Earnest of Our Inheritance

Introduction: The Spirit's Work in Trinitarian Salvation

0:02 Starting to Ephesians chapter 1, Ephesians chapter 1, I shall read verses 13 and 14. In whom ye also, having heard the word of the truth, the gospel of your salvation, in whom having also believed, ye were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, which is an earnest of our inheritance unto the redemption of God's own possession, unto the praise of his glory. I introduced our study with a statement last week, and I want to repeat it this morning. The salvation of men from sins, guilt, power, and misery is the gracious, mighty work of the sovereign, triune God of the Bible. Nowhere is this fact more succinctly and comprehensively stated in a given passage of Scripture than in the Bible. And in the passage which has been the focus of our study for a number of months, Ephesians 1, verses 3 through 14.

1:24 An understanding of this great Trinitarian salvation should fill us with something of the wonder and awe that the apostle knew when he picked up his pen and began to write and said, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with everything, every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. In the unfolding of that Trinitarian salvation, we have come to verses 13 and 14, in which the work of the Spirit in that salvation is the primary focus of the apostle's thinking. And he pinpoints the work of the Spirit, particularly under the concept of the sealing work of the Spirit. We've studied together, then, the meaning of the sealing of the Spirit. The agent in this sealing is the Spirit, is the Spirit of promise, the Holy One. The sphere in which the sealing occurs, union with Christ, in whom ye were sealed.

2:33 And then last week, the means by which the sealing comes to pass, having heard the word of the truth, and having believed, ye were sealed. We come this morning to verse 14, which introduces two more fundamental thoughts concerning the work of the Holy Spirit in sealing every true believer. We have, first of all, what I am calling the cardinal significance of the sealing of the Spirit. In whom, having also believed, ye were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, which is an earnest of our inheritance.

3:14 As the apostle conceives, of the gift of the Spirit, given to every believer as a divine seal, he underscores the cardinal significance of that work of sealing in these words, which is an earnest of our inheritance. And then, in the latter part of the verse, he gives us the ultimate purpose of the sealing. In the original, there are two words, following the word inheritance, which make the phrases parallel phrases. Unto the redemption of God's own possession, unto the praise of His glory.

3:51 What's the whole purpose of this sealing? This sealing that occurs in Christ. This sealing that occurs when men hear the word of the truth, the gospel of salvation, and men believe. What's the ultimate purpose?

4:06 Well, the apostle tells us. It is with reference to us that we might have a completed redemption, and with reference to God, it is that He shall be glorified. And so, time permitting, I hope to draw out these two final lines of thought that are given to us in this paragraph concerning the cardinal significance of the sealing of the Spirit and the ultimate purpose of the sealing of the Spirit. First of all, then, what is the cardinal significance of the sealing of the Spirit?

Defining 'Earnest' and 'Inheritance'

4:41 The apostle uses two words which we must define before we can understand the cardinal significance of the sealing of the Spirit. He uses the word earnest, and he uses the word inheritance. Now, what did he mean when he used the word earnest? He says the sealing of the Spirit is an earnest of our inheritance.

5:06 Well, the word earnest is a word which can mean a pledge, or more often, it has the connotation of a down payment. It's part of the price of a thing purchased given as tangible evidence of the promise of the whole payment in due time. The only time the word is used in the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament, is in Genesis 38, verses 17, 18, and 20, in which we have the word translated as pledge in our English Bible, where a man gave a pledge of something that was yet to come. It was a word used in trading.

5:51 It is sometimes used, not in Scripture, but in secular writing, of the bridegroom's engagement gifts given to his potential bride. In Scripture, it is only found in two other places, 2 Corinthians 1 and verse 22, in which we have the phrase the earnest of the Spirit, and again in 2 Corinthians 5, 5, the earnest of the Spirit. So the basic meaning of the word is a down payment, a pledge on the part of a purchaser that he is sincere in the expression of his desire to purchase a certain commodity. Then the word inheritance. What does it mean? Well, you remember in verse 11 when we had occasion to expound it in some detail, our inheritance speaks of the kingdom of God and all of its blessings, both present and future. But here in verse 14, as in verse 11, the focus is on the future aspects of the blessings of the kingdom of God.

7:03 The same way Peter uses it in 1 Peter 1, 4, when he says to an inheritance uncorruptible and undefiled reserved in heaven for you. So the inheritance, inheritance is the blessing of the kingdom of God, particularly the future blessings. And in this context, it is obvious that this is the thought the apostle has in mind. So then, what is the cardinal significance of the sealing of the Spirit?

