Okay, we're in the book Gospel Recovering the Power that Made Christian a Revolutionary by J.D. Greer. And we're on the question section if you've got your notes. The question's number nine. So, anyway, has anyone read this lately? I'm just curious. John, have you been looking at the book at all? Good. Judy? I haven't gotten a chance to read this chapter. This is called change by sight, and the question 9 says, Greer explains, the most important thing of all is seeing the beauty and glory of God revealed in the gospel. When the glory of God is seen in the gospel, change occurs naturally. And by the way, the notes say page 88, but it's actually page 89-90. So, any thoughts on that? The most important thing of all is seeing the beauty and glory of God revealed in the gospel. When the glory of God is seen in the gospel, change occurs naturally. I think it's pretty evident in all the responses of anyone that saw God. Change was inevitable. I don't want to spill the beans from my sermon this morning, but to just kind of throw your hands up and say whatever, it just happens. It may be more inclined, people may be more inclined to fall down at his feet as it did. Yeah, exactly, exactly. And in a response like Isaiah, you know, send me, I'll do whatever you want me to do, you know, is usually, should be the right, correct response. And there's another response as well when you mention Isaiah, and that would be? Repentance, humility. Woe is me. Yeah, woe is me. Correct, correct. You see how holy God is, you see how unholy you are. By the way, too, I've noticed, and we went through these questions quite a bit, and we noticed that, interestingly, these questions don't seem to coincide with the chapter, just to let you know. If you're following along in the book, we noticed that with more than one, but the questions are good, so we'll go through them anyway. Is seeing the beauty and glory of God revealed in the gospel something that you can do on your own, or is it just something that God shows you? Something that God shows you. Why? Because we don't have the eyes to see. We've got to open our eyes. And why would God need to open our eyes? The spiritual state of man is we're dead, like 1 Corinthians 2. It was funny, I was talking to someone the other day about how one of our Christian-y type of phrases is accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior, when the Bible says specifically that natural men cannot accept the things of God. They can't concur with it, can't accept it. Not only are we indifferent towards God, but we actually hate God before we're saved. We would find no beauty in God at all, we would find him repulsive. Right, what does God do about that? He quickens the spirit, quickens man's heart, and as the spirit blows, as Jesus said, like the wind gives life, and that's where we can get real deep into the debate here, but the whole issue of faith and regeneration, what comes first? Does faith produce regeneration, or does regeneration produce faith? The latter. Right? It has to be, it has to be, because in and of myself, There's nothing, unless God gives me faith, and even repentance is a gift. That's why preachers ought to be patient with all men, that God might grant them repentance. Right, right. What about Christians? Can they perceive the beauty and glory of God? Are there things that would block Christians from seeing that? These aren't questions that are in the book, I mean in the questionnaire here, but what about Christians? How do they perceive the beauty and glory of God? What do you think? Association with other people and reading your Bible. Yeah, that's key, right? Fellowship with other believers. We need the encouragement. Is that what you were thinking? Some fellowship with believers? I think sometimes even for us to perceive the beauty and glory of God can be muted to some degree, depending on circumstances. Let's say perhaps indwelling sin or spiritual dryness going through a lean time. But hopefully that wouldn't be a normal experience, and we would be seeking God and seeking to see these things that are contained in life and Christ. meditating on his death and resurrection. Go ahead. Question A says, the beauty and glory of God sounds so abstract. How would you explain the beauty and glory of God to someone who's not a Christian? How would you explain the beauty and glory of God to someone who is not a Christian? I'd say you'd have to begin with the Gospel. You could talk about God's characteristics, His immutable characteristics, His omnipresence, His omniscience, but that brings no comfort to, like as John says, I was just in the Gospel of John's Song, and I have a lot of references to John, but John specifically notes that men hate the light, and they love the darkness, so they don't want their deeds exposed. Because when you go to God, honestly, if you go to God in prayer, true contrite prayer exposes the heart, and it brings about confession and repentance. And if not, then you're not really communing with God. Like we said with Isaiah, if you're not seeing the holiness of God and the unholiness of self, then you don't know who God is. But to communicate the beauty of God to others, you have to begin in