Well, I had said that we're going to do a night of Q&A, and tonight is that night. I received a lot of questions. I'm going to try and get through them all. Now, I say that. I had somebody ask me at dinner tonight, are you going to answer my question? And I had not seen his question. So it could be operator error on my part, to be honest with you. And it could be that man's fault back there, Mr. Nate Johnson. Some people ask for in-depth answers. I'm not going to give them to you tonight, although they are well-thought-through answers. I'm just going to try and get through them all. I want to get to the dog-cat question at the end, because I have an answer I think is going to be very edifying to all of you. First. Clapping of hands in church. How does the clapping and shouting to the Lord, you think it's referencing all those Psalms, shout to the Lord, all the earth, clap your hands. How does it fit in with the regular principle of worship? Doesn't the Bible command us to do that? Can you read that? Oh, you can read it. Okay. Mine's kind of dim here, but... Well, let me just say that churches have cultures, frankly, and there's no question that there's a kind of historical background to churches that goes multi-generational. And some of it's just that. And so, as you may know, we're not known for outward demonstrativeness. Mel took a picture of me at the Gospel Coalition Conference, oh, maybe 12 years ago. I'm standing between Josh Harris and John Piper. And both of them had their hands in the air, and I'm standing there like this in appropriate Presbyterian work. And Mel puts it on Facebook, identify the Presbyterian minister in this picture. And I'm not comfortable doing that. Why am I not comfortable? Because I was raised a certain way in a certain culture. And some of it's just that. But let me say as well, I think we should recognize that gathered regular worship in the Old Testament does seem to have, even in the Old Testament, seems to have de-emphasized emotional and physical outbursts. And so we think particularly, and what I particularly have in mind, is the synagogue worship in the time of Jesus was a pretty non-emotional. It was focused on the reading of Scripture and of the making of prayers and the teaching of the Bible. Now, when Jesus is there, you get demons being cast out and whatnot. I think the picture sometimes that there's this kind of ecstatic worship going on in the Old Testament is not that accurate of it. Now, you get to the New Testament and you have the Apostle Paul, for instance, telling us all things should be done decently and in order. So if you're going to have public outbursts of emotion, do it decently and in order, but those two don't seem to me to go together that well. Acts chapter 2, I'm looking forward to preaching this probably within several weeks, talks about the worship of the early church, and it's... I'm having a hard time reading it. It's focused on prayer, the teaching of the apostles, and the sacraments. And so the idea of clapping and shouting doesn't really fit that. Now, in my opinion, the shout and clap passages in the Old Testament relate not so much to the regular gatherings of the assembly, the weekly church services, but rather they are more situated to the feast gatherings. That would be true of David's dancing before the Lord. If I had a dollar for every time someone has said to me, David, dance before the Lord, the implication being we should have dance in our church, which we're not going to have, y'all. Yeah, but that was the bringing up of the Ark of the Covenant into Jerusalem, which is a rather unique eschatological intrusion event. And so I'm not sure that's a directly relevant example for the regular worship of God's people, which we're told is to be focused on prayer, the teaching of the word, and of the sacraments. And so I think that most, and probably, I didn't do an exhaustive study of it, but even a lot of those worship songs are focused on the big public gatherings, the feast day gatherings. So I'm not going to say to you, I would rule them out as relevant, but I don't think they're as relevant as one might think, as biblical precedents. Now, having said that, I'm not going to tell you you can't raise your hands in the church. You're probably going to feel socially awkward when you're the only person doing so. And this has inhibited many of some people who are in this room. You know, it's just a Presbyterian church. When I was at 10th Presbyterian, we had Amen Phil Buford. And Phil shouted amen several times during every sermon. And Dr. Boyce would say, you know the good thing about Phil is he always shouts amen at the right place. So if you're going to shout amen, do it at the right place. But my main answer is that I don't think that the Old Testament references are as relevant to the weekly gathered worship as people think they are. There is an emphasis on order and, you know, the teaching of the Word of God, the prayers and the sacraments. That's the New Testament pattern of worship. And that leads to sobriety. I'll put it that way. So I'm not condemning it, but I'm not going to endorse it either. Why do we say that God the Son was eternally begotten of the Father, but the Holy Spirit eternally proceeds from the Father and the Son? Well, in the early church, primarily during the Nicene Controversy in the late 4th, early 5th century, the church developed technical theological language just so that we would know what words to use and not argue about it. Because when we're dealing with the eternal inter-trinitarian relationships, there's not that much in the Bible, and the nature of the subject is one that is hard for us to use language suitable for. And so the early church, through the Cappadocian Fathers, the great theologians, propose, also Tertullian was very helpful, although we flipped what he said, but it's all good, came up with this language, and particularly begotten is language that reflects the filial nature of the relationship between the first and second persons of the Godhead. One is father, one is son. And so we don't want any idea that there was a beginning. These are eternally begotten. Why do we say he's eternally begotten? Because there was never a time when he was not. But the father-son, I don't