The NXR Podcast - SUNDAY SERMON - The Beauty Of God’s Law (Part 2) ｜ Psalm 19

00:00:00.000 Hey guys, real quick before we get started, I have a small request.

00:00:03.420 If you've been blessed by our content and you like this show,

00:00:06.420 would you take just a brief moment and leave us a five-star review?

00:00:09.760 This is quite possibly the most effective thing that you can do

00:00:12.860 to ensure that this content gets out to as many people as possible. Thanks.

00:00:18.100 Our sermon this morning comes from Psalm chapter 19, verse 7 through 14.

00:00:23.860 This is going to be part one.

00:00:26.200 All in all, we'll be ultimately, Lord willing, enduring, if you will, three parts to Psalm chapter 19.

00:00:35.060 If you were with us last Lord's Day, I spent time preaching the beginning of Psalm chapter 19, namely verses 1 through 6.

00:00:44.020 If I were to divide and give theological headers to this text, I would divide it into two parts.

00:00:50.160 Psalm chapter 19, verse 1 through 6, is where we see natural revelation or general revelation.

00:00:58.580 I titled that sermon, The Sermon of the Skies.

00:01:03.300 David focuses his attention to the glory of God that is communicated by what God has made.

00:01:11.580 His physical creation.

00:01:13.440 And in particular, David emphasizes the heavens, not the spiritual heaven, but rather the physical

00:01:22.000 heavens, that is the sky and the sun, the moon, the planets, the stars, the clouds.

00:01:28.760 And I don't know if you were paying attention this week, but I couldn't help in light of

00:01:33.280 that sermon last Sunday to see the glory of God revealed even more than I ever have in

00:01:39.520 the skies that we had this week between thunderstorms. And there was one particular

00:01:44.480 sunset on Tuesday night when when my wife and I were driving back from a date night that we had

00:01:50.340 together. And it's just the skies. It felt as though they were literally screaming the glories

00:01:56.260 of God. There was this lower layer of cloud and a higher layer of cloud. And so it was like

00:02:01.660 the sun was some somehow in between. It literally looked just like Psalm chapter 19, the first six

00:02:07.720 verses, verse 5 and 6, where it says that God has made a tent for the sun and that it comes out of

00:02:14.120 that tent from one side of the horizon and sets in the other and then back. And it literally looked

00:02:19.520 as though there was constructed between two layers of clouds, a tent, and the sun was retreating back

00:02:26.200 into this tent and just shooting forth rays of multitudes of color. And as that was going on,

00:02:33.560 lightning was beginning to pick up in another side of the sky and it was just it was majestic

00:02:38.620 and I couldn't help but think of Psalm 19 verses 1 through 6 the skies speak to the glory of God

00:02:46.480 and so we looked at God communicating to all men believers and unbelievers alike in natural

00:02:54.380 revelation by what he has made particularly emphasizing the skies that God communicates

00:03:00.580 his glory. And we focus on how that message of God's glory is perceived by men in one of two

00:03:08.600 primary ways. One person, namely the unbeliever, perceives the glory of God communicated through

00:03:15.120 natural revelation as judgment. But the Christian sees the glory of God communicated through natural

00:03:21.680 revelation as joy. So there is one word that the skies preach again and again and again and again

00:03:30.400 And that word is glory, glory, glory.

00:03:34.340 But that one message of the glory of God is perceived by men depending on their status before God,

00:03:42.760 whether they're in Christ or in Adam.

00:03:45.640 That one message of glory is perceived in one of two ways, as judgment or as joy. 0.55

00:03:52.940 Romans 1 speaks to the unbeliever, that he is without an apologia, without an apologetic, without excuse.

00:04:01.520 So what God reveals, his glory, by what he has made through natural revelation, it strips the unbeliever of any escape from judgment.

00:04:11.500 So the glory of God displayed by what he has made in natural or general revelation to the unbeliever is judgment.

00:04:19.620 But to the Christian, it is joy. 0.87

00:04:22.940 The unbeliever, he may not be thinking correctly. 1.00

00:04:26.800 It's likely that he's not. 0.99

00:04:28.000 But if he were to think properly, he would have looked at the sky on Tuesday night and trembled.

00:04:34.540 Knowing that the thunder that was rumbling and the lightning that was striking

00:04:38.740 and the rays of sun as it set behind the firmament bursting forth

00:04:43.540 all speaks to the majesty and the power of God that will be directed towards him

00:04:50.020 for all eternity in the form of wrath

00:04:53.040 and righteous indignation. 0.89

00:04:56.060 But for the believer who is covered

00:04:57.720 by the blood of the Lamb,

00:04:58.760 by grace through faith,

00:04:59.940 we look at all that majesty

00:05:01.760 that reveals the power of God

00:05:04.860 and we see that all His might,

00:05:06.980 all His strength,

00:05:08.100 all His power is being worked in our favor.

00:05:13.080 It's being worked toward our good.

00:05:16.240 Romans chapter 8,

00:05:17.280 God is working all things

00:05:18.920 for the good of people. No, not all people. For the good of those who love him and have been called

00:05:25.060 according to his purpose. So that was Psalm chapter 19 verses 1 through 6. So that would be the main

00:05:30.640 header. If we took Psalm 19 and divide it into two parts, we have God's glory as judgment for the

00:05:36.860 unbeliever and joy for the believer displayed through natural revelation. Now Psalm 19 7 through

00:05:45.440 14, verses 7 through 14, we see God's glory again communicated now through special revelation,

00:05:53.320 namely his law, namely the law of God. So we saw natural revelation, specifically the skies

00:06:00.680 speaking and preaching the glory of God. Now we see special revelation, God's glory being spoken

00:06:08.860 namely through His law, as great righteousness, but also great goodness, great benefit, great joy

00:06:19.080 to the believer once more, to those who obey God's Word. So without further ado, I've written this

00:06:27.000 in your notes. The first verse of our text today says this, the law of the Lord is perfect,

00:06:32.280 reviving the soul. If every day with Jesus is better than the day before we would have no need

00:06:39.120 to be revived. So let me go ahead if we had Christian myth busters this morning that's the 0.98

00:06:43.680 first myth that I would be busting. The first myth although it's it's a pithy statement although it 0.95

00:06:49.280 it sounds pretty and poetic the idea that when someone says this sentiment that every day with

00:06:55.860 Jesus is better than the day before that's simply not true. It's simply not true. If it were true

00:07:01.720 If that were the reality, regardless of whether or not it should be true, it's simply not the reality.

00:07:07.940 If it were the reality, there would be no need for the idea, the Christian concept or principle of restoration, of revival, of being restored.

00:07:19.220 And yet we see that in Scripture time and time again.

00:07:22.260 Restored from what?

00:07:24.060 Well, apparently, there's such a thing as having a spiritual bad day. 0.98

00:07:29.680 Apparently, there is a need for even the Christian,

00:07:33.500 and I would argue even the faithful Christian, 0.86

00:07:36.400 even the most elite of Christ followers,

00:07:40.640 to be revived, to be restored.

00:07:43.940 David, I believe, is a hero in the faith.

00:07:47.420 He's a hero in the faith.

00:07:48.480 I don't believe that David is a nominal.

00:07:51.160 I don't believe he represents a nominal Christian.

00:07:54.300 I believe that David is someone that we should aspire towards,

00:07:57.800 Jesus being the chief example, the only one who is sinless.

00:08:01.780 And David is, in many senses, a type of Christ.

00:08:05.780 But God didn't pick a loser, for lack of a better phrase, to be a type of Christ.

00:08:11.460 David was a man after God's own heart.

00:08:14.380 He was a king that was righteous, arguably the most righteous king in all of Israel.

00:08:19.120 And that's why Christ was going to sit on the throne, not of Saul, but the throne of David.

00:08:26.160 The throne of David.

00:08:27.920 And so David is a type of Christ.

00:08:29.540 He is a model.

00:08:30.760 He is a model for Christian faithfulness.

00:08:33.180 And yet David needs to be revived.

00:08:36.700 And he says that it's the law of the Lord

00:08:39.520 that revives him.

00:08:41.720 Now here's the second myth buster.

00:08:43.560 All right, first myth buster.

00:08:44.620 Every day with Jesus is better than the day before.

00:08:46.500 The second myth buster is that the law is a burden

00:08:51.180 and that the gospel is the only means

00:08:53.340 by which God revives the soul.

00:08:55.800 That's also a Christian myth.

00:08:58.980 Christian churches today, they are so afraid, so afraid of even having the faint remnants of legalism

00:09:08.660 that they cannot speak of the law of God in any positive light.

00:09:13.920 It's just gospel, gospel, gospel.

00:09:15.780 I'm fond of saying this.

00:09:17.060 We are a gospel-centered church.

00:09:19.380 I am a gospel-centered pastor.

00:09:21.400 We love the gospel.

00:09:22.820 But the whole idea of gospel centrality is that it implies, if the gospel is the center, it means there's something else.

00:09:30.740 If the gospel, if not, then we should quit using this popular phrase in evangelical churches today, gospel center, gospel center.

00:09:38.500 Now, what you often mean, the proverbial you, is gospel myoptic, gospel truncated, gospel exclusive, gospel everything.

00:09:47.160 The gospel is not the center for many churches, and it's not the center for many pastors in their preaching today.

00:09:52.300 the gospel is not center it's exclusive it's everything there's nothing surrounding the

00:09:58.340 gospel for it to be the center there has to be something else but most churches won't preach

00:10:03.980 anything else grace grace gospel gospel well the reality is the gospel is the center and i would

00:10:11.640 argue that what flanks the gospel on either side what makes it the middle the center is the law

00:10:18.000 The law of God, which is not just right, but good and holy and right.

00:10:24.920 As the psalmist says in Psalm 119, the law of God is good.

00:10:29.680 And as we see in the first verse of our text today, verse 7, chapter 19, the law revives the soul of man.

00:10:39.260 It doesn't crush the soul of man.

00:10:42.200 Not only, there is a crushing work of the gospel,

00:10:44.960 but that crushing is meant to point that weary individual towards Christ,

00:10:50.460 towards the gospel.

00:10:51.860 There's a crushing of the law, rather, is what I meant to say.

00:10:54.960 There is a crushing work of the function of the law

00:10:59.300 that ultimately crushes the person.

00:11:02.540 It puts upon them such a weight that they know they cannot measure up

00:11:06.140 to what God requires, and it drives,

00:11:08.500 it's meant to drive the person to the cross,

00:11:11.100 where they find mercy, where they find a covering, a substitute, right?

00:11:15.760 But there's also a sense in which the law, it not only crushes the individual,

00:11:19.380 driving them to the gospel, but it also revives an individual.

00:11:23.880 It restores an individual.

00:11:25.700 And I think the implication here in verse 7 is obedience to the law.

00:11:31.060 So the law and seeing the fact that we can never perfectly obey

00:11:34.620 crushes us and reveals our need for a Savior.

