It's five after why don't we go ahead and pray I'm not gonna draw you as much because since the group is kind of dwindled a little bit But these next three questions though question 20 21 and 22 are so important I think we're just gonna try to do a little Bible study and just try to maybe interact a little bit with them Because they're so important. Let's go ahead and open with prayer Our Father in heaven. We thank you for your grace and love to us. We thank you for this opportunity to be together I thank you for each person that's able to be here and pray for those that couldn't make it this evening And we pray that you would help us to have an even greater vision of your mercy and your grace and your kindness to us in Christ. And we just bless your name for the gospel of your free grace. And we thank you for Jesus and everything that he endured and all the suffering that he endured, the pain that he went through. to purchase redemption full and free for us and to give us the gift of righteousness that we are clothed in and to make a full satisfaction to your divine justice against us and help us to focus on him during this time and to remember the gospel. And we pray you'd help us understand these great doctrines that you have revealed to us in your word. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Now, question 20 is a real important question in the catechism. It's kind of the place, if you have a catechism, once you're open to it, and we can follow along with it that way. The whole catechism changes its tone now, because now we've moved from all the stuff about the fall and sin and misery and everything, now we're moving into the section on how God redeems us from that. So question 20 is, did God leave all mankind to perish in the estate of sin and misery? Now, before we look at the answer, would it have been unfair had God chosen to leave us in the estate of sin and misery? It would not have been unfair. So that's the starting point. The starting point for. understanding redemption is that the whole human race has fallen. We're all willfully in Adam. We want to be in Adam. We want to be rebellious against God. We want to sin against God. And that's our starting point. It's not that, you know, we come into the world and we're all neutral and we all deserve at least to have a shot at getting to heaven. It's we're already all headed for hell. As soon as Adam eats from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, that plunges the whole human race into the condition of sin and misery. And remember, when you ask the questions, wherein consists the sinfulness of that estate wherein to man fell? The sinfulness of that estate wherein to man fell consists of the guilt of Adam's first sin. So we're guilty of that sin. The lack of original righteousness, the want, the original, remember Adam, when he was created, he was righteous. When we come into the world, are we righteous anymore? We lack that original righteousness that we were created with. and the corruption of our whole nature. What Calvinistic doctrine is that really restating? The corruption of our whole nature, not part of our nature, but our whole nature. Total depravity. Because the Armenians said that we're hurt, we're injured, but there's like, as the way R.C. Sproul put it, you have this little island of righteousness that the fall didn't touch somewhere. That's what the Armenians were saying. There's this little part of you that the fall didn't reach. And then that's what you use to save yourself by using your free will or whatever. Whereas the scriptures teach that we are wholly corrupt. There's no part of us that was not affected by the fall. The fall affected my totality, me morally, spiritually, physically, every way. There's not a part of me that was not affected by the fall. So did God leave all mankind to perish in the state of sin and misery? And then also the estate of sin includes all actual transgressions which proceed out of that depraved nature, that corrupted nature. And then misery is all mankind lost what? All mankind by their fall lost communion with God. Communion with God. What is communion? What does that mean? I couldn't hear. Yeah, that's exactly right. We can't see God's face anymore. We can't have fellowship with him anymore. In fact, remember what God told Moses on Mount Sinai, when he said, Lord, show me your glory. Remember what he said? He said, no one can look at my face and live, Moses. He's basically telling Moses, you have no idea what you're asking for. You don't want to see my face. You would not survive it. Okay, remember he puts him in the cleft of the rock. He hides him in the rock and he causes his backside to pass. And he says, I will have mercy on him. I have mercy. It's kind of like a gospel sermon he gives to him. Okay, so we lost communion with God. Mankind no longer has fellowship with God. And that's why men come into the world, they don't know why they're here. And so many people are so directionless. They don't know what to do with themselves because the purpose for which we were created to find a sense of purpose and meaning in our lives is fellowship with the almighty God. That's really the thing that we were created to do. And if we don't have that, then mankind is a mess. He doesn't know what to