Thus Sayeth The Lord - Now You Have Heard

In the last Catalyst of the Fall 2025 semester, Sam Parker concludes the study of the Ten Commandments by showing how God's law reveals His holiness and our need for grace, not self-justification. The message points us away from ourselves and toward Christ, who fulfills the law and brings true life and hope. Next semester, the study will continue in the Sermon on the Mount as Jesus responds to the law and reveals what life in God's kingdom looks like. 

Transcript

Oh, hey guys, so good to see all of you tonight. For me, it feels like a long time since I've been at Catty. I know it's not been that long, but it has been a few weeks. And so, sometimes whenever we're worshiping, I just, I'm struck a new with the joy, the blessing, the opportunity that on campus here, we can all gather together. We have the opportunity to worship together, to break open the Word of God together, and be encouraged and fed. And so, so glad that you all can be here tonight. Also before I get too far into anything, I'm not going to have you come up here, but Liz, where are you? I know, I'm sorry. Hey, Liz and Sean are getting married over the Christmas break, so, we're going to be excited for you guys, early congrats, right? So, yeah. Well, tonight we finish up our study of the Ten Commandments, looking over Exodus 20, the Ten Commandments that God gave to Moses. And I feel like we just got started a few weeks ago, and here we are wrapping it up. And I'm excited to just bring it all together, hopefully, it's coming up on the Christmas season. So, hopefully, you know, we've got the present wrapped up. We can take a nice little bow and make it look nice and pretty, right? So, Ten Commandments, Ten Laws, very basic, very simple, easy to remember, but as we've found out this semester, not so easy to follow. And unless you're someone who is fine with having your toes routinely stepped on, metaphorically, it's been a rough go, because we've been reminded every week, okay, here's a commandment from God that I have found another way to butcher. And another test, another fail. Anyone here in Calc 2, raise your hand. Uh, Thermo, raise your hand, uh, yeah, yeah, if you cue, yeah, yeah, uh, we're at that point in the semester where you're just ready to be done, right? Pass or fail, I don't care, Professor, let's just end this misery right now. Let's get it over with. And so, similarly, if we're relying on our ability to obey these Ten Commandments, not much less the rest of the laws of the Old Testament, if we're relying on our ability to obey these Commandments as a method of justification, then, um, we're not really doing so good passing the God test, are we? It would be a miserable lot to be in. Hey, Sam, how are you doing in holy living 101? Well, I haven't had the final yet, so, but right now I'm sitting at about 20%, so not looking so good. We've seen that the law is waiting. We've seen that the law has more than our ability to, um, to live a holy life. And in that way, we've routinely been reminded each week that we're, we're fallen short, and that can be a hard message, can it, especially when, as we're trying to live a good life, often times we're trying so hard, right? Paul speaks about the law at length in Romans, and Romans 3, 19 and 20 say this. Now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those that are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped in the whole world, may be held accountable to God. For by works of the law, no human being will be justified in his sight since through the law knowledge, since through the law comes knowledge of sin. So tonight, um, I just want to wrap up to sum up what we've looked at. I'm not going to look at any of that into remind ourselves of somewhat like we did at the beginning of the semester. We're just going to remind ourselves of the place of the law, um, and, uh, the, the God behind the law and, and to get a little reminder of, of ourselves in the midst of all that. And, and I ask you not to tune out tonight, I really feel like this is an important message. It might be easy to say, well, we've covered all the commandments. As Katie of the year, we'll just kind of hang out together. Um, no, I'd, I'd hope that you would, um, not tune out tonight. And one question that we asked at the beginning of the semesters, okay, why would we study the old testament law, especially now that we live as believers under the New Testament truth of what Christ has done? More so, why would we study something for a whole semester that basically shows we can't do it? We won't do it. We're not going to be good enough. We can't won't and don't measure up. Why would we spend a whole semester, uh, continuing to pound that message? You know, it's kind of funny because I, as I was preparing for this, I came across, I don't know how I did, but I came across, um, an alumni of Missouri S&T talking about a difficult class that he had, like, ten years ago. And he, he said this quote from the textbook of Diffie Q. I don't know if you guys use a different book these days or not. But this was