Person & Work of the Holy Spirit

All right. Everybody have less than seven. I thought we were less than eight. We don't have any up here. Lesson seven has to do with the issue of assurance. Anybody got a seven and a copy of four. OK. And we started we started into it last week that assurance. Well we said it this way, the sealing of the believer is from God's perspective, the Holy Spirit seals us, and from our perspective it's assurance. And we talked a little bit about how would you explain the Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit. I think that once we started into that question we ended up at a tangent somewhere outside of our father.

And it's prompted me to do something kind of different. I'm going to take another detour this morning. And this is primarily for some of the some of you new folks. So I want you to open your Bibles to Romans chapter six, verse six. Let me know when you're there.

OK. The New King James Version says, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with him, that the body of sin might be, mine says done away, but should be put out of business, that we should no longer be slaves to the sin nature. Okay? Everybody got that? Mine's a little different. Mine too. Okay, go ahead and read.

Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed and henceforth we should not serve sin. It bears the same thing. So when the word of God tells you that your old man was crucified with him, what does that mean? Our old self. What's your old self? Before we believed. Before you believed. Before we had a good life. Would you agree with this statement that everything you knew yourself to be an atom has been crucified on the cross? Everything? I hate to think what you're leading up to. She says, I hate to think what I'm leading up to.

OK, now, was crucified with him that the body, also your versions say body, which doesn't mean your physical body. It means the entire sin issue might be and the Greek or the English word in a lot of translations is destroyed. The word destroyed doesn't mean that it was wiped out It really means, like Hal used to say, because he was an electrical engineer, that it was taken offline, that it was put out of business.

Now, go over to Galatians 2.20.

Now, Romans 6.6 is the first discovery by a believer that he was co-crucified with Christ.

When you get to Galatians 2.20, this is a man or a woman who has known this for a while, and now The declaration is a little bit different.

This Paul says, I have been crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. That the life which I now live in the flesh, how do I live it? By the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. I'm only going to say a couple of things about this because I'm not going to chase the rabbit we chased last week.

I recognize that God in his grace and his riches lets the rain fall on the righteous and the unrighteous alike. And he is so gracious and so gifting that he will, the thought I had this week was God allowed aspirin to be invented, right? For what purpose? to deal with pain, right? I take two aspirins every day not for pain but because my blood needs to be thin, right? So if God invented aspirin so that I could deal with a headache and I deal with a headache and now I don't have a headache and I'm clear-headed, is that the end? Is that why he invented aspirin? No. Why did he invent it?

He allowed somebody to do it. I don't think that he said, okay, we're going to have an aspirin today. To make him have somebody come to him. He just allowed that person to be using his brain. Yeah, but why would he even let out that secret? I mean, it's like, did God didn't know about aspirin? He didn't know acetylsalicylic acid didn't exist? Sure it did. So how about for his glory? That's exactly why he did it. for his glory. He lets lots of things come into being for the physical well-being of all people. There's a difference though when you translate that, that only goes so far.

An aspirin will only fix my headache, it can't do anything about my sin, can it? I may have a headache because I'm a sinner, but the source of all malady in the world is sin. Every malady we have, whether it be physical, emotional, mental, is because of sin, right? What did God do about sin?

He died. I have been crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live. It says, I've been crucified with Christ and I no longer live but Christ lives in me. So what does that say? That I'm dead but he's alive in me. The Adam nature. The Adam nature didn't die. Who died? I have been crucified.

I was separated positionally from it. Now I was going to also talk for about 10 minutes on position and condition. But if you've studied ahead, you know that the next section we're going to do is on sanctification. And a lot of what we're going to do there is the difference between positional sanctification and conditional sanctification. So I'm going to hold off on that.

This may be a stupid question, but who is the I? Yeah, who is the I? You, the I is you. Here's a better way to state it. Is the I who has been crucified the old Adam I? Or is the I who has been crucified the new resurrected I in Christ? The old Adam. The old Adam was crucified? So who's doing the talking, the dead guy? Who is he? This is the new man in Christ who can say, I have been crucified with Christ.

But it's not I who live anymore, I meaning all that I was in Adam. But I live now by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. But you know what the problem we've got? Is that I may be crucified to all that Adam is, but Adam didn't go anywhere. is coming to a greater understanding of how much of a spiritual separation there is within me from old Adam. Am I free to turn my back on him? Now that doesn't mean that if I have a headache I'm free to stop taking aspirin. That's not what it means. This is a spiritual issue.

