The Glory of God for Doubting Minds and Dull Hearts

0:01 One of the most fruitful places to see the intersection between Puritan theology and the glory of God is the first question of the Westminster Catechism. What is man's chief end? Answer, man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever. so the Puritan fingerprints are all over the Westminster standards which is not surprising because it was made up of divines like Thomas Goodwin and Jeremiah Burroughs and Samuel Rutherford the implications of that first question are more far reaching than some of us realize what we're going to see in the The formulation of the answer to the first question, man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever, is that it touches on the nature of God's glory.

1:10 It touches on the nature of the human soul. It touches on the nature of God's plan for redemption and creation. It touches on the consummation of all things. the implications of the formulation of that first question are vast and worthy of our extensive meditation. And B.B. Warfield did that meditation in an essay that he wrote about the first question. And so I want to launch my reflections on the glory of God, the enjoyment of God, the Puritan influence there. I want to launch my reflections by thinking about his. Now what he does in his essay on the first question Warfield does is to contrast it with Calvin's catechism. Calvin begins like this.

2:10 Question number one, what is the chief end of man? Answer, it is to know God, his creator. question two what reason have we for this answer answer because God has created us and placed us in this world that he may be glorified in us it is certainly right as he is the author of our life that it should advance his glory question three what is the chief good of man. It is the same, mainly to know God. Question four, why do you account the knowledge of God, the chief good? Answer, because without it, our condition is more miserable than that of any brute creatures. So Calvin is content in his catechism to define the chief end and the chief good of man in terms of knowing God.

3:26 Now, that does not mean that in Calvin's theology there's no enjoyment of God. Clearly there is, he says in the Institutes, I just read this a few days ago, the ultimate happiness is to enjoy the presence of God. He says that. But it does seem to mean that he does not put the same weight on the subjective experience, especially the affectional subjective experience of the glory of God that the Puritans did. now Warfield takes note of this in his essay on the first question and he says that the Westminster divines improve on Calvin's answer and then he explains I'll give you a long quote now from from Warfield quote the peculiarity of this question and answer of the Westminster of Catechism is the felicity with which it brings to concise expression the whole Reformed conception of the significance of human life. We say the whole Reformed conception, for justice is not done, that conception, if we say merely that man's chief end is to glorify God, that certainly and certainly that first but according to the reformed conception man exists not merely that God be glorified in him but that he may delight in this glorious God it does justice to the subjective as well as the objective side of the case the reformed conception is not fully or fairly stated if it conceives of man merely as the object on which

5:34 God manifests his glory. It conceives also as the subject in which the gloriousness of God is perceived and delighted in. Perceived and delighted in. No man is truly reformed in his thought then unless he conceives of men not merely as destined to be the instrument of the divine glory, but also destined to reflect the glory of God in his own consciousness to exalt in God unless he himself delights in God as the all-glorious one. and then Warfield brings his meditation to a close with these ringing words about the relationship between glorifying God and enjoying God quote the distinction of the opening question and the answer of the Westminster Shorter Catechism is that it moves on this high plane and says all this in the compressed compass of felicitous words, man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.

6:54 Not to enjoy him certainly without glorifying him, for how can he to whom glory is inherently belonging be enjoyed without being glorified, but also not to glorify God without enjoying him For how can he whose glory is his perfections be glorified if he be not also enjoyed? but if you look closely at those words, which I like very much, but it could like more, if you look very closely at those words, you realize that Warfield does not come right out and say what some Puritans were saying and what Jonathan Edwards made crystal clear, the latter-day Puritan, namely, God is glorified by our enjoying him. It's by enjoying him that his glory shines off of our subjective perception and affectional response.

8:20 now I say some Puritans were saying this here's John Howe John Howe Puritan 1630 to 1704 wrote an entire long essay a book 300 pages called delighting in God so you read a whole book on delighting in God by a Puritan John Howe it's in print he said this we are to desire the enjoyment of God for his own glory. Some people get it the other way around. Hal got it this way.

