Gooding, David: 5 - Establishing the Law

Hitherto, as we have listened to Moses on the plains of Moab, Moses has directed our attention to very practical things, so practical that sometimes they have been uncomfortable. But it is my experience over many years of preaching that God's people generally prefer practical things to doctrinal things. Now, it's not altogether my fault that today I must bid you think with me on doctrine. If you're kind inclined to blame anybody, then blame old Moses. He won't hear because he he is now in glory. For today, Moses will speak to us about the establishment of the law in the land of Canaan. Establishment of the law and of the covenant based upon that law. When we've listened to him talking on that theme, we who belong to the new covenant will think of the establishment of the law in our personal justification. Then, chairman permitting, we shall proceed to think of the establishment of the law in our personal sanctification. And therein is doctrine exceedingly important, because if our experience is to be true and sound and progressive, it should be built on sound biblical doctrine. As we listen to Moses then in the book of Deuteronomy, he will connect God's law and covenant with three historic places. In chapter five, for instance, we heard him remind the people how God made a covenant with them at Mount Horeb, or if you prefer, Mount Sinai. The original giving of the covenant by God. But as they stand on the plains of Moab, Moa- uh, Moses tells them that here in the plains of Moab, God is making a covenant with them, in addition to the covenant he made at Mount Horeb. Not in the sense, of course, that this is another distinct covenant, but the covenant made first at Horeb was now being confirmed and reaffirmed and explained more fully as Moses stood on the plains of Moab with Israel. Then Moses looks forward into the future, a future he would not live to see, and talks to them now, and therefore to us, of the establishment of the law and the covenant of God in the land of Canaan at a place called Shechem. So let us now turn to our Bibles and notice how this is confirmed to us by the very way that the book of Deuteronomy is structured. And we begin to read in chapter eleven and at verse twenty six. Chapter eleven, verse twenty six. Hitherto I say Moses has been talking to us about the covenant and its practical implications for Israel. Now he looks forward to the establishment of the covenant at Shechem, that is to say, near the mountains of Gerizim and Ebal. And he says in verse twenty six: Behold, I set before you this day a blessing and a curse. The blessing, if you shall hearken unto the commandments of the Lord your God, which I command you this day, and the curse, if you shall not hearken unto the commandments of the Lord your God, but turn aside out of the way which I command you this day, to go after other gods which you have not known. And it shall come to pass when the Lord thy God shall bring thee into the land whither thou goest to possess it, that thou shalt set the blessing upon Mount Guritzim and the curse upon Mount Ebal. Are they not beyond Jordan, by the way of the going down of the sun, in the land of the Canaanites which dwell in the Araba, over against Gilgal, beside the oaks of Moreh. For you are to pass over Jordan to go in to possess the land which the Lord your God giveth you, and you shall possess it and dwell therein. You shall observe to do all the statutes and the judgments which I set before you this day. The confirmation of the covenant, therefore, uh, when they get to Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal at Shechem, will now, he tells them, involve all these particular laws, judgments, and statutes. And he begins to list them from chapter twelve um onward, all the way through, until we come to the end of chapter uh twenty six. But once he has completed the survey of the individual laws and the particular statutes and commandments, notice that in chapter twenty seven he refers once more to this matter of the establishment of the law in the land of Canaan at Shechem. Let's read from chapter twenty seven. And Moses and the elders of Israel commanded the people, saying, Keep all the commandment which I command you this day. And it shall be on the day when you shall pass over Jordan unto the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee, that thou shalt set thee up great stones and plaster them with plaster. And thou shalt write upon them all the words of this law when thou art passed over, that thou mayest go in unto the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee, a land flowing with milk and honey, as the Lord, the God of thy fathers, has promised thee. And it shall be, when you are passed over Jordan, that you shall set up these stones which I command you this day in Mount Ebal, and thou shalt plaster them with plaster. And there shalt thou build an altar unto the Lord thy God, an altar of stones. Thou shalt lift up no iron tool upon them. Thou shalt build the altar of the Lord thy God of unhewn stones, and thou shalt offer burnt offerings thereon unto the Lord thy God, and thou shalt sacrifice peace offerings and shall eat there, and thou shalt rejoice before the Lord thy God. Thou shalt write upon the stones all the words of this law very plainly. So here now he is repeating once more the instructions that he gave in chapter eleven about the establishment of the law on Mount Ebal and Gerizim in Shechem. And oh, how I would have loved to have heard Moses, uh, speak these things to Israel. His very voice, I think, would have vibrated with almost excitement and joy at the wonderful project. For this prospect