Okay, we'll find our reading for the message this morning in Luke 11. Luke's gospel, the gospel according to Luke, beginning chapter 11, beginning in verse 33. This is a continuation of what I began Wednesday night on spiritual darkness or blindness. the ability or not having the ability to see things from a spiritual standpoint, from the standpoint of the illuminating power of God. A lot in the Bible about this. Jesus constantly referred to this issue over and over and over again. He referred to it. If you read Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, He just constantly is referring to their blindness, the darkness that they dwelt in. He would heal a physically blind person to teach the spiritual truth about spiritual blindness. And he would tell those that were in religion, he said, you're like that blind man physically, you're like that spiritually. You can't see. I am the son of God and you can't see that. And let me say this and go on and we'll read. It all starts. with Jesus Christ as the Son of God, the Savior of this world. If you don't get that, that is the beginning of it, that's the first taste of illumination, that Christ was sent here by God. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son to a darkened black world, a world that did not see, had no light. He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever should believe on Him. Now in all of that you see your own condemned state. But Christ is the beginning. He is the light. And the first ray of light that we see is in the person of Jesus Christ. After establishing that, all other things, the path of the just, justified is as a shining light which shines more and more of the perfect day. Christians that are born again have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit ought to be seeing clearer, very clearly what's going on. We're in a very dark time, going to get darker. And it's time for God's people to shine, okay? We ought to understand from a spiritual standpoint. I don't have to understand from a political standpoint. I refuse to get immersed and involved in that junk. That's all corrupt. It doesn't do anything for anybody. It helps us have a little bit better civil life, and we ought to be civilly responsible. But from the standpoint of spiritual things and eternal things, that means nothing. The corruption that's in politics and the corruption that's in the world today. So we're looking at things from a spiritual standpoint. That's what we want to see. And we're going to read that in the scriptures this morning. So we're continuing on with that thought about spiritual blindness or spiritual darkness. In verse 33 of Luke 11, no man when he hath lighted a candle. Now if you just want to put that in perspective, that means no man when he has received Christ, when you receive the Lord, your candle is lit. Jesus is the light that lights the candle, okay? The candle of your life, your heart. So no man, when he hath lighted a candle, put it in a secret place. Can I say something to you this morning? If you know the Lord, you are indebted to somebody else that they may know the Lord. You are indebted to them. You owe it to them like the one that God used for you to receive that light through the church, the preaching, the witnessing, the testimony of others. Somebody gave it to you. Now God, it was God and the person of the Holy Spirit, but he uses human instrumentality. He's ordained the means to bring about the desired end. We come to church to worship the Lord. This is a congregational local church to worship the Lord. Okay. So when we come to church and we pray, we're praying to the invisible God. We're talking to God. I mean, He's listening. When I pray, I'm talking straight to God. Doesn't matter what you say. When you pray, I'm talking to God, too. All right? So when we sing praises congregationally, we're singing praises to our Lord for Him to hear that. When you come to this altar and pray, if you do, you come up here and you're talking to God. You're dealing with God. When I preach to you, The Holy Spirit, we pray, takes the Word of God and pierces your heart. It does something in you. It reaches down in your heart and does something in your heart spiritually that nothing else in this world can do. Preaching has a place in our life that can be replaced by nothing. Now we read our Bible and we study the Word and we have other means of devotions, but preaching serves a purpose that nothing else can do. A pastor fulfills a role in your life that nobody else can fill. Your daddy, your mama, your grandpa, your wife, your husband cannot fulfill the role of a God-called pastor to preach the word, or an evangelist, or a missionary. They are ordained by God to fulfill a function in the realm of spiritual things that cannot be replaced by anybody. And I could talk a lot about that, not gonna do it. But what I'm saying to us this morning is we are looking for spiritual light. We close ourself off from the world. We don't care what the world's doing right now. I mean, Jesus said, when you pray, enter into your closet, shut the door. Well, Reggie White says that. Get, shut the world out. So when we pray, we shut the world out. When we preach in congregation, now we take the message out there, but we're not going out there right now. We're getting here to get stirred up, charged up, convicted, empowered, you know, excited, rebuked, reproved, whatever we need, that we might take that light we're reading about right here and put it somewhere where somebody can see it, okay? That's what it's all about. When He's lighted a candle, you don't put it in a secret place, neither under a bushel, but you put it on a candlestick that they which come in may see the light. You could use this. The church is the