The three uses of the law

Black sheep among misfits A misfit in the trailer park at night

A misprint with the sixth sense Been sick ever since my brother died of an

O .D. My two cents never made sense Either to me or anyone else inside of the sheep fence

My 9th Smith on my right side Why you staring at your cop dot sign

And my John Hancock on the dotted line Tell me what's the bottom line The bottom line is

I'm not right I'm not left but this elephant won't fight There's nothing left but the spotlight

Hold my beer, you can find me in the moonlight You can say what you want

You can say what you want What you want around me You can say what you want You can say what you want

I'm the sheep at the deep end And I can't find my assigned seat to sit in My theology don't fit in Black sheep of the

Reformation sheep pen To the Reformed, I'm just another Baptist Baptized again, the bastard child of Anabaptist Host to child of Reformation society

We don't need your education Give me a Bible and a bookshelf of dead men

Cigars, bourbons, and beer cans Bow ties, tattoos, and bearded men

Making Reformation great again You can say what you want Bastard child of Anabaptist Host to child of Reformation society

We don't need your education Give me a Bible and a bookshelf of dead men

Cigars, bourbons, and beer cans Bow ties, tattoos, and bearded men Making Reformation great again

You can say what you want Ladies and gentlemen

Welcome to Open Air Theology My name is Jeff If you could do me a favor

Go to our YouTube channel Open Air Theology Hit the like button

Hit the subscribe Again, my name is Jeff I am one of the pastors Slash elders of Covenant Reformed Baptist Church In Tallahoma, Tennessee If you're ever in Tennessee You want to come out and hang out

Please come check us out And I'm here with my brother Brayden Brayden, introduce yourself

Yeah, Pastor Brayden of Valley Baptist Church In Hagerman, Idaho If you live in the southern area of Idaho It would be a blessing to have you come

Join us for our weekly worship services You can also find me on Reformed Ex -Mormon on YouTube Where I just post a lot of random

Different theological stuff on there Whether it be preaching, eschatology

You name it We talk about different things on there But just super blessed to be a co -host here

On Open Air Theology with Jeff and Brother Haps Who isn't here with us tonight, unfortunately

Yeah, Haps is slacking We're gonna have to put him under podcast discipline

Yep, that's Matthew 29 Yeah, that's Matthew 29 Yeah, Acts 29

Yeah, so Haps did a A Facebook Live a couple days ago

And in that, he said he was gonna be here But I'm looking around and I don't see no

Haps So we're gonna have to get on to him What's up, Samuel? Hope you're doing good, brother Are you able to see the comments,

Brayden? Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah Okay, yeah How's it going, Sam? It's a blessing to have you

So what's going on, man? What's life up to? And what's it like for you over there in Agraman, Idaho?

Dude, it's been cold over here these last few days Like the area that I live in A lot of people in this small community

Call the place that I'm in is the Banana Belt The Banana Belt? Yeah, the Banana Belt Because it's, you know, like five degrees warmer

Than everywhere else, apparently Okay We're getting snow down here in the Banana Belt Which means it's apocalyptic outside, apparently

And so it's been fun It's been really good Been hanging out with the family a whole bunch lately

I've been on vacation from work this week So it's been a blessing So how about with you?

Anything new? Well, no, man

Just been doing my same old thing, man

Working and studying And same old, same old

Always, all the time I'm really looking into getting me an e -bike

To do a lot of my... Because, I mean, you've been to Tallahoma Everything Oh, yeah It's just, you know, right there

My church is, you know, not far from me And so I'm looking to get me an e -bike

Yeah I mean, I got a motorized bike not long ago

And I put it in my garage And the next thing you know, I had to get it out of my garage

Because the whole house started smelling like gas I gotcha

And so it was a really nice motorized bike It was a

Fat Moto It was pretty fast And it turned a lot of heads It was a beast

Fat tires And it had like four inch tires Like it was huge Right But yeah

And I didn't like the fact that, you know, it was outside And I want something

Because, I mean, they're not cheap, right? So I want to be able to put it up And not have anyone take it

So I sewed it And now I'm looking to get me an e -bike Nice Yeah, you should get yourself one of those

That'd be cool Yeah If you live down here, we could start a e -bike gang You know what

I'm saying? Ooh The five solo boys Now that's tempting just to move there just now

Yeah, come on That was the hair that broke the camel's back right there I know Ooh Get jackets

And hats Ooh Get cuts and whatnot Yeah Some clip -on mullets

I mean, come on Why clip -on? We just do the mullet game It'll take us a few years, but we got it

I'm starting to lose it, man It's all good I'm losing it on top We got the skullet going on nowadays

So you're good Yeah, yeah So But brother, before we jump into tonight's topic

We did have a question real fast I don't know if we want to address it right now Or wait until the end of the podcast Let me see

You're talking about from Zach? Yeah, Zach When do you guys say the Old Covenant began?

And what's your take on Romans 5, 12 through 14? Which is just what I preached on at the conference

Yeah, well, Zach, that's a loaded question And if we got into it, we wouldn't be able to cover what we want to cover

But we'll definitely cover it if you want to look out for a future podcast

Yeah Yeah So what was the other thing?