the Gospel, talking about the all-holy, all-righteous God and His willingness to condescend to such an unholy people group and to offer us hope and forgiveness and restoration and reconciliation and... I'll preach! Give me the pulpit! You'll be doing that soon enough, I hope you'll listen! I was thinking as I'm talking about God, this isn't the gospel, but we have God as creator through nature, through awesome displays of power, seasons, peak growth, springtime, and those are natural things, but the gospel is not contained in those natural things. The gospel is, that's why on Wednesday night we talked about someone was talking about being unsure about the gospel, I don't think they actually were, though they said they didn't seem to understand the difference between good advice and good news. So that's something I like to hammer on occasionally when I'm given these kind of situations to be able to speak. So I throw it out again. Is the gospel good advice, or is the gospel good news, and why? Good advice, or is it something to be proclaimed good news? It's not a suggestion. Jesus is not a pair of sandals. Try him on, walk around the room, and if you like him, keep him. If not, return him. We won't judge you or anything. You know, you must believe. I think, just to jump on what you just said, as far as looking at nature, it's a great way to express the kindness and patience of God. Acts 17 on Mars Hill, he points these religious people to the Creator, who we're all accountable to. But we'll never get the Gospel in nature. We won't. What attributes of God would you emphasize to unbelievers? If you were going to emphasize particular characteristics, I'm going to also pull something out of the book here. Let's see. Let me ask the question first, and then I'll read a quote from the book on page 92. But what attributes of God would you emphasize to unbelievers? How would you explain the beauty and glory of God to someone who's not a Christian? We talked about that a little bit. What attributes would you emphasize in particular? Is there anything particularly that you would emphasize about the nature of God, who God is to an unbeliever? You're trying to explain the beauty and glory of God. Anything come to mind? Let me read this quote here. The infinite God staggers the mind. When we try to reduce God to someone we can explain or control, we actually cripple people's ability to believe in Him. Charles Misner, one of Einstein's students, explained that the reason Einstein never believed in the Christian God had a lot to do with how Christian preachers in his day spoke about God. There's another quote here. God is so big that you can literally not exaggerate him. Awesome displays of nature, volcanoes, thunderstorms, sunsets, tornadoes, tsunamis, all this remind us of God. And then he talks a bit about the Israelites when they went to receive the law. They were at the foot of a mountain at most when they received the tablets of the law. But it says, most people today, I believe, have lost a sense of God's awesomeness. We reduce God to a domesticated, middle-class sized deity that we can explain and control. Even with today's evangelical music, a lot of music treats God like he's some either nerdy boy that's lost in the corner who's hoping you'll choose him to play with, or some girl who we romanticize and speak in very inappropriate ways. To talk about what characteristics I would emphasize, I think one of the primary ones would be God's holiness. how holy he is, and explain what holiness is, because most people don't know what holiness is. Yes, we're going to get into that in this next question, that's good, yes. Another quote here on page 93, when we speak of God, we speak of one whose size and power and wisdom and might are far beyond our own. Perhaps one of the reasons we fail to treasure God is that we have such a limited view of him. God is a God of such massive size that our minds cease questioning when we see him, we tremble and believe. Question B, and by the way there's a slight typo there so I'm going to add the correction to that. What perfections or characteristics do people often neglect, ignore, or reject? And you could just say about God. What characteristics or perfections of God do people often neglect, ignore, or reject? How about untouchable holiness? Can someone read Isaiah 6.5 for me? There should be a Bible there somewhere. Isaiah 6.5. I don't have it in front of me. If you wanted to read around it as well, you could. I believe it's not the year King Isaiah died. I saw the Lord. Well, it should be in that area, yes. Well, this is Isaiah's vision, and picking up in verse 3, he saw the seraphim flying around, six wings covering their face, covering their feet, flying with two of them, and verse 3, and one called out to another, saying, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord's host, the whole earth is full of his glory, and the foundations of the thresholds And the foundations of the thresholds trembled at the voice of him who called out, while the temple was filling with smoke. Then I said, Woe is me, for I am ruined, because I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, for I have seen the King, the Lord of