Thanks for having us. We're just really delighted, the opportunity to be here. I sort of thought, well, I just come from South Africa, do a couple of quick weeks in Athabasca and sneak back to South Africa, but word got out that I was coming, so. Here I am. And it's great to be with you. I wasn't actually planning on sneaking away. I had lunch with Pastor Nate. He was on my list of people to see while I was in town. And he graciously invited me to come and share with you. So I thought, hey, why not? What a great opportunity to connect with one of our supporting churches, and so we're grateful for your consistent financial support, for your prayers for us, most of all. That is such a help to us. Just to know, somewhere in Alberta, there's people praying for us, and we can count on that. That gives us, it helps us continue to do what God has said before us to do in South Africa. So I wanted to show just a few pictures. What's interesting is I don't actually have any pictures of my grandson. I said to Janet, that was foolish. Why didn't I put a picture of my grandson up there? But if you see me after, I have lots. So I'm happy to show you our new grandson. He was born on January the 15th up in Athabasca. Our son's been living in Athabasca for a couple of years now. Married a missionary girl from Brazil. She grew up in Brazil. was living in Florida when they got married, and they drove from Florida to Athabasca for their honeymoon. What a honeymoon. And they've been there ever since. She's just flying out now, actually. So it was quite a trip for her. So you can pray for them, Caleb and Julia. And the grandson's name is Raymond, Raymond Victor. So Raymond was her grandfather. Victor is my grandfather. So my grandfather and grandmother on my mother's side are still alive. So there's five generations now alive on my side of the family. So that's kind of cool that my grandson has great, great grandparents still alive. Kind of makes me feel like Methuselah, but anyway. That's great. So here are just a couple of photos. Just a picture to show you how beautiful the place is we live. I don't know what you think of when you think about Africa. If you've ever been, you probably know what it looks like. But a lot of Westerners, a lot of people from Canada, when they think about Africa, they think, oh, yeah, jungles and big savanna plains and deserts and people with bones in their hair jumping around the fire and cooking people in pots and all that kind of stuff. Well, that's not what it looks like at all, all right? So I want to dispel that notion from your mind. This is our town, the town of Nizna. It's right on the Indian Ocean. There's a lovely little marina right downtown. We can walk along and enjoy the view. And if you'll come and visit us, Pastor Nate and his wife came, but they came by themselves last time. So next time they come, they must bring more people. Hopefully, you'll be able to join us, see one of the lovely sunsets over the lagoon there at the Knysna Keys. It's a really beautiful place that God has given to us to minister, and we're grateful for that. But we're not really there for the view, we're there for the people. And this is a picture of our teen boys Bible study on Friday afternoons at 3.30. We gather about 20, 25 teenage boys up in the location. That's what we call the black township. We call it the location. And they gather at my father's house, Baptist Church, and we study the word together. We have some activities, some food, and it's really been a great blessing to our ministry. We've seen boys come to Christ through the Bible study. We've seen some of these young men baptized and added to the church. Some of them have graduated and moved on now, so we're facing a whole bunch of fresh faces. But if you could pray for the Teen Boys Bible Study, I know they would appreciate your prayers. We also do youth activities. Lots of young people. South Africa is a very young nation. And so there are young people everywhere. And like most teenagers, they're just looking for something to do. They want to hang out. Let's get together. Let's do something. So we have youth activities once a month. This was one of our co-workers opened their home and did a chopped competition, you know, a cooking Competition, I think it was on TV for a while. Anyway, it was kind of interesting. All the kids cooking over the stove. They're given a box of ingredients and had to create a dish. I went home hungry that night because there was no way I was eating what they made. But I just gave them full marks for presentation, but I didn't want to taste it. Thanks. But it was a good time. We do things like that with the youth once a month, share the gospel with them, and the youth ministry is really thriving. This is just another picture of the youth ministry after a day camp that we held at one of our co-workers' homes. The youth group, this is at my house over my dining room table. Some of my son's buddies from high school, probably a birthday party. We always had the guys over