We'll read the first eight verses from Romans chapter three, always with the reverential recognition that this is the word of God. What advantage then has the Jew or what is the profit of circumcision? Much in every way, chiefly because to them were committed the oracles of God. For what if some did not believe? Will their unbelief make the faithfulness of God without effect? Certainly not. Indeed, let God be true, but every man a liar, as it is written, that you may be justified in your words and may overcome when you are judged. But if our unrighteousness demonstrates the righteousness of God, what shall we say? Is God unjust who inflicts wrath? I speak as a man. Certainly not. For then, how will God judge the world? For if the truth of God has increased through my lie to his glory, why am I also still judged as a sinner? And why not say, let us do evil that good may come? As we are slanderously reported and as some affirm that we say, their condemnation is just. Amen. We'll end our reading there in Romans 3, verse 8. Let's once again ask for the Lord's help in prayer. Our gracious God and heavenly Father, we rejoice before you today. Our hearts have already been stirred and moved by the great truths that we have sung together, that we have heard read from your word that we have listened to sometimes for the first time, we rejoice, oh Lord, that truly the church, our church, is in your hand. Lord, there is nowhere else where we would desire to be. There is no other place for us. And so, as the people of your pasture, as those whom you feed by your hand, We beseech you tonight to work in us and among us. We pray that the word would come with power, with the demonstration of the Holy Spirit and of power to our souls. We pray that it would work in us, that which is well-pleasing in your sight, that it would work in each one according to our individual need. Father, we pray that one result of the work of your word among us this evening would be that more truly, more deeply, We seek to glorify the Lord. We seek to live up to the great end of our existence. And oh Lord, we would pray also that you would so work in us that our faithfulness and our fruitfulness would both increase. Bless our denomination. Bless our individual congregations and classes. Bless everyone who is here. Bless our friends and guests who are with us. Lord, we pray that in the opening of your work, The Lord Jesus Christ would be glorified and your church would be strengthened. We ask it in his name. Amen. As we've gathered to observe the 300th anniversary of the RCUS, It's only natural that the faithfulness of God should be a prominent theme in our minds and in all the various speeches and devotionals and so forth that we are likely to hear. And of course, we benefit from God's faithfulness in many forms. We are the heirs of his faithfulness as creator, as the one who governs all things in his providence, to uphold us and all creatures ever since the creation of the world. We enjoy God's faithfulness in the abiding protection from the waters of the great flood that receded in the days of Noah and have never since returned. We certainly experience God's faithfulness to many promises, in that he sent his son to be the savior of the world. The Lord's faithfulness to build his church, to preserve it from the gates of hell, explains, the Lord's faithfulness explains the history of the church, including the history of our particular branch or family of the church. In other words, our thanksgiving for God's faithfulness has very deep roots. We could go back further than this, but you have to draw the line somewhere. We're grateful for the Reformation, for that wonderful movement that kicked off in 1517. We're grateful for when the Reformation came to the Palatinate. We're certainly grateful for the codification of that Reformation in the Heidelberg Catechism of 1563. In conjunction with many other branches of the Church of Christ, we have a long record of God's faithfulness to celebrate Our 300 years is a subdivision. It occurs in a much bigger and broader context. The joy of 1725 in Pennsylvania with those three congregations, the joy of 1986 when we resolved into a synod, the joy of 2025 where we find ourselves today with this wonderful celebration. Those are all branches of thankfulness, of celebration, of delight arising from a long trunk and from deep roots of God's consistent goodness. to His unworthy people. And that is what we mean by the faithfulness of God. God keeps His Word. God remembers His promises. God cannot deny Himself. He is faithful to us even when we are imperfectly faithful, even when we are unfaithful to Him. So the unique part, the special 300-year chapter that we're celebrating today is one chapter in an immense history of God's faithfulness to His people. What we're celebrating today is set in a wonderful context of faithful mercy, persistent grace, triumphing over sin and self-sabotage in a whole variety of forms. Now, the faithfulness of God is also a major theme in Paul's mind as he considers the condemnation due to both Jew and Gentile that he has set out in the first two chapters of Romans. By doing so, it might have seemed that he was putting the Jews on the same level as everyone else. And of course, in one way, that is exactly what he's doing. Well, then the question arises, if God's chosen people, if the children of Abraham and so forth, are on the same level as everyone else, then what was the point of everything that God did in the Old Testament? What was the point of taking them out of Egypt? What was the point of guiding them through the wilderness, of having them cross the Jordan, of helping them in the conquest of the promised land, and all of