Hey, we could pray now. We already did. But we'll pray briefly. Father, thank You for Your Word. Thank You for Jesus Christ and the Spirit of truth, who is also the Spirit of grace, who leads us and guides us into all truth, brings to our memory the things which we would normally forget by His recall ministry. And He is the One who is the Teacher and we learn spiritually because of Him and make progress in our spiritual lives by the anointing that abides so that we don't need man to teach us since we have a divine teacher who lives inside of us. Father, may we gain and acquire and hone our learning skills to the praise, honor, and glory of Jesus Christ. So that on that day, we might present to you a heart filled with wisdom. In Psalm 90, 12, teach us to number our days. And Father, it's in the name of Christ Jesus that we pray, who is our great God and Savior, the One who is supremely honored and who you would have to possess and to take first place in everything. In His name we pray, Amen. In Ephesians 1, 4, It is the desired will of God that all believers would be holy and blameless. And it is declared throughout the Scriptures that we are holy and we are blameless. But we may not leave this life that way. And not that God will blame us or that He will think of us in lesser terms than He has declared us to be and truly sees us to be in His Son, but that we would be without capacity, without appreciation, without real spiritual understanding without the Word having renovated our souls and given us, made us into, in all reality, sharers in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption which is in the world through lust, as Peter tells us in 2 Peter 1, 3-6, and that we would really be those who let or allow Him to manifest Himself in our mortal flesh, that is His virtue, right inside of our mortal bodies. As He takes us through all kinds of things and stretches us and molds us and makes us into the image of His Son, of Jesus Christ, because that's what we're here for. That is His great purpose. He predestinated us for that purpose in Romans 8.29. And here it says the same thing. This is all in accordance with His purpose, the One who does all things. according to His own kind intention and kind purpose. He is kind. So kind that He saved us, albeit undeserving objects of grace and love, because He is not hindered by anything that man does because of the complete satisfaction of justice that was procured by His Son, Jesus Christ. And if you look at sin, or focus on sin, then you've focused on the wrong thing. We're to focus on righteousness, and He is our righteousness. We look to Him, the Author and Finisher of faith. He's called Jesus Christ the Righteous in 1 John 2, 1 and 2. And, He is the full satisfaction, the propitiation of God, not just for our sins, but for the sins of the whole world. Therefore, salvation is intended for all men, and no one is excluded. But man excludes himself. Just like believers. Every believer has every spiritual blessing in Ephesians 1-3. In the heavenlies, in Christ Jesus. But, if you don't want them, you won't have them because He doesn't give you anything that you don't want. He doesn't make you take any of it. He doesn't make you appreciate any of it. That's something that you do. Of course, He'll enable you to do so. And He will give you that lifestyle of wisdom and revelation into the true knowledge of Him in Ephesians 1.17. And He will reveal to you and give you the power so that you might comprehend with all other believers what is the height, the depth, the length, and the breadth of the love of Christ. So that you could be filled with all the fullness of God Himself. Filled to overflowing. Be a vessel fit for the Master's use. and be a rare bird, one who proves or demonstrates what the will of God is. That is, the good will of God, which is the good word of God, and the acceptable will of God, which is making good decisions and having many options, but always doing that and aiming to do that which pleases the Lord. and the perfect will of God by growing in gratitude and dependence or reliance upon Him and knowledge of the person of Jesus Christ. There is no higher aim or goal. in the spiritual life and to know him as Paul makes very evident by his statements in Philippians chapter 3 verse 10 he says first of all that I might be found in him that means when he appears that I might be shown to have no righteousness of my own which is according to the law but that which is through the faith of Jesus Christ and that I may know him and the power of His resurrection to be made conformable to His death, so that by any and all means, He might be manifest right inside of my mortal flesh. I'm not looking for this in the next life. I'm looking for it now. I want it now. I want reality. Do you ever tell God that? I want reality. I'm not going to pretend I want reality. I'm not going to settle for anything other than complete, shocking, undeniable reality. And He gives it to you every time. Because that's what he wants to do. But most people don't want it, so he won't make them. He won't bring them into any kind of reality. But they become dupes for the atmosphere and for false or lying signs