I want to take my text today from the fourth chapter of Galatians. Galatians chapter four. And the nineteenth verse. Would bother you any to sing that song that we sang while ago or have thy own way, Lord? Or can you just sing it without any hinges of conscience to talk. How do you get along on that? Sort of bothers me. I'm not right sure that that's what I want all the time. I know it's what God wants. But I wonder sometimes if we're real, really sincere when we sing, have thine own way, Lord. Thou art the potter. I am declared. Galatians chapter four, verse nineteen. My little children, this is the diminutive form, means literally my dear children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you. I desire to be present with you now and to change my voice, for I stand in doubt of you. Paul knew what he wanted. He wasn't right sure if they knew what they wanted. Paul had travailed in birth for these Galatians. He brought Christ to them. He led them to the Lord. Now he's travailing in birth again. You want to see them saved again? Oh, I remember how Mr. C.W. Ross used to dislike The bass extra notes on the chorus of the song about Nicodemus, you know, on the chorus that says you must be born again and then the bass comes in again. He said, don't sing that. You don't need to be born again and again. He just wouldn't have that again and again business. You want to want again and then that's enough. Just sing again. Don't sing again again. You don't need to be born again, again. But Paul said, I'm travailing in birth again. Not to see you saved, but to see Christ formed in you. First chapter of Colossians. Here's another passage. very much overlooked, I think, in our studies of the Word of God and in our preaching as well. This is one of Paul's long sentences. It begins way back. We'll have to break in. At verse twenty-seven, to whom, to the saints of God, to whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory, whom we preach, warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom that we may see every man saved. No, no. No, no. The Apostle Paul was not living for the sole purpose of seeing every man saved. I heard a man on the radio the other day say, I have no interest whatever in your religious affiliations. I have no argument with you as to any of the things you do as a Christian. My ambition is just to see men and women brought to Christ. Sounds real good, doesn't it? What would you think of a man who said, I have no ambition to see my children educated or clothed or fed. I merely want to see a great many children brought into the world. Or to hang a man like that. The Apostle Paul was not one of them. His ambition was not simply to see a lot of people say. It's a wonderful thing to lead people to Christ. I made an awful mistake when I was a young man. I started out preaching. I was a conformist. I did everything that I was told to do. It really drove me crazy, too. Those people owe me different things. The preachers told me that I shouldn't stay in one place any longer than three or three weeks, and I'll move on and see some more souls saved somewhere else. And I left a string of babies behind me with nobody to take care of them. I still regret going off and leading in one locality. In eastern Kansas, I saw sixteen Roman Catholics led to Christ, and I walked off and left them, left them to the wolves, nobody to care for them, nobody in the neighborhood to lead them. I stayed there six months. The end of six months I got a letter from a preacher saying, what are you doing? Settling down to be the pastor there? Why don't you get moving? I thought he was right. So I moved. I've been sorry ever since. What do we really want to do? What do you want to do? What do you want God to do in you? That's the thing I want to talk about a little bit this afternoon. God would like to present every man perfect or full-grown in Christ Jesus. There it is. Colossians one, twenty-eight. When we preach warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, seeing that he gets all of the Word of God, that we may present every man, not just a select few, not just those who go to Bible school and get some certain extra training, but every Christian he wants presented perfect or full-grown in Christ Jesus. Where unto I also labor striving according to his working which worketh in me mightily. Do you know what kind of a vessel the fodder really wants to make out of you? Well, I can tell you, he opened heaven three times to put his stamp of approval on one such vessel. Three times heaven opened. Twice the Father said, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. And the last time he said, I glorified it, I will glorify my name. He said the first time at his baptism, when he began his ministry. He spoke the second time when he was on the Mount of Transfiguration. the last time he spoke just before he went to the cross. Three times the Father opened heaven to say, I'm perfectly satisfied with the Lord Jesus Christ. I know what God would like to make you like. He'd like to make you like the Lord Jesus. I don't confuse this with First John chapter three. First John chapter three