Good Lord's Day. He is risen. Well, Mr. Parrish took the novice test and he passed with honors. We also received officially the. Testing for Mr. Reagan. He also took the novice test and also passed. Now. For the worship today. This evening. We have. Luke chapter 6. We're reading a section of that. Luke chapter 6 from verse 27. We will be, for the psalm singing and meditation, we'll be reading Psalm 25 and singing it. It's two parts. And Deacon Schaeffer will be teaching on it. We'll be continuing in the book of Ecclesiastes. And I believe that's everything. Alright, so now, let's begin our time of worship with the call to worship. Please stand for the reading of God's Holy Word. Deuteronomy 6. Verses 4-9 Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God The Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children. And you shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. You may be seated. Let's pray. Father, we come before you and we confess that we are guilty of breaking your law. And we beg you that you would pardon us, that you'd count us as innocent, our debts paid in full by the blood of Jesus Christ. And Father, we ask that you would hear us as righteous by the robes of righteousness that cover us, the external righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ, imputed to us and received by faith alone. We come before you as the righteous in Christ, in our union with him. And we ask that you would bless us by illuminating our minds and teaching us your word, that you would renew us after the image of Jesus Christ. Father, we thank you for the little ones we have in our midst. We thank you for giving to us each other with our weaknesses. And we thank you that you give to us different strengths and gifts that we might use together. Father, I pray that you would build us up in fellowshipping with each other, in doing useful work with and for each other, that you would help us to use the gifts you've given to us to be useful in nurturing and nourishing each other, building up each part, strengthening each other until we reach the fullness of the maturity in Christ. Father, we thank you for all of the members of the body, from little ones yet unborn to officers matured in teaching. Father, we ask that you would bless those who teach to speak right words, fitting words, and that you would bless those who listen to judge. We ask that you would help us to evaluate what is said not based upon our likes and dislikes, but based upon your holy word. Father, we pray that you would remove the wicked from having rule over us, and that you would give us godly magistrates. Father, we thank you that many good things are being done, and we ask that even more would be given. We thank you that much evil is being overturned, and we ask that more evil would be overturned. Father, we pray that you would cause the righteous to be emboldened and the wicked to be fearful. Father, we ask that you would bless the church throughout the world to come to greater and greater unity in the truth. That you would cause right worship to be present in the assemblies throughout the land and right discipline. Father, we know that we have many enemies. and that Christ has many enemies. We ask that You would subdue all of Christ's enemies and ours. Father, we ask that You would cause those who would harass the righteous to be shattered by the iron rod of the Lord Jesus Christ. And we ask that You would cause many who are defeated to be brought to life again and to be made saints, and to join the ranks of the advancing kingdom, and that you would increase our power and subdue our enemies under our feet. Father, we pray that you would do these things because you have promised to us that you would. And Father, we hold you to your word because your word is a word that cannot be false and cannot be broken. Every promise you give is an oath by your own name. And Father, You are the God who cannot lie. And so we present Your promises back to You. And we ask of them from You through the mediation of Jesus Christ, knowing that we are heard as sons, as righteous sons in union with Him. And so we call upon the inheritance You have promised. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen. Please open your Bibles to Luke chapter 6, verse 27, and stand for the reading of God's word. Luke chapter six, verse 27. But I say to you who hear, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, and pray for those who spitefully use you. To him who strikes you on the one cheek, offer the other one also. And from him who takes away your cloak, do not withhold your tunic either. Give to everyone who asks of you. And from him who takes away your goods, do not ask them back. And just as you want men to do to you, you also do to them likewise. But if you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. And if you lend to those from whom you hope to receive back, what credit is that to you? For even sinners lend to sinners to receive as much back. But love your enemies, do good, and lend, hoping for nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for He is kind to the unthankful and evil. Therefore, be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful. Judge not, and you shall not be judged. Condemn not, and you shall not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give, and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be put into your bosom. For with the measure that you use, it will be measured back to you. and he spoke a parable to them. Can the blind lead the blind? Will they not both fall into a ditch? A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone who is perfectly trained will be like his teacher. And why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye, but do not perceive the plank in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, brother, let me remove the speck that is in your eye, when you yourself do not see the plank that is in your own eye? Hypocrite, first remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck that is in your brother's eye. For a good tree does not bear bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit. For every tree is known by its own fruit. For men do not gather figs from thorns, nor do they gather grapes from a bramble bush. A good man, out of the good treasure of his heart, brings forth good. And an evil man, out of the evil treasure of his heart, brings forth evil. For out of the abundance of the heart, his mouth speaks. But why do you call me Lord, Lord, and not do the things which I say? Whoever comes to me and hears my sayings and does them, I will show you whom he is like. He is like a man building a house who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when the flood arose, the stream beat vehemently against that house and could not shake it for it was founded on the rock. But he who heard and did nothing is like a man who built a house on the earth without foundation against which the stream beat vehemently and immediately it fell. and the ruin of that house was great. Please turn to Psalm 25. Psalm has two parts, we'll read through both of those now. Psalm 25, a Psalm of David. To you I lift my soul, Lord God, in you I trust. Do not let me be put to shame, nor let my foes triumph. Yes, let those who trust you never be put to shame. Let them be shamed who, without cause, transgress most wickedly. Show me your ways, O Lord, and teach me your own paths. Yes, ever lead me in your truth, and so with it, teach me. Oh, you most surely are my God of salvation. Therefore, it is on you that I will wait the whole day long. Remember your mercy, your loving kindness, Lord, for they have been what has endured throughout the ages old. Remember not the sins of youth, nor transgressions. According to mercy, recall me for your goodness sake. The Lord is good and just. He'll teach sinners the way. He guides the meek in their judgment and will teach them his way. All paths of the Lord are his mercy and his truth to those who keep his covenant and testimonies too. For your name's sake, O Lord, forgiveness show to me. Pardon all my iniquity. For truly it is great. The path to choose is shown to him who fears the Lord. His soul will dwell in peace. His sons will inherit the earth. The secret of the Lord will all who fear him know. And he will show