L.D. 2
Scripture: Romans 3
This morning, as we follow the instruction set forth in our Heidelberg Catechism, we begin to call attention to our desperate situation outside of Christ. As we saw in the exposition of Scripture from Lord's Day 1, there are three things that are absolutely necessary for us to know, if we are to enjoy the one only comfort there is. If we are to know ourselves one with Christ, members of His body by faith; if we are to know ourselves as redeemed, as objects of the love of God, it is absolutely necessary that we know three things very personally: the first, how great my sins and miseries are; the second, how I may be delivered from all my sins and miseries; the third, how I shall express my gratitude to God for such deliverance. That means—for you certainly heard correctly—the gospel as it comes to God's people, is applied to our hearts first of all by showing us that there is only one way of salvation, and it is not in us nor of us. We must know how great is our misery. That is clearly the approach of the Apostle Paul as well in his letter to the church at Rome. The most sharp indictment of man in all of Scripture is found in the chapter which we read. That is not to say that this is the only place in Scripture where man's sin is exposed very sharply. But in this passage is found God's judgment of you and me as we stand before Him by ourselves, or what we sometimes refer to as "by nature." You and I are guilty before God. And this miserable state and condition is set before us in its stark reality, in order to lead us to the one only hope, "Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe" (Rom. 3:22).
Why this emphasis on our misery? That emphasis is made for one reason, namely, that we may see and know God the Savior, that we may see and know Christ. The seeking and saving grace of God is the fundamental theme throughout the entire Catechism. That particular, saving grace of God in Christ Jesus is the whole foundation for all our comfort. By this focus on our misery we are not only shown how much we need the salvation of God, but also the unfathomable way in which God saves us. By the knowledge of our misery, God by His Spirit would lead us to Christ. And in this examination of misery, we must see ourselves. We must be able to hear the Savior's words: "Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish." We would certainly walk in error, if we should suppose that there was something superior in us that caused God to seek us out and give us His saving grace. To see our misery as those who have been redeemed is only to heighten the clearness of God's grace. For our salvation can be attributed only to Him. So with those brief introductory remarks, I call your attention to the instruction of Lord's Day 2 under the theme:
THE KNOWLEDGE OF OUR MISERY
I. NECESSARY
II. GOD-GIVEN
III. HUMBLING
I. THE KNOWLEDGE OF WHICH OUR CATECHISM SPEAKS IS ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY.
I REFER TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF OUR MISERY.
The Christian readily understands the importance of knowing his sin. We may put that another way. The Christian readily understands the necessity that his own sin is carefully and forthrightly uncovered and exposed before his own mind and heart. You know that. You in whom the Spirit works never object to preaching which exposes you before God. Because the Spirit has placed in your heart the prayer of the psalmist in Psalm 139:23,24: "Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting." In other words, you understand that if God is to lead you in that way everlasting, it will come by exposing to your own consciousness your inmost heart, your deepest thoughts, in order that you may approach Him in reverence and Godly fear, not clinging to even the least of your sins.
The matter is easily illustrated. It is even true from a natural point of view. If I am sick with something more than a cold or flu bug that I know will run its course rather quickly; if I have an illness that could perhaps be something quite serious, before any treatment is given, I must try to find out exactly what is the nature of the problem. Most all of you have had the experience of going to the doctor. If you are sick, and you go to the doctor, that doctor will not simply pour medicine into you. If you go to the doctor and complain about pain, that doctor is not immediately going to do brain surgery. Of course not. He wants to know where the location is of your trouble. Do you have difficulty breathing? Is there pain in the abdominal area? A doctor knows that it is possible to mask all kinds of symptoms, without ever treating the source of the problem. The important thing is to find the source of your misery.
Now what is true from a physical point of view is also true spiritually. If we are to enjoy the only comfort in life and death, body and soul, it is necessary that the misery that is ours be totally uncovered. A diagnosis must be made which digs right down to the root of the problem. That we suffer misery is not a question. There is no man or woman that does not suffer misery. There are times that our misery is very intense; and there are other times when things don't seem so bad. But everyone lives in misery and everyone is afraid. We may sometimes laugh things off. There are many who are able to get through life taking a very superficial view of things. But everyone reaches a point when they stand before death. There is no escape.
NOW WHY DO WE SUFFER THAT MISERY?