for a birthday party. We'd grill some meat outside. South Africans take a great deal of pride in grilling meat over the open fire. So you have to light the wood and let it burn down to coals and then rake the coals under the grill and then sit the meat on. And it takes hours, this process. But it's a real social occasion, and people love to sit and talk and visit while the fire is getting ready. And so we do this often with the boys from Noah's classmates and some of his friends. So we're going to miss that now that Noah has moved back to Canada. This is another picture of Noah. I include these pictures of Noah because Noah really was a critical part of our ministry. We have four kids, our oldest son moved back to Athabasca about 18 months after we'd been in Africa. Then our second son moved back about two years after we'd been in South Africa. Then our daughter moved back about four years after we'd been in South Africa. And we just moved our youngest son back to New Brunswick, where he grew up. You can pray for him. He got a job making poutine. In January and he just lost his job in February because there wasn't enough business to keep the Putin Going so he's looking for work again and just pray for him. I think he's a little discouraged by the whole process But he was a great help in South Africa. So he really jumped in, got involved with the young people, and here he is praying with his high school rugby team. Schools are very open in South Africa. They're not public schools. They're not closed to people of faith, and they don't, like, have all these rules. Well, you can't do that, and you can't do that, and you can't say that. And so the coach would say, hey, no, why don't you pray for safety now before we go out on the field? So the boys are all respectful. They kneel and have a word of prayer before they go out and play rugby. They don't play hockey. Well, they play hockey, but it's on a field. So no ice hockey. This is our Rean and Dole Bible study on Tuesday nights at 7 o'clock. We go to the community of Reynondal, about 20 minutes from where we live. And we host a Bible study there for, I don't know, sometimes there's 10 people, sometimes there's 20 people. But Hester Prince-Lew has us come to her house. Sometimes Caroline and Stephen Bikies have us at their house. And we just get together and study the word. It's a real sweet time. Fellowship, no snacks, no coffee, no tea, nothing. We just sit, study the word, and there's lots of kids there. Hester fosters kids in her home, and sometimes she's got two kids. Sometimes it seems like she has 50, but they're sort of all in the living room, and it's a bit chaotic, but we get through the word, and it seems as though people are growing and being helped, so we press on. Pray about the Renendal Bible study. I'd love to see a church planted in Renendal. But the challenge is we're lacking in male leadership, and we really need more men to join the study. And the second problem is I don't speak Afrikaans. So we need a native Afrikaans speaker who can help us establish a beachhead for a church there in Renendal. So if you pray about that, very needy community, poverty, Unemployment, just, it's shocking, in fact, to see. So just pray for the Bible study to reign at all. This is Stephen Bikies, good friend of mine. We meet at his house sometime for the Bible studies. Stephen, if you've been reading my letters, you're aware of Stephen. But he struggled with alcohol for a number of years. But I'm just so grateful to tell you that past eight, nine months, Stephen has not touched alcohol. And his walk with the Lord has rebounded. He's sort of rededicated himself to the Lord. And he's put alcohol away. So we're really encouraged by that. And we're discipling him and encouraging him to grow in his faith. And maybe God will use Stephen someday to help us with that church plant in Renendal. I wanted to share just a couple of interesting experiences, things that happen in Africa that don't happen in Canada. I was driving folks home after church. I have a van, of course, and we drive people back and forth to church. And on the way home from church, this lady, Michelle, who was in the van, she said, oh, Pastor, Pastor, stop. And I said, what, what? She said, I want to buy a chicken. And I was looking around thinking, where are you going to get a chicken? And there, right across the street in those cages, they had a bunch of live chickens, kind of mangy looking things. But anyway, she went over and got a chicken. Here she comes across the street with a chicken. It's alive. And I was thinking, you're not getting in my van with that live chicken, are you? And sure enough, she was getting in the van with the live chicken. So I said, Michelle, I just got to take a picture of this. I mean, there's never been a live chicken in my van before. And I said, I don't mind the live chicken sitting there, but he better not make a mess, if you know what I mean, in this van. No, no, Pastor, no, this is a good chicken. Okay, sure. And the