Our scripture reading this morning is Ephesians chapter four. Ephesians chapter four. Ephesians four, I therefore the prisoner of the Lord beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called with all lowliness and meekness, with long-suffering, forbearing one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling. One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is above all, and through all, and in you all. But unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ. Wherefore he saith, when he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive and gave gifts unto men. Now that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth? He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens that he might fill all things. And he gave some apostles and some prophets and some evangelists and some pastors and teachers. Now notice why we are given pastors and teachers. Verse 12, for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ. Now, the idea is that he equips the saints so that they can work and edify. That's the sense of verse 12. The preachers equip the saints for the work of ministering to each other and for the work of edifying the body of Christ. Till we all come, verse 13, till we all come in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. that we henceforth be no more children tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the slight of men and cunning craftiness whereby they lie in wait to deceive, but speaking the truth in love may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body fitly joined together, and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love. This I say, therefore, and testify in the Lord that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk in the vanity of their mind, having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them because of the blindness of their heart, who being past feeling have given themselves over unto lasciviousness to work all uncleanness with greediness. but ye have not so learned Christ. If so be that ye have heard him and have been taught by him as the truth is in Jesus, that ye put off concerning the former conversation, the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness. Wherefore, putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another. Be angry and sin not, let not the sun go down upon your wrath, neither give place to the devil. Let him that stole steal no more, but rather let him labor, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth. Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers. And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and evil speaking be put away from you with all malice and be kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgetting one another, even as God, for Christ's sake, hath forgiven you. So far we read God's holy word. Based on that and many other passages is the instruction of the Heidelberg Catechism in Lord's Day 12. Lord's Day 12. There in question 31, the Catechism asks, why is he called Christ, that is, anointed? And the answer, because he is ordained of God the Father and anointed with the Holy Ghost to be our chief prophet and teacher, who has fully revealed to us the secret counsel and will of God concerning our redemption, and to be our only high priest. who by the one sacrifice of his body hath redeemed us and makes continual intercession with the Father for us. And also to be our eternal king, who governs us by his word and spirit, who defends and preserves us in the enjoyment of that salvation he has purchased for us. And now question 32, but why art thou called Christian? The answer because I am a member of Christ by faith and thus am partaker of his anointing that so I may confess his name and present myself a living sacrifice of thankfulness to him and also with a free and good conscience I may fight against sin and Satan and his life and afterwards reign with Him eternally over all creatures. This morning, beloved, in the Lord Jesus Christ, we're going to spend a lot of time talking about knowledge and the importance of being instructed. And I would like to point out the importance of that by using an illustration. Imagine for a moment that you're about 20 years old and you apply to be an intern at the White House, at the official dwelling of the president and his family. Obviously, you will need to learn a great deal to be effective working there. One cannot simply knock on the door and say, I'm here to work in the White House. You will have to learn. You have to learn the right way and the wrong way to do things. What's expected of you in various situations? What do I do if I meet the president? What do I do if I meet the first lady? What's expected of me? And along the way, obviously, many wrong ideas that you had about life in the White House will have to be corrected. Where would you get that knowledge of how to conduct yourself in that position? Would you get it from somebody that just walks past the gate every day and says, oh yeah, I know all about the White House, I go past it every day? Obviously not you would want somebody who really knows what it's like on the inside who is able to Explain it to you from experience What it's like there and and therefore what