So if you would, take your Bibles and open to our first passage of Deuteronomy 6. Deuteronomy 6, brothers and sisters, and before I read, let's pray. Now, blessed God, we come to You in the humility that is only from Christ, Lord, where we have been humbled as sinners, where we've been brought into the family of God as sinners in need of confessing our sins and believing and trusting in Christ the Father. We come, Lord, with no pretense. We come with nothing in our hands. Lord, we have nothing to offer, but we come to you as your children. Lord, we beg for light. Lord, we continue to beg that you would give us the grace of knowledge and understanding, that you would continue to fortify our hearts with truth. Fill our minds with confidence and conviction. Lord, make our paths straight, and Lord, teach us how to live as solid Christians in this world that's upside down in many ways. We love you, oh Lord, and we pray that what we learn here today would only foster a greater love for you and love for all that you have and all that you love. We pray this in Christ's name, amen. I want to begin reading at Deuteronomy chapter 6 and verse 3. Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your might. These words which I am commanding you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontlets on your forehead. And you shall write them on your doorpost and on your house and on your gates. Now let's go to Jeremiah chapter 6 verse 16. One verse out of Jeremiah chapter 6. Again, the word of the Lord. And thus says the Lord, stand by the ways and see and ask for the old paths, or the ancient paths. For the way, for where the for where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls. Now let's go to our third passage. It's found in Hebrews. Hebrews chapter 11, verses 1 through 3. Again, the Word of the Lord. Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for. The conviction of things not seen, for by it the men of old gained approval. By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the Word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible. And thus ends the reading of God's Word. Now brothers and sisters, I spoke of an upside-down culture, and a culture that is seeking to throw away the old ways, or throw away the foundations, or throw away those things that has established what we would call justice, righteousness, those principles by which we all applaud and enjoy. There's not a person on this earth that doesn't want justice, when justice favors them. There's not a person on earth that doesn't want to be treated righteously. There's a reason that there is a rule called the Golden Rule, and that is to treat one's neighbor as you would have yourself be treated. Now we need to recognize that as this culture continues to rail and fight and become more militant against God, it will become more militant against righteousness and justice, against those things that we hope for, long for, and applaud, yet because in atheism it cannot have it God's way. It cannot have it God's way. Now, I would also mention to you that it's not just atheism that's the culprit, but it's those mixed views of faith that also seems to plague the church. And that is men who acknowledge God, but at the same time deny God. That's a practical atheism. For example, you may hear a statesman or a statesperson to be more politically correct, that is a person that would stand up and say, well I'm a Christian, but I do not allow my faith to sway my policy. Now that's an action of practical atheism. It's a contradiction. It's what the Puritan fathers called or our Reformed fathers called hypocrisy. Hypocrisy. To say that something is true and real and is a reality and to turn right around and deny it in another sphere is hypocrisy. If it's true here, it's true there. Or it's not true at all. You can't have it both ways. And of course we see this played out in those three arenas of the family, church, and state. Do we not? Why do we see the fragmentation and failure we see going on around us? Is it because the church has failed? Is it because the truth has failed? Is it because the truth that we hold to, that we confess, particularly the Reformed faith, the apostolic faith that's been handed down, what we would call the Reformed faith, being that same thing, has it failed us? Should we become another kind of church? Is it something that's more useful for today? Brothers and sisters, it's like I read to you in Jeremiah, same thing was going on there, and what did the prophet do? He was calling the people, not to a new religion, but to back to the old religion. The problem isn't the failure of the truth. The problem is people have left the truth. The church has failed in maintaining, keeping, preserving, propagating, and honoring those timeless truths that have been handed down for centuries now. It has left those and they've become more pragmatic. I'm gonna use the R word, relevant, right? Relevant. Brothers and sisters, if it's God's truth, when is God never relevant? When is what God says out of date, out of time? When is anything God does, I mean, is he not infinite and timeless in and of himself? See, time doesn't exist within God. And the part of the wisdom you find in the Westminster Confession of Faith as one of several Reformed confessions is that they did not choose to highlight contemporary issues and harp on them. They just laid out doctrine. Why did they do that? Because they understood the problem with