Psalm 4, 6. There be many that say, who will
show us any good? Lord, lift thou up the light of Thy
countenance upon us. The faith of faith, the hope of hope, the love of love is the light
of the Lord's countenance. It's the light of the Lord's
countenance. I want to talk to you this morning,
particularly to believers, because you're going to be the only ones
that's going to enter into this. But you who are sitting here
without Christ, you listen. Maybe the Lord will lift up the
light of His countenance upon you today. I'm talking to you who have been
born of the Spirit of God, who've been given light, who've been
given life in your heart. You know by certain seasons in
this life. It's this way in every season.
This is the truth of how it is in every season. But there's
certain seasons, more so than others, when the Lord lets us
see this is so. He lets us see this is the truth.
There are certain seasons in our life where we see, really
do see, there is absolutely no power in us to restrain sin and
to stop our flesh. There is absolutely no way to
do it. And God lets us see that sometimes. He lets us see that sometimes. He makes us to see now and then
that sin in our flesh, if left to ourself, sin will reign over
our minds, sin will reign over our will, sin reigns over all
that we would do. The only thing that prevents
sin from having reign over us is the reign of Christ. That
is all. Now a believer knows that. A
believer knows that so. A believer's been made honest
and he'll tell you that's absolutely so. Our fleshly will together
with all the will of all the men in this earth cannot do,
cannot produce what God produces by the light of His countenance. What is the light of His countenance? What is the light of His countenance? That's what I want to talk about
this morning. The light of His countenance.
Whenever the Lord has left us to see that, to see that that's
what we are in our flesh, The Lord sometimes puts the prayer
in our heart by pressing it out of us, by bringing us down to
the dust so that what we cry unto the Lord is not what the
many cry. We don't just cry, Lord, just
show us any good. Somebody show us some good. Who's
going to show us any good? We pray to the Lord. And this is what we ask Him.
Lord, lift thou up the light of your countenance. What is
that? What is it? Well, look over at
Psalm 80. We looked at this verse Thursday
night. And I just want you to see. I want you to see from this
Psalm what it is. Psalm 80. I can't read the whole psalm
to you, but let me just begin with this. This is what it is
a desire after. This is what it is. Verse 1.
Give ear. That's what it is, to have the
ear of God. Give ear, O shepherd of Israel. Is to know, to come into the
realization that He is my shepherd. He's got me. He's leading me. He's protected me. Thou that
leadest Joseph like a flock, thou that dwellest between the
cherubims, shine forth. Shine forth. Before Ephraim and
Benjamin and Manasseh, stir up thy strength. That's what the
light of His countenance is. It's His strength. It's to be
made to know His strength, the power of His strength. And He
says, come. It's to have the Lord God come
to us and save us. That's what it is, to have the
light of His countenance. Here's what it is, verse 3. Turn
us again, O God. It's to be turned again. Repentance
is not a one-time thing. It's a continual thing. It's
to be turned again. Turn us again, O God. Cause Thy
face to shine. This is what it is. It's to have
His face to shine in our face. For the eye of faith
in our heart is to have His face shine. Turn us again, O God, and cause
Thy face to shine, and we shall be saved. Man, that must be some
look. That it just immediately makes
us to know, I'm saved. We're talking about His look
to us. Look down at verse 6. Thou makest us, thou doth, thou
makest us a strife unto our neighbors, and our enemies laugh among themselves. Turn us again, O God of hosts,
and cause thy face to shine, and we shall be saved. Look down
at verse 18. So will not we go back from thee? Quicken us, and we will call
upon thy name. That's what it is, is to be quickened. That's when we call upon his
name. That's when we say, Lord, lift up the light of thy countenance.
Quickening is not a one-time thing, you know that? We have
to be revived continually, refreshed, regenerated continually. That's
the only time we're not going back from him is when we feel
the reviving of his spirit, truly. The rest of the time we're walking
away from him and we'll just flat away, flat out walk away
from him if he didn't keep turning us back. That's how we don't
turn away from him. That's how we don't go back.
