First of all, Christians, Christians
who are truly saved, who love Christ, to whom Christ is Lord,
Master, King, Prophet, Priest, Refuge, Savior, all in all, eternal
hope, Christ is their Lord, Christ is their life, Christ is their
first love. These people who really loved
God, who were his children, still sin. They still s-i-n-c. This is a fact that we are made
aware of from two sources, if we are honest people. We are
made aware of this fact, first of all, from the infallible source,
the Word of God. Now, let's turn to Romans 7. verse 18 through 24. Now here's Paul writing, and
this is not before he was saved, this was after he met the Lord.
This was not before he met Christ, this was after he met Christ.
Romans chapter 7, verse 18. Paul says, I know that in me,
that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing, for to will is
present with me. But how to perform that which
is good, I find not. For the good that I would, I
do not, but the evil that I would not, that I do. Now, if I do
that, I would not. This is not an unsaved man. An
unsaved man has not a desire to do good or a hatred for sin.
Now, if I do that, I would not. It is no more I that do it, but
sin that dwelleth in me. I find in a law. that when I
would do good, evil is present with me. I delight in the law
of God." Is that an unsaved man speaking? No, sir, that's a redeemed
man who delights in the law of God. An unsaved man does not
delight in the law of God. He says, I delight in the law
of God after the inward man. That's the divine nature, that's
the redeemed nature. But I see another law in my members,
warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity
to the law of sin which is in my members, my faculties, my
sight, my feelings, my desires, my emotions, and these things. Now skip down to the latter part
of verse 25, and I think every translation that is more accurately
produced, and I'm not finding fault with this, I'm saying this
is the way it reads. He says in verse 23, I see another
law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, bringing
me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members."
Now, the latter part of 25. So then, with the mind, I myself
serve the law of God. With the flesh, the law of sin. You do, too. You needn't draw
your breath in and look with horror, you do, too, if you're
saved. With your mind, you serve the
law of God, you love the law of God. You desire the law of
God. Somebody asked Spurgeon one night,
and said, What do you want more than anything else? Well, he
stopped for a moment, and he said, I want to be holy, just
like the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what I want more than
anything else. And every saved man wants that, but he's got
another part of him that doesn't. And so Paul says, So then with
the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the
law of sin. Now back to verse 24, this is
the way it's supposed to be translated. And he concludes, O wretched
man that I was, now say, that I am. O wretched man that I am,
who shall deliver me from this body of death? What body of death?
This old nature, this corrupt nature, this law of sin. I thank God through Jesus Christ
our Lord. period. That's the end of that
particular exposition, and that's the way it reads. You take verse
25, so then, put it right under verse 23, and then close with
the victory in Christ. One of these days will be perfect,
but not on this earth. One of these days will be without
any thought of sin, any desire of sin, any inclination to sin,
or any possibility to sin. because we shall lay aside, as
Paul said, this body of death, this flesh. Now, the second source from which
we learn this, every Christian still sins. And we learn this
fact, we are made aware of this fact from the word of God. I
could go right on through the Bible, I could give you hundreds
and hundreds of examples from the scriptures of the greatest
saints who sinned. Jacob, oh, Jacob. David, Solomon, Isaiah, Job,
David, Jeremiah, Elijah, who prayed for death, Jonah, who
got mad because God wouldn't destroy a city. He went down
and predicted God was going to destroy him, went up the mountain,
sat there, waited for God to destroy him. He didn't do it,
and he got mad at God. He wanted Him to burn those people up.
But God didn't do it. That wasn't good, that was evil.
The second source from which an honest man learns about his
nature is from his heart, from himself. Turn to 1 John, chapter
1. The fact that we still see is
taught us by the Word of God, and then it's taught us from
our own experience. Now, 1 John, chapter 1, says
this. In verse 8, if we say we have
no sin, now, you wouldn't say that, would you? Do you know
anybody that would? Yes, I know some folks that would.
Well, what does God say about them? And this is talking about
any man who says he has no sin, he deceives himself and the truth
is not in him. That's a terrible charge, isn't
it? If the truth is not in him, Christ is not in him, because
Christ is the truth. If the truth's not in him, the
grace of God's not in him. If the truth is not in him, then
the Spirit of God's not in him, and he's not saved. If any man
says he has no sin, he deceives himself, and the truth's not
in him. Look at verse 10. If we say that we have not sinned,
we make God a liar, and his word is not in us. Now, my little
children, verse 1, chapter 2, these things I write unto you
that you sin not. The Bible doesn't encourage sin.
