Well, congregation, let me invite us this evening to open our scripture to First Timothy. First Timothy chapter one. We'll take up there in a moment verses eight through 11. And then after that, we'll read from the Heidelberg Catechism, so to Lord's Day two. Page nine in the back of our blue Psalter hymnals, we're gonna read that responsibly as we do, reading through the Heidelberg Catechism. We'll come to that in a moment, Lord's Day II, page nine. Remember last week we discussed and set forth the matter of the significance of doctrine, that is teaching what it is the word of God makes clear, and that reality of teaching As Paul. Taught and expressed that to Titus, the need for the ministry on the island of Crete. So now. This evening, Paul to that young Timothy for ministry in Ephesus, we see. The significance of these same things. The church needs to be taught. And God is very kind and gracious to that end. So beloved in First Timothy chapter one, is, as we've said, addressing matters by the Spirit to Timothy, his true son in the faith and the ministry that the Lord has assigned to Timothy. And in verse eight now, these things. We know that the law is good if one uses it properly. We also know that law is made not for the righteous, but for lawbreakers and rebels. The ungodly and sinful, the unholy and irreligious, for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers, for adulterers and perverts, for slave traders and liars and perjurers, and for whatever else is contrary to the sound doctrine that conforms to the glorious gospel of the blessed God. which he entrusted to me. As far as your congregation, God's glorious word, I would encourage you to keep your Bible open and near you. Of course, we'll pay very careful attention to the word of God, but let's turn now to the summary of the teaching of the word of God as we find it tonight in the Heidelberg Catechism. And we have then these three questions and answers that make up Lords Day 2. Notice we're in that section dealing with. Sin. So question three, how do you come to know your misery? The law of God tells me. What does God's law require of us? Christ teaches us this in summary in Matthew 22. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. And these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets. Can you live up to all this perfectly? No, I have a natural tendency to hate God and my neighbor. Well then, dear congregation, these things we believe for they are taught to us in the word of God. Well, let's ask as always his help again this evening as we continue. Let's do so in prayer, shall we? Our Father in heaven, we thank you so much for the sweet ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ by his poured out spirit in his church. And Lord, we rejoice that we are the recipients of the treasures of your grace. We ask tonight that you would help us. Strengthen us, O Lord, to receive these things, believing all that you say, and divine confidence from you by your spirit In your word for our day. Help us, we ask in Jesus name. Amen. Well, their congregation of the Lord Jesus Christ. If I might begin with a question, it would go like this. What is a primary reason, humanly speaking? Why so few people today embrace the Lord Jesus Christ in his saving gospel? Now that's a complicated question. There could be many answers that go into it. Let me suggest one. And it is like this. One of the reasons, humanly speaking, why today so few people embrace the Lord Jesus Christ and his saving gospel is the radical disarming of sin. the destructive, explosive power of sin has been extracted out of behaviors, choices, patterns, and lifestyles, such as now almost nothing is deemed to be sinful any longer. Therefore, ergo, by necessity as the result, there is no need for a gospel of salvation. It has been an amazingly effective strategy of the enemy to say to people, don't be worried about that word sin because largely it no longer exists. And when once that need for the reality of sin is taken out of our discourse and our culture and our ethic, there is no need for a saving gospel. Now this isn't something new. It is why our Reformed fathers, when they were looking and poring over the scriptures, said, well, what's one of the first things that people need to know being pulled out of the Roman Catholic errors? One of the first things they need to know is the significance of the seriousness of sin. What three things must we know to live and die in the peace of this comfort? First, remember it, how great my sin and misery are. But let's again ask the question, why is nothing sinful in our culture any longer? Now I'm going to say something which I hope you won't be upset with me for saying, but I think we need to admit that in some measure at least, the church, I use that term broadly, and in some measure at least, the church bears responsibility. Well, what do we mean? Most churches now again, I'm speaking broadly. Have no interest any longer. In stressing the arresting nature of the commandments of God. The law. Has little function. So here's our first fill in the blank people of God, just like a child, just like a child will grow up wild and selfish. If parents refuse to discipline, so too a society and culture thinks all behaviors are fine when the church refuses to boldly tell and live the law of God. The law makes lawbreakers. The law makes Lawbreakers. Now that statement will need to be explained tonight. So beloved from the text, we should be shaken awake by the law which reveals to us our deadly sins. Shaken awake by the law which reveals to us our deadly sins. Well, the first thing then that we need to consider from the text, verse eight, is this, we will come back to this other use of the law later. What does Paul say to Timothy? We know that the law is good if... This is so very important. Even as we will be dealing with the law in the next three