Family Life at Cornerstone

The Voice of COVID-19Podcast IntroductionHello out there, my name is Breck Wheelock and I would like to welcome you to another episode in which we will be looking to Scripture to help us navigate through this time of corona virus crisis. Our text for today’s episode comes from the book of Amos; specifically, chapter 3, verses 3-6. And as we did a couple of lessons ago, we will be considering the expositional insights of Charles Spurgeon regarding this passage. Spurgeon chose to preach on this particular text because of a severe outbreak of cholera that was occurring in London at the time. He titled the sermon, “The Voice of the Cholera” (sermon 705), and it was preached from the Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit in London on August 12th of 1866.I have selected and edited only those portions of the sermon which I felt best suited the purposes of this podcast, and I have modified some of Spurgeon’s language to make it more understandable to our modern ears. In altering the text, I did my best to maintain the integrity and the intent of Spurgeon’s thoughts. If you would like to read the original sermon in its entirety, it is readily available online. In fact, you can even listen to the original sermon being read on YouTube.The primary lesson that we will be pondering in this episode is this: when God judges a nation, it is not without a purpose, and He will not remove the judgment, until its full purpose has been accomplished.With that, let us begin by reading from chapter 3 of Amos. Though Spurgeon will only be focusing on verses 3-6, I will read verses 1-6 so as to give us a bit more context.Text: Amos 3:1-6 (NKJV)Hear this word that the Lord has spoken against you, O children of Israel, against the whole family which I brought up from the land of Egypt, saying:2 “You only have I known of all the families of the earth;Therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities.”3 Can two walk together, unless they are agreed?4 Will a lion roar in the forest, when he has no prey?Will a young lion cry out of his den, if he has caught nothing?5 Will a bird fall into a snare on the earth, where there is no trap for it?Will a snare spring up from the earth, if it has caught nothing at all?6 If a trumpet is blown in a city, will not the people be afraid?If there is calamity in a city, will not the Lord have done it?Spurgeon begins his sermon with the following introductory remarks:Sermon IntroductionWe have all been grieved by the mortality that has been caused by the mysterious spread of cholera in our great city of London; thus, I shall speak boldly as to the theological aspect of the subject. As Christians, we believe that God sends all pestilences and that He sends them with a purpose. Therefore, as a minister of God, it is my business to call the people’s attention to God in this time of disease, and teach them the lessons which God would have them to learn.To begin, I do not believe that every affliction is a judgment upon each and every individual person to whom it occurs. We see that in this world, the best of men often endure a great deal of suffering, and that the worst of men frequently have very little suffering.Let’s pause for a moment here because this is a very important distinction that Spurgeon is making. When God sends a widespread judgment, such as a famine or a plague or a war, these types of judgments are not directed at individuals, they are directed at nations (Spurgeon is going to elaborate on this point in the next few sentences). Moreover, it is critical that we understand as God’s people that when we have to go through a national judgment, such as the one that we are currently enduring vis-à-vis the corona virus, God is not punishing us. Christ has already suffered the punishment for His people’s sins; He paid the debt of our sins in full, there is no remaining balance. The slate is completely clean for God’s elect. However, that being said, God will still occasionally judge His people in the sense of disciplining and chastising them, as a father disciplines or chastises his children.Spurgeon continues:Though we do not believe that every affliction is a judgment upon each and every individual person to whom it occurs, we do, however, very firmly believe that there are national judgments, and that national sins provoke national chastisements. As to individuals, their punishment or reward is reserved for the Great White Throne Judgment of Christ; but nations will not exist in the next world: there is no such thing as a judgment of nations, as such, at the last great day; that will be the judgment of individuals one by one. The trial and punishment of nations takes place only in this present world, and it is here that we are to look for the judgment of God upon national sin. In light of this, I shall speak to you today regarding the national chastisement that God is presently visiting upon England.This is an EXCELLENT point that Spurgeon makes, and we don’t want to miss it because it is the foundation which he is going to build upon throughout the remainder of this sermon. His point here is that there will not be any nations (plural) in the next life, there will only be one kingdom, one nation (singular) – the true Israel of God. Furthermore, this heavenly nation will be completely pure – no sin, no curse, no death, no sorrow, no pain, no trials or afflictions or tribulations. In short, there will be no judgments upon this heavenly nation because there will be no need! Sin will have been completely vanquished and all things will have been reconciled by the blood of Christ.But in this life, there are many nations; and on this side of heaven, God will frequently visit and judge a nation according to its wickedness. During such times of national judgment, God’s people are not immune; for them, the judgment is meant as a chastisement, as we already noted. With this foundational principle in mind, let us commence with Spurgeon’s verse-by-verse exposition of the passage, beginning with verse 3:Verse 3THE FIRST QUESTION that Amos asks, says Spurgeon, is this: “Can two walk together except they be agreed?” In other words, can God continue to walk with a sinful people? Is it not to be expected that when a nation falls out with God, God will no longer continue to bless it? In this metaphor given by Amos, two travelers have been cordially walking together for some time when suddenly they fall to angry words, and after a while one strikes the other and mistreats him. Are we to think that the one attacked (in this case, God) will continue to walk with the one who maliciously assaulted Him (in this case, the nation of Israel)? They must part company.Now, when God walks with a nation that nation prospers, but if that nation falls to words with God, quarrels with Him about His will and His law, and rushes perversely into sinful ways; indeed, if there be some in that nation who would have no God at all, who do their best to stamp out/destroy/eradicate His very name from the earth which He Himself has made, then we cannot expect that God should continue to walk with such offenders.Brethren, let me ask you soberly, has there not been enough wickedness in England, and especially here in London, to make God angry with us? Has there not been serious disagreement between the dwellers in this city and God? Has there not been enough to make Him say, “I will walk no more with this people: I will greatly chasten them, and send heavy judgments upon them”?Let’s stop here for a moment to reflect upon these poignant questions that are being asked by Spurgeon. Consider our own nation. Has our nation fallen to words with God? Has our nation quarreled with Him about His will and His law? Have we removed prayer from our schools? Have we removed the 10 Commandments from our courthouses? Have we rushed perversely into sinful ways? Are there many in our nation who would have no God at all, who do their best to stamp out/destroy/eradicate His very name from the earth? Has there not been enough disagreement between the people of our nation and God to make Him say, “I will walk no more with this people: I will chasten them, and send heavy judgments of disease and economic devastation upon them”?These are sobering questions, questions that we really don’t want to address, questions that make us very uncomfortable. But maybe that’s the point. Maybe we’ve become too comfortable. Maybe God has sent this judgment precisely to make all of us extremely uncomfortable. Certainly, God would have the unbelievers of our nation to be uncomfortable; to stop them from carrying on in their wickedness, if but only for a season, and to cause them, perhaps, to consider heavenly things and to forsake their wicked ways.But what about us, as believers? Would God send this judgment to make us uncomfortable too? Well, the wickedness that we now see coursing throughout our nation didn’t happen overnight, and it didn’t occur in a vacuum. Are there not many who profess Christ in America? How, then, have so many evil atrocities overtaken our land? Have we who profess Christ become complacent? Have we become apathetic? Have we become desensitized to the sins of our nation? Have we been negligent in civic affairs? Have we failed to cast our vote? Have we declined to speak up when we had the opportunity (sins of omission)? Have we ourselves, from time to time, sat at the table of the world and joined in the revelry of Babylon (sins of commission)? Have we made no contribution in God’s anger toward our nation?Brethren, each of us would do well to contemplate these questions, and in deep humility, to ask the Holy Spirit to reveal to us those ways in which we may have provoked the Lord to judge our country.This is precisely what Spurgeon would urge his own congregation to do. He goes on to list several of the sins of England that, in his opinion, would be more than enough reason for God to visit London with His judgment of cholera. He says that:The rampant drunkenness of England is enough to provoke God to smite it with all His thunderbolts. Moreover, there can be no doubt that amongst all classes and ranks of men there is enough debauchery and lewdness to bring down Heaven’s wrath upon our city. The sins of the flesh are sure to be visited before long by that God who loathes iniquity, and in whose nostrils, fornication is a stench. He will not forever endure this abounding sin, for it is committed, be it remembered, in a country famous above all others for its love of home and its high esteem of the joys which cluster around family life. So long as this continues, we need not wonder if God’s health-giving providence should refuse to walk with us, for He cannot be agreed with a people who choose the way of unrighteousness.Note the specific sins that Spurgeon has here enumerated: rampant drunkenness, along with general debauchery, lewdness, and flagrant and prolific fornication, which inevitably leads to the degradation of the purity of family life. Do we not see the same depravity occurring within our own country; indeed, even more so?Surely the drunkenness of London in 1866 pales in comparison to the drug abuse that now infests every one of our major cities, and which has infiltrated even the most remote small towns and main streets of America. And what shall we say about the degradation of the purity of family life that results from general debauchery, lewdness, and fornication? Could Spurgeon have even conceived of a society that would actively promote and celebrate homosexual, transgender, and polyamorous relationships; a society that would redefine marriage itself and legalize the marriage of same-sex couples? Could he imagine a civilization that would murder over half a million of its unborn children every year?Thus, we must conclude with Spurgeon, that so long as these evils continue, we need not wonder if God’s health-giving providence should refuse to walk with us, for He cannot be agreed with a people who choose the way of unrighteousness.Now, to be clear, I’m not saying that we, as God’s people, are the ones who have brought this judgment of corona virus upon our nation. No, I’m not saying that. What I am saying is that as God’s people, we need to be willing to search ourselves to see if there be any unclean thing in us that may have acted as kindle or spark in igniting the fiery anger of God’s judgment.Brethren, this is what I’ve been trying to do. I’ve been trying to ask those hard questions. Have I contributed in any way to the degradation of the purity of family life? For those of you who might not know, I work in surgery, and my work takes me to many different hospitals throughout the Dallas metroplex. Over the last several weeks, I’ve overheard many conversations among doctors and nurses in which they’re complaining about the stress and the strain of having to participate in educating their kids because the schools are closed. What is being communicated quite clearly from these types of conversations is that children are really just a gigantic burden, and at least for these parents, they’re really not interested in doing the hard work of teaching and disciplining their children, they would rather leave that job to others. In other words, they’re just not really interested in being parents. And to my shame, I often don’t speak up. These are missed opportunities where I could have tried to elevate the purity of family life, but I didn’t. And I’ve been convicted of this and I’ve had to repent.To give another personal anecdote. There’s a surgeon I often work with who is catholic, and he’s quite passionate about protecting unborn life. He openly talks about the heinousness of abortion with those who are in the operating room while he’s working. He also frequently speaks out against the LGBTQ agenda and the devastating effects that their agenda is having on the home.Now, it’s important that we exercise a good deal of discernment in the conversations that we have at our workplace. But that being said, I greatly admire this surgeon’s boldness to speak truth, and it has challenged me to be more active in seeking out those opportunities, when appropriate.Moreover, since my work has been greatly reduced over the past several weeks, I’ve had a lot more time at home with my wife and kids, and I’ve been trying to make the best use of this time. I’ve been trying to reestablish things that I’ve somewhat been neglecting. For example, getting back into the habit of having regular and consistent worship time with the kids, going over catechism questions with them, and helping them to memorize Bible verses.Husbands/fathers, are you shepherding your family as you have been commanded to do? Are you washing your wife with the Word? Parents, are you pouring yourselves into your children? Are you diligently striving to raise your children in the fear and admonition of the Lord? If we fail to do things, should we be surprised that the world around us has such a low opinion of family life?Before we return to Spurgeon, allow me to make one more comment here. When it comes to engaging the culture and speaking out against the sins of our nation, our church, Cornerstone Baptist, does much that is to be commended. Just recently, the leadership of our church encouraged us to take part in the 40 Days For Life campaign, whose purpose is to help people in local communities end the injustice of abortion through prayer and fasting, community outreach and peaceful vigil. In addition to this, Justin dedicates a sermon every year to the subject of abortion and the sanctity of life, and he also speaks out, from time to time, against the LGBTQ agenda. Furthermore, I know that many of you are shepherding your families well and that you frequently engage with your neighbors, coworkers, friends, and extended family members so as to be a faithful witness to Christ. We even have a deacon who works for a law firm that is dedicated to defending our religious freedoms! There is much to be applauded when it comes to the leadership and to the faithfulness of the people at Cornerstone, and to the extent that we remain faithful in doing what God has called us to do with regard to our families, our church, and our nation, we are innocent of any national judgments that may befall us.Continuing on, Spurgeon gives another example of a great national sin that would provoke God to send the judgment of cholera upon England. He says,Brethren, if there be any one thing which yet provokes God above all this, it is the fact that, we have once again, as a nation, permitted Roman Catholicism to claim to be our national religion. In our Established Church the gospel is no longer dominant, though there is a remnant of good and faithful preachers who still linger, and who are like a handful of salt amid general putrefaction. We no longer have any right to speak of our national Protestant Church; it is not Protestant, for it tolerates all the heresies of Rome. Not many streets from the church in which we are assembled, you may have your candles, and your incense, along with all the other pomps and vanities of the detestable idolatry of Rome. That Romanism against which many bore testimony and thus burned at the stake as martyrs to the truth. That monster, that old wolf that tore out the palpitating hearts of your forefathers, you have suffered to come back into your house, and you are cherishing it, and feeding it with your children’s meat. Once again, the harlot of Babylon flaunts her lasciviousness in our faces almost without rebuke. It is the same spirit of Antichrist with which your fathers wrestled, and yet our country bears it, and even rejoices in it. Is it for nothing that God has favored this land with the gospel? Must all her light be turned to darkness? Must all the gains of the valiant men of old be lost by the laziness and cowardice of this thoughtless generation? In days past, men like John Knox, Hugh Latimer, and John Bradford, fought like lions for the truth, and are we to yield like cowards? Are the men of oak succeeded by the men of weeping willows? The men who cried, “No Romanism here!” now sleep within their tombs, and their descendants wear the yoke which their fathers scorned. Shall not God visit us for this?We must remember the context here. Spurgeon is speaking of his own nation, England, and the year is 1866. Without getting into the rich protestant history of Great Britain, suffice to say, much blood had been shed over the centuries to free the English people from the tyrannies of the Roman Catholic church. In light of this, Spurgeon is quite beside himself that the protestant church of England was losing all the ground that it had gained – and at so great a price – to the idolatry of Rome. For Spurgeon, this national sin of failing to protect the true gospel and failing to protect England’s godly heritage that had been passed down to them by the blood of martyrs, was the most provocative sin of all, and demanded that God come down to judge England with plague and pestilence.Once again, consider our own national roots. Those who first came to the shores of America were by and large seeking religious freedom whereby they could pursue holiness without fear of persecution by tyrant kings. As a result, our government and legal system was ultimately established upon Judeo-Christian values, as was our original education system. Of the first 100 colleges and universities in America, only a handful were not established by Christian denominations or by individuals who declared a religious purpose. This is our American heritage. But where are we now? Do our government officials fear God? Do our judges uphold justice? Do our public schools teach our children to meditate upon and delight in the law of the Lord day, or do our public schools teach our children to hate God, and to meditate upon and delight in whatever is right in their own eyes? We have not succumbed to the idolatry of Romanism, we have succumbed to the idolatry of Humanism; we have not merely allowed a perversion of the gospel to take hold in our society, we have allowed a hatred of the gospel to take hold in our society. Which is worse, a nation that will tolerate a perversion of the gospel, or a nation that will tolerate no gospel at all? If the England of Spurgeon’s day was worthy of national judgment, how much more is our own nation worthy? We must again agree with Spurgeon’s assessment.Can two walk together, except they be agreed? Rampant drunkenness, debauchery, fornication, failure of God’s people to protect the purity of marriage and family, failure of God’s people to protect their Godly heritage, etc. – these things are obviously contrary to the mind and will of God; thus, we cannot wonder if there should be a plague upon our nation.Verse 4Continuing on to verse 4, Spurgeon writes:THE SECOND QUESTION of the prophet is this, “Will a lion roar in the forest when he has no prey? Will a young lion cry out of his den if he has taken nothing?” Amos had observed that a lion does not roar without reason. By the use of this rhetorical question he brings forward the second truth, that when God speaks it is not without a cause, and especially when He speaks with a threatening voice. My brethren, our God is too gracious to send us this cholera without a motive. Are we to imagine that the Lord has done this for nothing? To accomplish no purpose? The great Lion of vengeance has not roared unless sin has provoked Him.Since I have already indicated our great national sins, I should like to ask those Christians who are present what role they may have played in these sins. You who profess to be people of God, and who recognize God’s hand in this visitation with cholera, I ask you how far has justice found provocation in you? What have you had to do, professing Christians, with the drunkenness of this city? Are you sure that you are quite clear of it? Have you both by your teaching and by your example shown to men that the religion of Jesus is not consistent with drunkenness? Oh, if you have been guilty, I pray you seek to be purged of this sin. You cannot wipe out all the national iniquity, but if each man reformed himself of this vice, by God’s grace, this great evil would cease.Let each Christian look at home. Have you in any way fallen into lightness of talk and thought, and so helped to increase the flood of this evil? Oh, my brethren, who among us must not confess to some guilt? Let us bow our heads in penitence, and seek to the God of all grace that He would not roar over this His prey, but be pleased to purge us from it that we may be clean in His presence.And as to this resurgent Romanism — have we spoken out about that? Or do we lend it our direct or even indirect support? God grant that if we have not repudiated it we may do so, and holding the truth in the love and power of it may we come out of Babylon, lest we be partakers of her plagues in the day when God shall visit her in His wrath. Such, I think, was what Amos indicated by his second question.Here is where we see Spurgeon urging his congregation to look inwardly, to see what role they may have played in the national sins that he previously mentioned. As we have already observed, this is the proper response of God’s people during a time of national judgment. We are to take inventory of our own lives, and see if we have lent direct or indirect support to those sins which have given cause for the Lion to roar over His prey.Verse 5Moving on to verse 5, Spurgeon writes:THE THIRD QUESTION is this: “Can a bird fall in a snare upon the earth where there is no trap for it?”You see the bird in flight that suddenly swoops to the ground and is taken into the net. Amos is here directing us to the fact that the bird would not be taken into the net unless the net had been purposely designed and laid out in order to catch it. It is taken because the snare was meant to take it, and Amos means to remind us that men do not die without a design on God’s part. It is the same thought as before, but it is held up in another light. The bird is not taken in the net without the design of the fowler, and men do not fall into the net of death without an intent on God’s part. Death, with all which it involves on earth and in eternity, is not sent by God without a reason. Forever banished from the Christian’s conversation is the word “chance.” God rules and overrules all things, and He does nothing without a motive. The insatiable archer is not permitted to shoot his bolts at random— every arrow that flies bears this inscription, “I have a message from God for you.” When God sends disease to walk through the streets at night, to stretch out His mighty but invisible hand, and take away a child, or a young man, and give over to the grave those who might have otherwise had a long life, do not for a moment think that the Lord has done so without some holy and wise purpose to have been accomplished by it. We must conclude that a purpose, consistent with the love and justice of God, lies hidden in this present harvest of death.Then follows a FOURTH QUESTION: “Shall one take up a snare from the earth and have taken nothing at all? In other words, the fowler does not remove the net until he has caught his bird. Thus, this fourth question implies that God has a purpose in sending tribulation, and we should expect that He will not remove the tribulation that He has sent until its full purpose has been accomplished. Whatever God has to say to London, if He be heard at once, He need not speak again, but if He is not heard the first time, there shall come a second voice, and yet another. The fowler doesn’t take away his net unless a bird has been caught by it, and God takes not away the trouble which He sends unless it has fulfilled the design for which it was sent. If you ask me what I think would be His design in sending us cholera, I believe it to be this—to wake up our indifferent population, to make them remember that there is a God, to make them more receptive to the influences of the gospel, to drive them to church, to prepare their minds to receive the Word, and moreover to startle Christians into energy and earnestness, that they may work while it is called today.My reason for selecting this subject at all was so that I might be a useful instrument in the hands of the Holy Spirit to aid in this great design. Brothers and sisters, you are acquainted with history, and you have reason to bless God, that as He has turned the pages of history, we have been spared many of those dreadful calamities which have occurred in this and other lands. Who can read the story of the plague of London without a shudder? Who has read of famines in this land without gratitude for the abundance of bread? Who can turn to the descriptions of past bloody wars without thankfulness that we live in better days? But it is much to be feared that a constant run of prosperity, perpetual peace and freedom from disease, may breed in our minds just what it has done in all human minds before, namely, security and pride, heathenism and forgetfulness of God. It is a most solemn fact that human nature can scarcely bear a long continuance of peace and health. It is almost necessary that we should be every now and then salted with affliction, lest we putrefy with sin.Let’s briefly stop to elaborate upon this point. Spurgeon states that a constant run of prosperity, perpetual peace, and freedom from disease will inevitably lead to a false sense of security, pride, heathenism, and forgetfulness of God. This is exactly what has happened to our nation. And for this reason, though I want this judgment to end, I pray that God would not remove His net until He has caught His bird. God has used COVID-19 to overthrow our high places, to topple over our many idols. How many in our nation have made an idol of sports and entertainment? How many have made an idol of material wealth? How many are addicted to ease, and creaturely comforts, and a life of indulgence, extravagance, and affluence? In so many ways, God has used COVID-19 to topple over our nation’s idols. But if after this judgment is removed, we immediately rush back to those high places and raise up those idols that the Lord toppled over so that we might worship them once again, then this judgment will only have been a foreshock of a more violent quaking – an even greater judgment – which will most assuredly come. God forbid that we should escape this judgment with our tail between our legs, only to return straightaway to our vomit, licking our lusts and lapping up the empty luxuries of this fallen world. We would hope that this mild rebuke would be enough to teach us to heed the words of the Preacher – that without the fear of the Lord, “all is vanity”. To quote Ezekiel Hopkins,“What is gold and silver but diversified earth, and hard and shining clay! The richest perfumes are but the clammy sweat of trees. The softest silks are but the excrement of a vile worm. The most expensive wines are nothing but puddle-water strained through a vine. Our choicest delicacies are but dirt, cooked and served up to us. The truth is, the world is much better in show than in substance. How vain is the world at the hour of death! Nor can these earthly pleasures free us from our cares and crosses. In God alone can be found true rest and satisfaction. Let us, then, turn the stream of our desires away from earth to heaven, for there alone can we find permanent and lasting satisfaction. Let us walk humbly with our God.” (Works, I:14-50)Amen. Let this judgment of COVID-19 be used to wean us all from the world; to remind us all to walk humbly with our God. Our prayer should be that the Lord’s will would be done; that the great Fowler would not gather up His net until He catch His fowl; that COVID-19 would not be removed, until it has accomplished all the purposes for which it was sent; that it would continue on its purifying path until we have all thoroughly learned its lesson. Lord, let us hear the voice of the Preacher that you have sent to us, let us hear the voice of COVID-19,Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter:Fear God and keep His commandments,For this is man’s all.For God will bring every work into judgment,Including every secret thing,Whether good or evil. (Ecclesiastes 12:13-14)Verse 6Finally, regarding verse 6 of Amos chapter 3, Spurgeon offers the following comments:Thus far, we have seen that it is no wonder if disease should come, we have learned that it does not come without a cause, we have seen that when it does come there is a design, and that it will not be removed unless that design be answered, and now we are prepared to take the further step, raised by THE FIFTH QUESTION, namely, that an awakening should be the result. “Shall the trumpet be blown in the city, and the people not be afraid?”During war in ancient times, there were men stationed upon watch towers, and when they saw the enemy coming the trumpet was sounded, and the people rushed to arms. The sound of a trumpet was the warning of war. This cholera is like the sound of a trumpet. Pestilence is a trumpet which must be heard; its echoes reach every citizen within the boundaries of a nation. In the darkest cellar in the most crowded haunt of vice; and in the palaces of kings, in the halls of the rich and great, the sound finds an entrance and the cry is raised, “The death plague is come! The cholera is among us!” All men are compelled to hear the trumpet-voice— if only they would heed its message! If only all of us would be aroused to search our own heart, and, above all, would fly to Christ Jesus, the great sacrifice for sin, and find in Him a rescue from the greater plague, the wrath to come!The great end and design of God, then, it seems, is to arouse the city, and that arousing should follow from the fact declared in THE LAST QUESTION: “Shall there be calamity in a city, and the Lord has not done it?”Shall there be cholera in the city, and God has not done it? My soul cowered under the majesty of that question, as I read it; it seemed to stretch its black wings over my head, and had I not known them to be the wings of God, I would have been afraid. The text talked with me in this fashion: — It is not the cholera which has slain these hundreds, the cholera is but the sword; the hand that directs and wields this sword of cholera is the true master of death. God himself is traversing London. God, the great Judge of all, at whose belt swing the keys of death and hell, the mysterious One whose voice made the stars, and can quench them at His will; — it was none other than He who walked down our crowded courts, and entering our lanes and alleys called one after another the souls of men to their last account! God is abroad! God has come down, and is going through this city. Tread solemnly when you go to your business tomorrow morning; you walk the streets where God has walked. The last time this disease was here I had a pervading sense of the presence of God wherever I went. It seemed to me as if the veil between time and eternity were more transparent than usual. If anything ought to compel our attention to God’s voice, if anything ought to make us feel His rod, it is the fact that it is not the rod that smites, but God Himself that uses the rod.Spurgeon ends his verse-by-verse exposition on a very sobering note. He admits that verse 6 rattled him at first, for he recognized that God, not cholera, was the One taking those many lives in London. Cholera was simply the means that God chose to use, the instrument by which to sound His voice among the people. Likewise, COVID-19 is an instrument of God, a trumpet blast that is meant to awaken both believer and unbeliever alike. For the believer, it is a disciplinary trumpet, a reminder that this life soon shall pass, and only what is done for Christ shall last. For the unbeliever, it is a threatening trumpet, a warning to repent before a greater judgment comes.I will leave the closing remarks to Spurgeon himself, and will not add any additional comments as they would only serve to diminish the power of his words.Concluding remarksMy dear hearers, I will speak as God’s mouth to you as the Holy Spirit shall enable me. Is not the Lord speaking to all of us both saints and sinners, and warning us to be agreed with him? O you who are his blood-bought people, believers in Jesus, is there any sin that has parted you from communion with Christ? Have you fallen into anything which has provoked the Spirit, so that His comforts are withdrawn? If so, by deep humility and earnest prayer, flee to the foot of the cross of the Lord Jesus, and pray— “Return, Oh heavenly Dove, return, sweet messenger of rest;I hate the sins that made You mourn, and drove You from my breast.”And for those of you who are not His people, can you bear to be at disagreement with God? How can He walk with you? You ask His protection, but how can you expect it if you are not agreed with Him? If two men walk together, there must be a place where they meet each other. Do you know where that is? It is at the cross. Sinner, if you trust in Jesus, God will meet you there. That is the place where true at-one-ment is made between God and sinners. If you go to Jesus in repentance, saying, “Have mercy upon my iniquity; wash me in Your blood,” you shall be agreed with God, and then you may look forward to living or dying with equal delight, for if we live, we shall walk with God on earth, and if we die we shall walk with God above.Brethren, while the lion roars, should we not remove any evil which may have caused His anger to burn? Christian, search yourself now and purge out the old leaven. The head of the Jewish household, when the feast of unleavened bread drew near, not only put away the loaves of bread ordinarily used in the household, but he also took a candle and searched every part of the house, lest there should be even a crumb of leaven anywhere. He cleansed it all out. Likewise, Christian, as this is God’s visitation, ask for the candle of the Holy Spirit to discover any little sin. Let any little self-indulgence into which we have fallen be conscientiously given up, and for the sake of that dear Savior who denied Himself every comfort for us, let us take up our cross and follow Him, determined that if the Lion shall roar, it shall not be because of any prey in us.And oh, sinner, against whom God has been roaring, do you not remember His own words, “Beware, you that forget God, lest I tear you in pieces, and there be none to deliver.” Who can remove the iniquity which provokes the Lord to jealousy, except the dying Savior, the Lord Jesus? He has put away sin by bearing it in His own body, and if you trust Him, there shall be no sin in you to provoke God.Moreover, the Lord our God speaks to us by His providence, and says, “Submit yourself, this day, to God’s design.” The great Fowler has spread the net: He will not take away that net until He has caught the bird. Be caught in it; fly not from your God. If He puts out even an angry hand, fly into it: there is no shelter from an angry God but in the pierced hand of His dear Son. When vengeance would strike a heavy blow, the closer you can get to it, the less will it wound you. Get close to God in Christ; cling to Him, and He will not destroy you. Fly to Jesus! Sinner, fly! Be taken in God’s net. Say to God, “What would You have me to do? Would You have me to be Yours? Here I am, Lord; before You take me in the nets of death, take me in the nets of grace. Before the snares of hell prevent me, let the blessed snare of Your eternal love sweetly entangle me. I am Yours, do as You will.”Be awake, Christian, and be aware of God’s design, for the trumpet is sounding, and when the trumpet sounds, the Christian must not slumber. Let the presence of God infuse into you a more than ordinary courage and zeal. My brethren, I charge you, as you love Jesus, as you know the value of your own soul – now, if never before, be in earnest for the salvation of the sons of men. Men are always dying, time like a mighty rushing stream is always bearing them away, but now they are hurried down the torrent in increasing numbers. If you and I do not exert ourselves to teach them the gospel, upon our heads must be their blood. We know that it is God’s work to save, but He works by instruments, and we have His own solemn word for it: “If the watchman fails to warn them, they shall perish, but their blood will I require at the watchman’s hands.” Are there no houses in your neighborhood where Jesus is unknown? Is there no court, no lane, no alley near to where you reside, without God and without Christ? Have you no friends who are unconverted? Have you no acquaintance unsaved? It is a great mercy when the bell tolls if we can say of those who die, “I did all I could to save them from ruin.”As for myself, I know that there are some of you here, who, if you be lost, are not lost for lack of warning, nor for lack of teaching. I have set before you life and death; I have threatened you in God’s name, and I have directed you to the precious blood of Jesus. Years ago, there seemed to be some hope about you, but it was like the morning cloud and the early dew; for you are still unsaved. When I heard the other day that Mrs. So-and-So was dead, and that she died of cholera, I could not lament, for she was one who had long feared God. When they told me that a worthy young man had fallen, I was sorrowful to have lost so good a student from the college, but I was thankful that one who had served his God so well in his youth had gone to his rest; but if I heard of the death of some of you, it would cause me unmingled grief and fear. Some of you have been sitting here for years who will, I fear, go out of this church to destruction— you know you will, unless you are changed. If you die as you now are you have nothing to expect but a fearful judgment and a fiery indignation. Some of you know well the result of sin, and yet you choose it; your consciences prick you often, and yet you run against them; you have been alarmed and so awakened that it seems impossible that you can continue as you are; but alas, you will not turn and your end is coming.My hearer, it is terrible to think of your doom. God has warned you that He will meet you in another world, and when He does, you will not be able to say that He did not speak openly and honestly with you during your time in this world. You will be speechless, because the trumpet was sounded and you did not heed the warning; God was in the city, but you would not hear Him. Death spoke as His minister, but you plugged your ears because you were resolved to die, and your heart was set on mischief. You scorned eternal life and chose destruction for the sake of a few worthless pleasures, or a deceitful darling lust which will treacherously stab you through your heart; you let Jesus go and heaven go, and all this for a moment’s pleasure! Ah, my hearer, you shall have much to answer for. I pray that you will not venture into eternal wrath. Give these words some consideration, I beg you, and as you consider them, may the Holy Spirit fasten them as nails in a sure place, and may you seek the Lord while He may be found, and call upon Him while He is near, for this is His word to you, “As I live, says the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked would turn from his way and live.”Amen. May the Lord bless these words to your soul.

