We read from the Word of God this morning, Deuteronomy chapter 4, the chapter that comes immediately before the second giving of the law in chapter 5. And in this chapter, especially comes out the righteousness of God, that attribute or characteristic of God. So we'll read chapter 4 of Deuteronomy, a little bit past 35 as the bulletin indicates. So standing before the Jordan River, the Israelites are ready to enter the land of Canaan and Moses reminds them, this is God's word. Now therefore hearken, O Israel, unto the statutes and unto the judgments which I teach you, for to do them that ye may live, and go in and possess the land which the Lord God of your fathers giveth you. Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish from it, that ye may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you. Your eyes have seen what the Lord did because of Baal Peor, For all the men that followed Baal Peor, the Lord thy God hath destroyed them from among you. But ye that did cleave unto the Lord your God are alive, every one of you, this day. Behold, I have taught you statutes and judgments, even as the Lord my God commanded me, that you should do so in the land whether ye go to possess it. Keep, therefore, and do them. For this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the nations, which shall hear all these statutes and say, surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people. For what nation is there so great who hath God so nigh unto them, as the Lord our God is in all things that we call upon him for? And what nation is there so great that hath statutes and judgments so righteous as all this law which I set before you this day? Only take heed to thyself and keep thy soul diligently, lest thou forget the things which thine eyes have seen, and lest they depart from thy heart all the days of thy life, but teach them thy sons and thy sons' sons, especially the day that thou stoodest before the Lord thy God in Horeb, when the Lord said unto me, Gather me the people together, and I will make them hear my words, that they may learn to fear me all the days that they shall live upon the earth, and that they may teach their children And ye came near, and stood under the mountain, and the mountain burned with fire unto the midst of heaven, with darkness, clouds, and thick darkness. And the Lord spake unto you out of the midst of the fire. Ye heard the voice of the words, and saw no similitude, only ye heard a voice. And he declared unto you his covenant, which he commanded you to perform, even ten commandments, and he wrote them upon two tables of stone. And the Lord commanded me at that time to teach you statutes and judgments, that ye might do them in the land whether ye go over to possess it. Take ye therefore good heed to yourselves, for ye saw no manner of similitude on the day that the Lord spake unto you in horror about the midst of the fire, lest ye corrupt yourselves and make you a graven image. the similitude of any figure, the likeness of male or female, the likeness of any beast that is on earth, the likeness of any winged fowl that flyeth in the air, the likeness of anything that creepeth upon the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the waters beneath the earth, and lest thou lift up thine eyes unto heaven, and when thou seest the sun and the moon and the stars, even all the host of heaven, shouldest be driven to worship them and serve them, which the Lord thy God hath divided into all the nations under the whole heaven. But the Lord hath taken you and brought you forth out of the iron furnace, even out of Egypt, to be unto him a people of inheritance, as you are this day. Furthermore, the Lord was angry with me for your sakes and swear that I should not go over Jordan and that I should not go into that good land, which the Lord thy God giveth thee for an inheritance, but I must die in this land. I must not go over Jordan, but ye shall go over and possess that good land. Take heed unto yourselves. lest ye forget the covenant of the Lord your God, which he made with you, and make you graven image, or the likeness of anything which the Lord thy God hath forbidden thee." And then this verse, remember this verse, for the Lord thy God is a consuming fire, even a jealous God. When thou shalt beget children and children's children, and ye shall have remained long in the land and shall corrupt yourselves and make a graven image, or the likeness of anything, and shall do evil in the sight of the Lord thy God, to provoke him to anger, I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day that ye shall soon utterly perish from off the land whereunto ye go over Jordan to possess it. Ye shall not prolong your days upon it, but shall utterly be destroyed. And the Lord shall scatter you among the nations, and ye shall be left few in number among the heathen, whither the Lord shall lead you. And there ye shall serve God's, the work of men's hands, wood and stone, which neither see nor hear nor eat nor smell. But if from thence thou shalt seek the Lord thy God, thou shalt find him, if thou seek him with all thy heart and with all thy soul. When thou art in tribulation, and