

Please, Lord, get me out of the way. Let your word shine true. I love you, Lord, and I thank you. I pray that you bless everyone here through the reading and proclamation of your word. In Jesus' name, amen.

Amen. So the question we should first ask ourselves today is, what is legalism? Have you ever thought about that to yourself? What exactly is legalism? Well, legalism, it's a set of rules or regulations from men, given to men, that they must follow in order to merit salvation and spiritual growth.

So in legalism, salvation is something that you must work for in order to receive. Christ made it possible to be saved, but you must fill in the blank, right, in order to merit salvation. Jesus Christ made it possible, but in order to get to heaven, you must obey some fundamental tenet.

The death of Christ wasn't enough. In order to get to heaven, you must bow down to the LGBTQ society. You must sacrifice parts of your body in order to make yourself right with God. This would be a form of legalism, right?

Jesus Christ made it possible, but in order to truly have a heavenly mind, you must obey X, Y, or Z diet in order to drain your pineal gland of a certain substance that stops you from having a divine mind.

Believe it or not, people do believe that. The truth is is that legalism has historically set itself in opposition to the gospel. Paul calls all religions or faiths that are contrary to the works of God human precepts and teachings.

That's what he calls it in Colossians. It's within human precepts and teachings that freedom cannot and will not be found. So in reality, every single person in this room, including myself, we have all come from some form of legalistic background.

Take a look around. You can see that there is no one in this room that cannot identify with some form of legalism. Whether it is coming from Mormonism, Atheism, Agnosticism, or even being raised in a Christian household prior to the saving faith that God has granted you, you must have thought or once thought if it was by me being good enough or doing good enough, maybe I would have a right relationship with God.

In order to make ourselves right before God, I must do X, Y, or Z. That's because the heart of man is deceitful and has set itself up in opposition to the freedom that can only be found in Christ. And what is found in Christ is not according to human precepts and teachings, but who is it from?

It's from the light who is the life of all men, which we've been going through so beautifully in John. He was made known through the incarnation when Christ took on flesh. He accomplished his promise to Abraham in his death on the cross.

He then sealed our salvation through the resurrection by giving us the gift of the Holy Spirit, again, who is now convicting the world of sin in righteousness. And that's how God is conquering through the kingdom of the gospel by the power of redemption.

The Holy Spirit is convicting, as we know it, the world of sin and righteousness. Believe it or not, people are coming to faith in this very moment by the power of God. This means that our salvation is fully dependent upon the perfect spotless righteous one, Jesus the Christ, the God from everlasting to everlasting, who took on flesh at one point in time.

Heaven literally invaded earth and the impact of the cross shattered all bounds of the teachings of men. So I want to clearly set the parameters by scripture on what the gospel is and how we are saved and what occurs in our being in order to live and walk in the newness of life.

So Colossians 2, 13 through 14, what did it say at first? And you who were dead in your trespasses in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses.

Reality, you were dead in your trespasses. What can a dead man do in their trespasses? Nothing. Nothing at all. You're not somewhat alive. You're not sick. You are literally dead. You are dead. But God, right, made you alive with him by forgiving us all of our trespasses.

So the question we should ask ourselves is, well, then how? I was dead in my trespasses, but somehow God made me alive with him by forgiving us all of our trespasses. Paul answers this. He says, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands.

So understand this. We had a record of debt that did stand against us, but that surpassed even our own personal sin. We're not born tabula rasa. We're not born with a clean slate. In Adam, all die. The scriptures clearly tell us that.

The record of debt against humanity started in the garden. Echoing David, we were then conceived in iniquity, with a nature hostile to God and his law. So think about the trespass that stood against us.

Not even our own personal sin, but humanity's grave sin through the representation of Adam. We were dead before we were even alive. In Adam, all die. And what is a trespass against God? What does that mean?

Well, it's not obeying his law. Whether it be the first one that he gave Adam, do not eat from the fruit or the tree, the fruit of knowledge of good and evil, don't eat of that. It's disobeyed to the law that we have today.

There's one verse that I think clearly tells us what sin is, what a trespass against God is. It's 1st John 3 -4. Let me read it to you. It says, everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness.

