The First Principle - Pt. 2

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29th of December in the Year of our Lord 2024 - P.M.

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This evening we have the reading of Luke chapter 2 and we will be singing
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Psalms 14 and 15. Deacon Schaeffer, I believe, is giving a meditation on Psalm 14.
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We will be continuing in the Second Timothy teaching. All right, so let's begin with the call to worship.
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The call to worship is from Deuteronomy chapter 6. Please stand for the reading of God's word.
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Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the
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Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. And these words which
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I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up.
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You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes.
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You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. You may be seated.
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Let's pray. Father, we come before you and we confess that we are breakers of your law.
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We have not known you as we ought. We have not worshiped you with the means that you've given properly, giving proper attention to forms.
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We have not given proper attention to our integrity in seeking to properly pursue a non -hypocritical use of the means you've given.
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Father, we are oath breakers, covenant breakers. We are Sabbath breakers and do not use your day as we ought.
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Father, we have dishonored legitimate authority. We have hated in our hearts and done violence.
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We have wicked desires of the flesh, and we have failed to use pleasures properly, failed to be properly grateful for the enjoyable things you provide.
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We have not worked as well as we ought or guarded other people's property as we should. We have not been careful to guard our own reputations or the reputations of others properly or to be fully honest.
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Father, we have coveted much, been discontent, and murmured against you.
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Father, we ask that you, holy and just God, would forgive us for Christ's sake.
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We ask that you would remove the deadness of sin and its power. We ask that you would count us righteous for Christ's sake, that you would give us life by the work of your spirit.
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We pray that you would edify us in the teaching, that you would help us to have right doctrine, worship, and government, and for us to bear the fruits of love, that we would be a people concerned for covenant and for the well -being of the church.
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I ask that you would bless Deacon Schaefer as he teaches, that you would bless me to speak right words, that you would cause those who listen to judge.
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Father, we ask that you would give to us godly magistrates and remove the wicked from over us, and that you would give to us strength of soul.
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We ask that you would help us in our weakness, and that you would help us to bear with each other's weakness.
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We thank you for the weak in our midst, that you would give them strength, that you would help us to be patient, and we thank you for little ones.
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We ask that you would give them knowledge of you from their youth. Father, we pray all of this in Christ's name, amen.
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Please open your Bibles to Luke 2. Deacon Rodriguez, please come forward. Please stand for the reading of God's word.
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Luke chapter 2. And it came to pass in those days that a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered.
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This census first took place while Quirinus was governing
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Syria. So all went to be registered, everyone to his own city.
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Joseph also went up from Galilee out of the city of Nazareth into Judea to the city of David, which is called
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Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be registered with Mary, his bethrothed wife, who was with child.
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So it was that while they were there, the days were completed for her to be delivered. And she brought forth her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger because there was no room for them in the inn.
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Now there were in the same country shepherds living out in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night.
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And behold, an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were greatly afraid.
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Then the angel said to them, do not be afraid, for behold,
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I bring you good tidings of great joy, which will be to all people. For there is born to you this day in the city of David a
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Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be the sign to you. You will find a babe wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger.
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And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of heavenly hosts praising
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God and saying, glory to God in the highest and on earth peace, goodwill toward men.
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So it was when the angels had gone away from them into heaven that the shepherds said to one another, let us now go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has come to pass, which the
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Lord has made known to us. And they came with haste and found Mary and Joseph and the babe lying in a manger.
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Now when they had seen him, they made widely known, they say, saying which was told them concerning this child.
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And all those who heard it marveled at those things which were told them by the shepherds.
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But Mary kept all these things and pondered them in her heart. Then the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising
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God for all the things that they had heard and seen as it was told them. And when eight days were completed for the circumcision of the child, his name was called
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Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb. Now when the days of her purification according to the law of Moses were completed, they brought him to Jerusalem to present him to the
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Lord. As it is written in the law of the Lord, every male who opens the womb shall be called holy to the
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Lord and to offer a sacrifice according to what is said in the law of the
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Lord, a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons. And behold, there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was
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Simeon, and this man was just and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel.
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And the Holy Spirit was upon him and had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the
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Lord's Christ. So he came by the spirit into the temple, and when the parents brought in the child
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Jesus to do for him according to the custom of the law, he took him up in his arms and blessed
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God and said, Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace according to your word.
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For my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared before the face of all peoples, a light to bring revelation to the
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Gentiles and the glory of your people, Israel. And Joseph and his mother marveled at those things which were spoken of him.
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Then Simeon blessed them and said to Mary, his mother, behold, this child is destined for the fall and rising of many in Israel and for a sign which will be spoken against.
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Yes, a sword will pierce through your own soul. Also, that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.
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Now, there was one Anna, a prophetess, the daughter of Faneuil of the tribe of Asher.
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She was of a great age and had lived with a husband seven years from her virginity. And this woman was a widow of about 84 years who did not depart from the temple, but served
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God with fastings and prayers night and day. And coming in that instant, she gave thanks to the
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Lord and spoke of him to all those who looked for redemption in Jerusalem. So when they had performed all things according to the law of the
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Lord, they returned to Galilee, to their own city, Nazareth. And the child grew and became strong in spirit, filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was upon him.
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His parents went to Jerusalem every year at the Feast of the Passover. And when he was 12 years old, they went up to Jerusalem according to the custom of the feast.
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When they had finished the days, as they returned, the boy Jesus lingered behind in Jerusalem and Joseph and his mother did not know it.
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But supposing him to have been in the company, they went a day's journey and sought him among their relatives and acquaintances.
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So when they did not found him, they returned to Jerusalem seeking him. Now, so it was that after three days they found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the teachers, both listening to them and asking them questions.
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And all who heard him were astonished at his understanding and answers. So when they saw him, they were amazed.
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And his mother said to him, Son, why have you done this to us? Look, your father and I have sought you anxiously.
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And he said to them, Why did you seek me? Did you not know that I must be about my father's business?
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But they did not understand the statement which he spoke to them. Then he went down with them and came to Nazareth and was subject to them.
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But his mother kept all these things in her heart and Jesus increased in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and men.
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Please open your Psalters to Psalm 14. Psalm 14, a contemplation of David.
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The fool says in his heart, there's not any God. They are corrupt with wickedness.
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There's no one who does good. God looks down from heaven on the children of men to see if any understand, if any seek for God.
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Each one of them turns back. They have become corrupt. There's no one who does what is good.
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No, not a single one. Do they have no knowledge who work iniquity, who eat my people as their bread and do not call on God?
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They begin to have fear for they rightly observe that God's with the generation of those who are righteous.
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You shame the poor's counsel, but God is his refuge. Oh, that salvation of Israel would come out of Zion.
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And when God will retrieve his captive people back, then surely Jacob will rejoice and Israel be glad.
