God's Accusations and Advocacy

, this morning, I'm preaching a message that we've titled God's Accusations and advocacy. And I'm hoping to provide an overview for us as to what, what's really going on in the Gospel of John and and really all of scripture when we have Moses accusing us before the Father, but Jesus as first John tells us being our advocate and actually telling us that he is the way, the truth and the life and no one comes to the Father but through him. both this job and role of accusation and this role of advocacy comes from God Himself.

So why does he want us to feel accused in the first place and then why does he bring advocacy.

and before we get into the, the meat of the message, I just wanna share a little bit of my own personal story that I remember coming to know, the Lord as my savior at 14 years of age when I called upon Christ after seeing, hearing, Pastor Chuck Smith preach the gospel on KCOP Channel 13 in Orange County. And I went in and got on my knees and called upon him to save me from my sins. And when I called upon Christ to be my savior, there were two things that happened and two things that I knew.

One is, I became very much assured that my sins had been forgiven and that I loved Jesus all of a sudden and that I wanted to serve him and I wanted to live for him.

That was just plain and obvious. But another reality hit me even on the first day that I called upon Christ, and that is I was still a sinner. And I still desired sin and I still struggled with sin and so, before I received Christ, there was a sense in which I was a happy sinner. but after I came to know the Lord, I now became a, a despairing sinner in some ways.

There were days in which I felt overjoyed at the Lord's love for me and, and even had such a desire to serve Him, and on other days I despaired and even at times began to question, well, could I really be a Christian if I'm continuing on. And, and having these kinds of struggles and I remember I just loved reading my Bible, my, the lady who led me to Christ, she gave me a King James Bible, the open Bible, and I just read it profusely all by myself in my room as a 14 year old and I remember coming along passages one of.

My favorite Psalm, Psalm one blesses the man who walks not on the counsel of the ungodly nor stands in the path of sinners nor sits in the seat of the scornful, but his delight is in the law of the Lord and in his law he meditates day and night, and he's gonna be like a tree planted by the rivers of water that spring forth it's fruit in its season and whose leaf shall never wither wither and whatever he does shall prosper. I'm like, yes Lord, I wanna delight in your word and I do love your word and I, and I read his word a lot.

And, and it was my desire to delight in the law of the Lord. But then there's the second half of the Psalm that says the ungodly are not so, but are like the chaff which the wind drives away. The ungodly shall not stand in the judgment. The sinners in the congregation of the righteous, for the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the ungodly shall perish.

And when I read the last half of that psalm as a young 14 year old, boy, it would sometimes cause the hair to rise up on the back of my neck, cause I knew that I loved Christ and there's a sense in which I did delight in the law and in his word, but I knew that I was not a godly man at 14. I knew, and so when I read these verses, it, it threatened me. It brought these threats that. If I continue in my ungodliness, am I gonna be like the chaff and driven away?

Am I going to perish? And so I would read the Bible much and I would go to church much and I would share the gospel and I would try to live for Christ and there were days of success and there were days of failure and in the back of my head I kinda had this vision that when I get to like 20. I things will be better when I get to 30, I will be godly when I get to 40, I'll be godly enough and I will no longer need to fear this perishing threat in Psalm 1 and now here I am at 54 and I'm like when I get to 55.

Then I will no longer fear the threat that we hear in this song.

And the fact is, folks, I hate to break it to you, we're never gonna check off all the boxes, but nevertheless, there is a reason for these threats for the unbeliever, but there is also a reason for us to continue to hear the law as believers, and there is a reason for us to hear the good news of Jesus Christ as unbelievers and to continue to hear it as believers. And so let me just. Read one other section of scripture and then we're gonna pray and then we'll jump in and Romans 3:19 and following says this.

Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those under the law that every mouth may be stopped and all the world may become guilty before God.

For now, the righteousness of God, apart from the laws revealed, being witnessed by the law and the prophets. Even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ on all. to all and on all who believe. Let's go ahead and pray.

Our Lord, we thank you that you have so wisely given us your law that really pronounces all of us guilty, not just before we came to Christ, but guilty after Christ in a sense and yet he has become a curse for us to take away the punishment of all that guilt. And to make us not guilty and not condemned and he has become the curse for us. We ask Lord that you would help us to have a greater appreciation of that this morning and we pray that through your spirit that you would comfort your saints.

We pray this in Christ's name.

All God's people said. Amen. Well, while there are, similarities between Moses and Christ, for as we've talked about last week, Moses wrote about Christ as he says in John chapter 5, there are clearly distinctions, between the work and role of Moses and the work and role of Christ. Again, as we saw last week that Jesus says it's Moses that accuses you before the Father, not me.

In John 1:17, we'll talk more about this later that the law came through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. And so there's clearly distinctions that are being met, made even in this gospel that we've been studying. And it's very important for us to understand the distinctions between Christ's role and Moses' role. In fact, I would say it's vitally important for our understanding of how to interpret the Bible, for us to truly understand salvation, and also to properly understand Christian living.

