Tonight we come to article number 20 in our study of the London Confession. Article number 20, which deals with the gospel and the extent of its grace. The gospel and the extent of its grace. Now, much of this is, in many ways, somewhat of a review of what we have covered in other articles in the Confession, but it's always good to be stirred in our minds to remembrance of the truths of God's Word. And this article is a little different, and I really kind of want to set back to a few things that we addressed when we started the Confession, believe it or not, almost a year ago. To recap the historical setting, of the 1689 London Confession, I want you to recall that this document, this Confession of Faith, is based on two Confessions of Faith that were published before it. The Westminster Confession of 1647 and the Savoy Declaration of 1658. So those two preceded the London Confession by about between 30 and 40 years. The Westminster Confession, which is really the main template, did not contain this article when it was written in 1647. It was written, though, in 1658 in the Savoy Document, and just briefly, the Westminster is the main confession of the Presbyterian Church, and the Savoy Declaration was written by the Congregationalists and Puritans. And so it was further refined, the article here, Article 20, the Baptists in 1689 refined it and reworked it a little bit. So when we have an article here that was put in in a 40-year span that was not in the original template, we have to ask ourselves, what was the factor or factors that led to this section being written? What was the historical reason for them inserting this article? And what was taking place from the time of 47 when Westminster was published, and then 58, but even more so in 89, was the philosophy of deism, which, unfortunately, several of the founding fathers of our own country held to. Deism was rapidly growing, and it had several tenets that it taught, but the main issue that the Confession is dealing with here in Article 20 is that the deist rejected the notion that men needed a special revelation from God, and that man could know God through human reasoning, through human rationale, and by just simply improving upon the natural light. The natural light would be natural revelation, which is creation. Deist believed that man himself could, through rational thought and logic, come to grasp God sufficiently without the need of the Bible. Now, obviously, if you have a group of men who are all about logic and rationalizing situations, then they're not going to be ready to embrace the supernatural. If you believe that the Bible is the inspired and Bible-inherent Word of God, more than that, as we'll see in Psalm 19, we talk about special revelation and natural revelation, natural revelation being creation, but special revelation being the Bible, the Word of God. And so, we believe, as 2 Timothy 3.16 teaches, that all scripture is inspired God breathed, then therefore the Bible is a supernatural book. It is a special revelation given by God to His people. So, number one, they didn't like this supernatural aspect of it. They didn't care for miracles and so forth. We know that because Thomas Jefferson, again, one of our family fathers, he held to this kind of philosophy and he didn't believe in the miracles of Jesus. They rejected the supernatural. In a way, we could say they were a little bit similar to the Sadducees of Jesus' day, who rejected angels and miracles and resurrection and anything of the supernatural. But they also rejected this notion of a special revelation because it meant that God gave His Word to specific people of His choosing. The law was not given to the entire world. The law was given to the Israelites, to the Hebrews. When Moses received the commandments of God and received the Ten Commandments, and that was not published in Greece, not published in Babylon or in Persia, and among the Hittites and the Hittites and the rest of the groups there in Hattin, it was given to God's people. So they rejected it because they said that it made it too selective in how God operated. All that I just said right there can easily be applied to the current day that we live in. Not much has changed in our day. When many people, including those who reside in churches and would call themselves Bible-believing and teaching Christians, seem to think that men can somehow inherit eternal life and be saved without knowledge of the gospel or the regenerating work of the Spirit. They insist that God would not be fair if He withheld grace from some. Or He would not be fair in insisting Christ is the only way that men could go to heaven, especially if they never heard the gospel. And so they shrink back from that. People across all spectrums of Christianity really are scared to really truly hold to the exclusivity of Jesus Christ. Because if you get put on a TV show or radio show and someone says, what about people who don't hear about Jesus? What do you say to them? Well, if you say that God's just going to let them in, then what happens? Well, number one, why aren't we doing missions then? Why would we evangelize? If people go to heaven just because God says, well, just let them on in, then we're wasting our time sending money to people going off into tribes and desolate lands. And number two, that means the Bible's not accurate. Because Jesus said, I am the way, I am the truth, and