Just for your information, we are making our way through the Westminster Confession. We are not very far. We are still in Article 1, which you find in your Trinity Psalter hymnal on page 919. And we have looked at the rationale for the beneficial use of confessions and I say beneficial use of the confessions because there's also a non-beneficial use of the confessions which cannot be repeated often enough. As faithful as we believe our confessions are, both the three forms of unity and the Westminster standards, as much we have to remind ourselves that they are still that. They are confessions and not per se the Word of God. They are subordinate standards. They are not on the same level with the Word of God. Although we are quick to say that we believe that they represent the teachings of Holy Scripture faithfully. And as far as they represent and teach the Scriptures faithfully, these doctrines are inspired doctrines. It's not that the confessions are inspired. It is the doctrines that are faithfully brought from the Scriptures are inspired. Now, every church has confessions, either written or unwritten, even if they proclaim or say or object and say, we do not have confessions. And all you have to do is tell them something, like if it's an independent Bible church, you say, would you baptize my baby? And they will immediately show you that they do have a confession. That's the way that they understand Holy Scripture. And I'm not ridiculing them, but every church, every congregation has a confession. It's just far more... helpful if the confession is written down and be seen or can be seen and read by anyone. If somebody comes in here and says, what do you believe? I can always point them to the Westminster standards and say, this is what we believe. You can go on the Internet at home and you can not only read it, but you can hold me and everyone else in this congregation accountable. with the Westminster Standards, because that's the confession that we have adopted, which is almost 100% congruent with the three forms of unity that cannot be said often enough, especially in a town like Grand Rapids, Michigan, of course. Now, a confession summarizes the teachings of Scripture in a systematic way. And a written confession provides transparency, clarity, and also unity. The teachings of the confessions are the teachings of Scripture as far as a confession faithfully represents Scripture. And in doubt, we always come back to Scriptures. In doubt, every confession has to be double-checked and has to be accountable to Holy Scripture. Now what we say is, for example, with the Westminster Confession of Faith, when you think about it, that it was written in the 1640s in More than 450 years, odds are not in your favor that you will find something that is not in line with the Holy Scriptures. Now, you will find something, of course, and I could tell you something that I wish would have been written a little bit differently, but you won't find something. And I have the same belief concerning the three forms of unity. You won't find something that is not in accord with Scripture. And at least statistically you must understand that what has been tried in four to five hundred years is most likely not to happen now in a society or in a church that is far more biblically illiterate, if you allow me, to call a spade a spade than it was back then. And by preaching through the confessions, which is not, by the way, a very common thing in Presbyterian churches, but that is one thing that we can take from the German and Dutch Reformed tradition. It is a helpful practice. And I'll tell you why, from a very practical standpoint. While the standard way of preaching is and should be expository preaching through whole books, we do believe that topical preaching is also very important. Because there's two ways to look at doctrine. The one is through whole books of the Bible and the other one is in a systematic way. And when we preach through the confessions, we, for example, when we preach on the question of God's providence, we look at the whole Bible. And we look what the whole Bible has to say to God's providence. While we only preach through Romans, we only get some aspects of God's providence and not the whole at a time that would be more redemptive historic preaching. Both are important and that's why we will have both. And this will strengthen both our understanding of our own faith and of truth, as well as our unity, as we read in Amos chapter 3, verse 3. Can two walk together unless they are agreed? So, if we have written down confessions, it is far easier to live in peace with each other on a doctrinal level rather than having non-confession, because then everybody at all times tends to, as we say, reinvent the wheel. And here we have confessions, we don't have to do, for example, you stand and drinking coffee with somebody and the question comes up concerning a doctrinal issue, you don't have to go literally to begin from Adam to unfold the whole thing, to make him understand that you are right and he or she is trying the same thing. No, we go back to the confessions. and say, look, the confessions have settled it for us, and if still one of them or anybody thinks that the confession is wrong, well, then there's a procedure for that. Then you bring it to the attention of