“A Kingdom of Priests and a Holy Nation”

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Preacher: Ross Macdonald Scripture: Exodus 19:1-9

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Well, this morning we begin chapter 19, and we'll look at the first nine verses as we make our way toward chapter 20.
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We're now encamped at the base of Mount Sinai, and we draw ever closer to that fateful event of Moses receiving from God's own finger the law, the
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Ten Commandments. And with it, we come in Exodus not only to one of the great events of Exodus, but actually one of the great moments in Scripture, one of the great moments in redemptive history, and something absolutely vital to the gospel.
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If we don't understand the law and our relationship to the law rightly, we will make a shipwreck of our faith.
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And so even the things that we rehearse this morning will be very helpful, I think, as we move forward in coming months to understand the law of God.
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And so I would encourage you to pay due attention, especially note -takers, to be very judicious with the notes that you take.
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It will pay dividends in weeks and months to come. Beginning in verse 1, chapter 19 of Exodus, in the third month, after the children of Israel had gone out of the land of Egypt, on the same day they came to the wilderness of Sinai, for they had departed from Rephidim, had come to the wilderness of Sinai, and camped in the wilderness.
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So Israel camped there before the mountain. It's been three months since God brought His people out of Egypt.
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The calendar has turned three pages. We're about to get a whole new calendar tomorrow.
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Those three months have been filled with miracles and also murmuring. And here God draws all of that to memory.
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Memory of deliverance should still be fresh. It's only three months old. But lest they forget, lest we forget, we're reminded here, and we'll be reminded again in the preface of chapter 20.
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God brought His people up out of the land of Egypt, and enslaved people that were freed by the mighty hand of God.
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Three times we have repeated that Israel is in the wilderness. Wilderness of Sinai, verse 1, again verse 2, camped in the wilderness again.
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So this triple mention of where Israel is and where they will be, all the way up to Numbers 10.
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They won't move away from this encampment until past Exodus into the book of Numbers, chapter 10.
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Now that we're at the mountain, we've come full circle to what God had prophesied earlier in Exodus.
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In chapter 3, verse 12, when God was revealing Himself in that theophanic presence, the fiery bush,
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He said this to Moses, When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain.
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And again, that verb serve could also be translated worship. It's part of that word play that we saw with Pharaoh.
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So here they are, about to worship God on the mountain. And this, by the way, is a reminder that for all the chaos that it seems they've experienced, it's all been orchestrated according to God's good providence.
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Just like the storyline of Genesis, especially in the life of Joseph, we see that in the chaos and the crises of God's people's lives,
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God is in perfect control. He sits enthroned above the flood. Verse 3,
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Moses went up to God and the Lord called to him from the mountain saying, Thus you shall say to the house of Jacob and tell the children of Israel, You've seen what
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I did to the Egyptians and how I bore you on eagles' wings and brought you to myself.
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We read that Moses went up to God. This is going to be a thematic verb for the next several chapters,
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Moses going up. In fact, I think more than twice, almost three times, we have this verb going up compared to him coming down.
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The coming down is implied every time he goes up. But the emphasis is on going up to where God's presence is.
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Moses, as the mediator, is uniquely qualified to go up to the Lord's presence.
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This is going to set us up in some ways next week as we complete chapter 19.
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We see the boundaries, the distance that God creates between Him and His people. He puts borders.
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He comes in a thick cloud. They're not to come. They're not to even put a foot upon the mountain.
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And so who can ascend the holy hill of God? The great question of Psalm 24, who's worthy to go up on our behalf?
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Even that is being put forward here in chapter 19. Notice the Lord does not say, thus you shall say.
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He doesn't even say, thus you shall say to the people or thus you shall say to Israel.
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He says, thus you shall say to the house of Jacob and tell the children of Israel.
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It's redundant. It's synonymous and it's important. Here God says, you shall say to the house of Jacob and the children of Israel.
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We have the dual name, Jacob, Israel. Remember that Jacob had been renamed
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Israel by God in Genesis 32. So this is accomplishing more than simply reminding them that they've come from this lineage of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
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In fact, they're being reminded like Jacob, like their father, they too have been treacherous and stiff -necked.
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They've been slithering through the wilderness just like Jacob slithered through his household.
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Treacherous, rebellious, stiff -necked, unconcerned about anything beyond his own needs, his immediate needs.
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And yet, when he ran away from home, God was merciful to protect him. And in Genesis 32, when he's about to have the showdown with his brother,
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God revealed himself in that great wrestling match, the great showdown, UFC 1, if you could look at it that way.
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And God, of course, allowed him to prevail, renamed him Israel for he had striven with God and prevailed.
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And so God, in announcing in this way, is signaling that Israel is a lot like Jacob, and they too must have this encounter with God to be worthy of their name, worthy of their forefather's legacy.
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And if that doesn't underline the surprising goodness of God, right, the mercy and grace of God that he showed to Jacob, the same mercy and grace we've seen, it's reminded here in verse 4.
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You have seen what I did to the Egyptians. So not only are they called
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Jacob unto Israel, but he also gives them this reminder. You saw what I did to the
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Egyptians. In other words, that could have been you. I was under no obligation to spare you, but I obligated myself to spare you because I made a promise to Abraham.
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And so because of the promise that I made, you've been spared. Not because you were morally upright, not because you were somehow set apart, you were somehow this great blessing in and of yourselves.
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The only difference between you and the Egyptians was my mercy, my grace. You saw what
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I did to them. That could have been you, but instead I showed you grace because of the promises that I made.
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You saw what I did. You saw how I bore you on eagle's wings and brought you to Myself.
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So here in chapter 19, again as we move closer to Mount Sinai, closer to the law, we have the great grace of God being highlighted.
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We'll see it again in the preface to the law. I am the Lord your God who brought you up out of the house of Egypt.
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And so here too, God's grace, God's rescue is being emphasized. He's always putting
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His saving acts in front of His people. The reason that they can trust Him. The reason they shall worship
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Him. The great rescue from Pharaoh's empire. They were just lifted away out of this place of bondage and danger.