Is that a I don't understand the queue

And oh, is this a Q &A? Yeah, yeah, yeah I mean, it is if it's about the subject that we're talking about Yeah So we are going to be looking at the three uses of the law

And if you want us to do a podcast on that I definitely don't mind doing that Let's see,

Samuel says No, brother, you're good, man These things are

Come join the game Yeah, come join the game I've been looking at this one

It's called a Zooks Z -O -O -K -A I think

I'm saying it right A Zook Yeah They're expensive But man, it is a

BMX bike with like a huge banana seat And like the battery goes up underneath the seat

And depending on which one you get The 1100 goes 33 miles an hour That's pretty decent speed right there

You can get to a lot of places in that town of yours With 33 miles per hour Faster than like some of the vehicles would be going

You know what I mean? Yeah, absolutely And the 750, I think it goes up to 26 miles an hour

But it's got a faster torque So this thing, you know, like it takes off You can ride wheelies on these things like there

I wouldn't be doing no crap like that Oh no, you're in a game, you gotta do it Yeah, no, I'm pushing 43

Man, I'll tell you about three years ago I was riding my daughter's scooter and flipped that thing I couldn't walk right for three weeks

I think it was about six months ago I rode over in my sleep and pulled something in my bag

So I was practicing wheelies on my Yamaha MT -03

And I burnt out the clutch in it And it was a little sad So I'm not doing wheelies anymore

Because I had to replace the clutch And I was like, I don't want to do that again Yeah, all right

So let's get on to the topic, man The three uses of the law So before we get into the three uses

Do you want to touch on the three distinctions of the law? Oh, yeah

Last week, we talked about a law and gospel distinction And we talked about the importance of having a law and gospel distinction

Especially in Reformed theology, right? Reformed theology and Lutheran theology

So, you know, Lutherans I don't know about the liberal

Lutherans But I know the good Lutherans As well as Reformed churches

Whether it be Presbyterian Reformed or Baptist Reformed Hold to what's called a law and gospel distinction

And there's a lot of Reformed people now That have basically lost the law and gospel distinction

So if you go back and you look at last week's podcast You'll see that And this week is basically going to flow into that We're going to look at the three uses of the law

But before we do so, let's talk about real quick The three divisions of the law

Yeah, yeah So according to Evenar1689 I think it's a very helpful way that this breaks it up The first of the three distinctions of the law would be that of the moral law

I usually refer to it as the transcendent law This is the law that was written on Adam's heart in the garden

It's what still is required of obedience from all mankind to today And then underneath that, then you would have the judicial law

And the ceremonial law that was given to Israel through the hand of Moses That would be the three distinct laws that we see in the

Old Testament To a Jewish listener, in the day prior to the

Reformation A Jewish person would see no distinction between judicial and ceremonial law

I think it's helpful for Reformers to see the distinction in there As we make reference to things

But it's always important to remember that Contextually a Jewish person would not see a distinction between those two

Now, would you say that the civil and the judicial come from the moral?

If the moral was a spout, the liquid that comes out of the spout

The water that comes out of the spout would split in the two Casting the ceremonial and the judicial Yeah, and the reason

I would actually answer it It kind of goes back to one of the questions that Zach made A question about regarding Romans chapter 5, verses 12 through 14

In Romans chapter 5, it says that, where does it say it?

So it talks about in verse 14 Nevertheless, in Romans chapter 5 Nevertheless, death reigned from Adam until Moses Even over those who had not sinned in likeness of the trespass of Adam Who is a type to him who is to come

That's not the verse I was looking at Uh, excuse me I don't see it right now at the top of my head

Now that I'm looking at it, of course But the point of it is, is that even in Galatians chapter 3 It talks about there being sin and transgression before the law was given

We see that Adam sinned before the law was given through Moses, obviously We see that there's sin that takes place

Death taking place before, before there is Sin takes place before, before the law of Moses is given

Before that judicial and ceremonial law is given And so to answer your question

I would think that the judicial and ceremonial law Which I'll just call as the Mosaic law

The Mosaic law was given to the people of Israel And it was kind of a application for An application through the transcendent or moral law

For the purpose of Israel to keep them as a nation To guard them as a people

And in order to bring about the Christ And so there's a lot of laws that take place in there That are in specific reference to bringing about the

Messiah Anything else you want to say to that?

Because there's a lot of law Yeah, yeah, that's why I'm trying not to really jump on it Because right now what our plan is, is to build a foundation

You know, you don't roof a house When you're building a house

You don't start with the shingles, right? So you have to have a foundation And so our beginning foundation

When it comes to law and gospel And old covenant, new covenant

Is what we talked about last week The law and gospel distinction And so we're hoping to be able to build a foundation

Before actually giving just Straightforward answers right now

So whenever we do in the future Give these straightforward answers You'll be able to see that there's a foundation

That's been built upon In order for these answers to make sense I think that's a lot of times

That's where we mess up And this is exactly what I do Whenever I exposition the text, right?

I don't, when I start preaching I don't jump to the conclusion I build up to the conclusion

And so that's what we're hoping to do with several podcasts Yeah, but just in short

To be straight with it I see there being a, that the mosaic Meaning the judicial and ceremonial law

Hang upon the transcendent nature of the moral law Judicial and ceremonial are not transcendent by nature

Because they hang upon that which is transcendent They were given The other ones weren't given

Yeah, Galatians 3 Which we'll probably, when we get to this

We'll probably just walk through the book of Galatians Galatians 3 tells us that That Moses, basically

Moses was added to Abraham Yep Right, Moses was added to Abraham And then in that, there's three mentioned

There's the covenant, which is speaking about the Abrahamic covenant Then there's the law, which is the mosaic law

Which was added to the Abrahamic covenant And it speaks about a promise Promise is about the offspring that was mentioned to Abraham I would also say that that's the same promise

The seed crushing, the snake crushing seed That was a promise to Adam and Eve But a curse to the serpent

Yeah, absolutely But we'll get into that So let's not go too much further with that I know, it's just right there

I want to do it so bad I know man, you got to chill out brother I'm sorry,

I apologize But we're talking about the three uses of the law tonight, right? Yeah, yeah

So we have the distinctions of the law And this is, you know, reformed, Lutheran, moral, civil

I mean, moral, ceremonial, civil or judicial However you want to say it

Now, when it comes to the uses of the law How do we break down the uses of the law?