all these things are come upon thee, even in the latter days, if thou turn to the Lord thy God, and shalt be obedient to his voice, for the Lord thy God is a merciful God, he will not forsake thee, neither destroy thee, nor forget the covenant of thy fathers, which he swear unto them. For ask now of the days that are past, which were before thee, since the day that God created man upon the earth, and ask from the one side of heaven unto the other whether there hath been any such thing as this great thing is, or hath been heard like it." Did ever people hear the voice of God speaking out of the midst of the fire, as thou hast heard, and live? Or hath God assayed to go and take him a nation from the midst of another nation, by temptations, by signs, and by wonders, and by war, and by a mighty hand, and by a stretched out arm, and by great terrors, according to all that the Lord your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes? And to thee it was showed that thou mightest know that the Lord, He, is God. There is none else beside Him. Out of heaven He made thee to hear His voice, that He might instruct thee. And upon earth He showed thee His great fire, and thou heardest His words out of the midst of the fire. And because He loved thy fathers, Therefore he chose their seed after them and brought thee out in his sight with his mighty power out of Egypt to drive out nations from before thee greater and mightier than thou art to bring thee in to give thee their land for an inheritance as it is this day. Know therefore this day and consider it in thy heart that the Lord he is God in heaven above and And upon the earth beneath there is none else." That lengthy passage in Deuteronomy is part of the basis for the teaching of the Catechism in Lord's Day 5. In the back of this altar, you'll find the Heidelberg Catechism, Lord's Day 5 on page 586. Page 586. And question 12 of the catechism asks, since then, by the righteous judgment of God, we deserve temporal and eternal punishment. Is there no way by which we may escape that punishment? and be again received into favor?" Are you surprised at this answer that we seem to have heard already? God will have His justice satisfied, and therefore we must make this full satisfaction either by ourselves or by another. Question 13, can we ourselves then make this satisfaction? By no means. But on the contrary, we daily increase our debt. Can there be found anywhere one who is a mere creature able to satisfy us, for us? None. For first, God will not punish any other creature for the sin which man hath committed. And further, no mere creature can sustain the burden of God's eternal wrath against sin so as to deliver others from it. What sort of mediator and deliverer then must we seek for? For one who is very man and perfectly righteous and yet more powerful than all creatures, that is one who is also very God. We live in strange times, and I'm a part of that strangeness where we are very, very impatient to get to the point and have it done with quickly. We live in an age where no one has any patience anymore, it seems. We want fast food, we want instant coffee, we want faster computers, we want instant messaging. And that's the way it is broadly for the people in society, and that's the way it is for us, too. We're training ourselves, it seems, to be impatient. And therefore, we're training ourselves to be undisciplined. That is, to have the discipline of patient, careful studying of a topic of the Word of God so that it goes down deep in our souls. That's true not only in fast food and fast computers and fast messages, but it also has to do with our living the Christian life. How many of us read books anymore and have in the past generation called just for magazines, and then in those magazines for articles, and in those articles for short articles? And we don't want to read anything longer than a page or two that we can see in 10 or 15 minutes at the very most. And so we want short blogs and posts that we can read. That's the way it seems to go in the church of Christ, too, which then spills over into our practical lives in the church. If going to Bible study takes hard work, and I'm not willing to do that hard work, then I come to Bible study unprepared, or because I didn't do the hard work that I ought to have, I don't go to Bible study. Or if the simple life of prayer in the child of God is to be fervent and lengthy, where I get down on my knees, and as Martin Luther is said to have had, got callus on his knees because of his lengthy prayers, well, how often do we pray for more than a minute or two? And when it's longer than that, then we become impatient. And when we read a passage of the Word of God, I felt this myself. I'm not trying to criticize anybody in particular. Forty long verses of the Word of God. And I say all of that to illustrate what's happening in the Heidelberg Catechism now and the impatience that we might feel at this point in the Catechism. Can't we get on to deliverance? Why is it that there needs to be not only Lord's Day 2 and 3 and 4, but also 5 and 6 that talk about man's misery? Well, the answer is to remind ourselves