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He says I bore you up on eagle's wings. You have this intimate imagery.
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God's loving kindness being described like an eagle caring for her young. Stretching the wings to o 'ershade thee, as the hymn would put it.
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So the wing giving this protection from the sun that would strike, or warmth, intimacy in the bosom that would protect from the cold at night.
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Of course, the concern is to stir the nest and guide the little one to learn how to fly, but even then the
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Lord is encircling all around, hovering all around. God gives this protective maternal imagery of His love and His care,
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His nurture of His people. And so the Psalms everywhere begin to echo and reverberate this language.
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Truly a fitting summary from Psalm 36. How precious is your loving kindness,
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O God. Therefore the children of men put their trust under the shadow of your wings.
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Moses himself will come to reflect on this. Remember, this is God's word to Moses. But as he receives it, he can't help but turn it over in his meditation, let it saturate his affections.
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And eventually in Deuteronomy 32, he begins to break out some of that meditation. In the
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Song of Moses, we read him almost turning this into poetry and praise. He found
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Him, the hymn is Israel. God found Israel in a desert land, in a wasteland, in a howling wilderness.
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And He encircled him. He instructed him. He kept him as the apple of His eye, like an eagle that stirs up the nest.
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He hovered over the young, spreading out its wings, taking them up, carrying them on its wing.
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So the Lord has led him. So again, this beautiful imagery of the divine rescue in the most intimate, most loving terms imaginable.
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This is even greater than the eagles in Lord of the Rings. You remember, whenever the great crises came in Lord of the
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Rings, what would happen at the very end, what Greek playwrights called the deus ex machina, the sort of out of the stage, here comes the great salvific event.
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And it was the eagles that swooped in and lifted up the heroes, lifted up the hobbits away from the danger.
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That's essentially what is being depicted here. God swooping in to save. And the salvation is such that they're simply lifted away and over the danger.
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Are they pinched between the heavy bondage and burden of Pharaoh as he forces them to make bricks without straw, as the whips are breaking their back, robbing their futures, as their children are being massacred?
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Are they pinched between the chariots and the seashore? Are they in the plight of the wilderness, on the brink of starvation?
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God every time swoops down to save. And He simply lifts His people up and out of trouble.
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And so this is a reminder to us as God's people that He is mighty to save.
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When we're being pressed by crises, pressed by difficulty, pressed by persecution, we're to be reminded that those who wait on the
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Lord renew their strength. And they mount up with wings like eagles.
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They run without being weary, walk without fainting. But even more than this maternal caring imagery, we have even more intimate imagery with this verb,
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I brought you to Myself. This is marital language.
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The verb is used of a bridegroom bringing the bride to himself, bringing her to his chamber.
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And so the care gives way to this love, this unique relationship, this unity.
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In Song of Solomon, we have the Shulamites saying, He has brought me to His banquet.
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His banner of love is spread over me. And so this is being held together, this metaphor of a covenant relationship.
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The Lord desires unity with His people, much like unity between spouses.
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That's His desire. I've brought you to Myself. I didn't free you from darkness and bondage just to send you on your merry way.
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I freed you unto Me. I lifted you up out of danger not to just send you away, but to take you to Myself, to carry you away, to actually build this relationship and actually become one together.
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That was the Lord's desire. And so we come again to that great question.
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We'll explore it again next week. Well, how is this going to come about? Who may ascend the hill of the
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Lord? How can this be possible? And that takes us to v. 5. God is beginning to announce and prepare
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His people for the covenant they will receive at Sinai. The giving of the law. Now therefore, if you will indeed obey
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My voice, keep My covenant, then you shall be a special treasure to Me above all people, for all the earth is
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Mine. And you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.
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These are the words which you shall speak to the children of Israel. So the Lord now describes this relationship in terms of a covenant.
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The whole prologue is His saving activity. It's His grace, His mercy, that chose them and called them and saved them, rescued them from bondage.
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And from that grace, He then says, I'm taking you away. I'm making this covenant relationship with you.
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And if you will hear Me, if you will walk in My way, then this is what you'll be to Me. A treasure above all people.
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A kingdom of priests. My own special possession. A holy nation. If you obey, if you keep the covenant, then you will be this to Me, He says.
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I love the old King James here. A peculiar treasure He will be. Psalm 135 .4,
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the Lord has chosen Jacob for Himself. Israel for His special treasure.
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Some of you children this past week, you unwrapped certain gifts and from those gifts, you threw away the socks and the sweaters.
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When you get to my age, you actually want the socks and the sweaters. I grew up hating them then. It's just like I really would love wool socks this year.
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You know, like, it would be great. But I bet even now, some of you children are very excited to get home and get your hands back on that special treasure.
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That special toy that as soon as you opened it, everything else that you enjoyed playing with immediately was taken down a peg.
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This lost interest in it, back of the closet, underneath the bed, out of sight, out of mind. Now you have a special treasure.
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And the Lord says that's the kind of relationship He wants to have with His people. That they would be a special treasure out of all the things that He possesses, which is everything that He has made.
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He owns it all. You go home to play with this special treasure because you didn't own it before.
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Now it's yours. That's why it's so special. But the Lord owns everything that He made.
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And He said, even still, out of all the things that I possess, I want you to be that apple of my eye, that special possession.
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The thing that I set my affection upon. The thing that I look to.
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The thing that I wrap all of time in history around for the sake of. That is what you will be to me.
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Although the entire earth belongs to Him, He chose Israel as His own.
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But of course, He didn't choose Israel to be alone. Because remember the choosing of Israel is downstream from the call of Abraham.
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And when that call came to Abraham in chapter 12, he said, I will make your seed a blessing to the nations.
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And so Israel is called to be this kingdom of priests, this holy nation, not despite the nations, but for the nations.
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That the people of God would be composed of every tribe and every tongue unto the glory of the Redeemer.