You see that? So you could feed like 30% and I'm 45% towards my main goal. So you still have this in nature. But who's doing the percentages? Me. Only Anna would do that. But you just said it. You just said it. You just said it. I put it in percentage. What you just said. Here's the thing.

Again, I think it will be more amplified when we start talking about position and condition because that's a positional verse. Romans 6 is a positional verse. This transaction happened positionally to you and it's true of you and can never be changed. Now you may not live at all like that's true. May not at all. Doesn't change the fact.

See that? But what spiritual growth is, is for your condition to begin to line up with your position more and more all the time. Right. Based on your knowledge and understanding of what the truth is and your resting by faith in the truth. Again, you don't stop taking aspirin. No, that's what I meant about percentage. You're almost up there. I'm back here. You're not talking about me. You don't know me too well, do you?

So as we as we as we. There's lots of times in this class we will talk about. We will just refer to identification like everybody understands it. And it dawned at me last week. We don't all understand. We don't know. Not everybody here has been through the. weeks and months of identification class that we've had in position and condition and grace and all that kind of thing.

So if somebody, one of the teachers and myself, say something that goes over your head, raise your hand. Because the one thing that's cool about this class is we don't have a timetable. The timetable is how quickly you can pick it up and how quickly we can pick it up and teach it. So if you want to stop and talk about a spiritual principle, we're more than happy to do it, to clarify things. Recognizing that you're not going to get the total complete spiritual answer in one five minute answer to a question, because the spirit of God has to show you what the truth is, even though we've said it maybe, or you've read it out of the word. But, no matter what you think, no matter what you hope, guess what?

Everybody in this room was crucified with Christ 2,000 years ago. And you know why? Because he knew that your old man couldn't be improved. And so what he did is he separated you from it and put you in Christ so that you're now totally acceptable to him.

Is there a way of looking at it like seeing of the world that therefore Christ knew we would be born, therefore we were nailed to the cross. I would say that there is a two-fold answer to that. The first issue is God's foreknowledge of a believer is not necessarily his knowledge of what the believer would do. It's the personal knowledge of knowing that person in Christ from the foundations of eternity.

Because look at it this way. When you and I were crucified with Christ, buried and resurrected, you ceased to be a time-space creature and you became an eternal creature, didn't you? So Christ could easily say, I've known you forever. Because eternity doesn't go this way. Eternity collapses. Everything is now in eternity. So God could say, I've always known you in Christ. Always.

So knowledge isn't necessarily knowledge of events, it's a personal knowledge of that person in Christ. The book of life thing, you know there's, how do I say this, your dad used to say that every name was written in the book of life and during your life you erase your own name out. I don't know. I don't know. I do know this, that at some point in time, The Spirit of God led everyone in this room to believe on the person and work of Christ.

And when you did that, you were saved. You were also crucified. You were also buried with him. And you were also raised with him. And you are seated in him, positionally in Christ today in the heavenlies. Today. And you can't go to God and say, I don't remember that, so it must not be true. It's true because he says it. That's the only reason it's true. It's because he says it in his word.

You know, when I read the Bible and I'm a protector of being a woman, I like to read about the women in the Bible. And to me, they're like my sisters and I can relate with them. You know, I mean, it's not like they lived thousands of years ago and me now. I feel like I'm... Because they're people of faith. Yeah. That's right. Okay. Any more questions? Let's move on. We have gotten down to question four. Have we gotten that far? Did we do four? I don't think we did three. We didn't do three, good.

Explain why the understanding of adoption should have such a profound effect upon the believer. When we're talking about adoption here, we're not talking about adoption in 2013. We're talking about Roman adoption. Anybody want to tell me what the difference is?

You can never negate it. Never negate it. And I think you also said that when you're a Roman adoption, when you're adopted into the family, it's almost like you have a higher standing than the people who were born in it because you were chosen to be in it. Is that right?

I'm making stuff up. It's like if I, I've used this before, and it's not a very good example. I'm going to use it again. If I adopted Courtney. Yeah, that's not very good. Under the Roman rule of adoption, Courtney would become my legitimate offspring entitled to all of my assets at the time in which I adopted him. Now that's too bad for Kortney because I haven't gotten anything. Do you understand what I mean? That's true today. Not today. I have two adopted granddaughters. There is no way they can be disinherited.

