Laying The Foundation
Part 4 - Faith and Works And tonight our proclamation
is directly related to the theme of what I will be speaking about. It’s taken from Ephesians
chapter 2 verses 8 through 10. Ephesians 2:8–10: For by grace we have
been saved through faith and that not of ourselves;
it is the gift of God, not of works,
lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship,
created in Christ Jesus for good works
which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. Now I’m going to continue with
the theme that I started on in our previous session,
that is, examining the six great foundation
doctrines of the Christian faith which are listed in
Hebrews 6:1-2. I’ll just recapitulate them. Repentance from dead works,
faith toward God, the doctrine of baptisms,
laying on of hands, resurrection of the dead
and eternal judgment. In our previous session
I dealt with the theme: Through Repentance to Faith. I dealt with repentance
and I began to deal with faith. I want to go on this
evening dealing with faith and the theme is:
Faith and Works. Two simple words that are used very commonly
in the New Testament and yet it is truly amazing how many of God’s people do
not have a clear understanding of the relationship
between faith and works. Let me say that by faith we mean
simply that which we believe, by works we mean
simply that which we do. What is the correct relationship between what we believe
and what we do? I want to begin by just briefly
stating the gospel. So many of us use
the phrase, the Gospel, and we talk about it as if it’s
something that we absolutely know clearly what we mean. In actual fact, I think a lot of
people speak about the Gospel and they’re not aware
of what the Gospel actually is. It’s stated very clearly by Paul in 1 Corinthians 15
verses 1 through 5. 1 Corinthians 15:1–5: Moreover, brethren, I declare to you
the Gospel which I preach to you which also you received
and in which you stand, by which also you are saved
if you hold fast that word which I preached to you
unless you have believed in vain. And then Paul goes on
to state the gospel. And the Gospel is stated in
three simple historical facts, it’s not complicated. For I delivered to you first of all
that which I also received, that Christ died for our sins
according to the Scriptures, that He was buried and that
He rose again the third day, according to the Scriptures. So the Gospel consists of
three simple historical facts. Christ died for our sins, He was buried, and He was
raised again the third day. And where those statements are not
made, the Gospel is not preached there’s a great deal of
so-called gospel preaching which never actually
contains the Gospel. Those are the three vital facts that we need to lay hold of:
Christ died for our sins, He was buried, and He was
raised again the third day. And the first attesting authority is not the eyewitnesses who
saw Him after He was raised, but the Scriptures.
That’s the ultimate authority. Paul says twice,
according to the Scriptures. Then he goes on to list
various people who were witnesses
of His resurrection. But bear in mind the final
authority in all matters of faith is the Scriptures. Now, Paul goes on to explain, that if we will receive these
simple facts by faith, without works,
without what we do, righteousness will
be imputed to us. We will be reckoned righteous. It is very important
to see that Paul says, it’s not by what we do
but it’s by what we believe. It’s not by works,
but it’s by faith. And he goes on
in Romans chapter 4 to discuss the lesson that
we can learn from Abraham, for it says that Abraham had righteousness
imputed to him by faith. And Paul then begins to discuss
the lesson that we learn from this. And he says in Romans chapter 4, Now to him who works the wages are not counted as grace,
but as debt. If you work for somebody
and receive your wages that’s not grace, that’s
something that’s owed to you. But he says that’s not how
we achieve righteousness. It’s not by our works, it’s not
something we’ve earned. And then he goes on with
a most amazing statement. And I tell people,
if you’ve never been surprised by what you read in the Bible
you’ve never really read the Bible. because it contains the
most surprising statements. And so Paul goes on to say,
in Romans 4:5: But to him who does not work but believes on him
who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted
for righteousness. So, if you want your faith to be
counted to you for righteousness, what’s the first thing
you have to do? Stop working. To him who does not work. As long as you think you
can earn it by what you do, you will not receive it. This is the hardest thing
for religious people. We’re so used to the idea we’ve got
to do something to earn God’s favor. Favor cannot be earned. Grace cannot be earned.
By definition they cannot be earned. And so, the first thing
you have to do, if you want to be reckoned
righteous by God, is stop trying. Do not work. That’s a startling statement
to many people, but then the Bible
is a startling book. Much more startling
than most of us realize. Now, what is the real relationship between faith and works?
It’s not that works are unimportant. It’s the order in which we come. Ruth and I quoted a passage
from Ephesians chapter 2 which I will go back to. Ephesians 2:8-10: For by grace you have
been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves;
it is the gift of God. We can’t even boast about
the fact that we had faith, because we only had faith
because God gave it to us. It is not something we can
produce from ourselves. And then it says, not of works,
lest anyone should boast. And many places where
it speaks about people who believe they’ve been
made righteous by their works, Paul says:
No, lest they should boast. You see, a religion of works
fosters human pride. And pride is the great basic sin. And so God has ordained
a way of being made righteous which does not foster our pride. If you consider the people who
have rather complicated religions, and I don’t want to
name any of them because I don’t want to appear
to attack anything, but basically, the more difficult their religion is,
the prouder they are. They’re doing something really hard
and difficult: fasting, sacrificing, and so on. And this fosters pride. God resists the proud
but gives grace to the humble. So God has devised a way of
being found righteous with Him that does not foster our pride. I don’t know whether you’ve
ever noticed but basically let’s talk about Christians.
