The Necessity of confession

My assignment this morning is to speak to the issue of the necessity of being confessional? Why, why is it important? Why is it necessary for us to be confessional? Uh? Uh? Do we have to do shooting? Most people aren't so so why are we? In fact, there are a lot of people who have advised us, and when I say us, I mean African Christian University who have advised us against being confessional h A. And they advised us against it because most people aren't confessional. And when you're trying to raise funds, if you're confessional, then someone may be offended by your confession. So why have a confession if it could stop someone or block someone from giving to you, or why have such an exclusive confession? Why not have one that is as broad as it could possibly be? And we've all seen these, haven't we these confessions? And it's very popular for churches to have a statement of belief on their website, right, And those confessions will fill a small booklet. The historic Reformed confessions will fill a small booklet. These confessions are about this bear on a website and they say almost nothing. The door is usually as wide open as it possibly can be. And that's sort of the goal of that kind of confession. But when we talk about confessionalism, historic reform confessionalism, it is a lot more limited than that. And there's a reason for that. Let's start with this from Carl Truman. I I've used this quote so many times that I almost know it off by heart. But I use it so much because it is so relevant to our discussion in his book, The Creedle Imperative. And I I cannot recommend this book enough. Carl Truman, The Creedle Imperative. I'll say it again, Carl Truman, The Creedle Imperative. You want this, you need this, Go get this. Okay, it's not a very long book, but it's incredibly useful. And if you come up and ask me for the top of the book afterwards, I won't tell you because I've said it three times now. So if you come and no, I'll want to tell you. Some of you are saying there, yeah, I'll get it from you afterwards. No, I mean I won't. No, Okay, all right, I'm might Carl Truman The Creedle Imperative. He writes Christians are not divided between those who have creeds and confessions and those who don't. Rather, they are divided between those who have public creeds and confessions that are written down and exist as public documents, subject to public scrutiny, evaluation, and critique, and those who have private creeds and confessions that are often improvised, unwritten, and thus not open to public scrutiny, not susceptible to evaluation, and critically and ironically not therefore subject to testing by scripture to see whether they are true. Again, the world is not divided. The Christian world is not divided between confessional Christians and non confessional Christians. All Christians have confessions. It's just that some of us have decided we are going to be open and public and clear about our confessions and say, here's our confession. You can scrutinize it, you can test it according to scripture. And other people who have a confession but claim that they don't, so that the confession cannot be tested. Because you and I both know that churches who don't have no creed, but Christ no confession. But the Bible is our confession. Right, These people have confessions, they're just not written and they're not available to be scrutinized. And if you don't believe me. All you have to do. When someone said, no creed but Christ, no confession but the Bible, you just look at them and you say, oh, so you're gonna let the Jehovah's witnesses in. Ah. No, no, no, no, no, no no no. I didn't say that. Well, well of course you did, because they agree with that. No creed with Christ, no confession with the Bible. Yes, but when they say Christ, they mean something different than what we mean. Oh so what do you mean? Well, when we say Christ, we mean now star Because what you're getting ready to give me is a confession. Huh. What you're getting ready to give me is a confession. You're getting ready to give me a summary of doctrine. What you're going to do is not begin at Genesis one to one, start reading, and not finish until you end with the last words in Revelation. Right, You're going to give me a succinct statement concerning what you believe a boy, Jesus, no creed but Christ. So now you do have a creed because you're going to tell them what you mean about Jesus or I can say that, So you're fine. Roman Catholics, Protestants that Roman. No no, no, no, no, no, no, no, you know, yeah, but you say no creed with Christ, right, no confession with the Bible. Ah. But when we say Bible, we don't mean the same thing as Catholics mean when they say Bible. When we say Bible, we mean the sixty six books. Stop, because what you're giving me now is a confession. You sin, don't creed with Christ, you sin no confession with the Bible. But now all of a sudden, you're defining for me what you mean when you say Bible. Do you follow You don't just start reading in Genesis one one and keep reading until you finish the whole thing. You give me a summary of the doctor to which you hold, which means you have a confession. Everybody has a confession, it's just some are open and public about it and others are not. Some of us are honest, and some of us are dishonest. And again then those people who are being dishonest saying that they're being intentionally deceptive. And we'll talk about some of the objections and where the objections come from, and why people think that they're actually that that they're actually being more