Belgian Confession, Article 15, sins you get and sins you do. Our brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ, some people argue that poverty, adultery, sickness, disasters, and wars cause physical death, but it's not really true. These are just the ways in which people die, The sin of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden a long time ago is the cause for every single death. Man would have lived forever if he had not sinned. Sin is our great enemy. Death is the child of sin. Spiritual death and physical death. Sin puts everyone who is born on a path to eternity in hell. And you add to your condemnation to death when you commit personal sins. So you inherit sins and you practice sins. You get sins and you do sins. And hear God's word today on this matter. It speaks about this fact, but it also offers a way out. Our headings are three, the extent of sin, the eradication of sin, and then some errors concerning sin. Our goals are that God will impress on you the seriousness of your sin, the sin that you get from your parents and the sins you practice, and that you will praise him for eradicating your sin. And of course, that you will be protected from common errors regarding sins and how they influence your life. Article 15 then, the doctrine of original sin. Let us read together. We believe that by the disobedience of Adam and Eve, original sin has been spread through the whole human race. It is a corruption of all human nature, an inherited depravity, which even infects small infants in their mother's womb, and the root which produces inhumanity every sort of sin. It is therefore so vile and enormous in God's sight that it is enough to condemn the human race, and it is not abolished or wholly uprooted even by baptism, seeing that sin constantly boils forth as though a contaminated spring. Nevertheless, it is not imputed to God's children for their condemnation, but is forgiven by His grace and mercy, not to put them to sleep, but so that the awareness of this corruption might often make believers groan as they long to be set free from the body of this death. Therefore, we reject the error of the Pelagians who say that this sin is nothing else than a matter of imitation. The extent of man's sin. Every man, woman, boy, girl, and baby has received sin from Adam, your first parent. Adam was your federal head by nature and by covenant. When we say nature, we mean physically he was your father. Covenantally, he was your representative head. We use the term federal head. So children are infected with sin even in their mother's womb, even at the time of conception. Sin from parents touch everyone, every single one. Sweet little baby Mia sleeping at the back there has been touched by sin from conception. Look at the language, Romans chapter 5 verse 12, together. Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned, and verse 18 of chapter 5, together, the result of one trespass was condemnation for all men, not some, not most, not many, all men. You not only received Adam's sinful nature, but you also received the full guilt of that sin. That means even if you had never sinned one time in your life, God had the right to condemn you to hell forever on account of your father's sin. You can quarrel with that all you want. But that's how you were made, and that's the judgment that you were under. So is even a baby sinful? I mean, the innocent baby that didn't seem to do anything? Well, the way to answer that is to define what sin is. What is sin? Sin is rebellion against God by being or doing what he forbids and not being or doing what he commands. We speak of sins of omission and commission. So even though the baby didn't go out and steal from someone, the baby is not what she should be. And that's what a sin is. If you're not what God wants you to be, You don't have to overtly commit a sin. You have sin in you, the sin you inherited from your parents. King David taught us that before he was born, before he had committed any of his own personal sins, sin was present in him. Psalm 51 verse five, together, behold, I was brought forth in iniquity and in sin my mother conceived me. Now the act of conception itself was not sinful, but that which was conceived, the child, was sinful. And look at the way the psalmist described it. Not the pure, sweet, innocent child, but Psalm 58, verse 3, together, the wicked are estranged from the womb. They go astray as soon as they are born, speaking lies. I mentioned before, through some tests they've done, they showed that babies as young as six months could lie. Before they could talk, they lie. They're deceitful. It's evident then. But the psalmist went back further. Even from the womb, they were estranged from God. That's the seriousness of sin. That's how holy God is that When he describes our sinfulness, he didn't say, you have to steal, put your hand in someone's pocket. But by your very nature, he had to condemn you. Well, the question then is, how is the sin passed on from parent to the child? There are two things that people talk about, and scholars. And one of them, they say that, well, when a child is born or when a parent's mother becomes pregnant and a child is conceived that God creates a new soul. The problem with that is, if God creates a new soul, where did the sin come? Did God create something sinful? Now that theory is called creationism, that God creates a new soul. But the problem is how to deal with the sin being passed on. The other view is that the soul is created from a joining of the mother and the father's soul. That is called tradutionism. And it seems to make sense in a way, and in this way. If a child, even if a child were not raised with the parents, maybe raised away from the parents, When that child grows up, they often have characteristics, not just physical, but emotional and maybe the way they act and talk can be quite like the parents. They may have tendency towards certain sins like the parents. So it seems that it may be one of the ways to explain that. Exactly how that happens, we don't know. But the Lord says the sin passes from the parents to the children. Jeremiah 17 verse 9 says, together, So that deals now with what happens with the sin. It's passed on from