In this sermon, the preacher discusses the theme of being steeled by the law of the Spirit. He emphasizes the importance of faith and being in a position of favor with God. The preacher highlights the seven positions in which believers find themselves, including being shielded, defended, vindicated, and triumphant. He encourages the congregation to remember the joy and peace that comes from receiving Jesus as their Lord and Savior. The sermon also touches on the importance of treating one's body with respect and presenting it as a living sacrifice to God.

And again, verse number twenty-nine. He's anonymous, said the priest, and verse number twenty-nine. So the head be up, down, O Israel, through His light unto thee, O people saved by the Lord, the shield of thy help, through the stone of thy naked face, and thine enemy shall be found liars unto thee, and not a thread upon a high place. Words are, O people saved by the Lord. You remember that in Exodus, chapter three, verse sixteen, we notice we are a people separated unto the Lord. He didn't want thirteen people stealed by the Lord's Spirit, nor for one distinct purpose. John 20, verse 21, we might be a people saved. Now, we hope to deal with all these as we go on morning and evening, but the main theme is, O people saved by the Lord. First think again of this particular theme. Last night, we looked at seven positions we find ourselves in as the children of God, placed in His heart, His affection, placed in His hands, security, placed in His feet, communion, His lips, reception, His side, fellowship, between His shoulders, strength, and in His everlasting arm, rest. Resting in His everlasting arm. This morning, I want you to think with me of the expression, happy are thou. You just can't help it, can you? If this morning we realize the joy of the seventh position into which we have been brought as the children of God, then we must be a happy people. The hymns our beloved brother chose this morning for us are all a reference to happiness and to rejoicing, and we thank God for these wonderful hymns. I want to break this word up into the initial letters. Let's go with H-A-P-P-Y. I am H-A-P-P-Y. I am H-A-P-P-Y. I know I am. I'm sure I am. I am H-A-P-P-Y. Amen? Pretty easy, man, but I think this is worth the answer. Then, I am S-A-P-P-E-D. I am S-A-P-P-E-D. I know I am. I'm sure I am. I am S-A-P-P-E-D. And of course, I am L-O-E-E-D. I'm L-O-E-E-D. I know I am. I'm sure I am. I am L-O-E-E-D. And of course, you are too, aren't you? Eh? That's the whole thing. Brian Colvin says, Happy are thou. Now, aren't we a happy people? It's sometimes said, every day makes my joy for me, my neighbor, and my God. Well, may this glowing heart rejoice until it's raptured all abroad. I trust we all go back to that happy day. I trust all of us here know the joy of a miracle in our lives when we receive the Lord Jesus as a Lord and as a Savior. As the days are rejoicing in Him, we know the joy, and the peace, and the real love He alone can give to us. Now, let's take again this word here. In fact, there's seven words here in this beautiful verse. First of all, we are a happy people. Then we are a unique people. Who is like unto thee, O people? And we're a safe people. We're happy, we're unique, and we are safe. Then again, it says we're shielded. We're a shielded people. Then we're a defended people. Then we're a vindicated people. And, hallelujah, we're a triumphant people. All in that one little verse. They're very precious. I'd like to take this upward by a word, which I quote aloud during the days we are together. We're going to take this one this morning, the word happy. Now, I look at you. I think you're in the good of it. I know you are. We are a happy people. No wonder you're happy. Such congenial circumstances, wonderful surroundings, such sweet fellowship. What joy must be your joy being right here of the night part in my ministry, that behind the smiling face there's a breaking heart? And, to me, just someone with that heart here this morning. And, I want to try and bring cheer and encouragement and joy to you. You might know this wonderful intimacy with our beloved Lord Jesus Christ. So, first of all, then, the happy man is a holy man. H-U-L-Y. He is a holy man. It says in Ephesians, chapter one, verse number four, that we should be holy and without flame before him in love. Now, it is a distinct command that we should be a holy people. We sometimes hear it said, and we read it, it's God's will that all men should be saved. How true! It says, the will of God all men should be saved. None should perish. But, then, we also read, in 1 Thessalonians, chapter five, and this is the will of God concerning you, that in all things we should give thanks. It is will that we should be not only a saved people, but a thankful people in everything