Gooding, David: 4 - Not for your Righteousness

Good morning once more. Our stay, I nearly said our holiday, on the plains of Moab is already halfway through. Return flights are booked for after midday on Saturday. That means that if we are to get anywhere with our study of Deuteronomy, we must try to make more speedy progress, or I must at least, and this morning consider at least the main principles in chapters eight, chapters nine and ten, and the first half of chapter eleven. So Please keep your Bible open at those chapters so that, uh, you may follow me and not let me get lost in the detail of this passage. All three of these chapters continue Moses' preparation of his people for their entry into Canaan. A Canaan that would be brimful from end to end, with delightful material blessings in abundance. And of course, there would be nothing wrong with those material blessings in and of themselves. They were to be the gift of God to his people in response to their faith and in God's fulfillment of his oath to Abraham. But while these material blessings were good in themselves and the very gift of God. There would be hidden spiritual dangers in them, unless the people had first been trained by experience how to handle material blessings Correctly. correctly. The first danger that they would have is that they might induce self-righteousness and an attitude of superiority above all other people. Then in the third place, we shall consider the advice that Moses gave to his people on the nature of the land into which God would bring them. Advice, therefore, how to reap the maximum profit from its agriculture. So let us move ahead as quickly as we can. And we turn to chapter eight of the book of Deuteronomy. Let me read with you in chapter eight, verses seven to ten. Just a glimpse of the many blessings that awaited them. For the Lord thy God bringeth thee into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and depths, springing forth in valleys and hills, a land of wheat and barley and vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of oil, olives, and honey, a land wherein thou shalt eat bread without scarceness. Thou shalt not lack anything in it. A land whose stones are iron and out of whose hills thou mayest dig brass. Thou shalt eat and be full and shalt bless the Lord thy God for the good land which he hath given thee. Marvelously different from their experience in the wilderness, where very often they lived on the breadline and scarce had water enough to drink. Now to be enter a land where there should be fruit in abundance and cereals on their breakfast plates, and houses, what is more. Much more convenient, when all is said and done, isn't to live in a house than a tent. I mean, it's fun to begin with in tents, but what with the children and no separate kitchen and all that difficult matter of toilets and all those things, it gets a bit difficult in cramped spaces. And now to live in a house, it had two reception rooms, do you see, and a bedroom or two, if not in suite with a bathroom, marvelous. And not only that, the possibility of industrial development and mining, what is more, and the latest technology to get the iron out of the iron ore and how to, uh, make brass. Oh, they'd be with it. It would be modern, it would be up to date, and it would be very financially rewarding, and they would have flocks in abundance and sheep. All the blessings of God. I tell you now, God is not stingy. He meant them to enjoy it. He gives to all, all things richly to enjoy. But there were dangers. Look at them now listed in that same chapter eight and verse eleven. Beware, lest thou forget the Lord thy God in not keeping his commandments, when thou shalt eat and be full. And the very satisfaction of these material blessings would eat away at their memory and their awareness of God, and it would no longer seem to them so important to keep his commandments. Minds and hearts so full of things material, little time left for his word, for prayer and devotion. And the material blessings, instead of increasing their spirituality and thanksgiving and gratitude to God, might have the very reverse effect. Oh, look what next he says. Verse fourteen, then thy heart be lifted up, and thou forget the Lord thy God, which brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Oh, what a disaster if it happened. That sheer material wealth and its enjoyment would mean that the memory of redemption gradually faded. The slavery they once endured in Egypt, now redeemed, but the memory fades, even for the need, their basic need of redemption. It could happen to us too, couldn't it? So busy, so full, that even if we come to the Lord's Supper of a Sunday, the significance of it fades in our minds. And the next step, and thou shalt say in thy heart, verse seventeen, my power and the might of mine hand has gotten me this wealth. Danger that there develop a sense of independence of God. I don't need God Anymore. anymore. I lived at one stage in County Durham in Northeast England and lodged with a Christian family. The husband was a miner, and most of their relatives miners. And they used to say to me, David, you know, between the wars things were difficult, men out of work for years on end. We women had to get down on our knees from time to time and pray God for the next meal to eat. But now, with the coming of the war, we are so wealthy. But the effect it's had on our spirituality has not altogether been good. And finally, the danger. Verse eighteen, that thou shalt remember that, uh, uh, but thou shalt remember the Lord thy God, for it is he that giveth thee power to get wealth, and that he may establish