the parents to the children. And it extends to the whole human nature. This sin that is passed on to the whole human nature is sometimes called total depravity. But there's a problem with that term. Sometimes when people hear that, they think, oh, you're as bad as you could be. And that's not what it means. It just means you are bad in the total nature, the total human nature. A better word might be total inability, meaning you're unable to do anything good because sin is in you. And you're sinful in your thought and your word and your actions, but not necessarily in extent. Some people are more evil than others. And you see that from the outside and the wickedness becomes evident. What's in the inside is there when you're born, but as you grow, you start to see that on the outside. The illustration of this is that of the clock that had a sign put on the front of it. And the clock sometimes ran fast and sometimes it ran slow. And the sign on the front of it says, don't blame me, the trouble lies deeper. What you're seeing on the outside is reflected what's on the inside. It's the inside of the clock that doesn't work like it should, and that's why you see these things on the outside. You sin as naturally as a polluted spring brings forth polluted water. But we're not as sinful as we can get. God does not permit people to do so. He does not prevent all people to get as bad as they want to get. He limits you. Sin, of course, caused Stalin to kill 43 million people. In China, more than 60 million were killed. Different places of the world, there are different horrible things that have happened. In Africa, you had the Tutsis and the Hutus. They just got machetes and they start chopping each other. Hundreds of thousands of people were butchered. Why did they do that? In India, the midwives would often get, when their babies, baby girls are born, because people don't want to have to deal with children, girl children, because they cost them too much, and then they have to pay people to marry them, would often suffocate the babies, throw their bodies in the fields to feed the crocodiles. You say, how could they be so bad? How come you're not so bad? It's because God stopped you. And God, of course, stops everyone when he is ready. The reason you're not Hitler is because God stopped you. Look at Job chapter 14, verse 4. Together, who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? No one. Then Ephesians chapter 2, verses 1 through 3. Together, and you he made alive who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath. So only God can stop you from being as bad as you want, and he does. Because if he didn't stop you, you would naturally follow your sinful nature. This sinful nature, what you inherited from your parents, is enough for God to condemn you for eternity. The payment of sin Any sin, one sin, is death. Everyone is guilty before God. And those who deny that all men are guilty and under condemnation from birth, which is every other religion and every other philosophy outside of Christianity, are being used by the devil to rob men of salvation. Take note of that. Every other religion. They might seem like nice people. Every other philosophy. They may sound educated, but they all deny original sin. And so they're robbed men of salvation. If you don't have any sin, original sin, then you can fix the problem yourself. It's all about you. But this is why you must share the gospel. And this is why you must support the sharing of the gospel. So people can learn about the real problem of man, which is sin that you inherited from your parents. Furthermore, this sinful nature causes man to commit his own personal sins, and we call those actual sins. So you inherit this sin from your Adam and Eve, and you inherit that sinful tendency as well to continue that way, and then you act out that sin. And man breaks all 10 laws, thoughts, words, and actions. So you have no reason to boast of your goodness. And that's the point of this. You can't say, oh, I'm good. I inherited good things from my parents. The thing you inherited from your parents is sin that brings you under immediate condemnation of God. And then you inherit this proclivity towards sin. And then you act out on that. So what can you go to God and say? I'm full of sin. I inherit sins and I do sins. I got from my parents sinfulness and sins. I do my own sins. I got nothing to boast. That's why we say simply to the cross I cling. You can't go to God with anything else. Like Adam, you willfully sin. You know, no one was holding a gun to Adam's head. No one was twisting his arms. It was willful and it was free. On his own, Adam and Eve performed what we call a reckless disobedience in the garden. And this is still true today. We follow the same thing. The sins of mature deliberation, not just incidental sins, which are all bad, of course, but we think about things. We know what's wrong and we still do it. This just adds to what we got from Adam. And even when one becomes a Christian, there's still the remnants of sin in us. The Apostle Paul, who is known to be or respected as the greatest Christian who has ever lived, he said in Romans chapter 7, verse 15, together, For what I am doing, I do not understand. For what I will to do, that I do not practice. But what I hate, that I do. See the frustration in the man here? Even after he becomes a Christian, he struggles with sin. This means that throughout your life, you must learn to depend upon God. There's no room for arrogance in a Christian. Being Hitler could be on your horizon. That's how sinful we are. We inherit it. We do it. We even struggle with it after we become Christians. So how do we get rid of sin? The eradication of sin. God in his grace imputes Christ's purity and holiness to some, and he imputes their selfishness and impurity to Christ. imputes means to count something as someone else's. So God counts the death of Christ as your death. Remember, that's what we're looking at this series in the last several weeks from the book of Mark 14 and 15. Jesus endured this for us. He endured this for us. He endured this for us. His hard life, His abandonment, His denial, His betrayal, His condemnation, was what you deserve that were put upon him, and