The 3 Parts of the Law & Why They Don't Save You

Welcome to Through the Bible with Les Feldick, a 30-minute walk through the Scriptures, teaching in-depth Bible truths that change people's lives. Now, here's your host, Les Feldick. Okay, and once again, it's good to have everybody back with us, and let's go right into our study tonight and turn back with me a moment to Exodus 19, because we're going to pursue, for the next half hour at least, and maybe even into the next program, this difference between law and grace, because I've found that if ever there is an area of confusion amongst all people, it's here, and when people see it, they are so excited about it that they constantly remind me, now, whatever you do, wherever you go and teach, be sure and help people understand the difference between law and grace. And so I'm going to take the time, before we go any further in Genesis, so if you'll come back with me to Exodus chapter 19, and we'll pick up the nation of Israel as they've come out of the land of Egypt, they've now been under bondage, remember, and by virtue of the miraculous power of God, they've come out of Egypt across the Red Sea, and they're gathered now around Mount Sinai, and in the very next chapter, of course, Moses is going to go up into the Mount and receive the Ten Commandments and the rest of the law. Now, when I say the rest of the law, that may raise a question. Maybe we'd better put this on the board before we go any further. Remember that the law was basically in three parts. First we have the moral law, which we normally refer to as the Ten Commandments. Then we have the ecclesiastical, or what we would call the law associated with their worship. And then you have the third part of the law, which, of course, was civil. How neighbor was to get along with his neighbor, and how they were to handle the very aspects of their society, how to transfer deed of land, and all the intrinsic problems of a society were covered in the civil law. So now what you have to be careful, if you're going to be a good student of Scripture, is whenever you see the word law, whether Paul uses it in Romans or whatever, always try to determine. Just stop a second and ask yourself, now is he talking about the whole system of law, the Ten Commandments, the worship, as well as the civil law, or is it just simply talking about the Ten? And the text will usually reveal it. You can pick it out right away if it's just talking about the Ten Commandments, or if it's talking about the whole system of law. All right, now in chapter 19, Israel has not received the law as yet, but they've come out of Egypt. And now if you'll come down to verse 7, "...Moses came and called for the elders of the people, and laid before their faces all these words which the Lord commanded him." And then verse 8, "...And all the people answered together and said, All that the Lord hath spoken we will..." What's the next word? "...do." Now that's legalism. You cannot have legalism without the flesh doing something. And so Israel says, Lord, tell us what you want us to do, and we will do it. Now there's another one I think you might want to turn to, and that's in Deuteronomy, chapter 5. Deuteronomy, chapter 5. Right down to verse 27, where again I think it's just more or less a recapitulation. Deuteronomy is more or less an analysis of what's gone before. But now we find in verse 27 where Israel says to Moses, "...Go thou near, and hear all that the Lord our God shall say, and speak thou unto us all that the Lord our God shall speak unto thee, and we will hear it and..." What? "...do it." We'll act on it. Now I think the first thing we have to understand is, and again I've got to use the Scripture. I don't want anyone to just go by what I say. Go back with me to Hebrews now, all the way into your New Testament, all the way back to chapter 11, because some of these things are so basic that we dare not skip over it. Hebrews chapter 11, and let's take the Bible definition of faith as it's laid out in the opening verses of this chapter. Verse 1, "...Now faith is the substance," it's the meat, it's the very core of things hoped for, "...faith," and I'm merely putting it in for clarity, "...faith is the evidence of things..." What? "...not seen." In other words, when we deal in the area of faith, we're dealing with areas that you cannot put your hands on something, you cannot take it into a laboratory and put it in a test tube. Faith is that area of the invisible, the spirit world. All right, read on. "...For by it," faith, "...the elders," now I think Paul wrote Hebrews, of course, who's he referring to? Those in the Old Testament, the forefathers. "...For by it the elders obtained a good report. Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the Word of God." Now there's no way we can prove that any other way, but simply God said it, we have to believe it. God expects us to believe it, because He said that's the way He did it, by speaking the Word and the worlds, our universe, must come together. "...So that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear." Now if you'll come down to verse 6, "...but without faith," without believing what God has said, "...it is impossible to please God," or Him, "...for he that cometh to God must believe." What's the next word? Believe. Now I told my class the other night, I hope no one ever accuses me of simply promoting an easy-believism. In other words, believe in the Lord Jesus and you're all right. I never teach that. When I talk about believing, or faith plus nothing, I'm talking about a belief and a faith that is so rock-solid, that you can honestly say that with all my being, I know that Christ died for me. I know that my sins have been forgiven, because His blood has taken care of it. I know without a shadow of a doubt that He was arisen from the dead. I have no doubt about that, and I know that He did it for me. Now listen, when someone believes like that, and it has become a power of God experience, it's going to change their life, and many of you know what I'm talking about. It is going to have an effect, and it's going to be such an effect that you don't have to have a list of rules and regulations to guide your behavior. It's going to come from that power that God has now put within. But where does it have to start? Faith. We have to believe it, because God has said it. Now under the law, and that's why I wanted to take a few moments in this half hour to talk about the law. The law, you see, gave the Ten Commandments, and they were set in stone, weren't they? I told my class the other night, you see, God didn't see fit to put the Ten Commandments on a teddy bear that someone can kind of cuddle up to. The Ten Commandments were written on cold old tables of stone, and they were unmovable. And as I pointed out in the last half hour, what could the law do? Nothing but condemn. The law had no power whatsoever to help a man keep from stealing. The law had no power to keep somebody from committing adultery. All it could do was say, don't you do it, or you'd better do it. Now even love, the very first commandment, what is it? Thou shalt love the Lord thy God. Now stop and think for a minute. Can you force anybody to love someone? Impossible. Impossible. Where does love have to spring from? From within, see? And so it is with the whole gamut of the Ten Commandments. They did nothing but just stand there in stark reality and convict and condemn. Now do you see how foolish it is for people to say, well, I'm doing the best I can, I'm keeping the Ten Commandments? It's impossible. Now then for the Jew under the law, and I guess it took me years to get a good comprehension of it myself. The good Jew under law, as soon as he realized, knowing what God had said in the law, that he had broken one of them, what did God give them as an alternative? What could they now do? Well, they had to dip down into the second part of the law. They had to practice what God had said to do with regard to approach to himself, with regard to worship, all these things. It was according to the letter of the law. It was all given in the instructions. For example, let's say that for the most part until at least Israel got into the land, here was the little old tabernacle, that little tent, and all around it were the twelve tribes. Now you want to remember that when they're encamped at least at Sinai, and they'd recently come out of Egypt, there were anywhere from three to five, six million people. Now that tells you that some of these poor guys clear out here on the outer perimeter were a long way from this altar, weren't they? A long ways. Now just put yourself in their shoes. Here somebody way out on the outer perimeters has broken the law, and he knows he's broken it. Maybe he stole from his neighbor. But he remembers what the law said, thou shalt not steal, and he said, well, now I've got to make things right, but man, it's a long ways from here clear up to that priest. I'm just simply going to admit to God that I've sinned, and I don't think I have to take that sacrifice. So that's what he tries to do. He says, God, I broke the command. I stole from my neighbor. But I don't want to go clear up there with a lamb to that priest or whatever the law decried. Now, here's where I try to make my point. Was that man accepted? No, why? He did not do what God said to do, and that was bring something to the priest. Now that was works. Now let's turn it around. Now, let's say that this same fellow commits the same sin. He recognizes it, and he says, boy, if I remember right, my neighbor down the road had this same problem a couple weeks ago, and he took a sacrifice up to the priest, and everything got okay. I guess that's what I'll do. So simply because his neighbor did it, he brings a sacrifice to the priest. Is he accepted? No, why? Why? Because he didn't do it by faith. He didn't do it because this is what God instructed to do. Now, you see the difference? It can be either way. He can go through all the motions, and if he doesn't do it explicitly according to God's instructions, he won't be accepted because he didn't do it according to faith. If on the other hand, he has faith, but he does not carry out the work, he's not accepted. That was legalism. That was the law. All right, now then, let's go back to our timeline where we were when we left off in the last program. We said that when God began to deal with the nation of Israel through the man Abraham and all the prophetic promises, their Messiah came, they crucified him, and into the book of Acts. And here's where, again, a lot of people, I think, end