At the Surrey Tabernacle, Borough Road
“But you are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you.” Romans 8:9
“THERE is a path,” said Holy Writ, “which the vulture's eye has not seen, and which the lion's whelps have not trodden;” and it is that path of holiness into which the ransomed shall be brought, and in which they shall walk. It is that which the New Testament calls the narrow way, the strait gate, and the narrow way that leads unto life. Into that narrow path I hope to be able this morning ministerially to enter, and to walk therein. How many I shall take with me in this path, how many of you will be able to see, in the light of what is said, that you are brought into this path that leads unto everlasting life, I must leave with the Lord, and to your own consciences; but I do not leave it either with the Lord or with your own consciences carelessly, but prayerfully, because my prayer is not only that those who are brought into that narrow way, that are led by the Spirit of God, may see that the Lord has so dealt with them, but that those who are not brought into that narrow way, that it may become in their hearts and soul as concern to be brought into that only way that leads to everlasting life. You must ever remember that while the grace of God is essential to our salvation, and the substitution of the Lord Jesus Christ is essential to our salvation, equally essential to our salvation is the work of the Holy Spirit in the heart, for except a man be born of the Spirit of God, he cannot be saved. The work of salvation is the work of the Eternal Three. And the Lord would not undertake to do what the creature can do, so that there is no department in salvation matters in which the creature can do anything essential toward his own welfare. Hence it is that the Lord has undertaken to do all that which is essential to be done, and the happy consequences, as described in the word of God, must follow this wondrous work of the blessed God.
I have, then, this morning in the first place to describe, as carefully as I can, what it is to be in the flesh. Secondly, what it is, in contrast to this, to be in the Spirit. Thirdly and lastly, the indwelling of the Spirit of God in you. “But you are not in the flesh,” said the apostle, “but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you.”
First, then, I notice what it is to be in the flesh. What are we to understand by this? To be in the flesh means, first, to be in a state of ignorance of the things of the Spirit. Hence, the things of the Spirit are foolishness to the natural man. He receives them not; he cannot perceive them; they are foolishness unto him. Hence the apostle says, in this same chapter, and we shall take that fivefold representation which he here gives of being in the flesh, “For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit.” Now perhaps I had better here just give a slight sample of the things of the Spirit, and then that will perhaps open up, in some slight measure, what is meant by those who are after the flesh, minding the things of the flesh, and not, the things of the Spirit. I will give a sample, first, here is in Christ Jesus exemption from condemnation, “There is no condemnation, to them that are in Christ Jesus.” This is one of the things of the Spirit. The things of the Spirit mean the revelations of the Spirit, and the things which the Holy Spirit reveals; and so that completeness that is in Christ is one of the things which the Holy Spirit reveals. He shows the perfection of the righteousness and atonement of Jesus Christ; and to him who is brought to receive that testimony of Christ in the understanding of it and in the love of it, unto such there is no condemnation. This is one of the things of the Spirit. Now the man that is under the law, he does not mind this he passes by this. It is no real concern to him. But it is a concern to the man that is after the Spirit. Completeness in Christ. Oh! he says, I see here everything I can need. But the man, suppose he be a professor or a minister, that does not understand this completeness that is in Christ, what is such a minister like unto a poor convinced sinner? I will show you what he in like. He who is after the flesh in his religion, and not after the Spirit, and does not understand this completeness that is in Christ, he is to a poor convinced sinner like the priest and the Levite, they passed by on the other side. But the man who is acquainted with that completeness in Christ hears a poor sinner wounded, and stripped, and helpless. What is to be done? The gospel comes, and by the completeness that is in Christ pours in oil and wine; by the completeness that is in Christ takes the poor sinner in hand and takes care of him; by the completeness that is in Christ, God himself becomes the surely, Christ himself becomes the surety. That is one of the things of the Spirit, which they that are after the flesh do not mind, but those that are after the Spirit do mind this. The second thing which is passed by, we will come to a closer definition presently of what it is to be in the flesh, the second thing that is passed by, by those that are after the flesh, is that freedom that is in Christ. The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, mind, the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, no doubt, as I repeat these words, several scriptures may occur to you, “He that believes has everlasting life;” “He that lives and believes in me shall never die,” Now the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, that is the spirit's law; and if you ask what this spirit's law is, my answer is this: that Christ is not a priest after the law of a carnal commandment, but after the law of an endless life, and that is the spirit's law. And so, the law of the Spirit of life, where death is swallowed