We are continuing this morning the study in the little book, The Doctrine of Revelation. I'll probably stop bringing it at some point here, but just in case you don't have a copy or you want to see it, that's the book by Arthur W. Pink. And we are starting with Chapter 5. Andy asked me to give a list of the chapters, and I saw that was sent out the other day. That's my tentative plan. I may adjust. You'll notice I doubled up on one chapter one week to make up for being off next week, and I'll be traveling in September. But hopefully it'll go well, and those chapters are the right ones to kind of squeeze together. I've also noticed, though, as I've gone through the book, that there are certain things I just can't dig down into like Pink does in the book. It would simply take way too long to dig into those. Doesn't mean they're not important. I want to make sure that was my point to say that. But this is a survey. We're doing a survey of the book. It's to bring our minds on these things. And so, not only can you benefit from reading the book, But you can also benefit from looking at these things in scripture because ultimately that's what matters. It's not the book or any other book that we read that directs and guides our doctrine. It is the scriptures and we need to make sure that we're looking at the scriptures and comparing scripture with scripture and seeing if the things that we're looking at are indeed true. We looked last week at chapter 5, God's written communication, which is the Word of God. That is kind of the summary of this whole point of the doctrine of Revelation. God has revealed himself to us, and he has summarized it and left it with us in the form of the Holy Word of God. And we have that with us, and you'll see that especially this morning as we look more into prophecies and miracles. Those things, miracles in particular, those things have ceased. Why? Because they're not needed anymore. There is a more sure testimony to the things of God, and we all carry copies of it. And we all have multiple copies of it in most cases. And we have distribution of it. We went to the Fourth of July Parade in Stanton, and I think Steve, I mean Steve Moody, I know you've been there a while, but I think I counted five or six Gideons standing there handing out Bibles as people walked in. And so our country is awash with the Word of God, but it's obvious that our country also doesn't read it often enough to say so. The church billboards that you see as you drive around are clear evidence of that. There are people who call themselves pastors who put up nonsense on church billboards because they don't have a basic fundamental understanding of the Word of God and how to interpret it. And so it's very important that as Christians professing to seek after God in a serious fashion, that we know the Word of God and we hold the Word of God in reverence and we study it. So we started, like I said, with chapter 5, God's written revelation, the Word of God. And today we're going to look at chapter 6, which is addressed, the Word of God is addressed to reason and conscience. And I think this is important. At first when I read it, this was one of the chapters I considered doubling up on, and then I got reading it and digging into it a little more, and I said, no, no, this is one that I think I need to stop and spend some time on. We do not blindly walk in the dark when we talk about living by faith. And so much of the world tries to say, oh, you Christians, you just blindly believe in something you can't see, something you can't prove. And in fact, it is the exact opposite of that. Anyone who walks without Christ is walking in the dark. The scriptures use that analogy, and it's very appropriate, but it's because it's reality. God created light, and that light shines into the darkness. And the scriptures were given to men, to us, who have a nature created by God. All right? No questions there, right? We are made in God's image, right? But that's not so much a reference to a physical image of how we look. God is a spirit. We are created in the image of God in the way that God is, and so therefore we have reason and we have self-awareness. And oftentimes you'll see people around you, more and more in this day and age, you will see people around you confusing man and all the rest of creation. And so why do people worship their animals, their dogs and their cats? Why do people spend millions of dollars, okay, thousands of dollars probably, on animals? to keep them alive at any cost. And I've spent some money on animals that was questionable. I'm not in any way trying to judge anybody. You do what you do, and you do what your budget will allow. But why do people act that way? Because they think animals are the same as us. We're animals. Right? We are no different than the animals. I just saw, I don't know, a couple days ago, Jane Goodall, who some of you may remember, she was the chimp lady, came out and I don't know what it was about because I just saw it and kept on going. But basically came out at some big conference, probably hosted by the United Nations or somebody, and saying that there is no difference between animals and men. They should all have the same basic rights and be treated the same way. Those are the same people that murder babies in the womb and say, that's a woman's decision, by the way. Keep that in mind. Once you start twisting the realities of God's world, you can end up anywhere. Once you lose sight of what is true, you can believe any falsehood. And those are scriptural principles there. They're clearly in the scripture. But God created us after his image with the ability to