I thought we were going to get a duet tonight, but maybe we'll get it to Mountbatten. Okay, Paul? We're looking at the book of Ephesians. He said that every... Verse eleven, to take our key, we're looking for the... In chapter one, the word know was the key word, and there were some things that we looked at last night that he wanted us to know and to have the knowledge of. And one certainly was the power which he wrought in faith when he raised him from the dead and set him at his own right hand and he replaced it. The words remember. I think that God often uses his word in the word of God. It's a good thing to sometimes remember some things. For instance, Moses told Israel to remember when thou wast in Egypt. And I think that's what we're going to do. There are some things to look at that are what we want to do. See, from these times I think Christian forgets about the place of the pit from whence they were dug and the rock from which they were hues. And we get an idea of an elevatedness in our own pride instead of remembering what we were. At very best, we were sinners. We can never get away from that. The day we leave that behind, then pride has a grip on us. We need to remember that. We need to know that we were sinners and that we're saved by His grace. And we treat other people then as we deal with them. Showing them the grace of God. And I think that this is something that is really needed with us, that there is an exercise of heart to know except for the grace of God I could be as a vilest man. For in this being lies the potential for every sin. The potential for us here. But don't forget that. Then certainly I think I can remember again a word remember used in a New Testament. Remember Lot's wife. See, Lot's wife forgot the commandments that was given to her and she turned around and looked back. And her looking back was because of the desires of what was there. I hope our desires are not back in Egypt, see, are not back in the city of Sodom. The Israelites, when they left Egypt, they did have a desire for what was there. They weren't thinking about the deliverance that they had from there. They were thinking about what was there, the leeks and the onions and the garlics and the melons. That's what they wanted. That's rotten. I think while we remember where we were once, we need to remember that's what we left behind. Our desires shouldn't be there. We've been looking at His call to make us holy. See, He called us to holiness, not to still have that desire for all the things of the world. I remember when I used to fly as a pilot, people used to say to me, well, Ray, you don't do this and you don't do that and you don't do the other thing. You might as well be dead. I say, no. I'm happy. I say, you can go ahead and do them. That's for your nature. But it's not for mine. See? I say, it's all right. I don't preach to you. Don't do this. Don't do that. I tell you, you need a Savior. And that's what we need with men. The day we start preaching morals to unsaved people, we miss the whole thing. You know, it's going to do any good to tell an unsaved person how he should dress, what he should wear, what he should say. What you need to tell him is he needs Christ. He needs a change inwardly, not outwardly. If he's got an inward change, he's going to laugh. So he says, remember, okay? Maybe that's enough to drive it home. All right, now, let's read the chapter together, shall we? And you have he quickened who were dead in trespasses and sin. Where in time past you walked according to the counsel of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience, among whom also we all had our conversation in times past, in the lust of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of our flesh and of the mind, and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others. But God who is rich in mercy, for his great love were with he loved us. Even when we were dead in sin had quickened us together with Christ, by grace ye are saved. And it raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come he might show. They exceed in riches of his grace, in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. For by grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourself. It is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are in workmanship created in Christ Jesus under good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. Wherefore remember that ye being in times past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called uncircumcision by that which is called the circumcision in the flesh made by hand. That at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, strangers from the covenant of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus, ye who are sometimes afar off are made nigh by the blood of Christ. For he is our peace who have both made both one and has broken down the middle wall of partition between us, having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in the ordinances, for to make in himself of twain one new man so making peace, and that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby, and came and preached peace to you which are far off, and to them that were not. For through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father. Now therefore ye no more strangers and foreigners but fellow citizens with the same and of the household of God, and are built upon the foundation of the apostles and the prophets, Jesus Christ himself, being the chief cornerstone, in whom all the buildings fitly framed together groweth into a holy temple in the Lord. in whom ye also are builded together for a habitation of God through the Spirit. Now the chapter brings us to three principal subjects. The first is the