The Breath of God - Part 3

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Well, we welcome you back to our study of bibliology. That is, what the Bible has to say about itself. I was following the news this week, as were probably many of you, about various issues and I have been probably equally disgusted with you with the Michael Jackson situation. You may have heard that he gave an interview on 60 Minutes in which he said that he thought it was, in spite of all that's going on, it was still appropriate to sleep with children.

I was struck by the words of an analyst that I heard on the news station I was watching and she was an expert prosecuting attorney. And she said this, and I thought it was quite interesting, she said, "One of the most telling things in any court case is the testimony of the person in their own defense because often what they have to say reveals their heart. Often, as much as they may try to put up a guard, as much as they may try to defend themselves and to put forward the sort of humble contrite spirit, eventually with enough time that person sets forth what's really the expression of their hearts." As I thought about that in a totally different context as we thought about coming tonight to the issue of inspiration, I was reminded of the fact that it's compelling and important that when we talk about the Bible and we talk about whether or not the Scripture is in fact the Word of God, the very breathed out words of God, that we come and allow the Scripture to speak for itself, we allow its testimony about itself to speak, because there we discover, at the very least, what it claims.

And so that's what we've been doing over the last number of times we've discussed this. I want to take just a minute though to review with you because it has been several weeks since our study. So let me just briefly remind you of where we've come. And I thank the gentleman who ran the table up here; I think I'll have a little better control of what's going on. First of all, we began by looking at an explanation of inspiration and specifically, a definition. When we talk about inspiration we're saying that God superintended the human authors, that entire process, using their own personality, so that the end result was His revelation to man without error in the words of the original autographs. That is inspiration. Now, when you take that definition apart basically you come to 2 Timothy 3:16, because that's where this definition sort of derives or has as its foundation. There, as we've seen before, "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God." Literally, instead of inspiration, a better word would be "breathing out," not "breathing in" but "breathing out," theoneustos, theos meaning God, neustos breath or spirit, it is "God breathed."

So therefore, when we talk about a biblical view of inspiration we're talking about three things. The fact that God superintended the process of recording His revelation. He chose men to actually write the Scripture. There's the human element. So you have the divine element, the human element, and the result. And that was God's error free revelation. Now, when we say error free, and we'll talk about this in the coming weeks, we don't mean that there aren't statements in the Bible that aren't errant. Now stay with me a moment. For example, we have recorded in the Scripture the words of Satan. What he has to say isn't true, but it is recorded for us error free. That's what we mean. You also have in some cases human wisdom. You come to Job's helpful friends; you have recorded there human advice, human counsel, some of which may be true and some of which may not be true, but it is recorded for us error free by the Holy Spirit of God.

We started, the last time we embarked on this study, to talk about the defense of inspiration. And we began by saying that really, Scripture doesn't need to be defended. It's like a lion, you don't need to defend it, you just open the cage and let it out; it can take care of itself. And when it comes to your dealing with unbelievers, that's what I would suggest to you. We will talk at some point about the fact that my approach and how I would encourage you to approach apologetics, is presuppositionally. That is, you simply take the Word of God, you explain it, you set it forth, and you allow the Holy Spirit to use it in the hearts of people. As we will see even in one text tonight, evidences and proofs are not enough in and of themselves, apart from the work of the Holy Spirit.

There is a place for evidences and proofs. It confirms the faith of those who already believe and it also can knock the sort of props out from under those who deny the truth of what we believe. But evidences in and of themselves will never convince a dead person to come alive. The Holy Spirit of God has to take His Word and use it in the hearts of those who hear. So when we talk about a defense of inspiration it's really for us. It's a reminder to us of the fact that we hold in our hands and we study and we treasure, God's error free, breathed out, revelation; we should treasure it dearly.

Now, when we talk about defending inspiration we're talking about several different approaches to defend inspiration. What are the lines of evidence that we're pursuing? The first is internal arguments. That is, what the Scripture has to say, inside the pages of Scripture, about itself. That's where we are now. We're looking at the Scripture's own testimony about its content and about its source. Secondly, there are external arguments. That is, looking from the outside of Scripture in, we can see certain lines of argument that substantiate the inspiration or the fact that Scripture was breathed out by God. For example, one common one is to look at fulfilled prophecy.

