London Baptist Confession 19,20

Just theology proper, and then the nature of God and the Trinity. So all those things are usually linear. They're building on each other. And so it is kind of interesting, like I said, on Wednesday nights, with our subject of trusting God in difficult times. We are at chapter 19 and we're just now, well, chapter 20, and are just now talking about the Gospel.

Just now, we've talked about sin, we've talked about salvation, but we haven't talked about how the Gospel came to us, the good news. And again, I'll suggest to you that the Westminster divines, who were the first ones to write the Westminster Confession that eventually primarily became the source for the Baptist confession, they were onto something. They're onto something by putting the nature of God, the nature of sin, the nature of all those things first. Because then by the time you get to chapter 19 and 20 and you hear about the law and you hear about the Gospel, you go, oh, man, I need to hear that now. So, like, if I tell you for a good long time that you're sick, then you'll be ready for that chapter on the medicine, right?

That's the idea. And I think they're onto something. These two subjects together, both of them individually and both of them together, the law and the gospel are some of the most divisive issues within the church. I'm going to talk multiple times tonight about the extremes. Whether you go from legalism, thinking you have to obey God's law to be saved, all the way.

The other direction, which is licentiousness, whether you don't think the law matters at all, or what many people do. Blend the two together, try to mix them. Try to mix the idea that, yes, Jesus started the work in me, but I have to complete it with my obedience. There's all kinds of ways where people mess up these two subjects together. And I said it this morning, and I repeat now that when we dig into the chapter 19, when I start on it, I was just really thankful how clear it is.

So in the future, if I hear somebody struggling with, like, what's the place of the law in our life? If I tell you right now that there's not enough obedience you could ever do to the commandments of God, you can never obey the commandments enough to earn heaven, that means it is worthless to try to gain salvation. If I say something is worthless to try to gain salvation, but then tell you you have to obey the law, there has to be somebody in here that thinks, well, that that almost doesn't make sense to tell me I have to do something that has no effect. That's why we have to spend time to discuss these things. Because it is that way.

It is. You cannot earn your way to heaven. But we have to obey God anyway. How do we get, how do we figure those two things out? How are they relating to each other?

And so I'd like to think that everybody in this room could explain that at a sort of, you know, first or second grade level. How do you explain, for example, to a child that they need to obey mom and dad, but how do you explain to them that to be right with God they have to accept the grace of Christ and say, okay, no, I thought it was obeying. Yeah, but you're telling me it's grace. Yeah, I'm telling you both of those. And to know how those relate to each other.

That's what I think this section of the confession really does well. So especially chapter 19 really think it's so super helpful. Well, let's pray and we'll look at it together, Father, as we now open this confession and we'll look at all the passages or a lot of passages that are related to these two subjects. We'd ask that we would have a very clear understanding, if we don't already, of how the law affects us as believers or how it affects unbelievers and then also the glory of the gospel. That is the response to our disobedience to your law.

So please help us understand those things. Tonight we ask in Jesus name, amen. So chapter 19 in the confession is the law of God. What do we mean when we say the law of God? And how did God express his law?

How did he expect people to understand it? Well, the first thing, and everybody should know this, is that the law of God, the first, what we might call the dispensation of the law, the way God gave his law was in the heart. And the confession says that. It says God gave to Adam a law of universal obedience written in his heart. Now the confession is kind of weak on scripture proofs.

Here I have Romans 1:17 through 20, the well known passage about suppressing the law and unrighteousness, or the truth and unrighteousness, that passage. But then it goes on to say, for since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes are clearly seen being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse. Right? So the idea here in our confession, and we believe that the first concept of the moral law of God, before it's written, before it's outlined in commandments was written on the heart of man. Men have a conscience.

The law is written on their heart. They know that there's a God and they know that they're accountable to him. If you want fancy words like this morning you had he pax legomena. Another fancy two words, it depends on who you talk to, is either sensus deitatus or sensus divinitatis. Those are two Latin phrases that mean the same thing.

Census deitatus is the sense of the deity that we know there is a God. The sensus divinitatis is the sense of the divine that we know there is something divine. And the Reformers and the theologians have all used both of those words. So when you. When you think about the place of our culture, for example, there's.

