I do greet you from Toledo, the Reformed Baptist Church there. I want to say to Doug, thank you. How many years you've been doing this, Doug? Since 2016. Yeah. Thank you. You have encouraged many churches and promoted the interest of truth. So thank you very much. How many of you have a copy of the confession with you. The rest of you. Shame. Raise your hands if you need a copy. We'll do it that way. Raise your hands if you need a copy. We'll take the rest of that stack, Doug. I asked Pastor Doug how he would like me to do this. And he said expound confession. So you'll need the confession to be able to follow along with what we have to consider this morning. But I want to begin with Holy Scripture. and then we'll pause and ask God for his help. Familiar passages, Luke 23, verse 39. One of the criminals who were hanged there was hurling abuse at him, the Lord Jesus Christ, saying, are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us. Now what's amazing about that, of course, is Jesus, by not saving himself, he was saving us. But the other thief answered and rebuking him said, do you not even fear God since you're under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed are suffering justly for we are receiving what we deserve for our deeds. But this man has done nothing wrong. And he was saying, Jesus, remember me when you come in your kingdom. This man understood that though Jesus was there on the cross, that he was in fact the king of God's people. that the cross was his throne. And Jesus said to him, amen. Truly I say to you, today you shall be with me in paradise. Well, again, another familiar passage, this time Philippians chapter one. The Apostle Paul can say to me, to live is Christ. If you're a child of God, you know that by experience. To live is Christ. It really is. I don't know if it was planned, but it's really interesting. Here we are on what's by other communions would call this Holy Saturday situated as it is between Good Friday, the day of our Lord's crucifixion and the day of his resurrection. So he says, for to me to live is Christ and to die is gain. So this morning we are going to, with the two hours I was allotted, we're gonna, what are you? I don't know why that's funny. No, I won't take two hours. We're gonna consider the very weighty matter. I think it was Ben Franklin whose credit was saying that there are only two things that are sure in life. Remember what he said? Taxes and death. As I thought about how to actually begin this, God in his providence actually had the way I was gonna begin it. My day started this morning at 3.30 when I got a call from my deacon to alert me that my fellow elder's son, 22, 23 years old, was in the trauma center. And so at four o'clock, I was there with my fellow elder. I got there before he did. And it looks very grim. And just a few months ago, my kid brother by two years was taken out of this life into the next. And so this is not just an abstraction. As I'm speaking to every one of you and those of you who are pastors, you know that part of your calling in life is to prepare God's people for death. Unless, of course, the Lord Jesus comes. Every one of you I'm looking at, all those young kids back there, it's great to see you. You've got great parents. Tell them, thank you, Mommy and Daddy, for bringing me to a place to hear God's word, even on Saturday and Sunday. But someday, they too, maybe sooner than later, will leave this life and death. Our Bibles actually tell us that this is something that should be considered regularly. Ecclesiastes says, it's better to go to the house of mourning than the house of laughter. And the wise will take it to heart. So as we think about death, think about my own brother, hard losing mom and dad, hard losing an older sister, harder yet a kid brother, two years younger than me. So sad as all of that is, hopefully with God's help this morning, we'll see that death itself, as Paul says, all things belong to us. Even death belongs to us. Because to die is gain. So before we get into the confession and the word of God, let's pause and ask God for his help. Our father in heaven, you've not called us to make light of the sober and evil reality of death. But neither of you left us to sorrow and mourn like those who have no hope. And so we would ask gracious father, that as we consider this uninspired yet faithful document of inspired truth, that you would give us on this day, this Holy Saturday, as we together anticipate, as we do every Saturday, the gathering together with all of your people on the day of our Lord's resurrection. Help us to be emboldened in our faith because of the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray in his name because there's no other name given under heaven. by which we may be saved. There's no other name by which we have as a mediator. So hear us, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Now, everybody has a copy of the confession. You'll see there the chapter that we're considering, chapter 31, which once again, there's a kind of either a providential confluence or a brilliance on the part of those who've organized this. We've talked about the Lord's Supper. That chapter leads into this. It seems almost abrupt, but here we are, the penultimate chapter of our confession. And there are three paragraphs. Let me give you, this is how, as I've gone through and read and reread, here's how I would just in a very quick way, this is where I would summarize each chapter. By the way, Sam Waldron's chapter, I think it's, I have his first edition and I was looking at his most recent edition. I don't know if it's been enlarged, but it was very helpful. So is David Dixon, who wrote in the 17th century, very helpful. And this year, us Reformed Baptists are very fortunate. We're gonna have two new expositions of our confession. One that's been written by several men, one of which was written by Jim Rinehan. And Sam's is a modern exposition, very faithful, very helpful. And Jim Rinehan's is a historical exposition. to help us