Sin is lawlessness. And I like how the KJV actually puts this verse where it says, sin is the transgression of the law of God. So lawlessness is acting not according to the law. It's acting apart from God's law, doing what we will in our own being against the law of God.

Right? Let us be like God, knowing both good and evil from the garden. The issue is, is when man gets a knowledge of good and evil, we don't have the wisdom to discern between the two apart from God's revelation.

So we do what we want according to our flesh, and that is sin. That is lawlessness. It's acting contrary to the law of God. So what do we know? Being dead in our trespasses and sins, we're dead in Adam.

We're not born tabula rasa with a clean slate. Not only that, let's compound our sin. We have personal trespasses, a record of debt against God that has what? Legal demands. Legal demands. So as workers of righteousness, the payment we ought to receive in death in the flesh is death in the flesh and death of the spirit.

Judgment. So we are working unrighteousness. There's legal demands for what we have done. We deserve judgment. That's why the wages of sin is death. We're workers of unrighteousness in our trespasses.

And I've heard, I've said this before, you've probably heard me say it quite a bit if you've heard me up here preaching before, but you are not autonomous. You are not an autonomous being. There's only one autonomous being, and that is God.

Let me give you an example why. The definition of autonomy is to be a law unto yourself. If you were a law unto yourself, you would be sinless. You would be sinless, all right? But the wages of sin is death, and you have transgressed the law of God, 1 John 3, 4, and it's the very proof that you are not an autonomous being.

The only true autonomous being is God himself. You are under God's law. You ought to live according to God's law. We're made in the image of God. You are not a god, right? God is truly the only autonomous being.

There is no one like him, none before him, none after him. He is immutable and unchanging. Therefore, we can trust that his law as a reflection of his character is also unchanging. Praise God for that.

If we were a law to ourselves or to the laws of others, we are constantly changing what we think in terms of morality apart from God's saving grace, right? No one would be able to live up to what we expect out of others or we even expect of ourselves.

It's impossible, but God is unchanging and he's immutable, and I can trust that his law will stay the same. It's a beautiful, beautiful grace, but understand this. In our trespasses, okay, God sees all and knows all.

Every single thing that you've ever done, every transgression against his law is known. Every little thing you ever did in secret, every thought not held captive, every quote-unquote good deed done for your own glory is a record of debt that stood against you, meaning your own life condemns you.

There is nothing that you could do to get out of that debt. It just keeps racking up every day, racking up and racking up, hence being a slave to sin and being dead in your sin. There's nothing that you could do to please God.

That's how God puts it in his word, right? You once carried out the desires of the body being a child of wrath, a child of the devil. That's how Jesus condemned those who said that they were sons of Abraham.

He said, no, your father is not of the devil. If you would have believed in the words Moses wrote, you would believe in me because Moses wrote about me. That's what Jesus said. They didn't have faith.

They didn't have the faith of Abraham. They were legalistic, pharisaical people. Again, totally incapable to please God apart from the grace of God. It's impossible and inconceivable. But remember, whose law was it that you broke?

Whose law? That's the question you should ask yourself too. Well, the law of God. You broke the law of the one who is just. And this is a beautiful thing. This is where our salvation lies, okay? We broke the law of the one who is just.

You did not break the law of Joseph Smith. You did not break the law of Andrew Songkranz or the law of Pastor Wade Orsini or Jeff Durbin. You broke the law of God. It is the breaking of his law that requires punishment and the only one of whom we ought to fear.

Yet in this, as we read, he did what? He cancelled the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. By how, though? Continuing to read on in Colossians 2, by nailing it to the cross. He nailed it to the cross.

So think about this. You had a record. Imagine a receipt given to Christ. He purchased something with his blood, okay? Picture Christ being at a CVS and there you are. He purchased you with his blood and you've been to CVS.

Those receipts they give you are like 25 feet long. That's your record of debt that stood against you with its legal demands. I'm sure it was probably much longer than that. If I'm thinking of myself, I probably got a massive CVS receipt.

But Jesus Christ purchased me with his blood, takes that receipt, goes and nails it to the cross. The just became the justifier. For the one whose law I defied has now died for me, had died for you. I'm so glad that the law that I broke was the law of God in the sense of my salvation because it's the God whose law I broke that died for me, who upheld it perfectly.