chicken was pretty well behaved until we got to her house. And just before she took the chicken out of the van, there was a big mess in the van. So we got it cleaned up, thankfully, and I no longer carry livestock in my van. But anyway, just one of those unusual experiences. This was a great opportunity. I had an opportunity to speak to about 80 young people from the Strikers Football Club. There's a young lady I've been counseling with some issues in her life. She helps oversee the coaching of the soccer club, and she asked me if I would come speak to the boys, and so I was happy to do so. So I came and spoke to them, and just shared the gospel. Simple message, wasn't long, maybe 10 or 15 minutes, but to just pray for that seed that's been sown. The sower goes forth to sow, right? We sow, others water, but God gives the increase. So just pray for the gospel that was given to these kids. And then this is literally one of the things Janet does is bake. And so people that don't have much money, they can't really afford to have a birthday, but they know it's their birthday. So they'll call us and say, hey, pastor, it's my birthday month. And I'll say, all month? Well, yeah, I was born on the 20th, but it's my birthday month. Don't forget it's my birthday month. And then if we don't sort of say, okay, well, we'll bring a cake, they'll say to us, wouldn't you like to bring me a cake for my birthday? And we say, oh, okay, yeah, we'd love to. So we're constantly delivering birthday cakes to people, celebrating with them, just encouraging them, loving on them a bit, and showing them the love of Christ. So we have a chance to do that. This is Lily. She's at our Renandall Bible study. Christmas caroling, this is the mall in Niza. Every year at Christmas, Christmas is weird in South Africa. It's hot, sunny, everybody's shorts and t-shirts and flip-flops and everybody goes to the beach on Christmas Day. It's very strange. Hard to get used to as a Canadian, but we're trying to embrace it. So they have Christmas caroling every year. All the little communities love that Christmas caroling in the mall. gets us every year to come do a Christmas caroling service. So we sing lots of carols, but we also share the gospel at this service to folks from town who find out about the Christmas caroling. So that's a great opportunity. This is just a picture of our family playing with a young family from the church. We're playing hockey. You see my daughter has a ball hockey stick. I bought those plastic blades in Alberta. Last time I was here, I stuffed them in my backpack and took them back. And I got a local carpenter to make me a blackwood shaft for a hockey stick. I have the only blackwood hockey stick in the world. And I made those hockey sticks so we could show the kids ball hockey, which we did. But then they brought their field hockey sticks, and we played against each other. And the people with the field hockey sticks won, all right? It's hard to play ball hockey on the grass. This is our new church where we're meeting. I say it's not actually our church. It's where our church is meeting. This is actually a garage on the backside of one of our team members' homes. And there was plenty of room in there for us to meet. So we moved in there. We've been meeting in my living room for years. But I had to move because my house was up for sale. I was renting and the owner put it up for sale. I couldn't afford to buy it. we moved and this is where we've ended up as a church, in the garage. Just pray that we would be able to find a place to meet of our own. You guys know what it's like. You've been meeting in this senior center for a long, well, when I first met you, you were meeting in the senior center. So you know what it's like? It's just kind of a little itch. You'd like to have your own place, you know, just to call your own, to set it up how you like and to establish a presence in the community. And really, if I invited you to church and you said, well, where's your church? Well, come with me. You'll see it. It's in a garage. Don't you just want to go? I mean, oh, a garage. Is that so? All right. Nice. You might come once to see what's going on, but maybe you wouldn't come back. So just pray that this year will be the year God will direct us to that property and building that we can use for his Gloria, this is just us standing around fellowshipping outside after our church service is over. So that's the pictures. It's not a ton of photos, but it hopefully just gets you up to date with a few things that are going on in our ministry. I'll be back through Alberta with increasing frequency now that I have a grandchild here. So I'll be able to hopefully keep you more up to date. with what's going on in our ministry. If you haven't signed up for our prayer letter, you don't get that in your inbox, just see me after the service, I'll make sure you get signed up for that. And you get that every couple of months delivered to your inbox. If you signed up for it, but you've never got it, check