Certainty

On New Year’s Day 2020, New South Wales and Victoria jumped north by 5.9 feet. No, you did not miss an earthquake. The change is being made to fix a 5.9 foot inaccuracy that has crept into the GPS coordinates, caused by Australia slowly drifting north. Australian GPS was last updated in 1994, and the entire country has moved nearly six feet since then.

Australia sits atop one of the fastest-moving tectonic plates in the world. It moves about 2.5 inches north-east every year. “That’s about the speed your hair or fingernails grow,” says NSW Surveyor General Narelle Underwood.

In the days of paper maps that tectonic drift did not pose a real problem. That meant Australia could get away with the slight inaccuracy that has crept in since the coordinates were last set in 1994. But paper maps have gone the way of the dinosaurs; we use GPS now. And GPS notices. That's because GPS satellites precisely locate you on the surface of the Earth. Effectively the coordinate you have from your GPS has already moved 5.9 feet.

Add in the inaccuracy of GPS itself – it is accurate to about 16 feet – and that explains why you can sometimes open Google Maps and discover yourself trapped inside a building or drowning in a lake.

The project is handy for the average person, but its real value is in the future. Driverless cars, for example, need precise GPS data to know which lane they are in, and driverless tractors need to be able to get right up to the fence line without plowing it down.

Possible Preaching Angle: Everything on earth changes, including the mighty continents. But for believers there are three crucial foundational things that will never change: God doesn't change, His Word doesn't change, and His promises do not change. These are settled forever in the heavens.

For the past five years, one of the most searched terms on Google has been “hope.” It has outpaced searches for political upheavals, technological breakthroughs, and even the ever-popular “how to make money online.” If Google is the oracle of our collective consciousness, then we’re not just looking for the best oat milk latte near us—we’re looking for something deeper.

But what does it mean? Are people feeling more hopeful or are they…frantically grasping for it? The data doesn’t tell us whether we’re inspired or empty-handed, only that we’re looking….for meaning in a crisis-ridden age

The past few years haven’t exactly been a breeding ground for unbridled optimism. If anything, they’ve felt like a slow-motion apocalypse set to a TikTok soundtrack. Climate anxiety? Check. Economic uncertainty? Check. Social media-fueled existential dread? Triple check. And yet, through it all, people have consistently typed “hope” into a search bar like it was a lifeline.

Historically, searches for spiritual and existential concepts tend to spike in moments of crisis. In 2008, “prayer” surged during the financial collapse. In March 2020, “faith” trended as the world collectively realized we had no idea what we were doing. People look for meaning when the world stops making sense.

But the ongoing years-long trend of searching for hope suggests something different. This isn’t just a reaction to one specific disaster. It’s a constant, underlying hum of uncertainty—a long-term condition rather than a momentary outcry. Right now, the story seems more like…a desire for something bigger, steadier, and more trustworthy than the shifting realities of modern life.

Clinical psychologist Jenny Taitz writes, “I see so many clients who don’t have the ability to wait, and it is no wonder. In a world where it is possible to get the answer to any question instantly with Google and to order coffee for immediate pickup on an app, why should any of us have to deal with delays and unknowns?”

Unfortunately, for many of us, the challenge is that being patient now feels harder than ever before. A 2023 study involving more than 28,000 adults and adolescents found that the average person’s mood got steadily worse every minute they sat doing nothing. Waiting patiently is so difficult that we often react by doing things that actually make us more impatient, like constantly checking our phones for updates or seeking reassurance from everyone we know.

Michael Dugas, another psychologist in the same article notes, “Technology creates the illusion that certainty is possible, which leads to trying to attain certainty in all situations, contributing to worry and anxiety.” When a loved one doesn’t pick up the phone, we track their location instead of waiting for them to call back. When an email doesn’t get a prompt response, we can find out precisely when it was opened. Such behavior only adds to our worry and anxiety.

Admiral William H. McRaven writes about what he learned during Navy SEAL training that has helped him and could help anyone live a better life. Hope. He said:

Hope is the most powerful force in the universe. With hope you can inspire nations to greatness. With hope you can raise up the downtrodden. With hope you can ease the pain of unbearable loss. Sometimes all it takes is one person to make a difference.

