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We pray for the directness to proclaim the gospel to them, and we also just weep for them. Father, we would rejoice that you have called us out from the world to be your people, to be your children, to come and to worship you, Father, Son, and Spirit, on the first day of the week, as we celebrate our risen Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Lord, as we look to your word this morning and to the confession, we just pray that you would bless us, that you would strengthen us, that you would remind us again of what it is that we believe and why we believe it, basically because you've said it.
Father, we pray that you would bless our time in Jesus' name. Amen. All right, so we've been talking about the ordinances of the gospel, which always makes me kind of laugh a little bit at my background being a Mormon.
When I think of ordinances of the gospel, I think of a multitude of them because they have a multitude of ordinances, but we have two, baptism and communion. We discussed baptism. We were discussing communion last week.
We talked about the means of grace, which, you know, you can debate what that means, but I think it's pretty clear that the idea being that the means of grace are those things that we do by which we are reminded of our faith where we are strengthened, but not necessarily we don't get the grace of God by doing them.
That's not the point. We talked about the means of grace being the word of God, reading, teaching, and preaching thereof. The ordinances, baptism, the Lord's Supper, church fellowship, prayer, worship, spiritual gifts, giving, church discipline and evangelism, every one of those things strengthen us.
Wayne Grudem says this, the means of grace are any activities within the fellowship of the church. Now, that's an important point there, right? It's within the fellowship of the church that God uses to give more grace to Christians.
They are not meant to convey regenerating grace, but sanctifying grace. They are the means by which God shapes us and strengthens us. It's like, I guess we can think about it this way. Physically, when we exercise, we get sore, is what you're thinking.
We get stronger, right? We're able to run farther. We're able to jump higher, lift more weight, whatever it is that we're trying to do. Spiritually, when we exercise, we become stronger in our faith. We're able to resist temptation better.
We're able to do and to serve more and better. So that's the idea. In other words, a person does not become a Christian by being baptized. That's the Roman Catholic view. But they are baptized and strengthened in their faith because of their regeneration, right?
They are saved. They're regenerated first. And then when they're baptized, it doesn't change their status. It just affirms and confirms it and also is just a real good reminder for them and for others of what God has done through them.
And this encourages us. This grows us. These kind of things enhance our Christian life. In the Roman Catholic view, and we talk about Roman Catholicism a bit during this class, and one of the reasons we do is because the confession was written as a rebuttal against Roman Catholicism.
So in the Roman Catholic view, the sacraments, including baptism in the Lord's Supper and others, communicate, actually grant grace regardless of the faith of the recipients. In other words, you don't have to be a Christian in order to receive the grace of God, according to Roman Catholicism.
And Burkoff, the theologian, explains the Roman Catholic view. He says this, as far as the Lord's Supper as a sacrament is concerned, the Roman Catholic Church teaches that it works ex operae operato, which means in virtue of the sacramental act itself and not in virtue of the acts or disposition of the recipient.
In other words, just by the act of taking sacraments, you receive grace. Or it doesn't matter the disposition of the recipient, whether they're saved or not, or the worthiness of the minister. This means that everyone who receives the elements, be he wicked or pious, also receives the grace signified, which is conceived of as a substance contained in the elements.
This idea of kind of infused righteousness. The sacramental rite itself conveys grace to the recipients. At the same time, it also teaches, rather inconsistently, I think he's talking about the Roman Catholic Church, inconsistently, it would seem, that the effects of the sacrament may be completely or partially frustrated by the existence of some obstacle, by the absence of that disposition that makes the soul capable of receiving grace, in other words, by sin, or by the priest's want of intent to do what the church does.
In other words, if the church has the wrong attitude, it could get in the way of this. So they teach both, that it doesn't matter and that it does matter. By contrast, we see that grace is only communicated in the Lord's Supper when it is met with the faith of believers.
In other words, it only helps believers, and it's not by the actual taking, it's by what it symbolizes, and just by, in our minds, thinking through what it symbolizes and being encouraged to remember the Lord Jesus Christ, and again, affirming our allegiance to him.
Therefore, we do not knowingly, nor willingly, offer communion to unbelievers, right? When we do the Lord's Table, what do we say? If you are a believer, the table is for you, and if you're not, then we want you to just let the elements pass by you.
