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Amazing Facts

Joe Crews

Grace or Disgrace

Grace or Disgrace Part 1

Grace or Disgrace Part 2

Grace or Disgrace Part 3

Grace or Disgrace Part 4

Grace or Disgrace Part 5

Grace or Disgrace Part 6

A mirror is often condemned for telling the truth, but breaking the mirror does not improve the image. I'll be back in a moment to talk about looking glasses and dirty faces. Hello, this is Joe Cruz and the Amazing Facts broadcast, Facts Which Affect You. Well we started a series of studies in our last broadcast concerning law, grace, or disgrace. We talked about those who are under the law, and those who are not under the law, who think they are not under the law, and then those who are living in absolute disgrace even though they profess to be faithful Christians. We'll do just a little bit of reviewing today before we get into our study of the remaining Bible facts concerning the great law of God. How many, many people have been confused on this subject of law and grace? They go off either to the left or right and make mistakes that fail to give balance to their faith and works. You see, friends, we've got to have faith in Jesus. That's the only way we're saved is by trusting Him. But if we are saved by grace through faith, we're going to love Him so much that we'll want to obey Him. Now we discover that the law cannot save anybody. It cannot justify anybody. Its purpose is to point out sin. We compared it in our last broadcast to a mirror. In fact, we didn't do it. James himself did it. In chapter 1 of James, beginning with verse 23, he said that the law is like a mirror. It's like a looking glass that shows us what kind of a person we really are. And so just as we look into a mirror to see if there's a dirty spot on our face, we look into the law of God to see if there's any imperfection in our character, if there's any sin in our life. Now when we find a sin there, immediately we're directed to the foot of the cross of Jesus where we have it removed by faith in Him. The law cannot remove it. The mirror cannot remove the stain from our face. Neither can the law of God remove the spot of sin from us. It directs us over to Jesus where it can be taken away freely. We could rub a mirror over our face all day and it wouldn't remove a dirty spot on the face. And we could stand in front of that great moral law of God all day long and even a lifetime looking at it, but it would never be able to save us from our sins. We could break the mirror, but that wouldn't help the spot on our face. We could try to dispose of the law of God, but that does not improve our standing before God at all because we can only be cleansed of our sin by having faith in Jesus and trusting in Him as our Savior. So today we come to point number six about the subject of law and grace. We presented five of the great facts on this subject in our last broadcast and now we come to the sixth Bible fact concerning the law and that is this, no unconverted person can keep God's law. Now I don't know whether you've thought about this or not, friends, but in Romans 8, 7, notice this very clear, very plain and positive statement, because the carnal mind is enmity against God, for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. Now I can't help but remember this text when people say to me, well, nobody can keep the law of God. The Bible here says that the carnal mind cannot keep it, but it also says to be carnally minded is death. So that's the first point we want to establish. The unconverted person can't keep the law of God. It's not in his nature to do it. He doesn't have enough love for God to do it and it's only love that can produce true obedience. If the unconverted person tried to keep it, it wouldn't do him any good. But in John 14, 15, Jesus said, if you love me, keep my commandments. So the saved converted person will keep his commandments. It'll be a joy for him to do it and he'll do it because he loves the Lord and not because he's doing it as a firescape. Now I realize a lot of people have a firescape religion. They don't want to be thrown into that fire at the end of the world and so they try their best to do the things which they believe is expected of them, which is their duty to do so that they might avoid the punishment for sin at the end of the road. That's no true motive, my friends, for obeying God. But now let me read Romans 8, verses 3 and 4. This is a very beautiful passage. For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, 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 walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. Now do you see what this verse is really saying? People have said the law is weak, but that's not what the verse says at all. It says what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh. You see, friends, it was the flesh that was weak. The people were weak. The people couldn't keep God's law. They tried to do it in their own strength, but failed. It just didn't work. So what did God say? Did He say, Let's give up, let's not fool with men, they're just not going to live up to the pattern? No, indeed, He sent His own Son to pay the penalty for them, and to arrange for them to have the power to keep His law, so that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us. And that word righteousness is the Greek word dikayma, which actually means literally the just requirements of the law. So when we were not able to produce the just requirements of obedience to that law because of the weakness of our flesh, God sent Jesus to do it perfectly, and then Jesus offers to come into our lives and give us the grace and strength to do it. Now let me try to illustrate this. Suppose I bought a new axe, a great, big, heavy-duty axe, and very sharp. Then suppose I found a little two-year-old youngster, and I said, Here, take this and cut down that tree. Now what do you suppose would happen to the tree, friends? Nothing, of course. Well is there anything wrong with the axe? No, I couldn't blame the axe. The axe was all right, but the flesh was weak. So I take that same axe and hand it to a big, strong, stalwart man, and the tree goes down in just a few moments. Now this is the same thing that God is trying to get across here. The weakness was not with His pattern, the law. No indeed. It's a perfect pattern. The weakness was in the human heart, and so He sent Jesus. We must have Christ's power, and that's what John 1, 12 is talking about. But as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God. All right, now the seventh Bible fact about the law is this. That keepers are the only ones who really love the Lord and who will be saved. Now I hope you followed me on that, friends, because I believe it's true. I wouldn't make that statement on my own, but it's really in the Bible. I'd like to read it for you right now in 1 John 2, 4. Now let me say something about this scripture. This is something that I would never say if it weren't in the Bible, but apparently God knew that there would be some question rising regarding what it meant to serve Him and what it meant to love Him. And so He put these words in the Bible. I don't even try to quote them. I always read them so that people will not think I'm calling them a liar. Here are the actual words. He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in them. So friends, to know and love the Lord is to keep His commandments. There's no question about it. And then Revelation 22, 14 says, Blessed are they that do His commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city. Now that's pointed, plain, clear, and positive, isn't it? Now let me read you something else that fits in right here. So many times when we talk about commandment keeping, people say, Oh my, the terrible, heavy, burdensome, grievous law. Well now let's see what the Lord says about it, friends, in 1 John 5, 3. Is it hard? Is it difficult? Is it grievous? 