A real, whatever you call it. And in Romans time, at the point in which you adopted them, they would be entitled to all your assets at that time, not when you died. Oh, I see. What if you didn't have any assets? Well, they became members of your family. They were legally members of your family, and the state recognized them as legitimate offsprings who were mature adults.

But would the real children inherit? Not unless they were adopted. Real children could be disowned. If they weren't disowned, would they inherit what the father had when he died? No, only the adoptees got it. I thought they just got what he had when they were adopted. Well, he could adopt somebody outside the family, which would put them above his natural children. That's so unfair. Here are your real kids and you put them aside. No, it's not unfair. It's the golden rule. He's got the gold sets of rules.

How many of you saw the movie Ben-Hur? Remember the adoption ceremony there? Ben-Hur saved that general from dying and they were out fighting on the boats and he saved that man's life and when he took him into Rome he adopted him as a son gave him a ring when he went back to Israel to see the head of the Roman garrison there he sent the ring in to see him and he said this is Arius' son is here and when the guy walked in it happened to be his old Jewish buddy but he was adopted so he had all the right and title to whatever his father had. That's what this adoption is all about. At the moment that you were saved, you were adopted, you now are a fully inherited son of the Most High God.

And God isn't going to take all that he's going to give Christ and divide it up among us. You get it all, I get it all, Christ gets it all. We're all joint heirs. That's something else. That's what adoption really is. So when we talk about explain why the understanding of adoption should be such a profound effect upon every believer, if you really understand what God did to you at the time that you were saved, wouldn't it have an effect on you? You wouldn't feel like you were from some other country. You would recognize that you are a member of the household of God and an adopted son. Kind of cool. What Rideout said, the spirit of bondage to fear has left us and it wouldn't leave us if we didn't understand adoption.

And in the consciousness of our sonship as born of God, we turn in the spirit of adoption to him saying, in the home language of the Hebrews, Abba Father. I mean when you think about what Abba Father means to you personally, that the God of the universe is in fact your father and he's your daddy and he wants you to come down the aisle and jump in his lap and stay there, don't leave.

When you begin to see that because you're Galatians 4 or 5 Because you are sons of God, he has sent forth the spirit of his son into your hearts, crying Abba Father. Anybody not know what that is? Abba? Here's the question, anybody not know what sending forth the spirit of his son into your heart crying Abba Father? Have you ever said in your heart Abba Father to God? The word Abba actually means father. Abba is father.

It's the same thing then. No, the word Abba means dad. It's a personal term. Okay. So the old man wouldn't be crying Abba father. Hallelujah. The spirit is. So you know you're in the spirit when you find yourself. Yeah. Crying out daddy, huh? Yeah, that's right. Or you can just say dear father. You're my dad. Those of you who grew up in dysfunctional families like me, it was really cool for me to find out that God was my father. I had to relearn what father was. It was much different than what I knew.

It's kind of cool. And it's the work of the spirit. He's the one who bears us witness to this. And you know, I asked, does anybody not know what this is about? Nobody's hand went up. I guess the spirit might be doing his work, huh? What do you think? Right on. I'm going to read something that Newell wrote about this.

We're not told that the spirit bears witness to our spirit as if the knowledge that we are God's children were some unheard of, dreamed of matter to our own spirit. But he bears witness with our spirit, showing that the child of God, having had communicated to him God's own nature, 2 Peter 1.4 and 1 Corinthians 6.17, Christ's own life, is fundamentally, necessarily conscious of the glorious fact of filial relationship to God, along with his consciousness, the spirit indwelling witnesses enabling us, moving us to cry, Abba Father. There is life before this, just as the newborn babe has life and breath before he forms a syllable. It is significant that the spirit indwelling is the power whereby we cry, Abba, Father, by his enlightenment, his encouragement, and his energy." That's a pretty good paragraph, isn't it?

Question 4. 1 Corinthians 2.12. Somebody read that.

Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit who is from God, that we may know the things freely given to us by God. So my question was, how do we come to understand and enter into all that God has given us? Through the spirit who gradually reveals it. The first thing you have to understand according to this verse is that we did not receive the spirit of the world. Really important. We did not receive the spirit of the world but we received the spirit of God so that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.

