Father, thank you for this day, for this time, for us to consider the teaching of your word. Again, I give you thanks for these servants of yours who have gone before us, whom you have used, and who suffered greatly and endured much in their desire, and their commitment to producing this particular standard. And I thank you that it is a guide for us, and I pray that as we read it and study it together, it would lead us back to your word and do a greater appreciation of your word, and a greater appreciation of what you've done for us in Jesus. So be with us, help us guide and direct us, clarify things in our minds, that you might be glorified, more glorified in our understanding and in our living, and that we might know greater joy. We pray in Christ's name. Amen. Okay, we want to look at chapter one of the confession, which is called of the Holy Scriptures, and the first thing that we want to talk about is the necessity of revelation. And I'd like for you to look at chapter one and section one, and I actually would like to take just a half a step back away from the first sentences of chapter one. Chapter one makes a distinction between two types of revelation, makes a distinction between general revelation and special revelation. But what I want for us to understand is that is the necessity of revelation, period. When I was doing youth ministries to do this little exercise with high school students, to get them to think about this and wrestle with the significant thing that God has done in revealing himself at all. What I'd like for you to imagine is that we in this room are or represent the sum total of humanity. We represent the sum total of humanity. Now, you have to use your imagination at that point, but you have to use your imagination as we proceed. And what I want you to try to imagine, if you can think maybe in terms of some fantasy literature, perhaps that you've read, like the Chronicles of Narnia or the Parallelander Trilogy or something, I'm not asking you to think about those particular worlds, but what I want you to do is imagine that you live together in a world without books, without any kind of record of anything. And the concern that you all have, that every human being has, it percolates to the surface at various points in our lives. But the concern that you have as a group of people is to answer some basic questions, that three basic questions that people ask and seek answers for, which would be, where do I come from? Where am I going? How long have I got? Where have I come from? Where am I going? What am I to be about? What is the meaning of my life, that sort of thing? Those are the kinds of questions that people wrestle with, anybody who is a thinking-reflective person is going to deal with those questions. And so you have this gathering of folks and people have differing opinions about these things, differing answers to the questions. And we could think in terms of our own cultural moment. And the reason I want to do this little exercise with you is because it's a good thing to do generally, but even more specifically, it's an important thing for us to wrestle with in our particular moment, cultural moment, historical moment, because we're surrounded by people who don't answer those questions the same way that you would answer them. They just flat don't. Who are you? Where are you going? What are you or who are you in between? Those are questions of origin, their questions of meaning, their questions of purpose, their questions of destiny. And if you do a poll, in fact, you ought to do this. Do it in your neighborhood. Do it just when you've got some free time. You ought to just do an unscientific poll and ask people these questions. Just stop them on the street and ask them these basic questions. Where did we come from? Where are we going? Who are we in between? And you'll get a wide range of answers, won't you? You'll get agnostics who will say, beats me. I don't know. You'll run into people who are very much influenced by the new age movement, which itself is very much influenced by grace forms of Eastern mysticism. And they will suggest to you that in one way or another that everything is one, that maybe after their lives here on earth, there will be some sort of reincarnation, some sort of higher life. They may suggest a Shirley McLean has that you have had previous incarnations. If you ever read any Shirley McLean stuff, it's really what is most fascinating to me about people who advocate this stuff, is that in previous lives they were never gutter scum. They weren't. And Shirley McLean used to run around doing $400 a person seminar, is talking about all of her previous incarnations as a queen and as this sort of thing. And that sort of thing, everything else. It's a pretty good sell, if you can persuade people that even though they're miserable in this life, there's a pretty good shot they're going to get some sort of prestige or power. It's a pretty good sell. But it's interesting to me that in those previous incarnations nobody has ever gutter scum. I'm not making fun. I guess maybe I am a little bit. I want to take this stuff seriously because it's out there. But maybe in her sort of collective consciousness, she just is conveniently forgotten that the incarnations in which she was previously something other than a queen or something. I have a bumper sticker in my office