Our help is in the Name of
the Lord, who made heaven and earth.
Beloved, grace and
peace be to you from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ, through
the mighty working of God the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
Psalm
of praise: 25:1, 3
Prayer
Psalm 4:2
Scripture reading:
Genesis 3:8-19
Scripture
text:
Genesis 3:8-19: Heidelberg Catechism Lord’s Day 4
We
find different trends in Christian churches.
- Some
of them only talk about and preach mercy – almost as if they
no longer believe in the Lord’s judgment.
- Then
there are so-called churches that love to preach divine judgment only.
All their members are constantly reminded of damnation and all the
agonies of hell.
- Both are wrong, because in the
Scriptures the Lord reveals a fine balance between judgment and mercy.
We,
who have grown up with Reformed doctrine, at times also learnt much
about the Lord’s judgment with too little emphasis on the
Lord’s mercy.
- This sometimes
leads to a sense of guilt that prevents us from honestly and freely
worshipping the Lord.
- Every person sometimes
experience how the Holy Spirit awakens that dormant sense of guilt, and
this often leads to depression and to be scared of the Lord.
Let’s
focus on the following two issues:
1. Our wrongness
2. God’s holiness
1. Our wrongness
There’s
only one way of being released from this situation of being in the grip
of this sense of guilt and being scared of the Lord. One has to have a
thorough knowledge of the situation and how to get out of it.
- Our
conscience alone is not sufficient and it will not make us live a good
life.
- Our conscience needs a sound foundation to
support its decisions.
This foundation is
knowledge of God Himself and his Word.
- We
can only know the Scriptures if we are enlightened by the Holy Spirit
to understand what the Lord teaches us in the Bible.
- The
Bible teaches us the path of obedience.
- The
Bible reveals to us how the Lord’s punishment is a result of
our disobedience.
- But the Bible especially reveals
the mercy of forgiving and restoration.
The
passage we read is clear about the fact that the Lord has the right to
punish us, because this was his definite agreement with the first
people at the beginning.
- In Genesis 3
the Lord reveals that his punishment is severe because our sins are so
serious and so many.
- He ensures us that his
punishment is certain and unquestionable.
- We should
not pin our faith to The Lord’s punishment to be a mere
fabrication – as the devil wanted us to believe!
- But the Lord, above all, reveals
that He is merciful and that He has no time, respect or mercy for the
devil. For us He has love, time and mercy.
It is
so important to realise these things, because since the beginning of
times it has been in man’s nature to justify himself for
everything he has done wrong.
- This is
why many people battle with the question of whether the Lord is not
perhaps unjust when He punishes us for our sins (question 9).
- After
all, the Lord knows I cannot perform better than I do.
- This
then leads to what we have heard so often from so many people. Stories
and allegations that the Lord’s ways are not acceptable if He
punishes us for our sins.
- This is also the root of
the heresy that God is only a God of love.
- Please
note that this kind of reasoning and philosophy focuses on man only:
Myself and my rights and everything that might or might not happen to
me – all those shallow arguments.
We
should consider this matter from God’s viewpoint.
- He
is almighty and perfect.
- Will He tolerate being
accused of iniquity?
- In fact, the Lord created us
to serve Him and hence He surely has the right to require it from us.
We
can be very wrong about this, because so often we hear people say,
“I am what I am.”
- This
is a very sinful comment, because when the Lord created us He enabled
us to be good, and to serve Him and to be for the benefit of our
neighbour.
- God did not go wrong in any way, and
through that caused this disorder.
We went wrong
after the Lord had created us so well.
- Consider
the words of the prophet Micah that the Lord only required us to serve
Him correctly (6:8).
No, O people, the Lord has
already told you what is good, and this is what he requires: to do what
is right, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God. (Micah
6:8 NLT)
- We can hardly
manage it.
- But now we must remember that
our inability is no excuse.
- Although we lost our
nobility, the Lord’s law still fully applies.
It
is obvious that our sense of guilt every time brings us to face the
reality of Gods righteous and eternal punishment.
- We
have this sense of guilt because we continually sin against the mercy
of the Lord – and we may not keep on annoying the Lord and
expect Him to keep on forgiving us.
2. God’s holiness
We
should realise that God has to maintain his majesty perfectly. He has
to remain holy every moment.
- Therefore
He cannot but punish sins with the most severe punishment.
- The
most severe punishment is to put someone in a place where God is not
present. Imagine what kind of a place it would be:
- It
will be dark forever, because God is Light.
- Death,
killing and blood will be rife, because where God is not present no
form of justice exists.
- The people in this place
suffer from any kind of disease and can never recover from it.