up in confusion. A lot of folk, in fact, I was raised under that system of teaching, and we thought that somehow the age of grace began back there in Christ's earthly ministry, or somewheres. I don't know where they taught me that it began, but they certainly didn't tell me, at least, that this was all still under the law, but certainly it was. Always remember that everything that takes place in the Gospels, which is predominantly during Christ's earthly ministry, is still under the law. The temple is still going full speed. They're bringing their sacrifices by the thousands. And any time that someone approached Jesus, where would he tell them to go? To the temple? To the priest? You remember the, uh, how many were healed, ten of leprosy? Where did Jesus tell the ten to go? Back and report to the priest. Show yourself to the priest. The young rich ruler, he came and he said, Now, Lord, what must I do to inherit eternal life? And what did Jesus tell him? Keep the commandments. Now, when he said keep the commandments, he meant keep the whole law. If you break a commandment, then you come by the prescribed way of gaining acceptance with God, and then, of course, keeping the civil law as well. Now, that was all law, and this is exactly what Jesus labored under for those whole three years. But, now let's go on into the book of Acts for a moment, and I'm going to take you all the way to Acts chapter ten, the chapter that we referred to in our last study, but we didn't take the time to go back and look at it. But in chapter ten, now, according to all the crinologers that I've studied, the men who have put the time element on all these events, Peter goes to the house of Cornelius about ten years, between eight and ten years after Pentecost, somewhere between eight and ten years. That's quite a long time. And here he goes to the house of a Gentile, but God knowing the heart and mind of Peter, which, of course, was absolutely correct, Peter was not wrong, God knew it was going to take something special to get Peter to go, didn't he? And so, you know the story, how that while the men were coming down from Caesarea to Joppa to get Peter, God gives Peter a vision to prepare him to be ready to go long back, otherwise he'd have never gone. Peter would have never gone up to that Gentile home had God not taken drastic measures. In fact, though you've heard me over the last ten, twelve years at least, what have I always said? There were heel prints in the sand from Joppa to Caesarea. Peter didn't want to go, but, oh, God forced the issue. All right, now you come down to that vision of the sheet, and he sees all manner of living things in that sheet. Now come down to verse 13, and there came a voice to him, that is to Peter, "'Rise, Peter, kill and eat.'" Now remember the time element, we're about eight to ten years after Pentecost, end of the book of Acts, but Peter said, "'Not so, Lord, for I have never eaten anything that is common or unclean.'" Why does he say that? Oh, he's a law-keeping Jew. He wasn't going to eat anything that was not legally acceptable under the law. Now if that's not enough to convince you, then you come over to verse, oh, verse 25. Let's pick up the story. And now the men from Cornelius are approaching Peter down there at Joppa, and Peter has gone back with them up to Caesarea, and they're approaching the house of Cornelius. Verse 25, "'And as Peter was coming in, Cornelius met him, fell down at his feet, and worshipped him.'" Now, that should give you a good indication of how far from the truth this man Cornelius was, because earlier it says he was a good man, he gave alms, and he prayed to God, but yet he was so ignorant of the true God that he fell down and tried to worship a mere human being. Well, whatever. Verse 25 again, "'So he fell down and worshipped him,' verse 26, "'but Peter took him up, saying, Stand up! I myself also am a man. And as he talked with him, he went in and found many that were come together.'" Now I like to always put myself in other people's shoes. Put yourself in Peter's shoes. Here he's a law-keeping Jew coming up into a strange area, and he gets into this house filled with what kind of people? Gentiles. Peter's uncomfortable, even though God has made sure this is what he's going to do. Now look what he says. "'As he walks across the threshold,' I'm sure, he said unto them,' that is, unto these Gentiles in the house of Cornelius, you know how that it is an,' what's the next word? Unlawful. It's an unlawful thing for a man that is a Jew to keep company or come unto one of another nation. Peter says, I'm not supposed to be here, but,' see, but God. That's the only reason Peter went. Peter would have never gone up there had not God forced the issue. Now all I'm trying to show is that even at this late date, these Jewish believers such as Peter and the eleven and all those that had come to believe during Christ's earthly ministry and even early in the book of Acts, they're all Jews as far as we can tell. But what kind of Jews? Law keepers. They're still keeping the law. And oh, this is hard for people to comprehend. And everything is still in this prophetic program. Oh yeah, Christ has now been crucified. He's been buried and risen. He's ascended. But you get into chapter three and Peter is claiming that Christ will still come and set up his kingdom if Israel will only believe him. But they don't. Now then, here we're coming to a place of change. God is going to usher in now something totally different than has ever been on the human race before, and it's the age of grace. Now let's look at some of the basic tenets or some of the basic doctrines for this age of grace. To start with, let's turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 15. 