And do you have a copy of God's Word with you? If you do, if you can turn with me to 1 Timothy chapter 4. 1 Timothy chapter 4. How many of you are pastors? Goodly, oh wonderful, a goodly number of pastors, and I'm assuming then that Others of you are either ruling elders or deacons in your church, but in some way you're church leaders. Is that probably fair to conclude? You're church leaders, Sunday school teachers, and so on. Well, I can only tell you, I surely hope and pray that all of you who preached or taught somewhere last Lord's Day experienced God's blessing upon your ministries, and that you were used by God both to bring someone to Christ or to strengthen the saints. Let's read 1 Timothy chapter 4 through verse 8. 1 Timothy chapter 4, 1 through 8. The Spirit clearly says that in later times, some will abandon the faith. His word there, apostasontai. We get the word apostatize from that. Some will apostatize from the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. Such teachings come through hypocritical liars whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron. They forbid people to marry and order them to abstain from certain foods which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and who know the truth. For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving because it is consecrated by the Word of God in prayer. If you point these things out to the brothers, you will be a good minister of Christ Jesus, brought up in the truths of the faith and of the good teaching that you have followed. Have nothing to do with godless myths and old wives' tales. Rather, train yourself to be godly. For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come. So train yourself to be godly. And that is the a phrase that I want us to reflect upon this afternoon for some moments. Shall we pray together? Our gracious Heavenly Father and our ever-faithful God, we come to you this afternoon as redeemed prodigal children. Drawn once again only by your grace, away from the folly of thinking that we can live without you, and drawn back to your consolations only by your mercies, which are new every morning, and by the wonders of your amazing grace, which has forgiven us of so very much. We confess that our utmost patience and forbearance, only occasionally exercised toward others, are but a faint reflection of that infinite forbearance and patience which you ever exercise toward us, on which gracious forbearance alone we base our hope of heaven. We thank you, Heavenly Father, for the human face of our heavenly High Priest, because he became as we accepting sin and was tempted in all points alike as we. And thus, he truly understands all our frailties and all our failings. And we thank you, faithful Savior, because you entered heaven before us and are there even now in your Father's presence as our great intercessor, having opened for us a new and living way into His presence. This afternoon we rest upon the eternal efficacy of your one all-sufficient sacrifice for our sin and for our confident entrance into the Father's approving presence, which we exhibit even at this moment as we pray. And we thank you, Holy Spirit of God, for your precious abiding in our hearts this afternoon, empowering us to live in the Spirit and to walk in the Spirit, and possessing thereby the peace and the joy and the holiness which the Triune God alone canst give. we would ask that you would continue to conform us to the image of Jesus Christ as we use the gifts which you have so abundantly bestowed upon every one of us. And now I pray that you will prosper the message of your grace this afternoon in this place as we proclaim the unsearchable riches of the grace of Christ. And it is in His matchless name that we pray, Amen and Amen. We're glad to have you and I'm glad to be here. We've already read 1 Timothy chapter 4 for those of you who have just entered. It is my intention to restrict my remarks this afternoon to what I believe is the most crucial bit of advice which anyone in my place at this moment could give to any Christian minister laboring today in the gospel ministry. It is the advice which the Apostle Paul gives to Timothy in 1 Timothy 4-7. Listen to it in the Greek. It's only four words. Gumnadzeh. Can you pick it up? Gumnadzeh se'altan pros yusebayan. The NIV translates these four words, train yourself to be godly. The New King James translates these words, exercise yourself toward godliness. In his commentary on 1 Timothy, my colleague at Covenant and then at Knox, Dr. George Knight, comments on this phrase as follows. Gumnadzo, from which we derive our English words, gymnast and gymnasium. means literally to exercise naked, to train, and is used also figuratively of the exercise or training of mental. The theme of this conference, to love God with all your mind, it's used figuratively, Dr. Knight points out, of the exercise of training of mental and spiritual powers. Gumnadzane, to train, is required of the minister. The reflexive pronoun, sa'autan, yourself, brings the present imperative, for that is what gumnadza is, it's a present imperative, train, it's a command, train yourself exercise yourself. Well, that yourself, Knight says, brings that present imparity forcefully to bear on Timothy. Train yourself. Eusebia is best rendered as godliness here, Knight continues. This word and others from the same root refer to awe and reverence, which imply a worship that befits that awe and a life of active obedience that befits