the culture and the communities was belief and convictions and the truth that they were holding to or not holding to. They didn't need to address all of the fire going on everywhere. They just said, listen, here's a truth that we must be convinced of. It's out of the word of God. And if we hold to this truth and we see it in the light of God's word, guess what? We won't have this problem. See, they went to the root. They went to the root. And that's what we're attempting to do here in our study of the Apostles' Creed. We want to go back and revisit this old path, and we want to benefit from it by what? Asking ourselves, where do I stand in my belief in God? That's not a problem, is it? We should never be afraid to question ourselves. We should not be afraid to challenge our faith. We shouldn't be afraid to find out where we are in our walk with God. And we may find out we have no walk with God, or we may find out, you know what? I've kind of strayed to the right or to the left, and I need to come back. So that's the purpose, it's not certainly, this is not solely for academic reasons. This is not so that we can beat our chest and go out and speak to other brothers and sisters and say to them, oh, do you know the Apostles' Creed? And whip them up real good, time down and theologically and just beat them up because you know something that they don't. That's not the purpose. And brothers and sisters, if God's truth can't humble us, if there's one sin Reformed Christians are guilty of, it's pride. If there is one sin that has plagued the Reformed church, it's pride. And I pray we wouldn't be guilty of that. I pray that what we listen to would be personalized. Would you do that for me? Would you do it for yourself? Because brothers and sisters, if you don't love yourself in the sense, in the very godly sense of the word, that I would love myself so that I might be like God, that I might humble myself and learn from my God, I don't know there's any hope for you. And I mean that in the most sincere way. If you're not willing to look at yourself, there's probably no way There's no way you're gonna benefit from this morning. Well, let's begin addressing what this creed will do. It takes a rootless people and it gives them stability. Rootlessness. Now that's an idea that we got out of the parables, right? The parable of the rocky soil. What kind of person is Mr. Unstable, right? That's Mr. Convenient. Now I'm not going to go into that sermon, but what's the issue there? The issue is he's not rooted. He's all over the place. He's whatever religion is. He's whatever it needs to be. You know, if I need a social gospel, then I will believe in the social gospel. If times become more conservative, I'll be a conservative. But he's not a Christian. He's rootless. He's here and there and he's willing to be anywhere, but he's not a Christian. When we address and deal with the heart, we must deal with rootedness, conviction, confidence. Those words actually have to do with being stable. You can't be confident in any way in life if you're not a stable person. If you're not stable and established in the things you believe. We want to go from rootlessness to rooted. We want to go from wavering and fruitless to bearing fruit, being fixed, established, firm. And that's where confidence comes from. That's where these convictions come into play. Now when we go dealing with the Apostles' Creed, I don't want you to get caught up in this idea or challenged in any way that, wait a minute, you believe that the Apostles actually wrote a creed. Now I want to address that. because you may not know. It's not called the Apostles' Creed. In fact, let's do this. If you will, take your hymnals and turn to Roman numeral 12 in your hymnal. Turn to Roman numeral 12, the very first few pages, not far into your hymnal there. And you're going to see the Apostles' Creed. We're going to read it together. Okay? That way you'll have your eyes and ears both fixated upon what we're going to be talking about. Once you have it open, everybody look up and I'll know when to start reading. Alright, let's read together. I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried. He descended into hell. The third day he arose again from the dead. He ascended into heaven and sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty. From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead. I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Holy Catholic Church, communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, life everlasting. Amen. Now let me remind you if you have forgotten, that statement that says I believe in the Holy Catholic Church does not mean in the Roman Catholic Church. The word Catholic means universal. That's all it means. That's the ordinary definition of the word. It means I believe in the body of Christ in the earth. I believe in the church, that universal bride of Christ. The apostles did not pin this creed. It doesn't come particularly from their hands. but it does come from their writings. Now the creed is also called a symbol, a symbol. Now that's what some called it. In other tongues, the English, we called it the Apostles' Creed. In other language, it was called a symbolism. And here's what that word means. That word means a badge, a badge. And you know what a badge is. Firefighters wear badges. distinguishing themselves as firefighters. Policemen wear badges distinguishing them as policemen and not firefighters. Military, it