that to understand the ways and works of God, we need to be patient. We need to be careful. We ought to be deliberate, and that's what we're doing at this point here. Let's learn patience. Let's allow the Word to penetrate deeply into our hearts and souls so that we learn the whole counsel of God, not only with regard to our redemption, That's the middle part of the catechism we're coming to, and not only the whole counsel of God with regard to the end of the catechism and gratitude, but the whole counsel of God with regard to man's misery and the need that he has for deliverance. Let's be patient. Two more Lord's Days. This morning, Lord's Day 5. God's way is a difficult way. That's the point we need to make. to start. God's way is a difficult way. From a certain point of view, it's a very easy way. Abandon all trust in yourself and lay hold of the Lord Jesus Christ. From that point of view, it's very, very simple and brief. But from another point of view, the call for you to abandon all hope in you and trust in another takes work. And that's what that work will involve this morning. In other words, no one appreciates the light who hasn't been in the dark. And the longer he's been in the dark, the more he appreciates the coming up of the sun out there as it came up early this morning. No one appreciates spring as those who understand winter And the longer the winter is, the more glad we are with regard to spring. And no one appreciates freedom as someone who's been captive. Let's work then patiently this morning and ask ourselves the question, why does the church need to preach God's righteousness? Well, in the first place, let's consider God, and we'll spend most of our time there. And then in the second place, consider ourselves and be very brief there. And then in the third place, consider Christ and be more expansive again at that point. Why must the church preach God's righteousness? First of all, because we have seen God and seen that God is a righteous God. And all of God's works flow out of God's character. That's a biblical principle that all of us understand, I think. A deer will do things that deer do. A man will do things that men do. A woman will do things that women do. And God will do things that God does. And in order to understand what a deer is going to do, you need to study that deer. And what men are going to do, study men. And what women are going to do, study women. Let's look at the character of God and see why the Word of God says, The Lord is righteous in all His ways and holy in all His works. The Lord is righteous in all His ways. and holy in all his works. What he does matches with who he is. Study who God is. So, the question of the catechism, since by the righteous judgment of God we deserve temporal and eternal punishment, is there a way to escape? and be again received into favor?" The answer that seems to be disappointing at first is not disappointing at all. It's reminding us, look again at who God is. Before you answer that question, whether you may escape and be received into God's favor, study who He is. And study then how God works. And when you understand who He is and how He works, you will come to the very same answer that the catechism comes to, and not quickly. before proceeding one inch with that question, answer this, who is God? He's righteous, and He always deals in righteousness. Just a short aside for a moment that this explains why creation is made and works the way it does. The righteous God made a creation, the heavens and the earth and men and everything in it. The righteous God made a creation that works and only works as it works in righteousness. It's just an aside, but it helps us understand what goes on in the world. The way of life, that is, that's not based on righteousness doesn't work. It doesn't work for men individually, and it doesn't work for nations. The way of life of an individual and of a nation that's not based on righteousness can't be happy. And though men attempt to be happy and want things to work in unrighteousness, in the end it doesn't. It all collapses, and it all collapses under the righteous judgments of God because the righteous God that made the world to work only in righteousness sees to it that when the world doesn't work in righteousness, it doesn't work. It isn't happy. It's going to collapse. Study history. Well, let's start with studying the history of the Bible and see that what we read this morning in Deuteronomy 4 is a testimony of that. This is who God is, this is how He told you to live, and this is what happened when you didn't. We'll look at Deuteronomy 4 in a moment in its detail, but study the history of Israel. And every time they lived in righteousness, it didn't work. They attempted to be happy in unrighteousness, following the gods of the nations, but they weren't. It all collapsed, and it kept collapsing. But they never seemed to learn. That's the point that we're making this morning. Study the history of nations. Study world history. Study Greece. Study Rome. And ask yourself, why is it that the civilization of Rome, so strong and flourishing, ultimately collapsed? And when you study that