I was 48 years altogether as a Catholic, 30 years as a Dominican in the Dominican order, 22 as a priest, before I finally got convicted. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. This is who our God is. This is sovereign grace. I was still doing penances as a priest. I would even flagellate myself. That is, I got permission to make a little whip. And I'd take off my white gown and my undershirt and I would beat myself. I never did it to blood like I read the saints did it. I wanted to make myself good inside myself. And it is paramount to see crystal clear what the gospel is. In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of grace. The message this evening I have called Images of Christ and the Gospel. And that's exactly where it's at. The whole question of making images of Christ or of the Father of the Holy Spirit, is the first place where apostasy begins. So it was at the time of Israel, they went into error first of all with images of God. The different times in the history of Israel, where there has been in Christian history idolatry, there came afterwards aberrations to deny the gospel of Christ. It starts with idolatry. And we have to face the fact that this is current in our own day. In the United States of America, it happened with Campus Crusade and the Jesus video. and the denial of the Gospel and Evangelicals and Catholics together. And we could give many other examples where apostasy begins by imagery claiming to be of Christ or of the Father or of the Holy Spirit, making images of God. And we have to deal with this subject clearly biblically and see just what does the scripture say on the topic of idolatry. Now we all know and anybody who calls himself a biblical Christian knows that in Exodus chapter 32 that Aaron made an idol. But what few people realize because they haven't fully fully study the text is that the idol represented the God of Israel. It wasn't a pagan idol. It was an idol to represent the God that took them out of the land of Egypt. If we read Exodus chapter 32, for example, in verses 3 and 4, it states And he, Aaron, received them, that's the people's golden earrings, at their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool. After he had made a molten calf, they said, these be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt. And when Aaron saw it, he built an altar before it An Aaron made proclamation and said, tomorrow is a feast to the Lord. Tomorrow is a feast to the Lord. They were having a feast to the God of Israel, worshipping the God of Israel through the golden calf as a medium. That's what was forbidden That's what God hates. It was the same some years later with the King Jeroboam. He was afraid the people would return to Jerusalem and were told in 1 Kings chapter 12 and verse 28, whereupon the king took counsel and made two calves of gold and said unto them, the people, It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem. Behold thy God, so Israel, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt. Now the word that's translated thy God is the word Elohim, usually translated thy God. It's a word with a singular meaning which is actually plural. Elohim, it's like the word that runs through the whole of the Old Testament, thy God, or Israel. They were worshiping God through molten images, graven images. Now we've got to see that biblically, any attempt made to worship the true God, be it Father, Son, or Holy Spirit, through a picture or a three-dimensional artifact, or any representation, statue, video, is a idolatrous portrayal because God is not to be made into graven art. The second commandment says Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, nor any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them. I am the Lord thy God. I am a jealous God visiting iniquity upon the fathers, upon the children, unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me and showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me and keep my commandments. The longest commandment explaining that we are not to make the similitude of anything divine. We're not to depict God by a graven image. Now, the Scripture explains the Scripture, and this commandment is explained in more detail, or fine-tuning, we could call it, in the book of Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy chapter 4, verses 12 to 15. One of the most important parts of Scripture when it comes to the topic of idolatry. Deuteronomy 4, beginning verse 12. And the Lord spake unto you out of the midst of fire. Ye heard the voice of the words, but saw no similitude. Only ye heard a voice. And he declared unto you his covenant, which he commanded of you to perform, even ten commandments. Take ye therefore good heed unto yourselves, for ye saw no manner of similitude. on the day that the Lord spake unto you in Horeb, out of the midst of the fire, lest ye corrupt yourselves and make you a graven image, the similitude of any figure." The people were warned. First of all, it was explained to them that on the mount they only saw fire and smoke and darkness. They saw no similitude. no likeness of God. There was no similitude, no likeness of God. Because that's what God hates. They only heard a voice. The