All right, well, good morning, everybody. Long time no see, most of you. I'm glad to be back here this morning as we begin a new Adult Sunday School class. Let's begin, as always, with prayer. Father, we thank you so much, Lord, for this day, for your grace, for your mercy in our lives. We ask, Lord, that by the strength of your Holy Spirit, we may attend to the things of your word and of your kingdom. that we would be strengthened in our faith and our hope and our love for you and for others, Lord, and that above all things, that your name would be glorified and magnified. In Christ's name we pray, amen. All right, so we are going to start a new series. It's not going to be one of the super long series like the last series we had on covenant theology. This may be only last a month or two. Again, famous last words, It just, as a subject, I think will resolve itself a lot sooner than, say, covenant theology, which is, again, when we left off three months ago on that, we really could have kept on going. There's just so much there. to learn and to study about that. But this morning, what I want to do is begin a study on the issue of Sola Scriptura. We know that the five solas of the Protestant Reformation and Sola Scriptura as the anniversary of the start of the Reformation is coming up next month, October 31st. It'll be, what is it, 507 years since Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door and unwittingly set off the Protestant Reformation. I thought Sola Scriptura would be a good thing for us to study in light of that anniversary coming up. You probably have heard from this quote from Luther's speech, perhaps you have, perhaps you've only heard the last part of it, but he was called before the Diet of Worms to give an answer to the trouble that had arisen as a result of his writing in the division that was going on within the church. He met before the Holy Roman Emperor and various heads of the Roman Catholic Church. He had given a speech, he was asked to identify himself and identify with the writings that were set before him on a table, and he asked for a day to consider whether or not he would recant or whether he would restate some of his published sayings, which were highly critical of the Roman Catholic Church and of the papacy, which he wanted to reform. He wasn't looking to to split the church, but thought that it needed to be reformed. And he was right. So as he begins to give this speech, he's actually, towards the end of it, he's interrupted and said that you need to make this succinct. And this is what he had to say. Since your most serene majesty and your highness require of me a simple, clear, and direct answer, I will give one. And it is this. cannot submit my faith either to the Pope or to the Council, because it is clear that they have fallen into error and even into inconsistency with themselves. If them, I am not convinced by proof from Holy Scripture or by cogent reasons, I am not satisfied by the very text I have cited, and if my judgment is not in this way brought into subjection to God's Word, I neither can nor will retract anything. for it cannot be either safe or honest for a Christian to speak against his conscience. Here I stand, cannot do otherwise, God help me, amen. Very brave thing for him to do, basically facing the great powers of the Western world at the time. And the reason that he did so was because he was convinced of the authority, the ultimate authority of God's Word. He was convinced that if, as Paul says, let God be true, even if it makes every man a liar. So if the greatest, even within the church, are to say something that is not in accord with Scripture, they cannot in their own authority cause that thing to be true. They can't make it. They ought not to bind the consciences of things of people to things that are not true. And Luther did so because he understood and he recognized what the Bible is and what the Bible claims to be. And he recognized that it is an ultimate authority. It is a final authority. So we'll begin a study of the doctrine of Sola Scriptura, meaning Scripture alone is the ultimate authority for our faith and practice. And I was asked by someone how I came up with the subjects that we study in this adult Sunday school class. Like, how does it come into my mind? Obviously, I pray and ask God for wisdom. But my answer was that I try to think of things that, to me at least, appear to be very important for the average believer, for every believer, really. I think of those things, such as a recognition. Not that I think that we don't recognize the authority of God's Word here. I think we do. I think our church is very healthy in that regard. You see that how often in our liturgy, in our worship service, the Word is read, the Word is quoted. We're called to recite and to respond to biblical statements and creedal statements, and we hear from the Scriptures repeatedly. The worship centers around the preaching of the Word. And rightfully so, as it should be. So it's not that I think that there's a need for us to learn to recognize the authority of the Bible, but for us to, frankly, to grow in it, to be encouraged in what it is that we have by having God's Word, and hopefully that our faith will be bolstered in it. Also, why study this? Many of us, Perhaps we even came out of Roman Catholic backgrounds like myself. Many of us have friends, we have co-workers, we have family members who are members of, who are Roman Catholic. There are also many popular political pundits, particularly today. We're also Roman Catholic, whom you may listen to occasionally, and there's a plethora of internet programs and videos of Roman Catholics speaking