In this sermon, the preacher discusses the concept of quickening and the importance of sustaining our spiritual life. He explains that in our physical life, we apprehend things through our five senses, which give us consciousness. However, if we lose any of these senses, we become unconscious or dead. The preacher emphasizes the need for spiritual quickening and refers to passages from the Bible, such as Jeremiah, to illustrate the nourishment and sweetness that comes from the word of God. He also highlights the danger of being consumed by worldly pleasures and urges the listeners to seek spiritual sustenance from the Lord.

It's a pleasure to be with you again, and by means of the miracle of electronics, to be with some who will not be present on the auditorium tonight. I approach my subject tonight with fear and trembling, different from what you have heard perhaps before. I spoke on the subject recently, and I said that the subject was elementary, and a brother said to me after the meeting, that it was not quite so elementary and simple as it sounded. But I think I should attempt it, nevertheless, for the help of the Lord, because I think it's something that we all need to know. And if I may give a subject to what I have to say tonight, the subject would be the need for continuous quickening. I know that we believe here in the doctrine of eternal security, and what I'm going to say tonight does not militate against the doctrine of eternal security. But I'm afraid there's an attitude among some Christians that the Christian life is analogous to, or can be compared at least, with the orbiting of a satellite. There's a great big blast off that comes at the time that we're saved and we're placed in orbit, and we sail in orbit without any resistance, without any weight, for the rest of our Christian experience. That's not true. That satellite sails in orbit indefinitely because there's no resistance. But the Christian meets with continual resistance all through his life, and we need to be quickened continually. Now, we'll talk about that and make that a little plainer, because we do have some younger people here tonight. But I want them to understand it, and they'll be able to understand some of it at least. But the psalmist felt the need of continuous quickening. Now, I mean by that the continual life-giving power of the Lord. Now, I know the moment that we believe in the Lord Jesus, we have everlasting life. It's imparted to us that that life is not self-sustaining, and the Lord must sustain it. And we can cut ourselves off from the Lord just as effectively after we're saved as before we were saved. And to be cut off from the Lord is spiritual death. And we need quickening. It's the same thought that the psalmist expresses in the 21st Psalm. He restoreth my soul. It's a continuous process, and we need it. Now, the psalmist, in the 119th Psalm, expressed his need for quickening. And I want to deal with the subject tonight. The need for continuous quickening under three headings. First of all, the absence of it. And then the means of it. And then the results of it. Here we have the absence of it tonight. He says in the 25th verse of the 119th Psalm, My soul cleaveth unto the dust. Quicken thou me according to thy word. My soul cleaveth unto the dust. That is, the dust of death. The Scriptures tell us plainly, the Lord tells us, Dust thou art, and the dust thou shalt return. And the psalmist says, My soul cleaveth unto the dust. Oh, it's so hard to get rid of the dust. And then he pleads, Quicken thou me according to thy word. I need to be quickened. I need to be given life. Now, what does he mean? Well, we're going to seek to find out what he means. Because he indeed realizes, as we've all realized, that we've reversed. Even after God saves our souls, we've reversed continually back to that state of death in which we were before God saved our souls. What do we mean by death, anyway? Death is not annihilation. Death is separation. When we speak of physical death, we speak of the separation of the body and the soul, or rather the soul and the spirit from the body. The two are separated. I know we think of death as an annihilation because of the results of the body. But God is going to raise that dust someday. And that body, though it seems to disintegrate and carries with it our thoughts of death, it's not a picture of death at all. It's simply separation. Now, spiritual death is separation from God. That's what it is. It's a separation from God, and when I'm separated from him, by whatever means the separation takes place, I am reverting to that state that I was in before God saved my soul. The psalmist puts it another way, and this time it's David. I suppose that perhaps Daniel is the writer of the 119th Psalm. It's not attributed to David, and there are some who feel that Daniel is the author. But David has exactly the same feeling. Psalm 28, please. He says in the first verse of the 28th Psalm, "'Unto thee will I cry, O Lord, my wrath. Be not silent to me, resteth all. Be silent to me, I become like them that go down into the pit.'" There is the result of the absence of continuous quickness. "'I become like them that go down into the pit.'" He reverts. And a child of God can revert right back to where he was before God saved him. He can get back into that state, and I don't think we recognize it, and I don't think we take the proper means of preventing it. We need to be continually quickened. And if we're not in touch with God, we revert. I think that this would be a good time right now to just simply consider this a little more