1 Corinthians chapter 15. First four verses. Now remember in our last study we looked at those verses in Romans and Ephesians where Paul refers to that mystery, that secret that had been hid in the mind of God. Well now it's revealed and here it is. Verse 1 of 1 Corinthians 15. Moreover brethren, I declare unto you the gospel, not a gospel, but the gospel, which I preached unto you and which also you have received and wherein you stand, by which also you are saved. Now you see what that says? It's by this gospel that we as Gentiles have to be saved. If you keep in memory, in other words you know what I preached unto you lest you've believed in vain. Now here it comes. For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received. And if you'll study Paul's letters, you'll see that he constantly refers to the revelations that he got from the ascended Lord. How the Lord revealed these new truths to him that were never revealed anywhere else in Scripture. And here it is. How that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, see according to the Old Testament. It was prophesied, but it was never revealed that it would be a salvation for Jew and Gentile alike. How 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. You see that? Now let's see what Paul says concerning this very premise of Christ's death, burial and resurrection. Turn back with me for just a moment to 1 Corinthians chapter 1. Same book, 1 Corinthians, but back to chapter 1. And again drop into verse 18. 1 Corinthians chapter 1, verse 18, where he writes for the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness. Now we see that all around us, don't we? I mean people just can't comprehend that what someone did 2,000 years ago has any effect on us today. But it's the preaching of the cross that is to them that perish foolishness. But unto us who are saved, that preaching becomes what? The power of God, and that's what I want you to understand. It's the power of God. Now maybe this is a good time to use a little illustration. Between law and grace again, if a couple were just newly married, and if the husband would put on the wall a whole list of do's and don'ts, what that little wife is going to do or she's going to be in dire trouble, now she's human, you know what she's going to do? She's going to turn right around, she's going to put up her own list. And she says, okay, old boy, if you expect me to do that, then I expect you to do this. Now that would be a marriage based on what? Law. Thou shalt, thou shalt not. She comes back and says, all right, if this is the case, then thou shalt and thou shalt not. That would be legalism. Now what is lacking? Love, see? Now let's take the same two people who love each other. What are they actually going to fulfill? The very same things that they would have written down. Only it isn't going to be by commandment, it's going to be out of a heart of love. Do you follow me? And this is exactly the difference between law and grace. Everything that God said thou shalt does not now become permissive. It now becomes that which comes from within. In other words, the believer, he's automatically going to adhere to the things given in the law. The believer is not going to steal. The believer is not going to commit adultery. The believer is not going to have a pagan idol and on and on and on right down through the commandments with the exception of one. There's only one that Paul doesn't reiterate. He reiterates all the others. Ephesians 5, he said, children, obey your parents for it's the first commandment with promise. In Romans, well, let me just show you. Go back with me to Romans, where Paul does not say, hey, you're free to break the commandments. Paul doesn't say that the Ten Commandments are now of no earthly good. It's just that we are not under their demand in worship and in their condemnation. Once we've recognized that, yes, we were a lawbreaker, I said Romans 13, didn't I? That once we understand that we have broken the law, but, oh, now in Christ we become everything that the law demands of us, but from an inward working power. Verse 8, O no man anything, in other words, don't defraud anyone, but to love one another, for he who loveth another hath fulfilled what? The law. Now, all you have to do after our program closes is read those following verses, and they're all listed. Thank you for watching Through the Bible with Les Feldick. Through the Bible is a partner-supported ministry. If this program has been a help to your study of the Scriptures and you'd like to see others enjoy the teaching, your support would be greatly appreciated. Write to us at Les Feldick Ministries, Route 1, Box 760, Kenta, Oklahoma, 74552, or call 1-800-369-7856. Remember, all programs are available in printed form, audio cassette, and videotape. Be sure to tune in next time to Through the Bible with Les Feldick.