8:59 He didn't say glorify God and thus you will enjoy God. When you are done glorifying him, that will make you happy. That's not at all what he says. And I don't think that's what the first question means. We are to desire the enjoyment of God for his own glory. And yet, here is a strange and admirable, this is still him, I'm quoting, this is a strange and admirable complication of these with one another. For if we enjoy him, delight in him, and rest in him as our best and most satisfying good, we thereby glorify him as God. so that's his interpretation at least his theology reflecting how the and in the first question works the chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him and how says we thereby glorify him namely by enjoying him Now there's a debate.

10:17 I couldn't get, we were talking downstairs about my conversation last spring with one of the foremost authorities on the Westminster Standards, Van Dixon, about what the Westminster divines actually meant by and, and I couldn't get him to commit himself. And Dr. Ferguson said, that's because we don't know. what they meant. And so we all get to take it the way we like, right? And then try to show that it's biblical, which is what you ought to do. So there's debate about how the Westminster Divines understood, and that means how the Puritans understood the relationship between glorifying God and enjoying God. But it is provocative at least, provocative at least that the singular and, E-N-D, is used, not ends. What is the chief?

11:19 And, and then they say two things. Not one thing. The chief and is to glorify him and enjoy him. You want to say, excuse me, you said end. you didn't say ends and and Sinclair put a really fancy name on that hendayetis or something like that or you say one thing in two ways and I said yes that's true but it doesn't explain how the two work together so the Westminster standards and some of the Puritans leave us wondering how the glory of God relates to the enjoyment of God how and other Puritans and Edwards very explicitly says that we glorify God by enjoying him. More on that later on. What's obvious at this point from this first question of the catechism is that the affections, okay, that's the older word for emotions, and probably a safer word, because emotions might connote physical manifestations like sweaty palms or fluttering eyelids or knocking knees or butterflies in the stomach.

12:42 None of that is what Jonathan Edwards or any of the Puritans meant by affections. Those are animal spirits. And they have no spiritual reality at all. Spiritual affections are wrought by the Holy Spirit in the heart, and they are spiritual emotions. And what I'm saying here now on this point is that the first question of the catechism elevates the affections of the human soul just about as high as they can possibly be elevated. To say that your reason for existence, every person in this room, exists chiefly to be happy in God. That's amazing.

13:37 That's just staggeringly amazing. Who has ever come to terms with such a thing? Besides a few crazy people like Jonathan Edwards and many Puritans. just staggering implications if you believe that very few pastors it seems to me work that out work it out if that's true if that first question is really true however you relate the two if the enjoyment of God is the chief end wow so that the elevation of the affections in the Puritan-shaped Westminster standards is enormous. The emotions in the Christian life, the affections, are not marginal. They're not incidental. They're not secondary. If you believe that the emotions of the Christian soul are the caboose at the end of the train and could be dropped off without losing anything. You don't live in the Puritan world and I would argue you don't live in the biblical world.

14:48 So according to the Westminster Catechism, the Puritans according to the Puritans, according to Edwards, spiritual affections are as important, I'm saying this carefully now, I thought about this sentence a lot and if you want to get on my case about it then I'll have to defend it later more. spiritual affections are as important as the glorification of God himself. Now note, I'm not saying, this is my little self-defense here, that they are as important as the glory of God. God is God and he's 10 billion times more important than you are or anything you feel about him. I'm not saying that. I'm saying the spiritual affections, what's going on in your Christian heart, are as important as the glorification of God because they are part of the glorification.

15:51 This is worth a lifetime of reflection. It is not surprising then that as the reformed movement, Calvin, Luther, Zwingli, on the reformed movement, as it matured. Now that's a judgment call on my part. Matured in Puritanism. that they became increasingly and deeply aware of the centrality of the workings of the human soul in the glorification of God. I don't think you get in Calvin anything like the heart doctor work of the Puritans. It's, it's just, it's another level. I, when Joel Beeky was talking up here, he said they had, I don't know whether you used the word leisure, to think about marriage, to think about family, to think about all these details where the, the, the reformers were so in battle with these central crucial issues that they didn't bore down into the particularities of the way the soul works in the apprehension of grace and its manifestations in the workings of the affections. At least that's my judgment of why I would say the Puritans became doctors of the soul, not just doctors of theology.

