Good morning, everybody. If you do not have one of these, you may want to go get it, because there's four pages. So please try to stay awake. This morning we are going to cover various paragraphs of chapter 3 of our Confession of Faith and the reason why we are accelerating so much in one lesson is that you will notice as we continue to study the Confession that the first paragraph or the first two paragraphs, the beginning of any chapter gives you the major doctrine in its biggest parts and pieces. And so the foundations are laid in the first paragraph or two of most chapters, which means that the most detail and the most attention are usually found in the first few paragraphs. And then the paragraphs that follow tend to answer related questions or objections, or they further flesh out the doctrine. And so you can go through, generally, the later paragraphs more quickly because they're not covering such large chunks of teaching at a time. And today, we're going to cover 3 through 6, paragraphs 3 through 6 of chapter 3 of our confession. And in the handout, you'll see that the major things we're covering are first, election and preterition, and then particular election, that'll be paragraph 4. And then free and sovereign grace, paragraph five. And the means of grace that lead to the end, paragraph six. So these all go together, and they can be covered in one lesson, as long as we keep moving at a decent pace. So, let's start out by reading our confession, chapter three, paragraph three. It's at the top of your first page of the handout. And we confess in chapter 3, paragraph 3, that by the decree of God for the manifestation of His glory, some men and angels are predestinated or foreordained, those are equivalent terms, to eternal life through Jesus Christ, to the praise of His glorious grace, others being left to act in their sin to their just condemnation to the praise of His glorious justice. So you see here in this paragraph, some are elected to life, which brings praise to God's glorious grace, and others are left in their sins to their condemnation, to the praise of God's glorious justice. And so that's what we will cover under three sub-points, is election to salvation, preterition or passing by the rest, and then the question of angels. Or as Campbell likes to say, angels. How do they fit into this? What part do angels play in election? So first of all, the elect, that God has elected, that God has chosen certain men and angels, but we'll leave angels till later, to eternal life through Jesus Christ to the praise of his glorious grace. Why is it that some people end up saved and in God's glory forever and ever and ever? Why is it at the end that that's where they are? It's because according to the scriptures, before the world was created, before anything existed, before these people existed, God chose them to be saved by Jesus Christ and to enter into and enjoy that glory forever and ever. And so here we have a variety of scripture verses. This is where our doctrine of election comes from. 2 Timothy chapter 1 verse 9, God saved us and called us to a holy calling. So you and I have experienced salvation. Salvation has come to you and me in my lifetime, in your lifetime. Why? What is the cause, what is the reason why I possess salvation and God's grace? Not because of our works, not because I did something so God rewarded me, but because of his own purpose and grace. Oh, God wanted this to happen. When did God decide, when did God choose that I would receive his grace and salvation? Which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began. Before time, before creation, God had purposed to give his grace to certain people. And so I was called with a holy calling. I was saved by Jesus Christ. I was saved by God, not as a reward for my works, not God responding to me, but because he chose me before the world began. He chose me to receive this salvation and to receive this grace. Consider the fact that we're discussing election in the chapter of God's decree. In the order of the confession we haven't even gotten to creation. God's decree is God decreeing in Himself. It's His eternal decree. It's God's eternal purpose before the world has been created, which is always a somewhat improper way of speaking. Before time. Before time that's dividing by zero. Wait, don't divide by zero. Everything just explodes, you know, don't do it But we have to speak that way and that's how the scriptures speak before the ages began in both 2nd Timothy 1 9 and Titus 1 2 Romans chapter 8 verses 29 and 30 for those whom he foreknew he also predestined So, predestined. Your destiny, your end, is already determined. It is predestined. What did God predestine us to? To be conformed to the image of His Son, that is to receive the grace of Christ, to be like Christ, to be united to Christ, in order that He might be the firstborn among many brothers. He rises from the dead and we participate in the new life of His resurrection. And those whom He predestined in all eternity, He also called in time. And those whom He called, He also justified. And those whom He justified, He also glorified. This portion of Romans 8 is often called the golden chain. There's a chain of what God has done, a sequence. God does this and then God does that. And at the beginning of it is God's predestination of certain people to be the brothers of Jesus Christ, to be the co-heirs of Jesus Christ, and having predestined them, He calls them, and He justifies them, and He also begins the work of glorification in this life, which will be completed at the end of this life and at the consummation of all things. So, why do we enjoy salvation? It is because God chose us, He elected us, He predestined us, and this purpose was in God before the ages began. Ephesians chapter 1, Verse 4 especially, God chose us in Him, that is in Christ, in the