Well, good morning. In order to build high, you need to dig deep. Our concern in this place, and I mean Reformation Covenant Church, is that the doctrines that save and bring life rise high and straight in the sky. But in order to support them, we need to first dig deep, lay a proper foundation. Many Christians find themselves confronted these days with doctrines that do not do well at comforting the weary and guilt burdened. And this is because they have not started in the right place. Today, we will look at a text and a doctrine that comes out of the text that forms an important part of the foundation for our understanding of the gospel itself. And our text this morning is Romans chapter three, and I'd like to invite you to stand as we attend to God's word and give it your full attention. We'll be reading in verse nine, down through verse 20. Dear Paul is concluding part of his argument about the sinfulness of men. What then? Are we Jews any better off? No, not at all. For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin. As it is written, none is righteous, no, not one. No one understands. No one seeks for God. All have turned aside. Together, they have become worthless. No one does good. Not even one. Their throat is an open grave. They use their tongues to deceive. The venom of asps is under their lips. Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood. in their paths are ruin and misery, and the way of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes. Now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. For by works of the law, no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin. This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated. Many of you know the Burj Khalifa, currently the tallest building in the world. Although there are apparently some plans to build even taller buildings, Before building the 2,717 feet up, which is three times taller than the Eiffel Tower, the builders had to lay an appropriate foundation. What kind of foundation do you lay for a building like that? You lay a foundation that is 11 stories deep. That's 164 feet, which is far, far taller than most buildings. This is a fundamental rule of construction, which by the way, you don't need to be an engineer to understand. If you're going to build high, you have to dig deep. The taller, more massive the structure, the more the foundation is necessary to support it. This is true of steel structures, even more true of plants and their roots. I'm switching over to plants here now. You remember that Jesus applied this very principle to the Christian life using plants. One of the four soils, the rocky soil you remember produced plants right away. They sprung up. But since it was rocky soil, it was unable to put roots far down into the ground. The sun scorched it, and it was unable to draw water to survive the scorching sun. And Jesus explains the meaning of the soil, although he leaves the soil somewhat enigmatic. This is a person, he says, who has no root in himself, is what he says. Something inside is missing. Something is off inside this person. They have no root in themselves. a belief, a relationship, a proper disposition, whatever it is specifically that he was referring to. When persecution and tribulation comes, and it always comes, immediately falls away, no root in himself. So I would not argue today that I have found that root. And I know exactly what it was that was in the Lord Jesus' mind when he said they have no root in himself. But I would say to you that it seems that whatever that root is, that root that must grow down and deep, that is found in all the expressions of Christianity which endure and bear fruit, that what we're going to talk about today is a part of that root. It's a necessary component of that root. If you would grow up and bear fruit, you must dig deep. What are we building, after all? The simple answer to that is a gospel faith. Do you have the kind of faith and practice that was recovered in the Reformation? We are a Reformation covenant church, after all. It had been lost in the late Middle Ages. So many people were lost in, as it were, darkness and confusion about the simple matters of the gospel. the same gospel that today saves and bears fruit. If it is otherwise, I would argue we should immediately change our name from Reformation Covenant Church to something else. But I do believe that what they recovered in the Reformation was the true gospel, and I intend to show that today from Romans. You see, I'm going to take here, this is really a horrible title, what I have here, I want to look at the Reformation through the lens of the five solas briefly, and then show how behind all of those things is an understanding of human nature, is a certain kind of understanding of human nature, which those five solas speak directly to and give ease and comfort to. They are true gospel. but only because of that understanding of what human nature really is. So let's consider briefly the five solas of the Reformation. and how they are found here in Romans. One of the most helpful summaries, glorious teachings that was recovered in the Reformation were these five solas. I'm looking around, I'm seeing some eyebrows going kind of up and down. What are the five solas? I know that there are many of you that know the five solas and were taught them from your childhood. And some of you probably have no idea what I'm talking about. the reformers never actually referred to five solas. This is something that was recovered, not recovered, it was something that was articulated about reformational teaching just within the last hundred years. The earliest known reference to the five solas was in theologian Lorraine Bettner's book, The Reform Doctrine of Predestination, which was written