to the Lord in prayer. Gracious Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for being our God and allowing us to call you Father. We pray, Lord, that tonight you would shower upon us enlightenment and, Lord, illuminate our minds that we might understand the truth of Scripture, particularly the effects of sin upon the human race. Lord, help us to be wise men and that we might walk wisely before you, that we would not fill our lives with human wisdom, but with heavenly wisdom, wisdom of Scripture. Lord, give us wisdom. as we seek to shun all vain philosophies and, Lord, to fill our lives with biblical principles, with your law, Lord, that we might, like David said, Lord, just walk a straight path, an enlightened path, because your Word lights it up. And so, Lord, we pray that tonight would be one of those nights that we are able to really wrestle with your Word and walk away here strengthened because of it. Lord, be with those families that cannot make it. Lord, and we pray that you would use this storm to draw your elect. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Okay. Question 17. We're making progress. And like I say, it's only 11 questions. Fisher's explanation is only 11 questions, even though I've got this introduction that we're going to go through that Johannes Voss brought up out of his commentary out of a larger catechism that I thought was very beneficial. So we're going to talk about that tonight as an introduction. Because remember there are some overlap between the shorter catechism and the larger catechism. The shorter catechism is an abbreviated version. It doesn't contain as much detail as the larger catechism, nor is the larger catechism as comprehensive doctrinally as the larger catechism is. So the larger catechism is more comprehensive, it's more detailed, and it covers more doctrine than the shorter catechism. So I'm going to use some of his commentary on the larger catechism that asks the same question and gives the same answer, I believe it's around question 23 or so, and that'll help us understand the shorter catechism. Briefly, though, remember, when you have the confession of faith, remember that many times, maybe the larger catechism will state a doctrine more precisely even than a confession of faith does. So remember, you want to use these three documents together, the confession, the larger catechism, and the shorter catechism. You know, particularly when you get into those questions, you know, what is justification? You know, you can read the Westminster Confession and still it's wonderful statements there, but there's a great answer, an abbreviated answer, a very concise answer in the larger catechism on what is justification and even in the shorter catechism. So you want to read those three together because, remember, fallible people put them together. committees contained, even though these were great theologians, they were fallible men, and so sometimes there may be some words in the larger or in the confession or in the shorter that are not in the other two, and you want to use that because you want to get the broadest picture you can of these particular doctrines. But tonight we're on the doctrine of sin. You know, when you're talking about the doctrine of sin, you're really dealing with two aspects of theology, you're dealing with man, anthropology, why we are what we are today, that's the relevant question. that I think we're all concerned about. You know, who I am right now, and why am I this way, and what's God doing with me? That's all relevant questions. And I think also, too, though, the doctrine of sin. Hermardiology is the doctrine of sin. That is, well, because that's something the world doesn't really want to talk about, is the doctrine of sin. particularly not the way God describes sin. You know, the world believes in types of sin, but usually, you know, intolerance is a sin, but only as they define the tolerance. So we need to understand that when we talk about, because all of life is religious, I'm truly trying to explain this in the easiest way possible. All of life is absolutely religious. You cannot escape religious terms. Even the humanists believe in sin, but they define it and they describe the penalty for it, and they either describe the redemption for that sin, you know, a great way that a humanist will... to be redeemed out of sin. You know, what if ignorance is described as the ultimate sin, then what's the redemption out of that? Education. Education is the redemption behind this ignorance. That is, in order to redeem man out of his ignorance, we must educate that man. And, of course, the humanists define the education and so on and so forth. So you can understand. You can't escape a religious outlook on life. Faith is a religious concept. And everybody has faith. Everybody walking has faith. In something, even if it's themselves, they have some type of faith. They're trusting savingly in themselves that, you know, whether I reject God, I refuse not to believe in God, and I choose to be an atheist. What is that? That's faith in them, in what they have determined to be so. You can't escape this. And that's how we need to be wise. not be like pragmatical Christians in the sense, not in the good sense of the word, there's a good use of the word pragmatism, but not in the bad sense of the word, that, you know, we just want to seek to kind of minister or deal only with the symptoms. We need to really get to the heart of the matter with our with paganism and we need to call all men to this religious accountability because they want to divide up secular and sacred religion and non-religion and so on and so forth. We need to stop them from doing that. We need to show precisely and concisely if you're a religious person and here's why you're religious. That's one of the first things we need to do when we talk to pagans. When we talk to non-believers we need to demonstrate you are religious. And that's what the Catechism should help us do tonight. Well, let me read the answer, and then we can all read the question, and we can all read the answer together, and then we'll begin our lesson. Question 17 of the Shorter Catechism. Into what a state did the Fall bring mankind? The fall brought mankind into the state of sin and misery. And, of course, we don't really talk that way today, you know, but we understand what the answer and the question means, and that is the fall brought mankind into this condition. The Fall brought mankind into this condition of sin and misery. And that's what this question does for us. This question helps us understand and deal with the condition that mankind is in due to the event that happened 6,000 years ago. Okay? And because everybody wants to know, how did we get here? You know, what did happen? How did it get so bad? And that sort