Our scripture reading this evening is from Hebrews 10. Hebrews 10. We read the first 25 verses of Hebrews 10. For the law, having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect. For then would they not have ceased to be offered, because that the worshipers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins. But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every year. For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins. Wherefore, when he cometh into the world, and this is Jesus, of course, he saith, Sacrifice and offerings thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me. In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin, thou hast had no pleasure. Then said I, lo, I come, in the volume of the book it is written of me, to do thy will, O God. Above, when he said, sacrifice and offering and burnt offerings and offerings for sin thou wouldest not, neither haths pleasure therein, which are offered by the law, then said he, lo, I come, to do thy will, O God. He taketh away the first," and that is, of course, all those sacrifices, in order that he may establish the second, which is the will of God. By the which will, we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. And every priest standeth daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down on the right hand of God, from henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool. For by one offering he hath perfected forever them that are sanctified. Whereof the Holy Ghost also is a witness to us. For after that he had said before, this is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord. I will put my laws into their hearts and in their minds will I write them. And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more. Now where remission of these is, there is no more offering for sin. Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which he hath consecrated for us through the veil, that is to say, his flesh, and having an high priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering, for He is faithful, that promised. And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works. not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together as the manner of some is, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as ye see the day approaching." So far we read God's holy word. The text for the sermon is verse 23. I'll make it just a couple of changes in the wording, the English, the translation, let us hold fast the profession, and just to know that profession and confession is the same, and I will be using the word confession, but it means the same thing. Let us hold fast the profession of our, and now the big change is here, the word faith is hope. The word faith should be hope. So let us hold fast the profession of our hope without wavering, for he is faithful that promised. Beloved in the Lord Jesus Christ, are you holding fast your confession There is a certain body of truth that you know that is preached here in your congregation week after week, and there is, based on that truth of God's Word, a certain hope, a certain hope that is grounded on the truth that we confess, and the question is, are you holding fast to that truth and to your confession of the truth? The fact that the Spirit gives us the admonition that He does in the text Let us hold fast the confession of our hope. The fact that the Spirit puts this into the scriptures indicates that we need this admonition to hold fast. There is a danger that we might not hold fast our confession. In fact, Jesus, when he was on the earth, warned his disciples and us then, about this danger. He said, there is always the danger of those who are in the church straying away from it. There is always the danger of the church on this earth apostatizing, forsaking the truth, and even forsaking God. It can be that bad. And especially at the end of the ages, Jesus warned there will be a great apostasy, a turning away from the truth, a giving it up, a throwing away of the truth of God. And we are seeing that happening. The truth generally in the church world is not being maintained, it is being Compromised, it is being ignored, it is being even denied by that which calls itself the Church of Jesus Christ. And when that truth is corrupted, maybe even denied, then the hope that is based on it begins to fade. And the hope of the church is not any longer the hope of heaven, but it becomes earthly. And all of the activities of the church begin to focus on making this world a better place. And the treasures, therefore, of the people of the church are not the treasures of heaven, but earthly treasures. and earthly pleasures and experiences. That, of course, as we saw Wednesday night at prayer day service, is not something that we are immune to. It's very easy for us to have treasures here and not to be so rich in heaven. We have also seen many who have forsaken the confession that they have made in the Protestant Reformed churches. And they're willing to live in churches where the truth that they once confessed is now denied, compromised, and a different lifestyle is being preached from the pulpit as well. There is therefore good reason for this admonition to come to us tonight, hold fast the confession of your hope. This exhortation is one of three or perhaps you could say four that is based on the theme of Hebrews. Because right here, just before the text, is a division in the book of Hebrews, which you're not aware of, of course. You haven't studied the book carefully, perhaps. But