2nd Timothy chapter 1 and beginning in verse 7. It says, For God hath not given
us the spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a
sound mind. Be not thou therefore ashamed
of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner. but be
thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the
power of God, who hath saved us, and called us with a holy
calling, not according to our works, but according to his own
purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before
the world began. but is now made manifest by the
appearing of our Savior, Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death
and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. Whereunto I am appointed a preacher
and an apostle and a teacher of the Gentiles, for which cause
also suffer these things, nevertheless I am not ashamed, for I know
whom I have believed and am persuaded that he is able to keep that
which I have committed unto him against that day. Now there's
a lot of ground covered in those few verses and quite a exhortation given unto
Timothy and admonition and instruction as well. And he begins there,
of course, for God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of
power and of love and of a sound mind. Now, those things do appear
in the fleshly bodies of God's people,
but they are not of the flesh. You can tell a man all day long
not fear, but you can't keep him from fearing, because fear
is a real thing. I think of it as a child overcoming
the fear of the dark. Now, some kids don't have as
great a fear of the dark as others, but I think pretty much all children
have some fear of the dark. And, you know, I remember having
fear of the dark, and it was a hard thing to overcome. And sometimes men think that
by effort they can overcome their fears. And I suppose in the flesh
there is a certain measure in which that is. The spirit of
fear that's speaking of here, that the Lord has not given us
the spirit of fear. Now, he has taught us to fear
him, has he not? I mean, that is the work of the
Spirit of God. I mean, a man will not fear God
except that the Lord causes him to fear God. In fact, the Proverbs
says the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. It also
says the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. Because
until a man is brought to a place to recognize who God is, and
the glory that surrounds him, he will not fear the Lord in
the proper way. And I think that the fear of
God is something that over time, there have been times,
I would say, when society in general had more of the fear
of God in them than today, there is no fear of God in society
today. Now, I know that there's never
been a widespread fear of God in the spiritual sense, but there
has been a respect given unto God and unto his word in a measure
in times past that we do not see very plainly set forth today. In fact, we see quite the opposite,
for society has pretty much thrown off the restrictions of God upon
society, that is the guiding principles of the Lord, the order
of society, the order that He's made in such a thing as even
as simple as men and women. Now, you know, people are able
to be confused, there's no doubt about that. But we must never
come to the place where we recognize that to be anything but confusion.
Because the Lord has an order. And the scripture says that male
and female created he them. And that is gonna be ever true. And it doesn't make a difference
what men say or how acceptable that may become in our society
to confuse those things. It is not so. And so, but that's
not our issue, you know. Men are going to be men. Natural
men are going to carry out the wickedness that's in their heart.
And they can't escape that. But the Lord has not given us
a spirit of fear in the sense that he has given us the truth
of the gospel that we might not fear. In other words, he hasn't
brought us into a place of knowing ourselves to be sinners in order
to cause us to just dwell upon being sinners and have no hope
or expectation of any deliverance. But the gospel's been sent to
us to deliver us from that fear. And so it is that only as the
Lord gives that will a man, a man can't grow out of the fear of
Now you can grow out of the fear of the dark as you get older
and you realize there really aren't any boogerman out there
that's gonna get you when you go out the door into the dark.
And so you can overcome that with age, but you cannot ever
overcome the understanding that you're a sinner by age. You're not gonna get better.
You know, when the Lord teaches you that you're a sinner, there's
only one thing that's gonna give you any relief in that, and that
is that He gives you that spirit of peace and that passeth understanding. He has not given us a spirit
of fear, but of power. We do have power over the fear
of destruction. Now, again, it is a common thing
that for God's people to sometimes question whether or not they
are truly the children of God. That's a natural thing. I think
it's a healthy thing insofar as it is. It's not a thing that
we would teach others to do. I would never teach somebody,
well, what you need to do is doubt whether or not you want
God's children. That's not our purpose. That's
not the purpose of the preaching of the gospel. But we are, as
the scripture says, to examine ourself to see if we be in the
faith. And the problem that we have
is that we often examine ourselves to see if we be in the faith
by looking at what we are. And that's the wrong place to
look because when you examine yourself to see if you're in
the faith and you get to looking at yourself, what you are by
nature, you're gonna come away disappointed every time. But
we examine ourselves, and what do we examine ourselves for?
