John 2 verse 12 begins with these
two words, after this. Of course, referring back to
that which we have seen immediately preceding what is written here
in the latter part of the chapter. The Lord Jesus came to the Canaan
of Galilee to a marriage feast, and there he honored the marriage
of a couple with his presence and honored the feast, the festivity
surrounding it with his presence. And he performed the first wonder
of his hand while he walked on this earth as a man. The first
miracle was turning water into wine by which he supplied everything
needed to gladden the hearts of those who were at the marriage
feast. as we behold our Lord Jesus honoring
this bridal feast with his presence and honoring it with the first
miracle he performed as the God-man, our mediator. Our hearts are
filled with joy in the anticipation of that which shall be done for
the bride he betrothed in the miracle of his grace to himself,
our own souls, whom he has betrothed to himself in righteousness,
and in tender mercy, and in faithfulness, and betrothed to himself forever. As our Lord provided wine for
the wedding party, he who is called our Isha, our husband,
is ever supplying the wine of his grace to his church, his
bride. ever blessing us with his presence,
meeting our every need, and causing our common water, even the common
blessings of life, to be filled with joy and gladness, causing
us, by the continual exercise of his grace, to believe him. This beginning of miracles we
read in verse 11, did Jesus in Cana of Galilee and manifested
forth His glory and His disciples believed on Him. Oh, for daily
grace to manifest forth His glory in us and to us that we may continually
believe Him and grow in grace and in faith and in the knowledge
of the Son of God. Now pick up in verse 12. After
this, he went down to Capernaum. The disciples came and said,
Master, where dwellest thou? He said, Come, and you shall
see. And they'd been following him
now. They followed him down to Cana of Galilee, and now they
followed him to Capernaum, which was the place he made to be his
residence, though he had no place where to lay his own head. This
was the place from which he principally worked throughout the next three
and a half years. He went down to Capernaum with
his mother and his brethren and his disciples, and they continued
there not many days. The reason why our Lord visited
Capernaum very briefly we find in the next verse. The Jews'
Passover was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. This was
about the sixth month. after our Lord's baptism. And
John alone tells us that our Lord Jesus observed four Passover
feasts during his earthly ministry. four Passovers after his baptism,
this one about six months after he was baptized, and the last
one being, of course, when he himself was sacrificed in our
room instead. And so our Lord's earthly ministry
was an earthly ministry of just three and a half brief years. And he observed these Passover
feasts because he came to fulfill the law. not only to fulfill
the law in the letter of it, which he certainly did, and that
was necessary because he was our representative and he must
fulfill the law in its very letter if he is to save us and bring
in righteousness for us. But our Lord Jesus fulfilled
that which was typified and symbolized by all the law, and that's the
first thing we see in this picture. The Lord Jesus Christ is Himself
our Passover. And He goes up to Jerusalem to
keep the Passover because He set His face like a flint to
go to Jerusalem from old eternity and would not be deterred. And
now Christ, our Passover, is sacrificed for us. By His one
sacrifice, by the shedding of His blood, we are saved. His blood was shed at Jerusalem
as the Paschal Lamb blood was shed in Egypt. His blood was
sprinkled by the grace of God upon our hearts as the blood
of the Lamb was sprinkled upon the doorpost and the lentil in
Egypt. His blood was seen by God and
God Almighty refused to visit us in judgment. Because he said,
when I see the blood, I will pass over you. Just as he passed
over the Israelites in Egypt while visiting every house in
Egypt with destruction and judgment and death, he passes over his
own and refuses to visit us in destruction, judgment or death. Because it is written, blessed
is the man. unto whom the Lord imputeth not
iniquity. And he will not impute iniquity
where the blood of Christ has been sprinkled, where he himself
has sprinkled the blood. When the Lord Jesus came into
his temple, we read in verse 14 that he found in the temple
those that sowed oxen. Now here in the next few verses
we read about our Lord's second miracle. is described in verses
14 through 17. And like the miracle in Cana,
this miracle performed by the Lord Jesus is one that demands
our attention. It's very instructive. These
two miracles are imminently significant of things yet to come. At His
first coming, the Lord of glory came to the marriage feast And
he purged his house. He purged the house of God, driving
out of the temple those who profaned the worship of God. And when
he comes again, our Lord Jesus will himself hold a marriage
feast. And he will purify his church. He will purge his floor. He will gather all the chaff