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Now how is this going to happen? We have it in verse six. You shall be to me a kingdom of priests.
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A holy nation. In other words, you will minister to the nations. In the things that I reveal to you.
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You will lead them to my presence even as you are being led.
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You will teach them my will even as you receive it from me. What the priesthood is doing among the people is what the people will do among the nations.
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That's the idea of a kingdom of priests. A consecrated people. Do you remember when we looked at the night of the
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Passover how we said the Passover is given primarily as a consecration ritual.
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An act of consecration. And this is what that consecration is for. It's not a get out of hell free card.
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It's not just to soothe the conscience. It's for the work of redemption. It's for the blessing of the nations.
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It's for the sake of the gospel preached to Abraham beforehand. A kingdom of priests.
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A people set apart. If the Levites were set apart from the Israelites, so the whole people of God, the whole corporate people of God must be set apart from the world.
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But here, if they obey, if they keep, in other words, only if they conform to the calling of this covenant, will they be that kind of kingdom, that kind of people, have that kind of effect upon the world.
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So we see here very clearly in Exodus 19, God saves them by grace. His desire for them is to be a special possession, to be a priesthood amidst the nations of the world.
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And if they keep to his will, if they walk in this covenant, that is what they'll be. If they follow in his ways, if they hear his voice, that is what they will become.
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It's vital that we place that lodestone here. Vital to understand the whole flow of redemption that follows.
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In verse seven we have sort of the summary response. Moses calls the elders, he gives them the
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Lord, the Lord's command. All the people gather, and in unison they say, all the
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Lord has spoken, we will do. We'll have that repeated in Exodus 24 under even graver circumstance.
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They'll say again, everything the Lord has commanded, we will do. I don't doubt their insincerity, but they're certainly foolish.
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They're naive. There doesn't seem to be this desire. There's no cry of sort of,
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I believe, help my unbelief. I want to do this, but I don't know how I could possibly do this. I don't know how
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I could be holy as you are, holy Lord. That's my desire, but I can't do it within myself, by myself, from myself,
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Lord. They simply say, with all the confidence that almost is the pendulum swing from their murmuring, all the
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Lord that has spoken, we will do. Which is to say, they really don't know much about the Lord, and they certainly don't know much about their own hearts.
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If we could put it in terms that will be familiar to some tonight, this is sort of their New Year's resolution.
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How many of you will make New Year's resolution? You might as well just write a check to Planet Fitness as a donation.
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At least get the tax write off, because you'll never go. A New Year's resolution, in other words, sincere, you genuinely want to do it, you have that fire of resolve, but once the weeks start rolling, eh, maybe in the summer it'll work out, oh, maybe next year.
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And that seems to be what's going on here. We kind of trail off in verse nine,
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Moses of course returns to deliver the words, and we're left anticipating more, but that's as far as we're going with the text this morning.
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So with the time we have left, I want to begin laying down some flooring for approaching the law, the revelation of God's law, and how that relates to us.
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We'll have opportunity to do this again, and the rest of chapter 19, and then of course, when we actually get to chapter 20 week by week, we'll keep drawing back to some of the things that we put forward this morning.
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But it's very important that you understand what the law is, and how the law relates to us.
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Very, very important. We'll try to say it in a few different ways. So three points.
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Let's look at it in this way. First, our calling. Secondly, our covenant.
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And third, our conformity. Right, so we begin with our call. We have Israel's call.
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What about our calling? Our covenant. Not having the same covenant that Israel has here in Exodus 19 and 20.
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But what is our covenant? What is our relationship to God? How does the law relate to us in that way?
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And then therefore, what's our conformity? These are the things that, again, it's introductory. We're just laying some flooring.
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Won't say everything we could say. Hopefully, we'll say some things that must be said. Well, I hope what was familiar to you in some of the language of Exodus 19 was the glowing reference from 1
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Peter 2. In 1 Peter 2, beginning in verse 9, Peter says, you, and he's writing to the church, you are a chosen generation.
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He doesn't say you're like. He doesn't say you could be. He doesn't say you should be. He doesn't say you will be.
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He says you are a chosen generation. You are a royal priesthood.
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You are a holy nation. You are His own special people. So this is fulfillment.
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What Israel failed to do, God through Christ did by way of the new covenant for His people.
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Only for that reason can Peter say to the church of God, you are the royal priesthood.
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You are the holy nation. You are the special possession that God wanted His people to be in Exodus 19.
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And why has this come about? That you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.
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To put that in terms of Exodus 19, that you may praise the One who bore you on eagle's wings and rescued you from the bondage of Egypt.
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Who once were not a people but are now the people of God. Who had not obtained mercy but now have obtained mercy.
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So you see our calling. We were the people who had not received mercy and now we are the people who have.
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We were not the people of God but now we are the people of God. And this all corresponds with our calling.
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Now we are the ones who are the people of God. Now we have this great calling. Now this is our identity and this is our purpose.
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To be this royal priesthood. To walk in our covenant as we'll get to in a moment.
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And so all of this is transferred not as a pat on the back so much as a high and holy calling of what it means to be in Christ as the people of God.
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In Exodus 19, the Lord is calling for nothing less than for His people to occupy their
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Abrahamic purpose in history. And what happened to them was written for our sake upon whom the end of the ages has come.
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We are the Israel of God. And we're not all Israel who are of Israel. Romans 9, 6.
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And so the storyline of Israel's miserable failure to accomplish God's purpose in Abraham has brought to bear this new covenant relationship that we have in Christ by way of this new covenant in His blood.
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And that means that as the special possession, as the royal priesthood, as this holy nation, we have this task of being a blessing to the nations.
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We as this royal kingdom, we are the ones who are to carry forth this redemptive purpose in the world.
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No wonder that Peter is amazed and he says, let's respond with praise.
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Respond with praise to the one who called you out of that darkness, the darkness of Egypt, the darkness of bondage into His marvelous light.