To see where in our hope lies. See, Peter expressed it. And the Lord, when many of the
disciples walked away from the Lord, I mean, you know, when
the Lord began His ministry, there were hundreds, thousands
of people that flocked to hear Him gladly. And they, of course,
many of them were just there to see the miracles. that but
as time went on and it became more clear what it was actually
that the Lord Jesus Christ was saying, the scripture says that
many of them walked no more with him. They didn't want anything
to do with that and he turned to his disciples and he said,
will ye also go away? I mean, are you gonna abandon
me too? And Peter said, Lord, to whom
shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal
life, and we believe and are sure that thou art the Christ,
the Son of the living God. You know, as we fear and tremble,
we may fear and tremble that we are not one of God's children,
but we don't fear and tremble that Christ is not the Savior.
See, we always know that, do we not? I mean, has he not imprinted
that on our heart? I mean, we're not looking for
salvation somewhere else. We're desiring the salvation
that's found in Christ. And so he's not giving us a spirit
of fear, but of power, because that is power. Well, you see,
as John said, beloved, if your heart condemn you, God is greater
than your heart. Oh, what a glorious thing that
is. Think about that for a minute. If your heart can condemn you,
your heart does condemn you from time to time. If the Spirit of
God works in you, I believe that you will find your heart condemning
you from time to time. But God's greater than your heart. You see, the power that we have
is not in ourselves. We can do all things through
Christ, which strengtheneth us. Now, I know that's a common thing
today. You hear a lot of athletes and
stuff, they'll use that scripture, you know, and as though they're
gonna run this race and they're gonna win this race out here
in a carnal fashion by the power of Christ. Well, You know, a
man can't do anything unless the Lord gives him a gift to
do it. There's no doubt about that. But that's not the power
that we have. That's not the power that we
can do all things through Christ. What is it that we can do all
things? That is, have confidence that He is the Savior. Therein
is our power. That's how we triumph over all
things, is in knowing who the Savior is. Oh, what a glorious
power that is, and of love. Because you see, the Lord has
brought in us love for Christ. Now, do we have perfect love?
Of course not. Just like we don't have perfect
faith. We don't have perfect anything. All of our perfection
is found in Christ. But we desire to love him just
like we sang there a moment ago, Lord, as long as I have breath,
I will praise thee. Now we say that, but if we know
our own heart, we know that there is an element in which that probably
is not true. But yet we can say that it is
true that is what we desire. It is that which the Spirit of
God has wrought in us, to love the Lord Jesus Christ with all
of our heart, and to walk in his ways, and of a sound mind. This is not some foolish idea. Now I would venture to say, and
I don't say this critically, I'm just saying it in an observational
fashion, that most of the religion that people have today is not
of a sound mind because it is not built on sound principles. It's built on, you know, a good,
oh, it's a great day, you know, and the Lord loves everybody
and it's just going to be wonderful and all of that, you know. We're all gonna go to heaven.
I mean, that's the idea. And men march on in the concept
that they have which is not of a sound mind. But the Lord has
not called us to be a people not of sound mind. We are to
be sound in the principles and the basis upon those things which
we believe. See, it's not necessary for a
man to be a theologian or to have the ability to go out and
expound upon the scriptures in order to be one of God's children,
but it is incumbent upon the children of God that they have
the basis upon which they have taken their stand quite clearly
set forth in their mind and heart. that we be not as children, Paul
said, tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine. You know, there
are winds of doctrine that blow, have blown in the past, and they
will blow in the future. There's false prophets that arise,
and they sweep away thousands. You know, there's silver-tongued
orators that stand before men, and men just flock to hear them,
and oh, it's just a wonderful thing, and they got a smile on
their face, and they make everybody feel so good, and it's just wonderful. but it's not of a sound mind.