Christians who are very legalistic, very insistent on rules, are often not very loving people,
have you ever noticed that? If you went to them for love
you might not get much. Actually, legalism and love
are more or less opposites. And so, we have to be
on our guard continually against anything that
nurtures pride. And religion basically
does nurture pride. If it’s religion without
the grace of God, it nurtures our pride. But, there is a place for works. They’re not unimportant, it’s just
to get them in the right order. Ephesians 2:10 says it as
clearly as anything I know: For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus
for good works which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. So when God has created
us anew in Christ, and the Bible says if anyone is
in Christ he is a new creation, then God has appropriate works
prepared for that new creation. But the old carnal
nature cannot walk, walk in the good works
which God has prepared. So you have to be
created anew by faith before you can walk
in the good works. Then the good works
become extremely important. But you have to
get the order right. First of all, the new
creation through faith, then the good works which
God has prepared for us. I don’t know whether
you’ve realized, you really don’t need to work out
what you should do for God if you’ve become a
new creature in Christ, because God has got it
already worked out. What you have to do is find out the works that God had
prepared for you beforehand. Don’t try and make your
own plan for your life, find out what God’s plan is. Many times it’s very different
from what we would expect. Let me give you a brief example
from my own experience. I was an only child, I had
no brothers or sisters. I grew up in boarding schools
from age nine to age twenty-five. I hardly met girls except I had
a few girlfriends, but basically, girls were a mysterious entity
that I didn’t know how to relate to. But when God called me I married
a lady who had a children’s home and the same day I married her, I became adoptive
father to eight girls. You see, you would
not have thought that was the appropriate
thing for Derek Prince. If I’d planned my own life that
never would have come into it. But it was the good works which God prepared
for me to walk in. And I find satisfaction,
though I’ve failed many times, in knowing that basically I
have walked in the good works which God prepared for me. Now, let’s come to a
little bit of definition and here is where we
really need clear thinking. In fact, you really need
clear thinking all the time! How many of you
would agree with that? Well now, we need to discuss
briefly the nature of grace. Grace is a beautiful word
but it’s often been abused. I was preaching once in a certain
church, and I said, as a matter of fact, the churches that call
themselves grace churches, often know the least about grace. And then I woke up to the fact that I
was preaching in one of those churches! Nevertheless, it remains true. A lot of people who
use the word grace don’t have any idea
of what it really means. The root meaning of grace
is comeliness, it’s beauty. And then it’s a beauty
that God imparts to us because we believe in Him. He makes us beautiful
with His grace. And then Paul says—here’s
the crux—in Romans 11:6: If by grace,
then it is no longer of works. Otherwise,
grace is no longer grace. In other words, in my language,
you cannot earn grace. Anything you can earn
is not grace. This is somewhat
humbling for many of us. We’ve got to depend on
His grace, we cannot earn it. Nothing we can do can ever
obtain for us the grace of God. But by grace we have
been saved through faith. And just when you’re getting excited
about the fact that you have faith, remember Paul goes on to say: and that not of us,
it is the gift of God. You have nothing
whatever to boast of if you’ve been saved by faith. God has done this to protect you from the greatest sin of all
which is pride. Now, I want to consider the
relationship between faith and works, what we believe and what we do. And as far as I know
all I’m going to say, will be taken directly
from the New Testament. and yet for many of you it will
be startling and even shocking. I’ve discovered this: merely to preach the simple
New Testament message of salvation by grace, is startling to most
professing Christians. I remember once saying, in a
congregation about this size: Of course, Christianity
is not a set of rules. And then I looked at those
people, and they were shocked. I think they would have been less
shocked if I’d said, God is dead. Their concept of Christianity, was a set of rules.
Maybe you have the same concept. I want to tell you Christianity
is not a set of rules. you can’t achieve it
by rules. Let’s look at what Paul says,
in Romans chapter 3 verse 20. The theme of Romans,
incidentally, is righteousness. This is the central
issue of Romans, how can we become
righteous before God? Many, many centuries before,
Job had cried out in his agony, in Job chapter 9 verse 2: How can a man
be righteous before God? His religious friends
all ridiculed the idea that anybody could ever
be righteous before God. But God heard that cry and many, many years later,
through the epistle to the Romans, He answered the question: How can
a man be righteous before God? And it is not
by keeping a set of rules. In Romans 3:20, Paul says: Therefore by the deeds of the law,
no flesh [that’s no human being] will be justified in his sight
for by the law is the knowledge of sin. Now I’ve read this translation
which is the New King James. The NIV essentially
says the same. Both of them put in two words
which are not there. I’ve learned Greek since
I was ten years old, I am confident in what I’m saying. They put in the phrase
the law twice. The law. Paul doesn’t say that. He says: Therefore by the deeds
of law no flesh will be saved, for by law is the
knowledge of sin. You say, Well, what was
the purpose of the law? The purpose of the law
was God’s diagnostic. To expose your problem. To expose that you have
a problem which is sin. The law can diagnose your problem,
but it cannot solve it. It can only be solved by grace. So you need the law
to get you to the point where you see you need grace.
