The Belgic Confession, one of our three summaries of God's word. Churches found it helpful to summarize what God's word teaches as a witness to the world, as a teaching tool and as a. A confession that unites God's people together in truth. And this is what we believe concerning sin, as God's word teaches it. Article 15 at the bottom of page eight. Original sin. We believe that through the disobedience of Adam. Original sin is extended to all mankind. Which is a corruption of the whole nature and a hereditary disease. wherewith even infants in their mother's womb are infected and which produces in man all sorts of sin, being in him as a root thereof and therefore is so vile and abominable in the sight of God that it is sufficient to condemn all mankind. Nor is it altogether abolished or wholly eradicated even by baptism, since sin always issues forth from this woeful source as water from a fountain, Notwithstanding, it is not imputed to the children of God under condemnation. But by his grace and mercy is forgiven them. Not that they should rest securely in sin, but that a sense of this corruption should make believers often to sigh. Desiring to be delivered from this body of death. Wherefore, we reject the air of the plagians. who assert that sin proceeds only from imitation. Dear Church of Christ Jesus, and particularly boys and girls this morning, before you get down to taking notes or drawing pictures, boys and girls, I want to talk to you, especially this morning, about the subject matter here before us. We're talking about sin and about the question, where does sin come from? Where does sin come from? I want boys and girls to imagine For a moment this morning that you're down in your basement, I bet most of you have a basement in your house. And imagine if you were down in your basement and your dad was down there, too, and maybe he was working on some project over in the corner of the basement and he didn't notice. But you decided you were going to go upstairs now. And so you went over to the staircase to go up out of the basement. And as you began to go up the stairs, those first couple of stairs, you realized your socks were wet. You were stepping in water. What would you do? I suspect most of you would quickly call your dad to come over and look at this. And if your dad heard you calling and came over there, what would he do? What would your dad do if he saw water on the basement stairs? Would he dry it up? He probably would. But would he dry it up first of all, or would he do something else? What would your dad say when he came over those stairs and saw on the stairs a puddle of water? But I know what your dad would say. He'd say, oh, no, where is that coming from? Where is that water coming from? And maybe he would look at those bottom of stairs and see they're all wet and then he'd look up a stair and see if that one was wet. And if it was, he looked to the next one and see if it was wet. And he would trace that water up the stairs, maybe all the way up into the next floor to the kitchen floor there. And he'd see that kitchen floor with a puddle on it. And then he'd say, oh, no. Where did that water come from? And then he'd try to find out and maybe he would see a little stream of water coming out of that kitchen cupboard beneath the sink. And then he would open those doors beneath that kitchen sink and he would discover there the pipe underneath the sink was broken. And water was leaking from there all the way across the kitchen floor, down the basement stairs. But now, why would your dad do that? When you call him over and say there's water on the stairs, why wouldn't he just get a towel and start mopping up the water? Why would he ask where is it coming from? Well, you understand, you know, that if he were to just begin mopping up the water, he might stand there mopping up water for the rest of his life. The water would just keep on coming and coming and coming. He has to know where's this coming from so it can be fixed. Well, this morning, God's word is teaching us about a certain kind of leak, not a leak of water in our kitchen, running down to our basement, but a leak of sin, of sin. Boys and girls, if you know yourself pretty well this morning, then you know that you sin, right? You know that you said in lots of different ways, one of the most common ways that we sin is with the words that we speak, we say bad things, we say mean things to brothers and sisters and maybe to other boys and girls at church. Sometimes we say disrespectful words to mom and dad. We don't talk to them with honor and respect. But have you ever wondered where those bad words come from, where those mean words come from? Have you ever looked at that stream of? Disrespectful words coming out of your mouth and wondered where did that come from? Have you ever said, oh, no, where is it coming from? Jesus told us that if you were to trace those bad words back from where they came from, you would discover. They came out of your heart, out