Latest / Reformed Thinking / The Manner in Which the Salvation of the Soul Is to Be Sought (Genesis 6:22) | Jonathan Edwards

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The Manner in Which the Salvation of the Soul Is to Be Sought (Genesis 6:22) | Jonathan Edwards · Reformed Thinking

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  Welcome back to Reform Thinking. I am your host.
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  And I am the expert. We have a.
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  A really fascinating file to open up today.
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  We're going to be looking at a sermon by Jonathan Edwards.
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  Now, typically when we mention Edwards in our circles or, you
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  know, even in the broader culture, people immediately jump
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  to one thing. Oh.
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  Yeah, sinners in the hands of an angry God.
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  Exactly. They think of fire, they think
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  of brimstone, and they think of this, this very intense view of
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  divine sovereignty. That's the common caricature,
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  yes. I mean, it's not entirely wrong,
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  but it's certainly incomplete. Right.
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  But the text we are looking at today, which is titled the
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  Manner in which the salvation of the soul is to be sought, it
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  offers a very different angle. It's almost surprising it is.
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  We're reformed, folks. We hold to the Westminster
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  standards. We believe in, solify to faith
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  alone. Salvation is a gift, right?
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  It's not a wage we earn. Right.
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  It's foundational for us. But Edwards takes a look at the
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  stories Noah and the Ark, and he starts talking about salvation
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  as a great undertaking. And that's a phrase that should
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  make your theological ears perk up a little.
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  Bit it definitely makes me sit up straighter undertaking.
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  I mean, that implies work, it implies sweat, it implies a
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  massive expenditure of energy. It does.
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  So the question we have to wrestle with in this discussion
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  is pretty stark. How does a theologian famous for
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  his defense of God's absolute sovereignty justify a theology
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  of such intense human effort? Is seeking salvation?
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  Yeah. Is it a passive activity where
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  we just sort of wait for lightning to strike?
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  Or is it a construction project? That's the tension we need to
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  resolve, and to understand it we have to look really closely at
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  his source material. Edwards is preaching on Genesis
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  6.22. The verse says.
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  Thus did Noah. According to all that God
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  commanded him, so did he. Seems simple enough on the
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  surface. It does.
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  A man built a boat. But Edwards and argues that this
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  wasn't just, you know, a woodworking project.
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  He establishes A typological connection.
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  Noah is the type. And the Christian listener is
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  the anti type. Exactly.
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  And the flood of water is the type for the flood of eternal
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  wrath. So the logic follows that if
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  Noah had to work to physically labor to escape the water, then
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  we must work to escape the fire. Precisely.
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  But Edwards doesn't just leave it as some vague metaphor.
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  He leans into the sheer physicality of what Noah did.
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  He does this to prove that seeking isn't just a mental
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  ascent. Or, you know, a casual prayer.
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  You. Know it's a life consuming
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  labor. It is well let's look at that
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  labor because Edwards does something here that I found
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  genuinely surprising. He doesn't just say the arc was
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  big. No, he gets out his calculator.
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  I mean he essentially goes full forensic architect on the
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  dimensions of the arc. He does.
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  And this is where we see the intellectual context Edwards was
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  living in. This wasn't just Bible study for
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  him, this was engagement with the cutting edge science of the
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  18th century, Right. You have to remember for
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  centuries, the cubit, the standard biblical measurement,
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  was estimated based on the human arm.
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  You know the distance from the elbow to the tip of the middle
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  finger. That's the standard Sunday
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  school measurement, roughly 18 inches a foot and 1/2.
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  Right. But Edwards notes a shift in
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  scholarship. He references learned men of his
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  nation who had recently traveled to Egypt.
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  OK, so this is new research in his day.
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  It is. He's likely referring to the
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  work of researchers like John Greaves and even Isaac Newton,
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  who were, well, they were obsessed with the Great Pyramid.
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  They believe the ancients possessed a kind of sacred
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  geometry. So.
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  What did they do? These researchers went to Egypt.