reason and with the ability to be aware of who we are. Don't take that lightly. Understand that's part of what God appeals to in the Word of God. So it's not a blind faith. The Word of God is addressed to reason and to conscience. That's self-awareness. That's conscience. It's the fact that we can think about ourselves today, and we can think about what we did yesterday, and what we're going to do tomorrow, and we can feel that was right, that was wrong, As the Word of God applies, that was sinful. But you see, that's self-awareness. I had an example of it this morning. You can laugh at me, but we're babysitting somebody's dog. I thought we had the dumbest dog in the world until we got this dog over, and now we have the two dumbest dogs in the world. And I love them both, don't get me wrong. Dylan and Oso are great dogs, probably my favorite dog so far. But they are not real bright. But one of the things that Oso does is he'll come up, and I was sitting on the porch going over things and reading this morning, and he'll come up, and he'll want me to pet him. He'll just put his head up there, and he's real laid back about it. He's not aggressive. He just puts his head up on the arm of the chair, and he wants me to rub his head. And I rub his head, and I say, okay, that's enough. And he turns around, and he literally turns around in a circle, and he comes back. And I'm like, didn't you remember? I just did that like 12 seconds ago. No, he has no awareness. What he knows is, feels good when his head gets rubbed. And so he's not aware of himself. He's not, he doesn't have that consciousness that we do. And so we see this in two areas in particular of witness in the scripture, the application of reason and conscience to the revelation of God. We see this in two areas, prophecy, and miracles. And I'm going to try to spend a lot less time on prophecy than on miracles. We'll see how that goes. But I want you to see this, that these things that are contained in Scripture that Christians often kind of take for granted. We think of prophecy, and we think of miracles, and we're like, well, yeah, that's part of Scripture. That's part of what we would expect. That's part of our normal life. But a lot of people don't live in that perspective. They think those things are like fairy tales. They're like any other kind of fictional thing that, that's just foolishness, that doesn't mean anything. But they are related to God's appeal to us or God's address to us through the word of God to our reason and our conscience. So first of all, prophecy. Two thoughts, God himself points to prophecy as proof of the nature of the communications via his servants. Okay? How do we know that the Word of God is the Word of God? One of the proofs that God offers is prophecy. Both historical, things that have been prophesied in the past and either come to pass or are coming to pass, and yet to come. Things that are prophesied now or in the Word of God now and will come to be in the future. And we see that. There's much less of it because there's no need with the completion of the canon of Scripture. But there are still things in, for instance, the book of Revelation that tell us things that are to happen. And we are to read those things and understand how they fit in to God's proof that this is Him communicating to His servants. Seven times in the book of Isaiah alone, He challenges false religion to produce any revelations like His own. I'll give you one example. Isaiah 41, verse 21 says, "'Present your case,' says the Lord, "'Bring forth your strong reasons,' says the King of Jacob. "'Let them bring forth and show us what will happen. "'Let them show the former things what they were, "'that we may consider them, "'and know the latter end of them, "'or declare to us things to come.'" Do you see the two contrasts there? Those things that have been prophesied historically and have or are coming to pass, those things that are being prophesied for the future that will come to pass. Those are the things God says. He says, you show me someone else that can do that. It's God issuing a challenge, one that is not answered. And He says, let us know these things, because these things show that I am speaking to you. Deuteronomy 18.21 says this, And if you say in your heart, how shall we know the word which the Lord has not spoken? In other words, was it from God or wasn't it from God? When a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the thing does not happen or come to pass, that is the thing which the Lord has not spoken. The prophet has spoken it presumptuously. You shall not be afraid of him. I can't help but think of all the prophets, so-called, who have gone before us and said, the Lord is coming in 1984. Whoops, second edition. The Lord is coming in 2020 or 1999 or whatever. And how do we know that they are wrong and that we should not be afraid of them because they speak falsehood? You can apply this just as an aside. You can apply this principle to your other daily living. We will be covered in ice in 50 years. When was that said? 53 years ago. Not seeing any ice today. In fact, the Dollar General's ice makers broke because it's been overused. You see, it works in common sense areas too. If it comes to pass, the prophet is from God. If it doesn't, you shall not be afraid of him. Interesting phrase of putting it there. Don't be afraid of men that aren't from God. And then secondly, under prophecy, they are proof of God's revelation. Again, in Isaiah 48 and verse three this time, It says, I have declared the former things from the beginning. They went forth from my mouth and I caused them to hear it. Suddenly I did