All right, well, in the time remaining, we want to consider the conclusion of the Ten Commandments, and that's found in our catechism. We're going to look very briefly at catechism questions 88 through 90, 88 through 90. So let's consider them. We'll get there in just a moment. When I was very young in my ministry, I was a youth minister. This was years ago 2001 I think before Same-sex marriage was passed before the sexual revolution had come to The climax that were it's not even at the climax yet, but but to the forceful conclusions that we've seen in the last five years before all of that A young man came to me in the congregation, and he had this burning question. His stepbrother was coming to visit the family at Christmas that year, and his stepbrother was a homosexual. And this family was a very conservative, Republican, traditional, hardworking American family. And frankly, this young man who came to me, he was struggling with even interacting with his homosexual stepbrother. And whenever somebody comes to me with a question, I'm always, not just as a pastor, but just as a Christian, when somebody comes to me with a question about the Bible, I'm beginning to already try to analyze what their motive is in asking the question. It wasn't immediately clear if he was seeking to find out what the Bible said in order to properly evangelize his stepbrother or to look down his nose in judgment toward him with the backing of God's word. So he asked me in a presumptuous way, as if he already knew the answer and wanted me to simply affirm it, isn't there someplace in the Bible that says that God hates homosexuals? So his motives began to emerge a little more clearly to me, and I told him, you know what? There actually is a place in the Bible, and his eyes lit up, there is a place in the Bible, in God's word, that we're told that there are six things that God hates, and he's whipping out his notepad, right? About to write it down. And I said, but you know what? Homosexuality's not in that list. Six things that God hates, even the six that He detests, but homosexuality was not in that list. You see, I saw in this young man a desire to see himself, notwithstanding all his own sin, as somehow better than a homosexual, somehow better than his stepbrother, somehow justified in thinking himself better off than him, and somehow less sinful than this homosexual stepbrother of his because he was a hardworking Republican American individual. Perhaps there are some who deserve it more than the next person, but the fact of the matter is we're all sinful enough to merit hell. And I think that's something we need to remember. I know that in our congregation, in our tradition, that's something that we always tell people. It's something that we always even tell ourselves. It's something that we always hear from the pulpit, I hope, because it must always come as the precursor to the gospel. But I think that on the ground, it's something that we sometimes forget when we deal with people that we feel we need to, quote unquote, judge. Now, I am not saying for one split hot second that there is no place in the church for judging. We must judge, and I'm going to get to that in a moment. But what I would like to talk about in the catechism tonight is what our attitude should be as we approach this idea of judging. So I actually have a title for my message tonight. Mouths shut, guardians dispensed, and Christ adored. So we're going to look first at mouths shut. And we're going to consider question number 88. So let's look at your catechism, question number 88. The catechists ask, is any man able perfectly to keep the commandments of God? And we answer, no mere man since the fall is able in this life perfectly to keep the commandments of God, but daily break them in thought, word, and deed. So we're coming off study of the eternal moral law of God found in the Ten Commandments. We considered each of them in their broad sense and in their narrow sense. And we conclude by stating that in and of ourselves, in our own power, we cannot perfectly fulfill this law so as to, and this is very, very important, merit or earn a right standing with God. So what are we talking about here? We're talking about justification. When it comes to law keeping, we're gonna say in a moment that law keeping is important, but when it comes to justification, there is nothing that we can do to merit this right standing with God. Moses says this in Genesis 6.5. The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And Paul confirms this in Romans 3, 9 when he says, what then? Are we Jews any better off? No, not at all. We have already charged that all, both Jew and Greeks are all under sin. Now, oftentimes when we talk about being totally depraved, which is the doctrine that we typically associate with this idea in the reformed tradition, an objection typically comes up. And here's the objection. If we are not able to keep the law perfectly, then is not God unjust in condemning those who cannot do what He cannot perform? Okay, you get the sense of that objection? It's a very real objection, right? It's like expecting your two-year-old to work a 40-hour week. I mean, your two-year-old just can't do that. So is it fair to ask that of your two-year-old? Well, there's essentially two answers to this objection, and here's the first one. In Romans 9, Paul tells us that God has the prerogative to be God, and who are you, essentially, Paul says, to question as if, and here's the key, God must conform to your standard, to your standard of what's right and what's wrong. Because at the end of the day, what are we talking about? We're talking about a standard that must be set by somebody. And who gets to set it? Well, only God gets to set it. And if he chooses to set the standard at holiness and perfection, and when I say perfection, I mean personal, which means you, Perpetual, which means always, and personal, perpetual, and what's the third one in my acronym here? Perfectly, I guess. Personal, perpetual, and perfectly. None of us can do that, but you know what? That's what God said, so who are we to talk back to God? So Paul says in Romans 9, 16 to 21, so then it, speaking of election, depends not on human will or exertion, but on God who has mercy. For