Romans 7:5-13 (#24.2025.06.01)

Speaker A [: 00:00:00

Foreign.

Scott Keffer [: 00:00:02

If you're looking for greater hope, assurance and confidence through the shifting sands of life, then join me on today's episode as we dig deep into the Bible to discover rock solid truth for life and living from the God of the Bible. I'm your host, Scott Keffer. Hi and welcome to Today's Episode. As always, for a deeper experience you can go to the Show Notes and download the Blank Insight sheet. Fill in the blanks along with the group. Depending on how you're listening to this, there will be a link to the episode website@beholding Bibletruth.com and a sheet with the answers is included as well. Enjoy today's episode.

Speaker A [: 00:00:52

So we are waiting our way through the Book of Romans, which is literally waiting our way. Sometimes, you know, kind of logging through the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God. Sometimes easier to make our way through, other times hard. Takes a lot of courage to walk through Romans together. So thanks for joining us on this journey. Grateful for that. We are continuing on in Romans 7 so if you would stand with me so we can read scripture together. Romans 7:5, 13 for while we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were aroused by the law were at work in the members of our body to bear fruit for death.

Speaker A [: 00:01:39

But now we've been released from the law, having died to that by which we were bound, so that we serve in newness of the spirit, and not in boldness of the letter. What shall we say then? It's the lost sin, may it never be. On the contrary, I would not have come to no sin except through the law for I would not have known about coveting if the law had not said, you shall not covet. But sin, taking opportunity through the commandments, produced in me coveting of every kind. For apart from the law, sin is dead. I was once alive apart from the law. But when the commandment came, sin became alive, and I died. This commandment, which was to result in life, proved to result in death for me.

Speaker A [: 00:02:33

For sin, taking an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me, and through it killed me. So then the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous, and good. Therefore did that which is good become a cause of death for me, May it never be. Rather, it was sin in order that it might be shown to be sin by affecting my death through that which is good, so that through the commandment sin would become utterly sinful. The Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. What So when Josh was young, he and I would read C.S. lewis together.

Speaker A [: 00:03:24

And you have to read C.S. lewis. Not reading is non fiction. You have to read it a number of times. I said there's really three levels. The first is you're just utterly what you know. Then the second, you kind of get a sense of it. Right.

Speaker A [: 00:03:40

And then the third is, can you explain it to someone else? Right. Can you actually explain it? And I said the fourth is, which is a mind blowing. The fact that he actually wrote this stuff. Right, right. Because you think, what is going on here? We're here, right? We have the Apostle Paul. We know that it wasn't just the Apostle Paul on his own who wrote this. It was the Spirit of God. It was God's spirit spoke through men.

Speaker A [: 00:04:07

All scripture is inspired. God breathes. Right. So literally this is authored by God. So is it surprising that it's going to be confusing? No, it should be in the sense we should go through this. And it should be what? Because we need the Spirit of God to open the eyes of our heart, that we can even sense it. God is showing us deep things about himself, all the depths of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God. How unsearchable are his judgments and unfathomable his ways.

Speaker A [: 00:04:42

They're unsearchable. They're unfathomable. So we're going to try and search them and get some fathomable sense about what's going on here. Does that make sense? So he's talking about the law versus the Spirit, the law versus the Spirit, particularly the Mosaic law, the law of Moses, the law versus the Spirit. So essentially he says, before Christ, you were in the flesh, and when you're in the flesh, there were sinful passions. And so he says, those sinful passions had control of you, such that you were a slave, you were a slave. You did the bidding of the passions which were inside of you. There's a power in our members before Christ called sin, more powerful than we can even comprehend.

Speaker A [: 00:05:37

We would generally have said, no, I was really living the life I wanted to live. I was doing the things I wanted to do. Right. Hard to recognize. And all of a sudden you start to say, whoa, I have less control over myself than I think. The sinful passions were aroused by the law. And they had a fruit, they had a fruit. And that fruit was death.

