 Today we're in chapter 7 here in the book of Romans, and I'll begin reading at verse 1. I'll read to verse 6, and we'll get into our study. And Apostle Paul begins here in chapter 7 verse 1 by saying, Or do you not know brethren, for I speak to those who know the law, That the law has dominion over a man as long as he lives. But the woman who has a husband is bound by the law to her husband as long as he lives. But if the husband dies, she is released from the law of her husband. So then, if, while her husband lives, she marries another man, she will be called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is free from the law so that she is no adulteress, though she has married another man. Therefore, my brethren, you also have become dead to the law through the body of Christ, that you may be married to another, even to him who was raised from the dead that we should bear fruit to God. For when we were in the flesh, the passions of sins which were aroused by the law were at work in our members to bear fruit to death. But now, we have been delivered from the law having died to what we were held by so that we should serve in the newness of the spirit and not in the oldness of the letter. So Paul is speaking now as we look into chapter 7 to those who would know the validity of the law of Moses. He's actually writing to those who would be familiar with the law of Moses, therefore he's writing to Jews. And he's letting the Jews know something that relates to the grace of God that can be contrasted with the law, the law that is called the law of Moses. You see, there are those who believe that Paul was devaluing the law. They considered the law of Moses to be a very great, very great thing. They saw it as a revelation of God's goodness and God's kindness to them and they also saw within the regulations of the law God's provision for them that they might be able to be pleasing to him as well as God's provision to bring blessing into their life. And therefore the law to them was something that they held in high regard. The law was very important. Unfortunately, because they valued the law so much, the more religious tried hard to live according to what they understood the law to say. And so during the time of Paul, even during the time of Christ, the outward observation of the law began to undermine the true purpose of the law of Moses. Instead of creating someone who loved God and other people, instead of creating somebody like that, it actually created what we know as Pharisees. Jesus, when you study the words of Jesus, saved his most severe words for those who seemed to be trying the hardest. When you look at Jesus' railings, and sometimes he really did rebuke people, he saved his rebukes for the Pharisees. You see that especially in chapter 23 of Matthew where there's a series of pronouncements that Jesus makes when he says woe unto you Pharisees, woe unto you Pharisees. He spoke to these religious leaders and all, because what they had done is they had created a system of outward observation. So they have things that they were doing on the outside, but Jesus spoke to them harshly concerning that. He said, you're like whitewashed tombs on the outside, you're nice and white and clean, but on the inside you're filled with decay. You have the outward observation of the law, but in reality you've missed its entire purpose. He at one time in Matthew 23-24 says it like this, he says blind guides who strain out a net and you swallow a camel. You're so caught up with the outward and you're straining the minutiae of the law, and in reality you're missing the things that matter because it's become an outward kind of thing. In John 5-39 he said, you search the scriptures for in them, you think you have eternal life. These are they which testify of me. You go through the Bible and you ransack it, you search it thoroughly because you believe that within that word there's a life, but you're missing the whole purpose of the word Jesus was saying which points people to saving faith in Jesus Christ. So without an understanding of grace it is easy for even Christian believers to begin to act like Pharisees. That's the purpose of that video that we showed before service today. A woman who was chained, she had all these rules and regulations that she had basically been chained by. There are quite a number of people who get caught up being accidental Pharisees. That's a term that I've heard recently that I actually like because it's not as if you necessarily, it's not as if I necessarily want to be a Pharisee. It's simply something that can happen as you're pursuing the Lord. You begin to set up rules and regulations for yourself that you're going to live by so that you can be pleasing to God and be blessed by Him. We can begin to forget what grace is all about and how Jesus died to set us free. At one time when we got saved we had this sense that God had done something great marvelous in our life and now I'm walking with Him. Before you know it slowly but surely you begin to become critical of others and you begin to make judgments on other people. You forget where you came from. I try very hard not to forget where I came from but I can fall susceptible to that myself just like anybody else. When we got saved in the Jesus movement in the revolution, many of us were long hairs and many of us were barefoot hippie type kids. The older people had a real problem with us because we would come to church and we didn't wear our shoes. I never wore shoes and I just didn't wear them. Even with slacks I'd still be barefoot. I just didn't wear shoes and so now we're going to church and we'd walk into church barefoot. We went to Calvary Chapel Coast of Mesa and people didn't like that at first when they put new carpet down and the hippies would come walking in barefoot and the deacons got upset and actually put a sign up that basically told the kids to put on some shoes that don't