McRae, William: Studies In Malachi 09 ~ A Call To Remember Mal 4:4

This morning we're going to hear from Malachi, a call to remember, the last three verses of Malachi chapter four. Perhaps you have often heard that it is said that many preachers, when they, uh, begin to preach their sermons, are like Christopher Columbus in his discovery of America. When they start out, they don't know where they're going. When they arrive, they don't know where they are, and when they finish, they don't know where they've been. I'd like to say that some congregations are like that too, especially when it comes to, uh, consecutive studies of scripture. I hope, however, that that has not been true of either of us in our study through the book of Malachi. Several weeks ago, when we started out, we knew exactly where we were going. We wanted to hear a call from God for these last days of the new Testament period of time. When we arrived, we knew exactly where we were. We were in the book of Malachi, listening to a prophet of God four hundred years before Christ, as he issued a call from God to his generation in the last days of the Old Testament period. And now that we're about to leave, hopefully, we know exactly where we've been. The first two chapters of Malachi contain the prophet's appeal to return to God in view of the past love of the Lord. And then the last two chapters, Malachi's appeal for them to return to the Lord in view of the future day of the Lord. That's really the outline for this book of Malachi. Now, this morning, we come to the last three verses of the book. We're going to be looking at verses four, five, and six. If you will look carefully at the three verses, you will discover that there are two separate thoughts that are contained in them. We're going to reverse the order simply for homiletical effect, and we're going to begin by looking at verses five and six, which contain the concluding promise, or the concluding prophecy of the Old Testament scriptures. Of all of the Old Testament prophecies, this has got to be one of the most curious and one of the most fascinating. It's the promise of the second coming of Elijah. Let's read again, Malachi four verse five. Behold, I am going to send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and terrible day of the Lord. You will note, of course, that the prop- promise begins with a reference to the time of Elijah's coming. He is going to come before the great and terrible day of the Lord. The focus with this phrase in Malachi's perspective is that period of time in God's prophetic program when Jesus Christ is going to return in power and great glory to this earth. He's going to establish his kingdom. In coming to the earth, he is going to wipe out his enemies. He's going to gather together those who are his devoted followers, and with them establish his kingdom upon this earth. Just before that time, Elijah will come again. If you look carefully, you will find in the next phrase a reference to the purpose of his coming, and he will restore the fa- hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers. Obviously, the purpose of Elijah's coming is to effect a reconciliation, and it is a reconciliation between the fathers of Israel, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David, the great patriarchal fathers of Israel. These are the men who gave Israel their laws. These are the men who left for Israel a magnificent spiritual heritage. The tragedy of Malachi's generation is this: they have left their spiritual fathers. They have abandoned their spiritual heritage. They have ignored the laws and the covenant that has been given to them through the patriarchal fathers. The ministry, then, of Elijah is to effect a reconciliation so that the hearts of the fathers that are bereaved and grieved because of the waywardness of Israel in Malachi's day will be encouraged, and that the hearts of the sons in Malachi's day, whose hearts are in rebellion and who are in sin, that those hearts will be restored in obedience to the hearts of the fathers. The purpose, then, for Elijah's coming is to effect a reconciliation, which will in effect be a spiritual revival among the children of Israel before the coming of the great day of God. The effect of their coming will be really magnificent. Notice the last line of verse six: Lest I come and smite the land with a curse. If Elijah does not come, if he does not fulfill his ministry, if there is not that reconciliation, if that spiritual revival among you does not take place, that when I come, I will smite you with a curse. But so that I will not smite you with a curse, but rather be able to bring blessing, I'm going to send Elijah, who will affect a reconciliation. Obviously then, Elijah is going to have a very effective ministry. He's going to bring about a great spiritual revival in the nation of Israel, which will result then, when the Lord returns, not in the wiping out in judgment of the Jewish people, but rather in many of them joining with him to welcome his return and to go with him into the establishment of the kingdom. With these verses, the Old Testament concludes. Four hundred years pass. There is no prophet raised up by God. The last word from God through the mouth