You see, we must look through all of the fluff, all of the
exterior stuff, and where is it that it brings us? And if
it does not bring us down to the feet of Christ to worship
him, then it's not of a sound mind. It's just some frivolous
idea that we have, some religious thought that makes us feel good. and not that which is based upon
the truth, which changes not, is found only in Christ. A sound
mind, he says, be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our
Lord, nor of me his prisoner. Don't be ashamed of that which
the Lord has taught us. The testimony of the Lord Jesus
Christ, as I said before it, there's an external way in which
men look at what the Lord Jesus Christ said, and they flock to
that. But then when they get to listening
to what he actually said, they don't like that. Because none
of the things that the Lord calls his people to walk in are those
things that are appealing to the flesh. He said, deny yourself. Take up your cross and follow
me. He that would be greatest in the kingdom of God must be
the servant of all. Now who wants to be the servant
of other men? I mean, we want to rule over
other men, don't we? I mean, that's a lot better place
to be. than it is to be meek and lowly in mind and heart. But see, that's where the Lord
called us, to obscurity. Oh, we want to name up in lights,
don't we? When people ride by the cemetery,
we want to have the biggest monument out there. People look over there
and say, yeah, that was old so and so. Well, the Lord calls us to praise
His name. Not ours. And that's not really
appealing to the flesh. You know, any religion that lifts
up Christ alone and puts man in the dust will never be really
acceptable. to the masses, can't be, because
it's contrary to the way of the flesh. And so he said, be not
therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord. The Lord Jesus Christ
came teaching and preaching the truth of God, and he said, don't
step back from it. Don't be ashamed to say anything
that he said. If he said, my sheep hear my
voice, I know them and they follow me, don't be ashamed of that. If he said, all that the Father
giveth me shall come to me, and him that cometh to me I'll in
no wise cast out. Be not ashamed of that testimony. That's what he said. Nor of me his prisoner. Now,
you know, Paul at this time was in a Roman prison for the gospel,
for preaching the gospel. And of course the Lord sent him
there. He was not outside of the will or care of the Lord
in all of these things. And it would be easy, you know,
when he's over here in prison, to forget about him. In the book of Philippians, Paul
speaks about those that preach Christ out of strife, seeking
to exalt themselves. He's saying to Timothy, you know,
the things that I taught you are true. Don't go about this
business of exalting yourself. Don't be ashamed of me, the prisoner
of Christ. Nor, he says, and he says, be
thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the
power of God. Because everyone that liveth
godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. Now, that doesn't
necessarily mean somebody's gonna beat us up or we're gonna be
made to be ashamed or whatever, but it does mean that the conduct
that the Lord has called us to is often going to be quite at
odds with the way of the world. And the world is gonna scoff
at us. They're gonna say, well, that's foolish. You see, God's
people, must walk according to the conscience that the Lord
has given them. And that conscience is not always
going to give them freedom to entertain the ways that the world
walks in. Don't be ashamed of that. That's
what he's telling Timothy. Be thou a partaker of
the afflictions of the gospel according to the power of God.
Now, does that mean that Timothy's gonna gain something by that?
No, he's just exhorting him to say, look, walk according to
the dictates of the conscience that Christ has given you to
be a faithful, follower of Him. Those things He has taught you,
walk in them, and don't look to the right or to the left,
but look straight ahead. Be thou a partaker of those things.
And then He says, Who hath saved us? Now look at the order here. Now this is contrary to the order
of natural religion, and especially the religion that today calls
itself Christianity. He says, where unto who hath
saved us and called us? Now, most of the time, you know,
what you hear is that the Lord calls and then He saves. The
scripture says that He saved us, and because He saved us,
He calls. You see, all of this is according
to the purpose of Almighty God. And when he, when Joseph, when
the angel appeared to Joseph, the Lord brought message to Joseph,
and he said, thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall
save his people from their sins. Now when he died on Calvary's
cross, and he said it is finished, what did he mean? Did he just
mean that his life was over? No, he meant he had accomplished
exactly what he came to do, which was the salvation of his people.
He has saved us. How are we saved? By the blood
of Christ. No other way. Not something you
did, not something I did, not something somebody else is going
to do for you, but we are saved by and through the blood of Jesus
Christ. In no other fashion. Who has
saved us? What does that mean, saved us?
It means he delivered us. He brought us back from the bondage
in which we were, gladly walking in. Now we didn't know it. And
we're gonna come on, he's gonna come on here in a minute and
teach us what it is about that. He said, who has saved us and
called us with a holy calling. Because you see, until the Lord
calls a man, he doesn't have any idea what salvation is. Doesn't
care. I mean, the Apostle Paul, he
thought everything was great between him and God, did he not?