of thing. So we need to know the Bible does have this answer. And the Bible tells us what this answer is, but it's by humility and by faith that we understand it and grasp it and believe it to be so. This question helps us to understand the effects upon that all mankind has. That is, we do not have anything... Our experiences, our life experiences are not that different from the Russians, the Chinese, people living in South America, people living in Africa. They may live in grass huts, but they struggle with sin. Okay? That's one of the things, as a Christian man, that we have going for us. Not only do we understand the experience of sin, because we've been there and experienced it, but we also understand the remedy of it. We also understand what grace is, and so that's the basis by which we help people, right? I know what you're going through, brother. I'm telling you and the answer is thus. The answer is this. The Bible contains the answer in these three things and I'm encouraging you to flee from yourself and to grasp on to Christ. And we can say that to the Russians. We can say it to the Chinese. We can say it to the Africans. no matter where they live. I don't mean North Pole, South Pole, whether they, I don't care if they eat only fish, if they, whatever, it doesn't matter. Irrelevant. We all are connected through our experience with sin. You don't think the African men deal with their wives? You don't think they get frustrated with them? Now they may have cultural things that eliminate or alleviate some of it, but you don't think that these men and the wives, they don't get frustrated with one another? Dealing with children, all these basic things in life. Yeah, there may be cultural things that may be, it doesn't exaggerate it or it may help eliminate some of it, but it's there. And how do we know it's there? Because we know this question is biblical. And right, that's where we've got to start, right? We don't start looking around us and dictate, okay, well here's... Okay, these are the Africans, not that they're not unique in their cultural, you know, lifestyles. But we've got to start where the Bible starts, always. No matter what we do, we begin with what God says. And even though we look with our human eye and it doesn't look like there's any application, are we going to trust our own hearts? Are we going to trust what we see with our eyes, or are we going to trust what the truth of Scripture is? You know, I mean, Adam and Eve weren't Americans. Okay? So, that's what this question deals with. Now, I'm going to bring up some passages of Scripture. And these are all important passages of Scripture relating to this question. And some of these... a lot of overlap, okay? So that means you already know most of these verses, if not absolutely all of them. Well, number one, this explanation deals with the consequence of sin, that is, death. Okay, this question kind of sets forth this consequence to sin, and that is death. Romans 5, you know, I told you Romans 5 is one of the most important chapters in the Bible. You just need to be familiar with it because many theology books you're going to read, many, many expositions on various topics of Scripture are going to somehow be tied to Romans 5. When you read the Divines, you're going to read Romans 5, okay? You know, when you want to get so familiar with the Bible, when you're reading books and it says Romans 5, 12, 13, you're like, I know what that verse is saying. I know about what that verse is saying. Maybe not word for word, but I know pretty much the context there and I can relate it to what the author is saying, whether to reject what he's saying or to accept what he's saying. So Romans 5, 12 and 13 says, Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned. For until the law, sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law. Secondly, this question teaches us that death is the penalty of sin. Death is the penalty for sin. Romans chapter 6 verse 23. You all know this verse, I'm sure. It's one of those memory, scripture memory verses. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Thirdly, sin is universal in the human race. Sin has contaminated and polluted all of the human race. Romans chapter 3 verse 23, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. That word all there is very important when we're dealing with this topic. All have sinned. Believe it or not there are some false religions that teach all men haven't sinned and that God created more than Adam and Eve and And there are people out there that have not sinned. So you've got to be aware of these things. Fourthly, that the curse on the whole world, nature, is due... is due to the sin of man. Human sin has placed a curse upon the whole world, nature. The earth groans, Romans says. in Romans chapter 8. I'm going to read to you Genesis 3, 17-19. and unto Adam, he said, because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree which I have commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it. Cursed is the ground for thy sake. In sorrow shall you eat of it all the days of your life. Thorns also, and thistles shall it bring forth to you, and you shall eat the herb of the field. And in sweat shall you eat the bread, and thou shalt return unto the ground for which thou was taken, for thus thou art, and unto thus shall you return." So the earth, the creation, was cursed because of man's sin. The reason the earth fights against us is not because it's defective. We don't need Roundup because of some defection of the earth. We use Roundup because of sin. We are frustrated at work today because of sin. We are frustrated with our wives, with our children, with our friends, people we love dearly, our families are, you know, because of sin. That's what we must understand. And now what the problem is though, guys, we've got a world out there And their religion, and the many kinds of religions that are out there, telling us otherwise. Telling us it's not sin, and it's not your fault. It's everybody else's fault. Okay? That's what we've got to understand. Is that all these other religions, psychology is a religion. Education is a religion. Why? Well, education is a function of religion. Psychology, the understanding of the soul, is a religious concept. Why would you even want to understand the soul? Unless you believe that God made a soul or that it was there or that you were different than the lions. Lions don't have souls. Nobody's trying to counsel lions not to eat antelopes. Well, they know there's a difference, right? They know. They look in the mirror, they know there's a difference. That's the point. Everything's religious. Everything's religious. A gentleman, it's been a while back, I think he had contacted Chuck and Chuck had forwarded me the email and it was on our site. He's kind