that reverence. This Eusebia is a Eusebia, a godliness rooted in Jesus Christ. It is a distinctly Christian Eusebia, which is not just an external form, but which has an inner power. That inner power is appropriated in Christ. The preposition pros should be understood to indicate that Eusebian is that in which one exercises and not just that toward which one exercises. One may speak paraphrastically of exercising one's godliness with the purpose of being more godly. Therefore, the eusebia, the godliness that one has in Christ, is to be developed by gumnadzein, by training in godliness." So much from Dr. Knight, and we thank him. Now, aware as I am that I may have already told you more about this statement than you really wanted to know, I'm reminded of the story of the little boy who went to his mother, who was busy fixing supper, and he said, Mother, tell me about pelicans. This is a Florida joke. Tell me about pelicans. And she pointed out that she was busy cooking supper and was busy, and she told him to go and ask his father. To which suggestion he replied, but I didn't want to know that much. Well, maybe I've already told you more about those four words than you were really wanting to know. So may I suggest from Knight's exposition of the text, if I might paraphrase Paul, that what Paul is simply commanding Timothy here is this. Since you would instruct others in godliness, Do not neglect, but rather continually devote yourself to the... And that was picked up on the monitor, wasn't it? Okay. Here is what Paul is basically saying to Timothy, indeed commanding Timothy, Since you would instruct others in godliness, do not neglect, but rather continually devote yourself, for it is a present imperative, continually devote yourself to the systematic cultivation and earnest exercise of your own personal spiritual life. Given the times in which we live, all the more urgently must this advice be pressed upon people in the ministry, for godliness or holiness of life is a necessary prerequisite of any true fragrance of spiritual prosperity in Christian service. And what John Owen, the old Puritan of Coggeshall, said of true godliness in the mid-17th century must be truer still today. It is a comely thing, he writes, to see a Christian weaned from the world, minding heavenly things, green and flourishing in spiritual affections, And it is the more lovely because it is so rare." However much the earnest and systematic cultivation of the spiritual life may be the deepest aspiration of Christian saints generally, even more, my beloved brother pastors, it is a duty to be impressed upon those of us who hold the teaching and ruling office in Christ's Church. For without that inner life which is produced only by much time spent in the consideration of and meditation upon the Word of God and purposeful self-examination, and before the presence of the Lord in earnest prayer, we who hold ordination to the Christian ministry will never obtain that blessed ministry which the Puritan writers described as powerful, painful, by which they meant laborious and useful, that high ministry to which one must eagerly aspire if the call of Almighty God to the teaching ministry has truly been writ large upon his heart. This is so, I believe, for the following three reasons, which reasons make up now the burden of my address this afternoon. The need for this exercise in godliness. In the first place, only a flourishing spiritual life and a genuine walk in holiness will fortify the ordained teaching minister in times of discouragement. Remember that, Pastor. I sincerely believe that the ministerial failure, the burnout and the dropout about which we read and hear all too often today, is to be traced directly to the minister's failure to maintain personal, intimate fellowship with the triune God. Because of the press of his myriad other ministerial duties, and we're expected to do everything today, aren't we? Business managers and everything. Because of the press of his myriad ministerial duties all too often, he allows the cultivation of his spiritual walk with God, this training in godliness, to drop out of his daily vocational routine. And Mark Well, dear pastors, the minister of God who eliminates this exercise from his daily round immediately places his own ministry in peril. It is hard for new ministers to comprehend fully the nature of the service upon which we in the ministry have embarked. In particular, it is difficult for them to appreciate the extent of the difficulties and discouragements which attend the pastor's teaching and labors in the gospel ministry. In a letter to a recently ordained friend, John Newton wrote, A distant view of the ministry is generally very different from what it is found to be when we are actually engaged in it. If the Lord were to show us the whole beforehand, who that has a due sense of his own insufficiency and weakness would venture to engage himself in it. The ministry of the gospel, he continues, like the book which the apostle John ate, is a bitter sweet, but the sweetness is tasted first. The bitterness is usually known afterwards, when we are so far engaged that there is no going back." The gospel ministry in general, and the teaching ministry in particular, is indeed a high privilege, but also a hard calling. It's executors not only divinely chosen in, but often also divinely chosen to the furnace of affliction. Martin Luther wrote concerning the ministry, The labors of the ministry will exhaust the very