I would just like to say that
Brother Byrd has expressed my feelings wonderfully. Likewise, I thank God for you
all and for this time. I'm not as sure that I have been
sent to benefit you as much as I've been sent to be benefited
by you. But I'm thankful. I want you to turn again tonight
to the book of Ephesians, that first chapter. And I want to just read a couple
of verses as the apostle continues on, attributing all glory and
honor and praise to God our Savior. And here tonight, in these verses,
to God the Holy Spirit. In verse 13, he says of Christ,
he says, in whom ye also trusted, after that you heard the word
of truth, the gospel of your salvation. In whom also after
that you believed, you were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise,
which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased
possession unto the praise of his glory. False religion can operate quite
well since it is of the flesh by fleshly means, but not so with the church of
the living God. There is a hymn, not that I like
all the words of it entirely, but there is a line in an old
hymn that seems to always come back to my mind. It says, all is vain unless the
spirit of the Holy One come down. And that is true in our worship,
that is true in all that would go on in the name of God. It's all in vain, all the preaching,
all the singing, all the praying, all the doing, whatever it is. It is a lifeless, empty, vain
effort. but for the Spirit of God. All is vain unless the Spirit
of the Holy One come down. And so the Apostle Paul, being
led by the Spirit, would have us always to remember that the
Holy Spirit distinguished by God himself as the third person
of the Godhead, is co-equal and co-eternal with the Father and
the Son. And being God our Savior, he
is equally involved, equally active, and equally essential
in our salvation. And the work which he has set
himself to do and which he shall do is a work that is distinguished
in many ways throughout the scriptures. And I would not even begin tonight
to be able to tell all that he does. in glorifying the Godhead,
and in bringing out and saving the Lord's people. But we would
have to say, in light of what we're taught in Scripture, that
His work is first of all a work of resurrection. If you look
over in the Gospel of John, and I'll just wear you out tonight,
looking in the scriptures. But over in the Gospel of John,
in chapter 11, the Lord Jesus, in what he says
at the very physical resurrection of a man by the name of Lazarus,
He uses this as an illustration to show what must take place
in order for God, our Savior, to bring us from death to life. The Apostle Paul expresses it
in Ephesians 2, speaking of our having been dead in trespasses
and sins, he says, but you God hath quickened, made alive. And we must always realize and
always appreciate the order that he sets forth here in John chapter
11 and verse 26. After having said that he himself
is the resurrection and the life, he goes on to say in verse 26,
And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this? Now religion says, and in doing
so puts the cart before the horse. Because if you notice the order
that Christ gives here, it is this. It is whosoever lives and
believes in me shall never die. And the order here is simply
that we must be given life if we are to have faith. It is life that is essential,
and not physical life, but spiritual life, which I cannot explain,
by the way, and which I did not know anything about until I was
made alive. You remember Paul, when he tells
us, he says, I was before a blasphemer, injurious, You see, he didn't
know he was that until after. We never know what we are before
until after we are made alive, or as the language of Scripture
is, quickened by the Spirit of God. So His work is first of
all to us in that work of salvation that He takes upon Himself is
a work of resurrection. He must bring us from death to
life. He must quicken us by His Spirit. and enable us to do that which
is the evidence of life. We don't believe to get life. We believe because we have been
given life. So the spirit of God in this
work of salvation, he is first involved in a work of resurrection. Now, not only that, but according
to what we find in the scriptures here, that rather than this being
some kind of a second blessing, what he tells us is this. If
you look over in Romans 9, rather than being some kind of second
blessing or extra blessing given to a few, it is essential to
us, he says, in Romans chapter 8 and verse 9, in order that
we might know and believe the things of the gospel. Look over
in Romans 8 and verse 9, where he tells these people, he says,
but you are not in the flesh. Now, most people don't have any
understanding about that, do they? Because you know if He
was writing to them, there is a sense in which they were in
the flesh physically living. But He tells these people that
they are not in the flesh, that is, they do not in the flesh
and of the flesh look to anything done by the flesh physically
in order to salvation. But listen to what He says. But
you are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit. If so be that
the Spirit of God dwell in you. Dwell in you. So what he says
here is that the work of the Spirit is not only a work of
resurrection, but a work of habitation. He comes and indwells all of