the scripture says to Pharaoh, for this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth. So then he has mercy on whoever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills. And here it is, verse 19. And keep this in mind, not only when you object to this in your heart, but also, I mean, when those who we spar with theologically want to bring this up, because Paul brings up a question in the first century that Jacob Arminius brought up in the 17th century, 16th century. Verse 19, you will then say to me, why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will? But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, why have you made me like this? Has the potter no right over the clay to make out of the same lump one vessel for honored use and another for dishonorable use? Now, I know that's referring to election, but the same principle stands for what God can and does and will expect of his creation. But here's the second answer to this objection. I think this is the more practical one. Not that the first one's not practical, but this one hits home. We were all capable of keeping God's law in our father Adam, okay? Adam is our representative. Now, when we say representative, sometimes we think of our representatives in Congress, and we think, well, I don't always agree with what they do, but what can I do? They make decisions, and I'm their constituency, and I could voice my opinions, but if they go against it, what can I do? But it's really more than that. Adam represented us as what humans would do in that situation. In fact, Adam, what does Adam mean? It means, well, it's from the dust of the ground, but it just means humankind. And don't get me wrong, I believe in a historical Adam, but I think there's what we call a double entendre going on there in the Hebrew, where he's saying on the one hand his name is Adam, but on the other hand he is man, he is mankind, he is humankind. So perhaps it would be easier if we said, what did humankind do in the garden? Well, what humankind did in the garden is what you would do, because guess what you are? You are a homo sapien. You are part of the human race. So Kohelet says in Ecclesiastes 7.29, see this alone I found that God made man upright, but they have sought out many schemes. It always gives me a chuckle when people are like, well, if I were in the garden, I wouldn't have fallen. Well, maybe you wouldn't have fallen on the same day. Maybe you would have done it quicker. But eventually you would have fallen because that is who you are. You are a human. And so what we need to do is we need to do what Paul says in Romans 3. We need to put our hand over our mouth. Paul says in Romans 3 19. Now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped and the whole world may be held accountable to God. So, the law stops us in our tracks. The law tells us, you are a filthy, miserable worm of a sinner. And while we're all used to that, that offends the common person on the street. But the fact of the matter is, this is what God says about us. Now look at question 89. It asks, are all transgressions of the law equally heinous? And we answer, some sins in themselves and by reason of several aggravations are more heinous in the sight of God than others. Now, I listened to an evangelical leader give an interview on radio. And it was a forum, it was an open forum. And the whole issue was homosexuality and the person who was moderating the discussion was asking this evangelical, I'm just not gonna name him because I don't want... you to think that I'm beating up on him, but he's somebody that you all know. He's somebody whose books you've probably read. He's somebody who the whole evangelical and especially the Presbyterian reform world looks to, to be cool and to try to multiply or replicate the kind of church growth and effect that he has had. And the moderator asked him a very simple question. Is homosexuality a sin? And will God condemn all homosexuals to hell for being a homosexual? Now, this guy did everything he could to back out of that question and kind of point in the other direction. You know, like with dogs, they squirrel and they're like, you know. I mean, that's what he was doing. He was doing everything he could to back out of it. And he at one point actually said, well, nobody's going to go to hell for being a homosexual. Now, I think in all of us there's a sense in which we would agree with that, right? Okay, so how can we agree with that? Well, we can agree with that in the fact that nobody goes to hell just for being a homosexual. Anybody who goes to hell goes to hell because whatever their sin is, adultery, gluttony, slothfulness, lying, cheating, stealing, homosexuality, doesn't have a what? A covering, right? So people go to hell not simply because of their sin. That's true. Our sin condemns us to hell. That's true. But it's because it is exposed and has no mediation. It has no covering to make it acceptable to God. So maybe that's what he was trying to get at. But the bottom line is in our climate today. And this is a noble thing, and it's a difficult thing, and it's a thing that if you don't struggle with, you should wrestle with a little bit. We do want to reach out to homosexuals, don't we? We do want to reach out to homosexuals. We do want to let them know, and this is so important, the gospel's for homosexuals. And I know that sometimes maybe when you guys hear that, you think, well, yeah, but they need to repent. Absolutely. Absolutely they need to repent. Just like an adulterer needs to repent. Just like a drug addict needs to repent. Just like an alcoholic needs to repent. But you know what? Repentance is sometimes long and arduous and painful. And it takes a while. So if a homosexual comes into the church and they repent and believe and they say that their lifestyle is wrong and they're trying to fight against it, but six months down the road they slip and they fall into that particular sin, do we kick them out? Those are hard questions. Those are hard questions. And all I would say is you have to come to an answer. You have to come to an answer, but that answer is going to be long and deliberate. It's going to depend largely on their heart, just like it would for a drug addict who relapses. We don't