Speaker A [: 00:06:02

That fruit was death. Spiritual death, physical death, relational death. Just death. Right. Death for you, death for people around you. Right. But he says, now you have been released. You've been released.

Speaker A [: 00:06:24

There's a freedom that comes from that. We've been Released from the law. Well, how did we get relief? We died to it through Christ's death. So Christ died. Died for us, right? And as a result of that death, we join in that death. And we have died to the law. We've been set free from the law. So he says, now we serve in newness of the Spirit, not in oldness of the letter.

Speaker A [: 00:07:02

But I kind of get the letter. Do. Don't. Do I get that, right? The Spirit. What right? Holy Spirit. What? I can't. Can't see the Spirit. But what is this newness of the Spirit? Well, it's the promise of the New Covenant.

Speaker A [: 00:07:24

So he says, more. Moreover, I will give you a new heart. So recognize. He's saying a number of things have happened with the New Covenant, right? He says, here's the new Covenant. Spell it right? A, N, B, A, N, T, E, N, A, N, G, M, A, N, T. Thank you. There we go. So he says, what's the first thing? We get a new heart.

Speaker A [: 00:08:03

We get a new heart, we get a new spirit. So man is made up of Ba, right? Body, soul, spirit. The Spirit's dead before Christ. So we have a body, we have a soul, but our spirit's dead. So we got a new heart and a new spirit. And his spirit. Right? I will put a new spirit within you. I will put my spirit within you.

Speaker A [: 00:08:36

And it will cause you to walk in my statutes. You'll be careful to observe my ordinances. So we've taken out the heart of stone, right? We've taken out that heart of stone. And he's given us a living heart. So it's a dead heart. It's a heart of stone. And we now have a heart of flesh. It's alive.

Speaker A [: 00:08:56

My heart was beating before. What's he talking about? Spiritually, it was dead as a rock. You were dead. In other words, no capacity to know God. No capacity to be with God. Right? I was. I was talking with a guy and he said, oh, what he say? He said, oh, you know the Lord. We were talking and I said, yes.

Speaker A [: 00:09:20

Better he knows me. That's what it says in Galatians. It's not that you know him. Everybody says, I came to the Lord. I know the Lord. No, the better question is not, do you think you know the Lord? Does the Lord know you? Because he says, there'll be some who say, I knew the Lord. And he says, I never knew you. The question is, does he know you? Not, do you know him? He know you.

Speaker A [: 00:09:45

And he says, there's going to be a new Covenant. A new covenant. It's not of the letter, but it's of the Spirit. The letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. The ministry of death is in letters engraved on stones. It came with glory so that the sons of Israel could not look intently at the face of Moses because of the glory of his face, fading as it was. How will the ministry of the Spirit fail to be even more with glory? For if the ministry of condemnation has glory, much more does the ministry of righteousness abound in glory. For indeed, what had glory in this case has no glory because of glory which surpasses it.

Speaker A [: 00:10:29

For if that which fades away was with glory, much more that which remains is in glory. What did he just say? Right. Okay, so let's pull it apart. So he's saying there's the old and the new. There's the old and the new. There's the letter and there's the Holy Spirit. Right? In other words, so the letter is the ministry of death. He said it's a ministry of death.

Speaker A [: 00:10:58

It kills the Spirit. In opposition is the ministry of life. The Spirit gives life. And this is a ministry of condemnation. So the law is a ministry of condemnation, where the Spirit is the ministry of righteousness. So he's saying, think about the law. The law came to Moses. The law came to a nation which did not know God.

Speaker A [: 00:11:33

God called a nation out of nowhere who were moon, right? They called Abraham moon worshiper, called a nation, the nation of Israel to himself, and he gave a law. Is that law glorious? Was it glory to them? Yes, he said, yes, it was glorious. Right? The glory of the law was significant, but temporary. And it was unable to impart righteousness. But it had glory. It had glory. Indeed. God gave his law to the nation of Israel.

