Pastor, let's get started. I'm going to just read this one verse here in Galatians. Sorry, these two verses here in Galatians 5, 22 and 23, and then we'll open up with a word of prayer. Here are verses for today. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. Against such there is no law. Please pray with me. Heavenly Father, we come to You this morning through the glorious merits of our Lord Jesus Christ, who lived and died for us. Oh, Heavenly Father, we can come into Your presence and praise Your name because of what Christ did for us, how glorious it is. The Gospel is a marvel to us that we can be accepted in the Beloved, we can be counted as righteous, have never done a single righteous thing in our lives, but all for Christ's sake and all for His glory. Lord, I pray that this study would be edifying, that it would be helpful to us to see these fruits of the Spirit. Lord, help us to see Christ and help us, by Your grace, Lord, to be conformed into His image more today. And by Your grace, Lord, help us to bring glory to Your name and honor to Christ. In Jesus' name I pray, Amen. All right, so this study is going to be a continuation and application of the previous study. If you recall, the previous study was more or maybe too technical. But unfortunately, I found it hard to avoid because to understand the words, we need to consider them in the original languages, or at least with a strong concordance to compare uses of the same Greek or Hebrew word. Or this time, instead of making references to original words, I'm just going to use the word kindness instead of gentleness in the fruits of the Spirit. And goodness will, I mean, naturally refer to goodness. So the fruits of long-suffering kindness and goodness, we're gonna take a look probably at these three in a group today. If we contemplate the list of the nine fruits of the Spirit before us, we might note that they naturally fall into groups of three. The first three fruits, love, joy, and peace are the primary dispositions of the soul in reaction to the gospel. The fruits of love, joy, and peace must grow up into the whole human nature, the mind, the affections, and the will. True love flows from understanding the gospel of free grace, wherein is expressed a perfect love set forth in perfect righteousness as our propitiation at the cross. We love because He first loved us. And true joy flows from understanding the scope of the covenant blessing, which is beyond our ability to comprehend. But we can understand the picture of it, the outline of it, knowing that we are promised union with God in Christ. And so to be partakers of the divine nature in resurrected bodies for all eternity, we surely should rejoice. This is joy unspeakable and full of glory. And peace is our abiding in Christ. It is our resting and trusting in His work. We understand that this is He who works all things for His own glory, who is perfect in covenantal faithfulness. So these three are in some sense one and grow together. In a human terms, we can't imagine a true kind of love that doesn't rejoice in the beloved, right? And we can't be satisfied with the love that is changeable or fickle. We can't count that as a true kind of love that may be here today and gone tomorrow. And we can't imagine a joy where there is no taking possession of the thing loved. It's taken together. They provide the Christian with a firm foundation on which the next layer of fruit can be laid, or a threefold cord which is not easily broken. I tried to support the idea when we studied longsuffering that the fruit of longsuffering needs the foundation of the first three fruits. Love is needed in order to provide the direction or motivation of the action. Why should one allow oneself to suffer? It can be just removed from the suffering. It was the love of the Savior which made Him set His face towards Jerusalem. And it was love that kept Him on the cross to bear the full weight of God's wrath for us. And His long-suffering required joy for strength, because it was for the joy that was set before Him that He endured the cross, despising the shame. And the joy of the Lord is our strength. And long-suffering requires the peace which passes understanding, as Jesus said, I am not alone because the Father is with me. He had that peace knowing that nothing could separate Him from the Father. And I know He went through the horrifying suffering on the cross that He had this peace knowing that the Father was with Him. So today we're going to look at these next three in a group, although focusing on kindness and goodness for the most part. I don't know, 200 years ago or so, the secular poet William Blake was amazed that he could see a world in a grain of sand and heaven in a wildflower. I think we should likewise be amazed that we can discover the mind of God in the words of Scripture. Oftentimes, individual words are like a grain of sand or like a geode, which though appearing to be ordinary, dull-looking rock reveals a marvelous inner world when it is cracked open. The Bible seems that way to us at first, like a dull and ordinary book, until it is cracked open for us and we're allowed, permitted to see Christ in His splendor on every page and reflected in every word of Scripture. The last time I showed that the Hebrew word for good encompasses both of these two fruits before us, kindness and goodness. These words are distinct in the Greek of the New Testament. But what I wanted to show is that the idea of goodness in relation to God has two distinct aspects, which are made more clear in the New Testament than in the Old Testament. The first one is that God is as He is in Himself, good, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in His being, wisdom, holiness, power, justice, goodness, and truth. The riches of His goodness are as extensive as His being, infinite, in other words, because God is His goodness in His essence, which is to say that God is essentially good. And that's what Jesus said when the man came to Him. He said, who is good but God alone? But there's another aspect of the goodness, which is a different idea taking that constitutional goodness of God's nature, which is complete in itself, and spreading it abroad or disseminating it. If I could give an example, it would be great to have a local library full of good books, but if it's never open to the public, then it's goodness is only internal to itself. You might say, what good is it? It's a great library, but it's never open it. but it's still good in itself. It's a good thing. The library is good, but opening it to the public and circulating those books is