This hasn't happened in a long time, but some of you remember a few years ago, 10, 15 years ago, there's a big hubbub made about the fact that all the Ten Commandments has been taken out of all the courtrooms. Remember when they were talking about all of that back in the day, Ten Commandments and prayer and school and all those things, and everybody thinking that, yeah, we're losing our soul, our conscience as a country because we're taking the Ten Commandments. Well, I have to tell you, the commandments of God, the moral law was in the heart before it was ever written in Ten Commandments. Right? So we need to remember that God didn't give Adam and Eve 10 commandments.

He gave them their conscience and the law was written on their heart. Now that gets us to the Mosaic aspect of the law, that when Moses penned the law, you want to use the word codified. That means that the law was communicated. So the moral law, God has a law, commandments, requirements, those are moral. He puts that on our heart.

But then now we see in Moses law, he takes the law of God, which is based on the character of God, and. And codifies it, puts it in words. And this is where you see. Note this, especially if you're. You want to be a good student of the word, and you're reading those Old Testament passages and you see the.

Sometimes you'll see a parallelism of the word law and then the word word. And you want to know what's the distinction between those two? Well, when they're functioning like that, there is no distinction. The law is the word of God written down, which is required for obedience. So the word and the law are the same thing.

And you actually see it. I have passages in Isaiah, where it says, hear the word of the Lord. This is opening verses of Isaiah. You rulers of Sodom, give ear to the law of our God. You people of Gomorrah, here, the word of the Lord.

And then the parallelism is the law. They're not two things. It's one thing. Okay, so think of God's law, his requirements for obedience and faithfulness. They come out of his character.

They come out of him and his nature. And so one of those is written on our heart, our conscience. Then he codifies it. He puts it into word form, first through the prophets. And then, of course, we know he actually wrote it or had them write it.

So we see it over. There's. I have multiple passages like that. The law of the Lord of hosts, and they despised his word. There's just a parallel.

So we. In your mind, when you hear those phrases, like precepts, commands, truth, word statutes, all of those words are meaning the same thing. They could be various details, like maybe specifically a command that's related to a specific Mosaic Law. But the concept, like you can read Psalm 119 and you'll see it in every single verse. It's the idea that the law, or the requirements, or the truth of God codified in words.

It's in every single verse of Psalm 119. And then we see it get more specific. So it goes for, in general, on our hearts, the moral law of God, specifically in the Mosaic Law, codified into words, given in words, then it becomes very clearly written in the decalogue. That's another word that we use a lot, which is the Ten Commandments, the decalogue. That's literally the ten words are the Ten Commandments.

And the confession says this in paragraph two. The same law that was first written in the heart of man continued to be a perfect rule of righteousness after the fall, and was delivered by God upon Mount Sinai in Ten Commandments. So the idea was the moral law of God spoken became the spoken word of God. Then it became the written word of God. It became written down in a.

In a. In a tangible form. And then we have another area where. Please. But this is.

I. I feel like. Because over the years, I get lots of questions about these things you get. And especially when you're discussing with somebody who doesn't know the faith very well, these are the kind of things that can be really helpful to put in your pocket. Do you know the difference? You in this room know the difference?

If there is a difference between the moral law of God, the ceremonial law, of God and the civil or judicial law of God, can you distinguish those in conversation? So that when you're reading passages about how God wants food prepared in the Old Testament, you realize that that is a potentially a theocratic law, a civil law or a ceremonial law versus a judicial law where he's talking about how to interact justice in the nation of Israel. So you have to get good at that because you're gonna. Years ago, a friend of mine, you all know him, he has tattoos. Not Marty, it was somebody else, he has tattoos, his whole arm is sleeved up.

And he says, I know, I want to talk to you about tattoos, and I know what you're going to say. And he said, you're going to. You're going to quote Leviticus. And the reason that's funny is because people who know that and think that, know that Leviticus is for Israel, isn't Leviticus. And the ceremonial laws, and those laws are not, Are not necessarily all for Christians.

And Leviticus does talk about cutting your skin and putting ink and ash and those things in it. And I told him all that. You might be surprised. That's not the passage I would use for tattoos. But I bring that up because when you're reading the Old Testament, you have to get good as a student of the Bible, when you're navigating those things.

So the ceremonial law of God, those laws and our confession. Now, those laws sort of allude to the ceremonies, religious ceremonies in the Old Testament that point forward to Christ. That's one of the things that our confession does. It says the people of Israel. For the people of Israel, the ceremonial laws containing several typical meaning they were types, pictures, ordinances, partly of worship, prefiguring Christ, his graces, actions, suffering, benefits.

