Person & Work of the Holy Spirit
Mike Doyle · Apr 7, 2013
Holy Spirit (2013), No. 13
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926348207444

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

OK, we're in lesson six and we have gotten to question two or three quickly now. So we're all the way down. What's what's this section about? What's the section about? What aspect of the work of the Holy Spirit is this section about? The ceiling. What is that, like caulk? What is the ceiling of the Holy Spirit?

Authority and value. Closes up all the leaks. What's that? Closes up all the leaks. That's actually pretty good. So are you sealed by the Holy Spirit? Everybody on this side? How about the people on this side? Both sides? Really? So who can tell? Who knows? I can't see any seal on you. Some of you dress funny, but I don't see any seals. Who can tell? You can tell by our behavior. I can tell the seal by the behavior? What's the seal for?

Who's it for? It's in you, it can't get out. It's your brand. What's that? That's how you're branded. God can see it. So we said that the first thing the soul gets is that he's sealed by the Holy Spirit, right? For whose benefit? Oh Jesus Christ. Whose benefit? Ours. Ours? Just ours? Maybe not.

Now who can see this? I can't walk around here and look at the back of your head and say there's a little S there, you must be a sealed one. This is for the benefit of who? It's for the benefit of God. In the next section we will talk more about your side of the equation, but this is really God's side of the equation, right? It's important to know that.

So, and we talked last week that you can't sin your way out of this seal? No. You can't, you sure? Well, yes, I am sure. Have you ever woke up? No. So when you get older you can say, well I tried, but it didn't work. You can't grieve yourself out of the seal. I'm sorry, you can't sin yourself out of the seal. It's a really important question because I'm sure you all know believers who have committed the unpardonable sin by parking in a handicapped space when they shouldn't have and they thought for sure I'm going to hell, even though they're sealed. So what would the leaving from the believer by the Holy Spirit mean? If the Holy Spirit could leave you, what would it mean?

Say that again? I mean it would be something against Christ. That's exactly right. What it would be is, it would be a denial of the work that Christ did. And why that's important to us is because the work is His, not yours. Do you see that? The work of your sealing is something God does, it's not something you do. So you can't lose it. It's like salvation. You can't lose your salvation because it wasn't your business. It wasn't something you came up with. It wasn't something you enacted or that you got the plan together. It was all of God.

And so he came to us and said, if you just believe me, believe in the person and work of my son, I'll save you. And oh, I'll seal you too. It's God's work, and it's important to understand that, especially when you are sitting there grieving over the handicapped parking space. Now, question six.

2 Corinthians 5.5. Somebody go there and read that. He who prepared us for this very purpose is God, who gave us the Spirit as a pledge. As a what? Pledge. Okay. That's the new American standard. It says that, otherwise it's an earnest. The older versions used the word earnest instead of a pledge. Pledge is a good word. What is a pledge or an earnest?

Well in real estate... It's a good way to look at it. It's a really good way to look at it. It's a guarantee. What's that? A guarantee. It's a guarantee. It's a guarantee that the whole, in the real estate business, it's a guarantee that the entire transaction will be exactly the same as the front money that you put up. When you close, you're still going to get green money. Well, I guess it's still green, mostly green. The Holy Spirit himself is, in this case, the earnest or the pledge. He's the one that does the guaranteeing.

Isn't that funny when you buy property or something there's an earnest amount of money you have to put in? Yeah, it's like I wrote a contract for some people yesterday and they said how much earnest money? I said $3,000. So they wrote a check and we sent the contract over to the listing agent via email and with a copy of the check. They consider the $3,000 as our sincerity and our guarantee that if they sign the offer we will continue and complete the offer to a closing. If we don't they get to keep three grand, maybe. Not in today's market they don't.

What it says is that I'm going to do this. Well, the Spirit of God is a little different in that it's an earnest, it's a pledge, or you could say it's a foretaste of something. What do you think it is? From a spiritual standpoint, does anybody in this room, from a conditional standpoint, have everything that's coming to them? I think foretaste is a great word there. It's hinting to the eternal life and the eternal state when our position and condition will be unified. See you and I have this inheritance coming and oh by the way you know the 34 things there's a whole lot of things on there that you and I are rich beyond imagination but we act like we don't have anything. There are 215 things that are true of me now that I'm saved but I go around acting like I don't have any of them.

The Holy Spirit himself is the foretaste of what's coming. Like I've got written in my Bible, I must have heard it around here some place where it was referred to like an engagement ring. Yeah, that's really neat. It's like an engagement ring, especially from a Christian viewpoint. We're going to do this. But this signifies that he has brought you into his son. Yeah, you know what God has done by doing this sealing and this pledge? What has he done on his side? Is he curious?

