And as we think about singing, I'm a little old-fashioned in some ways. I like the old line hymns, but sometimes we get into a little modern beat, I guess. But sometimes just to relax some of our folks that may be walking along in a little rut, I tell them, I said, I like rock and roll. And they said, you do. I said, I sure do. I said, my feet are on the rock. And my name was on the roll. So in that sense, I like rock and roll. So we have to keep those things just to laugh. But we're talking about the Bible this morning and the importance of the Word of God in our spiritual life, our spiritual birth, our spiritual growth. And just a little paragraph I found some time ago, and I've kind of kept it stuck in my Bible right along. And it's talking about the Bible. It says, this book, And the Bible is one book. It contains the mind of God, the state of man, the way of salvation, the doom of sinners, the happiness of believers, its doctrines are holy, its precepts are binding, its histories are true, and its decisions are immutable. Read it to be wise, believe it to be faith, practice it to be holy. It contains light to direct you, food to support you, and comfort to cheer you. It is the traveler's map, the pilgrim's staff, the pilot's compass, the soldier's sword, and the Christian's character. Here paradise is restored, heaven opens, and the gates of hell disclosed. Christ is its grand object. Our good is designed, and the glory of God is in. It should fill the memory. Rule the heart and guide the feet. Read it slowly, frequently, and prayerfully. It is given you in life. It will be opened in the judgment. It will be remembered forever. It involves the highest responsibility. It will reward the greatest labor. And will condemn all who trifle with his sacred content. That's true. But I rejoice in that as we think of the Word of God. It's everything that we need to know. And I've often said, if I were going to be set away perhaps like the Apostle John was on the Isle of Patna or Napoleon was, and I had the choice of one book, I believe I would take the Bible. I believe the Bible can tell me anything that I need to know that's worth knowing. And anytime I wanted the truth, I could always turn to the Bible. I was seeking for questions that pertains to life. I could find the answer in the Bible. There's no other book like it. I highly recommend to you the Bible, God's Word. But in spite of in America, the Bible, nearly being the bestseller, it seems a paradox that there are so many biblical illiterates in our country. They have no idea. what the Bible contains or even why it was written. It's like Brother Foster was telling me a fellow challenged him. He said, the Bible was written by men. He said, that's right, but he said, would you believe it any more if it was written by an elephant? Would that make you believe it? No, the Bible was written by men, but not just any man, or not just any group of men, but men that were chosen by God himself to put down his very mind using their personality and their words to convey to us the person of God and the person of the Lord Jesus. That we have salvation in terms of we can understand it. I think that's great of God. Otherwise we'd be totally confused. But this morning we talked about spiritual growth. Why should we grow as Christians? There's a reason for it. Let's turn to Ephesians chapter one and we'll begin reading at verse three. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ or in the heavenly, according as he has chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love, having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to ensign, according to the good praise of his will, to the praise of his glory, of the glory of his grace, wherein it made us accepted in the beloved, in whom we have received redempted through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace, wherein yet aboundeth toward us in all wisdom and prudence, having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure, which has purpose in himself, that in the dispensation of the fullness of time he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth, even in him, in whom also we have retained an inheritance. being predestinated according to the purpose of Him, who will work up all things after the counsel of His own will, that we should be to the praise of His glory. One of the reasons that God praised us is for His own glory. One of the reasons that God wants us to grow and become more like Christ has to do with His glory. See, we're told that none of us could strive for vain, empty glory. That's where we spend a lot of time. We spend a lot of time on that. We want to receive some recognition. We want to receive some sort of honor. We want to receive some kind of glory. But the truth of the word is that God has not left any room in his plan for you and I to glory or to bring glory to ourselves. Because if we do, that's vain, empty, glory. Not lasting. Because I've seen it in my life and I'm sure you have. Men will give you glory today and a club tomorrow. Or maybe glory this morning and club this evening. That's just the fickleness of man. So God does not want us to get involved in that area. But the whole aim of the church... The whole aim of our Christian lives is that we might mature so in the ultimate end we will bring glory and recognition and honor to God. Not to our family, not to ourselves, but to him that loved us and gave himself for us. But we cannot do that unless we grow. The first thing we can't do it unless we know. First we must know and then we will grow. So the whole aim is the glory of God. So we find that twice in this portion of the pages to the praise of the glory of His grace. And you know that's what God's going to be doing with us in glory? God's going to put us on display. And what we will do in heaven is reflect