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Carolina Conference of the Seventh-day Adventist Church

Eric Walsh

The Foundation of God’s Government

Good to be with you and appreciate the hospitality we've received here in North Carolina.

I went to Wake Forest University for a year and lived in Winston-Salem.

And my wife and I have decided whenever we retire, we'll be to the Carolinas for sure.

So we live in a beautiful part of the country.

Our scripture for this morning, Joshua chapter 8, Joshua chapter 1 verse 8, this book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth, but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein, for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success." So our Sabbath school lesson this week was from the topic, The Foundation of God's government, dealing with the law.

Father God, even now, Lord, bless us as we study your Word.

Send your Holy Spirit and bind the devil.

This is our prayer in Jesus' precious and holy name.

1 of the big discussion points in our church and in Christendom in general now is God's law.

In fact, the irony is that there are many who now say God's law does not need to be kept if you are a Christian.

There's a whole movement inside and outside of our denomination around just saying that Jesus loves you so much that what you do does not matter.

But let's look at what the Bible says And it will tie into what we studied this week in our sabbath school lesson In matthew chapter 19.

I want to use a bible story to kind of help make the case Matthew 19 and verse 16 says and behold 1 came and said unto him good master.

What good thing shall I do that I may have eternal life?

And he said unto him, why callest thou me good?

There is none good but 1 and that is God.

But if you will enter into life, look at what Jesus says Keep the commandments That it is a plain straightforward Instruction then it says in verse 18 The man actually almost sarcastically says which 1 Jesus then begins to actually quote the Decalogue, which removes all confusion as to whether or not the 10 Commandment law is still binding.

He says, thou shalt do no murder, thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not be a false witness, honor thy mother and thy father, and thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.

So Jesus then gives him most of that last 6 of the commandments.

He leaves out the first 4 because that's where this young man's issue is.

The young man said unto him, all these things have I kept from my youth.

What lack I yet?" In a, in a, in a, in a almost a statement of confidence, maybe even cockiness, he says, what do I lack?

But Jesus understood that the first part of the 10 Commandments, He was missing.

It was love for God that allowed, that disallowed Him from actually loving His neighbor.

In Verse 21, Jesus said unto him, if you will be perfect, go and sell what you have and give to the poor, and you shall have treasure in heaven, and come and follow me.

Jesus says, okay, if you're so commandment-keeping, and the commandments that we have just discussed in summation means that you'll love your neighbor, sell what you have and give it to the poor.

It was a great test for this young man because in verse 22 it says, but When the young man heard this, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions." Church, it was a statement that in fact, although this young man thought he was a commandment keeper, there was something he valued more than the commandments of God.

He valued his comfort and what he possessed more than the things of God.

And let me tell you something, as we just had the mission spotlight a few minutes ago, that 1 of the challenges of being Christian in a country as prosperous as ours is that sometimes we can be lulled to sleep with our comforts.

It becomes difficult sometimes to make the necessary sacrifices to serve God because it means we give up something we love Let me tell you something church The reason the keeping of the commandments is so Important now in our time of peace is because if we cannot keep the commandments in a time of peace We will definitely not keep them when the war comes Jeremiah 12 5 Jeremiah Actually says if you can't keep up with the footmen, how will you run with the horses?

The 10 Commandments obviously there are 2 divisions we mentioned earlier and there are those who say listen Basically, we don't have to worry about keeping commandments because there is no sin.

But 1 John 3 says, and every man that have this hope in him purifies himself even as he is pure.

Last night for youth, we talked about purity, sexual purity, and 1 of the calls on each 1 of us is to be pure.

It says, whosoever committed sin transgresses also the law.

In Romans 3 20 it says, for by the law is the knowledge of sin.

Church, if the devil was to get his way and the lie be believed, that there is no law that we need to keep, that we can just live any way we want, by removing the law, you remove sin.

And if you remove sin, you remove the need for a Savior.

It is a grand Theologic conspiracy that you can live any way you want and call yourself a Christian.

In fact, you violate 1 of the commandments that says not to take the Lord's name in vain.

Because if you call yourself a Christian and live like the world, You're violating that commandment.

Romans 7 and verse 7 says this, what shall we say then?

Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law.

For I had not known lust, except the law had said, thou shalt not covet." Powerful, isn't it?

He says, wherefore the law is holy and the commandment is holy and just and what else is it?

No 1 can say Paul said to do away with the law.

Paul makes the statement here that the law is holy, the commandment is holy, just and good.

And so there are those who have tried to change the law.

This is looking at the biblical 10 Commandments on the left.

This is the Catholic Catechism, and you can see here that the Second Commandment is completely removed.

The Fourth Commandment is changed to the third, and it is shortened to be the Lord's Day.

The Tenth commandment is then split in half and made to be 2 different commandments.

It is an altering of the law that is not biblical.

This is why you ought not touch and try and change it.

David says the law of the Lord is perfect.

Converting the soul, the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple.

The reason we must continue to preach the law of God.

And we have to preach it in the full context of righteousness by faith.

We have to preach it in the context that in our own power we cannot keep the law, but the law is necessary because the Bible teaches that the law of the Lord is perfect, that it is the law.

When you look into the law and see your failure into the mirror of the law, the Holy Spirit can now work the work of conversion.

And we wind up baptizing folk and what we do is just make sinners wet sinners.

We do not call them out of their former life.

Let me tell you something, I am so happy God called me out of a life of sin.

The joy I get from living for God, for knowing the commandments, and by asking the Holy Spirit to give me the power to gain victory over the flesh, over my human inclinations, to live and be a godly husband, godly father, to represent God in my house as his priest is something that is not a burden, it's a privilege.

Ecclesiastes 12, 13, again, these are all the texts that tell you how important God's law is.

Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter Fear God and do what?

So this is the whole Duty of man we were created church with the ability to choose it is the free will I talked to the young people about this.

If God is a good God, why is there so much suffering?

And 1 of them is God cannot force you to love Him.

This is why Solomon writes this in the book of Ecclesiastes.

What he is saying is, your whole duty is to choose God in such a way that you live according to his tenets and precepts.

In fact, it is the very law of physics that the scientific community touts that is actually the laws that prove evolution a lie.

It is the first and second laws of thermodynamics.

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The Foundation of God’s Government

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