Person & Work of the Holy Spirit
Mike Doyle · May 5, 2013
Holy Spirit (2013), No. 17
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/492635046944

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

OK, we had moved on to question four, but just to maybe bring up some speed. Only on this side of the room, only on this side of the room. What is the word sanctification? So far, I didn't hear anything up here. What does it mean? It only means to be set apart. That's all it means. It does not mean to get better spiritually. It doesn't mean that. I know that that's the mindset that all we all have, because that was the mindset promoted by the Methodists for centuries. That it would work as hard as you can to get as holy as you can and that is not what sanctification means. Sanctification means just to be set apart for God's own use. That's all it means.

Has everybody on this side of the room been set apart for God's own use? How about the people on this side? You sure about that? We don't answer for them. So if that's the case, if God has set you apart for his own use, how come it's not working out so good? You mean, why do we feel like we're not constantly being used? Yeah. Why do you I mean, why do you struggle and why do you? Why do you think you know this? Am I really sanctified?

I really set apart. And if I was, I wouldn't be betting on going to the dog track and betting on the dogs. Wouldn't sneak off to Las Vegas. I wouldn't be booing the Nuggets. Well, you might. Those aren't directly, directly exclusive. To each other. They don't exclude. One doesn't exclude the other. OK. You OK over there.

So the reason that when you ask questions like that, that you can't say, well, they you know, if I'm positionally sanctified, how come I don't instantly or condition instantly demonstrate it conditionally. And so we talked last week and I want to reiterate it again about your position of sanctification is already done, it's perfect, and it's complete, and you can't do anything to add to it. When I say to you to demonstrate position of truth, if I said, are you risen with Christ? What would you say? Yes. Are you with Him? Yes. Is he your life? Yes. Well, I got to tell you, I've been watching you guys and not a lot of evidence.

See the difference in what your position is, what your position is and how it works out in your condition. OK, so it's very important as we go forward, especially with this issue of sanctification, that we do understand that sanctification, first and foremost, is a positional truth. It's something true of you, already done by God, that you cannot change. You may not ever act like you're positioned, separated unto God, but you are. So, what I was wondering is, when we are told that over time, the inferior conditions should start coming closer to our positions, It seems like that saying that we're trying to be more sanctified conditioned. That's a good question. Everybody understand the question or do you hear it? Over time our condition has to begin to be more like our position. Sounds good, doesn't it?

Who was responsible for your position? We're all responsible. Alright, so God is responsible, the Holy Spirit is responsible for your positional sanctification. Who's responsible for your conditional sanctification? It better be the same answer. It better be the same answer because it's all of grace. It's all of grace. So what's your responsibility? Do you know how to define the word responsibility? Your ability to respond. You can't respond to spiritual information if you're not spiritually alive. So what's your responsibility? Let Christ live through us. Same as it was for salvation. Yes, exactly the same as it was for salvation. What was your responsibility in salvation?

To believe. To believe, right? You don't get any credit for that, sorry. It's a non-meritorious act. It's the same thing with spiritual growth, it's to believe. If you understand that, and you understand that the work of conditional sanctification is of the Spirit of God, then as you see things in the Word, you will respond by just believing. When God says, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creation, and you say, Joe over there, I'm not so sure about him. It's not a matter of how you look, it's a matter of what the word of God says. Especially when it talks about you as a believer, your response is to believe.

That's it. It's the spirit's job to work it through you and in you, so you can stop your tap dancing and you can rest. Is that where we say that the spiritual condition of a person may largely be gauged by his estimation of the Word of God? Yeah. Did everybody hear that? The spiritual condition of a person can be largely estimated, or largely estimated? Do I repeat that?

Gauged by his estimation of the Word of God. Which never changes. The word of God doesn't change, does it? I mean, there's a word of God for Holly, a word of God for Courtney, a word of God for Jack. It's all different, right? No, it's not. It's the same. It's exactly the same. Okay.

So, question four is, who's involved in the sanctification of the believer? According to Samuel right up. By the way, I read a biography on him that's really interesting. did you hear her answer? Where's your wife? I don't think that's a conditional issue. She knows her position. That's why God made Eve.