The Cardinal Significance: Nature of Future Blessings

7:32 The apostle declares in this text that the gift of the Spirit as a purchased blessing of Jesus Christ given to all believers as an offering authenticating, identifying, securing seal is to be regarded as God's down payment or God's installment of the complete redemption purchased by the blood of His dear Son. Now if we grasp that thought, then we are prepared to understand two great assertions which the apostle is making in this text. He is asserting, first of all, the nature of all of our future blessings and then, secondly, he is asserting the certainty of all the future blessings of the kingdom of God. First of all, he is asserting the nature of our future blessings.

8:35 Everything God has reserved in heaven for believers is qualitatively the same as those blessings now given by the Holy Spirit.

8:48 Qualitatively the same, though quantitatively much more. You see, the earnest was always of the same kind as the full payment. If one of you kids were to go out to buy a bicycle, you've been drooling at a certain bicycle in a bicycle shop for a long time and you've been saving all the money you've got from your allowance and cutting lawns and shoveling walks and I hope that you didn't get it by stealing from your sister's bank, but you've got all your money accumulated together and you want to buy that bike and you're afraid somebody else might come along and buy it before you get all your money. You still need about five or seven dollars so you go down to the bike shop and you say, now, Mr. Bike Man, I want that particular bike right there. That's the one I want. And he says, all right, and that's going to cost you $59.95 plus tax.

9:37 And you say, yes, I know I've been looking at that figure and I've been saving for months and months and months, but I'm afraid somebody else is going to buy it. He says, and I want that bike. Could you put it in the back room for me? And the man says, well, son, I'd love to be able to do that, but suppose you don't eventually have the money to buy it and somebody else wants it and they think it's no longer here and I lose the sale.

9:59 You'll have to give me a down payment. You say, all right, I'm prepared to do that. You run home and you open up your piggy bank or whatever else you keep your money in and you take out $15 and you come down to Mr. Bike Man and you say, Mr. Bike Man, here's my down payment. Here's $15 and he counts it out and change it in a couple of bills and he gives you a receipt and when you pay that down payment, what do you say? You're saying, I'm not just fooling when I say I want to buy that bike and the proof of my intention is I'm giving you $15 and you're also telling that man when you come back, you're not going to come back with a bucket full of horse chestnuts for the rest of the payment. You're not going to go to some Chinese or some Japanese friend and come back with 500 yen.

10:46 You're not going to go to some English friend and come back with 20 pounds. You're going to come back with whatever $15 subtracted from 59.95 plus tax means. You're going to give him the same kind of payment in dollars and cents, nickels, quarters, dimes, dollar bills, $5 bills, $10 bills, whatever it is.

11:09 You see, your down payment is the same in kind as the full payment. Now that thought is inherent in the very word earnest. And a right interpretation of this text will bear all of that weight when we think of our future inheritance as the people of God, of which the present ministry of the Holy Spirit is an earnest, a down payment. We learn then the nature of our future blessings.

11:42 They are qualitatively the same as our present blessings. Though blessed be God, they are quantitatively far more. That's why Paul, using the same framework of thought but a different figure, says in Romans 8 and verse 23, we have the first fruits of the Spirit. When a man was going to gather a harvest, he would go out and gather the first parts of that harvest that came to full, of fruition.

12:15 And this was pledged that more of the same kind would come when the whole harvest was ready for gathering. So then, child of God, when the Scripture says that having heard and believed you were sealed with the Spirit, God would have you to understand, to intelligently perceive the nature of your future blessings. They are qualitatively qualitatively the same as your present experience of the Spirit's grace, but quantitatively more. So this should be a source of consolation to every Christian.

12:55 You're sealed with the Spirit of promise. You know something of His gifts and graces in your heart and life. You know something of love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, self-control. But there's a problem.

13:13 The very presence of these things in their down payment form has made you restless for the full payment. You know something of love. Oh, but there's such remains of bitterness at times, of jealousy, of hatred. Yes, there is love where once there was nothing but bitterness, nothing but jealousy, nothing but hatred.

13:43 You know the fruit of the Spirit. He has come as God, as gift, as a divine seal, as an earnest, but you long for more love. You have some measure of joy, some measure of joy in the Holy Ghost, for the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. But all those times of unmixed joy are so few and far between, and you long for the time when there is complete and fullness of joy.

14:11 You have something of the Spirit's peace, something of the Spirit's grace, of long-suffering, and patience, but there is so much residue of corruption and indwelling sin that there is this conflict and this longing child of God. Listen. Listen. Listen.

