And convinced of that, we then moved on in the second chapter to give you my thesis of what I thought it was. And so you might say that everything is now established and very well, and move on, but there's a problem. There's a problem with the thesis. And so that's the first heading. Today, the problem with the thesis And that's why we move into a third section, third chapter, the image of God in Genesis, because the problem has to do with Genesis. So let me remind you of the argument and the thesis that I am presenting. For the image of God, my thesis is the image of God is the ruler for God. And my argument has been major premise, the ruler of the world is God. Minor premise, man was made to be the ruler of the world. Conclusion, therefore, man is the image of God. As you have Genesis 1 out in front of you, the reason for that is that's where the argument comes from. The major premise is derived from the first 25 verses. That if you read those 25 verses, you read of many things, but one main thing becomes clear is the Lord of the world is God. He rules over everything. He arranges it however you would like it. Thankfully, he likes it good. And then if you read verses 26 to the end of the chapter, you basically are confronted with this teaching that he makes man to be the substitute ruler of the world, and that was the minor apprentice. So you stack those two together and you get the argument that the ruler of the world God, man, was made to be the ruler of the world. Therefore, man is the image of God. Therefore, I've written it in italics, and by speech I accent it when I say it in order to stress the reason that it is concluded that man is the image of God. Man is the image of God because he is the Lord of the world, just like God. I'm saying that is the parallel between them that is emphasized in Genesis as being the image. So, words that could be synonymous with this that you would use to try to explain it could be words like rule, lordship, supremacy, sovereignty, dominion, kingship. Man is presented as prophet, priest, king, governor, emperor, lord, ruler, supreme, dynastarian in Genesis chapter 1. So man is like God in other ways, of course. That we said lordship is the unique attribute that God shares with man and with no other creature but man. Hence, the claim it is the image. So that was argument. That was a thesis. Furthermore, since the argument is valid and the premises are true, the conclusion must be regarded as established. And so like I said, you might say, well, very well then. The end. However, there is a problem. And that one remaining problem, which an objector and interlocutor might bring up is this. It has to do with the other 14 possibilities that I set aside. You remember those? You went through those? Here's the problem. You could just as easily, they could just as easily substitute any one of those other 14 possibilities into the very same argument form that I have used to prove this thesis, and it would end up proving one of those other theses to be correct. But I've already said they cannot be correct. But if they cannot be correct, and they use the very same argument form that I used, then my argument cannot be correct either. So if an argument form is valid in any case, It's valid in every case. So if they can't use it, nor can I. But if they can use it, it proves a totally different thesis. And so it cannot establish, if I want to say it cannot establish any one of those as being correct, then it cannot establish lordship as being correct either. That's the problem. Now, I don't know how many people will bring that up. This is totally anticipatory. But I do anticipate some people bringing up something like this when they read the book. And so it's in there. And as I thought of it, as it came to my mind, it's a good exercise, right? to try to disconfirm the thesis. Is there any way I can prove it's false and to just go at it and to imagine what your interlocutor would say? And so that's what I've done here. And I think I've picked up on enough to know that some people will wage this objection. I just want to first say I think it's a perceptive point. It really is. And just to feel the force of it, I want you to imagine with me plugging in some of these other possibilities into the very same argument form. So, I use a few of the examples of the list of 14 here. I won't go through the whole list, but let's think of the possibility of reason being the image of God. And that's in the Western tradition. That's a pretty big one. That's why we have homo sapien, man, the wise, kind of comes from the platonic Greek side of things. And people will often say, well, that's what distinguishes man and so forth. So, this is how it would look. You could argue that the ability to reason is possessed by God. Minor apprentice, man possesses the ability to reason. Conclusion, therefore, man is the image of God. Or take the possibility of self-consciousness being the image. Here's how it would look. Self-consciousness is a characteristic of God. Man has the characteristic of self-consciousness. Therefore, man is the image of God. The reason I won't keep going through the whole list is you can see, it's enough for you to see, that we could keep going, substituting every one of those until we exhausted the whole entire list so we could think of man's ability to act morally, possess free will, possess a soul or spirit to think philosophically, to be creative, any