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What we see in Exodus 19 is that God had always intended His saving acts, His unfailing grace to produce a love and a desire for obedience in His people.
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At this mountain, they shall serve me. That was the whole prologue through the plague narrative.
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Let my people go that they may serve me. There's a task to be done. Just like the priest had a task to do, a service, an act of worship in the temple.
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And so God does not give the covenant to Israel as a rival Pharaoh.
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He's not a heartless taskmaster that wants to squeeze more labor out of them because they're
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His possession like Pharaoh had them as a possession. No, as we saw, He has these beautiful metaphors of His loving kindness, maternal metaphors, marital metaphors, love, unity, intimacy, desire, and all of this cascading in a promise of mercy.
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As we'll see in Exodus 20, verse six, to those who love me and keep my commandment.
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And that's no different from Jesus' words in John 14. If you love me, keep my commandments.
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And so there's no difference between what God is desiring and what is put before the people.
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It's by way of grace. It's according to this desire for God from that grace to give mercy for the purpose of His redemption in the world according to the promises
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He made to Abraham. And all of that comes to Israel in the same way it comes to us.
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It's by grace. And if you love me, if you have a desire for me as I have desired you, if you will walk in my way as I have chosen you, if you will hear me and love me and keep my commandment, mercy is all you will know.
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And you will be to me this treasured possession. And so this is not the stipulation to the demands of an overbearing tyrant, but rather the
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Savior God who bears His people on eagles' wings and desires to take them to Himself.
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But Israel, as Jesus says in Matthew 23, is not willing. Stones those who were sent to her.
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When He would gather different bird, but same maternal imagery, when
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He would seek to gather them to His bosom, they were not willing. Israel in the unfolding story fundamentally misunderstands the nature of salvation.
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And because they fundamentally misunderstand the nature of salvation, they misunderstand the law.
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And because they misunderstand the law, they can't understand grace rightly. And because they can't understand grace and law and salvation, they can't understand
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God. What God puts forth to His people in Exodus 19 is the obedience that He requires them, if you will hear, if you will obey, if you will keep.
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But the obedience that He requires is not perfection. As we unfold in Exodus, the whole sacrificial system, we look at Moses' own relationship,
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Joshua entering the land, David, a man after his own heart, it's not requiring the standard of perfection, it's requiring the obedience that comes through faith.
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So Psalm 78 records this event, this whole complex of the Exodus events, and in verse 21 it says, anger came against Israel because they did not believe, that is, they did not have faith in God.
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They did not trust in His salvation. He's been merciful, almost ignoring all of their murmuring, all of their rebellion, as He's bringing them to Sinai.
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But as we'll see, after Sinai, the chastisements, the wrath, the judgment begins to pour out, there's covenantal curses that hollow now.
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But we have still held forth God's desire because of the grace that He showed them, and they're stumbling because they're pursuing the law, not by faith, but as if it were by works.
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Hebrews 319, to whom did He swear that they would not enter His rest, but to those who did not obey.
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Oh, you say, yeah, see, it was obedience, now it's not obedience, right? Back then it was obedience. No, no, but keep reading.
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To whom did He swear that they would not enter His rest, but to those who did not obey. Well, how would they have obeyed?
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What would that obedience look like? Verse 19, we see that they could not enter because of unbelief.
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And so notice these things are put in parallel. What God required was the obedience of faith.
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They did not obey, why? Because of unbelief. We go right to the next chapter, it says the same thing.
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For indeed, the gospel was preached to us as well as to them. Where are they getting the gospel from?
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What did we just read in Exodus 19? They're the ones who perhaps still have the stains of lamb's blood on the skirts of their clothing or on their sandals.
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The gospel was preached to them as it was to us. But the word which they heard did not profit them.
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The revelation that Moses gave to them did not profit them. Why? Not being mixed with faith in those who heard it.
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For we who have believed enter that rest. And so you see the writer of Hebrews describing obedience in terms of faith, in terms of belief.
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That's what it means to obey. We'll come back to that at the very end. Give you one more example.
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We could keep going on. In fact, we could read Galatians 3 and spend the rest of the day in Galatians 3. Tempted to do it.
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There's a reason that Luther called Galatians his Katie. In other words, his sweetheart.
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You know, it was his wife's name. It's just Galatians, it's my love. Romans 9, beginning in verse 30,
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Paul is talking about the failure of Israel. How could it be that Israel was chosen by God if they have rejected the
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Messiah? How can it be that we Gentiles who had not been called by God now are the people of God?
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In part, Paul's dealing with election to answer that question. In verse 30 and following,
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Gentiles, he says, who did not pursue righteousness have attained to righteousness, even the righteousness of faith.
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But Israel, pursuing the law of righteousness, has not attained to the law of righteousness.
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Why? Because they did not seek it by faith, but, as it were, by works of the law.
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For they stumbled at that stumbling stone. So you see, Paul, consistent with the writer of Hebrews and again, even going to Psalm 78, we see it was the lack of unbelief or the lack of faith, the lack of belief that was a stumbling stone for Israel.
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That is why they failed to attain to God's purpose in giving the law. What makes us sons of Abraham, what makes us heirs is faith.
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Heirs by faith. That is why we are his own special people. That we may proclaim the praises of him.
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We're not seeking it by works. We've read Luther's Katie. We know if righteousness could come by the law,
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Christ died for nothing. And so we don't stumble at that stumbling stone. We proclaim the praises of him who called us.
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He has made us light. He has rescued us. We have obtained mercy, not of our own doing, not of works, lest any flesh could boast.
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So that's the first point, is this calling. That calling of Exodus 19 is now our calling, right?
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The end of the ages has come upon us. 1 Peter 2 applies that to us. So it's our vocation, our task, which means in some way, this law is going to relate to us in this new covenant in line with that great picture from Exodus 19.
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Secondly, our covenant. Not the law as by works, but the law by grace.
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So we were not the people, but now we are the people. And for that reason, not the law as works, but the law by grace.