marrow of your bones and hasten old age and death." And he captures for us his own personal awareness of the spiritual extremities and struggles of the teaching ministry and his constant need of the Lord's presence with him in his famous pastor's prayer. which we have depicted in a frame that hangs on the wall of the reception area at Knox Theological Seminary in Fort Lauderdale. Let me read you his pastor's prayer. O Lord God, thou hast made me a pastor and teacher in the church. thou seest how unfit I am to administer rightly this great and responsible office. And had I been without thy aid and counsel, I would surely have ruined it all long ago." Have you ever felt like that? Therefore do I invoke thee. How gladly do I desire to yield and consecrate my heart and mouth to this ministry. I desire to teach the congregation. I desire to learn and to keep thy word my constant companion and to meditate thereupon earnestly. So use me as thy instrument in thy service. Only do not thou forsake me, for if I am left to myself, I will certainly bring it all to destruction. Amen. The Puritan pastor, John Flavell, adds to Luther's thought his opinion. The engagements of the ministry are fitly compared to the toil of men in harvest, to the labors of a woman in travail, and to the agonies of soldiers in the extremity of a battle. This is so, he writes, Because the issues and consequences of the work of the ministry are so great. Because the opposition is so powerful. Because the outcome of the pastor's labor is so completely beyond his control. And because sin and Satan unravel almost all we do, the impressions we make on our people's souls in one sermon vanishing before the next." The ministry is a hard labor. Consider for a moment the ministry of Richard Greenham, who labored in an English country parish near Cambridge for 20 years in the late 16th century. He was a diligent, faithful, and gifted servant of God in the gospel. Rising at 4 a.m. each weekday, he would preach a daybreak sermon to catch his flock before they left for the field. His godliness and insight as a Christian counselor attracted needy people from afar. Yet in spite of his faithful and earnest ministry, and eminent gifts, and in spite of the success he enjoyed in ministering to those who came to him from other parishes, his ministry among his own people was virtually fruitless. As reported by James I. Packer, he said to his successor, I perceive no good wrought by my ministry on any but one family. And observers at the time, Riley would have concurred. Greenham has pastors green, they would say, but flocks full lean. Well, I'm sincerely trusting that you pastors are not sharing Richard Greenham's lot, but of this I am sure. I'm as certain as I'm standing here that this is so. you will know so many separate occasions of failure and discouragement in the gospel ministry that you will be no stranger to grief. The burdens are so great, the troubles so constant, the failures so painful, that unless you are personally thriving in your devotion to the Lord, delighting in His love and fellowship, enjoying intimacy with Him in prayer, and generally having the gospel proven to you again and again in the secret places of your own heart, your ministry will not well endure the shocks that will come to it. But if you are walking closely with your Lord, And if you are surrounded and protected by daily experiences of His love and presence, you will find strength to endure every trial and to overcome every obstacle. And your ministry will not be undone by the discouragements, but rather will persevere in the midst of difficulty and in this way bring even greater honor to your Christ. The second reason why the diligent cultivation of personal godliness is so essential to every preacher of the gospel is that only a flourishing spiritual life and walk with God will protect him from the perils of success in the ministry. On the basis of my limited knowledge of your training, I'm confident nonetheless that you have been well equipped for service in the ministry of the church. And I'm assuming that God has equipped you to be effective servants of the gospel. Doubtless you have good minds, winsome personalities, and the ability to communicate effectively, and therefore I believe that if not at this moment, over time all of you will become sought-after preachers and teachers and counselors. But take note of what I am now about to say. What success and popularity you will find attending your ministry will certainly increase your opportunity to be useful in the kingdom of God. But such success will also expose you to the great temptation of pride. However much we may all admit that it is necessary for ministers to remain humble, alas, it remains true, as the godly John Newton once wrote, there will be almost the same connection between popularity and pride as between fire and gunpowder. They cannot meet without an explosion, at least not unless the gunpowder of pride is kept very damp. And unless your heart is being constantly impressed through self-examination and meditation in God's Word with the true and odious darkness of your own old man, with the weakness of your will, with the utter necessity of the mercies of God and the aid of His Spirit upon which you must depend, if any good is to come from your ministry, your successes will lead you astray. Turn your eyes away from the Lord to yourself and spoil your ministry insofar as it would have any capacity to exalt Christ and build his church. The Lord himself has said in both the Old and the New Testaments, Proverbs 3.34, James 4.6, I resist the proud, but I give grace to the humble. If by earnest and regular devotion as a servant of God you were cultivating that pure poverty of spirit, and meekness of heart, and to trust Him to use you even more. Third, and finally, the cultivation of personal godliness. This training yourself to be godly is crucial to all true ministry because only a flourishing spiritual life and walk with God will lend the needed power and effectiveness to one's labor in the gospel. We all know many talented men in the ministry whose work produces little or no fruit because God is blowing a cold wind across his church. their churches. The problem with these men is not that they have no natural gifts, for they are often eminent in such gifts. Nor is the problem necessarily that they are proud or harboring some other great sin in their hearts for reason of which God is withholding His blessing. The problem is that they are personally simply spiritually dull. and listless. There is no spirit-wrought animation in their devotion to God. No earnestness, no zeal, no inexpressible joy in God, no tears shed over their people's sin and condition. We in the gospel ministry may have the highest academic and professional competence But the work of our ministry cannot be sustained by any aggregate of natural gifts. However splendid, such gifts alone cannot compensate for the lack of a spirit-enkindled heart. We are to be perennially charismatic in the sense that we are to be continually fanning into flame the spirits and giftings by our longing for holiness and by our personal spiritual walk before God. Ah, my beloved brothers, if we have a dull, listless walk with God, our auditors will not take our teaching very seriously. We may tell them as often as we want that sin is terrible, But our own indifferent example, if it is there, will neutralize the desired effect of our words. We may tell them as often as we want that the love of God ought to make their hearts sing for joy, but our own listless demeanor, if it is there, will undo our exhortations. We may tell them as often as we want that there ought to be a deep, abiding love among the brothers in the church, but our own arid experience, if it's there, will prevent them from rejoicing with their brothers and sisters who rejoice, or from truly weeping with their brothers and sisters who weep in distress and sorrow. Know, my beloved Yoke fellows, in the ministry of the gospel, God honors that ministry that blazes with the passion and the fire of a Spirit-filled heart. And He pours out His power upon that ministry in which the teaching and the pleading come from the broken heart and are accompanied by tears. in which the encouragement is not in promises only, but in the sharing of the servant's own experiences of God's faithfulness and mercy. A ministry in which its counsel is animated by a deep and obvious devotion to God, by true love for people, and by genuine concern for their eternal state and the salvation and sanctification of their souls. But whence comes that tender, earnest, zealous heart which so powerfully animates the greatly used servant of the gospel? Well, it does not reside natively in your breasts. I assure you, as you all surely already know, it comes from many experiences with God, from great exercises of heart and mind and heavenly things. It comes from the cultivation of spiritual affections in the Word of God and in prayer. It comes from spending time with God. Or in Paul's simple words, it comes in training oneself to be godly. I remind my seminary classes rather often of Robert Murray McShane's words, the greatest need my flock, he said, the greatest need my flock will ever have is to see their pastor walking before them in holiness. That's your church's greatest need, is to see you pastors walking before them in holiness. May God's Spirit etch McShane's sentiment indelibly upon the tablet of your heart as you stand before your flock and as you labor among them. And as we train ourselves more and more in godliness, we will find ourselves more and more glorying, as did the Apostle Paul, only in the cross of Christ. We will discover that there is no place for boasting in ourselves. About himself, Paul affirmed, 1 Corinthians 9.6, I cannot boast. 2 Corinthians 12.5, I will not boast about myself. 2 Corinthians 4.5, we do not preach ourselves. Galatians 6.14, may I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. He described himself, 1 Corinthians 15, 9, as the least of the apostles. 1 Timothy 1, 15, the worst of sinners. And Ephesians 3, 8, less than the least of all God's people. His less than the least here is an interesting Greek word. elokistateros, a comparative piled on top of a superlative. Least, less than the least. I am less than the least of all God's people. He regarded himself simply as a slave of Christ, of God, and of the saints. Indeed, if we glory in anything about ourselves, we will glory not in our strengths, but in our weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest upon us. I think the church has got it all wrong when it goes looking for pastors. It goes looking for pastors who have these great natural abilities and natural gifts. God is not saying, I want a lot of men with great gifts. He's like the Marines. He's saying, I want a few weak men. I want a few weak men. Paul says, that is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses and insults and hardships and persecutions and difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. God does not need or want men, regardless of the number and strength of the talents with which He has engifted them, who believe they can and should conduct their ministries in their strength. What God wants is a few weak men, for when they are weak in themselves, then He can make them strong in Him. We should strive accordingly, as did Paul, to give all glory to God, then, for everything that God, by His grace and power, enables us to accomplish for the cause of Christ. This simply means, echoing the first answer of the shorter catechism, man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. This simply means, I say, that our greatest passion in life, what is your greatest passion in life? Our greatest passion in life should be to learn to know God better than we know anyone or anything else in this world. And to enjoy God more than we enjoy anyone our wives, our children, our labors, our work to enjoy God more than we enjoy anyone or anything else in this world. For only in such devotion will our lives publicly display, as they should, the glory of God and thus give, as they should, all glory to Him. 700 and some years even before Paul, Isaiah cried, Depart, go forth from Babylon, touch no unclean thing, come out from her, and be pure, you who carry the vessels of the Lord. Beloved fellow laborers in the gospel ministry, for the health and sake of your flocks, whom Christ purchased with his own blood, I call upon you in the simple words of the great apostle, train yourself to be godly. If you do that, dear friend, your flocks will ever bless God that he permitted you to walk for a while among them and to have taught them about heavenly things, not only by your preached and taught word, but also by your godly example. So train yourself to be godly. Let's pray. O God, more than natural talents, and a sound seminary education, more than winsome ways and relentless doggedness in the pursuit of ministerial success, I and these other pastors need you. All of us here who would teach your flock need an intimate personal knowledge of you For your word informs us that it is those who know their God who will be strong and who will do great exploits for Him. So before everything else, we who would teach others need this daily personal walk in godliness with you, a walk which will so inspire us by the awesomeness of your face that no human face will frighten us. A walk which will so fire us by your holiness that we will hate sin as you hate sin. a walk which will so thrill and engage us by ever new revelations of your immeasurable love and gracious ways towards us, that we will proclaim with rhapsodic delight to your children and to those outside your church your immeasurable mercies in Christ. A walk which will so humble us before your transcendent majesty that we will always give all the glory to thee for whatever you enable us to accomplish in and through our labors. A walk which will enable us to say with Paul, neither count I my life dear unto myself. if only I may finish my race with joy and fulfill the ministry which I receive from the Lord Jesus to testify to the gospel of the grace of God and a walk which will compel us fully to lose ourselves in our concern for the glory of Christ and the good of His body, the Church. And as we said in our short message, Father, we confess before you that such a walk is not native to our hearts. In ourselves we are spiritually dead and cold before you. So we humbly beseech you to quicken the desire in our hearts for that walk in holiness and godliness which alone will bring heaven's beauty to rest upon the work of our hands and the fragrance of Christ to perfume our life and our ministries. Be with us, be with us all, especially with these dear pastors and their families as they shoulder the yoke of the holy ministry. Grant these petitions, I plead. for the sake of our never-failing, great and faithful Shepherd of the flock, even Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. Alright. Questions? You know, I thought about that of late. I thought about my own experience in this walk in godliness. My own experience, maybe yours is similar to mine, I found it, confessedly, I found it more difficult at first to get started with this daily time with the Lord until it has to become a habit. And I started with Charles Spurgeon's Morning and Evening, I remember. You know Spurgeon's Morning and Evening? He gives you their morning devotional and evening devotional for all 365 days of the year. And I and my wife grew in that. I would do this oftentimes. I would read the verse that he would give at the top of the page. And I would say, surely, what in the world do you think now he's going to say about that? We would try to guess what kind of devotional thought he would get from that. We were oftentimes right on target. At other times, we missed it a mile. But we would first of all talk about what we thought the verse meant and how it would speak to us. And then we would read his devotional, and oftentimes we were amazed at some of the things that he got from that text that I did not at first see. And between you and me, I'm not sure it was there anyway. But we grant this great prince of preachers some license, don't we? But I found his I found Spurgeon's Morning and Evening to be a great benefit. Recently, PNR has published this devotional from the writings of John Calvin. You know what? I