1689 London Baptist Confession Of Faith (part 3)

Father in heaven Lord, we just praise you this morning for your goodness for your kindness for the love that you have showered upon your people how we Like sheep have gone astray, but you By your sovereign love have rescued us have Given us new hearts new desires new wills.

Father you have transformed us so that we might love you and Father as we're here today to learn about you to learn about your word and even to look at what men 300 and some odd years ago wrote about You and your word father.

We just praise you for them praise you for the truth that remains and Has been preserved by you. Lord bless each one here. We pray in Jesus name. Amen. So we're talking about the holy scriptures the first section of the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith and I guess Bob Muto talked to Phil Johnson last night and Phil said, you know, why isn't Steve here today?

And Bob said well, he's teaching the 1689 and Phil said if I was teaching a 1689, I wouldn't be here either. So, I don't know what that means. I wouldn't I wouldn't venture a guess on that. But we were talking about the 1689 and I think we've gotten down to.

We talked about all men being without excuse and we're talking about the difference between general revelation and specific revelation and That is to say salvific revelation. What does it take for someone to be saved and we noted last week, you know under Romans 1 That Mankind generally speaking can look around and they see that there is a God.

In fact, I was running last night one of my friends. Who's kind of a big shot in California politics? He's a conservative, but he also happens to be Jewish and he wrote last night Something to the effect of you know without God even murder.

Even murder that there's no right or wrong to it. Okay natural revelation. That is to say the order of things and the and the power of God being on full display and God's law in our hearts. We have a conscience.

We know that certain things are wrong like murder to actually commit a murder you have to. You have to sear your conscience. You have to ignore your conscience. You have to scar it so that it doesn't overwhelm you.

He even understands that this unbeliever does. But Romans 1 says that mankind looks at all this information and what do they do with it? They suppress the truth in love in Righteous inquiry no, you know in scientific in search of scientific information.

No, they suppress the truth in unrighteousness. Because that which can be seen that which can be known about God. They don't really they don't like that they don't want to think of a judge. They don't want to think of a judgment.

So they suppress that truth and unrighteousness so they can justify their own sin and as wrong when one goes on you know, we see the de-evolution of mankind from one stage of Iniquity to the next to the next as God gives them over.

God gives them over. God gives them over. The light of nature that is to say general revelation is not sufficient to save. And nobody can come to know Christ by just looking at General revelation you need specific revelation.

Waldron noted that the message of salvation must be written must be written down. Why? So the message of the Apostles the message of Christ might be preserved so that it's there from generation to generation.

And he also noted in Hebrews 1 1 that we must have scripture because God no longer communicates with us the way he used to Hebrews 1 1 you know my own Unauthorized version would be this this is how God used to talk to us.

He used to use prophets. He's used dreams. He's still used a lot of methods. But now how does he speak to us? Through the Lord Jesus Christ and through his word. Okay, so Waldron says and and again we have to keep in mind that the 1689 parts of it are In keeping with the Reformation, so they are going to be against Rome they're going to be written against Roman Catholic theology.

So Waldron says this he says both the Catholics with their infallible Pope and church and some of the radical performer performers. They were really radical these performers. Radical reformers with their claim to present revelations from the Spirit.

Denied or downgraded the necessity of the scriptures. What does that mean? How would The infallible Pope the infallible church, how would that downgrade the importance of scriptures? Okay, they're adding to what's already been written.

Okay, they're kind of the source for interpreting it, right? How else I mean, well, go ahead Erickson, yeah, I mean it's kind of like a shortcut, right? The Bible takes so much work. In fact, there were times where the Roman Catholic Church Chained the Bible to you know, the the pulpit why.

Because they didn't want people studying it. You know if people studied it independently, they knew what was going to happen. They knew that people would come to their own interpretation and it wouldn't agree with the church.

And so they would split from the church and they were right. Why Do the hard work of Exegeting the scriptures of doing your own study if you could just go to the church or the Pope and have it all told to you and As we've talked about on many occasions ultimately what happens is the Pope and the church their opinions their teaching Supersede the Bible so you wind up with doctrines that were never that directly Contradict scripture like Mary never sinned or you know, you can pray to the Saints and all these kind of things.

But further Waldron wrote about the radical reformers with their claim to present revelations from the Spirit and He says they denied or downgraded the necessity of the scriptures and I thought that's especially on point today, right?