the glory of God. When I see what the angels, the Bible says the angels desire to look into this thing. They desire to look into this salvation. And I expect if I was an unfallen angel, I'm going to look into it too. I'd be saying, what's this all about? See, the angels were there when there were other myriads of fallen angels that rebelled and fell with Satan. There was no salvation for them. They'll never be redeemed. They'll never know anything about the grace of God. And yet here, fallen man, he then, and God takes the very sinner, an attraction of heaven, the Lord Jesus Christ, and brings him down into the world, send him down here, to redeem fallen man. And the angels desire to look into that. How could these characters sin? And God redeemed them and he's going to lift them up higher than us. That is a great mystery. The angels desire to look into that. I remember reading a story once. It was something like a dream. This fellow had a vision of heaven. And he said when the Lord Jesus Christ came back to heaven, The angels were asking questions. Where have you been? On the earth, what did you do down there? Well, I went down my created creatures to sin. And I sent my son down and he went to redeem them. So they began to talk to the Lord. Well, how did you redeem them? He told them about the cross. He said, well, how many of you saved? He said, well, when I left, I just left a little faithful flock down there. And they're going to finish the work. They're going to make me known to the world. And those angels almost slipped. They said, you're going to lead such an important task to fallen creatures whom you've redeemed? He said, yes. They're going to go out and let the whole world know? He said, yes. You left that in the hands of sinful redeemed men? He said, yes. He said, suppose they fail. The Lord looked at him and said, I have no other plan. He let that grab you. The Lord has no other plan. There's no one else that God has left that He has redeemed. Of course, the heavens declare the glory of God. That language is spoken everywhere. But God expects you and I to grow and live so that we will reflect the glory of God. That's what God is saying when he says, let your light so shine. Let your light so shine. that men may see your good work. They in turn will begin to glorify God. You see the awesome responsibility we have? That's why we're told that we need to grow. The purpose of our spiritual growth is that we might bring glory to God. And then look at verse twelve that we, the redeemed, should be to the praise of His glory who first trusted in Christ. What a wonderful thing it is today to trust in Christ. I'm glad we don't have to trust in our work. I'm glad we don't have to trust in our religious. We trust in a person and we trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now when Christ was on earth, He had one thing in mind and that was the glory of the Father. Even salvation was to the glory of God. And you know, the only time I've heard people say, well, Jesus Christ was a revolutionary. He went into the temple and he up got the table. And if he was back here now, he said, I'm getting off. No. The only time that Jesus Christ displayed righteous indignation is when the glory of his Father was at stake. He said, my Father has made this a house of prayer. You've made it a den of thieves. And he was concerned about the glory of God. Would to God today, did you and I, individually and collectively, be concerned about the glory of God? That solved ninety-nine percent of our problems. That we were concerned about the glory of God. So the Word of God teaches us concerning the glory of God. And our God is a God of glory. He's a God of glory. Now he has an incestor glory that you and I cannot add to and we can't subtract from it. For what we do that's not cloud or take away the glory of God. That's what a lot of people are concerned about today, what they see before all of these leaders. That does not dim the glory of God at all. God is still God. He's still a God of glory. And that's the one we love and that's the one we serve. But the Word of God says that some hearing things must be. Some here it is, must be, that the true believers will even manifest, so that we can keep right on bringing glory to God. God hasn't lost any glory. That's an impossibility for God to lose glory. He has an insensitive glory that's all his. I might add, the only glory that you and I have is that what he gives to us. We have no insensitive glory. We don't have it. But the only glory you and I have is that glory that He bestows upon us. So we look at that, and we might say, when we look at our present world, let's look at Romans chapter eight. Romans chapter eight. looking at verse seventeen. Or verse eighteen. For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed. You see, the beloved, right ahead of us is glory. And all the glory that is God, and all the glory that is the Lord Jesus Christ, He's going to share with us. And that's what Paul is saying. The sufferings of this present moment, the rejection that we face in this world. That's what Brother Ferris was saying. God only knows families and nations. But the thing is, if we live godly in this Christ-rejecting world, We're going to suffer some persecution. That's just as much as promise as John three sixteen. Yes, and all the will of God in this present world shall suffer persecution. But the joy of it is that the Lord Jesus Christ says there's going to be a day that I'm going to share my glory with you. And it's always suffering in glory. When Christ came, it was the cross. And then he said, Lord, give me back the glory that I had with you before the world was. But there had to be a cross. And the word of God says that the glory that shall be revealed and the glory that we shall be sharing is not worthy to even be