the first 10 chapters, right up to verse 19, is a very doctrinal section, which emphasizes this theme. Jesus Christ is a better mediator of a better covenant. And he's a better mediator standing between us and God, better than Aaron, better than Moses, better than Joshua, better even than the angels. And he is that because he would ratify the covenant. And that we read of how he came and in his body offered himself and therefore opened up the way into heaven, perfected his people so that his people have access to God. Jesus, therefore, is the better mediator of a better covenant who has opened up that way into God's presence and given us the right to approach God. Now, based on that are a number of practical applications. Verse 22, let us therefore draw near to that God in the full assurance of faith. Verse 24, let us consider one another to provoke to love and to good works. Verse 25, not forsaking the assembling of yourselves together. And then the text that we consider that we are to hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering. God knows that his people need these kinds of exhortations. Notice they're not rebukes, they're encouragements, admonitions. That's what these three verses give us, including the text tonight. God knows that His people need this because we have sinful natures and we can become spiritually lazy and lethargic. Children maybe don't know what lethargic means, but when you're just tired, you feel sick and you don't feel like doing anything, you have no energy, that's lethargic. And we can have all kinds of energy about earthly things, But when it comes to spiritual things, we can be very lethargic, lack of energy, lack of zeal, and become very lazy. God knows that. That's our nature. And so He comes with admonitions to encourage us to be very active, spiritually energetic. Now, This is what Christianity does. Christianity is a religion that comes to believers and says, now you're believers, you should be doing, you should be active in your faith. And that's almost a paradox, isn't it? It's almost a contradiction because Christianity says all of salvation is of God. None of it is yours. None of it depends on you. It's all God's work. And yet, in that saving work of God, He works in His people by His grace and by His Spirit. And as He works in them by His Spirit, He then comes with an admonition, say, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. And the only reason you can do that is because God is the one who works in you the will and the to-do of His good pleasure. So tonight, the Spirit, having worked in us by His grace, now comes with the admonition to us, hold fast the confession of your hope. Let's consider that then under that theme. holding fast our confession of hope." Well, notice in the first place, the confession of hope, what that is. Secondly, the command to hold fast. And thirdly, the confidence in the promise, which is really the confidence in the one who promises. The end of the verse, God is faithful who promised. The confession of hope. Well, first of all, we need to know what is hope? What are we talking about when we talk about hope? Hope is a gift, or you could even say a power, that the Holy Spirit works in a believer. It's not something you can get from anywhere but the Holy Spirit. The Spirit works this gift or this power, and this power of hope looks for the fullness of salvation. Hope looks for the fullness of salvation. Hope is very closely related to faith. And we're all very familiar with that, so let's distinguish between the two. We go to the Heidelberg Catechism because that has a beautiful explanation of what faith is. And the catechism says faith is, first of all, a certain knowledge. A certain knowledge of everything that God has revealed in His Word. Creation. Providence. Salvation in Jesus Christ. that the Spirit has been given to us. Forgiveness of sins, eternal life, all those things are here in the Word of God. And faith says, I believe, I know the things that are in the Word of God, that they are true. But the catechism says faith is more than just knowing that it's true. It's a confidence. It's a confidence that says, I know that what the Bible teaches is true for me. Jesus died for me. My sins are forgiven. I have the hope of eternal life. It's waiting for me. Faith says that is all true for me. Now, hope is similar, but the main difference is that hope is always forward-looking, always forward-looking. In fact, there are three elements that if you can get these three things, you will have an understanding of what hope is. Hope, first of all, is a feeling. Desire it is is always involving something that you do not have right now It's always looking to the future to obtain something The book of Romans chapter 8 Romans chapter 8 verse 24 Expresses it very well when it says for we are saved by hope But hope that is seen is not hope. For what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? And so that verse in Romans is saying this, if you have it already, then you don't need to hope for it. Children can understand that. If you're hoping for a certain birthday present, When you have it in your hands, you don't have to hope for it anymore. You have it. Hope is always looking to the future for something that you do not yet possess. So that, first of all, hope looks for something in the future. Secondly, hope is a longing. Hope is a longing. It's a tremendously powerful desire It's something your heart is set on. I truly want this. That's hope. Hope