comes from this military mindset that you wear insignia and the insignia notifies everyone what company and regiment you belong to. Now you get the picture, don't you? as a badge or a symbol, the Apostles' Creed became that confession of truth that separated Christians out of the world. Notice what William Perkins says here. He says that this creed was so that the Christian man may be distinguished and known from all of the non-believing Jews. the Muslims, the atheists, and all false professors for this cause, it is called a badge. So you see that. That is, it's important that God's people be distinguished. Now we know that from the scriptures themselves. We couldn't be called back to the old ways or the old paths unless there's a standard. It would be absurd, it would be illogical, it wouldn't even be reasonable to have a call to come back to something that we don't know what that is. To come back to the old paths is to come back to a standard, a body, a system of revealed truth that was once held and confessed and professed to be held. That's what this creed does. It acts as a symbol, an emblem of the Christian life and faith, and it has done this for centuries. Now, what are some of the reasons that we know that the apostles did not pen this creed? Well, first of all, because of the evolution of the document itself. The document has evolved over the centuries. For example, the statement, he descended into hell. And the statement, the phrase, the Catholic Church were not in the original Apostles' Creed, the copies we have. These things were added later to the Creed in order to strengthen it or to clarify it in some way or another. So we know the Apostles didn't do that because they were long dead at that point. Secondly, we know that it's not from the hands of the apostles because the creed itself is not ever called Scripture. The creed itself is not Scripture. It's not part of the books of the Bible, though it contains the matters and doctrines thereof. It's not called sacred scripture. So it's not of the apostles' hand in that way. And yet, notice what William Perkins says. He says, the apostles had a summary collection of points of the Christian religion which they taught, and delivered to others to teach. That is, they had a system of doctrine they were teaching. And they delivered a whole system of doctrine over to other ministers that they laid hands to to propagate the Christian church and Christian truth. William Perkins points out, he says, this teaching of the apostles always, always consisted of two heads. It's vital that you know these two. The first head is faith. What will you believe? Can you guess the second one? Duty. What I believe and what I must do. We quote the scripture out of Malachi 6, it says, and God has shown you, oh man, what is good for you. What to believe and what God requires of you. Throughout the apostolic days and even in our Reformed heritage and tradition, all things have been summed up in these two heads. Now, William Perkins sums up duty in this word, love. Love. Why do you think he calls duty love? Can you think of a passage of scripture where Jesus says, if you love me, you will say it. Obey me. So William Perkins says that these two heads stand at the forefront of apostolic teaching. What I must believe and how I love. How I love God by obeying Him. How I love my brothers and sisters by serving them. That's what he says. He says, under these two heads, faith and love, as may appear by Paul's exhortation to Timothy, wishing him to keep the pattern of wholesome words, which he had heard from him in faith and love, which is in Christ Jesus. 2 Timothy chapter three, verse 15. Now what value does this creed have as a confession of faith? What value? That is, why should we even spend time on it? Now, we could say, well, first of all, because we think it correlates with scripture, which makes it sound that it consists through the teachings of the word of God, and that's a reason to do it, but that's not the value of it. That is, if I were to memorize this confession, if I were to spend time and memorize it and then meditate on it and begin to digest its parts and points, which is the intention of it, what value does it hold for me? Let me give you two of them, two of them. First of all, as William Perkins points out, it's an aid to the mind. When things are condensed down and become small, you know, when you take large portions and systems of truth and you deduce them down to statements of, small statements of faith, it's an aid to the mind. You know why? The memory's fragile. The fall has created memory problems. We can be in a conversation and we don't hear what we hear, much less remember what we heard, right? But when we have things presented to us in a condensed format, things that are small, things that are digestible, things that are easy to think about, statements and phrases, it becomes an aid to the mind. It helps us in our fallenness. It helps our memory to be able to attach ourselves to small combination of truths. You know, for example, we know this. We know this in society and culture. How do you think we got the telephone number combination we got? You know, the three digits, three, three digits, and then the fourth digit. You know why it's like that? because they had studied the mind and they put all of these practical tests out there and they found out that this combination people remembered. For some reason or another, this was a