Turn with me to Psalm 111, and also in the back of the Psalter hymnal to Lord's Day 4, page 11 in the back of the Psalter hymnal, Lord's Day 4, questions and answers 9, 10, and 11. The last Lord's Day in the first section of the Catechism dealing with man's sin and misery. Psalm 111 and Lord's Day 4. Let's begin tonight by reciting together the answers to these four questions found on page 11 in the back of the Psalter hymnal of Lord's Day 4. Question 9 asks, But doesn't God do man an injustice by requiring in His law what man is unable to do? No. God created man with the ability to keep the law. Man, however, tempted by the devil, in reckless disobedience, robbed himself and his descendants of these gifts. Will God permit such disobedience and rebellion to go unpunished? Certainly not. He is terribly angry about the sin we are born with, as well as the sins we personally commit. As a just judge, he punishes them now and in eternity. He has declared, Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law and do them. But isn't God also merciful? God is certainly merciful, but He is also just. His justice demands that sin committed against His supreme majesty be punished with the supreme penalty, eternal punishment of body and soul. Psalm 111, as we give our attention to the Word of God. Praise the Lord. I will extol the Lord with all my heart, in the counsel of the upright and in the assembly. Great are the works of the Lord. They are pondered by all who delight in them. Glorious and majestic are His deeds, and His righteousness endures forever. He has caused His wonders to be remembered. The Lord is gracious and compassionate. He provides food for those who fear Him. He remembers His covenant forever. He has shown His people the power of His works, giving them the lands of other nations. The works of His hands are faithful and just. All His precepts are trustworthy. They are steadfast forever and ever, done in faithfulness and uprightness. He provided redemption for His people. He ordained His covenant forever. Holy and awesome is His name. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. All who follow His precepts have good understanding. To Him belongs eternal praise. Let's bow together in prayer. Father, again in this evening hour as we come before You, it is our desire, O Lord, to understand what You would have to say to us. Again tonight, Father, we thank You for Your Word and the beauty of Your Word. We confess too, Father, that apart from the power of Your Holy Spirit, we are not able to understand it. But we thank You, Father, for Your Spirit. We pray that He would be busy and active even in this evening hour in every one of our hearts and lives. And Father, strengthen us in that most holy faith. Give to us greater assurance of that blessed salvation which is ours, even as terrible sinners, but as those redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ. Father, hear our prayer for Jesus' sake. And in His name alone we pray. Amen. Beloved in the Lord Jesus Christ, we hear the Word of God tell us, Glorious and majestic are His deeds, and His righteousness endures forever. The works of His hands are faithful and just. All His precepts are trustworthy. They are steadfast forever and ever, done in faithfulness and uprightness. Or we hear David say in Psalm 101, I will sing of your love and your justice. Or as Psalm 97 verse 2 says, righteousness and justice are the foundation of His throne. We hear these things about the God we confess. We hear about His righteousness and that He is a just God. And who of us would say, no, no, no, that's not true. He's not just. He's not righteous. Instead, we sound aloud, Amen! Yes! He is just. He is righteous. After all, Scripture says He upholds the cause of the fatherless and the widow and those who are treated unjustly, whereas God will punish all who do evil. You see, that's what we confess, isn't it? But wait a minute. Did you hear that last part? God will punish all who do evil? Now, let's think about that for a moment. The Bible says in Psalm 5, verses 4 through 6, You are not a God who takes pleasure in evil. With you, the wicked cannot dwell. The arrogant cannot stand in your presence. You hate all who do wrong. You destroy those who tell lies. Bloodthirsty and deceitful men the Lord abhors. God hates all who do evil. Have you ever heard anyone say, well, God hates sin, but He loves the sinner? Or have you ever heard anyone say, well, God loves all people? that's not what the Bible says God hates all who do evil and the Bible also says in Romans chapter 3 there is no one righteous not even one for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and in Romans 6 as well it says for the wages of sin is death now justice means to do what is right to maintain what is right God's justice means He upholds what is right. He stands by His Word. He sticks to His law. And therefore, beloved, when you put all of this together, do you see what this means? This means that to confess His righteousness and His justice is at the same time to confess that I deserve His just wrath and punishment be poured out upon me, the sinner. You see, sometimes when we find ourselves in trouble for something, we try our hardest to get out of it. Boys and girls, you know what I'm talking about. And that's the predicament we find ourselves in with regard to the logical, systematic teaching of the catechism. You recall that in Lord's Day 3, we had to face the fact that our sinful nature is not