of your sinful heart. The stream of bad speech comes from a bad heart, and that's what God teaches us this morning. It's not just that we do bad things. It's not just that we say bad things, but it's that we are bad people. We have bad hearts. Naturally, we have a sinful heart and we need to see that because if we don't, boys and girls. If all we see is the bad words, the bad things, it will be like your dad standing in the basement, mopping up the stairs and mopping up the stairs and mopping up the stairs and we won't know. We really need a new heart. We need a savior who gives us a new heart, who cleanses us from the inside. And that's what God's word teaches us this morning. So this morning we want to see two things. First of all, we want to see a fountain inside of us, the polluted fountain of dirt and sin. And then we want to see the far greater fountain that's outside of us. Jesus Christ, who cleanses us, who purifies us. First of all, we look at this polluted fountain now, boys and girls, The psalm that David writes, Psalm 51, that we just read was written when David had a leak in the palace. He had a leak in the palace. David discovered that leak. Not a leak of water, but a leak of sin, of ugly, gross, filthy, defiling sin, running through David, running through the palace, running past everyone. It was gross. David had stolen another man's wife. When David had sent off his soldiers to go fight a battle, The men went out to go fight battle and their wives stayed back in Jerusalem and David stayed back in Jerusalem. One night he was walking around on his palace roof and he saw one of the wives of one of his soldiers and he thought, man, she's really beautiful. I wish she was my wife. And then he thought, I'm King, I'll just take her. And so he took her. He took her as his wife. And then later, when David realized, when King David realized that that this lady's husband is going to find out about this, he's going to be mad and I'm going to get in trouble. He thought, well, I'll just kill that guy. And so David sent a note out to the commander of his armor and he said, take your Raya. That was the husband of this lady Bathsheba. Take your Raya, put him out in the front of the battle and then have all the troops come back and retreat and leave him out there so the enemies will kill him. And that's what happened. He died. He died. So David had stolen a man's wife. David had killed a man. And Nathan, the prophet, came to David and said, you've sinned. You've got filthy sin running through the palace here. And when David was finally brought to see what he had done, then he he bowed his head before God to ask that God would forgive him and God would cleanse him and God would take away this filth. And that's what Psalm 51 is all about, a prayer for forgiveness. But if David's sin can be compared to a leak running through the palace, then you have to ask the question, where did it come from? Where was the stream of sin flowing from? Where did this water running through the palace come from? Did it come from David's kitchen sink? Did it come from the bathtub? Did it come from the swimming pool down the hall? David tells us where this leak, this filthy river of sin was coming from when he says in verse 10, he prays to God, create in me a clean heart. Well, David says, Lord, please give me a clean heart. David is saying, Lord, I have a filthy heart and out of my filthy heart comes these filthy actions that I've done. God cleansed my heart. Boys and girls, have you ever done something wrong and your parents get upset with you? Because they had told you before not to do that, not to say that, not to act that way, and you did it again, and they come to you and say, why did you do that? And have you ever actually tried to answer that question? And you think to yourself, hmm, why did I do that? Well, maybe you say, I hit my brother because he took my toy. I said that to my sister because she said a bad word to me. But you know what the real answer to that question is? Why did you do that? This is probably not the answer your parents want you to give them, but this is the answer of the Bible. Why did you do that? Because I have a sinful heart. Because I have a sinful heart. That's why I did that. That's the real reason that I hit my brother. That's the real reason I said that to my sister, because my heart is sinful and out of my sinful heart comes sinful things. King David's heart was sinful and how simple was it, when did King David's heart become sinful? Look at verse five. He says, behold, I was brought forth. In iniquity. And in sin did my mother conceive me. David is saying, when I was born, I was sinful. In fact, even before I was born, when I was in my mother's womb, inside my mother's tummy, even then I was sinful. As soon as I was alive, as soon as God made me inside my mom, I was sinful. I've been sinful from the beginning, from the very beginning. Parents, your children might tell you the real reason they've done it is