Welcome to Unveiled Faces, a Redeemer Presbyterian Church podcast. Please enjoy our feature presentation. If you would please turn in your scriptures to Proverbs chapter six. Our sermon text is the first five verses of Proverbs chapter six. Let us hear the holy and inspired word of God. My son, if you have put up security for your neighbor, have given your pledge for a stranger, if you are snared in the words of your mouth, caught in the words of your mouth, then do this, my son, and save yourself. For you have come into the hand of your neighbor. Go, hasten, and plead urgently with your neighbor. Give your eyes no sleep and your eyelids no slumber. Save yourself like a gazelle from the hand of a hunter, like a bird from the hand of the fowler. This concludes a reading and hearing of God's holy and inspired word. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, Lord, we thank you for your word. We know that it is by your grace and by your mercy that you have given to us your spirit that we may understand and apply these things to our own life. Father, there are those in the world who do not possess your spirit and therefore these words are foolishness to them. But for those of us whom you have revealed yourself to whom you have given your spirit, these are the words of life and they speak truth to us and they have the transformative properties of justifying us and sanctifying us, making us people who are more and more like Christ. And so, Father, we pray that your mercy would be upon us this morning as your words have gone forth. May they accomplish all in our life that you have ordained for them to do. And Father, we pray that we would be submissive and willing and ready to receive your truth and to apply it to our life. This we pray in Jesus' name, amen. As we now resume our sermon series through the book of Proverbs, let me take just a moment to re-familiarize ourselves with the nature of this book. Proverbs is what we call wisdom literature. Wisdom literature, as the name would imply, is about communicating wisdom to the reader. But there are different types of wisdom. For example, the books of Job and Ecclesiastes are wisdom literature, but the type of wisdom that they communicate we may describe as philosophical. Both Job and Ecclesiastes reflect upon deep questions, the deep questions of man's existence here on earth. Why are we here? What is the meaning of life? What is man's duty to God? Why is there evil in the world? But not all wisdom literature is as philosophical as Job and Ecclesiastes. Proverbs is a different form of wisdom literature. It's practical wisdom. And this type of wisdom literature consists of maxims, rules, and axioms that when followed, guide us into making wise decisions in our daily life. Practical wisdom literature steers us away from the well-known pitfalls that exist in life, and it leads us around those pits into good moral conduct that's pleasing to the Lord. When reading practical wisdom literature, It shouldn't surprise us, therefore, to read about the things that we need as humans, as people living day to day, the things to remain humble, to read about things like the proper maintenance of friendships and other relationships, or how to be industrious and productive with our time, or how to avoid bitterness and strife with your enemies. We shouldn't be surprised in practical wisdom literature to read about the travails of being gullible, or the destructive nature of the unbridled tongue, or the devastating consequences of sexual impurity. The book of Proverbs is constructed of five major divisions. And the first section is chapters one through nine, which is the practical wisdom, which is directed first and foremost to youth. And then the second section of the book of Proverbs is chapters 10 through 24, which is the largest section. And it's the portion that most people think of when they think of the book of Proverbs. It's a collection of almost 400 individual maxims that are just as applicable to the elderly as they are to the youth. And then the third section is chapters 25 through 29, which is a series of single sentence Proverbs credited to Solomon, but have been compiled by the King Hezekiah's men. And then the fourth section is chapter 30 all by itself. This is a series of statements attributed to a man named Agur. And then the fifth section is the last chapter, chapter 31, which is attributed to King Lemuel. And the major portion of that chapter being the alphabetical acrostic in praise of a virtuous woman. So in consideration of these five divisions of the book of Proverbs, which is all about practical wisdom, we presently find ourselves at the beginning of chapter six, which is at the heart of that first division, the one spanning from chapters one to chapters nine, which is specifically directed to youth. And an interesting observation about this first section or this first division is that it employs the allegory in communicating these truths to youth. It employs the allegory of two women, two women who are constantly calling out to the young men of this world. And these two women are the antithesis of each other. They are the exact opposites. The first woman is wisdom. She cries out in the streets, we read in chapter one. In the marketplaces, she raises her voices. At the head of the noisy street, wisdom cries out. And what is Lady Wisdom crying out? She's calling the young men to embrace righteousness. Hear