Well, I had one person this morning tell me when she left, she said, I'm going home to read my songs. So I pray you all felt so. Just before we begin this new study, just wanted to alert you, I have a couple of books still left over up here. If anybody doesn't have a copy yet, I assume most of you do, but it's $7 if you need a copy. I have three left. which is good because we ordered 35 copies. So that's that's good. Seven dollars. And just while I have it, too, if if any of the men still needs a men's book, which this isn't for a few weeks, but obviously want to have it ahead of time to read the first chapter for the Men's Fellowship, Glory Veiled and Unveiled, have one copy of that left, also seven dollars. If any of you need that, please let me know. I want to try to get rid of that so I can send the money to Reformation Heritage Books. And another reminder as well, if you if you receive this in your bulletin, I know some bulletins got out early and they didn't have it in there, but if you receive this in your bulletin, please get the registration slip filled out and put in the box before you leave tonight so we can get a good count on that and grab some to give away, give away to neighbors and invite people. That's going to be a great conference and it's all being offered by your church. So it's a good way to invite people as well. All right, well, let's come to this, to our study here, our new study. I'm excited about beginning this book together with you. You can see how small it is compared to what we've done in the past. This is merely six sermons, a set of six sermons by Matthew Henry. And as you've hopefully took the opportunity to read this introduction, there's two introductions. One here by J.I. Packer, that's the one we're going to go over tonight. And then one by Matthew Henry to introduce the sermons. And if you didn't get the handout, it should be some more on the music stand there by the door. This introduction by J.I. Packer could have easily just been read and we could have got right into Henry, which is exciting. But I'm sure everyone recognizes Packer as a lover of the Puritans and somewhat of an expert on the Puritans as well, having done so much studies with them and writings about them and other things. And so Packer is a good place to begin. So I'm excited to begin with Packer's introduction. I thought he had a lot of good things here. And he really helps us get into Henry and what he has to say really helps us get into any Puritan. But in particular, he seems to have seems to have a love for Matthew Henry that we don't that we don't want to pass by. We want to try to hopefully have that engendered in our own selves that we too would really come before we even get into this book, really be excited about it and and have our hearts warm to the subject matter. And I think we'll get a lot more out of it and greater profit. Packer points out that this was the set of sermons was at the press when Henry died in 1714 and the title given it was, as you can see, the top of your notes there. The pleasantness of a religious life opened and proved and recommended to the consideration of all, particularly of young people. Now, it looks like a long title, but it's actually extremely short compared to Puritan titles. I'm sure all of you know well enough by now that the Puritans had their title so long that you never needed to open the book to know what it was about. The titles of the books were extremely long, having all of its divisions. The title was essentially a table of contents. And Henry does as much here, even in this short title. But one thing Henry or Packer points out right away is that there's difficulties understanding and appreciating this title. And he he says refers to what a pity it would be and what a great loss it would be if we disregard the book because of its title, as many would. I mean, you think about the title, the pleasantness of a religious life. The word Christianity isn't even isn't even in the title. The word joy isn't even in the title. The word Christ isn't even in the title. And so there may be some sense in which and I think Packer's right in which some people would read this title and say that doesn't sound like a very interesting book at all. Sounds quite boring. It sounds academic. It doesn't sound practical by any means. And yet they would have them. They would miss something very great. They would suffer a great loss. Packer points out. He says words have changed. So let's think about these words and just in this title for a moment. He mentions the word pleasantness. It's changed. Pleasantness has become, Packer says, a weak word, stating only something that is not too bad. That which is pleasant is just something, well, it's not too bad. If it were really good, we may say exciting, dynamic. We may use a very different word. We probably wouldn't use pleasant. And so the word pleasant or pleasantness has changed. And so that may discourage us from the title and therefore from the book. The idea of religious, we think of the word religious and that includes anything religion, anything having to do with any religion. People tell you all the time, I'm a very religious person because they don't have any idea about God. Their religion has to do with all sorts of spirituality things or New Age things, but they're religious. And they think when you tell them you're a Christian and that's their response, they think they're saying something that puts them on par with you. You say, I'm a Christian and I'm a follower of Jesus Christ. Oh, I'm religious, too. They have no idea what you're talking about. They're not on the same page. We're not talking about the same thing. So religion has become or religious here has become a vague word. It