Okay, well, so we're at divine revelation again. Last week we covered the two different types of revelation, general revelation and special revelation, and just as a reminder what we what we said about general revelation is revelation that is revealed to all mankind. Generally, everyone gets this revelation from God. And then in special revelation, we, we looked at the fact that special revelation is God's word given not to all people generally, but to, to a specific group of people. Not everyone has had a, Not everyone in the world has had the Scriptures, but some subsection of humanity has had it. And now we turn to the inspiration of Scripture. That's the topic for this morning, the inspiration of Scripture. And one of the things that we want to do is we want to define our terms. What is a common usage of the word inspire? What does the word inspire mean, and how do we use it in common parlance? OK. OK. What about with movies? If a movie is based on a true story, that means something. What does it mean when a movie is inspired by a true story? It's based on, but not necessarily tracking accurately what the whole story was. Yeah, yeah, something, a movie that is inspired by a true story may resemble the true story vaguely, it may not. Someone might just say, I read the story about someone, and that got me a thinking, and I just decided to make a movie. That story inspired me to do something. Well, a dictionary definition of the word inspire is to fill with the urge or ability to do or feel something, especially something creative. That's what the word inspire means in our common usage. So we know that people are inspired today. Something can inspire you to a new workout, to get serious about your health. And I saw someone do something and that inspired me to get serious about my my working outer. Someone is a great reader and the fact that you read so much inspires me to read as well. People inspire other people. That happens in our day. The question that we have is, does God inspire people in our day? Are people today, 2025, are people inspired by God? Does that happen? Ben says yes. Matt says yes. Josh? Okay, you say yes. All right. You know, I met somebody once, some guy who was helping with an HVAC unit. And I know that there are people who have grown up in more charismatic environments and situations than I have. This guy gave me a CD that he had put together. And what he did is, do you guys know the song Hallelujah from Shrek? You know how that one goes? Pretty popular. I don't know who the real, Shrek isn't the original artist. Yeah, about King David. There are a couple of verses in that song that I don't know that I like very well. But anyway, this guy tells me that he woke up in the morning, woke up one morning, and he said that God moved on him in such a way to write down lyrics to the melody of that song. And he organized some things, he got somebody, made a CD, and there it was. And it wasn't just that song, he gave me a whole CD, there were nine tracks or so, and all of them were written by him, and he says that God spoke to me, two o'clock in the morning, and there I was, just, I'm writing lyrics. And he put it into a form. And so, again, I would never, I would never do such a thing. I would never say such a thing. I don't talk that way. I'm not, I've not grown up charismatic. I wouldn't say that God gave me these lyrics to put to this popular song, but, but he did. And he made that CD. And, and if I asked him, I said, Hey, were you inspired by God? He said, Oh yeah. Oh yes, I was. He would claim to be inspired by it. And, and so my question, as we think about this and people just coming in, Does God inspire people in our day, and what does that look like? Can we take that too far? Yeah, well, so one of the things that we, one of the doctrines that we believe here in our church is the doctrine of cessationism. Basically, you can slice that a lot of different ways. That means that there is no new revelation from God to his church in general. We view the scriptures as a completed work from God. That means that everything that God wants to tell his church, he has told us in the scriptures. It's sufficient. It's complete. The Book of Mormon is not inspired by God. And neither are new things that are given to people written down where someone can say, I have something from God and I'm going to write it down and I can add to the scripture because this is from God. These are words from God. That's what we don't believe is happening. You may have touched on this in the two minutes I was outside. How do you respond to people who say inspiration isn't a word we should use because it's a mistranslation, it's kind of vulgar, we should use God breathe or expire, stuff like that. Have you heard that before? And what do you think about that? Well, I'll