of a prophet was, behold, I will send Elijah to you. And through those four hundred years of the intertestamental period, there are indications after indication that the Jewish pe- people kept looking, anticipating, expecting the appearance of Elijah. As a matter of fact, when John the Baptist appeared upon the stage, you will remember that an official delegation comes from Jerusalem and says, are you Elijah? John says, no, I am not. When the Lord Jesus appears and that traverses through the land of Judea, doing his great miracles with his great preaching, an official delegation comes from the Sanhedrin. Are you Elijah? Jesus says, no, I am not Elijah. There was obviously a great spirit of anticipation and our expectation among the Jewish people for the appearance of Elijah, who would be the sign that the day of the Lord is about to come. Actually, a careful reading of the New Testament indicates that in John the Baptist, there was an anticipation of the coming of Elijah. When he was born, Luke chapter one, his mother was told that the baby that she would bear would come in the spirit and in the power of Elijah. And in Matthew chapter eleven, the Lord Jesus turns to the people of Israel and says to them, if they had accepted him, John the Baptist would have been Elijah. If the nation of Israel had responded to the preaching of John the Baptist when he came calling for repentance, if they had responded to him, then the effect that was to be produced by Elijah through the prophecy of Malachi would have been realized, and John the Baptist would have accomplished the mission that Elijah is in no- is is to come to accomplish. There would have been that revival, and as a result of that revival, the coming of the Lord would have taken place, and the kingdom would have been established. Israel did not repent at John the Baptist preaching, and so John the Baptist was not for them then, Elijah, nor the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecy. The scriptures seem to indicate that there's coming a time when the prophecy will be literally fulfilled. In Matthew seventeen verse eleven, Jesus says, Elijah shall come. And if you were to take time to turn over to the book of the Revelation, you would discover that in the middle of the tribulation period, in chapter eleven, there is the prophecy of two witnesses who will be raised up by God. They will do great miraculous works. One of them will have the power to shut up the heavens so that it will not rain during his prophecy. What prophet did that in the Old Testament? Elijah. The other witness will have the power to smite the waters and turn the waters into blood, and to smite the earth with any plague which he wishes. Which prophet did that in the Old Testament? Moses. It's possible then, we cannot say for sure, but it is possible that in the midst of the tribulation period, God is going to send once again Moses and Elijah, and they shall appear upon this earth for a very spectacular ministry. Actually, it's interesting to speculate about that because there's something mysterious about the death of both of those men, isn't there? When Moses died, he went up into the mountain, he died, and then we are told in the scriptures there was a struggle for his body between Satan and between Michael the Archangel. There's something very mysterious about the death and the burial of Moses. We do not know where that body is. There's something rather strange about the death of Elijah, in that he didn't die. We're told in the Old Testament scriptures that he was caught up in a hurricane, and a fiery chariot came along, and he was taken alive into the presence of God. So there's something mysterious about Moses' death. Elijah did not die. It's possible that these will be the very two that will appear again on Earth in the midst of the tribulation period to call Israel to repentance, and Israel will respond to their witness. There will be a great revival that will take place among the Jewish people, and it'll be perhaps as a result of the influential ministry of these two men of God. Their coming is perhaps even anticipated in the marvelous Mount of Transfiguration episode. There on the Mount of Transfiguration, the little group of disciples is given a preview of the kingdom period. That is what we're told in Matthew seventeen. And as the Lord is transformed so that all of his inherent glory shines out through the body that has acted as a veil to veil the inherent glory of the Son of God as he is transformed and the glory of God shines through him. There stands with him Moses and Elijah. That anticipation of that kingdom period, perhaps it is God's way of telling us that it is these two men who will introduce the advent of Christ that will bring to pass the kingdom period. The Old Testament concludes then with a very fascinating prophecy. It's a prophecy that for centuries Jewish people have looked for, and uh, for uh, many of us, it's a very fascinating prophecy because we believe we're living in the closing days of the New Testament church period. The next great event in God's prophetic program is the rapture of the church. And as the church is raptured from this earth and taken into the presence of the Lord, then there shall come