Beloved, before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us for adoption to Himself as sons through Jesus Christ according to the purpose of His will, to the praise of His glorious grace. You see the Confession uses that phrase, to the praise of His glorious grace with which He has blessed us. in the Beloved. In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our sins according to the riches of His grace." Why do we have redemption? Why do we have the forgiveness of sins? It's because it comes from God's choosing us in Christ before the foundation of the world. And so the doctrine of election is the doctrine of God's choosing, the doctrine of God's predestinating or predestining us to eternal life and salvation. And one more verse, 1 Thessalonians 5 verse 9, God has not destined us for wrath, our end is not wrath, our destiny is not wrath or condemnation, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. The larger heading here would be predestination. Predestination we tend to think of as to salvation. But predestination is actually the larger category. And then you would descend to election, those whom God has chosen, and then preterition. those whom God has not chosen. So just in terms of understanding the terminology, it's not always used this cleanly, but it should be used in this way. Predestination is a common category. It doesn't necessarily tell you what your destiny is. It just says there is predestination. There are those whose destiny has been predetermined. But then we get more specific to election to eternal life and predoration, which leaves the rest their sins. And why do we believe in election, God choosing us in Christ before the foundation of the world? Well, because that is the testimony of the Scriptures. Why am I saved? Not because of my works. Not because God rewarded me, or responded to me. Not because I chose God and therefore God chose me. But rather before anything existed, before the world was created God had an eternal purpose to elect some to eternal life. Still within this category of predestination, we then come to a word or a doctrine that's known as preterition. I've preached about this before in our series on 1 Peter, and I've mentioned it at other times. But it's not a word that we're very familiar with, so it's a doctrine that needs to be explained whenever it comes up. Preterition. This is also sometimes confused with various views about eschatology and the end times. That's not what we're talking about. So we're not talking about end times things. What we're talking about is simply, God has chosen some for salvation, election, elect, to choose. And preterition means, and the rest he has passed by. Preterition is a passing by and a leaving of the rest in their sin. Election is to will the salvation of some, and preterition is to nil the salvation of the others. To will is to say, I want this to happen. To nil is to simply not will it. Nilling is not willing. And so, well, if we're going to be really specific, which you really should, the counterpart to election would truly be reprobation. That would be equivalent to election, and then reprobation becomes subdivided into negative reprobation and positive reprobation. reprobation. And our confession of faith affirms negative reprobation. Positive reprobation means God created certain people to save them and they end up saved. Positive reprobation would be and God created some people to destroy them and they end up destroyed. Our confession does not take that view. It takes a negative reprobation view called preterition. And preterition is He has chosen some to salvation, the rest He has left. He has passed by. He has nilled their salvation. He has not positively willed their damnation. He has simply nilled their salvation. He has not chosen them to salvation. If you look back at paragraph 3, we already read it. You see the last portion after the last semicolon. It says, others, the not elect, being left left, they're simply left alone, left to act in their sin, and then their sin is the cause of their just condemnation. God leaves them in their sins, they're condemned for their sins, and God's justice is glorified because they are condemned for their own sins. Preterition is a word that comes from Latin, and it comes from two different, a stem, two stems. One is, I'm gonna need a new marker soon. The preposition praetere, which would mean beyond, and then the verb, to go, and so preterition is going beyond. You just pass by, just passing by, leaving them. Preterition is the doctrine of passing by, the doctrine of leaving the non-elect in their sin, and then condemning them for their own sins. And the reason why we would choose to express the doctrine of reprobation negatively as nilling their salvation and leaving them in their sins and passing them by is based on the scriptures language in various places which is expressed negatively. So for example in Ezekiel chapter 33 and verse 11 God says that he does not delight in the death of the wicked. He does not destroy people because that's what is pleasing to Him. And positive reprobation tends toward, it can tend towards that type of thinking, that God wants, it's the destruction of the wicked that God wants, and so He has willed their destruction. No, we say He has milled their salvation and left them in their sins because God says, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked. And then in other places, Paul uses the language, particularly with Israel, but he uses the language in Romans 11 of the elect and the rest, basically the non-elect, those whom God has chosen and then those whom God has simply not chosen. Or Jesus, when he speaks to the Pharisees and probably the larger crowds, and he says, you do not receive my words, or you do not believe in me, because you are not of my sheep. There are those who are my sheep, and I know them, and I call them, and they hear me, but you are