So tonight we are talking about the question, is there an answer? And here we are going to review for a second what we've been trying to do. This is on page 22. What we have been trying to do is talk about ultimate questions. Life is full of questions. There are lots of questions we have about our health, raising our family, what to do in our retirement years. All these questions are valuable to find answers to. But this book is about the ultimate questions. And there's lots of things you could talk about when you're talking with another person. You could tell them what they should believe or not believe about homosexuality or abortion or so many other good things you could talk about. But we should never leave the conversation just there. We need to make sure we get to the ultimate questions. Because there's lots of people who agree with us that it's a murder to abort a baby. Muslims agree with us. Orthodox Jews agree with us. Mormons agree with us, and I could go on for a while, okay? But we haven't really solved the ultimate question that those people need to deal with, which is their relationship with God, and is that relationship reconciled through Jesus Christ or not? And is our relationship with God reconciled through Christ or not? So we need to get to those questions, and tonight we're definitely, Lord willing, going to get to the heart of the matter. So we start on page 22, I want this to be a discussion, as we've always tried to have, so I have some things I want to draw out. I'm not going to read all this with you, but if you have questions along the way, by all means, freely participate. The second paragraph, well, first it says, yes, there is an answer. God has provided this answer. See, there's an answer to this problem that we have, the sin that we have. The answer is not found in us. It must be provided by God. I think we know that, but it's worth saying it again. The answer is provided by God. You and I are sinners. We are rebels. God is perfect. God is holy. God is just. How can we possibly expect to stand in His presence? What's the answer to that? This is the question that it's trying to resolve. Remember we talked about hell, does it exist or not? Can your good works and religious activity help? We said no. And now this time we pick up and say, well, is there an answer? What is the answer? What would you say? The problem of our sin and God's perfection. I imagine we all want to live forever with God, the comfort we look forward to. How do we expect that to happen if we're sinners? Through Christ. Through Christ. Exactly. Now what does that mean? We'll look at that in a little bit more detail tonight. But yeah, that's the answer. It's through Christ. You see, we need to appreciate how big a question this is. Because most people don't realize their own sin and misery. But in order to have a comfort in life and in death, the first thing you have to know is the greatness of your sin and misery. And the greatness of your sin and misery not only means that on a scale of 1 to 10, I'm a really miserable sinner, but also on a scale of 1 to 10, I'm off the charts in terms of, it's so great that there's no way I can have a positive relationship with God. There's no way. I'm his enemy, not his friend, and there's no fixing that by myself. That's how great my sin and misery is, and we need to understand that. We need to understand that no matter who we're talking to, that's the condition they're in if they're not a Christian, or if they're not sure if they're a Christian. That's the danger, the situation that they're in. They might not realize it, but we know the truth. And out of love for them and for their soul, we need to provide them the answer. Well, yes, the answer is in Christ. And then when we think about Christ, we think about who He is. It's both God and man. Think about it. I never quite put it this way to myself until this afternoon. I'm not quite sure if I could say this without any doubt. Why does anyone die? Ultimately, the existence of death in this world is because of sin. Not that anybody dies necessarily because of a specific sin that they did, and here's the consequence. Sometimes that happens. If somebody jumps off a bridge, commits suicide, obviously that specific sin brings a specific result. But the existence of death itself is because of sin, in general. Jesus never sinned. Jesus did not have to die. In fact, would he have died? Why would Jesus have died? Being a perfect man who obeyed God's law perfectly, do you think he would have died? Remember, Adam lived in perfection in the Garden of Eden. And if he would have obeyed God and stayed away from that tree, he would have lived forever. It was only the day that he ate of it that he would surely die. Jesus obeyed perfectly. Why would he have died? Well, it was the Lord's plan, his Father's plan, that he would die to save all the sinners. Yes, exactly. It was God's plan that he would die to save his sinners, his people. That's certainly true. Why would he have died apart from that? Could he have died? I suppose you could say the only way he possibly could have died, because he didn't deserve it himself in any way, he had obeyed perfectly, is if a bunch of God people He got beat up and soldiers arrested him and they did bad stuff to him and it was outside his control and he certainly wouldn't have died a natural death. There was no natural death for somebody who lived a perfect life. But not only being man, since he was God, no matter how many