up in victory, has made me free from the law of sin and death. This is another revelation of the Holy Spirit which the spiritual man minds. Oh, he says, is it possible that I should stand before a holy God as free from sin, as I stand in Christ, as Christ himself is? Is it possible that I stand before a holy God as free from the possibility of death, from the possibility of ever dying, as Christ himself is now free from the possibility of ever dying? He is our life, “When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall we also appear in glory with him.” The third revelation of the Holy Spirit is the wondrous humiliation of the Savior, “For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh,” which of course is a relative form, does not mean that the law is weak in its self, but relatively. There we lay, and the laws says, You are dead, and I can't help you; you are guilty, and I can't help you out of that guilt; you are unholy and unrighteous, and I can't help you out of that unholiness and unrighteousness; you are far from God, and I can't help you out of it. I can damn you in it, I can curse you for it, but I cannot help you out or it. The law, therefore, is strong to curse, but weak to help. What then is to be done? “God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin,” for a sin offering, that he might take sin, and bear sin, and atone for sin, suffer for sin, and put sin away, and thus destroy the works of the devil, “sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh,” that is, in Christ Jesus the Lord. There sin met its condemnation. It meets conviction in you: God convinces you, and shows you how you are condemned by sin; but its penal condemnation was in Christ Jesus the Lord. And now mark the apostle's language; that the Lord Jesus Christ, thus enduring this, brings about this great end, “that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.” The righteousness of the law I take there to be the righteousness which the law requires. Hence some of the learned read it in that way, “that the requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us.” Does the law require me to be holy? Jesus Christ, by what he has done, makes me what the law requires. Does the law require of me to be divinely, and eternally, and infallibly righteous? Jesus Christ makes me what the law requires. Does the law require me to love God and to love man? Jesus Christ makes me what the law requires. Does the law require me to be holy, just, and good? Jesus Christ makes me holy, just, and good, all that the law requires. Now these are only a sample of the things of the Spirit. They that are after the flesh do not live upon the completeness that is in Christ; the freedom from sin and death by the Spirit's law we have in Christ; those that are after the flesh know not what it is for their souls and hearts to be melted down, and their deepest sympathies brought into action, by the great truth being endeared unto them that Jesus Christ, the God-man mediator, was made in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, a sin offering, that sin may be condemned on him, that we may escape the condemnation; and hereby the law is magnified, the covenant confirmed, the promise made yea and amen. They that are in the flesh do not mind these things. “To be carnally minded is death.” Now just notice the progress of the fleshly mind, and then you may notice the character of the spiritual mind in contrast. First, “they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh;” that is, they pass by the things of the Spirit, they pass by the completeness that is in Christ; at least, if they make any reference, it is only like referring to a dictionary for some hard word; that serves just for the moment, but not that which they live upon; and they pass by the completeness of freedom we have from sin and death by Christ Jesus; they do not live upon the substitutional work of Christ, as being made in the likeness of sinful flesh; and they do not live upon that completeness of the requirements of the law being fulfilled in what Christ has constituted us. “To be carnally minded is death.” Now we are to preach the gospel to every creature. Let me say a word now to you all. How is it with you? “To be carnally minded is death.” Now the Christian can understand that in the minor sense, but we are speaking now of essential matters. What is that completeness that is in Christ to some of you? Why, a mere hearsay thing; you never meditate upon it with any pleasure; you never sigh out in secret a prayer to God that you may be found in that completeness that is in Christ. What is that freedom from sin and death that we have by the law of the Spirit, the law of everlasting life? You do not sigh under a sight and sense of your accumulated corruptions. Do you feel within, and sometimes think, what a happy man you will be when brought into the glorious liberty of the sons of God? No, you are dead to that, no concern about it. And as to the Savior being made in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, where sin is condemned in the flesh, you hold it perhaps as a doctrine, you have heard of it, and you have a natural faith in it; but at the same time there is nothing in it that endears the great God to you; there is nothing in it that dethrones the world, that dethrones error, that dethrones that abominable piece of hypocrisy called “universal charity,” which is nothing else but universal delusion. You are so dead those of you that know not the Lord, you are so dead to that freedom from sin and death that the believer has in him, and so dead to that substitutional perfection, and so dead to that establishment of the law for we do not through faith make void the law, but establish the law. Now you that are in the flesh are dead to these things; but those of you