history, even from a secular point of view, you'll understand that behind the collapse of Rome is the judgment of the righteous God who said, you want to live successfully and happily? Then be righteous, because I'm righteous. We're making the point that everything God does is righteous, righteous. And that's why Jesus addressed God, O righteous Father. Remember, at the very end of His life, He's making that long prayer in front of His disciples. At one point in that prayer, He used that language, O righteous Father. And it's not surprising then that the passage we quoted from the Psalms says what it does, the Lord is righteous in all his ways and holy in all his works. Study the nature of God. If we understand that God is righteous, there are five things that we have to remember. As this works out practically, let's look at the book of Deuteronomy and the chapter that we read. If you have your Bible open, it will help you. If you don't, I will read the verses. Number one, the righteous God demands obedience. When He relates to men and women, He requires that those men and women obey His law. That's the whole point of Deuteronomy 4, isn't it? That's why it begins, hearken to the statutes and the judgments. Verse 1. Verse 2, in the middle, keep the commandments. Verse 6, keep therefore and do them. Verse 9, take heed to yourself. Don't forget the statutes and the judgments, what your eyes saw. And verse 9, teach them to your sons so that in the generations the sons and the daughters may understand my commandments and requires of you. The righteous God, number one, requires obedience. Obedience. Be holy, God says, as I am holy. And then go on and read verse 10 and verse 14. We won't take the time to read all through them, but the point is, statutes, judgments, obedience required of the people. Number two, the righteous God, when He calls people to obedience, says disobedience brings punishment. That's straightforward, we all understand that. God demands a payment for sins that are committed against Him. Children understand that. Payment for actual sins, what we do and what we don't do. Payment for original sins, our guilt and our pollution. The whole spectrum of sin and disobedience, God requires punishment for that. Now read Deuteronomy 4 again. Moses brings this up immediately in the chapter. Verse 3, your eyes have seen what the Lord did because of Baal Peor. For all the men that followed Baal Peor, remember Balaam and Balak and the Midianite women that came in and prostituted themselves to lure Israel astray? Remember what happened when they did that? God destroyed them from among you. Disobedience is going to be punished. Go down then to verse 21, the Lord was angry with me for your sakes. When you disobeyed, I disobeyed too in response to your disobedience, and God dealt with me and my disobedience. I can't even go into the land of Canaan with you. This is because God is a righteous God. And then come to verse 24, the one I called your attention to when we read the chapter The Lord thy God is a consuming fire, even a jealous God. This is how God acts because this is the kind of God He is. He's a consuming fire. 26, I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day that you shall soon utterly perish from off the land or until you go over to Jordan to possess it. You will not prolong your days. 27, the Lord will scatter you among the nations. This is the consequence of disobedience. Punishment. A righteous God requires of men, one, obedience. Two, you will be punished if you are not obedient. And number three, the righteous God requires full satisfaction. Now I remind you of the language of the catechism. In 12, the question. Can we escape the answer, God will have His justice satisfied, therefore we must make this full satisfaction either by ourselves or by another. The Fathers put that word full in there for a reason, because we always think that we can escape with partial payment, not full payment. The Catechism reminds us that the Word of God, and we'll come to this in a moment, requires full satisfaction for all of our sins, we can't escape paying for even the littlest of them. And I think we establish that point or understand that point when we simply understand the enormity of sin, the magnitude of sin. There are certain sins that make you sit down and ponder. The magnitude of them, the enormity of them, The severity of them, the consequences of them. There are other sins that don't. We would call little sins serious, but not the kind of sins that are in their nature. So troubling that you say to yourself, there's hardly a sin like it. And if that's true on the earthly level among men and between men and women, that the magnitude of that sin or those sins and the consequences of them are so great you can't even fathom it, then think in our relationship to God. the magnitude of sin of men who know better, and women who know better, and young people who know better, and in the face of knowing better, they do it anyway. My wife and I are reading through the history of the kings in the book of Chronicles now for a family worship, and it's just stunning to see one king after another in the