The Warning of the Kingdom 2

In Matthew 5, Jesus talks about the importance of obeying the law. He says that he did not come to destroy the law, but to fulfill it. There are three categories of laws in the Old Testament: moral, judicial/civil, and ceremonial. Jesus upheld all of these laws and said that our righteousness should exceed that of the religious leaders. The Old Testament is still valid and should be honored and studied. The stability of the law is emphasized, and Jesus says that not even a jot or tittle will pass away until all is fulfilled. The Reformation was based on the idea that Scripture alone is our authority, and faith alone is how we are saved. Chapter 5, Matthew Chapter 5. We started last week looking at the idea about this law and what's in effect, what's not in effect, do we have to obey the law, do we don't have to obey the law, all of these things that are going around in society today and unfortunately have crept even into our churches that so many people today, especially among Christians today, we've become confused, we've become kind of messed up in our thinking and so Jesus Christ, after giving out this idea of these Beatitudes and how to be blessed, He tells us that the result of that should be that we are salt and light. But He tells us that if the salt has lost our savor or if the light has been put under a bushel, then neither one of them is effective. And so He goes and He's taking that idea and then He says in verse 17, Think not that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets. I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot and one tittle shall no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. Whosoever therefore shall break one of the least commandments and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven. But whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I say unto you that except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven. Jesus, as we saw last week, He spoke of the supremacy of Scripture. We know that because He added the law and the prophet, we noticed last week that He is referring to the entire Old Testament, every bit of it. You remember that God spoke it. God gave them the law to Moses in Exodus chapter 20. He wrote it down. The prophets, on the other hand, took that law and they affirmed it. They held to it, and all of God's judgment and all of God's blessings was based upon the way that Israel obeyed the law. And so we come and He says there, very first thing, He says, think not. Think not. And I mentioned last week that sometimes we as Christians spend too much time thinking. He said, I did not come to destroy the law, but to fulfill the law. And so He tells us here, we understood that He's speaking, when you take the Old Testament law, and you take all of the Old Testament, and I believe this is where some of the confusion gets into, and hopefully today we're going to make some more clarifications in this, but basically in the Old Testament, the law was broken down into three categories. Number one, you had the moral law. You had the Ten Commandments that we all know of. Thou shalt not. Going down through there. The moral law applied to everyone. Everyone was to keep the moral law. Whether you was a Jew or whether you was a Gentile, you were obligated to the moral law because this is God's standard. The other law that we mention is the judicial or the civil law. And it was designed for Israel. It was designed, their judicial and civil law was for the purpose of taking that nation, showing them that they were the people of God, and showing how they were to be different from all of the other nations and all of the three nations that surrounded them. In that judicial and civil law, they had dietary laws. If you remember, there were certain things that the Jews could eat. There were certain things that the Jews could not eat. And they were to be different from everybody else. We also know that they had certain laws of how they were to dress. When they were to cover their head. When they were not to cover their head. What they were to wear. How they were to look. How were they not to look. And so, they had these laws that dealt with their dress. They had laws that dealt with their agriculture. Their practices for farming and raising animals. They had laws that dealt with their relationships amongst each other and with other nations. And it was these judicial or civil laws that set them apart from all other nations. And God's people are no longer under these because why? We're not Jews. They were giving for the nation of Israel. We are not the nation of Israel. After salvation, we are now the church. The body of Christ as I read in our text this morning. Scripture reading in Romans chapter 12. And God has brought us together as a people. As His body. And so therefore, we are not a nation. And so, all of that is now, instead of having the judicial and civil laws that were given to Israel to show them different. Now, we are under the authority of God. And God through His Holy Spirit tells us how we are to live. How we are to eat. How we are to dress. How we are to do these things as a church. As a body separate from the church of Israel. The third group of laws that they had were the ceremonial laws. The ceremonial laws, it brings us familiarity because in amongst that civil law, in amongst the judicial law, in amongst the moral law, what do you do if you break one of these? Well, God said, here's what we do. And He had ceremonies that they were to do. He had sacrifices. They had feasts that they celebrated. They had activities that pointed them to the Messiah. And so, Jesus Christ comes onto the scene. He tells them, because you can imagine, this new guy has now come into the scene. He is now preaching this authority of God amongst them. He is now no longer looking at the nation of Israel, but He is to become the Savior of the entire world by His own name. Jesus means that He is the Savior. And as He is doing that, the priests, the Pharisees, the religious people, the scribes, and even a lot of the Jewish people were getting confused. And they were saying, man, this guy here, and we'll look into this more next week, but this guy, he is coming in and radically changing