What Only God Can Teach Me and You

There is no way in which I can come to know my misery from what I experience in myself, in other people or in daily life. 

• Yet it is very important that I possess a true knowledge of my sins and misery.
• Otherwise I will not turn to God and seek the forgiveness of my sins and redemption from my misery. 
• From where, then, shall I come to know my sins and misery?

God must teach me this. 

• And He does. 
• How? 
• God teaches me my sins and misery through the law. 

When referring to the law, I refer to all the demands which God has set down in His Word. 

• These are summarized in the Ten Commandments and in Matthew 22:37-40. 
• In the law I come to see what God requires and what I was originally capable of rendering. 
• I see myself, as I ought to be. 

And when I examine myself in the mirror of God’s law, 

• then I find that I am not what I ought to be 
• and I do not do what I ought to do. 

By measuring myself by the law of God, 

• I find that I fall terribly short of the obedience which God requires of me.

In saying that God teaches me my sins and misery through the law, 

• I must not think that the law alone is capable of giving me this knowledge. 
• I can memorize the law through and through, and know it completely by heart, 
• and still not come to know my sins and misery, 
• that is, still not come to acknowledge my sins and misery to God. 

There is need for the regenerating grace of the Holy Spirit. 

• The Holy Spirit convicts me of sin through the law. 
• Christ said in John 16:8, 
• “And when He has come, He will convict the world of sin.” 

I think of the effect the Holy Spirit had upon the people of Jerusalem whose hearts were previously closed to the gospel. 

• After the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, the crowds who listened to Peter’s sermon came to acknowledge their sin. 
• Peter closed his sermon by saying, “Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ.” (Acts 2:36) 

And then we read of the response from the people. 

• “Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart, 
• and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, 
• “Men and brethren, what shall we do?” (Acts 2:37). 

The conviction of sin comes from the Holy Spirit who uses the law as His instrument