that Ken Myers produced that says I strangled Shirley McLean a previous life. It's kind of fun. Anyway, the point is if you're out there on the streets you're going to run into all kinds of different opinions giving answers to those three questions. Now the question is, and this is what the Christian faith, and really there is a sense in which Islam and Judaism and Christianity all share this, but it is particularly pronounced in Judaism which gives way to Christianity. The question you wrestle with in this is, how do we know the answers to those questions? And even beyond that, who is to be the arbiter, who is to be the final court of appeal in deciding whose opinion is the one to be heard and believed? If it's a world without books, simply of opinions, whose opinion is going to carry the day? If all we have is opinions, the opinions represented by this group of people or any group of people, whose opinion is going to carry the day? How is truth in the end going to be determined? What is going to be the final arbiter in discussions of truth? Power. Power will be the final arbiter. Who's got the biggest guns? Who has the most influence? The one who can dominate, who can control, who can impose his or her opinion upon the rest? That's what will be the final arbiter in these discussions. But the Christian faith says that while the appearances may be that this is a closed universe in which all of these people live, who have all of these opinions that compete with one another, it really isn't a closed universe because God has spoken into this universe and he has declared what it is that people are to think about him, what it is there to believe about him. He has revealed how it is that he deals with people. He has revealed the truth about himself, the universe, and the people inhabit the world. You see, God has spoken from outside into this world in which we live. And God then is the final arbiter and all matters of truth and all answers to the questions that are given. It is to God that we look as we seek to answer those questions. Now, you know, we don't have time now to talk about where it is you would go in a conversation like this. But I just want to underscore for you all how important this discussion is in our particular cultural moment that you that is you're dealing with people. As you interact with people, a very legitimate question to ask is the question, how do you know? Get their opinions, elicit a response from them. Where did you come from? Where are you going? What is the meaning of your life in the present? Let them answer, let them work with that stuff. That's I think what we need to be doing as we do the work of evangelism is ask people questions and let them give answers. And then at some point in the conversation asked them the question, how do you know? How do you know this? What is your final court of appeal? Where do you go for these answers? And when you get those answers, how do you know that those answers are true? See, what the confession presupposes is that God has spoken and that unless God speaks, we're left in darkness. We're left with opinions. If God does not speak, if God does not reveal Himself, we're left with opinions. I've been a Christian for over a quarter of a century now, 25 years. And back in the 70s, when I became a Christian, these were real issues. I think about this, I've thought about this, I've tried to cut this thing in different ways to try to understand is there a different way to look at this. And unless I'm missing something which is certainly possible, I think it's about that simple. It's about that simple. You get down to the place where you have to ask the question, how do I know? What is my final court of appeal? Where do I go to decide what is true? And the Christian faith says that God has spoken in to our experience into our world, and He has said this is true. And He has substantiated His speech throughout the course of the centuries. Now I think that's an awfully important notion for us and in our moment to be engaging folks in conversation about. So the first thing we want to say simply is that revelation, God's self-disclosure, God making Himself known, is necessary. It's essential if we're to know anything about Him, otherwise we're just wandering around. This ought to be said too, that even before the fall, if we can just jump ahead, even before the fall, God speaking was still necessary. Both before the fall and after the fall, God speaking into experience into our world and language in terms that we can understand is still necessary. It's necessary before the fall, it's necessary after the fall. Again, the confession makes a distinction in chapter 1 between these two kinds of revelation. The first form of revelation, a general revelation, is described in that first couple of sentences. Although the light of nature and the works of creation and providence do so far manifest to the goodness, wisdom, and power of God as to leave men inexcusable, yet they are not sufficient to give that knowledge of God and of His will, which is necessary under salvation. The confession isn't in any way denigrating the idea of general revelation, a couple of passages that speak to this are Psalm 19 and Revelation 1. Psalm 19, the heavens declare the glory of God. Let me just read a little bit so you know I'm not making things up