people tried to betray him, Or even if there was an enemy with an atomic bomb holding right over Jesus' head and going to drop it, it couldn't really have made Jesus die, because he's God, he has all power. I talk about this, and maybe it's a different way that you're not used to thinking about it, because we need to understand how special Jesus' death is. His death was not just a death, not just a stopping of his heart beating. It was a unique death. The last couple of sentences of page 23 say that Jesus' death, like his life, was unique. In his own words, talking from Mark 10, he gave his life as a ransom for many. You see, there is something so special about Jesus that there's no way he could have died unless he chose to. Unless there was something else forcing him to, and that, of course, was the Father's perfect plan. Anybody thoughts or comments or questions about that? Like I say, some of the details, the way I put it, I've not heard anybody else put it so I might be off. We all know it's God's plan that he die, but... Roger? Well, by his death and then his resurrection, he ultimately overcame death. How does the catechism explain that? He conquered death. And the only way he could do that was by dying. But not for him, that's for us. Exactly. There again, I don't know, even like you said before, I don't think we can live by what is. That was all obviously in God's plan. and even Jesus dying or anybody else without the will of our Father in heaven that air can fall from our heads. That's the plan and that's the point. Judy? I'm trying to analyze because he did die for us but if that wasn't the plan I guess I would say because he was God he couldn't die, his body couldn't die a normal death like the rest of us because God is the author of life so he would have had a cause himself to die? I mean, he was God. He did. He did cause himself to die. Right, but I'm just saying, if that wasn't the plan, his body still wouldn't have died like other people because he was God. I mean, God takes our life when he chooses. He ends our life when he chooses. But since Jesus was God, that would never happen to him, so his body would have only died if he chose for it to happen to himself? Well, his body was also human. Well, his body is human. We don't want to confuse his divinity with humanity. We know that there is this plan. We enjoy that. We have the rest of scripture that lays it out. But what I'm saying is, I want us to appreciate how wonderful this plan is. and how much an example of God's love this is because Jesus did not have to die it's so true that he didn't have to die not only because he was God but because he was the perfect man and he would not have died unless he chose to die because he didn't have to defeat death he already had by obeying he already won he only defeated death for us but he didn't even need to become incarnate Exactly. He didn't even need to take on a human flesh. The second person of the Trinity, the eternal Son of God, did not have to take on a human flesh, which we call Jesus the Christ. Philippians 2 is very clear about that. But he did. And of course, he came that far because that was also part of a greater plan that eventually would involve our death. I'm not saying that Jesus, once he saw Judas coming around the corner with the mob of soldiers to betray him, he thought, well, okay, I guess now's the time, sure, maybe I'll go to the cross. No, he knew that, he was prophesying that ahead of time. But just realize how Jesus' death is so different. There is nobody else who's ever died like him. There were all sorts of people who were crucified. That was the common way of capital punishment. But there is only one person who was ever crucified that matters for us. His name was Jesus of Nazareth. You all knew that. I don't mean to confuse you or change the Bible around, but I just wanted us to appreciate what God has done for us in a way that maybe we hadn't thought of it before. Jesus didn't have to die because he was perfect. He did die only because he chose to. His death was unique. Alright? He willingly, in the words of Psalm 23, he being perfect, looked down upon earth and upon our condition and saw the valley of the shadow of death and said to his father, yes, I will willingly walk through that valley. That's how much he loves us. Well then, we turn the page to the cross itself, the particular kind of death that Jesus chose to die. Why do you suppose, I'm sure you've learned, I know I've done it in times past but I won't give you a quiz, why do you suppose the cross is important that Jesus died that way? Because it was a curse of God. Because it was a curse of God. It was a particular kind of way of dying that really showed that person was under God's curse. Galatians 3 verse 13 says that, referring to some passages in the Old Testament where God pronounced that. Absolutely. Any other ideas or answers as to why you think the cross? It was because it was a judicial death. It wasn't, like the Jews in theory could have stoned him, but that would have been just their religion versus a judicial death. Okay, being the cross, then that was a way, well certainly for the Gentiles to be responsible for Jesus' death, as well as the Jews. Because the Jews had already had their court and found him guilty. They handed him over to the Gentiles because it was a high feast day so they couldn't stone him on their day because of the Passover celebration. But it was also that he was sentenced to death by a judge as