candlestick referred to in Revelations 2 and 3 in the Bible. Jesus walks among the candlesticks, and those seven churches of Asia was those candlesticks, so you could use that. So when people come in, they see your light, that you've been lighted by God through the Lord Jesus Christ. They see that. People, we ought not to be ashamed. The whole idea of don't be ashamed of this. I'm not ashamed to preach. I'm not ashamed to witness, testify. I'm not ashamed to sing. I'm not demonstrating my talent. One thing these preacher's meetings has turned into, especially among young preachers, is a demonstration of man's talent, his ability to put a message out of prayer. We're not demonstrating our talent. You go to these meetings and all this singing talent on display. We pray that God would demonstrate His power in the Holy Spirit. And I'm not ashamed. I'm not ashamed to preach up beside another preacher. He's got a message. Praise God, he'll be judged for it. I got a message. And what he does or does not do does not hinder me from what God's called me to do. I'm not demonstrating my ability, okay? I'm preaching to people God's ability. And that's supposed to stir your heart. That's supposed to convict and reprove and exhort and strengthen and help us. That's what he's saying here. So you don't put it under a candlestick. You want the light that you have that they which come in may see the light. You parents here want your children to see the light of Jesus Christ in your life. You don't just wait until you come to church to get Jesus. You got Jesus over at the house. You write his laws on your doorpost and entrance and going in and coming out. Listen to me, your children ought to see in you as parents that there are things that you do and don't do because you don't want to offend God in your house or offend God out in the world. No, we don't do that. Well, they do it down the road. Well, I don't care what they do. We don't do that. God lives in this house. God's in my house as a daddy, a husband, a leader, and we don't do what they do because we don't wanna, so your light is to shine at home. That light is to shine at work. That light is to shine when you go to church or whatever you do. You want men to see it, okay? Let the lower life be burning. Some poor sailor, tempest-tossed, might be seeking the harbor, that they which come in may see the light. Verse 34, now we're talking about spiritual blindness. The light of the body is the eye. Now, that is a figurative term, okay? It's not talking about a literal one eye. You know, you got one eye. It's not talking about that. The light of the body is the eye. It's connected to verse 33. Therefore, when thine eye is single. Now, what does that mean, folks? Surely we can understand that. You're focused. When your eye, when you're singularly focused, when that eye is single, the whole body also is full of light. Now listen to me, look up here. Let your light shine before me. What kind of light do you want? You want one of these little lights that you get in these little, you go to Harbor Freight down there and they give you these little lights and you use it three times, get up and add it, and it goes out. No, that's not the kind of light you want. You want the whole body to be full of light. You want a, You want God to demonstrate Christ in and through you the whole body. You want to be a bright, shining light. Well, you've got to be focused. You can't be taking all this other stuff in. You can't be taking all the frivolities and pleasantries of the world and hobbies and this, that, and the other. If you want your body to be full of light so that others may see it, let your light so shine before men. Jesus said in Matthew 6, that they may see your good works. So hear that they which come in may see the light. Therefore when thine eye is single, the whole body also is full of light. But when thy eye is evil, now you've got single and evil. Single means focus, evil means you're taking in everything. And we've never seen a day in human history that you could take in more stuff through your eye than today. I mean, you've got YouTube and Google and this and news and that and everything connected. And we're thinking about everything and got our focus on everything but the Lord Jesus Christ. So therefore, your eye is evil. Now, God doesn't care if you keep up with the news. What He does not want, what He commands you to not do is let it affect you spiritually. I listen to the news and watch the news, but I do not let it over, I don't lose my focus on God and His Word and what He says. I know what's going on. That bunch don't know what's going on. We're fulfilling God's Word today. So when your eye is evil it takes in everything and you lose focus of Jesus Christ. That's what He's talking about here. So when an eye is evil, thy body, now listen to this folks, thy body also is full of darkness. Take heed therefore that the light which is in thee be not darkness. If the whole body therefore be full of light, having no part dark, the whole shall be full of light, as when the bright shining of a candle doth give thee light." What is he saying here? He says, if that which is in you, if you think that that which is in you, the light, that you have light, take heed therefore that the light which is in thee be not darkness, The light be not dark. There's some people that think they have it figured out. But that is darkness. Because you're figuring it out, you're taking in everything, and you're making calculative decisions and thoughts and all of this about things. darkness. Christ is the light. You stay focused on him and his word alone. It's like you've got tunnel vision. You've got blinders on. You're not seeing all of that out there. You're not taking that in. A lot of