Lord spoke to them through words, not through an image. And so, We are told about the commandment of God that it is the similitude of anything divine, making the likeness of God. God is not against art. There was actually tremendous artwork in the temple in Jerusalem, artwork of angelic figures, the cherubim and other graphic artwork, but no artwork depicting the divine. That's what God hates. And so the commandment is explicitly clear, both as it is explained in Exodus chapter 20 and even clarified further in Deuteronomy chapter 4. Because God and his creation are utterly distinct, God cannot be portrayed in any materialistic way. No human artifact can portray who our God is, because God is totally other. He is totally separate from his creation. And anyone who attempts to make a picture of Christ Or a painting of the father like Michelangelo's famous painting of creation where the father was purportedly touching Adam's finger, the finger of God touching Adam's finger. That is idolatrous. Or replicas of doves portraying the Holy Spirit. All idolatrous because God cannot be portrayed in a created way. Creation cannot display the infinite, eternal, unchangeable God. And such ideology is purporting to be a medium, exactly what Aaron did in the desert. It is purporting to be a medium between God and man, and that is utterly forbidden. So we know that this is forbidden. Why is it forbidden? Because we have an inadequate way to know God. Christ Jesus Himself explains that to us. He said to his disciples, all things which I have heard of my Father I have made known to you. He explained all things that he heard from his Father. He heard and he explained them in words. And his apostles afterwards and those who gave us the written word of God explained them in words. All things, not some things. All that we need to know about who God is is explained to us in the written words. And it's done powerfully like the apostle Paul explains in Ephesians chapter 1 What is the exceeding greatness of His power to us words who believe according to the working of His mighty power which He wrought in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and sat Him at His right hand in heavenly places. It's done with power, with majesty, with strength, and it's that convicting work of the Holy Spirit. All of those of us who are now in Christ, it's because of the dynamic power of the written Word to convict us of sin and bring us to salvation. So we have an all-powerful, adequate Word of God explaining who our God is and bringing us to salvation. And we are given as God's new creatures in Christ that we would be his workmanship created unto good works which he has foreordained that we should walk in them. He has given us the adequate ways and the means that we would be sanctified and that we would do good works all through the power of the Holy Spirit in the written word. The Old Testament is replete with commandments and again and again examples of people going into idolatry and the Lord chastising them, but it's also in the New Testament. Idolatry is explicitly forbidden and in actual fact more explicitly forbidden than in the Old Testament. For example, the Apostle Paul preaching on Mars Hill said, for as much as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think of the Godhead is like unto gold or silver or stone, graven by art or man's device. And at the times of this ignorance God winked at, but now commanded all men everywhere to repent. God overlooked some of his sins of idolatry in the past, in his forbearance. But now, New Testament times, he commands all men everywhere to repent. Repent of what? What the apostle just said, of making God like unto gold, silver, stone, graven by art, a man's device. Explicitly, idolatry is forbidden in the New Testament. And one of the heart-rending passages showing the consequences of idolatry is in Romans chapter 1, verse 22 to 25, talking about false believers who have corrupted themselves. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man and to birds and four-footed beasts and creeping things. Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts to dishonor their own bodies between themselves. Who change the truth of God into a lie and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed forevermore. Amen. But people who make depictions of Christ or of the Father or of the Holy Spirit, they are changing the truth of God into a lie and end up worshipping the creature rather than the Creator. often with dire consequences. So the scripture asks the question, to whom then will ye liken God? And the scripture answers in many different places that same question. Be not transformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is good and acceptable and the perfect will of God. We are changed by our mind as we understand the revelation of God in his written word. When Christ Jesus gave the principle in John 6, verse 63, it is the spirit that quickens The flesh profiteth nothing. The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life. The word is spirit and life. The written word enlivened by the Holy Spirit has power and life. But if our gospel be hid, it is hid from them that are lost. The Apostle stated in