It is a dangerous way of thinking to consider ourselves outside the need of the means of grace, outside the call to sanctification. Often we do not take advantage of worship, prayer meetings, the Sabbath Day, singing, etc… because we don’t think we need it. Brothers and sisters, if this catechism question teaches us anything it is the simple message that we need Jesus, and to especially experience the free offer of His forgiveness, daily, weekly, regularly, through the reminder offered in the Holy Spirit’s ministering labors.

Today is going to be the last post for 2023. I am taking the week between Christmas and New Year’s off and we’ll come back with WLC Q.150-151 on January 4, 2024, and then the Tuesday devotion will return January 9, 2024. As we continue the Tuesday/Thursday blogs I want to thank you for reading them. I never talk about it in this space, but over the last year the readership of this Substack has doubled, and that doesn’t count the folks who take this in other forms and places. I am grateful, and humbled, you consider the reading of the Tuesday/Thursday posts worth your time and it is my goal to continue to write these for the foreseeable future. If you have any questions or comments please feel free to contact me at your leisure. Likewise, after we conclude the Larger Catechism in August (d.v.) this Thursday space will be taken up with a to-be-determined confession, same chronological format. It has been without a doubt helpful for me as a pastor and as a Christian to be reminded of the richness of the Reformed faith as it has been summarized by our forefathers.
Again, thank you for reading. The responses and commitments I have already received from people are a blessing in and of themselves. Y’all have a blessed rest of 2023.
Now to the Q/A:
Q. 149: Is any man able perfectly to keep the commandments of God?
A. No man is able, either of himself, or by any grace received in this life, perfectly to keep the commandments of God; but doth daily break them in thought, word, and deed.
Having completed the ten our Divines now come to the first use of the law. They have, in various ways, mostly by the what/why/how structure of the catechism’s take on the commandments, already in some sense done this. However, they want to always ensure that as we as believers are molded and formed into the image of God so that we do not forget that at its base the law acts as a mirror for us. In other words, the more the law is in our eyes the more we see the glory and perfection of the person of our Lord, and by that our inability to either match-up with Him in His holiness or keep the law perfectly in order to be saved is made known to us.
It is important for believers to never fail to recall that we are sinners, even after the historical application of the redemption purchased by Christ. Read Romans 7, or Romans 3 for that matter. We still struggle with the old man within us and when we cease to fight, we will be crushed by the weight of it. Romans 6 of course is taken up with recoiling against the idea that the free grace granted in justification (Romans 5) means we no longer need to follow the law, that we can be antinomians, that is outside the law. We are never away from the content of the ten commandments.
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Whatever symbolism men may wish to impose on the covenantal sign that God set in the cloud, we must return again and again to the truth of Scripture and to the God who has aimed the arrows of His wrath at Himself so that we might not receive them for all eternity.

Back in 2015, one of my sons asked me why there were so many rainbows on the television and internet. Most of us have have seen them on children’s books and clothing from our earliest days–and in recent years placarded on the television and internet–yet many have never stopped to ask the question, “What symbolism did God invest the rainbow with from the the day in which He first set it in the sky?” There is a rich biblical-theological answer to that question, and it would serve us well to consider what we are taught from the Genesis narrative–as well as from the rest of redemptive history. In his sermon, “The Hope of Noah,” Sinclair Ferguson explains the covenantal and redemptive nature of the bow in the sky:
“As with all of God’s covenants in the Bible…He always adds physical signs to them to reassure us. Yes, His word is enough–His word is His bond–but we are doubters; and so He gives us visible signs that say to us, “I really meant what I said; look at the sign!” And here he says to Noah, “I’m going to give you a sign–the bow in the cloud.” And, of course, we know what that is, the bow–the multicolored rainbow–but actually the word used in the book of Genesis is not rainbow, it’s warbow–the bow of war, the bow of battle. It is a picture of God, after hostility has ended and He has established His new creation, flinging His bow of war, His bow of judgment, into the skies as a reassurance to Noah, ‘Now, that there is reconciliation, you may enjoy the peace that you have with Me; you can be sure that there will never again be this kind of judgment on the earth, until, of course, the cosmic final judgment of all at the end of time;’ and so Noah, begins to enjoy the fruit and the spoils of war. Some scholars have even suggested, over the centuries–if you think about the rainbow as God’s military bow transformed into an ornament of great beauty, that hostility has ceased and that there is no arrow in the bow–that, if He has thrown the bow into the sky that way, the only place the arrow could have gone was into His own heart.’ I wonder if Noah ever could have pondered, ‘If God has thrown His bow into the sky, where is His arrow, and why does it point thus heavenward into His heart?’ And, of course, the rest of the story of the Bible will pick up on that idea–it’s only as God takes the judgment to Himself, into His Son Jesus Christ, that we might enjoy full and final reconciliation with Him.”1
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Emailing students an invitation to participate in a pro-LGBTQ rally, and sending them a slideshow with a political message without parents’ knowledge “seems underhanded to me,” the mother said, “especially if they’re going to ask kids to basically participate in … political engagement.” She wonders whether administrators at her son’s school “would be equally willing to support student activism to protect girls sports for biological females,” the mother said. 

Whether you know it or not, your child’s school may have observed a “Day of Silence” on behalf of the LGBTQ movement.
The advocacy group GLSEN invited schools across the country to hold a demonstration Friday to show support for LGBTQ students and their allies.
GLSEN encouraged participants to “take a vow of silence to protest the harmful effects of harassment and discrimination of LGBTQ people in schools,” according to the group’s website.
The Day of Silence would end, the group said, with participants holding “Breaking the Silence” rallies and events “to share their experiences during the protest and bring attention to ways their schools and communities can become more inclusive.”
One parent, whose son attends a private high school in Connecticut that has no religious affiliation, told The Daily Signal that her “suspicion” is that “a lot of schools, especially private schools, were participating in this.”
The mother, who asked to remain anonymous, said her son received an email from school administrators inviting students to wear rainbow colors last Friday and participate in a “Day of Action” to “support our LGBTQ+ community.”
The private school in Connecticut sent the email to students and faculty, but not to parents, the mother told The Daily Signal.
The email to students referenced “over 220 laws” that the school said targeted LGBTQ Americans this year, and included a link to a slideshow discussing some of the laws and the significance of the Day of Silence.
One slide tells students that “many states are trying to pass, or have passed, laws that prevent transgender youth from receiving gender affirming health care.”
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