00:11:37.820 But then for the Christian, as we strive by grace to obey the law, as we obey the law, it revives us.

00:11:46.940 It provides life.

00:11:48.820 There is a reward for obedience.

00:11:52.180 Now, our culture uses the term privilege.

00:11:55.760 And that's another thing that I want to speak to for a moment.

00:11:58.780 We speak of privilege.

00:11:59.800 This person has privilege.

00:12:00.820 That person has privilege.

00:12:01.860 This intersection group has privilege.

00:12:04.420 The Bible doesn't use the word privilege.

00:12:06.020 The Bible uses the word blessing.

00:12:07.820 now is there such a thing as as undeserved privilege in the sense that it was something

00:12:14.940 that was taken wrongfully immorally something that was robbed yes there is a way to be privileged

00:12:21.480 by by theft for instance the old testament speaks to that that there are times where rulers or the

00:12:27.920 rich could exploit the poor and they would benefit they would have a tangible monetary benefit or

00:12:34.600 privilege advantage by by cheating right i mean zacchaeus was privileged right zacchaeus being

00:12:44.740 the tax collector who climbed up in the tree to see jesus as he was passing by he was privileged

00:12:49.700 he was financially better off than most of his contemporaries by robbing people so there is a

00:12:56.300 way to be privileged now i think that that is misapplied often in the in the woke cultural

00:13:01.480 or narrative of our society today,

00:13:04.420 but there is, to be fair to the argument,

00:13:06.600 there is a legitimate sense

00:13:08.180 in which people could have

00:13:09.720 an immoral privilege that was taken.

00:13:13.660 They are benefited

00:13:14.520 because it was taken from someone else.

00:13:16.580 All right, so that disclaimer being made,

00:13:19.560 the Bible often speaks to blessing.

00:13:23.620 And as an example, let me just say this.

00:13:25.480 If by God's grace, He preserves me,

00:13:28.620 And the marriage vows that I made to my wife, I keep till the day I die.

00:13:34.280 And my role and responsibility that God has given me as both a husband and also a father,

00:13:39.680 I diligently strive to fulfill.

00:13:43.020 If I keep my covenant to my wife, and I keep my vows,

00:13:49.740 these implicit vows that have been made to my children to protect and provide

00:13:53.980 and to teach them and train them, guess what?

00:13:56.940 My kids are going to be better off than most kids in this nation.

00:14:00.940 Now, is that white privilege?

00:14:03.540 Or is that biblical blessing?

00:14:06.600 The reality is that if you work hard,

00:14:09.440 now can you be robbed?

00:14:10.260 I'm sure there's hardworking people in North Korea

00:14:12.080 who are not benefiting from their work

00:14:14.540 because there is such a thing as oppression

00:14:17.300 and a wrongful, immoral sense of privilege

00:14:19.900 for those who exploit.

00:14:22.200 But in a country like ours,

00:14:24.100 I think we just have to pause for a moment and say, sure, there are some levels of injustice,

00:14:29.600 but by and large, there is really no country, not only presently on the planet,

00:14:34.080 but throughout all of human history, that has more of a blank slate,

00:14:38.660 a position of neutral, unbiased opportunity,

00:14:44.520 to where in most cases, not all, but in most cases, if you are hungry in America, it's your fault.

00:14:51.360 see poverty is always linked to sin now i have to i have to give a disclaimer for that statement

00:15:00.080 right because because people can take that the wrong way this is what i would use okay so the

00:15:04.840 disciples with jesus they pass by a man who was born blind and what do they ask they say whose

00:15:09.420 sin made this man born blind was it his parents or his and jesus says neither but rather he was

00:15:16.000 born blind it's a sovereign act of god it wasn't due to his sin it wasn't due to his parents he

00:15:20.860 is born blind so that the glory of God might be revealed,

00:15:23.640 namely through the miracle that was about to take place,

00:15:26.080 the power of Christ that would restore his sight.

00:15:29.360 But here's the thing.

00:15:31.260 The disciples asked a very specific question.

00:15:33.580 They said, whose sin made this man born blind, his or his parents?

00:15:37.280 So Jesus, the truthful answer in that instance, was neither.

00:15:40.260 But had the disciples asked, did sin in general make this man blind?

00:15:46.400 Jesus' answer, I have no doubt, would have been yes.

00:15:48.640 because it is only by sin that death entered the world it is only by sin that sickness entered the

00:15:55.000 world if there had been no sin at all in general if adam had not sinned against the thrice holy god

00:16:02.740 and taken of the fruit and eaten it thinking that he could be like god believing the lie of the

00:16:08.000 serpent and listening genesis 3 says he listened to his wife always tell husbands sometimes you

00:16:13.540 know wives please tolerate be patient with me as i make this statement but i tell husbands sometimes

00:16:17.940 they'll say, well, you know, sometimes a husband will acquiesce. And it's not even because of fear

00:16:21.840 of man. Usually it's not like this trembling fear, insecurity of the husband. A lot of times

00:16:26.140 it's an idol of comfort for men, I've noticed. And so it's not so much, oh, I just, I'm so

00:16:32.220 terrified about what my wife thinks about me. And so I wanted her approval. And so even though I

00:16:37.040 think not that the wife is always wrong, but in this particular instance, she was giving wrong

00:16:40.900 unbiblical counsel. And I acquiesced. A lot of times I've realized it's not because he's afraid 0.99

00:16:46.340 of his wife or fears or desperately wants her approval. It's not as much an idol of approval

00:16:52.560 or the fear of man in regards to his wife. It's usually an idol of comfort.

00:16:58.380 I've already argued with her, Joel, and fought this battle. Brother, trust me, we have spent hours.

00:17:04.860 I've tried. My wife is, you know her. You know how unreasonable she is. I'm like, no comment. No,

00:17:11.900 Now, I'm not affirming that statement, but she's so unreasonable.

00:17:16.100 And so it's not even I'm afraid of her, it's I'm tired.

00:17:20.600 I just want to watch TV.

00:17:22.680 I just want to be done with this fight.

00:17:24.220 This fight, it's tiresome.

00:17:26.400 It's exhausting.

00:17:27.720 And so there are times in which we still commit the same sin

00:17:32.120 that God actually says to Adam, listen to your wife.

00:17:36.100 That's what he actually says to Adam.

00:17:37.300 When Adam, in Genesis chapter 3, when God is dealing out the curse,

00:17:41.900 He says to Adam, he says, because you have listened to your wife, cursed is the ground because of you.

00:17:48.980 And I've noticed that not just in society, not just in culture, but in the church today,

00:17:54.020 there are men who, they are peacemakers, and hear this, but not truly, not in the biblical sense.

00:17:59.500 They are peacemakers through the means of deception.

00:18:03.740 if you're achieving peace by lies it is a peace that is faulty in its in its undergirding premise

00:18:12.460 it is a foundation that is already cracked it is something that will not last like a house of cards

00:18:18.040 this peace will crumble there are many homes many marriages where there's a peace in the home but

00:18:26.080 it's not a peace that has been achieved through righteousness and by the word of god and submission

00:18:32.440 to God's Word, but rather it's a peace that has been ultimately achieved by a husband's

00:18:38.920 idol of comfort and willingness to say whatever he thinks he needs to say to his wife to get

00:18:45.780 her off his back. 0.88

00:18:47.760 That is far too common among Christian men in the church today, that there's no tension

00:18:54.820 in the marriage because the husband in courage and in faithfulness and truth is leading his 0.91

00:19:01.120 wife and washing her in the word no because the wife is very opinionated she's a bit of a feminist

00:19:08.300 although she may not admit it she carries her complementarian card but you know she's also 1.00

00:19:13.240 kind of a female lion and roars from time to time and she's kind of ruling her husband right that 0.99

00:19:19.020 was the curse for women your husband will rule over you your desire will be for your husband 1.00

00:19:23.040 but he will rule over you meaning there's that God has designed that the husband should be the

00:19:27.280 head of his wife as Christ is the head of the church but there's something in the heart of

00:19:30.740 woman because of sin, complementarian, just for the record, a husband's leadership over his wife

00:19:36.060 is not the curse. The curse is that she wouldn't like it. That's the curse. So if sin had never 0.97

00:19:41.560 entered the world, Adam still would have been the head of Eve, period. But if sin had never

00:19:45.980 entered into the world, Adam would never abuse his headship, and Eve would have never resented

00:19:51.980 his headship. She would have loved it. And just for the record, men can abuse that headship in

00:19:57.120 two ways. They can be overly domineering. And pastors, we say, what a courageous sermon. That

00:20:02.100 pastor called out men and said they're boys who can shave. That's not courageous. You want to be

00:20:05.780 courageous? You want to be courageous? Preach on the sin of women. Preach on the sin of women.

00:20:12.520 Because you hear, oh, that courageous pastor, he's calling out men in the church and telling 0.99

00:20:15.620 them to stand up and tell them to be men. That's not courageous. The woke left will applaud you

00:20:22.180 for that sermon.

00:20:23.640 If Joe Biden is agreeing with your sermon,

00:20:26.720 it did not require courage.

00:20:29.880 If Nancy Pelosi and Kamala Harris

00:20:32.380 like your sermon,

00:20:33.740 it didn't require courage.

00:20:35.040 I'll hit a little closer to home.

00:20:36.400 If Beth Moore likes your sermon,

00:20:38.460 it did not require courage.

00:20:42.420 But if everybody's upset with you,

00:20:45.420 then you either preached a bad sermon

00:20:47.200 or maybe one of your best.

00:20:49.200 so all that being said a man can fail in two ways he can be overly domineering in his headship

00:20:56.620 but to be fair he can also sin by being apathetic abuse and apathy and i would argue that by and

00:21:04.800 large in america today and in evangelical churches in america today i'm not saying that no no

00:21:11.660 professing christian husbands have ever been abusive towards their wife that's not my statement

00:21:15.860 So don't take it out of context.

00:21:17.600 What I am saying, though, is I believe the vast majority of Christian husbands, 1.00

00:21:20.980 as they fail in their headship over their wife and children, 0.95

00:21:24.820 it is far more often the sin of apathy than it is the sin of domineering abuse.

00:21:31.060 And the left worked really hard in our nation,

00:21:36.740 by not even politically, but culturally, in the culture war, to achieve this.

00:21:40.860 I mean, think of like every single comedic sitcom since the 90s.

00:21:47.420 The wife, everybody loves Raymond. 0.98

00:21:49.560 She's attractive and intelligent. 1.00

00:21:51.800 The husband's an idiot and out of shape. 1.00

00:21:54.440 The Simpsons, right? 1.00

00:21:56.300 Marge, attractive and intelligent. 0.98

00:21:58.680 And she tolerates Homer, whose job is a joke, right?

00:22:03.020 He has to push one button at work, you know, and just sits there and eats donuts.

