Well, good evening. I'm glad that you were able to find a place to sit tonight. And you're not overcrowded in here. We can very practically and effectively social distance. Braden, there's one of the separated brethren back there where he's working up in the booths. He's taking the higher ground. So, we rejoice in that. Well, we're going to go over to Ephesians chapter 2 tonight. We're still looking at transitions in spiritual growth. As we grow in Christ, there is a level of expectation that grows with it. Otherwise, God's expectation of what we do. And of course, as we go to Ephesians chapter 2, 3, and 4, in chapter 1 of Ephesians, the Apostle Paul is laying the foundation of God's election of the vocational priesthood of the believer. He'll develop that all the way through chapter 4, in fact, all the way through chapter 6. But we'll look at that a little bit tonight. So as we can see up on the screen tonight, when the new covenant believer priest understand what is available to them in the dispensation of the grace of God, only then can they understand the stewardship responsibilities of this overwhelming privilege. Now, how many of you, when you had a son, you said, hmm, I'm sure glad I have a son. He can start driving. I'm getting tired of driving. And he can start driving now. You know, I'll get him started. He's two years old now. We'll get something fixed up so he can reach the pedals and we'll get him going. We all know that that's not the way it works. There has to be some physical growth and some intellectual growth, some responsibility growth before he can be trusted with that. But somehow we think that that's not the case with God. In fact, God is doing exactly the same thing with us. He is not going to trust us with the great big issues of ministering people, otherwise that I call soul surgery. Soul surgery is more intense than brain surgery. And it gives us a lot of patterns for all of that in the Scriptures, especially in Ephesians chapter 4, Ephesians chapter 6. But you're doing some very serious, delicate work. when you are doing ministry. It's not, you're not just transferring truth. You are working on a heart, and God's working on a heart. And that partnership has to take place. That is a concept of understanding of the priesthood of the believer. That's why so often the Word of God talks about we are to be gentle and kind and peaceful with people. And often that is not the case when it comes to various levels of ministry. Now I have to admit that I am, although one of the qualifications of a pastor is to be patient, and I work very hard with doing that and being patient, that's not according to my nature. And I got news for you, it's not according to yours either. We are by nature, sinful nature, impatient. We are not tolerant. We are by nature intolerant. And by nature we always hold the people to a higher standard than we live. In many cases. That is the duplicity of what Christ addresses when talking about helping someone get a beam, get a sliver out of their eye when you got a beam in yours. And we all know that We all know the beams, right? I've got mine, you've got yours. And that is the issue. So come over to Ephesians with me. We're going to start in chapter 2 and verse 18. I'd like to be able to preach the whole epistle to you tonight, but no way is that going to ever happen. We'll look at this and maybe some outlines of it. We're going to look all the way down to chapter 4. in verse 1, because that is the transition point in what Paul is dealing with here in this epistle. But let's start off tonight by looking at verse 18. He says, for through Him, who is Him here? Through Jesus Christ, our High Priest, who is seated on the mercy seat in the throne of God, in heaven itself, representing us as our advocate and representative priest before God. And so we are represented in the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ before the Father. So it is through Him we both have access by one Spirit under the Father. Now the both here, what's that? Right above that in the margin of your Bible, both Jew and Gentile. Both saved Jews and saved Gentiles. We both have access by one Spirit, literally the same Spirit. He's going to talk about that in chapter 4. One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, unity of Spirit, bond of peace. So he says, for through Him we both have access by one Spirit under the Father. Now therefore, if that is a reality, there ought to be some expectations of that. Amen? So now therefore, first truth, you're no more strangers and foreigners, Gentiles, but fellow citizens with the saints and the household of God, the sanctified ones, the separated ones, and with the household of God. Now that's national Israel. Household of God is born-again believers in the Old Testament, born-again Jews particularly. are built upon the foundation of the Apostles and the Prophets. The Apostles mainly taught, they're responsible for the Gospels and communicating what Christ taught in the Gospels, but the Apostles were mainly responsible for the Epistles, which essentially corrected all the established doctrine and corrected all the false doctrine that would evolve over the first 30 years of Christianity up to 96 A.D. in the book of Revelation. Then the prophets, what did the prophets do? They did the same thing that the apostles did. They were directed of God to go out to the nation of Israel, correct all of the heresies and false beliefs that existed in the nation of Israel. Now you're built upon that foundation. What does that mean? The continuum of the building ought to be the same as the foundation. So you're built upon that foundation, you are the