here. The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament shows His handy word, day-to-day utter speech and night-to-night reveals knowledge. There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard, meaning the heavens. Their line has gone out in all the earth and their words to the end of the world. In them he has set a sun, a tabernacle for the sun, which is like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber and rejoices like a strong man to run its race. It's rising, it's from one end of the heaven and it's circuit to the other end, and there is nothing hidden from its heat. The progression of Revelation 19 is from general revelation to special revelation. You look at verse 7, what is he talking about there? He's talking now about the law. The law of the Lord is perfect. So the confession acknowledges that there is this manner in which God speaks. It is called general for a number of reasons. It is called general because it reveals general things about God, Romans 1, verses 18 and following. The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all in godliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness because what may be known of God is manifest in them for God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes are clearly seen being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and godhead so that they are without excuse. So what is it that the creation reveals? Well, it reveals what we call the attributes of God. What God is like, that he is powerful, that he possesses beauty, that he is a god of harmony, that he is a god of order, that he is a god of purpose. There are all kinds of things generally revealed in the things that God has made. It is general in another sense. It is general revelation in that it is given to the generality of humankind. It is given to all people everywhere. So it is general in the sense that it reveals to us general characteristics or attributes of God. It is general in the sense that it is revealed to the generality of humankind. All people everywhere have access to this information. Special revelation goes beyond this and reveals to us his will and what is necessary for salvation. What the confession is acknowledging is that while general revelation will leave sinners without excuse before God. The general revelation will leave sinners without excuse before God. In other words, nobody can stand before God at the end of the day and say, you didn't tell me you were there. You didn't tell me what you were like. Every person who has ever lived looks at the creation according to Romans 1. Must acknowledge that God is there, not only that he is there, but what he is like. And because the revelation that is in the creation speaks so loudly about the fact that God is there and speaks so loudly about what God is like. Every person who has ever lived is without excuse. What does the apostle mean there in Romans 1? He means that every person who has ever lived should because of the knowledge that they have through what is revealed in the creation, bow before God and give thanks to him and worship and acknowledge him to be God. That is what general revelation should have as its effect in the life of every person. Why doesn't that happen? Why do they suppress the knowledge? Because of sin. Because of sin, Paul says, and sin gets defined in lots of different ways, but a rather cutesy sort of way, although it's not so cutesy because it really does get at the heart of things. A sort of a cutesy way to define sin is to recognize that I is right at the center of it. I, wants to make himself the center of the universe and doesn't want any competition. And the I who wants to make himself the center of the universe will suppress every form of truth that threatens his position of preeminence in the universe. That's why people killed Jesus. He never did anything wrong. They killed him because he was a threat to them. That's why they killed the prophets because the prophets came confronted them with their own sin and told them to repent and submit to God. But they didn't want to do that, you see. So whether in the pagan world or even in the church, among the people of God, this continues to be a big problem. But because sin is essentially the business of fallen people setting themselves up over against God and acting independent of God, sinners will suppress the things that are revealed and deny that God exists not rendering to him the thanks and the praise that are due his name. So what is needed then is a more specific word spoken to us so that we might understand our need more clearly, more obviously. And so that we might learn, come to understand the salvation that God provides, what is necessary and salvation. So the confession then through the rest of that first section summarizes really the whole of revelation history. Again, beginning the middle of the paragraph, it pleased the Lord at sundry times and in diverse manners, at various times and in various ways, to reveal himself and to declare his will unto his church. And afterward for the better preserving and propagating of the truth and for the more sure establishment and comfort of the church against the corruption of the flesh and the malice of Satan of the world to commit the same holy unto writing, which makes the Holy Scripture to be most necessary, those former ways of God's revealing is will lose people