giving thanks. And, again, in 1 Thessalonians, chapter four, and this is the will of God, even your sanctification. Now, we hear a little bit about his will regarding salvation, a little regarding thanksgiving, but a little do we hear regarding this being God's will that we should be a sanctified, holy people. You'll never know the joy of real happiness through learning and filling your heart unless we are a holy people. There must be no uncompressed, unjudged sin in your life, nor in my life. If there's a skeleton in the cupboard, if there's a guilt complex, brings on more tension, causes more ulcers, anything else, my friend, we know. My friend, I want you to get that deep down your heart this morning. If there is uncompressed or unjudged sin in the life, it may have happened years ago, but it's never been brought up and dealt with and put away. You don't know the joy of this real happiness this morning. It's always lurking in the back of your mind. May God give us great knowledge. I'm not teaching psychology, not at all, but I want to get deep down into your heart. You must be willing, my friend, to deal with sin and to finish with it. The late Theo McConaughey, a man to whom I'm greatly indebted. We were ministering together at many conferences, but I remember ministering with a Flint years ago. He took for his theme a verse from Peter, stirring up your pure mind by way of remembrance. He gave a mouthly address, and I followed him with three themes on one verse alone in chapter four. Three terms, in case I'm misquoted. First verse alone in chapter four, and verse number seven, I think it is. Yes, these were. But God has not called us unto unseenness, but unto holiness. Stirring up your pure mind by way... Notice this, and he emphasizes holiness. Even Paul says here, God has not called us to unseenness, but unto holiness. Holiness is Christ's likeness. Christ's likeness. Holiness is spiritual health, is spiritual wholesomeness. That, my friends, is holiness. The late Dr. and other late George Goodman said many years ago, holiness is a beautiful thing, a beautiful thing, a nature that delights in purity and repels evil. Let us look for a moment at the meaning of holiness from this chapter. Remember my thoughting. The happy man is a holy man. Now, I'm not teaching sinless perfection very far from that, but I trust I'm teaching spiritual holiness, which is vital and compelling to a man who is a holy man. I'm convincing in the life of the man who knows that real joy and Christ-rending glory in his life day by day. In this chapter, we've got the motive as well as the meaning and the method of holiness. Often I'm asked to speak at Second Advent meetings in view of the coming of the Lord Jesus. If there are two meetings, one in the afternoon, one in the evening, I'm asked to speak both. I always speak on preparation in the afternoon, then speak on the Lord's coming at night. I'm more concerned about the believer being prepared for the Lord's coming than I am about the Lord's coming. May I tell you why? No one will ever tell me that he or she are looking for the Lord to come back at any moment, but not got a desire to live a holy life. How do I know? 1 John 3, 4 says, "...and those who have this hope set on him purify themselves, even as he is pure." This has a purifying effect in the life of the believer, and no one will ever tell me that expecting Christ at any moment, but not got a desire to see souls born again. There is an urgent need, my friends, for the spirit of evangelism in the power of a holy life, and in the energy of the Holy Spirit. Now, let's look for a moment at a simple picture here of holiness, and remember, "...having art thou, O people, changed by the Lord." First of all, let's look at verse number one. Holiness is pleasing God. Pleasing God. Now, that is the desire of your heart and my heart this morning, I know. No other ambition than to be ambitious, to be well-pleasing unto the Lord. Keep it said in verse number one, "...furthermore, then, we beseech you," and I love that word, beseech, "...call you over and over again." That means wooing to win, wooing to win. Also, the picture of a young man down before his young lady, he's proposing to her. He's seeking to woo her so that he might win her. Wooing to win. That's what he's using here. He's wooing those saints. He says from Nica, what for? He says, "...brethren, I exhort or encourage you by the Lord Jesus, that as ye have received of us how ye ought to walk and to please God, so ye would abound more and more." Remember, Enoch has this testimony that he pleased God. He pleased God. Isn't that just wonderful? Now, remember, it says in Colossians 2, verse number six, "...as ye have received Christ, so walk ye in Him." Exhaust us to walk by faith, to walk in love, to walk in life, and to walk in newness of