Keep sharing good news without ads.
No description available
He's still doing real estate.
I'm not sure what it is. He said it was new employment. So I don't know what the situation is. Anyway, hey, Wilbert, why don't you just pray a little?
Our Father, as always, we thank you for another day of life that you've given us. We ask you now as we go into this study that is beneficial for us because it's your word. We ask you to bless Brother Andy now as he's prepared.
Bless that preparation time in the word of Jesus' name.
Amen.
Yeah, and I would say Jim and Patty, they have visitors or something. So they weren't able to be here. Anyway, so I want to continue what we've been doing. And while I was this morning, I want to switch to a different topic.
Remember what we said, that the book that we're using has a multitude of different topics and covers a lot of things. And on all these subjects, we could spend a great deal of time. But that's really not the purpose.
The purpose is to try to get some understanding in many different things, at least enough so that we have a strong foundation to work with in our lives. So anyway, I want to talk about the law of God a little bit and ask us to think about that.
And I want to say this. Good morning. We just started, so you didn't miss anything. I want to talk about the law of God, but not in the sense of the discussion that continually goes on, whether we are still obligated to obey the law as it was laid out in the old covenant or the law that is laid out in the new covenant.
And there is a distinction to be made in that between the old covenant and the new covenant, I would say. And maybe you understand it, but I would say that there are many who will not address the new covenant versus the old covenant with the covenant that God made with Israel when they came out of Egypt.
But rather, they'll go back all the way to the garden, and they'll talk about covenant of works and different administrations of the covenant of grace and all those things. But I don't really want to deal with that right now, but we will do it at a later point.
And certainly, Sproul, who's a great thinker and a great author, was Presbyterian, and his thoughts on law are somewhat different than our thoughts on law as new covenant believers. But what I want to do is I want to continue along this path of what kind of laws God lays out in his word that we can see in life.
And so certainly, there are a number of ways to consider God's law. First is, there's the law, if you will, of the creation, of the things that God has made. And I would say there are abiding principles.
Let's just think about that. What would be an example of a law? And when I'm saying law now, I mean a principle that God has put in place that we can trust, rely on, and see it as it lays out.
Gravity.
Huh?
Gravity?
Gravity, sure, yeah. I mean, could you imagine if what goes up doesn't come down all the time? I mean, you just think about that, or you think about how the planets move, and they have, there's this exact orbit that they keep, and the stars, and they, as they, because otherwise, it would be nothing but crash and bang, if you will.
And just take another one, you just take about the principles that God has given to us, and we take for granted a lot of times. We, like in other words, why does water boil, what is it, 100, water boils at 121 degrees or something like that?
Anyway, or water freezes at 32. Could you imagine if that law, that principle did not always continue on? That if all of a sudden water froze at another temperature or water boiled at, can you imagine the chaos that that would cause?
And how could we really rely on a principle that we can trust would always be in place? So when you think about that, and you think about how God has laid out laws, it really is something that we ought to pay attention to and think about in our life, that God has been so gracious, if you will, in that area alone, and we take it for granted, don't you think?
We just assume that you put water in the freezer and it's gonna freeze at a certain temperature, or you throw something up in the air and it's definitely gonna come down. Just thinking about something, here's a quick joke, not good on jokes, and I don't usually tell jokes, but nevertheless, there was a priest and a Jewish guy, and they were having a discussion on giving, and so, you know it already, George?
I think so.
Okay. So the priest says he gives this much money to God, and the Jewish rabbi says, well, here's what I do, I throw my money up in the air, and whatever God wants, he keeps, and whatever hits the ground is mine.
But just that thought, really, of that that's a principle that God has put in place. So when we think about the law of God, not so much thinking solely about it from the standpoint of the Ten Commandments or the law of Christ, because again, at a later point, we'll have this discussion about that, but there are these abiding laws that you and I rely on, depend on, and we ought to praise God for them.
We really ought to, and not just take them as if they are, as if we're entitled to them, or that it could change, because again, that gives us such a comforting feeling. Oh, there's the lost brother.
We're showing, Siri found him.
Found him.
We were doing deacon work, man.
Oh, well, are you putting the cover back on the box?
Yeah, I think it's heavy.
Yeah, I know it is. Okay, so that's one law, the law of just merely the principles that God has established in the universe, and so we can trust on that and depend on it. So there's another kind of law, and it's, if you will, I'm gonna call them moral norms, that there are things that God has established and they are characteristic of God himself.