the knowledge of his covenant to them. My eyes are ever on the Lord continually, for he alone shall pluck my feet from catching in the net. Have mercy. Turn to me. Desolate, afflicted, the troubles of my heart have grown. Bring me from my distress. Look on my woes and pain and forgive all my sins. Consider all my enemies, how cruel their hate has been. Oh, now preserve my soul and so deliver me and let me not be put to shame. I put my trust in you. Let my integrity preserve. I wait on you. Redeem Israel. Oh, my God, out of all their troubles, you may be seated. So Psalm 25 in Hebrew, in the original language of its writing, each verse begins with the letter in order of the Hebrew alphabet. So all 22 verses begin with letters of the Hebrew alphabet in order. Hopefully I explained that. Well, I think you know what I mean. In terms of the outline of the psalm, it's going back and forth between a prayer and a meditation. So it switches back and forth between the two, and that follows a common pattern of human thought. You pray for wisdom, God grants it, you reflect upon it, we pray further, and the cycle continues. So let's look at this initial prayer. In the first magical verse, to you I lift my soul. Lord God in you I trust. Do not let me be put to shame, nor let my foes triumph. Yes, let those who trust you never be put to shame. Let them be shamed who without cause transgress most wickedly. So David commits his soul to the Lord here. He asked that those who trust the Lord would not put his people, sorry, he asked that the Lord would not put his people to shame, but rather those who break God's law flagrantly. He's essentially asking that those who have the least sense of shame, the least sense of propriety, experience shame rather than God's people. Don't let God's people be ashamed. Let the enemy feel that. So he continues his prayer. So he longs to know the ways of the Lord, and he prays that the God who saves would teach him all the days of his life. He commits to waiting on the Lord. So it's not instantaneous, everything's downloaded. It's a process of growing and learning and waiting upon the Lord for the next part, the next bit of understanding, the next move. Nothing and no one else can save us. So David continues, remember your mercy, your loving kindness, Lord, for they have been what has endured throughout the ages old. Remember not the sins of youth, nor transgressions. According to mercy, recall me for your goodness sake. So he asks of God to be merciful as he's been in the ages past. He asks to overlook the sins of youth. So we can all likely recall things that we did in our youth that were sinful and stupid, but they've had an effect on our life, even as we grow in sanctification. The things that took hold early are often some of the most difficult to eradicate. So he asked God to look upon him mercifully, not vengefully, to the praise of God's glory. And that's the case with every believer. It's, Lord, please look at Christ's righteousness, not the sins that have plagued me. So he has this prayer, and now he switches to a meditation. The Lord is good and just. He'll teach sinners the way. He guides the meek in their judgment and will teach them his way. All paths of the Lord are his mercy and his truth to those who keep his covenant and testimonies too. So it's a statement of fact here. God is good and God is just. All people apart from Christ are sinners. The elect are sinners, but God teaches the elect the way. In their humbleness, which is a gift from God, he gives them the judgment that they need and he teaches them to live godly lives. So David's stating clearly that any godly path you take is based on God's mercy and on God's truth. And in order to pursue that, God must have mercy on you to give you the truth. So David prays now. For your name's sake, O Lord, forgiveness show to me. Pardon all my iniquity, for truly it is great. The path to choose is shown to him who fears the Lord. His soul will dwell in peace. His sons will inherit the earth. So David asks for forgiveness. He indicates that he realizes the depth of his sin. For David, there's a lot there. He's realizing lasting effects of sin. Among other sins, what happened with Bathsheba, though forgiven in Christ, I think Pastor Shortley was talking about this last week, that was not without great effect in David's life and legacy. So we can be saved, we're forgiven, but even later in life, we can do things that will have lasting damage. So David's praying here, and then he switches in the middle of this verse back to meditation. So he gives us an application of the fear of the Lord being the beginning of wisdom. The path to choose is shown to him who fears the Lord. So we know that the godly will inherit the earth. That's the next part there. Generally godly sons come from godly men, but it's the sons that God chooses are promised to inherit the earth. So the meditation then continues. The secret of the Lord will all who fear him know. And he will show knowledge of his covenant to them. My eyes are ever on the Lord continually, for he alone shall pluck my feet from catching in the net. So that verse has particularly struck me over the years. Only the elect know God's mercy applied to them. They've truly seen the knowledge of the covenant of grace being applied to them. And though they struggle, their eyes will be on the Lord. So the imagery given is of the net that you've been pulled out of. So for whatever reason, I've always seen that as like a fishing net. The more you struggle, the worse you're entangled like sin. But for God, it's just merely plucking you right out of that. And David gives us the example, There's nothing else that's going to pluck you out of that. You're not going to come out of it by your own strength. Have mercy, so this is prayer. Have mercy, turn to me, desolate, afflicted. The troubles of my heart have grown. Bring me from my distress. Look on my woes and pain and forgive all my sins. Consider all my enemies, how cruel their hate has been. So David begs for mercy here and what he's facing has increased. He still acknowledges his sin but asks that God would deal with his enemy's cruelty. So we'll always have sin in us, and yet we can still appeal to the Lord to deal with our enemies. The prayer continues, oh now preserve my soul and so deliver me and let me not be put to shame. I put my trust in you. Let my integrity preserve. I wait on you. Redeem Israel, oh my God, out of all their troubles. So he ends with a similar statement to how he began. He asked that he and Israel would not be shamed, but that they would be redeemed. And he waits on God. for that. Whatever we're facing now, just like then, God is fully aware of. He has not forgotten. We must wait on him. He will glorify himself, which is the true desire of all who believe. So Psalm 25, by way of review, is a switching back and forth between prayer and meditation. The layout follows the Hebrew alphabet in order, in the original language with each verse beginning with a progressive letter of the alphabet. Are there any comments, questions, or objections from speaking members? Speaking members, voting members, or those with speaking privileges? All right, thank you. Please stand. Psalm 25, part one. A psalm of David. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. To you I lift my soul, Lord God, in you I trust. Do not let me be put to shame, nor let my foes triumph. Yes, let those who trust you never be put to shame. Let them be shamed who without cause transgress most wickedly. Show me your ways, O Lord, and teach me your own paths. Yes, ever lead me in your truth, and so with it teach me. O you most surely are my God of salvation, therefore it is on you that I will wait the whole day long. Remember your mercy, your lovingkindness, Lord, for they have been what has endured throughout the ages old. Remember not the sins of youth nor transgressions. According to mercy recall me for your goodness sake. The Lord is good and just. He'll teach sinners a way. He guides the meek in their judgment and will teach them His way. All paths of the Lord are his mercy and his truth to those who keep his covenant and testimonies too. Please remain standing as we read now from Ecclesiastes chapter 2. Ecclesiastes chapter 2 verse 12. Then I turned to myself to consider wisdom and madness and folly. For what can the man do who succeeds the king? Only what he has already done. Then I saw that wisdom excels folly, as light excels darkness. The wise man's eyes are in his head, but the fool walks in darkness. Yet I myself perceive that the same event happens to them all. So I said in my heart, as it happens to the fool, it also happens to me. And why then was I then more wise? And why was I then more wise? Then I said in my heart, this also is vanity. For there is no one, for there is no more remembrance of the wise and of the fool forever, since all that now is will be forgotten in the days to come. And how does a wise man die? As the fool. Therefore, I hated life, because the work that was done under the sun was distressing to me, for all is vanity and grasping for the wind. Then I hated all my labor, in which I had toiled under the sun, because I must leave it to the man who will come after me. And who knows whether he will be wise or a fool, yet he will rule over all my labor in which I toiled, and in which I have shown myself wise under the sun. This also is vanity. Therefore, I turned my heart and despaired of all the labor in which I had toiled under the sun. For there is a man whose labor is with wisdom, knowledge, and skill. Yet, he must leave his heritage to a man who has not labored for it. This also is vanity and a great evil. For what has man for all his labor and for the striving of his heart with which he has toiled under the sun? For all his days are sorrowful, and his work burdensome. Even in the night, his heart takes no rest. And this also is vanity. Nothing is better for a man than that he should eat and drink and that his soul should enjoy good in his labor. This also, I saw, was from the hand of God. But who can eat? Or who can have enjoyment more than I? For God gives wisdom and knowledge and joy to a man who is good in his sight. But to the sinner, he gives the work of gathering and collecting that he may give to him who is good before God. This also is vanity and grasping for the wind. To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven. A time to be born, and a time to die. A time to plant, and a time to pluck what is planted. A time to kill, and a time to heal. A time to break down, and a time to build up. A time to weep, and a time to laugh. A time to mourn, and a time to dance. A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones. A time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing. A time to gain, and a time to lose. A time to keep, and a time to throw away. A time to tear, and a time to sew. A time to keep silence, and a time to speak. A time to love, and a time to hate. A time of war, and a time of peace. You may be seated. So, chapter 2, verse 12. We're reminded of the difficulty of the fact that if a man works, and he passes on what he's done to another man after him, and that work is inclined to seem worthless and meaningless unless there's a definition of progress, unless there's a goal. So Ecclesiastes is for us a book that deals with views of the good. Every philosophy has a definition of the highest good. And Ecclesiastes is dealing with different definitions of the good. and showing the problems with those definitions. And so we have this issue of mirth or pleasure being sought. And we find that if pleasure seeking is the goal, eventually a man dies, and everything he enjoyed building, everything he enjoyed doing, it all must be passed on to someone, and who knows what that man will do? who receives the inheritance from the king. At the very best, if pleasure-seeking is the goal, all he will do is continue pleasure-seeking himself and using the whole of his domain to support his pleasure-seeking. And there is no progress in that. And so, We had in verse 13 this idea that, then I saw that wisdom excels folly as light excels darkness. Wisdom is like light that allows differentiation. The wise man's eyes are in his head. He can look around, but the fool walks in darkness. Yet I myself perceived that the same event happens to them all. So now he's gone back to going, wait, if I pleasure seek, I'm going to hand over all the things I built, and who knows what that guy's going to do at the very best. He's just going to repeat it. And what good is that to me? And so he says, I have to be able to differentiate between things. Wisdom is better. Wisdom allows me to tell the difference between good and evil. And this has led me to not know the difference between good and evil. And then he begins to think back on wisdom and says, The wise man has eyes in his head. He can see the difference. He has light. And the fool is in darkness. He has no eyes in his head. He must walk around in the darkness. And so we have that image of trying to walk in the darkness, this groping for things as you're moving about a room, tripping and falling and not knowing what's around you, the horror of that. And then immediately, he closes his eyes again. There's no difference between the wise and the fool. The same thing happens to both. Shut it down. Stop the pangs of conscience. Back to trying to chase after pleasure. So page two. So I said in my heart, as it happens to the fool, it also happens to me, and why was it, and why was I then more wise? Then I said in my heart, this also is vanity. For there is no more remembrance of the wise and of the fool forever, since all that now is will be forgotten in the days to come. And how does a wise man die? As the fool. But under the sun, If there is no judgment, then the same event happens to both, and who cares? Eventually, everybody's dead. And so we talked about the need for the good to be continuing. It has to be something that you don't lose. It has to be inalienable. And so if wisdom is inalienable, then that means that you, with your everlasting soul, continue with the wisdom you gain in this life, and then continue to grow in it in the next. And so the knowledge of God as something good to be possessed cannot be lost because it's everlasting life. And so there is not a uselessness to the gain of wisdom. There is a remembrance of the wise and of the fool. That remembrance is by God. And He brings it to the remembrance of men in the Day of Judgment. Verse 17, Therefore I hated life, because the work that was done under the sun was distressing to me. For all is vanity and grasping for the wind. When you believe that the sun is the highest thing, that all that's there is this ball of fire, and there is no God above it, then everything is meaningless. But if, instead, there is a throne of heaven above the sun, and so it's not merely the sun, but instead it is the throne of heaven that gives meaning, direction, command, and judgment to everything that ever happens, then we have a totally different perspective. But without the throne of heaven, the result is Even the things you love for a period of time become a source of groaning. The things that you distracted yourself with, that you loved, the work that you could pour yourself into, at a certain point, you become disillusioned with it. The only reason we ever really enjoy anything is because we think it's good. Enjoyment, joy, happiness, is not something you can chase directly. I mean, try. Monday, wake up and go chase happiness directly. Let me know how it goes. You go, I'm gonna go to Circle K and buy some happiness. Don't find any there. Maybe it's at Safeway. They have more things at Safeway than at Circle K. Look around, you'll have a hard time finding. It's not on the outside of the store, not on the inside of the store. Can't find it fresh, can't find it processed. No happiness for sale. Maybe Walmart will have it. They're bigger than Safeway. You won't find it there either. You go to Costco, maybe it's only for members. No happiness for sale. No matter how big the store, you search on Amazon, and in vain, you cannot find anybody to deliver you happiness, either by prime or by paid shipping. Because you can't get it directly. It is not something that you can possess physically. What is happiness? It's a thing that exists in your mind. And so happiness is something that is a state of mind. And happiness is not something that your mind can get directly. You don't possess it like knowledge. It's a condition of your mind. And it is a result of getting what