Edited transcript:
In Hosea, we read of the Lord complaining about the priests, and saying, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge; because thou hast rejected knowledge, I also will reject you.” This verse solemnly teaches that the Lord is rejecting many ministers today, because they do not care to preach law and gospel. They do not endeavour in any way to get a clear understanding of these things. They will not faithfully lay before their people law and gospel, death and life before their people. Therefore, many people are perishing for lack of knowledge, and God will reject many ministers for neglecting fundamental doctrines of law and gospel.
We would like to look in the first place at something that is implied in this verse, and that is that all by nature are alive to the law and dead unto God. That is what is clearly implied. All by nature are alive to the law, alive to its claims upon them, alive in the sense that they’re saying, I have to obey the law in order to get my sins forgiven and go to heaven. I have to do something that is good and meritorious in God’s sight in order to go to heaven. That’s what it means to be alive to the law. But it follows that a person who is alive to the law will be dead unto God. He will have no spiritual life, no love in his soul to God, His word, His law, His people, His ordinances, and so on.
Secondly, to make the subject more practical, we like to consider some characteristics of those that are alive to the law. What are the marks, evidences, characteristics of people who are alive to the law and dead unto God? There is a great variety amongst them, but they all have one thing in common. They may be followers of different religions, they may believe in false forms of Christianity, but still, they have this one thing in common: they are alive to the law and dead unto God.
Then thirdly, we would like to consider how we become dead to the law and alive to God. The way that we become dead to the law and alive unto God is not a way that we would expect. It is “through the law,” Paul says. It is through the law that we become dead to the law and alive unto God.
Now let us look at these three things then. Firstly, the fact that all are alive to the law and dead unto God. Secondly, characteristics of those alive to the law. Thirdly, the way they become dead to the law and alive unto God.
Firstly, let us consider this solemn reality that everyone in the world today by nature is alive to the law and dead unto God.
What does Paul mean by being alive to the law? He’s speaking about the law as a covenant of works. A covenant, as many of you know, is basically a contract between two parties. And there’s a condition in the contract which says if you do such and such a thing, you will get such and such a thing. If you pay a certain amount of money, then this property will be yours. If you do this job, then this amount of money will be yours. That is a contract.
And that is basically the covenant that God made with our father Adam – and with ourselves in him – in the beginning of the world. That is when He created man upright – holy after His own image, in knowledge, righteousness, and holiness. God entered into a covenant with our father Adam, saying essentially that “if you obey Me in every respect, you will earn eternal life. If you keep the law that I’ve written upon your heart, and if you do not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, then you will surely live. You will live forever with Me in heaven.”
Now this covenant Adam broke, as you know, but it is still in force. All descending from Adam by ordinary generation are under this law in its covenant form.
God is saying through the law, “If you wish to enter into life, keep My commandments. That’s what Christ said to the rich young ruler: “If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments.”
And it is this law in its covenant form that everyone is alive to. They all have this instinct: “I must do something in order to have my sins forgiven and go to heaven.”
Every religion, except the true one, appeals to this instinct. Every religion says, “This is the thing that you need to do in order for your sins to be forgiven and for you to have a blessed life after death.”
The religions of this world differ widely in what that thing you need to do is. For some, it is a lot of good works. For some, it is a lot of religious rituals. But in essence, they’re all the same. They’re all appealing to that instinct in you and me, which is, “I need to do something good in order to get into heaven. Something that God finds meritorious and deserving of reward. I need to come up with something that God looks upon and says, ‘I must reward that.’”
Now, this is the covenant that God has made with our father Adam and with us all. We cannot spend much time proving that the covenant made with Adam has been made with us all.
Suffice it to say that we sin just like Adam did. Adam desired the forbidden fruit that he might be as God, knowing good and evil. He was seeking independence. He was seeking his happiness independently of God. “Let me obtain this forbidden fruit and then I can be happy without God.” That is the essence of sin: To find something that will make you happy without God. That’s what everyone apart from Christ is looking for. “Let me find something in this world whereby I can be happy apart from God.”
And we cover our sin just like Adam did. When his eyes were opened and he realized he was naked, it wasn’t just a physical nakedness that he realized. He realized that his soul was without a covering. His soul was exposed to the holy justice of God. And so he sought to cover himself. In Job, we find an expression referring to this: “If I covered my transgressions as Adam…” (Job 31:33).