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  They measured the interior chambers of the pyramids.
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  They measured the marble sarcophagi.
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  And they compared those physical hard numbers against the ancient
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  histories that describe those same objects and qubits.
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  So they were reverse engineering the unit of measurement from the
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  surviving stone. That's actually really clever.
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  It is, and the conclusion was shocking.
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  For the time they determined that the ancient sacred cubit
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  was significantly larger than the standard Roman or Hebrew
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  cubit, people had just assumed how much larger they pegged it
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  at closer to 22 inches. 22 inches.
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  So that's a four inch difference per unit.
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  I mean over the span of a ship that adds up incredibly fast.
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  It changes the entire scale of the project.
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  It's not a small adjustment. So what are the new numbers?
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  Well, if you took the biblical dimensions, 300 cubits long, 50
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  wide, 30 high, and you apply the old 18 inch cubit, you get a
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  large vessel, sure, but. With the new one.
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  But if you apply this pyramid cubit that Edwards is so fond
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  of, the arc just jumps to over 550 feet in length. 550 feet,
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  yeah. The width hits about 90 feet,
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  the height goes to 50. Feet, that is.
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  That's larger than many World War 2 aircraft carriers.
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  That is approaching the size of the Titanic.
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  And Edwards makes the point that this was not an empty hall.
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  It had three decks. It had apartments.
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  It had to be structured to survive the most violent
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  hydrodynamic event in planetary history.
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  And Noah didn't have a shipyard. He didn't have steam power, he
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  didn't have cranes. Not a single power tool.
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  This brings us to the scope of Labor.
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  Edwards focuses really heavily on the timeline.
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  Genesis 6.3 says my spirit shall not always strive with man and
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  it sets the limit at 120 years. And Edwards views that 120 years
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  as the construction window. Think about that duration.
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  A career today is what, 40 years?
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  This project spanned 3 modern careers.
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  It's multigenerational. It is, and Edwards emphasizes
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  the mental load of this Noah wasn't just a laborer.
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  He was the Superintendent. He was the architect.
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  He was the financier. He had to keep the blueprint in
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  his mind for over a century. If he drifted from God's command
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  by an inch here, an inch there, the structural integrity fails
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  and. Humanity goes extinct.
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  The stakes couldn't possibly be higher.
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  You mentioned financier. This was an angle in the sermon
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  that I had not really considered before.
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  We usually picture Noah as this humble farmer, you know,
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  building a boat in his backyard, right?
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  But Edwards paints him as a tycoon.
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  He has to be. You don't build a 550 foot ocean
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  liner without massive massive capital.
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  So where would he get it? Edwards speculates that Noah was
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  likely a Prince or a figure of immense wealth, comparable to
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  Job or Abraham in the later scriptures.
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  Right. To source that much Gopher wood,
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  to create that much pitch, to forge the iron or bronze
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  fittings, it requires a fortune. And labor.
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  He could not have lifted those beams alone.
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  No way. Edwards assumes he hired an army
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  of workmen, and this leads to his point about the financial
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  cost of salvation. He believes Noah sold all.
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  He liquidated his entire estate to fund the Ark.
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  He must have which? From a purely game theory
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  perspective, is the only rational move if you actually
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  believe the prophecy. That's the key.
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  If you truly believe water is going to cover the mountaintops,
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  what is the value of your real estate?
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  What is the value of your goal? It's zero.
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  It's actually a liability if it distracts you.
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  So Noah Congrats his liquid assets into the only currency
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  that matters, survival. The Ark became his bank account.
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  But Edwards argues the financial cost was probably easier to bear
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  than the social cost, the Noah's Folly aspect.
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  This is where the sermon gets psychologically heavy, and it's
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  so insightful. He asks us to imagine the social
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  dynamic of the ancient world. This is a world of men of
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  renown, giants, people of violence and, you know,
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  arrogance. A world of profound pride.