come in. Pastor Chuck had walked into the chapel there and had seen the sign and he took the sign down and he said to his deacons and ushers and only said if you're concerned that these kids with their dirty feet are going to stain this carpet then I'm in favor of just removing the carpet because I don't want to lose one single soul over something like carpeting. And Pastor Chuck had that heart for us and I get saved. I've got long hair and Chuck has said in a book now that the kids would actually come in barefoot and they'd stick their toes through the communion cup holders that you have in front of you there. And I know that's an absolute fact true because I did that. I still remember. I remember crossing my legs and there's my big toe stuck in one of the communion cup holders and I'm pulling it out. I still remember that. People would freak out over that. They'd say oh man look at these dirty feet and the communion cup holders and you know what? I mean we have to be careful guys. We have to be careful that we don't fall into that. That trap that it's so there that trap of judging people based on what we think they're supposed to do and if your hair is different or whatever. For us it was the long hair. And today I have to watch myself. I mean I'm no better than the next person. I have to watch myself because I come from a different generation. And I see a young man come walking in with this kind of a Nike swoosh haircut and a purse and little skinny jeans and I look at them and I say why don't you be a man. Grow your hair long. I understand it and the kids tatted from their fingertips to their eyelids. And I see that and all and I could have the same kind of response. The piercings and all where you see these kids. They set off every metal detector in any airport that they walk in and they're just a mouse. The magnets from refrigerators are following them around and I see that. And I think about that and I go that has to hurt. That has definitely have to hurt. You can't even talk to me because you've got so much metal on your tongue and everything. And I realize that with age comes judgmentalism and self-righteousness is just around the corner. We have to be careful guys. We have to be careful to love one another. We have to be careful that we don't become the kind of people who are always in it picking other people. We need to trust the Lord God's spirit working in somebody's life. We have to learn to do that. That doesn't mean that on occasion if necessary that I won't bring a word of correction if I have to. But at the same time I have to trust a God of grace who really gives his word, who really does work within us. And Paul is speaking concerning the fact that God's grace is sufficient. And so people are saying, wait a minute, are you saying that the law has no real purpose? And so what he's doing now is he's speaking concerning the value of the law. He saw the value of the law. He recognized it had importance. But Paul is going to emphasize some of its value in the verses before us. And we're going to see that the law defines sin as well as having the purpose of making me aware of my own sinful condition. Now Paul's been emphasizing the beauty of grace, grace that actually has come to our rescue. He's already pointed out that the law cannot save. It cannot set us free from the bondage of sin because the bottom line is that the law, though it has value, is powerless to save. Salvation comes through faith. It comes through faith in Jesus Christ by grace and salvation comes no other way. In Galatians 2.16 Paul said it like this. He said, we know that a man is not justified by observing the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we too have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by observing the law. Because by observing the law, no one will be justified. So we are justified not by observing the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. Now Paul taught that grace has been revealed in Jesus and that grace internally motivates us to reject ungodliness. It comes from the inside. It's not just the things that we do on the outside. Like Jesus would say in Matthew 23, he said you broaden the hem of your garment there. You wear phylacteries. You have the outer appearance. Jesus would say you pray on street corners. You fast. And you are very ostentatious when you give your gifts. You do all of these things to be seen by men because that's really what can happen if we don't understand the grace of God. So grace has been given to internally motivate us to reject ungodliness and that's something the law could never do. In Titus 2, 11-14, we read the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. It teaches us to say no to ungodliness and worldly passions. To live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age. While we wait for the blessed hope, the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself the people that are his very own eager to do what is good. So grace has been revealed in Jesus and has motivated us from the inside to reject ungodliness. And so Paul is speaking about this. So notice in verse 1, how he begins by saying, Do you not know brethren for I speak to those who know the law that the law has dominion over a man as long as he lives. So the law is, it has an effect as long as a person is alive. We know that the law has no, nothing it can do for somebody who's dead. So if somebody is robbing a bank and gets killed as they're robbing the bank, guilty, I mean, person's got their weapon out, they're pointing it at the teller and they're taking the money and they try to make it out of the bank and one of the bank guards there pulls a weapon and fires and kills that person. They don't haul his corpse to court to try him as a bank robber because the law only works when you're alive. So the law is there only for the purpose of the living. The law applies only to the living and not to the dead