it were, not that it was a lynching. Yeah, it wasn't a mob, it wasn't an accident, it was a planned thing. People supposedly looked into the evidence and said, oh yes, it's true, he really is guilty. And they found him guilty, even though he was found innocent, declared guilty. I pilot, I wash his hands. Our lesson talks about three different ways of thinking about the cross, and I think they are very helpful. Thinking of Jesus as a substitute, as a sin-bearer, and as a Savior. I'm going to look at this for a moment to make sure we understand it. What I really found helpful was that in each of these portions, our author also ties it to a certain characteristic of God. And you see that the first sentence right after your bold heading on these lines talks about something about who God is. And remember, we looked at that quite a while ago, these different characteristics of who God is. And you can look back at that another time. But, to Jesus the substitute, this demonstrates the love of God. Here we go back to where we first started with, you and I are sinners, God is perfect and holy. And yet God still says, I want to live with you forever, I love you, I will have you in my presence forever. How can that happen? Well, part of the way that can happen to show that love is he has to have someone else come in and substitute for us. So he can look at us as someone who is no longer a sinner. There has to be a substitute for our wickedness to take that punishment. and it's a really good verse there. Why don't we turn to Romans 5 chapter 6. I think I might have said this before in this class. I don't know if it was when we were on this topic or another time, but I was sharing the gospel with someone who you might not have expected needed to be shared the gospel with. It was somebody who was a lifelong member of the Raythorn Church, but had been living in sin for quite some time and not worshiping regularly, and they said they couldn't understand the Bible. That was their reason for not worshipping God anymore and following other things. And they flipped the Bible open and pointed their finger to a verse. So I challenged them. I said, oh really? Prove to me that you can't understand the Bible. And they flipped it open, and this was the verse. Yeah, this exact verse was the one that they said proved that you can't understand what God's saying. And that's Romans 5 verse 8. Does somebody want to read that for us? Peggy, do you want to read that for us? But God demonstrates his own love toward us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. And to continue my story, this person said, I guess I know what that means. Thankfully by God's grace this person has repented and God has used that verse and many other things and other people in this person's life to bring them back to a true faith and trust in God. Yeah, what a marvelous verse that God has shown his love to us in this way, that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Remember, Christ didn't have to die. He wasn't going to die. He was perfect. But he looked at us, who were still sinners, not reaching out to him and saying, Oh, if only somebody would help us. God, we would worship you if only you would help us. That's not the way it works. Bible says we're dead in our trespasses and sins. We love our sin. We enjoy that. We never reach out and take the first step towards God. He came to us while we were still sinners and said, yes, I will take your death for you. I will die for you. That's the gospel. That's the cross. Why the cross? Because this is how Jesus is chosen in God's plan. He will be our substitute in that way. He will die for us. not only is our substitute, but he also is our sin-bearer, the second thing here of why the cross. And notice that this demonstrates the holiness of God. Jesus really did die. It wasn't fake. There are people, supposed Bible scholars who read the Bible, same Bible you and I do, and they come up with all sorts of goofy conclusions, and some of them include that Jesus didn't really die, because after all we know nobody's ever died and risen from the dead so he fainted from heat exhaustion or something they thought he died they put him in the grave and he woke up a little while later and somehow or another his disciples helped roll that stone back and that's how he lived for a while after that all sorts of strange and interesting conclusions that people come to. We know that he did die, and not just because the Bible says he died. You might wonder sometimes what's the point of that one catechism question we have. It's one of the shortest. Why was he buried? To show thereby that he was really dead. You all know that. I could ask you so many that maybe you couldn't know, but you all know that one by heart. It's just so easy, right? To show he was really dead. Well, so what, right? It's a big so what. Not just to show, well, yeah, he died. But all the things that that meant could only be true if he was really dead. One of the things that that meant was that he bore, or carried, our sin on his shoulders. Remember, what's the wages of sin? Death. So, he who did not have to die, came to carry our sin, must die. and he did he really was dead that's why they buried him we need that to be that way and we're thankful that it is that way while he was on the cross we know that he wasn't just in pain and agony but he said my God my God why have you forsaken me God the father forsook his own son in an amazing mysterious miraculous and yet true