That’s its purpose. James says in chapter 2,
verse 10-11 of his epistle James 2:10–11: For whoever shall
keep the whole law, [Now he’s talking
about the law of Moses] and yet stumble in one
point he is guilty of all. For he who said do not commit
adultery also said do not murder. Now, if you do not commit
adultery but you do murder you have become
a transgressor of the law. You see what James is saying? You either keep the whole law
or you don’t keep the law. To keep ninety-nine percent of
the law is not to keep the law. The law is one whole system. Incidentally, none of us come
anywhere near keeping 99 percent. The Orthodox Jews say there are 613 commandments
that you need to observe. And privately they’ll admit to you that they don’t observe
many more than about 32. No one today alive on the earth
keeps the entire law of Moses. No one ever has done
except one person. You know His name.
Jesus, that’s right. He said to these people in the day:
Which of you convicts me of sin? They couldn’t answer Him.
He’s the only one who kept the law perfectly.
You and I cannot do it. I discovered when I was in the
British Army, and I got saved, and I began to talk to
people about being saved, they all began to think in terms
of religion not of salvation. I would find, generally speaking,
each one of them would trot out a little list
of rules that he kept. That was his righteousness. It was especially tailored
to their own situation. If there was something
wrong they were doing they didn’t include
that rule in their list. I saw this is how the
human mind thinks. I’m righteous by
keeping a set of rules. No, you’re not. You could be if you
kept the whole rule. But you don’t, no one does. So you cannot say, I keep so much of the law
and that’s all that’s needed, because the law
is one single system. You either keep it
or you don’t keep it. If you could keep it all, God
would consider you righteous. But, you can’t. So, you’re shut up to the
alternative which is grace. Something you cannot earn. I’ve already pointed out,
and I return to this point, in Romans 3:20:
Therefore by the deeds of law no flesh will be
justified in his sight. Don’t ever try to achieve
righteousness with God by keeping a set of rules. That’s what it means
because you will fail. If your rules are right,
you can’t keep them. If your rules are wrong,
you’re not made righteous by keeping wrong rules.
Do you understand? Now, let’s go on from there. The next thing I want to say, and this is where people
begin to get shocked, His law and grace are
mutually exclusive. You cannot benefit from both,
it has to be one or the other. If you go on in Romans
chapter 6, to verse 14, it says: For sin shall not have
dominion over you, for you are not under law
but under grace. So those are two mutually
exclusive alternatives. You can be under law
or you can be under grace but you cannot be
under both at the same time. And if you’re under law
you’re not under grace, and if you’re not under grace
you'e not under law. The implications of what
Paul says are very far reaching. He says sin shall not
have dominion over you for you are not under law
but under grace. The implication is,
if you are under law sin would have
dominion over you. The only way to escape
from the dominion of sin is to stop trying to keep a law
and avail yourself of God’s grace. I told you this would be shocking. I can see some of you
are already a little bit shocked. Now in Romans 8:14 Paul says: For as many as are led
by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. Who are the real children of God? Those who are led regularly
by the Holy Spirit. That’s the alternative
to keeping a set of rules. You can keep the set of rules or you can be led by the Holy
Spirit, but you can’t do both. There’s a little illustration that
I use which comes to my mind. I think I’ll use it just
to make this vivid. There’s this young man, he’s just
graduated from a Bible school. He’s got a degree in theology.
He’s strong and healthy. And he’s got to make his way from a certain point
to a certain destination. God says to him,
Now you’ve got two alternatives. You can either use the map, or you can avail yourself
of a personal guide. This young man says,
Well, I’m pretty smart, amd I’ve got a degree in theology. I know how to read maps. I’ll take the map
I don’t need the guide. When he starts off the sun is
shining, the birds are singing, but about three days
later, it’s dark. It’s the middle of the night, he’s in a forest,
he’s on the verge of a cliff, and he doesn’t know whether he’s
facing north, south, east or west. And a gentle voice says to him:
Can I help you? Do you know who that is? The Holy Spirit,
the personal guide. So he says, Holy Spirit,
I really need you! The Holy Spirit gets him
out of his position and they start off
on the road again. Then after a little while, he says to himself,
You know, I think I was a bit silly. I could have handled that
without any help. I really didn’t need to panic. He looks around and his
guide is no longer there. He’s on his own.
So, well I can make it. So, another three days later
he’s in the middle of a bog. Every step he takes he sinks
deeper and he can’t get out. The gentle voice says to him:
Perhaps you need me now. Oh, Holy Spirit,
please help me! Only You can get me out of this. And so he goes on with the Holy Spirit walking on the way that
leads to his destination. Then he says to the Holy Spirit,
to his guide, he says, You know, I’ve got a
very excellent map. Maybe I could share
the map with you. And the guide says, Thank you but I
don’t need the map, I know the way. Besides, I was the one
who made the map. You see the message? How long will it take before we
realize we cannot do it on our own? It’s not our good works.
It’s not our keeping rules. It’s the Holy Spirit,
the Spirit of grace. As many as are regularly
led by the Holy Spirit these are the sons of God. And then in Galatians 5, Paul returns to this theme.
