Okay, 1 Peter, the end of the first chapter, and I do have the New American Standard, so if there's a little bit of difference, you'll pick that up. 1 Peter chapter 1, beginning with verse 17. Peter says, If you address as father the one who impartially judges according to each one's work, conduct yourselves in fear. during the time of your stay on earth, knowing that you were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers, but with precious blood as of a lamb, unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ. For he was foreknown before the foundation of the world, but has appeared in these last times for the sake of you, who through him are believers in God. who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God. Since you have in obedience to the truth purified your souls for a sincere love of the brethren, fervently love one another from the heart, for you have been born again, not of seed which is perishable, but imperishable, that is, through the living and enduring word of God. For all flesh is like grass, and all its glory, like the flower of the grass. The grass withers, the flower falls off, but the word of the Lord endures forever. And this is the word which was preached to you." Let's pray. Father, we do thank you for your church. We thank you for the privilege of laboring in your church, for being able to teach and to preach. and to shepherd your people. It is a great privilege, and we count it as such. We thank you that your church is purchased by the blood of Christ, and it belongs to you. We have a charge that has been given to us to shepherd the church of God, which you have purchased with your own blood. And since this is the case, we bow before you, thanking you for the privilege, but also begging your mercy, because in so many ways we do fail. And we ask, Father, that you'd forgive us of our sins, which are many and great, and we're thankful again for Jesus Christ, who bore them all in his body on the cross. So bless us, we pray, in him. And as we launch forth in this time this morning and next week, a little clinic with regard to preaching, we pray that you'd give us insight into this good work. And if we don't do a lot of preaching, may it be, Father, that we pray for those who do. And if we do have occasion to preach, may it be, Father, that we would do well in the task that you do give us. So be pleased to bless us and strengthen us in this hour and in the next couple of hours. And as we look forward tomorrow to the Lord's Day and to worship with your people and to sitting under the preaching of your Word, may it be, Father, that we do look forward to it, that we seek your face, utilizing your means, and we trust that Using these same means, you will be pleased to bless us and draw us to yourself. So we thank you for these things, and we pray now that you'd guide us and direct us and give us your grace in Jesus' name. Amen. Okay, I'll pass these around. Don't be intimidated by the paper. That's all it is, is paper. And as you look at the outlines, if you want an extra one, I think there'll be one there. And I'm sure we can get some other copies. The reason I decided to put together this packet was a large measure for reference. I don't intend to go through everything that we've got here. We wouldn't have time to do so. So in the outline, I've referenced some of the sheets that I've made copies of. And perhaps that'll be helpful to you as you have some questions. And as we have time, we can look at some of that material. But the sessions are divided basically this way. The first session is a definition of preaching, and the second session is the virtue of one point in a sermon, and then we're going to be looking at how you begin to derive that point from a text and formulate that into a point for a sermon. So that's kind of the process we're going to go through this morning. And next week, my objective is to take it a little bit further and show you how you, at least I put together an outline, and to suggest to you how you put together an outline, and then how you fill in some of the details. And then I want to talk to you a little bit about presentation next week. So that's kind of the idea I have. And if you have particular questions that you'd like me to address, I'm glad to do that. I can be flexible. So we're here for you, in addition for me. Because this is helpful for me. It actually is. And I also brought a few books. And next week I'll bring some others. I'll just, as we go through, I'll indicate to you some of the books that I like. This is one of my favorites, Homiletics and Pastoral Theology by William G.T. Shedd. He was an old Southern Presbyterian. This is a basic homiletics text, a little bit in the back on pastoral theology, but it's mostly homiletics, and he's very concerned about grappling with the text and getting the meaning of the text and communicating the truth of God from the text to the people in the congregation. And not only so, but with an application. Some preachers these days are not as concerned about application, and you'll hear this. I'm not of this mold, so you might as well hear it up front that some men will say, Just lay out the meaning of the text and let the Holy Spirit apply the text. No, no. It's our job to apply the text, and when I hear that, I suggest to men, read the Old Testament prophets, because what the Old Testament prophets do is expound Moses and apply Moses to their contemporary situation. That's how they operated. And when you read the prophet, you see very pointed application. And what they're doing is they're taking Moses and they're applying Moses to their current situation. And this is what we do today. We take the Old Testament, for example, and apply what the Old Testament has to say. This is what the New Testament writers are doing, apply