That's why he couldn't pick up his own father. Okay, now we've got to get serious. Who's involved in the work of the sanctification of the saints? Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. All three persons of the Godhead. So, you think about it. The Father, Son and the Holy Spirit are intimately involved in your personal conditional sanctification. Do you need anybody other than that? You mean they don't need your help? Yeah. They are all three involved in that to conform you to the image of Christ. That's what they are doing. Kind of cool. So, yes ma'am.

So what about your will? What about my will? I got a will. What do I use my will for? To choose who you're going to line up with. What's that? To choose who you agree with. you're going to agree with in that moment, if you're going to agree with God or if you're not, if you're going to agree with yourself. I use my will to do one thing in the spiritual life and that's to believe. I don't use it to implement. By using my will to believe, what I've done is that I've said to God, thank you for positionally setting me apart and I trust you by faith to work into me what you've already done positionally to work into me conditionally. That's where my will gets involved. If you engage your will to implement, then that's not of the Lord. Because you can't do what he's going to do anyway. Tell me what you can do to conform yourself to the image of Christ. Zip, nada, nothing. Nothing you can do.

You can behold. So why is it such a slow process then, if the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are all at work? Everybody hear the question? Anybody got a really smart answer? We didn't hear it. If all that's true, then why is it such a slow work? Father, Son and Holy Spirit, they just don't seem to be moving very fast. It's a slow process. Why? Because of our will? Because we learned through trials and tribulations. We learned through trials and tribulations. Is suffering a suffering somewhere?

Steve? Probably because the old man is still at work too. Think about our makeup. Everybody in this room has a body that is perfectly happy in the old system, right? the sin-infested, God-rejecting world that we live in. You have a body that's totally at home there. You also have a sin nature that is totally at home there and wants to stay there. And in the middle of all of that, the Spirit of God came and took you through the cross and placed you positionally in Christ. Well, we were really hoping that the opposition would go away when that happened, but it didn't. So we have a lot of problems. One, we're ignorant of what happened early on.

Two is that we think that we can, through our own will and our own effort, effectuate this conditional change in spiritual growth if we just pray more, try harder, do more spiritual push-ups or whatever. And if we're led to study the word of God, we begin to understand the work is completed and God only wants us to do one thing is to believe him. How long does it take God to get you to stop working? It depends. I'm afraid crying. Really? Have you ever thought about this?

When the Lord Jesus left the planet and went to heaven, He left twelve or thirteen apostles, depending on how you... How many were to the Jews? Twelve. How many were to the Gentiles? One. How come? How come twelve to the Jews? Were they just stupid? Maybe because there were twelve tribes. No, here's the real reason. The real reason was that they were steeped in Jewish religion.

And those 12 guys, their main job was to wean them away from Judaism so that they could begin to enter into all that was true in Christ. Paul didn't have that problem because his ministry was to non-Jews. He didn't have to do any weaning. He could start with positional truth right away.

So you religious guys who all came out of these denominations, think of the tough job the Spirit of God has to do to wean you away from your religiosity. Oh, I'm a good Catholic. I'm a good Methodist. I'm a good this or I'm a good that. You know, think about all of these little things that are in your mind about what it is to be a conditional, separated, sanctified Christian and how much effort and time you've put into it over the years.

And the Spirit of God has to totally erase that from who you are so that you'll depend only on Him and nothing of yourself. That's why I think it takes so long. I don't know if you remember me telling, I went to lead worship at a, it was like a mental hospital.

And there was that young girl who was raised in a very religious home. And when we were, she was trying to share how she felt. And she basically just said the Bible said that you need to be righteous like your Heavenly Father is righteous. And I think that's probably why she was there, because she thought she had to do it. She was taught the opposite of what the truth is. Right.

You know, Christianity is the only religion, quote-unquote, and I don't like to use that word, that depends and relies solely on race. Every other one has, for its background and underneath it, a performance mode that you have to do to be pleasing to God. And oh yeah, that's the non-Christian ones, but the Christian ones aren't like that, give me a break. Most denominations are you're saved by grace, now get busy.

I was just going to mention too, about it taking so long, that we're working in time and God's working in eternity. So maybe to us it seems like a long time. That's a really good point. Do you realize that part of your conditional sanctification and preparation is for something you're going to be doing in eternity? And you're being suited out for it today? You have no idea what it is, but you're being prepared for what God has called you to do in eternity. And you're getting ready for it today and you look around and you think, well what?