people are taking all of this in and they're full of darkness and yet they think they have light. That's what he's saying. They think they're enlightened. But it is darkness because they do not focus on the Lord Jesus Christ. What the Lord initially is saying is you put your focus on Christ. Of course, we read about Him, study Him in the Word. You put your focus on Him and don't let all this other stuff cloud your vision. You keep your eyes on the Lord like Peter walking on the water. When he's looking at Jesus, but buddy, when he looked around and he saw the winds boisterous and the waves rolling, he began to sing. And he cried out to the Lord, said, Lord, save me, for I'm sinking here. Well, what was his problem? He was looking around. Okay, so you don't need to be looking around. You certainly don't need to be looking back. You need to be looking straight to the Lord Jesus Christ and stay focused on Him, okay? That's how you have spiritual illumination. So what we're seeing in America today is spiritual blindness. America has rejected Christ. Now I read you in John chapter 12 where Jesus done all these miracles, but they didn't believe on Him. So God blinded them. God will blind you. When God shows you, reveals His Son to you, and Jesus Christ alone in the power of the Holy Spirit, He reveals His Son, if you start taking in all these other things in your mind, what you had figured out, and you reject Christ. I mean, you say, well, you know, you're like in John 14, He says, Lord, show us the way. We know not the way. He said, I am the way. If you know me, you know the way. The human mind, the natural mind can't comprehend that. So what do you say? You say, all I need to do is know the Lord. If I know the Lord, I know the way. The Lord is the way. Not me knowing about the Lord is the way, the Lord is the way. I know the Lord. Do you know what eternal life is? Would you like to know where a definition in the Bible of eternal life? A lot of people think they have eternal life because they know the scriptures or something about the scriptures. Eternal life is not in the scriptures. I just say this all the time and preachers have a heart attack all the time about it. Jesus said, search the scriptures for in them you think you have eternal life. And what he said, it's not in them. Search the scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life, and they, the scriptures, are they that testify of me, and you will not come to me that you might have life. So he says the scriptures are given to testify of me. and eternal life is in Christ. John 17, 3, Jesus said, and this is life eternal, that they may know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, the Son, whom thou hast sent. That's life eternal. Not how long it is, what it is. That they may know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. That is life eternal. That is your I being single. That's all you need to know. And what He does, He reveals other things to you as they are connected to Christ. A lot of people going around today arguing about the church, and arguing about denomination, and arguing about doctrine, and arguing about this, and arguing about that, and they're missing the main thing. The main thing is the Lord Jesus Christ. You singly are focused on Him. I told a preacher yesterday, he's just study, study, study, study, study, study, and getting this and getting that and going over here and going over there. I said, listen, man, what you study the Scriptures for is to study Christ. Jesus said, come unto me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, yoke up of me, take my yoke upon you and learn of me. We study the Bible to learn of Christ. That's why we study the Bible. We don't study the Bible to know the Bible. You're right, amen. There's gonna be a lot of people populate hell that study the Bible to know the Bible, to put their, you know, to do whatever, to put forth what they think, proselyte heaven and earth, or circumvent heaven and earth to make one proselyte, make twofold more a child of hell than you are, Matthew 23. And they miscried. We studied the Scripture. Listen, Revelation 19, 10. He tried to worship an angel there. John tried to worship an angel. He said, see thou doest not. He said, worship God for the testimony of Jesus and the spirit of prophecy, the testimony of Christ. You go to Luke 24, there are two disciples on the road to Mages. Jesus went with them and He didn't let them know who He was. He wanted to prove something and He wanted to teach something to them. And they're walking and He said, what communication? What are y'all talking about? That's what He said, Luke 24. What are y'all talking about? Well, you know, we trusted in the Redeemer, and they killed Him over there, and we buried Him. We saw Him buried, and we trusted in Him to be. And Jesus said, O fools and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have written and Psalms of prophets and the law of Moses concerning Me. Then opened He their understanding that they might understand, and it was about Him. Listen to me, if God opened your understanding, He opened your understanding about Christ! First and foremost, everything comes after that. You will be illuminated in other areas of life, but the first thing and the main thing and what we keep focused on is Christ. What did He say to the church in Ephesus in Revelation chapter 2? He said, I've got someone to get you. You're still doing this, this, this. You know false teachers. You're doing this and you're doing that, but you've left your first love. Repent and do the first work. What's the first work? The first love was Jesus. You fell in love with him because God put his love in your heart so you could love the Lord. Amen. And you fell in love with