your junk folder, because that's probably where it is. All right, and we'd love to stay in touch with you that way. All right, let's take the time we have left and just turn our attention to Exodus chapter 34, at least that's where we'll begin. Exodus chapter 34. I think Pastor Nate was one of the first people that came to visit us when we were in South Africa. Wasn't it 2019 you were there? Came to spy out the land. And you did take us on for support after that, so it must have gone well. You must have ate Janet's baking, that's what I figure. So we're grateful for their support and your support and grateful for our chance to share in life and ministry together with you. So in Exodus chapter 34, let me set the scene for you. The children of Israel at the base of Mount Sinai, they've gathered there to receive the law of God. And you remember how it goes at first. There's this mountain and there's a cloud on the top of the mountain and there's thunderings and there's voices and it's really quite an awesome scene. The children of Israel are forbidden from going anywhere near the mountain. They're not allowed to touch it because if they touch the mountain they're going to die. You can read about it but that's not what I want to focus on today. They're at the base of the mountain. God is going to give the law to Moses. You remember Moses gets those Ten Commandments on those tablets of stone, and he's coming down from the mountain, and on his way down from the mountain, he says to Joshua, who sort of went about halfway up, he says, Joshua, I hear something. I don't know what that noise is. Joshua says, why? I think it's the noise of war. Moses says, I don't think so. I recognize that sound. That sounds like the sound of worship. It sounds like the sound of jubilant celebration. I wonder what's going on. And as the people who are at the base of the mountain come into view, Moses sees that they have built a golden calf, and they are worshiping that golden calf. And so Moses, in a fit of anger and rage, throws down the Ten Commandments in righteous indignation. And you remember those Ten Commandments, they shatter. The original Ten Commandments were broken into pieces when Moses threw them down. And so there's the whole story about everything that happens with that golden calf. That's not my intention to review all those details tonight, but now Moses has no law because he broke it. It's all right, kids, even Moses breaks stuff, all right? I mean, I wouldn't say that to your parents. It might sound a little cheeky, but even Moses breaks things. And so God says to Moses, Moses, come back up the mountain. It's time to get more commandments. So Moses goes up the mountain a second time. Moses is probably in his 80s, and he's up and down Mount Sinai at least seven times. If we piece the story in Exodus together, I aspire to be like that someday, 80 years old and mountain climbing. Looking at how I'm doing at 50, I'm probably not going to make it. But in Exodus 34, 29, it says, Moses came down from Mount Sinai. with the two tablets of the testimony in his hand, and as this is the second time now he's gone up to get these tablets, and as he came down from the mountain, Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone because he had been talking with God. Aaron and all the people of Israel saw Moses, and behold, the skin of his face shone. and they were afraid to come near him. But Moses called to them, and Aaron and the leaders of the congregation returned to him, and Moses talked with him. And afterward, all the people of Israel came to hear, and he commanded them all that the Lord had spoken with him in Mount Sinai. And when Moses had finished speaking with them, he put a veil over his face. And whenever Moses went in before the Lord to speak with the Lord, he would remove the veil until he came out. And when he came out and told the people of Israel what was commanded, the people of Israel would see the face of Moses, that the skin of Moses' face was shining, and Moses would put the veil over his face again until he went in to speak with the Lord. That's kind of interesting, isn't it? I mean, really, what would it be like to be in the presence of God for so long and in such a manner that your face was actually shining? You say, yeah, well, tell us, what would it be like? I don't know. I've never done this that Moses had done. I mean, I've heard of a pregnancy glow before, but this isn't that. So his face was literally shining, having been in the presence of God. But he would put this veil over his face when he talked to the people. Now, if you're in the habit of reading through the Bible once a year, you might be, what is it now, February, you might have already made it through this passage. So you could be forgiven if by the time you got to 2 Corinthians chapter 3, you had forgotten about the story in Exodus chapter 34. Because in 2 Corinthians 3, the Apostle Paul is going to criticize Moses, which seems like a very dangerous thing to do for a Jew, but he's going to criticize Moses for what He does when He comes down off the mountain by veiling His face. Let me turn your attention to 2 Corinthians 3. It's where we'll spend the rest of our time this evening. Let's look in verse 7 and see if we can set the context for this passage, and then we'll link the two of them together. 