In other words, they are things that reflect his attributes, and he's put that law, and as we looked at in the past, he's put it within the conscience of man. Can you give me an example of what you think might be a moral norm, that no matter where you go, no matter how you live, no matter what kind of culture or what time and civilization you live in, that there's this moral truth that abides forever?
Murder.
Murder, absolutely, because that's something that God has, God created us in his image, right, and after his likeness, and so is murder ever right? I'm not talking about war, because that's a totally different discussion, but from the standpoint of taking someone else's life and taking the image of God and destroying it, that that would be a moral norm, that God has established, and there's no argument about that, no matter where you go, although people might, as we looked at in the past, let me plug this in, that people might assume that it's up to them to make that decision, it's not, and it's never right, always wrong, and God will hold people in account for it.
You think any other moral norm that might be?
I mean, you can say all the ten commandments, really. Okay, yeah. It's adultery.
Yeah, and you could say, from the standpoint of, it's just like marriage and divorce. Now, I'm gonna say that, because when you listen to what Jesus said, Jesus said, what was the reason that God allowed divorce?
The hardness of the heart, but he then says, from the beginning, it was what? It was not so, and that a man shall leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh, and when God is joined together, let no man put asunder.
So yeah, we could say that, and we could say that about many of the things that we would find. Let me pose this as a question for us to think about. Would you agree that there are laws that God established, even under the old covenant?
And again, when I say old covenant now, I mean the covenant that God established with Israel when he redeemed them out of Egypt. Or, if you wanna go back even further, those moral norms that God established, even all the way back in the Garden of Eden, that we could say are still binding upon everyone at every time?
And you brought it up, brother, right? Many of the things in the Ten Commandments, although we would have to have a better understanding or a clearer understanding. Let's take, for example, let's take example of the Sabbath.
And again, I don't really wanna discuss this too detailed at this point, but would you agree that there's a moral norm that God has put in place that man ought to worship God?
You agree?
Men ought to worship God. Is that the same as saying that men ought to keep the Sabbath, okay? And many people would say that, in that sense, that the Sabbath is an abiding moral principle and law that should not be broken.
I would say I disagree with that from the standpoint of men ought to worship God and they ought to give God the glory in everything, but that we are not as bound by, we're not bound by what was, in a sense, trying not to get too far into this, the sign of the covenant, as I believe, which was what?
If you could read it in Exodus, I think it's Exodus 32, right? It says that the sign of the covenant that God made with Israel was the keeping of the Sabbath. And so, again, those very things, these moral norms, if you will, which are a reflection of Him, are things we ought to keep, but they're not as, not as binding in the sense of the law as it was laid out, because what was the punishment?
Ben, you brought up things from the Ten Commandments. What was the punishment for breaking the Sabbath? You remember the man who picked up the sticks on the Sabbath? What did he do? That was it, he was gone.
And so it had a different outworking, but I do believe the purpose of it, or the norm of it was that we ought to worship God. So you have the law and the creation in the universe, you have moral norms that God has established to all men at all times, and then there are a number of laws that God established, well, I'm forming in a question, I just like to form things in a question.
Would you agree that there are laws that God established in history for a specific time, for a specific reason, to a specific people? Sure, sacrifice would be one, and certainly, again, it goes back to what?
It goes back to that covenant that God made with Israel when he took him out of Egypt, and if you read through Leviticus and you read through Numbers, all those things that God said that they must do.
It wasn't an option, just again, the man who picked up sticks on the Sabbath, there wasn't any option, because in that sense, the penalty was already laid out. You do this, you get that. Interesting, isn't it, that the Ten Commandments are, if you will, written in both positive and negative, what we should do and what we, what, shouldn't do, but within that thought, there are those laws that God established for a specific time and a specific purpose.
Sacrifice would be one. Can you think of any others? How about the dietary laws? You think about that. I mean, you were only allowed to eat what? Certain animals, and you're only allowed to eat certain things that came out of the sea?
I mean, they weren't fighting over crab legs and lobsters, in those days.
Or bacon.
Or bacon, that's sorry stuff. But here's the point. The point is, God, who is perfect in all his ways, and God, who is all wise, has this very specific purpose for putting those laws in place, and God alone, God alone has the right to take those things away.
