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Okay, I'm going to start this morning with a little exercise, but it is a very dangerous exercise Okay, it's a dangerous exercise for the first thing on a
Sunday morning because I'm going to ask you to close your eyes All right now.
I need you to promise yes exactly Charlie I need you to promise that when I ask you to close your eyes that you are not going to fall asleep on me
Okay, so let's hold it together We can do it take another sip of coffee Okay, here we go so close your eyes
And I want you to imagine Try to picture for yourself that you were there at day one of creation
Okay, you see in your mind you can see the spirit hovering over the face of what best
I can describe as primordial waters and you hear God say let there be light and Instantly you are blinded by the sudden burst of brightness filling everything around you
But now I want you to imagine just a little before that so take the
VHS tape in your mind and do a little rewind Okay, and you're a little bit before that and you're there, and it's dark and The waters themselves have just been created, but the earth is without form
Try to imagine in this moment the anticipation of what we just imagined the anticipation of God speaking for the first time into creation and Now I want you to hit the rewind button in your mind one more time and a little bit before that there is nothing
We have crossed into Genesis chapter 1 verse 0 Territory we are before the words in the beginning, but here
Here you have to understand there is no before Because there is no time at all
All right open your eyes Genesis 1 1 in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth
Right in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth and that very famous verse has within it the four fundamentals of physics the four fundamentals of existence itself captured in those ten words there is matter earth
There is volume space heavens There is force and action
God and Then there is the fourth one time
In the beginning like all else ex nihilo
Time itself was created at Genesis 1 1 and so of all
God's attributes today This one that we're going to talk about today Might be one of the hardest to avoid words of accommodation because we simply have
No concept of what anything is like outside of time.
I Can have you close your eyes? I can tell you to try to remember what it's like before the beginning
But even then in your mind you are picturing the passage of time you're there and you're imagining a succession of moments up to a moment when suddenly waters appear and suddenly light appears
But you have to remember that there was no succession of moments before time
Yes, Andrew Right exactly right yep
Yeah, and so this passage of time the succession of moments is incredibly fundamental to our existence because everything for us is a sequence of events a
Succession of moments. I'm going to use that phrase a lot today. Okay a succession of moments Every one of even our thoughts that in some sense feel like they occur to us instantaneously
Right take time we learn from the past we are try to be say like mindful in the present or present in the present right as Folks would advocate nowadays, and we plan for the future right and Of course that also means because we are in time that we are very
Incredibly restricted by time how often do we say that we want to pause?
Right or we want to go back or maybe fast forward But we cannot we talk about a watched pot that never boils time flies when we're having fun and The old sportswriters favorite saying when the superstar finally enters the twilight of his career is that the only undefeated opponent
Is father time so today?
We're going to talk about eternality God is eternal and The question that Barrett asks in chapter 8 at the for the title of the chapter is
God in time Is God in time? So how do we define this notion?
Sorry I already missed it So why is in question one of the worksheet? Why is God's eternality the hardest of all of God's attributes to avoid words of accommodation?
it's because we have no sense of what it means to be outside of time and All of our language is wrapped up in in time words.
That's another phrase You're gonna hear me say a lot today. Okay in time words And by that I mean literally in timeline
As opposed to outside of time We have what like our language is literally based on the notion of past tense present tense future tense
Right and I'm gonna use past tense words today about God, but understand that that's wrong
Because there is no past tense When it comes to outside of time, there's not even really present tense, but we're gonna try
Okay, we're gonna try yes Yes Right right right
Yeah, I'm Andrews right. I'm sorry, but there's gonna be moments where you're gonna think I'm talking about Star Trek right today
But is what it is So like we said at the beginning of class today is a very good day to take that metaphorical duct tape and wrap it around your skull
So that when it explodes later, you can find all the pieces, okay? So let's start by trying to define
God's eternality Okay. Now the word that the Bible uses a lot is everlasting
Okay everlasting and we see that in places like 1st Chronicles 16 Isaiah 9
Isaiah 26 in fact, can I just I want to read all three of those references?
So can I just have three? Volunteers, please who have Bible semi ready? Yes, you want to start
Daniel? You can have 1st Chronicles 16 36 Mark Isaiah 9 6
Charlie Isaiah 26 for please All right, Daniel you're first if you've got it from everlasting to everlasting
Everlasting father. Okay, Charlie. Oh, hey, we can rock to Whoo two metaphors for the price of one on that verse
Everlasting rock. Okay, so we hear everlasting and you have to understand there is a sense in that word of time
Right, there's this is an in time word Everlasting so it is a word of accommodation for us
Because when we see everlasting it's an adjective to describe our experience with God Okay, God is
Einstein relativity here. God is everlasting with respect to us
Or Compared to us who are in time here. We are posited at this present moment.