out of his field and burn it. And he will gather the wheat
into the garner. He will separate the sheep from
the goats, and the goats He will destroy with His wrath, and the
sheep He will save with everlasting mercy. Verse 14, He found in
the temple those that sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the
changers of money sitting. And when He had made a scourge
of small cords, He made a whip. He made a whip. He walked into
the temple and took some rawhide or some kind of leather strapping
and made a whip with several cords. When he made a scourge
of small cords, he drove them all out of the temple. And the sheep and the oxen and
poured out to changers money, and overthrew the tables, and
said unto them that sold doves, Take these things hence, make
not my father's house an house of merchandise. And his disciples
remembered that it was written, Psalm 69 verse 9, The zeal of
thine house hath eaten me up. Try to picture the scene before
our master when he walked into the temple at Jerusalem. Now they've come to the temple
to observe the highest feast required under the law. To observe
the feast of the Passover. They've come to the temple for
the most solemn of all Levitical ceremonies. That time when the
high priest would take the blood of the Paschal Lamb into the
Holy of Holies and sprinkle it upon the mercy seat and obtain
forgiveness, atonement for the people of God ceremonially. The
highest, the holiest, the most noble of all religious ceremonies
in the Old Testament. And the Lord Jesus walks into
the temple. And as he does along the way, and as he goes into
the door of the temple, The stench is horrible. Hundreds of oxen
and sheep stalled and fellows were selling them. Selling them
to worshippers. Worshippers who came rushing
to the house of God without making any preparation. rushing to the
house of God with utter contempt for God, because it was their
duty to do so, but did not bring a sacrifice with them as the
law required. Refused to take the time to bring
a suitable, divinely required sacrifice. And so these fellows
were sitting here for the convenience of the worshipers. Let's make
worshiping God convenient for everybody. Let's make it so that
folks aren't bothered by coming to church. And so for their convenience,
these fellas sat and sold their oxen and their sheep to them. For a slight profit, of course.
After all, a man ought to make some money when he goes to such
trouble, shouldn't he? And sitting along the way, in
every little nook and cranny as he'd go into the temple, were
fellows with cash boxes, money changers. When you land at the
airport in a foreign country and you land in one of the international
airports, first thing you see are money changers, fellows who
would exchange American currency for the currency of the land
for a nominal fee, of course. It's just expected. This is a
convenience we offer you. It's going to cost you, but it's
a convenience that we offer to you so that you can have the
proper currency when you come to our country. Well, these fellows
came rushing to Jerusalem, rushing to the temple, because they didn't
take time to prepare to worship God. They needed the shekel of
the sanctuary. and they took their larger pieces
of currency and exchanged it at the temple so that when they
went in they could have the shekel of the sanctuary required to
worship God. And these fellas provided the
convenience. All with the approval of priest. Priest who professed zeal for
God's law, and zeal for God's worship, and zeal for God's ordinance. But the whole thing was a stench
in the nostrils of God. The Jews' Passover was repugnant
to Him, and their feast was repugnant to Him. But God required this. God didn't require anything like
that. Merle, God required heart worship,
not duty obedience. And there's all the difference
in the world. God required that men come to him with their hearts. And the Passover feast was a
ceremony that was pointing to something far, far, far more
significant than the mere slaying of a lamb. It pointed to the
slaying of the Lamb of God. in our room instead. It pointed
to something far more significant than a ceremonial cleansing and
a ceremonial purification. It pointed to the purification
of our souls before God Almighty by the blood of His Son and the
Spirit of His grace. While the songs of Zion were
sung, while a priest stood to read the Word of God, While a
man stood to open the scriptures, as I am opening the scriptures
to you this morning, people were running in and out and talking
and writing notes and passing them along and making notes for
tomorrow's business and reading the newspaper and figuring out
what they're going to do just as soon as the service is over.
Acting as if they were attending a sporting event rather than
the worship of God. I see it everywhere I go. I see
it everywhere I go. Everywhere I go. Religious services today are
utterly contemptible, often even where the gospel is preached
because preachers don't dare stop it. They don't dare stop
it. Almost everywhere I go, I've
got to call folks down for running in and out and just tell them
quit. And folks get mad, oh, people are going to get mad.