So some of you remember that, like years ago, this is maybe not even in this building. Pastor Heinrich did a series on Leviticus where he showed how every aspect of the ceremonies in the temple related to some element of Christ that you had to understand something about Christ from them and his fulfillment. So the idea there being is that the law of God in some sense is the written moral law. And then it's also the ceremonial law and the ceremonial aspect of it. When you see the religious aspects in the Old Testament, those are all pointing forward to Christ to some degree, in some facet or to some degree.

So the Baptists, the Baptists talk more than the Presbyterians do about Christ fulfilling the law, the idea that Christ has fulfilled the law and accomplished those things. So in other words, if you have the ceremony in the Old Testament, and you have the fulfillment in Christ. It abrogates the Old Testament law. We're no longer obligated to those elements that Christ fulfilled. Baptists say that a little more.

And I'll say this. Rome and some of the Reformed guys that I love dearly, they will bring too much of that Old Testament idea into the New Testament, in my opinion. They will not let Christ be the fulfillment of many of those things. They will make them the fulfillment, like the Roman Church. Or some people will say that we are fulfilling that Old Testament ceremonial aspect.

So just got to watch out for that kind of stuff. And then that leads us to the judicial law. So you have the moral law, the commandments, the rights and wrongs. You have the ceremonial law, the practices and the law given in the Old Testament in particular, that are ceremonial, religious, ritualistic, and that's not a bad word, looking forward to Christ, who will fulfill those things. And then you have the judicial law.

And that's the idea of civil. You think of the. The. And then that part in paragraph four of the first chapter of chapter 19, that part says this, which expired together with the state of that people, not obliging any now by virtue of that institution, their general equity only being of moral use. So here's the idea.

You all know this in our country, right? When you have an archaic law, something about you can't walk your horse across the street perpendicular to traffic, right? And nobody's using horses anymore. But there's a principle in the law that even though we don't use horses on the streets anymore, there was some element to why they made that law for safety, that you could probably make some kind of application for that law, that even though it's not obligatory to you anymore because times have changed. Well, that's kind of what this confession is saying about the judicial law.

Even though you go back and you read the passages about being intimate with close relatives in Leviticus 18 and 19, or the tattoos that I talked about, or those kind of things, even though those are not for us now the confession is saying those are no longer for us because they were for that nation at that time. They were because God was ruling his people through law, judicial law. Even though they're not for us, literally the way we read them, they can be useful in principle. So, like, if I was talking about tattoos, I'm not, by the way. I'm not.

Don't. Don't have that strong of opinion on tattoos, except to always ask, who's getting the glory out of your tattoos? You or The Lord, Because I think most people are doing them to display themselves. And I don't know, is that okay? If we're not supposed to be wearing braided hair and all that other stuff and our beauty is supposed to be on the inside, are we supposed to be telling the world on the outside with neon lights how great we are?

So maybe what glory does God get out of the tattoo? But if I were to go back to that Old Testament passage, what were the people doing then that God felt the need to tell his people, don't do what those people doing tattoos are doing. They were doing something wrong. They were doing something immoral with tattoos that God did not want his people to reflect. Right?

So he had a reason for doing it. It wasn't saying that the thing itself by itself is wrong. It's saying, I don't want you doing what those worldly people and pagans are doing. And so I ask you today, who is doing the tattoos or whatever? What doesn't have to be tattoos.

Could be anything, sports, whatever it is that people like. Ask yourself, do I like a thing that the world likes in an evil way, or am I okay doing it the way I'm doing it? It's always good to ask yourself, am I reflecting the world or am I reflecting the Lord? That's a healthy thing to ask in your music and your entertainment and the movies and the games you play. And just asking, hey, do I love this because the world loves it, or do I love it because it's lovely?

You know, those are good questions. You can read Philippians on what to meditate on on such things. But we were supposed to see that the laws of God had a purpose for his people at that time. Dietary laws, judicial laws, ceremonial laws, they all had a purpose because he was ruling the nation of Israel at that time. And just because now we have the ceremonial aspects fulfilled in Christ, that doesn't mean that there isn't use of the Old Testament law.

Yes, it's not binding to us like it was to Israel. There are things that are not the same kind of rule for us, but there's still principles in them, still principles that you can look at and why did God do that and how did he do that with his people at that time? There's something I can take away from that, you know, something I can do to avoid some sort of sin or things they were doing back at that time. So Jesus made it really clear that the Scriptures testify of him, you know, and we ought to be careful with that. I'll talk More about that in a minute.