covers all sorts of faiths, all sorts of attitudes, some that have to do with God, some that have to do just with gods at some point. In this longer title, you have the word consideration. He said consideration has become a cool word, suggesting thought that is conscionably detached rather than committed. consideration, it suggests something that we do sitting in a corner somewhere without real without any obligation or intention to commit ourselves. We're just considering I'm not going to get in too deep. I'm just thinking about it. I'm just stepping back from the situation. I'm going to consider it for a moment. I'm not going to make any commitments. I'm not committing myself in any way. I'm just going to consider it. That's the idea behind this word. It's not what it originally meant, not for Henry anyway. And then young people. Packer says, well, that young people has become a patronizing phrase that creates expectations of being talked down to and so turns real young people off. Isn't that true? You speak of young people, people feel like they're being young people, the youth feel like they're being patronized. You're looking down on them. It's something that is demeaning rather than just recognizing where people are or using a term that's appropriate. And so you think of this title, it could maybe discourage us. It maybe it could cause us to disregard the book. So Packer really writes this introduction desiring that to help us get into Henry and to realize what he's doing and to appreciate what he's doing. And so he says what Henry is writing about is the joy of the Christian life. And we all appreciate the word joy. Packer points out how quickly the books that would sell the joy of cooking, the joy of sex, the joy of all sorts of things. We all love things about joy. We get joyful about certain things. And Packer says, of course, well, it'd be nice if he titled it this way, at least thinking of us thinking of our day. But actually, I tend to like I really do like the subtitle on the front of the book. Life as good as it can be. I love that. I mean, it really that really brings it down, doesn't it? That puts it in a way I think every generation can understand. Life as good as it can be. And that's really what the book is all about. That's really what Henry's sermons are about. That's really his effort. His effort is to speak to us about life as good as it can be. And as we heard about the Psalms this morning, speak to us in such a way that he invites us to become a part of it. that he's inviting us to enjoy what he has. He wants to speak about it in such a way that we really want what he has, that we really want a taste of this life as good as it can be. And so he's here to speak about the joy of the Christian life. Packer asks, how does he do this? Look at letter A there under Roman numeral two. Packer says working from Proverbs 317 wisdoms, the word in the in the text is her, but wisdom's ways are ways of pleasantness. All her paths are peace. Using this text for six sermons, Henry. First observes that nothing draws the heart more forcibly than pleasure and then lays it down that true piety has true pleasure in it. Nothing draws the heart more forcibly than pleasure. I thought a lot about this when I was thinking about Psalm one and thinking about the the happiness and the blessedness. I was focusing quite a bit as I did a lot of reading and even preparing for my sermons, thinking about blessing. Everybody wants to be blessed. Everybody wants to be blessed, and the word blessed there really has to do in one sense, in a real practical sense, it has to do with happiness. Everybody wants to be happy. And it's happiness that drives us. Everything you do, you do because you want to be happy. Everything you refuse to do or avoid doing is because you want to be happy, because the doing of it would hinder your happiness, you believe. And anything you may put up with that's uncomfortable or painful or whatever it may be is because you believe the outcome is going to make you happy. The idea comes out here in pleasure in this quote, nothing draws the heart more forcibly than pleasure. We all love pleasure. And when we see something as pleasurable or in this case as pleasant, It has a way of drawing the heart after it in such a way that it draws the body after it. It draws not just the affections, but if you get the affections, you've got the whole body. That's why God says in the scriptures, give me your heart, because once God gets the heart, he gets the mind and he gets the body. To have the heart is everything. And that's why I think this is part of what Henry is doing here. He's aiming at our affections. And that's why I've come to love the Psalms and desire to bring that to you on Sunday mornings, because it has a way of appealing to and striking at our affections. And once the Psalms, once the word of God gets your affections, it's all downhill from there. We'll serve God, we'll lay our lives down for God, we'll do anything for God. We'll learn to delight in God and find our joy in God. And so Henry realizes, as he points out here, he observes that nothing draws the heart more forcibly than pleasure. And then Henry makes the point that nothing is truly pleasurable. Nothing is truly pleasant. but true religion. And, of course, here Henry uses the term in a proper way, not religion that includes anything and everything under the sun as Paul found on Mars Hill, but the worship of the one true and living God. True piety has true pleasure in it. There is nothing, as we learned this morning, there is nothing that is blessed but that life that has God for its portion. Nothing, no other life, but the God, the life centered upon the Lord. Take a quote here that Packer provides. This