another and a different good thing. So more on that later. Now, to give a little background of what is good, I think as we move around in this world, we all have our own ideas about what is good. Some of them we've picked up from various sources, and maybe we're not even aware of where we picked up some of our ideas. Even more than just a general or a collection of ideas about what is good, we have a general idea of the good, which we actually may not even be aware of, which yet exerts a large degree of control on our thinking and our behavior. It ought to concern us that our thinking might be controlled by something of which we're only dimly aware. And we ought to realize that most people are not aware of the main controlling principles in their thinking. Because as we read in Ephesians 2, there is a spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience by subtle means, which are certainly not obvious to the natural man. One of the primary mechanisms that the evil one uses is our idea of the good. By a general idea of the good, I mean something that we seek after as our primary goal or our primary purpose, our primary good, even though we might not have ever thought the issue through. Jesus said, take no thought saying, what shall we eat? What shall we drink? Or wherewithal shall we be clothed? or after all these things do the Gentiles seek?" Matthew 6, 31 and 32. And we all seek those things on a daily basis, do we not? Jesus said, take no thought. But I think we express almost all of our thoughts in terms of such things, don't we? We are Gentiles. We have to work, eat, and sleep. What does Jesus mean, take no thought? So let's think of it in terms of our personal good. what we think of as good. Every purposeful action, every action we take is in pursuit of some good. And so a person pursues their own goods and we can know what a person thinks is good by what that person seeks after. What do you seek after? Think about it. That's what is the good for you. But our mental catalogs of good is not one and not that simple. It's not flat like a grocery list. but more like a tree, an arrangement of means and ends. We have a hierarchy of goods since we seek some things in order to get other things. A person may seek to get a college degree in order to enter a desired kind of work or desired line of work. Getting a college degree is good because it opens the door to getting certain kinds of jobs, but we always should ask ourselves why. Why do you want that kind of job? Why do you want a degree to get that job? And could it be wealth or prestige or self-esteem or security? Why does a man seek wealth? I don't know. Things become murky to us at some point in our own minds. And anyone who has children probably has experienced the endless why questions of a child. tumbling to us. It doesn't take more than three or four or five why questions to completely put us out of our ability to answer. Why is the sky blue? I don't know. It just is, right? Sometimes we ask why, but we should ask why more often. Like I think as we grew to adults, we stopped asking why. And children ask why because they're curious and they want to understand the world around them. And we tend to think that we know ourselves and we know the world, but do we? Do we really? And so we should ask ourselves why we're doing things, why we think things, because that reveals the motives of our heart. A man, for instance, may see himself, picture himself to himself as a hardworking and self-sacrificing man, driven to sacrifice and scrimp and save. Why? Maybe for retirement, at which time he plans to enjoy relaxation and pleasure. All the intermediate ends he saw were bent to his ultimate good, which was to travel the world, to have fun and pleasurable experiences. So a man's purpose may appear good, but if it's leading towards another purpose, which is not good, then his motive or his ultimate end or good, what he thinks of as good may not be good. Appearances can definitely be deceiving. Our own idea of the ultimate good may not be obvious to ourselves, to us, because we can tend to keep these things secret from ourselves, which seems amazing that we could hide things from ourselves, but we do self-deceive, we deceive ourselves, and because, for a few reasons, we might never examine ourselves to discover what it is we're really seeking. And yet our ultimate good is there lurking, and it might control us and block us and prevent us from recognizing, considering, appreciating, seeking and accepting another or a different kind of good. Our personal idea of the good blinds us to other ideas of good, which are foreign to whatever we consider to be the greatest good for ourselves. A man who seeks his own comfort and pleasure does not comprehend the idea of serving his country by joining the military. It doesn't enter his mind as a possibility. He even mocks the ideas of self-sacrifice and service, since they are contrary to his idea of the good, which for him is wallowing in sinful pleasure. I think it's easy to multiply examples of this. We can all think back on our own lives when we were all most likely lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God, as it says in 2 Timothy 3, 4. Maybe we still are. Maybe some of us still are lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God. And it's not easy for us to tell because our hearts are deceptive above all things and desperately wicked. What the Scripture says, who can know our own hearts? We can't. Apart from grace. In the parable of the tares and the wheat, in Matthew 13, if you want to flip over to Matthew 13, starting around verse 24, the kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man which sowed good seed in his field, But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and went his way. But when the blade was sprung up and brought forth fruit, then appeared the tares also. So the servants of the householder came and said unto him, Sir, didst thou not sow good seed in thy field? From whence then hath it tares? And he said unto them, An enemy hath done this. The servant said unto him, Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up? But he said, Nay, lest thou, while While you gather up the tares, you root up also the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest. And in the time of harvest, I will say to the reapers, gather ye together first the tares and bind them in bundles and to burn them. But gather the wheat into my barn. The idea seems to me that it's quite difficult to distinguish between the wheat and the tares. And by trying to weed out the tares, it's likely that a good