I'm gonna use the larger catechism this evening for our confessional lesson. Question and answer 77 and 78. You can find these in the back of your hymnal on page 948. 948. We're gonna read question 77 and 78 on page 948. And by the way, question 77 is truly a gem. It actually covers something that's really not covered in any of our other confessional documents, and it does it wonderfully. Question 77, wherein do justification and sanctification differ? Although sanctification be inseparably joined with justification, yet they differ. in that God in justification imputes the righteousness of Christ, in sanctification His Spirit infuses grace and enables to the exercise thereof. In the former, sin is pardoned. In the other, It is subdued. The one does equally free all believers from the revenging wrath of God and that perfectly in this life that they never fall into condemnation. The other is neither equal in all nor in this life perfect in any, but growing up to perfection. And then question 78, whence ariseth the imperfection of sanctification in believers? The imperfection of sanctification in believers arises from the remnants of sin abiding in every part of them and the perpetual lustings of the flesh against the spirit, whereby they're often foiled with temptations and fall into many sins, are hindered in all their spiritual services, and their best works are imperfect and defiled in the sight of God. So question 77 is addressing the important theological issue of identifying for us the relationship between justification and sanctification. By way of review, justification is a one-time act of God where the judge of all the universe declares us pardoned for the sake of Christ's finished work. He bore our sins on the cross in his body and those sins were punished as they were placed on him. And this is important because when we speak of God's forgiveness, it's not as though God decided that you and me, that God looked at you and me and decided we're just so doggone lovable that he's gonna pretend we're not sinners. No, his justice demands satisfaction. And since we could never bear the penalty of his wrath, Only the God-man can do that. So Jesus stepped in as our substitute, took our sins upon himself, and then the punishment was poured out on him. And God's justice is fully satisfied. That's justification, an act of God. But sanctification is an ongoing work of God in the life of His children. It's the process where the Holy Spirit begins to reshape us and transform us so that increasingly we are becoming more and more like Jesus. And this question and answer teaches us important truths as we relate these two doctrines, justification and sanctification. Where justification is concerned, all believers are essentially equal. Christ's life, death, resurrection, they are sufficient to save us eternally. And that's precisely true of every believer, because we get the same thing in our justification. If you believe in Christ, if you lay hold of Him with the empty hand of faith, your sins are pardoned, you get His righteousness. More faith doesn't get more righteousness, less faith doesn't get less righteousness. Saving faith gets the fullness of Christ's righteousness. so that the godliest Christian who's ever lived isn't more justified than you. In justification, all our sins are removed, Christ's righteousness is provided, and both are complete works of God. So, to put it bluntly, the great apostle Paul is no more justified than Chip Byrd. But that's not the way sanctification works. That's a process that'll take shape in different ways and to different degrees in the lives of God's people. The rate in which we mature, the level of practical holiness that we attain, the particular temptations that we struggle with, and the degree to which we might have an overcoming victory in respect to those sins, it's not gonna be the same for me as it is for you or anyone else in this congregation or necessarily any other believer. One of the reasons this is helpful information is because if we can get this in our mind and think about this rightly, it can keep us from becoming self-righteous or developing a holier-than-thou attitude. It reminds us that different people are gonna have different struggles with sin and that God's at work in them. And I'll tell you why this is important. If you're anything like me, You can find it rather easy to criticize people if they battle with a different category of sin than you do, right? You know, you've got that friend who has anger issues, and you know good and well that's a violation of the sixth commandment. Jesus says so. And it could be that's not a sin that causes you a lot of trouble. So you start to think, what's wrong with that guy? That sin's not a hard one for me. Why is it so doggone hard for him? Of course, you never take that tack when you're dealing with your besetting sins, do you? You see, knowing that sanctification has this personal dimension, it can keep us from self-righteousness. Now having said that, another thing we learn from this confessional lesson is that justification and sanctification are inseparably joined. And what that means is that there's no such thing as a sinner who's been forgiven, who's been justified, and is not becoming more like Jesus, right? That animal doesn't exist. If we have a