what the Old Testament has to say to their contemporary situation. So as in the synagogue, the Jews would read Moses and one of the prophets and then the exhortation would be looking at Moses through the eyes of the prophets. What we do is we'll read the Old Testament and the New Testament and then we'll look at the Old Testament through the eyes of the New Testament. The same procedure that the ancient Jews used. So this is a very helpful book and Maybe next week I can bring some copies if you're interested in getting one. And it's not a hard read. Shed's relatively easy to read. He's not one of those technical theologians that we sometimes have. So with that, if you look at the top of this first page that I've given to you, here is my definition of preaching. And I want to go through it with you. Because I think if we're going to have good preaching, we have to have a definition. We have to define what we're doing. And this is a definition that I've worked on for several years and refined as I've gone along. Preaching is God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, communicating His truth in our world to people in the pew through human instruments in order to change their thinking, bridle their emotions, and alter their wills for the purpose of converting sinners, sanctifying saints, and preparing people for heaven. And you'll notice that there's, at the beginning of the sentence, a basic thrust of God communicating His truth, and then there are more proximate ends that we're after, that is, change their thinking, bridle their emotions, and alter the will, and then there are more ultimate purposes for preaching. We want to see people converted. We want to see the saints sanctified, and we want to see people prepared for heaven. And as we go through this, I think you'll see the biblical and also the confessional roots here. Preaching is God communicating his truth. And if you look at 1 Peter, if you have 1 Peter there again, 1 Peter 1, 22 and 23, Peter says, since you have an obedience to the truth, purified your souls for a sincere love of the bread, and fervently love one another from the heart. For you have been born again, not of seed which is perishable, but imperishable, that is, through the living and enduring word of God." And I think what Peter is telling us is that God is using the instrumentality of his word to bring about regeneration. It's very clear, I think, that this is the case. And you'll notice the emphasis that Peter has in verse 22 on obedience to the truth, the truth of the Word, which is communicated. And as that is communicated, as the truth of that Word is communicated, then people are changed. This is God's objective. And then you'll notice that Peter It gives us a little quote from the Old Testament about the Word of God, and at the end of that quote, or at the end of verse 25, notice what he says. And this is the Word which was preached to you. I'm hoping the other translations have it that way. Someone will raise their hands if not. So what Peter really is zeroing in on is the truth of God through the preaching of the Word. And I think we have to take that seriously. And I, for one, believe that we've fallen on hard times in the evangelical church and even the Reformed churches with regard to actually trusting the preaching of the Word as a principal means of grace. And the reason I say this is that we live in such an individualistic culture that we've come to the place of thinking, wrongly in my estimation, that the place where God really does his work is when you get people one-on-one. That's really where it's done. And evangelistic meetings are designed this way, aren't they? The Billy Graham crusades are designed this way. You hear the preaching, but what's really important? Get the people into the hands of the counselor, because that's where the real work is done. And I don't think that's what Peter's saying. I think you need to trust God to use his word as it's preached to do what he says it will do. Preaching is God communicating his truth. And to me, this is phenomenal. It really is. That in the congregation, as people gather for worship, and the Word is rightly proclaimed, that you can expect to see people converted, and you can expect people to change. This is our objective, you see. So preaching is God, and I put in brackets there, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Because when I did a conference several years ago, a pastor raised his hand and he said, well, what about the Holy Spirit? And my response was, well, actually I'm Trinitarian. And when I think about God, I'm thinking Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And the question might also be asked, where is Christ? Isn't Christ just as important? Not just the Spirit, but Christ, because the Spirit's job is to lift up Christ. And so all three persons of the Trinity are in view here, communicating His truth. And you see I'm bearing down here on Peter's words, since you have an obedience to the truth, And we're going to talk about this a little bit more in the next hour, but what happens is that when you look at a text and you derive the truth from a particular text and are able to set down that truth in a simple statement, it might be a large piece of narrative, it might be a parable, It might be a section of the Apostle Paul, but if you're able to distill what the biblical author says down into a statement of truth, what do you have? I mean, if that statement is reflective of the content of the text, what do you have? You have the truth of God. I mean, this is really what you have. And so, this is important for Sunday school classes too, I think. Distilling things down so that kids can get it, young adults can get it, teenagers can get it, and the older folks can get it too. You see. So we're after God's