your father's instruction, she says. Do not forsake your mother's teaching. Receive knowledge. Treasure up your parents' instructions and commandments. Incline your heart to understanding. But in direct opposition to Lady Wisdom, it's another woman's voice who is crying out to the young men in the streets. This is the forbidden woman. It's the woman whose name is Folly. Folly stands at the door of her house, calling out to all the young men, flattering them with deceptive words. She promises them all sorts of carnal pleasures. And for those who ignore the call of lady wisdom, woman Folly is able to lure them into her home by means of her seductive speech. And when the young man steps into her home and enters a woman Folly's embrace, Solomon says that she drags him down to the chambers of death. And the irony is that the young man never saw it coming. He never saw it coming until it was too late. Joyfully, he went into the embrace of Lady Folly, who drug him down to the chambers of death. What Solomon is doing by contrasting lady wisdom with woman folly is exposing to his youthful audience, in this case, his son, but by extension, all readers of the Book of Proverbs, Solomon is exposing the most common pitfalls within this world. And Solomon is saying to his son, you've been under my care for however many years now, 16 years, 18 years, 20 years. We don't know exactly how old, but let's just go with 16. You've been under my care for 16 years now, he's saying to his son. and I've been able to shield you from so many of the evils of the world during these 16 years, but you are becoming a young man, and you are about to go leave my protection, go out into the world to establish your own home, your own family, your own career, to pursue your own calling that God has placed upon your life. Therefore, you need to be aware of the temptations and the pitfalls of woman folly. If you're going to properly resist her, Solomon is saying to his son, you should know what her tactics are. You should know what her intentions are. And most importantly, you should know what happens to those who are deceived by her. And so Solomon spends the first nine chapters of the book of Proverbs contrasting the voice of lady wisdom with the voice of woman folly as a means for training his son to walk in wisdom and righteousness in the streets where these two opposing voices will be heard. And we, in the 21st century, As we read these first nine chapters of the book of Proverbs, we must understand that those same two opposing voices are still crying out in the very streets that our homes are built upon and the streets that we walk in as well. Therefore, we must acknowledge, or I should say, be able to recognize and acknowledge the voice of Lady Wisdom while rejecting the voice of woman folly. The voices of wisdom and folly are the paths of righteousness and evil, respectively. Lady Wisdom, as I've demonstrated in earlier sermons, is a type of Jesus. She's the voice of Jesus calling out in the gospel of Jesus Christ to all the people of the world. And Woman Folly is the exact opposite. She's a type of Satan. She's the voice of the father of all lies, the voice of the serpent who deceived our original parents to embrace her in sin and destruction. And although Solomon most often portrays woman folly in the role of an adulteress, we need to understand that her voice is not exclusively that of an adulteress, but that's typical of all forms of unrighteousness. Simply put, woman folly is the antithesis of everything that Lady Wisdom affirms. So as we resume our sermon series through the book of Proverbs, we need to understand that chapter six has been written with the specific aim of communicating the practical wisdom of Jesus Christ, Lady Wisdom, to our truth, our youth, I should say. But not only does Solomon present the practical wisdom of Jesus in its righteousness, but he exposes the pitfalls of woman folly that she presents along the path, along the streets, that our children, pitfalls that our children are prone to step into should they not be given ample and proper notice. The specific pitfall that Solomon is exposing in our sermon text this morning is that of being a surety for a neighbor or a surety for a stranger. Solomon describes two ways in which a person can fall into this pit. The first is by, quote unquote, putting up security for your neighbor. And the second is by, quote, giving a pledge for a stranger. Both of these actions are similar. In fact, very similar. There's just a very slight difference. To put up security means that you volunteer something valuable that you own to act as collateral for a debt or some other form of a promise that you are obligated to. For example, if you wanna borrow money to purchase a boat, The lender may say to you, I don't wanna loan you the money for you to buy the boat because I'm afraid that you won't pay me back. And that would be the lender's prerogative. It's his money, it's his terms. And so if you really wanted to buy that boat, you might consider about putting up security. Suppose that you have a house that's worth more money than what you need to borrow for the boat. You can then use your house as security. And that means you would enter into a contract with the lender agreeing with him upfront that if you don't pay back the money you borrowed for the boat, then the lender can force the sale of your home in order to use that money to pay