The sermon titled 'Of the Gospel and the Extent of the Grace Thereof' delivered by Michael Tutor examines the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith, focusing on the nature of religious worship. The speaker emphasizes that worship should be directed solely towards God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, highlighting the uniqueness of the Christian God as the only true God. The concept of the Trinity is discussed, underscoring that all three persons—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—are equally deserving of worship and possess the same divine attributes. The sermon also admonishes against worshipping angels, saints, or other creatures, citing biblical passages to illustrate the inappropriateness of such practices. Furthermore, the necessity of Christ as the sole mediator between God and humanity is explored, explaining how Christ's redemptive work has altered the relationship between mankind and God, allowing believers to approach God directly through Christ. The sermon concludes with a critique of practices that involve praying to saints or other intermediaries, asserting that such practices do not align with biblical teachings.

A reading from the 69th and 89th Blood and Pact's confession, or in chapter 22, of religious worship in the Sabbath, paragraph 2. Religious worship is to be given to God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and to Noah, not to angels, saints, or any other creatures, and since the fall, not without a mediator, nor in the mediation of any other by Christ alone. Bill, it's a prayer for me. Thank you Lord again that we can be here together this evening. Thank you that we had to work to study, and that we also have writings of other Christians who have come before us and have studied your word.

They can guide us as we study more. I pray that you would help us to hear holy truth, that we would hear the truth of the scriptures, that we would hear how it should apply to us and then you show us anything we're doing wrong or thinking wrongly And just help me to fear you and not man and to be able to speak clearly So our paragraph today is fairly short. It makes three or four main points. Now the first line of religious worship is to be given to God the Father Son and Holy Spirit and to him alone So this is I'm going to step beyond the first commandment which we're all pretty familiar with we should have no other gods before God But he's not just the one most powerful God among the crowd of other gods, he's the only God. So it's not that we only should make sure we don't elevate our other gods above God, the Father, Son, and the Spirit, but we should worship anyone else.

In Isaiah 43, 10, he says, "'You are my witnesses say the Lord in my spirit of my chosen As you may know and believe me and understand that I am Keith Before me there was no God formed and neither shall there be after me. There's never been any other God and there never will be none of them. So any other worship that we show a being besides God is wrong, it's false gods. The confession mentions each member of the Trinity here, which I found sort of interesting. I think the reasoning for that in there is to clearly indicate what God we're talking about here.

That it's the God of the Bible, the triune God, the father, son, and the Holy Spirit. We're not talking about Allah or any of the other Hating Gods. And the other thing that I started thinking about as I was considering that each member of the journey is listed here is that I think we also should be reminded that we work with all three. They are all one, but at least for me, I sometimes tend to accidentally split them out into too much of a separation between the three members of the rocket. And maybe I'll apply certain attributes to one or the other, but not really worship all three as they deserve.

John 1 verses 1-3 says, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him and without him was not anything made that is made. And then later in verses 14 and 15 it says, and the words, the same word, as the Southeam in Valhalla, was made flesh and dwelt among us. We beheld his glory, the glory as of the only God of the Father, full of grace and truth.

John barely accepted him crying, saying, This was he from my spake. He that cometh after me is preferred before me, for he was before me. The word that John speaks of is Christ God the son So he Jesus didn't just show up in the new testament like okay now There's two gods or two members of God. He's been here for eternity with God the Father. So everything that God did in the Old Testament, maybe a tribute more to the Father, Jesus also did for all those things, just like God the father does.

Then in another, on that same line, Genesis 126, God said, Let us make man in our image, and after our likeness. It wasn't just a singular God, but in either John 14, 7 through 11, Jesus is speaking to the disciples and says, if ye have known me, ye should have known my father also. For henceforth ye know him, and have seen him. Philip saith unto him, Lord, show us the Father, and it's a vice of those. And Jesus saith unto him, have I been so long time with you and yet hast thou not seen me?

Philip, he that hath seen me hath seen the Father. And how sayest thou then, show us the Father. Believest thou not that I am the father and father in me the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself, but the father that dwells in me. He does the works Believe me that I am In the same way I guess the secret price healing people Cleansing lepers and giving psych of the blood and ultimately laying down his life for sinners. That's also an act of God.

I don't want to oversimplify the Trinity, but it's really hard for a man, a mortal man, to really grasp that concept of three, three and one, God. But I think that a way we sometimes can fall short is by splitting them up a little bit too much. Later in verses 16 and 20 of that same chapter, it says, I don't proceed because it's the seed of Him not me. But He knows that, for He dwelleth with you, the Holy Spirit, and shall be in you. I will not leave you comfortless.

I will come to you in a little while, and we'll see if we are more. But ye see me, because I live, ye shall know also. At that day ye shall know that I am my Father, and ye and me, and I and you." So he's also telling us that the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, is God dwelling in us, even after Christ has been away left, he's still here with us. So the Holy Spirit is not the sidekick or the helper, that's also God. So that this isn't monetary, that's where I was thinking when I read this.

So you see from these scriptures, that it was never a solo act, it never has been. So when we think of God, the Father as being the judgmental one, or the fire and wrench stuff version of God that burnt people up in the Old Testament when they worship him wrong, and then we think of Jesus as the really kind God or the one that sacrifices others and the Holy Spirit is just the one that helps us stick to life. If we take away from any of them, or if we say that one maybe is more patient than another or more graceful we're saying that then the other two are less graceful or if we're saying that God the Father is more holy then Jesus has to be less holy than this Father and that, that's impossible, because they are all infinitely holy, and all infinitely powerful. So when we praise and worship God for his attributes, I think we need to remember to do good by free. Remember something about that.