in detail. Psalm chapter 17, if you please. And then we'll know what we're talking about. There the Lord, in his prayer of intercession, says in verse 3, And this is like eternal, that they might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. This is like eternal, that they might know thee, even as the sun hath light. And when we get saved, sometimes we're saved as we receive eternal life. I wonder sometimes if that might not be more accurately stated if we say we enter in upon eternal life. We come in contact with the Lord in a living contact with the Lord Jesus Christ, and with God our Father, and that is life. Spiritual death is separation from the Lord, and life is contact with the Lord to have him within the focus of the vision of our souls. That's eternal life, to behold him. And the Lord says, this is like eternal, that they might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. Now, for the opposite of this, let's notice 1 Timothy chapter 4. Chapter 5, I'm sorry. Chapter 5, verse 3, let's take a time. Honor widows that are widows indeed. But if any widow hath children or nephews, let them learn first to show piety at home and to requite their parents. For that is good and acceptable before God. Now, she that is a widow indeed and desolate fasteth in God, and continueth in supplications and prayers night and day. But she that liveth in pleasure is dead whilst she liveth. What does that mean? God is not in the focus of her soul. God is not before her. And she is dead. Does that mean she's lost her salvation? Oh, no. Because it says she's dead whilst she liveth. Yes, she liveth. But she is dead whilst she liveth. God is not before her. Her eyes, her thoughts have turned to pleasure. The Lord is not her slave. Now, the widow, in verse 5, is paid upon the Lord. She is passed upon the Lord, and she's living. This widow is not passed upon the Lord. She's living in pleasure, and she's dead whilst she liveth. Now, she needs to be quickened. And you and I need to be quickened. Our life, indeed, is a life that needs to be sustained by the God who gave it to us. It needs to be quickened by the God who gave it to us. Notice Psalm 143, if you please. Now, I think before the meeting is over, you're going to find out that this is your experience. I know there's such a deal, perhaps, that you don't understand of what I'm driving at right now. But I trust with the help of the Lord that we will understand what we're talking about, and we will recognize it in our own experience. The psalmist says in verse 6 of the 143rd Psalm, I stretch forth my hands unto thee, my soul thirsteth after thee. As a thirsty land, felah. A thirsty land is a place of death. A desert. Now, this man, in his experience, he says, My soul thirsteth after thee, as a thirsty land. Therein, in this much cold, David could say, My moisture is turned into the drowsiness from it. And the psalmist feels, and the psalmist is Simon David, the psalmist feels that long for the Lord. And then he goes on to say, Hear me speedily, O Lord. My spirit sailors. He's threatening. My spirit sailors, hide not thy face from me, lest I be like unto them that go down into the pit. He reversed that. I have heard some sad things on this trip eastward. Not about you people here, particularly, at all. But I have heard of some grave disappointments in some people who have professed to be the children of God. And I felt the need to dismiss them, because those who are truly saved by getting away from God and getting them out of their focus, can go right back to where they were before God reached them. The flesh is never saved. The flesh in you and me is not even modified. It's not even inhibited. It's irritated. And it's there, and it will claim us if it can. We need continuous quickening. Now, here are two, and the absence of continuous quickening will cause the soul to revert to death, and it will cause the life to resemble a heathen. Now, something else it will do. It will fill our souls with bitterness. In the 73rd Psalm, we see an example of this. Let's see what the man in the 73rd Psalm has his eye upon. Some of you know it so well. Apostle says, Truly God is good to Israel, even to such as are of a keen heart. But as for me, my feet were almost gone, my depth had well-nigh split, for I was envious of the foolish when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. For there are no bands in their depth, but their strength is firm. Apostle has his eyes in the wrong place. He has his eyes upon the weakest, and their prosperity and his eyes are not on the Lord. And his soul becomes filled with bitterness. And he even hesitates to talk about it in his admiration for the unsaved, or his envy of the unsaved, perhaps we'd better say. And he doesn't dare talk about it because he has enough conscience that he doesn't want to offend or stumble any other child of God. And he says in verse 15, Well, verse 14, For all the day long have I been plagued and chastened every morning, in contrast to the ease of the life of the prosperous wicked. Then he says in verse 15, If I say I will speak thus, behold, I should offend against the generation of thy children. When I thought to know this, it was too painful for me until I went into the sanctuary of God. Then understood I their end. Now, that forsaken child, he says in verse 21, Thus my heart was grieved and I was put in my reign so foolish was I and ignorant I was as a thief before thee. Nevertheless, I am continually with thee. Thou hast told of me by my right hand. Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel and afterwards receive me to glory. Whom have I in heaven but thee? And there is none that I desire, there is none upon earth that I desire besides thee. My flesh and my heart, faileth, but God is the strength of my heart and my fortune forever. Abel kept his eyes on the Lord and the bitterness ended. Now, these are the results of the lack of continuous prudence and quantity to the unsaved about us reverting back to the old ways of death, or how we need to be refined, how we need to be quickened The life that we have within us appreciates the things of God, but that life must be fed, it must be sustained. Now, let's talk about the means of quickening. Certainly it is to apprehend God and to have him before us. Now, we apprehend things in this life by means of our five senses, and here's something that the boys and girls will be interested in, too. We apprehend and we have consciousness in this life through five senses, that is, the sense of sight, the sense of hearing, we're using both of those senses right now, the sense of taste, the sense of smelling, and the sense of touch. Now, through the exercise of those five senses we have what we call consciousness. Now, take away those senses. What have we got? Well, if we take away those five senses, we're either unconscious or dead. Now, if we take away one of those senses, we've lost something. But God, in all his wisdom, has made it so that if one sense disappears, say, for instance, the sense of sight, then the other senses compensate and they become more acute and more sensitive so that we can get along quite well. Now, it would be a terrible thing to lose our sight and to lose our hearing, both. That would be awful. It happened once to a little girl by the name of Helen Keller. She's long since now passed away. But that little girl was totally blind and totally deaf. How would you reach a person like that? They would be away from you. How would you reach them? You can't speak a word into their ears. They can't see you. Totally isolated, as if at the bottom of a... a chaff of a mine, or back in a dungeon with nobody around. Have you ever tried to contemplate what that would mean? And I think of the wonder of that instructor that brought that little girl out of that oblivion into consciousness with other people so that Helen Keller became, indeed, an uneducated woman, yet even a lecturer. Through the patience of that instructor. Now, that's what happens when we lose our senses. Now, just as we have physical senses, we have spiritual senses, which are the counterpart of our physical senses. Now, through those senses, spiritual senses, we have contact with God, and we live. We have consciousness. God-consciousness. I think I told the boys and girls here once about an experience that I had when I was trying to illustrate the fact of how we can know whether we're saved or not to a group of boys and girls. And some people actually have to say, Well, I just don't know whether I'm saved or not. I wonder about a statement like that. Well, I was trying to show some boys and girls the foolishness of making a statement like that. Now, maybe I'm talking to somebody here tonight. I don't know. But if I am, good. Have you ever wondered whether or not you're really saved or not? Well, chances are, if you've wondered whether or not you're really saved, you may well not be saved. Do I have to wonder whether or not I'm alive? I said to one of the little boys in the audience, I said, Philip, are you alive? Or he looked up and he said, Yes. I said, can you prove it? Well, he looked at me and his mouth kind of came open. Well, how do you go about proving you're still alive? I said, are you alive? Yes. I said, well, prove it. Well, he thought and he thought, and well, how was he going to prove that he was alive? And he couldn't answer me. He was sure he was alive, but he couldn't prove it. Well, a little girl spoke up and she raised her hand and I said, what do you have to say about this? And she says, well, I can see. And oh, it caught on then. And another little child says, well, I can hear. And another child says, I can feel. Well, you know what they did. They went through the five senses. They knew they were alive because they had those senses. Now, you and I have spiritual senses and I can't quite understand the person who says they don't know whether or not they're safe. I can't quite understand that. I know whether I've got physical life or not and I'm very dogmatic about it. I'm sure I have. Now, should it be any harder to determine whether or not I have spiritual life? Couldn't be. Because I've got spiritual senses. If you talk about them, notice, if you will please, in Hebrews chapter 5, these things are basic, but after all, we'd better find out whether we have got spiritual life or not. It's a good thing. Hebrews chapter 5 and verse 14. Just for sake of time, we'll read, and that's only the one verse, but, "...strongly belongs to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of youth have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil." Now, our senses, our physical senses, can be exercised to discern both good and evil. For instance, if you go to the stove and you forget that you've just turned off the burner and you touch that burner, your senses are exercised right now. And you've decided that you've discovered something very evil and you get your finger out of there in a hurry. Now, we have spiritual senses, and they combinate in the functioning of the... Oh, that's a big word, isn't it? I'm used to using big words like that. Well, boys and girls, yeah, but I'm not going to have to do that