get into what we mean by inspire and God breathe and all those things. Right now, we're just looking at common usage of the word inspire and what we what we understand by that. So if I haven't answered that question as we go through, then then you let me know. Here's what I want to say. I I am I'm comfortable with cessationism. I would say that scripture is a completed book. I'm not I don't think God is speaking to people today in such a way where that communication should be written down for the whole church to see. Now, here's here's what I will say, though. is that a personal act of God to move one of his children should not be confused with his word in the Bible, which is for all of his children. I don't doubt that the Spirit is still active today, moving and prompting people. And Matt, if you call somebody because you felt like you really should call somebody and think, man, I really feel like I need to check in on you. And I'd say, yeah, I'm not gonna doubt that the Spirit is at work in you. I think that that is happening. I just think that you shouldn't transcribe that call and try to add to that last page of your Bible. Okay, yes. seems like a point about scope and audience. Because we have to assume that people like Isaiah didn't only have given to them what we have written in Scripture. They were established as prophets before they even were recorded in Scripture. Some of these people were already considered prophets before they started listing in Scripture. So is it fair to say that Scripture could be defined as the revelation of God meant for his entire church, as you said earlier, but that personal revelation of personal inspiration might be for a smaller audience for a particular time, not for everyone. Is that something that could be continuing versus what, you know, maybe, obviously in the Old Testament, in that time, they had similar situations where it wasn't recorded for all of scripture, for all of the church, but there was obviously established Yeah, I like the way you put it, just the way you put it. Jesus said more, the book of John tells us that Jesus said more and did more things than are recorded for us. And what God has decided to preserve for us and keep for his whole church universal are what he's given to us in the scriptures. And last thing I would say there is that I, because I'm a cessationist, and I don't think that there are any prophets today or apostles today as defined in scripture. I think the death of the last apostle was the end of that. I don't think that there's going to be a new John the Baptist come to say, hey, God sent me into the wilderness and here I am. And I'd say, yeah, those offices have ceased. Alright, so let's look now at the various modes of scripture. And I'm pretty sure that these scripture passages are in your handout, so if someone can get Exodus 31.18 ready. Josh, why don't you get that ready if you don't mind? And then Matt, why don't you get Exodus 3.14 ready? And then Ben, why don't you get 2 Timothy 3.16 queued up? And let's see who else I want to pick on. Dylan, how about 2 Peter 1.21? Okay, am I going too fast? You guys, everybody know what they're doing? Got your assignments? Okay, various modes of scripture. Why don't you go ahead with Exodus 31.18. And he gave to Moses, when he had finished speaking with him on Mount Sinai, the two tablets of the testimony, tablets of stone, and with the finger of God. Okay. So, can God write on tablets of stone if he so chooses? Does God have the power? I mean, I know he can speak the universe into existence. If God wants to write on tablets of stone directly, is he able to do that? Anybody have a problem with that? Anybody want to challenge that and say it's impossible because God doesn't have any fingers? Well, this metaphorical language written by the finger of God, we have anthropomorphic language like that in Scripture, under the wing of God, God's strong right hand, the eye of God. That's language to help us understand certain things. Yeah, God doesn't have fingers. I don't know how he got the writing on those tablets. If you watch the old Charlton Heston Ten Commandments movie, you see how they depicted that. For those of you who've seen that movie, like there's this fire that comes out of this big fire cyclone and they didn't use a finger. That was old technology back then too. Not bad. Watch that if you haven't. Okay, so some scripture was written directly by the finger of God. Those tablets, that language would have been right from God directly and on stone. Okay, that's one way that God has given it. And we have those words, Exodus 20. We have the words that God wrote down transcribed now for us. Okay, so the next mode is going to be illustrated in Exodus 3.14. Whoever has that one? Very good. So let's ask the question again. Can