kind of understand what's going on in the ground, much as our brother Ron did in our first hour. So the first paragraph, we're gonna see here, death dissected. We're gonna look at death and it's gonna be dissected. I'm gonna go through this paragraph quickly because I wanna come back and spend most of my time in this first paragraph. Then in the second paragraph, it's the last day described. And then the last paragraph, still considering that last day going on into the future, the bodily destinies following upon the last day, the great day. So paragraph one from our confession reads, By the way, our paragraph is very much identical to the Westminster and then Savoy. There's a couple places where they added a little bit of language that actually makes it helpful and pastoral, but this is what Christians believe. The bodies of men after death return to dust and see corruption. but their souls, which neither die nor sleep, have an immortal subsistence, an immortal existence, upheld by the power of God, we would say, immediately returned to God who gave them. The souls of the righteous, being made perfect in holiness, are received into paradise, where they are with Christ. and behold the face of God in light and glory, waiting for the full redemption of their bodies. And the souls of the wicked are cast into hell, where they remain in torment and utter darkness. reserved for the judgment of the great day. Besides these two places for souls separated from their bodies, the scripture acknowledges none. Now this larger paragraph, we see first the body and the soul are separated. I was actually trying to find a modern definition of death. And depending on which medical expert you're asking, my deacon that called me at 3.30 in the morning, he actually says that death for him when he was a firefighter was defined by the lack of oxygen going to the brain, brain epoxy, I think it's called. You go back earlier, even the Britannica Encyclopedia would say, death is the separation of the body and the soul. Now you understand, As I look at everyone here today, your body and soul. Now the body is not the prison house of the soul. But it is the house of the soul. We are embodied souls. Now, by saying that, I have defined you. By saying your body and soul. Every one of you. Your ears are here, but what's going in, as you're listening to me, is you're evaluating my hair, my beard, my tie, which is almost as good as Ron's. That's your soul that's working through that. Now, I've defined you. If I separate your body and soul, I can distinguish them. But if I separate them, I have killed you. Now, what we're told here is the body, when it's separated from the soul, we'll see corruption. And this reminds us all the way back, you were taken from dust, you'll return to dust because you rebelled against God. It is still the case, the wages of sin is the separation of the body and the soul and death. We also see here though, the soul will return immediately to God who gave them. Every one of you, believer or not, elect or not, when you die, your soul goes to God. For some of us, as we're gonna see, that's why death is gain. God. But some of you, that will be eternal grief. Now, What this is correcting by saying that the soul neither dies nor sleeps is correcting two errors. One of which is annihilationism. There have even been in recent memory, some Protestant good teachers who believe that upon death, the soul is annihilated. This is saying, no, it does not die. Nor does it sleep. very popular with cults. And even some of our Protestants, Martin Luther was not altogether clear on this. In 1534, Calvin wrote his first religious tract. One of his friends convinced him to delay publishing. I think it took eight years before he published it. It's called Psychopanacea. which means an all-night vigil. It was Calvin saying, when you die, your soul does not die, nor does it sleep. You enter into a very conscious state of affairs as it returns to God. then we're told what is the state of the soul at death. Our confession separates the righteous and the wicked. We're going to come back to the righteous. I have five things that I want to look at in particular this morning. But for the wicked, if you look at your confession, which is a summary of what Scripture teaches, the souls of the wicked are cast into hell, number one, and there in hell, They remain in torment, in utter darkness, and there they are reserved to the judgment of the great day. Next paragraph calls it the last day. This is personal eschatology, what happens to you at the end of your life, on into the end of the age. And you know, this is one of the things that I've seen people get red in the face and angry. I've had people that come and become a member of the church and somehow they didn't know that we're not what they were when it comes to eschatology. So they leave very angry. But every Christian throughout the world has believed this. You will die and Christ will return. From thence he shall come to do what? To judge. The quick and the dead. Now what happens between those two times, your death for 2000 years now, and when he comes is the concern of this very chapter. Those who are wicked enter into darkness, torment, suffering. You ready? In the very presence of God himself. Now you might say, wait a minute, I know my Bible says depart from me, I never knew you. And that's right. They are no longer knowing what they know in this life, something of God's common grace. The grace that allows them to eat and to drink, to sleep, to have friends. And as they leave this life, they leave all grace. They're no longer in the gracious of any kind presence of God. They are now with the God that they hate and a God who hates them. Waiting for the great day of judgment. Now here's something really it's important. This kind of gives you the historical background of some of the things that's going on the ground. look at the very last line of your confession, very much showing what scripture it teaches, for souls separated from their bodies, the