says, When we see him, we shall be like him. That has nothing to do with what I'm talking about today. That is the physical aspect of the thing. You and I are going to be made to look like the Lord Jesus. We're going to be like him physically when he comes back. But that has nothing to do with your conformity to Christ in the present time. God wants to make you like the Lord Jesus morally. If this is all you want, just to be made like him physically, You won't have any choice about that anyway. The Lord wouldn't let you into heaven look like you do. Or me either. You don't have any choice about that. He's going to change us all before he takes us into heaven. Thank God for that. I'd hate to look at the likes of you the rest of my days for eternity and wouldn't you. The Lord's take care of that. That's not what I'm talking about at all. I'm talking about moral conformity. becoming like the Lord Jesus Christ in character. Now there are three ways. I'm not sure if they're all, if they're different ways, but at least they're expressed in three different ways, in which you and I can be conformed to Christ. I'll give you three words. First, by assimilation. Second, by identification. and third by occupation. These will be nails to hang this on so that you can remember. First of all, we can become like the Lord Jesus by assimilation. John chapter six. You know that your whole physical life can be changed by your eating habits. You know that, don't you? I led a couple to the Lord who lived on pork and potatoes. They just lived on pork and potatoes. And they were monstrosities. And in order to walk they had to shift all the weight to one side and then take a step and shift it all to the other side. And they never walked in step. They come down the street like this. Their heads way apart and then their heads almost together. and then way apart, and then together again. You'd always tell that couple of these dogs coming waddling down the street, pork and potatoes. And she almost died. And the doctor said, your diet is atrocious. We've got to change your diet. And so he changed their diet. It's a little too late to make all the changes he'd like to have made, but he did make some difference. It does make a difference what you eat. It makes a tremendous difference what you eat spiritually. I'm bothered when I find out what God's people are feeding on today. I'm bothered by it. I go into their homes, and if I come unannounced, I find on their coffee tables, I find magazines that ought not to be in a Christian's home. I go to their books. Don't you ever leave me in your living room alone because I'm going to get into your bookcase. That's the first thing I want to see. I want to see what kind of books you have. And the books that I find in some Christians' homes. I don't find a thing that would feed them spiritually. I've had the privilege and the pleasure of burning great many books when I convinced the Christians that that they made a mistake in buying those books from some peddler that came to the door. Out here by north of Bona, Colorado, I went around to the neighbors and visited them and found that they had just one little sample book that was left there and the man was going to come back the next week with a full set of books. And they were looking over this sample book. When I found out what was happening, I just made it point to go to one house the other and say, did you get one of those sample books? Yes. Let me show you what's wrong in it. And I did this, and they were Hollanders, and they trusted me because my mother's a Dutch woman, and so they believed me, you know, and they said, well, we're glad you told us that, and we won't buy the books. And the man caught up with me. And the fellow at whose home I was visiting said to him, well, we've decided not to buy that book. And he said, who's that man in your living room? So he called me up and introduced me. He said, this is the man who's preaching in our neighborhood. He says, are you the fellow that's been stopping all my sales? I said, I'm very proud to say I am. Well, he said, I want to give you a book. He said, you want to give me a book? I said, I have the slightest use of your books. I can tell you what's in all of them. I know the whole thing. I know your predecessors. I know the fellow who founded your religion. I know the ins and outs of your doctrine. I can tell you what you think about the Lord Jesus. You think he was a God and not the eternal God of heaven at all. I said, there isn't a thing in any of your books that I want. He said, I want to give you this book. I said, I don't want your book. He said, I insist that you accept it. I said, if I accept your book, I'll turn right around and put it in that stove. He said, that's what I want you to do. Well, I said, well, give you any pleasure here, and I took the book, and I lifted the stove lid, and I dropped it in. He said, now, you're damned forever. He turned and got in his car and drove off. Great love for souls, did you think? What happens to people that read that kind of literature? You become like that, but you read, but you eat. John chapter six is a chapter on eating. We