Now let's open our Bibles to
the book of 2 Samuel, chapter 5. 2 Samuel, chapter 5. The title
of the message this evening is, The King Established and Exalted. The King Established and Exalted. And we're going to be talking
about King David. the establishment of him as king. We've seen that in the first
few verses of chapter 5, how all the tribes of Israel came
to David in Hebron. The unity of God's people under
the anointed king. And of course, there's a great
picture of the unity of the church, the unity of God's people under
Christ, the King of kings and the Lord of lords. And this,
as we speak of David, I want us to understand something that
I know we already understand, but just by way of reminder.
You know, anytime we deal with any type or picture in the Scripture,
we know that there are no types and pictures that tell the whole
story. When we look at a type, like
David or any type, any of the types of the Old Testament law,
the tabernacle, the priesthood. We're looking at partial glory
there, things that set forth in picture and in symbolism,
representation, the glory of the person of Christ, who he
is, God and man in one person, the glory of his offices, and
His work of redemption. He's prophet, priest, and king.
He's the Redeemer. He's the Kinsman Redeemer. What
a great and glorious type that is, the Kinsman Redeemer. That's
something that just warms our hearts, doesn't it, as we look
at it and study it in the book of Ruth and in the Old Covenant
law. We see these types, but understand
that when we look at these types, we're doing what the Apostle
Paul spoke of in 1 Corinthians 13, we're looking at things through
a glass darkly. We're not seeing the full picture
in one type. Because in every type, Christ,
who is the one typified, the salvation that's typified, is
infinitely more glorious than the type itself. And we certainly
see that in King David. I'll give you an example. Look
at verse 10 of 2 Samuel 5. It said, "...and David went on,
Speaking of his going forth as king, established as king, and
his growing, it says he grew great. And it says, and the Lord
God of hosts, that's the invincible, omnipotent God who cannot be
defeated. The Lord of a great army. That's
what that term, Lord of hosts, means. He cannot be defeated. Even old Nebuchadnezzar recognized
that in Daniel chapter 4. He said, none can stay his hand. That means none can stop him.
Or even question, what do you think you're doing? You ever
done that? Somebody, you start doing something,
somebody with authority comes up to you and says, what do you
think you're doing? As if you had no right. Well, nobody can
do that to God, the Lord of hosts. What do you think you're doing?
He'd say, what business is it of yours? You know, that's it.
God does whatever He pleases. And what he does is right and
good and just and fair. And so none can stay his hand
or say unto him, what doest thou? He's the Lord of hosts. But it
says the Lord God of hosts was with him. And that's a marvelous
thing. I pray as I go throughout this
life and especially as I stand here in these moments before
you, opening and dividing the Word of God, that I'm not alone,
that the Lord of hosts is with me. Because if He's not with
me, and I'm alone, then we're all in trouble. That's one reason
why when I heard about our dear sister Jeannie, the first thing
that come to my mind is the glory that she's seeing right now.
She doesn't see through a glass darkly now, like we do. She sees
the full picture. John said it does not yet appear
to us what we shall be, but we'll be made like Him and we'll see
Him as He is. Now, we see Christ. Hebrews chapter
2 says that. We see Jesus. But we don't see
Him now like we're going to see Him. We don't see Him now like
our sister sees Him. With perfect eyes. We don't have
to have these old glasses on anymore. But with perfect eyes.
And that's a marvelous thing. But we do sing. And I thought
about this, and this is one of the things I believe the Lord
sets on my mind as a pastor, as a preacher, and why I need
to preach the gospel every time I get behind this pulpit. Why
I need to point sinners to Christ, even saved sinners. Some of you
have been saved for 50-some years or more. You know, you need to
be pointed to Christ tonight just as much as the newest believer
here tonight. That's what you need. And I thank
God that the last message that our sister heard me preach was
the gospel, Christ and Him crucified and risen again. I'm glad I didn't
get up here and use this pulpit to attack somebody or to raise
an issue that I've invested my ego in and have to defend it
because if I don't, I'm going to lose face. I'm glad I didn't
do that. I've got plenty of that stuff in me now. Don't get me
wrong. But I'm glad I didn't do that.