scripture knoweth none. Besides these two places, for souls separated from their bodies, the scripture acknowledges none. Now, the medieval Roman church, though never as a part of dogma, had different limbos that they said were for those who came before Christ, a limbo for infants who were never baptized. That's the sacramentology gone crooked. There was a purgatory. And this is very much pushing back against the Roman corruption. of what happens to a person when they die. So this brings us right back to what it means for us to be Protestant, for us to be reformed. Why is we look at the papal system with the Pope as the head? Why we would say they are a synagogue of Satan. Why we would say the Pope himself is an antichrist. It's justification that was not invented by Luther, recovered by Luther, given back to the church where we realize because of Christ, our sins are forgiven. And more than that, by an empty hand of faith, which lays hold of Christ, we are as righteous as Christ. Our confession, this is wonderful, under repentance, it says, such is a provision which Christ hath made through Christ in the covenant of grace for the preservation of believers unto salvation, that although there is no sin so small, but it deserves damnation. Now the medieval church made a distinction of those sins that happened after baptism. Some that were light and inconsequential, but needed to be punished nonetheless. And then there were those sins that were moral that actually destroyed grace. And they taught that there are those sins that have to still be purified. And our confession says, There is no sin so small, but it deserves damnation. Yet there is no sin so great that it shall bring damnation on them that repent. And why is that? Because as we lay hold of Christ, as we embrace Him by faith alone, our sin becomes His who knew no sin, that we might in Him become the righteousness of God. all by faith, what? Alone, Christ alone. So let me just pause here and say very clearly, all this foolishness is out there, people that die and they go down white tunnels and they meet this person, that person. If you're a Christian, as soon as you close your eyes in death, I'm getting ahead of myself, you're with Christ. Every sin. Categorize, and our confession will say, our catechism will say, some sins are more heinous than others. Judas' betrayal of Jesus was worse than Pilate's. Jesus said so. And there's all kinds of sins represented here. But however you leave this world, if you're in Christ, you'll be with Christ. because of Christ alone. Well, then the second paragraph, more quickly, because I wanna go back to the five that I said, I wanna go back to, there's five different things here that's true of the righteous when we leave this world into the next. The second paragraph, which is the last day described, we're told the living, that is the saints. Now this is one of the places where our Baptist confession put into the confession at the such day such of the saints. So it leaves kind of an ambiguity here. So when it says all the dead shall be raised up, is this talking about all the dead, the righteous or the undead? Are they wanting now for us to read this paragraph specifically what our privileges are as being those who are sanctified by grace through faith in Christ alone? But whatever it is, if Christ returns tomorrow and you're alive, you shall not. And again, this is another place where they changed it. You shall not sleep. The Westminster has, Savoy has, you shall not die. So that's one thing. If you get to make it long enough, my kid brother, love my kid brother. He'd always send me YouTube videos. He was more of the dispensational. And he had a countdown to rapture. I wish he could have made it long enough to be here for the second coming. But that's the first thing we're told. That they will not sleep, but be changed, and the dead will be raised up with the same bodies, but with different qualities. and the body and soul will be joined and united to their souls forever. So that's what's on the last day, is just simply saying this, this body, your body, don't ask me, I don't know how, but God who is the sovereign of the universe, that's able to take our planet. It's a wonderful thing that our solar system, we're in a bubble. God put us in a bubble. Check me out, I'm not making this up. This is not some sort of weird thing. It's a true thing. We're in a bubble that God protects us from gamma radiation. It gives us the ability that we could see if it wasn't for this bubble, we could see the rest of the galaxy. He's able to do all that. And when Christ returns, He's gonna raise up the body that you're now in. but with different qualities. What are those different qualities? Can't wait to find out. So all the saints will be changed, the body and the soul reunited. So on the last day, really, truly death will be defeated. Oh, death, It's a question. Rhetorical. O death, where is your sting? O grave, where? Where is your victory? It's been defeated by Christ's first coming and His glorious crucifixion. His spectacular resurrection. And as we'll see in a minute, with His second coming, we too will be raised up. all of which is pictured in our baptism. You know, when you're baptized, the picture there, I'm preaching another sermon, but I got to say it. What's going on there is that because you're united with Christ, you're now united to him in the gospel, which is Christ crucified, Christ resurrected to walk in newness of life. Now that newness of life isn't just simply you give up the old bad habits. Certainly that's true. But it's saying you are now a citizen of the kingdom yet to come. The future has come for you. Because of your heavenly husband who was raised up. You know, by the way, this whole matter of baptism is so important. You let this go. You're not just letting like, oh, well, we just, we know we don't like paydos, even though I'm not really sure what a paydo is. It's not that at all. It's because the way that God justifies us is in the gospel. And the way he