spiritual state of a man before conversion. The second is the change which God worked in the man. And the third is the reason or the design that God had in his way of affecting this change in the man. Now God had a design in taking the sinner, making him a Christian, and conforming him to his son. And so I think he revealed something to us of that. First of all, as to the state of man in his sin. We see, first of all, he had a state that he was in sin. Verse one says, And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins. This is the condition of a man. Now I want to know, how much can a man feel that's dead? How much can a man think that's dead? He can't. He can't do anything, can he? And neither does a sinner. He's blind. The Bible says that Satan has blinded the minds of them that believe not. So we find a man that's blind and dead. He's blind. doubly blind because he is dead and he's dead because he's blind. But when you see a man so dead in trespasses and sin, then there isn't anything that he can do to bring himself to salvation. There has to be a work that comes outside of himself to turn him to this place. One man said to Spurgeon one day when he was talking about the weight of sin. And he said, How much weight does a sinner have when you talk about the weight of sin? Is it thirty pounds? Is it forty pounds? Is it eighty pounds or a hundred pounds? He said, how much is it? And Spurgeon asked, he said, well, a dead man wouldn't know anyhow, would he? And he wouldn't. A dead man doesn't feel the weight of his sin. He doesn't know that he has it. And so God is saying, you have a quicken. Now, we were to tie this to what we had in our last chapter, we see a God of resurrection, a God that brought the Lord Jesus from the dead. Now, the power that brought the Lord Jesus again from the dead does work to quicken the dead soul and to raise the dead body. I emphasized the resurrection of the dead body last night, but it goes in this route as well, and it sort of ties to it that he said, You have to quicken. who were dead and trespasses in sin. You'll notice the quickening is done by him. You have he quickened. And so, according to John, it is the Spirit that quickens and the Spirit gives us life. And this is done through the work of the Lord Jesus. The Spirit is the minister of that work. So, he gives us first of all the state of sin that man is found in. Now he's also found in a state of subjection to that sin. In other words, sin has control. Sin is a controlling element in a man who is lost. It's a controlling principle. Comes forth from its nature. And that's our nature to sin. I read in the fifty-nineth Psalm. He says in verse three, I think it is, he said, the wicked go astray from the womb. As soon as they be born, speaking lies. That's an amazing verse. Imagine that. A baby as soon as it's born, speaking lies. Sometimes just for fun, I ask the kids, can a baby speak a lie? Can't talk. Well, mom, how about it? Can a baby who can't talk speak a lie? Oh, boy, they sure do, don't they? You hear them yell in bloody murder sometimes. You think something's going to kill that kid right then and there, he's dying already. And you rush in the room and you touch the crib or he hears those footfalls and shuts up like that. What made him do that? Oh, he wanted a little attention. He wanted a little TLC. And when he got it, that's all. It took to satisfy him. See, there was something in that child that could deceive. What is there in a child that can deceive when he can't even speak? The same thing that's in a lion to make them roar as is nature. The same thing that makes a cat meow and makes a lamb go, bah. It's the nature of the animal, and it's the nature of the animal of mankind to sin as is nature. And the Lord said, you're dead in your sin. There's no life in you. You are contrary to me. You're dead in trespasses and sin, dead because of Romans five, twelve. He said, For by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin. So death passed upon all men, for that all had sinned. Did you ever think of the theology in that verse? Is he talking about every one of us having sinned as we go along? Or is he talking about every one of us having sinned in Adam? That's what he's saying. You and I were in Adam when Adam sinned. and Adam is the head of the federal head of the whole human race. When he sins, then all of us sinned in it. And that's what he's saying. So death passed upon all, for that all had sinned in the one man. In the one man. So when a child is born, what he says, the wicked go astray from the womb. Soon as they be born, speak in life. You wonder why you got such a spirit in you that wants to fight and Punch the other guy when you want to stand up for your own right. That's the nature of the man. And bless your heart even if you are a Christian. And that thing starts to rile up in you. You better know that the old man is coming alive. Because that is nature. And you better soon reckon him dead or he's going to swing the fist or use the lip. And many times the words hurt as hard as the fist. The fist goes away, the pain of that only lasts for a little while. But there's something about words that go down inside and they last a long time. They're hard to take back. So he says they're dead in trespasses and sin. That's their state. But in that state, now because they're sin, they're into subjection to something. Look at the next verse. Where in inside past you walked according to the course of the world, according to the prince of the power of the air. The Spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience. We said according to was the key word here in this book. And we've got according to now. According to what? According to the old