hosts." Yeah, I think one attribute people will definitely belittle is God's standard of holiness, which is, like Jesus said in Matthew 5.48, You must be perfect, because your Father in Heaven is perfect. We want to bring down God and treat Him like a grandfatherly-like figure who winks at our shortcomings. We don't even like to call it sin anymore. It's sickness, or our mistakes, instead of a violation or rebellion against the Holy God. This is a quote from the book here. God is a God whose holiness and perfection is so complete that sin cannot exist in his presence. I often hear people speak glibly about seeing God, and quote, if God ripped the roof off the place where you are sitting right now and you saw his face, you'd immediately die. Standing in the presence of God with sin would be like a tissue paper touching the surface of the sun. There's another one I was thinking too, Issam. punishing sin and judgment. What do you think about that as something that people like to neglect, ignore, or reject? Well, hell is gone. There is no hell in the world's view, in the world's mind. That's why, even with creation, the pull or the push for evolution is to remove a creator, because if there's no creator, then I'm not accountable to them. I don't like the fact that someone might actually have the authority to punish me. Isn't that what we do when we drive fast on the highway? We act autonomous like the police out there, until all of a sudden we see them pull out after us. Once we drive by and our stomachs drop and we say, oh no, what did I do? This just happened to me several times. I thought it was going to happen to me this morning, but he went the other way. I stand before you in confession. We both do, yes. Yeah, let's talk about that for a minute, the punishing sin and judgment. These are not things that even Christians like to ponder. Any thoughts on that? Any other further thoughts on that? Any thoughts on the idea of, look, this is a little bit of a sidebar, the last judgment, or the judgment to come, giving account for our lives. You're a pastor. What thoughts do you have on the idea of, let's say, the Last Judgment, as far as giving an account for our lives? I mean, this is something I think, and this isn't in the book, this is just sort of a bonus question, I guess I'd call it. But, unbelievers will give account, as I understand it, for everything they do, and obviously we come to Christ clothed in His righteousness, not our own filthy rags, so to speak. Well, yeah, the difference between what theologians would call the Vemency, where Christians are judged, and the Great White Throne Judgment, where all unbelievers, demons, and the devil will be judged. And, I mean, as far as what Jesus warned, Jesus warned that every, every, every, even the idle words that men speak will be shouted from the rooftops, in that they will be exposed publicly before God's holy you know, thrown and then judged righteously. I was just talking, actually, to a few Mormons the other night who scoffed at the idea of God being a punisher, that God would be one who condemns. And I tried to explain to them that you have to understand that when you, as a finite being, sin against the infinite God, the punishment is not a finite punishment. The punishment has to be an infinite punishment because an infinite God was sinned against and rebelled against. So, the idea of 80 years of sin deserves an eternity in hell, it's right. It's only right. It's completely just. To throw another wrench in that, I don't know if you've ever thought about this, but I'm going to say this, not to be shocking, but to be biblical, God is in hell. There's no place that God is not. God is in hell, righteously, distributing punishment. Right. Though as I understand it, that hell hasn't been opened for business yet. In other words, my understanding is that that happens after the last year. Sure, the lake of fire, when everyone is tossed into the lake of fire. But there is a place of punishment even now, almost like, well I don't even want to mix the two, but it's like a... A holding pattern, so to speak. Yeah, like a waiting room, so to speak, of punishment. But it's happening now, to a greater punishment, an eternal punishment, which is just I mean, it's kind of, what's the word, a moot point? You go from one phase of punishment to another phase of punishment, and it's never ending, it's for eternity. So, versus the Christians, and this is the hope that we have in Christ, when at the Vimasi, our sins would not be exposed. They've already been dealt with, right? Colossians 2 says, the certificate of death that we owe God has been nailed once for all to the cross. And we're clothed, like you said, in His righteousness. And the only thing left for us is rewards for Corinthians 3. What we've done in the flesh will be burned up. But remarkably, God rewards us for what we can only do through His strength and power. I've not heard the two things separated like that in a long time, and that's interesting to ponder, to think about. Bema means what? Do you know what the word means, by chance? You'd have to ask me that, right? I forget off the top of my head. You have some homework for Saturday. Yeah, right. But