everything that we know and understand. And Jesus said immediately, think not. Think not. I didn't come to destroy it. I came to fulfill it. And so in turn, He said, I come to testify. I did not destroy the law. I have fulfilled the law. And so Jesus Christ submitted Himself to every bit of the law. He submitted Himself to the moral law because it was for everybody. He committed Himself to the judicial and civil law because why? He was a Jew. He was born a Jew. And He also committed Himself to the ceremonial stuff. If you will look, Jesus always, the three times a year that the Jews were supposed to go up to Jerusalem, guess where Jesus was? He was in Jerusalem. Because He obeyed the ceremonial law. And so He said, I didn't come to do away with these things. I come to fulfill them. In other words, God had a standard in the Old Testament. And the scribes and the Pharisees were not keeping this standard. And so Jesus Christ said, I didn't come to lower the standard. I came to elevate our obedience to that standard. And so He said, I came to fulfill. And so it makes us ask the question, how do we testify the validity of Scriptures? Now living 2,000 years from when Jesus Christ made this statement, now knowing that God works in and through the church, what is the validity of the Old Testament? What is the validity of the Scripture that we have? And hopefully, that's what we are going to answer today. If we understand that the Scripture, the Old Testament, is still the Word of God, and it is still supreme, then you and I have some obligations. We need to receive it. We need to receive it. We need to honor it as God's Word. We need to study it as God's Word. We need to defend it as God's Word. But most importantly, we need to proclaim it. And so many people are wanting to shy away from the Old Testament. We're wanting to walk away from the Old Testament when the Old Testament is every bit of inspired as the New Testament. It is the same as God. God did not give us two books. He gave us one book. And so it is our job to accept it. And so understanding this supremacy of the law, I want us today to look at v. 18 and 19 and notice first of all in v. 18 this stability of the law. In other words, notice what he says. He says, "...for verily I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, one jot and one kettle shall in no wise pass from the law till all be fulfilled." Now he starts off with two words for verily. And it's kind of interesting because in King James it doesn't show up, but do you know what that word verily actually is? It's the Greek word amen. And so he just said, thing not, but understand that I came to fulfill it. God gave us the law. The prophets affirmed the law. And I came to fulfill the law. I came to accomplish the law in my life. And so now he says, for verily, he's saying amen. If you go back, and I want you to understand with me very, very pointedly this morning, that if you go back to the Reformation, what brought the Reformation on, that they left the Catholic Church, was based on five things. Five things. Now I want you to understand that we did not start in the Reformation. We go back past that. There were already Christians and churches that were meeting that already believed these things. But the Reformation was those that were attached to the Catholic Church that said we're coming out. And now all of a sudden, all of these years later, we have all of these different religions, we have all of these different branches and all of these different ideas, and every one of them is because of one thing and one thing only. Men have thought. And we've defined things. We've interpreted things. We've made things to fit our purpose, rather than proclaiming the Word of God. In that Reformation, one of the first things that they did, they had five Latin words that they used that started with the word sola. Sola scriptia. And I'm not a Latin speaker, but what that means is scripture alone. Scripture alone is our authority. They also had the teaching of sola fidei. Faith alone. Amen? We believe that only scriptures has our authority to live the life that we live. It is only by faith that you and I can be saved. It is only by faith that you and I can walk. There is absolutely nothing that we can do with works that can get us into heaven. It is solely alone by faith. The other one that they had was sola gratia, which is grace alone. Sinners are saved as the unearned gift of God's grace. Not as a result of works, but because of God's grace. Therefore, none of us have a reason to boast. Every one of you here this morning is because you have placed your faith in Jesus Christ and you are here because of grace. God has allowed you to be here. God has given you the ability to get out of bed, to get your transportation here. None of us deserve any of this, but we're here because of grace. And I can say that every one of us this week has probably sinned. Has probably broken God's law. But God says because of My grace, I'm going to give you mercy and allow you to come boldly into My throne room that you may make your request now. So we're all here this morning because of grace. The fifth and final one was solo Christo, which is Christ alone. In other words, it emphasizes the exclusivity of Jesus' role in salvation. Jesus said no one can come to the Father but by Me. There is not a religion that gives salvation. There is not a church that gives salvation. Salvation is found in Christ alone. So when it comes to the Reformation and all of these different religions and all of these different ideas that came out of it, they're all founded on these five basic principles. The problem is that we see branches today that are no longer practicing all five of these. They've allowed their ideas to change. And what begins to happen when people step away from the Word of God? All of these splits and all of these divisions and everything else. Even amongst us as Baptists and what I believe in our particular church. I can't speak for everybody, but I believe that we are a Scriptural New Testament church by faith and by practice. And so we go all the way back, but guess what? Even amongst those that we associate with, they have watered down and changed. And even amongst our own, there's disagreements