1889 and the question in that is actually question 92 I Went to the Westminster larger confession of faith and this question 76 it actually deals with a few more Verses same same wording. It's a little shorter than this It gives a little bit more clarity. So I want to try and go through that if we can I'm going to read the The question first, and then I realize the answer is very lengthy, but I would appreciate you all reading with me. Just leave out the scripture, and we'll go through that in a few minutes. So the catechism question is, is what is repentance unto life? And the answer is, repentance unto life is a saving grace brought in the heart of a sinner by the Spirit and the Word of God, whereby out of the sight and sense not only of the danger but also of the filthiness and odiousness of its sins, and upon the apprehension of God's mercy in Christ to such as are penitent. He who grieves for it and then turns and endeavoring constantly to walk with Him in all the ways of new obedience. That is a very long answer. I kind of just went through and made some notes here. Repentance unto life is a saving grace. Second Timothy 2.25, if you want to read the scripture. Repentance. What, excuse me, what is that? What is repentance? Okay, turn it away. Then you deal with faith. What is faith? Okay, which comes first? That's a theological question that has not been answered for years. There's a lot of debate on that. How does one get to the point of repentance and faith? God grants it. In the scripture, the Godhead, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, which one does the convicting? The Spirit, right? So that's the second part there. Wrought in the heart of a sinner by the Spirit. That's also our memory verse today, and that's Zechariah 12, 10. We'll get to that in just a few minutes. So repentance or faith or both, which you have to have, comes through God working inside your heart and convicting you. Boy, they were serenading at the same time. So it works in your heart and convicts you and God gives you faith for that. And what are you convicted of? I'm sorry? Yes, ma'am. Depravity, your sins. So you're convicted of that and it goes on down and You're convicted, and when you start looking at Luke 15, 17 through 18, that's the example of the prodigal son. If you remember that, he finally woke up to his senses. That's what it's saying here when it says out of sight and sense. We actually have to come to the point that we recognize that, hey, I am a sinner. I do need a Savior. And I'm going to believe in Jesus Christ as my Savior. So it took the prodigal son. to go through a process by which God had led him, and I firmly believe that God led him through this, so he would come to the point that he needed a savior. And I think the Holy Spirit works that way in convicting people of their sins. And then it says, upon apprehension of God's mercy in Christ, to such as are penitent. And I want to read Isaiah 30.22 here. There's only 66 books, so I'll eventually get there. Isaiah 30, 22. And you will defile your graven images, overlaid with silver, and your molten images plated with gold. You will scatter them as an impure thing and say to them, be gone. So in God's mercy and in his grace, he will get us to get rid of our idols, turn from our sin, because it grieves us and because it is in rebellion against God. And he causes us to turn from these things and hate the sin that we have seen and the things that we have done and then turn to God for our salvation. Acts 26, 18, I'll read that real quick. to open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the dominion of Satan to God in order that they may receive forgiveness of sins and inheritance among those who have been sanctified by faith in me. So God has brought them to that point. And once he has done that, then the result is that we turn away from our sin and that we follow Jesus Christ as our personal savior. Psalm 119, six through eight, I'm gonna read that and then we'll get into the rest of our memory verse here. Psalm 119. And I like scriptures because I think it's important we use them to clarify and define what God is trying to tell us. Six through eight. Then I shall not be ashamed when I look upon all thy commandments. I shall give thanks to thee with uprightness of heart when I learn thy righteous judgments. I shall keep thy statutes. Do not forsake me utterly. So once we turn to God, then we have a walk that we keep with him and a walk that we endeavor to do each day using scriptures, using prayer, even some books. I don't mind reading books, but if I go to the Bible, I usually let Bible interpret Bible. But these are things that can help us in our daily walk to include prayer because we're communicating with the Lord which is what he wants. We are in a relationship with God and he created us for this relationship. So it's a good catechism. There's a lot in that little short thing and I'm not We're not gonna be able to go that deep into it, but I hope that at least covers the edges there that we can understand what God has done for us. And it is an act of God, it's not something that we do. All right, our memory verse, Zechariah 12, 10. If you would, read it with me. And I will pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem the spirit of grace and supplication so that they will look on me whom they have pierced and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only son. They will weep bitterly over