A Spirituality of the Word

Privilege to be with you tonight to think together with you from an historical vantage point about the scriptures and their sufficiency and the way in which the framers of the 1689 Confession of Faith, their historical background, the context in which they wrote The statements that we have before us, I'm going to spend some time going over the backgrounds, giving you some sort of the context of the sixteen eighty nine confession of faith. And then I really want to focus on one sentence in the confession is the one that starts chapter one and paragraph one. The Holy Scripture is the only sufficient, certain and infallible rule of all saving knowledge, faith and obedience. And I want to spend a bit of time unpacking that, but really first, what I want to do is give you some idea of the context in which this statement was made. I begin with this word from Holy Scripture found in a text that has already been read in First Thessalonians, chapter two and verse 13. Which speaks of the delight. That God's people historically have had In his holy word, the apostle Paul, thanking God for the various things that he had done amongst the Thessalonian believers, says this. We also thank God constantly for this, that when you receive the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as a word of men, but as what it really is, the word of God, which is at work in you believers. Amen. In the summer of 1656, a congregation of Irish Calvinistic Baptists in Dublin, it would later be known as Swift's Alley Baptist Church, wrote to a Welsh congregation in Glamorgan, a little town called Ilston. Urging their Welsh Baptist brethren, among other things, they urged this, labor to keep up in one of his heart an honorable esteem of the holy words of God in opposition to the present delusions of the times. Labor to keep up in one another's hearts an honorable esteem of the holy words of God in opposition to the present delusions of the times. There are a number of noteworthy things about that one sentence that I'd like to draw out as a really kind of introduction to what I want to do this evening. First of all, This is a defining characteristic of Baptists down through the years. Those Baptists in our day or in the late 19th century who are involved in battles over the Bible are an aberration. Historically, Baptists have been men and women who were centered in centered in Holy Scripture. This shouldn't surprise us. Baptist origins, if you go back into the 1600s, Baptist origins come out of that movement we call Puritanism. And Puritanism was a movement that was focused on reforming the Church of England in accordance with the Word of God. Puritanism and the word Puritan have gotten much bad press over the centuries, so much so that today the term Puritanical is a negative term. And I suspect even many Christians unknowingly, if they were described as puritanical, would certainly never take it as a compliment. But Puritans were those evangelicals, if I can use that phrase, in the late 16th century and early 17th century who were determined that all that was done in worship and preached in terms of doctrine be according to the word. It is out of this context that Baptists emerge. Baptists are, in their origins, Puritans. Not surprisingly then, the Baptist movement has been a movement centered in the Word of God. And this statement from these Irish Baptists to a group of Welsh Baptists reveals that determinative characteristic of what a Baptist is, a Bible-centered person. Secondly, the statement emphasizes not simply that they commit themselves intellectually to scripture, but that that commitment be from the heart. Labor to keep up in one another's heart an honorable esteem of the holy words of God. Intellectual assent to the authority of scripture is not sufficient and has not been deemed sufficient historically by Baptists. There must be an effective component In that esteem of scripture, there must be a delight in the word. The word must be sweet to one's tastes. And the scriptures must not only shape one's mind, one's thinking, but also one's affections and one's heart. And then finally, in this statement from these Irish Baptists, these Welsh Baptists, there is a note of urgency. 1656, they are emphasizing them. labor to keep up in one another's heart an honorable esteem of the holy words of God in opposition to the present delusions of the times. And in unpacking the historical context of the statement in the 1689 confession, we're going to have to take a little time to seeing what were the present delusions, what were the challenges that faced Baptists in that period of time. We will see that the delusions have to do with a body of people primarily known as the Quakers. Whatever Quakers might be today, in the 1650s through the 1680s, they were one of the most troublesome groups. a body of men and women who undermined the Puritan balance of Word and Spirit, who so exalted the Spirit, usually their own personal experience of the Spirit, that they devalued the Word and placed in the stead of Holy Scripture the Spirit's Word, their own words, their own experience, their own revelations. And this is the background in which these Irish Baptists are urging. Hang on to the scriptures, delight in them, make sure that you have an esteem for God's word, an effective esteem that comes from the heart, because the days we live in are dangerous days in which men are following their own revelations and their own hearts. Now, binding these Baptists together, these Irish Baptists and these Welsh Baptists in the 1650s, as