This is akin to what saying God told me I have a word. The Spirit is saying to me this is still going on today and They were right. Walden writes that you know the divines here that the writers of 1689 the Westminster Confession of Faith.

They were right in the sense that if you say those things if you believe those things then you are downgrading this the necessity of scriptures. What do you need the Bible for if you can if God is still speaking to you the same way he always has.

In fact, I was reading. This week somebody sent me. Sometimes I get Counseling via Facebook from people. I don't really know they just want to ask questions. And one man is at a really bad church, and he knows it's a bad church.

I don't need to go into all of his situation. But he sent me some of the writing of this pastor at their church. And I'm reading it. And it basically sounded like the male version of Jesus calling. You know, it's Jesus talking and this man writing it down and put it out as a book and it was more like, you know Dude you're just the best.

I just like hanging out with you, you know, and I'm like I'm reading this and I'm like does anybody really think this sounds like Jesus? Does this sound any and but if you read those kind of affirmations of yourself?

Then scripture is maybe not so necessary so. Anyway, all that to say that all this God told me. You know, I have a word whatever that ultimately downplays the need for scriptures. Because they can actually supersede scripture.

Okay, so the message of salvation must be preserved. The message of salvation must be preserved. Walden writes this the salvation of men depends on their being in possession of a trustworthy record of redemptive revelation.

A Trustworthy record of redemptive revelation. He says certainty about the exact content of the divine revelation was the purpose of the scriptures. Now, let's Think about that and really it plays into What he said before to about words from the Spirit and whatnot downgrading the Spirit.

How do new religions or how do cults get started? Typically speaking somebody has a revelation and what is that revelation? How does it start something like? What's being taught is wrong. What the Bible says is wrong.

Islam. Islam what happens. Allegedly, I like that word an angel comes to Muhammad and tells him what? The Old Testament and the New Testament have been Corrupted it's been changed. Let me give you the straight skinny.

Let me give you the scoop. Thus starts a religion with 1 .6 billion adherents. Mormonism starts with what an angel appearing to Joseph Smith allegedly, you know leading him to the golden plates. Then the father and the son two physical beings.

Problematic to say the least. Appear to him and tell him what that the other religions are wrong. Here's the truth. This is how. You know, it starts with a private revelation almost always and Waldron says Certainty about the exact content of the divine revelation was the purpose of the scriptures.

We need to know that we can trust the Bible. We need to know that we can rely on it. He says the Apostles wrote letters For the better publication of the truth. They taught think about it whether It was their human intent or not when they sent these letters.

Certainly they wanted the truth to go out. They wanted it to be read. Excuse me. But it also did what what was the other benefit of them writing these letters to the churches? Physical copy instead of the word right just their oral teaching.

So that these physical copies of these letters could be preserved till today. I remember I probably told this story before it doesn't matter though, you know being in the gym back in my old line of work and there was a gentleman who had converted from Lutheranism to Mormonism.

He was in the gym and he's going he knew I was an ex-mormon. He said isn't it great that we have You know a prophet today who could tell us what God's saying, you know, and it's right in line with this, right?

Isn't it great that we have new revelation kind of thing and I said what's great is that we have a sovereign God Who preserves his word he brought about the exact circumstances, you know the literally the weather the language the universal Use of Greek.

Thank you very much. You know because of Alexander the Great's how it went throughout the Roman Empire. So that you know letters written from one place to another could be read they could be preserved.

We think of even the the the dearth of humidity if You know the Apostles and Jesus had lived in New England The the Bible would have been doomed because of the humidity and everything it would just would not have worked.

It needed to be in a desert it was God did everything Sovereignly all the circumstances to preserve his word. Walden writes this he says if God's sovereign purpose is to save men via the redemptive revelation he has given and if this redemptive revelation must be inscripturated that is to say put into writing and preserve for us Must be inscripturated to be preserved in a fallen world.

Then it may also be assumed that this same sovereign redemptive purpose will ensure that these scriptures Being immediately inspired of God will also buy or be by his singular care and providence Kept pure in all ages.

What he's saying is we don't have to worry about them being adulterated or Changed people have done that. I mean there are certain Scribal errors and not to get too deep into the weeds, but It it really is wonderful that we have numerous copies.