when it comes to these five basic principles. And what Jesus Christ is saying is He's telling us that this Scripture... We have to understand that Scripture is our authority. It is a divine authority. God spoke this. Hebrews 4 says that God moved amongst men and they spake only what God had placed into their hearts and into their minds. In Exodus 20, it says God told Moses. He spoke and had Moses write it down. And so we have to understand that Scripture is authoritative and divine. We also have to understand that Scripture is able to save. When we look at Scripture, you have to believe that Scripture is able to save. You say, can Scripture really save someone? I believe so because Jesus said it. You say, where did Jesus say it? Well, in Luke 16, verse 27. He said, I pray thee therefore... If you remember, this is the rich man in Lazarus. You remember the rich man went to hell? Lazarus went to Abraham's bosom. And they're having this conversation and the rich man tells them, that man, would you send somebody back to my family? Because they need to know that hell is real. And Jesus said, I pray thee therefore, Father, that thou wouldest send... This is the rich man speaking. ...that thou wouldest send him to my father's house. For I have five brothers that he may testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of poor men. And notice what Jesus says through Abraham. Abraham saith unto him, They have Moses and the prophets. Let them hear them. In other words, when you read the Old Testament, everything of the Old Testament is a shadow of Jesus Christ. And through that, it draws us to Jesus Christ. It lets us know that hey, we are sinners. It lets us know, hey, I can't keep the law. I can't do this. This is too hard. God's standards are too tough. And so therefore, God says, here's the way to repent. Here's how to get back when you have messed up. And so we have to understand that Scripture also frees us from error. When it becomes our thinking and our interpretation of the Word of God, then guess what? Errors get in. But I want to tell you this morning that the Word of God has no errors. There is no mistakes in the Bible. And Jesus said unto them in Mark 12, 24, answering said unto them, Do you not therefore err because you what? Know not the Scriptures, neither the power of God. And so Jesus is telling them the reason that there's errors is because of your thinking. Because of your involvement. You don't know the Word of God. You're not studying the Word of God. And what happens is, and right now, so many people, and I'm probably going to address some of this tonight if you want to come back, but what is all of this going on in Israel and all of this? What does it mean? And how does it fit into prophecy? Is this the end of the world? And I'm seeing all kinds of Christians talk about this and discuss this. But where the problem is, is when we pull parts of the Scripture out, and we don't look at all of the Scripture, then we make assumptions. And there's a lot of assumptions going on right now. There's a lot of assuming. Now, we do know that we do not know the day or the hour. We do know that Christ is coming back. We do know that there has to be a treaty before the tribulation period. There are some things that has to be done. But as Brother Morris pointed out in class this morning very well, and if you'd like to hear his study, if he gives me permission, I've got it recorded, and I'll share it with you. But Ezekiel 38 says, beginning at the tribulation with Gog and Magog, that Russia is the one that comes down. Iran comes from the side. They're the ones that attack Israel. That's not what's happening right now. What's happening is Palestinians around Israel that is attacking Israel. And so Russia is not involved. Now, in the next week, they could all be involved. We can be involved. Everything can change within a week. But we can't just jump to the conclusion. And a couple of preachers, it was amazing because they finally admitted, I'm scared to say anything because I don't want to be proven wrong in 20 years. The question is, as Jesus Christ said, it's not about the events when the disciples asked Him in Acts 1, Lord, is this now when You're going to restore Your kingdom? He said, quit worrying about the events. Quit worrying about what's going on in the world and look for Me. Because the same way that I leave is the same way that I'm going to come back. And so if we are looking for Jesus Christ and we are living for Jesus Christ, the events in God's sovereignty is going to take care of itself. And if we really believe and we trust that Israel is the hub of everything that God does and decides, folks, our church ought to have been packed this morning. We ought to have people living for Jesus Christ, seeking for Jesus Christ. It's not about to determine is Christ coming back this week? It's to determine, am I prepared for Him to come back? Because guess what? He is coming back. And when He comes back, He's going to judge. And Jesus Christ lays it down affirmatively right here that our Scripture is good for defense. We can defend our beliefs and what we have based on Scripture. If you go back in Matthew 4, He used Scripture for His defense when Satan came to Him and put events in Jesus' life. What did Jesus always do? Every single time He went back to Scripture. And He said, You have heard. You have heard. You've read. You know. Talking to Satan himself. And therefore, He didn't give. So if Scripture was good enough for Jesus Christ to use to defend His life, then guess what? I think it's good enough for us to use also. So what is the significance of the law? Or let me back up just a second. Notice what He says there. Because I want you to understand this authority that He has in this. In verse 18, He says, For verily, think not that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets. I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill. Amen! I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass... heaven and earth pass heaven and earth pass. Underline that in your Bible. One jot and one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law till all be fulfilled. One jot and one tittle. What is He talking about? Well, first of all, we know heaven