God speak to a person and have that person share God's words to others. Is God able to do that? Can God speak to someone like Moses audibly, where Moses is hearing a voice in human language, and God says, hey, Moses, and Moses says, yes, Lord, here I am. And he says, I want you to tell the people of Israel this, this, this, and this. And Moses says, oh, okay. hey guys, God spoke to me and he told me to tell you just what I'm about to tell you right now. Does God have the ability to communicate to people that way? Absolutely, yep. And we might ask the question and say, well, hold on, does God have vocal cords? What kind of voice does God have? Is it baritone? I don't know. There's a mystery there. I don't know what it sounds like to hear God, how that would occur. He's never spoken to me. Maybe He spoke to that guy who wrote the song? No, I don't think so. But there's some mystery there, right? The God who is not a man is speaking to man, and we shouldn't have any problem with that, right? In the same way that we say that God can write on stone if he feels like it, he can speak to people if he wants to. and that's just what he's done. So, two different ways of Scripture that we have written by the finger of God in the Ten Commandments, and we have many, many passages of Scripture where it's, thus says the Lord, thus says the Lord. God told me to say this, thus says the Lord. It's just like quoting God. All right, let's look at our third mode. Actually, I don't have a Scripture for that, but the third mode would be, a lot of Scripture seems to be I have here merely the writings of men. Now, I say that it seems to be that. Paul wrote the book of Romans. Does anyone, anybody have a problem with that? Anyone disagree with that? Paul wrote the book of Romans. A guy named Paul, he wrote a letter to the Romans. That's what we call the book of Romans. Luke, another guy, he wrote the book of Acts. He wrote Luke and Acts, but Luke, Paul wrote Romans, Luke wrote Acts. Do we have people in our day that write things? Of course. But we're gonna have to look at that and say, that's an interesting one, because if Paul just wrote a letter, I wanna try to understand how I can call that letter God's word. Are those God's words? Paul's words. Is the book of Acts, are those God's words? Luke doesn't start off the book of Acts saying, thus says the Lord, and then all the way to the end and then close quote. He doesn't say that. So let's try to understand how we treat and come to consider things like the Book of Acts, Romans, and various other places of Scripture where it just seems to be, hey, someone wrote a letter. Peter wrote a letter. Paul wrote a letter. Luke wrote a letter. All right. How do we understand the inspiration of scripture? This is getting to Jackson's question. 2 Timothy 3.16. I don't know who I assigned that one to, but OK, go ahead. All scripture is breathed out to help us thus by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. OK, very good. So all of scripture is God-breathed, and you get points somewhere. Just not here. Yeah. OK. Well, I'll give you some points. It'll be like the points on whose line is it anyway. A million points for you, Ben. Okay, so 2 Timothy 3.16 tells us that all scripture is God-breathed. It's God-breathed. And then 2 Peter 1.21, whoever has that one, if you can read that. For prophecy never came by the willing man, but holy men of God spoke, and they were moved by the Holy Spirit. Okay, very good. Men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. I think that's how the ESV renders that. So, men speaking, carried along by God the Holy Spirit. In the Westminster Confession 1.8, let me get that here. It says, the Old Testament in Hebrew, which was the native language of the people of God of old, and the New Testament in Greek, which, at the time of the writing of it, was most generally known to the nations, being immediately inspired by God and by his singular care and providence kept pure in all ages, are therefore authentical. Okay, so the Holy Spirit carried men along to write in Hebrew. That happened in the Old Testament. The Holy Spirit carried men along to write in Greek. In weeks to come, we're gonna look more at the preservation of Scripture and the translation of Scripture. But at this point, I wanna make clear that God is plenty good at the Hebrew language. Okay? God speaks Hebrew, and He speaks it well. And at the time that He's inspiring people, God is no slouch when it comes to speaking Hebrew. Okay? When the Holy Spirit moved in those men and carried them along to give the Scriptures in Hebrew, it was done well, because God knows Hebrew. You expect me to say this. God is plenty good at the Greek language, too. God knows Greek. All right. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know that I would say he created all language. We can talk about that later. Yeah. He is definitely the one who human language is his idea. And that's what we're going to get to in a minute here. Here's a bonus, kind of a bonus question. I've got a million points to give to somebody. In the New Testament time, I want to see a raise of hands, too. I don't want you to just shout out the answer. In the New Testament time, the Old Testament was translated into Greek. And I'm going to ask you what that was called. And that Old Testament, which was translated into Greek, was quoted in the New Testament. So my question is, someone's going to raise their hand. What was the Old Testament translated into Greek called? Septuagint. OK, very good. And the fact that it seems that the Septuagint, which is the Old Testament translated into Greek, was quoted in the New Testament itself, I think that ought to teach us the lesson that language and translation are not a problem for God, and the idea of translations shouldn't be a problem for us either. Okay? All right, so as we come to understand what is the inspiration of scripture, how do we understand it? I just have a very simple way of understanding it, a way that even kids can understand, is that scripture is God's word. Okay, am I going too fast? Do you hear that, Cody? Scripture is God's word. Go tell somebody. All right, that's what we say. In the worship service, after we read the scripture, we say often, this is the Word of God. Why, after Pastor Mock reads the text in Ephesians today, why doesn't he say, this is the Word of Paul? Is it inaccurate to say that? See, so primarily what we say is that Scripture is God's Word. This is God's Word that we're dealing with. These are the words of God given to us. Again, that's the simple way of putting it. The Bible is God's Word. You heard it first here. OK, now I don't know how familiar you guys are with Andy Stanley. Man, what a mess. Not only does he want to unhitch from the Old Testament, he doesn't like the idea of people quoting Scripture and saying, this is God's Word. He wants to say that the book of Romans, he'd rather say, hey, this guy named Paul, you know, he wrote the book of Romans, and he sort of wants to make primary the idea that Paul wrote such and such, or John wrote such and such. He wants to focus on the human author, I think because he's trying to get away from from the authority of Scripture. He's trying, oh yeah, this guy Paul, you know, he says he's a cool guy, and yeah, none of that. Don't listen to Andy Stanley. All right, so that was the simple way of putting it is just that Scripture is God's Word. The complex way of understanding it is this, and this is what we're trying to get at here, is that Paul wrote Romans and the Holy Spirit wrote Romans. Who wrote the book of Romans? Paul wrote the book of Romans, and the Holy Spirit wrote the book of Romans. Now, we say that Paul wrote the book of Romans because he did, and Paul, here's where it starts to get kind of mysterious or hard to understand. Paul was using a language and a style that were distinctive to Paul. So in whatever way the Holy Spirit inspired the Apostle Paul to write the book of Romans, he didn't do so in such a way as to remove distinctive stylistic ways that Paul had. Similarly, Peter's letters are distinctive to Peter. He writes a certain way. Luke writes a certain way. Paul writes a certain way. So the inspiration of scripture doesn't it doesn't obliterate the idea or the fact that these human writers are writing in a distinctive style that is to them. C.S. Lewis wrote Narnia, and C.S. Lewis wrote the Space Trilogy. Same author, and I've read Narnia, and I'm almost finished with the Space Trilogy, and yeah, I see similarities in the two, because it's the same author. Oh, thank you. Well, once I get through that hideous strength, you can give me my points. That's taken me forever. Okay, so Paul wrote Romans and Paul wrote Ephesians, and there are similarities in the two letters. Peter wrote 1 and 2 Peter, and Peter's writing style is seen in those letters as well. So one of the questions that I want to ask you guys is, is the Bible a miracle? Would you say that the Bible that we have, would we put that in the category of a miracle? Sure. Yeah. I'm not saying that this is a scientific or a physical miracle in the sense of, hey, how does an axe head float? Man, I don't know. It seems like there's some physics going on there that I couldn't explain. But supernaturally, God intervenes in such a way that he can make an axe head float. But just generally speaking, when we think of the Bible, are we Are we putting it in the category of, man, this is a miracle, this is a miraculous book. There's something about this book that is not part of the ordinary way in which, I mean, a lot