into the issues of our day. But also, I want us to be able to understand it, if not only for ourselves, but also for our neighbors, why it is that we differ in the areas that we do differ with Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy. And one of the key areas of that has to do with the issue of authority. And I want us to understand why it is that we do differ with them in that regard and why I think it's important for us to have an understanding to be able to answer when challenged. You say there are 66 books in the Bible. Well, how do you know that those are the 66 books in the Bible? That's going to be a common objection that you might run into in speaking with a Roman Catholic, because in their mind, they think that you need the Church to tell you what the Word of God is. But we'll discuss some of those objections, and how to respond to them, and how to deal with them further on. So my goal, frankly, is that we'd grow in our understanding of Scripture's authority and grow in our trust in that authority and our ability to express and to defend Sola Scriptura to those who would challenge it. A quote from Robert Godfrey stating what is Sola Scriptura is basically the Protestant position is that it's very simply that all things necessary for salvation and concerning faith in life are taught in the Bible with enough clarity that the ordinary believer can find them there and understand them. It doesn't mean that everything in the Bible is equally clear. The Bible itself tells us that there are things in the Bible that are not as clear as others. But that's, we have in the scriptures, we have what we need in order to love God, to know God, to have faith in God, to be saved, and to live a life that is pleasing to Him. We have that. They are sufficient. And that everything that we need to know, everything that is necessary for our salvation and for our faith in living a godly life, is there in the written Word of God. It doesn't need to be supplemented. Its authority doesn't need to be supplemented. We have in the Scriptures the words of God to us. Now, also, it doesn't mean everything, as I said, everything in the Scripture is equally clear. It doesn't mean that every truth that there is to be known is in the Bible. It's not an engineering schematic. It's not an architectural digest. Any host of human endeavors that the Bible does not talk to us about but in regards to our knowing God To our having eternal life to our being forgiven of our sins and to know that when we die and leave this world That we are going to him and that we are forgiven of our sins It's there and we don't we don't need to We don't need any other authorities to justify or to validate it. And we see this, I think, clearly exemplified in the Scriptures. And we'll start out by doing kind of a bit of a review, because it's been years and years since we went through parts of these discussions in our study of the Westminster Confession. But just to refresh some of the things that we're going to be looking at, But again, we do see this from Scripture itself. In Paul, in 2 Timothy 3, he writes to Timothy, You, however, have followed my teaching, my conduct, my aim in life, my faith, my patience, my love, my steadfastness, my persecutions and sufferings that happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium, and at Lystra, which persecutions I endured, yet from them all the Lord rescued me. Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, while evil people and imposters will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it, and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing in his kingdom, preach the word. Be ready in season and out of season, reprove, rebuke, and exhort with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but have itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry. What does Paul say is central to Timothy's ministry in that passage? The word. And what is he warning Timothy about? Look, things are going to go from bad to worse as far as imposters and deceivers coming into the church and spreading throughout the world and people turning away to hear things that they want to hear rather than submit to the Word of God. But what do you focus upon? The Word. You focus upon the Scriptures because it is the Scriptures that are breathed out by God. It is the Scriptures that are the Word of God. Again, just by way of review, we're gonna look at a couple sections of the Westminster Confession on Scripture, just to help get us back into basically the headspace of thinking about and talking about the authority of Scripture. Any comments or questions before we move on? Yeah. When Paul said this to Timothy, would the New Testament have been completely written by that man? No, it would not have been. He, well, I mean, we know also are from scripture that he's, he refers to what he's, he's saying as scripture as well, but the canon has not, would not been completed yet. Um, the, the. Trying to think, this would have been in the 60s of the first century, shortly before Paul's execution. So a good deal of it would have been written already, because Paul was at the end of his life. But we wouldn't have had things from further writings from John, maybe not even his gospel yet. But we would have had the bulk of the epistles and the synoptic gospels at this time. All right. But that's a really good question because people who would object to Sola Scriptura will often do so. It's like, well, look, they didn't even, they didn't, that's not how they handled things in the first century. That's not how the apostles handled it. And they would like to argue, they'll make an argument that That