As we recognize each thing, we don't only reference God, and we don't only thank Jesus. So something that I feel like I can think of a little bit more biblically probably on. The second line, not to angels, saints, or any other preachers. So this is something that Hopefully we do a little bit better on it. In Acts 10, 25, and 26, it says, Cornelius, that's on Cornelius' centurion, when he met Peter.

It says, as Peter was coming in, Cornelius met him, and fell down at his feet and worshiped him. Peter took him up, saying, Stand up, I myself am so moving. And then in Revelation 19, we have visions there, angels speaking. It says, in the four and twenty hours at the four piece fell down and worshiped God sat on the throne saying amen alleluia her voice came out of the throne, saying, Praise our God, all you servants, and he did fear him, both small and great. And I heard, as it were, a voice of great multitude, and a voice of many waters, and that's the voice of mighty thunderings saying hallelujah for the Lord God of Names and reigneth let us be glad and rejoice and give honor to for the marriage of the Lamb has come and his wife had made herself ready and to her was granted that she be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white, for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints.

And he saith unto me, right, who blessed are they which are called unto the marriage of the Lord of the Lamb? And he saith unto me, these are the true saints of God. And I fell at his feet to worship him. He said unto me, Seat out, give it not. I am thy fellow servant, not thy brethren, but have the testimony of Jesus, worship God.

Again, very similar situation in Revelation 22. I John saw these things and heard them when I had heard the scene I fell down to worship before the feet of the angel It showed me these things Then safety up to me see how do you not find the fellow sir and that brethren of the prophet prophets? No, man, which keeps things in this book worship God So even these crazy, powerful, scary beings, angels, we don't worship them either in a religious setting. And Romans 1.25, speaking about those that perverted the truth and going through all the lists for previous sins that includes those who changed the truth of God into a lie and worshiped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed forever and ever. So worshiping a cow, for instance, the Hindu, would be as included as any place with all the other church's sins that we definitely don't support here today.

Hopefully we're already doing pretty well in this area, at least at church. Line three, the last line, it says to fall, not without a mediator, nor in the mediation of any other, but Christ alone. So a scripture reference for this in Genesis 3, starting with verse 8. This is after Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit. They heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day.

And Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden. And the Lord God called unto Adam and said unto him, Where art thou? He said, I heard thy voice in the heart and I was afraid. And then the last part of chapter one, we're back a little bit, right after God created Adam and Eve, He was giving them the demand and mandate, the slum, which is what you can't even support your peer for, and giving them their jobs. He's obviously speaking from a position of authority there, but there's no indication that Adam and Eve had any.

They were hiding from God at that point. He's telling them what they're supposed to do, what they're there for, But then later after the fall, God's not even there necessarily to give them commands. He's just going for a walk in the garden and out of nowhere suddenly afraid of him. And I think that's another picture of how the relationships with God can change after the fall. How they've even thrown out of the garden.

So it's a... We no longer, you know, fall safe, are able to be in the presence of God and converse with him in the same way. So I'm going to read through all of it today, but if you read through the Old Testament, the Leviticus, and some of those other books about the, talking about the high priest and the tabernacle, there's all kinds of rules that the high priest had to follow in the way it tracks such a thing they and everything just right or hurting and going into the holy holies into God's presence there but they are becoming blessed they still and that has changed obviously after Christ has redeemed us. So, though we are still fallen in because of Christ's mediator of work, We don't have to be fearful in the same way. We can now approach and pray to God with the curtain that was rent.

So he's no longer in that particular room where we have to be so careful if we go there. The first 72.5 says, there is one God, one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus. In John 14 6 says, Jesus said unto him, I am the way and truth and the life, and no man can defend the Father but me. So that's why we can now pray to God. We disguise the no longer made brass towards the Christian one because the relationship has been remedied by Christ.

We hand them before God and we can see the space of people here. I think an application of this is the Catholics. There are a lot of possibilities, but others would be wrong. But Catholics pray to Mary and they pray to a lot of other saints that maybe they were decent people or whatever but they believe that Since Mary was so good if I prayed to her that she would pray to God for me So then I don't have to pray to God myself. And they are, they're just saying whatever they want.

That does not follow the scriptures. We pray to God, we pray to Jesus, through Jesus, and he prays to the Father for us. Christ tells us, he told the disciples before, truly before the restriction that people would be praying to the Father for them, that he is our intercessor, not any other Christian person that lived before us. Then I think a point of clarification on what a mediator is, it's not the same as like a messenger. It is a go-between of sorts.

As someone who bridges the gap or almost to close the gap between two people that are maybe at odds, but it doesn't mean that we cannot pray to God, or communicate to God without Christ's mediation. He tells us in Matthew 6, 9, Christ tells us, after this man, and therefore pray ye our Father which art in heaven. So we don't need to say, well I can only pray to Jesus. Jesus needs to tell God that I need help forever But we as a mediator to heal that relationship to redeem us for sins and as they pray earlier to clothe us And throw it to righteousness so that God no longer sees us as fallen. And now we can pray to God the Father because the redemptive work of Christ is complete and was finished there on the cross.

Though we continue to be sanctified through our lives. We are entirely redeemed.