church leadership, and it will be discussed, and if indeed, again, against all odds, you find something that is not correct, it will go through the courts of the church, and if it is wrong, It has to be changed because, after all, Scripture is our only guide and the highest measurement for truth and not any man-made confession. We've also looked briefly at the history of the Westminster Confession which was written in the 1640s and you have to understand it was written about 80 years after the completion of the Heidelberg Catechism. So you have to understand that the Westminster divines already had the Heidelberg Catechism to draw from. So I think pitting those two against each other is not really fair. because the Westminster Confession can only be what it is because they stood on the shoulders of giants and that's how church history works. So there were 121 of the best theologians of England, Scotland, Wales, the whole British Isles with some delegates from other places and they for four years or more than four years worked only on the Westminster Confession. Well, the plan was initially to revise the 39 articles of the Anglican Church, but after a while they realized they are not salvageable. And so they wrote a whole new confession. And that is the Westminster Confession. And if you read the Westminster Standards and you read them closely, you will realize you find familiar phrases from the three forms of unity, especially from the Heidelberg Catechism. But what you find a lot is passages, and we will see one today, in the Confession that almost verbatim draw words from Scripture. So they used as much Scripture as they possibly could. And as we were turning to the confession itself, we learned that the Bible is the inerrant, sufficient and authoritative Word of God. That is the presupposition. That is the major assumption before doing any theology, any thinking, any understanding, any discovery. What does it mean that the Bible is inerrant? It means that the Bible doesn't err. There are no errors whatsoever in the originals of the Holy Scriptures. No errors. We also have added to inerrancy a word that's often used synonymously, but strictly speaking is not the same. We used also infallibility because infallibility means the Bible cannot err. And we used an example to explain it. And we talked about that you or I, we can write a shopping list that is inerrant. We can write a shopping list that has no errors in it. It really reflects what we want to buy. But that doesn't make us infallible. So you see, infallible would mean there is no way for us to ever err in anything. And that's what Scripture is, inerrant and infallible. Then we learned that Scripture is authoritative. The Word of God is our only authority in all matters of faith and life. whether it's history, or science, or morality, or law, or government, or geography, anything. The Scripture is the only 100% authority in all matters of faith and life. And then we also saw that the Scriptures are sufficient. It is sufficient, the Word of God is everything we need in order to make it in this life, to say it in a cavalier way. The Word of God is all we need to interpret reality. The Word of God is all you need in order to live a godly, a righteous life. You don't need any aid from anywhere else. You don't need anything else in order to be equipped for every good work. As 2 Timothy chapter 3, 16 and 17 teaches us, it has everything that we may be well equipped for every good work. Now, acknowledging and understanding the Bible as God's Word is the starting point of the Christian faith. In fact, it is the starting point of any true thinking. You know, epistemology or true thinking has everything to do with starting points. What is a starting point? A starting point is your understanding or your belief as to what is the most foundational, the most profound, the most immovable truth there is. That's every man's starting point in thinking. There are assumptions that he has before he thinks about everything, before he even considers whether 2 plus 2 is 4 or something else. There is a faith in him, a metaphysical understanding of everything, from which he builds up his understanding and his interpretation of reality. And that is Holy Scripture. For the Christian, it must be Holy Scripture. It is therefore also the starting point of the Westminster Confession, because the first article, and that is the specialty in the Westminster Confession, the first article is not about God. It's also not about men, it is about God's revelation. It's called of the Holy Scriptures, but it begins, of course, with most basic revelation and then leads all the way to Scripture because the Westminster divines understood that without God revealing Himself, we don't know anything. God has to begin. It was not us who searched for God. It was God who revealed Himself to us. And if He didn't reveal Himself to us, we wouldn't know the first thing about Him. We wouldn't even know whether He was or not. We wouldn't know anything. We wouldn't know whether we existed or not. But we saw there are actually two kinds in which God reveals Himself to mankind. Two kinds of revelation. The first one, general revelation or some call it a natural revelation. That is the revelation that everybody can see in nature. And the second one is special