Providential AfflictionsBy Breck Wheelock, April 7, 2020Hello out there. My name is Breck Wheelock and I would like to warmly welcome you to today's podcast episode in which I will be discussing the doctrine of God's Providence, and we will be taking a particularly close look at providential afflictions. I think that this is a timely thing to study given that the entire globe right now is undergoing affliction with COVID-19. Why would God decree this global affliction? Why does God decree afflictions at all? How are we to respond to the afflictions that He has decreed for our own lives? These are the types of questions that we will consider in today's episode.Let's begin our study of God's Providence by looking to the Heidelberg catechism. Question 27 of the Heidelberg catechism asks, “What do you understand by the Providence of God?” And the answer that it provides is as follows: “Providence is the almighty and ever present power of God by which He upholds as with His hand, heaven and earth and all creatures and so rules them that leaf and blade, rain and drought, fruitful and lean years, food and drink, health and sickness, prosperity and poverty, all things in fact come to us not by chance but from His Fatherly hand.Following this, question 28 asks, “How does the knowledge of God's creation and Providence help us?” And again, the answer that it provides: “We can be patient when things go against us; we can be thankful when things go well; and for the future, we can have good confidence in our faithful God and father that nothing will separate us from His love. All creatures are so completely in His hand that without His will, they can neither move nor be moved.”The answer to that first question (question 27 of the Heidelberg catechism) provides a fairly extensive and comprehensive definition of Providence, and it's really quite excellent. And then, the answer that is given in question 28 is meant to answer how this doctrine of Providence can be helpful to us, and it provides three reasons. It says: (1) We can be patient when things go against us; (2) We can be thankful when things are going well; and (3) for the future, we can have confidence in our faithful God, knowing that nothing can ever ultimately separate us from His love.Kevin DeYoung, in his book, The Good News We Almost Forgot, provides some commentary on these questions and answers that we just looked at in the Heidelberg catechism. I'd like to read, just briefly, some of the comments that he makes. DeYoung writes:For many Christians, coming to grips with God's all-encompassing providence requires a massive shift in how they look at the world. It requires changing our vantage point from seeing the cosmos as a place where man rules and God responds, to beholding a universe where God creates and constantly controls with sovereign love and providential power. We can look at providence through the lens of human autonomy and our idolatrous notions of freedom, and see a mean God moving tsunamis and Kings like chess pieces in some kind of perverse divine playtime. Or we can look at providence through the lens of scripture, and we can see a loving God counting the hairs on our heads and directing the sparrows in the sky so that we might live life unafraid. “What else can we wish for ourselves,” Calvin wrote, “if not even one hair can fall from our head without God's will?”There are no accidents in your life. Every economic downturn, every phone call in the middle of the night, every oncology report, has been sent to us from the God who sees all things, decrees all things, and loves us more than we know. Whether it means the end of suffering or the extension of our suffering, God in His providence is for us and never against us.Providence is for our comfort. (1) Providence is for our comfort because we can be patient when things go against us. Joseph's imprisonment seems pointless, but it all makes sense now. Slavery in Egypt, makes perfect sense now. Even killing the Messiah makes sense now. So maybe God knows what He's doing with the pain and suffering and afflictions in our lives. (2) Providence is for our comfort because we can be thankful when things go well. How often do we pray for safe travel, or for healing, or for a spouse, or for a job, and then we never get around to thanking God on the other side of that blessing? If we truly believe in providence, we will view success and prosperity not as products of a good upbringing, or of good looks, or of good intelligence, but ultimately as the unmerited favor of a good God. (3) Providence is for our comfort because we can have confidence for the future. The fact is, all your worries – they may come true! But God will never be untrue to you. He will always lead you and listen to you.God does often work in mysterious ways. We may not always understand why life is what it is, but God’s providence helps us face the future unafraid, to know that nothing moves - however mysterious - except by the hand of that great Unmoved Mover, who is our Father in heaven.Amen.Kevin Young is exactly right, as are the answers provided by the Heidelberg catechism. The doctrine of Providence should provide us with tremendous comfort. What if the world was being governed by chance? (And yes, I know that this is a contradiction in terms. How can chance be governed? But just stick with me for a moment.) Things look bad enough now. We often look at the events in our own lives, or the events of the world, and we wonder what is the reason for this? What is going on right now? Indeed, is that not what many of us are thinking as we look out upon the world and see this global pandemic of COVID-19? What is the reason for this? But at least as Christians, we know that there is in fact a reason! Can you imagine a world in which there was no reason? A world that is governed by chance? (Again, a contradiction in terms.) This is the world of the evolutionary naturalist. And it's a hopeless world because there is no rhyme or reason as to why human beings go through suffering. In fact, there's not even a reason as to why there are human beings at all. But because of the doctrine of providence, as Christians, we know and take comfort in the fact that God is working all things according to the counsel of his own will. (Ephesians 1:11) Indeed, we know that for those who love God, all things are working together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose. (Romans 8:28) And again, if God is for us, who can be against us? (Romans 8:31)These promises and blessings that we take comfort in are a result of God's Providence. And in light of these great promises and blessings, we are to own the truth of God's Providence, not merely to acknowledge it. To quote Charles Spurgeon:“Blessed is that man who is done with chance, who never speaks of luck, but believes that from the least, even to the greatest, all things are ordained by the Lord. We dare not leave out the least event. The creeping of an aphid upon a rosebud is as surely arranged by the decree of Providence as is the March of a pestilence through a nation. Believe this. For if the least thing is omitted from the Supreme government, so may the next be, and the next, until nothing is left in the divine hands. There is no place for chance, since God fills all things. When we own the truth of God's Providence, we are able to say with Job – the Lord providentially gives, and the Lord providentially takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.”A very timely quote.Now, since all things have been ordained by God, we are not to murmur or complain against His Providence. If God is in control of all the things that happen in the world and that happen to us, then to complain or murmur about our circumstances is really to complain or murmur against God. Please don't misunderstand what I'm saying here. I'm not saying that when we're going through an affliction that we can't cry out to God and even at times say, “How long, Oh Lord, shall I have to endure this? When will you deliver me?” We see ample examples of that in the Psalms. What I am saying, is that we need to follow the example of our Lord in the garden of Gethsemane, “Not my will, but Your will be done.” That is to be our mentality as Christians. We are not to be constantly ranting and raving about this, that, and the other thing. We should not be characterized as one who is always bitter, or angry, or grumbling, or discontent about our lot in life, and/or discontent about what's going on in the world around us. As ambassadors of the King. We don't want to give the impression that our King is impotent, or incompetent, or even aloof. This would be to misrepresent our sovereign Lord. We don't want to give the impression to others that our God lacks power, or lacks wisdom, or just doesn't care when it comes to His people or when it comes to the events that are taking place in the world around us. Again, that would be to misrepresent our sovereign Lord.We are not to murmur or complain against God's Providence; indeed, we are to trust in God's Providence. To quote Thomas Watson:“God is to be trusted when His Providences seem to run contrary to His promises. God promised David to give him the crown, to make him King, but then Providence turns contrary to that promise. David was pursued by Saul. He was in danger of his life, but all this, while it was David's duty to trust God. The Lord will oftentimes bring to pass His promise by what would seem to be a contradictory providence. Consider acts chapter 27, in which Paul was thrust into a violent storm at sea while being transported, along with many others, to Rome under a Roman guard. God promised Paul the lives of all that were with him in that ship, but now the Providence of God seems to run quite contrary to what He promised. The winds continue to blow, the storm continues to rage, the ship splits and breaks apart. But it was through this that God fulfilled His promise upon the broken pieces of the ship. They all came safely to shore. Therefore, trust God when Providence seems to run quite contrary to His promises.”A great quote by Thomas Watson.Not only are we to trust in God's providence, but we are actually told to rest in God's providence. We're not to be of the mindset that thinks, “Oh yeah, I know that God's in control. I get it. But I don't like this, and I'm going to stomp my feet and throw a spiritual temper tantrum. I'm going to kick against the goads.” No, that is not to be our mindset. Again, I'm not saying that we can't be frustrated when we're going through some kind of affliction, and I'm not saying that we can't bring those frustrations boldly before the throne of grace and ask that we would be delivered, and ask that He might give us a reprieve from our afflictions. Of course that's okay. We are free to vent our frustrations before the Lord, but we are always to lay them at His feet and say, “Not my will, but Your will be done.” That is resting in His providence. We are to cultivate a calm and resting temperament, a calm and resting disposition.No matter what befalls us, our default mentality should be to accept whatever happens to us as the absolute best thing for us. Whatever God has planned for my life, it is good. Every single detail of it is good. In fact, it's not only good, it is the best plan. There could be no better plan for my life because God is the one who planned it. We are to implicitly assume that God is working all things to the maximum display of His glory, which is our chief end. This is the heart of Psalm 46 whatever our present providential circumstances might be, “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore, we will not fear, though the earth gives way, though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble at its swelling. [Though the whole world is having to endure the plague of COVID-19.] Be still and know that I am God. [Rest in me, be still and know that I am God.] I will be exalted among the nations. I will be exalted in the earth.” (Psalm 46:1-3, 10)And so we are to trust in God's providence, we are to rest in God's providence, but more than this, we are to improve upon His providences by remembering His faithfulness in the past. Often, we are so anxious about the future that we neglect to remember past providences when He has delivered us from affliction, time and time again. We want to hit the fast-forward button, when the doctrine of Providence would have us hit the rewind button. We would all like to hit the fast-forward button right now when it comes to this COVID-19 pandemic. When is it going to end? How much damage is it ultimately going to do? How many people is it going to kill? How much destruction is it going to wreak upon our economy, and upon the economy of the world? On and on the questions go. We find ourselves wanting to press the fast-forward button, but we should instead be pressing the rewind button. What do I mean by that? Look back upon your life and see how the Lord has delivered you over and over again when you were going through a trial or tribulation or an affliction. When you look to your past, you see that He has been faithful. He has been exactly what He says He is – faithful to His people. Thus, if we press the rewind button and we see nothing but faithfulness, why would we think that the future is going to hold anything different?God has given each of us a memory – which is a tremendous grace – and He expects us to use it. How many times are we exhorted in the Psalms to remember what He has done in the past? Considered Psalm 77, a Psalm of Asaph. Asaph begins this Psalm very downtrodden and dejected, but then there's a shift in which he reminds himself to remember how the Lord has delivered him in past afflictions. He says,“I cry aloud to God and He will hear me. In the day of my trouble I seek the Lord; in the night my hand is stretched out without wearying; my soul refuses to be comforted. When I remember God, I moan; when I meditate, my spirit faints. You hold my eyelids open; I am so troubled that I cannot speak. I consider the days of old, the years long ago. I said, ‘let me remember my song in the night; let me meditate in my heart.’ Then my spirit made a diligent search: [See, he's searching his memory to remember those times when the Lord was faithful and he continues.] ‘Will the Lord spurn forever and never again be favorable? Has His steadfast love forever ceased? Are His promises at an end for all time? Has God forgotten to be gracious? Has He in anger shut up His compassion?’ Then I said, ‘I will appeal to this, to the years of the right hand of the Most High.’ I will remember the deeds of the Lord; yes, I will remember Your wonders of old. I will ponder all Your work, and meditate on Your mighty deeds. Your way, Oh God, is Holy. What God is great like our God? You are the God who works wonders; You have made known Your might among the peoples. You with your arm redeemed your people, the children of Jacob and Joseph.” (Ps. 77:1-15)Asaph began the Psalm downcast, but once he remembered the faithfulness of God in his own life, and the faithfulness of God to His people throughout history, it lifted his spirit and he was no longer downcast. He was comforted, and we are expected to do the same [to find solace in remembering past providential deliverances].But let us also consider the flip side of this. What happens when we neglect to remember the past providences of God, the ways in which He has delivered us from past afflictions? David speaks of this in Psalm 106. Beginning at verse 7, David says,Our fathers, when they were in Egypt, did not consider Your wondrous works; they did not remember the abundance of Your steadfast love, but they rebelled by the sea, at the Red Sea. Yet He saved them for His name's sake, that He might make known His mighty power. He rebuked the Red Sea, and it became dry, and He led them through the deep as through a desert. So He saved them from the hand of the foe, and redeemed them from the power of the enemy. And the waters covered their adversaries; not one of them was left. Then they believed His words; they sang His praise. But they soon forgot His works, and they did not wait for His counsel. But they had a wanton craving in the wilderness, and they put God to the test in the desert; He gave them what they asked for, but He sent a wasting disease among them…They made a calf in Horeb and worshiped a metal image. They exchanged the glory of God for the image of an ox that eats grass. They forgot God, their Savior, who had done great things in Egypt, wondrous works in the land of Ham, and awesome deeds by the Red Sea. Therefore, He said He would destroy them – had not Moses, His chosen one, stood in the breach before Him, to turn away His wrath from destroying them. (Ps. 106:7-15, 19-23)Clearly, we see that when God delivers us in times of trouble, in times of tribulation, in times of affliction, He expects us to remember when He does these things and even to teach them to our children, and to our children's children! But He expects us to remember so that we can improve upon these providences; so that when the next affliction comes, we're not taken aback. We've “been there and done that,” and we’re ready to put our trust in the Lord once again.Moving on, let us now observe that providential affliction is one of the most efficient ways of producing the fruits of righteousness in the Christian. Psalm 119 verses 67 and 71 says, “Before I was afflicted, I went astray, but now I keep your word. It is good for me that I have been afflicted, that I may learn your statutes.” Here David admits that it was good that the Lord afflicted him because otherwise he would have continued to go astray. But because he was afflicted, it caused David to stop wandering, to go back to the word of God and to learn His statutes. David was sanctified and made righteous through his affliction. Trials and tribulations, persecutions and provocations – these things are essential for producing the fruit of the Spirit. For instance, how is the Spirit to produce in us the fruit of longsuffering if we never experienced any suffering? How is the Spirit to produce perseverance, hope, patience, meekness, self-control, etc., apart from the means of conflict, apart from the irritating frictions of the world, apart from affliction? This is why James 1:2-4 says, “My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.” Again, Romans 5:3-4, “But we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; and perseverance, character; and character, hope.”The Lord uses abrasive experiences as a means of exfoliating the Christian’s flesh (his remaining sin) so that the radiance of the new man might be increasingly brought to the surface. As a skillful sculptor, God uses the chisel of trial to chip away at the Christian’s exterior so that the interior image of Christ progressively takes shape and comes into form. As the master potter, God uses the hands of affliction to press against the Christian’s clay body for the purpose of preparing him for glory as a vessel of mercy.Furthermore, providential afflictions provide a healthy litmus test for the Christian who can easily become complacent, unsuspecting of the gaping holes that exist in his faith. To quote William Jay, “Afflictions are to the soul, like the rains to the house; we suspected no apertures [no holes in the roof] until the droppings through told the tale.” What William Jay is saying here is that if we were to imagine our faith as a house, we often think, “Oh yeah, the roof is sound, it's good.” But then an affliction comes our way and it starts pouring down upon us and suddenly we see how many leaking holes there are in the roof of our faith.Peter remarks that the authenticity of our faith is like gold and it must be tested in the fires of affliction if the impurities are to rise to the surface and the dross is to be removed.First Peter 1:6-7: “In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials, that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”Trials have a unique way of revealing to us what is truly in our heart, who we really are, and what we really believe. Trials slap our faith in the face to see if our faith will turn the other cheek. Again, to quote William Jay, “I little thought that I was so proud, until I was required to stoop. I little thought I was so impatient, until I was required to wait. I little thought I was so easily provoked, until I met with such an offense. I little thought I was so rooted to earth, until so much force was exerted to detach me from it.”Being confronted by affliction exposes our weaknesses so that we might grow in the faith and become more useful. Knowledgeable Christians are valuable, but Christians who have had their faith tried and purified are invaluable. Think of Job, or David, or Daniel, or Paul, how useful these men were precisely because they had their faith so severely tested. As David writes in Psalm 40:1-3, “I waited patiently for the Lord; and He inclined to me, and He heard my cry. He also brought me up out of a horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and He set my feet upon a rock, and established my steps. He has put a new song in my mouth – praise to our God; many will see it and fear, and will trust in the Lord.” Here David is saying that he was delivered from a horrible pit, a miry clay. He had been providentially afflicted, but the Lord delivered him. And what was the result of having gone through this affliction? He was now more useful to the Lord. A new song had been put into his mouth. He was praising his God in a new way so that others would see it and fear the Lord, and they too would put their trust in Him.Consider also 2 Corinthians 1:3-4 where Paul writes, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.” By enduring affliction, we become more useful. God comforts us in our tribulation and it then prepares us to do the same for others who go through similar tribulations. Consider someone who has been diagnosed with cancer and has to go through extensive cancer treatment, yet the Lord delivers him through it. This person is now uniquely equipped to help his brethren who might undergo similar trials and testing. This cancer survivor has become more useful because he was afflicted, and the Lord delivered him through that affliction.Undergoing distressing and trying experiences is a remarkably effective means of the Spirit for working out our sanctification. By faithfully enduring hardship, our usefulness is increased exponentially during times of affliction. As we exercise our faith (and I'm going to play on that word exercise here) during times of affliction, as we work out our own salvation with fear and trembling, our spiritual muscles are built up through the repetition of putting them to work against an opposing resistance. Being thus spiritually stout and able bodied, we become veteran Christian soldiers who are now well-equipped to share in carrying the load of others to assist in bearing the heavy burdens of our brethren.Let's observe one last quote from William Jay, and this is one of my favorite quotes of all time when it comes to providential afflictions. William Jay writes,“The oak that has been scathed with lightning attracts the notice of passengers more than all the other trees of the forest. [Let's just pause for a moment because I love the imagery here. He's saying, imagine you're walking through a forest and you see an oak tree that was struck by lightning – that's going to cause you to stop and take a closer look, isn't it?] Trouble awakens the attention and draws forth inquiry. [When people see someone who is troubled, it causes them to stop and take notice, just as in the case of the lightning-struck oak tree] The Christian is never so well circumstanced to glorify the Lord as when he is in the fires of affliction. There he can display the tenderness of God's care, the truth of His promises, the excellencies of the gospel, the support of divine grace. In the review of my own varied intercourse with society, I confess nothing so vividly and powerfully affects me as what I recollect to have met with from pious individuals exemplifying the spirit and resources of Christianity under bodily disease and the losses, bereavements, and disappointments of life. [What William Jay is saying here is that as a pastor, when he has had to go and visit people in his congregation who are suffering from disease, or they've suffered some tremendous loss, or they're undergoing bereavement or some disappointment in life, when he sees them being faithfully content, nothing so impacts him as when he encounters such faith.] Oh, when I have visited such a martyr, such a witness for God; when I have found him standing in the evil day like a rock in a raging current with sunshine on its brow; when I have observed him full of tribulation in the world and having peace in Christ; mourning more for his sins than his sorrows, afraid of dishonoring his profession by impatience and unbelief; more concerned to have his crosses sanctified than to have them removed; turning a tearful eye toward the Inflictor and saying, ‘I know Lord, that your judgments are right, and that You in faithfulness have afflicted me; just and true are all Your ways, oh You, King of saints; You have done all things well.’ When I have witnessed religion – and I have witnessed it – accomplishing achievements like these, I have said to it, as I withdrew, ‘I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees You.’ As the sky is only decked with stars in the night; so the Christian shines most in the darkness of affliction.Powerful, powerful quote.Finally, consider how the good shepherd uses the prod of pain and the goad of suffering to drive His sheep toward the heavenly pastures of the new Jerusalem; to remind His people that they are exiles, aliens, foreigners, sojourners; to avoid loitering on their pilgrimage to the Celestial City.2 Corinthians 4:16-18, “Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal.”Trials and tribulations and suffering taught Paul to have an eternal perspective. He understood the importance of disciplining his body and bringing it into subjection lest he be disqualified from obtaining an imperishable crown.Philippians 4:11-13, “I have learned in whatever state I am, to be content: I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound. Everywhere and in all things I have learned both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”Paul had learned to be content in all things; to rely on Christ’s strength to fight the good fight and press on to glory. And this is the example that every Christian is to emulate.Romans 8:18, “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.”In summary, we are to find comfort in God's providence; we are to own the truth of God's providence, the good, the bad, and the ugly; we are not to complain or murmur against His providences, rather, we are to trust and even to rest in His providence; we are to improve upon His providences by remembering His faithfulness in the past. Providential afflictions are a means of producing the fruit of the Spirit; testing the genuineness and the strength of our faith; sanctifying us and making us more useful; and keeping our eyes on heavenly eternal things, rather than on earthly temporal things.Brethren, during this time of pandemic there has been much discussion over what constitutes an “essential business” – what should remain open and what should be closed for the time being. Well, I would submit to you that spiritually speaking, all of us as Christians have essential business that needs to continue. We are to be faithful to Christ, no matter what our circumstances might be.I'll leave you with this. Even if our blood should be contaminated by disease and pestilence, the blood of Christ is perfect and pure, so as to conquer death and hell. Thus, we as Christians can say, “Where is your sting, oh COVID-19?For this perishable body must put on the imperishable and this mortal body must put on immortality. When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written, “Death is swallowed up in victory. Oh death, where is your victory? Oh death, where is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain. (I Corinthians 15:53-58).Amen.May the Lord bless you and keep you. Thank you for listening. I hope this has been profitable for your soul.

Intro…Welcome to the Cornerstone Baptist church podcast. My name is Justin Wheeler, I am the preaching pastor for Cornerstone Baptist Church in Wylie, TX.It is April 2020 and we are one month in to the new normal of working from home, keeping our social distance from one another, trying to learn how to be the church when we can’t meetup and can’t gather together for worship. So far, 2020 has shaped up to be a very challenging year and we are just 3 months in.But in the midst of this challenge the promises that God has made to those who trust in Christ has not changed. That’s what I want to talk to you about today. Actually, I want to follow up on last week’s podcast where we looked at the first half of Peter’s introduction to his first letter.Last week, we talked about the living hope that we have in Christ and how this hope motivates our worship of God, even in the face of trials. But this week, I want to look at the future hope that Peter tells us about; a hope that takes the form of our Christian inheritance.I Peter 1:3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, 5 who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. 6 In this you rejoice,Transition…Now, one of the things that is important to keep in mind as we read this passage is that the main idea is the living hope that we have as believers in Christ. That’s the main point of this passage and all the surrounding truths serve to explain the depth of our hope. Our Hope as believers is not affected by the circumstances of difficult days because it is rooted in God’s mercy.COVID-19 has taken our world by storm and it has caused panic in some, fear in others, caution in most; but whatever the outcome of our current situation, nothing can take away the hope we have in Christ. Our hope extends beyond this life and looks to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading. Our inheritance is being guarded by God’s power and it will be revealed to us in the time to come.What exactly does this mean and how does it strengthen our hope in the midst of this trial?Podcast Focus…Let’s talk about the Power of HopeHope is a powerful thing. Hope causes us to get completely emotionally wrapped up in the prospect of something great happening even despite evidence to the contrary.With hope in our hearts we can not only live but also endure great difficulty. Cancer patients fight to live because they have a driving hope that health is just around the corner. Soldiers battle on against all odds driven by the hope that soon the bullets will stop flying and there will be peace. Hope fuels in us a powerful desire to face the trials of life because hope holds out the promise of peace and rest.But what is hope? I can’t remember who said/wrote it, but somewhere along the way I picked up this definition of hope. Hope is faith in the future tense. When we talk about having faith, especially saving faith, we are saying that we trust that what Christ did for us on the cross is sufficient to rescue us from our sin, bring us to God, and keep us there forever.Our faith as Christians, is based on Christ’s person, Christ’s work, Christ’s teaching, and Christ’s resurrection. All of these things are in the past, which means that our faith looks back and says, “I believe these things to be true and I accept these truths as the basis of my hope.”But hope is faith carried forward. Our faith not only has a past element but also a future element. We have hope that what took place in the past is true and that what has been promised us in the future is true and both of these will help us to live in the present.And that is exactly what Peter wants us to do, to live in light of our present suffering with hope that helps us to overcome. Peter wants us to live in this present life of sorrow with one eye on the past (The finished work of Christ) and with one eye on the future (God’s promise of future rest for His people).So the question we have to ask is, “What has God promised us?” and Peter says that God has promised us an amazing inheritance.I don’t know about you but the prospect of receiving an inheritance has never been part of my expectation. It’s a really exciting idea but it’s just not something that I have put much thought into. My family is not wealthy so it’s just not part of my expectation, but every one of us would have to admit that the idea is pretty powerful.For instance, imagine that you get a random phone call this afternoon from a number you do not recognize and rather than ignoring it you decide to answer the phone. Then as engage in conversation with the person on the other end you learn that you are the great, great grandchild of a very wealthy Texas oil tycoon who just passed away and left you a portion of his $5 billion estate.The prospect of an inheritance like this is enough to completely change your outlook on life, but even if this was legit, how secure would such an inheritance be?There are circumstances to life in this fragile and fallen world that would render this type of inheritance pretty worthless. For instance, what good is billions of dollars if you don’t have long to live? What good is money when what you need is a cure? Or to quote Jesus, “What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?”The level of excitement and joy that wells up in our hearts at the prospect of an earthly inheritance should be magnified by billions as we consider the heavenly inheritance that God has promised us, because nothing can take His inheritance away from us.Peter tells us that our Inheritance can never perish.Have you ever had the opportunity to go back to a well-known place that you haven’t seen for 20 years or so, maybe a childhood home or something like that. When you were a kid it just seemed like that house was the most stable thing in the world. But after 20 years it just doesn’t look the same. The paint is dull, the roof is sagging, the vitality that was once there is now gone. It has succumbed to the slow decay of time like all things will.But Peter tells us here that our inheritance as born again Christians is imperishable. This word means that it is impervious to corruption and death. Our inheritance cannot perish. Our future as Christians, the future that goes beyond life in this world, is pervious to every form of corruption and decay. It is imperishable.Our inheritance can never spoilTo defile something means to take something pure and to make it impure in some way. The Prodigal son spoiled his inheritance when he spent it all on sinful pleasures that did not last.Some of us have experienced a huge depletion of our retirement savings. In a matter of days, the market crashed and the money we had watched build up over a period of years/decades was just gone. In a sense, our earthly inheritance has been defiled.But Peter says that the inheritance that God has promised us is free from such defilement. It cannot be tainted by the crash in the market, nor can it be affected by our own sinful choices. The inheritance that God promises to us is impervious to defilement of any kind. On the day that we receive it will be pure and it will remain pure for eternity.Our inheritance will never fadeIsaiah 40:8 tells us, “The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of the Lord stands forever.” Peter quotes this verse at the end of the first chapter to show the fading quality of the earth in comparison to the unfading quality of God’s Word. Flowers die and their beauty is forgotten. Israel’s inheritance was subject to the slow fade, but ours will never fade away.Like an early spring bloom our inheritance will never cease to be striking in beauty. It will always exist in its most beautiful and vibrant form. We will never tire of it and it will never run out. It will never lose its pristine quality.But how is it possible for something to remain in such a perfect state?Our inheritance is in HeavenIt is an inheritance that is kept in heaven for you. In this instance we see the true nature of the difference that exists between our Christian inheritance and a worldly inheritance. Ours is kept in Heaven.There is a reason that sin cannot affect it, there is a reason that time cannot take its toll. It is in Heaven, in the presence of God, and it is being kept there until the time comes for it to be revealed.When will that be? Well, we don’t know, but we do know that it is ready.Our inheritance is readyThe term ready implies that there is no reason for delay save the Father’s purpose. He is not laboring to build something for us so that we have to wait until He finishes the job, no our inheritance is ready. It is finished. Nothing needs to be added to it.So why is it not here? Because the appointed time has not yet come.2 Peter 3:8 But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. 9 The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.The great mercy of God has not yet claimed all of His chosen people and so the day of the Lord has not yet come, but it is ready and it is being kept in Heaven for us.Our inheritance is kept for us and we are being guarded for it.1 Peter 1:5 By God’s power (we) are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. 6 In this you rejoice,This word guarded gives us the idea that God has provided a type of security that shields us until the times comes for us to receive God’s gift. We are under protective custody. God has promised to shield us from anything that might cause us to miss out on the promise that He has given us.(Illus…Think of Israel on their way out of Egypt when the army of Pharaoh began to follow them. They were certain that the day would end with them being slaughtered on the banks of the Red sea, but God had other plans. He fought for them. Israel was told to stand fast so that they would see God as a shield around them. They would make it to the Promised Land because God would protect them until they entered it.God delivered Israel from their enemy. He freed them from their slavery. He promised to give them a land of their own as an inheritance and He guarded them until their obtained the promise.All of this is but a shadow of the greater work of redemption that God has done through Christ. Christ has not simply delivered us from our enemies, but from our sins. He hasn’t freed us from an earthly oppression but a spiritual one. He has promised us an inheritance that is greater in every way and He has promised to guard us and protect us until we acquire possession of it.Why is this important? The same power that keeps our eternal salvation guards us as well. What comfort would it be to know that something beyond our imagination was waiting for us, if there was no hope of our ever reaching it? God not only promises us an eternal inheritance, He will guard us so that we will get to enjoy it.Last question, how? How has this inheritance become ours and how are we going to be guarded by God to enjoy it? Is this a bait and switch? Having heard about this amazing blessing are we now going to be told how much we have to pay for it? No. This blessing does not come on the basis of our works, it is ours by faith.Ed Clowney writes…“God who works for us also works in us. Our faith is his way of keeping us; it is His gift. Why does God use faith as the instrument of his keeping power? Because faith is not our achievement, but our trust in God’s achievement.”All that God has given to us, all that God has promised to give us in the future is a gift to be received by faith alone.As you consider all that is going on in the world today and how your life has been affected by it, remember that God has promised that the future for His people is brighter than we can imagine. This world is not our final home and the pains of this world will not follow us into the next. In fact, the brokenness of this world is going to end and when it does the future that we long for will no longer be our hope, it will be our reality.Let the wonder of our inheritance as Christians give you comfort today and let it stir our hope for the days to comeConclusion…If you want to learn more about Cornerstone Baptist church, you can find us online at Cornerstonewylie.org. You can follow us on Twitter or Instagram @cbcwylie. You can find us on Facebook at facebook.com/cornerstonewylie. You can also subscribe to this podcast on iTunes or google play to stay up to date on all the new content.Thanks for listening.