And the minister is not to encourage sin, and you're not to encourage
sin. We're to war against sin, which wars against the soul.
We're commanded not to sin. We're to preach against sin.
We're to avoid sin. We're to avoid every appearance
of evil. But if any man sins, we have an advocate with our
Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and he is the propitiation for
what? Now, let's for our sins. If you
don't have any sins, you don't need a mediator. If you don't
have any sins, you don't need the Lord. If you don't have any
sins, you don't need a sacrifice, and you don't need a high priest.
But he is the propitiation for our sins, and our fires only.
But for Jew and Gentile, black and white, old and young, yellow,
the whole world, every I find this, and I'll be honest with
you now about this, and I've done just a little bit of reading
and a little studying and a little observation. I find this is true,
that the more sanctified a person becomes, the less he talks about his perfection. and the more he's made aware
of his sins. I know that's the opposite from
what's being taught in this day. They claim the more sanctified
holy you become, the more you run around talking about what
you don't do. And how good you are. But I find that the more
sanctified a person becomes and the closer he walks with God,
the more sensitive, the more sensitive are his feelings about
sin. and the greater his awareness
of his own imperfections and infirmities and sins. Not only do the gross sins grieve
him, but secret sins of the heart grieve him. You don't find Job
talking about his sins nearly as much at the beginning of the
book of Job as you hear him talking about them at the end of the
book of Job, when he had that experience with the Lord. The
more God revealed himself to Job, the less Job talked about
himself and his righteousness, and the more he talked about
God and his sins. At the first of the book of Job,
when all of this came upon Job and this distress fell upon him
and the trial, we hear him Though he slay me, yet will I trust
him, and that's good. And naked I came into this world,
naked shall I depart. But at the end, after God had
spoken to Job and revealed himself to Job in power, Job was crying,
O God, I have heard of thee by the ear, and now mine eyes see
of thee, wherefore I hate myself. I repent, and sackcloth and ashes
We hear him saying, Once have I spoken, yet twice things too
wonderful for me. I put my hand on my mouth, I'll
never speak again. I abhor myself." Isaiah was a
pretty strong advocate of righteousness, his own especially, in the first
five chapters. But when he saw the Lord in Isaiah
6, he said, Woe is me, I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell
among a people. of unclean lips. So I find this,
that the more a person knows of God, the God of the Bible,
the God of heaven, the Christ of holiness, and the more he
walks closely with God, the more sensitive he becomes about his
own sins, and the greater his awareness of his own guilt. And not only do open sins known
by others grieve him, but he grieves just as much or more
over sins nobody knows about. Now that's established. That's
the truth. The second thing I want to say
is this. How can I overcome sin? How can
I, as they say in the language of some people, get the victory?
How can I grow in grace and in the knowledge of Christ. How
can I conquer anger, worry, hatred, vengeance, idolatry,
which is covetousness, pride, envy, lust, doubt, and fear? How can I conquer these things?
How can I overcome them? How can I grow so that my life
in these areas will magnify the name of the Lord Jesus Christ?
Now then, before I go any further, let me say this. Usually when
we stand before a congregation and talk about seniors, we have become so conditioned
in this day by what we call negative preaching. that the average person,
when you stand up and talk about sin, their mind goes in one channel,
in one direction. And that one direction usually
is the unlawful desires of the flesh. That's usually the channel
in which everybody's mind, just like the sides of a hill, you
know, when you start talking about sin, it's just like two
hillsides coming down into a common gutter or rut. That's where everybody's
mind falls, and they run down this channel. Now that's where
I want to win the victory, that's where I want to get the victory,
that's where I want to overcome sin. Now what happens when you
do that? When you try to narrow sin down
to one problem or one area, when you do that and focus on one
area, you allow great sin to grow and to flourish in all these
other areas. You see what I'm saying? You
allow sin to grow in these other areas. And these areas that I
just mentioned, lust was just one of them. Anger, intemperance,
envy, covetousness. The Apostle Paul says, Be content
with such things as you have, and avoid covetousness, which
is idolatry. I don't know, I'd soon be guilty
of adultery as idolatry. you? Idolatry is worshiping a
false god. And then vengeance and pride. God says there are six things
I hate, yea, seven are an abomination to me, and the first one is pride.