The Christo monism idea. Now here's the question. Does God expect everybody to obey his law? And does everybody mean everybody? And the confession in paragraph five says, the moral law doth forever bind all as well as justified persons as others to the obedience thereof.

And not only in regard of the matter contained in it, but also in respect of the authority of God the Creator who gave it. Neither doth Christ in the Gospel any way dissolve, but much strengthen this obligation. So the confession is saying everybody has to obey it, that the law of God obligates everybody. So you say, well, wait a minute. My neighbor is not even a Christian.

Yeah. That doesn't mean the commandments aren't real. Your neighbor's disobeying the commandments whether he thinks he is or not. You say, wait a second. We have the laws of man.

Man's laws are what we obey. We have to obey the laws of the land. Yeah, maybe. But you certainly obeying the laws of the land are not off the hook for God's laws. So is it always wrong to kill?

Is it always wrong to lie? Is it always wrong to do these things? And the answer is yes, for everyone, not just for God's people. So you don't have to be a Christian to be obligated to the law. Everybody's obligated to the law.

And then Paul says something along those lines in Romans 13 when he's. He's talking about the commandments, you know, the commandments. And then he says, if there's any other commandment, they're all summed up at this saying, namely, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. So you have to love God and love your neighbor. And most of you know, I think, right, you all know that that's essentially a summary of the Ten Commandments, that loving God is the first four and then loving your neighbor is the second six.

So you love God by not blaspheming his name, by not making other gods, by keeping his day holy. Right. And you love your neighbor first, your mom and dad neighbor, by honoring them, by not stealing from your neighbor, by not taking his wife, by not right, by not lying to him and bearing a false witness so that he might get in trouble. So the Ten Commandments are essentially the nature of God in word form. And then the idea for us is that we are supposed to obey that regardless of our faith or not.

So there are institutions like marriage, where promises are made, and they're made with oaths, and they're made under the binding agreement of the commandments. So you have to be careful thinking that like when you swear an oath in a courtroom that is binding, that's a binding when you say you're going to do something before God. So God expects us to tell the truth. He expects us to obey his law. Now what is the use of the law?

Now here comes the tricky part is the use of the law. How do we use it? And who's the we? If I'm an unbeliever, how do I use the law? If I'm a believer, how do I use the law?

What's the difference? Because there is a difference. And I'll read what the confession says and explain it. Although true believers be not under the law as a covenant of works, I'll explain that in a second to be thereby justified or condemned, yet it is of great use to them as well as to others in that as a rule of life informing them of the will of God and their duty, it directs and binds them to walk accordingly. So now let me talk as a good old fashioned red blooded American, it would do our country a lot of good if it lived the commandments of God, right?

Our country would be better off if people obeyed God's commandments. But we need to make no mistake. That doesn't mean anybody would be saved. Nobody can be saved by obeying commandments. But what the confession is saying is it's good for believers to obey the commandments, but it's good for anybody to obey the commandments.

But the important part. The important part. Oh boy, I always want to ask the kids this. I need to ask the kids sometime how they understand this. Do you understand back to the first thing I said tonight?

When you obey God's commandments, you are not gaining or getting anything from God. He doesn't owe you anything because you obey the commandments. That means if you are not righteous but you are sinful, there's no amount of commandments that are going to make you righteous. If you're guilty, you're guilty. You can't fix that by being a good little boy or girl.

So the commandments aren't for making us righteous. That's what he says. They're not a covenant so that we can get right with God. But he. But the confession is saying but they're valuable.

Commandments are valuable. So for the unbeliever, the commandments and I'll talk about that here in a second. Well in fact I can talk about it now. The commandments tell you you're sinful. So for an Unbeliever who's not right with God.

They don't have a relationship with God. That what the commandments do is tell you you need a savior. That's their job. They're the schoolmaster. Paul says in Romans 7, Paul says, what shall we say then?

Is the law sin? No, certainly not. On the contrary, I would not have known sin except through the law. So Paul is saying, how would I know what I was doing was wrong if there wasn't a commandment to say it was wrong? Right?

Have you ever been driving too fast and only found out later? Maybe the tree was down in front of the speed limit sign. You'd been driving 45 and they cut the tree back and it says 35. And you didn't know you were sinning until the tree was cut back and you could see the commandment. The commandment told you that you were driving too fast.

