Good evening. A very warm welcome both to those of you who are here and to those who are joining us by live stream. We are delighted to be together in God's presence this evening for this very special Reformation Day service. It is a special delight to welcome our two guest preachers this evening, Reverend Mark Johnston and Dr. Sinclair Ferguson. The outline of this evening's service is in the bulletin that you should have been given when you came in this evening, and I invite you to turn now to the inside as we begin our service. Psalm 100. All people that on earth do dwell, sing to the Lord with cheerful voice. Him serveth mirth, his praise forth tell. Come ye before him and rejoice. If you don't have a bulletin, this psalm is in the red psalm book in front of you in the Purack on page 198. and we shall stand to sing after the introduction. Let's stand to sing. Aum Aum Aum Aum Aum Aum Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave Amen. Please be seated. We're going to turn to the Lord in prayer. And then after that, the Reverend Mark Johnston will come and bring God's word to us. Let us pray. Almighty God, what efforts the evil one has made in every age to destroy the gospel. And we thank you that his endeavors have come to nothing. We thank you for what the gospel has done and what it is yet doing and will do as you bring your purposes and grace for this world to fulfillment. We thank you for that great recovery of the gospel those many centuries ago, for the truth that was uncovered, that had never been lost, and which has spread throughout the world, and which has won such glorious victories in a multitude of lives. Thank you for what, in the hands of the Spirit, it has done in the lives of so many of us here. We bless you, O God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, for your great gift and for your great power and for your purposes in grace. We are the recipients of astonishing blessing And this evening we would give you the praise and the glory for all that we have, for all that we are in Christ, and for all that we shall yet be as you bring your purposes for us to completion. We thank you for this gathering and we ask for your blessing to be upon the whole of our time together. Thank you for our brother Mark and we pray that he may be filled with the spirit as he comes to bring God's word to us now. And we pray that you will give us ears to hear by the Spirit what you would say to us through your servant. Hear us, we pray, for our Savior's sake. Amen. Mark. I ask you to take your Bibles and turn to Romans chapter 11. We're going to be looking at verses 33 through 36. But in order to provide the context, I want to begin reading at verse 25 of Romans chapter 11. And while you're turning to it, just let me very quickly commend two books to you that are available in the bookstore. One is for those of you who perhaps are here because you want to find out about the Reformation but don't know a great deal about it. I feel intimidated by the size of some of the books that are out there. The Unquenchable Flame by Dr. Michael Reeves is a wonderful entry point to just getting a readable introduction to the Reformation and all that it achieved. And then another book that I'll be referring to in the course of this evening's first address is John Calvin, The Necessity of Reforming the Church, which will give a broader insight into what we want to cover this evening. But let's read together from Romans 11, beginning at verse 25. I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers, so that you may not be conceited. Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in. And so all Israel will be saved. As it is written, the deliverer will come from Zion. He will turn godlessness away from Jacob. And this is my covenant with them when I take away their sins. As far as the gospel is concerned, they are enemies on your account. But as far as election is concerned, they are loved on account of the patriarchs. For God's gifts and his call are irrevocable. Just as you, who were at one time disobedient to God, have now received mercy as a result of their disobedience, So they too have now become disobedient in order that they too may now receive mercy as a result of God's mercy to you. For God has bound all men over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all. Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God. How unsearchable His judgments and His paths beyond tracing out. Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been His counselor? Who has ever given to God that God should repay Him? For from Him And through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever. Amen. This is God's holy and enduring word. There's a great temptation for Christians to view the Reformation in much the same way as we are often tempted to view the life of King David. We view the life of David through rose-colored spectacles and think of it in terms of his great achievements, his slaying of the giant Goliath, his establishment of the monarchy in Israel, His defeat of the Philistines, driving back the enemies of God, building up the kingdom of Israel into its golden era in the history of God's dealings with his ancient people. But of course, if you go back to the books of 1st and 2nd Samuel and you read the accounts of David and what was involved in the years that God gave him, they were far from straightforward. There were twists and turns, low points, many low points as well as high points that help us to see in clearer perspective what God was doing in that great era of Israel's history and what God was accomplishing through this flawed and sinful servant that he had called and placed in a position of great responsibility. So when it comes to viewing the Reformation, especially from our vantage point of almost 500 years after the event, it's very easy to home in on certain features of the Reformation, certain accomplishments of the Reformation, and think, well, that's what it was all about. And of course, the temptation is to think, well, it was all about justification. That was the key thing that was established and recovered out of the distortions of medieval Catholicism. that was put back in its proper place during the great Protestant Reformation. And the quotes of Martin Luther that the doctrine of justification is the mark of the standing or the falling church has often served to reinforce that misperception. Likewise, it's easy for us to home in on the so-called five points of Calvinism and say, well, that's what it was all about. or the five solas of the Reformation. And that's what it was all about. And yes, each of those angles provide a helpful insight into what took place during that significant period of world history, let alone church history. But none of them, and indeed not even all of them together, give us a fair understanding of what drove these men, what motivated these men, who we call the reformers, to pursue a very painful and a very costly path for themselves and many who stood with them as they took their stand against the Church of Rome in order to recover the church to its gospel foundations. And it's only when we go back to the history and begin to remind ourselves of the detail of what took place and to listen to the reformers themselves, that we begin to get a glimpse of what made them tick and what inspired them to take such a valiant stand and such a costly stand, at times risking their own lives for the sake of the gospel, invoking the hatred of the churchmen of their day, standing often alone against many in order to make the case for the historic Christian faith. That what drove them more than anything else was a desire to restore the church to a proper form of worship. in order that God might be truly glorified among his people as