I am the life, and no one goes in the Father except by me. If that's not the case, then that wasn't true. And then the rest of the Bible begins to fall apart. But instead tonight, in our examination this evening, our purpose is to see how the special revelation, the Bible, is the only way the gospel is made known. do not match the power of the declared Word of God. I don't care how talented they are as actors and actresses, it does not rise to the level of the Word of God. Psalm 138 says that God has raised His Word to His name, and that's it. It doesn't say anything else about dramas and skits and all that. Number two, that God is sovereign, and that He is just in how He says. And number three, that the Spirit must regenerate the sinner through the declaration of the gospel. So those are the three main truths that we again want to meditate and once again look at tonight. Now, Article 20, paragraph number 1 reads, Because the covenant of works was broken by sin and was unable to confer life, God was pleased to proclaim the promise of Christ the seed of the woman as the means of calling the elect and producing in them faith and repentance. In this promise the gospel in its substance was revealed and made effectual for the conversion and salvation of sinners." Now let's start tonight at the beginning of the Bible in Genesis chapter 3, Genesis chapter 3 and verse 15. Genesis chapter 3 and in verse 15. Now, the first part of this paragraph speaks of the covenant of words, and we've addressed this before, that I'm not very comfortable in the terminology here, so to speak, because of a little bit of the system. But nevertheless, we did speak of, in our previous studies, that Adam and Eve, remember, are the only two human beings who were given the ability and had the power within themselves to carry out and obey the law of God fully in the Garden of Eden. They were the only ones. They sinned, and so Adam's sin is imputed and put on our accounts. We're all born sinners. We're all tainted by original sin. We're born dead in trespasses. Now, Genesis 3, this is the fall of man. Adam and Eve sin. They transgress against God. God comes and calls out to them. They hide. They're afraid. They confess what they have done. Adam blames Eve. Eve blames Satan. And then in verse 15, as God addresses the serpent, He says in verse 15, I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel. Now, after the sin of the first human beings, and their rebellion against God. God declares the gospel of grace. The gospel of grace is not solely a New Testament phenomenon. Yes, we have the life, the birth, the life, the death, the resurrection, and ascension of the Lord Jesus. That occurs in the New Testament, absolutely. But the gospel of grace starts here. There is the promise of a Redeemer, in verse 15, who will conquer and vanquish the tempter. God says, Satan will bruise the heel of this conqueror. We know that the devil attacked our Lord in his ministry, tempted him, but what do we read, though? He shall bruise your head. He shall conquer you. He shall dominate you and gain the victory over you. This lets us know that this statement here in Genesis 3 is not the contingency plan that God came up with. This is not plan B or C. This is plan A. It's the only plan that has ever been. God did not come up with something at the last second because Adam sinned. We read in Revelation 13 and 8 that all who dwell on earth will worship it, this thing about the mark of the beast. Everyone whose name has not been written before the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who was slain." So God has always, from eternity past, decreed that Christ would come and would purchase a people. And the declaration of that gospel of grace is made here in Genesis 3, at the beginning of the story of the redemptive history, here it is in the Garden. God has always called the elect to salvation by faith in the promise of a Redeemer. Now, that's true. Now, Adam and Eve did not know all about the New Covenant as we do. They did not know every facet of what the ministry of Christ would encompass. We are blessed, we have the gospel, we have the entire completed canon. They did not have that, and we would be wrong to go back here and read all that into Genesis 3, because they had no knowledge of all the details. But, but, they did know a few facts about the gospel of grace. Number one, they knew God was gracious. They knew that God had been gracious to them. When we come to Genesis 3 and verse 15, Adam and Eve may have not known exactly that Jesus would die on the cross at Calvary thousands of years later, but they did know that God was a gracious God. Remember back in Genesis 2, God declared to Adam that if you eat of the tree that was forbidden, you will die. On that day you will die. And when they both took of the fruit and disobeyed God, God would have been perfectly just and righteous to have wiped both of those individuals off the face of the planet. He would have been righteous to have killed them and judged them because of their sin. He had told them the law, He had given it, and they had disobeyed, and He being the righteous judge, He could have removed them right off the face of the earth. Instead, though, he slew an animal, and he made them coats of skin, which covered them, and he showed them grace. He did not kill them, but he killed an animal. There was a creature, an