the Lord's elect. Everyone that Christ died for,
everyone that the Father loved and chose, In that covenant,
before the world began, he entered into that agreement in the Godhead
to apply that which Christ accomplished. He said, if so be that the Spirit
of God dwell in you. Now I hear a lot of people say
things about that that I just don't find really in the Scripture. They talk about Christ dwelling
in us, which I surely do believe that He does. But when He talks
about Christ dwelling in us, Christ dwells in us according
to the Apostle by faith. He doesn't come to live personally
in us in His humanity, surely you know that. He dwells in us
by faith. But how does He dwell in us by
faith? because the Spirit of God indwells
us. This ought to really open our
eyes. He says, now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ,
if any person has not the Spirit of Christ, here are these people
trying to get the Spirit, trying to get the blessing of the Spirit. No, he says, if anybody has not
the Spirit of Christ, He's none of his. He comes to indwell us. He comes to give us life and
raise us to life. And then of course, as was read
there in John chapter 16, his work is a work of revelation. Revelation. Let me tell you how
blind and how dead and how ignorant and how stupid and how unable
any sinner is, and every sinner is, to understand or know or
believe or receive anything of God. We're of such a state that
if God leaves us to ourselves, if God leaves us to our own devices,
If we're left like Naaman might have been when he said in respect
and reaction to what the prophet told him, I thought. Let me tell
you what a thinking man's religion will get him. It will get him
a place in hell. Because our thoughts are not
God's thoughts. And our ways are not his ways.
What is necessary for you and I to have any light or to know
any truth or to have any faith or have any understanding in
the things of the Gospel is for the Holy Spirit to do a work
in us of resurrection and habitation indwelling us in a work of revelation. In Galatians 1, the Apostle Paul
says something that we ought to really seek to understand. Because he was a moral man, and
he was an educated man, educated at the feet of Gamaliel. He was a religious man, a Pharisee. He had some knowledge of true
things. He had some knowledge of the
scriptures and such as that. But when does he say he came
to know Christ? He said, when it pleased God
to reveal His Son in me. And what he's saying there is,
when it pleased God to reveal His Son in me, when He brought
me to see who His Son is, He did so through the scriptures,
and I didn't bother to go anywhere for a second opinion. I used to could read a book of
theology, I could read a biography and this and that and the other,
and I could be switched and swayed back and forth and all these
kind of things, you know. Somebody said this is what Christ
is, this is what He did and all these things. But when the Spirit
of God is pleased to reveal His Son in us and to us, we don't
need a second opinion. Brother Jim read there in chapter
16 of John's gospel. Look back in John chapter 16. Because Christ, in talking about
his departure from this earth, and saying that it is expedient
for you, necessary for you, that I go away. Because he said, if
I go away, I will send the comforter. And look at verse 13. He says,
how be it when he, the spirit of truth. Sometimes I think people
don't read that part. As a matter of fact, I'd say
that the people in this world, in this religious world, who
talk the most about the spirit, they're the fathers from the
truth. You say, how can you say that, preacher? He says, how
be it when He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He will guide
you into all truth. You say, well, are you indwelt
by the Spirit? Yes. Have you been guided into
all truth? Yes. You say, that sounds a little
bit arrogant. No, because the truth is Christ
and Him crucified. He says, He will guide you into
all truth, for He shall not speak of Himself, It's almost as if
each person in the Godhead is speaking in a kind of submissive
way to the other persons of the Godhead to show that there is
an unchanging and unbreakable harmony in the Godhead. He will
not speak of himself, but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he
speak. He will show you things to come. I love that reading in the study
tonight. That reading said to me, this
is what's going to happen. This is what's going to take
place. He will show you things to come. But notice that 14th
verse. He shall glorify me. For he shall receive of mine,
and shall show it unto you. All things that the Father hath
are mine. Therefore said I, that he shall
take of mine, and shall show it unto you." Long time ago. When the Lord began to teach
me the truth, and I began to try as best I
could to preach it, it met with little positive reception. And the pressure got to be such
where I had to leave the religious organization that I was pastoring.
Well, like I said, religion goes on. Religion doesn't need the
spirit of God. Religion is mechanical, fleshly,
goes right on. And so when I resigned on one
Sunday, the next Sunday, the local association, they had a
fellow right in there to pick up the slack and go on. And he walked up to the pulpit.