And so what we're gonna do in this message is we're going to talk about the similarities between the role of Christ and the role of Moses or the similarities between the law and the good news then we're gonna talk about distinctions and then we're gonna talk about why it's so important for us to understand the similarities but particularly the distinctions when it comes to Bible interpretation, salvation, and Christian living. So let's talk about similarities we're gonna run through this.

Pretty quickly and number one that you wanna fill out on your outline is the law and the good news are both from God. The law and the gospel are both from God.

when the Bible says in John 1:17 that the law came through Moses, it's not meaning that it didn't come from God or that Moses made it up. It's actually that God gave us the law through Moses and so the law is divine. It doesn't just come, it's not just a representation of human reasoning or just human thoughts. It comes from God Himself and as we saw back in John chapter 117 again, the.

grace and truth, that's a good summary of the gospel, came to us in a person through Jesus Christ. And so this is the first similarity between the two is is they both come from God. Secondly, the law and the good news are both necessary. They're both necessary.

It's not as if we need the law but don't need the gospel or we need the good news but we don't need the law anymore. they are actually both necessary. In fact, Paul says in Romans 5:20, the law came in that transgression might increase. But where sin increased, grace abounded all the more.

So the law has a necessary role of actually causing sin to increase before our eyes. We'll talk more about what that means later. It's like the average sinner doesn't really think a whole lot about sin and sin is very little in their eyes, but the law comes in and helps us see what sin is, what it really is. but then the gospel comes in or grace comes in and, and over abounds this great view of the law.

Walters, CFW Walters says this without the law, the gospel is not understood. Without the gospel, the law benefits us nothing, and we're gonna talk more about Paul's overall argument in Romans here in a second. But thirdly, the law and the good news are in both testaments. The law and the good news are in both testaments.

Sometimes we get the mistaken notion that the law of Moses is just in the Old Testament and the good news is only in the New Testament, and that I just want you to remove that from your head. That is not true. the law of Moses, the legal requirements that God has given us through Moses are in both Old and New Testaments. And the good news of Jesus Christ are in both testaments.

In fact, last week, Jesus said that Moses wrote about me. He wrote about me. And if you would believe his words, you would believe in me. and we even see this in John chapter 3.

We see that both are juxtaposed in John chapter 3 verse 14 as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up. The gospel was being preached right there in Numbers 21 with the lifting up of the. Serpent, a type of Christ where when people were being bit because of their sins, all they had to do was look to the serpent, look to Christ, and Jesus makes a direct connection between this Old Testament preaching of the gospel and himself, and so sin is condemned in both testaments and salvation is upheld in both testaments.

We see this also in the giving of the 10 Commandments.

we have the 10 Commandments published in Exodus 20, Deuteronomy 5, but we get over to the New Testament, we have the, the commandments being published again. In fact, Jesus is probably the greatest preacher of the law in the whole Bible. when you look at the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5:7. You have a preaching of the law, par excellence given by Jesus Christ himself.

In fact, Justin Purdue has this to say about the Sermon on the Mount. He says it's the greatest sermon on the law that's ever been preached. And that largely, we're not saying exclusively, but largely the purpose of the Sermon on the Mount is an exposition of the law, and application of the law to man that will condemn and crush us in our own attempts to be righteous and would thereby drive us. To the one preaching the sermon who came to fulfill the law in our place.

If you think the Sermon on the Mount is merely a list of things for you to do as a Christian in order to be a good boy and girl and earn favor before God, you have missed the point. Because we see at the end of chapter 5, Jesus says, you must be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect. Your righteousness must exceed the righteousness of the Pharisees. Self-righteousness will not earn you any favor before God at all.

And so if we're reading the Sermon on the Mount rightly, our first pass through the Sermon on the Mount is we say, I am not all that, oh. But then if you read it again as Christ being the fulfillment of the law, you say, Christ is all that. That's the first two readings and understanding of the Sermon on the Mount. And then as a Christian, as he's made you a new creation, we look and we see that if I could keep the Sermon on the Mount, it would make me happy and through the Spirit, he is moving me to be more and more like Christ, not in order to earn any favor before him, but because he's kept it on my behalf.

And so the law and the good news are in both testaments. So. The, the law and the good news, they both come from God, they're both necessary, they're in Old and New Testament, but fourthly, the law and the good news both have salvation as the final aim. This is another way that they're similar.

It's, it's not as if the law just wants to condemn us and say, OK, I've accomplished my goal. That's it. No, Moses actually wants to pass the baton to Christ. There's a condemning role of the laws we'll see, but Moses is not content to stay there.

He wants to move us. The law is a tutor to bring us to Christ. The gospel is aimed at men's salvation, but the law is not just aimed at condemnation, but our salvation. Again, CFW Waler says this, quote, No, both have their final aim at man's salvation.

Only the law ever since the fall cannot lead us to salvation. It can only prepare us for the gospel. That's why in Galatians 3:21, we have this and Paul's argument, he says, is the law then against the promises of God? Is Moses' law against the gospel?

He says, certainly not, for if there had been a law given which could have given life, truly righteousness would have been by the law. But the scriptures, that is our Old Testament, has confined all under sin that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe. What is Paul saying? He's saying that we all sin against the law.