even want to say metaphor, because I think metaphor is not quite right. The revealed relationship identity of their persons as father and son suggests that relationship, and begotten is the language that reflects that. When you get to the Holy Spirit, it's not the father-son language, and so the proceeding is technical language that is intentionally vague. I mean, honestly, here's what Calvin says, where God makes an end of teaching, let's make an end of learning. So we're trying to say something helpful without saying something wrong. And here's where the risk of being wrong is greater than the opportunity of being helpful. And so you have the economic language of sending the spirit. And so that is going to be referred to the ontological relationship to show that the spirit proceeds. So proceed is because it's not a filial father-son relationship. Now, that makes it very interesting because this is the filioque controversy. The original Nicene Creed did not say he proceeds from the Father and the Son, but he proceeds from the Father. And it was quickly corrected, rightly, to be he proceeds from the Father and the Son. The Eastern Church rejected and rejects militantly today to the filioque clause, from the Son is in Latin filioque. And that has had the most nefarious effects in the Eastern Church. And I really do believe the main reason for the rejection of the Proceeds from the Son edition was political and prideful and historical. It was not based on theological reflection. But it has crippled the Eastern Church. Because now, I'll put it this way, the person and work of the Son is incidental to the going forth of the Spirit. And the Spirit's kind of the endgame, the eternal life. The life of the Spirit is where salvation's leading. And if the Spirit proceeds from the Father but does not equally proceed from the Son, it has historically and theologically cut the person and work of Christ out of Eastern Orthodoxy. So your Eastern Orthodox friends, and we have a Greek a cathedral here, so we have neighbors who own one of the restaurants, and so they give us food, they bring over candies, it's great. They believe that Jesus is the son of God. They believe that he died for our sins, but he doesn't function in their salvation hope and he's been marginalized. And so this language turns out to be important, but there's nothing more helpful I can say than what I have already said. And so it's that kind of language that is intentionally sparse. It wants to say what can be said and no more. Oh, that was the bonus, was the Filioque clause. Okay. Why do we use the Apostles' Creed when it's newer than the Nicene Creed, doesn't have the same ecumenicity, it lacks the careful Trinitarian clarity of Nicaea, well, it's shorter, and some churches like ours don't even say the whole thing. We leave out, he descended into hell. Well, here's the answer of the Westminster Divines, who published the Apostles' Creed with the first edition of the Westminster Standards. So the Westminster Standards was published by, probably not Parliament, but the Westminster Divines, with the Apostles' Creed, and they said, because it is a brief sum of Christian faith, agreeable to the Word of God, and anciently received in the churches of Christ. In other words, it's ancient, it's venerable, and there's nothing wrong with it, and it's very good. Now, the second century church especially, developed and used these creedal recitations. They were mostly used for baptism. An adult came to be baptized. He would recite. They were called the Rule of Faith, and there were some different versions of it. And that developed, that began a process that by the 5th century resulted in the Apostles' Creed. The Apostles' Creed was not written by the apostles. There's no particular relationship of the Apostles' Creed to the apostles other than the apostolicity of it. And it had the purpose of, on the one hand, combating heresy, and on the other, embedding in the faith of the people in their confession, the most important truths of the Christian faith. It's very useful for that. Now that leads to the question, why don't we say he descended into hell? We have all kinds of youth grow up in our church. They go visit another church and they feel awkward because everybody's saying he descended into hell. Well, when I got here, I discovered, I don't know when it started here. Maybe Mel, do you know? Well, I know that, but so we just kind of picked it up. I got here and we don't say he descends into hell, which I admit I would be too chicken to do myself, to take an item out of the Apostles Creed. But I was delighted to do so. And I have actually written on why it is better not to say he descended into hell. And this started from R.L. Dabney, Raised to Stink. The conservative southern church has picked up on this correctly. Why? Well, here's my argument. If we're going to have everybody in the church stand up and confess something in unison, we better not only believe every item in it, we need to know why we believe it, and it should be unimpeachably biblical. So you get to he descended into hell and you go, what does that mean? And you're going to get there's like four or five main answers, none of which, frankly, are persuasive to me. Calvin, who I think was clearly punting on the issue, said, well, it describes Jesus, the agonies he suffered. He suffered hell while he died on the cross. OK, John, there's a problem with that. The Apostles Creed is a historia. It's a historically it's an order. So he was crucified, dead, and buried. So whatever comes next is after he was buried. So it is logically about the time period after the burial of Jesus before the resurrection. about which we do not have clear biblical teaching. And it's my view that we should not be training our members, and particularly our children, to stand up and say things that they don't know are true. And I personally cannot give you an authoritative explanation of what he descended into. This will be one of those sermons where I go, there's four views, and I think this is the least bad one. Okay, but in my view, so I thank the Lord for the courageous, radical, Southern Presbyterian heritage that took out he descended into hell, and that is why. I'm not saying it's wrong to say it. I'm not