He made a commitment to do something. He said, I'm going to do this. Place this in Christ. Well no, he puts himself in a position to accomplish what he says he's going to do. Do you see that? When I write a contract and give somebody some earnest money, I tell them, look, I'm putting myself under an obligation to complete this purchase. God has put himself under an obligation to complete your purchase. He's the one that's obligated himself. He did it.

You know, it's like on Good Friday we read John 17 and the first question I asked the audience was, as you go through and read John 17, is there anything about this prayer that the Father's going to look at and say, oh Jesus, I'm not sure I can do that. Nobody's laughing. There isn't anything in John 17 that the Father won't comply with what Jesus has asked. Not a thing. Even when he says that they may be one father as we are one, that they may be one in us. The father isn't saying, well, I don't know, Jesus, I can do six out of seven. No, he's going to do them all. He obligates himself to complete the purchase. That's the God of the universe obligating himself to you and me.

That's pretty cool. That's really cool. I see clearly how this benefits us. What is the benefit to all these aspects to God? Oh yeah, great question. Did everybody hear the question? I want to really know. What's that? I want to really know what you think about that. What is the benefit to God in this earnest, in this prayer? What's the benefit?

What's the thing that he gets out of this? Sin. Sin is a set aside which has been made for me. What does he get? What does he get? He gets his glory revealed. He gets you. Are you that valuable? Apparently. In Ephesians 1 it says that we are Christ's inheritance. Yeah, think about that. Listen to what Randy is saying. Listen to what Randy is saying. In Ephesians 1 it says that we are Christ's inheritance.

In 1.11.

Yeah, that was the joy set before him. The joy set before him, he endured the cross to satisfy the father's issue about sin, but what did the father get out of it? He got satisfied, big deal. You know, now he's satisfied, he could have said, okay, the rest of you guys are all going to hell, I'm done. You know, I'm satisfied. The insult done to me by the sins of the world, it's cool, but I'm not interested in you anymore, because you're dogs anyway. No. I think it's also shown in John 17.

He wants the intimacy where you know that union you just said but he also wants to share his glory with us. That's amazing that we are that valuable. Christ is wanting to have the intimacy the same with the Father but then to share his glory so we can glorify him for eternity. This crap we hear in our society about low self-esteem When you start to figure out the esteem with which God holds you, your self esteem will be damned.

We are his final creation in Genesis. We are more than that. Let me give you an example of what I think is going to happen. This is my opinion. Before he created anything there were three persons in one God and they existed in eternity. just the three of them and they were totally satisfied with each other. They loved each other and they received each other's love on a level way beyond what we can understand. So then they decide that they're going to create. So they do. And because of Adam it didn't work out so good initially. But he had a purpose and so he sends his son to pay the penalty for the sins of the world But then he does this really cool thing.

He says that from the time of Pentecost to the time of the rapture, I'm going to call out this people under my name and I'm going to recreate them in my son. They're going to be just like him. Fast forward into eternity. Who are you going to be hanging with? the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit and the Body of Christ plugged into that same intimacy that they had before they started creating.

The Jews don't get that, but we do. The Millennial Kingdom saints don't get that, but you and I do. Pretty lofty. You can't wrap your mind around how incredible that's going to be. This intimacy with the God of the universe for all eternity. Just like they have. Now what do you mean by the millennium saints? Well, fast forward to the millennial kingdom. There will be people who believe in the Lord Jesus at that point. That he is the Messiah. Where do they end up going? What do they get? Because the church has already been raptured, right? The wedding feast of the lamb has already taken place, so the bride of Christ is in place. Is that the thousand years? Yeah. So what happens to people who believe in that? They end up being what we call millennial kingdom saints. They get to go to the same place that the people on the cross went, paradise.

And they're perfectly satisfied and overjoyed with the grace and the blessing that God gives them for all eternity, but they're not plugged into the Trinity like we are. We don't put enough value on this intimacy between the three persons of the Godhead and they have included us. It isn't that you get to walk around with a lapel button on that says, you know, I are a bride.

It's that you get to spend all eternity so intimate with the God of the universe that, like Verne loves to say, heaven is going to be like that. And it isn't going to be because you see all these cool things, it's going to be because this life that you're sharing now with the God of the universe is a continual thing. It's way above. This goes back, I've shared this a bunch of times.