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  And here is Noah, building a battleship in the middle of a
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  continent, far from any ocean, for 120 years, preaching that
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  rain, which arguably had not even been seen before in that
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  quantity, was going to kill everyone.
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  He would. Have been the ultimate
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  conspiracy theorist, the town madman.
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  The laughing stock of the human race.
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  And Edwards points out something that's just It's brutal.
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  He says the very Workman Noah hired were likely mocking him.
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  Imagine that. Imagine paying men to build your
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  salvation and while they hammer the nails, they are making jokes
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  about your sanity. They take your money, they eat
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  your food, and they ridicule your God every single day.
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  And you have to endure that for a century.
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  You watch your kids grow up under that cloud of shame.
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  Oh, you're one of those Noah's. It's an unimaginable burden.
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  And yet thus did Noah. He finished.
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  And this brings us to the doctrine.
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  Edwards extracts from all of this.
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  He pivots from the history to the theology.
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  And here's the core doctrine, he says, Quote.
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  We should be willing to engage in and go through great
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  undertakings in order to our own salvation.
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  OK, we need to stop here and define our terms because great
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  undertaking, I mean, it sounds like works righteousness.
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  It sounds like we're building the ladder to heaven.
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  It does, and he knows it does. So what does Edwards mean by the
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  work of salvation? He's very specific about what
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  this work entails. First, he defines it negatively.
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  He says it is not a business by the by.
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  Business by the by. That is great 18th century
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  phrasing. Isn't it?
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  It means it cannot be a side hustle.
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  It can't be a hobby. You can't fit salvation into the
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  margins of your life on a Sunday morning.
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  It has to be the main thing. It has to be the only thing.
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  Edwards argues that seeking salvation requires universal
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  obedience. That's a scary phrase.
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  It is. It means you don't get to pick
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  and choose which commands to follow.
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  You can't be a rigorous churchgoer who cheats on his
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  taxes. You can't be a generous
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  philanthropist who harbors secret lust.
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  Exactly. It requires A holistic
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  compliance with all duties to God and man.
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  He cites Philippians 3.33, the Apostle Paul saying this one
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  thing I do. That is the required mindset.
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  It's a monomaniacal focus. If your career interferes with
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  this great undertaking, the career has to go.
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  If your reputation interferes, the reputation goes.
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  If your comfort interferes, comfort goes.
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  It is the one thing. But here's the pushback, and I
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  know our listeners are thinking it because I am thinking it.
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  We're reformed. We believe Christ paid the debt.
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  It is finished. If Christ built the ark, why is
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  Edwards telling me I have to hammer the nails?
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  Isn't this minimizing the cross? This is the crucial distinction,
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  and Edwards anticipates this objection head on.
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  He is not saying our works merit salvation.
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  He quotes Titus 3.5. Not by works of righteousness,
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  which we have done. So we can't buy God off.
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  No, the value of our sweat is 0 in terms of purchasing power.
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  The price of the soul is infinite.
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  Only Christ can pay it. Salvation is free, without money
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  and without price. OK, so if we are not paying for
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  the ticket, why are we running to the station?
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  What is the point of the labor? Because God has a point seeking
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  as the method of receiving. Look at the ark again.
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  God is omnipotent, of course. He could have snapped his
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  fingers and levitated Noah and his family above the water.
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  He could have created a bubble of air on the ocean floor.
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  He did not need the wood. He did not need the pitch.
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  And he certainly didn't need Noah's 120 years of Labor.
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  Not at all. So the labor was for Noah, not
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  for God. OK, unpack that.
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  Edwards argues that God orders the scheme of salvation this
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  way, making it difficult, making it strenuous to teach us what's
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  the value of what we are receiving.
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  If salvation were cheap, if you could just passively drift into
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  heaven, we would despise it. We undervalue what costs us
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  nothing. Like a lottery winner who blews
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  the fortune in a year. Exactly.
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  By forcing us to strive to agonize, and that's the Greek
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  word agonize, Oh my God is preparing the vessel of the
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  heart to treasure the grace when it finally arrives.
