One, we'll read verses 15 through 23. We're going to be looking at just verse, basically verse 17. We may get into verse 18 a little bit, but first we'll pray and ask the Lord to help us as we look at his word tonight. Our father. The God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ. and our Lord Jesus, we pray to You. We thank You for giving us the Spirit. We thank You for His work in breathing the Word and in illuminating the Word and in giving light to our minds so that we can understand the Word. Blessed Holy Spirit, we pray that You give us that light to our minds tonight, that the truth may shine in our own hearts. We ask this in Jesus' name, Amen. Ephesians 1, starting verse 15, Therefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus, and your love for all the saints, do not cease to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened, that you may know what is the hope of His calling and what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe. According to the working of his mighty power, which he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places. Far above all principality and power and might and dominion. And every name that is named not only in this age, but also in that which is to come. And he put all things under his feet and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all. So the reading of God's holy word. We're looking at the subject of the illumination of the spirit of God. And I last week I read to you from the Banner of Truth magazine in June and an article by that's published, that was printed by A. W. Tozer, who lived from 1897 to 1963, and Banner explained while they printed that. And I'll not go over that again. Just this one paragraph where Tozer says, everywhere among conservatives, we find people who are Bible taught, but not spirit taught. They conceive truth to be something which they can grasp with the mind, If a man holds to the fundamentals of the Christian faith, then he is thought to possess divine truth. But that is an incorrect assumption. The Bible is a supernatural book and can be understood only by supernatural aid. And I believe that. I've met a number of people who understand the Bible and the theology and the doctrines of the Bible who don't understand it at all. That is, understand it spiritually. They don't understand how it impacts their souls. And that's what Tozer is talking about. And I said that even amongst reformed Christians, that that could be true, that we could know the Bible inside and out, know the doctrines of the Bible, be able to explain the doctrines of the Bible, but not understand, not really know it and have it impact our lives because it is a supernatural book. All scripture is given by inspiration of God. So last week, the first thing I did in verse 17, was to prove to you and I'm not going to prove this again, because if I prove it again, we won't get to the lesson for tonight. But I attempted to prove to you that the spirit should be capitalized in verse 17. That's the Holy Spirit of Revelation. And I gave you all kinds of arguments and they weren't original with me. I gave you five or four or five arguments from William Hendrickson, whom I greatly respect as a commentator. Actually, there's five arguments from William Hendrickson and then to seal the deal, I gave a final seventh argument from Lloyd-Jones, and Lloyd-Jones is a good preacher, too, and a good student. I'm sure many of you have read his things. Then we talked last week about the need that we have for the illumination of the Spirit. We have that need because Paul said that we need it. He prays for these Ephesian Christians who were well taught by him that they would have this illumination. And secondly, because we have poor eyesight, as the scripture says, David said, open my eyes that I may behold wonderful things in your in your law. And if David needed that, I suspect we all need it. The man after God's own heart. And the third reason is because we were once totally blind and we have received sight. But I use the illustration of the man who was healed in stages by Jesus, too. And that was after the disciples had not understood what Jesus meant when he talked about Levin. And it was a visual or it was an example to them that they could see, but they could see only trees, men walking like trees. So they needed their eyes fully open and we need our eyes fully opened as well. Then the fourth reason for this need, I said, because we may have theological knowledge, but we may not have experiential knowledge. You know, one of the things I like about William Hendrickson's commentary as he breaks into doxology and praise, I think, yes, and there's some commentators you read that never have any doxology, but boy, are they good in the Hebrew and the Greek. And that's good. It's helpful. But we like a little warmth, don't we? We like a little warmth. Well, then we looked at prayer as the primary means of illumination to whom we should pray. We saw two phrases to the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ. and the father of glory, the glorious God. And I've already spent too long in review. So let's move on to the new. Here is the new. What are we to pray? Well, the text tells us here in Ephesians. that we are to pray, as Paul prayed for these Ephesians, that he said, May the God and Father, verse 17, of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, the glorious