While unbelievers may receive the elements of bread and wine or grape juice, they will not receive grace but condemnation, so why would we encourage that? And the answer is, we wouldn't. They're not celebrating the Lord's Table because they don't love the Lord Jesus Christ, so why would we want them to take it?
Thoughts about communion? Before I read the last section of the... Yeah, go ahead, Sharon. A little sacramental? No, that's what it's saying. No, no. Right. And I think if you think about, you know, what actually happens during the Lord's Table?
We take these things and we do them in remembrance, right? It's a reminder of what Jesus has done, and what they're saying is, it's a means of grace, not in the sense that when you take the elements, you go, grace, you know, I've received grace.
No. How could you think of it as being a means of grace? What happens when we do the Lord's Table? You don't think of it that way. Okay. Well, I think you're really wrong in this sense, that it's Roman Catholicism that teaches that it is a substance that can be transfused, as it were.
We're not saying that. What the Confession says is, when it's talking about a means of grace, it's a means of strengthening the faith, the thinking, the life of a believer. Right. Right. No. No. Right.
Well said. Oh, I'm disagreeing with your question then. Okay. Gary. Yeah. I mean, just by virtue, his question was, you know, wouldn't obedience have something to do with that? Yeah, just by virtue of the fact that we're here, that we're being obedient, you know, to the Lord, in terms of partaking, whether it's baptism, whether it's the Lord's Table, whether it's serving, the other things that we do.
You know, as we said last week, you know, I cannot think of a time in my life where I've ever presented the gospel to somebody and thought, man, I wish I hadn't done that. Or, you know, that was dumb.
Or, you know, I mean, there may have been things that I wish I said better or that I'd done, you know, or that the person had believed right then and there. But whatever we do in this list of things that they talked about as means of grace, I mean, when we hear the word taught, if we come with the right attitude to listen to a sermon, to listen to a message or a lesson, then we take something away.
Even if we only think, boy, if I was Pastor Mike or I was Pradeep or I was Scott or I was Steve, I would have said this instead of that or whatever. It's probably not the best. But as we're listening to the word, as we sit under it, we're refined in our thinking.
We're challenged in our thinking. We are strengthened in our walk with Christ. And so that's what it means by a means of grace. And so is obedience important or, Gary suggested, is important? Absolutely.
Because think about it, a disobedient Christian, why are they disobedient? Somebody who, you know, won't come to church or doesn't want to go to church or doesn't want to partake in the Lord's table or doesn't prioritize listening to preaching or doesn't do all these other things.
Well, why are they struggling in their faith? It's like, you know, the person who decides in January that their goal this year is going to be to lose weight. I'm going to lose 50 pounds. Well, how are you going to do that?
Well, I really don't like exercising and I don't want to change my diet, but I'm going to lose 50 pounds. You are? Okay. There are things that we do in order to lose weight and there are things that we do in order to grow in Christ.
And first Peter, he talks about longing for the pure milk of the word. Well, why? Because it's that which causes growth, right? It's not the words on the page that cause growth. It's the truth in them as we take that in and as the Holy Spirit works in us to strengthen us.
So it's that same thing. And if we're disobedient, then we're not going to see those kind of results. We're not going to be strengthened in our inner man, as it were. Other thoughts or questions? Yes, when we come to the Lord's table, we are remembering what he has done.
We're actually proclaiming the Lord's death until he comes, right? We don't, you know, again, let's say Pastor Mike's doing the community table. When he prays over it, he doesn't change anything in the elements.
There's nothing magical that goes on. When you partake of it, you know, you don't receive, it's not, let's put it this way. It's not a substantive vitamin, right? But there is a placebo effect. Does that make sense?
In other words, there is an element by which we are strengthened just by virtue of reflecting on what the Lord has done, reflecting on our own lives, recommitting ourselves to obedience and to holiness and to all these things, to following the Lord Jesus Christ, but also just in thanking him and taking that time to just remember what he has done.
It's a time of encouragement and strengthening, I think we could say. But no, there's nothing in the elements themselves. There's no grace in the elements themselves. There's no substance in the elements themselves.
Thoughts or questions? Okay. The final part of the confession on this section says, and it's kind of enjoyable to read, all ignorant and ungodly persons. How can you not like that? As they are unfit to enjoy communion with Christ, so are they unworthy of the Lord's table and cannot, without great sin against him while they remain such, partake of these holy mysteries or be admitted thereunto.