it will be like for you to live there and to work there someone That you can trust The point is this God has determined to bring you into his house of many mansions, and you will have work to do there. And God has determined to give you instruction about that. It is far more difficult to learn about life there than it is to learn about life in the White House. The White House is fancier than your home, and it has a whole lot of things going on there that your house does not, and yet it is a real physical home, and so you're somewhat associated, you're knowledgeable about that. But the home of the Lord of hosts is heavenly, it's spiritual, you've never seen anything like it. And what your obligations are, you do not know. So it's going to take a lot of special instruction, much careful instruction. And God, the triune God has determined to give us the necessary instruction by appointing his son to be the mediator between God and us. In that office, the son has much work to do, but one of his duties is to teach us, to teach us. As the Heidelberg Catechism puts it, to teach us, to reveal to us the secret counsel and will of God concerning our redemption. That's what he has to teach us with all that that involves. This Lord's day involves the office of the mediator. There are different ways to preach this Lord's day. Obviously you could take the whole thing at once. You could divide it into two parts, as we did in Heidelberg Catechism class a few weeks ago, and said, let's look first at question 31, at Jesus, and then question 32, the office of believer. That works. You could, as we did the last time through the catechism, break it up into three sermons and say, The first one will be on Jesus as the mediator, and then we'll look at the office of believer all by itself, and then the special offices in the church, minister, elder, and deacon. But this time we will preach three sermons, but now we will do it in this way. We will focus in each of the three sermons on a particular aspect of the office of mediator. There are three. He's a prophet, he's a priest, and he's a king. And we'll focus on each one of those individually and see how Jesus is what he is as a mediator. And then how does that apply to the work in the church of the office bearer, today, the minister? And then how does that apply to all of us as prophets, as we have the office of prophet, priest, and king. But we're focused today all on the aspect of a prophet. And so today, the theme for the sermon is Confessing Christ, Our Chief Prophet and Teacher. Confessing Christ, Our Chief Prophet and Teacher. So first of all, we'll look at his appointment. How does Jesus get this office? And then secondly, his word to us, a prophet speaks. So how does he bring his word to us? And then thirdly, his work in us. And that's where we get to the office of believer. Confessing Jesus Christ, our chief prophet and teacher, we begin then with Christ's appointment to the office of mediator. The name Christ indicates that he has an office. This is his official title as God's office bearer. The name Jesus is his personal name, the name that means Savior. But the name Christ means anointed. To make that as clear as I can, The president of the United States has a personal name, Donald Trump. And when he was growing up, his mother never called him president. She called him Donald. That's his name. That's his personal name. So when Jesus is growing up, When his family talked to him, they never called him Christ. Never. They only referred to him by his personal name, Jesus. The name Christ is a title that would have to be given to him. It's his God-given title. It means anointed, the same as the word Messiah in the Old Testament means anointed. So Christ means anointed, the very word. And now Peter's confession is all the more remarkable. You remember when Jesus said to his disciples, well, whom do ye say that I am? And Peter's reply was, thou art the Christ, The son of the living God, that was a shocking confession. And Jesus had to say to Peter, flesh and blood has not revealed that to thee, but my father in heaven, that I am the Christ. And that's why he said, so don't go around telling people that they're not ready for that yet. But it's true. That's what I am. I'm the anointed one of God. I have the office given to me by Him. An office, then, is a position into which one is appointed or installed. When a man is elected president, he's not president until he gets installed into that office. And when one takes up that, then, when he is installed, He has work to do work that belongs to the office. So one is installed, appointed. He has work to do there. And he is given a position of some prestige or honor in that office. He is responsible to others, usually to the one that appointed him to that office. He's responsible to that individual and he represents that person. The president of the United States is responsible to the country and represents the country. Now all of that applies to Christ. Being appointed, having a work, representing someone, all of that applies to Jesus Christ. How did Jesus got the office of mediator, being Christ. The answer is he was appointed to that by the triune God, the triune God. In God's eternal plan, God