Word of Salvation – Vol. 50 No.36 – September 2005

 

You Can’t Cop Out!

 

A Sermon by Rev S Bajema

on Heidelberg Catechism, Lord’s Day 4

Scripture Reading:  Matthew 25:31-46

 

Congregation…

Think of a situation when you’re speaking with someone you disagree with. At the moment you’re listening to their side of the argument. And you’re being careful to do that with an attitude of not offending that person. Still, you want to make your point, because you certainly don’t agree! And so, when that person has stopped presenting their position, you don’t lose any opportunity to tell them what’s really right!

There you are, then, waiting for the chance to reply. You’re waiting a while though – man they go on and on and on…! And inside you’re getting frustrated. You just have to tell what you believe. So you’re thinking, perhaps even muttering, while they’re trying to make their point – “But, but, but…!”

Finally, when you do get a chance to talk, you’re not going to spend a long time being kind to them – you briefly say an opening remark, like, “That’s interesting Joe…” – because then you’re into your point… “BUT!“

Our Catechism has been going through such a dialogue between God’s Word and His People. For we must not forget that while this section of the Catechism is about Man’s Misery, it’s dealing with it from the perspective of a Christian Confession.

In other words, these questions are the kind of questions Christians ask. True, they could also be some of the questions unbelievers ask, yet they are put here as our questions. So as these questions keep saying “But…but…”, they show something that we’re constantly trying to do in our lives. Whether we say it out loud, or keep it inside, or it’s what other believers ask, these questions are right here amongst us now.

So let’s hear them and hear God’s Word answer them.

1 – But it’s just not fair!

The first BUT is this… BUT IT’S JUST NOT FAIR! This is the essence of Question 9. And we find that this question is asked now because of the answers already given in the Catechism.

Answer 8, for example, has just effectively taken away any thought that we could do anything at all which has any credit with God. And that’s after Answer 7 has said that sin has affected us right through!

In a very human response the next question asks,

BUT DOESN’T GOD DO MAN AN INJUSTICE BY REQUIRING IN HIS LAW WHAT MAN IS UNABLE TO DO?

The cry goes up… IT JUST ISN’T FAIR! It’s a cry that we sometimes hear from children, too. Isn’t that so, boys and girls? When you feel you’re being ignored, or not getting what the other kids are getting, don’t you say that, too? You shout out, “It isn’t fair!”

Though, boys and girls, let’s see how fair the Heavenly Father really is. Imagine that your Dad sent you to the shop with a $20 note to buy something for $18.95. Along the way you meet some friends and you go with them and spend most of the money. Later you come home without buying that thing from the shop and with only $2 left in your pocket. What do you think – in for a bit of trouble, perhaps?

Ah, but you’ve got an answer for Dad. You’ve got an excuse for yourself. You say, “Dad, how do you expect me to buy something for $18.95 with only $2? That’s not fair!” Hey – who is being unfair? If your Dad grounds you and makes you work until you pay that money back, is he being unfair? Of course not!

So – is God unfair? Isn’t He instead actually being absolutely fair? After all, we blew it! As Answer 9 says, we had the ability to keep the Law. It was our representatives, Adam and Eve, who were really unfair. And we’re just the same. As the apostle Paul wrote in Romans 5:12, “sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way sin came to all men, because all sinned…”

Still, congregation, that’s not all the Bible says in Answer 9. Don’t we also hear something else coming from the Lord in this answer? Notice – who’s specifically mentioned here, by name? Yes, it’s the devil. He’s mentioned here because God makes the point that we chose to follow him instead. You see, we belonged to God but we listened to Satan! And we still do!

And don’t think either that we could say it was really Adam and Eve’s fault. We could only do that if we don’t sin at all ourselves. For while someone like the prophet Ezekiel in Ezekiel 18:20 mentions that if a son doesn’t continue to do the same sin as his father, he won’t be judged for it, we can’t get away from the fact that all of us do sin – don’t we?

2 – But everyone’s doing it!

So, the first BUT is answered. The LORD God is fair – He’s just. But there’s the second BUT! BUT… EVERYONE’S DOING IT! This is the essence of Question 10.

