We're turning this morning to the Gospel by Matthew chapter five. Matthew chapter five, we're dealing with Christ and his relationship to the law. And when we talk about the law, we're talking about basically the Old Testament scriptures, especially the first five books in the Old Testament. Matthew five, verse seventeen. 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 or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law till all be fulfilled. Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments and shall teach them 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, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven. Now may the Lord bless his words to our hearts. Let us pray together. Father, we thank you for the word of God. For when the early apostles went forth proclaiming the truth, and establishing early churches. They didn't have the New Testament. All they had was the law of the prophets, the Old Testament, and in them they proclaimed the gospel, how that our Lord Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of that which was written before by Moses and the prophets. And therefore we pray that by thy grace Thou wilt embed upon our hearts what it means to be the least in the kingdom and what it means to be the greatest, lest we would teach men in a wrong way. So help us, our God, to so grasp the Holy Scriptures that thy name will be exalted and extolled. We pray for the Lord Jesus' sake and glory. Amen. You and I are living in a day of self-pleasing and self-gratification. The verses that contain the promises of God are far more acceptable in our day than the verses in Scripture that insist upon our obedience to the divine precepts. And what our Lord is teaching in this section here in Matthew is the importance of the divine precepts of God. and we need to keep this before us. We wonder why are there so many shallow conversions today. We hear of multitudes coming to the Lord, but their lives are never changed. We hear of people making, quote, decisions, unquote, and they live the same way they always live. What is wrong? I believe one of the things that is wrong is they never heard the thunder of Sinai and the holiness of God. If there's one thing that the law of God does, it impresses upon our minds the fact that God is first and foremost holy. The holiness of God needs to be spoken, proclaimed, exhorted, and burned into our minds in a very real way. Our Lord Jesus said, Think not that I am come to destroy the law or the prophet. I am not come to destroy but to fulfill. Healthy Christianity, friends, can only be maintained where the balance is properly preserved between a faithful exposition of God's holy law and the pressing of its claims upon the conscience. and then tenderly preaching the gospel and applying that healing balm of the gospel to stricken hearts. We need a balance today. We've heard so much about the love of God that we're lovesick. The church is so lovesick she doesn't realize that the God that we claim to worship is holy. And therefore, we have people making decisions to idle your walk. Because the divine precepts of God have been set aside for the self-pleasing of mankind. Now, what is the problem? The problem is this. We're the proclamation of the gospel. Ask the divine requirements of the law, and live as you please, licentiousness, is engendered. On the other hand, where there is a proclamation of the law, apart from the healing balm of the gospel, a self-righteous Phariseeism is engendered. Now, what do we need? We need the attitude of our Lord himself, as expressed in the Sermon on the Mount. We need this. Think not that I have come to destroy the law or the prophet. I am not come to destroy but to fulfill. And therefore we need to heed the instructions of our Lord when we begin to see that this balance is needed in the church today. Then we'll begin to examine the balance that is found in our Lord himself. Now the first thing we need to notice as we examine verse nineteen. For you see, we know that our Lord came as we examined Christ and the law two weeks ago. He came not to destroy the law or the prophets. He came to fulfill. And of course, he fulfilled it in various ways. He fulfilled all that the law and the prophets said concerning its prefigurations of him and its prophecies. For in the law of God you have what is known as not only the moral law, but we have the sacrificial law, or that which dealt with the sacrifices, the religious life of the nation of Israel. And it's called in the book of the Hebrews in chapter ten shadows of good things to come. And no matter what you look at in the book of Leviticus, whether you look at the burnt offerings, or the trespass offering, the sin offering, or the peace offering, every one of them, in one way or another, speak of the person and work of Christ. It prefigured what took place in the death of Christ when he died for our sins according to the Scriptures. Now because of this, we know that Christ fulfilled the law. He fulfilled his prefiguration and his prophecy. More than that, he fulfilled his precepts and his penalties. Because on the cross on Calvary Hill, on behalf of these people, he bore the judgment for us. You know, I love that song that the choir sang this morning. I really love that song, but I have really difficulty with one of the with the theology of that one stanza that the men saw. The theology, I'll go with him through the judgment. How can you? You can't. If you were to go into judgment, friends, you'll never come out. You'll be lost forever. He went in the judgment alone. alone he bore the cross now I don't want to be a hyper critic but when I when we come to this great subject of Christ fulfilling the law he bore the penalty friend he bore the curse and he bore the curse in order that you and I never have to and my friend if you come into judgment you'll be lost forever You are either saved by realizing that the judgment was born by the Savior on the cross, or you'll have to spend eternity in the judgment because you're going to go through it on your own, and you never can. This is why I enjoy John five, verse twenty four. Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that heareth my word. and believeth on him that sent me half everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but he passed from death and the life. And I enjoy this verse. Think not that I have come to destroy the law of the prophet. I have not come to destroy but to fulfill. He not only fulfilled it by fulfilling all that the law prefigured concerning his death, his burial, and his resurrection, but he fulfilled it as to its precepts and as to its penalties. More than that, he fulfills it upon the surety of our Lord Jesus Christ personally and vicariously as a substitute for us. But then he fulfills it evangelically in his people so that now the very righteousness of the law is fulfilled in us, according to Romans eight, verse four, for we walk not after the flesh. but after the Spirit. And finally, the law will be fulfilled in those who stand in judgment and have to bear its curse themselves, for they never believe the gospel. They never were truly saved. So friends, it's important that Sani eyes thunders shake us to our very innermost being so that we flee for that balm of Gilead that flows from the work of our blessed Lord at the cross on Calvary's Hill so our Lord in verse nineteen he says 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 We come to some conclusions from this verse. Number one, the gospel is always the gospel. There ever only was one gospel. It was the gospel concerning our Lord Jesus Christ. Christ did not come, friends, to bring a new way of righteousness and salvation. The Old Testament law simply pointed forward to the fact that he's coming. There's no new way of salvation. Men and women were saved under the Old Testament economy. The same way they're saved today. Hearing the word of God. Believing on the person of Christ. Now they didn't have as much light as we have. But every offering showed forth the fact that he was coming. And by faith they offered unto God. That's what I read concerning Abel in Hebrews eleven. By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than came to the which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gift. So you see the offerer was always accepted in the offering. Abel was accepted because his offering was accepted. That's why my friend you're rejected if you don't come to Christ. If you do not bow the knee to the person of Christ and claim only his work to save your poor soul, you'll be rejected because Christ is our offering. And that's why we read in Hebrews chapter ten and about verse twenty-six. It says, if we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sin. Why is there no more sacrifice for sin by because there isn't any other that God will ever accept? The man who rejects Christ, that person has no other ground upon which he can ever stand before God. Cain, who brought to the works of his own hands, was rejected by God because salvation is not of our works. is a work of God. And Abel recognized this. He recognized that he was a sinner. And if God will ever accept him, he must come God's way. And he brought a sacrifice, the shedding of blood. And it spoke to the heart of God, a one who by faith believed that the Messiah was coming, who would die in the place of guilty sinners. And Abel took the place of a guilty sinner. And when he did, he was accepted by a holy God. Cain would not take the place of a guilty sinner, and Cain was rejected. And when I speak like this, I'm thinking of a man in Pennsylvania who has a lot of money. He made a lot of money in the granite business in South Rye Gate, Vermont. His name is Jeff Nebius. He had an uncle who was a famous missionary in Korea years ago. But Jack Neveus said to me, he said, I'm not going to come to God through Christ. I'm going to come through the side door. And he said that to me on numerous occasions. And about three years ago, my wife and I stopped to see him. He's up in his eighties now. He's an old man. and still very sharp in his mind. He has a very sharp mind. But he said, I'm coming through the side door. And I said, no, Jack, you're not coming at all. You're only accepted in your offering. And the only offering we have to offer is the person of our Lord Jesus Christ. And he is the one that They believed on in the Old Testament. He is the one that is believed on under the New Covenant. You see, there is only one gospel. Grace is always grace. Now Christ came to deliver men through grace from the curse of the law and then placed in our heart a desire for his holy law. That's what I read in Romans chapter eight. verses three and four turn to it will you please I want you to see this truth Romans eight verses three and four for it says for what the law could not do now there's nothing wrong with the law you see in Romans seven I read that the law is holy it is just It is good. But in Romans chapter three it says, For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh. See, the problem is not with the law. The problem is with sinful man. And that's why we need to get to Sinai and hear the thunders of Mount Sinai. We need to get there. We need to hear the thunders and feel the quaking of the mountains under the feet of a holy God. in the