not of my sheep. And perhaps the best example would be John writing in Revelation 13, 8, where there are those whose names are written in the Lamb's Book of Life. But then John says, he refers to everyone whose name has not been written before the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb. So election would be this metaphor, this image of the Lamb's book of life. There are those whose names have been written. There are those who have been chosen to salvation. And then there are those whose names simply have not been written in that book. Those who have not been chosen to salvation. So these scriptural examples, these examples from scripture repeatedly use a negative sense, a negative expression with regard to reprobation or the non-elect. If someone asks, but cannot, as Paul talks about in Romans 9, cannot the potter make vessels prepared for destruction? He can. God is free to do so. But we want to follow the scripture's example in its language of how we think about and speak about the elect. Thanks, Chris. A purple marker, a first. I don't know about this. A Thanos marker. Okay. So the Westminster Confession actually here takes the view of positive reprobation. And our confession makes a change and opts for predation instead. And this should not be thought of as we absolutely reject positive reprobation as as horrible and awful and such things. No, it's just we won't go that far. We won't say that much. We prefer to express it negatively as those whom God has chosen, He has willed their salvation. And those whom God has not chosen, He has nilled or not willed their salvation. If you ever hear the phrase willy-nilly, it comes from willing and nilling. To will and to not will. Okay, what do you want? Willy-nilly, are you gonna do it or not? Do you will or nill such and such a thing? So, literally, it's will he or will not. There was a particular Baptist author named Christopher Blackwood and he said, when God will dispossess a person of the devil, he will leave them, will he, nil he? Whether Satan wants to or not, God's going to free that person from Satan and uses the expression, will he, nil he? Whether he wants it or not. That's just a little tidbit. Okay, we have to keep moving, and so we therefore come to elect angels. Our confession, paragraph three, says that God has chosen some men and angels to enjoy Christ's glory. Why does the confession say this, and what do we believe with regard to the doctrine of elect angels? Well, first of all, the scriptures simply speak of elect angels. Paul in 1 Timothy 5.21, as Paul is charging Timothy, Paul uses this language to put Timothy under the strongest oath possible in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus and of the elect angels. And if we just hyper-focus and say, whoa, elect angels, what does this mean? Why do the scriptures speak of elect angels? God, therefore, has chosen some angels, but what has he chosen them for, and what does this mean, and how does it relate to Jesus Christ? Well, not only do we see in Scripture the language of elect angels, but we also see certain angels who will be suffering forever, just like certain men will be suffering forever for their sins. In Matthew 25, verse 41, Jesus will say to those on his left, So there are men and Satan, who is also an angel, and other angels who followed Satan, who are, at the end of all things, they are suffering torment and condemnation. And then there are men and angels who are enjoying light and life forever and ever. Why is it that these angels enjoy light and life forever? They were chosen for it. So to understand this, we need to think more broadly, on a larger level. And we need to recognize that the work of Jesus Christ that God the Son was sent to do, the glory that he obtained through his obedience and his suffering and his death and his resurrection, when he was raised from the dead and exalted with all glory and abundance of riches and all titles and names and exalted to the maximum, The glory that he won was not just a glory for men. It was a complete new cosmos. He obtained a consummation glory, a new creation, a glory for all of creation and for all of its creatures. And we read, for example, in Romans chapter eight, verses 20 to 22, that creation itself is groaning and waiting for its freedom from bondage. Which means that Jesus has obtained a future glory for the created things, and creation itself, although it doesn't have, it's being personified here, but creation itself has a glory ahead. when Jesus will decreate and recreate all things at the consummation, and then creation will live free, not just men, but all things free from the curse that has been upon it since the sin and the fall of Adam. So Jesus' glory extends to all created things, and Jesus brings a glory to all created things through his death and his resurrection. We also read in the scriptures that when we say all things, we're not just talking about the globe that is Earth. We're not just talking about this world on which we live, this terrestrial sphere. We're talking about the invisible realm also. God made all things visible and invisible. We inhabit the visible realm. But Jesus' work also extends to the invisible realm, what we usually call heaven. But heaven is not the extent of the invisible realm. It's where God manifests his glory and all his pure creatures dwell. But in Colossians 1.20, we're told that through Jesus, God reconciles to himself all things. There is a cosmic reconciliation effected by Jesus Christ. And then Paul gets more specific. First he says, all things, and then he explains that. All things, whether on earth, or all things in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross." So Jesus is reconciling all things to God through his life and death and new life. And similar, a parallel expression in Ephesians 1.10, that God's plan for the fullness of time, what's