God's fault. It's our fault. We are to blame. But we know from our human experience that when the evidence is clearly against us, when our back is up against the wall, then we will try to come up with any excuse possible to get out of the situation. Sometimes when one finally sees the need for help and desires that help for an addiction of some sort, we say that they finally hit bottom. It's only then that they will seek help. And congregation, in a sense, the same is true here. It's only when we hit bottom spiritually and see that even though we got ourselves into this sinful condition, yet we can do nothing to get ourselves out of it, it's only then, by God's grace, that we will look outside of ourselves for a Savior. With Lord's Day 4, beloved, we are still on our way to the bottom. As God's Word teaches us of God's character and man's rebellion. God's character, His justice, His mercy, and man's rebellion. Now, we can't help but to read the questions and answers of Lord's Day 4, and in them, we can't help but to hear an everyday phrase that our children like to cry out, and maybe even some of us as adults, and that is, it's not fair. It's not fair. You see, these questions reflect us really quite well our sinful condition, don't they? Yet the Bible answers these questions. You see, we still want to blame God a little bit. We can't blame Him for making us the way we are today. We've already been through that. But maybe we can blame Him for being unreasonable and unfair. Maybe we can blame Him for expecting something that He really has no right to expect. And as we try to accuse God of this, and as the Bible responds with the truth, we are brought to see, beloved, that God's perfect character is seen in His dealing with man's rebellion, with man's sin. And this perfect character includes, first of all, His perfect justice. Question 9 once again. But doesn't God do man an injustice by requiring in His law what man is unable to do? Now, notice the accusation here. You see, the Word of God, as summarized by the catechism in question 8, just told you and me, as we have considered before, that we are totally unable to do any good and that we are inclined toward all evil. That's our direction. That's our direction by nature. All we want to do is evil. We are to blame for our wicked and perverse nature. In other words, it's an impossibility for me to keep God's law perfectly. It's an impossibility for me to love God perfectly with all of my heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love my neighbor as myself. I can't do it on my own, even if I wanted to, and therefore to expect me to do that is like expecting a fish to live out of water. It can't be done. God is expecting more of me than I can deliver and beloved, that's simply not fair, is it? I mean, we would never do this with each other, would we? We're above all that. We would never expect a child to act with the maturity that an adult should have. We would never expect an auto mechanic to do his work if he only has carpenter's tools or worse yet, kitchen utensils. You would never set your newborn baby in the kitchen and expect that child to whip up dinner. A teacher cannot expect a student to take a test on something the teacher has not taught or assigned to read. It wouldn't be fair to expect someone to do something they simply are not able to do. So the problem here isn't with me. It must be with God, right? God says in His Word, Be holy, because I am holy. But how can He be serious? Isn't He being unfair? Answer 9 says no. God created man with the ability to keep the law. Man, however, tempted by the devil, in reckless disobedience, robbed himself and his descendants of these gifts. You see, beloved, God would be unfair if he hadn't originally created man with the ability of obeying him perfectly, but God did create man with that ability. God would be unfair if he would have created man with the ability of perfect obedience, And then he, for some reason, took that ability away from man, but he didn't do that either. Man, however, tempted by the devil in reckless disobedience, robbed himself and his descendants of these gifts. And as Romans 1 clearly says, the knowledge of God is right before man's eyes, but man, wicked man, suppresses that truth of God in unrighteousness. And God would also be unfair or unjust if this requirement of perfect obedience didn't lead man to a knowledge of his sin and misery. But again, it does. As we have said before, as the Holy Spirit leads us to measure ourselves against the standard that God has set for us, then we recognize just how far short we have come. We come to recognize our sin and misery. And it doesn't stop there. we are also brought to know our need for a Savior and salvation. Beloved, God is not unfair. He is not unjust. He is just. And His justice is perfect. His justice is according to His law of love. In fact, God's justice must uphold His law of love. When God created Adam and Eve, He gave them boundaries in which to live and work. Now, boys and girls, you know that inside the boundaries of the water, a fish is free to swim anywhere. But again, when it leaves the boundaries of the water, it dies. God created man with the boundaries of His law of love. Love for God and for his neighbor. Obey and live inside those boundaries. Or disobey, go outside those boundaries and die. And God's perfect justice upholds His law. if man had continued to obey perfectly, then God's justice would cede to man's life. But man didn't