Revival's Golden Key (10 page)

David was indignant, and sat up on his high throne of self-righteousness. He revealed his knowledge of the Law by saying that the guilty party would restore fourfold and would die for his crime. Nathan then exposed the king’s sin of taking another man’s “lamb,” saying, “You are the man
!...
Why have you despised the commandment of the Lord, to do evil in His sight?” When David cried, “I have sinned against the Lord!
”,
the prophet
then
gave him grace and said, “The Lord also has put away your sin; you shall not die.”

Imagine if Nathan,
fearful of rejection,
changed things around a little, and instead told David, “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. However, there is something which is keeping you from enjoying this wonderful
plan
; it is called ‘sin.’”

Imagine if he had glossed over the
personal nature
of David’s sin, with a general reference to
all
men having sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. David’s re-action may have been, “What
sin
are you talking about?” rather than to admit his terrible transgression. Think of it—why should he cry,
“I have sinned against the Lord!”
at the sound of
that
message? Instead, he may have, in a sincere desire to experience this “wonderful plan,” admitted that he, like all men, had sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

If David had not been made to
tremble
under the wrath of the Law, the prophet would have removed the very means of producing godly sorrow, which was so necessary for David’s repentance. It is “godly sorrow” that produces repentance (2 Corinthians 7:10). It was the weight of his guilt that caused him to cry out,
“I have sinned against the Lord
! ”
The Law caused him to
labor
and become heavy laden; it made him hunger and thirst for righteousness. It enlightened him as to the
serious
nature of sin as far as God was concerned.

We received the following letter from someone who had listened to our teaching online and then tried using the Law in his preaching. He wrote: “I visited the Lebanon, Tennessee, prison system and witnessed to around thirty
hardcore
criminals in the maximum security area. I have never seen grown men cry like that!”

This letter came from Colorado: “God introduced me to your [teaching].
⁵
New
power and anointing came my way and in preaching the Law over the last nine months or so, I have seen the fruit falling! Grown men crying, teens falling to their knees in front of their peers, and
skeptics
taking a new look.”

Sin is like an onion. Its outer wrapper is a dry and crusty self-righteousness. It is only when its external casing is peeled away that it brings tears to the human eye. The Law peels the onion and allows contrition.

The Vase

A child broke his father’s antique vase. It was one that he was forbidden to touch, worth $25,000. However, the child thought the vase was merely worth $2, so he wasn’t too concerned. He could easily replace it. It was only when he was later told of its true value that he saw the seriousness of his transgression and felt sorrow of heart. It was knowledge of the solemn nature of breaking an expensive antique, which he had been told not to touch, that enabled him to feel sorrow. If he had been left in ignorance of the value of the vase, he wouldn’t have been truly sorry. Would you be upset if you had broken a vase you could easily replace?

The Law-less “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life” message doesn’t cause the sinner to tremble. It doesn’t show him the utterly serious nature of his transgression, so he doesn’t find godly sorrow that produces repentance.

How true are these words spoken by Charles Spurgeon, the Prince of Preachers: “The Law serves a most necessary
purpose.
” He also said of sinners, “They will
never
accept grace, until they tremble before a just and holy Law.” Those who see the role of the Law will be Sons of Thunder
before
they are the Sons of Consolation. They know that the shoes of human pride must be removed before sinners can approach the burning bush of the gospel.

It is important to realize that we
can
evoke a tearful response from sinners by telling them that God loves them. The message is more appealing to both the Christian and the sinner. It is certainly
easier
to speak of love than to speak of sin. Many years ago, before I understood the function of God’s Law, I told a prostitute of God’s love and was delighted that she immediately began weeping. Unbeknown to me, her tears were not tears of godly sorrow for sin, but merely an emotional response to the need of a father’s love. In my ignorance, I joyfully led her in a sinner’s prayer. However, I was disappointed some time later when she fell away, and her tender heart became
very
calloused toward the things of God.

Paradoxical as it may seem, the Law makes grace abound, in the same way darkness makes light shine. It was John Newton, the writer of “Amazing Grace,” who said that a wrong understanding of the harmony between Law and grace would produce “error on the left and the right hand.” I don’t know if any of us could claim to have a better understanding of grace than the one who penned such a hymn.

The question arises, Should a sinner be moved by Law or grace, by fear or love, when it comes to his salvation? We’ll look at this in the next chapter.

CHAPTER 9

FROM WHAT DID THEY FLEE?

I
n 1993, the Washington, D.C. traffic authorities found themselves in a public dilemma. Members of a foreign embassy had been issued numerous parking tickets for breaking the law, but because their status made them immune to any form of prosecution, they therefore felt no obligation to pay for their violations. To that date, they owed the city six million dollars in unpaid fines.