sermons, Even though that's the case, the most detailed examination of the law will come weeks and weeks and weeks from now as we go through carefully and slowly the Heidelberg Catechism. When we begin at Lord's Day 34 to understand that it is then we will come to what it is the apostle says in verse eight. We know that the law is good if one uses it properly. The law is a great blessing for the Christian. The psalmist frequently said that the law was his delight. The use of the law that we deal with tonight, however, does not initially cause delight. But dearly beloved, we can be sure that God intends his law will have a very positive impact in the thinking and behavior of every regenerated person. The law has a very positive impact in the thinking and behavior of every regenerated person. So we are going to see when we come to the gratitude section or the service section of the catechism that what Paul says in verse eight is exactly right. The law for the believer is like a guardrail on a winding mountain road. If you happen to drive too closely to that 3,000 foot drop off, the guardrail, how should we say it, gently pushes you back. Well, maybe not so gently, but it keeps us from destruction, doesn't it? That's God's glorious delight in his believers' lives by his law, which tells us something to which we can already connect to where we're going in a minute. The law is very firm. It moves us, not we it. But the Christian, the Christian as a sinner still, we want a firm hand because God's love is God's law for the Christian and it shapes us and keeps us. So people of God, when we come later to the third use of the law, when we come later to the third use of the law, we will see that joy, peace, flourishing, and freedom, as Paul would say it in Galatians, freedom comes from God's law. But the catechism has us Secondly, the law has this incredibly important purpose. Notice the juxtaposition, the contrast. Paul now says, we also know. That means from the original language, now I'm gonna go now in a different direction. Something else is as equally true as what was just said in verse eight, and it is said in verse nine this, and also we know. But I pause and ask the question, do we? Now if we're just thinking about churches in the West and I've I've been saying we're thinking of this broadly, not thinking of just faithful, reformed and Presbyterian churches, which I hope about what I'm going to say of them is true, but churches more broadly. Let me ask you another question. What percentage would you say of let's think American churches for a moment? Which percentage of all American churches still read the law of God every Sunday? Now, I don't know if we would come to an agreement about what that percentage is, except I think we would agree, us here tonight, that it's sadly probably quite low. Why is that? What's going on? But there's another thing to ask about that. Maybe you think I'm going off on a tangent, but let me ask you this question. Why is the practice of the reading of the law in corporate worship, whether it is done or not, why is that an important assessment metric? Why should we be concerned about what percentage of churches do or don't do that? Because the law makes law breakers. Now let's refine that statement. Maybe it's giving you to be a little bit uncomfortable, so let's refine it a little bit. The use of the law makes lawbreakers. What Paul asserts in verse 9a is that the use of the law by the church proclaiming it and applying it, even disciplining members according to it, is what makes sinners aware of their sins. It's what makes sinners aware of their sins. We're asking questions tonight, so let me ask us another one. If the church does not use the law spiritually, who do we think will do it? The county government? The state legislature? The federal courts? I hope we understand that those are all a delusion. The church and her ministry must be, can I put it this way, must be both the police officer and the district attorney. The church and her ministry, which includes now, as the catechism is saying to us, the proclamation of and the application of the law, must both arrest and prosecute. Now that is of course not all we do, much more is done, but we're focusing this evening on what the text is telling us and the catechism in its summary is saying. This is something the church must be doing in her ministry. So dearly beloved, the first use of the law, the first use of the law, when used by the church, listen, is to cause people to become aware that their behaviors are a sinful violation of God's law. People must hear that there is a righteous, holy God who has a righteous, holy standard. I hope we don't have to go too far into the need of being convinced this evening that people are not living in that reality right now. From the second part of verse nine through verse 10, we are going to see very carefully significant detail from the 10 commandments as Paul couches all of the commandments save one in the second half of verse nine and verse 10. But why do that? Why does Paul say that this is significant to Timothy? Because Paul is convinced by the spirit that this is what Timothy must proclaim in Ephesus. What must faithful ministries do? What must faithful churches believe and practice? Included on that list, and you could, of course, mention many things, is to boldly teach God's law in its convicting use. The church, by the law, must prosecute sinners. Lord's Day II asks, How do we, how do people come to know misery, their sinful condition? You've heard the analogy of the doctor so many times I hesitated even mentioning it tonight, but of course it does apply, doesn't it? Unless you have been told you have some serious problem, illness, whatever it is, you won't pursue very quickly the physical healing process needed by the pain of going to the doctor and to the surgeon and to the rest of it. Well, of