path. According to the course of the world. And according to the prince of the power of the air. We are in subjection to that control. How do you like that, brethren, when you got anger well enough in you? What are you being subject to now? Are you subject to the Spirit of God or are you subject to another's will? That's an interesting question, isn't it? And I think when we go into that territory we're doing just what he is saying. We find ourselves putting ourselves in subjection to another prince. another power, another authority. You don't like to read that, do you? I don't. That shakes you up to think, hey, you mean to tell me I could go back under his realm? You only serve one master at a time. That's what the Lord Jesus himself said. Who do you serve? You're not going to serve two masters. You're serving one or the other. And when the old nature of the old man comes out, that is subject to this power we read of right here. When he says the prince of the power of the air, it's very evident that Satan does have power and was given power. And the word here is an interesting word. It can mean darkness. It can mean atmospheric. And what he's given us here is an idea of a prince who reigns in darkness or all around us. And that prince is Satan. and he reigns in a realm that was given him to reign in, but he's the principality, belongs to the principalities and powers of darkness. And boy, I think that if we had a greater look at, and I guess basically, Christian, this is what I'm saying. If we had a greater view of the holiness of God, Then we would have a better view of what it is when we allow the human nature to control us, whether it's in the anger of our heart or in a loose tongue or what it might be. But what we need to get a grasp of is what we got in chapter one. That was first. He said, you were called, you were chosen to holiness. You were once dead in trespasses and sin, but I quickened you. I quickened you. He wants a holy life. And the state of a man in his sin is in subjection to another power. That's the man who's lost. That's the man who's without Christ. But when a Christian answers to the nature of the natural man, well, then he's reviving something. He's reviving something isn't too good. So here he says that the thinner in his state of sin is in subjection. And he's in subjection to Satan, the prince of the power of the air. Now he's in a state of condemnation as well. It says in the next verse, Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past, in the lust of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature the children of wrath. even as others. There's a state of condemnation of sin. The sinner as he's lost is a child of wrath. He is in subjection to Satan, and he serves him. So what I see here, what God is saying to us, that in the state of sin, in the state of subjection, there is a condemnation. and to condemn something means to declare it guilty, to prove it guilty, and then to pass sentence. And when it comes to the sinner, the sinner is declared guilty by the Word of God. He says all have sinned. The sinner is also proven guilty, according to Ecclesiastes seven twenty. Go on. Seven-twenty-one or twenty-three. He says there's not a just man in all the earth that doeth good and sineth not. Not a just man in all the earth, not one, that does good and sins not. Now, that's the declaring a man guilty and proving him guilty. And now there's the sentence for the sinner as well, the wages of sin is death. Condemnation is a word that covers quite a bit. And so what he's done right here, he declared him guilty. He said, You were dead in trespasses and sin. And remember, that's where every one of us works. We were dead in sin. We answered to Satan. We answered to the course of this world and he's the God of this world. Then we answered to the desires of the flesh that he draws out. because we were then children of disobedience. But I want to say something to you to clarify a point here. Don't go around saying the devil made me do it. I'm sick of hearing that. I'm sick of people blaming the devil for everything. You know, he deserves a lot of blame, but listen, he is not omnipresent. He is not everywhere at once. He got the same problem I have, and it's a problem. He can only be in one place at one time. He's got an advantage I don't have. He's an angel. And he was called as an angel of light, so perhaps he can travel at the speed of light. That's pretty fast. Two hundred and eighty-six thousand miles per second. It takes me five hours to get here to Davenport. You see... But so many people are putting a blame for him on all of these things. Listen, you walk sometimes according to the flesh and your desires of the flesh. That's the natural man. He says, Hey, Ray, let's go this way. Ray has to say, No, you're dead. I can't hear your voice. But if I go his way, oh boy, then I've resurrected. Oh, Ray, he's really alive. And when you resurrect a dead thing, what does it do? It stinks, doesn't it? And that's the way it is when a Christian allows the old man to have sway. It stinks. It'll cause a great odor amongst the saints and a great disagreement as well. And so, first of all, he gives to us the state of sin. Now he gives to us the change that God worked. And I like this, but God. Oh, boy. Those two words say an awful lot. No, no. What a horrible state we've been looking at, but God. God didn't sit idly by. God had a love for mankind. Oh, sometimes people say to me, ah, you preachers, you come and tell us that God is a God of love and then he's sending men to hell. What kind of a God of love is that? So I have to say, well, I guess you look at a coin, it's got two sides, but it's the same coin, isn't it? And so you see God's love