truth. And what is Peter talking about here? You have an obedience to the truth. Well, you would say it's the truth of the Bible. Well, you haven't just thrown the whole Bible at them. You've spoken to people about God from the Scriptures and given them the truth of God from the Scriptures. Isn't that how you operate? Isn't that what you do? And so, being conscious of that, you see, even when you reformulate the statements of Scripture, larger portions of Scripture, and simplify and distill the statements of Scripture, what you should have is the truth of God. And I think this is what the catechism does for us, for one thing. I have objections. This next quarter in our seminary, we're going to do some catechism preaching. And I hear objections from folks. Well, we shouldn't preach the catechism. We should preach the Bible. And I'm saying, hello. When you ask the question, what is justification? And the catechism gives you an answer. Is that answer not the truth of God, which is derived from the scriptures? If it's not, we're in trouble. We really are, you see. So the catechism is dealing with the larger scope of scripture and distilling things down into simple statements. Go ahead. My supervisor at work, I'm teaching catechism to young kids in our church. And I told him just this Wednesday, I said, I'm going to leave a little early because we have a kid's quest going on. What's a kid's quest? Well, we're teaching the children Catechism. And he said, what? And he's not a Christian at all. He said, what's Catechism? And so I started to explain to him. He said, oh, it's the Bible for dummies. So he's starting to get a glimpse of it. That's right. Distill it down. That's good. The Bible for dummies. The Cliff Notes. OK. Preaching is God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, communicating his truth in our world. Here's part of what has to happen, that we move from the world of the Bible to our world. Whether you like it or not, we live in the 21st century, and there's a little bit of difference between the 21st century and the 1st century. Although, in many ways, the 21st century is becoming a lot like the 1st century, culturally, because of what's taking place in our culture. But there's differences in language, difference in idiom, and so we do have to be conscious whether we like it or not. And one of the hermeneutics books that I use says that if we don't understand What the Bible has to say in our day, we don't understand what it has to say in the first century. It works this way. So it's easy for us to say, well, we have to get back to the original meaning. I'm for that. I'm for that. But remember, you're in the 21st century and you're looking back a lot of years. And so you have to do some work to put yourself in the shoes of the Apostle Paul, in the shoes of the different biblical writers of Moses. Moses was dealing in a different culture than we have, for sure. So there are differences. In our world, two people in the pew. You see, this is the next step, I think, because often what happens is that we think, well, we're going to transfer things to our culture. That's good. That's good. But you have a subculture in your congregation. We live in an evangelical subculture. And we can break that down. Every congregation is different. Every congregation has a different personality. And that's good because different people will fit into different congregations in different ways. So this is part of what we have. We're a body. So you have to come down to the people in the pew. It's not just to talk about the things that are generally happening, but what's going on in the congregation. And this is where the pastoral ministry, I think, really hits the road because the pastor really needs to be, and the elders need to be, visiting with the people in the flock and understanding where they are and their difficulties and their lives so that the Word of God can impinge adequately on their lives, not just generally, This is why I'm opposed to, and some of my brothers don't like this, but I'm opposed to writing sermons first of all to go in books. Because the tendency then is that's for a general audience that anyone could read. But good preaching is what? It's for people in a pew. It's for your congregation and your Your people, that's what good preaching is about. It's not just for a general audience. And so I think we have to keep that in mind. And it's communicating His truth, God communicating His truth in our world to people in the pew through human instruments. I put this in the definition because of another question that I had, and this was in class. And one of the first times I presented this in a class, a young man raised his hand and he said, well, what about the preacher? And I knew pretty much where he was going. What about the preacher? He's an important person. And so I thought about that just a little bit. And my response was, yes. God does use a human instrument, and the thing that you have to be wary of in being a human instrument is that you don't bring your baggage to the truth of God and tie your baggage, because every one of us has baggage that we're bringing. We all have our difficulties. We all have a home life. We all have kids. There are things going on at home, and there are things going on at the office, and there may be things going on in the session. And it's not the prerogative of the one that's standing up before God's people to bring the baggage of life and throw it out on the table. We have to be wary of that. I have my own foibles and hobby horses, and my own sin. And it's not proper for me to be flailing away at the congregation with that baggage. We are human instruments and we need to understand that this is the case. And one of the beauties, if you study the inspiration of the Bible, one of the beauties of