They had sung some opening songs. And he said this. He said, let's
sing another hymn because there's a sweet spirit in this place. And when they began to sing that
next hymn, he stumbled and fell on the pulpit. A nurse ran to
his side that was sitting nearby and he had a heart attack and
he died and never said a word. Why? Because the Spirit of God
is the Spirit of Truth. The Spirit of Truth. And it says
here that the Spirit of God, the Comforter, the Spirit of
Truth, that he will take the things of Christ and show them
to the Lord's people. Why do we preach the gospel?
Why do we preach Christ? I got an email from a man recently. He said, thank you so much for
plainly and clearly preaching Christ to me. I got a phone call
yesterday from a lady in Tennessee, thank you for preaching Christ
to me. Why do we do that? Why are we
like a broken record? Because the Spirit of God takes
the things of Christ. He doesn't take what I think
about Christ. What I've come up with about
Christ, what I've deduced from my study of the scripture, he
takes the things of Christ and he shows them to us. His work
is a work of revelation. He takes the things of Christ. Like Paul says, he said, I have
not shunned to declare all the counsel of God. And he tells
those Corinthians, he said, the thing that I preached to you
in the first, that's the same thing I'm preaching. And what
is it, Paul? How that Christ died according
to the Scriptures. How did He die? Well, I'd say
since The Apostle was talking about the Old Testament Scriptures.
He means how Christ died as was pictured in the types and the
sacrifices and the offering and the priesthood and all those
things of the Old Testament Scriptures. He is the Spirit of Truth. And the Spirit of truth uses
the Word of truth to reveal to the Lord's people Christ who
is Himself the truth. I think about this every once
in a while. What distinguishes those who are born of God from
those who are not? I think that's a fair thing to
pursue a little information about what distinguishes. I hear people
say concerning moral actions or the lack of them, real Christian
wouldn't do that. But you can give me the list
of the things that most people think a real Christian won't
do, couldn't do, and I can take you somewhere in the Bible where
a real Christian did them. So what will somebody who's born
of God, born again, born from above, what will they do and
not do that those who are not will do and not do. What distinguishes the Lord's
people? They stumble, they fall, they
fail. So what distinguishes them? You
say, well, they're nice people. There are a lot of nice people
out there. Well, they're sincere. No, there are a lot of more people
sincere than I am. They're sincerely wrong, but
they're more sincere. So what is it? They believe. Is that not right? They have true faith, which is
evidence in the fact that they believe the truth, the word of
truth, the gospel of their salvation, the word of truth concerning
Christ, in Him crucified. They may stumble. They do stumble. They may fall and they do fall. They may make mistakes. They may do a lot of things.
But they will never fully and eternally cease to believe and
trust in Christ alone. Because the Spirit of God has
revealed Him to them. And faith is wrought in our hearts
by the Spirit of God. I can remember hearing Brother
Mahan say a lot of times, he said, you cannot believe in an
unrevealed Christ. How can they call upon Him of
whom they've not heard? How can they believe without
having heard of the true Christ? He must do this work of revelation,
taking the things of Christ from the Gospel and showing them unto
us. Paul said it's written. It is
written, I hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered
into the heart of man the things which God hath prepared for them
that love him. Somebody always says, always
takes that part of a verse and they say, I see there you can't
really know. I had a man tell me one time,
he said, I'll be glad when I die so I can find out if I'm going
to heaven or not. He's supposed to believe grace. How can that be? Because Paul follows right on
the heels of that statement with this. He says, but God hath revealed
them unto us by His Spirit. For the Spirit searcheth all
things, yea, the deep things of God. What do we find out by the Spirit?
What does the Spirit of God reveal? He says, going on in that same
chapter, He says, this work of God, this revelation of God by
His Spirit and Word is so that we might know the things that
are freely given unto us of God. And I'll promise you this, wherever
you find the emphasis on just the Spirit or wherever you find
the emphasis on anything other than that which is freely given
us of God, that's not the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is not leading
men to give something to God or to do something for God. The Holy Spirit is taking the
Scriptures and showing to the Lord's people these things, all
these things, which really is everything that God has freely
given thee. If you ever are taught by the
Spirit of God what you are and what you can do and all these
things, you'll just be so happy to hear it, you can't stand it.