the difference between the believer's judgment and the unbeliever's judgment, there are two separate judgments taken in our minds at two different times. I think now, once the believer dies, they're immediately judged and rewarded. And then at the end, you have the rising of the dead. Because we know that, right? Jesus said in John 5, I think 28 and 29, that the Son of Man has been given power to raise the dead, some to eternal life, some to damnation. Right, and Daniel, I think there's something like that. Yes, right. Another quote from the book on page 94, if you'd like to follow along on where it says, We often think we have done God a favor by downplaying the whole idea of His judgment. Our user-friendly God does not punish sin. He certainly doesn't send people to hell. But hell gives us a picture of the absolute perfection and beauty of God. Hell is what hell is, because God is who God is. Hell is what hell is, because that's what sin against an infinitely beautiful and glorious God deserves. Hell is not one degree hotter than our sin demands it be. Hell should make our mouths stand agape at the righteous, just holiness of God. The idea of people saying that hell is a place that God is not, or hell is eternal separation from God, is really not true, in the sense that God is the one who is exacting vengeance upon all those that revolve against him. Like the psalmist, in Psalm 139, if I go to the heavens, you're there. If I go to Sheol, you're there. If I go to the mountains, you're there. If I go to the sea, you're there. There's no place like God. It's not even in hell, where Satan is not the prince of hell, Jesus is. Because Jesus is the one who's exacting vengeance upon everyone who rebels against him. Just like the book said, not one degree hotter. He's not abusing sinners, he's righteously punishing them. I haven't heard it put quite that way, but I've heard R.C. Sproul speak about the idea of being saved by God, from God, and the idea that Christ is the one who indeed is in charge, so to speak, of hell, and that it's not the devil with the pitchfork, kind of like, you know, nailing people in the rear end, go, go, go into those flames. But, let's see here. I'm not sure we got to this one yet, and this was one question that I... We'll throw this out, but I'm not sure that the chapter actually answers it, but I'm sure between us we can. Why are all the manifold perfections of God necessary to behold his beauty? Why are all the manifold perfections of God necessary to behold his beauty? I don't think we got to that. And then a sidebar to that is how are they seen in the gospel? Why are all the manifold perfections of God necessary to behold His beauty? I suppose you could go right into the idea of a perfection of God being perfect punishment for sin. I don't want to monopolize the conversation this morning, but when you think of the necessity of creation, well, not prior to, but in creation, we have an example of God's omnipotence. He's all-powerful. He says it, and it happens. Even in the sense of His omnipresence, that any time when Adam and Eve were in the garden, God could just present Himself and be there with them. But until the Fall, we wouldn't know the extent of God's love, or God's grace, or God's mercy, or His kindness or compassion, if Adam and Eve never rebelled against him, and hence the idea that there was only one plan. God did not, you know, start wringing his hand saying, oh no, they've rebelled against me, now what? He planned it all along, and in that, it exemplifies just how beautiful, you know, I mean, that kind of is a weird term to speak in our vernacular, I guess, today, but how majestic, how wonderful, how awesome God really is, as we see all these other attributes exemplified even in light of the Paul. Or I should say, in light of redemption. I actually love to associate the word beauty with God. I mean, it's a great word to do, but we just use it. It's like awesome. We'll say chocolate is awesome. No, it's not. It compares it to God. God is really awesome. I like to think of the gospel as brilliant, because when you think about the way it was constructed and all, and I don't know it, I'm not sure if this is the truth or not, but I wonder sometimes when you read through the gospels if Satan actually thought he had a chance of keeping Christ dead. But, I mean, to me, part of what's so magnificent about it is Christ sprang back to life, so to speak. Because, in a sense, you can't kill God, so the physical man, Christ, was killed, and then God, the Omnipotent One, raised him from the dead forever. It just is amazing, all this vicious death that, of course, was done with the foreknowledge of God, and yet God raised him from the dead, and Satan must have thought, okay, this is the end now. It's interesting how time goes on. There's an already and not yet field of things at this point in time, but sometime down the road, the faith will be sight. And we'll have a new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness forever. So, Lucy, we were on the question of being in the sheet. We had gone through perfections and characteristics of God that people neglect, ignore, or reject. Why are all the manifold