God says, I resist the proud, I give grace to the humble. I
would about soon be guilty before God of the sins that most people
consider the greatest sin, as to stand before God and be judged
as a proud man. So when we isolate sin and when
we begin to connect sin with these outward acts of the flesh,
like gambling and drinking, excessive drinking, or unlawful desires,
when we When we catalog sin and bring it down to these fleshly
expressions, we're going to miss the sanctification of the Spirit
and the dealings of God with sin. So while I'm talking tonight
about sin, please channel your mind away from one area and get
your mind on the areas where you are really having problems
with God and with people. Do you really love people? If
you don't, You don't love God. You're not sanctified. You may stay out of all the movies,
and you may never gamble, and you may never touch a drop of
John Barley corn, and you may not do any of these things, but
if you don't love people, God says, it profiteth you nothing.
If you're not kind, are you kind? Are you meek? Are you humble?
Are you a proud spirit? Do you seek to assist others,
or is your mind focused, is my mind focused on, I want to talk
to myself, I don't mean to use you, that's bad preaching and
bad teaching, but do I really go out of my way to make sure
that somebody else is happy, or do I just seek my own happiness?
I may be the cleanest, most moral, pure, selfish rat in the world,
and that's what I find most of these religious people are. They're
the cleanest, most moral, most wonderful, heavenly-minded rats
I've ever met. I had a preacher call me today
talking about two families in his church that were the pillars,
the strength of his church. He thought they did everything
but crucify him last week. Everything in the world they
could do to slander and destroy him, totally destroy him. And
these are moral people, but they're ungodly. ungodly. They've never met the Spirit
of God. So while we're talking about sin tonight, let's don't
get in this horrible channel of isolating sin. Let's deal
with the places where we're having problems. I mean every place. Now, how do I overcome sin? There
are two theories put forward. The first one is this. Now, it's
going to sound good when I first read it, but it's unscriptural. Here's the first theory. fight
sin all you can with resolution, with reason, and with fear. Is that a pretty good idea? The
preacher stands up and he tells you what your duty is to God.
And then he tells you the consequences of sin. If you do this, you'll
go to hell. He tells you the consequences to your souls and
to your families and to your bodies and to all these things,
and then he holds out the sweet promises of the gospel to those
who conquer the world and who conquer sin. Now he says, master
your life, like the old Catholic monks used to do. Grit your teeth
and set your jaw and roll up your sleeves and spit on your
hands and do battle with the devil. Exercise discipline. and fight sin, it won't work. It won't work. That's not scriptural
sanctification. It just will not work. You'll
fall flat on your face. You can't do it. You're doing
battle with an enemy that's ten million times more powerful than
you are. The second theory that's put
forth is this. Don't fight sin at all. as they
have in one of these victorious living books, just let go and
let God. Don't fight sin, let the Lord
eradicate sin by coming upon you with the precious Holy Spirit
and giving you that second blessing. They teach that when we receive
Christ as our Savior the first time, he saves us from hell. And then we have a second meeting
with the Holy And he comes upon us in power and gives us that
second work of grace, and from then on we have victory over
sin. And the old nature is eradicated
and there is no more conflict. We just surrender our lives to
God, and if it isn't easy, it isn't a victory. That's wrong,
too. It won't work. I've been in some
of those meetings. And I've seen the results of
some of those experiences, too. And I'm telling you, you can
get out of those experiences some of the worst Pharisees that
ever walked on the earth. It won't work. Well, you say,
what is the answer? The secret to scriptural sanctification
and Bible holiness is to be found in a twofold activity right here
in Philippians, chapter 2, which I read a moment ago. Here it
is. In Philippians, chapter 2, it
says, out your own salvation with fear and trembling, verse
12, for it is God that worketh in you. It's a twofold activity. This is a Biblical combination.
