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CONNIE: Have Christians’ attitudes about the law of God changed in the past 60 years? Has the Gospel finally liberated us from the law? Join us today for a look at the Law and the Gospel—with a historic twist.

Giving God’s trumpet a Certain Sound for more than 75 years, this is the Voice of Prophecy.

CONNIE: Hello, I’m Connie Jeffery,

LONNIE: and I’m Lonnie Melashenko. You know, Connie, we’ve been talking a lot about the law of God recently. We did a 12-week series focusing on the Ten Commandments, and then last week we revisited a 60-year-old sermon by HMS Richards titled “What’s Wrong With the Ten Commandments?”

CONNIE: So, maybe it’s time to take our focus off the law and get back to the gospel?

LONNIE: Well, the question is: Are the law and the gospel really in opposition to each other. Or are they just two different aspects of God’s expression of His love for us and His guidance for our lives? Today we’re turning to history again. I’ll be sharing another classic HMS Richards sermon, this one titled “The Law and the Gospel.” I think it will help to answer some of those questions.

CONNIE: As we near the end of 2005—the year we’ve celebrated our 75th anniversary of broadcasting—we decided to do two retrospective shows, based on material from our long history. I know I often meet listeners who like to recall hearing Voice of Prophecy as they were growing up.

LONNIE: And these are necessarily young people, are they?

CONNIE: No, many times they’re people in their sixties or seventies, even eighties.

LONNIE: Well, we’ve been doing radio for a long time, and our programs sound a bit different these days, but we thought our faithful listeners might enjoy a trip back to the “olden days,” so we’re going to share a clip from a program that first aired on June 14, 1942.

CONNIE: A little historical background. When the program first aired the United States had been fighting in World War II for just over 6 months. The Battle of Midway had occurred ten days earlier—the first significant US victory in the Battle of the Pacific.
LONNIE: That gives special weight to the prayer you’ll hear in this segment, asking God to give the President wisdom, and to protect those in the National Service. Let’s listen now to the beginning of the June 14, 1942 Voice of Prophecy broadcast.

Use “Salvation for Believers” program from Classic CD 0:00 – 4:00

CONNIE: And we can add our Amen! To that historic broadcast, originally aired live from Los Angeles over the Mutual Broadcasting System during World War II. We’ll have information at the close of the program about how you can get a CD with this full 1942 broadcast on it, so stay tuned. Lonnie, I think your sermon today comes from about the same era, doesn’t it?

LONNIE: That’s right. We don’t know the exact date when it was used on the air, but we found it in a book called 25 Sermons After 25 Years on the Air, and thought it worth revisiting after 75 years on the air!

CONNIE: It’s the concluding message in our 14-week look at the Ten Commandments and how they relate to the Gospel. Share with us Lonnie, “The Law and the Gospel.”

The Law and the Gospel
HMS Richards from the book 25 Sermons

The law and the gospel are not antagonistic. They both have a place in God's plan. It's like this: The law of the Ten Commandments sets forth the standard of righteousness and consequently makes sin known. Two or three texts will suffice to make this clear. First, Isaiah 51:7: "Hearken unto me, ye that know righteousness, the people in whose heart is my law." Why do they know righteousness? It is because God's law is in their hearts, and His law is the standard of righteousness. Next, turn to Romans 3:20 where we find it stated that "by the law is the knowledge of sin: ' Just one more text on this point-Romans 7:7: "What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. 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."

The law which the apostle Paul speaks of here is the Ten Commandment law, the last commandment of which says, "Thou shalt not covet." So we see that God's law is a standard of righteousness and points out sin. It's like a yardstick. The yardstick measures the cloth but cannot cut it to proper length or form it into a garment. So God's law points out the perfect righteousness required by God, but cannot give it to a man or change his old life into a new one.

The law of God is founded upon love and teaches us how to express our love both to God and to man. That this is true is clear from Matthew 22:35-40: "Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying, Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets."

In Romans 13:8-10 the apostle teaches the same thing and

sums it all up by saying, "'Therefore love is the fulfilling of the law." Notice, not the abolishing, but the fulfilling of it. When a man loves God, he will obey Him. When he loves his neighbor he will do good to him. But, if he does not love his fellow men, how can he love God?

An A. P. dispatch tells of Pfc. D. T. Doss of the Army Medical Corps on Okinawa, [remember this sermon was originally preached more than 50 years ago, and I just want to insert here that I’ve had the privilege of befriending this man Desmond Doss. A documentary film about his life, “The Conscientious Objector” has recently been released and is getting rave reviews]. Doss climbed up a cliff under heavy enemy fire and rescued 75 wounded soldiers. He had asked for a few moments with his Bible and for a word of prayer before he started. On another occasion this veteran of Guam and Leyte [lay-tee] went to the mouth of a cave to give plasma to a wounded man, although the enemy inside the cave was firing and hurling hand grenades. A few days before that, he had ventured into the open field under heavy shelling to help a seriously wounded American colonel, even though another officer told him that there was no hope for the colonel and that he shouldn't risk his life. He inserted a tube into the colonel's shattered back to help his breathing, then remained with him 45 minutes administering blood plasma. A bursting shell fragment dislodged the tube, but Doss replaced it and stayed on until help arrived.

Love to God and love to man go together and are made evident in deeds of self-sacrifice. Love is the fulfilling, the doing, the living out in actual life, of God's holy law.

But love is of God. Man, separated from God through sin, is utterly unable to fulfill the law of love. "Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good," writes the apostle in Romans 7:12, and then in the next verses he pictures the inability of a sinful man to live the life of love which it demands : "For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin. . . . For I know that in me ( that is, in my flesh, ) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not." Verses 14, 18.