saving, justifying faith, it's because the Holy Spirit has given us life and has given us the free gift of faith and enabled our hand to lay hold of Christ. And you see where there's faith and life, there will be transformation from one level of glory to another. So if there's new life, there will be growth in godliness. So while God's work to sanctify us isn't gonna look the same in all believers, all true believers will be sanctified by God. Now you notice the question 77 ends by reminding us that our sanctification It's not going to be perfect in any of us on this side of glory, but it's growing up toward perfection. And then question 78 steps in and basically asks, why isn't our sanctification perfect? And the answer is that we still have the remnants of sin corrupting us, where there's a constant struggle against the lustings of the flesh and against the spirit. The Apostle Paul puts his own struggles in this area on display in that remarkable passage in Romans 7. I'm going to read a few verses beginning in Romans 7 verse 18. Paul writes, for I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now, if I do what I do not want, it's no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. So I find it to be a law or a principle that when I want to do right, Evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. And of course, after the apostle rehearses these things, he's left crying out, wretched man that I am, who will rescue me from this body of death? And then he answers his own question, thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. And see, that's the battle that believers are gonna be in till Christ calls us to glory. Then there will be no more warfare. Then there will be no more sin struggles. Then there will just be our righteous selves in the presence of righteous Christ and enjoying Him forever. Well, one of the reasons I chose this lesson is that it helps us think rightly about the ongoing presence of sin in the life of believers who are being sanctified. And we should keep that principle in mind even when we're thinking about biblical characters, right? Which will become relevant for us in our sermon this evening. But for now, let's continue praising the Lord, standing to sing number 466. 466, my faith looks up to thee. Well, let me ask you to turn in your Bibles to 2 Chronicles 32. 2 Chronicles 32, and we're gonna read verses one through eight, but then you're gonna wanna keep your Bibles handy because eventually we'll be wrapping up and going back to 2 Kings. 2 Chronicles 32. As I've said before, that's the part of your Bible that probably still has a lot of embossing, a lot of gold left on the pages. 2 Chronicles 32, we're gonna read verses one through eight. After these deeds of faithfulness, Sennacherib, king of Assyria, came and entered Judah and camped against the fortified cities, thinking to win them over to himself. And when Hezekiah saw that Sennacherib had come and that his purpose was to make war against Jerusalem, he consulted with his leaders and commanders to stop the water from the springs which were outside the city, and they helped him. Thus, many people gathered together who stopped all the springs and the brook that ran through the land, saying, why should the kings of Assyria come and find much water? And he strengthened himself, built up all the wall that was broken, raised it up to the towers and built another wall outside. Also, he repaired the Milo in the city of David and made weapons and shields and abundance. Then, He sent military captains over the people, gathered them together to him in the open square of the city gate and gave them encouragement saying, be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid nor dismayed before the king of Assyria, nor before all the multitude that's with him, for there are more with us than with him. With him is an arm of flesh, But with us is the Lord our God to help us and to fight our battles. And the people were strengthened by the words of Hezekiah, king of Judah. The grass withers, the flowers fade, but the word of God, it endures forever. And he blessed to our hearts this evening. dearest congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ. Over the past several weeks, we've learned that Hezekiah was truly a great reformer. What he did by way of reestablishing worship and piety in Judah was unparalleled. In fact, the passages we've studied thus far in 2 Chronicles and 2 Kings as they relate to Hezekiah make you realize that as far as religious reformers go, it is hard to find his equal. But beginning this week, the focus is going to shift from Hezekiah the religious reformer to Hezekiah the king and the commander of Judah. And while he certainly presented to us as a faithful king, we're gonna discover that his reputation as a king isn't nearly as stellar as his reputation as a reformer. As we'll see in just a moment, he definitely begins his kingly duties strong and with a sense of faithfulness. But we're going to also see at a couple points in his reign, Hezekiah will have a couple crises of faith and will stumble. And we actually get a hint of that transition in our text right here in 2 Chronicles. If you glance how the previous chapter ended, we're told there in 2 Chronicles 31, 21, And in every work that he began in the service of the