Lord's Day 3 Beloved, as you recall, a couple of weeks ago we began to consider Lord's Day 3 as we considered this Word of God, the revealing truth of man's nature. We dealt with the first point of that sermon at that time. And today we continue with points 2 and 3 of that sermon. So that's one of the places we turn is to Lord's Day 3 where we find questions and answers 6, 7, and 8, page 10 in the back of the Psalter hymnal. Then also I'd ask that you turn to two other portions of Scripture, Genesis chapter 3, where we read together the familiar account of the fall of mankind, the first seven verses. Then also the portion we read together two weeks ago, Ephesians 4, verses 17 to 24. We read first of all from Genesis 3, the first seven verses, as we give our attention to the Word of God. Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, Did God really say you must not eat from any tree in the garden? The woman said to the serpent, We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, But God did say you must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it or you will die. You will not surely die, the serpent said to the woman. For God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband who was with her and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened and they realized they were naked. So they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. And turning to Ephesians 4, verses 17-24. So I tell you this and insist on it in the Lord that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do in the futility of their thinking. They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity with a continual lust for more. You, however, did not come to know Christ that way. Surely you heard of Him and were taught in Him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus. You were taught with regard to your formal way of life to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires, to be made new in the attitude of your minds, and to put on the new self created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. And then as we turn to the Heidelberg Catechism, page 10, Lord's Day 3, we do confess together again all three of the questions and answers that we find there, even though we did consider question and answer six two weeks ago. So beginning with that question, did God create man so wicked and perverse? No. God created man good and in His own image, that is, in true righteousness and holiness, so that he might truly know God His Creator, love Him with all His heart, and live with Him in eternal happiness for His praise and glory. Then where does man's corrupt nature come from? From the fall and disobedience of our first parents, Adam and Eve, in paradise. This fall has so poisoned our nature that we are born sinners corrupt from conception on. But are we so corrupt that we are totally unable to do any good and inclined toward all evil? Yes, unless we are born again by the Spirit of God. Beloved congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is to blame for man's sin and misery? Remember, when it comes to situations gone bad in this life, we want answers. We want to know who's responsible, don't we? We want to know who we can blame. For example, who is responsible for the crash of the 747 that killed hundreds of people? Who is at fault for the youth of America becoming addicted to drugs and alcohol at an all-time early age? Who is to blame for the fact that I've been diagnosed with a terrible disease? But see, even more than that, beloved, we just want somebody to pin the blame on us, especially when that somebody is somebody else and not me. And I believe that this is true, for example, when the family of a murder victim is grieving. If there's a suspect, even if the guilt is a long way away from being proven, there is contentment in the fact that there is somebody to point the finger at. As I said this morning in the first service, as we've considered the events of the past month, and especially the past couple of days, we noticed that the evidence had been mounting, it seems, against Osama bin Laden for the terrorist activities. Yet we also know that already back on September 11, his name was at the top of the list. Whether there was any proof yet or not, it was comforting in a sense to know there was somebody that we could blame. Someone to point the finger at. And as we introduced a couple of weeks ago in connection with Lord's Day 3 and the first point of this sermon regarding the revealing truth of man's nature, sinful man also looks for somewhere to point the finger of blame away from himself but to point that finger of blame for his sinful depravity. Now, we need to remember, beloved, that the sinner who wants to pass the buck is the convicted sinner, the believer. This may seem like somewhat of a contradiction because a believer wouldn't do that, surely. But it's not a contradiction. You see, the unconvicted sinner, the unregenerate person, doesn't care about, in fact, doesn't even acknowledge his sin and misery to begin with. Only one who is convicted of his sin and misery will even begin to question why he is that way. Now, it's my opinion that the Catechism from questions 6-12 is teaching us something about spiritual growth through the sanctification of the Holy Spirit. Sanctification, we know, is a process. It begins at regeneration. It will be complete at glorification. And in this particular series of Catechism Questions and Answers 6 through 12, they demonstrate the growth of the believer, I believe, from blaming God, as we considered in Question and Answers 6, to blaming others, and then to finally, finally, after all of the excuses have been shoved out of the way, finally accepting responsibility for himself, even as question 12 begins, according to God's righteous judgment, we deserve punishment. That's a statement of fact. With spiritual maturity by the grace of God, the believer recognizes more and more his sin and misery, and he recognizes that it is his fault. Yet it's a process. In