So let me just stop there for a moment. All ignorant and ungodly persons means unbelievers, right? They don't have communion with the Lord and therefore they are unworthy to sit at his table and cannot, without great sin against him while they remain ignorant or ungodly, partake of these holy mysteries.
Now, if we say, you know, ungodly can mean a Christian, but he's a D minus or she's a D minus Christian. Well, again, I don't... What is the level of worthiness one must attain to partake in the Lord's table?
And I don't think there is a standard for that. You have to be a believer. Yea, whoever receive unworthily are guilty of the body and blood of the Lord, eating and drinking judgment to themselves. So don't do that.
You know, why don't we want our kids to do it? Now, am I going to say, okay, kids, grandkids, if you partake of these elements, you're eating and drinking judgment to themselves. Well, I'm going to say that at home and I'm going to tell them why we don't do that.
But I'm not going to, you know, do a Darth Vader chokehold if they start cough that up immediately, you know, just as there's no substance of grace. I don't think there's any substance of condemnation.
They just need to understand the importance of it. Okay, if there are no other questions or comments about the Lord's table, we'll move on to our favorite topic, death. Yes, Charlie. That's an excellent question.
Well, okay, we are proclaiming the Lord's death till he comes, but in a sense we are also doing what? I think in a sense we're participating in it, right? And we're proclaiming, we're identifying with him, we're doing all these things in his death, burial and resurrection.
So when we talk about a mystery, particularly these holy mysteries, well, I think, you know, if you just think about what communion represents, it is not mysterious in the communion itself, but the whole message here is it's not a mystery in the sense that whodunit, you know, things that we can't, there are things sort of a little bit beyond our full ability to grasp.
How is it possible that God became man? How is it possible that a man lived a perfect life? How is it possible? So we're grappling with these things, we're thinking about these things, we're reminded of these things constantly as we come to the Lord's table.
How is it that he's our substitute? How is it that I can be forgiven even after what I've done this week? How is it, you know? So all these questions that swirl around, to me, the Lord's table, and I don't know that that's exactly what they have in mind, but to me, there is a sense, maybe mystery is, you know, doesn't quite have the same meaning that it might have had 500 years ago, but I think it's just sort of this sense of awe and wonder, not kind of, I don't understand what's happened, you know?
So yeah, I think it does echo what the New Testament says, you know, things that were a mystery now revealed to us, yeah, the fact that Jews and Gentiles were brought in to one body, which would have been a complete non-starter in the ancient world, right?
I mean, the law was given to create separation between the Jews and Gentiles. The fact that Christ is both God and man, the fact that Christ is in us, there are a lot of sort of previously unknown things that are revealed in the New Testament that are called mysteries.
Yes. It's talking about the Lord's table. It says, so are they unworthy of the Lord's table and cannot, without great sin against Him, against Christ, while they remain such, that is to say, ignorant and ungodly, partake of these holy mysteries or be admitted thereunto, yea, whoever shall receive unworthily are guilty of the body and blood of the Lord, eating and drinking judgment to themselves.
Maybe next week we'll have one of the framers of the confession come in and explain what they meant by mysteries. Well, I think that's an excellent point, Taylor. You know, people who are outside the body, outside of Christ, when they come to the bread and cup, they don't understand what they're seeing.
They cannot understand it, right? They don't understand the gospel. They don't really understand who Jesus is or they certainly don't love Him. And, you know, so there are things that they don't understand, they don't believe.
And so, I think, you know, maybe we ought to think of mysteries, just frame it in this sense. We're talking about mysteries to the ignorant and ungodly and, you know, they ought not to partake of the ordinances, therefore.
Other thoughts or questions? Yes. Yeah, and, you know, I think that's a good point in this sense. Dave was just talking about how, you know, for Catholics, if communion wafer falls on the floor or something like that, you know, basically they have a SWAT team come and dive on it because, you know, you don't want a mouse or something else to come along and eat it because there is actual grace in the substance there.
They don't even...I don't know if they still do this, but, you know, they used to...the priests used to have to drink the communion wine after they were done to make sure that none of it went to waste, right, because that's the actual blood of Christ, they believe.
And so, they would drink it and turn themselves into alcoholics. But, yeah, I think, you know, again, it's understanding this idea that there is not grace actually contained in there that's important, so.