And I'm going to tell you why I didn't do it. It's because
I'm such a great fellow. No. No. No, no, no. I didn't do it because
of the grace of God. If I don't open this mouth and
just exalt myself and usher forth my causes, it's because God stops
this old mouth and says, Bill, you preach Christ. You exalt
Him. Preach Him. Lead me to Calvary. That's what we sang. We sing,
someday that silver cord's going to break, it's broken for our
sister. And so this may be the last message I hear, may be the
last message you hear. So what would you want to hear
if you knew it was your last message? You'd want to hear our
Savior exalted. But when we look at these types,
we realize that the types themselves are imperfect. And the best we
can say of them is that they're partial. No one type. Brother Maynard used to say it
this way. He said, you can't make a type stand on all four
legs. And I always liked that. Because
you know, people, they'll get into these types, just like the
parables. They'll get into every little detail. Every little period
and every little comma has got to stand for something theological
that they can promote a doctrine. No, they're just illustrations.
And that's what these types are. But here he says, the Lord God
of hosts was with David. Now, we know that Godhead, was
with our Savior in His humanity. But not only was the Lord God
of hosts with Him, He is God with us. His name shall be called
Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins. His name
shall be called Emmanuel, which being interpreted as God with
us. Not only was the Lord God of
hosts with Him perfectly and fully, for in Him dwelleth all
the fullness of the Godhead bodily. Now that means in that man, That's
Colossians 2.9. In that man, in his humanity,
the fullness of the Godhead dwelt in him. That's an amazing thing. The fullness of the Father, the
fullness of the Son, the fullness of the Holy Spirit was with Christ,
the God-man. Which tells us this, that the
only way we're going to have any communication from God to
us In a way, we're going to have any acceptance, any blessing
from God, the Godhead, any dealings with the Godhead in any of their
specific duties and offices in salvation. We must come through
Christ and Him crucified and risen again. Without Christ,
we're nothing. Without Christ, we're nothing.
Without Christ, we have nothing. And that was the same in David's
day. They didn't start at Calvary. It was accomplished at Calvary
in time. It was established and it was
fulfilled in time at Calvary. But David had the blessings of
that fullness of Christ just as much as we have them today
based upon a future promise, the future event of the cross.
Every Old Testament saint did. The moment that Cain struck down
his brother Abel, Abel, just like our sister Jeannie
Robinette, was with the Lord, fully viewing Him in all His
glory, face to face with Christ. So here we see David. He's the
king. God made him so. He had no qualifications
within himself. God didn't look down through
time and say, well, that David, he's got all these qualifications. He fits the bill. Therefore,
I'm going to appoint him as king. David was not an afterthought
of God. This was of the sovereign, predestinating
foreknowledge of God that David was made king of Israel. And
in that, He's a type of Christ who was set up from the foundation
of the world, established as King, and exalted as King in
His resurrection and His ascension unto glory, based upon the work
that He finished on the cross to save His people from their
sins, all His people for whom He died. And then God goes about
the business in His sovereign, powerful providence of working
all things, to establish and exalt David as king. He does
the same in the kingship of his glorious son. Everything is working
together for good to them that love God, who are the called
according to his purpose. And he'll even use heathen Gentile
kings. In fact, in these verses we see
the growth and establishment of David's kingdom in two ways.
Number one, God's providence in using the world to aid David. Now, you think about that, and
you say, that's a strange work. Well, God's work sometimes is
referred to and described as a strange work. But do you know
that the world that is against Christ and His Church, God sovereignly
operates in the world, providentially now, to establish and exalt His
King and to grow His Church. We'll show you how. Now, there's
another issue here that I believe is important with this, but we'll
see this. Craig, in his prayer, he said,
I thank you for the liberty that we have to be here. You know,
for years, believers had no liberty to meet together in certain areas
of this world because of kings and tyrants who had passed laws
that outlawed Christianity. So who gives us the freedom and
the liberty? It wasn't our forefathers who
did that. It was God. They were just the
instruments. They were just the instruments.
And so look here in verse 11, it says, Hiram the king of Tyre.
Now we know that this kingdom of Israel, it was surrounded
by different nations, different kings, and there were trade routes,
and there were all these things. Some of these foreign kings went
to war with Israel. We're going to see that in the
Philistines. But here's Hiram, king of Tyre, sent messengers
to David. He heard about David's prowess. He heard about David's mighty
army. He heard about David's success.