perfections of God necessary to behold His beauty, and how are they seen in the Gospel? So let's move toward that one with the time we have left here. What perfections of God are seen in the Gospels? Think of some of the things that Christ did in the Gospels. For instance, What kinds of perfections of God did Christ show in the Gospels? Why are all the manif- I can tell people are looking at me with a puzzled look. Why are all the manifold perfections of God necessary to behold His beauty? And then how are they seen in the Gospels? So if you want, as I say, it might be helpful to think about the Gospels, think about things that God as a man, as God, Christ, Jesus, our Lord and Savior did while He was on the earth. And then think about it. What things did stand out to you? Mercy. That's a good one. Mercy and compassion. Interesting too that that mercy and compassion was shown to people who were considered great sinners by the quote religious people unquote. What did Christ think of religion in the Gospels? Slimy snakes, as Walter Martin would have said. A brood of vipers. You travel land and sea to make one convert, and when you make him, you make him too full a child of hell as yourselves. An amazing statement. I don't know why, but I like reading through that. What other perfections are in the gospel scene? What are some of the other things that Christ displayed? Well, when you think about what he said on the cross, I mean, you have God the Son being murdered, in one sense, by the divine plan and foreknowledge of God. He's being murdered by his created creatures, and his response is, Father, forgive them. They don't know what they're doing. I mean, the amount of patience, you know, even with what he said to Peter, when Peter stood up and lopped the soldier's ear off. He said, what do you think? I couldn't call down a legion of angels? And they could kill everybody. And just the patience that Jesus had was just incredible. Lewis talked, too, about the miracles that Christ did. We see Lewis as having a certain sort of tone or family resemblance. So when you think about something like, let's say, for instance, opening the eyes of one born blind, wouldn't that be somewhat spiritual, sort of a picture of sorts? Christ opening the spiritual spiritually blind eyes of both of us, he calls to believe. Raising the dead? Someday he'll raise all the dead. Yes, that's a good one. Walking on water, feeding the multitude? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, you have a glimpse of his... all the attributes of God are in Christ. You know, even attributes like his omnipresence, that, like Philippians told us, he laid aside the absolute use of all, the whole idea of emptying himself, laying aside the whole use of those attributes, yet they're still present, and seen in glimpses and, I don't want to say shadows, but like Christ, he was immutable, unchangeable, yet the Bible tells us that he had to grow in his learning, I think it's Luke 3 talks about his growing and learning his reputation among men. He was obviously morphed physically. He changed from a baby to a grown man, but he was still unchanging. His character never changed. He was still God through and through. So yeah, that's quite a bit. What role does God play in opening eyes to see his glory? What role does God play in opening eyes to see his glory? And what role do we play? What role does God play in opening eyes? And what role do we play in opening eyes to see His glory? He does it all. Yes. We are the receivers of that. Yes. I'm not sure how much an unbeliever can see of God's glory. Believers will see it when God opens their eyes. But spiritually dead cannot see. Yeah, like Romans 1. Romans 1, 18-20. That the unbelieving world suppress the knowledge of the truth. They hold it down. It's like holding someone's head underwater. They take the truth and hold it so they can't see it. They willingly deny it. So unless God causes you, which I love the way that's what 1 Peter 1 says. praising God, who caused us to be born again. God is the primary cause. Our salvation is, like I've heard one brother put it, our salvation is monogistic, not synergistic. We don't work with God. We're not going to get to heaven and give Jesus a high-five and say, we did it! It's not going to happen that way. We're not going to fall at his feet and praise him that he saved us. We didn't save ourselves with his help. One of my favorite pictures in the Gospels is the woman who came in and wept at Christ's feet and with her tears she washed them of the dust and dirt and wiped them with her hair. I think that's a beautiful picture of a sinner at the feet of Christ. I would like to be that person. That was a wonderful story in the scripture. What is the danger of misunderstanding God's work in regeneration and our responsibility in gospel proclamation? What is the danger of misunderstanding God's work and regeneration in our responsibility in gospel proclamation? Once again, I didn't see that there was, there's probably something in here with the book, but my wife and I looked through this and weren't exactly sure how to relate the questions to what the book talked about. These are good questions, I'm just not exactly sure how they relate to this particular chapter. Any thoughts on that? What's the danger of misunderstanding God's work in regeneration and our responsibility in gospel proclamation? I mean, I'll just throw one out off the top of my head is perhaps you're somewhat reformed in your persuasion and you may perhaps have some sort of an idea, oh well God will save me so we don't need to do anything, something will happen. That may be, I'm not saying that's necessarily exactly what one would think, but it may have something to do with his poor getting there. I think it's a huge danger, in a sense, in two extremes. That would be, one, hyper-Calvinism, sometimes it's referred to. And a great book, if you haven't read it on evangelism, is J. I. Packer's book, Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God. He deals with the whole, the tension between the two, and how God requires man to respond, but we can't respond unless God causes us to respond, yet we still have, as believers, a responsibility to preach and proclaim, and I would say that it all falls under the sovereignty of God. The ability to preach, the message to preach, the ability to believe, it's all of God's sovereignty. But then you have the other extreme of what I would theological perspective called Arminianism, because if Arminianism teaches that man has a free will, and man in his free will is able to believe in and of himself because of prevenient grace, because of grace already dispensed to me, then ultimately I'm the one that has the power, so to speak, to believe. So, in that sense, when you take Arminianism to its fullest logical conclusion, then God is not sovereign. I am. I choose whether I go to heaven or hell. God does not. So election is indifferent. Right, though I don't think in our meeting we've probably put it quite like that. Well, and that's where, depending on who you talk to, because what ends up happening is what's known as open theism. I don't know if you've heard of that. Heresy. The whole idea that God is like a pinball machine, and he's basically just knocking the ball down to one end, but the ball moves on its own, of its own volition. When you look at what the Bible says with regard to election, predestination, God purposely choosing before time those he would save, and choosing to pass over some. Again, to just quickly give an illustration as far as the fallacy in that. Because usually, Mormons, it had three of them come to the house the other day, they basically said, well, wouldn't that make God a bad God if he didn't save everybody, or if he didn't want to save everybody? And I said, well, listen, I have three children. If I went over to China and went to an orphanage of 400 kids and I just adopted one, and brought one child who I am not obligated to, but I brought them into my home, I clothed them, I fed them, I gave them a great education, I protected them their whole lives, would you think me a bad man because I didn't I didn't adopt the other 399? How about if I adopted 10? You'd think, wow, that's a really nice guy. Am I a bad man because I didn't adopt the 390 and I left them back in China? Of course not. You would say, so why would we say God is bad if he doesn't save everybody? Of course, the Mormon might come back to you and say, well, if you're God, you could do the 392. Right, right. And that's where I came back and said, who's to say we're all children of God? Jesus said in John 8, verse 44, to the Pharisees, you are of your father. Ephesians 2, 1-3, we were children of wrath because we rebelled against them. We were outside of that camp, so to speak. In a sense, I think the division was made quite early on in Genesis. I'm trying to think exactly where. Basically, it shows that there's two lines. I think it would be safe to say it would be Abel and Cain. Cain and Abel. In a sense, you've got the two lines there. Cain went off to build this city. Abel was slain by Cain, and then John talks about that whole idea, too, later on, thousands of years later in the Gospels. But the misunderstanding in God's work in regeneration, what would be a typical misunderstanding? Is there any other ones that come to mind? A misunderstanding in God's work in regeneration? The question specifically says, what is the danger of misunderstanding God's work and regeneration in our responsible and gospel proclamation? Was there any other thoughts on that at all? I think we could probably safely say that we throw out the seed, the seed being the Word of God, and we're not responsible for what happens with those seeds. What are some of the examples of what happens to seed, or let's say the Word of God being thrown out? What are some of those examples? Well, one would be the birds coming and gobbling it up, right? What would be another example of that? That's a really good one, I think, especially in our day and age. Though I'm sure people in their day, and let's say in 1780, they probably figured they had pretty busy lives as well. One of the dangers along that line, even with that parable, is if we understand salvation to be a work of God, man, in the sense that I choose God, ultimately I'm the one that chooses God, and we have the idea that I prayed a prayer, I did