face of God's judgment for sin go right back to that sin. And then we remind ourselves, as you and I need to be reminded too, that's our nature. We know better. Full satisfaction needs to be made. And just to illustrate that for a moment, we need, on this earthly level, to remind ourselves of that and train our children to understand that. If our children borrow $1,000 to buy something, and they have a hard time paying that $1,000 back, we are so tempted, if we are able to relieve them of that debt, just to say, it's okay, you don't need to pay. Now maybe a parent needs to do that, but the better lesson for that parent and his relationship with that child is to say, we're going to be patient with you, but you promised to pay back $1,000, and even if it takes you longer, you're going to pay back that $1,000, and here's why. Here's why. We will live in this relationship in righteousness. Mercy, yes, but in righteousness, because God, in his relationship to us, is a righteous God. And when we sin, that sin will not be paid for halfway. It will be paid for in full, either by you, my son, or by another, not half paid. The righteousness of God requires obedience, punishment for disobedience, full punishment for disobedience. And number four, that man must pay. That's in the Catechism too. We'll deal with that again later a little bit, but the point is that God will not punish, the Catechism says, any other creature for the sins which man has committed. That's justice. That's righteousness. The character of God determines how He's going to work, and that righteous God will not punish someone else for the sin you as a man committed. Man sinned. mad pay, man pays. And then number five, God's justice demands that a man who's perfectly righteous make payment for sin. Question 15, in answer, what sort of mediator and deliverer then must we seek for? For one who is very man and perfectly righteous. Can you pay off a debt that's infinite, while you're still accumulating debt by your current sins of commission and omission, and just the suggestion of it is foolishness. That's the point. A sinful man cannot pay this debt. We need someone who's perfectly righteous. That just makes sense, doesn't it? Even apart from looking at Deuteronomy 4, that just makes sense. If you know even the least bit about God, that, you say, just makes sense. In the first place, because God is a God of truth. He's not going to deny Himself. He says, the day you eat, you'll die. And He's not going to say, the day you eat, you won't die. I take back what I said. He's going to make man die. He's going to punish. The holiness of God requires it. He's a holy God. He's pure. He's not going to put up with sin and just wink at it. The authority of God demands it. The welfare of God's people demands it. But we're not interested in what just makes sense. We're interested in what the Bible teaches. So, in addition to what we've seen from Deuteronomy 4, let's look a little bit at the rest of the Scripture to see that. Ersinus and Olivianus, who were the human authors of the Heidelberg Catechism, they were the writers of it. It was approved by the rest of the church. Ersinus and Olivianus were not thinking scholastic theology and what makes sense when they wrote the first part of the Heidelberg Catechism here and belabored the point, as some might think. They were looking squarely at the Bible, Deuteronomy 4 for one, but other passages too, the whole rest of the Old Testament Scripture. How about Isaiah 1, the very first chapter of the book that covers the whole of the gospel? God says about the way He works, and especially the way He saves His people, Zion shall be redeemed with judgment. and her converts with righteousness. That is, the poor people of God in captivity. We're going to hear a message of the gospel from the prophet Isaiah. Number one message you need to hear is how your redemption is accomplished is by judgment and righteousness. And what the Old Testament teaches, the whole of the New Testament repeats, and that might be surprising. You might be tempted to say what that old heretical cult in the early New Dispensations said. that we like the New Testament, but we don't like the Old Testament. The Old Testament, God revealed Himself as a God of justice and judgment and as a consuming fire, but that's not the God of the New Testament. The God of the New Testament is the God of love in Jesus Christ, and so they rejected, these Marcionites did, the Old Testament. They adopted the New Testament, and then they began reading the New Testament, and read like the book of Jude that we read last week and said, well, we're going to excise that from the New Testament. And many other passages of the New Testament they took out because they didn't want anything to do with the righteousness and justice and judgment of God. Well, there it is, right in the New Testament. And what's most significant is that that verse 24 of Deuteronomy 4, The Lord thy God is a consuming fire is repeated in the book of Hebrews. The apostle, after he wrote chapter 11 in the Heroes of Faith, writes chapter 12 and reminds the church of how God worked in the past is how