sanctifies us is in the gospel because it's still true. The gospel is the power of God unto salvation, justification, sanctification, glorification. all pictured and brought home to us in our baptism. So that's the second paragraph. So we've talked about, and we're gonna go back to the soul between death and the last day. We're gonna go back to that on the last day, paragraph three, we are told of the destiny of these bodies. You know, I think it was, Oh, what's the brother's name that wrote, not Anthony Hokema, the other one, Presbyterian Midwest Seminary. Anyway, in there, he said most of the time when the Bible talks about immortality, it's actually talking about our bodies, our resurrection. And so here we're told, the bodies of the unjust shall, by the power of Christ, because you understand when Christ, you know, I hope you never say to people, they need to make Christ the Lord of their life. Listen, Christ is the Lord of everyone's life. His death, His resurrection, He is now declared to be Christ and Lord. And we just simply say, you either embrace Him now in this life to your joy and your salvation, but in the next life, to be sure, tap those knees. Those knees will bend. That tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is the Lord. So the power of Christ, but they'll be raised to dishonor. The Bible brings in the most gruesome, terrifying language. to picture that dishonor, that that raised up body and the soul reunited with it. I learned a long time ago, I remember being a young 20 something hearing Albert and Martin saying that perhaps the language is symbolic. I'm like, hey, you know, Martin is a liberal. No, no, no, no. He helped me understand something that when the Bible uses symbol, And it does. The reality is always greater than the symbol. That's the way we talk. So if the Bible talks about darkness and torment, the worm doesn't die, and the flames of fire in a lake, how more terrifying. You know, their eternal destiny with a body that can feel. But in our bodies, our resurrected bodies are going to be able to touch and taste and embrace. But with every motion of our resurrected bodies and our glorified souls joined together with everything we do, what will pour into our soul is the God that we love and the God that loves us. For them, every touch, every taste, every sight is gonna remind them of a God that they hate. Remember what the Bible says? The natural mind is at enmity with God. I think it was Ted Donnelly says, well, what about my loved ones in hell? People in hell have no one that loves them. And those of us who now lament and mourn and worry about our children, our parents, you have to trust that someday you too will be perfected in the same love that God has. I think it was Spurgeon's mom said to Charles, if you don't come to believe, there'll be some day that I will say amen to your damnation. So they're gonna be raised up to dishonor the bodies of the just by his spirit, the same spirit that raised Jesus up. 1 Timothy 3, Romans 1. will be raised up unto honor and be made conformable to his own glorious body. 1 John says that when we see him, we will be like him. Again, I don't know what that might mean, but I'm sure looking forward to it. Well, I skipped over five things. Now, as I've been looking through this and reading as much from the 17th century, listening to heretics and confused people on matters, Anthony Hochman in his book on the Bible in the Future, he quotes Bacow that says that when it comes to this whole issue, the Bible speaks to us in whispers. In other words, we don't have everything we'd like to know. There's so much more we wish we knew, but we just don't know. Remember Paul, second Corinthians, there was a man in the body out of the body. I don't know. God knows there was one that was caught up to the third heavens and he heard things that's not lawful for him to talk about. That's why you can just close your ears off, shut your eyes. Anytime you start hearing somebody saying, I died, I went to heaven, and here's what I saw. If it happened, they would know, like Paul, I can't talk about it. And even scripture speaks to us. and a whisper. And this has only made me grow in greater appreciation for our English divines, Westminster Savoy, our Baptist forefathers, that though there's only a whisper, they helped, they got it, they got their fingers in the scriptures and said, what can we pull out of here that we can give to the people of God that will help them in this life between now and the great day of our Lord's resurrection? Well, there are, as I said, five things. So looking back at your first paragraph, five things. First, as soon as you die, you will be made perfect. You know the text, Hebrews 12. Every Lord's Day, when we gather together for worship, heaven and earth meet together, and when that happens, we come to the General Assembly of the Church of the Firstborn, who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the Judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous, made perfect. Now, I'm looking around at those of you who are Christians, who have come to believe in Christ, you are righteous, but you know you're not perfect. There's few volumes that sell quicker than trying to help Christians deal with sin and have a happier life as a Christian. Because it's the oddest thing. Simultaneously, of the joy that filled my soul, when I came to see Christ as my Savior, was the woe is me, wretched man that I am. Because I found, I want to do right, I don't do right. And I make promises to God, God if you just forgive me, I promise I won't blow up again, I won't get angry, I won't be prideful. This last season we went through with the whole mask thing. My goodness, I had to repent so many times. In every child of God, what we long for? A sinless soul. Imagine that. No anger, no lust, no jealousy, no doubt. You're already righteous. And now you want to be what you've declared to be. And that's why you get up every day, you get up and you clutch your fists and you go to war with your