OPEN: Why do laws exist? Why do we have them? I thought about that a lot this week…and this was my conclusion: “Laws exist to modify behavior and to help us know what is acceptable and what isn’t.”
Now, if that’s true, why were these laws written?
In Michigan it is illegal to paint sparrows to sell them as parakeets. Why would they write such a law? Well, someone apparently had painted sparrows to sell as parakeets but there was no law that said they couldn’t… so now there is.
In Birmingham, Alabama, it is illegal to drive a car while blindfolded. Seriously? Why make a law like that? Well, apparently someone tried it! Someone drove blindfolded but there was no law against it at the time. Now there is.
But these next two laws were ones I found particularly interesting: 1) It's illegal to ride a camel on a Nevada highway; 2) in Arizona, it is illegal to hunt camels. What? Why would anybody even write a law about Camels in Nevada and Arizona? Well because, at one time there’d been camels out west. Back in the 1850’s the US Calvary experimented with camels in desert and they proved to be useful. But, the Civil War ended the experiment. Ultimately 81 camels were sold at auction, and somebody had to write some laws concerning them.
My point is this: laws are written to modify behavior and help us know what is acceptable. And that brings me to the Law of Moses. A lot of Christian theologians and preachers spend a great deal of time attacking the Mosaic law, implying that the Law of Moses wasn’t a good thing… but that contradicts what Paul said “… the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.” Romans 7:12
The Mosaic Law was a GOOD THING – it’s just that it had a few drawbacks. But we need to remember that these Laws were from God, and when God created the Mosaic Law He had reasons for why He did that. George Faull (a preacher and founder of Summit Theological Seminary) has written a book that has detailed numerous reasons why God gave the Law. We could spend hours exploring the reasons Mr. Faull gave for the law, but for the sake of getting you home sometime today we’re going to focus on just two of those this morning.
FIRST – God gave His Law to Israel so they could modify their behavior. David wrote: “How can a young man keep his way pure? By guarding it according to your word (Psalm 119:9); and “I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you (Psalm 119:11); and “Through your precepts I get understanding; therefore I hate every false way.” (Psalm 119:104).
Back in David’s day, they didn’t have as much of the Bible as we do. They had Genesis thru Judges, and maybe Job… and that was it. When David focused on God’s Word, he was talking about the books of the Law. These were the writings he expected Influence my behavior. These books were to help him keep his way pure, make it so he didn’t sin against God, and helped him to gain understanding so that he would learn to hate every false way. That’s why he read it!! That’s why he meditated upon it. That’s why he spent his time thinking on it.”
ILLUS: There was a famous study done back in 2009 entitled “The dishonesty of honest people”– A Theory of Self-concept Maintenance” (researchers Nina Mazer, On Amir, and Dan Ariely). The researchers asked over 200 participants to either recall the 10 Commandments or 10 books they had read at school before. And then they gave these students the opportunity (and the incentive) to cheat on a problem-solving task. What the researchers found was that the participants who focused on the moral reminders of 10 commandments were less likely to cheat than those who received no such reminder.
In other words - for THOSE students - God’s law influenced their behavior.
SECOND – The Law was meant to help Israel know what was right and what wasn’t. Psalm 119:105 says “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path,” David was saying: “God’s Law SHOWS us what the RIGHT path is.
In fact, God promised: “If you will diligently listen to the voice of the LORD your God, and do that which is right in his eyes, and give ear to his commandments and keep all his statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you that I put on the Egyptians, for I am the LORD, your healer.” Exodus 15:26
God was declaring --- LISTEN TO ME… and you will be blessed. LISTEN to MY VOICE; Do what is right in MY EYES; Give ear to MY COMMANDMENTS and STATUTES; If you do that I’ll bless you.
Now, it’s important to remember that everybody has a standard of right and wrong. You even hear it on the playground when a child says “That’s Not Right! That’s not Fair!!!” Even children understand this. So, everyone has a moral compass of some sort. They all have an inner belief system of rights and wrongs, but most people’s standards are based on self-interest.
Groucho Marx once said – “Those are my principles. If you don’t like them I have others.”
ILLUS: I’ve recently been involved in a couple of discussions FB about Abortion. In both discussions I was talking with women explaining that the life INSIDE a pregnant woman is a living child. By contrast, they presented pregnancy as an inconvenience. The unborn child was a “mass of tissue.” And any picture of feet and hands of aborted children was fabricated.
One of the conversations I had went like this:
WOMAN: “I am not so sure you are aware of how women were treated by society and church that led to legalizing abortion. You also, apparently, are not a woman. We don't live in a perfect world. If we did, every pregnancy would be joyful.”
ME: “I was wondering when you'd resort to the "you're not a woman" argument... but you're right. I'm not. And you're also right that society and the church have often not been as protective of women as they should have been. It's not right for those who have the power to do so, to not protect those who are vulnerable. But let's turn that rational around. In a pregnancy, it's the unborn child that's vulnerable, and it's the abortionist who does vile things to such a child. Rarely is this about protecting the woman... it's more about removing an obstacle for a "joyful" life for the woman. Yes, we don't live in a perfect world... but taking the life of the most vulnerable is NOT the way to accomplish that.”
Now, I never attacked these women. I didn’t say anything nasty to them – but I made them really uncomfortable (one of them even blocked me on FB) because I held their feet to the fire. I repeatedly made the point that their morality was based on self-interest… not the Will of God.