of books in the world, but none like this. I would say yes, because 2 Peter 1.21, no word of prophecy was ever produced by the will of man. So that would be God transcendently coming into the created order and doing it Himself by His will using those mediated or secondary means, right? So I don't know if that would be considered a miracle, but it sounds like it. Yeah, it may be a miracle if we just think of a special act of God, a supernatural special act of God. Any, yeah, Matt. Did you say there's any parallel between the incarnation, the Word in the flesh, and the Scripture, the Word given in the Bible? Is there, do we make kind of some parallel there? Like God entering, like you just said, down into our reality and giving up himself, is that something? Because I know we obviously have the Word is God and the Word is with God, and then we call this the Word of God, so there's gotta be something. Yeah, well, definitely a relationship between the two. I'd say that when we speak about Jesus as the Word, we're talking about the second person of the Holy Trinity. There's a personal aspect there where Scripture is God's communication to us. Yeah, I would say there's similarities and differences between the two. There's a passage in either the Psalms or Proverbs that says that God has exalted his word along with his name or to be equal with his name. Good question there. I'm not sure exactly how I would answer that or flesh that out, but obviously it's not like we're confusing the Word of God with the second person of the Trinity. We wouldn't do that, but the second person of the Trinity has given us words and has commissioned his apostles to give us his communication. Good question there. Okay, so I do want to advocate the idea that the Bible is a miracle. I think we should think about it as a miracle, and that means that if you can't come to grab and understand how exactly it worked, If I say that Paul is the author of the book of Romans, and the Holy Spirit is the author of the book of Romans, and Paul's distinctive writing style was preserved, but it's the Word of God, and you look and just say, I don't see how that, I don't understand exactly how that could work out. I can't mechanically put together exactly how that worked out. I would say, well, I can't put together a lot of things where God's supernatural activity is here. I can't explain them all the way either. What we don't want to say, and I don't think this is true, is that it's not a dictation process. Some scripture is. We looked at that as one of the modes where God says to Moses, tell the people, open quote, close quote, that's dictation there. The Book of Romans isn't like that, and a lot of Scripture isn't dictation. I don't think the Apostle Paul said, okay, Lord, I'm going to write a letter to the Romans now. You start talking and I'll start writing. I don't think it was that way. Yes? Well, I don't think it was done that way. I think the fact that there are distinctive styles to Paul and Peter, I mean, if Paul was possessed in such a way where it's just like, the book of Romans came out and he's like, man, I can't wait to read that. Because I wasn't sure what was going on at that point. I don't think it was that way. I think he was engaged in it, and somehow the Spirit was moving in him. Yes? You would have that in Jew, when he says, I was going to write to you about our common salvation, but I'm not going to do that. So it's him knowing what he had planned to write, but wasn't going to write that. that kind of thing to the people. There's that personality behind the writing, which was superintended, of course, by the Holy Spirit. There's also the passage on the 2nd or 3rd John, I forget, where he's like, I have so much to tell you, but I'll do it in person. I'm like, I'll do it right. It's frustrating. Matt, question about the dictation that you mentioned. Sure. I mean, God spoke to Moses, for example, and then Moses spoke to Pharaoh, let's say. That was the occasion. Yeah. I mean, that's right. But in terms of every, once it got inscripturated, it was one thing for God to speak to a prophet and a prophet to verbally tell somebody. But once that story and experience got put into text, all of the text is inspired. It's the Holy Spirit carrying along the author. The Holy Spirit is the source, and the writer is the instrument or the tool. It would all be inspired. So there really is no dictation when we think of the text of Scripture. Is that correct? I guess so. I guess once it comes down in writing, even the stone tablets that were written on by the finger of God were put onto parchment or whatever it was that it was put onto. Now, was Moses like Or did the Holy Spirit move in him in such a way? I think the Spirit did move in him in such a way to protect that original writing, the