And I want to say to you this theme is one of the major
themes of the New Testament. Anybody that has never really mastered this theme
is in a state of twilight. I think that’s where
a lot of Christians live, they live in a kind of twilight, halfway between law and grace
and they don’t know which is which, and they don’t know how to avail
themselves of God’s grace. But in Galatians 5 in verse 18, Paul says:
But if you are led by the Spirit you are not under the law. He said earlier, as many as are led by
the Spirit, these are the sons of God. So, you’ve got the choice.
You can live like a son of God be led by the Holy Spirit, or, you can turn your back on the
Holy Spirit and try to keep the law. But you cannot combine
the two. This is the essence of what I’m trying to say to you. This
is where people get into a twilight. They’re half trusting grace and half trusting their own little
set of rules, which they’re keeping. Please understand I’m not saying
it’s a bad thing to keep rules. What I’m saying is keeping rules
does not make you righteous. Did you get that?
I think I better say it again. Keeping rules does
not make you righteous. Most of you belong to some
kind of church or denomination and it has it's rules. I think if you belong to that particular
group you ought to keep the rules. If you can’t keep the rules
you shouldn’t belong. But, keeping the rules does
not make you righteous. In fact, it’s really a major source
of division in the body of Christ because most religious groups
have got their own set of rules. The Catholics have one,
the Baptists have another, the Seventh Day Adventists
have another, the Pentecostals have another,
and so on. And most of the people
in those groups think keeping our rules
makes us righteous. Then they look at the people that
keep a different set of rules and say, Well, they’re not really righteous, because they’re not
keeping our rules. So you see what legalism does? It divides the body of Christ. The Baptists are free to keep their
rules, provided they’re scriptural. The Pentecostals likewise,
The Catholics, provided they’re scriptural. But bear in mind none of them are
made righteous by keeping their rules. They’re made righteous by faith. The problem is if we
get focused on rules, we’ll probably miss out on faith. and we’ll find ourselves
in that twilight again. Or, like the young man who
thought he could do it by the map, and ended up in a bog. Some of you know what
it’s like to be in a bog. In fact, some of you are here now
because you got out of the bog, and you realize you
needed the Holy Spirit. Amen? Now, I’m going to make
another shocking statement. I wouldn’t dare to make it
if Paul hadn’t made it first. You’ll find it in Romans chapter 7. I tell you, Romans is
a most wonderful book. I was a professor of logic
before I became a Christian. I really was interested in logic and
I think logic is a wonderful thing. It’s like a computer. If you feed the right information
into the computer you’ll get the right results. But if you feed the wrong information
in you’ll get the wrong results. Logic doesn’t give
you the answers. logic merely enables you to see
if your conclusions are compatible. And so, I would say myself
of all the things I’ve ever read the Bible is the most logical book. I personally do not feel
intellectually inferior because I believe the Bible. That’s my personal attitude.
I would suggest to you don’t you feel
intellectually inferior. They may label you something
like fundamentalist. Okay. Be a fundamentalist,
whatever that is. Actually, it’s mainly used
as a sort of thing to evoke people’s
emotions against you. The people who talk about being
fundamentalist haven’t defined what fundamentalism is. There are lots of words
that people use just to put a black mark on other people
but they don’t define them. Don’t be afraid of being
called a fundamentalist. The next time somebody
calls you that, say: Please, would you tell me what
you mean by a fundamentalist? All right. Now we’re coming to
this shocking statement of Paul, in Romans chapter 7. The further you go with him
the more shocking he becomes. Romans 7:4 and following: Therefore my brethren, you also
have become dead to the law through the body of Christ,
that you may be married to another, even to Him who was
raised from the dead that we should bear fruit to God. Paul says at one time if
you were a religious Jew, you were married to the law. And for you to depart from the law and be married to somebody else would be adultery,
spiritual adultery, unless, you found out that
the law had died. But through the death
of Jesus on the cross, the law was put to death.
Do you understand? This is a real problem
for most Jewish people. They feel,
if they don’t try to keep the law, and basically they
don’t do much about that, they are being
unfaithful to their husband. There has to be a revelation that the law was put
to death in Christ so that they could be
married to another, the risen Messiah. And through Him both they and we can bring
forth fruit. Do you understand? Fruit only comes by union. But what we are united to will
determine what we bring forth. But if we are united,
in union with Christ then we will bring forth
the fruit of the Spirit. Now going on, Paul says:
For when we were in the flesh the passions of sins which
were aroused by the law were at work in our members
to bear fruit to death. That’s an amazing
statement, isn’t it? The passions of sins
which were by the law. In other words, Paul says: The
law stirred up sinful passions. Can you absorb that? Let me give you another passage
in 1 Corinthians 15, verse 56. This is one of those
breathtaking statements. The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin
is the law. Paul goes on in Romans 7, he says: There’s nothing wrong
with the law, it’s perfect. The problem is in us. You see, if I can put it this way law works from without. It says do this, don’t do that. You say: Okay, I’ll do
this and I won’t do that. And in doing so you are
trusting on your own ability. That’s the problem,
because you don’t have the ability to do what is right
and avoid what is wrong. But you see, the essential
nature of our flesh is to trust in ourselves and not to want
to depend on God. Let’s go back to the temptation
in the Garden of Eden. What was the motivation that Satan used?