Okay. Seeing no other objections, we're moving on to of the state of man after death and of the resurrection of the dead. Of the state of man after death and of the resurrection of the dead. We're getting towards the end and the end times.
The bodies of men after death return to dust and see corruption, but their souls, which neither die nor sleep, having an immortal subsistence, immediately return to God who gave them. The souls of the righteous, being then made perfect in holiness, are received into paradise where they are with Christ and behold the face of God in light and glory, waiting for the full redemption of their bodies.
And the souls of the wicked are cast into hell where they remain in torment and utter darkness, reserved to the judgment of the great day. Besides these two places, for souls separated from their bodies, the scripture acknowledgeth none.
There is only heaven and hell, period. Okay, so, the bodies of men and women after death return to dust. From dust we were taken, to dust we return, it's Genesis 3 .19. That's the original substance, but their soul, having an immortal subsistence, a state of existence, neither dies nor sleeps, but immediately returns to God.
Let's look at Ecclesiastes 12 .7. Ecclesiastes 12 .7. This is when I'm going to start working into wedding services. Oh no, funeral services. Probably not the best in a wedding service. Would somebody read Ecclesiastes 12 .7 please?
Go ahead Gary. Okay. Pretty clear there, right? Body goes to the earth as it was, spirit returns to God who gave it. Our body, our bodily death is not the cessation of our life. Things don't end when we die.
Some people would really like that to be, right? I've been spending a lot of time here lately thinking about the metaphysical nature of things and looking even at some, I posted something the other day about evolution and about how they are, scientists are starting, some of them are coming around to the idea of an intelligent design.
Why? Because the mathematical probabilities of positive changes in DNA are frankly zero. And so, I mean there are, mutations are always possible but the mutations that they mathematically can work out, basically there's almost no chance that anything, there's no chance that anything positive could come out of these mutations.
So, they're pretty much struggling with that. But they don't want to go the full Bible route yet. But when we think about what happens when we die, our souls immediately return to God. And there's no period between our physical death and our returning to God.
To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. We're either here or there. We're not nowhere. We're not floating around in space waiting for something to happen. There's no period of waiting or soul sleep.
What's the significance, do you suppose, of only having a spirit? What does that mean? You know, when we die and our body's put in the ground and we're face to face with the Lord, what does that mean for us?
And I ask it in this question or in this sense because people say things like, you know, well, I'm sure that your father, they might say to me, is watching over you and is very proud of you. Is that true?
Why isn't it true? Okay, there's a great gulf fixed between us and them, right? But I mean, in other ways, why would that not be true? If a dead person is either in hell or Hades or heaven, you know, in the presence of God, then how do we know that they can't see what's going on here?
They're not omnipresent. Just as I'm reading through this book by Barrett about the immenseness of God, our problem again and again and again comes back to this, that our thoughts of God are too small, are too finite.
So, and how does this apply to us? When we die and we're face to face with God, we no longer exist in time and space. While we are not omnipresent, if we're in the presence of God, we're not, you know, somehow confined, you know, or, you know, like movies would show you, you know, ghosts that just kind of roam the earth observing and stuff like that.
No, we're in the presence of God and we're removed from all this. And so, you know, the Bible says that, and it's an example, but you know what, how does it go? A day with the Lord is like a thousand years or a thousand years like a day with the Lord, whichever one it is.
My mind is working in reverse here at the moment. It doesn't really matter. The point is that time is immaterial to him and when we're with him, there's really no time for us either. So my point is when people say things like that, they're trying to make us feel better, but they're not speaking biblical truth to us, right?
Biblical truth is that soul either goes to heaven or it goes to hell and it's not concerned with the things of earth any longer. After our last breath, we immediately return believers. We immediately return to God.
There's no period of soul sleep. This returning to God does not remain that we, or does not mean that we remain with God. Only the souls of the righteous, now having been made perfect are received into paradise where they are with Christ.
And there are a couple examples of scriptures here, Hebrews 12, 22 and 23, and I'll read these two verses and then another passage, but you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem and to innumerable angels and festal gathering and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven and to God, the judge of all.
And to the spirits of the righteous made perfect. In other words, this idea that this is what heaven is about the assembly of the firstborn and then to the spirits of the righteous made perfect Philippians one verse 21 to 23, Paul writes for two, for to me to live is Christ and to die is gain.