14:30 The Spirit's presence is an earnest, and God is telling you what you now know in just your $15 down payment you're going to have in the $59.95 plus tax full payment. God has given you an earnestness of the Spirit in your heart and in your life, but much more is yet to come. The first fruits were just an armful of that which would fill up a whole room.

15:00 The earnest was just a handful of that which might have to be carried in buckets of gold and of silver or whatever monetary exchange was used in that day. And so, dear child of God, this verse should be one from which you succumb, sweet consolation, that more of the same is yet to come, but thank God, much more is yet to come. And so the text asserts the nature of our future blessings. They will not be qualitatively different.

15:34 They will be qualitatively the same as the present blessings, but quantitatively much more. And just as this is a word of consolation to the true believer, it ought to be a word of consolation and conviction to the spurious believer. This truth is a two-edged sword.

15:54 Do you profess to have believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, to have been sealed with the spirit of the promise? Well then, what is the quality of that life that we read of in the world to come? Why, it's one in which the vision of the glory of Christ is all-absorbing. Likeness to Christ is completed, but only in a, in a very quantitative sense.

16:21 Being captured by the vision of Christ began now when the Spirit revealed the glory of God in the face of Christ. Being made like Christ begins now when the Spirit of the promise stamps His image upon the heart and begins to work out that image in the life. Oh, how many deluded people there are who rejoice in hope that the best is yet to come, who show no evidence of that having begun, in them, here and now.

16:53 If the Holy Spirit of promise has been given to you, He has been given as an earnest, a down payment of what is to come. Well, when we look into the Scriptures to see what is to come, total preoccupation with the vision of Christ's glory, total likeness to Christ, total abandonment to His will and to His purpose without any deviation, that's the full payment, but the down payment is given, and now, and heaven begins nothing new.

17:26 May I repeat it? Heaven begins nothing new.

17:33 Heaven completes the work of grace begun now when men are made new creatures in Christ. Now, through the word of the truth, the gospel of salvation being heard and believed and being sealed with the Spirit. And so all the future blessings of the people of God are quenched. Quantitatively more, but qualitatively no different from that which they now know by God's grace.

The Cardinal Significance: Certainty of Future Blessings

18:04 Hodge in his comment on this, the parallel passage in 1 Corinthians 1 says, The fruits of the Spirit are the only evidence of the presence of the Spirit. So while those who experience and manifest those fruits may rejoice in the certainty of final salvation, those who are destitute of these fruits have no right to appropriate to themselves the consolations of this and similar declarations of the Scriptures. The perseverance of the saints is a perseverance in holiness. And so the apostle, indicating that the cardinal significance of the sealing of the Spirit is that it is in earnest of our inheritance, asserts on the one hand the nature of our life, our future blessings, but secondly, he asserts the certainty of our future blessings. You see, the earnest was always a binding pledge that the remaining payment was yet to come. If a man had no honest intention to buy, he would give no earnest money. But once the earnest was given, the buyer was bound to bring the full payment.

19:23 But since the buyer was a man, he could die. He could lose everything in a fire. Maybe the ship in which he was bringing the full payment would be sunk. Maybe the goods would be stolen and all of his honorable intentions would be dashed upon the rocks of providential intervention.

19:41 But when it's God who gives the earnest, thereby binding himself to complete the transaction, who shall hinder the completed transaction? When God says, here's the down payment and I intend, and the complete purchase of that product, what shall frustrate the design and the purpose of God? And it's the contemplation of that very thought of the certainty of a salvation in which God, I say reverently, in which God contracts to give the full payment that causes the Apostle Paul to break out in those tremendous words of Romans 8 and verse 31. What then shall we say to these things?

20:26 If God is for us, who is against us? He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not also with him freely give us all things? Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth.

20:48 Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ Jesus that died, yea, rather that is risen from the dead. Who is at the right hand of God who also maketh intercession for us? Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?

21:02 And on he goes, asking these questions, the answer to which is so obvious. If God before us, who can be against us? The God who overcame the greatest difficulties and the greatest enemies standing in the way of our being brought to the down payment will certainly overcome every situation, subsequent difficulty, and every subsequent enemy that we might receive the full inheritance. And it's exactly that thought that top lady embodies in that hymn that you may weary of.