revelation. Those are the communications from God, propositional revelations in words. from God. And this led us into the first paragraph of the Confession, which begins with these words, and it talks about general revelation. Although the light of nature and the works of creation and providence do so far manifest the goodness, wisdom, and power of God as to leave man unexcusable. So this is telling us that God does reveal Himself through nature. And we talked about this, not only through the trees and the sky and the wind around us, but also through history. And not also outside of man, but also inside of man. As we read in Romans 1, that what can be known of God is revealed in them. Even the unbeliever knows that God is. Even he knows it and he has no excuse to say he didn't know. So this first part of the first paragraph just says, yes, God reveals himself enough in nature, outside and inside of man, through his understanding that God is in his own soul, through his conscience that he is, so that man is inexcusable. Although it says that this much there is, that makes man inexcusable, and then it goes on. But we first have to understand that the first paragraph as a whole explains to us the necessity of Holy Scripture. It tells us why we absolutely need Scripture and why we are completely, completely lost, literally lost, without it. And the first sentence of this first paragraph explains general revelation to us. So man can see that God is, man knows that he's guilty before this God. Man knows some of God's majestic attributes. Man also knows that he's guilty before that God. If you don't believe it, read Romans 1.18, where it says that God's wrath is revealed from heaven over all ungodliness and all unrighteousness of man. who suppress the truth in unrighteousness. So every man knows that God is... every man knows that he's guilty before this God, and he suppresses this truth in unrighteousness. So although that man knows to be inexcusable, it then says, this general revelation, this natural revelation, the next sentence of Article 1, yet are they not sufficient to give that knowledge of God and of His will which is necessary unto salvation? Well, that is indeed a desperate situation in which natural man is. He knows that God is, he knows that he's guilty before that God. He sees the majesty and the power and the might of God, but he has no idea how to rectify the situation. He has no idea how to get rid of this wrath of God. That's what it says. They are not sufficient to give knowledge of God and of His will, which is necessary unto salvation. In other words, general revelation does not tell us the gospel. It only tells us the problem. And if you only know the problem, especially if it pertains to you, especially if it pertains to your eternity, it's a truly desperate situation if you do not know the solution to the predicament. And that's why I said it this morning, Vanguard Presbyterian Church and with it Westminster is very much, very much committed to evangelism and to missions. Because there's a world out there of people that know that God is. There's a world out there of people who know that they're under God's judgment and they have no idea how to be saved from this situation. There's a world out there that's literally on its way to hell. And without us telling them the gospel, they will never learn the solution to rectify their miserable predicament. And this is natural man's problem. He sees the problem, but he doesn't know and actually additionally treat is hostile to any solution. But there is a solution and that solution is found in the second part of the first paragraph. After explaining the insufficiency of general revelation for salvation, it says, therefore, it pleased the Lord at sundry times and in diverse manners to reveal Himself and to declare that His will unto His church. And afterwards, for the better preserving and propagating, of the truth, and for the more sure establishment and comfort of the Church against the corruption of the flesh, and the malice of Satan, and of the world, to commit the same wholly unto writing, which makes the Holy Scripture to be most necessary, those former ways of God's revealing His will unto His people being now ceased." Now that's a mouthful of a sentence, isn't it? But this second part actually completes the picture of God's revelation. It presents the solution for the lost sinner who can only see the wrath of God, which is revealed from heaven over their unrighteousness and ungodliness. That's all he sees. Only the special revelation of God. Only God's spoken or written word can complement general revelation in a way as to show man the way to be reconciled with God. There is no other way. I know in broad evangelicalism, there's all kinds of ideas that if... Well, I grew up with this false idea. I never really believed it, I think, or for the most part. It says that, well, if man does not worship trees or idols, but a hidden God, an invisible God, he is saved. No, have we lost our minds? There is no salvation apart from Jesus Christ. There never has been, there never will be. But in order to know about Jesus Christ, in order to know about the incarnation, in order to know about the substitutionary atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ, we have to tell them. They can't see