Not the law of men, not human precepts and teachings, right? So what do the scriptures say about Jesus? What happened when he nailed my record of debt with its legal demands to the cross? It says that he's actually the propitiation for my sins.

He bore my sins on his body. The one who knew no sin became sins that I might inherit the righteousness of God. And then we're told by Peter in 1 Peter 2 24, he himself bore our sins in his body on the tree that we might die to sin and live to righteousness.

By his wounds, you have been healed. Beautiful. Therefore, the scriptures state in Romans 3 21 through 26, if you want, you can turn there with me. But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law.

Although the law and the prophets bear witness to it, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe for there is no distinction for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forth as a propitiation by his blood to be received by faith.

This was to show God's righteousness because in his divine forbearance, he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

Righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law. That is absolutely beautiful. The Old Testament scriptures point to the coming one who would take away the sins of his people. We have Deuteronomy 18, the perfect prophet who is to come.

Isaiah 53, the suffering servant. Zechariah 3 that Eric read this morning, right? Joshua, a picture standing before the angel of the Lord with Satan to condemn him. And the angel of the Lord says, take off his filthy garment, put on this white spotless garment of mine.

What did Joshua do to deserve that? Nothing. He wore someone else's righteousness. He was manifested apart from the law and was always to be apart from the law. The gospel of God was never a gospel of legalism.

That was the error of the Pharisees. The sacrifices and the sacrificial system was supposed to point to the perfect Passover lamb that was to come. There were always to believe by faith. Abraham believed by faith and it was what?

Accredited to him as righteousness. Pastor Wade was beautifully explaining that after the catechism. So the question is when we're thinking about having our sins nailed to the cross, the record of debt that stands against us with its legal demands, who then can condemn you, brothers and sisters?

Who can stand before God and condemn you? No one. Not one person. This is the power of the gospel. Romans 8, 1 through 4. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.

For God has done what the law weakened by the flesh could not do. By sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the spirit.

Further explanation is in Philippians 2, right? Though he found himself eternally in the form of God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped. Therefore, he emptied himself taking the form of a servant and became obedient to the father even to the point of death, death on a cross.

That's where our salvation lies. That's where my freedom lies. It lies in the son of God who perfectly fulfilled the righteous requirements of the law so that I could be set free from the wages of sin and death.

It states in Romans that I have died to the law in Jesus Christ. I have died to the law. Absolutely amazing. Righteousness now has been manifested apart from works of the law in Jesus Christ. He was the perfect righteous one according to the law, not according to your works.

The righteousness that you wear is the perfect completed work of Christ. It is your faith, your belief, your trust in the person and work of Jesus that this righteousness is given. As Paul states, just like the belief of Abraham.

What does it say? Though your sins were scarlet as scarlet, they are now white as snow. This is the beautiful thing, guys. If you sit here in this room today and you believe that Jesus Christ is God, that he took on flesh and died on the cross for your sins, that there's nothing you could offer the father better than what Jesus has accomplished on the cross as the sinless sacrifice, and that the grave couldn't hold him back, that he resurrected from the dead conquering death, and that he sits at the right hand of the father ruling and reigning from a throne not built by human hands, then these scriptures are speaking about you.

You need to believe that. You need to believe that. The record of debt that once stood against you has been nailed to the cross, and this is a doctrine which is from and predicated on a promise given from God, ratified by God on the cross, not by human precepts and teachings of men.

God wanted to make it fully known, fully known, that your salvation was dependent upon him, not any work that you could do with your own hands. He gets all of the glory. And now this is key, and herein lies the death of legalism.

And listen to this application of the gospel, okay? The commandments or legal demands of men are not revealed from God, not the ten commandments, just man's commandments. They do not condemn you or anyone for that matter.

These are human precepts and teachings. The word of wisdom, for example, from Joseph Smith. Jesus Christ made it possible for you to be saved, but you must not drink hot drink. Going over the gospel just now, doesn't that sound silly?

But there's people who believe that they're enslaved to this false doctrine, and just one belief like that can condemn you before God, because it's saying that Jesus Christ didn't do enough, and he didn't work enough, that you have a righteousness external of Christ's, that when you stand before the Father, you can present to him, yes, Jesus Christ was perfect to the works of the law, but here you go, Father, I didn't drink any hot drinks.