of related some of our apologetic stuff over to his website and was linking some of our stuff up and he had written me this email and he says, man, I was just really blown away by your description of mankind and sin and these kinds of things. And the point is, though, I mean, I can't take credit for any of that, number one. I didn't come up with it. Number two, it's presuppositionalism. It's beginning where the Bible begins. It's like I have no strength in and of myself. I'm not dependent upon my own intellect. Intellect's important. but my intellect's submissive to the Word of God." You know, we're to bring our reason. I mean, look at all the gifts in this room here. You know, everybody in this room are gifted intellectually. Various degrees of intellect in this room. Various degrees of understanding in this room. And yet, in every facet of our intellect and reason, we must submit it to what? The Scriptures. And based upon our submission to the Scriptures and our understanding of what we already know to be true, we're used by the Lord to do great things. Okay? That's why we've got to continue, men, to yield ourselves up to Scripture. Why? So God will use us in a more effective way. Not to be dumb. I mean, we don't just blast culture with the sovereignty of God. We understand that the sovereign God uses means. He gave us a mind to think, to understand, to meditate, to reason with, and we must do all of that in light of authority of the Bible. Submitting ourselves and letting the Bible be our governor and let the Holy Spirit take the Word of God and press it into our hearts and minds. I mean, read Psalm 119. Label every chapter. How many times David talks about the law of God and the precepts of God and on his mind and on his reasoning. You know, anytime you read It's kind of getting off the topic, but it will apply. You know, you've got to read those synonyms in the Bible that deal with faith in the Christian life, like see, like walk, you know, live. All of those are words that are describing the Christian concept of faith. When David says, I live before you, O Lord, what's he saying? Well, we know you live and breathe. That's not what David is saying. David's not making a statement to the obvious that he's a creature alive before God. That's not what he's saying. He said, no, I live before you with my mind and with my reason and with my body. I live before you as the man that you've called me to be under the power and influence of your Holy Spirit. You see how that makes those Those passages are more lively, more meaningful. You know, when David says, I see these things, I see the Lord. He doesn't see the Lord, but he understands the Lord, you see. He's able to mentally grasp and understand so much so you can use the word, see. I see Jeff Turner. I see the Lord. I'm able to... Understand what He's teaching me in this providence. I see Him. That's what we're talking about. So, you know, that's where, that's the things that we want to talk, you know, do here is understand that when we look around us, you know, we want to see, we want to see the, see everything in the light of Scripture and understand why, you know, why there's conspiracies out there. You know, we got, Some people live and die on conspiracy theories, and some of these theories may not be wrong. I mean, incorrect. But the point is, why do we have all these elements of understanding? Why do we have all of these facets? So why do we have so many people tugging and pulling and against, and it seems like there's no harmony, there's all this discon... It's because we need to understand the sin. And it's our understanding, as the Lord enlightens us, that look, we're not the first ones to understand it. We're studying something that's 350 years old. And they weren't the first ones to understand it. You see? So it's the faithful handing down of these truths and these doctrines so that what will we do with these guys? What are you going to do with them? You know, we say that was a clever study. Oh, you know, that was good. That was nice. And that was, you know what, that was a breath of fresh air compared to the day. But that's not what the goal is here. Our goal is for us to leave here and contemplate serious, serious, serious contemplation on, you know, what would God have me to do with this information? as a father, as a husband, as a employee, employer, and friend, and deacon, and elder, and church member, all these kinds of things. You know, now I understand why the church members make me upset. I understand why there's conflict. I understand that when I say something, Jeff Turner takes it wrong. And then Jeff says something and Chuck takes it wrong. While we understand these things, and now we can begin to appropriately apply the things we need to do in order to take care of it. Now, we're going to talk about five or six different areas that Voss brings out that I thought were splendid and I think would be helpful for our discussion here tonight. The first thing he brings out, he asks the question, and I think we need to think about this too because we're talking about the Fall. Now, remember the Fall, capital F-A-L-L, is a theological concept of what happened in the garden. It's a theological concept, but it's the reality of there is a point in time when something happened in the human race. that has been termed throughout church history as THE FALL. Okay? Now here's what he says. He says, why do we call thee a state of mankind? What do we call thee a state of mankind before the fall? So let's think about that just briefly. What was man before the fall? What was he? Upright. Holy. What are other words? Innocent. Great. Those upright, holy, innocent. Now, you really need to believe that in order for you to really hate the fall and the consequences of the fall. I mean, we really need to believe that man was innocent in his relationship to sin and evil, that man was holy, perfectly upright before the Lord, nothing in him whatsoever. We talked about this in these previous Catechism questions. Man before the fall was completely and perfectly righteous and upright and innocent. That just makes the fall worse, right? I mean, we think about how devastating it is for a child to fall into the hands of an evil person. And we talk about that innocent child. And in that relationship, yeah, the child's innocent in that it's an innocent victim. That is, then there's nothing in the child that solicited this evil person to take advantage of it. And yet, that fall of innocence is nowhere near compared to what we're talking about here. Where man was made in the image of God and he was perfectly upright, holy, innocent, and he chose not to stay there. So there was this fall. Secondly, why is sin mentioned before misery in describing the estate into which man fell? Now, think about that