Another is to look at archeological finds that support what the Scripture taught long before those archaeological finds were unearthed, and for a long time there was suspicion about what the Scripture taught about that particular person or that particular place. But then archaeology uncovers something and surprise, surprise, it confirms what the Scripture taught all along. That is an external line of argument. It's not within the Scripture, instead it's looking from outside into the Scripture and saying, okay, here are some reasons to believe that the Scripture is in fact God's Word.

The third is the Spirit's authentication, the Spirit's authentication. This is internal. That is, inside of each person, inside of each believer, those who have come to embrace the Scripture as the Word of God, there is not only the internal argument in the pages of Scripture, there is not only the external arguments that come to me from outside the Scripture, but there is also within the heart of every believer. And we'll look at this, Lord willing, next time, these last two, the external arguments and the Spirit's authentication, depending on how far we get tonight. But if we get where I hope to get, we'll look at those next time. But this authentication is something the Spirit works in each heart whereby we come to understand and agree and support the reality that the Scripture is the revealed Word of God. It is a work of the Spirit of God in the heart of every believer.

All right, now let's look then at the internal arguments. There are essentially three and I gave these to you as a beginning summary last time. Some of you have this in front of you if you have the notes there that were in the back. Basically, three internal arguments. First of all, the Bible's claims to be the Word of God. When you look at the pages of Scripture, it claims to be God's revelation, the very words of God. Secondly, look at the New Testament writers' identification of the Old Testament, and eventually the New Testament as well, as God's Word. And then finally, a third line that we're taking, on these internal arguments, and this is a very important one and I hope to get to it tonight, is Christ's authentication of Scripture. In the end our faith always comes back to Christ. And it comes back to what did He say about the Scripture? If He is our Lord, our Master, then we embrace what He taught, we embrace what He has brought to us about God's revelation. And Christ had much to say about the character of Scripture.

So with that in mind, let me remind you, last time we looked at the first one of those, the Bible's claims to be the Word of God. And we looked at each of these references in the Old Testament and in the New Testament, and we were left with the conclusion, and this is where we left off last time, that you can deny the Bible's claims but you cannot legitimately say that the Bible does not claim to be God's revealed word. The evidence is crystal clear. And I think I left you last time with a quote by B.B. Warfield where he made that crystal clear.

With that in mind we said there are certain views that are unacceptable. Degree inspiration, that is, some parts are more inspired than others. That is not a popular view today. That view became this second view and that is partial inspiration, the fact that not all of the Bible is inspired. The Bible, you'll hear it said this way, the Bible contains the Word of God. In other words, not all of it is the Word of God, portions of it are, and that's called partial inspiration. God, basically this view says that God preserved the salvation message without error, but He did not necessarily preserve all of the historical detail and all of the history and all of the scientific facts, etc. Those may in fact be in error. This is a liberal approach to the Scripture. Concept inspiration, and that is, that the concepts of the Bible are inspired but not the very words themselves.

And then finally, we talked about the neoorthodox view of inspiration, and that is that the Bible is a human product that's full of errors, but it becomes the Word of God when God confronts me in its pages. The Bible becomes God's Word when Christ speaks to us through its pages. It is not the substance of the Word of God but rather a witness to the Word of God. So it's when I have this sort of personal encounter with Christ that it sort of becomes, sort of magically becomes, the Word of God to me, but it is in fact a human document. In light of what the Bible claims about itself, all of these are woefully inadequate.

Now, with that in mind, let's go to new territory. That's what we've looked at prior to this. Tonight let's move to talk about the New Testament's identification of the Old Testament as God's Word. First of all, when you look at the New Testament writers it is clear that they viewed the Old Testament as a fixed document, and we'll talk about this more when we get to The Canon. That is, why the books that are in our Old Testament are in our Old Testament and others aren't. They viewed the Old Testament as fixed and authoritative.

Let me show you some of the reasons I say that. Here are some of the arguments to support that. First of all, when you look at the New Testament, the New Testament writers, in quoting the Old, will interchangeably use God's name and Scripture to say, the Scripture said, when in fact in the Old Testament, God said. Or, God said, when in fact, you look in the Old Testament and God didn't say it, it was simply recorded by one of the authors of Scripture. There is implied in that the realization by the New Testament authors that the Old Testament was the Word of God.