Then we also try to run away from God like Adam. We try to hide ourselves in the things of nature, the things of this world, so that we are not confronted by God. And finally we die like Adam.
There are many resemblances then between ourselves and Adam – showing that the Covenant of Works made with Adam is still in effect today. Every unconverted sinner, therefore, is alive to the law as a Covenant of Works and therefore they are dead unto God.
Now why are they dead unto God? Because the law in its covenant form was made originally to a perfect human being. Adam was someone who could obey the law perfectly in his own strength without any help from any source outside himself. The law was commanding him to do many things. It was commanding him to live a perfectly holy life. It was commanding him to live in obedience to all the commandments and continuously so. Paul says this about the law: “Cursed is everyone that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them” (Gal. 3:10).They must do all things.
As long as we are under the law as a Covenant of Works, we have to do everything it requires – everything directly expressed and implied in every single commandment. The law, as you know, is spiritual, so it regulates the soul, it regulates the thoughts, it regulates the feelings, as well as the words and the actions and the attitudes. And the law requires perfect holiness in all these respects.
Every commandment has to be perfectly kept and continuously so. That is the covenant that you and I are under by nature, the law in its covenant form. It was a fair, good covenant and when man was innocent, because as God’s creature he was bound to obey God perfectly anyway. But God kindly promised to reward Adam’s obedience.
Perfect obedience to the law was something that Adam had full capability of doing. He had a perfectly holy nature, so he would never have a vain thought. He would never have an inordinate desire, he would never desire anything sinful, and he would never desire anything lawful too much. He had a perfect control over his desires. His heart was filled with love to God and love to his neighbour. So in one sense it was effortless for him to keep the law perfectly. God therefore made a very good and benevolent covenant with our father Adam.
Now one point we must understand here is that the law did not promise to give Adam any help, because he didn’t need any help. Adam had a perfectly holy nature, he didn’t need help in keeping the law. But the fact that Adam has fallen and broken the covenant – the fact that we have sinned in Adam and fallen with him in his first transgression – the fact that we’ve been born with a corrupt nature and we have no desire to keep the law – doesn’t mean the law now has to require less of us.
It is still wholly just and good. It still has every right to command every one of God’s creatures to keep the law perfectly. And it’s still not going to give any help to someone under its authority. That is, the law in its covenant form will not give us any help, any strength, not even any desire to us to obey it.
Simply hearing the commandments will not produce any spiritual desire to obey them. Yes, people may keep them outwardly, but they will not keep them out of love to God. The law doesn’t work up any love to God in the sinner’s soul.
And so that’s why Paul says that as long as we’re alive to the law, we are dead unto God. Indeed, that was Paul’s own condition before he met Christ on the road to Damascus. He was alive to the law. He was full of religion, very zealous, trying to obey the letter of the law. But he had no love to God. He may have claimed that he loved God, but he did not love God.
He did not love his neighbour. If he was honest, he was not happy at all either. He was under a great burden, trying to obey the law, which gave him no strength, not even any desire even to obey it out of love.
Now let us move secondly to a more practical subject related to this, the characteristics of those who are under the law. This is practically important. How can we know whether we are under the law as a Covenant of Works or whether we are resting on Christ alone?
Let us start with the obvious. Those who are completely dead unto God, who are pursuing one gross, abominable sin after another – these are plainly under the law. Now you might ask, “How is that? I can understand how they are dead unto God, but how can they be alive to the law when they’re so indifferent, couldn’t care less about God’s law, make no effort even to find out what it teaches? They’re just going through life, trying to have as much pleasure as they can, committing as much sin as they can get away with. How are they alive to the law?”
Well, the fact that they are alive to the law – that is, responsive to its demands – is seen when they start to think about dying and going to eternity.
When they start to think about meeting their judge, when they start to think about their mortality, when their conscience starts to trouble them a bit, what is their immediate reaction when these things start to happen in their hearts? They say, “I must do something. I’ve lived a bad life.”
Even a criminal sitting in prison might say this. “I’ve lived a very wicked life. I’ve committed many crimes. I’ve caused people a lot of heartache, and now I’m about to meet my judge and my maker.”
He shows he’s alive to the law as a Covenant of Works by immediately saying, “I need to do something. I need to turn my life around. I need to stop doing this and I need to start doing that.”