him and you had those first love works. He said, repent and do the first works of your love. You forgot me. We sang this song, lead me to Calvary, lest I forget Gethsemane. That don't mean it goes out of your head. It just means, you know, it doesn't mean to you what it once did. There are many people sitting in church today that Christ does not mean to them as a person what He once did. And that quenches the spirit. It grieves God's Holy Spirit for us to lose our vision or lose our focus of the Lord Jesus Christ personally. You can have all other stuff. You can be doctrinally straight. You can think you can have it all figured out, but you never, You never exalt Christ. You know, I talk to people all the time about religion. They find out you're a preacher. Everybody's got a psalm. Everybody's got a doctrine. Everybody's got some way that they believe in. And they talk to me all the time about it. First thing, I don't even tell them I'm a preacher. I witness to them, don't tell them I'm a preacher. But ultimately, they'll find out. Oh, they won't tell you what they believe and what this believe and what that believe. They never exalt Christ in their life. Christ is my life. For me to live is not to know the Bible. For me to live is Christ. And you talk to people all the time, and it's not about Jesus Christ. Let me tell you something. If you make it to heaven based on the good merits of Jesus Christ, if you get there, it's going to be all about Christ. You go to Revelation 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, it's all about Christ. Amen? That heavenly scene over there, it's all about the Lord Jesus Christ. The angels fell at His feet. The 420 elders fell at His feet. Cast your crowns at His feet, at the feet of the Lamb. It's all about Jesus Christ. Abraham told Isaac, said, God will provide Himself a Lamb. That Lamb is Jesus Christ. That Passover Lamb in Exodus chapter 12, that Lamb, they struck that blood on that upper limb on the side, closed that door, it was Jesus Christ. John the Baptist said, Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world. It's all about Him. They quit following John, and they started following Jesus. And John's disciples said, Teacher, they're following after Him. John said, He must increase, and I must decrease. My ministry's coming to an end. His is just now getting started to never end. It's all about the Lord Jesus Christ. I cannot stress that enough. It's not about a preacher, it's not about the church in the focused sense. They have their place, it's about your eye is single focused on Him. Now that takes in His Lordship. That takes in His wonderful salvation. That takes in His commandments. That takes in His teachings and His doctrines. But it is, listen to me, and listen to me good, it is a personal relationship. To be rightly related to God in Christ is life eternal. Not how much you go to church and what you know. It's in Christ, Jesus the Lord. What God does is substitutes His life, which was perfect, for your life, which is corrupt. And God sees Christ in you. Christ is your life. For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. So we get our eyes on the Lord, okay? And I can't stress, you lose that, and you lost it all. I mean, you lose your vision if you lose the Lord Jesus Christ. So what happens in America, Jesus used to be exalted. In my lifetime, Christ, to a degree, was exalted in America. People wouldn't live wicked and do wicked and all the stuff that's going on, I can name. But what happened is we put Christ out. First of all, they quit using the name of Jesus totally. Then they just took God, the whole Godhead, put him out of the judicial system, put him out of the school system. Let me say this, y'all, and I don't want to, you know, You do what you want to. We have liberty to do what we want to. You need to follow the Lord. But this public school system is fallen. It is a fallen institution. And maybe I'll deal with that later on. But my point is, we put him out of all of our institutions. They shoved God out, and so God's blinded America. America is in spiritual darkness and blindness. Religion blinds people. Religion, politics blinds people. The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life blinds people. Many people occupy their regular seat. I mean, the seat is conformed to their sitting. on a church pew that are blind spiritually. They're looking at something other than the person of Christ. If Jesus didn't do anything else in His coming to this earth, He showed them who He was. He forgives sins. He's the Savior of men. He's the Lord of the elements, heaven, the animals, the Lord of glory. He's the Jehovah of the Old Testament. That's Jesus back there. Amen. He is the Jehovah of the Old Testament. He is the Jesus Christ of the New Testament, and He showed Himself for who He was. So the light is in the person of Jesus Christ, in Him, was life, and the life was the light of men. John was not that light. Christ was the light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world. So Jesus took upon Himself the nature of man. Amen, took it upon Him, not the fallen nature, but the body nature of a man to show us what God demanded, commanded that man should be. And when you receive Christ in salvation, God conforms you into the image of His Son as a perfect man. Now, you don't get all that right now. You're striving for that, but you get that in the glorification. Amen. John said, Oh, what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us that we should be called the children of God. It does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when He shall appear, and we're going to appear with Him, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. So when we're glorified, right now you