You will be like God. There’s nothing wrong
with being like God. What was the problem? They would be like God
without depending on God. They would depend on the knowledge of good and
evil. That’s the root problem of humanity; it’s the root
problem of religious people. We want to be like God but we don’t want
to depend on God. The essence of sin is the refusal to depend on God. That is sin in its essence. It’s not some particular
sinful act you commit. It’s an attitude of self-reliance which shuts God’s grace
out of your life. And this is the hardest
thing, I believe, that God has to deal
with in you and me. It’s this attitude
of self-righteousness. I can do it by myself.
I don’t need God. As far as I know, and
this is just an opinion, there are only two kinds of
creatures in the universe that wanted to be
independent of God. One is the fallen angels that joined Satan in his rebellion.
The other is the human race. Nothing else in the universe
desires to be independent of God. The birds don’t desire
to be independent, the creatures don’t,
the fish don’t, the stars don’t, they are all happily
dependent on God. But you and I, because of
the fall and our fleshly nature have inherited this problem:
We don’t like to depend on God. We like to be able to say, I’ve done
it by myself. I didn’t need God. Dear friends, you need
God in the worst way, and you need God the most when
you think you don’t need Him. And if you analyze your
own Christian experience, I think you’ll find
that every problem that you’ve
encountered in yourself, stemmed from trying
to do it without God, stemmed from the refusal to
depend on the grace of God. Ruth was in hospital
some years ago, just awaiting surgery. She was very weak, she wanted to
read her Bible and she couldn’t. And the senior sister,
it was a Catholic hospital– Incidentally, I’d like to say in
America if I had to choose a hospital, I’d choose a Catholic hospital because there’s at least a little
bit of compassion left there. There’s very little in most others. This may not be true
in New Zealand. That’s just a comment. But anyhow,
Ruth was in this Catholic hospital and the senior sister
who was well over 70, was going around
visiting the new patients and she saw Ruth there, and Ruth had her Bible but
she was too weak to read it. And so this dear sister said:
Is there anything I can do for you? And Ruth said: Yes, would you
please read the Bible to me? The sister said:
What do you want me to read? Ruth said:
Philippians chapter 2. The sister said:
Well, that was the Scripture on which I was consecrated as a nun.
So they met together. And then this Catholic sister shared
something that had happened. She’d attended a retreat for nuns at which the speaker
was a monk from the Trappist order. Trappists are not allowed
to speak in their monastery. They have a vow of silence. But when occasionally
they are allowed out, then they’re allowed to teach people
what they’ve learned in their silence. And so, this Trappist monk was
teaching these Catholic sisters, and this is what he said, and she passed it on to Ruth. Now this really blesses
me because I see that if God wants something to
get around, it will get around! Here’s a monk who’s
not permitted to speak teaching a little group
of Catholic sisters who were just a
group on their own. But, this message reached
me and I put it on tape so many times it’s
basically reached the world! Who planned that?
Nobody but God. Anyhow, this is what this Trappist
monk said to these sisters: Pray to desire
not to be esteemed, not to be independent
and not to be in control. Would you pray that? It takes a little doing, doesn’t it? I’ve thought over that a long while. Well, not to be esteemed, I don’t
have a big problem about that. Not to be independent, I’ve realized independence
is a mistake. Secure... Sorry, not to be secure.
Let me correct that. Not to be esteemed, not to be secure,
not to be in control. Well, it’s the last two
that really troubled me. Can I really desire
not to be secure? Well, okay, my
security is in the Lord. But where it says
not to be independent, not to be in control, sorry, that’s the hardest one for me. Do I really desire
not to be in control? In other words, am I really
willing to let God be in control? That’s the issue. That’s grace,
when God is in control. I tell you, I bless that dear
nun, I hope she’s still alive. I thank her for what she contributed
through Ruth to my thinking. See, I see this as the basic
problem of humanity, is the desire to be in control,
to be secure, not to be dependent. And the essence of sin is to be in a universe that was
created by a loving, all-wise God, and want to be independent of it. Don’t tell me, my dear brothers and sisters,
you’ve never had that problem. Because, there’s none of us that’s always been satisfied
to depend on God, to let God be in control. That is the real walk of faith. That’s the walk of grace. We don’t achieve it
in a few hours. In fact, it’s taken me well over fifty years,
and I’m not there yet. But, I’m closer than I was,
let me encourage you with that. Now, let’s go on. The law stirs up sin. Why? Because it says: You can do it.
Go on, rely on yourself. All you have to do
is keep these rules, and it tricks you into
self-reliance, self-dependence. That’s the way
the law deceives us. And please let me say there is
nothing wrong with the law. Paul goes on in the same chapter
and says the law is good, the law is perfect. there’s nothing wrong with
the law. The problem is in us. In our fleshly nature we all
have a desire to be independent. I’m sure most of you
have watched a baby. I notice about two years old, this desire really
comes to the top. You say to this sweet little
toddler of two years old, Come here, and she turns around
and walks in the opposite direction. Is that right? That’s the old carnal nature
manifesting itself in us. The law is God’s diagnostic to bring that problem
right out into the open. You see, if you went to
the doctor and you said, Doctor, I have a stomach ache. He wouldn’t just reach up
and take a box of tablets. He’d try to find out the cause
of your stomach ache. In other words, before
he prescribed a remedy he would seek a diagnosis.