his sinful stubbornness. Again, the believer begins by pointing the finger at others. That's the easiest, of course. As we saw a couple of weeks ago in our first point, he begins with God. Did God create man so wicked and perverse? But as we discussed at that time, Scripture reveals that God made man as only the divine God could. Not that He created man to be a God or that He created him as a God, but that God Himself created man. Man enjoyed that divine creation at the hand of God. Man was created good with the purpose, as answer 6 says, of loving God with all his heart and live with Him in eternal happiness for His praise and glory. And God made man perfectly able to accomplish this because He created man after His own image and endowed him with true righteousness and holiness so that he might truly know God, His Creator. Because unless one truly knows God, His Creator, He cannot love Him with all His heart and live with Him in eternal happiness to His praise and glory. Man's purpose in life was that his life was to be completely and perfectly directed and devoted to God for God's praise and glory. Now before we move on to the second two points of this sermon, let's take a moment to apply this. Let's examine ourselves against the straight stick of the God-approved man. Again, one who truly knows God, loves Him with all his heart, lives with Him in eternal happiness to His praise and glory. As those who profess Jesus Christ, beloved, how are you doing as you measure yourself against the straight stick of the God-approved man? How are you doing? Do you really give to God the praise and the glory that He alone deserves, that belongs to Him and do you give that to Him today and every day? In your relationships at home, at work, in school, at play? In all of your conversations, in every situation of life, with all of your thoughts, words, and actions, is your motive and desire the glory and praise of God? Boys and girls, this means you too, and young people. Consider this. Is that your desire? Is that your motive? People of God, do you give more of your time in a day to trivial things like reading the newspaper and doing your hair and putting on your makeup than you give to reading Scripture and spending time with God in prayer? As well, do you sing of His greatness and what He has done? Or along with so many of the popular praise songs we hear and the songs that we hear on the Christian radio station, Do you brag about what you will do for Him? See, we've talked before about WWJD. What would Jesus do? Really not a bad statement, not a bad question, but there's a question that comes before that. What has Jesus done? Before we ask, what would Jesus do? What has Jesus done? You see, for many of us, an honest reflection of an answer to these questions reveals a life very much off course from the God-approved life. So often we are quick to condemn what we see as gross sins of theft and adultery and murder and gossip and lying and cheating and stealing and so on, but we completely ignore our neglect to glorify God. For some reason, we're not disturbed by that. It doesn't bother us. But beloved, that too is sin. We need to understand and be reminded as we said a couple of weeks ago that a life that is not directed completely to God misses its purpose and is a total failure. In one of our Lord's parables, He speaks of the gardener cutting down the fig tree. Why? Not because its fruit was rotten, but because it bore no fruit. And we know that there are many outside the church in this world who do not have any bad fruit, we could say, necessarily. But they produce no fruit at all. As well, Jesus described the people who were surprised by the judgment of the flood and fire in the days of Noah and Lot. He described them as those who ate and drank, who married and were given in marriage, who bought and sold, who planted and built. And, you know, we look at these and we see them as ordinary, innocent activities of life. But, beloved, apart from God, these ordinary activities of life are deadly. Their sin was not in what they did, but in the fact that what they did, they did not do to the glory and praise of God. Beloved, when God is not your ultimate purpose, then you ignore Him and you pretend He doesn't exist. And on Judgment Day, He will say to those who ignored Him, Depart from Me, for I never knew you. But the original question is still there, isn't it? Who's to blame for all of this? Again, Scripture reveals that it's not God's fault, yet the Catechism makes it clear that we still want someone else to blame. We're not ready to give up so quick and point the finger at ourselves. We still want to look elsewhere. Question and answer 7. Then where does man's corrupt nature come from? From the fall and disobedience of our first parents, Adam and Eve, in paradise. This fall has so poisoned our nature that we are born sinners corrupt from conception on. There you have it. We go back to the beginning, but not pointing the finger at God. It's the fault of our first parents, Adam and Eve. Indeed, this is the hereditary fall of man's nature. Now, on the surface, after reading this answer, the sinner breathes a sigh of relief, doesn't he? Because it looks like my problem isn't my fault. It's someone else's fault. After all, we hear the shout of revolution already in paradise, where the drama of sin in mankind begins to unfold. And even the boys and girls here are familiar with and could explain to us what the fall and disobedience of Adam and Eve was all about. Well, what did they do? They ate of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. You see, God's children were to keep their hands off of that one tree in the garden not because its fruit was bad. Not necessarily because that tree was so much different from the other trees. But simply because their Father told them to. God's people were called to be obedient. And beloved, we are called to be obedient still today. No questions asked obedience. No backtalk obedience. The Bible says you shall not steal. you shall not