I think our boys and girls know that one, too. Perhaps you’ve been caught for doing something wrong at school or when you were with a whole bunch of you at home. And what did you say? I mean, there you are, you were the one caught out of all those children. Perhaps you were a bit slow to get away from the scene of the crime, or an adult came out just when you happened to be doing it.

Well, what can you say? BUT EVERYONE’S DOING IT! Hey – do you think saying that will let you off the hook? Of course not – and it won’t let anyone else off the hook either!

You were copped – you got caught. So why should we be so surprised if God is doing the same? In fact, you have rules at school and at home because God put them there in the first place! Don’t forget, God’s rules won’t ever change. Sometimes, however, our rules do. Especially if enough people want it. Then what used to be a crime becomes “decriminalised”. Like abortions now are.

So, in this world it may seem that the rich can buy their way out of trouble and the powerful just barge their way through, and you, too, can get away undetected sometimes. But that will only be for this world. There is still the next world.

And much as people may describe crime as a sickness, or a birth defect, or simply an offence against society, rather than the breaking of God’s Laws for society, their day in the divine court will come. The Catechism says it: The “just judge… punishes them now and in eternity.”

Won’t that be something else? Before the Majestic Magistrate there’s no case thrown out for lack of evidence, or a bribe that can be paid to sway the case anyone’s way.

So, congregation, the second BUT gets blown away. We’ve done the crime – we have to do the time!

3 – But isn’t God loving?

Still, there is that one more BUT. There is yet a last ditch effort to get out of all this. BUT… ISN’T GOD LOVING? This is what we come to in the words of Question 11: BUT ISN’T GOD ALSO MERCIFUL?

Boys and girls – what could you say when you know you can’t get away with it anymore from your teacher or your folks? There you are – you’re caught. You can’t say you didn’t know; you can’t get out of it by saying that others do it too. What is there left to say except that desperate appeal to the adult? “You won’t hurt me – will you? Don’t you love me?”

That’s what adults have been saying to God, too. And they’ve been saying it for thousands of years. As early as the third century after Christ it became a false teaching in the church. It’s called ‘universal salvation’.

Nowadays, it’s even found in churches with Reformed doctrinal standards. One Presbyterian minister wrote an article on the subject, “What’s Happened to Hell?” In that article he said, “If love is love and God is God, heaven can’t be heaven until nobody remains in hell. Love cannot be smug in the presence of another’s misfortune; and the love of heaven cannot rejoice except as all are saved from their follies and their hurts.”

Do you see – he appeals to God’s love. Yet they do that at the cost of His attributes of holiness and justice.

Think of the sports we play. They have to have rules so that we can all play together. And those games have punishments to prove the rules are really there. The referee or umpire can even send you off!

Can we live in God’s world, then, without expecting that He will keep His rules? He is God isn’t He? And we are the sinners, aren’t we?

That was the clear message of the story in Matthew 25, verses 31 to 46, about the sheep and the goats. There will be a Judgment Day. We will have to pay! No sin escapes God – now or in eternity – whether in body or in soul.

Congregation, this is the end of the part of our Catechism which deals with sin. We have been shown decisively that before we can seek and find our only comfort in Jesus Christ, God’s Word must first of all make us uncomfortable with ourselves.

And while it might seem that I have been a little hard on the boys and girls in using the kind of excuses they use to show what God’s Word says here, let us adults think about who the children got those excuses from in the first place. Where did they learn them?

Amen.

PRAYER:

Let’s pray…

LORD, you are who you are. You are the one constant in this every changing world – the One who changes not. And you have been very clear with us how we ought to live. You gave Adam and Eve everything they needed to live that way.

But they, and we with them, too, sinned. We chose another way, thinking and seeking and living like we could be our own gods.

Now you call us, however, to answer for ourselves. We have to bear our own punishment, or…or…we believe in Jesus to have done that for us. O LORD God, may it be your own Son, whom we trust, and may it be Him whom we obey. In His precious Name we pray,

Amen.