Oops. Sorry. We just missed it We're a little further along but here we are posited in this present moment and we can go backwards everlasting and There's still
God and we can go forward everlasting and there's still God, right? that's the from everlasting to everlasting and all the other and the other two everlastings that we saw today were
Just read were our forward facing So eternality, here's one sort of succinct.
Let's just go with this as a working definition. Okay for the first part of the class And we'll see how well it holds up as we discuss.
All right It's almost like a catechism sort of answer All right.
God is eternal God created time and exists outside of it
God created time and exists outside of it Okay Like we said at the beginning
Genesis 1 1 in the beginning. That is the start of time any thoughts on that?
Have you ever tried to imagine what it must be like God outside Jonathan. I don't know.
Yeah, I love that comment from Augusta. Yeah He's like if you don't ask me, I feel pretty confident
I know what time is, but if you want me to explain it, I suddenly don't feel very confident at all
Charlie ah Yes Don't get a teacher
Yeah, yeah, no, no So yes So so he so I think what's important to understand is with when we're talking about eternality is that he exists outside of time
Right, that's what I mean. So for the definition of that, but you are completely right particularly when we're talking about the incarnation
Right that God chose to enter as Charlie's One of his favorite phrases has been right he's chosen to enter time -space continuum for us right in the person of Jesus Christ The second person that God had right?
So yes, he exists in time So it's it's less maybe it's less to say that he exists in time so much as that he enters and interacts in time
With us who are the time bound Creatures, right? Yeah. Yeah Into our time into our experience, right?
Yeah good segue to this which is number two Bodhi Hodge who's one of the apologists for answers in Genesis.
He says God didn't come from anywhere or anyone God is the source of everything and he created time time is not absolute
God is absolute When someone asks where God came from or who created him they are assuming that time is absolute in God isn't
But this is not the God of the Bible time is not absolute.
God is absolute All right. So number three these attributes, right?
We've looked at all these attributes previously and They all have connections to the idea of God being eternal
God is subject to no limitations and He is the source of all things
What would Limit God if he in terms of what we're talking about today, what would limit him?
Well, if if if he has subject to no limitations, but his source of all things hypothetically what would limit him? Yes, but I'm talking
I mean specifically with what we're talking about today about eternality. What would what would be a limiting thing to God?
What are we limited by? Time so if God existed in time, would he be
He'd be limited by it, right? He'd be subject to a present and a future at a past There would be a time before God was or there certainly would be a time before God did something, right?
Like there's all that type of thing. So Existing in time would limit God. So that's what is that attribute that we talked about God having no limitations
Anybody remember it's the Latin one Let's see it. Yep See it.
So you can connect the line there Existing in time would limit God but a seedy tells us that God has no limits
Okay Here's another one The next one
God is not a composition, right? So to compose or decompose is an action that would happen in time
But what attribute of God tells us that he does not? compose or decompose
Simplicity right simplicity he is Simplicity tells us that he is in his attributes in all their fullness to the absolute degree
He is them Right all time, okay, and then the last one
God is once And so this is a good one God is once simultaneously in unendingly, right
His eternality is a shield against all kinds of the opposite of the word
Right. You already know what it is, right? Immutability. It's the last one a shield against all kinds of mutability
You cannot talk of change that it was or will be It does not exist in a changeable way.
It is what is once simultaneously in unendingly any kind of succession in time
Would introduce a change in God, but we know God does not change because of the attribute immutability
That's the three connections, all right, so at this point
I'm gonna have to use an in time word and Even though as I said a few minutes ago any in time word is a divine accommodation, but here goes
We're gonna spend a lot of time talking about the notion of God being eternally present Eternally present but present is an in time word, but we're gonna just try to use it as a way to picture
What's going on here? Okay. He is eternally present Now Andrew last week and myself the week before we talked of God always doing
Right always in motion. Do you remember that there was a Latin phrase for that that Anselm coined?
And if you remember the Latin phrase, it's really close to English. So it's Not too hard.
What's that? Something momentum. We're gonna purists actus
What did that mean? pure act Right. God is pure act.
