God Requires Perfect Obedience from Man (1)

Introduction: The Need for Wisdom and Understanding in Studying God's Law

0:02 The following message was delivered on Sunday morning, November 12, 1995, at the Trinity Baptist Church of Montville, New Jersey. Now let us again unite our hearts in prayer before God, remembering the words that were read to us out of Ephesians 1, where the Apostle indicates that he prayed for the Ephesians, that although they had already been sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, that God would give them the spirit of wisdom and revelation. That is, God would give them additional supplies of the Spirit that they might have accurate spiritual understanding and perception. To that end, let us seek God's face together. Holy Father, we thank you for the reminder in the reading of your word that to all of your people the Holy Spirit has been given. Given on the ground, not of our agonizing or our striving or our meeting any other conditions, but given to us as the fruit of the redemptive work of the Lord Jesus Christ on our behalf.

1:22 And we thank you that having given him to us freely, we are nonetheless warranted to pray that you, our gracious Father, would continue to guide us. To grant us increased measures and increased supplies of the Spirit's grace and ministry to our hearts. And we pray that as we embark upon this new series of studies today, that we may have a peculiar token of your own heart's goodwill and intention to bless our consideration of your holy law by giving to us copious measures of the Spirit, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit who testifies to Christ, the Spirit who convicts of sin. O God, come in might and power we plead through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Fourfold State of Man: A Lost but Essential Doctrine

2:29 Now there was a time in the country of Scotland, a land so richly blessed with gospel blessing in bygone days, when if you or I were to go, into the average home of a professing Christian, we would have found in many, if not most of those homes, three or four very well-worn volumes. The first, of course, would have been a Bible. In the stately old, what we would consider antiquated language of the authorized version, that book would have been central to the life, literally, of tens of thousands of families in that land that knew in past days such gospel blessing. And then the second book you would have found, not quite as well-worn, but perhaps very closely in its usage, would have been a compilation of what we call the Westminster Standards, the Westminster Confession of Faith and its catechisms, the larger and shorter catechism, which literally stamped upon the soul of a nation perspectives about God and His truth that was a powerful and lasting influence.

3:53 And can you children guess what the third book would probably be? One that many of you have heard, and mom and dad have read it to you, and you read it with profit. Some of you have guessed it. Bunyan's Dream.

4:09 Bunyan's Allegory. Bunyan's Pilgrim. You would have found in those godly Scottish homes, Pilgrim's Progress, a well-worn book, as people had come to love their Bibles and love the expression of biblical truth so beautifully and comprehensively stated in the Westminster Standards. They came to love old Bunyan for setting out in such vivid imagery the realities of Christian experience under the image, of the man with the burden on his back, who loses his burden at the foot of the cross in an open tomb, and then makes his way to the celestial city.

4:52 But I wonder how many of you can guess what the fourth book was in many of those homes. Well, you see that fourth book is a book not very well known in our day. Even in many of our homes where those first three books have one single title, again taken a tremendous place of interest and influence. And that fourth book was a book entitled Human Nature in its Fourfold State. And its author was Thomas Boston, a godly pastor and preacher who exercised a tremendous influence in his generation. And in the very opening paragraph of that book that was a household companion throughout Scotland in days of former blessing, he begins that book with these arresting words. There are four things necessary to be known by all that would see heaven. And the minute you read a statement like that, you say, well, Lord, I would see heaven.

6:09 What are the four things this man is going to allege that I must know if I would see heaven? And then he lists them. Number one, what man was in the state of innocence as God made him. Number two, what he is in the state of corrupt nature as he hath unmade himself.

6:40 Number three, what he must be in the state of grace as created in Christ Jesus unto good works, if ever he be made a partaker of the inheritance of the saints in light. And number four, what he will be in his eternal state as determined by the judge of all, either perfectly happy or completely miserable. And that forever. These are the weighty points that touch the vitals of practical godliness from which most men and even many professing Christians in these dregs of time, that's how he refers to his age in the 1700s, are quite estranged. I design therefore under the divine conduct. To open up these things and apply them. Hence the title of his book, Human Nature in a Fourfold State. What man was in Eden. What man is since the fall. What man must become by the