animal, that took their place, that served as a substitute, and he gave them a covering for their nakedness. That's exactly what Jesus will do, does at Calvary. He comes as a substitute, and He takes on the sins of all believers, and we who are naked, exposed before God, we are clothed by the righteousness of Christ. So they knew God was gracious, first of all. Second of all, they knew that God promised to them one who will come and destroy Satan. That's what God said in verse 15. I will bring up an offspring, the seed of a woman, and this seed, this individual, this man will come and he will destroy Satan." The phrase that you see there in verse 15, your offspring, we can also say your seed, is repeated throughout the Old Testament to link this promise. We'll read about the seed of Abraham, which is Isaac and Jacob. The seed of Judah, where the scepter will come. The seed of David. The seed is always in connection to the seed of the woman mentioned in Genesis 3.15. The seed will be the Redeemer who will deliver His people from the clutch and tyranny of the evil one. So, If there is a promise of a Redeemer, then that means that all believers of all time, all of the elect, whether in the Old Testament or now, beginning here with Adam and Eve, they had to believe in that promise. Now, sometimes people have gotten a little bit confused that these Old Testament folks were kind of saved one way, and the people here in Jesus' ministry got saved another way, and then we're saved in the church age in a whole different way. Okay? Well, there's nothing biblically that supports that. Instead, we've all believed in the same way. It has always been by faith. in the redemptive plan of God. Would we not agree and understand this evening that in our salvation we had to believe in the promise of God? We had to believe that Jesus indeed died for our sins and purchased us. We indeed had to believe that He and He alone is the one who's paid us. It's no different here from Genesis 3. They had to believe. They had to believe in the promise of this One who was to come. Though we know more fully about the redemptive plan than they did at the beginning, it has always been by faith. We find that in Hebrews 11. By faith Enoch walked. By faith Abraham believed. And by faith Moses saw Him who is invisible. So all the Old Testament saints had to believe in the promise of God. Same today. We believe in the promise of God. We believe in the Word of God. We believe that God is true and faithful. And He declared that if we would believe and repent of our sins, then He would save us. We believe that. That is what our faith is in Christ. We know Him more fully than they did. In fact, Peter says that they looked and searched, the prophets did, for this salvation. And though it might have been a little dim and not as fully known to them, they still believed in the One that was to come. Paul describes it this way in connection to the seed, the offspring, in Galatians 4, 4 and 5, but when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of woman, now there's the key, there is the link back here to Genesis 3, born under the law to redeem those who are under the law so that we might receive adoption as sons. That's what they believed in the Old Testament. That's what they believed in the days of Jesus. Remember in Luke 2 when Mary and Joseph came to the temple and they met Simeon and Anna, what did they describe Simeon as? He who believed in the constellation of Israel, the comfort Where was that comfort coming? Who was that comforter? Who was that consoler? It would be the Messiah, the Redeemer, the Promised One of Genesis 3. So in the first paragraph here, God has always saved His people, always by calling them to faith and repentance. It always has been. Abraham trusted and he left. He left behind what he had done. Moses believed and left behind everything he had known. Those whom Jesus called in the Gospels believed and left everything behind. Same today. We call men and women to repent and believe in Christ. We call them to trust in His Lordship, to surrender to His Lordship, and leave behind their way of life. This has always been how God has saved His people from their sins. Now, paragraph 2. How do we know that? We know that because of the Word of God. Paragraph two says, this promise of Christ and of salvation through him is revealed in the word of God alone. The works of creation and providence, when assisted only by the light of nature, do not reveal Christ or grace through him, even in a general or obscure way, much less are those without the revelation of him in the promise or gospel being enabled to attain saving faith or repentance by seeing these works of God. Now turn with me to Psalm 19. Psalm 19. Psalm number 19. Now, this is the great psalm of David that describes how God makes himself known to mankind. He makes himself known through natural revelation and through special revelation. Verse 1 down to verse 6 describes the natural revelation. Verse 1 of Psalm 19 says, The heavens declare the glory of God. And the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words whose voice is not heard. And that's not a contradiction, it's just saying that creation does not speak with audible words that we can hear, but it speaks through itself. Their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. And then he has set a tent for the sun, which comes out like a