Quicken us and we will call upon thy name. Turn us again, O Lord
God of hosts. Well, if you just said we won't
go back from you if you quicken us, then how come they need to
be turned again? That's what I'm saying. When he turns us again, that's
when we don't go back. But he constantly is turning
us again so that we don't go back. That's how we don't go
back. Turn us again, O Lord God of hosts. Cause thy face to shine
and we shall be saved. Now let's go over to, told you
a place in Psalm, we'll come back here, but let's go to 2
Corinthians 4. I was tiptoeing so much Thursday
night when I began to see these things, and I pray the Lord to
give me the liberty to bring them to you now. You know, Melinda
got one of those big magnifying mirrors here recently, and I've
been at folks' houses that had one of those and looked into
it, That thing's sitting on the bathroom counter. And I've looked
into it a couple of times. And you see what you are when
you look in that thing. You see the dirt you are. And
it's the ugly truth when you look in that mirror. It shows
you exactly what you are. Well, we go in this world and
we get to going along and we get to seeing By His grace, by
God's grace, God gets to magnifying to us the light of our image,
all our imperfection, all our unholiness, all our sinfulness. And we begin to see it. We begin
to see it. And He presses us. He brings
us to cry out, Lord, lift up the light of Thy countenance. I can't look in His face anymore. I can't behold this anymore.
And this is what God does when He calls us to see the light
of His countenance. 2 Corinthians 4, 3. Let me just
read this to you. Paul said, If our gospel be hid,
it's hid to them that are lost, in whom the God of this world
hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest otherwise
This is what happens. The light of the glorious truth of Christ,
the gospel of Christ, the truth of Christ, who is the very image
of God, who is the face of God, who is the countenance of God,
the image of God, shines into our heart. shines under them. This is what happens. The truth
shines. When God shines the light of
his countenance, we don't behold our sinful image shining back
at us, looking back at us. We come to the mirror and we
look and we don't see our own ugly, sinful, unholy, dirty,
polluted, self-righteous face looking back at us. That's not
what we see looking back at us. We see the truth of the gospel
looking back at us. And this is the truth of the
Gospel. When He shines into the heart of His people, He shows
us the image we really are. He shows us the face that the
believer really is. And it's Christ. the very one
who is the very image of God. Look down at verse 6. For God
who commanded the light to shine out of darkness has shined in
our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory
of God in the face of Jesus Christ. What would you rather have looking
at you? Would you rather have somebody
that you trust with everything. Would you rather have them frowning
at you or smiling at you? Which one? When you see this
light of God's countenance, when God shines the face of Christ
Jesus into our hearts, we don't see that frowning, disheartened,
discouraged, downcast look that we are in our face, in our flesh,
we see the smile of God looking back at us. We see the smile
that he has towards his child because of what Christ has done
for him and for his child, for us. That's what we see. This
is the truth of the gospel we behold. We look into this When
God shines His light in our heart, we hear in our hearts what God's
been declaring to us in this gospel. We come and we hear it,
and we hear it, and we don't believe it. We don't believe
what God says to us in this gospel. It just becomes words that we
just hear over and over and over, and we think we know it, we think
we know it, until God puts our face face down in what we are. and then gently lifts our head
to behold what we really are in Christ Jesus. And when we
see that face shining back at us, we see the smile that God
has towards His own Son, towards us because of His own Son, because
His Son came forth and glorified Him. We see the smile that God
has towards us because His Son came forth and fulfilled all
righteousness. We see the smile that God has
towards His child of mercy because Christ came forth and on our
behalf, He became absolutely polluted by having the sin of
us laid upon Him and the justice of God poured out on Him. His
bruise, the bruise, the bruise that He bore so that He put away
all the wrath of God toward us. We see the smile of God's face
towards His Son and we see His Son smiling towards us in our
hearts. That's what we see when the light
of His countenance shines upon us. And you know what happens
when we behold that? This is what happens when we
behold that. We are changed into the very same image that we see
looking back at us. Look up at chapter 3, verse 18. We all, this is what happens
for the believer, this is what happens. We all with open face
beholding as in a glass, as in a mirror, the glory of the Lord,
We behold just like looking into a mirror, but we don't behold
our face, we behold the glory of the Lord. We behold the face
of Christ Jesus. We behold Him who has perfected
us forever. And when we look and see His
glory, we're changed into the same image from glory to glory,
even as by the Spirit of the Lord. It's by the Spirit working
this and revealing this in the heart. Tell me what that means. We come to the mirror. ugly in
our sin, downcast, and He gives us a view of the
image that we really are in God's presence. And when we see this
light with our open face, just like looking into a mirror, then
this gloomy, frightened, strengthless sinner is changed in the new
man, in the heart, into the same image We see and know and realize
in our heart, I really am what God says I am. I really am as
how God says I am. I'm not how I see me, and I'm
not how you see me. I am how God sees me, and God
sees me perfect, absolutely spotless and sinless, as righteous as
God is righteous, as perfect as God is perfect in His blessed
Son. And when we see that, you know
what happens? What does it mean we're changed into the same image?