8:00 grace of God. And what he will be and where he will be forever as determined by the judge of the world. Now I concur with Boston that the first three are indeed necessary to be known by all that would see heaven. To know the fourth, I believe, is a luxury. But to know the first three is no luxury. If you and I would attain to heaven, we must know what man was in a state of innocence when God made him. We must know what man is in a state of corrupt nature as we have unmade ourselves. And then we must know thirdly what man must be in a state of grace as created in Christ Jesus. And crucial to an accurate understanding of these three truths is an understanding

The Law and the Gospel: Crucial for Understanding Man's States

9:10 of the law and of the gospel. In other words, we must understand what God said when he spoke in his own voice from Sinai. Amidst the fire and the burning and the lightning and the thunder and the shaking and the blasting of the trumpet, God spoke ten words. And having spoken them, he said, said no more. And you and I must understand the significance of what God spoke from Mount Sinai.

9:52 And we must understand the significance of what God did on another hill called the place of a skull, Golgotha, where the incarnate God hung between earth and heaven. And under a sky shrouded in blackness felt the abandonment and dereliction of bearing the sins of men under the unleashed fury of the wrath of Almighty God. Now with these very personal and practical concerns of saving religion as the field of our endeavor, we begin a series of studies. Studies this morning in the Ten Commandments. You will often hear them referred to as the Decalogue from the two Greek words, Deca, ten, Logos, word, the ten words, or often referred to as the moral law. And I will be using those terms interchangeably. The Ten Commandments, the Decalogue, the moral law.

Foundation for the Decalogue: Introductory Studies

11:09 And as many of you have been practicing the Ten Commandments, you will often hear them referred to as the moral law. And as many of you have been praying for me in my preparation of these studies, and as I have prayed and sought responsibly to labor in my preparation, I'm convinced that I must begin the series with four or five introductory studies before we take up the First Commandment, in order that these studies may function in our thinking and in our experience as the slab and the walls, and as they must function in the foundation of a house.

11:46 When the contractor brings in the bulldozer and digs a hole in the ground, and there in that hole preparation is made to pour a concrete slab, and when at the edges of that slab there are deeper trenches for what we call the footings, and after the concrete is set, he comes in and lays up block walls, we say the contractor has constructed the foundation for the house. And what's the function of that foundation? Well, all of you know, you kids know. It is to support the superstructure and to give shape and form to the superstructure. The superstructure, for the most part, will take its dimensions from the foundation. So that the concrete slab with its footings and the walls that we call the foundation both support the house and give specific dimensions to the house. And these introductory studies are intended to do precisely that in our study of the Ten Commandments.

13:07 For in the history of the church, as recorded, in the scriptures, and subsequent to the closing of our canon of scripture, that is, when the Spirit of God had given us the book of the Revelation, and there was to be no more Bible, church history since then, along with the history recorded in our Bible, shows that often men have so perverted the use of the Ten Commandments as to damn them. To damn themselves with them, to cripple their Christian lives by them, and to wrongly represent the central issues of the work of Jesus Christ on behalf of sinners. Now, I don't want to see anyone damning himself by his study of the Ten Commandments. I don't want to see any Christian crippling himself by our study of the Ten Commandments. And above all, I do not want any facet of the person and work of my Lord Jesus Christ to be misrepresented or unnecessarily misunderstood in our study of the Ten Commandments.

14:30 And so, for a foundation which will support and give shape and contour to the whole, we shall begin with these instructions. Introductory studies. And the first one this morning, I have but one fundamental issue that I want to implant in your minds by the enablement of the Spirit of God and with the Scriptures, and it is this. Man, as created by God, is under an inescapable obligation to render perfect obedience to God.

Core Thesis: Man's Inescapable Obligation to Perfect Obedience

15:11 Man, as created by God, is under an inescapable obligation to render perfect obedience to God. Now, that's all I want to try to demonstrate and get into your heads, and I pray the Holy Ghost will get into your hearts.

15:22 Man, in contrast to the beast of the field and the birds of the airs and the stars of the galaxies, man, as created by God, is under an inescapable obligation to render perfect obedience, to render perfect obedience to God. Now, any attempt to preach the Ten Commandments, expecting them to bite into our consciences, will fail unless this foundational issue is as clear to us as the noonday sun reveals itself to us on a cloudless day. Amen. Amen. Amen.