him like the bitter weeping over a firstborn. Zechariah is actually writing in the future he is prophesying about certain things and he is prophesying about our Savior and that when Jerusalem sees that they have crucified him and that they have pierced him that they will mourn and hopefully they will repent. Now the problem that we have is I believe this is twofold because if you remember when they had a choice to crucify him or Barabbas. They said release Barabbas and crucify Jesus Christ. So they hung him on a cross. They didn't mourn at that point in time. This mourning here is going to be in the future when God deals with them as a nation and they will realize what they have done and they will come to repentance. and salvation through Jesus Christ. So I believe this is what Zachariah is actually talking about in this particular reference here. Any questions on our memory verse? Okay. Old Testament scriptures, I'm not going to read through those. If you have your bulletin from last Sunday, you know that we went through Psalms, Romans, and Acts. I doubt seriously we're going to get through all that today. We're probably going to go through a few things, but the unifying theme that all three of these relate to, and I'm hoping that we will go through today, is God has revealed in the scriptures that his word, the ordinances, fellowship, and prayer are the ordinary means of satisfaction, means of grace that are for his glory and That should be our good, okay? Fat little fingers hit wrong keys, so. Psalm 19, seven through nine. If we would, I would like for someone to read that. Rob, since I remembered your name, you wanna read it for us? All right, Psalm 19. We'll just pick on you right off, okay? Make sure I keep the notes straight or we're going to be in trouble. All right, verse seven, the law of the Lord is perfect, restoring the soul. I've kind of gone through here because I wanted to relate what David is actually writing about here. These are world religions that I've listed here, okay? One of the things about world religions is that all of them claim to have some type of divine inspiration, some kind of divine doctrine. The problem that we have with that is that really it's not dependable because the God in which they describe actually makes choices on who he is at a particular point in time. In other words, he changes what he wants. He changes what he thinks you should know. He doesn't really allow you to come to a relationship with him. So, and I'll list an example here. It says the Quran suggests that Islam's Allah is not knowable. And the reason is because the characteristics he wants you to know he changes them. So the followers can't really truly understand who he is. And then if you look at the pagan gods in ancient and modern times, they are given to sudden and unchangeable change of mood and actions. Followers have no idea what is expected of them. So if I'm someone that's a follower of, and you think agnosticism is not a religion, it is. The God that agnosticism is, is yourself. And you're not consistent because you're not always believing in the things that you say you believe in, and these things change. So the problem with these religions are is there's no consistency. No consistency whatsoever. So you can't depend on the God that you're proclaiming. I actually continued these over. World religions continued and I listed a few. Southern Baptists, Presbyterian, Methodists, Assembly of God, Lutheranism, Church of Christ, Church of God. All of them are religions today. There's more. But I've listed these. And the reason I listed these as religions is that we have a tendency, just because we go to church, we think we're saved. That's religion. I know some Presbyterians. They can tell you back to 18 generations. They come from that many generations of people that were Presbyterians. And they think their salvation is based on these 18 generations. Not in relationship to God's word. So I'm listing these here because they are religions and religions do not save you. Okay? I hope we understand that point. Religions do not save you. Anybody have any questions on that one point? Because we won't go any further until we discuss it, if there is. Anything other than Jesus Christ plus does not work. If I was a Presbyterian and I believed in Jesus Christ, then I'm a Christian based on the fact that I know Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior. I just happen to go to a Presbyterian church. Okay? And a lot of them are very conservative. A lot of them aren't, just like Baptists. Okay? So, I'm not going to down the religions, but if you believe in the Bible, and you believe in salvation through Jesus Christ, this is what we believe. Not what man says, but this is what we believe. Okay? So, the difference in world religions and the God of the Bible is pretty evident. God has no potential. Our pastor uses that term all the time. What does that mean? God has no potential. Hold up, I want to see something, Alex. This side, hold off. God has no potential. I want to put you all on the spot. What are we talking about? Let's give an illustration. When I was growing up, I still haven't yet, even though I'm 78 this year, there's potential. In other words, when I was growing up, I wanted to be a baseball player. I was a pretty good player. Potential. But did that happen? Exactly Exactly God does not change He is all-knowing. He's all-powerful He he he does not need to change because