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You may be seated. All right,
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Psalm 14. I think Spurgeon had a delightful title for this psalm that I wanted to repeat.
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He called it the psalm concerning practical atheism, and that's couldn't be put better.
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And interestingly, Psalm 14 is repeated nearly word for word in Psalm 53. Just a note.
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So Psalm 14 is about the practical atheist, and it's really broken into two sections.
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And so by our Psalter, Metrical Verses 1 and 2 describe the practical atheist, and then
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Metrical Verses 3 and 4 describe what what God does with the practical atheist. So let's look at the first Metrical Verse.
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These are the wise and educated ones. And however, our God calls them fools.
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And beyond foolishness, he says they're corrupt with wickedness. The other type of practical atheist, though, is the regular person who they may even profess belief in God, but lives as though there is not.
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Now, notably, David says, the fool says in his heart, there is no
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God. Not with his lips. He may say that with his lips as well. But he's saying the person who considers inwardly that there is no
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God. So there's no atheist who truly has your best interest in mind, however, however benevolent they may seem.
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And left to ourselves, there's no one who does good. That's the condition of man.
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So the second Metrical Verse, each one of them turns back. They have become corrupt. There's no one who does what is good.
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No, not a single one. Do they have no knowledge who work iniquity, who eat my people as their bread and do not call on God?
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So David further describes here the condition of the children of men. And again, he clearly states that the fallenness of man is universal, without equivocation.
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He asked, do they have no knowledge? Correct. They have no knowledge. Without belief in God and his word, knowledge is not possible.
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And that belief is worked in us by the Holy Spirit. So David talks of the fool as one who eats his people as their bread and do not call on God.
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Imagine for a moment being a tax slave to godless magistrates who extract by use of the civil magistracy your wealth to add to their own.
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They know nothing. And particularly, they do not know with whom they contend.
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So David begins to describe now in the third metrical verse with whom they contend.
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Metrical verse three, they begin to have fear for they rightly observe that God's with the generation of those who are righteous.
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You shame the poor's counsel, but God is his refuge. Oh, that the salvation of Israel would come out of Zion.
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So there's a beautiful turn here. God's people can be oppressed for a time, but even those who try to shut their minds to the existence of God begin to see that God is with his people.
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And as they oppress, as they attempt to oppress God's people, they resist. The people of God multiply in the land.
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They demand biblical justice and reputation. The wicked will see this and Lord willing, fear the
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Lord, which is the beginning of knowledge and wisdom, or they will be hardened. So David calls on the
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Lord to see salvation from Zion, which in our day we have seen in the Lord Jesus Christ.
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So try as the wicked might, try as the atheist might, the fool, we, the people of God, are advancing throughout the lands of earth.
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They should fear, and what they should fear is the Lord. So continuing in metrical verse four, when
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God will retrieve his captive people back, then surely Jacob will rejoice and Israel be glad.
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So David again looks to the future, looks to the glory of God's conquering, the retrieval of God's people through David's line.
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This is David's confirmed conviction throughout the Psalms. And some of the practical atheists, even within the broader church, who say the
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Psalms don't have anything about Christ in them, our Savior is clearly spoken of and anticipated throughout.
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So Psalm 14, as you go out in the world, I think the
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United States today is probably definitionally practical atheism in practice.
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So Psalm 14 is a beautiful meditation on that condition and the reality that God wins,
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God will destroy the practical atheists, regardless of how self -important they may believe they are.
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So any comments, questions, objections from voting members or those with speaking privileges? Pastor Ys?
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Yeah. It's an unavoidable thought, unless they're converted, and I think you brought that up in regards to the highlights.
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Yeah. And Spurgeon pointed out the same thing. He said, basically the question has to come to their mind at some point.
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Like, what's going on here? Is God blessing them? It's unavoidable.
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Yeah. No one who does good.
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God looks down from heaven on the children to see if any understand, if any seek for God.
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Each one of them turns back, have become core.
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There's no one who does what is good. A single do they have known my people as their bread and in to have fear, observe odds with the generation, those who are righteous.
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You shame the poor's counsel, but God is his refuge.
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Oh, that salvation of Israel would come out of Zion, his captive people, and surely
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Jacob will rejoice and Israel. Please open your
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Bibles to 2nd Timothy chapter 3, 2nd
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Timothy chapter 3, starting at verse 14. But you must continue in the things which you have learned and been assured of, knowing from whom you have learned them.
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And that from childhood you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith, which is in Christ Jesus.
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All Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction and righteousness of the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.
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I charge you, therefore, before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who will judge the living and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom.
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Preach the word. Be ready in season and out of season, convince, rebuke, exhort with all long suffering and teaching.
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For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers, and they will turn their ears away from the truth and be turned aside to fables.
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But you be watchful in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.
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You may be seated. All right.
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So in the handout, we're on page seven. And as we continue on page seven, we're on point five there.
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So page seven, we're talking about the Westminster Confession of Faith 1 .6. And again, we're drawing out this idea that there's the teaching that comes from God, from the scriptures, which are able to make you wise unto salvation.
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We talked about how Proverbs 1 verse 7 says the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.
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Proverbs elsewhere says the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Psalm 111 says the fear of the
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Lord is the beginning of wisdom. We looked at the Westminster Confession. We've looked at some stuff from Augustine.
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We've looked at other passages of scripture about illumination. We saw John Calvin and his view that knowledge depends upon the knowledge of God and requires the scriptures and the
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Holy Spirit to illuminate. So here we are, Westminster Confession of Faith 1 .6.
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We're continuing and there's three parts. The first part talks about the whole counsel of God. Being given to us in the scriptures, the second part talks about the work of the
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Holy Spirit being necessary for us to understand and believe the scriptures. And this third part of 1 .6
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is talking about the idea of circumstances. OK, so circumstances versus elements of worship.
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So these are technical terms and they're important to understand and they help you to have clear thinking about the worship of God and the government of the church.
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Elements of worship are the things that God commands you to do to worship him.
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The acts of worship, the pieces of worship. These are things like prayer, the reading of the word, the preaching and hearing of the word, the singing of Psalms, the sacraments, the due administration of them and the right receiving of them.
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The receiving of blessing and the giving of blessing. These things are worship acts.
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Now, there are other things like, for example, when you're switching between persons who are going to do the leading in different parts, should they sit down between?
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Should they stand at the edge waiting? Should we use a podium or a lectern or should we make the podium high up like one of those
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Reformation things? Yes, we should. Let's get on that. What do we do in terms of those things?
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You see in the old times of the Reformation, you'll have these big things that come up behind the preacher and they're curved pieces of wood.
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And these things were, before they had speakers, they were trying to amplify the sound by having, as the voice went, some fragments of it went behind.