Does that mean that the natural man, the ordinary guy in the street just doesn't get what God has done? I've had people come up to me and say, hey Joe is a great guy, he's a wonderful man, he's becoming a Christian. And I say, I don't think so. Because he does not understand spiritual things. I don't care how nice a guy you are, nice a person you are, you cannot understand spiritual things. unless you are spiritually alive. It's impossible. Okay, so he's the 10 percenter. He has not yet read the Bible. He has only maybe an inkling of what God is all about. I mean, everybody has to start somewhere. How many of you read What's Going On Down River? I'm starting to. How much pre-information did those people have? Nothing.

They had no idea who Adam was, they had no idea who God was, nothing, but the Spirit of God got them ready so that when the truth came they recognized it as the truth. I guess one thing I kind of don't understand is that when people say that they can know God through nature and stuff like that, so they had all that, So if those people wouldn't have come, they never would have understood. Yeah, that's a good question. That's the Romans 1 question. That every man knows that there is a God and they know that he's powerful and that he's the creator through their conscience and through his creation.

But that's not knowing the things of God. You understand that? You might know that Alan and I went out in the country and we built a house and you can drive by and say, oh yeah, those guys built that house, isn't that cool? But you may not know Alan and me.

The difference is demonstrating to the world that God exists and that he's powerful and he requires his creatures to be thankful that he is and knowing the things of God. So is that why people come up with different gods? Because they know there's something that's just... Well, it explains it right there in Romans. It's interesting how in Romans it starts with birds and it starts going downhill. And then you have creatures and crawling creatures and then they end up worshipping snakes at the end. And what they're really doing is worshipping themselves and trying to create a God that they can control.

That was the thing that bothered me at the end of that book. And when the lady came in with the cameras? No, when this man said, why did my parents have to die without knowing this? The issue is Jesus, isn't it? The whole issue is, what do you think of this man? The Lord Jesus Christ. That's the issue today. And if someone doesn't go and tell those people about him, they don't hear it. Yeah, but what does God think of that? Not what we think of it. Well, I think that's a two-fold question, or a two-fold answer.

Number one, it goes to the fairness doctrine. It's not fair that my parents didn't hear about Jesus and died. Right. That would mean that they deserve salvation? No one does. They deserve to hear about it. No, they don't. No, they don't. That's true.

If salvation is by grace, then it cannot be something deserved. It has to be solely based on what the giver does. No man deserves to hear the gospel, let alone know what it is. Nobody does. Because the Bible clearly says that none seek after God, not a single one. It isn't that they seek after God in and of their own energy and their own self. It's not that, it's the spirit who does it that creates the desire.

Anyway, I was watching this, reading, watching the DVD on Ben Hoffer during Hitler's time. He was a minister and he came to America and he got so involved with the in-depth that the black people did in their worship and everything and he went back to Germany and he was one of the ministers in Germany that stood up against Hitler and he had to end up giving his life because the other ministers caved in and it amazes me how one person will feel the spirit and follow it and other people don't. I would say that it's It's not so much a feeling as it is a person who understands the truth and rests by faith in the truth. It's like some believers today, they're nominal Christians, they're saved, they're fine, but they don't seem to have the interest. Other Christians, you can't stop them, they just are so hungry, He was saying Christ to him was the presence of God. So he knew intimacy. Now, I'm going to stay on track.

Notice here that the verse says that we may know the things that are freely given to us by God. Right out says here the full treasure house of God's gift of love are thrown open to us. Do you know what page that is on? And as we in wonder gaze at one another, the spirit assures us that they are all ours.

In one of those hungry hearts one day, one of the writers said, if you can go across in your mind, when he's talking about Ephesians 1, blessed with all spiritual blessings in the heavenlies, if you can think of one thing, that God has not already blessed you with today when the whole thing is a fraud. It's already done. And you may be ignorant of it, but it doesn't change the fact that it's already done.

So he opens up the storehouse of his gifts and he says, the Spirit of God has been given to us for what reason? That we might know the things that are freely given to us. Kind of cool. We know the things that are freely given to us by God. We understand them and have the full assurance that they are ours. We did an entire class on the 34 things and most of you have that handout.

I would recommend that you sometime this week if you aren't watching basketball, Which ones of those things are not true of you? The other thing I find is that because when I read through those 34 things I don't always feel like they're true of me. What I have to do is walk in faith that they're true of me. But I have found it to be valuable to look at something that I have a hard time dealing with and just praying that the Lord would show me understanding on that item. That's just a cool time for the Lord. It's like, okay, you've got it all true and you're the God that says this is true for me.