and wonders. And once a lying sign or wonder amazes them, it mesmerizes them and usually takes them out of the spiritual life for the rest of their life on earth. because that's all they talk about and all they think about. Do you ever have somebody say to you, I want to tell you about this thing that happened. All of a sudden I saw this brilliant flash of light and fire came out of the sky. I'm just making something up, but it's similar to what some guy told me. And I just, oh, and my phone's ringing. And I just want to know, that ain't right. Oh my goodness. It's President Obama. I told him not to call me at, you know, between 7.30 and 9 o'clock on Tuesdays. I gotta kill this, sorry. Hang on there. Doesn't even want to shut off for some reason. I'll edit this. Oh, there we go. Very nice. So, reality is where it's at. You know, wherever the word truth, Aletheia, is used, it can also be translated reality because the truth is reality. It's absolute truth or reality. And so, we have the Spirit of Reality, the Spirit of Truth, who leads us and guides us into all reality. And that's what He wants us to have, a manifestation of Christ that is undeniable. You know it, and so do others. And it is truly wonderful and remarkable. And it causes people to come to a crisis of decision regarding the person who's become very real to them suddenly, when before there was no reality at all. And it meant nothing to them. The gospel meant nothing to them. Now all of a sudden, this person upon whom the Holy Spirit is working, now all of a sudden it is the most pressing issue in their life, where they'll spend eternity. What happened? Well, they consented in the smallest way to the reality of God And so now, God will do what He always does whenever there is positive willingness. That is, reveal His Son so that men might be saved and that believers might be set apart, sanctified. That they might leave this world in blamelessness, which means without guilt. That's very important. See, guilt is what hamstrings believers. That's what causes them to distance themselves from the Word of God, the ministry of the Word of God, and from other believers, because they're ashamed. because of guilt. Because they did things or do things that are not proper for believers to do. And quite honestly, who doesn't? You know? So, if I see you doing something, I don't think I'll broadcast it. I might walk in backwards and cover you. But I'm not going to do what Ham did and broadcast it to the world. We don't broadcast sins, people's sins. We don't We don't impute men's sins. If we do, then we're against Christ. We're of the anti-Christ spirit because God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself and not imputing men's sins. If God doesn't do it, how dare we impute people's sins? And we're not to be sin conscious anyway. We're to be conscious of His righteousness and to see ourselves wrapped and engulfed in His righteousness. to see ourselves in His complete favor as objects of His undiminishable and incorruptible love, because He proved that once and for all, and there's no denying it. That should be reality, what God did through Christ, April 4, 30 AD, when He hung on the cross. He didn't do it for God. only, but He did it for you and for me. He didn't only do it for all mankind. He did it for each one personally as He bore away their sins by paying the full penalty and assuming the blame or the guilt of their sins. In Leviticus 5.6, every sin offering is accompanied by a guilt offering. They're never offered apart from one another. They are always offered in tandem. Always. because there are two aspects of sin. The first is the act of sin, the egregious act of sin, the act of rebellion to do what you know you shouldn't do or not to do what you know you should do. Sins of omission and commission. And then there is the guilt of sin that believers carry past the confession of sin. And so they do not receive the forgiveness of the cross, but they either enter into penance and try to do good to make up for the evil that they've done, or they're harsh with themselves and feel oftentimes that guilt is a virtue. After all, they're admitting that they're wicked and sinful. Well, God doesn't say you are, so why would you say it? Even though you do acknowledge the fact that you do sin, you also better acknowledge the fact that you don't have to, but that God will strengthen you to resist temptation and to avoid entering in to certain sins because those sins are soul-wrecking and very destructive, not only to you, but to others. So there's no reason or advantage to sin. Paul says, should we continue to sin so that grace may abound? He says, may it never be. And the action is in the dative case, which means there's no advantage to sin at all. None. All there is is the repercussions of sin and the negative consequences of sin. that defile you and your conscience by guilt. See, that's the problem, is you have a guilty conscience. That means the conscience is defiled. And you have missed the objective of all biblical instruction, which is a clear, clean conscience. And so, those who do not live with a clear conscience, but either suppress sin or guilt, and don't confess sin, and