Sunday, January 2 PM

Christmas vacation, and so on. So, a quick review. It's called the Olivet Discourse because Jesus is on the Mount of Olives. And he has been dealing with increasing tension between him and the Jewish religious leaders.

And he's been exposing them as covenant breakers, and they don't really like that. And so things have been heating up. And just recently, Jesus and his disciples were in the temple. This is after the triumphal entry where, you know, Hosanna, Hosanna, son of David.

And Jesus has cleansed the temple. And he has declared concerning the temple, you see these stones, not one stone will be left on another. This whole temple is going to be destroyed. And all these things will come upon this generation, he says.

In fact, he says all the guilt of all the murdered prophets is going to fall upon this generation. And they're going to suffer great condemnation, judgment, and disaster. Well, the disciples wait till they have left the temple.

Out of the east gate, they've zigzagged their way down to the Kindred Valley and come back up to the Mount of Olives. And taking a break, and the disciples come to Jesus and say, so the world's going to end?

Because in their worldview, if the temple went down, that was the end of planet Earth, right? That's the end of the space-time continuum. History has to end. They were raised in a context much like the days of Jeremiah, where the destruction of the temple was impossible in their minds.

Now, it wasn't impossible according to Scripture. We're getting ready to read further into 1 Kings, and God actually says in 1 Kings chapter 8, that if his people are not faithful, then he will destroy the temple.

And he did that, of course, in 586 BC, and he did it again in 8070. But that's what begins this discourse or this extended teaching from Jesus on the Mount of Olives, which you have in Matthew chapters 24 and 25, Mark 13, and Luke chapter 21.

And there's some attendant material in Luke 17 that goes with Luke 21 as well. So what we're trying to do is understand what is it that Jesus is saying, and try to take the plain reading of the text. And by that I mean, if something is confusing, a little bit odd, chances are it's already explained in the Old Testament.

We'll go look at what Jesus was alluding to. That's the plan. So as we've been reading through Matthew 24, we've come up to verse 14. But the things to remember are this. In verse 36 of chapter 23, he says, assuredly I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation.

And then in chapter 24 and verse 34, he says, assuredly I say to you, this generation will by no means pass away till all these things take place. That's a challenge. When Jesus says that, you want to take the plain reading of the text and just take them at face value and say, you got it, Jesus, whatever you say.

But it's hard, because the things that are said between those two verses are very challenging for us to believe that they happened to that generation that Jesus is talking to. It's very challenging. But we need to take a look at it and see if these things are so.

Search the scriptures and see. I find it to be fairly encouraging to see when Jesus says something's going to happen and then we say, well, he is the great prophet that succeeded Moses and every word that he says is true.

So we've looked at various things. We've read in verses 4 through 14 about false messiahs and we saw how many of those showed up in that generation. We heard about the wars and rumors of wars that occurred in that generation, the famines, pestilences, earthquakes, and so on.

We've also read about the persecution. Jesus said there's gonna be great persecution against you. And of course, you read that in the book of Acts and you can see the allusions to that throughout the epistles.

The followers of Christ were severely persecuted in that generation. And then we talked about in verse 14 that the gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations and then the end will come.

Now again, this is verse is right between again chapter 23 verse 36 and chapter 24 verse 34. So how is that possible? Well, first of all, we have to read it in the context of how is the expression all the nations or all the world used in the scriptures.

For instance, Caesar Augustus taxed the whole world. As part of the gospel story, Caesar taxed the whole world. But I think he missed the Aztecs. I don't think the Aztecs sent him any gold. The Aborigines didn't send him any bones.

So that's not what that means. It means the entirety of the known world, the Roman Empire, the civilized world as they saw it. I do think the gospel is going to be preached everywhere in those tribes in the Amazon.

Light is coming. Absolutely 100%. But what end is he talking about? Well, with the destruction of the temple comes the end of the old covenant. Why? Because the new covenant has come. Jesus Christ has come and he tells disciples in here in a couple of chapters, as they're at the Last Supper, as the bread's being broken and the cup is being shared, he says, this is my blood of the new covenant which is shed for many.

Do this in remembrance of me. And as Hebrews talks about, now that the new covenant has come, we don't need the old covenant anymore. We don't need Levites who die and a high priest replaces the next high priest.