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He chose us, he called us, we obtained mercy. The whole context of 1
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Peter 2 is what the Lord has done for us. Salvation is by grace. It's all of grace.
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As Charles Simeon said, grace isn't just the predominant feature. It's the sum.
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It's the substance of the new covenant, right? It's not just an ornament. It's not just a compartment.
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It's the sum and substance of what the new covenant is. It's the sum and the substance of this new covenant.
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Repentance and faith and holiness are not required as they were in the Mosaic covenant, so much as they're bestowed, right?
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God's always required repentance and faith and holiness from his people. The old covenant could not give that, though it required it.
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The new covenant, it's bestowed upon us by the Spirit of God, something we'll see in more detail next week.
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So we have this really needful distinction between the law and the gospel. There's a little phrase, you could almost put it in brackets, the law -gospel distinction.
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This is something that, especially as reformed believers, we hold very near and dear.
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In fact, it's something that always has to be perennially maintained because it's always something that gets blurred and submerged, especially with certain controversies, whether worldliness or lawlessness or antinomianism on the one side or maybe
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Pharisaism or legalism on the other. And it tends to be that the pendulum swings back and forth and this vital distinction between law and gospel is lost.
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That's why you should read not just Luther's Katie, but even Luther. He does a good job of driving that wedge home.
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And Calvin himself, following this law -gospel distinction, he says, how much better is our condition than that of the
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Israelites? Because the law, now let me add here for where we're going, let me just add something that might be helpful.
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Because the law as a covenant of works, okay, the law by works, kept them enslaved in its bondage, while the gospel delivers us from anxiety, frees us from stings of conscience, for all must necessarily tremble and be overwhelmed by despair, who seek salvation by works.
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Peace and rest only exist in the mercy of God. And so you see what Calvin's contrasting there.
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We are in a better condition, of a better covenant, better mediator, why? Because they had the law as a covenant of works.
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They had the law in all of its curse and burden and requirement, and that law kept them enslaved and in bondage.
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We have the gospel, which frees us from the curse of the law, from its sting on our conscience, from the way that it can show no mercy or impart no life.
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And that's a vital distinction, that law -gospel distinction. So we, first and foremost, do not approach the law as by works.
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Not the law as by works. Romans 11 .5. Paul's answering the question, has
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God cast away His people? It's the whole theme of Romans 9 -11. And he says, certainly not.
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At this present time, there's a remnant according to the election of grace. This was always true of the people of God.
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In corporate Israel, many of them stumbled at the stumbling stone. They didn't understand what we said.
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Salvation or the law or grace or even God Himself. But God preserved for Himself a remnant.
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7 ,000 in one occasion, that wouldn't have been the need to bail when His prophet was despairing.
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God had always cut out and preserved for Himself a remnant elected by His grace. And Paul's appealing to that here.
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Paul understands that he himself is part of that remnant among his countrymen. And then he says this, verse six.
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If it's by grace, then it's no longer of works. Otherwise, grace is no longer grace.
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And so this is what Luther, this is what Calvin, this is what we as Reformed believers want to make a sharp division between.
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The law as by works, rather than the law as by grace.
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All right, so first, the law is not by works. God has established with us a covenant of grace.
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He's given this covenant fully and we receive it freely. All else is sinking sand.
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If we fix our anchor anywhere else and build our assurance or confidence upon it, we do make a shipwreck of our faith.
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And many, many examples in church history abound of just that very thing. Those who would approach the law as though it were by works, the famous Galatian error, will end up making a shipwreck of their faith.
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They'll end up lost and damned at the end. But when we understand that we have a covenant of grace, then the law takes its right relationship with us through Christ.
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Titus two, beginning in verse 11. For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared.
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Just like Exodus 19, the big prologue of grace. And then we move closer to the law.
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Exodus 20, the prologue, the preface of grace. Then we receive the law. Titus two, the grace of God which brings salvation has appeared.
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Here's the preface of grace. It's by grace. And what does this grace do? It teaches us that denying ungodliness and worldly lust, we should live soberly, righteously, godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great
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God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us. And why did he give himself for us?
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That he might redeem us. That's Exodus imagery, right?
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A slave being redeemed, a slave being purchased out of bondage. That he might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for himself his own special people.
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Oh, Exodus 19, all over Titus two. Redemption imagery, lawless deeds being purged, purification, right?
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His own special people. To be redeemed, in other words, according to Titus two, is to no longer live lawlessly.
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And so God in rescuing and saving his people in Exodus is bringing them to this place where he will now reveal his perfections refracted through these 10 commandments.
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And as he is holy, they must be holy. This is the only way they can ascend the hill. And they must understand that this requires faith in his mercy and the sacrifice that he provides as an atonement to cover them, lest they be consumed by his holiness.
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For he dwells in unapproachable light. His eyes are too pure to behold iniquity. And so God in establishing this, drawing his people out, he purifies them through that Passover as it were.
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And then he says, now I've redeemed you, I've brought you to myself. And now I'm going to purify you from every lawless deed.
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So here's my law. Here's good works. Go be a royal priesthood. It's Exodus 19, realized fully in Titus two.
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To be redeemed is to no longer live lawlessly. To be his special people or his peculiar treasure is to not live lawlessly, but to be purified from lawlessness.
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That he might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for himself his own special people.
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That's Exodus 19. Well, Spurgeon writes a tremendous sermon.
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And if you're apt to read on the Lord's day as you should, it would be one to look up. It's called the obedience of faith.
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It's his sermon from Hebrews 11, verse eight. And toward the beginning, he says, brethren, we don't give a secondary place to obedience like some suppose.
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We regard sanctification or obedience as the great design for which the
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Savior died. You know, sometimes we speak about sanctification like it's some miraculous zap that happens unknown to us.
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I like that Spurgeon makes it synonymous with obedience. We regard sanctification or obedience, that's what sanctification is.
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It's obedience. It's obedience to what God has revealed. These are the things that I forbid.
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These are the things you must avoid. These are the things that are sinful that will destroy your light, your witness, your hope, your trust, your grace.