Dostoyevsky once noted: “if God does not exist, everything is permissible.” In other words, if God isn’t part of my reasoning process, and He’s not the basis of my morality, then somebody has to be the final authority. And if it ain’t God… it’s gonna be me. Without God, my morality all depends on what I think is right. My morality will be shaped by my own personal self-interest. Thus the Law is good because it opposes my self-interest. The Law confronts MY self-righteousness, and shows me God’s righteousness.
As one meme I read recently said “If the Bible calls it a sin, your opinion doesn’t matter.”
Now we need to shift gears a little, because the Law WAS GOOD... but WE AREN’T. Galatians 3:10 “all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, ‘Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.’”
If you were to rely upon obeying the Law of Moses for salvation you’d be lost, because - while the Law is GOOD - you aren’t!
For most people though, that’s not something they’d think they were doing. We’re so far removed from the Law of Moses that most folk don’t use those laws for their guide. Instead, it’s their inner moral compass that is their guide to righteousness. And so, if you were to ask someone like this if they thought they were going to heaven, they’d reply “I HOPE so.” Now would they say they “hope” they’re going to heaven? Because they are judging their standing with God based upon their good works. They know they’ve done bad things of which they’re ashamed, but they believe if they do enough “works of the Law” (good deeds), they can balance out their bad past with good stuff. And they believe if they can only do more good things than they’ve done bad things… then, when they stand before God, God will love them and God will accept them. But the Bible says you’ll never be good enough to be good enough.
Ecclesiastes 7:20 says “Surely there is not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins.” And Romans 3:23 concurs: “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” And Romans 6:23 expands on that by telling us “For the wages of sin is death.”
You and I can never do enough to buy our way into heaven. The law cannot forgive our sins. But the question is: Why couldn’t the Law forgive sins? Answer: Because that was never its purpose. The Law’s purpose was to DEFINE RIGHTEOUSNESS… not to provide it.
Galatians 3:24 tells us that “the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ.” Have you ever been taught by a school teacher (that’s what a schoolmaster was)? What was the job of the School teacher? To teach us! But here’s a truth: a teach can teach us… but they can’t make us learn. Similarly, the Law can TEACH us… but it can’t make us righteous/clean.
However, while the Law couldn’t make us clean, it was in the law that God revealed what was needed to cleanse us of our sins. Hebrews 9:22 tells us “under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.” That’s why there were so many sacrifices offered at the Temple… day after day. There was a constant need of the shedding of blood to cover sins.
But even that had a problem, because Hebrews tell us that “every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can NEVER take away sins.” Hebrews 10:11
But WAIT A MINUTE!!! Without the shedding of blood there was no forgiveness of sins, but the sacrifices in the Old Testament never really took away sins?
ILLUS: Well it’s kind of like this: (Holding up a credit card) This is a Credit Card. I used it just last week to buy groceries. Now, did the grocery store accept my credit card as payment? Of course, they did! But the card didn’t really PAY for anything did it? I mean, the store accepted it as payment - but at the end of the month… the bill comes due. And when it comes due - I have to pay for real then.
The sacrifices under the Old Testament Law were like a credit card. God accepted them as payment… but they really hadn’t paid for anything at all. It was at the cross that the bill came due. At the cross, Jesus became our ultimate blood sacrifice and His blood covered our sins for all time.
ILLUS: Galatians (and a lot of other books in the Bible) teaches us that the Law cannot cleanse us of sins… only Jesus’ blood can do that. Someone once explained it this way: In your bathroom, you have a mirror. And let’s say you’ve been out in the garden all afternoon and you come inside and go look at yourself in that mirror. As you look in the mirror you see all that dirt on your face.
Now, can you use that mirror to wash your face? No, it’s not designed to do that. The mirror’s only job is to reveal the dirt… not cleanse it. But underneath that mirror is a sink… that’s where the water flows, and that’s where you take soap and water from the sink… and you WASH face.
Now picture that mirror as representing the law. And just like that physical mirror wasn’t designed to wash your face, the Law wasn’t designed to cleanse your sins. The Law’s primary purpose was to reveal your guilt, just like the mirror revealed the dirt.
But beneath that mirror is the wash basin - and that’s where you wash away the dirt. And you know… we have a wash basin too. We have fountain filled with blood, drawn from Immanuel’s veins, and that’s where we lose all our guilty stains. (borrowed from an illustration by J. Vernon McGee)
(SING that WITH ME)
“There is a fountain filled with blood, Drawn from Immanuel’s veins; And sinners plunged beneath that flood. lose all their guilty stains. Lose all their guilty stains: Lose all their guilty stains. And sinners, plunged beneath that flood, lose all their guilty stains.
E’er since by faith I saw the stream Thy flowing wounds supply, redeeming love has been my theme, and shall be till I die: And shall be till I die, and shall be till I die; redeeming love has been my theme, and shall be till I die.”
Now, here’s the deal. You can’t be cleansed by works of the Law, or by any good works that you can think to do. Doing good things is what a Christians should do, and those good works will honor God – but those good works will never save you. Only the blood of Jesus can do that.
Romans 6 tells us that when we first became Christians, we died to our sin, were buried in the waters of baptism, and rose up from those waters a new creation. That’s part of what we do to accept Jesus as our Savior. BUT even now - as Christians - we’ll do things that make us ashamed and bowed down with guilt. How do we deal with that?
1 John 1:9 tells us that (now that we’re Christians) the way we remove the shame of our sins is “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” The blood of Jesus is constantly available to cleans of our sin and shame. But first you must belong to Jesus, that’s why we offer a time of invitation for you to belong to Christ.
INVITATION