And it says he sent messengers to David, and he also sent cedar
trees and carpenters and masons. And you know what they did? They
built David a house. We don't know anything about
King Hiram as far as his religion. I assume he was an idolater just
like the rest of the heathen kings of this world. But he was
used mightily of God to promote David as king and build him a
house. We see something of the foretelling of the coming of
the Gentiles into the kingdom there, I believe. But here's
the thing, they built David's house. Christ built his house,
his church, his people, his kingdom. And his kingdom is populated
with the elect of God, redeemed by the blood of Christ, justified
in him, and born again, regenerated by the Holy Spirit of God. And
they're brought into the kingdom by the power of God, and they're
called his house, his household. Whose household are we if we
hold fast our confidence unto the end? That's not a conditional
if, that's an evidential if. In other words, if you hold fast
your confidence, which confidence is what? Christ, not yourself. My confidence, listen to me,
my confidence of salvation is not confidence that I'll hang
on. It's confidence that he'll hold
on to me. And that's a big difference.
I know the world doesn't think that much of that. That's hair
splitting. That's a big difference, isn't
it? He's going to hold on to me. He won't let me go. He won't
let his people go. And he's building his house.
He's bringing his people into the kingdom, just like there
was a house here built for David. That's a picture of Christ in
his house. And it's populated with God's
people out of every tribe, kindred, tongue, and nation, Jew and Gentile.
Jew and Gentile. That's a marvelous thing. And
David recognized these things in prophecy, and he recognized
the power of these things. David knew three things that
made his reign great. It says in verse 12, look here,
it says, and David perceived, that means he understood and
knew, he had a real experiential knowledge of this, that the Lord
had established him king over Israel. He knew first that God's
the one who put him on the throne. He knew it wasn't himself. He
knew it wasn't his own greatness, his own righteousness, but it
was God who put him on that throne. And then he knew secondly, he
said, and that he had exalted his kingdom. Now, the his there
is referring back to God, not David. And so, in other words,
David knew secondly that the kingdom belonged to God. This
is God's people. He was just set in place as king. And that's different from other
kingdoms of the world, from the idolatrous kingdoms of the world
that are taken by violence and greed and selfishness. These kings, they actually think
that the kingdom belongs to them. And they treat it as if, and
they tax them as if it belongs. But see, this is God's kingdom.
And that's the way it is with the church. You see, this is
God's church. It's not my church. It's not
any pastor's church. I don't care how long they've
been here. It's God's church. It's Christ's church. He said,
Peter, upon this rock I'll build my church. And he wasn't talking
about Peter being the rock. Christ is the rock. You see,
it's not Peter's church. It's not the Apostle's church.
It's Christ's church. And he built it, and it belongs
to him. We're not our own. We belong
to him. And then David knew thirdly, it says, that God had exalted
his kingdom for his people, Israel's sake. David knew that he was
there on that throne for the people, and not the people for
him. And I'll tell you, that's important. Why am I pastor of this church?
Is it to promote me? Or am I here for you? You know
what a minister is? You know what that word minister
means? Servant. He's a servant in the
household. You're not here to serve me.
I'm here to serve you. That's why David was on the throne. He wasn't there to exalt himself
and make a name for himself. In fact, every mention of David
after David's death proves that there's a greater David. Here's a greater David. David's
greater son. We read about that over there
in Isaiah 9. It says in verse 7, after it
identified the Son of God incarnate, the Child who is born, the Son
who is given. Who is that? That's the God-man.
That's who Jesus Christ is. Who is Jesus Christ? He's the
Child born, the Son given, second person of the Trinity, The only
begotten of the Father. He's God in human flesh. He's
the Word which was before us and which was with God. And who is God? He's the Word
which was made flesh and dwelt among us, tabernacled among us.
That's who He is. And all of these glorious, discreet,
the governments upon His shoulder, the responsibility, the safety,
the growth, The completion of the government of grace, the
kingdom of God, is upon His shoulders. That's why we say salvation is
conditioned on Christ and not on us. Because if it were conditioned
on us, it would fail. Isn't that right? I mean, you
know that. If your salvation was conditioned
on you, now think about it. Where would it be? You see, what
is grace? It's salvation conditioned on
Christ, who fulfilled the conditions, who met the requirements, who
completed all the stipulations, everything God required. And
so, the government was on His shoulders, and look at verse
7, "...of the increase of His government and peace there shall
be no end." Now, when you speak of David's earthly throne, there
was an end. But then look what he says, up
on the throne of David. The throne of David is gone,
folks, that earthly throne. But this throne that he's talking
about of David is not gone. It's forever and ever, for this
is the greater David. This is David's greater son.
