Our scripture reading tonight is from Paul's letter to the Romans. We begin in chapter 9 at verse 30 and read down through chapter 10. So our reading begins at Romans chapter 9 at verse 30. Let us give our careful attention to God's own word. What shall we say then? That Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness have attained it. That is a righteousness that is by faith. But that Israel who pursued a law that would lead to righteousness did not succeed in reaching that law. Why? Because they did not pursue it by faith. But as if it were based on works, they have stumbled over the stumbling stone, as it is written, Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame. Brothers, my heart's desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved. For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. For being ignorant of the righteousness of God and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God's righteousness. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes. For Moses writes about the righteousness that is based on the law, that the person who does the commandment shall live by them. But the righteousness based on faith says, Do not say in your heart who will ascend into heaven, that is to bring Christ down, or who will descend into the abyss, that is to bring Christ up from the dead. But what does it say? The word is near you and in your mouth and in your heart. That is the word of faith that we proclaim. Because if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. For the Scripture says, everyone who believes in Him will not be put to shame. For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek. For the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing His riches on all who call on Him. For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. How then can they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in Him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, how beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news. but they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us? So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ. But I ask, have they not heard? Indeed they have, for their voice has gone out to all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world. But I ask, did Israel not understand? First, Moses says, I will make you jealous of those who are not a nation. With a foolish nation, I will make you angry. Then Isaiah is so bold as to say, I have been found by those who did not seek me. I have shown myself to those who did not ask for me. But of Israel, he says, all day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and contrary people. So far the reading of God's word. In these evening worship services, we're looking at the opening articles of the Canons of Dort. The Canons of Dort are one of the three documents that summarize our faith as Reformed Christians. The Heidelberg Catechism, with which we are most familiar, most of us. The Belgic Confession, with which we are somewhat familiar. And the Canons of Dort, with which we are probably the least familiar. And so I thought it would be good in this 400th anniversary year of the conclusion of the work of the Synod of Dort to look at these articles, not all of them, not all five heads of doctrine, but some of these opening articles to follow the mind of the Synod as it worked and labored to defend our Reformed faith and then to teach it with clarity and biblical faithfulness. And this first head of doctrine is on predestination, but last time we considered it, we discovered that the first two articles don't say anything about predestination. They are rather laying a foundation of human need because of our lostness and sin and then of God's wonderful provision of salvation in Jesus Christ. Unless you get too nervous, Articles 3 and 4 don't talk about predestination either. The Synod is taking a slow start to approach this topic with great care by laying a very clear foundation of the basics of the gospel message. And basically, these articles 3 and 4 address the question, if sin is our great problem, and Christ is the great solution, how do we know about Christ? How do we know about what Christ has done? And how do we respond to what Christ has done? This is a most basic question, isn't it, about Christian faith, about Christian truth. And so in these opening articles, we are looking at the very basics of Christian faith. And part of the purpose of the Synod in approaching things this way was to answer the charge that was frequently brought against the Reformed, that somehow predestination undermines the gospel, undermines the work of Christ, undermines the call of faith, and the Synod wants to make crystal clear that that is not true. There's not a hint of truth in that. And so we're going to look at these Articles 3 and 4 tonight and see how clearly they teach the biblical message that is summarized for us in Romans 9 and 10. And the first thing that this Article 3 wants to say is that the work of Christ is brought to us by messengers. Someone has to tell us. Someone has to bring the good news to us. Article 3 begins by saying, God mercifully sends messengers of this most joyful news. God sends preachers. That's exactly what Romans 10 says, doesn't it? In fact, Article 3 quotes Romans 10, just in case you missed it. How shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? How will they hear without a preacher? How will they preach unless they be sent? This is a basic element of Christian truth. If we're going to know Christ, someone