Intro…Welcome to the Cornerstone Baptist church podcast. My name is Justin Wheeler, I am the preaching pastor for Cornerstone Baptist Church in Wylie, TX.It is still March of 2020 and we are in week 2 of shelter-in-place orders as a result of COVID-19. Things around us continue to be up in the air and I don’t know about the rest of you, but I can use a little gospel encouragement right about now. So, this week I want to talk to you about the hope that we have as Christians, or as Peter refers to it in the first chapter of his letter, Our Living Hope.I Peter 1:3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, 5 who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. 6 In this you rejoice,Many of you have heard of or even read the opening section of John Piper’s book Let the Nations Be Glad. There’s one powerful paragraph that goes like this,“Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church. Worship is. Missions exists because worship doesn’t. Worship is ultimate, not missions, because God is ultimate, not man. When this age is over, and the countless millions of the redeemed fall on their faces before the throne of God, missions will be no more. It is a temporary necessity. But worship abides forever.”[1]The worship of God is the ultimate goal of the church and it is also the goal of our life. When Peter writes in verse 3, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!” he is calling us to worship. The word bless means to worship or praise. It means to express gratitude toward God and to express joy in what He has done.Then Peter goes on to tell us what God has done. In other words, he tells us why we should worship God.Transition…We should worship God because of who He is and because He is the One who has given us hope in Christ. We worship Him for His mercy, for causing us to be born again, for giving us a living hope and we worship God because of the inheritance that He has promised us.Let’s look at each of these things in turn.Podcast Focus…1. We worship God because He has given us hope in Christ."A man can live three weeks without food, three days without water, and three minutes without air, but he cannot live three seconds without hope”Hope by itself is a powerful thing, but our hope in Christ is the most amazing hope there is. Our hope is made up of flesh and bones that came back from the dead. Our hope is in Christ himself who lived and died and rose to live again. But we need to remember that we didn’t always have this hope.Ephesians 2 reminds us that at one time we were without hope in this world. Before God brought us to Christ, we were dead in our sins and we had no hope of saving ourselves from the wrath to come. But now in Christ Jesus we have a living hope.He is our Lord, Peter says, which indicates that we aren’t simply dabbling in religion, but we are submitting to Jesus Christ as Lord. We worship God because He is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.2. We Worship God for His MercyV. 3 - According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born againThe definition of mercy is a kindness shown to someone when it is within one’s power to punish them. For God to show us mercy means that He withholds from us the wrath we rightly deserve. He owes us nothing but judgment, and yet He holds back that judgment from us.God’s mercy is the divine restraint that keeps Him from unleashing the righteous wrath our rebellion demands.Notice in the text that God’s mercy toward us is great. We are the recipients of His abundant mercy. Our God is merciful and this means that His desire and ability to withhold what we deserve is like a storehouse so full that it is constantly overflowing the top (Lam 3:23). God is full of mercy toward us, the mercy He has for His people will never run out and we praise Him for this.But there is another side of the coin when it comes to mercy.Divine justice demands that our sin be punished, which means that for God to withhold punishment is to short-circuit His justice, unless the punishment we deserve is poured out on another. That is where Jesus steps in. Friends, this is what makes the gospel so beautiful.You see Jesus stepped in to receive the justice of God that we deserved. He bore the wrath for you and me, so that we could be free. So, we worship God for His great mercy.3. We Worship God for Our New Birth (3)On account of God’s great mercy, He has caused us to be born again. The first time we heard about the new birth it came from Jesus in John 3. He told Nicodemus that in order to see the Kingdom of God one must be born again. In our first birth we were stamped with the image of Adam, but the new birth emblazons us with the image of Christ. This new birth is given to us as a gift from God. He is the cause of our new birth.But why do we need to be born again? The Bible teaches that by nature we are dead in our sins and children of wrath. This is what our first birth in Adam has afforded us. We need to be brought from death to life and Paul tells us how this happens in Titus 3.Titus 3:4 But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, 5 he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy SpiritWe weren’t born again because of our good works; it was God’s mercy that fueled our new birth. The new birth is not the result of your prayer, or your baptism, or your trip down the aisle to talk to the pastor. The new birth is the work of the Holy Spirit in you.The Spirit brings life where there was death. He opens our eyes to see the truth of the gospel that we hadn’t seen before. He gives us a new heart of flesh replacing the heart of stone, and the result is that those who possess new life will respond with faith and repentance.Faith and repentance are not the cause of our new birth; they are the evidence of it meaning that we praise God for our new birth.4. We Worship God for Our living HopeWhat does Peter mean when he tells us that we have a living hope? What He means is that the source of our hope is not an idea it is a person. This would have been especially important to Peter, because of his own life experience.Perhaps you remember that before Jesus’ crucifixion, Peter had boldly claimed that he would stay by Jesus’ side even though all the other disciples ran away. But the reality was that Peter ran away as well. He denied Jesus. He failed His best friend. He failed to keep his promise and then Jesus died before Peter had a chance to make it right. The crucifixion robbed Peter of hope.But the resurrection of Jesus was a life-changer for Peter. When the girls came in from the tomb on Sunday morning and told Peter that it was empty, can you imagine what this did to his heart? His hopes had been dashed to pieces, but this news was enough to cause hope to flicker in his heart again.Peter heard this news and then flew out of the door to go and see for himself and when He saw Jesus His hope was restored. But it was a new kind of hope. It wasn’t a false hope, a misplaced hope, a blind hope, a fond hope; it was a living hope.Peter’s hope was not based on an idea it was based on a person, a person that was and is alive and for whom death has no hold. So, when Peter writes to us about our living hope he writes from personal experience. His hope is alive because his hope is in Christ and Christ is alive.Sure, there’s so much going on in our world right now that it is easy for us to forget what God has done for us through Jesus. It’s easy for us to let our hope fade a little bit, or even a lot. But passages like this put our real-world difficulties into eternal perspective.Yes, our lives have been sort of turned upside-down due to Coronavirus, but God truly turned our lives upside-down when He began to work in our hearts through the gospel. Yes, there is much for us to think about and plan for with all that is going on, but we can’t forget about God’s mercy.We can’t lose sight of the fact that we were born into this fallen world, but we have been born again in order to prepare us for the world to come. This world and all of its trials are not the ultimate expectation for us, we have a living hope in a living Savior, who died but rose again.And we have an inheritance that is to come that we can hardly imagine. We will look at that next week, but I hope this little bit of encouragement has been helpful to you today.Conclusion…If you want to learn more about Cornerstone Baptist church, you can find us online at Cornerstonewylie.org. You can follow us on Twitter or Instagram @cbcwylie. You can find us on Facebook at facebook.com/cornerstonewylie. You can also subscribe to this podcast on iTunes or google play to stay up to date on all the new content.Thanks for listening. [1] J. Piper, Let the Nations Be Glad (Baker Academics) pg. 17

Intro…Welcome to the Cornerstone Baptist church podcast. My name is Justin Wheeler, I am the preaching pastor for Cornerstone Baptist Church in Wylie, TX.It is March of 2020 and we are our city, our country, our world is in the grip of the Coronavirus. This has been unlike anything that I have experienced in my 43 years of life and I’m guessing that you can probably say the same thing. This is truly an unprecedented experience for me and as a result I’m asking a lot of questions to try and figure out what I should be doing.I think it is wise for us to stay calm and remember that God has not been taken by surprise by all of this and if we are familiar with Scripture, we shouldn’t be all that surprised either. Disease is a common feature of life in this fallen world. When Adam and Eve sinned they unleashed a corruption upon this world that has thoroughly affected every molecule of our existence so that plagues, disease, sickness and even death are normal.But living in self-isolation, self-quarantine, and not being able to buy toilet paper or bottled water is not all that normal for us. So, what are we to do?Transition…As Christians, how are we to live out our day to day lives in the midst of this Coronavirus outbreak? Last week on the podcast, Breck, Jeremy and Mark joined me and they helped us to gain a basic understanding of how we should think about this virus and our immediate response to it as Christians.Today, I want to continue down that same path but I want to get a little more specific. I want to look at Colossians 4 with you and I want us to consider how we should approach our days in the midst of this current health crisis.Col 4:2 Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving. 3 At the same time, pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ, on account of which I am in prison— 4 that I may make it clear, which is how I ought to speak.5 Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time. 6 Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.Podcast Focus…This is what our day to day life as a Christian should look like.I. Devote Yourself to Prayer (v. 2)Col 4:2 Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving.There is quite a bit for us to consider in just this one verse. But the imperative, the word of command that Paul gives us here is that we should be praying. Yes, I know that you are frustrated about people hoarding resources at the grocery store, and I know you might be frustrated with people who appear to not be taking this virus all that seriously, but don’t spend an inordinate amount of time worrying about that, spend more time in prayer and while you’re praying be thankful.Just last night as our family gather together for prayer, I asked my kids what they were thinking and how they were feeling about all that is happening in our lives right now. One of my sons mentioned that he missed his friends and that he was sad that he wasn’t going to be able to play baseball. Now, he doesn’t fully understand all that is going on in the world, but he knows that his world has been shaken up quite a bit. So, we spent some time talking about that.But we also spent a few minutes talking about all the things that we should be thankful for. Most of us should thank God that we aren’t sick. We should thank God that we still have food to eat. We should thank God that we have generous neighbors who love us and care for us. We should thank God that mom and dad still have jobs, and if that doesn’t hold up, we will still have roof over our heads.We should be thankful that we have a church family who loves us, misses us, prays for us and who is eager to serve the needs of our church body. We should be thankful that we have God’s Word in our hands. We should be thankful that through technology we have the ability to worship with our church family from home, the ability to see our loved ones faces, and to continue to minister to one another.Brothers and sisters we have much to be thankful for. So let’s heed the instruction from God here to pray steadfastly and to do so with thankfulness. Perhaps, you should turn off the TV news for a little while, pick up your bible, and spend some time in the word and prayer. I don’t think you’ll miss anything.That fear of missing out is real but we should take some instruction from Jesus on that. There was never a busier man in the history of the world than Jesus. He was the Savior of the world but that didn’t keep Him from walking away from everything in order to pray.Let me give you a couple of examples of this from the life of Jesus.Mark 1:35 And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed.Luke 5:15 But now even more the report about him went abroad, and great crowds gathered to hear him and to be healed of their infirmities. 16 But he would often withdraw to desolate places and pray.Over and over, we see in Jesus’ life that the demands on his time are growing but He withdraws from all the demands and busyness in order to pray? Does it surprise us that Jesus withdraws from the crowds to pray?I don’t know all the reasons why Jesus prayed so much, even in the face of great demands but we can probably put together a short list:1. Jesus prayed this way because He loved communicating with the Father2. Jesus prayed this way because He needed guidance and comfort which He received from communion with God.3. Jesus prayed this way because His task was great and He needed spiritual help which He gained from fellowship with God.4. Jesus prayed this way to set an example for us to follow and the example is that prayer is as common to the life of God’s people as singing is to a mockingbird.Prayer was as common to Jesus as our morning coffee is to us. It’s the way he started the day and the way he finished the day. Deadlines didn’t get in the way of prayer; they drove home the need for more prayer.The pace of our lives is set to constantly try and make us hurry up, but God wants us to slow down. He wants us to remember that He is God and we are not. He wants us to rest in the fact that though we do have weighty responsibilities we should also remember that we can’t do it alone.John Piper writes:“The very spirit and essence of prayer is dependence. So, even when we are not speaking consciously to God, there is a deep, abiding dependence on him that is woven into the very essence of our faith. In that sense, we are praying. We are experiencing a spirit of dependence continuously, and that kind of disposition is, I think, right at the heart of what God creates when he creates a Christian. There should be a spirit of dependence that permeates all we do.”So here’s the first application for us in how to live for Christ today; rather than allowing your schedule, your iPhone and your inbox to drive you toward irritability, selfishness and stress; allow those things to drive you to prayer. Build prayer into the rhythm of your morning as consistently as coffee. Voice your dependence upon God. Ask for His help in keeping a watch on your heart and life.But there is something specific that we should also be praying for…Gospel Advance.II. Pray for the Gospel’s Advance (v. 3-4)3 At the same time, pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ, on account of which I am in prison— 4 that I may make it clear, which is how I ought to speak.Now, one thing that we need to know about this particular letter of Paul is that he is in prison while he is writing it. He is in prison for preaching the gospel and here we see him asking the church to pray for God to enable him to…preach the gospel. This man lived with a sense of gospel urgency that was incredible.Paul is asking the church to pray for one of two things: either he is asking for God to open the door of his prison cell so that he can take the gospel out into the world. Or, he is praying for God to open the hearts of his hearers so that they will see their need of Christ and will repent and believe. Either way, he is calling on the church to pray for the gospel to advance and bear fruit, and he wants to be a part of that.Do you find yourself at a loss for what to pray for right now? Probably not! We are praying for healing fo the sick. We are praying for protection for our loved ones. We are praying for God to remember His mercy in the midst of all the panic, and disease and death.But if you haven’t thought to pray for an open door for the gospel, you should. Pray that the gospel would be declared and that more people would be born again. The heartbeat of the Christian life is the gospel, that we are saved from our sin and the wrath of God because Christ took our place on the cross. We deserved death and judgment, but in His mercy God applied the blood of Christ to our account. We are saved by faith in Him and when we truly come to an understanding of this gospel reality we want others to know it as well.So let’s be faithful to pray for the gospel’s advance and let’s also be faithful in our part to advance the gospel. Don’t neglect to preach the gospel. Teach it to your children. Share it with your friends. Comfort your family with the truth in the hopes that all will see their need of Christ and believe. Pray for God to make the gospel clear and undeniable. Pray for your lost loved ones and ask God to open their eyes and hearts to the gospel truth.Yes, there are many things going on in your life that you should pray about. There are big decisions in front of you and you should be praying for God for wisdom, guidance, patience, and confidence. There are things going on in the lives of others that you should be praying about: sickness, uncertainty, marital problems, struggles with sin, etc. But there is one major thing going on in the world that we should be praying about all the time and it’s the need for folks to hear the gospel and be saved.1. Devote Yourself to Prayer, 2. Pray for the Gospel’s Advance…III. Live Wisely (v. 5)5 Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time.Be wise in the way you act, especially toward outsiders/unbelievers. Paul assumes that we are going to encounter unbelievers in our daily lives and because of this he wants us to make the most of our time with them. How are we supposed to do that? By conducting ourselves with wisdom.Now this is going to be a challenge for us because at a foundational level we are more prone to feeling than we are thinking. And wisdom requires that we think our way through life more than we feel our way through life. Most of us, not all, but most of us have more of a tendency to elevate the importance of how something makes us feel over the importance of whether or not it is right and wise. There is room in our lives for both but notice that Paul doesn’t say that we should walk in emotion toward outsiders. He calls for wisdom.Christian Wisdom is the mental capacity to understand and function according to Biblical truth. As Christians we should govern our conduct with unbelievers on the basis of Biblical wisdom.So, what constitutes Biblical wisdom?First, it begins with a proper fear of God which means we stand in awe of God and we give appropriate respect to His Word. Our lives are oriented around our Creator God as the center and source of all things.Second, we let the word of God/Christ dwell in us richly, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another. We read the Bible. We study the Bible. We listen to sound teaching and we let all that we learn shape our view of the world, of family, of others, of life.Third, process through the decisions in your life with the fear of God and the Word of God as the guiding principles. Some decisions are simple because the Word of God is clear.Let me give you a few questions to help us make decisions when it’s not so clear what to do.1. Is this spiritually beneficial to me personally and to the gospel generally?2. Will this decision make God look glorious or will it slander His name?3. Will my actions be affecting others in a sinful way or a godly way?4. Does this violate God Word? Is it illegal?5. Can I do this in a way that glorifies God?6. Can I do this in a way that shows love and concern for others?7. Am I following the example of Jesus to help reconcile sinners to God?Christ calls us to walk in wisdom with outsiders and not waste our time with them. In other words, we should make use of every opportunity to magnify Christ in our relationships.And when we do speak up we should speak of grace and with grace…IV. Speak Graciously/Powerfully (v. 6)6 Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.The way we feel or think in the moment is typically going to come out of our mouths because the primary way that we communicate is through speech. One component of the command for us to walk in wisdom is to exercise self-control in the area of our speech. Paul says that we need to let our speech be filtered through grace and seasoned with salt.To speak graciously means that we speak with care and concern for others. We aren’t simply wanting to be heard or to get our words out, we actually long to show grace to others in our speech.There is a connection between the attitude of our hearts and the way we communicate with others. For instance, if you are an angry person it is going to come out of your mouth. If you are a bitter person, the people around you know it because of the way you talk. If you are a person who has come to understand and enjoy the grace of God, then that grace should flow out of your mouth to others.For our speech to be salty means that we should speak in a way that makes an impact. This doesn’t mean that we master the art of the one-liner but that our words have an impact on a person’s heart. I think the best way that we can do this is to be so thoroughly familiar with the rudimentary truths of the Christian faith that when we open our mouths, we speak the truth in love.So, devote yourself to prayer with thankfulness. Pray for the gospel to advance in the world and through your witness. Live wisely and speak the truth with love and grace.Conclusion…If you want to learn more about Cornerstone Baptist church, you can find us online at Cornerstonewylie.org. You can follow us on Twitter or Instagram @cbcwylie. You can find us on Facebook at facebook.com/cornerstonewylie. You can also subscribe to this podcast on iTunes or google play to stay up to date on all the new content.Thanks for listening.

Intro…Welcome to the Cornerstone Baptist church podcast. My name is Justin Wheeler, I am the preaching pastor for Cornerstone and today we are in week 52 of our journey through the Heidelberg Catechism. Today, I will be talking to you about question 127-129.Transition…This week we are going to finish up with the Lord’s Prayer and complete our journey through Heidelberg. We kicked this whole thing off in January and have made our way through 2019 and through the Catechism as well. I hope and trust that it has been as helpful to you as it has been for me.But we bring this year of the Cornerstone podcast to a close by examining the last few phrases in the Lord’s PrayerLord’s Day Focus...Question 127: What is the sixth petition?Answer: “Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from the evil one” means, by ourselves we are too weak to hold our own even for a moment. And our sworn enemies – the devil, the world, and our own flesh – never stop attacking us. And so, Lord uphold us and make us strong with the strength of Your Holy Spirit, so that we may not go down to defeat in this spiritual struggle but may firmly resist our enemies until we finally win the complete victory.Unfortunately, we are all familiar with temptation. Temptation is when the desire to do something sinful arises in our hearts or presents itself in our experience. The Bible talks about temptation all the time, in fact the story of Scripture begins with a temptation.In the garden Adam and Eve faced temptation. A created being, ultimately an enemy of God and man alike, crept into the garden and tempted them into rebellion. He tempted Eve with the thought that she could be like God, or could become god herself, with the ability to determine what was right and what was wrong. She failed and all of humanity has been paying the price ever since.The nature of the temptation that Adam and Eve faced is the same as that which we face on a daily basis; Satan pointed out something that was appealing and used that to twist the truth and lead them into sin. The same is true for us today. Temptation is when Satan seeks to lure us into sin by dangling something before us that appeals to our flesh, but in the end will lead us away from obedience to God.Thomas Brooks spoke of temptation in this way,“Satan’s first device to draw the soul into sin is, to present the bait and hide the hook; to present the golden cup and hide the poison; to present the sweet, the pleasure and the profit and to hide from the soul the wrath and misery that will certainly follow the committing of sin…Satan is a cheat giving them an apple in exchange for paradise.”[1]In other words, temptation is like bait on a hook.Now, we seldom think about the nature of temptation but when we do we tend to think about things that are obvious. But the Bible talks of temptation coming to us in very subtle ways. Satan didn’t walk into the garden with an “I hate God” t-shirt on and start attacking Eve; he simply came and pointed at the fruit and started talking about how good it looked. He didn’t sit down with Eve and devise a scheme to overthrow God, he just carefully twisted God’s word and that was all he needed.When the Bible talks of temptation it uses the metaphor of animals being lured, trapped or enticed into danger while unaware of what lies ahead.Galatians 6:1-2 talks about being caught in sin like a fly in a spider’s web.James 1:14 talks about being lured into temptation like a fish is lured to a hook by bait.I Timothy 6:9 speaks of temptation like a snare used to catch live pray.All of these illustrations help us to understand that the nature of temptation is subtle, crafty and will often be difficult to discern. This has been Satan’s tactic from the beginning and that is precisely why we need to pray for God to help us avoid temptation. That is what we pray for God to help us overcome the evil one who is behind all of those temptations.On our own we are not powerful enough, wise enough, or spiritual mature enough to battle the temptation that we face in this life daily. Yes, we can grow in our faith and become more capable, but in the end, we need help from the Holy Spirit, hence the instruction to pray for His helpQuestion 128: What does your conclusion to this prayer mean?Answer: “For Yours is the kingdom and the power and glory forever” means, we have made all these requests of You because, as our all-powerful King, You not only want to, but are able to give us all that is good; and because Your holy name, and not we ourselves, should receive all the praise forever.The whole of this prayer is a preoccupation with God’s glory. This prayer isn’t the expression of our natural disposition, it is the disposition of Heaven. This prayer aims to orient our hearts around the goodness of God, the holiness of God, the provision of God, the power of God and the glory of His name.That’s what this concluding phrase is meant to convey. It shows that the point of this prayer is not our happiness but our praise for and reliance upon our Creator God. Our prayer is not about us building our own kingdom, it is about God using us to build His kingdom. This prayer is not about our power, it is about us confessing our weakness and relying upon His strength. This prayer and this universe is not about our glory, it is about His glory.Question 129: What does that little word “Amen” express?Answer: “Amen” means, this is sure to be true! It is even more sure that God listens to my prayer, than that I really desire what I pray for.Amen simply means “let it be.” It is a statement of confidence in the one that we are praying to. The Catechism points out that even though I may desire the very things I pray, God’s reception of our prayer and commitment to our good is greater than our desire. To say amen at the end of our prayer is an act of laying all that we have said at the feet of our sovereign and gracious God with more confidence than we possess that He will accomplish His holy will in, through and around our prayers.Thank you for joining me for this journey through Heidelberg during 2019. It has been an amazing year and I hope you will check back again in 2020 to see what is in store.Conclusion…If you want to learn more about Cornerstone Baptist church, you can find us online at Cornerstonewylie.org. You can follow us on Twitter or Instagram @cbcwylie. You can find us on Facebook at facebook.com/cornerstonewylie. You can also subscribe to this podcast on iTunes or google play to stay up to date on all the new content.Thanks for listening. [1] Thomas Brooks Precious Remedies Against Satan’s Devices (chapter 2, pg. 19) www.preachtheword.com/bookstore/remedies.pdf

Intro…Welcome to the Cornerstone Baptist church podcast. My name is Justin Wheeler, I am the preaching pastor for Cornerstone and today we are in week 51 of our journey through the Heidelberg Catechism. Today, I will be talking to you about question 126.Transition…This week we continue working our way through the Lord’s Prayer from Matthew 6:9-13 and we are going to focus on the phrase:Forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtorsLord’s Day Focus...Question 126: What is the fifth petition?Answer: “Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors” means, because of Christ’s blood, do not hold against us, poor sinners that we are, any of the sins we do or the evil that constantly clings to us. Forgive us just as we are fully determined, as evidence of Your grace in us, to forgive our neighbors.Forgiveness is at the very heart of the Christian gospel and it is right at the center of this prayer. In fact, it is sandwiched in between our need for bread and our need for protection.11 Give us this day our daily bread,12 and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.I could be wrong, but it seems that Jesus wants us to pray in three ways here: for our body, our heart, and our soul.Last week we discussed the need we have for physical nourishment, our need for daily bread. Jesus wants us to know that God is concerned with even the most basic needs that we have. He also wants us to remember that the basic needs that sustain us in life are a gift from God’s hand.The truth is we take far too much for granted. Jesus wants us to pray for God to meet every daily need that we have, and He wants us to thank Him for every daily need that is met.The second part of this prayer focuses on the needs of our heart. We need forgiveness and we need God to soften our hearts so that we can forgive others. Jesus wants us to pray that God would forgive us our debts and that we would forgive others when they are indebted to us.Forgiveness is one of those words we use so often that it has a tendency to lose its meaning. As a father, I instruct my children to forgive one another all the time but I don’t always define what it means. Therefore, they may come away thinking that to forgive someone simply means that we act like they didn’t do anything wrong. But that is not the Biblical concept behind forgiveness.The Biblical concept behind forgiveness is that we owe a debt and that debt must be paid. Every human being has an obligation to obey the commands of our Creator and when we fail to do so, we fall into debt. Jesus is making that connection here in his model prayer when he uses the term debt.Before God we owe a debt on account of our sin. When we sin against God, we are building up more and more debt. Every lie, every hateful thought, every disobedient action are all plunging us into deeper and deeper debt. The price to be paid to free us from that debt is death and judgment, “The wages of sin is death…”“But the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus.” In His life, Jesus never went into debt before God. He kept the law perfectly. On the cross, He paid the price for sins, not His own, but for ours. When we come to see our sin and the debt it brings before God, and then we receive the free gift of forgiveness that Jesus offers us; that is when we are saved.When we are drawn to faith in Christ, by believing in Him and turning from our sin, the Bible says that we were saved. It says that we are justified before God, which means that we were declared to be righteous in His sight. Our sins were forgiven, and Christ’s righteousness was credited to our account. All of this is true in a legal sense.But in a relational sense, we need to continually seek restoration and forgiveness, hence why Jesus is teaching us to pray for forgiveness.This is the point of I John…I John 1:8 If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.Jesus wants us to come to God confessing our sin and seeking forgiveness. But He also wants us to forgive others when they sin against us. He wants us to cancel their debt, to overlook their offense and to pardon someone for the wrong they’ve done to us.Jesus even tells us that our refusal to forgive others will keep God from forgiving us. Does this mean unforgiving people lose their salvation? I think it means that a hard and unforgiving heart is evidence of someone who has never truly experienced God’s forgiveness; or they are so hardened by sin that they have forgotten.In Matthew 18, Jesus tells the parable of the unforgiving servant, a man who had been forgiven a huge debt but who wickedly punished those who owed him. Jesus called the man wicked. He pointed out, “I showed you mercy because you pleaded with me, but you refused to show mercy to those who pleaded with you” and He ordered the man to go to prison until he had paid off his original debt. The point is that an unforgiving heart reveals an unforgiven heart.Or at least a heart that has failed to grasp the wonder of God’s forgiveness. There are people who have hurt us. There are people who have treated us so poorly that we have come away feeling inadequate, unworthy, unlovable. We have deep wounds that have healed somewhat, but they are always tender.God wants us to forgive the people who have hurt us in this way. He wants us to accept their apology, to stop holding their sin against them, to let go of the bitterness that we feel toward them. He wants us to do this because we have grown to understand how much He, our God, has forgiven us.We grieved His heart. We ignored His love. We shook our fist in His smiling face. We have insulted His wisdom, we refused to acknowledge His glory. We cheered with the crowd as His Son was killed on the cross.But His love for us never wavered. He had a plan that one day He would show us what we had done. He would cause us to see our sin for what it is, and He would turn our hearts so that we could see His amazing grace in Christ. By no merit of our own, God forgave us, He washed away our debt. He cleansed the stain that it left behind and He has welcomed us into His family.He has forgiven all those who receive Christ by faith and as we grasp the weight of His forgiveness, we are made able to forgive those who have sinned against us. That is what this part of the Lord’s Prayer is all about.Thank you for joining me today to discuss this aspect of Christian prayer. Next week, we are going to finish up with the Lord’s Prayer and complete our journey through Heidelberg. I hope you will join me for that final discussion as we look at Lord’s Day 52 and questions 127-129.Conclusion…If you want to learn more about Cornerstone Baptist church, you can find us online at Cornerstonewylie.org. You can follow us on Twitter or Instagram @cbcwylie. You can find us on Facebook at facebook.com/cornerstonewylie. You can also subscribe to this podcast on iTunes or google play to stay up to date on all the new content.Thanks for listening.

Intro…Welcome to the Cornerstone Baptist church podcast. My name is Justin Wheeler, I am the preaching pastor for Cornerstone and today we are in week 50 of our journey through the Heidelberg Catechism. Today, I will be talking to you about question 125.Transition…This week we continue working our way through the Lord’s Prayer from Matthew 6:9-13 and we are going to focus on the phrase:Give us this day our daily bread…Lord’s Day Focus...Question 125: What is the fourth petition?Answer: “Give us this day our daily bread” means, be pleased to provide for all our bodily needs so that we come to know that You are the only source of everything good, and that neither our work and worry nor Your gifts can do us any good without Your blessings. So, help us to give up our trust in creatures and to put trust in You alone.Trust in God alone, that is what is at the heart of this part of the Lord’s Prayer. It is trust in God down to provide the very crumbs of bread that will keep us alive today. If you think about it, this is a desperate prayer for God to take away the nagging hunger that our bodies feel constantly. This prayer is like a baby crying for milk and being fully dependent upon mother to provide it.We’ve all been hungry before, but how many of us have been truly hungry. By God’s grace alone we live in a land where food is plentiful and cheap. Aside from the occasional natural disaster preparation, there is seldom a time when our grocery store shelves are empty. There is always food nearby.According to the US department of Agriculture, it is estimated that Americans waste 30-40 percent of the food supply every year. That is, we throw away or allow to go bad 133 billion pounds of food which costs around $161 billion dollars. We throw away an unthinkable amount of food. If this startles you and you think you might like to change your habits in this regard, check out usda.gov/foodwaste.Food is plentiful in this country and has been for decades, which means that most of us, though not all, are not worried about where our next meal will come from. Most of us, assume that there will be food on our table, in our pantry and refrigerator. We take this for granted and this prayer is confronting that in us.I know that it might be difficult for us to imagine this but try to put yourself in the Israelites shoes/sandals as they were on their way to Mt. Sinai. They were in the wilderness and all they had with them was the stuff they packed up on Passover night in Egypt. They didn’t have grocery stores along the way. They didn’t have anywhere to get food and water. They had to rely on God’s daily provision, or they would surely die.If you can imagine what that was like, then you can begin to grasp the heart cry behind this prayer. When we ask God to give us our daily bread, we are giving voice to a desperate plea for God to care for us every day. We are also recognizing that the daily bread that sustains us actually comes from His hand.Even the good things, like food, that we have in abundance; can get in the way of our gratitude to God for the blessing of His care over us. When we take for granted the basic necessities of life, we will inevitably fail to praise God for His generous provision. And make no mistake, every gift that we receive is from His gracious hand.James 1:16 Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.Everything we have is from God and our gratitude to Him should be constant and sincere. In fact, Heidelberg wants us to understand that when we pray for God to give us our daily bread, we are putting our trust in God alone. We are battling the self-reliance that is in each of our hearts and we are placing our hope and our trust in God as the provider of every good gift.At no point should we assume that this prayer is a license for us to stop working and simply ask God to give us what we need. That’s not the point at all. The point is to help our hearts grasp the reality that everything we have comes from the Lord. The job that we have which allows us to buy the food at the grocery store is a gift of God’s blessing. The fact that we have grocery stores, and food in those stores, and the means to buy that food in those stores; all of this is a blessing from God that we do not deserve.We should be grateful and prayerful. Too often, we fail to pray with sincerity for our daily bread and this might be a display of our lack of confidence in God’s provision and too much confidence in our own ability. Yes, we work to provide good things for ourselves and our family, but the whole process of our needs being met is overseen by God.Now, I want to go back to the illustration of Israel in the wilderness that I mentioned earlier. There was an entire generation of Israelites who experienced God’s daily gift of bread, but that generation didn’t inherit the Promised Land. In fact, 40 years later a new generation was set to go into the Land and Moses had some final words for them.God had blessed this generation. He had care for them, led them, provided for them and even helped them win military battles to stay alive. But there was a strong possibility that they would forget all the good things that God had done. So in Deuteronomy 8 Moses says to them, “Don’t you forget that the Lord is the One who brought you here.”He tells them, “God cared for you…He fed you with manna from heaven…He made the clothes on your back to hold together and not wear out…beware lest you say in your heart, ‘my power and my might have gotten me this.”This was a real issue for that generation of Israelites and it’s a real issue for us today. We have a tendency to forget that all of life is in the palm of God’s hand. We have a tendency to forget that all that we have comes from His hand. We have a tendency to trust in our own ability rather than to confess our desperate need.This prayer is an antidote to self-reliance so let’s make this our prayer but also our attitude. “Lord, give us this day our daily bread.”Thank you for joining me today to discuss this aspect of Christian prayer. Next week, we are going to talk about forgiveness of debts and deliverance from evil. I hope you will join me for that discussion as we look at Lord’s Day 51 and questions 126 and 127.Conclusion…If you want to learn more about Cornerstone Baptist church, you can find us online at Cornerstonewylie.org. You can follow us on Twitter or Instagram @cbcwylie. You can find us on Facebook at facebook.com/cornerstonewylie. You can also subscribe to this podcast on iTunes or google play to stay up to date on all the new content.Thanks for listening.