What happened? They simply had no respect for the law, or for the agency of the law,
because there
am
no fear of future punishment.
They consequently became bold in their lawlessness.

However, in an effort to force them to pay their debts, authorities came up with a scheme where vehicles that were driven by traffic violators would not be able to be registered, so violators would therefore be unable to drive their cars.

The same thing has happened with the Church. It has failed to preach future punishment for violation of

God’s Law.
Therefore sinners have become bold in their lawlessness. They have lost respect both for the Law and for its agency, the Church.

In San Diego, a strip club has a large sign that reads “We didn’t create sin, we just perfected it.” One TV channel boasted of their adult programming: “
Guararv
teed to break more Commandments than any other
lineup
.” A magazine cover in the Los Angeles Airport was headlined “Teenage Sex Romps. Stuff so bad, it’s good. We’re
so
ashamed.” The secular world has be-come devoid of the fear of God; but how can they be expected to fear the Lord when much of the Church is offended by the doctrine? Unbeknown to them, they are daily clocking up debt to the Law, thinking that they will never have to pay the bill. They are storing up wrath that will be revealed in the Day of Wrath (Ro
mans
2:5). If on that Day they are found in debt, they will pay for it with their souls. There will be hell to pay. Unless they are
convinced
that the Day of Reckoning is coming, that God will bring to judgment every secret thing, whether it is good or evil, they will continue to believe that God does not require an account.

Not Moved by Fear

L. E. Maxwell, Bible teacher and principal at the Prairie Bible Institute in Alberta, Canada, wrote of how students came to
a knowledge
of salvation. Some were “moved by fear” and others were “moved by love.” He noted that between 1931 and 1949, of the 2,507 students, nearly sixty-five percent were moved by fear, and only six percent were moved by love. The remaining
twenty-nine
percent came with another motive or couldn’t remember why they came to the Savior.

This side of Judgment Day, one can only surmise as to
how
those not moved by fear ever found a place of repentance. This thought provokes the following inquiries:

■    When they found a place of repentance, of what did they repent? It
must
have been “sin.”

■    
When
they understood that they had
sinned against God,
did they not fear at all? Didn’t they have reverence enough for God to produce the fear of the Lord, which is the beginning of wisdom?

■    When they turned from sin, how did they “flee from the wrath to come” without fear?

■    If they were “moved by the love of God” seen in the cross, did they not fear at the extreme to which God went to redeem them because of their sin?

As Christians, have they yet come to a point of fearing God? What do they think when they read that God killed a husband and wife because they broke the Ninth Commandment (Acts 5:1-10)? Do they conclude that the psalmist was misguided when he wrote, “My flesh trembles for fear of
You
, and I am afraid of Your judgments” (Psalm 119:120)? Have they obeyed the command of Jesus: “I will show you whom you should fear: Fear Him who, after He has killed, has power to cast in-to hell; yes, I say to you, fear Him!” (Luke 12:5)? Psalm 2:11 commands, “Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling.” The early Church did just that; they walked “in the fear of the Lord” (Acts 9:31). Do they have Paul’s motive for seeking the lost: “Knowing, there-fore, the terror of the Lord, we persuade men” (2 Corinthians 5:11)?

Scripture makes it very clear what it is that causes men to flee from sin. It’s the “fear of the Lord” (Proverbs 16:6). Understandably, Maxwell’s conclusion was not a concern that so many had fled to Christ in fear,
but that some hadn’t.
When F. B. Meyer questioned four hundred Christian workers about why they came to Christ, “an over-whelming number testified that it was because of some message or influence of the terror of the Lord.” The famous Bible teacher then said, “Oh, this is more than interesting and astonishing, especially in these days when we are rebuked often for not preaching more of the love of God!” R. C.
Sproul
said, “Jesus doesn’t save us
to
God. He saves us
from
God.” He also stated, “There’s probably no concept in theology more repugnant to modem America than the idea of divine wrath.”

We LL'VE RS ED

As I was waiting to witness to a couple, I couldn’t help but hear some of the filthy language a young lady was using to describe a situation that displeased her. When I found a gap in the conversation, I gave them a couple of our tracts, along with two pennies with the Ten Commandments pressed into them, and swung the convex
sation
to the Law. The young lady with the dirty mouth claimed she was a Christian, but when I said that I had heard her language and that something wasn’t right, she admitted she was a “backslider.” She was very well versed in the knowledge of the way of salvation, but she was adamant that one should not come to Christ be-cause of the fear of “Judgment Day, hell, or the wrath of God.” She said that we should come to Christ because of God’s love, expressed in the cross.