In this sermon, the speaker emphasizes the importance of the word of God and the gifts that God bestows upon believers. They highlight the role of teachers in conveying the word of God and the need for belief and hearing in order to have faith. The speaker also discusses predestination and the mercy of God in choosing believers. They conclude by expressing gratitude for the ability to interpret and share the living word of God and the ultimate purpose of liberation through God's glory.

Therefore, as we move into faith, which is our part of the relationship, which is our freedom, we freely attach ourselves to something. It's a gift to us because we're drawn by that to which we attach ourselves. There's still the positive part where we attach ourselves to some given fact as a fact. That's our side of the faith. That comes from the fact, the confirmation, that we are, it attaches itself to us as it were. In the same principle, by faith, we attach ourselves to a chair because it's available and desirable. As we attach ourselves to it, the chair comes back to us and says, I'm specific to you, I'm holding you up. That's where the substance comes to faith. So, in this case, we move into the inner know-how. That's the inner woman's state. We're adequate people now. We have nothing further beyond that level except what I always call the repetition of recognition. Normally, we don't recognize you as we. We don't recognize who you are, just are. The background is who you are. We don't recognize that. You operate as being. But when there's the multitudinous pressures, the trials, the temptations which pull us out, tempt us out from being who we really are, tempt us to operate as if we're back in that independent level again, that's when we repeat recognition. So, faith really dissolves and becomes fact. I don't sit in this room by faith. I sit in this room by fact. Because fact becomes faith becomes recognition. I said, I am. I went to Parliament. I said, I'll be in this room. Now I say, I am in this room. Faith is dissolved and becomes fact. So, when we say we believe a thing, it means we haven't quite got it. Because faith dissolves and becomes fact. If I hold this bubble in my hand and say, I believe I've got it, in the face you are not quite sure. Why do you say you believe you've got it? There's something you're not quite sure. I don't say, I've got it. Because faith dissolves. I have it. So, whenever we have faith, we don't talk faith, we talk fact. Because we've got this, or this, or this is happening, and that's this faith, this is the word of faith that happens. And then we live at ease. And the only unease is, if you like, the temporary, but there are areas of adventure where we've moved into disturbing situations which appear to call us out as if we're not a he in us. And that's when we repeat our recognition and move accordingly. Now, the ninth chapter moves us into the necessary effect of this union relationship. If the being of God and the light and the fulfilment of God is to give himself for his creation, as being love, his existence is, his joy is a fulfilment, he may be the age in which his creation has that fulfilment, that happiness, that completion, that activity, that responsibility, that vibrancy, or so they become the true beings they're meant to be on all levels. One day, the animal creation, the scene in which the prophets will lose its antagonisms, which really are a product of our own self-antagonisms, and may, in some way, make harmony on all three levels of creation. Because God is harmony. Harmony means he works together, lives together, cooperates together. And this is God in completion. And he can be the mediator in which his whole universe operates like that, and once he gets back into it as the joy and the love of the whole universe by whom it's become the fact. So that's the nature of God. If, therefore, I wholly say, I'm no longer I, but I'm the deity, whether I speak to him as Father, Son, Spirit or Enemy, I must be that. I can't be anything else. I don't have to try and be I Am. Remember, as we always say, it hasn't come up particularly in this Roman letter, it comes out more in Hebrews and so on, we've learned a differentiation between the reactions of the outer form and the inner self. The outer form, in Hebrews, consists of soul and spirit. Our emotions, our reasons, our bodies, they can deceive us. Because they can make us cause us to think we are what we feel we are. They feel absence of God, they feel weak, they feel so-and-so. Of course, that's an illusion. We, therefore, cannot be, whatever we think we are, we cannot be a person, a replaced person, in whom my real self is not I, but Christ, without being a person who cannot help being involved in others. Whatever my situation is, this is in me now, I cannot be that self of God, and I cannot be anything but somebody else in other people's hands, seeking the eternal release, which is the eternal life that I have. So I become a contributor, I am an outgoer. Then again, I don't go back to such a thing as trying it out. That's the danger of saying, as I say, the soul may say, you don't look like it, that's not the point. Or the dream may say, I saw it. We live on the affirmation that we are. If that's what we are, and if we say, I don't see it, then he puts that into order, causing us to know in what way we can't help it being. Of course we know we are. So our lives, in the Bible term, become outgoing streams of rivers. He, as he says in John, first, it's like a well of water totally supplying us, bringing up everlasting life. But that same well of water now is continuously an outgoing river. And we don't question it, we are. Now it's not for us to know how, because the outgoing river is healed by us. So we don't question how, or we get back on this self-effort, false self-determination, we just say it is so. And some way or other, each of us know how, that's coming out in our lives. Now this is the, you might call, sad example of it, because this is the great letter which takes us through the whole progress of what it is to be a true human. And here we move, in Romans 9, and say, the very person who affirmed to us, that you can't be separated, this is the last final peon of magnificence, peon of glory said, you cannot be separated. Now the man, not devil, can separate you. No man, not devil, can accuse you. In God's sight you are His precious, perfected person in Christ. And you stand there. The very person who said that, turns on here, in the 9th chapter, says we can never be separated, says my desire, I began to be separated from Christ. If that could mean the means that my brother brings me salvation. Now we are moving to other life. And he's speaking here, it starts by his concern over his own brother's virile tenderness. Because they were the ones that persecuted him to the death, they tried to stone him, they beat him up, they did every mocking thing a person could do. His total concern, they were all right with anything, and my brother could see the true Messiah. He may face such a strange thing. He was able to think, it's all right for us to set ourselves a distance. You think you have the depth of prejudice, we all have the prejudice in our own touch, in our own lives, we all have our prejudices. But we think, is it possible that a Jew, knowing that a perfect Jew has been this perfect person, that anybody who doesn't believe in the deeds of Christ at least, can't get away from the protection of Jesus. That there has been a person who has spoken the kind of things he has, and done the kind of things he has, and loved the way in his way, and been as unblameable as he has. You think no one could deny that this is, can you get a more perfect man, even if you don't believe in God. You think there are such a strange thing, that they wouldn't be proud of this greatest product of their race. It shows how great blindness is, it shows how we don't understand what prejudices are, we have our own prejudices, we aren't, so it's easy for us to judge other people's prejudices, because they don't. This blindness that we see in these chapters has come upon Israel. And here he is, he's saying, he's speaking about the privileges that Israelites had, the adoption by God, they had the glory, the covenants, the beginning of the law, the service of God, the promises piled on. God had piled this on, and his grace and glory and beauty and promises to these folks. And then finally, through the fathers there, finally Christ himself had come to them, they didn't see him. So in the first, Christ came, God blessed his