Why is the Law necessary for understanding our need for salvation?
The Law is necessary because it condemns and exposes guilt, showing people they are lawbreakers and sinners. Without it, anyone could claim to be good enough for God. It proves we cannot keep its heavy demands, so we recognize our lost condition and understand why salvation through the cross is needed.
Les teaches that the Law was severe and acted like a yoke or millstone because of its heavy demand and man's inability to keep it. It had nothing to help man do it. Under the Law, even picking up sticks on the Sabbath brought death, and immorality brought death. Yet Les explains that although believers have been set free from all of that by the work of the cross, no one would ever realize why they needed salvation if it were not for the Law. He quotes his pastor: you can never be saved until you know that you are lost. How do you know you are lost? Because the Law condemns you. If there were no Law, anyone could say, "I'm good enough, God will accept me." But the Law says you are guilty. Les points out that everyone has broken the Ten Commandments, making them lawbreakers and therefore sinners. People may think a sinner is only someone in the gutter, a murderer, or someone in a house of ill repute, but the Law exposes guilt before God.