This is the throne of Christ. And that's why the book of Hebrews
and the book of Galatians make such an issue over this thing
of the Old Covenant waxing away, vanishing away. It's not an earthly
throne. We're under the New Covenant.
We were talking about this, Brother Joe read Hebrews chapter 8 in
the study, and that's a beautiful chapter that explains it perfectly.
How the New Covenant is the establishment and fulfillment in time of the
everlasting covenant of grace made before time. And that's
why it's called new, only because of time. But it was forever and
forever and forever. Christ's blood is called both
in Scripture. It's called the blood of the
New Covenant, the New Testament, and it's called the blood of
the everlasting covenant. Same thing, isn't it? And that's
why we don't look for an earthly throne, an earthly tabernacle.
And it says, "...and upon His kingdom to order it." He orders
it. We don't order it. We don't order
him around, and we don't order the things of the kingdom. He
orders it, and to establish it, and here's the establishment
of it, with judgment and with justice. Now, we couldn't do
that, but he did. He did it on the cross because
judgment and justice was fully taken care of and satisfied by
the death of our Savior and the redemptive work that he accomplished
on Calvary. His shed blood. His righteousness. That's what that is. Judgment
and justice. That's righteousness established, which God requires,
which Christ worked out for His people. And He says this, from
henceforth even forever. That's why our sister can be
in the presence of the Lord right now. Because He established it. And look here, it says, the zeal
of the Lord of hosts will perform this. Now, do you see that? Go
back to 2 Samuel 5, what does he say? The Lord God of hosts
was with David. Well, it was the zeal of the
Lord of hosts that will perform all this that is prophesied of
in Isaiah chapter 9. Now, it has to be his zeal that
performs it. Because my zeal won't perform
it and your zeal won't perform it. May I ask you, have you ever
been zealous? I have. I'm zealous tonight. Brother Eddie, when you come
back and told me that, I was sad and tears come to my eyes,
but I had a zeal that welled up in me to preach the gospel
again. But you know what? My zeal sometimes
wanes. W-A-N-E. It will sometimes fade
away. And I'll get a little frustrated.
And I've told you all the truth. I just try to be honest with
you. Maybe it makes you disappointed. I hope not. But there are times
I've preached messages and I've felt like I've just beaten against
there. You ever done that, Bob? Felt
like you just hadn't communicated with anybody. And all I wanted
to do was just drop down behind the pulpit and wait for you all
to leave. You know, and say, well, maybe they'll come back
again and listen, try again, you know. Times you just want
to quit and give up. See, my zeal wavers. But God's
zeal never dies. You know, Christ's zeal for the
glory of His Father and the salvation of His people never wanes, never
diminishes, never wavers. In Hebrews 13, it says, Jesus
Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. David's zeal
and his obedience wavered, didn't it? Look here in verse 13. Look what happens. Now you see
God's providence in using the world, using David. But here
it mentions in verse 13, David took him more concubines and
wives out of Jerusalem after he was come from Hebron. And
there were yet sons and daughters born to David. And these be the
names of those that were born unto him in Jerusalem, Shammuah
and Shobab, Nathan, Solomon, Jibhar also, and Elishua. Nefeg
and Jephia and Elishama and Eliada and Eliphelet. I believe that's how it's pronounced.
Now, these are sons that David had with other wives and concubines,
which are mistresses. That's what they are. You say,
well, that right there, you put in that place, you know, it seems
so strange to us because First of all, we know that David, in
doing that, is ignoring and disobeying the command of God. When he told
Israel in Deuteronomy chapter 17 and verse 17 that the king
that he puts in place should not multiply wives unto himself,
lest his heart be turned away. You see a sad case of that in
Solomon later on. And then this comes right after. It says, the Lord God of hosts
was with him. It comes right after. It says, God blessed him with
the help of even heathen kings that allowed him to build a great
house for the king in Jerusalem. It comes right after. It speaks of the Lord establishing
him king over Israel, exalting his kingdom for his people's
sake. And then David disobeys God.
Well, David is just a man. No excuse. There's no excuse
for it. You can't reason it out. It's
just another sad case of a man of God walking after and minding
the things of the flesh. One of the things that was said
in the last chapter and this chapter was how David inquired
of the Lord. He didn't inquire of the Lord
here. If he had inquired of the Lord, he would have read in Deuteronomy
chapter 17 and verse 17 what the Lord had to say on that situation.
