Q&A: God's law For Our Time?

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Pastor Jeff Durbin sits down at the Equip + Go Conference and answers the audience questions. In this clip Pastor Jeff answers the question about the relevance and objectivity of God's Law. What is true Justice? Should we legislate Biblical Law? You can get more at http://apologiastudios.com. Be sure to like, share, and comment on this video. #ApologiaStudios You can partner with us by signing up for All Access. When you do you make everything we do possible and you also get our TV show, After Show, and Apologia Academy. In our Academy you can take a courses on Christian apologetics and much more. Follow us on social media here: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ApologiaStudios/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/apologiastudios?lang=en Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/apologiastudios/?hl=en

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00:00
So I would say first to that, the law is supposed to be something that actually brings about conviction.
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The law is used. Like, for example, how did all of you come to Jesus? You guys don't know?
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I get it. You're like, wait, is this a Christian church? No. So think about it.
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All of us came to Christ because you had a realization of your own sin, right? God exposed your sin.
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You knew you need for Jesus. Why does anybody flee to Christ? Because they realize their sin and their need for the Savior. They're guilty before God.
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So the law actually has an instructional purpose behind it to show you who you are before God, to show you sin, to show you unrighteousness, and to point you to Jesus.
00:49
The law oftentimes, like you mentioned in terms of historic Christianity, the law was not always seen as it is in many circles today in the 21st century in the
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West as just this big, oppressive, awful thing. Many Christians in history have seen the law of God in terms of Deuteronomy chapter 4.
01:07
When he gives the law of God to his people, you know what he says? It's powerful. I think it answers your question pretty directly.
01:14
He says in Deuteronomy chapter 4, when he gives his law to his people, he says that this was supposed to be their wisdom in the sight of the peoples, that all the pagan nations around Israel were supposed to look at the law that he gave them and say, what kind of God is this that is so near as this
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God and has righteous statutes like this? The law of God was supposed to actually be light to the pagan, dark world in terms of justice and righteousness, that a law of God can save nobody because it only shuts our mouth before God.
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But that doesn't mean the law of God is not good. It doesn't mean the law of God is not just. And so what's important for us is to have a proper view of the law of God, that it is just, it is righteous.
02:00
And when someone says to me, you know, I don't think we need to bother with like law and justice in the world.
02:06
I would say, well, God commands you to correct oppression, to establish justice. But, you know, I think we need to first work on converting our nation.
02:12
I'd say, great, so you think rape is fine today? Kidnapping children should be allowed in our society today.
02:19
Christians shouldn't have anything to say about that. What about the part in scripture where Jesus says to love your neighbor as you love yourself?
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And so part of this whole enterprise of going to the legislature and demanding justice for the pre -born is primarily an issue of loving your neighbor.
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If you were being taken away to the slaughter, if you're being threatened with dismemberment and chemical burning, what would you want someone to do for you?
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Love your neighbor as you love yourself. I want every person in this country to know Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord and to experience the transformation all of us have.
02:58
But I can actually walk and chew gum at the same time, right? I can preach the salvation and eternal life that's only in Christ through faith alone in Him, and I can work to establish justice for my neighbor that I'm commanded to love.
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And so I think oftentimes as Christians, we don't think with a balance, right?
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By the way, this is a major problem with us. It always has been. We tend to not be balanced in our thinking.
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We fall off of cliffs on one side or the other. Christians, we all have that problem in some way or another.
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I'll give you an example, and I hope this doesn't offend anybody. This is not an attack. It's just a way to think about this. I saw very recently somebody posted on their
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Facebook. I don't know them well, but they posted on their Facebook, came across my feed. It showed a picture of their television, and it was smashed to bits, like broken to bits.
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And the post was like, well, you know, we've decided in our house to no longer allow a television because there are evil things on television.
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This is used for evil purposes. And so they didn't just throw their TV away. They broke it to pieces. And I'm thinking to myself, well, that'd be a real challenge in my house because we watch godly content on our
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TV. We play worship music through our TV. You see what I'm saying? So instead of being balanced and thinking in terms of it being a tool, we recognize, well, evil happens, so where do
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I go? Destroy the television. Destroy this. And I'm thinking to myself the whole time, brother, you're writing this on Facebook?
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On the other side, and we recognize the pit, on the other side people get imbalanced and they say, well, you know, this is just a tool.
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And so they get to a place where they don't even consider the stuff that's coming into their house. They're not cautious about who's indoctrinating their children through that screen.
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They're not cautious about the people that their kids are watching. They're not cautious about the kind of content that's coming into their home and instructing their family.
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And so they fall off a cliff like, well, you know, just let whatever in, and the other side, let's destroy the tool.
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Where I think there's a more balanced biblical way to think about this in terms of I can think about many different things in categories as a
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Christian, right? I can compartmentalize and think about this category here and this category here. And in this issue, to answer your question,
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I think Christians fail to think in categories. The category of loving neighbor, establishing justice, correcting oppression, and the category of regeneration, renewal, and salvation through the proclamation of the gospel.
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We need to be able to think in appropriate categories and not just, it's one or the other.