has to tell us about Him. We won't find Him just on our own. And God, in His mercy, not only sent His Son to save us, but sent messengers to tell us about the Son. And this is critical to our understanding. Messengers are necessary, this article says. Messengers who carry the joyful news are necessary so that we will come to hear, that we will come to learn, that we will be called to faith. And all through history, we can see how that is true, how the gospel has spread and been carried by faithful messengers and preachers, often ordained preachers, but sometimes just Christians who are sharing with their neighbors the truth. and that this is a reflection of the mercy of God. God is merciful to sinners lost in their sin, and he sends out messengers with joyful news about escape, about redemption, about deliverance. And you can see how that is powerfully expressed in Romans 10, verse 21. But of Israel, God says, all day long I have held out my hands. There's the picture of a pleading God. There's the picture of a merciful God calling people to himself, calling people to embrace the work of Christ done for them. This is the great message that Article 3 wants to communicate. We, in our sin, need people to tell us about the work of Christ, and God, in his mercy, sends out people to tell us. And that's why we pray for missionaries. That's why we are supportive of missionaries. In doing that, we are part of God's great saving work through the whole history of his church to gather a people around his name. But then did you notice in Article 3, there's that interesting statement that God sends messengers to those he will and when he will. God sends messengers to whom he will and when he will. I think the Synod is already preparing us to answer the Arminians. Because the great rallying cry of Arminians is always, God has grace for all. Christ died for all. All are equally called to faith. It's for all. It's for all. It's for all, and that sounds good. And there's a certain truth that the word goes out to all, and all are called to faith. But do you notice how the synod right here in Article 3 is saying, God clearly has not always sent his messengers to all. The messengers, as we look at the history of the church, have not gone everywhere always. They've gone to different places at different times, according to the will of God. now sometimes Arminians react to that and say well that's just because we've been neglectful and haven't sent missionaries when we ought to and we need to take very seriously the missionary call and the possibility that we've been neglectful but you know the scripture makes very clear exactly what is being said here namely that God has not sent messengers to all places at all times, but only to some places at some times. Pastor Gordon preached on this not so long ago in Acts chapter 16. It's a very powerful passage to remind us of God's sovereign sending of his messengers. There in Acts 16 at verse 6 we read, and they went through the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia. And when they had come up to Mysia, they attempted to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them. So passing by Mysia, they went to Troas, and a vision appeared to Paul in the night. A man of Macedonia was standing there, urging him and saying, come over to Macedonia and help us. And when Paul had seen the vision, immediately we sought to go on into Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them. Now, why do the Macedonians and not others? Well, we don't know, do we? But what we do know with clarity is that that was God's purpose. It was not Paul's idea. It was not Paul's neglect. but his following, the explicit direction of the Holy Spirit that opened one door and closed another. And that truth, that fundamental truth, is captured for us here in the third article of the Canons of Dort. God, in the very sending of the messengers, shows that he has a purpose for some and not for others. Now since we all have Arminianism in our hearts, I should pause here and say, well, the Arminianism in our hearts says, that's not fair. But what the Synod of Dort would respond is, if you think it's not fair, your trouble is not with the Synod of Dort, but with God. Your trouble is not with Article 3, it's with Acts 16. And this is one of the recurring insistent points made, in my judgment, absolutely truly by the Reformed. We are not creating a logical system of doctrine. We are following the Word of God. It's God who says He sends His messengers to some places and at some times. And we may not be able to understand His wisdom in that. We may not be able to understand His purpose in that. But it's what the Scripture clearly says. And we may, in compassion, think about people who, for long centuries, never heard the Word of God. And grieve over that. And wonder at the purposes of God. Did you know that the very last people in Europe to be evangelized were the Frisians? Now, what are we to make of that? What? Well, some people might make out that they were the hardest-headed people. The most difficult to reach. But you know what the canons say later? We don't know. What we do know for sure is that God did not bring the gospel earlier to one people because they were better than another. That's what the Arminians taught. that the gospel was received earlier by some people because they were better than others. That is not what the Scripture teaches. It's not what the canons of Dort teach. It's not the truth. The mystery of God sending His messengers isn't because some people are more worthy