he had lived this last forty years, amidst constant discouragement and disappointment. That grievous time when the nation refused to enter the land when first they came out of Ca- uh, of Egypt, and all the trials of the wilderness since that so taxed his patience. And now at last he stood with Israel on the plains of Moab by Jordan, the launching pad for the accomplishment of all he had lived for, that the law of God would be established in that once pagan, idolatrous land filled with filthy sin and sinful cruelty. The law of God going to be fulfilled, says Moses. And oh, what a re-day of rejoicing that will be, he says. You shall build, put stones there. You shall write on them the law of God. You shall, uh, build an altar. Careful how you build it, you shall build an altar, you shall offer peace offerings and burnt offerings to God, and you shall rejoice before the Lord your God as his covenant and law are finally established in the land of Canaan. Poor old Moses. He wasn't going to live to see it. The bitterest pill in all the discipline that God put upon him. Many times he besought the Lord to let him go over. So the Lord had to say, don't raise the matter again, Moses. He would never see it. Crowning joy of his life, short of going home to glory. Another would do it. He had to appoint Joshua and let Joshua lead the people of God into the land and establish the law therein. There were certain things that Moses couldn't do, you know. And we who are Christians will be muttering to ourselves under our breath, yeah, I do see. Eh, Moses, um, stood for the law, didn't he? There are things the law couldn't do, you know, by definition. But what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh. God sending his only son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, condemns sin in the flesh. Why for? That the righteous demand of the law should be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit. That's something Moses could never live to see done, nor in one sense Joshua either. But oh, thank God for a new covenant, that though the law was given through Moses, grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. And what the law could not do, in that it was weak through our flesh, God sending his own son condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteous demand of the law should be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit. And you're permitted to say hallelujah if you want to. Amen. Not all of you quite so sure. And when you've got the tribes, uh, uh, uh, uh, before these two mountains, says Moses, and you've built your altar and offered your sacrifices and rejoiced before the Lord, then you will stand the Levites on these two places, and they shall pronounce the blessing. The blessings that shall follow when you keep God's law, the curses that must come if you break his covenant. And, says Moses, as the priests recite each particular blessing, blessed are they who the people are to answer in full-throated voice, amen! Standing to the covenant and agreeing with God and saying amen to God's law. And now the Levites shall pronounce the curses. And the people, as they listen to each particular curse, shall say, oh, but at this moment, our hearts tremble a bit, do they not? As each time each curse is pronounced, the people are to say, Amen. So be it. When Moses has described this ceremony, then in chapter twenty eight he proceeds in numerous verses to sketch in for Israel what will happen when they disobey and the curses are fulfilled upon them. This is one of the most terrible, awesome passages in the whole of the Old Testament. To be read with tears in our eyes and sorrow in our hearts. All those terrible verses describe Israel tortured by their enemies, driven out into the land, wishing it were nighttime because day is so full of pain. And when nighttime comes, they can't sleep, and wishing it were day because they can't endure the night. As we in modern times read it, we inevitably begin to think of Auschwitz, Birkenau, the Nazi gas chambers. How can we read it without the deepest of emotion? And what should we say of these curses that God pronounced? What we can say, in order that our hearts and emotions might begin to cope with it, is that this was this reciting of curses, in accordance with the practice of the Canaanite overlords and emperors, in the political covenants that they imposed upon their vassal kings and peoples. The people had publicly to stand to the covenant, agree to keep it, and they would call the gods to witness that if the people broke it, the curses of the gods would come down upon them. It would not have struck Israel's contemporaries as anything unusual. We should remember, however, as we read the, that awesome chapter, that the judgments there described are temporal judgments. Terms of illness, plague, pestilence, exile to foreign countries. This is not talking about the final judgment of the Great White Throne. And with these warnings of judgments, the following chapters will tell the nation that there will come a time when God will restore them. Secondly, we shall notice that God is dealing with Israel as a nation. For instance, when he tells them that if the nation breaks the covenant and goes off into idolatry, God will see to it that the nation is sent into exile. But we should remember that when, for instance, the Babylonians sacked Jerusalem, destroyed the temple, and took away the people of Judah into captivity amidst much, amidst much carnage. There were godly people like, uh, Daniel, who, because they were Israelites and Judahites, had to share in the exile and share in the suffering. Dan was a godly man, and his salvation spiritually