Sorry. That was an Anselm. That was Aquinas Aquinas coined to that phrase my bad the other a team guy Think I could keep him straight by now
That God is always doing right. He's the first mover and And I mentioned how when we were talking about immutability, this was this was one of the refutations of the notion of God being like rigidly immobile
Right the fact that there is motion In the viewners that if God were rigidly immobile, then there would have been nothing to kick off motion happening in existence
But he is the first mover and thus Things move, but he's the source of movement the source of action
But All right When we think about the notion of God being pure act is that here comes the objection from the skeptic the skeptic would say that to Act or to will anything seems to suggest some kind of succession of moments
Right. I wasn't doing something and now I'm doing something Right or even if even if we you know go with pure act
It's like well God was doing something first and then he's doing something else Right is sort of the thing we would potentially start.
That's what the skeptic would argue That there's a series of acts that stem from the will of God Okay.
Now there is an urban legend Christian myth. I don't know how what do you want to say about Augustine?
That that supposedly someone once asked him what was God doing before he made heaven and earth and Augustine supposedly replied
God was preparing hell for idiots that ask questions like that. Yeah.
Yeah, that's that's the kind of urban legend We can get behind right but actually And I do
I really I do like being a myth buster So I'll say this what's fascinating is there's a lot of truth to this myth in that someone really did
Ask Augustine that question But he didn't find that answer all that funny and In fact, what it was is that other people had answered that he had heard that joke of an answer and he wrote a little treatise refuting like like Rebuking the people who were telling that joke and Ironically somehow over the mists of course of time now
We associated as if Augustine was the one who said the joke when he was actually writing about how we shouldn't say that joke
I Feel bad for him. I he he didn't want he felt like it was evading the force of the question with crude humor
Augustine said I would have preferred him to answer I am ignorant of what I do not know Rather than reply so as to ridicule someone who has asked a deep question and to win approval for an answer, which is a mistake
Pretty good But Augustine in true
Augustine fashion his real response not nearly as pithy and he goes on for many many pages to Give this long discourse about the nature of time and I don't have the time to go through the whole discourse about the nature of time but Anselm he comes along a few hundred years later, and he
Gives us a nice pithy summary of Augustine's thing and he says God has no temporal present
God has no temporal Present and so if he's not temporarily present that leaves us only with eternally present
Temporally present would be the notion of that you've probably heard before time stretched out
Sometimes some people have tried to use the analogy when we're talking about eternality that like it's it's that God is
God sees time stretched out And experiences time stretched out that would be a temporal present
Yeah Yes, it's the same concept as those who the some
Arminian folks would like to say like that God can look down the corridors of time and see you know ahead of time who would believe on his name and so thus
Predestined those folks to salvation. Yeah, Charlie For cravery and yes in this yes in the eternal presence yes, yeah
I didn't mention that earlier, but thanks Charlie for bringing it up. Which is that even angels clearly experience time
Right so so and and in in heaven when Jesus talks about everlasting life and eternal life that that kind of eternal that he's talking
About is the passage of time so it is not that time is Going to go away
For us right I think we will always be temporarily bound creatures
With God in the everlasting And to that end it's why I say that this feels although I don't
I don't hear a lot of theologians talking about it when I read or I should hear I don't read a lot of theologians talking about it, but The eternality
I think is one of those incommunicable attributes of God that no one, but God exists outside of time
Not not even the other spirit beings Right yeah, yeah
There's a transition. Yes exactly yeah, yeah Yeah, yeah, so so Yeah, sorry.
Yeah. Yeah, that's what I'm going with for now Yeah It's a line.
Yes. Yes, Dave Yeah Possibly I mean there's also what as Andrew saying that there's a new heaven in a new earth so there's also the
Possibility that time is different right in the in the new time and I'm But God doesn't really give us much clue or hint about what it will be like other than that it will be
Everlasting in the terms of our ability to understand them right now, right? Yeah, oh yes, yes
He's visible as yeah, yeah, right Yeah, right.
Yeah Yeah Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah So what
I what I want to say just to go back to the idea about time stretched out in Temporally present is that I want you to understand that God experiences.
No duration Okay, he experiences no duration Because it's not an it's not a lot of people where they get confused where they do this
Timeline stretch out thing for God is that they say that it's that God has an unending timeline and I say no
God has no line at all right, and that's I don't know but Right no
No, I just think it's an I think that verse is an accommodation in that we could maybe paraphrase it a different way to say to God, you know a
Thousand years is nothing to God a day is nothing right or or as to Charlie's puddle analogy, right?