question. Why is sin mentioned before misery? Vos clearly states, because sin came first. And misery followed afterward as the result of sin. Sin is the cause of misery. Misery is the effect of sin. This is a huge point here. Because it's going to drive the rest of these questions, which are only just a few more. But I think I'm going to afford great discussion tonight as we get to them. Third question. Which causes the most concern for the human race, misery or sin? Which one causes the most problem for the human race, sin or misery, as the human race sees it? As they understand it, which one causes the most problems, sin or misery? From an unbeliever's perspective. Anybody want to add why? Why misery? They see it and they don't really understand the sin. They see these effects and they think the effects are terrible. They hate people starving in Africa and they hate child abuse and neglect and all these other things that are They're kind of less experiential, isn't it? There's another aspect of it. That's right. Both of these are great. They don't like it. They can see it. They experience it. And when they experience it, they don't like it. The reality that everybody knows, this is not the way it should be. It's also something that they can control. They can treat the symptoms. Very good. Another good aspect of it. They don't know anything about the cause. They just know that there's this problem, there's an effect, this symptom that they can treat for a season, for a little while. Very good. Any other comments? All three, great. Great points. So we've got something that is experienced. We all experience, but particularly from the unbelievers' perspective, they don't like it. They want to do something about it. And like Chuck said, they want to try to treat this. That's exactly what Voss says. Y'all did a great job. Everybody gets an A. He says this, except for Christian people, the human race is very much concerned about its misery or sufferings more than sin. and very little concerned about its sins. Even Christian people are often more concerned about the misery of their condition than they are about their sin and their condition. And I think all three of y'all touched on this, and that is, man, we fight this as Christians. I mean, I tell you, it's a battle. I mean, I haven't been sanctified to the point, I don't know about you, where I sometimes want to alleviate my misery and not go down to the next level, which is the effect of the misery. You see, if we can just feel better, if we can just take this vitamin, if we can, I mean, look at this culture that we live in, There's no other culture. I mean, there may be some in Japan. I mean, Japan is a thriving economy. You know, when we talk about this affluent kind of society, I mean, you want to go get you some vitamins to feel good, you just go down to the store and buy it. I mean, we've got air conditioning, we've got heat, we've got refrigerators. Power. You know, we found out what it's like not to have power for a few days. We found out we could live without it. You know, running water. I mean, you know, we don't go down to the creek and draw water and bring it up in buckets. But, you know, because we would think that's miserable. And we've alleviated those things with modern conveniences. And in fact, we would probably, many people in our culture would think, I can't even contemplate living like that. I mean, that would be devastating to live like that, okay? You know, that was hard for me to get used to in Europe, because they don't put ice in drinks in Europe. Even if you go to McDonald's, they don't put ice in it. That's right. So you can see now we're kind of closing in the loop, right, where we're going tonight. We're kind of closing the noose around the concept of sin and misery and what we really need to be doing as Christian men thinking about these things. The fourth question, what is the basic error of many non-Christian religions, systems of philosophy, and human plans for world embeddement? or world betterment. Alright? He says this. Now, this is so true. I mean, he wrote this half a generation ago. He says, they all try to find a way to relieve the sufferings of humanity. That's the noble cause, right? The noble cause for American troops is to go to Iraq and to alleviate the dictatorship over there that they had and give them an American dictatorship. Because we know what's best for them. It's to go alleviate them from their misery. Have we sent missionaries over there? I don't think we have. In fact, we've told our American soldiers, camouflage Bibles are the only things accepted in the country. He says, they're all trying to find a way to relieve the sufferings of humanity, except we're not alleviating other humanitarian issues, but anyway, without first providing a way of deliverance from sin. That's a foreign concept, is it not? In a Christian country, in a, quote, Christian nation, it's a foreign concept to think about the heart of man before we think about his misery of soul. Guys, I mean, really, I thought this was enlightening to me today just to go back and read some of these things and to be reminded of how practical our faith of the Reformed faith is. Very practical. Very philosophical. Very, you know, how do you fight this, you see? He says, without first providing a way of deliverance from sin, which is the cause of suffering, and yet emphasizing, Suffering is the result of sin. Let me give you an example. A buddy of mine went to India. It's a very impoverished country. Only so many hours of the day do they have power over there. Okay? They run everything, like if they have a refrigerator, I mean, it's like four hours a day that they have this, I don't know what kind of, System they have over there, but every town or district gets power for just so many hours a day. They are not Technologically advanced in the respects of their country to provide power for everyone Now they're starving to death And yet If you are traveling from one city to the next, you may be held up for five hours waiting on a cow to get out of the road because you're not allowed to go move that sacred object of religion out of the road. Now, how are we going to eliminate their suffering? You've got to start with the truth, right? The gospel. When you look at this country, you've got to deal with its sin. And then if you deal with the sin of that nation and its beliefs and everything else, then what are we going to do about their suffering? Much of their suffering will what? It'll go away. I mean, now we're going to, you know, I mean, listen, we cannot live in this side of Jesus's return with no suffering. And if we try to live our lives, I mean, man, we're getting on up in age, right? We feel the effects of not being 20 years old anymore. And that's not going away. That's not