well as other Baptists in the British Isles, and American and North American Baptist life has its origin in the Baptists we're talking about. In fact, that little congregation in Ilston would eventually come over to New England and bring that letter with them, and we know of that letter because it was eventually deposited in Brown University with the minute book of this congregation that came from Glamorgan to New Jersey and brought all of this kind of memorandum with them. And binding these Baptists together in this period was a confession of faith called the First London Confession of Faith. The 1689, as it's known, it's simply on the confession that was handed to you called the London Baptist Confession of Faith. Brother Barkman, I think it says on yours, the 1689 Confession of Faith. Technically, it's the second London Confession of Faith. And if there's a second, there's got to be a first. And the first London Confession of Faith was that document that really bound all these Baptists together. It had been published in 1644, two years before the Westminster Assembly sat down to deliberate and eventually produce what we know as the Westminster Confession of Faith. And that Confession of Faith was produced by seven churches in London at the start of a very tumultuous era, the era known as the English or British Civil Wars, in which the Puritans found themselves taking up arms against their king, as they would argue, many of them would, rightfully so, because their king had betrayed his constitutional oath in defending the Protestant faith in England. That's another story. But in 1644, these Baptist, seven Baptist churches in London and issued a statement of faith known as the First London Confession of Faith. It's a very important confession, not as important as the second, but very important because it gave these early Baptists a sense of identity. And if you track Baptist history over the centuries, when Baptists lose a sense of identity that is found, first of all, in Holy Scripture, they are people of the book, but secondly, also derives from our knowledge of their heritage, then there will inevitably come into their lives and into their ranks troublesome days. But these early Baptists had a rich sense of who they were, and that statement of faith bound them together. It gave them parameters within which to work. And from London during the 1640s and 1650s, significant church planting missions were sent out to Ireland, to the north country of England, to Wales, to the west country in England itself as well. But in 1660, after the Puritans had defeated the king, had some of them, not all of them, had committed themselves to executing him, Charles I in 1649, and established a commonwealth, a republic. And at the head of that republic had come a remarkable man of God, Oliver Cromwell, whose name also, along with the term Puritan, has been much reduced over the years. Cromwell had died in 1658. And during that period of time, the 1640s, 1650s, really, if you look at it spiritually, it was a time of great revival. It's not normally looked at that way, but if you read the documents of the period of time and look at some of the church experiences, like Richard Baxter, Kidderminster, when he goes to the town of probably a couple of thousand people, he could say that in many of the streets of that town, there was not one family that called on the name of the Lord. When he left, after about 16 years, he could say that in many of the streets, there was not that every family called to get his exact words, but every family called upon the name of the Lord. And what you have there is an experience of revival. If you go through some of the association minutes during this period. of these churches that were planted by the seven churches in London, and these churches planted other churches, and these association minutes, and you read through them, one of the constant refrains is, times of prayer for the pouring out of the Spirit of God, and sometimes reporting that the Spirit had been poured out as they had met together in power. And this is a time of revival. seven churches in 1644 that are Calvinistic Baptists in London. By 1660, there are 130 such churches in England, some of them with congregations as many as two or three thousand on a Sunday morning. But in 1660, two years after the death of Oliver Cromwell, Many of those in England felt that the country was returning to a state of anarchy and the king's son, Charles II, who had been living in exile, was invited back to assume the throne. And now the Puritans would go through a time which we might describe as the church under the cross. From 1660 to 1688, it was a time of persecution, not only throughout England, but England and Wales and also Scotland. in which there was an attempt to establish a uniformity in worship. And that uniformity was to be according to the Episcopalian or Anglican book of common prayer. And you could not worship outside the Church of England in any other context. It was illegal to do so. It's in this period that John Bunyan is imprisoned for 12 years. But not only Bunyan, if you go through the list at the back of this book, if you go to page 43, And you see the list of those 32 pastors. Nearly all of those men suffered physically in prison. Hansard Knowles, a number of times arrested. William Kiffin, because of his wealth, was not arrested for long periods of time, but nonetheless experienced deprivation. Hercules Collins was imprisoned in the worst prison in England at the time, Newgate Prison. which is almost simply a death sentence just to