biblical by not having a confession. They're wrong, but we'll get to that in the moment. Where does this anti confessionalism, anti creedalism come from? Some Sam Waldron in his book A Modern Exposition of the Second Lendon backed Confession. By the way, you need that, Sam Waldron, Modern Exposition of the sixty eighty nine. Many of you might already have that if you don't, uh, get a copy of that. So yes, that's two books. Two books you're gonna leave here with a reading list. Amen, School of Theology, Right, Amen, alright, Waldron writes, sadly, and by the way, Waldron's book is incredibly important for a number of reasons, not least of which sometimes we have objections and a number of people have raised objection with me about you know, the sixteen eighty nine, and they say, no, no, no, I agree with sixteen eighty nine. I hope to the sixteen eighty nine. It's just I don't necessarily believe this or I don't necessarily believe that. And at almost every juncture, unless the person is, you know, holding to a new Covenant theology, which a lot of people do, they hold a new Covenent theology, and they don't have significant problems with the confession because they're not sixteen to eighty nine people. So they want, on the one hand to say I'm a sixteen eighty nine Confessional Reform Baptist, and on the other hand say, I actually hold to New Covenant theology. And New Covenant theology is incongruent and inconsistent with the sixteen eight nine. You cannot hold you cannot simultaneously hold to New Coven theology and the sixty eighty nine because New Coven theology is it's a different fundamental theological presupposition, Okay, And if you don't know what that is, that's a whole other discussion for a whole other day. We don't have time to do that. Another issue that people have is they're actually dispensation right, so they hold the dispensational theology and then try to hold to the sixty eight nine, and you can't. You can't do that. You can't get there from here. Those two things cannot and do not go together. And with both New Coven theology and dispensational theology, the problems center around the law of God. So again, there are those people. Put those people over here aside, there are other people who are legitimately confessional reform Baptism, but they have problems with some of the issues in the sixteen eighty nine, and inevitably, every time I enter into these conversations with people, the problems centered around trying to understand sixteenth century language and contextualize it for us in the twenty first century, and a lot of times all it is is people not reading the Confession in its historical context and failing to understand the way certain phrases or why certain phrases are used the way they are in the sixteen eighty nine. And so Waldman's books incredibly helpful in terms of grasping the historical context of the Confession, And inevitably we have those discussions with people. When I have those discussions with people and we talk about the language in its historical context, they come away going, oh, yeah, I agree with that, right. But it all it amounts to is not understanding that these people are writing sixteenth century. We're reading it twenty first century, and we have to contextualize the language. So, all right, why we're so anti credle listen to this from walburn Sadly we live in a non creedle, even an anti credal age marked by existential relativism, anti authoritarianism, historical and historical isolationism. Many professing Christians regard creeds and confessions as man made traditions, the precepts of men, mere religious opinion. And then we hear this, Yeah, that's man made. No creed, but christ no confession. But the bio your confession is man made. Okay, we'll talk more about that the moment called true again? Can I recommend Truman's book on this enough? Truman goes a little further and he gives these seven foundational principles that cause us to devalue the past. And again, it is because of the prevalence of these things that it is absolutely necessary for us to be confessional. Seventh and one Science. Truman argues that science, by his great nature, assumes that the present is better than the past, and that the future will be better than the present. We're better and we're going to be even better as we make further scientific discoveries. Science causes this historical skepticism. Yes, we know things now that they did not know. Then, therefore we are better than them. And we start to talking about Crezey confessions. If you bring that mindset. Right, we know now all better than they knew. Then, therefore, let's move forward and not move back. Closely related to that is the idea of technology. The idea of technology, it does the same thing. It causes us to devalue the past. I'm a mac guy, and so you know, you'll see here you have my my MacBook Air, and I have an iPhone. And you know the problem with being, you know, a technology person, especially especially if you are an early adopter. You guys know that term early adopt A lot of people will sit back and they'll go, yeah, let them work the bugs out of that, you know, let them let them perfect that. Maybe I'll get I'll get I'll get that one once it's the old one, the early adopter says, as soon as the next one comes out, you know who you are, right, And then early adopters here. If you're an early adopter living here, right, that's problematic because oftentimes it takes a while for it to get the Zambia right. But that's okay because you have Amazon and you have friends who go visit I know you because you find out when my