1 John 5, 3, For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments, and his commandments are not grievous. There it is, and that word grievous means hard. God says, It's not hard, if you have my love in your heart. He says, This is the love of God, that we keep them, and they're not hard. Now that's God's own statement. If you're doing them without loving Him, if you're doing them from any other motive except love, I can tell you right now, it'll wear you out, and it'll probably destroy you in the end. It'll kill you off to try to keep that law without being spiritually minded, and without loving the Lord. You can put it down and believe it, because it isn't what I think, or what some religious teacher thinks, or some professor, or some university teaches. It's what God says. He says, It is not a grievous thing to keep my commandments. Not at all. All right, now we come to the eighth great Bible fact about the law. We will all be judged by that law of God. Now that's really reasonable, isn't it? After all, the law is the pattern by which we were made in the very beginning. Christ came to die so that pattern could be restored in us. So it's reasonable to think that we might have to face that law, or that pattern someday, to see how we measured up, and whether or not we complied with God's will. But really, there's more than reason involved here. We have the Word of God in James 2, 10-12. Listen to this. For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he's guilty of all. For he that said, Do not commit adultery, said also, Do not kill. Now if thou commit no adultery, yet if thou kill, thou art become a transgressor of the law. But if thou commit no adultery, yet if thou kill, thou art become a transgressor of the law. But if thou commit no adultery, yet if thou kill, thou art become a transgressor of the law. But if thou commit no adultery, yet if thou kill, thou art become a transgressor of the law. But if thou kill, thou art become a transgressor of the law. But if thou kill, thou art become a transgressor of the law. But if thou kill, thou art become a transgressor of the law. But if thou kill, thou art become a transgressor of the law. But if thou kill, thou art become a transgressor of the law. But if thou kill, thou art become a transgressor of the law. But if thou kill, thou art become a transgressor of the law. But if thou kill, thou art become a transgressor of the law. But if thou kill, thou art become a transgressor of the law. But if thou kill, thou art become a transgressor of the law. But if thou kill, thou art become a transgressor of the law. But if thou kill, thou art become a transgressor of the law. But if thou kill, thou art become a transgressor of the law. But if thou kill, thou art become a transgressor of the law. But if thou kill, thou art become a transgressor of the law. But if thou kill, thou art become a transgressor of the law. But if thou kill, thou art become a transgressor of the law. But if thou kill, thou art become a transgressor of the law. But if thou kill, thou art become a transgressor of the law. Now, don't you see, friends, why the devil is so anxious to get the law done away with? If it's put aside and there's no more mirror for the people to look into to show them what they lack, then what hope is there that anybody can face that law in the judgment? They'll not know how to bring their life into harmony with the great will of God. Religious teachers today are teaching that God's law has been thrown out or done away with or nailed to the cross. And men have actually set up their own standards to replace God's standards and God's law. And here's where men really get into trouble. A little boy came into the house one day and he said, Mother, I'm nine feet tall. And he was just five years old. She said, Jimmy, you are not. What's the matter with you? Yes, he said, I really am. And she said, that's silly. You stop talking like that. And he said, Mother, but I am. I made a ruler and I measured myself and I'm nine feet tall. Sure, by his ruler that he had made, he really was nine feet tall. And listen, you can make your own law and it's easy to live up to that. And that's what people are doing today. The real standard is high, very high, friends. But do you know, a lot of people are guilty of pulling that law and that great standard of God down to meet their poor weak experience instead of lifting their experience up to meet the exalted standard of God. Higher than the highest human thought can reach is God's ideal for His children. God-likeness is the goal to be reached. So the standard is way up there and people look up and say, oh my, that's such a long way. Now there are two things you can do. You can say, Lord, bring me up to that great law standard even though it hurts. Or you can say, down with the standard, pull it down to my size. And then when you get the standard low enough, you begin to look pretty good, nine feet tall, you know. But there is great danger in it. In fact, it's a fatal thing to do. We need to get used to living by the standard God left us so that we can face it unafraid in the judgment day when every one of us will be brought face to face with that great law of God. Listen, for further information on this subject, I wish you would write for my book entitled Does God's Grace Blot Out His Law? Does God's Grace Blot Out His Law? That's what you ask for when you write. And it covers the material that we have presented in the broadcast today. In fact, we're having a whole series on this subject of grace, law grace, or disgrace. And so we'll be dealing with it for several more days. We've already spent two days on it. So please write and ask for the little book Does God's Grace Blot Out His Law? Now if you'd like to have the actual script of today's message, it's available also on request if you just ask for broadcast number 99. And now, this is Joe Cruz saying goodbye for today.

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Grace or Disgrace

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Grace or Disgrace Part 1

Grace or Disgrace Part 2

Grace or Disgrace Part 3

Grace or Disgrace Part 4

Grace or Disgrace Part 5

Grace or Disgrace Part 6

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