going away. It's not going away. You can feel better by doing some things, but you're not going to eliminate the process that sin has caused on our bodies. And that's what so many people need to realize in the medical realm. With vitamins and herbs, there's no herb that's going to set you back ten years. There are some herbs that make you feel better or provide nutrition and that sort of thing. That's fine. It's all going to be limited. It's all going to be limited. Good things, I'm not knocking the good things, but what I'm saying is, guys, we can't have this absolute mentality that if I just do X, then these are going to be the results because we have failed to factor in this, sin and misery. the effects of the fall. We have failed the X factor, so to speak, in our equation, right? We have failed to understand that all of this is the effect and that God is choosing His wisdom by sending His Son and providing redemption for the soul to not alleviate the misery of the flesh of man in every facet. He has been pleased to leave us with this, I don't even want to say sting of death because the Bible's clear that He takes that away, but with this affliction of just, how would you describe it? I mean, this affliction of just sin that He uses to chasten His people to conform us, to cause us to love Him more. I mean, daily to be reminded, I'm going to die. I'm not younger, not getting younger, but that, you know, we get sick at the drop of a hat, we get tired at this, I mean, all of these things. And I mean, Paul said it, I mean, like, exercise will profit you, but not as much as the soul, exercise of the soul. Because the exercise of the soul not only profits you here, but there, on the other side of Christ's return. bodily exercise. I mean, I want to do it. I'd love to do it if I could, and you know, blah, blah, blah. But it's only going to help me in this life. It's not going to help me in the next life because God's going to give me a new body just like He's going to give you a new body. We've got to keep those things in perspective. And so many people treat their exercise like a religion, you know. So we need to understand. Let's finish his things here. He says, "...all human schemes of betterment, which are not founded on redemption from sin through Christ, are foredoomed to failure." No matter what's the school system, politically, socially, all of that, if it's not first dealing with the problem of sin, any effort to eliminate the suffering will fail. You know, Dewey. One of Dewey's promises was he was going to alleviate poverty. If they would just implement his philosophy of education, he said, we'll get rid of poverty. I don't even think I need to speak to that, right? He says, permanent relief cannot be obtained by treating symptoms only while ignoring the cause of the trouble. You know, that's one thing great about the idea of the physician. You know the symbol of the physician. The snake on a pole. You know where the snake on the pole came from, right? The Old Testament. Remember, they had all been bitten. Many of the Israelites had been bitten. And what was the remedy for the snake bite? What were they to do? Look at the snake on the pole. That's all they were to do. Look at the snake on the pole and they would be healed from their venomous snake bite. Well, that was the act of faith because he told them what to do, you see. I mean, but going back to the concept that was considered this position was not, in older days, was considered not just a bodily position, but one who encouraged what? Holiness of life. Because he knew holiness of life was connected to physical health. But what are we doing today is we're making sinners live longer. You know? You know, there's no sin, right? I mean, fornication's not a sin. Adultery's not a sin. All this stuff's not sinful. Greed, covetousness, you know, and all the... But we can treat the symptoms and we can go about our business and, you know, it's no big deal. Doctors make millions and gazillions of dollars on doing that without ever bringing up their lifestyle. You remember the movie... It was a cowboy movie. And it's Doc Holliday and he's dying of tuberculosis or whatever. Okay. And remember the doc goes in there. Remember he has one of his episodes and he passes out and the doc goes up to see him. And what does the doc tell him? Maybe you need to consider your lifestyle. And he told him to get out. He didn't want to talk to him. But what was the doc doing? The doc was doing what he should do. He was treating him physically and spiritually, like, hey, if you considered the way you live, it would help you. You know. So anyway, you see, these things are, all right. But now, let's think about all the false religions of our day that deny the even reality of sin and misery. What are a couple of those? What are some of the things? Christian science is one of them, right? This is all kind of reality. This is not reality. There's a couple more. What kind of false religion does that even deny there's even misery? I think there is a form of Taoism or Buddhism that kind of says, well, we're not really here. I know Christian science is like, we're not really, what are we here? What is this? Well, I think the Buddhists would say that life is for the most part a dream, right? I can't remember. But the point is, though, there's non-Christian systems that even try to eliminate the whole idea that there's even misery. That it's just imaginary, it's not real. There is no real suffering. And of course, when they say there's no real suffering, what are they saying? The Bible's not true. That this is all a lie. That this is not real. I mean, again, it's an attempt to make God a liar. Because God says there is sin and misery. It's the whole attempt to call God a liar and to make themselves correct and right. But there are non-Christian systems out there that do say that. There's no sin out there. There's no misery. It's all just a figment of your imagination. Alright, last thing, number six. What error of the modern scientific view of mankind with respect to the condition of the human race? What error of the modern scientific view of mankind with respect to the condition of the human race? Listen to what he says. On the whole, modern scientists regard man as he exists today as normal. Right? And that's the premise we all start with. When our children come into the world, if they have ten fingers and ten toes, we say they are normal. You know, which is good. That is normal because that's what Adam and Eve had in the garden. Okay? But in relationship to them, who they are, they're not normal because of this fall. Okay? We've got to look at our society and understand that there are things in our society that are here because of sin that would not be here if we didn't have sin. And I think from a