house of God, in the law and in the commandments to seek his God, he did it with all his heart, so he prospered. So compared to the other kings of Judah, that's truly a remarkable commendation. But then look at the opening phrase in chapter 32. after these deeds of faithfulness. So at this point, our narrator wants us to draw a distinction between Hezekiah's work to restore and reform the temple and the way that he's gonna handle the invasion of the Assyrians under the reign of Sennacherib. Now, as I said, his initial response to the threat of Sennacherib, it's impressive. And that's where we're going to spend much of our time this evening. But then we're going to see that his faith buckles. So keep that in mind. That's part of the reason I chose that confessional lesson, because we have to be reminded that the men in the Bible are sinners saved by grace. I know having talked with folks over the years, when we think about the biblical characters, we want to draw two columns. This is the hero column, this is the villain column, and we want to put them in one of those two columns, and we can't do that. I'm not of the mindset that we should create heroes out of the biblical characters, but we ought to at least give them the same kind of grace as sinners that we would want. So keep that in mind. Let me begin this evening by sort of briefly laying out a bit of the history. Let's start with this. We've learned over and over that the superpower at this point in history was Assyria. They're the nation that sacked the northern kingdom of Israel. And the two Assyrian kings most responsible for the northern kingdom's destructions were Shalmaneser and Sargon. Here's something we need to have on our radar. While God was using Assyria and those kings, as well as the previous Assyrian king, Tiglath-Pelasar, while God was using them as a rod of judgment on Israel, the northern kingdom, the kings of Judah were trying to decide if they should form alliances with these Assyrian kings. You may remember that Hezekiah's father, the wicked king Ahaz, he was totally in the tank. with Assyrian. Ahaz and Tiglath-Pileser were BFF, right? They're best friends forever. Ahaz loved the Assyrian kings. He loved their culture. He loved their gods. Under Ahaz, Judah was an ally of Assyria. And of course, they paid big taxes. When Hezekiah became the sole ruler of Judah, he wanted none of that. You may remember from last week in 2 Kings 18.7, we're told that Hezekiah rebelled against the king of Assyria and he didn't serve him. Now that would have almost certainly been King Sargon. And what that meant is that Hezekiah He had no intention of being an ally to the Assyrians, and he certainly had no intention of paying exorbitant taxes to the Assyrians. Now, what happened is Hezekiah rebelled and Sargon couldn't expend the resources to go punish Hezekiah for his rebellion because Sargon was busy putting down a rebellion by the Babylonians and also fighting back the Egyptians. So he simply didn't have time. So Hezekiah was sort of let off the hook for a while. But in 705 BC, Sargon was killed in battle and his son, Sennacherib, became king of Assyria. Sennacherib was a much better king than his father, a much better military general, and he soon put down the Babylonian rebellion, and he was able to turn his attention to the region of Judah as well as the surrounding areas. And this is about 701 BC, and that's where 2 Chronicles 32 picks up. So glance there at verse 1. After these deeds of faithfulness, Sennacherib, king of Assyria, came and entered Judah. He encamped against the fortified cities, thinking to win them over to himself." Now to be sure, from an earthly perspective, Assyria was a terrifying nation. When they set their sights on conquering another country, Their method of operation was sheer brutality to win by overwhelming strength. And if they set their sights on a nation, generally speaking, the choice was bend the knee, submit to our rule, pay our taxes, or be decimated. Those were your options. And Hezekiah didn't bend the knee, which meant he's now on Assyria's crosshair, excuse me, in Assyria's crosshairs. You see, in King Sennacherib's mind, Judah belongs to him. He actually believed the whole world belonged to him. And he intends to take it back. And what we see essentially in verses two down through verse eight is Hezekiah making preparations for this attack that's about to come from Sennacherib. It said that as Oliver Cromwell, the Puritan, as he was preparing his men in one of the early battles of the English Civil War, it said that he said, men, trust in God and keep your powder dry. In other words, place your hope in the king and be prepared to fight. That's an excellent counsel because it's distinctly biblical, just as you might expect from a Puritan. If God calls you to go through a difficult season or a time of unusual hardship, first, realize you're utterly dependent on God's provision. and then put your hand to the task that the particular situation calls for. You see, the Puritans didn't think it odd to balance those two ideas. They had nothing of that notion of let go and let God. Let's just pray and see what happens. No, no, no. Trust in God and keep your powder dry. If I can paraphrase Stephen Sharnock, he said that the Christian life should demonstrate