and earth has not passed away because you are here this morning. Earth is still here. God is still on His throne, right? He told us when we die, to be absent from this body is to be present with the Lord. But guess what? I'm here on earth. So I have to believe that heaven is still there. In Revelation, it's not till the end of the millennial reign. Then God says, I will destroy this heaven. I will destroy this earth. And what? I will establish a new heaven and a new earth. And He says, Amen! Think not, but testify that Christ did not come to destroy the world, but He came to fulfill the Word of God. And notice how He tells us to do that. It's His absolute authority. The Word of God we can trust. The Word of God we need to accept it. We need to proclaim it. I'm getting sick and tired and we're seeing it more and more in these last days. And we know that Paul said in the last days, there will be a falling away. And I don't believe that this is people that are going to be turning and cursing God. That doesn't come to the tribulation. I believe what's turning away is people, Christians, are walking away from the authority of the Scripture. And you read and you hear preachers all the time that says, Jonah is just a parable. Nobody could actually survive in the belly of a fish. If God said, Jonah was in the belly of a fish and God created the fish and God created Jonah, then guess what? I believe God is able to allow a man to live three days in a belly of a fish. So we accept it. So many people are trying to tear apart the Old Testament and that's not really true. God didn't really divide the waters so they could cross on dry land at the Jordan and the Red Sea. No, my Bible says it did. And my Bible says it was so deep and the walls were so great that it wiped out an entire army that was following them. Well, folks, we've got to believe that all Scripture, we cannot water it down. We cannot accept it. And so what is the significance? Why do we still hang on to this Old Testament? Why is it so very important? And I think what we have to do in order to understand the significance of the law, we have to ask ourselves a question. As Christians on this side of Jesus Christ, what is our relationship to the Old Testament? Right? That's the question. How really important is the Old Testament? What is my relationship to this Old Testament? And to kind of get it down into more even terms that I know this is what the world is asking today, what parts of the Old Testament am I obligated to keep? Right? Because we're not really worried about presenting our bodies a living sacrifice and doing whatever it takes. We want to know the boxes that I can check off that will show me that I'm a living sacrifice. But Jesus Christ said, think not that I've come to destroy the law. I'm not lowering the standard of the law. I am elevating it. And we have got so legalistic that we try to take the law so we can check it off and say, hey, I've done that. I've kept that. You remember the rich young ruler? I've done that all the days of my life. And Jesus said, well, good. Good. I'm glad you did it all the days of your life. I just have one more thing and you can be My disciple. And the rich man said, one thing. All of us can do one thing. Amen? Any of us can do one thing. It's the multitasking that has me a problem, but God, now one thing I can do. He said, go sell all of your goods and give them to the poor and come follow Me. Just trust Me for your food, your shelter, and your raiment. And the rich young ruler said, oh, wait a minute, Lord. That's a pretty big deal. Lord, I can't do that. I'm not going to fully trust You. And we look at that guy and we say, what an idiot. Right? But how many of us Christians today are living with the same exact attitude? We're trusting in our shelter. We're trusting in our 401ks. We're trusting in our food and our abilities to do. When Jesus Christ says, come, follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men. Well, Lord, I can't go over there because who's going to take care of this? I can't do that because I've got to take care of this. I've got a job to do. I've got to support my family. And what do we have? We have written into a culture where instead of people serving God and living for God, we have hired out the shepherds. And we say, we pay you to do that, preacher. And Jesus Christ said, guess what? I'm the good shepherd. You didn't hire me. I gave my life for you. And hopefully, hopefully, when there's preachers out there, including myself, when you look at our life, hopefully, we're not seen as hirelings. We give up everything in order that the Gospel of Jesus Christ can be preached and changed in your life. So are we free from the law? Or are we not free from the law? Well, look at what he says in verse 19. Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven. But whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. Now notice the first two words because it's very, very important. Whosoever. Who does whosoever speak of? Anybody and everybody, right? Jesus Christ said whosoever will believe on the Lord Jesus Christ shall be saved. John 3.16, For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that what? Whosoever. Whether you are a Jew, whether you are a Gentile, whether you are a good person, whether you are a bad person, whether you're educated or uneducated, whether you're a hard worker or you're a lazy bum, whosoever calls on the name of the Lord can be saved. And so he says whosoever. This is everybody. Remember, His disciples came to Him and He sat down. The others funneled in with stribes and Pharisees and Jews and Gentiles. All of these people are gathering around to hear the words of Jesus Christ and He says whosoever therefore. Now any time we see a therefore, I've said it. Austin says it all the time. You have to go and find out what it is therefore. It always points us backwards. And so when he says whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, what is he talking about here? In other words, remember in verse 17 he said God's Word is supreme above everything. God gave it. The prophets affirmed it. And Jesus Christ fulfilled it. And so all of the Old Testament is supreme. You also remember in verse 18 that it is also stable