unwilling to, I just, whenever I'm in another church and they always do it, I just kind of stand there feeling stupid like everybody else. But I think it is a proper, by the way, it was the last item When you read Augustine on the Apostles' Creed, he makes no mention of it. The second century rules of faith, not a single second century rule of faith, slightly different versions of the early form of the Apostles' Creed, not one of them has that statement in there. So I think the case against it is far better than the case for it, and I have friends who think that I'm a radical for that very reason. All right, decisions regarding sinful conduct of family members. Suppose my father unbiblically divorces my mother, then marries another woman. Should I attend the wedding? Should I refuse to spend time with him unless he repents? Well, this is a not uncommon problem today, and I will almost always answer. First, we want to lay out the principles, and then it's probably going to be down to you to prayerfully apply the principles. And the principles are to One, we don't want to endorse wickedness. On the other hand, we want to maintain a relationship of love as much as possible. And so that's going to be often competing dynamics of how we respond. We want to affirm our love and personal acceptance. We want to maintain a relationship. We don't want to infirm the ongoing transgression. I think one of the things that should be on our mind when, in this case, there's a victim, namely the mother in this scenario, I think the feelings of the mother would have to be very heavily kept into account. Now, I would say that usually when these situations come forth, I will agree with the Christians that they should not attend the wedding. I'm not going to make that as a hard and fast rule because all of these things require your prayerful. There's all kinds of individual dynamics that only you can know. But I do think that attending the wedding is a form of affirmation. I really do. So I think probably in most cases, I would say certainly if my father had betrayed my mother, notice how heated I'm getting now that it's my mom, and it was getting married, I absolutely would not go. Am I saying I cut off all relationships with him? No. But, you know, it's awfully hard for that type of transgression not to damage relationships. And I'm certainly going to have how my mom feels about that, and it could be the other way around, at the forefront. But let me say this, too. Whatever you decide to do, you should be kind to that person. My grandfather in his 80s, my grandmother in her 80s, died of old age. And my grandfather got married six months later to a woman he'd met. My father was furious about it. I remember how furious he was. And he was so mean to her. I look back and I was supposed to, don't be mean to her. But I mean, sin has consequences. And there's an offense given by those things. And that offense cannot be wished away. So I'm just going to give you principles. We don't want to affirm. We want to call to repentance, almost certainly in that situation. You're going to personally call to repentance and prayerfully call to repentance. But at the same time, you want to do everything you can reasonably to maintain the relationship. And there's lots of variations on this story. Hope that's helpful. Decisions about family planning. How should families go about making decisions related to procreation, how many children, birth control, etc. Well, we're going to start with a very decidedly pro-child attitude of the Christian faith and people. I think of Psalm 127, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb, a reward. And so Christians should be decidedly pro-child. We live in a society where people don't want children because they're totally self-absorbed. And I think it's obvious. And one thing I like about our church is I think the children feel loved. I feel like they feel like they're not, and sometimes they actually are being nuisances, but we try to make them feel like they're nuisances. And that's as it should be, that there's a pro-child thing. Sharon and I personally practice the sovereignty of God birth control method. which means that we just trusted the Lord for how many children we were going to have. Now we got married a little later. I was 33 when I got married. Sharon was 30 when we had our oldest child. So that could have produced more than the five children we have. We actually lost our sixth child in pregnancy. We had a miscarriage that is still, it was a very painful at the time. I will tell you personally, we would have been happy to have more children. And so there's going to, I recommend in principle, Notice how I'm saying it. I'm recommending, under normal circumstances, the sovereignty of God approach. God is the author of all life. No child can ever be conceived apart from God, and we assume that God would give us a number of children. And you say, well, you have a large family, and we wish it was larger. I'm going to be honest with you, particularly now that they're all out of the house. We really enjoy them now when we see them and when they answer our texts. However, let me say this, that de facto, the means of procreation have been placed under our care. We exercise responsibility for the behavior that produces babies. And that implies that we may exercise discretion. And there's nothing sinful about deciding to limit the number of children you would have. And there's all kinds of discernment issues that would go on. Of course, the most obvious is a health risk to the mother. Well, that's of course. And there may be a medical approach to that. That was nothing wrong with doing that. You might say, I don't feel that we're going to be able to afford and certainly need to be thinking about the cost of providing for children, although I don't think it should be a primary issue, but it's not an illegitimate one. harmful if there may be a mother who says, you know what, I'm about to wear out completely and it would be a blessing to me if this was the last child we had, that kind of thing. Well, these are matters for you and your wife, you and your husband, prayerfully decide together. There's nothing wrong with it within a general pro-child attitude, trusting the Lord for these