and that's the point he's making. So in order to make that clear, he uses an illustration. Now Paul is not specifically teaching concerning marriage here in this verse, in these verses, though we see him use the illustration of marriage, but he's actually making a point and he's making a point concerning marriage in order to show how the law has a temporary effect for those who are alive. Because he says in verse two, for the woman who has a husband is bound by the law to her husband as long as he lives. But if the husband dies, she's released from the law of her husband. So then, if all her husband lives, she marries another man, she'd be called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she's free from that law so that she's no adulteress, though she has married another man. And so the point is this is Marie and I are together, my wife and I are together, I am alive, we're still married, but she takes off and marries somebody else. Well, he's saying she is committing adultery. Why? Because she's presently married to me, but she's taken off and hooked up with somebody else and that's the point that he's making. He's saying to them very, very clearly that marriage though under the law is intended to be permanent, it is also binding as long as both partners are alive. So in verse three it says if her husband, if while her husband lives, she marries another man, she's called an adulteress. She's not free to marry someone else. Well, she's married to her husband's point he's making. But in verse three, if her husband dies, she is free to remarry. And so she has freedom to remarry only if her husband dies. So if I were to die, Marie would have the freedom to remarry. Although she never would because I'd come back and haunt her. She said, she said this to me. She said, I married the first time for love. Next time it's for money. But anyway, now Christian widows are free to remarry. I should hasten to add that right now. A Christian widow obviously is free to remarry, but a Christian widow is free to remarry a believer. It says in 1 Corinthians 739, a woman is bound to her husband as long as he lives. But if her husband dies, she's free to marry anyone she wishes, but he must belong to the Lord. And so the point he's making is that the law binds that woman to the husband as long as the husband is alive. Should the husband die, she is free to remarry. So he uses that as the foundation to make his point in verse four. Therefore, my brethren, you also have become dead to the law through the body of Christ that you may be married to another even to him who was raised from the dead that we should bear fruit to God. And so he's making it very clear that Jesus Christ is the one that we are now involved with. You have become dead, he says, to the power of the law. The law is like a first husband, but the first husband's dead. It has no power over us. So you have become dead to the law through Jesus himself. Jesus died on our behalf, so now believers are not under the law, is what he's saying. Like the widow no longer married to her former husband, believers have a new husband. And this new husband is Jesus Christ. In Ephesians 5, 31 and 32, it reads, For this reason a man will leave his father, mother be joined to his wife. The two will become one flesh. This is a profound mystery, but I am talking about Christ and the church. So the point he's making is we are now dead to the law, but alive because of Jesus Christ. Now in verse five, for when we were in the flesh, the passions of sins which were aroused by the law were at work in our members to bear fruit to death, but now we've been delivered from the law, having died to what we were held by so that we should serve in the newness of the spirit and not in the oldness of the letter. And so notice how he says when we were in the flesh, the passions of sins were aroused by the law. Now when he says we were in the flesh, that refers to our lives before we were born again by the Spirit of God. When we were without the gospel, it speaks of our carnal and unregenerate state. And so before you got saved, you basically were dead in trespasses and sins. But now because of the grace of God, you have life through Jesus Christ. And so Jesus has a man approaching him. We all know the story, Nicodemus. Nicodemus approaches him by night. Master, we know that your teacher comes from God. No man can do the works that you do, the signs, the miracles. No one can do those things unless God is with him. Jesus says a man needs to be born again. A man needs to be born of the Spirit. Jesus is speaking about something that relates to what is called regeneration. Under the law, we're dead. The law has a purpose. We'll see it in a moment. But under the law, there's no real life in it, though God intended to bless us through it. The greatest blessing though is it points us to Jesus. But we needed to have a regenerating experience. We needed to get right with God. So what happens, according to verse 5, is the passions of sin is aroused by the law. So when it speaks of passion, that speaks of my inward state. The inward state has a propensity of sin. These propensities to sin constitute what is called a fallen nature. And so the fallen nature that I have has an inclination to do sinful things because that is natural for my fallen nature. But the result is it produces fruit unto death. When James was writing in chapter 1 verses 14 and 15, he said, each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he's dragged away and enticed. Then after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin. And sin, when it is full grown, gives birth, he said, to death. And so when we were in the flesh, according to verse 5, the passions of sins which were aroused by the law were at work in our members to bear fruit to death. But now we have been delivered from the law, having died to what we were held by so that we should serve in the newness