in the first part of the 20th century. But there are many theologians, Lutheran theologians and Calvinist reformed theologians who, from time to time, would summarize Calvin's teaching and Luther's teaching using these solas and referring to them. But not necessarily all five. It was Lorraine Bettner that put them all five together. But all five are found throughout the reformed world. And he's the one who just kind of gather them up and said, look at what the Reformation has done. Look at these five glorious gospel teachings. On which the gospel stands. But I don't intend to. Talk anymore about the Reformation. I want to look at the scripture because if they are not scriptural. Then we just need to let him go. We need to let them go. But I believe that they are scriptural. I believe that they are at the heart of the gospel teaching. So we're going to confine our reading today to Romans. Romans is, above all, an explanation of the gospel. Paul says himself, this is the gospel that I proclaim wherever I go. And Romans is the passage which our text Romans is the book in which our text is found. But it's also, I think, useful to look at one book of the Bible and show how these things are embedded throughout this book and understood, they are assumed, and they are sometimes explicitly taught. Real quickly, what are the five solas of the Reformation? In no particular order, although I think there is a kind of a logic to them, but you can make different cases. They are sola scriptura. The scripture alone is foundation of our faith in practice. Sola fide. Sola fide, faith alone. The means by which we are saved. Sola gratia. Not by our merit, not by something we have done to earn it, but as a free gift. Gratia is a grace, a gift. It's free. Solus Christus. It is Christ alone. who stands in the place between God and man, no other mediators, no other help, no other savior, except Christ alone. And if all those things are true, they are true, and they are the teaching of the scriptures, then soli deo gloria, to God alone be all the glory, all the glory. Let me show you briefly from Passages of Romans, where all of these teachings are assumed and explicitly taught. From the very beginning of Romans, look at what Paul says in chapter one, verses one and two. Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle set apart for the gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scripture. in the Holy Scriptures. We understand that what Paul is going to do in Romans, and if you read carefully, and you look at those little reference columns on the side, and you see how many times Paul is citing Scripture, is alluding to Scripture, is quoting Scripture. What he is doing in Romans is showing that the gospel has been promised in the Scriptures. And here it is unfolded before you, but it connects with what has come before. It is scripture teaching. He quotes the scriptures dozens and dozens and dozens of times. When Paul wants to teach on sin, he ends his argument, our text. How does he, how does he wrap up his argument with a, what is called a string of pearls from scriptures, pulling from all sorts of places in the Psalms and the prophets to show cumulatively look at what the scriptures teach about human nature. When he wants to teach about justification, he goes right back to the source. Uh, Genesis chapter 15, look at what has already been said in the scriptures. When he wants to learn about the law, about the promises of the Jews, he goes back and looks at the scriptures. And most importantly, what he does not do is simply say, you know, this is just the way things have always been. It's just the traditions that have been handed down to us. Or what he doesn't do is say, I've been thinking deeply about this and I've come up with this kind of philosophical idea and I wanna put it for you with a number of proofs and try to defend it. That's not the way that the apostles work and operate. They trust the scriptures. The scriptures are the foundation of our faith. Sola scriptura. Sola scriptura. And sola fide. Sola fide. This, we just need to go. We're going to move right through Romans and Romans chapter four. He says this again, citing scripture for if Abraham was justified by works, He has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the scripture say? Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness. And then he goes on in chapter five. Through Christ, we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand and we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. By faith, we have access into this grace in which we stand. By faith, Abraham was justified by faith. His faith was credited to him as righteousness. And most importantly, what needed to be said to these dear and confused Christians at the end of the Middle Ages, the beginning of the early modern era, is that faith, yes, they would say faith is important, but we need to do other things. It's in our rituals, it's in our works, it's in the law, it's in all of these things. What does the apostle say? It is by faith that we stand before God. We have been accepted by faith. He doesn't say by faith we begin. By faith we have some kind of an entrance and then we're gonna need to do a bunch of work and things to finish that off. It's not what he says. By faith, from beginning to end, the Christian stands. It is fundamentally a trusting and a receptivity to what God has done. It is a looking to Him to save from beginning to end. From beginning to end. Sola fide. Sola fide. Side by side with this, this is something that was actually true in the Reformation, sola fide, sola gratia. Those two were often put forward. If you had asked what the solas of the Reformation were, many reformed teachers would have said sola gratia, sola fide. Those two things go together. Because from the human perspective, there is a receptivity, a trusting, help me, help me. I look to you to save. But of course, if God is up in heaven and says, fine, you must accomplish this, you must pay this, you must do this though, then the whole thing breaks down and it's no longer sola fide. But because our posture towards God is faith, his posture towards us is grace. gift he gives to the one who has faith. Romans chapter five. Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, what do we offer to God? Just increase sin. He gives us his law. He provides a system of religion and works and righteousness. And what do we do? Sin grows. We offer nothing through that to God except more sin. But it says where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Sin reigns through death, grace also might reign through righteousness. Grace reigns in the gospel through rules free gift, free gift. That means you don't grow past that. He doesn't give you a gift and then stand back and say, now it's time to, you know, perform and do all these things too. You know, I started you off with this gift, but now, you know, I want you to fulfill your end of the bargain. Cause I started you off. It is grace that reigns. from beginning to end. There is never a point in your Christian life where you can stop and say, yeah, I did this. This is something that I have done. It is grace. It is grace from beginning to end. It is grace. The apostle Paul. in 1 Corinthians chapter 15 says of his accomplishments as an apostle, that he will only speak of what grace has accomplished through him. All of his labors, all of his apostolic works, he looked back and says, all of that good work and gospel teaching and evangelism that was accomplished in my life is grace. It's grace. It is just God freely giving of himself and his power and his kindness and his patience and his forgiveness. It's all free. Sola gratia. Sola gratia. There are so many places in Romans where we could say, speak of solus Christus, indeed from beginning to end. Even right there, what is Paul's theme from the beginning? In Romans chapter one, he speaks of Jesus, the son of David, the Messiah, the one who is come and to fulfill all that the scripture says about him. But I want you to look at that. one of the culminating sections of Romans where so many of the problems that are raised and are addressed in terms of how sin is overcome in our lives and how we who are sinners can be received by God and stand before him. And he's coming to this conclusion of his argument in Romans 8. This is what he says. I want you to notice the place that Christ has in his thinking. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the spirit of life has set you free from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law weakened by the flesh could not do. By sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh. And for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the spirit. You see that? Sin is condemned. Sin is conquered. Sin is overcome. by God through Jesus. See, in the later Middle Ages, people had become somewhat confused. Of course, in all their churches, there were still crosses, there was still talk of Jesus, there was still talk of the grace that is found in Jesus, the work of Jesus, the blood of Jesus, the death of Jesus. And yet they made this horrific error in saying something to the effect that Jesus death covers a really important section of your sin. And gives you life. But what you do after that? A lot of that depends on you. A lot of that depends on the intercession of other saints and. Popes and. A lot of it depends, and there was all of this other mess of humanity that was being placed in between God and man. As my youth pastor growing up, one of the best things he ever taught us, Christ plus nothing equals everything. Christ plus anything equals nothing. Solus Christus, Christ conquers sin, overcomes it. If you are looking to anything else to save you, you are gravely mistaken. Now, if these things are true, what is the conclusion of the matter? Who gets the recognition for all these great, glorious things? Who gets the credit, who gets the applause and the praise? This is Paul's own conclusion. You see, he's about to transition. I'm gonna look at the end of Romans chapter 11 as he transitioned from his teaching of the exposition of the gospel to its practical implications in your life and how it works out in church life and relationship to the government and other practical matters. But in terms of the fulfillment of God's promises in the scriptures to save us through Jesus, This is his concluding statement. Oh, the depth of the riches and the wisdom and knowledge of God. How unsearchable are his judgments and inscrutable his ways. Who has known the mind of the Lord or who has been his counselor? Listen to this. Who has given a gift to him that might be repaid? For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever. Amen. The gospel. The end of the day. When all people look at it closely. And look at it from all sides in terms of faith. In terms of merit and grace. Terms of its foundation in the scriptures. in terms of the mediator, the one who accomplished the work. We look at this glorious treasure and we set it back down and we say, God alone has done this. I don't see anything in this that I bring except my sin. Except my sin. All glory goes to God. All glory goes to God. I think the solas of the Reformation are worth preserving, don't you? I believe that they are. And I believe that if we let go of those teachings, we lose the gospel itself. One of the things that drives us to these teachings, that continually makes us look for these teachings and nothing else, is how Paul begins Romans. which is his teaching