bridegroom leaving his chamber, and, like a strong man, runs its course with joy. Its rising is from the end of the heavens, and its circuit to the end of them, and there is nothing hidden from its heat. The natural revelation in verses one through six, which is creation, or natural life, does indeed testify to the majesty of God. the holiness of God, the beauty of God, and the justice of God. We go out on a night like tonight and we can look in the sky and it's crystal clear and we see the stars and the moon. We are reminded of the awesome power of God and that He is intricate in His creation. He set every one of them in its place. The planets are ordered and they move and they go around the sun in exactly the way that He has set it. The sun rises and it goes down according to the plan and working of God. As the psalmist describes here, the natural world, as one looks at it and beholds creation, one cannot help but see that there is a sovereign master who orders all things and with precision has made all things. Only a creator could paint and create the landscape of the earth as we look at the trees, the rivers, the flowers, the clouds, and the creatures. However, not only creation, but also what we deem the common grace of God. God brings that sun up, not just on believers, but non-believers. He allows food to grow for believers and non-believers. He allows the rains to come for the righteous and the unrighteous. All of that is the common grace of God, what we would call a common general love that God has for mankind. But God's common grace of bringing the sun up and sending the rain does not equal the saving grace of God. And that's what this paragraph is dealing with. That one cannot look at the sun and the stars and be saved. One cannot look at the trees and know the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Yes, they reveal that there is a God, there is a higher being, there is a Creator. But we cannot just look at the stars and know the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ and what He accomplished at the cross. So, we must have a special revelation given whereby we know the gospel of Christ. Men are only saved by the declaration of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the special revelation which David then speaks of in verse 7. The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul. The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the stifling. The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart. The commandments of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes. The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever. The rules of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold. sweeter also than honey, and drippings of the honeycomb. Moreover, by them is your servant warned, and keeping them there is great reward." Now, we can learn of God in a generic sense by noticing the natural revelation of creation, but we truly learn of God only when we come to Him in His Word by the instruction of the Holy Spirit. So a person is not just going to get it, by looking out there. And that's also a reminder to us as believers that number one, yes, we are to live a life that presents Christ. Too many people claim to be Christians and never show any proof. In fact, they do the opposite. They blaspheme the name of Christ with how they live. So we understand that there's a lot of talkers out there and not walkers. And we want to be walkers, but remember this, we can't just live in front of them and never say anything. They need to know why we live like we do. They need to know what drives us, what motivates us, what sets us apart from them. So they can't just, I've met people before in church, and we're just living in front of them. Well, we do want to live in front of them, but they're not going to know what we're living unless we tell them. So there always must be in this process of salvation, the Word and the Gospel must be declared. Romans 1.16 says, Paul speaks, for I am not ashamed of the Gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation. It's not the sun. It's not the stars. It's not the tigers and the lions and the bears and the roses and violets. It is the Gospel that is the power, the dynamite of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. So, apart from the special revelation of God through His Word, we would not know the gospel. It would not be any of us in here tonight who has been saved. Somebody had to declare to us the gospel of Christ. We didn't just get it from looking at the moon. Someone had to come with red-hot passion and declare to us, you are lost and doomed and this is why. And you will only be saved through Christ, and this is why. Someone had to do that. It was either a preacher, or a family member, or a friend, but someone had to communicate that truth. Paul says later in Romans 10, verse 14, How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in Him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the Word of Christ. So that's why I'm always troubled by people who talk about that they had a hundred people get saved and nobody ever preached the gospel. I marvel at that. I'd like to know, how did that happen? Because Paul says, what? They won't have believed unless they hear. So there's no way for man in darkness, therefore, to come to the gospel on his own by observing creation or by just using deduction. reasoning