that in nature. They can't feel that in their hearts. They only feel that they're condemned. What a hopeless existence this world is living. And now you probably understand why they're so pleasure-addicted on the one side and so hopeless on the other. God, in the good pleasure of His will, has given us this special revelation. And He gave it to us in a gradual way. We have the Bible here in front of us. It's all written down. A lot of work has already been done, but it has been given. This special revelation has been given in a gradual way. And we have this summarized in the 2 verses, in the 2 first verses of Hebrews that we have as our text, where it says exactly that. that God who at various times and in various ways spoke in time passed to the fathers by the prophets. That's the first one. He spoke to the fathers. He spoke audibly to the fathers through the prophets. So He spoke to them through visions. He spoke to them through dreams, through manifestations of His presence. And they passed those spoken words on to God's people. And then it says in verse 2, "...has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds." So, you have to understand that the Westminster Divines had this text in mind. if you look at the second paragraph or the second paragraph of the first article where it says, therefore it pleased the Lord at sundry times and in diverse manners to reveal Himself. That's almost verbatim taken from the King James Version. So they put in as much Scripture as they possibly could as to add as little human understanding as necessary or possible. So first God reveals Himself through the prophets in the Old and New Testament. And again, they received dreams, they had visions, they had pre-incarnational revelations from Jesus Christ, the angel of God. But then all these prophecies, and that is the revelation that's often forgotten or missed. All these prophecies find their crescendo in the manifestation, in the incarnation of the Lord Jesus Christ. because of Him the prophets spoke, of Him the prophets prophesied. So when the Lord Jesus Christ comes as God incarnate, that is the crescendo of everything that the prophets had prophesied. And that's why it says that in Him, all the promises are yea and Amen. So we have incarnational revelation, that's the most massive, the most clear revelation of them all, the coming of Jesus Christ into this world. And this is the Jesus Christ, the one who being in the form of God, as it says in Philippians 2, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, there we have the deity of Christ, but made Himself of no reputation. taking the form of a bond servant and coming in the likeness of man. That is the ultimate revelation of God. God saying, if I was a man, this is how I would be like. In fact, he became a man and that's who he is. And I always think of Colossians where it says, in him dwells the wholeness of the Godhead bodily. This is God in Babel language. This is God in a language that we can understand. God becomes man and reveals Himself as a man to us with the character who He is. And that is the most expressed, the most clear revelation of them all. Christ is the center of all redemptive history. He's the center of all history. 2 Corinthians 1, verse 20. For all the promises of God, in Him are yes, and in Him, Amen, to the glory of God through us. But it's still not finished. There's another stage of revelation. A third step after the prophets and after the fulfillment and the coming of Christ, as it says in the second part of Article 1, for the better preserving and propagating of the truth, and for the more sure establishment and comfort of the church against the corruption of the flesh, the malice of Satan and of the world, to commit the same wholly unto writing." You see, God knows, of course, the corruption of our hearts. He knows the malice of Satan. He knows the temptations and the deceitfulness of the world. And here we have the three major enemies of the Christian enumerated. the world, the flesh and the devil. And Westminster takes these 3 enemies and says, in order to prevent my word, he says, my word from the assaults and falsifications of these 3 enemies, I committed it all to writing, so it cannot be falsified. That's what this paragraph is saying here. God in His kind providence confirmed His special revelation, His incarnational revelation in written form by the apostles and eyewitnesses for all generations to know the Word of God. And as we read in Hebrews chapter 2, verse 3, How shall we escape? if we neglect so great a salvation which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord and was confirmed to us by those who heard Him. So God appointed man to put His Word once and for all into writing. And He gave His heralds also a badge of identification for all to see that they were really speaking for God. As we see in verse 4, the next verse in Hebrews 2, Where it says, God also bearing witness both with signs and wonders, with various miracles and the gifts of the Holy Spirit according to His own will. So here you have it. Here you have the reason for signs and wonders and miracles. Here you have the reason for the times in redemptive history when we had clusters of miracles. with the coming of Jesus Christ, for example, and the apostles to confirm God's messengers and to