diligence on our part while completely relying on the blessing of God for outcomes. That's such an important way to see God's providence and to understand how we ought to work through challenging and trying circumstances. Matthew Henry said it this way, those that trust God with their safety must use proper means for their safety, otherwise they tempt Him and do not trust Him. And that's just what Hezekiah is doing. He's gonna use his extraordinary gifts. He's gonna exhaust all the resources he has. He's gonna muster everything at his disposal to ensure the safety of Judah. And then he's gonna trust in God to use those efforts because Hezekiah does know at this point that the only one who can actually protect Judah is Judah's God. So Hezekiah knows that Sennacherib has set up this camp throughout Judah, around the various fortified cities. And he knows as Sennacherib starts to pick off these various cities, it's on the march to Jerusalem. But Hezekiah has a plan. That region of the world is incredibly dry. And water is in short supply. I probably said this before, but when we were in Israel several years ago, one of the things they say over and over is that in Israel, water is life. And if you get that, you start to see how important water is, both very practically in a human sense, but also in its spiritual significance. Water is life because it's such an arid land. But here's the thing. There's some 200,000 soldiers with the Assyrian army. What are they going to need a lot of? Water, lots and lots of water. And so phase one of Hezekiah's plan is to make sure the Assyrians don't have access to fresh water. And at the same time, he wants to preserve that water for Jerusalem. Glanserid verses three and four. He consulted with his leaders and commanders to stop the water from the springs which were outside the city and they helped him. Thus many people gathered together who stopped all the springs and the brooks that ran through the land saying, why should the kings of Assyria come and find much water? So Hezekiah is going to do something that is a marvel of engineering, truly a marvel. He's going to change the water table in Jerusalem. In Jerusalem, there's only one freshwater source. It came from the Gihon Spring. The problem is that water source was just outside the wall of Jerusalem. And what that meant is the Gihon Spring could have provided much needed water for the Assyrians. And not only could the Assyrians have access to that water, they could have stopped the water source from flowing into Jerusalem. And so Hezekiah wants to deny them that fresh water and yet preserve this fresh water for God's people. So his plan is to dig a tunnel and divert water from the Gihon Spring to the Pool of Siloam, which was a protected area just inside the fortified walls of Jerusalem. It's a brilliant plan, but it really is hard for us to imagine what an incredible undertaking this was. Hezekiah commissioned two teams of diggers or tunnelers, right? And they began digging from these opposite places and carving out through rock, coming and moving toward each other, right? Keep in mind, they don't have laser levels. They don't have GPS describing big earth, excuse me, moving big earth moving machines. These are just people saying, I think he's going to show up over there. Yeah, I think he's going to be over. And so these two teams start to dig. And in total, combined, they dig about 1,750 feet, and they meet. I actually provided a handout. And if you look at that, there's a blurb about this on page five. But this is a remarkable thing. It may or may not sound fantastic to us, but it's considered to be one of the great engineering feats in antiquity. In fact, if you go to Israel today, you can actually walk Hezekiah's tunnel. And I know I did, and Paul did, and Chris did. It's still there, and you can walk it, right? And you get a sense that they did this. Well, the outcome of this bold plan is that Jerusalem's water supply has moved from outside the gate down to inside the gate. The Assyrians aren't going to have access to it, and it is protected for Jerusalem. An amazing feat. Once the water supply is secure, The next part of the plan for Hezekiah is to build up the defenses in Jerusalem. Look there at verse five, and he strengthened himself. He built up all the wall that was broken, raised it up to the towers and built another wall outside. Also, he repaired the Milo in the city of David and made weapons and shields and abundance. So at this point, What he's doing is he's beginning to actually prepare the city and his soldiers for war. And it's interesting, like the tunnel, there's a bunch of archeological finds that reflect these events. Near the tunnel, they discovered some of the walls that he built up were almost 20 feet thick. Think about that, 20-foot thick rock wall. These are actually the thickest fortress walls that have been found in the Bronze Age. And Hezekiah is putting these up in place. And this makes sense because one of the things we know about the way Assyria waged war is when they went into siege against the city, they would bring out massive battering rams And they would use that, of course, to push their way into the city. And Hezekiah is preparing the city in such a way that they'll be impenetrable to their battering rams. If you'll allow me