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And the goal was to curve that piece of wood in such a way as to push that sound towards the audience, the congregation, to increase the hearing of it.
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Jesus stood on a boat near the shore to take advantage of the sea as a reflector for his voice.
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And people stood on the shore, which acts as a sort of natural amphitheater with them rising up so that the reflecting of his voice off the sea would get to them as a large crowd more easily.
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You have things like that. Those are circumstances. Being on a boat is not an element of worship. Having a body of water between the preacher and the crowd, although a safety mechanism for the preacher, depending on what he has to say, is not an element of worship.
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Having a curved piece of wood behind you to reflect the voice, not an element of worship. And neither is voice amplification through electronic means.
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These are things that are circumstances. So how do we differentiate elements of worship from circumstances, the things that we do as an act of worship versus the things that we use around it?
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OK, so I'm going to give you categories of thought that I didn't make up, but they're inherent in the nature of the way
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God has designed things. The Westminster Assembly thought through very well. So let me read that to you.
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And that there are some circumstances concerning the worship of God and government of the church common to human actions in societies which are to be ordered by the light of nature and Christian prudence, according to the general rules of the word, which are always to be observed.
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So again, what is an element? The element is the components of worship, the acts that are to be used to commune with God, that idea communing with God, to commune with God, is to seek to have unity with him and to enjoy the benefits of that unity.
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So we commune with God in prayer. We are seeking to have our minds be communicated to God's when we read his word or study it or meditate upon it or hear it preached.
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Our desire is to have his mind communicated to ours. When we sing the
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Psalms, we're offering praise back to him. These things are communings with God.
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When you look at the scriptures in terms of the acts of worship, the most common word to be translated to mean worship in the scriptures is actually the word to bow or to be prostrate.
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One of the things that's necessary to occur in times of dedicated worship.
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Is for some physical action to be done to help to set apart the time.
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Those physical actions can be bowing. For example, when you pray, you might literally get on your knees.
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You might bow the head. You might stand and raise your hands to God.
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You might start off the worship by standing with the reading of the scripture. You might.
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End, for example, with a giving of a blessing, the raising of hands, these physical external signs are a part of the idea of setting apart the time.
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And so when we talk about worship, the most common words for worship in the
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Hebrew or in the Greek are both words that mean to bow. So this idea of doing things that are elements or acts of worship that are communing with God.
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We do these things that God has commanded, and there are especially when you're setting part of time, you have a physical action at the beginning and a physical action at the end that helps you to mark off the time.
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Now, an element of worship. As a component of worship, it's an act that's to be used to commune with God, these are elements that must be explicitly commanded in the scriptures or demonstrated by good and necessary inference from scripture.
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So these elements. These elements, many of them are able to be done outside of times that are devoted to worship.
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For example, you can pray any time you want when we're in worship, times of devoted worship.
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The goal is to do nothing except. For the things that commune with God.
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Now, there are works of necessity and mercy, you might go spanking my kids is not an act of worship.
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True, but it may be necessary for you to spank your kids to help them to avoid a bad habit or to avoid disorder.
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You might go, well, getting a cup of water for my child or for myself is not an element of worship.
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That's right, but it might be a work of mercy towards them or necessity for yourself to make it so you can sing properly.
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So there's these things that you do that are works of necessity and mercy, just like you think about on the
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Sabbath in general, there's works of necessity and mercy in devoted times of worship all the time. The principle of necessity and mercy applies.
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That applies in times of devoted worship, not just the Sabbath broadly. But our goal is to seek to intelligently order things so that we can focus on the worship.
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Now, some people take this and they do simple things like, for example, they say, well, you know, we're really making it easy for the adults to pay attention to worship.
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If we got rid of all of the children and put them into a professionally manicured place for them, which helps to make sure that children never become accustomed to worship, see no value in it and never see their parents in the piety of worship and is destructive to the raising up of the people of God and is forbidden because children are a part of the assembly or commanded to appear.
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This is easily demonstrable in many places of scripture, for example, in Ephesians, when the Apostle Paul addresses children as saints or in first Corinthians seven when they are called saints or holy.
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And so we have this idea that children are supposed to be a part of the assembly. And so we don't want to remove them.
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In fact, their presence is a sign of future life. And the care of children is a work of necessity or mercy or sometimes both during that process.
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And so this loveliness of having children in the assembly is a part of that.
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And it's in no way contradicted by the goal of focusing on the elements of worship. So then we think about circumstances and circumstances are distinct from elements.
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There are things that are necessary to human action and human society by the explicit definition of humans and their actions or societies and their actions or by necessary inference from that universal category.
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Decisions about these circumstances are to be governed by applying logic, the light of nature.
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And the general rules of the word to particulars. That's called Christian prudence.
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So people read this and they go, circumstances sounds like a category I can shove anything
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I want into. Delightful. Can't find the element I'd like, but I'd like to figure out how to put the thing into worship.
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Call it a circumstance. Mission accomplished, was able to find a way to get the thing
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I wanted put into worship without having to prove it from the Bible. So this idea of putting stuff into worship that you cannot demonstrate, we need to remember is something an act of worship.
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So one thing that's a common piety that people like to do around this time of the year is they like to have candlelight services.
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Candles are very useful to light when you have no electricity. No problem with using candles to light when you use candles as a religious element.
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Does anybody here remember anything about candles or lights being used in religious worship in the Old Covenant? Anybody remember that?
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How about the lampstand that was to be lit by the priests? It was an element of worship.
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If you use candles to light a place, which is what men did for centuries when they didn't have electrical lights, makes total sense, works perfectly.
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But when you try to make something holy by including something like the lighting of candles, you're taking an
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Old Covenant ordinance and you're putting it in. If you try to take something that you want to incorporate because of some other thing like,
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I don't know, I've seen videos of all sorts of crazy stuff in worship services, as I'm sure you have, whether it's drama or whether it is some sort of Indian dance or whether it is whatever, whatever thing people want to put into it, if they're taking something and they're trying to make it feel spiritual and include it in, these things being added are actually elements and not circumstances.
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A circumstance is something that is common to human actions and human societies.
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So you can take a thing that could be a circumstance, like how you light the room, and if you try to give it religious meaning, all of a sudden you've made it an element.
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So a circumstance is something that's common to human action. So you go, human beings have bodies.
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Their bodies are going to be someplace. What are we going to do during times when we don't have a prescribed mode of how our body is supposed to be?
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For example, if you're hearing the word preached, do you need to stand the whole time?
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Could you lie on a bed? Should everybody sit on the floor or should we have chairs?
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Your body unavoidably is going to be somewhere. So what are we going to do? We're going to choose something that allows us to use the space well, to be comfortable, to be able to focus.
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We're going to use principles that are Christian prudence, thinking about what are the things that maximize our ability to grow in edification.