for the money that you borrowed for the boat so that he gets his money back. And that would be what we call putting up security. Only in this case, you're putting up security for yourself. What Solomon is warning against here in Proverbs 6 is something even more foolish than that. It's putting up security for your neighbor. In this case, it's your neighbor who wants to purchase the boat. And he comes to you and says, I wanna buy a boat, but the lender won't give me the money to purchase the boat because he doesn't think I'm gonna pay him back. I noticed you have a real nice house. How about you put up your house as security in case I don't pay back the lender for my boat? That would be putting up security for your neighbor. And that would be one way of acting as a surety for your neighbor. The second action that Solomon is warning against here is to give a pledge for a stranger. And this is different than putting up security only in the sense that you don't actually designate some specific piece of property as collateral at the time that the loan is made. Instead, your personal reputation is sufficient to secure the loan on behalf of the stranger. The stranger wants to buy the boat, he can't convince the lender to give him the money, so he comes to you and asks you, can you go with me to the lender, and can you promise the lender that if I don't pay him back, that you will pay him back? And how you actually pay back the loan is never really established. The lender doesn't care. He trusts you enough to understand that if it comes to the point where you have to pay back the loan, you'll do it whatever the cost may be. Whether you have to sell your house, sell your car, take out a mortgage on your own house or whatever, drain your bank account, he understands that you'll come up with the money and trust you on that. That's giving a pledge. And by the way, you might be asking yourself why Solomon would be worried that his son would give such a pledge for a complete stranger. Understand that the word stranger here in our text doesn't mean a person with whom there's no personal acquaintance, like we would say a complete stranger. In this case, stranger means an outsider, a foreigner. It's referring to a Gentile. Stranger is being used here in verse one in the same way that it's used in the fourth commandment when it talks about the stranger who is within your gates. This is the second way of acting as a surety. And so what Solomon is telling his son in the form of, in these five verses, is that you should not be acting as a surety, whether that's in the form of a pledge or in the form of putting up security. He says this to Solomon in an if-then statement. If you have agreed already to act as a surety on behalf of another person, then plead with that person to release you from your obligation. And this warning is so important to Solomon that he repeats it three times in other portions of the book of Proverbs. When we read those other warnings, we get perhaps a bigger picture or more robust picture of why Solomon believes acting as a security is such a bad idea. In Proverbs 17, 18, Solomon says that the person who acts as a surety for another is being foolish. One who lacks sense gives a pledge and puts up security in the presence of his neighbor. One who lacks sense. In Proverbs 11, 15, Solomon describes the inevitable outcome for those who lack sense. Whoever puts up security for a stranger will surely suffer harm. And then in Proverbs 22, 26 and 27, we see more specifically what the actual harm is that Solomon is warning about. Be not one of those who gives pledges, who puts up security for debts. If you have nothing with which to pay, why should your bed be taken from under you? Today, one of the most common ways that we fall into the pit of becoming a surety for others is by co-signing a loan. What Solomon is saying is that co-signing for another person's debt is a really, really bad idea. It's not necessarily bad for the lender, because you co-signing the loan for your neighbor gives the lender another means for guaranteeing that the conditions of the loan will actually be satisfied. Co-signing is not really a bad idea for the borrower because it allows the borrower to qualify for a loan based upon another person's credit worthiness. Co-signing is really only bad for the co-signer because the co-signer takes all the risk and has little or no reward. Yet people co-sign for others all day long. I remember one of the very first times that I was approached by a fellow church member to provide counsel. One of those formal things where they say, hey, can you help me? It was a man in his mid to late 20s. I'll call him Tommy. Tommy had been married for a couple years. And during those years, he and his wife had been working very hard, very diligently to save their money and to create a savings so that they can put a down payment upon their first home. And they had finally reached a point where they had saved up enough money to do that, that they had a down payment for a house. And moreover, Tommy, seeing God's providence in this situation, had just been promoted to a better paying job, a job which would pay enough for his wife to stay home, which was important to them. It was part of their plan to buy the house, and then they were hoping to have their first child soon. And so with much excitement, Tommy and his wife contacted a realtor and they began to look at houses. And