We don't need the blood of goats and bulls. We don't need that. Why? Because the great high priest has come out of the order of Melchizedek and he has taken his own blood into the true Holy of Holies.

Not the copy of things here on earth, but he's gone into the real Holy of Holies and offered up his own blood. And so we see the superiority of the new covenant and Jesus has pronounced judgment upon the faithless caretakers of the old covenant and the judgments promised in Deuteronomy 28 are coming to pass and will come to pass.

And that's much of what we're seeing here in Matthew 24. Well, that's my best summary that I can get. We're going to get to verse 15 because this is very interesting. Verses 15 through 22. And on your handout you can see the parallel passages in Mark 13 and Luke 21 which we will be referencing.

So this is Matthew 24 verses 15 through 22. And I failed to... I may have failed to transfer the translation from my handout. It may be in the New American Standard. So I'll be reading it in the New King James.

Therefore when you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the prophet standing in the holy place, whoever reads let him understand, but let those who were in Judea flee to the mountains.

Let him who is on the housetop not go down to take anything out of his house. And let him who is in the field not go back to get his clothes. But woe to those who are pregnant, to those who are nursing babies in those days.

And pray that your flight may not be in winter or on the Sabbath. For then there will be a great tribulation such as has not been since the beginning of the world until this time. No, nor ever shall be.

And unless those days were shortened, no flesh would be saved. But for the elect's sake, those days will be shortened. Okay, so we just need to ask some questions of the text. Okay, what is the abomination of desolation?

And what hint does Jesus give about it? Any ideas? Yes, in the back. Right, so there's some kind of desecration going on at the temple. The abomination of desolation sitting in the holy place. That's the general reading of it.

So we get the holy place. Where's the holy place? We say that's the temple. First blush. Okay, and then the abomination of desolation, some sort of foreign, pagan, idolatrous, defiling force coming in.

Okay, notice that Jesus says, and of course we don't know if this is the, I think it's this Jesus saying it. Okay, because the parentheses there, let the reader understand. Was that Matthew saying that?

Was it Mark? I think it was Jesus saying what Daniel said, I'm talking to you about right now. Remember that Daniel was told to seal up his prophecies because the time was not yet. Well Jesus is saying, okay, we're gonna unzip that now.

Okay, because you need to know about it. So let the reader understand. Isn't that wonderful that it says let the reader understand? Yeah, it doesn't say let the ponderer speculate, right? Or let the believer guess and hope.

It says let the reader understand. So this is revealed for understanding. And we can go and read and then we can understand. So when we look, we're gonna look more at the the passages in Daniel that deal with this.

But notice something. He says, therefore when you see the abomination of desolation. Mark 13 verse 14, but when you see the abomination of desolation. So who's gonna see it? Who's Jesus talking to? Yeah, this, he's talking about, but specifically who's he talking to in this when we go back and read at the beginning of the chapter.

He's talking to his disciples. When you see it, take action. And here's your specific action to take and pray that it doesn't, it's not too hard to do. Alright, so you see that? So that the abomination of desolation is something that they were going to see.

Just taking it at face value. Okay, any questions? Anybody's gonna read Daniel, right? Because he says, this was spoken of through Daniel the prophet. Let the reader understand. The reader of Daniel understand.

James was dead by that time. Peter was was dead. But Peter must have been alive too, because I think he died in, I want to say, I want to say 68. But that's, you know, but in this case, in the context when he says, this generation and this generation, and he's giving them instructions, I want us to kind of try to track through that, right?

Because he's got some specific instructions for them to take, which only makes sense for them. I want us to see how that works out. So it's something that he says you're going to see when you see the abomination of desolation, which was spoken to Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place.

Let the reader understand. Okay, now we've been tracking through Matthew 24, Mark 13, Luke 21, section by section, and all of it's paralleling with one another. Okay, now this is why this passage, this portion of Scripture in the Gospels is so clarifying, because you have three witnesses, okay, and they all have perhaps some unique turns of phrase in there, you know, that that the other may not have, but it all is cohering together.

Very consistent witness. And at this point in case, we are greatly helped by the parallel in Luke. Okay, in Matthew and in Mark, it says, but when you see the abomination of desolation, when you see the abomination of desolation, Mark says, standing where it should not be.