You want to introduce that or you want me to? Yeah, so the first use is a mirror

I'll just spout them out for us quickly Well, yeah, before you say that So the Lutherans in the reform have the same uses

But they're numbered different So our number one would be their number two

And their number two would be our number one, right? So they would start out with our number two

And we're going to start out, our number one is their number two And we're not talking about bathroom stuff here, okay?

Go ahead Now I'm all sorts of confused I thought that's what we were talking about Yeah, so number one, it would be that the law is a mirror

Number two, the law would be a curb And number three, the law would be a guide That's the short suite, three uses of the law

All right, so let's walk through that So the law is a mirror, meaning what, right?

So I would say that there's two uses in the first use of the law

With it being a mirror As Christians, we can look at the law

And even as Christians see our need for Christ, right?

We cannot keep this, the law of God The law has, even as Christians, it shuts our mouth

We, Jesus made it clear Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the

Pharisees And that's law, right? You will by no means enter into the kingdom of God And so we can see the law of God, even as Christians And know that we need our, you know

Thank the Lord that we have a substitute But also we use the law of God to shut the mouth of the unbeliever

Of cult followers and of Christians who are walking in pride, right?

So we use God's law as a mirror, you know Like whenever I get up in the morning

And I, you know, let's say I'm going to the store Before I go to the store,

I look in the mirror The mirror does not lie to me And listen, ladies and gentlemen, I wish it did, right?

The older I get, the worse it gets I mean, I'm grateful that I have good beard days, right?

I mean, and so the mirror that I'm looking at does not lie It tells me, it shows me what

I look like Same thing with the law of God We can look into the law of God and we can

So as Christians, we don't get too big for our britches We know that we can't keep this law

We know that we are fully 100 % dependent upon Christ But also if you're a

Christian, hopefully you're sharing your faith And we can use the law of God and sharing our faith

To show the unbeliever their need for Christ You have anything you want to add to that?

Yeah, I think you can see that with Ray Comfort a lot With his type of evangelism

And it goes very well for him, right? Because the more intently that you look at the law Just like the more intently you look at a mirror

And you start seeing, oh man, I got a pimple growing Or I got an ingrown hair over here or something like that The more intently you look at it, the more it exposes

Your pride -crushing ugliness like myself, right? But when you look at Romans chapter 3, verse 9

It says, what then are we better? Not at all, for we have already charged That both Jews and Greeks are all under sin As it is written, there is none that are righteous, not even one

There's none who understand There's none who seek after God So right then and there, there's this equalizing

That the law as a mirror does for everyone We all see our deadness within that mirror of the law

And when we look at verse 19 and on in that same chapter It says, now we know So after really giving these verses that show our fallenness

Through what the law reveals to us It says, now we know that whatever the law says It speaks to those who are in the law

So that every mouth may be shut And all the world may become accountable to God Because by the works of law, no flesh will be justified

In his sight, for through the law comes the knowledge of sin But we know that from the law, the righteousness of God From now we know that apart from the law

The righteousness of God has been manifest Being witnessed by the law and the prophets So the law was given to hold everyone accountable before God And we all fall short of that glory

And so that's where using a mirror in evangelism

Can be very effective Because like LDS, for example, with myself being

LDS LDS know that they're sinful But they don't know to the degree that they are, right? In my own experience becoming a

Christian I looked even more intently in that mirror And realized I got a lot of nooks and crannies

I was overlooking before I'm actually a lot worse off Than what I realized I was before when

I was LDS But I have something that saved me from those things, right? And so the mirror exposes your need for something better Than what you're seeing in there

It exposes your failures Well, I can remember when I was actively in a gang and banging

That I would promote my own goodness I thought that I was a good guy

Because I would look at... Of course,

I knew I told lies and stuff like that But I would try to trivialize it At least

I'm not a thief Yep You know, and knowing... You know, like if someone would let me hold their bag of drugs or something

I'd probably take something from it Right Or, you know, well, at least I, you know... It's, you know, the liar thinks he's better than the thief

The thief thinks he's better than the murderer The murderer thinks he's better than the rapist The rapist thinks he's better than a child molester

Yep Right? And so when lying lips are an abomination to God And so...

And we kind of got into this conversation at our church Wednesday night

About, you know, the degrees of sin Is there degrees of sin? Is all sin the same?

And I would say no, right? We see from Scripture, 1

Corinthians chapter 6 That sexual sins is the sins that are against your own body

Which is the temple of the living God Right And so... And I was, you know, talking to someone tonight, right?

And speaking about sexual sins, you know It's the idea, the excuse

Well, you know, we're all men We all struggle with, you know, lust or masturbation or something like that And I was like, yeah,

I get what you're saying But, you know, if you're in ministry, especially, this is true

You know, if you're in ministry You're a pastor of a church or whatever it might be

And you're actively living in this and saying Well, you know, we're all men Well, guess what's going to happen?