that tribulation period, that seven years of great, great tribulation upon this earth. And right in the midst of that tribulation period, two witnesses appear, perhaps Moses and Elijah, and they shall appear to be witnesses to the Jewish nation. As a result of their preaching, there will be a great revival take place among the Jewish people. And as a result of that revival, when our Lord comes back in power and great glory, it will not be just to smite Israel with judgmental curses, but it will rather be to bring blessing, because there will be amongst the Jewish people at that time a large remnant that have had their hearts turned to the Father. They've been reconciled with the laws of God. There's been a revival take place, and now they're standing waiting for the coming of the Lord. They will welcome him, and they will go with him into the establishment of the kingdom. These very words at the close of Malachi are going to take place in the drama of human history, and that might be indeed very much sooner than many of us even anticipate. Not only then is there in his conclusion a concluding promise, but in the verse that we would really like to study this morning, there is also a concluding exhortation as found in verse four. Let's read this verse because we want to study it with some concern and care as it lays forth a basis for one of the great doctrines of evangelical Christian faith. The e- the exhortation, remember the law of Moses, my servant, even the statutes and ordinances which I commanded him in Horeb for Israel. You will notice, of course, that the origin and the authority of the law of Moses rests upon the fact that God gave it to Moses. This law, these statutes are what I have given to Moses for you. The origin of the law is God. The authority upon which the law rests is that God gave it. That which God has given is summarized here in the statutes and the ordinances. And the implication is, of course, because these statutes and ordinances have been given by God for Israel, the duty of Israel is to obey the commandments of God. The exhortation, then, simply is an exhortation to remember the law of Moses. Now, I suspect that Malachi urges the children of Israel to remember the law of Moses, the way my wife sometimes reminds me to remember the speed limit as we're driving along on a highway. Now, she doesn't for a moment think that I have forgotten what the speed limit is, but she knows that on very rare occasions, once I think it may have happened, on very rare occasions, I become preoccupied and that little speedometer needle goes over the speed limit. And when Marilyn says, Bill, remember what the speed limit is, what she really means, although she's too kind and gentle to say it, is remember it to do it, Bill. Obey it. Remember it to do it and to obey it. It's the way a father would speak with care and compassion to his teenage son or daughter as they go out on a Saturday night, and the father would say, now remember the curfew. Now, you know what dad means when he says that. He doesn't want you to come in three hours after the curfew and say to dad, I remembered it all evening, I knew what the curfew was. That's not what dad means. What dad means is to remember the curfew, to do it, to obey that curfew. The kind of thing that I'm on occasion compelled to do as I speak with a husband or as I speak with a wife, and I urge them to remember their marriage vows. Now, I do not for a moment think that any married person would ever forget the vows that they took on that greatest of all days in their life as a married person. But what I mean, of course, is to remember those marriage vows, to do them. Remember them, to keep them. That's what I want you to do. And so when Malachi stands and he urges the children of Israel to remember the law of Moses, what he, of course, is urging them to do is to obey it, to keep it, to observe it, to submit themselves to it. The ordinances and the statutes contained instruction for every area of their life, and Malachi's last exhortation is for them to remember it, to do it. Now, I suspect that in Malachi's day, just as in our day, it would not be without reason to expect that there would be people who would raise their eyebrows and wonder at the reason for this. Can't you imagine a very shrewd businessman who is violating some of the ethical principles of the laws in order to keep his business going, listening to Malachi say this and look up and say, Malachi, why? Why? Not difficult to imagine, and some young person is involved in some kind of relationship that is a clear violation of the law of God, listening to Malachi as he says, remember the law of Moses and do it. It's not difficult to imagine that teenager quickly jerking your head toward Malachi and, if not articulating it, unquestionably thinking it. Why? Why should I do that? Why should I remember it? Why should I obey it? One of the great tragedies of evangelicalism today, it seems to me, is that we have succumbed to the practice of moralizing. A moralist is simply a person who tells people what they should do without telling them why they should do it. One of the great mistakes of evangelical preachers, and I know I am guilty of it many, many times, is telling folks