opposed to the way in which he had been dishonored for centuries in the greater part of the church in Europe throughout the medieval era. One of the clearest statements if we turn to the reformers and listen to what their analysis was of those events and of those times. One of the clearest statements spelling out the reason for all that happened during that period was actually written some 27 years after it ostensibly began with Martin Luther nailing the 95 thesis to the chapel door in Wittenberg Castle in Germany. Calvin, in his treatise, The Necessity of Reforming the Church, addressed to the Emperor King Charles V at the Diet of Spears, explains what lay at the heart of the reformers' vision, what motivated them to engage in this task that they undertook and pursue it to the very end. He states the central concern as being to restore biblical doctrine and practice with regard to the doctrine, practice, sacraments and government of the church. He elaborates on that a bit further on when he says, it is in terms of the mode in which God is duly worshipped and the source from which salvation is obtained. reminding us that authentic worship, God-glorifying worship, can never come from the lips of those who neither know nor love God, nor have experienced the saving grace of God. And the desire to bring the gospel back into sharp focus for the church of that era was in order to open the eyes of the masses in order that they might see God in all his glory, open the ears of the masses in order that they might hear the voice of God in the wonder of the gospel. That in turn that might open the lips of the masses that they might sing the praise of God with mouths and with minds and with hearts that were truly devoted to Him. Calvin goes on to say that if the reformers had ignored these issues as the great issues of their day and the great deficiencies of the church, they would have betrayed the worship of God, the glory of Christ, the salvation of men, the entire administration of the sacraments, and the government of the church, all of which would have been tantamount to blasphemy. to the ultimate dishonoring of the name of God. The name of God being plunged into disrepute, not by a world that gave no heed to him, but by the church that claimed to be his very own. We see it too in the way in which the various confessions and catechisms that were formed in the Reformation era were built around three things by and large. The Ten Commandments, the Lord's Prayer and the Creed. And what each of those portions of God's Word and the summary of God's Word and the Creed have in common is that they begin with the glory of God as being their chief concern. That to bring God's people back to these great statements of God's self-revelation and his engagement with his people was in order that he might be honored in their midst. And all of this to say that it is utterly appropriate for us this evening as we consider the theme of doxology in this first address and then benediction in the closing address. It is utterly appropriate to explore the connection between Reformation and what took place almost 500 years ago and the worship of God in all its different parts and aspects. We're taking the bookends of worship this evening, doxology and benediction. to spell them out in light of what God has said in His Word. There's nothing artificial about doing so. It's simply following the pattern that we find in Scripture itself. That rhythm between the praise of God and the blessing of God. The people of God lifting their hearts to Him in praise and adoration. The smile of God and the benediction of the Lord being poured out upon those who look to him in faith. We see it most notably in the Apostle Paul, where we see again and again this rhythm of the doxologies into which he bursts spontaneously and the words of benediction with which he rounds off the word that he brings from God to the church. And we can't help but notice that his frequent outbursts of praise in these doxologies come as a punctuation mark on his expositions of the great truths of the gospel. His doxologies are, if you like, the fanfares to the glory of God. the spontaneous explosions into praise and worship to this God who has made himself known in the gospel through his son the Lord Jesus Christ in ways that are impossible to fully comprehend and to which the only appropriate reflex action is to fall down in adoration before God. We could turn to any one of Paul's many doxologies or others besides in scripture, but I want to turn to this one that's before us in Romans 11 this evening and note significantly that it comes at the climax of the greatest exposition of the gospel that we find anywhere in the Bible. As Paul has taken us through some 11 chapters of what the gospel is and how the gospel works and the lengths to which the gospel takes us and the heights to which it raises us, the only way in which Paul can punctuate that great gospel sermon is to burst into praise to the God of the gospel. And as we look at what it says, I think three things come to light for us. The first is that doctrine, which he has been expounded in relation to the gospel all the way through Romans so far, doctrine demands doxology. Doctrine demands doxology. We have only begun to do our theology a right when it leads us to the throne of God and into the worship of God. It's not merely that we have grasped the truths with which we are wrestling, but that those truths have truly gripped us. They're the only fitting response to what God has revealed. in all its heights and depths and lengths and breadths, is to pour our hearts out in praise and worship to the God who is making himself known. There may well be a place for going through this great declaration of praise line by line, even word by word, but I want to approach it from a slightly different angle this evening, one that helps us understand why Paul responds in this way at this particular point in his letter. because we see it happening not only here but elsewhere in his letters. And the answer is simple on the one hand that he can't help but do this. But at the same time he knows that it's the only fitting thing that he can do as he reflects upon such glorious truth. And the fact that both those aspects of the answer are equally true shows that he is not responding in some contrived way. It's not as though the apostle says, well, I ought to put in a word of praise at this point. It's the expected thing. It is the spontaneous response of the apostle to what he's been opening up. But at the same time, he knows that it's the fitting response. that these great truths demand. Paul has just spent 11 chapters expounding the gospel, the good news of God's great salvation. A message that is simple on the one hand, simple enough for a child to understand and yet extraordinarily profound at the same time. It's simple because, as Paul says in Romans 6.23, it comes as God's free gift. The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ, His Son. It's a gift that is received not because we have earned it, but simply by holding out the empty hand of faith with no strings attached. To receive what we could never deserve. To be provided with what has been purchased at extraordinary cost. as God's gracious gift to sinful, undeserving people. It's simple, but it is unspeakably profound. Because as Paul takes this simple gospel and begins to unpick it and open it up in all its intricacy, in all its many dimensions, from the beginning of this letter right through to where he is rounding off at the end of chapter 11. It is beyond words to begin to fathom where he takes us. Remember, at the beginning of Romans, Paul sets out the ugly truth about the human condition. What's wrong with our race? What's wrong with each one of us as individuals