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These are the things you must do. This is the way you must walk. This is the path you must go. This is the cross you must bear.
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What is sanctification but obedience at the end of the day? It's not some passive zap.
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You don't go to bed and wake up more sanctified. It's every step, every act, every intention, every willful decision to obey
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God's revelation. That is what sanctification is. So you can't look to the left or the right and say, you know, well,
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God sanctifies some people more than others. Maybe someday he'll sanctify me too. We regard sanctification or obedience as the great design for which the
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Savior died. That's what Titus 2 is saying. He shed his blood that he might cleanse us from dead works and purify unto himself a people zealous for good works.
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It is for this that we were chosen. We're called to holiness. Why was
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Israel called to holiness? Because they were to be the royal priesthood, the holy nation for God's purpose in the world.
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It's no different for us. We're the fulfillment of that. We're the realization of that in this new covenant. We're called to be saints.
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Obedience, Spurgeon says, is the grand object of the work of grace in the hearts of those that he has chosen and called.
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Again, don't hear that too quickly. Obedience is the grand object of his calling you and choosing you.
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We don't put that high of a premium on obedience as believers often do, do we? I preach to you,
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Spurgeon says, I preach to you at this time obedience, absolute obedience to the
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Lord God. But I preach the obedience of a child, not the obedience of a slave.
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I preach the obedience of love, not the obedience of terror. I preach the obedience of faith, not of dread.
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That is the difference. Here's another contrast for you. That's the difference between legal obedience and evangelical obedience or gospel obedience.
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It's been gratifying. We've gotten up to the start of the 10
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Commandments in Watson's book. So the past few monthly Mondays the men have gathered and now we're about to start working through Watson's Commandments in a few weeks time.
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And that'll be something we do weekly in our own homes with our families, working through Watson's exposition of the 10
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Commandments. There'll be some Saturday breakfast for those that are interested. And of course it's just putting our hands around this opportunity to actually look at Exodus 20 and bring these things into our minds and hearts in deeper ways.
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But you remember even in the last reading that we did, Watson highlighted this difference between legal obedience and evangelical obedience.
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And that's just coming out of the contrast between law and gospel. We don't want to blur these things.
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There's a big difference between obeying as a slave, a taskmaster, and obeying like a child to a loving father.
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There's a big difference between obedience out of gratitude and awe and love versus obedience out of sort of a, what's the least
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I have to do to kind of go along and get along and not get too much attention on myself. And so this is something that we'll be rehearsing again and again, this picture of evangelical obedience.
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Illegal obedience is natural to us. It's ingrained in our flesh. It's our default position.
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If you're not making a concerted effort to walk in evangelical obedience to God, then you are walking in legality.
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It's just the default nature of the flesh. We think in this way. You can talk till you're blue in your face to someone about how salvation is by grace.
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I remember vividly speaking with Greg's brother -in -law at the prison together.
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We must have gone 15 times over. I know I was just carrying on what Greg had done dozens and dozens of times before, just going over and over again how salvation is by grace.
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Any work we try to bring to us will actually dam us and sink us. We have to trust only in what Christ has done.
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Nods, seems like the spark of recognition is there. Then he's like, I used to be an altar boy.
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I generally am really honest here. It's like, no, no, don't you see?
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But the legality is so deeply ingrained in our flesh. And so believing in the gospel is actually the most impossible thing to do for someone who's unregenerate.
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They always are trying like Adam and Eve desperately, vainly, foolishly to put leaves over themselves.
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Maybe this will be a covering that's good enough. Maybe this will hide me from the all -seeing eye of my
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Maker. And it never amounts to anything, and yet they cannot stop gathering leaves to themselves.
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Maybe enough leaves will submerge my conscience. Maybe I won't feel guilt if I just keep getting more leaves on myself.
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When you say no, the answer is to expose all of that in your naked shame to say,
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God, I'm a sinner. Forgive my sins and save me. And that's the only way.
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That's evangelical obedience. But sinners would rather run and hide to their own ruin and destruction than stand before God and cry upon His mercy.
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Jesus was astounded that so many men who devoted their lives to studying the
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Word of God could not grasp these things. But prostitutes and tax collectors and a
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Roman centurion could. It's a damning indictment for Him to say to a
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Gentile, I have not found faith like this in all of Israel. When Israel was given the law and the covenants and the promises and the prophets.
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Legality is our default. And so as you can see, this concern, this issue, is at the vital heart of the gospel.
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It's the aorta of the gospel. Legal obedience is very concerned to try to obey
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God's law, but it's flooded by anxiety. And where there's too much anxiety, it's just rejection and passivity.
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And usually the only soothing comes from finding others that are a little bit worse than you perceive yourself to be.
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And so that anxiety is soothed for a moment. Well, I'm better than most of the people that I know. And so if God's going to judge,
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He's gonna have to be more merciful to me than them. I'm decent in a lot more way.
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I'm better than some Christians I know, frankly. I'm more nice, I'm more neighborly,
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I'm more caring and sympathetic. I think I'm better than some Christians. You know, you probably are speaking worldly and that will damn you to hell.
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Because Christians are those who put no trust in their own efforts, their own merits, their own works.
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We know we're sinners. We ought to know we're sinners. We ought to be those who preach the gospel to ourselves every day.
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If mercy renews every morning, it's renewing every morning, because every morning we're saying, Lord, I'm a sinner. And as Luther said, my sins grow like my beard.
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I've got daily stubble of sinfulness, Lord. I'm amazed at your stubbornness. I'm amazed that you're still patient with me.
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I'm amazed that you still love me. I'm amazed that I'm still persevering in this walk when I see my unworthiness more now than I could have a decade ago, or two decades ago.
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Which means in the Christian life, one of the worst things you'll encounter is a saint who's walked with the
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Lord for decades and yet has not grown in humility. That's someone who probably has a foothold of legal obedience in their heart.