is from page 49 in the book. Pleasure is a tempting thing. What yields delight cannot but attract desire. Religion has pleasure on its side. Here is a bait that has no hook after it. Baits always have hooks, not this one. A pleasure which God himself invites you to and which will make you happy, truly and eternally happy. It is certain that there is true pleasure in true religion. It's often been said that Jesus didn't come to make you happy. Well, as we learned from Psalm one, he did in this sense. Jesus came to make us happy. Jesus came to enable us by his grace to achieve our chief end, which is to glorify and enjoy God forever. Enjoy to be happy in God. And so Jesus, indeed, God himself invites us to be happy in him and he will make us happy, truly and eternally happy. Henry's impact goes on is to make us see that real Christianity is a journey into joy, always moving us from one joy to another, and that this is one of many good and strong reasons for being excited and wholehearted in our discipleship. That, I think, is a powerful point. This is one very strong reason. This is one very strong motive to be excited and wholehearted in our discipleship, because a life committed and devoted and completely sold out for God, a life zealously on fire for God is a life of joy. We are miserable as Christians, as genuine Christians, we are miserable when we're not serving God. We are miserable when we are playing when we are trying to play both sides. We are miserable, miserable when we are testing the words of the Lord to see for ourselves whether we can have God and man. We're miserable conviction inside, miseries outside, nagging of conscience. We're never at peace as Christians. Not to mention the ungodly, they're never at peace, as we heard this morning. But even as godly, even as the godly, we are never happy until we're completely sold out for the Lord. Read any biography from days of old when they understood how to write biographies or autobiographies. Read them and see how sold out, how completely given to the Lord these great brothers and sisters were who had gone on before us. and read how happy they are, just completely given to the Lord, having no other cause for breathing but to serve God. And that life is truly, truly happy. And it's the envy life, isn't it? Really, it's the envy life. You remember when we were studying Thomas Case, Thomas Case, after we did Thomas Boston's Cook and the Lot, we took a brief look at Thomas Case's treatise of afflictions. And you remember Thomas Case wrote that from the Tower of London. He wrote that from imprisonment. And you remember when Manton Manton begged him to print his prison reflections or prison meditations after he had been released, he begged him to print them because he had had a look at them and he said, you must print these. The church needs to read these. And of course, Manton, you remember, said that he realized that Thomas Case had gone out of prison when he went into prison. went out of prison when he went into prison. And John Bradford tells how he went into prison and it was such a wonderful place. He had better health and better friends. Prison was a great place. Because there they met God in a way they did not meet him outside. You remember, Thomas Manton said, if I did not believe in the sovereignty of God and placing me where I should be and ordaining all things by his providence, I would envy your prison time. The truly godly life, despite all of its sufferings, despite all of its hardships, despite all of its losses and crosses, the truly religious life. Is the Indian life. Because the truly religious, the fully religious, the completely religious, those who are sold out for God inevitably. Are the most happy we see it, we know it, we envy it, we want it, we read the biographies, we want this. But then we see their habits of devotion, we see their religious practices, we see their commitment to God daily this and daily that and hourly this and hourly that. And then we change our mind. We want it, but we don't want to sacrifice for it. We just want it given to us without labor. Well, God calls his people to be sold out for him, and that's the call and the invitation in this book. And in six sermons, Henry makes this point to encourage us to be sold out in our discipleship to Christ. And again, I'm excited about the Psalms and this coming together because I believe it has the potential. These two studies being one on top of the other have a great potential to encourage us and to revive our hearts, to revive us and to stir up a passion to serve the Lord with abandon. Well, look at what Henry does here as Packer lays it out. He said Henry makes his point well in his six sermons, and this is how. First, Henry lists twelve pleasures that Christians enjoy. Twelve pleasures. Then he reviews what God has done to bring sinners to joy. This gives glory to God and gives us a greater grasp of the gospel. Then thirdly, he confirms what he has said so far by appealing to the facts of Christian experience. We all know these things to be so. And then finally. Henry urges his readers directly, starting from where they are right now today to enter into the fullness of the spiritual life that he has been describing. It's all a great sermon in itself, isn't it? These are the joys you have as a Christian. This is what God has done for you. And indeed, your own experience testifies to how good these things are, how good a life for God is. Start right now. What are you waiting for? Lay down everything that hinders you. Lay aside every weight, as Hebrews 12 says, and run the race to the end and don't look back. That's the call of the book. Packer closes out this first section by saying Henry's sermons are as applicable today as