You know what it means? The depravity we are that has
just pulled us and sank us down into this mess of corruption,
It's overcome. It's overcome. The doubting that
we are where we just doubt and we just, oh, I can't be a child
of God. I can't be His. You ever had
that? You ever felt that? You ever
known that? This doubting that we are, it's overcome. All of this darkness that we
are in ourselves, and all of this darkness and bondage we're
walking around in, and we just have weighted down under, it's
taken off of us. That weight's taken off of us,
and our darkness is turned into light. All that stuff we were walking
around and trying to pretend and convince ourselves and convince
everybody else that would listen to us was holiness, which just
plagued us and just put a thorn in our own side to the point
that we just knew in our heart of hearts, this is not holiness.
This thing I've been walking around trying to convince myself
is holiness, this is not holiness. I ain't fooled anybody but myself. This is not holiness. Oh, but
when we see the glory of this light, we see holiness. And we
realize, I am holy. In Christ, I'm holy. I see my righteousness. I see
my holiness. We're brought to see when we
have no strength, absolutely no power, absolutely no strength,
when we just don't, when all we can do is just, and this is
by His grace, this is by His light, it's by the Holy Spirit
making intercession in our hearts with us because we don't even
know how to pray what we ought to pray. It's Him bringing us to the point
to where we cry out and say, Lord, I don't have any strength! And we see this light. And then we have all the strength.
Christ our strength. Do you see, do you understand?
The light of His countenance separates the new man from the
vanity of the old man. The light of His countenance
brings that love and that joy that you can't put into words.
It's the light of His countenance that's our salvation from our
flesh and from the temptation of our own flesh and in this
world. It's the faith of faith and the
hope of hope and the love of love to have His face shine back
at us and see what we are. see who we are. Now don't misunderstand
what I'm saying. Our flesh, it's just what it's
always been. Our flesh, you go home and look
in one of them magnifying mirrors. That don't reveal the half of
it. Our flesh is just as carnal and
as corrupt and as ugly and as vain and as dead and as loathsome
as ever. I'm not talking about a change
in that man at all. I'm not talking about that change
at all. I'm talking about something that happens inside the heart.