compared with the little suffering you and I go down through here. But most of us want to shun that. We want the glory and not the suffering. That's what Paul said. All that I might know him and the power of his resurrection. But he also said in the fellowship of his suffering. And Paul said it's not even worthy to be compared. I don't know all what heaven's going to be like, but I know enough to get me excited. I know enough to make me want to go there right quick. I remember one night we were together and we were talking about our glorified body. And I guess our imagination just ran wild. And we thought about, you know, these super bodies we were going to have. And we went back to John and said, when the Lord came in, he just walked through the wall and nobody opened the door. And man, we got excited. And one fellow jumped up and he says, I know why we're going to have a glorified body. And we felt like, why? And he says, man, when we see the Lord Jesus Christ and see God in all of his glory, he said, if we were in these bodies, we'd pop our skin. We'd go pop our skin. We could take it. Because, I mean, you can know enough now just reading and hearing the message, man, you get goosebumps all over you. You're ready to go. Where do you want to go, Gloria? And that's what God is talking about. But in the meantime, He's left us here to live and to grow and to walk and to talk as sons of God. And the whole aim of that is that he might receive the glory and the honor and the praise. Who is worthy of any glory anyway? Are you worthy of glory? Who is? Who is worthy of glory besides God himself and beside his son, the Lord Jesus Christ? And that's what the angels say. You go back to Revelations four, Revelations five, you hear that great crescendo in heaven and they're praising God, the cause of creation. Who are they giving glory to? The Lord Jesus. You go over into Revelation chapter five, you hear that great crescendo again, bringing glory and honor and wisdom and power to the Lord Jesus Christ. Why are they singing that song? Because of redemption. That's what redemption is all about. So that we redeemed might bring glory to God. So you might ask, what is the greatest dream in the world? What's the greatest theme in the world? Some would say, well, money, love, marriage, security, freedom, status, pleasure, happiness, peace. But those are not the greatest, that's not the greatest theme in the world. You know, the greatest theme in the world is the glory of God. That's the greatest theme that you and I believe is to be occupied with, is the glory of God. The West... Minister's statement of faith as an old Presbyterian thing, but they were on the mark. They said the whole duty of man is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever. How many of you are enjoying God today? That's what God meant. To enjoy God. To enjoy God. I'm not talking about enduring. I know a lot of people just enduring salvation. No, we are enjoying salvation. How many of you are enjoying life? I enjoy life. Like the fellow said, when he used to drink a lot, he said, when he'd wake up in the morning with that hangover, he said, good Lord, morning. But when he got saved, his head got clear. He said, good morning, Lord. He began to enjoy something different. So from God's viewpoint, there's only one answer to the greatest dream in the world, is the glory of God. And that's the sum total for Christian living. Christian living isn't to give us something that we can put our halo on and march around and talk about how spiritual we are. It isn't just so we can win a crown. I got a rude awakening on that one because I used to think, man, I just want to win one crown. And I said, when I get up in heaven, I'm going to put that thing on a Johnny animal. Man, don't touch me. I'm gone. I got near a crown. But that was self-glory. Then I woke up to the fact that everybody that had a crown was going to cancel the defeat of the Lord. That brought me up. But I prayed God for that. So the whole thing, the major point of our having the Holy Spirit. And that's the theme of Christianity. Christ is you. The hope of glory. I thank God for that we have a hope of glory. I thank God for that. We're just as sure of glory as we are. We're breathing right now. Why do we believe that? Because the word of God says, Christ is in you, the hope of glory. And it seems to indicate that if we have that hope in us, we purify ourselves even as he is pure. It's a purifying hope. How many of you believe that the Lord Jesus Christ would come at any given moment? That would affect our lives. If we really believe this, I'm not talking about up here. We really believed it. But there are some people who really don't believe it. I ran into a lady once, the professor believed it, but I know she didn't. She called me up and said, come over, because she wanted to talk to me. I went over. And when she let me in, I could see all this beautiful carpet. She said, Brother Billis, we cannot have a Bible club here anymore. I said, why, also this new carpet. The kids won't wipe their feet and they'll just dirty up this new carpet. And I tried to persuade her. I said, I wasn't making any headway. So finally, I said, well, sure. The Lord blessed you. And I got ready to go. She followed me to the porch. Then she slipped into her spiritual gear. Oh, the Lord is coming. That he could come today. It wouldn't be wonderful if you and I were raptured together from this porch. Okay, that would be great. But what are you going to do with the rug? See, I get the message. She was limping off something she didn't really believe. Well, I believe this. And I, sometime I'm going to my wife, you know, if I get a pair of pants or jackets and it's a conference or a prayer meeting, I wear a tent. She said, what about Sunday? I said, Lord, my tongue. What's that have to