God is going to work now. And he brings that chapter to a conclusion. Verse 29 of chapter 12, because our God is a consuming fire. Hebrews, New Testament, it doesn't say our God used to be a consuming fire, but that our God is a consuming fire. And so you're not surprised to read what you do in Romans 1 verse 17. I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ because in it is revealed the righteousness of God. You want to know good news? Learn God is a righteous God. This is what he requires. Obedience, punishment, full satisfaction by a man who sinned and a perfect man. So let's be foolish and propose that we take volunteers this morning to be that man. We've considered God, now let's consider us. Or if you're not willing to volunteer, look out in the congregation and ask yourself if you know of any man or woman who would be willing to volunteer, and not only willing, but able to do what God requires be done. Do we have any volunteers? Can you pay for one sin that you committed? Can you pay for all of the sins that you've committed? Just you. And if you think that you can, now take the sins of all of the others on you and ask if you can pay the righteous judgment of God. God is a consuming fire, remember. His wrath comes down upon the children of disobedience and destroys them for their sin. Ask yourself the question whether you want to volunteer to pay. Perfect obedience? Never sin anymore in your life so that you can catch up and get ahead. You never sin anymore, you're gonna volunteer. Spotless perfection, absolute love, never a hint in your mind or out of your mouth of dissatisfaction with God's ways, but perfect compliance with all of God's will, the heart of which is love him with all your being and love your neighbor as yourself. You're gonna volunteer to do that. You can't make that satisfaction yourselves. And as I said, you can't stop sinning. You're going to continue sinning and accumulating debt. But then remember what Jesus said in the parable in Luke 17, that after He had done perfectly all his lifetime what the master required. He says, we're unprofitable servants. We've simply done what it was our duty to do. We've not gained anything or earned anything. And then, if you're going to volunteer for this, are you able to live forever? Forever? And never be exterminated from existence? Because that's the justice and judgment of God that's required of you. To endure His punishment and penalty for sin forever. Look at Him. He's an infinitely great God and the sins committed against the infinite majesty of God require infinite payment And all of us put our hands down because when we consider ourselves, we cannot pay. Is it surprising that men and women have always considered some superhuman hero as the one who's going to come to their rescue? Study ancient mythology of the Greeks especially. and then understand why they proposed a creature like Hercules or Achilles or Perseus or Odysseus. Read Greek mythology for that reason. Because everyone, even in those ancient days, looked among the children of men, the normal children of men, and they couldn't find any among the children of men who were able to rescue them from the disaster that they were in, so they proposed a mythical creature. a Hercules, an Achilles. But it's no different today. You have a Superman, you have a Batman, you have a Spider-Man, or whatever other superheroes there may be. Why is that so appealing to people? Because they understand that men, normal men, which we all are, just can't do what we need to have done. So they propose some extraordinary creature. And all of this, people of God, is not to discourage you, except to discourage you from trusting in yourself. This is not to dishearten you unless you think that you can propose a way to escape on your own, by your works, by your righteousness, by your worth. If that's what you're thinking, then I discourage you. Then I must dishearten you and direct your attention where God wants us to look. So we've considered God, we've considered very briefly ourselves because we did that in the preceding Lord's days, and now consider Christ. Consider Jesus Christ. And remember that He was prophesied already in the Old Testament, dimly. But don't forget what Moses said in chapter that we read in verse 29. If you seek the Lord your God, you will find Him. If you seek Him with all your heart and with all your soul, He's a God of mercy. 