16:12 Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.

16:12 Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.

16:12 Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.

16:13 Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.

16:13 Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.

16:14 Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.

16:15 Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.

16:15 Amen. Amen. This principle is as clear to us as the sun's own revelation of itself when it's at its zenith against the backdrop of a clear blue sky. I say our study of the Ten Commandments will fail of its God-intended end.

16:34 The issue is that man, as created by God, is under an inescapable obligation Amen. Amen. render perfect obedience to God. Any attempts to show the relationship of the law to the gospel is doomed to fail unless this issue is woven into the warp and woof of our minds and of our hearts.

17:05 So I have one simple but basic and crucially important task to accomplish this morning, and that is to seek to persuade you from the Scriptures that you, as created by God, are under an inescapable obligation to render to God perfect obedience. Now that's my goal, that's the passion of my heart, and everything I say. I will be bent toward that purpose. And I will attempt to do so by gathering our thoughts and the various Scriptures into three categories. First of all, we'll consider the ground of this obligation, or the basis. On what ground or basis is this obligation as a creature to obey God founded? On what ground does it rest?

The Ground of Obligation: The Creator-Creature Relationship

18:15 And then we'll consider, secondly, the standard of this obligation, and thirdly, the ultimate expressions of this obligation. So we begin, then, with the ground of this obligation, and I state it very simply, it is the creator-creature relationship. If someone should come up to one of you kids and say, do you believe that you're free to cut your own course, and your own life, and do your own thing, and figure out your own purpose for life, your own standards for life, and you say, no, I believe I'm obligated to obey God. And they should answer you, well, what makes you think you're obligated to obey God? I hope you would be able to answer after this morning, it is because of the creator-creature relationship in which I stand. It is the reality of a relationship, which I did not think up, which I did not imagine, and which I did not create, and concerning which I have no choice, that I am under a solemn, inescapable obligation perfectly to obey God.

19:36 It is the creator-creature relationship as established by God. Turn to the first. Turn to the first page of the Bible with me, if you will, please. Genesis chapter 1.

19:50 Genesis chapter 1.

19:54 Now imagine someone who had never seen the pages of a Bible, but he had heard that this was the book of God, and in it God revealed himself, and revealed his mind, and told us who he was, and who man was, and why the world is what it is, and all of these things, and he, picks it up for the first time, and he begins to read. What would strike him? What strikes you, even though you've heard the words, times without number? How does our Bible begin?

20:30 It begins in this way. In the beginning, God.

20:39 In the beginning, God.

20:45 It makes no effort to attempt to prove the existence of God. It makes no effort to delineate and describe his attributes. There is nothing but a naked assertion that there was a being called God who existed in the beginning. He's simply there.

21:11 In the beginning, God. And whoever he is, and whatever makes up what we call his attributes, his characteristics, this is set before us in naked assertion. He is simply there. In the beginning, God.

21:36 And then we are told that this God engaged in an activity called creation. In the beginning, God, independent of, prior to, and totally without any necessity for, and totally without any necessity for, and totally without any necessity for, and totally without any necessity for, and totally without anything outside of himself, this God, existing in all the glory of his own triune being, this God existing in total self-sufficiency, without any lack and any need or any dependence upon anything or anyone outside of himself, he creates the heavens and the earth. And then as we read on, we have an account, we have an account of the six days of God's creative activity, in which God in an orderly way brings into being all that we now know and describe as our world of men and of things, our universe as we now know it. And the crowning work of God's creative activity, on the sixth day, was God's creation of man.

23:01 And I'm not at all embarrassed to use that word, though I know it's not politically correct, it is divinely inspired by the Holy Ghost, that the word man can be used generically for all of mankind, men and women, boys and girls, and everything in between. And therefore I will use Bible language politically correct, be correct or not.

23:28 So we read in verse 26, God said, let us make man in our image, and after our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the heavens, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth. And God created man in his own image, in the image of God, created he him, male and female, created he them. You see the word man all along up till now has referred to mankind, not just the male of the species, but refers generically, and so I'm using it in the sense that the Holy Ghost has used it. In the image of God, created he him, male and female, created he them. Now after, after God has created the male and the female, and we'll have occasion to look into chapter 2 in a few moments to see in little greater detail how he did that, notice the first thing he did. And God blessed them.