Let them get mad. Just let it happen. Well, they
won't come back. God's people will. God's people
will. Bring babies in and squall and
play with them. I may sit right down in the front
row and bounce the baby on their knee and everybody in the church
disturbed. Oh, why would you dare say? It's just a little
baby. Take it to the nursery. Why? Because the whole world
doesn't need to be kept from hearing the gospel so you can
play with your baby and show it off. That's exactly why. Oh,
you don't dare do that. I don't dare not do that. I don't
dare not do that because God's worship is more important than
Bob Duff's thoughts about things. Far more important than you sitting
around and entertaining yourself with religious foolishness. There
was no reverence for God in his house in that day, and there's
no reverence for God in his house in our day. And preachers are
scared to death to do anything about it. Not God's. The Son of God was enraged by
what he saw then, and he's enraged by such irreverence in our day.
He's enraged by it. Twice during his three and a
half year ministry, here in John chapter 2, And just before his
crucifixion, the Lord Jesus saw the house of God profaned by
folks who sold oxen and sheep and doves, and by money changers
who were continuing... I mean, you'd think they had
learned their lesson. The Lord Jesus took a whip and
drove them out of the temple. He drove them out of the temple.
Three years later, he went back to Jerusalem again. for the feast
of the Passover, you know what they would do? Exactly the same
thing. Exactly the same thing. And you
know what he did? Exactly the same thing. He drove
them out of the temple. Every time I read about our Lord
driving these mockers out of his temple, I'm reminded of young
King Josiah we read about earlier. repairing the breaches of God's
house. And I remember the wise counsel Solomon gives in Ecclesiastes
chapter 5, verse 1. You know what he says? Listen to it. Listen to it. What
you're going to do is we're going to church. Getting ready to go
to the house of God, we're going to go worship God. And you come
in and you Have this on your mind, that on your mind, discussing
everything under the shining sun. Have no thought for God,
no thought for Christ, no thought for his worship, no thought for
your soul's needs. You come in and you run here
and run there and do this and do that and rush, rush in here. Oh, oh, oh, I forgot to go to
the bathroom. Right in the middle of the service, get up and go
to the bathroom. I need a drink of water. Go get a drink of water.
Stay out. Don't disturb things. What does
God have to say about this? Keep thy foot when thou goest
to the house of God. Don't rush in too quick. Don't
treat this like you'd treat going to a political rally. Don't treat
this like you'd treat going to a ball game. Oh, no. Oh, the
whole world is full of irreverence today. Yep. God still demands
it. God still demands it. And in
this place, He's going to have it. In this place, He's going
to have it, as long as I've got anything to do with it. We're
not going to join the games. We're not going to tolerate the
nonsense. Not going to happen. And everything
contrary to the worship and service of our God, we do away with.
Repair the breaches. Reverence God. Now, let's look
at this miracle. We'll get to the lessons taught
by the miracle in a moment. But what we see here is one of
the greatest miracles wrought by the Son of God during His
earthly ministry. A miracle that demonstrates His
deity his godhood as much as the resurrection of Lazarus by
his word. The Lord Jesus here is going
through the temple in Jerusalem. A single man, a single man, hundreds,
hundreds, hundreds of men around him. Hundreds of them, hundreds
of them. And he's going through there
with a whip in his hand. Beating the fool out of fellas. I mean literally whipping them.