That shows he’s alive to the law but still dead unto God. This is an important point to remember. Just because a person begins to turn their life around, and reform themselves outwardly, doesn’t mean they’re alive to God now. No, that’s the normal behaviour of someone alive to the law. “I need to do something and I need to do lots of things, perhaps, so that God will look upon me in mercy and forgive my sin and take me to heaven.”
Now others might acknowledge the authority of God’s law over their whole life – particularly those who have been brought up in a sound church.
They believe that the Ten Commandments are binding upon them. They believe that the Shorter Catechism’s exposition of the Ten Commandments is biblical. They believe that the law is spiritual and doesn’t just regulate the outward man but regulates the soul too.
They don’t question any of these things, but they show that they’re alive to the law and dead unto God by trying to reinterpret the law – by explaining away some of its requirements, and bringing down the standard enough to where they think that they can obey it, or obey it well enough to God’s satisfaction. That is clear evidence of being alive to the law and dead unto God: when they wrongly interpret the law to make it easier for them to keep.
That’s what the Pharisees were always trying to do: re-explain the law. For example, they wrongly interpreted and applied the Fifth Commandment so that they could avoid duties to their parents and financially supporting them.
And then others might realize that that’s a vain attempt to try to reinterpret the law and reduce its demands. They will acknowledge that law is pointing out real sins in their lives. But they show that they’re alive to the law when their immediate instinct is to excuse them and minimize them – to say, “Well, the sin is not really that bad because of this thing and that thing.”
Why are they doing that? Because all their hopes of getting into heaven are bound up with being able to do something that God is pleased with and will take them to heaven because they have done that thing or that set of things.
And then a person alive to the law might even go to this extent. They will say, “What I’m doing is not a sin at all. It is actually a virtue. All my life I’ve been worried that I was committing a sin here, but now I think what I’m doing is virtuous.”
Let’s use plain, obvious examples from the Bible to illustrate. The Pharisees were very reluctant to love their neighbour as themselves, to say the least.
And they were always looking for ways to get out of their duties to their neighbor, so much so that Christ told a parable about the Good Samaritan. There was a man lying wounded, half dead. A priest and then a Levite passed by him without helping him.
No doubt they had many excuses in their minds: “The man did something very foolish. Oh, I know that man. He’s lived a wicked life. He’s getting what he deserves. Bad things happen to bad people.”
That’s the attitude of many. They develop a calloused, unmerciful attitude when they see a sinner in misery: “Well, it’s their own fault they’re like that.” So they would excuse their callousness and harshness towards this half-dead man on those grounds: “Well, he’s just reaping the fruit of his doings.” Or they might say, “I don’t know who he is, but I have other things I need to be doing. I need to be getting to Jericho to perform my duties as a priest or Levite.”
And so they find ways to turn their vices into virtues – their sins into good works. “Ah,” they say, “The Bible requires charity. But my heart doesn’t like that. So I will call my lack of love by a new name. I will call it discernment and caution.”
Now, we could give many examples of this, but we must pass on to another characteristic of those alive to the law. This is a very common one in the visible church. The unconverted person says, “The law is pointing out real sins that I’m guilty of. I cannot deny them. These are real failings on my part. They deserve God’s wrath and curse. So I will look to Christ to take away these particular sins. And then I will do my best. In other words, I will look to Christ to make up my deficiencies. I will go through life trying to live as best I can, trying to obey God as best I can. And then if there’s any deficiencies, I hope that God, for Christ’s sake, will forgive them.”
This is a very subtle error. And the believer will be very concerned about this. How do I know if I am guilty of this? Well, this characteristic of being alive unto the law manifests itself when they are asked, “What is your hope for eternity? Why do you think you’re going to heaven?” They might say some things about Christ and trusting in Him, and being a person of faith.”
But then the emphasis and tone of the conversation turns to themselves. “I have done this thing and that thing. I was a very wicked person, but I turned my life around. I became full of remorse about my past. I became full of regret about my past. I shed many tears over my sins. I went through a deep law work. I became very, very alarmed about going to hell. I became very, very deeply convicted about my sin. I made many, many changes in my life. I started reading the Bible regularly. I started going to church all the time. I started to pray every single day. And because I have done all these things, I hope my sins are forgiven, and I’m going to heaven.”