the other acts of faithfulness that followed, if at the end of the day, they're in the same boat, they're on the same level as everyone else? Well, that's where Paul begins in Romans chapter 3 with that question. What advantage then has the Jew? And he asserts that the Jew had most definite advantages, especially standing out above everything else that could be named, that they had the advantage of God's revelation in word. What advantage then has the Jew? What is the prophet of circumcision? much in every way. Why? Chiefly because to them were committed the oracles of God. God spoke and they heard. God inspired prophets and they read or heard read aloud the holy scriptures. That gave them a tremendous advantage. Now their failure to believe, not a universal failure, but a widespread failure, their widespread failure to believe didn't change the reality that they had access to this verbal revelation. And their failure to believe also did not call into question God's reliability or trustworthiness, his faithfulness, in other words. Paul repudiates that idea with a doctrinal statement that you can hear comes out of a full heart. And he adds to that a pertinent quotation from the very oracles that were committed to the Jews. What do I mean? Well, look at verse 4. He says, indeed, let God be true, but every man a liar. That is a heartfelt statement. You can notice it in the absoluteness of the contrast. He doesn't say, let God be true and some men liars. He makes an absolute opposition. Let God be true, but every man a liar. We'll talk about what that means in a moment. For right now, I just want you to notice something of the emotion that comes through that, the fullness of heart from which that statement arises. I think you can see that confirmed also by the word Indeed, and you can confirm it even further if you need to by what comes just before in verse, well, at the very beginning of verse four, certainly not. That's a strong, heartfelt repudiation of this idea. What idea is he repudiating? What gets Paul going emotionally, so to speak? The idea that the unbelief of man, of any man, of all men, could make the faithfulness of God without effect. May it never be. We cannot think that way. So out of this full heart, he makes a theological statement, let God be true and every man a liar. And then he backs that up with a quotation from Psalm 51, verse 4. Those are the words that are quoted in verse 4, that you may be justified in your words and may overcome when you are judged. Now, let's talk very briefly about how that's pertinent. How do those two ideas relate? Why would you say, let God be true and every man a liar, and then quote Psalm 51 verse 4? Probably some of you here could think of other passages that you might have chosen to quote instead. Why this one? Probably most of us remember, maybe a reminder is in order for some of the younger children, That Psalm 51 is a great psalm of repentance. It is a psalm where David acknowledges his sin before the Lord. It is a psalm where David recognizes that against God, God only, he has sinned. He has hurt other people by his sin. But it is ultimately God who is transgressed against when we sin, no matter what the form or shape of that sin is. So when David writes this tremendous psalm of confession, when he says that he has sinned against God only, the point he is making is about God's righteousness. When David confesses his sin, he also confesses the enormous contrast that there is between him and God. Now, certainly, there's a contrast between God and David. on the level of being. David is a creature and God is the creator. But there's also a moral contrast. David is a sinner, an acknowledged sinner. And God, oh God, is righteous. God is righteous in everything. God is entirely righteous. So between the two of them, between God and David, God has the right to judge. and the judgments that God issues will always be right judgments. Well, hopefully now you can see why did Paul quote Psalm 51 verse 4. Why does Paul bring this up? Well, he has acknowledged in chapters 1 and 2, and he'll do so again in chapter 3, but he has acknowledged the sin of humanity of all men. He recognized also the specific profile of the sin of unbelief among those who had the Word of God in their possession as a sacred trust. Their sin, their unbelief, their specific profile of unfaithfulness should not make anyone doubt about God's faithfulness. On the other hand, on the contrary indeed, Since that very Scripture teaches that God overcomes in judgment, that His words stand always, our attitude instead is to side with God over anyone and everyone else. Let God be true and every man a liar. Paul is not wishing for something to happen that is not already the case. That's not the force of let God be true as though we could hinder it. We are to recognize it. We are to confess it. We are to receive it. Let God be true and every man a liar. That is briefly our text for this evening. And the text tells us about three things. It tells us about man, Let every man a liar. It tells us about truth. Let God be true. And it tells us about God. It's right there in the Word, in the phrase. I don't need to repeat that. But let's take those in the order in which I mentioned them, not necessarily the order in which they appear in the verse. So let's start with humanity. Well, Paul has said, let God be true and every man a liar. And that is certainly borne out by Scripture. Psalm 58 verse 3 says of the wicked that they go astray as soon as they are born speaking lies. Humanity is made up of liars. Lying comes easily and naturally to us. You don't really have to teach or train anybody in how to lie. We find it all too easily. We figure it out for