00:22:07.140 And then he comes home and sits on the couch, right?

00:22:09.940 I mean, we could go on and on and on. 0.97

00:22:12.180 For 30 years, every single comedic sitcom has emphasized the competency and intelligence and proficiency of women 1.00

00:22:25.160 and the stupidity and failure of men. 1.00

00:22:29.560 But these men, notice, they're not abusers. 1.00

00:22:33.320 Their sin is not that they're overly domineering or abusive in the home towards their wife.

00:22:38.540 Their sin is they're apathetic. 0.98

00:22:40.400 They're lazy. 0.99

00:22:42.140 They're couch potatoes. 0.99

00:22:43.960 They won't speak up.

00:22:45.040 They don't lead.

00:22:46.760 And I believe that that's the bigger problem.

00:22:48.560 If we were in a different culture,

00:22:50.700 in a different time in human history,

00:22:52.560 I might be railing on the men in this sermon

00:22:54.660 about being overly domineering.

00:22:58.220 But that is not the sermon of the hour.

00:23:01.860 Because it's not the need of the hour. 0.97

00:23:04.280 I believe the need today is not for men

00:23:06.240 to stop oppressing their wives.

00:23:08.540 I believe the epidemic in the evangelical church in America today is for men to start actually leading their wives.

00:23:16.480 And one of the reasons why families leave churches, and I have experienced this firsthand, 0.79

00:23:21.440 one of the reasons why families leave churches is because a pastor preaches something faithful

00:23:26.600 that actually indicts not just men in his church, but women. 0.56

00:23:30.780 The women don't like it.

00:23:32.200 They go home and complain to their husbands, and their husbands don't have the spine to say, 1.00

00:23:37.880 hey, because the wife will create this false dichotomy. 0.66

00:23:43.440 Are you going to agree with me, your wife, or the pastor?

00:23:46.220 And what he should do is immediately remove himself,

00:23:48.560 recognize that as the false dichotomy it is,

00:23:50.580 and say, I'm not siding with you or the pastor.

00:23:53.060 I'm siding with God's word, and the pastor happened to get it right.

00:23:56.400 So it's not pastor versus you, it's God.

00:23:59.160 And insofar as the pastor is faithful in his preaching of God's word,

00:24:03.540 then yeah, I agree with the pastor,

00:24:04.840 but not by virtue of the man, but by virtue of the message.

00:24:08.740 By virtue of the message.

00:24:12.500 I don't even know how God of men went,

00:24:14.140 but I'm glad I did because it's so valuable.

00:24:16.900 It is absolutely so valuable.

00:24:19.020 So this idea, oh, I remember,

00:24:20.640 because you listen to your wife, Genesis 3.

00:24:23.460 So God's dealing out curses. 0.99

00:24:25.040 The woman, it's greatly increased pains and childbearing, right? 1.00

00:24:28.660 But it's also the sense that she's going to want to rule over her husband. 1.00

00:24:31.700 Your desire will be for your husband.

00:24:33.320 Just for the record, don't misinterpret that.

00:24:34.720 Because some people will say, yeah, she just, her desire is for her husband.

00:24:37.880 She just wants intimacy with her husband.

00:24:39.320 No, that's not what,

00:24:40.360 your desire will be for your husband

00:24:41.860 in that context means

00:24:42.800 your desire will be to wear the pants,

00:24:45.040 but he will.

00:24:46.980 He will.

00:24:48.060 That's the curse.

00:24:48.860 And again, the curse is not his headship.

00:24:51.100 The curse is her resentment of the headship

00:24:53.660 and his failure in headship.

00:24:56.800 Now, for the husband,

00:24:58.180 the curse for him is the ground.

00:25:00.460 Not just that humanity has been cursed

00:25:02.820 because of humanity's sin,

00:25:04.140 but all of creation.

00:25:05.200 The dirt will now produce thorns and thistles. 0.99

00:25:08.660 Again, just like the woman, the curse is not headship of a husband, 0.99

00:25:11.780 but rather his abuse and apathy and her resentment and desire to rule over her husband. 0.72

00:25:18.160 Likewise with the man, the curse does not work, men.

00:25:21.360 It's like, gosh, if Adam had never sinned, I wouldn't have to work.

00:25:24.520 No, no, no.

00:25:24.940 He was always, he was placed in the garden to work and keep it.

00:25:30.800 That's literally the words used, to work and keep it.

00:25:32.960 The curse is that the ground would work against him.

00:25:36.320 So the curse is not work, and the curse is not even hard work.

00:25:41.320 The curse is a futility of work, a frustration in work,

00:25:47.360 that there are times when a man would work hard, and it still wouldn't pay off.

00:25:52.480 See, before sin entered the world, whenever a man would work hard,

00:25:55.880 it would always benefit him and others, always.

00:26:00.780 Now, it doesn't mean that he didn't have to work.

00:26:02.740 He would have to work and he would have to work hard, but he would always, he would have a guarantee that he would reap the benefit, the fruit of his labor.

00:26:11.680 Whereas because of the curse of sin, there are times when men work hard and it doesn't pan out.

00:26:16.860 Their work doesn't work.

00:26:20.020 And so that's the curse in regards to men.

00:26:22.920 So because you listened to your wife, because you listened to your wife, that's one of the things that God says to Adam.

00:26:32.580 So I remember that's how I got there

00:26:33.980 was because you listened to your wife,

00:26:35.140 but how did I get to

00:26:36.040 because you listened to your wife?

00:26:37.900 Does anybody remember?

00:26:39.840 What?

00:26:40.800 I can't recall either.

00:26:41.900 Because you listened to your wife.

00:26:45.480 All right, all that being said,

00:26:47.080 point is this,

00:26:48.340 gospel centrality.

00:26:49.860 Gospel centrality includes the law.

00:26:52.100 It's not gospel onlyism.

00:26:53.520 It's not gospel myopticism.

00:26:54.980 It's not gospel exclusivism.

00:26:57.020 If the gospel is the centered,

00:26:58.220 I would argue what's flanking the gospel,

00:27:00.300 surrounding the gospel

00:27:01.280 that makes it the center is the law of God.

00:27:03.620 On the left and on the right,

00:27:05.200 on one side, it's the law of God in its first use.

00:27:08.640 Some of you may not be familiar

00:27:10.040 of the three divisions of the law

00:27:11.620 and the three uses of the law.

00:27:13.040 Three divisions of the law.

00:27:14.540 God's moral law, civil law, and ceremonial law.

00:27:17.740 Moral, civil, ceremonial.

00:27:19.700 The ceremonial law,

00:27:22.040 the priestly sacrificial system

00:27:24.260 that we had with covenant Israel

00:27:26.240 and the old covenant, the Old Testament,

00:27:28.520 this has been fulfilled by Christ.

00:27:30.280 It's all been fulfilled.

00:27:30.960 Christ fulfilled the moral law as well, but it's been fulfilled by Christ in such a way that it has been abrogated.

00:27:37.720 It's been abrogated.

00:27:38.820 So we no longer need to sacrifice animals.

00:27:41.640 We no longer need to have a priest who goes into the Holy of Holy and makes remission of sin

00:27:48.060 because we have the high priest, not the order of Aaron, not the Levitical priesthood,

00:27:52.980 but rather the high priest in the order of Melchizedek.

00:27:56.160 We have Jesus Christ, and he has made sacrifice by being the sacrifice once and for all.

00:28:02.880 No other sacrifice needs to be made.

00:28:06.060 So the ceremonial law has been abrogated, but the moral law has been fulfilled by Christ.

00:28:11.860 That is, he lived, he fulfilled all righteousness, he was holy in everything that he did,

00:28:16.700 but it's been fulfilled in such a way that it has not yet been abrogated and never will.

00:28:21.800 So the moral law still applies.

00:28:24.360 That's why I read the Ten Commandments every single week.

00:28:26.520 I don't read Levitical code about sacrifices,

00:28:30.980 dove offerings and grain offerings every week.

00:28:33.920 But I do read the Ten Commandments because that's the Decalogue. 0.79

00:28:36.860 That's the moral law of God, which Christians are still required to obey. 0.98

00:28:41.140 Not as a means of salvation. 0.99

00:28:43.100 That would be legalism.

00:28:44.500 But because we have freely received salvation by grace and faith in Jesus Christ.

00:28:48.500 That's the moral law.

00:28:49.620 The civil law are those things which pertain to Israel as a nation.

00:28:53.720 right like a precipice on the roof right which would be like a railing like a fence uh now that's

00:29:00.840 not ceremonial you don't do that to be cleansed from sin and it's not necessarily moral in the

00:29:05.860 sense that it's uh something that's eternal right so if there aren't precipices on the roof in heaven

00:29:10.820 nobody will be in sin right but if there isn't truthfulness in heaven and people are lying you

00:29:16.860 would be in sin you see what i'm saying so the ten commandments they're eternal right they're

00:29:22.240 they never change because they're rooted in the immutable character and nature and essence of God

00:29:27.860 himself. They're a reflection. The moral law is a reflection of God's own essence, his own holiness,

00:29:34.060 his own character. The civil law are things that were particular to Israel, like a precipice on

00:29:39.060 the roof. Now, here's the deal. All these civil laws, ultimately, you can track every single one 0.76

00:29:44.020 of them back to a blueprint. We might call it the blueprint, the original coding of the law,

00:29:50.680 which is the deck law, the Ten Commandments. So the commandment to have a precipice on the roof,

00:29:55.760 why was that? Because in their culture, without air conditioning, it would be hot during the

00:30:00.000 summer months. People would sleep on the roof to receive a cool breeze, and in their sleep,

00:30:04.480 if they weren't careful and there wasn't a railing, someone could roll off and die.

00:30:08.180 So precipice, what does that root back to in the Ten Commandments? Thou shalt not murder.

00:30:12.940 And thou shalt not murder, the essence, the heartbeat of that commandment, thou shalt not

00:30:16.540 murder is actually instated not in the negative but in the positive which is thou shalt esteem

00:30:21.900 life that's the blueprint and that's just taking the sixth commandment in regards to murder and

00:30:29.620 we could do it with all 10 and every single civil law that we could find in leviticus and numbers

00:30:36.140 and deuteronomy and exodus we could track back to one of the 10 commandments as as the original code

00:30:42.400 if you will, for righteousness, the blueprint law. And so the Ten Commandments endure forever.

00:30:49.180 Their particular or specific applications will change based on time and culture. So for us,

00:30:56.500 no precipice is on the roof, but speed limits on the highway. Thou shalt esteem life, the sanctity

00:31:05.580 of human life, because human beings were made in the image of God. Do you understand? So here's

00:31:11.040 the point. Both Westminster and 1689 Confessions say this, the ceremonial law, the priestly

00:31:17.200 sacrificial system of the old covenant Israel has been fulfilled by Christ and abrogated because he

00:31:24.520 now is our once and for all sacrifice and our high priest who makes intercession for his people at

00:31:30.880 the right hand of God. So the ceremonial law has been fulfilled and abrogated. But the moral law

00:31:38.400 is eternal and endures forever.

