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Welcome to Bibleline with Dr. Ralph Yankee Arnold, pastor of Calvary Community Church in Tampa, Florida. Clearly declaring the Gospel of Jesus Christ through the radio and the Internet. Your regular prayers and monthly support make it possible for Bibleline to continue with your Bibleline. on the air. You can reach us toll free at 1-800-576-3771. Online donations may be made by clicking on the donations link on the BibleLineMinistries.org homepage. We pray that you will enjoy our commitment to the clear gospel of Jesus Christ and that today’s first part of this two-part message will be a blessing to you and your family.

This is a sermon about Mr. Law and Mr. Love. It deals with the subject of law and grace. What it means to be under the law, what it means to be under grace, what it means to be crucified with Christ, what it means to be dead to the law. It explains even some things about marriage, love, divorce, All kinds of things. Lordship salvation, turning from your sins. All that in just one message. But I need help in order to do this.

So what I’m going to do, first of all, I want you to take your Bible and turn to the book of Galatians. The book of Galatians and chapter two. Galatians chapter 2, and look there in verse 16, verse 16. Verse 16 says, knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ. Even we have believed in Jesus Christ that we might be justified by the faith of Christ and not by the works of the law, for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.”

That verse sounds to be pretty clear, very simple. The law cannot save you. Bullen it down means you cannot earn eternal life. You cannot work your way to heaven. Look there in verse 19, for I, Through the law am dead to the law that I might live unto God.” That’s interesting. I wonder what it means. Verse 20, I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me, and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me.

Take your Bible and turn all the way over there to the book of Romans, the book of Romans, and chapter 6. The book of Romans, you’ll find it talks an awful lot about the body and the death of the body. So a lot of death in the book of Romans, chapter 6, chapter 8 talks an awful lot about life, but it’s spiritual life. So somewhere between death and life hangs this one chapter that is filled with all kinds of little nuggets in it, called chapter 7, where we have the greatest conflict of all time, the one that goes on inside of us.

I want you to just look in chapter six of the book of Romans. And look what he says in verse 14, For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under the law, but under grace. What then shall we sin? Because we’re not under the law, but under grace. God forbid. Why do Christian sin? Why should we sin? What causes us to sin? So look in verse 1, what shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin?

That grace may abound, because you see the more sins I do, the more grace covers my sins. Grace greater than my Sins. So the more sins I commit, the more grace I receive. Isn’t that wonderful? But shall I live in sin? How do we explain all of this? Sometimes it gets very, very confusing. Very confusing. Now in chapter seven where it talks about the law, it will mention the law about 20 times. But the words I and me and my and mine, about 40 times.

So it’s about a man in the body, in the flesh, trying to please God. Sounds like an impossibility. Oh, well, it is. Now, there’s a simple illustration that God gives here in His Word. And if you’ll notice there in chapter 7 and verse 1, know ye not brethren, for I speak to them that know the law. How that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth. Well, how long is a man going to live? Now let’s get down to the neat ingredient.

In the Old Testament, God did a miraculous thing. He brought a nation into being. He told Abraham, says you’re going to have a miraculous son. Name’s going to be Isaac and he’s going to be a miracle child, a faith child. Because you and Sarah already passed the age of bearing children. But what God was going to do is intervene on their behalf and they would have a child. From this child, you have Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the twelve sons.

Those twelve sons eventually were down in Egypt. And now they had grown to a couple million people. for a hundred years has passed, and now God was able and ready to take them out of that captivity, that slavery, and bring them into the Holy Land. But on the way, He had a meeting with them. God, see, wanted to do something special. God loved the nation of Israel. So I’m going to have the nation of Israel come up here at this time.

Rachel, would you come over here and sit right here in the center? All she’s going to do is just sit here and look pretty. She doesn’t have to say anything. She doesn’t have to do anything. She represents the nation of Israel. And her name for the sake of the illustration is not Rachel. Her name is different. Her name is Miss. I’m a good enough. I’m a good enough. You see, she thinks she’s pretty good. I mean, she’s not that bad.