24:41 Now whether God did this by verbally conferring some words of blessing is a matter of debate and discussion among serious Bible-believing students of the Word of God. But having blessed them, expressed his good will towards them, notice the first directive he gives, and God said unto them,

25:09 and of all things he speaks to them giving orders, be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens, and over every living thing that moves upon the earth. And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb yielding seed which is upon the face of the earth, and every tree in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed. To you it shall be for food. Now what's the first thing that God does after he makes man the creature?

25:52 Well, he assumes the rights of a creator and to put it in blunt contemporary Americanese God begins to call the shots.

26:05 God says that he's running the show.

26:12 Now he does it under the canopy of his expressed good will and blessing. So in no way would Adam and Eve conceive this as some narrow-hearted authoritarian bully pushing them around. No, it is under the canopy of his having blessed them that he now begins to call the shots. He begins to give to them authoritative directives for their conduct in his world.

26:42 Now you see, the scripture says he had just conferred within himself the blessed triune God. Let us make man in our image and after our likeness. And the scripture says he had created man in this noble, unique, distinct way that above and beyond the world, above and beyond the world, above and beyond the world, above and beyond the world, above and beyond the world, and in a totally different category from the highest order of the animals, man and man alone is made in the moral image and likeness of God. Well, you say if man is so high and dignified a being whose image-bearing capacity among other things involves the ability to think rationally, to weigh evidence, to draw conclusions, to make deductions. And here were two image-bearers whose minds didn't have the cloud the size of a man's hand to in any way cut off the light of thinking accurately, thinking purely, drawing proper conclusions, no skewing of the process of logic to serve the cause of sin. Here were pure minds reflecting God's mind. Here were wills reflecting the uprightness and the equity of God's will.

28:03 And yet though man is such a noble creature made in the image of God, God doesn't say, now Adam and Eve, since I've made you in my image, it would be an insult for me to simply impose upon you by sheer exercise of my will what you're to do. So let's have a three-day seminar in which we will discuss together how you're going to function in my world, which is now your world.

28:33 No such thing. There's no seminar. There's no parlaying. There's no discussion.

28:40 The God who creates has every mandate to the creature what he shall do. And he simply exercises that right waiting for no consent from the creature. Waiting for no notion from the creature that he desires, God makes them and God says to them.

29:14 Now when we turn to chapter 2, we have an expansion of that principle.

God's Sovereign Mandate to Man in Eden

29:21 For in the creation of the man and the woman, chapter 1 gives us the overview of the great sweeping picture of creation. Chapter 2 is the zoom lens where God zooms in on precisely how he created the man and the woman. Reading chapter 1, you would think he created them both at the same time in the same way. But in chapter 2, God says, no, there are details you can't see from afar.

29:48 We're going to crank up the zoom lens and bring you in a little closer. And so God gives us in chapter 2 how he created the man. Verse 7, the Lord God formed the man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became man became man became literally living soul. God made man of the dust of the ground, formed him, breathed into him the breath of life, he became living soul.

30:24 Then we have an account of how God prepared a special part in the created order in which to place the man. That's what we have in the next verses. But then we read verse 15, having created the man, having prepared the special place of the man, the special place in which to put the man. Look at verse 15.

30:43 And the Lord God took the man and brought him to the edge of the garden and asked him if he liked it and whether he'd like to stay there and carry on his tasks. No, no. The Lord God took the man and put him into the garden. Took him and he put him.

31:03 And having taken him and put him, he didn't say, now Adam, now that I've taken you and put you here, let's discuss what you're going to do here. No, no. That was all taken. He was taken care of for him as well.

31:12 Look at the passage. The Lord God took the man, put him into the garden to dress it and to keep it. He took him, he put him and he assigned a task to him. He didn't ask whether he liked flowers.

31:26 He didn't ask him whether he liked the idea that his occupation for the time being would be that of a gardener and a husbandman. God decided all of that. You say, well, the nerve of...

31:38 No, no. No, no. He's the creator. He's the creator.