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So decency, order and edification are principles that get listed all the time by Presbyterians because First Corinthians is a book of church order.
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When you read First Corinthians, it tells you how to worship and it gives you tons of principles about how worship is supposed to go in terms of pursuing things for edification, doing things in good order.
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Those things come from First Corinthians. Well, we find these things in other parts of scripture as well.
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So circumstances are things that are common to human actions and common to human societies. Human societies have to have a place to meet.
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Human societies have to have a time to meet. Human societies, if you're going to have a place to meet and you're going to do it regularly, you might go, well, should we rent the place?
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Should we constantly beg for a place? Should we buy a place? So you might go, well, property to meet on is something where you've got to figure out somewhere where you're able to deal with it.
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If the magistrate says it's illegal for people to get together for church services in which they don't participate using the common book of prayer, which is a problem that Presbyterians actually had to deal with, then you might start to have illegal assemblies.
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But you might no longer meet in the church building you previously bought since the civil magistrate would know that's where you would meet.
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Instead, you might start to meet in secret places. These types of decisions of where you're going to meet, how you're going to arrange the room, what things you're going to do to make it so that it's comfortable and decent and orderly and maximizing utility for edification.
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Are you going to have a sound system or a curved piece of wood that helps to project the voice or a boat in the middle of some water to help the voice to bounce off the water?
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Which of these systems are we going to have? These are the kinds of things you're thinking of in terms of circumstances.
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And what people want to do, again, is to take the category of circumstance and expand it wildly to mean
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I can throw in anything I want into the worship service. So what you need to realize is the elements of worship are things that have to be carefully guarded.
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When we talk about the idea that the word of God is sufficient to teach us to do every good work, worship is a particularly important good work.
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And God is zealous for his worship and it being done rightly without addition or subtraction.
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So the elements where we're concerned about guarding there. Now, when we talk about church government, it's the same thing.
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You will notice big church government is a problem just like big civil government.
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Big civil government's a big problem. Taxes, inflation, debasing the currency, regulators, all sorts of government agents coming to eat out all the substance that you possess.
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All of these problems that come from big civil government. There's also a concern about big church government.
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There's also the problem of anarchic church government. We weirdly live in a day where churches do all sorts of stuff they're not supposed to do and don't do a lot of the stuff they're supposed to do.
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They do things they're not supposed to, they don't do the stuff they are. We do the same thing with the civil government. They're focused on so many things they're not supposed to do.
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They do a bad job on the limited things they are supposed to do. Defend borders, have efficient courts.
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These are not things that our civil government is known for. However, our civil government does do lots of other things.
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Badly also. And so when churches seek to expand out what they are doing and they start to do a bunch of things that they're not designed for, what happens is they usurp authority from other spheres and they're adding elements to the government of the church.
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So the church's purpose is to have right doctrine, right worship, right government. The government is to protect the doctrine, to protect the worship and to maintain discipline for holiness in the church.
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Inside of the church you deal with the word of God is the source of all law, systematic confession writing, constitutions, cases of conscience and canon law writing are all supposed to be according to scripture alone.
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So the legislative function is there. The judicial function, judging cases that orderly come before its courts and to deal with conflict and the executive function is to go and perform certain acts.
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For example, this public worship is an executive function of the church. Right now I am exercising an executive function in teaching you specifically or whoever is leading a particular element of the worship is executing that particular function.
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When we are no longer gathered in the holy assembly, executive functions of the church occur in terms of private ministry and carrying out things for order and dealing with matters as they arise, deacons going and caring for the poor, that kind of thing.
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These are all executive functions. The carrying out of ministry is executive function. We have to be careful to understand which things are supposed to be done by the church and are elements of the government of the church versus a circumstance.
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So what are the things the church is commanded to do? What are the methods by which it is to obtain its resources?
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How is it supposed to select its officers? And what powers do they have?
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Those are elements of church government. It is important for us to understand the elements of worship and the elements of government so that we know what a rightly ordered church looks like.
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The Bible is a long book and the purpose of confessions of faith, written forms of government and written directories for worship are meant to make it so that the information about those different things are organized in documents that are more easily readable.
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So it's easier for the congregation to judge the officers if they are guarding the elements of government and worship.
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The hatred of these kinds of documents by church officers is in large part a hatred of accountability.
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People in the congregation do not, in America especially and in the modern West generally, do not like authority, do not like tradition, do not like having to look back on the way other people have worked out problems in the past.
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And so confessions, directories of worship and constitutions, a pox on all of them is a general response.
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No creed but the Bible, no rule but the Bible. We don't need any of that work. And then the portions of the
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Bible that are inconvenient, let's figure out how to not read them or explain them away, which is a lot easier to do in a thousand page book than it is in a short constitution, confession or directory of worship.
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So the elements are the things that are the actual things of worship or in government.
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They are the actual powers and functions of a government. The circumstances are the things that are necessary inherently in the very definition of human action and human societies.
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And the way we deal with circumstances is by applying logical inferences and by applying the general rules of the word.
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This should give you a sense of the level of stricture that the Westminster Assembly was attempting to put upon the exercise of church power.
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In modern times, we get a good sense of this if you listen to theonomists talk about civil government.
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They had the same sort of sense of stricture about the restraint of civil power. Which is good.
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But we need to have the same sort of attitude about the restraints of church power. The other thing is we need to fear the legitimate authority of the church and the legitimate authority of magistrates.
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Lawful powers that are given by God are the ordinance of God, and to fear those ordinances is to fear
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God. And so if we think about the elements of government, the elements of worship, and then the idea of circumstances and this desire to carefully reason to avoid adding to or subtracting from those elements, we get a sense of the proper care and concern and guarding that we should have in these areas of thought.
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Does this give you a clear picture of what they mean when they say the whole counsel of God is in the scriptures?
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Go to page eight. But you must continue in the things which you have learned and been assured of, knowing from whom you have learned them, and that from childhood you have known the holy scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith, which is in Christ Jesus.
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The holy scriptures are able to make you wise through faith, which is in Christ Jesus. Wise for salvation.
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Remember, wisdom is the knowledge of God and also the knowledge of his law. And what's necessary for salvation is broader than what's necessary for justification.
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Being counted righteous is one part of salvation. That's dealing with the guilt of our sin.
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What about the power of our sin? The scriptures are able to subdue the power of sin in your soul and to reorder the use of your body and of your lips for the words that you speak to make it so that you are able to be useful, your thoughts, useful, your words, useful, your actions, useful, that you can be an instrument, a tool, a weapon of righteousness.
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The scriptures are able to make you wise and to not just justification, but the whole of salvation. This wisdom.
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It saves you from foolish thinking or replacing it with wisdom.