you think is good. As long as you're getting what you think is good, you'll be happy. And once you think you're not getting what's good anymore, your happiness will flee. Now everything that you chase after and possess will eventually stop seeming good to you once you start to realize It doesn't solve all the things you hoped it would solve. It doesn't fix all the problems you hoped it would fix. And it doesn't provide for you all the things you hoped it would provide. And that thing you become disillusioned with. You were illusioned. You had the illusion that this thing was the good. It might be money. You go, I don't have money and so I have problems. If I get lots of money, my problems will reduce. I think I don't have power. If I were powerful, my problems would go away. I don't have enough pleasure. If I had more pleasure, my problems would go away. And you can get more power. You can get more money. You can get more pleasure. And you find you still have problems. And in fact, The increase of power makes more people bring their problems to you. The increase of money all of a sudden increases the mouths you have to feed. And the increase of pleasure that you get makes it so that the pleasure is less rare, less enjoyable, less distracting. And you go, money, power, and pleasure make bad gods. The only thing that does not lead to disillusionment is that with which you were never illusioned. The only way to not be illusioned is to believe the truth instead of an illusion. So what's the good? What's worth getting? What's worth buying and never selling? What's worth increasing the possession of it and never reducing the possession of it? The answer is God. And you go, how do I get God? Can I bottle Him? Does He freeze dry? The only place to store Him is to store Him in your mind. The knowledge of God. laid out in His Word. Stored up in your heart. Understood and believed. And so you fill your heart. And then, the way you enjoy God is by meditating upon Him. His truths and what He commands. And applying His law in the face of whatever opposition. And so the suffering that comes from opposition has to be viewed as inferior to the joy of application. Because those who oppose are weaker than he who supports. The opposition is by mortals and by demons. And the support is by the immortal, tri-personal God. All of his angels and all of his elect men. And so we find that this disillusionment, we are only safe from disillusionment when we believe the truth about what is good, God and His law. You will never be disillusioned. You will face testing. You will face difficulty. You will face opposition. But the testing passes. The difficulties are overcome, and the opposition is conquered. These things are fleeting, but they bring with them an everlasting weight of glory. Verse 17 says, Therefore I hated life, because the work that was done under the sun was distressing to me, for all is vanity and grasping for the wind. Under the sun, it all is illusory and delusional and meaningless. But the meaning under heaven is everlasting and ever increasing. And so we are stuck with choosing things to do regardless of what you chase after. You're going to chase after something. You can't avoid it. And what you chase after, you're going to make choices about. And you're going to do work for it. If you chase after anything other than God, you will find that you begin to hate life and hate your labor. Because life seems so full of weariness and labor. And the labor doesn't produce anything. It's toil. It's fruitless working. But only if you chase God, where you get fruit that is the knowledge of God, and the possession of His glory, and the enjoyment of Him, and the enjoyment of the fruits that He provides. When you chase God, The labor is meaningful and the gains cannot be lost. And so as opposed to this wearisome cycle, instead you have progress. Which is necessary for the happiness of men. Go to page 3. Then I hated my labor in which I had toiled under the sun. You know what the definition of toil is? That there's work And there's toil. Work is when you do things and it's productive. It's fruitful. Toil is when you do things and it doesn't yield fruit. And what's so exasperating sometimes is not only does it not yield fruit, but sometimes it yields weeds, thorns, thistles. The CIA calls that blowback. When you try something, it doesn't accomplish your goal, or maybe it does for a short period of time, but then what happens is something worse comes your way, or even at least something that's just bad comes your way. This idea of blowback. Unintended consequences. Difficulties that arise. We do not know the consequences of our labor. We do not know what fruit will come. We do not know what thorns may grow. We do not know the blowback. All we can do is do what we think is good in the moment and leave the consequences to God. And because the world is so much more complex than our own conceptions of it, our efforts to pick the pragmatic, to do the thing that will bring the results we want, those efforts to predict what will happen are pathetic. Our efforts to try to guess what the results will be of our work are laughable. History is filled with the acts of men being followed by consequences they did not intend. And so what we must do is we must realize that God has given to us an instruction manual in His law to teach us the way that we should go and to be a lamp unto our feet. Remember the difference between the wise and the fool? The wise has eyes in his head. And he has light. The fool walks around in darkness. The law of God is that lamp. And it provides light for us to see the path. The world is a large room. To walk around in it trying to find the edges without a light on is a long process. Without light, without the law of God to tell us what we should do, without the promises of God where He says, I will give you this fruit, I will bring this reward, I will do this for you, I will protect you, I will watch you, I will guard you, I will keep you when you sleep, I will guard you when you go out, and I will guard you when you come in. Without God to guard us, we are in a sea of enemies in darkness. Supernatural and natural enemies. God, with His law and His promises and His blessing, gives us natural and supernatural effectiveness. Without the knowledge of God and the goal of His glory and the law to show us the way we should go, the result for every man is, oh, my work is wearisome and I hate my labor. And so we read that in v. 18, that I hated all my labor in which I had toiled under the sun, because I must leave it to the man who will come after me. Life is full of weariness and working. My work is toil. It doesn't always yield fruit. And even the fruit I get, if the goal is pleasure, everything I build, I'm going to die and leave it to some other guy. And who knows whether he will be wise or a fool? I just pause on that one for a second. Is that one funny to you? I think it's funny. Who do you, I mean, none of you have died, so I get this, but who do you leave your stuff to? If you were gonna die, you're all gonna die. Who are you gonna leave your stuff to? You're going to leave it to your heirs, definitionally, that's the case. Who are your heirs? Your children, typically. And so, think about this. Who knows whether the person I leave my stuff to is going to be wise or a fool? If anybody on the planet should know whether his heir is going to be wise or a fool, it should be Solomon, because he's been given lots of wisdom, and he's responsible for the raising of his children. So shouldn't he know whether his heir is going to be wise or not? The other thing is, The Scriptures teach us that if our sons and daughters are fools and they reject the living God, if they're fools and they will not profess the true religion, we should not give them the inheritance. We give it to those who believe. If you have six children and one of them apostatizes, you give the inheritance to the other five. You're supposed to do what you can to guarantee that the work of your hands goes to the wise and not the fool. And there's two ways you do it. One, you teach wisdom to your heirs. You raise them in wisdom. You give them discipline. You show them the way they should go. And two, if they reject it, you remove them from the inheritance. Those are the