and you see God's holiness. God cannot set His holiness aside and just show His love and neither can He set His love aside and just show His holiness. His holiness touches His love and His love touches His holiness. The holiness of God touches every attribute of God. It touches His power. His power is all-powerful, but never can God's power be used in an unright way because He is holy. I like that. And never will His love be wronged because He is holy. He proved His love when He gave His son at Calvary's cross and He nailed him there. That was the proof of His love. He also showed His holiness when He judged sin on His Son. And now He shows His justice when the sinner who believes is set free. Because His holiness judged sin on His Son. I like that too. I like it as a Christian. Because He says, if I was to confess my sin, He is faithful and what's the word? Justice. to forgive me my sin. I know that I can have every sin washed away. I don't have to go to heaven and stand someday and have it all squared off when I get there. If you're walking with Him, He'll convict you of your sin. We want you to bow your knee, confess it, have us put away, and then go on, walk in holiness for Him. Not through the endless ages will ever a sin ever be pulled up and say, Hey, Ray, remember this one? Why? His holiness touches His love. And He's a just God. He's just in forgiving us. I want to ask some of you. Are you carrying with you some of those guilt that comes sometimes because of something that happened in your youth? And you have never forgotten and never forgiven yourself even though you have confessed it to God. And you carried it And it's kind of twisted you inside, doesn't give you any peace. And you keep having it put before you. You know what you're doing? You're bringing God down to a level of making him an unjust judge. He said unjust to forgive if you confess. And you know the devil sometimes would like us to do such things, but many times it's just the nature of the man. I see people who like to lick their wounds. Man, I find brothers in the assembly that can't forget what happened twenty, thirty, forty years ago. And they meet some brother that they had odds with and say, Remember when? Oh, listen. He told us to forgive even if Christ, or for Christ's sake, has forgiven us. We're going to get to that in this book, too. Bless your heart, I jumped a little ahead, but there it is. You can have it. We need to forgive. How much of a spirit do you have within you of forgiveness? But God is rich in mercy. Now we've been looking at, thinking of some of his riches. In chapter one we saw that he was rich in grace in verse seven. And in chapter one again in verse eighteen we saw the riches of his glory. And now he's bringing us a riches that's here in mercy. He's rich in mercy. Mercy is compassion. Mercy is pity. And we read this. He pities us as a father. Pity us as children. Remember when your kids were small. And they'd stumble and hurt themselves. And oh, your heart went out to them. And he just wanted to pick them up. And you wish you could take that pain for yourself. Your heart went out in pity. Imagine, that's the way God feels toward us. Some of us got the idea of God sitting up there with a rod waiting to clobber me when I step out alive. No, He's not. No, He's not. He's a father of compassion. I'm amazed that the idea is some of us got of God. Amazed. He's a father. You know, I never knew much of a father of my own. I knew a stepfather, but I never knew my own father. Never was able to appreciate a natural love of a father. But boy, when I learned how the father who really loved me, God was teaching me something about the love of a father that has pity toward me. And that's what he is. He's rich in mercy for his great love wherewith he loved us. You see, the action of salvation began in God's love. His change that God worked began with His love and His mercy. And so now in the change this is what He wants to do. Even when we were dead in sin, He has quickened us. He gave us life. Quickened us how? Together with Christ. He gave us life. the resurrection life. He gave us what Christ had, the power that raised him from the dead. He's given to us. He raised us together with Christ. We sit in the same realm of power. We sit in the same realm of glory. We sit in Christ at the right hand of the majesty and high. That's a blessed place. And so he brought us to that place. And he said, For by grace are you saved? What's grace? Grace after non-merited favor is doing favor for someone who doesn't deserve it and cannot return it. You know that means, now I've known Bill for, I don't know how many years, about twenty-five I suppose, but if I walked up to Bill and I punched him in a note, what would I deserve? Come on, what would I deserve? What do I deserve, Bill? Right. I deserve a punch in the nose. But now, if Bill went up to me and put his arm around me and said, Oh, Brother Ray, I really love you. Come on, I want to buy you a new suit. Boy, he'd be showing me great. Well, I'll make it a Coke. How's that, Bill? I don't buy it. He'd be showing me grace. He'd be doing favor for me that I didn't deserve. And what have we done to God? Oh, boy. As sinners, we shook our fist in His face and said, Not to you. I'm going my own way. And we went our own way. And still He loved us. Still He loved us. And He exercised mercy and grace, pity, and then grace showing the favor that we didn't deserve. Or by grace, are you saying? What have we done so far? And talked about what we've done at all, hasn't he? He talked all about his side. Oh, I like that too. Now he gets to the side that we can enter into a little bit, but he's showing us the change that he works. And he says that the