Speaker A [: 00:12:07

So he says, I gave you. You got the commandments. The glory of the Spirit remains because it brings lasting transformation. Lasting transformation. So Scripture says that our God condescends to learn our language, if you will. He speaks in our language. He condescends to make himself known. If you think about, it's awesome.

Speaker A [: 00:12:41

The God who is it sees the blessed and only sovereign. He's the King of kings and the Lord of Lords, who alone dwells in on. He. He alone dwells in unapproachable light. Right? He dwells in unapproachable light. He leans down to make himself known that he would pass his law to a people, that he would make Himself known. So he gives us pictures all the time, its pictures, so that we can comprehend and understand. So he says Moses went Up into my presence.

Speaker A [: 00:13:17

He got the law and he came down and he was bright with glory, right? But the glory faded away over the days. The glory faded and the, the people said, hey, put a bag over your head. We don't want to see the glory of God, right? You go talk to him. But ah, put it back. So he was like a glow stick. Like you break a glow stick and the glow stick fades over time. So he says that is the picture, right? The, the he, he meets with God and the glory fades. There's something new.

Speaker A [: 00:13:55

So the glory of the Lord, right? When the Lord was on the mount of transformation, his glory was shown out of inside. Did it fade? No, there's a new glory that doesn't fade. So that glory was pointing. The Old Testament's always pointing. It's always pointing. There's something new to come. That will be what? This is insufficient to do that make sense? There is something coming would be the Lord Jesus Christ. So that had a glory.

Speaker A [: 00:14:24

It showed the transient nature of the old covenant. And the old covenant was always pointing to the new. It was insufficient. The glory of the spirit abounds and surpasses. So it said, if that had glory, right? And this has this glory, the old glory is seemingly without, only in, in, in relative to the new glory, right? To give us some sense, right? It's like saying a million dollars, is that a lot of money? Yes, but compared to a billion dollars, is it? So it's not to lessen the first, it's just say in relative, in comparison, the new glory, right? If that was glorious, the new glory. So it's oldness of the law. And we serve in newness of the spirit. So this is old and new.

Speaker A [: 00:15:27

And so the old informs the new. It says, to bear fruit, we must die to the law. We must die to the law. So then he asked the question, okay, well, okay, if that's the case, then is the law sin? What's he say? No, absolutely no. No, no, no, Never. No, never. No, no, no. He says, okay, so what does the law do? The law reveals sin.

Speaker A [: 00:16:00

The law reveals sin. It says you shall not covet. So the magician's nephew. I don't know if anybody's read it. It's the precursor to the lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. And in there it's a, it's a fantasy view of the fall of man and, and Diggory. They go into this, you know, they step into time with these rings and they come across this old castle and it's all dead. And there's a bell sitting on the table.

Speaker A [: 00:16:32

And the bell says on it. Make your choice adventurous stranger. Strike the bell and bide the danger or wonder till it drives you mad what would have followed if you had. So what did he do? And the white witch in the lion, the witch in the wardrobe comes alive. So it's a. It's a. It's a picture of sin in the fall, right? There's a tree you can read of any tree you can leave. Right? You can do anything except that tree.

Speaker A [: 00:17:13

The tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Huh. So interesting. St. Augustine says in Confessions that he stole these pears. He said they were nice pears, but it was not the pears that my wretched soul coveted, for I had plenty better at home. In fact, he said we stole them and gave them to the pigs. I picked them simply in order to become a thief.

Speaker A [: 00:17:40

The only feast I got was a feast of iniquity and that I enjoyed to the full. What was it that I loved in the theft? Was it the pleasure of acting against the law? The desire to steal was awakened simply by the prohibition of stealing. You tell me I can't do that. Okay, now I want to do that. Now I want to do that. Led to the goofiness of reverse psychology, kind of this would. This would keep the. The desire to do it.

Speaker A [: 00:18:21

No, the desire is in me. The desire is in my bones and in my flesh. So flip over. It says that sin. This is what happens. Sin takes opportunity. Opportunity, it's the Greek word, is literally a military metaphor. It means sets up a base of operations in order to carry out a future initiative.