combination people could remember, so therefore that became the combination of our phone numbers. Now we don't remember them today, you know why? You know why? Because we only have names. and look at what we're doing to ourselves. We don't even know phone numbers anymore. We're not exercising our memory because we're so visual. Icons, you know, to click something is an icon. We are iconic in the things we do. We wanna watch a video, we wanna hit the icon, but we don't think through things. We don't exercise our mind. I don't even know my wife's cell phone number. Sadly enough, if I were to lose my phone, I would be like one of those reality shows lost and doomed. I couldn't call my children, and I certainly couldn't call, well, my wife wouldn't pick up the phone anyway. I would be lost. Why? Because I don't know their numbers. So it becomes this confession. If you notice how the confession lays itself out in these, I believe in God the Father Almighty, that's number one. Maker of heaven and earth, that's number two. It's an aid to the mind. Second thing that is of value in knowing this creed is its ability to bring discernment to the learner. That is, if we study a body of truth, something that is biblical and correlates to scripture, and doesn't violate or offend scripture at any point, if we know these things, guess what? We're going to become better discerners and judges of what is false. How does the FBI agent study to find counterfeit money? They don't study counterfeit money. They study real money. And they become so familiar with real currency, the paper money, they handle it so often and so long, and for long periods of time, they study it, they digest it, that when they pick up something that's false, they see it. And that's why it's important for us to embrace and digest and devour something like the Apostles' Creed, because it will serve not only our memories, but it will also aid us in exercising discretion. Did I say that word? Because we're not supposed to discriminate today, right? You better discriminate. You better not tolerate everything and all things. Because if you do, you're going to be rootless. There is a form of toleration that we have as Christians that we should exercise. And hey, you're wrong if you don't. But we are to be a people of discernment, of discretion. We must learn to biblically discriminate. Listen to me. And when we do, stand by it. Stand by it. We need to be able to judge what's false. We need to be able to combat error. Error is always trying to make its way into the church, into your home, into the minds and hearts of people. How does the error come into the church? Through people. Through ministers, through congregates who come with ideas and thoughts and philosophies and understandings that are not grounded in scripture whatsoever. That's how they come into the church. Notice, if you will, turn in your Bibles to 1 Timothy. How important is this? We're not going to get far into the lesson this morning, but I think at least I'm laying a pretty good foundation, I hope, for us to proceed as we learn about the Creed. But look at 1 Timothy 1. Verse 18 and 19 says, This command I entrust to you, Timothy my son, in accordance with the prophecies previously made concerning you, about and that by them you fight the good fight. keeping faith and a good conscience, which some have rejected and suffered shipwreck in regard to their faith. Among these are Hymenaeus and Alexander, not all of them, but among them, whom I have handed over to Satan, so that they may be taught not to blaspheme." Notice what, this is the idea that Paul is conveying to Timothy. He says, when he says about keeping the faith, he's not talking about personal He's not talking about your personal faith. He's talking about the faith in the whole system of doctrine. That is called the faith in this text. The faith, keeping the faith. Keeping the sound words, the system, the truth, the doctrines that have come down from the minds from Christ to the apostles and now to Timothy. And he says, keep these things. guard them, protect them, watch over them, preach them, teach them in good times and bad times, but keep them. He says, some have not kept them. That's what he means. He says, have a good conscience in this. He says, some have rejected this system of truth, this system of doctrine and suffered shipwreck of what? What does they suffer shipwreck of? Their faith. Now that's the personal aspect of it. That's the personal thing. He says, they've rejected the system of truth, this system of faith, that is, out of which faith ought to latch on to and hold to. And he says, guess what? By rejecting these truths revealed by God through His ordained means, they have accepted something else something else out of the world, out of the pit of hell itself. Paul goes on, talks about the doctrine of demons, and guess what? They've accepted these things, and what's the result? What's the result of Hymenaeus and Philetus rejecting this body of truth that's been handed down to the saints? Shipwreck of faith, to abandon the faith. For example, I could leave on this principle right here, and you have plenty to think about. Well, you could take the social gospel, you can take any number of expressions that men love to promote. Ask yourself this, does it enhance my love for Christ? Does it enhance my awareness of the Word of God? Does it drive me to the Word of God? Listen, if you love Christ, and I'm assuming all