confirm God's message. And we have two events in the Holy Scriptures where we have clusters of miracles. Have you ever asked yourself, why do you not ever see miracles? I know I've asked myself this very often as a young Christian. Why? No miracles. And that's one of the major accusations of the world. Show me the miracles. Well, there's a good reason why we don't see miracles. Because they were there to confirm God's messengers and God's message. God's message is now complete. There were two. major redemptive historical events when miracles were clustered. The one was Moses and the Exodus, and the other one was the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ and His apostles as witnesses to Him. That's why in these two events, you have clusters of miracles. And the first one was a picture of the second one. The Exodus out of Egypt was a picture of our salvation in Jesus Christ. The slavery of sin. And the slavery of Egypt was a picture of the slavery and sin. And the Exodus was a picture of our redemption. And that's why those were the only two time periods in redemptive history where you have clusters of miracles. Now, the charismatic movements Act as if there was no special reason for miracles. As if they could use and abuse miracles at their will, but that is not true. Miracles have a reason in redemptive history. They confirm messenger and message. The message is now complete. We don't need any affirmation of prophets who bring us directly the propositional Word of God. And therefore we do not see miracles. Now, what I have to ask you on a personal level, do you see God's care in all of this? You have to see the tender love and care of the great shepherd for his sheep, who makes sure that his children are safe to receive the real word of truth and do not depend or do not fall prey of liars and fall prophets, making sure that they are hearing the true shepherd's voice. You see, from the garden on, And throughout history, the evil one has fiercely attacked, first and foremostly, the Word of God. But those who truly are God's children will always hold on to the voice of their shepherd and will ultimately not be deceived. The Confession tells us then that once the Word was written down, Once it was finished, and here comes a very important phrase, those former ways of God revealing His will unto His people has ceased. This is what Scripture clearly teaches. That once the Canon, Canon means the ultimate measurement or rule, once the Canon of Scripture was finished, which it is, there will be no new revelation. Nobody can come and say, thus says the Lord, unless he reads Scripture to you. Then he can say, thus says the Lord, but there will be no more revelation. There will be no second book of revelation. A third letter to Timothy would be ridiculous because Timothy is with his Lord, has been for a long time. The Word of God is finished. There is no more revelation to come. And that's why we live in a more or less miraculous period now, because if there were miracles, some could claim that where the miracle is, there is the one also who has to be confirmed by these miracles as being a messenger of God's direct revelation, which is not to come anymore. There you have the reason. Well, there's no need to be desperate because you don't see any miracle. I'm not saying that God cannot work miracles, but the reason, the self-explained reason by the Word of God has ceased. There is no more prophet that gives us Christ was the ultimate prophet. There's no more revelation for us to come. And that's why the Westminster Divines, we call them Westminster Divines, don't ask me why, that's just a term that has, I think it's not a very opportune term for sinners, but that's what they're called, the Westminster Divines. That's why they have enumerated all the 66 books in the second paragraph of Article 1. Just to make sure nobody can add any book to the canon of Scripture which is closed. They wanted to make sure nobody sneaks in another book or two or ten, as the Roman Catholics have done. Like they sneaked in or snuck in the so-called Apocrypha. The Apocrypha are late writings from the intertestamental period between Old Testament between Malachi and the New Testament, the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. There were some writings which clearly were not part of the Scriptures, not part of the Canon. And there are several reasons which I cannot go into now. Several clear reasons, some of these apocryphal writings themselves say that they are not the Word of God and yet the Roman Catholics have put them into their Canon. So they say, Westminster says in Article 3, the books commonly called Apocrypha, not being of divine inspiration, are no part of the canon of Scripture, and therefore are of no authority in the Church of God, nor to be any otherwise approved or made use of than other human writings. You cannot say this better. They didn't condemn them as being wrong on everything they say. They just say they're not the Word of God. They're the writings of humans. And you have to discern them. You have to read them like you read any other human writings. So you see that the Westminster Divines were not just mindless radicals. They did have discernment. They were able to apply nuances and say, look, There might be some things in those apocryphal