as part of the routine goes, the realtor introduced Tommy to a lender whose job it was to pre-qualify him for a loan so that they knew how much money they could spend on a house. And this is when the whole thing blew up. The lender told Tommy he could not qualify for a loan. Why? Well, because several years earlier, Tommy had co-signed for his older brother's home loan, and the older brother defaulted on his home loan. Tommy remembered receiving all kinds of nasty, threatening letters from his brother's mortgage company, but as he made inquiry with his brother, hey, what's going on, his brother kept telling him, don't worry about it, don't worry about it, I'll take care of it, just don't worry about it. And so he didn't worry about it. Well, whatever the brother did to take care of it resulted in Tommy having a foreclosure on his credit record. And even though Tommy had excellent credit otherwise, he had followed all the rules, did all the right things. The fact is he had co-signed for his brother's home loan and that made him equally responsible for the foreclosure. And as it turned out, the reason Tommy's older brother needed Tommy to co-sign for him in the first place is because his older brother had already defaulted on a previous home loan. And so, having ruined his own credit, he convinced Tommy to cosign in order that he may buy a second home, of which he then defaulted just like he did on the first one. And to add insult to injury, about two years later, Tommy was hit with a huge IRS tax bill. See, after the house had foreclosed and the lender realized that neither one of these brothers was gonna be able to pay the loan, they forgave the debt. And in this particular case, the IRS considered debt forgiveness as income received. And so, this then resulted in an enormous tax burden for Tommy. All at a time when he's trying to start a family and buy his first home and live on a single income. Tommy. would have not had any of these headaches, any of these problems, had he just followed the instruction that Solomon is giving here in Proverbs 6. Co-signing is a really, really bad idea. Whenever you are asked to be a co-signer, you need to understand that the person who came to you with the request is a person who lacks credit worthiness. You need to realize that the person has already been deemed too high a risk by the various money lenders whose desire, by the way, is to lend money. They want to lend money, but they took one look at this guy and said, I'm not going to lend you money because you are too high of a risk. And so you need to realize that the person who's coming to you asking you to cosign is a person whose tax returns, whose bank statements, whose job history, and all the other relevant information has already been analyzed by time test and improvement risk assessment algorithms, and the results have indicated that he is too high of a risk to loan money to. This person is the person who's coming to you and saying, will you please co-sign for me? And because you like this person, you think you're helping this person, you wanna be compassionate to this person, you say, okay, I'll cosign. Solomon describes that response in verse two of our text as being snared in the words of your mouth. And his counsel is that you have been caught, if you have been caught in the words of your mouth, then save yourself. Save yourself, he says. Now you might be asking, does this mean that all forms of surety, all forms of co-signing for others is necessarily bad? Some of you may even be thinking about the Apostle Paul, who wrote to Philemon concerning Onesimus. If he has wronged you at all or owes you anything, charge it to my account. I, Paul, write this with my own hand. I will repay it. There's no doubt that what Paul is doing right here is acting as a surety for another person, that being Onesimus. And well, That was a really unusual circumstance, as the rest of the letter of Philemon indicates. It does give us biblical warrant for understanding that to be a surety for another is not necessarily evil in and of itself. Under unusual circumstances, it might be appropriate for a person to act as a surety for another. Here are four principles that we need to implement in any and every consideration to become a surety for another. If somebody comes to you and asks you to put up security, to put up a pledge, to co-sign for them, then you need to work at least through these four principles to determine whether or not that's even a righteous thing to do, much less whether you want to do it. Principle number one. Going back to the first verse of our sermon text, Solomon seems to leave the option open for acting as surety for family members. The people that Solomon specifically identifies as those that he's warning against is becoming surety for neighbors and strangers. Gentiles, other people in the community, we can put it. So, potentially family members. Principle number two, in verse three of our sermon text, Solomon instructs his sons to quote, unquote, save himself from the responsibility of acting as a surety. And this type of language implies that it would be a significant hardship, a financial hardship for his son if indeed he actually had to make good on his pledge. And so it's presumed that his son's responsibilities to family, to church, to God, and to any other responsibilities that he's inclined to, it would appear as though to have to settle the debt of another