see Adam. Amen. You're looking at my Adamic hair and Adamic teeth and Adamic eyes, my everything, you see it, my outward, though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day. And the inward man is what the light shines through. Amen. And so, so Christ, and so when you reject Christ, you're in blindness, you're darkened. And if you reject him long enough, God'll cut the switch off. He just cut the switch off. When a church loses its candlestick, there ain't no light. The switch is cut off. I'm here to tell you we need to stay focused on the Lord Jesus Christ and all that pertains to Him. That is life. Go to 2 Corinthians chapter 3. Folks, that's a word of exhortation. That's a stimulating part of this message. That ought to stimulate you spiritually, excite you spiritually to know that it's all in the gift of God is in the person of Christ. Listen to me. The gift of God, you're going to remember this in your judgment, is not in your knowledge of Him. The gift of God is in Him. in Him. He substituted for you in perfection on this earth. You can't be perfect. He substituted for you under the wrath of God. He tasted the wrath of God for every man. Amen. God smitten Him. Go read Isaiah 53. Yet it pleased God to bruise Him. He was smitten, stricken for us. And so He substituted for you He substituted for you in death. He substitutes for you in His resurrection. He substitutes for you in living that life through you. Amen. It is Him that has the power that's within you. We have that power treasured in earthen vessels that the excellency of the power may be of God and not of us. So He's our substitute. He's our perfect substitute in everything and I'm putting it all in Him. I mean I'm focused totally on Him and all of these other things will take place where they need to be, amen. So 2 Corinthians chapter 3 beginning at verse 12, seeing then that we have such hope, now our hope is in Christ. We use great plainness of speech. That's what I'm trying to do this morning. I'm trying to be real plain in this. We use great plainness of speech. And not as Moses. We're not preaching that Old Testament economy. That Old Testament economy was a shadow. It can only be seen in figures and types. It was a shadow of that which is to come, which is in Christ. So we don't preach as Moses. Any of these law keeping hands going around trying to keep the law for righteousness is preaching darkness. If the light that is in you be darkness, how great is that darkness? And so we, seeing we have such hope in Christ, we use plainness of speech. I'm telling you that it's not in anything you can do or will do. It is in the Lord Jesus Christ as a person. And you got to be personally related to him. The Bible calls that being born again, not of, listen to this and listen good, not of corruptible seed. That's your mama and daddy. but of incorruptible seed, that is God the Father. The incorruptible seed is God. The seed of God's Son is in Jesus Christ and the Spirit of God. So you're born again by the Spirit of God and that incorruptible seed. And the Bible is the book that tells us about the incorruptible seed. So many preachers are peddling that the Bible is the incorruptible seed. The Bible tells us about the incorruptible seed. Listen, you're going to heaven based on one thing, your nature. You come to this world with a fallen nature, Adamic nature. You're going to hell if you don't get a new nature. Heaven is an abode. It's a dwelling place. That's why I said in my father's house are many mansions. It's a place to dwell in. The New Jerusalem is city four square, 1,500 miles. It is a dwelling place. Hell is an abode. Hell and where the fire is, is an abode. I ain't talking about the grave. I'm talking about hell. Your soul is eternal. When you die and we're going to put you in this ground over here, that part of you that ain't in that casket is somewhere. That body rots and worms eat it. That invisible soul goes somewhere. It goes to heaven or hell based on your nature. And you must be born again. And you hath He quickened, made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins. And so God gives you the nature of His Son, the Spirit. And listen, God condemns your body. That body is condemned, it's corrupted. You lose your eyesight and your faculties and everything. Lose your mind before it's over if you live long enough. And that body is condemned by God. Man today is trying to live forever in a natural body. Replace parts, replace hearts, the pulpit organ. Do all this work to try to live forever in a natural body. Listen, when God ran Adam out of that garden, He placed a flaming sword and a cherubim to guard the way of that garden and that tree of life. And man has been trying to get back in eternal life in a fallen body ever since Adam got run out of it. That's what all this is about. That's what going to Mars is about. It's to get to heaven, a heavenly place without God. Amen. Without being born again. We want to live forever in our natural body. And so you get new knees and new legs and new arms and new whatever. It's to live forever. You ain't living forever. Your soul, what is your soul? That's the part where your will resides, the inward part that I can't see. I can't see how your thoughts are. Only God sees your soul, your thoughts. And so God, when you get saved, you agree with God that your body's dead and it needs to go to the grave to rot, for the worms to eat it up. Amen! And you ask God to save you. Well, He saves your soul and quickens your spirit. Amen. I pray the whole body, soul, and spirit be preserved blameless. And so man is a three-part being. Read it, 1 Thessalonians 5. And so God saves your soul and quickens your spirit, and the quickening of the spirit is the light coming in. Because he