his righteousness was counted as yours, put into your bank account before God. So because he died, you don't have to die. Look at Romans chapter 5, 15 and 17. For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God's grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many? For if by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God's abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through one man, Jesus. We now are enriched, the sins are removed, and we're put back in that rightful place as king of the earth, king of creation. And we rule, and that's our goal, is to establish the dominion of Christ through the preaching of the gospel. No wonder the psalmist declared, blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute sins, but imputes them upon his son. This work of imputing your sin and imputing Christ's righteousness to you is done by the Holy Spirit. He puts your sins on Christ and he puts Christ's righteousness on you. John 3 verse 6, together, That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the spirit is spirit. And this is why you must sincerely pray for the Holy Spirit to work in the hearts of those you're evangelizing. Never preach without praying. To think that you can make someone Christian by your cogent argumentation without the working of the Holy Spirit is self-deception. Now, you don't have to make a long prayer, but you can simply say, even when you're preparing to talk to someone, pray in your mind, Lord, work through the words I'm going to speak. Help that person to see his sin, that he can see the Savior. And knowing your sins are forgiven through Christ's grace alone does not mean that you may continue in sin. That's the warning. Your sins are removed. They're eradicated because of Christ's righteousness and his death. But don't think that you can continue to live that way. To do this is to show contempt for God. Remember Romans 6, 1 and 2 say together? What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Certainly not. How shall we who died to sin live any more in it? Of course, you've died to sin. You want to live for God. But even more positively, think of the picture of the vine and the branches. The vine absorbs the nourishment. And it passes it out to the branches. The branches don't say, well, I like the juices that are coming into me, but I don't want to bear fruit. No, the branches naturally will bear fruit. You will see that as the plants grow. If you have a grapevine, you will see. They will produce flowers and then they'll produce grapes that you can enjoy. The tree must produce good fruit. When you see sin coming in your life, sigh with disgust and then work to suffocate those thoughts and let them die a shameful death and instead ask God to produce fruits that are worthy, worthwhile fruits. What you see in this too is that Christianity is not just a system. It's not a system of right and wrong. Do this, don't do this. It's not moralisms. Rather, Christianity is about God's plan for redeeming man. And that through the grace that comes from Jesus Christ. And that's important when you're evangelizing people that you don't think of the scripture or think of what we believe as, oh, we're not allowed to do that. or we're not allowed to do this, we may do this, we may not do this, that can become very troubling. You can describe it this way, you say, because I belong to Jesus, because he has saved me from my sin, I will honor him and obey his law. But if you tell people, oh, we can't do that, it becomes just a legalism. We can't do it. Why? You have to explain. because we are Christians, because Jesus died for me, because he obeyed and suffered for me. I will not break his law. I will love him and obey his law. Now finally, let's consider the errors that are taught concerning sin. And it's important that we grasp this because we see this, we're becoming more and more inundated with this type of thinking, this type of error. There are some people who believe that man only became sinful when he was externally influenced by sin. And then he starts to imitate sinners he sees. Remember, he said, you can put a child, lock him away someplace, and that child will still sin. That child will still do things that are wrong, even though he's never seen them. But this is what is being taught. This error was promoted by a man in Pelagius, a British monk who lived between the fourth and fifth centuries. And he challenged Augustinianism, which taught the biblical truth on this matter. Further, the truth of the Bible is evidence in the life of children. You can see that children are sinful, as the psalmist says, from the time they are born. Children are selfish. They want your time all the time. They want to control you. Sinning is natural. Sinning is even more natural than eating. Also, there are people who see bad behavior, on one hand, and don't do it. So you can't say, like Pelagius, oh, people are only imitating what they see. They see bad behavior, that's why they're bad. But they're born pure. His theory has been proven false in many ways. And I want you to see now for the rest of the time, look at the danger of the argument that is played out in society. First of all, sociologically. Pelagius blamed the environment for sin, and so he excused bad behavior, which were really sins. When someone is violent, they argue, it's the environment that caused them to be that way. Or they will argue that the troubles we have is because people need more jobs. If they have jobs, they won't rob other people. I remember hearing someone in Baltimore saying, well, we loot because we're poor. That's Pelagianism. You blame the environment. The truth is there are some people who are poor and don't rob. So you can't use that argument. That's not, the link isn't there. Or if we have more afterschool programs or young people wouldn't be in gangs. So you blame the fact of the environment, just bad environment. That's why kids are in gangs. Or if we had minimum wage, we won't have so many teenage pregnancies and abortions. Because people kill their children because they don't have the money to take care of them. So if we raise minimum wage, we'll fix the problem. It's the society that's caused this. But everyone must take