What is the nature of that misery? What is its source? Those are important questions. Oh yes, they are very deep questions, questions that make people very uncomfortable. If you ask the natural man these questions, he will become very ill-at-ease. These are questions that the natural man does not want to face. Speak to the stranger on the hospital bed next to yours, and ask him what is the root cause of his illness and misery. Begin to point him to the answer of the Scriptures, and I'll guarantee that he will begin to feel very uncomfortable—that is, unless he is one with Christ. But these are questions, the answers to which we must know. We must know the nature of our misery.
But not only that, we must also know the extent of our misery. You must know very personally how great your sins and miseries are. If you do not know that, you cannot enjoy the remedy, the only comfort in life and death. Not really. That also is true from a natural point of view. Suppose I am miserable physically, and the doctor determines that the problem is a recurrence of stomach trouble. The question still remains: How serious is the trouble? Is it just a little problem of over-production of stomach acid? Is it something that antacid tablets will resolve? Is it ulcers? Then it's a little more serious. Is it cancer perhaps? Before a remedy is applied and comfort enjoyed, it is necessary that the seriousness and extent of my troubles be determined. But that is also true in the spiritual sense. Do you think it can be otherwise? We must know the extent of our misery. Suppose we come to the realization that sin is the source of our misery. The question remains: What is the extent of that sin? Is it just a little thing, so that I can say to God, "I'm sorry; I guess I shouldn't have done that," and He will forgive me? Is it possible for me, at least partly, to make good for my sin? Is there, perhaps, at least some hope that I can improve myself to God's satisfaction? Suppose that I have become guilty before God. Guilty of what? What are the consequences? Suppose that my guilt is such that I can never pay for my sins. Suppose that I must have someone who will pardon me. Suppose I must have Jesus to pay for my sins. Then the question remains: Is there more than just the fact that I am guilty? Am I also corrupt? That is a very serious question. How corrupt am I? Am I totally depraved?
You see, these questions concerning the nature and extent of our misery all have to do with our real need of Jesus and of Him only. The question is not only whether I need a Savior. The question is not only whether that Savior cleanses me from guilt. The question is not even whether the Savior alone is powerful to redeem me from the corruption and defilement of sin and guilt. Everybody who confesses to be a Christian will say that. Even the Roman Catholic, even the Arminian will say that. They all point to Jesus. They do. But we stand before the question: Am I so corrupt that I can never come to Jesus, but that Jesus must come to me? That is the question. Or is it possible that in my corruption I can still come to Jesus? The answer to that question is critically important to our comfort in life and death. If indeed I am so absolutely corrupt, so totally depraved, that if it were not for an altogether eternal and infinite love on God's part I could never, never be saved; that if it were not for the fact that God has sovereignly chosen me in Christ Jesus, I would be completely and forever lost; if it is indeed the case that I am so corrupt that I cannot possibly come to Christ, but that He must come to me and draw me unto Himself, then my salvation depends entirely and only upon God.
That is exactly where the Apostle would lead us in Romans, chapter 3. He is pointing to the truth that the whole world is under sin. You and I are under sin. In the context Paul is seeking to establish the truth that the Jew is as much under the wrath of God as is the Gentile. And he is establishing that truth upon the firm foundation of God's Holy Word. The Jews, who often boasted of their knowledge of the Scriptures, were compelled now to stand before that Word of God and to hear it applied to themselves. And so Paul takes them back to the Old Testament Scriptures, and particularly to the Psalms, and says, "As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one." And he continues from God's Word to describe the actual state and condition of all men in their sin, describing even their conduct and behavior that results from that state of depravity. Then in verse 18 he sums it all up: "There is no fear of God before their eyes."
OUR CATECHISM, IN QUESTION AND ANSWER 5, SPEAKS OF THE DEPRAVITY OF MAN IN TERMS NOT ONLY OF BEING UNABLE TO KEEP THE LAW OF GOD, BUT OF BEING PRONE BY NATURE TO HATE GOD AND THE NEIGHBOR.
I want to demonstrate how that statement is the same as what the Apostle says when he quotes the Psalms, saying, "There is no fear of God before their eyes." The Apostle quotes from Psalm 36:1. That verse has a rather peculiar construction. Listen: "The transgression of the wicked saith within my heart, that there is no fear of God before his eyes." While we may consider that a rather odd form of grammatical construction, it is, when you consider it, a very effective figure of speech. What David does in Psalm 36 is to personalize man's depravity. He says that the depravity of the wicked speaks. Their very way of living, their very depravity, tells my heart that there is no fear of God before their eyes. Now the Apostle takes up that Scripture which David spoke concerning the wicked, and says, "This is the way we all are by nature." The real trouble of your heart and mine, the real misery in your life and mine, is that there is no fear of God before our eyes. That is God's judgment of us, as we stand in ourselves. We act as if He isn't even there.