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This wisdom saves you from the guilt of sin and the just wrath of God by being the instrument that connects us to the righteousness of Christ and his suffering, the wrath of God in our place.
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Instead, this wisdom saves us from the power of sin by giving us a lamp unto our feet to know the way that we should go.
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This wisdom saves us because wisdom is faith in God's word. This wisdom saves because faith in God's word is faith in Christ.
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So the bottom of page eight, all scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction and righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.
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I emphasize this to you a week or two ago. That the man of God may be complete, that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work, and we must lay hold of that text and as Protestants be very concerned for the fullness of the counsel of God in scripture.
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We take it seriously. We must study it wholly and we must study it in detail. We must have a broad knowledge of God's word and we must have a deep knowledge of God's word.
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We need to have a sense of the whole and we need to find the passages that we find to be most clear.
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They have a good understanding of them to lay them up in our hearts. And then we take those passages that are more clear and we use them to study the less clear passages.
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As you grow in the knowledge of the parts that are easier to get, you begin to find that the harder parts become easier to get.
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All scripture, page nine, all scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction and righteousness.
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Remember doctrine here. This is the teaching. These are the things that it teaches, the information to be possessed in the mind, the rebuking, the reproof is to convict and show you what is wrong.
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It must be put off. The correction is what you ought to be doing, showing you what to put on. And the instruction and righteousness is the training, the pedia, the discipleship that helps to get you there.
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It's the inculturating process into righteousness. The scriptures provide all of these things.
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Every single part of scripture is breathed out by God and every single part of scripture is useful for doctrine, rebuking, correcting and instruction and righteousness.
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And it's all together good. It's all together lovely. It's all together effective to make it so that you can be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.
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There's nothing missing. And so this profitableness, this usefulness is in contrast to the book of Ecclesiastes.
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It starts off by saying useless, useless. Everything is useless.
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Vanity of vanities. All is vanity. Futility, uselessness in opposition to usefulness.
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Under the sun, everything is useless. Under the rule of the sun, as opposed to God.
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Under heaven, the rule of God, under his throne, where God is noticed, where God's glory is the goal, where his law governs.
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Under heaven, everything is fruitful and useful. When you have the worldview applying scripture and the government of God in every single area, you find everything is useful.
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And so there's this vast contrast between uselessness and usefulness.
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The scriptures make you profitable to yourself and to the display of God's glory.
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Now, page 10. We talk about the scriptures being sufficient to build up the individual, and they are.
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But the scriptures are also useful for building up the whole of the city of God. They are able to make the church mature.
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And so if the scriptures make you mature as the individual, you are able to put yourself into the use of helping to nourish and nurture the church and to bless those who are less mature, to protect them, to help to raise them up.
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Here's Ephesians chapter four, verses 11 to 24. And he himself, the
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Lord Jesus Christ, gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists and some pastors and teachers.
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Those are four offices, the office of apostle, the office of prophet, the office of evangelist. Those three offices.
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The Westminster Presbyterian Forum of Government says are extraordinary offices, and I agree.
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Why are they extraordinary offices? Because they are offices associated with the giving of the prophetic word which has been completed.
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The perfect has been given, the partial has passed away. The office of apostle, prophet and evangelist are ended.
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And Timothy was an evangelist. He was an extraordinary officer and some pastors and teachers.
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The word some before each of these words, apostle, prophet, evangelist, and then we have some pastors and teachers.
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The pastor teacher is a single office. We can find that in other texts as well. But there are some apostles, there are some prophets, there are some evangelists and there's some pastor teachers.
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The pastor teacher office has been carried on, it is the office of elder, also known as bishop.
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Those four titles are all titles for the same office, and that office continues. And the job of the pastor, the job of the teacher, the job of the bishop, the job of the elder is to preach the prophetic word that has been delivered to the saints.
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That's the job description. He's a herald. His job is to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the son of God, the unity of the faith.
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There are believers, and by being believers, we automatically obviously have some shared beliefs. We have some unity of faith, right?
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Otherwise, we wouldn't all be believers. But the unity of the faith that's being talked about here is a more full unity of faith.
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As the church grows in maturity. Its unity in doctrine increases.
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As the unity in doctrine increases. That work of the ministry is to help to develop and edify the body of Christ to bring greater and greater unity.
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We are told that right doctrine, unity and love are three powerful elements of the witness of the church.
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When the church is unified, teaching clear doctrine and manifesting the fruits of love, the ministry of the church is powerful for broad.
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Revival and conversion. And furthermore, it is powerful for reformation to see godly institutions established and lasting unity in the truth, clear teaching of doctrine and love.
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As a local body, our desire should be to have unity in the truth, clear teaching and to see that love.
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Is manifested powerfully, those things make our witness powerful.
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And the duty of officers is to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, if I'm going to equip you.
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If I want to see you mature and thoroughly equipped for every good work, should I teach whatever philosopher
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I'm a fanboy of? Should I give to you whatever fad has caught my fancy or should
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I teach you the word of God? Which are we told will equip you?
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So the ministry is for the equipping of the saints, for the work of ministry. And for the edifying of the body of Christ.
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Till we all come to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the son of God to a mature or perfect, you might say, complete man.
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The scriptures are sufficient to make any one of you complete. And they are sufficient to build up the whole of the church to a mature, complete, perfect man.
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To the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. That is the mission. The goal is not to have a minimum acceptable amount of doctrine.
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The goal is not to find the lowest common denominator to get the group big enough.
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The goal is to see the church matured. To see individuals matured that we should no longer be children tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine.
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Remember this morning I was talking to you about the value of knowledge. How as you meditate on the scriptures and you have certainty about things, you're able to nail it down so it doesn't move around anymore.
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So it's set in place so that you are not just this thing that's blown around, but instead there's stability.
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Knowledge provides stability. That's what the maturity is that we're seeking for is the stable, mature man who is able to minister to his own family and minister to others and for families to be ministry teams together that are hospitable and loving and care for each other and care for others outside of the home in the church seeking to be a blessing that we should no longer be children tossed to and fro carried about with every wind of doctrine by the trickery of men and the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting the trickery of men.
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Beloved, most of the race of men are monsters.
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Male and female. Most of them are monsters. Fathers, you know this.
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You want to protect your families. You want to protect your wives. And you are aware of threats and dangers, physical dangers.
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And as you grow in discernment, you become more and more aware of the ways in which people want to poison the minds of the people you love.
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And so you find that children's shows try to teach children about all of the perversions of the land.
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Think about that. This is an actual problem we've got that we have to say, nope, these cartoons, we're not going to watch them because they want you to be confused about whether you're a boy or a girl.
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This is the kind of craziness on children's programming we have to worry about. I promise you that is not because of goodwilled people being confused.
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They want to destroy your children. It's their goal.