God's end plan, what's the goal? It's to unite all things or to bring all things to consummation in Jesus Christ. What do you mean all things? Well, things in heaven and things on earth. So the work of Jesus extends to all created things. It extends to men. It also extends to heaven and invisible beings or beings that are invisible to us, to heavenly beings. But then the question, it's one thing to assert Christ's work extends to the invisible realm. It's another thing to say, but how? But how, in what way? Does the blood of Jesus forgive angels? Are angels redeemed by Jesus Christ? And the answer is no, that's not how Jesus' work applies to angels. The angels who fell have never been given an opportunity to be restored from their fallen state. The angels that did not fall, the obedient angels, the innocent angels, these are the ones who are elected, or who were elected, and these ones receive a benefit from Jesus Christ. And what changes for them is that up until the death and resurrection of Christ, these angels were able to fall away from their innocence. They were innocent. Therefore, they served God and were in God's presence, but they were still capable of falling from that, as many of the other angels had. But Jesus wins for them a consummation glory. And remember that that final glory of Christ is a glory where everything is completed. It's all done. There's no more falling away. There can be no more falling away. So Jesus wins for the elect angels a confirmation of their innocence, a confirmation of their holiness such that they cannot and will not, therefore will not, ever fall away from it. And so the angels are now solidified. They're now perfected. They were already innocent, but now they cannot fall away from their innocence because Jesus Christ has won for them a glorious consummation. Here are some quotations from older authors. The first one, Nehemiah Cox, who's commenting on Colossians 1.20, a verse we already read. And Nehemiah Cox said this, we cannot rightly conceive or think of a reconciliation of angels properly so called. He's saying, you can't reconcile someone who's innocent. Let me start over. We cannot rightly conceive of a reconciliation of angels, properly so called, that since they never sinned, it is at most but an analogical reconciliation, they being confirmed in grace and secured in their station by Christ. So Christ confirms them in their innocence and then secures them such that they cannot fall away from it. They now have Christ bringing this glory to them and for them. Next quotation, the angels had need of a mediator, indeed not of redemption from sin, for in that sense Christ is the mediator between God and men, but of conservation in goodness and grace, and of combining them again under one head, to wit, that they might be again united with the elect, men, under one and the same head, Christ, that so they might cleave unto God inseparably and without all danger of falling in time to come. At the beginning of the world, when Satan and other angels fell, and mankind fell as a result of that, the created order is disordered. and the way that God set it up to where angels have a higher nature than us, but they are supposed to serve us as ministering spirits. All of this is disordered and messed up. And what Jesus does is He comes and becomes one head of the angels, the elect angels, and elect men to bring them together and reconcile them to God men being redeemed from their sins, angels not being redeemed but also under the same head, under Jesus Christ, whose glory comes to them and brings us together as the older brother and the younger brother are reunited once more. And that's an amazing thought to think about Jesus bringing a glory to all creation, bringing glory to redeemed men, that's what we usually think of, and bringing glory even to the angels and uniting us with them so that we have once more a restored brotherhood of sorts with the angels. And in Revelation chapter 5, for example, or other parts of the scripture, you see that all things in heaven and on earth and under the earth praise Jesus Christ. And earlier in my life I thought, they're praising Jesus Christ for saving men. which they are. But all things in heaven and on earth and under earth are also praising God for their glory too. The angels are praising Him for what He has done for them. Creation gives its praise to Christ for what the glory it will bring to them or it will bring to the glory that Jesus will bring to creation. There are many reasons to praise Jesus Christ beyond just the redemption of fallen man. He brings a cosmic reconciliation and so He has the name above every name and every knee bows to Him and all things in heaven and earth and under the earth praise Him because He has won glory for everyone and everything. and there's no greater one whom we ought to praise therefore. He's worthy, worthy in himself and worthy because of all of his deeds of this praise, which is truly wonderful and amazing. Let's sing. All hail the power of Jesus' name. Okay, because time is short and time is fleeting, we must continue on. And the reason why we're not slowing down here is because next week is my last Sunday school for this semester, and I want to finish chapter three. And then we have one more Sunday school after that, but that's not mine to take, and then we're off for the winter break. So I want to finish this chapter today and next Sunday, Lord willing. Okay, now we get to paragraph four of chapter three, which affirms the doctrine of particular election. You could also call this definite atonement, or even limited atonement. And paragraph four says, these angels and men, thus predestinated and foreordained, are particularly and unchangeably designed, and their number so certain and definite that it cannot be either increased or diminished. So the number, the persons whom God has chosen are chosen. The