Okay, Matthew says, standing in the holy place. Mark says, standing where it should not be, which is, yeah. What does Luke say? When you see what? When you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies. So, what is the abomination of desolation?

What does it say? Armies. What is the holy place? Jerusalem. Right? Look, that's what he, if we just read it at face value, the parallel states that the abomination of desolation, when you see that, when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then recognize that our desolation is near.

The very next instruction is the exact same in all three passages. Do you notice? Then those who are in Judea must flee to the mountains. That's Matthew 24, verse 16. Mark 13, verse 14, second half, then those who are in Judea must flee to the mountains.

Luke chapter 21, verse 21, then those who are in Judea must flee to the mountains. Do you see the parallel? So, by the witness of Scripture, by the analogy of Scripture, the abomination of desolation that they were going to see was Jerusalem surrounded by armies.

And the instructions that their pastor, their shepherd, Jesus gives to them is what? Flee to the mountains. Do we see that? Flee to the mountains. Historically, the church did flee to the mountains. They fled to Pella and they fled to safety in the mountains.

They obeyed the instructions of Christ. So, at face value, again, this is just taking it at face value. Okay, so when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, the fleeing to the mountains is contingent with those who were in Judea.

You're in Judea and you need to get out. So, when you see the abomination of desolation, when you see that, you need to flee. Flee from, flee from where? What is the region that they have to get out of?

Judea. You stay in Judea, you're in trouble. Jesus does not want to see them go through that. He tells them, get out of Judea. And then he also says in Luke 21, and those who are in the midst of the city must leave and those who are in the country must not enter the city.

So, there's a little bit extra instruction there. If you're in Judea, get to the mountains. If you're in the city, get out of the city. If you're in the countryside, don't run to the city. That would be the temptation.

When war comes, and this is in the history of Israel and you can read about it in Kings and Chronicles and so on, when the enemies of the people of Israel came in, the judgment of God, what they would do is they would retreat to the walled cities.

And ultimately, Jerusalem was their last stand. And Jerusalem, just strategically, historically, it was almost impossible to take except by starvation and siege. Which is why Hezekiah, you may remember, dug an underground tunnel to get to the springs.

They would never run out of water during any kind of siege. So the instinct of every Jew, based upon their history, culture, and all the thinking of the day, is if an enemy comes, if armies come, flee to Jerusalem.

Hide out in the fortress, in the stronghold. And Jesus is telling them to do what is against instinct. He said that's not going to work. If you're in the city, get out. If you're in the countryside, don't run to the city.

If you're in Judea, get out. Sure? Yeah, absolutely. So, He's telling them to not follow through on that instinct. And so, it's very specific instructions. And the reason why will become clear later on in the text.

Now, notice how He tells them to get out. Now, this is important and it's specific, again, to, as He said, this generation. And it's specific to the ones He's talking to whom He says, you will see Jerusalem surrounded by armies.

You will see the abomination of desolation. Notice what He says. Whoever is in the field must not turn back to get his cloak. That's verse 18. Well, verse 17 says, whoever's on the housetop must not go down to get the things that are in his house.

Why are people hanging out on their roofs? I mean, I drive all over Oklahoma City and I don't see hardly anybody up on the roof. If I do see someone on the roof, they're either putting Christmas lights up or taking them down, okay, or they're doing some roofing.

But we just don't hang out on our shingled roofs, do we? But the generation to which Jesus was talking hung on their roofs all the time. It was the front porch. It was the place to be. They had stairs going off the side of their house, on the outside of their house, and they would go up to the top of their roof and they would hang out and cool off.

And that was their family room. That was where they would enjoy their time, up on top of the roof. And Jesus says, when it's time to flee, you don't even have time to go down those stairs on the outside of your house and go into your house and grab up a whole bunch of stuff and then go.

He says, no, you just come down those stairs and you just keep going. Get out of Judea. Head for the mountains. You don't have time. He says, if you're working in the field and you see the abomination-desolation armies surrounding Jerusalem, don't go back to get your coat.

You just go. Just go. And he says, it's going to be really hard. Woe to those who are pregnant and those who are nursing babies in those days. Why? Now, a pregnant woman or a nursing mother would have probably not a whole lot of trouble today taking a 35-mile journey.