of you do, I don't think that's an unfair assumption. But you cannot love Christ if you don't love the Word of Christ. You cannot love the Word of God made flesh and not love the written Word of God. You can't do it. And these things that men latch on to, men and women, latch on to, these movements, these episodes of history, upheavals, if you will. These emotional outbursts that seem to plague human society wherever they are. Brothers and sisters, you better ask yourself, how does it drive me to the Word of God? How does it drive me to Christ? How does it fortify my faith? Because whatever it was that Hymenaeus and Philetus held to, they rejected the system of doctrine handed down by the apostles. And what they did cling to destroyed their faith. It destroyed them. and they ended up being disciplined out of the church. That's what we're talking about here. That's how important doctrine and conviction is. Now, listen to William Perkins. Now the reason why both in the Old and New Testaments the doctrine of religion is abridged Is that for the understanding of the simple? Now, I don't know about y'all, but I would consider myself simple. I like things abridged. Make it easy for me to understand it. And also their memories, he's supporting what I've already said, might be hereby helped and they better be enabled to judge the truth and to discern from falsehood. Now we're told today that it's improper to judge anything, to make distinctions. We're told today that we should tolerate everything and that to make these distinctions and to make these categorically discernments or even categories is a bad and sinful thing because that is the religion of the world in our day, in our time. Now lastly, I think this morning I'll This will be my last point. I want to deal with the authority of the creed itself because a lot of people have a problem with creeds and confessions. And what these people would say, an argument that they would use is, well, that's not scripture. And pastor, you just said it wasn't scripture. You just said the apostles didn't write it. Therefore, I don't have to believe it. That sounds legit. It sounds convenient. I mean, it sounds like that's something we should look at. And I think it is. But we're talking about what? We're talking about authority. What's legitimate authority? Who has the authority and what has the authority to bind your conscience and shape your convictions? Now, let's first of all, again, remind ourselves that we live in a day where Any personal treatment of anything is acceptable. That is, you, as an individual, have the right, all right, in quotes, air quotes, whatever they're called, to believe whatever you want to believe and still call yourself a Christian. Have you heard that before? Well, I'm a Christian, and then you may say, well, oh, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and He was crucified, and He was buried. Oh, I don't believe that. I mean, I just believe, I'm a Christian, I'm going to heaven. I believe in love and peace. I don't need all this dying and blood and eating the body and drinking the blood. I don't need all that, but I'm a Christian. See, we live in a day where that's become very acceptable. And it's impossible to discriminate against that person if you don't have a standard anywhere, right? Well, William Perkins answers this problem, he answers this question, he says the point of the Creed is to be summed up in two points, that is, what I believe about God and what I believe about the Church. And he goes on and he talks about what has a binding nature upon the church. And I want you to listen to these two categories he lays out. He says there are two types of material handed by the church, handled by the church. There are those things that are divine, and those things that are ecclesiastical. Okay? And then he even has another category called particular, and that's where maybe a pastor may sit down and write a catechism for the church. That's a more personal, particular confession, how a pastor may lead the church in understanding a particular doctrine. So we have these kinds of writings that are in the church. He said divine are the books of the Old and New Testament, penned by either the prophets or the apostles, and they are the... And these are not only the pure word of God, but also the scriptures of God, because not only the matter of them, but the whole disposition of them, the style, the phrase, all sit down immediate, the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, the authority in which these books is divine, is absolute and sovereign. They are of sufficient credit in and by themselves, needing not the testimony of Any creature, remember brother what we read in the confession, that the testimony of the scriptures dependeth not upon any man or church, but wholly upon the Word of God itself. This Word of God is self-authenticating in its authority. We believe the Word of God not because Pastor Stanfield says believe it, not because your mama says believe it, not because your daddy says believe it. We believe the Word of God because the Word of God says to believe it. That's what he's saying here, and he wrote before the Westminster Confession Assembly. You can see where these men, how truth continues to be conveyed and handed down in succession. We don't abandon good men and good ideas, brilliant minds. We don't abandon them. We want to capitalize on them and and continue them. Then he goes on and he's