angels whom God has chosen never to fall and to be confirmed, they are chosen. And God, being God, decreeing all things in Himself, He knows exactly who those persons are. That makes it a definite and particular number. And Christ died for them, and they received the benefits of Christ, and they will enjoy those benefits forever and ever. And you could draw this conclusion simply from the general doctrine of the decree as a necessary consequence, but the scriptures speak of this specifically. Jesus says, referring to his sheep, I am the good shepherd. I know my own. I know them. And my own know me. And he knows them because the Father has given them to me. They were chosen that I should redeem them. My Father, this is verse 29, my Father who has given them to me is greater than all. So there was a specific group of people, the elect, whom God chose, and God redeemed, and God saves them from their sins, and they are particularly designed, unchangeably designed. Their number is certain and definite. It cannot be increased or diminished. 2 Timothy 2.19, God's firm foundation stands bearing this seal, the Lord knows those who are his. So the elect is not an undefined, malleable, movable, mutable number. It's not, oh, there's some more elect today and there's a few less tomorrow, that type of thing. Rather, God has particularly elected, particularly redeemed, particularly applied salvation to them. Why? That's the next question. Why did God choose these ones? And why did God leave or pass by the rest? Why did God choose those whom he chose? Well, it's of free and sovereign grace. Paragraph 5, those of mankind that are predestinated to life, God, before the foundation of the world was laid according to His eternal and immutable purpose, and the secret counsel and good pleasure of His will, hath chosen in Christ unto everlasting glory. Why? out of his mere free grace and love, without any other thing in the creature as a condition or cause moving him thereunto." Why did God choose? because He chose. It was His good pleasure. It was His will. It was His purpose. It was His free grace and love. Free grace meaning it's free. This is not saying free with regard to us. We receive it freely, although that's true. Free grace here means that Nothing was compelling or constraining God. He was free to choose those whom he would choose and free to pass by the rest simply because it is or it was his will to do so. His mere free grace. He has mercy upon whom he will have mercy, the scriptures say. And the confession specifically says, without any other thing in the creature, As a condition or cause, there was not something in us that God saw and then responded to to choose us. And we've actually already, the confession has already established this when it rejected middle knowledge earlier in paragraph two, which we talked about briefly last week. God didn't decree anything. because he foresaw it as future, the confession says. And so this is simply taking that larger doctrine that God did not decree anything because he foresaw it as future, and just applying it to salvation. If he didn't decree anything because he foresaw it as future, then with regard to election also, he did not elect people because he foresaw this person will choose me, therefore I will choose them. This person will believe, therefore I will choose them." No, that's middle knowledge, that's Arminianism, that's contrary to the Scriptures. Why did God choose those whom He chose? Because God will have mercy upon whom He will have mercy of His mere free grace and love. And you must always remember that God had no obligation whatsoever to have mercy upon any. at all. And so the fact that he has chosen some, and indeed so many, to receive life and light and salvation in Jesus Christ moves us to praise him and to give glory to him for his free grace and love. Fourthly, and lastly, before the Sunday school teachers say, where are the parents? The means that lead to the end. And now for the Thanos marker. The end, or the grimace marker. Okay, stop. We have God's eternal decree in Himself. And God declares the end from the beginning, Isaiah tells us this. Things not yet done, things not yet come to pass, He decrees it, He declares it. God decrees, all things go to the end for which God created them and decreed them. Let's read paragraph six. As God hath appointed the elect unto glory, so he hath by the eternal and most free purpose of his will foreordained all the means thereunto. Wherefore, they who are elected, being fallen in Adam, are redeemed by Christ, are effectually called unto faith in Christ, by his spirit, working in due season, are justified, adopted, sanctified, and kept by his power, through faith, unto salvation. Neither are any other redeemed by Christ, or effectually called, justified, adopted, sanctified, and saved, but the elect only. So God's decree is his election. He chooses some to be saved. The end is, at the end of all things, they're in glory with Christ. They're in glory with God. They enjoy salvation forever and ever. The confession here is saying God also decreed everything between these two. What we usually call the means. But it's helpful to use the Latin word here. When we use our phones and social networks and things like Facebook, et cetera, what do we call those things? What's a term, a general term for those things? Communication, social what? media, social media, or we talk about the media. Why do we use that term media? Media is a noun, a plural noun, referring to things through which something gets to you. Social media, a medium, it's a place where communication is transmitted by people to people through social networks, through social media. And the media beams information into your home through TV sets or radio and so on. So media are our means. But thinking of the word media is very helpful because it really means the middle. And what