It always mystified me why when Adam was walking in the garden, he said, you need a partner. That's a good point. Listen to what Gordon is saying. This really made a change. In the garden, I never could understand why he's walking in the cool of the garden, having fellowship with God, and yet he said, you need And I can never understand that if you're having fellowship with him. But it was on a different level. It was the creation and the creator. The beautiful part is now the intimacy that we have and what he's done by the identification is he's removed that and now we are a new creation in Christ. Now we can have that level communication. Before it was two different levels, creator and creation. Now we're of the same creation, the first fruits, and what we talk about. Now we have the level to communicate on a one-to-one level.

It's like we talk about having you and your dog. Your dog's a great, you can have great, but you can't have that same level of communication as a human-to-human. We now have an intimacy that is on a par with that just without the dog. And that's why in the garden he was not satisfied because he didn't have a partner on the same level.

Now we have this partnership and that's why the John 17. We might be one. We now have that intimacy on a level that is equal. So like it or not you've got to raise your thinking. You've got to think of yourself as something other than safe sinners trudging around on the earth. This is who you are. Not what you're going to be, it's who you are now. And you have the privilege and the opportunity now to develop this intimacy with Christ that is beyond understanding. But you get to do it now. And that's really what he's after. That's really what he's after. Not after the fact that, oh, you're such wonderful Christians.

No. What did he say in John 17 eternal life was? Remember, don't answer. What did he say it was? He gave a definition of eternal life in John 17, I think it's 3. What did he say it was? To know the Father and the Son. Eternal life is what? It's knowing somebody. Who? The Father and the Son. And this is a knowing that's intimate. This isn't just, oh, I know who he is. I see Jack over here. It's not like that.

We didn't get saved and get the Holy Spirit, or just get saved and God said, well, okay, I'll save them, but I'll just let them kind of stay how they are. It's like, oh, and you get the Holy Spirit to conform you while you're here to the image of Christ. So I'm not just going to let you go and wallow in the mud. I'll use the Holy Spirit will will get you going, like it prepared the bride, you know, so you're not like...

Let's see. Only people on this side can answer the question. What's God's purpose for you as a believer? What's he trying to do while you're here? Conform us to his son. Conform us to his son. What does that mean? We like him. What, so you get to be a little Jewish guy with a long beard? What is conformity to Christ? What is that? Less of you and more of him all the time. Less of you and more of him. What's the him part? What is the him part?

Isn't it Christ? It's Christ himself. It's his very resurrected glorified life being lived through you via this power of the Holy Spirit. That's what he's up to. And can you even see it, like the fruit of the Holy Spirit, the love, the joy, the peace, all of those are described in Christ. That's right. You know, I've noticed as I've gotten older that the world doesn't have the attraction for me at all like it used to. It's not because you've gotten older. It's because the Spirit of God is doing his job.

So, you know, when he says in Colossians 3 that since you've been risen with Christ, is that true? Only on this side? Since all of you have been risen with Christ, what do you do? Now that that's in place, what are you supposed to do in response to that? Seek those things which are above where Christ sits at the right hand of God. Set your mind, your affection on things above and not on things of the earth. And then he tells you why. because you died. Not going to die, you already died and your life is hid with Christ and God. Wow! I get to do that. I don't have to watch CNN anymore or Fox News. I get to actually behold the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ in the heavenlies right now. Kind of cool, isn't it? The minute you die, you're there, right? The minute you die, you're there. But you know, when you show up there, it isn't a strange place to you. Position and condition.

You're very familiar because you already know the Lord Jesus Christ. I've always had this vision in my mind that these guys that think they're theologians and they're the wizards of smart, that they're going to be in heaven with all their books under their arms and they'll come up to Jesus and say, excuse me. They won't know who he is, but you'll know him. Because you knew the secret and the secret was beholding His glory here in the Word.

That's really cool. And we are in Him. That's right. Yeah. It would be nice to know what that's about. Yeah. Position and condition. Positionally how He sees us right now are all those 215 things. That's how He sees us right now. Alright, I hate to ask this but I'm going to do it anyway because I thought about this last week. How many of you do not understand the doctrine of position and condition? Come on, it's okay to raise your hand. Nobody's going to throw grapes at you. Everybody got that straight? I've got an honest person. There's only one honest person here. No, two.

We are with when we were crucified with Christ and then our spirit Our spirit went with Christ and we are seated with him in heaven. But our condition is that we are still down here struggling. All of these things, these 34 things, Would you say these are conditions or positions? These are all positions. These are things that are all true of you positionally. Now, one of them may be true of you conditionally. Which one is reality? Is position reality or condition? Position, I guess, is reality. And it's really important to understand that. Spiritual reality.