If we try to conquer the flesh apart from the Holy Spirit, we
fail. If we try to conquer the flesh
with the Holy Spirit without putting forth an effort on our
own part, we're going to fail. Now, that's true. It is God that
worketh in you. You work out your salvation as
God works in you. You perform as God enables. Sanctification is a progressive
work. Sanctification is a gradual work. Sanctification is, as the scripture
often says, a growth in grace and a coming to maturity. You
don't expect these boys to have the wisdom of an adult. You expect
them to someday have that wisdom, and you're disappointed if they
don't have it. But you're patient enough and
kind enough to give them time to develop and grow in wisdom
and stature and favor with God and man. And sanctification and
Bible holiness is the same thing. It is God enabling you, and it
is exercising that which God enabled you to do. Now, I'm going
to give you give us five or six things, I think, that are included
in this working out what God works in. If I tried only in
the strength and energy of the flesh, I'm going to love people. I'm going to love people. I'm
not going to be able to. I'm going to control my temper.
I'm going to control my tone. I'm going to exercise patience.
I'm going to exercise humility. I'm going to destroy my pride.
I'm going to be more like the Lord. I'm going to fall flat
on my face. That's what I'm going to do.
But if God works in me, if I'm regenerated, if I'm a child of
God, if I'm saved, and God works in me the grace of the Holy Spirit,
if God works in me and sheds with all in me the love of the
Holy Ghost, and I put forth some effort to outlive that, I'm going
to win the victory. And here are five or six things.
And this is the first thing. There's got to be a desire for
holiness. There's got to be a desire for
beauty of life. There's got to be a desire, a
hunger and a thirst for righteousness. Let me ask you, and I can answer
these questions in the affirmative. Do you really want to love people?
I mean everybody, not just those that love you. That's easy to
do. Christ said, if you love those that love you, sinners
do the same thing as that. And you have no thanks for that.
Do you really want to be a humble individual? Do you really want
to conquer pride and unkindness? Do you really want purity of
life and purity of behavior? Do you really want it? That's
the first requirement. I must desire, I must want to
manifest God's Spirit and God's attitude. And if I want it badly
enough, if I hunger and thirst for it badly enough, Then what
will I do? The second thing. I'll ask for
it. Now, don't you ask for it if
you don't mean it. Don't you pray, Lord, sanctify me next
week. That's what Augustine did. I was reading his life story
today, and before he was ever converted, back years before
he was converted, he used to pray, Lord, make me a Christian
next year. Make me a Christian next year.
If I really want to manifest this Spirit of Christ, this holiness,
right I'm going to ask for it. Christ said, Ask, and it shall
be given. You, being evil, know how to
give good gifts to your children, don't you? He said, Would you
for bread give your child a stone? Would you for meat give him a
serpent? Your Heavenly Father, how much more would your Heavenly
Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him? Why do you
want the Holy Spirit? So God can be more holy. You
ask for it. Why do you want the Holy Spirit?
So I can manifest the love of Christ? Then ask for it. Why
do you want the Holy Spirit? So I can be a kind person and
a humble person and a holy person. All right, ask for it. Can we
say, Let the beauty of Jesus be seen in me, all his wonderful
beauty and his purity, O thou Spirit divine, all my nature
refined, and let the beauty of Jesus be seen in me." Is that
what we want? Is that what we desire? Then
let's ask for it. But don't ask for it if you don't
want it. And don't ask for it if you don't want it. And then
the third thing. Turn to John 17. Here's the third
thing. First of all, there's got to
be a desire. and then it's got to be seeking. Seek ye the Lord
with all thine heart, and thou shalt be found. And I know this
work from the word of God and from experience. I know this
work. It's a growth now, it's gradual, and it's a day-by-day
growth, and sometimes there's a setback. We go forward and
we set back, but it's a growth. And the third thing is a study
of God's word. In John 17, verse 17, the Lord
Jesus is praying here, and he says, "...sanctify them through
thy truth, make them holy through thy truth. Thy word is true."
If you want to grow in the grace and fruit of the Holy Spirit,
if you want to grow in grace and the knowledge of Christ,
if you want to grow in the beauty of Christ, you're going to have
to search the word of God. The two ways that God guides
men, only two. I'm going to deal with this next
Wednesday night. Number one is by the Word. Number two is by
providence. That's the only two ways, by
the Word and by providence. And we can't neglect this book.