And that’s how God deals with us. He doesn’t offer us a remedy until He’s diagnosed our
problem. Then we know we need the remedy
in the worst way. So, let’s go on now to
Romans chapter 10, verse 4. Romans 10:4: For Christ is the end of
the law for righteousness to every one who believes. So if you’ve become
a believer in Jesus Christ it’s the end of the law. Not the end of the
law in every sense but the end of the
law for righteousness. As a means to achieve
righteousness with God Christ put an end to the law.
When He died, that was it. When He rose from the dead He offered us a new way
of being righteous with God which was not the
keeping of the law. So, Christ is the end of
the law for righteousness. He’s not the end of the law as a part of the Word of God or,
as a part of the history of Israel, or as an example of the way
that God deals with people. The law is still there. But as a means to
achieve righteousness, the death of Christ on the cross
finally put an end to the law. Now let’s look for a moment at the
example of the Galatian Christians. Galatians is an interesting epistle. If you were theologically minded,
and I were to ask you, What is the problem that
Paul deals with in Galatians? you might answer legalism.
That’s the official theological description
of this problem. Now, most of the letters that
Paul writes to churches, he begins with a glowing thankfulness to God for all
the good that’s in them. Even the Corinthian church where there was a man
living with his father’s wife, and where there was
drunkenness at the Lord’s Table, he begins with a
glowing expression of his gratitude to God
for God’s grace. But when he deals
with the Galatians he’s so, if I may say,
hot under the collar that he doesn’t spend any time
thanking God for His grace. What was the problem
with the Galatians? Not drunkenness,
not immorality, but what?
Legalism. Paul viewed that as a
much more serious threat to their well-being
than immorality or drunkenness. Now please understand I am
not saying that God condones immorality or drunkenness. But I’m saying it’s a much
easier problem to deal with than legalism, because
legalism is so subtle. It appears so good,
we feel so right about it, that it’s hard for us
to be delivered from it. But this is what Paul says
in Galatians 1:6: I marvel that you are
turning away so soon from Him who called you in the
grace of Christ to a different gospel, which is not another, but there
are some who trouble you and want to pervert
the Gospel of Christ. See, he didn’t have
anything good to say. He just said, I’m amazed you
turned away so quickly. Into what? Into legalism, into keeping a set of rules and believing that they could
be made righteous by that. And then in Galatians chapter 3
he returns to this theme beginning at verse 1: O foolish Galatians,
who has bewitched you? I remember years ago reading
that verse and suddenly realizing that quote, Pentecostal or Charismatic
Christians, could be bewitched because there’s no question
that these were Charismatics. It solved a big problem in my
mind because it explained to me a situation that had arisen
in a church I was pastoring. I won’t go into the details but I saw that my whole
congregation had been bewitched by the wife of the previous pastor who had divorced her husband and
married one of the Board members and still dominated
those people spiritually. So let me just offer
this as help to you. If you’re dealing with some
problem that you can’t understand it may be it’s this problem. The people you’re dealing with
have been bewitched. Paul uses it in a
very clear meaning. Actually, the Greek word for bewitched
means to strike with the eye. They’ve been smitten with the eye, they’ve come under the gaze
of an eye that bewitches them. I had a Greek Orthodox
priest come to me years ago who’d become Charismatic. He came to me for prayer,
he said, I’ve been bewitched. Somebody has put
the evil eye on me. He was a very sober man
and he knew his Bible. I don’t want to spend time on this but I just want to open up to you
the fact that this is a possibility. In fact,
in some places it’s a probability. Alright: O foolish Galatians,
who has bewitched you before whose eyes Jesus Christ
was clearly portrayed as crucified? Paul says, I presented to you
the message of the cross. I depicted to you Jesus
crucified for our sins. How can you have been
moved away from that to some other basis
of righteousness? This only I want to
learn from you. Did you receive the
Spirit, The Holy Spirit, by the works of the law
or by the hearing of faith? Were you baptized in the Holy Spirit
because you kept a set of rules? Or because you heard the message
and received it with faith? Let me ask you that question. Is there anyone here
in this particular session who was baptized in the Holy Spirit
as a result of keeping a set of rules? The answer is no one. We need to bear that in mind. We were not saved
by keeping a set of rules. We didn’t receive the baptism in the
Holy Spirit by keeping a set of rules. We received them, as Paul says,
by the hearing of faith. We listened with faith
to the message we heard, we believed it and we received. And then he says,
Are you so foolish having begun in the
Spirit, The Holy Spirit, are you now being made
perfect by the flesh? When it’s put that way
it’s stupidity, isn’t it? If you needed the Holy Spirit to start