gives you his spirit, which makes you have a live spirit. You all understand that? Y'all can get that, can't you? And so now he dwells in your heart by faith. And when you die with a new nature, you go where he's at. Jesus said, I go to prepare a place for you. If I go to prepare a place for you, I'll come again and receive it myself that where I am there you may be also. They said, Lord, show us the way. We don't know. He said, I am the way. Listen to me. That's enough for Jamie. He's the way. That's all I need to know. I don't need to know distance. I don't need to know flying past planets. I don't need to know this, that, or the other. I need to know him. He is the way. Quit talking about salvation if you ain't got it. Either He's your salvation, salvation is of the Lord, God, Jesus is our salvation, and I know Him. I'm rightly related to God through Him. This is life eternal, that they may know Thee. And so He says, we're not as Moses, which put a veil over his face. That's all figurative. That the children of Israel could not steadfastly look to the end of that which is abolished. The Old Testament was gonna be abolished. Amen. It is abolished. It come to its end. We don't live under the Old Testament laws. Listen to me. A lot of people are so messed up in this. God gave a law, okay? Let me slow down right here. In that law was a social structure, was a ceremonial structure, and a moral structure. Start reading in Exodus chapter 20, you'll start reading it. There is a moral law, there is a social law under Moses, and there is a ceremonial law. When Jesus Christ died on Calvary, the veil was ripped from top to bottom. That ended the ceremonial law part. He designed that tabernacle and temple. He said, you make that holy of holies, you put a big thick veil up, and nobody goes in there but once a year, and he better be careful. I'll kill him dead outright. And so when Jesus died, the Bible says in Matthew, the veil was rent from top to bottom. God rent the unseen hand, rent that veil. That ended the ceremonial part. All of our labors and offerings and smoke and incense and this, that, and the other, they all had their place. But Jesus ended that. All right, not only did he end the ceremonial part, he ended the social part. Now, that is that if your brother dies, you take his wife. That might mean you might have three wives. Socially, under the law, it was all about the inheritance of the land. And they were not to mar their inheritance by the tribe of Manasseh accumulating all the land. Do you read that law? And if you've got half an illuminated mind about it, God said, God made their borders, how big they were, and he said, now this tribe ain't gonna overtake that tribe and consume them and assimilate them. Everybody keeps their inheritance by tribe. And so in the marriage structure, they were to marry within their tribe, they weren't to marry the heathens and all that, and they were to keep the inheritance, and they had a social structure. That ended with Christ, because now the gospel is preached to the Gentiles, and the Gentiles are brought in. Amen! And so you say, what are they going to have in the future? Well, God's got something for Abraham. He's got something over there for him in the millennium and all that. I have no problem with that. But the social structure, now the moral structure is still in place. the Ten Commandments. Don't tell me that's gone. That ain't gone. Now Jesus took it in his own self, lived it perfectly, and then suffered the penalty because the penalty was if you don't obey the moral part, you die the death. So cursed is everyone hanging on a tree because God, because Jesus was cursed and hung on a tree. So The moral part is still in effect, but we can't keep it perfectly. But Jesus did keep it perfectly. Jesus kept it perfectly. So when I try to keep the moral code of the law, I trespass. I commit sin. And so I go to God and I say, Lord, forgive me. The only reason you need forgiveness from God is if you broke His law. So mercy is the part that forgives us of our sins based on the merit of Jesus Christ keeping it. Jesus kept it. Now, in honor of the law, He says, children, honor your parents. And so that's still in effect today. Now children don't do that, but that law is a guide for them to do that. And so they honor them, obey your parents. Ephesians 6, Paul said it again, this is the first commandment with promise. So Paul is saying, children obey your parents just like the law says. All right, well, all these children commit sin. That little one, Christi's holding it, got them big bug eyes right now, looking up here at me, is a sinner. That little girl is a sinner. She commits sin, she don't obey mama, and when she gets a little older, mama's gonna really find that out. Four times down the road, you get about five or six of them, you understand children don't obey their parents. So a child comes to an age of accountability, and the basic law they broke is not obeying their parents. They get old enough to say, I ain't always obeyed my mom and daddy. Well, God didn't say, don't worry about that. Jesus fulfilled it, and you just get right on in. No, you have to confess your sin. Confession of sin is you broke the law. Don't forget that. And I know that scares some of you. I was told last Wednesday night, I'm a little loud, so I'm going to calm down a little bit. A lot of people think they turn the grace of God into lasciviousness, a license to sin. God said, don't covet. Well, we all covet. So what do you do? Well, let me tell you what you don't do. What you don't do is go to God and confess it. You just keep coveting and go right on. But, amen! God, what is covetousness? Let me tell you what, in a definition, covetousness is two things. Covetousness is what