I'm talking about something that happens inside the new man that's
created of God. You can tiptoe. You can walk
on your hands from From here to there, you can flip backwards
and do somersaults and you can do anything because you have
the strength and the wisdom and the righteousness and the holiness
that our Christ is shining into our hearts so that we see I am
as God says I am. How does God say I am? Look at
1 John 4. How does God say you are, believer?
1 John 4, 17. Herein is our love made perfect,
that we may have boldness in the day of judgment, because
as He is, so are we in this world. That's what we see when we see
the glory of God in the face of Christ Jesus. How is He? How is He? He's seated at God's
right hand. So are we. And that's what you
see in the light of His countenance. reigning over sin and sin has
no touch on him, nothing else to say to him. That's how we
are in Christ. That's the light we see in this
countenance shining back at us. How is he? He's dead to the world,
dead to the law, and it has nothing else to say to him at all. It
can't overcome him. It can't have anything else to
charge him with. It can't say anything to him
because he's fulfilled it all. That's how we are. That's how
we are. Dead to this flesh, dead to the
law, dead to the world. He's with the Father. Married
as it were. There with Him in union with
the Father. You know what we understand by
the light of this countenance? We find out that we have, that
the old man that was so Such a taskmaster is dead and we're
married to Christ now. We're in union with Him and one
with Him. And we behold this in the light
of His countenance in the heart. And when we have the light of
His countenance in our heart, we walk in His light. We walk
in His light. The rest of the time, you know
what we do? We walk in the sparks we've kindled. That's right. We walk in the sparks we've kindled
the rest of the time. Oh, you ought not to say that
about a believer. Is it not so, believer? Do you not find it
to be so? But when He shines His light,
we walk in His light. We quit trying to walk in the
light that we've kindled by ourselves. We say, Thou has made me most
blessed forever. Thou has made me exceeding glad
with Thy countenance. You put gladness in my heart
more than in the time that their corn and their wine increase.
I don't need to help. This is when we realize it's
not money holding me back. It's not the bills holding me
down. It's not the mortgage holding me down. It's not other centers
holding me back. It's not corn and wine that's
keeping me from walking after the Lord and giving all to Him. That's not what's keeping me
from it. It's my own corrupt flesh. That's what it is. But
when we behold this treasure shining unto us, we're blessed
and we have gladness in our heart more than when all this world
has their harvest of corn and wine. We got something better than
the when the elite meet together
and try to determine how everything's going to be spent and managed,
we got Christ the treasure. Christ the treasure. It makes
us to repent from our murmuring. It makes us to cry out and say,
oh, my soul, why are you disquieted in me? Why are you disquieted? Why do you keep murmuring and
keep complaining and keep acting like like everything that Christ
is you're not? Why do you keep acting like you
don't have an inheritance reserved in heaven for you? Why do you
keep acting like Christ, who spared not His only begotten
Son, will not provide all things for you? Oh my soul, why are
you disquieting within me? Why do you keep murmuring and And for a little while, for a
little while, sin becomes a hated thing. By this light shining
in our hearts, sin becomes a hated thing. Temptation becomes weakened. The soul becomes separated from
all those worldly pursuits that we're always going after. We
become separated from those things. All the ambition of our pride,
which is nothing but prideful ambition and a desire to be respected
among people, Ah, that's a bunch of pride. That's the stuff of
carnality is exactly what it is. And that's all it does is
make us carnal. But for a little while, while
the light of His countenance is shining in our heart, we're
separated from that garbage. And we see it for what it is,
and we hate it and loathe it about us. And we start praying
for His countenance. We start saying, Lord, this is
what I really need. This is all I really need is
the light of Your countenance to be shining upon me. If you
turn me, I'll be turned. If you quicken me, I'll be quickened.
If you keep me, I'll be kept. If you're my strength, I can
run. If you're my light, I can walk.
If when you're my hope, I got a hope better than anything in
this world. And then we can encourage our
brethren. We say, O house of Jacob, come, let's walk in the
light of the Lord. And we don't we don't try to
encourage them with that old with that old thing that won't
even manage us. We can't even manage ourselves
with it. We stopped trying to manage others with it to arts
manager and up. Some of you have your own business
or you've been in management manager business. That is hands
down. That's the hardest job in the
world, managing people. That's the hardest job in the
world, managing people. Because people just are not going
to be managed. They just not. They just, while
you're looking, or maybe to be seen by you because
it's time to, bonus time or raise time, time to get a raise is
coming around. It's the end of the year evaluation
time coming around. But usually, folks just won't
be managed. God's church is not run like
a business. Because there's nothing that
can manage a sinner but the light of God's countenance. That's
all. Do you know that to be so about
yourself? What can manage you? What can bring you to this point
we're talking about right here. What can do this? There's absolutely
nothing that can do this but the height of his countenance.