paradigm that was going on in the first century with the apostles is still going on today, except it's happening through, and they posit a distinction between oral teaching and the oral tradition and the written word that has to be supplemented and explained to us by the church. And I think, which is one of the reasons why it can be rightfully said that the The problem with, as we'll see, when it comes to ultimate authorities, in the end, there can be only one. You can't say it's the scripture and the tradition and the magisterium of the church, because one of them is going to come out as ultimate. That's why people who criticize, say, Roman Catholicism or even Eastern Orthodoxy, would Charge their describe their position as being rather than Sola Scriptura. It'd be Sola Ecclesia It's the church that takes the the place of ultimacy in the life of of defining what is necessary for salvation of defining what is necessary for for living a godly life and you know, and that's where you get in all the various frankly, what I think are myths and false doctrines and gospel-denying things that are brought into the Roman Catholic Communion, which is just a horrible thing. It's a horrible thing to say that, to think in that way, but that's what's happened. Yeah, and that will coincide with the evening worship service. That's a really good point, because at the beginning of that letter to the Galatians, Paul announces who he is. He says, an apostle, not by man, but from God. But then just short verses after that, he says, but even if I come to you saying something different than what has been taught to you, then I deserve to be anathematized. So what is one of the things that we can take away from that is that Paul's authority was one that was granted to him and came primarily through the message that he was proclaiming. That Paul understood that what he had to say was authoritative primarily because it had come from God. So even if he were to fall into such error, that he brings a different gospel other than the one that God had given us in Christ, other than what God has granted in his word, then he should be anathema, even if an angel from heaven were to do so, which tells us that God takes the authority of His Word extremely serious. And when it comes, as it does in the book of Galatians, when it comes to the issues of the gospel, and particularly justification, and how is it we're made right with God, that's a dividing line. That's not an area where we can disagree intramurally amongst ourselves, though we would have many things in common with Roman Catholics, both ethically but also theologically as well, in terms of doctrine of God and things of that nature. But when it comes to the issue of the Gospel, when it comes to the message that God has given to us of His Son, That is of the utmost importance. I mean, it's an obvious thing to think about, but why would that be the case? Because it's that message that saves people. So to twist it and to meddle with it is a huge affront, not only to God, but it leads people astray. It leads them into error. There's no power to save in a false gospel. And it is that the ordinary means, the ordinary means of the preaching and the teaching of God's Word and the reading of God's Word and the sacraments, it's through those things that God saves people. Those ordinary things that we get used to. That's how the Holy Spirit moves and blows as He wills into the hearts of people and raises them from spiritual death into spiritual life. That's how God does it. He does it through the message. All right, so Westminster Confession 1 tells us that although The light of nature and the works of creation and providence do so far manifest the goodness, wisdom, and power of God as to leave men inexcusable, yet they are not sufficient to give that knowledge of God and of His will which is necessary unto salvation." Again, when we're talking about Sola Scriptura, we're talking about Scripture giving us what is necessary. Therefore, it pleased the Lord at sundry times and in diverse manners to reveal Himself and to declare that His will unto his church, and afterwards for the better preserving and propagating of the truth, and for the more sure establishment and comfort of the church against the corruption of the flesh, and the malice of Satan and of the world, to commit the same holy unto writing, which makes the Holy Scripture to be most necessary, those former ways of God's revealing his will unto his people now being ceased." a lot there in that opening paragraph of the Westminster Confession. It talks to us about general revelation, and it also talks to us about the insufficiency of general revelation. But what is general revelation? Well, like it says, it's the light of nature. It's our own consciences. It's what we see when we look out into the world. It's God's works of creation and providence, as Paul tells us, that God's existence and His attributes and His justice and righteousness are clearly evident. They're clearly evident. There's nowhere where there's a human being that is without that witness, both within themselves and without themselves. The problem being, because of our fallen nature into sin, that revelation, that general revelation that everybody has access to, is suppressed in unrighteousness. It's suppressed by sin, as Paul tells us in the opening chapters of Romans 1. That though people know God, they prefer not to keep Him within their knowledge, but they suppress that truth in unrighteousness. And it's insufficient, general revelation is insufficient, to reveal to us the way of salvation through faith in Christ. So it's enough to demonstrate to us, to make us