She lives a pretty good life. Minds her own business. But as you know and as I know, every young girl is looking for that perfect husband. She wants to get married. They may deny it, but you and I know the truth. This young girl is looking for the perfect husband. So we’re going to get her the perfect husband.

Jesse come up here and sit over here on the side over here. Just sit right there. Now Jesse doesn’t have to say anything. He doesn’t have to do anything. He just represents the perfect husband. And you and I know that when that little woman that we married, they knew they were getting a good deal. They knew they were getting that perfect husband. I mean that’s what they’ve been looking for all their life and lo and behold here we are.

But it doesn’t take long before we finally understand and they understand that there’s something wrong. Conflicts begin to brew. Confrontation. Everybody doesn’t see eye to So in the book of Deuteronomy, and it makes the statement that God told Moses on Mount Sinai, I am going to give you my law. If you will keep my law and obey my law, I will bless you. And Israel said, all that he hath required of me, I will do. So over here we have Mr.

Law. This is Mr. Law. Mr. Law is perfect. Mr. Law is just. Mr. Law is righteous. Mr. Law does no wrong. Mr. Law is spiritual. You say, how do you know all of that? Because I made it up. No. I want you to look there in your Bible to the book of Romans in chapter 7. And look what he says here in verse 12. Verse 12 says, wherefore Mr. Law is holy. And Mr. Law is just. Mr. Law is good.

Looking verse 14. For we know that Mr. Law is spiritual. We can tell right off the bat, there’s nothing wrong with Mr. Law. He has no faults, no flaws. If anything, he is perfect. So now, Mr. Law, the Bible says, was joined together by the nation of Israel. And Israel says, all that is required of us by Mr. Law, we will do. So God gave the law and God heard the words, I do. I do, I do a marriage.

And Israel became the wife of Jehovah. But none of this. gave his law which was a perfect standard of righteousness. Now you take Mrs. All-Ride of here. She thinks she’s all right. She’s pretty good, good enough. She says, whatever is required, I will do it. Isn’t that what most women promise when they get married? And then somewhere along the line, now we’ll get into a lot of deep stuff here this morning, But the doors are locked and you can’t leave.

But I want you to understand, Mr. Law says to his new wife, this is what I want you to do. I want you to cut the grass, wash the dishes, clean the house. He gives her about ten things that he wants her to do. So he goes to work, he comes back and misses all right. Thought that what she had done was good enough.

He began to examine her works. And lo and behold, the grass wasn’t cut just right. There were still spots on the dishes. There was a wrinkle in the bed. There was still dust on the wind to seal. And everywhere he looked, he finds that she did not do everything he demanded. It didn’t matter what she did that was right, is that he always found fault with her. She says, I’ll try harder. I’ll do my best. And it didn’t matter how hard she tried.

She got more frustrated. She became so in despair. She wondered, what can I do to ever please Mr. Law? Now understand. The problem was not with Mr. Law, because he was just and good and righteous and holy and spiritual. I wonder where the problem is. The problem is that she was not good enough. She was not all right. She thought she was. But just by the fact of the law, she saw how far short she fell. Now she goes to Mr.

Law and she says, oh, Mr. Law, would you just forgive me? And Mr. Law says, no, I don’t forgive. All I want is a little love. I’m law. I don’t give love. I’m law. about a little mercy. I don’t have mercy. I’m law. Just a little bit of grace? No grace, law. Well, what are you going to do to me about all of this? Well, the soul that sineth shall die. Now, she doesn’t want to die. Now she’s beginning to try to figure out how can I get out of this marriage?

I would do anything to get free from this man. So she knows the law. She know what he requires. And look what he says here in the book of Romans in chapter 7. Verse 2. For the woman, which half a husband, is bound by Mr. Law to her husband as long as he live it. But if the husband is dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband. Ha, there’s the answer. All she has to do is wait for him to die.