way He looked upon Him as one who was in hell at that point on the cross, experiencing the full wrath of hell that we deserve for our sins. At that moment, God saw Him. God the Father saw Him and despised Him and could not look at Him and forsook Him. Again, how could that possibly be? And that is exactly what the Bible says. It's that way because He bore our sin. God was looking at Him who did not personally ever sin, who did not personally deserve a single drop of wrath from God. But God was looking at His Son at that moment in the same way that He would look at us if we had to face Him. on our own. Because all of our sins were transferred over onto his account. That's the gospel. We know that. And that is what we have to press home to the person we're trying to share the gospel with. They know that they're sinners. They might not admit how great their sin and misery is, but we do know that we are sinners. And that we fail. And failure isn't just a nice way of saying, Failure is sometimes a nice way of saying we're sinners, but we really are sinners, and everybody knows that. We have to show them there's a way for this sin to be handled. All the things you have done in the past, this is encouraging to the perspective, to the unbeliever who you're sharing the gospel with. Because you tell them, okay, yes, believe in Jesus today, come to church with me and start worshiping. And they might think, OK, yeah, I've made a mess of my life in the past, but now I'm going to straighten things out. And you're going to watch, and I'm going to start walking straight and narrow. They need to know, just as we need to know, the comfort that our sins... God doesn't just require us to start getting our act together now and in the future, as if we could really completely get our act together. We know the answer to that one. But God requires absolute perfection. Everything they've already done up to the point you're talking with them at that moment means they're hellbound. And they need to know that there's a way out. That Christ has carried that sin. Everything they've ever done up to the point that you met them. Even before they ever knew that God was looking for them. And had a Christian come across their path and share the gospel with them. There was this way for their sins to be covered, to be carried on Christ. That's a wonderful thing, and they need to know that. We need to know that for ourselves, but this is a way, you see, when we understand that the cross means Jesus carried our sin. This means every sin they've ever committed. I think we understand that I'm just trying to give some illustrations of different ways we can go about sharing that. Any thoughts or comments about that before we go on any further? But we know Jesus is our substitute, we know He is the sin-bearer, we also know He is the Savior. To some of us, I suppose, when we look at these, we say, there's different words here, but doesn't it all mean the same thing? He saved us, He died for our sins, right? Well, there's so much wrapped up in that little phrase, Jesus died for our sins. It's helpful for us to analyze it. as the scriptures do, from different perspectives. So we understand all that that means. And that's what we're doing. He's had to substitute for us, but it's not just enough that He was there in our place. He had to also then have our sins placed upon Him. We know that was the case because He said, God's not with me right now. God has forsaken me. And then also we need to know that He is our Savior. And this shows the power of God. I like what our author does when he talks about Jesus as Savior. He doesn't even talk about his death anymore. But if you see there, you read that big paragraph, it's almost all Bible verses. Everything there talks about his resurrection. And that's because the resurrection, the burial proves he was dead, okay? The resurrection is a real shorthand way of saying it, I suppose. Why was he buried? To show thereby that he was really dead. But why did he rise from the dead? To show thereby that he was dead for you. For your sins. And that God accepted his offering. God accepted his sacrifice. And because God accepted the sacrifice, there is no reason for Jesus to be dead anymore. Because remember, he wasn't going to die. He was perfect. And now that he took all of your sins and had more than enough holiness to spare after paying for all of your sins and mine, he could raise back from the dead and live forever. His resurrection proves that God accepted his death. There's a couple different verses there. Romans 1 is referred to. 1 Corinthians 15 also They all prove and demonstrate this. I want to go on, I don't want to belabor that point, but that's why Easter, death and resurrection, those two big events in Christ's life, we preach them both. We must always preach them both because of that reason. The resurrection proves not just that he died, but that he died for us. That the offering was enough. It was accepted. Any comments or thoughts about that? Again, we're talking about sharing the gospel, and we could have a whole night sometime talking about, well, what do you do when people say, well, I don't believe Jesus really rose from the dead? How do you answer their objections? We're not kind of prepared for that tonight. There's some things we could look at ahead of time for that. But for now, just realize and remember that when Jesus rose from the dead, that demonstrated God's power. He was indeed our Savior. It really did work. He