now being ceased. So general revelation leaves people without excuse but it has certain limits. Special revelation is God's manner of revealing and disclosing his will to his church and the means of salvation which he has appointed for his church. Now this first section also touches on another important matter. There is general revelation and there is special revelation and then there is inscripturation. Now how do we get from special revelation to inscripturation? The special revelation is God speaking and acting in the course of human history. The confession says that for the good of the church those things that God has spoken and done have been preserved for the church. They have been inscripturated. They have been reduced to writing. How do we get to that place? From the place where God reveals himself in these special ways to the place where a record of that revelation is preserved for his people. We have to look over to section 8 to catch the link so if you would do that you get an important link here, an important connecting thought. Section 8 of the first chapter reads the Old Testament in Hebrew which was the native language of the people of God of old and the New Testament in Greek which at the time of the writing of it was most generally known to the nations. Being immediately inspired by God and by His providence kept pure in all ages are therefore authentical so as in all controversies of religion the church is finally to appeal unto them. So the link between God revealing himself and the record of his revelation being preserved or inscripturated is inspiration. So you have movement like this. You have revelation which is accomplished by inspiration which is then inscripturated or written down. Look at the second Timothy 316. This is a familiar passage perhaps. Second Timothy 316 and 17. This passage summarizes what the confession is saying at these two places both in chapter 1 and then in section 8. All scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reprove, for correction, for instruction and righteousness that the man of God may be complete thoroughly equipped for every good work. You all know the term that is used there for inspiration. It means what does it mean literally? God breathed. The New Testament view of inspiration is different from what we commonly think of when we think of inspiration. When we say that somebody is inspired, what are we envisioning? What are we picturing? Somebody who has this sudden burst of creativity or some sort of activity like that, you think of artists, you think of musicians, you think of people who break barriers down of one kind or another by their creativity. That is what you typically think of when you think of inspiration. Somebody was inspired to do this thing or pursue this thing. It is a very anthropocentric sort of a conception, a man centered sort of a conception. But inspiration, as it is understood in the Bible in particular this passage in second Timothy, is a God centered sort of a thing. Inspiration identifies the fact that the word of God doesn't originate with a human author. It originates in God. It originates with God. God is the one who breathes it out, who speaks it out. He uses this human medium by which to communicate what originates with him. It originates with God. Now there are lots of implications there. It seems to me. Not the least of which is the fact that given what we know about God, everything that God would inspire, everything that God would breathe out would be what?
Consistent with who he is and true. Consistent with who he is and true. Inspiration ensures truth. And in our particular cultural moment, this is an awfully important notion. Inspiration, the biblical doctrine of inspiration, ensures that what we are affirming for people, what we are seeking to communicate to people is true because it doesn't originate with us. It originates with God himself. He is the author of it. He is the source of it. It sets our opinions, if you will, as Christians, apart from all other opinions because they really aren't our opinions in the end. They are God's opinions about himself and about us. Oh, you are going to swap me markers. Thank you. Thank you. There is this notion of inspiration. I don't know about you. I am sort of setting this whole discussion in the context of our particular historical and cultural moment. I don't want for this reason. I don't want for this just to be theoretical stuff for you. I don't want for this just to be a discussion of the particulars of the Westminster Confession of Faith. I want very, very much for this discussion of the Westminster Confession of Faith to give us confidence, to shape not only how we think about the Christian faith, but how we live in the world. And what the doctrine of inspiration suggests to me is that I may have confidence as I go to people and speak to people in our day and time because I'm not just sharing with them another opinion. I'm not just communicating my convictions, my beliefs, my ideas. If my mind is being shaped by the scriptures of the old and the new testaments, my mind is being shaped by the very word of God, by the mind of God, by the opinions of God, so that when I go speak to people, when I talk to people, again, not communicating my stuff, I'm communicating God's stuff. Inspiration means because it comes from God, it's consistent with His