Speaker A [: 00:18:52

Sets up a base of operations. So I did tend to think, like on the. The beach in Omaha, like the, The. The, you know, the machine guns up on top. Right. They're just waiting. They're just waiting. Sin is waiting.

Speaker A [: 00:19:04

It sets up a base of operation, and it has future desire to take you. Right? It takes opportunity and it produces not just coveting, but. But scripture says coveting of every kind. Now, I want things I never wanted before. I just want them because I don't have them. I just want them because you have them and I don't have them. I just want them because they look good. I never wanted it before, but I love to go to the big box stores.

Speaker A [: 00:19:39

You see stuff you can't live without you didn't even know existed before you. There's laser everything. I mean, laser toothbrushes, electric. You know those things. I mean, right? It's great. You see that? You think I can't live without that. It produces coveting of every kind. So he says, I was once alive apart from the law, which means I was humanly alive, not spiritually alive.

Speaker A [: 00:20:12

So he said, before the law came young, right before you hear anything about God and his commandments. He said, I was alive apart from the law, not spiritually. He said when he encountered the law, sin came to life. Sin sprang to life, sin became alive. How many of you felt that? Sometimes you cannot. You cannot say no to the sin, the desire in you. I want that. I'm gonna have it.

Speaker A [: 00:20:45

I'm gonna do what it takes to get it. So when he encountered the law, sin became alive. And he said, sin deceives me. Sin deceives me. And it means not a little bit, but completely. It means to seduce you. Wholly to seduce you. Holy sin is a power within us.

Speaker A [: 00:21:18

To seduce us. Body, soul, spirit, everything. Sin is a power within us. I think as you go through here, it's hard to fathom what we've been freed from, the power that sin has in our members and in our body, in our life. Because generally, you know, I'm pretty good. There's a lot of people who are worse than me, and I do good things. I could name them up for you. And I generally forget the ones I that are not so good.

Speaker A [: 00:22:00

But I like my life and who I am. Because we're really good at doing that, aren't we? Sin deceives us. You're not so bad. We're okay. Really need God and all that stuff, right, Scott? Isn't that justification? It is justification. All through my addictive life, I justify my addiction and what I did. Yes. And it's always somebody else's fault.

Speaker A [: 00:22:27

It's always somebody else's. It is my wife's fault, your fault, his fault, whatever. It's Adam's fault. I. You know, at the end, it's Adam's fault. He's the one. I just want to tell you, right. It all goes back to Adam.

Speaker A [: 00:22:38

So at the end of the day, if you're running out of an excuse for your own behavior, you can just say, it's Adam. Go back to Adam, right? So he says, well, okay, so that's sin. And the law can't help. So what's the point of the law? The law is holy, righteous, and good. It says the law is holy, righteous, and good. So it says, the holy, righteous, and good law does what shows sin. Sin to be sin. And so that sin is shown to be utterly sinful.

Speaker A [: 00:23:33

Utterly sinful. In other words, he's saying if I, you know, if I take, you know, if I, if I have created a scalpel to save lives and I take that scalpel and stab somebody to death, it's saying that which is meant for good becomes evil. It shows how evil evil is. Shows how evil evil is. If the, if the law is holy and righteous and good and it produces that kind of response in me, what's the problem? The law? No, it's to show that sin is utterly sinful. Version said, sin injures us most by taking from us the capacity to know. To know what? How much? Ranger, I'm not so bad. I'm not so bad.

Speaker A [: 00:24:46

I can always find somebody who's worse. Watch the news. Why do we love to see high level people fall? So that we could say, that's not, I haven't done that. Right. I'm not so bad as that. Right. And so the world now loves to see people broken, right? If you look at what's, what's everything today, it's just about brokenness and the wretchedness of people. And everybody feels, I feel pretty good about that, right? So it talks about, now it's talking about the power of sin.