his covenant which he sware unto thy fathers as at this day. And it shall be if thou shall forget the Lord thy God and walk after other gods and serve them and worship them. I testify against you this day that you shall surely perish. The danger of idolatry. And we shall remember as Christians our Lord as he talked to us about his kingdom and the rule of God in our daily lives, and how we ought to go about the business of getting clothes enough to wear and food to eat. He said, beware of this. Beware of serving mammon. You cannot serve both in your business. If you serve mammon, it will make a slave of you. You cannot serve both God and man. Danger of idolatry. So let us look, therefore, to a delightful thing that begins chapter eight of Deuteronomy. For there God takes Moses and uses him to cause the Israelites to pause for a moment on the very brink of all these marvelous blessings, material blessings in Canaan, and to look back now on the desert journey through which God has brought them. Verse two of chapter eight: and thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God hath led thee these forty years in the wilderness, that he might humble thee, to prove thee, to know what was, uh, in thine heart, whether thou wouldest keep his commandments or no. And he humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna that thou knew- which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know, that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread alone, but by everything that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord doth man live. A very tender moment when God stands by his people and asks them to remember the past for a moment and consider the way that he dealt with them in the difficult years. Oh, it had been tough sometimes in the wilderness, very tough. You may remember the incident recorded in Numbers twenty. They were going through a landscape like the a moon, and they ran out of water, not for the first time. But this time they were tired, and the sun beat hot, and the kids were crying, and the wives had no water to do what little cooking they had to do. And the people came to Moses, and they said, Moses, we must have water, Moses. Moses, this is not a land of figs and pomegranates. And their lips were parched and their tongues swollen. This is not a land of figs. And they murmured, and they strove against Moses and strove against the Lord. And we say in our party they shouldn't have done that, should they? Well, no, they shouldn't. But all have a heart, my dear brother. Have you never cried out in your heart, in the privacy of your room? Lord, I can't stick this anymore. That's how they felt. And Moses and Aaron didn't altogether help at that stage. You see, they thought this was but a repetition of what Israel had done when they strove with the Lord and tempted him, as recorded in Exodus seventeen. There too they had run out of water. But they came with arrogant defiance to Moses, and they said, here Moses, we've had enough, near enough now. If your God is really among us, he'll give us water, and if he doesn't, we're done with him. That was tempting the Lord, their God, putting a pistol to God's head and telling him if he doesn't do better than this, they'll desert him. Rebels they were. And they talked of, uh, picking up stones and stoning Moses. Sheer rebellion. Half of them weren't believers anyway. When Moses talked the, uh, complaint to God, what shall we do? God, you remember, told him to do as follows. Says God, Moses, you will take your rod with which you smote the Nile. And we say, we see what God is going to do now. He'll not put up with this kind of arrogant rebellion and temptation of God. Here's Moses with his rod with which God smote the Nile. He'll presently bring it down on these rebel men. Ah, but even so, we've misunderstood God, haven't we? How does God deal with rebels? And try to convert them. Moses, he said, assemble the people and assemble the elders. Take your rod with which you smote Egypt, and I shall stand on this rock here, and I want you to take your rod and smite. You say it's coming down on the people now. No, says God, you take your rod of judgment and smite the rock on which I stand. Or do you suppose would be the significance if the Queen came to Belfast and they made her a big platform to stand on, and somebody came out of the crowd with a mighty great stick and started to belabor the platform upon which the Queen stood? I know what the police would think of it. It was rebellion against God. But all the wonder, when Moses struck that rock, the water came out to satisfy the f- the first even of those rebels. How does God deal with the rebellion of the human heart? Oh, 'tis a wondrous story. Jehovah lifted up his rod. Oh, Christ, it fell on thee. Thou wast sore smitten of thy God, all for my sake, my peace to make. Now there's no rod for me. And when we think of Calvary, ah, it's a mighty difficult thing to rebel against the God of Calvary. But the incident in Numbers twenty was very different. They strove against Moses and God. But God told Moses that he understood. Here were people at the end of their tether. Under the discipline and training of God. And God told Moses all he had to do was this, take Aaron's rod. Aaron the priest's rod of office, whose task it was to bless the people, to intercede for them, and cause them to know the very blessing of God in their hearts. Thus shall I bless them. Take the priestly staff of office, and all you'll have to do in the sight of the people is to just speak to the rock, and the waters will flow out. Poor old Moses and Aaron, I expect they'd had enough. With all the