plant would be uprooted by mistake. And that is no good. So we are led to understand that the wheat and the tares appear outwardly similar while the plants are immature, and that telling them apart is not necessarily easy. Of course, bearing fruit is the obvious discriminator between wheat and tare, since tares will never bear wheat. A bad tree cannot bear good fruit. So, though we may think of ourselves even as wheat, it's possible that we are tares and that we have a fundamental idea of the good, which is inconsistent with the biblical idea of the good. Well, fortunately, Scripture is abundant in revealing to us the errors in our thinking. Thankfully, the men and women whose hearts are examined in Scripture are just like us. They give us a rich mind to discover the ways we can be treasuring up for ourselves on earth. For where a man's treasure is, there his heart will be also. So by examining our motives in the light of scripture, we may see some reflection of our own inner hierarchy of good and discover that we have imbibed some very common worldly mindsets, which so common are nevertheless completely contrary to the gospel. Another analogy, what distinguishes a regular piece of iron from a magnet? I don't know if anyone has any knowledge of iron and magnets, but if you could look at a single atom of iron through maybe a super-duper microscope, you would see that it Each atom is like a little teeny magnet with a north and a south pole. And when you have a regular piece of iron, all the atoms, all the iron atoms in there are randomly oriented so that the magnetic field of each iron atom is canceled out overall. So it's just a regular piece of iron. But interestingly, though, a regular piece of iron can be magnetized by repeatedly rubbing a magnet along it. This process takes a long time, It does align the iron atoms in this ordinary piece of iron so that the individual atoms are aligned in the same direction and all going together in the same direction that causes the iron to produce a significant magnetic field so it can attract other things. The magnet is magnetic because all the atoms of the iron are aligned in the same direction. Outwardly, it doesn't look any different from a regular piece of iron, but it has an attractive power because of the internal alignment of its atoms. Each of us has to look within to bring every thought captive to Christ, to constantly check that the biblical idea of the good examines and controls every thought and intent of our hearts. Our thoughts and intents of our Our hearts are naturally wicked and scattered to the winds of disorderliness, like the nations and the languages of the Tower of Babel. We are born and our thoughts scatter in every direction. But by grace and by the work of the Spirit, the biblical idea of the good brings all the aspects of our inner life into an inward harmony and unity. This is the fruit of spiritual goodness. Paul warned us of those who have a form of godliness but deny the power thereof, 2 Timothy 3.5. Many people can look like a magnet or look like a strand of wheat, but it's only the outward form of godliness, but they deny the power thereof in their internal reality of their idea of the good and their inner orientation, I should say. So we know that there can be outward appearance which lacks the inward reality. But by diligent use of this means, that is understanding what is the good, we can reorient our inner motivations into a single polar direction toward the glory of Christ. So what are some of the false ideas of the good that we have? All of us have these ideas just by nature of our birth and the world that we live in, and the devil, the world, the flesh, and the devil. So there is a general American, I think even a general Western democratic life principle, which promotes the consumption of goods, the use of labor-saving devices, and all bent toward a life of ease. Early on, we find ourselves set on the path in our working lives of working and saving for retirement, getting a good job and saving money so you can retire. That's what we're all taught to strive for, isn't it? That's the American dream. But why are we doing this? What is the good that is sought in this case? If you would now flip over to Luke chapter 12. Starting in verse 16. Another parable. Jesus spake a parable unto them saying, the ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully. And he thought within himself saying, what shall I do? Because I have no room where to bestow my fruits. And he said, this will I do. I will pull down my barns and build greater. And there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods. And I will say to my soul, soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years. Take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry. But God said unto him, thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee. Then who shall these things be which thou hast provided? Oops. So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God. Here was a man who had received a windfall surplus of material goods, like a man who wins the lottery. And what is his reaction? His ultimate good is revealed. What he thinks is his ultimate good. Soul, take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry. This is what his soul had been truly seeking all along. ease. This purpose for working and gathering much was so that he might stop working and enjoy life. I think most working people probably have this in their minds in the back of their minds as a life goal. And perhaps it is their only life goal to save up enough goods to be able to retire and have a life of ease. That's why many Many men, after retirement, lose a sense of purpose in their lives. They have ease, but they die within a few years. It's not that much different than what the parable of Jesus said. The men work their whole lives to save money, and they retire. They try to have a life of ease, but they're dead within a few years. This is miserable. This is vanity, right? The cares of this world, and whoops. Such a life goal might easily come to dominate the mindset and prevent the true seeking of a very different kind of good. Jesus said, the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word and it becometh unfruitful, Matthew 13, 22. Ultimately, the end sought in this world can easily prevent the recognition and acceptance and wholehearted pursuit of seeking the greater good of the glory of God through the gospel. We can see a similar mindset in Nabal in the story of David and Nabal in 1st Samuel 25. Would you want to flip back to 1st Samuel chapter 25? In verses 6 through 11, not