DAILY TRUTH - God's Law： Mirror, Shield, And Compass
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186.3663
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Summary
In this episode, Pastor Ken teaches on the three uses of the Ten Commandments and how they relate to God's law. God's Word is a mirror of God's nature, a guide, and a guide to the believer in the ways in which they must go.
Transcript
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Man cannot live on bread alone, but from every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.
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Calvin espoused that there are three uses of the law.
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The first, this is the language I'm going to use.
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The language may differ depending who you're asking.
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The law serves as a mirror that the unbeliever looks into and says,
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Because the law is a reflection of God's nature.
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God is not God because he lives up to some universal standard outside of himself.
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So goodness is not, it's not, there's this universal absolute goodness and God is God
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because God lives up to goodness by this standard.
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No, we know goodness in relation to who God is because God is good.
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And so in the first use of the law, it functions as a mirror that we look at the law.
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And by looking to the law, we see God by seeing what he requires, the righteousness that he requires.
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And we get a good look back at ourselves as all mirrors do.
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So the mirror helps us to see this is who God is.
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And then I see myself and how far I fall short.
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No one will be justified by works of the law, Romans 5.
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So the law is powerless to save, but the law is powerful to do what?
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No one will appreciate the beauty of Christ unless they first come to see the necessity
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So the law helps us to realize we're dead and we need to be made alive.
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The law helps us realize we are justly underneath God's righteous condemnation and we require
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There's only one power of God for salvation.
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The law is the power of God for revealing our need for salvation.
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The law is a lamp unto my feet, says the Psalms.
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It instructs me in the ways in which I must go.
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Now, the third use of the law primarily refers to the law's function for the believer, for the Christian.
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The law is the alley-oop for the slam dunk of the gospel, which is saving.
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And so the third use of the law is, as a Christian, I'm not trying to obey God's law out of fear in order to garnish the favor of God.
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But as a Christian, because I know that I have already received the favor of God as a free gift of grace through faith in Jesus Christ,
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I now want to respond, right, the response church.
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I'm not trying to initiate God's favor, but I'm responding because I've already freely received God's favor.
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So I want to be grateful for the free gift of salvation I've received.
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And so I'm saying, God, you've given me so much.
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No, anything other than that is antinomianism and a heresy.
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What makes it legalism is when you say obedience to the law justifies.
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the law being relevant for all people in all time periods and Christians is
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It guides us in which way we should go in order to live lives that are
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because we freely have already received his favor through faith in Christ
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primarily for unbelievers. So unbelievers first use, believers third use. The second is the middle
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believers and unbelievers alike. The second use of the law primarily falls underneath the banner
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of God's common grace. Common grace, again, not special grace or saving grace. God's regenerative
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work, his gift of faith and repentance that God gives to his children, to the elect. That's
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special grace, saving grace. Common grace is that God, Ecclesiastes, he calls it to reign both on
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the wicked and the righteous. So in common grace is what I want you to understand. In common grace
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is there's gifts, mutual gifts for all creatures, all humanity, both believers and unbelievers
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alike. And there are gifts of provision like rain, which waters the earth and produce crops to eat
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and to grow. So there's provision underneath God's common grace. There's also protection
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underneath God's common grace. In the realm of protection under God's common grace for believers
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and unbelievers alike, what do we have? Second use of the law. What is it? Shield. Mirror, compass,
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shield. The law functions to hold. It doesn't change hearts at the inward level. Only the
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power of regeneration can do that. But you know what the law does? It keeps that evil, which is
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just as present in the unbeliever today as the Nephilim back then, it keeps it on the inside,
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in the heart, and it restrains it like a shield so that it doesn't come out, meaning there would
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be more murder if there were not laws in a society, in a culture that punish murder, right?
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There would be more acts. I'm not saying there would be more evil hearts, but I'm saying that
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evil at the heart level would be more externally manifest through behaviors if we did not have
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God's common grace functioning as a protection,
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holding outward manifestations of evil at bay through the second use of the
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what's the difference between the unbeliever in the day of Noah and the
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continuing only at the outward behavioral level,
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900 to 1500 years of discipleship from guys like Cain and Lamech.
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God breeds a culture and a nation and legislation and justice and laws that,
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that no, the shield, the second use of the law has been eaten away.
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And where there's no restraint and God's common grace,
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Imagine 900 years later from Lamech, what, what kind of songs they're writing?
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what kind of evil they're performing. And then God wipes them out. Our nation. The reason why
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at the outward level, we are not as evil as them is because our nation was founded on biblical
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principles. Now I'm aware that chattel slavery was a massive blind spot. So I'm not saying that
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that was biblical. I'm saying that is a massive example of where our nation was not biblical,
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And I'm aware, Thomas Jefferson ripping out verses in the Bible.
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I'm not saying the founding fathers, that there were no heretics among them,
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But what I'm saying is, even in our nation today,
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with 60 million children murdered in the mother's womb in the last 45 years
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through abortion, even with that level of violence and wickedness,
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our nation is still toddlers in doing evil compared to the Nephilim.
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but what happens in a society is through compromise and primarily when the church
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loses its saltiness and says we want to how can we partner all right right i mean maybe we can
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get behind this movement maybe we can hop behind this agenda maybe we can partner in this way maybe
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maybe we can partner in that way but little by little by little what happens is the sons of god
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marry the daughters of men and the daughters of men poison the well it doesn't work the other way
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the way that the sons of god changes society is by remaining separate and distinct in the world
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but distinct from the world not of the world but when we blend what happens is as time goes on
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through legislation through culture through media through all these kinds of things the the shield
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of god's law that was founded on biblical principles is dissolved and it's eaten away
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begins to come out in actions more and more and more.
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