and human logic. The article also says that you can't just philosophize and, you know, speculate and rationalize and come up with it on your own. You must hear the Word. Now, look at Isaiah 25 with me. Isaiah chapter 25, and in verse 7, One of the things when we evangelize, remember evangelism is in our local lives, in our local church, in our interactions with family and friends, we must remember who we are addressing and where they are at. Isaiah 25 and verse 7, He will swallow up on this mountain the covering that it cast over all people, the veil, that is spread over all nations. So picture here a darkness and a veil. Now look in chapter 60, still here in Isaiah. Isaiah 60 and in verse number 2. For behold, darkness shall cover the earth and thick darkness the peoples. But the Lord will arise upon you and His glory will be seen upon you, and nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising." So it is clear that God must bring the gospel to a sinner in order for them to be saved. There is no person who will be saved who has not been regenerated through the proclamation of the gospel. This is where we go to. Men and women reside in darkness, and it is up to us by God's sovereign decree. He has called us. He could have sent angels down here to do it, but that's not how He works. He is using us as a church to go forth with the torches of the gospel, and we bring the light, and we declare to those in darkness the gospel. Now some say this is too harsh, that God should not, and He would not condemn those who do not hear because that would be unfair. Well, first of all, we must remove and set aside our sense of fairness. When it comes to how God works, we can never ever say, how is that fair? Because two dangers come forth from that. If I say that God is not fair, immediately I'm telling God that you've got to come down here and stand on my moral plane. Because what I deem as fair, that's what I'm saying God has to operate under that assumption. And that's dangerous, because He is God and I am the creature. And He's not coming down here and operating on my level. Second of all, we never want God to be fair. Because if we wanted God to be fair, then guess what? We wouldn't be here tonight. We'd be at home, and we would be, as they say in Isaiah, we're going to eat, we're going to drink, and we're going to be married, because tomorrow we're going to die. So that would be fair, that we're all just going to perish and die because we're sinners, and we're just going to live it up now. That would be fair. But God is not about fairness. He's about mercy and grace. and that He would save one sinner, He would save one sinner, is far more merciful and gracious than He owes anybody. And so we don't ever want to be trapped by fairness. Do I understand all this? No, I don't. I don't understand every facet of God's decree concerning salvation and why He saves these and doesn't save that. I don't understand that. But I'm not called to understand because the secret thing Deuteronomy says belongs to God. But what He has revealed to us, that we teach to our children and that we declare. What I do know, what I do know is that He's commanded us to go into our neighborhoods and our communities and our families and our country and the world and trumpet the gospel. That I know we're to do. And I know that that is the only means whereby He will save sinners. And so, yes, One must hear the gospel and be regenerated or they will not go to heaven. And if we were to say that somehow God's going to change His mind mid-level, as I said at the beginning, then why in the world do we have this charge to go through? And why do we send missionaries? If they're going to be saved anyways, it would seem like it would be a waste of time. But instead, these truths should strike our zeal and enflame it. that we go forth and declare the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Number three, paragraph three, therefore. The gospel has been revealed to sinners in various times and in different places, along with the promises and precepts describing the obedience it requires. The particular nations and individuals who are granted this revelation are chosen solely according to the will and pleasure of God. This choice does not depend on any promise to those who demonstrate good stewardship of their natural abilities based on common light received from the gospel. No one has ever done this, nor could anyone do so. Therefore, in every age, the preaching of the gospel to individuals and nations has been granted in widely varying degrees of expansion and contraction according to the counsel of the will of God. God is the one who is in control of salvation. Not you, not me, not the church, not a denomination, not a group of people. It's God. It's God who is in charge of saving people. Look through the Old Testament and you'll see that God is selective in His times of where creatures go. Remember when Jesus taught in the synagogue? We covered that a couple of months ago. Remember when He was teaching in the synagogue? They said there are many widows, in the days of Elijah, but he sent Elijah to no Jewish widows. Instead, he sent him to a Gentile widow. And there were many lepers in the days of Elisha, but he didn't send Elisha to one Jewish leper. Instead, he sent him to a Gentile leper. God was selective, wasn't He? God showed grace and mercy to two people who were