31, the Lord thy God is a merciful God. He will not forsake thee, neither destroy thee, nor forget the covenant of thy fathers. And then reread verses 35 through 39. Know this day that there's no God like our God. What nation has a God like our God? What people is a people like us so privileged to be able to see him and not perish as we embrace him by faith? The Old Testament already promised hope by pointing us to Christ. Come back to Ursinus and Olivianus for a moment and ask yourselves, what were they looking at when they wrote the first part of the Heidelberg Catechism? What passage or passages of Scripture were they studying when they wrote very carefully, Lord's Day 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6? Look in the margin of the Heidelberg Catechism and you can see all kinds of specific passages, but it wasn't any one specific passage that motivated them to write what they did about God's righteousness. It was that they had considered the Lord Jesus Christ They had fixed their eyes on Him. They had seen Him with the eyes of faith hanging there, utterly forsaken of God. And they had seen Him going there all His life, and especially the last three and a half years of His life in His public ministry, suffering, unbelievable suffering, unjust suffering. They were looking at the Lord Jesus Christ, and they asked themselves, why? Why that? And they understood why that, because the whole of the scripture says, God hath set him forth to be a propitiation for all of our sins, to reveal to us and manifest to us the righteousness of God. Our God is a consuming fire. Do you see that? Christ! Christ! They were looking fixedly at Christ, and they couldn't take their eyes off Christ, and they asked, why that? Why that? And Ersinus and Olivianus and all of our church fathers had it right when they saw the answer to that question, why that? And the right answer to that question, why that is, substitutionary atonement, propitiation, payment for sin. That's what you deserve. God didn't give it to you, He gave it to Him. And it's that answer, the right answer that many have seen and heard and reject and therefore ask themselves the question, why that? and answer it differently. They see Christ on the cross. They understand His life of obedience and suffering. And they explain it not as propitiation and atonement and payment to satisfy a righteous God, but simply an example. He suffered unjustly. We should, too. He was silent when He was persecuted. We should be, too. He was willing to endure all kinds of hardships and be nice, and we should, too. And what they make of the sacrifice and cross of Christ is simply a moral example for people to follow, if following it, you might be saved by your following the example of Christ. And all of us understand who've read the Bible, that's not the answer to the question, why that? Why Christ on the cross? And you who understand the right answer to that question, reach out with the hand and mouth of your soul. As we did recently in the Lord's Supper, we do every Sunday, reach out with the hand and mouth of our soul and hang on for dear life to the Lord Jesus Christ. Consider Christ as the satisfaction of the righteousness of God. And when you go to bed at night and you're plagued with guilt because you've sinned and you knew better? Or you're plagued with guilt because though you didn't admit your sin in the past, now the consequences of that sin are coming clear to you and you see a very clear connection between that sin and what you're experiencing now as a connection that God made and is dawning on you that this is trouble When you're plagued because of the sins you've committed to hurt your family, your brother, your sister, your parents, your neighbor in the church, when you're plagued with guilt because you're simply weak because you've been lazy so much of your life, then consider Christ. Not to justify any of those sins, but to justify you with His righteousness. Hang on to Him for dear life and find in Him the full payment for all of those sins. And though you may suffer the consequences of those sins yet, there is full satisfaction made for you completely and fully and finally. You don't have to pay. Consider Christ. And when it's not the guilt of sin that plagues you as much as it is the power of sin that troubles you, And the power of sin has got you by the throat and is throttling you and is controlling you, and you say, I have no way of escaping the power of this sin. And consider Christ and find in Him as you reach out to Him. with the hand and mouth of your soul and hang on to Him and receive from Him the life and the strength that you need so that you can say with regard to this too, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. You understand why the catechism is patient? Why we need to be deliberate and careful and plod here because no one appreciates the light as much as those who've been in the dark. And no one loves the spring like those who've been in the winter, and no one relishes freedom as those who've been captive. Understand your dark nature, and your cold nature, and your captive nature, and then say, I love Christ. and I love Him like I've never loved Him before. And that's what's going to motivate you to obey and to love your neighbor who doesn't deserve to be loved, because God loved me. Amen. Let's pray. Our Father which art in heaven, we thank Thee for Jesus, for Thy mercy to us in Him, for Thy faithfulness to all of Thy promises, to us and to thy church. Father, forgive us, humble us. May we abhor ourselves in dust and ashes, because we know that those who humble themselves shall be exalted, and those who exalt themselves shall be abased. So give us a good day today. dispel our guilt and strengthen us that we may fight against sin and have the victory so that it does not have dominion over us. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.