And so we can now compare them and you know with It is interesting. I mean, we may we should do a class on this sometime just talking about the Bible and how you can look at the different copies and by Using logic reasoning and just sometimes the sheer number of things and everything else.

They look at the text and if there's a variance if there's a change in words They can basically figure out which one is the right word, you know it's sometimes it's by context and other things, but it's it's pretty interesting how they do all this and Again, none of this would be possible without the the large number of manuscripts that have been preserved Throughout the centuries so it's important that that message of salvation be preserved and now we have it and it's printed in Multiple translations seems like there's a translation coming out like Every year or so.

There's the new one. In fact, I have a copy in my office the Christian Standard Version you know because the English Standard Version isn't enough and All the versions that came before that aren't enough we have to keep coming out with new versions.

Anyway, it's being preserved. The next section of 1689 still doing dealing with scripture just talks about the the 66 books and we're gonna Not spend much time on that because it just lists them so I'm just gonna read this under the name of Holy Scripture or the Word of God written are Now contained all the books of the Old and New Testaments.

Which are these and then there's a chart of the 66 books, which we couldn't somehow. I mean I got in my Copy, but it doesn't turn out really well here and I don't need to read them. 66 books those are The ones that belong in Scripture and again, you know I'll just say a word about canonization.

That is to say which books are in Scripture. What does Rome say about how we got the Bible? How we got the 66 books? I know Barry knows this the church determined the church decided the Roman Catholic Church Decided which 66 books belonged in the Bible true or false survey said and They all had to meet a certain standard.

That's that's what the word canon means. You know, we we hear the word canon we think we're gonna load those books into a canon No Canon with one end and it means measurement or rule at each one of the books.

I Mean, there was a lot of discussion about a lot of debate over it. And if you study the history of it There was a pretty consistent Series of books. Luther didn't like James. There were a few other issues, but these 66 books Met the test they stood the test of time now.

The next part of 1689 is why I brought up that canonization thing. Because it says this the books commonly called apocrypha, which means what? It doesn't mean false, but they are false. I Like the enthusiasm.

Oh false. Hidden hidden is what it means books commonly called apocrypha not being of divine inspiration are No part of the canon or rule of Scripture and therefore are of no authority No authority to the Church of God nor to be any otherwise approved or made use of other than or use of than other human writings in other words.

You know if you want to if you want to cite the apocrypha for something knock yourself out, but you could equally cite Mark Twain. You could equally cite George Harrison and I'd rather cite George Harrison than Mark Twain probably most of the time but the apocrypha just are not Scripture and he gives a couple of reasons why.

Let's turn to Luke 24 27 and would somebody read that please Luke 24 27, okay. And here's the point the point is that Jesus is going to explain about himself. Well, nothing in the apocrypha helps explain about Jesus.

He goes to Moses and the prophets in other words the five books of Moses first five books of the Old Testament and the prophets and Interpreting them all the scriptures will never see hint, you never see the apocrypha referred to as Scripture and we'll get back to what the Bible says about the apocrypha, which is nothing, but we'll get back to that in a minute.

To talk about how the Reformers felt about the apocrypha because there's this theory out there by the Roman Catholics that the Reformers removed the apocrypha from the Bible, which is not true. The Belgic Confession says this we distinguish those sacred books The Protestant Canon and the apocryphal and then they list the books of the apocrypha.

I Always like my favorite book anybody know what my favorite title is and the apocrypha Bell the dragon wins. It's just I just go that's awesome. What a great name for a book. I Can't tell you what's in it, but it's a great name for a book.

It goes on to say all of which the church may read and take instruction from so far as they agree with the Canonical books. Listen, you could say that about anything right? You can read anything. You can read the LA Times I don't know why the LA Times the Boston Club Globe and As long as it reads or as long as it agrees with the Bible you'd go home.

Well, that's a good that's the best article I've read the Boston Globe in a long time. He goes on to say but they are far from having such power and efficacy. That we may from their testimony confirm any point of faith of the Christian religion.

Much less may they be used to detract from the authority of the other that is to say the sacred books in other words if they conflict with the Bible forget the apocrypha the apocrypha is. It may have some historical facts it may even have some truth in there, but you might as well be reading Fairy-tales.

John Calvin said this Out of the second book of Maccabees they meaning the Catholics will prove purgatory and the worship of Saints out Of Tobit's is it. I think it's Tobit's Satisfactions exorcisms and whatnot.