Freely given. Don't tell me what I'm to do.
There are some things that we are commanded to do in Scripture,
and I'm not minimizing that. But as the basis of my hope and
my salvation and my comfort and all that, don't tell me what
to do. Paul describes. I mean, Jude
describes in the first verse of his epistle this work of the
triune God. He identifies these people. He
says this, to them that are sanctified by God, the Father, that's the
Father, preserved in Jesus Christ and called. mightily, effectually, using
the Word of Truth, revealing Christ, drawing the Lord's people
unto the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul, when he writes in 2 Thessalonians,
he said, But we are bound to give thanks always to God for
you, brethren, beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the
beginning chosen you to salvation. What a statement! But that's not all of it. Through sanctification of the
Spirit and belief of the truth, whereunto he called you by our
gospel to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. Sanctification. Sanctification
of the Spirit of God. Somebody says, sanctification
is God making us more holy. There's just a little problem
with that. The same word and truth is used of Christ Himself. Are you accusing of blasphemy
the one that the Father sanctified? That's what our Lord says. You
reckon the Father made the Son more holy? No. He set Him apart to this
work. And that is what He is speaking
of in this sanctifying work of the Spirit of God, because it
brings the Lord's people, these chosen by the Father and redeemed
by the Son, it brings them to believe the truth. That's what
Christ said. He says in John 17, sanctify
them through thy truth, thy word is truth. There is this work of resurrection
and this work of habitation and this work of revelation. Now I don't use the term new
nature. I'm sorry. You can go out and say, you know,
well, he doesn't believe in the work of the Spirit, and lie if
you want to, because it will be a lie. I don't use that term
because I don't find it in the Bible. As a matter of fact, every
time I find the word nature or natural used in Scripture, it's
in reference, for the most part, except one, to fallen nature,
that nature we got from Adam. But the Spirit of God works,
and His is a work of revelation. He comes to indwell us. He comes to reveal us. revealed
to us the Lord Jesus Christ and all the things that God has freely
given unto us. Paul says in Ephesians 1, verse
17, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory,
may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the
knowledge of Him. I want to know Him. I don't want
to know Him in some abstract sense, a spirit, another spirit
come along and in my mind, in my inner thoughts, reveal a Jesus
that Paul called another Jesus, being another spirit. I want to know Christ. And the
only way I can know Christ is for the Spirit of Truth to take
the Word of Truth and distinguish him, cause me to know him as
he is and as he describes himself in this book. The only way you
can know who Jesus Christ is and what he actually has done
is for the Spirit of God to take this Word of God and reveal it. And the Holy Spirit reveals nothing
more and nothing less than what He has given us in the Scriptures
which He led Himself these men to write. And He does nothing
in us that would cause us to trust His work in us rather than
Christ. Is that right? If you've been led by a spirit
to trust a work in you by the Spirit rather than Christ, you're
in real trouble. Not only is his work a work of
revelation, his work is a work of affirmation. That's a fancy
sermon, isn't it, preacher? Affirmation. Well, what do you
mean by that? Well, in that 13th verse, he
uses that word seal. Look back over there in Ephesians
1 and verse 13. The apostle says that the Spirit
of God, he says, you were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise. What's a seal? Well, in Paul's day, If the king
or some notable person wrote a letter, issued an edict of
some kind, if it had the seal of the king on it, it had the
authority of the king. That seal was a sign of authority. Not only that, it was a symbol
of ownership. And it was a seal of security. The Lord's people are said to
be sealed by this Holy Spirit of promise. Now, I can't say
if you're a child of God or not.