yet. I'll use one word for the adults. The functioning of those spiritual senses gives us consciousness of God. We know we're saved. We know we're saved, just exactly as we know we have physical life. Now, the working of our spiritual senses gives us contact with God, and we know he's there, and we know he's listening. Now, let's look at some of them. Let's look at Ephesians chapter 1, verse 15, the prayer of the apostle, Therefore I also, after I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and love unto all the saints, teach not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation and the knowledge of him. The eyes of your understanding being enlightened, that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the richness of the glory of his inheritance in his kingdom, and what is the exceeding greatness of his power to those who believe. Now, the spiritual eyes are enlightened to see some of these things. We have spiritual eyes. Spiritual eyes that see. Now, look for a moment at 2 Corinthians chapter 4. Chapter 4, verse 16, For which cause we faint not, I'm going to break in to the text, For which cause we faint not, but rather though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is removed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal way to glory, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal. Now, here we have that famous paradox. While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. We look at the things that are not seen. How do you do that? Through spiritual eyesight, believe me. Now, the things that we can see are not real. Now, don't judge me too quickly on this, until you follow me through. I'm not a mystic, but what I mean is this. If you can see it, it's temporal. Anything that you can see, this picture, this pulpit, anything that you can see, it's temporal. It's not going to last. In the end, actually, it's going to be burned up. Peter talks about that coming day. If you can see it, it's temporal. But the things which you cannot see are eternal and they're real. I'm talking about the soul. I'm talking about the spirit. That's the real thing. We talk about real estate. There's no such thing as real estate under the meaning of the term that we use it for. That's very unrealistic. It's heresy. Now, the immediate context is the body. The subject here is introduced in verse 16. The apostle says, For which cause we faint not, but though our outward man perish. Yet the inward man is renewed day by day. It's the outward man that's perishing. Now, this body, I can see it, I can feel it. Therefore, it's temporal. It isn't going to last. The soul I can't feel, see, and feel with it. The spirit I can't see, it's eternal. It's going to last forever. Notice the context. It goes right on in chapter five. We've got a chapter division there. For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God. And a house not made with hands. Eternal in the heavens. Immediate context. Context is the body. We can see it there for a second. But ah, there's a body coming for us. That's eternal. We can't see it. It's made without hands. Now, it's amazing what spiritual life can do. Let's turn to Hebrews. Hebrews chapter 11. We read of Moses, verse 24, "...by faith Moses, when he was come to Europe, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season, receiving the reproach of Christ's greater riches than the treasures in Egypt, for he had respect unto the recompense of the reward. By faith he proceeded, not fearing the wrath of the king, for he endured as seeing him who was invisible." Moses saw him who was invisible. The Lord says of Abraham, "...Abraham rejoiced to see my day in Zion." He had good spiritual eyesight. He could see a long way spiritually. Moses endured as seeing him who was invisible. You and I are encouraged to use our spiritual eyesight, too. We read, for instance, in chapter 12, where foreseeing we also are compassed about what so great a cloud of witness is. Let us lay aside every weight in the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and painter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. Looking unto Jesus. Yes, God wants him to be within the focus of our spiritual eyesight. How is that sense working, incidentally? Is it working good? Do we have good spiritual eyesight? You know, we have spiritual hearing, too. We have a sense, spiritually speaking, in our souls that corresponds with a physical sense of hearing. The Lord Jesus says, "...My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they fall in me, and I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand." My sheep, the Lord might have put the emphasis this way, my sheep hear my voice. Do we hear his voice? Does the Lord speak to you and me? Do we know he's speaking to us? Now, really now, what do we know about that? Is that just an expression? Or do we know, on occasion, do these spiritual ears of ours hear the voice of the Lord speaking to us? Not an audible voice. Do we know that the Lord is speaking to us? I think we do. The Lord Jesus says, at the end of the Laodicean letter, he says, "...Behold, I stand at the door, and knock. If any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and talk with him, and he will hear me." Can we hear his voice? Yes. Still, small voice has said to me on many occasions, you've read that newspaper long enough. Just be sure that you read your Bible just as much as you do the newspaper. And you've read the newspaper long enough. You should read your Bible. I have heard that it is. Do you have that experience? The Lord Jesus knocks on our heart's