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Amazing Facts

Doug Batchelor

The Laws of Life

This presentation is brought to you by the Friends of the Amazing Facts Ministry.

Did you know it's against the law to doze off under a hair dryer in Florida, to play hopscotch on Sunday in Missouri, to hunt camels in Arizona, to insert a penny in your ear in Hawaii, to tie a giraffe to a telephone pole in Atlanta, to catch mice without a license in Cleveland, to put a skunk in your boss's desk in Michigan, to detonate a nuclear weapon within Chico, California city limits, which carries a punishment of $500, to bathe less than once a year in Kentucky, to pawn your dentures in Las Vegas.

Yes, there are about 2000000 laws in the U.S.

And if a person could review them at a rate of about 2 a day, you'd be qualified to act as a law-abiding citizen in about 6, 000 years.

Yet the Lord was able to summarize the entire duty of man to God in just 10 simple precepts that contain about 325 words.

Jesus said God's law boils down to 2 crucial principles, Love for God and love for our fellow man.

Join me now friends as we consider the relevance of God's law in our lives today.

Do any of you remember a day when you didn't even lock your doors in your house.

Someone will be watching, they'll look you up on the internet.

But let's admit it, you know, times have changed and the values and the morals of the culture have changed.

Now, I was not raised in a religious home.

My mother was from a Jewish background, but she was basically atheist.

And my father, he was raised Baptist, but after World War II he was basically atheist.

So I didn't grow up with a lot of strong religious training, but I still remember when I went to public school in California, they had the 10 Commandments on the wall.

And then, you know, more people were worried about separation of church and state and we'll talk a little about that tonight, and pretty soon they weren't there anymore and I can understand the government telling people you're not supposed to dictate the first 4 commandments What God's name is or what God you worship or how you worship Him or what His name is or when you worship Him.

But the government must enforce the last 6 commandments.

Parental authority, the government doesn't own your children.

Things like property rights, the sanctity of marriage, shouldn't be coveting your neighbor's things, honesty, telling the truth.

These are things that must be observed and enforced by any civilized culture.

And America was built on those principles by Roger Williams where you basically separate the 2 tables of stone and the government doesn't meddle with the first 4 but they must enforce the last 6.

And that's what made it such a great country.

But they, in not wanting any mingling of religion, they took all of the law out, which is kind of strange because it's up on the Supreme Court building.

Now, we are using this as a foundation for our studies each night.

What is our verse in Revelation 14 and how does that relate?

It's in verse 12, here is the patience of the saints talking about the ones that are saved as opposed to the ones with a mark here's the patience of the saints, here are those who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.

Here you've got the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.

The Bible calls it the law and the prophets.

And so this is something that's crucial in the life of a believer.

We're not just hearers of the word, but we're doers of the word.

Not to be confused with lots of different laws in the Bible, there's a very simple moral law.

You can read in Exodus 24 verse 12, Then the Lord said to me, to Moses rather, come up to me on the mountain and there I will give you tablets of stone and the law and commandments which I have written that you may teach them.

He gave him these 2 tables of stone and what were they?

Deuteronomy 10 and 4 and he wrote on the tables according to the first writing the 10 Commandments which the Lord had spoken to you in the mountain from the midst of the fire in the day the Lord assembled and the Lord gave them to me.

So when God delivered the 10 Commandments, He did something He had never before done in history not 1 prophet or 2 having a vision or a dream but while a whole nation was gathered in assembly, the Lord God Almighty spoke audibly, no artificial PA system, and He declared the 10 commandments with thunder and lightning from the mountain, it was heard by the whole nation, and the nation said, all the Lord has said we will do.

And Moses said they've agreed to the covenant, God says, okay we're agreeing to the terms, come up, I'll give you a written copy, that's how contracts work first you kind of work it out verbally, right?

No sense writing it up every time first get a verbal agreement, then you say that sounds good, then you write it up, make it official this is what God did, and he gave them the 10 commandments Number 2, to what does the Bible equate God's law?

Answer, therefore the law is holy and the commandment is holy and just and good.

Now part of the reason for the lesson tonight I'm just going to tell you up front is because we know that there's a lot of lawlessness in society and people that don't want the law, but what scares me is there are pastors now that are saying we don't want the law.

There are pastors that are turning away from the law and they're saying we're not under the law anymore, we're under grace and that means we don't need to keep the 10 Commandments.

Paul talks about doctrines of devils, and if there's a doctrine of devils, the idea that God doesn't care whether or not you keep the 10 Commandments is a categorical lie, and I can tell you that based on an abundance of scripture I'm going to share with you tonight.

They're the 10 commandments, and God did not make a mistake, and I've heard pastors say well God gave them a law just to prove they couldn't keep it, and then he punished them for not keeping it.

Every command of God inherent is the command is the power to do it.

So why can't we not get rid of the 10 Commandments?

Because when you look at the definition for the 10 Commandments in the Bible, the same words are used to describe God Himself.

For example, the Bible says God is perfect.

The Bible says in Psalm 19, verse 7, the law is perfect.

By the way, The verse for God being perfect is Jesus, Matthew 5, 48, Be ye therefore perfect even as your Father in heaven is perfect.

Bible says God is love, 1 John 4, 8, many places.

Exodus 9, 27, it says the law is righteous.

You got the verses on the screen, Psalm 119.

Jesus Christ is saying yesterday, today and forever I am the Lord, I change not, His law is unchangeable, He says I will not alter the covenant that has gone out of my lips.

Well for 1 thing it tells us our need of a Savior.

You can read in Romans 7, 7, I would not have known sin except through the law, for I would not have known covetousness unless the law said you shall not covet.

And so God gives us law because we need it to avoid disobedience.

You can also read here, by the law is the knowledge of sin.

Now is it important for us to know what sin is?

How can you repent from your sins if you don't know what sin is?

If the devil takes away the law, without the law there's no sin.

The Lord gives us the law so we'll recognize when we've disobeyed and we can repent and turn from our disobedience and turn to Jesus for mercy and power but the law is a blessing, and again the best Bible definition for what sin is sin is lawlessness, if you get the King James Version, sin is the transgression of the law, people who are taking away the law are taking away the very definition of sin, and the devil loves that because Jesus wants us to know what our sins are so that He can forgive us.

So let's just suppose for a moment that if I was to go through, wasn't that tricky?

If I was to go through the presentation like this, would that be at all distracting?

And you know, I came to the meeting tonight and I brushed, gargled, deodorized, do everything and I feel fine.

Now how are you going to convince me there's a problem?

So, I feel fine, I'm preaching, I'm talking, you're all saying Doug, you got an issue.

I look in the mirror and I go oh man, that does really look foolish.

So alright, well I felt fine until I looked in the mirror.

So the answer is obviously just don't look in the mirror.

I heard about a man in China that ordered 1 of the first microscopes and he was so fascinated looking at everything under the microscope but then he looked at his rice under the microscope and he saw there was all these microscopic creatures on the rice he loved rice so he threw away the microscope so is the answer to just get rid of the law because I love my sin?

Or is the answer to use the mirror to try to take this off?

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The Laws of Life

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