what they should do without telling them why they should do it. We'd like to try to correct that this morning for a few moments, if we may. One of the things that is apparent from the simplest reading of scripture is that we are to obey the word of God. That's why God gave it to us. We are to read it in order to obey it. We are to bow under it and under its authority. The question that I want to ask is why? Why should a businessman do what God says in the Bible to do? Why should a married couple obey the scriptures? Why should a teenager take seriously and change their relationships or adjust their lifestyle because of what the Bible says? Why should we obey the scriptures? A few years ago, there was convened in Lausanne, Switzerland, a congress that was devoted to world evangelism. The Lausanne Covenant that emerged from that congress has a number of paragraphs in it, one of which deals with the subject of the Bible. It begins its statement with these words: We affirm the divine inspiration, truthfulness, and authority of both Old and New Testament scriptures in their entirety as the only written word of God without error in all that it affirms, and the only infallible rule of faith and practice. Now that is a very magnificent statement of the evangelical faith in its relationship with the Word of God. If you notice carefully, the statement begins with three words that really focus upon the divine origin of the Bible. The three words were inspiration, truthfulness, and authority. We affirm the divine inspiration, truthfulness, and authority of both Old and New Testament scriptures. There's a logical relationship between these three words. The word inspiration means God breathed. That is exactly the meaning of the word in the Greek text, God breathed. Now that is very, very significant. We believe then, says the evangelical Christian faith, we believe that the scriptures are God-breathed. Paul says all scripture is God-breathed. Because it is God-breathed, that establishes the truthfulness of the scripture. God is true. God cannot lie. If the scriptures are God-breathed, then what God has breathed is truth. And because it is the truth of God, it is absolutely authoritative for us in our lives as Christians. The Bible is the only infallible authority for what we believe and how we live. John Stott, in a very, very helpful little booklet entitled The Authority of the Bible, asked this question: What is the major reason why evangelical Christians believe that the Bible is God's word, written, inspired by his spirit, and authoritative over their lives? It is certainly not that we take a blindfold leap into the darkness and resolve to believe what we strongly suspect is incredible. That's not why we believe the Bible. Nor is it because the universal church consistently taught this for the first eighteen centuries of its life, Stott says in parentheses, though it did, and this long tradition is not lightly to be set aside. He goes on, nor is it because God's word authenticates itself to us as we read it today, by the majesty of its themes, by the unity of its message, and by the power of its influence, though it does, says Stott, and more. No, he says, the overriding reason for accepting the divine inspiration and authority of scripture is plain loyalty to Jesus. May I read that last statement again? The overriding reason for accepting the divine inspiration and authority of scripture is plain loyalty to Jesus. You see, Christians believe that Jesus came from God. We believe that Jesus is the Son of God. And we believe that what Jesus spoke was the truth of God. Now, what did Jesus say about the Bible? Loyalty to Jesus demands having the same view of the Bible that Jesus had. What was our Lord's view of the Bible? Simple loyalty to him demands having the same view of the scripture as he had because he is God, because he is truth. What was our Lord's view of scripture? I'd like to demonstrate for the next few minutes to you this morning that our Lord endorsed both the Old Testament scriptures and the New Testament scriptures as the word of God, absolutely authoritative. He did it differently, of course, because he lived right between the Old and the New Testament. For example, how did he endorse the Old Testament scriptures? First of all, by direct statement. John chapter ten verse thirty five, he said, speaking of the Old Testament scriptures, the law cannot be broken. That's a testimony to the fact that that's the word from God. In Matthew chapter five, he said, till heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter nor the smallest mark of the Hebrew Bible will fail to come to pass until all is fulfilled. That's Jesus' way of saying every small detail, every smallest letter, every small facet of the Old Testament scriptures is absolutely authoritatively reliable because it's the word of God. It will all be fulfilled. By direct statement, the Lord Jesus bore testimony to the authority and the reliability of the Old Testament. He did it not only by direct statement, but he did it by indirect evidence. For example, notice how some of the ways that he introduced quotations from the Old Testament scriptures. In Mark chapter twelve, he's going to quote a verse from Psalm