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Because evangelical obedience strips all that away. Legal obedience says, you need to believe more.
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You haven't believed enough. Not enough faith. It's a weak faith and that won't do. You need more faith, stronger faith.
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Go to Morningstar, get a stack of books, read all the blogs, send a text to Signal, try to get a bunch of people praying for you.
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You haven't repented enough. Have you repented enough? You certainly haven't obeyed enough. More, more, more. And it's the default.
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It's fig leaves. Can I cover? Can I soothe? What am I gonna plant my anchor on? Where am
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I gonna find my assurance? But you can never obey enough. You can never repent enough.
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You can never believe enough. That's legal obedience. And that's why we say, not the law as by works, but the law by grace.
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Our confession in chapter 19, 689, confession in perfect agreement, literally a
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Xerox copy of the Savoy in the Westminster on this chapter. 19 .6,
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although true believers are not under the law as a covenant of works.
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Again, that's the very important addition that we need to have in our mind and I'll explain why.
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Although true believers are not under the law as a covenant of works, to be thereby justified or condemned, it is still of great use to them as well as to others in that as a rule of life, informing them of the will of God and their duty, it directs them and it binds them to walk accordingly.
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It's a marvelous statement, 19 .6. So not the law as by works, as if it were by works, that stumbling stone, not the law as a covenant of works, do this and you will live, but rather the law by grace or the law as a rule of life.
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A law that we walk because we have received the grace of God, not so that we would receive the grace of God.
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That's the difference between legal obedience and evangelical obedience. So here's the important point.
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The important point from 19 .6. The covenant of works, this law and the way that Israel, according to the flesh, received it, it would either justify or condemn them and condemn them it did.
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And that's why Paul, who spent so much of his life seeking justification by the law, saw the hopelessness of that and then when
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Christ revealed Himself, he saw the beauty of this display of God's salvation and the rightful purpose of the law, which as he says is holy, just, and good.
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It's a rule of life now. It has no power to condemn. It can't condemn. It has no power to justify. It could never exonerate or give life.
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Only Christ can do it. So now it's a rule of life. That beautiful image from Pilgrim's Progress, the stick that Moses used to beat down Christian became a walking stick.
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Not the laws by works, but the law by grace. That's our covenantal relationship to the law.
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Which, to put it this way, we receive the law, we receive the Ten Commands, we receive the moral law of God, not from the hands of Moses, but from the hands of Christ.
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And we can rightly call it the law of Christ. I'll say that again. Our covenantal relationship in this new covenant which is in Christ's blood means that we approach the law not as a covenant by works.
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It cannot justify nor condemn. We have not been condemned. We have been justified because Christ was condemned on our behalf.
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And so in this new covenant in His blood, we approach the law by grace. It's a rule of life for us.
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It's the way that we will walk by grace. Even the motivation to walk is fueled by grace.
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And so we receive this law in the new covenant not from the hands of Moses like an Israelite, which is, if you remember, as we'll get there,
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Moses throwing the stones at them. We don't receive the law in that way, thank God. We receive the law from the hands of Christ.
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Very helpful background reading. This probably wouldn't be something that everyone could read.
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The Marrow of Modern Divinity, which was an older 17th century work, published by EF, those are the initials.
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Everyone assumes it's Edward Fisher, who was sort of a layman, an interested layman, but he wrote and published this work, and it's been republished.
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About a century later, Thomas Boston, who was a very important Scottish Puritan, added notes to his copy of the
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Marrow of Modern Divinity and republished it as well. And this gave way to what's known as the Marrow Controversy.
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And Boston and the Erskine brothers and others were known as the Marrow Men. And this was a controversy that erupted in the
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Reformed Church, in the Presbyterian Church of Scotland. And the Marrow Men were in the minority.
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And they weren't vindicated right away. In fact, they had to fight some battles for a good decade or two. And only now have they been vindicated.
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And so this book, The Marrow of Modern Divinity, if you could find it online, you could buy Christian Focus's reprint, which is very well done.
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If you wanted to read a very well done presentation on the controversy and the issues that it connects to,
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Sinclair Ferguson has a book called The Whole Christ. And he'll cover a lot of the same material. I always say, go to the horse's mouth.
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Read Marrow if you can. But it's heavy reading. If you don't wanna read that, read
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Sinclair Ferguson. It will only help you as you work through these issues when it comes to the law. So having said that, in section three of this
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Marrow of Modern Divinity, Fisher has these characters that correspond to the whole book.
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And so neophyte, or novice, or he's new to the issues of the law. He's trying to understand it.
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He has all these questions. And evangelista, which is gospel, the right way, the orthodox way, he's trying to explain to neophyte how to understand the nature of the law, the law of Christ, how all these things relate.
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And on the one side, you have nomista, which is just law, legalism. The other side, you have antinomista, lawlessness.
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And so the whole dialogue in this book is sort of a newcomer. You're the neophyte, as you read.
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And evangelista, the gospel, is trying to tell you how to avoid the errors of lawlessness or legalism on either side.
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So in section three, he talks about how the Ten Commandments are actually the law of Christ.
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So evangelista says, the law of Christ, in regard to its substance, is all one with the law of works.
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In other words, you have the law, and that law may be given as a covenant of works to Israel, or it may be given in this new covenant by grace.
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But the law is the same. The substance of the law is the same. Which matter, he says, is scattered through the whole
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Bible. It's summed up in the Ten Commandments. Commonly called the moral law. And therefore, it was given of God to be a true and eternal rule of righteousness, right?
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This is the standard. This is the rule. This doesn't change. This isn't something unique to the covenant.
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This is the moral law, as contained across these covenants, okay? So that evangelical grace directs a man to no other obedience than that which the law of the
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Ten Commandments is to be the rule. In other words, when we obey God, we obey according to His law, the
01:00:00
Ten Commandments. That law has not changed. It's always the same. Well then, legalism is wanting a little clarification.
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And so he says, okay, you're saying that this law, as it was given to Israel as works, is actually still to us the law of Christ.