Driving everything in front of him. Driving out the oxen. Driving out the sheep. Throwing
open the cages. Getting the birds out of the
place. Driving out the men. Turning over tables. Just grabbing
them. Looked like a madman going through
there. He was. Full of anger. He was taking,
Darwin, he was taking men's change drawers and throwing the money
in the floor. Now get a picture of this. Get
a picture of this. One man. I can picture his disciples
standing back, wondering what's going to happen
now. Wondering what these fellows are going to do to him now. And
they know we're with him. He is furious. And do you know
what these hundreds of Jews did? Not one of them said, what are
you doing? Not one of them reached to grab his hand, so you're not
hitting me. Not one of them reached to steady a table, so you're
not turning over my table. Not one of them grabbed his change
drawer and said, no, sir, you can't have my money. Not one
of them. Not one of them stood to bar
Him from opening up the star to get rid of His sheep or His
oxen. Why? Why? There must have been such
a revelation of His divinity that none dared resist Him, but
rather they were utterly overawed and bowed before Him. When our Lord's disciples saw
what was going on, they were filled with wonder and realized the Scripture is being fulfilled
right here. For the psalmist said, the zeal
of thine house hath eaten me up. David, until this morning,
I never realized what that meant. Psalm 69 verse 9. Our Lord's
hanging on the cross, and he says, The zeal of thine house
hath eaten me up. The reproaches of them that reproach
thee are fallen upon me. What's he talking about? These
fellows that he drove out of the temple, these who professed
to be his own, were zealous, but their zeal was utter corruption. And he says, The zeal of your
house has eaten me up. And now the reproaches of them
that reproach you have fallen on me. In Psalm 119, he says,
My zeal hath consumed me, because mine enemies have forgotten thy
words. The Savior said something that
must have astonished these folks, something that identified him
clearly as the Messiah. He said, make not my father's
house a house of merchandise. Do you know that no prophet had
ever referred to God as his father? And God had never spoken of any
prophet as his son. But here is a man standing in
the temple of God and says, the one who owns this house is my
father. Don't you make his house a house
of merchandise, a place of business for you to make money in. Turn
to Malachi chapter 3. Here's an exact fulfillment of
Malachi's prophecy. Behold, I will send my messenger,
and he shall prepare the way before me. I'll send John the
Baptist, Elijah, and he'll prepare the way before me. And the Lord
whom you seek, the Lord whom you seek, the Christ, the Messiah,
shall suddenly come to his temple. I think that's pretty well what
we have here in John chapter 2, don't you? He suddenly comes
to his temple. Even the messenger of the covenant,
whom ye delight in, behold, he shall come, saith the Lord of
hosts. But who may abide the day of
his coming? And who shall stand when he appeareth? For he is like a refiner's fire
and like a fuller's soap. What are the lessons to be drawn
from this? What spiritual lessons are we to learn? Did God the
Holy Spirit cause these things to be written simply so that
we could be informed about our Lord going into the temple and
driving folks out of the temple because he was angry with the
way they worship God? No. These things are recorded here
for our learning that we may draw spiritual lessons applying
those lessons to ourselves. As you well know, the physical
temple at Jerusalem was symbolic of three things. It was symbolic
of our Lord's physical body, as he tells us in verse 21. It
was symbolic of our physical bodies, as we're told in 1 Corinthians
6. And it was symbolic of the assembled
church of Christ, as we're told in 1 Corinthians chapter 3. The
things we see in John 2 are to be applied to all three. First, the temple represented
each believer's body. We won't turn to these passages
and read them, but I urge you to read 1 Corinthians chapter
6, especially verses 9 through 20. The apostle tells us, he
said, don't you know your bodies are the temple of the living
God? The spirit of God dwells in you. Don't defile God's temple. Don't defile God's temple. Now
I'm going to say something about that because religious fools
who teach Roman Catholic doctrine in Baptist churches have for
years taught that you defile God's temple by what you put
in your mouth. You can't defile God's temple
by what you put in your mouth. Can't do it. Can't do it. Well, I'm not going to eat any
pork. That's contrary to God's law. Give it to me. I'll eat it. Oh, I wouldn't smoke tobacco
and defile God's temple. Well, if I could, give it to
me and I'd smoke it. That's not going to defile God's
temple. No. Oh, don't put any alcoholic beverages
in your mouth and defile God's temple. Now, don't misrepresent
what I'm saying. Drunkenness is as wrong as adultery. But if you want to have a glass
of wine or a beer or drink a liquor, just go right ahead. You're not
going to defile God's temple. It ain't going to happen. Well,
you can't teach those kind of things. It's high time somebody
stood up on their hind legs and told the truth. How do you defile
God's temple then? Two things. Fornication and fornication. Read the book. Read the chapters
I just gave you. Fornication and fornication. By moral adultery and by spiritual
adultery, you defile God's temple. By taking that which is Christ
and joining it to a harlot, you defile God's temple. And both,
both will meet with God's judgment. Don't behave in moral decadence. Don't do it. Don't do it. Oh, you young people. And mamas
and daddies and grandma and grandpa, listen to me. Avoid moral decadence. You will hurt yourself and hurt
your family and hurt those who are around you for the rest of
your life. Don't behave in moral decadence. You're not your old. You've been
bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.