reason that he displayed love and mercy and grace now in verse seven, that in the ages to come he might show not just riches of his grace now that we read in chapter one, but Exceeding riches of His grace. Boy, I wonder sometimes how much exceeding riches of His grace it took to take this vessel and save it. That was exceeding riches. And that's what he took. He said, Well, he's going to show that in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us through Jesus Christ. You know how I see that verse? I see throughout the ages to come, I am going to learn more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more of the exceeding riches of His grace. As the endless ages roll by, I am going to learn more of the abundance of the grace, the favor that He showed to me. He had a purpose in that change. Now he just tells us in verse eight, for by grace are you saved through faith. Oh, he speaks of faith, but grace came first. Merit toward us, favor toward us. And he says, now, through faith, but then he says, and that not of yourselves. It's the gift of God. Now I've heard theologians arguing whether it's in the construction of the original warrants this as a true gift and saying that it's totally as a gift. Well, I'm going to go outside of this verse. Maybe I got some Greek students here. I don't know. I don't happen to be one. But I'm going outside of this verse. I'm going to show you something. Let's go to the Gospel of John. Now, that's a nice, simple Gospel, isn't it? Not confusing, isn't it? It simply gives me the glory of the Eternal Son. Chapter three. I'm even going to take you to a basic chapter. Have you ever noticed this verse before? Verse twenty seven, John answered and said, A man can receive, what's the word? Nothing except it be given him from where? From heaven. Now I don't care how you want to argue it or how you want to cut it, you've got a hard job getting around that verse. It's a gift. It's a gift of God. I don't know how it all works out. One day I'm going to find out. And I don't worry about God's part, Jesus. I know God said, look, I loved you. I showed mercy toward you. I showed grace toward you. That's God's part. I say, praise the Lord. And then I'm glad one day he said to me, whosoever believeth in him shall not perish, and I was able to believe. I'm satisfied with that. Hope you are too. Hope you are too. Then he says that his purpose was then not of works to finish verse eight, lest any man should boast. If I could say that faith was a work of mine, then certainly, as I said the other day, Lord Day afternoon, that was yesterday, wasn't it? I said that there's never going to be a time in heaven where we're going to reach around, pat ourselves on the back and say, hey, look what I did to get here. Because it all was from him. The love was his, the mercy was his, the grace was his, the gift was his. And I'm going to have to bow and say, Amen. Praise the Lord. Hallelujah. And so now, why did he do it? He did it for a purpose. And that's what we have in verse ten. For we are as workmanship, created in Christ Jesus under good works, which God has before ordained that we should walk in them. But here's why God did all this now. And how he did it, the change which he affected. Now we're looking at the reason for God's design in working out a plan like this. And he did it that we are his workmanship. He wants us created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God had before ordained that we should walk in them. God's desire was that we should walk in holiness. That's his command, be holy. The Lord Jesus said, be perfect, even as I am perfect. How you like that? If you don't like Peter saying, be holy as I am holy, the Lord Jesus said, be perfect, even as I am perfect. You got the same sense in both verses. Holiness is absolute perfection. Absolutely. That's what it is. Holiness is not just the absence of sin. Because if I took that definition, then I could go along with young Mr. DeHan in his little argument that Christ could have sinned. But the holiness of Christ was not that just absence of sin. It is absolute perfection. The inability to fall, the inability to sin. Look, I'll put two attributes together. I don't want to get off on another train, but I've got to do this. Okay? I said, holiness touches all his attributes. Then take a look at this. His holiness touches his immutability. Could he change? If he's immutable, there is no change. Now if I bring that immutability into the realm of holiness, there's no change in holiness. He couldn't sin. He couldn't sin. Oh, listen, beloved. I know you've read that little booklet and it's been a blessing to millions of people, but don't bring the Lord Jesus Christ down to the level of a human. He was born holy. That was never written of any man. The angel said that holy thing that shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God. Even the devils called him holy when he walked in Mark chapter two, as he began his ministry. He said, What are we to do with these? All holy one of God. Samuel makes it very plain. There is none holy like our Lord. I like that. I think we need to look sometimes at the perfections and the attributes of our God. And we're not going to be carried away. And I say to you, this is a day when you can no longer listen to a man just because he has a name. You're going to have to listen to what he says and go back to the word of God. See if it measures up to the word. And you can do that by what I'm saying. Lord bless you. I hope you do. What does God have to say? And so he's saying he wants us to walk in good works. That's what he ordained, that we should walk in them. Ah, how can an unsaved man walk in good works? He couldn't. He was dead. But now that