So, again, as new covenant believers, and we could look, and we will look at a couple of examples, but if you think what Paul says in Colossians, Colossians 2, he says what? About, he says, let no man judge you in the keeping of what?
Feasts, and festivals, and Sabbaths, and whatnot. Well, why is that no longer to be thought of as it was thought of back then? Because God had a very specific purpose. I wanna show you something. If you have your Bibles, go to Acts chapter 10 a minute.
And I thought about this, and this was a big issue to them, but I want you, let's just read Acts chapter 10 for a little bit. So, in Acts chapter 10, there was a certain man in Caesarea called Cornelius, a centurion of the Italian regiment, and a devout man, and it goes on and on, and he's told, in a sense, to send for Peter.
So, the next day, in verse nine, the next day, as they went on their journey and drew near the city, Peter went up to the housetop to pray about the sixth hour. And he became very hungry, and he wanted to eat.
But while they made ready, he fell into a trance and saw heaven open, and an object like a great sheep bound at the four corners, descending to him, and let down to the earth. And in it were all kinds of four-footed animals of the earth, and wild beasts, and creeping things, and birds of the air, and a voice came to him, said, rise, Peter, kill and eat.
But Peter said, not so, Lord, for I have never eaten anything common or unclean. Again, this was something that they were under obligation for, right? This was not an optional thing where they could decide, well, I'll just eat bacon today.
This was an obligation that they could not break. But here's what's interesting. In verse 14, when he says, not so, for I have not eaten anything common or clean, and the voice spoke to him again the second time, look what it says, what God has cleansed, you must not call common.
This was done three times, and the object was taken up into heaven. So what this is telling us is that what was binding at one point, and a law, was no longer to be considered the same way as it was in the past.
So we know the story, right? So he goes and he meets the House of Cornelius, and he relays the story of how he saw this vision, and then what's interesting, as he comes back to the Jews, they begin to chide him because what?
Because he ate with Gentiles, which again, as it was laid out before, it would have been something that they shouldn't have done. My point in that is, try to get us to think about, we have laws in the universe, we have moral, if you will, norms, and then we also have laws that were established for a very specific purpose, for a very specific time, and that God alone has the right to alter those laws.
Any disagreement, any thought on that, about who has the right to not only establish it, but to remove it, or if you will, change it, alter it. And so certainly, we do well to consider that. Now, I want us to think about something else.
I want us to think about the law in a more general way as far as what has been given to us. What would it be like if we lived without laws?
Chicago.
Yeah, Chicago.
Chicago, Portland. I mean, you know what's really interesting about that? And it's just a thought, maybe you think a little differently, maybe you agree, that there is an antinomian, which means against law, there's an antinomian attitude these days that maybe even a generation ago, at least in the United States, that even a generation ago might not have been as blatant.
How many of us would say that as we grew up, as we were growing up, because none of us here are under 21. I'm confident in that. No, no, brother, no. See that gray in that beard? That's a revealer. I know you're out, brother.
But just think about it. Would we not say that even a generation ago, and if you consider it as a generation, be 30 years or 40, whatever way you want to define a generation, that there seemed to have been more respect for the law, that there was almost, I don't want to say reverence in the wrong kind of way, but there was this respect that people had for authority, for rules, for laws.
I remember when I saw a police officer, there was a bit of respect to be had. I mean, I still have it today, but there was a bit of respect to be had versus what we see today. You didn't hesitate to say Chicago, baby.
But, you know, and I was just reading yesterday about what's going on in Portland. It's terrible, isn't it? That the things that people, and it's just, if you will, it's just this attitude against any sort of rules or laws, and it really, I think it's also connected to people wanting to be autonomous.
And autonomous simply means you want to be ruled by yourself. You don't want anybody telling you anything about anything, just like in certain aspects of it, how many of us have never said to a young person who thinks that they can do whatever they want, whenever they want, however they want, and at some point, usually it's something like, wait, what is it?
I think you can see a huge compare and contrast. We went to the Dominican Republic this year.
Yeah.
And you got, on the same island, you have Haiti, and you had a Dominican Republic. Haiti is a mess, man, everybody's starving. There's no rule of law, everybody's killing, but there's only some people.
That's a compare and contrast. And although that Dominican Republic, it's still third world, there's still a sense of law there, you know, people doing something. And then also in Israel and Palestine, huge, Palestine right there, and it's destroyed with Hamas and all that, and then you got Israel, who has the rule of law.