Look at 1 Peter 2. This is one of our greatest problems. This is the problem in the churches
today. We're ignorant of the Word of God. It's the word of
God by which men are sanctified. I know we're sanctified by the
blood of Christ and by the Holy Spirit, but here it says we're
sanctified by the word of God. If you want to know what God
requires and what God expects, it's just like I read a while
ago in Philippians. It says, Look not on your own
things, but on the things of others. And as I read that verse,
I Let nothing be done through strife and vainglory, but let
everything be done in humility. Let everybody esteem the other
fellow better than himself. If I want to grow in grace and
in holiness and in humility, let this mind be in you which
is in Christ. I'm going to have to become familiar
with old Percy. They're going to have to become
second nature to me. Those verses, when the flesh springs up and
when pride lifts its head, those verses there will be brought
to my memory and to my heart and suppressed there. You ought
not have that attitude. That's not what the Word of God
says. That's not the mind of Christ. That's not the Spirit
of Christ. How do you know it's not? God's Word says it's not.
And I become so saturated in the Word of God that God speaks
to me through his Word. Look at 1 Peter 2, verse 1. Lay aside all malice, be done
with it, and all guile, hypocrisy, envy, evil speaking, as newborn
babes desire the sincere milk of the Word, that you may grow
thereby." That's how you grow with the Word of God. we must be faithful to public
worship. Now, brethren, when we miss,
as I said last Sunday, there are three things required for
anything of any spiritual value. Number one is the preacher, number
two is the healer, and number three is the Holy Spirit. But
God still, just like he always has, speaks to men through his
servant. It says, Jesus Christ left in
the church. prophets, apostles, evangelists,
pastors and teachers." Why? That the man of God might be
perfected. Let's find that. That's in Ephesians,
isn't it? In Ephesians, or is it Galatians? Ephesians, what
chapter? And he ascended on high, left
captivity captive, and left some in the church, apostles, prophets. If you find it, call it out to
me. Ephesians 4.11. Listen to this
now. In verse 10, He that descended
is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that
he might fill all things. And he gave some apostles Some
prophets, some evangelists, some, this is what I am, a pastor and
a teacher. Why? For the perfecting of the saint.
What is the word perfecting there? Well, look it up when you get
on it. It's maturity. For the growth of the saint. For the
work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ
till all of the body of Christ come in a unity of faith and
of the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man, a mature
man. under the measure of the stature
of the fullness of Christ, that we henceforth be no more children
with our fault-finding and arguing and quibbling and quarreling
and all these toss to and fro and care about every time some
preacher comes down with, he sounds right to me. By the slight
of men and the cunning craftiness whereby they lie in wait to deceive,
but speaking the truth. How are you going to speak the
truth if you don't know it? In love. that we may grow up into
him in all things, which is the head, even Christ." That's the
importance of preaching. And when you stay out of the
house of God and away from the service of God, you miss what
God has for you. You miss what God has. I preached
a sermon on the Holy Spirit and common grace two weeks ago, three
weeks ago. I wish everybody in our church
could have heard it. Some of you didn't And it answered, some
people came to me at the service and said, that answered questions
that I've had in my mind for years and years and years. I'm
not going to preach it again, I preached it once. And we don't
avail ourselves when, I don't know if some of you mothers might
cook a half a dozen breakfasts, but I wouldn't. I'd cook it and
put it on the table, and I'd invite them to the table. If
they stayed away, they could go play tiddlywinks or mumblyticks.
And if you stay away from the house of God, you're going to
miss the meal, you're going to miss the growth, you're going
to miss the opportunity to find out what we have to know. But
the thing that I've come to this conclusion, that when we meet
together as a people of God, just preach to those that are
there. A lot of times I've gone to church and there'd just be
15 or 20 people there and the preacher would get up and bawl
out, everybody's not there. Well, they're not there. Get
up and preach to those that are. They came out hungry and thirsty. Thank God for ten, or five. Now, here's the fifth thing.