the confession is affirming here is that God decrees not just the beginning and the end, but he decrees the middle also. He decrees the means that lead to the end. and it is therefore God's decree of the end and the means that lead to it that establishes our use of means. Because you've all heard the term hyper-Calvinism. Hyper-Calvinism, one of its mistakes or grave errors is to simply say God has ordained the end, just wait for it to happen. Just let it be. The elect will come. The elect will be saved. God decreed it. It's certain. But it fails to understand that God has also decreed the means that lead to the end. He decrees the middle also. And so, for people to be saved, they must hear the gospel, because it's the gospel that effectually calls them. And so we need to preach the gospel because that is the means that God will use to save the elect and bring them to salvation in the end. And so we do not avoid means because of the doctrine of the decree. We specifically are more motivated to use the means based on the certainty. God does have an elect people. He will effectually call them. Let's use the means that God calls or the means with which God calls his people, namely the preaching of the gospel. And so the confession is saying that all those that God elected, Jesus redeemed them in time by shedding His blood, dying on the cross, rising from the dead, and then by His Spirit, He called them through the preaching of the Word. In calling them, He begets faith in them, believing they are justified, and then they are sanctified and adopted and so on. They persevere all the way unto glory. So the middle, the means, the media, have also been ordained by God. It's the same answer for why do we pray? If God has foreordained all things, if God's decree is universal and unchangeable, why do we pray? It's because God has ordained that prayer is one of the means that He uses to accomplish His ends. And so if you want to see a certain end, you should pray for it, and if it's God's will, it will happen. And God has ordained that prayer is a means to an end. Therefore, we pray with confidence, but also with humble submission. And this is not just about salvation. It's also about everything that salvation includes. It's not just about effectual calling and regeneration, being saved for the first time in a sort of People often think of salvation as a moment, but salvation is your life. And the Confession is saying that these means, there are means that God uses to take us all the way to the end. And that's what we call the means of grace. The Word of God not only breeds faith, but also feeds faith. And so if you want to grow in your faith, if you want to be built up on the way to the end, you need to use the means of grace and use them with confidence, that this is how God builds up his people. This is how God sanctifies our minds. This is how God sanctifies our wills. God uses these means to bring us to the end. And if you neglect these means, you You do so not only to your own detriment, but also to your own peril. And what I mean is that someone who says, I'm a Christian, but they completely ignore all of the means, want nothing to do with them, will that person be at the end just because they say that they're a Christian? Well, we don't have election goggles, but we would have every reason to doubt We would have every reason to doubt the salvation of that person if they want nothing to do with the means. And we could talk more about that. If you don't want to get well, don't take medicine. If you don't want to see things happen, don't pray for them. If you don't want to see the lost brought to salvation, don't evangelize them or don't preach the gospel to them and so on. It is God decreeing the end and the means that lead to the end that establishes our use of those means. And so in our church, we are very intentional about preaching the gospel. If you hear the gospel preached in the church, remember, and you say, looking around, I think most of us are in Christ. Why are we preaching the gospel? Well, on the one hand, the gospel's for believers. It's for us, too. And we need it every day, but also, We don't know. We want to send the message. We want to use the means that call our children, that call the visitors, that call family members to saving faith. We believe that God has decreed the end and the means that lead there and we want to therefore use them. And on your own time, you can read some very helpful quotations from particular Baptist authors that I've given to you on the last page of your handout from Philip Carey, Robert Purnell, and Nathaniel Wiles. They are all 17th century particular Baptist pastors. And they are encouraging you to use the means of grace as God's way of bringing salvation to us and bringing us to salvation. So we covered a lot of things very quickly. We talked about predestination divided into election and reprobation. Election being God choosing some before the foundation of the world to eternal life in Christ. Reprobation being subdivided into preterition. That's negative reprobation, leaving, passing by the rest. Positive reprobation, creating vessels for destruction. Our confession opts for preterition. We've talked about why did God choose. It wasn't for foreseen faith or anything like that. It's of his own free grace. And we've seen that God's decreeing the end and the means that lead there establishes our use of the end. Our use of the means, excuse me. So what remains for us next week is to look at the doctrine of assurance of faith that comes from election. That's how our chapter on the decree finishes, is discussing the use of predestination, the use of election in the personal assurance of the believer. It can be abused, but it also ought to be rightly used. And that's what we'll talk about and conclude next week. So thank you for your patience and your attention. You're dismissed.