presence of a sinful society. What the law could not do in that it was reached through the flesh. Notice God sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin condemned sin in the flesh. That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us who walked not after the flesh but after the spirit. See, now God has put in our heart those who are truly saved a desire to obey the law of God, a desire to keep the commandments of God. My friend, here's one of the ways we know to save. I have an inward desire to obey God, to do His will when His word says something, that's settlement. I want to do it. I want to obey it. Here's one of the ways we know that we're saved. Well, you see, the gospel is always the gospel. Now, we come to our test. He says, Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments. Now, the least commandment goes back to the previous verse. So, verse eighteen, where he says, Till heaven and earth pass, One jot or one fiddle, shall I know why it's passed from the law, till all be fulfilled. In our words, A jot in the Hebrew is just like the dotting of an eye, and the title is like the crossing of a tea. In other words, the Bible is so inspired that it will be fulfilled to the dotting of an eye and the crossing of a tea. That's what our Lord means when he says, Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments and shall teach men so. Now we need to stop there and think. Nobody likes to sin all by themselves. Never any fun. And if you want your own way, you usually get somebody else to agree with you. In other words, when we come up against something that we don't like in the Word of God, we try to get somebody else who's going to agree with us that they don't like it either. And then we're going to try to get away from it. That's why it says, Whosoever shall break one of the least and shall teach them so that we try to get others to go along with our system. Our Lord here is telling us some very important truth. You see, instead of Christ here encouraging his followers to disregard the divine law, He upheld its claims, and he would frown upon any who would disesteem the least requirement that the law gave. For the holy law of God speaks of the holy character of God. Now if the master, our Lord Jesus himself, could not destroy, but rather fulfill the law, It follows that his servant should be fulfilling it. And the righteousness of the law, friends, is fulfilled in us. You and I, in society today, as a salt of the earth and as the light of the world should be in our bodies fulfilling the righteousness of the law. to destroy the prophet, would be to deny their validity, to repudiate their inspiration, to annul their authority, that it would have no longer any binding power. It's an amazing thing. But the big problem today is the authority of the Word of God, the inerrancy of Scripture. Now what is meant by that word least? Anyone who does this is the least in the kingdom. Well, commentators give you quite a bit about it. I'm not going to say much, tell you what the commentators say. I'll just tell you what I believe. I believe that that statement is very solemn that our Lord made. I believe that the evil minister, it simply means this, that the evil minister who would teach men to disregard God's holy law will be judged by the king himself in a coming day. And I base that on Isaiah chapter nine and verse fifteen. Isaiah nine fifteen says, The ancient and honorable, he is the head. The prophet that teacheth lies, he is the tail. Now that's figurative language. You see, when we think of an animal, the head of the animal is the important part. So you see, and the honorable and the ancient, he's the head, but a prophet who teaches lies, he's the tail. And God will take care of him. He shall be judged by the Lord himself. He's the least in the kingdom of heaven. But now what is meant by grace in the kingdom of heaven? They who teach men so. You see, two things go together here, doing and teaching. And when our Lord comes to the close of the Sermon on the Mount, he says, Whosoever therefore heareth these things of mine and doeth them, I will liken him. Furthermore, at the close of the Sermon on the Mount, he says, Many shall say unto me in that day, Lord, Lord, have I not done this and that? But you see, that is prefaced by the word, not everyone that saith unto me, Lord, Lord. shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of my Father who is in heaven. And there is an emphasis laid here on obeying that which is written in the word of God. Christ requires in this text integrity of life and soundness of doctrine from each people. This is the gospel Jesus preached, friends. And this is a gospel that we need to preach in our day today. Now, that brings us to another question. What is the relationship of the believer to the law of God? Well, let me say this very quickly. He is no longer under the law in the sense that the law was a covenant of works. We're not under the law as a covenant of work. And that's the whole argument of Galatians chapter three. That's the argument of Galatians chapter three. Our salvation does not depend upon our keeping the law for we never could do it. Salvation is not a work. I can't keep the law. Christ kept it for me. But now, since I'm saved, the Spirit of God has come to indwell me, and now it's possible for the righteousness of the law to be fulfilled in us, not by us, but in us, the work of the Spirit of God. For we walk, not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. And just as natural, as it is for a baby to cry after they have been born. It is natural for a child of God to want to walk in fellowship with the Lord after