continuum of that in every generation. So that's what is established in here. You're built on that foundation and you become the continuum of that foundation with every layer. Think masonry, stone building, that's the way buildings were built. So every layer of stone that were put upon the next generation upon generation are built upon the same truths and are for the same purposes. So you're built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone. That's the leveling stone. That's to keep everything on the level. The cornerstone was the hugest stone, and the cornerstone was meticulously put in to ensure that the rest of the building was always level. And you gauged everything off of the cornerstone. from that point forward. So you had a point that's level. Now here's an example for you. I bring a level in here, and I set it on this table, and just my setting that level on the top of this table makes this table level. Right? Is that how it works, Dan? It doesn't work that way, does it? You see, all that tells me is whether it's level or not level. And I have to make adjustments accordingly. That's what the foundation stone is. The foundation stone has something from which you constantly measure. In the book of Amos, Amos refers to that as the plumb line. And we constantly have that going on. The apostles or prophets are built upon what? The cornerstone, the leveling stone, the thing that keeps it always where it ought to be. And that is what our job is. As a next level, we build everyone. Paul said, I've laid the foundation which is Jesus Christ. Let every man take heed how he build thereupon. Otherwise, it is your responsibility to keep the next level, next generation level, and plumb, if you will. Both of them will destroy a masonry building. If it's not level, it's going to be a problem. If it's not plumb, the weight of the top stones will soon topple everything that's been built upon it. And so that is the job of the apostles and prophets, that's what they did, and the next generation, and the generation, and generation, and generation, is to ensure that it's on the level and plumb. Make sure it's the right doctrine, right practice, and the right attitudes or emotions. Now it says, in whom all the building fitly framed together. See how that metaphor now all comes together in the cornerstone? It's not going to all fitly frame together, groweth unto a holy temple in the Lord, if every generation is not very, very careful about doing exactly what the prophets, apostles and prophets did, exactly what Jesus Christ did. When Jesus Christ came into this world, The doctrine and the priesthood of Israel were almost totally corrupted. Yeah, there was a small splinter of the Sons of Righteousness, of course, who had abandoned the temple. There was a pure priesthood. They were called the Baptists. And, of course, John was one of them. John the Baptist was one of them. So it all has to fitly frame together, all has to fit. And that is the meticulousness of stacked stone structure. It all has to fit together. Now look at verse 22. In whom, this is Jesus Christ, the cornerstone, ye also are built together for an habitation of God through the Spirit. This is the church, remember Christ said, where two or three are gathered together in my name, there I am in the midst. This is the habitation of God. So both you individually are the habitation of God, your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, and every local church is a habitation of God, in that the local church is a group of priests of which the Shekinah dwells. A priesthood of all believers. Now look at verse one of chapter three. What's the first three words? For this cause. What is that? So that you can be built together for habitation of God through the Spirit. So this is a spiritual structure. Not talking about a physical building, that's just metaphorical. He's talking about a spiritual structure. For this cause, I, Paul, the prisoner of the Lord Jesus Christ, for you Gentiles, If you have heard of the dispensation, now, that word dispensation means administrative stewardship. Write that in the margin of your Bible. It's an administrative stewardship. What is that? For which every believer-priest will be held accountable. Remember, with spiritual growth and transitions in spiritual growth, the expectations and responsibilities also come. Right? When I was a child, I acted like a child. When I became a man, I put away childish things, right? And as soon as I got married, I realized now I had a wife to take care of. And she was very quickly going to have a baby. And very soon, my son was born. And I realized very quickly, life has changed dramatically. Now, with all of this transitions, my responsibilities increased. And so I started out as an apprenticeship carpenter and found out that I was going to get one-fourth of scale, which at that time was I think 95 cents an hour. And I realized very quickly I was not going to be able to support my family on 95 cents an hour. And so I took a second job working at a canning factory running the steam cookers where I got a buck 65 an hour. I didn't need to know anything except how to read a meter as it went around and make sure that the timer was okay. And we got enough stuff inside the cooker and took it out when it was done. Didn't have to be a brain surgeon to do any of that. But I actually made more than I did with the skilled labor I was doing in the other job. Of course, my wages grew, but this is this issue of growing in grace. When we grow in grace, there's an expectation of higher responsibilities from God to us. That is a dispensation to us. Otherwise, God has given us administrative stewardship. That is a wow kind of thing. Let me ask you this. If you knew yourself, and I hope that you do, where you are spiritually, and you were God, what would you trust you with? That's a sobering thought. So Paul says, for this cause, I, the prisoner of Jesus Christ for you Gentiles, if you've heard of this administrative stewardship of the priesthood of all believers, for which you're going to be held accountable, this dispensation of the grace of God, this supernatural enabling of the grace of God to the priesthood of all believers, which is given to me toward you. Otherwise, he was given it, he was being responsible and steward of it, knowing he was going to be held accountable And it was aimed then in the direction of all believers, especially the Gentile believers. And then he goes on, colon there, verse three, how that by revelation, he made known unto me the mystery. Otherwise, this was the apostle Paul that was given this mystery, the understanding of it. Now guess what he's gonna do with it? He's gonna explain it to us. And with this mystery, guess what you're supposed to do with it? You're to explain it to other believers as well, the responsibilities of all of this. And because we have such shallowness in the pulpits, most Christians never hear anything about any of this, right? And so, how about, by revelation, he made known unto me the mystery as I wrote before in few words, whereby when you read, you may understand my knowledge of the mystery of Christ. Okay, now he's gonna explain that. He's gonna do that all the way through chapter six. So this is a critical portion of scripture when it comes to understanding the book of Ephesians. Context, context, context. Verse five, now we're outside of the parentheses, which of course begins in verse three and it's all the way through verse four. Now he picks up with this other same thought, How that by revelation they made known unto me the mystery which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men. As it is now revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit. So it's revealed to the apostles who reveals it us, who is supposed to reveal it to someone else. So this is a major aspect of true biblical discipleship. What is that? That the Gentiles should be fellow heirs, participant in common communion and ministry, and of the same body that New Genesis and Christ, the Old Testament believer, was born again, positionally in Christ, we are born again with the impartation, theirs was the imputation, so that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs of the same body, this new Genesis in Christ, and partakers This is joint servants, joint ministers, partnership is the implication here, that we are partners of his promise in Christ by the gospel, partners in ministry. Whereof I was made a minister, now here it is diakonos, a table waiter, a servant minister. I've made this to the Gentiles. This very powerful Jew, who was Saul, who got born again, became Paul, had now accepted something that no Jew would have ever thought, a servant of Gentiles. Was the lowest form of degradation that you could become as a Jew, is to become a servant of a Gentile. And he had voluntarily did this because he was a servant of Jesus Christ. So whereof I have made a minister according to the gift of the grace of God given unto me by the effectual working of his power. He could spend a couple hours right there on that statement. The gift of the grace of God, of course, is the enabling indwelling spirit of God. Unto me who am less than the least of all saints. He didn't say I'm the least of all saints, he said I'm less than the least of all saints. I have murdered the saints of God. I'm guilty of that. And so he refers to himself as less than the least of all saints. He says, unto me who am less than the least of all saints. Now, that's not the point. Is this grace given? Is this enabling grace given? That he could explain the mysteries, which is a partnership with Christ. That I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ. What is that? The indwelling Spirit of God, the enabling of the indwelling Spirit of God. And then, and to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery. The fellowship of the mystery. Now we preached many messages here on that verse of scripture, but the fellowship of the mystery is having fellowship, intimate, personal relationship, partnership with God. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 6.1, workers together with God. Which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ, to the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God. This is practical, intimate knowledge of these things. according to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord. That is a priesthood of all believers. Now, that's going to go on into the Millennial Kingdom, Kingdom Age, Millennial Kingdom, and on into the future state, where every believer is a priest before God in the Millennial Kingdom, living in harmony in the same mansion or same household to which God has created for himself. In my father's house, there are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have told you, so I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go, I come again and receive you unto myself, that where I am, there ye may be also." Wow. So, he says, according to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have boldness and access with confidence by the faith of Him, by the faithfulness of Jesus Christ. Wherefore, I desire that you faint not at my tribulation for you, which is your glory." Normal. Don't worry about my tribulations, my difficulties, how bad things are for me, and, you know, he's imprisoned for Christ. He says, which is your glory. He says that's, my tribulation is it which is your glory. That's what it's all about. Verse 14, again, another, what's these three words? For this cause. Again, so underline those. For this cause, I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named. Christians. that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man. Can you see the context of this supernatural enabling that Paul is talking about? Why? That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith, that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth and length and depth and height, to know the love of Christ, experientially, which passes knowledge, passes human knowledge, this is our spiritual knowledge, and that you might be filled with the fullness of God. What does it say of Christ? Christ had the fullness of the Godhead dwelling in Him. What do you have? Same thing, fullness of the Godhead. Knowing to Him that is able to do exceedingly abundant above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us. It's already there. It's working in you. It's able to do abundantly above all that you can think, ask, or even think. It's already working in you. It's already there. Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages. World without end. Amen. I therefore the prison of the Lord. Verse 1. Look at this. Beseech you that you walk worthy of the vocation wherewith you are called. That's the priesthood of all believers. Walk worthy of that. Live in such a manner that is worthy of that great blessing. That is a great privilege. I've got enough time just to give you an outline of the book. I'm going to look at the outlines of chapter 3 and 4. I think I've handed out here the whole outline of the book of Ephesians, but I want to go just through the outline of Ephesians chapter 3 and chapter 4 tonight. First of all, in chapter 3 there, verses 1 through 6, we have the mystery of the church revealed as joint heirs of the kingdom with Israel. That is when we are going to be grafted into the nation of Israel as a new priesthood. during that kingdom age. Now, then second, verses 7 through 12, Paul is the minister of these mysterious, unsearchable riches of grace in Christ. What does that mean? He is to expound upon these and make these great truths known. Look, if all you've got in your salvation is a fire escape from hell, man, you've got really just nothing except, you know, Asbestos suit, maybe, that's about all you got. There's a lot more to it than that. And then, in verse 13, Paul's desire to not be discouraged because of the persecutions that sought to hinder his ministry of revelation of this mystery of Christ. You suppose Satan wants everyone to know about that? Well, no. Well, he's going to do everything he can to stop that, to hinder it. and to silence the Apostle Paul. And what Apostle Paul did when he was in prison, chained to Praetorian guards in Rome, he won the Praetorian guards to Christ. And when he was released, the Praetorian guards traveled all over the world. What do you suppose they became? Missionaries. And they began to win people to Christ. When a Praetorian guard started speaking the gospel, he'd listen up. Nothing more motivating than someone with an 8 foot long spear standing there. Now listen up, I've got something important for you, I need to tell you. I've always wondered if carrying a .44 Smith & Wesson 8 1⁄4 barrel in my under shoulder as I go out soul winning might be a good incentive. Of course, they'd just call the cops on you today. In verse 13 through 21, Paul's declaration of his dependence upon the Spirit of God to explain this ministry. And as well, the dependency of all believers upon the Spirit of God to understand this ministry. If you don't understand it, you can't explain it. What you understand deeply, you can explain simply. And that's all we're trying to do here is explain something that is incredibly complex and spiritually deep in very simple terms. And that's what it is. That's what he's doing here. Then you go into chapter 4 and verses 1 through 6, believers are exhorted to walk worthy. of their vocational election as priests before God by living in that theantropic unity with God and with one another, the same unity, the fullness that Jesus Christ had with the Father. You and I have God in us, living within us. There's a theantropic union for every believer in the indwelling Holy Spirit. Now, we'll never be God or gods. That's not the same. but we have all of the resources of God dwelling within us in that the entropic union. And then verse seven, the Christ's life is the primary gift and the gift of salvation given to all believers in the indwelling Holy Spirit. The gift of salvation is not a fire escape from hell, it's a Christ's life. And you've been given the indwelling Holy Spirit who is the Christ's life. So Christ is also gifted local churches in verses eight through 16. with gifted men to administrate and lead and disciple mature believers in the doctrines of Christ for their preparation for the work of the ministry. What is that? Winning souls, baptizing those saved, bringing them into formal accountability for the discipleship within a local church context, teaching them to live the Christ life. And this work of the ministry is the vocation of all believer priests. That's the vocation to which we are called to do. You can't do that without abiding in the branch, abiding in the vine. And then in verses 17 through 19, we have this admonition against a believer priest living in selfishness, against worldly thinking, against living in doctrinal and practical ignorance of the Christ life. and living without compassion for the lost around them by being preoccupied with the pleasures of life and the pursuit of materialistic goals. It's so easy to get caught up in that. That doesn't mean you don't need to do what you need to sustain yourself, but we get caught up in so much beyond that. Then verse 20 and through 24 we have the admonition to put on Christ's life, put on Christ, and allow Christ to live His self-sacrificing life through your body. So that is a choice and a determination that every believer has to make. And then in verses 25-29 we have the admonition to put off the old man. That's your sin nature. That is your spiritual controller. You want to know how to let Christ have control of your life? Give Him the remote. Okay? And that is by healing your heart to Him. So, you put off the old man, all his selfish, carnal tendencies. And then in verse 30, we have the admonition that selfish, carnal living grieves the indwelling Spirit of God. I don't know how many of you we have had to do this, to live with a selfish, carnal, rebellious teenager. won't listen to you, and you try to speak to them in a loving, kind way, until finally your patience just completely is gone. And you don't even know what to do anymore. And your tendency is to want to put them in a dog cage and lock them in a corner someplace. But we know that's not going to work because they'll get out of there, right? And so none of that works. So now you've got a free will that wants to have a free will. But that is what we all are. If you remember having that carnal, selfish, ungrateful teenager in your home, imagine what it is with God dealing with you every day. Because you and I are no different than that in many cases in our lives. And we all have to grow to that place where we yield that to God, yield the will to God. But in the process, we are grieving the indwelling Holy Spirit who cannot escape. He lives there. He's the seal of God upon our life. He has to live within this selfish, carnal body. We grieve Him. There, we have the indwelling Christ living within us, weeping over our souls every single day. And then verse 31, some practical examples of selfish carnality that must be put away. And then verse 32, some practical examples of selfless spirituality that exemplify the Christ life. Getting, there's a juxtaposition here. And most of the time we land somewhere in the middle, right? Never to the extreme. Well, we can go to the extreme one way, carnality, but very seldom do Christians ever fall to the extreme of total surrender. It is said that, in all practicality, there is probably less than 3% to 5% of Christians who are fully surrendered to Christ. And that is, I think, probably some pretty generous terms. Now, we're going to go back for a moment, back to Romans chapter 12. This is our springboard text. Remember, we're talking about consecration, transitions, and spiritual growth. And I look at verse 2. Be not conformed to this world, but be you transformed by the renewing of your mind that you might prove what is that good and perfect and acceptable will of God. The words that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God in the conclusion of Romans 12.2 are extremely significant regarding transitions and spiritual growth of believer priests. I'm going to give you some nuances here of the text that you should write down in the margin of your Bible. because it takes a lot of work to find these things out. So these words, they define the purpose for complete abandonment of worldly wisdom and cultural contradictions against God's will. So these words define the purpose of being perfected in the enabling grace of God, to live the will of God in a supernatural manner, transforming the Mosaic Covenant and its principles of God-kind righteousness into being realized practically through the consecrated lives of the grace-enabled believer-priest. What the Old Testament believer was given was an impossibility. Because the Spirit of God came alongside of him to help him, but never indwelled him. So the sin nature was always a problem. And that is the principle of the white bear. The white bear is a psychological principle. Let's say we have a white bear head on the wall over here. And I say, okay, nobody think about the white bear head, okay? Stop thinking about that, and for the next 30 seconds, do not think about that white bear head. What are you immediately going to do? You're gonna think about it, unless you are disciplined enough to completely focus on something else. And that's the problem, isn't it? So these words define this. This is Christ in you, living his will through your body. All the moral responsibilities of the law are reduced to one command. Fully surrender or yield your will to the indwelling Christ. That's what it means to love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy might. Total, full surrender and trust. And in doing so, God will prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God through you allowing Christ to live His will through you. That's what that word, dokomadzo, prove. It is the testing of it all. So the simple commands of testing through experience, of course, the concept here is. So the simple commands of Romans 12, one through two defined everything that is different in the fulfilled realities of the new covenant during the church age. And these simple commands define the overwhelming difference between the Mosaic Covenant and the New Covenant in Christ. Now, if we are people who are Calvinists, they don't believe we're in the New Covenant yet. And that's not part of it. So what is that? Progressive transfiguration to Christ-likeness. That's an overwhelming difference between the Mosaic Covenant and the New Covenant. The old covenant believer, he was a servant and a child under tutors. You today are raised to a higher level of responsibilities and maturity in the dispensation of grace, which is a stewardship of administration. This is what the words good and acceptable and perfect will of God mean. When the believer fully yields his will to the indwelling Christ, Jesus Christ releases himself through that believer's life, and the Shekinah dwelling within shines to the glory of God. This is how Matthew chapter 5 verse 16 is fulfilled. Now we have, many times we have people that teach the commandment. Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your God in heaven. But they never teach the how-to. Right? You know, let your light so shine. Well, just keep the commandments and, you know, willpower, sanctification, quit doing this and start doing this. But no, that's not where it begins. It begins with total, full surrender to the indwelling Christ. And when that happens, then the Shekinah shines forth. It's an automatic thing. So that's a concept of fellowship or partnership with God that we've read in Ephesians chapter three. So your light is the Shekinah working in synergism with your totally yielded spirit. And although the word transformed is pacifist, okay, otherwise transformed isn't something you do, it is something God does, transfigures you from within. The word prove is active voice. So therefore, our spiritual transfiguration is done by Christ from within as we yield to Him, while proving what is good and acceptable and perfect will of God. Proving is not passive action, but cooperative action. We are cooperating what God is doing within us. So this is the purest and simplest form of worship that can possibly be expressed to the human life. And that is full surrender. Romans chapter 2, the purest, simplest form of worship that is possible. And Romans 12 too. Be not conformed to this world, but be you transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove, present tense, active voice, infinitive mood. Otherwise, purpose, result, outcome. Think that way. That you may prove, otherwise, through purpose, result, and outcome, what is that good, acceptable, perfect will of God. Now we'll see that in the out, or the purpose, result, and outcome is found in verses three through eight. in the supernatural energizing of those gifts that are already there, that lay dormant. I'm gonna give you one more statement, then we'll quit and let Daniel come up, and we'll take our prayer time, and then we'll sing in closing hymn. This is from Adam's Clark Commentary on the Bible. And this is a statement that he makes about Scotch on this Romans chapter 12, verse two. And I think it's an incredibly good explanation of what this verse says. Here's what Clark says about Scotgen. I don't know if I'm pronouncing that guy's name right, but these words are supposed by Scotgen to refer entirely to the Jewish law. That's Romans 12.2. The Christians were to renounce this world, the Jewish state of things. to be transformed by having their minds enlightened in the pure and simple Christian worship, that they might prove the grand characteristic difference between the two covenants, Mosaic and New. The latter being good in opposition to the statutes which are not good. Ezekiel 25 talks about that. God had told them to do something which they just were not, just did not do. And so instead of the law being a blessing as God intended it, as they kept the statutes and judgments of God, God would bless them instead. They failed that and God, the law became a curse to the nation of Israel. So it promised something, but because they were weak, it became something else. It was not good. And then, so the latter being good in opposition to the statutes were not good. Acceptable in opposition to those sacrifices, offerings which God would not accept, as is written in Psalm 40. Of course, he's, you know, there, that sacrifice is a bloody bull, a goat can't do anything. and perfect in opposition to that system which was imperfect. That is what Hebrews talks about. You can never make your conscience perfect, otherwise you can never be satisfied in your mind that all of your sin was dealt with. Because having to understand a system that cried out for complete propitiation, every time you offered a sacrifice by the very nature of its offering, you knew it wasn't completed. And so, in the new covenant, that Jesus is the propitiation for our sins, and not for our sins only, but for the sins of the whole world. Completion. So it could make that conscience perfect. Otherwise, we could know by faith that it all had been done, and was only the shadow of good things to come. That's what the law was. There are both ingenuity and probability in this view of the subject, as Clark's view of Skutkin's Testaments here. And we'll come back here and look at Psalm 40 and verse 6 through 8 and see this issue, what we're dealing with next week. But let's take some time for a prayer request. Let's have a word of prayer and we'll take time for prayer requests. Father God, thank you for your word tonight. And Father, most of all, we thank you for the incredible gift that you've given us in your indwelling Spirit of God. We thank you for the incredible privilege you've given us to be ministers, workers together with you. We thank you for the incredible responsibility that you've given us in reaching this world with the gospel of Jesus Christ. And Lord, all we can ask is that by your grace, you would help us to be strengthened and enabled, and that, Lord, we would learn to yield ourselves to you more each day. In Jesus' name.