It's a much better country.
Yeah, there's just this, if you will, there's a benefit, and I'm gonna spend a few minutes thinking about that, but there's a certain benefit to, and again, I believe the law is a gracious provision by God, right?
Because man being man, whose thoughts and intents of his heart are not God honoring, but even as Jeremiah says, the heart is deceitful and desperately wicked, who could know it, that man, apart from law, even in the civil arena, there would be, it would be as crazy as water boiling at one point and then water freezing at another point and changing and flip-flopping all over the place.
I want you to look at this, if you would, in 1 Timothy, in the very first chapter, and let's just think about this for a minute. Let's look at it in chapter one of 1 Timothy, and I'll just pick it up in verse eight.
He says this, this is Paul, but we know that the law is good, and we could stop right there and use that as a gracious provision of God, knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous person, but for the lawless, the insubordinate, for ungodly, for sinners, for unholy, for profane, for murderers of father and murderers of mothers, for manslayers, for fornicators, for sodomites, for kidnappers, for liars, for perjurers, and if there is any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine.
So what is that teaching us? It's teaching us that the law is absolutely essential, if you will, to curb, what? What does the law do in a way of curbing? It promotes judgment. If you break the law, right, there's a penalty.
You go through the red light, there's a penalty. I've never gone through a red light, so. You have anything to say, baby?
Liar.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha.
Man, I look at you, man. Can you soften that a little bit, baby, what?
It's straight up, honey.
It's straight up, Bennett.
You know, yes, but.
I know, I did always ask the wrong questions. But, yeah, if you think about that. Without law, where would we be? And to your point, lawless nations and how, again, I'm saying a couple more times, the gracious provision by God given to us for law.
So with that in mind, and probably the most, at least in the New Testament, let's just look at Romans 13 a minute.
And Andy, you guys are always praying for the leaders of us at the time of peace.
So we could lead a, we could what? Live a quiet and peaceable life. Not necessarily a prosperous life, although that's in the thought of having quietness and peace. But really we want the government to, because the law is not for the righteous, right?
So if we're righteous, we should be, what, following God's rule for us in our lives. And therefore against the ungodly, it binds them and holds them in place. So let's just read Romans 13 for a second because, again, it's so pointed and so clear in that sense.
So it says this, let every soul, not just certain, let every soul be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except from God and the authorities that exist are appointed by God.
And of course we could have a big long discussion about how does that work out when the rulers are evil and at what point do evil rulers bind us? And we could even go into the book of Acts, remember when Peter and John were told they couldn't what?
Couldn't preach Christ and they said, well, if you think it's better for us to obey you or God, we'll let God judge, but we're going to preach Christ. But if you think about it, these authorities are appointed by God.
Therefore, whoever resists the authority, resists the ordinance of God and those who resist will bring judgment on themselves, for rulers are not a terror to good works, but to evil. Do you want to be unafraid of the authority?
Do what is good and you will have praise for the same. For he is God's minister to you for good, but if you do evil, be afraid for he does not bear the sword in vain, for he is God's minister and avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil.
That's what it said in first Timothy, that the law was not made for the righteous, but for the unrighteous. And he gives us a whole list of things, which by the way, to what you had said before, you read through that list in first Timothy, much of that is contained where?
In the 10 commandments, right? So again, moral norms that God established are still binding on us as long as we are we understand how it operates. And again, the law not being for the righteous, but rather for the unrighteous.
He's God's minister in verse 4, an avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil, therefore do good. Therefore you must be subject, not only because of wrath, but because of conscience sake. For because of this, you also pay taxes.
They are God's ministers attending continually to this very thing, render therefore all their due taxes to whom taxes are due, customs to whom customs, fear to whom fear, and honor to whom honor. So there is a reality of these laws that have been established by governments.
And there was a lot of abuses of this in history, and we could spend much time on that. And certainly at one point, the Roman Catholic Church thought that the government was to be used by them as their sword.
And even in the Protestant Reformation, there are certain areas where those reformers thought that the government was to be used by men as God's sword. And therefore, if you think about it, when we come up with this thought of when we first established a separation of what?
Church and state. It really, that to me, is another gracious provision by God, because who's to have the authority? The government has a civil authority, but they shouldn't have an authority over who we worship and how we worship.
And then you could almost take that and flip it around and say, well, why we're supposed.