Right? And that's what Paul is saying. I didn't know I was coveting. I was out there looking at all my neighbors stuff and I wanted everything the world has to offer. And I thought that was just natural.

Everybody wants stuff, right? Everybody wants a new iPhone, everybody wants a new car. Everybody wants a lot of followers on social media. That's right. Right.

Isn't that just what everybody wants? Then you find out that you're coveting. No, that's being covetous. You're saying you're not satisfied unless God gives you those things. You're not satisfied with God alone.

That's what coveting is. They say, oh, now I'm in trouble. I didn't know I was in trouble looking at all those guitars. Now I do. I need to watch out for that because I might be coveting.

So the law does that for the unbeliever. The law tells you you're not right with God. It tells you that you're a liar. It tells you that you are a murderer. And you say, what do you mean murder?

Because Jesus says, even if you hate someone in your heart, you're guilty of murder. Tells you you're an adulterer. You say, I've never been an adulterer. If you've lusted, Jesus makes it really clear that you're guilty in your heart, you know? So the Bible tells the unbeliever they're sinful.

But the Bible also tells the believer that the righteous, meaning they're walking with him and obeying the commandments not to get righteous, but because they are. Therefore by the deeds of the law, no flesh will be justified in his sight. For by the law is the knowledge of sin. That's what sin is for, for unbelievers. It points to our need for Christ.

Paul says it in multiple ways. You could just read Romans 5 and 6 for that. He talks about not letting sin reign in our mortal bodies as Christians, we now as Christians are not owned by sin. We're not slaves of sin anymore. And we love the law of God, or are supposed to.

And now let's talk about the marriage of the law and the gospel. How they're connected and how they're related to each other. Listen to what the confession says. It says neither are the aforementioned uses of the law contrary to the grace of the gospel. So it's not against the gospel to say it's good to obey the law.

I'm emphasizing that because in our day people make the law and the gospel enemies. Like if you say anything at all about law or commandment keeping, you're a legalistic Pharisee. That's what you are. You have to watch out. And I'm telling you, I've heard that myself, that if you say somebody has to obey the law, then you're automatically saying they can only be right with God if they obey the law.

That is not what we're saying. The confession is also reiterating or iterating that. But do sweetly comply with it. So the law doesn't go against the gospel. It complies with the gospel in the spirit of Christ, subduing and enabling the will of man to do that freely and cheerfully, which the will of God revealed in the law requires to be done.

Essentially saying that once you understand the gospel, the spirit of God makes you want to obey the gospel changes the heart, moves you toward wanting. Where instead of seeing the law as a way to get right with God, you know that Christ is what made you right with God. And the law is your way to continue and walk in that relationship that you now have. Instead of seeing the law the way the two extremes see it over here, it's moralistic, it's legalistic, it's pharisaical, it's for my righteousness. And then you swing the pendulum all the way to the other way and say, well, it's worthless, it doesn't mean anything, I just have to accept grace.

I don't have to obey, I don't have to think about commandments at all because I have Jesus. So that's the other extreme, which is also an error. That's licentiousness, antinomianism, that's A nice fancy word that means people who are anti law, they're anti license law of God need to get right in the middle and say no. For an unbeliever. The Commandments tell me I need a savior in Jesus.

And for the believer who accepts the savior, Jesus, the commandments tell me how to walk obediently now that I've been saved, now that I walk freely and they're not against each other. We have to watch out for these things. I've had people tell me one time I was preaching and I closed the sermon by talking about Sodom and Gomorrah and talking about Lot's wife looking back and saying we need to not look to the world and love the world. And somebody told me, they sent me an email, they were visiting our church that day. They sent me an email saying I shouldn't have done that.

That was legalistic of me to say that, that we, we shouldn't love the world. Because that sounded like I was saying by not loving the world, you would be right with God. And that to them sounded legalistic. I don't know about you, but it looked to me like Lot's wife loved the world. She.

And she was punished for it. So by the way, the New Testament says do not love the world or the things of the world says, I didn't write that first. I just bring that up to you because saying obedience is important is not against the gospel. Now you should be careful so that you're not thinking obedience makes you right with God. But it is very possible to just don't let people tell you you're a legalist.