continue to do that, so God's perfect justice enforces the consequences. Now we know, beloved, that our society is a rights-driven society. We hear all about that when someone is screaming that their constitutional rights are being violated. We don't like that. So then what about God? What about God's rights? Does He have rights? You see, He gave man the ability in advance, in creation, to keep the law perfectly. But man, through Adam, squandered this ability. You see, the excuse, well, that's just the way I am. It might work with your parents. It might work with your teachers. It might even work with your boss once in a while. But it won't work with God. So does God have the right to demand of you and me perfect righteousness and holiness? You better believe it. He is perfectly just. Again, obey and live. Or disobey and die. God never changes. He sticks to His Word. You see, we are the ones who changed. He didn't become our enemy. We became His. And God is being perfectly consistent with who He is by demanding man to perform what God made man able to perform in the beginning. But since we can't do that, since we can't do what God requires, you see, man has the nerve to come to God and ask Him to change. To be less than what He is. To not be just. Now, brothers and sisters, we all know that no honest, earthly judge would let a criminal stand before him and dictate the rules in judging the criminal's case. And in the same way, it is God who lays down the rules for us, not we for God. God doesn't change His mind as to how He deals with sin. Sin is a serious matter to God. We might not take it seriously today, but God hates sin. Yet praise be to Him that He doesn't change. If He did, He wouldn't be God. If He did, then there would be no guarantee of salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, in Jesus Christ alone. If God did change, then as His people, we would have absolutely no assurance of Christ's return that we look forward to or of salvation or of eternal life. But our comfort is, as the psalmist says in Psalm 111, His righteousness endures forever. All His precepts are trustworthy. They are steadfast forever and ever. And then as odd as it may seem to us on the surface, God's righteous character includes then in the second place His perfect wrath. Question 10, will God permit such disobedience and rebellion to go unpunished? Now another way of asking this would be, well can't God just ease up? Can't He just let it go? Can't He just overlook the punishment? Certainly not. He is terribly angry about the sin we are born with as well as the sins we personally commit. As a just judge, He punishes them now and in eternity. He has declared, Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law and do them. See, beloved, our back is getting tighter against the wall. Less and less wiggle room. Okay, I get it. It's my fault. And God is not being unfair. I deserve to be punished, but does He really have to carry out the punishment? Now, boys and girls, you can identify with that, can't you? I can identify with that. I remember that in my younger days. Okay, I've confessed. I've apologized. Mom, Dad, can't you now forget about the punishment? I did a good thing, you see. Can't you just forget about the punishment? You see, here again, we want God to forget about what He said that He would do about sin. About what His justice requires. We want Him to change His mind, but that's not possible, you see. We often let sin and wrongdoing go unpunished, especially as parents. We either turn our heads away from or make excuses for the things that our children do wrong. or we don't follow up with the punishment that we use to threaten them. But God doesn't back down. He doesn't wink at sin, no matter how great or small. God still calls sin, sin. He hates it. Why? Because sin is rebellion against Him and it separates His people from Him. It must be punished. If it's not punished, beloved, that separation can never be bridged. And the Catechism says this includes both the sin we are born with, our original sin, and the sins we personally commit, our actual sin. Of course, our original sin is that sin that fills our heart from conception, that makes us desire to do evil, to sin against God instead of desiring to please Him. And our actual sin includes both our sins of commission, the sins we commit, doing what God forbids, and the sins of omission, our sins by omission, omitting, not doing what God commands. Now, sometimes I think we, in our own minds, we think, well, the things that we commit, well, those things are worse than the things we omit. But that's not true. We must not forget, beloved, that failing, omitting to stand up for God's name or omitting, failing to love my neighbor or failing to honor my parents are no less serious than actually committing, taking God's name in vain or hating or committing adultery, theft, murder, covening. They all make God terribly angry. He hates all sin and it all must be punished. Isaiah 2 verse 11 says, the eyes of the arrogant man will be humbled, and the pride of men brought low. The Lord alone will be exalted in that day. And answer 10 says, As a just judge, He punishes them now and in eternity. And that means that God punishes today, tomorrow, as well as forever. Now this might be a little bit interesting to us. How does God punish sin today? If you think about it, if we go back to Scripture, especially the Old Testament and the New, but especially in the Old Testament as well, we