safeguards. You're raising in discipline and teaching, and you're removal if they will not heed the Word of God. Those things should guard the inheritance so that it goes to the wise. But he says, who knows whether he will be wise or a fool. Yet he will rule over all my labor in which I toiled, and in which I have shown myself wise under the sun. This also is vanity. Now, if you're chasing after pleasure, then you're not going to emphasize teaching wisdom to your sons. You're not going to emphasize teaching wisdom to your heirs. And as a result, your work will tend towards foolishness. And in fact, by your example, if you chase after foolish pleasure-seeking, what do you think your children will do? The sins of the fathers tend to pass on to the next generation with greater consistency, less restraint, more foolishness. The baby boomers said, Let's have free love. The 1960s will be freed from all of the shackles of the oppressive system of patriarchy and marriage. They went wild for a while, and then they thought, okay, 1980s, let's make some money like some Republicans and lower taxes. Everybody thinks you can just put the genie back in the bottle, but their children grew up in an even more lascivious culture. Do you think in the 1960s that the baby boomers thought that it would end with Obergefell, gay marriage? Do you think that a general widespread abortion on demand, the legalizing of all sorts of sexual perversions, do you think that that was in mind for most of them when they thought, what I'd like to do is to have in my youth the ability to go and pursue pleasure and have less responsibility for a period of time? I don't think that's what they generally thought was going to happen to culture. I thought, I think they thought they could chase it around for a while and get back to normal and keep all the fruits of Christian civilization. But that's not what happened. The sins of the fathers, when they are not corrected, repented of, chopped down root and branch. When that's not done, they get passed along to the next generation and they get magnified. So if you're pleasure-seeking, and you say, who knows whether my heir will be wise or a fool, I will tell you what, you can actually have pretty good certainty. Most of the time, you're going to pass along to a fool, because he's going to watch your example. And so, do you see how that actually even increases the sense in which, if you're pleasure-seeking and you're just building things for your own enjoyment, how that increases the fruitlessness of it, and the toil of it. Not just, you don't know whether he'll be wise or a fool. In fact, you have a pretty good sense he's going to be a fool. And he's going to rule over all of your labor in which you toil, in which you show yourself wise under the sun. Wise management for pleasure-seeking is not a particularly noble, impressive, or grand achievement. This does show to us one of the things that we should be aware of for false goods. The true good has to be something that you can possess and that the people you love also possess. When you have money, if you have 100 bucks, you want to share it with somebody equally, now you've only got 50 bucks. You have pleasure, you want to share it, whatever resource you're using for pleasure, you only get to keep half of it, you give the other half to somebody else. If there's power, somebody's making the decision. There's only so much power to go around amongst creatures. On this particular subject, you pick or I pick, where are we going to dinner? One of you is picking. Unless you agree, only one of you is exercising power. And so the idea of power, one of the benefits of power is, when there's disagreement, the one with more power gets to pick. That's the benefit of power. So all of these things, pleasure, power, property, any of those as the good, the more you have, the less others have. The more others have, the less you have, to the extent that there's a division of it. With property, you can argue, well, if we're all more productive, we can have more to pass around. That's true. But that comes from a sense of willingness to work. So we go, OK. There has to be something that's good that's communal. In other words, you can possess it and I can possess it at the same time. And I don't lose it by giving it to you. So one of the beauties, one of the glories of wisdom, one of the glories of the knowledge of God is that if I have the knowledge of God, I can share it with you. I can teach it to you. And by teaching, I actually increase my own understanding. Paul says, you who teach, you teach yourself. And if you understand what I've taught you, you increase in the possession of it too. And so now by sharing it, there's more of it. Another thing is if you're worried about the good not causing people to be good enough, your property doesn't make people have better character. And power is not known for making people behave better either. And pleasure has not typically been that upon which virtues are founded. But wisdom, wisdom is the root from which all virtues spring. It is the fountainhead from which they all flow. And so it has a transformative power. And so you wonder, if I'm seeking pleasure, all the stuff I build, what will happen to it when it goes to my heir? If he's a fool, he'll destroy it. If the good is wisdom, and you pursue wisdom, and the example that your heir sees is the seeking of wisdom, and you pass him wisdom, That wisdom will make him better. That wisdom will transform him. You worry, what if my heir is a fool? If I give him the good, what will happen to him? If the good is wisdom, he will no longer be a fool if you actually give it to him. He will become a wise man. And so there is a transformative power. Wisdom solves the difficulties of governance. It makes men better and it makes it so they can rule themselves. Truth sets men free. Free from what? Free from being governed by lies. It sets them free from enslavement to the flesh. It makes them free in regards to the flesh. It causes them to go from slaves of the flesh to slaves of righteousness. And it makes them govern themselves. It makes a self-governing people. The other thing is, when you think about this competition amongst generations, you see it now, it's prominent right now. The competition between generations always hits a fever pitch when those who possess wealth and power are declining in their mental and physical capacities, and those who are at the high point of their mental and physical capacities desire the power. So back when what we call the greatest generation, the World War II generation, when the World War II generation was governing, and the Baby Boomers were entering into their stride between the ages of 20 and 40, there was this rebellion against the World War II generation and the desire for the transition of power. There was some silence in that for a time because the Baby Boomers, as the World War II generation died off and the Baby Boomers took over their property and leadership, as The World War II generation began to retire, and even while not being dead, handing over the reins of power and management. The boomers became satisfied. Things were as they ought to be in the world. The boomers had the power, and they were happy. But now we're in a time where the next large generation, the millennials, are frustrated. Gen X had been frustrated for a while, but the millennials as a great population piece, the next big generation, waiting and wanting power, are frustrated with the fact that boomers are living longer, boomers are staying in control longer, and they won't hand over the property, they won't hand over management, they simply want to hold on to it. The retirement idea of using property and enjoying it for as long as possible and delaying handing over as long as possible, that stuff has taken root. And the idea that children just have to find their own way is an idea that was maximally in place for the boomers. And so we're in a time where there is this frustration and anger about the division of the generations. One of the curses that befalls a nation is the hearts of the children are turned away from the fathers and the hearts of the fathers are turned away from the children. That is a destruction of institutions and destruction of the ability to use the different benefits that