I have people every now and then, I almost sense that they're wanting
me to give them assurance that they're a Christian. You've come
to the wrong man. I don't know a thing about your
heart." But this is what the Apostle
tells us in Romans 8. He says the Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit
that we are the children of God. I know that there was a time,
and still in some circles that's the way it is, that there's a
bounty put out, a prize for unbelief. If you can doubt a little longer,
if you can search yourself, if you can be a seeker for 30 years
or 50 years, whatever it is, you know, you know what that
is? Is that piety? That's unbelief. That's that
sin that does so easily beset us. Unbelief. But he says the Spirit of God,
the Spirit Himself, bears witness with our spirit that we are the
children of God. John said, he that believeth
on the Son of God hath the witness in himself. He that believeth
not God hath made him a liar, because he believeth not the
record that God gave of his Son. You say, Preacher, I read the
Bible once in a while, and I try to study a little bit, but I
don't have much comfort. Well, I can't give you any. But if you're a child of God,
I do so much believe that if you're His child, His Spirit
is going to bear witness to your spirit that you are His child. Now I'll tell you how I am. I'm
going to be honest with you. Sometimes it's like I do my best
to try to prove to God that there's no way I can be. I just beat myself up and I get
disappointed in myself and that old flesh enters back in and
I'm trying to, it's that creeping unbelief in that I'm going to
try to, on the basis of what I have not done and how I failed,
I'm going to determine my salvation on that basis. And sometimes
I can convince myself pretty good. But there's always that spirit
of God working in my heart. There's
that light I can't blow out. There's that voice I cannot silence. There's that witness to my spirit
that I cannot explain that says, based on what God says in His
Word, oh yes, you are. As a matter of fact, Paul says,
and because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of
His Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. Oh, Father. Those weak disciples, such as
Peter, John chapter 6, They watch as that crowd goes,
and I'm sure they were getting a little shaky. He didn't have
a big following anymore. Christ said, will you also go
away? They said, Lord, to whom shall
we go? You've got the words of truth,
the words of life. And we believe and are sure. that you are that Christ. Did
you notice the order of that? Where does assurance come from? It comes from the Spirit of God
enabling us to believe God. I always think about what Brother
Richardson said, he said, most of us don't know God enough to
believe Him, trust Him. We believe and are sure that
you are that Christ. We don't know everything about
you, but what you reveal in Scripture
of yourself and how your Word distinguishes you and shows you
to be the Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, we believe and are
sure that you're that. And then furthermore, his work
is a work of consolation. He's the spirit of comfort to
God's elect. That's why he's called the Comforter.
I believe that word is paraclete, or it means one called alongside,
one that walks with you. Oh, I feel so alone. If you're
the Lord's child, you're not. He's the Comforter. He said, I'll pray the Father
and He shall give you another Comforter that He may abide with
you forever. He's going away. That was necessary. He said, I'll not leave you comfortless. Because the Spirit of God is
the Comforter. Well, how does He comfort us?
by bringing to our remembrance the grace of God to us in Christ. That's when we're comforted.
We may be in the midst of a terrible affliction. We may be in the
midst of a terrible trial in the family. We may be at the
end of our rope, humanly speaking, as we say. But we have a comforter. And when we are at that low point,
it's like somebody opens the floodgate, a valve or something,
and into our minds come back these promises that we know to
be yea and amen in Christ. I'll never leave you or forsake
you. I'll never leave you to yourself.
I'll never leave you to your enemies. He comforts us. I can tell you from the trials
in my own life that the only place I found any relief is in the Word of God, when the
Spirit of God takes it, makes it fresh to our minds, and gives
us faith to believe. I can say that at the lowest
points in my life as a believer, the only relief I found I'd go
over there to the Psalms and I'd read old David and what he
said, and David seemed to have more courage to say the things
I really wanted to say. He expressed my heart's cry and
my failures and my fears and all that, but when he speaks
of the relief that God gave him, you know, it's a strange thing.
I get relief from that. He's the spirit of promise. He'll bring all things to your
remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you. He says, God hath not given us
the spirit of fear, but of power and of love and a sound mind. And then I was getting so far
into this, I had to come up with a couple more. His work is a
work of navigation. As many as are led by the Spirit
of God, they are the children of God. He leads us, of course, in the
way of obedience. He does not ever lead us back
to Sinai. Somebody said, well, if you preach
the gospel, you've got to take them first to Sinai and then
to Calvary. He don't ever lead you to Sinai. He leads us in instruction. Because we do what we do because
we've been saved by His grace. He constrains us by love. He
motivates us by grace. But He always leads us to the
Lord Jesus Christ. The only hope, the only peace,
the only way, the only truth, all weighs back to Christ. Spurgeon
said, like all roads lead to London, all verses of Scripture
lead to Christ, and you do best when you get there the quickest
you can. He leads His people. You say,
well, preacher, you don't know my life. Boy, it's been a winding,
twisting. Let me tell you something. I
can tell you the story on that one. Winding, twisting, up and
down, failing, falling, in and out and all this kind of stuff.
