Let's give expression to our unity in faith this afternoon by reciting the Apostles' Creed together in unison. Let's confess, I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, his only begotten Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried. He descended into hell. The third day he rose again from the dead. He ascended into heaven and sitteth at the right hand of God the Father Almighty. From thence he shall come to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit. I believe a holy Catholic Church. the communion of sins, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen. Let's respond in song by turning number 318. 318 stands as one and four. Holy, Lord God Almighty! Early in the morning, my song shall rise to Thee. Holy! For Psalm reading this afternoon, if you'll turn with me now to Psalm 5. We sang of this psalm earlier in number eight in our pre-service singing. Psalm 5. To the chief musician with flutes, a psalm of David. Give ear to my words, O Lord, consider my meditation. Give heed to the voice of my cry, my King and my God, for to you I will pray. My voice you shall hear in the morning, O Lord. In the morning I will direct it to you, and I will look up. For you are not a God who takes pleasure in wickedness, nor shall evil dwell with you. The boastful shall not stand in your sight. You hate all workers of iniquity. You shall destroy those who speak falsehood. The Lord abhors the bloodthirsty and deceitful man. But as for me, I will come into your house in the multitude of your mercy. In fear of you, I will worship toward your holy temple. Lead me, O Lord, in your righteousness because of my enemies. Make your way straight before my face, for there is no faithfulness in their mouth. Their inward part is destruction. Their throat is an open tomb. They flatter with their tongue. Pronounce them guilty, O God. Let them fall by their own counsels. Cast them out of their multitude of their transgressions, for they have rebelled against you. Let all those rejoice who put their trust in you. Let them ever shout for joy because you defend them. Let those who love your name be joyful in you. For you, O Lord, will bless the righteous. With favor you will surround him as with a shield. Let's go toward God in prayer. Heavenly Father, with joy, with thanksgiving, we are privileged to gather a second time to worship you. Lord, what a privilege it is. And we pray now, too, as we open your Word, that you will again illumine our hearts through the leading of the Holy Spirit. We thank you for the confessions of the Church, beautiful, accurate summaries of the Bible's teaching, And that together we may see how the confessions and scripture tie together in teaching us all the truths concerning your word. Lord, especially this afternoon as we look at your righteousness and how you deal with sin. Lord, that you would give us ears to hear and a heart to understand the wonderful truths of your word. Lord, will you take away whatever may impede our worship, if you were right? Would you set our minds at heart, at peace, that we may focus on why we are here, what we are doing to worship you, our God? Hear us, we pray in Jesus' name, amen. Let's turn again into our God in song by turning to number 194. 194, all the three stanzas, and let's stand to sing. The Lord is in heaven above. ♪ Almighty God of Hosts ♪ He worshipped and listened to them, the Holy One is King. Amen. ♪ His love in real life ♪ Scripture reading for this afternoon is taken from Romans 1 beginning at verse 18. Romans 1 beginning at verse 18. God's word reads as follows. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness. Because what may be known of God is manifested in them, for God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse. Because although they knew God, they did not glorify him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man, and birds, and four-footed animals, and creeping things. Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness in the lust of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves, who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. For this reason, God gave them up to vile passions, for even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. Likewise, also the men leaving the natural use of the woman burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind to do those things which are not fitting. being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness, full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness, they are whispers, backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful, who, knowing the righteous judgment of God, that those who practice such things are deserving of death, not only do the same, but also approve of those who practice them." So far, the reading of God's holy word. Our text is from Lord's Day 4. You can find it on page 11, but we'll go through the Lord's Days again throughout the sermon. We'll refer to them. Dear congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ, We've heard arguments and we've heard the faulty thinking that goes something along the lines of, well, since we've inherited our sinful nature from Adam and Eve, and since we cannot do any spiritual good unless we are born again of the Holy Spirit, why then does God still expect perfect obedience from us sinners? Why doesn't God cut us some slack knowing that we can't keep his law perfectly anyway? Since we've inherited a sinful nature from Adam and Eve, why does God still punish us? Is it our fault that Adam messed things up? Furthermore, since it's God's character to be merciful, why