2 Corinthians 3, verse 7. Now, if the ministry of death carved in letters on stone, you say, well, what is that? The ministry of death carved in letters on stone? That's the Ten Commandments. But the ministry of death? Why is Paul calling the Old Testament law the ministry of death? Seems like an awful thing to say about God's law. Well, because here's precisely the point. If you set yourself up under the old covenant system and you decide that your way to righteousness with God is going to be by keeping all of those Old Testament law, you are going to die trying to fulfill all those laws because you will not be able to do it. Your own sinful heart will keep you from being able to fully and completely fulfill all the laws of God. And so really, the law becomes death to you. It condemns you. It sits in judgment on you and it says, you cannot keep this so you must die. It's like just about any law that has a punishment attached to it, isn't it? If you speed on the road that goes behind Beaumont, you know this story, I did this when I was here, and you get stopped by a peace officer, you will be ticketed. The punishment for going 90 in a 60 on your way to the Hunter's house for supper is $256 and five points off your New Brunswick license. Now, I told the guy, well, go ahead and take five points off my license. I'm going to South Africa, where they don't care. So he didn't think that was humorous. And so he gave me a ticket, which I had to pay before I left Alberta. Only speeding ticket I've gotten in all my travels across this country was in Beaumont, Alberta, from a peace officer. I'm like, this is not causing a lot of peace, you giving me this ticket. Anyhow, I'm not bitter. I'm over it. I'm just saying. There was a punishment. I broke the law, so there was a punishment. If you break God's law, the punishment for sinning, breaking God's law, is death. Romans says this, the wages of sin is death. That's what you get paid for sinning. you die. It costs you your life. So when Paul writes about the law, he calls it the ministry of death. Now back to verse 7. Now if the ministry of death, carved in letters of stone, came with such glory that the Israelites could not gaze at Moses' face because of its glory, which was being brought to an end, will not the ministry of the Spirit have even more glory? For if there was glory in the ministry of condemnation, the ministry of righteousness must far exceed it in glory." Now think about what Paul is saying. Paul says, Moses went up the mountain, he got that law, it was so glorious that when he came down, his face shone. That's pretty big time glory, you think? So Paul says, even under the old covenant, there was this glory in the ministry of death, there was this glory that shone on the face of Moses, pretty amazing. But that's old covenant. Under the new covenant, the new covenant being what we have in Christ, the knowledge that Christ has come, shed his blood on the cross for our sins, died for us in our place, substituting himself for us, dying the death that we could not die, paying the price we could not pay. Jesus does that for us. That's the ministry of righteousness, Paul calls it, the ministry of the spirit. How much more glorious is that than what Moses got under the old covenant? Paul is literally going to contrast the glory of the law and the glory of the gospel. That's what he's doing. And in verse 10 he will say, indeed in this case, what once has glory, that's the law, that's the old covenant. has come to have no glory at all because of the glory that surpasses it. So it's like it was glorious, but when you saw what was coming, it's so much more glorious. It's like the old covenant had no glory at all. It's kind of like, let me, I've heard it illustrated this way and I think it's very helpful. You ever stare at a light bulb? I mean, everybody's like, nope, nope, not me. I've never done anything so stupid. Well, I have. You figured. We used to take the top off of light bulbs, you know. You turn a light bulb on and you stare at the light bulb, and then you turn your head away. And you remember what happens? You sort of blink your eyes and there's a little light floating there. But as you blink, it sort of fades away and then it disappears. And you're like, oh, phew. I thought that was going to be there forever. That's good. Now imagine you look at the light bulb and you stare at it and you blink and you can sort of see that light bulb floating there because it's quite bright and there's a lot of glory there. Now suppose some overnight in Edmonton there's a big snowstorm and the snow blows through and snows 35 centimeters and it stops about two, three o'clock in the morning. nobody's moving, everybody's