steal. No questions asked. When the Bible says, keep the Sabbath day holy, keep the Sabbath day holy. For God, not your own selfish purpose. No questions asked. God's people are called to be obedient, which is the fruit of love. God could have forced them to be obedient, I suppose, and prevented the fall. But He desires a willful heart obedience. Slaves, we know, obey their masters because they are forced to obey. But childlike obedience is to be voluntary surrender and love obedience. See, God created man good with the ability to choose also to choose to fall. At His creation, there was no evil in man. Yet, Adam and Eve did not yet possess that glorified state that all believers long for or at least should long for. They did not yet possess that highest possible state of freedom and goodness in which man will not be able to sin. That's what we look forward to at the end of that sanctification process when we are ushered into glory in the presence of our God and Father, that we will not be able to sin. We need to understand, beloved, that the first sin included more than just the outward act of taking and eating the fruit of that forbidden tree. We cannot separate the picking and eating of that fruit from the motives and the desires that led to taking and doing that. Satan came in the serpent to tempt Eve and he craftily draws her into a conversation about the truth of the Word of God. Did God really say, you must not eat from any tree in the garden? Well, what was Satan doing here? He was trying to make Eve believe that the Word of God didn't make sense. First of all, he twists God's command around. Any tree? No, only one. But he twists God's command around and confuses it as if to make her believe that if all the other trees in the garden were good to eat from and were not harmful, then practically speaking, Eve, it doesn't make sense that this one would be harmful, would it? In fact, according to Satan, this one tree was better than all of the others. We know the story. You will not surely die, the serpent said to the woman, for God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. At that point, Satan led Eve into a discussion regarding the question of the truth of the Word of God. And the moment you begin to question the truth of God's Word, you are prepared to call it a lie. To debate God's Word is to deny it because it's not debatable. When you begin to consider God's commands from a utility point of view, that is, whether it's good for you to obey or better for you to disobey, then you have called into question the sovereignty of God and already made the choice for disobedience. One commentator has rightly said, if we cannot believe the Word of God unconditionally because it is the Word of God, we do not believe it at all. We call it the lie. The episode continues, When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband who was with her and he ate it. It's clear, beloved, that Eve embraced the lie And even before she ate, she was filled with lust, as John says, the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life. When she saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food, the lust of the flesh. And pleasant, pleasing to the eye, the lust of the eyes. And also desirable for gaining wisdom, the pride of life. Beloved, Adam and Eve divorced the tree from the Word of God. They set aside the purpose of God for which they had been created and they substituted in its place their own selfish purpose. Man's calling, we know, was to love God above all with all of his heart, soul, mind, and strength. That was his constant, unending obligation for the moment he sinned. He became guilty before God because he failed. And he became delinquent in paying to God what he owed to Him. And the result was that God's curse, the result upon man was that God's curse became effective, for in the day that you eat from it, you shall surely die. We know that physically man began to die through the aging process leading to physical death. Billions of people have felt that curse as they have stood at the graveside of a loved one. But man also died spiritually. The canons of Dort in the third and fourth main heads of doctrine, Article 1 explains it this way, Rebelling against God at the devil's instigation, and by His own free will, He deprived Himself of these outstanding gifts. Rather, in their place, He brought upon Himself blindness, terrible darkness, futility and distortion of judgment in His mind, perversity, defiance and hardness in His heart and will, and finally, impurity in all His emotions. It's very possible that the writers, the authors of the canons, referenced Paul's words in Ephesians 4, verses 17-19. So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do in the futility of their thinking. They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity with a continual lust for more. The congregation, Adam and Eve, lost the riches of their divine creation. They were no longer good, able to do what they were made to do, and able to fulfill their purpose. They lost the image of God with regard to true righteousness, holiness, and knowledge. Their knowledge of God became darkness. Their righteousness became rebellion. Their holiness was turned into pollution. They were no longer God's friends, but His enemies. And instead of loving what is good and hating what is evil in sin, man hates good and loves and seeks after evil. Man desired to be like God and fell. He chose for the see-through lie which had no proof instead of the truth of the majesty of God which had been before His eyes in the very first moment of life. He chose for the deceptive delusion instead of the sure promise which he already enjoyed in his created, God-approved condition. He was not satisfied with what he had, but in his greed, he wanted to play let's make a deal. You remember that. Do you want to keep what you have? Or will your curiosity get the best of you? Do you want what's behind curtain number three? Or would you rather have what's in my pocket? In his greed, man