Isn’t that what a lot of women are doing? waiting for him to die. And as some say, the sooner the better. When I became 70 years old, my wife lost a hundred thousand dollars insurance. And she keeps thinking in her mind what could have been? Just joking. So over here we have the answer to the problem. You see, they are married until separated by death. Death. The only way she never gets free. So now she knows she has sinned against the law.

She is condemned. She’s not good enough and she has to die. So when you think about it and as you study the scriptures you’ll see over and over again the scriptures talking about being free from the law, being free from the lust and the desires of sin to be free from death. What can I do to be free of all of this? What can this woman do to be free? until he dies, but there’s a problem. The wages of sin is death.

He’s perfect. If he’s perfect, he doesn’t sin. If he doesn’t sin, he doesn’t die. Oh, this is a dark day in her life. Now, she really begins to understand just how trapped she is. It doesn’t matter if she was to this day forward, try to not do anything wrong. She’s still guilty for the ones she’s broke. For the laws she’s already broke. For transgression she overstepped the boundary. She is guilty and condemned and she must die. Now there’s nothing wrong with Mr.

Law. God gave the law. God brought them together. And this was to be the perfect marriage. She always wanted a perfect husband, now she got him. Now she don’t want him. Well, ain’t that, don’t don’t sound familiar? So now what are we gonna do here? You see, it doesn’t matter if she says, I am gonna turn from all of my sins. If she was to try to stop all of her sinning, Does that solve her problems? No, doesn’t solve her problems.

Well, some people say, well, she needs to commit herself to Christ. Well, she can’t. What? She’s married to this man. She cannot commit her life to any other man as long as she is still married to this man. So how can she get free of this man? She has to die. And there is only one solution. Now I want you to totally understand the complexity of the situation. If you understand anything that I’m saying here, and I hope that you do, let’s just pretend that you are sitting right here.

And you understand that according to the Word of God, the law of God, you have sinned against God. The law, you have broken the law. You have violated God’s standard of righteousness. And you cannot save yourself. You can’t deliver yourself. She can’t do anything to get out of this situation. It is totally impossible. Her only way out of this is by death and death alone. home. So how can she be free? She doesn’t want to die. We need an answer for this terrible, terrible problem.

So I’m going to ask Mr. Love over there to come up here and sit over here on this side. You know, these triangles really get complicated. You know, when there’s another man in the story or another woman. It really can get ugly. But you see, Mr. Love over here, he has always, always loved Mrs. Center here. See, she thought she was all right. She thought she was good enough till Mr. Law came along and she found out now she is Mrs.

Sinner. And she’s not that good. Sorry, Rachel. Now her only way out of this situation that she must die because only by the death can there are a re-de-separation. That’s why when a man in a woman gets married. That’s why God says, until death do they part. And what God hath joined together, let no man, no man, put it as under, not debate. But because of sin and the hardness of people’s heart, it happens. That’s another sermon for another time.

Right now we’ve got to get her out of this mess. Over here is Mr. Love. Mr. Love has always loved her and would have taken her any time. No, no, no, no, no, no. She had to go after Mr. Law. She thought that he was so much better looking and she thought that, you know, he’s so perfect and so good and so she just didn’t know Mr. Law. She really didn’t understand how wonderful he is. That’s about the way it is.

They’re always looking someplace else and think the grass is greener on the other side. So Mr. Love has always cared. always loved her. But now see, he can have her because she’s married to this man. Doesn’t this get in this, be a sticky situation? So what can be done? So what Mr. Love did, he was born into the world under the dominion of the law.

Because the only way he could deliver her from the curse of the law is he would have to be made of a woman under the law so that he has dominion over him. So he did not come to destroy the law, but to what? Fulfill the law. So there was a time and a place when Mr. Love was born into the world. And when he was born into the world, he was under the law and he had to obey the law.