can read of many episodes of punishment for sin upon the people. For example, we know that after Daniel interpreted the writing on the wall from that mysterious hand that very night, the recipient of that message, King Belshazzar, was slain. He was put to death. Go to the New Testament. We know that Ananias and Sapphira were struck down instantly for lying. God struck them down for lying to the Holy Spirit. We know that sometime after the angel helped Peter miraculously escape from King Herod's prison, that King Herod went to Caesarea. And when the people shouted about him, this is the voice of a god and not of a man, and King Herod refused to silence the people, and he refused to give praise to God, the Scripture says. Then we read, an angel of the Lord struck him down and he was eaten by worms and died. Now, we don't see God striking people down with lightning every time someone sins today. We sometimes joke about that. Maybe we shouldn't. But I believe that we can say that God punishes sin in this life in part as we suffer the effects of sin in the world. And these things include natural disasters, wars, famines, poverty, all kinds of sickness and affliction in this life. And indeed, these things come upon all people, believers and unbelievers alike. And sometimes people, oh, these are the general results of sin, we might say, that we suffer. Sometimes some suffer the direct results of sin. One who lives promiscuously, maybe even the gay lifestyle, might very well be struck with AIDS. But you see, these things, whatever they might be, have different results, we might say, and have a different character for the elect than for those who are not elect. You see, when you as a father must punish your child for something that your child has done wrong, you take them in the back room and you say to them, or at least you should say to them, I love you. That's why I have to spank you hard. You do that because you don't want sin to destroy that child. And in that way, beloved, you are teaching your child the urgency of sin. And that's what God does with you and me as His children. Indeed, God allows us to suffer at times the consequences of our actions. God allows us to suffer these things to draw us closer to Him. It may not seem like it, but for believers, God's wrath is an expression of His love. That's what Hebrews 12 says. The Lord disciplines, He chastens those He loves and accepts as sons. You see, for those who are born again by the grace of God, these things are not punishments in the sense of payment for their sins. Why? Because Jesus was punished for their sins. As believers, we don't have to satisfy God's wrath because Jesus already did it. But for those who don't believe in Jesus Christ, these same afflictions are punishments for their sins. And this temporary punishment is a foretaste of the eternal punishment for those who have not been forgiven through Jesus Christ. And beloved, the Bible makes it clear that in this life God often punishes sin with more sin as He removes His restraining hand from the wicked and allows them to fall deeper in sin and suffer the consequences of those sins. Again, those sins again in Romans 1, For the wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness. Then Paul goes on after talking about the fact that they rejected God. Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshipped and served created things rather than the Creator who is forever praised. Amen. Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way, the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion. And then Paul goes on and on and on, listing sin after sin after sin. And then he says, he closes with these words, Those who do such things deserve death. Beloved, God is perfectly just. And therefore, His wrath is perfect. He must and He will stick to His word and punish as He has said. If He didn't, then He would be a liar. And that's impossible. But believe it or not, because His wrath is perfect, That is to our comfort as believers because that points to His perfect mercy. But isn't God also merciful? God is certainly merciful, but He is also just. His justice demands that sin committed against His supreme majesty be punished with the supreme penalty, eternal punishment of body and soul. Now, we all know that so many in our day want to play God's mercy or love off against His justice as if there were no connection between the two, that one cannot possibly be merciful and loving and at the same time just. God is loving and therefore He could never send anyone to hell. He wouldn't really do that, you see. Indeed, sin is rebellion against the supreme majesty of God and as the catechism says, And that sin must be punished with the extreme everlasting punishment of body and soul. And for those who leave this life without having had their sins forgiven, they will spend eternity in hell trying to pay a debt that they will never be able to pay. God's justice demands that the wages of all who sinned, which includes everyone, even you and me, He demands that those wages are eternal death. But God's perfect mercy is that He has taken care of that for some. All deserve eternal punishment of body and soul, but some get what they don't deserve because of God's perfect mercy. He owed it to no one, but gives it to those He chose. And those become visible as we consider this morning as the Holy Spirit brings them to repentance and faith. Beloved, God knows that we have changed. As David says in Psalm 103, for He knows how we are formed. He remembers that we are dust. He knows that we have changed, but He doesn't change. He doesn't remove His requirement of perfect obedience from us. Instead, He fulfilled it in His Son. In His grace, as Psalm 111, verse 9 says, He provided redemption for His people. And that grace includes, as Paul says in Philippians 3, that we are found not having a righteousness of our own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. You see, we look to the cross of Christ to see the most beautiful picture of God's love. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes on Him should not perish but have eternal life. And in that picture of God's love on the cross of Jesus, we see God's justice, His wrath, and His mercy come together. They meet on the cross. God's justice is satisfied as His wrath was poured out for your sins and mine upon His own dear Son. Jesus Christ suffered and endured the punishment for all the sins of all of His people and He suffered an eternity's worth of hell for each one. Only He could do that. And God's mercy is seen in the fact that He knew full well, as we confessed in question 9, that we cannot keep His law perfectly. So God provided one who could, who would, who in fact did. He provided the only one who would take the punishment that God's justice demanded because of sin, And the only one who could take that is that we wouldn't have to. See, that's mercy. That God doesn't give to you and me that which we deserve. We deserve eternal punishment. We deserve that God would hide His face from us. We deserve to be separated from God. But if you truly believe in Jesus Christ, if He is your Savior, and if He is the Lord of your life, and you will not get what you deserve. And beloved, we are called to praise God that He did not forget about His Word. We are to praise Him that He did not change His mind. We'd have no hope if He had. We are to praise Him, beloved, that His justice has been satisfied in Christ. Yes, whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved, but those who continue to reject Him will be punished with the supreme penalty. eternal punishment of body and soul. But all those who look to the Lord Jesus Christ, who turn to Him in faith, have the confidence of being redeemed by Him. And therefore, they have the assurance of eternal life in the very presence of God. How can we be so sure? Because God's perfect justice, seen on the cross of Jesus, upon whom He poured out His perfect wrath, means, beloved, Very simply, that we can take Him at His Word. We can believe that all that He has said, we can rejoice in God's justice. Because of it, we know that all that He says will come true, that His love for us in Christ Jesus is unfailing. Psalm 111, verse 5 says, He remembers His covenant forever. And that means that we can depend upon Him forever. We can take Him at His Word. He tells the truth when He says that the only way to the Father is through Jesus Christ, His Son. We don't have to look anywhere else. He's telling the truth when He says that whoever believes in Me, even though he dies, yet he shall live. What comfort in the hour of death. And He's telling the truth, beloved, when He says that no one will snatch you out of His hand. In Jesus Christ, God's law no longer condemns us, but it is our delight. And as believers, we no longer live with a death sentence over our heads, but we live with the joy of the Lord as our strength. And in His strength, we are called to go forth in His service, to be strong in His might, to conquer all evil and stand for the right. Beloved, may our desire throughout life be, As the psalmist in Psalm 103 expresses it beautifully, Praise the Lord, O my soul. O my inmost being, praise His holy name. Praise the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits. Who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases. Who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion. Who satisfies your desires with good things, so that your youth is renewed like the eagles. And beloved, praise Him as the psalmist goes on. Praise Him that He has not treated us as our sins deserve. Nor does He repay us according to our iniquities. Praise Him for His Son, our Savior, who was pierced through for our transgressions and who was crushed for our iniquities and took upon Himself the punishment that brought us peace with God. There's absolutely no other way for us to respond for such a great salvation. For the psalmist in Psalm 111 is correct. When He ends, to Him belongs eternal praise. Amen. Shall we pray? Father, may it be that our lips and hearts would never cease to praise You. For even as our Lord Jesus Christ suffered an eternity's worth of hell for each one of us as Your children, You have given to us an eternity's worth of praise with which we are called to praise your most holy name. Father, we praise you that you did not abandon your justice. We praise you that you did not just overlook the sin of man, but instead, through your Son, our Savior, indeed you have crushed the serpent's head and you have given to us, earned for us, through your Son, life abundantly, eternally. Father, may we leave this place, indeed, with praise upon our lips. And as was said this morning, at the beginning of our first, our service this morning, that tonight, as we leave this place, that each one of us would be able to say, truly, it was good for me to be in the house of my God. Hear our prayer, O Lord, for Jesus' sake, and in His name alone, Amen.