brethren, in the chapter, Revelation 3 and 4. And it's there he said, in verse 3, I could wish not of a curse for Christ, separate from whom I could wish. That's a strong thing to say. I could wish I was separate from Christ, which is his very life, for our brethren's sake. This love in me now has moved in this direction. It's a big thing to say that, I'd go to hell. Two men are known to have said that, Moses said that, when he was tested about the golden calf. And in order to, God has to use negative methods, this is why God has to disguise himself, we ought to see, especially the Old Testament, God's in disguise, because we can't see any other way. So you have to put yourself, as it were, in a rough character, to stir up the opposite in us. That's why it appears to be anger and so on, because anger really is a concern for us, to get us out of our foolishness, and the corruption and so on. It looks as if he's the angry one. On this occasion, Moses was the leader and prophet of these people in the wilderness. And in order to stir Moses to what he was, God appeared so angry, when they'd been giving the law, and then they'd forgotten all about Moses and the golden calf, and doing their lewd dances and so on, around the golden calf. He said, I'll destroy these people. I'll make a new nation of you. As if God had no use for his own people. That's a clever way in which he stirs the opposite from us, stirs the reality up in us. And so God does deliberately take unpleasant disguises upon himself to help us into reality. And the reality that that helped Moses into, oh yes, you couldn't do that at once. Oh, you couldn't do that, God? Why, your name's linked to these people. If you destroy them, the Egyptians say you couldn't keep them, that's why. You can't do that. So see the story of Moses for the people. Fighting for the people as if against God. Of course, that's what God wanted. But God must come through humans. He must have his human intercessor who'd die for the people as his own son did later on. And then having gone back to Egypt, where he dealt strongly with the people, as he should do, and got them to repentance and so on, still he came back to God. In order to fulfill the thing up in Mount. He said, God, you can't leave these people. God said, well, my present's gone with you. I don't want your present, I want you with it. And that's what he said. Well, he said, look here, God. He said, if you're not guilty, he said, if you can't forgive their sins, then don't forgive mine. If you turn your back on them, block me out too. That's intercession. That's the person who said, I'm not guilty about these people. I don't want to go on being what I am now. Block me out with them, if you can't forgive them. That was God bringing, you see, God bringing this negative person to bring out of us the real person in us. That's the real, of course, that was God in Moses, really. This was the spirit of intercession in Moses. God's own character, especially Moses. And so God has taken through Moses sometimes like that. And this is the only other case in the Bible where a man in actual words says the same kind of thing. I, I, I, I, so renounce my, my, my, my, my, my privilege of going to heaven. If by that means I could be the medium by which my brethren can go to heaven. Go to heaven, of course, we don't use ourselves enough to reach heaven, but heaven is the present eternal life. The future heaven's going to come, but we're more concerned with the, the heavenly spirit now when it comes to the same thing. But having stated that at the intensity of his passion, people chased him, chased him until they could kill him again and again, even when they could kill him. But you, you see, love doesn't feed them, love has no enemies. Because love feeds everybody as God's person. When you see right through, every person has got a form of God, even if they don't know it. And if you redeem a form of God, and you, mind you, you can reject the redeemed form of God, you can't see enemies, because they're, they're, they're those who missed the way, and I missed the way too. So your attitude is transferred to wanting to, how you can help the person, even though the person may be the one who's wronging you, antagonizing you, as we saw with that, that woman I spoke to about, mentioned. Then he goes into a phrase, which is very interesting, and that is to say that the, whether the Israelites appear to reject Christ or accept Him, God's will takes place anyhow. He now moves into the area about the total sovereignty of God. He stops in chapter, in verse 6, where he suddenly says, I said that my children, the Israelites, would reject Christ, and they're like this, and so their backs are turned to the Messiah and Redeemer, who has come. He says, not as though God, not as though God hasn't taken effect. You defend the perfect way of God on every level. So he says, the reason that we say that is that in actual fact, all Israel, and not just all the physical Israel, that part of the Israel nation, which has moved into a relationship of grace and salvation with God, which of course is true today, as I always say about churches. The church are those who have entered into what we speak of as a new birth, a new creature relationship. There may be many who have used the name and title of being Christian in different ways. We know their difference, who have been that way ourselves. And he's defending that by what appears to be a strange way. He says, you see, some appear progressive, and others don't appear. It works out that way, he says. Then he goes back, he says, he would say that you would see in Abraham's children, Isaac was the seed to whom God's presence was filled. Esau was the one who left the family and went out into the wilderness, into the desert, and became the progenitor of the Arab race. That is exactly why it is so interesting to find in Esau that great prophecy, that the days are going to come when Assyria and Egypt are back again in brotherhood with Israel, and the three together are the people of God. I don't think I can find that for you offhand. It's a very precious statement in Isaiah. I'm sure you also believe that. But it's turning out here as if there are those whom God has appointed and those whom God has rejected. That's a tough saying. That isn't actually said of Isaac and Esau. But it is said of Jacob, Isaac and Ishmael. Sorry, Isaac and Ishmael. It is said of Jacob and Esau. And it is strictly said here that before they had done good or evil, while they were still in the womb of Rebekah their mother, says verse 11, children not being yet born, neither having done good nor evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not the works, but according to Him to call it, it was said unto her, the elder shall serve the younger. Now, what's that? That didn't say they were rejected. It only said it would work out in that relationship. Well, they have relationships. Of course, when you're in Christ, places don't matter. When you're a loved servant of Christ, a loved servant of Jesus, it doesn't matter to you whether you're at the top or the bottom. Because all you'll do is fulfil your love service. So, the place, the superior, the apparent superiority, the inferiority in the operation of life don't matter when you are really in grace. But all it said, therefore, was it was going to work out that the elder would serve the younger. And imagine, that's true of all the world. The fresh world is the elder. And we're the younger. And the world says that's not really the world. If you watch through history, you'll find that really the world has been serving the growth and progress of the people of God. You might look the other way round. It's good to remember that. The rejected, the world, the fresh world is really only a servant of the spirit world. And the fresh world crucified Jesus Christ. No, they rejected Jesus Christ. He was world conquered because they crucified him and he's now bringing back the houses of the world, leaving the captivity of the captives. As I always say, as we read before, it's Godly people. The people of God reign in Christ. They're on top of their reign. And what's happening is they're only bringing out more of the reign of Christ in them. More of the manifestation of Christ in the love They're the people, really, who are the leaders of the world. Which is the verse where it looks like. But this took place in this present case. He saw Jacob. Notice, it doesn't say that he said Jacob will be accepted. And he saw the rejected. He didn't say that. He said the elder shall serve the younger. It