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baptized them. He put them in the place of death; and that was as
far as he could take them. But there was One coming after him who
could take them into the Promised Land. As Joshua led the people
through the Jordan into Canaan,--so Christ went down into the Jordan
of death, through death and judgment, on to resurrection ground.

If you run all through Scripture you will find that the law brings
to death. "Sin reigned unto death." A friend was telling me lately
that an acquaintance of his, a minister, was once called upon to
officiate at a funeral, in the place of a chaplain of one of Her
Majesty's prisons, who was absent. He noticed that only one solitary
man followed the body of the criminal to the grave. When the grave
had been covered, this man told the minister that he was an officer
of the law whose duty it was to watch the body of the culprit until
it was buried out of sight; that was "the end" of the British law.

And that is what the law of God does to the sinner; it brings him
right to death, and leaves him there. I pity deep down in my heart
those who are trying to save themselves by the law. It never has; it
never will; and it never can--save the soul. When people say they
are going to try and do their best, and so save themselves by the
law, I like to take them on their own ground. Have they, ever done
their very best? granting that there _might_ be a chance for them if
they had, was there ever a time when they could not have done a
little better? If a man wants to do his best, let him accept the
grace of God; that is the best thing that any man or woman can
possibly do.

But you will ask, What is the law given for? It may sound rather
strange, but it is given that it may stop every man's mouth. "We
know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are
under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world
may become guilty before God. Therefore by the deeds of the law
there shall no flesh be justified in His sight; for by the law is
the knowledge of sin." The law shuts my mouth; grace opens it. The
law locks up my heart; grace opens it--and then the fountain of love
begins to flow out. When men get their eyes opened to see this
glorious truth, they will cease their constant struggle. They will
give up trying to work their way into the kingdom of God by the
deeds of the law. They will give themselves up for lost, and take
salvation as a free gift.

Life never came through t