Father, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, that is, in the knowledge of Christ. So we are to pray for the spirit of wisdom and revelation. That's what we need to pray. That's what Paul prayed for the Ephesians. That's what pastors pray for their churches. Oh, we pray that all the saints would have the spirit of wisdom and revelation. And that's what we pray for ourselves, too. So what does this mean when we say that we are to pray for the Holy Spirit of wisdom and revelation? And especially, what does it mean? Because we've already learned, if we've studied the first 13, 14 verses of Ephesians, which we haven't, but you all know those 14 verses because you've read them over and over again, and you know what they say. And in verses 13 and 14, we find out that in Him, that is, in Christ, you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise. who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchase possession to the price of his glory. Do you have the spirit of God? Is the spirit of God dwelling in you? Well, of course, he is. If you're in Christ, you have the spirit, because if a man doesn't have the Holy Spirit, he doesn't belong to Christ. So why would Paul, after saying you've been sealed with the Holy Spirit? Parentheses Lloyd-Jones believes the sealing of the spirit is a separate experience. I don't agree with that. But you can read if you want to read his many, many sermons about it. You're welcome to it. They're wonderful sermons. I just don't think he interprets it correctly that that was free. I I encourage you to read Lloyd-Jones. But anyway, if we already have the spirit, why does Paul have praying for these Ephesian Christians that that the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the father of glory, may give you the Holy Spirit of wisdom? He says, I want you to be given the Holy Spirit of wisdom. Why would he pray that they be given the Holy Spirit if they already have the Holy Spirit? That's obviously the first question we have to ask, isn't it? I mean, it seems to me it's the first question we have to ask. Why would he pray that if they have the spirit? Well, I think I have the answer to that. And the answer in a simple statement is this. This Holy Spirit has a multitude of workings in the Christian's life. I mean, as you study it, and I don't profess to know them all, but I know in the limited study that I've done, we find there's all kinds of works which the Holy Spirit does. And everything Really, the father is planned, the son has has given his life and the spirit is the one who completes the work of God. That's generally the way that it's presented in the Bible. And so it's possible to have the Holy Spirit and and yet not experience and know all of his wonderful workings that are available to us and working in our lives. Let me illustrate it this way. I'm glad I have a trumpet player in the house tonight because he'll understand this illustration. Let's just assume that you had Rafael Mendez. Do you all know who Rafael Mendez was? You don't? Well, he was probably the world's greatest trumpet player. Let's assume that you had Rafael Mendez over to your house for a meal before he died. He died in September of 1981. He was one of the world's greatest trumpeters. But if you had him over to your house, you had all of Rafael Mendez that you could ever have. You couldn't have more of Rafael Mendez. But let's say that you did not ask him to play your trumpet if you had one, like I do. And you didn't ask him to play your trumpet or to take his trumpet out if he brought it over in the car. And you missed a wonderful opportunity here. You would have missed hearing the Mexican hat dance in one breath, or you would have missed hearing him play the flight of the bumblebee. You ever heard that on a trumpet? It is something else. But if you didn't ask him to play, you would have missed the whole thing. Well, I'm suggesting to you that you have the Holy Spirit, but miss so much of him, so much of him, if you don't ask for him. And I believe that's why it is that the Apostle Paul says here, I'm praying that you will have the spirit of wisdom and of revelation. You have the spirit. Yes, you've been sealed with the spirit. The spirit dwells in you. You can have no more of the Holy Spirit in your soul than you have right now. But it doesn't mean that we have all of what he's able to do for us. And by the way, the Holy Spirit's mentioned a number of times, I suggested last week your homework would be to find all the times that the Holy Spirit is mentioned in Ephesians. And I said that would help me. I can put that down in my notes next time. Anita did the homework. I don't know if anybody else did, but she found the Holy Spirit was found 11 times with a capital S and two times with a small s. And so thank you, Anita. She gets an A and we'll give you all an A because she worked for you all. So that's the that's that's I believe what Paul is saying here. So he's praying that we'll have the Holy Spirit. We must not neglect him. We must ask for the Holy Spirit of wisdom and of revelation. Now, what does this mean to ask for the spirit of wisdom in the knowledge of him? That is in the knowledge of God. Well, sometimes we say very commonly that wisdom is the application of knowledge in a particular situation. And that's very true. That's very true. And wisdom is often used that way in the Bible. However, I hear I suggest that wisdom