course that applies. But spiritually, do we do it? Church, God has placed this responsibility in our hands. People of God, the church today must not refuse, must not refuse to proclaim and apply God's law unless we are willing to say we hate our neighbor. Love for all demands we tell his law. Paul is urging Timothy, he is instructing Timothy, he is placing a burden and a responsibility onto this young minister, which includes now the significance of knowing the use of the law. is first use. Now thirdly, revealing how sinful is sin in humans. So not surprising to hear me say what I'm about to say next, the catechism is right. Smile. The catechism is right. In its statement, as it were, to say that the law is an oracle to make sin sinful. Think about that in regards to what it is Paul does next as he is teaching young Timothy. He says in effect, verse 9b, The law is made not for the righteous, but for lawbreakers and rebels, the ungodly and sinful." What has he just done? He has launched into, Paul has here, a long teaching, an explanation in this now verse and a half where he is in effect saying the law from Sinai is still valid. It's still in effect. And God's law is still at work in such a way as to reveal the sentence men and women are under, people need to know the charges. That's something, of course, that's often asked a police officer when somebody is put into handcuffs, what are the charges against me? Then when that person comes into the courtroom, the charges are read. Happens to be the case, however, that as the word of God works these things out, the charge is also the conviction and the judgment. It's not just something in limbo that may or may not prove to be true. If you have a good lawyer, you can get out from some of those things in the human courts. But when God levels the charges, it is also the conviction and the judgment. And this, beloved, is what the catechism is addressing. In this place now, Paul, mentions by name, in words we're not always as familiar with, each of the Ten Commandments except coveting. And he says about them as an introduction, that the law that is in its first use is made not for the righteous, But for lawbreakers and rebels, he is introducing the matter that they need to be made aware of, as we've been kind of going long at now, need to be made aware that they are lawbreakers. They need to be told that they are rebels. Well, how then does the Word of God do that? By addressing the ungodly. Notice that word. That is Paul mentioning the first commandment. The ungodly. We could say from the original language that here is one who says there is no God. We sometimes are more comfortable with the word atheist. Which is just a Latin construct. The word a negating the word that comes after it. Theist and atheist is someone who says there is no God. This is what Paul is saying. The law is made for those who say there is no God. that they might be brought under the conviction that, yes, there is a God. Then he goes on to the second commandment, the sinful ones. Well, what is that second commandment? It is a way of coming at God from ourselves, our own ideas, our own methodologies of worshiping God in our own ways. No, those practices are sinful, each and every one of them. We notice this from Nadab and Abihu. Remember that what they did was they brought the fire, but they added some of their own. They said, let's make this worship of God a little better. Let's put some incense in it and make it really neat, so to speak. God was not pleased with their sins. The unholy, the third commandment, The significance of which, beloved, is found again in the practice of worshiping God from our own methodologies, our own ideas. This is something that is rampant in churches today. The law is supposed to check that. so that a constant and regular application of the law of God is to awaken in such people the idea, the consideration, the thoughtfulness that maybe these things aren't so novel and so good. We may think they draw people in. We might think they bring all kinds of visitors to us, but maybe it's not such a good idea after all. The unholy and now the fourth commandment, the irreligious. Isn't that an interesting word? I bet it's one that not many of us have used in a sentence in the last year. What does the word of God mean here by irreligious? Well, if you understand that the apostle is talking about the fourth commandment, I think it becomes pretty obvious. that not attending to the corporate worship of God in a true church is by definition being irreligious. is one who is determined to set God aside, who is determined to say, well, not you, but someone else. Maybe sports, maybe the mall, maybe entertainment, maybe going out to eat, whatever it might be. Anything but what God says ought to be happening on the Lord's Day. And so by definition, those practices are termed to be Unreligious. Irreligious. The opposite of what God says Sunday is for. You see where He's going with this? Now sometimes we're thinking, beloved, if I can pause here a moment, sometimes we're thinking, but isn't the church being a bit heavy-handed? Isn't the church when it says to people, well, you need to come in and worship God on the Lord's Day, some people are saying, well, isn't that a little bit legalistic? But then if we remember who our God is and what he is worth and what he should receive from his creature, are we ready then to say that it's really so legalistic and heavy handed to say to people, you know, you ought to come to church. You should be in the house of the Lord. To not do so is to be the opposite of religious. Then he says in application of the fifth commandment, something very interesting. For those who kill their fathers or mothers. Now there's a question in the original language, what exactly is meant here? And the NIV decided to translate that as kill. We could maybe even soften it a little bit as some