said it was finished on the cross. It really was. We knew that three days later. Let's flip the page to page 26. Here's a memorable picture of a helicopter and a guy being rescued. The question is, how can I be saved? How can I be saved? We've been talking about this in different ways all along, but now we finally get to that question. If you're reading the gospel with someone, if you have this book around, or you're remembering something from this book, you don't have to, even though this is on page 26, you don't have to go through 25 other pages worth of stuff. If they're ready to start talking about how can I be saved, then just go right there. You can come back later and talk about why they should believe that God created the world instead of it evolving. But you don't have to start there necessarily. If they understand that they've made a mess of their life, they don't know how, they don't have any comfort in life and in death, and they desire that comfort, well then just go for it. But now what does it mean to go for it? What does it mean? What kind of answer might you give to how can I be saved? You can cheat and look. or you can answer from your own knowledge and memory banks. That's fine too. It's not really cheating. Any thoughts? How can I be saved? Anybody ever had anybody ask them that question? It's like such a basic question but it's so vague and so open. Well first you must repent. Okay. Admit that you have sinned and repent for those sins. Okay. And your faith in Christ will save you. Okay. Repentance and faith. Yeah. Absolutely. That's certainly how our author summarizes it. How can I be saved? People did ask that question of Jesus and of the Apostles a couple of different times. The Bible. I'm having a blank here. I didn't write it down. One time the answer was, what must I do to be saved? And the answer was, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved. I believe that was the Philippian jailer. I was thinking of Acts 8 and the eunuch and Philip. He preached from the prophet Isaiah. He didn't have the New Testament, but he could preach from the Old Testament. Because it's the same God. Same Bible. Same Gospel. Old and New. Alright, well what does it mean to repent? What does it mean to repent? Change your mind. That's sort of the literal meaning of the word repent. At least that's what's found in the Greek language. To change your mind. To truly be sorry. There's lots of people who are sorry for what they've done. How do they know if they're truly sorry? They change what they do. They change what they do. Their attitude has changed. Their attitude towards what they've done. They're not just sorry that they got in a scrape. Yes, there's a difference between being sorry you got caught, and being sorry you were sent. You could be truly sorry you got caught, but you don't yet have true repentance necessarily in 1 Corinthians. 7 talks about sorrow, worldly sorrow and godly sorrow that leads to repentance. I like what Emily mentioned here, not only sorry, if you are truly sorry you will know it because they change not only your behavior but also your attitude towards the sin. I can't think of a better answer to repentance than one that you all know. It's not question, I think, 42, which is the one I already recited, but it's questions 88 through 90. How many things does true repentance or conversion consist of? I'm talking about the Catechism, right, the Hellenistic Catechism. Two things, all right, here we go. The dying of the old man, the quickening or making alive of the new. Does anybody know where in the Bible, before we go to recite the next two, does anybody know where in the Bible That question is, what's the proof text for that? I didn't suspect you would necessarily remember that, but it is in the Bible. You can go to Ephesians 4. There's all sorts of proof texts for those good old catechism questions, and that's why they're important. If there's no Bible proofs for any of those things, then go home and throw your catechism away. It's worthless. But if there are Bible proofs, then if those Bible proofs really do prove those things, well then that's a different story. And it is indeed the case that these are accurate Bible proofs. Sometimes these Bible proofs are more obvious than others when you first read them. They're not always just directly quoting the Bible in the Catechism. For instance, I was just recently trying to find a place in the Bible where it says nothing comes by chance. I didn't find it yet, anyway. Alright. But our catechism in explaining providence summarizes a whole bunch of different Bible verses. And one of them is, of course, a great one. Romans 8, 28. That all things work together for good. Now, that doesn't say nothing comes by chance. But it's not wrong to say nothing comes by chance. That's an accurate way of summarizing that verse. In another verse, Ephesians 1 verse 11, which is more clear, it says, all things happen according to the counsel of God's will. But Ephesians 4, in there, the words in our catechism about repentance are not plagiarized, but directly taken, quoted, out of Ephesians 4. old man, new man, dying, making alive, all that business, that's exactly what the Apostle Paul said. Repentance is so important and so basic, and we have no doubt about what it means. Ephesians 4, 17, all the way through to the end of the chapter. Really, Ephesians 4, 5, and 6, the whole rest of the last chapter of the book of Ephesians, It's about repentance. After