God, give me grace to do so. And don't defile God's temple
with spiritual decadence, with spiritual fornication, by finding
and aligning yourself with, in any way, false religion. Don't do it. Don't do it. Well,
they have such fine children's programs down there. They've
got such a nice building down there. They do so many things
down there. It's fun to go to church down
there. Fun to go to hell? Is that what you want for your
sons and daughters? Oh, no, no, no, no, no. No, I haven't changed
what I believe. They just got more people down there. It's
a better place to go. Don't. Take yourself and join
yourself to a harlot. And I mean by that, any form
of free will works religion. Have nothing to do with it. Have
nothing to do with it. God says, come out from among
them and be you separate, saith the Lord. People, well, that
means you're not supposed to join the country club because
there's unbelievers over there in the country club. No, if you want
to spend your money and join the country club and you've got
plenty of it, go ahead. That's fine. That's all right. Well, that
means you ought not shop where they sell liquor. No, that's
not what it means. That means you ought not go to
church where folks worship a false god. That's what it means. That's
what it means. Don't defile God's temple. Secondly,
the temple had reference to the gathered assembly of God's saints.
Turn to 1 Corinthians 3. I want you to see this. Paul tells us in verse 9, where
labor is together with God, you're God's husbandry, you're God's
building, according to the grace of God. And then down in verse
16, he says, know ye not that you are the temple of God, that
the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any man defile the temple
of God, him shall God destroy. For the temple of God is holy.
which temple ye are. Well, how do you defile the local
church with corrupt behavior, strife, gossip, slander, general
irreverence? How do you defile the local church
with corrupt practices, wood, hay, and stubble? Oh, how many
there are Men who preach the gospel of God's grace, who are
described here in this third chapter of 1 Corinthians, but
they want to make things happen. Oh, my soul. Darwin, if God sends
you to that church down in Louisiana, don't try to make anything happen. Well, don't you think the preacher
has to build up the church? Oh, no. No preacher builds it
up, he'll make a mess of it. Always. Always. But don't you think you need
to do something to get a crowd? Never. Never. You say, well,
I don't see anything happening. We want to see things happen.
We want to see God work. And if you attempt to make an
impression as though God was working with wood, hay, and stubble, Let's get a little bit of politics
involved, that'll get folks interested. Let's get a little bit of economics
involved, that'll get folks interested. Let's focus on the family, that'll
get folks interested. Let's, wood, hay, and stubble,
nothing else, and you'll see it burned. Don't defile God's
temple with corrupt doctrine. Don't do it. Don't do it. But
if you read the rest of John chapter 2, beginning verse 18,
you'll see that the temple represents the physical body of our Lord
Jesus Christ. Our Savior seems to have shown
the beam of his deity as our mighty Samson, laying heaps upon
heaps as he marched through the house of God. Look at verse 18.
Then answered the Jews and said unto him, What sign showest thou
unto us? And seeing that thou doest these
things, Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple,
and in three days I'll raise it up. Then said the Jews, Forty
and six years was this temple in building, and wilt thou rear it up in three
days? But he spake of the temple of
his body. When therefore he was risen from the dead, his disciples
remembered that he had said this unto them, and they believed
the scripture and the word which Jesus had said. It appears from
these men asking our Lord Jesus to show them his authority for
purging the temple, that they were suddenly, unwittingly, and
immediately convinced, this man's the Messiah. This is He. This is He. And so they asked
Him by what authority He did this thing. In fact, if I'm not
mistaken, when you read in Matthew chapter 12 of the blasphemy against
the Holy Ghost, that is ascribing to Satan, ascribing the works
of Satan to the Christ of God, that's exactly what these men
were doing. They knew who they were dealing with. They knew
who they were dealing with. Had this not been the case, had
it just been any man, any man, any prophet, takes him a whip
and starts driving fellows out of the temple, throwing their
money in the floor, running their animals out of the temple. They,
I suspect, would have interfered. I suspect they would have been
enraged. I suspect they would have said,
you're not getting by with this. It ain't going to happen. And
they would have taken him out, seized him and taken him out
and murdered him on the spot as they later tried to do many
times. If in our Lord's humiliation,
such glory occasionally shined forth to the consternation of
his foes. You remember in the garden later
on the soldiers came to arrest him and the Lord just, I mean
just for the briefest moment let them know you're dealing
with God in human flesh. Whom seek ye? Jesus of Nazareth. I am. They fell away like dead
men. What will it be when a world
of reprobate rebels sees Christ in His glory, when it comes to
take vengeance on those who know not God? And every eye shall
see Him. In the midst of His fury, our
Lord shows great forbearance. in that He didn't immediately
drive these men into hell. Though He refused to give a sign
to the Jews, though He refused to answer the demands of His
foes, our blessed Savior gave this precious sign to His chosen,
those for whom He had come, those for whom He would lay down His
life. Everything He does, He does for His chosen. The Holy
Spirit tells us plainly that He was talking about His body.