they were then, for we, too, are told and sometimes think that being a Christian is a boring and burdensome business and that not being a Christian would be more fun. Have you ever thought that? Of course we have. Of course we have. We have too often been tempted to think that not being a Christian would be more fun and that being a Christian is not only burdensome. But boring. Shame on us for thinking so, but we have thought so. We, too, need to be reminded that the Christian life is the most joyfully, most joyful journey a man can take. When we begin to think these ways, we have lost sight of what it means to be united to Jesus Christ by faith. We have lost sight of what it means to be a child of God and to be in the family of God. We have lost sight of the joys of being a Christian. We've lost sight of what it was that enabled Christ to persevere to the end. We are told it was the joy set before Him that He ran His race. The joy set before us should be enough to cause us to run our race as well. There's a few sections in Packer's introduction, so we come now to the second section, your Roman numeral four there. He wants to tell us about Matthew Henry. Just a little bit. But first he wants to kind of classify him. He'll tell us a little bit more about him in the next or later on in this section at the end of this section. But I appreciate what he says here. This really was just a wonderful way to put it. And so I want to draw your attention to this. He says Matthew Henry was a Silver Age Puritan. We understand maybe the difference in literary study and history, the distinction between Golden Age and Silver Age of creative moments, and he gives us four examples here. First of all, he says the Golden Age is the period in which the pioneers do the creative work, establishing themselves as the masters by the classical landmark quality of their achievements. The Golden Age, we could use that term to describe a number of different ages, but certainly it's that purity in which we see the masters at work. They begin to really take to spearhead great movements and great ideas, and they really set themselves apart by their achievements as being masters. And without doubt, indeed, I think the Puritans are that. Well, after the Golden Age, you have the Silver Age that follows. Notice here, I put the whole quote here for you. I think this was extremely helpful. Silver Age is a period in which those who lead seek first and foremost to follow in the footsteps of the forerunners, laying out, polishing up and faithfully passing on the tradition of wisdom they have inherited. They dot its I's and cross its T's and develop its details as they go along, and standing on their predecessors' shoulders, they sometimes top them in clarity and precision of statement. Yet they remain conservers rather than creators, and settlers rather than explorers. Their goal is to maintain a heritage, and it is to this end that they dedicate their powers and devote their efforts. That, I think, indeed, well defines my my own thoughts and certainly how I how I see myself. I don't see myself as a creator or an explorer. I don't see myself as a genius in any respect. I see myself, by God's grace, as being a steward of great things, one who has received great things. And my desire is to maintain this heritage and to stir up your own desire to to grab a hold of what these masters have left behind us. And I think we have indeed in the Puritans a period of what we might call a golden age. And having received such wonderful things from them, though they were not infallible, yet those are the things I seek to preserve in my own heart and in my ministry. And I hope you benefit by that. But it's interesting that he points out here something, a reference or an illustration that I remember Joel Beakey made one time in one of his papers as well. Standing on their predecessors' shoulders, they sometimes top them in clarity and precision of statement. This is just basically a way of saying that as much as God did in the age of the Puritans, as much as God did in that 150 years or so of thousands of ministers, The Lord is still working, and as we have received such a great heritage by having the benefit of pulling all of their ideas together and distilling, we can actually achieve even more in some sense. Joe Bicke uses the illustration of when you have a giant who can see far and a dwarf who cannot see far, the giant is obviously has the advantage. But what if the dwarf gets on the giant's shoulders? All of a sudden, he can see farther than the giant ever could. It's in some sense, I think, where we are, certainly where I see myself, a dwarf in myself, but having the ability to stand up on the shoulders of these great men and being able by having the benefit of having them all together and studying them all at the same time, having the benefit of seeing farther, seeing more and raising up in our generation those who would carry on that same heritage. Packer goes on to explain this gold and silver distinction, and he has a point to make. He's building up. He's building a case to show us why Henry is so important and why he has written the introduction to this book. But let's follow him here just through these four views. He says in Christianity, the gold and silver distinction applies different ways, according to one's point of view. From one point, Luther's career can be considered as the golden age of the Reformation, followed by the silver counterpart of Calvin and Melanchthon. Calvin wasn't born until 1509, 1517. Just a few years later, Luther is nailing the 95 theses on the church door. The Reformation really had its spark before Calvin even knew what was happening. And yet it was Calvin who came after and Philip Melanchthon