You're going to get exposed And if you're wanting to be in ministry And you're living in this idea

Well, you know, I'm a man I'm going to struggle with these things Listen, God's not going to use you in ministry

God's not going to use you, right? And this one sin, because it's against our own body

Like it's, you know, this is something that we can't fall in to pray to Because our body is the temple

Could you imagine, or think about the sons of Eli How God destroyed them for what they did in the temple

Sorry, I don't know how I got on that subject No, no, it's good though And so like, yeah, in one sense

There is a different varying of degrees of sin But on another, each one of those sins is a wage of death

Yeah, worthy of zeal Absolutely And that's where I think like second So that's something

I like to remind a lot of individuals on As you said, that the thief would say they're better than the murderer

And the murderer says that they're better than the rapist The rapist says they're better than the pedophile, right? When somebody is dead in the law

They will use the law as a means to justify themselves above other individuals They'll use the law as a means of a ladder saying

Look, I'm actually above you I've kept more than you I'm more obedient than you

And it's always as a means to justify their own actions Whereas we see that the purpose of the law is to show that we've all fallen short

And not only this But James chapter 2 10 says For anyone that has broken the least of these commandments

So right there, we can say that there's a varying degree of commandments But it says anyone that has broken the least of these commandments is guilty of them all

So if you've stolen and you have stolen, lied, whatever the least that you think it is

You are just as guilty as the pedophile and the rapist and the murderer And everybody else you'd say would be Oh, I'm above those individuals

No, you're actually just You're just as equally dead with them

Right, right First John 3 4 says that sin is lawlessness Yep And what that is saying is that sin is law -breaking

And you know, Romans tells us for all have sin All of us have broken

God's law Romans 6 23 tells us that the wages of sin is death

Right You know, the Old Testament tells us that the soul that sins will die And so death is the arresting officer

Ray Comfort likes to say It's the arresting officer coming to take us to our imprisonment

You know, death seizes upon everyone because all have sin You know, death is our paycheck

It's what we have earned And that's why the soul that sins will die Wages of sin is death When you die, you're receiving your wages

You are receiving your paycheck This is what you deserve And so the law makes it plain to us that this is what we deserve

We deserve death because This First John 3 4 sin is lawlessness

It's breaking God's law All right, so let's get to the second use of law

Would you mind introducing this one? Yeah, so the second is going to be a curb So yeah, the second one, the second use of the law is a curb

Meaning that it's supposed to be able to be used in a way that's That should help restrict evil men from doing evil things

Maybe that's how I'll say it Right, right And so this is mainly set up Okay, so the first use of the law

Unbeliever and believer the same It shuts their mouth, right? It keeps us from being prideful and boastful

Second use of the law Mainly, I would say this is for the unbeliever, right?

Of course, a believer if they are Hopefully believers are not waking up in anger

Looking to murder someone Depends on the day Depends on what time you wake me up All right, right, that's right

Yeah, so like, you know, so let's say and I'm gonna

So the second use of the law What we're saying as reformed people is we won't

Our government, our

What would be another word for it? The civil spheres How was

Matt putting it? Civil sphere is what I think he said And I think that's a pretty common phrasing that you'll hear within Christianity, right?

I think civil sphere Yeah, so we want them to have godly laws, right?

We want our government to issue godly laws, right?

Just laws And so if you in America, right?

Well, I know it's probably different in Texas But everything's different in Texas But in America, you know, if you lie

If I lie to my wife, I'm not going to get arrested If I lie to my child,

I'm not going to get arrested If I lie to a cop, I can get in trouble Yeah, civil magistrates

If I lie to the president of the United States, right? I mean, I'm probably going to get put in jail

So same offense But depending on who it is that I lie to, I can get in trouble But if I murder someone, right?

It doesn't matter if I murdered my neighbor or murdered, you know, someone high up Either way it goes,

I'm going to be put in prison, right? And let's say,

I don't know exactly what it is But let's say it's 50 years, right? If you murder someone, you'll go to prison for 50 years

And so let's say that that's what's in the books So someone might wake up angry

And they know the law of our civil magistrate And they're able to, you know, they feel like they have that anger in them

To where they can murder And there's someone in their mind that has made them angry And they want to commit that crime

But they know the law And they know that if they do so, they can go to jail for 50 years

Well, knowing the consequences of their action It restrains them and keeps them from committing the act that they have in their heart

And so that's how these laws are a curve They restrict us from being as evil as we could be, right?

So the law of God, the government, the civil magistrate is to look to the law of God Have just laws in order to keep men from being as evil as they could be

Now, of course, we know that men are evil And that doesn't always work, right?

People kill people all the time, right? But that's the idea

It's like, so it's called a curve, right? So if I'm walking down the sidewalk, there's a curve and traffic is coming

The curve is if that car starts to swerve That curve hopefully will push that car over a little bit

Will keep him But there's times when that car jumps the curve and can still hit someone

Yeah Right? So it's not a perfect system because it's dealing with government

The civil magistrates And they are not necessarily

Christian, right? So we're not necessarily saying that the civil magistrate are Christians But the civil magistrate should have just laws

Yep Anything you want to add to that?

Oh, there's a lot I want to add to that, brother I know, I'm trying not to say too much I know Like, I don't know if you can tell, but as I'm explaining it,

I'm thinking, All right, well, don't say that that's coming Don't say that I know, and I think

I'm trying to think of a good way to just make mention of it right now with the curve

So just looking and perusing through And I won't make mention of everything I want to say in this But in the R1689, which

I think does a great job at explaining this Civil magistrates, chapter 24 of the 1689, paragraph 3

Because civil authorities are established by God for the purpose stated We should submit in the Lord to them in everything lawful that they require

We should submit not only for the fear of punishment, but also for the sake of conscience We ought to make requests and prayers for kings and everyone in authority

So that under their rule, we may live a quiet and peaceful life In all good godliness and honesty

When you The question that has to be posed, what is lawful laws?

What is a lawful law? What is a curve and what isn't a curve? What is something that the government oversteps on?

Where is the government able to protect? Maybe even setting up a guardrail from keeping them from running over the road, right?