looks to the future. Hopes with tremendous longing and desire wants that. And then third, the hope of the Bible is certain. Absolutely certain. It's not like our everyday hopes that I hope I can do this or I hope we can go there. That's not the Bible's hope. The hope of the Bible is absolutely secure. Someone who has this hope is not wondering, will I maybe get it or maybe not? No, he's absolutely sure, he's certain he will receive it. So hope is looking to the future. It is a longing and it is absolutely certain. That's the word hope in this text. Now it's clear that faith and hope are closely related and even dependent on each other. Faith believes things that are past, things that are present, and looks to the future, but hope only looks ahead to something that you hope to receive, that you desire to obtain. As far as the quality, the spiritual quality, we emphasize with faith, it's conviction. I believe, I'm convicted of this. Whereas hope is, again, mainly a longing, a desire for something. But when it comes to certainty, both hope and faith are both certain. Faith certainty is based partly on the past. It looks back and says, God has always kept his promise. I can believe what he says. And hope rests on that. The promise is crucial for hope, isn't it? God promised. We look ahead toward what he has promised. But if faith did not believe the promises of God, I would have no hope. Hope rests on faith. Now we can also distinguish between two different aspects of hope. Hope can be looked at as something that you do, you hope for something. When you say, I hope that, that's an activity from within you. But sometimes the Bible talks about hope as the thing for which you hope. You're hoping for heaven. Heaven is the object of your hope. And that sometimes, too, is what the Bible means by hope. You can't really distinguish the two, the activity of hoping and the thing for which you hope. You cannot ever separate the two, and you surely cannot in this text. Because in this text, we speak of the confession of our hope. The confession of our hope. What does that mean? Well, first of all, the word confession. The word confession means to speak with. That's what the Greek means, and that's, in fact, what the English word means, too, to speak with. And it has the idea that you speak in harmony with someone or even in unison. When we recite the Apostles' Creed, We are together speaking the same truth. That's confession. That's what we do. If someone starts speaking a different truth, then we're not speaking in unison any longer. The word confession means to speak together, to speak with. And if you say, well, to speak with whom, who are the people that we are speaking with, then there's a two-fold answer to that. First of all, we speak with God. God is truth, and God's word is truth, and the content of our confession is exactly right here. It's what the Bible teaches us. So when we make a confession of the truth, we are speaking with God, saying the same thing that God says. But you recognize also, as we gave in the illustration, that we speak together as a church. We speak with God and we speak together confessing the truth. The church draws from the scriptures, this is what we believe and now together we say, I believe and we all make a confession of what we believe. We're confessing that truth that the church has confessed in the past and what the church confesses today. What then, putting together hope and confession, what is the confession of our hope? In a word, it's heaven. It's heaven. The content of our hope is based squarely on Jesus Christ, inseparable from him, He is the one who gives us heaven. Life with God, fellowshipping with God, that's eternal life. That is the hope of the believer. That's your hope, is it not? Heaven, that's our hope. And as I said, that's based entirely upon Jesus. In fact, 1 Timothy 1 verse 1 says Christ is our hope. He is our hope. And that's because he accomplished our hope. He is God, very God, who came in the flesh. And he came in the flesh in order that he might become one with his people. And he did that that he might make a sacrifice for them in their place. He took upon himself the guilt of his people and he paid for their sin. He perfected them. He earned a righteousness which could be imputed to them so that his people can stand in the very presence of God and not be cast away. They are righteous in Jesus Christ. This Jesus was raised from the dead and that's part of our hope because it means God approved of His work of the sacrifice and it means that Jesus conquered death and sin and hell. It's all been overcome, conquered by Jesus so that our bodies one day too will be raised from the dead and we will live body and soul in heaven. There's even more that Jesus does. That's the reason for our hope. He's our mediator in heaven through whom even now we can approach to God. And he's the king sitting upon the throne, directing all things to that moment when he will come on the clouds of heaven and deliver his church from this world and bring us into glory. Everything about our hope rests on Jesus. If there is no Jesus, there is No hope. But our hope is life in heaven. From a negative point of view, that means that we're looking for deliverance, deliverance from sin, a time that will go on into eternity. when there will be no sin, no evil thoughts, no evil motives, no sinful words that ever come out of our mouths again. All our words, all our activities will be pure. We'll be able to serve God perfectly, exactly