trips are right, Hey, you're going to this. You go by once you go, when's your next trip to these days? Okay, here's what I need you to do. I won't call any names. Those are the early adopters, right, the early adopters. I want the new thing as soon as it comes out, and you have a drawer full of old iPhones because you keep going to get the new. Yes, the early adopter has an attitude toward history that's not exactly favorable. We don't want the old thing, we want the new thing. Closely related to that, consumerism, umerism causes us devalue the past. He talks about the disappearance of human nature, and what he's referring to here when he talks about the disappearance of human nature is the idea that we're becoming so isolated in our understanding. We don't see ourselves as part of a broader human nature. We see ourselves as of a particular constituency, and we don't see ourselves as part of this sort of shared humanity. And again, so whatness that a document that was written in the seventeenth century in England have to do with us who live here now today in twenty first century Africa or Zambia or wherever you've come from words mysticism, pragmatism. Will say more about this, but I believe this one is chief amongst the things that caused us to devalue the past, mysticism and pragmatism, particularly then he talks about just anti authoritarianism. We don't like authority. That doesn't tend to be as much of a problem in this context. African traditional religion, African traditional worldview tends to value authority and hierarchy a lot more than some other worldviews do. But yet there is still an inkling of that even here, especially among the younger generation. The younger generation that growing up on DStv and the innerwebs and everything else right adopting ideologies from the outside. And one of those ideologies of being adopted from the outside is this anti authoritarianism that questions everything and that just does not just soon that those who are older know better. And then finally there's the fear of exclusion. This fear of exclusion is what I allude to earlier, the individuals who argue that God, you don't want to be so confessional because that's going to exclude people or be outside. You want to be as broad as you can. You want to be as welcoming as you can, as opposed to be as clear as you can. Let me say a word about it a couple of these things. Specifically, let me say a worry about mysticism and subjectivism. The mysticism is the default position of the Christian in general. It is also very familiar in terms of African traditional worldview and African traditional religion. Let me give you some more technical definitions and then try to explain and make that point. This is from Charles Hodge and his Systematic theology. Listen, carefu wants to unpracticed and and and you you just you can give me this or this all right as to how particularly Africave this sounds. A mystic is one who claims to see or know what is hidden from other men. I see some of these right here, right like yeah, yeah, that's you know. Whether this knowledge be attained by immediate intuition or by inward revelation. In most cases, these methods were assumed to be identical, as intuition was held to be the immediate vision of God and of divine things, immediate division vision of God and difine things. Hence, in the wide sense of the word mystics, are those who claim to be under the immediate guidance of God or his spirit or his spirit the immediate guidance. And when I say immediate, you have to realize that hobs Here is writing a systematic theology, so he's using this in the theological sense. Immediate we use immediate as in immediately right now, but immediate, okay, take take their root there. Mediate. In this sense, immediate means without mediation. There is no mediator. Okay, there is no mediator. So in that sense, the mystic believes that they need nothing to mediate between them and this knowledge or vision of God, not even his word, and especially not a confession. Okay. Now, I always use this illustration to help people understand how mystical we are. If you want to get church folks on the edge of their seat, okay, if you want them to sit up and say it's about to happen, now, this is what you do. You stand up and you say, you know, I had prepared my sermon for this morning, but I'm not going to preach that sermon. The Lord has just given me something else that I believe is important. At that point, people are like, oh, this is We're about to get the good stuff now, right? Why because of mysticism, right. You see, we believe that when you go into your office and you crack your books and you're doing exegesus and all this other stuff. I mean, that's okay, that's fine. But the real stuff, the anointings, that is what happens when you put your notes aside and just let the Lord loose right here, right now, put the notes down, preacher, and just give us God. That's pure mysticism, pure mysticism. Think about what we communicate when we say that, right, the spirit of God can't work with you in your study, with your books over, he can't work with you with your notes. But when you close your works and get rid of your notes, you just open up the channel. It becomes immediate. There is no mediation. It's just the dumb rick. Huh. If we're honest, some of us actually just you know, maybe a little bit again, but think about what we're saying. This is pure mysticisy, pure pure mysticism. Again applying the mind of God gave you right with your books open, doing all your study, all this sort of stuff that you know. I mean, yeah, okay, fine, it's