of those 14. And what it would over and over demonstrate is that this argument form alone, which I have chosen to use, is insufficient to prove my thesis. For if it were a reliable argument, then you could just find any parallel between man and God that you fancy, plug it into the argument, voila, man is the image of God because of this. But then you wouldn't end up with the image. We'd be right back to square one with 14 or 15 possibilities and we all go each our own way based on our information and it remains a matter So clearly, I think this criticism is good, and something more must be proved if I'm to demonstrate the thesis. So now the question becomes, what is it? So the second heading here is, what more must be proved? And the objector would probably say something like this. Well, Jeffrey, what you have shown is that Genesis chapter 1 does set before us this particular parallel of lordship between God and man. However, what you have not shown is the reason it sets this particular parallel before us, is to teach that that is why Genesis goes on to say, So the question is not, does the text set this parallel before us? Everybody agrees with that. I mean, you could read verses 1 to 25. Yeah, the Lord of the world is God. You could read 26 to 31. Yeah, it may be the Lord of the world. Everyone agrees with that. But the question is, does it set that parallel before us for the purpose of defining what the image is? That's a very different question. Everyone does not agree with that. And so consequently, that is what must be proved. So you see, you must prove, sorry for my throat, I was struggling a little bit with it. You must prove not just the fact that Genesis sets this parallel before us, you must prove, here's the key word, the intent. of Genesis in setting this parallel before us. A very different thing to prove. You must prove Genesis 1 intends to teach that this is why it sets this parallel before us. So here's the conclusion that an objector would offer. So then, if you can prove that Genesis sets this parallel before us for the purpose of defining Lordship as the image of God, then your thesis will stand. If you cannot, then it will not. Or as I said, it will just wobble there as one of the many opinions that we might accept or reject based on our own fancy. So thinking that this criticism is correct and thinking that this assertion of what must be proven is correct, I think that in order to prove the thesis, I have to rise to it and defend it and explain this. And so it makes sense. That's the only way to know for certain. So now the question becomes, how do you prove intent? That's very different. Paul says no one knows the thoughts of a man except the spirit of the man. Don't we argue all the time because of that? Like you misunderstood my intent. That's the difference between two words that have risen on the foam of our culture, misinformation and disinformation. You could say something false, but not from any malice. You just were mistaken. And as we run into that problem, you're like, you lied to me. Well, no, a lie involves not just saying something false, but intending to say something false for the purpose of deceiving the person, for the purpose of damaging them. That's a lie. Anything else is not a lie. Juking someone in basketball is not a lie. I mean, you're intending to beat them, but you're not intending to morally hurt them. Net Yahu flying over to the United Nations and pretending to be involved in this, but really it was a diversion so he could smoke the head of Hezbollah He didn't wrong the guy by lying to him. He said, well, you lied. You broke the rule before. So a lie involves saying something false, meaning to say something false, for the purpose of deception. And now you see why that's much harder to prove. It's really easy to say, well, you said something false. But the intent behind it is very hard to prove. An author like John, he can just come right out in the Gospel of John, which you read from earlier, and say, these things I have written so that you may believe. Okay, well, we know why. We know his intent. But how do you do it if the author doesn't give you a statement of intent? There's no so that. There's nothing like that. How do you prove authorial intent? So you might even ask, can you prove the intent of a written document like Genesis, or how exactly would it work? And I want to suggest to your consideration there is a way, and I do think it can be proven, the thesis can be proven. I think you just have to follow three very reasonable steps. So that's what I want to give you today. Three steps to prove intent. Now, we're not going to have time to demonstrate that it does prove it. But it's important to go through each of the three steps and really download and see whether you think they're reasonable or not before I then try to show that the thesis fits. So reasonable step number one. is to acknowledge that it makes sense that the meaning of this statement would be revealed within the text of Genesis chapter 1 itself. or at least within the first three chapters. Okay, so that's the first reasonable consideration for you to consider. Why do I think that's reasonable? Well, because surely you don't make such a profound statement about human nature as this, and then not even give a hint as to what it means. Surely you don't do that. Another way of saying this is to say that if you do make a statement like this, at the