in bed sleeping and the morning breaks and the sun comes up, there's not a cloud in the sky and it's brilliantly sunny. Now look at that light bulb and get that light in your eyes and then go open the door of the house and step outside and look at the snow. What happens to the light bulb? It's overwhelmed with the brilliance of that white snow, isn't it? It's like, wow, I can hardly even remember looking at the lightbulb. In fact, I'd like to go back looking at the lightbulb because now I've got snow blindness. It's that kind of contrast, Paul says. Yeah, there was this glory in the light. I mean, Moses' face was even shining when he came down from the mountain. The gospel message, the good news of what Jesus came to do is so glorious, it's so magnificent, it's so wonderful, it's so incredible that it's like the law has no glory at all set next to the gospel. Friends, it's amazing. Verse 11, for if what was being brought to an end came with glory, how much more will what is permanent have glory? You see there's a fading glory to the law. The law was only intended to be temporary anyway. It was pointing us to a more glorious reality, the work of Christ. And so Paul says the law will eventually fade away because it's temporary, but what is permanent and fixed and enduring, what lasts, has finally come. Wow. So in verse 13, I told you Paul was critical of Moses, and you've been anxious to see where Paul is critical of Moses. It's in verse 13. So he says, don't be like Moses. You remember there was that big thing for a long time, be like Mike, be like this guy, be like that. Don't be like Moses, Paul said, who put a veil over his face so that the Israelites might not gaze at the outcome of what was being brought to an end. Now we find out why Moses covered his face. I always thought Moses covered his face because he didn't want to scare people. You know, you're standing out talking at the door of your tent and you're like, ah, it's Mr. Glory, run. And everybody goes back in the tent because this scary dude with a shiny face is coming. It's like, man, we gotta get out of here. So Moses puts a veil on so people don't run away. But that's not why Moses covers his face according to Paul. Paul says that Moses put a veil over his face so people wouldn't see that the glory that was on his face was fading. It was fading. God had a lesson in the face of Moses for the people of Israel. And the lesson was this. The law which has glory will fade over time. It's fading. It's passing. It's not what's going to last. But Moses, fearful that people might not think the law glorious, covers his face so that people can't see what is being brought to an end. And in verse 14, Paul will say, this is why it's so hard to reach Jewish people with the gospel. Their minds were hardened for to this day when they read the old covenant, the same veil remains unlifted because only through Christ is it taken away. When you come to know Christ, that veil of darkness, that veil of believing that your effort, your works are somehow going to earn you the favor of God, when you come to Christ, that veil is gone. And now you understand that you are in Christ. You belong to Him. When one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. Verse 15, Yes, to this day, whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their hearts. But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled face, We have the veil off now because we know Jesus. So with unveiled face, Paul says, we behold the glory of the Lord and we are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. So think about this. Stay with me. There's a lot of glory going on. I get it. Stay with me because Paul is going to say that now that we're in Christ, that veil has been taken away, we come, we behold the beauty of the Lord. We learn of Christ. We meditate on his salvation, on his justification, on his propitiation, on his redemption, on his reconciliation. I mean, there are so many themes of the gospel to meditate on. The songs we sang tonight were perfect. I mean, they just express so many facets of the glorious gospel. You could wake up in the morning and say, okay, today I'm only going to think about reconciliation. And then you could wake up the next day and say, now I'm going to think about redemption. Now I'm going to think about what it means to be justified. Now I'm going to think about what it means... I mean, you could spend your whole life just meditating and reflecting upon the gospel of Jesus Christ and its richness. And it's glory. And you should do that because what will happen is as you meditate upon that gospel, as you think about it, as you sing about it, as you share in life together with other people who have been affected by it in the church, as you read about it in the word, as you sing about it in the hymnal, what happens? You are transformed. You reflect glory. kind of like Moses only in the opposite direction. You see? Moses' glory faded. Your glory grows. Do you see that? That is what the text