Speaker A [: 00:25:26

We're talking about the oldness of the letter and the newness of the Spirit. They're two different ministries, two kinds of ministries, very different outcome. Which leaves us to say, okay, so why study the Old Testament then? Why study the law of Moses? And it's interesting to me because you generally find that most Christians have rarely cracked open the Old. Oh, God was different then. That was a different time. It was different or whatever the reason is. I don't like the God of the Old Testament. As if he changed, right? He came to his senses and he became a new God.

Speaker A [: 00:26:11

There are people who believe that God is getting better. He's learning from his mistakes. He's getting better. So why do I even study the Old Testament? You cannot understand the new until you study the old. And keep in mind that it's not about the law, it's about the one who gave the law. So what do we study for? To understand God's holiness and his righteousness. I am Yahweh, your God. I am Yahweh, your God.

Speaker A [: 00:26:49

Consecrate yourself. Set yourselves apart, therefore, and be holy. For I am holy. What does that mean? I don't know. A little better than me, right? What does it mean to be holy? We think, what does it mean? I don't know. What's it mean to be hot? Well, 212 is boiling. Maybe it's 215. I don't know.

Speaker A [: 00:27:14

How hot is a volcano? 300. How hot is God? I don't know. A little hotter than me. No, on the surface, 10,000 degrees. Is that hotter than 212? See, it's hard to fathom, isn't it? It's hard to comprehend how holy God is. He's just not as bad. All we can think of is less sin, not holiness. Holiness, holiness.

Speaker A [: 00:27:45

God is holy. If you study the Old Testament and you read through the 600 plus commandments, you realize holy smoke, you know. In other words, God is holy. Like the littlest details matter, the smallest of small. That's who God is. And that's just the crack of his glory. All he did is open the door of his glory and he shows a crack through and we say, oh, holy smokes, right? He can't be that holy. But he's saying, if that is, he dwells in unapproachable life.

Speaker A [: 00:28:23

So he's saying, you got to comprehend. It also gives us a sense of the seriousness of sin and the utter impossibility of obeying the law for righteousness. The utter impossibility. Just look at it on a daily basis. There is not enough sheep for me. I would have to have a gigantic sheep farm. And I'd be. I would be just be offering sheep all day long.

Speaker A [: 00:28:51

There wouldn't be enough sheep and dove and is there any more animals? And I'd say to you, you can't have them. I need them over here. And then I'd show my sin even more. I'm keeping my sheep for me, right? We start to see the seriousness and the depth of our sin. We see God's heart. We see God's heart in the Old Testament. He executes justice. Who's he do that for? The orphan and the widow.

Speaker A [: 00:29:27

How do I know that God is for. If you're widowed, how do I know God is for you? He says it. He executes justice for the fatherless and the widow. This is hard. That's God's compassion. That's the depth of his kindness, his mercy, his justice, his love. So I see that when I read through the law, he loves the alien. What? I thought he only loved my people.

Speaker A [: 00:29:53

No, he loves the alien. And they came into their midst. This is how you treat them. We see God's heart. So in addition to his holiness, we see his heart for compassion, mercy, grace, love. And to me, the law leads us to Christ. And so part of studying the law is we will Rejoice in how Christ has fulfilled that for us. We will rejoice in how Christ has fulfilled that for us.

Speaker A [: 00:30:36

You ever been somewhere where you did that money and somebody stepped up and paid the bill for you? Yeah. That's pretty cool. Yeah, a couple of bucks, 50 bucks, 100 bucks, 200 bucks. Imagine if you stepped up and you owed a billion dollars and somebody stepped up and wrote a check not from the government, because they don't have it. They got. Right. So you can't. You can't comprehend what Christ has done until you understand the depth of your depth, the depth of what you owe the depth of your sin to realize what Christ did for you.

Speaker A [: 00:31:11

So there's a sense when I read that I should rejoice. He came to fulfill it, and he fulfilled it on our behalf. He fulfilled the law. Now, Jesus Christ fulfilled the law, and I think we also study it to appreciate the promise of the new covenant. Promise of the new covenant. If you came in during the new, there's no way to appreciate the new unless you understand the old. You have to understand the old covenant. The days are coming.