of the spirit and not in the oldness of the letter. So now it isn't that I'm looking at these rules and regulations that are written down on some stone tablet and doing my best to actually do the things that it demands of me. What I have now is God who is written on the tablet of my heart. That's what regeneration is. He's actually written something on my heart that changes my behavior. And God is faithful to do that. He does that. I've had people say when I first got saved, oh, you can't drink anymore. You can't smoke pot anymore. And the way they would say it, you can't. Well, the fact is, if I chose to do so, I could have, at least theoretically, but I didn't. And why is that? Because I don't want to. You know, when people would say, well, you can't. I'd say, well, I could have if I wanted to. But I don't want to. Why not? Well, because I've got a new life. Because those old things that I didn't have any satisfaction, they were all temporary. They mattered not. And so what I have now is it matters so much more. It's so much more powerful. It produces joy. I don't have guilt anymore. I have something fresh in my life. I have a freedom from those things that were holding me in bondage. Why would I want that anymore when I've got something far better? Christianity is not necessarily a faith religion that is based on rules and regulations alone. It's a relationship with God that has produced joy from within, that has transformed us from within. And so we do the things that we do from the heart, not simply because it says here on this book, but because God has written this book on the tablet of our heart. In Hebrews 10.16 it says it like this, this is the covenant I'll make with him after that time, says the Lord, I will put my laws in their hearts. I will write them on their minds. So that's what God did, guys, when you got saved, when I got saved and began to read the Word of God, he began to write his laws on the tablet of our hearts. That's why we do and do not do certain things. That's the reason we do things to please him, and that's why we refuse to do those things that don't please him. It's not because we're trying to please him from the outside, it's because we're motivated from the inside. And so he says in verse 6, now we have been delivered from the law, having died to what we were held by, so that we should serve in the newness of the spirit and not in the oldness of the letter. What then, he goes on to verse 7, what shall we say then? Is the law sin? Certainly not. On the contrary, I would not have known sin except through the law, for I would not have known covenessness unless the law had said, you shall not covet. But sin, taken opportunity by the commandment, produced in me all manner of evil desire, for apart from the law, sin was dead. I was alive once without the law, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died. And the commandment, which was to bring life, I found to bring death. For sin, taken occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and it killed me. Therefore, the law is holy. The commandment, holy and just and good, has then what is good become death to me? Certainly not. But sin, that it might appear sin, was producing death in me through what is good. So that sin through the commandment might become exceedingly sinful. So what shall we say? Is the law sin? And his answer, certainly not. So some would be saying, are you saying that the law is evil and Christians can do just what they want whenever they want? And he says, God forbid, of course not. The law still has great value for believers. It identifies what is wrong and when violated, God uses it to bring conviction. Notice how he says in verse 7, I would not have known sin except through the law. You see, the law defines sin for me. Now how does it do that? Well, it reveals to me what is God's righteous standard. According to Romans 3.20, by the law is the knowledge of sin. So God's law reveals what is pleasing as well as what displeases God. And that's why he says in verse 7, I would not have known covetousness unless the law had said you shall not covet. So the law revealed and identified my natural inclination. My problem in life is not simply a lack of finances or opportunity. It's not just ethnicity and education. He's saying the law made me aware of my internal sinful condition and it's interesting that he speaks of covetousness. Desiring something, something so desperately, something deeply within us. So I've had people talking to me about the lottery. I asked First Service what it had gotten up to and somebody said something like, what, $750 million? How much? $600 million? Okay, he's playing the lottery. I was just wondering... Just wondering who was doing it. Hope you're tithed. But can you imagine that? Somebody asked somebody who is a manager over a hotel in Las Vegas. Somebody asked them on camera, and I was watching this on a TV program once. They asked him, what is it that draws people to Vegas? Because we all know that there are a lot of commercials in the past that have said it's a family place and this and that. But what draws people to Vegas? And this man said... His response was, I think, telling. He said, in a word, greed. Greed. I went to do some ministry at Calvary Chapel in Las Vegas years ago now. We were flying on one of the planes out of Ontario to Las Vegas. Some guys and I were going together. We were doing a men's conference in Calvary Chapel. And you should... I just remember this. The atmosphere inside the plane. Because all of these people are going and they're going to win. They're going to come back winners, you know, that kind of thing. So they're all kind of chatting amongst themselves. And it's a real festive kind of environment. They're all happy. And then we came back the next day. It was so quiet. They lost their shirts. It was so the opposite. Everybody was on their way to Vegas to win. And then on the way