who came along as well, who really began to pull things together. Luther had a lot of ideas out there, but no system to it, no order to it. He was just stirring things up as God was stirring his heart up and beginning to stir up a cry for reformation. But God raised up a John Calvin, the great systematizer, the institutes of the Christian religion, the one who gathered all of these loose bits, all of these scattered pearls and put them on one string. This was the beauty of John Calvin. We appreciate that Philip Melanchthon had a lot to do with that as well and others. But we can see that distinction, the golden age of Luther and the silver counterpart of Calvin and Melanchthon. From another standpoint, Luther, Calvin, Booser, Peter, Martyr, Cranmer, Knox and a whole list of men could all be considered the golden age of reformational theology. When we spread spread that that circle a little farther, we can bring everyone into that golden era of reformation thinking, reformation achievements and then the Puritan theological century from William Perkins in the late 1500s to John Owen on one side. And then you have Theodore Beza and Turretin on the other. This is the Silver Age that followed it. So you have the reformers followed by the Puritans. The Puritans are great. And I think they're the best the church has ever seen. But they didn't stand alone. They stood upon the shoulders of what the reformers accomplished. The Puritans would not be. who they are if it wasn't for the reformers. And so here we have this distinction laid out here between gold and silver. And then Packer brings up a third. He said from yet another thinking more particularly he's he's bringing us closer to his point about Matthew Henry. He said from yet another point of view, master teachers of the Christian life like John Newton, Robert Murray, McShane, Charles Spurgeon, J.C. Ryle, Arthur W. Pink. These are Silver Age teachers in relation to the Golden Age of Puritan pioneers, such as William Perkins, Richard Sibbes, Richard Baxter, John Bunyan, John Owen, William Grinnell, Thomas Goodwin, Thomas Hooker, etc., etc. But these in particular are so well known for mapping out the inner realities of the Christian life of faith, hope, and love. God raised up some men in particular to devote their lives with great interest and precision to some particular points of understanding. They called Richard Sibbes heavenly Dr. Sibbes because they considered him such a physician of the soul. And Richard Greenham was such an amazing Puritan. And yet he was well known for all of his teachings. His teaching is phenomenal. Everything Greenham wrote is awesome. However, he was most known for his counseling. People would come to him weeping and they would leave leaping. That was what they would say. They would come weeping and leave leaping because Greenham was raised up at a time when people needed that kind of ministry. And he was a giant in that. And on the shoulders of Richard Greenham stand Richard Baxter and the Christian Directory, a thousand pages of a biblical counseling manual. Where did Richard Baxter come by this? Stands upon the shoulders of Richard Greenham, William Perkins, William Ames and others. So we can see this distinction again, but now he comes to his point. Fourthly, from a fourth view, three men whose best work adorns the 18th century should be seen as Silver Age figures in relation to the entire theological and practical output of the Puritan Golden Age that preceded them. So these three men are the Silver Age to the Golden Age of all Puritan thinking that came before them. This is Packer's opinion, of course. Cotton Mather, Isaac Watts, and Matthew Hinme. Now he's come home to his point. All three, Packer says, are underappreciated and need to be revalued. So now he wants to focus for a moment on Matthew Hinme. Matthew Henry was born in 1662, does that name, does that year ring a bell? 1662, the year the 2000 ministers were ejected from their pulpits for nonconformity to the Church of England. 2000 ministers, among those ministers was Philip Henry, Matthew Henry's father. His parents grounded him in Puritan beliefs and behavior and devotional patterns. This is on page 11, if you have your books, just I'm just going to read this brief list here. You don't need to open your books, but. Matthew Henry's parents grounded him in the Puritan beliefs and behavior patterns, what were the things people were doing? What were those things that the people of God, that the church, that saints young and old? seasoned and newly converted, what were they doing to become such radical, radical Christians and to grow up into such amazing Puritans? What was it that made Matthew, Henry, Matthew, Henry, this well-known Puritan still today? Well, we have daily prayer, Bible reading, self-watch and self-examination, journal keeping and practice of the presence of God, scrupulous morality and generous philanthropy, thoroughgoing sabbatarianism and hard work for the other six days of the week. Have you ever thought about such a list? Maybe we need to need someone to explain what those things are, some of them. We're just completely unfamiliar with that sort of practice, but I always look back and I think about the Puritans and sometimes I wonder, God, what were you doing? And I have my own ideas of what God was doing, but you have to ask yourself, what was God doing? In England, in the 17th century, the 16th and 17th century, what was he doing there that was so great and so wonderful that the end result was this massive, this massive group of giants theologically and piously? What was God doing? God was exercising in men's hearts the means of grace. The very same things that are incumbent upon us all. As God's people. But we