00:31:40.320 That's the Ten Commandments, the Decalogue. 0.81

00:31:42.380 And the civil law that was particular to Israel,

00:31:46.380 the phrase that both of these confessions,

00:31:48.340 Westminster in 1689 use,

00:31:50.280 is the general equity of the civil law still applies.

00:31:54.360 Let me give you an example of that.

00:31:56.720 New Testament, New Covenant,

00:31:59.020 a verse that I love in my bias because of my position.

00:32:02.740 You shall not muzzle the ox while it treads the grain.

00:32:06.520 the apostle paul so not just in the old covenant not just in old testament israel but the apostle

00:32:13.540 paul in the new testament cites this old testament that's not ceremonial right you're not cleansed of

00:32:20.360 sin by by making sure not to muzzle the ox that's not like a sacrifice or a priestly ritual so it's

00:32:26.400 not ceremonial law it's also not the eternal moral law right it's it's not thou shalt not lie thou

00:32:31.660 shall not commit a murder thou shall not commit adultery so what is it it's like the precipice

00:32:36.180 on the roof. It falls into the category of civil law. But Paul, what does he do? He gleans from

00:32:42.680 this particular civil law the general equity of the law and applies it to the principle of why

00:32:49.500 a minister of the gospel has a right to receive his living from preaching the gospel. Do you

00:32:57.180 understand? So that's how we, in a Christian sense, as New Covenant Christians, no longer Israel,

00:33:04.000 theocratic Israel, 0.81

00:33:06.260 Old Covenant, Old Testament Israel,

00:33:07.720 but that's how we as New Testament,

00:33:09.740 New Covenant Christians can still

00:33:11.540 and must, I would argue, should,

00:33:13.980 it's an obligation, should still

00:33:15.500 utilize not just the moral law,

00:33:17.860 the Ten Commandments, but even the civil

00:33:19.720 law. So we can look to all these

00:33:21.760 civil laws and insofar

00:33:23.600 as there is a general equity,

00:33:25.840 that is a general principle,

00:33:28.320 ethical, moral principle

00:33:29.940 in those laws.

00:33:32.040 So it's, well, it's what some

00:33:33.740 scholars would call case law, right? So it's not each, it's not a one-to-one ratio of civil law of

00:33:39.460 Israel should be the civil law of America, right? Because that's, that's another heated debate,

00:33:44.180 right? Like, are you a theonomist? Are you, you know, theocratic? This is what I believe. I believe

00:33:49.340 that America should be Christian. It should be a Christian nation. Why? Because I believe that 0.87

00:33:55.660 all people have an obligation, not just Christians, but God's law was actually given not just to

00:34:00.600 Christians, but to humanity. That all Christians have an obligation as creatures made in the image

00:34:06.500 of God. They have an obligation to the creator to obey his commandments, not to steal, not to lie,

00:34:13.520 not to murder, not to have any other gods. And so I do believe that every nation, not just America,

00:34:20.440 but every nation should be Christian. Well, what do you do as a Christian nation? You legislate

00:34:27.380 righteousness. You legislate righteousness. Well, who gets to determine righteousness?

00:34:33.640 God or man? See, you only have two choices. Rush Dooney was famous for saying this. Some of his

00:34:39.000 stuff is whack. But Rush Dooney was famous for saying, it's not whether but which. It's not

00:34:45.100 whether but which. So that's interesting, even with cancel culture. Have you thought about this?

00:34:49.560 Because I've often said, man, cancel culture, that's horrible. But here's the reality. We've

00:34:53.800 always had cancel culture. And every culture and every society and every nation has always had

00:34:58.160 cancel culture. Israel had cancel culture. You know what it was called? The reigning orthodoxy 1.00

00:35:02.600 and its corresponding blasphemy laws. There are certain things you can't say. Well, what about

00:35:08.460 free speech? Doesn't that come from Christian roots? Well, even within Christian roots and 0.98

00:35:12.280 freedom, the law of liberty, there are still certain things you cannot say. The question is

00:35:17.780 not whether, but which. Something's going to be canceled. In our nation, it's not like all of a

00:35:23.640 sudden we started cancelling things and we never did it before. No, we used to cancel communism.

00:35:28.060 Now we cancel liberty. We used to cancel Marx. Now we cancel

00:35:36.260 Jefferson, George Washington, John Locke, Adams, Dr. Seuss, you know, whatever it might be.

00:35:50.460 And so we've always canceled something.

00:35:52.540 And God's people, even in the Old Covenant and in the New Testament,

00:35:55.440 they always were canceling something.

00:35:57.540 There's always a reigning orthodoxy.

00:35:59.580 And depending on who is your God, your reigning orthodoxy,

00:36:03.780 your blueprint moral law, that determines what is blasphemy in that particular culture. 0.97

00:36:11.420 So to speak out against transgenderism is blasphemy. 0.96

00:36:16.400 To speak out against Darwin is blasphemy. 0.88

00:36:19.340 and you will be canceled.

00:36:21.260 In some way, you might lose your job

00:36:23.020 or you might just be publicly mocked on social media.

00:36:26.880 But there's always an orthodoxy.

00:36:28.640 It's not whether but which.

00:36:29.980 There's always a law.

00:36:31.540 That's my point.

00:36:32.520 And there are always rules for speech.

00:36:35.260 What is acceptable in a culture and what is not

00:36:37.860 based on what they deem as virtuous.

00:36:40.780 What their particular law is.

00:36:42.580 So here's the options. 1.00

00:36:44.200 This idea, well, we shouldn't be a Christian nation. 1.00

00:36:45.920 That's wrong to impose our morals on someone. 1.00

00:36:47.880 Morality is always going to be imposed.

00:36:50.440 Here's the question.

00:36:51.340 Whose morality will it be?

00:36:53.100 In the case of pro-life versus pro-abortion, pro-murder,

00:36:57.280 it's not pro-choice.

00:36:58.440 Pro-murder versus pro-life.

00:37:00.580 Here's the idea. 0.67

00:37:01.360 It's either going to be the morality of God imposed on the mother and the abortion doctor,

00:37:07.480 or it's going to be the morality of the mother and the abortion doctor imposed on the child.

00:37:12.700 Not whether, but which.

00:37:15.020 We are imposing morality. 0.79

00:37:16.500 We are imposing the false morality, the unrighteous immorality on 60 million children over the last 48 years in their mother's womb.

00:37:30.820 So you don't have this option of neutrality.

00:37:34.180 I've said it before, I'll say it again.

00:37:35.660 Neutrality is a myth.

00:37:38.420 There is no moral neutrality.

00:37:41.260 A man is either for Christ or against him.

00:37:43.620 Everyone has an allegiance. 0.95

00:37:45.560 to someone or to something.

00:37:48.860 So here are your two choices as it pertains to law.

00:37:51.420 It is either theonomy, that is God's law,

00:37:54.800 or autonomy, which is man's law.

00:37:58.060 And autonomy is a myth.

00:38:00.660 There is no autonomy.

00:38:02.680 There's no neutrality, but there's also no autonomy. 0.94

00:38:05.720 A man who thinks he governs himself

00:38:07.660 will find out in the end that he was sorely mistaken.

00:38:11.060 There was a transcendent, universal, eternal law

00:38:14.920 given by the law giver that reigned above him

00:38:19.060 and he failed to obey it.

00:38:21.000 And he will not be judged on that final day

00:38:23.380 in accordance with his own standard,

00:38:25.700 his own law, his autonomy.

00:38:27.900 He will be judged by theonomy,

00:38:30.000 by God and God's law. 1.00

00:38:33.180 So the idea of a theocracy, a Christian state, 0.95

00:38:36.440 insofar that it's a one-to-one ratio 0.85

00:38:38.720 of Israel to America,

00:38:40.740 that is not a biblical concept.

00:38:43.320 That's not a biblical concept.

00:38:44.920 Where you take Leviticus and you say, there's not a precipice on your roof.

00:38:48.480 We're going to fine you.

00:38:50.460 That's not a biblical concept.

00:38:52.280 So there is a way to go too far.

00:38:54.040 But I believe that evangelical Christians have retreated.

00:38:56.780 They've overcompensated.

00:38:58.080 The pendulum has overswung.

00:38:59.660 We're so afraid of being called legalistic.

00:39:01.500 We're so afraid of being called theocrats.

00:39:03.620 We're so afraid of being called spiritual zealots and crazy right wing, you know, alt right, weird, whatever.

00:39:11.900 That we've just said, oh, no, no, no, no.

00:39:13.380 We're just for freedom.

00:39:14.920 We're just for neutrality.

00:39:16.260 And we think that freedom just means

00:39:17.720 that everyone can do whatever they want.

00:39:20.040 That's not freedom.

00:39:22.160 That's licentiousness.

00:39:24.760 So there's law and licentiousness, lawlessness.

00:39:30.860 We think that the absence of God's law would be freedom.

00:39:33.500 No, the absence of God's law is licentiousness, not freedom.

00:39:38.020 And licentiousness, lawlessness, produces death.

00:39:41.740 So the three divisions of the law,

00:39:43.260 moral, think Decalogue.

00:39:44.920 the blueprint of God's law.

00:39:47.280 Ceremonial, think priestly sacrificial system,

00:39:50.460 not only fulfilled by Christ,

00:39:51.820 but abrogated because he is the final sacrifice

00:39:54.420 and he is our forever priest

00:39:56.320 in the order of Melchizedek.

00:39:58.560 Then civil law,

00:40:00.080 not a one-to-one ratio from old covenant Israel

00:40:02.660 to common day America or Russia or Canada,

00:40:08.920 but what we can do with the civil law,

00:40:10.720 and I would argue we must do,

00:40:12.080 and the confessions Westminster and 1689 argue we must do 0.93

00:40:16.380 is we must extract from the civil law given to Israel

00:40:20.900 the general equity, that is the general moral principles

00:40:24.180 and apply them in a right and wise way in our culture today.

00:40:29.420 You must not muzzle the ox, all right?

00:40:31.460 We can apply that not only to pastors as Paul does,

00:40:34.700 but we can take the general equity of that Old Testament civil law

00:40:37.860 and apply it to any worker and say,

00:40:39.640 the worker is worth his wages, whatever he does. If he does good work, he's worth a decent wage.

00:40:47.720 You see how that works? So that's not theocracy in the crazy sense, and that's not theonomy in

00:40:54.160 every sense, but that's what I and other people like Doug Wilson would call general equity

00:40:58.840 theonomy. And in that regard, then yeah, I'm a theonomist. Because I think the only alternative

00:41:04.940 is to be an autonomous,

00:41:06.840 to be given, to subscribe to autonomy

00:41:10.180 and given the choice of maybe getting it

00:41:13.180 theologically wrong a little bit,

00:41:15.280 but submitting to theonomy, God's law,

00:41:18.260 versus submitting to man's law.