31:41 Adam's the creature. And it is the creator, creature, distinction and relationship that gives God every holy right to do exactly what he did. And furthermore, to underscore that, God in verse 16 says, and God commanded the Lord, God commanded the man, saying, of every tree, of the garden, you may freely eat. There is God's marvelous concession.

32:18 Adam, I've made you with taste buds that can appreciate the sour, the sweet, and the bitter, and all of the mingling of the various things, and of all of the trees of the garden, you may freely eat. When you want something sweet and drippy and luscious, you can pluck a peach off a peach tree, like a ripe Georgia peach, if there was such a thing in Eden. And Adam, when you want something that's got a little more bite to it, there's a persimmon over there, and that'll make you pucker up. It's all there, Adam.

32:50 I've given you the capacity to appreciate all the various tastes and smells and flavors, and you may freely eat of them all, but, but, but, of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat of it, for in the day that you eat thereof, you will surely die.

33:13 You may freely eat of all the things of all the trees, Adam, so that there is nothing lacking in terms of the capacities and appetite I've given you to appreciate and enjoy all the variety of the things I've made. They're all yours, Adam, but that tree there is not one that has some special taste that can't be found in any other. It is there, Adam, as the crucial test of whether or not this relationship I've established of creator calling the shots and creature staying in the posture of loving obedience will be the framework in which you will be content to live.

33:54 That's the issue. Of all the trees you may freely eat, but of that tree you may not eat of it in the day you eat, you die. There will be an intrusion of that which is contrary to the whole order of what I've made, upon which he looked according to 131 and saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And God here asserts the rights of a creator to the creature and says of that tree you shall not eat of it.

34:30 Now, I ask the question again. Did God consult with Adam and say, Now, Adam, I want to establish a framework here that will allow me to put you on trial with respect to whether or not you will maintain your posture as a creature. And joyfully embrace my role as your creator, God, your sovereign, and you being the obedient subject and son, for Adam is called the son of God in chapter 5 of Genesis. Now, let's try to figure out in a way, no, he does not consult with Adam.

The Creator-Creature Relationship Endures Beyond the Fall and into Redemption

35:11 God, the creator, simply mandates, determines, and reveals his will to man, the creature. You say, Pastor, you've made your point. Now, get off it. Well, for any of you who talk that way, may I just say you're being a bit cheeky.

35:29 You neither understand the human heart and you don't know what preaching is.

35:35 Because as clearly as I've tried to establish the point that it was some of you go out of here drunk with the notion that you've got some little area that's a no man's land of ethical freedom where you are free to choose for yourself what you will and will not do. Because it has never come home into the theater of your heart with power that you are a creature and God is creator. And as long as the creator-creature relationship obtains, you as a creature are under an inescapable obligation to render perfect obedience to God. Now we know the sad story that unfolds in chapter 3.

36:30 The man and the woman sin against God. And the whole relationship to God is stood on its head. And there is aversion to God in an attempt to run from God. And God comes as a gracious inquisitor.

36:47 Adam, where are you? And then in that setting familiar to many of you, God pronounces curses upon the serpent, a curse upon the ground. He pronounces punishments that would be upon the woman and upon the man. And in the midst of it He gives a gracious promise.

37:05 The first ray of gospel light. Chapter 3 and verse 15. I will put enmity between thee and the woman. That is, between the serpent and the woman.

37:14 Between your seed and her seed. He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel. And that promise ultimately falls out in the full-blown New Testament revelation of the coming of the Son of God who said, Now is the Prince of this world cast out. He is the one of whom John spoke.

37:35 He has been manifested to destroy the works of the devil. And even after the coming of the Lord Jesus and everything pertaining to the marvelous redemption in Christ. You have a sinner who shares in Adam's guilt and pollution. Who comes within the orbit of the gracious salvation of the seed of the woman.

38:01 His sins are pardoned. His heart has been renewed. His spirit is suffused with motives of love and gratitude to the Savior and to the God who sent him. The question still remains.

38:16 Has all of that changed the creator creature relationship? No. It's still the creator who sent the son as the seed of the woman and sent him to man the creature who had become man the rebel. Man the dead sinner, the blind sinner, the rebellious sinner, the polluted sinner, the hell deserving sinner.