don't keep short accounts with God, and they live and are defiled and bitter, and blame God for what they did and they did to themselves and then defile many others because a root of bitterness springs up and always defiles others as well as the one who is embittered because of frustration and a sense of terrible, unresolved guilt, like carrying huge suitcases around with them all the time, and it's in the subconscious mind. And it causes them not to sleep, get rest, and it causes them to be dull, and listless and oftentimes, you know, nonproductive in every way. And they can't hear the word of God anymore. And their tendency is to withdraw from the Lord like Adam did when he felt guilty. Remember, Adam, where are you? For the first time, he's hiding from God. See, he withdraws from God because of the guilt of his sin. And then you know what he says to the Lord. He says, The woman that you gave me made me eat. And did she? I don't think so. He didn't have to eat. He was perfect. He didn't have a sin nature. Imperfection. And he was untested and untried, except for the one prohibition, which was the responsibility associated with continued freedom. And everybody's free, but freedom comes with responsibility. Freedom and responsibility. It's never freedom without responsibility, but it's always freedom with responsibility. And his responsibility was to guard the garden. And what was he guarded from? The very thing in person that came into the garden. You know, God didn't say, oh, I forgot to tell you, the devil's out here. I don't think he forgot to tell them. It's just that they become, you know, people become familiar and they just accept things as they are. They never think about them. because they're occupied with everything except the real things, the important things, the things that really matter, and those things that would destroy them and would oppose them, come right in, and they don't even recognize it at all. You know, if you have a problem in your life, and it's an ongoing thing, or if you have conflict in your life, you better go to the Lord and say, show me what this is about. And He will show you. In my life, I came to recognize something recently that was... You know, I go, why is this like this, Lord? And He says, here's why. And He showed me exactly what it was. So now, I can deal with it. And it's not strange anymore. But I understand the workings of it. And I can resist the temptation to enter into the emotion which leaves thought and truth behind. And it doesn't help anybody. It doesn't help me or anybody else. It's just a terrible distraction in life. And then you say, why is this like this? Why am I doing this? Well, now I know, so I don't have to do it anymore. I don't have to be led into a chaotic situation anymore. I don't have to be. And it's really wonderful when he turns the light on and exposes darkness. And see, we don't wrestle against flesh and blood. We don't. You say, well, I do. Well, then you got the wrong adversary. You missed the whole thing. It's not the person. It's the person behind the person who is a fallen angelic being who's always stirring the pot, who's always accusing, who's always intimidating, who's always roaring like a lion. loudmouth. So, what's all outbursts of anger? Well, it's all, you know, sound that comes through the airwaves. It's all sponsored by and facilitated by the prince of the power of the air. That's Ephesians 2. That's 2.2. Ephesians 2.2. And that's what activates and animates the world. His thinking taken in to people's empty souls and like ventriloquist dummies. He pulls the strings and they open their mouth and he gives them the words like swords to hurt even to kill, to assassinate people's character, to slander and malign people and to do great harm to them and to lie. and live a lie. See, we don't believe the Word of God. If we did, then it would be simple to see things the way God does. But we don't. We say, oh no, even though he says that, I know that this is more real than what he has said. Well, we're going to find out. Sooner or later. It's better to find out some of it here. We'll all know it there. That what he says is real and everything else is an illusion. Remember the movie? The Matrix? This is just the Matrix. That's the whole idea. Is that there's spiritual reality that underlies everything and a spiritual purpose behind everything. And God hasn't done anything that doesn't promote and publicize His purposes. Everything. I'm talking about everything in material creation. I'm talking about everything in the celestial heavens. I'm talking about everything that relates to the earth. Everything in heaven, on earth, and under the earth. All is designed to reveal Him. to reveal the person of Christ. That's what the scripture says over and over. Therefore all men are without excuse. Because He's programmed eternity into the soul of man. Ecclesiastes 3.11 and 13. And so everybody knows. But then what men do is suppress it. They suppress the truth in unrighteousness. Therefore the wrath of God is reserved against all unrighteousness. Of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness and deny what they know very evidently by what has been