17:33 And that's why, one of the reasons, they are so useful to this day. You go to them and you find your soul doctored and your theology doctored. You get your theology set right, but you get your soul operated on with pretty serious scalpel work. They put a high premium on the human heart and therefore what was happening in the soul makes or breaks the purpose of creation.

18:14 I mean, just think of it. If the chief end of man is to glorify God by enjoying him forever, what happens in your soul makes or breaks the ultimate purpose of creation, at least in your case. if you preach like this, it will change your church. There's so many churches where the people have no serious sense that their affections are infinitely important. They just don't. They think that their whole emotional life, what makes them angry, what makes them sad, what makes them depressed, what makes them glad, It's just another thing over here. It's just, it's peripheral. And over here is decision and commitment and devotion and faith.

19:11 Those two worlds are one world. so what I want to do now in the rest of our time together is to press into some of the implications of this first question of the Westminster Catechism as it reflects on relates to the glory of God so Warfield referred to the objective and the subjective side of God's glorification so think about objective with me for a moment God is glorious whether you like it or not you all drop dead tonight he's no less glorious so his glory doesn't depend on your liking it or not liking it that's that objective reality he is a glorious God and your feeling one way about him or another doesn't increase or decrease his intrinsic glory. He is objectively glorious. And I'm not going to define the glory of God except in this moment right here.

20:25 Closest I can get. So when you ask me, can you give me other words for glory, what are you talking about? And I have three words that I retreat to over and over again. God's glory is that He's infinitely great. He's infinitely beautiful. He's infinitely valuable. And I could give you reasons why I use the word great and beautiful and valuable. They are excessive words in three spheres of reality, but I won't go there. So just, if you want, give me a little three-part definition of the glory of God. God is infinitely great, infinitely beautiful, infinitely valuable. He should be the most beautiful thing in your life, the most valuable thing in your life, the greatest thing in your life, and you might be coming close to an embrace of his glory. So that's the true objective reality.

21:25 the heavens are telling the glory of God. It's objectively being told and those who have eyes to see see it. Bring my son that's from afar, my daughters from the ends of the earth, everyone whom I created for my glory, Isaiah 43, 6 and 7. So that's what I mean by objective. and I haven't said anything yet about the objective glorification but take subjective for a moment there's the subjective reflection of that glory in man's perception and enjoyment of it so Ephesians 1 5 he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace. So he objectively manifests the glory of his grace in redemption, in order that we might subjectively praise that glory. So he does his objective revelation and demonstration and we magnify and manifest and reflect that by praising. And I almost have to press on the word praising. Biblically, what is praising? It is not words. Merely the devil can say words of praise because he hates it. He hates it. He can just mock it. Computers can say words of praise. AI can say words of praise.

23:12 Praise is praise because of the gladness that you feel in God. Praise is prizing God given expression. If praising isn't prizing, it's not praise in biblical understanding. So we're created to praise, that is prize and express it, the glory of God seen in his grace toward us in Christ Jesus. So he objectively manifests his glory. We subjectively perceive and then praise that glory and in that the end of the universe comes to consummation. Now what the first question of the catechism does not make explicit is that the right enjoyment of God presumes the right knowledge of God.

24:09 And it's interesting that Calvin felt so burdened to make that explicit, and the Westminster Standards don't mention it. what is the chief end of man? Chief end of man, Calvin says, to know God. And the Westminster stand and say, what is the chief end of man? To glorify God by enjoying him. And if I were to ask now, if they were standing here and I would say, why didn't you guys say to know and enjoy and glorify? Get all three in there because you got to know him before you can enjoy him because otherwise you might be enjoying what's not God. And I think they would say, we just assumed that.