of the other English renderings do and simply say one who wants to strike out at with a hand or with an instrument at their parent and cause them harm. But however you actually come down and define it, it's the opposite of what God intends by the fifth commandment, isn't it? It's something we thought about this morning in our sermon. We considered and included those references to the way mothers ought to be honored, and that's appropriate, and that's right to say. Well, what's the status of parents in a society that has no category for sin? Well, then children are empowered to do whatever it is they wish to do without restriction. And parents are the first in a long line of authorities to be bulldozed over on the way to self-determination, which is exactly the problem we're having now. How do we correct that? Well, one ingredient in the how do we correct that is the proclamation of and the application of the law of God In the life of the congregation. Don't be afraid of the law as as something to be used profitably in the life of the congregation. Don't neglect it, don't set it aside. Then, of course, the Apostle says. That the law is made for murderers. Well, that's obvious, isn't it? The law can be applied in a couple of ways to murderers, can't it? It can be applied in a spiritual way, where a murderer comes to the conviction of their sin and repents and is brought to saving faith some point subsequent to the act that they committed against another person and that they can be saved, as it were, eternally, though the other part of the application of the commandment might still be valid and carried out. That is, they should be executed. God has placed into the hand of the state the sword for a reason. And so if somebody is rightly, justly determined to have committed a murder against another person, the law is supposed to carry out that penalty. Now we're thinking about the second use, which we'll get to later. But they connect, don't they? They apply, don't they? But when somebody, as I heard was the case about a serial killer who was sitting in prison, And someone came to visit that serial killer in prison and began to speak about the gospel to that person. Eventually that person, supposedly, this is what we're told, came to saving faith. I pray that was the case. But it begins with the law telling that person that murder is contrary to God's word and a gross violation. You don't say, well, it was no big deal that you killed somebody. God loves you anyway. That's not how it works, beloved, you see? So the apostle moves on and he applies the seventh commandment in two ways. which if the sermon were to be preached in front of the United States Congress or Senate, and I would say to them what I'm about to say to you, I would probably be told you're never welcome back. And certainly if such a thing was preached in any of the Greens conference areas in major universities, and I say to them what I'm about to say to you now, I would probably have things thrown at me. But beloved, we need to hear these things. Because the Apostle here in v. 10 says, adulterers and perverts. What is he saying? He is saying that it is contrary to the law of God to be practicing both heterosexual sexuality outside the confines of biblical marriage, that's the one thing, adulterers, but also it is against the law of God for homosexual sin practices of any kind. That's what is intended by the original of this word translated in the NIV as pervert. Now, if we even use that word today to speak of somebody who is an avowed homosexual, call them a pervert, it wouldn't work out very well as far as they are concerned. But what does God say? And if we won't go to them and say to them, these things are clear in God's word, and set them before them and allow the spirit to take them up and do with those words what he will. But if we don't set them before them, who do we think will? He talks about the matter of stealing, putting it into the terms of a man stealer. That's a very literal translation of slave traders, a man stealer. so that it should be very clear that the word of God speaks against slavery, and not only slavery as we think of it in terms of our not too illustrious past in the middle of the 1800s and earlier, but what's going on now with the stealing of children and selling them as sex slaves. It is so obvious as to not even need to be said, but the word of God makes it clear, doesn't it? And then in terms of the ninth commandment, again, we get it in two different ways, both liars in general, those who speak but don't speak the truth and are concerned about it, and also liars in a legal environment, perjurers. And so, beloved, we need to say about all of those who are practicing these things that they're all contrary to the word of God. Now, Paul is just using this as a sketch, and so he goes on and he says, and whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine, Whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine, the law of God convicts people about things that are contrary to the word of God. Well, dearly beloved, every attitude of the heart, every attitude of the heart and action of the hands of the unbeliever falls under condemnation by God. He uses his law to prove their guilt and absolute need for God's forgiveness. So in this sense, also, the first use of the law is good. Because as the catechism says, it causes people to be lawbreakers, that is, to know their sin and misery. We cannot, question and answer five, perfectly obey God. Now I've been stressing that God's law makes people to be lawbreakers. Why are we stressing that? Are we saying that the law is at fault? Of course not, by no means. But rather we are saying that what we are watching happening in our culture most of the gross and vile behaviors that once upon a time, nearly everybody would have said if they were polled, 100 people would have been asked about the