There’s an old saying you probably have heard that suggests: ‘What you don’t know can’t hurt you’. That has to rank up there with other pieces of silly ‘wise advice’ passed down through the years…like that one that encourages us to ‘follow your heart’.

I personally scoff at such ‘wisdom’ because I compare those ways of thinking in light of what God’s word teaches us. For one, we are told that our hearts are ‘defiled’ and ‘deceptively wicked’ (Mark 7:20-23; Jer. 17:9), so ‘trusting one’s heart’ is a recipe for disaster. And second, would you let a 2-year old play on the rooftop of your house without them having a basic understanding as to how gravity works? So ‘not knowing’ can lead to painful, if not deadly lessons. Hence, a passage I quote regularly here how ‘God’s people are destroyed for a lack of knowledge’. (Hosea 4:6)

In yesterday’s message, I left you with a very brief ‘outline’ of study that I have been making the case here for these past five years …that is begging for and deserving of our attention. In other words, if you consider yourself to be a follower of Jesus and a student of His word, you might want to revisit these areas for a time of personal study. I would humbly submit to you that many… sincere believers today suffered needlessly due to lack a understanding as to how and why our ignorance of these three ‘components’ of Biblical truths have hindered their walks of faith.

If anyone had told me when I first started writing and then sharing these ‘lessons’ or messages…that I would continue doing it consistently for the next 5 years, I would have scoffed and said there is no way I could do this. But at last count, I have 1736 postings here and on my ‘blogspot’ page, which I always link in the first comment below. Yes, I’ve had a few days over the past five years that I did not post/share anything…for several reasons. But had I known early on that I would compile such a collection, I might have done a better job at ‘cataloging’ the lessons for easier access in case anyone wanted to go back and revisit certain messages. I will say that on my blogspot platform, it does have a search engine where you can type in a word or phrase and it does well to pull up past messages with that phrase. There is also an archive in there that breaks them all down by ‘month and year’, but that is of little help if you don’t know when a past message was posted.

While I was not intentional in doing this at the time, I have revisited these three areas of study repeatedly over the past five years. It’s as if the Holy Spirit has given me an assignment of sorts, or a certain ‘part’ that He has wanted me to stay focused on, which I believe I have done. Trust me, there is so much more I have to learn, and what I have spent time addressing here is just a ‘part’ of what all of us need to know and understand. In the field of education, this idea of circling back and revisiting certain topics is known as ‘spiral curriculum’. But again, don’t think I was smart enough to be doing this with intent and purpose. It’s just when I pause and look back…that I come to see what He has been doing with this particular area of study.

So having said that…let us ‘review’…once again. And as I have advised multiple times before, and will say it again here and now: you only hurt yourself if you fail to take the time to look up the scriptures that I cite and leave with you here. You really need to look them up, mark them in your Bible, jot down references for these various categories and revisit them over and over…meditate on them and allow the Holy Spirit to bring confirmation and insight to you. Don’t take my word when it comes to all this…study for yourselves to ‘show yourself approved’. (Ps. 1:2; John 16:13; Acts 17:11; 2 Tim. 2:15)

Now about all this talk regarding the ‘law’, the first of three key areas of study in my ‘outline’.

The Law – Why it matters and how it is still relevant today.

We are told that some 430 years after God first established a covenant with Abraham, that He gave Abraham’s descendants (the children of Israel) some ‘laws’ to live by, and we are told these laws were given because of their ongoing sin problem. (Gal. 3:17,19). You should be familiar with the ‘Ten Commandments’ that were first inscribed on two tablets of stone and given by God to Moses to deliver to the people (Ex. 20).

God was quite serious about His law, and promised repeatedly that if His people would listen to and abide by them…that things would go exceptionally well for them, and not only them, but their children and grandchildren, etc. (Deut. 5:29). If you really want to ‘connect a few dots’, spend some time reading through chapters 4-13 in that book of Deuteronomy, and then take some time to comb through Psalm 119, and make note how often the word ‘law’ or ‘statutes’ or ‘precepts’, etc. is used. “Thy law have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against thee.” (Ps. 119:11). Deut. 28 is worth your time for in-depth study as well, as it might explain why you see so much suffering and heartache even today.

Oh, and for those of you who claim to follow Jesus and pray regularly for your children, (as well you should) were you aware what the last part of Hosea 4:6 informs us of, regarding God’s law? He makes it known there that ‘if we forgot God’s law, He will forget our children.” Seems that ought to get our attention if we do love our kids as much as we say we do.

Two final thoughts, for now. When we speak of God’s law today, we are not referring to all the ceremonial laws and ordinances they had when it came to worship and animal sacrifices to cover their sins, nor are we talking about the lengthy list of ‘dietary laws’. In fact, Jesus simplified it for us rather nicely on several occasions, when He made it known that ‘all of God’s law…and the prophets’ hung on these two simple commands: We are to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and we are to love our neighbor as ourselves, or as Jesus would later explain…’as He has loved us’. (Matt. 22:34-40; Luke 10:26-28; John 15:12). That’s it.

And if you thought for some reason, that after Jesus came and died on the cross and then rose again…that the ‘law’ was somehow set aside or dismissed, or ‘done away’ with, you have been mistaken. Jesus made it quite clear that He Himself, did not come to abolish or to do away with God’s law. (Matt. 5:17). God’s law still stands today.

Not sure about that? Let me ask you this: Do you continue to ‘sin’? It’s okay to admit that you do, since most ‘Christians’ are convinced they remain as ‘sinners…saved by grace’.

Were you aware that sin is…the ‘breaking of God’s law’? Go read 1 John 3:4 real quick.

And…did Jesus teach folks to go and ‘sin less’…or to ‘sin no more’? (John 5:14; 8:11) I hope you can meet me back here tomorrow.