But he went out on his own. Do we do that? Yes, we do. Too
often. But God won't let us go. He'll
chastise us. I'm going to tell you something
now. This isn't legalism. David suffered the consequences
of these acts right here. He did. His house, listen, always
remember David's last words in 2 Samuel 23, although my house
be not so with God. You know, to me, those are some
of the saddest words in the Scripture. Here's a man who himself was
saved, saved by the grace of God, washed in the blood of Christ,
righteous in Christ, but because of his bad behavior, His bad
behavior, his sinfulness, he suffered the consequences of
a rebellious family. Children, children, who tried
to take over his kingdom. Jealousy, envy, murder, all of
it. And he said it, although my house
be not so with God. He said, my hope is in Christ.
God hath made a covenant with me that is ordered in all things
and sure. And he said, that's the only thing I have in salvation.
That's all my salvation. You know, David couldn't plead
anything about himself or of himself or anything that he had
done or not done as being his salvation. It was all according
to the covenant that was ordered in all things and sure. And who
ordered it? Remember Isaiah 9, 7? The Lord of Hosts did it.
Christ did it. The only reason that our sister
Jeannie is standing in the presence of the Lord is the grace of God
in Christ. And you know what? When the Lord
takes me home, that's the only reason I'll have to be there,
and you too. That's it. Now, God is still
sovereign. This didn't upset God's plan
and purpose. This didn't send God back to
the drawing board to where He had to go. Well, David messed
up. We've got to go to plan B. I'll tell you exactly what. We
see God's sovereign purpose. He brings good out of this. You
see those two names there in verse 14, Nathan and Solomon? You know who came from the line
of Nathan and Solomon? A woman named Mary and a man
named Joseph. later on. And from Mary and Joseph,
from Mary specifically, but Joseph too, both Joseph and Mary were
in the line of Judah. And from those two came the Lord
Jesus Christ. From Mary, as he was conceived
in her womb by the power of the Holy Spirit without the aid of
man, born of a virgin. So God brings good out of our
evil. Somebody says, that doesn't sound
right. Let me tell you something, folks. If he doesn't, we're in
trouble. Big time. That's the only way
you can say all things work together for good. To them that love God,
who are the called according to His purpose. Well, David's
kingdom is attacked. He's attacked by the Philistines. Now, here is God's power in defeating
David's enemies. The Philistines were infamous
enemies of God and his people, and they continued to attack.
It says in verse 17, when the Philistines heard that they had
anointed David king over Israel, all the Philistines came up to
seek David, and David heard of it and went down to the hold. The Philistines also came and
spread themselves in the valley of Rephim. And look at verse
19, David inquired of the Lord. And he asked, Shall I go up to
the Philistines without deliver them into mine hand? The Lord
said unto David, Go up, for I will doubtless deliver the Philistines
into thine hand. David came to Baal-perazim, and
David smote them there and said, The Lord hath broken forth upon
mine enemies before me as the breach of waters. Therefore he
called the name of that place Baal-perazim, which literally
means the Lord got them like a flood of water. And he says,
there they left their images, they left their idols, their
trinkets, and David and his men burned them, burned those idols.
Here we have the account of the battles. The battles we fight
as the people of God cannot be fought in and by the flesh, cannot
be fought in one by our own power and wisdom. They must be fought
in the power of the Lord by his word. That's why David inquired
of the Lord, what am I going to do? God told him what to do. Our weapon is His Word. The weapons
of our warfare are not carnal. It's not guns and knives and
whips and chains. It's not anything like that.
It's the Word of God. Our battlefield is the mind of
men, it says, bringing down all those strongholds and imaginations
and thoughts that exalt themselves against the obedience of Christ. What is our goal? That the power
of God the Holy Spirit will bring sinners to submit to Christ and
His finished work on the cross. We use the Word of God. That's
why we stand fast in the power and might of the Lord, putting
on the whole armor of God, and not with our own. And the Philistines
here were defeated. You notice there they They left
their gods, they left their images. Somebody said, you know, it's
a terrible thing to have a god you have to carry around. And that's exactly it. How much
better to have a god who carries you around? Isaiah spoke of that
in Isaiah 46. Our god carries us. That's what
he said. We don't carry him around. They
have to put their gods on the backs of the asses and the cows.