We will all find ourselves neck dep in mud someday. That is the time to sing loudly, to smile broadly, to lift up those around you and give them hope that tomorrow will be a better day.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Hope truly is a powerful force and yet “living hope” goes beyond what is satisfying in life because it is based on the resurrection of Jesus. Our hope is living because Jesus is alive.

The moment we’ve all breathlessly waited for is finally here: Dictionaries are announcing their words of the year. In December, the US’s most esteemed lexicon, Merriam-Webster, revealed its choice: “authentic.”

In its announcement, the dictionary said the word had seen a big jump in searches this year, thanks to discussions “about AI, celebrity culture, identity, and social media.” The concept of authenticity sits at the intersection of what’s been on our collective minds.

Large language models like ChatGPT and image generators like Dall-E have left us uncertain about what’s genuine, from student essays to the pope’s fashion choices. When it comes to the news, online mis- and disinformation, along with armies of bots, have us operating under different sets of facts.

Sure enough, other leading dictionaries’ words of the year are remarkably similar. Cambridge chose “hallucinate,” focusing its announcement on generative AI: “It’s capable of producing false information – hallucinations – and presenting this information as fact.” Collins didn’t beat around the bush: its word of the year is “AI.”

In a polarized world, the dictionaries’ solidarity suggests there’s something we can all agree on: robots are terrifying. AI is an obsession that seems to cross generations. Whether you’re a boomer or Gen Z, OpenAI feels like a sign of change far beyond NFTs, the metaverse, and all the other fads we were told would transform humanity.

Social media feeds have become carefully curated extensions of ourselves—like little aspirational art projects. As Merriam-Webster points out, authenticity itself has become a performance. In other words, we’re getting very good at pretending to be real.

Only half of Americans now say they are sure God exists according to the General Social Survey, conducted by NORC, the research arm of the University of Chicago. Religious scholars consider NORC the gold standard of surveys on faith.

According to this 2022 survey, 50% of Americans say they’re unsure God is real; just under 50% say they’re positive God exists; and 34% say they never go to church—the highest level in 50 years. It’s still about a fifty-fifty world out there; but it’s tipping toward uncertainty.

If you look at years past, in comparison with years present, it seems America is hurtling toward secularism. In 2008, for example, 60% of those responding to this General Social Survey expressed certainty in the existence of God. At that rate—of 10% drops in belief in God every 15 years—all of America will be non-believing by the dawn of the next century.

Ryan Burge, is a political scientist at Eastern Illinois University who studies faith. He wrote that mainline Protestantism, the backbone of faith in many American communities, is “collapsing.” Since the 1970s, the share of Americans who identify with Protestant denominations has declined from nearly 1 in 3 to around 1 in 10.

Physicist Sabine Hossenfelder is a research fellow at the Franklin Institute for Advanced Studies in Germany. Her YouTube channel has over 550,000 subscribers. She admits she cringes when scientists like the late Stephen Hawking, and many others, make numerous unsubstantiated pronouncements like “there is no possibility of a creator.” She is uncomfortable with “overconfident proclamations” like widely held beliefs on the origin of the universe, the existence of other universes, and other unverifiable beliefs.

Hossenfelder wants scientists to be:

… mindful of the limits of their discipline. Sometimes the only scientific answer we can give is “We don't know.” It therefore seems likely to me that, in our ongoing process of knowledge discovery, religion and science will continue to co-exist for a very long time. That's because science itself is limited, and where science ends, we seek other modes of explanation.

(Some) of these limits stem from the specific math we currently use (which, for example, requires initial conditions or indeterministic jumps), and they may be overcome as physics advances further. But some limits seem insurmountable to me. Eventually, I think, we will have to accept some facts about our universe without scientific explanation, if only because the scientific method can't justify itself. We may observe that the scientific method works, conclude that it's to our advantage to continue using it, but still never know why it works.

The opening lines of a recent article in INews reads: “Those of us without traditional religion are left to make our peace with uncertainty. ... There’s nothing comforting about being agnostic.” In the article, Eleanor Margolis laments her agnosticism and muses about the benefits of faith.

It was in February, and while Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine, that I started to wonder if it was time to find God. Definite God, that is. Not the half-hearted agnostic one built on a Jenga tower of uncertainty. The addition of a heightened nuclear threat from Putin made me desperate for a vengeful Old Testament God. Someone (to) smite the warmongers and oligarchs, the evil ones “know not what they do.” When nothing is left of civilization but the cockroaches.

