Sinners in God s Hands Course SGH MOUNT ZION BIBLE INSTITUTE

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1 Answer Key for Students Sinners in God s Hands Course SGH MOUNT ZION BIBLE INSTITUTE You have been encouraged to use your own words while formulating answers from the reading text. It is OK when you occassionally quote directly from the text; but you should not be doing so often. We are looking for your own thoughts and words in order to demonstrate your understanding of what you have read. In this answer key, we have often quoted from the text directly. This has been done in order to have an accurate standard of comparison for your answers in your own words. Therefore, your answers are acceptable whenever they are a reasonable representation of the general gist of the text; we do not require or want an exact match with our answers provided herein. There are many questions that ask for a personal response. We suggest you review these with your pastor or other mature, Bible-believing Christian that you know. Answers or words not from the reading text are set in brackets. Lesson : God s Holy Requirements. a. The duty which God requires of man is obedience to his revealed will. b. The moral law is the declaration of the will of God to mankind. c. To personal, perfect, and perpetual conformity and obedience thereunto, in the frame and disposition of the whole man, soul and body, and in performance of all those duties of holiness and righteousness which he owes to God and man. d. It promises life upon the fulfilling, and threatens death upon the breach of it. 2. a. To awaken their consciences to flee from wrath to come, and to drive them to Christ; or, upon their continuance in the estate and way of sin, to leave them inexcusable and under the curse thereof. b. To show them how much they are bound to Christ for His fulfilling it, and enduring the curse thereof in their stead and for their good; and thereby to provoke them to more thankfulness, and to express the same in their greater care to conform themselves thereunto as the rule of their obedience. 3. The moral law is summarily comprehended in the Ten Commandments. 4. a. Personal answer b. Personal answer c. Personal answer 5. Exo 20:3 [Do not put your love and honor for anything before your love and honor for God.] 6. a. Personal answer b. Personal answer 7. a. Personal answer b. Personal answer 8. Exo 20:7 [Do not speak or think irreverently about God, ever.] 9. a. Personal answer b. Personal answer 0. a. Personal answer b. Personal answer. Exo 20:2 [Honor and obey all those who have authority (as long as they do not command a violation of Scripture).] 2. a. Personal answer b. Personal answer 3. a. Personal answer b. Personal answer 4. Exo 20:3 [Do not harm others or seek to harm others, in thought, attitude, or deed.] 5. a. Personal answer b. Personal answer 6. a. Personal answer b. Personal answer 7. Exo 20:4 [Maintain strict control over moral consciousness at all times.] 8. a. Personal answer b. Personal answer 9. a. Personal answer b. Personal answer 20. Exo 20:5 [Do not take anything that does not belong to you without permission; and keep your word.] 2. a. Personal answer b. Personal answer 22. a. Personal answer b. Personal answer 23. (Exo 20:6) [Tell the truth always in love.] 24. a. Personal answer b. Personal answer 25. a. Personal answer b. Personal answer 26. (Exo 20:7) [Be content and do not desire what you do not lawfully need.] 27. a. Personal answer b. Personal answer 28. a. Personal answer b. Personal answer 29. Personal answer, hopefully to include all of them. Sinners in God s Hands (SGH): Student Answer Key as of /0/206

2 Lesson 2: Man s Natural State. Man was created in the likeness of God, that is, the holy and righteous God made a holy and righteous creature. But fallen Adam begat a son, not in the likeness of God, but in his own likeness, that is, corrupt sinful Adam begat a corrupt sinful son. 2. a. Corinthians 5:49-50 As the image of God bore righteousness and immortality in it, this image of fallen Adam bore corruption and death in it. b. Job 4:4 [All descendants of Adam are unclean] c. Psalm 5:5 [I was corrupt from conception, because my parents were so, and their parents before them, etc.] d. John 3:6 [The flesh passes its corruption to each generation.] e. Ephesians 2:3 [By nature we are under God s wrath for our corruption.] f. Jeremiah 7:9 [We are wicked because our hearts are wicked.] g. Genesis 6:5 [All we can produce is wickedness, always.] h. Psalm 4:3 [All mankind is filthy in God s eyes because all disobey Him.] 3. Now what but sin has opened the sluice of sorrow? There is not a complaint nor sigh heard in the world, nor a tear that falls from our eye, but it is an evidence that man is fallen as a star from heaven a. Observe how early this corruption of nature begins to appear in young ones. b. Do not the children of fallen Adam, before they can go alone, follow their father s footsteps? What a vast deal of little pride, ambition, sinful curiosity, vanity, wilfulness, and averseness to good appears in them! 5. a. Wickedness. Behold the bitter fruits of the corruption of our nature: By swearing, and lying, and killing, and stealing, and committing adultery (Hos 4:2). The world is filled with filthiness, and lewdness, wickedness, and profanity. b. From the heart of man, evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness (Mar 7:2-22) 6. lusts [inordinate desires] that war in our members (Jam 4:). 