the quote he said, here's what the Diffie Q textbook said. At this point, we might be stuck. But if we stare at the equation long enough, we may notice through our blurred vision that it, more or less, looks like a solvable equation. Does that sound familiar to anybody? Yeah. Yeah, that sounds about like Diffie Q. God, we are stuck. That could be the Old Testament commands. God, we are stuck. We're staring and we're seeing nothing. I know you guys experienced that at S&T too. We see nothing, but there, there's a blurred vision, something that seems to be before us. Maybe I, I don't know, is there a, is there a solution out there? God has shown us that we cannot be saved by the works of the law. It is a law that, that scripture says, is written on our hearts. But if it's an equation, we don't know what the solution is yet. The law is good, we, we don't want to say that it is and the law is good because it reveals a holy God and it reveals my unholy self. God never put it this way, talking about the law. He said, the law is a beautiful expression of God's own character, like I said, it reveals who he is. It's a beautiful expression of God's own character, but it can't affect change. It's like thinking an X-ray is a prescription. No, the law only shows you what is. But that was a really good illustration. So, as I was thinking about that, here's a, here's a picture of an X-ray. And showing inwardly what we cannot see externally, right, X-rays are pretty cool. But we got a problem here. I don't know if you guys are adept at looking and studying X-rays. I'm not. I had to have someone else show me, but as you can see on the, on the right side, there, there's a mass there, likely a tumor, potentially a cancerous tumor, one that would not be revealed or known except for an X-ray. An X-ray shows inwardly what cannot be seen externally. And like this X-ray, showing what is on the inside, so the law of God does also reveal for us what our spiritual state looks like. And it doesn't look good for mankind apart from salvation in Christ, it's, it's a grim state. Let me use another example. Let's say, if you were getting ready to go to a formal ball or a gala that you had been invited to, an ornate dinner, a party, there's going to be famous people there, it's a big to-do, right? So let's say in getting ready for this, you had to get ready in complete darkness, like I don't know, maybe the power went out and your phone was dead, I don't know, maybe you live in a cave. Anyway, it's just regardless, you're having to get ready in complete dark, can't see what clothes you picked out, don't know what your hair looks like, you're hoping you got the right shoes on, you don't know if they're going to match the outfit or even if they'll match one another. And so you've gotten ready in pitch black dark and you're out the door and, and someone happens to snap a picture of you, a quick little image, snapshot and, and they show you the picture. Oh no, this isn't good. I look like a homeless person. My hair's sticking up, I got something on my neck, I don't know if it's dirt or food. My clothes are all wrinkled, I forgot my belt, that's not good David. My tie was apparently tied by a four year old and, yeah, my shoes don't match. In a flash in that moment, you would know this, I am unprepared for where I am going to. It sounds like a nightmare. It is a nightmare. Maybe some of you have actually had a nightmare like that. I will be subject to the scrutiny, to the obvious scorn of many people. This is bad. As I was thinking about that analogy, I thought, you know, maybe some of you might be tempted to say, well, you know what, our culture shouldn't concern itself so much with outward apparel anyways. We need to break down some of those barriers and walls, right? We need to ease up those forced expectations of presentation. Who cares? They need to be more accepting. Who cares if you look like you just came out of who knows where, okay? Well, interestingly as I was thinking about that, I also thought of Jesus shares a parable in Matthew 22. He actually uses a wedding feast in this very same example. You see, he's telling the parable of this huge feast and a banquet, and all these people that had been invited didn't come. The king, he sends all his workers out, and he said, hey, you invite everybody. Bring them in. I want this to be an open invitation. And so lots of people come in. And then Matthew 22.11 says this, but when the king came in to look at the guests, he saw there a man who had no wedding garment. He said to him, friend, how did you get in here without a wedding garment? And he was speechless. The man was speechless. And the king said to the attendants, bind him hand and foot and cast him into the outer darkness. Now, obviously Jesus was not telling a parable to help us understand dress code. It was more so that we have a right understanding of the importance of being cloaked, being clothed in righteousness. But as you're going to see here in a little bit, the point still stands. If I've lost you just a little bit, let me circle the wagons back around here. In