means an understanding of God, that is, to know the true God as He is revealed. This is really true wisdom. In other words, I believe what Paul is saying is, I'm praying that you'll have the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him. That is, in the full and complete experiential knowledge of God. This is what I'm praying for you. Only the Spirit can give you this kind of experiential, real knowledge in the knowledge of God. Now, I base this on 1 Corinthians 2, 7 and 8, where we read these words. But we speak the wisdom of God, Paul says, in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the ages for our glory, which none of the rulers of this age knew, but had they known, They would not have crucified the Lord of Glory. So we need the Spirit if we're to know God. Now, the rulers of the age in which Paul spoke, they knew the Bible. They had memorized the Bible. To this day, Orthodox Jews memorize amazing portions of the Old Testament. They knew the Bible so well that when When the wise men came to town and asked Herod, where is he that was born king of the Jews? Where would he be? They immediately knew they knew Micah, chapter five, verse two. But you, Bethlehem, Aphrodite, though you be little among the thousands of Judah and so forth. They knew that. And so the wise men were sent to Bethlehem and there they found the Christ. It has always surprised me that none of the great scholars of the day follow the wise men. Why didn't they do that? Well, they didn't have the Holy Spirit of wisdom in the knowledge of God. They knew the Bible, but they didn't know it. They didn't really know it. They believe the Bible, but they really didn't believe it. And you see, we need the Holy Spirit if we're to have the knowledge of God. We must not assume just because we know the doctrines of the scripture, just because we know the truths of the scripture, that we have the knowledge of God. There is more to this. There is. There is truth that grips the soul, that controls the heart, that gives joy and peace and help in the midst of difficulties and trials and so forth. I forgot to bring with me tonight. I had it on my desk. I'm sorry I forgot it. Pilgrim's Progress. I was going to read you sections, but I'll have to just give you the summary of those sections from Pilgrim's Progress. You remember that Christian and faithful met a man by the name of talkative as they were on the way. And faithful was very, very taken with talkative because he knew so much truth and so much theology. And actually Bunyan spends, at least in the little edition I have, I have a very old edition of Pilgrim's Progress that I picked up at a used store. But it must be seven or eight pages with talkative. Of course, you got to spend a lot of time if you're talking with talkative, don't you? He spends just a long time talking with talkative. And Faithful comes back to Christian and says, you know, this is quite a fellow we've got here walking with us. And Christian says, now, wait a minute. I know where he came from. I know the town he's from. And I know he's a rascal at home. Now, that's not the term that Bunyan uses, but we all know what that means. He's a rascal at home. But he's a saint abroad. But he's a devil at home. I mean, he doesn't treat his wife well. He doesn't treat his kids well. He's just not an honorable man. And well, he says then, Faithful says, well, then perhaps I believe you, Chris. I believe you because you're a good man. And I will. How should I approach him? Christian says, you talk to him about the power of things, about the power of things. Not just about the theology, but about the power of things. So Faithful goes back and says, well, what do we want to talk about? Well, he says, let's talk about the power of things. And and talking, he says, good, be happy to talk. Well, where should we start? He says, well, what does it mean to have? I don't remember the exact terminology, but maybe you can help me. What was it about the conviction of sin and so forth? Yeah. How does grace discover itself? That's it. I know Dale's an expert on progress much more than I am. And talkative goes on to say, well, you know, there's a great outcry against sin and faithful stops. What's wrong with that statement? An outcry against sin. Do you know, do you know a lot of people who cry out against sin? I mean, you find it on the newscast. The terrible murders that are happening in Chicago. Oh, this is awful. We've got to solve it. But what's wrong with that? What did they what should they be saying? They should be saying there's something wrong with my heart. There's something wrong in the hearts of men. People can cry against sin and never have any conviction of sin. And that's exactly where talkative was, wasn't it? And this this was his problem. This was his problem. May God preserve us from a problem like that, that we can just say sin is awful. Look at how awful it is in our culture. Look how awful what's going around us. But what's going on in our heart, you see? How does grace discover itself? What discovers itself is we have a loathing for sin in our own soul. Not just that we can talk about these things. So I believe that's what the Apostle Paul is talking about here. First Corinthians 214 is a key verse, but the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God for their foolishness to him, nor can he know them because they are spiritually discerned. But as