he is God right He can't change because he knows everything. He's pure. He's holy and So there's no change there for him. If he did change, that would make him a liar, wouldn't it? So he wouldn't be God. Okay? So there's no potential. He's omnipresent. Omnipresent, fancy word that means what? He's everywhere, right? So that means he's here. If you weren't here, he would be there. He lives in each one of us as his children, right? So he is everywhere. He's omniscient. What does that mean? He knows all. I'm sorry? He knows all. He knows all. Okay, he's not like us. God has allowed us certain knowledge, okay, for us to understand him and to know him better, but we don't know all things, right? If we did, we would be God. All right? Omnipotent. What does that mean? All powerful. I'm glad people aren't shy this morning. All right, so he's all powerful. He created the worlds. He created us. He created all animals. You see the winds blowing. You see the clouds floating by. You see the sun in the sky. You see the heat come down. So he's created all things, and he's all powerful. In other words, there is none that can defeat him. He's unchangeable. That can go along with no potential. I've listed these scriptures here so you can have these things that you can use when you get on. He's eternal. Okay? He has no beginning and no end. We don't understand that, do we? We say we do, but a God that is never-ending, he had no beginning and no end, and yet he works within time for us. Jesus Christ came into time. That was the Immaculate Birth, right? He took on flesh and He lived in time that we might have salvation. He's not a liar. He's the same today, yesterday, and forever. His promises and His purposes and His path are holy and they do not change. He is sovereign. What does that mean? Somebody said something I couldn't hear. Okay. He is in charge. He does reign. His will is gonna be done, right? And he is faithful. Something that we are not. Okay? So what religion can save you? I'm just trying to drive home the point. I don't care what you call yourself. I don't care if you belong to one of these here. It's not going to save you. Now, we're going to get into probably the first text today. The law of the Lord is perfect restoring the soul. I've brought these up in these First six verses, we're dealing with seven through nine, but the first six verses brings about a general knowledge about God. God has revealed himself in creation, right? God has put in everybody's heart that he exists. But does that save you? No, it does not. I've had people ask me over the years, and I was in some Southern Baptist churches and they didn't actually believe in predestination, election, stuff like this. And as I was teaching, God convicted my heart, and I was teaching his word and not teaching what Southern Baptists believe. And they asked me, well, how can God send, and they always like to use this illustration. You got a guy in Africa. He lives in the woods. He's never been around anybody. Is God gonna send him to hell? Is he? Yes, he is. Why? Because he has a general knowledge that God exists Okay, but he doesn't know Jesus Christ as his Savior God will hold him accountable for what he knows So when you start saying these things you're going to have to understand that hell has a varying degree of punishment Those of us that go to church every Sunday, that sit under the word, that read his word, and we're not Christians because we've never, never turned our life over to Jesus Christ, we've never been convicted of our sins, we will have a worse punishment than the guy that was in the jungle in the illustration that we had. Will he be in hell? Yes. but he will be punished and judged for what he knows. Okay? That make sense? Any questions? I've given Ryan some thoughts here. I see his eyes going, okay, let's see, what are we seeing here? He'll come out with it in a minute. We'll give him the opportunity. Okay? So I'm trying to make it plain because I'm simple. I don't have a big brain. God's given me a little bit of knowledge, so we try to share what we know, okay? So in the first six verses in Psalm 19, and it tells us the heavens are telling of the glory of God. That's general revelation. Now in seven through 14, he gets into specific salvific, and I never can pronounce that word right, but salvific knowledge of God, which means you have come to an understanding in the scriptures that God exists, but then that we are sinners and that we need a Savior, and God has convicted you of your sins, and you have repented, you have faith, that's salvific information. And that's how we're saved. So, he has gone through this. In the first six verses, he's used the term El, and that's a general term for God, okay? I'm not sure if I have it on the board or not, we'll see. Okay. So, that's a general term that he uses for God. And it's a generic form of the Hebrew, right? And I think this is even more generic than Elohim, okay? Now, in verse seven, God is referred to here. And by the way, this is not how you write it in Greek, I mean in Spanish. My wife is Spanish. This is not how you write it in Hebrew. This is the way you pronounce it, okay? I can't write it in Hebrew. There are little marks like this and like this, and there are different things. I don't know how to write Hebrew because I don't know it. Now, who David is addressing in these scriptures here. And if you remember in Genesis 3.15, I'm sorry, in Genesis, let's see. I'm