character, and it's true, so when I speak to people, I can speak the truth. I can tell them the truth. That's what I'm doing. And folks, our day and time is desperately in need of the truth. It's desperately in need of the truth. Our world today is much more like the world of the Apostle Paul than it is like the world of the framers of this confession. There was far greater uniformity among those folks about where truth was to be found than is true in our day. In the day of the Apostle Paul, you had a world very much like ours where there are all kinds of people competing for followings and all kinds of opinions that were competing for loyalties. And when you go into that world, you can go with a real confidence. Knowing number one that God has revealed Himself, He's revealed Himself in what's been made, He's revealed Himself in particular words and acts through the course of history, and that revelation originates with Him. It is God breathed, and then it's the confession notes, in the providence of God, it has been reduced to writing in the 66 books, the 39 in the old and the 27 in the new. So when I go with this book, I'm going with God's book, I'm going with God's ideas, God's opinions, God's truth, not my own. The thing that troubles us so often, as Christians, it troubles me, believe me, it troubles me, is this fear of rejection, this fear that I'm not going to be able to answer somebody's question, this doubt that I have about my own abilities to persuade or to reason or to convince. Okay, folks, that is not my job. That is not my job. It is not my job to convince. Do you know what I mean? It's my job to speak the truth as clearly as I can, answering questions to the best of my ability. But folks, it is the power of the word of God that persuades people. We're going to come back to that in just a second. John, and then share us again.
Okay, how do you, what is the answer to the question? How do you know that this is the word of God or why do you believe that this is the word of God? Is that that the gist of it? Okay, well this isn't a course in apologetics, but that is an apologetics question. And maybe Bob has something to say about that and then share us.
Okay, so let's go ahead and share the gospel and if they are just closed to even open up the scriptures, then we know them out of argumentation is going to open up anyway. But if you start to share the gospel, you just go ahead and say, well, let me just show you what it says right here. And then you let the power of God use the word in their hearts. And if you're, like you said, well, what you're doing here, you're going to ask confidence. This is the answer for it. It is part of word of God. But now we're not getting the apologetics, how proof is that? Right. And there's so many things like Peter, so much we're using it and also evangelists have exploded when we use it because he just relates straight to the word and let the word speak for itself. Okay, share us. So our missionaries from Keith and Donna say there's a couple that he announced from his childhood. And had them over and they said it was one of the difficult times of sharing the gospel. They shared the gospel. You know, people thought they were sharing about the Middle Ages or some kind of some irrelevant, you know. And they threw every possible question at them that a non-Christian, you know, would throw at you. Evolution is just the fact that they've never heard it in theory. Can I like here? Yeah. And they talked to like one o'clock in the morning and they were extremely hostile, not necessarily toward them but toward the gospel. And they weren't sure they'd ever see them again. But they did leave them with a fundamental question or something like that. But Maria derived that as the first time she really ever understood why Christ died. And he came back later and said he wanted to talk more about the other questions. He being the husband's father. And also they had like 47 people over the last Friday for their Christmas party that they invited. People they met in the restaurant. Yeah. Let me respond to that, John. Let me kind of get us on the page here. Bob, you're right. What I want very much is for us to have an increased sense of confidence about the scriptures and the truth of God. And the point of departure for that is understanding number one that God must make himself known if we're to know anything truly. Number two, God has done that. He's done it in the things that he's made. He's done it in what is called special revelation which is his acts, his words and his acts which reveal him and have revealed him through the course of history. And in that mix is this work of inspiration by which God communicates to his people those things that he deems necessary that they know. He didn't tell us everything we'd like to know but he tells us what we need to know. Inspiration focuses upon the source. The source is God so that when I take this word which now is inscripturated I may take it with confidence knowing that it is the truth, the very truth of God. That's where we are. Now, how do I deal with somebody who doesn't buy it? How do I deal with somebody who doesn't embrace it? I want to say three things. Number one, there are good answers for the questions. There are good answers for the questions. But what we need to realize as we deal with folks out there in the world is that