things that are going on now. Are those things wrong and bad? Are those things gross and vile? Most people in such a poll years ago would have said, well, of course. But it's happening now. The law causes them to realize their guilt, Why is this so significant? Why could we really preach a number of sermons on this very issue? And beloved, I want you to understand the significance of this. It is so weighty because we are not preaching in a neutral time, if there ever was such, which there wasn't. We are not preaching in a neutral culture, in a neutral society. But rather, the case is, we're preaching against very strong headwinds, where the culture is saying, oh, that's just fine. What they're doing, what they're behaving like is perfectly normal, is perfectly acceptable. How did this happen? Can I give you the briefest sketch about how this happened in America? It began with radical feminism in the 1920s and 30s in America. That seed of radical feminism was was given a lot of help by GIs coming back from the two world wars, having been exposed to leftism, liberalism in Europe, which by then was already flaming and powerful, which gave birth in America to the collapse of biblical marriage, i.e. no-fault divorce, and the unbelievable sexual, quote, revolution of the 1950s, 60s, and 70s. All of that was of course the explosive and open door to the acceptance of and normalization of homosexuality in America. So that today we are at the place that a physical male is justified by walking in to a woman's shower facility in a fitness center. And nobody can stop him pretending to be a her. But I ask us again, how has this happened? What I just traced out in the briefest, far too brief summary of how that happened in America, what needs to be added to that is the voice of the church. the prophetic voice of God's church. And so let me ask the question this way. Should a male church member who cheats on his wife be disciplined by the church under a violation of at least the seventh commandment? The answer is absolutely yes. But how many churches would do it? I mean, really take the task in hand and say this needs to be done. People of God, we must maintain. We must maintain and persist in the proclaiming the proclaiming of God's law. Because only then will people know they are sinners. And isn't this what the catechism is saying to us? How do you come to know your misery? The law of God tells me. Well, the church needs to hear that, and it's generation after generation, yes, but then there is a voice to be spoken through by the church. Because fourthly, many are living in ways contrary to God's good news. Contrary to God's good news. Verse 10b. All such thought and action are contrary to, notice it, against, what does Paul say? Sound doctrine. But then he says this. Comma, in our English, that conforms to the glorious gospel of the blessed God. Did you see that? the close proximity of three things that sometimes we say in our church experience and our understanding of the word are disparate, separate, far apart. No, he says they're close together. What three things? The law, sound doctrine, the gospel. He's not hesitant to speak of all of these things as closely related. Sound doctrine, you see, does always line up with the gospel. So the law and the gospel are not opposed. The law leads to the need for the gospel. The law makes clear and obvious all the ways people are living contrary to sound doctrine. So that there might be a running by the spirit after the gospel. The gospel way is a highway called the highway of holiness. God uses his law by the prophetic voice of his church to shout both warnings and condemnations to the people so that then they have ears to hear, open to the gospel. If the law does not speak, if the oracle is silent, How will people come to know that they are in the grave dangers that they are in? Dearly beloved, God's gospel is needed. God's gospel is needed when people, by means of the proclaimed law, come to know they are in danger of the fires of hell. Now there's a main thing here. The main thing to be noted here in the ministry of the church is that we desire to see sinners saved. Isn't that true? Isn't that right? Yes, taught, yes, sanctification, but first of all, what needs to happen? We ought to be propelled, we ought to be pushed, pushed to what? Well, to proclaim the gospel, yes, but also because of and by and through the law of God. We ought to want a strong law, a law which convicts, a law which leaves unbelievers feeling very guilty about their sin choices. Not walking out of a church feeling, well, quite comfortable in the choices they have made that are so vile in God's sight. No, not that. But rather, when people are made to feel like they are lawbreakers. Because then, then by the Spirit of God will their hearts and their ears, by the Spirit having been opened, be ready to cry out for mercy. People of God, the law, the law is made to make lawbreakers out of all of those who daily refuse to admit that their choices are bringing them to hell. The proclaimed law opens ears to hear the proclamation of God's glorious gospel. The catechism is right because it's from the Word of God. Amen. Our Father, we come to You this evening and ask that You would grant to Your church a continued boldness about the things that the church needs to be bold about. Yes, Lord, humble because we are sinners. But Lord, also confident that you are the God who saves sinners, and that you use your word in all of its various manifest ways to bring your elect to yourself. Grant, O Heavenly Father, that we would be confident to hear these truths and believe them. We ask in Jesus' name, amen. Well, let's sing this evening, dear congregation, an application of this which ought to remind us of what grace God has worked in our lives. So to number 94, that familiar setting of Psalm 51, God be merciful to me. We'll stand and sing.