kick him out immediately just for relapsing, but if his attitude is, well, I've relapsed and I love it, I'm gonna keep doing it. Well, okay, then that kind of gives us a very clear direction on where we need to go. On the other hand, if their attitude is, I hate this sin and it got a hold of me again and I fell into it and it's all my fault. I don't blame anybody. I'm not blame shifting anybody. Help me, Christians. Help me, leaders. Help me, church. Well, that's a far different situation. But in this climate, what people want to do, and this is my point, they want to so downplay the specific sin of homosexuality that it's not really an abomination. Now, here's the thing. This is where I'm just going to come back to plain old traditional Bible reading. The Bible says that some things are abominations. Now, abominations are not your general run of the mill sin, OK? That guy keeps stealing pins from the bank when he's writing out his withdrawal slip. He's a chronic pin kleptomaniac. That's not an abomination. There are some things that are called abominations. And guess what? Homosexuality is one of them. Now, as much as we want to reach out to homosexuals, as much as we want to get the gospel to them, we must admit that homosexuality is an abomination. Now, what this catechism question is getting at is something that's connected to this. Not all sins are equal. All sins are equal in condemning us to hell, but that doesn't mean that all sins are equal, for example, in the context of the church. And it doesn't mean that when people get to hell, there aren't going to be different degrees of punishment. So let me give you an example. Open your Bibles to Matthew chapter 11. Matthew chapter 11, 21 to 24. This is our Lord. And after going to various cities in Galilee and the northern southern Galilean area, some of these cities did not accept the message. And so this is what he says to them, Matthew chapter 11 verses 21 to 24. Woe to you, Corazon. Woe to you, Bethsaida. For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I tell you, it will be more bearable on the day of judgment for Tyre and Sidon than for you. And you, Capernaum, will you be exalted to heaven? You will be brought down to Hades. For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. Sodom! Sodom! But I tell you that it will be more tolerable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom than for you." So what do we see here? There are degrees of punishment. There are sins that are worse. So let's assume for the sake of argument that Hitler never repented, okay, and he died. He did die, so we don't have to assume that. He's in hell if he didn't repent and believe in Jesus Christ, and he's probably in a pretty hot room, right, because of what he did, the egregious sins against humanity. So my point here is, all sins are equal with respect to condemning us, but that does not mean that all sins are equal as they're played out in the here and now. Let me give you one more example of how this plays out in the church. Turn in your Bibles very quickly to 1 Corinthians 5, and this is very, very important. The reason why this is important, because in the life of the church, perhaps even in this church, One of the things that may come up is why we would ever discipline somebody out of the church for a particular sin, because don't we all sin? Don't we all have patterns of sin? Well, I want you to look at 1 Corinthians 5 and look what Paul tells to do with somebody who had sinned a pretty egregious sin. He says, it is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that is not tolerated even among pagans. For a man has his father's wife. Now, my professor did some work on this, and he's convinced that it was this man's own mother, not his stepmother. But that's even worse. And you are arrogant, are you not rather to mourn? Let him who has done this be removed from among you. For though absent in body, I am present in spirit. And as if present, I have already pronounced judgment on the one who did such a thing. When you are assembled, these are second person plural pronouns, you the church, not you as an individual, not you as an elder, but you as a church. When you are assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus and my spirit is present with the power of the Lord Jesus, you are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord. There are some sins in the church that are so heinous that if there is not genuine repentance, and that's something that takes time to unpack, it doesn't happen with the snap of a finger, but if there is not genuine repentance and faith in Christ, they must be put out of the church, okay? Why? For the reputation of Jesus Christ, for the good of the church, because as Paul says later to Timothy, this influence of sin spreads like what? Gangrene is not a very good thing, right? The effect that it has on the church will be deleterious to the goodness of the church. I'm gonna read from the London Baptist Confession of Faith, chapter 26. This is of the church. This is paragraph two. I think it states it succinctly and perfectly. All persons throughout the world professing the faith of the gospel and obedience unto God by Christ according unto it, not destroying their own profession by any errors, everting the foundation, or unholiness of conversation, which means their daily life, are and may be called visible saints, and of such ought all particular congregations to be constituted. There are some sins that so destroy a person's testimony, that destroy a family, and that destroy the witness of the church that we must put them out of the church, okay? Now that's important, and I'm telling this to you as a pastor to a congregation because, Lord forbid we ever have a time where we have to put somebody out of the church, but if and when we do, you need to be ready You need to be ready as a congregation to make that judgment according to scripture and not according to our feelings for that person. Should we have feelings for that person? Should we love them? Should we have sympathy? Should we identify with them in the sense that we're sinners like them? Yes, but there's a difference between somebody who says, I'm a sinner, but I hate it, and I'm gonna fight it, and I'm inviting you into