And I think that the lawful laws that are talked about is back in chapter 19

The moral law forever requires obedience to everyone who are, let's see here

Yeah, the moral, paragraph 5, chapter 19 The moral law requires, forever requires obedience to everyone

Both those who are justified as well as others This obligation arises not only because of its content

But also because of the authority of God, the creator who gave it Nor does Christ in any way dissolve this obligation in the gospel

Instead, he greatly strengthens it And so I think that law that was given to Adam being transcendent

Is that which government should hang their laws upon I think every law should be stemming from those kind of things

And I think that that can involve general principles or general equity From judicial or even ceremonial laws in some ways

However, we as a nation in the United States It's not required It's not required And I would never advocate for the

United States to make a law like Everybody gets circumcised And if you don't, you get exiled out of our country

Like that kind of purpose Or everyone must not carry a load on the

Sabbath day And if you carry a load on the Sabbath day, then you will be stoned Yep, those things had a purpose in their day

That purpose has been met And so we have to take what general principles that come through the transcendent law

That those laws hung upon the transcendent And see their application in today's world with different context

With different purpose And those are to be a curve for us So the civil magistrate

In which we're going to get into The third use of the law is going to do a lot more with Christians Dealing with general equity and stuff like that But the civil magistrate is to look to the transcendent law

Which you and I would say is the moral law The Ten Commandments This is that spout by which the other comes out of there

To look to that And this is what they should build their case from They can in fact go and do general equity

But it's not required of them to do so Right, so it's not wrong for our government

And I know that this is where a lot of people lose their needle So I mentioned earlier

And this is why I mentioned it Because I knew we'd probably come to this That if someone murders someone that they could get 50 years

Again, I don't know if it's 50 years I don't know if it's 80 I don't know, I didn't look it up But they could get 50 years in prison

And then the big argument is Well, should we have to... You're treating them like cattle

And now we have to pay taxes so they could house them And this is where I think

Romans 13 And also I would say all of 1 Peter speaks to this What are we as Christians to do?

Well, 1 Peter tells us that we're pilgrims passing through And we were to live quiet and peaceable lives

And so if the government decides to have a punishment That's 50 years in prison

I think according to Romans 13 That God has given them that ability to have that Now they could be like Texas and say

No, if you kill someone in Texas We're going to kill you back That they could have that And I'm not saying

I would go back to the Noahic Covenant And say, yeah, okay But if they decide that if you kill someone

Then it's 50 years Then the Christian is to live a quiet and peaceable life

And we mentioned this earlier before we got on Like there's times whenever we should speak out

And we would say that according to What's taking place with abortions Christians should speak up for the unborn

Especially if you're in a vicinity where abortions are taking place

Where I live there's, you know There's not an abortion clinic anywhere near me

And so I do a lot of my ministry That's not being done in church Just outside in my neighborhood

Street preaching, speaking to the cults Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormonism Seventh -day Adventism, stuff like that And as well as, you know, those that are lost

And so I have a door -to -door I stand up on the side of the road and preach

As well as pastor a church And so there's no abortion clinic near me

So I don't, I'm not involved in that But I do give to people who are involved in that And so I think that we should be a voice for the voiceless

But I don't think that So to me us winning that war

If we're looking at it under the civil magistrate Is that they make law against abortions

Where abortion is illegal And so if abortion is ever, you know 100 % everywhere illegal

I say that we, you know, we won that war Yeah And so we're, but we're not saying that That they have to go back into the penal code

And kill everyone that's had an abortion Now should something be done?

Yeah, maybe so But I'm not saying that this is what they have to do Right You see what

I'm saying? But I think especially moving forward Something should be done Yeah and it's important I think to realize

That these are vastly across the Not even just across the United States But vastly across the whole world

These are going to be unconverted individuals That are making these type of laws, right? And so I think that the best way to convict them of Having a lawful, a lawful thing

That lawful laws, righteous laws That come from biblical standard I think we have to appeal to something

That they can be able to be appealed from And I think that that stems from transcendent law Transcendent law

And I think that that will Could even change from state to state From time to time, right?

I mean, there's so many examples That we could explore on something like that But maybe we start building buildings too tall

And so right now we haven't hit that So there needs to be a law one day that says You can't build a building over a certain height

Because they're going to collapse, right? Like that sounds like a good law, right? But today we don't have that law

That hasn't been met, right? Or whatever the example is There's going to be times throughout life

Where there's going to be using general equity Using transcendent law That we can make arguments for just laws

That might be just in one period of time And have no value in another time

Just like an example of that, right? I have two sons One son is three years old and one is one

If my one -year -old hits my three -year -old Is he going to get a spanking

Like the three -year -old would if he hit him? You see what I'm saying? I'm still using my general equity

I'm using my parental sphere of my government And my house in that sense To use transcendent law to punish them

In a way that is just for their different ages, right? And so, I mean, if I had a 16 -year -old son

That smacked my one -year -old That's going to be a whole different type of punishment My one -year -old smacking my three -year -old

Do you see what I'm saying? And so that's why we can't just do a one -for -one carryover On a lot of laws

It just doesn't work It creates a bloodshed An unwelcomed bloodshed is what it would create

And that's really the roof That we're building the house to talk about I know months ago before the conference

We jumped in the deep end And so we've gotten out

And now we're stepping into the three -foot And we're walking to the deep end

We're shivering though Because we got out of the water too quick And we just want to get back in it

But we think it's smart to have this foundation So the third use of the law

So this would be a guide, right? A guiding principle And I would also say a flashlight

So the third use is the guiding principle for the Christian Not for the unbeliever, right?

Not for the unbelievers That's second use That's first use First, second use Unbeliever Third use

This is for the Christian The law of God is our guide

And I would say that we would use Jesus So if you can imagine walking down a path, right?