neglect things we don't do, it's not that it's a sin to not keep a journal. But these are things by which the people of God lived, and these are things by which they grew and by which they became giants. God raised up an amazing generation of Puritan ministers, but he did it by the very same means of grace that is handed down to you. Nothing different, there was no special magic in those days. We could be. So great, if you might say it that way, if we would just exercise and use the same means of grace, we have the potential to eat the same food they ate and then we can be as strong as they were. Packer points out that Matthew never wanted to do anything else with his life other than serve the Lord in pastoral ministry, and in 1687, he received Presbyterian ordination and began pastoring a congregation in Chester. It grew to over 350 during the 25 years he served it. In 1712, two years before his death, he relocated to Hackney, just outside London. We were in Hackney. I've preached in Hackney. I preached in Hackney a few weeks ago. I realized this as I was reviewing this book on the trip and I told River, I think we're on the train. I said, River, he was in Hackney. I didn't get to see where Matthew Henry preached, but in any case, it was neat to be in Hackney. So here we have the team minister relocated just outside London. He was a good preacher of the Puritan style. What is the Puritan style? Well, there's a lot of definitions, but basically it was a very simple style. You remember, we've studied before at one point the difference between Puritan preaching and Anglican Church of England preaching at the time. And you remember Thomas Goodwin said that he at one time aspired to be an Anglican preacher just by the style, all of this great eloquence. And yet he did. He detested Puritan preaching that was so simple and plain and down to earth for the people. Well, Matthew Henry was just a plain preacher. I mean, open up. I mean, we all probably most of us on our shelves at home, we probably have Matthew Henry's six volume commentary. If you have the one volume abridged, get rid of it. Get the six volume. It's not worth getting the abridged. Get the six volume. You get a great deal of CBD, probably. It's one of those things that CBD sells very cheap. Open Matthew Henry's commentary. Just read it. It's nothing huge. It's nothing genius. It's just simple. It's just simple, and that's why we that's why we return to Matthew Henry by default. Some of us. Because he just gets right to the point, doesn't have all the eloquence, he's not trying to distract. He just gets right to the point, he answers the question, he explains the text very simply. And if he doesn't know, he'll tell you. But for the most part, it's very simple. Well, that was the Puritan style. This is what the text means, and this is what you need to do with it. Doctrine and uses. Explain the text, apply the text. Remember the Puritans? They read the text, they explained the text, they applied the text. That's preaching. It's very, very simple, doesn't need all that extra stuff added into it that just takes away from the power of the word. And so being the simple, plain preacher that he was, Matthew Henry was in great demand. He preached sometimes three times a day in different places. He never turned down the opportunity to preach, never turned it down. Look at number three, I thought this was interesting, both Sunday services in his church lasted up to three hours. What are we complaining about? Three hours. Since he not only preached for an hour from a text, but he also spent an hour expounding a chapter of the Bible. And of course, what grows out of this exposition of the Bible, but his commentary. It was said I came across it some time ago, it was said that Matthew Henry basically. The Bible or the Matthew Henry's commentary grew out of his ministry to his own church. And I thought to myself, did he just preach straight through? Well, this kind of gives us some indication, at least in what Packer studied. This is basically, I guess, how he went about it. You have your sermon and then afterwards you have somewhat of a Bible study to where he would walk through the Bible. He completed Genesis through Acts before his death, and then those contemporaries of his, like Thomas Scott. Thomas Scott also has a whole Bible commentary. Thomas Scott basically put together Romans through Revelation based upon Henry's notes and whatever he didn't have notes for, he wrote himself, I'm sure. Well, that gives us a brief introduction. Some of you, I understand, have read Matthew Henry's biography at the beginning of this commentary. You'll get a lot more there. But in any case, coming to the last point this evening, here, Packer wants to prepare us for what's to come. How should modern readers tune in to the pleasantness of the Christian life or of a religious life, it's called actually, in order to get the most out of it? This is an important question since Henry assumes many things that cannot be taken for granted today. He said, first, we must get clear on the puritan understanding of Christianity. which is a connected view of God, of the Bible, of the world, of ourselves, of salvation, of the church, of history and of the future. How these are all interconnected can be best grasped by a study of the catechism. You can see a summary where he lays this out, pages 13, 14, I think maybe a little further. This is interesting and this is important because we were just actually talking about this. We were reflecting upon the Sunday school lesson this morning at our lunch at the table after lunch and reflecting upon one of the things that is encouraging about what God has done in regenerating his people and saving us is the renewing of