And then God has given the law through Moses. What it does is it comes and confines us. It puts us in jail, not just to throw away the key and leave us there, but it puts us in jail to excite our desire to, to speak to our advocate, the promised advocate Jesus Christ. And so the law has a role to confine us, not to leave us there, but to make us desire the advocate, desire our lawyer, Jesus Christ.

So in that sense, the law and the gospel, the law and the good news, both want our salvation. So it's another way that they're, that they're on the same page or similar. 1/5 similarity between the law and the good news is, is that they are not contradictory. Yes, they're distinct, but they don't contradict one another.

Again, you're gonna hear me quote a lot from CFW Walder because he is the master on this topic. In fact, let me just say real quick that everything I say to you, I have robbed wholesale from other people, OK? I have robbed it from the gospel primer, I've robbed it from the Heidelberg disputation Luther. I've robbed it from Heidelberg catechism.

I've robbed it from CFW Walters, John Gill, CH Spurgeon, the Bible. it's all just Rob's stuff that I'm just handing over to you. And so here's what Walter has to say about this apparent contradiction, and this is beautiful, the way he states this. He says comparing, comparing holy scripture with other writings, we observe that no book is apparently so full of contradictions as the Bible.

And that not only in minor points but in the principal matter and the doctrine of how we may come to God and be saved. In one place, the Bible offers forgiveness to all sinners. In another place, forgiveness of sins is withheld from all sinners. In one passage, a free offer of life everlasting is made to all men.

In another, men are directed to do something themselves toward being saved. What he's arguing is, is on the surface, if we don't understand the distinction and the collaboration of the law of Moses and Christ, the Bible seems like the most contradictory religious book in the world. Because you read one text and it says one thing, you read another text, it says the exact opposite. Read through, sit down in one reading and read through the book of Hosea sometime, you think you've got mad.

But is there really a contradiction? No, there are no contradictions in Scripture. Each is distinct from the other, but both the law and the good news are in perfect harmony with one another. While Moses could not take Israel into the land.

the, and the law cannot get us to heaven. Moses and Elijah now commune with Christ as they did on the Mount of Transfiguration. And like Peter, we now hear Moses only on the lips of Christ, which brings us to this final similarity. So the law and the gospel are not contradictory, they're harmonious.

Here's the final similarity between the law and the good news is they are both for Christians. It's not as if the law is only for the unbeliever and the gospel is only for the Christian. Paul spends Romans 1, chapter 2, and chapter 3 expounding the law to Roman believers in order to demonstrate that both Jew and Gentile are equally guilty. In fact, he says in chapter 3 verse 9, are we better than they?

Not at all, for we have previously charged both Jews and Greeks that they are all under sin, as it is written, there is none righteous, no, not one. And so Paul is preaching through the book of Romans to believers, and he starts off his preaching with an exposition of the law for believers, so these believers will realize none of us are better than the other people in this church. We're all sinners. This morning we sang a song called Have Mercy on me.

And we sing about ourselves being sinners and how that the the law demands punishment. Why in the world would we sing such stuff? If we've all been saved by Christ, why would we even wanna think about the law? Because we need to hear what we deserve outside of Christ to have a daily appreciation of what we get in Christ.

Otherwise, we lose the glory of the gospel, and God in His wisdom wants to keep both before his people. That's why Romans 1 to 3 is spoken to Christians. By the way, that's one of the things I really appreciate about the gospel primer and the way Pastor Milton has organized the gospel primer. It starts with the glory of God.

But then there's a lengthy section about my sin against God. We actually wrote a song on this years ago and we sang it for the church and everybody sat around depressed. We never sang it again. But it's a prideful and lust laden path I've trod, transgressing all 10 commandments of God.

My foolish rebellion gives God every right to damn me with haste to miserable plight. Oh terrible judgments in his lake of fire, where wrath is most fierce and will never expire. With wickedest sinners, I truly should know the worst of hell's furies for failing God's so and all God's people said, Amen. I carryin's guilt and am gripped by sense power held fast to various lusts every hour deserving of flames both within and without and sliding towards hell as I toss about.

Why would Milton front load the gospel primer with all of this depressing material. It's because we need to be reminded of what we deserve outside of Christ in order to have a daily appreciation of what we get in Christ. Now the gospel, when we, when we see the collaboration between the law and the gospel for Christians, the gospel does not change the law itself. The law is still holy and just and good.

It does not relax the penalties of the law. The demand of the law's perfection and between everything and nothing, the Bible does not give us a choice. It's, it's we, we either gonna keep the whole law and be saved by the whole law or we're gonna be saved by something else. What's changed is our relationship to the law has been altered because of Christ and that's gonna bring us to our distinction.

So as we've reviewed the similarities we've talked about that the. The law of Moses and the good news of Jesus Christ, they, they come from God. They're both necessary, they're in both testaments, they both have the final aim of salvation. They're not contradictory, they're actually in harmony with one another, and they're not just for unbelievers, they're for Christians, all right?

You guys ready to move on? Let's talk about the distinctions. We know that there are similarities between the role of Moses and Christ, but it's very important for us to understand the distinctions between the law and the good news. otherwise we could radically misinterpret the Bible like the Seventh Day Advent.

