How is the Word made effectual to salvation? The Spirit of God maketh the reading, but especially the preaching of the Word, an effectual means of convincing and converting sinners and of building them up in holiness and comfort through faith unto salvation. Schroeder Catechism, question 89. In the last class we were looking at question 88, which addresses the outward and ordinary means of grace, the means that God has appointed, those vehicles that God has appointed. that His Spirit uses to impart grace to individual people. And really from here on to the end of the catechism, we're expounding what that means. So we talked about the outward and ordinary means of grace as a general principle, as a general doctrine that the Bible teaches. We saw that there are primarily three means that God has instituted and appointed, and those are the Word, the sacraments, and prayer. So what's going to happen for the remainder of the catechism is we're going to go through the Word, and there'll be some questions dealing with that means of grace, the ministry of the Word, and then it will turn to the sacraments, as the second means of grace, and it will highlight for us what that entails. And then the third will be prayer, prayer as a means of grace, and there'll be an exposition of the Lord's Prayer, which will take us all the way to the end at question 107. So for the remainder of the catechism, we're talking about the means of grace, And there are three, there is the word, the sacraments, and prayer. And in this question, question 89, we come to the Word of God as a means of grace. And you'll note that the Spirit of God maketh this Word a means of grace through faith. And so we start with the means, in this case, it's the Word, the Word of God, and that is accompanied by the ministry of the Holy Spirit, which is working faith in the heart of the individual, and thereby making the Word of God effectual. So this means of the Word becomes effectual, right? through the ministry of the Holy Spirit, working faith in the soul of the individual. We'll come back to that in a second, but you'll notice that in question 89, it talks about the reading of God's Word, but especially the preaching of God's Word. So when we're talking about the Word of God as a means of grace, how does it come to us? Well, the first way in which it comes to us is by reading it. And this is an important divine ordinance. And it's one that we see extensively throughout the Old Testament. And it's one of the Old Testament ordinances that carries over with continuity into the New Testament. So it's both in the Old and New. And in both the Old and New, we see the public and private reading of the Bible. In both cases, there's the public and private reading of the scripture. But then the catechism goes on, and notice the word especially. Here we are being given a doctrine that is found in other Reformed creeds as well, but it's highlighting or emphasizing the public preaching of God's Word. And it's, in that sense, it's elevating the public over the private. Now, what does that mean? It does not in any way, shape, or form diminish the indispensability, the importance, the necessity of the private ministry of the Word. So it's not taking away from that at all. That should be stressed and emphasized very strongly. But it is saying that God is especially pleased to use the public proclamation of His Word. And we see this as well in the Old and New Testament. The Old Testament preaching had a very important function. You'll see, for example, in the days of Ezra, where the Levites are set apart by God to minister His Word. We're told that the assembled Israelites are brought together and that they would actually speak of a wooden pulpit, as it were, that was set up, and they would read the law of God, and then the Levites would give the sense of it, to use the words of Scripture. That is to say, they would explain it, they would unpack it, they would expound and apply it. to the people. And this was an important function of the prophets. The prophets were, by and large, preachers. They were bringing God's Word to the people and pressing home upon them all of the implications of that Word for God's people. And so we see that in the Old Testament. We come to the New Testament, and it's everywhere. Christ in the four Gospels. We see Jesus preaching constantly. We come to the book of Acts, and it's called the Acts of the Apostles, but in some ways you could say, this is oversimplification, the book of Acts is the history of the preaching of God's Word. So, chapter 2, what is Peter doing in Jerusalem at Pentecost? He's preaching. and you actually go from chapter to chapter to chapter to chapter all the way through the book of Acts, and you see the emphasis on the preaching. This person preaching, that person preaching, Paul's preaching ministry, them going from Jerusalem to Judea to Samaria to the ends of the earth throughout. Asia and into Europe. They're taking the Word of God and they are preaching it. It's very important. You'll see this illustrated in Acts, for example. You have the Ethiopian eunuch and he's in his chariot and he's reading from the book of Isaiah. Philip comes up to him and says, do you understand what you're reading? He says, well, how can I unless someone were to explain it to me? And so Philip gets up and basically, you know, takes and expounds God's word to the edification of the eunuch. And the same is seen elsewhere. So in Romans 10, for