Speaker A [: 00:31:56

The Lord says, behold, be ready for the days are coming. Well, what kind of days are they? I will make a new covenant. What will it be like? I will put my law within them and on their heart. I'm going to give them a new heart. I'm going to put my law on their heart. There's a new covenant. It's a different covenant. How often do we rejoice in what Christ has done and rejoice in the fact that we live in the new? Under the new covenant, the days are coming.

Speaker A [: 00:32:36

We study it to know that the law is holy, the law is righteous, and the law is good. The law is good. Are we to think about? He says, Jesus says, here, here's the deal. It's written in Deuteronomy. Man shall not live by bread alone. So let's start with that. So what does he mean by bread alone? How often do you eat bread? Every day. So man shall not live by feeding themselves bread alone, but by every word which proceeds from the mouth of God.

Speaker A [: 00:33:17

Every word which proceeds from the mouth of God. So when I read Scripture, there's no irre. Irrelevant word. I may. It may seem irrelevant to me. Like, you got all these names. Like, what's the point? All these names. I don't know, but every word.

Speaker A [: 00:33:34

God named them in that porch. Not so that I would understand why he named them or that I could even pronounce their names right, but he but they're there, everybody, everywhere. Man shall not live. Then he says, some scripture is inspired by God. Only the stuff that you like. Read only the stuff that you want to read. Read all the good stuff. Take scripture out of context because it sounds really good.

Speaker A [: 00:34:08

Just take the stuff you like. How big would scripture be if you just took the verses you like? No, he says, all Scripture. All scripture is what breathes, literally breathed by God. All scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, correction, for treating in righteousness that the man of God may be adequate, equipped, forever. Good work. It's good. It's profitable. He said, it's to your profit.

Speaker A [: 00:34:45

Oh, how I love thy law. Does my meditation all the day. Really? Why would you meditate on all the dead? Well, he says, thy commandments make me wiser than my enemies. How many of you are in a battle? All of us. We're in a battle. So you have enemies? They are. We don't battle against flesh and blood, but against rulers, authorities. Right.

Speaker A [: 00:35:13

Spiritual forces of darkness. You want wisdom? What do you say? It will make you wiser than your enemies. Wiser than your enemies. Okay. Well, all right. I get that. I have more insight than all my teachers. For thy testimonies are my meditation.

Speaker A [: 00:35:34

Roll them around inside. Okay. I want to. I want to be smarter than my teacher. Then he said, I understand more than the ages because I have observed thy precepts. So he says, we meditate where we. We memorize. You meditate in order to obey.

Speaker A [: 00:36:07

Inside out. Right? Inside out. Outside. Right. Inside out. So he said, well, the law of the Lord. What do you get? I'm busy. I got other stuff to do.

Speaker A [: 00:36:28

Exactly. I got to keep up with Insta Flit and Flickr and Josh Wash. You know, I got stuff to do. What's the benefit of that? What is it? Oh, the law of the Lord is perfected. Restore. Restores the soul. How many have your soul broken by life? Stuff of life, pain of life, loss. Right.

Speaker A [: 00:37:00

Things don't go your way. How many like to have their soul restored? Lord is my shepherd. Sh me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside quiet waters. He restores my soul. How does the shepherd do that? Through his spirit. And his word restores my soul. How about, the testimony of the Lord is sure Making wise the simple.

Speaker A [: 00:37:30

How many of you felt simple in life? Like. Like the making wise. The precepts of the Lord are right. Rejoicing. The heart rejoices. The heart rejoice. May like more joy. And in my heart like Deep where it matters, right? I need joy.

Speaker A [: 00:37:57

Hard to be joyful, isn't it? It's hard to be joyful. Kind of wake up cranky. I go to bed cranky, and I'm generally degrees of cranky throughout the day. So I like to find little places where there's joy. He said, you want to rejoice in your heart, you got to have my word rolling around in there. Because it changes us. Well, I don't know how to look at things. He says, the commandment of the Lord is period.