back, they were in mourning and they lost everything. And so, I mean, that's just the nature of the beast. And so, covetousness, this desire to have. He says, I wouldn't even know what that was. That there was something within me like an animal on the prowl desiring something. I wouldn't even know it was there. Unless the law said, thou shalt not covet. He said, and with that word, thou shalt not covet. It awakened in me all manner of covetousness. Now I am able to put a word to the feelings that I have. Whereas before, I thought that they were basically just normal. The loss is, no, they're sinful because you have this desire to have. You want, you strive after, you're never satisfied. And he says, and that is what covetous is. To be covetous is to have this great desire to possess something that you're willing to give pretty much everything else up for in order to have that. And that's why some have lost families and have lost friendships and have lost everything with their drive for success because in reality it wasn't an ambition that would be pleasing to God. Something that could be used to honor him and motivate others to honor him. It was more a matter of me thinking that if I only had that possession, I would be happy. And so I lose my entire life trying to own something. Thinking that material things are going to somehow give to me spiritual peace and it never does. My daughter, Corinne, was a little girl. When these cabbage patch dolls came out, you guys remember the cabbage patch? Anybody old enough to remember that? They were ugly, weren't they? They were the ugliest dolls you ever saw in your life. Cabbage patch dolls, ugly dolls. And she wanted one. She wanted one in the worst way. And I said they're ugly. Why would you want an ugly doll? Oh, Daddy, I just want one. So she did all kinds of little chores and things and saved her money, her nickels, her dimes, her dollars. She saved it for months. We gave her things to do so we could give her 50 cents here, a dollar here and she just put it away. My daughter still to this day is very frugal. She's still able to do that and she does. She's very good. She's got the coupons and she does all of that. She's always been like that. And so when she was a little girl, she wanted a cabbage patch doll. And I said, I'm not going to buy that ugly thing. I won't do that. If I wanted to see ugly, I'd go talk to Rawl. But I don't... We call it the cabbage patch Rawl. But anyway, I shouldn't have said that. I just think it's funny. Forgive me. He was the model for him. But anyway, I'm going to get in trouble. So she saves her money. And she didn't buy one. She bought twins. Double ugly. And you know the funny thing about it is within a week, no more than two, she had buyer's remorse. She goes, I don't know why I bought these. Why did I get these? And I said, that's what you wanted. You've been saving and planning and you thought it would make you happy, baby. That's why. And as a father, I said, listen, darling, that's why I was encouraging you not to go that direction because I knew that you would not really be satisfied with this because those things do not satisfy you and you're learning the value of a dollar and you realize that you spent a lot of money for two ugly dolls. And that's basically what it is. And yet, you know, what we still have that and we can as adults still have that, can't we? We still can have that sense of if I only have this, if I only wore this, if I only could vacation here or do that, we save up our money. I'm going to go to Hawaii. I've never been to Hawaii. I grew up listening to songs about the beach in Hawaii. I'm going to go to Hawaii and you save up and you save up and you save up. And finally, you're on that plane and you make it there and you're in Maui and you climb off the plane and you go and you're on the beach and you're sitting there with the sand. It's a beautiful beach and everything's nice. You get sunburned. The next morning, you can't come out of your room. You're hurting so bad. You go to buy some Hawaiian pancakes. They're 10 bucks and you say, man, this is crazy. Why didn't I do this before? I could go to the beach here. I live in California. I could go to Huntington. But no, I got to go to Hawaii. Then you're mad. It's just the way it is. So just stay home. I want. I want. And so Paul said, look it, I wouldn't even know what it was. I wouldn't even know what covetous was until it says in the law, you shall not covet. And then, Versailles, but sin taken opportunity by the commandment produced in me all manner of evil desire for apart from the law, sin was dead. And so when he says, but sin taken opportunity, that word opportunity is a word that's translated a starting point. It's a base of operations. He's saying sin use God's commandments as a beach head to launch its evil work. You see, man naturally rebels against being told not to do something. And so when I was told not to do something, made me want to do it even more. He said in verse nine, I was alive once without the law. But when the commandment came, sin revived. And I died. I was in ignorance of God's demands for the inner man. When he says I was alive once without the law, I was in ignorance of God's demands for the inner man. But when the commandment came, it awakened me to my sinful condition. When the commandment came, sin revived and I died. Psalm 40 verse 12 says it like this. For innumerable evils have surrounded me. My iniquities have overtaken me so that I am not able to look up. They are more than the hairs of my head. Therefore my heart fails me. So I became aware of my sinful condition. He goes on to say in verse 10 and the commandment, which was to bring life, I found to bring death. God's laws were intended to give us life. In Deuteronomy 529, he said it like this. God says, oh, that their hearts would be inclined to fear me and to keep all my commandments always so that it might go