Now our subject tonight is sanctification. And it would be difficult to get a long scripture reading. So we'll just pick out a few scriptures. I think we'll go right back to the Old Testament first of all. Exodus chapter thirteen. And we have made reference to this chapter once or twice lately. And when we were talking about redemption we mentioned it. And on another occasion I remember recently we mentioned Exodus thirteen. And I remember putting it this way. Sometimes I don't like repeating, and yet perhaps it's good to repeat, because I have learned by experience when you hear a thing over and over again, at last it sinks in, and you get to understand what we're trying to talk about, you know. The third thing, you've heard me say this before. At the top of my Bible, Exodus twelve, I've got the word shelter. Shelter. They were sheltered by the blood of the Lamb. When the destroying angel went to the land, in every home where the blood was sprinkled on the door they were sheltered at the top of chapter thirteen i have sanctification at the top of chapter fourteen i have salvation at the top of chapter fifteen i have satisfaction they were through through the red sea on the other side that's satisfaction and you get the first song in the bible in Exodus fifteen. But Exodus thirteen is a parenthesis chapter. You'll find all the Bible teachers tell you this is parenthesis. If you look at your Schofield Bible, I'll guarantee you at the top, and I haven't noticed, but it's there. It says at the top of the chapter, parenthetical, the firstborn set aside for Jehovah. You see, God brought the children of Israel. He passed through the land of Egypt on that Passover night. And the firstborn in every house was slain, except in the homes where the blood was sprinkled on the doorpost and the lintel. And Pharaoh, all his hosts rose up in the night and drove the children of Israel out. They said, let's get rid of them. God had sent all those plagues upon them, but the final plague, they rose up and drove them out. And they got to the waters of the Red Sea. In front of them was the Red Sea. Behind them the armies of Pharaoh and his host coming with their chariots, and they were in a terrible predicament. And God stopped them right there. He said, listen, let's have a parenthesis here. He said, I went through the land of Egypt, and I slew the firstborn in every house. I claimed the firstborn in every house where the blood was not upon the door. I slew them. And from now on, I claim the firstborn. And he said to the children of Israel, before he got them out of Egypt, the firstborn belongs to me. Let's read it. Exodus thirteen, verse one. And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, sanctify unto me. Our subject is sanctification. Sanctification means to set apart. There are three words. which can be used in connection with sanctify and the same Greek word all the time. The Greek word is agios. Agios. G is earth, you know. Agie means not earth, not a beer. Agios, holy. That's the word holy. And then we have saint. And a saint in Greek is called agios. And then we have sanctify. Agiazo, three Greek words here, and they all mean the same thing. Holy, saint, and sanctify. Verse two, Exodus thirteen, sanctify unto me all the firstborn. That is, separate them to me. Sanctification means to be set apart for God. Set apart for God. He claimed the firstborn. Sanctify unto me all the firstborn. whatsoever openeth the womb among the children of Israel, both of man and beast, it is mine. I've got a frame in my Bible drawn around those words. It is mine. God claimed the firstborn. Man and beast. Go right down to verse thirteen. Every first thing of an ass, shalt thou redeem with a lamb. Perhaps we'd better... read the last part of verse twelve. Every first thing, every first thing that cometh of a beast, of a beast which thou hast, the male shall be Jehovah's. The male shall be Jehovah's. And every first thing of an hour shalt thou redeem with a lamb. And if thou will not redeem it, then thou shalt break his neck. And all the firstborn of man among thy children shall thou redeem. God claimed that firstborn little donkey. He said, he's mine. Now he said, you can redeem him. You can take a lamb and shed the blood of the lamb. And that will be the redemption for that donkey. This is exactly what happened in our case. The Lord Jesus shed his precious blood for our redemption. We talked about that when we were talking about redemption the other day. But if they didn't redeem him, they had to break his neck. God says, you can't have him. He's mine. You either redeem him, or you give him up. Break his neck. I claim the firstborn of every beast. I claim the firstborn child. And God claimed the firstborn of their corn and their land. Everything. The firstborn belonged to God. Sanctify unto me the firstborn among the children of Israel, of man and beast. is mine. Now another little instance of sanctification, Exodus chapter forty. That's the last chapter of Exodus. The tabernacle was built. All the pots were built. The tent and the curtains and the boards and the altar and the table and the candlestick, everything built. But before God could use it, he had to be sanctified to him. Excellent forty verse nine. And thou shalt take the anointing all, and anoint the tabernacle, and all that is therein. And thou shalt hallow it, and all the vessels thereof. It shall be holy. And thou shalt anoint the altar of the burnt offering, and all his vessels, and sanctify the altar, and it should be an altar most holy. You notice