belonging to that race? What was wrong even for the religious Jews of their day? The self-righteous, professed people of God of their day. That they were no better than their unbelieving, pagan, idol-worshipping neighbors. in the Greek and Roman world, that when it came to thinking about salvation that every human being needs, when we look at it in the light of the sobering light of God's holiness, God's righteousness, God's justice, then the very notion of being reconciled to God belongs to the realm of the impossible. Not just beyond our reach, but beyond the limits of what God can do if he is to maintain his own integrity and grant this gift of salvation. Well summarized in that question that is a paraphrase of what Paul is wrestling with, especially in Romans chapter 3 through 5. How can God be just? and yet justify the ungodly? How can God maintain his own integrity as the righteous judge of all the earth and yet accept sinful people? But the wonder of the gospel that Paul expounds in response to what seems like this unanswerable question is that it is resolved in one person, the Lord Jesus Christ. And far from being some simplistic answer to that imponderable question, it becomes yet more profound on the one hand through grasping, who is this Jesus of Nazareth? Who is this one that was perceived to be merely the carpenter's son from the obscure village in the foothills of Galilee? He is none other than the Son of God, taken human flesh, conceived in the womb of the Virgin Mary, born in Bethlehem. He is the God-Man. He is the incarnation of the glory of God, with the majesty veiled by His humanity. And yet, glimpses of His glory shining through in the course of His life and ministry. But more than that, what His saving work involved. That journey that took Him from the heights of glory into the obscurity of conception in Mary's womb. Into the hiddenness of some 30 years of His life in Galilee. And then when he stepped onto the public stage, it was that he should be the man of sorrows acquainted with grief. The one who was despised and rejected of men. The one who would walk the lonely path that would lead not merely from the cradle in Bethlehem to the cross of Calvary, but from the glory of heaven from which he came to the depths of hell to which he descended. in the darkest moment upon that cross where he suffered for sinners. But not to be abandoned there. That even when his body was laid in the grave, it was not that the Holy One would suffer decay. Or he would be abandoned to the darkness of that tomb. But according to the promise of God and the prediction of the prophets, he would, according to his own word, be raised on the third day, be vindicated by the Spirit of God, and then be exalted in an altogether more glorious way with his exalted risen humanity to the right hand of God's majesty on high. So here in these verses as Paul looks back over the landscape of these last 11 chapters he's been expounding, breathtaking in the extreme, the only fitting response that he can make is, oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God. How unsearchable his judgments and his paths past tracing out. Paul didn't have to sit down and think, what should I say at this point? How can I find a form of words that will adequately express it? This is the reflex action of a heart that has been thrilled to the very core with the wonder of the God of his salvation. And it's not unlike the way that Martin Luther described the gospel's impact on his own life, as he was gripped by that great truth in Romans 1 verse 17, for in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last. And how did Martin Luther look back upon that day, describe the impact that those words, those gospel words made upon his mind and his heart that day? It was for me as though the very gates of paradise had opened for me. Words of doxology. Words that said it was like being brought into the inner sanctuary of God himself. You see the depth and the wonder of the truth revealed in the gospel demands doxology. demands that we ultimately fall on our faces in wonder, love and praise to this God who has first loved us and paid with the blood of His own Son to make us His very own, to bring us into His family, to secure us for eternity. And we offer that praise, dear friends, not by naked obligation. but out of heartfelt joy. The second thing that we see from these verses is that doxology is shaped by doctrine. Doctrine demands doxology, but doxology is shaped by doctrine. You see, the worship of God had not disappeared ostensibly from the medieval Catholic church, but it had become so corrupted and so distorted that it was almost unrecognizable as genuine worship of the living God. There were plenty of expressions of worship in the great buildings, the ornate cathedrals, the elaborate rituals, the shrines, the statues, the images, the elaborate procedures that the clergy would go through with their congregations, but it had degenerated into a worship of form that had no substance. It was worship in name, but it was no longer worship in reality. And in one sense, what was happening during those dark ages spiritually, in the Middle Ages, was nothing more than history repeating itself. Because in the Old Testament, worship again and again had become mingled with pagan ritual. God had told his people explicitly when he brought them into the promised land that they were not to intermingle their worship and their worship practices with those of their pagan neighbors. That there was something utterly unique and distinctive about the worship of the one true God. that it was to be worship according to His word and in keeping with His will as opposed to the kind of worship that men thought was appropriate to bring God. And in one of the darker moments of Israel's history, when they were going through all the routines of temple worship, With all its accoutrements, God said through the prophet Isaiah, these people worship me with their lips. But their hearts are far from me. Their worship is nothing more than rules and regulations that have been taught by men. And that's exactly what Jesus repeated to the Pharisees. When he was confronted with the worship of his day. The worship that so incensed him. that he displayed his righteous indignation in the desecration of his father's house and with the worship that was being offered there. The reformers understood what had gone wrong with worship, that it had become molded by tradition, the traditions of men that had superseded the control of God's word. It's important to realize that the reformer's response was not to remove the place of tradition from the life of the church and the place of worship, but rather to remove what was flawed in the traditions of worship with what was faithful in light of scripture. And so their deep concern was to let the word, the word of God, shape the worship of God in faithfulness. And that's precisely what we see modeled in Paul's great outburst of praise here in Romans. The praise that he offers is shaped by the revelation that God had already given. If the first couplet in his doxology declares both the mystery and the majesty of this God of our salvation, then the second couplet reinforces that praise. And that does so by two direct quotes from the Old Testament. The first from Isaiah 40, who has known the mind of the Lord or who has been his counselor. And the second from Job 41, who has ever given to God that God should ever repay him. You see, his declaration of praise was not some mystical outpouring of the first thoughts that came into his head, but he reached for the very words by which God had made himself known and offered God's words back to him, brought worship back to God that were shaped by what God had revealed. It was a reminder that this God who is