and his resurrection from the dead. Verse 21, he spake of the
temple of his body. So when the Lord Jesus arose
from the dead, at first they couldn't believe it. Those two
women came and said, the master's risen from the dead. Those disciples
on the road to Emmaus talked to him. They couldn't believe
he was risen from the dead until he departed from them and went
back to Jerusalem. And the Lord Jesus came and stood
in their midst, the risen Christ. And they remembered this word
that he spoke three and a half years earlier. Oh, that's what
he was talking about. He was talking about resurrection.
Learn this, children of God, don't miss this. God's word often
has its efficacy in the hearts of men a long time after it is
spoken. It often does its work many years
after it's spoken. Some of your children have grown up, gone out into the world,
making a living, and seem to have no interest in the things
of God. And my heart like yours breaks
for them, but not with despair. God's word often works effectually
a long time after it's heard. I've often told you the story
of an old man converted as an old man, 91, 92 years old. And someone asked him, to what
do you attribute your faith in Christ at such an age? He said,
when I was a small boy, my father took me to hear a man named George
Whitefield preach the gospel. And I can still remember what
I heard. What do we do then? Cast your
bread upon the waters and wait. Just wait. Don't try to make
something happen, just wait. God's Word will not return to
him void. It is upon this same testimony
that the whole Church of God rests today. Our Lord Jesus is
declared to be the Son of God with power according to the Spirit
of holiness by the resurrection from the dead. He was delivered
to death because of our offenses charged to him and made to be
his. And he was raised from the dead
by the spirit of holiness because of our justification accomplished
by his sacrifice. He was justified in the spirit. And we rest our souls upon the
accomplishments of his sacrifice. And don't miss this. He said,
I will raise it up. You mean he resuscitated his
own body and raised himself from the dead? That's what he said.
That's what he said. But the scripture speaks other
places of God raising him up. They do, don't they? And they
speak other places of being quickened by the Spirit, his body being
raised up by the Spirit. They do, don't they? There's
a contradiction here. Surely it can't be true that
all three, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, raised him from the dead.
Oh, yes, it can. He was raised by his Father,
whose justice he satisfied. Raised by his Spirit, the Spirit
of life, whom he gives to his own. and raised by his own merit
and power and efficacy because it was not possible that death
should hold him. Wasn't possible because the sin
for which he died he put away. And the debt which he took upon
himself because of our sin he is fully satisfied and the justice
that demanded our execution and demanded his as our substitute
is now satisfied. and He is raised from the dead. And then, in the latter part
of this chapter, verses 23, 24, and 25, now when He was at Jerusalem
at the Passover, in the feast day, many believed in His name
when they saw the miracles which He did. when they saw the miracles. Show
us a miracle and we will believe. Never happened. Never happened. But Jesus did not commit himself
unto them. Now you can either take my word
for it or go home and look it up for yourself in a concordance.
This word commit in verse 24 and that word believe in verse
23 are exactly the same word in the Greek. And what our Lord is teaching
us here is a difference between faith and faith. Who less than
he who made man can know the thoughts of man? Jesus did not
commit himself unto them because he knew all men, and needed not
that any should testify of man, for he knew what was in man.
He reads the heart. yours and mine. All things are
naked and open to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.
Now you may not know the difference between false faith and true,
but He does, and I'll give it to you. Natural faith. There is such a thing as natural
faith. Natural faith arises from sight and reason. It's a notion
of the head that has no effect on the heart. Natural faith is
faith you can be talked into or conned into. It's all about
your decision. That faith which is the gift
of God, that faith which is the operation of God the Holy Spirit,
is the commitment of the heart to the Son of God. It doesn't arise from sight,
It gives sight. It doesn't arise from the decision
of man, it determines his decision. It's not that which men talk
you into, but that which God works in you. Oh, may God, the
Holy Spirit, reveal Christ in you. and give you this faith
in Him who is God our Savior. Amen.