determined to create creatures, mere human beings. Yet God determined that those mere creatures made of material things would come to know God. And even that they would live with him. So that they could enjoy God so that they could praise his perfections. But for that to happen for these lowly creatures, to know God and be able to enjoy Him, there would have to be something between them, a mediator that would go between God and man, a mediator, God determined. Now of the three persons of the Trinity, Father, Son, and Spirit, the triune God together, Determined that the person who would act as that mediator is the second person the son Will explain more as we go on why he is the one But he is the one that would be the mediator he would take on that role But the triune God in all of his wisdom also said the the way that he will be a perfect mediator is is that he will take upon himself human flesh, the flesh of these lowly creatures. He will unite himself to. Human nature. So that he would be very God of the same essence as the father and the spirit, and yet he would be truly man. Like the creatures. A perfect mediator, obviously, between God and man, one who is both God and man. So when we speak of Christ, we're speaking of that one, that one who is the divine person with a human nature, the two natures united forever. They will never be separated. And they are existing in the unity of the one person, the second person of the Trinity. Obviously the divine nature takes precedence. The divine nature is leading always. always. The divine nature took on human flesh. The divine nature is in control in all situations. When Christ was on the earth and he worked, or even now as he works, it is always in the unity of the two natures, but the divine is dominating, whether he is instructing, doing miracles. Offering himself on the cross or ruling from heaven, the divine leads using. Working through. The human nature. Working through that human nature. That's Christ. the son in the Trinity taking human flesh and now going forth in an office. To do the work of the office, he must be qualified for that work. And that's the anointing part. He's anointed with the Holy Spirit. Scripture makes that plain that Jesus was anointed in Luke. Jesus went into the synagogue of Nazareth and he asked for the book of Isaiah and he opened up the scroll to Isaiah 61 and he read this. The spirit of the Lord is upon me. because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor." And then he went on. And he closed the scroll and gave it back. And he said, this day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears. I'm that one. The spirit of the Lord is upon me to preach and to do all these other things. In John, chapter 3 verse 34 We read this For he whom God hath sent speaketh the words of God For God giveth not the Spirit by measure Unto him not by measure. Okay children, you can understand this if your mom is baking a And she's got her measuring cups out. One cup of flour, one teaspoon of sugar. She's measuring, measuring, measuring. Jesus was given the spirit without measure. There's no limit to it. The spirit given to Jesus is infinite. That's his anointing. Now, in the Old Testament, we all know there were three offices. To which men were appointed by the anointing of oil, the king, the prophet and the priest. And that was preparing us for Jesus because they were just types. And so Jesus, likewise, is appointed, anointed to the threefold office of prophet, priest and king. Not anointed with oil, but with the Holy Spirit. His office is a position, therefore, given by appointment. He represents the one who appointed Him. And who is that? That's the triune God. He represents the triune God. He has work to do that the triune God commissions Him to do. He is the office bearer of God. And God, in his perfect wisdom, then determined that these. That he. The invisible God. Would have a visible representative so that we can see him. We can talk with him. It's amazing. That's one of the reasons why God wanted Jesus and why he would take on a human nature so that We could see him. You'll never see God. He's infinite. He's invisible. But you can see his son, the mediator. And now that son is to carry out the work that God gives him to do. So this Christ is the mediator between God and And who? Well, God's people. He's the mediator between God and God's people. The elect people that are given to Jesus by the eternal decrees of the triune God. All the work of the mediator is for their benefit. and for their benefit alone. God cares about his adopted sons and daughters. His interest in sending Jesus is not that Jesus will be a benefit for everybody in the world. It's for his people that he loves and has chosen eternally in Jesus. You recognize that Herman Hoeksema And the Protestant reformed churches have been preaching this for 100 years. That God's grace is not common. It is not for everyone. It is for the elect alone. And Christ was not given as a mediator between God and every individual in the world. You can say that he's for the nations if you say, if you mean by that, it's for the elect out of every nation. Yes, of course. In that sense, he's for the nations, but he's not for every single