example, Paul is saying to the people, faith comes by hearing. and hearing by the word of God. So there's the word as a means of grace. It's by the word of God. But notice that he says, how can they believe? unless they have a preacher. And how can they have a preacher unless a preacher is sent? And so it's emphasizing the importance of the preaching of God's Word. God has appointed and ordains men to come and to expound and explain the Word of God and to apply it to the people for their edification. Well, what does the word do? What is it a means to? Like what does it accomplish as it were? Well, in short, it is a means of salvation. And the catechism gives us two very helpful things to kind of summarize this. The first is convincing and converting sinners. And the second one is building up. So this is, building up is the idea of edification. So the biblical word edification means to build up. So to build up the Lord's people in holiness, and comfort. And this is, I think, a helpful summary for us. We can think in terms of our expectations under the reading and especially the preaching of God's word. We are looking to God to use that word to accomplish primarily two things. to convince and convert sinners. So there you see the evangelistic element of bringing unconverted people to faith and repentance in the Lord Jesus Christ. And then secondly, it is a means for the Christian, for edifying them, for building them up in holiness and comfort. So this, you could say, is the unbeliever, And this is for the believer, it works for both. And notice the balance here, holiness and comfort. So the ministry of God's Word is to work in the Christian's heart and life, one, to produce holiness. Jesus says, sanctify them by thy truth, Thy word is truth, in Genesis 17, 17. So that's holiness. Sanctify them. Through how? Through the means of the word. And so that's one side. The other side is comfort. The Christian holiness can be convicting and it's bringing transformation and change. We think of the doctrine of sanctification, but consolation is also part of this. The comfort that God's people need as well through the promises of his word. And so this is a means unto salvation. Now, if we circle back to what we saw at the beginning, the means being employed by the Spirit working faith in the soul in order to make it effectual. If you have the Spirit, if you have the Spirit without an emphasis on faith, right, so these two things here being kept together, you end up with what in the 17th century was called antinomianism. They might emphasize the work of the Holy Spirit but would de-emphasize the importance of faith and the necessity of faith. On the other hand, if you emphasize faith without the ministry of the Spirit, you end up in what was historically called, and still is, Arminianism. So the Arminians will say, believe, believe, believe, believe, believe, and of course they think that people have the native, natural ability to believe on their own, and they de-emphasize the place, the role, the importance of the Holy Spirit. So when we're thinking of God's Word going forth, both of these have to be kept together as the catechism puts them together. And one practical implication in all of this is to see how important the role of the Holy Spirit is in connection with all of the means of grace, and in this question we're dealing especially with the Word. And I actually just preached a sermon on this two days ago at the prayer meeting on Wednesday night, the necessity of the Spirit. The implication for us is we need to pray for the Spirit, for the Spirit's person, presence, and power in the ministry of the Word. So, because the ministry of the Spirit is so indispensable to the Word, we need to be praying for it. The Spirit, of course, is the one who inspired the Word and gave us this objective revelation of God's will. but the Spirit is also the one who illuminates, not only inspired the Scripture, but illuminates the mind of the recipient, enabling us to see and understand and receive and believe and obey the things that God is saying. And so, for the Lord's people, we need to be praying for the ministry of the Spirit in our reading of the Bible, but especially praying for the ministry of the Holy Spirit in the preaching of God's Word. In that sense, we can say that prayer fuels preaching. So in our preparation for the Sabbath, one of the things that we're to be doing is praying for God's blessing on the ministry of the Word in the public proclamation of that Word. And that includes, when we say praying for God's blessing, we're praying... Among other things, we are praying for the Holy Spirit to accompany the preaching of the God's Word to make it powerfully efficacious or effectual in the soul of those who hear it. Now what does this do? This, of course, gives all glory to God. Glory doesn't go to men with their rhetoric, their gifts, their personalities, their abilities. It is the Spirit who is working through the Word and working faith in those who receive that Word in order to make it powerful. Thus, all of the glory is reserved for God Himself. through the Word and the Spirit working together. These two things must always be held together. So in question 89, we have, how is the Word made effectual to salvation? The Spirit of God maketh the reading, but especially the preaching of the Word, an effectual means of convincing and converting sinners and of building them up in holiness and comfort through faith unto salvation.