Grace Abused!
TEXT: LEVITICUS 18:17-30
Key verse: “Therefore shall ye keep mine ordinance, that ye commit not any one of these abominable customs, which were committed before you, and that ye defile not yourselves therein: I am the Lord your God” (Leviticus 18:30).
As Christians, we do rejoice that we are not under the dispensation of the laws of the Old Testament with so many of its “dos” and “don’ts”. We relish so much the grace of God that does not condition our salvation on the works of our hands and the sacrifices we have to bring but on Christ’s final and eternal sacrifice. However, there is a point in which many Christians err in their understanding of the grace of God in relation to the moral obligations commanded in the Old Testament. They misinterpret the grace of God to mean having unrestrained liberty to do whatever they wish. Some declare that Christ’s sacrifice has taken care of the sins they ever committed or would ever commit. They brand those who seek to live straight and keep the moral laws as being unduly legalistic, fanatical and under bondage. This is an abuse of grace!
Grace does not take from us our moral obligations. The moral ordinances contained in the passage of our meditation this morning are as binding on us today as they were binding on all the people in the Old Testament dispensation. Disobedience to these laws carries the same weight of judgment today as it did in the Old Testament. Neither law nor grace can protect from judgment in such cases. It is folly to place one’s hope in a grace that will excuse sin and allow one to do the very thing forbidden to be done under the terms of grace as revealed in God’s word.
Real grace brings along with it the divine enablement to obey God’s word and live right. Keeping God’s word is revealed as the secret of blessing both in the Old and New Testaments. God’s words are to keep us from committing these abominable practices and thereby defiling ourselves. Living contrary to the word of God on the excuse of grace is an abuse of God’s grace.
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: God’s grace sets free from sin.