deemed unworthy of it, to the Jewish mind. Or what about God sending Jonah to the Enobites? That's the only record in the Old Testament of a Jewish prophet going and preaching to a group of Gentiles. We read of that nowhere else. But God sent that man to that people. What about the history of the church? If you read church history, you'll notice that it was a lot of dark times. from around 400 onward for close to a thousand years, mostly. There were some brave men and women who stood for the truth, and brave preachers who gave their lives for the gospel, but overall it was a dark scene. There was not a lot of solid biblical exposition going on at that time. But then came men like Wickham, and Huss, and then Luther, and so forth, who came and boldly charged as soldiers the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. and a great revival and renewal came of preaching. What about in our own day? I'm here to tell you it is a dark time in this country. If you go and survey what goes on in most churches in the United States of America, I can tell you honestly that not many are really engaged in solid biblical exposition. And one way that I know that is because I'm fascinated by what happens if you take a stand and say there's a biblical mandate on how to preach. Last week as I was off, I finished a book on preaching written by Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones, and I've quoted him several times in service. And he talks about how there is a danger when a preacher tells stories, okay? And I'm sure all of you can go back with me in time, and you can remember listening to a preacher get up there, and he read a passage, and then we went back in time. We took a trip back to when he was a kid, or when he got married, or his job, whatever. And basically, his 30-35 minutes consisted of five minutes of reading a passage and maybe giving a few things about it, and then the rest of the 25 minutes was about some story. And he'd always say, I remember, I remember, I remember. That's what I always remember. I was talking to someone, and I remember a certain gentleman who I heard preach three times in my life, and I couldn't tell you what passage he'd read from or what he'd preached on. But I remember old Jack the Mule. I remember that. I remember that. Probably the only part I remember though was the story, the illustration. And Dr. Lloyd-Jones said that the danger is that if you use too many stories, then you basically say your personal experience, your life, is more important than God for you. That it's more important for the people to hear about you than it is about God. And all of a sudden, your stories have more authority than God's Word. That's the danger. Well, I posted that kind of quote on social media. And I had somebody message me and tell me that, you know, that I was wrong. For the Word was, it was stated that I would basically say that all men who didn't preach like me were wrong. And that was not right of me. And that Jesus told stories. And how they preach is between God and them. So I had to mull on that during the day to think about how I would respond to that. And so I responded to that individual and just gave a couple points. I said, first of all, God has given a mandate on how to preach. Certainly our styles are different, we're different men. I come from a different background than somebody and so forth. But 1 Timothy 4 and 13, 2 Timothy 3 and 4 are clear. We're to preach the Word. The Word of God is more important than, you know, my stories of my life. And second of all, the parables, and I've heard that used before of why you don't have to preach verse by verse, that you can do whatever. Jesus gave parables to, number one, believers. He said, He who has an ear, let him hear. They were for believers only. And second of all, the reason He gave parables, and we'll see this as we go through Matthew, is He shifted in His ministry. He shifted in that those who rejected Him, He did not give them more truth. They were already condemned, and more truth would have condemned them and made their judgment even greater. And then I explained to him that, as we cover in Matthew 4 and Luke 4, that Jesus every week went to the synagogue and He expounded the Word. He took a passage of the Old Testament, and that's what He preached. And so it's not about sharing. God didn't call me to come up here and share with you my life. He called me to declare His truth. And I don't know how I got on that, but I've been just anxious to share it, so I want to share it tonight. God sends forth His Word to be declared, and He does it in seasons and places according to His will. It's totally a work of God. As it states, God does not do this and save someone based on how they are good stewards of their natural abilities. God does not look down the corridor of time. He made time and He has decreed all things. He does not look down to find out what you or I are going to do. Nor does a person add something by their own logic or reasoning skills in order to be saved. It only comes forth through the declaration of the Word of God. The gospel goes forth according to the decree of God. And this evening, Romans 2 declares, That man knows enough through creation and conscience to be condemned, but he does not know enough on his own to believe. Instead, he must hear the gospel. Now, that should increase our zeal to declare to the nations the gospel