individual in this world. Specifically then, The work of the prophetic office is to cause the people of God, eternally known and loved of God, cause them to know God, to know God, to know his greatness, to know his mercy and his wisdom and his love and his power, to be able to live with him in his covenant. Jesus is the mediator of the covenant. That's what He is. He came to reveal the Father to the covenant family, to reveal the Father as the Savior of the people, to reveal that no one but God can save them, and that God the Father, their Father, will save them through the appointed Son. That's another part of His work as a priest. We'll come to that next week, the Lord willing. The Heidelberg Catechism puts it this way, that to us, that's notable. Why is he called Christ? Well, he is our only, rather he's our chief prophet and teacher who has fully revealed to us, who are the us, well, it's believers. This is a confession of faith. So it's fully revealed to us, believers, the secret counsel and will of God concerning our redemption. It's very particular. It's believers. And that's what Jesus comes to do. The secret counsel and will of God concerning our redemption. This is the redemption from sin that the last Lord's Day talked about. Jesus saves us and delivers us from our sin. And will and counsel are similar, they're synonyms, but yet there's a different force there, isn't it? The will of God says, this is what I've determined. This is my goal. My will, my goal is to deliver the people. Now my counsel, that gives the idea, this is a plan. This is how I will redeem them. This is the manner in which I will save them. So you have the will of God, his determination, I'm going to save my people, and then the plan. Jesus is called to make that known to us. in his office a profit so that's the duty that's the duty of Jesus Christ use them the appointed name Christ the anointed one anointed to be a prophet to reveal to us God and his great salvation that's point one Now let's go to point two. How does he do this? How does Jesus teach us? What's the word that he brings? A prophet performs his duty using words. And now you see another reason why God, the triune God, said the second person of the Trinity will be the one who is the mediator. Why? Because He is the Word of God. He's the Word. He's the one that reveals. That's what a Word does. Not the Father, not the Spirit. But the Son is the Word of God. And Christ does His work as a prophet either directly or indirectly, using a means. Let's talk about those two different ways. First of all, Jesus, as a prophet, gives the Word directly. He gave the words. He gave the message. And He could do that because He is very God. Again, no mere man could give a perfect, accurate revelation of God. No man could do that. Nor could any man know the will and counsel of God perfectly so as to be able to explain it without making mistakes. God's ways are past finding out. We cannot grasp God's eternal decree. That's in His mind. We cannot see the mind of God. We cannot search the mind of God and then be able to come back and say, let me tell you what it is, unless God reveals it, of course. Because Christ is very God, he knows the mind of God perfectly. Whatever he decides to reveal, it's on target. It's absolutely correct. No mistakes, no exaggerations. Therefore, it was Christ that had to give the message. To the prophets. Sometimes word for word, this is what you will say. to the people. 1 Peter chapter 1 makes that explicit. 1 Peter chapter 1 talks about the prophets, chapter 1 verse 10, the prophets who inquired and searched diligently, who prophesied, already back then, of the grace that should come unto you, searching, these prophets did, searching what or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify. So the Spirit is giving them signs and the Spirit is giving them words and messages and they're searching it. But the Spirit is testifying the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow. So the Spirit of Christ is giving them the signs, the visions, the words that they had to bring to the people directly. Jesus gave that to them. And then Jesus caused that revelation to be written down. in the Scriptures. In 2 Peter 1 speaks of the guidance of the Spirit. That holy men of old prophecy came not by the will of man. People didn't just say, well, I think I'll give a prophecy today. Or Moses saying, I think I'll write Genesis today. That's not how it came. Holy men spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. God eternally chose a Moses and a Joshua and a Peter and Paul, chose them eternally to write part of His Word, prepared them by giving them the characteristics He wanted, prepared them through their life, and then the Holy Spirit moved those men to write on paper the words Christ wanted written down. so that we have the revelation of God through Jesus Christ, the prophet. We have his revelation. As a prophet, therefore Christ gave men the words to speak and the words to write. That's direct. That's direct. but now indirect. He uses means. After he gave the message to the prophets, then he said to the prophets, now you go out and proclaim it. Christ himself didn't come literally in the Old Testament except