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You have to be aware of the fact that so many people are monsters. And in fact, unless a person understands and believes the gospel, that's what they are.
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Such were some of you. Such were all of us at conception. The word of God being knowledgeable in it, being mature in it.
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Makes it so that we are able to be stable and not be blown about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men.
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That trickery of men is put forward in a cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, a cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, trickery of men in cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting.
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Beloved, the wolves are wolves and they want to eat you for lunch.
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That's what wolves do. We have to be aware of the reality that the world is a battlefield.
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And for those who have authority, the goal is to protect and the teaching of the word provides a covering and a guard and a protection.
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And knowing that you expect the word of God will restrain the teaching and be the thing you can judge the teaching by, makes it so that there are restraints on that power.
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Someday I will die. Someday I may all of a sudden rip off the mask and there's a wolf.
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You have to be able to judge these things. And so the multiplicity of officers, the development of maturity, it is important that men desire to exercise power.
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One of the great motives, one of the great motives for good men to want to exercise power, despite all of its trouble, is the fear of being ruled by inferior men.
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The most inferior kind of man is the man who wants to use his position to steal what's yours.
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And so the drive to power, American Christians are waking up to this and the restraints on power, the scriptures are sufficient.
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We don't have to invent good works. We don't have to invent elements of worship. We don't have to invent elements of church government.
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We don't have to invent things that we need to do. The scriptures are sufficient for it and they help you to not crowd out the good works with a bunch of garbage, with the trickery of men and the deceitful, cunning craftiness of their deceitful plotting.
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Instead, what happens? The church is supposed to speak the truth in love that we may grow up in all things and to him who is the head,
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Christ, from whom the whole body joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share.
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You see, do you hear that? The ministry you do to each other is used effectively by the
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Holy Spirit, according to the effective working by which every part does its share.
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Beloved, what giftings do you have to fulfill commandments of God?
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You know what you can use to search out your giftings? The law of God. What does
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God command you to do? The positive commandments are things that need to be done.
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And the things you're good at are things where you have gifting. Things you like, but you're not good at are things that you could probably get good at, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love, the body edifying itself in love.
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There is so much more teaching to do than there is time to give from the pulpit on the
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Lord's Day, which is why there's private worship and family worship and hospitality and working together and seeking to build your lives together and looking for opportunity to be a blessing to each other and looking for an opportunity to be running mates, to work side by side, to do good things, to exhort each other and encourage each other in godliness while working together.
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Verse 17, this, I say, therefore, and testify in the Lord that you should no longer walk as the rest of the
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Gentiles walk in the futility of their mind. This is that same Contra message, right?
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If the scriptures are profitable for doctrine, the alternative is all the thinking of the world is futile, useless, having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God.
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They're alienated from the life of God, which means they're alienated from the knowledge of God because of the ignorance that's in them, because of the blindness of their heart.
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And the Apostle Paul has just told us that they don't know anything in a bunch of different ways, who, being past feeling, have given themselves over to lewdness.
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Think about the lewdness of our culture. The lewdness of it, the extent to which there is no carefulness of speech, even around women and children.
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The widespread lewdness, who, being past feeling, have been given themselves over to lewdness to work all uncleanness with greediness, a greediness for the uncleanness.
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So greedy for it, they've got to find places to throw it into children's television. The greediness for this uncleanness.
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But you have not so learned Christ. If indeed you have heard him and have been taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus.
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That you put off concerning your former conduct the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts and be renewed in the spirit of your mind and that you put on the new man which was created according to God in true righteousness and holiness.
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The old man is you and the new man is you, but the new man is you renewed by the
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Word of God. The Word of God is able to make you wise into salvation.
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The Word of God is breathed out by God. It's profitable for doctrine, for rebuke, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that you might be complete, thoroughly furnished for every good work.
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This word, this majestic word, what man is fit to praise it sufficiently?
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Go with me to page 11. I have here a number of things laid out, the legend in 12 showing you what the confession teaches about the scriptures, to show you again that this is the church's teaching historically.
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I will not go through all of it at this time, but I do want to point out to you, go to page 12, how our confession teaches that the scriptures of the
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Word of God written, that is one of my favorite little things to say.
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And also you look at the bottom of section two, section two of the
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Westminster Confession lists out all the books of the Old Testament, all the books of the New Testament. And then it says, all which are given by inspiration of God to be the rule of faith and life, the rule of faith and life.
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Section seven of the scriptures says, all things in scripture are not alike, plain in themselves, nor alike, clear unto all, yet those things which are necessary to be known, believed and observed for salvation are so clearly propounded and opened in some place of scripture or other that not only the learned, but the unlearned in a due use of the ordinary means may attain and attain unto a sufficient understanding of them.
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A lot of people are happy to say the Bible is clear enough that, you know. The average guy could pick it up and at least learn how to be justified before God.
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That's not the point here. A lot of people want to minimize your ability to understand the
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Bible. And they want to say, if you want to understand the Bible, you need a degree in Second Temple Judaism.
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You need to have a degree in Greek, a degree in Hebrew. And then from there, some sort of critical text analysis where you can properly put together all the different manuscripts.
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And that will change based upon the scholarship every 10 or 15 years. The Bible has been given to us by God, has been preserved by God, and it can be understood by the learned or the unlearned.
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Not just enough so that you can manage to get into heaven by the skin of your teeth. That's not the point.
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The point is all the things that are necessary to be known, believed and observed for salvation.
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Real quickly, did the Westminster Assembly teach justification by faith in works or justification by faith alone?
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Oh, like the Bible, the Westminster Assembly taught justification by faith alone. So when they talk about things that are necessary to be observed for salvation, quick reminder, they're not talking about what's necessary to be justified before God.
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The point is all the stuff you need to do in order to enjoy all the benefits of salvation, all the sanctification, all of the growth and maturity.
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The learned and the unlearned by use of the ordinary means. That means using the stuff that God has appointed for worship.
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When you use that diligently, you pray for God to bless your study.
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God gives wisdom to his people. The church should not rely upon some need of external education and some need for people to get degrees from some external institution.
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God can raise up and train through the ordinary means his people to be mature in the faith.
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There is a tendency to professionalize and clericalize and make officers into some special academic class.
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The academy. Is not the church, the academy is not something the church needs.
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The academy steals its intellectual capital from the church and tries to put whatever poison it can manage to cram in.
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It's good ideas are stolen from the Bible and from the church, and it's bad ideas are brought in by people who worship degrees.
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Most of the seminaries are the finishing schools of irrationalism that teach men that the
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Bible contradicts itself, that the Bible is not reliable, that the Bible is not understandable, and that there's so much cultural context that you have to understand before you can understand the
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Bible. That makes sure that you don't let the people in your congregation ever think they really get it.