about sin. See, before he gets to the good news, he lays out the very, very bad news of what our human condition actually is. And this is where I say in my very awkwardly worded title, the foundation of all these things is Paul's teaching of human depravity and human depravity. Total depravity is how Paul himself builds this foundation. He does this in the first three chapters, lays out a very powerful and very, some of these texts are things that have helped me my whole life. I go back to them again and again when I try to understand what is going on in the world. In Romans chapter one, he ties all of our human sin to the fact that we have rejected and abandoned the glory of God. fundamental problem with humanity is that we do not honor God or give thanks. We have a God problem behind all of our other problems, what he shows. And in rejecting God, in turning away from him, in pushing him away and suppressing the truth about him, it says, and judgment he has handed us over in the lust of our hearts. See, in rejecting the one object of the universe, the one person in the universe who is worthy of worship, we're still worshipers. We're still people who long for beauty and goodness and truth. We still long for those things. And in rejecting God, we still have that great need for beauty and goodness and truth and to honor something. The apostle calls that a great lust in our hearts. He says, and in that lust, well, we worship and serve the creature rather than the creator. We give ourselves over to all kinds, all manners of depravity and sinfulness and selfishness and all of these horrible human behaviors, the things that drive us crazy about one another. All of that comes from the fact that we have rejected our creator and we have truly broken hearts. Our hearts are corrupt, fallen. And then in chapter two, he looks to the side at the religious person, the moral person, the Jewish person mostly, who looking at this situation says, yes, what a horrible, horrible estate humanity has fallen itself. And he says, are you any better? Are you any better? Because you who look out at this situation and say, what a horrible state, and you who have adopted a high moral standard, you do the same things. I think it's interesting in chapter two and moving into chapter three, how Paul simply appeals to the religious person's own conscience. You who condemn these things in other people, what does your own heart tell you? What does your own heart tell you? Have you kept the law? Have you honored God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength? What comes out of your lips? Is it only praise, only blessing, only grace? No, manifestly, manifestly, even the most religious people living at that time, were deeply fallen, corrupt people as well. And he comes to a conclusion in our text, Romans chapter three, and he strings together mostly Psalms, but from Jeremiah and Isaiah, there's other sections of scripture that he cites. But it's a series of texts that he purposely chooses. This is a common rabbinical way of kind of arguing and it's kind of like overwhelming your opponent by having a cumulative effect of one text right after another. But I believe there is a kind of a logic to these texts. First of all, one of the interesting things about these texts, if you go back to like, just take the first one, for instance, which we read in our in our response of reading Psalm 14. The author of Psalm 14 himself is distinguishing himself from what he sees in the world. It's a very interesting kind of a text. When he looks out at humanity and he sees all of these evil and corrupt and fallen creatures, of course the thought is, you know, Lord, distinguish between us and them. But here Paul is saying, is taking that text and is applying it to all of humanity. As if to say, the guys out there, they look so bad, but what does your own heart tell you? Are you any different than they? Your own deeds will rise up to condemn you because you yourself do the same things that they do. If you're honest with yourself. So all of these texts, which many Jewish people would have thought, well, these look how they condemn the Gentiles, if they're honest with themselves, but also condemns them. And Paul has also reminded us of this important truth, which I already stated in Romans 1, which is that the heart of the matter is that we have a God problem. It's not primarily our relationship with other human beings. that constitutes our sinfulness, but it is how we neglect and dishonor God. So he begins, it's like he sandwiches this string of pearls with these two statements. There is no one righteous, not even one. There is no one who understands. There is no one who seeks God. No one who seeks God. And then to remind them at the end of the last verse, he cites, the fear of God is not before their eyes. He frames their unrighteousness in terms of God. Many today believe that they are good people because they don't do those things in the middle necessarily, but who loves God as they ought? The fundamental problem is a God problem. It's a God problem. I believe we have here clear place in scripture, the statement of our true situation, which theologians have called total depravity. And I want to briefly talk about what that doctrine means. This is my own kind of summary statement. Total depravity is a natural state of every naturally born human. Doesn't mean that's exactly where we stay for our whole lives. And of course we have to add naturally born human because Jesus was not totally depraved. But a total depravity is a natural state of every naturally born human whereby the totality of their person is corrupted by sin. They're unholy and inclining only to worse and worse evil. I'm gonna say that second part again. The totality of their person is