This, what I'm saying is, when we have the light of His countenance,
we stop trying to manage each other with the sparks we've kindled. And we stop trying to manage
each other with the wisdom of this puny, ignorant brain. And we stop trying to manage
people with this foot by driving them like they're a goat. We
stop trying to manage our brethren that way. And then we start encouraging
our brethren with this light that we have. And we abhor that
whip and that We've tried, I've tried a thousand times. I keep
grinding that thing up and burning it and throwing it and putting
it out in the garbage and the trash truck keeps coming by picking
it up. And that whip of the law, that whip of my flesh just keeps
showing right back up on my doorstep again. Just can't get rid of
it. And I abhor it. I hate it. You
know how many times I'm up? I myself, the real me, overcomes
that very fleshly legal thing in the light of His countenance.
You know how it's going to overcome you? You're going to overcome
it? In the light of His countenance.
In the light of His countenance. All the unity of heart between
God and His people, all the unity of heart between brethren, All
unity of heart in the direction that we should go today, and
this week, and this month, and this year. All the unity of heart
in the assurance that God has, is, and shall provide. All unity
of heart which will manifest to those around us that we really
do believe the Christ we preach. All is created in the heart by
God through the joyful sound by the light of his countenance. Psalm 89, 15 says, blessed is
the people that know the joyful sound. They shall walk, O Lord,
in the light of thy countenance. That's up. I want to tell you,
one time when I was about eight years old, I grew up in a little
town in South Arkansas, which is very close to a town even
smaller than where I grew up, called Falk, Arkansas. F-A-U-L-K. It's right outside of Texarkana,
Arkansas. I grew up close to there. And
in the early 70s, there was a movie that came out, supposed to have
been a true story, and it was called The Legend of Boggy Creek.
And it was about a Bigfoot. And I saw that movie. I saw that
movie. I spent most all my time in the
woods in the creek bottoms. And I was about eight years old.
And I can remember being in that back in there one day and I was
miles from anybody. I was by myself. And I can remember
after seeing that, you know how it is after you something like
that scares you. I can remember being down there
in those woods, and I can remember looking down through the woods,
and you could see it's flat in a creek bottom, you know, and
you could see a long ways down through the woods. It's not as
many trees. It's open. And I can remember
looking down through those woods, and I thought I saw Bigfoot. Now, you couldn't have convinced
me otherwise. I thought I saw him. And when I did, I froze
in fear. I mean, I didn't take a step. I didn't move a muscle. I tried
not to blink an eye. I just stopped, and I was just
scared to death. Before that, the birds were singing,
the sun was shining, and I was walking along having a big time.
When that happened, it was like everything went silent. And there
wasn't any sunshine, and there wasn't any birds singing, and
there wasn't anything but me just frozen in fear. We get that way. What happens
is, left to ourselves, we see through a glass darkly. Even when we see, we don't see
the full, but we see through a glass darkly. And the reason
we doubt and the reason we get so tossed, the reason we're not
more doers and less doubters is because in our flesh, We're
just like a man that looks into his natural face in the mirror
and walks away and straightway forgets what kind of man he was,
forgets what he saw in the mirror. You ever seen a man do that?
How many times, when you get dressed in the mornings, how
many times you go look in the mirror? You get dressed and We put our
fellows, we put our ties on, and we get it all on, and we
walk away. You go back and look in the mirror
again. You have a spot on your shirt
or on your tie or something like that, and you go back and look
in the mirror as if it's going to be gone. It's still there. You keep going back and looking.
