As much as Lord's Day 1 was all about comfort, Lord's Day 2 is about misery. Quite a turn around. Though if one understands the meaning of comfort offered in Lord's Day 1, the focus on misery begins to make sense. Comfort is not the warm fuzzy blanket; it is the rock in the middle of the stream which offers refuge while the flood waters race by. It is the savior who offers rescue when faced with God's condemnation. Misery looks at the danger that makes comfort so desirable.
The first question in this LD (#3) asks from what do we determine our misery, or what is the standard by which we measure ourselves. The answer being: the law of God. The law tells us that not only have we not kept the law, but that we cannot keep it. The law that cannot be kept also implies a penalty. Therefore our misery consists of the knowledge that we cannot meet God's law standard and that as a result we are under condemnation and must anticipate the consequences.
Questions 4 and 5 look in further detail at aspects of our misery - what is is required in the law, and whether we can meet the demands of the law. The law of God can be thought of in a summarized way - Jesus quotes from Deuteronomy and Leviticus in summarizing the law as first, perfect love for God, and second, love for neighbor. The law of God is also nuanced, which much of the rest of the Bible describes and illustrates. Alastair Roberts, in a booklet on sexual ethics, describes this interaction between summary and detail as a grammar that develops, and gives a more complete understanding of how we interact with the law.
The focus of question 5, finally, concludes that since we cannot and do not keep the law, based on comparing ourselves to the requirements of the law, we stand condemned - the very definition of misery.
Discussion Notes: One question that came up in discussion had to do with the strong language of question 5 - "I am prone by nature to hate God and my neighbor." This is the language of Total Depravity of the Synod of Dort. It also amplifies the contrast presented in this Lord's Day - we cannot and do not keep the commandments. We are not able to love God perfectly; we are not able to love our neighbor as we should. The Summer's Best Two Weeks program uses the slogan "I'm third", implying that God is first, our neighbor second, and myself third. It seems, however, that explicitly injecting "I'm third" into the Love God/love neighbor formula implicitly triggers our inclination to try to better our position - it is the American way, the human way. In contrast to the absolute standard of love God perfectly and out of that to love our neighbor as ourselves, we can deduce that we are indeed prone by nature to hate God and our neighbor.