these words, 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. We have the knowledge of who God is in the revelation of Jesus Christ. The light of the knowledge of the glory of God. in the Revelation and the pages of the written word of who God is. Now, the Catholic Church is quite emphatic that this is not true, that God has somehow changed his mind and that things have changed from the Old Testament to the New Testament. I'm reading from the official book of the Catholic Church, published in 1994 in English in the United States and in the United Kingdom and other English-speaking nations, published in Latin in 1992. The Catechism of the Catholic Church, compiled by Cardinal Ratzinger, who is now the present Pope. And they were explicit in what they said. Paragraph 2132. The Christian veneration of images is not contrary to the first commandment which proscribes idols. Indeed, the honor rendered to an image passes to its prototype. And whoever venerates an image venerates the person portrayed in it. So they're saying that it's not contrary to the first commandment. They put the first two commandments together and they break the ninth into two commandments. That's how they get back to the number 10. They do give you all the words of the commandments of God, but they number them differently. So they say it's not contrary to the first commandment, meaning the first and second commandments as they write them. Why? Because they say the honor rendered to an image goes to its prototype, and whoever venerates an image venerates the person portrayed in it. So you go through it to the prototype who it represents, and you're really worshiping the person that the image represents. That's exactly the rationale of Aaron. He thought that you could go through a molten calf to the God of Israel. That's what God hates. That is the very definition of what idolatry is. Their justification of why it is allowed is actually explicitly what God forbids. Using some medium by which to proclaim that there is a way to know God. irrespective of the ways in which we are given in the scripture alone. They have another way by knowing him through imagery. And they try to justify this also in paragraph 2130 by going to the Old Testament. They say, nevertheless, already in the Old Testament, God ordained or permitted the making of images which pointed symbolically towards salvation by the incarnate word. So it was with the bronze serpent, the Ark of the Covenant, and the cherubim. So they said God allowed it even in the Old Testament. Now, if you know what the cherubim were, they were depictions of angels. That's not depictions of God. The Ark of the Covenant to hold the Aaron's Rod and the tablets of the commandments of God was not a depiction of God, and the bronze serpent was not a depiction of God. When later on the people started to use the bronze serpent, then God commanded it to be destroyed and to be made into powder, and the people were to take the powder, you know, It was to be utterly an abomination unto them because it was an abomination unto God. So to try and make as if God already allowed idolatry in the Old Testament is quite a horrendous lie that the Catholic Church tries to put over on people. They try to justify it. They go on in paragraph 21, 31. Basing itself on the mystery of the incarnate world, the seventh ecumenical council of Nicaea justified against the iconoclasts the veneration of icons, of Christ, but also of the mother of God, the angels, and all the saints. By becoming incarnate, the son of God introduced a whole new economy of images. And so they say that God not only changed his mind, he now brought in a whole new economy of images. He brought in a whole dispensation of time where imagery was to be encouraged. This is an abomination. God does not change his mind. He's not a Jesuit. He doesn't change his mind. And the incarnation did not bring in a new economy of images. The apostle Paul says explicitly, we know him no longer after the flesh. The same apostles who lived with him never portrayed him in pictorial fashion, what he looked like. He was always an explanation of who he was in the work that he did, in the revelation of his person, the revelation of the person of the Father and of the Holy Spirit. It was a revelation of who God was. There was no pictorial form of God given in the New Testament. It's an abomination before God to say that the New Testament brought in an economy of imagery. That is a denial of the very Word of God. But this is the way that the Catholic Church has gone. And if it was the Catholic Church alone, it would be really sad because we're talking about one billion people who the Catholic Church claims are under its jurisdiction. But we're talking about other organizations too. who have followed suit. Different churches, like influenced by Campus Crusade, who show the Jesus video and have worship services where they're showing a portrayal of Christ on the cross, or the resurrection of Christ on a video format, say that they're not worshipping the imagery, they're going through it to who Christ is. That is idolatry. And they're using the same rationale as the Catholics do. That they are not going through it. They're not