beginning of a book like this, which sets the plot and raises the curtain and sets the whole trajectory of the human project, it means that you do give at least a clue as to what it means. That's all I'm arguing at this point. Well, if you agree with that, reasonable proposition, then since Genesis chapter 1 does make this statement, you must follow that through with the conclusion that it does give at least some clue to its meaning. So that's the very first step to get on this logical chain of reasoning with me, that there is some clue to its meaning to be found within the text of Genesis chapter 1 itself. So, assuming you accept that, We move on to the second step. The second of these three reasonable steps is to notice that if the meaning of the statement is to be found within the text of Genesis 1 itself, then it will be revealed implicitly rather than explicitly. Now why do I think that? Well, because Genesis is a narrative, which means truth will be revealed within its pages in a narrative sort of way. And the way a narrative communicates truth is very different than the way a letter, an epistle, does it. Specifically, narratives communicate implicitly. Letters and epistles communicate explicitly. I'll give you just one example. The Book of Romans is a letter. This means it communicates by making straightforward propositional statements that are either true or false. So, when it wants to teach that the sin of Adam brought death and destruction into the world, this is what it does. It comes right out and tells you in Romans 5.12, through one man, sin entered into the world and death through sin. Just flat out, propositionally says it. But there is no such statement like that in Genesis. So when Genesis wants to teach us the very same thing, it doesn't come right out and say it like that. Rather, what it does is show you the very same truth, but implicitly through a connection of events. So it first shows you the event of Adam's sin. And then after that event, it shows you the murder of Cain and Abel. And then after that event, it shows you this epithet being repeated of every human being that lives after, which the Puritans called the church tolling bell of Genesis chapter 5. And he died, and he died, and he died. And it never comes out and tells you that all of human nature was corrupted morally, But it shows you after that, it being corrupted in all flesh is so corrupt that you get the flood. So the movement from the tree to the flood basically says the same thing as Romans 5.12. Through one man, sin entered into the world, and death through sin. One man sinned and everything went chaotic. And so you just have two different ways of asserting the very same thing. One is a letter, so it says it explicitly. The other is a narrative, so it says it implicitly. But both forms of revelation communicate the very same truth clearly. This is a big thing to get. is not just one book, it's a collection of books. So it's like a library. And each book, you have to think about the books, each book communicates truth in its own way. So you don't read Revelation. I used to think, you know, Revelation was talking about Apache helicopters and things. But it's apocalyptic literature, so it's It's to be, it almost reads like a comic book. You know, there's these images and it's part of the challenge of interpreting. It's like some of them are literal and some of them are not. Good luck getting 100% on your test on that one. But the thing is, you read it according to, let's say, the genre, right? We talk about the genre of the book. So that's the point I'm making. A letter, you expect it to communicate like a letter. And a narrative, you expect it to communicate like a narrative. And apocalyptic literature, you're going to expect it to communicate that way. So when we read the Bible, need to size up on what form of literature is it. Is it poetry? apocalyptic letter, and then we need to read it accordingly. The point is, for this present moment, that if Genesis is a narrative, then it will be teaching us the meaning of the image of God implicitly, rather than explicitly. And that means we must look, when we go searching through Genesis 1, for an answer, we must put on our implicit shades. We must be looking Implicitly. We mustn't come to Genesis chapter 1, for example, expecting some statement like, now the image of God is blank. And what I mean by the image of God is... For that would be to expect it to communicate like Romans. It's not Romans. And if you're paying attention, you see that a lot of people, you know, they will raise that issue. They'll say something to you like, well, where does the Bible explicitly say that the image of God is the ruler for God and the ruler for God is man and disciple? Well, that's a nonsensical question. Because the part of the Bible we're talking about is Genesis. And Genesis isn't there. And the narrative communicates implicitly. So what you really should say is, where does the Bible implicitly say? And then I can say, well, pull up a chair and we'll look at it. But it's very nonsensical. To give you an example, imagine I wrote something down here. Someone writes you a letter in cursive. And they tell you in this letter, I will be home for the holidays. And then someone objected to you reading it that way by asking, well, where did they write in print that they would be home for the holidays? It's a nonsensical question. The author has chosen to communicate