I don't understand. You know, that's a great point, Randy. I really identify with what you're saying. There's lots of times that I read something in the Word and I think, really? But if I say to the Lord, you know, I don't understand what you're saying here, but I kind of get the gist of it.

And just because you said it, I believe you. And I'll just have to wait until you sort of work it in. And I think that's really... Because you take God at His word and you don't say, well, I'm moving over to Missouri. You have to show me. No, you don't. If you want to, fine. If you don't want to, that's also fine. But He will. That's the thing.

And even like the fruit of the Spirit, you know, the love and the patience Same thing, it's like you don't necessarily feel like you have all those things, but you know... You know what's great about the fruit of the Spirit? What's great about the fruit of the Spirit? They are, in essence, the characteristics of the life of the Lord Jesus, right?

And in John 15, where there's a discussion about the vine and the branches, I love this. The vine is the source of life, who's Christ. The branch is me, through which the life flows out to the end of me and the fruit So what do we do as believers? We're supposed to focus our whole attention on the vine. You know what most of us are doing?

How's the fruit going? Once you peek, it's over. It's over. No peeking. To behold the glory of the Lord Jesus and be conformed to his image, the fruit happens. The fruit doesn't benefit the branches either. Isn't that something? That's really profound. That fruit out there isn't for you. That's not for you. It's for somebody else.

Question 5, 1 John 5, 7 through 13. The question was, what do the spirit, the water and the blood persuade us about? I'll quickly read it. There are three that testify, the spirit, the water and the blood, and the three are in agreement. If we receive the testimony of men, the testimony of God is greater. For the testimony of God is this, that he has testified concerning his Son. The one who believes in the Son of God has the testimony in himself. The one who doesn't believe God has made God a liar because he has not believed in the testimony that God has given concerning his son. There's the crooks right there. Where does this say feel? I don't see the word feel in there. It has to do with the testimony of the word. And the testimony is this, that God has given us eternal life and this life is in his son. He who has the Son has life. He who does not have the Son of God does not have life. Boy, that's pretty plain.

These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life. Seems to me that God has kind of done it all. And I'm left with what? Believe me. So the witness of the Holy Spirit, the truth with the water, his work in regeneration, the blood of Christ's work for us, he unites his witness to give us a complete certainty. That's what the write-up says. The spirit, the water, and the blood unite to give us complete certainty.

See, God doesn't say to us as believers, hey, now that I've saved you, kind of work it out. Do the best you can. We're going to score on the curve. He doesn't do that. He's incredibly proactive in trying to reveal to us all that's true of us and all of the treasures that we have.

But most Christians won't read their Bible. If you don't open up the book that's got the treasures in them, how do you know? Or if you open it up to somebody else's treasure or some legal thing that you think that you have to perform to get it, you miss the treasury. You understand that? If all of the blessings of God have been given to you freely by grace, then there's nothing left for you to do to earn them. The only thing left for you to do is to find out what they are and then rest in them. They're yours.

Chester McCauley, one time, I was listening to him and he was talking about this and he put a five dollar bill out of his Put it on the table and said, anybody who wants that five dollars can come up and pick it up. And nobody would except some little kid in the background. He came up and put it in his pocket and walked away. See, that kid wasn't tainted with religion. He was a kid who said, oh, if it's free, I'm going to take it. It's free. Take it. That's what God is saying to us. It's free. Take it. Now put the five bucks up there. That's why I didn't put it up there.

Can I observe something on that? We joke about the five dollars, but what I think is so awesome about the body of Christ is that if we understand for a relationship it means I can come to you confidently and I can say I'm going to ask Mike this thing and if Mike has time he's going to grace me with the thing and I don't have to come to you with timidity or fear or uncertainty or your checkbook But in all honesty, I know that I can come to you or anyone else in this room. Wayne lives right down the street from me. I've called him with plumbing issues while I'm out of town so many times he probably doesn't want to answer the phone. But because of grace we can do that. It's not just the five bucks, it's time, it's interaction. I mean, it's like, why would you not?

The more you realize and enter into the gifts that God has given you, you realize you're just a steward of what you have. And whatever God wants to do with what you're a steward of, He can do. You don't have any attachment to it. Now, it probably takes with American business guys, followers of the Constitution it takes the Holy Spirit 20 years to teach you to let go. It's mine.