was never in doubt. We should remember it too, shouldn't we? Not all Jews who perished in Hitler's gas chambers were unbelievers, were they? Were no believing Jews ever gassed? It wasn't their fault that Israel in part had departed from God and rejected the Messiah. They had to share the afflictions that came upon the nation. And then to help us as we read those terrible chapters, we should remember that when God says, I will do this and I will do that to you, in actual fact, what happened was that God allowed, in some sense appointed, foreign nations to be the executives of his discipline. For instance, in the prophecy of Isaiah, God addresses himself to Baba- to uh, Assyria and says, Assyria, I'm going to use you as the rod of my anger against my people to chastise my people. But watch it, Assyria. I only intended you to smite them a little. But you have exceeded your powers. You were not intending to do my will. You saw in it mere brutality and possible victory for you. And you've gone to excess. And when I finish disciplining my people, I shall turn on you, Assyria, and I shall discipline you far worse. That is God's comment. But why the warnings? Please notice that Moses is giving the people the warnings of these curses in advance. Pray notice that as they hear them, they say, amen. Let it be so. And we further notice that the issuing of these warnings didn't make it that the pe- that the, the sin was unavoidable. They didn't have to sin. The curses didn't need to come upon them. They had the choice, as Moses reminded them. A stern lesson it was. We should notice that in the mention of the curses, the description frequently reverts to phraseology that says this: If you reject me, says God, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt and redeemed you, and I gave you this land. If now in the land you reject me, you must not suppose that you can keep the land and reject me. If you reject me thus, I shall turn you back to Egypt. Understandable, isn't it? And if one could take the courage to say it, one would have to say to modern Israel, you cannot reject your Messiah and still claim the land. Oh, there's coming a day when Messiah shall come, and Israel shall be saved. Oh, thank God. They shall look upon him whom they pierced, and they will say with consternation and repentance, we thought he was stricken of God and afflicted, but he was wounded for our transgression, bruised for our iniquity. The chastisement of our peace was upon him, and by his stripe we are healed. So then, in passing, we ought just to have a little word in our own ears. Christendom has been, reputation has been blotted with ghastly sins. When the church thought it ought to be the reigning political power, it began to persecute Jews. My former colleague, Professor Ames Smallwood, historian of Jews and Romans, entitled her, uh, professorial lecture, From Pagan Protection to Christian Persecution, pointing out the fact that the early emperors, starting even with Julius Caesar, though they didn't like Jews, introduced special legislation to protect Jews. It was only when Constantine professed conversion and eventually elevated the church, and the church got control of the government, that the Christian church began to persecute Jews. Pause to think of the Inquisition, and how King John of England persecuted Jews, and the Russian pogroms, and Hitler's gas chambers, though Hitler's Germany professed to be Christian. What a serious error it was when the church got into its head that there was no future for Israel, and the church had replaced Israel, when God's own word said, no, the gifts and callings of God are without repentance. And Israel give- raised up to be the olive tree of witness for God in the world failed, and some branches will have broken off, the responsibility for witness to Christ given to the church. But you beware, says Paul to the Gentiles, for if you go and apostatize, you shall be cut off too. We live in an advanced age when so-called Christian theologians deny the very basis of Christianity, the deity of our Lord, his incarnation, his resurrection, ascension, and his second coming. Oh, let them be warned, these theologians. If thus they apostatize, Christendom shall be cut off. We must therefore be careful how we speak of Jews, mustn't we? I had a, a friend, a Jewish friend in Belfast. He just managed to escape Hitler. He would come and have dinner with me. Poor old Otto. And he would sit and cry. It's you Christians, he says, are responsible for the anti-Semitism and the gas chambers. You taught your Sunday school children that wicked Jews killed your Jesus and implanted in them a fearful anti-Semitism. We must be careful, mustn't we? When Peter is addressing the Jews on Pentecost in the city where Christ was murdered, he says to them plainly, you murdered the Christ. But when Paul is speaking hundreds of miles away in Pisidian Antioch, Acts chapter thirteen, notice he doesn't say, you Jews murdered Christ. For Christ had been crucified long before the Jews in Pisidia had even heard about it, or him indeed. He says, choosing his words carefully, your rulers in Jerusalem crucified him. And I would say to Otto, I didn't know what better to say. You theologians would have done it better, I'm sure. I would say, Otto, do you know who killed Jesus? Who said he? He said, I did. But on the other hand, they were but the agents. The real thing was this, that there was no other way to save mankind, no other way to save me, Otto, but that the Messiah should bear my sins in his body on the tree. He died for my sins, my sins, Otto. That's what caused his death. Otto, I would say, and you're no real better than I am, are you? And