goes on to say, quoting from the last prophet, Malachi, as it is written afterwards, Jacob and I love each other, I hate him. Now something else has come in there. That first prophecy before birth didn't say that. It just said they have a certain relationship. One would serve the other. But here it says, later on, long afterwards, Jacob and I love each other, I hate him. You see, hate is only love in reverse. Everything opposite is only the thing in reverse. No is yes in reverse. It's just saying yes all around, that's all. It's a reversed yes. Hate is a reversed love. If love loves one way, it must hate the opposite. If love identifies with self-giving love, it must hate self-loving love. Of course it must. So always, hate now is one thing. It says of Jesus in Hebrews 2, Thou hast loved thy sister, hate is iniquity. Therefore God, even thy God, is anointed with the oil of gladness above thy fellows. That's in Hebrews 2, it's written about the Lord Jesus Christ in Hebrews 1. If you love thy sister the right way, you must hate the wrong way. Of course they do. The seriousness is, that our identification with the right or the wrong, when we have personal identification, it doesn't cause fear in the love relation. If we identify with the wrong, that hate is on us. As we see later on, it's a hate that can be reversed. The reason it can be reversed is oil of the essence. We don't start with Jacob. Jacob was the one who was half-reset on God, and who moved into new birth, and bought the birthright promises, and remained always God's precious person. He didn't start. None of us start, we all start ethos. Of course we do. Ethos representing people who are for self, against God, and mind you, this is a person who hates Marx. Mind you, the person is born the elder, and has the elder birthright privileges, and he's taught by his parents, the real privileges are that God's your God, that God has eternal destiny, eternal purposes for you, eternal operation that you wipe God out, and despise him, and sell him for a bunch of lentils. They're pretty good contenders. The person was contempting, contemptuous of God, he wouldn't sell a birthright for a bowl of lentils, if he had any chance. Somewhat of a wonder, he has no wonder in the face, he's no wonder he's God, and he promises all that nonsense, but he's not in existence, so the world despises him. Well you see, you're in the hate realm there. As we see it later on, that doesn't mean you can't be loved, because everybody starts hating, really. We're all beneath, we're all taught in life, rejecting God in our own way, and turning our back on him, and being bound to the flesh, and the world, and the devil, so we're all bitten at the ethos. Oh, we have a tremendous budget, so there's a subtle truth we come to here, ethos don't remain Jacob's, if they wish not to. I mean, sorry, ethos don't remain ethos, but it can become Jacob's if they want to be. But that's the way, he's not saying that, because what he's saying, the very thought of it, he's saying you have to face the total sovereignty of God, that God does what he likes, it takes place. And until you see the outside of it, it looks as if God's a ruthless person, who saves some people and damn others. It looks like that, because again, it's difficult as humans to accept the character of God, and his total sovereignty. What he says goes, and nothing else goes, and he alone is the last word. The reason it's said is this, is that we humans have to come to a conclusion, we bow down to God, even if we don't understand him. Because God will know the answer by reason. He won't know the answer by faith. And so, this is an area where he says, you've got to take it in his hands first. After faith, knowledge doesn't precede faith, knowledge follows faith. The Bible says, I know whom I have believed. You know when you believe. That's the world's reason for our findings. Faith is an apparent absurdity. You've leapt into some truth, which, for certain reasons, you boldly take it, because he's given you, and as you take it, oh, I see, only follows the faith. I know whom I have believed, not I believe whom I have known. You believe, and you know. And that's the world can't take. That's why the world must reject the faith. They say you know, and then you believe. No. You believe and you know. Because belief is, as you believe this, the one higher than yourself. When you accept he's higher than yourself, greater than yourself, you say, well, I don't understand, but I believe because he's the great one I'm before, I believe him. And then, as you think about the relationship between humans and deity, you find that, oh, I understand now, I can see what it means. So, the world cannot take that, because the world is not going to stop by yielding themselves to God. The whole point, they'll become rebels. They're not going to yield to God, they're enemies. They're not going to yield to God. So, they claim to go to rationalize themselves into God and despise those who have, who say certain things as if they're certain, because we know, because we believe, but they can't say they're certain. Therefore, the, the, the worst Christian, and there are lots of others, they're bound to despise you. The Christian whose, whose basis in life is my own self-evidence, bound to, bound to see we're crazy. Because they think you can know without, without having come into it, you can't do it. You only know when you've found the end of yourself and been replaced by Christ. So, we've got to realize, we're going to live in what the great king of God called the absurdity of faith. We live in the foolishness of faith. He had a great, great book on the, the agonies of Abraham's faith when he had to, to, to sacrifice Isaac. To sacrifice Isaac, even though the liberals laugh at it, is to burn your son as a, as a burnt offering. He didn't do it just to kill him. He wasn't going to burn him. He took him up with the wood and the knife and burned him. Their own precious son. Who's going to do that? And he describes a marvellous book called Fear and Trembling. The agonies that lie between, is it murder or is it guidance? He has a very striking instance there. He uses, um, not a long term. He calls that what he calls the teleological suspension of the ethical. What he means is this. Ethics can still be self. Oh, I do think. I do think so. Suddenly God comes and calls you to a journey which is unethical. Oh? How can you say that sometimes a call to a journey is unethical? Because in, so teleological means ultimate. So the ultimate purpose of the God is to be led to something which goes against human morality. Now that's awkward. This was the case. Was Abraham called to be a murderer? Was it murder or was it calling? Was it murder or was it guidance? I put it. It's a decision to make before it happens. So I have to look back now and know what happened. One minute. You get the demonstration from the higher men clearly, women given the highest place in the Bible as a harlot. They had. Um, and yet she's underneath in Jericho, there in Jericho. She alone had heard about God and believed in this God of Israel. And this was the true God of Israel. These were God's people. And she believed and all the people were trembling around. They wanted to escape but she believed. And so when the spies came to her house and then the king of Jericho found these spies that came in let's get them and they came as a crisis to her house what did she do? She was spinning traps, whatever they do, laying traps out there as opposed to dry or something on the roof. And when the when the emissaries of the king came to her house oh she said they've gone up the mountain and they left there two days ago. Chase them. Lie. And eventually they went off to chase the two spies up the mountain and as soon as they'd gone they had to hack up where the gates were to slip out to get in Jericho and draw them back to Jerusalem quickly. And that lie presented as a great act of faith to justify her house. That's how actually she became her Jesus. She moved and she married and she became one of those who lined up with those the the generations of Mary. So in both cases God justified a lie and a murder. And what he's saying on that point he's talking about faith there is that faith will not be understood. And in this book he talks about he says you can be a knight of faith or a knight of consecration. Knight is K-N-I-G-H-T not Black Knight Knight is the important person who's going to give himself to war a knight. Now he says anybody could admire a knight of consecration or you're going to fight