As we continue in the Heidelberg Catechism in terms of the Second Lord's Day, I hope you got a handout. And I've ordered some commentaries on the catechism which should be here hopefully next week to be put out on the table if you wanted to study along or read along. There was a new one I found that actually broke it down into daily readings. I don't know how good it is, I haven't seen it, but I ordered some and see how that goes. But the catechism started last week with saying what our great comfort is in life and death and what we must know in order to live and die in that comfort. And the first was how great our sin and misery is. Second Lord's Day, our third question, ask the question, whence knowest thou thy misery? Where do you come to know your misery? And that is out of the law of God. It is the law of God that shows us our sin. We've seen that in multiple places in scripture. You'll remember that in Romans chapter three, Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law so that every mouth will be closed and all the world may become accountable to God because by the works of the law no flesh will be justified in his sight for through the law comes the knowledge of sin. Paul will speak similarly in the seventh chapter of Romans where it was through the law that he came to know his own sin And he says, therefore, my brethren, you also are made to die to the law through the body of Christ so that you might be joined to another. For while we were in the flesh, the sinful passions were aroused by the law and were at work in the members of our body to bear the fruit of death. But now that we've been released from the law and having died to it, that which we're bound so that we serve in newness of life. What shall we say then? Is the law sin? May it never be. On the contrary, I would not have come to know sin except through the law, for I would not have known about coveting if the law had not said, you shall not covet. But sin, taking opportunity through the commandment, produced coveting of every kind. And even as we just sang in Psalm 19, We're reminded that the precepts of the law are right, and rejoicing the heart. The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes, and the fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever. The judgments of the Lord are true, and they're righteous altogether. But then it raises the statement in verse, this question in verse 12, who can discern his errors? Acquit me of hidden faults. You know, the previous verse, moreover, by your laws and by your judgments, your servant is warned. Sin, we know from the New Testament, blinds us. Sin hardens us. Sin causes us not to believe. It entangles us. And left to yourself, We are, in fact, ignorant of our sin and misery. And I often quote, and I meant to photocopy it and bring it to read it directly, but I've quoted often from Calvin's opening section of his Institutes, where it says, you know, part of our problem is that we're too easily satisfied with our own righteousness, our own strength, and our own wisdom. And we take our righteousness and think it's so good that, you know, we don't need the righteousness of God. And we don't understand that our righteousness is filthy rags, even as the Old Testament prophet says that, even your righteous deeds are as filthy rags. We are more like those that Paul talks about in Romans, in chapter 10, in terms of the Jews seeking to establish their own righteousness have rejected the righteousness of Christ. That's our default. But what's interesting is we're ignorant of it. Even those of us who take seriously the sin that so easily entangles us, we need to be constantly reminded. That's why part of Reformed worship is constantly and consistently preaching both law and gospel. Because even in our new life in Christ, we tend to be ignorant of our own sin. And that's why we need each other, to help each other. But the first place we turn to to understand our sinfulness is, in fact, the law. As we read from 1 John 3 this morning in verse 5, that all sin is lawlessness. And it's very important for us to understand that the connection, as I've highlighted many times, and don't tire of it, As our catechism says, what is sin? Sin is any lack of conformity to or transgression of the law of God. And we need that simple catechism question and answer. That'd be a good one to have memorized, both for your own personal life, for evangelism, for parenting. It's the law that shows us what sin is. And it's the law that is the mirror that shows us, as one expositor said one time, shows us the back of our head. You know, I know the crown of my head is getting balder all the time, but I never see it. When I stand in the mirror and brush my hair, I still have a full head of hair. Well, maybe not the forehead so much, but you know, but where I do some of the family shopping, they have a, The self-checkout, they have some monitor above you, and you can see them looking at you. There's little cameras above you that monitor there, and I look at that, and I can see that crown of my head. I go, that hole's getting bigger. But I needed something to help me see that. And that's what the law does. It shows us the things. Like in Psalm 19, how can a man know his way? He can't. The law shows us. And so that's why the law needs to be constantly read, memorized, studied. And as I've said in other occasions, I'm always impressed in Psalm 119, especially how often the psalmist says, teach me your law. Give me insight into your commandments. Help me understand this. I mean, teach me the law. It's