he is quickened with the life of Christ, can he walk in good works? Oh, you bet your life. Why? Because there's the power of Jesus Christ within him to do it. The power of Christ. And so God's desire was then that we would be like him. and that we would be conformed to the image of His Son. Now He's saying, remember. He's going back again to the first section. He showed us in those first three verses what the man in his sin was. So He's saying, Remember when you were in your sin now. He's saying this, Remember that being in times past, Gentiles in the flesh, who were called uncircumcision by that which was called circumcision in the flesh. I'll make it plainer. wherefore remember that you being in time past were a Gentile in the flesh. You were called a Gentile by them that are called Jews in the flesh made by hand. So when we're looking at the uncircumcision and the circumcision it was simply Jew and Gentile and that's what he's saying. And you and I, I don't guess I see any Jews in the audience, were Gentiles, aren't we? There's only three groups in the Bible and you better learn that. That's the way you'll be able to rightly divide the word of truth. There's only Jew, Gentile, and Church of God. There's no other company. You fall into one place. Hope everybody here belongs to the Church of God. Not by name, but by life. Being born into it. So that's what he wanted. He said, in that time you were without Christ. When we were Gentiles and lost, we were without Christ. We were aliens or strangers to the Commonwealth of Israel. We had no right to make any claim or any of the promises that Israel had. Now, that stands an amazing thing, that verse to me. I wonder what Mr. Armstrong thinks of that verse. I wonder what he thinks of that verse. He claims British Israelism for everybody you know today and all these things. We belong to the Ten Lost Tribes and everything else. But I happen to be a Gentile. Was once now, I'm in the Church of God. And so he says here, at that time we were aliens from the Commonwealth of Israel, strangers from the covenants of promise. We didn't have any right to it. Look at, I'm sure it's something. Remember in Matthew fifteen, there was, Matthew calls her a Canaanite woman, I think Mark calls her a Syrophoenician. That clock's going fast. And she stood by the roadside, and what did she do when she called on the Lord Jesus? She said, Thou, Son of David, what did he do? He walked right on by. Why did he do that? She was claiming a Jewish title. She was claiming one who reigned in Israel. She didn't have any right to do that. But you know what she get when she said, Lord, everything changed. He granted her request. The demon was cast out of her daughter. Her daughter was healed. She fell at his feet in worship. We didn't have any rights to the claims and the covenants that were to Israel. I mentioned this other day about our blessings being spiritual and heavenly. Israel had earthly things and they were blessings. They were promised. You obey me. I'll give you houses and land. I'll cause your women not to be barren. And he promised all these things to Israel. Israel is going to get those things eternally. They are an earthly people, earthly promises, and they will be that eternally. They'll have it through the millennium. They'll be a nation on this new earth. He said their seed and their name shall remain. Now. I'm not Jew. I'm in a church of God. Then do I have a right to go back, place myself under the law, keep a bunch of rituals, say, I got to do this, got to do that, got to do the other thing. And then I'm going to get some blessings if I do it. No, never. And that's what's wrong with some of us. We're looking for that earthly stuff. The green, whether it's in corn or a dollar bill or in a pig pen. We're looking for that kind of stuff. We want the riches. Our riches are there. They're not here. They're not here. And if God has given you something, fine. That's one of His mercies that falls on all year. But bless Him for those spiritual things we learned of yesterday that are heavenly. They're heavenly. To Israel I can read in the book of Deuteronomy, Moses speaking to them, I be blessed them, of the blessings of love and of blessings beneath the blessings of the breast and the blessings of the womb, the blessings of the earth and of the vine. They were all their blessings. Or in the New Testament is he given the church anything like that? He says your blessings are up there. We need to grab it. And so now we didn't have a stranger's tomb. We didn't have any rights. And we had no hope and we're without God in this world. That's a miserable state, isn't it? Dead, walking in the course of this world, serving the devil, answering to the lust of the flesh. No promise in any of the law or the promises to Israel. No hope without God. How? No wonder those Gentiles took and riddled in gods and everything else. They didn't have any hope in anything else. I'm glad our hope's in the Lord. Our hope's in the Lord. And so he said, but now. See, he changes it again. He went back a little while to the first verses. Well, we learn lost. Remember. But now remember this. But now. In Christ Jesus. There's the clue again to the book. Some key words. In Christ Jesus. Ye who were sometimes were afar off. Are made nigh by the blood of Christ. Paul. The power of the blood. to take that sinner lost and undone, far away, no hope without God, and to bring him now. He brought us near, didn't he? So near that we're as near and as dear as he at the right hand of the Majesty and High. I'm there right now, and so are you. It's an accomplished fact as far as God is concerned. The work is done. See, I am accepted in the beloved. We are raised up together with Him.