forget the specific title of it, but yes, yes, Morning and Evening, same kind of thing, and we have used that particular book. Look, I don't think we should fall into a trap here of thinking that devotion time for us has to be X number of minutes or X number of hours every day. It has to be personal. It has to be quality time with the Lord. And so we, Shirley and I, spend time together at the breakfast table in the morning, at the supper table in the evening. And we start the day and we end the day in devotions. And until it's become now, it used to be kind of a difficult thing to remember to do that. But now, if we don't do it, we feel as if if something comes up and we didn't get to do it, we feel like something has really been lost. So, brothers, I don't care how far along in your ministry you are, it is still not too late to get started in this training in godliness with your Savior. He wants to spend time with you, so you spend time with Him in prayer, in reading His Word, in reflecting upon the message of His Word to you. I mentioned two books. Do you have some others, Pastor, that you have found helpful? Anybody? What are some other books that you have found helpful in your devotion time? I know it. Good. Packers knowing God. R.C. Sproul's In the Presence of God. That's that morning and evening thing again. Yes. Good. Just get a good devotional. I find one. Oh, another one that Shirley and I have found helpful. is Bishop Ryle's. You know, Bishop Ryle has, well he did, they put, a devotional has been put together of Bishop Ryle's devotional thoughts, a morning and evening thing. Who publishes that? Well, but you can, you can, I'm not sure, Now, Bishop Riles, you know, it's going to be a little bit, Bishop Riles is going to be a little bit deeper, I think at times, than say Spurgeon. But I find Bishop Riles' devotional help very good. And after a while, you know, sometimes you just want to get off by yourself with the Word of God, with the Bible. And if you don't know at that moment how to pray, use the Bible itself as your guide for prayer. Turn to a psalm, and maybe it starts, you know, blessed is the man who walketh not. Oh God, help me today to be that blessed man. Help me not to walk. Get the thoughts from the Bible. Help me not to walk today in the counsel of the ungodly. Help me not to sit in the seat of the scornful, and so on. And so, use the very words of the Bible itself in your devotional time, and let the Bible guide you in your prayer, and you will find yourself growing that way. Yes, brother? Yes. Yes, he used the Scriptures as the basis for his prayers. Yes. Brothers, we need to be godly if we're going to be ministers of the Word. We must be pure vessels. We must be ourselves godly. Of course, every Christian ought to be godly, but particularly is it incumbent upon the minister of the gospel to live a holy life, to live a godly life. And we sometimes hear about our pastor friends who've made a mistake and who've gotten involved with some woman in the church other than the wife, and you know I often have I can bet your life, I can, I don't bet, I'd venture to say, I'd venture to say, I'd venture to guess that no man falls suddenly. See, no man falls suddenly. Behind every fall there is a rather long process of wicked thinking. I'd venture to say it began when that pastor began to get away from his personal daily devotional walk with the Lord. So that's so vital. It's so important. I don't want to make it a legalism. Please, I don't want to make it a legalism for you. I'm not saying that you must do it if you want to go to heaven when you die. I'm saying it is essential for your ministry. If you're going to be the minister that God wants you to be, it's essential for that. Amen? Okay, so we're not wanting to put you under law in the sense that if you don't do it, you're going to go to hell. But I do want to impress upon you, as ministers of the gospel, this need for a daily walk with the Lord. It will keep you in times of discouragement. It will keep you in times of success. And it will animate your own ministry with power. And that's what I basically said, those three points. Okay? Anything else? Yes. Did you have something, brother? Because I have given myself to the field of systematics for so many years, my thoughts there generally, I would have to answer your question this way. I read with delight everything that I can get my hands on from, say, Warfield, and from Professor John Murray, and Jim Packer, J. I. Packer, those books, and from Leon Morris. I love the works of Leon Morris. Any books like that that I can get, that I can read, I just thrive on them. Those are my theological heroes. Warfield, Murray, Packer, those are great men. Anything else? Do you have some suggestions? Who do you find helpful? In non-devotionals. The Puritans. Yes. Well, I'm glad I quoted a couple. Any others? Yes. Yes. Pinnock is an enigma to me. I knew Pinnock when he was, you know, in his labri days. when he was writing such books as biblical authority and the inerrancy of the scripture. But he would himself tell you that even in his quote, reformed unquote days, even in those reformed days, he was uneasy with the with the Reformed view of man as fallen in the sense that he has no free will, no ability to change himself, to contribute. He brings nothing but his sin to salvation, and God does the saving. And I think it all goes back to his concern to make a place, as he sees it, to make a place for man in soteriology.