ourselves. We are liars. We're liars for many reasons. We're liars because we're ignorant and ashamed and cowardly. But whatever the reasons, however we get there, there's an indictment that stands over everybody in this room. In the flesh, as we come from old Adam, we are liars. We are not people of truth. Now, when Paul says, let God be true in every man a liar, His point is not that you can never believe anything anyone tells you, no matter how much they know about the subject or how trustworthy they've proved themselves to be. Sometimes we maybe get a little cynical and along with David, we might say in our haste, All men are liars. There's a bad sense to that. There's a sense in which we can't receive any testimony from anybody because we just live in a constant state of suspicion. That's not what Paul is inculcating here. Paul does not mean to say that human beings only ever always lie as though we didn't tell the truth when we just recited the Apostles' Creed a few minutes ago. We were not lying when we said those things. Those things are all true. And you can verify that just from the fact that Paul is a human being writing to other human beings and he expects those other human beings to take what he says seriously, to believe that he is speaking the truth. Sometimes, indeed, Paul will I affirm that very strongly. I say the truth in Christ. I don't lie. My conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Spirit. That's a little later on in the book of Romans. So the point is not that human beings only lie, always lie. Instead, Paul is using this phraseology, let God be true and every man a liar, to assert that nobody has the standing to contradict God. Of course, he'll say that more clearly later on in Romans 9, verse 20, O man, who art thou that replyest against God? So when we have to choose, when the demands of the situation call for it, We can never give to humans the preference over God. At our best, we are unstable. We are altogether vanity. Hence the exhortation, sever yourselves from man or cease from man whose breath is in his nostrils, Isaiah 2.22. It is never right to side with men over God. However many, however admirable the men in question may be, Leaning on humanity over God is a hideous mistake. Well, that brings us to the next subject that Paul discusses, that of the truth. Between man and God, the truth lies on God's side, always, without exception. He is the Lord God of truth, says Psalm 31 verse 5. All his works are truth, says Daniel 4.37. And, of course, tying this back into the oracles of God that Paul has mentioned, we learn the truth of God primarily in Scripture. With regard to this book, we must buy the truth and sell it not, as Proverbs 23, 23 says. And we can work that out. We can apply that in a little bit of detail. Now, hopefully, as a denomination, as a denomination celebrating 300 years, we don't wish to be reactionary, we don't wish to poo-poo everything new just because it is new or different, but we must stand firm with regard to Scripture. Here is the truth of God. Anything that goes against that is just so much human vanity or human deceit. Now, the battle lines have shifted. Of course, many of you will be familiar with the infamous battle for the Bible. The lines of where conflict arises concerning the Word of God are not always in the same place that they were in the 1960s. Some things have shifted, but Whatever the source, whatever the mouthpiece, the serpents, hath God said, from Genesis 3, must always be answered with the Savior's, it is written. There is no room for us to recede in our confidence in the Word of God. We stake our souls upon it. We stake our churches upon it. These are the oracles of God. They come from the Lord God of truth. It would be wrong It would be foolish to side with any human beings over the Word of God. And we can even apply that in a little bit more detail. With regard to the text of scripture, we don't need to adopt the latest fad or theory. We don't need to be intimidated by the current consensus. As you go back into history, you find that the current consensus keeps changing. It keeps updating. Things get reconsidered. New tools, new discoveries arise and fads come and go. Well, With regard to the text of scripture, we can maintain our confidence that God has delivered to us what he wants us to know. With regard to the canon of Scripture as well, now, there's so much long history behind the canon. We don't usually get into very heated debates about the canon of Scripture, but once in a while, you'll get a fringe person, some lunatic of one kind or another, who would like to add a book to the Bible or remove a book from the Bible. Obviously, we're not going to stand for that. That would be inappropriate. Let God be true and every man a liar. But even though we don't necessarily have a lot of arguments, certainly not in our circles, about the canon of Scripture, May I suggest that there is a way where we sometimes fail to stand firm, and that is we fail to really take into account the whole of Scripture. We have our favorite books, we have our favorite passages, we have the parts of the Bible that we return to again and again, and we skip. Adam, Seth, Enosh, the stirring beginning of 1 Chronicles leads into nine chapters of pretty much the same thing. It's a temptation to skip that, isn't it? I would dare to assert that probably none of you here have ever heard a sermon from those first chapters of Chronicles. If I'm wrong, please tell me about it afterwards. I would love to know how that went and what was said. Now, I'm not saying that Reverend Fagree has to start a series in 1 Chronicles with chapter 1, verse 1, next Lord's Day. But that's just an extreme