because God said it, because the prophets affirmed it, and because Jesus Christ fulfilled it, you and I can trust all Scripture. We can trust the Old Testament. We don't have to think that God has lied to us or hidden something from us or anything. And so based on that, that therefore the Bible is significant. Because it's not about a bunch of opinions. The Bible is a bunch of commands. And that's why so many people hate the Bible. Because so many of us don't like to be told what to do. A lot of us hate the church, not because we don't like hanging out with people, but we don't like someone telling us what we have to do. And a lot of people don't like the preacher because they don't like being told what to do. But guess what? All I can do is preach to you the Word of God. And it's not suggestions. It's commands. And so it's not me commanding you. It's the Word of God. It's not the church commanding you. It is the Word of God. And so it comes back to the authority and the supremacy of the Word of God. It's not about us. But guess what? We unfortunately are the middlemen. We're the ones that are in the middle of this fight. My job is not to give my opinion. My job is to preach the Word of God. What you and I do with God's moral law will bring upon our lives a direct effect. When we look at this, see, as we study this, Jesus gives two categories of individuals. He said there are first of all those that are lawbreakers. And this is the negative side. There are people in the world, and I believe that He's talking to even saved people and Christians here, and He puts that in the whosoever. There are some people that are lawbreakers. In other words, what does He say there? Look exactly what He says. He says, Think not that I am come to destroy the law of the prophets. I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill for whosoever in that. And so Jesus Christ didn't come to destroy, but to fulfill. And so these lawbreakers, that's what the therefore is going back to. There are those that say that the Word of God, the Old Testament, is not relevant today. There are those that say we don't have to obey the law or keep the law. Jesus said I did not come to loose the law, to destroy it, to take away the responsibility to the law. And He says if any of you, whosoever does that, loses an individual from the law, He says you will be the least in the kingdom. Now the good thing is, is guess what? The good thing is, is you won't lose your salvation. You're not going to get kicked out of the kingdom for loosing the law. But guess what? You are going to be least in that kingdom. Jesus used the same verb in this verse that He used in that verse in verse 17 for destroy. To destroy. But He adds a superlative before that. The word in 17 to destroy is luo. And then He comes back down and He uses the same word in verse 19, but He adds kata, which is a superlative before that. The kata intensifies it. In other words, what He is saying is this. I did not come to utterly nullify the law. I did not come to utterly destroy the law. I did not come to utterly devastate the law or to abrogate the law. So in verse 17, He is saying I did not come in any way, shape, form, or fashion to loosen you from the law. And He wants us to make sure that we understand that. However, and we know that's true because James 2, verse 10 says, Whosoever shall keep the whole law and yet offend in what? One point. He is guilty of all. So there is not one single part of the law that God has not released us from. He didn't come to destroy it. We also know that He tells us in James 3, verse 1, My brethren, be not many masters, knowing that we shall receive the greater condemnation. That master is teacher. In other words, not only do you do away with parts of the law and say this is not important or I'm not under the authority of that part, but He also says those that teach. And if you teach the law, then guess what? You are even under greater condemnation because you're making disciples. And you're making followers. See, what you say in the coffee shop or whatever about the Word of God, God's going to hold you accountable. But what I say in this pulpit amongst many disciples, guess what? I'm held to a whole different level. Because God says, guess what? I'm making disciples. I'm making followers. And so man, it's a greater condemnation. And so He says those that do away and don't practice the entire law and those that don't teach the entire law, when it comes to the kingdom, you are going to be leased. And so these are the lawbreakers. But He doesn't stay with the negative. Now He goes to the positive. And He says there are law keepers. There are law keepers. And the law keepers are going to be the greatest. They're going to be the greatest in the kingdom. Now, right there, we have two different contractions there. We have lawbreakers and leased and law keepers and greatest. Do you want to be leased in God's eyes? Or do you want to be great in God's eyes? Jesus said it determines on what you do with the law. Your position in there. You say, well, give me some more Scripture, so I'm going to do that because I don't want this to be my opinion. Paul, right in the church at Thessalonica, says you are witnesses. And God also... And notice these next three words. How holy, justly, and unblameable we have behaved ourselves among you that believe. In other words, what Paul is saying, Paul is saying you have watched my ministry. And you have seen that I try my best to live to the moral law. The Ten Commandments. Because what was the purpose of the law? The purpose of the law is because God said you must be holy as I am holy. And how do we begin to be holy as God is holy? And he laid out Ten Commandments. This is where you start. And Paul says, I have subjected myself under the law for your witness in order that you might believe. He also goes over in chapter 4 and verse 7, and he says, For God hath not called us unto uncleanness, but unto holiness. Paul lived in the fact that he knew there was awaiting for him a position in the kingdom. And Paul, even in his letters, if you go through and study, Paul mentions five crowns that he was going to achieve. In other words, one of these days when he stood at the judgment seat of Jesus