believers, we need the illumination of the Holy Spirit to know God. We need that. We can talk about God, and I would guess that most of you here could quote the answer to the shorter catechism. What is God? With me. Can you do that? What is God? God is spirit, infinite, eternal and unchangeable in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness and truth. It's a wonderful answer. A wonderful answer. A. H. Strong simplifies it in his theology. He's got as a source support and end of all things. Well, that's true to the source support and end of all things. But but we can know all that. And I trust that from time to time. I know I don't do it often enough. We even meditate upon that. But we need we need the spirit of God to illuminate our minds so that those truths grip our souls. That's what Paul is praying for. How do we get this knowledge? Well, we study the Word, but that's not enough. It's essential, but it's not enough. When we come to the Bible, we must humbly put ourselves under the Bible, under it, submit to it entirely. What does the Bible say? But that's not enough. We must come prayerfully, asking the Holy Spirit to open our minds to understand and know the truth, but that's not enough. We must come expecting to see God by faith as revealed in the face of Jesus Christ. And as we see that we have more of the spirit of wisdom, I don't want to make this a mystical thing. I'm not trying to do that. All I'm saying is, is that we must come to the scriptures faithfully studying. And searching the scriptures, yes, yes, yes, but at the same time, asking the Spirit of God to illuminate our minds that the truth will come to our hearts with power and help. I hope that we do that as we open this book, and we need to do it as we come to hear the preaching of the word. I know that one of the practices that Ryan and I have had is that before we come to hear preaching, we say, Lord, please help us to profit from this word. We know the words can be opened up, help us to profit from it. And there was a particular church, I won't mention the name of the church, where some people were having some trouble with the preaching. And a guest preacher came in and said, you know what, if you're having trouble with the preaching, why don't you pray for the preacher and pray for your own heart? And they did. And sometime later, they came back and said, wow, how that preaching has improved. Well, yes, of course. Of course, that's the way to get a better preacher is to pray. And to profit, ask that the Lord would teach us and open our hearts. And that will be that will be helpful. That reminds me, oh, I've got this at the end of the lesson, so I won't give that illustration now. We'll save that till later. So we need the spirit of wisdom, but we need more. Notice the Apostle Paul not only prays that we'd have the Holy Spirit of wisdom, but also the Holy Spirit of revelation. Now, what does that mean? Well, here we go a step further. This is beyond knowing God. The second idea shows that the apostle was more concerned that the saints come to know God, not just know about him, as I've emphasized in the first part of this knowing that is knowing something to be true, but then knowing something and even knowing something that you greatly admire. Now, I know I've already talked about that. I'll go back to Rafael Mendez. I know Rafael Mendez and I admire him. I'm even sorry to hear that he had two difficult freak accidents that affected his ability to play the trumpet. But I don't know him. I didn't know him at all. I've never entered into the deep friendship with him. And this second kind of knowing is best understood in the biblical terms of Romans, chapter eight, verse twenty nine, for whom he foreknew that is God foreknew us. That is, he entered into a relationship of love with us. He chose us because he loved us. And why did he love us, friends? Because he wanted to. It was his free choice to love us. There was nothing in us that would attract him, as you know, and each of us know our hearts as we ought to know them. We know that there's absolutely nothing in us that would have that would have attracted God to us is everything in us that would have driven him away from us. But God commended his love toward us. And that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. So to know God is one thing, but to experience the reality of God in our lives is quite another. In fact, we read in Ephesians chapter three, verse 19, that there is a love that passes knowledge. I know you're familiar with this verse, but look at it. It's just across the page in my Bible to know the love of Christ, which passes knowledge. that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. And I love Lloyd-Jones sermons on that verse. I think he has at least a couple of them. But to the knowledge which passes understanding. Now, that's very hard for the for the philosophers who have been educated beyond their intelligence to understand. It's very difficult for them. There's something that they'll never be able to understand. And, of course, Men seek knowledge, and there are some people who are so brilliant that they could never be taught anything because they already know it all. But what they don't know, and what none of us know, is this love of Christ which passes knowledge. In other words, it is infinite. It is infinite, and we are finite. So that Paul is praying in 3.19, he says that you can comprehend this love, which passes knowledge and to be filled with all the fullness of God. Well, you know, to be filled with the fullness of God, who is God? God is infinite. We just quoted the quiet catechism. He's infinite. He has no limits to be filled with his knowledge. So I'm going to quote Lloyd-Jones here. You'll find it in his exposition of Ephesians on page 360. He says, Revelation here is to be understood in the following way. Man's capacity to understand spiritual truth as the result of sin and the fall has been greatly marred that even when you put this wisdom that God has given us through the Holy Spirit before his eyes, he cannot see it or comprehend it. The unsaved man can see nothing of it. The saved man can see it. But it's like men walking like trees, and there's so much more for us to know of our God. I quote again from Lloyd-Jones in the same sermon a couple pages later. He says, We have been considering one of the most important doctrines of the Christian faith. The Protestant reformers used to tell their hearers that there is a double action of the Holy Spirit. There is a testimonium spiritus externus. I think that's Latin. But he explains it, the spirit that is in the word, as it were, the spirit that inspired the man who produced the word that is essential. But it is not enough. Before I know that this is God's word and God's truth, before I can read the Bible and discover health and food for my soul, something additional is necessary. The testimonies, the testimonium spiritus internus, that is the spirit in the word, the spirit in the reader. And without the spirit in him, no man will be able to understand the meaning of the word. The two operations are absolutely essential. What are these two operations? Well, it is the spirit in the word and the spirit in the reader and the spirit in the word. He gives light to the word and the spirit of the reader gives light to the mind. So the word is loved and comprehended. I know you all believe that this book is the word of God. I'm sure that you believe it with all your heart, mind, soul and strength, as I do. When I was in seminary, my middler year, junior, middler, senior year, my middler year, the seminary hired a one of the graduates who had taken some of his doctoral work at Calvin Seminary, and he came and taught New Testament introduction for one semester. I guess the teacher who had been there left. I don't remember. It's been too long ago. The details don't matter. But as he taught, he didn't teach. like a convinced evangelical should teach. And he began to raise questions and doubts. Now, the seminary got rid of him after one semester. Let me say that. OK, they got rid of him. But nevertheless, he taught in such a way that it was that he raised questions and doubts about the scriptures, about the inerrancy of the scriptures. And, you know, that's how heresy comes in, isn't it? That's the way it happens. And so I began to question my own mind. About these things, I thought, wow, if we can't believe the Bible and matters of history, how can we believe the Bible and matters of eternity and things we can't check? And it was without a doubt the the darkest spiritual and mental and psychological time in my life. And here I was training for the gospel ministry. But as I as I prayed and thought, I don't remember the details as to how this happened, but I know that John Calvin explains it in his institutes. And you've probably all read this in Calvin's institutes, because I think he begins book one, chapter one this way, as I recall. It's been a while since I read it, but I hope I'm right on that, where he says, It is the spirit himself who bears witness with our spirit that this is the word of God. And that is the final act of authority. And that's exactly what happened with me. And I realized that the problems that were being presented could be answered. But beyond that, even if you can intellectually answer the problems that are presented, there has to be the work of the spirit of God in the reader that says, This is it. This is the Bible. This is the word of God. And so then what my college Greek prof said as he stuck his hand over his desk as we were in intermediate Greek, and he said, men, preach the word, preach the word, preach the word, preach the word. I said, yes, that's what we do. We preach the word because this is the very word of God. And I know that. And I hope, you know, and because that's the work of the Spirit of God, you see, in our own lives. So every time we open this book, every time we read this book, every time we preach from this book, every time we pray, we ask the Spirit of God to give us light, understanding and to help us because we know we need his help. It's not enough just to read it. It's not even enough just to meditate upon it if with the Spirit of God doesn't seal these truths to our hearts and make them precious to us and so that they transform our lives by the grace of God. And this is all confirmed in verse 18 of our text says the eyes of your understanding being enlightened. You see, there you have it. The eyes of your understanding being enlightened that you may know And that's Oida there, not for a fact, it's certain. No, what is the hope of his calling? What are the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints? And what is the greatness of his power toward us who believe according to the working of his mighty power, which he worked in Christ and so forth? So we need to confess that we need this enlightenment of the Holy Spirit. So what happens? When Paul's prayer is answered for the Ephesians, what happens? Well, I cannot say for sure all that happens, but I know this much joy happens. There is joy. This is the word of God. God speaks to us. This is God speaking. This is the voice from heaven. This is God speaking to us. And also assurance happens. You know, there are Christians who struggle with assurance. I know. It took me seven years struggling with assurance. I can nail the years. It was 1962 to 1969. For seven years I struggled with assurance. But the Spirit of God had to give me that sweet assurance. And then that assurance brings joy, and joy is like revival. It's like revival because we are filled with joy and thanksgiving leads to greater holiness. And as Lloyd-Jones says, or was it Sinclair Ferguson or was it Thomas Boston? Anyway, one of those guys said something like this. He said, sometimes we get sanctification in front of justification and we get to sanctification too soon because before Paul ever deals with sanctification, He deals with justification in the first three chapters of Ephesians before it ever gets to the application. And I think there's something to say to be said for that. We we need this spirit of knowledge and of revelation, the knowledge of God. Once we have that knowledge, we'll joyfully understand Ephesians four through six. We won't have to be flagellating ourselves with wet noodles to try to do it. We will rather want to, as it were, say that I know I fail and fall down, but this is my heart. This is precisely what I want. So it should be an encouragement for everyone. It should be encouragement for those who are young in the faith, for those who are young in age, too. Because you don't have to be... I won't tell you how old I am, but I'm older than some of you here. Probably almost all of you, except for maybe one. to know these things, because the Lord can give you light and understanding. I remembered an illustration that I read from Spurgeon that may help us as we as we. Come to a conclusion when he was a young man, I think even before he became a pastor, the Lord had saved him and, you know, Spurgeon was a genius. He he had a photographic mind and he had read the Puritans as a young boy, and he was just extremely knowledgeable. And so he knew truth when he heard it. He knew error when he heard it. And he went to a sermon and the preacher was just way off base. Everything he was saying just wasn't right. He just wasn't right. He left. He left the church. If you read this illustration, he left the church. He was walking down the road with with a lady who was mature and she was rejoicing over the sermon. And Spurgeon turned to her. He says, how could you ever rejoice over that sermon? It was it was all of it was wrong. What did you find helpful in it? And she's oh, young man. Oh, my son. She says, I just turned everything around and found great joy and blessing in it. Well, the spirit of God gave her joy by just turning everything around. Now, I'm not suggesting that that you go to a church where they turn where they speak everything wrong, not at all. But but but I am saying that woman obviously have been taught by the Spirit of God and was able to rejoice even when things weren't quite right that she heard. May the Lord give us the same. Well, this is my weak efforts to try to explain this whole matter of Paul's prayer. That the first 17 that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the father of glory, may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation, the knowledge of him. Although we may not be able to plumb the depths of all this, we do need that. We need the Holy Spirit to give us wisdom so that we have the knowledge of God, the revelation so that we know God and that we need him as we hear this word preached. And as we read this word, we just need the Holy Spirit, because that is one of his ministries. You have all of him. You have him. You have him. He is in you. He dwells in you. So don't be afraid to use him. Don't be afraid to ask for him. Don't be afraid to I say not only not be afraid, but make it a practice to ask the Spirit of God to help you when you open this book and read it. When you come to hear this book preached, when you hear it, just ask the Spirit. Oh, Holy Spirit, please, blessed Holy Spirit, give me wisdom and revelation, the knowledge of God, that I may know more of my God. I think he'll answer that prayer. I really do. I think that he'll answer it in a wonderful and glorious way. Well, that's all I had to say, so I should stop. And I will stop. So let's pray together. Our father, we pray that you grant us. The God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious father, grant us the Holy Spirit of wisdom and revelation, the knowledge of the true and the living God who has been revealed to us in the face of the Lord Jesus Christ. We know we're just, as it were, touching the fringes of reality and truth from what we know and understand. But we know that the more we know, the more joy we'll have, the more assurance we'll have, the more confidence we'll have, the more ability will have to face trials and difficulties, the greater holiness will have for as we seek your face and love you and serve you with joy. So grant us, we pray that. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.