fine, it's good. I'm glad you do that right. I'm a Christians, so I'm not gonna say don't do that right. But we all know that the real stuff is the stuff that doesn't use, knows, or doesn't use exegesis, doesn't rely on books in study or any of this. It just relies on the Spirit. Closely related to mysticism is quietism or dosietism. Listen to this from Ram Golesworth. The docetic Christian is one who doesn't make any decisions because the Holy Spirit makes the decisions for them. Such a person is also likely to construct a docetic hermeneutic conscription. The human characteristics of the biblical documents are ignored. Historical and biblical theological contexts are regarded as irrelevant. If a text speaks to me in whatever way, then the careful exy Jesus of it is dismissed as cerebral intellectualism. So you say, the Lord showed me this. The Lord I was reading, I was reading the scripture, I was reading this passage, and then the Lord just showed me never seen this before. The Lord just showed this to me. And then somebody else comes behind you and says, well, actually, I'm not sure who showed you that, because if you understand this text in its historical and grammatical context, then this text can't actually mean what you say it means. Ah, here you come, putting God in the box. Do you know these people? Have you been these people? Right? Have you been? These people trying to make a trying to make a decision in life? Right, come on, let's let's make a decision. No, no, I just want to you know, and it's really hard for them to make a decision. Why why is it hard to make a decision? Well, because I want to make sure that it's the Lord and not just me. What does that even mean? What does it even mean? And how do you how do you? I mean, do you just like open up and going to that came from this side and I needed to keep come from a little bit more over? How do you do that? How do you do that? The Bible talks to us about the decision making process, right, right, the wisdom and a multitude of counselors counting the cost. Right. The Bible talks to us about these things, right, No, no, no, no, no, uh uh, you know, trying to decide, trying to decide you know where where we're where were where we're gonna move right. We have an opportunity in this country, and we have an opportunity in that country. We just don't know what we're gonna do. And then all of a sudden, boom, there it is. Wait, what happened? What happened? I'll tell you what happened. I woke up this morning, nor amarm know nothing, sat straight up out of my bed and it was zero three forty seven mm. Okay, no, you don't understand. One of the places that we were planning to move to. There's a flight on South African Airways that flies directly there. Do you know what flight number it is? It's flight number three fifty seven. That was God. And then you try to talk to these people and it's like, ah, there you go again, putting God in a box. I know this, Why else would this happen? Right? Or you have a daily reading plan, right, and you're going through your daily Bible reading plan and there's something going on in your life and all of a sudden today you read something and there's a phrase in what you read. It's just like God, there it is there, it is what Paul, what do you know? He went through Athens Okay, well, one of the places that we're considering is it's in Greece. I had no idea what we were we supposed to do, and then I'm agonizing over this and I'll opened the Bible and my day they're reading and boom, there it is right there. We laugh. But we all know people exactly like this, and then you start opening up the Bible, right and they want nothing to do with it. People who are making decisions in their life about what to do, they can, I mean, there can be things that are just completely unbivoical. Do not be yoked together with an unbelievable Amen, don't marry an unbelieving I mean, it's just you know, that's that's kind of it's just kind of clear, right, apparently not. I can't tell you many conversations I've had with people who are going down that road with somebody who's not a believer, and you open the scriptures and it's just like, why, well, because they know, because they've already sought the Lord on this, and the Lord has confirmed in their spirit that this is the world. What do you do with that? Listen to this from Johnathan Edwards. This error will defend and support errors. As long as a person has a notion that he is guided by immediate direction from heaven, it makes him incorrigible and impregnable in all his misconduct. For what signifies it for poor blind worms of the dust to go to argue with a man and endeavor to convince him and correct him that is guided by the immediate counsels and commands of the Great Jehovah. Who are you? I'm telling you, the Lord told me this right, and you're gonna come with right, You're gonna come with yes. I'm coming to you with scripture. Yes, But the Lord told me. Okay, do you see how this would not lend itself to someone being confessional? Amen? I mean, if I have this sort of immediate right vision of the divine and the hope, if I'm not even going to listen to if I'm not, I mean, I'm not even gonna listen to you when you quote Book Jacker in verse. Why in the world would I listen to you when you quote a confession? Okay? So I say all this to say that it is very much necessary that we have confessions. By the way, what is our finished time here? E eleven is a finished time? Okay, alright, so let's talk about the legitimacy of confessions. There's a couple of arguments against the legitimate