difficulties of the wilderness and their nerves were frayed. And losing their tempers, Moses said, you rebels, must I bring water out of this rock? Uh, with some hefty strokes, he smote the rock. The waters came, but God disapproved, for Moses had misrepresented God. And Moses was told that for it he never would enter the land. It's a very serious thing to misrepresent God when his people are in deep trouble and need not chastisement, but need the very comfort of God. Oh, a God that you just have to speak to, that understands our infirmities, and what a delight it is to be reminded by the epistle to the Hebrews. He himself is able to succor them that are tempted, because he himself also suffered being tempted. Marvelous high priest. But it had been tough. And now God explains to them why it had to be. I led you, I humbled you, as a father would discipline a child, because you had to be trained to be able to bear the blessings of Canaan without their endangering your spirituality. That's how it was. But Hebrews chapter twelve reminds us that God chastens us yet, as a father his son, and no chastening for the time being seems to be joyful, certainly not, but afterwards it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to them that are exercised thereby. Oh, my dear brother, my sister, the rumor has it, oh, but it's more than a rumor, that awaiting you very soon, just across the border that divides us physically from eternity, there awaits you an eternal weight of glory. Notice the noun. It's not some frivolous little thing, some tinsel decoration on a Christmas tree. It is glory. Glory conceived of and created by the living God himself, creator of the vast universe and all its galaxies. There awaits for you such glory, that says the apostle, it will be like a tremendous weight of glory. You know, I, I don't go and take tea with the Queen too often. Well, I haven't done it at all. I pay into a club that keeps her racehorses. It's called His Majesty's Income Tax and something. Never invites me to tea, and I'm really glad, certainly not to dinner, you see. You go to dinner with the Queen, some of you may know, I don't. There's so many knives and forks and soup spoons on the table to start with that getting the right one at the right time is moderately difficult. Do you? And then all these glorious nobility in their robes and whatnot, and uh, footman comes up and you think he must be the heir to the throne. No, he's only a waiter, but he is embarrassing, and you, you say sir to him when you shouldn't and all that. Not used to the riches, you see. Instead of it being an enjoyment, it's a positive burden. I'm glad to escape and go back and eat my sausages. How do you propose to feel in glory when Michael the Archangel will be your servant? When the very Son of God, so it is on record as coming from his own mouth, will gird himself and come and serve you? How should we stand the glory? The highest cherub, in ancient time before the world was, the anointed cherub found it too much, and he rebelled against God, did he not? And you've got to bear it. An eternal weight of glory. Let God explain to us now, just before we go home, why he has allowed certain parts of life to be so tough. For a light affliction, which is but for the moment, worketh for us an exceeding great and eternal weight of glory. Two things were at stake when God trained Israel over their daily bread. The story is given us in Exodus chapter sixteen. First, God allowed them to hunger, and then he fed them with the manna, and he deliberately said, explicitly said, that the manna was so arranged that he might prove their hearts whether they would obey his commandments or not over the matter of their daily bread. Because, as you remember, the arrangement for feeding Israel was that the manna came down from heaven, you see. You say, I'd like to have been living then. Oh, you only had to go outside your tent in the morning, and you opened your mouth, and the manna came right into your mouth. And that wasn't that easy. That wasn't quite like that. The manna came down, but of course they had to go out and pick it up. And it was very small. And if you've got your back bent and you're picking up little bits of stuff from off the desert floor, that can be hard work. And then they had to take it home, home and mill it, and then they had to cook it or fry it. No packaged stuff from the Tesco's. It's a lot of work. But the arrangements were that five days a week they were to take what they could eat in the day. If they took more, it was useless because it bred worms and stank. On the sixth day, they were to take enough for that day and the next day, which was Sabbath, because on the Sabbath day, the manna didn't come. God watched to see what they would do. And if you please, a lot of folks didn't take any notice. Five days a week, they tried to grab more than was necessary, only to find it went bad on them. Some on the Friday didn't take enough for the Sabbath and found themselves without food on the Sabbath. Simple rules, you say, but God arranged it to see whether in their daily work of finding bread and butter to eat, they would obey the commandments of the Lord. And so it is with us still, isn't it? Our daily work? Not just a matter of getting food and clothes, is it? Says Christ, the Gentiles seek after that. But when you go to work, let not your prime motive be just getting food and clothes. Of course, we've got to work for it. Anybody that's not prepared to work, who could? But let not your first motivation in your daily work be getting food and clothes. Don't be like the old Gentiles. What should my first motivation in going