one hundred and ten. Now, Psalm one hundred and ten was written by David, but when Jesus introduced that verse, he said, David by the Holy Spirit saith. Now, do you see what Jesus is saying? Jesus is saying then that when David wrote Psalm one hundred and ten, it wasn't David's thoughts, it wasn't David's ideas. David wrote under the inspiration, under the control of the Holy Spirit, so that what David wrote was God breathed. In Matthew chapter nineteen, he quotes that magnificent verse from Moses, that a man should leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife, and the two should become one flesh. Interestingly, when Jesus quotes it, he doesn't say, as I just said, Moses said. When Jesus quotes it, he said, God said that a man should leave his father and mother. That is Jesus' way of saying that what Moses wrote was the word of God. And I could multiply illustrations like that over and over again by his introduction of Old Testament quotations, the Lord Jesus endorses the Old Testament as the word of God. More impressive than that to me, however, is that the Lord Jesus lived his life under the authority of the Old Testament scriptures. Satan came along to him and said, you see those stones? Change those stones to bread. Why didn't Jesus do it? Because the Old Testament scriptures forbade him from doing it. Jesus responds to the situation by saying, it is written, Deuteronomy says, Moses wrote in Deuteronomy that thou shalt not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. Jesus doesn't respond to the temptation of Satan because he submits himself to the authority of the Old Testament scriptures. As he's approaching the last days of his life, he turns to the leaders of the people, he turns to the followers who are behind him, and he says, the Son of Man must go to Jerusalem. Why must he? The Son of Man must be betrayed into wicked hands. Why must he? The Son of Man must be crucified. Why? The Son of Man must be raised again from the dead, but I ask why, and the answer in every case is because the Old Testament scriptures said so. He submitted his life to the authority of the Old Testament scriptures. The illustrations could be multiplied over and over again. By direct statement and by indirect evidence, Jesus endorsed the Old Testament as the word of God that contained the truth of God, and as a result was absolutely authoritative for life. How can we, who are the followers of Jesus, have any less a view of the Old Testament scriptures than Jesus did? What escape is there for us from looking at the Old Testament scriptures as Jesus looked at them? There are two escape routes you may choose. On the one hand, you may, as many others say, that Jesus was deceived. He thought that the Old Testament scriptures were reliable, inspired by God, and authoritative, but he was deceived. Some others would say, it's not that he was deceived, he knew better, but he was a deceiver. He did not want to upset the apple cart. He didn't want to stir up a storm. He didn't want to rock the boat. The people around him thought that the Old Testament scriptures were the word of God, and so he didn't want to challenge that, and he just went along with them. You may take either of those routes. You may say that he was deceived or that he was a deceiver, but there are very few Christians who would choose either of those alternatives. If he was deceived, then he is not God. If he was a deceiver, then he's not even a good man, he's a liar. So no Christian would take either of those two options as alternative escape routes. Without any escape route, one is left to view the Old Testament scriptures exactly the way Jesus viewed them, that they are the word of God, absolutely authoritative, containing the truth of God. Our Lord Jesus endorsed the Old Testament scriptures. Not only did he endorse the Old Testament scriptures, but he also endorsed the New Testament scriptures. Now, his way of endorsing them was very much different than his endorsement of the Old Testament. That is obvious because the New Testament was not yet written. How then could he endorse the New Testament, which had not even yet been written? Follow very carefully the logic that is involved. Our Lord anticipated the writing of a body of literature that would be put side by side with the Old Testament as the word of God, to be read as containing the truth of God and to be submitted to as an authority from God. He anticipated that body of literature. He expected it. He intended it to come. As a matter of fact, the evidence of that is that he chose twelve apostles. Now, the word apostle means a sent one, and that is a very significant word, because the bottom line of being a prophet of God in the Old Testament scriptures was that he was sent from God. Because he was sent from God, he had the word of God, and that word of God, as it was delivered, involved all of the authority of God. So when the Lord Jesus chose twelve apostles, he chose persons who would become his sent ones. They carry on the line of the prophets of the Old Testament. He chose those twelve apostles. He chose them to be with him, and then he said in John chapter fourteen, just before he died, the very night before, just hours before, he said that