there are different kinds of people. Most of the time in my experience people who have raised objections have raised them as smoke screens. I'm not being unkind or critical or patronizing or anything else. That's just a fact. And at some point you say, I'm not going to cast my pearls before swine. It is not a good thing to throw your pearls before swine so you stop. You have to judge the situation. You have to ask the question, does this person really want to hear the answers that I want to give? And there have been times when I've said to somebody, if you act like a jerk in these situations, you're going to get a response in kind. If you act like a jerk, you're going to get a response in kind. But there have been times when I've said to a person, look, if I were to answer that question for you, and I believe there is a good answer. If I were to answer that question for you, would you give your life to Jesus Christ? Now, let's cut right to the chase here. Let's not waste each other's time. And I believe there is an answer, and it may take some time for us to get to that answer. But if I can get that answer to you, would it be sufficient to persuade you of the other things that I've been saying that you're a sinner, that you're separated from God, and that you need a savior? Not only for forgiveness, but for eternal life and for all the other things that come with it. I think that's a legitimate thing to say, and that really kind of cuts to the chase. And you know whether or not you proceed to cast your pearls before somebody who's not a swine, before somebody who will prize them. And find it to be the pearl of great price. But there are honest answers, and so I think it is important for us to have some familiarity with the answers to the questions out there. When he preached at Athens, you know, in the Mars Hill, his Mars Hill discourse, he basically invited people to come to him to explore with him the truth of what he was presenting. That there was one God, the God that they worshipped is unknown. He was there to declare as known. And it was basically an invitation. Come, let's talk. So I think that's a legitimate thing. We need to be able to give answers to questions. But here is, in my opinion, the thing which is harder takes more time, requires more sacrifice, and which in the end, at the end of the day, will constrain people to listen to the answers that you give. And that is your love for them. And I got to tell you, I think in our neighborhood over the course of the last couple of weeks, we have seen God wearing down resistance through the love and compassion extended to a family in our neighborhood at their time of need over the course of a couple of weeks. I mean, I really believe that. And I'm like, why am I amazed? I should not be amazed. But I'm amazed that this resistance really seems to be wearing, being worn down. And it's being worn down because a small handful of people stuck with these folks, cared for them, ministered to them, did stuff for them, and all that kind of thing. And one person really, at the point of this whole thing, and I'm not going to tell you who because it doesn't matter. Yeah, barbell tell you later. One person who has persevered in this relationship and who has cared for these people and prayed for these people, and a sort of wrote some of the others of us into this situation, it is that that has proved, I think, to have had the greater impact. Not the answers. I mean, I'm as good as anybody when it comes to giving. I can do that stuff. But it's, but it's these relationships. Now, I think it's not an either or it's got to be a both end. Nobody gets converted by watching you live. It is the power of the gospel that converts people and that gospel must be preached and communicated. But I think more and more convinced of this that real evangelism occurs in the context of relationships and answer answers will be received when there is a demonstrated relational commitment and love. Now, in either case, and this is the third thing, there are honest answers which should be given to questions, but that needs to be done in the context of relationships. People caring for each other. I will tell you, and anybody who knows me well, ask Barb, she'll tell you this too. I am no hero when it comes to praying for people. But I will tell you that one of the people about whom I'm speaking has been on my prayer list for six years, off and on for six years. And now there's an openness, six years. Every one of you is a missionary in the neighborhood where you live, every one of you. And again, I'm nobody's hero, but there's a sense in which I think it unconscionable, unconscionable, that we would not pray for our neighbors, that we would not walk the streets of our neighborhoods and pray for the people behind those doors. And I'm nobody's hero, so I'm convicted when I speak those words first. Every one of us is a missionary in our neighborhoods. There are honest answers that can be given to honest questions, but relationships need to be built, and those answers to those questions have to be given in that context, in that kind of an environment. But the third thing is, and you've got to jump back a little bit to section five of the confession. So you've got the necessity, you've got God revealing himself, you have inscripturation, the truth of God originating with God, and so we can have