like, it's not that hard. It's 10 words. Well, he must mean something more than just being able to repeat it. Do I understand what these commandments? And as I've said again, on other occasions, like any other verse or passage in the Bible, the law, you never get to the bottom of it. What verse do you know so well that there's nothing more in that verse for you to learn? what part of the law of God you know so well that there's nothing left for God to teach you. And if you think that you have nothing more to learn from the law, it only shows that you have yet to begin to know the law. And as Paul says, it's through the law that comes the knowledge of sin. But here in Matthew 22, when Jesus is asked, what's the great, or the old King James, it says, what is the greatest commandment? It's to love God with all of your heart, mind, soul, and strength. We'll look more about that in question four, but there it is. There's the essence of sin, is any time I am not found to be fully loving God with all of my mind, all of my heart, and all of my strength, all of my soul. And as I've said again, and I repeat myself and will continue as often as I'm permitted to, if the first and greatest of all the commandments is to love God with all of your heart, soul, and mind, what is the first and greatest sin? Not to love God with all of your heart, mind, and soul. And that itself should be something should shock you or me enough to spend time pondering that. Do you understand the greatness of your sin? If you do not love God with all that you are, then you are the greatest of all possible sinners. And it doesn't matter to the person to the left, oh, they don't love God as much as I do. That's irrelevant. The issue is, do you love God with all of your heart and soul and mind. And if you don't, and none of you do, including myself, just to be clear, then you and I are the greatest of all possible sinners. But what's interesting about the second Lord's Day in question three is it doesn't say that you might know your sin. It says it might know your misery. Did you pick up on that? It's one thing to even know that I'm sinful. And, you know, we have that saying, you know, to err is human, right? And we can be comfortable with our sin at one level. But the real question, and how will I live and die in the comfort of this salvation? The answer, the Lord's day one, question two was to know something about the greatness of my misery. Now, what does he mean by misery? And Ersinus, the editor of the catechism says, the term misery is more comprehensive in its signification than that of sin, for it embraces both the evil of guilt and punishment, embraces the evil both of guilt and punishment. The evil guilt is all sin. The evil of punishment is the affliction, torment, and destruction of our rational nature, as well as all subsequent sins, also by which those are punished that go before and are numbered among the children of Israel, for instance. The misery that we have, that the law wants us to understand, is not just here, I've sinned here, or I don't love God with all my heart, mind, and soul. It's okay, it wants us to know that for sure, but to understand that not only the evilness of that and the guiltiness of that, but the punishment that that must require, and the afflictions that come, the torment that comes, both in this life and in the age to come. Paul will remind us again in Romans 1.18 that the wrath of God is being revealed, not will, is. The afflictions that come upon sinful man in this life and this age, the torments and the destruction of our rational nature is part of the penalty of our sin and is in fact miserable. Think about what's going on in California right now on those fires. Without politicizing it or whatever, just think about it for a moment. At one level, the people who've lost everything, and some even their very lives, but to the thousands of people who've lost everything, that is a great affliction and a torment. But it's easy for us to simply say, well, maybe the governor, maybe the mayor, maybe this person, that person didn't do their job. And that would be true, probably. But why this storm? Why now? Why my neighborhood? And you see some of the houses, when you're looking at the news, you see house burned, house burned, house burned, house burned, house not burned. House burned, house burned, house burned. Why not the one? And we have no answers for that other than in God and his mercy or grace has chosen for that one not to be burned. That's all we can say. We can say, well, the wind came and shifted just in time and then for the sparks to fly over that house and get, we can give all our scientific explanation, but the sin, And the punishment which produces an affliction and a torment and destruction of our rational nature is part of the ongoing punishment of sin in this life. Think of the number of Americans who are on some type of medication for emotional and mental health right now. Why? We're more doped up with medicines to help our mental health and emotional health than probably any other society. in the history of the world? Was it simply because we live at a time and a place in which these medicines, if they in fact be medicines, are available? And please do not hear me say there's no place for them. But part of the misery that we have is that apart from Christ, the guilt and punishment of our sin is not only this affliction and torment, but the very destruction of our rational being. Again, not to be political, but consider the news we are hearing in Washington as this transition from one administration