And don't tell people. Let people tell you that it's all about Christ and Christ only because Christ wants us to honor his Father. You know who does a really good job of that is Dr. Cho at Masters. He does a great job of making the distinction between Christocentric and Christo monistic. He's talked about that and he did such a good job where you, you don't say you're so Christ centered that you're not father centered, that you're not law centered, that you're not scripture centered.

Right? So you say I love Jesus and that's the most important thing. So I don't need to think about commandments, I don't need to think about the Father. I don't need to think about obedience. I have Jesus.

Well, that's. Now what you've done is you've essentially done a weird sort of idolatry with a Jesus that isn't the whole picture of Jesus in the New Testament. So watch out for that. Watch out for thinking you're so Christian, that you don't need obedience and that you don't need the Father and you don't need the Spirit. You know, you need to watch out for that because it's a.

It sounds really spiritual to say I'm Christ centered. That's what I'm all about. Jesus, that's all I care about. That's like those red letter Bible people. I just like the red letters in the Bible, you know, and all that other stuff.

You got to watch out for that where you, you narrow down something. So it is not legalistic to say we have to obey the law. Paul says it do we then make void the law through faith? Are they against each other? He says, certainly not.

On the contrary, we establish the law. So we're proving the validity of the law by walking in obedience. We're showing that God's law is good and beautiful and perfect. Now let's talk about the gospel so you can do the studies on your own if you want to. I found it kind of tedious, frankly.

I'm sorry. There's so many things written and people talking about the law, gospel distinction and Luther's view of it and Calvin's view of it and all the views of the, the various reformers over time. And even this section of our confession in Chapter 20 is pretty unique to the Savoy Declaration. I looked it up. The time was 1658, where the Congregationalists and John Owen and others in our country in 1658 is the date.

So that's 1658, just a few years before 1689. So this section of our confession is more related to that because the Baptists kind of understood the gospel a little differently, goes back to the Covenant and the way the Presbyterians see the Old Testament as sort of the gospel fully formed when Baptists see it only fully formed in the New Testament. So there's some covenant language in the first paragraph of chapter 20, language that is a little bit more Presbyterian, a little bit more Westminsterian, if that's the right word, than we might be used to. But I will tell you that the fundamental part of the deal is to make sure that we don't make the mistake of, say, Rome and blend the gospel with the law and make that mistake. And then we don't go the full other way and throw the law out completely because as though the gospel completely replaces it and the law has no place in our life anymore.

So that's what this chapter talks a little bit to that first talks about the occasion of the gospel, which is just the fall of men. Why do we need the good news of Jesus? Because we're sinful. Because we fell, because we are in disobedience. There was enmity between us and God and because of that we need the gospel.

And by the way, gospel is just the good news. That's what the word gospel means. It means good news. And for Christians that good news is that Jesus saves sinners. Okay, well for unbelievers that's good news too, if you'll listen to it, that Jesus saves sinners.

So the law tells us we're sinful, now the gospel tells us what to do about it. What do you do with the fact that the law condemns you where you're not right before God? Well, you go and find grace in the gospel and because you're a sinner you ask for forgiveness. Now the method or the mode of the gospel coming through the second paragraph there says this promise of Christ and salvation by him is revealed only by the word of God. Neither do the works of creation or providence with the light of nature make discovery of Christ.

I talked about the conscience earlier, that God wrote the moral law on our heart, but he did not write the gospel on our heart. So any normal thinking person who isn't completely and utterly desensitized and brainwashed by the atheistic evolutionist world that you live in, looks up in the sky or looks into trees or looks at a little baby and says somebody had to design that. Every intelligent person says this is by design. By the way, you will notice if you're careful. Listen very carefully to atheists talk about creation because they keep borrowing our language over and over again.

They'll say this animal was made for this environment. What do you mean made? What? Made it. Made is an operative word.

Made is a verb, okay? Watch out for that. And if you hear it and you're brave, call them on it because they keep stealing our stuff. Steal it back. But I am talking about the idea that the light of the gospel cannot be seen in nature.

All nature tells us is that there is a God. And we call that general revelation. And now the confession is talking about the special revelation that for us to know the good news of Jesus, we have to hear the word of God. We have to hear the message. It is a message.

It is not pictures. I know. Did you ever see those little wordless books that have no words on them but they are colors for the gospel. I was uncomfortable with that, I get a wordless book. When the Word is a powerful thing.