can't God just be a little more tolerant? Why not just overlook some of those, you know, those so-called lesser sins? Why sweat the small stuff? Murder, rape, theft, abuse, major sins. Yeah, we get that. But coveting, a little gossip, a little slander here and there. Everybody does it. Why not just ease off a little? Besides, shouldn't God's mercy override his justice? Isn't it a contradiction to speak God is love and with the same breath speak of God's wrath? Let's proceed to answer some of these excuses, these questions and false charges often levied against God. We proceed under the theme, God is righteous, noting His righteousness is first of all revealed in His demands, revealed in His punishing sin, and revealed in His justice. The question of God's fairness or reasonable expectation is addressed in Lord's Day 4, question and answer 9. If you turn with me to Lord's Day 4, question and answer 9, Page 11. But doesn't God do man an injustice by requiring in his law what man is unable to do? And the Catechism responds, no. God created man with the ability to keep the law. Man, however tempted by the devil and reckless disobedience, robbed himself and his descendants of these gifts. The catechism, then, congregation, takes us back, as it were, to God's wonderful work of creation. On the sixth day of creation, man was handcrafted by God himself. He was formed from the dust of the earth. God breathed into man the breath of life. Man was the pinnacle, the crown of God's wonderful work of creation. Of all the creatures created by God, only man was created in God's image, that is, in true righteousness and holiness. Created in God's image, he was given a three-fold task of prophet, priest, and king. As a prophet, to know God. As a priest, to serve God. And as a king, to rule with God. His will was free. Free to do the will of God absolutely perfectly. God didn't create man, as we noted last week, with any kinds of defects. There were no imperfections in man. After God had created everything, including the creation of man, we read those beautiful words, when God oversaw all that He made and He declared, And it was very good. Not just good, very good. So contrary to the theories of evolution, man was not some half primate and half man that evolved over millions and billions of years in understanding and ability. No, God created man. And he created man in his image. and this whole accusation of unreasonableness or unfairness. We have to remember, congregation, that man was originally created by God in the manner to be able to do exactly what God required of him, to keep his law and to keep his word, to love and obey God and to do it perfectly. But then rather than loving and obey God, by not eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, Adam and Eve yielded to the temptation that was put before them by the devil himself. They acted, as the catechism says, in reckless disobedience to God. They willfully chose to believe Satan's lie. They willfully chose to advance what they perceived to be their own good. They willfully chose to follow their own will. The decision to eat of the tree from the forbidden tree was a choice that they made. Satan didn't force them to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. They made that choice. But how does their decision implicate us? Well, Adam was a representative in the Garden of Eden. He represented the entire human race. He represented you and I. And so when Adam sinned against God, all of humanity was plunged into sin along with Adam. It says in Romans 5 verse 12, Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus sin spread to all men, because all sinned. And again in verse 19, But as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one man's obedience many will be made righteous. The sin of Adam rendered all of humanity guilty before God. But not only do we share in Adam's original sin, but as a result of Adam's fall into sin, our entire nature has been polluted, has been corrupted by that fall into sin. Our will is no longer free. We cannot do any spiritual good unless we are born again of the Spirit. And now, having inherited our sinful nature from Adam and Eve, we, congregation, willfully choose to sin against God. The responsibility for our sin lies with you and I. It's our choice to obey God or not. It's our choice to give in to temptation. It's our choice to sin. And so we're all guilty before God on two accounts. Original sin, the sin that we share with Adam, and the actual sins, the sins that we continue to commit each and every day again. But this certainly is not congregation the way that God created us and intended us to live. We were created perfectly by God to carry out God's will and to do it perfectly. And now just because we sinned, we cannot expect a holy and a righteous God to now suddenly lower His standards of righteousness. God, by His very nature, being holy, being righteous, cannot, it's impossible for God to deny His own very character. A righteous God, by His very nature, requires nothing less than perfect obedience and perfect love. Anything less is sin. In Leviticus 19, 1-2, we read, And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Speak to all the congregation of the children of Israel, and say to them, You shall be holy, for I, the Lord your God, am holy. Peter echoes that in 1 Peter 15 where he quotes Jesus' expectations when he says, Does God do an injustice? Requiring of you and I what we cannot do? Absolutely not. He created us perfect, He created us in His image, and we blew it with our reckless disobedience. In the process, we lost