00:41:20.540 But man's law, you say, well, theonomy,

00:41:22.520 Joe, look at the dangers though.

00:41:24.300 You could go, look at the Crusades.

00:41:27.440 Okay, yeah, yeah. 1.00

00:41:28.180 Christianity has to answer

00:41:30.600 throughout Christian history, church history,

00:41:33.180 for the ways that God's law has been misapplied

00:41:36.000 and where Christians have gone too far

00:41:37.760 in theocracy and theology,

00:41:39.460 we have to answer for that

00:41:40.700 in the thousands who have died.

00:41:43.340 But here's the other side of the coin.

00:41:46.280 Secularism, autonomy, man's law

00:41:48.060 has to answer for Mao. 0.97

00:41:50.220 They have to answer for Hitler. 0.90

00:41:52.240 They have to answer for the Nazis. 0.96

00:41:54.160 And they have to answer for China right now. 0.94

00:41:57.520 And camps, see, that's the thing.

00:41:59.780 People, you know, Bill Maher and all these,

00:42:01.420 they'll point to the Christians and say,

00:42:02.560 But look what has happened in the name of religion.

00:42:05.200 Look what has happened in the name of secularism.

00:42:07.980 60 million babies murdered in less than 50 years in one nation.

00:42:13.140 Christianity's never done anything like that. 1.00

00:42:15.240 I'm talking the wackiest, kookiest Christians you can imagine. 1.00

00:42:18.060 Can't come close to Rome. 1.00

00:42:21.280 Can't touch that.

00:42:23.040 I mean, you got to tip your hat, give credit where credit is due. 0.99

00:42:25.660 Secularism has killed more people than any religion combined. 1.00

00:42:30.480 The most dead, and it is a religion. 0.99

00:42:32.560 The most deadly religion on planet Earth is secularism. 1.00

00:42:37.900 Close second, Islam. 1.00

00:42:39.720 That's a freebie, which does promote violence. 1.00

00:42:42.840 There are plenty of peaceful Muslims, 1.00

00:42:44.780 but that's because they're nominal Muslims. 1.00

00:42:46.900 A true faithful Muslim flies into buildings and kills thousands. 1.00

00:42:51.740 That's Islam carried out faithfully. 1.00

00:42:54.520 See, it's the feature, not the bug. 1.00

00:42:56.440 The feature of Islam is violence. 1.00

00:42:58.980 See, whereas Christianity, well, what about the Crusades? 1.00

00:43:01.200 That's the bug, not the feature.

00:43:02.560 Christianity, violence is the bug, not the feature. 0.86

00:43:05.900 Islam, it's the feature, not the bug. 0.97

00:43:08.300 But here's the crazy thing. 1.00

00:43:09.700 Secularism is worse than both of them combined. 0.95

00:43:13.400 Secularism has more casualties on the books 1.00

00:43:15.720 than any other religion. 0.98

00:43:17.440 And make no mistake, it is a religion.

00:43:19.080 There is an orthodoxy.

00:43:20.380 There are blasphemy laws.

00:43:22.000 What's canceled, what's not permissible,

00:43:23.480 what you can say, what you can't say.

00:43:25.900 There are priests in this religion of secularism.

00:43:29.760 The woke priestess and priests.

00:43:33.120 Robin D'Angelo is a priest.

00:43:37.080 The Frankfurt School is a host of priests,

00:43:40.520 a Levitical priesthood, if you will.

00:43:43.280 So there are priests, there are laws,

00:43:45.500 there are blasphemy rules,

00:43:47.520 there is a worship, a practice of worship.

00:43:50.420 But you know what there's not? 0.56

00:43:51.600 Only Christianity, only the religion of Christianity has. 0.79

00:43:54.540 Atonement for sin. 0.99

00:43:58.640 See, Islam, secularism, Hinduism, all of it, 0.80

00:44:02.560 All of it.

00:44:03.460 They all have law.

00:44:05.520 They all have orthodoxy.

00:44:07.740 They all have priests and practices for worship.

00:44:10.260 What they don't have is the gospel of Jesus Christ.

00:44:13.280 What they don't have is forgiveness of sins.

00:44:15.700 What they don't have is cleansing from iniquity.

00:44:18.400 What they don't have is atonement.

00:44:20.360 And that's why all they'll ever have is just like Rome,

00:44:23.580 which is not Christian, Roman Catholicism, 0.91

00:44:25.780 is penance. 0.91

00:44:26.840 Again and again and again.

00:44:28.180 Your anti-racist homework has to be done.

00:44:31.160 And it's never enough.

00:44:32.060 It's never enough.

00:44:33.200 You've got to go back and apologize.

00:44:34.840 And then you've got to make reparations.

00:44:36.120 And then 20 years later, we realize those reparations really were an insult to injury

00:44:39.720 because it wasn't enough.

00:44:40.680 And we've got to do it again.

00:44:41.840 And we've got to do it again.

00:44:42.660 And we've got to do it again.

00:44:43.660 But Christ and Christ alone says, it is finished.

00:44:49.020 And by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone,

00:44:52.320 your conscience is clear, your sins are forgiven,

00:44:55.140 and you are clothed in the righteousness of God. 1.00

00:44:58.000 Only the Christian faith has atonement.

00:45:00.240 Every religion has law. 0.97

00:45:02.060 Every religion has blasphemy rules, orthodoxy, priest, worship, 0.55

00:45:06.380 but only the Christian faith has the gospel of Jesus Christ. 0.96

00:45:11.580 All right, all that being said, I'm going to have to go really, really, really fast.

00:45:16.520 I'm not doing this whole text.

00:45:17.920 I already said two parts, but I thought I was giving myself some headway

00:45:22.300 by ahead of time deciding to do two parts,

00:45:25.680 and I just need to realize if I really want to give myself headway,

00:45:28.880 I just need to go into every sermon and say,

00:45:30.860 Like, this could be a 50-part sermon.

00:45:32.680 So all that being said, here's the deal.

00:45:35.460 The law of God is beautiful and good and perfect and true.

00:45:39.800 And it revives the soul.

00:45:42.480 It revives the soul.

00:45:44.020 It doesn't save the soul.

00:45:45.920 Notice that.

00:45:46.460 It revives the soul.

00:45:48.380 The only thing that can save the soul is faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. 1.00

00:45:51.960 But obedience to the law for the dreary, weary Christian 0.99

00:45:57.060 can bring a sense of revival, restoration, life, and blessing, right? Privilege, there is such a 1.00

00:46:06.020 thing. I gave that disclaimer, but in many cases, what we call privilege actually is blessing.

00:46:11.120 It's actually blessing. We can look to families and say, you're privileged. No, hey, look, that

00:46:16.520 husband just kept his vows to his wife and provided for his kids. Did you know just statistically,

00:46:21.420 statistically, even if you're a deadbeat dad, if you just don't divorce your wife and stay in the

00:46:28.520 home and provide some kind of a paycheck, your children will be better off than most.

00:46:35.500 So much crime, incarceration, out of wedlock, childbirth, so much of it can be tracked back

00:46:44.020 to what? A particular race? 0.98

00:46:46.220 No. 1.00

00:46:47.940 No, to fatherlessness.

00:46:50.480 And there are cases

00:46:52.060 where fatherlessness might

00:46:53.940 have a higher rate or a higher

00:46:56.020 statistic in a particular ethnicity,

00:46:58.160 but it's not the ethnicity. It's not

00:46:59.900 inerrant to ethnicity. 0.99

00:47:02.000 It's inerrant to God's 1.00

00:47:03.900 design for family.

00:47:05.800 And any culture, any country, or any

00:47:08.000 ethnicity, or any time period that

00:47:09.940 doesn't honor and uphold

00:47:11.900 God's perfect design for

00:47:13.940 families, for husbands and fathers to be present, is going to experience disadvantages. Their 0.69

00:47:21.480 prodigy will experience pain and harm. That's just common sense. And then those who experience

00:47:29.180 privilege, it's not because of whiteness. No, it's because of family. I really believe that.

00:47:37.040 Even non-Christians, unbelievers, who don't even love God, if by God's common grace they adhere to 0.59

00:47:43.440 God's law in regards to the family, and a husband chooses to be faithful to his wife and a protector 0.93

00:47:49.260 and provider for his children, his children will be privileged. No, the Bible uses the term blessed.

00:47:56.500 And blessing, here's the beauty of viewing it as blessing. Blessing actually allows you to do more

00:48:01.060 good for those who don't have it. Because when you call it privilege, the corresponding immediate

00:48:06.880 implicit feeling is guilt. You have privilege, a.k.a. you're guilty. But guilt doesn't beget

00:48:14.200 generosity. It begets obligation. And obligation always allows for people to do the bare minimum.

00:48:21.160 So if you view it as privilege, then you're guilty. And if you're guilty, you won't be generous.

00:48:25.260 If you view it as blessing, then you're not guilty. It's actually yours. By God's grace,

00:48:31.720 it's actually yours. And when something's actually yours, you can be generous. See,

00:48:35.840 socialism, it bans generosity. It bans generosity. There can be no generosity without property

00:48:42.660 ownership. It's only when we can say, this is mine. By God's grace, of course, everything

00:48:49.040 ultimately belongs to him. I'm a steward. But this is, God has entrusted this to me.

00:48:53.960 It belongs to me. I have ownership. And now because I have ownership, I actually have the

00:48:58.340 opportunity to give generously. And the root of it is gratitude versus guilt. If you're blessed,

00:49:06.560 what do you do? You say thank you. And you give to others. If you're privileged, what do you do?

00:49:11.160 You feel guilty. And you give just a little bit there, trying to pay your dues for your PR so

00:49:18.360 that people don't think that you're racist, oppressive, fill in the blank. So all that being

00:49:24.460 said. All that being said, God's law is not just the right thing, it's the good thing. Churches need

00:49:30.480 to preach the law of God. It revives the soul for the Christian. It doesn't save, but it does revive

00:49:36.520 the soul. When we obey God's law, things in life work better, period. Life works better when God's

00:49:43.840 law is obeyed. So if every day with Jesus was better than the day before, we'd have no need to

00:49:49.380 be revived, but Christian joy in this life is not static. It fluctuates. Joy appears to fluctuate

00:49:54.480 in relation to our circumstances, but in reality, hear this, joy only fluctuates in relation to your

00:49:59.560 faith. It's not in relation to your circumstances. It's in relation to your faith. As you struggle

00:50:04.600 to believe, you will struggle to find pleasure and joy in Christ. Therefore, the daily preservation

00:50:09.980 of our joy, it's not a guarantee for the Christian. It must be diligently guarded and protected.

00:50:15.540 Christian joy is vulnerable because Christian faith is vulnerable.

