3/15/12- Requiring What Can't Be Done

23- 3/15-HDBG- 3,4,5

Q. 3. Where do you learn of your sin and its wretched consequences?

A. From the Law of God.

Q. 4. What does the Law of God require of us?

A. Jesus Christ teaches this in a summary in Matthew 22:37–40: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets.” (Cf. Luke 10:27.)

Q. 5. Can you keep all this perfectly?

A. No, for by nature I am prone to hate God and my neighbor

Thoughts: What if you were required to do something you could not do?  What if you had to walk across a 300 foot tightrope to escape an oncoming and overwhelming enemy?  The bad news is we can see what needs to be done, and we can see our need to do it- but one little slip and our end is near.  It doesn’t matter if we slip on the first step, the 100^th or right before we make the other side.  The Law reminds us of the narrow walk. It reminds us that we cannot do it- it is an impossible task.  The grace of God is that when we couldn’t walk it, Christ the tightrope walker came and got us- bringing us over to the other side. 

Prayer: Help me O God, to see my helplessness and to see your helpfulness.  Keep me from trusting in myself. 

(The Great Blondin (Francois Gravelot) walking across Niagara Falls.  An 1,100 foot tightrope that took about twenty minutes to cross)