go in there because of the nature of the imprisonment. And many of those men knew imprisonment. Andrew Gifford, further down the list there, a preacher in Bristol, frequently had to resort to intricate ways of getting into the city of Bristol to preach. He's the man on one occasion was preaching. The congregation had supplied him with a trap door behind the pulpit. There were spies in the congregation that day, tried to lay hands on him before he finished, and he was able to slip out of his coat. They had laid hands on his coat. He was able to slip out of his coat and open the trap door and get down and escape. And many of those men knew what it was like to suffer for the sake of the gospel. Let me, by the way, just veer off very quickly here for my topic. One of the things that we desperately need to do, I think, in our day is to develop a theology of suffering for the gospel. We have been enormously blessed in the last 200 years with a culture that has embraced and loved the gospel, broadly speaking. I'm speaking very broadly. Unless God brings revival, we're heading into difficult days. Also, we are engaged in a great war in our day with Islam. I'm not talking about the physical war, which is necessary, but I'm talking about a spiritual warfare. And we are and need to be praying that God would raise up men and women to take the gospel to Muslim countries. But what we're asking men and women to do is to possibly lay down their lives. I remember very well earlier this year, I've been teaching at Southern for a number of years in a part-time capacity. One of the students I had in a course I taught on the theology of Andrew Fuller worked in the archives at Southern and I went in in the summer to see him and one of the other men there said, you need to know that this is, his name was mentioned, this is his last day here. And I said, well, where are you going? And he said, well, I really can't tell you fully, but he told me the name of a country, which is a Muslim country, and he is putting his life on the line. And that sobered me as I realized that I've taught this young man and he's now in a situation where it is possible that he could be martyred for the sake of the Lord Jesus. One of the ways in which I think we can develop such a theology, we obviously need to go back to scripture, but we need to look at some of our Baptist forebears who knew what it was to suffer for the sake of the gospel. During the 1660s, 1670s, 1680s, the Baptists found themselves on the cross. They were not the only ones. The Presbyterians and Congregationalists also found themselves expelled from the Church of England and persecuted. Many of these men imprisoned. Richard Baxter, a Presbyterian at the time, imprisoned. John Owen, Congregationalist, ran the risk of imprisonment because his house was raided a number of times. He only escaped imprisonment because there were a number of very significant political individuals in his congregation. And so the Baptists found themselves often in prison with others with whom they soon saw that they had much in common. They all shared, Presbyterian Congregationalists and Baptists, they all shared a common Puritan heritage. And so it was that in 1677, the Baptists issued a statement of faith, a second confession, to illustrate their solidarity with these others. And to do so, they took as the heart of that confession of faith what is known as the Westminster Confession of Faith, published in 1647. The Congregationalists, in turn, had taken that statement of faith and used it as the basis of a statement of faith that they published in 1658 called the Savoy Declaration. And the Baptists now took that and changed, obviously, a number of areas, issues of polity, issues of believers' baptism, and issued that statement of faith as a Baptist confession of faith. That 1677 confession of faith was reissued in 1689, when toleration had finally come to England. In 1688, One of the persecuting kings, James II, he was the brother of Charles II, was expelled and forced to flee England. Replacing him was William III, who passed an act of toleration, very important act. It lies at the foundation of all laws in English-speaking countries that guarantee freedom of religion. And that act was passed, and it guaranteed that Baptists now could worship God as they saw fit. And the statement of faith that we know as the Second London Confession of Faith, simply called here the London Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689, was that 1677 Confession of Faith reissued. And at its heart was the Westminster Confession of Faith and the Savoy Declaration. A number of places, though, there are changes. And one of the changes in the Westminster Confession of Faith was that first sentence, that first sentence, the Holy Scripture is the only sufficient, certain and infallible rule of all saving knowledge, faith and obedience. That little phrase only sufficient, certain infallible rule is being added by these Baptists. It's been added because of not simply the historical context they want to identify with these others who are experiencing persecution. But also because in their historical consequences, the Baptists were fighting a great menace, the Quakers. One of the truths that you find in the history of the church is that whenever God does a great work. In raising up preachers of the gospel. And bringing great fruit. And planting churches, you will find great opposition by Satan. And Satan's opposition will take a number of forms in the context in which you're looking at in England in this period of time. Some of