sorry, Exodus 3.14, this is the term that God used. And if we're in Exodus, who are we dealing with? Right. So we're dealing with Moses. And when God called Moses, remember, he appeared to him in a burning bush. The bush wasn't actually burning. It was just burning, didn't consume. He was told to go to Egypt, and he was going to lead the people. When I say he, God wasn't going to lead the people out. He was the instrument by which God used to lead them out. And he gave him the term Yahweh. And the term Yahweh means I am who I am, I believe. Okay? This is what it means. This is the term that Israel knows, and they very seldomly speak this word because it's such a holy word to them. And this, this special revelation, okay? I don't remember which the scripture is, but it says God's word is profitable unto salvation. I'm sorry? 2 Timothy 3, 16, 15 through 7. Okay. When you said that, it rang a bell. Thank you. Okay? So this is where salvation comes from. It comes from God's word. Make sure we cover what I've got here. Okay, what does perfect mean in verse 7? In verse 7, it says, the law of the Lord is perfect. What are we talking about? I'm sorry? No mistakes. Okay. So, perfect. There's a lot of terms used. There's no mistakes in it, right? It's complete. It's sound. It's full. I'm sorry? Timeless. So when we're reading scripture, make sure we understand what we're reading. It takes me time because I have to look up in dictionaries words. I try to go to the Greek words because my Bible has a Greek word in there, so I try to deal with it and make sure I understand what God is telling us in his word. So, the law of the Lord is perfect. In other words, it's complete. There's no mistakes in it. Restoring the soul. What does restoring mean? Can I hit enter and it'll come back on? Okay, we may turn it off. I'm always scared to touch a key, sorry. All right, so what does restoring mean? Okay. Good definitions there. Restoring is repairing, and what are we repairing? In this instance, it says, the law of the Lord is perfect restoring. What is he restoring? Us, right? Our soul. So why does the soul need to be restored? Okay, so we have a fallen nature. When did this take place? Okay, were you in the garden? Ah, so why? Why are we sinners? We're in Genesis 3, right? What was the first covenant broken in Genesis 3? What was the covenant that God gave Adam? Okay. Eat of every tree, right? Except tree of what? Good and knowledge, right? Is that right? What is that covenant called? And why is it that covenant? Kevin, works. And why is it works? Ah. We had to obey, and Adam was a human representative at that time, wasn't he? That's the why you and I are sinners today. Our great ancestor, Adam, failed the test. He didn't obey. And we're the same way. That's our nature. We don't obey. We're in rebellion against God, right? All right. What were the consequences? What was the most obvious consequence? I'm sorry? Okay. That's secondary. Kick out of garden. All right? I'm sorry? Is that what? Okay. I'm gonna put relationship. But since Brother Brian's preaching today on, what was it, what was the word? Fellowship. Might give you a hint on what he's gonna be talking about a little bit. So our fellowship was broken with God, right? Because we disobeyed him. And since we disobeyed him, we sinned. And God does not know sin, does he? Now, there's a lot of people who say that God created sin. Is that true? He didn't, did he? He created us in his image, and that image is that we were sinless at the time. We were holy, we were righteous, but then we broke that didn't we? So what covenant are we under after the fall? How do we know that? How do we know that we're under the covenant of grace? Terminated, were we? Did y'all see the movie The Terminator? Who was that, Arnold Schwarzenegger? I think he starred in three of them. So we were not terminated. That's the reason why we're under the covenant of grace. God did not, as Brother Ryan says, smoked us. He did not smoke us. He extended to us something that we did not deserve. Okay? And the first sin offering was done in the Garden of Eden when God killed animals to clothe us in skin, right? So that was the first blood offering. And the promise in Genesis 3, 15 of a savior. What does the Bible say about all humanity? Okay, there is none good, right? In fact, when the young ruler came to Jesus, he said, good master, and he says, why do you call me good? So he didn't even know what he was saying. Only God is good, right? Because he's perfect. So we are, Not good. And we're all under sin, right? I want to put bondage of sin. That's who we are. We're born in that state. We have no hope except by God's grace. I want to make sure I'm going to go to the scripture I want to go to here. All right. How are we restored? Psalms 321 through 26. Who's at that book right now. Psalm 321 through 26. I'm sorry, Romans. My apologies. I wish that was it. 21 through 26. Okay, if you would rate Rita Courtney. But now the righteousness of God, apart from the law, is revealed, being witnessed by the law and the prophets. Even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, is on all who believe. For there is no difference for all who sin and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. We all understood that didn't we? Fancy words there. So we are restored by faith in Jesus Christ, and we're justified as a gift, which is God's grace, and redemption in Christ. What does redemption