But they're they're both part of the same puddle. I am however restricted by time and I'm running out of it
Sharon go ahead, but then we got to move on that's okay. Right exactly, right?
Yeah, well, but whatever regardless God has no beginning I think we can very clearly say that compared to all else right that that everything else because it is sourced from him has a
Beginning. I know that's an in time word, but let's just go with it, right? You know all else is created.
It has a start that God is the only one who is eternal in both directions So, all right, so Again, let's try to deal with the question of succession and acts and let's answer this objection from the skeptic
Okay, if he is timeless eternal, how can he also be purist actus? Well, let me let me first ask this.
All right. Is there an order to God's decrees? Can somebody give me an example? Is there an order to God's degrees?
Sure. Yes. Yep. There's a decree to create mankind and there's a degree to create for the fall
There's six days of creation, right? There's an order to that. Yep.
Yep. Yep Yep, what else you got one? Sure.
Okay Yes, yes Different covenants, okay
Anybody else have another example? Yes, right
Yep. Yep. Now in all those does the fact that there is an order
Okay, then ipso facto require that they happen in succession. Yes, but where are they unfurling?
In time, there we go Yes in our terrarium of time, yes, that's very good.
Yes The theologically precise terminology here is to say so they're they're occurring in time, but when did they
I'm gonna hate saying this word originate Before time outside of time, right?
So was there a succession in how they originated? No Right, and so that like I said the theologically precise terminology here is to say that God's acts and decree and will have a
Logical order but not a temporal one. Okay a logical order but not a temporal one and this is
I Can't even say the word. What is the super lap for Sarah that stuff?
right Yeah, super laps area like this is like deep seminary this is what seminary students argue about on their free time kind of thing, but But I'm not even gonna try to explain it, but I mean this is you know, or or dos or dos salutas right same idea are we gonna let's argue over the order of the house
Salvation works right does justification come before you know, all that kind of stuff, right?
So Barrett gives a really cool analogy. I think about a light switch When it comes to logical order
All right versus temporal order and that is if I walk into a room and I flip on the light switch the light turns on Okay.
Now Temporally speaking they seem to us as if they are Instantaneous right switch light.
Okay The light does not cause the switch to flip though the logical order is switched
Flipped switch equals light on right switch has to come first then light
And so that's a logical ordering right that that that outside of time these this order was originated in Together the same time except not time.
Sorry. I can't do it Right, but there's a logical order to them.
Okay, but just because there's a logical order I guess is what I'm trying to get at. I'm trying to argue from a very hypothetical point of view
But it's a hypothetical with a real actual real basis in reality
That that there can be a logical order without necessarily there being a temporal ordering
Okay All right, do you remember do you remember with the lessons on God's immutability that we talked about?
And we sort of talked about this already that when we spoke of the gods the things about God that do not change
Yeah, and one of the things about like God that do not change is God's purposes all right his purposes and What did it mean when
I said that I said that God's purposes do not change? I said maybe another
P word besides purposes would be Plan right God's plan does not change so Essentially means that God's plan.
He's always had the same plan for history Right from before the foundation of the world the same plan for salvation the same plan for how he deals with us
And we see we in time see a progression We see that the calling of Abraham was step one
We see Exodus may be step two Davidic Covenant step three incarnation of Jesus step four right and I'm Not arguing that these are the actual steps, but I'm just saying you know there's there's steps right maybe
Step 10. I should have just skipped the numbering But that does not mean that God is changing from step two to step three
Right, but rather that it's the same plan that was always was that's now being executed
The plan is the plan and when we said does God change his mind and we answered
No We saw lots of times about the Hebrew word that was used for God's Repenting and all those
Old Testament passages did anybody remember what the Hebrew word was? Let me get it out of your throat
Nothing okay nothing And it it is the word of us that has a sense of to breathe strongly
To be sorry to pity or as the ESV translates it to regret or relent old old translations use the word repent because it was sort of an idea of regret as well with repenting and ESV other modern ones tend to say regret or relent but the breathing strongly one is the one that I found the most interesting because I sort of have that anthropomorphic picture of Right so when when first Samuel 15 it talks about God regretting relenting of making
Saul King you sort of get the sense of like with Saul but Samuel also told us that the glory of Israel will not lie or have regret for he is not a man that he should have regret and We but we talked about there to explain that was the notion that the distinction between God who can regret things with foreknowledge
Right he can he can regret Making Saul King, but he always knew what was going to happen when he made
Saul King whereas us when we regret things It is because we didn't know What was going to happen?