it took the form of direct persecution. Some of it took the form of a false gospel. You find this in Corinth. You look at the letters of the Corinthians. Paul, at the beginning of the letter, thanks God for the great outpouring of the Spirit that has taken place at Corinth. Corinth's new revival. But at the same time, as you read through that letter, Satan is working overtime within that congregation, and there are significant, major problems in that congregation. You will find this in the Great Awakening that takes place here in America in the 1740s. The great hand of God upon men like George Whitefield and Samuel Davies that was mentioned, and the Tenenbrothers. Jonathan Edwards, but at the same time, a man like James Davenport from Long Island, who for at least two years followed deluded theology and split churches. We thank God that he came to his senses, issued a letter of repentance. But he brought disrepute upon the work of revival. Edwards, in the beginning of his great work, The Religious Affections, can say that in such times of the great outpouring of the Spirit as they had seen, they should not be surprised that Satan would go around to counterfeit true religion. And so it was in the 1650s, when the Quaker movement began. Whatever Quakers may be today, in that period of time, they had a number of significant errors. The early Quakers, and there were a number of key leaders, probably the one that is remembered today mostly is George Fox, who would die in 1691. He was a part-time shepherd, part-time schoolteacher, who in the late 1640s received a revelation from God, he felt, to go throughout England, the length and breadth of England, and proclaim that salvation could be found by looking within. He wasn't looking without. The Spirit of Christ was within every heart. Misinterpretation of John 1, where it talks about the Spirit of Christ, the light that was coming into the world that was in every man. And he misinterprets that passage. And he argued that every man has the Spirit of Christ within him, and all you need to do is look within. George Box also argued that the Spirit was inspiring him And the others who accepted his message in the same way that he inspired the apostles. He could also cause great problems in congregations. We'll take for a moment or we'll imagine for a moment where a Puritan congregation is the year is 1649, a place called Nottingham, England. We've gathered for worship. The sermon that morning is on the text that was read at one of the texts that was read earlier. Second Peter, chapter one. On the inspiration and infallibility of the Word of God, the minister at one point says, the touchstone of all doctrine is Holy Scripture. George Fox leaps to his feet. No, no, no, it's not. It is the spirit within, not Scripture, he argues, publicly yells it out in the congregation. He ended up being arrested for a few days for disturbance of the peace. But it didn't quench his ardor to go throughout the length and breadth of England to make converts to his views. By 1660, it's estimated there were some 20,000 to 25,000 Quakers in England. They were very rapidly growing sects. In some cases, they prayed, P-R-E-Y-E-D, prayed upon Baptist congregations. If you go again to the back of the book, and you will notice in page 43, the number of the congregations there. One of the ministers there, Thomas Vaugh, at a church called Broadmead, a great Baptist church in those days, one quarter of its congregation, probably somewhere around 80 to 100 men and women, embraced Quakerism during the 1650s through the 1670s, 1680s. All of these men here had battles with Quakerism in one way or another. William Collins at Petit France, if you had the occasion to go through their minute book, which still exists, you'll see that in the 1680s, they had to exclude a sister, Haddam, who proclaimed that it was not the scriptures that were the bedrock of her faith, but the spirit within. This led sometimes the Quakers into very odd practices. Very odd practices. The one that I related to you earlier of George Fox standing in a congregation, that was the mildest of many. There was one man, Solomon Eccles, who had what he thought was a gift for going naked as a sign. And he would turn up at your church and he'd proceed to disrobe himself of all his clothes and then would parade up and down until he was stopped. proclaiming that God was going to strip off all the false righteousness of all the people in that congregation. Or the one woman Quaker prophetess who came into a church and began to burn papers at the back of the church. So it would be, she said, to all in this congregation who are trusting in anything but the Spirit within, the Christ within. God will reduce you to ash. And the Quakers were seen as a very dangerous group of people. Here is one man, Isaac Pennington, and we draw this background to a close. Isaac Pennington was one of the more intellectual Quaker authors in this period of time. He is writing against those who are professors, and he's talking about Puritans. The Lord in the gospel state have promised to be present with his people, he writes, not as a wayfaring man for a night, but to dwell in them and walk in them. Yea, if they be tempted and in danger of erring, they shall hear a voice behind them saying, this is the way, walk in it. Will they not grant this to be a rule as well as the scriptures? Nay, is not this a more full direction to the heart in that state than it can pick to itself out of the Scriptures? The Spirit which gave forth the words is greater than the words. Therefore, we cannot