00:50:19.120 Our faith in God is under constant and continual threat

00:50:22.180 from three great enemies of the Christian in this life. 0.85

00:50:25.260 That is the world, the flesh, and the devil.

00:50:27.460 This is precisely why the Apostle Paul says in 2 Corinthians 1, verse 24,

00:50:33.060 not that we lord it over your faith, but we are workers.

00:50:37.100 And that's a co-worker, really.

00:50:38.480 We are workers with you for your joy.

00:50:41.700 What do we glean from this verse?

00:50:42.840 This verse clearly reveals that Christian joy is something that we must work for.

00:50:47.340 And it is a daunting work that requires the aid of others.

00:50:52.640 We are working with you for your joy.

00:50:55.480 So Christian work, it's not the default setting.

00:50:57.580 It's not static.

00:50:58.820 If you're going to have joy in Christ, if you're going to have a soul that is revived, right?

00:51:04.020 The soul needs to be revived because every day with Jesus isn't always better than the last. 0.89

00:51:08.240 So there are down points to this Christian life. 0.89

00:51:10.820 there are valleys, not just peaks, not just mountaintops, but valleys. Our joy has to be

00:51:15.880 fought for, and the fight for joy is a fight for faith. And this is a fight that we must enlist.

00:51:21.640 This is why we believe in the church. One of the reasons why. Because we must enlist other saints

00:51:28.140 in our army as we wage the war for joy. The war for joy is a war for faith, and faith comes by

00:51:35.980 hearing. We need to preach to ourselves, and we need saints. Fellow brothers and sisters in Christ,

00:51:40.820 who will preach to us as well,

00:51:42.860 who will remind us not about what we feel,

00:51:45.640 but what we know to be true.

00:51:47.460 So in the midst of difficult circumstances,

00:51:49.840 we can have that, we can fly by the radar.

00:51:53.260 We can fly by the dials, right?

00:51:55.280 That we have the true north,

00:51:56.520 the word of God being preached to us

00:51:57.780 by ourselves and others

00:51:59.240 that reminds us not what we feel,

00:52:01.300 but what we know and brings us faith.

00:52:04.820 And as we bolster our faith,

00:52:06.240 as we've seen even in Psalm 16,

00:52:08.060 As faith bolsters, what I want you to see today is that joy increases and rises as well.

00:52:14.900 So therefore, the continual work of preserving joy is only achieved by the continual fight for increasing faith.

00:52:21.280 And the weapon made available to the Christian waging this war is the word of God.

00:52:27.600 There's a fight for joy. The fight for joy is a fight for faith.

00:52:31.520 And the way that we fight for faith is by the word.

00:52:35.960 Every word which proceeds from the mouth of God.

00:52:38.520 Faith comes by hearing.

00:52:39.780 Hearing comes by the word of God.

00:52:41.120 We preach to ourselves and we need co-workers

00:52:43.200 who will work with us for our joy

00:52:45.340 by preaching God's word to us as well.

00:52:47.840 And this is what David sees.

00:52:50.460 When he writes Psalm 19, 7 through 14,

00:52:53.540 he is speaking of the word of God,

00:52:56.300 more specifically God's law

00:52:58.200 and how it ultimately revives the soul

00:53:00.940 by bolstering faith and increasing joy.

00:53:04.120 Let me say that again. Don't miss that. David is relishing and rejoicing in the law of God

00:53:10.560 because in the law of God, in the hearing of the law of God, it bolsters faith and increases joy.

00:53:17.880 It increases joy. Does the gospel do that? You bet you. But so does God's law. And God's law

00:53:24.200 is what's referenced in our text today. So God's law is what a faithful minister must preach.

00:53:29.840 We need to stick to the text.

00:53:31.840 So here's a couple of verses, Romans 10, 17.

00:53:34.320 Faith comes by hearing, hearing by the word of God.

00:53:36.920 Hebrews 4, verse 12.

00:53:38.640 The word of God is living and active.

00:53:40.420 It's sharper than any two-edged sword.

00:53:42.640 It pierces to the division of soul and spirit,

00:53:46.920 joints and marrow and discerns the thoughts

00:53:49.900 and intentions of the heart.

00:53:51.260 So the word of God is our sword that we use.

00:53:54.260 It's our weapon that we use in this fight for faith,

00:53:56.720 which is ultimately a fight for joy it's a fight for joy the law of God I'm going to run through

00:54:03.800 these real quick and then next week we're going to dive in and really unpack it more but the law

00:54:08.320 of God I want to just this week I want us to quickly work over the purposes and products

00:54:12.720 all right the purposes and products next week what we're going to do is we're going to look at the

00:54:17.100 law of God prosperity and pleasure I've already really laid a framework for that today which I

00:54:21.340 didn't intend to do but I'm glad I did prosperity and pleasure that proceeds from obedience to the

00:54:25.440 law of God. We'll see that next week. And we'll also see a danger that David says at the end of

00:54:30.120 Psalm 19 that he prays. It's a prayer that God would keep him from presumption and pride. Presumption

00:54:36.120 and pride, which are obstacles to obedience in God's law. So we'll look at, we'll look at the

00:54:41.720 prosperity and pleasure that comes from obedience to the law. And we'll look at the danger of

00:54:46.440 presumption and how David prays against it. All that next week. I just want to spend about

00:54:51.920 seven minutes, purposes and products of God's law by working through just the first few verses,

00:54:58.060 verse seven, eight, and nine. In your notes, I've written this, God's glory, which is synonymous

00:55:02.380 with his goodness to man, it manifests greatly in the works of creation, that is general revelation,

00:55:08.140 as we saw last week in the first six verses of Psalm 19. However, this glory is revealed all

00:55:14.120 the more in and by the word of God, that is his word, his special revelation, as we'll discover

00:55:20.180 in verses 7 through 14. The scripture, which serves as the infallible rule for both our duty

00:55:25.700 to God as well as our delightful expectation of God, is of much greater value than the skies or

00:55:32.800 the sun or the moon or the stars. The scripture is of even greater value than the air we breathe

00:55:38.760 or the food that we eat. Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from

00:55:43.420 the mouth of God, Matthew 4, 4. Therefore, verses 7 through 9, the psalmist provides for us an

00:55:49.640 account of the six purposes. That's what we're going to see here in these three verses. David's

00:55:54.280 going to list six specific purposes of the law and the products, the benefits, what these six

00:56:00.820 purposes of the law produce. Okay, so here we go. Continue. Next paragraph. The law of the Lord is

00:56:07.520 perfect, reviving the soul. That's the first thing we see. The law is perfect and it revives the soul.

00:56:13.600 So there's a purpose, to revive the soul.

00:56:16.140 The law of God is perfectly free, that is, from all moral corruption.

00:56:21.320 And therefore, it is perfectly designed to accomplish its end,

00:56:25.120 that is, to revive the soul of the weary man.

00:56:28.540 There is nothing more wearisome.

00:56:30.340 Remember our prayer from the Valley of Vision we've been doing each Lord's Day.

00:56:33.900 There's nothing more wearisome than sin.

00:56:36.920 Our prayer from the confession says that there is no trial so hard to bear as a sense of sin.

00:56:45.320 So therefore, the law of God revives the soul of man by revealing to him that which makes him weary, namely his sin.

00:56:53.040 It's the law of God, which is like an MRI scan that detects disease or a tumor or cancer.

00:56:59.580 And the gospel of God is ultimately the treatment that cures the disease.

00:57:04.100 That's how the law of God revives us.

00:57:06.080 So that's what I want to do as I go through these six statements in these three verses,

00:57:09.780 six purposes of the law of God.

00:57:11.400 I want to show you how.

00:57:13.080 I think that's what Christian meditation does as we think deeply on God's word.

00:57:18.080 And I think that's what good preaching does.

00:57:19.920 Good preaching doesn't just say what, and it certainly needs to say why.

00:57:24.420 But I think it goes even one step further.

00:57:26.200 This is what God's word says.

00:57:27.640 This is why God's saying it.

00:57:28.980 And this is also how, how it works.

00:57:31.860 Tell me how.

00:57:33.440 So, first thing that we see about God's law,

00:57:36.160 the first purpose of the law and what it produces.

00:57:39.960 First purpose is to revive the soul.

00:57:43.380 It revives the soul.

00:57:44.880 But the question is, how?

00:57:47.060 How does the law of God revive the soul?

00:57:48.880 Because I've been preaching that this whole time.

00:57:50.360 It revives the soul, revives the soul.

00:57:51.860 How?

00:57:52.800 The law of God revives the soul by removing from us that which wearies the soul.

00:57:59.820 That's how.

00:58:00.900 And how does the law of God?

00:58:02.860 Remove from us that which wearies the soul?

00:58:05.200 Well, that which wearies the soul is sin.

00:58:07.180 It is moral imperfection.

00:58:08.620 But notice the law of God.

00:58:09.660 By contrast, it is sufficient to remove imperfection

00:58:12.920 because the law is perfect.

00:58:15.480 That's what David is saying.

00:58:16.500 The law of the Lord is perfect,

00:58:18.580 and therefore it's sufficiently equipped

00:58:20.820 for its task of removing the imperfect,

00:58:23.800 and the imperfect is that which wearies the soul.

00:58:26.520 So because the law of God is perfect,

00:58:28.900 it can reveal to us the imperfect, namely sin,

00:58:32.020 and then the sin can be uprooted by grace

00:58:34.820 and faith in the gospel and obedience to the law,

00:58:37.040 which ultimately will take away the sin that wearied us

00:58:39.860 and revive us.

00:58:41.880 That's how the perfectness of the law of God

00:58:45.140 revives the soul.

00:58:46.660 Next, the testimony of the Lord is sure.

00:58:50.600 Making wise the simple.

00:58:53.000 The law of God is trustworthy.

00:58:54.980 That's what it means, sure.

00:58:57.400 Trustworthy, credible.

00:58:58.560 It is reliable in both its ability to reveal sin

00:59:01.960 that is the first use of the law, and its ability to make wise, that is the third use of the law,

00:59:07.660 a lamp unto our feet, it guides us, it's a compass. In other words, the law of God can be trusted to

00:59:13.320 guide even the most immature believer in the direction of wisdom, which leads to life. Look

00:59:20.340 at Psalm 119, 105, it says this, your word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. All

00:59:28.200 So this is just the first verse of our text today.

00:59:30.760 Verse 7, Psalm 19, 7.

00:59:32.820 First, the law of the Lord is perfect.

00:59:35.080 Therefore, it reveals to us the imperfect, namely sin,

00:59:38.620 which wearies the soul and allows us to uproot it by grace to revive the soul.

00:59:43.300 Law is perfect. It revives the soul of man.

00:59:46.360 That's the first half of verse 7.

00:59:48.220 Second half is the law of the Lord.

00:59:49.720 It's not just perfect, morally perfect, but it's also credible, reliable, trustworthy, sure.

00:59:56.240 It is sure. We can trust it.