created, not only in the heavens and in nature, the continuum of nature, but right inside of their own body and their own soul. That's living a lie. That is denying the truth. And so, He won't make them believe. He won't make them acknowledge Him. But those who want to, those who wish to, those who will to, He will give them what they want and much, much more. Eternal salvation and a life that is supernatural and stocked with every reality and a growing reality in their life. That's what He wants to do. And He wants us to be able to divest ourselves of guilt when we sin. Just like you confess your sin and accept the forgiveness that occurred when Christ died in your place on the cross and God imputed all of your sins to Him. By the way, it was way before you were ever born when God did that. He gathered them from the future, from the past, present, and future, and imputed them all to Christ, gathered them off the line of eternity, and that was the last time He saw them. And it is finished, as far as he's concerned, that is, that which was required for your complete exoneration and your complete purging of sin, your complete forgiveness of every sin. That's Ephesians 4.32. He says, forgive one another, be tenderhearted. and forgive one another, even as God, for the sake of Christ, as by what Christ did, has forgiven you. Has forgiven you. It's in the past. That is, you've been forgiven the moment you believe in Christ. You're forgiven of all things which you could not be forgiven of by the law of Moses. Because the law didn't have any forgiveness. It only accounted infractions. That's all. It would account or impute sin to you. And it would frustrate every attempt to keep it and actually cause those who attempt to keep it to sin because it's too high, heavy, hard, and holy. And man, by himself, without the Holy Spirit, isn't holy at all. And apart from the faith in Christ is not accepted or acceptable to God in any way. So, here in Ephesians 1.4, I'll read this over again. It says, Just as He selected us, that is the selection process of adoption in Him from the foundation, before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy, completely set apart for His purpose, from sin and for His purpose, and blameless, a momos. A momos means spotless. And spotless is important because what it does is it harkens and bespeaks the offering that God accepts, like the offerings in Israel, which were only typical and fell far short of what He would do in all reality, because it wasn't going to be the sacrifice of a lamb, but a man who was like a lamb. And animal sacrifices can't pay for human sins. The blood of bulls and goats in the ashes of a heifer, sprinkled to the cleansing of the flesh, can't save you or set you apart or provide forgiveness. But the blood of Christ, who offered himself a momos without spot to God, will purge or cleanse, catharizo, your conscience. See, that's the issue. The issue is a conscience, a clean, clear conscience from dead religious works. That's works of penance. Doing good to make up for evil or good to make up for bad. Things that you did. And more people do that than you can imagine. And maybe you do. Maybe I do. I'm not telling you if I do or not. But I know if I do or not. And you know if you do or not. And you know, I mean, things that you thought maybe that you had complete victory over, you find yourself doing them again. And things you vowed to God not to do anymore, which you should never do, because then you're conscious of sin and you become a law unto yourself and you're destined to failure. Rather, we commit our way to Him. And He brings it to pass. He enables us to do everything that He requires of us. And He wills and works inside of us. We know that. I mean, we heard that. I don't know if we believe it or not, but we know it. And we should know it because the Lord keeps hammering that home to us. And, you know, He's working those things out. As we work them out, that is, we figure out finally how that works. That's what it means to work out your salvation. Figure out how it works. Well, here's how it works. God wills and works inside of you and you become willing or you become compliant to His will because it makes more sense and it's more gracious and it is more practical than anything that you could ever do or think of. And so you say, well, which way am I going to go? Am I going to go my way or God's way? Well, I think I'll go God's way. And you try it. And you may fail. But then you get up and you go again. You confess your sin. You divest yourself of the guilt of your sin. That is, you rebound and keep moving. See, you can't keep moving if you've got the suitcases of guilt that you're carrying with you. And that honors Jesus Christ, who was not only a sin offering, but a guilt offering. See, can you see the dishonor and disdain of Christ's sacrifice? If you are guilty for your sins, if you don't cast your guilt upon Him as well as your sins and your cares and your anxieties and your worries, which are sins, because all that's not out from faith as a source is sin. And to honor Jesus Christ, we honor Him and learn. to be blameless. See, that's part of the learning of the Christian spiritual