It sounds silly, right? Our hearts must break for people that believe that. Or we can think of Hindu diets, or even breaking the law of wokeness, right? But the truth is, your record of debt was canceled, and it was a debt against God, not a debt against man-made precepts or teachings.

You are now alive in Christ and free to what? Just abandon the law, do whatever you want so that grace may abound? By no means. You are free to uphold the law. Even in your failure of upholding the law, you are not condemned.

You're free in the Christ, through the blood of Christ Jesus. That is the grace. But in that change, when God saves you, you want to obey him. You want to obey him. It's beautiful. Here's some more application.

You, as free in Christ, also have no right to condemn others according to your own law. Do not be a hypocrite of the gospel. James states in James 4 .12, there is only one lawgiver and judge, he who is able to save and to destroy.

But who are you to judge your neighbor? This does not mean help your brother or sister if they're in, it does not mean that you don't help your brother and sister if they're sinning against God, right?

If someone is in sin, you want them to be restored. But what I'm saying is you do not create your own law and expect people to follow them. There is only one lawgiver and judge. That's what James is speaking of.

And if you want to get a more in-depth example of that, you can go into Pastor Wade's. He did a whole series on the book of James. You can go into that. He talks about that in depth. So what ought we to do as Christians?

We don't condemn people for not living a life that we expect of them to live in order to merit a good relationship with us or to assume it is with God. Do not be a hypocrite of the gospel in your personal relationships with individuals.

But what also does that mean? It means you must walk in grace with one another, for it is the glory of one to overlook a transgression. For we ought to forgive others as God has forgiven us. And if you want a more in-depth look at that as well, you can watch the sermon series.

There's just two sermons I did on the book of Philemon. I go in that pretty in-depth. But here in this, we just have discussed the good news, the gospel. And the reality is, is it's not from man. This is a gospel given to us from God.

Really hold onto that because legalism is from man, but the gospel and freedom is from God. Listen to this scripture here in Galatians 1, 11 through 12. For I make it known to you, brothers, that the gospel which I am proclaiming is good news is not according to man.

For I neither received it from man nor as I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ. And what is Paul talking about in Galatians? What is the point he's making all throughout the book of Galatians?

Do not let someone tell you that you must do X, Y, or Z in order to inherit salvation. You must do X, Y, or Z in forms of commandments or principles. Why, the gospel is given to you from God. It is not from man.

And the revelation was the revealing of the following promise according to Galatians 3, 6. In Galatians 3, Paul, he tells us this about Genesis 15, 5 through 6. Genesis 15, 5 through 6 states,. And he brought him outside and said, Now look toward the heavens and number the stars, if you are able to number them.

And he said to him, So shall your seed be. Then he believed in the Lord and he counted to him as righteousness. So shall your offspring be. That offspring in Galatians 3 is Jesus Christ. And the conversation happening here is between God and Abraham in Genesis 15.

That was the promise. That was the covenant. Salvation then has always been given by God through faith in the one who was to come. Believe me, it's legal demands that condemn us. But it's not obedience, my obedience to legal demands, that saves me.

That's legalism. It's God in Christ's perfect obedience. That saves me. From the Old Testament into the New, men were never declared righteous by the works of the law. Praise God for that. Praise God for that.

It is purely by the slavery of men to sin that they attached salvation to the works of the law, which missed the fact that the law always revealed the need for what? What did the law always reveal to men?

They needed a savior. They needed someone better than them who was to come. And that was always through sacrifice. Blood was to be shed. For the wages of sin is death. Romans 4, 13 through 16 states this.

For the promise to Abraham or to his seed that he would be heir of the world was not through the law, but through the righteousness of faith, belief, trust. For if those who are of the law are heirs, faith has been made empty and the promise has been abolished.

The promise predicates that of even the law. For the law brings about wrath, but where there is no law, there is also no trespass. For this reason, it is by faith in order that it may be according to grace, so that the promise will be guaranteed to all the seed.

Understand guys, if this promise was to be made through the works of the law, you would have no guarantee of your salvation. You're not perfect. You'll never be perfect. You're going to sin until the day you die.

