Why America Will Never Be a Christian Nation

We need to know our sins and misery from the law of God. 

Q. From where do you know your sins and misery?

• misery — unhappy, dissatisfied, lonely, alienated — man separated from God, from others, from creation and from himself.

A. From the law of God.

• law — the standard, norm, the demand, that God has revealed in his Word and has given to us to live by.

Q. What does God’s law require of us? 

A. Christ teaches us this in a summary in Matthew 22: 

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.

• love — That devotion to someone which describes more than just feelings or emotions. It describes an attitude of heart towards God and man that leads to obedience and right action. 
• heart — commonly identified as the seat of emotions and affections. 
• soul — with the will and moral character. 
• mind — with mental abilities and activities. 

This is the great and first commandment. 
And a second is like it, You shall love your neighbor as yourself:

• neighbor — everyone whom God puts in the path of your life 

On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets.

Q. Can you keep all this perfectly? 

A. No, 

 I am inclined by nature to hate God and my neighbor.

• inclined — to have a disposition towards something; a tendency to act in a certain way. 
• hate — an attitude of dislike, distrust, hostility, towards God and man. 

For the Bible Tells Me So...

Jeremiah 17:9 — The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? 

Romans 3:10,11 — As it is written: "There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. 

Romans 3:20 — Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin. 

Romans 8:7 — the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so. 

Titus 3:3 — At one time we too were foolish, disobedient, deceived and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures. We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another.

The Heidelberg Catechism Lord's Day 2