Intro…Welcome to the Cornerstone Baptist church podcast. My name is Justin Wheeler, I am the preaching pastor for Cornerstone and today we are in week 49 of our journey through the Heidelberg Catechism. Today, I will be talking to you about question 124. Transition…This week we continue working our way through the Lord’s Prayer from Matthew 6:9-13 and we are going to focus on the phrase:Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven…Lord’s Day Focus...Question 124: What is the third petition?Answer: “Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven” means, help us and all people to reject our own wills and to obey Your will without any back talk. Your will alone is good. Help us one and all to carry out the work we are called to, as willingly and faithfully as the angels in heaven.I think that this is one of the more controversial aspects of the Lord’s prayer for several reasons. First, there is quite a bit of confusion about the will of God in general. Is God’s will for us something akin to a step-by-step knowledge of every facet of our lives? In other words, is God’s will some mysterious thing that is hidden and we are asking God to reveal it? Or is God’s will something that is fixed and knowable? Second, there is also quite a bit of insistence in the Christian world for our will to be seen as the greatest gift that God has ever given to man. Man’s free will is a sacred thing in many Christian circles and that means that it would be wrong for God to violate the will of a human being in any way. In order for us to get a grasp on what we are praying for when we say, “Your will be done on earth as in heaven” we need to try to understand the will of God more clearly.So, let’s talk about the 3 Categories for understanding the will of God. First, there is something that theologians refer to as God’s Will of Decree or the Sovereign will of God. This refers to what God has ordained to happen from before the world was made. God’s will of decree is fixed and absolute. Isaiah 46:9 I am God and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, “My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose…I have spoken and I will bring it to pass: I have purposed and I will do it.What God decrees to take place will unquestionably occur. We see God’s will of decree in action within the New Testament when we look at Ephesians 1.V. 4 - He chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love 5 he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will…V. 11 – In Him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of His will…God has a plan and this plan was set in motion before the creation of the universe. This plan has been unfolding for ages and it was ultimately accomplished when Jesus came to earth and laid down His life to save God’s chosen people from their sin. This plan continues to play out as the good news of Jesus Christ spreads to the four corners of the earth and it will be consummated when Christ returns to judge the living and the dead and then usher in His kingdom upon earth. From start to finish this plan of God will be accomplished precisely according to God’s decree, God’s will.God’s will of decree is also seen in that He upholds and accomplish his sovereign purpose down to the very smallest detail.Matt 10:29 Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. 30 But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. 31 Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows.God’s will of decree accounts for and ordains the last breath of every sparrow, it accounts for the fall of every leaf, it accounts for the snowflake, the rain, and even the graying hairs on my head. This is detail beyond our comprehension but such is the knowledge and will of God. God has a plan for everything, and He carries out that plan to perfection. This is God’s will of Decree.There is a second category and it addresses God’s Will of Desire , sometimes referred to as His will of Command. This aspect of God’s will has to do with what He desires from His creatures and where the will of decree cannot be undone, God’s will of desire can be disobeyed. Take for instance, the 10 commandments which lay out how God desires His people to live in the world. These commandments give moral direction for our lives and they reflect the very moral character of God Himself. But even though it is God’s will that mankind keep the 10 commandments, they are disregarded every day. It is God’s will that we love Him and not the world. It is God’s will that we obey Him but in our rebellion we disobey.Seen in this way God’s will of desire refers to the call upon mankind to obey the commands of God and here are a few passages that reveal this distinction.1 Thess 4:3 For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality;1 John 2:15 Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16 For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world. 17 And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.That last passage makes clear that this aspect of God’s will relates to something that we are called to do. It relates to the way God commands us to live. The third category refers to God’s Will of Direction and this describe how God directs us in making non-moral decisions on a day-to-day basis. These are the decisions about where to live, what job to take, and what person to marry; and of the three this is what we think about the most and it is the one most often abused.When we talk about God’s will of direction, we are really asking the question, “Does God have a plan for my life that He expects me to live out?” The answer is yes! God does have a plan for us. He does want our lives to be directed by Him. He does want us to live in a way that brings glory to Christ and joy to us. He wants us to trust in His sovereign will of decree. He wants us to follow His will of command by faith and the power of the Holy Spirit. And when it comes to His will of direction we rely on God’s Word; both the wisdom and direction it provides for us. So, the question at this point is, which one of these are we praying for in the Lord’s Prayer? The Heidelberg says that we are praying for God’s will of Desire to be done, or God’s will of command to be obeyed.Here’s the answer again, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven” means, help us and all people to reject our own wills and to obey Your will without any back talk. Your will alone is good. Help us one and all to carry out the work we are called to, as willingly and faithfully as the angels in heaven.We are praying for God’s will to rule over our own. We are praying for our hearts to be so moved with love for our heavenly Father that we reject our own wills and obey His will without any argument. I’ve been a Christian long enough to know that this is a big prayer because I don’t want to submit my will to His and neither do you. Oh sure, ideally we would never place our will over the will of God, but in reality we do this all the time. Every time we sin we are placing our desire over God’s, our will over His. Every time we say, “I know what the Bible says, but I want to do this…” we are rejecting God’s will and substituting our own.In His Word God has given us the knowledge of His Will. In God’s Word we have clear, unchanging, God-breathed direction for our day to day lives.1. It is God’s will and purpose to save sinners by faith in the person and work of Jesus Christ. John 3:16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son so that whoever believes in Him would not perish but have eternal life. 2. It is God’s will that we seek His Kingdom above all else.Matt 6:33 But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.3. It is God’s will that we pursue sanctification (holiness) in grace wrought obedience to Christ.1 Thess 4:2 For you know what instructions we gave you through the Lord Jesus. 3 For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality; 4 that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor…4. It is God’s will that we rejoice in the gospel, pray to God and give thanks for all of the blessings of God’s grace1 Thess 5:16 Rejoice always, 17 pray without ceasing, 18 give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.5. It is God’s will that we bear fruit and increase in the knowledge of God.Col 1:9 be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, 10 so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God;6. It is God’s will that we be filled with the Holy Spirit.Eph 5:17 Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. 18 And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit 19 (which means) addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, 20 giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, 21 submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.7. It is God’s will that we submit our lives to God and be renewed in our minds by His Word.Rom 12:1 I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. 2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. This phrase in the Lord’s prayer is aiming to place God on the throne of our hearts and to help us recognize that His will alone is good. It is a prayer for God to help us because He knows we are going to need help to obey the way He calls us to. In fact, we are praying that He would work obedience in our lives such that it rivals the angels in heaven.And all of this starts with us. This prayer is preoccupied with God’s glory not ours, with God’s kingdom not ours, and with God’s will not our own. Thank you for joining me today to discuss this aspect of Christian prayer. Next week, we will dig a little deeper into the Lord’s prayer. I hope you will join me for that discussion as we look at Lord’s Day 50 and question 125.Conclusion…If you want to learn more about Cornerstone Baptist church, you can find us online at Cornerstonewylie.org. You can follow us on Twitter or Instagram @cbcwylie. You can find us on Facebook at facebook.com/cornerstonewylie. You can also subscribe to this podcast on iTunes or google play to stay up to date on all the new content. Thanks for listening.

Intro…Welcome to the Cornerstone Baptist church podcast. My name is Justin Wheeler, I am the preaching pastor for Cornerstone and today we are in week 48 of our journey through the Heidelberg Catechism. Today, I will be talking to you about question 122. Transition…This week we continue working through the Lord’s Prayer from Matthew 6:9-13 and we are going to focus on one phrase right at the start of this prayer.Your Kingdom Come…Lord’s Day Focus...Question 122: What does the second request mean?Answer: “Your kingdom come” means, rule us by Your Word and Spirit in such a way that more and more we submit to You. Keep Your church strong and add to it. Destroy the devil’s work: destroy every force which revolts against You and every conspiracy against Your Word. Do this until Your kingdom is so complete and perfect that in it You are all in all. The word kingdom is a massive word and it is rich with meaning. A kingdom implies three things: A King, a people and a land. In order for a kingdom to be all three of these must be in place. You can’t have a kingdom without a king, and you can’t have a kingdom without people and you can’t have a kingdom without a defined space of land for those people to dwell upon. When it comes to the Kingdom of God those same three things must be in place. When we talk about the Kingdom of God, we think it terms of God’s rule over God’s people in God’s place. Another bit of language that you may have heard along the way is that the Kingdom of God exists in an already and a not yet kind of way. The kingdom of God has already been established by the coming of Jesus but it has not yet come in its fullness. IOW, Christ has been enthroned as King (Matt 28:18) and those who believe have already been set apart as His people; but we are not yet united in the New Heavens and New Earth that are to come.So, when we pray, “Your kingdom come” we are asking God to extend His rule over our hearts and lives. We are also asking Him to come, or to come again and more fully establish His Kingdom on earth as He has promised.But the catechism focuses more on the fact that we are asking God to work in the here and now by His Spirit and Word. When we ask God to let His Kingdom come, we are asking Him to work in us to make us more like Jesus. We are asking Him to grow us in faith and obedience, in faithfulness and sanctification. We are praying that Christ would extend His rule in our hearts.We are also praying that Christ would extend His rule in the Church, not just our own local church but in the Church throughout the world. This is a big prayer, but this is how Jesus teaches us to pray and we could stand to meditate on this a little bit more. It’s easy for us to get in the rut of thinking only about our individual needs, or about the needs in our own individual church; but this prayer causes us to look up and cry out for the spread of Christ’s rule throughout the world.Finally, the catechism teaches us to think about this prayer (Your Kingdom come) in the sense of spiritual warfare between the kingdom of God and the work of the enemy. To pray for the spread/coming of Christ’s kingdom is necessarily to be praying for the complete overthrow of every kingdom that would oppose Him, and that means the Devil. Don’t let the spiritual warfare aspect of this frighten you away, because later on in this prayer Jesus is going to instruct us to pray for protection from the Devil. But in this part we are praying that God would tear down and overthrow every rebel kingdom that seeks to stand in the way of God’s kingdom being established in the hearts of God’s people all over the world. So this is a pretty big prayer and now that we have a clearer understanding of what it means, we should be motivated all the more to pray as Jesus instructs us. “Our Father in heaven hallowed be your name, Your kingdom come…”Thank you for joining me today to discuss this aspect of Christian prayer. Next week, we will dig a little deeper into the Lord’s prayer to learn what it means for God’s will to be done on earth as it is in heaven. I hope you will join me for that discussion as we look at Lord’s Day 49 and question 123.Conclusion…If you want to learn more about Cornerstone Baptist church, you can find us online at Cornerstonewylie.org. You can follow us on Twitter or Instagram @cbcwylie. You can find us on Facebook at facebook.com/cornerstonewylie. You can also subscribe to this podcast on iTunes or google play to stay up to date on all the new content. Thanks for listening.

Intro…Welcome to the Cornerstone Baptist church podcast. My name is Justin Wheeler, I am the preaching pastor for Cornerstone and today we are in week 47 of our journey through the Heidelberg Catechism. Today, I will be talking to you about question 122. Transition…This week we continue working through the Lord’s Prayer from Matthew 6:9-13 and we are going to focus on one phrase right at the start of this prayer.Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name. Lord’s Day Focus...Question 122: What does the first request mean?Answer: “Hallowed be Your name” means, Help us to really know you, to bless, worship, and praise You for all Your works and for all that shines forth from them: Your almighty power, wisdom, kindness, justice, mercy, and truth. And it means, help us to direct all our living – what we think, say and do – so that Your name will never be blasphemed because of us but always honored and praised.Now, I’m going to be honest and tell you that I have grown accustomed to thinking that the phrase, “Hallowed be Your name” was something that we do as we pray more so than thinking of it as a request within our prayer. I thought of it as something that one does as he/she begins to pray. IOW, Lord I hallow Your name. I recognize that You are holy and I honor your name as I pray. This is an old-fashioned word that we don’t use that often nowadays, but hallow means to set apart as holy, to recognize as holy and to praise someone for their holiness.That’s the spirit with which I have understood that phrase for many years and I don’t think this is a completely wrong way to approach it. Acknowledging the holiness of God resets our heart and mind around the most important thing about our prayers, namely the one we are praying to. My requests, my needs, my doubts or concerns aren’t nearly as important as my acknowledgement that My heavenly Father is holy and deserves to be honored by me. But the Heidelberg brings out the fact that this is not simply a statement that we are making as we pray to God; this is actually our first request, “Lord would you hallow your name in me.” Jesus is telling us that the first thing we should pray for is for the name of God to be glorified and set apart as holy.What is the significance of this? Jesus wants us to understand that the first and most important thing that we pray for should be for God’s name to be glorified. The most important thing is not that we get what we want, nor that we get what we need; but that God’s name and renown would be magnified in my heart and life. How much does this change our prayers? How much should this change our prayers? We should enter into prayer with the chief concern for God to be glorified and the additional confession of sin or requests for help should serve that purpose. IOW, prayer is not chiefly about changing God’s heart so that He will do what I ask, but about changing my heart so that I can acknowledge the glory of His name.The catechism goes on to say that this request is about us getting to really know God… to bless, worship, and praise You for all Your works and for all that shines forth from them. Knowing more of God is the greater part of the Christian life, all of life for that matter. I don’t simply want to know things about God, I want to know Him, truly, deeply, intimately. I want to grow in my experiential knowledge of my heavenly Father. That’s what this prayer is asking for.As we grow to really know more of God we will praise Him, which is another way of saying that we will hallow His name in our heart and life. Would we naturally think this way about prayer unless Jesus pointed it out to us? Maybe, but probably not. If we approach prayer without Jesus’ instruction, then we will overlook God’s glory and go straight to our needs. But this instruction causes us to slow down and recognize something beyond our simple needs. It causes us to see the need for more of God.Now, there’s nothing wrong with praying like a child and asking God to bless us according to our needs and according to His will. Jesus teaches us about that very thing in Luke 11, but even then, the need for us to acknowledge God’s glory above our own is key.When we pray, “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name” we are saying that the thing which matters most in our prayer, in our lives and in this world is that God’s name be glorified. Thank you for joining me today to discuss this aspect of Christian prayer. Next week, we will dig a little deeper into the Lord’s prayer to learn what it means for us to ask for God’s Kingdom to come. I hope you will join me for that discussion as we look at Lord’s Day 48 and question 123.Conclusion…If you want to learn more about Cornerstone Baptist church, you can find us online at Cornerstonewylie.org. You can follow us on Twitter or Instagram @cbcwylie. You can find us on Facebook at facebook.com/cornerstonewylie. You can also subscribe to this podcast on iTunes or google play to stay up to date on all the new content. Thanks for listening.

Intro…Welcome to the Cornerstone Baptist church podcast. My name is Justin Wheeler, I am the preaching pastor for Cornerstone and today we are in week 46 of our journey through the Heidelberg Catechism. Today, I will be talking to you about question 120-121.This week we will begin working through the Lord’s Prayer from Matthew 6:9-13.Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. Forgives us our debt, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from the evil one. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.This is a prayer that many of us learned as children and have repeated over the years in various settings. I first learned it with my football team in junior high and we would pray it together before games. I wasn’t a believer back then but still this prayer became etched in my memory and it still serves me well today.I became a Christian while in college and as I began to learn various spiritual disciplines that help believers grow in faith and love, this prayer became much more precious and meaningful to me. It helped me to rehearse certain truths that my heart and mind needed to meditate on. It gave me a guide for how to shape my prayers, and I really needed that because no one took me aside and taught me to pray.Transition…But in all honesty, that’s exactly what this prayer is; it is specific instruction from Jesus on how His disciples, how believers in Christs, should pray.Luke 11:1 Now Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.” 2 And he said to them, “When you pray, say: “Father, hallowed be your name…So, this is Jesus teaching all of us how to pray. Jesus is giving us a first-hand lesson on what it looks like for us to pray to God. This is how we should pray and this is how we should understand our relationship to God, whom we are praying to. And the first thing that Jesus tells us should adorn our prayers is an acknowledgment that God is Our Father.Lord’s Day Focus...Question 120: Why has Christ commanded us to address God as: Our Father?Answer: To awaken in us, at the very beginning of our prayer, that childlike awe and trust toward God, which are to be the ground of our prayer; namely, that God has become our Father through Christ, and will much less deny us what we ask of Him in faith, than our parents refuse us earthly things.For some of us, the command of Christ to call God “Our Father” comes with some difficulty or personal baggage. For some of us, the Fatherhood of God is a bit challenging because you grew up without a father. Or maybe you grew up with an angry and abusive father who never showed grace, or perhaps a weak one who never stood up for you to protect you. Some of us were blessed with wonderful fathers, strong and safe, with big hearts and firm hands; I thank God for my father.Others may struggle with the Fatherhood of God because they consider it sexist and would prefer to worship a goddess. But God hasn’t revealed Himself to us in that way. He is never called goddess, mother, or queen in the Scriptures but rather God, Father and King. In Matthew’s Gospel we see the Fatherhood of God referenced 44 times, second only to John’s gospel where God is called Father 109 times.The Fatherhood of God is foundational to Christianity. The whole goal of Christ’s mission is to reunite us with our heavenly Father.John 14:6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.Jesus is the way, the way to what, the way to the Father. When a person comes to faith in Christ they are adopted into God’s family and made a child of God and an heir of the Father’s kingdom right alongside Jesus. Through Jesus we have a relationship with God that is defined as a relationship of a father to his child.My wife and I have been married for almost 19 years and we have three children; Caroline 15, Luke 14, and Samuel 11. As they have grown and matured they have gotten better about how they ask for things, what they ask for and when they ask; but when they were younger they would ask for whatever they wanted with no regard for decorum.If they wanted something or needed something they would come with a childlike expectation that no request was too big, no want was off limits; they just came and asked. I have one son who still thinks he should have dessert after every meal and he still asks for it.Our prayers to the Father should be guided by a more mature request than for ice cream three times a day, but the attitude, the impulse, the recklessness that governs a child’s requests should inform the way we pray to our heavenly Father.Now, I am an imperfect father, but my desire is to be generous with my kids because I love them, and I want them to be happy. I want to give them good things, cool things, fun things. But my desire to be generous doesn’t even come close to God’s desire to be generous.Who is God? He is the universes Creator and Sustainer. He is holy, omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent; and He is our Father. He knows everything, even our needs before we present them to Him. We don’t have to persuade Him or manipulate Him into caring for us, He loved us before we were born, and He will love us forever and He desires to give us the best gifts in the world.Why Did Christ command us to call God “Our Father? Because Christ wants to kindle in us what is basic to our prayer – the childlike awe and trust that God through Christ has become our Father.” Childlike awe causes us to respect and revere the name of God. Childlike trust causes us to know that there is nothing greater than our Father’s will being done.Question 121: Why is it added, In Heaven?Answer: Those words teach us not to think of God’s heavenly majesty as something earthly; and to expect everything necessary for body and soul from His almighty power.There’s a song that we teach to our children and it goes like this,My God is so big, so strong and so mightyThere’s nothing my God cannot doIt is a comforting thought to know that there is nothing beyond the scope of God’s power. It is comforting to know that this limitless and powerful God is our Father. It will change our life when we grasp that this almighty God has instructed us to come to Him in prayer asking for every need that we have to be supplied by His power.God is not a limited Father who can’t tell the difference between a good gift and a dangerous one. He is not an influential man who has limits, but rather is the sovereign ruler of all who has everything at His disposal. When we pray to Our Father in Heaven we are taking our requests, the needs of our body and soul, to the very throne room of the universe.Our prayers are echoing in the throne room of Heaven. Our prayers are pinned up on Our Father’s refrigerator. God hears you and His heart is inclined to you because you are His child.I think we could all stand to learn again what it means to pray like a child. When Jesus wanted to teach his disciples about the dynamics of the Kingdom, He invited a child to come and sit next to Him and Jesus told the disciples that they needed to be more like the child. Humble, needy, unashamed, unembarrassed, bold, playful and willing to come and ask God for everything.And this God who is our Heavenly Father will meet all of our needs, both body and soul, according to His will for us and out of the almighty power that He wields.Thank you for joining me today to discuss Christian prayer. Next week, we will dig a little deeper into the Lord’s prayer to learn what it means for us to ask for God’s named to be hallowed. I hope you will join me for that discussion as we look at Lord’s Day 47 and question 122.Conclusion…If you want to learn more about Cornerstone Baptist church, you can find us online at Cornerstonewylie.org. You can follow us on Twitter or Instagram @cbcwylie. You can find us on Facebook at facebook.com/cornerstonewylie. You can also subscribe to this podcast on iTunes or google play to stay up to date on all the new content.Thanks for listening.

Intro…Welcome to the Cornerstone Baptist church podcast. My name is Justin Wheeler, I am the preaching pastor for Cornerstone and today we are in week 45 of our journey through the Heidelberg Catechism. Today, I will be talking to you about question 116-119.This week’s questions are aimed at the Christian’s prayer life.Question 116: Why do Christians need to pray?Answer: Because prayer is the most important part of the thankfulness God requires of us. and also because God gives His grace and Holy Spirit only to those who pray continually and groan inwardly, asking God for the these gifts and thanking Him for them.We are still in the gratitude section of the Catechism and we need to remind ourselves that we have arrived at this point only because we have travelled through the guilt and grace sections. We started out the year 2019 by opening the first pages of the Heidelberg and learning that the greatest problem facing humanity is not a political one, it is not a financial one, nor a social one; it is a spiritual problem.We live in a natural state of sin and misery. God has graciously revealed to us that the root of all that has gone wrong in the world is the separation that exists between the Creator and His creatures. We have sinned and our sin sets us at odds with our Holy God. But God’s mercy is greater than our sin.In Christ, God has poured out grace to cover our sin. On the cross, Jesus paid our debt and has ransomed us from our guilt and into relationship with God. Once we were far off but now by the blood of Christ we have been brought near to God. By faith in Christ we now have a relationship with God and prayer is a key component in that relationship.Transition…In prayer we express our gratitude for God’s love and grace. In prayer we ask God for forgiveness, wisdom, strength, and help. In prayer we seek the comfort and guidance of the Holy Spirit. In prayer we talk to our heavenly Father. Most of us know this, but at the same time, most of us still struggle with prayer.In his book, A Praying Life, Paul Miller asks us to imagine a trip to a prayer therapist who is going to help us with our prayer struggles. The therapist begins the session by asking us to describe what it means to be a child of God.You reply that it means you have complete access to your heavenly Father through Jesus. You have true intimacy, based not on how good you are but on the goodness of Jesus. Not only that, but Jesus is your brother. You are a fellow heir with him.The therapist smiles and says, “That is right. You’ve done a wonderful job of describing the doctrine of Sonship. Now tell me what it is like for you to be with your Father? What is it like to talk with him?”You cautiously tell the therapist how difficult it is to be in your Father’s presence, even for a couple of minutes. Your mind wanders. You aren’t sure what to say. You wonder, does prayer make any difference? Is God even there? Then you feel guilty for your doubts and just give up.Your therapist tells you what you already suspect. “Your relationship with your heavenly Father is dysfunctional. You talk as if you have an intimate relationship, but you don’t. Theoretically, it is close. Practically, it is distant. You need help.”[1]I think we all need some help in the area of prayer. So, let’s see what Heidelberg has to say that might help us.Lord’s Day Focus...Question 117: How does God want us to pray so that He will listen to us?Answer: First, we must pray from the heart to no other than the one true God, who has revealed Himself in His Word, asking for everything He has commanded us to ask for. Second, we must acknowledge our need and misery, hiding nothing, and humble ourselves in His majestic presence. Third, we must rest on this unshakable foundation: even though we do not deserve it, God will surely listen to our prayer because of Christ our Lord. This is what He promised us in His Word.This is a very thorough answer and every line of it has something to teach us. Let me encourage you to take your time and go through this line by line, meditating on the instruction found here. We could spend the rest of our time in this devotion, teasing out all the points mentioned here but for the purpose of this devotion I will offer a summary of this answer.Our prayers should be directed by Scripture. The first part of this answer assumes that the person praying has a thorough grasp of Biblical truth. God isn’t interested in vain, repetitious or arrogant prayer. He is God and the way we approach Him needs to be informed by what the Bible teaches us about Him.Our prayers should be from a heart that remembers our guilt and God’s grace. We are the ones facing sin and misery, not God. God is not obligated to do anything for us, not obligated to give anything to us, not even obligated to listen to our plea for help. But He does because He is majestic and gracious.Our prayers should be motivated by the confidence that we have through Christ. We do not come to God in prayer on our own, we come through the blood and mediation of Jesus. It is because of Him that we have a relationship to God and this knowledge should guide and motivate us to prayer.So our prayers should take all of this and more into consideration.Question 118: What did God command us to pray for?Answer: Everything we need, spiritually and physically, as embraced in the prayer Christ our Lord Himself taught us.I’ve never really gotten over the fact that Jesus told His disciples that the reason they don’t have certain things is because they have failed to ask for those things. “You have not because you have asked not.” He also said that we don’t have things because we ask with wrong motives, meaning we simply ask for things that satisfy some fleshly appetite not a spiritual one.All of this, and the catechism is aimed to help us realize that we are helpless children and our God is a wise, loving and generous Father. We come to Him with every need that we can think of and when we run out of things, we look to Him and His Word to help us grasp what our true needs are, and we ask for those as well.Too many of us take prayer for granted and therefore we don’t pray. Too many of us treat prayer like an unimportant thing and therefore we don’t pray the way God tells us to. Too many of us pray selfishly and get frustrated when we don’t get what we want.But now that we have a relationship with God through Jesus, our prayers should be shaped by the Father-child relationship. We should pray with a sense of our Father’s gracious presence. We should pray with the knowledge of His Fatherly generosity. We should pray with our mind on His Kingdom and how He wants us to live while still in this world.That is how I would summarize the way Jesus teaches us to pray.Question 119: What is the Prayer?Answer: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. Forgives us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.In this model prayer, Jesus wants us to pray sincerely, humbly and confidently. He wants us to pray with His saving grace as fuel, in fact we can’t come to God unless we come through Jesus, through the fountain of flowing grace. But by faith in Christ we come and pray.He wants us to pray from the heart and from our head. He doesn’t want vain repetitive babbling. He doesn’t want pseudo-spiritual and hypocritical speeches. He wants honest prayer to flow from the hearts of His children to their One True Father in Heaven.The essence of Christian prayer is relational communion with our heavenly Father. When Jesus teaches us to pray, He tells us to approach God with love, as a son or daughter would approach their father. He teaches us to begin our prayer with, “Our Father…” How does a child talk with their father? Loudly, boldly, unashamedly, desperately, with no regard for decorum. They will interrupt you in a second if they have a need, or a want, or even an idea. Big words never enter that conversation, but feeling, and emotion almost always do.Paul Miller,Being a child in prayer means to just come. Children are not tied up in all the details when they come to their parents. They just come.Jesus invites those who are weary and heavy laden to come to him. He doesn’t call the organized and fixed up but the broken. Why do we forget that when it comes to prayer? The dirty, imperfect and broken you is the real you. Don’t try to put on the spiritual façade in prayer. You can talk to God about whatever is on your heart, so just come as you are. Be weak and open in prayer before God. In this way you are remembering and applying the gospel to your prayer life. We need to learn helplessness. That is what a child reflects.[2]Don’t come to your God pretending to be something or someone you are not, He can see straight through that. But come as you are, open your heart to His saving grace in Christ. Repent and receive Jesus as savior and Lord, and when you bow before Him in prayer you will find all the love you will ever need. Come broken and find His compassion. Come needy and find His supply. Come confused and find His Wisdom.Thank you for joining me today to discuss Christian prayer. Next week, we will dig a little deeper into the Lord’s prayer and I hope you will join me for that discussion as we look at Lord’s Day 46 and questions 120-121.Conclusion…If you want to learn more about Cornerstone Baptist church, you can find us online at Cornerstonewylie.org. You can follow us on Twitter or Instagram @cbcwylie. You can find us on Facebook at facebook.com/cornerstonewylie. You can also subscribe to this podcast on iTunes or google play to stay up to date on all the new content.Thanks for listening.[1] Miller, Paul E.. A Praying Life: Connecting with God in a Distracting World (p. 5). NavPress. Kindle Edition.[2] https://www.desiringgod.org/messages/helping-your-people-discover-the-praying-life