Judea is about 35 miles in circumference, surrounding with Jerusalem right in the middle. Judea is south of Samaria and Galilee. It's west of the Capulets. It is west of Perea in the Jordan. It is east of the Mediterranean, north of the Negev in Edomia.

It is a 35-mile radius around Jerusalem. And Jesus says, that's the region you must flee. Now, let's just cut it in half. Let's say you're at Jerusalem. And let's just talk about the radius. So, let's say this was 17 .5-mile trip.

If you are pregnant or you're nursing, that is a horrible kind of journey. That's going to be really, really difficult to do because you're either going to be riding on a donkey or you're probably walking.

And that's a terrible journey to have to take, especially when you don't have time to even grab your cloak. Get out of Judea. Head for the mountains. The mountains? You're pregnant or nursing and you have to climb a mountain?

What? He says, woe to those who are going to have to experience that. And notice also, he says, pray that your flight will not be in winter. You know, winter and mountains make a bad mix. If you're having to flee to the mountains during the winter?

Hmm. That's rough. Notice he also says, we're on a Sabbath. On a Sabbath. You know, Sabbath in Judea where everything just shut down. And everybody there who is still stringent Sabbath observers are not going to work.

They're not going to help you a lick. There's not going to be anybody offering hospitality. And you're going to look like a Sabbath breaker because you're traveling more than three-quarters of a mile.

I want you to see the instructions Jesus is giving to his disciples right here are, on their face value, completely tied to the cultural historical realities of that generation. That's part of it. Also remember that travel in these days, as you would go from town to town, they didn't have a network of Motel 6.

Travel in this time was predicated on the idea of, we're going to come to a village that we don't know anybody in. But the culture was of offering hospitality to your Jewish brothers and sisters and so on.

And say, we'll put you up. And that's how you would make it from town to town, village to village, and you would make your journey. If you showed up on the Sabbath, you obviously traveled more than three-quarters of a mile that day.

Here and here, you're showing up in our village and you want us to give you hospitality? It's the Sabbath. We don't work on the Sabbath. Yeah, exactly. You're obviously breaking the law and then you want us to break the law too by making you some food?

So that's why he's saying, pray that your flight will not be on the Sabbath day. So now verses 16 through 20 of Matthew 24 versus the second half of verse 14 through verse 18 of Mark 13. Same kind of instructions when we see verses 21 through part of 23 in Luke 21.

They're all cohering, they're echoing one another. So Jesus is saying to this generation, you are going to see the abomination of desolation. When you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, get out of Judea.

That's his instructions. Get out of Judea. Don't run to the city for safety. That would make sense to run to the city for safety if there were foreign armies attacking. I mean, that's what you're supposed to do, but he says don't.

Now, we're going to talk about verses, the next few verses, what is called the Great Tribulation. I put GT. So here's the basic teaching of Jesus. When you see the abomination of desolation, and I've told you about the Great Tribulation coming because the abomination of desolation signals that this is close at hand.

Flee. Get out. And the way to avoid what's coming is to do what? Leave Judea. Now, that's not usually the way that this passage has been read in the last eighty hundred years. It is a very common way for the passage to be read over the course of church history.

I'm just trying to say, hey folks, let's let Jesus speak for himself. Let's look at the words he used. Let's take the plain reading of the text. I don't want to turn these pastoral, practical instructions from Jesus to his disciples into some sort of allegory.

So that's what I'm aiming at. I want to give some background to some of these instructions, and we're going to get to the rest of this as the Lord wills soon. Okay, what armies surrounded Jerusalem? And then Jesus says, when you see the abomination of desolation, which is what?

Luke says, armies surrounding Jerusalem. He says, if you're in the city, then flee it. How? If I'm in the city, and there are armies surrounding Jerusalem, Jesus says to me, I'm supposed to flee to the hills.

I didn't know the armies were coming today. I'm sitting on top of my house, enjoying myself, and all of a sudden there's armies surrounding Jerusalem. And this is exactly what Jesus said. Here's the abomination of desolation, and his instructions to me, and I want to obey my Jesus.

I'm supposed to flee to the mountains and get out of the city. How? I'm totally surrounded. Well, there were a series of bad regional governors and miniature kings that were kind of cruel, and they really pestered the Jewish people a great deal, and then an insurgency arose that they could not contain.