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  It's a difference between inheriting a fortune and
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  building a business from scratch.
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  You treat the money differently. Completely differently.
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  And the labor also hollows us out.
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  The process of seeking, of fighting sin, of prayer, of
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  fasting. It breaks our pride.
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  It shows us our weakness, our inability.
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  So when grace comes. It fills a vacuum that our labor
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  created but could never ever fill on its own.
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  That makes a lot of sense. The labor is like the plow
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  breaking up the hard ground of our hearts so the seed of grace
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  can actually take root. That's a great way to put it.
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  But Edwards doesn't sugarcoat this labor.
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  He lists the difficulties that make this a great undertaking
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  and the first one he hits is the friction.
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  The constant friction he talks about the dull, sluggish, carnal
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  heart. And this is something every
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  Christian, every honest Christian feels.
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  You wake up and you do not want to pray, You do not want to be
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  holy. You want to be comfortable.
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  You want to go back to sleep. Edward says seeking salvation is
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  like pushing a massive boulder uphill.
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  And gravity, gravity is your own nature.
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  The moment you start pushing, the boulder doesn't just stay
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  there. It rolls back over you it.
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  Crushes you. That's the internal opposition.
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  Then there's the external. The world.
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  The devil snares on every side. Which leads to his point about
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  no time off. This is terrifying for modern
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  people who you know, we love our weekends, we love our vacations.
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  Live for the weekend. Right.
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  And Edward says in secular labor, you punch out, you have
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  holidays, you retire. But in the business of religion,
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  there is no off switch. Luke 9.23 take up his cross
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  daily. Daily, not weekly, not when you
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  feel like it. If you say you know I've been
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  good all week, I'm going to take Friday night off to just indulge
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  my flesh, you undo the work. You cannot pause a war.
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  You can't just take a time out. And then there's the expense.
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  We talked about Noah selling all but Edwards.
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  It applies that to us. He does the necessity of parting
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  with unlawful pleasures. That's the obvious one, but also
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  carnal. Ease your comfort and even your
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  reputation. The willingness to be a
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  laughingstock, just like Noah was.
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  You have to be willing. And he points to the rich young
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  ruler, a man who came seeking eternal life.
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  But he wasn't willing to sell all.
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  He went away sad because the cost was too high.
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  He wanted an easy salvation. And there is no such thing.
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  Another difficulty Edwards mentions is the danger of
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  getting lost. He calls it the Labyrinths.
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  This is a very pastoral insight from him.
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  He knows the human heart. He notes that there are 10,000
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  wrong ways to seek God. Like what?
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  You can fall into legalism where you think your work is actually
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  earning your salvation. You can fall into antinomianism,
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  which is cheap grace. I'm saved so I can do whatever I
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  want. Precisely.
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  You can fall into pride about how humble you are, which is a
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  subtle one, or you can just spiral into despair thinking
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  you're not good enough and giving up entirely.
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  It's like we want to find a path through a minefield in the dark
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  without a map. Well, we have a map scripture,
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  but Edward's point is that our own corrupt hearts often misread
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  it, just as no one needed a divine blueprint because human
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  engineering could not handle a global flood.
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  We need the Holy Spirit to guide our seeking.
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  Exactly. You cannot rely on your
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  intuition. Your intuition will lead you
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  right off a Cliff. He also touches on a specific
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  kind of suffering that happens during this process.
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  The darkness, the idea that you can be working as hard as you
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  can and feel like you're going backward.
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  Yes, he calls it laboring in the fire without comfort.
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  This is so vital for listeners to hear.
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  You might be repenting, praying, reading your Bible, and yet you
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  feel cold. You feel distant from God.
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  You feel the weight of your sin more, not less.
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  Yes. And you think this isn't
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  working? Edward says.
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  Keep building. That sense of heaviness is often
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  the weight of the timber you are lifting.
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  It does not mean you are failing, it means you are
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  working. So don't equate good feelings
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  with progress. Do not.