Or we could, or the Catholics and or we could radically misunderstand salvation like the Roman Catholics or the Mormons, and we could radically misunderstand Christian living like most of us in this room every other day is we misunderstand Christian living when we mix up the good news with the gospel. So let's talk about distinctions here. There are distinctions as we see. Again, John 1:17, the law was given through Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

There's clearly meant to be a contrast there. You could just write this reference down, 2 Corinthians 3:6. We're gonna refer to this section quite a bit. 2 Corinthians 3:6-7, where Paul says that.

That he's been made sufficient through the spirit as a minister of the new covenant. What is the new covenant compared to the law? It's not of the letter, but of the spirit, for the letter kills, but the spirit gives life. Listen to all the descriptors of what he's talking about on the left side of the column with the law.

but if the ministry of death, written and engraved on stones was glorious that the children of Israel could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of the glory of his countenance, which glory's passing away, by the way. How will the ministry of the Spirit not be more glorious? For if the ministry of condemnation had glory, then the ministry of righteousness exceeds much more glory. On one side of the column, when we're talking about the Old Covenant or the law of Moses, the descriptors that we hear are letter kills, death, condemnation.

OK, distinction. On the other side of the ledger, we hear spirit, life, more glorious, righteousness, big difference. And so let's summarize the distinctions with two statements that are on your outline, and then we're gonna break those statements down into, I think 5 points. So here's one of the ways we'd summarize the distinction is the law of Moses, that's what you're gonna fill in.

The law of Moses was given. To make just accusations against us before the Father. The letter kills. Let me say it again, the law of Moses was given.

To make just accusations against us before the Father, that's one of the distinctions. Down below that, the good news. The good news of Jesus Christ came to announce and provide gracious access for us to the Father. The Spirit gives life.

Let me say that again, the good news of Jesus Christ came to announce and provide gracious access for us to the Father. So that's a summary of what we would say the, the main distinctions are between the, the role of Moses, the role of Christ, or the law and the good news or the law and the gospel. So let's break it down into five bite-size, hopefully bite-size points. First of all.

The law and the good news are distinct in how they were revealed. And how they were revealed again the law was given through Moses, the law was given it was given by God through a guy named Moses and he had a particular role, and we see part of this revelation. As Moses goes up to the mountain and he receives the 10 commandments, and he comes back down, and he, he delivers the 10 commandments, and you have all of Israel saying, yes, we will keep the covenant, yes, we're going to follow the Lord, and what happens all throughout the Torah.

Is they're building golden calves and they're bowing down to idols and it's just one breach of the law over and over and over again and so it's given through Moses but the law is not just written on tablets for the people of Israel.

there is some aspect of the law. Romans 2:14 tells us that's really written on everybody's hearts. Remember what Paul says, For when the Gentiles who do not have the law, i.e. of Moses, do instinctively the things of the law, these not having the law are a law unto themselves.

In that they show the work of the law where written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness and their thoughts alternatively accusing or else defending them. And so, one of the things that we need to keep in mind about the law of Moses is it was given by God to Moses, but it was also, it's also been produced in our conscience and in the hearts of every man, woman and child. Everybody knows intuitively something about the law, something about what they should be doing.

Most people are walk around and they talk to themselves and people are, according to Romans, they're either excusing their behavior or they're accusing themselves.

They're like, oh man. In fact, this is lived this has been lived out in much of my life, both before Christian and after Christian. Since I've been a pastor, it's called Monday mornings. And it's where I just just out of my mouth without me even thinking about it, some random thought will come to my mind of something I did not accomplish on Sunday, some person I didn't talk to, something I shouldn't have said in Sunday school, or something I should have said, and then suddenly it was just like.

And then my kids will inform me you're doing it again. What is that? It's like there's there's something in us there's a law in our conscience that is telling us certain things that we should be doing or should not be doing and then people by nature they either excuse themselves or accuse themselves or they love to accuse others that's just the way we roll as human beings and so the law has been revealed in that sense to all of us. So, when you are out sharing the gospel and you begin to talk to someone about their sins, one of the things that you can be assured of is that no matter what religion this person is, no matter if they call themselves an atheist, a Buddhist, or whatever, every one of them has the law of God written on their hearts, whether they admit it or not.

And so you can talk to people about sins, about things that they should be doing or things that they ought to do or things that they haven't done. And every religion, every culture, whether they admit it or not, will know their conscience will answer, to you, but the gospel is different from that grace and truth came through whom? Jesus Christ. In fact, later in the book of Romans, we see that Paul ends his book by talking about how it's the preaching of Jesus according to the revelation of the mystery which has been kept secret for a long ages past but now is manifested by the scriptures of the prophets according to the commandment of the eternal God that's now being published through preaching.

And so the law is in every culture, but the gospel is not in any other religion, not one iota of it, it's only in the Christian religion. You're only gonna find the gospel in the Bible. You're only gonna find the true gospel in the preaching of the Bible. You will not find that Jesus Christ died for sins to save them from themselves and wrath anywhere else, any religion.