And Nero was the Caesar at this time, and so Jewish insurgents rose up everywhere. They began knifing Romans at festivals, and it was bloody. It was terrible. You know, violence was breaking out everywhere, and so when you have an insurgency, what do you do?

You send troops to put down the rebels. Nero sent a Roman general by the name of Cestius with a legion to come and put down the Jewish revolt, and he did this midway through AD 66, the year 66. About halfway through the year, Cestius shows up.

He enters Judea, he fights the Jews, and he got a little held up. He was surprised to find so much resistance going on. The Jews surprised him by attacking on the Sabbath. He never saw that coming, right?

Surprise attack. He was having some trouble, then he realized his position was too exposed out in the open country, and so he moved his forces to Jerusalem to lay siege to the city. And he had a much better position there, and he was very successful.

So his plan was to take Jerusalem, and by the third day, his Roman soldiers put their tortoise formation together, which was a bunch of shields, you know, their shields, and they were completely shielded on all sides because there's missiles coming down from off the wall.

They go to the east gate, the temple gate, and they're about to break through. They are succeeding, they're on the edge of winning. It's reported by Josephus that many Jews were despairing, some of them were already surrendering, and this is kind of funny, some of them were pretending that Cestius was their deliverer when it was clear he's going to win.

I mean, you know how it is when you walk in and there's like this massive mess, and your kids have just like half destroyed the house, and then one of them says, oh, I'm so glad you're home, I couldn't control them, right?

Obviously, I've been on the right side of this whole thing the whole time, and they did that with Cestius, right? They're saying, oh, these zealots are such a problem, thank you for coming, you know. It was that bad.

He was about to take Jerusalem, and here's what happened. Josephus writes this, then it happened that Cestius was not conscious of either how the besieged despaired, or how courageous the people were for him, and so he recalled his soldiers from the place, from this East Gate, and by despairing of any expectation of taking it, without having received any disgrace, he had not suffered any defeat, he retired from the city without any reason in the world.

He proceeded to flee north, and he managed to take a hard left right before he got to Shechem, and he travels the path between Beth-choran and Beth-char through a narrow valley on the other side, very steep hills, big rocks, and the name of this valley is called the Tooth, and many, many armies have been completely destroyed in that valley, and Cestius lost his.

He lost almost his entire legion, and the zealots came down the hills, all they did was just roll the rocks, but they came down the hills, they took all the Roman armor, and so on and so forth, and they say, ah, now we've got weapons, and better armor, and so on and so forth.

So, when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, when you see the abomination of desolation, and you're in the city, flee. How can you flee? Oh, because they went away suddenly for no reason in the world.

And they did flee, and Nero didn't take too kindly to Cestius's failing so bad, and so he says, he calls upon another Roman general by the name of Vespasian, he says, Vespasian, you go take care of these rebels, and the story continues on past that.

So, in this way, I think that we can begin to make sense of Jesus's prophecy coming true in history, in the time frame that he said it, and we're not done yet. There's a lot of more details to go, but I find it incredibly encouraging.

You know how it is like when you read some new report, scientists have discovered, you know, and it's something the Bible has said for a long time, and you're like, well, yeah. The same thing happens in history, where Daniel made prophecies about the way that the history was going to play out, and it did.

And Jesus said, such-and-such is going to happen, and it did. And you're not really surprised, but you're kind of like, yeah, see, told you. You know, but, so we're gonna leave it at that. I think I have a time for maybe one or two questions, but then we're going to come back and talk about the language that Jesus uses about the Great Tribulation, the language he uses about the days being cut short, and then the language we see in Luke about Gentiles trampling Jerusalem underfoot.

Because we need to make sense of what that is according to how Jesus says it, and then its connection to other passages of Scripture that says the same thing. So maybe a couple of questions before we close.

Yes, ladies first. Yes, that's a great question. Many Christians, I think, are challenged in their growth in Christ, trying to understand how is it that we love all of God's Word, it's all perfect, it's all true, there's no errors in it, and we need to follow Jesus, follow the Lamb wherever he goes.

And so what does this mean about the Old Testament? Because obviously, we sometimes trim the sides of our beards, and we do eat catfish, at least I did, especially when we lived in Tennessee, lots and lots of catfish.

So how are we supposed to understand that? Well, I think that the New Testament shows us how to make use of the Old. For example, Paul, speaking of Pauline, Paul, in talking about, and this is a personal example for me, but anyway, those who make their living preaching the gospel, he cites the example of don't muzzle the ox watch treading out the grain.