Intro…Welcome to the Cornerstone Baptist church podcast. My name is Justin Wheeler, I am the preaching pastor for Cornerstone and today we are in week 44 of our journey through the Heidelberg Catechism. Today, I will be talking to you about question 113-115.This week our question deals with the tenth commandment, which reads:Deuteronomy 5:21 ‘And you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife. And you shall not desire your neighbor’s house, his field, or his male servant, or his female servant, his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s.’“It is lawful to use the world and to desire as much of it as may keep us from poverty…but all the danger is when the world gets into the heart.” Thomas Watson[1]There are two Greek words used in the NT to help us understand the nature of covetousness. The first is pleonexia and it means the state of always desiring to have more. It is greediness that has no end. It is a desire for more that is insatiable. No matter how rich this person becomes he always wants more. No matter how much food, land or pleasure this person has he always wants more.The other term is philarguria which signifies an inordinate love of the world and especially money. It is the ravenous pursuit to be satisfied by the things of this world while never believing that what you have is enough. Like a sailor adrift at sea who begins to drink salt water to quench his thirst, the covetous person will continue to drink even though his thirst is never quenched and eventually his drinking will lead to death.When these two words come together they teach us that covetousness is not simply a desire for more of what the world offers but also a love of the world itself. Like Watson said, the real danger is when the world gets into your heart.Transition…God’s prohibition against covetousness is about the idolatry of stuff. It is about loving and desiring what you don’t have and it causes us to overlook and be thankless for what we do have. Our questions this week are going to help us come to terms with the fact that whether we want to admit it or not, coveting is a problem for all of us and we need some help if we hope to live with the contentment in heart and life that God calls us to.Lord’s Day Focus...Question 113: What is God’s will for you in the tenth commandment?Answer: That not even the slightest thought or desire contrary to any one of God’s commandments should ever arise in my heart. Rather, with all my heart I should always hate sin and take pleasure in whatever is right.Heidelberg answers the question by pointing out that covetousness is first and foremost, contrary to the commands of God. It is to desire what God forbids and therefore the prohibition against coveting is truly aimed at our being content with what God has revealed to us and how God has blessed us. If covetousness is the problem, contentment in Christ is the goal.I think Jesus is trying to help us understand the connection between these two things in Luke 12: 15 where he said, “Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.” Be on guard against all covetousness. Be on guard…it’s almost as if these things are going to sneak up on us and that is exactly what will happen.We don’t naturally recognize that we have a problem we just desire things left and right. We know that covetousness and materialism are problems, but we never assume that they are a problem for us. When was the last time you confessed to coveting?But then Jesus went on to say, “One’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.” This is materialism plain and simple. Materialism is the tendency to consider material possessions and physical comfort as more important than spiritual values. Materialism is an inordinate desire or dependence upon money and material things.Jesus is referring to both covetousness and materialism here and when you put these two things together, you have a type of idolatry that is very powerful and I would argue that this has in many ways become the heartbeat of our culture.Some time ago, I came across an article on Huffington post about how materialism is redefining the American Dream.The American dream is becoming more and more materialistic. I guess it was always a bit materialistic, but when I look at America today, I see a nation obsessed with shopping and buying unnecessary products. Previously, people aspired to have a nice house in the suburbs with a couple of cars. Now, there is no end to the products that people want: the latest IPhone, expensive cars, designer bags--the list is endless. The American dream revolves around luxury goods for most people. As Ellen Goodman put it, "Normal is getting dressed in clothes that you buy for work and driving through traffic in a car that you are still paying for, in order to get to the job you need to pay for the clothes and the car, and the house you leave vacant all day so you can afford to live in it."Shopping is not a problem on its own; It's the obsessive accumulation of unnecessary products, along with the hope that buying a Chanel bag will somehow make you happier that is problematic. The things that we own often end up owning us, and that's what I see around me.[2]I would add that this has not simply become a way of life, but it has become the meaning of life for most Americans. The type of covetousness and materialism, which Jesus is warning us against, is the heartbeat of the culture that we live in.When was the last time you thought about the covetousness in your heart? When was the last time you stopped to think about how easy it is to covet? The truth is we don’t often think about it, we just do it.When driving down the road we see someone’s shiny new vehicle and the longing in our heart leaps into action and we think, “I wish I had a truck like that.” We go to have dinner at a friend’s house, and we see their new larger TV and we think, “I want a TV like that.” We begin to scroll through our Facebook feed, and we notice that an old friend is on a family vacation to Disney World and we think, “Why can’t I afford a vacation like them?” We catch a glimpse of our neighbors’ beautiful wife and think, “Why couldn’t I have married someone like her?”Covetousness is a type of sin that blinds us to its own reality, and we convince ourselves that it is not a problem for us. That’s why Jesus tells us to be on guard against it.Question 114: Can those converted to God obey these commandments perfectly?Answer: No. In this life even the holiest have only a small beginning of this obedience. Nevertheless, with all seriousness of purpose, they do begin to live according to all, not only some, of God’s commandments.Now that we’ve come to the final commandment, we need to do some hard thinking about what role these ten commands play in our lives as followers of Christ. We know that salvation is not the result of our works, it is not earned through moral conformity or personal merit. Salvation is a gift of God’s grace. God doesn’t love and accept us because we have made ourselves lovely and acceptable, He loves us and accepts us on the basis of what Jesus did for us on the cross.We receive salvation by faith, by trusting in and believing the good news of Christ’s identity as the Son of God who lived a sinless life and died in the place of sinners as our substitute. He kept the law perfectly where we did not, indeed even now we cannot. But that doesn’t keep us from striving to live according to our Father’s commands.We don’t obey the commandments in order to earn God’s forgiveness, but now that we have received the forgiveness of sins by faith, we strive to obey His commands out of gratitude.Question 115: Why then does God so strictly enjoin upon us the Ten Commandments, since in this life no one can keep them?Answer: First, so that the longer we live the more we may come to know our sinfulness and the more eagerly look to Christ for forgiveness of sins and righteousness. Second, so that, while praying to God for the grace of the Holy Spirit, we may never stop striving to be renewed more and more after God’s image, until after this life we reach our goal: perfection.As we grow in our relationship with God through Christ two things happen, we will come to know and see and repent of our sin more and more, and we will strive to become more and more conformed to the image of Christ. This is the goal of our redemption. To live everyday, growing in the freedom that Christ has purchased for us and to become more and more like Jesus.That is why these commandments still matter. They guide us to see that our greatest enemy in this life is our own sinful heart and they guide us to appreciate that the greatest gift we have is Jesus and what He accomplished for us on the cross. They guide us to see that God’s way is best and by the Spirit’s work in us, we learn to walk in this world on that narrow path that leads to life.Thank you for joining me today to learn about the ninth commandment. Next week, our focus will shift to prayer and we will discuss what it is, how to do it and why we should. I hope you will join me for that discussion as we look at Lord’s Day 45 and question 116-119.Conclusion…If you want to learn more about Cornerstone Baptist church, you can find us online at Cornerstonewylie.org. You can follow us on Twitter or Instagram @cbcwylie. You can find us on Facebook at facebook.com/cornerstonewylie. You can also subscribe to this podcast on iTunes or google play to stay up to date on all the new content.Thanks for listening.[1] Thomas Watson The Ten Commandments (Pg. 174)[2] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/shanzeh-khurram/is-the-american-dream-bec_b_2702164.html

Intro…Welcome to the Cornerstone Baptist church podcast. My name is Justin Wheeler, I am the preaching pastor for Cornerstone and today we are in week 43 of our journey through the Heidelberg Catechism. Today, I will be talking to you about question 112.This week our question deals with the ninth commandment, which reads:Deuteronomy 5:20 You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.The most basic definition of bearing false witness is when a person lies. It is to offer a false testimony to another person or about another person even if that person doesn’t live next door. The phrase against your neighbor is intended to be a generic understanding of other people and it not limited to only those people who live nearby.So, if you have ever lied to your neighbor or lied about your neighbor then you have broken the ninth commandment. If you have ever shared a story that was untrue, embellished a story to make yourself look better or to make another person look worse then you are guilty of breaking the ninth commandment. If you have ever misrepresented facts in a dispute with your neighbor (another person) then you are guilty of breaking this command.It doesn’t take much imagination to see how this command is aimed at establishing truth, honesty and integrity within social relationships. It doesn’t take much imagination for us to see why this would be a valuable addition to society. If everyone told the truth, then everyone could be trusted. Truth telling promotes mutual respect for others and personal accountability for self.This all seems so simple and we should all just jump on board the honesty train. Well, yes, we should all be people who tell the truth but really not all that simple. Lying is one of the oldest sins in the world and also one of the most destructive.Transition…The first lie occurred in the Garden in Genesis 3 and from that point forward lying is a sin at the very heart of our fallen human nature. Jesus called Satan the “Father of lies” in John 8:44 and Psalm 116:11 tells us that, “All men are liars.” Our God is a covenant keeper who never lies, but we are covenant breakers who lie naturally and treat it like it is no big deal.But it is a big deal and the Heidelberg is going to help us see just how big it is.Lord’s Day Focus...Question 112: What is God’s will for you in the ninth commandment?Answer: God’s will is that I never give false testimony against anyone, twist no one’s words, not gossip or slander, nor join in condemning anyone without a hearing or without a just cause. Rather, in court and everywhere else, I should avoid lying and deceit of every kind; these are the devices the devil himself uses, and they would call down on me God’s intense anger. I should love the truth, speak it candidly, and openly acknowledge it. And I should do what I can to guard and advance my neighbor’s good name.There is much packed into this answer, so let’s break it down and look at each sentence.First, we read that it is God’s will that we never give false testimony. God wants His people to be people of integrity, to be people that others can trust. He wants us to be truth-tellers who say what we mean and mean what we say. In other words, God wants us to be like Him and He never lies (Titus 1:2).From the Garden on throughout all of Biblical history we see that God always speaks the truth and that Satan is the father of lies. One of the key distinctions between the people of God and the unbelieving world is whether or not we believe the truth and speak the truth.But it is also God’s will that we never twist another person’s words. Have you ever told a story and stressed something that was said in such a way that you came off looking like the good guy and the other person came off looking bad? This happens so frequently in daily life that we have even adopted the habit of saying, “Is that exactly what she said?” the implication is that we know people are prone to twist another’s words, because we are prone to do so.Then there’s the fact that we are not to gossip or slander, nor join in condemning anyone without a hearing or without a just cause. To gossip means to pass on information that isn’t true or to pass on what is true without permission or necessity. We gossip when we talk about other people as we share a prayer request for them. We gossip when we reveal information that shouldn’t be shared, or we spread information beyond the boundaries of what is necessary.Slander means to spread false reports and it includes when we cause others to believe false reports. So, I could start a rumor chain, or I could fail to correct a rumor chain, both are a form of slanderTo join in condemning someone without a hearing or without a just cause goes hand in hand with slander. This happens because or when we think the worst of a person before actually hearing the facts. This is the root of prejudice and we are all guilty of this at some level. Sometimes we simply look at a person and assume they are wrong; they are guilty or that they are not to be trusted.The ninth commandment instructs us to withhold judgment until the truth can be heard. It calls on us to show love and respect to everyone in such a way that we hold them to be innocent until the facts prove them to be guilty. May the person in question did something wrong, but maybe they didn’t and the only way we can know with any certainty is to withhold judgment until the facts have been presented.The second sentence tells us that in court and everywhere else, I should avoid lying and deceit of every kind; these are the devices the devil himself uses, and they would call down on me God’s intense anger. The ninth commandment applies in every walk of life, not just in the courtroom. It tells us that we should avoid lying and deceit of every kind.We should speak the truth in every circumstance. So, when we file our taxes there shouldn’t be any exaggeration. When we talk about how busy we are we should be clear and honest. When we talk about how much we pray, read the Bible, love our neighbors, we should be absolutely honest and not try to cause others to think more highly of us then they should.You may not want to admit it, but this is a problem for all of us and it reveals something about our hearts that God wants us to see. It reveals that the impulses in our hearts are devilish and worthy of God’s just anger. Lying and deceit are sinful. They are wicked. They are deserving of judgment.Prov 22 Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord,In Proverbs 6:16-19 we are told that there are 6 things that the Lord hates and 7 things that are an abomination to Him. Here’s the list, “haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that run to evil, a false witness who breathes out lies and one who sows discord among brothers.”Did you catch that lying is in there twice? This is a serious sin in the eyes of God because it is a sin that comes straight from the playbook of our enemy. It is a serious sin because it stands in absolute contradiction to the character of GodThe final sentence tells us that we should do whatever we can to guard and advance our neighbors good name. This is the goal of our social interaction. This is the aim of God’s people when it comes to personal relationships. This is also what loving your neighbor looks like in action when you are committed to speaking the truth to them and about them.I don’t want to share something that is going to paint them in a negative light. I don’t want to assume something that is untrue of them. I don’t want to represent them in such a way that their good name would be diminished in the eyes of others. I want to guard and advance the good name of everyone.This ninth command is key to having the kind of community that honors and reflects the goodness of God.Eph 4:15 Speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, 16 from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.The Bible is filled with warnings for how our tongues can cause destruction and it is filled with instruction about how our words can give life.Proverbs 18:21 Death and life are in the power of the tongue,Jesus wants us to be people whose tongues give life. He wants us to be a church whose speech is trustworthy.The truth is that we will fail in our speech, but what should we do when we fail? What happens when we make a promise that we simply cannot keep? What happens when we fail to speak the truth? The first thing we must do is to confess our sin to God. Then we must confess our sin to the person we lied to and finally we must seek to make things right with genuine repentance.We need to grow to be people who know the dangers of lying and who seek by God’s daily grace to be those who speak and uphold the truth.Thank you for joining me today to learn about the ninth commandment. Next week, we will continue to study by looking at the tenth commandment, which addresses covetousness. I hope you will join me for that discussion as we look at Lord’s Day 44 and question 113-115.Conclusion…If you want to learn more about Cornerstone Baptist church, you can find us online at Cornerstonewylie.org. You can follow us on Twitter or Instagram @cbcwylie. You can find us on Facebook at facebook.com/cornerstonewylie. You can also subscribe to this podcast on iTunes or google play to stay up to date on all the new content.Thanks for listening.

Intro…Welcome to the Cornerstone Baptist church podcast. My name is Justin Wheeler, I am the preaching pastor for Cornerstone and today we are in week 42 of our journey through the Heidelberg Catechism. Today, I will be talking to you about questions 110 & 111.This week our question deals with the eighth commandment, which reads:Deuteronomy 5:19 You shall not steal.The most basic definition of stealing is when a person takes something that doesn’t belong to them. It is to take another person’s property without permission or right without the intention of returning it. Stealing is dishonest. It takes advantage of another person’s hard work. It disregards the rights to personal property, and it undermines trust.If you have ever had something stolen from you then you know how important this command truly is, at least as far as it pertains to you and your experience. But as we look to the Scriptures, we get the impression that God’s prohibition against stealing has a much broader scope than we might think at first.Transition…It is stealing/theft to break into someone’s home, car or property to take something from them. It is stealing to put a piece of candy in your pocket at the grocery store cash register without paying for it. It is stealing to take someone’s pen at work, to take someone’s lunch from the breakroom fridge, and it is stealing when you take the robes from the fancy hotel room without paying for it.But stealing also includes being dishonest when you sell things to your neighbor. It is stealing when you claim a full workday even though you left at 2. It is stealing when you take advantage of people by swindling them out of money and it is stealing when you know the cashier gave you $20 back as change when she only owed you $5. You see, there’s more to this commandment than we think at first and the catechism is trying to help us see that.Lord’s Day Focus...Question 110: What is God’s will for you in the eighth commandment?Answer: He forbids not only outright theft and robbery, punishable by law. But in God’s sight theft also includes cheating and swindling our neighbor by schemes made to appear legitimate, such as: inaccurate measurements of weight, size, volume; fraudulent merchandising; counterfeit money; excessive interest; or any other means forbidden by God. In addition, He forbids all greed and pointless squandering of His gifts.Outright theft or robbery is where our minds go at first and it needs to be pointed out that it is sin and should be punishable by law. But in God’s sight stealing also includes cheating and swindling our neighbors.The Bible has a lot to say about using accurate weights and measures in the marketplace. This idea is about dishonest practices. It is talking about a person who puts a ten-pound weight on the scale when it actually weighs 5 pounds so that they can get more money by cheating.Prov 11:1 A false balance is an abomination to the Lord, but a just weight is his delight.So stealing is not just about taking what doesn’t belong to you, it is also about cheating others out of what is right and fair. It is about dishonesty.It is also about taking advantage of people in need. If a neighbor needs help and I sell them a tool that will help them get a job to make money, but I make them finance the tool at a rate that will keep them in my debt far beyond what the tool is actually worth, then I have taken advantage of them. It is a form of stealing.Instead, of being dishonest and trying to profit from that dishonesty, the Lord calls His people to work hard, to earn an honest wage and to be generous with it.Eph 4:28 Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need.This brings us to the second question…Question 111: What does God require of you in this commandment?Answer: That I do whatever I can for my neighbors good, that I treat others as I would like them to treat me, and that I work faithfully so that I may share with those in need.When we don’t love our neighbors the way we should we are prone to cheat them, steal from them and take advantage of them. But when we learn to love our neighbors according to God’s command, we grow to the point that we want to be a blessing to them. We want to care for them, be honest with them, help them and be generous with what we have.Greed leads to stealing, but love leads to generosity and that is what this command is leading our hearts to embrace. In fact, this is what the gospel is leading us to embrace.Have you ever taken stock of the times Jesus encountered someone that was wealthy? It happens quite a bit. In the gospel of Luke there seems to be specific attention given to the distinction between the poor and rich. When Jesus comes into the world He is born in the poorest of conditions, to a poor mother and father, and His birth is attended by shepherds, not exactly high society folks.During his ministry he runs into several wealthy people and tells stories about the wealthy. He met the rich young ruler and told the parable about a rich fool. He met Zachheus and he told the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. He taught about the prodigal son who clearly had problems with money and sin but he also pointed out the woman who gave away her last two pennies at the temple.What does all of this mean? I’m not entirely sure, but it seems that Jesus wants us to understand that there is a connection between our faith in Him and how much of a hold our money has on our heart.Matt 6:24 “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.We cannot serve God and money, but we can serve God with our money. Money makes a terrible god. It can’t satisfy us, it can’t save us, it can only make us comfortable for a couple of years before it runs out or we die and pass it on to someone else. We don’t serve money because God tells us that it is the root of all evil and it turns a gift into a false god. We don’t worship stuff because it makes an idol out of something that moth and rust destroy.Instead, we serve God with our whole being, our heart, soul, mind and strength, and we use his gifts to make much of Hm. So be generous, be a faithful steward of all that God has given you, use his gifts in such a way that it shows Christ to be God rather than the things of the world.As Christians, all of life is a stewardship and every gift is an opportunity to enjoy God and share his love with others.Thank you for joining me today to learn about the eighth commandment. Next week, we will continue to study by looking at the ninth commandment, which addresses bearing false witness against your neighbor. I hope you will join me for that discussion as we look at Lord’s Day 43 and question 112.Conclusion…If you want to learn more about Cornerstone Baptist church, you can find us online at Cornerstonewylie.org. You can follow us on Twitter or Instagram @cbcwylie. You can find us on Facebook at facebook.com/cornerstonewylie. You can also subscribe to this podcast on iTunes or google play to stay up to date on all the new content.Thanks for listening.

Intro…Welcome to the Cornerstone Baptist church podcast. My name is Justin Wheeler, I am the preaching pastor for Cornerstone and today we are in week 41 of our journey through the Heidelberg Catechism. Today, I will be talking to you about question 108 -109.This week our question deals with the seventh commandment, which reads:Deuteronomy 5:18 You shall not commit adultery.Adultery is a term that we are all familiar with because it refers to a sexual act that is far too common. In fact, adultery, voluntary sexual intercourse between a married person and a person who is not their spouse, is not really seen as a big deal at all by many in our culture. Sure, there are and will always be people, I suppose, that would prefer their spouse not have sex with another person; but the fact that adultery has become so common has made it seem fairly tame compared to some of the other sexual practices taking place in 21st century America.We live in a culture where our entire lives are inundated with sexuality. It’s on our TV, in our movies, and on the catalogues and ads that are delivered to our door. It’s on billboards as we drive into downtown. It’s plastered across the magazine racks in high-gloss photos as we approach the checkout counter at the grocery store. And of course, it’s almost as if the internet was made for the specific purpose of pushing sexuality into our lives in every imaginable way.This has had a huge impact on our lives and our culture. Adultery is so common that it is simply accepted as a normal part of adult life, especially for our political leaders. In fact, if a political leader takes measures to remain faithful to their spouse they are mocked as being sexually repressive. Sex before marriage is just normal and it has been this way for generations. Homosexuality has been declared a basic human right by our Supreme Court. Transgenderism and transsexualism are just this cultural moment’s examples of sexual deviance being made to look normal and God’s standards being made to look obscene.Transition…But what does all of this have to do with the command of God forbidding adultery? Well, actually it has everything to do with it because Jesus teaches us in the NT that there is an underlying issue of the heart behind this command.Matt 5:27 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ 28 But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.Lust is adultery of the heart. It is the strong sexual desire for something or someone that is forbidden. It is the sexual desire for someone or something that doesn’t belong to you, and therefore this seventh command, along with Jesus’ expansion of it makes any sexual act outside of marriage between a man and woman sinful.And that is what the Heidelberg Catechism helps us to understand.Lord’s Day Focus...Question 108: What is God’s will for you in the seventh commandment?Answer: God condemns all unchastity. We should therefore thoroughly detest it and, married or single, live decent and chaste lives.Adultery is a word we all know but unchastity may need a definition simply because we don’t use that word very often. Chastity refers to the practice of refraining from any sex outside of marriage. In some cases, people will take a vow of chastity for religious reasons and that means that they intend to refrain from all sexual intercourse by not getting married.So, when the Heidelberg says that God’s condemns all unchastity, it is saying, and rightly so, that any sexual act outside of the covenant of marriage between one man and one woman is sin. Our understanding of all sexual immorality is rooted in the fact that any form of sexual identity, sexual temptation, or sexual satisfaction that is contrary to what God declares to be good is sin.What I mean is that when we look to Scripture to develop a Biblical theology of sex, we must start with the type of sex that God declares to be good and pleasing in His sight, and anything other than that is determined to be sinful. Anything outside of God’s design for human sexual expression is wrong.Question 109: Does God, in this commandment, forbid only such scandalous sins as adultery?Answer: We are temples of the Holy Spirit, body and soul, and God wants both to be kept clean and holy. That is why He forbids everything which incites unchastity, whether it be actions, looks, talk, thoughts, or desires.The proper starting point for a discussion on the biblical theology of sex must start in the Garden of Eden. Because in the Garden, God gave us His plan for human sexuality.Gen 2:18 Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” 19 Now out of the ground the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. 20 The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him. 21 So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. 22 And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. 23 Then the man said,“This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh;she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.”24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. 25 And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.This is the foundation for what the Bible teaches on sex. Human sexuality was created by God as a pleasurable gift to be enjoyed only by a man and his wife. Sex was a means to build families, and as a way to strengthen intimacy/unity between a husband and wife. Any type of sexual act that falls short of this standard is a disordered sexuality. Any deviation from this norm, is wrong.Any type of sexual gratification, any type of sexual activity that falls outside the scope of God’s revealed plan is sin. God condemns all unchastity. We should therefore thoroughly detest it and, married or single, live decent and chaste lives.Now, I am very aware of the fact that this view, this teaching isn’t popular, especially in our culture today. But I don’t think it has ever been popular. C. S. Lewis, wrote,Chastity is the most unpopular of the Christian virtues. There is no getting away from it; the Christian rule is, either marriage, with complete faithfulness to your spouse, or else total abstinence. Now this is so difficult and so contrary to our instincts, that obviously either Christianity is wrong or our sexual instinct, as it now is, has gone wrong. One or the other. Of course, being a Christian, I think it is the instinct which has gone wrong.[1]Lewis wrote this in 1952 in the culture of Great Britain and I have no way of knowing if it was true at that time, but I take his word for it. I also, agree with his conclusion about where the problem lies. It is not Christianity that is the problem it is our sinful sexual instinct that is the issue.God’s commands about sexuality and His commands against our sexual immorality will always seem out of place to us so long as our sexual instincts are driven by our sinful brokenness. So, what can we do to counteract our sinful sexual brokenness? What can we do to honor God and seek to obey His commands?One step in our approach to battling sin and temptation is, “If our right eye causes us to sin…don’t look.” Behave as if you had actually plucked out your eyes. Jesus actually commands us to take real and drastic measures to battle against sin and temptation.For some of us that means you need to put filters on your computers and home network. For others, this means that you need to stop reading the books you’re reading. For others, this means you need to delete your social media accounts or stop watching the movies or HBO and Netflix shows you enjoy so much.Yes, I’m sure that your friends will say, “What are you talking about? You’re not going to know how this end. If you’re not going to watch this new show or read this new book…you won’t be as culturally educated as you could be.” That may be true, but it is better to be culturally maimed and preserve your purity. The question is whether you are willing to go to this extreme to battle sin and temptation.Jesus says that it is better to live life culturally maimed, to avoid certain experiences in this life, than to risk final destruction in the life to come.Now, in many ways, this approach to change is good But this approach is not enough because this approach cannot change your heart. This approach is simply not complete because it focuses on the outward behaviors only and the root of the problem of sexual sin is a heart problem. Behavior modification alone will not solve this problem of our hearts. Only Jesus can solve this problem.One of my deepest Christian convictions is that the gospel is so much more than simply the minimal doctrine that one must affirm in order to go to Heaven. The gospel is the power of God that saves us from sin’s guilt and sin’s control and turns the entire world upside down.The gospel is so powerful that it can turn an enemy of God into a worshipper of God. It is so powerful that it can change your eternity as well as your life here and now. The gospel changes us at the very core of who we are. It reorients our heart around the weight of God’s glory and when the gospel takes root in us it begins a process of reorienting all of life around our growing love for God over our love for sin.As believers in Christ our identity as gospel people is going to propel us into battle against sexual sin. Jesus doesn’t command us to embrace a Biblical sexual ethic in order that we can be saved, but instead as the born-again people of God he calls us to embrace a God-honoring view of sex. Obedience to God flows out of a renewed relationship to God.I think that our battle against sexual sin begins not with what we need to do but with something we need to believe…Our identity is in Christ, not our sexuality. The culture says, “You are your sexuality.” The culture says that to deny our sexual urges is to deny our humanity. The culture wants us to believe that If we reject its views of sexuality and the practice of those views then we are rejecting what it means to be human.But the Bible teaches us something else about sex?a. The Bible teaches us the context in which sex is a gift. Within the context of monogamous, heterosexual marriage sex is an amazing gift of God that is to be enjoyed for pleasure, for procreation and for the joy of intimacy. Outside of monogamous heterosexual marriage sex in all its forms is sin.b. The Bible teaches us that sex and romantic fulfillment are not the keys to life. They are gifts but they are not the ultimate point of life. Jesus was celibate and lived the fullest and most God-glorifying life ever lived. Therefore, Jesus teaches us that the key to a full life is not intimacy with another person but rather intimacy with God.In American culture, we have completely distorted this. Our culture promotes the pursuit of sexual pleasure first and foremost and then in the context of our sexual enjoyment we are to then find religious teaching that affirms and supports our sexuality.But Jesus wants us to pursue our relationship with God first and foremost and then in the context of that relationship we are to enjoy God’s gift of sex in a way that glorifies Him.Trusting Christ with our sexuality is hard because it goes against the grain of what culture says and in many ways, it goes against the grain of what we feel. Our natural predisposition is to sin. It is to go against God’s glory, Gods rule, and Gods word. We are dead in sin, we are enemies of God, we are blinded to God’s glory and through the gospel Jesus calls us out of this and into a life with God that is going to be hard.But I want us to remember something about Jesus as we seek to navigate through this issue. In His life, Jesus dealt with a lot of sinful people, even those caught up in sexual sin. But something you will notice is that He never seems to want to push people away. No matter the issue, Jesus invites people in close so that He can talk to them and offer them grace. Even when He encountered people who were involved with deep sexual sins we see that Jesus draws near to them and offers them grace, He is honest with them about their sin, but then He looks them in the eye and He says, “Now, come and follow me.”Thank you for joining me today to learn about the seventh commandment. Next week, we will continue to study by looking at the eighth commandment, which addresses stealing and taking what doesn’t belong to us. I hope you will join me for that discussion as we look at Lord’s Day 42 and questions 110 - 111.Conclusion…If you want to learn more about Cornerstone Baptist church, you can find us online at Cornerstonewylie.org. You can follow us on Twitter or Instagram @cbcwylie. You can find us on Facebook at facebook.com/cornerstonewylie. You can also subscribe to this podcast on iTunes or google play to stay up to date on all the new content.Thanks for listening.[1] C.S. Lewis Mere Christianity: Sexual Morality (pg. 95)

Intro…Welcome to the Cornerstone Baptist church podcast. My name is Justin Wheeler, I am the preaching pastor for Cornerstone and today we are in week 40 of our journey through the Heidelberg Catechism. Today, I will be talking to you about question 105-107.Transition…This week our question deals with the sixth commandment,Deut 5:17 You shall not murder.This is perhaps the most recognized and culturally accepted commandments in all of the decalogue (the ten). Even among the unbelieving, non-Christian people around us, this command is seen as right and just.Nearly every civilization known to us, has had some laws prohibiting the taking of human life and promising punishment to those who did. But that hasn’t kept our world from being filled with murder, nor has it kept murder out of our imaginations. Right here in Dallas, records indicate that the murder rate is on a dramatic rise.In 2018 Dallas, TX recorded 196 homicides. By May of 2019, the city had already recorded 90 homicides[1], which means that before the summer began we were on pace to break a terrible record.But murder is not just a reality in our culture it is also big business in the box office. Horror movies depicting homicidal violence have never been more popular. The highest grossing horror film in 2018 was The Quiet Place taking in $188 million. The entire horror industry took in $901 million in 2018. Almost $1 billion was spent in 2018 by people who wanted to be entertained by violent murder being depicted on screen.[2] This doesn’t take into account the millions made on action, adventure and sci-fi depicting similar violence.What does this mean? For starters, It reveals that we don’t take this command of God very seriously. But it also reveals that at some level deep down, murder is a problem that all of us struggle with.Lord’s Day Focus...Murder has been an issue for humanity since the very beginning. In Genesis 4 we read about the very first sin committed outside the Garden of Eden. Cain and his brother Abel prepared their offerings to the Lord. The Lord received Abel’s offering but not Cain’s and,“So Cain was very angry, and his face fell…8 Cain spoke to Abel his brother. And when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him.Just a few verses later in the same chapter (Gen 4), we read the story of a man named Lamech who boasted about his two wives and that he had killed a young man. After the flood, God commissions Noah and his family to being rebuilding human civilization. But this time God gives him a law prohibiting murder from Genesis 9:6, “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image.”Don’t miss the fact that we are 9 chapters into the Bible, and we have already seen murder become so prevalent on the earth that God gave Moses this divine law in order to forbid it. Murder is a serious crime in the eyes of God and it demands a serious punishment.Murder is an assault upon the image of God in man. Human life is not cheap, it is precious to God and when it is taken, God demands justice. Murder is the intentional taking of innocent human life. It is not the same thing as the accidental taking of life, nor is it the same as self-defense, nor does this prohibit just war.The act of murder is a grievous sin and its effects can be seen throughout the Bible and throughout the history of humanity. Murder is a terrible crime, a terrible transgression of God’s law, which demands swift and balancing justice, but murder has a root that goes deeper than the act itself.When Jesus addressed this sin and the commandment prohibiting it, He didn’t deal so much with the act itself but with the heart attitude behind it.Matt 5:21 “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ 22 But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire.Murder is a terrible sin, but anger is the real root of the problem and the root is what the Heidelberg wants to address.Question 105: What is God’s will for you in the sixth commandment?Answer: I am not to belittle, insult, hate, or kill my neighbor – not by my thoughts, my words, my look or gesture, and certainly not by actual deeds – and I am not to be party to this in others; rather, I am to put away all desire for revenge. I am not to harm or recklessly endanger myself either. Prevention of murder is also why government is armed with the sword.How many of us have read the 10 commandments and thought, “Well at least I haven’t committed murder?” Jesus’ audience did the same thing. They looked at the pursuit of righteousness simply in terms of what they had and had not done, but Jesus taught that our behavior is only part of the equation. The key to understanding the deeper purpose of God’s law is to understand what it reveals about our hearts and in our hearts, we commit murder all the time.It is easy to see that anger is what leads to the act of murder, especially if we look at the story of Cain and Abel. But Jesus wants us to know that the anger in our hearts is just as dangerous and deserving of condemnation as the act itself. God cares when we commit sinful acts, but He also cares about the sinful condition of our hearts.So God’s will for us in this commandment is not that we would do everything in our power to avoid the sin of murder, but that we would strive to rid our hearts of the attitudes and emotions that give rise to murder. Heidelberg even talks about the act of harming oneself as murder.Suicide is a terrible thing and often comes about because a person is hurting or has been hurt in a way that is completely overwhelming. But it is still sin. We should grieve when suicide takes place and we should try to comfort those whose loved one has taken their life, but we need to have a category in our mind for what has taken place and suicide is still sin.Question 106: Does this commandment refer only to killing?Answer: By forbidding murder God teaches us that He hates the root of murder: envy, anger, vindictiveness. In God’s sight all such are murder.God hates the root of murder. The heart is desperately wicked and we cannot tame it, but God can. In His mercy and grace, God can and does give new hearts to His people, but He also renews our hearts by His Spirit and His Word.As He works in our hearts, He calls us to turn away from the root of murder and wicked fruit and to embrace the root of love.It is well known that love is at the heart of the message and vision of Christianity. There is perhaps no more popular New Testament verse in the world than John 3:16, where we come to understand that God loves the world and in His love He gave His Son to us so that all who believe in Him will not perish but will have eternal life. The Father’s love for unlovely sinners, like us, is at the very heart of the Christian message.But that is not the end of Christianity’s vision of love. Jesus told his friends that there is no greater love in this world than the love that would cause a man to give his own life in order to save his friends and that is exactly what Jesus did. He died in our place. He took our place and shielded us from the judgment of God and He did this because of His love.But still, this is not the end of Christianity’s vision of love. In the NT gospels, we see Jesus teaching all of His disciples that we are to be people of love. We are to love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. We are to love our neighbors as ourselves. We are even commanded to love our enemies and to pray for those who persecute us.Jesus tells us that the world will know that we belong to Him by the way we love one another. The Christian vision of love is incredible and it gives us the idea that God wants love to fill the earth and fuel all of our emotions and actions.Question 107: Is it enough then that we do not kill our neighbor in any such way?Answer: No. By condemning envy, hatred, and anger God tells us to love our neighbors as ourselves, to be patient, peace-loving, gentle, merciful, and friendly to them, to protect them from harm as much as we can, and to do good even to our enemies.To do good to our enemies is uncommon love. This is radical love fueled by a profound understanding of gospel realities. The gospel teaches that despite God’s goodness toward mankind, all of us have rejected Him in our hearts. We suppress the truth about Him and we seek to live as though we belong in God’s place. But, He loved us. Before the foundation of the world, He chose to love us and even while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.We don’t deserve His love and when this truth takes hold of our hearts, it will begin to change the way we view everyone, even our enemies. At the end of the day Jesus is calling us to imitate the love of the Father in how we interact with everyone, from family and friends, to fellow believers, and even to strangers and enemies. He calls us to love, to do good, to lend with no strings attached. God is the standard of how we are to love others, and God’s love is perfect.As followers of Jesus we are called to love not to hate. We are called to love God in a way that resets our heart and enables us to love others in an extraordinary, unnatural and radical way. This sixth commandment is not just a prohibition against a terrible type of sin, it is also a summons to an otherworldly type of love.Thank you for joining me today to learn about the sixth commandment. Next week, we will continue to study by looking at the seventh commandment, which prohibits adultery and helps us understand what Biblical sexual ethics are all about. I hope you will join me for that discussion as we look at Lord’s Day 41 and questions 108 -109.Conclusion…If you want to learn more about Cornerstone Baptist church, you can find us online at Cornerstonewylie.org. You can follow us on Twitter or Instagram @cbcwylie. You can find us on Facebook at facebook.com/cornerstonewylie. You can also subscribe to this podcast on iTunes or google play to stay up to date on all the new content.Thanks for listening.[1] https://dfw.cbslocal.com/2019/06/05/rising-dallas-homicide-rate-comparison-other-cities/[2] https://www.the-numbers.com/market/2018/genre/Horror