you on the pathway of righteousness how can you ever cease to be
dependent on the Holy Spirit? How can you ever rely on
your own little set of rules? But you see, this is very real. Paul goes on in the 10th verse: For as many as are of the works
of the law are under the curse, for it is written, Cursed is every
one who does not continue in all things which are written in
the book of the law to do them. If you’re going to be
justified by keeping the law you have to keep the
whole law all the time. And if you try to keep the law and do
not keep the whole law all the time you come under the curse
pronounced on cursed is the one who does not keep the words
of this law all the time. Is it possible for Pentecostal
and Charismatic believers to come under a curse? I want
to tell you, it’s very possible. In fact, I know it from
my own experience. Without going into
too many details I was part of a movement in
the body of Christ which was initiated by the Holy
Spirit, sovereignly, in a work that none
of us anticipated. God joined me together
with three other preachers, all of whom are
fairly well known. It was a sovereign act of God. We began in the Spirit, but
we weren’t going one year before we’d ended in the flesh. And the results were disastrous. So, I know this is real. You’re looking at somebody
to whom it happened. God, by His grace,
got me out of it. I think because I read
the Bible and believed it. I saw the situation I was in. But I want to tell you,
my dear brothers and sisters, this is not something
from the remote past, this is something that’s
still happening today. People who begin in the Spirit and then try to be made
perfect by their fleshly nature, come under a curse. I think myself, if I may say so, that a large part of the church
is under a curse. Let me give you one other Scripture
which is Jeremiah 17, verse 5. Jeremiah 17:5: Thus says the Lord, Cursed is the man who trusts
in man, makes flesh his strength, whose heart departs
from the Lord. Now, because it says his
heart departs from the Lord it’s clear that such a man had
a relationship with the Lord. But after he got that relationship he began to trust in man,
in himself, and his heart departed
from the Lord. Well, I think that’s
happened to the majority of the professing
Christian church. I’m not going to give any names, but most of the significant denominations or
movements in the church that we know about were brought
into being by a sovereign work of the Spirit of God,
by the grace of God. They would have never amounted
to anything apart from that. But how many of them today are
continuing in the grace of God? I would say very few. So they’ve brought
themselves under the curse pronounced in Jeremiah 17:5: Cursed is the man who trusts
in man and makes flesh his arm. Let me illustrate this
from a personal experience. Ruth and I decided to sell
our house in Jerusalem, and we went to the real
estate dealers and they said, It’s a beautiful house, you’ll sell
it quickly, this is what it’s worth. For fourteen months it never sold. We couldn’t understand. But I was at a service
in Christ Church, the church we
attend in Jerusalem, and the rector there said, I’ve got to pray with a man who
needs deliverance from evil spirits. Not all rectors talk like
that but this one does. That’s why we like him. So I thought, well I
better try and help him. I went along to this session and this
man was a missionary from Africa who’d come under
a curse, incidentally. I have to tell you
without explaining, the curse was pronounced
by a black African bishop. He was nearly dying. We ministered and he was delivered
from a number of evil spirits and then we began to deal with
the whole of his attitude to life. And I said to him,
You know, it seems to me you’re really trusting in yourself. You’re not really relying
on the grace of God. I said, As a matter of fact,
I’ve had that problem. I never planned to say this,
it just came out. I’ve had that problem
because in selling our house I’ve been trusting
on what I could do. I’ve been relying on myself. Ruth with characteristic
frankness said to me, in front of all these people,
Then you’re under a curse. I said,
That’s right, I am. So I confessed it,
repented of it and released myself
from the curse. We left that meeting, drove back to the new apartment
apartment where we were living and on the ground floor
we met a real estate agent who said, I would like to show your
house to some customers I have. Within two weeks
the house was sold. Do you understand? The moment
I was free from the curse God could move on our behalf. I see some of you get
the message. All right. Now, let’s go on, where we are. Let me just say a few general
remarks about this subject, and then I must
come to the positive. I’ve said this already but I’ll
repeat it, law works from without leaving us to our own ability. Grace works from within
supplying supernatural ability. We can only do it by grace. In Leviticus 11:44
and 1 Peter 1:16 we have the commandment: Be holy.
This is a commandment from God. But if you read in Leviticus
chapter 11, it comes at the end of a very elaborate set of rules
about what you may or may not eat. The implication is
if you’re going to be holy you’ve got to keep
all these rules. But in 1 Peter 1:16 it’s not
attached to any set of rules. The message is Be holy.