remaining sin. And sometimes it seems to beat you down, but you go to Christ, you go to His blood, you get back up, hating your sin even more than you did the day before. And you swing and you swing and you keep fighting. Someday the war will be over because you will be perfect. As soon as you close your eyes in death, that very moment, can I say it without sounding vulgar? To hell with purgatory, we go to glory because of Christ. Sinless souls, day without end. Revelation 14 says, and I heard a voice from heaven saying, right, blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on. Yes, says the spirit so that they may rest from their labors for their deeds, follow them. The rest that we have is the rest from the war with remaining sin, where your soul As soon as, again, I was with my brother. The last time that he was able to respond to me, I came in and he saw me, and my brother, he's bigger than me. He worked hard, but as soon as he saw me, his big brother, he just started crying. He had the mask on, and I grabbed his hand, and I asked him the questions, Tim, do you still believe? And he'd squeeze my hand. You heard that Jesus died. He was resurrected. Do you believe that? He squeezed my hand. And I said, Tim, if this is your deathbed, do you believe that you will see Jesus in your death? My hand still hurt. And you know what? Before they even had a chance to disconnect all the machinery and make the pronouncement, my brother was perfect. Secondly, this is what happens, and this is imperative. Here's where I'm at. The souls of the righteous, see where I'm at? First, being made perfect in holiness, are received into paradise. The earlier confessions have the highest heavens. received into paradise, as we've already read. Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom. And Jesus said, truly, I will say to you today, you will be with me in paradise. That term in the original language is oftentimes used for what we call the Garden of Eden. Paradise was a garden usually reserved and owned only by kings. And none would come in there except for those who are royalty. And Jesus, the King says today, as soon as he's taken down from the cross before his corpse is probably given that he was a criminal thrown into the ash heap, not given a proper burial. And there came a point where he was able to take in one last breath. And that breath would eventually work its way through and it would be used up by his body. His brain would close down and then he would die. At that very moment, his perfect soul was with Jesus in paradise. Today, he said to the criminal, you'll be with me, your king. Now, each one of you, Again, I wish I could tell you more. I can't. Paul already told me. He couldn't tell you what he found out. When he was caught up, he says, I was caught up to the third heaven. It's the only place in the scriptures I could find where he talks about the third heaven. I was caught up to the third heaven, to paradise, and I heard things. I can't tell you what it was about. Except to say, it's the heaven of heavens. The very paradise of God. And thirdly, most wonderfully, as we've already said, the souls of the righteous being made perfect, receiving paradise where they are with Christ. So John 12, if anyone serves me, he must follow me and where I am, there my servant will be also. If anyone serves me, the father will honor him. And this is why, as we've already read, this is why Paul could say, I'm hard-pressed from both directions, having the desire to depart and be with Christ, for that is very much better. Being with Christ. You ever notice, you read the Gospels, You know, there's that one time, you guys remember this, Jesus and the disciples sat there, it's on the Sabbath and they're harvesting, remember that? So they're out in the field somewhere and all of a sudden there's Pharisees there. So it's almost like they just, everybody liked to be around Jesus. Kids, Jesus is talking to his disciples in a high, you know, what's like to be the greatest in the kingdom. All of a sudden he's got a kid sitting on his, where'd that kid come from? He was the friend of sinners. Sinner, when you leave this life, forget about the tunnel and the white lights and all that stuff. As soon as you close your eyes, your perfect soul will be in paradise with Jesus. And then fourthly, which follows hard upon that, inseparable, we need to, Stop having an allergic reaction to everything that people say sounds Roman Catholic. You know, they didn't invent our religion. They perverted it. So we should talk about the beatific vision. The sight of God that's glorious, that gives me joy and gladness, which no other sight can do. They will behold, look at that. They will behold the face of God in light and glory. It would take days and days for me just to unpack what the scripture means by light and glory. It is not something you wanna shield your eyes from. It's something that will draw you in deeper and deeper. And as you go deeper and deeper into God, you will find this eternal infinite source of light and joy and gladness, inexhaustible God. By the way, I regularly beat up on the medieval church, but at the same time, they believe in the Trinity. I'm not giving up on the Trinity. They believe in the virgin birth. There was a very famous, don't ask, I'm not gonna tell you, preacher that said, the gospel is more than. And I'm always like, okay, that's, I already like what it's already about, so. And he said, the gospel is more than forgiveness of sins and going to heaven. Now I'm going, okay, wait a minute. For this sinner, you know, absolution, go, your sins are forgiven. That's hard to beat. And going to heaven, what more is there? than seeing and knowing God. Christian, I know. I know that what's driving you and driving you in life is God in Christ. Why do you get your tired body out of bed every Lord's Day to come to hear that guy again? Same book, same confession, same hymnal, because the same book, the same hymnal, the same Bible keeps telling you about the glorious God that