some sort of religious response, so therefore God is now obligated to save me, then we teach that to someone else, and we can manipulate someone else, just do this, jump through this spiritual loop, and you'll get into heaven, and we fool people Unwittingly, you know, sincerely I should say, in a sense, of them being Christian when they're not. Yeah, that's a challenging thing, and I mean, we could probably go on with that for a little while. It's interesting, I remember when I first heard the Gospels in a church where they did things that way. And I remember later on sitting in a pastor's office and he led me in a prayer and he said, okay, well now tell you became a Christian. And something in the back of my mind said, no, I don't think it quite works that way. And to be honest with you, I do not put a date on when I became a Christian. I don't know. I know that the sun rose, I just don't know at what minute or hour it rose. I just know it did. Yeah, the important thing is do you know today? Right. Do you know today that if you die you're going to go to heaven? I do. Because of what? Because it doesn't depend on me. Exactly, right. Versus, I look back in time and I put a stake in the ground, or I signed a card, or I went to the alms... because I grew up in the same type of church setting. I had alms calls every week, and you'd feel bad if you didn't go up. And then they had to rededicate. They play Howard Percivant just as I am. You did it to Richard, too! We're going to try to get through this. I think we have time for this last question, because then we'll be through with the whole section of 9. How does seeing the beauty and glory of God empower us to fight sin and live in victory over its power in our lives? This is question D, by the way, if you're calling along. How does seeing the beauty and glory of God empower us to fight sin and live in victory over its power in our lives? So he's relating the beauty and glory of God to living in victory over sin's power in our lives, and how do we do that? Before we even go any further with that, let me just throw out this one thing. This is from page 98-99 in the book. The reason many of us feel like we can't say no to temptation is that God does not have that kind of weight in our hearts. God's authority must be greater than our desires. His beauty should be more attractive than any lust of the flesh. In other words, the reason we can't say no to temptation is not that our desires for those things is too large. It's because our desire for God is too small. Yeah, with that I would say part of the, there's a lot I want to say, Part of the problem with people that say that they're Christian, but habitually want any sin, is that they're not recognizing that they're liars. 1 John 3 says it's impossible. You're liars, you're self-deceived. And the adverse is true, according to John, so read it for us, John 3, verses 20 and 21. John is speaking, and John says this, for everyone who does evil hates the light, and does not come to the light for the fear that his deeds will be exposed. Hence, we suppress truth because we don't want to have to deal with God, our conscience, etc. Verse 21, but, contrast that, he who practices the truth comes to the light so that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God. You know, and if I'm walking in light, I'm walking in truth, and if I'm walking in righteousness, you know, then I want to continue in that way, glorifying the Lord because I love him, even though I might still struggle with regular temptations, and I think that's part of the struggle we have as Christians. Differentiating between temptation and sin. Just because I'm tempted doesn't mean I'm a sinner, so to speak, or I'm sinning. Temptation is natural. It's common to 1 Corinthians 10-13. It's common to all men. It's falling into sin. It's repeated sin that that becomes an issue. Well, if it's repeated, it becomes a question of my salvation. If it happens, then as a regenerate believer, the perseverance of the saints cause me to repent, confess, etc. I'm going to read something else from the book on page 103. As you see and believe the gospel, its power is actually released into you. You see, the gospel not only tells us about the power of God, the message of the gospel is itself the power of God. By the power of the Spirit, the hearing of the gospel recreates our hearts to love the things God commands. Think of it like Jesus commanded a lame man to walk. When Jesus said, rise, take up your bed, and walk, he was giving the lame man not only command, but his words also gave the power to obey that command. In the same way the gospel, God gives the power to do what he commands. Believing the gospel is not only the way we become Christians, it is the power that enables us to do every moment of every day the very things Jesus commands us to do. And we're out of time. So let's close in prayer. Father, thank you for this time we've had together. We pray that your Spirit would help us to consider these things, and we pray now that we may glorify you and praise you in this day. You're very precious to us, O Lord. We thank you. And we thank you for this Lord's Day. Bless us, we pray. In Jesus' name, amen.