these words, it is holy. most holy. And thou shalt anoint the labor and his foot, and sanctify it. And thou shalt bring Aaron and his sons unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, and wash them with water. And thou shalt put upon Aaron the holy garment, and anoint him, and sanctify him, that he may minister unto me in the priest's office. And thou shalt bring his sons and clothe them with coats. And thou shalt anoint them as thou didst their father, that they may minister unto me, in the priest's office, for their anointing shall surely be an everlasting priesthood throughout their generations. Thus did Moses, according to all that God commanded him. Now let's go right over to the New Testament, because we're going to talk from the New Testament tonight. First Corinthians, chapter one and verse one. First Corinthians, chapter one and verse one. Paul called to be an apostle. Really, he was an apostle by calling. The little words to be are in italics. He was called by God. He was an apostle by calling. Paul called an apostle of Jesus Christ through the will of God and sustenance our brother. unto the church of God, which is at Corinth, to them that are sanctified, to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, call saints. Now call them to be saints, but call saints. Saints by the calling of God, with all that in every place call upon the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, both theirs and ours. Now one more scripture in one Peter chapter two. First Peter chapter two. Verse nine, ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, and a holy nation, a peculiar people, that ye should show forth the praises of him who have called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Let's seek God's blessing, shall we? We bless you, God our Father. We thank you for these scriptures we have been reading, and we thank thee the entrance of thy word, giveth light. We can have no knowledge and no wisdom. of our own apart from this wonderful word that has given us. And we pray that the Holy Spirit tonight might take some of these somewhat difficult things to understand and apply them to our hearts in such a simple way that we'd understand what thou talking about. We pray that thou make this message tonight very real to all of our hearts. We ask it in the name of the Lord Jesus. Amen. Now in this series of talks, And again, I'm repeating, perhaps it's good to repeat, I don't know. But in this series of talks, we have been talking about some of the things which happened to us when we were saved. As you've heard me say before, God saved me sixty-two years ago. And I little knew at the time I rejoiced in the fact that I was saved, but I little knew what happened. And as the years have gone by, I've learned, and I keep on learning, of some of the tremendous things that happened the moment God saved us. As I've repeated here before, the moment we receive Christ as our Savior, we become a child of God tremendously. The moment we accept Christ as our Savior, by one Spirit we're all baptized into one body. We become members of the body of Christ. We don't have to join a church. We don't need a church membership because we are members of the body of Christ baptized into the body of Christ by the Holy Spirit, not the water baptism, by the Holy Spirit, the moment we accept Christ as our Savior. And every other believer in the Lord Jesus, man and woman in this world, becomes my brother or sister in Christ. That's the fellowship of the body of Christ. It's very broad. It takes in every true believer in the Lord Jesus. That's what I believe in with all my heart. that happened when God saved me now we also talked here about I remember the first talk in this series we gave was a talk on forgiveness you see I was a sinner and it was necessary that my sins be forgiven and when I accepted Christ as my Savior God forgave all my sins I like this you know not only the past ten and the present tense, but the future tense. When the Lord Jesus died at the place called Calvary, my life was all in the future, my sins were all in the future, but he forgave them all. Even the sins I'll commit tomorrow, they're forgiven now. I know there's another side to this. It says, if we sin and we confess our sin, he's faithful to forgive us our sin and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. That's to do with our communion with God, but our sins are forgiven. That's an accomplished fact the moment I accept Christ as my Savior. Forgiveness. Then the next thing we spoke on, I think, was the redemption. You see, I needed forgiveness because I was a sinner. I need redemption because I was in bondage. The children of Israel were in bondage to Pharaoh in Egypt, and the Lord redeemed them and brought them out. And we were in the bond, we were in the slave market of sin. We talked about this one night some time ago. Oh, way back last fall, I believe. We were in the bond, in the slave market of sin, chained by our sin. And the Lord redeemed us. He bought us out of the slave market. Now, there's two, look at, look at Romans three. We went over this last fall, but let me just look at Romans three and a note in your Schofield Bible, if you have it there. It says in verse twenty four, being justified freely by his grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus. And in the note number one in the Schofield Bible it says, redemption to deliver by paying a price. The completed truth is set forth in the three words which are translated redemption, three great words, agorazo, to purchase in