I think if we're going to grow in holiness and the Spirit of
Christ, we've got to desire it, then ask for it, and then study
the Word of God, because he leads men through his Word, and then
be faithful to public worship. I promise you, I promise you,
God is my witness. You come here, and it may not
be a whole lot, but I'll give you something, and it will be
something that has been prepared and sought from the table of
God. Now, the fifth thing, we must face our own weaknesses
and our own failures in truth. Now, let's shell corn, let's
put the cards on the top of the table, let's admit what we are. And let's put forth an effort
to correct it. You see what I'm saying? Let's
admit what we are. It's only when a man lowers God's
standards to fit his own principles that he claims to be without
sin. That's the only time. It's only as he reaches up and
takes hold of God's principles, and God's standards, and God's
law, and brings them down here to his own level, and then he
talks about how good he is. Let's face what we are. Nobody
attains instantaneous holiness. Over here in James, when it talks
about playing for the sick, it says, Confess your faults one
to another, and pray for one another. Confess your faults
one to another, and pray for one another, that you may be
healed. Don't try to hide it. I'm not
talking about confessing your sins to somebody. That's the
last thing you ought to do, the last thing. You confess them
to God and not somebody else. I feel like that black woman
that got the new colored priest, you know, he came down to the
Catholic Church, he was a new priest, and she wouldn't come
to confession. And he got on her one Sunday and said, How
come you're not coming to confession, confessing your sins to me? She
said, I'm confessing them to God. Well, he said, You're supposed
to confess them to me. She said, God ain't no blabbermouth
like you is, and I'm not coming to you. We're not supposed to
confess our sins, we're supposed to confess our faults. what we
are, our own infirmities and failures, not our sins, face
our weaknesses. Now, the last thing, remember
all of this, this sanctification, this walk in holiness. Brethren,
it's a heart work. That's what it is. Let's look
at some scripture. First of all, Matthew 23. Look
at Matthew 23, verse 25. Matthew 23, verse 25. Christ
said, under you, scribes and Pharisees,"
and he calls them hypocrites, you make clean the outside of
the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion
and excess. Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse
first that which is within, that's the heart, that's the attitude,
that's the spirit. That's where the problem is.
We don't have a hand problem, we've got a heart problem. We
don't have a head problem, we've got a heart problem. You cleanse
first that which is within, that the outside may be clean also. I guarantee you, if a man in
his heart comes to a right relationship with the Lord, he will have a
right relationship with everybody else. And the reason his relationship
is wrong with people out here is it's wrong with God. That's
the whole problem. Christ said it's not that which
you put in your mouth that defiles you, it's that which comes out
of your heart. For out of the heart proceeds
evil thoughts, and murder, and adultery, and fornication, and
thefts, and false witness, and blasphemy. It's the things that
come out of the heart. He said keep your heart with
all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life. I want
you to turn there and mark that in our Bibles. Proverbs 4, verse
23. It's one of the most important
verses in the entire Bible. Proverbs 4, verse 23. Keep thy heart with all diligence,
and my center reference says, above all keeping, for out of
it are the issues of life. Lord, I hunger and thirst for
righteousness, for the Spirit of Christ, for the right attitude.
Will you give me your Holy Spirit? Will you help me? Will you work
in me as I work to defeat my evil attitude and evil thoughts
and evil spirits and my pride and my covetousness and my envy
and my jealousy? Will you help me to defeat these
things? And I'm going to saturate myself
in your word. I'm going to find the example
set forth for me in God's word. And I'm going to come and listen
to your message from your servant. I'm going to listen to what you
give me on the Lord's day. I'm going to face what I am.
I'm not going to profess to be what I'm not. I'm not going to
let on to others that I'm what I'm not. I'm going to face what
I am. I'm going to say, Brother, pray for me. I need the Spirit
of Christ. And then I'm going to remember
that it's a heart work. That it's not some chocolate
soldier, you know, tin soldier, that I walk, I lift my arms so
high and take so many steps, like a pharisaical observance
of the Sabbath day, but it's the beat of the heart as it beats
in tune with Christ. That's sanctification. And brother,
when you find out what it really is, you'll know it's not instantaneous.
It's not instantaneous. is something that is gradually
worked in us by the power of God. And when you come to the
end of the road, let me tell you this, when you come down
to the end of the road, you'll still be praying to be sanctified.
And the more light God turns on, the more spots you're going
to see, and the more cobwebs, and the more places where we
need some attention. The greater the circumference
of light, the greater the area of darkness. The more I find
out about God, the more I encounter that I don't know about. And
the more I find out about myself, the more dissatisfied I'm going
to be. And then I'm going to start praying
with David, I'll be satisfied when I wake with his likeness.