beyond all human thought and comprehension has made himself known and made himself accessible by his word and through his Holy Spirit. So the tradition of worship found in the Old Testament that was faithful was shaped by what God had revealed in the Old Testament. So too in the New Testament, as that revelation is taken to whole new levels, it became the means of shaping the worship of that era in church life. But the key to both was the fact that God's revelation always brings us to the same destination, to the incarnation of His truth in the person of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. And that explains why during the Reformation era, God was rediscovered as the worship of God was brought under the light of His Word afresh. The worship that was brought to God was regulated by the truth that God had revealed in Holy Scripture. Because the Reformers knew that the worship that is right and well-pleasing in God's sight is an echo of what God has spoken to his people for their salvation. But then, finally, we see that not only does doctrine demand doxology, and doxology must be shaped by doctrine, but both doctrine and doxology ultimately define our life as human beings. You see, the final clause in this doxology is hugely significant, not just in itself and how it fits in with what Paul is saying in Romans, but also for how we understand what happened during the Reformation, again, framed as a couplet. The first line, relating to all things in the entire recorded, created order, relating them in every aspect to God himself, from him and through him and to him are all things. And then the second line, the definitive response to that great reality, to Him and to Him alone be the glory forever. Amen. Paul is saying that there is nothing and no one in the entire creation that does not owe its existence to God, does not depend upon God for every breath and every moment of its existence, or is meant for His glory. So the myth that we are living with day in and day out in our supposedly enlightened modern world that we owe our existence to a godless accident in the primeval past has led to an entire generation around the world believing that there is no reason for our existence, no purpose that drives us in life. So Paul's great argument woven through this act of adoration is to root our self-understanding and our understanding of the world firmly in God alone. He is the center of the universe. He is the key to understanding all things. He explains where we've come from, who we are, why we're here, how we're meant to function, and it's all for Him and not for ourselves. And in that sense, the most truly human thing that anybody can do is to worship God and to bring Him glory by all that we are. And that explains these words that Paul states. And it also explains that Paul goes on to say in the first two verses of the next chapter, therefore, I urge you brothers in view of God's mercy to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God. This is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, which becomes the gateway for the rest of the letter. And again, we see that imprinted all over what happened during the Reformation. What came to pass through the rediscovery of the glory of God in the gospel was not merely the transformation of individual lives in isolation, but the transformation of the church, the transformation of communities, the transformation of nations that reaped the benefit of God's saving work unleashed in those days. Just as the flawed theology of the medieval era had warped the worship and distorted the lives of the nations of that time, so as reformation took hold in the churches and began transforming lives through genuine conversion, communities and nations and continents were touched by its influence. But what's most interesting is the way that it came to be enshrined in the creedal statements of the reformers and their successors. captured so wonderfully well in the Westminster Shorter Catechism, question and answer number one, what is man's chief end? Man's chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever. But those words were not original to the Westminster divines. Because you find almost exactly the same language being used by Calvin in his Geneva Catechism in question and answers one to three. that what lay at the heart of the Reformation and the heart of the vision of the Reformers was to realize that the chief end, the main reason, the central purpose for our existence is that we might be to the glory of God, to the praise of His glorious grace. And that in so doing, we would find our deepest, richest, most enduring joys. in what it means to bear His image. Knowing God as the agents of His glory is the key to life that's real. And dear friends, the only way that we can realize that goal and discover that key is in and through Him who is the very incarnation of the glory of God and who is the very embodiment of the gospel of God, even the Son of God. who lived and died and rose and was exalted for our salvation and for the glory of his Father's name. Let's pray. Merciful God, we pray that you would not merely open our eyes to see more clearly what we perceive so dimly. But you will open our minds to grasp more fully what we always feel that we have only grasped in part. But more than anything else, O Lord, we humbly pray that you would enlarge our hearts with love for you who first loved us, and that you would be enthroned upon the praises of your people's lips and your glory reflected in the lives that they live for your praise. Amen. We're going to take a 30-minute break. We have pies and cakes aplenty in the social hall. If you're a stranger to our building, just go out here and turn to my right, go along to the end of the corridor. We only have 30 minutes max, so please make your way there as quickly as you can. We do have a book table in the Festibule. It's open for this break and then after the second session, an assortment of books by our guest speakers this evening. Also for tonight and through the month of November, the book that Mark especially mentioned, The Unquenchable Flame by Michael Reeves. Let's give thanks for the food. Father, we give you thanks for your provision for us day by day. We give you the glory as the God who provides for us in all our needs. And we ask for your blessing upon us as we eat and drink and share fellowship together through Christ our Lord. Amen. And play the hand a couple times. We're going to sing the hymn printed in the inside cover of your bulletin. Wonderful Reformation hymn. I greet thee, whom I sure redeem our art, my only trust and savior of my heart. If you don't have a bulletin, this is hymn number 135 in the Blue Trinity hymnal. I greet thee, whom I assure, Redeemer art. We'll stand to sing after the introduction. And as soon as we've finished singing, I'm going to ask Dr. Ferguson to come and bring God's word to us. Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave Aum Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave O'er the land of the free O'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming? And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air, Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there I love you. Please be seated. Well now, let's turn in our Bibles again to the Book of Numbers in the Old Testament Scriptures. If you're using the Church Bible, the reading is on page 114. And we're going to read there in Numbers chapter 6 from verse 22 through to the end of the chapter in verse 27. Numbers chapter 6 and from verse 22. The Lord spoke to Moses saying, speak to Aaron and his son saying, thus you shall bless the people of Israel. You shall say to them, The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. So shall they put my name upon the people of Israel and I will bless them. Well, let me add my own sense of gratitude to you at Grace Church here for inviting Mark Johnson and myself to share in the worship of the fellowship and in the ministry of the Word. When I was in the fellowship hall a few minutes ago, I recalled the very first time I ever visited the United States of America. and preached here at Grace Baptist Church in what was then what you Americans call the sanctuary. And going through again because of the attachment that I've had now over 36 years. That was more than 36 years ago. to people in this congregation who are obviously now in the older group of church members, it struck me again how small the room seemed by comparison with my memory of it. And many of you, I'm sure, have had the experience of going back somewhere you visited when you were young and now you are old. And the place meant a great deal to you emotionally or spiritually. And you're kind of surprised how much it has shrunk. because it is a large place in your memory. And in all likelihood, if it were, humanly speaking, if it were not for that occasion, I never would have had an invitation the next year to speak at the family conference. When I said to my wife, we had three children, three boys, and we're expecting another child, and we were invited to come to the family conference, and I was invited to bring my children, and I remember saying to my wife, we've got to go, because we'll probably never get another opportunity to visit the United States of America. And in due season, one thing led to another in the providence of God. So we live by taking one step at a time, don't we, in obedience to the Lord. And we can certainly never guess where it's going to lead. Your minister and Mark Johnson and I were sitting in his office in your pastor's study, three British people now staggering into and past middle years. And just saying, you know, we never could have imagined it. And I guess you could never have imagined it either, so. Well, when Mark Johnson said to me, we knew that we both would be speaking this evening, that he was going to speak on the doxology, I thought to myself, well, that leaves me with the benediction. And so the benediction it is here from Numbers chapter six. I don't know when you first heard this, It's even conceivable that you didn't know it came from Numbers chapter six. But in all likelihood, I think you heard this first of all, as a benediction. Perhaps at the end of one service, your minister here or somewhere perhaps surprised you by not using the customary benediction from 2 Corinthians 13 and for some reason used these words as a benediction. I did not hear these words of benediction until I'm sure I was well into my twenties and first heard them in the old Scottish tradition of singing the Aaronic blessing or benediction in a baptismal service. Immediately after the baptism, the congregation would spontaneously and sometimes melodiously break into song and sing these words of the Aaronic Benediction. And whatever situation you were in when you first heard them, I very little doubt that you always remembered them, making the marvelous impress on your affections as well as on your understanding that they are intended to do. I also remember reading when I was a teenager, I knew I was being called into the gospel ministry. I remember reading a book that said, whatever you do when you're a visitor, don't preach on one of the great texts of the Bible. and don't try and preach on a text with which you know people are familiar and probably love because you're in a hiding to nothing. Either they assume that there is nothing you can teach them or if this is a great text, there is no probability that you will rise high enough to be able to expound that text to the satisfaction and the spiritual appetite of the people. But over the years, I've known you to be a Bible-loving people, to love things old as well as new, and to be patient with those of us who expound the Scriptures. And so I thought, perhaps at Grace Baptist Church, I can take the risk, because they are glorious words. And that's actually the first thing I want you to notice with me. that these verses provide us with a benediction of unparalleled beauty. We'll see, I think, in a few minutes that there is more than beauty in them. But we understand that God is, in the fullest sense, the author of all beauty. that it's man that mars the beauty of God. And also, even although we are Christians, we also sometimes fail to recognize the beautiful things that God has given to us. Familiarity, sometimes with a passage like this, breeds contempt. And so the first thing to remind you of to rehearse together is that this is indeed a benediction, a blessing of unparalleled beauty. Those of you who have been struck by the fact that even in our modern day, the Hebrew mind seems to have a delight or an attraction to both things mathematical and things musical will perhaps understand that this is actually embedded in the word of God. And one of the beauties of this benediction is it has a kind of mathematical shape. It has a mathematical shape in the sense that the Lord's name begins every phrase of the benediction of which there are three, the Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord says, Aaron, make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. And that triple statement that actually in the scriptures is so rare and unusual is really a beautiful form of emphasis. You know that in the Bible, when something is emphasized, it's sometimes repeated. Remember the words of Jesus, verily, verily, I say to you, truly, truly, I say to you, well, everything Jesus says is true. He doesn't need to repeat himself. What is he doing? He is saying this is particularly significant. But there are very few occasions in the Bible where you have repetition repeated. Most famous illustration, of course, is the seraphim in Isaiah chapter six, ever crying, holy, holy, holy is the Lord. Conveying the intensity of God's holiness. And here is another occasion when our eyes are being drawn to the lordship of the Lord. It's the covenant name of the Lord, which is why it's in these capital letters if you're using a contemporary translation. And it's exalting Jehovah, exalting Yahweh. Exalting the covenant Lord who is mentioned already by name in the second chapter of Genesis and is the creator of all things. And in this instance is clearly the redeemer of his people. And it's saying fix your gaze upon the Lord whatever your condition is. Lift up your eyes and look at the Lord. And then in these blessings that flow from the Lord's presence, there is in the Hebrew text a kind of arithmetical progression in them. For example, the first line of the blessing has three Hebrew words. The second line of the blessing has five Hebrew words. And so the third line of the blessing will have seven Hebrew words. And it even stretches down into the number of syllables in these words. The first line in the blessing has 12 syllables. The second line of the blessing has 14 syllables. And so the third line of the blessing will have 16 syllables. And it goes even further down than that into the number of consonants that are used that dominate Hebrew words. The first line has 15 consonants. The second line has 20 consonants. And so the third line will have 25 consonants. And so you see there is a beauty, there is an orderliness. And yet perhaps the most remarkable thing is this. And this is something that delighted the Old Testament readers of Scripture. But there are 15 words in this blessing. Three of them are the same word, Yahweh, Jehovah. And then there are 12 words. And when you place Yahweh three times in the midst of these 12 words, what do you receive? You receive benediction. It's a kind of arithmetical