Intro…Welcome to the Cornerstone Baptist church podcast. My name is Justin Wheeler, I am the preaching pastor for Cornerstone and today we are in week 39 of our journey through the Heidelberg Catechism. Today, I will be talking to you about question 104. Only one question again this week but it too is a significant one so let’s get started.Transition…This week our question deals with the fifth commandment,Deut 5:16 Honor your father and your mother, as the Lord your God commanded you, that your days may be long, and that it may go well with you in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.It’s no surprise to most of us that God wants us to take the parent-child relationship seriously. Like many of you, I grew up with this commandment in mind and I have always generally accepted that it was right for children to honor their parents, even when I didn’t want to. But for God to make it one of the ten commandments shows us just how important this command and the relationship it affects truly are.This command is also restated in the New Testament and expanded a little bit.Eph 6:1 Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. 2 “Honor your father and mother” (this is the first commandment with a promise), 3 “that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.” 4 Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.Paul tells us here that obedience to parents is right, that it comes with a promise, but he also points out that how parents relate to their children is important as well. All of that to say, there is plenty for us to consider in this fifth commandment and Heidelberg is going to help us to do just that.Lord’s Day Focus...Question 104: What is God’s will for you in the fifth commandment?Answer: That I honor, love and be loyal to my father and mother and all those in authority over me; that I obey and submit to them, as is proper, when they correct and punish me; and also that I be patient with their failings – for through them God chooses to rule us.First, notice that this answer extends the responsibility of submission to authority beyond the parent-child relationship. Honor, love and loyalty to parents is just the start but in general, submission to all those in authority is included. The church has understood and taught that the fifth commandment should be applied in this way.“All the catechisms and confessions of the Reformation, for example, treated the command to honor father and mother as applicable to other ‘authority-subordinate’ relationships.”[1] When you read in the NT epistles and you come to the household codes as they are described, we see a series of relationships where there is an authority-subordinate structure and in each of these, the fifth commandment is contained.What this means is that God has commanded that humanity ordered society in such a way that it reflects a proper respect for authority and for those in submission. Citizens should submit to governmental authorities (Rom 13:1), the church should submit to its leaders (Heb 13:17), wives should submit to their own husbands (Eph 5:22), servants should submit to their masters (Eph 6:5) and of course children should obey their parents.It is important to point out there are clearly exceptions to these commands and there is even Biblical precedent for it. Authority can be abused. Parents can be abusive or make demands that violate God’s will. Leaders often command something that God forbids and in such cases our response should be to, “obey God rather than men (Acts 5:29).” But on the whole, it is God’s design that parents lead, guide and exercise authority while children obey their authority in a way that pleases God.God calls children to obey their parents, to follow their parent’s instruction in everything and this type of relationship is right in the eyes of God. This obedience is something that pleases the Lord. But if we are honest, we don’t see this playing out in our culture in abundance. In fact, in my opinion we see the opposite.Why don’t we see more of this? Part of it is that the mindset of our culture is so confused about all of these roles, but specially the role of children. We have overstressed the “rights” of the child and overemphasized the individuality of the child to such a degree that we see kids who trample on their parents and anyone else in their way.It is more common in our culture to see children disrespect and dishonor their parents. We consider it the normal course of things for children to rebel against their parent’s authority and it has resulted in many parents simply giving up. When I was younger, teenage rebellion was celebrated. It was viewed as the throwing off of patriarchal oppression and this language has only become more commonplace over the last few decades.Never before has our cultural ethos done more to allow for and encourage youthful immaturity. Kids are coddled and their preferences catered to, in the home and in the society at large. Contrary to the fears of some, most households are less patriarchy and more kindergarchy.[2]But God’s Word holds out the standard and says that it is not right for children to break the fifth commandment. Nor is it right for parents to provoke their children to anger in such a way that it will naturally lead to rebellion.Eph 6:4 Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.God wants us to know that the responsibilities within the parent-child relationship go both ways. Children are to obey their parents and parents are to lovingly encourage their children. The term “fathers” can refer to both parents, because after all, children aren’t commanded to obey their father’s only. But, it may be that fathers are being singled out for their role in overseeing the upbringing of their children as part of God’s design on the family.Don’t provoke your children. Don’t lead them to discouragement. The phrase suggests that there is a way that we as parents can engage our children to the point that they take our leadership as a challenge to them. Instead of bringing them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord (Eph 6:4) what is happening here is that parents are nagging, irritating, demanding, and provoking their children in such a way that they just want to give up trying to obey and please their parents.Sometimes this means that children feel like complete failures who are unable to please their parents. Nothing is ever good enough. No accomplishment will ever make mom and dad happy. And sometimes this means that children feel provoked/angry with mom and dad like they are being prodded into a fight or a competition. There are ways that we can interact with our children that have a tendency to crush their spirit and there is a way that we can interact with them that makes them want to fight back…and we need to seek to avoid both.The goal is to teach them and instruct them in the truth through a growing relationship that reflects the love that God has shown us.The fifth commandment also applies to those of us who are older and even parents ourselves. We still have a responsibility to honor our aging parents in a way that gives glory to God. We should work to maintain our relationship to them, help them, listen to their advice and seek to be a blessing to them even though our relational dynamics have changed since we’ve moved out of their home.There are numerous ways that this fifth commandment still applies to us today. The focus is obviously the relationship between parents and their children, which is the first and most important relationship within society. But as we zoom out, we see that this principle of respect for authority extends throughout human civilization. No culture will flourish where there is no order, trust and mutual respect.Oh, and by the way, God has commanded the ordering of society upon the foundation of truth and mutual respect in such a way that we get a glimpse of what it means to be in right relationship to Him, our Creator, God and King.Thank you for joining me today to learn about the fifth commandment. Next week, we will continue to study by looking at the sixth commandment, which prohibits the taking of human life but also has some implications for how we are to treat our neighbors. I hope you will join me for that discussion as we look at Lord’s Day 40 and questions 105-107.Conclusion…If you want to learn more about Cornerstone Baptist church, you can find us online at Cornerstonewylie.org. You can follow us on Twitter or Instagram @cbcwylie. You can find us on Facebook at facebook.com/cornerstonewylie. You can also subscribe to this podcast on iTunes or google play to stay up to date on all the new content.Thanks for listening.[1] Kevin DeYoung The Good News We Almost Forgot (Pg. 187)[2] Ibid, pg. 186

Intro…Welcome to the Cornerstone Baptist church podcast. My name is Justin Wheeler, I am the preaching pastor for Cornerstone and today we are in week 38 of our journey through the Heidelberg Catechism. Today, I will be talking to you about question 103. Only one question this week but it is a significant one so let’s get started.Transition…This week our question deals with the fourth commandment and the fourth commandment is all about the Sabbath.Deut 5:12 “ ‘Observe the Sabbath day, to keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you. 13 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 14 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter or your male servant or your female servant, or your ox or your donkey or any of your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates, that your male servant and your female servant may rest as well as you. 15 You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day.Now, there is much for us to consider as we think on this particular command. We need to understand where it comes from, how it applied to OT Israel, what Jesus taught us about it and how it changes, if at all, for Christians today. Thankfully, the Heidelberg helps us tremendously so lets go ahead and look at Question 103 and its answer.Lord’s Day Focus...Question 103: What is God’s will for you in the fourth commandment?Answer: First, that the gospel ministry and education for it be maintained, and that, especially on the festive day of rest, I regularly attend the assembly of God’s people to learn what God’s Word teaches, to participate in the sacraments, to pray to God publicly, and to bring Christian offerings for the poor. Second, that every day of my life I rest from my evil ways, let the Lord work in me through His Spirit, and so begin already in this life the eternal Sabbath.I really appreciate this answer because it avoids some of the more common debates surrounding the role of the sabbath in the Christian life. It may be the case that you have avoided that debate, but I’m guessing that most of you have engaged it at some level. Over the years, I’ve found that many people have very strong opinions about the sabbath, and I’ve found that others tend to be a bit confused about it.I don’t expect that I will solve all the problems related to it on this podcast, but I do hope to give some background and tell you why I think the Heidelberg gets it right. So, let’s start with some history.The Sabbath principle shows up in Genesis 2,2 And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. 3 So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.At the very start of everything, God decided to include this principle of rest into creation. One day out of seven is set aside for the purpose of rest and I think it is important to point out that God didn’t do this because He was too exhausted to go back to work. I call this the Sabbath principle because rest wasn’t something that God needed to do; He chose to include it for a different reason.Fast forward to the time when Israel was a nation of God’s people and we discover that the Sabbath was a very important part of their identity. Even before they made it into the Promised Land, God established the Sabbath principle as a way to teach His people to trust in Yahweh to take care of them and provide for them.Now, at this point the command to rest on Saturday was part of the covenant agreement that God made with Israel. This wasn’t a command that extended to all the other nations on earth. It was part of their covenant identity and through this law God proved His trustworthiness, which seems to be one of the key points to this whole Sabbath idea.God wanted His people to rest and enjoy His provision for them as well as to gather together in an assembly of worship (Lev 23:3). On this special day, the work stopped but the bread did not. On this day the labor ceased but the worship continued. On this special day Israel was seen to be the most blessed people on earth and Yahweh was shown to be the most glorious God. He cared for them while they rested and praised Him for it.However, as time went on, God kept His promise, but Israel did not. They began to chase after other gods. They began to treat worship as an empty ritual that placed God into their debt. They abandoned loyalty to Yahweh and brought upon themselves the curse of exile. But, God wasn’t done with His covenant people.He drew them back into the land. He reestablished their national sovereignty and when the people looked back at the failures from their past, they vowed to do better. What started out as good intentions, to be more faithful to God, became a source of even greater corruption. The leaders of the people began to double-down on their law keeping, assuming that in some way their obedience was the key to their relationship to God.Then little-by-little their focus shifted from obedience to God as a result of His gracious provision, to obedience to God as the source of His gracious provision. This might seem subtle, but it made all the difference. Traditions and customs began to take the place of love-fueled loyalty to Yahweh and the command to rest went from being a sign of God’s blessing to a man-centered way to put God into our debt.Then Jesus came along and he obeyed the Sabbath command, but rejected the man-made traditions. He taught the true heart of the law, which wasn’t about blind obedience but mercy and truth. Jesus taught that the sabbath was about freedom (Luke 13:10-17), it was about healing (Luke 14:1-6), and it was about doing good to others (Mark 3:1-6).Then Jesus died on the cross. He was buried and rose again on the third day. He gave His life as an offering for our sin and by His gospel we are forgiven, healed, and brought back into relationship with God; not on the basis of our works but on the basis of His loving sacrifice.Now, what? What has the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus done to the Sabbath command?Col 2:16 Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. 17 These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.Imagine that you are standing in the middle of the desert in the heat of the day and you have to shield your eyes from the intensity of the sun. Even with your hand up to shield your eyes you find it difficult to focus on anything. You can only get small momentary glimpses of your surroundings as you blink due to the intensity of the sun.But finally you spot an image on the ground nearby. It is indistinct but it is clearly a shadow. You begin to move toward it and the closer you get the more distinct the outline becomes. You can’t dare look up at the at the solid object casting the shadow because the sun is simply too powerful, but as you move close and blink your eyes the object begins to take shape in your mind.Then finally the object steps into the sun’s path and shields the intensity from your eyes. You look up and your eyes begin to adjust and what you see standing before you is a man.This is what life has been like for the Jews. Their entire religious existence has been occupied by getting glimpses of the shadow but now Jesus Christ has come, and He is the one who has been casting that shadow all along.In other words, Jesus is the point and the fulfillment of all the Old Covenant law and our standing with God is not determined by our adherence to that law but by our faith in Christ. Don’t put your hope in the shadow to save you, put your hope in the man Himself. Let your heart and mind rest secure in the fact that Jesus alone saves you and reconciles you to God.By my understanding, Jesus has fulfilled the ceremonial aspects of the Old Covenant Law and the strict rules of the Sabbath have been abolished. It has been abolished because it was fulfilled and is fulfilled in Christ. The Sabbath principle that reaches back to the dawn of creation was teaching us that the day was coming when we could rest from our work and trust in God to provide for all of our needs.The Sabbath principle was about the coming day when we would gather to worship and praise the One who gave us rest by providing for all of our needs. Now that Jesus has come and provided for our greatest need we can rest from our works and join together in worship of the One who has given us true rest.So, the Sabbath has been fulfilled and strict Sabbath observance has been eliminated. Oh yes, we should still rest but not because our rest earns us anything with God. Our rest is a gift that shows we are blessed and by resting from our labor we are able to actively remember the grace of God and worship Him for it.Let’s go back and look at the answer to question 103…First, that the gospel ministry and education for it be maintained, and that, especially on the festive day of rest, I regularly attend the assembly of God’s people to learn what God’s Word teaches, to participate in the sacraments, to pray to God publicly, and to bring Christian offerings for the poor.God’s will for us in our gospel understanding of the fourth commandment is that we should set aside at least one day of the week for gospel ministry, for Christian education, for assembling together with God’s people, to worship Christ our Savior, Lord and King. Heidelberg calls this a festive day of rest but the early church simply called it the Lord’s Day.Second, that every day of my life I rest from my evil ways, let the Lord work in me through His Spirit, and so begin already in this life the eternal Sabbath.The second way that we observe the fourth commandment on account of Christ is that we recognize every day that we are resting from our works and resting in the finished work of Christ on the cross. We have entered into the promised Sabbath rest for all of God’s people which will one day soon be fully realized and will never end.So, should we still observe the Sabbath? Yes, but in a very different way than we might think.Thank you for joining me today to learn about the Sabbath. Next week, we will continue to study these 10 commandments by looking at the fifth commandment, which focuses on honoring parents. I hope you will join me for that discussion as we look at Lord’s Day 39 and question 104.Conclusion…If you want to learn more about Cornerstone Baptist church, you can find us online at Cornerstonewylie.org. You can follow us on Twitter or Instagram @cbcwylie. You can find us on Facebook at facebook.com/cornerstonewylie. You can also subscribe to this podcast on iTunes or google play to stay up to date on all the new content.Thanks for listening.

Intro…Welcome to the Cornerstone Baptist church podcast. My name is Justin Wheeler, I am the preaching pastor for Cornerstone and today we are in week 37 of our journey through the Heidelberg Catechism. Today, I will be talking to you about questions 101 & 102.Transition…This week we are still looking at the third commandment and how we can apply it in our lives in a positive way. Here is the third commandment:Deut 5:11 You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.Last week we tried to figure out why this is such an important issue to God and we learned that the glory of God’s person is directly tied to the holiness of God’s name. There is no way to disconnect the person of God from the name of God, so when we set His name apart in our hearts as holy, we are reverencing Him as holy. Conversely, when we devalue His name by uttering a hateful curse and attach His name to it, we are not just cursing His name we are cursing our God.But this week we are asking the question, can we use God’s name and even swear by God’s name in a way that is not sinful.Lord’s Day Focus...Question 101: May we swear an oath in God’s name if we do it reverently?Answer: Yes, when the government demands it, or when necessity requires it, in order to maintain and promote truth and trustworthiness for God’s glory and our neighbor’s good. Such oaths are approved in God’s Word and were rightly used by Old and New Testament believers.Now, this hardly seems like the most pressing question that we could discuss. The swearing of oaths by the name of God is not one of those ethical dilemma’s that we tend to wrestle over. In fact, we seldom take such oaths. Also, most of us wouldn’t naturally connect swearing to tell the truth in court, “So, help me God” to be something that may violate the third commandment.It may not be all that pressing to us, but during the reformation this was a pretty significant issue.“For starters, the Reformers had to think through their pastoral counsel to ex-Catholics who had made monastic vows, often including the promise of life-long celibacy, and now wanted to break those vows.”[1]Many of the vows taken by monks and other Catholic churchmen were made with the expectation that spiritual merit was being obtained. The Catholic church taught, and still teaches, that eternal life and other graces of God were to be earned or merited through the outward religious practices defined by the RC church. Since these vows were made in a system that was contrary to Scripture and to the gospel, it was necessary for the men and women who made them to repent of them, and thus they were not bound by God to fulfill them.So, this was a pretty important issue for the newly reformed Protestant church. Today, the taking of religious oaths is not so common, but we may find ourselves in a position to have been called upon to give testimony in court. If so, we can expect to be asked to raise our right hand and swear, “to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me God.” In this case, we are promising before God and making an oath before Him that we will give honest and truthful testimony in everything that we say.We do this as a way to bring solemnity to the court proceeding and to draw attention to the fact that justice is a matter of grave importance. It is also a matter that is overseen by our Creator God and He will be the final judge over our truthfulness in that trial. The Heidelberg sees this as a good thing for the promotion of truth and trustworthiness in society, and I tend to agree.Now, we know that God sees everything that we do and He hears everything that we say. We know that we will also be judged by God for everything we do and say whether we swear the oath or not. God’s promise to judge the secret thoughts of men by Jesus Christ (Rom 2:16) is part and parcel of the gospel and that means we should strive to be truth-tellers at all times.But ultimately, as believers in Christ we know that the judgment for sin that we deserve has already been poured out. Christ received in His flesh the due penalty for the sins of all who believe. What this means is that ultimate judgment for our sin has already been paid, but there is another type of judgment that will come. God will judge our fruitfulness as a token of the genuineness of our faith.But of even more importance to the Reformers in this matter of oaths was the need to address the fact that it had become customary due to the Catholic influence, that religious people would swear oaths and vows on the name of church saints or even angels.Question 102: May we swear by saints or other creatures?Answer: No. A legitimate oath means calling upon God as the one who knows my heart to witness to my truthfulness and to punish me if I swear falsely. No creature is worthy of such honor.The reformers corrected this practice by refusing to swear an oath by anyone other than God Himself. Since He is the only One who truly knows the heart of man and the only One who can ultimately hold man accountable to keeping an oath, God is the only one by whom any oath or vow should be sworn.If you are in the habit, or can remember a time when you were, of swearing “on your mother’s grave” then you would be in violation of what the Heidelberg says is right and good. Your mother’s grave is no doubt an item of importance to every good son, but your mother, whether dead or alive, is not so special that she can truly know your heart and judge your actions with the type of majestic justice as God.So, of course we shouldn’t swear an oath on the name, head, or even the grave of some mere creature, be it saint, angel or your dear mother. No creature is worthy of such an honor.I think the real question is not about whether or not to swear an oath, the real question is do you put a premium on speaking the truth and nothing but the truth? The first lie occurred in the Garden in Genesis 3 and from that point forward lying is a sin at the very heart of our fallen human nature. Jesus called Satan the “Father of lies” in John 8:44 and Psalm 116:11 tells us that, “All men are liars.” Our God is a covenant keeper who never lies, but we are covenant breakers who lie naturally and treat it like it is no big deal.Jesus wants His followers to be men and women who speak the truth.Matt 5:33 “Again you have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform to the Lord what you have sworn.’ 34 But I say to you, Do not take an oath at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, 35 or by the earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. 36 And do not take an oath by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black. 37 Let what you say be simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything more than this comes from evil.The main point of what Jesus is saying in this passage is that it doesn’t matter what verbal formula you use, what matters is whether or not you are going to keep your word. If you make a vow you are bound to keep it. If you make a promise you should do everything in your power to keep it. If we learn to be people of our word, people of honesty and integrity; then there really is no need to make a vow at all. We simply become honest and trustworthy people, like our heavenly father.Honest people don’t need to swear by anything, they are known for their honesty and their word is enough. That’s what Jesus wants us to understand. He wants us to be honest and truthful the way He and the Father are honest and truthful. Jesus wants us to follow Him and to be men and women of integrity.Think about it, if we said what we meant and meant what we said there would be no need to make lofty promises. If we kept our word, even down to the smallest thing, it might cause us to be slow in speaking which would be a good thing, but it would also eliminate the need for solemn vows because people could simple trust us. This is what Jesus wants from his people. He wants us to live simple and quiet lives of honesty and trustworthiness.The Bible is filled with warnings for how our tongues can cause destruction.Proverbs 18:21 Death and life are in the power of the tongue,Jesus wants us to be people whose tongues give life. He wants us to be a church whose speech is trustworthy.Next week, we will continue to study these 10 commandments by looking at the fourth commandment, which focuses on the sabbath day and keeping it holy. I hope you will join me for that discussion as we look at Lord’s Day 38 and question 103.Conclusion…If you want to learn more about Cornerstone Baptist church, you can find us online at Cornerstonewylie.org. You can follow us on Twitter or Instagram @cbcwylie. You can find us on Facebook at facebook.com/cornerstonewylie. You can also subscribe to this podcast on iTunes or google play to stay up to date on all the new content.Thanks for listening.[1] Deyoung, Kevin The Good News We Almost Forgot (Pg. 175)

Intro…Welcome to the Cornerstone Baptist church podcast. My name is Justin Wheeler, I am the preaching pastor for Cornerstone and today we are in week 36 of our journey through the Heidelberg Catechism. Today, I will be talking to you about questions 99-100.Transition…Over the last two weeks we have been studying the 10 commandments one at a time. We looked at the first commandment and learned that it is sinful to worship the wrong God. Yahweh alone is worthy of our worship because He is our Creator and the only true God. So, the first commandment was about Who we should worship, and the second commandment was about how we should worship Him.Since Yahweh is God, He has the right to determine how He desires to be worshipped. He forbids us to use any graven image, any image at all to represent Him in our worship. These first two commandments make sense in a way that we might expect the law of God to make sense. But this third commandment seems simple by comparison.The first commandment is God saying worship me only and have no other gods before me. The second commandment is God saying worship me only in the way that I have told you to worship me. The third commandment is God saying don’t mess around with my name. Surely there is more to this third commandment than the fact that God doesn’t want us to make fun of His name…and there is.Here is the third commandment:Deut 5:11 You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.Lord’s Day Focus...When you think of taking the Lord’s name in vain, what ideas come into your mind? One of the first things that comes to mind is the way people use our Lord’s name to curse or swear. I was taught at a very young age not to use the Lord’s name in the same breath with foul language. I absolutely believe that when we do this, we are violating the third commandment.When I was in seminary, I remember a professor making the claim that we often take the Lord’s name in vain when we pray and use his name repetitively as though it were nothing more than a comma at the end of our thought. “Lord God, we just come to you today, Lord God, and we ask you, God, to just be with us, Lord God, and help us, Lord God, to feel your love in this place, Lord God…”Of course, a person’s heart may be sincere when praying this way, but this may also reflect a lack of reverence and respect for the name and person of God. And that is what the third commandment is all about, it’s about the connection between the name of God and the person of God and the appropriate amount of respect that should be shown to our Creator.Question 99: What is God’s will for us in the third commandment?Answer: That we neither blaspheme nor misuse the name of God by cursing, perjury, or unnecessary oaths, nor share in such horrible sins by being silent bystanders. In a word, it requires that we use the holy name of God only with reverence and awe, so that we may properly confess Him, pray to Him, and praise Him in everything we do and say.And let’s go ahead and read the next one…Question 100: Is blasphemy of God’s name by swearing and cursing really such serious sin that God is angry also with those who do not do all they can to help prevent it and forbid it?Answer: Yes indeed. No sin is greater, no sin makes God more angry than blaspheming His name. That is why He commanded the death penalty for it.Blaspheming the name of the Lord is a serious offense to God, but why? Well, in order to answer this question thoroughly we need to see how this commandment is violated in the rest of the OT. So, let’s look at a couple of passages that expand our understanding of what it means to use the Lord’s name in a vain and empty way.In the middle of Leviticus 24, a fight broke out between a young man, whose father was an Egyptian and whose mother was an Israelite, and a man of Israel. We don’t know what the fight was about but we do know that at some point in the skirmish, the young man cursed the name of God in blasphemy. Maybe, like many of us he lashed out in anger and evoked God’s name in a way to threaten or mock his opponent. But the people took it seriously and took him into custody until the will of Yahweh was clear.In the very next section we read this,Lev 24:13 Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 14 “Bring out of the camp the one who cursed, and let all who heard him lay their hands on his head, and let all the congregation stone him. 15 And speak to the people of Israel, saying, Whoever curses his God shall bear his sin. 16 Whoever blasphemes the name of the Lord shall surely be put to death. All the congregation shall stone him. The sojourner as well as the native, when he blasphemes the Name, shall be put to death.God is serious about His name and He wants His people to understand that His name is holy, it is not to be blasphemed under any circumstance. To take the Lord’s name in vain is to treat it as empty, worthless, and of no importance. God forbids his name to be dishonored but again the question is why? What’s so important about God’s name?To answer this question I want us to look back at Exodus 33. This chapter is a turning point in the history of Israel because both God and Moses are fed up with the people. They had just come out of the golden calf incident and God said to Moses, “You go ahead and lead these people on, but I will not come with you.” What follows is a dialogue between God and Moses that is amazing, but near the end of the discussion Moses makes a request.He asks God to go with them and to be their God, but he also asks God to show him His glory. And God agrees. God says to Moses,Exo 33:19 “I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my name ‘The Lord.’Then in the next chapter we see this happen.Exo 34:5 The Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the Lord. 6 The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, 7 keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.” 8 And Moses quickly bowed his head toward the earth and worshiped.I love this passage because of what it tells us about God. but the thing that I want us to see in regard to the current discussion is that the glory of God’s person is directly tied to the holiness of God’s name. When God allows His glorious presence to be revealed to Moses, He connects His presence with His name. To see God’s glory is inseparably linked to hearing His name.There is no way to disconnect the person of God from the name of God, so when we set His name apart in our hearts as holy, we are reverencing Him as holy. Conversely, when we devalue His name by uttering a hateful curse and attach His name to it, we are not just cursing His name we are cursing our God.The name of God is worthy of praise and honor and reverence just as the person of God is worthy of praise and honor and reverence.From a practical perspective we need to take the name of the Lord seriously and avoid using it in a vain or irreverent way. We shouldn’t use His name to make jokes. We shouldn’t use His name to curse. We shouldn’t use His name in order for personal gain.Instead, we should praise His name, we should understand that the speak the name of God is to speak of God Himself. We should seek to honor His name, bring glory to His name, and recognize that whatever we do, whether we eat, or drink, we should do it all for the glory of His name.Col 3:17 And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.Next week, we will continue to study these 10 commandments by looking at the fourth commandment, which focuses on the sabbath day and keeping it holy. I hope you will join me for that discussion as we look at Lord’s Day 37 and questions 101-102.Conclusion…If you want to learn more about Cornerstone Baptist church, you can find us online at Cornerstonewylie.org. You can follow us on Twitter or Instagram @cbcwylie. You can find us on Facebook at facebook.com/cornerstonewylie. You can also subscribe to this podcast on iTunes or google play to stay up to date on all the new content.Thanks for listening.