corrupted by sin. They're unholy and inclining only to worse and worse evil. So as I've said, every single person save Jesus, Paul's words here, there is none righteous, no, not one. We have already concluded that both Jews and Gentiles are all under sin, all under sin. every single person. That's what we mean by total depravity. Total depravity. There's no pockets of humanity here that have escaped this somehow. It's something that is just common to men. And this next part's really important because total depravity is often misunderstood and doesn't reflect the fact that many people in their experience find humans quite, you know, you know, fine often to get along with. And it doesn't, seems like you're describing or making this like a really, really severe statement. That's not, in my experience, what we find when we look in the world. But listen carefully to what I'm saying. Every faculty is impacted by sin. It does not mean that every human being is possibly as bad as every human being can possibly be. That's not what total depravity means. It means they are totally, from beginning to end, tainted by sin and corrupted by sin. Their intellect is corrupted by sin. Their emotions, their heart, their will, their spirit, their soul, their body. Now Paul means to communicate this, I don't know if you noticed this when we read it, by referring to many different parts of the body in his text. He refers to feet, their feet, their mouths, their throats, their lips, their understanding. their eyes, so he has strung this string of pearls together to show a totality of humanity. Look at their lips, look at their eyes, look at their understanding, look at their minds, look at what they think about. The whole person is fallen. And it is a lack of holiness, to be specific, We're born into this world, we grow up naturally in this world without an ounce of holiness about us. We're not holy creatures. There's no sacred space in our person, in our natural persons devoted to God, honoring to God, setting him apart as different and worthy of our worship and honor. There's no fear of God before their eyes, he says. And we have a capacity for the worst kinds of evil. And not only that, but we are inclined to the worst kinds of evil. There's a gravity to our depravity. I didn't mean for that to rhyme, I'm sorry. But it works. There is a gravity. Pastor he used to speak frequently of the gravity of the flesh. You don't escape gravity. It's just always there It's pulling and it's pulling and it's pulling on you and it would pull you all the way down to the depths of Hitler level depravity Every human being Every human being on this planet has that inclination That's what would become of us If we were left to ourselves He handed them over in the lusts of their heart. Total depravity. And also, some theologians prefer the term, something they want to stress and emphasize, a total inability. It says here, there is no one who seeks God. In our natural state, we may be seeking religion, spirituality, fulfillment. We want to be right. We want to be in the place of the righteous. But when we come face to face with God, when we stand, according to the gospel of John, when we stand in the light, we don't like it there. We hide ourselves. We remove ourselves. So while we are inescapably religious, human beings are religious creatures, we also do not have within us in our natural state the willingness and the capacity to seek after God. We will turn away from the light. We'll hide from the light. This is something that is found not just here in this text, but throughout all of scripture. It is the teaching of scripture. You could look at the Old Testament as a great exposition of total depravity. The first person who was born on this planet was a murderer, was a murderer. Before the flood, what does it say when God looked down at the hearts of men? It says he found nothing in their hearts that was pleasing. God saves his people out of Egypt and leads them into the wilderness, makes covenant with them, gives them a name, a nation, a covenant. feeds them, provides for them, and what do they continually do in their hearts? This is the most favored of all people in human history to that point. He has cherished them. He has saved them. And what do they do? They complain continually. They are always going astray. The most blessed, graced people, and what do they do? They just continually go astray. The man after God's own heart, David, what does he do? He murders, commits adultery. We can look at Solomon. All throughout, it's as though the whole Old Testament is to lead us to the one person who's not like us. If the greatest of men, if the greatest of men are depraved, Who can save us? Who can deliver us? It leads us to Jesus. Jesus himself knew what was in man. It says at the beginning of the Gospel of John, he did not entrust himself to men because he knew what was in men. He knew what was in their hearts. The Apostle Paul calls himself the chief of sinners and says that's a trustworthy saying. It's something we should all be saying. He says evil men will go from bad to worse and on and on. This is the teaching of a whole of scripture. It is the assumption. It is the starting place. It is the place from which the gospel makes sense. It's the only place in which the gospel makes sense. And from this position, we look to the gospel and we see why it had to be this way. Why Sola Scriptura? Why Sola Fide? Sola Gratia? Solus Christus? And why Soli Deo Gloria? Because we are totally depraved. We offer nothing to this situation. Our hearts are corrupt and are fallen. And if we are to be saved, then God must do it. and He must do it all, and He must do it completely, and He must do it forever, if we are to be saved. We'll never stand on our own. I