life. "...as ye have received Christ, so walk ye in Him." How did you receive Him? By faith. Now, we've got to walk by faith, and not by sight, and you'll find, if we're walking by faith, and living by faith, faith purifies the heart. We found it in Acts. Faith works by love. One, it purifies the heart, and it works by love. I thank God for that, don't you? Oh, the wonder that glory stirs! So it says, "...now pleasing God is the first evidence of our holy life." That is your ambition. That is my desire, to be well-pleasing unto the Lord, and that is an indication of holiness. Now, going on with God, the only pleasing ain't but going on with Him. What it's saying here? "...then give me abound more and more." There must be spiritual growth, and spiritual gesture, and they were going to grow up in the Lord Jesus, grounded and rooted in love. This is the outcome of a life lived in power, in the power of the Holy Spirit Himself. Now, sit down to verse number three. "...for this is the will of God, even your sanctification." There must be a clean-cut separation, a clean-cut separation from all this unlike our adorable Lord Jesus Christ. When your heart and my heart are magnetized to Jesus Christ, they are demagnetized from all that will like Christ. So, turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full on this wonderful face, and the things of heaven will go strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace. I'd love to divert that, but time will not allow it. It says, "...separating pleasure and fear from all filters of the flesh and of the spirit." I'm quoting from 2 Corinthians, chapter number one. "...placing yourself on the unequal yoke of all the practical separation." In the closing verse of chapter six of 2 Corinthians, then he comes and says, "...placing yourself from all filthiness of the flesh," that's the outward action, "...and the spirit," that's the inward desire. The inward desire. Now, how important, how vital it is. Look for this, shall we? There must be the mastery over the body. Verse number four, "...that every one of you should know how to possess his mental incentivization and honor." The mastering over our body. I said in a meeting some time ago, a very large meeting, when a man gets to about 50 years of age, he ought to go and see a doctor. A man more keen on sex, and is more sex conscious, but on his late 40s and early 50s, and even as a teenager, a man objected to this thing. Today, that man, an outstanding Bible teacher, is out of the ministry. He would have gone and seen a doctor. I cried when I heard about that man, rather than the Lord of my own, and I met with him many times. Literally cried. That thing has got no sorrow for his sin, no repentance for his sin. You know why? I'm perfect in Christ. The dear man of God, Alan Redpath, when he went to Moody's, he said, Dr. Ironside and Dr. Paul Rader, they gave you an objective ministry, wonderful ministry, Christ-exalting ministry, but he said, I want to give that a subjective touch now, and I want to apply it to your life. What happened? His congregation, over 3,000 people, went down to 1,500. Why is this building not packed this morning? Not because I talk bad. I believe the Spirit of God is on this. I believe the Spirit of God is working here at this conference, and people are not going to believe the truth. What happened? Made my friend leaders, they found out they were living in secret sin. They were secret smokers, drinkers. The business transactions were not above board. But poor Alan Redpath left that building. What happened? He was packed with the message that men and women were willing to do business with God. I looked around this very fine congregation this morning, and I know with all my heart that those people here are willing to do business with God. Righteousness. It is Philip, and dear B. Philip, who said these words, Learn to control your body. Treat it with respect. And be pure. And be pure. That is why Paul said, Present your body, a living flesh of God. Whole, acceptable unto God, is your reasonable, your intelligent service. The death of liberty acts. Do you want to be really happy with the thrill and the joy of spiritual life? He said over here, Keep your body under, under control. Treat it with respect. And remember, be pure. Your body, my body, is the temple of the Holy Ghost, who is in us, who is in us. In verse number five, Not love the concubines, even as the Gentiles, which none of God's. The holy life is a transformed life. The only light-seeking God, going on with God, for living a life of clean-cut separation unto the dog, not a near negative, legalistic kind of thing from Trabat and Bondi. Oh no! My friend's separation unto him is coming alive, vital, convincing, positive. That's the separation I want to know. A heart's magnetism, occupation, Jesus