gonna read the whole thing, but just to summarize that David had protected Nabal's workers and men who were in the field. David prevented any harm from coming to them and guaranteed them a successful harvest and shearing of their sheep. David had a right to share in the surplus of goods which resulted from this. But Nabal would not provide anything for David and his men, because his heart could not comprehend the good in it. He would not provide from his abundance, because his heart was bent towards his own pleasure and storing up his treasure on earth. Nabal assumed he had control over his goods and over his life, and he set his heart upon them. rather than upon the good of his neighbor who had already shown him much good. The name Nabal in Hebrew means fool. And the Lord expresses the principle like this, thou fool, so is he that layeth up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God. If you've got in your mind the idea to work and save and one day retire, consider that this may be your ultimate goal in life. And now let's flip over to the book of Amos, if you can find that one, one of the minor prophets. I can find it. Right. In Amos chapter six, We have his description of America. No, there's the description of the northern kingdom in their degradation. And it started in verse three. It says, He that put far away the evil day and caused the seat of violence to come near, that lie upon beds of ivory and stretch themselves upon their couches, eat the lambs out of the flock and the calves out of the midst of the stall, that chant to the sound of the viol, and invent to themselves instruments of music, like David. They drink wine in bowls and anoint themselves with the chief ointments, but they are not grieved for the affliction of Joseph." Amos describes what sounds to me like a typical American life, plenty of time to drink beer and watch sports on TV while lying on the sofa, but not a single thought for the affliction of Joseph, not a single thought for the gospel. Why? Why? They're those whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things, as it says in Philippians 3.19. And it would be a reasonable approach, I think, for us to take, but that we have another idea of the good, which is completely contradictory to it. If, as Paul wrote, after the manner of men, I have fought with beasts at Ephesus, What advantage is it to me if the dead rise not? Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die. As Isaiah wrote, come, come, ye say, that I will fetch wine and we will fill ourselves with strong drink. Tomorrow shall be as this day, much more abundant. Isaiah 56, 12. Ah, but we who believe that the dead will indeed rise cannot remain in that. and cannot own that as our good because our idea of the good is radically changed. Now, let's consider another aspect or another idea that people have of the good, which is even more confusing. I want to consider the Sadducees. I've never heard a sermon on the Sadducees or rarely heard any discussion of them. But let's consider the Sadducees in contrast with the Pharisees. As we read in Acts 23.8, the Scripture says, the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, neither angel nor spirit, but the Pharisees confess both. We almost always hear and read of them as grouped together in much of the Gospels, the Pharisees and the Sadducees, the Pharisees and the Sadducees. They came to John the Baptist in the wilderness He called them both together a generation of vipers. Paul used their difference on this point of the resurrection to divide them in Acts 23. Josephus, the historian, wrote of the Sadducees that they suppose that God is not concerned in our doing or not doing what is evil. And they say that to act what is good or what is evil is at men's own choice. and that the one or the other belongs so to everyone that men may act as they please. And so we are ourselves the causes of what is good and receive what is evil from our own folly. They also take away the belief of the immortal duration of the soul and the punishments and rewards in Hades. Think now, these two groups have a completely radically different worldview, how they could ever band together be united in something is very hard to understand. But of course, they were both in complete unity in opposition to Christ and the gospel, because they both have their portion in this world. The Pharisees, though they believed in the resurrection, nevertheless believed in their own goodness and their own righteousness. But the Sadducees are a different case. Why would they? What would cause them to to do anything. We have such people in our world today, of course. We meet them all the time. There are many people who are, even if not theoretical atheists, are certainly practical atheists and don't live in any way in light of God's presence or before His face in any way, recognizing or considering His existence. They think that our good or our evil, whatever we do, we can choose to do. And we experience the consequences of our actions. After death comes nothingness. And this is pretty common. But these people also tend to try to live good lives. And the question is, why? Why would they? Or why would it even matter to them how they live? Just in order to have goodness in this life, I think, is the only answer or to These two groups, in order to work together, must have had some agreement about how to behave. Although I have read that there are some wild ones among the Sadducees who lived completely out of all bounds, but certainly many did live a good life and tried to live according to the commandments, even though they had a complete and utter lack of an eternal perspective. The difference between the Pharisees and the Sadducees and their respective motivations is certainly profound then. And I think it's much easier for us to understand the Pharisees who believed in the resurrection and eternal life, but were confused about how to seek that and how to come into possession of eternal life. But the Sadducees, they lived as atheists basically. Jesus said, you don't understand the scriptures nor the power of God. So let's suppose that the best of the Sadducees sought to obey the commandments just because the commandments were ethically right, but with no thought of anything beyond this life, no thought of punishment or reward beyond this life. The motto, this motto, their motto would have to be like, the life well lived is its own reward. Whatever is sought is the good, and here the ultimate good of the Sadducees boils down to a feeling of self-satisfaction, if they could just lie on his deathbed and believe that