Intro…Welcome to the Cornerstone Baptist church podcast. My name is Justin Wheeler, I am the preaching pastor for Cornerstone and today we are in week 35 of our journey through the Heidelberg Catechism. Today, I will be talking to you about questions 96-98.Transition…This week, we continue our study by looking at the second of the 10 commandments, which outlines God’s prohibition against His people representing Him with the use of images or statues in worship. Last week, we focused on the first commandment, which was about worshipping the wrong God. The second commandment is about worshipping God in the wrong way.Here is the second commandment:Deut 5:8 You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. 9 You shall not bow down to them or serve them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, 10 but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.Lord’s Day Focus...When you think of idolatry, what ideas come into your mind? Many of us think about small statues made to represent a god or goddess. That statue might be settled in the midst of a shrine surrounded by burning candles or incense. Then out in front of that shrine we might picture a person on their knees with their heads bowed, the hands clasped together offering prayers.This image is not just some image that was seared into our minds because we saw it in a movie at some point, this is an accurate representation of the type of idolatry that takes place all over the world.Many of you thought about some of the scenes in the Bible where false gods were worshipped. Maybe you thought about Paul in Acts 17, standing in the midst of a city full of idols. Maybe you thought about Elijah in the top of Mt. Carmel mocking the priests of Baal who were unable to get their god to show himself. Or perhaps your mind went to the Israelites at the foot of Mt. Sinai worshipping at the feet of a golden calf that they called Yahweh.All of these images represent the type of idolatry that God forbids, but that last image is the closest connection to the second commandment.Question 96: What is God’s will for us in the second commandment?Answer: That we in no way make any image of God nor worship Him in any other way than He has commanded in His Word.This commandment forbids us to worship our Creator on our own terms. Actually, this command forbids two things:1. It forbids us to make images to represent God in any form.2. It forbids worshipping an image of any kind.J.I. Packer writes,In its Christian application, this means that we are not to make use of visual or pictorial representations of the triune God, or of any person of the trinity, for the purpose of Christian worship. The commandment thus deals not with the objects of our worship, but with the manner of it; what it tells us is that statues and pictures of the One whom we worship are not to be used as an aid in worshipping Him.[1]Over the years, this issue has been debated in great detail. Does this apply to the coloring pages that we give our children in Sunday School? Some say yes, others say no. Does this means that Christian’s should not create artwork portraying the life, ministry, death and even the resurrection of Jesus? Some say yes, others no. Should Christians use nativity scenes in their holiday decorating?Wherever you come down on these debates, I think it is vitally important that we take this command seriously. God commands His followers not to fashion or create images that are to be used to represent God to us that are intended to be used as aids in our worship.Question 97: May we not make any image at all?Answer: God cannot and may not be visibly portrayed in any way. Although creatures may be portrayed, yet God forbids making or having such images if one’s intention is to worship them or to serve God through them.One of the most natural follow-up questions to the prohibition about making an image to represent God is “why not?” What is the big deal? For starts, it is impossible for us to create an image that accurately represents God. He is unlike any being in the universe. He is unique, holy, One-of-a-kind and any image or representation of Him will fall short of the truth of who He is.God is Spirit, which means that He cannot be seen. He cannot be made into an image and to do so would be to falsely represent His glory, His nature and His person. It would obscure His invisible glory for us to use a man-made image or even to use the image of a created thing in an attempt to represent Him. In other words, any attempt on our part to make a graven image would result in a misrepresentation of God’s true glory.On the flipside, an image of God would mislead us and give us a false idea of Him. It is one thing to insult God by trying to imagine Him in a finite way. It is quite another for us to accept an image of God as an adequate substitute for the real thing. In the first instance He is mocked in the second instance we are worshipping a false god.God forbids both errors in the second commandment.Question 98: But may not images be permitted in the churches as teaching aids for the unlearned?Answer: No, we shouldn’t try to be wiser than God. He wants His people instructed by the living preaching of His Word – not by idols that cannot even talk.This question brings up an argument from the time of the Protestant Reformation. The argument from the Roman Catholic side was that if the church removed the painted images depicting stories from the Bible, which contained artist renderings of God, then the average person attending church who is unable to read the Scriptures would not be able to understand what God has revealed in His Word. Therefore, the images (or books of the laity) aid the people in understanding the faith and without these images that faith would not exist.The Reformers responded by saying, “Then we must teach them.” It is the responsibility of Christians, especially Church leaders, to teach God’s Word faithfully, accurately and always. We cannot rely on images, or in modern times video clips and theatrical sermonettes, in order to instruct God’s people about Him.God has given us His Word and we must read it, teach it, preach it, and explain it. Our goal in worship is not to entertain it is to instruct. Our goal is not to give advice for life and then to sprinkle the occasional Bible verse in for good measure. Our goal is proclaim the Word of God and allow it to do its work in our hearts.Next week, we will continue to study these 10 commandments by looking at the third commandment, which focuses on taking the Lord’s name in vain. I hope you will join me for that discussion as we look at Lord’s Day 36 and questions 99-100.Conclusion…If you want to learn more about Cornerstone Baptist church, you can find us online at Cornerstonewylie.org. You can follow us on Twitter or Instagram @cbcwylie. You can find us on Facebook at facebook.com/cornerstonewylie. You can also subscribe to this podcast on iTunes or google play to stay up to date on all the new content.Thanks for listening.[1] J.I. Packer Knowing God (pg 44)

Intro…Welcome to the Cornerstone Baptist church podcast. My name is Justin Wheeler, I am the preaching pastor for Cornerstone and today we are in week 34 of our journey through the Heidelberg Catechism. Today, I will be talking to you about questions 92-95.Transition…This week, we will be answering the question, “What is the law of God?” Last week, in question 91 Heidelberg asked,Question 91: What do we do that is good?Answer: Only that which arises out of true faith, conforms to God’s law, and is done for His glory; and not that which is based on what we think is right or on established human tradition.The good that we do as faithful Christians is not based on our own ideas about what is good or even our established cultural traditions. The good we are called by God to walk in has been outlined for us in God’s Word, more specifically, in the Ten Commandments.The Ten Commandments that God gave to Moses on Mt. Sinai after He delivered Israel from slavery in Egypt, form the basis for our understanding of all Biblical moral law. But it might seem a bit odd that Heidelberg brings up the Law in the section that expresses our gratitude. The way many of us have been taught the law of God, it might seem more accurate to put the Ten Commandments in the guilt section of the Catechism.This is where chronology becomes very important. You’ll remember that Yahweh didn’t give the law of God (10 Commandments) to Israel before He saved them from Egypt. He gave it to them after He had saved them from Egypt and He did so by passing over them because of the blood of the lamb.Like those ancient Israelites, the law of God doesn’t function in order to make us the people of God. We become the children of God when we are born again and received Christ by faith. We are saved from our bondage when the blood of the Lamb covers our sin. Now, as newly freed children of God we need the law to guide us in the world so that we can obey our Father and serve Him with our lives.The law wasn’t given in order to make us the people of God, it was given in order to guide us as the people of God. Therefore, to address the 10 Commandments in the gratitude section makes perfect sense.Lord’s Day Focus...Question 92: What is the law of GodAnswer: Deuteronomy 20:1 God spoke all these words saying,2 “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. 3 “You shall have no other gods before me.4 “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. 5 You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, 6 but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.7 “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.8 “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. 11 For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.12 “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.13 “You shall not murder.14 “You shall not commit adultery.15 “You shall not steal.16 “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.17 “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s.”The Ten Commandments (lit. 10 words) are central to Biblical morality in the Old and the New Testaments. They are an important piece to the whole story of Scripture. They matter because they give us a specific understanding of what God requires of those in relationship with Him. These commandments teach us a lot about God and quite a bit about ourselves as well.However, these 10 commandments are not the only laws that God has given His people. The Biblical authors use the term law to refer to several different things. Law of Moses is used in reference to all the writings of Moses, the first five books of the OT, but more specifically it refers to the law of God that was given through Moses. This is a reference to the 10 Commandments and theologians refer to the 10 commandments as the Moral law. They represent a basic understanding of what is right and what is wrong.But God gave other laws, like the Judicial law which refers to the specific laws that governed Israel as a nation. God also gave to Israel a Ceremonial law that governed the sacrifices and rituals of Israel’s worship. So, when we think about the law of God from a big picture perspective it can be helpful to understand that God gave a ceremonial law, a judicial law and a moral law. But when it comes to our understanding of basic Christian morality, the 10 commandments are what we focus on.But why do we as Christians still concern ourselves with the 10 Commandments? Didn’t Jesus fulfill the law on our behalf? Within the reformed tradition we think of the law as functioning in 3 ways. First, the law has a civil function within society in that it serves to limit and restrain evil (Roman 13:3-4). Second, the law has an evangelical function in that it shows us our sin and drives us to Christ (Gal 3:10). Third, the law functions to guide us as believers to know the will of God and to live a faithful Christian life.Yes, Jesus came to fulfill the law on our behalf but that doesn’t mean the law no longer matters to us. Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount,Matt 5:17 “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. 18 For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished.Jesus wants us to understand that the moral law of God is a permanent fixture because it reflects the unchanging nature of God and the foundation for how believers should live and relate to God. We are saved by grace through faith in the finished work of Jesus, which includes His perfect keeping of the law, but as we serve God in this life the moral law guides us to know what is good.Question 93: How are the commandments divided?Answer: Into two tables. The first four commandments, teaching us what our relationship to God should be. The second has six commandments, teaching us what we owe our neighbor.This is pretty straight-forward. The commandments on one side reflect the vertical relationship to God while the commandments on the other side reflect the horizontal relationships to other people. This division is supported and summarized by Jesus when He answered a Pharisees question,Matt 22:36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” 37 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”Question 94: What does the Lord require in the first commandment?Answer: That I, not wanting to endanger my very salvation, avoid and shun all idolatry, magic, superstitious rites, and prayers to saints or other creatures. That I sincerely acknowledge the only true God, trust Him alone, look to Him for every good thing humbly and patiently, love Him, fear Him, and honor Him with all my heart. In short, that I give up anything rather than go against His will in any way.In a recent sermon on persecution I talked about the fact that we aren’t persecuted as Christians simply because we worship Jesus, we are persecuted because we only worship Jesus. If we worshipped and celebrated the sexual revolution alongside Jesus, then the culture wouldn’t have as much of a problem with us. If we caved to opposing pressures to add a couple of secular principles and standards to our Christianity, then we wouldn’t face so much opposition.The temptation and tendency to try and serve two masters is within each of us, but God will not share His glory. He calls for complete devotion, not shared devotion. In fact, anything less is idolatry.Question 95: What is idolatry?Answer: Idolatry is having or inventing something in which one trusts in place of or alongside of the only true God, who has revealed Himself in His Word.Idolatry was a recurring problem for Israel in the Old Testament. They were constantly tempted to give their devotion to some pagan deity that promised health, wealth, prosperity, victory in battle, etc. When they came into the Promised Land they were commanded to rid that land of all the previous gods and idols. They were to take down the temples where false gods were worshipped.God’s people were unsuccessful in ridding their lives of idols, and in many cases so are we. We may not bow down and worship those idols, we may not pray to some false deity, but give our devotion to things that take God’s place in our hearts. To be clear, idolatry still exists in this world in every form and it is still a temptation for us as well.I think I John 2:15-17 is a fair summary of the type of idolatry that we face today.1 John 2:15 Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16 For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world. 17 And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.When John uses the term love here and then pits our love for the world against our love for God, we have to understand that he’s talking about something much deeper than our emotions. He’s talking about a type of affection that motivates our worship, which means that loving the world here is akin to idolatry.John isn’t saying that we should not love the people of the world, nor is he saying that we shouldn’t care for the earth itself. He is not commanding us to reject the economic and social structures of society. What He is saying is that we should not love the worldly attitudes and values that are opposed to God.John is talking about the world that does not recognize Jesus as the Son of God and its Savior. He is talking about the world that rejects the testimony of the Bible, the world where God does not rule. It is the world set against God and His purposes in Christ and this world is still contending for our love today.Not much has changed, the thoughts, attitudes, and morals of our world are still trying to gain our deepest love. John doesn’t say that we should hate the world, but that we should withhold our love from it. There are two things vying for our affection, our total devotion, our worship: God and the World. Only God deserves that type of love from us because we will worship what we love.Over the next several weeks we are going to walk through each of these 10 Commandments to learn how they still apply to our lives today. So, I hope that you will join me again next week as we look at Lord’s Day 35 and questions 96-98.Conclusion…If you want to learn more about Cornerstone Baptist church, you can find us online at Cornerstonewylie.org. You can follow us on Twitter or Instagram @cbcwylie. You can find us on Facebook at facebook.com/cornerstonewylie. You can also subscribe to this podcast on iTunes or google play to stay up to date on all the new content.Thanks for listening.

Intro…Welcome to the Cornerstone Baptist church podcast. My name is Justin Wheeler, I am the preaching pastor for Cornerstone and today we are in week 33 of our journey through the Heidelberg Catechism. Today, I will be talking to you about questions 88-91.Transition…This week, we will continue to work our way through the section on the believer’s gratitude for God’s gracious work in our lives. But don’t get the impression that this whole section is about the various ways that we experience and express the emotion of gratitude; it might be better to think of this section in terms of the appropriate response that we should show in heart and in life to the grace of God.Gratitude is not expressed in emotions alone; it also directs our actions. Think heart and life! How do we respond in heart and life to the grace that God has shown us? Today we are going to discuss what is involved in conversion.Lord’s Day Focus...Question 88: What is involved in Genuine repentance or conversion?Answer: Two things: the dying away of the old self, and the coming to life of the new.I appreciate Kevin DeYoung’s opening thoughts on this question. Kevin writes,Conversion is essential to the gospel. The world needs to learn, and we frequently need to be reminded that Christian is not about refurbishing a few morals here, or helping you find your own unique spiritual journey there, or simply trying to get you to agree to a few theology statements. We need to be converted.[1]Within our American culture, the idea of conversion has been set aside, on purpose. We all accept the fact that we are not perfect people, most of us can accept the fact that we are broken people, but few are willing to accept the fact that we need to be converted, utterly changed. Maybe we just need to turn over a new leaf. We just need to have a fresh start. We just need to meet some new people, take a vacation, and get our minds right.This way of thinking assumes that our problems are actually small and that we can handle them on our own. But when the Bible speaks about our problems, our deep-down needs, it refers to them as anything but small. According to Scripture, “we are dead in our trespasses and sins (Eph 2:1).” According to the Bible, “there is none good, not even one…We have all gone astray (Rom 3:10-18).”In Genesis 6, God gives us an assessment of the state of mankind and it is not even close to being manageable, at least not for us.Gen 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. 6 And the Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart.Our human condition is far more serious that we care to admit and therefore the remedy is far more involved than we often realize. We don’t simply need to make a few changes, we need to be changed, utterly converted, from the inside out.So, this issue of conversion is essential to the gospel. But there are a few more words that we need to learn. Conversion is important. It is understood to be the human response, though initiated as a work of grace, it is our response to the Holy Spirit’s work of regeneration.Regeneration, or new birth, is a secret act of God in which He imparts new spiritual life to us. The work of regeneration belongs to God alone; he is active and we are passive, in fact the Scriptures not only say that we are inactive in this but that we are dead, which is why regeneration must occur for us to be saved.Regeneration is a mysterious act of God where he reaches down and cleanses us from sin by the blood of Christ; He creates in us a new heart and fills us with His Spirit who guides us in truth and righteousness and this enables us to respond to the call of God with faith and repentance.That response to God’s call is what we understand to be conversion. Conversion is our willing response to the gospel call, in which we sincerely repent of sins and place our trust in Christ for salvation.[2]We would understand that conversion has two sides to it, a divine side and a human side. Our repentance and faith are active, meaning the opposite of passive. We believe and we repent, but the Spirit of God is at work in us to empower and direct us in both believing and repenting.Now that we have a little bit of the theological backstory in mind let’s look back at that first question, which states that two things are involved in genuine repentance and they are: dying away of the old self and coming to life of the new.True conversion entails our dying to our old sinful way of life (mortification) and coming to live in a new way of life (vivification).Question 89: What is the dying away of the old self?Answer: It is to be genuinely sorry for sin, to hate it more and more, and to run away from it.Conversion involves both the heart and the life. It involves the heart because true repentance begins with a genuine sorrow over sin. In 2 Cor 7, the Apostle Paul talks about the difference between worldly sorrow and godly sorrow. Worldly sorrow is when we feel bad that we got caught. Godly sorrow is when we feel bad that we sinned against God.True repentance starts in the heart and it grieves over our sin. But that grief eventually leads to action. We begin to hate our sin and eventually we turn and run away from it. Theologians call this contrition. Contrition is a kind of grief that leads to repentance and it is motivated by godly remorse.David in Psalm 51 showed true godly sorrow. He grieved over his sin with Bathsheba and against Uriah. He grieved because he had sinned against the God of Grace. His grief led him to genuine repentance. True repentance is not just being stirred in our hearts, it is when the stirring of our hearts leads to a change in our life.Question 90: What is the coming to life of the new self?Answer: It is wholehearted joy in God through Christ and a delight to do every kind of good as God wants us to.This is the second half of true conversion. We go from a wholehearted grief over sin that leads us to reform our lives, to being filled with joy in the gospel and a sincere desire to obey God out of gratitude for His grace.It might be helpful to think about it this way, when we were dead in our sins our heart and life were completely given over to the world. But in true conversion our heart and life are completely renewed by God. We were blind but now we see. We were in prison but now we’re free and that freedom bring joy to our hearts and a new direction in life.Conversion is about transformation. When I was a kid in school, I studied the life cycle of a caterpillar. I’m sure that many of you did the same thing. The caterpillar started out as a slow, dull and very limited creature. But a time came in its life cycle when it would build a cocoon and it would live inside that cocoon undergoing a radical change.We call this change, metamorphosis. And when the time comes the caterpillar will emerge from the cocoon and it is no longer what it once was. It has completely transformed into a butterfly. Metamorphosis is a picture of human conversion. By the power and grace of God we are completely changed from dead in sin (heart and life) to alive in Christ (heart and life).Question 91: What do we do that is good?Answer: Only that which arises out of true faith, conforms to God’s law, and is done for His glory; and not that which is based on what we think is right or on established human tradition.I love Ephesians 2:1-10 because it gives us theological understanding for what takes place in the whole process of salvation and the Christian life. It talks about our spiritual state apart from Jesus. It reveals just how sinful our sin was. Then it moves to show us that behind the scenes work of God. Even when we were dead in sin, God made us alive through Jesus.But the summary of all God’s work comes in verses 8-10,For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.There is a beautiful complexity in Ephesians 2 but there is also a profound simplicity. God has done a work of Grace in our hearts to bring us to salvation by faith in Jesus. He has done this work in us so that we will accomplish good works. He wants us to do good in this world. He wants our heart and life to reflect His goodness and glory.The good that we do is not based on our own ideas or even our established cultural traditions. The good we are called by God to walk in has been outlined for us with God’s Word.Over the next several weeks we are going to learn the scope and sequence of the good works that God has prepared for us to walk in, so I hope that you will join me again next week as we look at Lord’s Day 34 and questions 92-95.Conclusion…If you want to learn more about Cornerstone Baptist church, you can find us online at Cornerstonewylie.org. You can follow us on Twitter or Instagram @cbcwylie. You can find us on Facebook at facebook.com/cornerstonewylie. You can also subscribe to this podcast on iTunes or google play to stay up to date on all the new content.Thanks for listening.[1] Kevin DeYoung, The Good News We Almost Forgot (Pg. 159)[2] Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology Pg. 709

Intro…Welcome to the Cornerstone Baptist church podcast. My name is Justin Wheeler, I am the preaching pastor for Cornerstone and today we are in week 32 of our journey through the Heidelberg Catechism. Today, I will be talking to you about questions 86-87.Transition…This week, we begin the third and final section of the Catechism. We have completed the sections that focused on our guilt before God and the grace that God has shown us; now we turn our attention to the section on our gratitude for God’s gracious work in our lives. The aim of this sections is to understand how God’s grace motivates the response of our heart and life.To kick off this new section on gratitude, we are going to look at questions today that try to make sense our Christian commitment to good works, despite the fact that our salvation is completely a work of God’s grace. If it’s all of grace, then why should we do good works at all. And just so we’re clear, this is not a new question. In fact, the Apostles James, John and Paul all addressed this question in the NT letters they wrote.In Romans 6, Paul wrote, “What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? 2 By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?”In James 2, we read, “What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? 15 If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, 16 and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? 17 So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.”In 1 John 2, John wrote, “4 Whoever says “I know him” but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him, 5 but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in him: 6 whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.”The question of how the grace of God goes hand in hand with the obedience of good works in the believer is an important one and the Heidelberg does a really good job of answering it.Lord’s Day Focus...Question 86: We have been delivered from our misery by God’s grace alone through Christ and not because we have earned it: why then must we still do good?Answer: To be sure, Christ has redeemed us by His blood. But we do good because Christ by His Spirit is also renewing us to be like Himself, so that in all our living we may show that we are thankful to God for all He has done for us, and so that He may be praised through us. And we do good so that we may be assured of our faith by its fruits, and so that by our godly living our neighbors may be won over to Christ.The Catechism gives us five reasons why good works must be the pursuit of our Christian life.1. Because Christ by His Spirit is renewing us to be like Himself. The Holy Spirit is working in our hearts to convict us of sin, righteousness and the judgment to come. The Spirit is growing us in the knowledge of God’s Word and in the obedience of God’s Word to the point that we are becoming more like Jesus.2 Cor 3:17 Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 18 And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.2. We do good works to show our thankfulness to God. Gratitude for God’s mercy and grace is not only a right response but it’s also a response that is noted in Scripture.1 Pet 2:1 So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander. 2 Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation— 3 if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.The fact that we have tasted the goodness and kindness of the Lord, is what fuels and motivates our turning from sin and longing to grow up in the word.3. We do good works so that God might be praised.Matt 5:16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.When we obey God’s commands, we prove that He is good. We display His goodness to the world.4. We do good works so that we can be assured of our faith by our fruits. Yes, God alone saves us by grace and through faith. We are saved by faith alone, but not by a faith that is alone. When we do good works in response to our salvation by grace, we are producing fruit from a heart that is rooted in Christ.Lk 6:43 “For no good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit, 44 for each tree is known by its own fruit. For figs are not gathered from thornbushes, nor are grapes picked from a bramble bush. 45 The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.5. We do good works in the hopes that others might see, and the gospel might be commended to them.1 Pet 2:12 Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.Phil 2:14 Do all things without grumbling or disputing, 15 that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world.The bottom line is that the New Testament is filled with passages that call us to respond to the grace of God in our lives with faithful obedience to the commands of Christ. It doesn’t call us to perfect obedience, perfection was achieved by Christ alone and His perfection was attributed to us when we believed. But in response to His amazing grace and love we are called to love Him and to obey His commands.Question 87: Can those be saved who do not turn to God from their ungrateful and impenitent ways?Answer: By no means. Scripture tells us that no unchaste person, no idolater, adulterer, thief, no covetous person, no drunkard, slanderer, robber, or the like is going to inherit the Kingdom of God.If obedience to the commands of Christ is important for those who are saved it is also a key component to determining whether or not a person is truly saved. Christ teaches us that, “Unless we repent, we will all perish (Luke 13).” People who claim to be Christians but continue to live in unrepentant sin are a walking contradiction.We just finished studying through the NT letter of 1 John. Throughout that letter, John is trying to help the church understand relationship between our faith in Christ and our obedience to Christ. He wants us to know the truth that our relationship to God (spiritual reality) has a huge impact on the way we conduct ourselves in this world (physical life).John writes “If we say we have fellowship with God, who is light, but we continue to walk in darkness, then our word (what we say) is a lie and we are not practicing (walking in) the truth.”John is pointing out that there must be consistency between one’s profession of faith and one’s conduct. You can say you are right with God all day, but if your life is defined by sin, then you are lying about your relationship with God. You might have made a profession of faith, but if your life is defined by sin, then your profession of faith is suspect and quite possible a lie.Now, John is not saying that we must be perfectly sinless. When he uses the phrase walking in darkness, the verb tense is present active, which indicates an ongoing action. This is a person who has never truly come to a knowledge of Christ. This is a person who has never truly repented of sin and begun to follow Jesus. He is not referring to a person who struggles with temptation and sin as a believer, but to a person whose life is defined by sin.This is a person who keeps on walking in the darkness, someone who is comfortably living in sin thinking that it has no impact on their spiritual condition. There is a major difference between a person whose life is controlled by sin and a person who is seeking to repent of and overcome temptations to sin.If we are not walking in the light, then we have no reason for believing that our sins are covered. There is no assurance of salvation while you continue to live under the dominion of sin.But, if we are trusting in Christ as the light of the world sent to free us from the darkness of sin and death, and if we are walking in the light as He is in the light then we should have confidence that we belong to Him and that our sins are covered by His precious blood. And when we stumble in sin, we can have confidence that if we confess our sins to Him that He will be faithful to forgive us and cleanse us.Your faith in Christ matters and so does your faithfulness to Christ. Some people might say that this doesn’t sound like good news, but it is. A gospel that is powerless to change your life is not a very powerful gospel. Grace that leaves you wallowing in sin is cheap grace. But the grace that truly saves is also a grace that changes us from sons of darkness to children of light.Next week we will continue our study of the gratitude that flows out of the grace of God. I hope that you will join me again next week as we look at Lord’s Day 33 and questions 88-91.Conclusion…If you want to learn more about Cornerstone Baptist church, you can find us online at Cornerstonewylie.org. You can follow us on Twitter or Instagram @cbcwylie. You can find us on Facebook at facebook.com/cornerstonewylie. You can also subscribe to this podcast on iTunes or google play to stay up to date on all the new content.Thanks for listening.

Intro…Welcome to the Cornerstone Baptist church podcast. My name is Justin Wheeler, I am the preaching pastor for Cornerstone and today we are in week 31 of our journey through the Heidelberg Catechism. Today, I will be talking to you about questions 83-85.Transition…This week, we are talking about the keys of the Kingdom. Last week, we read in the answer to question 82 that, “According to the instruction of Christ and His apostles, the Christian church is duty-bound to exclude such people, by the official use of the keys of the kingdom, until they reform their lives.” The question had to do with whether or not unbelievers and ungodly people could come to the Lord’s Table and the answer is no! The authority to withhold the Table from such people falls to the church and something to do with the administration of the Keys of the Kingdom.It all sounds very mysterious and important, but what does this mean? That is what we will be discussing today.Lord’s Day Focus...Question 83: What are the Keys of the Kingdom?Answer: The preaching of the Holy Gospel and Christian discipline toward repentance. Both preaching and discipline open the kingdom of heaven to believers and close it to unbelievers.First of all, where does this language of the Keys of the Kingdom come from? It comes directly from Jesus and it was first discussed with the disciples as a symbolic description of the authority that Jesus was giving to the church.Matt 16:16 Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” 17 And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. 18 And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. 19 I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”The imagery here is clear. Jesus is going to build His church upon the truth that Peter confessed (You are the Christ, the Son of the living God) and Jesus is going to give authority to that church to open the doors and to close the doors. The door to the Kingdom of Heaven swings in both directions, it opens and it closes.Now what does this have to do with Jesus’ mission? And why does He use this language?Many ancient peoples believed that heaven and hell were closed by gates to which certain deities and angelic beings had keys. In Greek mythology Pluto kept the key to Hades. Jewish writings near the time of Jesus give God the key to the abode of the dead. In the Book of Revelation John sees Christ holding the keys of Death and Hades (Rv 1:18; see 3:7).The words “bind” and “loose” were used by rabbis near the time of Christ to declare someone under a ban (“binding”) and relief of the ban (“loosing”). Sometimes this referred to expulsion or reinstatement at a synagogue. At other times binding and loosing indicated consignment to God’s judgment or acquittal from it. The “power of the keys” (or binding and loosing) of which Jesus speaks is a spiritual authority like that he gave the disciples in John 20:23: “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”[1]Now, the Catechism understands that these keys are symbolic of two functions: the preaching of the gospel and the administration of church discipline. But how does this work?Question 84: How does preaching the gospel open and close the Kingdom of Heaven?Answer: According to the command of Christ: The Kingdom of Heaven is opened by proclaiming and publicly declaring to all believers, each and every one, that, as often as they accept the gospel promise in true faith, God, because of what Christ has done, truly forgives all their sins.Not only is the preaching of the gospel one of the keys of the Kingdom, it is also one of the marks of a true church. Historically, the marks of a true church have been defined as: (1) the true preaching of God’s Word, (2) the right administration of the sacraments, and (3) the practice of church discipline.It is not a coincidence that we looked at the Sacraments over the past few weeks and that we have now begun to look at the preaching of the word and discipline. These things hold together as responsibilities given to the church. We have a responsibility to preach the Word of God faithfully and when we do so our preaching will not fail to be punctuated by the clear teaching of the gospel.Calvin stated that, “It is not to be doubted that church of God exists…wherever we see the Word of God purely preached and heard.” Luther made the distinction that the true preaching of the Word consisted of “the gospel being rightly taught” as by Grace Alone, through Faith Alone and in Christ Alone. He was distinguishing a Protestant understanding of the gospel from a Catholic understanding of the Gospel.When the gospel is preached faithfully, it is a summons for all to come to Jesus in repentance and faith. All who accept Christ in true faith will receive forgiveness for all their sins. The Kingdom of Heaven is open to them. But to all the reject the gospel, who refuse to believe and repent, the Kingdom is closed.The kingdom of heaven is closed, however, by proclaiming and publicly declaring to unbelievers and hypocrites that, as long as they do not repent, the anger of God and eternal condemnation rest on them. God’s judgment, both in this life and in the life to come, is based on this gospel testimony.Preachers, like myself, have been granted a certain authority and with that authority comes the responsibility to be bold and faithful. We must preach the gospel to all without discrimination or differentiation. “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved (Rom 10:13).” But we must also preach that apart from repentance and faith no man will be saved.Preaching the gospel is the first key and the second is church discipline.Question 85: How is the Kingdom of Heaven closed and opened by Christian discipline?Answer: According to the command of Christ: Those who, though called Christians, profess unchristian teachings or live unchristian lives, and after repeated and loving counsel refuse to abandon their errors and wickedness, and after being reported to the church, that is, to its officers, fail to respond also to their admonition – such persons the officers exclude from the Christian fellowship by withholding the sacraments from them, and God himself excludes them from the kingdom of Christ.As a church elder/pastor, there are few responsibilities that weigh more heavily on my soul than church discipline. It is a weighty responsibility and I am thankful that I do not bear its weight alone. God is good to instruct us to appoint multiple elders/pastors in every church (Titus 1:5) so that by a plurality of men these responsibilities can be undertaken.The Practice of Church Discipline does not refer exclusively to the excommunication of wayward believers, but when viewed as a whole it refers to the careful exercise of Biblical leadership within the church. Within the context of discipline, we understand that the Word of God is to be active among us: making us more like Christ, equipping us for the work of the saints, exhorting, correcting, rebuking and training us in righteous. Discipline is aimed to restore a sinning believer, to deter sin within the body and to protect the purity of the church.We think of church discipline in two ways: Formative and Corrective. Formative discipline takes place all the time because it involves the regular and faithful building up of the church. For us at Cornerstone, formative discipline happens in Sunday school, In Bible study and in worship. It takes place in Community groups and prayer meetings. It is the overall process of the church to disciple believers by helping them grow in Christian maturity.But corrective discipline is a specific type of teaching. It involves correction, admonishment and rebuke. This occurs when a brother or sister is either believing or living in contradiction to the clear teachings of Christ. Jesus outlines for us the way He would have us walk through this in Matthew 18:15-20. It involves a process of seeking to reconcile the person back to faithfulness and away from error. But in some cases that repentance and reconciliation never come.At those times, it is the responsibility of the church and her leaders to remove a person from fellowship with the body and to bar their way to the Lord’s Table. In this way the Kingdom is being closed to them. But that is not the end goal as the final line in answer 85 shows us.Such persons, when promising and demonstrating genuine reform, are received again as members of Christ and of His church.Genuine reform is the goal. Full restoration is what we pray for. We are called to close the doors to the kingdom in the hopes that repentance and faith will result and on that day we throw open the doors again.Next week we will continue our study of the ordinances and I hope that you will join me again next week as we look at Lord’s Day 32 and questions 86-87.Conclusion…If you want to learn more about Cornerstone Baptist church, you can find us online at Cornerstonewylie.org. You can follow us on Twitter or Instagram @cbcwylie. You can find us on Facebook at facebook.com/cornerstonewylie. You can also subscribe to this podcast on iTunes or google play to stay up to date on all the new content.Thanks for listening.[1] Elwell, W. A., & Beitzel, B. J. (1988). Keys of the Kingdom. In Baker encyclopedia of the Bible (Vol. 2, p. 1262). Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House.