illustration. We sometimes neglect, we're sometimes not terribly faithful about the actual canon of Scripture, not by denying that some book belongs in the Bible, but by never actually using that book, by never referring to it, by never studying it, by never preaching through it, as the case may be. with regard to the interpretation of Scripture, the truth of God also remains. Now, here we need to be a little bit careful. We do learn. We do refine. We do become more consistent, more comprehensive, more systematic over time by God's grace, standing on the shoulders of those who preceded us. But our commitment must be never to ignore a plain teaching of Scripture, never to understand something against the analogy of Scripture. However much we may grow in our understanding of particular passages, the main outlines are settled, are clear. We know what the Bible says. Well, part of faithfulness to God's Word is maintaining that, continuing in that. And then if we can apply the interpretation of Scripture to its outcome, to its result, the teaching of Scripture, in other words, our doctrine should not change. Now here again, there is room for growth and for refinement, but not for what you could call perhaps evolution, not for a change into something different. Now here too, sometimes we're intimidated by the weight or the number of the names that can be ranged against us. For those of you who have followed theological debates, you might have noticed that for A few years past, the calling Christ, God's only begotten Son, or basing that on a particular word, fell on hard times. Lately, that seems to be making a little bit of a comeback. The doctrine of divine simplicity fell on hard times for a while. That also seems to be making a comeback, sometimes a little bit of a roaring comeback. Well, the people who maintained that, the people who held to that, the people who taught it all the way along, who were not rattled by the intimidation of a fad don't really have that much to change. They stuck to their guns. In our history, we have had a sometimes stubborn retention of the Heidelberg Catechism. You know, that is one place where we can afford to be stubborn. We have a reputation as a stubborn and a hard-headed people. I understand that. That's not always good. But when it comes to maintaining the doctrine of the Heidelberg Catechism, of the whole three forms of unity, I don't know if we can be too stubborn. That would be hard to pull off, even for us. But it's not just in the realm of ideas, the text, the canon, the interpretation, the teaching of Scripture, but in practice, too. With worship, with church government, with various practices, there are changing fashions all the time. Some of you may remember the homogenous unit principle to give just one example. Some of you may remember other examples of church fads, of the thing you have to do now if you want your church to survive, or the latest in an unending, an interminable list of reasons why young people no longer listen. I remember when I was a young person myself quite some time ago. Now, I came across a book where somebody said, you know, in these days, and I don't even remember the author of the book, so sorry for not properly footnoting that. He said, in these days, you can't say to people, well, it's true because it's in the Bible. You have to turn that around. You have to say, it's in the Bible because it's true. Well, as a youngster, something bothered me about that, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it. Well, it was not the sentiment, let God be true and every man a liar. It was hoping to convince people in the society around that God's truth, God's Word reflected what we already knew independently from other sources, that it harmonized with other things we knew. It was not making the Bible the standard, the ultimate authority, the arbiter of faith and life. Now, I've learned a little bit more. I know what was wrong with that statement. It went against Romans chapter 3 verse 4. So, in this connection too, we need to stand fast. Now, it is true that sometimes things need to change for one reason or another. But let's say that you adopt a higher liturgy than you're used to because the Zoomers want something that feels rooted in traditional practices. Well, then what are you going to do if whatever we're going to call the generation after the Zoomers, what if they turn out to be doomers who want everything to be as dark and emo as possible? Are you going to change your liturgy again to accommodate them? There are places where there are principles from God's Word, and we just need to continue applying the principles consistently. And there will be ebbs and flows, there will be ups and downs, but that's not our problem. That's not our calling. Our charge is to be faithful, to side with God over and over and over again. Let God be true and every man, even the sociologists, even the advertisers who know more about psychology than anybody, even the church growth gurus, let God be true and every man a liar. But before we dislocate our shoulders, patting ourselves on the back, We should recognize that we also fall short. If the Lord were to mark our iniquities here in the RCUS, who of us could stand? We would all be found liars as well. Think about it this way. We profess partially, but not completely. Our knowledge of the Scriptures, our proclamation of its truth remain deficient. We don't fully proclaim all the whole counsel of God. There are shortcomings in the best of us. Our wonderful Heidelberg Catechism was never meant to be a comprehensive summary of everything that Scripture says. We can't turn it into a substitute for the Bible. It's a summary of some of the most important things