We are now in a series of heart-to-heart talks regarding the Ten Commandments, God's Ten
Rules for Living.
And just before we go into the study of the Eleventh Commandment, because may I remind
you again, there are not only ten commandments, there are eleven.
God gave the first ten rules for living.
When Jesus came, He gave the eleventh commandment.
And before we begin our heart-to-heart talks regarding the eleventh commandment, I want
to just pause and that's right, just sit down, honey.
We're going to have a wonderful time of fellowship today.
Just relax a bit.
You need that rest anyway.
You've been so busy all day.
Just sit down, just as though I had come into your home and you and I were talking about
the things of God.
And you wouldn't keep on working if you were washing dishes.
You'd be gracious enough to just dry your hands and sit down with me for a while.
And we're going to chat for a few minutes because I feel that what we're going to talk
about today is most important.
I have been very aware of the fact, as we have been talking about the Ten Commandments,
that there are those who have been under the impression that we are no longer under the
rule of the law, the Ten Commandments, as God gave them to Moses and the children of
Israel.
And I want you to know, and I can prove it today from the Word of God, that the Ten Commandments
are as much in effect today as they were the hour that God gave them to Moses.
They have never been canceled out.
They will never be canceled out or voided.
Jesus himself made that very clear.
And you are very wrong in your thinking if you have just mentally canceled out these
Ten Rules for Living.
Jesus himself told us that they were in effect, will continue to be in effect until such a
time, and he even told us the time when they would still not be voided, but would pass,
literally pass from word, from law, to spirit, from cold letter, into warm life.
He leaves absolutely nothing to the imagination regarding the law.
Turn, if you will please, to the fifth chapter of Matthew, and I give you the Word of Jesus
himself, and that's the highest authority in heaven and earth.
Read that 17th verse in the fifth chapter of Matthew.
Think not that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets.
I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill.
There's nothing as plain as this.
It was an official proclamation.
And it's just like that.
He goes on to say, for I say unto you, till heaven and earth shall pass away, one jot
or one tickle shall in no wise pass away from the law, till all things be accomplished.
Here again one is tempted to ask, what did our Lord mean, till heaven and earth pass
away?
The answer which comes most easily is that this was a figure of speech, that it was an
indefinite way of saying that the law can never pass away.
That's not true.
It was not so.
It is a most matter of fact utterance on the part of Jesus.
He was saying the law cannot fail in the tiniest accent.
It cannot be set aside.
It cannot be trifled with as non-important while these things last as they are.
The law, the Ten Commandments, cannot be destroyed.
They cannot be voided.
There is coming a day, and he tells us exactly when that time will be, when heaven and earth
will pass away.
And that time, my friend, will be the time when the surface of this earth will be renovated
by fire, when God again will restore this planet to its original beauty.
It's all so far beyond our comprehension.
There was a time when the natural eye, even today, hath not seen, nor the mind comprehend
the beauty of what this earth was in its original state before Lucifer fell.
God has given us just glimpses of the beauty of what this planet was originally before
the fall of Lucifer.
It must have been beyond description.
And remember, this planet will again be restored to its original beauty.
It will again be populated with free moral agency by those who have chosen to accept
the Son of the Living God as their savior, as their ruler, as their king.
There is coming a day when this planet will be our permanent heaven.
That which we call heaven today is something that's only temporary.
When the soul of the Christian leaves the body, it does go into the presence of Jesus.
It goes to what we know as heaven, but that place is only temporary.
John had a vision of that great moving day.
Oh, that will be a day of days.
When the city of the New Jerusalem came down out of the heavens, John saw it.
He got a preview of it.
What a moving day that's going to be for the children of God.
After the surface of this earth has been restored to its original beauty, the city of the New
Jerusalem that is being prepared now will come down out of the heaven and will rest here on this planet.
And Jesus is referring to exactly that time, that moving day, that glorious day of absolute perfection
when absolute righteousness for the first time will rule and reign up on this earth as we know it.
That's what he meant when he said, think not that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets.
I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill.
The law is important today, as important as it was when it was given to the term Israel.
Verily I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise
pass from the law till all be fulfilled.
And at that time, that which we know as the cold letter, the letter of the law, will pass
from word to spirit, from letter into warm life.