It won't be in a person's conscience, it needs to be placed there by either the reading or the preaching of the word. Faith comes by hearing, hearing by the word of God, i.e. the gospel. And so this is a very important distinction between the law and the gospel, is that one is there naturally and it is republished in Moses in the 10 Commandments.

One is not there naturally, it only comes to us supernaturally through revelation of Jesus Christ. You're not gonna look into the stars and see that Jesus Christ died on the cross for your sins. But you can find in your conscience that you are a sinner. Let's talk about a second distinction.

And that is the law. Of Moses. Was given to make just accusation. I'm sorry, the law and the good news have distinct messages.

So they have distinctly been revealed, but secondly, the law and the good news have distinct messages. So the law, for instance, in Galatians 3:10, for as many as are the works of the law are under the curse, for it is written, cursed is everyone who does not continue in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them. What's the message of the law? You must do everything that's written in the book of the law.

You must do it, otherwise you are under a curse. But that no one is justified by the law and the sight of God is evident, for the just shall live by faith. Galatians 3:12. Yet the law is not a faith, for the man who does them shall live by them.

The law, the basic message of the law is it tells you and I what to do. Here's what you should do. Here are the oughts. Here are the shoulds.

If you read in the Bible, ought or should or duty or demand that is coming emanating from what we would call the law. But the gospel or the good news tells us what God is doing. The law is speaking concerning our works. The gospel is always about the works of God.

And we see this, for instance, this distinction, even in Christ's own words in the, in the book of John, in the Gospel of John, we'll get here eventually, but John chapter 6, Jesus says, do not labor, this is verse 27. Don't labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to everlasting life, which the Son of Man will give you, because the Father has set his seal on him. Then they said to him, what must we do that we may work the works of God? That's a great question.

Jesus, what, what are we supposed to do that we can do God's works? Jesus says, this is the work of God. You ready? Here's the work of God.

That you believe in Him whom you've sent. Here's the work of God. Go believe. And by the way, I think that's a double entendre.

This is the work of God that you believe. In fact, he's the one that's actually gonna produce the very belief in the one whom he has sent. Romans 10:17 says faith comes by hearing and hearing by. The word of God.

We hear the gospel and that's how faith accrues to us. Romans 1:16 says the gospel of Christ, that Paul's not ashamed of the gospel, for it's the power of God unto salvation to everyone who believes. Where does this power come from? It comes from the very gospel.

So, even in the demand of faith, so to speak, you might say, well, OK, the, the law makes demands. The gospel makes promises. The, the law says do, the gospel says done. Well, aren't we commanded to believe?

But even the very command to believe is like wooing hungry sinners to come and dine at a meal that has been provided for you. The law says thou shalt. The gospel, on the other hand, makes no demands. Here's what the law says.

It says, do this. It's the righteous requirement published. The gospel is good news announced. The gospel literally means what?

Good news and throughout most of the Bible, when you see good news, it's attached to this announcement. Here's a great way to know if you're reading about the law of Moses or the good news of Jesus Christ. If we read the the law rightly, we find ourselves saying, oh. Like Isaiah 6, woe is me, I am undone.

When I was reading Psalm one and I'm reading about the ungodly shall perish and I'm like, oh, I'm ungodly, the law is doing its work in my heart. I'm saying oh, but the gospel all throughout the Bible leaves us saying, like Romans 8:31, what shall we say to these things? If God is for us. Who can be against us?

And so when you are reading your Bibles and you come up across oh passages. That's OK. That's what those passages are supposed to do. They're supposed to remind you of your sin and that you are ungodly and that you would perish outside of Christ, and then the gospel comes and it leaves you with.

So here's the great news, what God demands of you in the law, he has provided for you in the gospel. What he demands of you in the law, he has provided for you in Jesus Christ. That's a very, very important distinction because all over our Bibles, you're gonna read about demands. And those demands are going to even in the believer cause an oh to rise up in your heart.

But then God comes right along and Jesus says, I have provided for you all that you need. Come to me all you who are wearing heavy laden, and I will give you rest. A third distinction we've talked about that the law and the gospel are distinct and how they're revealed and, and in their messages, but they're also distinct in their threats and promises. The law makes accusations against us.

The good news of Christ gives access to the Father for us. both offer the promise of eternal life. However, conditions are attached to the promises of the law. For instance, in Leviticus 8:15, it says, you shall keep the statutes of my judgments, which if a man does, he shall live by them.

The the idea there is he shall have eternal life if he keeps my statutes and my judgments. the, the lawyer comes to Jesus in Luke chapter 10, verse 26 and following. He says, Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life? What does Jesus tell this guy?

What must I do to inherit eternal life? He said, Well, what's written in your law? What's your reading of it? He said, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, with all your mind and your neighbors yourself.

Jesus says, You've answered rightly. Do this and you shall live. That's a quote from Leviticus. You go do that.

You go and do exactly what the summary of the law says. You love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind and soul. Love your neighbor and yourself, and guess what? You will get eternal life, not as a merit, but because God will grant eternal life to those who keep his law.