confidence about it because it is true. We can speak it with confidence, tell the truth with confidence. But there's this other element. You have inspiration and inscripturation, but you have this utterly essential work of illumination. Okay? Look at section five of chapter one. Yeah, I'm in this book, so I on page four and five, if you're using this to find these things. We may be moved and induced by the testimony of the church to a high and reverent esteem of the Holy Scripture, the heavenliness of the matter, the efficacy of the doctrine, the majesty of the style, the consent of all the parts, the scope of the whole, which is to give all glory to God. The full discovery of it makes of the only way of man's salvation, the many other incomparable excellencies, and the entire perfection thereof. Our arguments were by it that the abundantly evident self to be the word of God. What they're saying is, to put it in the language of this discussion, we can give people the answers to the questions. And we can even get them to the place where they acknowledge that what we're saying makes sense. Okay? A person can get to the place where they say, oh, okay, I understand. You know, for this reason, that reason, every other reason, I understand that I should have implicit confidence in the Bible as the word of God. Oh, I understand now that I have implicit confidence in the Bible as the word of God. What it is that it's saying, that it's talking to me about my need of salvation and all of the rest of that stuff. And I may even come to the place of great regard for all of that. And still, there is something, I heard. Okay? There is still something else that is required, yet notwithstanding our full persuasion and assurance of the infallible truth and divine authority thereof, it is from the inward work of the Holy Spirit bearing witness by and with the word in our hearts that we are persuaded of its truth. And that is the work of illumination. Okay? That is the work of illumination. Okay? So in the midst of my speaking the truth of God and giving honest answers to honest questions, and in the midst of my seeking to love people and build relationships and care for them in their moment of need and all of that, while all of that stuff is going on. And I suspect we've all had experiences with this while all of that stuff is going on. We can still find that people do not respond in a sincere heartfelt way to the truth of the gospel. Why is that? Because it requires the work of the Holy Spirit to take things which are known by the mind and maybe even appreciated by the mind. It requires the work of the Holy Spirit to enable them to understand them and embrace them. Okay? It takes the work of the Holy Spirit for them truly to see the truth of the word of God. Okay? And this continues to be the case. All right? You have to have the work of the Holy Spirit in enabling people to see in order for these things to make sense and come together and for them to be applied. All right? That's still true for us. There is still this need of the work of the Holy Spirit to illumine, to shine his light upon the truth of God so that it stands out so that we understand it and embrace it and see that it as application to us. Okay? The most important prayer, really, the most important prayer that I pray in the course of the Sunday morning service is the prayer of illumination because if God by His Spirit does not come and cause this word to live, if He does not come and apply it to your hearts, it's an exercise and futility. I mean, I'll go ahead and do it because God calls me to and I'm supposed to be faithful in my task, but it is not going to be fruitful if God doesn't come and shine his light upon it and make it make it live. All right? So, again, to put this in the terms of this discussion, our particular cultural moment, where we are and all the rest, what does that constrain me to do? That's part one. What's part two? Pray, pray, pray, pray, plead with God the Holy Spirit that He would come and cause the truth of the word of God to be understood by people. Because if He doesn't come and do that again, that's what I mean when I say, I can't convince anybody. I can't persuade anybody. It is God by the power of the Holy Spirit who comes to make the word of God an infallible truth for people. And she's still praying, right? So are the rest of us. For 15 years, Katie? Yeah, absolutely. And the observation is that in this instant gratification, immediacy, sort of a world in which we live, it's easy to grow discouraged. And we need to pray that we not lose heart. And you're absolutely right. And at that point, we need each other. We need to encourage each other to hang in there and to keep praying and to persevere in this labor. The labor, both of praying and of speaking, right? Yeah, you're right. Okay. You know, when I got up this morning to think about this class, haven't read about all of this stuff and thought about it. I thought there's no way in the world that I'm going to be able to cover chapter one. I mean, it's just, there's just too much there. But I do want to set this whole discussion in a kind of a practical context and ask the question, how does this, what difference does this make? You see, and I think it makes enormous difference for us to understand that the Bible really does originate with God, to understand that he has