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  The feelings are often the last thing to come.
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  And the final difficulty is just a duration.
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  This thing goes on until death. There is no retirement age in
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  Christianity. You don't get to coast in your
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  70s because you were faithful in your 30's.
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  The race and the warfare, they end at the grave.
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  Past success does not excuse future negligence.
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  It's an endurance run, not a Sprint.
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  It's the ultimate marathon. Which begs the question, why do
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  it? I mean, if it is this hard, this
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  expensive, this exhausting, why not just enjoy life?
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  Right. And Edwards pivots here to the
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  motivation, and he goes straight to the horror movie imagery.
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  He talks about the coming deluge.
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  He has to. The only thing that justifies
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  this level of cost is an infinite danger.
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  He draws the parallel again. The old world didn't believe
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  Noah. Why?
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  Because empiricism failed them. They had never seen a global
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  flood. It was to them scientifically
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  impossible, according to their understanding of the world.
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  No precedent. It sounds just like the modern
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  skeptic saying I don't believe in Judgement Day because history
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  just keeps going. The sun rises, the sunsets.
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  There's no evidence. Edwards addresses that directly.
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  He says the bare word of God was the only evidence Noah had.
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  Hebrews 11 says Noah was warned of things not seen as yet.
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  But he acted on it. He acted on it.
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  Edwards argues that for the Christian, the Bible describes a
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  reality that is currently invisible but is absolutely
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  inevitable. God cannot lie if he says a
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  flood is coming. The fact that there are no rain
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  clouds today is completely irrelevant.
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  And when that reality breaks through, Edwards paints a
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  picture of the flood that is genuinely disturbing.
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  It's cinematic. It's terrifying.
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  He describes the process of the water rising.
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  Imagine the skeptics, you know, leaning on their fences, mocking
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  Noah. Then the water hits their
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  ankles. Unusual weather we're having.
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  Then their wastes. They climb to the roofs of their
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  houses, but the water follows them.
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  They climb the high towers in their cities.
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  The water swallows the towers. So they scramble up the mountain
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  peaks, the highest ground. Available.
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  The last resort. And the text says the water was
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  15 cubits above the highest mountains.
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  There is no high ground. That is the terrifying point.
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  All human refuges, your money, your power, your intelligence,
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  your connections, all of it failed.
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  It was all submerged. And Edwards translates this to
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  the anti type, which is not a deluge of water, but a deluge of
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  fire. It ships from the water of
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  Genesis to the Lake of Fire in Revelation.
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  He mentioned people hiding in caves, which is straight out of
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  Revelation. People calling on the rocks to
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  follow them, to hide them from the wrath of the Lamb.
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  But Edwards, being Edwards, notes the physics of this divine
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  fire. He says it will penetrate to the
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  center of the earth. A cave doesn't become a shelter,
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  it becomes an oven. He talks about people relying on
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  physicians on their deathbed or last minute promises of
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  reformation. He calls these feudal towers.
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  They're just like the towers the people climb to escape the
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  flood. They're man made refuges that
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  cannot stand against the judgement of God.
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  When the decree goes forth, if you are not in the ark, you are
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  exposed. And he emphasizes the terror of
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  the infinite. This is classic Edwards.
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  He says Noah's flood, as awful as it was, was just a shadow.
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  A. Mere image of the real thing.
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  Why a shadow? Because it only killed the body.
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  The deluge of fire kills the soul and it does so eternally.
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  He uses this phrase billows of fire and brimstone.
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  Wow. He wants you to picture the
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  ocean waves that drown the old world but turn them into liquid
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  fire, rolling over the soul, not for 40 days, but for all of
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  eternity with no rest, day or night.
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  And he emphasizes the suddenness of it all.
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  Yes, it comes like like a thief. It comes in the world of
• 18:46
  shouting, peace and safety. It steals in.
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  This brings us to the most critical logistical detail in
• 18:51
  the entire sermon the door. The door is everything.
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  It's the binary mechanism of salvation.