reprise Him Himself and set Him higher in our heart and thoughts than the words which testify of Him, though they also are very sweet and precious to our taste." There is truth in error in that statement. There is truth. The Holy Spirit, insofar as He is God and is the creator of Holy Scripture, is in that sense greater than His Word. The falsehood is, is that the Holy Spirit has so given this Word of Holy Scripture, that this is the Word by which all claims to the Spirit's activity are to be tested. And the Spirit's great delight, great delight, is that He be tested by His Word. This is the way Hercules Collins, he's mentioned there in that list of pastors. He was the pastor of Wapping Baptist Church, and Wapping was a a little area outside of the formal city of London, the old walled city of London on the River Thames. It's the area where John Newton would be born. In fact, Hercules Collins' church was probably only a couple of blocks from the church that Elizabeth Newton took her young son, John Newton, a few years after the death of Hercules Collins. Hercules Collins could state about the Word of God, About the importance of the spirit, as it were, testing all things by scripture, all things that claim to be from the spirits. And forgive me for a moment, I thought I had it here. Well, I can't find it. He talks very clearly about the importance of scripture being. Yeah, here it is. Sorry. Whenever a word comes from God. If it be not the very words of the Holy Scripture, if it do not agree therewith, but seems to be another thing and another doctrine, then we are to try the spirits by the rule, standard and touchstone of the holy word of God, the law and testimony. And if it speak not according to this word, it is because they are words of darkness, not of light." That was a very important statement and affirmation in that period to make. because these Quakers were arguing that their experiences, their words were on the same level as Holy Scripture. This then is the background against which these men write that first statement. Holy Scripture is the only sufficient, certain and infallible rule of all saving knowledge, faith and obedience. First of all, Holy Scripture is the only rule. Here we have an emphasis on the priority of Scripture. There is no ultimate religious authority apart from the Word. The Word of God is that by which we test all things, all of our faith, all of our doctrine, all of our practice. And thus they could say later in the Statement of Faith that nothing is to be added to Scripture, whether by new revelations of the Spirit, the Quakers, or traditions of men. You see this again and again in testimonies about these early Baptists. Here is William Kiffin, his name is mentioned at the back. William Kiffin speaking at the funeral of a man named John Norcott, a Baptist pastor who died in 1676. Kiffin emphasized, what was Norcott like in his life? Well, he steered his whole course by the compass of the word. making scripture, precept or example, his constant rule in matters of religion. Other men's opinions or interpretations were not the standard by which he went, but through the assistance of the Holy Spirit, he labored to find out what the Lord himself had said in his word. And right from the very beginning of Baptist life, there's been this desire and hunger to be a people of the word, living under the authority of that word. Scripture is the only rule of all saving knowledge, faith and obedience. And then secondly, Scripture is the only sufficient rule. There are other revelations of God. There are other ways in which God reveals himself. He reveals himself in creation. He reveals himself in providence. He reveals himself in the structures of human existence. But none of those areas are sufficient to bring about salvation. And that because of the fall. In the words of the Second London Confession, chapter one, verse six, the whole counsel of God. It's over the page on page three there. The whole counsel of God is concerning all things necessary for his own glory. Man's salvation, faith and life is either expressly set down or necessarily contained in the Holy Scripture. Ultimately, when it comes to living a life that glorifies God or knowing him as Savior, all that we need is in Holy Scripture. I spend a lot of time reading other books and I love books. But as one who is seeking to be under the authority of God's word, I can affirm that if all my books were taken, all of them, and I had this word. And this word only. I would have sufficient to know God. sufficient to live a life to his glory and to his honor. And then thirdly, scripture is certain. In a study that was done a number of years ago by Tom Nettles and Ross Bush on the Baptist and the Bible, they affirmed that this word certain here is another word for the word inerrance. During the 1970s, to which our brother alluded, the battle for the Bible and Harold Lenzel's book. Some of the responses that were made to that was, well, the term inerrance is a recent term. It's never been used before the 1870s, 1860s. It's a term that was created by Benjamin Warfield and some of the theologians at Princeton. Before that, people didn't talk about, didn't use the term inerrance. There were problems with that historical argumentation. One of the major one being is the fact that you don't necessarily have to use the word inerrant to affirm the idea. And this word certain infirms that very idea that the scriptures are inerrant. They are free from error in all that they affirm as true. And then the final statement there, Holy Scripture is infallible. It