that are in the Spirit are not dead to these things. You know your need; you know that all the life you have is by these things; all the hope you have is by these things; all the access to God, all you ever expect, is by these things. First, then, the fleshly mind passes them by; secondly, the fleshly mind is dead to them; but the spiritual mind cannot pass them by. You have come this morning for the very purpose of hearing about them, and I have come, I hope, in the Spirit of God, with a solemn desire, according to the humble gifts I have, and I can't preach with gifts I don't possess, to testify of the same things. But now, notice, why is the natural man dead to these things? “Because,” says the apostle, “the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.” Enmity against him. What a state we are in by nature, friends, are we not, to be enmity, fighting against, and enmity against God? The completeness that is in Christ, enmity against that; the freedom we have by the law of liberty in Christ, enmity against that; what Jesus Christ has there achieved, enmity against that; the state of acceptance in which we stand, the righteousness of the law, the judgments of the law, being fulfilled in us in what the Lord has constituted us. Now the carnal mind is enmity against these things, blindly so, I grant; I say, blindly so, I grant; but there is the enmity. You will observe that this carnal mind gets worse and worse as it goes on. First it minds the things of the flesh, and passes by the things of the Spirit. If the man be an irreligious man, why, then he does mind the things of the flesh only with a vengeance; and if he be a religious man, his religion is made up of human inventions, Scripture perversions, human ceremonies, and human doings, and thus he minds his bodily exercises and the things of the flesh, but passes by the things of the Spirit. So, the carnal mind is enmity, but the spiritual mind is love. It embraces the Eternal Three by the completeness that is in Christ; it embraces the Eternal Three by the freedom that is in Christ; it embraces the Eternal Three in what the Savior has suffered, and by what he has suffered; it embraces the Eternal Three in the requirements of the law having been met. “Loose him, and let him go,” is the language of the gospel concerning every one that is thus brought to feel his need of these things. But not only then, when we were dead in sin, or in the law, did we pass by these things, not only were we dead to them, not only were we enmity against them, but here are two more dreadful clauses we were under. It says here, in the verse preceding our text, “So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God.” To live and die, and be displeasing to God! to live and die under the wrath of God! “They that are in the flesh cannot please God.” They may shed tears in abundance; they may acquire knowledge of all sorts; they may have vast confidence, achieve wonderful things; they may give all their goods to feed the poor, and their body to be burned, yet Cain cannot please God, for “without faith it is impossible to please God;” and “whatsoever is not of faith is sin.” So, they cannot please God. Whether they are moral or immoral, let them be wise or foolish, twist and turn, and do whatever they may, they cannot please God; for he that is under the law is under the voice of the law, for what the law says, it says to them that are under the law; and the law says that he that offends in one point is guilty of the whole; they cannot please God. And the reason of this is, I think, obvious; they do not receive what God so delights in, namely, the completeness of his dear Son; they do not feel their need of what God so delights in, that law of liberty by which his dear children are freed from the law of sin and death; he will not see his children in trouble without seeing them out of it; no. They do not receive the substitutional work of Christ in the sympathies of it. Look at this verse, “he took upon him the likeness of sinful flesh!” Can any Christian contemplate that, meditate upon it, without more or less feeling the deepest sympathy? Dear, dear Redeemer! While he took our nature, and in him was no sin, yet he took upon him all the sorrows of sin, all the griefs of sin, all the bruises of sin, all the wounds of sin, all the chastisement of sin, all the stripes of sin; he, the sufferer, where this is realized and known, such an one will appreciate unboundedly, for I am not speaking extravagantly when I say so, the unfathomable sufferings of the dear Savior. But the natural man does not appreciate it, does not stand amazed at it, is not astonished with it, is not carried away by it, his soul is never made by it like the chariots of Ammi-nadib; therefore, he cannot please God. The natural man cannot rejoice that the judgments of the law are all met? He cannot do so, and therefore cannot please God; for nothing, since the fall of man, out of Christ, is pleasing to God. Everything in this broad world from age to age is infinitely offensive to the great God, for sin is everywhere. But in Christ Jesus there is no sin; and the people, having got where there is no sin, are pleasing to God. Well, now, I must leave you to judge, my hearer, where you are, whether you pass by these eternal things, or whether they have so taken hold of you that you cannot pass by them; whether you are dead to these eternal things, or whether you are so alive to them, that your lamentation is that you are not more alive; whether you hate these eternal things, or whether your enmity is slain, and you are brought to receive the truth, and bind it, I was going to say, around your heart, and to sing with Watts,
“Should all the forms that men devise Assault my faith with treacherous art, I'd call them vanity and lies, And bind the gospel to my heart.”