explaining the gospel, Ephesians 4 verse 1 says, I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you, walk worthy of the calling with which you are walked. This person wants to become a Christian. In order for him to become a Christian, you have to trust in Christ. You have to walk worthy of the calling of being a Christian. Look like a Christian. Live like a Christian. Follow Christ. To be a Christian is to be a Christ in, which is a follower of Christ. A disciple. Make sense? follow him, and Ephesians 4 says verse 22, put off concerning your former conduct the old man, which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lust, renewed in the spirit of your mind, that you may put on the new man, which was created according to God in true righteousness and holiness. And then our catechism, we'll go back to our catechism, some Isaac's and some others, about what repentance means. I didn't prepare for this one, so we'll see if I can remember it too. 89. What is the dying of the old? Heart development? Yes. There's a couple things there. Emily's comment is what brought that to my mind when she said her attitude. Immediately I thought of that catechism question. Because not only are you to turn from sin always more and more, but you're to have a heartfelt sorrow for it. And that heartfelt sorrow doesn't mean, I'm sorry I got caught. It doesn't even mean, I'm sorry for the consequences that I received from this sin. But now, people don't trust me as much anymore because of this. But that I see How much I damage the cause of Christ by this sin. How much I hurt the reputation of others by this sin. But you see the effects of your sin, not upon yourself simply, but upon others and upon Christ and you are sorry for that. Now, having said that and understand that, how many times do we repent in our life? Well, I suppose that's a good answer, isn't it? From the flip side, I think you're supposed to forgive somebody. So that means they're repenting 70 times 7 times. One time or another, we've been that person who has sinned again and again and again in virtually the same way against someone else or certainly against God. It seems like we're making little, if any, progress. Repentance is a lifelong thing. And that also is something to encourage the new believer. Because the new believer has all sorts of false ideas about what it means to be a Christian that perhaps we've gotten past so long ago and not really understood. And one of those things is they think that once they become a Christian everything is just super fine. It's all about the roses of Christian life. Some of the televangelists out there don't help in giving that impression. Christian, you're a Christian. God wants you healthy, wealthy, and wise. All of this will happen if you just have enough faith. Those kind of promises are made. But also, just in terms of struggling with a certain sin, we know that we grow by God's grace, but it's a lifelong thing. It's a slow thing, often times. And to remind your friend, and to come alongside that person, and to kind of be a mentor to that person. To continue to remind them. Remember, repentance is a lifelong thing. I see that you're struggling. Let me help you. Let me pray for you. Let me try and help you avoid this or that sin. But to be encouraging to them in that way and not let them think, oh, this sin is just too much. God can't forgive me for it. I must not have ever been saved. Sometimes somebody will fall into that trap. but we indeed must repent. It is a lifelong thing. I have underlined a very helpful sentence that is sort of a shocking sentence in the bottom of page 26. It talks about repentance. It says, you must do this. Then right after that, the second to last sentence of that paragraph, it says, God will not forgive any sin you are not willing to forsake. God's not going to forgive you for something So you're not going to repent of it. Something that you're not going to stop doing or try to stop doing by asking His grace and forgiveness for. What do you think about that? Agree? Disagree? If you say that you repent of something but you're not willing to stop doing it, then you're not really repenting of it. And that doesn't mean, for instance, somebody who's an alcoholic might repent and might truly intend to quit drinking or actually want to and might fall back into that sin. I wouldn't call that the same as not actually being willing to forsake it. You might have the desire but not be able to right away or might have to work on it and it wouldn't call that the same thing. But if you confess a sin but you don't really intend to stop doing it, you're not really sorry for it. Yeah. Any other feedback or thoughts about that? I guess I also think of a couple that's living together not married. They might say that they're sorry, they might ask God's forgiveness, but if they don't immediately move out and move apart, then it's really useless to tell God that you're sorry for it because by your actions you're not showing that you're sorry for it. Or you'd stop doing it. Repentance is done. Not thought about. Is done. So if I were to be counseling, that's a good illustration, if I were to be counseling somebody or any of us who says, yeah, I'm really sorry, mom, dad, I know I shouldn't be living with this guy over here at college or whatever, but you know, it's cheaper, two incomes to pay for the rent to one place instead of each of us, you know, other places. You know how tight things are, all these things. We're going