haven't time to read it all. He talks about manna. First of all, well, the beginning of the chapter, he feeds the five thousand. And incidentally, this is the only miracle which is recorded in all four Gospels. So you know it has great importance. And then he talks about the manna. And he says, the man who wasn't really the food, the bread from heaven, I'm the true bread from heaven. And if you eat of me, you'll not die. And they were very disturbed by this. And the Lord Jesus never made it easy for them to understand it at all. He taught them parables so that only the spiritual would get what he had to say. He wasn't making any attempts, whatever. to make it easy for all of these Pharisees to get on the bandwagon. He didn't have any bandwagon. He wasn't looking for numbers at all. First of all, the Lord Jesus ruled people to himself, and then he started winnowing out the false ones. He starts with five thousand in this chapter, and he ends up with twelve, and one of those is the devil, and he asked them if they're going to go away. He wasn't even sure of them. And the way he winded them out was by telling them distinctly. In verse fifty-three, verily, verily I say unto you, except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. Why, they said, this is ridiculous. This is ridiculous. How could anybody, how could this man give his flesh to anybody to eat? How could he give his blood to anybody to drink? This is ridiculous. You see, the Lord Jesus was teaching a spiritual lesson. When he said, I am the door, nobody looked to see which side the hinges were on. They knew that he was using a metaphor, a figure of speech, that would help them to understand. And when he says, my body is the bread and my blood is the drink, anybody should understand that he was saying, it will take my death to give you what you need. For body and blood separated means death, doesn't it? And they should have known that. They should have understood that, but they didn't understand it. Who shall eat of my flesh and drink of my blood have eternal life? Do you remember the first time you ate his flesh and drank his blood? Don't read the Lord's Supper into this. Whatever you do, don't bring the Lord's Supper into the sixth of John. It isn't there. He's not talking at all about taking the bread and wine. He's talking about receiving, appropriating, and assimilating the death of Christ in our place. Do you remember when you did that? Do you remember when you took the death of Christ as being for you? You received him as the one who died in your place. That's what he's talking about. Whoso eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day, for my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. Now, up to this point, the verb is in what's known as the hourist tense, which means an act which is once and for all, and the effects of that act continue. You only need to appropriate the death of Christ once for salvation. The verb is in that tense that indicates that once was enough and that the effects continue. I got this from J.N. Darby's notes. I hope that you have a copy of the new translation of the scripture, J.N. Darby translation because it's very helpful and the notes especially are good. Be sure to get an addition with the notes at the bottom of the page. But he says the verses that follow now, the verb is in the present participle, which indicates the characteristic of the person. And this shows continuity. In other words, when he says in verse fifty-six, He that eateth my flesh, he's saying, He who makes a business, a practice of eating my flesh, He who eats and continues to eat my flesh and drinks and continues to drink my blood dwells and continues to dwell in me and I am him. That's my own expanded translation. That's what he's saying here. He's saying that once you have received Christ as your Savior, once you have believed that the death of Christ was for you, now you need to appropriate and feed on the death of Christ daily. How do we do this? Well, first of all, we've got to turn to the Word of God, because where else can we get the story of his death and resurrection? Well, that does not mean that the Bible is the food for the Christians. That does not mean that you're going to feed on the Bible. You can read chapter after chapter after chapter and get no food for your soul at all. If you don't see Christ, you haven't been fed. Because Christ himself is the bread of heaven. see not facts you might know the names of the kings frontwards and backwards you might have a lot of facts in your head you may be an ardent student and able to get up and rattle it off and it just went through your head and out your mouth and never got down into your heart at all that's quite possible that won't do you any good he wants you to appropriate to assimilate to make a part of your own thinking and of your own being the death of the Lord Jesus. Let me show you how it works. I want to get some handles on it so that you can use it in everyday life. You get up in the morning, you have a little time, quiet, alone with the Lord. You open your Bible and you read about the faith. What do you find out? Well, you