Trusting and then full of unbelief and failure and all this kind
of stuff. I said, He leads by His Spirit. And the best way to know whether
or not God led us or not is just look back where we come from. He's leading us all the way. Then His work is a work of production. Now I said I didn't use the term
new nature, but I don't mean there's not
a work of the Spirit. And the things that men attribute
sometimes to what they call a new nature, if you look over in Galatians
chapter 5, he tells us in contrast to the
works of the flesh or the fruit of the flesh, he says in verse
22, but the fruit of the Spirit, The fruit of the Spirit. I don't believe that's a new
nature in us. I believe that's a new person in us. The Holy Spirit. But the fruit
of the Spirit. Fruit's what goes on a tree.
It's the product of the tree. We don't have any life in us. But we've been grafted into Christ. He's the root. We're the branches. We have fruit because we're joined
to the root. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness,
goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. Against
such, there is no law. What is that? The product of
something done to us? No, the product of the one who
dwells in us. It's the fruit of the Spirit.
Not even the fruits of the Spirit, is it? It's the fruit of the
Spirit. If you get anything at all out
of what I preach, It didn't come from me. It comes
from Christ. Paul said, Know ye not that ye
are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in
you? I don't pretend to be able to
explain that. But I'll tell you something I
don't want to do also. I don't want to attribute to
myself Something that is the work of God. Because the Holy Spirit, in His
work, indwelling us, revealing to us, quickening us, is God saving us. His work is a work of preservation. Sealed, as I said, means preserved. We're kept by the power of God
through faith. We're sealed, the apostle says,
until the day of redemption. Now that confuses some people. But what he's talking about is
the redemption of the body. Christ is made unto us wisdom,
righteousness, sanctification, redemption. And somebody said,
well, really the order is, no, the Spirit of God knows the order. And He's ordered a redemption.
He bought us lock, stock, and barrel. He's going to have us lock, stock,
and barrel. And there's a day of redemption,
the redemption of the body that Paul said the whole creation
is in travail for that hour. And we've got an internal inheritance. And we've already got the earnest
for it. You know what the earnest is?
You ever entered into a contract or a deal and received or gave
what we call earnest money? That seals the deal. You give
that man $500, you're going to give him $5,000 more, and that
$500 guarantees it. Christ is the earnest. The Spirit
of God witnesses that in us. That we have this earnest, we
have these promises, we have this assurance in us that more
is to come. Grieve not the Holy Spirit, whereby
you are sealed unto the day of redemption. You think we'll really
get that new body? Guaranteed. Boy, I can't wait
for it. This one is wearing out fast. There is something that I want
us to make sure we understand. And that is that there is an
agreement. Though there is a distinction
in the Godhead, there is an agreement. And it has to do concerning Christ. The Godhead has determined that
the preeminence be in Christ. That if we have Christ, we have
the Father and the Spirit. Because in Him dwells all the
fullness of the Godhead bodily. The Father chose us in Christ.
The Spirit of God brings us to Christ in faith. And so to believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ is to believe on God, our Savior. The Father and the Son As John
said, these three are one. They're one in essence, they're
one in purpose, and they're one in power. Well over 30 years ago, I walked
through that door. No, I didn't. I walked through
the back door back there. I didn't get in for the first
service. I'd driven all the way from North Carolina. I didn't
get in for the first service because there was a thug at the
back door. His name was Paul or something like that. He wouldn't
let me go in. The service had already started. But I finally got in. And I picked
up one of these bulletins at some point. That's been a long
time ago. But I remember the first thing
that struck me was the words on the cover. To the one God of heaven and
earth, in the trinity of his sacred persons, be all honor
and glory. To the glorious Father as the
covenant God, to the gracious Son, the redeemer of his people,
To the Holy Ghost, the author of sanctification, be everlasting
praise for that gospel of the free grace of God. And so when I got here this time,
30 plus years later, picked up my bulletin, guess what it said? Same thing. Same God, same gospel. And that's the way it will be.
And I thank God for it. I do. I bless Him in the person
of our Father. I rejoice in that. I bless Him
in the person of our Redeemer, the Lord Jesus Christ. I bless
Him and thank Him for the Holy Spirit that reveals Christ and
keeps us and teaches us. And I love you. Thank you.