24:54 I think that's what they'd say. I think they'd say you can't enjoy God if you don't know God. But the fact that they felt they could do that. Do you push no and put joy, enjoyment in its place? Like what kind of priority is that? That's Puritan priority. That's Christian hedonist priority. That's my priority. I like that. And goodness gracious,

25:31 the Puritans knew you had to know God. They were not light on theology as they worked on experience. So the Western Street Divines assume that emphasis, knowing God in that first question, and Edwards is the one who just is so crystal clear on these two ways of apprehending subjectively the glory of God namely knowing him rightly and delighting in him. So here's the Edwards quote that made all the difference in my life about 50 years ago. A little more. God glorifies himself toward the creatures in two ways. By appearing to their understanding and in communicating himself to their hearts.

26:34 God is glorified not only by his glory being seen but by its being rejoiced in. When those that see it delight in it, God is more glorified than if they only see it.

26:56 His glory is then received by the whole soul, both by the understanding and by the heart. That's a life-changing paragraph. I mean, I used to say, I still say, books don't change people, paragraphs change people. The only reason for reading books is to find those paragraphs. So buy those books because they're in there. Find them. for that paragraph changed my life, shaped everything I think ever since then. So implicit in that statement of Edwards, which I think is biblical. And I've tried to spend most of my life showing that, um, and, and implicit in the Westminster catechism, first question, especially is the implication that the glory of God is both. Here's, here's the thesis of the rest of my talk.

27:53 The glory of God is both the ground of our highest certainty and the ground of our deepest satisfaction. Those two statements are amazing. If those are true, that the glory of God, as God objectively reveals it in creation and redemption history is the ground of my most solid knowing.

28:28 I'm going to explain this shortly. And the glory of God is the ground of my highest happiness. So the two things that are going on in your mind all the time. Knowing and feeling. Knowing and feeling. Knowing and feeling. and the glory of God is the ground for all of the happiest feelings and all of the most sure knowing. So let me try to state the thesis here in three different ways. Number one, the quest for truth and the quest for joy turn out to be the same quest. Second way to say it. The path to unshakable conviction or certainty and the path to unending contentment is the same path. Third way to say it.

29:32 Knowing for sure. And everybody in this room wants to know for sure. You want to know what's real. so that you can die for it and have good reason for believing this is real, this is true. And you want to know how to be happy. So, third way to say it, knowing for sure and rejoicing forever happen by the same discovery, the glory of God in the Word of God. Okay, that's what the rest of this message is intended to explain and defend. this was simply astonishing to me. I did not see those sentences that I just read to you until I forget. I forget when I wrote it, but I wrote this book called A Peculiar Glory, which I think is one of the most important things I've ever written. And it's basically my defense of why I believe the Bible is true. And this, this is the answer. And in preparing that first in a trilogy, I saw, oh my goodness, my quest for certainty and my quest for happiness are the same quest. And the ultimate ground of both is the revelation of the glory of God in the Word of God. Now let me try to explain why that is and what that means. Let's take them one at a time. The quest for satisfaction, glory of God, is the ground and the goal of that. And the quest for certainty, the glory of God is the ground and the goal of that. So let's take the satisfaction or the enjoyment side first.

31:22 The Bible makes crystal clear. This is the easiest one to see, I think, of the two. The Bible makes clear that the longest pleasure in time and the best pleasure in time is the glory of God. Psalm 1611 is an absolutely staggering verse. You make known to me, you God, make known to me the path of life. In your presence there is fullness of joy. At your right hand are pleasures forevermore. I mean, there is nothing fuller than full. There is nothing longer than forever. I've stood in front of 10,000s of people who said, if any of you, and I'll say it tonight, if any of you can come up here after the service and show me a better goal than full and forever pleasure, I will stop being a Christian.

32:31 because it is inconceivable that there is anything fuller than full or longer than eternity. It cannot be conceived. We've got the best news in the world. In his presence is fullness of joy. At his right hand are pleasures forevermore. It can't get any better. Therefore, the Bible, being the good book that it is, tells us not to be idiots. by saying, delight yourself in the Lord, Psalm 37. Be glad in the Lord, Psalm 32. Rejoice in the Lord, Philippians 4.