21:41 I quote it so often, but it says it so beautifully when he says, as sure as the what is given, as sure as the earnest is given, yea, I to the end shall endure, as sure as the earnest is given, more happy but not more secure the glorified spirits in heaven. Let me ask you a simple question. What's greater? The enemies that would have prevented your being brought into the possession of salvation or the enemies that would prevent the completion of your salvation?

22:17 What stood against your ever being forgiven and being regenerated? Well, God was against it. He's holy. His justice demanded your damnation.

22:30 His righteousness, His inflexible law cried out that you be damned. Has He overcome that difficulty? How did He do it? By the enfleshment of His own Son.

22:43 In the fullness of time, God sent forth His Son made of a woman. This mysterious fusion of God and man in one person forever, it was that difficulty of your salvation, sin and God's justice that seemed insuperable and insurmountable that caused the enfleshment of His Son. Then that very Son goes to the place of death and the Father must have His own heart wrenched by the cry of His Son, My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me? Then His Son lies under the power of death and yet He destroys death by death and He's raised from the dead.

23:23 Think of all the barriers that stood in the way of providing, a righteous basis of saying to you and to me, my son, thy sins be forgiven me. Did God overcome those difficulties? Every one of them. Now think of all the difficulties that lay in us preventing us from understanding and appropriating that salvation.

23:43 We were dead spiritually. So blind that we saw no glory in God's salvation. So perverted in our sinful minds that we loved the very things that would damn us and hated the very things that would bring us blessing. But what did God do?

24:01 By the power of His own Spirit in His effectual call, He opened our blinded eyes, gave us to see our sin, gave us to see the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, brought us out of spiritual death into spiritual life. Think of the difficulties God overcame to get you into the place of a forgiven sinner.

24:25 Now what stands in the way of your being glorified? Well, some difficulties, but my friend, when you compare them with the difficulties God already overcame in His Son,

24:35 objectively, and in your heart by the Spirit, subjectively, and then you come to a passage like Romans 8, where He's provided for every future circumstance by raising His Son and setting Him in His right hand and committing Him to the work of intercession, pleading that you might be kept. Why then, the child of God should shout for joy that having the earnestness of the Spirit, His ultimate salvation is absolutely certain. The future blessings are not only qualitatively the same, but quantitatively more. They are absolutely certain, made certain because God Himself has put the down payment as pledge of His intention to accomplish the full redemption, and nothing shall sink God's ship, bringing in, the full payment. The Spirit of promise dwelling in the heart of every believer is a constant monument in the face of the living God that He has committed Himself to the full payment. This, I say, is the tremendous, the cardinal significance of the sealing of the Holy Spirit. It asserts on the one hand the nature of our future blessings.

Ultimate Purpose: Our Complete Redemption as God's Possession

25:57 It asserts, on the other hand, the certainty of those future blessings. Then, the second great area of thought in the text is the ultimate purpose of these blessings. Why has God sealed you with the Holy Spirit of promise, even unto the day of redemption? Well, the latter part of the text gives us two answers to that question.

26:27 As one commentator has said, the two phrases introduced by the word unto express goal and aim. The first evidently states in what the possession of the Spirit is finally to result as far as we are concerned. The second, what the result is to be for God. We are to obtain our final redemption.

26:50 God is to receive the praise of His glory. Now let's look at the two thoughts in that order. First of all, what do we receive? The ultimate purpose of the sealing of the Spirit is expressed in these words.

27:05 And they are difficult words to translate. The words themselves are, well, let me just say, they're difficult. But I believe the proper understanding of them is approached in our own American Standard Translation. An earnest of our inheritance unto the redemption of God's own possession.

27:28 Now the word redemption sometimes means deliverance from the curse of the law and restoration to God's favor by a price paid. Of which believers now are partakers. Sometimes the word redemption refers to that final deliverance from all evil which is to take place at the second coming of Christ. It's used this way in Luke 21-28.

27:53 Lift up your heads for your redemption draweth nigh. Ephesians 4-30 Sealed with the Spirit unto the day of redemption. Now that's what Paul has in mind here. So he says, the sealing of the Spirit has as its intention that we shall be finally ransomed from every last effect of the curse and of the fall.

28:18 When God chose us in Christ, when Christ redeemed us by His death, the intention of the Father and of the Son was nothing less than purchasing a state of glorification, for all the people of God. Well, you see, there's a great barrier yet before us. There is the remaining corruption within. There's the problem of this mortal body.

28:42 But Scripture asserts that we shall one day be like Him. We shall be perfected in holiness. And Romans 8 and verse 11 If the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead shall quicken, shall quicken, shall quicken, shall quicken, shall give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit that dwelleth in you. So then the indwelling of the Spirit is an earnest with the ultimate purpose that the complete redemption will be realized.