through cursive so you can find and restrict your inquiry to the cursive medium. And the author of Genesis has chosen to write a narrative. So it's not a criticism, it's just nonsensical. It's like, well, how are we going to eat cereal with a fork? Well, it wasn't designed. That's not the question to ask. It wasn't even intending to do that. And neither was Genesis ever intending to answer this question this way. We have to approach the text according to the way the author has chosen to reveal himself. So that's the second step. If the first reasonable step was just to conclude that the meaning will be revealed within the text of Genesis chapter 1 itself, the second reasonable step is to conclude that since it's a narrative, it's also going to be revealed implicitly rather than explicitly. Now, for the third and final reasonable step, is to notice that if it is revealed implicitly, then it will at least be somewhat obvious, at least to those who are in the know. Now why do I think that's a reasonable sentiment? Well, because it's the only way to communicate implicitly. So this move is just the same as saying if I have 2 plus 2, then I'm just adding you have 4. So if you have implicit communication, then it's at least somewhat obvious, to some degree obvious, at least to those who are in the know. Consider some examples. We'll use one that's related to etymology of the word. Apply here, it has a range of meaning, but that root here means to fold. And to imply means it's folded in. And to be explicit means folded out. So folded in, you think of a sheet over You know, you can see that's Bob under the sheets or whatever. But explicitly, to yank all the sheets off, you just directly see them. So fold it out versus fold it in. So that's the meaning of these analogies here. So consider that you cannot totally hide an idea and then claim you're communicating it implicitly. So if I slide an object under the sheets So that the sheets appear the same way they did without the object underneath them Then they appear to have nothing underneath them and that means I'm revealing nothing I'm actually hiding is what I'm doing in that case Transversely if I pull the sheets all the way back so that you see the object directly then I am revealing and I'm revealing everything. So that would be an example of communicating explicitly. But if I were to put my object under the sheets, as I had said, in such a way that you see its shape just a little bit, so that you can make out what it is even though you still aren't seeing it directly, that would be an example of implicit communication. So the takeaway here is if you're communicating implicitly, You give it away a little bit, at least a little bit you give it away. You give at least, you know, one blues clue as to what it is, at least to those who are in the know. And so it'll be at least somewhat obvious to them. This is the third step. Now I want to finish by giving you some real literary examples of this. Consider some children playing baseball. So you're watching some kids out there playing. Like what if after this we're eating and there's some kid playing cup ball or wiffle ball or some kind of game out there and you're watching it, you know, and you see one kid walk to the plate and you suddenly hear him yell out to the others, I'm gonna be like Babe Ruth, okay? And then you see him make the gesture of calling his shot. Would you have any confusion about what particular way he's trying to be like Babe Ruth? Maybe he has the same cleats on. Maybe it's the wristband. Maybe it's the batting glove. No. You would know exactly what way he's imitating Babe Ruth. Again, if you're in the know about Babe Ruth, Here's another example. Consider the play Much Ado About Nothing. Don Pedro in this play says he's going to imitate Cupid and then he proceeds to make two people fall in love. Now, are you confused about what way he's imitating Cupid? No. Not if you're in the know about who Cupid is in the Greek antheon of gods. Now, here's one other example. Suppose you're watching a film about the Civil War, or maybe it's a play of some sort, and a tall, thin man in a black hat, who also has a beard, walks up to give a speech and begins with the words, four score and seven years ago. Now, does the narrator need to stop and say, now, this is Abraham Lincoln. So, I mean, such a thing would be an insult to your intelligence, right? There's only one reason you would need to do that, and that is if you're not in the know about the American Civil War. Now, these are examples of implicit communication in literature that are non-Biblical examples. Now I want to give you some examples from the narrative sections of Scripture that do this in the very same way. And we only have time for two, so let me give you one from the New Testament and one from the Old Testament. So, here's one from the New Testament, if you turn to Mark chapter 1, in verse 6. Here in the Gospel of Mark, at the very beginning we find this peculiar description of John the Baptist, he says in verse 6, and John was clothed with camel's hair and wore a leather belt around his waist and was eating locusts and wild honey. I guess somebody has made a diet out of that as they do the Daniel plan. Nobody ever does the Ezekiel plan, but they do make Ezekiel bread, which is just weird. Anyway, moving on. Throw that thought to the back of the mind. So you think, well, that's not why this is. And so here's