00:59:58.200 And by being sure, what does it do?

01:00:01.120 It makes wise, doesn't just give wisdom, produce wisdom.

01:00:06.460 What I'm saying is this, it doesn't just make the wise wiser.

01:00:11.020 That would be good in its own right.

01:00:13.000 But notice what's so incredible about the second half of verse 7 of our text.

01:00:16.680 It says, the law of the Lord, it's so sure, so trustworthy, it can make the simple wise.

01:00:23.920 I'll say it like this, by way of analogy or illustration, chopping wood.

01:00:28.200 Chopping wood is not rocket science, but it's still hard.

01:00:32.060 See, there's a difference between complexity and difficulty.

01:00:36.200 Those things which are complex can be difficult.

01:00:38.560 That's a type of difficulty.

01:00:40.140 But there are some things that are actually, they're not complex.

01:00:42.120 It's not complicated.

01:00:43.620 It's simple.

01:00:44.600 It's pretty straightforward, but it's still hard.

01:00:47.240 Chopping wood, it's not rocket science, but you're going to work up a sweat.

01:00:52.060 So is the law of God.

01:00:53.440 It's sure.

01:00:54.580 See, it's not just perfect, because something can be perfect, but intricate.

01:00:57.460 like a strand of DNA, a strand of human DNA.

01:01:02.280 I mean, it's perfectly designed by God, but I don't get it.

01:01:06.320 Maybe Steve and Rashawn do, but I don't get it.

01:01:11.240 It's complex. It's perfect.

01:01:13.300 But see, what the second half of verse 7 tells us that's so beautiful

01:01:16.260 is it's not perfect in mere complexity,

01:01:20.560 in intricate perfection and beauty.

01:01:22.540 It's also simple.

01:01:24.560 It's not rocket science.

01:01:26.520 It's sure, and it's trustworthy,

01:01:29.240 and it's so user-friendly, for lack of a better phrase,

01:01:32.720 that the simple can put the law of God into effect,

01:01:36.620 into practice in their life,

01:01:37.880 and the simple can become wise.

01:01:40.700 That's encouraging.

01:01:41.940 The next one, the precepts of the Lord are right,

01:01:44.160 rejoicing the heart.

01:01:45.160 So it's perfect, it's sure,

01:01:47.840 and now, you see, it's right, rejoicing the heart.

01:01:51.720 So the purpose is to revive the soul,

01:01:53.400 it's to make the simple wise,

01:01:54.820 but it's also to rejoice the heart.

01:01:57.400 So not just to revive the soul when you're weary,

01:01:59.320 that would be kind of like rest, restoration, revival,

01:02:02.460 but also to celebrate, to rejoice the heart.

01:02:06.040 So not just to bring the heart out of a state of fatigue

01:02:08.520 back to equilibrium, but to elate the heart,

01:02:13.660 to excite the heart so that the heart rejoices.

01:02:16.700 The law of the Lord is right, rejoicing the heart.

01:02:20.360 In your notes, I've written this,

01:02:21.280 the law of God perfectly aligns

01:02:22.980 with the character of God himself, speaking again to God's moral law. And God is the eternal

01:02:29.120 standard for unchanging principles of good and evil. In other words, God's law functions as the

01:02:34.400 master blueprint, which perfectly details exactly how God designed the world and how he intends for

01:02:40.820 us to live in it, how life works. We live in God's world as God's creatures. We need to follow God's

01:02:47.960 rules. Not because they're arbitrary and he's trying to steal our joy. No, God sets rules because

01:02:53.560 it's his world and we're his creatures. And he knows which rules we should live by because he

01:02:59.280 knows how life works. He knows how the world works. He knows how we work. And so when we follow his

01:03:05.340 law, we follow his rules, his rules for life, his principles, eternal unchanging principles of good

01:03:13.060 and evil, guess what it produces? Happiness. Happiness. It rejoices the heart. See, God's law,

01:03:23.760 sorry, I lost my place. It's the blueprint that perfectly details exactly how God designed this

01:03:30.000 world and how we're meant to live in it. The law of God reveals how life actually works as well as

01:03:34.620 what doesn't work. Therefore, if we submit to God's law, our hearts are gladdened and rejoice.

01:03:40.180 Have you ever wondered, I think I've said this before, but I'll say it again. Have you,

01:03:43.060 ever wondered how in the world Jesus could say with integrity, all who are weary and heavy laden,

01:03:49.700 come to me and I'll give you rest? Because it seems like coming to Jesus demands that we follow Jesus,

01:03:55.660 and doesn't Jesus say there's a cost to discipleship? There's a cost to following him? I mean, coming to

01:04:00.600 Jesus, yes, we find grace for our sin, but we also find that Jesus who heals us, forgives us of our

01:04:06.280 sin, but then what did he say? Go and sin no more. We always leave that part out, right? So he might

01:04:11.620 he might take the man who is lame who is lowered by his four friends through the roof and but but

01:04:16.160 jesus he doesn't just heal that man he says he actually the first thing he says his son your

01:04:20.080 your sins are forgiven and and the pharisees and religious rulers and scribes are complaining who's

01:04:25.280 this who is this man who thinks he has the authority to heal sins and jesus says what's

01:04:29.800 harder to say your sins are forgiven or rise up and walk but so that you might know that the son

01:04:34.460 of man has authority on earth to forgive sins i say to you rise up and walk and the man is healed

01:04:40.600 And Jesus heals him because he cares about his physical needs,

01:04:43.220 but also as a sign that proves that Jesus is the Son of Man,

01:04:47.120 which is the Son of Man is just, we see that in Ezekiel.

01:04:49.820 He was called the Son of Man.

01:04:50.700 It's Jesus' favorite phrase for himself.

01:04:52.280 What it means is God, divine.

01:04:54.420 So Jesus is proving his divinity,

01:04:56.420 and therefore his ability to forgive sins by a miraculous healing.

01:05:00.860 But then what Jesus says to this man and many others is,

01:05:03.480 go and sin no more.

01:05:06.280 So come to me, all who are weary, and I will give you rest.

01:05:09.400 How is the guy who is morally perfect

01:05:11.480 and demands more perfection from us

01:05:13.520 the guy who's going to be the best person

01:05:16.180 to coach us in rest?

01:05:18.480 Sounds like that guy, you come to him,

01:05:20.720 you're not going to get any rest.

01:05:22.180 Sounds like if you come to him,

01:05:23.660 it's going to be a lot of work.

01:05:26.060 Come to Jesus and get rest?

01:05:27.760 How?

01:05:28.980 Well, because again, the thing that wearies us the most

01:05:31.360 is not the burden of God's law.

01:05:33.740 The thing that wearies us the most,

01:05:35.000 we don't realize this, but you have to hear it.

01:05:36.840 Because if you don't hear this,

01:05:38.080 You'll see God's law maybe as right, but you won't see it as good.

01:05:41.380 I want you, church, to see not only the law of God as the right thing, but the good thing.

01:05:46.940 The good thing.

01:05:48.260 The law of God, although impossible for any man to perfectly obey but Christ himself,

01:05:53.140 the law of God, although it's so difficult, it demands moral perfection,

01:05:59.940 the law of God is burdensome in a sense,

01:06:02.520 but nothing in human society or life

01:06:06.400 has ever been more burdensome than sin.

01:06:09.960 The reason you're tired is not because

01:06:12.560 of the high standards of moral perfection

01:06:15.280 that come from the law of God.

01:06:17.100 The reason that you are actually tired,

01:06:19.340 you have to believe this and you have to see it,

01:06:21.020 the thing that wears you out,

01:06:22.600 the thing that produces anxiety,

01:06:24.240 the thing that produces fatigue,

01:06:25.720 the thing that makes you just want to quit in life,

01:06:28.340 it's not the high standard of God's law.

01:06:30.740 it's your sin your sin wears you out because not obeying god's law following our own rule book

01:06:42.140 instead of god's rule book that's what makes life not work it's god's world we're god's creatures

01:06:48.300 he has god's rules and he makes these rules because he knows how the world works he made it

01:06:54.440 he knows how we work he made us and when we think we know better than god we say well i'm going to

01:07:00.060 lower the standard so that I'm not so tired all the time. But by lowering the standard, you've

01:07:03.920 adopted another standard, an alternative standard for a world you didn't make. And for a life that

01:07:10.940 you didn't give. And so you think that you're going to, you're going to lower the standard and

01:07:15.620 find, and find relief by imputing your own lower, easier standard. But your standard, your rules

01:07:24.080 don't work in this world.

01:07:26.480 You're applying the wrong rules

01:07:28.480 to the wrong board game.

01:07:29.900 God made the board,

01:07:31.400 so God writes the rules.

01:07:33.420 And you might think your rules are easier,

01:07:35.300 but guess what?

01:07:35.860 If you're trying to play,

01:07:37.260 go by the rules of Candyland

01:07:38.800 when you're playing chess,

01:07:41.040 you think that that might, you know,

01:07:42.380 give you some relief.

01:07:43.520 It doesn't work.

01:07:45.160 Ultimately, what it does

01:07:46.120 is it ensures that you lose chess

01:07:48.540 every single time.

01:07:49.820 And there's a misery that comes with loss.

01:07:52.600 There's a vexation.

01:07:54.080 An exasperation that comes with the disappointment of life

01:07:58.520 again and again and again.

01:07:59.680 And you will only ever experience disappointment

01:08:01.820 if you're trying to beat a chess master

01:08:04.340 by the rules of Candyland.

01:08:06.860 That's what it is.

01:08:08.700 That's what it is to impute our own law.

01:08:10.680 We think we're giving ourselves relief

01:08:12.200 by saying, I'm going to follow this easier,

01:08:15.020 lower standard of law than God's.

01:08:16.780 But we're applying a different set of rules

01:08:19.840 to a world that was not designed by us.

01:08:24.080 God designed it.

01:08:25.180 And so there is a relief and a rest that comes by submitting to God's law

01:08:28.840 because it's what works in this life.

01:08:32.080 The fear of the Lord is clean.

01:08:34.260 No, the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes.

01:08:37.600 So now we see the commandment of the Lord is also pure.

01:08:40.220 It opens the eyes.

01:08:42.920 It illuminates.

01:08:44.440 It reveals.

01:08:45.740 See, the law of God is clear.

01:08:47.320 It's not cloudy.

01:08:48.440 It's not complicated.

01:08:50.060 It's not a mystery.

01:08:51.580 It's not a mystery.

01:08:52.540 So that goes back to the surety of the law.

01:08:55.040 It makes even the simple wise.

01:08:56.540 This again is maybe another way of David saying

01:08:58.760 what we've already seen.

01:09:00.160 The law of God, although difficult to obey,

01:09:02.400 it is not complex.

01:09:03.360 It is user-friendly.

01:09:04.780 It's not a mystery that has to be decoded.

01:09:07.820 It is something that is straightforward.