inexcusable before God that He exists, that His invisible attributes are clearly seen, which is an interesting statement in and of itself. His power, His majesty, and of the fact that we do things that violate Him. that violate His law, that violate the natural law, and that is implanted in the works of the law on the heart, that we violate those things, and that those who violate such things are worthy of His condemnation. So that's what we get with general revelation. And so, it pleased the Lord, as the Confession says, to declare His will unto His church, and to preserve that will, and to preserve that word in writing. that though in many times God spoke through a variety of different means, as the writer of Hebrews tells us, and as Scripture even records to us, He spoke directly to certain people. He revealed Himself in visions to certain people, and the work of the prophets, they revealed God's Word to His people. Because that is how people come to the correct knowledge of what is necessary for salvation. So again, general revelation is insufficient to provide mankind with the knowledge necessary for redemption. However great the minds of men are or have been, there's always a limit to human knowledge. And this problem is compounded by the effects of sin upon our minds. The most thoughtful or meditative person will not find true hope by looking within. and no explorer will ever find the way to eternal life merely by traveling through the whole of creation. So revelation is necessary. We need God to speak to us. He doesn't have to speak to us. He could have left us in our sin, and He would have been just to do so. But because He is so good, because He is so gracious, He chose to speak. He revealed Himself to us from the time of the fall onward. He revealed Himself to us, and it's necessary for Him to do so because we are, by definition, dependent as creatures upon our Creator. If creatures are to know anything of their Creator, it can only occur through the Creator's revelation of Himself. It follows from this that if mankind is to know the creation properly, Said knowledge must be based on the Creator's interpretation of His creation. It's also necessary because God is incomprehensible. Not that we can't know anything about God. Not that we can't know truths about God. He can tell us truths about Himself. But there is an aspect of God in which He is incomprehensible to us. He is eternal. We are finite. We are fallible. The distance between the Creator and the creature is so great. that mankind cannot know God as he is in himself, eternal, omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent. We're not created to take that in. It's not possible for us. So, that being the case, if man is to know God at all, it must be through God's condescending to man in order to reveal himself to his creatures in a way that is suitable to the knowledge possible to creatures. God must stoop down to our level and speak to it with us of himself through creaturely means. Again, that distinction is an important one in Scripture, the creator-creature distinction. We are made in the image of God. We are made in some ways like Him. We are made, in fact, Scripture tells us from the beginning, to know Him, to hear from Him and to commune with Him and with one another in light of Him. But there are things that we cannot know by virtue of our creatureliness. There's a difference between the creator and the creature. Obviously, I mean, there's certain things that popped our mind. God knows everything. But one of the biggest things that we tend not to realize is that God is independent. He doesn't need anything. There's nothing outside of himself that is lacking within himself that he requires. He's a perfect being. He has all goodness and perfections all within himself. And he's also not in need of life in the way that we are. He is life. He has life in himself. Our lives are derived from him giving us life. We are dependent in so many, we're dependent upon one another. We need food, we need shelter, we need clothing, but we also need understanding and wisdom on a variety of things that God is of himself that we are not. There's a lot more that can be said on that. But also, revelation is necessary because, as we all know, mankind has fallen in sin. spiritually dead to the things of God and because of this we suppress the truth and unrighteousness so we're stopping our eyes and ears and hearts to the outer and inner witness of general revelation we are left to ourselves inclined to leave God out of all of our thoughts the the sinfulness of sin is is so is so treasonous against God, who gives us everything. Gives us life, breath, and every good. And we don't want to have that in our thoughts by nature. All right? So this, yeah. But this example that God speaks to each other in a relational, spiritual relationship. He speaks, but how do we listen? I would believe every word to be true, but until I made that decision, that I'm reading this, not to doubt it, but to believe that it actually was true, the most life-changing thing, as I read the Bible. Before that, I was like, well, about this, about that, there's always that simple measure, like, wow, that's a position then, you know. Yeah, I mean that's how we come to the things of God, it's how we come to spiritual matters. apart from the grace of God invading our lives. And it's to always keep God at a distance. And this is something that we still struggle with, is we still struggle as sinful human beings to trust Him, to remember His promises, and to know that He's never going to leave us or forsake us. There is still that battle within us. prior to the grace of God coming