a trick when you're reading your New Testament. If you don't understand that, you should always stroke your chin and say, I bet the Old Testament has something to say about this. And so you have that famous statement that The Old Testament is the new concealed, and the New Testament is the old revealed. So it's a sea, it's blooming. So if there's something you don't understand that's alluded to, you know, Jesus had twelve disciples. Oh, okay, well there were twelve tribes of Israel. There's reasons for this. So similarly here, Mark is communicating something here, but we've got to be in the know, right? We've got to know what's up with it. and the leather and the belt and all of this. So the question is what does this description of John mean? And if we have read our Old Testament and we are in the known, then we know exactly what it means. He is communicating implicitly that John is somehow Elijah. 4. Now go to the book of 2 Kings. 2 Kings. chapter 1, tells this very interesting story. You just start at the very beginning of 2 Kings chapter 1. It says, Now Moab revolted against Israel after the death of Ahab, and Isaiah fell through the lattice in his upper chamber, which was in Samaria, and became ill. So he sent messengers and said to them, Go inquire of Beelzebub, the god of Ekron, whether I will recover from this sickness. But an angel of the Lord said to Elijah the Tishbite, Arise, go up to meet the messengers of the king of Samaria, and say to them, Is it because there is no god in Israel that you are going to inquire of Beelzebub, the god of Ekron? Now therefore, thus says the Lord, you shall not come down from the bed where you have gone up, but you shall surely die." Then Elijah departed. So the messengers returned to him. And he said to them, why have you returned? And they said to him, a man came up to meet us and said to us, go return to the king who sent you and say to him, thus says the Lord, is it because there is no God in Israel that you are sending to inquire of Beelzebub, the god of Akron? Therefore you shall not come down from the bed where you have gone up, but shall surely die. And he said to them, what kind of man was he who came up to meet you and spoke these words to you? And they said to him, he was a hairy man with a leather girdle girded about his loins. And he said, it is Elijah the Tishbite. Clearly, the reader of the Gospel of Mark is supposed to be reading along and stop and say, it is Elijah the Tishbite. The hair and the leather girdle are supposed to just give it away. That's how narratives communicate. So this is simply the third and final step. So let's summarize what we've seen. The three reasonable steps toward proving the intent of Genesis chapter 1 in calling man the image of God. Step number one was just to agree with me that the meaning will be revealed within the text of Genesis chapter 1 itself. Step number two was to conclude that the meaning will be revealed implicitly rather than explicitly. And step number three was to conclude that it will be at least somewhat obvious, at least to those who are in the know. So now, if all three of those steps make sense, and I confess to you I don't know any way that cannot make sense, then they become three tests which my thesis must pass. And that means the question we've arrived at now is this, in what way is the meaning of the statement, man is made in the image of God, that you see in Genesis chapter 1, In what way, number one, is it revealed within the text of Genesis 1 itself? Number two, revealed implicitly rather than explicitly? And three, somewhat obvious, at least to those who are in the note. Whatever that is, that will be what Genesis 1 intends to teach is the meaning of the image of God. So in the previous sermon, chapters, I argued that it was the ruler for God. That the image of God refers to the ruler for God. And that that ruler is man. Man is intended by God to be an image of God's rule. An image of God's good rule on earth. What this means now is if I want to rise to the challenge of this objection in proving intent, then I must prove that the thesis passes all three of those tests. So just to conclude clearly, I must prove that this thesis, number one, is revealed in Genesis chapter one itself. Number two, that it's revealed implicitly. And number three, that it is at least somewhat obvious, at least to the original audience, to those who are in the know. So if I can do that, then thesis will stand, I think. I couldn't think of any other projection to it. And you never know once you release a book, then you'll see. But if it cannot, then it will fall. And as I already alluded to, whether it will or won't, we'll have to see next time. So that's today's sermon. Now we segue to the Lord's Supper. and the mealtime. And so I want to take this day that the Lord has given me, you know I have so many days in life, and I want to exhort you all of you, particularly those of you that are not Christians, to receive the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved. And I would like to use a different story and a little bit different method. So we're going to take the Lord's Supper. And I want to suggest to you that one of the ways you could demonstrate your belief in Christ is to take the Lord's Supper. So I want to invite you all to take the Lord's Supper, even if you've never taken it before, even if you've never quite explained to your parents yet. Of course, defer