Christ. When my heart is occupied with him, it is the self-occupied heart. When my life becomes Christ-centered, it is the self-centered heart. It's not on, but rather in every look, and in every action. You wonder why I stopped there and go, didn't you? Something came flashing into my mind, I must tell you. I refer to my beloved brother, because he still belongs to me. But that very day, within half an hour, our brother told us of three men, all outstanding men, who have been called by him. When it came to the last one, I said, Brother Bill, don't say another word. I can't stand it anymore. No longer think of these words. Let him that thinketh and standeth take heed. Let ye fall. Brethren, I am just as human as you are, with all the instincts that you have, and all that's third in the arms. Listen, with all the love of my heart, I don't care how old a man or woman may live, none of us are out of danger until we're in heaven. Not that. None of us are out of danger until we're in heaven. The devil doth our footsteps right of the perigee, and one is often taken a whole lifetime to build up a profession, and go in one unwashed hand. The call to foolishness. I have not called you to uncleanness, but unto foolishness. John 3 to verse number 9. Now, we'll touch verse number 6 for a moment, because this is very vital, regarding the transformed life. He would say, in verse number 6, that no man go beyond and distort his brother in any matter, if any matter. There must be absolute honesty. Now, verse number 9. But, as such, in brotherly love, you need not that I write unto you. Ye yourselves are sought of God to love one another, and indeed ye do it towards the brethren which are in all Macedonia, but that I beseech you, brethren, that ye increase more and more. That is soon to spill over. The love-filled life is a holy life. A love-filled life is a holy life. That's in this connection. Verse number 12. That ye may walk honestly towards them that are with God. Now, again, a thought. Absolute integrity of heart. Heart. May I go back over these seven points? I want to go as slow as I possibly can. First of all, you remember, there is pleasing God. Going on with God. A clear-cut separation of love. A life transformed by methanol. The mastery over our bodies. The mastery over our bodies. Keeping it under control, taking it with respect, keeping it pure. Then the transformed life. Then the love-filled life. And then absolute heart. Now, that's the meaning of holiness. This brings spiritual health, brings spiritual awesomeness, brings a gleam into your eyes, brings a glow into your countenance, brings a spring into your step. It's Christ's real heart. It's the very motive of every day. But, what is the motive of this holiness? If we're to know real happiness, may I suggest three things. One, because it comes in the form of command. We are commanded to be born. Now, this is just as binding as breaking bread upon the thirtieth every week, or believers' baptism. Now, these requests to remember the Lord upon the thirtieth every week. Are you commanded to be baptized, to come out from among us, to present our body? Now, holiness is a command. I mean fine. For the Lord, we need to be holy. We need to be holy. Not only is it a command from the Lord that we should be holy, be holy, for I am holy. But, my friend, we need to be holy. If we're going to live to God's pleasure, and to God's glory, day by day, then, as in this connection, the world expects us to be holy. The world expects us to be holy. They've got their standards, and, my friend, we come below that standard. It's like you have to understand it. I was in a place some time ago, having a serious meeting, going from door to door, inviting people into services. I went to a particular home, and I said, I'm conducting service along the gospel chapel, and I would like to invite you. I do it now, and you'll come. So, is that Mr. Stone, Sir George Stone? I said, oh yes. Do you know him? He said, I know him only too well. I won't be there. I said, this is fantastic. He said, little father, when another girl, a lady came this time, I said the same thing to her. I said, oh, is that Dr. Stone, Sir George Stone? He said, yes. Oh, she's a lovely patient. He's my doctor. He said, go on, be there. I'll be there. For the contract. Are we retarding, or are we advancing the gospel of Jesus Christ? The world expects us to be holy. What's the motive for calling it? Look at verse number eight. We look firstly at the meaning, and then the motive, and now here we have the message. Verse eight. He therefore that despises you, he despises, despises not man, but God, but giveth unto us a holy spirit, a holy spirit, praying that no other men, we must yield to him who hath this spirit. I'm suggesting a few things here. All under the letter R. He has given to us