find out that the Lord Jesus loves you so much that he died for you on the cross some passage of scripture comes before you and you think about this a little bit and you think to yourself my if he loved me that much if he loved me that much how can I help but love him after all he's done for me how can I do less then give him my best and live for him completely after all he's done for me. What happens? You've got some food for your soul that strengthens you to live for Christ that day. Now remember that they gathered the manna every morning except on the Sabbath. Every morning except on the Sabbath. If somebody was too lazy to get out and get the manna before the sun rose and melted it, he just went hungry that day. That's all. That's what's the matter of too many Christians. They're not feeding on Christ. I often, when I'm reading about this, I always think about a lady who told me one time, she said, I nearly starved the death between conferences. Wouldn't you think she would? She only got to about two or three a year. I nearly starved the death between conferences. The poor soul I've never learned to feed herself. Do you know how to feed yourself? Do you know how to turn to this book and find Christ? Do you know how to open this book and find something about the death of Christ that will really feed you? Now, it isn't simply learning that the Lord Jesus died in your place. You learn that in the simple gospel to begin with. But you learn that there is a great deal more to the death of Christ than simply the pulling away of your sins. For instance, you learn that through the death of Christ, Satan has been defeated. Doesn't he say this in the second chapter of Hebrews? That's through death. He might destroy or disavow him with the power of death. That is the devil. So you read that one morning, and that feeds you. I tell you, you're ready to face all of Satan's assaults that day. You've got some mire on your bones now. You've got something to stick to your ribs now. You can go out and face the The devil that day because you've read that the death of Christ has disobeyed his power. Maybe another day the death of Christ is brought before you as you read in his word and you see that you're identified with him in this death. You say, my, if the Lord Jesus died, that was the end of me too. So I can't live for myself today. There are many ways in which the death of Christ will be brought to your mind as you read the scriptures. or it's a favorite topic of the Holy Spirit. Last night I went back to Colorado Springs in order to attend a Bible class that I'm teaching there on Friday nights. Instead of having meetings, as we usually do, I'm having four Bible classes a week this fall, and this gives me an opportunity to reach these different people And this Friday night class is just a marvelous opportunity. The business and professional people, and not one of them has ever attended any of our meetings that I know of. And we had a fine study from the fourth and fifth chapters of Revelation last night. And when we came to the Lamb that John saw, that When John was told the lion of the tribe of Judah has prevailed over the book, he said, I look, in the midst of the throne, I saw a lamb as it had been slain. And I tried to show the folks, here is one that in eternity still looks like a newly slain sacrifice. The basis of his judgment of this world is the fact that he died. That's what gives him the right to be the judge. So that fed me today. That strengthened me to see that my blessed Lord has the rights, the title needs of the world are his. I don't care what Chonlai, Maltitung, Kosygin, Brezhnev, Sukarno. I don't care what any of them have to say. They haven't anything to do with the future of this world. My blessed Lord is in control. See? I'm feeding, I'm enjoying the death of Christ that gives him his places as judge. Now, look at the next verse. Verse fifty-seven. As the living Father has sent me and I live by the Father, so he that eateth me Even he shall live by me. Is this a repetition of the previous verse? Not at all. The previous verse is talking about feeding on the death of Christ. This verse is talking about feeding on the living Christ. When the Lord Jesus was here on this earth, what sustained him? What kept him going? Why, the consciousness that his father was living in heaven. And that he was drawing from his living father. all that he needed day by day. You see, our blessed Lord became as truly man as you and I. And as a man, never ceased to be God, but as a man, the Lord Jesus Christ was in complete dependence upon his Father, and he must get daily guidance from his Father. And he knew that every day his Father was living there in heaven, and he could draw on this living source, he could get the guidance that he needed. And I know the same thing. I know that my blessed Lord now is alive. And he's at the right hand of God as my high priest, and I know that I can draw on him. I can get the guidance that I need each day. Don't you think that'll put some strength into me? Don't you think that'll feed me? Don't you think that'll change my whole outlook on life? How could I