Oh, How I Love Your Law

Over and over in the Psalms we see expressions of the beauty, perfection and love for God's law. We don't hear people say today. Oh how I love your law and order.

We have people standing in line to say to God, all God your law is as sweet to me as funny effect. We look at the law some bitter thing, something that is utterly distasteful.

Sadly, many professing Christians that they can't even name all of the temperament. What happens when we were going will find out this week as we feature Dr. RC Sproul series God's law and the Christian it's always a pleasure to have Dr. Steven Nicholson with us here in the studio and he's helping us produce the series. Dr. Nichols is the chief academic officer your ministries as well as the president of Reformation Bible college.

Steve, if you will give us some perspective how this much of the church. The Old Testament want today Wally it's a great to be with you and especially great to be hearing this wonderful teaching series of wheat we need it today. Don't week on God's law. There's a number of lines in here the love from Dr. scrolled the one that I love is what he says yes to seminary students and if anyone ever said to them pastor. The thing I love most about my Christian experience is the law of God that is classic Dr. scroll was in it but what were talking about here.

Something really crucial and the reality is it doesn't just fall off our lips that we love. The law of God, let's be honest we are rebels by nature are really a member reading one time a theologian who said it's like you see that the no hunting sign and you want to take your your hunting rifle and shoot out every letter of the no hunting sign and Luther talked about that as well.

Just how rebels but the reality is that God has given us his law so that we will know who he is, that we would be instructed on how he would have us live in this world and that ultimately it is by following the law of God that we are led to God.

We think about this in the Old Testament. In this book of the Old Testament.

This collection of books that is so neglected effect even have people today who want to just call themselves New Testament Christians as if they just want to set aside the entire Old Testament, a member Dr. scroll saying that the Old Testament is the autobiography of God.

I think the reality is if we don't know the law. If we don't know the Old Testament. Then we don't know God and if we don't obey the law and don't obey God's laws given to us in the Old Testament then were not obeying God and even as he'll teach us in this episode. If we don't love the Bible and that's the whole Bible Old Testament too well that we don't love God and that's why think this is a really important teaching series to just re-oriented and adjust our perspective to think differently about the law to think as the Bible would have us think about the law, so I'm grateful for this teaching series and I just hope folks enjoy it and enjoy this just wonderful teaching from Dr. scroll in this series as we begin our study now on the 10 Commandments and the role of the law in the life of the Christian. I want to begin by looking briefly at a portion of Psalm 119 may be familiar with the Psalm.

It's one of the longest Psalms in the Psalter and it is the one where each section begins with a different letter of the Hebrew alphabet and the whole of this all is a celebration of the law of God, and that may seem completely archaic to us in this day because we living on the side of the New Testament are familiar with the teachings of the New Testament that we have been redeemed from the law that the law came from Moses and grace and peace came from Jesus and we have a tendency in our days more than attendance say it's an epidemic to consider the Old Testament law as completely irrelevant to our law, but I like to read a portion of the Psalm to begin this study. Beginning at verse 97. This is Alma hundred 19 verse 97. There are too many books or chapters in the Bible that have verse 97 in them that this is one of them reads as follows. Oh how I love your law, it is my meditation all the day you through your commandments make me wiser than my enemies, for they are ever with me. I have more understanding than all my teachers for your testimonies are my meditation. I understand more than the ancients because I keep your precepts. I have restrained my feet from every evil way, that I may keep your work. I have not departed from your judgments for you yourself have taught me how sweet are your words to my taste sweeter than honey to my mouth and through your precepts.

I get understanding. Therefore I hate every false way. When I read this brief section of the Psalms I read it in a certain style on purpose. What I did was kind of downplay the actual passion that is communicated in a portion of this Psalm, particularly in the first verse that I read somewhat inseparably where I said oh how I love your law is not an expression that's adequate for these words and the way they are being communicated the very beginning word oh expresses, not some particular content of information. The word oh is an exclamation. It expresses a sigh. It expresses communication of profoundly deep feeling. And in this case it is not a feeling of pain but it's the feeling of affection where the psalmist is sent all I love your law vest. My seminary students have they ever had somebody in their congregation come up to them and say pastor.

The thing I love the most about my Christian experience is the law of God do we hear people today in the church celebrate the depths of their affection for the law of God. Obviously we don't. And my question not only today but for this whole series is, why not.

Have we moved to such a place in our understanding of Christianity, but the law of God no longer provokes size of joy within our souls.