something, didn't we? We lost that ability of a free will to obey God perfectly. We lost that direct fellowship with God, and now we can only come to Him through our mediator, Jesus Christ. We lost that innocence that we now know good and evil. We lost that privilege of living in perfect harmony and fellowship with God in the garden for all eternity. So now what? Well, that's the question asked in question and answer 10. Again, turn in your Psalter hymnals where the question is asked. Will God permit such disobedience and rebellion to go unpunished? Certainly not. He's terribly angry about the sin we are born with, as well as the sins we personally commit. As a just judge, he punishes them now and in eternity. He has declared, cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law and do them. Very clearly, God does not tolerate, nor does God excuse your or my sins. As it says, he is terribly angry about the sin that we share with Adam and our own personal sins. You see, congregation, I think we tend to have this view of God as this tolerant, indulging, grandfatherly-type figure who puts up with everything, including our sinful ways. But in Scripture, we see that God is not only a loving God and a God of mercy, but God is righteous and God is holy. And Scripture tells us He hates sin. In fact, He's terribly angry whenever we do sin. Earlier we read and we sang from Psalm 5 verse 4. For you are not a God who takes pleasure in wickedness, nor shall evil dwell with you. Very plain and simple, isn't it? God hates your and my sin. He says, I have no pleasure in wickedness. I'm not neutral, I'm not indifferent to your sin. God, by His very nature, cannot allow sinners even into His holy presence apart from a mediator, Jesus Christ. David continues in verses five and six of that same chapter. The boastful shall not stand in your sight. You hate all workers of iniquity. You shall destroy those who speak falsehood. The Lord abhors the bloodthirsty and deceitful man. The proud, the liars, the murderers, God will destroy unless they come to repentance. The language used by David in this psalm is strong, isn't it? hate, abhor. That's strong language in reference to man's sin. But this language is an expression of the very character and the very nature of God himself, his justice, his holiness, his righteousness. We have an example of God's terrible anger towards sin in Exodus 32, 9 to 10. This is when Moses was on Mount Sinai and he's receiving the Ten Commandments from God. In the meantime, Aaron, under the pressure of the people of Israel, decides to build a golden calf. And there we read, And the Lord said to Moses, I have seen this people, and indeed it is a stiff-necked people. Now, therefore, let me alone. that my wrath may burn hot against them, and I may consume them, and I will make you a great nation." Was God angry? You better believe that he was angry. He was terribly angry at Israel's sin. The line? That my wrath may burn hot against them, and I may consume them. That's much more than God being mildly annoyed or upset with our sin, isn't it? But let's be sure to understand that God's not just flying off the handle angry. but rather his anger is a righteous anger, an anger that flows from the very character and nature of God himself, his righteousness and his holiness. And so, too, we ask, was Jesus angry when he entered the temple and he saw how the temple was being misused by those marketers in the temple during the Passover? In John 2, 15 to 16, we read, when he had made a whip of cords, he drove them all out of the temple with the sheep and the oxen and poured out the changers' money and overturned the tables. And he said to those who sold doves, take these things away. Do not make my father's house a house of merchandise. Was Jesus angry? Absolutely. But Jesus' anger wasn't just flying-off-the-handle angry. It was a righteous anger, wasn't it? It was a righteous anger directed against sinners who misuse the house of the Lord. In this respect, God's nature is something that we often overlook that God hates sin, that He's angry when we sin, that He doesn't tolerate it. He hates it, He really does. It says in Psalm 7, verse 11, God is a just judge, and God is angry with the wicked every day. Earlier we read from Romans 1, 18, For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness. In those opening chapters of Romans, Paul does a masterful, a beautiful job in laying before us how we're all guilty and unrighteous before God through the law. and how we are made righteous through the righteousness of Christ. But where does all that, in terms of how we are made righteous before God, how does he begin? He begins in chapter one. He begins in chapter one with the affirmation of God's righteous anger and wrath against man's sin. The idea of sin and a wrathful God. Congregation, it's not a popular message today. But how can anyone understand the significance that there on the cross in those midday darkness, during those three hours, Jesus Christ endured the wrath of God, the wrath of God, because of your and my sins. The wrath of God poured out upon Christ. If we do not understand the magnitude of God's wrath and anger against your and my sins, unless we understand God's wrath and anger. There's no excusing sin. Far too often, modern psychology excuses it away. Well, it's your parents' fault, it's your upbringing's fault, it's your environment. Blame it on the brain. Excuse sin as a disease. Kind of do the old Adam and Eve thing of finger pointing. And all too often, ministers don't want to preach this kind of message about sin, God's