If we look at it another way, we can draw the lines even more sharply. In Proverbs we learn that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. It is really the foundation of all spiritual understanding. So that the man without the fear of the Lord is devoid of all spiritual understanding. He has a "don't care" attitude about that which is the most important aspect of life and the most important relationship man could ever have, the relationship established by God's grace. The wise man fears the Lord. That is the chief characteristic of his life. In Psalm 16, he puts it this way: "I have set the LORD always before me." He lives in the consciousness of his relationship with the living God. But by nature we don't do that at all. "There is no fear of God before his eyes."
Now I said that this lack of Godly
fear is the same thing as to say that we are "prone by nature to hate God and the
neighbor." That is because the fear of the Lord is the outworking of love. That fear
of the Lord, let us understand, is not the fear of terror. There are unbelievers who are
terrified of what God may do to them. And even when they attempt to make it look like they
are unafraid with respect to the future, every man knows that when he dies, he will stand
before the living God. But the word fear has to do with what the writer to the
Hebrews means when he says in Hebrews 12:28,29: "Let us have grace, whereby we may
serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear: For our God is a consuming fire."
That fear is not a fear that has torment. But it is what you may describe as a reverential
awe. And it is an expression of love. It is to love God so deeply, that your relationship
to Him is more important than any other relationship. It is to love Him so dearly, that
you fear doing even a single thing that would hurt your relationship to Him. You want
always to serve Him in the full consciousness of His love for you. That also effects your
relationship and attitude toward your neighbor. Your love for God will also come to
expression in a love for your neighbor. But by nature our life is quite the opposite. We
are prone by nature to hate God and the neighbor. That is our misery. We are children of
wrath and condemnation, all under sin. So great is my misery! Do you confess that? Do you
see that misery come to expression in your life?
II. THAT KNOWLEDGE IS A GOD-GIVEN KNOWLEDGE, NOTHING LESS.
IT COMES BY GOD ENLIGHTENING YOUR SPIRITUAL EYES AS HE STANDS YOU BEFORE THE MIRROR OF HIS LAW.
That law is defined in Lord's Day 2 by its summary. Those are the words of Jesus that we proclaim every Lord's Day morning after the reading of the Ten Commandments. It is found in Matthew 22:37-40, and Luke 10:27. Lord's Day 2 combines the two passages. That law is the living will of God for man. God comes to us every moment and says, "Love me." That is God. Love Me. There is never a moment in our life when we do not stand before that law. Still more, He says, "Love Me only." That too. Notice how the Lord puts it. "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind." This is the first and the great commandment. Not greatest. It isn't the commandment that is merely a little more important than the rest. No. This is the first and the great commandment. That is, this is the commandment that includes all the other commandments. The second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. But that commandment and all others flow out of this one: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God. So that you and I are called to have one focus in life, namely, to love the Lord our God. All other love must be a part of that love of God. All other commandments flow out of that first and great commandment.
God comes to you in His Word, and as He addresses you in the preaching of the Word, and He sets before you and me this inescapable calling: Love Me. For I alone am God. That is His law for you and for me. Love Me in everything you do, in everything you think, in everything you say. Love Me from moment to moment with your whole being. And as we stand before this law, we find ourselves in an impossible situation. You see, beloved, we don't merely stand here before the precepts of the law. We don't stand here before something that we can follow as to the letter. We stand here before the very essence of the law of God. Love is not a question of what we can do. Love is not merely an activity. Love is a matter that has to do with what we are. Love is a question of our nature. Our standing before God isn't merely a matter of doing a few things a little better than others. It isn't merely that we should be better than those people who are outside the church, or even better than the modernists and self-seekers in the church. Oh no. Our standing before God is a matter of what we are.
THE WHOLE WORD OF GOD SETS BEFORE US THIS CALLING: LOVE ME.
This is evident in the chapter that we read. In Romans 3:19, Paul writes, "Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God." We proclaim the summary of the law as the summary of the Ten Commandments. And it is that. But don't forget, the summary of the law, as we hear it read every Lord's Day, is the summary of our entire calling as set forth in all the Scriptures. That is evident from this context. The Apostle has been taking his quotations not from the first five books of the Bible, which the Jews knew as the Law. But he has been quoting from the Psalms and the Proverbs and the Prophets. So that in verse 20 he refers to the whole of the Bible as the law. That is important for us, beloved, when it comes to the hearing of the preaching. It doesn't matter what text in the Bible is preached, when it comes to your calling and mine before the face of the living God, that text will leave us no alternative but to love Him. This gospel that seems to be so prevalent in our day, that lays no calling of holiness before the people, but tells them that God loves everyone, is a corruption of the Scriptures. All of Scripture exposes our misery. And it does so for one reason: that every mouth may be stopped, and that all the world may become guilty before God. Because that is the only way in which we shall see Christ.