to work be? Seek, says Christ, the rule of God, that is the kingdom of God, his kingly rule in your life. For daily work presents us with the possibility of whether we shall obey the Lord's righteous principles in our daily life or not. If we do seek first his rule in our lives, it will produce, says Christ, the very character, the righteousness of God's rule and kingdom. But if in the course of getting our daily food and our clothes, we transgress God's commandments, like the world does, we may get the food and clothes, we shall have lost the very reason why God sent us to work in the first place. Maybe I've told you before, I'll tell it again. I was seated at table with a good Christian man, now retired, company accountant he was, and, uh, he told me his story. He was a secretary, accountant, lawyer for a very big country, co- uh, company. They had premises in different parts of the kingdom. They had been moving their assets here, thither, and everywhere else to escape the income tax inspector. Like Enron, you know. But the income tax inspector asked for a meeting with the board of directors, and of course the company secretary had to attend. Presently, the inspector asked some very penetrating, direct questions that had to be asked about these assets. And the chairman of the board, addressing my Christian friend, said, please answer. And he said, David, I knew that moment. If I told the truth, that would be the end of my job. And I had my wife and family and education of the children and the mortgage. What should I do? And I told the truth. And the directors came afterwards and said, we shan't need your services anymore. Daily work. Meant to educate us and test us, whether we will keep the Lord's rule or not. It's just not, not just meetings that are preparing us for glory. It's our daily work. And how faithful we are in obeying our Lord's standards of right behavior that are preparing us, developing a righteous character, ready for sharing the reign of Christ with him when he comes. There was more to it. Says our, says the Lord in Deuteronomy eight, I suffered you for, uh, suffered you to hunger and fed you with manna, that you might know this, that man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. And that is not God being stingy. What is life? Not just food and clothes, is it? It's fellowship with the Lord who gives them. True life is spiritually enjoying the very life of God. Fellowship with God. You'll remember what happened in John chapter six, won't you? When the Lord fed the multitude with their loaves and fishes, they were delighted at the free meal. They came the next day, hoping the Lord would do another miracle and give them another free meal, and he said, not anymore, gentlemen. You seek me not because you saw the sign, but simply because you ate of the fishes and the loaves and were filled. But you don't ask whose hands are these that multiplied the loaves and fish. You don't start inquiring, who am I? And I am the very bread from heaven. If a man eat of me, he shall not die, but shall live forever. They took the gifts. They had no time for the giver. One day these material things will all have vanished. Oh, if we would enjoy life, eternal life, and lay hold on life, as Paul exhorted Timothy, we must look beyond the material blessings to the hand that gives us, and make sure that it is fellowship with him, even now, that we prize above all else. But then in chapters nine and ten and indeed in part of eleven, God warned them of another danger that they might encounter in the land of Canaan. Look at chapter nine if you will, and verse four. Speak not thou in thine heart, after that the Lord thy God hath thrust them out before thee, saying, For my righteousness the Lord hath brought me in to possess this land, whereas for the wickedness of these nations the Lord doth drive them out from before thee. Not for thy righteousness or for the uprightness of thine heart dost thou go in to possess their land, but for the wickedness of these nations, the Lord thy God doth drive them out from before thee, and that he may establish the word which the Lord sware unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. Know therefore that the Lord thy God giveth thee not this good land to possess it for thy righteousness, for thou art a stiff-necked people. Remember, forget thou not how thou provokest the Lord thy God to wrath in the wilderness. The danger? That since God would drive out the wicked nations and put Israel in their place, Israel would come to think that it was because of their superior righteousness and become in their hearts like the Pharisees, full of self-righteousness. If ever that got into their hearts, it would begin to eat like a woodworm at the very basis of their relationship with the Lord. You shall remember, therefore, he says, what happened in the past. Now, I'm in difficulty here because someone will rise up and protest against me and quote the words of Paul, I'm sure, from Philippians chapter three: Forgetting those things that are behind, we ought to press forward to the mark of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. No good, Mr. Preacher, you say, harking back on all our old mistakes and the troubles and the squabbles and the assemblies and goodness knows what. Forget it. Go on! And I want to preach that. I wish I had Philippians three to preach instead of the book of Deuteronomy, just at this moment, you see. Go on! We're here, aren't we? No good just harking back to the past. Press on to the mark of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Dwell forever on your mistakes and you'll become like them. And they will