expression. You know how sometimes you, I wonder if any of you have ever looked at that ugly woman, you know, I've never seen the beautiful maiden. It's deliberately on God's part, He has enshrined this orderliness, this mathematical beauty and this profound theology into this blessing in order that having eyes opened by the Spirit, we may see the sheer wonder of it. But at the same time, we may gaze at this and see, you remember Isaiah 53? that there was no form or comeliness in him that we should desire him. And God himself in this benediction invests it with form and comeliness for those who have eyes to see and having put their eyes down as it were into the text of scripture or having these words ringing in their ears whenever Aaron pronounced the benediction upon God's people as he did at least on an annual occasion. They found themselves not only lifted up to the Lord but with this extraordinary sense of the precision of the Lord, of the wisdom of the Lord, of the beauty of the Lord, of the orderliness of the Lord, and therefore this sense that those who trusted in Him would experience shalom, completeness, wholeness, stability, benediction, blessing. And you see how This is never said when we use this as a benediction. But you see how the Lord explained to Aaron what was actually happening when he pronounced this benediction. It's in verse 27. So he says, shall they, that is Aaron and his sons, the high priests, so shall they put my name upon the people of Israel and I will bless them. I want you to notice that God has given this benediction for His people, and the same applies whenever we use it, as a gospel proclamation. This is not, I think, wishful thinking. It isn't even aspiration. It's proclamation. It's not something to which we are called to respond by saying, I wish that this were true. It's a gospel reality that we are called to respond to by saying, Lord, I believe it. Lord, I receive it. Pour out your benediction upon me as I raise my hands of faith up to you and my eyes are opened to the wonder of your grace and the beauty and harmony of your benediction. Probably only the ministers who are here know that behind the scenes there is a little debate among ministers as to whether you keep your eyes open or closed when you're pronouncing the benediction. Have you ever heard ministers talk about that? It's a kind of trade secret. I remember years ago one of my associates came to me, he said, Sinclair, he said, he said, help me here because some of the people in the congregation are asking me, and he apparently didn't know the answer, they're asking me, why does he keep his eyes open when he pronounces the benediction? And I said to this younger man and a very dear friend, I said, Marder, the next time anyone asks you why I keep my eyes open when I'm pronouncing the benediction, say to them, how do you know he keeps his eyes open when he's pronouncing the benediction? But the real answer is, because I don't think it's a prayer. I mean some people do keep their eyes open when they're preaching the gospel. And this is a proclamation of the gospel, of the shalom of God, of the benediction of God. And so it is to be responded to in faith. I see it! I see you Lord! I see you in your, whatever it means, even within the Old Covenant, I see you in your triune benediction. And I see that the goal of that and the fruit of that is that in this confused and dark world, I would experience shalom. That I would know what it is about which the psalmist speaks when he says, mark the righteous man. Because His end is Shalom. And this is what makes this benediction. A benediction of, I think, unparalleled beauty. But second, it's not only a benediction of unparalleled beauty. It is also, and I think this is fairly evident. It's also the high point of the Old Testament liturgy. It's a proclamation of Old Testament gospel peace at the end of the liturgy. And most of us are so familiar with this, I think we can almost imagine it. We can see Aaron robing himself on the Day of Atonement, that special day in the year, the great day of forgiveness. And we can see Him putting on that breastplate and those 12 precious stones and those epaulets with their two stones on which the names of the tribes of Israel were engraved. Six here, six there, and one stone each for each of the tribes of Israel as the representative of the whole of God's people on this day and everything He does. and taking the bull, sacrificing the bull for his own sins and for the sins of his family. And then those spine tingling moments when two goats were brought to him. And lots were cast over the goats and one of the goats was taken and slain as a bloody sacrifice for the sins of the people and its blood taken into the holiest place of all. And there in the very presence of God, the blood would be sprinkled for the sins of the people. And then the other half of that amazing ritual, when the sins and the guilt of the people were confessed over the head of the other goat and a man who was worthy to do it would lead that goat out of the camp. or in the days of the city of Jerusalem, outside the city walls and down the hill and away into the wilderness and there the goat would be released into the wilderness, the no man's land, carrying as it were on its shoulders the guilt and the alienation and the desolation that was due to the sins of the people who were in the camp or in the city or in all Israel. And then we can imagine, we can imagine the smell of the blood. We can imagine the horrific sight of the slaughter. We can imagine the silence with which the people must have watched not only the priest disappear from view but the goat disappear from view. And then Aaron coming and raising his hands to the people and blessing the people and saying, the Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face shine upon you, be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you his peace. And you see Aaron as the mediator of this sacrifice, had borne their names into the presence of God. He had placed their names before God. He had covered their names with this sacrifice of forgiveness. And then says the Lord to Moses, tell Aaron once he has done that, once he has carried the names of my people into my presence, carried them for judgment before me, and I have accepted the sacrifice. Tell him to go forth to the people and tell him who bore their name into my presence to bear my name out of my presence and to place it upon my people." You see what's happening here? It's the principle that unfolds again and again. There had been hints of it already in the Old Testament, but it unfolds again and again. And since this is Reformation weekend, it lay at the very heart of the gospel that reformers preached. The message of the great exchange that God provides for sinners. That their sin is laid on another. And the high priest, having made the sacrifice for sin, comes and stamps the name of the Lord upon their lives. And yet, you know, I think it's true, if you'd been a real believer in the days of the Old Testament and had watched this, even if you had been Aaron, and being the principal actor of all this, there would have been something lingering at the back of your mind as you went through this ritual. Actually, Hebrews 10 tells us what it would be. Hebrews, of course, is a New Testament letter, but in Hebrews chapter 10, the author of Hebrews uses reasoning and understanding that is not true just because it's the New Testament. It's not true just because Jesus has come. There are indications in the Old Testament that it was true also for Old Testament believers. They saw this. They saw that the blood of bulls and goats cannot possibly be an adequate and sufficient sacrifice for the sins of a human being. Not all the blood of bulls and goats and