the same way that an X-ray shows something we could not see internally. And that indication that inward look would be something that is not good. In the same way that dressing oneself in a way that does not match required expectations and seeing that it's too late, you've dressed inappropriately. So does the law of God reveal something about us and it is this. It's what we continue to drive home that we don't measure up. And that's not the worst of it. Because while on one hand the law shows that the natural man has an inability to fulfill God's commands, we also start to see something that is also very dangerous. It's one thing that I don't measure up. It's something also that I want to fight against God's commands. In other words, I want to go my own way. I want to make my own way. I don't have to submit to someone else's ways. We might say if we're trying to climb a ladder to reach God and we just can't reach it, we just keep falling down. That's trying to get to God through good works. It's another thing if we're making a ladder of our own design to try to find another way to God. Thomas Watson puts it this way. The natural man not only can keep the law through weakness, but he breaks it through willfulness. We see that by weakness, by willfulness, we aren't measuring up. My flesh death continually fight the sovereign reign of another. That's the verdict of the law. Mankind does not follow or submit to God. He's lost what Watson also calls his ability to obey. All says it this way. That which I want to do, I find myself not doing, right? And that which I don't want to do, this very thing I do. The man has lost his power of obeying. God has not lost his right of commanding. He says Watson, he's the rightful creator, God, he can still command. God would not be true to himself if he simply waved his hand and looked the other way at our disobedience. He who does not change cannot look the other way and not see our disobedience. And so what we've looked at this semester is that we're like the poor fellow invited to the wedding banquet, wearing inappropriate attire, soiled, stained clothes, wanting to be there, but not deserving to be there, awaiting discovery and expulsion. What a fun semester of saying, thank you so much. I feel so good about myself. Well, I am sorry for that. And yet, if that's what you're feeling, then I must confess that we have correctly taught you about God's law. Does that make sense? We have done exactly what a right physician would do if a sick patient came into his office, namely diagnose the disease. How terrible would it be if we were to go see a doctor? And he would tell us a few things here and there that we might try to do a little bit better. He looks us over, tells us some things to make us feel good about ourselves. And since our sorry sick self right out the door, have you heard of the Hippocratic oath a longstanding expectation of physicians that they're morally obligated to do that which is best for the patient, that which is beneficial and not maleficent? Now, let me clarify something before we move on. I trust. I believe that many of you in here tonight, you are no longer sick. And what I mean by sick is sin sick, though sin remains at no longer reigns. You're not yet whole, but you're no longer spiritually dead. And while I believe that about many of you here, we still need to be reminded consistently lest we be tempted to boast in some way, that while we study and look at the law of God, going to the conclusion of man's predicament, many of us may be believers, we're healed by Christ's Sav, we've entered the kingdom of God. And so when we share that, we don't want to over and lee bird in you, but we do want to remind you. On the other hand, I don't want to presume that everyone here tonight is a believer. As a preacher of good news, I'm bound to make sure that everyone here also understands the bad news in addition to the goodness. If you haven't accepted Jesus Christ as your Savior, your lost, your outside of the kingdom of God and your subject, your waiting God's righteous judgment. So if there's anybody here tonight, you know that that's you. I would plead with you to reconsider the X-ray. Not run from the good doctors' checkup. Don't avoid this divine appointment. You see, it's not till we sit underneath. It's not till we sit through the doctor's grim diagnosis that we can then get through to the doctor's prescription. It's free offer of medicine. It's a free offer, but he's not going to force it upon us. And you have to trust that prescription. And if there's anybody here tonight, I hope you will find me afterwards if you want to talk about it more. I would love to talk and pray with you about it. So we've had to endure some sore toes for a semester. You guys have endured. You've done wonderfully. Good job. Get to hear goodness. There is hope. There is light, a flicker of hope. You see before Jesus' birth, anybody remember how many hundreds of years went by with no word from God? 400 years, 400 years of silence, you might even say, of darkness, but what John one describes for us as it says that