he died for you, Otto, because of your sins. Let's be careful, therefore, how we speak to our modern Jewish friends, but I mustn't dwell longer upon it. That is our old Testament passage for today. But being a Christian, not a good one, but being a Christian, you know, my fingers itch. I have to turn the page at this point to talk about the establishment of the law, because we who are justified by faith and sanctified in Christ Jesus have it as a prime joy and delight and matter for boasting, that our salvation is not contrary to the law. It doesn't unsettle the law. In fact, it establishes the law. So let me read the verse that says it. It comes from Romans chapter three. Romans chapter three. you'll know it very well, but let's notice the place within the argument. Romans chapter three and verse twenty eight. We reckon therefore, we conclude therefore, that a man is justified by faith apart from the works of the law. Or is he the God, or is he God, the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also. If so be that God is one, and he shall justify the circumcision by the, by faith and the uncircumcision through faith. Do we then make the law of none effect through faith? God forbid. Nay, we establish the law. Now, this is a difficult concept for many, and particularly religious folks who wa- uh, who from time to time think about salvation. They think that that those who say that you can be sure that you have been justified, that you are saved and shall never come into wrath, you shall be saved from the wrath of God through Christ. They think this is suspect, and if you let them, they will say, how can you be sure of salvation? You say it's by faith, you see. No, no, they, well, of course it's by faith. Yes, you say it's by grace. Yes, it's by grace. They will say, aha. But you see, we have to do the works that qualify, and when we've done them, we shall be the first to admit that God gave us the grace to do the works. So it's God gets the credit, but after all, our works have to qualify, don't they? And if our works are not good enough, we can't get into God's heaven. I was on a train going to Cork at one stage in my early history, and the train was crowded, and, uh, I saw one seat beside a clerical gentleman, so I sat down beside him. Presently, I got out a Greek testament, you see. A little bit by guile, but then I was young, and you know what young folks are. Bit inconsiderate of people. And I was reading it, you see. And presently, uh, uh, the good cleric, he looked over and perused this and, uh, then began to speak. He said, that looks an interesting book you're reading. Yes, I said, it is very. He said, but what is it, says he. Oh, I said, it's a Greek testament. Yes, but you don't often see people on the train to court reading Greek testaments. Have you a special interest? Oh, I said, yes, I do have a very big interest in this, you see. I- I- it's uh, I uh, so I can read what Paul said in his own Greek language, you see. I said, I'm one of those who believes you can be saved and know it, you see. Oh, he says, you're a very good man, but you know, we can't really know we're saved, can we? I said, I thought we could. No, no, he says, you can't be sure. I said, why is that? Because he said it's by works, you see. Remember the parable, says he, of the men with the talents, and the men who worked well with their talents got a reward, didn't they? And the man who didn't work, he was sent to the bad place. I said, is that what that means? I said, I, I just am reading here, you see? Um, what Paul says. I'll read it to you if you, you, you care, I said. He didn't happen to know Greek, and uh, uh, uh, so I translated it for him. Now to him that worketh. I said, what about him? Yes, that's the one, he says, that's the one. I said, the reward is not reckoned of as of grace, but as of debt. But to him that worketh not. I said, what about him? What he said, he's hopeless. There's no use whatsoever that. I said, up a minute, let me finish the s- the sentence. But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is reckoned for righteousness. He honestly said, I don't know what that means, but Paul was a bit of a rascal, wasn't he? Many find it difficult. They feel the only way to establish God's law is if our salvation depends on our works. If you are going to say that salvation doesn't depend on works, so we can be justified simply by faith without the works of the law, then you can live as you like, and it doesn't matter. That's what they feel. I s- I'm in the habit of asking such people, well, what do you think is going to happen to you when you stand before the great white throne of God's judgment and God sums up your life? What do you think he will say? And they say generally something like, well, God will be merciful. He is merciful. He'll say you did your best. You, you came short here and there, of course, uh, you did really come short, eh, but then you tried hard, and because you tried hard, uh, yes, you may come into my heaven. But you see what that implies? It's implying that God gives us his law. We do what we call our best, but ain't very good, uh, we do what we call our best to keep it, and in the end God says, well, you didn't keep it all, but never mind, that th- th- that bit doesn't matter that you didn't keep, and you can come into my heaven. What do you call that, establishing the law? That's undercutting the law. Sometimes when I'm courageous, but not too polite, I say, God will not say anything like that about you. I tell you what he will say. They say, how do you know? I say, because God has written it in his word already, in advance. You see, we know that whatsoever things the law