The focus is all on self, rather than on Jesus Christ. They are not like David Dickson, that godly minister in Scotland in the 1600s, who wrote many useful books that are still read today, and was instrumental in converting many souls. When he came to the end of his life, he said, “I have taken all my good deeds and all my bad deeds, and I’ve thrown them together into a great heap and fled away to Jesus Christ.”
Now, the one that is alive to the law cannot say that. And because of that, they are easily puffed up, and they find it very hard to esteem others better than themselves. They have a heart that is always puffed up – a heart that is always despising the people of God inwardly, because they are resting upon something of their own. But a person who’s renounced himself as a totally depraved sinner, and is resting upon Christ alone for salvation, will not find it hard to esteem the brethren.
There’s another characteristic of those alive to the law, which explains in part why they cannot love the Lord’s people. It is this. They are not troubled about heart sins. They are not troubled about a lack of love to Christ. It doesn’t really bother them that they don’t have a lot of love for Christ. It doesn’t bother them that they’re not willing to part with all to win Christ.
They are not like Mary, who had that precious alabaster box of ointment, worth almost a whole year’s salary. She broke the box, poured out all the oil upon the feet of Christ.
Judas could not understand that. He couldn’t understand that love she had for Christ. He professed to follow Christ. His doctrine was orthodox. He went out preaching, perhaps cast out devils. But he wasn’t troubled about lack of love to Jesus Christ.
Do you love the Lord Jesus Christ? Is he supreme in your heart? Do you say, My greatest sorrow is that I love him so little?
A cold heart doesn’t really bother the person who is alive to the law. He’s only concerned that his outward life is outwardly correct.
Another mark or characteristic of those alive to the law is this: Their motivation is completely different from the believer. They obey the commandments. They go to church. They read their Bible, because they are hoping that all these things taken together will move God to have mercy on them and take them to heaven. They are hoping God will look upon all these things together and say, “They’ve spent all this time on religion. They spent all this time doing good works. They spent all this time in the house of God. They spent all this time on their knees. They spent all this time reading their Bibles. I see all this that they’ve done. And because they’ve done all this, I will pardon their deficiencies and take them to heaven.”
When people think and act like this, they do all kinds of duties only because they must, but not because they love the Lord. In other words, when a person is alive to the law, he is obeying its demands because he has to. He’s going to church because he has to. He has no delight in the ordinances. He has no delight in prayer. He does not relish the Word of God in his soul. He is not doing these things because he wants to. He’s doing these things because he has to. “If I stop doing this,” he says, “the Lord’s people will think less of me.”
But the true believer says, If I stop doing this, my Lord and Savior will have less glory.” Yes, it’s different with those who are is dead to the law and living unto God. Even when they are sinning, there’s something in them that delights in the law of God after the inward man. They do find sweetness in reading the Word from time to time. They do find sweetness in being in the ordinances from time to time.
There are other times when they’re lamenting their coldness and deadness. And the reason they’re lamenting their coldness and deadness is because they are not doing all these things to earn the favour of God. They want to do all these things out of love to the Lord. And when it feels all formal and outward, they say, “This is totally unsatisfactory. I love the Lord, and I ought to be delighting in His Word. I ought to be delighting in His house. I ought to be finding it delightful to walk in the ways of His commandments. This is a grief to me.”
But the one that’s alive to the law is satisfied with outward performance of duty. “I’ve gone to church,” he says. “I’ve read my Bible. I’ve prayed. I’ve not taken God’s name in vain. I’ve not worked on the Sabbath. I’m respectful to authority. I don’t do anything cruel to my neighbour. I’m polite and courteous. I’m honest. I’m diligent. That’s good enough. I don’t enjoy doing these things, but all this religious effort will be worth it at the end when I get heaven.”
And so his obedience is what the old divines would call “mercenary” – doing lots of things to get paid with eternal life.
Therefore, the person who is alive to the law is like a servant working for a very stern, demanding master. He puts up with his rudeness. He puts up with his harshness. He puts up with his rigorous demands. He does everything the master requires him to do because he says, “If I don’t do it, I won’t get paid.”
That is the mindset of the person who’s alive to the law and dead unto God: “I’ve got to go to church. I have to read my Bible. I have to pray every day. I have to keep the Sabbath day. I have to be careful in how I talk. I have to honour those in authority. I have to do good works. It’s all very burdensome. But if I don’t do it, I won’t get paid with eternal life in heaven.”
