Bible Teaching

Calvary Temple Teaching Library

The Knowledge of God Pt.2

We want to continue with our study on the knowledge of God. One of the great books that Tozer wrote--you see that we have a lot of those in the bookstore--one that I would recommend--He's known for the classic, The Pursuit of God, but I would say probably one of the books that'll change your life more than any is, The Knowledge of the Holy. If you get that little book on the attributes of God, his insight into the Person of God, and the coming to understand who He is, not just the definition and application of His attributes that so many of us...We look at His omnipotence and we look at the omniscience of God and all of these different things. He's an almighty God; He's an all-knowing God. It's good to understand that, but how does that really affect us on a daily basis? He gets it into the understanding of the personal benefits of the knowledge of God, knowing who He is, the holiness of God. We talked about that in our study.

As we were looking at some of the attributes of God, we think of holiness as just moral purity, but we saw that's not really what holiness was. Holiness really spoke of the uniqueness of God. There's no other God like Him; He's a being that is totally separate; everything else that exists was created by Him. We compared that, of course, with Satan and his kingdom of darkness, and some people seem to think there's that great conflict between good and evil, and, "Is evil going to win out?" There's no contest! It's already been determined. God has not only given a boundary to the seas, the Scripture tells us that as He spoke and the oceans were formed, He drew a line, He said, "You can't come past this." The tides obey His will. There's a limitation to sin and to death also. Can you say, "praise God!" for that? All things were made by Him and for Him, the Scripture says. He was before all things, and by Him, Colossians tells us, everything consists. It's all held together. He's holding the program together to effect His eternal purposes. Everything that happens is happening by the purpose, the eternal purpose, the determinate counsel of God. Aren't you glad we're a people that are not believers in, or subject to, fate, that the steps of the good man are ordered by the Lord? Can you say, "Praise God!" for that?

I told somebody the other day, I said, "I'm glad that fate does not dictate my life because if it did I would think I was the unluckiest guy around." And yet I've been so blessed! You look at the negatives and you have to stop and look at all the great positives and the blessings of the Lord and rejoice in those, and the goodness of God. So often when we're involved in something that is in opposition to our will or it puts us into an uncomfortable position, we seem to think that life is working against us, and it's actually God working in us to will and to do His good pleasure. Amen? He's refining our lives and He wants to bring us to the knowledge of Himself that He's a loving God, that He's ever present and that His intentions for us are good. Praise God! His chastening is an expression of His love. Is that the Father that you know tonight? Is that the God that you know?

We can know Him in His righteousness and in His harshness and God is harsh. Holiness is a harsh reality. Justice is a harsh reality. Truth is a harsh reality as it opposes the darkness that men like to move in because their deeds are evil. But do you know the purpose and the heart behind the law? The love and the holiness and the purity behind the justice and the judgment? Do we know Him? Do we know the love behind the chastening? Do we know the perfection that's coming from the patience that's being learned? The knowledge of the holy, "That I may know Him," Paul said in Philippians. What was it--why was Paul saying that? Was he wanting to tap into God's wisdom so that he could apply it to the stock market and to success and to write a book like Napoleon Hill, Think and Grow Rich? Was Paul looking to be a great motivational speaker? What was he trying to tap into? "That I may know Him." Was it an ego trip so that he could say that he knew God better than any body else? You see, Paul had come to experience that thorn and in that God was revealing to him the sufficiency of His grace and Paul was saying, "I walked after the letter and I was perfect in my generation and I'd experienced a knowledge about God, but through that experience of the thorn I came to know the intimacy of fellowship with Him and I just want to know Him more in that way."

As we looked at the study the other night we saw that Job cried out in that same vein and he says, "Now I know that my redeemer liveth, that He will stand upon the Earth in the later day and He will reign as King of kings and Lord of lords, and that there is no fate and that God is just and His purposes are eternal for His own glory. I just want to know Him more." We sing that, in the chorus that we sing, but to know Him more is to be purged, pruned, and purified. To come to the knowledge of God is to come to the end of yourself. To come to the full expression of God revealing Himself to you--You will never know Him fully as long as you live. You're going to have to die to know Him. You're going to have to die to self. You're going to have to drink the cup of Gethsemane as you pray, "Not my will but Your will be done." You're going to have to experience the torment of Golgotha (as Good Friday approaches us). You will never know Him until these words have come from these lips. "My God, my God why hath thou forsaken me?" You'll never know Him until you've felt forsaken and then your eyes are opened and you realize He was there all the time. Praise God! He said, "I'll never leave you nor forsake you; I will not leave you comfortless." Praise God! You see you think you know Him until you've come to the end of yourself and He abides faithful. You denied Him, You doubted! "Why have you forsaken me?" You've not yet come to the testimony, "the Lord gives and the Lord takes blessed be the name of the Lord." When you've experienced the cross and you've experienced the death and you've experienced the failure of thinking that God's forsaken you. To whatever degree you expose that; to whatever degree you express it. You've thought it; it's been in your heart. Some of us will even verbalize it. But when the resurrection of Romans, chapter six, takes place, when the resurrection of Philippians three takes place, when after that purging takes place and your eyes are opened and you're raised in His likeness, then you'll say, "Though I denied Him He can't deny Himself. Praise God! He abides faithful."