because they're sinful, but it's even worse than that. They might tell you the real reason they did it was because they're your son. They're your daughter. They got it from you. Now, we don't like to admit that, in fact, we'd rather say something different. We don't want to say my son hit his brother because he's my son. We want to say he had his brother because he's been hanging out with with Joe's kids and we all know what Joe's kids are like. That's what plagiarists used to like to say, you know, plagiarist, the fourth, fifth century British monk who believed that sin is not inherent. It's not original. We believe that everyone's born pretty good, but we just become sinful because we see sinful people and we imitate them. You can imagine how it went in plagiarism's house and playing with his cousins again. I sent them off to that Roman university and they corrupted my son. Nice try, Pelagius. But sin doesn't come simply from the bad examples of others. Though our culture believes that, and though we live in this culture that's obsessed with this thought that if we just would educate our youth, if we would just remove the kids from the inner city, if we would just remove kids out of bad homes, then that everyone would be good. The Bible teaches what we call original sin. Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me. Original sin. Sin has an origin and it's not the environment. Sin's origin is Adam. When he rebelled against God in the garden, Adam fell into sin. Adam became, as we saw last time, wholly depraved. Article 14, we saw last time that That this result of Adam's rebellion is that he died spiritually dead and corruption came over all the facets of his being, his mind, his heart, his will. But then you say, well, what about us? That's Article 15 of the Belgic. We are Adam's children. We inherit Adam's sin. We inherit his guilt, Romans 5, sin entered the world through one man and death through sin. Adam was our representative. We inherited his guilt. It's imputed or credited to us. So we're all guilty before God. But we also received Adam's corruption. We're dirty. We have dirty hearts. We believe that through the disobedience of Adam, original sin is extended to all mankind. This is a corruption of the whole nature and hereditary disease, wherewith even infants in their mother's womb are infected. Have you ever thought of the difference between angels and people? Angels were all created separate. At one point in time, God made the angels. But the human race is entirely different. God made two humans, Adam and Eve. And everybody else on the planet who has ever been and is here today came from those two people. We are all one family. Angels were all made separately at once, but the human race is an organic whole. We have all flown out of the head. Adam. We're all from Adam, even Eve. Well, sin is like a hereditary disease that's passed on from generation to generation to generation. If you say, well, where is this sin? Is it in the blood? The blood transfusions? Well, it's like a hereditary disease, but it's not in the blood. The corruption is God's judgment. God had told Adam, if you eat of the fruit, you will die. And now God visits that condemnation. God visits that death upon every one of us at the moment God creates us. He makes our soul at that very moment. We are beneath the condemnation of God in Adam. And God visits upon us that death. So the soul God makes is a soul that's under the condemnation of death, we are spiritually dead from the start. We come into the world corrupted. That's important to notice that when David admits that here, behold, I was brought forth in iniquity and in sin, did my mother conceived me? He wasn't using this for an excuse. Boys and girls, I told you that the real reason that you do sinful things, probably not what your parents want you to tell them, but the real reason is because you're a sinner. But that's not an excuse if you do something wrong and your parents say, why did you do that? You can't say, well, sorry, Mom. Sorry, Dad. I'm sinful. That's what I do. That's not what David's doing. This is not an excuse, a kind of cover to say it's all right because I'm a sinful person. But David is saying it's so much worse. It's so much worse. This is how deep sin is within me. David is crying over his his sinfulness. He's very sad about it. David is saying, in effect, it's not just that I have stolen a man's wife, but that I like to steal. It's not just that I have killed a man, but that I like to kill men. It's not just that I committed adultery and murder, but I am adulterous and I am murderous in my inmost being. That's who I am. That's how wicked I am. I loathe myself. I detest myself. I am filthy to the core. You see, boys and girls, if all the words we speak and all the things we do can be compared to a river flowing out of us, God tells us that the source of that river The spring from which that water bubbles up our hearts is a contaminated source. It's an infected