says, it speaks to them that are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world brought under the judgment of God. All that sounds cruel to many people, but it is the fact. The first step towards salvation is what the Bible calls repentance, and repentance just does not mean just being sorry for this little sin or that big sin. Repentance means agreeing with God about his verdict on our lives from start to finish. And if we should live till we were ninety nine and a half, it would still be true of us, it certainly would be true of me. But all have sinned in the past and still come short of the glory of God. Then what? God is not going to say my law didn't matter. The law must be established, and that means the execution of its penalty on every transgression. Oh, but if we will agree with God and admit it and stand before his throne with our mouths shut, agreeing with God that we deserve the execution of his wrath, nothing but the curse of his law for having broken it, then God has a savior to give us, his own blessed son, who upheld the law by bearing its penalty and paying the cost of our forgiveness, that God might remain just because his law has been upheld, and yet justify the likes of me and you who are sinners. Oh, do shout hallelujah. Don't disturb the angels, whatever you do, but, but in your heart, thank God. Justification by faith does not undermine God's law. It establishes it. Let's think for a moment of how Paul found his conversion when he was Saul of Tarsus. He had two things against Christianity for which he persecuted them. The one was their blasphemous assertion, according to him, that Jesus was the Son of God, was God incarnate. That Saul considered blasphemy, according to Deuteronomy chapter six. And then he had another problem. Jesus had been crucified and hung on a tree. God's Old Testament law said that anybody hangs on a tree is cursed of God. What were these stupid, ignorant Christians saying? That the one who died on a cross cursed of God was the Messiah? He determined to wipe that kind of nonsense from the face of the earth. I was traveling up the Damascus road in pursuit of that purpose, when there shone around him a light above the brightness of the sun, and a voice said, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? It's hard for you to kick against the go- goads, Saul. Saul didn't need to be told what the light was. He knew his theology. This was a very shake in the glory of God. The voice was saying, why are you persecuting me? Paul thought he was a staunch pleaser of God. Persecuting God? Who art thou, Lord, he says, and we listen to the word. Lord? What Lord could that be for a monotheist like Saul, speaking from the Shekinah glory? Lord. And the voice came back. I am Jesus. Jesus is Jehovah. And Paul fell blinded to the ground. Well, then the question, what was Jesus, God's son, God incarnate, doing, dying on a cross, cursed of God. And the answer he got blew his self-righteousness to smitheree. When he'd done all he could do to keep God's law, and more, as he thought, he discovered that he was so bad that God had to pass the penalty of the law upon his blessed son to save Paul from hell. And Paul later e- explained it thus, Christ became a curse for us, that he might deliver us from the curse of the law. It is some people's notion that God has sent Jesus Christ into the world to give us a kind of a helping hand. We're not very good at keeping God's law, so he comes along and gives us a, a helping hand to help us keep the law until at last, the hope is that we shall have improved enough to pass God's standards and enter into heaven that way. No, says Paul. The demand of the law is this, cursed is everybody, and he's quoting Deuteronomy of all books. Cursed is the one who doesn't continue in all the law to do its precepts. Come short one, and the law will curse you. How could we then be delivered? Not by Christ coming to try and help us to improve our law keeping a little bit, but first, by taking that curse of a broken law upon himself for our sake. What a gospel this is, isn't it? You see, says Paul, I, I, when I found this out, through the law, I died to the law. The law, I discovered, condemned me to death for my shortcoming. When I saw Christ taking my place on the Calvary's cross, I said to myself, that was me there in him. Since he had to die for me, I die. The law has executed his pen- its penalty on me. Through the law, I die to the law, that I might live unto God, and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. Do we undermine the law? No, indeed not. Our justification establishes the law. But also, and with this I end that latter remark as a, as a promise to my chairman. Uh, it's not only our justification involves the establishment of the law, but our sanctification too. Let me quote you, uh, that verse I quoted at the beginning. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as a sacrifice for sin, condemned sin in the flesh. No minimizing the seriousness of sin in the flesh. God condemned it with all the authority and penalty of his just and holy law. Condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteous demand of the law should be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit. So God has a way of perfecting sanctification within us, but now by a different principle, not by the principle of law plus penalty, but by the principle of God's Holy Spirit within. Wonderful. But you know, the process of making us holy and sanctifying us and perfecting holiness in the fear of God is not going to be an overnight thing, is it? You who are ninety six or thereabouts, or getting that way, perhaps, uh, se- six, you've had experience. Long years of Christian life, pleasing the Lord, attempting to make progress in sanctification. Did you find you were holy overnight and completely sinless overnight when you trusted the Lord? Of course you didn't. It's been a long progress, hasn't it? And a good many advances, and now and again, 2 or three steps backward. A long, realistic period. It will last as long as we're here on Earth. Well, when we sin, does it matter? I mean, the sin as believers now, does it matter, or does God say, well, you're on my side now, so your sins don't really matter? Well, of course they matter. At the school I was in, those parents that had to pay fees for their children to come had to have another, uh, payment to make. But when we started to learn chemistry, the school authorities thought it wise that parents of boys who were learning to do chemistry should pay a very big lump sum in advance in case their boys blew the chemistry lab to pieces, do you see? Ah. So it was for them a very expensive thing for their boys to learn chemistry in our school. Parents had to pay the expense in advance. Forgive the crude analogy, but when God set you and me in his school to make us holy, listen, our sins matter. Our sins as believers matter. God isn't lowering his standards, but I tell you this, the expense of it, the cost of it, oh, how shall I get it out without bursting into song? Christ has paid in advance the expense and cost of our training in holiness. Marvelous. For we are not under law, we are under grace. Therefore, sin shall not have dominion over you. Not here and merely so because the Holy Spirit is within you, that's the major thing. Because the principle upon which we live is different. Sin shall lose its grip. Because you are not under law. Law is not just advice, I should do this if I were you. Law is command plus penalty. It says you shall do this, and if you don't, I shall curse you. You just imagine me in my bed of a Monday morning, waking up. That's the thing I find difficult to do. I wake up and find the law personified standing by my bedside. And the law says, Gooding, get up and start now and love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength, and your neighbor as yourself. I say, well, h- h- I'll try, I'll have a go. And the law says you will indeed. And if you once fall short, I shall curse you. What do you think I should do? I think some of you would get up and have a go. I wouldn't. Have too much experience for that. I say I do love the Lord Jesus, of course I do, by God's grace, but if you demand with all my heart, mind, soul, and strength, I fail so many times as a believer. I fail still. I know what will happen this Monday. I shan't get up and try. I stay in bed. And the law would say, well, now I curse you for staying in bed. You're meant to live for God. How could I make progress? One mistake, so to speak, the law says finished. Oh, praise God, when it comes to our developing holiness, we are not under law plus penalty. The penalty's been paid, and we are under Christ. We died with him, we've been raised with him, and God has given us new life by his spirit. Oh, thank God for that. And there is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus. But I must add one caveat. There is no condemnation, my brothers and sisters. But if we will be disobedient, there are consequences, aren't there? There's a difference between penalty of sin and consequences. There is no penalty for a believer. But suppose in my foolishness I go and get drunk, and being incapable of standing, I fall out of the bedroom window, crash on the ground, my leg is so shattered that the surgeon has to amputate it. And I'm a true believer, and I confess my foolishness and folly to the Lord. And he sees the genuineness of my repentance and assures me there is no penalty, there is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus. But what about the old leg I've lost? As a consequence, does the Lord put it back again? No, not necessarily. He will do when you get to glory, of course. But I may have to face the consequences till the end of my days. And then there's another matter, isn't there? As a believer, I work for the Lord, not to get salvation, but co- because he saved me. And in his grace, he tells me that for work well done, there shall be a reward. Suppose I refuse to do any work, or I'm so careless I do none. None. When I stand before his judgment seat, and he reviews my work, and my work is substandard, and his criticism burns it up. I myself shall be saved, says the scripture, because salvation was never dependent on works anyway. He himself shall be saved, though as through fire. But my works burned up and no reward. Our sanctification does not take sin lightly. It does not underestimate the law. It fulfills, that is its goal, the requirements of the law. There is no penalty. Let's say, I nearly said, let's say hurrah to the Savior. Glorious, isn't it? There will be consequences. So let us seek God's grace to serve him acceptably and with godly fear. Shall we pray? Our Father, we have spent long with thy word this morning on difficult things, but we remember his word who says, work not just for the meat that perishes, but work for that meat that endures unto eternal life. So help us, Lord, to understand, and where we do not understand, to read and yet read and read again, that thy spirit may lead us little by little into all the truth. And above all, Lord, by thy grace thou hast saved us. We live by faith in the Son of God who loved us and gave himself for us. Help us to sow to the spirit and be led of the spirit to thy maximum praise and glory here possible on earth, until he come to take us home. Amen.