writings that might be helpful as writings of humans. So we do not condemn every word in them, but we condemn them as they claim, they don't claim, but Rome claims them to be the Word of God. That's what they say about them. Now after quoting the 66 books of the Bible, the Westminster Divines put in a highly important addition in Article 2, or in Paragraph 2, It says, all which are given by inspiration of God to be the rule of faith and life. So after they enumerate the 66 books, they say all of them, they are given by inspiration. And we've already talked about this, the word of inspiration, the word inspiration has experienced a change in meaning. And what it means is, and the Greek in 2 Timothy chapter 3, verse 16, the Greek The word Theopneustos means breathed out. That's what the word inspired originally mean. Actually, it should have been expired because it was breathed out. So, they are to be the rule of faith and life. Not a rule, but the rule of faith and life. Not one of many, but their ultimate only defining rule. for faith and life. Well, today people say, even in Presbyterian churches or Reformed churches, well, the Word of God is the rule as far as our salvation is concerned or our faith. When it comes to life, we cannot rely on them. This is a liberalism that is creeping into our churches. But listen again to 2 Timothy 3, verse 16. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God or by the breathing out of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness. And here it comes that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work. Every good work. Scripture is not only for our faith, but also for our practice, for our life, If we would abandon Greek thinking for a moment, we wouldn't have to explain that even because faith is life. And life is faith. The separation in and of itself is a Greek dichotomy which is not biblical. Your faith, there is no faith that doesn't play out in life. But in order for us to understand it, and in order to deal with those who misunderstand or to teach wrong things, they say the Scripture. applies to all areas of our lives. Our King Jesus rules his people through his word. Now the question, all areas or just some? And I'm happy to quote Abraham Kuyper. All areas of life. There's not a square inch in the whole domain of all of human existence over which Christ is Lord, over which he does not call out mine. All of them. And how does He claim it all? Through His Word, through His Word, God's Word. God's special revelation is our only rule as to how to interpret all things in reality and how to do all things in reality. Everything has to go through the standard of Holy Scripture. What happened? battery. That's when you buy cheap stuff. I'm sure life was hard in the 17th century, but boy I wouldn't miss these technology things. Every preacher becoming a Christmas tree with all the electronics but we also have to be thankful for it so the shahadins can hear preaching that is also a great a great blessing so what we have to do We have to apply the Scriptures to all areas of life, and it begins with our thinking. And a locus classicus text would be 2 Corinthians 10, verse 5. We are called to bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. 2 Corinthians 10, verse 5. Every thought must be arrested. That's military language. Every thought must be taken against his will and be turned in line with the Scriptures. That's how we ought to think. Because out of thoughts, our volition acts. Out of these thoughts, our acts are born. And the sum of our acts, of our actions, are our lives. And our lives must be under the rule of Christ. Our whole thinking, no matter what area, must be arrested into the Word of God. Now, how can some say then, The Bible is only for the gospel and for our personal faith as we increasingly hear in churches. It's like there's a Dutch saying that says it's me and the book curled in a corner, hyper-pietism, Jesus and me under a tree. that is not our faith. Our faith is all-encompassing. The Word of God applies to all areas of life, and to say that the Word of God is limited just to personal holiness, to my personal life inside the wall of the church, would be very wrong, very unreformed, and very unbiblical. The Bible is the inerrant, infallible, authoritative, and sufficient Word of God through which Christ rules His people because all Scripture is given by inspiration of God. May God help us to see it as that, to read it as that, and to apply it for all areas of our faith and our practice. Amen and amen. Let us pray. Almighty God, our most gracious Heavenly Father, we thank you for your Word, and we ask you for forgiveness that so often we neglect it, forget that it has power, Power to work in us, power to change us, power to guide us, to encourage us, to lift our eyes up unto you, Lord Jesus, you author and finisher of our faith. O Lord, help us to develop a new appreciation for your word. And may we love it and love to obey it. O Holy Spirit, fill us and help us in our sanctification for the glory of your name. and for the good of your people. In Jesus' name we pray, and all of God's people say, Amen. We respond to the preaching of God's Holy Word by singing number 138B, like Bravo. 138B, with grateful heart, my thanks I bring. 138B, and we rise as we sing. With grace...