7. ) God made man for society. 2) But men are ungodly and sinners (Ti :9), 3) lawless and disobedient, 4) which created the necessity of human laws, and 5) which are guarded by severities [as punishment]. 8. a. to have his own will for his law; and, if he were to follow his natural inclinations, he would vote himself out of the reach of all laws, divine and human. b. Some have made themselves absolute and above laws agreeably to man s monstrous design at first: to be as gods (Gen 3:5). 9. [Because] no man would willingly adventure to live in a lawless society not daring to trust one another but upon security 0. [The eyes are where] impure imaginations and sinful desires have entered the heart.. Is it not natural to us to care for the body, even at the expense of the soul? 2. a. Let [men] listen to their own hearts, and they will hear a secret murmuring for want of something. b. Everyone by nature is discontented with his present lot in the world, or with something or other in it. 3. a. Personal answer b. Personal answer, hopefully to realize that discontent played a role. 4. a. Because it is very natural [for men] to embrace an evil way when they see others in it before them. b. [Because] we far more easily impressed and influenced by evil counsels and examples, than by those that are good. 5. a. Men [think] darkness could hide [their sin] from the all-seeing God (Job 34:2)! b. Are we not naturally careless of communion with God; aye, and averse to it? 6. [Because we] would fain hide it if we can. It is as natural for us to hide sin, as to commit it 7. It is natural for us to extenuate our sin and transfer the guilt upon others. 8. They blaspheme His holy providence 2 under the mistaken name of bad luck, and thereby lay the blame of their sin upon God. Lesson 3: Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. [They], notwithstanding all God s wonderful works towards them, remained void of counsel 3 (v. 28), having no understanding. 2. That they were always exposed to destruction, as one that stands or walks in slippery places is always exposed to fall. 3. Psalm 73:9 They were always exposed to sudden unexpected destruction, as in a moment. 4. That the reason why they are not fallen already, and do not fall now, is only that God s appointed time is not come. 5. a. There is nothing that keeps wicked men at any one moment out of hell, but the mere pleasure of God. b. His sovereign pleasure; His arbitrary will restrained by no obligation, hindered by no manner of difficulty. 6. ) There is no want 4 of power in God to cast wicked men into hell at any moment He is not only ) able to cast wicked men into hell, but 2) He can most easily do it. 7. a. They deserve to be cast into hell; divine justice makes no objection against God s using His power at any moment to destroy. sluice gate used in controlling water flow in a stream or channel. 2 providence often referred to by men as circumstance. God s works of providence are His most holy (Psa 45:7), wise (Isa 28:29), and powerful (Heb :3) preserving and governing all His creatures and all their actions (Psa 03:9; Mat 0:29). (Spurgeon s Catechism, Q.) 3 void of counsel have not wisdom to direct themselves, nor discretion to desire and receive counsel from others, but rashly and madly go on in those courses which will certainly ruin them. Matthew Poole ( ), English Nonconformist theologian, Commentary (Deu 32:28). 4 want lack. Sinners in God s Hands (SGH): Student Answer Key as of /0/206 2

3 b. it is nothing but the hand of arbitrary mercy and God s mere will that holds it back. 8. a. the Law of God, that eternal and immutable rule of righteousness that God has fixed between Him and mankind b. a sentence of condemnation to hell they are bound over already to hell Ye are from beneath (Joh 8:23). 9. a. Psalm 7: God judgeth the righteous, and God is angry with the wicked every day. b. Personal answer c. Personal answer 0. a. The devil stands ready to fall upon them and seize them as his own, at what moment God shall permit him. b. They belong to him; he has their souls in his possession and under his dominion (Joh 8:44; Luk :2).. a. John 8:44 Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning b. Peter 5:8 [The devil is actively seeking to devour men all the time.] 2. There are in the souls of wicked men those hellish principles reigning a foundation for the torments of hell corrupt principles in reigning power principles active and powerful, exceedingly violent in their nature. 