them and they came to pass. And also 1 Kings 8 and verse 25, where we see Solomon praying, therefore, Lord God of Israel, now keep what you promised your servant David, my father saying, you shall not fail to have a man sit before me on the throne of Israel. Only if your sons take heed to their way that they walk before me as you have walked before me. And now I pray, O God of Israel, let your word come true, which you have spoken to your servant, David, my father. And what happened after Solomon? His sons did not walk in the way of God and they did not sit on the throne. And yet, a son of David, a son of Solomon, came and sat on the throne and still sits on the throne at the right hand of God. And so prophecy is that which reassures us that the word of God that we have is true and we can trust it and we can therefore fear the words that are spoken in it. Now the second area is miracles, and this is gonna take a little more time, and I'm still not gonna get through it all. I'm convinced of that. But miracles, God intervening in the natural order in an extraordinary way, that's my simple definition of a miracle. And there's lots of definitions of miracles, and there's lots of arguing about it, but I think that sums it up based on the many different men that I was looking at and reading. God intervening in the natural order in an extraordinary way and so there's six different things we're gonna look at here and I'll try to keep it straight so you Get the feel for it. But first of all, what is the purpose of miracles because I think this is very important What is the purpose of miracles? that we believe Okay, that's it, clear and simple. That we believe the Word of God. Again, the revelation. It's the doctrine of revelation that we believe the revelation of God to us. Acts 2 and verse 22. Men of Israel, hear these words. Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested by God to you by miracles, wonders, and signs, which God did through him in your midst as you yourselves also know. That was the basis for Peter, I'm pretty sure, saying to those who were listening, believers and unbelievers, by the way, That was a mixed multitude of people. And his opening argument for them to hear the Word of God was, Jesus Christ has been attested to you by God by miracles, wonders, and signs. Now, had all those people seen them? No. but they were receiving the testimony of those who had, and we'll get to that in a minute, hopefully. And also, that's Acts 2, but the revelation continues in the Bible. John 20 in verse 30 says this, sorry, and truly Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name." Right there, one verse, the purpose of miracles. Why are they written in the revelation of God? Why are they continued on? In order that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ and have life. That's a powerful witness for us and to others. When people ask you, well, I don't understand this whole Bible thing. I don't understand this whole Christ thing. You can take them to a simple verse like that and say, here's the reason the Bible's given to us. Here's why it's important. Here's why it's not to be treated lightly and made fun of and made jokes about or memes in our day and age. It is the word of God. given to us that we might have life in the name of Jesus Christ. So not only do miracles have this purpose, but secondly, they're probable. And this was an interesting thought, not one that had really occurred to me, which is why we read books by other men who have gone before and had much greater thoughts than we have. But miracles are probable. Think about this. Since God created the natural world for his glory and our good, it is highly likely that an end of extraordinary importance would necessitate intervention in the ordinary course of things. So we live in the ordinary. We live in times, and I couldn't really come up with a good example, and so I should have, or not do one on the fly, but we live in ordinary times. For instance, rain. We're all sensitive to needing rain right now. We're all praying to one extent or another that God would bless the land and water the land, not just for the farmers and the food, but for the grass, the plants, the water table. And we're all sensitive to, because it's been a long dry spell. And when we get it, it seems like it's just a little tease, okay? But that's the ordinary course of events. When God answers that prayer, there won't be anything extraordinary about it. It will rain. Most men will simply go around and grumble that they couldn't go golfing today. And so it's just something that happens. We should be thankful. We should say on Wednesday when Andy asked for praises, we should say we're thankful that it rained and that we got a good soaking rain. But it's still the ordinary course of events. But extraordinary events are those where God intervenes. And so you remember back to Elijah, because I was reading a lot of him with regard to this, where the heavens did not rain for two and a half years. And when it finally rained, it was because of Elijah's specific intervention. And it wasn't the first time he prayed. He had to pray over and over. And remember his servant said, nothing. And then he said, there's a cloud the size of my fist. And Elijah kept praying, and the cloud got bigger, and eventually it cut loose with the rain that was then given to people. Now, that was a miracle in a sense, but we see it in other areas, too, as far as needing miracles in our lives. We can look at the birth of a child as a miracle, but it's not really. It is a miracle that God takes that child and takes it from a dead man in Adam and makes it