things. Now, there are forms of birth control that are manifestly sinful, and those are any approach to birth control that kills a fertilized egg. We believe that life begins at conception for very good reasons, and that is an image-bearer of God, and so IUDs would be an example of that. You know, we talk about abortion, which the number one abortion thing in the future is going to be a pill. the morning after pill, that kind of thing, that may be convenient, but in our view it's murder. And so any form of abortion that is preventative of that It may or may not be wise, but it's a decision for you to make, and you and your spouse should do so. Any form of birth control that acts upon a conceived child, in our view, that would be utterly immoral for a Christian to do and contemplate. I hope that's helpful. You're going, well, that's not as definite. I cannot rule out the need for the two of you to prayerfully make a decision together. I'm just putting the pieces on the board, and then you will make those decisions together. Should the church have formal modesty standards? The question expressed concerns about occasional expressions of feminine dress, notice how delicate I'm being, that exceed appropriate lines of modesty. What should the church do? Here's my answer. This actually was discussed not too long ago by the session, and the session, in my view, rightly declined to publish a detailed modesty standard. Instead, we've opted that when there's a problem, that we will talk individually and personally to the person or the parents involved. Now, why is that? Well, when there's extremely immodest dress, there should be a conversation that results in a change. Second of all, the subject inevitably, however, involves a high degree of subjectivity. Where must the skirt line be? What is the acceptable length for shorts? Are leggings immodest? The whole leggings thing. I will say, often they are, in my opinion, immodest, but that, you know, it depends. But see, these are subjective realms where we very easily go beyond the teaching of scripture in a way that causes as much harm as it does good. And so the session, in my view, has wisely declined to publish detailed standards for feminine dress, usually for the younger, you know, the teenagers or young adult women, that kind of thing. I think that is wise. Again, I think it's very easy to authoritatively speak beyond the Scriptures. There's a thing called fencing the law. And so the New Testament takes a very negative view of fencing the law. Fencing the law means there's a commandment, so you're going to build regulations around the commandments to keep the commandment from being broken. That is a perilous route to go, and I think the session was wise. If you have a problem, and I have no problem with people going, we think it's injurious to the witness of the church, we think it's a temptation, whatever, you may see someone, I recommend you talk to your elder. Please do not go and talk to a teenager who's not a member of your family. and give them a piece of your mind, which I'm not aware of happening. Be gracious. If you think that there's an instance where there needs to be a conversation, I would go talk to an elder, your elder, if you're in a shepherding community, and I'm sure they'd be happy to do that. And be patient with those who may seem less mature and sanctified. That does not mean anything goes. Our approach will be to have private conversations from the elders as needed. How does our church approach confidentiality when it comes to pastoral issues? So the issue is if I go to the elders or the pastors about marital problems or some personal sin, is everybody going to find out? Am I going to not be able to go to the ladies group because people are going to look at me? The answer is that we take it very seriously and are very devoted to it. For instance, prayer requests only go into the intercessor with the approval request of the person making it. It's kind of amazing to me, although I suppose I understand. Don't tell people how to be prayed for. And I'm like, you know, if I was in your shoes, I would want people to be praying for me. But some of us are shyer and have other sensitivity issues. Because of our concern for confidentiality, your prayer request will only go in the intercessor or any other thing if you request it or approve it being so. I may twist your arm about a little bit, but you will have to give in. There will be highly sensitive matters that happen sometimes, and the session works very hard, I think with a very high, although I'm sure not 100%, but that's not meant to be an out. We really pursue confidentiality. We've had situations in the church where the session formed a subcommittee of the session to investigate it and deal with it, and the rest of the session was not even told who the person was. Why? Because if there's not a reason for it, if the ministerial dealing with it is not benefit from the other elders being no, it's better that they don't know. So I want you to know, if you come to me and you have a pastoral issue that maybe is embarrassing to you or sensitive, we're very careful about confidentiality issues. There are times when before we leave the session meeting, there'll be a stricture made, no one will tell his wife about it. And so I've actually learned my wife does not want to know. And so I think in the vast majority of these situations, even relatively routine ones, I doubt that the eldest wives know. And there are cases where it's explicitly said that's the case. So I do want to say to you that we're happy to talk with you not only about the situation, but also about your confidentiality concerns. And I think that we bat at a very high batting average in terms of really being careful and maintaining confidential things confidentially. I've had people say to me, who've had big pastoral issues. And they say to me, well, I feel I don't want to come to church because I know you know my sin. And I'm like, yeah, I've been a pastor for a lot of years. I know so many sinful people. I'm just glad to see you. I mean, if you've repented of some heinous sin and you've been restored to the Lord's table or something, the elders are not seeing you going, oh, there's that guy. We're thinking, oh, isn't it great