What is it about Christ and his work that would cause us now to despise or ignore something that was the focal point of the light in the lives of the Old Testament saints, perhaps, is the assumption that the Old Testament law is no longer relevant to the New Testament Christian and has no bearing upon our Christian growth. The Commandments were something for then. Not for now because now the Christian life is Christ, not Moses it's gospel not law, and so we may find Christians exuding a depth of passion in their own expressions we might hear them saying, oh how I love you Jesus. Or, oh how I love you Lord and if we say that, can we not hear Jesus response. The response that he gave to his nascent church.

I'm convinced would be the same response he would give to the church today. If you love me, keep my commandments. So to say I once love the law, but now I love Christ and despise the law is simply not the love Christ because Christ love the law and Christ said if you love me keep my law, keep my commandments. His meat in his drink. The Scriptures tell us was to do the will of the father. He saw his whole life as a mission to fulfill every single point of the law, to be perfectly obedient to the commandments of God, not simply said that he could keep a list of rules but because he wanted to do the will of the father and the clearest expression of the will of the father was the expression revealed to his people through the law. Let's look some more at this passage. Oh how I love your law, it is my meditation all the day and then he goes on to say later on verse 101.

I have restrained my feet from every evil way, that I may keep your word that you notice the shift in language here, and if we go through this whole Psalm we will see this constant interplay. This constant interchange of two words in the two words are law and word not I do hear Christians today speak in glowing terms of their affection for the Scriptures of their affection for the word of God. But we now in our times tend to divorce the word of God from the law of God, but that divorce is not evident in this text of the Psalms is it throughout that Psalm, we see the psalmist reciting his affection both for the law and for the word of God will why one the first place. The law was delivered to the people by the word of God and the law that came by the word of God expressed his commandment now we've spoken at times of kings or of leaders or bosses of people who sit in the seats of high authority that when they utter some directive there authority is not to be challenged. They are the final Court of Appeal and so there's no room for discussion and we use this expression, his word is what law, what is changed about God is his word still law is he still is sovereign as he was in the Old Testament is the God of Israel and the God of the New Testament church a commandment giving God his word is law and his law is his word because his law expresses his will. Now there are some other striking things in this passage that I read one is quite reminiscent of the profits of a later time. Verse 103. How sweet are your words to my taste sweeter than honey to my mouth for through your precepts. I get under standing. The metaphor that is used here is one that is drawn from an agrarian society whose culinary delights were far more limited than ours are today if a Jew a thousand years before Christ wanted to have dessert. He couldn't go to Baskin Robbins and select from 33 flavors of ice cream to indulge his sweet tooth. Probably the sweetest thing in his environment in terms of sweetness to the taste was honey and so whenever the Jew wanted to express something that was vicious that was absolutely delightful. He would speak in terms of honey, we remember, for example, is Ezekiel 1, God came to him and told him that he must eat the scroll on which were written the words of God's judgment and impending wrath upon the nation and when he put the scroll into his mouth and began to chew and eat this distasteful message suddenly became honey in his mouth and sweetness to his taste. But again, we don't hear people say today. Oh how I love your law and order.

We have people standing in line to say to God, all God your law is so sweet to me is honey effect we look at the law some bitter thing, something that is utterly distasteful and there's something wrong with this picture because remember the law of God. If it does nothing else reveals the character of God, and if there is anything that should be sweet to our taste. It is the very character of God himself. We remember how the Psalms began with the benediction from on high. This is blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful Alyssa stop right there. The benediction of God is pronounced upon a person.

Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the ungodly. What does that mean that means who does not live according to the patterns to the customs to the general wisdom of ungodly people if we would translate that into our day.

We would hear God saying this Blessed is the man who does not walk according to the course of this world who doesn't follow the popular wisdom of our day. They might even go so far as to say, Blessed is the man who was out of it. Blessed are the man who is not a conformist to the cultural customs and patterns of our own society he doesn't follow the counsel of the ungodly, he doesn't stand in the way you're on the road of the sin he doesn't sit in the seat of the scornful. That is, he is not given to cynicism and ridicule of sacred things.

Blessed is the person who is not a cynic but you see the beginning of Psalm one. What we have here is a blessing pronounced upon people who don't do certain things.

That's the negative stuff but what's the positive side, but his delight. Just as discipline his delight is in the law of the Lord and in his law does he meditate day and night at the day we would rewrite the song and say foolish is the man who delights in the law of the Lord and waste his time meditating in it day and night. While we may say the legalist is the Christian who takes delight in the law and spends more than five minutes a year meditating upon God said, Blessed is the man and then what does he go on to say he will be like a tree planted by rivers of living water, bringing forth his fruit in his season, you've heard that song before. Think of that image. Think of Palestine. Think of the Judean wilderness.