- Worst
is that they can never die to be released from this condition.
- This
is what the hell is like.
If the Lord
cannot punish sin, it simply means that He has no sense of justice and
that He is unable to cope with sins. Then He is not God.
Hence
the Lord reveals that he is almighty and that He laid down punishment
for people who do not want to listen to Him.
- If
the Lord wants to punish Satan completely, He also has to punish the
work of the devil – also that which we do.
- If
this is not done, the devil has a way to steer clear of the Lord.
Now
this does not mean that the Lord has no mercy and that we are all
doomed. On the day of the fall of man the Lord declared that mankind
would break up into two diverse groups:
- The
one group was going to serve the Lord. He calls them the
woman’s offspring.
- The other lot would
serve the devil. The Lord calls them the serpent’s offspring.
In
the passage we read, it says that the Lord promised Adam and Eve
salvation while He was declaring punishment.
- He
told Eve that one of her offspring would crush the head of the serpent
(devil).
- Christ would be born to defeat the devil
and his evil works and to open the way back to heaven for those who
believe in Him.
This is how
great God’s mercy is: When He declared punishment He also
promised salvation for those who love Him.
In
the meantime Jesus Christ had already arrived and made propitiation
between God and us.
- For every sin we
have committed (and those we are still going to commit) He was punished.
- This
also applies to us today!
- Jesus bore the wrath of
God for our sins in full.
Now the Lord links our
salvation and our faith in Jesus Christ.
- We
must believe that the Lord Jesus died for us.
- We
must also utilise the gifts of his death on the cross in our daily
lives.
How do we do this? In very simple terms it
means that we must fully accept the mercy of the Lord and live
according to it:
- We must not become
victim to despondency because of our sense of guilt.
- We
must live, knowing that God has been reconciled with us and that we
shall pass judgment because our sins have already been punished.
- We
shall however be judged, but we shall not be punished accordingly
because Christ already bore the punishment for us.
Now
we must maintain this balance in life.
- On
the one hand we must cling to the mercy and love of God, but on the
other hand we must not tempt the Lord by living a sinful life.
- If
we tempt the Lord by living a bad life, we shall forfeit
God’s mercy.
- We must also fear the
punishment of the Lord and take care to believe and to live correctly.
By
doing so we shall understand the working of the Holy Spirit within us.
- We
shall be able to listen to his admonitions when we might possibly sin.
- We
shall understand what He wants us to do to turn away from what is wrong.
- in
times of crisis we shall experience the working of the Holy Spirit when
He assures us that we are the redeemed.
- He will
establish the fruits of Christ’s redemptive sacrifice on the
cross in our hearts so that on earth already our lives will be a
reflection of the glory of the Lord.
The Holy
Spirit always assures us of this one important thing: No sin is too
great to be forgiven, because for that there was a cross on Golgotha.
Let’s
have a look at how the Heidelberg Catechism Lord’s Day 4
formulates these principles:
9. Q. Is God, then, not unjust by
requiring in His law what man cannot do?
A. No, for God so
created man that he was able to do it.[1] But man, at the instigation
of the devil,[2] in deliberate disobedience[3] robbed himself and all
his descendants of these gifts.[4]
[1] Gen. 1:31. [2] Gen. 3:13;
John 8:44; I Tim. 2:13, 14. [3] Gen. 3:6. [4] Rom. 5:12, 18, 19.
10. Q. Will God allow such
disobedience and apostasy to go unpunished?
A. Certainly not.
He is terribly displeased with our original sin as well as our actual
sins. Therefore He will punish them by a just judgment both now and
eternally,[1] as He has declared:[2] Cursed be every one who does not
abide by all things written in the book of the law, and do them
(Galatians 3:10).
[1]
Ex. 34:7; Ps. 5:4-6; 7:10; Nah. 1:2; Rom. 1:18; 5:12; Eph. 5:6; Heb.
9:27. [2] Deut. 27:26.
11. Q. But is God not also
merciful?
A. God is indeed
merciful,[1] but He is also just.[2] His justice requires that sin
committed against the most high majesty of God also be punished with
the most severe, that is, with everlasting, punishment of body and
soul.[3]
[1]
Ex. 20:6; 34:6, 7; Ps. 103:8, 9. [2] Ex. 20:5; 34:7; Deut. 7:9-11; Ps.
5:4-6; Heb. 10:30, 31.
[3] Matt. 25:45,46.
Amen.
Closing
prayer
Closing hymn: Psalm 19:6
The
grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God and the fellowship
of the Holy Spirit be with you all.
Amen.
Dr MJ du Plessis
Reformed Church Bellville
Date: 29 January 2006 (evening)