to say it this way, Hezekiah is doing everything necessary to help Jerusalem keep their powder dry. Now he's going to say to his men, trust in God. Look there at verses six through eight. Then he sent military captains over the people, gathered them to gather to him in the open square of the city gate and gave them encouragement. saying, be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid nor dismayed before the king of Assyria, nor before all the multitude that's with him, for there are more with us than with him. With him is an arm of flesh, but with us is the Lord our God to help us and to fight our battles. And the people were strengthened by the words of Hezekiah. So he sets up companies of men with combat officers over them. He used the word of mighty warriors. These were true soldiers who were patriotic. And he brings them in this community square. And he wants to build them up and prepare them for battle. When I was stationed at Fort Campbell, in Kentucky. Once I was there when we had a division level parade. That's where you have the whole 10,000 soldiers come together and we sang, we have a rendezvous with victory. And there's something about all those soldiers together, unified, it just gets your blood boiling. As a young man, you're like, I want to fight somebody. I want to fight them now. Right? And that's a good thing. Young men ought to have that impulse. And Hezekiah is doing that, but in a more glorious way. He's building these men up in courage in the Lord. So he's got them together to encourage them. And this really is a God-glorifying speech preparing men who are about to go into combat. I mean, he begins with language that hearkens back to one of the greatest generals in Israel's history, Joshua. Be strong and courageous. That's where that language comes from. Four times in Joshua 1, Joshua receives that exhortation. Be strong and courageous, right? That's what a leader does. That's how a leader responds to challenges. And that's what these captains of men needed to have under their, in their belt. We need to be strong and courageous like Joshua. And make no mistake, Hezekiah intentionally uses that language. He goes on to say not to tremble before the Assyrian war machine because there's more with us than with him. And again, Hezekiah is using language that God's people would have been familiar with. This language is reminiscent of that scene. And 2 Kings 6, when Elisha prayed that God would open the eyes of his servant to see the great angelic harmony that was surrounding them. And that's just what Elisha said. There's more with us than with them. And incidentally, although I don't want to steal my thunder. It's not my thunder. It's God's thunder. But in a couple of weeks, we're going to see that God ultimately dispatches this great Assyrian army with a single angel. This language was looking forward to something that would happen. There's more with us when the Lord is on our side than is with them. And he's simply urging the people to remember the greatness of their God, the God who delivers his people with an outstretched arm. And what he's saying, it's an encouragement that we have as believers, isn't it? In 1 John 4, the apostle says, you dear children are from God and the one who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. That's our encouragement. Well, the Syrians came against Judah with an arm of flesh and I don't want to minimize this because as far as fleshly arms goes, this was one like Arnold Schwarzenegger's. It was a massive fleshly arm. But Hezekiah told the people, with us is the Lord our God to help us and fight our battles. Again, this is echoes of events that have taken place. This is a promise God said to Asa and then to Asa's son, Jehoshaphat, as they were facing innumerable threats, God said, I will fight your battles. battles. Again, this is the kind of speech that's meant to get these soldiers blood pumping, trust in God, keep your powder dry. Now Jerusalem is prepared, they're encouraged, they're trusting in God, despite the fact that there are nearly 200,000 Assyrians waiting to fall upon them. There's almost no historical event that's greater attested outside of the Bible than some of these wars that were taking place under the Assyrians. The Assyrians were great record keepers. And there's a text of Sennacherib's annals anal annals that records, listen, as for Hezekiah the Jew, who wouldn't submit to my yoke, I took 46 of his strong cities, some of the small cities, which were without number, by leveling them with great battering rams, and then Sennacherib said, himself like a caged bird, I shut up in Jerusalem, his royal city. Again, you can see, if you're interested, a picture of that in the handout on page three. So, Hezekiah has demonstrated incredible bravery. There's a massive army bearing down on him. He's done everything that he can do. He's exhorted his people, trust in God, and again, keep your powder dry. But we get an interesting turn of events. Turn in your Bibles now to 2 Kings 18. 