somebody else has got. I shall not covet thy neighbor's land, wife, ox, nothing. Covetousness is also coveting what you got. That's yours legally. Rich man's ground brought forth plentiful. Jesus said in Luke 12, take heed and beware of covetousness. Certain rich man's ground brought forth plentifully. He said, what'll it do? Tear down my barn, be a bigger barn, say thou, thou hast much goods laid up for many years, take thy knees. God said, thou fool. Thou fool, you're not rich toward God. Under the law, when God blessed a man to be rich, it was so he could help his neighbor. That's right, that's the social structure of that law. God Boaz blessed his neighbor. God increased a man's wealth to bless his fields brought forth plentifully, and God said, don't, don't, don't get the corner of that field. You leave that corner standing, so the poor may have to eat. And so, The rich young ruler, now listen. The rich young ruler came to Jesus and said, I want eternal life. What good thing must I do to inherit eternal life? We'd say, what must I do to be saved? Jesus said, keep the law. Well, he's gonna teach him, you ain't gonna keep that law. And he said, here's what he said. He's like a lot of people today. I've kept that law all my youth up. Ever since I've been a kid, I kept the law. Jesus said, really? He said, okay, if you kept the law, take that that thou hast. Rich young ruler, rich. Sell it. Give all to the poor. Take up your cross and follow me. That was his. That belonged to the rich young ruler. He inherited it. Jesus said sell it. Get rid of it. He wouldn't do it. You know why? He coveted it. See, we don't confess covetousness. We're wicked as the day is long, as a long Louisiana hot summer day. We're wicked. We don't, see, we thank the moral law of God, love thy neighbor, do good to them to hate you, pray to them to spitefully use you, turn another cheek, do this, do that, do that. We don't do all that. No, we don't do that at all. And so, listen, we have to constantly ask God, forgive me, Lord, for my, For the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, that's on me every day. Lord. If you are illuminated by God, you are illuminated to your corrupt nature. And you feel your own corruption. And you constantly run to your resource, the advocate. My little children, these things write unto you that you sin not. All sin 1 John 5, all sin is transgression of the law. Have y'all ever read that? 1 John 5, all sin is transgression of the law. There is a sin unto death, okay? You can sin harder, you can sin too bad. So sin is transgression of the law. So he says in 1 John 2, 1, my little children, these things around you, that you sin not. that you sin not, and if any man sin, in other words, you're gonna sin, we have an advocate with the Father, even Jesus Christ the righteous, not your righteous, His righteousness, who is a propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but for the sins of the whole world. In 1 John 1, he says, and the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanses us from all sin. What is my sin? I transgress God's law. Jesus kept the law. Jesus is my faithful and merciful high priest. So now I can go to God and say, God, be merciful to me, a sinner. That's what the publican would not so much lift up his eyes in heaven, but he spoke up on his breath and said, God, be merciful to me, a sinner. Seven words. Jesus said he went down to his house justified. Listen to me good. Justification is not you doing right. Let me say that again. Justification, that goes with your salvation. Justification is not you doing right. Somebody better hear me now. Justification is being declared right on the merit of another, on the merits of Jesus Christ. He kept the law. Matter of fact, Jesus quoted him the law in Matthew 5. He said, you have heard it been said of them in old time, thou shalt love thy neighbor and hate thine enemy. That's the law. He said, I'm gonna say go further than what the law requires. So Jesus did more than the law required. He did do more than the law required. And he went further in it and totally so satisfied God in His perfection that God could reconcile the world unto Himself to those that will receive Him. So reconciliation is based on the perfection of Jesus' perfect life. God was, listen, to wit that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself. So God brought the world back on peaceful terms with Himself in Christ, the perfection of Christ as a perfect man. Y'all got that? That's good. I want to say a lot of other things, but I ain't got time. So anyway, he says, Let's read on in 2 Corinthians chapter 3. Folks, listen to me. The veil is done away in Christ, okay? God ripped that thing in half. Listen to me. You know when God did that? At the time of the lighting of the candles in the holy place. the priest on that, see Jesus was killed on that high Passover day. And the priest would go in and light them candles, or trim them and take care of all that working in the holy place. And so at that time, God rent that bell. And then priest was in there, and that bell ran from top to bottom, and then priest saw right into the Holy of Holies, which was forbidden for them to do. All right, so God took that bell away, showed the Holy of Holies, which is Jesus Christ. All right, so, but he says, but they still have a bell on their heart, They're blind to what God has done in Christ, and they have a veil upon their heart. On this day, when Moses read, the veil is upon their heart. Nevertheless, when it shall turn to the Lord, when their heart shall turn to Jesus Christ, the veil shall be taken away. Can I say something to y'all today? Everybody here, I believe God wants me to say this. There's some of you got a veil on your heart. I know