ever go out into the world and say, well, I guess it's up to me to do as I please pick my own course and make a lot of money and get to be somebody and have a good time. How can I do that? When I know that there in the glory sits one who gave himself for me and he's just waiting for me to turn to him for guidance and to get his eye, he says all the time, I will guide thee with mine eye. And I know that he's waiting to guide me. How would I dare go out of this world and live for myself? You see what it'll do to you? You see what a transforming power this will have if you really believe that the Lord Jesus is living? But you say, I've sinned against the Lord. Well, he's living as your advocate to restore you. But you say, I've got so many weaknesses. But he's living as your high priest, touched with a feeling of your weaknesses in permitting. But you say, I get so discouraged. I don't, there's no hope for me in life. But he's there as the morning star. He is our hope. Our blessed hope is not an event. Our blessed hope is the Lord Jesus himself. First chapter of Ephesians says so. He is our hope. We're looking for him. So you see, we feed on him. Whatever we need every day, we get by drawing from him. You know, our position as Christians here on this earth is very much like that of a deep-sea diver. I'm not talking about scuba divers with a little tank of air strapped on their back, and they've got so many minutes, and they have a waterproof watch, and they watch that watch, I'll tell you, because they know that when time runs out, and the forty-five minutes is gone, the air is going out of the tank, and they better be where they can stick the head above water. I'm not talking about that kind of a diver at all. We're not like that. We're like a deep-sea diver that wears this big thing over his head, and then there's a line that goes, a triple line that goes from him up to the ship, the diving ship above him. One of those lines is his lifeline. That's a steel cable that they can pull him up with. One of those lines is the telephone line. This means that he can get messages from above, and he can send messages to the man above. And the other one is his air hose. And this is what he has to breathe. This is what keeps him going. Now, every Christian has this connection with the Lord Jesus in the glory. He's got a steel cable on us. One of these days, brother, we're going to go up, and we're going to go up fast. He's going to pull us out of this mess that we're in down here. Meanwhile, meanwhile, he wants us to keep our telephone line from getting fouled up. A diver has to watch. He doesn't get so interested in getting something out of this ship. He's not about to pick up homestead down there. Don't mistake that. Don't think for a minute that this diver has decided to stay down here the rest of his days. He knows it's very temporary. But he is trying to find some treasure for the man he's working for. And in his busy life trying to get into something, he may get his telephone line filed up and lose his connection. We don't want to do that. We want to keep in constant touch. Don't let any sin. Don't let anything interfere with your talking with the Lord day by day. And then keep that air hose clear so that you can be always drawing the very breath of heaven. Don't try breathing water. You're not a fish. Don't try breathing the atmosphere of this world. It's feminine. It's rotten. Trouble with too many of us is that we're spending too much time breathing that kind of atmosphere. I don't have to tell you where, do I? You know what it is in your life. You know where you're spending too much time. You know what it is in your life. that is spoiling your appetite for the Lord Jesus Christ. Get rid of these things. Get them out of your house as well as out of your life. And draw breath from heaven constantly. Well, that's assimilation of Christ. Now, the second thing on the sixth chapter of John is identification with Christ. Not only do we feed on him, not only do we enjoy him and take him to ourselves, but he wants us to know that the same thing that happened to him happened to us. Let me tell you, first of all, that the sixth chapter of Romans is not an experience. That's important enough for me to say it over again. Don't try to experience the sixth chapter of Romans. This was not an experience. God never asked you to try to be dead. He never asked you to feel dead or play dead or act dead or try to make out like you're dead. He asked you to believe that something happened. Two thousand years ago, and it happened at Calvary's Cross. What does he ask you to believe? He asked you to believe that all your sins were put on the Lord Jesus, and you weren't even born yet. I wasn't either. Do you believe that he did? Do you believe that God laid your sins on Christ? How do you know that that's true? You feel it? No. You believe the Word of God. Alright, that's what he wants you to do in connection to the sixth chapter of Romans. He wants you, first of all, to know some facts. What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, we who are Christians, that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we that are dead or have died to sin live any longer therein? No, no ye not. So many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death. Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death. But like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, We shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection. Now, this doesn't mean that when I die, I'm going to be raised from the dead. It means that right here and now, God counts it as though I was put to death at Calvary's cross, and I have been raised again, and the life that I'm now living is resurrection life, the life of Christ within me. That's what He wants me to believe. He wants me to know this. Verse six, knowing this, that our old man is or was crucified with him. Now, our old man is not our old nature. Don't mix it up. Believe the Word of God the way it is. He doesn't say that your old nature is crucified. He says, your old man, that means your old life. What you were as old, what I was, was old John Walden. All that I was was a man after the flesh. My old life came to an end, when, at the cross. Well, you say, I couldn't. You weren't born yet. The same way that my sins could be laid on Christ when I wasn't born yet. It's a matter of what God did judicially. God counted it. But when his son died on that cross, every believer expired with him. That was the end of you as a man in Adam. He'd already been talking about this in chapter five. He says, you were connected with Adam. You belong to Adam's family. I can't use anything that belongs to Adam. I can't use anybody that's an Adamite. And I want to get rid of the Adamites. And in their place, I want a new race of Christians. And Adamite is a man of descendants from Adam. A Christian is one who's connected with Christ. This is our new position. And so he goes on to say that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin as a master. For he that is dead or he that has died is freed. And this word means discharged as a slave would be out from under his master's control any longer from sin as a master. If we be dead or have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him. Knowing, you see, this is not something we feel or hope or think, something we know because the Word of God says it. Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dives no more. Death hath no more dominion over him. For in that he died, he died unto sin once, but in that he liveth unto God. Likewise, that is just as he did. So you reckon also yourselves to be dead or to have died indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body that you should obey it in the lust thereof. I was a slave one time. I was a slave to something which is called sin. When the Lord Jesus died in my place, He counted that I died with him and therefore my old slave master sin has no more right to tell me what to do. And I must reckon this so. I must count on this. I must believe that this is so. I have no worries about my guilt. Why? Because I believe God's word that my sins are forgiven. I should have no worry about my being bossed around by sin any longer. if I believe God in the same way that I believe him about the guilt of my sins. The book of Romans takes up to the fifth chapter in verse eleven how we are delivered from the guilt of sin. And beginning with the twelve verses chapter five and going on through the eighth chapter he tells us how we're delivered from the power of sin. And one is just as real as the other, brother and sister. One is just as real as the other. And all of us believe, if we're Christians at all, we all believe that Christ died for our sins, and therefore there's no guilt charged to us, and we'll never be in hell. But we go right out and live on an elevator, up one day and down the next, and up again and down again, and trying and trying and trying to be good. This is what most Christians are doing. And nowhere in the New Testament did he ever tell you to try to be good, try to behave. He didn't tell you that. He said, I want you to believe that you were put to death with Christ. And now that you live, what are you to do? Verse thirteen, neither yield ye your members, the parts of your body and your faculties, your mind and so on. Don't yield those as instruments of unrighteousness under sin, but yield yourselves unto God as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under the law, but under grace. What then? Shall we sin because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid. Know ye not that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom you obey. You make your choice. Either you obey the old sinful nature and the old sinful urges, or you obey God. You can go back into slavery to sin if you choose to, or you can remain free if you choose to. Now we've got four verbs. The first one is no. K-N-O-W. You must know certain facts. This is the basis of everything that God does for us. He wants us to know certain facts. Once you know the fact that your sins were put away, you no longer have fear of guilt. Once you know the fact that you were put to death with Christ, you no longer feel like yielding yourselves to Satan. The