to another. And if you listen to the news often, you'll hear all these things that the present administration is doing in order to make it more difficult for the coming administration. The same administration that said, we believe in the peaceful transfer of power is actively trying to contribute to the destruction of the peaceful transfer of power. And they think it's okay. Well, what is that? What kind of mind can say that and do that? Let's make it more personal. A man wants to leave his wife. Where did his mind get so confused to think that I'm going to find happiness by doing something that the Bible says God hates? And so part of knowing our sin is not to say, yes, I'm a liar, yes, I'm an adulterer, yes, I'm a thief, yes, I'm a gossip, yes, I'm a Sabbath breaker, yes, I'm this, that, or the other. But as the catechism says, to know my misery. The fact of my fallenness and my sinfulness, I'm aware of just how afflicted my mind and my heart and my soul and my very life is as a result of not loving God with all of my heart, mind, soul, and strength, and my neighbor as myself. Now on the one hand, I'm very thankful that God gives us a taste of those things. That's how we come to saving faith. I'm also very thankful that he doesn't give us the full picture. He gives us a sample. And in his appointed time, he'll show us a little bit more, and he allows you to experience a little bit more. And sometimes he'll let you experience enough more that you start to wonder, was I ever a believer at all? Oh, no, you were a believer, but now you're seeing something more of the depth of your sin. Again, Ursinus writes, the misery of man, therefore, is his wretched condition since the fall, consisting of these two great evils. First, that the human nature is depraved, sinful, and alienated from God. And secondly, that on account of this depravity, Mankind is exposed to eternal condemnation and deserves to be rejected of God. And the person who's come to understand something of his depravity and something of his alienation from God and something in terms of his deserts for that is to be rejected of God altogether. That person is, in fact, going to be very miserable. But it's from the law that we learn these things. In modern evangelism, we have persuaded ourselves never to let people feel that way. After all, God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. Well, that might be true if you understand that to be that his wonderful plan is first for you to taste something of your misery so that you'll call out for a savior. There was a book that came out when I was in seminary that was entitled something about the New Reformation. And the pastor at the Crystal Cathedral argued in that book, the worst thing that you could ever do for a person is tell them that they are a sinner. You might hurt their self-esteem. Robert Shuler couldn't have been more wrong on that point. Now the law tells us also in Deuteronomy 27, 26, that Paul will quote in Galatians chapter three, verse 13, where he is defending the doctrine of justification by grace through faith. Cursed is he that does not confirm the words of the law to do them. Cursed is he who does not confirm the law. How is he confirming the law? In the doing of them. Not in the agreeing with it, but in the doing of it. Oh yes, I agree that murder is wrong. Oh yes, I agree that lying is wrong. Great. That's not what the law nor Paul has in mind. But the fact that I do not honor my father and mother. All right? Not to honor my father and mother is to be cursed. To take the life and the name and reputation of another person is to be cursed. To take from someone else that which belongs to them is to be cursed. Cursed be he that does not confirm the words of the law to do them." And again, as James says, to keep the whole law and be guilty at one point of the law is to be guilty of the whole law. So even if it's just, I don't honor my father and mother, I don't murder, I'm not sexually active, I'm not stealing, I'm not, you know, bearing false witness, I'm not coveting, I'm quite content, but I don't honor my father and mother. I'm guilty of the whole law, all the other commands. So the second question of the Lord's Day, question four, what does the law require of us? And Christ teaches us, the catechism says Christ teaches us briefly in Matthew 22, 37 and 40, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind and with all your strength. This is the first and great commandment. And the second, like this, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commands hang the whole law and the prophets. In other words, if you want to summarize Genesis through Malachi, what does the law and the prophets have to say? Can you summarize it? With AI now, you know, you can say, you can use these AI apps, and you can say, summarize for me the novel War and Peace, all right? So a big, thick novel, and then you can get a nice little summary statement of what that book is about, all right? Well, Jesus is the original AI guy. He could tell you, he could flawlessly and perfectly the summary of Genesis 1-1 to the end of Malachi, summing up Moses and the prophets, love God with all of your heart, mind, and soul, and love your neighbor as yourself. Boom, there's the law, there's the prophets. It's not to say that the law and prophets don't say more, but there is the Holy Spirit given, authoritatively given, statement by Christ, this is the ultimate intent of the law and the prophets. Love God, love your neighbor. And curse it as anyone who doesn't. And the one who doesn't should feel