to see him? We're so glad he's been fully restored, having repented, or she's been fully restored. Not only do we maintain confidentiality of these things, we're really not looking at you the way you think we're looking at you, to be honest with you. Hope that's helpful. Should pastors meet with women? Some pastors will not meet with a woman who has a concern. What is our approach? Well, here's my answer, that wives are church, and I think primarily it's wives here, all women and wives are church members. And there have been times when a husband has said to me, it's none of your business. And I go, oh, but you see, she's a church member. So it is my business when she comes to me. And so the husband's headship over a wife should not rule out her coming maybe to give a complaint about the husband to the pastoral staff or to the elders. She is a church member. The family and the home and the church are different institutions working complementarily in the kingdom of Christ. And so she should be able to... My wife once said to me one time, I think she was joking, but I endorsed what she said. She said, you know, honey, you know why I like Presbyterianism? And I said, I'm looking forward to hearing it. And she said, because I have to submit to you, but you have to submit to the elders. And I said, fair enough. You know? Now, there's the Billy Graham rule, also more recently known as the Mike Pence rule, which I personally follow. I do not ride in a car alone with a woman whose last name is not Phillips. My mother-in-law is probably an exception to that too, but I don't ride. I don't go to meals alone with women. I think that's wise and prudent. Partly because I do have relationships with all the women in the church. Some more than others. Some women I know very well. I don't want my wife to feel that that relationship is encroaching on the uniqueness of my relationship with her. And I really don't want to have an affair. How do you know I don't want to have an affair? Because I don't expose myself to the situation and the relationship that would lead to that kind of thing. I think it's wise, when I travel, a woman does not pick me up at the airport. I have a lot of, I'm friends with a lot of women in the church. I don't have an ongoing friendship though with any, there's no woman who I'm pals with, who I'm texting with, and who I'm getting together with. I mean, if my wife had a guy in the church, who she was texting with and laughing with. And I would feel, you say, why would you be insecure? On good biblical grounds, there's a proper jealousy to the relationship. And so I protect my own marriage, your marriage. I will not have an ongoing relationship on a personal level with a woman like I might with a man. But let me say, I do meet with women. And I meet individual women. Now, the door's not going to be completely closed, and there's a window in my door. Honestly, personally, I don't want to be falsely accused credibly. Honestly, I'm too old. I've just been around the block too long. I'm not going to put myself in any situation where someone's going to make a false accusation against me. But I'm your pastor, though. And I had an older woman came to me. We had a very dear time together discussing a family situation and praying about it. Women should have every bit as much access to the pastoral care of their male ministers as the men do. It just requires a certain discretion. So I've heard of male pastors. The person who raised the question mentioned the pastor who refused to meet with women. I think that's wrong. The women are church members. They're part of the flock. Romans 3.30, it says, what is the difference in Romans 3.30 between by faith and... Sorry, I'm going so fast, but I'm trying to get through. Between by faith and through faith. Well, here's the verse. God is one who will justify the uncircumcised by faith and the... Circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith. What's the difference? The difference is stylistic. Now, it's different in the Greek text. Paul uses ek pisteos in the case of the first, the circumcised. He uses dia pisteos in the second case, so it's a different word. The first means out of or by, the second means through. But the whole point, here's where context is so helpful. The whole point he's making is that the Jews and Gentiles are saved the same way. And so when he uses a different preposition and his point is that they're saved exactly the same way, that it's a stylistic difference. Now, it's interesting because we have a theological convention and we have a lot of theological conventions. And one of them relates to this. You may notice I try to be very careful in my speech. I sometimes kind of even subconsciously correct myself, where I'll say we are saved by grace through faith. And I avoid saying we're saved by faith, even though there's Bible passages that say we're saved by faith. Why is that? Well, because in our theological construction, by, that preposition tends to be used for the agency. And that's grace. Grace is the agency. So I like to say we're saved by grace. That's the agency. Whereas the mechanism or the instrument or the means is through faith. So we're used to hearing that. I think it's helpful that we're used to hearing it because there's a distinction. I'm saved by the agency because of grace. through the means of faith. So that's a helpful theological construct. The problem is Paul did not get the memo. And the New Testament does not know our much later developed, you know, grammatical devices. And so Paul writes by faith, he writes through faith, but the meaning is perfectly clear through context. And so one of the reasons maybe you're thinking that is because theologically we like to distinguish by and through, but grammatically the New Testament doesn't always. In this case, it's crystal clear that Paul's meaning is that both the Jews and the Gentiles are justified the same way. And so I think we're justified in saying the prepositional difference is stylistic. Is it significant that some scriptures talk about Christ hanging on a tree rather than hanging on a cross? Acts 10.39, 1 Peter 2.24, Galatians 3.13. The answer is no, the distinction is not significant. It's a different way of speaking about His atoning death