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It's the same substance, but it has to be different somehow. And Evangelista says, yes.
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Both these laws agree, the law of works, the covenant of works, and the law of Christ. Both of these things agree when they say, do this.
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They both say, do this. That's important. There's a lot of Christian traditions. There's a lot of churches that don't actually believe in the new covenant.
01:00:44
The law says, do this. The law says, do this. The law of Christ says, do this.
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As we saw, Exodus 20, verse six, John 14, 15. If you love God, you keep
01:00:57
His commandments. Do this. But here is the difference. Here's the difference between law and gospel.
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Here's the difference between legal obedience and evangelical obedience. Here's the difference between the law of works and the law of Christ.
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One says, do this and live. The other says, live and do this.
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One says, do this for life. If you don't do it, you'll die. The other says, do this from life.
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One is delivered by God as He is the creator, and it's given to those outside of Christ, to all those outside of Christ.
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They can't opt out. This is God's standard. This is the rule. They're made in His image, whether they want to be made in His image or not.
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They are to reflect that image according to this rule of righteousness, whether they care to or not.
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They will stand before Him in judgment according to this rule, whether they think of that or ignore it.
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That's the reality. And all they have is the law, the same law, saying, do this and you'll live.
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Fail to do a jot or tittle and you're ruined. Do this for life.
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In the day you fail to do the least of these things, you die. But for all those in Christ, with Christ as the
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Redeemer, Christ as the Mediator, the law says, live and do this. Have life and do this.
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From grace, walk in this way. And so Thomas Boston in his notes summarizes, those to whom the
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Ten Commandments is given as the law of Christ are those who have already received life.
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Even life that never ends as God's free gift before they were ever capable of doing good works, who therefore need not to work for life, but from life, you see?
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They didn't have to work for life because God gave them life freely. So there's nothing they could do to earn the life they've already received freely.
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Grace could not be bought, it was given freely. So that grace now is compelling them out of love, out of gratitude, out of desire to obey.
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Evangelical obedience. It's one thing, Boston says, to be under the law as a covenant.
01:03:21
It's another thing to be under the law as a rule of life. This is what Paul means when he says we're not under the law, but under grace.
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As to its covenant terms, as to its curse, as to its demands, we are not under the law.
01:03:38
And so this is how, in this little section of chapter three, Evangelista then turns to the novice, to the learner, and he says, beware that you never receive the 10
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Commandments from the hands of Moses, but only from the hands of Christ. That's still a main concern.
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That's a main concern on my heart over the next several months. I kind of calculated and it seems like we'll be in the 10
01:04:04
Commandments up till the end of March, maybe the beginning of April. And I pray that God protects me from falling into the errors of legalism or lawlessness.
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And I know that that means I must receive this law and all that it says do this, not from the rugged 80 -year -old hands of Moses that wants to throw it at me, but from the nail -pierced hands of my
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Savior who has already given me grace. And he says, follow me by doing this.
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Here's a way for you to walk after me. And where your conscience is alarmed, where there's anxiety or fear, where the serpent begins to say, your shame needs to be hidden, notice the blood stains on the side of the wall that I give you from the hands of Christ.
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If you're disobedient, but you're a believer, this is your only hope, isn't it?
01:05:02
You can't hope to become obedient by working harder, forcing more energy into the same resolution.
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What Spurgeon says is so true. It's what Paul says in Galatians.
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You began by grace, now are you gonna finish by works? How is it that you actually came into this relationship with the
01:05:25
Lord? Was it something you bought your way into, bargained your way toward? We accept the
01:05:30
Lord Jesus by faith, and he teaches us obedience by creating it in us, all of grace.
01:05:38
So Spurgeon says the more faith you have in him, the more obedience you will manifest. What he's saying is the more you try to turn away from Christ and try to work out your obedience, the less obedience you'll find.
01:05:52
But the more you're just looking at Christ and reveling in who he is and what he's done, admiring his perfection, trying to be like he is, you'll find that your life is being conformed to his image, and that's what sanctification is, and what is sanctification?
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Obedience. Well, let me say this as we come to a close. Nomista is alive and well.
01:06:18
Nomista is alive and well in our Reformed circles with all of the clear teaching. There's a reason that in Thomas Boston's day, he was the black sheep.
01:06:26
He was the pariah in his presbytery. There's a reason. Nomista is alive and well. We feel somehow that we cannot fight the battles of laxity or worldlessness unless we turn the law into a whip and we make the law as if it were by works.
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And so we must be weary, and I hope I'll have at least a dear brother or sister that will come alongside me and exhort me if there's any sense
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I lean too far to the right or left when it comes to these things. Because again, it's well -intentioned, and yet we can magnify the law and use
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Christ as a way of magnifying the law rather than allowing the law to magnify
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Christ, who Christ is and what He's done. And that's why when
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Paul turns Exodus 19 over into Titus 2, he doesn't have a lot to say about the law.
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He has a lot to say about Christ, looking for our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, the one who gave
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Himself for us. And so beware of modern day Nomistas. Even the Galatians had good intentions, but God forbid we would be accused of being ministers of the law rather than ministers of the gospel.
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Other refuge have I none, nothing but the blood of Jesus. If you believe these things, you are a chosen generation.
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You are a royal priesthood. You are God's peculiar treasure.
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You once were not, but now you are. You had not obtained mercy, but now you have.
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So that you can proclaim His praises. Amen? Let's pray.
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Father, thank You for Your Word. Bless it to us. Use this, Lord, as preparation for the weeks and months ahead,
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Lord. We would do these things that You have commanded. Yet we recognize we cannot, we will not do it,
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Lord, unless our eyes are fixed upon our Savior, unless it's His grace by His Spirit performing these things in us on our behalf.
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Thank You, Lord. You have not left us to yourselves. As Augustine said, Lord, all that You require
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You have freely given. We bless You, O Lord, that You love us this much.
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May we return some iota of that love by way of obedience, we pray in Your Son's name.