So when he is doing these things, he is not doing them through the grace and strength of Christ. The Spirit is not enabling him to keep these commandments in a spiritual manner.
Now when he is successful in living a religious, moral, upright life full of good works, he is rather pleased with himself. He can’t understand the language of those who are poor in spirit. The Lord’s people who are always saying, “I feel so empty. I feel unable to pray. I went to church today, but did I worship God at all?”
The false Christian can’t understand that. “What do you mean? You went to church. You didn’t worship God when you were there?” The believer replies, “Well, I didn’t detect any faith in exercise. I didn’t feel any warmth in my heart. I didn’t delight in it. I didn’t say, one day in thy courts is better than a thousand. I wasn’t saying in my heart, ‘And for the house of God our Lord, I’ll seek thy good always.’ I wasn’t brought to say again, ‘What shall I render to the Lord for all His gifts to me?’ That’s a true worship service! When I’m going out the doors of a church building, melted anew by the goodness of God and Christ, saying, ‘What shall I render to the Lord for all His gifts to me?’ I’ve done nothing for Him!”
That is the language of someone who loves the Lord. They’re not saying, “I’ve done this for the church, and I’ve done that for the Lord’s people, and I’ve done this for my neighbour, and that for the community.” No, they are saying, “What have I done for Christ? What have I done for Him? In comparison to what He has done for me, what have I done? What shall I render to the Lord for all his gifts to me?”
It is a blessed time in the house of God when the believer is brought to say these things. What blessing it is when he is under the Word of God and saying these things in his heart.
Now let us look thirdly at how we become dead to the law.
Paul tells us that it is through the law. Now take special note of this point: It is through the law as a Covenant of Works that makes us dead to it. In other words, we give up trying to earn God’s favour, when we see that we are under the law as a Covenant of Works. John Colquhoun, Scottish minister in the 1800s, says that ministers must not simply preach the law; they to preach the law in its covenant form. They must emphasize the fact that the law in its covenant form is saying, “You have to obey me perfectly in order to get into heaven.”
Ministers may preach sermons and expound the commandments one by one, and a person might listen carefully and learn a lot. But the sermons will not convict him until he realizes: “These commandments are actually the requirements of the Covenant that I’m under. I’m under this Covenant that makes all these requirements about how I think, how I feel, how I speak, how I act to God and towards man. And I have to meet every single one of these requirements perfectly and continuously if I am to go to heaven.”
It is when the Spirit of God begins to apply that truth to the conscience, that the conscience begins to say, “Is there another way to heaven?” And not until then will they begin to ask that question.
When the Spirit of God applies the law in its Covenant form to the gospel hearer, it is then that he begins to ask, “Is there another way to heaven than me just trying to do my best year after year and hoping that because God is merciful, He will take me to heaven because I’ve tried my best? It is then that he begins to ask, “What must I do to be saved?
We must understand that there is not a fiber of our beings that desires to be out and away from the law in its Covenant form. We want to be under it. Paul says to the Galatians, who were professing Christians, “Tell me, ye that desire to be under the law, do ye not hear the law?”
Why would they want to be under the law after hearing the gospel of free grace? Because we want something of our own that we can take pride in. We want something of our own that we can point to and say, “I did that and God is well pleased with it.”
Now the fact that we desire to be under the law explains why some people will give up Christianity – especially biblical, Reformed Christianity – and say that it is too burdensome.
Many in the history of our own church, no doubt, have said this. They reached a point where they say: “Too many rules, too many religious demands, too much church going, family worship, being different from the world, not doing this, always having to do that. It’s too demanding. I need to find a different kind of Christianity that’s not so burdensome, not so depressing.”
But the problem is the law in its covenant form has not been applied to their consciences by the Holy Spirit, making them despair of ever earning the favour of God, even in part.
Yes, many give up on Christianity in the wider church because this is never taught to them. They are essentially told, “Christ came from heaven, suffered and died on the cross to make it easier to keep the law as a Covenant of Works; that is, to make the conditions easy enough for you to obey in your own strength.”
They are told that Christ’s sufferings had something to do with atoning for sin. But basically, the message they hear is this: Christ came to make the terms of the Covenant of Works easier, so that when you do your best, God will accept it for Christ’s sake.