as God has determined we should. He's formed us to serve Him. We will be able to do this perfectly in heaven. No sin. And all the effects of sin will be gone. Diseases, pain, suffering, sorrow. Getting old and weak and frail, all of that will be gone. No death, no sorrow. Heaven is, first of all, that. The absence of all sin, the absence of all the effects of sin. But positively, heaven is a blessed life with God. That's eternal life. Our hope is that we will see God face to face. We will enter into that most holy place which Jesus has opened up through his own flesh, through his suffering and death. Now we see into heaven darkly, using a glass, says the King James. But that, of course, is a mirror, like looking into a mirror and beholding something of heaven through the mirror. That's what we have in this life. Our fellowship with God is somewhat limited. It's very indirect. God speaks to us by His written Word. God speaks to us through the preaching of the gospel. And we speak to God whom we cannot see, cannot hear with our prayers and with our songs of praise. But our hope is that one day, We will see Him face to face in Jesus Christ. And then we will have the experience of fellowship that is perfect. Now, we have fellowship with God as He speaks to us and the Spirit takes the Word and applies it to our hearts and makes us to know how much God loves us and cares for us. But in heaven, We can look forward to perfect fellowship, the kind that Isaiah describes where he says, when you are in heaven, before the words even come out of your mouth, God will answer you. So immediate, so close will be the fellowship you will have with God. And everywhere you look in the new creation will be the glory of God. We see it now in this creation and yet, It's muted by the curse, and our own sinful eyes do not behold the glory as we should. But when we go to heaven, we will see it beautifully, perfectly, so glorious that there will be no need for the sun, because the glory of God will lighten it. This is our hope. Covenant fellowship with God. Covenant fellowship with all the saints in heaven with no sin to mar our fellowship and living with God. Is that your hope? Is that what you are longing for? Earnestly desiring your heart is set. On that. The text says, hold fast the confession of your hope. Hold that fast. What does that mean? Well, it's not that hard to understand really. Children can understand that. If your mom and dad gives you something that is precious and says, hold on to this and might even say, hold on tight. Don't let it slip. Don't let it fall to the ground. Don't throw it away. Hold on to this. Keep it. That's the idea of the text. Hold on tight to the confession of your hope. The word hold on, hold fast is used in a couple of interesting ways in the gospel according to Luke. One of them is found in chapter 4 verse Luke 4, verse 42, it says, when it was day, he, Jesus, departed and went into a desert place, and the people sought him and came unto him and stayed him. That's the same word translated hold fast. They stayed him that he should not depart from him. They surrounded him. They wouldn't let him go. And again, in chapter 8 of Luke, in that parable of the sower, it talks about the seed that is sown. This is in Luke chapter 8, verse 15. The seed that is sown on good ground. That on good ground, it says, this is Luke 8, 15, are they which in an honest and good heart, having heard the word, keep it. Keep it. They do not let it go. They hold that word fast in their heart, and then they begin to produce fruit. Now, that's the word hold fast. Hold fast. The book of Hebrews has admonished the Hebrews repeatedly to hold fast. Chapter 3 of Hebrews, Hebrews 3 verse 6. It speaks of how Christ is a son over God's house, whose house are we if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm to the end. Again, there's a The possibility that it might be let go, and it says, hold it fast to the end, the confidence of your hope. Verse 14, for we are made partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast unto the end. And again in chapter 14, or rather 4 verse 14, Seeing then that we have a great high priest that is passed into the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession. Hold fast the confession of your hope. Now, remember that relationship between faith and hope, and faith holds on to the truth. And if you're going to hold on to the confession of your hope, you must maintain the truth Maintain that your hope is resting on the truth that you confess. That's probably why the translators to the King James said, hold fast the profession of your faith because they're so closely connected. Give up your confession of the truth, the faith that you believe, and you will lose your hope. Tuck says, not only hold it fast, but hold it fast without wavering, without wavering. This is addressed, first of all, to the Hebrews. And now, keep in mind, who are these Hebrews? They are Jewish Christians. They are Jews who were raised in the Old Testament religion, and they heard the preaching of Jesus Christ crucified, and they believed. They were convicted, and they confessed that Jesus is the Messiah, the promised Messiah. But they were beginning to waver because their family shunned them, and their friends ostracized them. They were called apostates. You've forsaken the true religion. You've gone after a man who was crucified as a criminal. That's your Messiah. People wouldn't do business with them. They couldn't buy or sell to