the light shines in the darkness, that the true light which gives light to everyone was coming into the world, and that to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, light shines in the darkness. And if children then airs, airs to the kingdom of God. Yeah, good news is coming. Good news is coming. We hear the bad news. We want to shy away from the bad news, but don't because we need to remember it, but the good news is coming. And here in a few weeks we celebrate our Savior's birth, don't we? I mean, we love, I don't hardly know of anybody that doesn't love Christmas. There are so many things that are good about Christmas, right? But as believers at the heart of this is, Lord, I want to pause, and I want to remember that I was surrounded by darkness, it was around us and it was in us. But now we get to worship the one who pierces the darkness of this world, pierces the darkness of my very own soul, that he might come in, heal, take up residence, show what true life looks like in God's kingdom. You guys want to experience that, to be healed, to be shown God, what is it look like to live in your world, where you have come that I would have life and that I would have it abundantly. Yes, God, give me more of that. That's what we're going to do this next semester. We're going to flip from the old to the new. This semester was thus, say the Lord, next semester it's going to be, you have heard it said, as we look at the sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5 through 7, we're going to be taking the words, the teachings of Jesus and we're going to see the fulfillment of what he had to say regarding the Old Testament and the law. We will see that the inability to fulfill God's law is now being shown in the face of Christ. We're still going to have our toes stepped on. We're still going to feel at times the weight of sin. In fact, maybe even a little more aggressively because as Jesus begins to teach, He will get to the heart of the matter. We will enjoy the benefits of His presence, His governance, and His guidance. I look forward to this next semester, it's going to be awesome. The sermon on the Mount is Jesus showing to us as Lord and as Savior, what life looks like in God's kingdom. When we look at the law and then look at the mirror of self, the good news teaches us to look away from self and to look to Jesus. So easy to spend a lot of time examining ourselves, isn't it? Not just in the mirror, but just in general, in life. When Satan tempts us to despair by pointing to our failures, we don't look in the mirror, we look to Jesus. When the world around us says you're a hypocrite, you're self-righteous, you're foolish. We don't look in a mirror, we look to Jesus. And when I start to feel like I'm actually doing pretty good, walking in the light, following God's decree, maybe starting to get a little too big for my bridges, I'll also remember not to look in the mirror, but to Jesus, who showed me what true humility looks like. It's going to be a good study, guys. After the difficult quote that I read at the beginning, we are stuck. But if we look through the equation we begin to see through blurred vision, this is solvable. The Sermon on the Mount shows us Christ. Through a blurred vision, the Old Testament showed it to us. And blurry, now crystal clear, so we can approach his throne boldly. Let's close in order prayer. As I pray, I want to just partially read from the song before the throne of God above. Dear Lord, when Satan tempts me to despair and tells me of the guilt within, a word I look and see him there, who made an end of all my sin. Because the sinless savior died, my sinful soul is counted free. For God the just is satisfied to look on him and pardon me. Oh, Lord, we thank You for Your law, for it shows us who You are and it shows us what we are. Lord, may it do exactly as it is designed to do and bring us to Christ, that we would find looking upon Him, that which we could never find within ourselves. Lord, we thank You for the hope that has dawned, and Lord, I pray for any young soul here tonight, that has not yet begun to experience the sea, to know of Your intense, unending love for them, and the free offer that You have extended. Lord, I pray that they would not let the night go without running to You, accepting what You have offered in experiencing the joy of knowing in Christ there is no condemnation. Lord, I pray for each of the students as they strive to finish their semester. You know each one and the burden that they might be carrying. It may not be anything related to school, Lord, you know the hectic schedule that they are trying to keep up, the demands that are put upon them, mentally with schoolwork, relationally with those that they are daily around, and Lord, you know our need spiritually. Thank You, O God, that You have promised, and that You will see through for each of us to tomorrow. I would thank You that You have promised to secure and provide for us a place eternally as well. Lord, may we find ourselves not looking to self, but daily to Christ. We love You. We ask in your name, amen.