legitimacy of confessions, a couple of main arguments. I've alluded to them already. One is this that confessions of faith undermine the sole authority of the Bible and matters of faith in practice. Confessions of faith undermine the sole authority of the Bible in matters of faith in practice, which is which is really interesting because that phrase is a confessional phrase, that the Bible is the sole authority it matters of faith in practice. That that's a that's a that's a confessional phrase. And so people's argument against confessions is that confessions undermine a confessional phrase that they like. I don't like confessions, and I especially don't like confessions because they undermine a confessional phrase that I like. Again, the Bible is our final authority in all matters of faith and practice. By the way, I agree with that. I agree with that. My confession also agrees with that. My confessions starts with the second underpapted confession, and most confessions start with defining what we mean by the Bible, A amor right cause you can say this. The Bible is a final authority in all matters of faith in practice. Right, that's great, good for you. Let's go to the Book of Maccabees. Ah, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no no, we can't go through the Maccabees because the Book of Maccabees is not that's not Bible. Really. I get you find my Catholic Bibles in the Catholic but yeah, but that's not. When I say Bible, I mean that. Ah, but you can't do that because in order to do that, remember, you have to be away. That's a confessional. Do you see You see how this works? This as you're running around chasing your tail. Okay. The second argument, confessions of faith are inconsistent with the liberty of conscience before God. This is really important for Baptists, right, liberty or conscience. My conscience cannot be bound by other My conscience is only bound by scripture. Okay, and this is someone else binding my conscience. Let me say a couple of things. First, In order for this to technically be an issue, you would have to be forced to be a member of the church. So, for example, you could make this argument and Baptists have made this argument. Baptist, we're not state church people. We believe that there is a separation, right, That's a very Baptist doctrine. Our other Reformed Brethren are state church people. Okay. So the Presbyterian Church was the churchill Scotland, right, The Anglican Church was the Church of England. The Lutheran Church was a state church. All of these churches were state churches. Okay, all of them were state churches. Baptists were unique not only because of our position on baptism, but because of our position on being a confessional, free church and not a state church. Okay. And so we would agree with this in that regard. But as Baptists, people volunteer to be members of our church. Amen, how can you accuse me of binding your conscience if you volunteer to be a member of a church where I told you what our confession was. You see do you see how this doesn't work? Right? No? No, no, no, no confessions. Because we believe in the liberty of conscious I have the liberty of conscience before God. Absolutely, you have liberty of conscience before God, which means that you are free to associate with whatever church you want to, but really be this batman. In order for you to decide what church you're going to associate with, don't you kind of need to know what they believe? Or do you just walk down the street and go, I like this building, right? Usually we want to know what they believe, right, what's the best way for you to know what they believe? For them to stand up and say, no Creed but Christ, no confession but the Bible, yeah I'm home, Or for them to say, here is our confession, a nice succinct statement of what we believe. When we say Christ, and when we say a Bible, and when we say sin, and when we say salvation, and when we say it right here. It is The great irony is being confessional actually does the opposite. It does not violate liberty of conscience. It gives you the opportunity to exercise liberty of conscience by saying, here's who we are, and we want you to know that before you choose to associate with us. If your conscience won't allow you to associate with us, you're free to go and associate somewhere else. But we want you to know what we believe so that you can have that choice. Does that make sense? All right? What about arguments for? Arguments for in light of what we've talked about here. Number one, the confession is a useful means of public affirmation and defense of truth. It's a useful means of public affirmation and defense of truth. Okay, we don't have to keep fighting for brown. We publicly affirm truth, we publicly defend the truth, and then it's there. It remains for all to see it publicly lets people know who we are and what we believe and where we stand. Secondly, a confession serves as a public standard of fellowship and discipline. It serves as a public standard of fellowship and discipline. So you're you're going to excommunicate someone for heresy. Let's say that someone someone is espousing heresy. Let's say someone is teaching a class in the school or they have a home Bible study or something like that, and they're teaching, uh, you know, some erroneous doctrine about Christ. Let's say that they don't believe in the deity of Christ and they're arguing against the deity of Christ. And you come to that person and you say you you need to stop that, and you need to you need to correct that this is this is erroneous doctrine. Right. A confession