worshipping the actual electronic version of the imagery of Christ. They're using it so that people may know God better, may know Christ better, and that they may venerate His person. That is idolatry. and it's not only the Catholic Church but so-called evangelical organizations who actually use the same rationale as the Catholic Church does. The Catholic Church has denied the Word of God and in actual fact it was 23 years after a previous council had where the elders, bishops and leaders of the church had decreed that there was never to be any depiction of imagery of God. It was 23 years after another council had forbidden artwork of God. So there were two councils in the same 8th century. The whole 8th century was known to be the iconoclastic century where There were still some true believers around and still some people holding to the written word of God, even after those many years where there had been such apostasy in general Christendom. But there were still some. And of course, we still had the Valdois, we still had the Waldenses coming afterwards, the Paulicians and other believers who were adamantly against. And some of the things I have written I give I give actual words from the declarations of faith of the Vaudois, the believers who stood firm, and of their condemning of the Church of Rome for its idolatry. It is interesting to see the true believers come out against idolatry right through the course of history, and even in that famous eighth century called the iconoclastic century. where there was so much debate on whether or not people could portray the divine by imagery. The Catholic Church has upheld a type of revelation where people could know God by graven art. the New Testament is explicit that God is not to be portrayed in artwork whatsoever. It is quite interesting if you turn in your Bible to 1 John chapter 5. Right through 1 John, the Apostle has told us about fellowship with the Father and the Son. He's told us explicitly who the Son is, the revelation of Christ incarnate. Just as John's Gospel showed the incarnate Word before the creation of the world. And it magnified who Christ was from eternity, the Word that was with God. 1 John is explicit in showing the incarnate Word and who the person of Christ was as incarnate. And there's a tremendous revelation of who Christ is. The whole theme of 1 John ends off with who Christ is and what eternal life is in 1 John 5, verse 20. And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us an understanding that we may know Him, that is true, and that we are in Him, that is true. even in his son, Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life. And it finishes with, little children, keep yourselves from idols. Don't think anything differently. We have knowledge and understanding of who Christ is. He has shown it in the written Word of 1 John, and it's right through the New Testament. Little children, keep yourselves from idols. Don't think anything different. You have the revelation of who the Son of God is. Now, keep yourselves from idolatry. Explicitly real, because We have an understanding of him who is true, right through 1 John, and then the commandment at the very end. We are not to get into idolatry. It is so explicit in the Word of God because it's so important, because here Satan would try to trip us up and try to get into churches that are grace churches or Bible-believing churches and try to bring in pictures of Christ or imagery of Christ. It usually starts in the Sunday schools, believe it or not. You go to the church and you wouldn't find any picture of Christ in the main auditorium or the fellowship hall. But then you go down into the Sunday school rooms and you see little pictures of Christ and phanographs that they have brought in so that the children make color pictures of Christ, or pictures of the baby in the creche, you know, at Christmas time. That's where it usually starts, in the Sunday schools, where I preach many times and I go to different Reformed Baptist churches or independent Baptist churches. I usually go and take a look in the Sunday school to see Has there been any aberration for what they say they believe in the Sunday School material? Because that's where it usually starts. And then it starts coming out in children's Bibles with pictures of Christ under cover. And then a picture of Christ maybe in the pastor's office, God forbid. This is the way it goes. And it's really sad because If idolatry gets its foot in a church and in the emotions of people, it's like a cancer that is hard to ward off afterwards. It's a creeping cancer because it's based on emotions and not the mind of God. And people love their idolatry. Young people love the videos of Christ. They think they have mastered who Christ is. It's only when they become teens, of course, that they throw it all overboard and get into their wickedness, their drugs and fornication and other things. But they love it when they're young because it excites their emotions. And you think that somehow you have mastered Christ because you've understood the video or the portrayals of him. So we have to avoid at all costs and obey the commandment of God to keep ourselves from idols. We have in the pages