That should, if the guy is sensible of his sins, and not a secure sinner, what he should respond with the Christ is, oh. I'm in trouble because I know I don't love the Lord my God with all my heart, mind and soul. I don't love my neighbors myself, but as the Heidelberg catechism tells us that we by nature hate God and our neighbor, we don't love God and our neighbor, we naturally hate them and love ourselves. We see the same idea with the rich young ruler.

He comes and says, what must I do to inherit eternal life? And Jesus says, well, what are the commandments? we've got the do not commit adultery, do not murder, do not steal, bear false witness. He says all these things I've kept since my youth.

Jesus looked at him and loved him. He says, one thing you still lack, go sell everything you have, take up your cross and follow me. And this man departed sad. He didn't get what Christ was laying down, that Jesus was basically saying the same thing he had said in the Sermon on the Mount, that therefore you shall be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect.

And when the person when people understand what God is laying down, that yes, if we could keep these good commands, we would be happy. But since Adam, we can't, and that Christ is laying out these commands to reveal our brokenness, to stir the pot up and to cause the dust to go up in the air, according to pilgrim's analogy to where we choke on the dust of our own sin and then we're looking elsewhere for hope. When you compare that to the gospel, there are no conditions laid out in the good news.

For instance, like in Romans 3:22 and following, there's no difference.

For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. We normally stop right there. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, but justified being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. All these sinners are justified freely.

By His grace. Ephesians 2:8:9, for by grace you've been saved through faith. That's not of yourselves. It's a gift of God.

It's not from your works, lest anybody should boast. These are unconditional promises of grace and salvation. You may say today, well, I just don't believe that Christ could, could save such a terrible sinner like me. Well, he says to you, if that you're a terrible sinner, if you're a sinner like Paul, the chief of sinners, if you're a sinner like Judas or Cain, you can come to him because all of your sins, not just the little ones, but the mountainous sins have been laid on Jesus Christ, who became a curse for you.

The curse of the law is meant to confine you to make you long for your advocate. If you're longing for the advocate, it's simple, believe. Salvation is easy. But the threats of the law come along.

The threats of the law come, and they say, Cursed be he who does not confirm all the words of this law to do them. Psalm 15 again says the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous, for the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the ungodly shall perish. When we hear the words that the ungodly shall perish, if that really is having the effect that it's meant to have on sensible sinners, those who have been sensitized by the spirit, who's convicting the world of sin righteousness of judgment, we say, oh no, I am an ungodly man.

I'm an ungodly woman.

Am I going to perish? And then Jesus comes along and says, Whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish. You say, well, what about the ungodly man though?

Romans 4:5 comes along and says, but to him who does not work but believes on him, who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteous. Romans 5:6, for when we were still without strength in due time, Christ died for the ungodly, for scarcely for a righteous man would anybody sin, but God demonstrates his own love towards us that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more than having been justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.

And Paul, the very author of these texts, says, I am the chief of sinners.

And so if you sin like Paul or if you were to sin like Cain or to sin like Judas, you may be saved, though you be ungodly because Christ is the one who has died for the ungodly that the ungodly may not perish. So Psalm one comes along to cause an oh to rise in our hearts, but John 3:16 comes along to make us say. I believe So, the law and the gospel or the law and the good news have been revealed, one from Moses, one from Christ. They have different messages.

One brings a curse, one Christ is the curse for us. They have different threats and promises in the gospel, there are no threats. in the law, there are no promises, other than you must complete all of these things to be saved. But fourthly, the law and the good news have distinct outcomes they have distinct outcomes.

What is the effect of the preaching of the law? The law tells us what to do, but it does not enable us to keep the commands. In fact, the law agitates, our hearts. I'll give you a little acrostic real quick to help you understand the, the outcome of the preaching of the law or the reading of the law.

The, the law will define sin for you. It'll expose your sin and help you see it, see how it gets big. It increases like Paul says. It'll aggravate sin, it'll agitate it and cause it to rise up, but it will not deliver you.

It leaves you in despair, that's dead. It defines it, it exposes it, it aggravates it, and then it just leaves you in despair. Just like Romans 7:7-9 says, I would not have known sin except the law. The law helps me understand sin, for I would have not have known covetousness, Paul says, unless the law said you shall not covet.

But sin taking opportunity by the commandment produced in me all manner of evil. For apart from the law, my sin was dead. I was alive without the law, but when the commandment came, sin revived. What's Paul talking about?

He's basically saying I was a I was a, a happy sinner. I was, I was secure in my sin. I didn't realize how much my sins were over my head, but then the law comes in, suddenly I'm drowning. And, but that very law that agitates, not only did it not push me towards holiness, it actually caused my sin to increase and I sinned more.

It's like telling your kids not to get in the cookie jar when you leave the house. Does that make them want to obey? No, it makes them want to go get the cookies or it makes them proud about the fact that they didn't get the cookies and tell on their sister. It does both.

And so, that's why Luther says in the Heidelberg disputation, he says this, the law of God, the most beneficial doctrine of life, cannot advance man on his way to righteousness, but rather hinders him. The law doesn't help us down the road of righteousness, it actually hinders us and it makes sin increase and we find that we get worse when we hear the law. Not better. And so, the, the outcome of the law is that it causes death and despair.