responsibility for his actions. Never blame bad behavior on other people's bad behavior. As Pelagius promoted. Then look how this affects us in terms of religion. Western religions are Pelagian, whether it's Islam or Hinduism or Buddhism or atheism. And then there's also what we would call semi-Pelagianism, which is what the Pentecostals are, or Armenians. Semi-Pelagians are Armenians. And they deny in reality, they deny original sin. So our minions worship, when they worship, they don't go for the heart. They go for imitation. And I was raised this way because when you go to church, you do what other people do. If they close your eyes, you close your eyes. They raise their hands, you raise your hands. If they sway when they're singing, you sway when they're singing. You say the things that people say. If they say hallelujah, you say hallelujah too. It doesn't have to make sense, you just start to imitate what other people do. They believe that if you're in the right environment, you will become better. So one, they blame people's bad behavior because they're around all the bad behavior. And then the semi-Pelagians, the Armenians, they say, if you're around good people, you'll start to be good. The Muslims, they all say the same thing. You should be around the people. You will start to imitate good behavior or what they call good behavior. Then in terms of psychology, modern psychology is based on a very faulty premise that man was born as a clean sheet of paper. The blank sheet. So they hold that children are therefore not responsible for the wrongs they do until they're older. And in fact, when children do bad things, they just blame somebody else. When they do something bad, they blame the parents or the grandparents, because that's the child's environment. But the premise that children are pure is wrong. So modern psychology is wrong. And in a way, it would be laughable if the consequences were not so severe. Let me show you practically how this affects us. How can you ever punish a child if the child were born pure? The only thing you should do is punish yourself. If your children are bad, you should spank yourself then if this is correct. If Pelagius is correct, you should beat yourself when your child does something bad. Who will do that? Why? Because you know the child is the one who's done something bad. You can't excuse bad behavior on other bad behavior. You can't blame society. You have to blame the child for doing wrong. Those who don't look to the one who created man to find out how to fix man's problems, but rather look to themselves for answers, reflect the height of insanity. You see, God made us. He knows us. He knows our problems. And only he can tell you how to fix the problem. You wouldn't ask a carpenter how to fix your computer problems. You would go to somebody who knows about computers. And it's kind of ironic in a way that psychology is based, the word psychology really means a study of the soul. And many of the people who are studying psychology don't believe you have a soul. You realize the insanity of that. We have to go to God. You want to be a psychologist? Learn from the one who made the soul. Then you will learn how to fix the problem of the soul. Okay, so those are dealing with some of the errors taught. Let's conclude. So what is man's biggest problem today? Is it war? Is it pollution? Global warming? Unemployment? Crime? Poverty? Nuclear proliferation? Muslim terrorism? No. The Bible teaches that man's biggest problem is sin. Original sin, that's a sin we got. And actual sins, the sins we do. And as a result, there is physical and spiritual death. Man is sinful from birth. He is sinful throughout his entire being. And because of sin, man lost the ability to do anything good. He became corrupted in his body and in his soul. And because of this, man is under the condemnation of God, will die and spend eternity in hell. But, brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ, God made it possible for man's sins, the inherited sins and the actual sins, the personal sins, the sins you get and the sins you do, to be eradicated or erased through Jesus Christ. And he made it possible for peace to come again between man and God. And how was that? Well, Jesus took the punishment for man's sins and removed God's anger from us, on us. Jesus loved you enough to die for you so you don't have to go to hell. And even though you physically die, it is not punishment for your sins, but it's the means by which you enter into eternal life in fullness. So what is your response then, brother, knowing your sin? Knowing how they were eradicated by Jesus Christ? Rejoice. Rejoice in the Lord always. Rejoice in the Lord because he took your sins away. Thank him. Love him back. How do you love him? You tell others about Him. You share this message with the world. You fight against falsehood all around. When people are speaking lies, you stand up and challenge what they're saying. Now, do it wisely, but challenge the lies that are around about God. Every falsehood that comes from the devil that has infiltrated our society and in false religions and philosophies, challenge them. so the truth will come out, so men will be saved and not have to spend eternity in hell. And if you're not a Christian, you're still under the crushing weight of sin. Why not ask our gracious God to take that load of sin that is crushing you? He says, come unto me, all who labor and are heavy laden, the weary ones, come, I will give you rest. Come to him today. Let us pray. Thank you, Father, for reminding us in your precious word again of the weight and the seriousness and the extent of our sin. But you never stopped there. You told us how we could get rid of it in Jesus Christ. All those sins we were born with, all those sins that we commit and add to what we were born with. have been put upon Jesus Christ. And if we only hold on to him, you would count our sins on him and count his holiness on us. For those who have been saved, we thank you. For those who are yet in darkness, open their eyes that they will see the light and look to Jesus Christ and you will forgive their sins and make them your child that will be joined to the family of God. We pray in Jesus' name, amen.