3. a. Sin is the ruin and misery of the soul; it is destructive in its nature making the soul perfectly miserable. b. if sin was not restrained, it would immediately turn the soul into a fiery oven or a furnace of fire and brimstone. 4. a. that there are no visible means of death at hand. b. [There] is no evidence that a man is not on the very brink of eternity and that the next step will not be into another world. 5. a. God s works of providence are His most holy, wise, and powerful preserving and governing all His creatures and their actions. b. to destroy any wicked man, at any moment. 6. a. None b. if it were otherwise, we should see some difference between the wise and politic 2 men of the world and others. 7. a. he depends upon himself for his own security; he flatters himself in what he has done, is doing, or intends to do. b. They miserably delude themselves in confidence in their own strength and wisdom; they trust to nothing but a shadow 8. God has laid Himself under no obligation, by any promise, to keep any natural man out of hell one moment. 9. a. the mere arbitrary will, and uncovenanted, unobliged forbearance of an incensed God. b. Personal answer 20. a. wickedness makes you, as it were, heavy as lead, and to rend downwards with great weight and pressure towards hell; and if God should let you go, you would immediately sink, and swiftly descend and plunge into the bottomless gulf. b. the earth would not bear you one moment, for you are a burden to it: the creation groans [at] you (Rom 8:22); the creature is made subject to the bondage of your corruption, not willingly. c. There are black clouds of God s wrath now hanging directly over your heads, full of the dreadful storm, and big with thunder; and were it not for the restraining hand of God, they would immediately burst forth upon you. d. The wrath of God is like great waters that are restrained for the present; but they increase more and more, and rise higher and higher, till an outlet is given; and the longer the stream is stopped the more rapid and mighty is its course when once it is let loose your guilt in the meantime is constantly increasing, and you are every day treasuring up more wrath; and there is nothing but the mere pleasure of God that holds the waters back, that press hard to go forward. e. The bow of God s wrath is bent and the arrow made ready on the string; and justice directs the bow to your heart, and strains. 2. God abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked. His wrath towards you burns like fire as worthy of nothing but to be cast into fire. 22. a. Personal answer b. Personal answer 23. a. very much dreaded lives of their subjects wholly in their power to be disposed of at their mere will. b. The wrath of the great King of kings is as much more terrible than theirs as His majesty is greater. 24. ) the wrath of God that which is unspeakably dreadful; 2) the fierceness and wrath of God the fury of God, the fierceness of Jehovah! 3) the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God a very great manifestation of His almighty power in fierceness. 25. a. He will inflict wrath without any pity He will have no compassion upon you, He will not forbear nor have mercy. b. only that you shall not suffer beyond what strict justice requires. c. Ezekiel 8:8 I will also deal in fury; mine eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity. 26. a. [At physical death, or when the Lord returns, whichever is first.] b. God will have no other use to put you to, but to suffer misery [under His wrath]; you continue in being to no other end! 27. Isaiah 63:3 contempt, hatred, and fierceness of indignation He will crush you under His feet without mercy. 28. a. that He might show how terrible His wrath is. b. Romans 9:22 God is willing to show his wrath, and to make his power known 29. a. Personal answer b. Personal answer 30. a. Personal answer b. Personal answer 3. a. Revelation :5 Many that were very lately in the same miserable condition that you are in, are now in a happy state with their hearts filled with love to Him Who has loved them and washed them from their sins in His own blood. b. Romans 5:2 By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. reigning power that which controls someone or something, which is not possible to resist or overcome. 2 politic crafty; cunning. Sinners in God s Hands (SGH): Student Answer Key as of /0/206 3

