How the law drives one to Christ

I just listened to some academic theologians talking about how the law drives you to Christ, and...they didn't know the first thing about the subject. They've never experienced it. They've never been confronted by the Devil or the world or their own fallen nature. They are living in and swimming in the direction of the easy current of the world. They talk of the subject at the level of theory and it's empty.

Here is how the law drives you to Christ.

There is the pure law of God. That is what we find in the word of God.

Then there is the distorted, twisted law of God. That is what we find coming from the Devil, the fallen world (humans as a group or mass force), and our own inner, fallen nature.

This is the distinction that the academic theologians miss.

It is the distorted, twisted law of God that drives us to Christ.

It happens this way.

The moment you are regenerated by the word and the Spirit, and actually prior to that in all the ways the Spirit is working in a person bringing them to the light, even before they ever are able to read the word of God or hear it, you are in that process getting 'out of place' in the world. You are becoming a rogue cell in the body of the world. And you are now noticed.

The Devil notices you. He doesn't care about tame slaves in his kingdom who are willingly going with the easy current of the world. He notices those who are waking up. Being woken up.

The world notices you. People as a mass force notice you. They begin the process of first trying to get you back in line. When they see that won't be possible they try to destroy you usually by getting you to destroy yourself. You're like a member of a Muslim family who converts to Christianity. First they plead, coax, tempt. Then they break out the knives and the stones.

Your inner fallen nature takes notice as well. It fights for its existence. That makes it sound like you've got a foreign presence in you. You do. It's the Old Man in you.

What these three new enemies do is accuse you; shame you; abuse you; make false witness against you; but the focus is on accusing and shaming. What they are doing is *projecting* their own inherent guilt onto you. Unwittingly. But the accusing and shaming is based on the upside-down distorted notions of the law. Worldliness is good. Evil is good. Resentment is good. Who are you to go against these *holy things*? Who are you to no longer be interested in what interests us all in this world? You mock our religion. Our movies. Our activities. You have no interest in sex (though we can still see you secretly struggle with that, and we *accuse* and *shame* you).

This is the law that drives us to Christ. This entire show, this mass face, this ever-present dark force that manifests in all circles of the life of the Christian including the family life (actually most strongly in the family life).

Why does this force drive us to Christ?

Because it gives you nowhere to go. It won't allow you to even live. You can't evade it or escape it. You can't move left or right or forward or backward. It is there.

*You only have one move.*

That is going upward. You escape it by moving towards and connecting with higher influences than the world or the devil or your inner fallen nature has to offer. And ultimately it is in this direction that you are led to the word of God.

This is how you are driven to Christ by the law of God.

*Not* by the pure law of God ("Oh, but don't you understand, you can't do the law therefore you break down in tears because you can't dot all the 'i's and cross all the 't's..." Yes, academic theologians, we all understand our standing in regards to the law after the fall of Adam. But that is not what drives us to *anything.* As a fallen human being - *and* - as a in-the-process of being regenerated human being *we couldn't care less about the law in that sense.* WE FEEL NOTHING about the law in that sense.)

Yet we do experience the law as it is distorted and twisted by the Devil, the world, and our inner, fallen nature.

Now, since the main thing academic theologians have to do is maintenance their vanity, they are thinking of a defense. "Well, we've been shown up pretty good here. We don't really even understand what this person has just said, yet we sense there is truth here that is foreign to us. How do we maintain our vanity and pride in the face of this situation? Here's how we'll do it. We'll say this person is just really rehearsing an age-old juvenile notion of the world being against them. You know, people are stupid and the world is stupid, and I, the sixteen-year-old, have it all figured out, but they hate me because I know more than them, etc. Yes, that is how we will see what has just been presented to us."

You do what you have to do, before you go off to eat your ice cream (because, when it comes down to it, academic theologians, what you really want is just to eat some ice cream. Or, let's put it this way, all this talk of salvation, justification, atonement, covenants, blah, blah, blah, when what you are really interested in and what you really want is a shiny new car, right?).

But if God, in His will, takes hold of your life, you'll then *know* how the law drives one to Christ.