it could be a lot of depravity as a veil, you know, your own depraved nature. You got a veil on your heart. Maybe it could be anything. When your heart turns to the Lord Jesus Christ, let me exhort you today in your heart right now. See, when I preach, you're supposed to worship. You go down through that Bible and that Jesus would do something or say something and they worshiped him. So you're supposed to worship the Lord. You don't worship me. You're supposed to worship the Lord. Some of you, you need to turn your heart to the Lord. When it shall turn to the Lord, the veil shall be taken away. Whatever that veil of corruption is, you need it gone. I'm exhorting you. Are you worshiping the Lord when I preach? These kids right here, they're enduring. Are some of you adults enduring? You're just enduring until it's over? Or are you worshiping? You know, Brother Wayne, the teacher, our son in school, And the reason why I love Sunday school is because I don't focus on Wayne. I worship the Lord. He says things that God speaks to my heart through his word. I say, that's right, oh, that's right, that's right. I worship the Lord. I don't have to endure it, I'm worshiping him. Your church life, if you're saved, if you're not saved, your church life is robust. when you worship God. God is a spirit. He seeketh them that worship Him in spirit and in truth. So when we come together for congregational worship, you're worshiping the Lord. There's some of you got a veil on your heart. And you're blind, spiritually blind. When that, when your heart shall turn to the Lord, that veil shall be taken away. Verse 17. Now the Lord is that spirit. That's how he works, in the spirit. God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. And where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all, with open face beholding, as in a glass, the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord. What is he saying there? He's saying what I started with this morning, I'm through. If thine eye be single, but we all with open faith. Listen, folks, I've been preaching 30 years. I haven't been preaching as long as Brother Homer, but I've been preaching 30 years. It's very obvious who's got an open face. I have people when I preach that hide their face behind somebody else's head. thought kind of hard for you to do that. Your head's big anyway, you couldn't keep my keep my whooping boy. He likes it. He likes it up there. Some people hide their head. They don't they don't have an open face. Some people got that statue face. They perfect. They don't have an open face. You can see who has an open face. We all with open face beholding the glory of the Lord. When you have an enlarged heart, God softens your heart and His Spirit is at work. We all with open face, let me read that again, beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord. That word glass is a mirror. We're supposed to be changed by the Word of God, beholding the face of the Lord, are changed in His image from the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord. In our old Grant Parrish language, we say the Spirit of God, as I yield myself to the Lord and obey what He says for me to do, the image of Christ, the light of the world, who is Christ, let your light shine before me. Put your light on a candle. You're changed into that image from the inward man out. You understand that? And you have light. So listen, Christ is the light. It ain't about Christ. Christ is the light. And it shines to all other aspects of life, marriage, parenting, finances, church membership. It changes work. but my focus is on Him. And if you'll, listen, if you'll focus on the Lord, the Spirit will bring you into all, when He has come, even the Spirit of truth, He shall bring all these things to your remembrance, and He shall guide you into all truth. So as you focus on the Lord, you don't have to worry about, the Spirit will guide you and lead you into all truth, concerning another thing. That's the way it works, folks. That is the truth. My judgment is based on that. Now, I'm not perfect, and I don't have perfect mentality and perfect understanding, but I'm right in that. You focus on the Lord, the Spirit guides you into all truth, you're changed from glory to glory into the image of the Lord. But you gotta have a open face. You gotta be receptive, that's what that means. You can't have no veil, veil of anger, veil of bitterness, veil of unforgiveness. Oh, I want church. I can tell you, I want church for people, a veil of bitterness and anger and unforgiveness. Go to church, go to prayer meeting. Get in there and pray with us. Have prayer with them, veil of bitterness. Openly, I don't love my pastor, I don't love the brethren. This church ain't preaching the truth. Go to church with us. Let me say something to you about this church ain't preaching the truth stuff. When you come to the congregation of the Lord, you're coming to consider what's being preached, okay? And we all are to come to the unity of the faith. There is a unity of the faith, and we have no place for schisms. So when people come here, everybody here knows this, except maybe some of y'all. Some of y'all might not know this. When people come here, I say, you need to come about four or five months. And what I mean by that, are you gonna come to the unity of the faith? We're not perfect, but we have the faith once delivered to the saints. And Jesus said, I'm gonna keep that preserved in my church until the end of the age. Now I could preach an hour on that right now and give you the scriptures for it. So that's what we're doing here. So we're worshiping the Lord. I'm serious, folks. It ain't about me. I'm trying to get you to focus on Him with an open face. The Spirit will guide you into all truth.