The Word is the thing that pierces the heart. The Word is the operative agent to change a heart. So don't say wordless. Find another way. Call it something different than wordless.

You know, find another name for it. But I will tell you that no matter if every school in the nation taught intelligent design, nobody would be saved. All they would know is that there's a Creator, or they would at least understand it. So faith comes by hearing. And hearing what?

The Word of God. The Word is the powerful thing. So the Word of God tells us we're sinful. And the law of God. And the Word of God tells us where the Savior is in Jesus.

So it's always back to the Word, the cause of the gospel. I like that. The confession says this is merely the sovereign. Yes, it's merely of the sovereign will and good pleasure of God. So why does God save people?

Why does God save some people? Why does God save. Why doesn't he save anyone else? Why does he save anyone at all? Do you know what the right answer to that is?

Because he wants to. Yeah, that's the answer. And that's the whole answer. And for us, that should be a sufficient answer. Because if God wants something, that means it's good, right?

So I always remember one of my professors said he talked about the invincible work of the Spirit. I always loved the language of invincible. And then I remember a pastor preaching through Ephesians years ago saying that God purposed everything because none could stop him. Well, yeah, that's what I'm talking about. That's his.

That's my kind of language right there. That God is tough, God is successful. God accomplishes his will, and he does what he's going to do because he wants to, because it pleases him. Now let's talk about the effectiveness of the gospel in paragraph four. Although the Gospel be the only outward means of revealing Christ and saving grace.

So in other words, the Word and the presentation, the message of Jesus and the Word of God is the only outward means of saving, of revealing Christ and saving grace, and is as such, abundantly sufficient thereunto. I'll explain that in a second. Yet the men. Yet that men who are dead in trespasses may be born again, quickened and regenerated. There is more necessary and effectual, insuperable work of the Holy Spirit.

That's like invincible upon the whole soul. For the producing in them. Yeah, for the producing in them a new spiritual life without which no other means will affect their conversion unto God. Simply put, is that the gospel and the way God uses it is the best and most sufficient way to do what God was going to do in saving people. And he does it by the power of the inherit says insuperable but invincible work of the Spirit.

So the gospel that's found in the Word, the only outward means of it is through the Word of God that tells us about Christ, it shows us Christ and then it says, because the Word tells us about Christ, that's enough. You don't need anything else other than the Word. So nature can't tell us. Our feelings aren't going to tell us. But when the Word does tell us, the confession is saying, that's sufficient.

So I might say by application, if you want to use that, trust the Bible. If you're talking to somebody, you might be thinking, man, I don't know what to say to him. The passages I'm thinking of are from what Paul says or what Peter says. But man, I don't know, I'm not might not be clever enough to say the right thing. Try just saying the Bible.

It's powerful. It's the thing that pierces hearts. It's the thing that has the ability to change a person. It makes wise the simple. The scripture says, then of course we have that passage that says that for the word of the Lord is living and powerful and sharper than any two edged sword, piercing even the division of soul and spirit and of joints and marrow, and is the discerner of the thoughts and the intents of the heart.

The Bible is powerful, powerful. Spurgeon talked about the idea that people say, how do you defend the Bible? And Spurgeon says, defend the Bible. I'd rather defend a lion. You don't defend a lion, you just let it go.

That's what you say about the Bible. You just let it out of its cage. Just go tell the Bible to people and watch what it does. Just point to the Word of God and let the word of God do the thing it does. Now you might have to say to the person, these are old words.

Let me explain to you how the Bible got to it. You might have to give a little foundational understanding of how we got scripture and how God gave it to us. But for sure, don't shortchange the power of the Bible. So you have the word of God in the Old Testament. Like if you've never done the good person test, I know Jay has.

He likes doing the good person test where you ask somebody the way of the master idea. You ask somebody, have you ever lied? What does that make you? A liar? Have you ever stolen anything, even if it's small or maybe time?

I like to throw time in there because I know people have been late to things. You know, what do you call that? What does that make you? A thief. Have you ever looked at a person with lust?

You know, and I say person because these days, male or female, it doesn't matter who you're talking to. You just say person. So have you ever looked at somebody with lust? Sexually? Yeah.

Well, what does that make you? The Bible says that makes you an adulterer. Have you ever been angry with someone? Really angry? Yeah.

The Bible calls you a murderer. So by your own admission, Ray Comfort would say you're a lying, thieving, adulterating murderer. That's what you are. Does that sound like a good person to you? And that does a really good job of that.