If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me. In other words, as long as I'm here, I'm going to be serving ministering among the church says yet, which I shall choose. I cannot tell.
I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ for that is far better. It's better to be with Christ than to serve him from a personal standpoint. Believers had the blessing and privilege of being with, with Christ for all eternity.
The one that we love and adore and behold, or, and we want to behold, we will behold to his face. And that's the greatest blessing that we can possibly imagine. We will likewise behold the face of God in light and glory.
And when we think about beholding the face of God, now, if we think about beholding the glory of God, now we're somewhat terrified or we should be, we'd be like Moses or Isaiah or any of the prophets of the old Testament.
But one day we'll see him face to face and not be afraid because we will be like him. The souls of the righteous await in heaven, the redemption of their bodies and the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.
And I had to include first John three, two beloved. We are God's children now. And what we will be has not yet appeared. We're not like we will be one day, but we know that when he appears, we shall be like him because we shall see him as he is.
No mere mortal can see God and live, but we will see him because we will have bodies that can withstand that. The souls of the wicked, on the other hand, are cast in hell where they are in torment and utter darkness and await the judgment of the great day.
Now the word hell, um, in terms of the confession describes the place of torment after resurrection where the wicked are cast in body and soul. Now you could say that there, when they die, the unbelievers die there, they go into Hades, kind of a holding place.
Um, but I, I don't think, I don't think that's all that material because the truth is, and I've said this before and I'll say it again because I'm going to say it. Uh, when we think of, and I just kind of alluded to it, but when we think of time, we think of it as, you know, a straight line because that's what we experience.
But when we die, we're no longer experiencing that straight line. Time is not as, it's not as, well, it's not as material as it is now. It doesn't really exist. We're outside of time. And so when unbelievers are cast into hell or Hades, a holding place until final judgment, it's not like they spend a thousand years there or 5 ,000 years there or whatever.
They get there and then it won't seem like long to them. And then they're going to receive judgment and be cast into hell forever. Aside from heaven and hell, the confession tells us scripture knows of no other place.
Therefore, the implication is purgatory does not exist. And is unbiblical. So what does the Catholic church teach about purgatory? I have a couple of reasons. Anybody want to, what? Go ahead, Anika. Okay.
You can pray them out of purgatory, right? There's a better way to get them out of purgatory. You can pray or you can pay, right? Which is more efficient. Indulgences. Yeah, Gary. Yeah. The philosophy of the Catholic church is that, you know, any unconfessed sins that you have when you die have to be purged.
Therefore, purgatory. There's a place of purging of sin. So if you have these remaining sins on you, you obviously can't go to heaven. And so you go and then are punished for the remaining sins that you have.
Right? But I mean, that's, that's why they, that's kind of the theological reason for it. But I think Anika is closer in terms of Roman Catholicism. Why does it exist? Well, yes, to pray, but I think mainly to pay, to raise money for the Catholic church.
They raised a ton of money. I had a friend who isn't even Catholic, but he just went to Rome and he posted some pictures of, you know, the Pope and, and he was in, uh, what is a St. Peter's Basilica there?
He was in there and he posted some pictures of it. And so, you know, if you look at it, I mean, there, there are two thoughts when you have, when you look at St. Peter's Basilica and you look at all the ornate decorations, everything, the one is you could say, wow, that's pretty gaudy.
Well, okay. You could say that's really beautiful and at all that. But I, I cannot even make myself think that way because I know how it was done. They did it by bilking people out of their money, by promising them, listen, if you give us money to build St. Peter's Basilica, your relatives will get out of purgatory.
Your relatives will listen, stop suffering, right? They're suffering in purgatory. How could you not give them money and let them out of hell out of purgatory? How could you not do that? Don't you love your mom?
Don't you love your dad? Don't you love your brother, sister, mother, whatever? Yeah. Well, yeah, they, they, they had no access to the scriptures. They couldn't read the scriptures even if they had access to them because they were illiterate.
And so they're entirely dependent on the Catholic church, which is telling them, listen, if you love your family members, if you love grandma, you'll, you know, you'll do without a couple of meals so that you can give money so that she can get out of purgatory.
So I think that's a, one reason is to raise money, to build St. Peter's and others thing, other things. And the other one is to give imaginary power to the leader of the Catholic church because he's the one who ultimately lets them out.