than others, better than others, more responsive than others. It's because God has a purpose that He's accomplishing. And the canons, I think, rather interestingly are saying, right in Article 3, before we ever get to predestination, it's clear from any study of the Scripture and of history that God sends His messengers to some and not to others. But the comfort we have from all of the Scripture in that is, whenever the messengers get there, And however neglectful the church may be in its missionary responsibilities at some time, God will accomplish his purpose and will not be thwarted. Not one of the elect will be lost. And this should be a great comfort and encouragement to us. If you've ever missed an opportunity to witness, or you've ever thought you didn't make a very good witness, or if you've ever thought, well, we should be more supportive of missionary efforts. All that may be true, and we may need to be perhaps a much more repentant people, but the Scripture says over and over again, our sin will not keep anybody out of the kingdom of heaven. And that should be a great comfort to us. Jesus made that crystal clear, didn't he, in John chapter 6 at verse 39, where he declared, This is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me. I preached on that text recently at a seminary graduation, and I said to the seminarians graduating, going out in the church, you're going to live in perhaps difficult days for ministers and for churches and for the gospel. And if you're going into Reformed churches, you may frequently be in churches that are small and struggling, and you may get discouraged, and you may wonder, am I doing something wrong? And I said, you may be doing something wrong. You maybe need to pause and think and change. But let this promise always support you and encourage you. Christ will not lose one whom the Father has given to him. And that's our encouragement. That's our hope. That's our faith. And the third article is making that very clear. When those messengers go out, they will accomplish God's purpose, and they will call people to him and to his son. So the messengers are the first point of Articles 3 and 4, and the second point is the message. The messengers carry a message. And what are we told about that message? Well, it's described in Article 3 as a most joyful good news. And that's wonderful to hear the Synod put it that way. What is the message we want to hear? What is the message that Jesus Christ came to testify to and to fulfill? What is the message that should be preached? That there's joyful news. Most joyful news. I've sometimes been told by my wife that I should smile more in the pulpit. And I work at that. I try. Part of the reality is that I think when you come into a pulpit as a minister, you feel the weight, the responsibility, the seriousness of the duty that you're called to fulfill. But it is true that we ought to be able to show that that duty for all of its seriousness is a joyful duty because the message that we bear is joyful. So I almost think I ought to get a picture of me smiling and hold it up from time to time to remind us of that joyful good news. And what is that joyful good news? It is, as Article 3 says, that Christ is crucified. to bear our sins. Or as Article 4 puts it, that Jesus is the Savior. What a wonderful brief statement of the Gospel. We find that in Romans 10 also, don't we? If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. Isn't it good that we don't have to memorize the canons of Dort to be saved. That's joyful news. The essence of the gospel is simple. Jesus died to save sinners. Jesus is Savior. Jesus is Lord. Jesus is living. And that joyful news, then, includes the call to faith and repentance. That crucified Christ calls you to himself. That Jesus, the Savior, calls you to trust him, and in trusting him, change your life to live for him. And the beauty of that is that it's simple. It can be simply expressed. It can be simply written down, and that's what articles 3 and 4 also want to say to us. The fact that we're going to go on and talk about predestination in ways that are, I don't think complicated, but demanding a little bit, that doesn't in any way undermine the simplicity of the gospel. In talking about predestination, we are not moving away from the foundation of the gospel. We are not undermining the foundation of the gospel. We are not compromising the foundation of the gospel, but we're building on it, and we're listening carefully to the whole of Revelation in Scripture. But as we do that, as we build, we don't ever lose the foundation. And that's something we have to work at, I think, as reformed people. I think we do sometimes run the risk as reformed people of making things unnecessarily complicated. This, I think, in America has been a particularly Presbyterian problem. I always have to be careful about criticizing the Presbyterians in any way with Jerry Galloway here. And it's a good thing he's here or I'd get carried away. But in America, it has been true that Presbyterians who came as poor Scots-Irish immigrants and worked hard and got education and over generations became relatively well-to-do upper middle class people, Presbyterians who became an educated part of the Christian community in America, sometimes because of their education, approached a communication of the gospel that no longer remains simple. And I think we always have to be careful about that. Our Dutch Reformed churches, composed of people who came later than the Scots-Irish, have remained longer blue-collar churches, and so