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  It is either open or it is shut. There is no in between.
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  Edwards takes us back to the timeline.
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  There was 120 years of preaching and building.
• 19:04
  That's the long era of grace. The doors wide open that whole
• 19:07
  time. Then the construction finishes,
• 19:09
  the animals go in, the food is loaded and the door is still
• 19:13
  open. It's a gaping hole in the side
• 19:15
  of this massive ship. Anyone could have walked in.
• 19:18
  The invitation was standing. Anyone.
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  But then Genesis 7.16 happens and the Lord shut him in.
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  Note the agency there. Noah did not close the door.
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  Noah could not close the door. It was likely a massive multi
• 19:33
  ton structure designed to be sealed against the pressures of
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  the deep. God, shut it.
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  And once God shuts the door, no man opens it.
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  That is the moment of absolute finality, Edwards then
• 19:44
  speculates. And it's just vivid, harrowing
• 19:46
  speculation about the scene outside that door 5 minutes
• 19:49
  after it shut. The rain starts.
• 19:51
  The rain starts. The fountains of the Great Deep
• 19:53
  break open from the water rises faster than anyone could
• 19:56
  imagine. And the neighbors run to the
• 19:58
  ark. These are the people who knew
• 19:59
  Noah his whole life, Maybe the guys who sold him the Gopher
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  wood. Maybe the Workman who built the
• 20:04
  very frame they're now pounding on.
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  And they're screaming open to us.
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  We helped you. We're your neighbors.
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  Let us in. We apologize, you were right all
• 20:11
  along. And inside.
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  Silence. Or at least in action.
• 20:15
  Noah can't open what God is sealed.
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  His hands are tied. And Edwards applies this to the
• 20:20
  listener with just chilling precision.
• 20:24
  He says there is a day of grace for every single person, but
• 20:29
  that day has a sunset. There are last knocks of the
• 20:32
  Spirit on the door of your heart.
• 20:34
  There is a final time the gospel will sound truly compelling to
• 20:38
  you. A last call.
• 20:39
  And if you ignore it, the door shuts.
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  And after that you can cry Lord Lord all you want, but the only
• 20:44
  answer will be the sound of the rising waters.
• 20:46
  It's an absolute terrifying application.
• 20:48
  It is, but Edwards isn't done. He has one more argument, and
• 20:52
  it's almost an insult. He uses nature to rebuke
• 20:54
  humanity. He basically calls us stupider
• 20:57
  than animals. He does.
• 20:58
  It's the argument from lesser creatures.
• 21:00
  He starts with this amazing auditory metaphor of the hammer
• 21:03
  and the axe. I love this image.
• 21:04
  For 120 years, the sound of the construction site Thwack Thwack
• 21:09
  echoed across the valley. It was a Sonic sermon.
• 21:12
  It was a constant audible warning.
• 21:14
  Every single blow of the hammer was a warning.
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  Judgement is coming. Judgement is coming.
• 21:20
  Prepare. And Edward says to the listener,
• 21:23
  every sermon you hear, every Bible verse you read, every pang
• 21:26
  of conscience you feel is that hammer.
• 21:29
  It is the sound of God signaling that the ark is being prepared
• 21:33
  and the storm is approaching. It's the sound of grace still at
• 21:36
  work. But we ignore the hammer, the
• 21:38
  animals, however. The animals did not.
• 21:41
  This is where he just humiliates human pride.
• 21:44
  He points out that the Ox knows his owner, the swallow and the
• 21:47
  Snork know when to migrate to avoid the killing frost of
• 21:50
  winter. The Ant knows to store food for
• 21:53
  the future famine. Even common beasts seek shelter
• 21:56
  when they see a storm brewing. They see the sky turn green and
• 21:59
  they head for cover. It's instinct.
• 22:01
  They have a survival instinct. A God-given one.
• 22:03
  But humans, the rational creature, Edwards says.
• 22:06
  We act with brutish madness. We see the signs of death all
• 22:09
  around us. We see the fragility of life.