alive in Christ. That's the miracle. But the fact that a baby is born after the design of God and the way he's built us and the way he's put us together is amazing. And it is, okay, I'll share this with you. You can fuss at me because I just made fun of memes, but I saw one this week that made, I was like, oh, that's a good one. As soon as someone needs to have a baby born, all of a sudden, when it comes time to choose a surrogate, they know what women are, yeah. The meme was shorter and spiffier, but you get the idea. The idea that we don't know whether you're a man or a woman, the idea that we're confused as to how those things happen, yeah, right up until it actually has to happen. because it is the ordinary course of events. But it is probable that God intervenes in the natural world for extraordinary events. And we think in particular of the incarnation and life of Christ and his death for the sins of his people. All those things were extraordinary. And they were called attention to by the miracles that occurred. from the virgin birth of Christ right up until his ascension into heaven. Many miraculous interventions into the natural, ordinary way of things. And then so, he also, not only are they probable, but they're necessary. If there was to be a restoration of that fellowship with God, which men had severed and forfeited by their disobedience, it must be by supernatural means. This is where all other religion goes wrong. They believe somehow they can restore or create fellowship with God, whatever kind of God they believe in, and they can't, and we can't. When Adam and Eve sinned against God and they died that day, they broke fellowship with God, and it wasn't possible for them to go and restore that fellowship. Only God could restore that fellowship. And so the fact that God has to restore the fellowship means it must be by a supernatural means. So this extraordinary revelation of God as to the means of salvation requires extraordinary proofs. Why would we begin to believe the fact that a man would be able to come and sacrifice himself once for all, and by faith in him, we live in Jesus Christ? Because of the extraordinary proofs of who he was. He was God incarnate. That's not ordinary. That's a miracle. That's something beyond our comprehension. And so it is necessary. And so, again, see how we're using reason to work through these things and to say it was necessary that an extraordinary revelation, the death and sacrifice of Jesus Christ, require extraordinary proofs. So, he then went on to give a definition, and I know I already gave it because I didn't want to have you thinking, wondering about it, but fourth is his definition of miracles. A supernatural work, not after he was born and was being raised. How shepherds were awoken in the fields by the angels singing. All those things, they didn't take that into account. But you see, all that was a supernatural work because of the uniqueness of the incarnation of the Son of God. So we should expect miraculous supernatural work to surround Jesus Christ's incarnation. And in fact, we see that. And then testimony. Like other facts, okay, miracles are certified by reliable testimony. Okay, and that testimony is as conclusive as our own senses or, and I chuckled that he used this example, were mathematical demonstration. I chuckled because my daughter and I and I guess the boys had been talking recently about math is everything. Everything in the world is described by math. It happened to be a conversation around fractals. But weather, why can't they predict the weather? Because they can't model the math of the weather. Maybe someday they will. but they can't do it now. And I was reading a different article that was interesting because it was an unsaved person who basically said, if there's a God, he's seen in the math of the universe, the absolute consistency of the universe. But here's the point. We see things with our own senses and we tend to believe them, right? And we say, well, I saw such and such happen, so I know that happened. But we can be confused. Worst thing that can happen is, you know, guy gets robbed or somebody robs a bank and you question the witnesses and they're all over the place. He was six feet tall, he was five feet tall, he had blue hair, he had blonde hair. And because we can deceive ourselves. So even our senses at times should be question of, did we really see what we thought we saw? But with the testimony of many, there is reliability in that. We see that men in testifying of the things they saw are certified as reliable. Now, it's interesting because Andy mentioned this Wednesday night, and so out of curiosity, I went and dug around a little bit with Google, and he talked about the fact of the number of manuscripts that we have for the Word of God. And I dug around a little bit, because I thought I'd heard this before, and I wanted to make sure before I looked it up. But I found a comparison chart of the New Testament versus the manuscripts of others that we consider to be famous or very reliable. Now, first of all, who knows Lucretius? Really, raise your hand if you know. Yeah, I didn't think anybody was gonna raise their hand. I hadn't heard him, but I looked, and he's a famous old Greek guy. Pliny, everybody remember Pliny the Elder? I got a few nods there, the homeschool moms. They remember Pliny the Elder. He's on your timeline somewhere, guys. Okay, Pliny the Elder lived in AD 61 to 113. I refuse to use the new modern nonsense. It was AD, because that's what happened. From 61 to 113, the earliest copy of Pliny's original works was found in AD 850, 750 years after he had lived. The number of