a crusade they're going to kill your people for Jesus and you go into the country altar and you look at that picture that famous picture of a man who presented his sword a young knight before the altar oh that's magnificent he's going out but it's still self effort of course it's still self going to do something but they think for God. He says a knight of faith is crazy. A knight of faith is saying God said do something which the world can't take at all and there's no admiration in that you walk a path which makes you a fool and the world says you're a fool and you're a knight of faith and the world finds you so you're moving along the line which the world cannot take that's faith the faith always in that image it's in the absurd image that's suffering we talked about that's why God has a great faith the absurdity of faith so there's an area to understand that this is the point of this chapter we never know God I say that's unjust that's too right to me I can't see that you cut the belief first and then you think afterwards and so here it was said in the boldest way presented to us on the scene Jacob was allowed he said I hate it then he says in the verse 9 you see they question they think is there is there much justice for God there is a question is there much justice for God for God for me Paul's strong word have been the ridiculous strong word get out it's impossible then he says God says I'll have mercy on whom I will have mercy I'll have compassion on whom I will have compassion so Paul says mind you with you willing and you running it's a woman who with God has mercy so the first person he has a God with mercy I'll have mercy on whom I will have mercy on and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion and the question of you running and seeking it's God's free choice then he goes stronger he says that's why I hardened Pharaoh oh he says that's what the scripture says for this same purpose he says to Pharaoh God says I raised you up to show my power on you by destroying him he destroyed Pharaoh he was swallowed up in the Red Sea when they chased the chariots destroyed him and so the comment he makes is therefore have mercy on whom you will have mercy on whom you will harden him now here's a double standard I take that now he says you take it first he says you've got to get that what God is always perfect that's a very great thing to learn because that's very difficult to learn sometimes that whatever God God's behind everything that happens and it's always perfect now that's that's a great lesson to learn because that's fantastic I can't take that that can't be God what kind of God can do that then you're torn up inside and you live in hell until you can say what God does don't do the power against God God explains sometimes don't do the power against except what he says even we Christians don't like that to work he says he takes it's the common example of potter he says show the thing that forms say the thing to him that forms it why do you make it like that has not the potter power of the clay of the same lump to make some dishonor some for useful purposes dishonor you see more than just a humble kitchen pot or something dishonor for unpleasant purposes what if God is willing willing to show his wrath willing to show his wrath and make him by and alone endure this much long suffering the vessels of wrath see the destruction that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy which he had to pour to pour to to to pour to to to pour to pour to pour to pour to pour to pour to pour to pour to pour to pour to to pour to pour to pour to pour to pour to pour to pour pour to pour to pour to pour to to pour to pour to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to We want our father, we want that thing, we want ourselves to cry because Christ is a terrible person to follow. Self is so built up in us that we love that temple. That's the danger of our modern churches. That's the whole danger of our modern churches. Liberty. We're going to love a form of a form. We're always proud of our churches. Of course there are magnificent temples we know. They're full of self. That's self in my temple. My God. That's self. Love that. That's my God. There's a lie. She's a terrorist. She's destroyed the temple for a few years and I'll build it again. And he walks over to Sabbath and says, Sabbath gave the man up. It isn't that we're made to fit with some laws of keeping Sabbath. Sabbath made for us to do what's necessary. And Sabbath made mercy. I don't care about laws. Should I do this or should I do that or not? Sabbath had the opportunity to show me the mercy of God. I showed him. He didn't explain which I did in the end. Now then, you see, he's getting his fact. He says, the fact is that the grace of God has always been operative in response to faith. It has to have that. So it has to meet humans on the basis that they love themselves. That's the whole. Why do you love yourself? Do you love your hardens? The hardens is not really God. God doesn't say it that way. To make a case, God means it. But the hardens says, I'll make him hard, call him off. Well, he's one of God's human beings. All human beings are God's human beings. They live and move and have their being God. Therefore, their basic humanity is God's human being. I won't do that. I'm going to give it to Moses. I'm going to keep the people. Step by step, he hardened himself. He offered grace, he offered promises, he offered threats. Nearly came out one time when he saw the miracles of Moses. He wouldn't come. He hardened himself. But you may say, because you're a form of God, you may say, God means us to be what we are. God solved it. It works out in us. It's God's hell or God's heaven. It's all God. But when you get down to the inner circle, it actually comes to my response. Now, that's the hidden secret. So, you see, he has to present to the world that this is where you're going to take the origins of God when you materialize and do it. This is the origins of God. God is the truth of everything that happens in the world. Now, there's our great key in life. Everything happened, God meant it. Now, it may have come through communist hate or something. God meant it. And has certain produced proponents. God meant it. It was part of God's purpose that the hardened should be hardened and those who receive mercy should have mercy. So, you've got to seek out to see a God to whom you relate everything. It's very important for us. Because when you do that, then you take the shocks of life. God meant that. It can change your attitude. That's why our attitude can not be judgmental towards the person who's going wrong. Even the person who's going wrong to us. The servants in our home. Or whatever you like. Oh, I can't stand. God meant that. God meant that to me, sir. Because the moment I do that, I'm released. I can say, well, God meant that. Then, of course, I learn grace. To say, well, God's got grace on the corner of that person. God's letting that person, means that person be tough or so and so. Because that's why he's going to find his hero. He's going to find his hero in his darkness. But God's on the corner of grace. I'm a person of prayer now. Prayer of faith that God's going to put grace in that person. So, this is a whole release in our outlook on life. Where I go, in a sense, that's right. God meant it. God meant it. It comes to what you like. Maybe it's some person's fault. Maybe it just comes from the mix-up of this world. A mix-up of tragedy and disaster and disease in this world. So, okay. God meant it. So, you say, God meant that. But then you say, what do you mean? God meant it, had to be in that condition. But God's always on the corner of grace. Jesus Christ runs in the whole world. I'm going to take my faith that God means that hardest. As a loud voice, get out of it now. Come back to me. Come back to me. And so, he goes to the end of this chapter about the rejection of Israel. He talks a little more about faith. The last thing he says here. To Israel he says, all day long I stretched forth my hand out of disobedience against the Jews. Can you imagine God? There's a power to the God stretching forth his hand for mercy. Paul speaks later on about God beseeching us. Can you get that? Almighty God. Oh, I do beg you to come. That's God. That's God. But that can't be the first thing we learn. The first thing we learn is that God is God. And hell is hell and heaven is hell. And prophets are prophets. It doesn't turn out that God's rejecting the person to hell. It means we're all rejecting the person to hell