Then and then only and for the first time we will have the ultimate law, the law of righteousness.
When Jesus himself shall rule and reign.
Oh, that's marvelous.
But what something.
Now he leaves that time and comes back again to this present hour in which you and I are living.
Accept your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees.
Ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.
These words come in the lips of Jesus.
Therefore we know without argument, there's not a loophole left there for argument.
We know that there is a righteousness, the righteousness of those who are in the kingdom
that is greater than the law.
Jesus said so.
If you do illustrate it, he used one of the commandments.
In fact, he used two, but I shall just give you one as an illustration.
They understood the law perfectly.
And he took the one commandment, thou shalt not kill.
They knew it.
They knew the law.
They were letter perfect when it came to the knowledge of law.
Thou shalt not kill.
And again, Mary, mind you, the sacredness of life.
This is the first law of social life.
This is absolutely fundamental.
Life is sacred.
I don't care what color.
I don't care what part of the earth.
I don't care where or what the status of that one's social life might be.
Life, the life of any human being is sacred and not to be destroyed and not to be tampered
with.
So sacred that God himself gave a law to protect life.
It is in his hands and his hands alone to take life.
Thou shalt not kill.
Watch it.
When one kills, it's the outward result of what actually had its beginning with end.
Anger in the heart creates the condition of the criminal.
There has got to be something within that prompts the deed.
Both thought makes a deed, a deed makes a life.
But everything has its beginning internally.
Therefore, when one actually commits murder, it has had to have its beginning with end.
Jesus says in substance just this, I will arrest you before the crime is actually committed.
I'll so transform that life of you internally that there'll be none of these outward deeds.
And this is what he says.
He gives the law by saying thou shalt not kill.
But he also goes a little further and says, but I say unto you that whosoever is angry
with his brother without cause shall be in danger of the judgment.
If you're angry with your brother, you are in danger of my judgment.
If you break the law, you are subject to the Jewish proceedings.
And then he names the different courts.
He names here the lower court, which deals with the minor matters.
He goes on and he said, or you may be subjected to the Sanhedrin, the higher courts.
Or he names the third, or the place where the bodies of criminals are thrown.
But he says these courts are according to Jewish proceedings, the law of the land.
And if you commit murder, for there is no law of the land that governs your thoughts,
or governs you internally.
The law of the land, all court proceedings, have to do with your outward deeds.
And if you commit murder, then the court of the land will punish you.
I arrest you before you're turned over to the court of the land.
I govern the internal.
Oh, this is great.
Let's see it.
No soul living in the kingdom, his kingdom, God's kingdom, is governed by anything external
to himself.
We are not governed by the law of carnal ordinances.
As Christians, we are governed by the living Christ who dwells within.
And when you are purged from all sin within, when you have a change of heart, when you
are a new creature in Christ Jesus, the internal is taken care of, and therefore there will
be none of these external deeds that break the law.
It's just that simple.
We are governed by the living Christ who dwells within.
And then just automatically, the most natural thing in the world is to keep the outward
law, the cold letter.
Of course, we won't commit murder as long as we have love in our hearts.
When there's no hate internally, our deeds will be deeds of love, of kindness.
Don't you see?
It's so easy to do no murder, but oh, to forgive thy brother.
Jesus says, I come not to destroy the law, but I take you even further than the law goes.
But your righteousness, exceed the righteousness of the Pharisees and of the scribes.
Ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.
If you do not have a righteousness that surpasses the righteousness of a man or a woman who
is not a professing Christian, then Jesus says, so what?
You're no better than they are.
And it's just like that.
If you are trying to compare your righteousness and your professing to be a Christian with
the righteousness of perhaps a next door neighbor who makes no profession whatsoever being a
Christian, and your righteousness does not surpass his, then I wouldn't give you very
much for your spiritual experience.
I know, but that's what the word teaches.
The law was written on stone.
My beloved, the ethics of Jesus are written in the heart.
The law is cold.
It's the letter.
It's without a heart.
It's without feeling.
It was written on stone, but it is in effect today and will continue to be in effect until
the ultimate law is in effect, the perfect law of righteousness.
My friend, the sin that curses society today is the sin of the heart.
Amen.