different generations have. The old tend to have power and wealth and wisdom and the young tend to lack all or most of them. And the benefit of working across generations is that the young have energy and strength and they have time. And so when the old work with the young and pass along wealth and wisdom and power by degrees, through working, as rewards, the result is a knitting together of the hearts. This idea of working together is what you might call the corporate nature of the good. That there is a working together as opposed to merely individually, and that the best way for you to get what's good for you is for you to work with others. And so as opposed to Solomon's fear of, I'm going to work, I'm going to have all this stuff, and then I'm going to die, I'm going to pass it along to my heir, and what if he just ruins it? Do you see how working together with your heir towards a common goal would reduce the risk of you just handing it off and it all falling apart? How many movies and stories have you seen where there's some tycoon, some mogul, some captain of industry, and he doesn't want to work with his son? And as a result, the son is not ready to run the thing. That's a picture of what it looks like when you are unwilling to work with the next generation and to seek to hand off to them power and property and wisdom. If the good is wisdom and we, by passing along the knowledge of God to our children and our children's children, If they're transformed by that, and they become useful to us, and we can work together, and we can build together, and they can manage property better, and they can govern themselves better to not chase after pleasure, and they can use power more faithfully, rather than abusing it, then all of that begins to work together. And here's the amazing part. The Apostle John says, there is no greater joy. than to see your children walk in the truth. And so this corporate working, this working together to get things done and to advance to the same goal, the teaching, makes it so that there is an aligning. There are answers. And so these things are all These are all the deconstructive things that Solomon's teaching you about false goods. If it can't be shared without reducing your possession of it, it's not the good. If when you give it to somebody it doesn't transform them, it's not the good. If it doesn't result in working together and if it doesn't advance by working together, it's not the good. These are things that you can use to go and attack the weak points of false philosophies and everything that raises itself up against Christ and the knowledge of God. Go to page 4, verse 20. Therefore I turned my heart in despair at all the labor in which I had toiled under the sun. For there is a man whose labor is with wisdom, knowledge, and skill, yet he must leave his heritage to a man who has not labored for it. Do you see how if you turn your heart to your children and encourage them to work, and you have them manage pieces of what you're building along the way, how you can't actually say they didn't labor for it then? For there is a man whose labor is with wisdom, knowledge, and skill. Yet he must leave his heritage to a man who has not labored for it. This also is vanity and a great evil. For what has man for all his labor and for all the striving of his heart with which he has toiled under the sun? But under the sun, nothing. Under heaven, an inheritance that cannot be lost. We are heirs of all things. Verse 23, for all his days are sorrowful and his work burdensome. Even in the night, his heart takes no rest. This also is vanity. You know, one of the things that happens, if you make property or power or pleasure the good, you're always afraid of losing them. This is the danger of the rich. You think, I want money so I can be at peace. If I have financial security, I'll feel less anxious. That is not the way things work. The more property you have, the more you can lose. All your labor is there in that property. The more power you have, the more you worry about other people trying to take it from you. There's that old Greek story with Damocles. There's a king. He has all the luxuries that a king can want. Sounds like Solomon. And one of his friends says to him, oh, if only I could have your power, it would be so great. And what does he say? What does the king say to his friend? He says, OK, I'll give you a day where you can try it out. And his friend is super excited. And the friend takes the throne. And he sits on the throne. And the king says to him, now real quick, take a look up there. And above his head is a sword hanging over him with the blade down. So if it fell, it would fall into his head and bring a sudden end to the enjoyment of that throne. But don't worry. It was secured by a horsehair. So very secure. And he says, you can do this as long as you want. As long as you have the sword hanging over your head. And the friend of the king said, I can't do it. I can't enjoy it. None of this stuff is fun because there's always this risk. And that's what power brings. The risk of assassination, the risk of people taking your place, the risk of people stabbing you in the back. People don't stab people in the back when they don't have anything. You know why they stab you in the back? Because they have something. You have something that they want. So there's this anxiety that comes over you as you have power, as you have property, as you have pleasure, and you worry about losing it. Only God can give you rest from that. Only God can make it so that you can have all these things and respond in a Job-like manner when you lose it. The Lord gives. The Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. The inability to rest. The other thing is, as you have this property, as you have power, you have problems coming to you that you try to deal with, you try to solve, and you either harden your heart wickedly to not care about other people's problems, in which case you're just luxuriating and you will destroy your support base and the prospect of being betrayed is higher. Or you care about everybody's problems and you use your resources to help them and the insufficiency of your power and the insufficiency of your resources is obvious. What is lacking cannot be numbered. What is crooked cannot be made straight. That's what Solomon said early on. So there's this repetition of it, over and over, that the things of this world are not sufficient for the troubles of this world. The problems cannot be fixed by natural means. We must look to the hand of God. It takes supernatural power and an all-knowing, wise God to know what's lacking and to fix the crooked things. For all his days are sorrowful and his work burdensome. Even in the night his heart takes no rest. This also is vanity. The psychological effect of chasing false goods is anxiety. Do you know why we live in a time where everybody everywhere is depressed and anxious? Because they've rejected God, who is the only cure for anxiety and the only cure for depression. Perhaps we can use drugs to fix it. I don't think that will work. I don't think drugs will fix unhappiness. Drugs might mask it. Drugs might provide some of the pleasure. Antidepressants may make somebody in the short term have a mood lifter, but the basic problems are still there. And the only solution is to know the God who lives and his law that shows us a lamp to guide our feet. People are unhappy because of who they are and they're unhappy because of what they do. When you recognize who you ought to be and you recognize the God who forgives that you are not, and then you begin out of gratitude to seek to walk the path that he commands, the effect is happiness. Remember what's happiness? It's the effect of getting what you think is good. And if the good is God and you possess Him, and you increase in possessing Him by knowing Him more, then there is an increase of joy and happiness ever after, ever more, ever lasting. V. 24 Nothing is better for a man than that he should eat and drink, and that his soul should enjoy good in his labor. This also I saw was from the hand of God. For who can eat or who can have enjoyment more than I? For God gives wisdom and knowledge and joy to a man who is good in his sight, but to the sinner he gives the work of gathering and collecting that he may