do with it? I said, if any unfaith were in my clothes, I will have had them all on at least one time. I'm not leaving no new clothes, no new card dying for these guys. Because we have that hope in us, the hope of glory. And then the Word of God tells us that the major goal for man on earth, the main reason why God came to redeem us, the main purpose in our lives, the main purpose in all creation is to glorify God. The heavens declare the glory of God. And you look up at the sky. And you can... The evidence is just overwhelming of this glorious God we talk about. We touched on that this morning about the atheist. Well, I don't personally believe there is such a thing as an atheist anyway. And sometime when a guy says, I'm an atheist, I said, you mean you're ungodly. I don't give him any dignity to this stuff. I said, you mean you're an ungodly unbeliever. Oh, no, I mean, oh, no, you mean you're ungodly. You mean you don't have any hope. See, because if a person tells you an atheist, you know the basis of atheism, the person who tells you that, he's got to tell you that I've been everywhere, I've seen everything, I know everything, and on the basis of those facts, I'm an atheist. Who can make that statement to be for real? Nobody you know. The only person I know that knows everything is the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, there's no such thing as an atheist. It's just a kind of a dignified title for an ungodly sinner, for an unconcerned, But we don't have to get struck in these areas. People walk up there and believe in God. I talk to young people in the college, I don't believe in God. I say, I see it. Don't you want to talk about it? I say, look here, I hear it's the feet of higher learning. I said, I'm not too smart. But I'm smart enough to waste. I'm so smart I'm not going to waste and ask me and talk about a God that doesn't exist. God doesn't exist. What are we going to talk about? I think a few young Christians in here. See, a lot of people push you into a corner trying to prove something that God doesn't even deal with. God never tries to prove the existence of God. It starts out in Genesis one, one in the beginning. God has a sixty-six book that talks about that God. He doesn't try to prove his existence. But he really, we get swath on this. And then what we do, we don't bring any glory to God. We just bring glory to our ignorance. So the Word of God tells us, let's look at psalm sixteen psalm sixteen quickly psalm sixteen let's look at verses eight and nine i have set the lord before me i have set the lord always before me because he is at my right hand i shall not be moved therefore my heart is glad And my glory rejoices. My flesh also shall rest in hope. Now, I see what God is saying. He's giving us the change. He said, if you will put me before you, if you have a desire to bring glory to me, I'll make a trade with you. I'll give you my joy. Ask yourself a question. Do you find a person that's not living to the glory of God? Does that person have joy in their life? Do you think so? I don't think so but you find a person that has God before them the glory of God before them and their whole desire to please God and bring glory to God and God sucks our life so full of his joy that we we almost come apart with the sheer delight of it so when we put God before to glorify him God will just so work in our life and he'll just help us to bring that glory to him so we look at this whole matter of the glory of God. And that's why we must think of spiritual maturity in this area. I believe it's summed up in the life which concentrates and focuses on the persons of God until we are caught up and lost in His Majesty. Isn't that what worship is all about? I trust if you haven't already started working on it, if you leave here and go home this evening. and you look into the Word of God and you get so taken up with God, the Father, you get so taken up with God the Son. And I'll guarantee you, when you come into a worship meeting, it'll take on a whole new meaning. Because many times we come, we're not occupied with the glory of God. We're occupied with this brother over here that we don't get along with. We're occupied about other things. But let's get occupied and get lost in the majesty and the glory of God. It'll transform your life. It'll change your attitude. It'll bring spiritual maturity into your experiences. So the glory of God is our utmost aim. And as we take the word of God, it will change our life from one glory to another. One of my favorite, my favorite, favorite verse of the scripture found in First Lesser Onion, where it says, and Paul writes to the Thessalonians, he said, when we came to you, and I came to you, and I shared with you, what I said, you did not receive it as the word of man. You received it as it indeed is the word of God. And I've heard people quote that and stop. But I think the most important part follows it. You received it as it indeed is the word of God which effectively worketh in you. See, whenever we come to this Bible, we don't come for exchange of ideas. We don't come for exchange of ideas. God is speaking. And when we take this Bible, and we're convinced that this Bible is the Word of God. It doesn't contain the Word of God. It is the Word of God. And whenever we read this Bible, God is speaking to us. And it makes all the difference in the world. Even sometimes, whenever we're in a meeting, we go away impressed with the speaker. Oh, wasn't that brother of Jesus? We got to get that brother back. See, we're taking up with the brother. And the whole aim of the brother to get you taking up with the Lord. Get you taking up with him. When you get taken up with our brothers, they ain't taking up with nobody. You get taken up with the Lord. And that's the whole aim of the Word of God. The Word of God is alive. And