It’s a message from Jesus, Let me live out my
holiness in you. Totally different. No longer relying
on our own efforts but relying on the
grace of God and Jesus to do what we
cannot do for ourselves. You have the choice. Now we’ve just got
a little while left to consider the
positive side of this. I want to turn to Romans
chapter 8 verses 3-4, and just take note of
what is said there. Romans 8:3-4: For what the law could not do, in that it was weak
through the flesh– Notice, there’s nothing wrong
with the law, it’s our weakness. What the law could not do,
God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh,
on account of sin, He condemned sin in the flesh. Now, what’s the positive? ...that the righteous requirement
of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the
flesh, but according to the spirit. Now that raises what the Americans
would call a thousand dollar question. What is the righteous
requirement of the law? Have you ever given any
consideration to that? I can answer you in one word
of four letters, and it’s not a dirty word. It’s love. Love is the righteous
requirement of the law and I’ll show you
that very quickly through a number of Scriptures
and then we have to close. In Matthew chapter 22... Matthew 22,
Jesus was asked by a lawyer, [you know what the
legal mind is like,] in verse 35:
Then one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question,
testing him and saying, Teacher, which is the great
commandment in the law? A specific question and Jesus
gave an immediate, specific answer. Jesus said to him,
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart,
with all your soul and with all your mind. This is
the first and great commandment. And the second is like it, You shall love your neighbor as
yourself. What’s the key word? Love. Love for God,
love for our neighbor. And then Jesus commented,
On these two commandments hang the law and the prophets. Now, if I were getting hot,
which I am, and I wanted to take my
jacket off and hang it up I’d need a peg to hang it on. And the peg would
have to be there before I could
hang my jacket on it. These commandments
are the peg on which the whole law
and the prophets are hung. In other words, when you’ve read
all the law and the prophets, what it’s saying is
love God, love your neighbor. That is the righteous
requirement of the law. And then in Romans 13,
verse 8 and following, Paul says: Owe no one anything,
except to love one another for he who loves another
has fulfilled the law. I believe in being out of debt, but there’s one debt
I can never get out of. What’s that? To love my fellow Christians,
to love my fellow human beings. I owe that. I’m continually in debt
I cannot get out of that debt. Paul goes on: For the commandments,
You shall not commit adultery, you shall not murder, you shall not
steal, you shall not bear false witness, you shall not covet, and if there’s any other commandment,
are all summed up in this saying: You shall love your
neighbor as yourself. Love does no harm to
a neighbor, therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.
That’s very clear, isn’t it? And then in Galatians 5:14. It’s marvelous how Romans and
Galatians kind of hang together. Galatians 5:14: For all the law
is fulfilled in one word... All the law is fulfilled
in one word, even in this, you shall love your
neighbor as yourself. And then a little further
back in Galatians 5:6, it says: For in Christ Jesus neither
circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything
but faith working through love. How does faith work?
Tell me. Through love. All right. In James’ epistle it says,
Faith without works is dead. And faith works by love so
you come to this equation, Faith without love is dead. That’s a shocking
statement but it’s true. You can have all the
faith that you claim, but if there’s no love in
your life, it’s a dead faith. And then we read in
1 Timothy chapter 1, verse 5. 1 Timothy 1:5. I could quote it
but I want to read it. Now the purpose of
the commandment is love from a pure heart, from a good
conscience and from sincere faith, from which some, having strayed,
have turned aside to idle talk. The New American
Standard Bible says: the goal of our instruction is love. When I read that I said to myself, Is that really the goal
of my instruction? Am I really aiming to
produce loving people? I’ve thought about
some of the people that have sat under my ministry
and I wasn’t so sure. because I am essentially a teacher
and a teacher imparts knowledge. Do you know what
knowledge does? It puffs up.
It makes people proud. I’ve learned to try by
all the means in my power to teach without
producing proud people. But I have to look back at some
of the people I’ve produced, and say: Well, I didn’t
do a very good job. The goal of our instruction is love. And then Paul says:
if you stray from that goal all you’re doing is idle talk. Now let's just for a moment
contemplate the church as we know it. How much idle talk
goes on in church? How much preaching and
teaching and activity that does not produce love? It’s all wasted effort. It’s all totally ineffective. Brothers and sisters, if you
are in any kind of ministry, I want to challenge you,
analyze your motives. What are you aiming to produce? And secondly,
if you’re aiming to produce love, are you producing it? And if you’re not aiming to
produce love, all your talk is just empty words. That’s a far-reaching
statement, isn’t it? You see, law motivates
us through fear. But Jesus motivates
us through love. He says, If you love me, you
will keep my commandments. Fear doesn’t produce the results. There are many religions
that motivate people by fear and they produce
the most terrible results, including some professing
forms of Christianity. Then I want to say, and
we’re coming to the end, the obedience of
love is progressive. You’re not perfect in love? Okay. Join me.
I’m not perfect in love. But that doesn't mean I’m
not accounted righteous. Because until we
achieve the goal, our faith is accounted
to us for righteousness. Can you receive that? As long as you
continue believing, your faith is counted to you
for righteousness. This is wonderfully exemplified by
the words of Jesus to Peter at the Last Supper. He said, Peter, you’re going
to deny me three times. Peter said,
Not I, never. And then Jesus said,
But I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail. What’s the really important thing? That our faith will not fail. We may make a lot of mistakes, we may even commit sins. We haven’t arrived,
we’re not perfect. But as long as we
continue believing, our faith is accounted
to us for righteousness until we arrive. And let me close with one
Scripture from James, which I love. I don’t have time to comment on
it but just let me give it to you. James chapter 2... chapter 1 verse 25: But he who looks into
the perfect law of liberty and continues in it and is not a forgetful hearer
but a doer of the Word, this one will be blessed
in what he does. What is the perfect law
of liberty in one word? Love, that’s right.
You see, if you really love, really love, you’re the
only totally free person because you can always
do what you want. You can always love people. They may snub you, they may persecute
you, they may even try to kill you. But they cannot stop
you loving them. The person whose
motivation is love is the only totally free
person in the world. Amen?
Amen. More info DPM UK visit:
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