But here is good news for all men, since all men are sinners. In the gospel is revealed the righteousness described in the law, and the law witnesses to the genuineness of this righteousness. "For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, the just shall live by faith." Romans 1:16, 17. And again in Romans 3:21 we read: "But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets."

The law is like a looking glass, according to James 1:23, 25. A little boy comes running into the house with a dirty face, and his mother says, "O Sonny Boy, go look in the glass." He does, and is he surprised? But how does he clean his face? With the glass? O no! He must use soap and water and plenty of scrubbing. After he does that, he looks again, and the same glass which told him that he was dirty now says he is clean. So God's law reveals our sin--our grime and unrighteousness, our lack of love. Will the law wash us clean? Will it justify us before God? No. It pictures, but it cannot cleanse. It points, but it cannot lift. But, after the gospel does its work, it testifies to the genuineness of the righteousness that the gospel brings. And this righteousness is received through believing on Christ. We read Romans 3:22, 25: "Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference: . . . Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God."

You see, the law reveals the sin from which it is unable to save us, and in that way urges us to Christ as the One who can supply the righteousness required, as it is written in Romans 10:4: "For Christ is the end [that is the object, or aim] of the law for righteousness [justifying righteousness] to every one that believeth." That is, He contains within Himself all that the law demands for the justification of all who accept Him as their Saviour. He bestows that very righteousness and life of love which the law holds forth but cannot give.

The law pursues the sinner like the avenger of death until he flees into the city of refuge, which is Christ. When a man comes to Christ and accepts Him by faith, Christ's own perfect righteousness becomes his. His sins are forgiven; he is justified from all things, he stands before God as if he had never sinned; and the power of the indwelling Christ provides the very righteousness of the law in his daily life. It is pictured here in Romans 8:1, 3, 4: "There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. . . . For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit."

Isn't that wonderful? Christ died for us; Christ lives in us by His Spirit. So we belong to Him, and our salvation depends upon Him wholly and entirely. Our obedience to God's law, then, is not to be saved, but because we are saved. It is not of our doing, but His doing. "Not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them." Ephesians 2:9, 10.

True faith "worketh by love." Galatians 5:6. All true obedience is tlie obedience of love. "Love is the fulfilling of the law." Romans 13:10. Even in human relationships, it is only love that counts. The rest is nothing.

The love of God for sinners was voluntary. The love of Christ was and is voluntary. "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." John 3:16.

Of our Savoir, it is written in Galatians 2:20: "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me." You see, it was voluntary. Christ gave Himself for me, for you. The law requires perfect righteousness. He had it. We had none. So He gave--He wasn't forced to do it. Notice, "He gave himself" for us.

A young man was once asked how long he had known His Savoir, and if he was assured that his sins were forgiven. "O yes," he replied, "I have known that ever since the bee stung Mother."

"Since the bee stung Mother? What do you mean by that?" "Well, Mother had told me what the Savior had done for me and tried to make it plain that He had really taken my place and died in my stead. But I never really understood it until one summer afternoon when Mother was working in the kitchen with her sleeves rolled up. Suddenly, while I was playing at the doorstep, a large bee came buzzing around and around my head. It had no doubt been hurt and was determined to sting. I was frightened and tried to flap it away with my handkerchief, but it came closer each time. At last I started to cry and ran to Mother and hid myself under her long white apron. She put her arms outside to assure me full protection; and this was barely done before the bee struck one of her bare arms and stung so deeply that it was unable to draw out its stinger. Mother trembled when she received the sting, but she did not take her protecting arms away from me. Then a thought struck her that led to my salvation. She said: `The bee has stung Mother instead of you. Come out now and look at it; it cannot hurt you now.'

"Timidly I lifted the apron and saw the bee still on her arm. Then Mother said: `It has only one stinger, and there it is. It has left it in Mother's arm, which bore the sting for you.' And then she applied the lesson. I had never understood until then with the bee and the sting before me-how Jesus in His great love had permitted Himself to receive the sting of death instead of us who deserved it, and how if we believe that He has really taken our place, the law having punished Him in our stead, it was impossible for it to punish us. It was when the bee stung Mother that I accepted Jesus as my Savoir." Christ did not abolish the law (Matthew 5:17), but for those who believe, by His own death

1. He abolished death, the penalty of disobedience to the law. In 2 Timothy 1:10 we read of "our Savior Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel."

2. He abolishes sin, the stain which no human righteousness can blot out, for "now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself." Hebrews 9:28.

3. He abolishes the enmity which naturally exists in the human heart toward all holiness, and makes way for the rewriting of that pure law of love in the heart, which by nature does not desire it. ( Ephesians 2:15; Jeremiah 31:31-34. )

4. He at last abolishes the devil--the originator of sin and suffering and death--and all who continue with him. "Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil." Hebrews 2:14.

5. And, inclusive of all, He abolishes the curse which for 6,000 years has hung like a dark curtain over the world. "And there shall be no more curses: but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it; and his servants shall serve him." Revelation 22:3. "And he will destroy in this mountain the face of the covering cast over all people, and the veil that is spread over all nations. He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces; and the rebuke of his people shall he take away from off all the earth: for the Lord hath spoken it." Isaiah 25: 7, 8.

Sin will then be gone forever, and the people of God's earth made new will be "all righteous." Isaiah 60:21. The only way to find deliverance from a sin-burdened conscience here in this world is to repent and exercise faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.

A day is coming when every one of us must give an account of the deeds done in this life. "For it is written, as I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God. So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God." Romans 14:11, 12.

My friend, whoever you are and wherever you are, and no matter how far you have gone away from God, the call is for you. Accept Christ's atoning sacrifice for your sins there on Calvary's cross where the old account was settled years ago!

“Lord I Want to be a Christian”, King’s Heralds, from VOP Music Library # 51 CD.