allows you in two ways. Number One, on the front end, a confession says, among other things, here's what we believe about Christ. So a person who doesn't believe in the deity of Christ is coming to join your church. Hopefully they've familiarized themselves with your confession and they can say, you know what, actually I disagree. I disagree with the chapter on Christ, right, and you deal with that up front. The other thing is if they have signed on and they've joined, and then they persist in this heresy, Now you have grounds for discipline because you've been clear. Right. But if you've said no Creed but Christ and they say I agree with that, No confession but the Bible, and they say I agree with that, and then they go CHERI pey versus from the Bible in order to teach their heresy, because this is what heretics to, right. Heretics generally don't go to other books. Sometimes they do. You know, the Mormons do this look of Mormon pro Great Christ. Right, they go to other books to teach their heresy, but they also manipulate the Bible to teach their heresy as well, and so generally the cults use the Bible, and the cults are very big on Jesus. Amen, what do the Mormons call themselves the Church of Jesus Christ Bataday's Saints? That just sounds like some good right that Jehovah's witnesses think very highly of Jesus. The Muslims think very highly of Jesus. The Muslims think very highly of Jesus. In fact, some Muslims will argue they're the second largest religion in the world that teaches people that love Jesus. So again, without a confession, we come to this person and we say, you're teaching heresy. How can you say I'm teaching heresy. How can you discipline me for teaching heresy when I'm in agreement with what you require of me? No Creed but Christ, no confession with the Bible. I'm teaching from the Bible, and I'm teaching on Christ from the Bible. Do you see You see the problem here? Okay, So a confession serves as a public standard of fellowship and discipline. If you don't have a confession, then there has to be individual authority. Then the leadership has to decide what is important enough to discipline and what is not. Okay. Third, or, a confession serves as a concise standard by which to evaluate ministers of the word. A concise standard by which to evaluate ministers of the word. Kay, what what is? What is? Paul tell Titus and Titus one night, he must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught hey Man, so that he might exhort and sound doctrine and refute those who contradicted. That is the biblical standard. Right, But what does that mean? What does that mean? Creeds and confessions help us to be clear about that. This is what we mean. Okay, I I don't I don't like what the Bridger teaches coming to pastors, off pastor, I just don't like it. I don't like that you're teaching this. Right, Okay, Well, but what I'm teaching this and it is in accordance with our confession. You remember the confession that you agreed to when you became a member of the church. So the problem is not on this side of the desk. The problems on that side of the desk. Do you see how that? Okay? Also, within an eldership, how do we handle those kinds of disagreements into speech within an eldership. Our confessions go a long way toward helping us to deal with that. Right, I think so and so should be in the eldership. Okay, it's fine if you think that, But so and so does not hold to our confession. So it doesn't matter what a great guy you think he is, or even what a great teacher he may be. May have incredible abilities as a teacher, right, but when you're in the eldership, you're representing the church in a doctrinal sense. You have to hold to what we hold to. For confessions contribute to a sense of historic continuity, historical cottonity. And this is important, the idea that we didn't just invent this. We we didn't just we didn't just start this, right, We're not the first ones, and it is a very helpful thing. It's a very helpful thing because we don't have to reinvent the wheel. Hey man, it's some very good work that's been done already. Let me just give you an idea. First of all, you skip over some of this when we talk about historical continuity. The New Testament is not silent on this second, Timothy two two, what you've heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, and trust the faithful men who will be able to teach others. Also, he didn't just say the Bible from right, what you've heard from me in the presence of many witnesses. In other words, he's talking about the body of doctor two Timothy one thirteen fourteen. Follow the pattern of sound words that you have heard from me in the faith and love that are in Christ, Jesus, by the Holy Spirit who dwells within us, guard the good deposit entrusted to you. Is he talking about the Bible as a whole. No pattern of sound words, right, he's a confessional statements. And then in chapter three, verse fourteen. But that's for you continue in what you've learned firmly believed. The idea here is that there is a standard. The idea here is that there is a pattern of sound words, that there is a confessional statement, a succinct confessional statement. Now, two main objections when we start talking about confessionals that we deal with here and I've heard these here. One is, you know, are these things biblical? Are these ideas bibical? And I think there are. We have succinct confessional statements in scruture. But another thing that we deal with here is are these things African or are they just European? Anybody? I see some heads going like this, right, yeah, yeah, you