I invite you to take a Bible and turn with me to Romans chapter 9 verse 30 and we'll read from 9.

9.30 to chapter 10, verse 4, in order to set the stage and provide the

foundation and authority for these comments on preaching with zeal that accords with knowledge.

Romans 930.

Before I read it, let me just make a link with yesterday's talk about worship and preaching.

Perhaps the most salient thing about that message in my mind was these two ways that God means to be glorified, one by being

known truly and the other by being valued duly.

There is a right conception of God, and there is a right affection for God, and the affection accords with the conception.

And to the degree that the conception and contours of God are biblical and clear and accurate according to his infinite reality, those

affection should be enlarged to fit that, which means they should be very large. Any affections that are

small are either owing to the fact that you don't have a right conception of God or there's

something in your framework that is so broken and out of sync that you are only giving God

half the worship he deserves by thinking rightly about him, but not feeling rightly toward him.

Jonathan Edwards, who said something that is mind-boggling and yet I think accurate he said I

count it to be my duty to lift the affections of my hearers as high as I can possibly lift them,

provided that I lift them only with truth and that the affections are proportionate to the nature of the truth with which they are lifted.

So if the truth is a horrid truth like hell, the affections would be horrid affections like fear.

And if the truth is glorious truth like heaven or like Christ crucified and risen, then the affections would

be glorious affections like joy and gratitude and a thrill of exultation to have seen and known and be loved by such

a God.

So that was yesterday,

there is a form of communication that accords with worship made up of those two realities.

...