my life to help me fight it, And somebody who says, I'm a sinner and I'm doing these things, and doesn't everybody sin, so what's the big deal? And stay out of my life, I'm gonna do whatever I want. Or, I repent in my words, but my life, my fruit, does not match up to my words. What did John the Baptist say? Bear fruit in keeping with what? Repentance. Repentance can and must be evaluated, okay? All right, so the law is a leveler. And number two, we come to question 90. And this is Guardian's Dispense. What does every sin deserve? And we answer, every sin deserves wrath and curse, both in this life and that which is to come. So here we see very simply the first use of the law. Paul tells us in Galatians 3 that the law is our tutor to bring us to Christ. In the Greco-Roman context, every boy from about 6 to 16 had somebody who was a pedagogue or a tutor to him. And what he would do is day in and day out, hired by the family, to wake this boy up, brush, get his teeth brushed, have him come to the table and sit with a proper posture and make sure he had his fork on this side and knife on this side and eat and wipe his mouth and follow all his manners and then go do his curriculum. And then when he walked, make sure his posture was correct. He was a tutor that was teaching him the basic essentials of life. But at 16, he no longer needed the tutor. But here's the thing. The first use of the law is the tutor that brings us to Christ. And once we have come to Christ, we no longer need the tutor, Paul says in Galatians 3. But what does that mean? Does that mean that what that law taught us, we no longer follow anymore? No, absolutely not. And that brings us to the third use of the law. The third use of the law is our moral guide for holiness. It's not there to say, do this and live. It's there to say, because Christ has done this for you, live a life of gratitude. And let me give you one verse that supports that, Romans chapter three, verse 31. If ever you come in contact with an antinomian, somebody who doesn't think they need to follow the law of God, whether they admit it or not, you take them to Romans 3.31. I'll start at verse 27. then what becomes of our boasting? What he's saying is if God justifies us by what Christ has done, then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works. No, but by the law of faith. For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law. Or is God the God of the Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, since God is one who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith. So, no law, pure gospel. But then he says in verse 31, do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means. On the contrary, we uphold the law. You see that? Now he just said, we're not using the law to justify ourselves. But in the third use of the law, the law is something, as the psalmist says, all through Psalm 119, in which we delight. You should delight in the law. You should, as we just read in the call to worship, desire to follow God's commandments because they give life in and of themselves. No, because of what they lead me to. And even as a Christian, there is a sense in which the first and the third use of the law are being used at the same time. Because when I sin, the law tells me, you have failed, Josh. And there's that tutor, and what does it do? It drives me to see my ugliness and my nakedness before God, and so to where do I run? I run to the cross of Christ. And once I'm there, now again, out of gratitude, after repentance and faith has come, out of gratitude, I wish to keep the law again. And this is why, number three, Christ is adored. Mouths are shut, guardians are dispensed, and now, as the tutor has brought us to Christ, we adore him. We realize that we can only and must only shut our mouths before God since we have no inherent righteousness. We have a repentance that is genuine. I love how Albert Martin says this. He said, repentance is the tear in the bright eye of faith, and faith is the gleam of hope in the wet eye of repentance. You must always have both. You must always have a tear of repentance and the gleaming hope of gospel hope in your eye. You must have both, repentance and faith. Faith and repentance and all of life is consumed by these two things. So do you realize tonight that you're bankrupt of any righteousness? Do you realize that even as a Christian, Though, yes, you can judge, and yes, you must judge, and there may even be a context in the context of the local church where you will be called upon as a congregation to make that call to excommunicate. And all of that begins with Matthew 18, where you must go to your brother or sister and confront them in sin. Yes, you must do that. But in going to your brother and sister, do you realize your own sinfulness? Think about that for a moment. Because when somebody comes to you, when they think that you are in sin, how do you want them to approach you? How do you want them to approach you? You want them to assume the best things. What does Paul say in 1 Corinthians 13, seven? Love hopes all things and believes all things. Love puts the best construction possible on the details that are absent to your knowledge, right? I don't know everything, but I'm gonna assume the best until proven guilty. You are innocent until proven guilty, brother. And we might even say that even in that first step of Matthew 18, maybe not call it confrontation, but call it clarification. How can I better understand what's going on? Because brother, I see these things, I heard these words, I see these actions, and it gives me the impression that you're in sin, but clear this up for me. And maybe they can't. And maybe that's where you move towards confrontation with the goal of restoration. So have you seen your need for Christ through what the law has done? I hope you have. And if you haven't, I want you to trust in Him. Repent and believe. If you have, repent and believe again. Continue to run to the cross of Christ for your salvation. Let's pray. Father God, we love you. We thank you that your law has driven us to Christ. We pray that we would find much comfort and joy in him. And we ask all these things in your son's name. Amen. You are dismissed. If you have children, please go get them.