is entirely trustworthy. entirely reliable. No wonder Hercules Collins could say in a sermon preached a year or two before this statement, in the sacred scriptures, there is a salve for every sore, a remedy for every malady. direction for every condition, and consolation for everyone under temptation, which should engage our love more and more to that word which is a lantern to our feet, that we stumble not upon the dark mountains, a compass to steer by for avoiding rocks and sands till we come to our eternal rest, and a cordial to comfort our drooping spirits, which unless is law be our delight, we shall perish in our affliction. I think there's no doubt that as you look at the larger background and the threat of the Quakers, you see the emphasis being given here, coming out of that background, responding to that background. One of the men who signed this document, Benjamin Keech, could say at the very time this was written, many are confident they have the spirit, light and power, when it is all mere delusion. Remember, these are delusive times, as the Irish Baptist warned the Welsh Baptist about. The Spirit always leads and directs according to the written word. He shall bring my word, saith Christ, to your remembrance. And lest you think, well, these Baptists have gone overboard on the focus of the word and they've forgotten the Spirit. Again, it was brought out very well by our brother in chapter 1 and verse 5. How do we come to know that this is God's holy word, that this word is an inspired word, an infallible word, the word given by the Spirit, that the words in here are the Spirit's words? Well, the Spirit of God must give us that. understanding, he must open our eyes, he must impress on our hearts that this is his word. Notice, they go through all of the, in chapter 5 there, or paragraph 5 of chapter 1, page 2, we may be moved and induced by the testimony of the Church of God to a high and reverent esteem of the Holy Scriptures. the heavenliness of the matter, the efficacy of the doctrine, the majesty of the style, the consent of all the parts, the scope of the whole which is to give all glory to God, the full discovery it makes of the only way of man's salvation, and many other incomparable excellencies and entire perfections thereof, are arguments whereby it does abundantly and evidences itself to be the word of God, yet notwithstanding Our full persuasion and assurance of the infallible truth and divine authority thereof is from the inward work of the Holy Spirit, bearing witness by and with the Word in our hearts. And so it's the Spirit who must convince us that this is indeed His Word. And so there is this great balance of word and spirit. The Baptists, I think, in this period of time were able to preserve which they had inherited from the Puritans, who in turn inherited from men like John Calvin and the Reformers, that the word of God is to be the touchstone by which all doctrine is tried. And the spirit's great delight is that all that claims to be of the spirit be tested by his word. It is no wonder, and this would take us much further afield to develop this, it is no wonder that in the worship of these men and women, these early Baptists, they prized preeminently the preaching of that word. And the pulpit for these men and women was a place of nurture, a place of fire, a place of light. And we can spend time thinking about the prominence that was given to preaching, both in terms of the proclamation of the word and even in terms of the architecture. This is a very Puritan architecture. Where the Puritans had opportunities to build their churches, the pulpit was always the central feature, speaking architecturally of the prominence of the preached word. To conclude. Given the focus we've had, there is an element of early Baptist identity that we've not touched on, and that is their keen commitment to the life of the local church. But if you notice, if you recall the statement I began with by those Dublin Baptists, those Irish Baptists, They said this way, labor to keep up in one another's hearts an honorable esteem of the holy words of God in opposition to the present delusions of the times. Labor to keep up in one another's hearts. They expected believers to exercise and we'll touch on this tomorrow when we look at the gifts of the spirit. They expected believers to exercise in every member ministry to one another. That the meeting together as believers would be prized. And as believers met together, they would encourage one another in that esteem of the Word of God. Labor to keep up in one another's heart an honorable esteem of the Holy Word of Christ. We live in a day, a different day, a day that in many respects faces different problems. But it's a word that comes home to us, I think, in our day. That we are to be those who labor. To keep up in one another's hearts and a honorable esteem of the holy words of God. We need to be men and women who prize the scriptures above all traditions. All traditions tested at the touchstone of holy scripture, all claims to new revelation. Need to be brought. to scripture and tested. We have in scripture a sure word, a certain word, an infallible word, and we bless God first for having given us his revelation that he is a God who speaks and is not silent and then. That he has made this word sweet. To our hearts, he's given us a delight in this word and he's opened our eyes. to see in these words the Lord Jesus Christ and to hear his voice. May we prove to be his disciples indeed by following this word and honoring this word and so glorifying God. Amen.