it works in our life. And it makes us more like Christ. And if we're talking about spiritual growth, we talked about this morning, if in our spiritual growth, if our life is not becoming more Christ-like, then we're not growing. We're not growing. The proof of the pudding is when we began to reflect the life of Christ, the attitude of Christ, the actions of Christ, even the reactions of Christ. But he reacted to a lot of things. But he would act a lot differently. How would you feel if somebody walked up to you and said, look, you're an illegitimate child? I've got a father. I've got a father. We'd be right on that thing. He wouldn't even open his mouth. It didn't bother him. Why? Because he knew who he was. People walk up and say, well, I don't believe you're a Christian. That's your problem. That's not mine. I don't want a Christian. It doesn't bother me. You don't know Christ. Yes, I do know Christ. How do you know him? I have fellowship with him. It's like when they came out with that God is dead. One Christian came out with a sign. He said, I know God isn't dead because I talked to him this morning. And all that brings glory to God. To believe God's word. For what he said, brings glory to God. See, you can doubt my word, but God forbid we ever doubt the word of God. Because if we doubt the word of God, that reflects upon his integrity. Then the word of God tells us that we should live and adorn the doctrine of God. Now we cannot adorn God, but we can adorn what God teaches. That's what the Bible is teaching us. And see, when we look at what the Bible tells us, it tells us a whole lot of things to put off. But it tells us what to put on. So the Lord doesn't leave you standing up here unclosed. He said, if you put off line, start telling the truth. If you put off late, start working. What you take off, God gives you something else to put on. And the whole aim is that we might adorn the doctrine of God. In other words, what we're telling to people and bringing glory to God, we have to live it out. It isn't just enough we preach. We have to live. It isn't just enough we've witnessed by lips. We have to live it out. And when we do that, we'll bring glory to God. So our God is a God of glory. The law came by Moses, the grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. And Jesus Christ is the perfect replica, the perfect expression of the glory of God. And that's what he came to do to bring many sons to earth. It's the glory. That's the whole essence of our spiritual growth. My spiritual growth isn't to have people say, well, Brother Bill, he's such a spiritual giant. Oh, he's grown so much for the last time he was here. But if my growing... isn't bringing glory to the Lord Jesus, then excuse my English, but I ain't growing. You're not growing until people look at you and they see a reflection of the Lord Jesus. And then they begin to glorify him. So the whole aim of the assembly, the whole aim of the church, the whole aim of redemptive, is that we might bring glory to our glorious God. In other words, in the vocabulary of the world, our whole aim is to make God look good. That's what it's all about. To make God look good. What makes you sick? Glory of God. What makes you love your enemy? Glory of God. That's what it's all about. See, it's so hard task for me to love people that rub me the right way. My problem is those that rub me the wrong way. See, and that's where the glory and the man that defiled God comes into play. And when I can do that, it brings glory to God because they know that there's nobody else who can give glory. If we've got love in our life, and we have love in our life, that brings glory to God. Because apart from the love of God being shed upon our heart, we couldn't love God. Any victory you have in your life, don't you stick your chest out and talk about where you're going and how much you're going, all that it is that God is working in you, both the will and the do of his good pleasure. And what's his good pleasure? His own glory. I thank God that He that begins that work in us will continue to work in us until we stand complete in His presence. And you know where we'll be then? In the glory. That's what God is working toward. So the whole aim of Christian growth is to bring glory to God. I trust that if we leave here later today that our threats will be the glory of God. I trust when we meet in our assembly the glory of God. I trust that you plan for next year's assembly the glory of God. that all things be done to the glory of God. You know why? Because God has said that no flesh will glory in the present. That's the whole aim of God. You see, isn't God selfish? Because he wants all the glory. Well, he's the only one who deserves glory. I don't deserve any glory. So make that your life easy. to bring glory to God. Let your lives, let our lives so shine. Let us live so like Christ that the world may behold that, and they in turn will begin to glorify our Father, which is in heaven. The ultimate theme of the whole world is the glory of God. The chief end of man, especially the chief end of the redeemed, is to bring glory to God. and to enjoy Him forever. So the Lord Jesus Christ says, I want them to be with me where I am, where I am, that they might behold my glory. I don't know about you, but I'm looking forward to that. I'm looking forward to that. I'm looking forward to that day when the Lord Jesus Christ puts us on display. And that these are to the praise of my glory. It won't be unfallen angels. Do you know what it will be? Fallen, redeemed sinners. These are to the praise of my glory. But I think that glorifying him starts down here. Loving Father again, we just thank you for these moments. These thoughts. Breath them to our hearts and our lives that we might bring glory to our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.