Christ, he's going to look at the life of Paul, and he's saying based on what you do and what you teach, there's five crowns that I'm going to earn that I look forward to Jesus handing me when I get there. You remember the crown of life? And he also said anyone can have the crown of life. You know how you get the crown of life? By looking for the appearing of Jesus Christ. By living in such a way knowing that Jesus Christ, the Master, the Ruler, the Lord, is going to come back to look at and to take over what you and I have been stewards of. This is not our earth. This is not our America. This is not our church. We are stewards over what God has given us. And he said I'm going to come back and I'm going to see how you took care of this kingdom here on this earth. Remember, the king right now is seated at the right hand of the Father. But one day the king's coming back. He also said you can have the crown of righteousness. The crown of righteousness. And he said not me only, but also those of you that believe. What are we believing? What is righteousness? Righteousness is being determined wholly before God. In other words, there's nothing that I can do to be holy before God, right? I can't keep the law. It's impossible. The only thing I can do with the law is lower its standards. So what? It makes me look better, but I'm still guilty. I still cannot keep the simplest of the watering down. And so he said guess what? If you believe that Jesus Christ is your righteousness, that He paid the debt for your sins, then you can receive the crown of righteousness also. He mentioned the crown of rejoicing. He mentioned the runner's crown to those that not only finished their race, but finished it honorably by obeying the rules. When you run a race, guess what? It's not about getting to the finish line. And that's what a lot of Christians are. We're looking at the finish line. But Jesus Christ said guess what? Before you enter a race, you also have to understand what are the rules. What distance do I have to run? Am I allowed to do it all on foot? Or can I get on a bicycle? Or can I jump in a taxi and get there quicker? See, we have to know what the rules of that particular race are. God has put us in a race, and guess what? He's given us the rules. And so those that obey the rules receive the runner's crown. And then he mentioned an incorruptible crown. And so why was Paul expecting crowns? Because he had not broken God's law willfully or unrepentantly. When Paul knew that he had broken God's law, what did Paul do? He repented on the road to Damascus. That's why Paul recognized himself as what? I am the chiefest of all sinners. Read his epistles. He said, I was a blasphemer. Everything that God said was his purpose, I went against. I even went so much from being a blasphemer to I was a murderer. I had Christians killed for their testimony. See, every one of these. Is blasphemy a sin in the moral law? The Ten Commandments? Yes, it is. But Paul confessed that, right? Was murder a sin? Yes, it was. But Paul confessed that. And he said, guess what? Because I have done these things and I have broken these areas of the moral law, but what did I do? I threw myself on the mercy of the court and I accepted Jesus Christ as my personal Savior. How did he respond in Acts 9? He immediately said, Lord, Lord, what's going on? And when God told him what to do, what did Paul do? He did it. Even though he was blind, he turned himself over to Him. He said, I may have broken the law before, but now that I've met You, now I'm going to follow You. And Paul did it the rest of his life. He followed Jesus to the best of his ability. So many people say that we are sinners because we're still in the flesh, right? Well, I'm in the flesh, so guess what? I'm a sinner and I'll always be a sinner. And so, man, as Christians, we don't even need to deal with holiness until we get our resurrected bodies, right? When Jesus Christ gives me my glorified body, then I won't have any problems sinning. But that's hogwash. That's garbage is what the world is giving us today. These are the least. These are doing away with parts of the law to make ourselves better. The entire New Testament, along with the epistles, make it abundantly clear because of reputation that Jesus Christ at His death did not end our obligation to the law. We are still to be holy. We're to still live the way that we're supposed to be doing. And so, this is the question that's asked today. Did the cross, did when Jesus Christ cried, It is finished, was our obligation to the law put to death? The answer's no. The answer's no, and let me show you. Because the epistles make it abundantly clear. They teach two paradoxical truths. And if you follow the epistles, it gives you and illustrates to you that the law is tremendously important. Peter, John, Paul, James, and Jude, all five writers of the epistles in the New Testament after the Gospels that were written after the crucifixion of the cross, every one of them made it abundantly clear that we are to obey the law. That we're still to live holy. Ephesians 2.14 that we just went through. He said, for He is our peace. Who is He? Jesus Christ. Who hath made both one, and notice the next phrase, and hath broken down the wall of partition between us. In other words, what is a partition? A partition is a middle wall. It is a wall that separates one side from the other. And Jesus said, I am your peace. I am your peace. I am your peace. I broke the partition that was between Me and you. See, when we couldn't get to a holy God because we are sinners, a holy God came and became flesh, but lived without sin. He was our peace. He appeased everything that God said was guilty with the law because He lived perfectly. And guess what? A fleshly body. How did He do that? Because He was obedient to the Father. And He followed the Father. In Acts chapter 10, you remember what happened in Acts chapter 10 with Peter? He went up on the top of the roof to take a nap while his lunch was being prepared, and he fell asleep. And you remember this sheep come down out of heaven? And it had all of these clean and unclean animals on it. And all of a sudden, God looks at Peter in this deep sleep, thinking about food, sleeping, waiting for his food