We forget, straight away forget. Reason we're doubters instead
of doers. The reason we get frozen in fear
is we forget brethren. what we've seen in the light
of His countenance. We forget that in His light we
are as He is. We forget that in Christ all
things are ours. We forget whose we are and why
we're put on this earth. And we forget all that. And we
start thinking that we're really here for us. We start thinking
that we're really here to be respected of people. We really
think that we're going to actually get one worm to remember us years
and years down the road. We have visions in our own hearts
of all our written works being remembered down the road in a
library somewhere by other worms just like us. So what? So what? So what? What have you accomplished? What is the accomplishment of
that? We envision what other people
are saying about. We think about what other folks
are saying and how the great swelling words they're speaking
of us and how they, oh, they ought to have seen that I did
and seen this thing I did and they ought to be acknowledging
this thing I did. If we really heard what they were saying about
us, we'd want to go jump in a river. When the Spirit of God speaks
into the heart, He won't let us be a forgetful error. He won't
let us look into this mirror and forget what we've seen. He
won't let us forget. In his light, we're gonna see
light. God, the Holy Spirit, He will
not let us not walk in the light of His countenance. He lets us
alone sometimes to show us that we can't walk otherwise, but
He's going to keep bringing us back and shining the face that
we are into our face, and we're going to look into the perfect
Word. We look into the Word perfected by Christ, the Word fulfilled
by Christ, the righteousness fulfilled by Christ in whom we've
been delivered and in whom we're free. And seeing His face in
the mirror looking back at us, He strengthens us so that we
look into the perfect law of liberty and we continue not being
a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work and we whistle while
we go. We whistle as we work. You know
what we say with David? I showed you this Thursday night.
Psalm 27 1, when this light is shining, this is the Lord is
my light and my salvation. Who shall I fear? The Lord is
my strength. He's the strength of my life.
Of whom shall I be afraid? That's what we have. Well, that
light grows us inwardly. It grows us inwardly. And again,
don't misunderstand what I'm saying. That light shines more
and more until the day, to the perfect day, to the day it stops
shining through a glass darkly. It shines more and more. And
the more and more it shines, brethren, the less and less you
and I start looking at, the less and less we look at our flesh
and expect anything good of our flesh, and the more and more
we just look at Him and trust Him. The man who thinks it's
the other way, It's backwards to that. It's backwards. It's
just backwards. The man who thinks he's growing
more and more in his flesh, putting away things, and that may happen. You may do that. But I can assure
you this, as that happens, you're going to see more and more that
there's absolutely no goodness in it. Nothing about it good.
It's going to become more and more loathsome to you, so that
Christ is everything to you. Look less at the face staring
back at you in the mirror. and look more in the light, in
the face of Christ Jesus staring back in the gospel. That's how the fleshly man is
mortified. That's how the inward man is revived. That's how darkness
is made light. That's how the feeble is made
mighty. That's how the self-righteous and self-holiness is made to
be abhorred. He said, I'm the light of the
world. He that follows me shall not walk in darkness. And just
the opposite is true as well. The more we look at ourselves,
the more we look at how good we are and how far we've come
and how much we've overcome, the worse off we are. Melinda,
I'll be brief here. Melinda was at a place the other day getting
her hair cut. She told me this story and it
was Even extra funny to me because my mom and sister both are, my
mom had her own shop and cut people's hair and all that. But
you know how when you're at the, you ladies or you fellas at the
barbershop, you know how if you're talking, like I'll be talking
to my barber and I'll be looking at him in the mirror and he's
talking to me and I can tell We're looking at each other in
the mirror, and I can tell he's looking at me in the mirror. But we're talking to each other,
but we're talking to each other through that mirror. Well, this
girl, Melinda was telling me she's cutting her hair. Melinda
said the whole time she was sitting there talking to her, like say,
you're her. She's sitting there talking to
her like this, but she's just looking at herself in the mirror. The
whole time she was talking, it was just obvious she wasn't looking
at Melinda. She was just looking at herself in the mirror. Enamored. Just looked at herself so long
in the mirror that all she could see was herself in the mirror.