the market. The underlying thought is of a slave market. The subjects of redemption are sold under sin, Romans five fourteen, but are moreover under the senses of death. And the purchase price is the blood of the redeemer who dies in their stead. Then the next word is ex-agorazo. Ex means out of. Agrato to purchase in the market. Ex-Agrato to purchase out of the market. To buy out of the market. And then there's one other word translated redemption in the New Testament. It's Lutero. And that Greek word means to set free, to lose. So by the blood of Christ then, I have been purchased in the market of sin. But I have been purchased out of the slave market. out of the bondage of Satan, and then the Greek word luthero, he set me free. It's just like the picture we get of the, I remember mentioning this, the picture we get of the, you know, in those Roman slave markets two thousand years ago, they brought their captives from other lands, and the story is told that when they got to the shores of Great Britain, and the Romans arrived in Britain in B.C. fifty-six. They didn't land that time. They were beaten off by the ancient Britons, but they landed in BC fifty-five. And we still have the relics of the Roman occupation of Great Britain. But they brought some of the young people, slaves, back to Rome. And the story is told that these fair-skinned, some of the girls were in the market there, slaves to be sold. And people passed by and said, what are these? They said they're angling. Angled, angled. Angled. I think that's the Latin to angled. And the remark was, not angles, but angels. Their skin was so fair and they were so different to the people that had their angels. But these are the people that put in the slave market. And the story told that the one Roman prince came along and he saw one of these fair girls there. and he bought her. He paid the purchase price and bought her out of the market, and she was awfully frightened. She wondered what in the world would happen. But he took her home to his own home, and he educated her, and he clothed her, and he trained her. And then he married her, made her his wife, and she dwelt in his palace. That's just what the Lord did for us. He came down into the slave market, where we were chained in sin, and by his precious blood he paid the price and bought us out and then he set us free and wonder of wonders we're going to be his bride for all eternity that's redemption we talked about redemption and then we talked about reconciliation I needed to be reconciled to God you see We're born at enmity to God. We're born in sin and our human nature somehow rebels against God. We are at enmity because of Adam's sin. And because we have inherited from Adam that sinful nature, our nature is at enmity against God's nature. And there's no fellowship. There's no communion. Before Adam's sin, God came down into the garden and had fellowship with Adam. But after sin came in, and Adam sinned, God came into the garden, and Adam's visit. Adam went out, and Adam is hiding behind the trees. He said, What's the matter? He said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid. He was never afraid of God before, but now he was afraid of God because of his sin. The link, the communion between God and man was snapped. because of that. And you and I were born at enmity to God. Now by reconciliation, he's broken down the enmity and reconciled us to God. All this took place the moment I was saved. I didn't know it. It was a wonderful moment when God saved me, but I never knew all these wonderful things that happened. I was redeemed. I was forgiven. I was reconciled. I'm brought to God. Now our subject tonight is sanctification. The moment I was saved, I was sanctified. Now, to be sanctified is to be made holy. Now, I know somebody is saying, now, wait a minute, I don't feel very holy, and I don't feel very holy either. But I've got to believe what God says. We are called... We are saints by calling and saints, the word saints, the same word is the word holy, Agios. And we were made holy. We were separated. Sanctification is to be separated to God. Those vessels that I read out in the tabernacle They were sanctified. They were set apart for holy use. After they were anointed and sanctified, those vessels could not be used for any other purpose except for God. They belonged to him. When Aaron and his sons were anointed and sanctified, they were sanctified unto God. They became holy for God. It couldn't be used for any other purpose. The Levite... the sons of Levi, the priests. They didn't do the ordinary round of work of other people. Their work was God's work. They were set aside for God and for His service. Now in the New Testament, the teaching which applies to the child of God under grace is this. There are two sides, shall I say three sides, three aspects of sanctification. There's what the theologians call positional, positional sanctification. That is, that in Christ I am sanctified. I remember when I was a boy, there used to be an awful lot of argument and controversy and discussion amongst the men of God where my father used to go, and I used to listen to them, and they used to discuss two words. state and standing. State and standing. Now you see, in God's presence, I am holy. That's my standing in God's presence, holy. But my state, sometimes I'm not very holy. And there was a whole argument took place among some of the assemblies way back in the eighties. They split right in half over this very subject. Stay in standing. Now, positionally, I'm going to use these words