And whatever the law demanded, he had to keep it perfectly. So by his righteous life, he never at one time ever violated any of the laws of Mr. Law. So then Mr. Law has no right to condemn him to death because there was no fault found in him. He was not guilty of any sin. So he didn’t sin, so if he didn’t sin, he doesn’t have to what? He doesn’t have to die. So therefore, because of his love for Mrs.

Sinner, he was willing to take her place under the law. He would have to die in her place. So what he did is he was willing to go to the cross and die for the sins of the whole world because you see they have no hope, no choice. There’s nothing they have to do. To tell this girl you have to turn from your sins in order to be saved is an impossibility. can’t be done. She can’t change herself. She can’t change her nature.

It’s the way she was born. And to try to tell this girl what you need to do is commit your life to Mr. Love over here and promise that you’ll love and obey and all that she can’t commit herself to another man because she’s still married to this man. Can’t you understand that? Isn’t that clear? That’s why preachers who try to tell a lost man to turn from your sin to be saved, it’s impossible. It’s a shame and a disgrace.

Or to tell people they have to commit their life to Christ, she doesn’t have a life to commit to Christ. She’s She’s under the sentence of death. She’s going to die. So what Mr. Love does, he goes to the cross and pays for her sin. And if she, according to the law, if she will accept that payment that he made for her, that death payment is put to her account. And whenever that payment Just put to her account. Mr.

Law can no longer touch her. Why? Because she paid her debt in full. Mr. Law can’t condemn a dead person. That’s why in Galatians in chapter 2, we are dead to the law. So when I accept that payment Christ made for me, I am now free from these three things. I am free from Mr. Law. The law can never touch me again. Never condemn me again. I am not under the condemnation of the law. And I am free from my old sinful nature through death.

And I don’t have to ever fear death again. So I’m free from the law, sin, and death. And as you read this, six chapter of the book of Romans, you will see what it’s talking about. But try to keep this here in your mind. Now, even though he paid for the sins of the whole world, that payment is not put to their account until they individually, personally, believe he did it for them. So when you believe that he did it for you, that death payment he made is put to your account and as far as the law is concerned, you died and paid for all of your sins.

That’s why Paul says in Galatians chapter 2, he says, I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveeth in me and the life which I now live in the flesh. I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. So let’s just pretend now. Here’s that Mrs. Sinner. She understands that Mr. Love over here died and paid her penalty in full. That there’s nothing that she has to do, nothing she has to promise.

She don’t owe him anything. She don’t have to make a commitment to him on anything because you see she’s still married. She is married until she’s dead. So that day, that moment that you and I trusted Jesus Christ as our Savior, his death was put to my death. So when I died, Mr. Law can’t never touch me again. And And when I was buried and came back again from the dead, I was born again. I got my new life when I came back from the dead.

Well, when did all that happen? You see, when Christ did that for you, and when you believed it, His death was put to your account. That’s when you died. That day you believed Him. You’ve been listening to Bibleline, a teaching ministry of Calvary Community Church in Tampa, Florida with Dr. Ralph Arnold. We pray that you were blessed by today’s message. Part 2 of this teaching will conclude with tomorrow’s broadcast. If you have enjoyed our commitment to the clear gospel of Jesus Christ, you can reach Bibleline and pledge your support to keep us on the air in your area by dialing toll-free 1-800-576-3771.

That’s 1-800-576-3771. To listen to today’s message again or to obtain a free download of any of our Bible line programs, just go to our homepage at BibleLineMinistries.org and click on the Radio Broadcast link. If you are in the area, we welcome you to visit us. The address for Calvary Community Church is 4811 George Road, Tampa, Florida, 33634. Our Sunday morning services begin at 10-30 and at 6 o’clock on Sunday evening. Live broadcast of our services may be seen by clicking on the Calvary Community Church link at BibleLineMinistries.org.

Thanks for joining us on Bibleline and now a closing thought from Pastor Arnold. Friend, one day it will happen. The trumpet will sound, and we will be changed. Caught up to meet the Lord in the air. So live today and every day, believing that the Lord is coming soon and just keep looking up.