33:25 When a man finds a treasure hidden in a field, namely the kingdom of God, he goes and sells everything he has from joy. you sell everything you have and you don't say oh i gotta sell my books i gotta sell my computer i gotta sell my house i gotta sell my wedding ring there's none of this there's none of this it says apacharos from joy he sells everything he has and buys that field. Why? Because in his presence is fullness of joy, pleasure's at his right hand forevermore. It cannot be better than what you found in that field. Why wouldn't you give up everything to have it? That's the way it talks. Or, as a deer pants for the flowing stream, so my soul pants for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. Psalm 42. Or, oh God you are my God earnestly I seek you my soul thirsts for you my flesh faints for you as in a dry and weary land where there's no water because your steadfast love is better than life let that sink in your steadfast love is better than life my lips will praise you I've got a friend named Carl might be dead before I get home on Tuesday I wrote a long letter to him today. I'm just trying to help him cross the river.

35:01 the steadfast love of the Lord is better than life. If you believe that, you can cross the river. He's younger than I am. I should be gone, not him. Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days. So, what is obvious from the Bible is that God intends for his glory, his radiant fullness, himself to be the ground of our fullest and longest happiness. That's the design of creation. That's the design of redemption. That's why Jesus died.

35:52 That's why he rose. reigns so that you, the bride of Christ, would be happy in your groom forever. And in that happiness make his glory shine. Affections for God are not icing on the cake. I don't know if in your culture you use the word icing on the cake. Maybe you don't even have icing on cake where you come from. Or what a cake is anyway. But a cake in my tradition is a big sweet hunk of tasty, what is it, Noel? Is it bread? I don't even know what a cake is. I just like it. And then you put white or chocolate or peanut butter icing on top of it, and that's even sweeter.

36:52 And some people think the icing is irrelevant. emotions. It's not. It's not. The emotions that you have for God are the cake of Christianity. Christianity is not a religion of willpower. It's not a religion of mere decisions, doing things you don't really want to do, as if it's more virtuous to overcome our real preferences, doing what we don't want to do. Oh, how many people think there's more virtue in doing what you don't want to do for Jesus than in doing what you do want to do for Jesus, which means you're going to be really bored in heaven because you're only going to want to do what you ought to do. And heaven will be a place of great virtue, great virtue, perfect virtue.

37:46 So you've got to get over that. the new birth, the glorious miracle of the new birth is to change what you love, change what you prefer, change what you like, so that it begins, over time, embattled as it is, to be conformed to what is true and right and good, God's will. what makes the universal quest for happiness God glorifying rather than self-exalting is that by the new birth the glory of God becomes the ground of our joy I've had people say to me over the years Piper you're making a God out of joy you go around telling people to pursue joy. Make it a God out of joy.

38:45 to which I respond, no, you have already made a God out of what you find more joy in. Everybody has made a God out of what they find most joy in.

39:08 Joy is not my God, it's my worship. God is my God. And he is the source and end of my quest for joy. And I will spend and you will spend the rest of eternity enjoying slash worshiping him because the heart of worship is the enjoyment of God. The first half of the thesis, namely that the glory of God is the ground of your desire for full and lasting satisfaction. Yes, it is. That's biblical. Now, lastly, I want to argue that the glory of God is also the ground of your most assured knowledge of God. And I'm going to I will try to make a link here with the Westminster Standards in just a second so that you can see I haven't left that behind. Where's this coming from? Why does this even come to my mind as an issue relating the glory of God and the epistemological, can I use that word, the way we come to know things? How do you come to know that the Bible is true? How do you come to know that the gospel is real? How do you come to know that God exists? How do you come to know these huge things that you ought to be willing to lay down your life for? And I'm going to answer we most fundamentally know because of the revelation of the glory of God and the word of God. That's going to be my answer. Why did I go there? Why did I even think this way? Here's why.