to be ready, said, Peter, arise and eat. And Peter said, Not so, Lord. There's unclean animals on that sheep. And God said again, Peter, rise and eat. And Peter rebuked them again. And God said a third time, Peter, rise up and eat. And what I call clean, don't you call unclean. I'm not picking and choosing on this sheep what you can eat and what you can't eat. I have determined that you can eat it all. And so it's very important that we understand and then what happened on the cross of Calvary. When we look at that, Peter was not to call the unclean what God had sanctified. And then we see what happened when he cried, It is finished on the cross of Calvary. Mark 15 tells us the veil of the temple was ripped, rent, torn into from where? Top to bottom. Now you have to understand in the temple, this curtain is huge. Nobody was that tall. Ladders wasn't allowed inside the temple. And so it's significant that it was ripped from the top to the bottom because it signified only God could tear the veil. What was the veil? The veil was the thick, heavy curtain that separated the holy place from the holy of holies. The only one allowed to go into the holy of holies was the high priest one day of a year after he has made atonement for himself, after he has washed himself, after he had sanctified himself for this one particular job. He took off his everyday clothes. He put on special clothes. And then he sacrificed an animal on behalf of all of the people. And only after he was sanctified, then he took that blood and he walked into the holy place. And then he would walk into the holy of holies and he would take that blood and he would pour it on the mercy seat that covered the Ark of the Covenant, that inside the Ark of the Covenant was found the Ten Commandments, the moral law. Once a year, he sanctified himself, went to God on behalf of the people, and he said, Father, on behalf of everybody, whether they admit it or not, we are all sinners. And so on behalf of the entire nation, I come and I take Your blood, Your sacrifice, and I want Your mercy upon us as a people. Because we can't keep the law. But when Jesus Christ, it is finished that veil was rent. You and I now don't have to go to a high priest one time a year. You and I now have the boldness to walk with boldness into the throne room of God, into the holy of holies right now because of His mercy and because of His grace. See, that priest wasn't pure. He went through the ritual of purification to sanctify himself to show him that you don't just come to God. There's some preparation. How many of you took yesterday, and even this morning, or took even five minutes and prepared to come to church this morning? See, if we don't prepare, then guess what? We're not able to meet God. And we walk out of here and say, man, that preacher preached long, or I didn't like the songs, or God didn't speak to me, right? Why? Because we wasn't prepared to see God. It takes preparation. I prayed before. I prayed in the morning. I get up early on Sunday mornings in order to pray and prepare, to look over my notes, to tweak things, to think about things. I get here early so that I can get alone by myself and think and prep and just make sure that God, before I get before these people, God, is there anything I need to do first? I can't ask people to do something that I'm not willing to do. Colossians 2.16 says, Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of a holy day, or in a new moon, or the Sabbath days. What's he talking about there? He's talking about Israel's feast. When were their feasts established? They're always established based on the new moon. They're always established based on the Sabbath, the seventh day of the week. You know why Israel was caught off guard? Because they were ending their Sabbaths last Saturday morning. In other words, they had been set apart focusing on God, and so when did the enemy attack? When they did what? When they're coming off of their Sabbath on Saturday morning as the sun rises and the people are starting to get out and to go, they were not prepared. Which is a great time to attack the enemy, isn't it? That's how many of you end up seeming to be attacked more on Monday morning than you are on Thursday morning. Because when we get with God, we think, man, we're invincible, right? And we get like old Peter. Nothing's going to affect me. And then all of a sudden, Satan and something else just jumps up there and says, hey, I'll show you. So look at what he says in Colossians. Blotting out the handwriting of the ordinance that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to the cross. What did he nail to the cross? The law? No. He nailed the accusation and the result of the law. The handwriting. The accusations against us. The fact that you and I are guilty of blasphemy. The fact that you and I are guilty of murder. The fact that you and I are guilty of lying. You and I are guilty of covetousness. He took all of these things where it says, Donnie is guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty. And he took and he nailed all of the wages on the cross. The wages of sin, of breaking the moral law, is what? Death. And every one of us is going to die. Right? Because why? For all have sinned. So you're going to die. I hate to tell you that. The only thing that's going to save you from death is if Jesus Christ comes and takes you early if you're His child. Otherwise, we're all going to meet our Maker. And I know I'm out of time, and so I'll wrap things up. I've got a lot more. I'll just shove it to next week. Look at Romans 6.14. For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under the law, but under grace. What shall not have dominion over you? Sin. In other words, because I put my faith and trust in Jesus Christ, guess what? I should be able to live holy and live to the law, but when I mess up, because I am human, guess what? It's not the wages of my sin is not going to be death. I can only die once. That's physically. Go to the end of the Revelation. There's a second death. And see, God is taking the accusation. Why? Because I accepted Him as my Savior. All of my trust is not in what Donny Haynes can do. It's what Jesus Christ did on the cross of Calvary. And so that's what He is