on the cross. Why then do they say tree? Because of Deuteronomy 21.22-23, which says if a man has committed a crime punishable by death and he is put to death, you hang him on a tree for a hangman is cursed by God. And so when the New Testament, those verses that use the term hung on a tree, they're looking back to that statement to make the point that Jesus died on the cross under the curse of God. So it's a grammatical way of linking to one of the Old Testament descriptions of how we should understand the cross. But it's the same thing they're talking about. How much faith pleases God? Hebrews 11, 6 says, without faith it is impossible to please Him. In Revelation 3, 16, the Laodicean church is warned with being rejected because they have lukewarm faith. So how much faith is enough to please God? Well, to answer the question, understand that those texts are being used out of context a little bit. Hebrews 11, where you have the statement, Enoch's faith pleased God. Of course, Hebrews 11 is to commend the value of faith to us. It uses the situation of Enoch. He was translated to heaven. Why was he translated to heaven? By faith, because otherwise he could not have pleased God. That's the statement he makes. The Revelation 3 passages has to do with the corporate church. So let's just keep that in mind. But let's say this too. The unconverted person has no faith. Anyone with faith, saving faith, is saved. Faith is the gift of God. And so, as the Puritans like to say, the weakest faith is saved by a strong Savior. And so, on the one hand, you should be growing in your faith. And you growing in your faith, of course it will lead you to please God more, because you'll be serving Him more fully. So growing in faith is a good thing. On the other hand, How much faith saves? Any saving faith saves because it is the gift of God to the elect, giving you union with Christ, and if you have a true but weak faith, you are accepted and beloved by the Father, and His favor is upon you, but He probably would be happy, like any good father, if you moved forward a little bit. I hope that's very helpful to you. Do we pray only to the Father? If God, the Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit are co-equal, do we pray only to the Father or to all? Well, they are all equally God. They all deserve to have the prerogative of being prayed to. So there's nothing wrong with praying to the Spirit, praying to the Son, praying to the Father. They are all equally divine persons, and they have the same rights. Having said that, there is a biblical pattern that shapes our practice, namely, to the Father through the Son by the Holy Spirit. Let me say that again. The biblical warp and woof is going to be we pray to the Father. When the disciples come to Jesus and say, teach us how to pray, what does he say? Our Father. So Jesus directs us to pray to the Father. He is reconciling sinners to the Father. And so there's going to be an overwhelming tendency that we pray to the Father. We pray in the name of the Son. Why? Because there's only one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus, 1 Timothy 2.5. And then we're told in Romans 8, I have the slide here, you can read the details of it later, we're taught that the Holy Spirit strengthens us and intercedes for us. And so we pray by the ministry of the Holy Spirit through the finished work of the Son to the Father. That's going to reflect the overwhelming New Testament form of this, but we would never say it's wrong to pray or to worship any member of the Godhead. I hope that's helpful to you. By the way, I was referring to Ephesians 2.18, for from him we have access in one spirit to the Father. It's an example of this, to the Father, through the Son, by the Spirit. What does 1st Timothy 3.9 mean in saying that deacons must hold to the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience? Well, the mystery of the faith is a Pauline way of speaking of the essential body of Christian truth, the saving doctrine of Christian truth. Why does he speak that way? Because he wants to emphasize that it's what was once hidden, but now has been revealed. So the musterion is a characteristically Pauline way of speaking about the now fully revealed central teachings of salvation. So deacons have to believe all of those things. And they must do so with a clear conscience. Well, that can be taken one of two ways. It can be taken that they're to believe these things without reservation. It can also be taken that it could refer to a moral life that is consistent with the Christian faith. Most commentators take the former view, some take the latter. I think both, when you're dealing with the qualifications of a deacon, we want both of them. But probably the primary meaning is that they're sincerely to hold and believe those truths. William Barclay writes, because there is such a close connection between what we believe and how we act, the effectiveness of their work as deacons depends on their purity of doctrine. That's why deacons must affirm the Westminster standards just as elders do. We know some Christians who feel Jewish customs such as Passover, Hanukkah, etc. will continue in heaven and that they should be observed by Christian churches. Is that right? No. It's true that Jesus observed Hanukkah. John 10, the Feast of Dedication, is Hanukkah. It's also in wintertime that was then, as is now, Hanukkah. Some think, I think it's a pretty good case to be made, that in John 5 it's Purim. Now what's interesting is that both of those are extra-biblical feasts. Both Purim, which I don't know for sure that he went to, certainly it was Hanukkah that Jesus celebrated in John 10. They're not biblical, they're post-biblical feasts and he participated in them, not to mention Passover and the Day of Atonement and all the bigger festivals. And why did Jesus do that? Because he was a Jew under the law. So why don't we, why aren't we doing Passover today? Wouldn't it be fun to blow the horn and dreidel dreidel get eight days of Christmas? I mean, I'm so jealous of my Jewish friends when I was a Christian, when I was a child. Well, because of the Bible. Hebrews 10, 1 to 10, describes the Jewish ceremonial practices under the law. That's all of them. It's circumcision. It's the