I love the whatnot. From Ecclesiasticus, they will borrow not a little. From whence could they better draw their dregs? I mean this sounds like Luther not Calvin. I Am NOT one of those however who would entirely disapprove notice that language.

I'm not one of those who would entirely disapprove Of the reading of those books, but in giving them an authority which they never possessed. What end was sought but just to have the use of spurious paints in coloring their errors.

It's like all they want is just some some paint to cover up the the obvious biblical errors. They have so they they refer to the apocrypha. Now this comes from Carm .org it's a Christian apologetics ministry online.

Reasons why the apocrypha does not belong in the Bible. Number one rejection by Jesus and the Apostles and this is where we're getting back to the Bible and the things that Jesus said or didn't say about the apocrypha.

First of all, it's important to note that the apocrypha is never quoted by Jesus or by the Apostles. In other words, it never appears in the New Testament never appears in the Old Testament as being approvingly quoted.

In fact Jesus implicitly that is to say he didn't explicitly didn't outright reject the apocrypha but he implicitly did so by referring to the entire canon of Scripture this way and This is from Luke 11 51.

He says from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah. Who was killed between the altar in the house of God? Yes, I tell you it will be charged against this generation Abel being the first believer to be killed and Zechariah being the last recorded martyr of the Old Testament and.

So he's saying from from first blood to last blood in the Old Testament. It shall be charged against you. He's not including the Apocrypha which was written during that 400 silent 400 years of silence of biblical silence.

They go on karma does to note that in the Hebrew canon the first book was Genesis and the last book was Chronicles so when we see from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah the way that all the Old Testament was put together by the Jews.

That would be from the beginning to the end. Basically there's. And there's nothing in between and so that the Apocrypha wouldn't qualify. The Jewish canon has all the same Information as we do, but they don't have 39 books.

They arrange them differently. So there are only 24 books. All the 12 minor prophets are all put together. They're just called the prophets. See. Therefore Jesus implicitly rejected the Apocrypha Scripture.

Secondly rejection by the Jewish community. The oracles of God were given to the Jews. That's from Romans 3 2 and the Jews rejected the Old Testament Apocrypha as part of Revelation. Jesus had many disputes with the Jews, especially Jewish leadership, but he never disputed with them regarding the extents of the canon of Scripture.

Historically Philo never courted the Apocrypha Scripture. Josephus never. Actually Josephus explicitly rejected the Apocrypha listed the Hebrew canon be 22 books. Basically no no one in the Jewish community ever acknowledged Apocrypha Scripture also rejected.

This is interesting by the Roman Catholic Church. Until they needed it I'll get there in a sec that the Catholic Church has not always accepted the Apocrypha. The Apocrypha was not officially accepted by the Catholic Church until Council Trent after the Reformation started so this is over a millennium and a half after the books were written and was a counter a response to the Reformation.

Jerome the great biblical scholar and translator of the Latin Vulgate's rejected the Apocrypha and along with origins rule of Jerusalem and Athanasius. The Apocrypha books were placed in Bibles before the Council of Trent and After but they were placed in a separate section because they were not Granted equal authority.

In fact, what is Rome? How does Rome refer to the Apocrypha? They call them Yeah, Deuterocanon. Deuterocanonical. In other words, they say here are the canonical books. And here are the secondary, you know canon so they don't even really hold them to be at the same level.

Yeah, do they? That's bad, which leads us right into this next section because the Apocrypha contains false teaching. I mean, we would never say, you know, the Bible has false teaching in it. It may cite false teachers.

It may quote, you know erroneous things or but it makes it clear that It's not right if it does it, you know, you know what I'm saying? Makes it clear that it's citing somebody who should not be followed.

Some of the false teachings the command to use magic. How about this one forgiveness of sins by almsgivings. Which sounds a lot like Indulgences or even this one offering the same kind of line of thinking offering of money for the sins of the dead.

And finally so that was number four of the Apocrypha contains false teachings. Number five the Apocrypha is not prophetic if Jesus said You know all of Scripture speaks of me right and Then the Apocrypha doesn't speak of Jesus.

Then what would we conclude? That if the Lord knows what he's talking about and he says that all of Scripture speaks of me and the Apocrypha doesn't. The Apocrypha is therefore not scripture. In fact karm says here the Apocryphal books do not share many of the characteristics of the canonical books.