38:49 But all of that that unfolds throughout the rest of the Bible. At no point changes the fact that God is still the creator and man is still the creature. And even when men have come within the orbit of the redemptive work of Christ and have motives to love God and to obey God and to serve Christ that are powerful and constraining for the love of God. Christ constrains me Paul said and Jesus said if you love me you will keep my commandments.

39:31 In all of that it doesn't change the fact that man as created by God is under an inescapable obligation perfectly to obey God because the creator creature relationship is foundational to his very being.

Eternal Obligation: In Heaven and Hell

39:53 Take that redeemed sinner all the way to the world. to heaven when every last vestige of sin is taken from his inner man his spirit his soul think of it not one twitch of a desire to lust to covet to be mean to brother or sister to be jealous of the one that's better looking than you are who has more of this world's good every last vestige of sin taken away from the deepest resources recesses of the human spirit and heart and when joined to that perfected spirit there is a resurrection body that according to Philippians 3 is made after the pattern of the glorious body of the resurrected Christ a body in which there is no pain no sickness no degeneration won't need spectacles no bifocals no trifocals no contact lenses no arthritis rubs a body that is so resplendent with resurrection power and life that it doesn't even need to sleep no night there serve him day and night in his temple now listen carefully even there when glorified men and women are in the immediate presence of God reflecting perfectly the moral likeness of Christ body and soul I ask the question

41:22 are they still under obligation perfectly to obey God absolutely in fact I discovered something in my preparation I've read it many times but the significance of it almost overwhelmed me you turn to Revelation 22 with me now see we've gone all the way from Genesis to Revelation in 15 minutes Revelation 22 here you have the beautiful description in chapter 21 and 22 of what awaits the people of God under various images the new heavens and the new earth being likened unto one grand temple and God himself in his immediate presence is with his people and then it's likened unto that beautiful city the people of God the new Jerusalem the redeemed and then we come into chapter 22 he showed me a river of water of life brightest crystal proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb and in the midst of the street thereof and on this side the river now look at verse three and there shall be no curse anymore no more anything that is accursed where did curse come in it came in in Genesis 3 up until Genesis 3 God beheld everything that he made and it was good cursed

42:52 is the ground for your sake Adam and with the curse sickness and pain and sorrow and grief and death there shall be no curse anymore and there shall be and the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be therein now notice how he describes his redeemed people and his servants you know what the Greek word is douloi his bond slaves well wait a minute I thought in the messages to the seven churches the promises to those who overcome were they will sit with me in my throne as I overcome and sat in my father's throne didn't Jesus say to him that overcomes he will join me in judgment upon the nations he that overcomes shall be a pillar in the temple of my God all of those glorious things now he calls them bond slaves why because they never lose their identity as creatures obligated to be to render perfect obedience to their creator and though there will be absolutely nothing within them or without them that can

44:21 turn them aside from rendering that perfect obedience with perfect delight in every circumstance through all eternity the obligation to render it will extend as long as God is God and God and man is man even in the eternal state and I want to tell you another sobering thing when Jesus as the judge says to those on his left hand depart from me you cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels he's saying to creatures who owe perfect obedience to God their creator depart into eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels I ask you the question the damned in hell gnashing their teeth with their resurrected bodies gnawing their tongues in pain in their resurrection in their resurrected bodies not glorified but resurrected bodies given by God a capacity to exist no rest day or night are they still under obligation

45:49 to obey God yes and that's one of the reasons why hell is eternal because in hell in that irreversible fixed state of abandonment by God they do not cease to be God's creatures and as long as they are creatures and he is the creator the obligation to render him perfect obedience still rest upon them so they are running up in eternal debt as they do not render the obedience they owe him and therefore their punishment is unending you see dear people it is a solemn thing to be a human being you feel something of that as I was preparing and wrestling hour after hour in these past weeks I wrote on one of my study sheets this simple statement what a solemn thing to be a human being what a solemn thing to be a human being who because I am the creature made by God the creator