give to him who is good before God. This also is vanity and grasping for the wind. Some people read this as sort of the answer of the good life. They'll go, yeah, you need to go God, you need to know God, and then you need to just enjoy things and just trust God and just enjoy things. It's a common way of reading this. I do not believe that is what is being communicated here. What's being communicated here is Solomon's trying to come up with an answer to this problem that if you live a life-seeking pleasure that you can lose it all and you can pass it along to an heir and that guy be a loser and lose it all. He's trying to deal with this. And he's trying to deal with the fact that, you know, earlier on I said, if the wise man and the fool have the same thing happen to them, then their end is the same and there's no difference between them. He's trying to come up with a solution to that problem. So here's what he does. In verses 24 through 26, he provides you with a three verse summary of everything Job's friends say. If you go read the book of Job, he has three friends that are sub-ideal as friends when you're in grieving. And these three friends all tell him, you know, Job, bad stuff's happened to you, and the reason bad stuff happened to you is because you must be a bad guy who did bad things. Otherwise, bad things wouldn't have happened to you. And so Job defends his integrity. What Solomon does is he presents the theology of those three friends here. Nothing's better for man than that he should eat and drink and that his soul should enjoy good in his labor. This also I saw was from the hand of God. God gives that providentially. He's the one who gives whether or not you have good work, good fruit, and enjoyment. That's true, right? God controls what work you do, God controls what fruit you get, and God controls whether you enjoy the fruit or not. And so this is Solomon's answer. He goes, God controls everything. He providentially rules everything. Everything that ever happens is from the hand of God. The answer must be the good guys get good stuff and the bad guys have to pile up wood for them. That must be what happens in history. And everybody looked around at the world and how it works and went, yeah, that's how it goes. Only the good guys get good things, and the bad guys always get punished. And two seconds later, everybody went, actually, no, that is not how it works. This solution is terrible. Because you just look around, and you go, the wicked seem to prosper. The good seem to be punished. It doesn't look like, in life, the good always just keep having more and more good times. It doesn't look like the bad guys always get their comeuppance in this life. For God gives wisdom and knowledge and joy to a man who is good in his sight. Right? Isn't that what happened to Jesus? Oh no, he was crucified, right? Everybody hated him. For God gives wisdom and knowledge and joy to the man who is good in his sight. Maybe the joy is not from getting wealth and power and physical pleasures. And to the sinner he gives the work of gathering and collecting that he may give to him who is good before him. That's not the case. What happened with the sinners is, as opposed to working to hand stuff over to Jesus, they opposed him. They nailed him to a cross. They slandered him. They opposed him. That's what happened to Paul. That's what happens to Peter. Over and over again, there's this betraying, as opposed to them being put immediately to the service. So this also is vanity and grasping it for the wind. Why? It doesn't make sense. If God is always taking the wicked and putting them into the service of the righteous, that's not vanity and grasping for the wind. That's justice. That's meaningful. That's progress. Why is He saying this is vanity and grasping for the wind? Because it's not how things work in this life. all the time. There was a general tendency towards the advance of righteousness. But it's not the way it always goes here. The wicked are often victorious in the short term and the righteous are persecuted. So this does not solve the problem. And so what happens is, in chapter 3 he gives an initial answer and he's saying, Do not look upon the wickedness of the world and think life is meaningless. Chapter 3, verse 1, He begins to provide for us a respite. He's been, so far in these two chapters, He's been ratcheting up the sense of meaninglessness. And here He's going to relieve some of the pressure, some of the tension, by giving us the answer and laying it out. So here's what He says. to everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven." The contrast with under the sun and under heaven are laid bare right here. And there's this basic question of when we talk about to everything there's a season and to every purpose there's a time under heaven, the question is, does this mean that everything that happens is controlled by God's providence? Or does this mean that the law of God tells us when to do each thing? And the answer is, yes. God controls everything, and the law tells us when we're supposed to do each thing. So there's a list of things to be done. I have a long section that's philosophical here in pages 5 and 6 that I'm skipping. So go to page 7. You can read that on your own. It's delightful. You'll have the best time. Point 35. We're actually not going to read that either. We're going to verse 2. So we read before, to everything there's a season, a time for every purpose under heaven. And there's a listing out of things that there's a time for. There's a time to be born, and God has predestined when you were born. Sometimes you might think, you know, I was meant to live in a different century. No, you weren't. You were meant to live in this one. God made you for this one. He made you for a time such as this. You exist for a specific purpose in this generation. There's a time to die. You might think, it would be nice if I could live longer. Oh, that I could live a thousand years like those men in the time before the flood. But God has planned for you to live 70, or if you're strong, 80 years, and then for you to depart. There's a time to plant and a time to pluck what's planted. God predestines those things too. When you start something and you're nurturing it, and you have all of these hopes that this thing I'm investing in is going to go well, God predestines that. And when you look at it, and that thing that you have nourished and nurtured and cared for and worked in is dry as a husk, and it's time to pull it out of the ground, whether it bore fruit or not, God predestines that too. There's a time to kill and a time to heal. God predestines the slaying of men and the healing of men. All healing comes from His hand. Time to break down and a time to build up. There's things that others have built that sometimes you have to tear down, break into. There's times when you have to take the stuff that's damaged and build it up, or take something that has no building on it and build on it and start anew. A time for weeping and laughing. God predestines your tears and He predestines your rejoicing. A time to mourn and a time to dance. Some people try to say, by the way, that dancing is always sinful. That's not the case. This tells us not only does God predestine the time to dance, but He also gives the time when it's appropriate He tells us and the law shows us when it's appropriate. There are dancing rejoices that occur at multiple points in scripture that are commended to us. For example, after the Red Sea came down and destroyed the chariot army of Pharaoh, the response of the nation of Israel was to dance and sing and rejoice. It's a time to cast away stones and a time to gather stones. You know, stones being gathered together in the scriptures are typically used to represent the idea of piling stones in order to create a symbol of remembrance. And the casting away of them, that would largely be about taking something that people were holding onto and putting it to forgetfulness. There's a time to remember and to cause remembrance. There's a time to seek to have things that are remembered put into the obscurity of history. A time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing. There are times when we must recognize men as brothers. We must pull them in. We must welcome them. We must extend to