the doctrine of inspiration is that God uses human personality, and you see the personality of the various writers, in Scripture. At the same time, repressing their sin so that what they write is the very Word of God. And that's a good lesson for us. We have to be mindful of our own sin. And what we present needs to be the Word of God, the truth of the Word of God. And so it is through human instruments. What would you say for guys If you preach thematically, does that tend to bring more baggage into the sermons we try to read? I would say if you preach thematically, not necessarily. Not necessarily. The virtue of preaching through books is that you have to cover all of the territory. But you can come to your hobby horses just as easily doing that. You see, I think. But you do have to preach through all the text. If you preach on different subjects and pick text from different places in the Bible, I think it's the same issue. I'm not sure that... It could be, I suppose, if you're picking text because you've got something in your craw, then red flag ought to go up. You see. A good way to counter this is, as I did here, is get suggestions from the congregation. What would people in the congregation like to hear? A lot of pastors don't like to do this. They say, I'll determine what I'm going to preach. Well, if you ask the congregation for suggestions on things they'd like to hear, then the people in the pew have an investment in the pulpit. And that's very helpful for them. So I think it can cut both ways, really. So now we come to these more proximate goals. In order to change their thinking, bridle their emotions, and alter their wills. And on pages two and three in these notes, I've got a little excerpt from the Shorter Catechism, or a couple of excerpts from the Shorter Catechism here. I'm really taking this idea from the Shorter Catechism and effectual calling. What is effectual calling? Effectual calling is the work of God's Spirit, whereby convincing us of our sin and misery, enlightening our minds in the knowledge of Christ, and renewing our wills He doth persuade and enable us to embrace Jesus Christ freely offered to us in the gospel. And this is the whole idea of the human heart, that the heart involves the mind, emotions, and the will. And access to the heart is through the mind, and hence the informative nature of preaching. But the Word of God needs to sink down, and as the Westminster divines put it, sink down so that people feel the Word of God. Now, in Reformed circles, I think some don't like that idea. But the Word of God ought to come with some force so that people feel the imperative. And their emotions are engaged. And when you look at the definition of effectual calling, say, effectual calling is the work of God's Spirit whereby convincing us of our sin and misery. This would be Peter preaching on the day of Pentecost. They were pierced to the heart. They felt it, and they cried out, what do we do? And that's not enough. See, the Word of God has got to sink down so that there's a change, an actual change in the disposition. And when the Westminster divines define the new birth, it's very interesting that it's the change of the will that they have in mind when they speak about new birth. And the references in Ezekiel, for example, a new heart will I give you, that's assigned to the change of the will. That proof text. That's how the Westminster divines are looking at it. This is very interesting because you can talk to people. People will be in the congregation, oh, wonderful sermon pastor. They like what you say. And they're even going out and they're saying, I feel good about it. But the question is, are they changing? See, that's the real question. And so we're after mind, emotions, and will. We want to change their minds with regard to the truth. We want their emotions bridled. In other words, you put the bridle on the horse so that the horse can be guided, the same imagery that James utilizes, you see. And this is a wonderful thing, because emotionally, through the Word of God, people are changed. I mean, you see this, do you not? And you've experienced this. I hope you've experienced it, that you're a different person over a period of time. And the inclination of the heart is changed, the will is altered, so that you no longer say, I'd like to do it, but I don't know if I can. You do do it because this is your disposition. You've actually been changed. So preaching is going after this. It's God communicating His truth in our world to people in the few through human instruments in order to change their thinking, bridle their emotions, and alter the will. You're going after this. And these fellows here at First Reformed have seen me Do this. Say, I want to go there. You see. And then there are more proximate or ultimate goals. This is the proximate side. This is closer in. You want to see the children's thinking change. You want to see emotions come into line with the Bible. You want to see the will say, so they say to their parents, okay, this is part of the idea. That's good, but it ought to issue in conversion. There ought to be real conversion. And so this is what we're after. for the purpose of converting sinners. In other words, when the will is altered, they're going to say, I will follow you, Lord Jesus. Go ahead, Tom. Well, yes, and you could put it this way. But I think what you're saying when you say break the will is break the will toward evil, you see. And it's kind of like this. It's disposition or inclination. The inclination of the will. Are you inclined towards evil? Well, you want that broken. And not only do you want that broken, but you want the inclination of the will switched so that the individual is now inclined toward God. I love a little statement that Shedd makes in his dogmatic theology. He