They are not prophetic. There is no supernatural confirmation of any of the Apocryphal works. There is no predictive prophecy there is no new messianic truth revealed. In other words, I don't speak of Jesus.

They are not cited as authoritative by any prophetic book written after them and they even acknowledge In their own writings in the Apocrypha that there were no prophets in Israel at their time. So if there were no prophets then who wrote them?

Problematic. Okay, so enough about the Apocrypha. Well, let's say you know, you can read it, but it's absolutely useless. Next part of the 1689 dealing with Scripture the authority of Holy Scripture for which it ought to be believed dependeth not Upon the testimony of any man or church, but holy upon God who is truth itself.

The author thereof and therefore is to be received because it is the Word of God now. That's another slap at Roman Catholicism, right? Because it says dependeth not upon the testimony of any man or church the Roman Catholic Church says.

You know without us you wouldn't have the Bible. You ever been in a in a discussion with a Roman Catholic apologist and they say Well, you know what without us you wouldn't even have the Bible. If you haven't heard that before you haven't engaged with these people because they will say that Robert yes, they literally mean that.

And I think they would they would point maybe to the council which one of the councils. They would point to a church council whether it was nice here or one at one of them and say well this is when the canon of Scripture was affirmed and finalized, but if you actually study the The canon, you know the history of the canon it was pretty much set by about 180 something like that.

So I think that's when I'm trying to think of a guy's name. He wrote down a list of the books and it was pretty consistent after that. Yeah. Yeah, he well he was part of it. He was a heretic, but I think he did write down the the right books.

Okay, thank you doctor good question. But you know as I'm reading it not only do I think about Rome, you know, the church isn't Dependent the church doesn't determine the canon of Scripture. In fact, we would say that the church Receives or recognizes what God has done what God has provided, you know, it was God who?

Sovereignly orchestrated the canon of Scripture, but it also reminds me of you know when you when you have the the fine folks knocking at your door representing those cults. Especially Mormonism they want you to read the Book of Mormon and where do they say, you know if you read it and pray about it and you get a a bit of heartburn later a burning in your bosom, then you know that it's Scripture and That's that's the you know Subjective test they want to put it to but the 1689 says it doesn't depend on the testimony of any man or any church.

But holy upon God who is truth itself. When you hear that you think you know Sanctify them in truth. Thy word is truth. Yeah, and there's a lot of sorry. There's a lot of Comparative study that's done, you know to try to narrow Narrow down the the variances and whatnot, but I mean we're getting into some serious weeds here.

What we need to know is that God has preserved his word against many. You know, I I mean just sometimes simple scribal errors, you know, how do you copy the Bible? Well, there are several ways you could do it.

One is you're just looking at a copy and writing it down. Well after a while you could get tired you can make an Spelling mistake a lot of things could happen. I mean look at your typing sometimes I'll get to you in a second Andrew.

The other thing that would happen is if it was being orally dictated by somebody and multiple scribes were writing it down. Well, he could misread it somebody could mishear it and there could be you know errors along those lines.

Andrew. Yeah, James White is definitely very good and he did do That that was a teleconference thing wasn't did he? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. That's right. Yeah, my foggy memory is starting to lift a little bit.

Yeah, I remember that. Wow. Okay, yeah, he's pretty good. Yeah there, you know like somebody. He debates different people and I'm like dude as soon as he as soon as he said Steve. Would you like to debate about something?

I just go and no, you know. What do you want me to write publicly? You know, I I confess I you know, I surrender, you know. No, just the answer is no. Let's talk briefly about The idea of being God breathed that God is the author.

Let's look at 2nd Timothy 3 16 and 17 very familiar Verses we have to understand that we do not have The autographs. So which is to say the original copies? So when Textual criticism is done when they're comparing these different copies.

The goal is to get as close to the original copies as possible and I think you know, I I'm certain that they've done a very excellent job of doing that so that we have what we have is thoroughly reliable.

2nd Timothy 3 16 and 17 was somebody read that place. Okay, and really the word the Greek word I'm looking at is the and Thanos to us and Where it says breathed out, you know breathed out by God. That's the idea and you know, it's so much better to see breathed out by God then.