Think of the dry shoots that comes up out of the ground in that era did barren wasteland where any foliage that lives has to fight to survive against the beating sun and the parched earth every hour of every day. Think of Jericho where you come through the Judean wilderness, and you approach the city of Jericho and you notice in the distance that you're coming to something different in the landscape that you're coming to what every Arab loves to approach an oasis, and you're afraid it's a mirage, because suddenly you see trees that are lush and full and plentiful with fruit and you see where there planted there planted by the stream or go to the mouth of the Jordan River and see the trees that grow right next to the Jordan whose roots go deep into the ground and whose roots absorbed the moisture in the nutrients that are there so these trees are robust and plentiful in the fruit that they produce. And God says Blessed is the man who meditates in my law day and night. He'll be like a tree, not that's planted in the middle of the desert that has one tiny little root seeking to survive, but rather the tree planted by the rivers of living water, bringing forth his fruit in his season. The psalmist says the ungodly are not so like the chaff which the wind drives away.

If there's a secret that lies hidden from the view of the modern Christian. The secret is found in the Old Testament, but just in the law but in the prophets in the Hebrew wisdom, all of which together reveals the character of God and if we wonder why God seems foreign to us in alien and intruder into our lives.

And if we are stumbling and groping in darkness, trying to know how we should live in a relativistic age and if we feel like pieces of shaft with the wind drives away with the slightest Zephyr breeze and we need to go back and consider the law of God. Now what I'm going to be doing in the days to come is that I'm going to be looking at the nature of the law in the Bible.

I'm going to be looking at the nature of the law, and particularly the Decalogue, the 10 Commandments how it functions in the life of Israel in the Old Testament, but then also I'm going to be addressing this question. What is the relevance of all of that law that took place under the old covenant now that we're in the new covenant is there any application of the Old Testament law to our day told the story of being invited to speak in New York several years ago, more than two decades ago, speaking at a very large church and was doing a series on the holiness of God and the sponsoring group from the church asked me to come to a private prayer meeting for about 20 the members of this church that was to be held after the first service in this series that I was speaking and so after this evening service. We went to this person's home.

It was a mansion priceless works of art adorned the walls and even the front yard had a Henry Moore piece of sculpture and came inside.

In this ever going upright and they turned out all the lights and that was fine as people started to pray and I started to pray to their dead relatives.

I sit way will wait a minute timeout what's going on here in the snow were being led by the Holy Spirit to contact our departed relatives who are in heaven. I soon allowed to do that is why not and I explained to them what the Old Testament law was that in Israel.

This was a capital offense that is an abomination to God and their glib reply to me was simply this is the Old Testament. It doesn't have any bearing on us. So I asked the question what is changed in redemptive history. What is changed in the character of God and of his relationship to his people. That makes a practice that once was utterly odious to him.

Now something in which he takes delight. These people had fallen into this dreadful practice because they had no concept of the relationship of law and gospel of the Old Testament to the New Testament, and that's what will be looking at in the days and that story illustrates why this series by Dr. RC Sproul is so important. It's titled God's law and the Christian in 15 messages. RC provides a balanced look at the place of the Old Testament law in the new covenant would like to send you this five CD said when you contact us today with a donation of any amount will also send you RC's booklet. How does God's law apply to me. You can request both resources when you call us at 800-435-4343 or when you go online to Renewing Your Mind.org I love this quote from theologian Thomas Adams. He wrote the law that would have no power to concern us has the power to command us. In other words, were not saved by obeying the law, but it certainly has authority over the way we live our lives and that leads us to our final thought from RC. Had we stayed in Psalm hundred 19 after reading beginning at verse 97 and gone to the next letter of the Hebrew alphabet, the moon in verse 105, we would've found a verse that I think every Christian is familiar with goes like this thy word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. I have sworn and confirmed that I will keep your righteous judgments. Again this image of a path of a person walking down a path at night I was in a place once were at night.

Snakes would come out and they would be all over the place to go on the dark and everyone to put my foot down in front of me because I never knew when I was going to be stepping on a snake.

It's a scary thing to walk a dangerous path. When you have no light for your feet, and that's where we are. When we are ignorant of the law of God. We hope you'll join us Tuesday as we continue Dr. RC Sproul series God's law and the Christian here on Renewing Your Mind