He cites an Old Testament regulation about how to treat your ox, and makes a general application of that, an equitable application of that to somebody who's doing a certain type of work, should the labor is worthy of the higher, and so on and so forth.

So he takes up the Old Testament law and applies it in a way that is consistent with its original intent to the character of God, but especially, I think, the way the New Testament takes the Old Testament is to interpret it in the light of Christ.

Jesus talked about in his parables, he said, all the scribes of the kingdom should be bringing out of their treasures both new and old, which means that we bring the old out with the new so that we can understand what it means.

Right. No, because the word became flesh and tabernacled among us. Right, exactly. I think, David, you had a question, or your hand was up. Yes, a good question. We have three different Gospels giving testimony of this, and Mark is shorter than the others, and there's material in Matthew that we don't see in Mark, and then Luke has some of this material elsewhere, and so on.

Which one was the, which one is the original, which ones are only copies? Listen, the thing is about when we read, like, for instance, in the book of Acts, that Peter and John preached for hours in the temple.

The record of what they said, you can read in less than two minutes. Okay. Peter's sermon at Pentecost was amazing as we read through it, but you know he said more than what was written down. How do we know he said more than what was written down?

Because it says he said more than what was written down. Right, so in Acts chapter 2, verse 40, he says, and with many other words he testified and exhorted them saying, be saved from this perverse generation.

With many other words, meaning that this is the faithful, accurate, inspired account of what he said. He said more than that, and it was probably good stuff, but this is what was retained for the edification of the saints.

Same thing goes with Jesus as we see these different, these differences in the discourses. This is not all that he said, but it is a faithful rendering of what he said. For instance, as we're reading through, and Matthew records about the abomination of desolation which was spoken through Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place, let the reader understand.

Okay, Mark confirms this, and then Luke says, but when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then recognize that our desolation is near. The Gospels are not giving witness that that Jesus said one of these things, and then somebody else added something else that he didn't say in, and thus we've got problems.

That would be the hermeneutic of suspicion. I'm interpreting the Bible in a suspicious way. The hermeneutic of submission says, obviously, everything in these passages he said, but the way that Luke is summing up the Olivet discourse is a little bit different than the way that Matthew is summing up the Olivet discourse.

He said all the content, but Matthew is hitting these highlights, and Luke is hitting almost the same highlights, but he's putting some other things in that Jesus did say, that maybe Matthew didn't highlight.

So, the idea is that he said it all, but the gospel writers are, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, deciding to highlight different parts of the discourse. But it was all said. So, and now, there's some, sometimes there's a an attempt with the synoptic Gospels to synthesize them all together, right?

So, we can see the harmony of the Gospels, and if you were to do that, you could take these three accounts of the Olivet discourse, kind of stitch them together, okay, and then you would have, it would be a lot more material, as the words that Luke is relating, that Jesus actually said, the words that Mark said, that related, that Jesus actually said, and the words that Matthew's relating, that Jesus actually said, are kind of put together in a synthesized form, and then you can see even fuller summary of what was said.

But again and again, when we have a record of a sermon, or a record of a discourse, or record of a teaching, we're not being given a security camera recording, okay? We're being given a documentary, alright?

So, the Bible's treatment of history is not like you're sitting down and watching a security camera recording, and this happened, and this happened, and this happened, and this happened, and that. You're being given a documentary, one that's faithful and true, does not have any errors at all, but it is crafted in such a way to bring forward a point, and the point, of course, is the supremacy of Christ, the gospel of his kingdom, and so on.

So, the different gospel writers included some variety in their summaries of what Jesus said. He said it all, but they summarized it differently, is how I would respond to that. I mean, he said, I have made these things, hidden them, to be safe, so maybe it gives fodder to those...

Well, there's plenty in the Bible that humbles us by just simply believing it, right? And then there's plenty of, but the Bible is the most beautiful book ever written, full of the best literature that has ever been crafted.

It is the most elegant, most beautiful, most deep, most adventurous, most humorous book that has ever been compiled by the best author ever, and even this does not convince the most cultured of anyone to believe, because, again, we're saved by the grace of God.

Alright, well let's close by singing the doxology together. Praise God from whom all...