large, loom so large in your thinking as to become a positive hindrance to spiritual development. Occupy yourself with the Lord, you'll become like him as well. There's the hope of our deliverance. But when I said that, then there is this other lesson. Israel is told to remember their past, lest they should become self-righteous and I'm better than thou attitude. Remember what? Remember what happened at Mount Sinai. God had proposed that they should build him a tabernacle and come and dwell among them and walk with them through the desert until the promised land. And Moses had gone up the mountain to get directions for this tabernacle, and had been gone more than a week, more than two weeks, until the people at the bottom of the mountain began to murmur. Where is this Moses gone to? He he he didn't have any food when he went, someone said, but he said he would come back. Ah, they said he said that that was what he said when he went, and people have been saying it for a long while, but he hasn't come back yet. What is the good of us sitting here at the bottom of a mountain, twizzling our thumbs and getting nowhere very fast? You can't do that, can you, in life? You've got to have some aim in life, or you get nowhere. We can't just sit here. And so they went to Aaron, and they said, look here, Aaron, we're tired of just sitting here. We've got a go- have to have a goal to aim at. Make to us gods that shall go before us. And Aaron suggested they break off their earrings. That was the way people carried their surplus wealth in those days, there being no banks. And they gave their earrings to Aaron. Those earrings they got when they came out of Egypt. They were the side benefits. They were redeemed, they were set free, but God ordained that when they went out, they should ask the Egyptians, and the Egyptians would give them much wealth and gold and silver and clothes. These were the side benefits of redemption. And now they said to, Aaron said, you take those side benefits, the earrings and things, and he made them a god, a golden calf. And they sat down to eat and to drink, and they rose up to play. Tomorrow, said Aaron, is the feast of the Lord. And they danced around the old golden calf, and they said, these be thy gods that brought thee out of Egypt. And they proposed to go back to Egypt. They had got completely disorientated in the wilderness. Now what they were aiming at was not the Lord himself, but the side benefits of being Christian. It has happened sometimes. Christians who lived in poverty because the man of the house drank too much or smoked too much or bet on the greyhounds or something, and he got converted, and now his family benefited, and they got furniture and a carpet on the floor. Marvelous, isn't it, what conversion can do? Lovely. Unless, presently, the goal becomes not the Lord himself, but the side benefits, and a better house, and a better car, and a better education. This is our goal in life. Listen to God saying, I redeemed you, I brought you on eagle's wings, and what was the goal of it all? I brought you to myself, says God. Now they'd gone after another goal, and then attributed their redemption to their gold and their silver. God nearly destroyed them. So think of the impertinence when God had proposed that they make him a sanctuary and he dwell among them, and God's presence and person be their goal, and they had gone to other goals. Remember, it says, uh, God through Moses to Israel, don't you suppose that it's for your goodness I bring you in here. We are called upon to remember, aren't we? Not so much our mistakes, but as we gather once more to keep the covenant that our blessed Lord has made with us, we take the bread from his hand and the cup that is the new covenant in his blood, says he, remember me, won't you? Remember me. Remember it is I who brought you out of Egypt. You'll remember, won't you? Why I hung upon that cross for you. Oh, don't you ever forget it. I bore your sins in my body on the tree. Don't you forget it. Lest you should come to think that you are somehow superior, and it's your self-righteousness in which you boast. Remember the covenant. Let me never forget Calvary. We shall not forget it, even in the glories of heaven, and when you are crowned with all the crowns you will have and shine brighter than the angels, you will still be singing for all eternity. Worthy is the lamb that was slain. Because he was slain for my sins, and you'll tell any angel that happens to be passing by, and anybody else that's interested, know why I'm here. It was because the blessed Lord bore my sin in his body, for I was a rebel, and he subdued and conquered me by the love by which he gave himself for me. We shall never forget it, shall we? There'll not be an atom of self-righteousness in heaven. And finally... I'm just looking around at my back, you see. Finally, there comes chapter eleven, where Moses remind, uh, informs them now of the nature of agriculture that they will find in Canaan. And he points out to them that in Egypt, the method of agriculture was as follows. They didn't get any rain. They depended on the Nile overflowing, and when the Nile overflowed, they had all sorts of irrigation channels made in the earth, you see, and the water came up the channels, and then the farmers or their slaves would go along, and with their foot they would direct the water. You see, the water came along here, and here there was some earths heaped up so the water couldn't get any further, and it would go around this field and around the bottom and around the other side and along the top and sink in. And when it had sunk in there, the rest of the water would