they had lived their best life and they could die happy. What is this, though, to set oneself up as judge and jury over ourselves and submit to be judged in accordance with our own goodness? The psalmist David wrote, from men which are thy hand, O Lord, from men of the world which have their portion in this life, and whose belly thou fillest with thy hid treasure. They are full of children and leave the rest of their substance to their babes." God deliver us from this. So let's move on to the analysis of these fruits. Now, this has been a sort of a negative view about what could be our idea of the good. And if anyone has that idea, if you dream about relaxation and rest and peace and comfort and lying down, then consider that your idea of the good may very well be contradictory to what the scriptures teach. That we all have goals and purposes. There are things we strive for, both long-term and short-term, and it may not always be obvious to us what these ultimate things that we're seeking are. Some goals and purposes are short-term, like putting gas in the car so you can drive to the store to get food Some goals and purposes are long-term, such as saving for retirement, paying off your mortgage, et cetera. We have subordinate goods, which support the chief goods. And we can ask why, why, why, why to get to the bottom of our motivations, but things become murky for us because our hearts are indeed deceptive and hard to know. Who can know our own heart? So let's start with what is actually easier. from the Scriptures, which is the divine goodness, because it's all light to us in the Scriptures. So let's consider the divine goodness in two parts. The first is that essential goodness of God, which constitutes His being. Stephen Charnock wrote, this is the true and genuine character of God. He is good. He is goodness, good in Himself. good in his essence, good in the highest degree, possessing whatsoever is comely, excellent, desirable, the highest good, because the first good, whatsoever is perfect goodness is God, whatsoever is truly goodness in any creature is a resemblance of God. All the names of God are comprehended in this one good, All gifts are variety of goodness are contained in him as the one common good. He is the efficient cause of all good by an overflowing goodness of his nature. He refers all things to himself as the end for the representation of his own goodness. Truly God is good. Well, that's a mouthful for sure. The triune God of Scripture is perfect and lacks nothing. We understand that before the foundation of the world, there was no need in God. The fellowship of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is perfect in knowledge and love and peace and joy. God eternally exists in perfect blessedness. He did not create the universe because of any lack or need in Himself. And the heavens declare the glory of God, but they do not increase His glory. They don't add a single thing to His glory. All the nations before Him are as nothing. They are counted by Him to Him less than nothing in vanity." Isaiah 40, 17. The whole creation is as nothing compared to God. So why then did God create the universe? Jonathan Edwards wrestles with this question in his dissertation on the end for which God created the world. He wrote, there is something in that disposition to communicate goodness that shows God to be independent and self-moved in it in a manner that is peculiar and above the beneficence of the creatures. Creatures, even the most excellent, are not independent and self-moved in their goodness. But in all its exercise, they are excited by some object, something appearing good, or in some respect worthy of regard. It presents itself to them and moves their affections. But God, being all and alone, is absolutely self-moved. The exercises of his communicative disposition are absolutely from within himself. all that is good and worthy in the object and its very being proceeding from the overflowing of this fullness. Excuse me for one sec. Ultimately, it seems to me this goodness is even more mysterious than the essential goodness of the divine being. Fortunately, though, we don't need to really pry into these things which are too high for us and too deep for us to sound to the depths, we simply accept the revelation of the goodness of God, which seeks the dissemination of His essential goodness as it is revealed in Scripture. And this is the foundation of what we need to cover today. So when we consider Adam and Eve in the garden, we normally consider them to be blessed, even like the pinnacle of blessedness. We think to ourselves, we have fallen from such a great height and that we will be greatly blessed to return to that state. But was it so great so as to be sought as an end in itself? I think not. And the reason for it is because there was no way to progress from that state to a higher one. That is, though Adam and Eve were made in the image of God and though created in righteousness and were holy creatures, yet they were still separate from God with no clear path towards greater blessing. And what is that greater blessing, we may ask? It is what Peter wrote in 2 Peter 1, 4. He said, whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises, that by these you might be partakers of the divine nature partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust." Couldn't we say that Adam and Eve were partakers of the divine nature and that they were truly image bearers of God? Yes, in some sense, but no, not in the same way that those who were brought into union with God through Christ. Actually, not even close. Adam and Eve were not in union with God, and there was no path forward for them to come into union with God. How could God be their righteousness, sanctification, and wisdom when God had bestowed such things upon them in their constitution? But dear brothers and sisters, the union that Christians experience only comes to those who are utterly destitute of goodness in themselves. As Adam and Eve were sufficient in themselves, though dependent upon God, of course, but they could not be emptied to partake more fully of the divine nature. And here's a case. Could Adam and Eve be called long-suffering, or could they have long-suffering in themselves? No, because there was no suffering before the fall. How could they be long-suffering? The idea of long-suffering would have made no sense to them, because they had never experienced suffering And so we understand that the fall of man was a necessary prerequisite to the ultimate blessing, which can only come through full union with God. And the revelation of God