Charlie behavioral control. Absolutely. I mean, think about it. Well, you know, when you started talking, I was thinking Scientology, but, uh, you know, cause you have to go confess everything and then they can blackmail you in Scientology.
But in the Catholic church, when you go and confess, or if you don't confess, think about it this way. It's Monday. You had confession on Saturday. You know that you've already sinned. You know, it's like Martin Luther.
What do you do then? It's Monday. You want to go to confession again because you understand if you die with unconfessed sin, then you're not in a state of grace and you are going to purgatory. You are going to suffer.
You live in the constant fear of suffering. It's never enough. You can never do enough. You can never be righteous enough. This is the treadmill of works. It's not like, you know, come to church on Sunday, hear the word of God preached.
And, you know, on Tuesday you die. It doesn't matter. The two days intervening, you met, you surely did sin in some way. It doesn't change your state. Why? Not because you went to church on Sunday, but because you believed it's a matter of did Jesus do enough?
And the Catholic church says, no, his work was not sufficient. He needs your help to get you to heaven. It's blasphemous. Thoughts or questions about purgatory? Anybody want to go there? Dave? Well, yeah, if you were the Pope, you know, I like to refer to the Pope as the cruelest man on the face of the planet, because he has the keys over purgatory.
He can let anybody out of purgatory he wants, but he only does that when a sufficient amount of money is paid. That's not silly. That's evil. I mean, what kind of person would say, sure, I mean, this sounds like loan shark stuff, right?
Yes, I'll let grandma out of purgatory, but only when you give me enough money, you rotten, no good. It's terrible. It's absolutely terrible, and it's completely foreign to scripture, and it is not a picture of the grace of God.
It is a picture of, you know, I would say, let's put it this way. Does this sound like the forgiving servant or the unforgiving servant? If the Pope is a Christian, which I'm saying he's not, just so everybody understands that, but if he was a Christian, how could he then not want to, he has the power to forgive any sin that he wants.
Why would he not forgive all sins? Like Dave said, why would he not do that? If he understands how much he's been forgiven, then why wouldn't he forgive everybody else? Can't build these buildings without it, right?
Can't have the church lot there, Lady of Carmel Church there in Worcester for sale. $5 million can't do that. If you're not shaking people down for their money. So that's, that's the issue. Okay. At the last day, the confession says, such are the saints as are found alive, shall not sleep, but be changed and all the dead shall be raised up with the self saved bodies and none other.
Means you don't get a, you know, I'm going to be recognizable. Although with different qualities, meaning my meniscus will not be torn, which would be nice. Uh, although with different qualities, which shall be united again to their souls forever, there's going to be one more great reunion of soul and body.
And that's going to be, uh, you know, our glorified body, not these bodies that gravity and time and everything else wear out. The bodies of the unjust shall by the power of Christ be raised to dishonor.
The bodies of the just by his spirit unto honor and be made conformable to his own glorious body. We need to close. But again, this idea that we will be like Christ, we will have a body like unto his.
Uh, we will spend eternity with him in the, the, uh, unjust. Those who have not believed will also be raised with new bodies, but their bodies will be, uh, marvelously made as well, but marvelously made to withstand the wrath of God for eternity.
And that is a sobering thought. That's why, you know, it, it, it really doesn't matter what we think of someone, how much we like them or don't like them or whatever our burden is to preach the gospel to them.
Because when we understand how terrible hell is, we should not want anyone to go there. Uh, it betrays a lack of love for Christ. If we're not willing to think that way, God takes no, what is it? No satisfaction.
He takes no joy in the death of the wicked. Why would we, right? We want people to repent and to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and to be saved from their sins. That's what we ought to want. And that's what we do want.
We need to close because I have to go upstairs and talk to the VBS folks. Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you for the confession. We thank you for these men who labored diligently over decades to put this together.
And we thank you for the men that you've given the church over the centuries, who mine the depths of your word and give us a better understanding by virtue of their work. We thank you for the Holy Spirit to illumine our minds as we read the text to better understand your word and your purpose.
Father, we pray that you would give us a burden for the loss, understanding what hell is understanding. There is no place called purgatory where the semi good can go for a while. There is no one good, but Christ Jesus alone.
And it's to him. We must fix all our attention and to whom we owe all of our allegiance. Father, make this our hearts cry in Jesus name. We pray. Amen.