The issue with Christians is that God comes to us and says, okay, my son, oh I'm a son. I don't feel like a son. He says, I am a son. What do I do with that? Okay, I believe you. And then he says, I'm free from the law. I'm a child of God, I'm adopted, I'm accepted, I'm justified, I'm forgiven, I'm made close, I'm delivered from the power of darkness, I'm translated into the kingdom, I'm on the rock Jesus Christ, I'm a gift from God the Father to Christ and I read down this stuff and not a single thing I said have I ever experienced Are they true or not? Of me personally? Of you personally?

Yes they are. So the point being is, oh we believers are supposed to live by faith, right? And we love that cliché. Well faith has to have an object. What's the object? We can try out 34 of those things. Those are the things you are to believe. and the 215 other things because they are all of the blessings from God that are true of every one of us.

And so in every single day of your life, garbage comes into your mind that goes against what's in the Word of God. There's where your will comes in. You get to decide what you believe. Do I believe that the garbage that came in? Or do I reject that and believe what God has told me? That's how I get to use my will.

I think also, where I look at it, position is how God sees us right now. He doesn't see us in anything else but His Son. That's right. So all those things He sees us in right now, positionally. That's how when God looks at us, He sees those truths. Conditionally, we have two natures in us.

And we sometimes, by the will, choose the flesh or the Adamic nature. new creature in Christ, 2 Corinthians 5.17, we are a new creature in Christ, Christ living. We have two natures. And so that's a conditional one.

Because the best thing I came up with, I've shared it too, is how do you understand that? When you became a believer and were crucified with Christ, I didn't see anything different. But God sees it completely different. And the best way I came up with, I've explained it, is like when you go to a wedding.

When my wife saw me before we were married. She only saw me as a boyfriend, a fiancé, whatever. But once we were married, she can only see me as a husband. She can never see me again other than a husband. The best way to do it is God then can never see me in Adam again. He can only see me in his son.

And that's the positional truth. All those things, he sees me just like that. But conditionally, that's our growth, our conformity. We're being conformed to that image. So more of those things are manifested through the Holy Spirit as we're conformed, as we mature in Christ. That's how we do it. And finally, when we step into eternity, All the positional truths become reality. Holly? I sort of have a question. I sort of have an answer.

Christ, Jesus, came down on the earth in the flesh because God couldn't look at sin. God can't see sin. All the sin was put on Jesus and He was crucified and now He's resurrected. God still can't look at sin, right? So God can only see Jesus. And see you in Him. He can't even see our sins, right? Well, and He sees the sin of the whole world, past, present and future as having been paid for. He's been propitiated. And that's another important thing that Courtney didn't mention. He only deals with you now as in Christ. Just because you go back and walk in the flesh, he doesn't walk back there with you. He only deals with you as being in Christ.

How does the Holy Spirit do what? So how does the Holy Spirit see us? Conditionally. What's the last part? How does the Holy Spirit see us? In Christ. So how does the Holy Spirit see us? He'd have to see us conditionally to be able to work on the areas of need. Okay, good question. When a believer sins, what's going to happen to him in order for him to sin? Let me back up.

Here's a believer abiding in Christ, right? He's abiding in Christ because that's a normal everyday walking around existence of a believer. He's abiding in Christ. He gets tempted to sin. What's got to be the first thing that happens before he can sin? He makes a choice. What's that? He makes a choice. What's the choice? That's right, he makes the choice to leave his position in Christ conditionally and once he does that, he sins.

Did it change his position? No. It didn't change it a bit. He's acting inconsistent with who he is. What does the Holy Spirit do? He convicts. He shows the believer what he's done with the purpose of restoring him to a conditional fellowship in his position. Does that make sense? So the Holy Spirit might know that you turned away. He sees your back. He knows the weakness.

He knows the susceptibility that we have to the old man and the sin nature and the world we live in. There's nothing in this world that's going to help you grow spiritually from a positive standpoint. But he's revealing Christ to the believer and as the believer gets lured out of that, by some promise in the world that is more attractive to him at that point than Christ, he has sinned. What's the Spirit's job? To restore him back to who he really is. Not to make him something different. Back to who he really is. And he's so gentle. He woos us. Woos us.