the holy spirit. First, recognize his presence. See, R.E. Recognize his presence. Where? In our body. 1 Corinthians 6, verses 19 and 20. What this calls, don't you know, don't you realize that your body is a temple of the Holy Ghost who is in you, and you're not your own, for you're being bought for the price. Therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit. That's Richard R. Recognize his presence. Remember the Lord says, he shall be with you, and he shall be in you. I ask you very lovingly, with my own heart, have we ever taken time to get alone with God, maybe under some tree, probably in our own closet, and looked up and said, Lord, I recognize that my body is a dwelling place of the right Holy Spirit. My body is his temple. He indwells me. Has that truth dawned upon you? Oh, I don't mean just scripturally or doctrinally. I mean by divine revelation. Has his spirit witnessed with you, spiritually indwells you? The recognition of his presence is in your heart, and in my heart. When this truth dawns in upon us, it will revolutionize our whole life, our whole spirit. He tells you, and he says to me, Have thine own way, Lord, have thine own way. Hold o'er my being absolute prayer. Fill my spirit with all truth, Christ only, always. Second point, respect his person. First of all, recognize his presence. Now, respect his person. He is a Holy Spirit, Holy Spirit. So, all that is unholy, impure, suggestive, jealous, and snarling, or grieving, or grieving, is a Holy Spirit. Not John the priest. Because he's a spirit of John, he's a spirit of truth, he's a spirit of holy spirit. Lastly, receive his power. Recognize his presence, respect his person, and receive his power. Ye shall receive power as early goes to come upon you, and ye shall be ready. Not by might, nor by power, by my spirit. That's it. Beloved, when the two, and the less, recognizing his presence, respecting his person, are an active part in our life, without a shadow of a doubt, we'll receive his power. We'll receive his power. Now, that's what we wanted. That's what we want. That's why we're here, morning by morning, evening by evening, widening, cutting, we cut, we gain. We won't know Christ in an intimacy we've never known him before, and Paul said, I may know him, not about him, not doctrines, or theories, nor philosophies about him. I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his suffering, being made conformable unto his image. Being made conformable unto it, that I become conformable to his image, which is death. Yes. One of the first evidences of the filling of the Holy Spirit is this. He gives us a noble, whelming sense of the presence of the inborn God. He takes aside the veil, as Paul said in Galatians 1.16, and it pleads the Father to reveal, darling, unveil a son in me. Then, Paul said, it's no longer I, but Christ that liveth in me, and that's one of the first evidences of his fill with the Holy Spirit. He gives us a noble, whelming sense of the deeply-lying essence of the presence of Christ in our being. Ephesians 3.16, Strain with all might by his Spirit in the innermost that Christ, my beloved brother, hallowed while he spake to me one day to him, for all things linked are nothing but that. That Christ may dwell in your heart by faith, not by some happy feeling, not by some wonderful experience, but by faith. Strain with all might by his Spirit in the innermost that Christ may dwell. Settle down and be at home in your heart by the Holy Spirit. Isn't that just wonderful? Paul has cited to me, and I know to you too, the lyricist, the mimic, the mortis, and now the net of holiness is by yielding to indwelling. For I can't live a holy life, neither can you, but if we yield to the Spirit of God, we'll live that life to us. The thing about it is, and may I qualify a statement here, God made Christ to be upon to us holiness. He is our holiness, and in him we're holy, and we're not brave before God in love. The wonder of it all! But, I must note, in a practical day-by-day, moment-by-moment living, that's what Paul said in Romans 6 verse 11. He brings out reckoning by grace. My crucifixion with Christ, burial with Christ, I'm raised with Christ, then is likewise reckoned because of the fact, reckoned upon the fact, that we are dead in the understanding that we're alive unto God through Jesus Christ the Lord. There's a negative and a positive. The negative, I'm crucified with Christ. I've died unto sin, unto filth, and unto the world a deposit. Likewise reckoned now, reckoned the filth. In my first visit to Canada some over 20 years ago now, I was ministering in Florence with Oliver Chapman. One night after service, I'd been going on for about four nights, going out the door, a dear man came up and he said, my young brother, that's about six or seven years ago, he said, my young