The last time I felt so envious of religious people was when my mum was dying of cancer. Certainty about an afterlife sure would’ve come in handy then. And prayer might have created the illusion that I had some power over the situation. Instead, I was treated to the spiritual equivalent of the shrug emoji. I became a devout follower of one true religion of the 21st century: uncertainty. Those of us without traditional religion are left to make our peace with uncertainty.

Wrongly applied, science itself can become a religion, and the scientific method a Bible. In But What If We're Wrong?, Chuck Klosterman addresses the possibility that the greatest certainties might one day be disproven. At one point, he sites previous "certainties" about dinosaurs as an example. They were once known to be cold-blooded like reptiles. But now it is a “fact” that they were warm-blooded like birds. Such reversals are a regular occurrence as the scientific community refines what is known. Klosterman explains how these changes affect how we feel about the new certainties:

Yet these kinds of continual reversals don’t impact the way we think about paleontology. Such a reversal doesn’t impact the way we think about anything. If any scientific concept changes five times in five decades, the perception is that we’re simply refining what we thought we knew before, and every iteration is just a “more correct” depiction of what was previously considered “totally correct.” In essence, we anchor our sense of objective reality in science itself—its laws and methods and sagacity … But what if we’re really wrong, about something really big?

Klosterman concludes by addressing the possibility that some of today’s scientific ideas might be proven false. How would it change the view of the universe? He said, “Philosophically, as a species, we are committed to this. In the same way that religion defined cultural existence in the pre-Copernican age, the edge of science defines the existence we occupy today.” But what if he's wrong?

Author Thomas Friedman writes of the rapid changes society has experienced:

If [a 1971] VW Beetle had undergone as many changes to its power and speed as has occurred to computer microchips, today that Beetle would be able to go about three hundred thousand miles per hour. It would get two million miles per gallon of gas, and it would cost four cents! Intel engineers also estimated that if automobile fuel efficiency improved at the same rate as [microchips], you could, roughly speaking, drive a car your whole life on one tank of gasoline.

Possible Preaching Angle:

In a world that's changing as rapidly and as unpredictably as our own, it's reassuring to know that God and His word remain the same from generation to generation.

Timothy Keller in his sermon: “Jesus Vindicated: The Resurrection Makes the Future Certain, Personal, and Unimaginable”:

We should be more sympathetic to our skeptical friends. The resurrection makes Christianity the most irritating religion on the face of the earth, and the reason is because how do people decide what they believe? They decide what they believe by reading it and saying I like it or I don't like it. Over the years I've had so many people say, "Well, I could never be a Christian." I say, "Why?" "Well, there are parts of the Bible I find offensive." I remember years ago it had to do with money. In my little church in Virginia, people were often offended by what the Bible said about money. Today in New York they are much more offended by what the Bible says about sex.

I usually say, "Let me ask you a question: Are you saying because there are parts of the Bible that you don't like, that Jesus Christ couldn't have been raised from the dead?" They say, "Well, no, I guess I'm not saying that." I said, "Well, every part of the Bible is important, but would you please put the ethical teaching aside for a minute, and here's the point: If Jesus was raised from the dead, you're going to have to deal with everything in the Bible. If Jesus wasn't raised from the dead, I don't know why you're vexing yourself over that. But the fact of the matter is Paul was more offended by Christianity than you. He was killing Christians, and we don't advise that. But when he realized Jesus had been raised, it didn't matter what offended him anymore. It didn't matter, because it was true." And we have to keep that in mind. The resurrection is a paradigm-shattering historical event.

Jesus’ resurrection either happened or it didn't. It is objective reality; and so it cannot be true for one person and false for another. To prove this point, Sean McDowell related the following experiment:

I placed a jar of marbles in front of my students and asked, "How many marbles are in the jar?" They responded with different guesses: 221, 168, and so on. Then after giving them the correct number of 188, I asked, "Which of you is closest to being right?" While they all agreed that 168 was the closest guess, they understood and agreed that the number of marbles was a matter of objective fact and not one determined by personal preference.

Then I passed out Starburst candies to each student and asked, "Which flavor is right?" As you might expect, they all felt this to be a nonsense question because each person had a preference that was right for them. "That is correct," I concluded. "The right flavor has to do with a person's preferences. It is a matter of subjective opinion or personal preference, not objective fact.”