says, love is inclination. Nice little pithy statement. Love is inclination. And what he means there is that love is an inclination of the heart toward God. The person is now inclined to do the will of God. God is at work in you both to will and to do for his good pleasure. So you want the evil inclination broken, but you want it replaced with an inclination of love for God. That's really where you're going. And that's what God does. And I would say, you're all familiar with Alcoholics Anonymous and the Twelve Steps Programs. What they're saying is reform. I think basically that's what they're saying is reform. That is, the inclination for evil is broken. But now is it really replaced, if I continue to be an alcoholic all my life, is it really replaced by an inclination to do good? And that's what we're after, an inclination to do good, a total renovation of the life. And this is what we're after. Question? Okay. Sanctifying saints, converting sinners, sanctifying saints. And what should our preaching do? It should bring about growth in the life of the individual. This is preeminently important, isn't it? And then finally, preparing people for heaven. Sanctification should do what? Get people ready to go to glory. Praise God. that this is the case. And this again is in keeping with the catechism and what the catechism says about scripture. Let's look at page 2 again, the bottom of page 2. What benefits do they that are affectionately called partake of in this life? They that are affectionately called do in this life partake of justification, adoption, sanctification, and the several benefits which in this life do either accompany or flow from them. So, if the person is really converted, what's going to happen? Theologically, we know this is the case. Sanctification ensues. Well, preaching then needs to foster this sanctification. no doubt about it. And then what are the benefits which in this life do accompany and flow from justification, adoption, and sanctification? The benefits which in this life do accompany and flow from justification, adoption, and sanctification are assurance of God's love, peace of conscience, joy in the Holy Ghost, increase of grace, and perseverance therein until the end. What benefits do believers receive from Christ at death? The souls of believers are at death, made perfect in holiness, and do immediately pass into glory, and their bodies, being still united to Christ, do rest in their graves till the resurrection." See, all of this is benefits now. We're headed to glory. We're sanctified, we're headed for glory. Theologically we know this, but my objective is that in the preaching of the Word we're conscious of this, that this is our objective, you see. So it seems to me to be important from that perspective. And then look at 88 there, 88 and 89. What are the outward and ordinary means whereby Christ communicateth to us the benefits of redemption? The outward and ordinary means whereby Christ communicateth to us the benefits of redemption are His ordinances, especially the Word, sacraments, and prayer, all which are made effectual to the elect for salvation. How is the Word made effectual to salvation? The Spirit maketh the reading, but especially the preaching of the Word, and effectual means of convincing and converting sinners and building them up in holiness and comfort through faith unto salvation." Especially the preaching of the Word. Again, this is our standards. I'm leaning heavily on our standards in this definition of preaching that I'm giving to you. You have questions or comments? Well, I've been working on it for a while, so I hope it works. And the big stumbling block that I've encountered more than once is this whole idea that preaching actually is a form of the Word of God. And I think we have to be careful here because we don't want to go down the road that what the preacher says is infallible. We're not putting the sermon on the level of Scripture. We don't want to do that. But the proclamation of the Word in a sense is, and we say this, that we're going to sit under the preaching of the Word of God. And I wonder sometimes how seriously we take that, actually, because preaching is a form of communication, but it's styled a little bit differently than a talk at Kiwanis. And we would say that it's quite a bit different than such a talk. I think you can have a little bit different emphasis and here in the preparations of the order for worship, I've indicated sometimes, well, there's going to be a little bit more evangelistic thrust in the message this morning. And I think that's fine. But what happens is, I think, is that when people hear the gospel in a fresh way, they grow. So sanctification takes place. And I think At least it's my conviction that we don't hear enough gospel preaching in our churches. Well, we're into teaching. This is one of my little horses. We're so stuck on the idea of the ruling elder and the teaching elder. Which I think is a proper construction. I mean, Paul gives us this in Timothy. So undoubtedly this is a proper construction. But there is a difference between teaching and preaching. I've got a little note on this. It's on page 2. Preaching is declarative in nature. Messengers declare the word of the King. See Isaiah 52.7. The messenger comes and he says, the Lord reigns. That's the message, which is the Old Testament counterpart to. Anyone? Okay. Christ reigns. Jesus Christ is Lord. The Lord is King, Isaiah 52.7. The message comes to the people who are under siege. Who's in control here? The Lord reigns. We need that message. Jesus Christ is Lord. Teaching is the methodical impartation of information. It is the stance of lecturing. We do teach in our preaching. We also sometimes preach in our teaching. The accent in preaching is upon our declaring the good things of