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The Reformation builds churches that are self -reproducing, that are self -replicating, that are powerful because it takes plowboys.
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And it makes them know the Bible better than the pope. That scourge of humanity, Protestant nations are nations where 14 year olds know the
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Bible better than our current theologians. If you went to Scotland in the 1700s or the 1600s, the knowledge of theology that was deeply embedded in the hearts of its people were such that when
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King Charles tried to send bishops into Scotland to try to persuade the people to accept
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Episcopal government and human inventions in their worship, they found it wasn't the pastors, it wasn't the doctors of the universities.
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They had a hard time arguing with the ordinary churchmen. The churchmen didn't wait for a pastor or a doctor to come and argue with these false teachers, with human inventions.
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They argued with them themselves and were confident and would not give way because they stood on the
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Word of God. The Word of God is sufficient to make you wise unto salvation and to make you complete and mature, thoroughly furnished for every good work and to build up the church to maturity.
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And it's clear. The Bible is clear. You go, well, how am
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I supposed to interpret the Bible? People have so many different interpretations. Yeah, but most people aren't trying.
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They're looking for a pretext, not a proof text. What they're trying to do is to find something to do whatever they want.
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When you actually try to read the Bible, you know the difference. You're able to understand the meaning of the text.
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You go through and you read and you find when there's some things that are difficult, you put
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Scripture beside Scripture. Look at point nine. The infallible rule of interpretation of Scripture is the
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Scripture itself. Notice it doesn't say the infallible rule of the Scriptures is the academics, archaeology, church tradition or anything like that.
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Where does this come from? Well, 1 Corinthians says that you compare spiritual things with spiritual things and the context is talking about words of the
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Holy Spirit. That's how we interpret the Bible. We compare spiritual things with spiritual things.
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The infallible rule of interpretation of Scripture is the Scripture itself. And therefore, when there is a question about the true and full sense of any
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Scripture, which is not manifold but one, it must be searched and made known by other places that speak more clearly.
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If a passage is hard, find a passage that's easier on the same subject and put them side by side and you will find that the harder one becomes more clear.
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Well, when we disagree, how can we resolve the problem?
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Section 10. The supreme judge by which all controversies of religion are to be determined and all decrees of councils, opinions of ancient writers, doctrines of men and private spirits are to be examined and in whose sentence we are to rest can be no other but the scientific consensus.
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Can be no other but academic respectability. Can be no other but mainstream media and socially acceptable opinions.
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No. Can be no other but church tradition, church hierarchy. The supreme judge by which all controversies of religion are to be determined and all decrees of councils, opinions of ancient writers, doctrines of men and private spirits are to be examined and in whose sentence we are to rest can be no other but the
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Holy Spirit speaking in the scripture. People want to take this and try to pretend to subscribe to the confession.
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They try to limit controversies of religion down to whatever they feel like they can conveniently assign religion to. Religion is the rule of faith and practice.
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What do you believe and what do you think you should do? That's what religion is. Comes from the word religio, which means rule.
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It's a rule of faith and a rule of practice. And what's the only rule of faith and practice? The word of God.
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So this view of scripture that makes things complete, that makes men complete, that matures the church.
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The Apostle Paul, when you read 2 Timothy chapter 3, his view of scripture is high as the word of God that's sufficient.
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And Protestants have fought hard to try to find ways to speak clearly about the sufficiency of scripture and to avoid all of the little tricks, the deceitful plotting that men want to use to come in and bind down the scriptures and find a way to sideline it.
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So they can use their authority or their degrees to be able to make the scriptures not their judge and to control the people.
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And that makes darkness. The way of fighting the darkness is with the light.
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And so the Apostle Paul says, I charge you. Do you know what it is to be charged?
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This isn't about being charged with a crime or sin. To charge is to lay something as a covenant duty upon somebody saying,
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I appeal to you on the basis of my authority to demand that you comply with this.
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I charge you, therefore. And now he calls on an oath, which means this is a charge where if Timothy does not obey, the
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Apostle Paul is calling malediction on him. He's calling curse on him. He's saying,
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Timothy, everything I just told you about the scriptures, these precious words, breathe out by God.
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I charge you before God.
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And the Lord Jesus Christ, who will judge the living and the dead that is appearing in his kingdom.
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What does he charge him with? Preach the word.
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Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort with all long suffering and teaching.
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This charging. He's calling upon God as his witness for the righteousness of the charge and calling upon God as witness that there would be curse if Timothy does not obey it.
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And this charge is a charge that passes through Timothy to every minister of the word.
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Woe is me if I do not preach the word of God. Curse would befall me.
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Preach the word. Proclaim it, act as a herald, speak publicly and loudly for the distinct and clear hearing of this information.
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That's the call. Ministers of the word are to be ready in season and out of season.
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In good season is the literal Greek and not season. The good season and the not season.
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In season and out of season. If it's all the times rather season times, we're in it or you're out of it.
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So what this is, this is the way of saying all the time. Be ready to preach the word all the time.
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There's this call to convince which Matthew 18 verse 15 we have go and tell your brother his fault.
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Let's actually go and convince him, rebuke him, show him the error of his way. First Timothy 5 .20
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says those who are elders who are sinning, rebuke them or convince them, convict them in the presence of all.
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The call to rebuke is the call to give a strong command, to warn, to give censure, to speak seriously.
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You know, you look through the book of Matthew and the book of Luke over and over and over again. You see
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Jesus, this word is used and he rebukes the weather, causes the waves to go down.
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He rebukes sickness and makes it go away. He rebukes demons and makes them go away. And occasionally he rebukes his disciples and rebukes false teachers.
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These strong commands stop. There must, there's a willingness that has to be present in officers to give strong command.
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There's a duty to govern, but to do it carefully, to not go beyond the bounds of power given by the king, but also a need to exercise the power that's given as a command to give strong commands.
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There's a call to exhort. Exhortation is calling men to go with you.
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Exhortation is encouraging men to come beside you. Exhortation is when you don't just say charge, but when you charge and tell the men to come with you.
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Exhortation is that call. There is the need to give strong command. Do this. There is the need to show men they are wrong.
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Stop it. And there is the need to say, let's go. And so these things together, all of those commands, these are the things that officers are called to give.
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And this is supposed to be done with long suffering. And the word long suffering is really much suffering.
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You might say with great pains. And it's conjoined with teaching.
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This idea that the teaching is supposed to be done and it's supposed to be done with much suffering. Remember back in First Timothy, it says to reward with double honor those elders that rule well, that labor in word and doctrine.
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The word labor there is to work to exhaustion. And this here, this idea of working with much pain to teach this going and trying to figure it out, the wrestling with the problems, the seeking to teach, the arguing, the telling people when it's awkward and difficult and hard, you're wrong.
