EVERYONE LAMIENTS the increasing moral decay of American society. Crime and violence have turned our homes into fortresses and given birth to security as an industry. Sexual perversion and political scandal have become such fixed parts of the American landscape that it is now the chaste young person and the honest politician who amaze us.

While preachers decry it, congressmen debate our culture's moral degeneration, and taxpayers pay for it, few people have zeroed in on the real reason for it. God is the Creator. He has made humanity for Himself. He has given to men and women a fixed moral code, a standard by which we must live. Romans I teaches us that where this standard is expelled, God's judgment soon replaces it. What is taking place in our culture will never be properly assessed until it is seen in the light of God's absolute, unchanging moral standard.

Without a renewed emphasis on God's law, our nation will remain like a ship at sea without a rudder; like a man lost in the wilderness without a compass. Christians, above all people, must be clear on this point. The volume you now hold in your hand provides sound, biblical thinking on this issue.

Ernest Reisinger goes big-game hunting in this book. Lesser issues are put aside while he sets his sights on the very heart of biblical Christianity. Few subjects compare in importance with "law and gospel." It is the hub from which all other biblical doctrines extend. To be unclear on either law or gospelis to be spiritually paralyzed. To confuse the relationship between the two is to fall into serious, crippling error.

Whether or not one agrees with the arguments set forth in this book, an honest reader will be forced to conclude that the subject is vitally important to a proper understanding of God's Word. All of the Bible is either law or gospel. God, man, sin, Christ, redemption, grace, guilt, judgment, atonement, forgiveness, and holiness are all revealed to us in the Scriptures in terms of law and gospel. The Christian who neglects the study of this subject, therefore, does so to his own spiritual detriment.

As important as the subject is, it has been tragically neglected by modern Bible-believing Christians. The present generation of evangelicals simply assumes that it understands the gospel. Yet, as several recent studies have embarrassingly revealed, a majority cannot even cite the basic content of the gospel. Fortunately, this easy peace with a contentless Christianity is being increasingly challenged by respected evangelical leaders.

But a necessary component of the renaissance of God's gospel must be the rediscovery of God's law. In fact, the gospel cannot be established on any other foundation than that of law. This was readily acknowledged by earlier generations of Christians. Prior to this century sermons and studies on the Ten Commandments were conunonplace in Bible-believing churches. Today, not only have the commandments been expelled from our schools and our courthouses, they have effectively been discarded in our churches. Less than I percent of all church members can even recite the Ten Commandments!

The failure to teach God's law in our churches has had devastating consequences. Not only is gross sin being flaunted in the public square, but also the moral conduct of our church children has degenerated to alarming proportions. Josh McDowell has recently published the results of his study of young people actively involved in evangelical churches. He discovered that within the previous three months,

• 66 percent had hed to their parents,
• 36 percent had cheated on their exams,
• 55 percent had engaged in sexual activity,
• 20 percent had tried to hurt someone physically.

Most of these teenagers profess to believe the gospel for salvation. Yet, most are not obeying God's law. Something is gravely wrong.

The relationship between law and gospel desperately needs to be rediscovered in our day. The law was given to teach sinners their sin. When a sinner sees the law in all its strictness and spirituality, he thereby comes to understand the spiritual bankruptcy and grave danger of his condition. The law, able to condemn but unable to save, sends the convicted sinner looking for salvation in the only place it can be found. It sends him to Jesus Christ who, in His perfect law-fulfilling life and perfect law-fulfilling death, gave Himself to redeem helpless sinners.

When Christ receives repentant, believing men and women, He forgives them, grants them His righteousness, and gives them His Spirit. He writes His law on their new hearts and empowers them to follow Him in obedient discipleship. As the One who perfectly kept the law Himself, He then leads His disciples to obey the commandments.

The spirit of our present age insists that relativism is the only truth, and tolerance is the only virtue. Absolutes are seen as archaic, and right and wrong are forgotten categories.

The church, rather than effectively standing against this spirit, has been infected by it. We have lost our moorings. We have forsaken our foundations. Until they are recovered, God's people will lack the spiritual ability and moral authority to resist the onslaught of cultural decadence.

I KNOW VERY FEW PEOPLE who are qualified to write such a book as this. Biblical, theological, and historical understanding of the issues is essential. Anyone expounding the great themes related to law and gospel faces perils on both the right hand and the left. It is not easy to avoid the Scylla of legalism and the Charybdis of antinomianism. History bears sad testimony to this fact.

Ernest Reisinger charts a trustworthy and rewarding course through that narrow passage. He does so not as some unbiased uninvolved observer, but rather as a fellow pilgrim, a pastor and a teacher in the church of Jesus Christ. His passion for the subject comes through on every page. His familiar discourse with spiritual giants of previous generations is also evident. What he has written here is in harmony with the great creeds, confessions, and catechisms that grew out of the Protestant Reformation.

Though the insights that follow may strike many readers as new thoughts, be assured that there is nothing novel about them. They are an exposition of that faith which has been once for all delivered to the saints. This book not only should be read but should be studied diligently by every child of God who has any interest in seeing biblical Christianity flourish in our churches once again.