original manuscripts, the autographs, from being free from error. In the New Testament, I believe Jesus tells his apostles that the Spirit is going to come upon them to bring to remembrance all the things that are required. So, yeah, the miracle that I'm speaking about in Scripture is with the original autographs being put down on paper. Whatever happened there, and this is something, just kind of a thought experiment that we could have, but if God tells me, I'm not claiming to be a an apostle or a prophet, but just as an illustration. If God tells me to go into a room with a pencil and a piece of paper, and then when I come out of that room, I tell you guys, hey, I have the Word of God here, can He do that? Yes. Now, what I'm saying about the mystery is that I don't know what happened in that room. I don't know what it means that the Holy Spirit moved and carried me along. I don't know exactly how to put that down mechanically and the process down. But the fact that, yeah, God got a hold of Paul, Paul produced a writing, and at the end of the writing it's, this is the Word of God. And that's not too hard for God to do, God can obviously do that. I just don't know exactly, I don't know exactly how, I don't know if it was speaking to him in the inner part, I don't know if the protection was with these three fingers, his writing fingers. Well, I'm left-handed, Paul was probably right-handed. I don't know how that all worked out, but what we do know is that the original autographs, the original writings, were word of God and infallible, inerrant. Paul was a Benjaminite, so he was left-handed. Okay. Maybe I'm a Benjaminite. I'm left-handed. Yes, Tom. One of the mysteries, though, I guess, really, is when you have each author that has these specific items he's writing, Yeah Yeah Yeah, yeah, there's yep the the original audience to And I've heard people say this before I think I think it's valuable to us we'll kind of look at this as we bring this to a close is that The Scriptures were not written to us originally. I wasn't part of the original audience in Romans that would have had where Paul's like, yeah, I've got Matt Vallaca in mind when I'm writing Romans because I know he's at the Church of Rome. I wasn't there. I'm not the original audience. So, in a certain sense, I say, yeah, that letter wasn't written to me specifically addressed by the Apostle Paul, but it's written for me in the sense that it's instruction for me to understand. So, yeah, the words of God are preserved and are applicable to the whole church, and sometimes it takes us some thought and some study to sort out, wait a minute, I wasn't the original audience, so, you know, there's certain passages that make for good bumper stickers in the Old Testament. It's like, yeah, that's me, that's me, God was talking to me right there. I said, oh, man, I don't think he was talking to you. That might apply to you in certain ways, but it's not like your favorite passage was for you in particular. How do you respond to the critique or statement by some that if it wasn't written to you, it's not for you? Because there are a lot of, I think, people who would say that, specifically about Old Testament verses. So how do you respond if someone said, well, if it wasn't written to you, it's not for you? Well, I'm not sure. I've never had anyone bring that to me. I'm not sure what I would say, but I would say that the scripture is for the church in general, and that I'm part of the church. So, yeah, I'm not saying specifically to Matt Balaka, but I'd say, yeah, to the people of God, this is God's revelation, and I'm an Israelite. I'm a child of Abraham, so it applies to me in that way. in all ages, if they were only meant for one age. Why do we even have a dependency if it was first and foremost for that first generation? Why do we need it if it was just for them? The fact that we have it is evidence that it goes beyond that generation. You end up here in all ages because all ages need the work done. It's relevant for all ages. I guess my question really isn't The 2U and 4U thing is really the people. It's really Jew-Gentile. I think I've heard, I know I've heard many times, if it's written to Jews, it's only for Jews. If it's written to Gentiles, it's only for Gentiles. That's what I'm asking. Not specifically, like, 2, 2U, 180, or 70AD, whatever the person is. I guess your response would be the same. I like that. You're an Israelite. You're a child of God. Yeah, I'd encourage you to get some new friends. All right, let's end here. I'm most comfortable when it comes to things that are mysterious or hard to explain, I'm most comfortable sticking to biblical wording. So 2 Timothy 3.16 says, all scripture is God-breathed. And if someone says, how do you view scripture? I say, yeah, it's all God-breathed. and