Jewish shelters slain could give the guilty conscience peace or wash away the stain. And so this beautiful benediction This high point of the Old Testament liturgy on the high day of the Jewish calendar, the day of the forgiveness of sins, in a sense lay open-ended to the future. created in God's people an aspiration that all that was being, as it were, acted out in this drama that made them reach up for the benediction of Jehovah and also reach forwards so that what this sacrifice and day and man represented might at last come fully and finally true. And of course, as New Testament believers, we ought not to read this benediction without realizing that it's, yes, a benediction of great beauty. Yes, it's the high point of the Old Testament liturgy. But thirdly, that it's fulfilled only in Jesus' ministry. You know, I think the gospel writer Luke understood this. He portrays Jesus as the high priest who goes into the holiest place with his own blood, makes the sacrifice, is hidden from the people in the grave. And then, I wonder if you remember, when he returns to the little community he had begun to create of disciples, apostles, when he returns to them all, there are one or two appearances, but then on the evening of Resurrection Sunday, there is what we might think of as Jesus' first appearance to the whole church. Do you remember what his first word is? Do you remember it's the last word of the Aaronic Benediction? It's almost as though when Jesus appears, His first word is Shalom. And don't you think these men, these men whose minds so clearly, you know, for all their confusion, these minds were immersed in the Old Testament Scriptures. The place they knew, the only place they knew this shalom could come from was when the benediction that Aaron, the high priest, pronounced came to its consummation for which the people of God had long aspired when the real sacrifice was made. when their sacrifice to which the blood of the bulls and the goats and that alienation, that desolation was fulfilled in Jesus Christ. It's as though Jesus is saying, the peace and shalom to which the Aaronic benediction pointed forwards. The last aspiration, the end point of that benediction. It's now the beginning point of your whole future. You're no longer looking forwards to shalom. The shalom has come. Remember how Paul puts it? Did Paul see this being justified by faith? We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. But you see, when we've said that, in a sense, we have got to go back to this benediction and not just think about it arithmetically or in terms of its literary beauty, but in terms of the nature of the blessing and why this blessing is fulfilled for us in Jesus Christ. The Lord bless you and the Lord keep you. Apart from in this church, when did you last hear someone say bless you? Indeed, it was probably the last time you heard somebody sneeze. And you know, the reason for saying bless you when someone sneezes is historically closer to the truth than simply in some demeaning way as we say to someone, well, bless you. You ever teach your children to play as Scottish mothers at least used to do in my day, ring a ring of roses, a pocket full of posies, a tissue, a tissue, we all fall down. I don't think most mothers know that they're teaching their children to reenact dying of the plague. That's what that's all about. Why the roses? To take away the stench of the plague. Why the atishu, atishu? Because sneezing was one of the signs of the plague. Why bless you when you hear someone sneeze? Because the plague was viewed as a judgment curse from God. And so by saying, bless you, those who had some understanding of what they were saying, were really saying, may the curse of God be removed from you. and the blessing of God fall upon you. And if you read through the Old Testament scriptures, you can't help but notice that blessing is always the opposite of cursing. And that blessing and cursing are the two ways in which God's covenant promise works out. Those who receive it in faith and live in its significance enter into blessing. Those who treat it with unbelief and live in disobedience to God's ways, they come under the cursing. So, how can the Lord Jesus say to us, the Lord bless you and keep you? Well, you know, it's because as Paul says in Galatians 3, He became a curse for us, that the blessing might flow to us. Jesus was cursed and abandoned that we might be blessed and kept. And Aaron goes on, may the Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you. They knew only one man on whom the Lord's face had shone, didn't they? I mean, they had seen it, the reflection of the glory. And this is the benediction. It is the face of God in His glory shining upon us because He is gracious to us. And in Jesus Christ, we become His friends. But how is that possible for those who are alienated from God, His enemies? It is because the Lord frowned upon His Son. It is because the Son was hidden. It is because he cried out, my God, why am I forsaken? Because he has taken our place, come under our judgment curse. Because he, whoever dwelt in the presence of the Father, the Word was God and the Word was face to face with God. And He came in flesh to become face to face with us. And we beheld His glory, the glorious of the only Son of the Father. And He's caused His face to shine upon us in Jesus Christ. And that's the reality of our experience, isn't it? It really is a genuine experience. Rich and poor, wise and simple. American, British, Asian. coming from so many different backgrounds, so many different families, so many different languages. But in Jesus Christ, the tower of Babel, as it were, is now removed from our experience and we share in the one reality of Jesus Christ and we know what this means. God's face shining upon me. And by his grace, some of that sheen beginning to reflect in my life as he transforms me more and more into the likeness of Jesus Christ. And then this, the Lord lift up his countenance upon you. Give you peace. That's about him seeing me. That's about him seeing me and not wanting to turn his face away from me. The one who cannot behold my iniquity looks upon me because the one who was without iniquity took my iniquity that his father might look through him to me and tell me that he knows me. and bring me into His presence and tell Him that He wants me to know Him and tells me that He knows who I am and where I am. Because while Aaron brought the sacrifice, our Aaron was the sacrifice. The day of the cross was the true day of atonement. The day of the resurrection was our high priest emerging from the darkness of the tomb, coming to his embryonic little church in all their fear and saying, everything in the Aaronic benediction that you have heard so frequently is now realized for you in me. You know, I think those old Scots probably had something. in singing this at a baptism, don't you? What happens at a baptism? It's not nothing, is it? Yes, we know the water of baptism doesn't change my heart. It cannot change my heart. It may come from the River Jordan. It can do nothing to my heart. But it's not really true to say that baptism doesn't do anything. Because Jesus says, baptize them into the name, the threefold name. I suspect that's a very deliberate echo in Jesus' part of the way this Aaronic benediction ends. So shall they put my name upon the people of Israel. And so he says, go and baptize and put my name on the people of Israel. But for the first time in all history, I think this bends my mind for the first time in all history, these apostles were learning how you properly pronounce the name of the triune Jehovah. He is the father. who has designed all blessing, all spiritual blessing for us in Jesus Christ. He is the Son whose face shines upon us. He is the Spirit who