and to heaven. We're all rejecting. We're all Jacobs. And the end of Jacob is the loss of Jerusalem. But the very same person says, that's my law. And that's my law. If you follow the way of self, you'll go to prison. And you'll get it. That's it. That's the law. This is the end of side one. Please stop your machine. Turn your tape over. That's the God who says that because that's the fact. Said, I'll get you my son before the foundation of the world to shed his precious blood for you. My own son. God in Christ will let us have the world as himself by the death of his son. That's me. And I'll save you who will be saved. But that's the hidden secret which has to fit in with the fact that you get what you're meant to get. But God's always merciful. And you get there. All day long he held out his hand to Jeremiah to Zechariah. This medium gave faith to their son. The son found him. And you get at the end a classic verse. A verse I underlined. The verse is in the great car berth in Bath where he had a great deal of. Beautiful verse. In the 11th chapter of this area. 32 verse. For God hath concluded them all in unbelief that he might have mercy. Conclude is an old fashioned word. To shut him up. Otherwise God means us to be unbelief. You go away. Okay. Be unbelieving. And so a person comes to me and says, oh, that's not so. I believe you. I'm an atheist. I say, all right. Finish it. Be an atheist. I don't fight that. Be an atheist. Get all your care out of it. One day you come to me and want a solution. I say, be an atheist then. Be what God made you. You're a rotten person. Be a rotten person. But I warn you. You have to go the hard way because that's God's mercy. He shut this up unbelief that he may have mercy. Not that he may have judgment. That's God. And so you've got a beautiful balance in this scripture. And one other thing Mosley said beautiful. Paul said. That is, you know, the possibility of faith has always been in all men. It's been, it was in Emma Lee, because it was able to find that seed of the woman was an implication that there is in humanity, there's a Christ. Now how can you make out? Of course, the seed of the woman turned out to be Jesus Christ. She says, and I believe him, I put Emma to thy seed, Satan, in which she didn't present Jesus, because you don't experience error, and her, she was in us. And there is, hidden away in the human race, a Redeemer. Nabam saw it, the joy to see my day. Moses saw it, the prophet coming like unto me. Micah saw it, that one of the ways is everlasting. Jacob saw it, the star rises in Jacob. Even Dalen saw it, always seen. Implicit in the human race is the one who comes. But because there's no time factor in God, he always was there. And so, straight away, I put it to Adam and Eve did, because that's clothing of the skins of the first ideas, that the sacrifice was made for you. He clothed it in skins. And it was Abel who made the sacrifice. I think the two work together. They were able to see by that, the mercies of God, implied to them. And so, Abel, with Noah, is the first redeemed person recorded in Bible history. And so, you see, the remarkable thing that Paul does, he takes the question of the gift of almighty. No way that there is a law. He said, if the Lord said this, don't say in your heart, who's within the heaven, to find a way. Or don't say in your heart, if it comes to you, look down there. The word is now you, in your mouth, in your heart. That comes in Deuteronomy, said by Moses. That's picked up and interpreted here by Paul, thousands of years after this, by saying, don't just say, who will bring Christ down from there, or say, who will bring Christ up from here. It's in your heart, like the word of faith, the ability to say, Christ, you're mine, I accept you. God, I come to you for your mercy. You could say, anybody could say that. Therefore, any human being could say that. So, that word of faith, Moses knew it. That's the very chapter in Deuteronomy, where it also says, strikingly, circumcision is of the spirit, not the flesh. Well, you hardly think they knew that in those days. But Moses knew it and said so. In the same chapter, as Moses said this, this commandment, which I command you to say, it is not hidden from thee, neither is it false, as Moses knew this thousands of years before Jesus Christ. It's not in heaven, but thou shalt say, who shall go up to heaven, and bring it unto us, we will hear it and do it. Neither is it beyond the sea, but thou shalt say, who shall go over the sea first, and bring it unto us, we will hear it and see it. For it is very nigh thee, in thy mouth, and in thy heart, and thou must do it. That's what Paul picked up in his own phrase. In that very same chapter, Moses said this, the Lord thy God will circumcise thy heart. But they talked about circumcision by the physical. Oh no, no, that's something else. The real circumcision is of the spirit of God. So, way back in Moses' day, they knew the thing of the heart. If they were willing to see, some did, all of us do. So, here, all these years after Paul picked it up, do you see what it means? It has a capacity in all of us. Our heart and our mouth. He puts mouth first, because mouth is the final, finalizing the thing. The word finalizes. A heart settles it, settles something, but it's finalized by the word. Word being, that's what I'll do. It may not be verbalized, but it means it. So, the heart, I desire something, and I choose something. Then the mouth, I'm doing that. We desire the meekness, we change. Okay, we choose it. We'll go. That's the word. On that word, you move. So, he's saying here, you see, it's always been, in anybody's heart, in your heart, you would say, well God, I accept you, and I believe in you for mercy and righteousness. And then with the mouth, you say it. So, he says, the word is now, the entire mouth and the heart, the word of faith. Faith is my free ability to make myself something. I'll make myself that. My heart, my mouth. Anyone can do that, anytime, when the thing is available. What's available, of course, is Jesus Christ to us. And then he makes the comment, for with the heart, thou shalt confess in thy mouth the Lord Jesus, as you believe in thy heart, that God is great, and that thou shalt be saved. For with the heart, thou believest in righteousness, but with the mouth, confession makes salvation. In other words, the heart is the inner center, and you have died at your heart. And when you have died at your heart, believe God, he says, in my sight, you are righteous. You believe me, in my sight you are righteous. But the experience has to come from the mouth, the experience. You see, you say it in your heart, yes, when you say it out, it becomes experience. Oh, I'll do that now. That's the value of the word of faith, the confession, makes the thing public. So, he says, with the heart, you may say, oh my God, I've accepted Jesus. And God says, okay, in my sight you are righteous. That doesn't give me much excitement. It puts the right relationship in God's sight, but it gives me excitement when I come out and say, I'm not Jesus Christ. Then that comes back into me, there you are. That makes salvation. Salvation is God's experience, makes experience. So, you see, the writer in this place, he says here, that's what he goes on to say. Now, it's always there, so he says, for the script he says, whosoever believes on him shall not be ashamed. Whosoever, now you've got that. The same person says, could it really harden this? I have mercy on you, I will have mercy, I'll accept those I will, come to my youth, you running, it comes from God, quite right, quite right. But when you get down behind it, it's nitty-gritty, whosoever believes on him, whosoever, believing as it says, no, to desolation, to heaven, hell. Desolation through hell to heaven. The first desolation we thought had lost, the second desolation Jesus Christ said, desolation to heaven. Whosoever shall call on him, the Lord, first he says, whosoever believes shall not be ashamed. Whosoever, there's a beautiful phrase, there's no difference between Jew and Greek, the same Lord over all, is richer than all that call upon him. That's a magnificent, universal phrase. Same Lord over all, is richer than all that call upon him. And then he adds to that, for, whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord, shall be saved. There's a new thought. Whosoever believes upon him, shall be saved. He's rich to all. Whosoever shall call on him, say, if he suddenly calls to Peter, wait a minute, to Paul, wait a minute, how can he call if he hasn't heard? This