source. It has dirt at its very core. So everything that bubbles out of the fountain is dirty. It's all offensive to God. Boys and girls, I told you that if you trace the words coming out of your mouth backwards, they come out of your heart. Jesus said in Mark seven four from within, out of men's hearts come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. Out of the heart. Plagious says out of the environment. Jesus says out of the heart. The fountain is not pure. Now, do you believe that? Parents, do we believe that? See, I've been studying the Catechism now for 47 years. This is elementary, of course, I believe in original sin, I've got the doctrine figured out. In fact, I really don't need another sermon about it. Well. It's easy to say we believe in original sin, but. There are ways we can actually test ourselves. We could ask, what are we hoping for in our culture when we complain about how evil and wicked people are and all the bad things they do? We shake our heads in disgust and think, boy, the government should do something about this. Like what? Better public schools? More sensitivity training for racists? Like what? The government has a role to do. It's called punishing sin. Protecting the righteous, but that's as far as they can go as far as they should go. It's the church who alone has the answer of the new heart, it's the church that proclaims Jesus Christ, who comes and gives a new heart by his spirit. The government can't do that. You believe in original sin. Well, then at whose doorstep do you lay this big mass? You still blaming the government or are you busy in terms of evangelism, busy in terms of praying for the cause of missions? Original sin, do we believe it? We could evaluate our raising of our children. Do we think all they need is a good example? All they need is a good environment. All they need is the right friends. Got to not let them play with those kids, play with these kids, go to that school, not that school and and and hang out with me, a good father, and then they'll be good. Really, that's what Pelagius thought. Sin is by imitation. So salvation is give them a good model. And so much today is proclaimed, even from pulpits. Jesus Christ, what a great man. Follow him. Daniel, what a bold and courageous man. Follow him. Good models. Or do you get down on your knees and plead that God's Holy Spirit would give them a new heart? Original sin. Do we believe it? Do we believe when it comes to temptation? Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me." What does David say? Perhaps David is saying, had I truly considered this and remembered what I am, I would have never been so bold as to play with temptation. I would not have allowed myself a second look at Bathsheba if I remembered what's inside here. Original sin. Do I believe it? Well, do I nibble at the edges of sexual images on the Internet? Then I don't believe it. If I think I can handle this, I can look at that. This is OK. She's got some clothes on. Then you don't believe it. Do you believe that the fountain? Fountain has been corrupted so that you don't trust yourself. I am prone to sin. I may not go near their. Original sin is not an abstract doctrine, it's not just something that hangs in the air or written in theology books or confessions, this is the reality of our lives. Do we believe it? Do we believe it? Iniquity and filth in us. If we believe it, then we don't Look at our sin and say, well, I don't know where that came from. You know, to do that would be to stand there like the father mopping the water in the basement stairs. Well, this is odd. I guess water comes out of my stairs. I didn't know there was a fountain inside my stairs. No, but when we sin, we say, I know where that came from, that came from me. I'm a sinner. I'm a sinful person. It's not just that I sin, but that I'm a sinner. I'm a sinner. It's not just that I do sin, but I am sin. It's not just that I do corrupt things, but I am corrupt. God help me. And what is the hope? What is the hope as we look at our filth? Well, the answer of the psalm and what's recorded in our confession is the good news that, though we have within us a fountain of corruption, there's a greater fountain to which David appeals to the cleansing fountain of the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's the second thing we consider this morning, the cleansing fountain of Jesus Christ. David prays again and again, doesn't he wash me? Verse two, wash me thoroughly for my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. Boys and girls, David speaks of a different fountain, not one inside of us, but the fountain of Jesus Christ who comes to wash us clean. Wash me thoroughly for my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. Verse seven, purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean, wash me and I shall be whiter than snow. What a beautiful, beautiful fountain of blood, the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, our confession