I mean, when he was Saul of Tarsus, Pharisee of the Pharisees. I
mean, he was going down the road to Damascus with letters in his
hand to find Christians and put them to death. And he thought
he was doing the will of God. But you see, the Lord called
him. on that run. And all of a sudden, you know,
he was brought out of darkness and into the light because he
was called into the presence. The Lord calls his children,
even as many as Peter stood on the day of Pentecost and said,
the promise is unto you and to your children, even as many as
the Lord our God shall call. Now there are those that tell
us that God calls all men. And there's a very limited fashion
in which you could make some application to that. I wouldn't
rule that out 100%. But the call that's spoken of
in the scripture, and this call that he's talking about here,
and I've illustrated it many times, when I was a kid, And I was out playing in the
yard, and my mama would come and call me for supper, and she'd
say, all right, Mike, it's time to come in. That didn't have
any effect on me at all. I just kept right on playing.
It was just as if she hadn't said a word, you know. And maybe
she might come again, and she'd say, Mike, come in. And, you
know, I'm still going. But when she went to the door,
and she said, Michael Anthony McInnes, Come in this house now. I knew it was time to come. I
knew that the call had come. And that's the way the effectual
call of God's grace is. He calls and he said, the psalmist
said, thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power. I was made willing in the day
of my mama's power. She had power, and I knew what
that power was. I knew what that power felt like,
and I didn't want that. And so in the day of her power,
I was made willing. In the day of the Lord's power,
his people are made willing, and he calls them. He said, my
sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow
me. He didn't say they may follow
me. He didn't say I hope they'll follow me. He didn't say some
of them will follow me. He said my sheep hear my voice. And he said another shepherd
they will not hear. See, we're not interested in
all of the things that's out there. I mean, there's nothing
that the world has for us. We're not waiting to be enlightened,
because you see, once you have seen the light, nothing else, everything else
is dim. I mean, tell me something that
shines brighter than the glory of God revealed in the face of
Jesus Christ. There is nothing. For he has
a name which is above every name, a name before which every knee
shall bow and every tongue shall confess, a glorious name. So he has called us with a holy
calling. This is an activity which is
performed by the Lord himself. That calling is not anything
to have to do with men. You see, a preacher can't call
somebody. Now the Lord may, through the
words of the preacher, as he takes that word and applies it
to the heart of a man, that man may be called, but the preacher
didn't do it. The Lord alone can call his own. And he has a call which cannot
be refused. Who has saved us, called us with
a holy calling, not according to our works. Now if anything
ought to put the death nail to the idea that a man in his power
can get himself saved, well brother, you need to get saved. Why are
you gonna do that? Well, what the world will tell
us and what false religionists will tell you is, well, what
you need to do, and if you'll do this, then God is bound to
do this. God's not bound to do anything.
And He doesn't call men according to their works. He doesn't see
what you do and then save you according to it. He sees what
Christ did. and he saves men according to
what Christ did. Who hath called us not according
to our words, nothing you did, nothing I did. It's what Christ
did. But according to his own purpose
and grace. Now that's pretty plain, is it
not? According to his own purpose. See, salvation's not by chance.