wrath and anger. People don't want to hear about the reality of hell. Admittedly, we'd all much rather hear about God's love and His mercy. But a message of love and mercy, congregation, doesn't make any sense to us unless we also understand the magnitude of God's justice and his anger towards sin, and how that anger was appeased through Jesus Christ. It's at the cross, isn't it, where God's justice and his mercy meet together in a most beautiful way. The reality of man's sin and God's angers is part of that whole story of redemptive history, which we can't simply just cut out of the pages of Scripture. Let's just talk about the nice stuff about God. No, we read it earlier. Many of the Psalms are filled with God's wrath and anger. How many times, reading through the Old Testament, do we not hear about God's wrath and anger towards His sinful people? And so too, every death, every funeral, every cemetery is a vivid reminder. God commanded man, when you eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you will surely die. Satan says, you're not gonna die. Adam and Eve made a choice. They befriended Satan instead of God. And now in Romans 6.26, the wages of sin is death. We get what we earned. And for those who remain unrepentant, for those who reject Jesus as their Savior, the punishment for sin is hell itself, isn't it? Sin has consequences. Yeah, we all die. But those who die in their sins, those who die, their sins not washed by the blood of Jesus, those who are not clothed in the righteousness of Christ, but will appear before God on the day of judgment in the filthy garments of sin, it's a horrible thing, isn't it? They will be cast into the depths of hell. There's no soft-pedaling the reality of sin. There's no soft-pedaling the reality of God's judgment towards sin. Sin is serious stuff. We can't ignore it. God also punishes sin in this life, doesn't he? Those who commit certain types of sin have to pay the penalty under the law. God's entrusted the government with the sword. God also punishes sin in a broader and a generic form. As a result of man's fall into sin, we all encounter sicknesses and trials and hardships and the like. Why? Because of the fall of man into sin. The reality of sin is inescapable, as is its consequences. But third, with that being said, the catechism asks the question, isn't God also merciful? How does the reality of God's justice and punishment harmonize with mercy? Our confession says, God is certainly merciful, but he's also just. His justice demands that sin committed against his supreme majesty be punished with the supreme penalty, eternal punishment of body and soul. Is God both just and merciful? Absolutely. Congregation He is. Listen to what we're reading in Ezekiel 18. Therefore, I would judge you, O house of Israel. Everyone according to his way, says the Lord God. Repent and turn from all your unrighteousness so that iniquity will not be your ruin. Cast away from you all the transgressions which you have committed and get yourselves a new heart and a new spirit. For why should you die, O house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of the one who dies, says the Lord God. Therefore, turn and live. God's desire is not to punish us. God's desire is that we would turn from our sin, repent from our sin, and live. Here we have a God who's pleading with his covenant people Israel, repent. A merciful God wanting his people to live in covenant fellowship, in covenant obedience, to walk in his ways. For why should you die, O house of Israel? For have no pleasure in the death of one who dies, says the Lord God. Therefore, turn and do what? Turn and live. Justice and mercy. Listen to what we read in Psalm 103. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits, who forgives all your iniquities, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from destruction, who crowns you with loving kindness and tender mercy. That's comfort, isn't it? In verse 8, the Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in mercy. In the weeks to come, we hope to explore more of that mercy of the Lord as Jesus Christ is revealed as being that mediator from sin as the Catechism goes. But as we note in the Catechism, His mercy doesn't negate His justice. We can't play the one-off against the other. His justice demands, as says our catechism, His justice demands that sin committed against His Supreme Majesty be punished with the supreme penalty, eternal punishment of body and soul. God is merciful. But He's also just. And both of those attributes, His justice and His mercy, are very much a part of His character. And God must punish sin. As we noted, He does. Rightfully so. And if we think it's unfair, just remember how we were created in God's own image, in perfect righteousness and holiness. Just remember that to sin is to sin against the supreme God. Let's always remember that to sin is first and foremost this way, isn't it? Vertical. Let's remember that in the reality, our sin is nothing less than treason against God. Sin is no trivial matter, congregation. Sin is not something that we can just simply gloss over and say, oh well, God is merciful. God is a forgiving God. Let's not cheapen God's justice. Let's not cheapen the cross. Let's not deny the very character, the very essence of God. Why did he send his son? Why the three hours of darkness? It's all about our sin, isn't it? And as we will see in the weeks to come, Lord willing, in the section following entitled, Man's Deliverance, God indeed shows us in the cross both His justice and His mercy. They meet together in a most beautiful way. Amen.