appointed it for people's salvation. And to see and to underscore the role, the work of the Holy Spirit in this whole business of speaking and communicating the word of God in our day and time. Yes. Do you think that it seems to me that the first part of what the Bible itself, in a sense its majesty and the way it is cohesive and its scope is self authenticating to a degree. Right. Okay. Now, to a culture in which there was an entire degree of political literacy perhaps or general knowledge of the Bible, that seems to me to be a real strong argument. But in a day like our own, when you cannot assume that people understand even the most rudimentary elements of the biblical story, who is Jesus even? You know, who are Mary and Joseph? I mean, you can't even assume that those are known as basic facts. How do you take that the argument of that first part of section five and bring it into our day? Yeah. Yeah. Can you make the same sort of, I know you can make the same sort of argument, but don't you have to approach it differently because you can't assume that the people you're talking to understand anything about the Bible. Did you all catch that? Do you all hear what he was saying? The first part of, it's the first part of section five, which talks about the majesty and the grandeur of the scriptures and which points to its self authenticating character as the word of God. How do you make a case for that in a culture where people just don't have categories for it? They don't even understand the rudiments of the biblical narrative, the biblical story. And maybe what is the application, is there an application of that? Does that have any relevance for us? I mean, we finally got exposed to it, it really shook my foundations, but you know, how do you get somebody exposed to the Bible? Yeah. Okay. Well, in a sense, I think you've just answered your own question from your own experience. That's really what I was going to say. What do you do even in our day and time? I think you do the same thing that would have been done 50 years ago or 40 or 30 years ago even. I think you get people to read the gospels. You just get them to read the gospels. You know as well as I do, most of the time people have opinions about things about which they know nothing. They have opinions about Jesus, they've never read the story. They have opinions about Christianity, they have no real knowledge of what Christianity is about. Their knowledge of Christianity is what they get from television evangelists and from the Saturday Night Live parodies of television evangelists. Sometimes it's hard to know which is which. It's true. Years ago, Barb was watching television when Saturday Night Live was out of town. She flipped television on. She thought she was watching Saturday Night Live. She really did. And about 10 minutes into this thing, no, it was earnestly. It was earnestly. She couldn't believe it. Now again, not everybody on TV is wacko, but there's a lot of wacko. A lot of what people have in the way of knowledge of Christianity comes from. So I think it really is something to be said simply for getting the Bible into people's hands and when you get into conversations with them, say have you ever read the gospels? Why don't you read the gospel of John, read the gospel of Mark and in a couple of weeks let's have lunch and talk about it. Remember a minister in our denomination saying if you can accomplish two things with people, they're in trouble. If you get them exposed to the word of God and the people of God, they're in trouble. And again if you get them exposed to the word of God, they're in trouble because the spirit does accompany the reading of the word and does the work of illumination. And it does it does rattle cages. It does shatter foundations if you can get to that place exposing to the people of God and you're exposing them to the same thing. You're exposing them to the non propositional side of the reality of the Christian faith. Hopefully, the love and the compassion, the kindness and as well as all the warts and everything else to be sure. So I hear you, they don't have categories for it but I think the goal is still the same to get it into their hands and let them wrestle with it. I think we need to stop. I didn't get all the way through this thing but we're going to need to press on. If you have some questions about chapter one, bring them next week and we can talk about them. Let's pray. Father, I pray for myself. I pray that you'd help me to be more prayerful than I have been about my neighbors and I thank you for the great encouragement that you've given me in this last week and a half. And I pray for us all that you'd stir us up. Give us a greater sense of confidence in your word and in the truth of the gospel. Give us a freedom and a liberty to see this as a medicine for people's souls and their hope and it is their hope because in the end it leads them to you in whom are to be found comfort and encouragement and forgiveness and freedom and purpose and all the rest. So Lord, please stir us up and increase our sense of confidence as we live in this world. This world you've called us to live in at this particular moment. Be with us, those of us who come to worship now. I pray that you'd visit us with your presence and give us great joy as we are in your presence. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.