2 Kings 18. It's difficult to put some of these events in a precise chronological order, but this is the best way that I think they fit together. Hezekiah began the reforms. very early on after he took control of Judah. Now 14 years have passed. Look there at 2 Kings 18. We're going to begin reading at verse 13. And in the 14th year of King Hezekiah, Sennacherib, king of Assyria, came up against all the fortified cities of Judah and took them." Okay, so that's what we just heard, right? Sennacherib is acknowledging that and apparently that was true. Verse 14, then Hezekiah, king of Judah, sent to the king of Assyria at Lachish saying, I have done wrong. Turn away from me. Whatever you impose on me, I'll pay. And the king of Assyria assessed Hezekiah, king of Judah, 300 talents of silver and 30 talents of gold. So Hezekiah gave him all the silver that was found in the house of the Lord and in the treasuries of the king's house. At that time, Hezekiah stripped the gold from the doors of the temple of the Lord and from the pillars, which Hezekiah, king of Judah, had overlaid and gave it to the king of Assyria. He spent all that time restoring the temple, getting it ready for worship, consecrating priests, making sure all the accouterments and utensils were there and in place. He'd built up his troops and strength and he has a crisis of faith. He looks out at this army and he thinks, oh no, I don't think we can win. And what he was really thinking, unfortunately, is I don't think God can win. It really was a crisis of faith. Lakish, it was about 40 miles from Jerusalem. It was actually one of the largest cities in Judah, second only to Jerusalem. And Hezekiah probably figured if they've taken Lakish, if they're able to conquer that city, It's only a matter of time before they get here and they conquer us. On one level, it's probably a bit easy to sympathize with Hezekiah's plight and we might even rationalize the decision that he made. But it shows us something about faith, doesn't it? How mighty man of God can falter quickly if he pauses and isn't resilient in his convictions. Dr. Ralph Davis says that you can be a king who trusts and obeys Yahweh and reforms the nation's worship, and yet your enemy may come and crush your land, deport its population, and you cave. That's difficult to understand. It is difficult to understand, except we do it all the time, don't we? The Lord is faithful and faithful and faithful and faithful and faithful, and we still have a faith crisis. We still doubt. We still trust that he can accomplish what we need. We still doubt that he can bring to bear the circumstances and situations that are needed, but he can because he's always faithful. If I can borrow a bit from Rick Phillips, he says what Hezekiah did was understandable. And yet it was still wrong. As wrong as the small compromises you and I make when we're in moments of weakness. The Bible never looks positively on Jewish kings who pay tribute to foreign powers. That was always a sign that they weren't trusting in the Lord. I don't think Hezekiah was being hypocritical when he gave that speech. I think it's simply the reality that one day you wake up and you're faithful, the next day your sin wins. When that happens, you and I both know there's only one thing to do, right? Repent, go back to the Lord where we know He will restore and bless. It's interesting. You read through the king, this is the best king that Judah has had since David. He is truly a son of David. He truly is one who's embraced the covenant promises God made to David, a great son of David. But he's not the son of David. We're still waiting for that perfect King. Judah still needed a King who wouldn't compromise ever. And ultimately, that King would come in about 700 years. That would be the King Jesus. Amen. Well, let me give you a moment to ask any questions you might have or I have a comment on the text and then a question about the catechism lesson. First, I feel that this text presents a very inspiring model of faith. It's interesting to me that in the Old Testament you see this image of a strong king is building and repairing walls. And weak kings leave walls in disrepair or are actively tearing them down. I was thinking about Proverbs 25, 28. A man who does not rule over his spirit is like a city whose wall is broken down. But yeah, that text, Hezekiah in that light, where he has faith, it's very powerful. It is, and it's a glorious picture, really. I was hesitant to sort of swing over to 2 Kings 8, but I wanted to fit that in because it's moving through the chronology, and that's probably the best place for it to be. One of the things to keep in mind is that the inscriptions at the tunnel of Hezekiah, there to there, indicates that it took them two years to build that tunnel. I said, this was a long drawn out process. This wasn't like two, three weeks. It was a long process, right? As I said, I think when he began, he did most of the repairs to the temple initially in the first four years of his reign. By the time you get here, you're 14 years down the road. Again, lots of things are transpiring, but yeah. He's an inspirational figure. That's why I kind of set up the confessional lesson the way I did. You know, I think it's really, it's dangerous on one level to ever look at the biblical characters and say, oh, he's a hero. He did no wrong. Everything he did was, you know, on the other hand, when you see a guy like Hezekiah and you read what the word says about him, you have to kind of interpret them in light of the fact that he was just a sinner who sinned, you know, You were gonna