life, learning to be blameless. This is learning to be blameless, part two. So, he says to be holy and a momos, that is, to have a pure heart, a clear, clean conscience. To have pure thoughts, pure motivation, clear thinking, and moral clarity. There's nothing wrong with morality. We're all required to be moral people. But that morality is not spirituality in and of itself. But true spirituality always produces real morality, which is virtue. Which is, you know, the fruit of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is is not capable of anything other than virtue. He is not capable of sin, and God doesn't tempt anyone. He does test you after He's given you what it takes to pass the test only. So, He's infinitely reasonable and fair. But it is a MoMA. Spotless means that you don't harbor resentment. You don't harbor grudges against people. You forgive others and that people don't have some people don't have trouble doing that. because they've seen the fact that they've been forgiven for so much, and that other people, when they do things, of course they're going to, because people are evil, and they can forgive them, but they can't forgive themselves. And guess what? If you can't forgive yourself, then you're never going to make any progress. And it's not because you lose the filling of the Holy Spirit. I never see that anywhere in the Word of God. All I see is the positive command to be filled or controlled by the Holy Spirit. Or to walk in dependence upon the Holy Spirit so that you don't fulfill the urges and impressions and impulses of the flesh. That's all. And the fact is that you can't if you depend on Him. And you will if you don't. Absolutely you will. But you don't lose the filling of the Holy Spirit. It's just that you withdraw from Him because you feel so unworthy. And guess what? That's good because you are unworthy. And if you thought you were worthy before you sinned, you weren't any more worthy then than after you sinned. Sorry. Because grace has no concept of worthiness at all. You can't earn it. You can't deserve it. You can't work for it. You can't pay for it. Therefore, how can you have anything other than what God has freely bestowed, apart from your behavior? Because if it depended on us, or if God marked iniquity, who could stand? I don't know. Some people think they could. They can't though. Because arrogance is the sin that he hates the most of the six things, yay, no, seven, that are an abomination to him, like a proud look. And that's a fact. So, the pure heart with pure thoughts and pure motivation, that is a momos, to be spotless on the inside. Not sinless, but blameless. That means you're not carrying the guilt of sin around, which is debilitating and causes you to to stop making spiritual advance. It stops you dead as far as progress in the spiritual life goes and causes you to withdraw from the Word of God and from other Christians. You just don't want to be around them. Do you ever feel like that? Like, I really don't want to be with other Christians because of the things that I just feel terrible about and they're just going to judge me. because I did these things. And I'll probably tell them, as stupid as I am, and tell the wrong people, confide in the wrong people, and then I deserve to be critiqued then by them. And if I care what they think anyway, above what you think, Father, then there's something terribly amiss. And I don't understand anything at all. at the most basic or fundamental level about you and what you've done for me. So, it's not sinless, but blameless. That is, you have to learn how to be without spot, without blame. As James says, hating even the garment spotted by the flesh. Not sinless, but blameless. That is guiltless. That's the whole idea. To be guiltless. Have less guilt. No, have no guilt. Because your guilt was born. See, those who claim objectivity with regard to the forgiveness of sins are the same ones who in subjectivity remain bound by guilt and make no further progress. They never learn how to forgive themselves when God has forgiven them for the sake of Christ. They are to forgive themselves on the same basis. and to get rid of or unload the guilt as quick as you unload the sin. Like right at the door. You know, the priest is to kill the bull at the door. I confess my sin before I'm even done with it. I've learned to do that. That's a spiritual skill. Quickly, quickly, quickly. Before I do myself irreparable harm. and, you know, suffer unnecessarily. Sometimes He will cut it short and not even allow you to go through with it. And sometimes when temptation comes, it's the Lord saying, I will strengthen you now so that you can resist that temptation, that thing you've caved into a million times. And I find myself these days in certain areas receiving the strength to resist temptation. I've never resisted like he did to the shedding of his blood. But it's great that all of a sudden, something that you never used to be able to resist, you can resist. And the results are wonderful. Peace. Happiness. Life and peace. And you get the crown of life, which means that you get to experience a greater level of reality here in this life and that you'll have greater capacity