to get married. and we're already engaged maybe or whatever, but you have to tell that person, look, if you really love this other person, if you really love God, then you're already reaching for your keys. And you'll come back tomorrow to get the rest of your stuff. You're going to repent or you're not going to repent. If you're really going to repent today, then you're getting out. Yeah, absolutely. Now your illustration of the alcoholic could also be the saying, it could go either way. And I think the question is, how do you know if you're looking on the outside, either at somebody else or your own heart, how do you know when you're at that point where you're not willing to forsake it? That's maybe a hard question to answer exactly until you get to specifics and talk with somebody. Especially with the alcoholic or any kind of addiction kind of thing. Immediate stopping of that activity must happen. Deal with whatever fallout. The shakes and everything else, being off drugs or whatever the case may be. Your health may get worse for a while. Whatever. But if you're really going to repent, you need to do that immediately. And then obviously you can't be by yourself. You need help. That's a whole other issue. I think quite often also in these cases, somebody left by themselves has gotten into the situation. They're not going to be able to get out of it by themselves. Leave them by themselves to repent on their own power and their own strength and try to by their own willpower avoid something. It's not going to happen. They need at least one real close Christian friend to be with them every step of the way. Encourage them to go the extra mile. Be very specific in helping them out. Knowing where they are day and night and giving them a different place to hang out instead of the bar or whatever the case may be. In a certain sense, all sin is like that though, isn't it? I mean, we're all kind of addicted to it and we all need help and support. Obviously help from the Lord, but support from fellow Christians. Yeah, well that's a good point. Sin is being, having sinful natures inside of us. My kids, we are prone to that. My kids were asking what that means this week as we were memorizing the verses to Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing. And the last verse says, prone to wander, Lord I feel it, prone to leave the God I love. That's exactly what we're talking about here. Daddy, what does prone mean? Okay, well it means that you tend to do something. Well, what does that mean? I don't know, trying to find it. It means that you're probably going to do it? It doesn't really mean that, but that's the best word I can think of. It means you're most likely to do it. It's really hard not to do it. But we know, prone by nature, we hate God in our neighborhood. Even as Christians, that proneness is still there. And that's why we pray in hymns like that. Lord, here's my heart. Oh, take and seal it for thy courts above. Yes, repentance and then also repentance, right? That's also the gospel, part of the gospel. We stop for a second and repent. It's not only heartfelt sorrow for sin, but also what is the pudding, what is making a life for the new man. A heartfelt joy in God through Christ, causing us to take delight in living according to the will of God in all good works. That's repentance. Those things together. Very good definition in the catechism. And that is a lifelong definition, a lifelong activity, a lifelong prayer, a lifelong checklist to put on your refrigerator and compare your life for that day with that checklist of those catechisms and ask God's grace and forgiveness and his Holy Spirit that you might grow in the following day. Another place just to jot down. Two big places in scripture that have lots of verses that talk about repentance that are helpful to you and perhaps some of them might have even been familiar to this other person if they I never went to Sunday school somewhere. Ephesians 4, those verses I talked about, especially 17-24, and also Galatians 5. The whole last half of Galatians 5. The fruits of the Spirit are in the last half of Galatians 5. And right before the fruits of the Spirit, this is how we are often times, we memorize things out of context. Right before the fruits of the Spirit come the fruits of the flesh. All the things. And the context of the fruits of the Spirit is, walk in the Spirit. Not in the lust of the flesh. And here there's this comparison. The fruits of the flesh. And if you're a Christian, you have the Spirit in you. Crucify the flesh with its passions and desires. So walk in the Spirit and you'll see these things in your life. Not perfectly in this life, of course, but we will see them in this life. We must repent. But we also must have faith. What is faith? Does anybody know a way to answer that question? True faith? True faith, sure. See, all this, it took a while. We've used the catechism a few other times, but you see here when we get to like this most ultimate question, I hope you're understanding, again, the value of all that hard work that your mothers did with you. And you did too, with your mothers and your dads and your Sunday school teachers and your pastors, right, training you, drilling in you, those catechisms, because those are ultimate questions. What is true faith, right? 