Came around, and when they got defeated, they had to leave their
gods in the field, and David and his men burned their gods.
Psalm 115 that you read, they have eyes, but they don't see.
They have mouths, but they don't speak. They have noses, they
can't smell. Ears, they can't hear. Legs, they can't walk.
They're just laying there in the dirt. I'll never forget Brother
Tim James. He said somebody in town there
in Cherokee called him an iconoclast. And he said he didn't know what
that meant, so he just determined. He knew what icon was. Icon,
that's an idol. And he said, I figure class was
the sound that they made when they hit the dirt. An iconoclast is one who tears
down idols. That's what that is. And he is
certainly an iconoclast in his preaching. I hope I'm one too.
I'd like to hear that sound when they hit the dirt. How about
you? And it's not because I want people, I want to be mean or
anything like that. It's just, look, if we're going
to see the true and living God and see His Christ and the only
way of salvation in Him, that idol is going to have to hit
the dirt. And then the Philistines attacked
a second time. Look at verse 22. The Philistines
came up dead again. They'll never quit. You see,
Christ won our battle at the cross. He won the war at the
cross. He defeated sin, Satan, and the
curse of the law. He put away our sins. He established
our righteousness. That will never go away. It will
never lose its power. It lasts forever and ever and
ever and ever. But there's a battle to be fought.
It's a warfare of the flesh and the spirit. It's a warfare with
the world. It's a warfare with Satan, and
the Philistines represent that. They won't quit, you see, and
they won't quit until we, like our sister, go home to be with
the Lord, or until He comes again the second time. Then it will
be over, and we won't be bothered by ourselves, our own flesh. And it says, the Philistines,
they came up yet again, spread themselves in the valley of Rephim,
and when David inquired of the Lord, see, there he did it. He
inquired of the Lord again. That's the thing to do. That's
a wise and obedient king there. First thing he does is inquire
of the Lord. Next chapter we want to see David fails to do
that. Makes the mistake, he doesn't
inquire of the Lord. But here he does. He says, Lord,
shall I go up? And he said, thou shalt not go
up, but fetch a compass behind them. That means surround them,
is what he's talking about. Go in behind the Philistine,
surround them, and come up upon them over against the mulberry
trees, and let it be, when thou hearest the sound of a going
in the tops of the mulberry trees, sound like marching, sound like
wind, like a great army coming, he says, that then thou shalt
bestir thyself, and then shall the Lord go out before thee.
You see that? The Lord shall go out before
thee. And he says, to smite the host of the Philistines. And
David did so as the Lord had commanded him, and smote the
Philistines from Geba, that is, from the hill, until thou come
to Gaza, unto the remnant, is what that means. So here he is,
the second attack from another front. And the Lord delivers
his people, but in a different way. In the first attack, God
told David to attack. Go on the offensive, David. Go
out and get them. Here he tells David to stand
still and wait. And listen, when you hear the
sound of a going forth in the tops of those trees, when you
hear or see the work of God happening, when you see God move, then you
stir up yourself. We always need to seek God's
guidance through His Word and through prayer to know what battles
to fight and how to fight them, don't we? Sometimes we move in
the strength of the flesh and we fail. Sometimes I want to
go on the attack. And you know what? Most of the
time that's a bad thing for me today. Sometimes the Lord puts you in
a position where you have no choice but to go on the attack. But here's the thing about it,
whether the Lord tells us to go on the attack or to wait and
see, just wait back. We can see that undergirding
and controlling David's life, the life of the kingdom, is the
sovereign electing grace of God. That's the secret of David's
success here. It's the sovereign preserving
and protecting grace of God that keeps David in his kingdom. We think about salvation, it's
a big word, and sometimes salvation is set forth in the Scripture
as a past thing. I have been saved. Ephesians
2.8, for by grace have you been saved. We have been saved. And then sometimes it's portrayed
as an ongoing thing. We are being saved. 1 Corinthians
1.18, those who are being saved. And then sometimes it's portrayed
as a future thing. Romans 13, I believe, verse 11
says our salvation is nearer than when we first began. That's
our glorification. But either way, whatever tense
it is in, have been, been, or will be, it's all by the grace
of God. It's all by Christ. And aren't
you glad? Don't you thank God for it? Okay.