Intro…Welcome to the Cornerstone Baptist church podcast. My name is Justin Wheeler, I am the preaching pastor for Cornerstone and today we are in week 30 of our journey through the Heidelberg Catechism. Today, I will be talking to you about questions 80-82.Transition…This week, we are talking about the difference between our Protestant views on the Lord’s Supper and the Roman Catholic views of the Mass. This week things will get a little heated. So far, Heidelberg has kept the dialogue pretty mild and has aimed more toward articulating Protestant Orthodoxy than at attacking Catholic teaching, but not today. The final statement in the Answer to question 80 states that the Catholic Mass is, “Nothing but a denial of the one sacrifice and suffering of Jesus Christ and the condemnable idolatry.”When you call a church practice a condemnable idolatry you have taken the gloves off. So let’s jump into this discussion and try to get our minds around why things have gotten so heated over bread and wine.Lord’s Day Focus...Question 80: How does the Lord’s Supper differ from the Roman Catholic mass?Answer: The Lord’s Supper declares to us that our sins have been completely forgiven on the cross once for all. It also declares to us that the Holy Spirit grafts us into Christ, who with His very body is now in heaven at the right hand of the Father where He wants us to worship Him.This part of A/80 is summarizing what we have learned over the past few weeks. The Lord’s Supper is, within our Protestant understanding, a memorial meal declaring that we who trust in Christ by faith have had our sins forgiven. When Jesus died on the cross His body was broken for us, His blood was shed for us and His sacrifice, on the cross, secures our forgiveness once and for all. No additional sacrifice is needed.But the Supper also declares that we are united to Christ by faith and are His very body, bride and family. Our Lord is alive in Heaven with the Father and we worship Him as Lord. The Supper reminds us of these truths and celebrates these truths until the day when He returns to be with us and eat this meal with us.So, there is a two-sentence summary highlighting the importance of the Lord’s Supper for us. But the question is how does this differ from what the Roman Catholic church teaches?But the Mass teaches that the living and the dead do not have their sins forgiven through the suffering of Christ unless Christ is still offered for them daily by the priests. It also teaches that Christ is bodily present in the form of bread and wine where Christ is therefore to be worshiped. Thus, the Mass is basically nothing but a denial of the one sacrifice and suffering of Jesus Christ and the condemnable idolatry.Heidelberg points out three ways that our theology differs: (1) the Mass doesn’t declare our sins forgiven, (2) the Mass is not just a memorial of Christ’s but a time when Christ is actually present in the bread and wine and therefore is to be worshipped as such and (3) the Mass teaches that Christ’s sacrifice on the cross was not a once-for-all sacrifice. All of this causes Heidelberg to condemn the Roman Catholic Mass as accursed idolatry.For some of you the theology of the Mass is something of a mystery so let’s take some time to talk about what the Catholic Church actually teaches. The word Mass refers to the Eucharist which is the ceremony commemorating the Last Supper of Jesus with bread and wine. The term Mass actually means to dismiss the people and early on the church celebrated two Masses.The early church divided their liturgy into two separate parts. The first part was the service of the word, where anyone was permitted to attend to hear the Scriptures taught and when this service was complete the people would be dismissed (Mass). Then a second service of the Table would begin, and only baptized believers were admitted to this table. This was often called the mass of the faithful and included the celebration of the Lord’s Supper.[1]Over the years this practice has changed in the RC church, but the language is still the same. Today, the Mass refers to the Catholic worship service and, in this service, the main event is the Eucharist, the Lord’s Supper. Catholic priests may give a short ten-minute homily or teaching from the Scriptures, but the main event is the bread and wine, which they believe to be the actual body and blood of Jesus.We learned last week that the heart of the Catholic understanding of the Lord’s Supper is that, “during the mass a miracle takes place by which the substance of the ordinary elements of bread and wine changes into the substance of the body and blood of Christ.”[2] This is called transubstantiation and it means that the Catholic Mass is not just a service where we remember Jesus death, the Eucharist is a sacrifice.In their theology, Jesus is actually present in the bread and wine. His sacrifice on the cross is brought into the room and the faithful feast on Christ again and again to obtain new mercy and find new grace, which means your sins aren’t’ forgiven. The Eucharist is often referred to as the bloodless sacrifice, but make no mistake, the RC church teaches that the bread and wine are the body and blood of Jesus.Scott and Kimberly Hahn are popular Catholic apologists, and they help us understand what it is like to experience Mass with these things in mind.One evening, we had an opportunity to be at a Mass where there was a Eucharistic procession at the end. I had never seen this before. As I watched row after row of grown men and women kneel and bow when the (Elements)[3] passed by, I thought, these people believe that this is the Lord, not just bread and wine. If this is Jesus, that is the only appropriate response. If one should kneel before a king today, how much more before the King of Kings? But, I continue to ruminate, what if its not? If that is not Jesus in the elements, then what they are doing is gross idolatry?[4]That is the same conclusion that Heidelberg has come to. If the bread and wine are only bread and wine, meant to remind us of the once for all sacrifice of Jesus, then the Catholic Mass is idolatry and should be condemned as such.Question 81: Who are to come to the Lord’s Table?Answer: Those who are displeased with themselves because of their sins, but who nevertheless trust that their sins are pardoned and that their continuing weakness is covered by the suffering and death of Christ, and who also desire more and more to strengthen their faith and to lead a better life. Hypocrites and those who are unrepentant, however, eat and drink judgment on themselves.Communion is for the broken believer who has come to understand that we needed a Savior and Christ died to save us. It is not for people who profess something that isn’t true of them. It is not for religious people who simply want to be part of a mystical service. It is not for those who think the meal actually affords them some saving merit. It is for the broken.We come to the table because we hate our sin. We come to the table because we know we need forgiveness. We come to the table in our weakness and we find our strength and hope in the finished work of Christ on the cross.The supper strengthens our faith because it reminds us of our need and of Jesus’ supply. The supper calls us to repentance and faith again, it refocuses our desire to live a faithful life in response to Jesus’ saving grace.Question 82: Are those to be admitted to the Lord’s Supper who show by what they say and do that they are unbelieving and ungodly?Answer: No, that would dishonor God’s covenant and bring down God’s anger upon the entire congregation. Therefore, according to the instruction of Christ and His apostles, the Christian church is duty-bound to exclude such people, by the official use of the keys of the kingdom, until they reform their lives.When unbelievers come to the Table, they aren’t welcome because the Lord’s Supper is a family meal. For an unbeliever to eat the bread and drink the cup is a form of hypocrisy.The Supper is not for perfect people, it is for broken people; but that doesn’t mean that everyone can come. There are times in the life of the church when sin has to be addressed and unfortunately there are times when those being rebuked refuse to repent. When members are under discipline and they refuse to turn from their sin, it has been the practice of Jesus’ followers to withhold the elements of bread and wine from themWe do this to show that unrepentant sin separates us from fellowship with the Lord and it creates a barrier to fellowship with His people. So not everyone can come, but only those true baptized believers who have come to see their sin for what it is and who have put their hope in Jesus to redeem them and bring them to GodNext week we will continue our study of the ordinances and I hope that you will join me again next week as we look at Lord’s Day 31 and questions 83-85.Conclusion…If you want to learn more about Cornerstone Baptist church, you can find us online at Cornerstonewylie.org. You can follow us on Twitter or Instagram @cbcwylie. You can find us on Facebook at facebook.com/cornerstonewylie. You can also subscribe to this podcast on iTunes or google play to stay up to date on all the new content.Thanks for listening.[1] Walter Elwell, Evangelical Dictionary of Theology (Baker, pg. 697)[2] R.C. Sproul, Essential Truths of the Christian Faith (Tyndale, pg. 235)[3] Monstrance is the vessel used to carry the host and the wine that have been transubstantiated so they can be revered and adored by the people.[4] Scott and Kimberly Hahn, quoted from Kevin DeYoung THe Good News We Almost Forgot (pg. 148)

Intro…Welcome to the Cornerstone Baptist church podcast. My name is Justin Wheeler, I am the preaching pastor for Cornerstone and today we are in week 29 of our journey through the Heidelberg Catechism. Today, I will be talking to you about questions 78-79.Transition…This week, we are once again focusing our attention upon the ordinance of Communion or the Lord’s Supper. The Lord’s Supper is a simple meal of bread and wine, taken throughout our life of faith and each time we eat it we are to remember Jesus’ body that was broken and blood that was shed for the salvation of His people.Last week, was an introduction of this topic and we focused on what the supper means, what the elements point to and we looked at the passages in the NT that supported all of this. But today, we are going to wade into one of the most significant theological debates of church history and this debate has to do with whether or not the elements of bread and wine are ever more than just bread and wine.Lord’s Day Focus...Question 78: Are the bread and wine changed into the real body and blood of Christ?Now some of you already know why this question is being asked in the first place, because you are familiar with the Roman Catholic view of Communion known as Transubstantiation. That is, they believe the bread and wine become the actual body and blood of Christ. I’ll explain why they believe that in just a minute. But for now, let’s take a look at how Heidelberg answers the question.Answer: No. Just as the water of baptism is not changed into Christ’s blood and does not itself wash away sins but is simply God’s sign and assurance, so too the bread of the Lord’s Supper is not changed into the actual body of Christ even though it is called the body of Christ in keeping with the nature and language of sacraments.Next to the doctrine of justification by faith alone, no issue was more hotly debated during the protestant reformation than the doctrine of communion. The Roman Catholic church held to the view of transubstantiation and taught that, “during the mass a miracle takes place by which the substance of the ordinary elements of bread and wine changes into the substance of the body and blood of Christ.”[1] They still teach this by the way as does the Orthodox church.They arrived at this position in large part by following the teaching of Aristotle who believed that every object is made up of two parts, substance and accidents. The substance referred to the deep essence of a thing while the accidents referred to the surface appearance. Normally, the substance and accidents of a thing existed in an inseparable relationship, but in the case of a miracle, the substance could undergo a change.That is why the mass is defined as a miracle that takes place resulting in the change of substance in the bread and wine. The protestant reformers rejected this view for many reasons but not the least of all is the fact that the Scriptures do not teach this. But the chief reformers (Luther, Calvin, and Zwingli) did not agree on how the church should understand the elements of the communion.Luther taught that while the elements did not become the body and blood of Christ, nevertheless Christ was still present when the Supper was being eaten. Luther argued for what is termed the real presence of Christ in the Lord’s Supper. His view has been titled consubstantiation.Calvin taught that the elements of bread and wine remained bread and wine. Calvin taught that the Lord’s Supper was a memorial meal and that there was no real presence, read physical, presence of Christ in the Lord’s Supper. But he did argue for the spiritual presence of Christ at the supper. In Calvin’s view, the participants feast on Christ by faith and that we experience his presence through the work of the Holy Spirit.I can buy some of Calvin’s teaching on this, but his view is far too mystical for me to accept it all. Yes, Christ is with us in the person of the Holy Spirit always. Jesus said that He will never leave us nor forsake us. But none of this means that Christ is present with us in some greater way through the Lord’s Supper than He is at other times.Zwingli taught what is called the memorial view where the Lord’s Supper is simply a feast of remembrance. There is nothing mystical about the Supper, there is no real or spiritual presence to get all worked up about. The bread and wine remain bread and wine as a symbol and reminder of Jesus’ death and all that it means for the believer. In case you were wondering, this memorial view is the one that we hold at Cornerstone.Here’s the article on the Lord’s Supper from our Statement of Faith,The Lord's Supper is an ordinance of Jesus Christ, to be administered with the elements of bread and wine, and to be observed by his churches till the end of the world. It is in no sense a sacrifice. Rather, it serves to commemorate his death, to confirm the faith and other graces of Christians, and to be a bond, pledge and renewal of their communion with him, and of their church fellowship.I believe that this statement is consistent with Scripture as well as with what we read here in Question 79.Question 79: Why then does Christ call the bread His body and the cup His blood, or the New Covenant in His blood?Answer: Christ has good reason for these words. He wants to teach us that as bread and wine nourish our temporal life, so too His crucified body and poured out blood truly nourish our souls for eternal life. But more important, He wants to assure us, by this visible sign and pledge, that we, through the Holy Spirit’s work, share in His true body and blood as surely as our mouths receive these holy signs in His remembrance, and that all of His suffering and obedience are as definitely ours as if we personally had suffered and paid for our sins.The Supper is an exercise in remembering the Good News through a meal. It strengthens our faith because we are reminding our hearts that Jesus did die for us, that He was raised to show our salvation was complete, that by faith in Him our sins are forgiven, and eternal life is ours. When we eat the bread and wine we are remembering His death, we are declaring our trust in Him again, and as we eat our faith is nourished as the body is nourished by food.I said it a few weeks ago and I’ll say it again that Baptism and the Lord’s Supper are blessings from Jesus to us. They are blessings because they are physical tangible reminders of the spiritual realities that mark us and give us hope and confidence as Christians. We don’t just think about what Christ has done, we experience it through baptism. We don’t just think on Christ’s death we celebrate it with a meal that turns our memory into worship.This Lord ’s Supper is for us a celebration to remember the work of Christ. The Supper is a reminder that a New Covenant has been stuck between God and His people and it is secured by blood that cannot fail. The Supper is a memorial of the body and blood of Jesus that purchased forgiveness and eternal life for all those who believe. Each time we eat this bread and drink this cup we remember the Lord and we declare our unity as His blood bought people.Next week we will continue our study of the ordinances and I hope that you will join me again next week as we look at Lord’s Day 30 and questions 80-82.Conclusion…If you want to learn more about Cornerstone Baptist church, you can find us online at Cornerstonewylie.org. You can follow us on Twitter or Instagram @cbcwylie. You can find us on Facebook at facebook.com/cornerstonewylie. You can also subscribe to this podcast on iTunes or google play to stay up to date on all the new content.Thanks for listening.[1] R.C. Sproul Essential Truths of the Christian Faith (Tyndale, pg. 235)

Intro…Welcome to the Cornerstone Baptist church podcast. My name is Justin Wheeler, I am the preaching pastor for Cornerstone and today we are in week 28 of our journey through the Heidelberg Catechism. Today, I will be talking to you about questions 75-77.Transition…This week, we shift our focus from the ordinance of baptism to the ordinance of Communion or the Lord’s Supper. The Lord’s Supper is a simple meal of bread and wine, taken throughout our life of faith and each time we eat it we are to remember our Lord. We are to remember his body and his blood, broken and shed for the forgiveness of our sin. But Jesus doesn’t simply want our remembrance to be an exercise of the mind, He has given us bread to eat and wine to drink.He has given us bread, which we can see, touch, smell and taste. He has given us wine also and these elements do more than just engage our memory they make the sacrifice of Christ come alive. Jesus has given us a meal that we are to sink our teeth into and as we do this we remember the price He paid for our salvationLord’s Day Focus...I want to start by asking the question, “Why a meal?” Why did God give us a meal as a way to teach us and remind us of His loving and saving grace? I think part of the answer is that God has made us in such a way that meals have a powerful way of teaching us certain truths that God wants us to learn and never forget. Let me try to explain what I mean.The Bible opens with Adam and Eve in the Garden with God. The Garden is filled with food and God tells them that they can eat from the fruit of every tree in the Garden save one. The Bible begins with a meal. Before the fall, Adam and Eve ate their meals in God’s presence, but when they sinned that celebration of fellowship came to an end and they were no longer able to come into God’s presence at all, much less to eat. No more eating in the presence of God.Fast forward to the time of the Exodus. God has a plan to redeem His people from their slavery and to bring them back into His presence. To kick off this redemptive event God commanded them to eat a meal of roasted lamb, unleavened bread and bitter herbs. The meal had deep meaning.The unleavened bread was a symbol of the fact that they didn’t have time to wait for the bread to rise, their salvation would come quickly. The herbs reminded them of the bitterness of their captivity, from which Yahweh was saving them. The lamb reminded them of the sacrifice made for their sin and brushed onto their door so that the judgment of God would Passover them.They were told to eat this meal year after year to remember God’s saving work. They would teach this to their children generation after generation. It was sin that pushed them out of the Garden and it was God’s sacrifice that would bring them back in. The Passover meal was a meal filled with the hope that one day God’s people would once again eat in His presence.Why a meal? Because God’s plan is to bring us back into fellowship with Him, back to His table. He wants us to have fellowship with Him again. The meal is what we enjoy together but it is also the way back in. When Israel ate the Passover meal, they were rehearsing the day when they would sit with God remembering the bitterness of their lives apart from Him and celebrating the sacrifice that brought them home.Fast forward to the NT and we see Jesus eating the Passover meal with His disciples, but in the middle of the meal He changes a few things. In the middle of the Passover Seder, Jesus broke script when He picked up a thin slice of unleavened bread and started to break it up and give it to His disciples.Instead of saying, “This is the bread of affliction that your fathers ate…” Jesus said to the disciples, “This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”[1] He picked up the cup, the third cup, and he passed it to them telling them that this cup marked the New Covenant sealed by His blood.Jesus changed the script and by doing so, He transforms the meal altogether. This meal is no longer to be a celebration to remember the OT Passover but is to be done in remembrance of Jesus himself who in His body took upon himself the punishment for our sin.He has forever changed the way we understand the Passover. The lambs used in Egypt and for thousands of years after the Exodus where all pointing to One Final Lamb whose sacrifice would put an end to all sacrifice.These two redemptive events are tied together, and one fulfills the other. Just as the Israelites watched helplessly as God saved them from their bondage, so too, Christians watch helplessly as Christ rescues us from our bondage to sin.So when we eat the Lord’s Supper, what is going on?Question 75: How is it signified and sealed to you in the Holy Supper that you partake of the one sacrifice of Christ on the cross and all His benefits?Answer: that Christ has commanded me and all believers to eat of this broken bread and to drink of this cup in remembrance of Him, and has joined therewith these promises: first, that His body was offered and broken on the cross for me and His blood shed for me, as certainly as I see with my eyes the bread of the Lord broken for me and the cup communicated to me; and further, that with His crucified body and shed blood He Himself feeds and nourishes my soul to everlasting life, as certainly as I receive from the hand of the minister and taste with my mouth the bread and cup of the Lord, which are given me as certain tokens of the body and blood of Christ.The Lord’s Supper should function in two ways when we gather as a church to eat it. It should serve to remind us of our identity as debtors to God’s mercy and grace. The Lord’s supper is an identity shaping meal, it helps us to know who we are. When we come to the table we are once again accepting the fact that our only hope of being right with God and of having a seat at His table is through the broken body and shed blood of His Son. The Lord’s Supper brings us to a place of humility before God because it reminds us that we bring nothing to the table but our need.The supper also serves as an identity declaring meal. Not only are we to recognize our inner desperation, we are also declaring that desperation along with everyone else. When we gather around the table it’s like we are looking everyone in the eye and saying my need is just like yours, my hope is just like yours. There is no room for arrogance at the Lord’s Table. The man who has learned to view himself as a great sinner before God will not see himself as a lord among men, but as a beggar telling other beggars where to find food.Question 76 helps point this out to us…Question 76: What does it mean to eat the crucified body and drink the shed blood of Christ?Answer: It means not only to embrace with a believing heart all the sufferings and death of Christ, and thereby to obtain the forgiveness of sins and life eternal; but moreover, also, to be so united more and more to His sacred body by the Holy Spirit, who dwells both in Christ and in us, that, although He is in heaven and we on earth, we are nevertheless flesh of His flesh and bone of His bone, and live and are governed forever by one Spirit, as members of the same body are governed by one soul.The Supper is an exercise in remembering the Good News through a meal. It strengthens our faith because we are reminding our hearts that Jesus did die for us, that He was raised to show our salvation was complete, that by faith in Him our sins are forgiven, and eternal life is ours.Wayne Grudem, in His chapter on the Lord’s Supper says it well,As I take the bread and cup for myself, by my actions I am proclaiming, “I need you and trust you, Lord Jesus, to forgive my sins and give life and health to my soul, for only by your broken body and shed blood can I be saved.” In fact, as I partake in the breaking of the bread when I eat it and the pouring out of the cup when I drink it, I proclaim again and again that my sins were part of the cause of Jesus suffering and death. In this way sorrow, joy, thanksgiving and deep love for Christ are richly intermingled in the beauty of the Lord’s Supper.[2]Question 77: Where has Christ promised that He will thus feed and nourish believers with His body and blood as certainly as they eat of this broken bread and drink of this cup?Answer: In the institution of the Supper, which says: “The Lord Jesus on the same night in which He was betrayed took bread; and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, ‘Take, eat; this is My body which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of Me.’ In the same manner He also took the cup after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in My blood. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.’ For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death till He comes.”And this promise is also repeated by the Apostle Paul, where he says, “The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, so we being many are one body, for we are all partakers of that one bread.”This Lord ’s Supper is for us a celebration to remember the work of Christ. The Supper is a reminder that a New Covenant has been stuck between God and His people and it is secured by blood that cannot fail. The Supper is a memorial of the body and blood of Jesus that purchased forgiveness and eternal life for all those who believe. Each time we eat this bread and drink this cup we remember the Lord and we declare our unity as His blood bought people.Unlike the Passover meal and others that we see in the Old Testament, Jesus doesn’t give us specific details on when to observe the Lord’s Supper. As a church we take communion once each month on the first Sunday of that month.Jesus doesn’t tell us how often to eat this meal but he does tell us what should be our focus when eating the meal. As often as eat and drink this meal we are to do it in remembrance of Christ.Next week we will continue our study of the ordinances and I hope that you will join me again next week as we look at Lord’s Day 29 and questions 78-79.Conclusion…If you want to learn more about Cornerstone Baptist church, you can find us online at Cornerstonewylie.org. You can follow us on Twitter or Instagram @cbcwylie. You can find us on Facebook at facebook.com/cornerstonewylie. You can also subscribe to this podcast on iTunes or google play to stay up to date on all the new content.Thanks for listening.[1] Thiselton I Corinthians pg. 185[2] Grudem, Wayne. Systematic Theology: Chapter 50 The Lord’s Supper, pg. 991

Intro…Welcome to the Cornerstone Baptist church podcast. My name is Justin Wheeler, I am the preaching pastor for Cornerstone and today we are in week 27 of our journey through the Heidelberg Catechism. Today, I will be talking to you about questions 72-74.Transition…This week, we are still on the subject of baptism and this will be the week when we have to take a major detour from what Heidelberg has to say. As we have worked through the catechism over this year, we have hit a few questions that made us scratch our heads, but on the whole, it has been really helpful, which is why we are working through it as a church.However, from day one I knew we were going to reach a few points along the way where our understanding of certain doctrines would be quite different from what the Heidelberg teaches and today we have finally come to that point. Question 74 asks,Question 74: Are infants also to be baptized?Answer: Yes.But I, and my fellow credobaptist brothers and sisters would answer that question with a clear and resounding, no. It is not newborn babies that we see being baptized in the NT, but only newborn believers in Christ. So, today we are going to briefly address the differences between our position and the paedobaptist position. I am also going to reword question 74 and ask, “Who can be baptized?” But let’s also not skip over questions 72 & 73.Lord’s Day Focus...Question 72: Is then the outward washing with water itself the washing away of sins?Answer: No; for only the blood of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit cleanse us from all sin.Part of the reason this question is necessary is because we often have difficulty with understanding spiritual realities and their connection to physical realities. A few weeks ago I quoted Matthew Henry when he said,“We live in a world of sense, not yet in a world of spirits; and because we therefore find it hard to look above the things that are seen, we are directed in a sacrament to look through them, to those things not seen, which the sacraments represent.” –Matthew Henry[1]I find this idea very compelling because it brings some clarity on why it is hard for us to understand the connection between the physical world and the spiritual world, but it also shows how God has given us these ordinances in order to help us see those connections more clearly.The water of baptism, a physical experience, does not actually wash away and cleanse our hearts from the effects of sin, our spiritual need. Baptism is a sign and symbol of that cleansing but it doesn’t actually work that way.When a person is baptized they are declaring themselves to be united with Jesus. The picture of baptism is one of the individual identifying with the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. In this way baptism saves us not because there is magical sin cleansing power in the water but because we are trusting in the work of Christ to cleanse us from sin. Our baptism is an appeal to God that we are trusting in what He has provided to save us from judgment.“The waters of baptism, like the waters of the flood, demonstrate that destruction is at hand, but believers are rescued from these waters in that they are baptized with Christ, who has also emerged from the waters of death through his resurrection (Schreiner).”[2]Baptism is not an exercise of us trusting in the water to cleanse us and save us; it is an exercise of displaying our trust in the Jesus and the Spirit of God to save us and cleanse us.Question 73: Why then does the Holy Spirit call baptism the washing of regeneration and the washing away of sins?Answer: God speaks this way for good reason. He wants to teach us that the blood and Spirit of Christ wash away our sins just as water washes away dirt from our bodies. But more important, He wants to assure us, by this divine pledge and sign, that the washing away of our sins spiritual is as real as physical washing with water.This question and answer are addressing the language that Paul uses in Titus 3 when he writes,Titus 3:4 But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, 5 he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy SpiritOne of the interesting things to point out from this verse is that water baptism is not mentioned in it. The reason it is so often associated with baptism is the use of the term washing and the general context of the passage. But the main point of this text is not the physical washing of regeneration (new birth) but the work of the Holy Spirit to bring about that new birth in our hearts.The catechism does a great job answering this question and showing the connection between the physical and the spiritual. “The blood and Spirit of Christ wash away our sins just as water washes away dirt from our bodies.”Now, let’s look at the final question of the week and the one that is going to give us a few problems.Question 74: Are infants also to be baptized?Answer: Yes. Infants as well as adults are in God’s covenant and are His people. They, no less than adults, are promised the forgiveness of sin through Christ’s blood and the Holy Spirit who produces faith. Therefore, by baptism, the mark of the covenant, infants should be received into the Christian church and should be distinguished from the children of unbelievers. This was done in the Old Testament by circumcision, which was replaced in the New Testament by baptism.Now, I not only think the question is the wrong question, but I also disagree with the answer itself. Those who hold to a paedobaptist view, do so, because of their understanding of the continuity between the covenant that God made with His people in the Old Testament and the covenant that God has made with His people in the New Testament. They would agree that there are some significant differences between the two covenants and their signs, but they see them as being a continuum.Let me give you a couple of quotes from Stephen Wellum where he works to explain what I’m talking about.The Reformed paedobaptist conception of “the covenant of grace” may be defined in a number of ways, but at its heart it is understood as God’s sovereign gracious choice by which he chooses to save a people for himself by providing sinners life and salvation through the last Adam, the covenantal head of his people, the Lord Jesus Christ, as well as all that is necessary to bring the elect to saving faith by the effectual work of the Holy Spirit.Given that the “covenant of grace” is an organic unity across the ages, this entails—so the argument goes—that the people of God (Israel and the church) are essentially one (in nature and structure), and that the covenant signs (circumcision and baptism) are also essentially one, especially in regard to the spiritual significance of those signs. Furthermore, Reformed paedobaptists argue that since one cannot find any repeal in the NT of the OT command to place the sign of “the covenant of grace” upon covenant children, so the same practice should continue today in the church, given the underlying unity of the covenant across the ages. In a nutshell that is the Reformed covenantal argument for infant baptism.This is a modest framework of support that gives rise to much paedobaptist thinking and if you were to go back and read question 74 again, you would be able to spot some of this in the answer.Reformed covenant theology is very helpful and true in many of its points, but I think it gets this wrong. I think there are significant differences between the Old and New Covenants and that paedobaptists are wrong to see the two on such a strict continuum. This podcast is going to be really long if I go through all the points of disagreement so ill just stick with one and it is one that we have already been talking about; the difference between the spiritual and the physical.The members of the old covenant were distinguished by their physical connection to Abraham. They were descendants, blood relatives, and as such they received the sign of being part of the covenant that God made with Abraham. Circumcision was that sign and oddly enough, only the male children were to receive that sign.But when we come to the new covenant we see that its members are distinguished not by our physical connection but by our spiritual rebirth (John 3).John 3:3“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” 4 Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” 5 Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. 6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.Those who are members of the New Covenant, those who are to receive the sign of the New Covenant, are those who have been born again by the Holy Spirit. And that is what we see throughout and exclusively in the New Testament. The gospel is proclaimed, men and women believe in Christ and turn from their sin, and then they are baptized and brought into fellowship with the community of faith.What we are going to see is that at no point is there any deviation from this pattern of baptizing disciples only and from this we must conclude that baptism was only administered to those who gave a credible profession of faith in Christ.A. Acts 2 - The first sermon that was preached after the ascension of Christ is recorded for us in Acts 2. Peter is filled with the Holy Spirit and he stands with boldness to proclaim the gospel of Christ and after his sermon we read, “Those who received his word were baptized” (Acts 2:41). They heard the message of Christ, they received/accepted this message for themselves and then they were baptized.B. Acts 8 – The next time we see a group of people being baptized comes in Acts 8:12. In this passage Philip is preaching the gospel in Samaria and this is what we read,But when they believed Philip as he preached good news about the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women.When they believed they were baptized. So once again faith precedes baptism.C. Acts 10 – Here we see Peter preaching the gospel to those of Cornelius’ household and while he is preaching, the Scriptures say “that the Holy Spirit fell on all those who heard the word.” So everyone who was present and heard the word was filled with the Holy Spirit and they began speaking in tongues, praising God and Peter declares, “Can anyone withhold water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?”The household of Cornelius heard the gospel, they received the Holy Spirit, which was evidence of their conversion[3], and then they were baptized. (See Ephesians 1:13)D. Acts 16 – In this chapter we see two instances of believer’s baptism. The first involves Lydia and the second involves the Philippian jailer. In Lydia’s case we read that Paul came and preached the good news to her and the Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Him…and after this she was baptized and her household as well.Next comes the jailer (vv. 32-33) who asks Paul what must I do to be saved?Acts 16:31-33 And they said, "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household." 32 And they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. 33 And he took them the same hour of the night and washed their wounds; and he was baptized at once, he and all his family.Now there is a phrase in here that I want to address because it has been used by paedobaptists over the years to support the baptizing of infants and it is where we read that Lydia and the jailer’s household was baptized. Paedobaptists argue that it is possible to infer from this phrase that unbelieving children were part of these households and therefore it is safe to assume that the early church practiced infant baptism. The problem with this is that there is no Biblical evidence to support the claim.There is no text in the gospels, the book of Acts, or the epistles which give me warrant to believe that the baptism of anyone other than a converted believer in Christ was the common practice of the early church. Furthermore, if we are to make sense out of these household baptisms then we must let Scripture interpret scripture and we can expect that if an entire household is baptized it is because the entire household believed the gospel, because that is the consistent witness of the NT.[4]And just so we are clear on this issue, Baptists and Presbyterians agree that there is no express command or clear example of infant baptism in the Bible.John Murray (paedobaptist) wrote…One of the most persuasive objections and one which closes the argument for a great many people is that there is no express command to baptize infants and no record in the New Testament of a clear case of infant baptism…The evidence for infant baptism falls into the category of good and necessary inference, and it is therefore quite indefensible to demand that the evidence required must be in the category of express command or explicit instance.[5]I applaud men like Murray for their honesty, but I must question their final conclusion. If the Bible gives us no warrant to believe a proposed doctrine, that doctrine has no credibility. So for me it’s a matter of my conscience being bound to the plain teaching of God’s Word. The consistent witness of the New Testament and the command of Christ is that baptism is only intended for the individual who has received by faith the saving benefits of Christ’s atoning work and become His disciple.So, if I could take the liberty to rephrase question 74, I would ask it this way;Question 74: Who then should be baptized?Answer: Those who, having been born of God’s Spirit, repent of their sins and believe in Jesus Christ for salvation. In other words, only believers should be baptized.There is plenty more that could be said but I hope that this conversation has been helpful to you.Next week we will continue our study of the ordinances and I hope that you will join me again next week as we look at Lord’s Day 28 and questions 75-77.Conclusion…If you want to learn more about Cornerstone Baptist church, you can find us online at Cornerstonewylie.org. You can follow us on Twitter or Instagram @cbcwylie. You can find us on Facebook at facebook.com/cornerstonewylie. You can also subscribe to this podcast on iTunes or google play to stay up to date on all the new content.Thanks for listening.[1] Matthew Henry A Puritan Theology pg. 748.[2] Schreiner, Tom NAC Commentary on 1 Peter (Pg. 194)[3] See Eph 1:13[4] It is important to note that those who hold this view of infant baptism do so with a clear conscience and I would not want to have them go against conscience unless they are convicted otherwise by Scripture. But I must do the same and my conscience is clear that the position of Believer’s Baptism is the consistent and plain teaching of the NT.[5] John Murray, Christian Baptism pg. 72 as quoted from Fred Malone, The Baptism of Disciples Alone.