Now, if you are in that state, namely, you pass by these things, dead to them, and hate them, then you cannot please God; no, can't please him in anything. There isn't a thought, bear with me while I say it, they are solemn matters, there isn't a thought, yes, every idle word, nor a work, in your whole life, moral or immoral, for which God will not curse you. If you pray, your prayer shall be an abomination to God; if you make a profession, it shall be a cursed profession; God will curse you as one twice dead, dead in the first Adam, and in a dead profession. What a direful state is ours by nature! On the other hand, if you are brought to receive these blessed testimonies, and to feel that they are the very element of your soul, that they are your hope, and that you love this covenant God after this order, then not a fault will be either laid or suffered to be laid to your charge; not a spot shall be found on you; not a wrinkle, after sorrow and old age have done all they can to wrinkle the brow; yet all this shall pass away, eternal youth spring into being; not a spot, not a wrinkle, not a sigh, not a tear; God shall wipe away all tears from off all faces. I am sure the holy apostle is right when he said, “To be spiritually minded”, that is, to be minded to these things, “is life and peace.”
I secondly notice the transition from the flesh to the Spirit; for all of us by nature are in the flesh, this fleshly, carnal, awful state. In the transition from the flesh to the Spirit there are no less than four deaths concerned. And there is in that transition a personal experience, which none but the people of God ever did or ever can understand. I am afraid that tried by the test I am about to advance, thousands upon thousands of professors in our day would come short. There are no less than four deaths concerned in our transition from our state by nature into a state of called in our text being in the Spirit; but then, in order to understand this, we must know a little of what the apostle knew the Romans understood, the Christians in Rome. “I speak,” said he, “to them that know the law.” And the preceding chapter, the 7th, from which I am now quoting, time does not allow me to enter into its details, but that chapter shows what the apostle means by knowing the law, that is, by knowing it in its convincing power, in its killing power. When the commandment comes, when a sinner is thoroughly convinced of what he is why, he falls into black despair, I mean, when he stands before the law. I have already given a sample of the law; he that offends in one point is guilty of the whole. Now if you know this, have been made to see this and to feel this, what will be the result? The result will be that you will feel, and let us see if you have experienced this, because all of us by nature have a hope, but it is a false hope, what a solemn matter it is to know what it is for this false hope to be taken from us, and a true hope given unto us! Remember, there is no true hope without the immediate gift of God; he has given us a good hope through grace. Now when the law is thus known in its majesty, such an one sinks into self-despair. Ah, he says, hitherto I thought, from the comparative goodness of my character as compared with some that I knew, I had hope, but now I see I have no hope. I see I have been judging by a wrong rule; I have been hitherto comparing myself to others; and though I may have faults that others have not, yet others have faults that I have not, and at any rate, upon the whole, I am better than the rest. That is the general conclusion of the natural man. But when the commandment comes in, when the law comes in with “Pay what you owe;” when that comes into the soul, “He that offends in one point” Is that it? is that it? Then it is no use to compare myself with others; it is no use to look around and say, “If there is no hope for me, that have been so good from my youth up, what will become of that man? No use now, if that's it.” You sink into self-despair. I speak to them that thus know the law. What is the result? You become dead to all hope of ever doing anything holy enough, righteous enough, or good enough, for God to accept. You go a little farther, and the apostle, describing what he was in the eye of the law, says, “The law is spiritual, but I am carnal.” Could anything be worse? Now notice, “I am carnal.” Let me give you five ideas of being carnal. We have noticed four of them. First, the law is spiritual and I am carnal, I pass by spiritual things; the law is spiritual, but I am so carnal I am dead to spiritual gospel things; the law is spiritual, but I am so carnal I am enmity against