Right I can regret taking the turnpike to get to work one morning
Because of the traffic because I didn't know that the traffic was going to be bad Or I didn't know there was gonna be a big accident right and thus making me late to work or I can regret eating the scallops always regret eating the scallops
Because I didn't know they'd give me the food poisoning right and One commentator had told us that God may be capable of looking back on the very act of bringing something about and lamenting that act
In some regard, but affirming it still as best in another regard and Andrew you told us the what's the what was what's the perfect analogy for us as parents here?
discipline Right where you know, it's best you still don't like it
Right you regret having to discipline your children, but you know it is the best thing to do
So God can say I feel sorrow that I made God King is not the same as saying I would not make him
King if I had to do it over right. That's not the kind of regret that God has So I reviewed all that just to reemphasize the point
That there is no change here with respect to God because if there was any kind of possibility of that change and that means that God would have potential and As Andrew taught us last week.
God has no potential All right. I know that sounds bad Right, we always want to talk about like yes, it's great.
Yo, you have potential way to go, right? but truly to have potential means is kind of a
Damning with faint praise because it means that you haven't actually reached to that potential yet, right?
Well, he's got great potential Yeah, Dave This answer has great potential
I can tell Yeah, yes, thanks.
Thank you It was better It wasn't better for Judas Is the idea it was it was best in that it was what it was the best of the plan for existence for everyone
You know like as Romans 8 says the good of them who love him Right, it would have been better for Judas Himself to not have been born, but that doesn't mean it was not the best for the order of God's plan
Yeah, Charlie I mean guess think about what amazingness he did write about and yet there was things he could not write.
Yes Yep. Yep Yeah All right
Let me define number answer number five here so we can put a bow on this particular part of the discussion so to define logical ordering theologically speaking is the order of The observed results of God's decree as they relate to each other in terms of cause and effect
Okay, not in terms of succession of time, but in terms of cause and effect This one happens first it causes this the effect is that which then causes this which is the effect is that?
So on and so on Okay, all right God's Eternality though is very good news for us.
It's very good news for us Why well
Romans 8 29 and 30? Lot of people call that the golden chain Right the golden chain can somebody quote that right off the top of their head or just read it for us
Romans 8 29 to 30 How many don't want it? We have no one of kids in here this morning. I Want to leaders anybody?
All right, well, I'll wait and let somebody look it up You don't want to get it wrong in front of the whole crowd of people
I understand Yes, sir in the back go for it
Right okay, that's the chain right for new predestined called
Justified glorified right okay there we go. That's the check Now all of these are experienced by us as temporal creatures temporally
Temporally however you want to say it right? But Not so for God and that's the great news about this chain not so for God they were ordained by God Eternally before time
Barrett uses the phrase. He says that they were cemented in the mind of God in timeless eternity
But even that isn't really a great way to talk about it because it's using that past tense word
Cemented as if there was a past tense to it that there was once a moment in time in God's mind where we weren't predestined and now we there is because no
Right it is outside of time eternal present always cemented
Which is why we have nothing to fear about anything in time as Romans 8 goes on to say
Nothing to fear about anything in time to have any possible opportunity to break that golden chain
Because it's cemented outside of time there there
Our salvation is outside of time secure in the eternal mind of our eternal
God That's a joy. There's Understand that there isn't even a when to God's promises
You know I make a promise and there is a time at which that promise will be executed
Right that I like that. I then also have to follow through with said promise not so for God because there's not
That what he is not bound by that when At them at the outside of time time that he makes the promise he is executing the promise
It's already executed. It is cemented this Barrett says It's no wonder that his personal name is
I am that I am right as sort of like emphasizing the present of him
All right, I am that I am That's the very good news about his eternality
So let me conclude by doing a callback all the way back to chapter 4 And we spoke about God's a seedy and I quoted the
Greek philosopher Heraclitus Anybody remember that guy? Chapter 4 that was like four score in 16 weeks ago,
I think Okay Heraclitus he had this quote that It's a very philosopher quote on those stepping into rivers staying the same other and other waters flow
Interpretive dance time On those stepping into rivers staying the same other and other waters flow
Right and Plato paraphrased him by saying Essentially like you can't step into the same river twice.