do and he just blows the world up and sets it on fire and hurts other people and destroys himself. So we lost communion with God, we are under his, His wrath and curse, and so made liable to all the miseries of this life, to death itself, to the pains of hell forever. Just thinking about, and I got the coronavirus, I just call it the Cincinnati version, the one that I had no immunity to at all. Both my parents had it and we had to go there to help out. managed to get home Tuesday. Wednesday morning, I felt like I was gonna die. And it was like body aches, the likes of which I have never felt before. I was just laying in bed. I remember thinking, is there any part of my body I can move without it hurting? I thought, I wonder if I can move my eyes. I just looked over and I was like, ow, that didn't even hurt. Like the back of my eyeballs was hurting. And I was just like, wow, that's part of the miseries of this life. You know, you fall and you tear up your skin and it hurts and you get scabs and I can't see as well anymore. You know, I have to, did something this week has never happened in my entire life. I have my reading glasses on on the tip of my nose and I was reading my bible and I looked up at my computer screen and couldn't see it through my reading glasses. I like brought them even lower and I was like I could see the screen when I looked away from my glasses and then I could see my Bible through my reading glasses. I'm like, this is, this is how Bibles were invented. Like seriously, I can't see, I can't see as well as I used to anymore. It's, it's a sad thing. Um, we are subject to all those miseries and eventually we all die. We all die. And that's why the study of God's revelation and scripture is the most important thing that a human being can do because that's how we find our redeemer. That's how we find Christ. Okay, so did God leave all mankind to perish in the estate of sin and misery? And the answer, yeah, it'd be easier if they were just yes, no questions. God having out of his mere good pleasure from all eternity elected some to everlasting life. did enter into a covenant of grace to deliver them out of the estate of sin and misery and to bring them into an estate of salvation by a Redeemer. So what does that mean? God out of his mere good pleasure. Why does it say that, mere good pleasure? Exactly. It wasn't based on anything he foresaw. It's not based on anything about us. Why does God choose to save? Because it pleases him to do so. That's why, okay? He chooses not all, he could have, but he chooses not all, but he elects some to everlasting life. He enters into a covenant of grace. And what is the covenant of grace? Covenant of grace is the second, after the covenant of works fails, God makes a second covenant, covenant of grace. He gives the church to Jesus Christ. In eternity past, all of the church is elected by name, given to Christ and trusted to him. And there's an inter-Trinitarian covenant between God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, where God the Father elects, gives them as a gift to his Son, and then they all covenant together to bring it to pass in the fullness of time. Jesus comes into the world, the incarnation. We're gonna read about that here in just a minute in the catechism. And then the Holy Spirit agrees as well in part of this covenant to apply that work to God's elect people in his time. Okay, and that's the covenant of grace. So the covenant of grace is made between God the Father and Jesus Christ, and all of the elect in Christ as his seed. Okay, so that's the covenant of grace. And that's why it's sure, because it's not based upon anything we do. It's something that God decided to do, and he will be the one who achieves and accomplishes it. Okay, so he brings us out of that estate of sin and misery and brings us into an estate of salvation by a Redeemer. Now, the next question, C question 21, who is the Redeemer of God's elect? Now, it's very important to notice the opening phrase of this answer. The only Redeemer of God's elect is the Lord Jesus Christ. Why do you think that these Puritan theologians in 1647 felt the necessity to put the word only in there? Why didn't they just say, the Redeemer of God's elect is the Lord Jesus Christ? Why'd they say only? Because of Mary, the church, what else? Works, purgatory, sacraments, saints, pilgrimages, relics, I mean, Solus Christus, that's where that one sola comes from. How are we redeemed? Who is the redeemer of God's elect? The only redeemer of God's elect is the Lord Jesus Christ. If you've never seen the Luther movie with Joseph Fiennes as Luther, I think it came out in 2003. That's one of my top five all-time favorite movies. When that movie came out, I was actually taking church history. as a distance course through RTS virtual and I was listening to tapes at listening to lectures about Luther and I was really surprised how incredibly accurate that movie is like almost everything in it is is accurate from the speeches and everything and the order of events and what happened when and But the scene where Luther is sent to Rome to do a pilgrimage because he is so scared he's going to die and go to hell, so they say, fine, go to Rome and look at all the femurs and skulls and teeth of all these saints and maybe you'll feel better. There's a great scene where he walks up to you know, the St. Peter's Church there, and there's all these steps leading up to it, and you put a coin in this thing, and they give you the certificate, and they tell you to, you know, say it, Our Father, on your knees, on each one of these steps, and by the time you get to the top, the person that you said that for will get out of purgatory, or you'll get 500 years out of purgatory, or whatever. And they show Luther, you know, he starts out doing it, but then he's kind of looking around him and realizing how meaningless this is. And then when he gets to the very top of the stairs, he crumbles up that piece of paper in his hand, and they just show him dropping it. And he's starting to think, this is useless. All of this is useless. None of this is going to work. But that's what forced him into the text of Scripture eventually, and that's where he saw the gospel. He finally saw that his problem was he was trying to become righteous. Can we become righteous enough to go to heaven? And if someone's being convicted by the Spirit of God, they're never going to find any sense of relief anywhere other than the true gospel. And that's what he finally did. So Christ is the only Redeemer. The only Redeemer of God's elect is the Lord Jesus Christ, who being the eternal Son of God, became man, and so was and continues to be God and man in two distinct natures and one person forever. So when Jesus was here, could you have walked up to him and shaken his hand? Yeah, you could have. Why do you say no? Wait, did you say if he was here? Yeah. Could you have walked up to him and shook his hand? I mean, not, not, it probably wouldn't have been appropriate to do that, but could you have actually touched his hand? Yeah. No, no, no. You could. Cause he was a man, right? Yeah, when God the Son, always think of it like this. There's three persons who are the one true God. God the Son adds a human nature to himself when he comes into the womb of the Virgin Mary. So there's two natures now. There's the human nature, the divine nature, they're joined together. but they're still distinct from one another, okay? So he was a man, he would have looked just like any other man that you would have seen. He didn't glow in the dark or anything like that. I always thought that he had like a halo on his head when I was a kid, that's how I thought about him. But then understanding, he had to be a man just like I am, just like you guys are. He had to be a fully human being in order to be able to substitute for us and save us, okay? So he became man and so was and continues to be God and man in two distinct natures and one person forever. So what is a nature? Like what, what is this? A book, a Bible. Okay. Is this anything other than a Bible? Well, yeah, that's just another name for it though. But is this anything other than a book? No. Okay, everything in our experience, everything from this to this to me, my watch, is only one thing by nature. Jesus is completely unique. He's two things. He has two natures, fully God, God the Son, and he's fully human. And right now, Jesus is fully God and fully human. He will be fully God and fully human forever. You know that when we, Lord willing, appear in heavenly glory, we will actually see him. We'll actually see him in his resurrected body in the same way that the disciples did. Isn't that just incredible to think about? That resurrection body that he is the prototype for our resurrection body, he's still joined, the two natures are still joined together in the one person, okay? And that's why it says, and so was and continues to be God and man in two distinct natures in one person forever. He has to be man in order to be able to mediate for us right now in heaven, right? He's got to be what I am, except perfect. Okay, so it's pretty astounding stuff to think about. Okay, question 22, how did Christ, being the Son of God, become man? Christ, the Son of God, became man by taking to himself a true body. Okay, so he would have had skin and bones and eyes and hair and a beard and teeth and a tongue and feet, just like any other human being. He took to himself a true body and a reasonable soul. being conceived by the power of the Holy Ghost in the womb of the Virgin Mary and born of her, yet without sin. One of the early heresies we had to learn, I had to make a flashcard for, was a heresy called docetism. Does anyone know what docetism is? It's from the Greek word dakao, which means to think or seem. And so docetism was the idea that Jesus seemed to be human. He just seemed to be, because they thought, no, no, no, God cannot dirty himself by becoming physical. It would just be inappropriate for God to do that. And you remember in John's gospel, and also in 1 John, He really despised that heresy. In fact, there's a story, as I'm turning to the passage here, I'm gonna read to you. When I was in seminary, the professor told the story of John was in a Roman bath house one time, talking to people, witnessing to them, and a Gnostic heretic walked into the bath house, and John started screaming and ran out that there was a heretic in there. Because he despised that. If you denied the incarnation, you were anti-Christ. He called them anti-Christs. Listen how he begins his first letter. He says that which was from the beginning which we have heard Which we have seen with our eyes Which we have looked upon and our hands have handled. Why do you think he says it like that? We saw heard touched our hands of handled. What's he trying to emphasize? He's really a human being, you know John was the one who leaned up against him there at the Lord's Supper when he when the last supper the Lord's Supper was instituted there in the upper room, John is emphasizing he was a real human being, and it's essential that we know that he's a real human being. And later on, he says, yeah, I think it's in chapter three, where he identifies, if you deny that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh, you are antichrist, and that you don't know the Father or the Son. These apostles, they denounced false doctrine in very strong terms. Why do you think they did that? Why would he say, if you deny that, you're an antichrist? Why would he say that? How serious is that? It's profoundly serious. If we don't have the right Jesus, then we have a Jesus that can't save us. And that's what was so essential, so important to them was, that's why catechism classes like this are so important. You've got to get these categories, these theological concepts that are taught to us in scripture. You got to get them clear in your mind so that you understand this stuff. Yes, sir. Yeah, Islam Islam comes that's right Yeah, they deny their Unitarian Yeah, it's pretty wild yeah, I Yeah, Islam has no concept of atonement, Jesus Christ. In fact, they don't even believe Jesus was crucified, which is rather shocking that they don't even believe that he was crucified. They don't think a prophet of God could be crucified. And there's a surah in the Quran that says only it was someone that looked like him. So, you know, pretty remarkable. Listen to Paul's opening salvo in the book of Romans. Listen to how he describes Jesus here. He gets the human and divine just spot on in one sentence. Listen. Paul, a bondservant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated to the gospel of God, which he promised before through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures, concerning his son, Jesus Christ, our Lord, who was born of the seed of David, according to the flesh. Okay, so Jesus was a descendant of David, King David, right? Remember, God promised David in 2 Samuel chapter seven, that one day, one of your descendants will sit on my throne forever. And then when the angel Gabriel speaks to Joseph, he tells him and Mary that, and he will give to him the throne of his father, David. Okay, so that's his human lineage. And then the next phrase, says and declared to be the son of God with power according to the spirit of holiness by the resurrection from the dead. So he's the son of David and he's the son of God, okay? I will never be anything other than the son of Howard, okay? I am a son of God, how? Through Christ and through the legal transaction called what? I'm sorry? Justification and? Adoption Jesus is the son of God by nature God only has one son by nature We are the children of God by adoption Okay, and so I'm the son of Howard. Yes, thankfully, but I'll never be by nature the son of anybody but my father okay, and Jesus is the son of God by nature and that's what makes him unique and Okay. So he takes to himself a true body and a reasonable soul. Okay. So he has a soul just like, like I do. He's got to be like me in every way. He can't be missing anything. So he's got a soul just like I do being conceived by the power of the Holy ghost. Now remember, why was Mary so surprised you're going to have a child? Why was she so surprised by this? No, that was like Sarah. That was Sarah. Remember? No, Mary, the virgin. Well, I just gave you the answer. She wasn't married. She'd never been with a man, right? Why is that important that Jesus not have a human father? Exactly. If he had a human father, he would have been just like us. He would not have been able to enter into the broken covenant of works like the first Adam and keep it for us. Okay? In fact, just earlier today, I met with a couple of the brethren here from church, and we were looking at Romans chapter five and six, and looked at Romans 5.20. Paul makes this dangerous sounding statement. He says, moreover, the law entered that the offense might abound, but where sin abounded, grace abounded much more. People hear that and think, man, that sounds dangerous. Why do people think that sounds dangerous to say that? Where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more. Right, what would you say Chris? That's right. So now you want this. Well, let's make grace abound as much as possible then right? Okay, and we were looking at well what comes before this is the Adam Christ? Typology, it's a lot of theologians called the Adam Christ apology and Adam is we receive in him as our federal head everything that he earned for us, namely death, judgment, hell, alienation from God, loss of communion with God. When a person is granted repentance unto life and they believe in Jesus as their savior, they are moved from being under the federal head Adam under the new federal head Christ. And now they have righteousness, justification, and salvation, perfect, full, and free. And that's why Paul says, at the end of the day, yeah, where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more. People are forgiven even more for that. Yes, sir? I think they do that because they want academic respectability from the God-hating, unbelieving academy, where we shouldn't care about that at all. You believe God's word. The fact of the matter is these so-called scientific groups, were they there to observe it? No. So they don't know anything about what happened. God is the one who told us how it happened. When he created, how he created, that he created Adam, that he created Eve. Every human being on earth is descended from those two people. Every human being on earth is descended from those two people. So the idea, I mean, biologos, I mean, aren't they the group that says there were soulless, ape-like hominids that were progressing along the way, and then God eventually got to two that were evolved enough to breathe souls into or something? How could you possibly defend that from the text of scripture? Obviously, there's a real authority problem there, for real. Well, we got instant credibility because of Francis Collins. Because what? Francis Collins runs that group. That's how we got instant credibility. Oh. OK. Yeah. You know, I have been listening to a fellow whose last name is Jensen. He's a research scientist from Harvard with Answers in Genesis. Yeah, that guy. I've been listening to some Answers in Genesis stuff that he's done. And he's done a ton of research on trying to map where all the different people groups came from. what they're discovering scientifically now is that everybody can be traced back to two people. Like they're seeing it clearly. I always just tell people, just don't worry about what the science community that's unbelieving is saying. Just give them time. They'll eventually catch up to God's word. And that's not being cocky or anything. The creator of all this stuff already told us all this. We don't need to worry about what this or that scientific discovery might say anyway. Because science really can't tell us anything about the past anyway, can it? I mean, it can't. It really is a betrayal of ignorance of what science, its limitations are. It really can't tell us anything about the past, because you can't do science on the past. Okay? Okay. So yeah, we were looking at that, the Adam-Christ thing, because once God moves you from being in Adam to being in Christ, you're saved. You can't possibly be anything other than saved, or sin abounds, grace abounds, all the more. And then he goes on in chapter six to ask that question, what shall we say then? Shall we sin so that grace can abound? And what's his answer? He says, no, you're finally saved by your fruit. I'm kidding. He says, shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? And he says, how can it be? Certainly not. How shall we who died to sin live in it any longer? And he goes through the whole thing about God liberating us from slavery to sin. When you see those Old Testament prophecies about Jesus, he sets the captives free. He's talking about captives of sin. People who were once slaves of sin, they're liberated from that slavery. And it's such a precious truth. And he goes on, he even tells us, God's word tells us the self-conception we're supposed to adopt. The self-conception, the way I'm supposed to think about myself is, likewise you also, think of yourselves as dead indeed to sin. Okay, not an alcoholic in Christ, or a thief in Christ, or anything like that. I am dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ. Okay, so Jesus has to take to himself a true body, a reasonable soul. He's conceived by the power of the Holy Ghost, in the womb of the Virgin Mary, and born of her, yet without sin. So he comes into the world, in the entire history of mankind, what is the total number of human beings who at any time were sinless? No. Three. Who are they? Adam and Eve and Jesus. That's it. The only three. Adam and Eve were created in true righteousness. Remember, I always tell you this, the catechism has all the answers. Okay, I was ready, when I did my ordination exams, I was examined three different times. I made sure I knew the catechism just backwards and forwards, and so no matter what I was asked, I had the answers. How did God create man? God created man, male and female, after his own image, in knowledge, righteousness, and holiness. Okay, so male and female, Adam and Eve, were created righteous. And once they fell, they lost that righteousness. We're not born righteous. There's only one other person that came into the world righteous. He was born of the Virgin Mary, yet without sin. So that's three total, three total. Okay, how many people do we know of that walked on water? Two, yeah. Who are they? I'm sorry? No, not John. No, not Moses. Who is the one that said, I'm sorry? Hey, hey, good job, Dylan. You got it. Yep. Peter's excursion on the water didn't last very long, though. What happened to him? You remember? He tried to fall. He tried not to believe that a train came. Yeah. He's sort of rough. Yeah. Yeah, you know, when I was in seminary, they made us read these horrifying neo-orthodox and liberal explanations, trying to come up with naturalistic explanations for miracles. And