through the angel of Jehovah occasionally, but he used the means of prophets to bring the word of God to instruct Israel concerning the will of God. At the same time, they were surrounded by pictures that Jesus was also using to instruct the people, the sacrifices, atonement through blood, through the death of the lamb, guilt, the house of God where God dwells, all kinds of pictures teaching the people of Israel. Jesus used that. In the New Testament, Christ uses Preachers. They have the complete revelation. The scripture so they don't need any more messages from Jesus. It's all there. Everything we need to know is there. And they are called rightly to divide the Word of God. Rightly be careful. Do it right. They are called to proclaim Christ crucified. and risen again. That's the heart of their message. Christ, the chief prophet. Now you see why he's called the chief prophet, because he calls subordinate prophets, preachers that he uses to teach us the will of God. Christ, the chief prophet, calls someone to the office and equips someone by the spirit to proclaim the word. You can see then the tremendous importance of preachers. They bring the word from Christ. God's appointed prophet, Christ, They bring his word. Jesus made that plain when he said in John chapter 10, other sheep I have other than you Jews, they also must hear my voice. Now Jesus is in heaven and none of us had ever heard the voice of Jesus calling us from heaven. And yet he said, they must hear my voice. How do we hear the voice of Jesus? Romans chapter 10 explains that. Romans chapter 10 says, how should they hear without a preacher? That's how we hear, with a preacher. We hear Christ speaking to us, the chief prophet. And then Romans 10 adds, and how shall they preach except they be sent. So a man doesn't say, well, I'm gonna be a preacher. And now he just takes himself, takes that role on himself. No, Christ calls. And Christ sends. The men of the congregation absolutely need to pay close attention to this. Christ calls by convicting a man that he must pursue the gospel ministry. He does that in different ways. It may be that a man, a boy of 10 or 12 already knows that's what I want to be. He desires to be a preacher. And many come later in life that experiences bring him to the conviction that he must pursue the gospel ministry. That's what we call the internal call. The external call comes when the church actually puts out a nomination, votes and calls a man. That's the external. But the internal call must be there in that. And that's the work of Christ. That internal call includes a desire, a desire to be a minister, not for carnal reasons, not because you want the esteem of men, not because one sees the office as a kind of privileged position in the church, maybe a cushy job. No, it's the desire is a sincere desire to serve Christ by serving his people. It includes a love for the Bible and the Savior who is revealed there. It includes a love for the people and the Savior who is revealed in them. And it includes an understanding from his own personal experience of the horribleness of sin and the terrible judgment that is ours and that the only remedy, the only hope is the word. That's what has to be brought. That's the only hope of the people. The word of God. With that conviction, with that desire. A man seeks the ministry. But being in office takes preparation. Even if one is not sure that he is called, he should prepare himself to be a prophet of Jesus Christ. Parents should be preparing their children, boys and girls, for their place in the church, whatever God has determined that will be. so that the children are getting solid instruction, that they're reading the Bible, that they are being instructed in scripture. And parents should be praying that God will give their children a love for the Bible, give their children understanding in the Bible, and a love for the truth. God may well use that to bring boys to the conviction. that they must pursue the gospel ministry. You understand that if our concern as parents is all earthly things, if it's all about sports, if it's all about entertainment, if it's all about money, if it's all about jobs, well, then don't expect that your son is going to be interested in spiritual things. Don't expect that he's going to have a desire to be a minister. He's not been prepared for that. He's been prepared only for earthly things, not the heavenly. The ministry of the gospel is a high and lofty, glorious calling. To stand as a representative of Christ himself the mediator of God. He's the chief prophet and teacher of his people. And the minister speaks with the authority of Jesus Christ and says, thus saith the Lord. Thus saith the Lord. That word is the power of God unto salvation. Preaching is not pleading. Preaching is not begging people to hear and begging them to believe. It's a command. that is passed along from the chief prophet to all of the people. The messenger isn't even important. The message is, what does Christ say to us? That's all we have to hear this morning. Once again, this is the heart of reformed theology. Long ago, the Armenians said preaching is Preaching is begging. Preaching is offering. Preaching is saying, look, there's a God in heaven