Do you want to know Him tonight? Do you want to come in to that intimacy that few have had, like Moses, Paul and John the Beloved? When we pray and we say, "Lord reveal Yourself to us," a lot of times we don't know what we're asking for; because, you see, He can't reveal Himself to you in the natural. He can only reveal Himself to you in the spiritual realm. He has to do away with the natural. If you see Him in your carnal state it'll kill you. You have to die so you can see Him. We're talking about this conforming to His death that we could taste the reality of that resurrection power.

In John's gospel, the Scripture talks about the pruning process. As we come to the knowledge of God and we're able to bring forth more fruit, and in that passage in John 15, we realize that without Him we can do nothing. As His presence is being perfected in us, and we're bringing forth fruit unto God that remains, and we're aware that it comes from His presence, and we're aware that it comes from the knowledge of His eternal purposes. As we die to our will, He prunes us again that we might bring forth more fruit. Do you want to know Him? When you prayed that prayer you're asking to go into the furnace: The refining furnace where all of the dross is removed from us that we could come forth as pure gold. To know Him is to want to represent Him, to serve Him, to reveal Him to others. To know God is to become jealous for the very purpose that we exist. We're going to see it in both Ephesians chapter one and Colossians chapter one tonight. Paul said in both of these epistles, "When I came to hear about your faith I pray for you continually that you might come to the knowledge of God." In both of those epistles that knowledge of God has to do with two things: God's eternal purpose in our lives--His purpose for the kingdom, and His provision of power to affect His purpose. That's what coming to know Him is all about. It's not just so we can understand our position in life better or our circumstances. It's not about us, it's about the revealing of His eternal glory, His purposes.

So, with that as a little bit of the review and what it is that we're looking to see in this study. In chapter nine of Jeremiah--the other evening we saw these words, chapter 9:23 and 24. "Thus saith the Lord, Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches." The prophet said in another place, "Not by might, not by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord. It's not by might or power but by the Spirit. Without Him we can do nothing. Don't let any man glory in the outward." We said that the original sin as we started the study was in this: When you eat that fruit, your eyes will be opened and you will know as God. We said the original sin was knowing as God in lieu of knowing God. A lot of us want to study the Bible to know as God. We want to study the Bible and get faith so we can be healed, so we can prosper, so we can be free of fear, the torment that's in the world today. But it's about knowing Him, the intimacy, the fellowship, the koinonia, that the blood of Jesus has provided that we could have bold access in to the Holy of Holies, that we would lay aside every weight and the sin that does so easily beset us and run with patience the race that's set before us, to come to the knowledge of the Holy--the Holy One. To be able to say with the apostle, "For me to live is Christ." Everything in the natural is about living for self, everything that comes from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, everything that is knowing as God. Stop and think about everything that's happening technologically today that's come from the Tree of the Knowledge in the midst of The Garden. Everything that's come from that Tree is to replace God. All that knowledge is being used for the glory of man. It's being used for the preservation of man. It's being used to defy the Word of God and to mock the Word of God, to know as God in contrast to knowing God.

The prophet goes on in Jeremiah, he says, "Don't boast in wisdom." The wisdom of man is foolishness with God. You know the question--men becoming as gods--will God ever allow man to create life? I don't know. I find it hard to believe. There's a lot of things going on now that I didn't think God would allow to happen. But the one thing I do know is this: Father is not sitting up there going, "Oh, man I hope they don't create life then they'll be just like Me!" Anything they create is being made of things that already exist. Let them create something from nothing and then maybe then they can move up into the big leagues! Everything they're playing with, God made and gave it to them to play with, and gave them the wisdom and the knowledge to destroy themselves so that he could, in his weak-in-the-natural-and-strong-in-the-spiritual church, be glorified.

Don't boast in wisdom. Don't let any man glory in his might. There's a lot of boasting going on in our country today as we talk about our technology and, "Isn't it cool the way all of our heat sensing things work and we can see guys in buildings moving around with these heat sensors, and all of those tanks were taken out by our night vision in our first attack over there. And in this one, we've taken all of those Russian tanks out and didn't lose a tank in the process. And we've got Smart Bombs, bombs that are 'Saddam seekers.' (They don't know if they've got him or not. They're still sponging up the remains around there and checking for DNA, I guess.) The first bomb they drop is just a bomb that'll bust a hole in the ground and boom! Then they drop the other one in the hole right behind it so it'll go deeper and take the bunkers out." That's cool stuff! A lot of people today are boasting in our might, the power of America. The most powerful nation on the Earth and the boasting in it! If you're living in the natural, that's the thing that you're going to do. In fact I think--I personally think that since they're natural they're not boasting enough! I think we ought to let Syria and Paris understand who we are. I think one of those things could go astray and take the Eiffel Tower out and that'll get their attention. We built that place once, we'd have to go back and build it again.

Do you boast in your might? Nebuchadnezzar did. God has a way of raising up and bringing down, doesn't He? He can do it in an hour. The nations, the Scripture says, are a drop in the bucket. So what are you trusting in tonight? The one thing I can tell you is this: if you'll come to know God--I'm going to share something with you and this will help you: God is not for America. If you're trusting in, "God bless America," you're trusting the wrong thing. It needs to be, "America, bless God," if we're going to get it proper order. God does not save nations, He saves people. Even within the nation Israel, a remnant shall be saved. Read Romans nine. God doesn't save nations; He saves individuals. The nations, though government was originated by God, it's orchestrated by men, it's in the natural kingdom and it opposes the kingdom of God. All nations. All kingdoms. And that little stone that's going to be cut out without a hand is going to crush them all, praise God!

When you come to know God--we're talking about knowing God--it puts all of these other things in proper perspective. How we relate to the natural. How we relate to our nation. How we relate to our natural heritages we've talked about in the past. Until you come to know God and you can know His heart and know His mind and think like Him and apply His Word properly, then you're going to be in place where you're going to be subject to confusion and tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine by the slight of men, in these last days as iniquity abounds and the love of many waxes cold. As men heap up teachers to themselves, having itching ears that want to have them prophesy the smooth things of God, prosperity and peace, when God says, "The day of the Lord is at hand." If you know God you'll know what His message is. His sheep know His voice and another they will not follow. Amen? What do you know about God?

I think it's humorous; one of the young men that had left the fellowship here just recently and is working over here at the coffee house. It's interesting; someone had told me that there's getting to be more of brazenness and different things that are being said about the fellowship here. The one thing I think is humorous, and it shows about the lack of knowledge again of what's going on, that one of the things that this young man is now saying is the reference to the fact that "This fellowship is a cult." You know, if you're going to make statements it would be good if you were at least semi-intelligent and make factual ones. One thing--most cults don't kick people out! If we are a cult, we're a bad one! We're not doing it right! You see, their definition of a cult is, people that do the Word of God, believe the Word of God, apply the Word of God, because most Christians just talk about it and don't do it. So, therefore it's extreme to be a doer when the Scripture speaks just toward the opposite.

Look over to 1 John for just a second. We're talking about the knowledge of God. Look at what the Scripture says over at 1 John, the epistle of 1 John, chapter two. Look at verse three, "And hereby we do know that we know him, [We're talking about the knowledge of God. Here's how you'll know if you know God or not. We'll cut to the chase. We'll go right to the bottom line of this thing. "And hereby we do know that we know him, [Say it with me] if we keep his commandments." We're talking about coming to the knowledge of God. Why? The purpose of this study is to understand that, to know Him is to obey Him. To know Him, to come to know Him, is to receive the grace, the capacity, the infilling of the Holy Spirit, the infusing of illumination of the Scriptures, the fruit of the Spirit and expressing itself in love for the body of Christ and for the kingdom of God. This is why we're coming to know Him not for selfish reasons. "And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments. He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, [is not a good Christian... Is that the way yours reads?] He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, [Is a what?] is a liar"... Are liars going to heaven? Every liar will find his place in the lake of fire, with Satan the father of lies. So to say, "I know Him," and not be someone that reverences, gives first place to, subordinates his will to, recognizing an absolute truth, the Word of God, is [to be] a liar. ... "and the truth--the Word--is not in him." Thy Word is...truth. Thy Word is not in him if you say you know Him and you don't keep His commandments you're a liar and the Word is not in you.

The reason we're talking about coming to the knowledge of God is so that the Word can become a reality in our lives. We come to Him so that the Word would dominate every thought, every action. Not just the letter of the Word. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things [The Scripture goes on to say] were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not. (John 1:1-5). The conflict between truth, light and darkness, all centers around whether we know God or not and how we apply the Word. Whether we give it first place. In the midst of temptation we say just like Jesus, "It is written"... Praise God!" "Yeah, but you need to understand that not all Christians are that zealous and doesn't the Bible say... The Bible says that God has given His angels charge over us, so don't worry about being a little bit presumptuous. Just realize that God will take care of you." "It is written, 'thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.'" What's the motive?

What is the heart of God? Why does God--why did God say what He said? What is God wanting to do through His church in this particular incident? Do you know Him? Are you confident that when you speak you're representing the heart of God? Are you jealous for your proper application of the Scriptures? So many Christians today they just proof text and throw verses around and taking them out of context just to support their own arguments. Are you jealous for the truth of the Word of God? When you open your mouth as a witness are you representing the kingdom properly? So much of our witnessing today is so far away from the truth, so far away from the knowledge of God. We go out to try to make converts and the very thing we want to tell them is, "You just need to accept Jesus. If you do, praise God, what you need to understand is that everything's going to turn good in your life. You're going to get blessed, you're going to get wealthy, you're going to get healed, you'll be at peace, you won't have any more problems, you're unsaved kids will come into the kingdom, your husband will stop drinking, praise God, and you won't be so ugly..." "Well, the Bible says you'll become a new creature, old things will pass away all things will become new." No, you're going to carry that same ugly mug with you. It's talking about the spiritual things and we misrepresent what the kingdom of God is. We misrepresent why Jesus died. He didn't die to put us in Disneyland! Jesus died to break the power of sin over humanity. "Well, Jesus died so we don't have to." No, Jesus died so you can die! You see, man refuses to die as long as he's in charge. Jesus' death allows you the grace to be able to die with Him. Because if we be crucified with Him then we'll be raised with Him. Praise God! Amen? You see, we all want the resurrection with out the crucifixion. Do you know what it means to know Him? To come and willingly take that cross? That's what Paul was crying out. "I want to know Him. I know what that means. I know the cost, but I want tell you something I count everything that used to be a treasure to me dung that I might win the knowledge of Christ."

How jealous are we tonight to come into that new revelation of Himself? How about just a glimpse of Him? Just a glimpse of Him will cause you to have to put a veil on your face like Moses. A man who's been in the presence of God, other people that are around him know it. "You're different; this is a man that walks with God. This is a man that talks with God." Are you hungry for that tonight? What are your reasons for living? "That I might know Him." What is the whole duty of man? To love God to keep His commandments. Here's how you know that you know Him: If you keep His commandments.

So John goes on in this epistle and he says, "He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected: [Now, check this out] hereby know we that we are in him." Keep His Word: Love of God perfected. That's what coming to know Him is all about, so that we can more effectively keep His Word, so that His love will be perfected in us. Now when you come to know God, that love being perfected in us will begin to operate orderly. Most of us misapply that. We read the Scriptures and we think that the love of God is to love man. No. The greatest commandment is... say it. "Love the Lord thy God," and the second is... "and your neighbor as yourself." Most Christians, because they don't really know God, think that the love of God's all about loving people. You can't love people if you don't love God. "How can you love God whom you have not seen," the Scripture says, "and you can't even love your brother who you have." He contrasts these two things and he says, "You need to understand that there's a spiritual love, there's a spiritual knowing and the one has to affect the other." The one, the origin of love--"God is love," 1 John tells us. He's the source of love and then by that love we can go and love the brethren.

"He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked." Verse six. How did He walk? He walked in total obedience to the Father. He came not to do His will but the will of He who sent Him. He came not to speak His Words but the Words of He that sent Him. You see, when you know God you understand that the first responsibility we have is to love Him first. You love Him more than you love Mom and Dad, husband, wife, children, and if you don't, you're not worthy of Him. You see, that doctrine doesn't fly in most Christian churches today. Oh, they'll give lip service to it but search your own heart and look around you and answer the question for me: "How is it that a professed Christian can love a husband or a wife or a child or a mother or a father more than God?" You want me to tell you how? They've never met God. They've heard about Him, like Job, with the hearing of the ear, but they've never seen Him. When you see Him He can take your husband, your wife, your child and you say, "The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. He's more beautiful than this life." His holiness, His uniqueness transcends all of our senses and when you know Him everything else makes sense. How can you see an infinite God and worship a finite being? We don't know Him. Just a glimpse of His hind parts, as we're in the cleft of the rock as Moses was, and God puts His hand and walks by and then removes it and you catch just a glance of His hind parts and it'll change your life! But there has to be a hungering, there has to be a thirsting, there has to be a jealousy. There has to be a willingness to be separated from the masses and become holy or unique as He is.

In other words, people are going to think you're weird! You're going to be a fanatic! Even the committed people are going to begin to wonder about you because you've been with God! I'm not talking about something mystical or squirrelly. I'm talking about Bible-based Christianity. "For me to live is Christ, to die is gain." "To be crucified with Him that I might be raised with Him in the likeness of His resurrection." Romans six. "To know Him in the power of His resurrection, the fellowship of His sufferings, to be made conformable to His death." Philippians three. "Counting all else loss that I might gain the knowledge of God." One treasure. For this I live...to know Him! The eyes of the Lord are searching and He's looking for somebody to make that a life pursuit. We're not all going to do it. It doesn't mean we're not all going to heaven. There's thirty-, there's sixty-, there's one hundred-fold. Anybody wanting to volunteer for a hundred fold? "Well, hasn't God predestined that from before the foundations of the world?" No. What He predestinated from before the foundations of the world was: The effects of sanctification so that you could be everything that He provided for, by His blood, by your own choice. As we choose each day who we're going to serve. As we work out our own salvation every day. For today is the day of your salvation. What do you want to be? Just one of the group, or do you want to know the excellency of the knowledge of God?

So Jeremiah says don't boast in any of these things that are natural, verse 23, but boast in this, verse 24, "But let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me..." (Goodness! you would've thought we could have got through the review.) "I AM has sent you," He told Moses. I AM what? "I AM unique. There's nobody else like Me. I AM infinite in wisdom and power." All of His attributes transcend time and space. All that is created, all of that finite realm that boasts, that rebels, as we said earlier, is sustained by the infinite God. He holds it all together, Colossians says. God gives these men the breath to curse Him, the strength to oppose Him, and the knowledge of how to do it. And He loves them and He died for them and He will redeem every one of them based upon their own individual repentance, because He's not willing that any would perish. But to reject His free gift is to die, to be damned.

This infinite God, we can know. Now, we'll never be fully able to comprehend Him, but we can fully apprehend Him. We can take hold of Him, and He'll come and live in us and we can live in Him. And in Him we live and move and have our being. The very trinity of God, the Scripture says, has taken up residence within us! "Let Him that glories glory in this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the Lord, I am holy, I am infinite." All of the other expressions of who He is, that we call His attributes--His omniscience, His omnipotence, His omnipresence--are just expressions of His holiness. Who He is, this unique being, they're glimpses. None of them are separate, they're all interwoven and they work in perfect harmony together. God's justice never opposes His mercy, nor mercy His justice. God is justly merciful and mercifully just. As we come to know Him, as Jeremiah speaks here, we're humbled, we're undone as He reveals Himself to us. But there's a confidence, as we die to self and we're able to cast our care upon Him, knowing that He cares for us. Then we can be anxious for nothing but in everything with prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let our request be made known unto God, and the peace of God that passes understanding can keep our hearts and our minds through Christ.

Who is this God? What is it that we know? "...I am the Lord which exercise lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness, in the earth: for in these things I delight, saith the Lord." To come and to know God, then, is to see that these three aspects of the things that God delights in are working in proper relationship in your life and in your ministry. Are we effectively, properly representing God to the world? That's the question I want to ask tonight. We're almost out of time. As we're witnessing, as our lives are epistles that are read of men, as people are watching us, are we accurately representing God? Have we come to know Him and know that this is what He delights in; and to properly apply His Word, to properly apply His justice, to properly apply His loving-kindness, to properly declare His righteousness, this great work of regeneration? If we're properly representing Him, the American Santa Claus god will die and people will begin to fear the Lord again. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of this living God, and men don't fear Him anymore because they don't know Him, and they don't know Him because His church doesn't represent Him. I'm not talking about being harsh, I'm talking about being holy, unique, and separate. We just don't do what the world does. Their wisdom is foolishness to us. All of their dependence today on the pseudo-science of psychology, and people are still going crazy and people are on drugs and suicide is on the rise, and the insanity of political correctness reigns, and we have the wisdom of God right here in our laps tonight. Do we speak it with confidence and boldness on the job, in the highways and the by-ways to compel them to come? Does the checker at Safeway know who God is, the God of the Bible?

There's a case that's coming to the Supreme Court soon. Jay Sekulow, and some of these, where two identical organizations--one has been rejected for their tax exemption and the other accepted. One is a pro-death organization and the other is pro-life. Now, we're not into all of the politics the point that I'm wanting to bring to you is this: As they're getting ready to go argue their case, they're saying the fate of the church rests on this argument: That we can win our rights of freedom of speech in America so that the gospel is not muted. I want to tell you something. Regardless of what laws they pass, like Daniel, you throw the windows open and you pray to your God. If you know Him you don't bow your knee to anything but truth.

Father it's our heart's desire that You'd reveal Yourself to us. We're coming into a day when men's hearts are going to fail them for fear. This day's on us, and our prayer is, "Even so, come quickly Lord Jesus." Are we prepared to face the fears that are coming on this world? Do we know You? When the love of many is going to wax cold... What causes that? They don't know You. There's nothing that can pluck us from Your hand if we know You, if our confidence is in You. What threats do they have? What weapons do they have, if, "To live is Christ and to die is gain?" Father, those people who serve dumb idols are willing to come and be suicide bombers for their cause, and Your people won't even lay their lives down for the truth. What do we know? Who do we know? Who are we? By this you know if you know Him if you keep His commandments.

Let's stand before the Lord tonight. As Gary plays for us and we just rejoice in the fact that we do keep His commandments. His Word is truth as far as we're concerned. When I sin I don't just justify it. I just say, "I sinned and Your Word says if any man confesses his sin that You're faithful and just to forgive and to cleanse me from all my unrighteousness. So I just come and I don't justify it, I'm not making excuses. I sinned, Father, and I ask You to forgive me. I ask You to give me grace. I've sought You three times to deliver me and You said Your grace is sufficient. I just ask You Lord to give me the grace. Let me walk in it. Let me live in it." Not perfect people, perfect pursuit. Our pursuit's perfect. We're doing it by the Word of God. We're calling sin, "sin." We're confessing it, we're believing for the blood of Jesus to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. That we're now capable of illumination again, we can hear the Word, we can see it. "I will now by Your grace and by Your spirit apply it. I will crucify the flesh. I will press toward the mark the prize the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. To be master of the eternal I will become temperate in the temporal, perfect pursuit, Biblical pursuit. I'll say what God says, I am the righteousness of God in Jesus Christ. I will do what the Word says. I'll seek first the kingdom, I'll pray, I'll fast, I'll study to show myself approved unto God, a workman that needs not be ashamed, rightly dividing the Word of truth. I'll boast in this: Your loving kindness, Your justice and Your righteousness. I will not lean to the arm of the flesh. I will not lean or look to the right hand or to the left, but in all of my ways I'll acknowledge God and He will direct my path. Yes, I'm going to delight in the Lord. That's my boast! Let him that boasts, boast in the Lord!" Cause us to see what the world offers us is vanity and vexation. Help us to fulfill the whole duty of man. For all that's in world, the lust of flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life, it's not of the Father. It's of the world; it's the flesh. Because God is holy we're holy, and we're to walk as He walked, separate, sons of God, heirs and joint heirs with Christ Jesus. Oh, let's behold what manner of love the Father's bestowed upon us, that we would be called the sons of God, and that He's given to us all that pertains to life and godliness through the knowledge of Himself. Then the day will come when we will know as we're known.

Let's sing it together. I love You Lord. Just bless Him tonight. Singing, I love You Lord... Oh, I love You Lord. Just bless Him one more time. Singing, I love You Lord...Hallelujah! Hallelujah! The fruit of our lips, Lord, giving thanksgiving to Your name. Thank You, Jesus! Thank You, Father, for the unspeakable gift! Let the works be seen, Father, that You might be glorified in them, we ask. Finish Your work, Lord, be glorified in Your church. We'll give You all the praise, in Jesus' name, amen.

Before you go, turn to somebody next you and say, "I want to know Him," praise God. Go in peace. God's love go with you!

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