Christian, from our perspective, that's where we have to begin. He says that they regard man today as normal. This is important. This is huge because As they see man as normal, they decide what is normal in any particular manner, whether physical or psychological, by taking the average of contemporary human beings. And this is my problem with modern psychology. Modern psychology will study 1,000 people, abnormal people that they say are normal. And then they come up with a normal set of standards for the rest of mankind based upon these thousand test results. Now, they do it all the time, guys. That's what modern psychology does. They study a thousand people, if a thousand people, and they come up with this standard of normal behavior based upon abnormal people. Right? That's right. Now, they don't use Christians for these things. You know? I mean, when you're asking a pagan, well, is fornication wrong? Well, it may be wrong for you. It may be right for you. I don't really know. I don't really think it's a big deal. I mean, you know, they say it's healthy for you. I mean, you know, they say it's bad to suppress it. So look what they're doing. They categorize all these things. What's the... Go ahead, Steven. I was going to say, one example of that would be the way that the... Absolutely. That's one of the ways. Normal behavior. What dictated that? What was accepted by culture? It wasn't that long ago. In fact, I believe, Stephen, that was up into the 80s. that they actually had it listed as an abnormal behavior. How old is that word? Well, it depends on how you're using it. There's several different usages. I mean, there are. That's right. I mean, there's even the term in vocational technology, there's a term, normal, that describes some factor of, there's like a normal school, like in Athens, like a whole, you know, there's like a normal school. That doesn't refer to teaching normal people, or even a normal type of teaching. What is normal today is abnormality. I've got a dictionary that says that normal originated in the mid-17th century from the Latin word meaning, really it comes from carpenter, the carpenter's square. It says it's norma, which is a square. Now that's interesting because the psalm, this I believe in the psalm, is it in the 80s where he says Thy line has fallen into me in pleasant places, and it's the carpenter's for rule. That is, God's standard has fallen, and David says he's accepted this standard as beneficial for him. Well, you know, the concept of being normative, something's normative, means it falls along this particular standard. I mean, some of these definitions say normal means conforming to a standard. Usual, typical, or expected according to a particular standard. Now, the question is, though, what standard are we using? See, now if we're looking at, you know, if we're looking at modern culture as the standard, well, obviously that's going to change. He goes on to say, he says, normal health. You know, again, we should be questioning these things. What's normal health? I mean, you know, when we see the person on TV and they say, you know, hey, I did this in two weeks. But remember what's the fine print say? You read that at the bottom? Not normal. This ain't normal. The fine print says this ain't normal. Isn't it right though? Isn't it true? These are not typical results. These results are not typical. And what they're saying is you're probably not going to have it but you ought to buy it anyway because you might. You might. And it's just that little bit of doubt that causes you to give them your Visa number. Normal intelligence. What's the standard? You know, the whole IQ test is paganistic. It's not even biblical. For somebody to be related in categories, well, what's your ISQ score? Of course, I'm going to embarrass myself. What we're saying is there are people that have certain IQ scores that are more beneficial, more productive, and are more normal than others. In the sense that we classify people in the ones that we kind of really need to be like, but the point is the simplest people can obey God and have faith. And that's normal. You see, that's what God requires of them. But even the whole IQ thing, I hate people segregating on this. God doesn't segregate on that. God segregates on one thing, faith. You either have it or you don't. There's only two groups, Adam's family and Christ's family. That's it. That's how God segregates people. Normal growth, you know, we all take our children to the doctor and they tell us, well your child is in the 90th percentile or your child is in the 60th percentile. Based on hormone infested food. The way I look at that, I think that's a result of a philosophical understanding that came out of Hegel. You know, Hegel's view was you've got one person has one thesis and one person has an antithesis, but the truth is neither the thesis or the antithesis. The truth is something in the middle, and it's called the synthesis. And the way you figure out the truth, it's the truth, which is somewhere in the middle. How do we get there? We've got to figure out. You see, the problem that people have with Hegel is, what happens to the new synthesis? The synthesis becomes the new thesis. And then there's an antithesis to that. So you're constantly moving away from the truth. Because you're looking. When you're looking away, you're looking for synthesis. And it's the same thing with, you know, normalcy. I mean, if you're in a culture that has, that the average height is six foot eight, And, you know, you're my height, you're way below average. I'm way abnormal. Because, you know, it depends on the culture. If it was, if we were in pygmy world, I'd be a giant. No, I think you're... I think that's right. I think that's the way we've got to think about things, but you know how much we are influenced by this philosophy that wants to tell us what normal is. You know? What's the normal woman look like? A ten. What's a ten? You know, ten. Here's a number. When I say ten, you know exactly what I meant, don't you? Because somehow that's been equated to the perfect woman, right? Well, it applies to morality, too. I mean, the morality of a culture is all average. You know, what's the average? I mean, good old boy. I'm a good old boy. What does that mean? Well, I don't... Yeah, and exactly. It doesn't mean I'm holy. It means, you know, I might get drunk this many times a year. I might do this much fornicating, and I might do this much, you know. But you will help the church clean the trees out of the yard. I help the church clean the trees. That's right. What doesn't it apply to? Everything. I think we've got to realize that if it's in our homes and it's with us, then it will affect the way we do business in the church. There's the word business. When we sit down and have session meetings, one