“In the beginning God created. . .” Gen. 1:1 “And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made” Gen. 2:2.

“Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil” Gen. 3:1-5.

And the woman saw, she desired, she took, she ate, she gave to her husband with her and he did eat. cf. vs.6.

“It is time for thee, Lord, to work: for they have made void thy law.”

Satan did not tell Eve that partaking of the fruit would be a “good” thing. He neither commanded, coerced, nor insisted that she eat. Eve never said, “The Devil made me do it!” What she said was, “The serpent beguiled me.” As much as people would love to blame Satan for their mishaps (sin), declaring “the Devil made me do it” - it won’t hold water! Adam passed the buck, trying to put the guilt on Eve; she in turn attempted to make the serpent bear all the blame. What do people think anyway? “I’m really a good person:” “The Devil made me do it - it’s all his fault!” And of course, that ongoing lie that was initiated in the garden, and still remains as Satan’s favorite sermon is: “Ye shall not surely die.” To add ice cream to the apple pie, Satan continued: “ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.” That is, you can set aside and ignore the law of God: you can establish your own laws regarding good and evil . . .Sure enough - “For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God” Rom. 10:3.

“It is time for thee, Lord, to work: for they have made void thy law.”

It has in recent days become a fiery issue: to remove all public displays of the ten commandments! In some arenas the ten commandments have been (begrudgingly) allowed to remain; in others, it has been upturned: the commandments have been taken away. What?!? Men have declared that it is unlawful to display the Law!?! Be it far better that men declare the Constitution, their own law, to be unlawful! Shall the Declaration of Independence be declared “null and void?” Then why so, the Divine precepts?

“It is time for thee, Lord, to work: for they have made void thy law.”

Who art thou, O foolish man, who seeks to void the Word, the Law of God, seeing that He proclaims it to accomplish, to prosper in that which is pleasing and in the thing whereto it is sent?

“Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.” So proclaim Matthew 24:35, Mark 13:31, and Luke 21:33. A further declaration found in Luke 16:17: “And it is easier for heaven and earth to pass, than one tittle of the law to fail.”

But what do we mean; no, what does the scripture reveal about the objective of those who would “make void the law?” Void, parar: to break up (usually fig., i.e. to violate), frustrate, break (asunder), cast off, cause to cease, defeat, disannul, dissolve, divide, make of none effect, bring to nought, utterly make void. Now apply separately each of these definitions to “for they have _________ thy law.” I would say that that turns a common campfire into a blazing bonfire! The natural man (though I fail to see how a sinful, Godless man who is at enmity against his Creator, ought to be called “natural.”) The desire, the intent, and the objective of the wicked hearts of men is - (if need be, reread the list of definitions) against his Sovereign Creator. Apart from Divine intervention man will never fall to his knees, acknowledge his sin, and in loving worship become willingly submissive to our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.

The Pharisees of Jesus’ day had the mindset that they were being obedient to the law; that in the keeping of that law they were candidates for heaven. And they were all too willing to spread their venom to the early church. Many of those who received the Gospel of Grace seemingly had a difficult time “turning loose of the apron strings.” It seemed almost too good to be true. And perhaps “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. . .” Well, that may have been a little intimidating to one who was not at all familiar with Law and Grace through Faith!

To the Pharisees: what saith the scriptures? “Ye cannot serve God and mammon” Matt. 6:24. There are but two choices. They were certainly not serving God! In their perversion of the law, their servitude was toward it - the law of God, totally separate from the God of the law. In such a misconstruing of the Truth, and of their own doing, the law was made unto them as mammon! It was their hope in the securing of temporal and eternal riches. (But they were covetous.) God forbid that we turn the riches of Christ into mammon!

“Behold, I Paul say unto you, that if ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing. For I testify again to every man that is circumcised, that he is a debtor to do the whole law. Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace” Gal. 5:2-4. (Paul uses a bit of satire here, as did his Lord on many occasions!) No indeed; if we be justified, it is not in the doing of the law but by faith in the Lawgiver who Himself did “do the whole law!” And what debtors to Christ we are!

“It is time for thee, Lord, to work: for they have made void thy law.”

“Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord, and against his anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder, and cast their cords from us. He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision. Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath, and vex them in his sore displeasure. . .Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel” Psalm 2:1-5,9.

“It is time for thee, Lord, to work:”

The Lord God rested from His work on the seventh day. It is the dawning of the eighth day; the day of new beginnings. . .the appearing of the Son. . .

“But when the fulness of time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons” Gal. 4:4,5.

“Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows; yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. . . and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. . .Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him. . .he hath poured out his soul unto death. . .he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors” ( excerpts from Isa. 53.)

“I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also” John 14:2b,3.

“For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. . .And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, and from one end of heaven to the other” Matt. 24:27,31.

“It is time for thee, Lord, to work: for they have made void thy law.”

“And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth make war. . .And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and his name is called The Word of God. . .And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron; and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. And he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS” Rev. 19:11,13,15-16.

It is time for thee, Lord, to work; to Create; to make all things new. . .

“For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them” Eph. 2:10.

“For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth: and the former shall not be remembered, nor come to mind. But be ye glad and rejoice forever in that which I create: for behold, I create Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people a joy” Isa. 65:17-18.

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