into our lives, prior to the Spirit's work within us, our natural inclination is to not have anything to do with it. So as you said, Glenn, to always find some other thing to think, some other reason to, some other excuse, some other way, as Paul would say it, to suppress the truth and unrighteousness. And we also, Because of our sinful condition, we're blind to God, and it requires regeneration. The regenerating illumination of our hearts by the Spirit and the Word of God to overcome our enmity. Think of Ezekiel's valley of dry bones. It's a wonderful picture of what spiritual regeneration looks like. These are dead, dry bones. They're not going to get up and walk. They're not going to come back to life on their own. They don't have the ability to do or be anything other than dead, dry bones. What does God tell Ezekiel to do? Speak. Speak to the bones. What does God do to us in our lives in the various providential ways that he does that, whether we were grown up and raised in the faith or whether we come to the faith at a different point in time? How does that happen? Speaks. His word comes to us. His Word comes to us, and we were raised from spiritual death to spiritual life by God's grace and according to His timing and according to His will. Just like those dry bones are spoken to the Word of God, and what happens to them? They come to life. They come to life. It's a wonderful visual picture of what regeneration, what is required of being done to our hearts because of our sinful nature, which again tells us of our need for revelation from God. There's not enough, or the general revelation is not sufficient to give us that which is necessary for our salvation. Yeah. Well, there's you know one with with graciousness and with patience but also it's a Usually, and I don't know this person that you're talking to, but the times that I've spoken to people who've said similar things, usually what they're doing is trying to give themselves an excuse for not accepting. We know enough of who God is and what he's like that he's, as Abraham says, he's the God of all the earth, shall not the God of all the earth do justly. And the fact of the matter is that it's not unfair for a just judge to leave a condemned person in their state of condemnation. It's a weighty thing for us to consider. But it's not unfair and it's not unjust of God to pass over people in their sins and to commit them to His just judgment or sins that they have committed. And you always want to try and bring it back to the cross. Here's what God has done. He has sent His Son to live the life that we should live, to die the death that we should die. because of our own sin, and that is God's way of salvation. It's through faith in Him. And the only way that anyone's ever been saved is through the appropriation or the apprehension of that message. And you want to try and communicate it in a way that puts the emphasis upon how amazing it is and how gracious it is of God that there is any way of salvation. because the situation for humanity is so dire. It really is so dire. And this proverbial person in the jungle who's never heard of Christ, and I've been in places in the world where the people never heard the gospel, that person is not, someone who's looking for God in their lives. That person is someone who by nature is at enmity with God, who is suppressing the truth of God that is known within them. So again, you want to bring it back to the that there really aren't any neutral parties in this, and that that person needs to understand the graciousness and the love of God in such a way that it's, the incredible thing really is that there is a way of salvation, and that you're offering to them that way of salvation through faith in Christ, and that their sins can be forgiven, and that for all of God's manifold judgments of things that we don't know about, He has revealed more than enough to us to know that he is righteous and just and good in all of his judgments. So it's not as if people are going to be treated unjustly on the day of judgment. Yeah. Can it be said, or is it helpful to say, that there are elect people among the heathens, among the pagans, who are not reached by the ordinary operation of the Spirit, but ultimately it would be found that they are among the elect. Can that be said? The ordinary means by which people are brought to saving faith is through the preaching and propagation of the Word of God. We get to the question of can God Supernaturally do something in the lives of his chosen people of course he could but it's always going to be through a revelation to them of the gospel in some way shape or form and We are our emphasis and the church's mission not just specifically this church's mission but the entire visible church's mission is to to propagate the gospel is to send the gospel out to the ends of the earth and And then we do know that there will be people of every tribe, nation, and tongue present on the final day, standing with the Lord, standing in the robes of Christ's righteousness. and the ordinary means by which God has given to us, which we are committed to, not to seek out the extraordinary means, that that is what God does is His business in that regard, is to propagate the ordinary means through the preaching and teaching of His Word. It comes back to sovereign unmerited action on His part. Even today, this is a jungle we live in. Yeah, they're in the same situation. God's going to call who's chosen for the foundation. He's already chosen and he won't miss none. He's merciful, sovereign. Yeah Yeah, and you bring up a good point in that in the emphasis of if salvation is by grace alone and It is the scriptures