to your parent. Your parent may not want you to, and if they don't, then don't want to honor that. But I am saying that it's at least possible that you could just step out and take it and explain to us later why you did, if you're doing it by faith. So I want to tell you a story in the Old Testament. I'd like to use that to specifically... I know we mainly focus on believers. Maybe let me say something. I might say something believers and unbelievers. But I really want to emphasize unbelievers this time. There's a story in Genesis 24, so just moving a little bit forward from where we were, which is a wonderful metaphor. And it is the story of Abraham sending his servant to go find a bride for his son Isaac. And so, you know, he goes and travels and to search amongst this people and how he finds Rebekah and let her be the one that... You should try that sometimes if you're... looking for a spouse, like go to a Christian gathering and ask for a sandwich and say, let her be the one that throws in the Oreos also. And then you could tell her, hey, I prayed to the Lord, and you were the one. But this story, you see this man go, He discovers that it's Rachel and he gives her certain emblems, rings, bracelets, etc. to mark her out and finds out who her people are, her father and brothers and all that. So he wants to go see them and he goes to them and tells them the whole story and they're like, come on in. and eat, and gather, and assess the food before them. Very much like we're about to do here. Owen's getting married, but we're about to set some food out. And the servant says, before I sit down and eat anything, I need to let you know what my business is, what my errand is. So he tells them the whole story of why he's there, and what happened, and how he figured out it was Rachel. If you look in the chapter, if you happen to be open there, in verse 49, The servant does what some have said is he calls for a verdict. He calls for a decision. He says, so now, if you're going to deal kindly and truly with my master, tell me. And if not, tell me that I may turn to the right hand or the left. And so with this sort of metaphor, what I'm casting myself as is the servant. The reason I'm doing that, as you know, the Bible presents Christ as a bridegroom, and the sinner is presented as the feminine character, the bride, that he's purchasing and calling to himself. God, a cleanser, a washer, a saver, a redeemer. And so, you could think of it that way. Preachers are sent out into the world as servants to go get the bride, for the son of the Father. But sometimes we miss something and just, as I'm moving along, I want to hit you with this, impress you with this, push it upon your conscience to consider, and that is verse 49. And I'm well aware I'm not the best preacher in the world. It's not the best church in the world. But let's not think about that. Let's just think about we are living in the world. And we're here today. And life is not guaranteed to us another day. And the Lord did make you. And you're a sinner. And you're here. And the elements of Christianity are placed out. And they do represent the sacrifice of Christ. And so we do this all the time. And some of us come here and take it, some of you don't. And we don't awkwardly press people about their rights. Understandable part of life. But sometimes it's good to be pressed. To shake things up a bit. And the way I would like to try to gently press you, is to remind you, according to the service question, I want an answer from you today. You know? So you don't have to tell me, you and I may already know this, that yeah, you're not a Christian, or maybe you would say, I don't know, maybe I am, I kind of am. Like if you share verses in Greek messages, Why are you not a Christian? Right? If you're telling people to follow the Lord, why aren't you following the Lord? I'm trying to come at people that are kind of like, sort of in, but not in. And here's what I want to put before you, this proposition of Christ. I just want to remind you that there's only two options with Christ. that you're either for Him or against Him. Okay? He said that, right? So it's either yes or no. So everyone in the room is either telling Christ yes or no. The question is not about His intent. So let's move from intent to His intent was read in the verse. So that, right? That's an intent statement. You may not perish. And so, I'm as Calvinistic as they come. I'm like a 30-something point Calvinist. But I'm also a Spurgeonist. And so I'm like a 30-something point Spurgeonist too. And so I think God loves everyone. And I think God intends His salvation for everyone. I think when He says world, we're not going to do exegetical gymnastics and say, He so loved the elect. No. the world. John says, not for our sins only is there propitiation. But for those of the whole world. So, God has goodwill, He has saving will to every heart in this room. And He wishes for you to be saved. Every heart in this room. What you alone know, you're secretly dealing with the chaos in your own heart. The Lord loves your little heart and cares about everything going on inside that heart and wishes for that heart to be redeemed. That's what I'm saying. And sincerely offers the saving work of Jesus to you and did it for you, intends it for you. That's what I'm saying. So the breakdown, if any of us remain lost here today and the rest of our lives, can't be on the Lord's side. His intent