person would hinder his ability to fulfill his own responsibilities to his family, to his church, to God, or whoever. Okay, that's why Solomon is saying, save yourself. And this is consistent with Proverbs 22, 26 and 27, which we read earlier. Be not one who gives a pledge, who puts up security for debts. If you have nothing with which to pay, why should your bed be taken from you? This is a scenario that Solomon is saying, save yourself from. And so, Understanding that, a very strong argument can be made that Solomon's concern for his son is not so much that he actually acted as a security or a surety for another person, but that in doing so, he has overextended himself beyond his capacity to make good on that debt should it come to that. A perfect illustration of this kind of financial overextension by means of acting as a surety for another is the story I just told you about Tommy co-signing for his brother's loan. Tommy didn't have the financial resources to do what he did. And as such, he compromised his own ability to provide for his family, to contribute to his church, and to live within the means that God had righteously provided for him. We can say then that one of the necessary conditions before ever becoming a surety for another in a righteous manner is that you possess sufficient financial resources to actually fulfill the debt should that fall on you. Had Tommy been a multimillionaire, then it wouldn't necessarily have been a bad thing for him to act as a surety for his brother, at least in the financial consideration of that question. yet if you're in that type of situation where you have the money, you can afford to risk that and to have to make those demands from the lender. then really you should be given serious thought to whether you want to just give the money to the person who's asking you to cosign rather than putting them into a situation where they have to become enslaved to a lender, enslaved by debt. Principle number three. You must use wisdom in discerning whether your quote unquote assistance, and I use that term in air quotes, whether your assistance as a surety for another person would undermine God's principles for building financial wealth. Whether your assistance would actually undermine God's principles for building financial wealth. The fact that you are being asked to act as a surety means that the person coming to you is wanting to take on debt, Is this one of those rare conditions in which debt is biblically permitted? God's prescription for building wealth is to plan, to work hard, and to save diligently. Patience and delayed gratification are virtues that we often need to develop in our life. And so you really need to use wisdom in discerning whether the person who's coming to you, wanting you to assist him in taking on debt, is trying to circumvent God's righteous principles for building financial wealth. Principle number four is very similar. You need to use wisdom in discerning whether your assistance, and again, I put that in air quotes, whether your assistance as a surety for another person would undermine God's discipline in that person's life. It may be the case that God is chastening this person through financial hardship in order to produce the peaceful fruit of righteousness as spoken of in Hebrews 12, 11. If this is the case, then your attempt to have compassion on this person by helping them secure a loan may actually be compounding their sin before God and increasing or prolonging the discipline that they are suffering. I'm going to assume that the man who is comfortable enough to come to you and ask you to be a surety for him is a man that you know well enough to discern whether God is disciplining him as a son. But if you're not in that position to answer that question, then you should not move forward with acting as a surety. Even if all the other considerations were met and everything looks clear, if you cannot answer that question, then you should not move forward as acting as a surety because the last thing you wanna do is position yourself between God and the person he's disciplining. So when you take all these biblical principles into consideration, there are going to be very, very few opportunities in your life for you to righteously act as a surety for another person. Solomon's warning against becoming a surety for another, at its foundation, is a firm reminder to recognize the responsibilities and the priorities that God has given to you, as well as the responsibilities and the priorities that God has given to the other person. You need to recognize your own responsibility to provide for the members of your household, for your church, and for perhaps employees or any other dependents that God has providentially placed within your life. You have a responsibility to provide for them. Number two, you need to recognize your own responsibility to not become entangled in unbiblical debt, even if that debt is procured on behalf of another person. Number three, you need to recognize that the other person's responsibility is to gain wealth in a righteous manner. And therefore, you should not be the person who enables them to do otherwise. And the fourth principle that we looked at is that you need to recognize that God may be dealing harshly with that person because of sin issues in that person's life. And you really don't want to be standing between God and the object of his discipline. So there's nothing