Inspired, you know because people talk about that painting inspired me that movie inspired me that song inspired me. Well, that's not the idea. This is you know God breathing out the Word of God as it were and then using human instruments using human beings to capture through their personality and their education and You know their writing ability exactly what he wanted to be written.

So that's how we get Scripture and that's why it's reliable because it is inspired by the Holy Spirit we Talk about and I think the 1689 does too about verbal Plenary inspiration verbal verbal plenary inspiration which Waldron notes is The teaching that the words of the Bible the very words of the Bible all the words of the Bible Are the products of a direct?

Supernatural influence of the Spirit on the men who were his organs or instruments it is completely inerrant without error no mistakes. And that is talking about the original Copies no mistakes whatsoever.

We believe that every word is inspired by God. Then he goes on to talk about how scripture is self-attesting. When you say, you know if I say If I testify, you know, this is this is gonna sound like I'm speaking from the Bible.

If I if I testify of myself, you know, so I'd say well, you're just bragging. Okay. When the Word of God talks about itself It's self-attesting. It's testifying to its own veracity. Waldron says this he says the Bible never adversely Criticizes itself.

In fact, it affirms itself. He Says the Bible nowhere asserts of another statement in the Bible that is in error like Peter never says You know what Paul wrote in? Whatever book I don't believe that you know, he was off now.

It does talk about you know, when Paul goes and confronts Peter and that kind of thing about his behavior about his even some of his Teaching but his teaching wasn't in scripture. It was just when he went along with the Judaizers.

So scripture attests itself. BB Warfield said this. The effort to explain away the Bible's witness to its plenary inspiration that is to say that it's fully inspired reminds me of a man standing safely in his laboratory and elaborately expounding possibly with the aid of diagrams and mathematical formula, although today it would be some kind of computer generated video how every stone in an avalanche has a defined pathway and May easily be dodged by one of some presence of mind in other words kind of like Pac-man or kind of like, you know a video game that if you know the pattern you can just kind of dodge and sidestep.

I'm not very nimble. So I'm not going to try that very long he says. You know. This is the effort to explain away the Bible's witness. He says, you know, it's kind of some people want to treat it like that that you can dodge it he says we may fancy such an elaborate triflers triumph as he would analyze the avalanche into its constituent stones and demonstrate Stone after stone that its pathway is definite limited and may easily be avoided.

But Avalanches, unfortunately do not come upon us stone by stone one at a time Courteously leaving us opportunity to withdraw from the pathway of destruction. Just so we may explain away a text or two Which teach plenary inspiration to our own closest or closet satisfaction Dealing with them without reference to its relation to the others.

But these texts of ours again, unfortunately do not come upon us in this artificial isolation. Neither are they few in number? There are scores hundreds of them and they come bursting upon us in one solid mass.

He concludes explain them away. We should have to explain away the whole New Testament's scripture. Hangs together it works together. It can't be separated out teased out and so that you can explain away the inspiration of scripture.

Any questions could we really have to close any thoughts or questions? Yeah, Anthony, they claim people infallibility when he's speaking, you know ex cathedra and it's because He's supposed to be Christ's vicar that is to say his representative his Direct pipeline more or less on earth.

So when he exercises which he doesn't do very often when he sits ex cathedra I mean if he if he's just speaking out on the stump, he he they would say well he can make mistakes but if he's sitting. Or if he's teaching in the chair is what ex cathedra means if he's if he's doing that, you know then he's sitting in the chair of Christ in the place of Christ and he speaks inherently they would climb so.

You know a lot of the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church that's in clear contradiction with scripture comes from such Teachings. Yeah, was there another thought or question over here? Okay. Yeah. Yeah, go ahead.

Mm-hmm 18. Yeah, yeah, they well they've forgotten about our good number of things, I mean it's amazing that You know Peter Peter was the first Pope but apparently most people didn't know it including, you know, Paul Paul and others.

Yeah, Peter didn't know it either. You know, I Peter the Pope I mean that would have been a handy thing to have let everybody know. Yeah, so good point. All right, let's close in prayer father. Thank you for your word, thank you for your preservation of it.

Thank you that you would draw Millions To yourself through your written word and how you've even granted it to us Today and just a proliferation of copies and different translations and all these different tools that are available to us online and In print form and just various audio Different ways that we can and father what a what a blessing what a privilege Make us better students of your word that we might Love you all the more and that we might be better equipped To share the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ and it's in his name.

We pray. Amen.