4 Lesson 4: Redemption in Christ. a. None but a divine person was sufficient for this great work. The work is infinitely unequal to any creature. b. None could take away the infinite evil of sin but one that was infinitely far from and contrary to sin himself. c. [So] that he might be capable of meriting infinite blessings. d. This work is so difficult that it requires such a one. e. In order to give an infinite value to his transactions in the Father s esteem, and that the Father s love to him (Eph :6) might balance the offence and provocation by our sins. f. It was requisite that the person should be one that could act in this as of his own absolute right: one that in himself is not a servant or subject because if he is one that cannot act of his own right, he cannot merit anything. g. No other person but such a one would undertake a work so difficult for a creature so unworthy as man. h. Otherwise, he would not be fit to be depended on by us in so great an affair. 2. ) set His heart upon man; 2) exercise infinite love and pity to him; 3) exhibit infinite wisdom and merit in redeeming him. 3. the eternal and infinitely beloved Son of God being substituted in the room of sinners, objects of the wrath of God. 4. the sinner s sin must be charged upon Him. He will thereby take the guilt of the sinner upon Himself. He must be subject to the same Law that man was, both as to the commands and threatening a. The sovereign God must take the obligation the sinner is under to perform perfect obedience to divine Law and man s law. b. The Son of God comes under the sinner s obligation to suffer the punishment that man s sin had deserved a divine Person, Who is essentially, unchangeably, and infinitely happy, to suffer pain and torment! One so loved, to suffer wrath! 6. that the Word should be made flesh, that He might be both God and man in one Person (Joh :-3) 7. A Person that is infinite, omnipotent, and unchangeable is become, in a sense, a finite, feeble man, a man subject to our sinless infirmities, passions, and calamities! 8. [Rather than] outward honor, authority, and power far above any of the kings of the earth He should begin His life in a stable; for many years dwell obscurely in a family of low degree in the world; and be in low outward circumstances: that He should be poor and not have where to lay His head; that he should be maintained by the charity of some of His disciples 9. A divine Person Who is infinitely happy should endure the greatest sufferings that ever were endured on earth!... the Supreme Judge of the world should stand at the judgment seat of mortal worms, and then be condemned! the living God should be put to death!...a Person Who gives life to all His creatures should be put to death by His own creatures! That a Person of infinite glory should be spit upon by the vilest of men a Person Who is love itself should suffer the greatest cruelty a Person Who is infinitely beloved of the Father should be put to inexpressible anguish under His own Father s wrath He Who is King of heaven should be buried in the prison of the grave. 0. a. Because the same Person Who purchased salvation should have the bestowing of it. For it is not fit that God should at all transact with the fallen creature in a way of mercy but by a mediator. b. For the strengthening of the faith and comfort of the saints: that He Who endured so much to purchase salvation for them has all things in heaven and in earth delivered unto Him; that He might bestow eternal life on them for whom He purchased it; and that the same person that loved them so greatly as to shed His blood for them was to be their final Judge.. ) God is gracious, and He desires to save him. 2) God is just, and He must punish him! 2. God the Judge has seen his sin and recorded all his iniquities, so that there would be no hope of his escaping. 3. a. My Son, the pure and perfect, shall stand in thy stead and be accounted guilty; and thou, the guilty, shall stand in My Son s stead and be accounted righteous! b. He stands in Christ s stead with the Savior s garments on [robes of righteousness], he is accepted (Isa 6:0; Rev 6:, 7:9). 4. [Because] it was purely voluntary on the part of Christ. Christ was willing to stand in our stead. 5. Because the sovereign God made Him a substitute the substitution was made by the highest authority Corinthians 5:2 Christ stood in the sinner s place, as the sinner doth now in Christ s place The sinner is treated as if he were Christ, and Christ is treated as if He were the sinner. 7. When of old, men did come before God with sin, God provided a sacrifice that should be the representative of Christ, inasmuch as the sacrifice died instead of the sinner. The Law ran, The soul that sinneth, it shall die (Eze 8:20). When men had committed sin, they brought a bullock or a sheep before the altar. They put their hand on the bullock s head and acknowledged their guilt. By that deed, their guilt was typically removed from themselves to the bullock. Then the poor bullock, which had done no wrong, was slaughtered and cast out as an offering for sin, which God had rejected. That is what every sinner must do with Christ if he is to be saved. A sinner by faith comes and puts his hand on Christ s head. Confessing all his sin, it is not his any longer: it is put on Christ. Christ hangs upon the tree. He bears the cross; and so the sin is all gone. 8. Before, He had been entirely happy. But now His Father begins to pour wrath upon Him God begins with Him at His birth: He puts Him in a manger. He subjects Him to woe and poverty from beginning to end griefs pursue Him; sorrows follow Him death comes with more than its usual horrors tormented, maltreated, and blasphemed nailed to the cross! I behold the mocking continued punished as if He were a sinner, frowned upon, and that He should die. typically representing something else as a symbol with similar characteristics. Sinners in God s Hands (SGH): Student Answer Key as of /0/206 4