What does that have to do with anything? It has a lot to do with it because God works from an eternal standpoint. He doesn't work between now and next Thursday and then he's off for a week. He doesn't do it that way. The other use of the word sanctification is that of involvement in our practical daily life. What slash who is the standard for that life? Christ himself. He personally. And it's interesting, not the list of stuff that he can do, he personally is the standard for that life.

So when you think about the process, our minds think dualistically and we think about all I have to do is study how Christ does things, get them all down and then I'll just imitate them. Now if you grew up in the Catholic environment like I did and went to Catholic schools, I mean the Catholics got an answer for everything. There's a guy named Thomas Akempis that wrote a 750 page book. You know what the title of it was? Imitation of Christ. 750 pages of Imitation of Christ.

And if you went and read that thing, when you were done, you didn't know anything more than when you started. So, from a practical standpoint, how does it work? You know, it's like lots of people in marriages say, well, I got the marriage thing figured out, just tell me what to do and I'll do it. Really? How's that working out for you? And most people go to the Bible and say, well, if the Bible will just tell me what to do, I'll do it.

But that's not imitation of Christ. What is imitation of Christ? How does that happen? How does that happen in a believer's life? Samuel Rideout has it right. He has it correct. How does that happen? How can I look at one of you and recognize, oh my goodness, it's the life of the Lord Jesus coming through them. Wow, that's really something. How did that take place? What did you do What did the Spirit of God do to get you in a position where you really did, at least for four and a half seconds, appear to be the image of Christ? What did he do? How does that process work? Is it that you studied and got all the facts down and now that you know them, you just do them? Shake your head no. If that's not it, then what is it?

The Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit doing what? Working inside. Living through you. Huh? Living through you. The Holy Spirit living through me. There's something that's got to happen before that. Belief. Death. Faith. Death. Steve. Progressively sanctifying us. Submission. I'm really surprised. This is my favorite verse in all the Bible.

Go to 2 Corinthians 3.18. And Paul understood this because he said that not until I already attained either were already perfect. That's conditional sanctification. Somebody read that out loud. But we all with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord are changed into the same image from glory to glory even as by the Spirit of the Lord.

Okay, so tell me the process, it's right there. What do I do? You believed and you're filled with the Spirit. beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord with unveiled face so there is no obstruction, there is no impediment, there is no barriers, I am to behold the glory of the Lord as in a mirror. What is the mirror? Ladies, you know what the mirror is?

It's the word of God. I behold as in the mirror the glory of the Lord. Think about that. I have the privilege and the opportunity to behold the intrinsic attributes of the glorified Lord Jesus Christ by just reading his word. Would that mean that we're a reflection of Him? It means that the Word is the reflector. In other words, why do you read your Bible so you can be smart on Sunday morning? Why do you read your Bible? To behold the glory of the Lord. It's really all we've got, isn't it? Well yeah, and it's the tool that the Spirit of God uses to reveal the glory of Christ to you.

Now, think about this. This is a really cool process because it doesn't leave any room for you to do spiritual push-ups. It's terrific. You just behold in the Word, and oh by the way, Don't go in there into the Word of God, especially Paul's epistles, so you can make a list of all the cool stuff Christ does and try to imitate it. It's not what this says.

You have the capacity and the privilege to behold Christ's glory. Glory means the intrinsic attributes of who He is. As you behold the glory of the Lord, what does the verse next say happens to you? Transformed. From what to what? Glory to glory. Oh wow. From one state of glory to the next state of glory. And the last phrase is, who does it? The Lord is the spirit of the Lord. That is a verse that explains to us how conditional sanctification happens. That's how it happens. Right there. See that?

So it's not any of this religious nonsense. fellowship through the Word with the Son of God. What do you think of this? You are running out of questions. Is it really through the Word or is Christ the Word? Is it the same thing? Good point. Is it through the Word or is Christ the Word? Christ is the Word. He is both. See here is the thing. It doesn't dawn on us early on that the word of God is there, all these little kind of cool leather brown black books. What that really is, is a mirror. It's a tool that the spirit of God uses to do what? To connect you with the glorified Christ in the heavenlies. so that you can actually behold who he is. It'd be like him standing right in front of you. It'd be like Paul on the road to Damascus. It's the same thing, but it isn't direct, it's reflectively. You see that? Now we see him reflectively, then we'll see him face to face.

So if that's the process, the minute that you walk off the planet, you behold the glory of the Lord face to face with no one else, your condition instantly lines up with your position. In my mind, I'm looking at this as the mere aspect of it being something that through God's word you actually reflect back to who you are in Him. You see who you are through the words. No, I think it's just Him. I think you see Him. And it's, you know, John 15, the vine and the branches, we're always sneaking a look at the fruit to see how it's going.

The idea of the word of God and beholding the Lord Jesus Christ is to get your gaze fixed on him alone and just him with no concern about me. It's only him. Then I get conformed to his very image, I'm not looking at how it's going. The Lord Jesus Christ and his glory is of such a character that when he gets a hold of your heart in the word, you won't ever want to look at yourself again. You don't ever want to be introspective again. You just want to behold him. What a privilege this is. The greatest freedom in Christianity is freedom from me. That's the greatest freedom. That I'm actually free of me. I'm the problem. I don't have to worry about me. And that's why the cross of Christ was so critical in our lives. God knew that your old man and my old man wasn't fixable. So he crucified it. Thank you, Lord.

So you've got to describe it as how the moon is a reflection of the sun. You know, the light of the sun hitting the moon lights it up. So like maybe God in Christ is like too bright for us to see too much at night. Howling at the moon. So we see a reflection. And maybe it's reflected sometimes more back on us that we could see it. Well, the reflection is from the word to us, but then like Moses's face, the glory of the Lord begins to be manifested through you.

Now, the difference between the sun and the moon is the fact the sun gives life and the moon doesn't. And our job is to reflect the one who is life. Every growing believer who gets down that road always points to Christ. Never, boy look at the conformity that's going on in me. Really? I've got a place for you.

So how is the believer as a temple sanctified? Now what Rideout quotes is out of Exodus and he said, This shall be a continual burnt offering at the door of the temple or the tabernacle of the congregation before the Lord, where I will meet you to speak there unto you. And there I will meet with the children of Israel, and the tabernacle shall be sanctified by my glory. So my question is, how is the believer as a temple sanctified? And it's on page 33. Did that just go right over your head, that question?

The temple itself, the tabernacle was already set apart by God. And it was set apart for the service to God by his glory. That's what set it apart, was his glory. You know, when you think about it, when God's glory comes in the room, there isn't room for anything else. Everything that was inconsistent with that glory was put out. And the whole house was ordered according to the requirements of the holiness of God. Alright, you're a temple of God. Can I say this about you and me? We are a temple that has been sanctified. We've been set apart for the service of God by his glory.

And everything that's inconsistent with that glory in your body has been put out. And the whole house, your whole entire body is ordered according to the requirements of the holiness of God. That's kind of cool because when you think about it, when the Shekinah glory came to dwell in the tabernacle in Israel, everything that was not of the Shekinah glory was out. When the glorified Lord Jesus Christ came to indwell you, everything that's not of him was put out. Your positional sanctification. So you have been set apart for the Lord's use. No fair, you can't be sneaking old stuff in the back door. God isn't interested in your wisdom.

You'll also notice that this glory took up its abode in connection with the burnt offering, Christ's work on the basis of the Spirit's presence. Thus the believer, as the temple of the Holy Spirit, is sanctified by the very presence of God. He is marked out as belonging to God and anything, everything inconsistent with his holy will should find no place in the heart of our lives.

Isn't that something? What a statement. I mean it's almost scary. We see then how the truth of the indwelling Holy Spirit must occupy a prominent place in any consideration of the subject of its sanctifying work. Don't be surprised then that as the work of the Holy Spirit in your life is to get rid of everything that's in you that isn't of Christ. That's what he did in the tabernacle.

Why would it be any different with you? It wouldn't be. It wouldn't be. But the cool thing is that he comes in and replaces it with himself. Kind of neat. Kind of neat. Oh yeah, and that's something you can really help him with? I don't think so. I don't think so. Okay. Seven.

How did the death of Christ pronounce a death sentence on the whole human race? That sin in the flesh was condemned. Okay. Do they also remain under the original curse from the garden under Adam? Okay. What else? Anybody else? Right off it says this, but when Christ died he not only provided a perfect atonement. What's atonement? What's an atonement? But by his death sentence was pronounced upon the entire human race. I think we don't understand. I don't think we understand that God is in the process of eliminating everything that isn't of him.

We don't view sin as coming in and interloping into God's creation. It doesn't belong there. But because it's been infested with sin, we think it's kind of normal. But not from God's perspective. So the work of the spirit is to eliminate everything that's not of God. Now think about it. We have an old body. We live in a world that's of the old creation, fully infested with sin. You have a sin nature that just loves wallowing in sin. Yet the Spirit of God positionally recreated you and put you in Christ. Think there's a war going on? There sure is.

There is nothing of the Spirit of God that will ever be satisfied or settle down in the old system and there is nothing in the old system that will tolerate your new position in Christ. Nothing. They are at enmity with one another. They can't. As much as you turn the blender on to try to get oil and water to mix, they won't.

I've got no fear in addition to what you've said, but for the unsaved person on this old earth, he has already died in Adam. No, he hasn't. He's separated in the sense that he is, and Paul talks about those that are not saved as perishing right now. He does not talk about them as perishing when they die. that they are perishing at the present time.

But you have to keep in mind there is a thing called the second death which is the permanent separation from God and no non-believer has gotten that far yet. Every person is born on this planet dead to God but not permanently dead like they are going to be if they leave this planet without believing in Christ.

Do you understand what I mean by that? Does the Bible say that hell is going to have to be expanded to take in everyone? Does it somewhere say that? No, because it's an eternal thing. It isn't confined to spatialness. Well, I don't know. I went to New York City once. I thought that was as close to hell as I'd ever been. It even smelled bad there. I'll talk to you later, buddy.

A write-up quotes, if any man be in Christ, there is a new creation. Old things have passed away. Behold, all things are become new. He says, I don't touch on the fact of the presence of the old nature and the deeds of the body to be mortified. But there is a new man who has eternal life, a life eternal.

Everything here is of God and the spirit will have no occasion to leave, for there are no conditions upon which he remains save the fact of accomplished redemption. The point that he's making is that from a positional standpoint he can never leave because there's no barrier to him. I think he's re-emphasizing the fact that he won't ever leave a believer. So my next question is list the reasons why the Holy Spirit will never leave a believer. What I've got down here is it because all is based on the finished work of Christ. Yeah, that's right.

I can't even think of that. Is there any condition under which you could think of that he might say, oh, I'm thinking over with that guy. He says that it would be a denial of It would be a denial of Christ for the Holy Spirit and his work. That's right. And that's so critical for us to understand that.

I mean you think about it, their believers sometimes think, because they are ignorant of their position, that they have the capacity to sin and make God mad. to the point where God will have to punish them. Do you think that's possible? Think of the arrogance of that.

That the Lord Jesus Christ died on the cross to satisfy the Father about sin. He's come in and dwelt with you. It's something he did and you had nothing to do with and you are arrogant enough to think that you can somehow circumvent that process? Brother, that's something else. To think that you could.

That you could get God to stop blessing you. That you could sin your way out of salvation. It had nothing to do with you to start with. What contribution did you make to your salvation? You only contributed one thing, you know what it was? Your sin. Put them on the cross. That was your whole contribution. You brought sin to the table. That was it.

So far you're doing pretty good, huh? on a believer who actually realized the permanence of the indwelling Holy Spirit. That was from page 34. What would be the effect on a believer who actually realized the permanence of the indwelling Holy Spirit? Because I was trying to figure this one out and he said that who can describe the sanctifying effect of simply a deep realization of the stupendous fact. Isn't that a great way? Don't you wish we could write like that? I just love that. Here's what I wrote down.

But what holy ground were upon here? If Solomon could ask the wandering question, but will God in very deed dwell with men on the earth? When his invisible glory filled the temple, what shall we say when the living God in the person of the Holy Spirit comes to abide in us? My brethren, I am persuaded we little realize what this means. If we did, What lowliness would mark us? What abhorrence of sin? What quickness in the fear of the Lord and the detention of the most subtle forms of evil? What reverence? Who can describe the sanctifying effect, simply a deep realization of the stupendous fact?

I can but speak of it and pray that all of us may know practically what the what the consciousness of this abiding would bring. What a paragraph that is. So I would recommend that you go to page 34 and re-read that. It's the same idea when we teach Grace and the 34 things which you all have a copy of. If we would just but realize some of those, it would be so transforming in your life, it would just be astounding. what God has already done. What does John 16, 13 and 14 teach us about the Holy Spirit? Somebody read John 16, 13 and 14. Somebody in English.

But when he the spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth. For he will not speak of his own initiative, but whatever he hears he will speak. And he will disclose to you what is to come. He will glorify me, but he will take of mine and will disclose it to you.

It's a very interesting scripture because it teaches us according to write out the character of the indwelling spirit and how he operates and what he's doing. He says, I will ask you to notice particularly that he works by the truth and only by the truth. So if you think you have some sort of spurious experience going on with the Holy Spirit, I suggest you get out your Bible and check it out. Is it the truth? He guides into all truth. He guides into all truth. God is light and when he takes up his abode we must be enlightened. Holiness of truth. Here's the thing. The Holy Spirit in John 16 has been, well I view it this way.

The Father, Son and Holy Spirit got together and said okay what role are we all going to play in this creation and then redemption. What role is the Father going to play? What role is the Lord Jesus Christ going to play? And what role is the Holy Spirit going to play?

The Holy Spirit here says, the Lord Jesus said, here's what he's going to do. He will guide you into all truth. That's his job. He shall hear what he shall speak and he will show you things to come. He will glorify me. Who is the me here? The Lord Jesus Christ. He doesn't glorify himself. He focuses and reveals Christ to the believer, not himself. For he shall receive of mine and he will show it unto you.

When we went and looked at 2 Corinthians 3.18 and the last phrase of that verse said, even as by the Spirit of the Lord beholding the glory. That's carrying out the job that the Lord Jesus said he's going to have here. You see that? Through the Word of God and the application and implementation of the Holy Spirit, the believer is able to behold the glory of the Lord.

The Lord Jesus said, I've got all the truth. What did he say? He is the truth. I am the truth. So the word of God is designed to reveal Christ to the believer and Christ is truth. Everything that's true radiates from him. We, because we think like Greeks, go around and collect all this information and we try to focus it down and oh, we're going to arrive at the truth. That's not the biblical view. The biblical view is Christ is the truth. And if you know him, you know all truth.

It starts with him, it doesn't end with him. See that? So, the spirit of God's job, according to John 16, is to reveal the Lord Jesus Christ to the believer, the truth. That's his job. His job is not to perform wonderful miracles and do all this other stuff. His job is to reveal Christ to the believer through the word which is the truth. That's his job. And if you recognize that, you might let him get on with it.

How important is the word of God to the spirit of a believer? It is the spirit of a man that understands. The spirit of a man understands spiritual things. and this is the highest part of his being controlling all the rest. Do you understand that statement? All of humanity coming out of Adam thinks that the soul of a man is the highest form, his intellect, his will and his emotions. That isn't what the Bible says. The spirit of a man is the highest part of man and this is the highest part of his being controlling all the rest. Do you realize that your spirit is to control your soul?

Do you understand what I just said? Boy did it get quiet in there. This is God's order and when the spirit engages in his sanctifying work it is through the action of truth because the truth appeals to your spirit. You will notice that again and again when we return to this fact. I'm going to have to finish that up. I want to leave you with this. If you sit down this afternoon to study the Word of God and you don't particularly get it, engaging your soul to go over it a hundred times isn't going to get it to you any faster.

Because what you're learning and studying is spiritual truth. and it's your spirit who's got to get it first. When the Spirit of God reveals the truth to you, you get it all instantly. You may not be able to explain it, but you have it. The Spirit of God, through the Word of God, is revealing the truth of God via the Lord Jesus Christ to your spirit.

So, when believers call me up and say, I'm really dumb, so am I. Dumb meaning my soul is dumb. Your spirit doesn't operate based on your intelligence quotient. It operates based on the revelation of the truth of the Lord Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit.

That's how it operates. And that's to be the predominant factor in who you are. You see that? Boy, it makes you really dependent, doesn't it? Wow. Okay, I'll probably have two minutes next week and then Randy is going to pick up on the next section. And I think the questions are up there, 9 and 10.

Dear Father, how we thank you for your word and how we thank you that your spirit, the Holy Spirit, has in fact taken it upon himself to reveal Christ to each one of us, that we might behold his glory, Father. Wow, what a privilege that is. And we look forward to more and more of the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ as we grow. We thank you, we pray in the Lord Jesus' name. Amen.