explaining, and that's what He is trying to tell them. You can lower the standards, but lowering the standards doesn't mean you obey the law. It's just you lowered the standard. And Jesus Christ said, I didn't come to lower the standard, but I came to raise it back up to where you can see that you cannot keep the law. Romans 7 and 6 says, But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead, wherein we were hailed, that we should serve in newness of spirit, in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the... What? The letter. In other words, what He is saying is, is that God took and nailed it to the cross. He blotted out our transgressions in order that we might serve Him appropriately, openly, and honestly, and wholly, and just as Paul did, without having to go down and say, did I do this law? Did I do this law? Did I show this to the letter? In other words, what did He start out with with the Beatitudes? Blessed are the poor in spirit, for they shall inherit the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are the poor in spirit. In other words, in order to get into the kingdom, what do we have to do? We have to realize that there is nothing good in us. We can't keep the law. But the scribes and the Pharisees, and we'll look at this next week, the scribes and the Pharisees thought they were keeping the law. They were doing good, right? Even the people looked at the Pharisees and said, man, if I could just be as good as the Pharisee, right? But then Jesus Christ comes back, these Pharisees and these scribes, and we'll talk about it next week in verse 20, but He says, unless your righteousness exceeds their righteousness, you won't just be the least in the kingdom, you're not even going to make it to the kingdom. Wow! And man, He puts down the exclamation point. Boom! And then He says to the scribes and the Pharisees, for you have heard, thou shalt not murder. But I say unto you that whosoever is angry has already committed murder. See, what Jesus Christ is trying to tell them, and He does it all the way through Matthew. Matthew is written to show that Jesus Christ is King of kings and Lord of lords. He deserves the throne of Israel, of David, the leader of Israel, but He's also the king of the world. He is above all of the kings and all of the lords. And He wrote Matthew to show that. And if you go through Matthew, you will see He is constantly getting on to the scribes and the Pharisees because what did they do? They took the letter of the law, and then do you realize they took out of the law that they had, they literally came up with 613 laws that God had given them. 213 that were positive. 365 that were negative. One for every day out of the year. And they established this to be the law. And then what did they do? They kept breaking down them laws and breaking them down, adding more and more and more laws. And God said, I didn't come to do that. And what you're doing is wrong because we have the Old Testament. It is supreme. Not what your traditions are. Not what you think. Not what's your opinion, but you have the Scriptures. Think not, but testify that He came to fulfill it. And so next week, I'm going to tell you what part of the law are we obligated to. And I mentioned this last week, but we'll look at it more in detail next week. When Israel, Jesus Christ, ascended to the Father, what happened about 30 years after He ascended? Israel was attacked and they leveled the temple. And do you realize since AD 70, Israel has not been, even though they are a nation, in God's eyes, they are still not a nation because why? They're not sacrificing. They're not obeying the civil law. They're not taking care of their ceremonial law. They're practicing their feast. But how can you practice a feast without sacrifices? That's why the millennial is going to be so very important in the establishment because it's going to give them an opportunity to see that Jesus Christ Himself sits on the throne. And they don't have to look at the sacrifices when they've got Jesus Christ sitting there on the throne. And that's what He's trying to tell them. I didn't come to fit into your traditions and opinions. I came to raise the standard. God's standards has not changed. So we are now the church. Israel has been set aside. So there is none of this civil law that would be different. He said now the Holy Spirit guides us. But you know what? Paul talks about it. Peter talks about it. Guess what? They give us dietary laws as Christians. They give us how to dress. How to look. Go read Timothy. Timothy's very clear. Paul writing to Timothy how we are supposed to act. How we are supposed to dress. How we are supposed to behave. That separates us as a church, the body of Christ, from everything else. And so we're not under the judicial or civil law. When that veil ripped, the ceremonial law went away. There are no more sacrifices because Jesus Christ is that sacrifice. But listen, the moral law has never been done away with, weakened, or watered down. It still stands for us today. The question is, have you accepted Jesus Christ? Have you accepted the fulfillment? Because you're still obligated to the law. But guess what? For the wages of sin is death. And if you do not accept Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, it tells us in Revelation 20 that sin and death, the second death, sin and those that did not trust Jesus Christ are cast into the lake of fire, which is the what? The second death. And what Jesus Christ is saying is, yes, you are still under the law, but guess what? It's already been marked. It's just paid in full. So I don't have to live in the guilt. I don't have to be worrying about did I do that right or did I not do that right or what? No, but do I keep the law? Yes, because why? People are looking at me to see Jesus Christ. And Jesus Christ said, I came to exalt the law. And you and I as Christians, if we're living like Jesus Christ and saying that we really are Christian, then we ought to look like Jesus Christ. So therefore, we are obligated to the law. Understand, we'll explain it more next week as we stand and have a verse of invitation. The important thing this morning is to know, do you know Jesus Christ? Do you know Jesus Christ? As we sing.