Well, now that you've explained the bad person, how does somebody become a good person? Well, I guess I'll stop lying. I'll stop. No, no, no, no. I need somebody who's perfect to replace me in God's courtroom because God judges me as guilty.

That law that I broke makes me a bad person, and God is condemning me as a bad person. And so the same word that tells us how sinful we are in the law, that same word of the gospel comes with the freedom. And this is somebody who can rescue you from your disobedience to the law. Somebody, instead of the wrath of God being poured out on you because you're disobedient, he stands in the gap. He stands between you as the mediator, between you and the Father.

And. And he says, father, don't punish Johnny. Punish me instead. And that's what happens at the cross. So the one thing I would tell you is that we take the phrase, just the phrase, the three words, word of God, for granted.

I've been saying this for decades because I don't ever want to take it for granted. We say that phrase. It's the word of God. It's the word of God. It's the word of God.

We say it very lightly, flippantly, easily, without a whole lot of, you know, meditation. And I would challenge us to not do that, because what we're saying here is that the word of God is very, very powerful. When God speaks. It's powerful. When God says something, it's now said.

I always remind you of the Old Testament. When the Bible says in the beginning, when God created The heavens and the earth. And he says, let there be light. And there was light. That's only four words in Hebrew, if I remember right.

And if you translated it most literally, it would be light. Be light was. That's how powerful. God's word is powerful. Why do I say that?

We still don't even know what light is. After all these years, I've been reading up on it again like they're still fighting over it now. Now they're really messed up because of looking out into space with the new James Webb telescope. Because light isn't doing what they said it was supposed to be doing. And so the scientists are up in arms over physics and how to understand light, and they don't understand it.

Now more and more people are saying, well, maybe light isn't something that travels 186,000 miles a second. Maybe it's gravity that makes it appear that it's traveling, but it's actually instantaneous and somewhat like eternity. They don't even know what light is. It's 20, 26, and they don't know what light is. This simple thing that you and I take for granted that's shining through the windows right now.

We just cruise along like it's just such a simple little thing. In fact, we'll generate it in these electrical things, this thing called light, so that we can see everything. We don't even know what it is. Why am I bringing all that up? Because God just said, light be.

After all these years of us not knowing, he just made it with a word. With a word. His word is powerful. When his word says you are sinful and guilty, that should land with all the weight of the universe. I'm guilty before God.

And if the Word tells you you can be saved from your guilt by my son, Jesus Christ, that is the best news ever. That's why we call it the good news, because there's freedom in the gospel. So the same power that says, light, be light was the same word that says, lazarus, come forth, and the dead man gets up and walks. Or to the ocean, peace, be still, and the ocean goes smooth. That same powerful speaking what you and I hold in our hands, that gives us the commandments.

Understood? We do our hermeneutics. So we know what's ceremonial, we know what's judicial, we know what's moral. We do our best to interpret the Old Testament law. We see what it does for an unbeliever in guiding them to see their sinfulness so that they see their need for a savior.

And then we Christians Once we've accepted Christ as our Savior. Now, see, the law is this beautiful set of rules for us, guidelines for us to keep us safe. So that I know I'm going to be close with God when I'm faithful to him. When I. When I don't have other gods, I know I'm going to be close with God.

When I'm faithful and kind and good to my neighbors, I know I'm going to be right vertically and horizontally if I obey the law of God. Because I want to do that now as a child of God, right? I've been born again. I'm a new thing. And so the law of God becomes beautiful to us.

It's not supposed to just be white knuckling. Got to do it or else we're supposed to love to obey the commandments. The Psalms say, by the word of the Lord, the heavens were made and all of the host of them by the breath of his mouth. God made everything by His Word. The law of God is synonymous with the Word of God.

Jesus Christ is the incarnate Word of God, and God has spoken. So know the law, know what it's for, and then know Christ and know how to use that law. Once you know Him. Let's pray. Father, thank youk for the law.

It's sometimes hard to say that because the law can condemn us. It can show that we're sinful, it can show that we're covetous, it can show that we're not telling the truth. But also, Father, it is a good thing that you gave us the law so that we would see Jesus. We would see that he is perfect in every way and we are not. And so when we trust him, we're okay, because he is in our place.

So we ask, Father, that the law and the Gospel would have just the right places in our hearts and in our church. And we'll thank you for it. In Jesus name, Amen.