tonight, positionally and experimentally. Positionally, I am sanctified, and that took place at my conversion. When God saved me, He set me apart for Him. I belong to Him for time and for eternity. I'm His. Therefore, I'm holy. Romans three, verse one. A Hebrews three verse one, I beg upon. Hebrews three verse one. A verse comes to my mind here. It says, Hebrews three verse one, wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling. We are being called by God the heavenly calling. And we are partakers of the heavenly calling. and therefore we are set aside and God looks upon us as holy, separated to him. That's what sanctification means. Separated to God. Now it's no assumption or mark of pride to call ourselves holy. God calls us holy. We would hesitate to call ourselves holy because we know our own sinful heart. but God calls us holy brethren and that's what happened in Christ that's what I am in God's sight in Christ separated to him holy brethren look at one Corinthians you see of all the churches that Paul wrote to It's hard to conceive the Corinthian church. Chapter one, verse thirty. But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. In Christ Jesus. we are sanctified. Therefore he says unto the church of God, which is it coming, verse two of chapter one, to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus. Mark the little word in Christ Jesus. And in God's sight tonight in Christ I am sanctified. That is positional. Positional sanctification. It is absolute. set apart for God. That's why He saved us. In the New Testament, we get terms like this. Saints, holy prophets, holy brethren, holy priesthood. We read several of these tonight. You know, your chosen nation, a holy priesthood, Peter. Holy brethren, holy priesthood. We read of holy women. We read of a holy nation. We're all that in Christ Jesus. Now, we must pause here a moment because there's a misconcept of the meaning of holiness. There is in the world today what we call the holiness movement. It's people who say they've had a second blessing, And somehow the Holy Spirit's come upon them, and they receive the second blessing, and suddenly become holy. Now that's not what the Scripture teaches. The Scripture teaches that the moment God saved us, that's when he constituted us in Christ Jesus as holy brethren. And when he set us apart for divine purposes, set us apart for holy use for himself. In God's right. We don't get and become holy. We are holy. God says we are holy. This is our position in Christ. The Corinthian saints were already sanctified, and yet the epistles of the Corinthians was written because of the sin in the Corinthian church. Can you understand it? You've got to look at it from God's point of view. by the perfect sacrifice of Christ. Oh, let me read a wonderful verse. Hebrews chapter ten. I should have read it when I read the scriptures in the beginning. Hebrews chapter ten. And verse, I think it's ten. Yes. Let's read from verse nine. Then said, He lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He takes away the first that he may establish the second. by the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. His offering was once for all, and our sanctification is once for all. By the offering of the body of Jesus Christ, we are constituted holy in God's sight. Now we've got to believe that. The way to get victory in the Christian life is to do just what God told the children of Israel, you know. When they went into the land of Canaan, he said, now every piece of ground you put your foot on, that's yours. Claim it. Claim it. And the way to be a really happy Christian is to put your foot down on the promises that God has given us in the New Testament and say, that's mine. Don't let us be doubting them. How were we saved? We were saved by believing God's word. He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life. And we state all time and eternity on that one thing. He that believeth on the Son. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and God saved us. Sometimes we don't feel saved. It doesn't alter it. We are saved because God saved it. And the way I love when I'm talking to a person about salvation and ask them how they know they're saved, I love them to take a verse of Scripture and say, that's what God says and that's what I believe. He that believes in the Son has everlasting life. You say, but he doesn't look like a Christian. He that believes in the Son has everlasting life. Put your foot on it and say, that's mine. So God says then that positionally we are now constituted saints. Now there's another concept in the world today. that particularly in connection with the Roman Catholic Church, that perhaps three hundred or four hundred years after man has died, that somehow they canonize what they call canonizing, and they make him a saint, and then they make images of him and pictures of him and say this is the saint. Well, if he was a true believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, he became a saint the moment he trusted Christ. We can't make people saints. God makes people saints. We can't do it. This is a false teaching, absolutely false. This idea of there being saints and images of saints. And I lived in Greece ten years. They have icons, pictures of saints in the Greek Orthodox Church. And the people go around and they just about worship these pictures. of saints that have of apostles and John, Peter, John the Baptist, some of these who died centuries ago, Saint Nicholas and Saint Stephen and all these folks, they worship them and they