Love Me; love Me; love Me, says God. What are you? Are you a lover of God? I say again, love is a matter of what you are. That is very evident. You can't simply turn on love. Oh, make no mistake, man is responsible before God for his hatred. When you hate, you are responsible before God. But at the same time, that hatred is not simply a matter of what you do or how you feel. It is a matter of what you are. So that if you hate another church member, if you hate me, you can't just leave here this morning and say, "I'm not going to hate him any more." You are unable to love. Because love is a question of the heart. And the only way you and I can love is by Christ filling our hearts with the love of God. And therefore, as we stand before the law of God, as we hear His Word week after week, the question is: What are you? What am I? Are you for or against God? What are you in your heart, in your mind, in your soul, in your strength? What am I? And to that question God Himself reveals the answer by His Word. And as I stand before that Word as one redeemed in Christ Jesus, I can only say one thing: "I am all wrong. I am prone by nature to hate God and the neighbor. That is a terrible indictment. It is. It means that by nature I want nothing to do with God's Word. I want nothing to do with God. It means that apart from Christ I despise God and His Word. I want nothing to do with this indictment. I will not hear His rebukes. I'm all wrong! Is that your confession?
III. THIS KNOWLEDGE OF OUR MISERY IS HUMBLING, BELOVED, NO QUESTION ABOUT IT.
BUT IF WE SHALL BE BROUGHT TO JESUS, THIS IS THE ONLY WAY.
I know of you that this is your confession, even as it is mine. Because this is the confession of every child of God who has been brought out of darkness, into God's marvelous light. If you confess before the face of God the exceeding sinfulness of your sin, if you recognize yourself as lost, miserable, worthy of damnation because of the hatred of your heart and the expression of that hatred in your life, there is only one explanation. If you confess this from the heart, in repentance, in the true knowledge of your sin and misery, it is only because you belong to your faithful Savior Jesus Christ, Who by His Spirit has given you to see the power of sin and death, and Who against that dark background has also revealed to you His love.
You and I stand before the living, holy God. He has been searching us through and through. There is nothing hid from Him. Not many months ago we heard His Word from Zephaniah 1:12, Jehovah searching Jerusalem with candles, to expose those who are settled on their lees, who live as if God isn't even there. By His Word He searches us. By every sermon He uncovers the thoughts and intents of our hearts, sometimes even bringing those thoughts and intents to expression. And what we see is exactly the proof of this truth: There is none righteous, no, not one. There is no fear of God before their eyes. We have seen ourselves and all mankind. Do you receive this judgment of God? Many will reject it. They will do so vehemently. "Don't speak that way to us," they will say. Speak comfortable words! Speak peace! But, beloved, you who are Christ's cannot react that way. For when you have seen these things, you do not want to speak, do you.
IN THE PRESENCE OF GOD WE STAND.
And we are silenced. By the blackness of our own hearts we are silenced. What help is it to be a little bit better than someone else, if we ourselves are still black and vile? Have you stopped speaking? Has your rebellious pride been silenced in the presence of God? Have you given up your arguing against this verdict that God Himself has announced? "Yes...but." No, no. If you are still saying that, you have not understood the truth of God. If you are still saying, "I know I'm a sinner, but I'm not that bad; I don't need to hear about my sins," then the Scripture has no comfort whatsoever for you. You are still under condemnation. The believer stands in silence before the presence of the Holy God. And in our silence we know that we are answerable to God.
I must emphasize this, because it is essential to our comfort: It is not enough just to know and admit that there is something wrong with you, that you are not everything you should be. We must know that the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men. Our great need is to know that we stand before the living God. Then we shall come humbly before our God and confess that we don't know what to say. We have no answer to our misery. Then and then alone shall we see Jesus. And we shall say, "O God, be merciful unto me a sinner. Forgive and deliver me. For I belong to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ. Thou hast given me to Him, and Him for me. He has delivered me from all the power of this terrible depravity." Thanks be to God for His unspeakable gift!
Amen.
Preached: Randolph PRC 6/23/96 (am)
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