the Holy Spirit would come upon them, and in chapter fourteen, he said, that Holy Spirit will cause you to remember all that I said. That's his prophecy for the writing of the gospel. Then he said the Holy Spirit will also guide you into all truth. That's his prediction of the writing of the rest of the New Testament, because in the Gospels and in the rest of the New Testament, we have contained what he said and the rest of the truth that he wanted to convey to the church when they were able to, to contain that and able to absorb that. He said that the Holy Spirit would come upon them and enable them to write that body of literature. And the Holy Spirit did just that on the day of Pentecost. The Holy Spirit came upon the apostles. The apostles wrote what they had seen, what they had heard. They wrote what God gave to them in the epistles that came. One of the interesting things about reading the writings of the apostles is this: they wrote understanding perfectly well that they were the spokesmen of God, under the control of the Holy Spirit, and that what they were saying was the word of God. I could show you a dozen references that I have in my notes that bear testimony to that. When Paul writes to the Thessalonians, he urges the Thessalonians to read publicly in the assembly his book along with the writings of the Old Testament. Paul knew that when he wrote, he was writing a word from God, and he was writing it under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. When Peter writes in First Peter chapter two, he says that the word that he preached and the word that he was writing was the word of God. When Paul writes to the Corinthians, First Corinthians fourteen thirty seven, he says, let everyone who is mature, let anyone who is spiritual, let any man or woman who has any discernment recognize that what I am writing to you is the commandments of God. The apostles recognized that what they were writing then, under the inspiration of the Spirit of God, was the word of God. It was a commandment from God. The early church recognized that. In Acts chapter two forty two, we are told that after the day of Pentecost, the early church continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine. They recognized that the apostles were the vehicles through which the truth of God had come to them. The church fathers that followed on after those early days recognized precisely the same truth and the same principle, that the, uh, apostles were the custodians, they were the bearers of the truth of God, and that they were the ones who, as they gave forth that truth, were speaking the word of God. Tertullian, one of the church fathers from North Africa, about two hundred AD, wrote, we Christians are forbidden to introduce anything on our own authority or to choose what someone else introduces on his authority, authority. Our authorities are the Lord's apostles, and they in their turn choose to introduce nothing on their own authority. They faithfully pass on to the nations the teaching which they had received from Christ. That is the perspective of the Church Fathers. When the time came for gathering together the books that would constitute our New Testament scriptures, the first canon, the first principle for determining whether a book was to be included or excluded was this: was it written by an apostle, or was it written by someone that had the endorsement of an apostle? Apostolic authority was the first and primary condition for the acceptance of any book that would make up our New Testament scriptures. Now, all of this is so important for us to understand because we are living in a day and age when, frankly, friends, I am getting sick and tired of hearing Christians say, as they turn to such passages in the Word of God that offend them, well, that's Paul's opinion, or that's Peter's opinion. Women love to try to escape from their responsibilities as Christian wives and the order that God has laid out for a marriage relationship by looking at Paul's writings and saying, well, you know, Paul was a woman hater. He had something against women. That's Paul's opinion. My opinion is equal to his, or it might even be a little better than his. Men love to escape from the responsibility that Peter puts on it. When Peter tells us that we are to live with our wives in the light of our understanding of them. We are to grant them honor. We are to esteem them as the most precious possessions that God has given us on earth. And a man likes to step off from that and back away from and say, well, that's Peter's opinion. See, friend, you can't do that. The teachings of the apostles are the teachings of Christ. They are the word of God. To reject what Paul says, to reject what Peter says, is to reject what God says. To receive what the apostles write is to receive what Christ says. You cannot possibly escape this. One of the great tragedies of our day and generation is the, the abhorrence that we have over the issue of authority. And there's almost an upswell of rebellion when anyone dares to speak of the authority of a husband, or the authority of parents, or the authority of the police, or the authority of a prime minister, or the authority of our employers, or the authority of a school