reassures us that the Father and the Son know where we are and they care for us. And He is beginning to make us whole again. You know, when at some point in the first two weeks of my life, if they didn't do it in the first two weeks in Scotland, they rendered me illegitimate in the first two weeks of my life. My parents went through a naming ceremony for me. It was a public state national naming ceremony. They appeared at the registrar. The registrar said, what is the name of your child? And they must have said, our child is named Sinclair Buchanan Ferguson. I'm stuck with that for the rest of my life. It didn't do anything to change my heart, nothing to change my heart. But it put a name on me to which for the rest of my life, I would respond and either embrace what they intended me to be or turn away from it. And among the many other things that's true of baptism, baptism doesn't change the heart. But in baptism, which is the New Testament, the Our Aaron's benediction. He's not just saying, this is a trivial, incidental thing. Nor, my friends, is he merely saying, this is a great sign of your faith. That would simply be to turn me back in upon myself. He is saying, I'm putting my name upon you. The name of the Father. who has designed all spiritual blessing for you. The name of the son who has died on the cross for the forgiveness of his people's sins. The name of the blessed Holy Spirit who brings glory to the son by shining on him and glory to the father by loving the father's only son. And so, in a way, the big question for God's people as they left the service and which the name of Jehovah had been placed on them was, how were they going to respond? Were they going to live in the light of this all the days of their lives? Again and again, this language recurs in the Psalms. wrestling with the question of whether the face of the Lord is still shining upon us, whether the blessings are still there. What's the psalmist doing? The psalmist is saying, you've put my name upon me. Oh Lord, on the one hand, be faithful to what you said as I reach into your benediction in faith and enable me to live into and out of the way in which I've been named for you. And you know that for me raises an interesting question and since it only dawned on me at the beginning of the service that this is Reformation week. This is a big thing at the time of the Reformation. When did you last think about the fact that you've been baptized? And what did you think? Does it really matter to you? I don't mean does it really matter that you did something I mean, how much difference has it made to your life that God did something? He put his name on you. You see, it's a gospel challenge. That's why it appears fairly regularly in the New Testament, not to point us back actually to the first decision we made for Christ, but to challenge us to live in the reality that's ours. And that was this benediction. And my friends, it's our benediction too, that we wake up every single day, not just on Good Friday, but every single day. And the first thing we are able to think is, oh my, I have been baptized into the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Let me, by your grace, develop such instincts that my life will be entirely sensitive to this. Just as my life is entirely sensitive to the fact that I know I have an unusual name, but every time I hear someone say Sinclair, I immediately respond and say, that must be me. And this is how we are encouraged to live the Christian life. This is why God gives us gifts like baptism and the Lord's Supper. And it's a constant challenge to us. And so, my dear friends, we mess it up, don't we? Spend half our lives arguing and bickering about all kinds of things. And so little energy living in the reality that we are baptized Christians. And what that says is vast. Indeed, or possibly you were baptized somewhere or another, but in a way that means as little to you as this ironic benediction meant to so many people in the days of the Old Testament. But perhaps tonight as we've been thinking about Romans 11 and we're thinking about this Old Testament passage, you've got a glimpse of something. You're like somebody who's been looking at a puzzle. Perhaps that puzzle is somebody you know, somebody who brought you along tonight and said, there are these two men. They don't come from around here. Their accents will be different. Come along. And listen, you've got Irish genes, Scottish genes, and you've met somebody, or you've heard something, or you've listened to the singing, or something has kind of got under your skin in the preaching. And you know, you're like somebody who's looked at a puzzle and you didn't even realize it was a puzzle. And now you're beginning to realize it is a puzzle. And now you begin to realize that it's not what you thought it was, that church isn't what you thought it was, that Christians aren't what you thought they were, that Christ isn't who you thought it was. You know, I have taped into my Bible here a torn off section of an order of service that was left in the pew of the church that I served in South Carolina. It says this, somebody scribbled it down, tore it off, left it on the pew, left the church. I think it's a male handwriting. And it says, Mr. Ferguson, I was wondering if you'll pray for me. Because I'm not a Christian, but I want to be more than anything else in all the world. Well, that could be you. And nobody else knows. The person sitting beside you doesn't know that that's you. And here's what you need to do. You need to see that it's only Jesus Christ. who is able to save you. You actually need to see that your baptism, just by being done, didn't do anything to change your heart, but it was a little hint of the gospel to you. And you've just never seen it. You were at baptisms and you never saw it. And somehow or another tonight, you've begun to see it. And you've begun to see that it's like a picture of Jesus Christ, the Savior, and the wonderful world of fellowship with God and the gracious transforming power of the Holy Spirit into which he draws you. And so when the benediction is pronounced tonight, You keep your eyes open. I don't just mean these eyes, but the eyes of faith and see in the words of the benediction, the Lord Jesus Christ standing with his hands raised and giving you what your whole life long you've longed for, even when you didn't know it. and hear Him say, as you trust in Him as your only Savior, turn away from all that's old and lay it at His feet, and He says to you, peace, and begins to make you whole. Let's pray together. Our Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word, both in the letter to the Romans and in this ancient Old Testament book of Numbers. We thank you that you teach us in the gospel the sheer joy of knowing you as our God and glorifying you as our Savior. and enjoying you as our friend. Oh, seal your word in our hearts, we pray, in our Savior's name. Amen. We're going to sing the words on the back of the bulletin, Isaac Watts, version of Psalm 117 with Alleluia's, Thomas Ken's, Zoxology, and then our brother is going to close our meeting with the pronouncing of the benediction. Let's stand to sing. Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! In the name of Christ is born! In the name of Christ is born! Alleluia! Alleluia! Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave you Now lift up your hearts to the Lord Jesus Christ. Open your hands to him if that will, in a sense, help you to give yourself to him and receive the benediction of your God. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and give you peace. And this night may the Lord lift up the light of his countenance upon you. and be with you consciously perhaps for the very first time this night and forevermore. Amen.