at that time, before the fall, went out through general revelation. And now the revelation of God also still goes out through general, but also now through special revelation. We should understand there's always God's grace to reveal himself. Because to know God is the highest and the greatest good that can be even conceived of. And so I ask, what is this great kindness of God? Is it to give wealth, pleasure, honor, or other temporal things? No, no, those things are all passing away. But isn't it rather to give himself, to disseminate himself to the creature, in such a way that the creature comes to know the living God personally in such a way as to become a partaker of the divine nature. This is amazing. If, as Peter wrote, according to his, according as his divine power had given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness through the knowledge of him that have called us to glory and virtue, than it is the dissemination of the knowledge of himself, which is the great kindness of God. I'm not talking about a dry theoretical knowledge of God as if God could publish a systematic theology and be done with it. No, all things which pertain to life and godliness do not come through knowledge about God per se, but rather through the knowledge of God, through the knowledge of him, that have called us to glory and virtue. A knowledge which derives from personal union with God does not shun an intellectual knowledge of God. These two ought to go hand in hand, since the more we know God, the more we should want to know about him. And our theology takes on a more profound character as we grow in this way. Good theology always leads to doxology, which In the life of the Christian, there is no way to separate knowledge of the great truths about God from the participation in the divine nature. We are creatures with intellect, affection, and will. And so our union with Christ must be a union in all parts and aspects of our nature. In his high priestly prayer, the Lord said, and this is life eternal, that they might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent." Calvin comments on this verse, almost every one of the words has its weight. For it's not every kind of knowledge that is here described, but that knowledge which forms us anew into the image of God from faith to faith, or rather, which is the same with faith, by which having been engrafted into the body of Christ, we are made partakers of the divine adoption and heirs of heaven. The verse says that knowing God is life eternal. And Christ is that life to have. Christ is to have eternal life and and not to have Christ is not to have eternal life. So this knowledge that Jesus speaks of is the having of himself or being in union with Christ, because in him are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. In the context of redemptive history, this greatest imaginable blessing to come into union with the ultimate good, to partake of the divine nature, presupposes the creation of man. It presupposes the creation of man in God's image and the subsequent fall. The knowledge of God that is here spoken of is not comparable to other kinds of knowledge. It is not natural nor discoverable through natural means. Jesus said it this way. All things are delivered unto me of my father, and no man knoweth the son but the father, and neither knoweth any man the father save the son, and he to whomsoever the son will reveal him. And here it helps us, I think, to distinguish between general and special revelation. The knowledge of God shines forth in the creation, that we know from Romans 1, 18 and following, that man naturally suppresses the knowledge of God. As Calvin wrote in the Institutes, the greater part of mankind, enslaved by error, walk blindfold in this glorious theater. and that many who seem most sharp-sighted in other respects behold without profit." The knowledge of God that Jesus is referring to in John 17 3 and Matthew 11 27 does not and simply cannot come through general revelation. One does not become reconciled with God through studying nature. Special revelation is that book in your hand, if it is a Bible, a good Bible, it is the very Word of God which reveals to us the very Word of God. It was He, the Word of the Word, who was in the beginning with God and who was made flesh and dwelt among us. He is that true light which is shining even now. John says, we beheld His glory. The glory is of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. Why did he come to an end? John tells us, for the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. No man has seen God at any time, the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father. He hath declared him. Special revelation is the propositional revelation of God that comes to our minds through words. Faith comes by hearing, says Paul, and hearing by the Word of God. We must be born again, not of corruptible seed, but incorruptible by the Word of God, which liveth and abideth forever. So there is a need for special revelation to be spread abroad, because how can they believe in Him of whom they have never heard? So now with respect to special revelation, sorry, with respect to special revelation, we need to distinguish the general call from the effectual call of the gospel. Thank you. Jesus said in Matthew 22, 14, many are called, but few are chosen. And then Paul wrote in Romans 8, 30, that those whom he called, them he also justified. In the first case, Jesus said that many are called, but only a few are chosen. But Paul said that all who are called are justified and glorified. What are we to make of this difference? What distinguishes these two senses of the word call Well, we distinguish these two senses such that there's an external call, which goes out to as many who come under the hearing of the gospel. But this call is only effectual in conjunction with the secret efficacious work of the Holy Spirit in the heart, which we call regeneration, which is the giving of a new heart, or in the terms of this study anyway, a new controlling idea of the good, which makes the external call by His grace and mercy to be effective. It is to go back to my analogy of the magnet. It's like changing the polarity of the magnet. Before regeneration, the heart of man is polar opposite and our hearts repel and are repelled by God. But the work of the Holy Spirit changes the heart, turns it around so that it is utterly attracted to God and His amazing goodness. It's sort of like if you've ever been playing with like little refrigerator magnets and pushing the sides together, they repel each other. Sometimes a magnet