light candles and they say prayers and they call them saints. I'm just as much a saint as any one of those and so are you. He that believeth on the Son, he's a saint. God calls us positionally saints. Now experimentally. I don't feel much like a saint. The thoughts that come into my mind are not the thoughts that belong to a saint. The things I do sometimes are not the holy things God would have me do. God wants me to be what I really am, to be set aside for him. When God saved me, he wanted the rest of my life entirely his. It takes a long, long time to get to Romans chapter twelve, verse one, present your body, a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God. But that's what God wants. He wants us to present our bodies holy. And the Greek word is agios, you know, saint, holy. That we should present our whole being holy to God. Set aside, sanctified, that's what he wants. And this is a process. In God's reign, I am a saint, that's ultimate. That takes place once and for all when I'm saved. but my becoming more like him day by day is a problem. And there are three things. The Lord Jesus prayed in John, verse seventeen. He says, sanctify them through thy truth, thy word is true. Sanctify them through thy truth, thy word is true. And we can become holier, more sanctified in a practical way, day by day, By three things. By the word of God. John, John, John, John, John, John, John, John, John, John, John, John, John, by thy truth. Thy word is true. Thy word is true. How do I become more as God would have me be? How do I become more holy day by day? By reading this word every day. I love the simple pattern God has given us. Salvation is so simple, it's so stupendous, it costs so much, and yet by simple faith in Christ I'm saved. Then how do I live every day? He's given us a guidebook. I read it every day and I practice what it tells you to do. That's it. Read the Word of God, read the New Testament, and do what the New Testament tells you to do. Now there are many details. How I should act towards the world. How I should act towards Christians. What I should do in this circumstance or that circumstance. Even how I should dress. And how I should conduct myself. It's all here. Read it and put it into practice. It's in the book. It's so simple. Sanctify them by thy truth. Thy word is truth. Ephesians chapter five. Ephesians chapter five. Verse twenty five, husbands love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it. Christ loved the church and gave himself for it, that he might sanctify and cleanse it. But I said just now we are sanctified, that's right. But he gave himself for it that he might sanctify and cleanse it. There is a cleansing process going on. I should be nearer to the Lord now than I was ten years ago. I should be more like him now than I used to be. There is the, what in Ephesians chapter four is called the perfect thing of the saints. Now, isn't it that we never reach a state of sinless perfection and holiness? It doesn't mean that. The perfecting of the saints means the completing, the rounding off, making us more as God would have us be. And so that he might sanctify and cleanse it, the church, with the washing of the water by the word. That's sanctification. That he might sanctify and cleanse it by the washing of the water by the word. I find in my life, if I neglect this book, things go wrong. If I neglect this book, I seem to get... all out of sorts. I don't feel happy. And I know what's wrong. I've not been reading the Word of God as I ought to. The secret is to read this book. You say, well, sometimes I read it and I don't get much out of it. Never mind. Keep reading it. Keep on reading it. The washing of the water of the Word. That's what we need. Get down on your knees with the books. And let God speak to us. And they say, the verses come up to you. They seem to come right up and God speaks to them. Then you rejoice in him and you're a happy Christian. Sanctify them by thy truth. Thy word is true that he might sanctify and cleanse it by the washing of the water of the word. And then the Holy Spirit has a work in this. Well, the will of God has something to do with this. Let me look at one Thessalonians four, three. One Thessalonians four, three. For this is the will of God, leave in your sanctification. Now, you were talking to people in an immoral, one of those old Roman cities in Thessalonica in Macedonia. A seaport, all seaports, I found to be pretty rough, wicked places. And there was all sorts of sin there. And he says, this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that he should abstain from fornication. This awful sin, which is in the world today's little ramp, was there in that day. And this is the will of God, even your sanctification. Verse four, that every one of you should know how to possess his best, his body, his person in sanctification and honor, not in the lust of concupiscence, even as the Gentiles, which know not God. Verse seven, but God has not called us unto uncleanliness, but unto holiness. And so the will of God is that I should be holy. The will of God is that I should conduct my life as a Christian and that I should not be doing the things that the world does. And he asked, not like the word, opposite to the world, to the earth, to the things of this earth, holy, separated to God. That's the meaning of sanctification. And the will of God is that we should be sanctified. And then the Spirit of God also... It's brought into this. Look down at verse eight. He therefore despises, despises not man, but God who has also