he's been saved. That's what our Lord is teaching in this passage. We are delivered, beloved, those who are saved are delivered from the curse of the law. Our problems is we seek to view law and think of it as opposed to grace. We think that law and grace are opposite. They work together in the Word of God. The law was never given to save man. God knew that it couldn't. Galatians three, verse eleven, I think it is, or is it verse ten? I always tell people this is a verse everybody should have memorized. And I say that Seriously. Well, this verse brings me great satisfaction. You should have it memorized. If there was a law given that could have given life, verily righteousness would come by the law. You should have that memorized. In other words, if there was another way that a person could be saved, if there was a way that God could accept your works, he'd do it. But he can't. He's holy. That's what it's saying. That's why I love it to us. It explains to us the grace of God. Why did God give the law? God gave the law to make sin exceeding sinful. And you and I are living in a day when we think sin is exceeding night. Because the death of our Lord. You know there are some things I don't understand. The Word of God speaks of sin as a disease. Do you want, how many here would want AIDS? We don't want it. But yet we toy with sin. The Word of God speaks of sin as a disease, friends. The word of God speaks of sin as darkness. Are you glad you can see this morning? You have sight? Would you want to be blind? Can you get me toy with sin? And we think it's all right. God gave his holy law that sin Might be seen by us as exceeding sinful. That's what it is. It's exceeding sinful. You see, the law wasn't given so that man might justify himself before God. That's what the Pharisees tried to do, and it never was. But the law was given that it might cause us to run to Christ. and lay hold of that bomb of Gilead that told us in the gospel. Grace is grace. You see, if we have a false view of the law, then we're going to have a false view of grace. And that's our big problem today. We have a false view of the law. And therefore a false view of sin and therefore a false view of grace. You see, if The whole purpose of grace is to enable us to do what? To keep the law. That's what Romans eight is telling me, that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who won't matter after the flesh, but after the spirit. Holiness means righteousness, then. That's what it means. If your salvation by grace that you claim that you've received, if it doesn't make you holy, And if it doesn't give you an inward desire to obey God, you haven't received grace at all. You haven't received it. What is grace? Grace is that marvelous gift of God which delivers a man from the curse of the law and enables him to keep the law and to be righteous as Christ is righteous for he kept the law perfectly. That doesn't mean that we're going to be sinlessly perfect, friends. But the inward desire is there. Grace, beloved, is that glorious work that enables me to love God. And if I love God, I will keep His commandments. Now, grace, friends, is not sentimental. Holiness is not an experience. Holiness is a whole way of life. That's what it is. Our Lord says, Not everyone that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of my Father who is in heaven. Whosoever breaketh the least of these and teaches them so shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven. But whosoever keepeth them, doeth and keepeth, shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. I'd like to say four things very quickly. Number one, we look at the law and the prophets, and we see them fulfilled in Christ. When I look at the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, I notice that God dealt in my sins there on the cross. in the person of his dear son. And friends, that's the gospel. Christ was judged that I'll never have to go into the judgment. This is a substitutionary doctrine of the atonement. He carried out every detail of it, and he fulfilled it for me. The third thing is this. The effect of this redeeming work is not only to provide forgiveness for the guilty, but to make us sons of God who delight in the law of God, who hunger and thirst after righteousness. Blessed are ye that do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled. Finally, a believer is a person. who longs to live like Christ and who longs to delight him in every respect. Are you here? Oh, my friend, Christ is the only answer we invite you to come to him today. Apart from him, you are totally lost. You are already condemned, but He's the answer for today and for eternity. And we invite you to trust Him, trust Him today. Now let's pray together. Now we pray thee, our God and Father, that you will take this word and bless it to every heart. Speak to us. as we separate one from another. May each of us examine our own souls by asking the question, is that desire to obey you within us? Oh, Father, there any here who are lost, we pray that the balm of Gilead and the oil of gladness will be their portion as they turn from themselves to the person of our Lord Jesus Christ, in whose name we give thee our grateful thanks. Amen. I'd like to sing one stanza of a hymn, two hundred thirty-six in our hymn book, Free from the Law, O Happy Condition, Jesus has bled and there is remissioned, cursed by the law and bruised by the fall, but Christ hath redeemed us once for all. And then the refrain, once for all, O sinner, receive it. Once for all, O brother, believe it, cling to the cross. The burden will fall. Christ hath redeemed us once for all. Let's stand and sing that verse.