is clear. It's our intent that is in question. The Lord's heart is open. Why? That's unquestioned. The question is what to do with our heart. I would have gathered you like a hen gathers her chicks. So that is not in question. So what do you have to do to not be a Christian, particularly if you're growing up like this in a Christian church? and in a Christian family. It's not just that. You could have gone to a crusade or something. Someone could have invited you to church. But somehow, you heard of Christ. You read the Bible. You picked up a track. You saw something. Any of that influence is the servant coming and saying, hey, the groom is here. But what I want to do is take it further, make it explicit. And what is your answer? Let me know so that I can discharge my duty and my oath and go back to my master and let him know that you said no. Because remember, there's only yes or no. So what I want to help some of you that are kind of in the middle on, you say, well, I kind of want to be a Christian, but particularly some of the children and young ones. Maybe I want to be a Christian, but I don't know that I'm a Christian. What I want you to see is there is no category for someone who is kind of wanting to be a Christian. That's not even a real category. So I want you to put yourself in the right category. I said yes to Christ or I'm saying no to Christ. There's no other multiple choice, A or B. So which one is it for you? Are you saying yes to Christ or are you saying no to Christ? And to think about it this way, if you're not saying no, that's just another way of saying yes. Because there's only two options. So if you're not saying no, you are saying yes. If you're not saying yes, you are saying no. Which one is it? And what I want to encourage you with is if you're genuinely wanting to be a Christian and you're just sitting there like waiting on I don't know how much faith I have, or I don't know how good my repentance is yet, or anything like that. If you're genuinely there, I hope what you'll kind of discover is, then you're a Christian. Because it says, whosoever will, let him take. And the natural man does not want to be a Christian. There's no lost guy. who's just struggling. I just wish I could be a Christian. I can't. But I just wish I could be a Christian. That's not a saved man. So. If that's where you are, I want to impress you with that biblical doctrine that you're either saying yes or no. And if you're not saying no, if you would say, oh... So I want you to say it. I want you to answer it. I want you to stand up and be counted. I am saying no to Christ. And if you can't do that, then you're the other guy. Because that's just an equivalent way of saying, I'm the other guy. If I'm not saying no, I'm saying yes. And if you're saying yes, then don't worry about how much faith you have yet and how much assurance you have yet. Just worry about the fact that we come like children and, well, you said yes. It's not like you. We don't judge it by the font, like children write in smaller font. And they write less smaller. It looks little. It doesn't look big. They don't have this life yet of, you know, certain things. I mean, what all are they going to repent of? They have a limited amount of sins to repent of. So it's harder to see. But if you get this doctrine that there's either yes or no, and if I'm not saying no, then... So if you're uncomfortable saying no to Christ, then I hope you see that it's not like you're saying yes. Because there's only two options. And if you're saying yes, I want you to take the Lord's Supper. I don't want you to be in the Kingdom and then wait for a certain point of sanctification before you can take the Lord's Supper. Because let me tell you, if you're a child and you're sitting there and you're thinking, well, I kind of believe, but I don't know if I have enough faith. Let me give you a secret. So am I. I'm still in that same spot. I'm still able to say I believe that the Lord held my hand and believed. You know, it's there, but it ain't there like I wish it was there. And so that, you're always going to be in that state. And the Lord is so gracious that He accepts mustard seed of faith. So I don't want you to think, like, if you're struggling, you think, well, I feel like I'm a Christian. And I don't want you to think, well, I don't know all the verses. And I don't know, or I kind of started, this will hinder people like, well, I'm not fully plugged in, or I don't, whatever it could be to make you think like just some reason you shouldn't take the Lord's Supper, I just, I want to invite you to hear this, it's wrong. It's just wrong. The Lord receives us as sinners and nothing else. And so every little lack in your life that you could point to, if you can't find where Zephaniah and when the Bible drew, who cares? I mean, that's not the condition of coming to Christ. So I just want to remind you that the Lord's Supper, as it's held out in this church, is held out for all. And it is intended for all. And so if you want it, it's yours. If you don't want it, well then continue not wanting it. That's what Revelation says. Let the one who's filthy, continue to be filthy. And the one who's righteous, continue to be righteous. But let the one that wants the water of life, take the water of life. So if you want to be a Christian, come be a Christian. Amen. Let me pray. We'll take the Lord's Supper, and then they'll lead us in conclusion.