feasts. It's the food restrictions. All of it is a shadow of the good things to come. It's a shadow cast back into the Old Testament by Christ. And so now that you have Christ, you don't live by the shadow. And so Hebrews 10 was going to teach us that now our sanctification is through Christ, the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all, that they served their purpose of pointing forward to Christ, He has come, and now they are no longer practiced. Now what's particularly interesting is the Jerusalem Council of Acts 15, because this was a big controversy in the apostolic church. And there's the James faction. I don't know if the James himself is to fault, but the people around him who said, hey, those Gentiles have got to do all that Jewish stuff. And the apostles, with some elders, by the way, very interesting, the apostles brought elders in with them. They prayerfully deliberated the matter and they wrote a letter to the churches saying you do not have to bear the burden of the Old Testament yoke in terms of the law. that is a definitive statement that these things are not normative for the New Testament church, dare I say they should not be thought normative for heaven, although what those feasts presented, that comes with eschatological conclusion not only in the first coming but in the second coming of Christ. So there's a redemptive historical arc from those feasts, but the feasts themselves belong to the period of the law. We don't go back to the Old Testament We, we, we, there's a, there is a difference. There's covenant continuity, but there's a difference between the new covenant and the old covenant. Who's the prophet of John 19, 119 to 21? They asked John all the questions, they, are you Elijah? Are you the prophet? And he said, no. What did they mean? Well, in Deuteronomy 18, 15, Moses said, there will be the prophet, not just prophets, but there's a prophet, the prophet who will be like him. And he's speaking of the Messiah. And so when they asked John the Baptist, are you the prophet? It was another way of saying, are you the Messiah viewed from that lens? And so it's a reference to Deuteronomy 18, 15, where Moses foretells the coming of the Messiah as the prophet who will take his, God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your brothers. It is to him that you will listen. And Jesus is going to come along and say, well, that you should listen. If you believe in Moses, you should listen to me. And he's got that in the background. I love this. How are, how are they hungry in the Exodus when they left with all the spoils of Egypt? Well, I think because they ate it all. I mean, they had all that livestock and they're grumbling. Well, let's say two, 3 million. I forget the number, a couple of 3 million people. You work through cows pretty quickly. And so I, it's my only answer is that they had eaten it by then. Election in the early church. Did the first century church up to the time of the Reformation believe and teach sovereign election and predestination? Well, let's talk about the first and second century church. Because the early church is very interesting, because you're going to get it all there. You're going to have great theology. You're going to have bad theology. And you're going to go, well, how is that possible? These are like in the generation after the apostles. How could they get things wrong? And I want to go, have you read the New Testament letters? Well, they got Paul preaching, they're promoting heresy. Galatians, I just left you knuckleheads. And now you're denying justification through faith alone. One of my friends calls them not the church fathers, but the church infants. I think that's a little condescending. But what he means is that the process of theological and confessional development was in its infancy. So let's be very careful in our appeal to the scriptures. And the early church is going to disappoint us and make us happy. In this case, they're going to largely make us happy. When it comes to predestination and sovereign election, there's a lot of attestation of that at the end of the first century and the early second century. First Clement, that's about 90 AD. Clement's a presbyter, an elder of Rome. and he writes that he mainly this is not uncommon it's true that clement talks about the elect mainly in a corporate sense it's not he doesn't quite get to individual predestination except where he says this my small print i'll read yours And so we, having been called through His will in Christ Jesus, are not justified through ourselves or through our own wisdom or understanding or piety or works that we have done in holiness of heart, but through faith by which the Almighty God has justified all who existed from the beginning to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. You're going, Clement. Now, what's fascinating is I think it's almost certain that 1st Clement was written before John, before the Johannine epistles. We're going to make the Johannine epistles...well, I think Revelation is going to be 95. 1st Clement is going to be before then, maybe 90, something like that. Some will go earlier. That's a pretty good...that shows that presupposes a sovereignty of God salvation approach. Ignatius 110 refers to his readers as the elect of God. Pauli Clark says we're saved not because of works, but by the will of God through Jesus Christ. The epistle of Barnabas, God foresaw how the people whom he had prepared in his beloved would believe in all purity. And so you're going to have, now it doesn't take long for humanism to creak in. And by the 4th century, you got Pelagians and Augustans. When you read the anti-Pelagian writings of Augustan in the 4th century, which I would commend to you, you go, man, he reads just like John Calvin. Well, it's actually John Calvin who reads just like Augustine. And the Council of Ephesus actually condemned Pelagianism, which is the full bore denial of the sovereignty of God, but semi-Pelagian has been around. The attestation of the early church in this late 1st and early 2nd century is actually very good of their belief. But again, we want to be careful. They had other, you know, same guys, had other eras, primarily Episcopacy. Someone else had the question, what's the difference