Sanctification is something that we go through all the way up until death. You would have no guarantee. No guarantee. Neither would the gospel of the kingdom. There's no way we could actually do what the church ought to do if we're still condemned under the law.

Not only to those states who are of the law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all. And that's the point as well that Paul makes in Galatians. He states that by belief we stand justified, not by any external obedience to the law, because that is the same faith that God gave Abraham.

He doesn't make void the promise. It's all reiterated on this promise. So understand, the failure of Israel was thinking that the law made them holy, yet God never taught that the law saved them. The twisting of the word delivered by Moses, that's what they did, and the prophets, was done by human precepts and teachings.

Where's the gospel from? It's from God, not from man. Remember Galatians 1, 11 through 12. For I make it known to you, brothers, that the gospel which I am proclaiming is good news, is not according to man.

For I neither received it from man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ. And I want to hit at something. We're going to start doing Mormon evangelism again coming this week, and one key thing I've been learning as I've been talking with our LDS neighbors is to ask them one simple question, and I think it reveals everything.

Ask them, what is the gospel? What is the gospel? The gospel is good news. That is the definition of it, right? What I have found every single time I've asked an LDS individual what the gospel is, is that they said, they say to me that Jesus Christ made it possible for me to obey his commandments.

He made it possible for you to what? Obey his commandments. What's their third article of faith? We believe that through the atonement of Jesus Christ that all mankind may be saved by the obedience to the gospel ordinances and principles.

My friends, that's not good news. That's not good news at all. If it's by obedience, I've failed. If it's manifested from the law, what does Paul say? Righteousness has nothing. It's made void, Galatians 2 21.

If the works of the law justified you, then Christ died for no purpose. You have no sacrifice. So if you're getting in conversations with your LDS neighbors, I urge you, ask them, what is the gospel? Get into it.

We should be experts on the gospel. We should be saturated with the gospel. We should be living the gospel every single second of our lives. Because what you can do is compare and contrast for them. Tell them what the true biblical gospel is through the word of God revealed from God.

Romans 1 says, all know who God is, but they exchange the glory of the immortal God for a lie. And they worship creatures and creative things rather than the creator. Human precepts and teachings, a gospel contrary to God, is a figment of Joseph Smith's imagination.

It is a creature. Appeal to them to what God has revealed. Then ask them the question, here's the gospel according to the Bible. Jesus Christ has set me free from the wages of the law. I am dead now and I've been brought back, made alive.

The record of debt has stood it. That stood against me has been canceled with its legal demands. It was nailed to the cross through Jesus Christ. And that through my faith in him and my faith in him alone, I stand justified before the Father.

But you're telling me that Jesus Christ merely died, but in order for me to inherit salvation, I must be sealed, married in the temple for all time and eternity, that I must be baptized, right? Baptism is very important to us as a Christian.

It's a commandment of God. He says, if you believe in him, you must be baptized. But we're talking about two different categories here. One's to have salvation and one's in form of obedience because we love God, all right?

But then what? That you must do X, Y, and Z, right? Be obedient to the gospel ordinances and principles. Put the two up right next to each other, compare and contrast, and ask them truly, what sounds better to you?

What sounds better? And you'll see that they have to really wrestle with that in their heads. I've noticed that and we want them to believe in Christ. The gift and promise of the Bible is so much greater than that of Mormonism.

It's so much greater than that of Hinduism, right? You must, let me use Hare Krishna for example, you must get like this rosary bead, you must pray with each bead. Say it, I think it's like 60 or 70 times a day, a prayer for each individual bead.

Go around it. Their weird prayer, I don't want to recite it. And then in that you have a specific diet that you must adhere to. And then one day you can end the cycle of death and rebirth and go into samsara to have, to end samsara, which is cycle of death and rebirth, to go to this form of nirvana in a sense, where you're one with a cosmic consciousness.

What sounds better? I think the gospel sounds better, 110%. So going through the gospel here, first I said take a look around in this room. Every single one of us has come from a form of legalism. Apart from the saving grace that we have from God and our faith in Jesus Christ, we once thought, walking according to our flesh, that something that we could do could please God.