briefly want to address some of that goodness in the world. When we look out at our neighbors and we see people are generally kind, and people are generally agreeable, You think, well, I know lots and lots of non-Christians and lots and lots of Christians, and a lot of these are decent people, and I don't, I wouldn't characterize them as being totally depraved. One of the important complementary doctrines to total depravity is the doctrine of common grace. God, has appointed many means by which says he restrains the sinfulness of men. God has not handed all humanity over to become as bad as they can possibly be. He has not left us in that state because you know what would happen? Within a generation, it would be the end of humanity. In his kindness and allowing humanity to progress and move on, he has restrained sin. He does it through government. He does it through his spirit. He does it through fear. He does it through all sorts of means so that human beings do not continually spiral down as far as they can possibly. Go, but it is again his grace. His grace. The natural man. is completely dependent on his grace. They don't know it. They don't know what their hearts would be like if God removed his restraining grace from them, his kindness from them. And also we could say saving grace. Christians are a restraint to sin in the world. The sanctification of the spirit and the work of the spirit in our lives, it makes the world, obviously, a far better place than what total depravity, what we might expect. God is kind. God is gracious. There's so many applications of this truth. And I've run out of time. We can think of this truth in terms of how we parent, what we think of our children, as cute as they are, as adorable as they are, they are totally depraved. And listen, your cleverness, your wisdom, your parenting skills are never going to be enough. The grace of God alone, we must be parents who pray, Parents who push our children towards the gospel, towards Jesus, towards grace, faith. In politics, we know what happens when human beings completely reject the doctrine of depravity. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who says that the human heart is fundamentally good. And what we need to do is remove all of these external pressures which are corrupting and just allow man to get back to that kind of natural goodness that he has within his heart. It is only external philosophies and human religion and ideas that corrupt men. Men are naturally, well, you can see what would come of that, this is the kind of thinking I think that is behind much of the, I'm not saying all of it, but much of the defund the police. If we could just get rid of the people out there with guns and badges and just allow human beings to work out their problems, well then, they'll surely be okay. Those men with guns and badges are a grace, part of God's restraining grace on our depravity. In your own personal walk with Christ, this doctrine is very instructive because we must always remember that left to ourselves, even as Christians, our lives would spiral out of control in a horrible train wreck of sin and misery and shipwreck. We are sustained by God. God is able to keep us. Jesus said himself in John chapter 15, abide in me. Apart from me, you can do nothing. You can do nothing. You have as much human potential for living a good and fruitful Christian life in your heart right now as you had at the beginning of your life. There's nothing in you. that is able to live this life. There's no capacity inside of you to do it. We must be a completely dependent people ever looking to Jesus. If he will not save us and deliver us and sanctify us, we have no hope. Apart from him, we can do nothing. and percentages, it is a question of dependence and need for his grace. Even at this stage, and I've been a Christian for 30 years, 30 plus years. And I am 100% dependent on the grace and mercy, sanctifying influence of the Holy Spirit, Jesus Christ today, as I ever have been. I ever have been. But for the grace of God, I would be entirely lost. We could go on. The implications of this doctrine are huge. Let us never forget them. The Leaning Tower of Pisa was constructed hastily, as you can imagine. Immediately, problems were detected in its construction. The architect laid a mere three meters of foundation Apparently people thought that that's not gonna work and it didn't and it was resting on a Soil that was unstable immediately began to settle they set aside construction for over a hundred years So other architects picked it up. I came down they refitted the foundation Bolstered it strengthened it. It's still leans, but it's actually quite solid today even at its I mean, it survived four major earthquakes, but it had to be retrofitted considerably or it wouldn't be there. We would talk about it as a thing of history. In the same way, the contemporary evangelical church finds itself wobbling and shaking in the wind before every wind of doctrine, psychological heresies, conspiracy theories, man-centered doctrines, mystical gospel teaching. It does not ease the burden of guilt and sin. And all of these continue to grow in abundance because, frankly, in my diagnosis, I believe in the diagnosis of the Apostle Paul, they do not truly understand man's problem, the depths of our depravity, the corrupt nature of our, even our understanding, our ability to understand the problems. And unless we recover this in our day and age, we will just find ourselves continually being thrown around in every wind of false teaching. Let it not be true of Reformation Covenant Church. Let us be a people who always remember that Reformation foundation that was laid so many years ago. Solea Deo Gloria. May God be glorified in the preaching of His goodness. Amen.