That's what happens when we look at ourselves, rather than Christ. You go to this word right here,
trying to find yourself, that's all you'll see is yourself. That's
all you'll hear is yourself. That's all men will preach is
self. You go to this word looking at Christ and you quit seeing
yourself. That's right. And you quit seeing all the ugly
spots and blemishes in your brethren. You start looking at each other
through the mirror. You understand that? Not at each other, but
looking at each other through the mirror. And Christ, looking
at each other through Christ's mirror makes each other look
a whole lot better. A whole lot better. We keep looking at ourselves
and we become hell to ourselves and everybody around us. The
only one that's not fooled by that is us. But if we walk in
the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another.
And the blood of Christ cleanseth us from all sin. Alright, let
me end this with one more word about this that I've got to remind
you of. The light of His countenance
never changes. It never changes. You know, you
go in your house sometime and you look into a mirror in your
house and you can't see the image looking back at you because the
light's not on. You can sort of make out that
there's an image there. But the lights, the lighting's
not good enough and you can't see the face looking back at
you. But the face is still the same. It's still there and it's
still looking right back at you. Judge not the Lord by feeble
sense, but trust him for his grace. Behind a frowning providence,
he hides a smiling face. His purposes will ripen fast,
unfolding every hour. The bud may have a bitter taste,
but sweet will be the flower. Blind unbelief is sure to err
and scan his work in vain. God is his own interpreter, and
he will make it plain. He will make it plain. And this
is what He brings us to see when He makes it plain. Look at James
1. James 1.17. Lord, shine the light of Thy
countenance upon us. That's what we pray. When He
does, we see that even during that darkness, even during that
dry, dry season, this is what we see. Verse 17, every good
gift and every perfect gift is from above and cometh down from
the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow
of turning. He never has turned. Jesus Christ
is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Everything about
time changes, but eternal is eternal. God doesn't unregenerate
those He's regenerated. He doesn't unredeem those that
Christ has obtained eternal redemption for. He doesn't unforgive those
for whom Christ has put away sin forever by the sacrifice
of Himself. He that is of pure eyes and to
behold evil and to look upon iniquity looks upon His children
in Christ Jesus with a smile of delight, and it never changes. It never changes. Well, I said that was the last thing.
I got one more thing. I got one more thing. Look at
1 John 3. 1 John 3. If this happens to us in our
hearts, when we're looking right now through a glass that's so
dim and so dark, what's going to happen when we see him face
to face, when the perfect day comes? The light's going to keep
shining more and more. It's not going to stop. It's
not going to stop. What's going to happen when we
finally, in that perfect day, see Him face to face? Verse 2,
1 John 3, 2. Beloved, now are we the sons
of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be. You and I can't
even see it. We can't even imagine it. But
we know that when He shall appear, when the light appears in person,
face-to-face, and I'm known as I'm known, and I know Him as
I'm known, I am known, we shall be like Him. Why? What does this? What does it in the heart right
now? What's going to do it when we see Him face-to-face? Because
we see Him. We see Him as He is. You want to see yourself as you
are? See Him as He is. See Him as He is. And that day
will be like Him all over. Inwardly, outwardly, all over
completely. And forever. This is what the
scripture says. The sun shall be no more thy
light by day, neither for brightness shall the moon give light unto
thee, but the Lord shall be unto thee an everlasting light, thy
God, thy glory. The Lamb, the light of it. Well,
let me sum it all up with this. This is what I've been trying
to tell you is what I've been trying to. This is what I know by experience.
I know this by experience. I keep I keep preaching this
to myself. And I keep trying to tell it
to you. If we would look less to the smile of men. Less to
the smile of our own faces. less to the smile and favors
of men, and more to the light of His face." Right now, there
is absolutely nothing that will hold us back from setting forth
His glory and His word and the light that we believe and trust. Nothing. Light reflects light. Light reflects light. And the more light we see, His
grace makes these little bitty puny spirits to be full of life
and full of strength. This is my prayer. This is my
prayer. Lord, lift thou up the light
of thy countenance upon us. Turn us again, O God, and cause
thy face to shine, and we shall be saved.