Now you hear people say, well God gives every man a chance
to be saved. No, that's wrong. Salvation's
not by chance. Salvation's according to the
purpose of God. Jesus Christ came into the world to save His
people from their sins. He died on Calvary's cross to
obtain eternal redemption. And it's not a thing hanging
up in the air, well if you'll just let the Lord in your heart,
you'll be saved. No. Christ is the Savior. Oh, everyone that hears His voice
shall come to Him. according to His own purpose
and grace, because when He calls, they shall answer. See, there
is a work of the Spirit of God that draws men unto Him. I can't
explain it. I don't understand it. You know,
you can take a group of 100 people and you can tell them all the
exact same thing. And there may be a few among
that that say, you know, I believe that. I can't believe anything
else. Can't help it. Why is that? Because
the Spirit of God calls them. What makes the difference? The
purpose of God. That the purpose of God, according
to election, might stand. That it might be all of grace. See, salvation's all of grace,
or it's not grace at all. Because if men have anything
to do with it, it couldn't be grace. Who maketh thee to differ
from another? Why does one man believe and
another does not? It's because of the grace of
God. Now that's not palatable to men because they don't like
it. Because it puts God where he is. It doesn't put God anywhere. God can't be put. I shouldn't
even use a term like that. But it recognizes who God is. That he's the one. that must
do something for us. He's not waiting for us to do
something for him according to his purpose. And grace, now listen
to this, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world
began. Now, anybody that says, well
they completely grasp and understand all the nuances of that, does
not, they can't, it's beyond human understanding. This is
a mystery that is currently revealed in a measure to us in Jesus Christ,
but we don't have, we see through a glass darkly, brethren. But it was given to us in Christ
Jesus before the world began. Now where did the hope of our
calling, the purpose of God, and the salvation of God's people,
where is it found? Said it right there. In Christ
Jesus. Now when did God's people get
in Christ Jesus? That's a question that, you know,
it baffles me. All I can tell you is it's before
the world began. There's never been a time, an
era of the world when the people of God were not in Christ Jesus. That's a glorious thing. A glorious
thing. All the promises of God come
to us because we are in Christ Jesus. We didn't get in Christ
when we believed. We believed because we were in
Christ. And at a point in time when it
seemed good to Him, He called us. Oh brethren. You know, this is glorious doctrine. Now you don't have to be able
to explain that to anybody. I can't explain it to anybody,
but I can tell you that it's true. Because the Word of God
says it's true. And anybody that says it's not
true is a liar. Says it right there. which was
given to us in Christ Jesus before the world began, before we ever
drew the first breath, before we ever had any concept of anything. God chose his people and he put
them in Christ. And he chose them in Christ. The way we should say that, because
that's what the scripture says, they were chosen in Christ. I
don't know that scripture ever says we were put in Christ. I
said that, but that's not really how it is. God didn't line up
the population of the world and go eeny, meeny, miny, moe. No,
he created his people in Christ. When did he do it? Before the
world began. Some people say, well, you ought
not to talk about that. Well, why not? You find it more than one time
in the Bible. It's throughout the Bible. And
when you start seeing what the truth of God is and the calling
of His people, you realize that that is the very definition of
His purpose from the beginning. It's wrapped up in a word that
some people don't like to use called predestination. Now, a
lot of people get mad, you know. They can be people get mad about
the word and don't even ever stop to think about anything. I have people that get mad at
me all the time. Well, you shouldn't talk about
predestination so much. Well, why not? The God with whom
we have to do is a predestinating God. I mean, what do you think? Things are just happening in
the world? It's happenstance? No, they're happening according
to the purpose of God. All things. Nothing happens outside
of the will and purpose of Almighty God. Or else he's not Almighty. How can something be happening
that is not according to his purpose and will? I mean, what's
he doing, trying to put out a fire over here? I understand Jamie
and Laura had a car caught on fire. They didn't set it on fire. It caught on fire. Now, did it
just catch on fire randomly? I mean, could it have been my
car that caught on fire or Al's car that caught on fire? No. It was that car that caught on
fire. Why'd that car catch on fire? Now I know that you could
come up with human reasons as to what might have happened and
caused the fire, but nonetheless, that car caught on fire at that
time according to the purpose of Almighty God. What a glorious thing, brethren.
And that's not just the thing, I don't care nothing about just
talking about that, because the whole purpose in seeing that
is to recognize the glory of God in the salvation of His people
in Jesus Christ, because all things belong to Him. And He
does all things for the purpose of magnifying Jesus Christ. His
Son, His only begotten Son, whom He's given a name which is above
every name, to be glorified. And He's glorified in what? The
salvation of His people. He came, He said, for that end. I'm going a little long, but
I'm going, because I want to get to this verse. All right,
so he said, he's telling him what the gospel is. According
to the power of God, who has saved us, called us with a holy
calling, according to our works, but according to his own purpose
and grace, which was given us in Christ before the world began.
Now listen to this. But is now made manifest. That's made plain. It's been put out there where
it can't be hid. Now up until this time that he's
talking about here, men didn't have any idea what the Lord was
up to. I mean, we can see it quite clearly, can we not, from
the beginning, but that's because we're where we are and we're
looking back and seeing how things unfolded. But think about Isaiah
when he wrote, unto us a son is given. and the government
shall be upon his shoulders. He didn't have any idea what
he was talking about. I mean, he knew something about
what he was talking about. He was thinking, you know, there's
gonna come a Messiah and he's gonna deliver Israel out of the
hand of all of the enemies and all of those things that the
Jews had this mindset about. But he didn't understand what
he was writing about. We know what he was writing about. It's now made manifest. Brethren,
we are the most blessed people that's ever lived on the face
of the earth. I mean, because you see, we live
in the day of salvation. We live in the day of the Lord.