You know, Paul even said that. I shouldn't do it, but I do it anyways. And I think he said it towards the end. In Romans 7, yeah, he knew, and that's a whole other rabbit we're not going to chase. You know, because we all get tempted, but it's kind of neat to know that it also happens to somebody that's so... It happens, oh, it happens. If any of you have a sin nature, you're tempted. Paul had one. The only man I know of that didn't have one was the Lord Jesus.

And that's an opportunity, I guess, for the Holy Spirit, because through those turning aways and stuff instead of the, oh, I'm guilty, the Holy Spirit can use it to make that, to make you even more conformed to the image. I think it's this way. I only do what I want to do. If I like it and it's pleasurable to me, I'm going for it. Right?

When's the last time somebody twisted your arm and made you sin? Nobody is laughing. You sin because you want to do it. I sin because I want to do it. It looks better to me to do this sin than it is that Christ is not as valuable as fulfilling whatever this desire is. The work of the Spirit is to make Christ so valuable to you that you won't go there.

He's the reason that you even exist. Then you think, why would I do that? I remember when I used to want to do that. I don't even want to do it anymore. Because he's more valuable to me than satisfying my sin nature. See, that's how he does it. I'm streaking ahead here. You talk longer than anybody. If the earnest is part payment, what is the rest of the payment?

I wanted you to look at Romans 8.23. The earnest was a part payment in kind. The full payment would be the same character as the earnest. So we are said to the first fruits of the spirit. The first fruits in the Jewish economy was, here's the first part out of the field of the crop, wave it before the Lord, the whole rest of the harvest is going to be just like this. So you're the first fruits.

Does that make sense? I don't want to read that because that's kind of long. seal on a document in part. Towards the bottom of page 27. Okay, but think about it now in terms of, in terms of, here's the story that Rideout gave. He says, a gentleman of wealth desired to give a check.

Written in his cramped, unsightly style, to the master who signs it. His bookkeeper has left the office and he gets the office boy to fill out the name and the amount on the blank form. The boy brings the check written in his cramped unsightly style to the master who signs it with his name. Is the check any less valuable because it's written by the boy? No, it's not. Would it be worth more if written in the firm, elegant hand of the bookkeeper? No, it wouldn't be. So not a cent more.

The name of the gentleman authenticates it and imparts to it its full value, which all is deposited in the bank as responsible. The point is, it's the person on the document that matters, not the document. I can send you a contract for me to buy your house and if I don't sign it, you can light your charcoal grill with it, with the paper. The issue is, it's the person who signs it that gives it value.

The Holy Spirit, because he's the seal and the earnest, he's the one of value. And you find out as you go, as valuable as the Word of God is, It's not as valuable as the person you discover in the Word of God. It's his character and veracity that has value.

It's like the kings in days gone by, they had the ring, but they would make the seal on it. Which is of more authority or authentication, the document or the seal? The seal. The seal is, and he used Esther 8a. Now, you write to the Jews, as you see fit in the king's name and seal it with the king's signet ring for a decree which is written in the name of the king and sealed with the king's signet ring may not be revoked.

So you and I are sealed by the Holy Spirit. That cannot be revoked. I don't care how you think about it. Don't come to me with your whining. When God says it's so, it's so. One of the biggest problems Christians have before they get educated is that they think that their thought process is of more value before God than God's own declaration.

You know? Oh, I feel this way. God says, oh, that's nice. You know? I mean, it really gets to be a game of my sin nature and its emotions are superior to what God's pronouncements are. Go ahead. You know, where it says about Darius and Daniel, I mean, he gave that whatever it was, you know, what the people are going to have to do. And he sealed it. And he, even though he was the king, why couldn't he say, well, I don't want Daniel to go into the lion's den? He could have said it, but he did. He wanted him to go in there. Well, I didn't think he really did after he... Yeah, when you think about it, I'm not a rabbit to chase what his motivations were. You know, you don't have to go down that path. Is that the first one? Yes. Oh good, I've got five whole minutes. Okay, question ten.

Leviticus 8.23 and 14.14 describe what the blood and the oil represent. Let's see if I've got a page here. Here's what Rideout said, it's kind of cool.

A beautiful illustration of this occurs in the Levitical ordinance of the Old Testament. In the consecration of the priest and in the restoration of the leper, the blood of the sacrifice was put on the ear, hand, and foot, making the whole man as redeemed. After this application of the blood, they were sprinkled with oil, a type of the Holy Spirit. Practically in the case of the leper we are told that the oil was put upon ear, hand and foot on top of the blood. So that the Spirit of God seals us because of the blood the work of Christ.