Application: The Desperate Need to Reclaim This Truth

47:17 I am under an in in in in in in in in obligation to render to the God who made me perfect obedience did you say pastor none of us has rendered it what do we that's a question we're not addressing right now I said I had one issue I wanted to drive at and drive home and with the prayer that the spirit of God would ingrain it into the very texture of your soul and it is that truth that you and I as creatures made by God his special creatures are under solemn obligation to render perfect obedience to God and I say by way of application under this heading and if I get no further than this first heading I don't care I intended to get three but this is so crucial I'm determined to see these things preached in not simply preached over do you see how desperate this biblical perspective needs to be thundered from the housetops in this generation to use the analogy of pastor Waldron we have a generation that is seeking to spider like spin out of its own belly the web of its own

48:46 standards and perspectives on the meaning and purpose of life you see a spider unlike the bird who builds her nest from twigs and bits and pieces of straw and string that she finds around the neighborhood the spider spins his home his nest out of his own belly you ever seen a spider building his nest he doesn't go off somewhere and pick up a little bit of something and bring it and put it in no no he spins it out of his own gut out of his own belly and we've got a generation that has spun its notions of right and wrong out of its own belly its notions of purpose its notions of sexuality its notions of what is acceptable behavior what is tolerable behavior in society what society ought to accept and not accept what is the purpose of life how are we to conduct ourselves in interpersonal relationships how should we view people who have defective what we would view defective views of God they would say alternate views of God are we to be tolerant of everything and everybody you see we live in a generation that has lost the consciousness we are creatures God the creator has called the shots

50:15 and set the standards and we are under solemn and inescapable obligation to render him perfect obedience now what is the standard of that obedience we've seen that the ground of it is the creator creature relationship now more briefly I will touch on this second heading more briefly what is the standard of this obligation and I answer the revealed will of God the ground of it the creator creature relationship the standard no I'm not going to I convoluted pages two and three of my notes I must stick with this one heading because I have failed to mention what is critical in my application the only way to release man from this obligation of perfectly obeying God based on the creator creature relationship the sovereign subject relationship is either to un-God God or to un-man man you see that you have to un-God God or un-man man and wasn't that the thrust of the first temptation in Genesis chapter 3 Genesis chapter 3

51:44 and I'm sorry for derailing you for the moment but this just understood for me the reality that we are in the midst of spiritual conflict in matters so crucial in Genesis chapter 3 when the serpent came to tempt the woman what did he say first of all he asked the question has God said you shall not eat verse 1 the woman said of the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat but of the fruit of the tree in the midst of the garden God had said neither shall you eat of it neither shall you touch it lest you die and the serpent said unto the woman you shall not surely die God's word about that aspect of reality in his world in your relationship to it is not normative and valid it's deceptive it's not trustworthy for God knows in the day you eat your eyes shall be opened and you shall be what as God you'll get elevated to a new level of existence and reality you shall be as God no longer the creature dependent upon God to interpret reality for you and to tell you in the light of that reality what you should and should not do you should be as God knowing you can then be the one who arbitrates what is good and what

53:13 is evil you see what he did he sought to unman man and make him God or he seeks to un-God God and make him man or something else Romans chapter one is the account of that the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hold down the truth in unrighteousness for that which may be known of God is manifest to them for God has revealed it to them the invisible things of the creation are clearly seen even as everlasting power and Godhood so that they may be without excuse for knowing God they glorified him not as God became vain in their imaginations and their foolish heart was darkened professing themselves to be wise they became fools now notice and change the glory of the incorruptible God like unto an image of man and beast and four footed creatures and creeping things what does man do he either unmans himself and makes himself God or he un-Gods God and makes himself God Makes him a man, or worse yet, into the form of a beast.

54:27 Or the great push in our day to un-God, God, and un-man, man, is to make everything God. That's the whole thrust of the new age in all of its subtle and covert and overt forms. All is God. God is all.

54:44 Why should you have as much respect for some little obscure creature and throw a whole community into economic disaster to spare that one little creature?

54:59 Because something of God is in that creature. As much as in man. All is God. God is all.

55:07 Pantheism.

55:10 Much of the so-called environmental obsession. Much of it. I didn't say all of it. Green Peace Movement and all the rest.

55:18 What is its obsession? It's this notion that there's something of God in everything. And everything together makes God. What's behind all of this?

55:28 From Satan's first whispering, You shall be as God. From Romans chapter 1, becoming vain in their imaginations, putting down what they already know about God, and making these images in the form of man and beast and worshipping them. What's behind all of that? I'll tell you what's behind it.