are completely clear about that Then no one who is saved deserves to be saved No one, not me, not you. I mean, we're all wonderful people here. Guess what? We deserve to go to hell. That is the sad and painful truth. And it's one of those things that the fallen state of humanity should be one of those things that causes us to be moved with compassion towards people so that we might set the gospel in front of them and that God in His gracious sovereignty might pull them out of the fire. But the truth of Scripture, and it's not popular today, but the truth of Scripture paints a very dire and bleak picture of humanity apart from the grace of God. Now, there is what people will call common grace, and human beings are capable of doing amazing things, wonderful things, in the realms of, you know, we think of medicine, or you think of people who, technology, people are capable of doing wonderful things. But when it comes to their standing before God, we have none. We have none. We are all born into sin. We are all imputed with the guilt of Adam. We are all inheritors of a sinful nature. And again, I go back to this passage a lot in Ephesians chapter 2. The description that Paul gives of fallen humanity is such a stark one. We're dead in our trespasses and sins, and we follow after the devil. follow after the prince of the power of the air. And that's in our nature. We're children of wrath, is what Paul says. That's our nature, that's what we are. We're children of wrath, but God in his mercy. And that's always the emphasis that we want. What's being offered to people in the gospel is mercy. grace it's what's being offered to people in in Christ is something they don't deserve it's something that be and it's offered to them sheerly out of God's own goodness and kindness and that's that's the that's the the black backdrop so to speak of the gospel yeah Yeah, I've heard of weird things like that too. And those are, again, those are the extraordinary things. And those are stories. And I couldn't tell you whether they're true or not. I have no idea. I've heard some of those stories too. But even in those stories, what is it that people dream about? The gospel gets presented to them. Christ is presented to them. Our focus is on the ordinary. He's given us the ordinary means of His grace, which is the proclamation of His Word. And again, it's not popular today to press home to people their need for salvation. And you can do that in a variety of ways. You know, think of just a good way is to just ask people, why did Christ have to die on the cross? It wasn't just setting a good example. He had to die. That had to happen. So if that's what has to happen in order for us to be saved, how bad is our situation? How great is our need of God's mercy and grace? How serious does God take sin? Because we see in the cross, we see both the love and the grace of God, but we also see the righteousness of God and his hatred for sin. They're both present at the cross. And it's God's infinite wisdom that that's how he reveals to us the way of salvation by displaying his hatred and his contempt for sin. in the greatest display of love and grace and mercy ever. It all happens at the same time. So in bringing people to that recognition and calling them to repentance, calling them to whoever, this person says they're concerned about people in the jungle, maybe they are, maybe they aren't, but what about you? What about your sins? You need to repent. God calls you here today to repent. Today's the day of salvation. Yeah, and again, I've had people ask me similar questions, and I think you don't necessarily have to bring this up, but to think about, I think there's a psychology going on there. They're looking for a way out, really, for themselves. It's, you know what, I'm a pretty good person. I think I'll be okay. I can't imagine a God who would judge the noble savage who's never heard of Him, so to speak. And I think that's what a lot of people, it's one more thing that a person's putting in front of themselves between themselves and the gospel. And the thing to do is to present them with their need for the gospel. Yeah, one more question, and we're done. Go ahead. I just want to say, too, it's easy to think that we are so compassionate because I care and humanity in general. But when it comes to the person that's offended me personally or harmed my family, that's the person that we have a hard time forgiving. And it's just a reminder of how much more gracious and merciful God actually is in us, because He not only cares about humanity in general, but He cares about the individuals who have offended Him and did His enemies personally. And like you think about Jonah, he was so offended by the Ninevites. And that any of us who lived in that time would probably hate them and not want them to have salvation either. And yet here we modern people who haven't had to deal with too many injustices personally think that we're more compassionate than God. Yeah. That's a very, very good point. It's a very good point. We don't really take into account the offense that we've offered to God. One of the reasons why I like this class, we get off the rails onto all kinds of different subjects, but it's good. It's a good discussion. Let's close in prayer. Father, we thank you for your grace and mercy and kindness again. Lord, we do. We do thank You for Your kindness towards us that You've drawn us here today to hear Your Word. And we pray, Father, that by the grace of Your Spirit, we would receive it in faith and receive it in hope and receive it in gratitude and love towards You and for one another. Lord, we ask these things in Christ's name. Amen.