It brings no comfort, it brings a curse, and when it's preached, what you see is terror. You see this, for instance, when Paul is preaching in Acts chapter 24, he's preaching to Felix, a governor, and what does he preach to Felix? Righteousness, temperance, and judgment. That's interesting.

Every time I come across that passage, I'm like, why didn't he give him the gospel? Righteousness, temperance, and judgment, and then Felix trembled and he says, go away. When I have a convenient time, I will call for you. But he never called for him.

There's this preaching of the law that was meant to cause Felix to become a sensible sinner so that he would then get the gospel, but in his case it never happened, but the effects of the gospel are completely different, the gospel. although it demands faith, it offers and gives us the very faith that is demanded. Faith comes by, faith comes by hearing, hearing by the word of God. It's the word of God that actually opens our eyes to believe.

As another effect of the gospel is it it it doesn't come and reprove us, it actually takes the terror away. It takes away, all that the law causes us to fear as Christ comes in. And we see this most beautifully portrayed for us in the, in the parable of the prodigal son. This is, the story, this boy runs away and commits all these crimes and, and violates every law that you can imagine.

And you would imagine that when he comes back to his father, the first thing the father would do is pronounce the law to him. But he doesn't. He looks out and he sees his son, and he comes and he does what we're all told we should never do to our kids, and that is we should not enable them in their sin. He's an overly permissive father.

He runs out and puts a robe around and puts a ring and gives him the and, kills the fatted calf, gives him nothing but gospel. There's no threats, there's no commands, there's no demands, it's just you're my son. That is the gospel. He doesn't require a good heart or a good disposition or to improve his condition.

He doesn't say, hey, become godly, and then I'll die for you. No, he comes and he actually produces the thing that is not there. He comes out and he gives the faith. He comes out and he gives the righteousness.

In fact, this is why Luther says at the end of his disputation that the love of God does not find, but it creates that which is lovable. If God were to come out and only save the lovable, we'd all be damned. But what he does is he comes out and he creates lovability. He creates it, he puts it into our hearts because he puts Christ there, and he brings us into union with Christ, and the Father cannot but love his son.

And once you are in His Son, he cannot but love you. That's why, as Peter is preaching the gospel in Acts chapter 5, he says, he starts off and says, yeah, you guys murdered Christ by hanging him on a tree, but him God is exalted to his right hand to be prince and savior, and to grant repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. He's even giving out repentance, and he's giving out forgiveness of sins. That is the gospel.

And so basically what have we said up to this point is, is we said that it's, it's important to make a distinction between these two, that, that they, they've been revealed from through Moses or Christ. There's different messages, law and good news, different threats and promises, different outcomes, and then we've implied this throughout this message that fifthly, the law and the good news, they toggle between spirit targeted. Consciences. That's your filling, spirit targeted consciences.

In other words, when you look at the pages of scripture, it's interesting to see who gets the demands of the law and who gets just full on grace and who gets the gospel. Jesus Christ could discern. He's the discerner of hearts, right? And so he could go out and, and the rich young ruler comes with a question, what I must do, what must I do to be saved?

And Jesus gives him law. Somebody else comes to him like the woman caught in adultery, and Jesus scares off her accusers, and he says, Where are your accusers? Nowhere, Lord, neither do I condemn you. All he gives that woman caught in adultery is good news and gospel.

Come to me all you are weary and heavy laden, I will give you rest. Gospel, read earlier in the chapter, tons of law. Jesus is able to discern hearts on whether somebody is a secure sinner, whether they're feeling confident in their sin, whether they need a good dose of the law, or whether they're a sensible sinner. They've been frightened by the terrors of the law and they don't know what to do, and then he comes with comfort.

And by the way, Hebrews 4:12, you don't have to overly worry about whether the person you're talking to is a sensible sinner or a secure hardened sinner. Fact is, is we have very hard time looking at people's hearts. The word of God will do that for you. The word of God can divide between the joints and the ligaments, right?

Discerning the thoughts and intents of the heart. We just preach the word, preach the gospel is your best default setting. As you're talking to a friend or a family member, and you can tell that they're very secure in their sin, they're proud about their righteousness, they're proud about their sin, then yeah, give them a dose of the law. But as soon as they start feeling you that you get the sense that they're like the woman caught in adultery or they're starting to feel the terror and the wrath of God and wonder where they can flee, give them Christ.

So that's in a nutshell, the, the, the differences between the law and, and the gospel or or the law of Moses and Christ. There's different ways we could talk about the demands and the promises, but let's end our message by just talking about why this is so important in 3 different ways and then you guys can flesh this out in your care groups. I'm sure you'll come up with many, many great applications in your care groups. But here's a couple of reasons why this is so important for us to understand.

First of all, because of Bible interpretation. Is if we don't understand the distinction between what the law of Moses is meant to do and what Christ has come to do, we can mix these categories up and turn it into something called gospel, and I didn't make that up, that's, I got that from somebody else. Gospel, when you mix categories up and you collapse the law and gospel, we can actually make turn the law into something that's achievable and try to get people in our churches to achieve the law.

And now the gospel has something to achieve.