01:09:09.800 It's something that is simple.

01:09:11.340 It's pure.

01:09:12.220 It opens the eyes.

01:09:13.320 It's clear.

01:09:14.200 It doesn't have murkiness.

01:09:15.740 It doesn't have cloudiness.

01:09:16.980 It's not complicated.

01:09:18.400 Even the simple can become wise

01:09:20.080 by looking to God's law and obeying.

01:09:23.020 Next, the fear of the law is clean, enduring forever.

01:09:26.200 There is nothing in God's law that does not belong there.

01:09:29.520 All right, last illustration I'm going to give, okay?

01:09:31.900 When you guys leave today, you know what I'm going to do?

01:09:34.560 When you leave today, I'm going to do the same thing I do every afternoon when you leave.

01:09:37.740 I'm going to walk around the house and clean.

01:09:39.600 You know what I'm doing when I walk around the house and clean?

01:09:41.960 I am behaving as a king in my kingdom, and I am going around, and I am pronouncing judgment.

01:09:49.520 That's what I'm doing, right?

01:09:50.980 I see a pillow laying in the middle of the couch and I judge that pillow for being in its wrong

01:09:55.980 place. I pronounce judgment and I move that pillow to the side. I find something on the ground and I

01:10:02.420 get the Dyson and I suck it. I pronounce judgment. That's what God's judgment is. Remember the flood 0.99

01:10:07.300 in the days of Noah. The flood of God was cleansing. That's what God does in his judgment.

01:10:13.180 He removes the dross. He removes the dirt. He removes sin. All that which doesn't belong.

01:10:19.600 It's not according to His will.

01:10:21.640 It's not pleasing to Him.

01:10:22.840 It's not righteous.

01:10:24.280 And so you and I, that's what we do when we clean up a house.

01:10:26.520 We're going around exercising judgment.

01:10:28.080 And that's what we do by the grace that God provides,

01:10:30.340 by the power of His Spirit and sanctification.

01:10:32.740 We're removing dross, removing sin through repentance

01:10:35.600 and through practicing holiness.

01:10:39.200 Well, that's what's being said here by David.

01:10:40.940 The commandment of the Lord is clean.

01:10:43.760 And look, he's again speaking not to the civil law,

01:10:46.960 not to the ceremonial, but the moral law.

01:10:48.760 This is what he says. The moral law of God, the moral commandment of God, it's clean, and therefore, it endures forever.

01:10:58.320 The dirt in my house will not endure forever, because I'm too OCD to let it happen.

01:11:04.120 It won't endure forever. And the sin of man will not endure forever.

01:11:08.860 Because it's either been dealt once and for all by Christ at Calvary, for the Christian,

01:11:13.520 or it will be eventually dealt with by God and His judgment in hell.

01:11:17.740 Sin will not endure forever.

01:11:20.300 Dirt will not endure forever

01:11:21.700 because cleansing is coming.

01:11:24.300 Judgment is coming.

01:11:25.980 But when God comes with his Dyson vacuum

01:11:28.580 to his law,

01:11:31.040 there's not one speck of dirt to remove.

01:11:34.340 It endures forever because it's clean.

01:11:37.280 It's shiny clean.

01:11:39.420 Sparkling clean.

01:11:40.780 Perfectly clean.

01:11:41.880 You can put it under a microscope

01:11:43.440 and you cannot find one piece of filth or dross or dirt that needs to be removed. There's no way

01:11:51.600 to improve it because the law of God, that is his moral law, stems from God's own nature. It cannot

01:11:56.780 be improved in the same way that God can't be improved because you cannot improve on something

01:12:00.860 or someone who is already perfect. The law of the Lord is clean. It endures forever. There is

01:12:07.540 nothing in the law of God that does not belong there. There's no dirt or dross that needs to be

01:12:11.980 removed. Therefore, the law of God will endure forever and can never be repealed. The ceremonial

01:12:16.920 law has been abrogated, but the moral law concerning the fear of God endures forever.

01:12:22.360 Morality can never change. Time cannot alter the nature of good and evil. Matthew 5, 18-19,

01:12:30.060 Jesus says this. He says, truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, which won't happen

01:12:34.680 for the record, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the law

01:12:40.440 until all is accomplished.

01:12:42.300 Therefore, whoever relaxes one of the least

01:12:44.920 of these commandments and teaches others to do the same

01:12:47.380 will be called least in the kingdom of heaven.

01:12:49.920 But whoever does them and teaches them

01:12:51.740 will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

01:12:54.240 Jesus is speaking here

01:12:55.680 and he's kind of addressing two things.

01:12:57.880 There's a sense in which the civil law will pass away.

01:13:00.500 The ceremonial law will be fulfilled and abrogated.

01:13:02.680 But the moral law of God, not one jot or tittle,

01:13:06.320 iota or dot, no crossing of the T,

01:13:09.040 no dotting of the I will ever pass away

01:13:11.100 because the moral law of God

01:13:13.000 will endure forever. Even

01:13:14.980 in heaven, we will esteem life. Even

01:13:17.020 in heaven, we will esteem truth. That's, if you

01:13:18.920 just look at the moral law of God in the Decalogue,

01:13:21.180 the Ten Commandments, and try to get to the

01:13:23.040 root of it. Thou shalt not murder, thou shalt

01:13:24.860 esteem life. Thou shalt not lie or

01:13:26.940 bear false witness, thou must love

01:13:28.860 the truth. Right?

01:13:30.920 Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy. Thou

01:13:32.920 must rest in Christ and

01:13:34.900 find rest in God and in worship

01:13:37.100 and not in living our own way.

01:13:38.780 Thou shalt not commit idolatry, worship other gods, or worship a god by what we seek, create a graven image.

01:13:45.780 Thou must not take the Lord's name in vain because he's a thrice holy God.

01:13:49.380 We shouldn't covet, be jealous of what other people have.

01:13:52.100 We shouldn't seek to steal.

01:13:53.620 We should honor our fathers and mothers.

01:13:56.620 I mean, think about that.

01:13:58.100 In heaven, will we still do those things?

01:14:00.440 Of course.

01:14:02.120 In heaven, we'll be filled with people perfectly loving the truth and therefore not lying.

01:14:05.900 perfectly being content in Christ

01:14:08.040 and therefore not coveting or trying to steal,

01:14:10.760 perfectly loving our neighbor

01:14:12.180 because we love God and have been loved by him

01:14:14.360 and therefore not committing murder

01:14:15.500 in the physical or in the heart.

01:14:17.700 That's what heaven is.

01:14:19.300 So heaven, when all sin is gone,

01:14:20.880 what remains is God and his law.

01:14:24.140 That is his moral law, being perfectly fulfilled.

01:14:27.400 And that's why heaven will be without mourning,

01:14:29.660 without sadness, right?

01:14:30.960 He'll wipe away every tear.

01:14:32.060 You know why he'll wipe away every tear?

01:14:33.440 or better yet, how he'll wipe away every tear?

01:14:35.760 By wiping away every remnant of sin.

01:14:38.980 That's how.

01:14:40.760 How will Jesus remove every ounce of sadness?

01:14:43.080 By removing every ounce of sin

01:14:44.900 because that's what makes you sad.

01:14:48.540 And so the reason why sin will be forever gone

01:14:51.520 is because God's law will be forever present

01:14:53.620 and forever obeyed.

01:14:55.540 The law will not pass away because it's good.

01:14:59.580 Lastly, the rules of the Lord are true

01:15:01.340 and righteous altogether.

01:15:03.740 Some translations say the judgments,

01:15:05.780 and I prefer that.

01:15:06.840 The judgments of the Lord are true.

01:15:08.560 See, God's law stems from God's judgment.

01:15:11.460 It's a reflection of his character, yes.

01:15:13.620 But everywhere we see the law of God,

01:15:15.940 we see the judgments of God.

01:15:17.500 See, God's law is perfect because he judges perfectly.

01:15:21.960 His judgment is perfect.

01:15:24.100 When we choose to live by our own law or our own standards,

01:15:27.500 it's merely because we trust in our own judgment

01:15:30.360 more than God's.

01:15:32.080 So God's law is right

01:15:33.660 because his judgments are wise.

01:15:37.060 Have you ever,

01:15:37.580 you need to do that.

01:15:38.420 You need to intrinsically link

01:15:39.800 the law of God

01:15:40.480 with the judgment of God. 0.89

01:15:42.000 It's a helpful Christian practice.

01:15:43.920 It's a helpful theological concept.

01:15:45.620 It's true.

01:15:46.500 Link the law of God

01:15:47.400 with the judgment of God.

01:15:48.840 And therefore,

01:15:49.380 don't just think of God's law

01:15:50.400 in terms of his holiness.

01:15:51.740 Think of God's law

01:15:52.500 as his judgments

01:15:53.460 in terms of his wisdom.

01:15:55.500 When you look to the law of God,

01:15:56.820 don't just see God as holy

01:15:58.020 and having a morally perfect law

01:16:00.100 think of god as the one who is infinitely wise and omniscient and makes perfect judgments in

01:16:05.560 every case in every circumstance in every scenario with every person in every time in every culture

01:16:10.200 god knows exactly what to do he knows exactly what to do and here's the beauty here's the beauty he

01:16:15.880 wrote it down in 10 commandments and all we have to do is believe it obey it and apply it and we

01:16:25.280 can have perfect judgment. Why? Because it's not ours, it's his. So God's laws are right because

01:16:31.340 the righteousness of God's holy law is synonymous with the wisdom of God's perfect judgments. And

01:16:38.200 at the end of the day, all sin, all sin can be defined as this. All sin is ultimately, it's man

01:16:45.260 in his pride and presumption. That's what we'll see next week. That's why David prays against it.

01:16:50.320 Lord, help me not to be presumptuous.

01:16:52.340 All sin is man, whether it be conscious or subconscious,

01:16:56.140 believing that he's wiser than God.

01:16:58.740 I'm not going to obey your law

01:17:00.340 because I have created for myself

01:17:02.120 my own custom set of standards.

01:17:05.220 And I'm trusting in my own law more than your law

01:17:07.940 because I trust my own judgments about life

01:17:10.740 more than your judgments about life.

01:17:12.480 And I trust my judgments more than your judgments

01:17:14.480 because at the end of the day,

01:17:16.120 not only do I think I'm holier than God,

01:17:17.740 I think I'm wiser than God.

01:17:20.800 That's the problem.

01:17:21.940 Thanks so much for listening.

01:17:23.200 But real quick, before you go, do us a small favor, take a moment, and leave us a five-star review if you enjoyed the show.

01:17:30.380 This is undoubtedly the best way that you can help us get this biblically faithful content to as many people as possible.

01:17:37.780 Thanks so much.

The NXR Podcast - July 24, 2022

SUNDAY SERMON - The Beauty Of God’s Law (Part 2) ｜ Psalm 19

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript