We want to have a question and answer, a Q&A, and we have a theologian in the house. His name is Dr. Sinclair B. Ferguson, B for Bernard. It's a Scottish name. It's a very famous Scottish name, so I just want you to know that. And we have two microphones, one ahead of either aisle, and I would say, why don't you go ahead and begin to make your way towards the aisle and stand there. And as you ask your question of Dr. Ferguson, let me say this, this is not a time to make statements. This is not a time to start at your birth and to walk us all through. your life. This is a time to actually ask a question, like a question you don't know the answer to and you need help. So, use it wisely and be mindful that there will be other questions to be asked as well. State the question as succinctly as possible, and that would be a great help. So, Dr. Ferguson, I think that if you were to stand right here, that would be wonderful. Yes, you have your microphone on, and we have right here on aisle one. Dr. Ferguson No. I don't see the answers in the... You said you would give me the answers in advance. What I, brothers and sisters, do notice, however, is that this order of service says, question and answer, Drs. Sinclair B. Ferguson and Stephen J. Lawson. If I remember rightly, there was a preacher who pointed at Lawson's predecessor and said, pal, you're up. Okay? So when I say you're up, you're up. And I hope there are questions about what you've said and John Knox. I mean, there were 12 points there. You knew John Knox. I've only read about him, so. The question is, did John Knox know me? Will you chair this? Yes, sir. I will chair this. This is one of the distinctions between Presbyterians and Baptists. Which is? Presbyterians always have a chairman. Okay. All right. We'll do this in very orderly fashion as our Presbyterian brothers. God is a God of order. So, Rick Elder, your question for Dr. Sinclair B. Ferguson. Thank you. How much does preaching and the power of the Holy Spirit have to do with the amount of time the preacher spends in solitude prayer? All right, very good. Dr. Ferguson? I think that's an imponderable, actually. If you think about Calvin, you know anything about Calvin's life, you know that he could not have had a great amount of time for pulpit preparation. He also made it very clear, if I came into this pulpit without any preparation, you guys should leave. So preparation very important. But the relationship between amount of time in preparation and prayer. At the end of the day, power in preaching is a sovereign matter from God. And I think the experience of most people who preach is that it's not just that sometimes a light surprises the Christian while he sings, but sometimes a light dawns on the preacher that might seem to be unrelated to anything that he has done in preparation. So I would say actually the really important thing is the generic preparation of a life and a mind and a ministry. And that out of that fullness, that fullness, the context that makes us, as I sometimes think, operating room nurse assistant to the Holy Spirit, able to distinguish the surgical instruments and to have them properly sterilized, at least in the old days before it was this kind of thing surgeons did, is the role that the preacher of the gospel plays. So, the kind of, you know, the funny response to, how long did that sermon take to prepare, a lifetime, actually has a good measure of truth in it. And this, as Steve was underlining, in connection with Knox, is the real importance of disciplined, diligent study. And I would say, to give a long answer to a short and good question, I think it's very important, especially when we are earlier in the ministry, that we don't allow preparation to fill time available. And as we do that, we get caught up in the immediacy of having to prepare another message and another message and another message. And I think we need to stand back from that and build a larger scope and a greater depth into our understanding. And so I would say to younger ministers that the power of your preaching is not going to be atomistic in terms of if I spend more time in prayer on this sermon, then correspondingly when I put the money in the slot machine, I get the candy bar out. that actually it's what undergirds that that's the really significant and important and long-term thing. And I think I would, you know, I would have to say that, I mean, sometimes you can be a bit confused and mistaken about whether the Spirit has come. But looking back, I think I would say the moments looking at a congregation of listeners, I've been most conscious of the falling of the Spirit upon us. I wouldn't be able to relate directly to the amount of time that had gone into the prayer and preparation of that particular message. So I think it's a whole life thing. It's got to do with what we are as instruments of the Lord. And yet at the same time with the conviction, I remember when I was a... I think he said this to me when I was a teenager, William Still, whom I think I mentioned last night, who was such a spiritual mentor to me, said one day to me, he said, you know, I never preach now without believing that something will be done for all eternity. And I remember thinking that's what I... I do not know how you get there, but I want to get there where whether one has a sense that the whole congregation has in an unusual way sensed the power of God, or whether some hidden individual has been brought from death to life. And that at the end of the day is a matter of of faith in the utterance. As McChain says, as my wife, who is my most loving friend and gracious critic, usually not by anything she says, said to me one day, just remember McChain's words, it's not many words that God uses, but words spoken in faith. And it's the exercise of faith in the exposition of Scripture that I think is, if I can put it this way, is one of the realities that pleases rather than grieves the Holy Spirit and draws Him into our ministry. Thank you. Outstanding question and answer. Yes, ma'am. And she's asking her question. Yeah, Patrick, please be making your way and anyone else also. Yes, ma'am. My name is Marie. I'm from Pensacola, Florida. This question came to me yesterday when Dr. Ferguson was speaking about the Holy Spirit being in Christ. The question just came out of the blue, because when Jesus was on the cross, dying, his father had to turn away from him because he couldn't be face-to-face with sin. So he had to turn away from him. I was wondering if the Holy Spirit, being God, also had to leave him at that time. Certainly. That is such an easy question to answer. I'm going to let Dr. Ferguson answer that question. Well, if only we had more than three extant sermons of John Knox, we might be able to answer it. You know, the first thing to say is, there is a great mystery attached to what takes place on the cross. I think it is axiomatic, axiomatic, that there is no division within the Trinity. There is no division within the Trinity. I think it also should be taken as axiomatic, as I said last night, that in terms of Christ, Philippians 2, 5 to 11, humbling himself to the point of death, even death on a cross, therefore God highly exalted him. that in terms of his role as the second man and the last Adam, this moment of divine desertion, which is his obedience unto death, is the maximization of the obedience of the Son in our flesh to His heavenly Father. And correspondingly, therefore, in terms of what Luke says at the end of Luke chapter 2, the point of highest favor in the heart of the Father with respect to His Son in our humanity. So those are axiomatic things, two axiomatic things. The third axiomatic thing, I think, is the passage that Dr. Lawson cited last night from Hebrews There is some discussion about exactly how do we execute this passage. My own sense of it is that we are to understand it precisely the way he used it last night, which was to say that in that very moment he was being sustained by the power of the Holy Spirit. In the very humanity that sensed desertion by God, he was sustained by the Holy Spirit in order that that sense of desertion by God in and of itself didn't kill him, but that he was able in that sense of desertion by God to offer himself. And this is the critical thing about Christ's redemptive work. It's not that he is, as it were, crucified. There were two others who were crucified. It's that in that crucifixion he is offering himself to God as a sacrifice for our sins. And in that sense, he is born to the altar and sustained on the altar by the person of the Holy Spirit, just as in the resurrection he is sustained in the resurrection by the power of the Holy Spirit. So we have no line by which to measure the reality of this experience Jesus has. I believe the one line that kind of helps us to measure it is actually that in his role as the second man and the last Adam, he is reversing the position of the first man and the first Adam. And my understanding of the first man and the first Adam is that as he faces the tree from which his wife has already eaten the fruit, there are two things to notice. One is, this tree is actually described in precisely the same language all the trees are described. So there's nothing about the tree of the knowledge of good and evil that says, eat me and I'll kill you. It is actually divinely made, like the other trees, to be beautiful to look at, and its fruit looks delicious. What distinguishes this tree exclusively is that God has said, you are not to eat of this tree. That's the only distinction in the Scriptures between this tree and all the other trees. And the function of this tree is that it is the one thing in the universe to which God has attached a special command that means, Adam isn't able to read off this tree, this tree will kill me. It's not about his instincts. It's not about his reasoning. It's entirely about his submissiveness to the Lord who has given him all the other trees, his submissiveness to the Lord to trust him as a loving, providing Lord who has made him as his image and his likeness to enjoy him in obedience throughout all eternity. And so he must do something that he has no instinct to do. purely on his basis of submitting to the Word of God. And what does he do? He is faced with a choice. The choice is, keep the woman and eat the tree, or obey the Father and lose the woman. Now when you come to the cross, I think this emerges in Gethsemane where Jesus as much as says to the Father, there is nothing in me that wants to drink this cup. If there is any other way, please find that other way, which I think is tantamount to saying what he had to say. There is nothing in me that desires what I am about to experience. I have lived in holy communion with you thirty-three years. I do not want to experience divine desertion. I cannot bear the thought of divine desertion. I believe if Jesus had any other thought in his mind, at that point he would be sinning. He could not desire divine desertion in itself. And so he has been asked, like Adam at the tree, to go to the tree and be obedient to the father rather than to follow the instincts of the occasion. And interestingly, at the same time, he's faced with the same decision, isn't he? You can go to the tree and have the woman, or you can refuse to go to the tree and lose the woman. But you cannot have the woman, the church, and not have the tree. And so there's this amazing, and this I think lies at the heart of what he's doing. This is why in Romans 5, 12 to 21, Paul emphasizes the obedience of Christ, and Paul in Philippians 2, 5 to 11 emphasizes the obedience of Christ, because this is the grand reversal. But we're not able to get inside Jesus, as it were, beyond the Scriptures and say, I know what it must have been like for you, Jesus, to go through that. And so whenever we speak about these things, if I can put it this way, I think it's important for us to remember that we are usually describing the theological reality, and we're not always able to explain the theological reality. Augustine has a famous saying. He says, I see the depth, I cannot reach the bottom. And I think when it comes to the cross of Christ, that's where we are. And all of those points in our thinking, that's the point at which we stand back and simply adore where we cannot and perhaps never will in all eternity fully understand, although the probing of the reality is one of the blessed realities to which we look forward in glory. So, great question. Long answer. Well, I think we're thankful for the long answer, because a long answer is a full and deep answer, and that's really what we want. We don't want a bumper sticker answer. We want a theological treatise, if you will, shrunk down to the answer. Patrick, and then we'll come to the other side, but Patrick? Sure. Dr. Ferguson, Patrick Cho from San Diego, California. And I'm so appreciative of looking around this conference, all the older men here. I find myself in a unique and difficult position as a younger pastor, also training up guys younger than I am. I feel like I'm just kind of starting off in the race and having to help younger men as well. From your perspective of ministry, what advice would you give to young pastors training up younger men for ministry? Is there anything that you see from your unique perspective as someone from outside the country that drives you crazy about how churches... Just one thing? Ways that you feel churches in particular can better train up men for ministry? Yeah. Well, let me have a stab and then you'll come and help me, Steve, I promise. Yes, I would appreciate Dr. Watson's perspective. Do you know, I'm not a method person, so let me get that out front. I'm not a method person. Here's the strategy. But when I came to work in the United States, first of all, 1983, most of the students who came into my office at seminary about something, sometimes about their grades, voluntarily, often asking why they didn't get an A. I, there was a question I wanted to get around to and the question was, because I actually was the average age of the students in 1983, was the average age of the students. And I wanted to compare, I wanted to see if they'd experienced what I'd experienced. And so one way or another, I would ask the question, what minister has invested himself in your life? And the answer was almost universally none. And I sometimes wondered whether, you know, in the period, that period and afterwards, you know, statistics told us that the average first minister, first ministry of a young minister was a couple of years old, a couple of years. I wondered if we were actually producing an entire generation of ministers. who believed they were called to be leaders and hadn't understood that they were supposed to be fashioned, first of all, as servants, and they had never done what you see, I think, fairly clearly in the biblical pattern is they never had access to someone to serve them. And so when they went into the ministry, they actually had no Velcro strips by which they could grasp what they were doing now as leaders, because they had never actually been led. And it looks to me in Scripture as though in most instances the way in which to learn to be a leader, which is not a big New Testament word incidentally, is to find someone whom you can serve. And that means to me I think that means more than anything else, and this is This is my basic answer. What you need to do is to let these younger men get close enough to you to smell what ministry is actually like. I remember when I was a teenager, I read in the newspaper one day, it stuck with me because it was quite an insight that Japanese people believed Scottish people smelled of milk. And my guess is, not that we were all farmers, you know, milking the cows before school, but that, you know, I was a post-war generation. Milk had been rationed. I still remember rationing when I was a little boy. And so somebody up there in the Secretary of State for Milk had decided all Scottish schoolboys should drink gallons of milk. And so every morning in the middle of the lessons, you know, every week two of you would be appointed to go down to the bottom of the school and heave up these milk crates full of milk. And we'd, you know, we were drinking all this milk. But the thing is, if you're a milk drinking nation, then you cease to notice the aroma or the odor or the breath. A little like when you get into an elevator today and somebody comes in who's been 15 yards outside the building smoking. And the elevator just fills with his breath. But he's been smoking so much he doesn't detect it. And I really believe that younger men need most of all to be able to smell our breath. to be able to see not here are the seven things you do, because what they'll do is those seven things, but to learn the instincts that you have and then to work out what's the driver of those instincts that will enable me to apply this in the various situations in which I'm going to find myself. So I would say the most important thing is just to let them near enough to you. With respect to training for the ministry, you know it's becoming dreadfully expensive. You know, I mean, most of us have a solution for the educational problem, so you don't need my solution for the educational problem. But one of the things we need to guard, I think, and I see this in all the professions as well as in the ministry, is never did us any harm to work our way through college and all the rest of it. And often it wasn't nearly so expensive. And one of the most difficult things to do is to encourage the people of God to find ways of sustaining those who really have been called to the ministry, so that they're not spending 12 years preparing for the work of the gospel ministry. And I think we need to do that as families, as churches, in imaginative and inventive ways. But I think the big thing for us as ministers is let them near enough to smell you. But don't drink too much milk. Steve, you've done this more than I in this world. As far as training men for the ministry, is that the question, Patrick? In the unique context of being a young guy teaching younger guys, you know, I'm always trying to glean. Yeah, a young guy teaching younger guys, preparing them for ministry. Are you talking about going off to ministry or ministering within your church? Yes, both. Okay. The difference between Steve and me is he actually wants to know what the question really is. That's true. That is true. Well, I can only think back by experience, and I know I should answer biblically, but it's a very experiential type question. I think it begins with the pulpit and bringing excellence into the pulpit. I think that young men are drawn to the strong preaching of the Word of God. And I think strong men want strong preaching. And I think where there is strong preaching, there will be gathered around them strong men. So I don't think that we can discount the strength of the pulpit as an attracting force for young men. Second, I think there needs to be some kind of discipleship. In the past, I have met with men on a Saturday morning or on a Friday morning, and I have taught them elements of systematic theology. that I think are critically important and beginning with theology proper and the attributes of God. And I've never gone through that. Or the next section, I would teach young men how we received our Bible. I've never done that, but that there has been at least one man be raised up and go off to seminary. It just has a catalytic effect. I'm not much on male bonding clubs. and chest bumping, and I'll throw up on you and you throw up on me, and aren't we close to one another? I don't have time for that, don't need that. I don't think that helps anybody, quite frankly. I think that truth is what is electrifying and is sanctifying. And so I would do the attributes of God, how we received our Bible, And then in our church, every Friday morning for several years down in the basement, I taught the doctrines of grace beginning in Genesis and ending up in Revelation. And for those of you who have the book Foundations of Grace, all that is is just a 16-page typed-up handout that I had for our men every week and became the chapters in that book. And I just believe that sovereign grace is an electrifying truth. And it's a very impactful truth and like I said earlier, when I spoke of Knox, it is a pride crusher, it is a worship igniter, it is missions launching, it is evangelism stoking, it is Christ producing. Those core truths have an extraordinary electrifying effect in the heart and the soul of men if they are presented I think, in an impassioned way, straight from the Scripture. So that's what I've done. I'm sure there are some other things that I've taught that I can't call to mind at the moment. I've taught the triunity of God, and I just like straightforward theology. to set men's hearts on fire. I've done a study before of, you know, how to parent your children and things like that. And it was okay, but it didn't light up men. It didn't make them want to go to the mission field. It didn't make them want to go to seminary. It didn't make them want to become elders. It just helped them where they were. There's a place for it. I don't mean to diminish it. But it's not as catalytic. I think men become better husbands when their pride is crushed and when they are worshiping God. I think men become better fathers when their pride is crushed and when they exalt God in their lives. And that's what theology does. So, just to answer your question, that's what I've done. I don't have that presently, but I've done that for many, many many years going back 30-plus years. So, just to answer your question. Thank you. Yeah, certainly. Okay, over here. Mark Eberhard. Yes, Mark. From Concord Presbyterian Church in Gulf Breeze, about an hour from here. Yes. And this question is primarily for Dr. Ferguson. Yes. I think, Steve, you might be able to chime in, too. It's a question pastor's opinion of baptism in regards to, I'm on the examinations committee at our presbytery level, and we just interviewed a new young pastor, and he's in sync with covenantal baptism, but he does not agree with other And, of course, in the Presbyterian denomination, we recognize other baptism modes, but he doesn't agree with that. Would that be seen as an exception? He sees it as lesser. My view right now, and being on a committee, we haven't taken a vote yet. I just want to get your opinions on this. Is it more than an exception in regards to baptism? Because that may affect how he ministers to folks in the church that come from different denominations. I'm absolutely certain Dr. Ferguson is going to want to answer this one. No, just so I've got your question right. We're talking Presbyterian to Presbyterian. The issue is what? For most of the brethren in this room, there isn't an issue here at all. he's in concert with, uh, covenantal baptism. Okay. So he subscribes to that, which means, uh, infant baptism, but covenant, you know, I think most may know what that is, whether they agree with it or not, that's a different subject is, but he does not, uh, agree with other, say you have a transferring or a new Christian that's transferring for the Methodist Church or a Catholic that was, he doesn't believe in that, how they baptize them, whether they were a baby or they were, it was a believer baptism. He only believes in covenantal baptism. So, Would you see that as an exception for his becoming ordained, or is it lesser of an issue, or is that more of a serious issue? They said, no, you can't, because the PCA, for example, does not, our doctrines, our system of doctrine allows certain things to have exceptions and certain things not to have exceptions. Okay, just let me make sure I've got it. dare we call him a paedo-baptist. Okay, he's a paedo-baptist. This man is a credo-baptist. This man comes along to the church and he has a problem. He doesn't recognize that he has been baptized. Correct. Then my, I'm not PCA, you know that, I'm ARP, and I don't know the PCA Book of Order so well, but my guess is that in becoming a member of a church, Your perspective on the mode and time of baptism is not part of the confession that you make. In other words, most Presbyterian churches, for the three Presbyterians who are in the room, but of interest to us at large, do not present the same standards, do not require the same standards of cognitive appreciation of the confession of faith for members as they do for those who are going to be officers in the church. And, you know, I don't think that's idiosyncratically Presbyterian, in which case, quite apart from the theological question, I think there is the very serious pastoral question as to whether this is actually in conformity with how the whole church does church. And that the issue, you know, I think this is not the place for me to try and settle the theological issue, but I think actually what we have here is potentially a very serious pastoral issue, because this, as you say, really is going to make an impact on the style and atmosphere of the life of the church. And if I read the Gospels and the New Testament are right, truth and atmosphere go hand in hand with one another. Truth produces atmosphere. Untruth produces a different kind of atmosphere. And there are atmospheres that draw numbers of people. But the numbers of people who are drawn are people who want to share this certain idiosyncrasy, which it actually is. And as one of my colleagues used to say, no matter how far you go in any direction, when you get up in the morning, there's somebody who's still standing to the right of you, or for that matter, to the left of you. And so, you know, if I were in the situation of the Presbytery Committee, I would be as interested in the individual's disposition for gospel ministry. as I would be in the more technical theological question. Now, there are some little areas in that question, Roman Catholic baptism and so on, that we probably could discuss more broadly and that would be of broader interest. But we've heard enough about the papacy for one afternoon, I think. And we can talk about it privately, which is probably how I should have answered the question. Just, you know, let me make a more general point. My sense, when younger men want to emphasize what generally the community would regard as idiosyncrasies, it's the heart that needs to be examined as well as the head. Sometimes it's just simply that their heads are wonky. But often it is that they are driven, as some men I think are driven, not to be the same as everybody else. And that's a fearful thing in many respects in the ministry, because it means that your driving ambition is actually to be different. And the reason you want to be different is, alas, sometimes because your own ministry hasn't already produced the fruit that would qualify you for the ministry. And that fruit would be, among other things, an hospitable heart, which is, whether you have a big house or a small house, is one of the qualifications. And that you're not argumentative. And, you know, my impression is that there are men who think they should be called to the eldership teaching or ruling, however your denomination slices the pie, because they are powerful in being argumentative with people. And in the New Testament, that's a disqualification from the eldership, not a qualification for it. And perhaps it's an indication to us that often in the way through to the ministry, the question of the heart is not as seriously viewed as it really ought to be. Remember the story about Thomas Goodwin, the student wanted to, you know, come and study in the college where Goodwin was, and he described how Goodwin, I don't know what time of the day or night it was, but Goodwin came down wearing several hats on his head. There'd be no central heating in an English winter, you know. It'd be pretty cold. And one of the reasons people wore wigs in the 17th century was to try to protect their hair against the various kinds of insanity. And the student wrote to somebody else, he seemed far more interested in the condition of my soul than he was in the condition of my head. And since Presbyterianism Historically, only historically, in distinction from the Baptist world in this land mass, emphasized an educated ministry. The Baptist tradition, if I understand it, was, hey, let's get out and convert the world, education or no. The Presbyterian ideal was no education, no evangelism. And so there is actually built into the whole tradition a huge emphasis on the intellectual cognitive dimension of the gospel. And I think there needs to be more emphasis on the heart dimension really. Now we can go back to Catholic matters in which we're all united. Right. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Just where do you keep the font in this church? It's over my shoulder. right now. Yes, sir, your question. Yes, I'm from Tylertown, Mississippi, and I first want to thank you, Dr. Lawson, and this church for hosting this conference. It's a tremendous blessing to me and my wife and such a time of refreshment for us. Thank you. I'm a pastor of a church, and I'm going to be having my own Q&A in a couple of weeks, and one question has come up. I want to just try it out on a couple of you guys first. is, why did God create Lucifer knowing that Lucifer would fall and become the devil and so forth? Why? Why the devil? Okay, Dr. Ferguson? You know, you're the home pastor here, and I think that's a deeply pastoral question. Oh no, oh no. We want to draw from your well. A couple of things. One is there is a big answer to everything. He does all things ultimately for his own glory. But that is a description of what he does. It is not an explanation always of why he does what he does. We can say, you know, that there is the expression of his divine righteousness and justice negatively in the judgment of evil, just as there is the magnifying of His grace in the saving of sinners. But I think we should never think that we can make the ends justify the means in a very simple kind of logic. And I think there is an aspect of the answer to that question that just lies under Deuteronomy 29.29, that there are things that are revealed that belong to us and our children, and there are things that belong only to the Lord. And one of the This is almost the only thing I actually feel I learn from one of my professors in the divinity faculty, that in all areas of theology there comes a line, a perimeter line beyond which we are not capable of going, because to go there we would need to understand God as He understands Himself. but the trick and challenges to know where the perimeter fence is, and not to be slack to push to the borders of biblical revelation. And then I find, you know, Steve can speak to this, many of you could speak to this, I find, and I often say to our students in the seminary, I find one of the glories of being, quotes, reformed, or as we would rather say, just plain biblical, is that you don't feel under any personal constraint to know the answers to every conceivable question. And that one of the differences between being Reformed and belonging to, I don't know, the kind of, certainly the extreme fundamentalistic approach to Scripture and to theology and the world in general is that there must be an answer. preferably a simple answer to every conceivable question. And I find it a marvelously liberating thing to be able to say, I don't know the answer to that question. I can describe the theology of Scripture But I cannot give you the ultimate divine explanation, because I would need to be God to be able to do so. And so at that point, you know, I think Augustine's little statement is really helpful to us. I see the depth. I cannot reach the bottom. And at that point, with Paul, you know, we are learning to say, You know, His wisdom and knowledge is beyond our capacity to grasp. But because of that, we don't do the Adam and Eve thing and say, I want to be this God, or the Nietzsche thing. If there is a God, how can I bear not to be that God? But we bow down in adoring wonder and say, we know two things about you, that you are absolutely sovereign and that you are absolutely good, and you never vary from either. Thank you. That's very helpful. Outstanding. He's six for six so far, so let's see if we can stump him. All right, right here, and then over here. So give him your best fastball. Maybe I should begin this one by saying I do not know the answer to this question. All right. Speaking of the work of regeneration and the work of the Spirit in that, knowing since Adam we are all depraved, can you help me distinguish and differentiate where necessary the need for the regeneration since Adam and those who were saved, Old Testament, New Testament, and what happened then at Pentecost when the Holy Spirit came. What was different in those believers that they did not have in regeneration? Right. Let me say a couple of things here. One very generic and probably most if not all of us would track on this. The only reason, the only theological reason when the Apostle Paul says, it's like this, the gospel works like this. the only reason he can characteristically, dominantly, point back to the Old Testament. is because he believes the same reality was experienced by old covenant believers as by new covenant believers. That's how Hebrews 11 works, yet in the context of not ending at the end of Hebrews 11, but saying at the end of Hebrews 11, we know that they were not brought to perfection, completion, the full realization of the promise apart from us, that is, apart from this day in which Jesus Christ, to whom they were looking in the promise and we are looking in the reality. So there is an undergirding continuity. That's point number one. That undergirding continuity would be otherwise expressed in the fact that Paul says in Galatians 5, here are the fruit of the Spirit, and we go back to the Old Testament Scriptures, and these very fruit are produced in the lives of believers which are the realities that we learn from the New Testament can be produced only by the Holy Spirit. So theologically, whether we refer to this as regeneration or not, is a minor issue in the bigger question. I think the bigger question is that they experienced the reality of justification and new life in the light of what Christ would do. That said, Isaiah, you know, Isaiah writes, Isaiah 53, he comes to the table for dinner and Mrs. Isaiah says, so what have you been doing all afternoon? And he says, well, here it is. And she asks the very same question the Ethiopian eunuch asks. Who is this? And Isaiah says, according to Peter, I've been thinking about that ever since the ink dried. I have no idea who this is. So in the Old Testament scriptures, there are these epochs of unfolding revelation. Isaiah sees further than Moses does. for all the fullness of the Mosaic revelation about sacrifices, Isaiah looks over the horizon under the influence of the Spirit, and he sees this figure appearing, an individual figure, who is led like a lamb to the slaughter, and like a sheep before its shearers is done, who is the sacrificial victim. It's a particular individual. He's now putting together the seed of the woman and the seed of Abraham. And yes, the Davidic king who suffers, and identifying him as the suffering servant. But he's not read Daniel. He doesn't know that this is also the Son of Man. So are these pieces, disparate pieces, lying around that give clues, that evoke faith. And all of this comes to, if you think of this as like a trajectory, you know there are mountain peaks and there are valleys, but the trajectory is upwards and upwards to the summit. And then just as redemptive history comes to the summit, there is a man sent from God whose name was John. And John points and he says, this is the Lamb of God. This is the answer to Isaac's question, where is the lamb for the sacrifice? This is the suffering servant. And yet Jesus can say, the least in the kingdom is greater than John the Baptist, which doesn't mean, we know this doesn't mean we are greater than John the Baptist as individuals, but that we live in an epoch of which John could only dream because we live on this side of Calvary. So the realization of the work of the Holy Spirit in the new goes hand-in-hand with the fullness of the revelation of Jesus Christ, and seems to be, on the one hand, described in those terms. This is why, in a sense, you know, we read the Psalms, or Psalms, and we say to ourselves, I wish I could get there. But that's just like we see somebody who's a new Christian and doesn't know a twentieth of what we know. And yet, their faith in Christ, the little of Christ they know, their faith in Christ is so focused. that there's something about their lives that's actually lacking in ours. Because we know much about Christ, but exercise little faith. They know little about Christ, but exercise commensurate faith with the knowledge they have. So because the Spirit works, as it were, in tandem at every stage with the revelation of God, when that revelation comes to its consummation, You know the way I sometimes put it is actually where it comes to its consummation is in Matthew 28, 18 to 20, which if as preachers we use only at services where there are baptisms or services where there are missionaries, we kind of miss the point, because this is the first moment in all human history where anyone apart from the Son has known how properly to pronounce God's name, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And that's a quantum leap forward in the revelation of the knowledge of God. And the dynamic, at least in theory, is the fuller the revelation, the more the evocation of faith The more the evocation of faith, the larger the capacity we are to become more capacious than John or Isaiah or David or Abraham or Moses to receive the fullness of God in the gospel. And this is the reason why Paul prays for believers, that they will be filled with all the fullness of God. So it isn't that there is a kind of this radical division at one level, but there is a quantum leap forward at another level. There is continuity, and there is this quantum leap forward. And the Spirit, if I can put it this way, the Spirit never gets ahead of Jesus. in terms of that redemptive historical revelation. I see this happening very much in the farewell discourse, that Jesus is actually bringing them on even further. You are already cleaned through the Word that I have spoken to you. From that point of view, they are already in the new life. They are united to the vine. whether it's appropriate to say that this is what the New Testament calls regeneration, because the New Testament uses that term only twice. And one of those occasions, it's got to do with the reconstruction of the cosmos. And the other comment in Titus, I think, may actually refer to that, that what regeneration is, is actually the fruit of our union and communion with specifically the regenerated Savior, the resurrected Savior. then, you know, we might discuss in a very narrow theological way whether the term regeneration was appropriate to Old Testament saints, but that they were justified, that they knew the new life of God, that they were being sanctified, and that they had expectations of being glorified, I think as part and parcel of the Old Covenant revelation. And all this is why I think I said last night My own understanding of what Jesus says in 14, is it 14, 17 in John, you know him because he is with you and he will be in you, is in a sense experientially the heart of this. that I would say if you want to see where the experiential difference lies, it lies in this, that the Spirit who ministered among the old covenant community ministered in light of the fact that he would dwell on the Lord Jesus. But now he actually comes to the New Covenant community as the one who has dwelt on the Lord Jesus. And however you try and parcel this out in verbal terms, it does mean that the one who comes to dwell in us actually comes with thirty-three years of experience of the most intense fellowship with the man Christ Jesus. And this is the reason why he brings into our lives the resources actually to transform us into the likeness of Jesus. He has these resources because of His communion with Jesus to make us like Jesus. Because, if one can put it this way, He is the one through whom Jesus became like Jesus. And now, in those who are not going to be engaged in an atoning work, He is working to conform us to the image of the Father of the Son. So I think there are many dimensions. to it, but one of them is, I think, really have to emphasize continuity. The other is, we really also have to emphasize this quantum leap forwards, which Paul, I'm going on and on here, which Paul Paul uses an illustration, doesn't he, in Galatians 3, that I found very helpful when he says the law is a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ, which sometimes in our tradition has been interpreted largely subjectively. The law is the nasty slave who whips you, and by the time he's finished whipping you, you're glad that you've come to school in Christ. Whereas one of the things I think he's clearly saying is that the law was the pedagogue who brought us in redemptive historical terms to Christ so that when we were under the pedagogue And now we look at that in light of being in Christ. It looks to me, Paul says, as though that experience was like slavery. But you don't find the Old Testament saints saying that. What you find the Old Testament saints saying is, it's great being under the mosaic law. How I love your law, it's my meditation day and night. So what's the deal here? My little illustration of the deal is this, that when I was in what we would call primary school and you'd call elementary school, four through eleven, age four through eleven, those school days were the happiest days of my life. When I went to secondary school, junior school, senior school, whatever you call it, junior high and senior high, all rolled into one, age 11 through 17, I realized that my teachers in elementary school had been a bunch of prison guards. It was absolutely miserable. I couldn't understand how they'd been so mean and cruel. But it was only in the light of the new order in which I was living. And then I went off to university. My last Is this long enough for you? Oh, yes, sir. I'm loving it. Last six months in high school, I studied Hamlet with my English teacher. I went to university. The senior English professor opened his lectures with a lecture on Hamlet. And I learned more in one hour than I'd learned in six months in high school. And I thought, these teachers in high school didn't know anything. This is absolutely glorious. This is a new world. But it was only comparatively speaking, it was only by entering into the new dimension of learning that the older dimension could be seen in a different light. And I think that's actually how the New Testament operates with the Old Testament. From one perspective, it's an administration of amazing glory, and it was so for those who lived under it. But when you enter into the new creation in Christ, then you see how preliminary it was to the full reality. And it looks to me as though there were a very small number of people passed through that transition. We don't pass through that transition. Some of us have little echoes of it, but they uniquely pass through that transition and therefore, in an unusual way, we're comparing the old to the new. That's the beginning of an answer. I'm sorry I went on so long. No, that's tremendous. Thank you. Thank you for the question. Yeah, thank you, Sinclair. I think we're all greatly helped by your insight. I'm looking at this clock up here. which says 4.30, and I know that we're supposed to be in the gym at 4.30, so if you don't mind... I'll give a short answer to this question. Okay, question. I can talk to you individually, actually, Dr. Lawson, because the question was, piggybacking on the very first question, how do I know, or how can I have any inclination at all that I have studied and prayed enough for this Sunday's sermon and the following Sunday's sermon, having not experienced what you talked about where I'm suddenly filled with these thoughts and these words while I'm preaching that I've never had before, you know, without looking for percentages or time or whatever else. Is there any indication? We can talk offline about that. Well, I think, and I was actually asked the question privately by the brother who asked the question publicly. There is no set answer in the Bible as to how long do you pray before you preach. And so, as I said to him, it would be legalistic for me to say, okay, the answer is 30 minutes, and if you'll pray 30 minutes, then that's sufficient. There is no answer, and I think it differs with each one of us. And it differs according to many different factors, where we are spiritually, what our capacities are, on many different levels. So I think that's something that only each one of us can answer individually. I mean, it's almost like, do your children need to be in public school, private school, Christian school, homeschooled? I'm going to have to let you answer that individually. I can't impose an answer on that. I totally agree with what Dr. Ferguson said. I don't think it's like a 30-minute segment of prayer is the determining factor. I think it's your whole life. It's everything that has led up to this. I think that 30 minutes in prayer is a huge factor. And what I did say also to the brother is, I don't think that I pray enough. Probably most people in this room don't pray enough. So I would say whatever it is you pray, we probably ought to pray more. I don't know what that is. I don't know how much that is. I doubt that there are too many people in the room that we need to call off if you're just praying too much. Stop that. You know, and by the way, you're just witnessing too much also. If you could hold that to yourself a little bit more. I think we need to be urged to pray more. But only God knows what that is for each one of us individually, and I don't think that we can know even going into the sermon, per se. Some of the sermons that I And even Dr. Ferguson alluded to this, times I thought I had knocked it out of the ballpark, I'll get in the car driving home and my wife will say, I guess you're a little tired today, weren't you? I thought I was skydiving, you know? I thought, this is the greatest sermon I've ever preached in my life. I was moon dancing in the pulpit, and she thought I was a little tired. And then other times, I will just be literally so exhausted coming into the pulpit and stepping out of the pulpit, I will feel like I have been abandoned. And then people will come up, or during the week they'll email me and just tell me how helped they were by that sermon. And it's almost discouraging that I can't make a corollary. And so there is this supernatural answer are there supernatural dimension that is unknown to us that only God knows. So I think we just have to pray and when we think we've prayed enough we probably still need to pray a little bit more. And so I would urge everyone here as well as myself that we need to be alert in prayer diligently and to pray yet more. That is a great question and I'm so glad that Dr. Ferguson insisted that we that we feel. Thank you for your patience to waiting for us.