• 22:10
  We hear the warnings of scripture.
• 22:12
  And yet we stand outside expose mocking the weather report.
• 22:16
  He brings up Balaam's donkey. The classic example, the donkey
• 22:19
  saw the Angel of the Lord standing in the path with a
• 22:22
  drawn sword, and it stopped. It refused to go forward into
• 22:25
  certain death. But the prophet, the spiritual
• 22:28
  man, couldn't see it, and he tried to beat the donkey into
• 22:32
  moving forward. The beast had more spiritual
• 22:35
  perception and more self preservation than the man of
• 22:37
  God. It's a shocking reversal.
• 22:39
  In the birds of Noah's day. Think about it. 2 by 2, the
• 22:43
  animals lined up. They weren't coerced.
• 22:46
  They weren't tricked. Guided by instinct or a direct
• 22:49
  divine compulsion, they marched into the safety of the ark.
• 22:53
  And the humans watched them go in and stayed outside.
• 22:55
  They watched the birds and the beasts seek shelter, and they
• 22:58
  laughed. And Edwards concludes that this
• 23:01
  proves the Sinner is more foolish than the brute.
• 23:04
  If you are not seeking salvation with everything you have, you
• 23:07
  have less self preservation instinct than a Sparrow fleeing
• 23:10
  a hawk. It's a devastating argument.
• 23:12
  It is. It's meant to be.
• 23:13
  So we have the dimensions of the ark.
• 23:15
  The theology is strenuous labor, the terror of the flood, and the
• 23:18
  rebuke of the animals. How do we land this plane?
• 23:23
  What is the take away for the guy driving to work listening to
• 23:26
  this right now. We have to land where Edwards
• 23:28
  lands. It is a call to count the cost.
• 23:30
  Luke 14. Exactly.
• 23:32
  Edwards essentially says stop playing games.
• 23:35
  Stop trying to have it both ways.
• 23:37
  If you want the world, then take the world.
• 23:39
  Eat, drink and be merry, but be honest with yourself about the
• 23:43
  price. Realize the cost is that you
• 23:45
  will drown. He actually says conclude to go
• 23:48
  to hell in that way, just be decided about it.
• 23:51
  It's a binary choice. There is no middle ground.
• 23:53
  You cannot have the world in the ark.
• 23:55
  You have to choose. If you want salvation, then you
• 23:58
  must realize it is a great undertaking.
• 24:00
  It will cost you. It will cost you your pride,
• 24:02
  your favorite sins, your reputation with the world, and
• 24:05
  your love of ease. It requires selling all.
• 24:08
  It strips away the illusion of casual Christianity, doesn't it?
• 24:12
  You look at that massive 550 foot structure that took 120
• 24:15
  years to build and you realize you are either on the boat or
• 24:20
  you were in the water. There is no standing on the dock
• 24:23
  hoping for the best and the dock is about to be underwater.
• 24:26
  I want to leave you with a final thought to Mull over.
• 24:29
  We talked about the silence inside the ark.
• 24:31
  Imagine that moment when God shuts the door.
• 24:35
  The noise of the critics, the mockery of the world.
• 24:37
  It's all cut off instantly. All that is left inside is the
• 24:42
  safety of God's provision and maybe the sound of the rain
• 24:44
  starting on the roof. But outside the noise was just
• 24:48
  beginning. The screaming, the pounding, the
• 24:50
  rising roar of the waters. And eventually, of course, that
• 24:53
  noise was silenced too. If you're listening to this and
• 24:55
  you can still hear the hammer blows of this discussion, if you
• 24:59
  feel that tension, that warning in your soul, that means the
• 25:02
  door is still open. The hammer is still swinging.
• 25:05
  But, as Edward so powerfully reminds us, we do not know for
• 25:09
  how long. Do not wait for the rain to
• 25:11
  start. Thanks for diving deep with us.
• 25:14
  This has been reformed thinking. Goodbye.