come because a slave would, with his foot, remove the earth that was holding it up, and it would come through this channel, you see. That's how they did it. You watered your fields with your foot because you weren't dependent on the rain from heaven. But you'll find, says Moses, that when you get into the Promised Land, it won't be like that. It won't be that the Nile will overflow. It will, you will be dependent on the rain that comes down from heaven. Ah, and that you won't control with your feet. It will be a perpetual reminder that if your inheritance is going to be fruitful, you will be dependent on God to give the rain from heaven. Beware how you behave, for if you forget the Lord your God, God might dry up the rain from heaven. Which is what God did from time to time. There came a drought and a famine. Only when they repented would God resume sending the rain. They were dependent, therefore, for the former rains in the autumn so that they could then plow the land, and for the latter rains in the spring when the newly sown seed should germinate and come to a harvest. But when you come to the prophets, you will find that this thing, this water system for agriculture in the country, had turned itself into an object lesson. Not only were they dependent on God for the rain from heaven, but they saw it that if their nation were ever to be restored, they would need not only a restoration of physical rain, they would need what God began to promise them, the very spirit of God poured out upon them. Let us remember now what our blessed Lord said at the great feast of tabernacles recorded in John chapter seven. For there at that feast, they would have gone down, the officials, to the pool of Siloam and filled a golden pitcher with water and brought it up and poured it at the base of the altar. In memory of the rock that was smitten in the wilderness and how God gave them literal water to eat in the wilderness. But also because of what the prophets had said. The promise that one day God would pour out his spirit upon Israel that would lead to her restoration. And they poured the water at the base of the altar on the last great day of the feast, and just when they had done, there arose a voice over the heads of the multitude, and it said, if any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink. He that believeth on me, out of his inward part shall flow rivers of living water. This spake he of the Spirit, that they which believed on him were about to receive after he was glorified. So that the irrigation system of Canaan becomes for us too a very vivid object lesson. If we would enjoy the inheritance that God gives us, our first great need is this, God's Holy Spirit. Every believer has the Holy Spirit, of course, says Ephesians chapter one. We have received the Holy Spirit, earnest of our inheritance. In that sense, we don't need to pray for him. We get the blessed Holy Spirit when we trust the Savior. But while we have the Holy Spirit, you will notice that in Ephesians one and then again in Ephesians three, Paul tells us how he constantly prayed for his fellow believers who had already received the Holy Spirit. And what does he pray for them? For a ministry, ongoing ministry of the Holy Spirit within their hearts. I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, that he would give you a spirit of wisdom and the revelation of him, that you might know what is the hope of his calling and what the riches of his inheritance is in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of God's power towards us that he wrought in Christ when he raised him from the dead. The ongoing work of the Holy Spirit in the church. We shall not prosper as we should, nor enjoy our spiritual inheritance as we should, unless we come to acknowledge our dependence on the gracious ministry of the Holy Spirit of God. There are riches untold, beyond description. But, says Paul in one Corinthians two, if we would know our riches, then it is not simply by our intellect or our emotions that we know what God has prepared. For who knows the things of God save the Spirit of God? God hath given us his Holy Spirit, that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. All that we might therefore constantly realize our dependence on the gracious Holy Spirit in our private lives and in the life of the church, that we might be strengthened by his spirit in the inner man, that Christ shall dwell in our hearts by faith, that we, being rooted and grounded in love, should be strong with all the saints to comprehend the length and depth and height of that vast mystery of God's love for us and the glorious plan that he has for our future, that we might be filled in all the fullness of God. God's practical advice on how even now we are to reap the maximum benefit of our great inheritance. Now we pray. Pray. Our Father, we thank thee for thy word again, and now we thank thee for thy practical counsel. What a gracious Father thou art. And though on times the words are difficult to say, we thank thee even for our chastening, hard as it may be, because of thine unbreakable promise that afterwards it will yield the peaceable fruit of righteousness and prepare us for that great and eternal weight of glory reserved in heaven for us. So bless thy word, we pray. Help our minds to grasp, our memories to retain and recall, but but but above all, may thy gracious Holy Spirit take thy word now, and with his genius, root it in our hearts and give us spiritual understanding, that all our blessings, material and spiritual, shall lead us ever closer to thee and never lead us away. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.