confessional you know Presbyterians, right, really Presbyterians, the Church of Scotland. I don't know, oh if you're aware of this, but Scotland and exactly in North Afica, long way away from here. Right. Are you Baptist? That's great? But your confession is what the second London Baptist Confession? Right? Maybe okay, we'll just go with the Christian Reformed Church. Oh great, now you've got the Belgic confession. So we go from Scotland to England to Belgium. Good for you. Well, we's going to be Lutheran then Great Germany. Let's just get all the colonial masters to tell us what to believe. Right. I know you hear this, right, I've only been here for four years and I'm tired of hearing so I know you grow weary of this idea that this confessionalism is actually European, or more appropriately, it's white. Right I okay you for the second time. We won't read, but we're We're familiar with the Apostles creed, right, We're familiar with the Nicean creed. And that's another one, you know, Yeah, nice Creed, Constantinople, Constantine, another white man, these guys who invented all of this stuff. Well, if you're at all familiar with the Nicean Creed, then you know that it is basically just an expansion of the Apostles Creed, which is much older than Constantine or Constantinople. Right, But how about this. This is from Tertullian, who was Tertullian. Tertullian's one of the African Church followers. Here's what amazes me. It amazes me how few Africans I meet know that the or African Church follows. Drautonian was one of the African Church followers, so Carthaginian second century early church father. He lived between one sixty and two twenty five. Listen to Tertullian and his piece on the prescription of heretics. Just listen to these phrases again, long before Constantine was thought of by anyone, Long before there was any Lutheran Presbyterian, Lutheran Confession or Belgian Confession, or you know, any Scottish or or or London or Anglican, long before any of those things, over a thousand years before those things. Listen to the early African Church, Father Tourtellian. Now with regard to this rule of faith, that rule of faith, the early the early confession of faith, that we may from this point acknowledge what it is which we defined it is. You must know that which prescribes the belief that there is one only God, and that he is none other than the creator of the world. I believe in God, the Father, Almighty, maker of having nerve mhm same thing from Totolo, who produced all things out of nothing through his own word. First, first of all he sent forth that this word is called his Son, and under the name of God, was seen in diverse manners by the patriarchs, heard at all times in the prophets. At last, brought down by the spirit and power of the Father, into the Virgin Mary, was made flesh in her womb, and being born of her, went forth as Jesus Christ. By the way, did you catch the idea there that Jesus is eternal son of God. He is the Word who was placed in the womb and then went forth as Jesus Christ. Henceforth he preached the New Law and the new promise of the Kingdom of Heaven, worked miracles. Having been crucified, he rose again on the third day. See some people argue that the resurrection, this new family and stuff. Then, having ascended into heaven, he set at the right hand of the Father instead of himself. The power of the Holy Ghost to lead such as believe, will come with glory, to take the saints to the enjoyment of everlasting life and of the heavenly promises, and to condemn the wicked to everlasting fire. After the resurrection of both these classes shall have happened, together with the restoration of their flesh. The rule, as it will be proved, was taught by Christ and raised among ourselves. No other questions than those which heresies introduce and which make men heritas. That's It's Italian second century African church. Father. Don't tell me that confessionalism is white or European. Amen, somebody, and we could talk about others like Athenatians, another early African church father. Okay, all right, So these historical confessions we stand in a long line not just of the biblical idea of confessions and also the early Church idea of confessions. But we stand in the line of those reformed confessions. I've talked about these early confessions. Remember when we date the Reformation, we talk about October thirty first, fifteen seventeen, right, the nailing of the ninety five theces and the door of the Pittinburgh Church. From there we get these this line of reform confessions. And and I would argue in reforming confessions. The Augsburg Confession that's Lutheranism. That's fifteen thirty. So again thirteen years after the nailing of the ninety five pieces, the Belgian Confession. This is Christopher Reformed Church. This is fifteen sixty one, thirty nine articles, fifteen sixty three, the Counties of the Senator, also the CRC sixteen eighteen. Then we get the first London Backs Confession sixteen forty four, the Westminster Confession of Faith. This is the Church of skat At sixteen forty six. Then we get the Savoid Declaration of Faith. This was in sixteen eighty five. These are the Congregational Purity. It's John Owen and the Light. And then the second London Backs Confession of sixteen eighty nine. Okay, so the faith that we confess is a historic faith that connects us to those who have held to these truths throughout history and found them rooted and grounded in description. This is not something that we just made up. This is a tradition that we are a part of. All Right, i'm'a stop here.