All right. Thanks Plato But Heraclitus was pretty dense and the the you know, the probably a better way to our
Plato's little way of doing it is not really getting it perfectly. It's it's the notion of that of the statement is on its surface
Paradoxical, but it's not supposed to be taken false or contradictory It's makes perfectly good sense in this we call a body of water a river
Precisely because it consists of changing waters. That's what makes it a river
Right if there's waters did not flow if they did not change it would cease to be a river
It would instead be a lake or store a dry stream bed So there's this sense in which the river is this remarkable kind of existence
The philosophers say one that remains what it is by changing what it contains If the river remains the same
One can surely step in twice but not into the same waters to be sure but into the same river Okay, so and again what that tells us is that our only perception of being
Ourselves when we talk about being is Of things that are changing a river is a river, but every moment it is made up of different water
We are people but every moment we are made up of slightly different molecules We breathe in we breathe out and there's a little bit of carbon of me.
That's no longer there. That was there a second ago But yet I still am me
Charnock Stephen Charnock says that God isn't a river He says that God is an ocean
That he's fixed and stable and overwhelmingly huge He calls him an unbounded sea of being
I really like that quote an unbounded sea of being And Barrett takes it further.
He says while the river of time is always changing and developing the ocean of the divine remains constant consistent and invariable
He is changed by no succession of moments for he has none. He has no beginning
He has no end. He just is Remember it was back in chapter 4.
I told you it was RC Sproul who said that the Real way that we should talk about Human beings is that we are actually human becomings and that there is only one true being and that is
God That is God Act 1728 in him we live and move and have our being he is the eternal one
Yes, Dave no
Maybe not exactly Maybe because we have no data. We have no frame of reference to talk about it
Other than that he wasn't it again you just you threw in the word before Yes, exactly right yeah, yes
Daniel Right right yes, yes, but again, we're we're
We're dying by we're breaking everything and trying to talk use the word before right, but yeah
Are changing right yeah? Yeah? Yes Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, so I think there is this the notion of create with respect to creation, right?
God yeah, yeah Charlie Yes Yes Yes, nine days ago that potential energy.
Yeah, mm -hmm Because now multiply that out of cross billions and billions of stars that are all
Exuding an amount of energy that is unfathomable to us all across the cosmos
Yeah And in God yeah, exactly and it didn't it didn't like drop his energy at one iota
Yes All right, thank you. Well if you'll permit me one last moment of indulgence.
I just wanted to say Yesterday we had pastor Bob's memorial service here and lots of people got up and said something about pastor
Bob and I didn't I wasn't you know one of the speakers or whatever and I just wanted to take a moment though because I The one thing about the thing
I most interacted with pastor Bob would be here in Sunday school when I was teaching Sunday school and I Loved having him here in the audience he
He was fantastic at knowing just the right time to rescue me When he could tell that you know
It was time to chime in with some amazing insight And you know and lots of people yesterday in the service talked about just the intelligence he had
That God gifted him with and what a blessing it was then to all of us and There was nothing that made me feel better about Teaching Sunday school than when
Bob would come up to me afterwards to tell me what a great job. I had done and It just meant so much he never pulled rank which was the other thing that I just was really amazed by That you know he could have right like founding pastor
So to speak, but he never he never pulled right he never you know corrected those of us who were up here teaching in that way
And instead he'd come up. He would you know just encourage just so encouraged and tell us what a great job
I think all of us as Sunday school teachers all had this experience at one point or another where he'd come up and tell us
What a great job. We were doing how thankful he was for it He'd give us like a little suggestion of oh next time you know
If you're gonna talk about it next week, but you should mention so -and -so you know and just it was just amazing and I'm just so thankful for That ministry that small part of his giant ministry, but that small part
That was how he ministered to me, so I just want to close in prayer and thank God for him
Heavenly Father Lord I Thank you so much for this time that you give us each week in Sunday school and to give us a time to discuss together and build each other up It's just it's an amazing moment in the life of our church body in which we can share with each other the knowledge that you have gifted to each one of us and allow us to think through things and just challenge each other sharpen each other and really grow and deepen our faith and Lord we thank you especially today for the gift of Pastor Bob and how he participated in that here in our
Sunday schools, and we we miss him dearly Lord but we thank you for that which you did give him to give to us and Thank you for all those times in which he enriched these discussions
And I know Lord that he is Having having a great time right now having discussions like that In heaven with all the redeemed
Saints of all time, and we look forward to Seeing him again that we we do not we are sad, but we are said
With great hope and expectation of being together with him and and all of us again in Jesus name