is a great missionary ad, this is a few missionary chapters, verses in the Roman chapter. So he says, thanks, wait a minute, to Paul, how can he call if he hasn't believed? How do you believe unless you, how can you believe unless you've heard? How can you hear without a preacher? He argues back, to Paul, he must have heard of him, he heard of him, he must have believed, how can you believe when you don't have a preacher? And how can you appreciate the message? They shall have beautiful people on the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace and bring their kind of gospel that comes back to all of us and it comes to all of us as preachers, as missionaries. And thank God that missionary preachers there are often Indian preachers and Japanese and Indonesian and the whole world have become preachers of the gospel and they have a wonderful day and the gospel is going from the whole world to the whole world. There are over 125 Eastern Missionary Societies run by Japanese, Indian, Indonesian. There are over 3,000 missionaries out from India, Indonesia, Japan, Taiwan, out to the world. So we're getting marching army going out as preachers of the gospel from all countries to all countries. It's a marvellous day really as we're saying. And there's a sentence here, there's something in this sentence and I think we all know it's there we should all say it. In some way or another all of us should say how beautiful the teachings of the priest of the gospel would be. And so he makes a final statement he says, faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God so let's get the word of God said. Faith, the faith you must hear, hear you must have the thing you want to hear. So you must hear the word of God yes, I believe it. That's how faith comes. So she's made a beautiful round here presenting to us the immutability of this gospel you cannot change God what he says he is negative, negative, positive, positive and they come to pass. And that's what it is. But behind it we find that there's always been for the human race a breakthrough by grace in which by our free we can turn from building up our own righteousness and make ourselves righteous to God and come to death. In the end the saved are those by faith and lost are those who reject. There you get a last chapter which is remarkable I think it's a foresight he had through faith I think he had the agonies agonies get foresight predictions I think that was he had these agonies gripping of his own people who beat him up that they should proceed and so he finally to justify said wait a minute one last don't you believe God deserves his people there is a sense which we have to have a special respect for the Israel legislation and he says don't you believe God's respect God did choose Abraham he did go on to Abraham to the people he did choose the people he did give them the law and the covenant and the promises and they say no in the gospel and he says God still has to work over his purposes the gifts according to God he says in the chapter the gifts according to God are without dependence he says on the way he always says on the way he always says on the way he always says on the way he always says on the way he always on the way on the way he always says on the way he always says on the way he always on the way on the way he always says on the way he always says on the way he always says on the way he always on the way he always says on the way he always says on the way says on the way he always on the way he always says on the way he always says on the way he always says on the way he always on the way he always says on the way he always says on the way he always on the way says he always says he always says on the way he always on the way he always on the way he always man, because the flesh does that kind of thing. It seems like they had an element of life itself, and that's had a profound effect in the world of shaking up colonialism. Now we're pretty sure of that. See, in our days, nations couldn't be themselves. Indian churches couldn't be Indian churches, because they were just the, rather than just the, I've forgotten what they're called, we're the sahibs. We white people are the sahibs, we're the people, they were just our slaves and servants, despised. They couldn't be real people, because they kept them down. How is it in Congo? Well, we weren't allowed to make Congolese first-class citizens. They gave us a governor, not an American governor, a Belgian governor, they gave us stations, an area, maybe 30 or 40 acres or something, where we built our center. We could not keep it if we gave it to Africans. Only if we white people, Africans, we kept it in that place. So we weren't allowed to let the Africans rise up and be people of God. They had to be underlings to us. Of course, that's the thing that they spread in the gospel. Now, the value which has come as a reaction against Congolese channels, to give people their rights, is we've given that church nations their rights, they've claimed them, they've claimed their freedom, and so on, so on, so on, so on, claimed their freedom, and their gospel. It's had an amazing effect. As we missionaries know, all over the place now, the churches which we, which God used as a start in the old days, are coming to their own. We're the churches of Christ, we're the holy spirit, we are God's people now. We're free people, and we'll line up with the westerners, and share with them, and take the gospel around the world. We've got this marching tide of people moving around the world, of all nations, bringing the gospel out to other people, defunding it themselves. I'm not going to say there's a problem, but God's used a blatant attack on the being of God, to replace the being of God as there was before now, in the free world, and indeed in the non-free world too, and the spread of it. Now, the same way he's saying here, a remarkable thing. He says, he shut up Israel to loosen the gospel for you. If Israel hadn't got shut up, and turned, and persecuted, and turned the gospel out, it may never have gone out. It may have just stuck, and just improved Jewish faith. But he says, the casting out by Israel, of Paul, the apostle of God, spread the gospel to the world. So he says, it's through their blindness that comes light to you. He says, that's the wonder of God. He's used Israelite's blindness, and he said God meant it. Of course it does, but I don't agree with him. That's serious. That's a scary fact, I think. So their position of blindness has come to sweep the gospel to the whole Gentile world. But he says, remember, the original olive tree started with Abraham. God's olive tree, with the oil in it, with God's tree in it, and it started with Abraham. Therefore he says, if the first fruit is holy, then the love is holy. If the root is holy, then the branches. For certain reasons, the old branches have been cut off. He says, you've been grafted in. Don't boast about that. All you have is the same oil of life coming through you. You get re-enjoyed in the oil of grace which came first to Abraham, and then up to Jesus Christ. So you're really sharing the oil which first came into this world through a nation of Jews? Don't boast about it. Don't boast just against the host. Boast not against the branches that cross out. But if thou boast, thou bearest not the root, who bears thee? And so on. And he says, they were broken off. Jews stand by faith. They're broken off because they were broken by faith. So mind you, keep the work of faith. So he's saying that. And then he ends up by saying a very beautiful thing. He says, but there's going to be a verse. He says, I would not have you ignorant of this mystery, that ye wisely over-cheat, that blindness in part has happened to Israel, until the poorness of the Gentiles come in. Verse 25. So all Israel the saved has written. There's a commandment of Zion, there's a deliverer. There's a covenant of God and there's a congregation. These are my covenants on which I shall take away their sins. Now that's a very strong word. I can't answer that. But to me, is it possible for me to think all Israel means that if this happened in A.D. 2000, just the A.D. 2000, Jews are saved? I can't believe that. In some way this is going to cut out the whole nation somewhere. I can't understand that. All Israel must mean more than just that people had to be alive when this happened. That's the word Jews. All Israel can be saved. And there's no stringent has to that. So he says, so in the Gospel, there are enemies for our sake. Such as the election, there are blood for the