Let me show you a few of these specific texts. First of all, let me show you those texts, or a few of those texts, where Scripture is spoken of as if it were God. Turn to Galatians 3. And you're going to have to keep your fingers busy tonight. We're going to look at a number of texts. I want to sort of overwhelm you with evidence, that's my point, so that you understand that the Word of God we hold is in fact what God revealed and has claimed to be what He breathed out.

So, the first class of these texts where God and Scripture are used interchangeably is where Scripture is spoken of as if it were God. Notice Galatians 3:8, "The Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, 'All the nations will be blessed in you.'" This is a quotation from Genesis 12. If you go back to Genesis 12:3 you discover that it wasn't the Scripture speaking in that text, it wasn't one of the individual authors of Scripture, but who? God Himself appearing to Abraham. So here you have the New Testament author referring to what God said as the Scripture said. So Scripture is spoken of as if it were God. Notice the same thing in Romans 9:17, "For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, 'For this very purpose I raised you up, to demonstrate My power in you, that My name might be proclaimed throughout the whole earth.'" This is from Exodus 9:16 and in this case again, it wasn't the Scripture that was speaking, it was God Himself speaking, and it was recorded on the pages of Scripture.

You see, the Scripture, listen carefully, the Scripture had not been written when God said these things to Abraham and to Pharaoh. Think about that for a moment. The first Scripture that was written that we know of, was written by Moses after the exodus, the first five books of our Old Testament. And so when God spoke to Abraham and when God spoke to Pharaoh, the Scripture hadn't been written. So why is it that the New Testament authors refer to it as Scripture speaking when in fact it was God speaking? Because in their minds, the concept of God speaking and Scripture speaking were absolutely synonymous; they were the same thing.

Let me give you the second class, where God is spoken of as if He were the Scripture; same idea but just the other way. Notice Matthew 19, Matthew 19:4. This is one of, and of course the famous passage about divorce, and

Some Pharisees [verse 3] came to Jesus, testing Him and asking, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any reason at all?" [which was taught by one of the rabbis of Christ's time] And he said, "Have you not read."

I love the way Christ does that. I mean, you talk about singeing the feathers of the Pharisees. You mean you haven't even read this part of the Old Testament?

"Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and He said [that is, God said] 'For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh?'"

Christ quotes from the early parts of Genesis and as He quotes He says that God said that, when in reality if you go back to this text in Genesis you'll discover that it's in the flow of what Moses wrote. As far as it's recorded in Genesis it wasn't specifically what God said, but here we're told that it was.

Same thing in Acts 4. I'll just give you a couple of these. I just want you to see this principle, Acts 4:24. This is after the summons and the threatening of the apostles for teaching the gospel. And verse 23, "When they had been released, they went to their companions, reported all that happened." Verse 24,

And when they heard this, they lifted up their voices to God with one accord and said, "O Lord, it is You who made the heaven and the earth and the sea, and all that is in them, who by the Holy Spirit, through the mouth of our father David Your servant, said,

You said, God, and then there's a quotation. When in reality, it was David who penned these words. But it's attributed to God. I'm not going to take time to look, but you can look at Acts 13:34-35, Hebrews 1:6, and Hebrews 3:7 as a few more references that support this sort of idea of God spoken of as if He were Scripture.

In the Old Testament, if you go to these texts that are being quoted, you'll discover that it's not God who says these things; they're the words of other people. They could be attributed to God in the sense that the Scripture writers, listen carefully, they could be attributed to God in the sense that the New Testament authors thought of the Scripture as God's words and therefore they could naturally say, God said, when what they really meant was this author in the Old Testament wrote. Do you see how in that is an implicit argument for the fact that they believed that it was breathed out by God, it was the very words of God.