who loves all of you, and he's offering you salvation. Jesus made it possible. If only now you will open your heart, won't you please? Won't you please? That's not preaching. The churches rejected that in the canons of Dort in the 1600s, but it reappeared in the first point of common grace. And said, what's the evidence of God's grace? Well, he offers salvation to everybody. It's the well-meant offer of the gospel. But that's not what it is. You see how it all hangs together, though, don't you? It all hangs together. If you have a God in heaven who is gracious to everyone. Then obviously, when he sends Jesus, it's out of grace to everyone. And then in a certain sense, Jesus had to die for everyone. And now the preacher comes and says, salvation is available for everyone, everyone in the whole wide world. It all fits together. The only problem is that's not the Bible. That's not election and reprobation, that's not the preaching of the gospel, the preaching of the gospel is not begging, it's a command, repent, believe. It's a command that must be obeyed. And it's a two-edged sword. It's a two-edged sword that cuts and destroys, but also it saves. It saves, cuts away sin. The people of God, we need preaching. This is the power of God unto salvation in those who believe. It isn't merely the power that God uses to bring you unto belief. That's true. But it's the power of God that keeps you, keeps me, that preserves us. This is the power of God unto salvation in everyone that believes. We need preachers, please. with Christ, the chief prophet and teacher. Plead with him. He's the only one that can convict someone to seek the gospel ministry. No one else can. Pray that he will send laborers for the harvest and hold that in front of your son. But again, more important, it isn't merely that we say to our son every year, Do you want to be a minister? Have you thought about being a minister? That's fine. You may do that. But the more important thing is, are you preparing that son for the ministry? Are you giving him the word? Are you instilling in him a love for the truth? A commitment to it? That's preparation. The spirit will use it. The spirit will use it. This is part of Christ's work as chief prophet and teacher, giving his word to us. But that's not all that he does. He works in us, and that's the third thing we look at today. He gives each one of us work to do, the office of prophet for every single one of us. This is really a restoration of the office of prophet, isn't it? Adam had this. Adam was king under God. He was a priest that offered his life to God and he could commune with God directly. He was a prophet. He could look out into the creation, see the word of God and speak the word of God. He was a king. He was a priest. He was a prophet. But he lost that when he fell. And now Jesus restores that. threefold office to his people. We have an office. That's why we are called Christians. We take the name anointed and put that into the name. That's God's ordained idea, his purpose. So we have an office. We have work to do. And we need to get rid of this idea that that being in church is just something we just are and and we let the office bearers do the work. It's not like members that the member being members of the church is not like getting on an airplane and sitting down and letting the pilot and the stewardess and so take care of everything and fly us to a new destination. That's not what membership in the church is like. If you do that, you get on an airplane, you can sit back in your seat, you can go to sleep, hit the help button if you want it. You can even criticize the pilot and the stewardesses for not doing a good job. But that's not membership in the church. In the church, though there are those called for certain things to be minister, elder, and deacon, we all have an office. We all have work to do. We're to be busy as members of the church, because as the catechism points out, we are all members of Christ. And the passage that we read in Ephesians emphasizes that. He's the head, everything flows from him, but we are the body and we are supposed to be working. We are supposed to be edifying each other. We're supposed to be ministering to each other. We are speaking the truth to each other, building each other up. We have a lot to do. We are sealed by the Spirit more than once. It speaks of the fact that we have the Holy Spirit. We are united to Jesus Christ by faith. We have his life. We have his grace. We have his spirit. And so we are equipped by that Holy Spirit to do work in the church. And now what we're talking about today is how are we prophets? And a prophet speaks, but before a prophet says something, he has to have a message. He has to have words to speak. And that's, again, so vitally important. That's our heritage. Again, when we go back to Luther, In the Middle Ages, the church robbed the believers of their duties and their abilities and said, you believers, you can't understand the Bible. Eventually, they actually took the Bible away from the people and said, you can't interpret it anyway. That's the job of the bishops and the archbishops all the way up to the pope. That's their job. Just listen to them. They'll tell you what to believe. They'll