inherently sinful or evil about the concept of acting as a surety for another. It's just that very few situations allow for one person to righteously take on the debt or responsibilities of another person. It's very important that we understand that statement. Very important, I wanna repeat that. There's nothing inherently sinful or evil about the concept of being a surety for another. It's just that very few situations allow one person to righteously take on the debt or responsibilities of another person. And the reason this is such an important statement to understand is because the gospel of salvation in Jesus Christ is established upon Jesus being our surety, who takes on our responsibilities and who pays our debt. The debt that I'm referring to, of course, is our responsibility to uphold the righteous requirements of the covenant God made with his people. Hebrews 7.22 tells us that Jesus is the surety for God's people under the new covenant. Jesus is the surety for God's people under the new covenant. To put this in words that many of us may be more familiar with, Jesus is the believer's cosigner. He obligates himself to fulfill our responsibilities to God. And that's, And what are those responsibilities again? To live a holy and perfect life of obedience to God, to love the Lord with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind, and to love your neighbor as yourself. To put it simply, our responsibility is to fulfill the righteous demands of God's moral law. Every one of us has failed to meet those covenantal obligations. This means that you have defaulted on your covenant with God. Your indebtedness to him far exceeds anything that you have the ability to pay. And every time you read God's law, it functions like a foreclosure notice, reminding you just how large your debt is and how it keeps growing larger and larger and larger because of your own sinful actions and how this debt needs to be paid in full before you can experience any relief from the burden of guilt on your conscience and the impending wrath of God. If it were not for Jesus Christ, who functions as a surety for God's elect, nobody would ever be able to find relief from the wrath of God. But for those who repent of their sins and believe the Lord Jesus Christ, believing that He possesses the love and the will and the necessary resources to fully satisfy their personal debt to God, that relief has been already accomplished. He paid the debt at the cross on Calvary, thereby redeeming the sinner from his sin debt. and positioning him in a new relationship with God, a relationship where all the obligations of the covenant have been fulfilled by Christ, our cosigner. This means that those who are in Christ are no longer in debt because of their sin. We are no longer sinners who must pay the penalty for our sin. Why? Because Jesus paid it for us. He took our responsibilities upon us when we defaulted in our covenantal obligations, and then he satisfied every single one of them as our surety. Here in 21st century America, most bookkeepers have a big red rubber stamp that they use to notate a debt which has been discharged. It's a stamp that says, paid in full. We like to see that one, don't we? We like to get that notice in the mail. And that phrase paid in full has a specific legal connotation indicating that the debt has been completely satisfied. Well, the Hellenistic culture in which the New Testament was written had an equivalent to this red rubber stamp. It was the Greek word tetelestai, tetelestai. And back then, if you had a debt that was paid off, your lender would write the word tetelestai across your contract or across your bill, and that would indicate that the debt has been satisfied in full. And in fact, the word tetelestai is even more rich than that. It was also used in the Greek and Roman criminal justice system. Whenever a person was found guilty of a crime, the judicial court system would print that man's crimes on a parchment or a piece of wood or something like that. And then the convicted criminal would be imprisoned and that, document that contained a listing of his crime or crimes would be nailed to the outside of the prison cell. And this, of course, clearly identified the crimes that the prisoner had been convicted of. And anybody walking by the prison cell can look in, can see the prisoner, can look at the document out there and know exactly what he was guilty of. Well, once the criminal had satisfied the conditions of his punishment, he would then be released from prison and he would be given that document. They would take it off the wall, put it into his hands. He would then take that and bring that document to the judge. And the judge would write the word Tetelestai over that document and give it back to the man. And then that man would go home, back to his family, he would take that document, and he had nailed up to the outside of his house, right above his front door, so that everybody in the community could know that his punishment had been fully satisfied. It had been paid. That's how the word tetelestai was being used in the Hellenistic culture in which Jesus lived, in which the New Testament was written. Well, when we read the Apostle John's account of Jesus' crucifixion, he records the very last words that Jesus spoke before he died. In John 19.30, When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, it is finished. And he bowed his head and