sovereign grace, and that eternal triumph the saints shall realize; the law is spiritual, but I am so carnal I see I am offensive to God in my righteousness's as well as in my unrighteousness's, for my righteousness's are as filthy rags. Fifthly, the law is spiritual, but I am so carnal that I am thus walking after the flesh; and if you live after the flesh, you shall die; we are dead spiritually, we shall die naturally, and then comes the second death; the word die there is a kindred term to that of damnation; you shall be damned if you walk after the flesh; if you live passing by these spiritual things, dead to them, enmity against them, displeasing to God, it you thus live and thus die, you are lost, and lost forever. Well, let this be opened up to you. But if, on the other hand, you mortify this Pharisaic body; as the apostle says, “I keep under my body,” this body of carnal enmity against the truth, “and bring it into subjection; lest when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway;” as though he should say, If grace didn't enable me to keep my unbelief down, I should become an unbeliever, I should die in unbelief; if grace didn't enable me to keep my enmity down, for there are many things, in the mysterious dealings of God, to provoke the enmity that is in the nature even of the Christian; and if grace didn't enable me to keep my enmity down, I should die in enmity; and if grace didn't enable me to keep my carnality down, I should cast away God's truth, and then that would cast me away. “Least I should be a castaway.” He knew he should not be a castaway; but then, at the same time, he knew that he had those elements in his nature, that if left to himself he must be a castaway. “The law is spiritual, but I am carnal; sold,” notice that, there is something worse. Now, who sold me? Sold ourselves; “sold yourselves for nothing;” we have sold ourselves to Satan, to sin, to the world, to the flesh, to self, to hell itself; we are all hell slaves until Almighty Mercy puts forth its omnipotent hand to lift us out of that slavery, and bring us into the liberty of the gospel. Now, then, when you are thus convinced of your state, the dreadful judgments that hang over you as a sinner, and that by nature you have no hope, that you will die, and your former religious pride you will call your shame. The apostle Paul himself is a good example of this; see how he died to all hope by the works of the law. That is one death, then. I look back at the time when I struggled hard to live; I lived several days, several weeks, several months; I promised every morning to be better, and better, and better, and better; the law kept demanding, and I kept promising; that kept demanding, and I kept promising; conscience kept complaining, and I went on, and went on, and went on, till by-and-bye I had not a bit of hope left, and I died to all hope, and did not know what to do, nor where to find it. The second death in this matter is the death of the law itself; the legal death of the law itself. “My brethren,” call them brethren now, “my brethren, you are become dead to the law by the body of Christ;” so that the law is as good as dead to you. The law looks at you and says, that is, if you are brought to look to Jesus Christ, receive Jesus Christ as your hope, in what he really is the law looks, and says, Well, I am as good as dead to that man; I have nothing more to do with that man. He is made holy in a higher sense than Adam was; he is made righteous in a higher sense than Adam was; he bears the image of God in a more glorious sense than Adam did. Therefore, the law is as good as dead to that man; the law undergoes this kind of legal death. But while you thus become dead to the law, you become alive to Christ; and the gospel, when the law becomes thus dead to you, the gospel becomes alive to you. You can't get into any condition or state in which the gospel has not a word of sympathy for you; and if your brethren and sisters look black at you, go to the word of God, that will not look black at you; that will heal you, that will cheer you, and make you happy when nothing else can. Thus, then, dead to false hope, the law is dead to you, and then comes the death of sin. You become dead to sin, and sin is become dead to you; it has no more power to lay a charge before God against you than the dead Egyptians had to rise and accuse the Israelites, or than Samson's lion had to rise and roar against him after it was dead. But how are these three deaths brought about? They are all brought about by the fourth death, namely, the death of Jesus Christ. Come to the death of Jesus Christ, there I see the death of the