of the things we pray is, like the head of the church, have his way, have his will. What is his will? His will is his word. Remember what God's standard was, though, of morality, was perfection. He said, Be ye therefore perfect, as your Father in heaven is perfect. Jesus is our standard of morality and ethics and philosophy. But how many Christians really believe that? I mean, how many Christians believe that what God says about evangelism is applicable today? Because, I mean, most people would say, You know, that book was written a long time ago, and we've got to, you know, we've got to reach these modern, these modernized people. But, you know, one thing, this thing is, this question is showing us that we're connected. What it, I mean, we could go to Africa and start a church. Why? Because we know what sin and misery is. And we know the remedy. We have the medicine. And we're offering it. And sinners will come to the medicine. Sinners will come. The elect will come. Whether they speak any other language, they're coming because the shepherd speaks all languages. And they're coming to the message. He goes on to say, he says, this attitude of regarding the average of present-day humanity as normal is contrary to the Bible teaching about mankind having fallen into condition of sin and misery. According to the Bible, man was normal in the Garden of Eden. as created by God. Having fallen into sin, man became abnormal and there is divergent from the perfection of man as created by God. In particular, modern science regards old age and health and death as normal experiences for life for human beings. But from the Bible standpoint, both of these are strictly abnormal and alien to humankind as created by God. Right? You know the old thing, I used to just kind of play on this, but when I say, hey, what is it, death and taxes, what's the saying? Death and taxes? I'm like, well, not really. Those two things aren't certain. Because there's going to be a day when there is no death. And there ain't going to be no taxes neither. I know why we say it. And I know it makes us feel good when we say it. But again, what's influencing us? You know, what's really influencing us here? This has really permeated a lot of our lives. I mean, what's normal and abnormal? That'd probably be a good exercise the rest of this week, throughout the day, is us thinking, is this normal or is this abnormal? Is this biblical? Is it not biblical? I mean, is this because of sin or what is this? I think it helps us really kind of relate to that. Any comments or questions so far about what we've covered? We look at the measuring and try to treat it and fix it, but we don't put a mandate on a major wound to fix the problem. Kind of like spinning the wheels going inside the circle. Until we can fix it, until we can address the issue and the problem, the misery is going to be compounded. I think one thing too we've got to think about, really, I mean, this is practical thinking every day. If I'm depressed, and again, depression can be caused because of physical, changes the body's going through and effects that the body's having. That's not what I'm saying. And I say it for the sake of the CD, too. But you know, when you're talking about just the daily things in life and you're going through these things, we really got to ask ourselves, holiness, happiness, sin, misery. And we must impress that upon our children. If you want to be a happy child, you must be a holy child. That's what God says. If you're miserable, why are you miserable? What sin? Are you worried? Are you worrying? Are you mad at God's providence? It could be a hundred things. You guys know, fill in the blank. Holiness, happiness. Sin, misery. It kind of goes with your world view too, because things happen. And you know it's because of sin and God's providence. You look at it and you handle it differently than if you're over here thinking, why is this happening? Why is this going on? It's like, why do good things happen to, why do bad things happen to good people? Well, that's the wrong question. You know, it's all your, the way you look at things, how you respond when you truly understand why it's happening or the root cause of that. It really changes your perspective and it changes how you look at things and how you react or respond. Well, let's say I get cancer and all sickness is because of sin, right? Original sin. We wouldn't have it, cancer, if we didn't have the fall. I get cancer. Let's say I evaluate my lives. I have the elders and my brethren praying for me and examining me and looking at me. Let's just say you passed the test. I passed the test. Nothing in my life that's there that I can see or notice that the Holy Spirit has shown me. These are the quandary. And you know, then you must say as a Christian, okay, there's nothing I can repent of. I mean, you can do that over your daily sins and everything else. But then you really, for the Christian is to go back and you say, you know, Lord, these kinds of afflictions and sicknesses are so we don't forget you. And you're keeping me close to you by using the effects of sin. Well I was thinking about William Jays a couple of days ago, maybe yesterday, morning exercise. He talks about the rod. That was yesterday. He has three sort of applications of the rod. The chastising rod, and then the king's scepter, and then the shepherd's crook. I've thought about it a lot in the last couple of days. God uses that rod of chastisement, and that might be suffering. It might be sickness. It might be you. Seeing your sin in an acute way, however, I mean, however that might be, but he always also has that shepherd's crook. He's gently leading his sheep. Even through the midst of that chastisement, it's not punishment, it's chastisement. That's right. You know, I mean, I think what we've got to think about is, what was the greatest... When God created Adam and Eve, What was the greatest gift He gave them? Himself. Their greatest gift they had was fellowship and communion with God. Everything else was under that. And I think for ourselves, when we think about what God does in us and through us and to us, I mean, you know what? Jeff can be walking down the street minding his own business, whistling a tune to amazing grace and a guy come out of the bushes, hold him up, pistol whip him, take his money, shoot him. That cause Jeff done something wrong? No. But you can guarantee that God's going to use it to bring himself glory and to bring Jeff closer to God. And there's nothing wrong with that. It's painful and we're going to cry buckets of tears Again, do we view our union and communion with God as the supremacy of all of life is to have communion and union with God, to know Him, to walk with Him, to be with Him, to see Him, to fellowship with Him, to know I am His Son and