have perhaps not been quite so tempted to theologize beyond where we need to in communicating the gospel. And the canons remind us in a critical way that the gospel is simple. The joyful good news is that Christ died to save sinners, that Jesus is Savior. That's the basic message of Christianity that we need to keep simple and clear and appealing. Appealing not only in the sense that it's attractive but that we're appealing to people to embrace it. So yeah, there's a deeper understanding of more profound things in the Word that we'll come to soon. Not tonight, but next time. But we never want in any way to detract from the simplicity of the gospel. So these articles talk, first of all, about the messengers who are sent, and then about the message that they carry of the joyful news of Jesus, and then they talk, thirdly, about the mercy received. If we learn about Jesus and his saving work in the message of the messengers, then we're called to receive His mercy. And that call goes out that we should believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. We should repent of our sins, and then we will receive His mercy. Now, Article 4 begins with biblical realism and declares the anger of God remains on those who do not believe his gospel. Now, that's just a biblical truth, isn't it? That's no reform distinctive. The anger of God remains on those who do not believe his gospel. Think of it. Sinners who deserved wrath have been given to know the Son of God by the messengers who bear the message of mercy and they refuse to believe. Is God unreasonable to be unhappy with such people? The canons reflecting the Bible make very clear that is not unreasonable. It is not unreasonable that God is angry with those whom Romans 10 calls a disobedient and contrary. people. Anyone who has raised children that are occasionally disobedient and contrary know how frustrating that becomes when these children have been surrounded by love and are recalcitrant. My wife was a great believer when disciplining children and using big words that would stymie them and make them pause and think. Contrary, resistant. The anger of God remains on all people. That's very serious. But Article 4 wonderfully goes on to talk about how mercy is received by those who embrace Jesus the Savior with a true and living faith. With a true and living faith. There are a lot of faiths in this world. Paul, at the end of Romans 9 talked about how the Jews had a mistaken faith in their law-keeping. He said they have zeal, but they don't have knowledge, and that zeal will not be saving. What is required for salvation is a true and living faith. Our Reformed forebearer said, you know, when you look into the Bible, you find faith used in a variety of ways. And they would distinguish between historical faith, which is a faith that believes facts in the Bible, but that's all that happens. They're facts. They're not life-changing. And the Reformers rightly said, even the devils can have that kind of faith. They know the facts. The devils see Jesus coming and they say, Jesus, Son of the Most High God, what have you to do with us? They knew who he was, but it didn't save them. They had just factual faith, historical faith. And the Reformers talked about what they called faith of miracles. That is, people who saw miracles and were so impressed by the miracles that for the moment they seemed to believe. But there was nothing living in that faith, nothing abiding in that faith. And so the article rightly reminds us that saving faith is the faith that is true and living and resting and embracing Jesus as the Savior. And that faith brings salvation. That faith brings the fruit of freedom. Freedom from the wrath of God. Freedom from the destruction to come. And it brings the fruit of eternal life. What a great biblical promise we see there. There's nothing just Calvinistic there, is it? The saving work of Jesus, when embraced by faith, brings freedom from the curse of God and brings the gift of eternal life. I do wonder if maybe in formulating that, the delegates to the Synod of Dort thought, do the Arminians ever really think carefully about that phrase, eternal life? If God gives you eternal life, is that eternal life only temporary? That can be lost? Isn't the very phrase, eternal life, necessarily carrying with it the notion that it's a gift of life that will go on and on and on and will never end? Those are some of the themes that the canons of Dort want to take up as we go along. And that's what we'll see next week, two weeks from now, next time when we ask the question, when the Canons ask the question, why do some believe and some don't? It's a really critical question, and it begins to get down to the basic issues before the Synod. We'll come to that in good time. But for tonight, let's be thankful that God in his mercy not only sent his Son, but sent messengers of his Son, sent the message of his Son that he will save those who come to him in faith, and that everyone is called to come and to believe and to be saved, and that everyone who comes is freed from the wrath to come and given in Christ the gift of eternal life. May we all rejoice. in that most joyful news. Amen. Let us pray. O Lord, our God, how we do thank you for your truth and for your word, and how we do marvel that you indeed plead with us to come to you, that you indeed have given your Son and given your messengers that we might come. And so send now your Holy Spirit into our hearts that we might have a true and living faith to honor and serve you. For we pray in Jesus' name, amen.