40:58 So I don't know as you in growing up coming through high school and maybe college, university, and wrestling with apologetics and how you know what you know. So many of my contemporaries 50 years ago, 60 years ago,

41:22 they were trying to argue in ways that would help persuade scholars that Jesus rose from the dead, that therefore what he claims is true, that therefore the gospel is true, that therefore the Bible that contains it is true. And Wolfhard Pannenberg was a big deal. I sat in classes under Pannenberg at the University of Maryland. He was such a big deal because Pannenberg argued that rationally and historically you can prove the resurrection of Jesus. And it was so fascinating and riveting. I was never taken by this. And here's the reason. I thought, okay, suppose I succeed. and I think Pannenberg had a good argument suppose I succeed and now through extended historical argument with all kinds of historical controls and textual analyses I could demonstrate to the satisfaction of most scholars that Jesus rose from the dead and that the gospel is true. What about Papua New Guinea? What about tribesmen who are preliterate.

42:34 And a missionary goes to them and he spends a year or two or ten sharing the gospel. These people have no access to those kinds of sophisticated historical reasoning that persuaded Pannenberg and all the folks at the University of Munich that, oh, we've got it, we've finally got a compelling historical argument for the resurrection of Jesus. And I'm thinking 90% of the world will never follow that reasoning. So it might be good for the priesthood of the scholars, but how is it going to make any difference with 90% of the people in the world who don't even think that way? Do they have any access to certainty? Or do they just cross their fingers? lay their lives down for a maybe?

43:30 Edwards is the one who gave me help because this is what he was wrestling with, with the Algonquin Indians. Or not the Algonquins, with the, that was John Elliot, the Stockbridge Indians. So he was a missionary, Jonathan Edwards was a missionary to the Indians from 1751 to 1758. Ten years earlier he wrote, was he already wrestling in New England in America in the 18th century with how in the world is the gospel going to be made so compelling to the Indians, the Native Americans so that they have a persuasion that is valid enough to warrant their laying down their lives without being fools. here's what he wrote. This, this was just mind boggling for me and set me on a quest to understand how the glory of God relates to knowing. He said, miserable is the condition of the Housatonic Indians and others who have lately manifested a desire to be instructed in Christianity.

44:46 if, so miserable is their condition, if they can come at the evidence of the truth of Christianity sufficient to induce them to sell off of Christ in any other way than the path of historical reasoning. In other words, if the only path on which you can arrive at a persuasion that enables you to lay down your life is by historical reasoning, they will never have it. And they will go to hell, miserable, unable to know what's true.

45:20 And I'll tell you, as a young person in his twenties, I'm saying, I've got to have that answer. It doesn't really matter to me much whether about 5,000 scholars can be persuaded that Jesus rose from the dead. I want to know whether about 7 billion people can find a way to know God with enough certainty, without all that education that they could lay down their lives and not be idiots. That's what I want to know. Because I think the whole Bible hangs on whether that's true or not. I mean, if the Bible cannot be credited another way, we might as well just close up shop. We're never going to be a missionary people. Okay, let me keep reading. This is still Edwards.

46:07 Here's his answer. The mind ascends to the truth of the gospel, but by one step, and that is its divine glory. Unless men may come to a reasonable, solid persuasion and conviction of the truth of the gospel by the internal evidences of it, namely by a sight of its glory, it is impossible that those who are illiterate and unacquainted with history should have any thorough and effectual conviction of it at all. That's right. That's right. If that doesn't work, nothing's going to work. So Edwards is arguing that the path to well-grounded conviction of the truth of the gospel and of the scriptures is that the story of the gospel as it is told in the Bible has in it evidences of God's glory, reflections of God's glory, manifestations of God's glory that shine out from the text in such a way that by the new birth, the eyes of the heart can have a valid, reasonable, well-grounded apprehension of what is real.