55:51 Man can't live. With. What God has established. The creator-creature relationship.

56:01 Because as long as he thinks in that category, he knows. He must render to God his creator, who made him and in the language of Acts 17, gives him life and breath and all things that he owes to that being. Perfect.

56:23 Undiminished. Perpetual. Whole. Sold.

56:29 Obedient.

56:31 And that sinful man will not have.

Conclusion: The Law as Foundation for the Gospel

56:38 Now brethren, I've tried to make but one point this morning. Have you got it?

56:44 That one point is the first batch of concrete on the slab. Hasn't even slopped over into the footings yet. And that point is this.

56:56 That man, you and I, as the creatures of God, are under an inescapable, obligation to render perfect obedience to God. And the ground of that obligation is the creator-creature relationship. Established in the beginning. Tragically disrupted but not erased or obliterated in the fall.

57:28 Gloriously elevated and enhanced but not cancelled in redemption begun. Or. Or. Or even consummated in the age to come and for all eternity.

57:42 In heaven or in hell you will be a creature obligated to render to God obedience. If you're in heaven, you'll be doing it. In hell you won't be forever.

58:07 Now do you see why the old writers were careful to emphasize Ordinarily there is no appreciation of the gospel without the preaching of the law. You see why? You see why they took people to Sinai before they took them to Calvary? It wasn't that they were trying to make legalists out of them.

58:32 They understood this principle. You'll never take the Ten Commandments seriously as a summary of the obedience you obey to God. Until you see God. Until you see that the God who speaks amidst the thunder and the trumpet and the lightning and the smoke of Sinai is God your creator to whom you owe perfect obedience.

59:01 Failure to render it leaves you liable to his punishment, his wrath, his judgment, his fiery indignation. And if you are ever to find acceptance with him, a way must be found in which that disobedience you and I have perpetrated is justly and righteously punished in a divinely chosen, divinely equipped substitute so that God may be both just and the justifier of him who believes in Jesus Christ. May God write this first foundational principle upon all. May God write this first foundational principle upon all of our hearts as we embark upon our study of the moral law together. Let us pray.

59:58 Our Father, we feel afresh what a solemn thing it is to be a human being. To be a boy, a girl, a man or woman who can think and reflect upon who and what we are unlike the highest and most well-trained and most intelligent of all the beasts of the world. To be a boy, a girl, a man or woman who can think and reflect upon who and what we are unlike the highest and most intelligent of all the beasts of the world. To be a boy, a girl, a man or woman who can think and reflect upon who and what we are unlike the highest and most intelligent of all the beasts of the world.

60:33 And O God, for those of us who by your grace have owned our proper place and have acknowledged that we have not rendered to you the obedience you demand and of which you are worthy. We have acknowledged from our hearts it would be right for you, forever. To cast us off, we little worms of the dust who have dared to rear back on our hind legs and question you and defy you, we marvel at your patience. But we thank you that in your love and pity you sent your dear Son made under the law that he might redeem condemned sinners by bearing in himself all of the wrath and the wrath of the Lord. To be a boy, a girl, a man or woman who can think and reflect upon who and what we are unlike the highest and most intelligent of all the beasts of the world. To be a boy, a girl, a man or woman who can think and reflect upon who and what we are unlike the highest and most intelligent of all the wrath and the wrath of the Lord. O Lord, we pray, take this simple, this foundational, this elementary truth that we have examined this morning and by the power of the Holy Spirit write it upon our hearts.

61:44 We pray for those who have come into this building this morning swaggering and careless in their pride and arrogance. O God, may they leave trembling. O God, may they leave trembling. And may they have no rest till they find a refuge in Jesus Christ.

62:01 We pray that when our kids are exposed to the rotten lie and the sophistry of evolution and the idea that man is just come out of the pool of slime. O Lord, help them to see that this is just another attempt to unman man. That he might not have an obligation to be obedient to you. O Lord.

62:25 O Lord, have mercy, have mercy, we pray. And bring this sin-sick generation, drunk with the wine of its own heady pride. Bring it to own afresh that you are God and we are but men. Hear our cry and seal your word, we plead.

62:47 In Jesus' name, amen.