Father's sake. There are enemies that we must have the Gospel, but in God's sight, for the Father's sake, there are precious, the election. The gift of calling God our Lord to presence. And so he says this last thing, he says, as you in times past have not believed God, yet now have attained mercy through thy unbelief. Now, Israel did not believe that through your mercy they may also attain mercy. There's a verse there, we got mercy through our unbelief. Through our rejection, we got mercy. Now this is, we turn to our mercy there to attain mercy. There's some way in which we get our believers to contribute back, not in unbelief or opposition, but in compassion and love, the mercy of Christ back to the Jews. And that same makes us great saints. For God has proclaimed them all in unbelief, that ye might have mercy on them all. They have now a great peer of praise. Oh, the depths and riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God, the unsearchableness of judgment, ways past finding out who is known among the Lord. For of him, through him, through him are all things. To be glorified forever. Amen. Ends that idea. There's a peer of praise in which God turns each thing around to his own purpose. So his concern he had for Israel is a very remarkable, outstanding fact. It's great that it's understood. The mind of a theistic, at least, is that God chooses some and damns others, and has a predestination. It doesn't understand that they're the weak movers in the depths. The token righteousness of God is presented and yet geared to mercy. Because it's geared in the end to our freedom. To our faith overjection. Well, that's the end of that. That's the important part of those chapters. Maybe we should finish now. It's ten o'clock. Don't pray, Lord. We're just talking to you, that's all. We're talking to you together because you're talking to us. As you talked to us yesterday through your living word. You talked to the servant Paul. What great liberating light you gave to him. That strong mind, strong spirit in yourself expressed through his humanity. And even today, Lord, we become reinterpreters. That's what you make us each. So we're able to take the word given through you, through a man, and put it again in our own words. Because only our words are really living to us. And so we repeat again, and we go on. Out of this group together, now we're going to be, again, repeaters and interpreters of your living word. A thousand different words. Just this precious book that says through all those books of your word, and all other ways in which you give us to interpret your living self. So it is you, speaking through human forms, manifested by human forms, to human forms, who themselves become the same. They become manifested in yourself. It is the purpose of the universe. A vast family for those who are you in some form, expressing yourself to a bound up world, as we read yesterday, or in a bondage of corruption. That somehow or other you'll fulfill it through us, that we'll move into liberation through the glorious, into the glorious liberation of God. So we thank you. Thank you for what's together, and the fellowship, and the love, and the joy, and the freedom, and the fun we have, when it's in you, with you, and all together, a little touch of the joy of heaven. So thank you. In Jesus' name, Amen. Well, now we'll go on for time. Finishing pretty briefly those last chapters of Romans, we see we've moved right out of the inner to the outer now. Because the whole purpose of God is that we might be in an inner relationship, by which he communicates himself out from us to others. We've seen that. So in this third stage, what we call the fatherhood stage, the priesthood stage, the ascended stage, when he is a spirit coming through us, reproducing himself in others, so that others become expressions of Christ, even as by earthly grace we have become. So we're moving on from that. We saw first of all Paul's heart concern with his own people, and that's where our starts. We start at home, beginning at Jerusalem. So we start with a heart concern and a purpose which has a burden in it, until we can replace the burden by the showings of God for those with whom we're personally connected. So that's where this outflow begins. It begins in that ninth chapter, when Paul said he'd give up his own hope of heaven through grace, if by that means he could be the agency of which his own people could find their hopes in the grace of God. And then it turns into a session into an inner assurance. We have to find a stabilization to it. So we went to this magnificent presentation of the total sovereignty of God, which can only be accepted by faith, not by reason, which shows that we give up our own opinions, except God's totality, evil and good. God's meaning evil as his meaning good. And then as we move in by faith, we can understand and explain it. We can see how the meaning of evil is only this negative necessity to prepare us to find the positive, the positive being the free grace of God. That we see in the end, we're all hated ethos in fact, if we remain in our fallen position. But it's not the real, it's the hate, because there has to be a hatred in that condition. The real underneath is only kind of surface hate. The real underneath always is eternal love of God. And that condition is to find that we're in need of the grace of God. And then we find that grace has always been a free fact. So through Jesus Christ, every human being can be a Jacob, who is a God-precious person through faith. That we see and therefore don't hang around in both his determined purposes fulfilling our condition, both our lost condition and our saved condition. But in between, as our free people we move in by faith, which means that we transfer ourselves from our own false self affirmations. Do what Paul did, but people gained in me. Our self-upbuilding. There's a kind of loss for Christ. We move in by faith and then we change in the ethos to being Jacobs. And he traced that to us. Yet he then finally says, there is something special about those people to whom alone we knew Jesus Christ. I couldn't become a Jesus Christ, if I wasn't first a living God who had certain holy standards, presented by law, so we understand that we are sinners by the law of knowledge of sin. So they had to come, they had to be a people who had the law of God, by the law of knowledge of sin, even though they misused the law in their self-righteousness. Certain ones didn't. They prepared the way for the necessity and the possibility of a Savior. And the Savior came, he was a Jew. So among the Jews came our Jew Messiah. And then when he had fulfilled his course, through this strange, opposite way, he gave himself to the Messiah for our sakes. As it were, the world of Gentiles must have a Savior. And yet, the Gentiles are only saved through the Jews. Paul was a Jew, all the apostles were Jews. So the whole outbirth of this Church of Jesus Christ has a Jewish basis, an Israelitish basis. So it's right that we should have respect, a thankfulness, a special love for the people who were given. Now, humanly, we wouldn't love. Humanly, the world despises you for many reasons. But we don't see it. We see you as God's chosen people. And so Paul, in intercession, is able to see through. Probably we couldn't see through, except he had this intercessory burden. That he was able to see through the finality of God's gifts according to our without pretenses. That he had some ultimate purpose for the Jewish race. Though in another sense they're not different, yet they have been a special agency of God. And so he moves into a thing which he can't wholly explain yet. Then all Israel will be saved. But it's linked, first of all, with the completion of the work of grace among the Gentiles. When the fullness of the Gentiles has come, then the fullness of the purpose of God in His living Church, then it will move back. And some way or other, our mercy will be mercy to them. And the word will be fulfilled. He shut us all up in unbelief, and shut them all up in unbelief, that He might have mercy. And then Paul speaks in this period of glory and praise to the unsearchable riches of God and His wisdom, the path finding out. And the fact is, of Him, through Him, to Him all things. Of Him, through Him, to Him all things. And that closes this revelation which we carve out through His intercessory burden for His own people. And we interpret that in the sense that we ourselves have an intercessory burden to those among whom we are put. So why do we stop there? He then moves on in the