of Jesus Christ, because this evening, A person that can be on a remote place in this world, but if he or she is of the elect of God, God is going to send someone to him or her to preach the gospel and they will be saved. God had elect individuals, believers, those who would be saved in India, and he called a man like William Carey, to go and preach to them. He had his people already there, the decree of eternity passed would be saved, and he got his man there. Of course, people thought that Cary was crazy, but God got him there. You and I, there is someone who God has decreed will be saved, and He'll get His man or His woman to them to share with them the truth of His Holy Word. That is the awesome nature of our God, that He uses us as human vessels to get His Word to His people. And finally, number four, the Gospel is the only outward means of revealing Christ and saving grace. And it is abundantly sufficient for that purpose. We don't have to add anything to it. We don't have to do something else to make it more exciting, more riveting, or whatever else we want to think of. The Gospel is sufficient. Yet, to be born again, brought to life, and regenerated, those who are dead in trespasses also must have an effectual, irresistible work of the Holy Spirit to produce in them a new spiritual life. That would be being born again, born from above. Without this, no other means will bring about their conversion. So, the Declaration of the Gospel is the only way in which one will be saved. And in order for them to be saved, the words that are declared, the gospel declared, must be empowered by the Holy Spirit. Jesus says in John 6, verse 44, no one comes to me unless the Father draws him. That is the effectual, irresistible call of the Spirit, where the heart is changed, the desire is changed, the will is changed, And now an individual desires to be saved. So what happens is, is the Word is declared, and the Spirit, as Jesus said in John 3, it's like the wind. We don't know when it'll come, where it's coming from, but we see the effects. And so when a person is saved, the Gospel has been proclaimed, and the Spirit comes and changes and regenerates that individual and saves them and brings them into the Kingdom. So we can say it like this, the Word serves as the conductor for the electricity which is provided by the Spirit in regeneration. No one can be saved apart from being born again, which happens with the Gospel being declared to the Synod. So, it is God who saves. He saves according to His will and His pleasure. He has those whom He has chosen, but they will not be saved apart from the gospel declared, and they are regenerated. And the only way we know the gospel is through the revealed word, not through creation. And so, God has chosen us and called us to go forth and trumpet and we're heralds of the gospel. We have been given the words to speak. We don't make them up. We are given the words And we're to therefore go and take them, and God does the rest. And that's the gospel of grace. And that's the extent of His wonderful grace. Let's pray. Father in heaven, we thank You. We're thankful tonight to know that salvation is totally of You. If we had any part of it tonight, Father, then we know that we would lose it. It would not be perfect. It would not be whole. It would not be complete. It would always be incomplete. And we would have no assurance and we would have no peace about our eternal destination. Oh, we're thankful tonight, Father, that Your salvation is not that, but it is totally of You. From eternity past to eternity future, what You have begun in us, You will complete. We are thankful that You have given us Your Holy Word. We are thankful for those in the history of the church who had great burdens and great zeal. We think of them like Tyndale and Wigler. who had such great burdens that the Word would be in the hands of the common man. And many gave their lives so that we would have a copy of the Scriptures in our own language. We thank You, Father, for the instruments that You've used to bring Your Word into our lives, into our day. And may we remember that, Father, that the baton has been passed to us. There has been blood that has stained that baton. And you have called us, and this is now our time. This is our place. This is our calling. And we pray, Father, that we waver not, that we not be tossed in the wind, but that we be firm concerning these truths. Those may not be popular, and of course, they are very much, they rub us the wrong way as men, for we like to be in control, and our pride is great. But we are thankful that you humble us by your Spirit. that only those who have come meek and broken can be saved. We thank you for the word that has declared the truths of Christ, the glorious news of amazing grace. Father, we thank you for that grace, first of all, in our own lives, that you've saved us. We pray, Father, this evening for those who are outside, who are lost. Father, we pray for mercy on their souls this evening. We pray that you would use us to be faithful heralds of the gospel. We pray, Father, that we tonight, and I pray, and I believe each one here to be a believer, and I pray tonight, Father, that we would be stirred tonight in thanksgiving, and our hearts would be warmed if we considered yet again how great a salvation it is that you brought in our lives. And I pray that you would keep us as we depart.