second verb is, in verse eleven, reckon. Count it to be so. Because I know that it is so, I now count on it. Last year we had the very happy experience of being made an heir. first time I was ever left anything in a will. And it's a real nice feeling. A man down in Concordia, Kansas, with whom I've gotten acquainted to and is listening to radio broadcasts, had put me in his will in nineteen fifty-six. He was a dear brother, but he never given me anything while he was alive. But in nineteen fifty-six he put my name in his will that I was to have whatever car he was driving when he died. Although he was eighty years of age, he went and traded his old car in on the new one, and then died very few months after that, and I got word that the car was mine. Now, I did a very strange thing, with nothing but a letter in my hand. I made a trip all the way to Concordia Camp. and went to the address given there and accepted the keys and went and got in the car and drove it across the state line. That's a good way to get put in jail. Well, it is if the letter isn't valid. But because I believe the letter, I believe what the lawyers say, I believe that the car was mine, I appropriated it. And if you believe what God has for you, that's reckoning. that what you know is true. Now the third verb is yield. Once you believe and reckon upon this, then you have to yield. You have to give in. You still want your own way. That old nature inside of you says, I want to be my boss. I want to make the decisions in my life. But you decide then that the Lord is going to be Lord. He's going to make the decisions and you yield. But you don't just sit in a rocking chair and yield. You've got one more verb, and that verb is an active one, and that's obey. Once you yielded yourself to him, now you say, well, what do you want me to do, Lord? And you find out what he wants you to do, and you get busy and do it. What difference do you think this would make in your life if you really believed in this identification with the Lord Jesus Christ? I turn to the third one, Second Corinthians chapter three. Second Corinthians, the third chapter, and this one is occupation. The first part of the chapter tells about Moses going up on the mount, and when he saw God, he never got to see God face to face. He wanted to see God face to face, and God said, well, I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll put you in this cleft in the rock, and I'll put my hand over the rock, and after I've gone by, I'll take my hand away, and you'll get to see You'll get to see me going away. You'll get to see my back parts, but you won't get to see my face. I can't let you see my face. You see, Moses was under the law, and the law can't bring people into a face-to-face relationship with God. But in contrast to that, we're told in the following passages that God has now revealed himself to us face-to-face through the Lord Jesus Christ. Moses put a veil over his face, we told him in verse thirteen, that the children of Israel could not steadfastly look to the end of that which was abolished. That is, Moses put the veil over his face, first of all, because the people said, we can't stand to look at you, Moses. You've been up on the mount. You've been with God. Your face shines. This frightens us. We can't stand the glow. We can't stand to look at you. So he put a veil over his face. But then when the people disobeyed the law of God, the glory of God began to depart. And with that, the shine of his face began to depart. And he kept the veil on so that the people wouldn't know that the glory was departing. That's what he's saying here in this verse, that they could not steadfastly look to the end of that which was abolished. It was ending. It was going away. mind of the Shekinah glory in the book of Ezekiel just moves out of the temple and moves over the hill and it's gone and that's what the law has a declining glory but now he says we've got something better than that we've got something better than that we have the administration of the spirit the administration of righteousness and the administration of glory Read the whole chapter when you have time. Now he comes down to the seventeenth verse and says, Now the Lord is that spirit. And where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we, Christians, we all, this is not confined to apostles, this is not confined to missionaries, this is not confined to preachers, this is not confined to special saints of God, of any kind. This is all of us who are believers, but we all, with open face, no banging over our faces, not putting a cleft of a rock with God's hand over us so that we can't see him. We all, with open face, beholding us in the glass, the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image. What image? The image of his glory, his likeness. What makes people like somebody else, usually because they like somebody else? When you admire a person, you become like that person. I don't make any apology at all for the fact that I wear a little beard. I spent eight and a half years with A.N. O'Brien, and I love that man so much that I even wanted to have the same kind of cursive