Also when you look at the New Testament authors, they viewed the Old Testament as fixed and authoritative in its entirety. And I'm not going to take a long time to look because we've already examined this text, but just to remind you of 2 Timothy 3. Second Timothy 3:16, "All Scripture is breathed out by God." And I mentioned to you last time that the Greek phrase, the Greek word translated Scripture, graphe, is in fact a technical term for the Old Testament. It occurs many times in the New Testament and it is always used as a technical reference to the Hebrew Old Testament, the 39 books of our Old Testament. And so they viewed all the Old Testament, all of the writing, all of the Old Testament as we know it, as breathed out by God. They even viewed the Old Testament is fixed and authoritative in its words.

Turn to Galatians 3, Galatians 3. Notice verse 15. Paul is arguing here for justification by faith and he's helping them understand the relationship between the law and the covenant promise made to Abraham. Verse 15, "Brethren, I speak in terms of human relations: even though it is only a man's covenant, yet when it has been ratified, no one sets it aside or adds conditions to it." Verse 16, "Now the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. He does not say," he being a reference to whom? To Moses, and ultimately to God. "He does not say, 'And to seeds,' as referring to many, but rather to one, 'And to your seed,' that is, Christ." You see what Paul is doing? He is basing his argument on the fact that the Old Testament uses what's called a collective singular. And he's saying, it's seed singular. And therefore, in some contexts he's saying, it refers not to all of Abraham's children, all of Abraham's descendants, but to one specific person who was of the seed of Abraham, and that is Christ. So he is arguing on the basis of one word in the Old Testament. Obviously, he embraced the fact that the Old Testament was inspired by God, was breathed out by God, even down to an individual word, on which hangs his argument of justification by faith in Galatians 3.

Now that brings us to the next line of argument. And when you look at how they viewed, how the New Testament authors viewed the Old Testament, what you have to understand is that they saw no difference then. We've already seen that they viewed the Old Testament as fixed authoritative. But when you come to how they understand the New Testament, there was no difference in their mind between how they viewed the Old and how they viewed the New. Let me show you this. They viewed the New Testament as equal to the Old Testament. Follow my line of argument, we've established that they viewed the Old as fixed and authoritative. Now I'm going to show you that when they come and view the New, they see it the same way, they see it having the same authority, being just as fixed as the Old.

Let me give you several references to look at. Let's look first at 1 Timothy 5:18. We looked at this a number of weeks ago, briefly, but I just want to highlight it for you again. First Timothy 5:17, we're talking about elders, "Those elders who rule well are to be considered worthy of double honor." That has to do with they are to be paid, they are to be supported. That doesn't mean they're supposed to get double what people in the congregation get, it just means they're to be held in high respect and to be adequately compensated, "especially those who labor or work hard at preaching and teaching." Why, Paul? Verse 18, "For the Scripture." There is that technical term that is used throughout the New Testament for the Old Testament. But notice what Paul does, "For the Scripture says, 'You shall not muzzle the ox while he is threshing,'" the grain. He quotes Deuteronomy 25:4. So far, so good. We understand, Paul. You believe the Old Testament is God's revealed word. But watch what he does next. Then he says, "and Scripture says, 'The laborer is worthy of his wages.'" You'll look long and hard to find that verse in the Old Testament. The truth is, it is in the New Testament. It is in Luke 10:7. This quotation by Paul is from Luke's gospel and he calls it Scripture. And he uses the same technical term that the writers of the New Testament used for the fixed authoritative revelation of the Old. So obviously he saw it as equal to, equal in authority to the Old.

Peter does the same thing. So you have the Apostle Paul and now you have the Apostle Peter. Notice 2 Peter 3. By the way, what's remarkable to me about this text in 2 Peter is that Peter still shows this kind of respect for Paul after he was publicly confronted, and in some senses humiliated, by Paul. You remember Galatians 2, we looked at it a number of weeks ago in some context, that he was compromising the gospel and Paul confronted him publicly about it. But notice what he says about Paul, he says, verse 15, let's start at verse 14 to get the flow, "Therefore, beloved, since you look for these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, spotless and blameless." Since you're expecting a new heaven and a new earth, he says, you need to live like you're expecting it. Verse 15, "and regard the patience of our Lord as salvation," for some, because He delays His coming, "just as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given him."