between Reformed and Calvinistic? Well, these are just conventions. By Calvinistic, we tend to mean the five points of Calvinism, the total depravity, unconditional election, and so it's John Calvin through whom God launched the Reformed movement. The Reformed movement is actually broader than Calvin. It develops in the decades afterwards, and particularly when Stickler's for this, and I can be a snarky stickler for it. I apologize to my Reformed Baptist friends here, because I probably said to you, if you were Reformed, you would not be Baptists, which is true. You are Calvinistic Baptists, but the Reformed theology requires the Covenant theology that is more thoroughly developed after Calvin and has sacramental implications, among other things. But we should not be snarky. But the reformed label is not just Calvin, it's the 500-year movement and the reflection and the development that began with Calvin versus Calvinism proper is Calvin and the centers of thought. How am I doing? I'm going to go to the end here. I'll be real quick. How we know the Bible is true? By the immediate testimony of the Holy Spirit in and upon our hearts. The fulfillment of prophecies used by the apostles. I think it's a powerful testimony. Don't tell me it's like the myths of the ancient people. They didn't have the incarnation. They didn't have the atoning work of Jesus Christ. Please don't tell me, you know, the Enuma Elish, the Babylonian creation myth is just like the book of Genesis. It is not. Now they have common elements. Why? Because it actually happened. There was a Noah's flood. So there's a mention of Noah in some form. But just go online and read the Enuma Elish. You'll be so bored after 30 seconds. And then read the Joseph story and don't tell me they're the same. By the immediate testimony of the Holy Spirit upon our hearts. Jesus increased in wisdom and in favor with God. Well, yes, because it's his humanity. How does Jesus increase in favor? Well, it's talking about his human development, which is a high mystery. I admit that, that the Son, the eternal Son of God incarnate in human form, he increase in wisdom, because it's talking about his humanity. And of course, as he became, well, always sinless, as he became more mature and more positively godly, God would have been pleased. I've heard you say there's an event or events that need to happen before the second coming of Jesus. What do you believe those events to be? Well, I believe that when 2 Thessalonians 2, actually verses 1 to 2, Paul says, the day will not come unless the rebellion comes first and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction. That's referring to the apostasy of the whole external church and the coming of the final Antichrist. And so, yes, I do believe and have said before, have preached before, that while we believe he's coming soon, he says he's coming soon, we have the attitude. I know I'm not predicting the day or hour or the year or the month or nothing. But the Apostle Paul says he will not come until we've had the great apostasy of the worldwide church and the Antichrist. And I think the man of perdition is more or less the Antichrist figure. The Bible says they must happen before he returns. Okay, here's the last one. Why do you believe there'll be dogs in heaven? Why won't my dog be in heaven? Why dogs and not cats? Okay. Well, the Bible teaches that we are looking forward to a new heavens and a new earth. So it's going to be spatial. It's going to be physical. So when Christ returns and there's a renewal of all things, it's going to be physical and material. Moreover, we believe there's a fundamental continuity between the first creation and the last creation. And there were animals in the first creation, and God doesn't lose. Satan doesn't get to win anything. Sin doesn't get to destroy anything. Everything God ordained and he put. it's not just that we don't go back to Eden, we go forward and upward to the new heavens and the new earth. I can't prove this with a Bible verse, but this is the reasoning from the scripture, that therefore the kinds of things that we see in the finished product of the first creation we would expect to see in a glorified form in the final heaven and the new earth. Now my current dog, however, is going to die and does not have an eternal soul, wonderful and sweet though he is, although he has sins. Different sins in our other dog Sharon likes this dog sins more than this dog does not get in the trash that was the great sin of our former dog, but God did not place eternity in Ramagen's heart Ramagen does not have union with Christ through faith We're watching it with my family's watching worship at home. He's paying he doesn't pay any attention to the sermon He will return to the earth. He does not have an eternal spirit. So if there's going to be dogs there, it's not gonna be Ramagen Let's get the cats Well, they're manifestly wicked, mean animals. I mean, they are. They're self-absorbed. You know, this has been scientifically proved that what your cat is thinking is, how can I kill her? I'm a little cat. I can't get my owl. That's what they're thinking the whole time. So I cannot say, I'm joking when I say, dogs will be in heaven, cats will be in hell, because it wouldn't be hell without cats, although it reflects my internal attitude. I cannot deny that there is likely to be some future restored being that's represented by cats, but they're so wicked and mean and nasty now that whatever they will be then will be unrecognizable as cats. Whereas dogs are virtually perfect now. They're almost eschatologically perfect now. So when we get to heaven, we're just going to be doggies and we're going to recognize them as such. I hope that is not too distracting from biblical reasoning, but I'm doing my best. Father in heaven, bless our dear people. I pray this has been helpful. And I thank you for the opportunity for me as a pastor to hear, to read some of the things folks are asking about. And I pray that I've been biblically wise and helpful. In fact, I pray that any of these require further conversations that the person be willing to talk to me, Lord, and help them to know their pastors are very eager to answer questions like these. Bless us. We pray as we go in Jesus name. Amen.