a sense of misery and affliction that comes with such evil. We are to love God with all of our heart, with all that we are, to love him for his infinite goodness, to esteem him, to prize him, for him to be the greatest of all of our possessions, the greatest of all of our loyalties lie with him. The thought of even displeasing him a little is so disturbing. We would shun the idea and the actions that would go with it. That the inclinations and desires of my heart are only to be pleasing to him all of the time and all that I say and do. And not to love God that way is not only the substance or essence of sin, it's what brings forth the curse. To love him with all of our soul means that the part of our being which wills together with the exercise of the will, as he would say, shall love with the whole will and purpose. To love with the mind, Ursinus says, the mind signifies the understanding or that which perceives, as if he would say, as much as you know of God, so you shall love him. and with all thy strength, that embraces all the actions and exercises at the same time, both external and internal, they may be in accordance with the law of God. Now, let me say that this is, as God the Holy Spirit works in us through the reading of the law and opening our minds and our hearts to taste something, to become aware of something, of how we fall short in these is good news. You say, well, how is that good news for me to feel something of my misery? If the law, I had a friend one time say, I don't really like reading the Bible. Well, why don't you like reading the Bible? Because all I ever do when I read the Bible is I see how far short I come. I'm going, do you realize how close you are? When God is showing us, when God is preparing us, when God is leading us to Christ, one of the things he will do is show you your sin. Now, you can be shown your sin and stay in your sin. You can suppress that witness of God about your sin. You can rationalize it away. or you can acknowledge it. Yes, that's what I am. And that's the first step on the journey of coming to saving grace. Now we have to be careful. Not everybody will feel that, sense that, experience that in the same way. But we need to understand it. Why? Because somebody could be convicted of their sin and they just conclude, well, I could never be a good Christian because I can never get past this stuff. Rather than drawing the conclusion, because I have this awareness of my sinfulness, that that's exactly why I need a savior, and that savior is Jesus. Some people will take this hardening, not my hardening, being convicted of my sin as evidence of why I should never be a Christian, because obviously I could never be good enough. Well, yes, you never being good enough, but that's exactly why you need to be a Christian. That's exactly why you need to put your faith in Christ. And so what God is doing in showing you not only your sin and your misery is to prepare your mind and heart to turn to Christ. As I've said to you on other occasions, if there was ever a greater advocate for the doctrine or a gospel of grace alone, Christ alone, faith alone, it was Martin Luther. But from the time that Luther was beginning to be awakened to his sinfulness, to the time when he embraces what we might now call the evangelical gospel, was about 10 years. And during those 10 years, as I told you on other occasions, he has such emotional turmoil over that, or misery, It actually will permanently damage his digestive system so much so that it was hard for him to use the bathroom. And in the letters he will write to his wife and he's off doing his great works. He will celebrate when he was able to pass certain things because it was such great news for him. Why? Because there had been so much damage physiological damage because of the sense of guilt and weightiness. But that's why the gospel became so precious to him. Now again I want to add, not all of us, don't ever go down the path going, Martin Luther's the standard, I've never had that problem, I've never been so convicted in my sin, it's caused me great turmoil in my digestive tract, I must not really have been convicted of sin. I am not saying that, please do not hear that, Do not make me come out of this pulpit and slap you for thinking such a thing. Of course, I wouldn't do that, but you know what I'm saying. I hope. Anyway, we're all going to experience that conviction and sense of misery very differently at different levels. And it is only God who will decide what you need at any given moment. All right? I am not, let me put it this way. There is no vacancy in the Trinity for you or I to play the role of the Holy Spirit to convict other people for their sin. Right? Don't play the Holy Spirit. Just teach the law. Show them the law and let the Spirit convict people in the time and to the depth that is in His sovereign authority is what they need. And for some, it will be great tears. And for some, it will not. For some, their sense of conviction will be so great that they'll be like Martin Luther again, who says, love God, sometimes I hate God. Because he saw the standard of God's righteousness so huge that after four hours of confessing sin to his confessor, he still felt sinful. And for others, it will not be anything like that. But what is universally true is that part of embracing the grace of the gospel is some type of awareness of my sin and my misery. And that comes from knowing the law of God. Not the law of man, not the traditions of man, but the law of God, rightly understood. And so as we come to understand the