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All of that with much pain teaching. Verse three, for the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers and they will turn their ears away from the truth and be turned aside to fables.
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But you be watchful in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.
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The call to watchfulness, endurance, and the performance of work. These are calls that we must see, not only in evangelists, but in church officers of every stripe.
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So many pastors are known for basically being lazy. The old joke is there are three sexes, men, women, and clergy.
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There's this frustration about the soft handedness, the weakness that is the not working hard, and church officers are called to do that and to face down displeasure.
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That is the work that there is an obligation to do, and it is necessary that men be raised up to do this.
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At the same time, this gritty manifestation of working hard and being doctrinally focused is not to make it so that everything everywhere is ugly.
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This is supposed to be outward facing, wolf facing, and protective work, and the goal is to make it so that by being assertive, by being aggressive, by doing the work, by teaching clearly, by going through the difficulties and suffering the pains, that the things that are beautiful can be protected.
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That men, by guarding and being willing to do this public work, are able to make a space where families can grow, where children are protected, where wives are able to be women.
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And so this manifestation of an aggressive pastorate, it's not only the fact that pastors are often lazy, and often cowards, and often hirelings, the problem is also the disloyalty of the people of God to ministers that fight.
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When Jay Gresham Machen was kicked out of the Presbyterian Church for defending orthodoxy, he expected that there would be droves of conservative
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Presbyterians that would follow him out. But there was no breaking of the dam.
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There was no great river. No torrent of believers followed him out.
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It was a trickle, a few men. And so we should highly value each other.
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Friends are hard to find. Enemies are easy to find. If you want to find an enemy, go out in the street and start a conversation.
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Very few of them will turn into friends. The people in this building are of great value to you.
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They are people that have chosen to do things that are hard, that are weird. They have chosen to do things that are inconvenient, things that they could be totally respectable in the sight of most people, even most professing
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Christians, if they ignored. It is possible for you to go to a far more lax place and to be viewed as a very holy person by most
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Christians. The people that have chosen to be here and to be with you are people that have chosen to commit themselves to difficulties and shames and hardships because they believe it is worth it and you are covenanted together to work together, to share in blessings together and to share in hardships together.
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And your officers are men who are called to do this work, to preach the word.
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We are here for the word. Let's pray.
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Father, we thank you for this body of believers and we thank you for the men who are officers and we thank you for your holy word that has brought us out of darkness and put us into light.
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We ask that you would cause us to care for your word, to treasure it highly, to view it as that which makes us complete.
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And we ask that you would help us to be ready to resist all arrogant things that raise themselves up against the knowledge of you and that you would cause us to be a useful people.
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I ask that you would give us unity, that you would give us clarity of the teaching and that you would cause us to have much love pour forth as fruit from us.
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By the power of your Holy Spirit. Father, I pray that you would give to us a zeal for your holy things.
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I pray this in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. Comments, questions, objections from the voting members and those with speaking rights.
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Mr. Walker. Yeah, happily.
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So I'll have to talk about this more in depth later, but the short version is the idea that you have to use your senses to get knowledge.
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The other one is, is in our time, the most common thing besides that is, is to say that, you know, feeling has some place where the truth is not knowable.
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So your rationalism is pretty easy to deal with and you're, you're mostly, you're probably pretty caught, you're accustomed to it, right?
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People, people say, oh, truth's not logical or, or, you know, truth is a feeling or it's subjective or whatever.
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You're used to that basic apologetics. You're trained to deal with that stuff. And stuff about sense experience is harder because we are, most conservatives are actually trained to be very science oriented, but science does not provide us with value claims.
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And when we have experiences, we interpret our experiences through our worldview.
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And so I think that one of the best things, that little book I've suggested of the teacher is a really great way of dealing with this idea of, of how to sense experiences, interact with the mind.
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Augustine did a magnificent job engaging on that. And so this has been something that Augustinian thought, which reformed thought is
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Augustinian, right? It's building upon the teaching of Augustine, which he drew from the Apostle Paul, that the idea that we rely upon the
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Holy Spirit to illuminate our minds and we are dependent upon God to give truth.
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And so this, this work, this little 30 page book by Augustine helps it to be very memorable.
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And so I'd be happy to talk more about it and my intention is to gauge more further, but, but that, that big one that the senses don't provide the knowledge, they have to be interpreted.
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And ultimately it is the work of the Holy Spirit that gives the knowledge is the main thing to give.
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When you're talking to reform people, they will typically put that objection forward.
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If they're reformed, but not scripturalist, they'll talk about that. So anyway, so we'll talk more at the meal.
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Anything else? Okay. Let's sing. Deacon Walker, please stand.
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Which Psalm is it? 15. Open your Psalter to Psalm 15. Psalm 15, a
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Psalm of David. Within your house, O Lord, who will reside? And on your holy hill, who may dwell there?
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The man who walks upright, who works in righteousness. In his heart, truth proclaims and him it guides.
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He refrains from slander, hurts not his friends. He will not stand to hear an ill report.
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Vile men he does despise, but those who fear the Lord, he honors with his word, defending them.
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He keeps his promise, though it brings him harm. His gold no profit earns from wrongful gain.
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He will not take a bribe against the innocent. Those who practice such things unmoved remain.
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Hmm. Just slander, despise, deeps his promise, though his gold against the innocent who acted such things.
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I will not be participating in the
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Lord's Supper. Grace to you and peace in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, please remain standing for the word of institution.
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Luke 22. When the hour had come, he sat down and the 12 apostles with him.
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Then he said to them with fervent desire, I have desired to eat this
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Passover with you before I suffer. For I say to you, I will no longer eat of it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.
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Then he took the cup and gave thanks and said, Take this and divide it among yourselves.
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For I say to you, I will know I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.
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And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it and gave it to them, saying,
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This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.
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Likewise, he also took the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is shed for you.
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But behold, the hand of my betrayer is with me on the table and truly the son of man goes as it has been determined.
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But woe to that man by whom he is betrayed. Then they began to question among themselves which of them it was who would do this thing.
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Now, there was also a dispute among them as to which of them should be considered the greatest.
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And he said to them, The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them and those who exercise authority over them are called benefactors, but not so among you.
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On the contrary, he who is greatest among you. Let him be as the younger and he who governs as he who serves.
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For who is greater, he who sits at the table or he who serves?
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Is it not he who sits at the table? Yet I am among you as the one who serves.
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But you are those who have continued with me in my trials and I bestow upon you a kingdom just as my father bestowed one upon me that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel.
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Lovett, you will not judge the twelve tribes of Israel, but you will judge angels. If you have been examined by the council and have examined yourselves to see if you're in the faith, can discern the
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Lord's body or at peace with others as far as it depends upon you. And are holding on to no cherished sins.