law, there I see the death of sin, and here I see how I am dead to all hope under the law. Thus, then, those who have thus undergone this transition from a false to a true hope, from the condemning power of the law and sin; those that have undergone this transition are made alive in Christ Jesus the Lord. So, then, you that are thus brought to receive the truth are not in the flesh; that is, you do not pass by these eternal things, you are not dead to them, you don't hate them, you are not displeasing, but pleasing to God; and you shall not die, you will keep your bodies in subjection, an bring them under, so that your unbelief, and enmity, and other elements of your nature, cannot rise to turn you into apostates, for “he that has begun the good work will carry it on to the day of Jesus Christ.” One more quality, and that is that the spirit of the gospel is a spirit of defiance. You may go on through this chapter; the first item of defiance is that nothing can be laid to your charge. “Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect?” You may if you like; I shall not, no, nothing against anybody under the sun; and while nothing can be laid to my charge, I must be a fool to employ myself in laying things to another people's charge; so un-Godlike, un-Christlike, un-gospellike. Defiance, then, we defy the adversary to lay anything to our charge before God. Secondly, we defy the adversary to prove this is unrighteous; for God justified righteously; Christ died, yes rather, is risen again. He lived on earth to save, and he died on earth to save, and he now lives in heaven to save; and what will be his mission at the last day? Why, to raise his people from the grave, and bring them into the joy of their Lord. Another item of the defiance is what I had hardly have ventured to say if the apostle had not himself done so. What can be more sublime? every lover of literature will acknowledge that the very literature of the latter part of the 8th chapter of Romans is sublime beyond compare. See how he traces out the history of our salvation, from God's foreknowledge of us to our eternal glorification. See how he ranges before him the possible persecutions, famines, nakedness, prisons, the sword, tribulations, and deaths, and hosts of mighty foes; see in what a masterly way he ranges them all before us, and comes to this happy conclusion, that “in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Now, lastly, the indwelling of the Spirit of God in you. I had intended in the 26th and 27th verses of this chapter, just to remind you of the beautiful harmony of the Eternal Three indwelling in the saints; but time does not permit me to do so. “The Spirit helps our infirmities.” I must say nothing upon that now; must pass by that beautiful scripture, and I will give you a sermon as soon as ever the Lord makes it a sermon to me, for I never think it will be much of a sermon to others if it is not one to me. I am as much afraid of a got-up sermon as I should be afraid of a cobweb coat in a stormy day; a mere studied, schoolboy got-up sermon, something so repulsive to my feelings. I must have the power of it in my soul; I must feel that the sentences I utter come from a heart that is impressed with a deep sense of the solemnity of these precious truths; and I am sure nothing else will do any good to those that are born of God, or to those that are not born of God; that that comes from the heart will go to the heart; that that comes merely from the head will fall to the ground. I will therefore make one remark, and it is this. The Savior says of the Holy Spirit that “he dwells with you, and shall be in you.” There are four grounds upon which the Savior says that, first, there shall be no fault on my part, for I will take care and finish my work, as though he should say, “If I go not away, the Comforter will not come.” Secondly, the Father is faithful; thirdly, the Holy Spirit is faithful; and fourthly, the glorious end. All these are assurances that this God will never leave nor forsake us.
Thus, then, to be in the flesh is to mind only the things of the flesh; to in the flesh is to be dead to eternal truth; to be in the flesh is to be enmity against the truth; to be in the flesh is to be displeasing to God, and the end whereof is the second death. But to be in the Spirit is to be killed by the law and made alive to the gospel; to be in the Spirit is for the gospel as a law of liberty to be our supreme delight; to be in the Spirit is to reckon ourselves dead indeed unto sin but alive unto God by Jesus Christ; to be in the Spirit is to glory in the eternal certainty of the everlasting gospel of the blessed God. Amen.