And that’s the false gospel that is believed to the destruction of many. No, Christ did not come to make the terms of the Covenant of Works easier. He came to fulfill all its demands Himself in the place of sinners.
He came to obey it in all its breadth. He came into the sinner’s place so that He might think holy thoughts all the time, have right feelings all the time, speak holy words all the time, be about his Father’s business all the time, do good works all the time, suffer the penalty of the law, and suffer everything it required him to suffer, so that sinners can receive eternal life as a free gift. In other words, He came to fulfil all the conditions and terms of the law as a Covenant of Works.
As Paul says in chapter 4 of this epistle, “When the fullness of time has come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law.” He was made under the law that you and I cannot keep in its covenant form. He endured the curse of that law in its covenant form – that curse that you and I deserve to endure.
He did so willingly. He did it with all his heart. He did it with supreme love to his Father. He took delight to do His Father’s will. Though it was a work involving great humiliation, with great suffering on His part – though it was a thankless task, dwelling among His own, His own receiving Him not – He did it gladly, with all His heart.
He fulfilled all righteousness, as He told John the Baptist. Yes, He came to magnify the law and make it honourable.
He fulfilled all the demands of the covenant of works, so that we don’t have to – so that we can receive Christ freely offered in the Covenant of Grace, in the everlasting gospel – so that we can receive Him and the righteousness that He wrought out in our nature when He was under the law. That is the gift of eternal life through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Now, that’s the other way to heaven that you and I need to find.
The other way is the way of vast numbers of people today. Even within the visible church, they are not dead to the law. They are alive to the law.
They are dead unto God. They find it all burdensome, but they hope they’ll get paid with heaven at the end. That is not Christianity. That is not the gospel of Him who says, My yoke is easy and my burden is light.
There is a far better way. It is receiving Christ freely offered to you in the gospel. Renouncing yourself, giving up on yourself, saying, I’m hopelessly in debt to divine justice. And all I can do is go deeper into debt. I can’t even begin to pay back what I owe to God’s law.
The more I try, the deeper in debt I go. I can’t even prepare myself for God’s grace. I have to come now as a sinner and receive with an empty hand the gift of eternal life through Jesus Christ, the Lord.
And then when he’s received into the soul, the power of the Holy Spirit working faith in that soul, then he becomes dead to the law and alive unto God. Now he sees the Bible as a new book. God’s word has become alive.
And his soul has become alive in responding to the word. There’s things in the word of God that he’s seeing that he didn’t see before. And there’s feelings in his heart that he didn’t have before towards the word of God.
Yes, and towards the commandments of God. “Before he was saying, let me not hear or read a searching book or sermon. Because it might point out a sin. It might point out depravity in me that makes it hopeless for me to ever expect heaven by what I am doing right now.”
You see, the soul might have tried to avoid a searching sermon, a searching book, because the soul was afraid it would destroy all their hopes for eternity, all his hopes for getting to heaven. But now it doesn’t matter how searching the sermon is, how spiritual the law is.
It doesn’t matter how many faults and sins it brings to the surface. As he’s under the law, understanding its spirituality in breadth, he’s saying, “Oh, now I am seeing vanity of mind that I didn’t see before. I am seeing Sabbath breaking that I didn’t see before. I am seeing lack of love to God that I didn’t see before. I’m seeing lack of love to souls that I never detected before. I’m seeing all kinds of sins that I never saw before. But it doesn’t matter, in this respect: I’m under another covenant. I’m under the shade of Christ himself. I’m covered by His righteousness. The law is no longer a Covenant to me demanding perfect obedience to get to heaven. The law is now a rule to me, showing me how to live unto God.”
That’s important. When we believe in Christ, yes, we become dead to the law. But it’s not like it doesn’t matter whether we obey the law any longer or that we keep it basically and not try to keep it fully.
The law is still precious to the child of God. Yes, it becomes precious for the first time in the sinner’s experience. Why is the law precious? “It’s a rule of life showing me how to live to God. It’s a rule of life showing me how to express my love to Christ. I was asking, what shall I render to the Lord for all his gifts to me? Ah, I will render unto him obedience to the law as a rule. I will look to him for grace and strength and even desire to obey it with all my heart.”
May the Lord bless His Word to us. Let us pray.
Speaker: Rev Caleb J Hembd
Congregation Gisborne
Text: Galatians 2:19
Date: 17 August 2025
Series: