Great Doctrines of Salvation
Mike Doyle · Mar 7, 2010
Great Doctrines of Salvation, No. 10
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/492615637737

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

We're finishing up on justification. Did we talk about justification before God and before men? Did we do question 13? By the way, just so you get in the right frame of mind, what does justification mean? To be declared righteous. It's not to be made righteous, it's to be declared righteous. Okay with that?

So, we talked about all of the different ramifications of justification, yet you kind of run into a problem because justification before God is done how? By you. How do you do it? How does God, maybe put it this way, how does God determine that you're justified? I have somebody up here who said believe. Everybody agree with that or not? That's all you can do. Okay, so is there a difference then between your justification or your right standing before God and before men? Answer yes. What's the difference? The one that's by your works, the one that's by God. Now, why is there a difference then?

I mean, if I'm going about checking everybody's spiritual ID, by the way, which is my job, how do I know if you're justified? How can I tell? I can't tell any of you whether you're justified before God at all because it's invisible. How do I know what you believe? I can't see your faith, right? Can't see it at all. So how do I judge?

Humanism. Yeah, I judge by the way you behave yourself. So there is a righteousness before man that's done by works according to James and the righteousness of God is by faith alone. Can you have righteousness before man without having the righteousness before God? What do you think? I think some people do. What's that? I think some people do. Really? Yeah. So then the standard must be...

It may not be true righteousness before men, but it's considered that by various men. So when you mean true righteousness, what do you mean? It's like somebody saying, well, he's really saved. I mean, someone saying this is really a good person. Oh, a good person. Yeah. What makes him good? Well, only God is good. That's not how they're thinking. So you can have a righteousness that's human-based, right? And that so-and-so is a good guy. Looks good from the outside. Yeah, he looks decent. He doesn't drink or smoke or go out with girls or do, you know, that kind of thing. Why live? What's that? Why live? It's my carnal Christian buddy over here.

And, you know, who seems to be a really, really good guy. You ready for the example? How about Tiger Woods? Until last year, wouldn't you say he was a righteous man? Until we found out about him? Yeah. Sure. But you know, I don't know if I would use the word righteous for people. You know, it might be... I don't know. No, I think you're tracking really right there. See, the issue is this.

For you to be righteous before God, it has to be on God's standard, doesn't it? because he's the only one. So your righteousness before God is based on your believing him and he declares you righteous. That should translate over time into the manifestation of his life through you so that others can see. And it's not human righteousness, it's his life. See that? And it should show up. You alright with that? I don't want to put you under any tyranny by saying to you it should show up.

But, you know, when you plant a seed in the ground, it grows up to be what it is. When you become a believer and you have the life of the resurrected Christ, as you walk and learn and grow, you begin to manifest the characteristics of that life. So people can say, yeah, he's a righteous man, righteous woman, just because of who you are and what you are. You alright with that? Without it being legal, it has to be gracious. So you all need to get busy, we'll have a test.

So you see the difference? And it's easy to confuse those two, primarily because, like I said before, you can see man's righteousness by his behavior. You cannot see whether he's righteous before God or not based on his faith. You can't see my faith, can you? Or can you? You can't. But you can see my behavior because of my faith as one grows.

Doesn't that give meaning to you might be the only Bible a person might read? Say that again. Yeah, it does. It does. And that was Hal Malloy's favorite saying, that you might be the only Bible that someone gets to read because you're an epistle of Christ for all men to read. So a Bible isn't necessarily on paper. It's written in the hearts of men for all people to see. Yeah, that's right.

I think one of the issues here, too, is If you get in these discussions about righteousness, the greatest example of a, well, let me back up a minute. The Jews would say the greatest example of a righteous man was Abraham, right? He was declared righteous before God because of his faith. Well, what's interesting about him, even he renounces salvation or righteousness by works. just by the fact that he's declared righteous by what he believes. Now if you study Abraham's life after he's declared righteous by God, how did he do?

Not perfect. Not so good. You know, he tries to sell his wife to Pharaoh. He does a lot of really dumb things. But at the time, what's interesting about Abraham is he's the example of spiritual growth. He's declared righteous before God, and 40 years later, when God says to him, I want you to take Isaac up on the mountain and sacrifice him to me, he never questions God. He says, come on, Isaac, we're going. A man of faith. Well, he didn't have that kind of faith at the beginning, but he did 40 years later.

So there's hope for all of you. So would you say justification is by grace alone? Before God? Would you? Let's talk about observing. Let's look at some observations of justification by grace alone. Within the heart of the man who believes in the Lord Jesus for righteousness, he renounces any of his own personal merit for justification. Are you with me on that? So think about the job that the Holy Spirit has to do in a person's heart in order to get them to the point where they will renounce all of their own merit and rely solely on God.

That's a tough one, isn't it? That's really tough. And also an admission that a person's demerit is a prerequisite to justification. In other words, I've got to turn out to be a really bad guy before God will justify me. It isn't about you. Whether you're good or bad, whether you have merit or demerit isn't the point. And why is justification? Why does God justify you and me? Why'd he do it? Why does he do it? What's his motivation? Fellowship? What did you say, Carol? Why do you think he did it? He does it for the reason he does everything.

He does it to glorify himself. Think about the glory he gets in justifying Bruce. Because Bruce doesn't get justified because of his merit or demerit. It's all for his own glory. You see that? What, to justify Bruce? I don't think so. It's for the glory of God and not for the glory of man. Because you're not worthy when he does it. So then, if that's true, if whether you don't merit it or you don't have any demerit, and it's all done for the glory of God, then how should you live? You guys get to train the thought here, you should live for the glory of God. That's the whole reason you exist, is to glorify God.

Now that's selfish, right Monique? Well no, I thought about that sometimes. Actually it's a terrible thing to say, but I was thinking You know, God wants us to give Him the glory and it's always about God. He wants this, He wants that. It's all about God. God, God, God. Everywhere God.

And I'm thinking, okay, so sometimes that gets to me. Now that's a good point because it does seem sometimes that God is a little egocentric, don't you think? Which I shouldn't say, I don't mean it that way. Yeah, you don't want to dare say that out loud. I have thought about it, though. Am I the only one in the room? No, you're not.

We all have those same thoughts, and here's why I think you have those thoughts, because as you learn the grace of God, then you begin to say, oh yeah, I can see why he does things for his glory, but until you kind of start to get a handle on the grace, it does seem egocentric.

It seems like, well, he's, you know, What you find out is that God in his grace and his love, if grace is overwhelmingly based on no merit on your part, and no credit on your part, and it's unlimited, and it's based on everything that God did, and you get it all by not earning it, he deserves the glory, don't you think? It's only the person that thinks that they've got something to contribute who thinks that God is self-centered. Does that make sense? If you think you have something to contribute, then God is self-centered by demanding all the glory from you. But if you realize you have nothing to bring and he's giving you everything, he should get the credit.

Yeah, but why did he create us when he knew we were all screwed up? Well, he didn't create us that way. We screwed it up. He knew ahead of time, your little hair on your head. So, you know, he knew ahead of human nature. I know. So why did he do it? Why didn't he say, well, screw this, screw that?

You know, that's actually a great point. Think about this for a minute. We were having a discussion last week about the covenants. And this isn't a tangent. It'll answer the question. And we were talking about the new covenant for Israel. And lots of Christians think that we're somehow under this new covenant with Israel. And then those who say, well, no, we're not a benefit of the blessing of the new covenant of Israel, but we are under the eternal covenant. And my answer was, no, we're not. And here's why. What's a covenant? It's an agreement between two parties. And the eternal covenant, where are you in that agreement? You're not there.

It's between the father and the son. So the father and the son deal with this screwed up deal, as you described it, sin. And because they're righteous and holy and good, they have to deal with the sin issue because of God's righteousness. He has to be satisfied about the punishment for sin. Forget the fact that we are even there. There's this thing, sin, in the world that has to be satisfied before God. So Christ comes, becomes a man, dies on the cross, he satisfies God about sin.

Okay? Is he under any obligation to do anything past that? He's not. And that's why it's gracious. because he has no obligation whatsoever to extend his work to us. None. That's what makes it gracious. If there was any obligation on God's part to do that, it wouldn't be grace.

Do you see that? So who gets the glory in that deal? God gets it. And is it not superabounding way over what he should do? Or could do? He could have, at the resurrection of Christ, said, I'm done. I'm blipping all you guys out of existence. I'm going to start over. Or I'm not going to start over. I'm not going to do anything. I'm happy. I don't need you. I'm done.

He could have certainly done that, and he'd have been totally righteous in doing that. But he didn't. He took the worst of his creatures, who were us, and he extended the benefits of the work of Christ to us, and what was the requirement on our part? The one thing that we could do that we couldn't take credit for.

And what is that? Faith. Because the credit is in what we believe, not the fact that we believe. You alright with that? No, say that again. The credit is in what we believe, not the fact that we did believe. There's no credit in the faith or no value in the faith personally. All of the value is in what I believe.

You see that? And that never changes. Your whole Christian life is like that. So, we live by grace alone. You alright with that? So you can go to God and say, yeah, you know, it's a little egocentric for you to demand all this glory, but when you sort of walk it down, it overwhelms you how gracious He is to us, and when you begin to get a handle on it, you only respond in one way.

Thank you, Father. How can you possibly be this gracious? wanted to create it because he knew what would transpire. He went ahead and did it anyway, And yet he went ahead with it, knowing that he'd have to give up his son. And I think that shows that love circle. You know, he first loved us. Before we were even a thought, he loved us and gave us his son. And I think that's more important than the process. And that's where, you know, to glorify him, he knew that and went ahead with it.

And that shows his character, I think. There's one more detail on that. You mean he forgot something? Well, he didn't think about it. Maybe it's true. I don't know. Anyway, to me, it's ultra important that his love was not because any of us were lovable. That's true.

It was an executive decision on the part of the Godhead. They decided they were going to love mankind. And that predicates everything that happened after that. If they hadn't decided to love us, they couldn't have. But that's the very center of his character is love. That's what he's about.

So if we were going to come up with a solution for our standing with God, what would we come up with? Monique and I and Carol get together and we're going to say, now we're going to come up with a plan. so that man can be righteous before God. Our plan would include cool things like rituals, have to join a church, you know, get your name on a list of the really good people. We'd really enforce being good, right? How would God respond to that? Not too kindly.

Or we say, now we have another plan. What we're going to do is we're going to spend half the time trying to find out what God expects from us. And then we'll keep the rules. Whatever we think. And if you look around from an anthropological viewpoint in the world, that's really what most of culture's religions are based on. They search out and they think what they know is mad. They know God isn't happy. So they come up with this set of rules that they think they have to do something to appease him.

And I think the Aztecs were as good at it as anybody. They figured out that sacrifice was really important. And oh, by the way, they never got an email from the Jews about sacrificing. And then they figured out that human sacrifice is the ultimate. So that's what they would do. They'd sacrifice virgins to God so that the crops would grow. So that's our deal. We're going to be sacrificing virgins so that the rest of you can be righteous before God. That's what we would come up with. We would come up with a legal sort of environment where we had to do something so that God would be happy. Well, God did it totally the other way around.

He did everything and He just says, you believe. I'm extending my grace to you. That's the cool part about it. Can I add something? Oh, please. I think, for me, the idea of glory, too. I mean, I think of glory and it's like, you know, how we glorify actors and stuff like that. That isn't, I think, the glory that God's looking for. I don't know. It's just kind of love more than glory. I don't know. Glory is God's intrinsic attributes, what He is, and they come forth and shine out of Him.

The Mount of Transfiguration in the Bible, you can read about that, but how do you enter into it? What did Peter see when the Lord started to be glorified in his body? Well, whatever he saw is what you're going to be in the Millennial Kingdom. When he was transformed? Once he was already dead? No, no, before he was dead on the Mount of Transfiguration where he was transformed. Miles Stanford said one time, we were having a discussion like this, he said, I said, why did Adam and Eve feel naked when they sinned? He said, because they glowed with glory and when the light went out they felt naked.

And when you and I exist in the Millennial Kingdom, we are going to glow with that same kind of light. You won't have to go to Lowe's and get your lumber, or to build your house, or you won't have to go to, I don't know, wherever you buy your clothes. You won't need them. Because the glory of God will be manifested through you.

He came back in his different body after he was crucified. But he wasn't glorified yet. Oh, true. Okay. He had to return to his father to be glorified. So he wasn't glorified until after the last appearance here. Yeah, until he went home to be with his father. John 17, right? He told Mary, don't touch me. Maybe so. I don't know. By the way, that's my speculation. What you're going to be wearing, no Levi's.

So if you want to live under a law system for justification, it has no grace. The law system is based solely on your merit. I would say one last thing on justification. If you want to have happiness in your life, that's how you do it. You live by faith. You trust God and what he tells you. I'm not sure where I got this quote. Only those who cast themselves on the grace of God can ever know true happiness. We lose our happiness whenever we think about ourselves. Perhaps I don't believe enough, but I cast myself upon His grace alone." You alright with that statement? I thought that was pretty cool. Okay. Any questions on justification? We all live under grace now, right? Okay. Alright.

The next thing we're going to talk about is forgiveness. We've had a lot of discussion about forgiveness around here over the years, and we'll get into why in a minute. But according to the author, there were a couple of ideas of the biblical definition of the word forgiveness. What are the ideas? Did you get the forgiveness notes? Not the question. The question. Somebody answer. Now, the only guy I'm giving a break to not having an answer, Steve, because he was in the hospital, the rest of you.

Anybody not have just because you're getting married doesn't mean you can't. So give me, according to the author, the two basic ideas that he has about forgiveness. One of them is pardon. And what's the other one? To send off. So you could say pardon is like a dismissal of the punishment due. because of your conduct. Deliverance, freedom, deliverance from bondage. The other idea is the word send away.

Now the best example of that in the Old Testament was on the Day of Atonement there were two goats, right? One of them was sacrificed and a death took place to cover the sins of the people. The other goat was called the scapegoat and what happened with that animal? He took the blame for everybody. He took the blame.

I love it. The interesting thing about the Old Testament covering for sins is that it never took them away. It'd be one thing for God to stand in front of Bruce and say, okay, your sins are forgiven, but if he said, you know what, I'm going to separate you from your sins and I'm going to take them away. That never happened in the Old Testament. They were covered. And even though you had the scapegoat that was the symbol of them being taken away, every Jew knew that the Messiah was going to come and take them away. So when John the Baptist saw Jesus, what did he say? Behold the Lamb of God who does what? Who takes away the sins of the world. Why is that important? Why on this forgiveness issue do we need to take them away? There wasn't a covering. There wasn't a covering. What's the other issue here though? It's one thing for me to say, or God to say, okay, I'll give you a pardon for what you've done. But it's another thing to have you separated from your sins and your sins put away from you.

The scapegoat, if you look at Leviticus 16, and then Aaron shall lay both his hands on the head of the live goat, and confess over it all the iniquities of the sons of Israel. So he puts his hands on the goat, and this must have taken some time. and he confesses all the iniquities of the sons of Israel and their transgression in regard to all their sins and he shall lay them on the head of the goat and then send it away into the wilderness by the hand of a man who stands in readiness. The goat shall bear on itself all the iniquities to a solitary land and he shall release the goat in the wilderness." The escaped goat never came back and that was the symbol for the Jews of what Christ was going to do regarding their sins at the cross, that they were going to be put away.

Does that make sense? I mean, you see the difference between if you're a Jew, how your faith is based on visual things and on ceremony and stimulus. I mean, God actually had them once a year bring the goat in, do the sin thing and take them out, and everybody's watching them go.

When he comes to us, he says, we're not having any of those visual props anymore. I'm going to tell you what I've done, and I want you to believe me. Different, isn't it? But we're always looking at God, it seems to me, and saying, well, you know, can you show me a sign? Let's get some goats in church. Come on. You know, we need a goat.

Or two, we need to go once a year, so I'm really sure that my sins have been put away. Or as the meaning is, is that they're gone from me. So are you going to run into your sins at some time in the future? Oh yeah, you can think about them. Think about them. I better ask that question more succinctly. Are you going to run into your sins when you have a conversation with God? Does he remember your sins? Has he put your sins away from his mind and his memory? In other words, is he done with your sins?

Yeah, if you have faith, yes. Okay, how come you're not then? If he's done, why aren't you? We don't believe him. Because we don't believe him. If he says he's done, you should be done. Well, it's our mind. He gave us that mind. Well, he gave us a mind that we polluted with sin. But we think, I mean, he gave us a brain to think, so we think, so it's kind of difficult to say both. But as you grow in the knowledge and grace of Christ, the Bible says you have the very mind of Christ, and as you begin to think God's thoughts after him, then what happens?

Your sin is not an issue with you anymore. So God can't excuse sin no matter how great his love for the sinner is, right? His inflexible and unchanging word is the soul, He says that the soul that sins will surely die. Right? That was the pronouncement.

On what basis does God forgive the sinner then? Now the next question is going to be what's the difference between the way I forgive, and you forgive, and the way God forgives? So it's all really the same question, but on what basis does God forgive your sins? Oh, because you're really sorry. And Alan's more sorry than I am, so he gets forgiven faster and longer and bigger than me. On what basis does God forgive you?

Because Christ died. That's right. He forgives you solely based on what Christ did, right? Right. So when you repent, if you really feel bad, aren't you more forgiven? No? So your forgiveness is not based on anything you did. Oh boy, we're back to that grace thing again. where God does everything. He forgives solely on the person and work of Christ.

Ephesians 1.7, In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses according to the riches of his grace, not according to your repentance.

You alright with that? Now I come out of a Catholic environment. Trust me, it's all about repentance in that environment. You've got to really be sorry and you've got to do a little penance. and give money. You know, the American Catholics got away from some of this hair shit, walking on your knees stuff, taking flowers up to the Madonna. But they do it, and it's all based so that they can be forgiven. They don't trust the work of Christ. The sole condition of forgiveness for you is what? What's the sole condition that God puts on you to be forgiven? What's that?

That we believe. That's it. That we believe in the person and work of Christ. That's the sole condition. So, you can receive forgiveness of your sins by believing on Christ and no other way. If you give me ten bucks, I'll give you absolution. That's a Catholic thing. Acts 13 says, Therefore, let it be known unto you, brethren, that through him Forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you. And through him everyone who believes is freed from all things from which he could not be freed through the law of Moses. Forgiveness is by faith alone and believing in the person and work of Christ. There is no other way. So the author says, a list of things the author says that we may engage in that will not forgive us our sins.

Huh? Membership. Belonging to a church by some sort of ordinance or ritual. Again, I hate to pick on the Catholics, but I feel like I have a right to because that's what I grew up in. Well, it's what you know the best. confession, the ordinance or the sacrament of confession in the Catholic Church does not forgive you your sins. I don't care what the priest told you. You're not forgiven because it isn't on that basis. We're not forgiven because we got baptized or we took the Lord's table or you joined a church. I'm loving how ignorant the world is about the forgiveness of sins.

One of those talking heads on TV said about Tiger Woods, if he would just dump that Hinduism and become a believer, his sins would be forgiven. They went crazy over that. But he was right, that was pre-Human. That's exactly right, he is right. And I wish he would do it, but no, he wants to play football.

Well, whatever. I mean, the point is, is that everybody in the world thinks that they can have their sins forgiven on some other basis than the one that God has provided. You can't do it by good works and you can't do it by obeying any laws. Well, also, the priest wants to forgive you your sins or whatever. You go into that little room. But how could he? He's a sinner himself. I never got that.

Well, I mean, if you think you're the designated emissary of God on the earth, they take it from when Jesus told Peter, who sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven. That's why the Catholics try to trace their lineage back to Peter. The problem is that James was the head of the church, not Peter. Tough call.

So, in the Word of God, as you study, and when you look at forgiveness, you're going to run into the issue of sins. and sin. And although you're not Greek scholars, you're going to see like in the book of Romans up into chapter 5 verse 12, it's all about S-I-N-S, S-I-N-S, sin, sin, sins. But then when you get to 5.12, it becomes sin. And if you look in the Greek, it has a definite article in front of it. It says the sin. So what's the difference in those two?

We can say, well our sins are acts that we commit, they're trespasses, they're transgressions, they're unrighteous acts, right? So you have the sins, now what would you say the sin is? Mankind? Original sin? How about a sin nature? See, your sins have to have a source, right? If you're going to be sinning, it has to come from a source.

Watch Mani in his book, The Normal Christian Life. If you've never read it, I recommend it to you. His simple example was this. The Christians run around and the sins are like whiskey bottles. And if you go around and break all the whiskey bottles, everything will be fine.

Problem is, the factory is still producing them. So the more you break, the more they're pumping them out. So God, in his wisdom, without checking with me, said, you know what, I need to put that factory out of business. The bottles are the sins, the factory is the sin. It's the thing in us that produces the sins, which is the sin nature. Everybody in this room has got one.

But through your identification with Christ and his death, burial and resurrection, You have been separated from the dominion of your sin nature. You do not have to obey it and its desires anymore. You were a slave to it until the point in which you believed in Christ. You can still be a slave to it if you desire to be, but you don't have to be.

So Romans 6 says, My old man, everything I was in Adam, including my sin nature, was crucified with Christ. so that the totality of sin might be put out of business. So God did a greater thing on the cross than just pay the penalty for your sins. He took the steps to put your sin nature out of business. Store closed.

Okay, I've been thinking about this one and it seems like even if we decide, you know, I'm not a slave to it, but I don't want to do this sin anymore. It still takes more than that, doesn't it? Doesn't it take on God's time? Maybe you still need it. Isn't that a great question? Everybody understand the question? I know I'm forgiven. I know that I probably don't have to sin.

It's still there. I don't want it to be there. I don't want it to be there. I'm exercising my will. Isn't my will the most powerful thing in the universe? I don't think so. Paul says, to will to do good is there in Romans 7. But I find another law in me that's stronger than my will that brings me under bondage of sin. That's right. That's what Paul said. He says, I don't want to do it, but I do it anyway. I do it anyway. And the thing I don't want to do, that's the very thing I do. And the good that I want to do, I'm not getting there.

So what's the answer? So what's the answer? Maybe it's not time yet for God to deal with it. Oh, that's great. I mean, that's really terrific. Here's the thing. You have a will and you can exercise it, can't you? You guys exercised your will to come down here this morning, right? What's the choice? How do you exercise your will when it comes to dealing with the issue of sin? What do you do? Obviously deciding not to sin isn't good enough. Because we have a veteran over here who knows. Just like the rest of you who have made that same decision and how did you do with it? None of you achieved it, right? Don't give me this, because I know better.

But the more you're in the word, the less you even think of it. You just get separated. All of a sudden, it's not there anymore, because the faith, it's like a magnet. You're magnetized to the book, God's word, your belief, your faith, that gets stronger and stronger. And so that's, it's just amazing, because some things have been taken away from me. I don't even think about it anymore. I mean, I think of it now, I'm talking about it, but it's just such a wonderful gift.

When you're coming down through Romans 6, the first 10 verses God gives you information. He doesn't ask you to do anything but just listen. Then when you get to 11, what does He say? I want you to count yourself, reckon yourself dead to the sin nature and alive unto me.

Is that a will choice? Sure is. What's the choice? Am I going to believe God or not? Do I really believe that I'm dead to sin and alive to him? Yeah, I believe it only because he said it. I didn't experience it. Then he says, present your members to me, you know, all that you are to me as instruments of righteousness. And don't present them to the sin nature anymore, but present them to me. And here's the kicker, as though you're as alive from the dead. So did you die? Yes, you did. Are you raised with Christ? Yes I am.

So what's my decision? My decision is not to decide not to sin. My decision is who am I going to yield myself to? My sin nature that's got its desires? Or to God who took care of it? So my will is exercised in believing that God took care of it and I'm turning myself over to Him. Really? That's faith. So I use my will to believe.

I do not use it to implement, because as soon as I try to do that, which is Romans 7, sin's got me. Because it's stronger than me. But if I let God handle the sin issue, He's going to implement in my life what He has already accomplished on the cross. Not what He's going to do, it's what He's already done. And how do I live? I believe in Him.

That make sense? That's how it happens. Now, so here you are cruising along, and you kind of learn this thing, and you say, oh wow, that's kind of cool, I believe you, Lord. And then you're abiding in the Spirit, and here it comes. Hey, hey, hey. And so out you go. Because you see a greater benefit in yielding yourself to the sin nature than staying in Christ. Isn't that what? So you make a decision.

Okay, you can control me for a while. Sin. What's the Spirit of God do? He convicts you on the basis of, wait a minute, Mike, that's not who you are. You're in Christ, you're a son over here, so I confess and I'm restored to fellowship. That's what confession means, to say the same thing. Your conscience, right? It's more than your conscience. It's the Holy Spirit himself.

Oh, OK. Well, I have to finish. OK. Anyway, let's close and I'll finish up a few questions next week. And then Courtney, actually, it's going to be a good because his subject is assurance and assurance comes after forgiveness, which is a great thing. Yeah.

I mean, hand them out. Let me pray. Father, how we thank you for your grace and how we thank you for the extent of your grace that deals with not only my sins but my sin nature and that I can, I am free to yield myself to you and to abide and rest in your Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. And we pray in his precious name. Amen.