chose, beloved, to take his life out of the safety and security of the hand of God and to take his future into his own hands. He gave up what he already possessed in order to stick his hand in Satan's pocket for whatever could be found there. In our first parents, we see unbelief, pride, covenant breaking, In gratitude, revolution, and greed. All of these things. Things which the Catechism simply calls disobedience. All of these things are disobedience against God and disobedience is sin. Then where does man's corrupt nature come from? From the fall and disobedience of our first parents, Adam and Eve, in paradise. But beloved, that depraved nature didn't stay there. It didn't end there. It was passed on to their children and on to their children's children. That fall indeed was hereditary. We all suffer from this depraved nature. Why is this? The riches with which Adam was created, true righteousness, knowledge, and holiness, were given to him as a representative for and as the father of the whole human race. When God gave them to Adam, He gave them to every human being, Adam being our representative. But the sin was not only outward. It didn't just stain the outer garment. It was inward and corrupted human nature all the way down to its very core. So that man lost his ability to be what God made him to be and to do what God made him to do. Adam and Eve became so totally depraved, so off of the course of God's purpose that all who come from them could be no different. Job 14, verse 4 says, Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? And the answer given there, no one. From the unholy source of our first parents flowed that impure stream through all generations, and still today, so that all who have come and continue to come from them are polluted. Even as David says in Psalm 51, Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me. But not only was Adam the father of the whole human race, but as we said, he was also the representative of it. As that representative, when he lost the riches of his divine creation, all who came from him lost those riches as well. And just as fathers today represent their families and the members of the family are affected by the decision of the father, And just as citizens of a country are represented by the government so that when the governing authorities declare war, every citizen is actually at war. We are at war, even as we sit here, in the same way Adam represented us all. But the blame doesn't stop there with Adam. If it did, we could cry, unfair, unfair, I didn't have a choice. I didn't have a chance. I would have never chosen for that, you see. But the Bible says that when Adam sinned, we all did. Paul says in Romans 5, Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men because all sinned. Beloved, Adam's sin belongs to us all, so that as the saying goes, in Adam's fall, sinned we all. As Paul says in Romans 3, There is none righteous, no, not one. There is no reason for any of us to breathe easy here, pointing at someone else. Instead, we are called to constantly examine ourselves. Indeed, we always call for self-examination in order to come, to prepare to come to the Lord's table. But see, this examination, this same thorough self-examination is to be done by each one of us each and every day. that indeed we might recognize our sin and misery, our need for salvation, that we can't provide it ourselves. Indeed, that we should examine ourselves to see if we indeed do not seek salvation in ourselves, but somewhere else. Examine to see whether we trust in the Lord Jesus Christ alone for salvation. And examine to see whether we desire to live in that way that is pleasing to God to say, Thank you, Lord, for that salvation. Beloved, where does the depraved nature of man come from? From me, through my first parents. I am to blame for my sin and misery. You are to blame. The buck stops here in our own hearts. How bad is it? Question 8 asks, But are we so corrupt that we are totally unable to do any good and inclined toward all evil? And with one word at the very beginning, we have the answer. Yes. Yes. Now some heretics have taught that man is perfectly healthy, spiritually speaking. For example, Pelagius many, many years ago taught that we are born in the same condition with which Adam was created before the fall. That we are all born perfect and that we learn sin and we do, in fact, do sin by imitation. Children see their parents sin. Well, that's what we must do. They imitate them. Others were not quite so bold. They were more semi-Pelagian and say that man only received a nasty dent in the fall. He is sick to be sure, but not hopeless. He can still dig his way out. He can still choose for a way out. But we believe, as the Bible teaches in Ephesians 2, that we are dead in trespasses and sin. Total depravity. That means completely off of the mark. Every part of man, beloved, is saturated by sin physically, emotionally, mentally, psychologically, and spiritually. Of course this isn't flattering to us. But then again, it's not supposed to be. If you're uncomfortable, I say praise God. Because each and every one of us must be uncomfortable, squirming in our seats. Just as a corpse cannot see, hear, speak, or walk, or anything else, fallen man is incapable, totally unable, to do any good. Even our best works are filthy, stained, soaked rags, as Isaiah says. So now that we are put about as low as we can go, is there any hope? Amen. Truly, truly there is. The beauty of the catechism, even here in this first section on sin and misery, is that the beauty of that hope is placed right before our eyes. But are we so corrupt that we are totally unable to do any good and inclined toward all evil? Yes, unless we are born again by the Spirit of God. Or as the older version beautifully says, unless we are regenerated by the Spirit of God. But boys and girls, I want you to remember that word, regenerated. So many today are trying to get rid of these beautiful theological words, but we've got to hang on to them. Regenerated. It