says, as it speaks of the sin and corruption, it's not wholly abolished or wholly eradicated even by baptism. And the theology books will try to interpret what that means and. Seems most likely that that was written against a certain air of the Roman Catholic Church, which suggested baptism did do something in that regard. What we believe is that baptism symbolizes the cleansing of the Lord Jesus Christ. Baptism is a picture of that washing of Christ's blood and spirit. And that does do something powerful, that true washing of Christ Jesus. By his blood and spirit, it liberates us from the power of sin, right? Romans six, we've died with Christ to sin. Sin doesn't own us. Sin isn't our master. There is a difference between the Christian and the unbeliever. The unbelievers are ruled by sin. The believer has been set free, set free, and yet Read on in Romans seven, the Christian is set free from sin in terms of its dominion, but he is not set free from sin in the sense of it's nowhere to be found in him. The remains, the remnants, the vestiges of that old man of sin are with us. Are with us. So I find this law at work when I want to do good. Evil is right there with me for in my inner being. I delight in God's law, but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin. At work within my members, we all know that experience, the old man of sin is broken, he's defeated, and yet he's still very effective, isn't he? There's still corruption within us. You still find words coming out of our mouths that we do not want to say, and they are dishonorable to God. They are insulting to our neighbor. There is no glory of God in them. There is no love of our neighbor in them. The more we come near to God and his holiness, the more we study his word and see the radiance of his purity. The more we discover in our own hearts and lives corruption. The more we see that those waters that we thought were pretty clear. Are actually defiled and infected and corrupted. Perhaps we begin to lose hope at times. Especially when we realize that even just by the sinful nature, we are worthy of hell. It's not remarkable. That we are condemnable. From the moment of conception. From the first moment of life, we are guilty before God. We are sinful creatures. We deserve the eternal wrath of God. But then when we grow up and we see all the sin in our lives, the actual sins we commit, then we think, where's the hope? The Reconfession speaks the good news that even though being born again in Christ, we still have sin with us. Sin always issues forth from this woeful source as water from a fountain. Nevertheless. It's not imputed, it's not credited, the children of God unto condemnation, but by his grace and mercy is forgiven them. Martin Luther used to say that we are simultaneously just and center. For the Christian, at the very moment we are yet centers, we already perfect in God's eyes, our record has been cleansed. Though I still commit sin as I walk upon this earth, though I still wrestle against wicked thoughts and wicked deeds and wicked words, yet already in God's eyes I have been justified. I've been declared innocent. I'm altogether righteous for the sake of Christ's cleansing work and his righteousness freely given to me. What an amazing thing that my right standing with God and my clean record before God is not the result of what I do or I don't do, but it's a result of what Christ is, what he's done. He, the one human being in the history of the world who was born without sin. Jesus Christ, the God man who was not brought forth in iniquity and it was not conceived in sin, who by the Holy Spirit was preserved from the corruption of his mother. That he might hang up on the cross as the unblemished lamb, the perfect sacrifice, taking the place of all of his people and bearing God's wrath upon himself in our stead. That's the good news. God does not impute this filth of our hearts to us. But by his grace and mercy, he forgives. Grace and mercy are precious words, aren't they? They declare you get what you don't deserve. You get what you don't deserve. What you deserve for that dirty fountain within you is an eternity in hell. What you get is an eternity in heaven. What you deserve is to be banished from God's presence. What you get is to be brought near and adopted as God's child. Grace, grace, grace. O Lord, I can't cleanse myself. I can't make my record clean. You purge me, O Lord, with hyssop. You sprinkle that blood of the covenant upon me and I will be clean. You wash me and I will be whiter than snow. How good this morning that though we still sin and struggle against sin, to be whiter than snow. Perfect in God's eyes. Completely acceptable for the sake of Jesus Christ. Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Romans eight, verse one. But what is the reaction then? Boys and girls, why does David want to be forgiven? Why does he want God to say you're all clean, your record before my face clean, I I wipe all the marks against you right off the board. Is it so David can get back to sinning? Is it so David can say, all right, now I can go steal some more wives. I can kill some more men. Because God forgives. No, the true believer is known by something. By his struggle against sin, by his struggle against sin, our confession says it very nicely, doesn't it? The last lines of the article, not that they should arrest securely in sin, But that a sense of this corruption should make believers often to sigh, desiring to be delivered from this body of death. Remember, the apostle Paul addressed the question, you know, as the apostle Paul began to proclaim grace, grace, forgiven all by Christ, not what you do, people say, well, that's real nice doctrine, Apostle Paul. If it's all of Christ, all of grace, all freely given, then people just go on sinning, right? What shall we do, then, shall we go on sinning so that grace may abound? I'll just send some more so God give me some more grace. Paul says. Get real, God forbid we've died to sin, we've been changed. So our new hearts want to live for the Lord and for his glory. We died to sin, how can we live in any longer? No, the believer is known by his sighing. Sighing. Not by his complaining sighing, not by his discontent sighing in the sense of being upset with God, but by his discontent with his spiritual state, by his longing for sanctification, by his weariness with the flesh, with dealing with those wicked thoughts and wicked deeds and wicked words, by that prayer, God, come, Lord Jesus, come rescue us. Romans seven, the Apostle Paul speaks of that inward struggle. I don't do the things I want to do, the things I don't want to do. I find myself doing who will rescue me from this body of death. Sighing is a sign of. Spiritual health. Decide this past week, has that been the character of this past week of your life that you can say, I I have often bowed my head at the end of a day and prayed, Lord, forgive me. Lord, rescue me. Lord, change me. I have in this week prayed, God, sin salvation. Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly and bring about that day when you will wipe all sin from us and transform us into your glorious image. You will make us perfect to live with you without any sin. As you look at your life this morning, is that you? Boys and girls, let me have your attention once more this morning. You ask yourselves. When your parents are so upset about your sin and they say, why did you do that? And they're sighing. Do you sigh with them? You shed your tears and say, I don't know why I do that. Or now this morning you say, I do know why I do it. I'm a sinner. God, help me. Do you find that within yourselves, young people, that you're discontent with the amount of sin that's in your life? Or are you pretty happy? You've got your parents happy. You've got your elders happy. You're doing all right. And you still have friends, too. Are you groaning inside? Lord, I want to be done with all of this sin. It grieves my heart. It's our calling to know our sin more and more, to look to Jesus Christ more and more, to rest our hope on the day when Christ will come and until then to pray that even now the Lord will sanctify us. He will cleanse us. He will change us more from glory to glory every day. That we pray with David created me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right sphere within me. Every day we pray again, create a clean heart, Lord, make me cleaner than yesterday. And we do that all in the hope that soon Jesus Christ will come and He will wholly remove all the remains of that old sin. And He will purify the fountain completely. So there won't be a single blemish. There won't be a single germ of contamination. But we for all eternity will with perfect hearts now perfectly praise God, perfectly speak to each other, perfectly live for the glory of God. What a day that will be. Amen. Let's pray together. Our father in heaven, we thank you for your word. For as we look at this defiled creation. The wickedness of humanity, surely there must be an answer, we must be able to tell the world what has happened Thank you for your work, which shines light, which proclaims truth, which uncovers to us the reality that the fountainhead has been corrupted. Thank you, O Lord, that we may live in this truth so that we are not dying in the ignorance and darkness of those who believe that the federal government will fix the world. We pray, Heavenly Father, we would not simply bemoan our culture, but that we would point them to Jesus Christ, who alone gives a clean record and a clean heart. Father, we pray that you would help us to sigh more faithfully. For too often we have grown accustomed to our sin. And we have not grieved over it as we should. But we pray your prophetic voice in Jesus Christ would speak to us as Nathan spoke to David. And that the effect and consequence of that conviction. Would be the moaning and crying created me a clean heart, oh God. In Jesus name we pray, amen.