says, right? You are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. As we walk the Christian life, as we deepen our faith, and as our faith is strengthened by the Word and by preaching and teaching and music and hymns and all the good and glorious things of the Christian life, as we behold that glory It rubs off on us and we are transformed from what we were into what God wants us to be. How does this happen? Well, Paul says at the end of verse 18, this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit. God gives us the Spirit, the Spirit indwells us. At faith in Christ, we are indwelt by the Spirit. And then the Spirit brings conviction. The Spirit illumines our heart and our mind so that we receive the truth of God. And then we come to know it. And it sort of takes root in us. Paul will talk this way in Ephesians. He'll talk this way in Colossians. It will take up root in us. And the Spirit of God through the power of God will slowly transform us into the person He wants us to be. It's called sanctification. That's how it works. I don't know about you, but this is what gets me out of bed in the morning. There was an old southern preacher who used to say, if this doesn't light your fire, your wood's wet. When I read this kind of stuff, I'm like, man, I want to say glory, but I can't because I'm a Baptist. This is the kind of stuff that gets me excited. God is at work in me to produce in me this ever-increasing glory, not because it's about me, but because it's about the Spirit who works in me to produce this. Praise be to God. Now, we're almost finished. mercifully. You say, well that's fine but wait a second, you're a missionary and this didn't sound like a missionary sermon. Missionaries are only allowed to preach missionary sermons. Okay, let's make a missionary application. Verse 12. I skipped verse 12. Did you notice that? We started our church with a Thursday night Bible study. We didn't have any Sunday meetings. We just met a few people who were interested in gathering to study the Bible. So on Thursday night at seven o'clock, we would meet in our home, have some cookies and tea and coffee, and we would study the scriptures. I'd never planted a church before, so I said, what do we do? Let's start in Genesis. Start at the very beginning, a very good place to start, I think. Maria von Trapper, whoever she was, said that. So I thought, well, let's start in Genesis. And we started in Genesis and we went verse by verse by verse through Genesis. And I don't know, maybe I just had a bad week or something. I came to some chapter in Genesis and I was like, I skipped a verse. And there was a guy in our church named Bevan. I love that man. And he's like, whoa, hey, pastor, I was like, what? What's the matter, Bevan? He skipped a verse. I was like, yeah, I know, but just, you know. No. He said, no, no, pastor. We don't skip verses in this church. We gotta go back and do that verse. So back we went and did it. So verse 12. I skipped it on purpose, because it finishes the point well. Look at what it says in verse 12. Since we have such a hope, the veil is off, we know Jesus, We're immersed in a better glory, far surpassing the glory of the old covenant. Our faces are aglow with the light of Christ. Since we have this hope, we are very bold. Isn't that what it says? We're not the people who go around and say, well, did you know about the gospel? Well, I did some witnessing there. We're bold. We got the best news possible. There are hundreds, thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of people in the province of Alberta who are trusting in some kind of law. Now maybe they've made it up and brought it from India. Maybe they've made it up and brought it from China. Maybe they've made it up and brought it from Africa. Maybe they made it up in Alberta because that's where they're from. Most of the world is trusting in their own effort to get them to heaven. They're living under an old covenant idea. And you and I, we know something. We know that what is permanent has come. Jesus has died and is raised and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He makes intercession for us. We are His children. He's coming again for us someday, given that we have such hope. Why aren't we more interested in boldly sharing the gospel? The question begs to be asked. Paul says, since we have such a hope, we're very bold. We're not like Moses. For Paul, Moses was a timid guy, covering his face, not wanting anybody to get the message. Oh, Paul says, we're not like that. Because we have such a hope, we are very bold. Are you that way tonight? Now, look, I'm not asking you to be some kind of jerk, you know, going around ripping people's double doubles out of their hands and stuffing tracks in their hands and saying, hey, you're going to get saved, man. What's the matter with you? I'm not asking you to be like that. But maybe we could move just a little bit more bold, do you suppose? We have such a hope. We are very bold. God help us to be that way in our lives.