God. And let's see, there's a little diagram that Jay Adams has, and if you leaf back through these handouts, you'll see the little parentheses on the the lower right-hand corner, the numbers, to 19. This is from Jay Adams' little book, Preaching with Purpose, and in the lower right-hand corner there, On his page 43, he's got this little diagram on the lecture stance and the preaching stance, and you'll notice what he says. The lecturer talks to the congregation about the Bible, about what God did long ago in the third person, in unemotional, uninvolved reporting style, and as he says, Here's the preacher. Here's the congregation. And here's the Bible. And the preacher is saying, You see, folks, what the Bible says? And we're going to talk about the Bible today. And I think often we do this. You've probably heard this. Not meaning to step on anybody's toes, but I think often we do this. Where the preacher's stance is, talks to the congregation about themselves from the Bible. This is what the Bible is telling you, folks. about what he is doing and they ought to be doing in the second person. This is another place where we often have a difficulty. Second person rather than third person. I've had this testimony. from fellows who are in the pastorate, who've been in class with me. He said, you know, I tried what you said, use second person more. He said, it's amazing to me how different the connection with the congregation is. And as I say, you would never talk to your wife In the third person, would you? Do you know what your husband did today, honey? And to me, the amazing thing here is, in the preacher's stance, is that if the people in the congregation know that you love them, and that you care about them. You can say a lot. You really can. So that's what has to happen. That's part of the dynamic, it seems to me. I was just reading this week. Al Moore has been talking about that. He says the crisis in preaching in the 21st century is that we've lost the declarative nature of preaching. Too much preaching is question mark instead of exclamation point. That's right. That's right. You are to declare the truth of God. And if people in the pew have been born again, what's going to happen to them? When Christ comes a second time in glory, they will be raised from the dead. And you need to say to them, you will be raised again from the dead and meet Christ in glory bodily. And that's the truth of God, you see. And people need to hear that. message. So this matter of stance, how did I get there? What was the question? Okay. There is a difference between preaching and teaching. We do have this declarative nature. Let's see. On page 3, Let me give you just something else here. This is part of a paper that I wrote a year or so ago for a conference we had at our seminary. And you see, Preaching is Styled, the Word of God. And this was a Westminster conference, so this was getting into what the Puritans think in this area. And I was working over my definition of preaching again, which you can see at the beginning of that paragraph. And after God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit communicating, it is said, since preaching is an activity of trying good, we ought not to think of the involvement of only the Father, the work of the Spirit, the work of Christ are equally of equal importance and relevance, since preaching is God communicating, we rightly speak of preaching as the Word of God, and I'm not trying to elevate the sermon to the level of Scripture here. Sixteenth-century Puritan William Perkins goes so far as to say preaching the Word is prophesying in the name and on behalf of Christ. Preaching is prophesying, and this is from his little book, The Art of Prophesying. A few of us on the contemporary scene equate even earnest preaching with prophesying. Stephen Marshall drafted the section on preaching in the Directory for Worship. He declares, the preaching of the Word is the scepter of Christ's kingdom, the glory of a nation, the chariot upon which life and salvation comes riding. It's a pretty picture he paints there. Marshall then laments, what little care hath the state in general taken to provide that Christ might ride in triumph upon his white horse, that the word of God might spread into every corner of the land. Another tremendous picture here of the gospel riding forth. then laments. Marshall has in mind the first of the four horsemen of the apocalypse, James Durham, a contemporary Puritan, comments on Revelation 6-2, by this type is understood the flourishing estate of the gospel and the spreading estate of the church by it after our Lord's ascension as it were Christ in the ministry of his word going out conquering souls and prevailing Thomas Goodwin, a Westminster Divine, is of the same mind regarding Revelation 6-2, that the first seal is the going forth, the preaching of the gospel, conquering and to conquer. Preaching is prophesying. It is a form of the Word of God. Preaching is Christ riding forth in triumph. But how is preaching a form of the Word of God? That is, in what sense do the Westminster Divines view preaching as God communicating. William Gouge answers, that which ministers do or ought to preach is styled the Word of God in a fourfold respect. First, after dealing with extraordinary ministers, Gouge says, as for ordinary ministers, they have God's Word written and left upon record for their use. They therefore that ground what they preach upon the scriptures deliver nothing but what is agreeable thereunto. Preach the word of God. And this is what we've been saying. If you preach the truth, you're preaching the truth of God. And this is a tremendous thing in the church today. And so we certainly need to be about proclaiming the truth of God. Questions or comments? Why don't we go ahead and take a break then.