will flip in your hand and just click together, you know, playing with it all of a sudden click. It's like, Oh, I need to pull it apart. It's hard to get them apart because they cling so tightly. That's like our heart before regeneration, we were repelling God and God is repelling to us. But after regeneration, our hearts are changed and we're attracted to God. This work of the Holy Spirit changes the heart and turns it around. It's like turning on a light switch. The dark room is instantly filled with light. If you guys would flip over now to 2 Corinthians 4. This is a passage we read this morning in our In our devotions, this passage is clear as any, I think, in distinguishing the general and effectual call of the gospel. So in verse three, it says, but if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost, in whom the God of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them. For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves your servants for Jesus' sake. For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, has shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Here then is the difference between the general and effectual calls of the gospel. The general call of the gospel goes out via many means. The gospel goes out through churches and missionaries and ministries and individuals handing out tracts and by people opening their mouths to tell others the truths of the gospel. The light of the gospel shines upon many, but the God of this world has blinded men In terms of today's study, the God of this world has bound them to their sin by virtue of the false idea of the good. What they think of as good is completely foreign, alienated from the true good, which is God himself. We're all born with this false idea of good and seeking pleasure for ourselves. And the fiend, the devil fans the flames of our false idea of the good. and by it leads us into bondage, so that we always choose to fulfill the desires of the flesh and of the mind, as it says in Ephesians 2. The gospel of Christ crucified is foolishness to them, who have their portion in this life. Why would the Sadducees care about the death of Christ, since they have already discounted the possibility of His resurrection? Because they have their portion altogether in this life. How can anyone who set his heart on temporal things ever perceive the greater good of eternal things? None will be able to, none will because they are prevented from seeing by their own false conception of what is good. Yes, the gospel does go out to many. Many are called, but few are chosen. And praise God that some are chosen because otherwise none would come. and none would have the slightest interest, or they would have an interest for a wrong reason. The sovereign revelation of the knowledge of God comes to those upon whom he chooses to have mercy, and it is an inside job. The light of the glorious gospel shines externally unto the elect and non-elect alike, and God is magnificently gracious to have shined his light outwardly upon both groups. And both groups are responsible for how they respond to the word of life, which does come to them. But we know and insist upon the truth that God's mercies are over all His works. As it says in Psalm 145, 9. And so it is crucial that we recognize that it is God's goodness, His kindness, which is behind the revelation of Himself. Romans 2, 4 says that it's God's kindness is the revelation of His intention that men should repent His goodness, His kindness leads men to repentance. It should lead men to repent, because what is it that melts the heart of God's goodness? And so there is a special goodness which is manifest to the elect by the express choice of the Father. And to them, the whole revelation of God is made effectual through the inner shining described in verse six that we just read of 2 Corinthians 4. That precious light which gives the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ is, in the terms of today's study, the revelation to us of the greatest and highest good and the implanting of that nature, that affection, that principle in us so that the glory of God becomes our ultimate good. It is the highest good for us to have Him as our highest good. For our highest good can only be by Him and through Him and in Him, just as in union with Him is the highest. Just for us to be in union with Him is the highest and ultimate and ultimately the only good, because every other good will be taken away. Anything outside of God will be ultimately seen to be not good. So the knowledge of the glory of God is the knowledge of our own highest good, of our highest good, because it's truly right and proper that we have that good, because it is truly the highest good. That radical interchange from the heart set on some other kind of good of this world, as previously discussed, to turn to the highest and greatest possible good, like a magnet flipping from repelling to attracting. So the implanted Christ in us gives us the knowledge of the glory of God in our own hearts as His face shines in us. It is by this light that we come by faith into union with the One who is good through His absolutely gracious and marvelous goodness. When the fundamental principle of the heart, that is the ultimate good of our own hearts is changed from the things of this world to the glory of the living God, then everything is made new for us. All things are made new. And we say, once I was blind, but now I see. So that's the divine nature. I hope that makes sense that God is good in himself. God is all good. And that good could God could have chosen not to create, I suppose. And yet His creation then implies a second kind of good in which God disseminates His goodness and spreads it abroad. The knowledge of God is good, and it's that knowledge which saves us, that knowledge which brings us into union with Him. Okay, so now to get to the point of the fruit of the Spirit. I can stop and see if anyone has questions at this point. Yeah, well, I think it's tested to apply. Oh. So you might have to wait till next time. I can't just sum it up. Hi, Brother Jim. Joe, do you have any questions? Yeah, I have a question. Yeah, we were talking about the special revolution. Yeah. Yeah. I'm trying to understand, is that Is that the special revelation? Is it the work of the Holy Spirit in a person? Is that what is special? Because a lot of people have the word, but it has not brought about that work of the Holy Spirit in them, sadly. So when you say the special revelation, distinguishing from the general revelation, how do you say that? What is that? Okay, good question. So