copies of Pliny's work that have been found is seven. You say, okay, I don't know about Pliny the Elder. How about Plato? Everybody knows Plato, right? Plato, who lived from 427 to 347 BC, the earliest copy of his work was found in AD 900, 1,200 years after he'd lived. How many copies of Plato do we have? Seven. I'll skip along here. Caesar, everybody knows Caesar, right? He lived from 100 to 44 BC. The earliest copy of a manuscript by him was found in AD 900, a thousand years after he'd left. We have 10 copies of what Caesar wrote, and yet who in the world doubts what happened to Caesar? And there are other documents that also tell us what happened. Homer, the Iliad, Again, you homeschool people, you've had to read it. It's a good book, actually. It's long. 900 BC was written. It was first found, a manuscript of it, in 400 BC, 500 years after it was written. The number of copies of Homer's Iliad, 643. And why do I point it out? Because they say the accuracy of the copies, in other words, looking at the copies, comparing them to each other, the accuracy between the copies is 95%. That's pretty good, especially with 643 manuscripts. Now, why have I taken all this time? The New Testament was written in the first century AD, AD 50 to 100. The earliest copies of the New Testament were found from the second century AD, approximately 130 or so. So less than a hundred years, in fact, 30 to a hundred years. How many copies of the manuscripts of the New Testament do we have? 5,600. It's not even close. What is the accuracy of the copies of the New Testament that we have? 99.5% between the 5,600 manuscripts. And that .5% that does not agree, as Andy mentioned, does not in any way impact any doctrines of the church, any practices of the church. It is amazing how God has preserved and kept the New Testament. Now, why do I present all that? You will probably never convince anyone who doesn't believe the Word of God is the Word of God that it is because of that information. But it is a reminder to us that God is a God of reason. And God is a God who bases things on fact. And there is no reason to think that, well, we believe something that's kind of vague and may or may not be true. And you'll see this pop up in the news every once in a while that, oh, we've discovered a new epistle. We've discovered a new gospel. Nonsense. There is no new revelation. Does that one book that you found disagree with the 5,600 copies that God has preserved for us? Then who cares? Hogwash, nonsense. So you see, we have certifiable, reliable testimony regarding the Word of God and regarding the miracles in the Word of God. And then the sixth thing, and this is where we'll end this morning is this. the evidence for the miracles of God. And I couldn't help but use, and he has a number, we're not gonna probably use all of them, or I'll at least skip over them as I mention them. But he started with Moses, and Moses is always one of my favorite. Moses and the burning bush, because we all talk about Moses seeing the burning bush. And Moses sees the burning bush, and he gets close to it, and God says, not so close, holy ground, take your shoes off. And God reveals something to Moses at the burning bush. What we often miss, though, is what happens next. Exodus 4 and verse 1, then Moses, well, God reveals something to him and says, go tell the people. back in town. And in verse one of chapter four of Exodus, Moses answered and said, but suppose they will not believe me or listen to my voice. Suppose they say the Lord has not appeared to you. In other words, I've got to go back to town and I got to tell people I saw a bush that burned that was not consumed and then God spoke to me out of it. Who do you think is going to believe that? And God says, that's not a problem. So the Lord said to him, what is that in your hand? And he said, a rod, because he didn't go forth without his rod. A rod. And he said, God said to him, cast it on the ground. So he cast it on the ground and it became a serpent and Moses fled from it. I didn't notice that till this morning, actually. When he threw the rod down and it became a serpent, that serpent was so fearful and the shock of what had just happened was so great that Moses ran away. Think about that for a minute. This isn't Moses pulling a magic trick. This is the truth of the word of God capturing little details that show us how valid and how real this is. That's what we would do, right? And so God has to say to him, then the Lord said to Moses, reach out your hand and take it by the tail. Don't even make him grab it by the head. Grab it by the tail, as far away from that snake as you can get. And Moses reached out his hand and caught it, and it became a rod in his hand. That was a parentheses where God had said, take it by the tail that they may believe that the Lord God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob has appeared to you. Now, just as an aside, the kids down in Sunday school are probably learning about Moses and the rod and the snake. Parents, are you making the rest of this application to them as you talk about it with them? Oh, that's a beautiful picture of a snake. That's a funny looking color snake you got there, purple. Or do you say, that's a great picture of the snake and you tell me about the story and they tell you about the story and you say, now let me tell you, why did God do that? so that Moses's testimony of God's revelation to him would be believed by others. And of course, you're going to explain that different to a three or four year old than maybe to a 10 year old. But you see the point. These things that are written are written for our benefit. They