The law is now a means of salvation and the gospel contains things in it for us to do, and that can be very, very dangerous and unhealthy for believers. when we come and look at the word of God, just a rule of thumb, when you see your oughts and your shoulds and your demands, that's gonna fit in the category of the law, and it should make you say, oh, which is meant to drive you to Christ to give you that of Romans 8:31 and and such like scriptures. But if and and and we need to really understand as you look throughout the scriptures, the people that Christ or or even in the Old Testament, they're they get the harshest treatment, is it the sinners that are beat up about their sins and they're looking for somewhere to go?

Are, do those people get the harshest treatment?

No, it's normally people in my line of work. It's the religious leaders who are putting heavy burdens on people and making them feel like they've got to meet up and match all these standards in order to be accepted by Christ. Those are the people that Christ gets ticked with. When you look at the book of Galatians, who are the people that Paul's angry at?

He's not angry at the Galatians, he's angry at the Judaizers. He's angry at the people that are putting laws on the backs of people and making them think that Christ promises were not enough. And so that becomes very important for how we read our Old Testament and how we read our New Testaments. You're, if you start today in the book of Genesis and you just read all the way through Revelation as fast as you can.

You're gonna find a ton of stuff that just reminds you of of God's loving kindness over and over and over again. Just his own pronouncement of his own name is defaulted towards his kindness. And it's law comes down hard on the backs of people that are hardened in sin, and particularly upon leaders that wanna put burdens on people. But the second reason this is so important is for salvation.

When you see questions in the Bible, people come to Christ and say, what must I do? To inherit eternal life. And then Jesus gives them a law answer and then a preacher gets up in the pulpit and says, here's how if you're a Christian. Do you love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your mind, all your soul, and do you love your neighbors yourself?

Then you're a Christian. Guess what that preacher just did? Gave you law and said this is what you must do in order to achieve salvation. That's bad news.

That's not the way Christ rolls. He gives law to the religious leaders and the proud, he gives Christ with no attachments of conditions to the sinner. What must I do to be saved? Think of the Philippian jailer.

What must I do to be saved? What did Paul and Silas say? Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, you and your household, and you shall be saved. That's it.

And what does the Philippian jailer do? He believes, and then he's baptized, and he's washing wounds. Works start flowing out of him because he received the free promise of forgiveness. What must we do to do the works of God?

People say in John chapter 6. Jesus says, this is the work of God that you believe in the one whom he has sent. And then lastly, it's very important for Christian living. Because when we collapse the law and the gospel, we now can unwittingly make people think that they've got to keep the law in order to be sanctified.

They've got to keep the law in order to be holy, and they put the cart before the horse. I wanna, I wanna just suggest, we're, we're pretty much out of time, but when you read all throughout your old, your New Testament, it's always the gospel that comes first before any duties that are given to the people of God, and the duties are always based upon the finished work of Christ. Ephesians 1 to 3 verses 4 to 6, Romans 1, or the whole book of Romans. Listen to what Horatius Bonar says.

We studied him last year. Holiness is not the offspring of terror or suspense or uncertainty, but peace, conscious peace, and this peace must be rooted in grace. It must be the consequence of our having ascertained upon sure evidence the forgiving love of God. And then he goes on to say.

God wants us to be holy as well as safe, and he knows that there is nothing in heaven or earth so likely to produce holiness under the teaching of the spirit of holiness as the knowledge of his own free love. It's understanding forgiveness from a loving God that will produce true holiness. The law will never allow you, it will never give you what you need to fulfill its demands. Only Christ can.

And then lastly. I'll just end with this. I'd highly recommend at some point you just look up Luther's, Heidelberg disputation and just read his thesis on there like 26 different statements. He's making these statements when he's still a Catholic Augustinian monk.

But it's incredible, some of the stuff that he had discerned from the word of God in 1518. And he has this to say, he says. The law brings the wrath of God, it kills, reviles, accuses, judges, and condemns everything that is not in Christ. Yet that wisdom is not of itself evil, nor is the law to be evaded, but without the theology of the cross, man misuses the law in the worst manner.

He is not righteous who does much, but he who without work believes much in Christ. The law says do this and it's never done. Grace says, believe in this and everything is already done. Let's go ahead and pray.

Lord, we thank you so much for this opportunity for us to survey. The wondrous cross and to survey the collaboration between Moses and Christ, and we ask God that you would help us, Lord, to see the ways in which you have meant that these two roles to be understood as similar, the way that they are distinct and different, and Lord, that we would find ourselves continually looking to Christ, understanding our comfort and forgiveness in Him. Lord, that even on the cross when he looked out at those that were so clearly violating every known law, he says, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.

Lord, we so often don't even see the very sins that we commit.

We don't understand it. We do pray, Father, that you would make us sensible of our own sins, that you would help our sins come before us in the way that they really are, the people that we hurt, the people that we violate, and the, the. Lord, the ways in which we grieve your own heart and spirit, but we pray, Father, that you'd help us have a greater appreciation of our savior Jesus Christ, who, as he did with a woman caught in adultery, Lord, says to us, where are your accusers?

We say nowhere, Lord, neither do I condemn you.

Go and sin no more. We pray this in Christ's name. Amen.