What is always John's purpose in writing to believers? That we might believe. I have, did you guys like 1 John 5.13? I just read these things I've written to you that you who believe in the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life. in John 20, he said, therefore, many other signs Jesus also performed in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book, but these have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name. The great thing about the writers of the epistles of the New Testament is that they all had the same focus. They wanted every believer to know how rich they were. what they had, what belonged to them, and that they would own them and take them and live in the grace that was supplied to them. Question seven, what is the added testimony of truth that God provides here? Let's see if I've got a page. I don't know what page that was. Page 29. I think it's 29 still. What the write-up says, everybody understand the question?

What is the added testimony of truth that God provides here? My answer was he unites his witness to give us complete certainty. God has borne witness concerning his son that everyone who believes in him has life. The believer has the witness in his own spirit but here is the added testimony of the God of truth that he has the son who has the son has life.

See there is no life without him. The Lord Jesus Christ is life himself and without him you don't have life. You may have existence but you don't have life. Maybe that's what, because you know you hear eternal life and that's really hard to wrap your brain around. So maybe when he says eternal life it's including just you have life. Eternal life is not the same thing as unending existence.

It's not the same thing. It's an entirely new kind of life. It's the resurrected life of Christ. And it comes with unlimited and unmerited blessings. The life does. The Lord Jesus does. You can't separate the Lord Jesus from life. You can't do it. I'm going to get done I think. What gives the believer assurance? And the second part is, what doesn't give the believer assurance?

Well, the living word of the living God through the Holy Spirit. Okay, that's really good. That's a really good answer. I've worked out all this is written in the word of God for our assurance. You know, we talk a lot about reading the word of God in order to create intimacy with Christ. but also that the written word of God is your assurance.

When you start finding out this stuff, I know if you're like me, after you get to the second or third blessing, you think, oh no way, it's too much. God isn't that gracious. My wife isn't that gracious. My dog isn't that gracious. The government certainly isn't that gracious. So how could God be that gracious?

Well, that shows you the difference right there. It's not left to changing feelings, or dubious experiences, or faltering footsteps in the Lord's path. These could never give assurance. That's what Sam Brightout says. It's not left to your changing feelings, or my dubious experiences, or your faltering footsteps in the Lord's path. That could never give you assurance. But the living word of the living God brought home to the soul by the Holy Spirit, that is the witness of the Spirit that gives you assurance. That's not hard.

On page 30, this is a question I thought was going to take long. Is a review of all the Holy Spirit does in salvation list all of them? So how many of you wrote them down? How many did you get? I got eight. Good. I got five. You got five? That's good. Five out of eight is not bad.

The first thing is we have seen it begin in the deep work of conviction of sin and righteousness and judgment. That's the first thing we talked about was conviction. Remember that? leading the trembling soul to turn with repentance and faith to that Savior whom he had so long despised and rejected. Number three is we saw that this faith marked the new birth of the soul. Number four. This new birth we saw to be characterized by the impartation of a life from God with a totally sinless nature.

5. We next saw that every believer received the seal of the Spirit, the pledge and sample of our inheritance until the day of redemption, God's mark of his ownership of us. Seven, we saw that we were separated from the world. And eight, we have just concluded by dwelling upon the witness of the Spirit to us that we are the children of God. Those are the eight things that he put in there. That's really kind of a cool catalogue, isn't it? And we're only the third way through the book.

So, I don't know if this was from Rideout, yeah this was the last part, he wrote, may we not take to our homes and wherever we go, I'm going to say that again, may we not take to our homes or wherever we go that sweet assurance, question mark, if there is one doubting believer, strange combination he says, Will you, not now, take up the Spirit's word and cry, Abba Father? Pretty encouraging, I thought, the last part of that chapter.

The whole reason that believers spend time together in the Word of God is to assure one another, so that you have assurance, so that I have assurance. It's incredible that nobody in the world has assurance about anything. Place your faith in the stock market. See how that gets you. I went to the Nuggets game last night. They won with one second to go. I wasn't assured until after the buzzer went off. And we have those. Yeah, I think so.

Father, how we thank you for your word and your spirit of God and your spirit that teaches us and reveals to us the grace that we live under, the assurances that we have, that we are in fact your sons. And we thank you, we pray in the name of the Lord Jesus. Amen.