He is my Father, and I am in Him and He is in me. That's it. We start there. And then life makes more sense. Life makes more sense. Let me briefly cover Fisher, just to kind of go through this. I think everything is going to be self-explanatory to what we've already talked about, but I just want to bring out a couple of things. I think, you know, in the first kind of three questions, he explains the fall as the apostasy. I'm not going to read them, you know. You can read those. Question 4, he talks about the estate. He explains the estate of sin as being under the guilt of it, being under the dominion of sin. He explains in question 5, he explains the estate of misery as according to the penalty of the law, death and curse. involve him in all manner of misery." Again, Romans, he quotes Romans 5.12 here, Fisher does, and he talks about that state of misery, being under the penalty, death, and curse of the law, being under all manner of misery, both, and when he talks about the all manner, the mind, the will, the affections, everything about man is cursed. His thought life is cursed. His emotions are cursed. We can't teach our little ladies, our daughters to trust in their emotions. They can't do it. Only trust in Christ. I love question eight. I thought it was, I think, just one that continuously reminds us. Well, let me read seven. It talks about the state of sin and misery as being by the abuse of his free will. Hence, mankind's sinners are called self-destroyers, which is so true. The pagans will destroy themselves. Just think about the abortion issue. Who are the ones being aborted? The pagans are killing themselves. It's sad. We grieve over that, but it's true. They will utterly destroy themselves because they can't see anything but their own sin. And they hate God so much. Hosea 13, 9 says, O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself. Question 8. How does the Spirit of God in Scripture express man's state of sin and misery into which he has fallen? You need to remember these words. Darkness. Ephesians 5.8. I've listed up these verses. You can look them up, but I'll read them to you. Ephesians 5.8. For you were in darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light. Distance. We have distance between us and God. Ephesians 2.13, But now in Christ Jesus you who sometimes were far off have been made near by the blood of Christ. Let me read to you from the Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter 7, Paragraph 1, talking about the covenant. It says, The distance between God and the creature is so great that although reasonable creatures do owe obedience unto him as their creator, yet they could never have fruition of him as their blessedness and reward, but by some voluntary condescension on God's part, which he has been pleased to express by way of covenant." That is, God brought man and man to himself together by way of covenant. Condemnation and wrath, John. 3.18, and he that believes on him is not condemned, but he that believes not is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. John 3.36, he that believes on the Son has everlasting life, and he that does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him. That's present tense. It's continual. God's wrath is constantly upon those who do not believe. Now, remember, this is the descriptions of the state of mankind without Christ. Bondage, captivity. Isaiah 49, 24, and 25, "...shall the prey be taken from the mighty, or the lawful captive delivered. But thus saith the Lord, even the captives of the mighty shall be taken away, and the prey of the terrible shall be delivered. For I will contend with him that contendeth with thee, and I shall save thy children." You know, a man is about able to deliver himself as you're able to take an antelope out of the lion's mouth. And it ain't happening. But God can deliver His children. So bondage and captivity. Death, spiritual and legal death, Ephesians 2 verse 1. and you hath he quickened, you who are dead in your trespasses and sin." So we must understand that these are the words that God uses to describe man's condition apart from Jesus Christ after the fall. This is what the fall brought mankind into. I'm going to read the last question and then we'll close. Number 11, what way we learn from this? He says, that the whole world being guilty before God, every mouth had been forever stopped, though he had left all mankind to perish eternally with the fallen angels, with whom they said, a confederacy, Romans 3.19, and therefore to admire the infinite love of God in sending his only begotten Son to save us from sin as the only way of being saved from misery. And that's what Hebrews chapter 2, 14 and 16 talks about. It talks about how Christ robed himself as the seed of Abraham to come to deliver the descendants of Abraham out of their misery and death. The question clearly points out that Christ is the remedy of this sin and misery. How do we offer Christ to our neighbors? to Africans, to Russians, to our church friends. Preach it. Teach it. Evangelize. Talk about it at your dinner tables. Talk about it when you walk along the way, when you lie in bed at night. Remember Deuteronomy chapter 6. When you're walking, when you're eating, when you're working, talk about Jesus Christ in some facets of for you and that's what we go deep in our understanding of economics from the Bible's perspective So when we're talking about politics We just start talking about hey, why why do we have this? problem Well first we got to begin not with the Republican Party or the Democratic Party or even a libertarian party We got to begin with the Bible any comments questions Additions. Jeff, would you dismiss us in prayer? Father, we come before you tonight and we are thankful that you have given us your word. Father, you've given us truth. You are truth. Father, we thank you that we can always stand on your word and stand on truth. Father, because of the fall, we are in a state of sin and misery, but you have given us a way. You have given us Christ, the remedy for this state of sin and misery. Father, as we discussed, as we've been through this discussion tonight, Father, change our hearts and our minds. Help us to meditate and ponder your greatness. and the great effect of the fall, and how gracious you are to give us the remedy in Christ. Change our hearts and minds to want to serve you, to get to know you better, to be more like Christ as you sanctify us in this life. Father, be with each one as we travel tonight back to our homes. Help us to be the men of Christ that you would have us to be. Help us to be strong. And leading our families as you would have us lead our families. We do thank you for this time. We do thank you that we can gather together to discuss your truth. In Christ's name we pray. Amen.