they start pressing me, and I say, yeah, I say that because that's what 2 Timothy 3.16 says. Or 2 Peter 1.21, I'd say, yeah, all scripture is given to us by men who were carried along by the Holy Spirit. And they say, who says? I say the Bible. Matthew 22.31, scripture is spoken to us by God. Do I have time to read that? 2 Peter 3, 15 and 16, that's where Peter refers to Paul as him Paul writing and including that within the other scriptures. All right, just as a little bit of exhortation here for you, and this comes from the Westminster chapter 1, section 8, we are commanded, according to the Westminster, commanded in the fear of God to read and search the scriptures. Perhaps we can talk more about that. Are we commanded, do we think about that? To say, oh, my Bible reading, you know, I had my coffee this morning and I didn't read my Bible. I've gone three days, four days, two weeks, I haven't read my Bible. You know, it's optional. Well, is it? Are we commanded by God to read and search the Scriptures? I'll leave that as a rhetorical question. And some of the end, or the goal, is so that we may worship Him in an acceptable manner, right? What's the point of studying your Bible? So that you can argue with Jackson's friends? It's to the end that we may worship Him in a manner that is acceptable to Him. God prescribes to us how we are to worship and relate to Him, and it's given to us in His Word. And the better you are at understanding His Word, the better you'll be able to worship Him in a manner acceptable to Him. And it says, and through patience and comfort of the Scriptures, we may have hope. That's glorious, isn't it? The more we steep ourselves in the Scripture, the more we focus and meditate upon the promises of God given to us in Scripture, that just puts steel in the hope that we have in God. Say, you know what? He made a promise to me. This is a God that can't lie. This is a God that has included me into what He's done, and He has made promises to me. I think there's a verse in Amazing Grace. I'm going to have a hard time remembering it right now. The Lord has promised good to me. I forget how the rest of it goes. Yeah, there you go. His word, my hope, endures. Okay, the Lord has promised good things to us, and our studying, searching, and meditating on the Scriptures really is taking us through patience and comfort that we may have hope. So let's not Let's not take for granted the fact that we have the scriptures. It would probably be true that if someone stole our Bible, took away all of our Bibles, if the country turned communist and all the Bibles were gotten rid of, we'd probably be like, oh, man, I wish I had my Bible. Say, well, you have it now. Don't neglect it. Let's look at it. It's for you. These are God's words. I mean, every morning when you're getting your coffee ready, if you read your Bible in the morning, just think, man, I have the words of God that I'm about to interact with this morning. And maybe we just need to remind ourselves of that because we end up taking it for granted and forgetting that. Yeah. Before you pray, I saw a video related to this. I saw a video, I don't know, a couple months ago of these Chinese underground house church Christians who, for the first time, received these kind of illegal vials. And the whole group just started, they were sobbing and crying as they were handing them out. It was really profound. They were so thankful for the word of God. And so often, we just kind of Yeah, and I've heard people say this kind of touches back to what we said maybe last week, is that if people sometimes think, God is so great, God is so great, He's made the whole universe. It's impossible for you, Ben. I mean, you've got a brain that big for you to understand. Like, you're gonna tell me what God wants you? Who do you think you are? And again, that kind of skepticism, skeptics will come to you and kind of put that on you. And I say, hey, I'm nobody, but God has spoken in his word. And if you want me to tell you what God thinks about X, Y, or Z, I'm able to tell you because he's spoken. And that takes the arrogance off of me. I'm not saying, hey, I'll tell you what God wants because I figured it out. I say, no, I'll tell you what God wants because he wrote it. And I'm just going to point you to what he says here. All right, let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you so much for giving us your word. Thank you for preserving it for us. Thank you that we have access, abundant access to your word. We pray, Lord, that we would be good students of it and that we would interact with your word in such a way that we would subject ourselves to it. Help us to, as we go into the worship service, help us to sit under the preaching of your word that we may be changed by it. In Jesus' name, amen.