their fellow Jews any longer. And so they were beginning to waver. Maybe, maybe we've made a mistake. That's the whole point of the book of Hebrews, to show to them, no, Jesus is the promised Messiah. He is the one who realizes the covenant. You begin to waver. Sometimes that prevents people from making a bold confession. In Jesus' day, the leaders of the Jews said to everybody in the synagogue, if you confess Jesus to be this Jesus, now if you confess him to be the Christ, you will be cast out of the synagogue. And so people didn't dare. They didn't dare even to say that Jesus had done a miracle. Let us hold fast our profession. We need this admonition. We need this admonition because the truth is always opposed, always. When the truth of God is opposed, then the hope of the believer is opposed. The lie of evolution opposes the hope of the coming of Christ. Evolution says this world always was, it always will be. Don't look for Jesus to come back. Don't look for a new heavens and a new earth. Live for this life. That denies our hope. Any teaching about the kingdom of man and how man will establish a glorious kingdom denies our hope. All the teaching of this world that says this life is all that there is denies our hope. Not only do we need this admonition because there are others who oppose the truth, but the reality is our own flesh would rather compromise than suffer for the sake of the truth. So the exhortation, hold fast without wavering, without wavering. Without wavering means we are determined to hold to the truth. We do this together. It is so encouraging to have a church full of people that can say to each other, let us together hold fast the confession that we've been making all our life. And that's why it is so discouraging when people from the church leave. People that We have walked with people that we stood with and stood with us for the sake of the gospel, and now they're willing to go to churches where the truth that they confessed is denied. Where instead of a sovereign God and sovereign particular saving grace, there is preached from the pulpit that there is a common grace that God has for everyone that is not saving, but allows you to work with them because they all have grace. The whole world has grace. That's a denial. Of our confession. And as we'll see, a denial of our hope. Instead of a covenant that is unconditional with the elect alone, they are willing to listen to preaching that says, no, God establishes covenant with every single baptized child, promises salvation to every child as long as the child believes, if under the condition of that. And if they would hear preaching like that, And go back in the back of the church and say, no, wait a minute, my confession is a sovereign God who establishes his covenant only with the elect and realizes it with them. His promises never fail. The people would say, well, you're in the wrong church. We don't preach that here. And if they say. They're willing to give up their confession. They can't keep saying that. They can't make that bold confession week after week. They cannot. If they hear preaching of a well-meant offer, that God loves all men, that God offers salvation to all men, and if they would go back afterwards and say, wait a minute, no, God doesn't offer salvation to all men. God saves sovereignly His people through the powerful means of preaching. That's my confession, people would say. That's fine, but that's not what we preach here. That is a wavering on the confession. And that affects our hope. Because our only hope is that God is absolutely sovereign. His grace is always saving. His covenant is unconditional. He always keeps his promises, and the promise is not given to everyone if they believe, but it's only to the elect, and he keeps his promises. That's my hope. That's the only hope I have. Anything less than that that gives even the smallest part to me, I lose my hope. Hold fast the confession of your hope, the truth. But we continue to see people drifting away, drifting away from the Protestant Reformed churches. And let me say this. You don't hear a lot of my preaching, so you don't know this of me. But from the first year of my preaching until the present time, I have opposed the wicked teaching that the Protestant Reformed Church is the only true church, and that if you leave the Protestant Reformed Church, you will go to hell. Rejected that from the pulpit. I have rejected that in the classroom of seminary, and I'm still rejecting it. That is a lie. We don't believe that. So that's not my point. That's not my point at all. But it's a matter of holding to your confession. When young people stand up in church and they make confession, they're saying, I believe the doctrine that is taught in this church, and I promise to adhere to that doctrine. I promise to stick with the doctrine. That means till I die. I will not forsake the truth that God has given. But people leave. And there are many reasons that are given. Perhaps they do not like this or that decision of a consistory or a classus or a senate. Maybe they had a run-in with the elders and they don't want to have the elders overseeing them and their lives. Maybe the doctrine of divorce and remarriage becomes a problem because One of their own children got divorced and remarried and now they don't want to hear that preached any longer because it condemns their children. Maybe the churches are too strict on entertainment or on Sabbath observance. Maybe we don't have any friends here. Maybe we find