them the symbols of brotherhood. And there are times when it is our duty to refuse to embrace or even to clasp hands. God predestines when we have new friends and when we have new enemies. There's a time to gain and a time to lose. God gives you gain that you will not be put to shame. And God takes away your gains that you would not be proud and would not think that you have power in yourself to make wealth. but instead would trust him. A time to keep and a time to throw away. If you're a hoarder like me, it's always time to keep. And if you're someone who organizes well like my wife, it's always time to throw away. But for other people, you probably vary between the two. And that comes down to whether you have enough of a thing, too much of a thing, or too little of a thing. And making it so that you can use that well. A time to tear and a time to sew, dividing things up or uniting them together. Some of the prophets would use the idea of tearing something to show, for example, a division of Israel. A time to keep silence and a time to speak. It is possible to speak truths unseasonably. It is possible to speak, to remain silent when you have a duty to speak. There's a time for each, and God predestines what happens. A time to love and a time to hate. A time of war and a time of peace. God turns the hearts of men to love and hate, and he turns empires to wage war or to have peace. But the law of God teaches us. It teaches us things like, when is it good to encourage the birth of children? The Apostle Paul, for example, in 1 Corinthians talks about a time when it might be acceptable to delay marriage, when great persecution or trouble is coming. But in times of peace, to not seek to build and to not seek to have children is foolish. A time to die. There are times when we must stand for truths, even if it kills us. There are times when you must fight, even when you expect to lose. There are times when you are called to sacrifice yourself that others may live. The law of God teaches us when to do each of these things. Husbands are called to lay their lives down for their wives, and wives are to submit to their husbands as unto the Lord. These are things that are not merely metaphorical. The law of God teaches us when we are to do things like planting to invest, when we're to do things like pull back the resource allocation into things that are not being fruitful. It provides for us ways of determining when each of these things should be done. And so we're left with two things. God decrees everything that happens and God's law teaches us the fitting time. for everything. His choice of what occurs in history is controlled in detail, and his law provides us with a sufficient guide. And this right here, those things put together, his decree and his law, do you see how powerfully that answers any charge that history is a meaningless cycle, or that actions and choices of men have no meaning? that God in his law tells us what is fitting, and God in his judgment will bring all of it to remembrance. There is no ground left for any claim that it's all vanity. It is meaningful, meaningful. All things have their place in time. All things are full of meaning. Let's pray. Father, we ask that you would cause us to know you more and to trust you more to believe that you control everything and you have a law that is sufficient for us to know what we ought to do. We praise you. You are the God who governs history and the God who is designed men and given a law to govern them. We praise you that you are the God who brings all things to remembrance. We praise You that You are the God who makes it so that we are not stuck with a meaningless existence. We thank You that You have given us the knowledge of Yourself, that You have revealed Yourself in the Scriptures, that You have sent Your Son to pay for our sins, to die in our place, that we might have life and have it abundantly. We praise You that You are the God who has caused us to have possession of the knowledge of You and thereby to have what is truly good. We praise You that You are the God who not only begins our faith, but who upholds us in the faith and preserves our faith. We praise You that You are the God who from the throne of heaven governs all things. We pray this in Christ's name, Amen. Comments, questions, objections from the voting members and those with speaking rights. Let's sing Psalm 25 Part 2. We've already read it. Logan, can you remind me of the tune? Thank you. I think I'm a little bit too high, forgive me. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, The path to choose is shown to him who fears the Lord. His soul will dwell in peace, his sons will inherit the earth. The secret of the Lord will all who fear Him know, and He will show the knowledge of His covenant to them. My eyes are ever on the Lord continually, for He alone shall block my feet from catching in the net. Have mercy, turn to me, desolate, afflicted. The troubles of my heart have grown, bring me from my distress. Look on my woes and pain, and for Consider all my enemies, how cruel their hate has been. Oh, now preserve my soul, and so deliver me. And let me not be put to shame, I put my trust in you. Let my integrity preserve, I wait on you. Redeem Israel, O my God, out of all their troubles. For those of you who will not be participating in the Lord's Supper, grace to you and peace in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. If you desire to come to the Lord's Table, I would encourage you to talk to an officer who will get you examined. For those of you who will be coming to the Lord's Table, let me read now the Word of Institution. The Word of Institution today is from Luke chapter 22. When the hour had come, he sat down and the twelve apostles with him. Then he said to them, With fervent desire, I have desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. For I say to you, I will no longer eat of it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God. Then he took the cup and gave thanks and said, take this and divide it among yourselves. For I say to you, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes. And he took bread, gave thanks, and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, this is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me. Likewise, he also took the cup after supper, saying, this cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is shed for you. But behold, the hand of my betrayer is with me on the table. And truly, the son of man goes as it has been determined. But woe to that man by whom he is betrayed. Then they began to question among themselves which of them it was who would do this thing. Now there was also a dispute among them as to which of them should be considered the greatest. And he said to them, The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them. And those who exercise authority over them are called benefactors. But not so among you. On the contrary, he who is greatest among you, let him be as the younger. And he who governs as he who serves. For who is greater? He who sits at the table or he who serves? Is it not he who sits at the table? Yet I am among you as the one who serves. But you are those who have continued with me in my trials. And I bestow upon you a kingdom, just as my father bestowed one upon me, that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom and sit on thrones judging the 12 tribes of Israel. This text has two things that I want to point out to you. First, it reminds us that we can divide the cup, though some will seek to deny that. Unlike the other passages, it explicitly lays that out. And second, what it does is it reminds us at the table that there is a judgment signified. and that we will sit in judgment, not over the twelve tribes of Israel as the apostles, but we will judge angels. And so we are reminded of these things. This text serves the purpose of showing us that Christ instituted the Lord's Supper, commanded its use, and gave us an example. And so, having heard this word, I invite you, if you have been examined by the Council, and if you have examined yourself to see if you're in the faith, can discern the Lord's body, are at peace with others as far as it depends upon you, and are not holding on to a cherished sin, then I invite you to come to the Lord's table.