And the law is our God Jesus is our flashlight through this path

And so when we read the Bible We read the Bible with a law and gospel distinction

So that way when we're reading the Bible We understand what is law What is gospel What is it that Christ has done

What is it that he has fulfilled on our behalf, right? Because we don't want to come to the

Bible with a third use of the law And where he says, if your righteousness doesn't surpass that of the scribes and Pharisees You will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven

And now we're thinking that our outward appearance must be better than the outward appearance of the scribes and Pharisees in order to enter the kingdom of heaven, right?

This is where that law and gospel distinction comes in And under the third use of the law We can say, you know what?

Jesus is the only one who had an outward appearance greater than the scribes and Pharisees But not only an outward appearance

He had the inward reality of the law being kept And so because he has done so my faith is in him

I'm righteous positionally Not because I've kept these laws But because Jesus has kept these laws, right?

All right, so the third use of the law When I read that, I say, you know what? Jesus has done that But I also mentioned last week

And I kind of harped on this one Where Jesus tells us to follow him And I asked you,

I said, right? And how are you doing with that? And you said? Terrible, I think is what I said Terrible, yeah, yeah, yeah

I always said to how are you doing following Jesus? And if we're all honest, it's Well, we're not doing too good, right?

But third use of the law tells us That we are to follow him But having the law and gospel distinction

Understanding the first use of the law Knowing that it is a mirror

It shows me my filthiness It shows me that I cannot do this perfectly

I do so trembling, humbly Asking God to give me the strength to follow

Jesus You know, I try to daily Have a communion with God Reading his word

Praying, trying my best to obey the law These positive laws that he has given me

But knowing that when and if I fail Jesus is right there picking me back up Because I am positionally righteous in him

So the third use of the law Is not there to condemn me But it's there to guide me

It's there to lead me It's there to help me Understand what it is that God requires

And him giving me this ability to follow him

And as I read the word Having the law and gospel distinction Understanding the first and second use of the law

Understanding the third use of the law The principles that is here to guide me It's not for me to read these things and think

Yeah, I'm going to establish my own righteousness I don't need Jesus All I need to do is keep these laws And I'll be fine with God No, it's the first use of the law

It's there to show me that I'm filthy That I need the righteousness of Christ And now that I got the righteousness of Christ Third use of the law

I'm able to read these things See these positive laws that I'm supposed to keep And prayerfully ask

God to give me the strength To keep these things And when I fail knowing that If I confess my sins

It's faithful and just to forgive me of all sins I don't know, I'm just blabbing here So if you want to jump in, help me out

No, you're good I love it, dude I love it And I was just going to add to it That, you know,

I think that the third use really Kind of has that rubber meet the road That proves or should prove to the listener

That we, or not just we, not just you and I, Jeff But as Christians, we cannot

We are not, we shall not be antinomian, right? Like we love

God's law God's law is the path, right? Like that's, we're saved through the gospel

Samuel just quoted it, Psalm 119, 105 Yep, your word is a lamp unto my feet

And a light to my path Yeah, absolutely, right? And so, you know, that being part of this new covenant

Even, well, I'll just say it, you know The verse that I've quoted every single podcast now

For like six months straight, it seems like But Hebrews chapter eight, right? Or Jeremiah 31, 31 through 34 That talks about that this is the covenant

That I'll cut with the house of Israel And with the house of Judah Not like the covenant that I cut with them And with their forefathers in the day

When I took them by the hand out of the land of Egypt For I did not care for them But this covenant that I will make with the house of Israel I will put my law in their minds

And I will write it upon their hearts And I will be their God And they shall be my people, right? The superiority of this covenant that we're in Is that we don't have the moral law

Written externally of us on stone tablets But it's written internally on not

No longer my heart of stone But now upon my heart of flesh That has been regenerate That has been inserted inside of me

Through the work of the Holy Spirit And so what's unique about the third use of the law

Is that those laws do not justify us Those laws do not maintain our salvation

Those laws are purely a means I would say, maybe not purely

But are a means of sanctifying A means of praising And a means of glorifying

God It's what our life should be consistent of And there's going to be aspects in that That will still continue to be a mirror

Where we will continue to see our shortcoming But since we are God's people We know

Him and He knows us Our sins are forgiven We never look to the guide

Nor do we look to what we have done along this path As a means of our righteousness Because the means of our righteousness

Was completed in the mediator of that new covenant Jesus Christ who lived a perfect life Now I follow after the one that lived a perfect life

There's a lot that could be said with it I think that even within our first father

Adam When he fell, we all fell But we continue to fall afterwards too We continue to serve that wage of death

We continue to try to justify ourselves before God We continue to fail to keep God's law We continue to do those things

But just as Christ is our new federal head And He has fully restored what was lost in the garden

For us as the believers As He is our new representative

Likewise, we've got victory in Christ And so we're going to continue to seek to be victorious

In His example of lawful keeping that He has set forth It's not going to be our victory

But we're going to continue in that same path Just like we continued in the same path As our first father

Adam Yeah, I think that's good So here

I want to read 1 John chapter 2

I'm going to begin in verse 3 And I really, as I'm reading this I want the law to do what the law does

I want it to show us our need, right?

And then I'm going to read another portion in 1 John That's going to answer, you know, right?