for the rewards of eternity and the happiness of the eternal state. And you'll be happier than others. which is really precious when you consider that that happiness goes on and on and never ends. And happiness is a great commodity of wealth for all eternity. So, the same people that believe in forgiveness of sins are those who in subjectivity remain bound by guilt. And that stops all progress. It's guilt that brings all spiritual progress and the learning and fellowship with Christ to a screeching halt. It's guilt that causes one to leave occupation with Christ And it should do just the opposite. It should drive you to Him. Draw you to Him. And He's lifted up. That's on the cross. Draw all men to Himself. And they leave occupation with Christ for preoccupation with self through occupation with sin. We're never to be sin conscious. But to be conscious of righteousness. And He is our righteousness. Guilt is the very occasion that Satan is waiting for to bring condemnation by accusation, fear and dread to plague the soul. Knowing as he does, it is guilt that defiles the conscience and brings all spiritual progress to a screeching halt and stops the believer's learning of who he is in his personal sense of identity that comes from learning who Christ is, which is the only objective of all spiritual or doctrinal instruction in 1 Timothy 1. And guilt always causes one to depart from beholding Christ and believing His Word as that one enters into occupation with self and sin through guilt. They're not occupied with Christ anymore. They've withdrawn from Christ and from His Word and oftentimes from His people. You say, why doesn't this person come to church anymore? Well, probably just carrying around so much guilt. We should pray that the Lord would show them that they're no worse and no better than anybody else and get back to the source of living water. The only cleansing that there is, that is the cleansing by the water, the washing of the water of the Word. That's the only cleansing there is. It's catharizo. It's the understanding that all of your filth was washed away. You were baptized in the Jordan River, and all of your filth was washed off you and down the river into the Dead Sea, where nothing lives in, on, or around the Dead Sea. And they'll never come back. It only goes one way, and then it turns into asphalt down there. and death. It's the big pool of death. It's the exact same place where God sent fire and brimstone from heaven and burned Sodom and Gomorrah deep within the earth. And that filled with water and minerals and salts that is like no other body of water in the world. It's 26 times as dense and has 26 times the specific gravity of ocean water. And it creates its own tar or asphalt. It's also called the Asphalt Sea, the Dead Sea. Did you ever have Dead Sea Salt? And you rubbed it on your hands and oh my gosh, that's amazing. It makes your skin like baby skin, like instantly. It's remarkable. I've got to get some of that and do my feet and my face. I'll cleanse my scalp so that hair grows again. Clean out those pores. I wonder if that would work. It might. But that's the truth of it. That's been taken off of you. And it never comes back on. God doesn't see you in sin ever again. He never again calls you or sees you or tells you that you're in the flesh ever. If you say to me, I was in the flesh, I'll say, no, you weren't. You can't be. And Romans 8, 9 says that you're not in the flesh, but in the Spirit. If so be that the Spirit of God dwells within you, and if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he doesn't belong to Him. Well, I belong to Him, I believed in Him, so therefore I'm never again to know myself according to the flesh, because God doesn't know me that way. And I'm not to know anybody else after the flesh or according to the flesh. To do so is to dishonor the death of Christ for guilt and the acts of sin. The acts of sin and the guilt of sin. So, they depart in guilt from beholding Christ and believing His Word and enter into occupation with self. Because if you're not occupied with Christ, who else are you occupied with? Maybe some love interest or something, but that's only preoccupation with self as well. How that one makes you feel, and how much you love them, and that'll all be tested. And we'll see that our love isn't sufficient. We need His, just like our happiness isn't. Our patience isn't. Our virtue isn't. But His is the only one that cuts it. And He wants to give it to us. And He does it through His Word and His Spirit. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, etc. If you have to go, Stephanie, you can. Okay. Because I allow you. So guilt is a foreboding sense of unworthiness and undeservedness. But that's okay, because if you're not conscious of that, then you're not grace-oriented. Because grace-orientation means that you don't have thoughts of worthiness or deservedness as far as the blessings of God are concerned, and all of those were provided at His expense, at Christ's expense. We have G-R-A-C-E, God's righteousness at Christ's expense, and God's riches at Christ's expense, all courtesy of the person and work of Jesus Christ. And that forgiveness is not easy or cheap. It's very expensive, but it's also absolute. And we need to have reality in that sphere of life. So, This is vital to understand this and is the key to spiritual learning. Because you're not going to be focused upon Christ properly and learn of, from, and about Him, nor are you going to come unto Him to find rest for your soul. You're going to withdraw from the living God. And from the church of God, which is the pillar and ground of the truth, from the Word of God, it's a sharp two-edged sword. and critiques the thoughts and intentions of your heart. You don't want to be critiqued. You want to do your own thing, your own way, and you want to feel guilty. So, go ahead and see where it gets you. Like nowhere, because that's the only place it will get you. In no man's land. Nowhere. So, it's more important than any of us knows and is the antidote for the snake bite. And the snake bite is the tendency of man in his carnality as a believer and in his spiritual death as an unbeliever. to become occupied with sin and so, therefore, to be poisoned by it and to die in it. Jesus said to the Pharisees, you will die in your sins, not because He wasn't going to pay for them, but they would never receive the forgiveness that was extended to all people. Because they said, I don't believe in you. So if you don't believe in Christ and you don't have, you can't have the forgiveness. Because the forgiveness comes in a moment with everything else that God has provided. At the moment of faith in Christ, you have it all. There's nothing more that is added, except for the rewards of eternity, which are already slated for you. and kept safe in heaven, awaiting the final phase of your salvation, which is still to be revealed in 1 Peter 1 5. And they're laid up for you, like the crown of righteousness, Paul says, that's awaiting me with my name on it. You know, not only for me, but for you guys, too, if your love is appearing like I do. If His appearing has become real to you, and you know that He is going to come, not like the mockers of the last day that say, where is the hope? Where is the promise of His coming? Ever since our fathers fell asleep, they've been saying, the Lord's coming, the Lord's coming, the Lord's coming. He hasn't come, and I don't think He is coming. And so they live a life that's unrestrained, without any spiritual reality. And they live and walk just like the Gentiles do in the vanity or emptiness, the vacuum of their souls. And they're like little children that get tossed back and forth by every wind of doctrine and the waves of doubt and fear. and are subject to the cunning craftiness of men who lie in wait to deceive the naive. And Paul says, the Holy Spirit says, stop being infants. Stop being stupid, but know what the will of the Lord is. The will of the Lord is that you're awake and aware and that you're taking full advantage of your opportunity in time as John drifts off into sleepy land. No, I'm kidding. I feel that way too, often. I used to fight so hard sometimes on Sunday mornings. I was never tired. I think it was, like, it wasn't only the fact that I was probably, I went to bed too late, but it was the fact that, like, there's something about the preaching of the Word of God, even like Peter said, it's difficult to accept in some instances. In other words, you could be in a mindset that it's very difficult to accept or to connect the things that are being said. And it can be kind of like a... What do you call that? There's like an air of Sleepiness comes over you. Lethargy. That's it. You know, just like the disciples in the Garden of Gethsemane. They just all of a sudden, they were so tired. You know, I mean, they didn't go to bed that time of night. It was like they ate dinner and then they went to the Garden of Gethsemane. He said, pray with me. And I'm sure they did it before. But now all of a sudden, they can't keep their eyes open. And I remember that. I mean, it was like I say, Lord, you better quicken me by your word, because this must be something that the devil doesn't want me to hear. And therefore, I keep drifting away. And oftentimes, he would just perk me up and wake me up. And it was like, oh, OK, what was I? You know, why was I so tired? You know, because he corrected it, which is just a little side thing, but it's true. You know, and so there's always something that he wants to tell us and we'll perk up if he perks us up. You know, I will repent if he changes my mind and I'll be healed if he heals me. And if I don't, I won't. And if I continue in His Word, then I'll be a disciple of His. And if I don't, I won't be. And if I am a disciple, then I'll come to know the truth, and the truth will make me free. And if I'm not a disciple of His, then I will never know the truth, and I'll never be free. That's just the way it works. The opposite is always true of the positive statements of Scripture. When God speaks in positives, every promise is yes. Amen in Christ to the glory of God, but anyway, we'll finish this up in two seconds times 1480 So guilt it is guilt that defiles the conscience and a defiled conscience Means that the norms and standards aren't gracious anymore see You you would revert