Accurate Knowledge of Misery
Minister: |
Rev. Ronald Van Overloop |
Date: |
8/7/2016 AM
|
Text:
|
Romans 3;
Lord's Day 3
|
Psalters: |
425, 192, 159, 364 |
- The presence of misery.
- Everyone needs Jesus the Savior of sinners, but only some know that they need such a Savior.
- Essential to have a correct knowledge of oneself is to remember that misery is the result of sin.
- God gives misery as a consequence of sin to teach us that we are sinners!
- Unless we see sin to be the cause of our misery and treat it, there will be no deliverance and recovery.
- We must realize that human nature (our old man) always handles sin and misery incorrectly.
- The correct standard for evaluating misery is God, Who has been pleased to reveal Himself in His law.
- God’s law reflects God Himself and it is not just some great principles (put in courthouses).
- Sin is missing the mark which God’s law identifies for us.
- By the law is the knowledge of sin (Rom. 3:20b), that the carnal mind is enmity against God (Rom. 8:7).
- The problem is not the law, for it is good (I Tim. 1:8). Often we want to blame the diagnostic tool.
- The heart of God’s law, reflecting God’s own heart, is love (Rom. 13:10): “want to” is the heart of “must.”
- The bright light of the God’s law shows me that the cause of all my misery is me.
- We confess that no one is righteous; all have sinned and come short (Rom. 3:10,23); man’s heart is desperately wicked (Jer. 17:9); spiritually dead in sin (Eph. 2:1) living in malice and envy, hated and hating (Titus 3:3).
- The true believer is the only one with the ability to admit honestly his natural and constant depravity and his natural proneness to hate God and my neighbor.
- But there is no reason to despair, for the same faith which acknowledges sin, also acknowledges justification (5:1 and 8:1).