29:17 And if God had no intention of completing it, He never would have given the first installment. So the ultimate intention in the sealing of the Spirit is this pledge of certainty that the redemption will be realized. Will be completed and Paul says will receive it as God's special possession unto the redemption of God's own possession. Now I've got to resist the temptation to take this strain of thought and trace it out from its beginning in Exodus all the way through the Scriptures.

29:51 The concept that God redeems people to be His possession. It's a staggering concept. What does God need from us? He got on fine before you and I were ever on the scene.

30:04 And yet He says to Israel, I've redeemed you to be My own possession. Exodus chapter 19 and then in Deuteronomy a number of times. Psalm 135.4 and that thought is picked up by the New Testament writers.

30:20 We read in 1 Peter 2.9 that we are a royal priesthood, a holy nation of people for God's own what? God's own? Possession.

30:32 God wants us as a people for Himself. That's why Paul says you're not your own. You were bought with a price. You are God's peculiar possession.

30:44 He bought you. So then the ultimate purpose of the sealing is that we as God's possession should receive every blessing which He designed for us in Jesus Christ. What did He purchase us to be? A people?

31:00 Such as we now are? Loving Him? Feebly? Serving Him so poorly?

31:09 Sometimes being downright disobedient? Bringing reproach to Him? Other times wondering if indeed we even are His own the way we act? Is that what He purchased to have?

31:22 A people in this divided, poor, stumbling state? No, no. No, no. He died to have a people who would be completely His redeemed from all iniquity, purified and presented without spot and without wrinkle.

31:40 And so the sealing of the Spirit with the first fruits of His working giving us a hunger for holiness, some enablement to triumph over sin and evil in the world and the flesh and the devil is God's pledge that His ultimate purpose will be realized. We shall receive everything purchased for us in the death of Jesus Christ. But then the purpose ends where it ought to end. What does God receive in all of this?

Ultimate Purpose: The Praise of God's Glory

32:13 This last phrase, unto the praise of His glory, covers everything touching the ceiling. You were sealed, given the assurance of an inheritance until the completed redemption. What's the great end of all of this as far as God is concerned? Paul uses the phrase he used earlier in verse 12, unto the praise of His glory.

32:42 Two words need definition briefly, glory and praise. What is glory? Glory is the sum of God's attributes or any one of those attributes shining forth to men. The glory of the sun is the rays, or are the rays, the beams of the sun.

33:01 The glory of the sun is the rays of the sun. The glory of the sun is the rays, glory of God is the outshining of His attributes. What is praise? It is conscious, adoring recognition suffused with thanksgiving. So the ultimate purpose then for which God has sealed us is that in the present and the future, God Himself might be adored and praised and honored for all the outshining of His perfections in the great blessings of salvation. Think of the sovereign love displayed in this salvation. Think of the infinite wisdom, the abounding power, the condescending concern. And God says, in sealing you, giving you an earnest of the Spirit, giving you a foretaste of future blessings, assuring you that if you have the

33:57 firstfruits, you'll have the harvest. Oh, my people, He says, see in all of this a display of my own glory. See a display of the outshining of the perfections of my own character and seeing that, acknowledge it, perceive it, and then praise me for it. And so we are brought again to this fundamental principle of biblical revelation, that the glory of God stands above the evil.

34:27 Even the blessings received by the creature, every blessing God gives to sinful men will be given in such a way that His glory is revealed, and the grace of His glory is secured. This is a preacher's statement. It's the whole of what the Scripture teaches about God's salvation. Let me repeat it. God's salvation is always to reveal His glory, the actions of His own person, and the acknowledgement. The gospel of that glory. Hence the gospel is actually called, in 1 Timothy 1.11, the gospel of the glory of the blessed God. You want to test whether a gospel is 16 ounces

35:30 to the pound, biblical gospel? Here's the test. Does it cause such a display of God's glory that you fall upon your face like Paul's? Blessed be this God. He says it's the gospel of the glory of the blessed. You will see such a display of divine glory that you will that you'll fall on your...

35:57 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

36:03 This is what's called the Advent season, the Christmas season. One of the passages that will be read and re-read and preached upon and preached around is Luke chapter 2. And I want you to turn to this passage for our closing passage this morning to see how this perspective is announced at the very birth of our Lord. You have in Luke chapter 2, verses 8 through 10, a statement of certain facts.