I just could not believe this one. I can't remember who it was from, but yeah, Jesus unknowingly was walking on floating timbers in the water, and that's why it looked like he was walking on water. And then Peter steps off the boat onto a couple of floating timbers of his own, but then his feet slip and he falls off. I'm like, are you serious? Like, that is so bad, so bad. But anyway, the stuff about the exodus and the plagues, those are the most entertaining to read. But just remember, the signs and wonders and miracles, they are the power of God. They're God doing what only he can do to show his power. Okay, so he's born of the Virgin Mary, yet without sin, vitally important. If that doesn't happen, none of us can be saved, because someone's gotta enter into what Adam failed to do, and he's gotta succeed doing it, representing his elect people, his church, and that's what Jesus does. Remember, he's tempted in a lot of the same ways that Israel is tempted. In fact, I'm seeing this as I'm studying Exodus for the evening sermons. Remember, when they go out into the wilderness, what are they immediately tempted with? The Israelites. They go a three days journey into the wilderness and what do they say? Nothing to eat. There's no food. Okay, when Jesus, they're in the wilderness for 40 years. Christ is in the wilderness for 40 days. The first thing he's tempted with is what? Same thing, hunger. He's tempted and really even parallels Israel's movements. As a child, he was in Bethlehem and has to flee to Egypt. Remember that? And then when the people seeking his life were Dead, he comes out of Egypt, just like the Exodus says there. And so he's like paralleling Israel's movements and their temptations, but he succeeds in every way that they failed. So you see, even the whole Old Testament story tells about the coming of Christ and then Jesus obeying everything, succeeding in every way that we fail. So it's really incredible, just wonderful to see that. Okay, and then question 23, what offices Does Christ execute as our Redeemer? Christ as our Redeemer executes the offices of a prophet, of a priest, and of a king, both in his estate of humiliation and exaltation. Okay, so what do you think about those two words? What does humiliation and exaltation mean? What is humiliation? Yeah, yeah, when you're embarrassed. That's kind of what it is in a sense, because where was God the son, that divine person, before the incarnation, before he adds a body to himself, a true body to himself? Where is he before that happens? He's in heaven, in communion with his father and with the Holy Spirit. They're enjoying one another's fellowship. There's infinite joy within the persons of the Godhead. And then he humbles himself and coming down to earth and taking a true body unto himself, because he not only does that, that's a pretty big step down from eternal glory to come into the realm of humanity, but he's also subject to all the effects of sin too. Do you think Jesus ever got a sore throat or got sick? I'm sure he did. Yeah, I'm sure he did. because he physically had to deal with all the same effects of sin that we do. Morally, he's pure and righteous, though, throughout, but he physically has to deal with all the effects of sin that we do. One of the ways we know that is that he died, okay? People have wondered, well, he was sinlessly perfect, he shouldn't have had to deal with any of the effects of the sin. His whole life is, in a sense, bearing the curse, his whole existence is, okay? So he's dealing with all the, I always thought, man, when I was younger. So if Jesus got bit by mosquitoes, did those mosquitoes live forever? Or things like that? No, they wouldn't have. If they would have gotten swatted, they would have splattered everywhere. But he had to deal with all the same effects of sin that we do. Except, thankfully, he's morally pure and perfect all the way through the whole ordeal. Okay, so he executes those offices of a prophet, priest, and king in his state of humiliation while he's on earth. He still executes the offices of a prophet, priest, and king in his state of exaltation. What do you think that is talking about, his state of exaltation? What does it mean to exalt something? Exaltation. Yeah, to raise it up, to be lifted up, praised, worshipped. This refers to his existence after his resurrection from the dead. That's his state of exaltation. And then his ascending up into heaven, his being seated at the right hand of God and coming to judge the world at the last day. Okay, and we'll look at just a couple more of these and then we'll quit. How does Christ execute the office of a prophet? Christ executes the office of a prophet in revealing to us by his word and spirit the will of God for our salvation. Now, we know that Jesus directly, specifically fulfills one of the prophecies that was made in Deuteronomy 18, that one day God would send a prophet like Moses. You guys familiar with this prophecy here? In Deuteronomy 18, verse 15, the Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your midst, from your brethren. Him you shall hear, according to all you desired of the Lord your God in Horeb in the day of the assembly, saying, let me not hear again the voice of the Lord God, nor let me see this great fire anymore, lest I