will be yours in Christ as soon as you close your eyes in death. Listen to this. God, who said, light shall shine out of darkness. that's the first creation, is the one who is shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God, where? In the face of Christ. Now imagine your sinless soul there in the presence of Christ, into whatever you've just had a drop on the tongue of the glory of God that He can give you in this life. Imagine having a sinless soul with God's own Son, with all of the saints. Think about all who's going to be there. Esther, I want to ask the question, why is, you know, you get to Abraham, the New Testament kind of, it gives us, whenever we see the saints from the Old Testament, we're never told David the murderous whoremonger, Abraham the cowardly liar, right? The New Testament rather sees, helps us to see them through the lens of their justification. In our consecutive reading, we're reading through Genesis. We got through that chapter. And I saw my granddaughter was sitting over there and she heard about Lot and his daughters. And I saw her look at her mom like, what did I just hear in church? And yet the Bible calls him righteous Lot. I want to ask this question. I'm gonna go up to Rahab and say, why is it you're always called Rahab the harlot? I guess the same reason, even though Jacob's name was changed to Israel, God wants us to know he's the God of Abraham, Isaac, and heel clutcher and liar, because that's the kind of God I need. One more thing. I do want to turn our Bibles for this. Look at your confession so you understand why our confession doesn't, There's a reason why our confession uses proof text. It's actually pointing us to the library, our theological library and commentaries on these passages, how the church for 1600 years would have expounded these texts. Other times where it's just a clear allusion, it assumes you know your Bible well enough to know what it's referring to. The last thing, here's, Look again, behold the face of God in light and glory. Say we're a man. What's the next word? This is you when you die. What's the next word? Waiting. Everyone who's right now that has sinless souls in the presence of God in Christ are waiting. Waiting for what? Our confession tells us for the full redemption of their bodies. So turn with me. This will be my last text. And then we'll have a time of Q and A where a brother Ron will answer all your questions. Romans chapter eight. beginning at verse 18. There's so much here, but I know I don't have the time. Let me just start here. Do all of you who are Christians recognize you are adopted? And you have the spirit in you, and that spirit, when you pray, how do you pray? Father, right? So you're adopted. Now look at how this unfolds. Verse 17, for children, heirs, Heirs of God, fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed, here's the punchline, if indeed this verse 17, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him. Now Paul says, for I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God. Now what you just read is this. The hills, the mountains, the rivers, the cosmos is waiting to know exactly who you are, sons of God, which certainly includes our beloved sisters. Verse 20, for the creation was subjected to futility, which is exact same word in your Greek translation of the Old Testament, When Ecclesiastes tells us of right now, everything is vanity, vanity, all is vanity, futility, futility. So creation was subjected to vanity, not willingly, but because of him, God, who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption and the freedom of the glory of the children of God. So creation is wanting to be set free. The new heavens and the new earth. Verse 22, for we know, and you should know, for we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now. And not only this, but also we ourselves having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves grown within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons. Wait a minute, David, you said, you just got me to admit I'm an adopted son. Now you're telling me I'm waiting? Yes. What are we waiting for specifically? Look at your Bibles. The redemption of our body. You know, by the way, all this, all this foolishness, and I'm going to tell you, you know what the health, wealth, and prosperity gospel is? It's what the Protestants with Luther would have called theology of glory. your best life now. There are reformed versions of that. If you just do it right, everything will be alright. Until they turn 18. No. Paul's whole point, in this life, because you are a child of God, because you have the Spirit of God, because of that, you groan. But you don't groan alone. creation groans. And in a way that's too marvelous for me to understand. Verse 26, in the same way the spirit helps our weakness for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep. So even now, the Spirit Himself. You groan, creation groans, the Spirit groans, and we're all groaning for the same thing. That all those that though they are sinless souls in heaven, beholding the glory of God in the face of Christ, they are waiting. Waiting for what? The redemption of their bodies. The resurrection of the last day. This is why there's a Christian Sabbath. on the first day of the week. This is why we gather day in, or week in, week out, to come to hear the Word of God, to partake in the sacrament of God, where God in these means of grace, prayer, where He gives Himself to us, saying, there's more to come, there's more to come. Persevere, persevere. Keep going, keep going. I know you stumbled. My sins, your sins have been forgiven. They were laid on my son. You carry them no more. And someday what we cry from the heart, we'll be able to cry from the lips in his presence, Abba Father, because of your son, I'm your son. And you know, glorified bodies belong in a glorified environment. What is it gonna be like? You know, there's tree huggers, right? And they're happy just to hug the tree. Well, you know that tree, if you're