We live in the time when the gospel of the glory of the blessed
God is revealed in Jesus Christ, and we know every nut and bolt
of it. We're not in doubt about what
Christ came to do and how He did it. See, when we see all
those altars and stuff, the altar that was built, the temple and
all of those things, and they were built and they thought,
well, they were making these offerings and this was taking
away sin, they never took away one sin. The blood of bulls and
goats can never take away sin. But all that stuff was built
and the Lord designed it not so that it would be the end in
itself, but for one reason, to show what Christ would do when
He poured out His blood on Calvary's cross. All of it pointed to Christ. It's now made manifest by the
appearing of our Savior, Jesus Christ. He has come into the
world. He has manifested Himself. See, we've been called, we've
been saved, called with the holy calling, and according to His
purpose and grace, given to us before the world began, and now,
see, all of that happened. What the Lord did, you see, if
the Lord had done what He did, and never told you about it,
it'd still be just as true and it would have been sealed and
delivered just as much as it is now. When
Christ died on Calvary's cross, if you never knew about it, if
he died for you, then your salvation is sure. Now that's not what
he designed to do, because you see, he not only saved us, but
he did what? He called us. How'd he call us? He called us in the manifesting
of Jesus, as Jesus Christ is manifested in the earth, who
hath abolished death and brought life and immortality, to where? The gospel doesn't bring life
and immortality. And that's not what this says.
You see, some people say, well, you know, you get life by believing
the gospel. No. All that the gospel does
is bring to light the life and immortality that is in Jesus
Christ. He hath made, he hath brought
life and immortality to light through the gospel. See, the
gospel's been sent into the world to show us what Christ did. How
would we know? How can we believe in Him of
whom we've not heard? And how can we hear without a
preacher? See, the Lord is pleased to send the gospel. The gospel
is the bringing of light. The gospel is the bringing of
that which Christ did to light. To our understanding. We see
it. There's no other way that the
Lord has designed for it to be. It's through the gospel. Now, men are not saved by the
gospel. The Lord uses the gospel to teach
those who are in Christ who their Savior is. And as He calls them,
They rejoice. See, that's why it is we need
a hearing ear. That we might hear. Oh, that
the Lord might give us a hearing ear. That we might hear. And that that truth which is
set forth in the gospel might be sweet and precious to us.
Oh, that we might be ever mindful that our salvation is in Christ. Always has been. And the glorious
thing about that is, see, if our salvation has always been
in Christ, it always will be in Christ. Because you see, a
lot of these outfits that teach that you can get salvation by
what you do, they also teach that you can lose it by what
you do. But dear brethren, if it's in
Christ, it can't be lost. If it's in Christ, no man can
take it away. Because Christ is the Savior
of sinners. And He is that triumphant Savior
who has conquered death. He's abolished it. It doesn't
have any power. O death, where is thy sting?
O grave, where is thy victory? See, the strength of sin is the
law. And the sting of death is sin. Oh, even though it is appointed
unto men once to die and after this the judgment, death itself
is abolished in the sense that it has no holding power. We're not beholden to it. It
cannot bring us into fear because Christ died and rose again. And if he died and rose again,
dear brethren, we have the hope of eternal life. Because if we
were in Christ, remember that song we sang, I believe I was
there, when he rose from the grave. Oh brethren, that's a
glorious hope and promise that's given to us in Christ. Oh that
he might give us a mind today to seek after him. And I know
this, that the only people that ever seek after Him are those
who are already in Him. They don't know Him. See, there
was a time when I didn't know I was in Christ. There was a
time when Saul of Tarsus didn't know he was in Christ. In fact, if you'd have told him
he was in Christ, he'd have been mad. He would have said, man,
what are you talking about? I don't want nothing to do with
him. They didn't change anything, did they? Because when the Lord
saw fit and called him, he came, and he showed him the truth,
and the light was shed upon him. And he understood that Christ
was the Savior of sinners. Oh, that the Lord might shine
that light upon us today, that we might see, and that we might
hear, and that we might give glory to him.