It's not a matter of personal worthiness or personal faithfulness but of the value of the work of Christ. That's the most important sentence there. I think sometimes we don't value what Christ did as much as we should. In God's sight there is no more valuable commodity or event than the work of Christ.

I mean, if you think about it, from God's perspective only, not yours, from God's perspective only, if you were God, would you put a lot of value on the one who could come and sort of satisfy you about all of this opposition to you? All of the sin is such an insult against your character? and there is one who can satisfy that, and your holiness and your righteousness has now been satisfied from the insult of sin, would you value the person who could do that for you? I think you would. Because then that allows him, like you said earlier, to have relationship with him. Yeah, and you know what? He didn't have to do it, but he did it based on grace.

Then we are sealed divinely authenticated as belonging to God by the Spirit. Each one of us should spend some part of every day recognizing and realizing we belong to God. We are His possession, not because He created us, but because of the work of Christ and the Spirit. Think of that, you trembling saints, says Rideau. You are sealed with the King's seal, confessed and owned as life. That's pretty cool.

11. How does the author describe the sealed believer immune from molestation? The seal also secures you from molestation.

When Darius issued his hasty edict based on pride and Daniel came under his provision, he couldn't alter it for it was signed with his name, Daniel 6.9. had to be cast in the den of lions and the den was closed and sealed with the king's own signet, 617. This was to guard the den from all molestation.

In other words, when God decides to do something, he also keeps the enemies away from you. You go home at night and walk in your house and lock the door, why do you do that? You don't want anybody coming in from the outside to bother you. That's what the free from his write-out says, uses the word.

What a comfort it is to know that we are thus guarded from all molestation by the presence of God's seal. Do you know that Satan can't touch you? Everybody know that? He can't unilaterally say, I'm going to go get Randy. He's a big spiritual threat to me in Denver, so I'm going to go hassle him. Can he do that? Can he do that? How many think he can? How many think you can't?

Yeah, but you can have events fall upon you that you feel that Satan is. Do you see what you just did? You said I can have events nobody is the author of fall upon me and I can feel. How much reality is in both of those statements? I can't feel that God put it upon me. Really?

Then you probably aren't one of these You see, when you look at that whole transaction, even in the Old Testament, between God and Job, who started that little fight? Was it Satan or was it God? It was God who started it. He said to Satan, you see my son Job? Pretty cool guy, huh? He picked on him first. And then he gave Satan his rules. can't do this. Now you're a son of the Most High God, resurrected and seated in Christ in the heavenlies.

Do you think Satan has free access with you? Do you think for a minute that any event that happens in your life just happened? No. Most of the New Testament writing doesn't warn us about Satan. There's some, so I want to be careful that we stipulate that. But most of the New Testament writing warns you about the flesh and the sin nature. That's the thing that we should be concerned with. That's with us all the time. There's only one Satan, but I'm always with you.

I'll finish with this story. I had a friend come to our men's two-speed Bible study meeting about 15 years ago now. And he was involved with the Athletes in Action Campus Crusade. And when I asked for prayer, he said, well, pray for me. Satan has really been picking on me today.

You know what I said to him? Satan doesn't know your name, doesn't know your address, and could care less. He was really upset with me. I said, do you mean to tell me, let's see, Satan's not omnipresent, you're such a threat to his kingdom that he came to Denver this week just to pick on you so that you wouldn't be such a big threat? He said, why? He's got agents. I said, this isn't the screw tape letters. You've got a sin nature. You don't need anybody picking on you. Your sin nature is going to get you in more trouble than you have time to mess with anyway. Is Satan responsible for our sin nature? Yes. So, in that respect... Well, we're not responsible for...

He kind of got it going, right? No. They're teaching the James class upstairs, right? They're teaching about temptation up there. James says, where does temptation come from, according to James? We were drawn away on our own lust inside. It comes right out of my own heart. Yeah, but doesn't it say Satan's the prince of this world? It sure is. But he doesn't mess with you. You know who he's messing with? Those idiots in Washington. It's a small planet. So international.

Okay, next week we'll finish up a couple of questions and then we'll go into seven. And 7 is up here, and the rest of the stuff you might want to pick up, so let's close. Dear Father, how we thank you for how wonderful it is to recognize that not only are we the legitimate organic offsprings of you, and that we have the resurrected life of the Lord Jesus and we're seated with him, but your spirit is also just so proactive in everything that's purposeful in our growing in the knowledge and grace of the Lord Jesus Father that we might ever learn and rest by faith in the facts that you have revealed to us in your truth. We pray in your Son's precious name, Amen.