Then I asked, “Are religious claims objective facts, like the number of marbles in a jar, or are they only a matter of personal opinion, like one's candy preference?" Most students concluded that religious claims belonged in the category of candy preference. I then opened the door for us to discuss the objective claims of Christianity. I pointed out that Christianity is based on an objective historical fact—the resurrection of Jesus. I reminded them that while many people may reject the historical resurrection of Jesus, it is not the type of claim that can be "true for you, but not true for me.” The tomb was either empty on the third day, or it was occupied—there is no middle ground. Before anyone can grasp the transforming power of the resurrection of Jesus, he or she must realize that it is a matter of objective fact, not of personal preference.

Humans seek after hope like moths seek after light. It’s intrinsic to who we are. Neuroscientists Tali Sharot argues hope is so essential to our survival that it is hardwired into our brains, arguing it can be the difference between living a healthier life versus one trapped by despair.

• Studies show hopeful college kids get higher GPA’s and are more likely to graduate.

• Hopeful athletes perform better on the field, cope better with injuries, and have greater mental adjustment when situations change.

• In one study of the elderly, those who said they felt hopeless were more than twice as likely to die during the study follow-up period than those who were more hopeful.

It’s pretty clear: hope is powerfully catalytic, and why Dr. Shane Lopez, the psychologist who was regarded as the world’s leading researcher on hope, claimed that hope isn’t just an emotion but an essential life tool.

On a September afternoon in 1870, a party of nine explorers, eight army escorts, and two cooks made its way by horseback along the Firehole River in an untamed corner of Wyoming. Their task was to explore the mountains and valleys of an ancient volcano crater, an area known for geothermal activity. Nathaniel P. Langford, a member of the expedition, later recalled what met their gaze that September day:

Judge, then, what must have been our astonishment, as we entered the basin at mid-afternoon of our second day's travel, to see in the clear sunlight, at no great distance, an immense volume of clear, sparkling water projected into the air to the height of 125 feet. "Geysers! Geysers!" exclaimed one of our company, and, spurring our jaded horses, we soon gathered around this wonderful [sight]. It was indeed a perfect geyser … It spouted at regular intervals nine times during our stay, the columns of boiling water being thrown from 90 to 125 feet at discharge, which lasted from 15 to 20 minutes. We gave it the name of "Old Faithful."

Old Faithful in Yellowstone National Park earned its name for the predictability of its eruptions. It's still predictable today. In Langford's day, the only way to witness Old Faithful was to travel to Wyoming, a trip requiring expense, difficulty, time, and danger. But today anyone with Internet access can watch the geyser erupt in real time.

Editor's Note: This is a very long illustration, so here are two suggestions: First, you could use the opening and closing quotes from Dr. Swamidass' testimony. Or, second, you can use the opening and closing quote and then select three or four of his most compelling points to back up his belief in the Resurrection of Jesus.

Dr. S. Joshua Swamidass M.D. PhD, is a physician, scientist, and Assistant Professor of Laboratory and Genomic Medicine at Washington University in Saint Louis. He wrote of his convictions as a scientist and a Christian:

I am a scientist. Still, on Easter, I celebrate that Jesus rose from the dead about 2,000 years ago. This event, in first-century Palestine, is the cornerstone of everything. In the same way that trust-like faith in science is connected to evidence, so is the faith I have in the Resurrection.

What is the evidence from which grew my trust? A brief and incomplete outline is included here. This evidence is not an answer, but it raises the question. All we need is curiosity.