are written for a purpose. Not for the fascination of a rod becoming a snake and Moses being able to show that he was a man from God, but for him being able to show he was a man from God so they would believe the revelation that God had given him. And that's what Moses did as he went forth and became a mouthpiece for God. Now, the one I knew I was gonna skip was Elijah. I would love to do Elijah, but that would be like a whole lesson all by itself. I will tell you again, I'm pretty sure they're on Sermon Audio now. Used to be you had to buy them on cassette tapes, which the speaker at Sermon Audio, Family Conference was joking about, you remember when we used to go to Family Conference and when it was over, you'd run back to the table and you'd order the cassette tapes and you'd wait eagerly for them to show up. Okay, I'll explain to anybody that doesn't know what cassette tapes are. But I'm pretty sure it's on Sermon Audio. If you've never listened to Pastor Martin's series on Elijah and Elisha, you are missing out. It will not be the same as being there, but they are powerful. And others have done series too, but I just remember that because I was there as a young man. But Elijah in particular called down fire from heaven on false gods. And you remember, he went up and he said to the people, you need to decide who to follow. They were kind of wishy-washy and he says look, I'll I'll have a showdown you get all your false prophets together and we'll go up on the mountain and you get your Sacrifice and you set it all up and you call down fire from your God to set that sacrifice to consume it and show his acceptance and nothing happened they danced they yelled they cut themselves they hollered and nothing happened and Elijah went and got pitchers of water, not usually associated with fires, and he doused his sacrifice, and he made a trench, and he doused around it, and he covered it with water. There was no doubt that he was not trying to pull some trick. And he called down fire from heaven and God consumed the sacrifice, the altar, the water around it, and showed that he was God. Now, what was the purpose of all that? To show that the word that Elijah was speaking to the people of God was true. How do we know that for sure? Because in the New Testament, James and John said to the Lord Jesus Christ, should we call down fire from heaven like Elijah did on those people who didn't like they were passing through their city? And Jesus said, absolutely not. Why? because there was no point to it. It wasn't a show of force. It wasn't a, I'm with God, look out for me. It was done for Elijah to show the revelation that he had from God was true. So always look for that. When you see people talking about miracles and doing miraculous things, and it's all to draw attention to themselves or to increase their ministry, you can know right away, they're false prophets. Why? because they don't understand the purpose of miracles, which is testimony and evidence as to the things of God. Christ can't pass this one over. Christ is it shows the evidence of the miracles. John 1411, he shows the testimony and evidence together. John 1411, Jesus Christ says, believe me that I am in the father and the father in me, or else believe me for the sake of the works themselves. Jesus said, believe what I'm saying because of the works that I am doing, the miracles that I am doing. Luke 16, 31, but he said to him, if they, this was to the man who had gone, he had died and he said, send someone back to my brothers who were still alive. And he says to him, Abraham says to him, if they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded the one rise from the dead. And that is true. If men don't hear the word of God, Moses and the prophets, the Old Testament, now the New Testament, if men don't hear that, they won't be persuaded even though one rise from the dead. How do we know that? Jesus Christ rose from the dead. And what do we get on Easter? We get the Easter bunny. We get people going to church once a year, because it's kind of sentimental to do, but they don't believe that there was a man who died and went to the grave and was raised from that grave and ascended to the right hand of God. And then finally, I'll close with this one, Peter himself, Peter closing in Acts 2.22, which we'd already read, but pointing all men to the wonders, testifying to Christ. Men of Israel hear these words, Jesus of Nazareth, A man attested by God to you by miracles, wonders, and signs, which God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves also know. How do we know those things? Because they're in the word of God. Do you see the importance of the word of God in our lives? Do you see the importance of God taking and revealing himself to us and preserving it in a means that we can access every day of our lives? And so, of course, the question is, do we access that every day of our lives? Do we take seriously the revelation of God that he's given to us? Let's close with a word of prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for the word of God and for your revelation in it. We would know nothing of salvation. We would know there is a God. We would know that we are separated from him, but we would not know the means of being reconciled to him. Thank you for your mercies to us. And may these truths take precedent and weight in our hearts and minds above all things that happen on this earth, all things that have happened before and will happen again. May we instead focus on eternal things, and especially as they relate to ourselves. We ask for your mercies as we continue to worship this day. In Jesus' name, amen.