Speaker A [: 00:38:32

Enlightens the eyes. Enlightens the eyes. So that you know how to look at life and see into the future. No day long people are doing this. So in the, in, in our business, I tell all the people we work with, turn off all media. Done. I turn it off. Oh, I can do that.

Speaker A [: 00:39:11

Why not? What if something happens? Like what? Well, you know, I said, first of all, do you think you're getting the real deal through media anyway? Number one? Number two, understand the purpose is to thank you, to change you. It's propaganda is now the media, Right? So if there is going to be danger, you'll hear about it because everybody else around you is following the news all the time. And even if you don't want to do it permanently, do a fast. Do a fast from the media. Try for a day, try it for a week. Like just turn it off. You're amazing. How life gets better.

Speaker A [: 00:39:54

Enlighten the eyes. Fear of the Lord's clean. It endures forever. The judgments of the Lord are true in the world today. You wonder what's true. There's so much stuff around. How do I know what's true? What is? What is true? What is right? The righteous all together, they're more desirable than your 401k. How could that be more desirable than gold? Which is up, but that's more desirable than gold.

Speaker A [: 00:40:30

Sweeter also than honey and the drippings of the honeycomb. By them thy. Thy servant is warned. And in keeping them there is great reward. It warns and rewards. It warns and rewards. Scripture warns and rewards. It warrants and rewards.

Speaker A [: 00:40:59

I don't know. What do we look at the Old Testament for? Isn't old? Isn't it passed away? Isn't it gone? We're now the new. Why would we look at the old? Can't understand the new until you understand the old. You can't understand Christ until you understand the law. You can't understand Christ until you understand the worship requirements in the Old Testament. You cannot see him fully until you Understand that was all to point to him, Right? The utter impossibility of keeping the law and the other magnitude of what the Lord Jesus Christ has done for you. Right? It begins to unfold. So to understand God's holiness and righteousness, to recognize the seriousness of sin moving forward, and to see God's heart, justice, mercy and kindness, to rejoice in how Christ is fulfilled the law for me, for you, and for everyone who puts their trust in him, to appreciate the promise of the new covenant, how glorious it is, and to know that the law is still holy, the law is still righteous, and the law is still good.

Speaker A [: 00:42:10

He said in Deuteronomy, Moses said to them, this word of the law is not an idle word. He says, this is your life. This is your life. There's power in the word of God. There's power in it. All right. Write down an application letter of the law versus the oldness of the letter, the newness of the spirit, and yet the power of the word. And even it was, you know, Martin Luther, what brought him.

Speaker A [: 00:42:59

He was confessing all day long. The. The priest said to him, we. You just can't do this. Because when he started to be convicted about his sin, he was. He was so afraid of being out of God's favor, he was confessing every few minutes. So he's bringing. Get back in here.

Speaker A [: 00:43:18

Get back in here. Because he started to see the depth of his sin. Right? Which would lead you to is. What's the answer to this? Is there an answer? Right. And he came to the answer. Because of that, we have forgiveness. Jesus Christ. If any man sins, we have an advocate, Jesus Christ.

Speaker A [: 00:43:38

The righteous tempted in always as we have yet without sin. So you have an advocate who understands the temptation. And he advocates for you. He advocates for you. Is that good news? Yeah. No, that's great news. That's great news. May the God of gods and the Lord of Lords, may he bless you.

Speaker A [: 00:43:58

May he keep you. May he cause his face shine upon you. May he lift up his countenance and grant you shalom deep in your soul. Deep in your soul. May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God the Father be with you now and always. Always, Always, Lord, bless and keep.

Scott Keffer [: 00:44:22

Thanks for listening. I hope you have greater hope, assurance and confidence in your life and. And a deeper trust in the God of the Bible and his son, Jesus Christ. Until next time. May the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. And may the Lord lift up his countenance on you and give you his peace, his shalom in your soul and in your life. Until next time.

Scott Keffer [: 00:44:47

May God bless you and keep you.

Speaker A [: 00:44:53

Sa.