door, and we're convicted immediately. I ought to be praised. I ought to be reading my Bible. The Lord wants entrance. He wants to speak with me. He wants to have fellowship with me. "...If any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and talk with him, and he will hear me." What do we know of him? Does he speak to us? Do we hear his voice? Do we have the experience of when we have problems, of going to the Lord, this old problem, and asking him for help. We sit down and we open up the Word of God, and right there on the written page is the solution for our problem. As if the Lord were telling us what to do. Do we hear his voice? Does he speak to us out of this Word? Do you hear the voice of the Lord speaking to you? If you don't, you may not have life. If you can't see the Lord, but here's a lifeline if you can. Here is voice speaking to you. If this Bible doesn't speak to your heart, then you don't have life. Then you don't have life. Is it a dry book to you? Come on now. Is it a dry book? Do you ever hear his voice? Then you know. I think there's such a thing as spiritual taste. Jeremiah spoke about eating his Word, and it was delicious to his taste. Some of these times I'm going to sit down and learn this verse like a Sunday school, in personal energy. I have done that, but I'll teach it again. He says, Thy words were found, and I did eat them, and thy word was unto me the joy and the blessing of my heart. For I call, for I am called by thy name, O Lord, of God of hosts. And then he speaks of food in the Bible, but there's the milk of the Word. I don't do that. It tastes good. Milk tastes good. I love it. Then there's the strong meat of the Word of God. The milk, Christ, in his humility. And the meat, Christ, in his invocation, in his glory. Spiritual food. Did you taste it? How about it? You know, we're so anxious to get our free meal today, and I don't miss one either. I'm right there. I'm right there when the dinner call is given. I don't miss any of my meals. Perfectly. And how about this book? Have you tasted the good words of God? Has it strengthened us? What about the milk of the Word? When he said of Jeremiah, it was sweet in my taste. Now that is the exercise of a spiritual faith. We have more than that. We have the sense of spiritual touch. I think I can probably get at this better in a negative sort of way. Turn with me to 1 Timothy chapter 4, please. Now the Spirit speaketh, especially that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils, seeking lives in hypocrisy, having their conscience sheared with a hot iron. Now I think if you permit me my views on this, and I don't know what else you can do, but permit me to have my views. You can question them, but you must let me have my opinion on this. I think that the spiritual sense of touch is our conscience. We need to have a tender conscience. Now the apostle speaks here of those who have a seared conscience with a hot iron. You know what happens when you touch, you ladies, if you touch your finger to a hot iron, or you men, perhaps you pick up a spool of cloth for the hold of a welding iron or something like that. You know what happens. Your skin gets smooth and shiny and seared, and it gets stiff as a board, and you can hardly feel anything. You see, that's just like conscience. Conscience can be used so much that it becomes calloused, it becomes seared. And I think that the Christian has a sense of touch in a sort of way. His conscience is his sensitivity. It is our conscience's sensitivity toward the Lord. Do we have a sense of touch? Are we in touch with God? Do we see real action? Does our conscience indeed have that point of contact with the Lord? Now the spiritual sense of smell is a little bit harder to come by, but I think you've seen it. 2 Corinthians chapter 3, if you see. Chapter 2, I'm sorry. 2 Corinthians chapter 2. Verse 14. Now, thanks be unto God, which always hosts us to triumph in Christ, making manifest the favor of his knowledge by us in every place. For we are unto God a each favor of Christ, in them that are saved and in them that perish. To the one we are the favor of death unto death, to the other the favor of life unto life. Now, three people, or three persons, smell the Christian. There's the smell of God, we hope, about him. God smells him, first of all, and he smells Christ. The unsaved smell us, and the saved smell us. Now, I'm borrowing. This is figurative language, but I think... Let's talk about the sense of smelling a little bit, before we go any farther than this. I think it's one of the most remarkable senses that we've got. The sense of smelling is so keen that the sense of a... Skunk, pardon me for mentioning it, is what it recalls to your mind. It's so...the sense of smell is so keen that I have forgotten my exact figure, but one part in something like a million or a hundred million, I have forgotten what it is, is discernible in a note. Mr. Skunk has just walked across the scene a mile down there, Mr. Skunk. And you go into animals, and it's even more remarkable in animals. You can walk along here, and the red-tongued dogs can follow you hours after you've gone by. Smelling is that. It's a remarkable sense. And you know we have a spiritual sense of smell. You can smell a person. There's a smell of Christ about him. And you can tell him off to every person, too. The spiritual sense of smell. Others are acquainted. They're aware of the fact that we belong to God. We hope they are. We hope there's a smell of Christ about him. Now, the exercise of all these spiritual senses gives us God's consciousness. And he