of scripture a portrayal of who Christ is. First chapter of Hebrews. He is the brightness of his glory, the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power. When he had by himself purged our sin, sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high. That's who Christ is. The brightness of the Father's glory, the express image of his person, the one who upholds all creation just by the word of his power. and the awesomeness of it all that this one equal to the Father, the express substance of the Father is the one who has purged our sins and is now reigning in majesty and high. It's literally awesome how the scriptures portray who the real Christ is and how awesome it is and how it transforms our minds and causes us to love the person of Jesus Christ as he is proclaimed in the pages of Scripture. And that we would be the ones who would be convicted of sin as we come to Him in salvation. No wonder the Gospel is the power of God unto salvation because the Holy Spirit enlivens the Word of God. Faith then cometh by hearing, and hearing the Word of God. I was speaking once in Washington State to a group of homeschoolers and people who came for a convention for homeschoolers in Seattle. And one lady in the congregation afterwards stood up and she said, I wish I had heard your talk when my young boys were growing up. I brought them up on pictures of Christ and on a Jesus video, and now every one of them has denied Christian faith and are living worldly, immoral lives. I would to God that I had heard your talk years ago. There were tears in that lady's eyes. And that's what we have to see is that this is devastating because when people break this commandment it devastates a home that is purportedly Christian and trying to bring up their children in the fear and love of God where imagery of God is brought in. It absolutely obliterates the gospel message. The Word of God is quick and powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. You and I know that. When you read the Word of God, it reads you. You know, when you read any book, you're reading it. But when you read the Word of God, it is moving on you. It is the one that is changing you. The Holy Spirit through the written word. It's powerful, even through penetrating the heart and soul, the thoughts of men. And where there is a compromise, there's a famine for the word. Where people get into imagery of Christ, or imagery of the Father of the Holy Spirit, there comes a famine in the world. People lose their taste for the Word of God. And finally, the apostasy from the very saint. Now what happened in history? Were these things compromises from the very beginning? No, they were not. In the life of the early Christian Church, there is no mention of any imagery of the Father, Son, or Holy Spirit in the first years of Christendom. When the Church was under persecution, and with the history of those who were true believers, say in France or in Italy with the Valois, There is an upholding of the biblical principles explicitly and no graven imagery of God. And the same even with the Church of Rome. As Paul commended them for the gospel, they were also to be commended that there was no idolatry in the early church or in the early church in Asia or any part of the world. I have written a paper on the authentic early church and it is explicit in all parts of the world, whether in Asia or later on in my own Ireland with the true Patrick who was an evangelist, no imagery. And on and on, anywhere the gospel went forth in early Christendom, there was no imagery. There was a downplaying of the Word of God at the time of Constantine, but still no imagery as such. It was leaving a foothold in 313 at the Edict of Milan where Christianity was recognized, Paganism was again recognized by Constantine. And there was an embryo coming in whereby it would permit idolatry later on. But it must be some centuries before it really came to pass. In 604 we had Gregory I, who was called a Pope of Rome. He wasn't called Pope at the time, but the Catholics would look upon him as a Pope. was trying to justify imagery for a bishop of Marseilles who was destroying images of Christ and of the Father. And the same Gregory, the great as he's called Gregory I, wrote to him, and we have a quotation of what he said. He said, what books are to those who read That is a picture to the ignorant who look at it. It is a picture. In a picture, even the unlearned may see what example they should follow. In a picture, they who know no letters may yet read. Hence, for barbarians, especially a picture takes the place of a book. And so he said it was for the unlearned a book that they could read. That is an upholding of idolatry and one of the first declarations of the Church of Rome to try and justify idolatry. What the Scripture forbade, this Gregory I was upholding. And even so, some of the bishops, the elders at the time, still would not give in and would not submit themselves to the Bishop of Rome at the time and would not have depictions of the Father or of the Son. It was at the time of the Reformation, when the Reformation came in and the true Gospel, that people repented, not only of their false ritualism and sacramentalism, but