law, it causes us all the more to seek the gospel. Then the fifth question, or the third for the Lord's Day, Can you keep these things perfectly? This is one of those answers I just love in the Heidelberg Catechism. There's several answers that I just, to me personally, I just kind of go, they nailed it, and I wish I could speak like this. Can you keep all these things perfectly? In no wise, or no. See, I want to give a long answer. They just said, nope. And notice its description of our sinfulness. Now again, remember this is part, he's discussing these things in terms of our being fallen apart from Christ. I cannot keep these things perfectly. Why? For I am prone by nature to hate God and my neighbor. You say, well, how do I hate God? Well, it starts by not loving him and not embracing his word. To love God with all my mind and heart and soul, as we talked about earlier, is to so love him in a way as to give all of ourselves to him. And you and I just don't. we'll give ourselves to other things, and those other things we'll give ourselves to in themselves may be fine things. A hobby, a talent, a job, a family, a spouse, a child, all things that we ought to at some level give ourselves to, the second of the greatest commandments proves it, love your neighbor as yourself. These things are not in themselves wrong, It's when we supplant the love of God with these things. The misery that it shows us is what Paul will say, for example, in Ephesians 2, that we are not only spiritually dead, how does he put it in Ephesians 2, that we are spiritually dead, and for you are dead in your trespasses and sins, Ephesians 2, verse one, in which you formally walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Verse three is the verse I want us to focus on. Among them, we too all formally lived in the lust of the flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. Paul put it this way in Titus. In Titus chapter 3, he says, verse 3, for we also once were foolish ourselves, disobedient, deceived, enslaved to various loves and pleasures, spending our life in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another. But when the kindness of God our Savior and his love for mankind appeared, he saved us, not on the basis of deeds, somehow I have improved myself enough, which we have done in righteousness, but according to his mercy, by the washing of regeneration, renewing of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace, we have been made heirs according to the hope of eternal life. But notice his description of us prior to saving faith that we were foolish, disobedient, deceived, enslaved, and spending our life in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another. And that comes out of our nature. That's part of that misery. Again, as we said last week, I am not sinful because I've sinned. I sin because I have a sinful or depraved nature and a nature that deserves to be separated from God and judged eternally. The first motions of the salvation is the spirit of God giving you some type of personal awareness and knowledge of just how sinful and corrupt you are. and the reality of the consequences of that, both in your nature and the actions that flow from that, so that you will be led to a point of enough despair to say, Lord, have mercy on me, for I am sinful. And look to the throne of Christ. Look to the cross of Christ. Look to the person of Christ. to find a wonderful Savior. But the catechism isn't there yet. The catechism is going to get there, but right now it's focused on this sense of our sinfulness. And so as we work through the catechism, as you work through your own scripture reading, as you work through your own Christian journey, do not forget to spend time thinking about reading studying, pondering, praying over the law. Let the law have its effect in you. Let the law show you, as it says in Psalm 19, those parts of you that you cannot know. The law knows them, God knows them. Allow the law to exercise you. Allow the law to show you the back of your head, the parts of you that you cannot see, the law will show you. And then embrace that for what it is. knowing that that's exactly why God sent Jesus into the world, to save a sinner like you, like me. But the first motions of salvation are always, will always include some type of awareness of our sin and our misery that will provoke us to the next motion to be asking the question, how am I delivered from all this sin and misery? And that's when it's ready to go. That's when the gospel will be truly a gospel of grace and joy and happiness. That's when the gospel will bring great relief. Let us pray. we'd ask that you would give us an awareness of the greatness of our sin and misery, not just so that we might be miserable people, but that we might all the more become persuaded of our, and deeply persuaded of our need for Christ. And the more deeply we feel the greatness of our sin and misery, the more wonderful Christ will come, become to us. Because no matter how much sin we have, the grace of Christ abounds much more. No matter how deeply we become aware of our sin and misery, Jesus is more. And the more we are aware, the more we will see the greatness of Christ. The more that we sense something of our sin and misery, the more we will sense the greatness of the grace of Christ to save a sinner such as us. Help us, teach us, awaken us, and grant us the grace to look into the very soul of the law, so to speak, that we might all the more look very heartily to the very soul and the heart of the cross of Jesus Christ, in whom we pray, amen.