is in the focus of these spiritual senses. These are in connection with a life. Now, first of all, you've got to have a life to appeal to. I've got to have physical life in my body for my senses to appeal to that life. And I've got to have a spiritual life that comes to me when I'm born again. The Spirit of God puts the life of Christ within me. And that life feels after God and knows God. And moves in a spiritual sphere through its spiritual senses. The counterpart of our physical senses. All right, now. We've gone a long way to get to this one. What do you see about a person? You neither see, nor hear, nor smell, nor taste, nor feel. You neither see, nor hear, nor smell, nor taste, nor feel. What about him? Too far gone, isn't he? He's either unconscious or dead. Now, what do you hear? What do you see about a Christian that never sees the Lord? He's not in the focus of the eyes of our understanding. He doesn't hear his voice. He doesn't taste his good words. He didn't sense his Christ. And he's not so before. His conscience is not disturbed about his taste before God. What do you say about him? Well, I'll tell you what. He needs strickening. He needs strickening. This life, thank God, can be appealed to. But we need to have strength before. We need to be in contact with him. Now, when we are in contact with Christ, and let's get down to the results of continuous strickening. We've talked about the means of it. And the different senses that God has given us to give us contact with him, and how anybody can see, and that they're not sure whether or not they're saved, is a kind of a puzzle to me. With five good spiritual senses to apprehend God, we ought to be able to make up our minds whether or not we're saved. Are we? Let's taste it. Are we? All right. Now, here's what happens. Here's what happens when we do get in contact with God. Everybody around us knows it. You know, when a child, when a physical child is born into this world, everybody around him knows it. At least we knew when Arthur was born into this world. They let you know about it. And when a person is born into the family of God, I think the same thing is true, too, in another race. They let you know about it, too. You can tell when a child has really been born into the family of God. Now, can others tell when we have been stricken? Can others tell when we have been in the presence of the Lord this person has been? I think of Moses, who was on the mount when the presence of God for forty days and forty nights. And when he came down from that mountain, his face was shining. He'd been in the presence of the Lord. Now, Moses didn't realize it until he came into the camp, and they were afraid of him. And when they backed off from Moses, they were afraid of him, because his face was shining. And you know, it's possible even for Christians to be afraid of you, because your face is shining. You may not be conscious of it being shining, but when you're in the presence of the God who is light, your face is shining. When we've been in his presence, and some who marvel at the wisdom and the addressedness of the apostles in the early days acknowledge that they have been with Jesus. You can tell when they've been with Jesus. And others can tell, as well, when we have been stricken. Now, I don't mean that we become dynamic, that we become leaders by it. I think that people can tell when you've been in the presence of the Lord. And they seek your presence, and they enjoy the sweet smell, because they can smell something that's very sweet. You need to be in the presence of the Lord. You need to behold him. You need to be put in. Now, if spiritual death really is, if we will admit to that definition of spiritual death, that it's separation from God, we may very effectively separate ourselves from him in our lives. As a matter of fact, haven't you had the experience at the end of the day, when you pull the Lord on your knees, Lord, I don't want tomorrow to be like today. I don't want tomorrow to be like today. I want to get in your presence. And I'm just glad this day's over with. And I'm just glad that I can close the day, and Lord, don't let tomorrow be like today. And we get into the, oh, we long for the presence of the Lord. May that be our experience, more and more. To feel out for him, and I'm satisfied to be away from him. I've cut myself off from him, and I've said to myself, and all of you have said this to yourself tonight, I've said to the Lord at the end of the day, Lord, I've been nothing different today than a heathen. No contact. Lost. I've been separated from him by one means or another. Now, that doesn't mean that I'm lost in my spiritual life. That doesn't mean that. But it means that my spiritual senses have not been officiating, not been feeling out for him. I need to be present. And this is a continuous process in your life and mine. Others will be blessed when we get into the presence of the Lord. We could talk about the Holy Spirit and the Royal Spirit. We have to go in before we come out. Others will be blessed, and our lives will be a blessing for the Lord. May God help us to learn these things experimentally. And in the will of the Lord, tomorrow night, we won't try to be harnessed to Him as perhaps we were tonight. These things have been basic, but I think that they are things that we recognize in our own personal experience. Oh, if there ever was a day when it was harder to concentrate upon the Lord and keep him within the focus of the vision of our souls. This is the day. But if that keeps up, continually, day after day after day, we're going to reverse.