adornment that he had. And I've taken a lot of ribbing about it, but it doesn't bother me a bit. It's just one of the ways that I show that I appreciate that man. I hope I become like him in a lot of other ways. We become like those when we admire. Who do you admire? Oh, you say, I admire, what's his name? Koufax. Oh, he's my hero. Oh, man, if I could touch more like he does. That's my hero. Boy, do I feel sorry for you. Oh, he said, that's not my hero. My hero is the egghead, the intellectual, the PhD. That's my hero. I want to be like the professors and the colleagues. I feel even sorry for you. He said, that is my hero. My hero is the Wall Street tycoon, a man who has the touch of Midas. And every business he goes into makes him more money. That's a man I admire. I know what's going to happen to you. Your blood will turn to silver, and one of these days you'll clink into your grave. That's what will happen to you. Brother and sister, these are unworthy objects. we ought to be occupied with Christ. Just tell me this honestly. No, don't tell me. Just tell yourself honestly. How much time in an average day, you're sixteen hours out of bed. If you're, if you have eight hours sleep, you're sixteen hours out of bed. Some of that time you are occupied with some things You have to put your mind to it. But I'd say half of that time, you don't need your mind at all. You just put it in neutral. And it can just go almost anywhere that you want it to go. How much of that eight hours a day do you spend thinking about the Lord Jesus? This ought to make us all ashamed of ourselves. A person in love really in love, or a reasonable facsimile thereof, he is so, or she is so, occupied with the person, the loved one, that it just doesn't, anything, reminds them immediately of this one. They get to be an awful poor, you know. If you ever had to live in the same house with somebody in love, They just get to be, they get on your nerves because any subject you want to talk about immediately reminds them of this person. And they've got to bring this person into the conversation. They've got to talk about this person. They've got to tell you something about this person. Why? Why out of the abundance of the heart of the mouth speaketh. What do you talk about when you get to love the Christians? My friend AP Gibbs is telling about a young man who who never could talk about the Lord's things at all. He took no part in the young people's meeting, never got up in the prayer meeting, and Mr. Gibbs was disturbed about him. He said he knew that this man's father was a godly man and a capable man, and he knew the boy was doing well in college, and he was a nice young man, and he said, he said, why don't, said to him privately, why don't you take any part in the meeting? Well, he said, it's just not my gift, I guess, Mr. Gibbs. He said, I just, you know, I just don't seem to be able to talk like other people. But he said, after the young people's meetings over while they were sitting around having refreshments, he said, I heard somebody going a hundred miles an hour talking away over in the corner, and he said, here are all the young fellows around him, just listening, and he said he was telling them all about how to soup up a hot rod. He was telling them how to shave the head, and how to put on four-barrel carburetors, and whatever else there is that you do to them. And he was just going and going and going and they were all listening to him. And he was able just to tell them all about it. He said, I see it. I see it. He said, the young man's heart is a garage. And every time he opens his mouth, you can smell exhaust smoke and hear the clash of gears. And that's what's the matter with too many of us Christians today. I went to a meeting, a little meeting, that met in a home in the wheat country. Quite a ways from here. Don't try to guess who they were. It's a long time ago. Most of the men are dead. We were there. We sat there and remembered the Lord, and I thought it was a lovely meeting, and I thought the Lord Jesus drew near and was precious to us. And as soon as the last man prayed before any of us got up out of our seats, one of them looked across to the other one and said, Joe, how's your wheat doing? Brother, I never came from heaven to earth so fast in my life. I really hit bottom fast. How's your wheat doing? I don't misunderstand that there's nothing wrong with being concerned with your crops and with your families and with making a living and all of the other things, but what are you really occupied with? What fills your heart? Yes, the potter would like to make us. like his son. Is this what you want? Will you cooperate? It isn't enough just to sing, have thine own way, Lord. You've got to do a little cooperating. The sixth chapter of John says you've got to feed on Christ. The sixth of Romans says you've got to accept this fact and count upon this and reckon that you're no longer a servant to sin, but a servant of God. And the third chapter of the second Corinthians tells you that you've got to get your eyes on him instead of on the things of this world, the things that occupy us altogether too much.