talking about, I think you get the idea about the divine nature, but now these ecclesiastical writings are these ordinary writings of the church. These church writings are those things which consent. They give consent to what? The scriptures. They are called the word of truth. Why are they called true? They are called true because they consent in great degree to the truth of God's Word. It's called truth. And as far as their matter and substance in consenting with the Word of God, they cannot be called Scripture. That's why we don't call the Apostles Creed Scripture. It's Creed. because of the style and phrase of them set down according to the pleasure of man. And therefore they are in such sort the word of God that they also are the word of man. That is, yes, where they are true, yes, that is the truth of the word of God, but where it is also, man's hand penned it and expressed it in the language of the day or in the concepts of the day that make it useful for everyone. And their authority in defining of truth and falsehood in matters of religion is not sovereign, but subordinate to the former. And it doth not stand in the authority and pleasure on men and councils, but in the consent in which they give or which they derive from Scripture. I want to stop there and follow up on that. What's binding upon us as Christians? Is the creed binding upon us? Not in the sense that it's the writing of a man, or a group of men, or a council of men, no. But as it teaches the truth of God's word in scripture, guess what? It's binding. As it consents. That is, brothers and sisters, you read this, you say, I don't, I'm about Jesus. No creed but Christ. I heard that a lot growing up. No creed but Christ. I don't need a creed, I've got this Bible. Brothers and sisters, let me tell you something. Do you even know what's in this big old book? Look how easy this is. And yet, if we were to take and digest each one of these articles, look how much scripture we're gonna have to wade through. You see how abbreviated this Apostle's Creed is? I believe in God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord. Think about that and what that means. I'm not gonna go any further this morning. I just wanna end with a quote and then make a summary point. William Perkins says this, he said, the Apostles' Creed is received as a rule of faith among all churches. To try doctrines and interpretations of scripture, not because it is the rule itself. Now listen to me. Not because, he says, it is the rule itself. For that belongs to the Scripture alone. But because it borrows its authority from Scripture and agrees with it. And this honor no other writings of men can have. Now let me say this. Why is the Apostles Creed, I would say, more binding than this? This book, is called a particular confession. This creed is believed upon by all Christian churches everywhere. All Christian churches everywhere throughout the centuries have given consent that this is biblical. This is the teaching of scripture. This is the teaching of the apostles. This is a particular confession by denominations This is universally embraced by the Christian church, which gives it an authority that this doesn't have. Because Christian men can say, well, I don't believe that Presbyterian form of government is biblical. Does that make them not a Christian? No. Presbyterianism isn't particular to Christianity. So it's not distinctive of Christianity. Though we believe a wise application, something that aids and makes better men who hold and subscribe to these things. But you see the catholicity of this versus this? Now I'm trying to teach you how things in degree relate to one another. The Apostles Creed brothers and sisters stand as the queen of confessions and creeds. and you should know it. And as we get into it, you're gonna see the gospel. You're gonna see the beauty and the nature of the triune God and his son, Jesus Christ, whom he sent into the world to die for sinners. And by his blood, establish a people for God's glory called the church. Now, we are all members of the visible church. But brothers and sisters, I want to ask you a question this morning. Are you a member of the invisible church? Are you a member of the invisible church through faith in God's Son, Jesus Christ? Has the Holy Spirit come into your life and shown you that this is the Word of God and that this teaches you about Jesus Christ and that you are prepared to embrace all of who Christ is? You want all of Christ. You don't want to leave anything out. You don't want to leave nothing behind. Give me all of Christ, Lord. I want to see it all and give me the strength to believe it all. Lord, help me because I'm a weak person. My sin afflicts me. My heart just challenges me every day. But Lord, keep me and hang on to me and cause me to walk in these old paths, not straying to the right or to the left. Don't let me fear the sages of the day, the philosophers of the day, the movements of the day. Don't let me fear those who would just deny me, reject me, and throw me away because I believe in the unadulterated teaching of Scripture and in the unashamedly resurrected Christ. Don't do that. Hang on to me. Jesus said, if you deny me, I'm gonna ask you something this morning. Will you confess Christ? Will you keep confessing Christ? Because some men start professing Christ, but they don't keep on confessing. They don't. They fall away. They fall away. I pray that not be the case here. Let's pray.