take care of you. Bring you to heaven. And Luther saw the horrible error of that and rejected it and said, no, all believers have an office. Every single one of us. We all are sealed by the spirit. The spirit gives understanding. And the spirit of Jesus Christ fills us with the word of Jesus Christ. So that we can be prophets. He gives us pastors and evangelism for the equipping of the saints so that we can carry on in the work. That's what I paused and explained in verse 12 so that we can be busy. And the rest of the chapter keeps talking about that, speaking the truth, building each other up. That's our calling. You exercise that Sunday after Sunday as you hear the preaching of the gospel. And it's your calling as prophets to say, is that what that man is saying in harmony with the Bible? That's your calling. To read the decisions of ecclesiastical assemblies, consistories, classes, and senate and evaluate and say, is that in harmony with the Bible? To hear the false teaching. and discern the error that you may hear around you, and to recognize godless living that is contrary to the scriptures and oppose that. And then to speak. A prophet who fails to speak, not doing what he's called to do. speak the Word of Jesus Christ. Prophets like Jeremiah and Isaiah spoke the Word of God, and the result is they were hated, they were reviled, they suffered to the point where they finally said, I don't want to say it anymore. I don't want to bring the Word of God anymore. But they had to. Christ put His Word into them. and they boiled over, they couldn't keep it inside, it had to come out. We are prophets. We are prophets. Every one of us here is a prophet. Our hearts should be filled, therefore, with the Word of God, out of which we speak. We must not hesitate to speak. the truth of the word of God and all the implications for who God is and who the son is and what life is about. Parents are prophets when they're teaching their children, you are a prophet. Every time you teach your child or your grandchild, when you tell them what the word of God means and what it means for their life, you're being a prophet. Well, that obviously means we as adults must have the word in our hearts, in our minds, that we are studying it, that we are praying over it, whether privately, yes, and in society, but, and coming to the preaching of the gospel, what we're growing, we're growing in the knowledge so we can speak. And then we do. We must. If you were here Thursday night, after we're singing for 45 minutes or so, Reverend Eric's closed and said, you know, the praises that we sang here tonight make me want to witness, when I consider the greatness and the glory of our Savior, I want to tell other people about Him. That should be our desire for every one of us. All around us the world is showing the degradation, the horribleness of sin, and that the world is on the way to destruction. We have so much to talk about. God came in the flesh. Talk about the life of Jesus. Talk about his suffering. Talk about his accursed death. Talk about his atonement. Talk about his resurrection from the dead, his ascension into heaven, his ruling over all things, that he's coming again. We have so much to talk about. So many errors to reject about life, about Jesus, about heaven. That's God's secret counsel and will, that He has made known to us the good news of the gospel. And now, as prophets, we can speak about that from our own experience. We know sin. We know deliverance. We can talk about it. with joy as prophets of God. So this is our office. Already in the Old Testament, God said to Israel, ye are my witnesses that I am God. And now He says that to us. Jesus is the chief prophet. He gives us preachers to equip us, to teach us these things so that we may then go out and speak the word. He gives us an office. He equips us for it. And so let us speak boldly the truth of God. Amen. Let us pray. Father in heaven, what a glorious God thou art. Thy ways, thy works are so marvelous, and we thank thee for the grace given to us, flowing out of Jesus Christ, that we may actually partake of his anointing and be prophets ourselves. Forgive our sins for Jesus' sake. Amen. We sing Psalm 68a. 68a. For much of my ministry, I've wanted to sing a verse that's found in Psalm 68. The Lord gave the word, great was the company of the preachers. That's in the Messiah. And we never had a versification of that until now. So we sing that in stanza five. When God but spoke his mighty word, great was the host whose shouts were heard as they proclaimed their tidings. This thing stanzas one and five, one and five of 68A. ♪ God shall arise when life is white ♪ ♪ Lord of Israel, best to find ♪ ♪ With shame and consternation ♪ ♪ Behold him be ♪ ♪ Shall at his arms' presence cling ♪ ♪ Millions in exultation ♪ ♪ Hark, the herald angels sing ♪ be. It was the hosts who shouts were heard, As they proclaimed their tidings. The gates are cleaning in this place, you. I. O blessed be the mighty one, the hope, the God of Israel, for he alone has won wisdom and is in glory. Blessed be his glorious name, Long as the ages shall endure, For all the earth extend his fame, Amen, amen, forevermore. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.