there's two different things that we need to distinguish from special revelation and general revelation. General revelation is that revelation of God that comes through creation and nature. We look and we see the heavens declare the glory of God. There's true knowledge of God that comes. But as we read in Romans 1, 18 and 20 is that people suppress that knowledge of God. So that general revelation is not salvific or there's no way to be saved by studying astronomy, right? I mean, you may appreciate God's greatness, but you don't come to Him in repentance in that way because there's no conviction of sin through studying the rings of Saturn or whatever. So then we need special revelation is the gospel, is the Word of God that comes to us in preaching and reading the scriptures. That special revelation then doesn't come to everyone. General revelation comes to everyone. There's not a single person who doesn't experience creation. But not everyone hears the gospel. And all those who hear the gospel are not saved by the gospel. So here we distinguish between the outward call or the general call of the gospel, which goes out to everyone. the effectual call of the gospel by which we are actually brought into effectual union with Christ. As we read in 2 Corinthians 4, as the word comes, people are blind. They don't see it because the devil has blinded their eyes. But when God works internally in the heart and brings that word inside and plants it in the heart, So now we have a new principle. We're born again, we're changed, and we have a different idea of the good, which is no longer to lay up treasure in this world, but to bring glory, to glorify God. The highest good that there is is to glorify God. And so that special call comes specifically to the elect only by God's great goodness, the great love that he shows towards us. So does that make sense? Those are the two things. The revelation and the call are different. General revelation and special revelation are one thing, and the second is the general call and the efficacious call, the effectual call. Does that help? Yes, yes, thank you. Okay. Now what? I have half. Next time, I guess. Yeah, I think so. I'm sorry. I really read too slowly. I'll just say one more thing is that the purpose of the study anyway is to show that these fruits of the Spirit. In conjunction with long suffering. It creates a kind of a virtuous cycle in in the life of the Christian. Long suffering is not a fruit that's useful to us unless for. suffering and that the kind of suffering that's in view here is the suffering for the sake of the gospel and so when we go out and we um so and then the second thing is the fruit of kindness what is the greatest kindness that we can offer to someone like bring them a meal or give them money that may be kind maybe a kind and good thing to do but the greatest kindness is to share the gospel with someone because because That's the eternal good, the one that can save a person's soul and bring them into union with God and through reconciliation through Christ. And so that goodness is what we... Anyway, so the point of this fruit is that we are participating in God's goodness by bringing the gospel to people. That's our growth in this area. As we go and we bring the gospel to people, it's pretty much guaranteed that we will suffer. Not everyone is going to be so pleasant with us and not everyone is going to agree. And certainly not everyone is going to be converted. So people are going to raise objections. They're going to attack the gospel. And we're going to go back after we have these wounds. We're going to go back and we're going to bring it to the Lord in prayer. We're going to go to this. We're going to search the scriptures. And we're gonna grow thereby. We're gonna acquire knowledge. We're gonna learn how to answer questions that people have. We're gonna learn how to defend the scriptures and the gospel. And through this continuous long suffering, going out, coming back, praying, growing, that's how our growth happens. And then our goodness is grown, or the goodness of God is grown in us as we, because we're conformed to Christ by this. I think that's the idea of these three fruits as a part of the purpose of God. Like God's long suffering is because of his purpose, which is to save the elect and to bring glory to his name that way. So he must endure. Those who are vessels of wrath fitted for destruction bears with them long because because that is his purpose is to glorify himself by spreading the knowledge of himself and and the elect are saved, those others are responsible either for hearing the word or for the general revelation which they reject. And so that's the main idea of the study anyway, is to give us that idea of our motivation has to be for the glory of God. That has to be our highest good. And we, grow in that and towards that by bringing the gospel, by participating in God's revelation of himself. That's our purpose. And that's what else are we safe for? Why are we here? What are we doing with our lives if we're not doing this? It should be our primary motivation and our primary motive, not to save for retirement and then have a life of ease, but to bring glory to God by publishing the news, the good news of the gospel of Christ and reconciliation with the father through our lips and through our lives. And in this, we will grow this virtuous cycle for sure. We will suffer no doubt, but, but it's for God's glory and, and built on the foundation of love and joy and peace. We, we have the second tier, I think of fruits where we're participating in the labor and the work of of God, which is his great purpose. So amen. That's I've gone way over. I'm sorry. Any more questions or I'm just going to stop and pray. Everyone's already praying. All right. I'm going to pray. Thank you father for this time. And I, and I do pray that this was helpful or that we would We would seek to glorify you and examine ourselves and see what our own principle motivation is and what is good to us. Is it your glory or are we really just seeking our own pleasure, our own comfort, our own honor? It could be so many things, Lord. Our hearts are truly, desperately wicked, deceitful above all things. Lord, open our eyes and our hearts and fill us with your word, fill us with your spirit, Lord, that we can Concern these things in us and or give us new hearts or give any who need a heart to love you and to glorify you Oh Lord, please have mercy on us and bless us as we go help us to seek your face as we go and To rejoice in Christ and to bring glory to his name in Jesus name I pray amen