21, that's right. That's even the right number. You know that. That's good. What is true faith? True faith is, anybody remember it? I want to recite it. True is to give it our best, best knowledge whereby we hold for truth all that God has revealed to us in his word, but also a hearty trust which the Holy Ghost works in me by the gospel, that not only to others, but to me also, forgiveness of sins, everlasting righteousness and salvation are freely given by God, merely of grace, only for the sake of Christ's merits. That's a good one. I could say it easier because the kids recited it to me about two weeks ago in the catechism. That's where we are. But that is a very important, very important question. Now I want to just kind of wrap up here a second. It says here on the top of page 27 If God has shown you your need and given you this desire, you're talking to somebody, and they're praying, they're wondering, and then it says, turn to Christ, do it now. Again, if they're going to repent, if they realize they're a sinner and God is holy, what are they waiting for? Here's where it takes real biblical wisdom. It's always easier to put off until tomorrow anything. especially when it comes to sharing the gospel. Well, we made it through page 24, 25. We'll come back to page 26 next time I have a conversation with them. Well, they might get in a car accident and die that night. You might not have that opportunity to talk with them for some other reason, right? You don't know, ultimately. So we do have to get to the big, the heart of the matter in some way. And perhaps they want to end the conversation. And then one way of I appreciate the conversation we had. While we were talking, I think you understand that every one of us, including myself, is a sinner and God is holy. We have to get right with God. If you really understand that, then you wouldn't put this off, not a single minute. So I ask you, please reconsider. Well, thanks. I'll talk to you another time. I'll pray for you. You know my number. You can call me up when you get home tonight or tomorrow morning. You know my number. I'll pray for you. Here's this book. You know what to do. Just kind of leave it there. You don't want to be pushing in a bad way, but you do need to help them understand how serious it is because they don't know what might happen. Has anyone ever had the privilege of someone saying to them, I want to be a Christian. Can you help me out of actually witnessing first hand somebody becoming a Christian? I'm sure of the thousand people listening on the internet, somebody's probably had that privilege. I haven't had the privilege in that way. I've had the privilege of people who have grown up in the church. who probably were believers at the time I was talking with them, but they were seriously delinquent. And seeing them change, as I mentioned, one of those illustrations. And that's an awesome thing. God works in different ways. The way that we see around us in this congregation is people growing up within the faith never knowing a day when they didn't believe in Jesus. And that's a wonderful blessing. That's what we ought to expect as God's covenant people. He blesses parents and their children and their grandchildren to the generations. We should expect to see that. And so in that sense, you have had a hand. Anytime you've ever listened to some kid recite their catechism and helped them understand what those words mean, you are having a hand in helping them understand and know the gospel. Anytime you encourage another church member in their walk with the Lord, If somebody you haven't seen for a while, you say, it's so great to see you. We really miss you. It's great to worship the Lord today. Wasn't that great? Any of a hundred different ways you say something like that to somebody else, you have a hand. God's using you in that way, in this life of repentance, as Bill said so perfectly earlier. All of us need one another in this process of repentance. Whether we're an alcoholic or not, we need others to come alongside us and assist us. And that's the last pages, I won't go into that, but you need to get the person to obviously pray, realize they've never been able to pray to God before, but now that they're right with God by Christ, they can. And He'll listen. And you've got to bring them to church, okay? And read the scriptures and services and other things, but that's really it. Well, the last two pages is kind of thrown in there just because he didn't want to forget saying something in the book, but to be honest, there's tons of books that treat each of those things. So I hope that's been helpful in at least showing you a bit of the different types of questions that are big questions, that are big deal questions to us. And especially I like how we were able to tie in things you already know and have memorized, all these different Bible verses that are summarized in these categories of questions. 21 about true faith and repentance, 88 through 90 and many others. Father, I thank you for the opportunity we've had these past couple of months to look at the ultimate questions. We acknowledge our own weakness, our own frailty, our own need to repent, even of not sharing the gospel as we ought, of being ashamed to do so. O Lord, why would we be ashamed? Because we have such a glorious and hope-filled message. But we know we are so easy, so prone to be afraid of what others might think. Give each of us a desire, a heart, for the lost, that we might share the gospel. However it comes out, Lord, we know You, being sovereign and good, will work it out perfectly for all who belong to You. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.