brother, please go on ministering of present salvation. He said, I've sought it in every part of the world. He said, my brother, what is your name? He said, I didn't, Dr. Norcott Day. He said, well yes, this is my lady. He said, no, he said, night after night, I stopped just right there. I didn't like to wake up the next morning in my congregation night after night. But these words have never left me. Go on preaching of present salvation. That only if Christ died in front of the service of the penitent, to live with us in the power of eternal life, every morning of every day. One day I heard of all the messages that he preached. We were happy people. We lived it, you know. And then angel of assurance, angel of assurance, I said, in 1 Timothy 1 verse number 12, Paul said, I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that he is able to repeat that which I encountered in that day. There's this verse here, I want you to know this, Paul. You know, and it's really, really my soul. Verse seven says, God did not call us unto a dream, but unto a holy day. Now, notice, God has called us unto holy day. But, verse number 24 to the fifth chapter says, Faithful is he that calleth you, notice this now, who also will do it. Isn't that precious? Faithful is he that calleth you, who also will do it. I love that, don't you? Ah, that's good. Then the cure, people, it says in 1 John chapter 5, verse 13, These things have I written unto you, that the leaf on the nail of the God that ye may know, not ye may steal, ye may know that ye have eternal life. So, the joy of knowing, not hope for it, but knowing. I know I passed in that life. I know, and I am sure of it, I know once I was blind, but now I can see the light of the world. It's true. Then only are we a holy, a sure people. We are a powerful people. We are a powerful people. What does it say? It says in one verse, number 90, So by the ingreatness of his power, and I give you now, the ushers who believe, when he raised him from the dead and placed him far above all things, the passing power, and I told you the other night that this is a liberating power, an elevating power, a subjugating power, that all this power that came to his mind on the truth of the Lord Jesus came to life. All this power is truly servile, and my dear apology to you. The happy man who is a holy man, who is a sure man, he becomes a powerful man. In himself he is weak, but in Christ he is strong. So Christ saying, without me you can do nothing. So if I can do all this through all of these powerful leaders, through all of these powerful leaders, he is a peaceful man. He's peaceful. John 14 27. Peace I'll be with you. Now this world gives divine joy. Let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God and God in me. Thou shalt keep him in perfect peace. His mind is at peace. Great peace I'll say it. Love thy Lord, and nothing wants you to be guilty. Jeremy 6 13. Yield yourself unto God. There's the word happy. The happy man is a holy man. He is an assured man. He's a powerful man. He's a peaceful man, and hallelujah! He's a yielded man. And threaten thyself to be dead in Jesus' name. Crucify with Christ in me, now and at the end of days. Praise together with the Lord, till the life of the earth is lost, and the spirit of the soul is gone. Thank you. I love this call. May the Lord accept the charity of the day, and the peace of my beloved brethren tomorrow, the first. May I get it? Reckon me. Yourself to be dead in Jesus' name. Crucify with Christ, and he now may reign within you. Reign together with the Lord, till the life of you is lost, and the spirit of the soul is gone. This is the happy man. He is a holy man. An assured man. A powerful man. A peaceful man. A yielded man. And when moments quiet, and in that moment the Lord has spoken to you in some particular way, may be cause of thanksgiving, a reassuring of deep-rooted conviction in your own heart, that all is well between you and the Lord. For let me, Jesus, first put his finger upon some particular area that has not yet been completely surrendered to sin, and you're going to do good to him now. There may be some particular sin, and the Spirit puts his finger with pleasure upon that area, and you're going to do business. You're going to bring it right out. Call it by its right name. Be faithful and just. Turn your eyes upon Jesus, listen in his wonderful faith, and the things of earth will grow strangely deep in the light of his glory and grace. Have thine own way, Lord, have thine own way. Oh, Lord, my being and salut's way, fill with thy Spirit, it all shall cease. Cry to me always, believe in me. Through Jesus Christ, our Lord, his holy glory goes now and forevermore. I know I talk rather fast, if you didn't quite get it, you were free to talk to me about it, but here's a subject. Thank you for coming.