We're good reformed people We want the scripture to interpret the scripture So if you feel a weightiness as I'm reading

Understand that's the law doing what the law is supposed to do First use So 1

John chapter 2 verse 3 And by this we know that we have come to know

Him The Him being Jesus If we keep His commandments

The one who says I have come to know Him And does not keep

His commandments is a liar And the truth is not in Him But whoever keeps

His word truly in Him The love of God has been perfected

By this we know that we are in Him The one who says that he abides in Him Ought to walk in the same manner as He walked

Ladies and gentlemen, is that true of you? Without going anywhere else in scripture

Is that true of you? And if we're honest We have to look at the first use of the law and say

I need Christ I feel miserably Chapter 3

Verse 23 And this is His commandment

That we believe in the name of the Son Jesus Christ And love one another

Just as He has commanded us And the one who keeps His commandments abides in Him And in Him we know by this that He abides in us

By the Spirit whom He has given us And so right here you see the two tab tables of the law

So the two tables of the law First table tells us to love God Basically with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength

Second tab table of the law, the Decalogue We love our neighbors as ourselves

Right here it's clearly seen The only way that you can love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength

Is by believing in the name of Jesus Christ You want to love

God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength Believe in the name of Jesus Christ And then it tells us to love our neighbors as ourselves

And it tells us that if we believe in the name of Jesus Christ And we love our neighbors as ourselves

We abide in Him And so the question is, how are we to love our neighbors as ourselves?

This is third use of the law All right, so you have to apply the third use of the law here

And the scriptures tell us, Paul tells us in Galatians Because it mentions, it says

By the Spirit whom He has given to us The fruit of the

Spirit, right? Galatians, what is it? Is it Galatians 6 or Galatians 5?

What is it? Uh, 4 I would quote it, but I know I'll miss one if I just quote it

No, it's like 5 or, it's definitely not 4 If I, normally when I quote it,

I miss one What are you looking for? The fruit of the Spirit That's, I think that's

Galatians 5 Yeah, Galatians, no, it's 6 Is it

Galatians 6? Are you sure?

I mean, I don't know anymore I preached Galatians a couple of years ago, I had it down Yeah, okay, yeah, so it's 6

Galatians, no, it is 5, it's 5 Verse 22 So, the fruit of the

Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self -control

Against such things, there is no law All right, so, I am to be, right into you,

I am to be loving, I am to be joy, I'm to have peace with you,

I'm to be patient, I'm to show you kindness, goodness, I'm to be faithful to our friendship and our brotherhood,

I'm to be gentle, I'm to have self -control, like if you make me mad, I'm to be self -controlled, right?

And when I'm not these things to you, you know what you have to be to me? Forgiving, forgiving

I hate that All right, yes, that's what you call a positive law, the third use of the law

You are to be loving to me, you have joy around me, you have to be patient, the fruit of the

Spirit, these things, you're supposed to be to me And when you're not those to me, when you're not self -controlled and you get angry, guess what

I'm to be to you? Forgiving, right? This is how you practice third use of the law, right?

So we love God by believing in Jesus, that's third use of the law First use of the law, we're condemned, third use of the law, it tells us how to apply these things, believe in Jesus and love your neighbor as yourself

So how do we love our neighbors? We have the Spirit, we're to be showing the fruit of the

Spirit I'm to be loving, have joy, be patient, all the way to self -control

And when I am not, you're to be forgiven and vice versa That's how we apply what

God has given to us And in our church covenant that we have at our church, we make sure like in it, it says something to the idea that if a brother or a sister has offended us, it's our responsibility to go to them and say,

Hey, you did this and I feel offended, let's work this out, right?

And like we are responsible for that And that's at its basic level that that is church discipline, right?

Is one going to another, one and two going to another And then what's remarkable about that is

I love how you immediately applied that to the church Something I was just thinking of as you were reading Galatians chapter 5 is that the third use of the law of being a guide completely annihilates the thought of solo

Christianity that you don't need to be in a local church Like how are you to exercise these things as a guide?

How are you to, how, of course we're online right now, right? But if you were at, if I was at your church, how else are you to show love to me?

How else are you to forgive me? How else are you going to do these things if it's not in the church, right? Right, right

And you came to our church like during the conference Was the fruit of the spirit displayed at the church?

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely Yeah, yeah, you know, these people, they believe in the name of the son

And now is all that done perfectly? No, no, none of it's done perfectly

No All of it's done and, you know, knowing our need for Christ because of the first use of the law

Yeah But through the third use of the law, we know We're to believe in the name of the son and we're to love one another

And this is how the Bible tells us to love one another And even the forgiveness when wrong, that's me loving you

Right, if you wrong me and if I offer forgiveness, that's me loving my neighbor as myself

Because believe me, if I wrong myself, guess what I do? I forgive myself I'm not going to hold it against me, right?

I'm not going to say, well, you know what, Jeff, you know, last night you rode over and tweaked your back a little bit

So today I'm not going to feed you Yep, sorry Yeah, no food for you, no soup for you

No soup for you, I love that one, that's a good one Well, you know,

I think maybe for those that are just tuning in since this is coming to an end, just as a recap Yeah, last week we talked about the clear distinctions that I think you quoted

Spurgeon on this that in order to be a master theologian, you have to see the clear distinction between law and gospel

You gotta have a long gospel distinction Yep, absolutely And then so this week we went into the three -fold distinctions of the law which is the moral or transcendent and that of the

Mosaic law which includes both the judicial and the ceremonial laws And then specifically what we talked today about was the uses the three uses of the law, which in our tradition we would argue that it's first the mirror

It exposes our sinfulness, our deadness And that's for unbeliever and believer

Yes, absolutely And then as a guide in the civil sphere or in the government sphere, right as we were talking about, which again, that could still be for unbeliever and believer in that sense, right

And then the third use is a guide, which is specifically for believer, right? Yeah, so the second use, you know, we hope that it doesn't have to guide the believer

Yep But believers fall into sin, right? The most egregious sin you can think of, a believer can fall into that sin

Of course, he'll leave Like a way that I explain it, you know, when it comes to believers that fall into sin

So let's say it's, you know, 30 degrees outside and I'm standing by a swimming pool and Brayden walks up and pushes me in The moment