final chapters into some touches on our actual relationships as members of the body of Christ. It starts off in the first chapter with that famous scripture, which is really misused as if it is a beginning scripture, where it says, I beseech you, I beseech you to present your body as a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God. And it is really misused, but all right, God uses it that way, as if it is a kind of beginning commitment. And we preach that as a beginning commitment. No, this is the pure commitment. This is the body to be the agency for salvation to others. For the will of God to be fulfilled first. This isn't the body committed to Jesus that we might be right to God. That thing is way gone back. In Romans 6-8 and so on, we die with him, and all that is out. So we pass through those growing, maturing stages as mature people. This is the word for mature. Now your bodies are living sacrifices, because there will be a price you have been privileged to pay in your outer life. That through a laid down outer life, life may come to others. We can be among those who fill up in our bodies the flesh, the bodies, the sufferings of Christ. The frictions of the Word of Jesus. The frictions of the Christ through his bodies, we fill them up. So he is saying now then, here is your ultimate privilege. You are now on the altar of sacrifice, and by your body Christ may be reproduced within other bodies. The way of considering what is needed for you. You are now in the relationship of the world need. So he says that is your living sacrifice. And he says that always remembering the basis of all is the inner activity of the mind. The body is the outer agent, the inner agency to whom God speaks is the mind. Now the mind is not the reason. The mind is seen as God sees. The reasons are on the soul level. You think things through. The mind of Christ is seen as God sees. The Bible says we have the mind of Christ. It says here, by renewing your mind, that behind all is a transformation in the way you see things. You don't see things as the world do. It says, so you are, do not conform to the world. That doesn't mean talking about spiritual self-indulgence. He didn't talk about that. He talked about seeing the world outlook. Or the God outlook. And the God outlook, of course, is seeing God in everything. He talked about it. You begin to move into a God who is perfect in His presence, who is evil and good alike. So we have a new outlook. When we see evil things, they are evil. We see them from a different angle. We say, yes, within, God means them to be. And because God means them to be, God has a purpose of redemption, grace coming through the thing which appears to be evil. So our renewed mind sees the will of God being operated through the negative, which always starts by, we start by seeing it negative, and that's our jumping off point, saying, no, we see it now, the new mind which is God in operation. And in that you find a real fit. There, when you are seeing things positively, because you prove God's acceptable will, God's acceptable will of God, because we are the will of God. We don't find the will of God, we are the will of God. So we are being now in the will of God. We find some, we are part of the will of God. It's operating where we are. And that's good and acceptable and perfect choice. So when that's back now, being in the expression of God, we are not touched because we are this or that or the other. Because God's, it's not the outer position that matters, it's the inner attitude that matters. And God comes through it in many situations. And then he says, that's where you are next. Could you go over there now? So he says, don't think more highly of yourself than you ought to be, except yourself. You are a Christian human being for it. You've got the eye. You don't get tossed. That's one of the great secrets to learn about the Bible. When you begin, you read about a bunch of oughts. You ought to be the issue. When you read, you ought to love or not to love, or I shouldn't do that. That's baby stuff. When you go and say, I am that. So he says, don't lie. So I don't lie. You ought to love. I do love. So read the Bible as one who is there. As an are, not an ought to, or fear. And even if he says ought to, you say, yes, that's just reminding me that's what I am, not what I ought to be. Cut the word ought to out. Except, as a reminder, that's what I am. You drive a car. Well, you may say you ought to drive on the right side of the road. You say, I am. You may say I ought to drive on the right side of the road. I am. You can say ought to if you like, but you do. You say, I'll drive on the right side of the road. So we are God's creation in human form. And it makes a great difference to hold on to it from the Bible. If you don't say that, you ought to be nagging. Why not? And then you're all, as if you're far from God, you've got to become something else. So put it in. That's walking in the flesh, really. When you walk in the flesh, you say, oh, praise God, that's what I am, because it's He in me. So if He loves, I love. If He's true, I'm true. And so on. And so he says here, except what you are. He says, don't think more highly of yourself than you ought to think. Just be what you are. So he says, think soberly, because you have the measure of faith. All right, don't get fussed. There's a great book, The Expressions of Many, I had the privilege of writing on Lazarus's house. It's a dynamic life. It's an unusual life, and it takes people that way. It's not only auto-led. Oh dear, I should use the word when I read that. Because he had such understanding of the Lord, and did such remarkable things, and such miracles took place. That shows you're only a baby. If you mature, you say, oh, praise God, that's the Holy Spirit, because it really does feel like me, it feels like me in my way, it's the Holy Spirit in both of us. So I lie down and say, I've been sitting there and learning some of the principles of faith here, I can get something of that. I'm not going to imitate him. Those principles of faith operate at my level, and they operate at his level. We have the same spirit. That's what he means here. So he says, put a measure of faith, alright, if thought had larger faith, it would be hugely expanding. But the power of faith is all faith-getting operating on what you see. You attach yourself to Christ as you know him. In your faith you attach yourself to him as a saviour. When you grow up, you attach yourself to him as the one who replaced you and so on. You attach yourself to him as the priest who is operating his purchase for others through you. But according to him in this case, don't forget him all. He's content with him as he is, because he can operate you. He's no silly person. He operates him. You need him to be the operator in you. That's what he's saying. Then he says, look out, we're members. This is the first time he says this. This is the first reference to the body of Christ. Not his body, which was identified to have sin removed from us. But now he's talking about where we come in as the whole body which is the head. This is the first time he's making this. We're many members in one body. So he says there's plenty of variety. And we have gifts differing according to grace given to us. And so the operator of gifts as far as you know it, I'm never quite certain those goods know your gifts. Because it might tend to pride or think you've got to operate something. So I prefer not to look and see if I've got a gift or not. Because we all have gifts. He says in 1 Corinthians 12 it's advised to every man, several as you will, every man. So we all have gifts. Hey, if you understand them, operate them. And so he gives a list of those simple gifts. There's the other list where we have the more dramatic gifts. God bless those who have them. Like tongues or miracles or healing. God bless those who have them. Most of them are not on that level. As Paul said, they do all speak in tongues, do all do miracles except to a measure of faith. But he says there's a whole heap of God's gifts which are beautiful through which God has come. And so we're given here the gifts of prophecy. Prophecy is an important support. It means speaking out. Some are given the gifts of speaking out the word of God. They say it's good to teach them. Some can't kind of portray the word of God like a Dick Halperson or somebody or a Brady Graham or somebody. But they can teach. We can teach. I think it's a teaching thing to teach what your message was. This is the end of tape four. Please proceed to tape five.