gave up his spirit. And those three words that we translate into English as it is finished is a single Greek word, the word tetelestai. Everyone living in the first century who heard or who read the words that Jesus spoke from his mouth would have easily identified that what Jesus was saying on the cross when he said to telestai was that the payment of the debt or the satisfaction of the criminal punishment had been completed. It was done, fulfilled, satisfied. And for those who have acknowledged their sin debt to God, those of us today who have acknowledged our sin debt to God and have confessed to Him our own inability to personally satisfy our sin debt, and therefore we place our faith and trust in Jesus Christ, clinging to Him as our own personal surety, our own cosigner, who not only can but has paid our sin debt in full, then we have nothing to fear, nothing to fear. We no longer possess the fear of God's impending wrath. We no longer fear the day in which we will stand before the judgment throne of God because Jesus has declared to tell us die. Who shall bring a charge against God's elect? Paul rhetorically asks in Romans 8.33. Certainly not Satan. He has no grounds upon which to bring an accusation against those whom Jesus has justified. Who is to condemn? Paul asks again in verse 34. The righteous law of God will certainly not condemn you because Jesus Christ has fulfilled the demands of the law on behalf of those whom he died for. You see, when Jesus spoke the word to Telestai, He spoke it in the perfect tense, which means that it was a task that was completed at a point in time in history, in the past, but it has a continuous effect into the present, an ongoing continuous effect. As a present, as a future becomes a present, this effect continues. And this means that even though Jesus's atonement for sin was completed at a specific point in time in history, the result of that atonement have an ongoing and everlasting impact in the life of those to whom it is given. In other words, Jesus's single act as a surety for the sin debt of his elect is effective for all eternity. So those of us who have repented of our sins and believe in Him, never need to worry about what will happen as we stand before the triune God on judgment day. Our confidence is not in our own works or in our own ability to pay our debt, but rather our confidence is entirely in the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ. He has left nothing for you to do. It is finished. The only appropriate response is for you to possess a firm conviction that the whole work of Jesus Christ was finished and that the whole debt that you owed was paid upon the cross and therefore there is nothing left for you to do except to fall upon your knees and to praise him as the glorious Savior. Amen? Amen. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, You are a remarkable God, and Your Son, Jesus Christ, is a remarkable Savior. The more we come to know about the mechanics of the atonement and what He did on our behalf to accomplish our salvation, Father, we are all that much more in a position to glorify you and to stand in awe of the enormous sacrifices that our Savior Jesus Christ had to make. Father, your servant Solomon, warned us in this earthly world about the improprieties and the enormous responsibilities and burdens that come with taking on another person's responsibilities and debts. And Father, it's because of those great responsibilities that he's so strongly warned against it. Yet your son Jesus Christ did not hold back from taking on the debts of others. He willingly suffered and put himself out on behalf of his elect that he may take upon them their own responsibilities and debts and that he may pay those debts and that he may fulfill those responsibilities and that he may attain and procure salvation on behalf of those who trust him and love him and repent of their sins. And so Father, This is an enormous testimony to the love of Jesus Christ and the sacrifice that was required in order for Him to accomplish our salvation. And we take, we have just a stand in awe of what He did for us, and we are left knowing that it is purely by grace that we did not deserve to be treated with such love, but rather it was purely because of His love for us and Your grace to give to us what we did not deserve, that we can be the recipients of such a mighty act of love. And so, Father, we thank You for the ongoing perpetual nature of that atonement that has been applied to us, and it continues to be effective for all eternity, that we never have to worry about whether we have the sufficient resources to merit our salvation and fellowship with you, but rather that it's a done deal, that it's been completed in full, as Jesus said, to telestai, it's finished, it's done, that the debt has been paid, the responsibilities have been fulfilled, and the attainment of that eternal fellowship with our triune God is established once and for all. So Father, thank you, and we glorify you for such a magnificent display of grace and mercy and love. This we pray in Jesus' name, amen. This has been a presentation of Redeemer Presbyterian Church. For more resources and information, please stop by our website at visitredeemer.org. All material herewithin, unless otherwise noted, copyright Redeemer Presbyterian Church, Elk Grove, California. Music furnished by Nathan Clark George. Available at nathanclarkgeorge.com.