1. Without the physical Resurrection, two thousand years of history are left begging for explanation, like a movie missing a key scene. No other event in all recorded history has reached so far across national, ethnic, religious, linguistic, cultural, political, and geographic borders. The message spread with unreasonable success across the world. During just the first few centuries, it spread without political or military power, prevailing against the ruthless efforts of dedicated, organized and violent opposition. How did a small band of disempowered Jews in an occupied and insignificant territory of ancient Rome accomplish this unequaled act? What happened so many years ago that reframed all human history?
2. With dates established by radiometric analysis, prophecies from centuries before Jesus' birth predict his life, death, and resurrection. These prophecies include specific details that Jesus and His followers could not control. For example, before the Romans invented crucifixion, Psalms 22:16 described the piercing of Jesus' hands and feet. Is this evidence of an Intelligence outside our time confirming Jesus' authority?
3. Jesus was a real person in history who died. Several manuscripts from multiple sources, including Jewish historians, describe a man named Jesus who lived and was executed.
4. The early accounts of the Resurrection and prophecies predicting it were reliably transmitted through history. As of 2014, more than 66,000 early manuscripts are known, orders of magnitude more than other ancient texts. We see accounts nearly unaltered in the earliest manuscripts. A pattern of consistency emerges. There are variations in the manuscripts, but nothing invalidates the reliability of the Resurrection accounts.
5. Accounts of the Resurrection include inconvenient and unflattering details, that make most sense as attempts to reliably record what had happened, free from embellishment. They do not fit expectations of a fabricated account. For example, women are the first witnesses of the Resurrection. In a culture that did not admit the testimony of a woman as valid evidence in court, this detail is surprising. Likewise, all the disciples, the leaders of the early Church, flee as cowards when Jesus is taken.
6. After Jesus' violent death, His followers were frightened and scattered. Then, something happened that grew a strong, bold, and confident belief that resisted sustained, murderous opposition. Unlike other movements with executed leaders, once they came back together they did not replace Jesus with one of his family members. Their resistance was entirely non-violent and devoid of political power. Yet they were all suddenly willing to die for what they saw. What changed them? Why was there not evidence at the time to undermine their belief? What convinced them that Jesus was inconceivably greater than his family?
7. More than just a fact about our past, the Resurrection creates a connection to God that is perceived by people from all times, cultures, socioeconomic statuses, personalities, and metal capacities, across the last 2,000 years of history. Its reach includes some of the most famous scientists: Blaise Pascal, Johann Kepler, Robert Boyle, Gregor Mendel, Asa Gray, Michael Faraday, James Maxwell, Santiago Ram"n y Cajal, and Francis Collins. Is this unmatched reach and influence a sign of a living God working His purpose in history?

Dr. Swamidass concludes:

The question of the Resurrection is more like an opportunity to fall in love than a scientific inquiry. There is evidence, but the Resurrection cannot be studied dispassionately. If Jesus really rose from the dead, it reorders everything. Just like falling in love, it changes our view of the world.

The final verdict, for me, is that the Resurrection makes sense through the lens of history. I find the Creator of all that science studies comes to us in this way. The evidence is compelling, but not definitive. Faith in Jesus is reasonable and is certainly not without evidence.

In his book Unbelievable, Justin Brierley writes convincingly that the resurrection is the only adequate explanation for the historical evidence found in the Gospels:

Mike Licona and Bart Ehrman are both New Testament scholars who have very different takes on the resurrection of Jesus. Ehrman let go of his Christian faith after encountering perceived problems with the New Testament. Mike Licona had a similar crisis of faith in the early years of his academic career when his study of the New Testament didn't match what he had been taught about it while growing up. However, whereas Ehrman's study led him away from Christianity, Licona's research convinced him that the resurrection was the only adequate explanation for the historical evidence he found in the Gospels.

Other pieces of the puzzle fell into place as Licona began to appreciate how the New Testament accounts reflected the literary conventions of their day rather than the modern standards often imposed on them by both Christians and critics. During one of his dialogues with Licona on the show, Ehrman rattled off a list of differences between the Gospel accounts of the resurrection, such as the number of women and the accounts of angels at the empty tomb.

He argued that these differences give reason to doubt the reliability of the resurrection story. Naturally, Licona knows these differences just as well as Ehrman but he didn't find that they count against the overall strength of the account, saying:

It is a bit like the Titanic. There were conflicting accounts from survivors, such as whether the ship broke in half before sinking or whether it went down in its entirety. But no one called into question whether the Titanic sank or not. It was the periphery details that were in question. It is the same thing with the New Testament. They are all peripheral details that have no impact on the fundamental truth of Christianity.

In light of the Super Bowl game, there was a discussion about one crucial word in the game of football that keeps enduring—Hut! An article in The New York Times pondered why this word keeps hanging around:

It is easily the most audible word in any football game, a throaty grunt that may be the sport's most distinguishing sound. Hut!