5 9. [Each man has been a great sinner. But after conversion,] do you see him in a little season pursuing his way to heaven? He has renounced these sins. He has been converted, and has forsaken them. That sinner is no sinner now: he is perfect because Christ was perfect; God looks upon him as if he were Christ! 20. We should see our misery and be sensible of our need of mercy that they are the children of wrath, that the Law is against them, and that they are exposed to the curse of it: that the wrath of God abideth on them and that He is angry with them every day while they are under the guilt of sin (Psa 7:) be aware that it is a very dreadful thing to be the object of the wrath of God, to have Him for their enemy, and that they cannot bear His wrath. They must be sensible that the guilt of sin makes them miserable creatures, whatever temporal enjoyments they have the mercy of God is as sufficient for the pardon of the greatest sins as for the least, because His mercy is infinite. 22. the satisfaction of Christ is as sufficient for the removal of the greatest guilt as the least (Jo :7). 23. All the sins of those who truly come to God for mercy are satisfied And if they be satisfied, God is ready to pardon them. So that Christ having wrought out a satisfaction that is sufficient for all, it is now no way inconsistent with the glory of the divine attributes to pardon the greatest sins of those who in a right manner come unto Him for it. God may now pardon the greatest sinners without any prejudice to the honor of His holiness. The holiness of God will not suffer Him to give the least countenance to sin, but inclines Him to give proper testimonies of His hatred of it. But Christ having satisfied for sin, God can now love the sinner and give no countenance at all to sin, however great a sinner he may have been. 24. a. It was a sufficient testimony of God s abhorrence of sin that He poured out His wrath on His own dear Son. b. [Because nothing can be a greater punishment for sin than pouring out infinite wrath on God the Son.] Note: this answer is not in the text. It requires a deduction. 25. Let contempt be great, yet if so honorable a person as Christ undertakes to be a Mediator for the offender and suffers so much for him, it fully repairs the injury done to the Majesty of heaven and earth. The sufferings of Christ fully satisfy justice. The justice of God, as the supreme Governor and Judge of the world, requires the punishment of sin. The supreme Judge must judge the world according to a rule of justice...the Law is no impediment in the way of the pardon of the greatest sin, if men do but truly come to God for mercy: for Christ has fulfilled the Law, He has borne the curse of it in His sufferings. 26. a. John :7 The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin. b. Acts 3:39 by him all that believe are justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses. c. Galatians 3:3 Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us. 27. Christ will not refuse to save the greatest sinners who in a right manner come to God for mercy, for this is His work. It is His business to be a Savior of sinners; it is the work upon which He came into the world (Mat 9:3). 28. The more sinful he is, the more need of Christ. The sinfulness of man was the reason of Christ s coming into the world...the physician will not make it an objection against healing a man who applies to him, that he stands in great need of his help The whole [plan] of the way of salvation is for this end: to glorify the free grace of God. 30. Romans 5:20 The greater the guilt of any sinner is, the more glorious and wonderful is the grace manifested in his pardon The Redeemer is glorified in that ) He proves sufficient to redeem those who are exceeding sinful, in that 2) His blood proves sufficient to wash away the greatest guilt, in that 3) He is able to save men to the uttermost, and in that 4) He redeems even from the greatest misery. 32. a. Personal answer b. Personal answer c. Personal answer 33. a. Personal answer b. Personal answer MOUNT ZION BIBLE INSTITUTE 2603 W. Wright Street Pensacola, FL USA Sinners in God s Hands (SGH): Student Answer Key as of /0/206 5