hugging that tree and you understand that tree rightly, you begin to understand what's going on here. You should begin to think, oh, I know you're going to say, David, are you talking about natural theology? Well, does nature have a God? Does nature tell me about God? In the new heavens, new earth, your resurrected eyeballs are going to see things, your ears are going to hear things, you're going to touch things, and with every sight, with every touch, it's going to communicate to you more and more of God and His greatness. Your Bible says abide these three. What? Faith, hope, and love. What's the greatest? You know why? Faith is going to give way to sight. Hope's gonna give way to reality, but God is love. So between now and then, we have the encouragement that our confession is teaching us. The sin does not bring an end, it only elevates. But even in this elevation, all the saints throughout all the ages together with us are waiting. for the final redemption of our bodies in the new heavens, new earth. Amen. Should I pray? And then we'll let Ron come up and answer questions. My gracious father, I know that the day is coming When some of these people here will come up to me in the new heavens and earth, and they're going to say, you tried to tell us, but you didn't even tell us a fraction of what awaits us as your children. We thank you that you sealed Paul's lips. You've only kept that from us, which would not have done us good in this life. of shadows, suffering, of groaning, of apostasy, and unbelief. We ask, oh dear God in heaven, would you by your spirit, through your word, sustain us in our faith, a faith that is attached to none other than your son Jesus Christ. As we get up tomorrow morning, which is for us, every Lord's day is for us a day for us to remember Christ dead and Christ resurrected. Would you let it be tomorrow and the next Lord's day and next Lord's day until we either claimed by death and our Lord Jesus Christ returns. Would you help us more and more to stay attached to you by clinging to Christ Jesus our Lord. We thank you for this gathering together. We ask that we would be very sober-minded with the tremendous matter of the two sacraments of baptism and the Lord's Supper, the gravity of church membership, so that in all these things, you would be honored. That is our desire in this life. So hear us, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Are there any questions for Pastor Dave Charles? Any questions for Ron? So would you say that when we're resurrected, and then the judgment is happening as well, that unbelievers are also resurrected in bodily form as well? And that they aren't just a soul disembodied and now that they're a whole being who's now experiencing death? Yep. Yep. God made us body-soul. And God is not at war with what we are by nature, only by what we are by sin. And sin itself, there's nothing natural or holy about death. The wages of sin is death. The last enemy to be defeated is death. So God is going to, Daniel chapter 12, Jesus himself says that there was a day coming when the dead would be raised up, some to honor, some to dishonor. So yeah, the wicked will be raised up. Now we're not, even if you see how our confession is very careful to talk about how their body is gonna be different, but they will have a resurrected body in which they will suffer. So yeah, there are souls in a resurrected body. will be joined together and they will in that body and soul suffer. Well, you know, again, this is the whisper, right? We would like to know more. But I think with a sanctified imagination, if men like Jonathan Edwards and others And I would agree that what makes hell hell, you remember hell is a lake of fire. And our Bible says in both covenants that God himself is a consuming fire. So what's going to make hell so dreadful is God. Now in this life, I think this was Van Til that would talk about how, in this life, sinners run from one creature to another. Remember Adam and Eve? When they ate their fruit and rebelled against God, the first thing they did was hide from each other. which was basically a form of divorce. They're starting to divorce themselves. The oneness that they had is starting to dissolve. Then God comes and they try to hide from God, right? Remember that? Where did they try to hide from God at? In the trees. It's like, I'm a part of creation. I'm a tree. And you remember it says that when Christ comes back, they're gonna cry out to the rocks and the mountains to hide them. So in this life, what every wicked person does, Paul says they worship and serve the creature rather than the creator. So they want the good stuff that's mediated to them by the creature, but they only want the creature. Now imagine All that, like I have a garage and every year I got to go out there and we get mice and whatnot. I got to set all the traps. And, you know, sometimes I'll see a mouse and I'll go for it and it's hiding there and I kick it and the mouse runs there. So it runs from thing to thing to hide from me. Well, that's what every center is doing right now. They're trying to hide in creation from the creator. Now imagine this. There's no more hiding space. So even if God were to put them in a white cozy room, temperature controlled, they're wearing white, but the whole time, all they can do and see and think about is a God that they hate, day without end. And so, and with all the physical, mental capacities. So when they, like I said, I believe in the new heavens, new earth, because if we're gonna have resurrected bodies, what do you do with the body? Except you see things, you hear things, you touch things. And we'll be able to enjoy that new creation in a heightened way. I think in the same way, they're gonna suffer. in a way that they've never suffered in this life. That's why the Bible is using this language to awaken them from their demonic slumber, to realize you're falling and falling and falling. Eventually, you're going to go into an abyss with no bottom. Does that help? Okay. I mean, you know, look, once