It starts almost every play, and often one is not enough. And in an increasingly complex game whose signal-calling has evolved into a cacophony of furtive code words—"Black Dirt!" "Big Belly!" "X Wiggle!"—hut, hut, hut endures as the signal to move. But why?

Most football players have no idea why. A pro ball center said, "I guess because it's better than yelling, 'Now,' or 'Go.' Some people have used 'Go' and that's awful. That doesn't sound like football." A former quarterback reckons he shouted "hut" more than 10,000 times during games and practices. "I've been hutting my way through football for 55 years—but I have no clue why."

The article conjectures that "Hut" may come from the military backgrounds of many early pro football players. But that's just a guess.

Possible Preaching Angles: Bible; Doctrine; Doubts; Questions; Interpretation—This is a great way to set up a sermon on any topic of what Christians believe or what the Bible teaches. Perhaps people have been told what to believe without the why or the rationale behind that belief or doctrine.

In his blog, Major Dalton dives deeply into the nature of hope:

Authentic hope is a hard thing to kill. In the heart of the one who knows that outcome is not driven by perception or circumstance, hope may just be immortal.

In the 8th installment of the Star Wars saga, Kylo Ren, son of Han Solo & Princess Leia, has embraced the Dark Side of the force and bowed to the power of a Sith Lord named Snoke. Donned in a black robe and helmet like his grandfather Lord Vader, Ren believes he has crushed the rebellion once and for all. But Snoke knows better.

Returning from an apparent victory for the Dark Side, Ren is chastised by his master. Snoke: "You are no Vader. You're just a child in a mask."
Kylo Ren: "I gave everything I had to you; to the Darkside."
Snoke: "Skywalker lives. The seed of the Jedi lives. As long as he does, hope exists."

Rebellions will live as long as they are led. It is true in the Star Wars universe. It is true in ours as well.

Some people live as though hope is a concept reserved to the "long ago," or relegated to a "galaxy far away." Hate reigns, lies rule, and fear sits as a monarch in the hearts of those who have surrendered to despair. But there is a rebellion subverting hate, lies, and fear. A counter-cultural existence led by a lowly Galilean carpenter. Some believe he died long ago. But he lives! And because he lives, hope exists!

So, the real question is not; "Is there hope?" There is hope in the universe! We only have to ask; "Is there hope in what we are presently trusting?"

Bill Gates, the personal computing pioneer and billionaire co-founder of Microsoft, said in an interview that he regrets the decision to make the keyboard combination "Control-Alt-Delete" central on Windows computers. The key combination served as a command both to log in to a computer and force it to quit if it froze up. It was a confusing task for first-time users, and for most people would require two hands to execute.

"If I could make one small edit, I'd make that a single key," said Gates at the Bloomberg Global Business Forum in New York. He had made a similar statement back in 2013 at a Harvard University event. "We could have had a single button. But the guy who did the IBM keyboard design didn't want to give us our single button." Apple's Mac computer have always logged in with a single click. Yet, Gates also conceded, "I'm not sure you can go back and change small things in your life without putting the other things at risk."

Potential Preaching Angles: While the co-founder of Microsoft may regret some of his design decisions years later (even some of the most iconic in the era of personal computing), we can rest assured that God has not and will not ever second guess his design of creation. Each and every one of God's children is fearfully and wonderfully made-and they will remain that way.

As the NBA gears up for the playoffs (right on the heels of college basketball's March Madness), there was an interesting article about one thing about basketball that hasn't changed since James Naismith invented the game in 1891—the floor of a basketball court. The first game was played on a floor of hard maple. According to an article in The Guardian, "Maple flooring is harder than red oak, black walnut, or cherry flooring, and its tight grain made it easier to clean and maintain. … The maple floor also turned out to be the perfect surface for dribbling a basketball."

So it is no surprise that "the NCAA said the official courts for both the men's and women's Final Fours were made of 500 trees of northern maple carefully harvested from the Two-Hearted River Forest Reserve in Michigan's Upper Peninsula."

And the NBA follows suit. All of the courts "but one NBA team are composed of hard maple; the Boston Celtics, who play on a red-oak parquet floor, are the exceptions. Hard maple offers the most consistent playing surface, but it also provides 'bounce-back,' or shock resistance, to lessen fatigue on players' knees and ankles."

Possible Preaching Angles: Some things have lasting value, even infinitely beyond maple floors—like God's Word, or the glory of God.