automatically to the natural conscience of man, which is good and evil. See? And that's what he was programmed with at the tree of good and evil. Everything was based upon physicality. Everything was black or white. And nothing is all black or all white. But he would now think in terms of what was right and what was wrong, what was due to right and what was due to wrong. So he either accuses or excuses himself. That's all he can do. He cannot receive what he doesn't deserve, what he doesn't earn, what he can never buy. what he could never work for or repay. He can't. That comes from God energizing us and giving us a brand new mind. New norms and new standards for our conscience. The conscience consists of norms and standards. That is, what is right or truly right? That which God does. And what is it that God does? Everything He does is grace. Everything He gives us is grace. So we're grace-oriented, radically grace-oriented, like our Savior who was filled to all fullness with grace and truth. And He lived under the law by grace. because God's always been gracious, but not nearly as gracious as He is now because of what Christ did for us in paying by the coin of the realm, which was His physical, psychological, and spiritual sufferings and death, to pay for sin, sins, and spiritual death. and to redeem us from the curse of the law by being made a curse for us by being lifted up on a pole like Moses fashioned a serpent. And all those who were bitten by these serpents that had the snake bite us in and were sure to die, what happened? They looked And we're healed. And that's all we can do. So, as far as guilt is concerned, that's all we can do. We can look at the serpent on a pole and say, well, why would Christ be represented as a serpent? Because he who knew no sin was made sin for us. And he bore that death in his own body and was cut off from the land of the living. And we were cut off from sin's effect on humanity and spiritual death by what Christ did. And we will never come under spiritual death or under the category of fleshly humanity ever again. Although you can be fleshly minded. You can be. That is with the conspicuous absence of the truth inside of your soul. And so that's enough for tonight, but I got a lot more on guilt. I even came up with an acronym for the word guilt. It's in here somewhere. I'm not going to give it away until Sunday. It's a good one. I said guilt, G-U-I-L-T. Lord, what does that mean? You know, just like G-R-A-C-E, God's riches or righteousness at Christ's expense. I like that to this day. I like it because everybody can understand that. Don't you think? They can. And you can go on to this. Grace is the policy of the divine essence in extending to all men everywhere. His highest and best blessings, His kindness, His favor, and His blessing based upon the satisfaction, the propitiation of Christ. Well, you don't have to say it that way. You can say we have everything from God because of Christ. That focuses your attention upon Christ and not upon an intellectual explanation of things using bigger words than you need to. I'm not a believer in big words. I'm not. I know big words. I'm a sesquipedalian. You know, that's one who uses big words. I can. I can impress you with big words if you want me to. Do you want me to? No. I'm not going to. Plain speaking is the order of the day. Anyway, so, guilt is bad. That's what I'm saying. That's what you teach kids. Guilt is bad. Suffering is good because everybody needs to suffer so they can learn how to lean on God. That's leaning skills. You've got learning skills and leaning skills. But learning is hampered and halted by guilt. And therefore, they make no progress until the issues of guilt are settled. And some people, since they never settle them, they never make any progress. They're always trying to live up to something. instead of receiving what God has done and the full acceptance that is theirs. They don't even know that God loves them and accepts them because they don't see the cross. And that's where it all comes from. See, the blameless believer is the one who has the cross planted right in the place of his skull. And he stared at the cross. And the Word of the cross indwells him richly. And he's cross-eyed, which means he sees everything through the cross. And it is the cross that crucified me to the world, Paul said, and the world to me. Therefore, I won't boast in anything except the cross. In Galatians 6.14. Let's pray. Father, thank You. for the Word of Christ. Thank you for the beauty of His holiness. Thank you for the plan which has encompassed and enveloped us and that we are the royal family of God by a divine intervention. what you did in sending your Son to become a man and to satisfy every issue of your holiness, to make a people holy by faith, by grace and through faith, which will glorify you supremely for all eternity. To the praise of your glory, to the praise of the glory of your grace, in Jesus Christ's name, Amen. Thank you very much for your attention. This is the record crowd that we've had on a Tuesday night. On the low end, that is. And it's a snowy night, by the way, for anybody listening to this. Very snowy, and the roads are bad.