36:38 There were shepherds in the fields, verse 9, and angels stood by them, verse 10. The angels said, Be not afraid. I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all peoples, for there is born to you in the city of David a Savior who is Christ the Lord. More facts.

36:57 This shall be a sign unto you. You shall find a baby, wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger. Here's a statement of facts. The Savior has been born.

37:07 The Savior who will be the Savior of the world. The Savior who is Christ the Lord. The Savior whom you'll find wrapped in swaddling clothes. Those are statements of facts by the angels.

37:21 Now, what should the response of the creature be to those facts? Verse 13, And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of them, a heavenly host, praising God and saying, here's their interpretation of those facts, Glory to God in the highest. And then and only then, and on earth, peace among men in whom he is well pleased. Peace shall come to man in whom he is well pleased within a framework of this display of divine glory.

37:58 All that God does, as as its ultimate intention, the display of that glory, then the recognition and the response of praise to that glory. When anything else is made the ultimate purpose for the works of God, it's only a matter of time before the whole fabric of biblical truth is changed. If you put man's good, if you put the creature's good at the center instead of the glory of God, it won't be long before, before you've completely reinterpreted the Bible. False and true theology may be discriminated by one simple criterion.

38:41 Do they magnify God or man? That's it. If you want the safest rule of thumb by which to evaluate any supposed system of biblical interpretation, ask this question. Does it have as its natural, its inevitable, its overpowering weight and pressure to cause praise to the creature or praise to the living God?

39:10 False and true theology may be discriminated by a simple criterion. Do they magnify God or do they magnify man? And so the Apostle Paul, who began the paragraph with those words, Blessed be God, the contemplation of that salvation caused him to open with the words, Turn your eyes off the creature. Get your eyes upon the living God, this God and Father of the Lord Jesus, who has blessed us with every blessing in the heavenlies in Christ.

39:43 And then when he opens up those blessings and concludes with this great blessing of the sealing of the Spirit, he takes us right back full circle where we began. And he says the ultimate intention of all of this is that God himself will be glorified. Oh, child of God, beyond all, beyond and above all the blessings that you and I will know when the full payment comes. This thought above all others should fill us with wonder and with praise.

God's Glory in the Unsaved

40:15 God shall be then glorified in us in a way that he can never be glorified now. And I close with a sober word to you who are not saved. God will be glorified even in you. You may rob him now of the obedience that he demands.

40:36 Listen, unsaved young person and adult. You may rob God of the praise and the worship that he demands of you now. But listen, if you go on in your impenitence, you won't rob him forever of glory. God will be glorified in your damnation if you're determined to persist in your impenitence.

40:57 And saints and angels and redeemed creatures will fall on their faces before God and worship him and praise him for the vile sin of sin. There is a picture in the book of the Revelation of the saints of God worshiping God for his righteous judgments. Praising him that he's judged the great whore. That he's poured out his wrath upon his enemies.

41:26 You unsaved person here this morning proud of your impenitence. Proud that you defy God by that impenitence. Saying this is one creature that won't glorify God. God, I'll look out for I, number one.

41:40 My friend, you will glorify God. You're going to cause angels and saints to worship him.

41:48 When fire and brimstone pour upon your impenitent head and you sink beneath the billows of eternal judgment.

41:57 I know a few thoughts more sobering in all of the word of God than that. If that's how you choose to glorify God, then my friend, you go ahead. And you will.

42:10 You will. You will.

Call to Repentance and Belief

42:14 But oh, you will. You will. You will. Oh, this same God would be glorified in you now as you acknowledge that his sentence against you is true.

42:23 His indictment is righteous. You're a sinner. You've broken his law. You deserve his wrath.

42:29 Now he is glorified when sinners like that woman we read about in John 8 embrace the forgiveness he so freely offers in his dear son. Oh, repent. Believe the gospel.

42:44 And believe him. You too will be sealed with the spirit of the Father promised an earnest a down payment of the full inheritance unto the redemption of the purchased possession unto the praise of his glory. What is the cardinal significance of the sealing of the spirit? It's an earnest of our inheritance asserting both the nature of future blessings of the same kind but more the certainty of future blessings as sure as the earnest is given.

43:18 The full payment shall be given. And then the ultimate purpose in the sealing of the spirit is that as far as we are concerned we shall receive the full salvation purchased by the blood of Christ and that God should receive the adoring recognition of the great display of his own character as it's revealed in the gospel. May these ends be realized in you and in me. Unto his praise.

43:50 Let us pray.