die. Isn't that amazing? The people were like, we don't, Moses, you go talk to him. We don't want to be anywhere near him, because he's going to kill us all. What was it about God? Why were they so afraid of him? they saw direct manifestations of his presence. Like I always think of Exodus 20, that's where you get the 10 commandments are spelled out in Exodus 20. Exodus 19 is terrifying. I mean, there's smoke coming down, there's thundering and lightning and the sound of trumpets and the people are trembling. The people are terrified of all of this, okay? But this passage in Deuteronomy says that God's going to raise up a prophet. Remember when John the Baptist was out in the wilderness preaching, the Levites and the Pharisees sent some people to ask him what? What did they want to know? Who are you? Are you the prophet? Remember, what does John say? No. Are you Elijah? No. And then eventually it's Jesus who we know is this prophet. And that's why the catechism says he executes the office of a prophet. We know it's Jesus because who quotes this passage in the very first Christian sermon ever preached in the New Testament? In Acts chapter two, who quotes from Deuteronomy saying, this is the guy, Peter. Peter cites this to all those people there for Passover. He not only cites from Joel, he says, this guy, this is the prophet. Jesus Christ is the prophet. Okay, that's why our great reformed forefathers said he executes the office of a prophet. He is the prophet. Really the last one, the last prophet that God would send to the people. Okay, and then you get his office of a priest and his office of a king, and those are each worth a book, a treatise on. But y'all have any questions or thoughts? Yes. about like where your soul is and almost how I kind of explain that to him. Yeah, that's a really good question. Our soul definitely is located within our physical body somehow, but it's very mysterious. It's really hard to describe the immaterial aspect of who we are. But we know that we have a body and a soul, a physical aspect to who we are, and then a spirit. A soul and spirit are the same thing in Scripture. They're just two ways of referring to the same thing. But how do we know that we have this soul within us? How do we know that? It's actually, this is a really easy question. Cause God tells us, I'm sorry. That's right. Cause God's cause the scriptures tell us we have, we have souls. And we also know that when somebody dies, something has definitely left, you know, something's gone that was there before. Okay. So miles, it's definitely, it's located within our, our physical being, but it's not like something I can like pour a little bit of it into a cup and or anything like that. But yeah, that's a tough question. That's very hard to define. In fact, one of my little kids was asking me, what is a spirit? I was like, well, you can't define a spirit in material terms. I said, it's a person without a body. Because that kind of is what it is. A person without a body. Well, how is that possible? I don't know. I don't know. No idea. It's like Paul used to ask me one time, what did God make everything out of? I was like, nothing, Paul. Well, what is nothing? I'm like, nothing isn't anything. And we'd have these long philosophical discussions late at night. And it just drove me crazy. I was like, it's creation ex nihilo, out of nothing. How can that be? I'm like, I don't know, son. God can call things into being out of nothing. And that's where we all came from. OK, good question. OK, any other thoughts or questions? This is heavy duty stuff. This is the heart of the Christian faith is understanding this stuff, the incarnation and Jesus's mission and what he did. And this is the kind of, this is the thing that our kids need to know. It's the kind of thing that when we witness to people, we need to be able to explain to them how God did this and how, why, why it's so important. So. Yeah. Right. They have a unitarian assumption. That's the lens through which they read everything in scripture. So the idea that there's three persons is just not allowed. It's disallowed from the outset. Okay, we'll stop there. Let me close us in prayer. Father, thank you again for this time to be together. Thank you for each person here. Lord, these truths are stirring to our souls and to our hearts, and we pray that you'd help us all to represent these truths accurately to anyone that we ever come in contact with and know. And we're so thankful for the work of our forefathers in the faith, not just the Westminster Divines, but the the Christian men and women who fought for and defended these truths a thousand years before any of them were even born and fought against false teaching because they knew that the truth mattered and that these doctrines were essential for us to understand, to have a saving knowledge of who you are and to know what it is to be forgiven of all of our sins. So bless this time of fellowship and we thank you for being with us and we pray you'd bless us as a church family and help us to love each other well. We pray for those that are struggling with sickness. We remember Norma and Damon and pray you'd be with them and pray you'd be with my folks and with everyone else that's suffering in our church. We ask in Jesus' name. Amen.