47:32 Where does he base that in the Bible? If you want one sermon that lays this out, most important sermon of Edwards I ever read, maybe not the most moving, but the most important, is a divine and supernatural light immediately imparted to the soul. A divine and supernatural light. You just type that into Google and you'll get it. It's free everywhere. a divine and supernatural light immediately imparted to the soul. It's a sermon on Matthew 16, 17 where Jesus says to Peter, when Peter says, you are the Christ and Jesus says, flesh and blood didn't reveal that to you my father in heaven showed you that but his main text that moved me was 2 Corinthians chapter 4, verse 4 and 5 and 6 this is what it says the god of this world that's satan has blinded the minds of unbelievers to keep them from seeing now hear this phrase the light of the gospel of the glory of christ who is the image of god oh what a verse so that's verse four verse six is going to give the answer this is the problem. Satan is blinding minds. What's he blinding them from seeing? The light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God in the gospel. So when the gospel is faithfully narrated in its biblical proper proportions, light, spiritual light shines out.

49:14 What else does he pray for in chapter one of Ephesians when he says, may the eyes of your heart be enlightened. They're eyes in your heart. They're eyes in your heart. And they're real. They are designed to see glory in the gospel. And when the gospel shines and God, according to verse 6, shines and removes Satan's blinding. So the God who said let light shine out of darkness has shown in our heart to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God who is in the face of Jesus Christ. So verse 6 is the answer to the problem of verse 4, and the answer is God says, six-year-old John Piper, let there be light.

50:09 A six-year-old can see this. He doesn't even know what he's seeing. I mean, he can't put words on it. Most people are saved without knowing what's happening. They really are. You precious friends who said you were saved in the last year, I promise you, you could not at this moment render an adequate explanation of the glory that happened to you. So much happened to you. So much glory, miraculous glory happened to you that enabled you to confess Christ as Lord. Nobody says Jesus is Lord apart from the Holy Spirit. And what the Holy Spirit does is banish the blinding work of Satan and he reveals the self-evidencing glory of God in the gospel. And you know, you know so much that those Papua New Guinea preliterate natives are willing to lay down their lives one week after they see the light. And they have no formal education whatsoever.

51:07 And they're not idiots. I'm almost done. The glory of God proves to be, therefore, both the ground of the soul's greatest satisfaction and the glory of God proves to be the ground of the mind's deepest certainty. Now, I said I think that's implicit in the Westminster Puritan standards. Because of question four, here's the answer and the question of number four. How does it appear that the scriptures are the word of God? That's the question. How does it appear that the scriptures are the word of God? Answer.

52:03 The scriptures manifest themselves to be the word of God by their majesty and purity, by the consent of all the parts and then this phrase caught me. And the scope of the whole which is to give all glory to God. Now what does that mean? I wish I understood the Puritan background of that sentence better. The scope of the whole of the Bible is to give all glory to God and I think it's coming close to saying when you as a newborn Christian read the Bible what you're going to find as you take the whole into account is the glory of God stands forth as self evidencingly true and calls out your heart of worship toward him so all that to try to do what I'm supposed to do here and then we talk about Puritans.

53:14 What do I know about Puritans? Except a few things from the standards and a few quotations. So here's my conclusion. I conclude therefore that seeing the glory of God with the eyes of the heart is the door to full satisfaction in God and the door to full certainty in God. the glory of God is the ground of both knowing and delighting in creating a Christian God reveals to us in his glory the glory in the gospel his glory in the face of Christ which becomes the ground of the mind certainty and the goal of the soul's satisfaction one last observation when the first question of the Westminster Catechism parallels the glorification of God and the enjoyment of God rather than paralleling the glorification of God and the knowing of God. See what I'm saying? When we see in the first question that the Puritan divines put in parallel not the glory of God and the knowledge of God, but the glory of God and the enjoyment of God. When they did that, I think they are choosing to say to us the knowledge of God is not man's chief end. It is emphatically not man's chief end. It is a means to the chief end. Knowing is a means to enjoying in the Puritan mind, I would say, in the biblical mind. It's not the other way around.

55:08 We don't enjoy in order to know. We know in order to enjoy. The chief end, singular, the chief end, the final end, the ultimate end of God in creation, in redemption, is that you would be happy in God. So Father, I pray that the miracle would happen because we can't make ourselves happy in you. We can't make you beautiful or great or valuable in our own affections. That's a gift. It's a miracle called new birth. And so I pray that in this room, you would work that miracle tonight and then all through the rest of this conference in Jesus.