ask about the... Let me just follow up briefly. You know what, he sinned because he shifts from faith to sight. Yeah. We see something that's scary, and we're relying on sight, and then we cave. He didn't walk around the wall. Yeah, yeah, right. Okay, so I'm not really clear on how to interpret this clause in question 77. In sanctification, His Spirit infuses grace and enables to the exercise thereof. I don't really know. Which one? Okay, 77, sanctification. They differ in that God, in justification, imputes the righteousness of Christ, but in sanctification, his spirit infuses grace. And this clause that follows is one that I'm not clear on, and enables the exercise thereof. It's interesting. First off, it's important to note that they say infuse grace, not infuse righteousness. One's Reformed, one's Catholic. So, I would take this to mean, based on the way they used words like righteousness, sanctification, and even conversion, that what they're saying, that's going to be that which enables them to exercise righteousness. Okay, so, sanctification that enables us, the sinners, to exercise, is that referring to the progress that we make in sanctification? I think so, yeah. In sanctification, the Spirit infuses grace and enables to the exerciser. In other words, yeah, I think the idea here is that the Spirit enables us to, I'm gonna say something that might cause a little ears to tingle, that enables us to cooperate. with the spirit, right? There's a certain segment in the reformed community that never wants to hear the word cooperation, right? Monergism, monergism, monergism, and certainly I believe, you know, our regeneration is monergistic. I believe our justification is in one direction. But once we're made new creations in Christ, we most certainly cooperate with the spirit, so. I think that's probably getting... That's how I first read it, too, but it's not entirely clear. You know what? Several years back, that's been six, seven years ago now, I was taking the ACBC certification exam for biblical counseling, and they have a theological exam, and they ask, do you think salvation is monergistic or synergistic? And I wrote him a whole long paper saying, those are not categories that really work themselves out in the history of the Reformation. And in Protestants, you're imposing basically 20th century evangelical quasi-Calvinist categories and asking people what they think of it. It's such a novel idea. And I got a call and I explained it to him. Anyway, any other questions? So, if they stopped the water from the Assyrians, then how is it that they were able to bend on them and make the, they don't have to have the water again? Well, no, I think it probably did work, but there's no reason to think the Assyrians didn't bring resources with them. They were awesome, right? And again, they're taking these outlying cities. Every time they move forward, they get those provisions. But we're not told specifically. He actually reminds me of Elijah, who, after Mount Carmel, great victory, and then he's running from Jezebel, and saying, oh Lord, you'd better if I just die. That's the history of God's people. There are no, that's really what I was trying to say, there are no heroes. We're all sinners saved by grace. God's gonna work differently in different ones and it's gonna look different, but there are no heroes, right? We're saved by grace as sinners. Yeah, think of Peter, right? The denier. And over and over you see that in the Bible, yeah. and even our own history, right? Calvin, he had his Servetus. Luther, he really was an anti-Semite, no doubt about it. There were people like Dabney who wanted to promote racial segregation and worship. Again, these things were, even when there were others calling them to repentance, there are no heroes, you know. And so we don't look back and say, oh, if I was back there, I would have been so much better. No, no, no. We probably would have done much worse because we're all sinners that the Lord's working with. And he's so patient, right? Anything else? If we believe not, yet he abideth faithful, he cannot deny himself. Hezekiah fell, but God still delivered him. Yeah, God proves to be faithful. That's where this is ultimately going. And again, Hezekiah is, he's having a faith crisis. He's gonna have some other troubles, but he's gonna come back and he's gonna be really consumed with the glory of God. And he's gonna seek God to act for the glory of his name. And that's when the Lord sends an angel to whip up on him, so. Well, let's pray. Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you for just the great history of redemption. And we're thankful, oh God, as we read about mighty men of God, we're reminded that they are flesh and blood men just like us who struggle with like passions and like sinful tendencies. And yet what's a marvel is that you use these sinners in great and awesome ways for the purpose of expanding your kingdom, and you can use us as flawed sinners who have been made righteous only for Christ's sake to extend his kingdom. So bless us, give us confidence as we labor for the Lord, that in Christ we are useful. We ask this in Jesus' name, amen. Well, let me ask you to stand to receive the Lord's benediction. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. And all of God's people said, amen.