the image of God in us as Matt Lee's been teaching. The renewing of the image of God in us affects the whole man. It affects everything we do. And so I think about that when I read this. The Puritan understanding of Christianity is a connected view. One of the one of the most foolish and destructive things that we do in our thinking and in the church today as we separate, we dissect things and we like to put God over here in a corner and the rest is mine. It's almost like God is our tithe in one sense. We we take him off and we set him in a corner and we'll see him when we see him. But for the most part, we have our own life. We have our own things going. We have our own plans and our own purposes that we don't run by God, that we don't care what the word says. We have a place for God, the rest is mine. God doesn't permeate our lives or to use the term as it has. Henry would supply it for us. Religion. Religion doesn't permeate our lives, it doesn't permeate every single thing we do every day, it doesn't affect how we speak, it doesn't affect how we think, it doesn't affect how we feel, it just affects maybe how we behave on Sunday mornings. This is foolish, and this is not at all a Puritan idea. This is not at all. Let me bring it back to where it matters. This isn't at all a biblical idea. Christianity is a life. It's a life. It's every single thing we do. It's every moment of every day. There's not one moment that belongs to us. Every moment belongs to God. How we spend it will give an account. And so, as we learned this morning, that man is blessed who spends it godly. Otherwise, there is no blessing that can be had. The puritan understanding of Christianity, and this is what was received from the reformers, this is what this is how they were raised. This is what's been given to us in the scriptures as well. Christianity is a way of life. It's everything. It's not Sunday morning, Sunday night. It's not Sunday. It's every single day of the week, every moment of every day. There is no point of our lives, no matter what we're doing, where we are, whom we're with, there's no point in our lives where we're not a Christian. I often reflect upon that. Because wherever I go, whatever I do, I'm a minister of the gospel and never changes. I was on vacation. I didn't stop being a minister. I only preached one Sunday I was on vacation, but I didn't stop being a minister everywhere I went, and I'm often mindful of that. I appreciate the great call of God. But I have to remember it. And you have to remember it, we all do, and in this respect, We are all Christians, wherever we go, whatever we do, wherever we are, we're Christians that should have its impact, its due impress and imprint upon us. The Puritan understanding of Christianity is this connectedness, you cannot talk about God. Without talking about the rest of life, you cannot talk about Sunday and how you spend it without talking about how you spend the other six days, it's all included in the Fourth Commandment. You remember what we read about Henry being a thoroughgoing Sabbatarian and working hard this other six days of the week. Why were those two side by side? Because they're side by side in the Fourth Commandment. You can't separate and segregate. God permeates everything. And so we can't talk about anything. Without realizing its connectedness, and this is important to understand is to get into this book, because when Henry begins to talk about our lives and he talks about joy, it's a joy that permeates everything, everything we do. And on the flip side of that, as we learned this morning, if we don't have ourselves in a right relationship with God, then we won't know that joy anywhere. And instead, what permeates everywhere and everything is the curse of God, because that's the only other side of it. There's nothing in the middle. There's no two ways about it, so it's important that we get a clear view on how the Puritans thought. And here we're mentioning the Puritans were raising the idea of the Puritans are talking about Matthew Henry, but this is all biblical. They got this from the scriptures. This is what the Bible teaches. And this is why I love the Puritans so much is because they were so extremely biblical. And that's why Packer goes on to say how the Puritans understand Christianity can be seen in the catechism and the catechism. We we indeed enjoy and appreciate because we believe it to be a wonderful summary of the teaching of the Bible. So read your catechism sometime. Read your catechism, the shorter catechism is not that long. It's one hundred and seven questions and answers, but it's pretty short. Just sit down and read it. I had the opportunity to give it away to someone the other day, and I said, just read it. It's short, a short catechism book that is so small. Just sit down and read it in one sitting. It's not that you've never read it before. Maybe you haven't, but just read it in order. Question one, two, three on down the line. And then afterwards, tell me that you can segregate. And you're thinking about Christianity or life, the catechism builds question one, gives way to question two, gives way to question three, gives way to question four, gives way on down the line to question one hundred and seven. It builds. It's all connected. It's a beautiful thing. Read your catechism and see that. Well, second thing he wants us to understand is that we must get a clear view of the antithesis between Puritan Christianity and Western secularism. Puritanism looks to the word of God for self-knowledge and life guidance. Modernity and post-modernity look all over the map. The basic point here is the Puritans come back to the Bible. That's why I love the Puritans. That's why I appreciate them so much, because