given unto us his Holy Spirit to sanctify us and to help us day by day that we should be holy. First verse, verse, Romans, five, twenty-three. The very God of peace sanctified you wholly. And I pray, God, that your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved, blameless under the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. So this practical sanctification comes about by yielding to the will of God, yielding to the will of God. I believe God has a plan and a pattern in every one of our lives. And although some of us are getting older in life and that more or less settles now for the rest of life, perhaps God has a plan for us day by day. And we must yield our lives to His will. We mustn't be doing this or going there doing that. It's not in accordance with His will. We have to yield our lives to Him. That's one of the ways to be practically sanctified to God, to yield to the will of God. And then he gives us victory over sin. By the Spirit of God and the power of God and the Word of God we get victory over sin. And then we grow in the things of God. How often he speaks about growing in grace and growing in the things of God. And even to the young believers, as newborn babes desire the sincere milk of the Word that he may grow thereby. This is sanctification. getting more and more like God, more separated from this world and the things of this world. So we've spoken about a positive sanctification, ultimate, positive sanctification, and we've spoken about a progressive or practical sanctification, experimental and progressive. Now finally, there's the ultimate sanctification. sanctification, ultimate sanctification. When he shall appear, one John, three and three, when he shall appear we shall be like him. That's the ultimate. For we are so far from being like him today, so unlike him in our thoughts and ways and deeds and our talk. Oh, that we might be day by day more like the Savior. And the yearning of every heart here tonight, I'm sure, is we might be more like the Lord Jesus. But there's a day coming, beloved, when He shall appear. We shall be like Him. Sin forever gone. Those thoughts that worry and trouble are gone forever. Those ways and deeds that are not pleasing to God, finish with forever. And we shall be like Him. That's ultimate sanctification. Then we shall be separated. Then we should be separated from this world. Then we should be separated from sin. Then we should be separated entirely unto him. And surely we would have to say in that day, Holy brethren, we will be holy in the holy presence of the Lord Jesus. Romans eight, twenty nine. Look at that moment. I made a note of it. Romans eight, twenty nine. For whom he did foreknow. he also did predestinate to become formed to the image of his Son that he might be the firstborn among many present. This is the ultimate, that we might become formed to the image of his Son. He who knew no sin and did no sin and thought no sin ultimately will be finally like him. Praise God. We look forward to that day. This will be our ultimate and final sanctification. So then, positionally, God set us apart once for all for himself. I wish I'd known more of it in younger days. I wish I had realized earlier in life the meaning of words like this. I used to hear about them, but didn't fully realize. I rejoiced in the fact that God saved me. But little did I realize when I was a young believer that God had set me apart for himself. Life might have been all together different, you know. Instead of a life in the engineering world, it might have been a life on a mission field, I don't know. But God set me apart for him. He set me apart for holy uses, like the vessels in the tabernacle, not to be used for any other purpose except for him. It's not too late in life now, with what's left of life, that we might yield ourselves a living sacrifice to God to be holy for him. Position, oh then, once for all, I was sanctified when God saved me. Experimentally, I am being sanctified day by day by the power of God, the Spirit of God, and the Word of God, working in me day by day. Oh, let's read it more. Let's spend more time in His presence, and let's get to be more like Him, so that we can really be called holy presence. And ultimately, God is going to conform me to the image of his son. When we shall see him, we shall be like him, and that's the ultimate of sanctification. So we pray. Blessed God, our Father, we thank you for this another truth. One of the other things which thou hast given us, thou didst give us at the moment of our conversion. We thank thee, Lord, for this wonderful fact that we belong to thee. And when thou didst save us, thou didst set us aside to be thine. Help us, Lord, to realize this as we deal with men day by day. As we get about our holy duties, that we are thine. Set aside for thee and for thy purpose and for thy work and for thy glory. Help us in our thoughts. Help us in our talk. Oh, Lord, how easy it would be. And it is for us to say things which a holy person shouldn't say. We are holy. Thou hast called us that. Help us to live like this. We seek thy blessing. We think of the words of the hymn. take time to be holy speak off with thy lord help us lord to spend much time in thy presence with jesus alone that day by day our lives might be changed and we might become more and more and more like thy beloved son in this scene where they rejected him and cast him out we thank you for this another study in thy precious word and ask me to use it in our lives for thy glory We ask it in the name of the Lord Jesus. Amen.