again, this is one of those whispers. We know they're gonna be resurrected. What kind of bodies? A dishonorable body, because that's what they're gonna suffer. forever. Shame. They're going to suffer shame. So that's the best I can... Ron, you wanna add anything? Amen. Okay. Yeah. I noticed when you described this, it was in two parts. So do you see the use of the word soul, the use of the word spirit as absolutely synonymous or have a thought on that? Yeah, you know, that's a really interesting question. I did somewhat anticipate that. Before I was Reformed Baptist, I was raised in a Pentecostal church, raised and then was involved in the charismatic movement, and trichotomy was just a part of it. And when I started reading the Confessions, started reading other stuff, and then the Bible, it became clear to me that those terms are used synonymously throughout. I think there's only two places where soul and spirit are mentioned together, but I would take them to be were made of material and in material. Well, just as you look at your material part, it's all matter, it's all material, but there's a complexity to it. You got bone, you got muscle, and you have different, you have what, 11 different systems that our body has. Our soul has an unequal amount of complexity. We're not simple. We're complex. So, Jesus says you have to love God with all your... and he lists these things, some of which are clearly synonymous. In the scripture, mind is an activity of the heart, so is feelings. There's a complexity going on there. I wouldn't want to be hard and fast. Because again, you find the terms used synonymously throughout scripture. And you're almost always holding this tension of what's physical, flesh, spirit, body, soul. So yeah, I take them to be the same. You want to add anything to that? Just that I think the basic, I agree with that. If you think about creation, what is it? Dust? What's death? Separation of these two things. We have no other creational or death descriptions. Is the soul complex? Clearly. Could spirit, in a few cases, be used to mean a certain section or portion? Just like the mind can. Right. And all kinds of different words used there. But I don't think we have one material substance and multiple immaterial substances. Now, I'm not an expert on this, but everybody I know that is a trichonomist at some point or another falls into some sort of error. Most recently, it was really ironic that it happened, somebody shared something, and I started listening, this guy who was a scientist, he's well known on Fox News and whatever, and now he thinks he's a theologian, and I got like three minutes into it, and he started making a case for trichotomy, and I just stopped. And I told the person who shared this, I said, listen, every trichotomist I know ends up in some sort of error. because they think they see a distinction, then they start building upon the distinction, and you usually end up with some sort of mysticism, and in this case, this friend of mine actually ended up with embracing something like soul sleep. The spirit is with God, but it's timeless, and it's all like, it was very confused, so nothing comes out of trichotomy. I'm not saying it itself is heretical, but it's not, it doesn't reflect the orthodox consensus. So like you, am I allowed to talk about the Chalcedonian Creed? Okay. You know, there, when the church talks about, and like, if you've ever heard of Polynareus, he was like trichotomous. And he tampered with Christ's full humanity because he said in place of the human spirit was the logos. And of course the church said, no, he is a real body and a rational soul. And that's what we believe. So our Christology corrects it all the way through because Christ was fully, and he had to be fully human. If you have a soul, he has a soul. If you have a body, he has a body. And Polynerius slipped in his, error, which really, in large measure, gave us the Chalcedonian Creed. Our church does the Chalcedonian Creed every other week. We say Nicene, in the second service we say Nicene, and then we say the Chalcedonian Creed. So, it's been kind of interesting, because the Chalcedonian Creed, I'm getting, you know, as I get older, my beard gets longer, I get crankier, and it's like when people are like, I liked everything except when you said, Mary's the mother of God. It's like, well, If you heard everything we believed in, so it's better that you find out now. So they don't, sometimes they'll stick around because I'll explain, look, because if you look at the Chalcedonian Creed, it says, according to the manhood, and it's just Trump, it's again, it's pushing against Polynareus. Jesus wasn't a man who God came upon from the moment of conception. What was in Mary's womb was God, God bear. So which was body and soul. Brother Charles, would you like to just make a quick announcement about your conference that you're having next weekend? And then I have an announcement and we'll all continue. Thank you for reminding me. In Toledo, which I realize would probably be too much of a drive for most of you, but I do want to invite you a week from today, our church is going to have James Dulzall at our church. Saturday, he's going to give three seminary level lectures. We've had initially, now I've never met James, I've talked to him on the phone a number of times, but I've had, Sam Rinehan's a good friend, Rich Barsell's a good friend, they came and they did three seminary lectures both, and then James is gonna be here, and then later on we'll have Chuck Rennie, and then Jim, hopefully Jim Rinehan will come around. But if you're free next Saturday, you're welcome to come, I just, we need an RSVP, because we're gonna provide lunch, and so we need to get a good head count. Starts at 11 o'clock Yeah, but if you want to go just come up to me let me know you want to come so I can give you my my email that way you can RSVP and I'll likewise send the information to you if you're interested Did you record the Q&A We're not that sophisticated yet It is recorded