I feel the shock code of that water, I immediately, with everything that I have, am trying to get out of that freezing cold swimming pool

Yeah But let's say it's 100 degrees outside and I'm standing by a swimming pool and Brayden walks up and pushes me in Well, you know what, like I'm not in a hurry to get out, right, right

So the unbeliever, when he's in sin, it doesn't bother him

He's not trying to get out, but the believer, when he's in sin, the moment he realizes that he is in sin, he's in that cold water

With everything that he is, everything that he has, looking to Christ, he gets out of that sin

That's a really good analogy, brother That is a really good one Don't say that in front of Andrew Rappaport, because he will steal that No, he'll steal that and preach it

Gosh, dang it And then he'll say that I started from him That's right, that's right We love you,

Andrew Yeah I hope he sees it After we get done with everything that we're doing here, we can have

O Rappaport on here Absolutely And have just an amazing time I think it would be good to have him in one of the conversations that we have here soon, if that makes sense

Yeah So, if you know what I mean Oh, yeah, because he pointed out the whole Jewish idea of it

Yeah, yeah, it was great We can do that Yeah, absolutely,

I'll reach out to him Get him on a couple of times, if you know what I mean So, cool

Well, and just maybe, Joseph Cox just asked you a question, Jeff When are you dropping the debate of James White?

I'll tell you what, if I haven't heard that question 100 times,

I haven't heard it once So, it's been sent to me,

I have it They sent it to my phone Now I have to download it

I went to download it today, I would not download from my phone So, I have to send it to my wife, who is far more educated than I am when it comes to electronics for her to download it to her computer

And it's a really, really long debate, it's about three hours, close to three hours long Oh, yeah So, it's gonna take some time

So Is there any way that you can upload it right from your phone to YouTube by chance? Well, yeah, it's too long

It's too long to do it Yeah, it said that it would upload it, but it was going to take some

Take three days Well, no, it said it was gonna take, I guess it would do its own editing, basically

Oh, I'm tracking it It wasn't promising that it all would show up And so,

I have to, I meant to do it today, but I had so much going on Yeah As y 'all know,

I work a full -time job, 40 hours, 50 a week, 45, 50 hours a week in rebinding

Bibles A pastor of church, like I'm, there's little fires that I have to put out here and there sometimes

And not literally, I'm the fireman here, the fireman here, but, you know But also have to make time for my family and to study, personal study, prepare messages, study for the podcast stuff

So, like, I can be overwhelmed sometimes with things that I have to do that I, you know, like today,

I forgot about sending that video to my wife for her to load up So hopefully,

I can get that sent to her tomorrow and she can get it loaded up this week But definitely by next week, we'll have it

And it's gonna probably be on our church's Facebook, on our church's

YouTube page Okay Yeah Cool I'm hoping to get people to go there and they can ascribe there

Because that's where I do a lot of my preaching And so, yeah

Cool, I love it All right, anything else you want to add?

There's so much, brother I know, we have to I had to bite my tongue seven times But yeah, me too

There was a couple times that I let loose and I was like, I gotta stop right now Yeah I was supposed to text you and tell you to shut up I know,

I know, I know I know you were, I know you were All right, everybody

Thank you for joining the conversation Thank you for the questions, those that were commenting

Next week, are you available? I will be working next week

Okay, so we won't be continuing this conversation next week Probably the week after Not saying we won't have something

But we won't be continuing this conversation Oh, yeah,

Hebrews was fun Hebrews was a joy I tell you right now, when

I first started preaching, I preached through Galatians And it really was amazing

But if I could go back, I think I would say some things differently

Yep Right And so I might in the future have

I don't know, we might do something podcast wise Where we go through the book of Galatians Or I might do something in a

Bible study or something Where I walk through Galatians again, just to kind of point it

Because I don't think I said anything wrong I just don't think I said enough Right See what I'm saying?

Yep So, yeah There's stuff that I, when I came to Valley Baptist Church We were in the book of John And so I took over from where the last pastor left off And so I just took up John 12 to the end

And there's stuff that I would change There's stuff that I think I messed up on looking back now And there's stuff

I definitely would have gone way more in detail with But that's how it is preaching, right?

I mean, I mean like if you Believe me Yeah, I mean John MacArthur After he preached through the

New Testament His congregation wanted him to go back through the book of John And that's the book that I'm in right now

That's the reason why I know that Yep You know, like I can see, you know, the

Lord tarries And still has me in the pulpit Like Galatians is a book that I would like to revisit 10, 20, 30 years down the road

Yep All right, well, I guess we'll get off here And again, we won't have anything

Well, we might have something next week But it won't be continuing this conversation But yes, no,

I won't be open air preaching tomorrow I will be open air preaching the next Saturday So not tomorrow

No, excuse me, what is today? Today's Thursday Not this Saturday This Saturday is time with my family

But the following Saturday I will be on the streets open air preaching So anyone in the

Nashville area that wants to Join with me in Tallahoma I preach in my backyard basically

Want to come and join Brayden, you can come and join I got plenty of batteries

I'll pull a half and I'll start driving now And I'll get there Get there in a couple days Or in like eight days

Yeah I can't believe that And also if you never open air preach Please come hang out with me on a

Saturday I'll happily walk you through how to go about it

How to do one -on -one witnessing Because normally whenever I do open air preaching

Normally four cars will stop And I'm able to one -on -one witness to four people

But again, there's been times where 20 cars have stopped And I don't have enough people

Usually it's just me And when it's just me There's no way I can get to everybody So yeah

All right, so we'll get off here If you're in the Nashville area And you want to join me next Saturday Or if you're in the

Nashville area And you want to come fellowship with me at church We'd love nothing more to have you