well with them and their children forever. The commandment was given to us to be blessing, to bring a blessing in our life. God wants it to go well with us. And that's the way his law was intended to be perceived so that our lives might be blessed. Deuteronomy 624, the Lord commanded us to obey all these decrees and to fear the Lord our God so that we might always prosper and be kept alive, as is the case today. Or Leviticus 18-5, keep my decrees and laws for the man who obeys and will live by them. I am the Lord. So God's law was intended to bring life, but it actually produced in us death. Notice what he says in verse 11, sin taken occasion by the commandment deceived me and by it killed me. Sin deceives. Sin deceives you. God knows that's true. We know that's true. If you only had this, if you only did this, if you only went here, if you only had her, if you only had him, it deceives you. Many years ago I had a woman in our fellowship who approached me, she and her husband from Marital Council, and she said something I'll never forget. This was probably almost 30 years ago now. She said, God has a perfect will and God has a permissive will. She had been reading some theological books. God has a perfect will and God has his permissive will. His permissive will, she said to me, was to marry my present husband. His perfect will was for me to marry his best friend. So she divorced her husband to marry his best friend. Sin deceives you. You're on the job site. There's somebody there. We forget the reality of life. We really do. You go into the office and everybody, pretty much in that office, normally, some offices, this may not be true, but normally, has employees who got up that morning and got dressed and combed their hair and put on some perfume or put on some cologne or whatever. They look better in that office than they do at home. They took time in the morning to get ready. They dressed as well as they could. They went to work. So you're in an environment that makes demands on certain appearances. And you can go into that office and you can see this person every day. They look so nice and they're so friendly and they seem so sweet and so happy. You only see them in the context of the job and you see them dressed up in a certain way and before you know it, you think that they must wake up in the morning looking like that. They go to bed looking like that. They're always like that when in reality they're not. They're that way in the office. So you begin to be fascinated with them and before you know it, you begin to speak to them and before you know it, you want to spend some time at break and lunch and then before you know it, you're moving into an affair and it's all based on the deception of sin because sin is telling you what you have at home isn't as good as what you have here in the office. Or you go on Facebook and you look up some old friends because you're bored and so you're looking up friends to see what they're up to and there's that old boyfriend that you had in school, your old girlfriend that you used to have in school and you think, oh, I'd say hi, I'll just kind of send them a note, a message or whatever. And one thing leads to another and before you know it, you're wanting to be back in high school again, wanting to have a relationship like you think you used to have in high school. You forget why you broke up with them. You forget how miserable it was when you were in high school. There are reasons you did not continue with them but you forget, don't you? It's easy to do because we idealize those things. Why? Because sin is deceptive because it always dresses itself to look better than it really is but the sin ends up with death. It's deceptive. It destroys. And that's something we need to understand. Hebrews 3.13 says, exhort one another daily. Well, it's called today, let's let any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. Sin within him drove Paul to do the things that the law forbade. That's why he says, it killed me. It subjected me to the death the law promised to transgressors. It made me miserable. Therefore, he says in verse 12, the law is holy, the commandment holy, just and good. It's good because it exposes sin for what it is. It's good because it labels sin. It's good because it can be used as a foundation for morality but it neither pardons sin nor does it purify a heart. It is good because it is holy, just but it also brings condemnation to transgressors. But the law will also drive a sinner to Jesus Christ. In Galatians 3.23 and 24, Paul said it like this. He said, before this faith came, we were held prisoners by the law, locked up until faith should be revealed. So the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ that we might be justified by faith. It had a purpose. It reveals sin, but it also reveals the Savior, Jesus Christ, who gives to us an internal grace that transforms our life. And that's why he says finally in verse 13, as then what is good become death to me. Certainly not. But sin, that it might appear sin was producing death in me through what is good. So that sin through the commandment might become exceedingly sinful. The law made sin obvious. It became exceedingly sinful. The law made sin obvious. It is spiritual and it reveals. It especially, like Paul has said, it especially reveals the heart of man. So the law revealed within me all manner of sin, but grace sets me free from that sin. So does the law have a purpose? Yes it does. What does it do? Well it reveals sin, but it also reveals the Savior. He shows to us what our lives are like without him and provides for us access to God when we see that it actually pointed us to Jesus Christ who gives us grace. The law came through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. And we need Jesus. So the law reveals certain things, but especially that I am sinful in need of help. And that's why I was driven to Jesus by the law.