To be...
I don't know if I should even... How many of us would say we live in a Christian nation? How many of us would say we live in a nation that calls itself Christian? But if you think about it, we don't obey the very laws that God has given to us, and yet we claim to be God's people, and yet we don't follow God's law.
And I'm not just talking about what was legislated on tablets of stone. If you ever want to read a good book about it, and I'm not even sure it's around, there's a book out by John Ressinger, and maybe you've heard of him, maybe you haven't.
Brother, you heard of him?
Yeah. Yeah.
Because you would have heard from him being up north, right?
No, not necessarily, but through other...
Okay. Okay.
And he was a... He started... Actually, there was a... The Sound of Grace was... And he has a book called Tablets of Stone, and it's a really good read. I was looking for it the other day. I can't find it.
It's probably somewhere in my room. But he draws out this distinction how there was these, if you will, moral norms that God established from the beginning, and those are still binding. Then he makes a distinction between that truth of moral norms and what was given to Israel on Mount Sinai.
And if you think about it, and again, I'm trying to steer away from this, but I guess you can't a little bit. Many people will just simply say that the law that God gave Israel, it was moral, civil,.
Ceremonial.
Okay? That there were moral aspects of it?
Agree?
Were there civil aspects of it?
Agree.
And it was ceremonial, and that would include the dietary laws and some of the other things and, I mean, there were civil laws that God gave Israel that we would not want to say we're still bound with today because under those laws, if a kid was disobedient to his parents to a certain extent, it wasn't like it was, that's it.
Take them out and stone them. I mean, I kind of got on the kids a little bit just before because they were running up and down the hallway, but under the old covenant, if they continually did that, man, it was a career-ending move, if you will.
So you think about that and you think about how there has been, if you will, laws God has established in the universe that are kept in place by God and it's a gracious provision. Then there are laws that God has established through this moral, if you will, norm that God has given us.
Then there are these laws that God has established that have been abrogated, if you will, to such an extent that we are no longer bound to them. And then we have these laws, as we just talked about, that are laid out for us and given to us by God, but they had a purpose and they're no longer binding.
And certainly, we talked about the Sabbath. We talked about other things. So I'll finish with this and then I'm going to read a quick quote from Sproul's book and then we're out of here. Just turn to Matthew chapter 5 for a minute.
And I'm going to leave this really for you to think about more than anything else. But what Jesus said in Matthew 5, and I'm sure at some point in the future we'll have a further discussion about it. Look what he says in Matthew chapter 5 and it should be verse 17.
Okay.
Look what Jesus said. He said, Do not think I came to destroy the law or the prophets. I did not come to destroy, but to fulfill. For surely I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass on the law till all is fulfilled.
And so we'll come back to that because that's a very powerful statement that we'll have to consider as we work through more of what laws are we really under? Are we still bound by these moral norms? And I'm going to say we are.
Are we bound by certain things in the universe? I would say we are. Are we bound by certain things that God established for a specific time and a specific purpose? I'm going to say perhaps not. But let me just read this to you.
And this is Sproul's book. It's Article 5, Topic 5 in Sons of the Law of God. He says this, As God's creatures, we are required to do what is right. God demands that we live according to his moral law, moral norms, which he has revealed to us in the Bible.
God's law is the ultimate standard of righteousness and the supreme norm for judging right and.
Wrong.
As our sovereign, God has the authority to impose obligations on us, to command our obedience, to bind our conscience. He also has the power and the right to punish disobedience when we violate his law.
And sin may be defined as disobedience to God's law. Some laws in the Bible are directly based on the character of God. We talked about that. These laws reflect the permanent transcultural elements of relationships, both divine and human.
Other laws were intended for temporary conditions of society. And we talked about that, right? The ceremonial laws and part of the civil laws that were laid out. This means that some laws are absolute and eternal, while others may be annulled by God for historical reasons, such as the dietary and ceremonial laws of Israel.
Only God himself may set aside such laws. Human beings never had the authority to set God's law apart. And we talked about that, right? Because what was the thing that God revealed to Peter? It was that what God said was no longer unclean, was no longer unclean.
It wasn't just what Peter said. It wasn't what the Gentiles said. It wasn't what the Pharisees said. It was what God said. So God alone has the right to both establish and to bind. And so with that, next week we're going to study the prophets a little bit.
And if you want to, you can.