mean? Everybody's so sour today. To be brought back. Redemption. To be brought... Okay. To be brought back. Where did we go? If we're gonna be brought back, where did we go? We sinned, right? So God had to bring us back. I always like, how many of y'all use coupons? When you get married long enough, you'll use them, I assure you. Coupons. What is a coupon? Okay, is it a discount? What do you have to do to get the discount? You got to buy it, right? So when you buy it, what do they do? They give you a discount. All right? So you got to buy. And you get the discount. So if I buy, let's say biscuits. I don't know how to make biscuits. Let's say I buy biscuits and they're $3. And my coupon says, I get $1.50 off, right? So I get $1.50 off, and I got to pay $1.50 plus tax, right? We all got to have tax. Our federal government loves tax. I won't go into that. We've said enough on TV for a month now. So in order to be redeemed, somebody's got to pay the price, right? Somebody's got to take and come up with this $1.50 discount in order for us not to have to pay the full price. But in the case of Jesus Christ, he paid the full price. And what price did he pay? What did God require for salvation? We know under the law it was a perfect lamb, right? Without blemish. So what did he require of his son? And in this perfect sacrifice, I must have erased it. What we could not do, Adam, Christ did. in total obedience. The sacrifice that he made paid our price, and our price was death, but what did the sacrifice have to accomplish? Atonement. There is a word, and I'm not sure if I wrote it down. There's a word used which means Passover. And I think it's a Greek word. Ryan will probably recognize that I don't. It's a Greek word. Sorry. Let's use this word here. This word here means Passover. This word here means What's the difference? Passover and Atonement. These two words are different words, but they're close to being the same. When God instituted the Old Testament sacrificial system, He provided for the Passover, this word here. In other words, our sins were set aside. Because if you remember, scripture says that the blood of animals and goats could never satisfy God's requirement for our sins. So they were set aside until what? The perfect Lamb of God was sacrificed at Calvary, and that's when we get this here, and this word here that applies, in that God completely forgave us of our sins. Perfect sacrifice. So when Christ died on the cross, in total obedience, He propitiated And that word just simply means that he satisfied God's wrath against us. Because God's wrath is against sin, right? And we could not satisfy that requirement. So he took on our wrath on the cross that we might have salvation, and God accepted his sacrifice because we know that he was raised from the grave. So that means God accepted the sacrifice that Jesus Christ offered. Does that make sense? I know we don't know Greek, but you've got a few words there. If you've got a Greek dictionary, you can look them up. And I don't know a bunch of Greek. I'm just trying to give you a little bit of information on what we're actually discussing here, okay? All right. How does a person become aware of God for salvation? I want us to turn over to our second scriptures for today, and we're probably going to end with, well, Sorry, we are out of time, but if you would turn over quickly to our second scripture today, and that's Romans 10, 14 through 17. And I'm gonna read this real quick. It'll give you some study time at home to go through this, because this is how we come into salvation to God. Romans 10, 14 through 17. How then shall they call upon him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in him whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach unless they are sent? Just as it is written, how beautiful are the feet of those who bring glad tidings of good tidings. However, they did not all heed the glad tidings, for Isaiah says, Lord, who has believed our report? So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ. So we come unto salvation through scripture. God set aside Israel to be a witness for his glory. and to tell others about Him. We are the same today because God has given us, in Matthew 28, 19 through 20, the Great Commission. We are to tell others And you can say, I'm not a preacher. That's OK. God's purpose for you is to take and share Christ with others that do not know him. And Paul, when he was writing in Romans 10, he was basically sitting there in the first couple of verses. And if you could see him crying, he would be crying for those that were lost sheep of Israel. And we should have that same desire and same zeal for the Lord that we would want to share Christ with our loved ones, with our friends, with our coworkers. And this is what God's word is given to us for so that we can give the gospel to a lost generation. We are all sinners saved by grace. And that's what the Bible teaches all the way through. From beginning to end. That's all the time we have for today. I'm sorry we couldn't finish everything. We usually don't, but the point today is God has given us his word and all of it is written so that it is profitable unto salvation, profitable to give us knowledge about him, profitable that we can have a relationship with him and that we can share this great knowledge with those that are lost. Because Christ said, I came to seek and to save those who are lost. God bless you and if you would, we'll have a