whatever they say, they ground in Scripture. That's what we should do. But what the Puritans realized, and this was what made them so radical in their day, is they truly, truly believed with all their heart and manifest in all their ministry the sufficiency of Scripture. The Word of God is absolutely, without fail, sufficient for every single situation and has the answer to every single question. That's how Richard Greenham became such an amazing counselor, because he just took people to the Word. That's how the Puritans became such amazing teachers and preachers, a world never seen before or since. Because they preached the Bible, they just stuck to the scripture, nothing of man hide behind scripture and all will be well. Thinking of modernity and post-modernity. Think of the listen to the weight of what Packer says there, bottom of page two in your notes. He said, this leaves us with a relativistic feel-good society in which nothing seems certain, nothing feels quite worthwhile, and grabbing such pleasures as each moment offers seems the only thing to do. Thus human nature is devalued. Human life is cheapened, human thought is blocked, and we live aimlessly, prompted only by instinct, appetite, and various forms of greed. Our idea of life is of drifting along, and our idea of pleasure stops short at the momentary satisfying of instinctual, sensual, body-based, self-absorbed cravings, urgings, and itches. This is where our secularism has brought us, and it is a sad story. We heard it this morning. There is no joy or happiness or blessing outside of God. Man is searching all over the world for anything but God. And this is where it leaves him, completely empty. And if he ever comes to himself, he'll learn with Solomon, vanity of vanities, all is vanity. Indirect number two indirect antithesis to all aspects of the secular trend stands Henry's forceful calling us back. to the eternal truth about human nature. As we heard this morning in a Sunday school and thereafter, we are created in the image of God and it is man's chief in to glorify God and join forever. We need to be called back to that, and the pursuit of that is laid out for us in the scriptures, and Henry helps us see that. And so Packer closes. Number three, only as we grasp the antithesis between the historic Christian and modern secular approaches to the business of living and program ourselves to shake off the cultural prejudice and take the Christian biblical Puritan view of human nature and human welfare seriously, shall we be able to profit from the flood of wisdom that Henry here pours out as he gets into his stride. You see what he's done? He wanted to clear the air for us. Because if we don't understand what's going on, if we don't understand Henry, if we don't understand the great antithesis between the way the world thinks and the way God speaks, if we don't program ourselves to take the biblical Christian Puritan view of human nature, human welfare, we will never be able to understand Henry. Not only will the book or will the title of the book turn us off, the sermons themselves will turn us off because we won't see. We'll read it and we'll get nothing. We need to program ourselves to think as God thinks, take scripture seriously and understand that there is nothing this world has but lies. God speaks truth and it stops with him as a Puritan. Practiced the disciplines of serious Christianity as a as a Puritan, Henry practiced the disciplines of serious Christianity, we come back to somewhat of a list here. Praying, fasting, keeping his heart, warring against the world, the flesh and the devil, maintaining an ordered life and doing all the good he could in doing those things. As we said, when we read the history of the biography of all of those who have gone before us that were busy about these kinds of things that were such strangers to. In doing those things, Henry found mental pleasure and joy at every turn of the road. And this is the experience that he wants to share with us and deepen in us through his six sermons. Thought control, he says, in realizing the reality of God present each moment to bless is the secret. And Henry's discourse can lead us directly into it. So we have a great opportunity here. As we have this book before us, the series of six sermons, we have a great opportunity to come to understand something more of what it means to be a Christian, the joys of being a Christian. And we have the opportunity to respond to an invitation. To an invitation. That we get in the business of serving the Lord with our whole heart. of giving the Lord all that we have, that we get serious about a life lived completely, wholly and cheerfully for the Lord, because we'll never know any joy outside of it. And we will be the envy of all the world on that day when we are shown to be the recipients of God's grace, not only in the world to come, but in the world now. It's by God's grace that we can live this way and enjoy a religious life And so we have to come to him for it and follow his ways and give ourselves to the things that Henry lays out for us. He won't go through that list of of all of those disciplines of the Christian life, but I encourage you to think seriously about how you how you live your Christian life. If your own private disciplines are so skimpy that you're starving, then it's no wonder you're hungry. It's no wonder we're starving. Give yourself more and more to the things that bring you back to God. And we'll begin to grow and be strengthened and our joy will grow and the church will grow. The church needs each of us, our church, this church needs each of us to be more serious about the things of God and a life lived for him. So may this be an encouragement to us to help us do that.