means to be born again. It means to have new life. Man's sinful nature has a need for a miracle. Man's mess in the beginning proves that he is not capable of doing anything in favor of His salvation. Yes, the truth hurts, doesn't it? But, the truth heals. And that's Jesus Christ. The way, the truth, and the life and the way, truth, and life of Jesus Christ is applied to the believer's life by the regeneration of the Holy Spirit and new spiritual birth. You recall Nicodemus who came to Jesus by night wondering what he must do to be saved. when Jesus told him he had to be born again, I think that he was thinking physically, Nicodemus was, and he knew that to be born again was on par with being impossible. Indeed, it takes a miracle, beloved, and that's the grace of regeneration. The word unless, in answer 8, is an important word. Because there is no salvation without regeneration. It is a must. Now, not all believers must have a life-jolting Damascus road conversion like Paul did. Some indeed have, but some here most likely enjoy that. But the Bible tells us that the Spirit of God lived in John the Baptist when he was still in his mother's womb. For many of us, by God's grace, we were nurtured in the faith. We were taught from a very young age. And the Spirit of God worked gradually in us. But these same two examples also show us that not all need to be converted at birth or in their childhood years. But, all who enter the kingdom of heaven, without exception, all who enter must be born again. Regenerated by the Holy Spirit who makes us alive together with Christ. Not one will enter heaven without being born again. We must be recreated. Do you see how bad man's condition is apart from God? We need to be made completely new. You know, it's possible to put a car together from scratch using old used parts that you go find in the junkyard, but not with the new creation of God's people. Nothing can be used. Spare parts won't do. The Holy Spirit makes us new. As Paul says in Ephesians 4, verse 23, he begins to be made new in the attitude of your minds and then to put on the new self created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. The disobedience of our sin lost that true righteousness, holiness, and knowledge. But the obedience of Christ restores these divine riches in part in this life and completely in the life to come. Our disobedience is reconciled and satisfied by Christ's obedience. Just as all are depraved and die in Adam, God's people become justified, adopted, sanctified, and glorified in Christ Jesus. If being condemned because of Adam's original sin and our actual sin seems unfair and reasonable, then how much more unfair and unreasonable the manifold riches we receive in Christ. Congregation, we earned our condemnation. And what did we do? We tried to blame it on someone else when the truth is the only thing we can contribute to our salvation is our sin and our need to be saved. But Jesus Christ earned our salvation and freely, graciously gave it to those, gives it to those who believe on Him. How vast the benefits divine. which we in Christ possess. Let him who wants to cry unfair because of his sin and misery look to the cross of Christ and see that which is truly unfair, that the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. How do you know if you are born again? It begins with a sincere confession of your sin and misery, understanding by faith that you stand condemned before God because of yourself. Only the child of God can understand this by faith. Only those who are born again can confidently confess. But when I owned my trespass, my sin hid not from Thee. When I confessed transgression, then Thou forgavest me. The knowledge of our sin and misery, you see, is not a prerequisite for regeneration. We do not have to first confess our sin in order to then be born again. But the knowledge of our sin and misery and our confession of it is the fruit of regeneration. However, for God's people, the knowledge of sin and misery is a prerequisite for coming to the Lord's table. That we might know that in and of ourselves we do not deserve to come, but by God's grace we deserve to come because of Jesus Christ and what He has done for us. If you are one who continues to cry out, not me, my sinful condition is not my fault, then apart from repentance and faith, one day when that book of life is opened, with the names of all the redeemed recorded there, then God will look you in the eye and say, not you, your name is not here. Depart from me. But those who enjoy that new self by God's grace, that new self which Paul speaks of, also enjoy new obedience, beginning with obediently confessing who they are and their unworthiness, and then rejoicing in who Jesus Christ is and His worthiness to call the people unto Himself. Beloved, in this life, we don't like to admit fault or blame, especially boys and girls, because we might get punished and because privileges might be taken away from us. But you see, only those who know and confess their sin and misery and their blame by God's grace, only they will enjoy the privilege of Christ's redemption. Amen. Shall we pray? Our gracious God and Heavenly Father, again as we bow our heads and our hearts in prayer before You, we confess that You have dished up something to us this morning that is hard to chew. That You have given to us something that we don't like to hear. That because of the sin that continues to cling to us against our will, because of the pride of life we don't want to hear that we are to blame, we think we're pretty good. But Father, any goodness that lies within us is only by Your grace and by the recreating power of your Holy Spirit. And Father, we pray that you would continue to bring us low in a knowledge of our sin and misery, only then to lift us to great heights in the joy of salvation through Jesus Christ. O Lord God, may we truly be able to confess together how vast the benefits divine which we, in Christ, possess. Hear our prayer for Jesus' sake and in His name, Amen.