Even there, before we even get to the key part of the text, you see the implications of what he's saying about Paul, God has given him special wisdom. But notice how he continues. Verse 16, "as also in all his letters," "in all his letters, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, [Doesn't that make you feel better? Even Peter said there were things in Paul that were hard to understand.] which the untaught and the unstable distort," watch this, "as they do also the rest of the graphe," "the rest of the Scriptures."

So what does Peter say? Peter says that the writings of Paul are equal to the authoritative fixed revelation of God in the Old Testament. So now you have Paul saying the gospels, particularly Luke, are of equal authority to the Old Testament. And now you have Peter saying that all the letters of Paul are of equal authority to the Old Testament.

Let's keep going. Look at 1 Corinthians 2, 1 Corinthians 2:13. And again, we looked at this text in detail for another reason, but let me just show you verse 13. Verse 12, "Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God, which things," he says, these things given to us by God, "we also speak," he says, I'm speaking, "not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words."

Do you see what Paul is claiming? He is claiming that what he writes is given by the Spirit of God, not merely the concepts, but down to the very words themselves that he wrote. That is exactly what we saw before, the New Testament writers said about the Old Testament, as Paul argued in Galatians 3:16 based on a single word. So now you have Paul saying the same thing about what he wrote in the New Testament, that the very words themselves are the words of the Spirit of God.

So what should we do with these words? Let me show you the claims the New Testament writers place upon us for what they've written. Notice first of all, 1 Corinthians 14:37, imagine writing this in one of your letters,

If anyone thinks he is a prophet or spiritual, let him recognize that the things which I write to you are the Lord's commandment. But if anyone does not recognize this, he is not recognized.

Wow. In other words, Paul is saying that churches must acknowledge that what he writes are the very commands of Christ. And if someone in the church refuses to accept them, then they are not to be acknowledged as a brother. It's essentially the same thing that John says, that basically if they are followers of Christ then they will hear and follow the words and commands of Christ.

Not only that, look at, let's just turn to 2 Thessalonians, 2 Thessalonians 2:15, "So then, brethren, stand firm and hold to the traditions." Now that word can be confusing. There are different kinds of traditions in Scripture. This is not speaking about something that was passed down from previous generations to Paul because he defines it. Notice this, "hold to the traditions which you were taught, whether by word of mouth or by letter from us." The traditions you are to hold are the ones that you got from me, either when I was present and I spoke to you or when I sent you a letter. You are to obey those. Churches are bound to obey the apostles' commands, including the written word. Think about how much authority that claims. Listen, I'm writing to you Thessalonicans and I'm telling you, you must obey what I've written. You must obey what you heard from me when I was there and now that I've sent you a letter you must obey what's in the letter.

And in fact, flip over a page to 2 Thessalonians 3:6, "Now we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep way from every brother who leads an unruly life and not according to the tradition which you received from us." Notice again in verse 14,

If anyone does not obey our instruction in this letter, take special note of that person, do not associate with him, so that he shall be put to shame. Yet do not regard him as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother.

Do you see what Paul is saying? He's saying, not only must churches acknowledge that what he writes is the commands of Christ and not only are they bound to obey what he writes, but if they refuse to obey His words then they are to be put out of the church. That's authoritative. That's what Paul is claiming for the letters he wrote. So there's no question but he viewed what he was writing on the same level, having the same authority as what he claimed for the Old Testament.

There are other texts we can look at, another is 2 Thessalonians 3. Oh, we just looked at that one, I'm sorry. The other texts are several others; let me just run through a couple of them with you. Turn to Colossians 4. Colossians 4:16, just an offhanded comment by the apostle, but notice what he says, "When this letter is read among you, have it also read in the church of the Laodiceans; and you, for your part read my letter that is coming from Laodicea." That's one we don't have recorded for us in the New Testament. But he's making it clear that he believes the letters he wrote, even to other churches, have authority on additional churches. Do you see the implication of that? The implication is that these letters were not only authoritative for the congregations that received them. You could say, well, you know, Paul didn't write me Colossians, so I'm not bound to obey.