somebody that we are really attracted to, a young person, and we begin to date, but that person we're dating and are attracted to will not come here. So maybe I'll just leave. Maybe, maybe we've been hurt. And yes, we can be hurt. Of course, we're going to get hurt. We're in a congregation. We're in a church, a denomination made up 100 percent sinners. People say bad things. People hurt. But my question is. What of the conviction? Concerning our confession. That's the question. And again, I'm not I'm not preaching to people who left. They're not here to hear this. I'm preaching to you. I'm preaching to me. Are we convicted? Of the truth. That is preached here. Or is it a family thing to be here? Is it just convenience? It's my church. I helped build this church. Is that why? If it is conviction, We will not leave. All the reasons that we just gave for people that walk away, you will not do that if you are convicted. Hold fast. Maintain the truth. Holding fast to that confession of hope means we live that hope. It isn't merely a matter of, yes, I'm going to maintain this because I'm strong. I can argue the doctrine. No, it's a matter of life. What's your hope? What are you living for? Is it snowmobiling and hunting? Is that the great joy of your life? Is it basketball or volleyball? Is it good food and drink? Is it a nice pleasant life or a good vacation? Is that our hope? Is that what we're living for? If our hope is heaven, that's where our desire is. That's where we want to go. That's what our talk is about. That's what our life is focused on. Our treasures are there where Jesus is at the right hand of God. That's where our treasures are. That's where our joys are. Hold fast. But that brings us back to that contradiction. You can't hold fast in your strength, you understand? You can't, I can't. It's the power of God alone that is able, that keeps us faithful to his truth. Romans says it exactly, that it's the power of the Holy Spirit that keeps you in your hope. God's power. The Spirit works the desire to hold fast. The preaching now comes with this admonition and the Spirit takes the admonition of the text and writes it on your heart. And says, that's me. I want to hold on to my confession. That's my life. The Spirit applies that to us. And so we must. We lose our zeal if we become lazy and lethargic spiritually so that there's no energy, no zeal for holding on to the truth. It will slip out of our hands. We will lose it. Hold fast. Yet God knows how weak we are. So we add something to the text that is extremely important to convince us of the importance of it. He is faithful that promised. For, that's, for gives you a reason. Why should I hold fast? Why should I hold on to the confession of my hope? Why? For he is faithful that promised. Remember, hope is always looking ahead. Hope is looking to the fulfillment of the promise. Well, God promises. God promises. A promise is an announcement of what one intends to do or what one intends to give. God promises. He promises salvation to his people, salvation from sin, eternal life. He promised that. Already in the garden, he promised that. Genesis 3.15 is called a mother promise. The very first time God promised salvation, when he said, mind you, to the devil, I will put enmity between thee and the woman, between thy seed and her seed, and her seed will crush your head, though you will bite his heel and you will put poison there. He will die. You will be destroyed. My people will be saved. So God right there is announcing salvation through the one God would send. He said, I will put in between your seed and my seed because I will make my people to be my friends. And the seed of the woman is Jesus, and he would accomplish that by paying for the sins of his people, destroying the power of sin and Satan and hell itself. God. Promised. And he kept his promise, Jesus came, he fulfilled Genesis 315 and all the other promises of the Old Testament, which developed that. God promised. And we all recognize. That a promise is only as good as the person who's promising. Children learn that very quickly. There are some people that promise you this and promise you that, but they don't do it. God is faithful. God is faithful. Hebrews 6 verse 18 says, He cannot lie. And He cannot lie because He does not change. So the word that he speaks now cannot change. It will be the same. One who keeps his word is faithful. He can be trusted. You can look at the record and you look at God's record and you say. He is faithful. He keeps his word. The importance of it. is that our hope is absolutely secure. Absolutely secure. We have every reason to hold fast the confession of our hope. If the hope depended on us, we would not have any hope. If the hope depended on the Protestant Reformed churches, on the ministers and elders and the professors in the seminary, we would not have any hope. But our hope squarely entirely is on God himself and on his son, Jesus Christ, who fulfills the promise. He is faithful who promised he's faithful. You can trust him completely. As the catechism says, in connection with Providence, he is able to keep his word because he's almighty and he's willing to do it because He's our Father. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering. Be bold in it. Be bold. That's a confession. That's why the word profession means the same thing. You speak it out. You're not afraid of men. You're not afraid of what they may say or think or do. But maintain it without Wavering because God. Is faithful. Amen.