of their idolatry. And we had millions upon millions of people come to biblical faith and to confess their sins and their sins of idolatry. The history of the Reformation was explicitly clear. It's a little bit shady in some forms of Lutheranism, but for all the other Reformers, explicitly clear that idolatry was ruled out. and the commandment of God, the New Testament, we had God's Word on our spirits, revealed to us in our inner parts, as the prophet Jeremiah had said. This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord. I will put my law in their inner parts and write it on their hearts and will be their God and they shall be my people. The people of the Reformation knew that God was speaking to their hearts through the revelation of the written word. And that's all they needed. And those who had been into idolatry renounced it. It has been the same right through history that the great people of revival have been image breakers. And it's amazing how the two things go hand in hand. revival and hatred for idolatry. Look at Moses, a hater of idolatry. Elijah, Joshua, Hezekiah, all image breakers and people to proclaim the gospel. It is the way it has been in the Old Testament. right through until the New Testament and explicitly clear in the New Testament. So it has been in the history of the great revival in the United States, the great awakening, whereby people renounced idolatry as well as other sins and came out of imagery as they understood the Gospel, the true Gospel. It is quite interesting to see how great revivals in Wales and Scotland and our own Ireland and other parts of the world where we've had revivals, how people have been against idolatry as they have portrayed who Christ is in the gospel through his written word. We have a portrayal of who our God is and we love his written word and we are people who are true to his written word. I mentioned the Jesus video by Campus Crusade. I'd just like to say a little further word on it because it has been one of the trailblazers right across Eastern Europe. I was in Eastern Europe in the year 2000, in Slovakia. I was in Hungary and Romania. And it was really sad to see the idolatry in those nations of what people had come into. And even the Reformed Church of Hungary not only had denied the Gospel, but had brought in idolatry. And it was a great joy to me to find pastors, and I got addressing pastors from Hungary and Romania. I got addressing them and to see how they had withstood idolatry and upheld the Gospel. Men who had sacrificed everything, sometimes their churches, their parents, their livelihood. They were now pastors of some churches of 12 or 14, 15 people, holding true to the gospel and hating idolatry. It is really sad to see the devastation in the European countries of what idolatry has done to nations that were purportedly Christian. and how it inundated things like the Reformed Church of Hungary that had been strong before that for many years. And to hear this firsthand from people in those very nations. But it was three years later when I went to Poland that my heart nearly bled in agony because it was there that I learned that so many churches that had been Baptist churches right across Poland and had been sound for many years, had worked together with Campus Crusade, and had brought in the Polish version of the Jesus video. And it had become their tool for evangelism, just like it is in the Catholic churches. They were using it to bring people into an emotional experience and looking into the eyes of Jesus and making their decision to accept him into their heart. That has been the way in which many churches right across Poland have been devastated. And when I got the history of that from Polish pastors and Polish people in 2003, it practically broke my heart. Because Poland is worse than my own Ireland when it comes to imagery, idolatry and to the form of godliness that utterly denies the power of God and who our God is. And it's devastating to see the immorality and the corruption that comes after idolatry. And to think that an American organization that calls itself the Evangelical Campus Crusade has been for the most part the agent. Our own church in Austin, Texas received notification that they were to join with other churches in Austin, Texas in promoting the Jesus video, as have most churches in the United States. It's a whole campaign to bring people into a false gospel message and imagery and idolatry. And it has had consequences in America and across the world. And it's for us who are leaders in different churches or those who are prayer warriors to pray that God would come against this movement towards idolatry. And organizations like Campus Crusade, whose flagship is the Jesus video. And then when Mel Gibson brought out his Passion of Christ, he brought out a portrayal of Christ in imagery which was brutal and horrific and according to the mystical experiences of a former, of a nun, not a former nun, a nun who had died and of the stations of the cross Catholic tradition, a real Catholic video with Catholic doctrine and imagery and no gospel except to deny the gospel. And some churches, calling themselves evangelical churches, called off their church service and had the whole congregation go to see the Passion of Christ. Recently, he was found and charged with drunken driving in California, Malgibson, but that has not brought people to repentance. Walmart and other stores still sell the DVD of The Passion of Christ. So this is a depiction of what age we live in, where idolatry is marketed. It is huge business in the United States. Like the Jesus of Nazareth video and DVD. pictures of Christ, images of Christ. Sunday school material is such that it is difficult to get Sunday school material that doesn't have pictures of Christ. That's how far the market and the money that is in idolatry has gone in the United States, that it is difficult for pastors and Sunday school teachers to get material that doesn't have pictures of Christ. And so we have to say, we stand on the written Word of God. Faith comes by hearing and hearing the Word of God. And that we will stand where the Word of God stands. And we will know the power of our God and not be ashamed of the power of our God. I'd like if you would turn in your Bible to 1 Corinthians chapter 2. in verse 9. As it is written, I have not seen nor heard, neither have entered into the heart of man the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit. For the Spirit searcheth all things Yea, the deep things of God. For what man knoweth the things of God save the spirit of man which is in him? Even so, the things of God knoweth no man but the spirit of God. The spirit of God has revealed who God is. These things God has revealed unto us by His Spirit. The mighty things of God, who our God is, is revealed to us in time through the written word of God. Some people think that this text is explaining heaven, what I have not seen nor yet heard. It may apply also to heaven, but the text is telling us this applies to earth now. The Spirit shows us what the mind of man would never even come to imagine. The mighty things of God are revealed to us by the Spirit of God. That's what the written Word of God is. That's who God is as we hunger and thirst for His written Word. And we will see revival as men who have been imaged breakers have seen revival as we are ruthlessly true to the written Word of God and know that God is known by the written Word. We pray that we would see real revival and a real resurgence as we taste and relish what the Spirit reveals unto us, the things of God, the deep things of God. Do you desire with a desire to know the deep things of God? Well, they're all there for you, the treasures of God on the pages of Scripture. And pray to the Holy Spirit to open it to you, and He opens it to you. Pray to God to illumine your mind and to give satisfaction to your mind as you relish the Word, and He will do so. I ask the Lord to purify you and to make you more fitting as a servant of Christ and as a lover of his Gospel, and he does that. The same Spirit of God leads you and guides you into all truth. He is the Spirit of truth, revealing to us the written Word of God. And we know the power of God when we give the Word of God to others. And we see not only ourselves transformed, but we have a message to transform the world. A message to give in the supermarket, in the bank, when we go out in our daily life. A message to talk about who our Christ is. As I ask the checkout gal often in the supermarket, what is your goal before the Holy God? And they tell me about trying to balance things off or be good. I explain who God is in the Gospel. And to see God save people in ordinary daily life context is awesome. But that's who our God is. And that's the power of the written word. And that's the dynamism of the Holy Spirit to reveal to us the deep things of God. And I ask not only that you hate idolatry, but you have this deep desire to grow in knowledge and wisdom of the written Word of God. And you have the desire to share it with others, so that it becomes part and parcel of who you are, and that you see the effectiveness of our God, and that you love Him and serve Him as Christ Jesus said. God is a spirit, and those that worship him must worship him in spirit and in thoughts. And that's the way we do it, and we praise God. All praise, all glory, all worship and honor be to him, now and forevermore. Amen. Let us pray as we come to an end of this difficult topic. Father, all holy God, we thank you for the revelation of your spirit. to proclaim that there is none holy as the Lord, there is none like unto thee. Father, we thank you that your likeness is proclaimed and the glory of your nature and of the three distinct persons of the Trinity is revealed on the pages of Scripture. We thank you, Father, for how it is powerful and active in our minds and hearts. Father, we pray that you would increase in us a desire to know you, to know Christ Jesus, and to know the indwelling Holy Spirit. Father, more than answer our prayer, and give us a great love for your Word, and give us the ability to proclaim it day in and day out. And answer our prayer, Father, in such a way that we see an effectiveness in our own life and in those that we work with. and we give you the praise, the glory, the worship, and the honor in Jesus' mighty, glorious, and precious name we pray. Amen and amen.