teacher or a school principal. There's a rebellion against the whole concept of authority today. The tragedy is, rather than influencing our culture, the evangelical church has been influenced by our culture. And one of the evidences is that, of that, is our resistance against the authority of the Word of God. John Stott, as he concludes his little booklet, says that submission to the authority of the Bible is fundamental. It's fundamental to Christian integrity. The word integrity simply means integrated. Integrity is simply having one's life totally consistently integrated. Christian integrity begins with acknowledging that Jesus Christ is Lord, and then carries with it the implication that what Jesus Christ says about the Bible is what I ought to say about the Bible. It is an inconsistent stand for a Christian to say that Christ is Lord, and then to reject the authority of the scriptures which he accepted. You see the logic of what I'm saying? Submission to the scriptures is inherent in our submission to the lordship of Christ. Simple integrity on the part of a Christian who says he is the Lord Jesus Christ. Simple integrity demands on his part a submission to the authority of the Bible because Christ submitted to it, because he lived his life in obedience to it, because he endorses it as the word of God. Simple integrity in my life demands a submission to the authority of the word of God. Submission to the scriptures is fundamental not only to Christian integrity, but also to Christian freedom. Very interesting that the common understanding of freedom today is independence from truth. We need to understand that real freedom is submission to truth. Take, for example, a chemist. A chemist knows the laws of science involved in chemistry. Now, in a move of independence, he may choose to step outside of all of those laws and say, I am going to be independent. I hate being under the authority of the laws of chemistry. I am going to be independent. And so he ignores the laws of science inherent in chemistry, and he begins to dabble with his chemicals and blows his head off. Now, you don't say that such a person is free. What you say is such a person is dead. That person is stupid. Freedom for a chemist involves submission to the laws of science in chemistry, and when he submits himself to those laws, he can take all of those dangerous chemicals, mix them together, and not blow himself to pieces. Real freedom is submission to the laws of chemistry. The person who says that he is going to be independent of the law of gravity is just as dead. He says as he climbs up those stairs or takes the elevator to the top of the Empire State Building, I do not believe in the law of gravity. I want to be free. I hate living my life under the authority of that law, and I'm going to step out from under it, and I'm going to be free from that law. That man is dead. He's not free. You say he's stupid. That is a fool. And it's all the result of a misunderstanding of freedom. Freedom, you see, is not independent from the laws of science. Freedom is submission to the laws of science. And when a person submits themselves to the laws of science, then they experience freedom. Friend, precisely the same thing is true in the area of spiritual things. Freedom of one's mind, freedom in living one's life is not found in independence from the authority of God, independence from the laws of God. That's dumb. That's stupid. That person is dead. That person ends up as an alcoholic. He ends up as a drug addict. He ends up blowing his marriage. He ends up in all kinds of emotional and physical and sociological disastrous situations. That person is dumb. That person is a fool. And if he makes it halfway through life, when he comes to the end of life and stands before God, he is dead forever. Freedom is not found in independence from the authority of the Word of God. Freedom is found in submission to the authority of the Word of God. And when a Christian comes and recognizes as Jesus, this is God's word, and submits their life under its authority and lives their life under the authority of the word of God, they discover there's a freedom, a freedom that comes from guilt, a freedom from pain, a freedom from anxiety, a freedom from restlessness, a freedom from bondage and slavery to their own hearts, a freedom from captivity to Satan, a freedom from a bondage to all of the changing fashions of this world around them. They're free. That's what Jesus meant when he said, the truth will make you free. And it's the truth of God, just as truly as it's the truth of chemistry, that gives a person freedom. And, uh, it's in submitting ourselves to that truth that the Christian enters into the freedom of his Christian life. I'd like to say to you this fa- this morning that the full freedom that God has intended for you in your life, whether it be in your marriage, whether it be in your personal life, whether it be in your relationship with your parents, whether it be in your social life, whatever area, that full freedom, friend, will only really come when you recognize the integrity of taking the same perspective to the word of God as Jesus took, and submit yourself to that. You can change the direction of your marriage.