the Bible says. It's a wonderful summary, but it was never meant to be exhaustive. It was never meant to say everything God said. That would require a book at least as long as the Bible, wouldn't it? Or then again, we profess, but we do not perform. God desires truth in the inward part, Psalm 51 again. And yet, how often do our mouths run ahead of our lives? In the best-case scenario, our confession of faith is an aspiration of how we want to be because we're not fully living up to everything we already confess. In the worst-case scenario, we lie against the truth. We take God's name in vain by confessing Christ without departing from iniquity. Or then again, we pervert what is a good gift to pride instead of gratitude for the mercy of not being allowed to forget God's law altogether. What do I mean? I mean that we look back on our history where, by God's grace, we have retained the Heidelberg Catechism, where it has been a tremendous instrument of blessing to our churches. And there can be a tendency to congratulate ourselves instead of to recognize that that was God's mercy. That was God preventing us from going as far astray as in our own nature, in our own strength, we would inevitably have done. The summary of all of this is that the truth of God has not changed. because the God of truth has not changed. And the application of that is that in one way then, we should not change either. Now, let me qualify that before anybody has too much of a conniption. We are very welcome. In fact, it is desperately urgent that we should grow, that we should abound more and more in knowledge, in grace, in wisdom, and in all prudence. It is also urgently necessary that we repent, recognizing, acknowledging where we fall short. But let me draw a distinction between change that is a result of growth and change that is a result of what we could call evolution. We are not free to evolve, that is, to become something quite different from what we are now. There is an identity to our body that it is imperative that we preserve. Think about it with the analogy of marriage. A husband can definitely, should definitely repent and grow in his commitments as a husband. But he's bound by his own marriage vow not to turn into somebody who no longer loves his wife. He's not free to become something completely different from what he was when he took those vows. And obviously, the same thing would apply in reverse. Well, in the same way, The R-C-U-S is honor bound. Because we're joined to the Lord, we are honor bound not to become something incompatible with being joined to the Lord, with the record of God's faithfulness to us. And that brings us to the final point a little bit more briefly here with regard to God. Paul's words, let God be true. of course, speak to us about the God who is true. In light of the distance between the Creator and the creature, we cling to the Creator. We prefer Him. We reject all people, if that's what's necessary, in order to maintain our faithfulness to God. Because of who He is, we prefer His truth over all. But it's important to recognize that this is an attitude of worship and not a mere legalistic compliance. Probably many of you are familiar with the famous words of Gerardus Vos that legalism lacks the supreme sense of worship. It obeys, but it does not adore. That's not what we're aiming for. That's not the attitude, the mindset with which we want to maintain the truth of God grimly, joylessly as a club to hit other people over the head with. We want to maintain the truth of God in an attitude of awe and humility, falling on our faces before the Lord God of truth, who has deigned to reveal this precious truth to us, who has deigned to reveal Himself to us in truth. And, of course, God is identified with the truth, not least in the person of His Son. That's put negatively in 1 Peter 2, neither was guile found in His mouth. Well, what's the opposite? Truth was found in his mouth. And, of course, Jesus confirms that, John 14, 6, I am the truth. And what is our position? Well, 1 John tells us we are in him that is true, even in his Son, Jesus Christ. We cannot truly join Paul's attitude, let God be true and every man a liar, apart from the Lord Jesus Christ. We must learn the truth as it is in Jesus, to borrow another phrase from Paul writing to the Ephesians there. Our text, let God be true and every man a liar, is verified and it is fulfilled. The truth of God is beyond all possibility of reproach. His decisions are right. Today, in Rapid City, in 2025, we can join with that ancient confession of Deuteronomy 32, verse 4. He is the rock. His work is perfect, for all His ways are justice. A God of truth and without injustice, righteous and upright is He. The Lord is right in his ways of faithfulness to us in Christ. He is right when he forgives our sins without injustice. He is right when he chastens us for our sins without hostility. And so, this evening, our challenge is to continue in the truth of God because the God of truth continues his faithful love to us in Christ. Amen. Let's pray together. Our gracious God and heavenly Father, we rejoice to call you the God of truth. We rejoice even to recognize that our ways are twisted and crooked where your ways are upright and good. Oh, Father, we pray that you would draw us out of our own wicked, deceitful, lying ways, and draw us to embrace the truth of God more fully, more deeply, more wholeheartedly, more consistently than we have done before. May the wonderful recollection of your tremendous faithfulness to us inspire our hearts so that we, by your grace, with the help of your Holy Spirit, may in turn be faithful to our Savior, Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray. Amen.