But do you see what Paul is saying here? He's saying, my letters are to be circulated and even though that letter was not addressed to you, it's to have the same authority in your church that it had in the church in Laodicea. And the church that I wrote to you is to have the same authority in the church at Laodicea that it had for you, Colossians. The implication of that is huge. Because it means as you and I sit here today we have letters from the Apostle Paul that he intends to have every bit as much authority with us as they had with the original recipients. That's why we're going through Philippians and we'll go through other letters, because they weren't merely intended for that original church that received them. They came with the stamp of divine authority and they were binding on the consciences of every genuine follower of Jesus Christ and every church at every stage of church history.

Notice 1 Thessalonians, 1 Thessalonians 2. We're not going to get as far tonight as I had hoped, I can see that. First Thessalonians 2:13, "For this reason we also constantly thank God that when you received the word of God which you heard from us." Notice that claim to inspiration, "when you received the word of God which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men, but for what it really is, the word of God, which also performs its work in you who believe."

Folks, you cannot read these texts without coming to the conclusion that the New Testament writers believed that what they were writing had equal authority to the Old Testament. Some would deny that and that's why I want to drive this home to you; I want you to see the evidence is absolutely overwhelming.

Notice 1 Thessalonians 5:27, "I adure you," that is, basically I put you under oath, "by the Lord," serious words, "to have this letter read to all the brethren." This isn't just like any letter that shows up in your mailbox. This isn't junk mail. This isn't direct mail. This has the weight of divine authority. I put you under oath in front of the presence of the Lord Himself, I charge you in front of the Lord Himself, that you read this letter in the church to all the brethren.

Just a couple of more references and we will move to our next major point, or maybe not. Notice 1 Timothy 4, 1 Timothy 4:13. This is an interesting one. It's one that pertains particularly to pastors and elders. He's telling Timothy, he's giving him some personal instruction about his ministry. He says, "Prescribe," verse 11,

Prescribe and teach these things. Don't let anybody look down on your youthfulness, [probably was in his early 30's at this point, Timothy was] but rather in speech, conduct, love, faith and purity, show yourself an example of those who believe.

Verse 13, here's how you're to fulfill your ministry, "until I come, give attention," pay careful attention, make it your careful study, "to the public reading of the Scripture, to exhortation and to teaching." Do you see the weight that Scripture is to have? And we've already seen the claim that the New Testament writers make to what they wrote as Scripture. He's saying, look, I want you to read it publicly and I want you to give careful attention to that public reading. And then I want you to explain it, I want you to teach it, and I want you to apply it. That's why I do what I do each Lord's day, following the command that the apostle gave to Timothy.

One final text, turn to Revelation 1. The apostle John concludes the Scripture, the last book written in our Scripture, and he begins it this way, "Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of this prophecy." Even before he gets to obeying it, which attaches a blessing, he says, you're blessed if you hear it, you're blessed if you read it. What I want you to see is that there is absolutely no question about the internal evidence of the Scripture, what the Bible says about itself and its origin. You can refuse to believe it, you can deny its testimony, but no one can reasonably argue that it doesn't claim to be the very words of God, both the Old and the New.

Next time we'll look at Christ's authentication of Scripture and I wish I'd had time to get to this tonight because this is in many ways the most exciting. Let me just set it up for you this way, Christ staked everything, and we'll look at this in detail next time, Christ staked everything He said and did on one event. What was that event? The resurrection. He said, My authority for everything I do rests on this, "'Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.'" If Christ was raised from the dead, and He was, then His authority is unquestioned, and if His authority is unquestioned then what He said about the Scripture can be believed. And if we had no other line of evidence but the line of evidence of what Christ said about the Scripture, we would have evidence enough, and more than enough, to believe that the Scripture is God's breathed out very words. And we'll look at that next time together. Let's pray.

Father, we thank You for Your revelation to us. We thank You for the fact that You have made it so clear, that "though a man be a fool, he need not err." Lord, we thank You for the clarity with which Your Word speaks, we thank You for the fact that its claims are unequivocal. Lord, help us who believe it to treat it as if it were, in fact, Your word. Forgive us for treating Your words so lightly. Lord, forgive us even this past week for finding time to do everything else but neglecting Your holy word. Lord, I pray that You would give us eager hearts, that love, that delight in, that meditate on Your holy word. Thank You that You have not left us as orphans in the world, but You've given us Your Spirit and You've given us Your Word. We are so grateful. In Jesus' name, amen.