A Principle to Live By — Major Ian Thomas

I'm sure the Lord Jesus is our creator had a wonderful sense of humor. He is our creator had not had a sense of humor He wouldn't have created us. With a sense of humor in point of fact if he hadn't have had a sense of humor in all probability He wouldn't have created some of us.

There were occasions when the Lord Jesus had Fun with his disciples. I think one of those occasions was probably That incident that is recorded for us in the 16th of Matthew chapter when Jesus came into the coast of Caesarea Philippi.

Peter Confesses Jesus as the Christ

He asked his disciples saying whom do men say that I the son of man am so many words said the Lord Jesus. What's the latest now? Everybody had their own Way out ideas as to who he was what he had come to do and how he was going to do it and one of them said There's a little group down the road and they think of John the Baptist what happened to John the Baptist.

He had his head cut off. A group down the road thought that the Lord Jesus John the Baptist had had his head back on again and was back in town and they probably chuckled about that and Then another one of the disciples said there's a group the other side of town.

They think you're Elijah. Well, you know what happened to Elijah? One of the two men together with Enoch who never suffered physical death Caught up in a whirlwind and there were those the other side of town who thought he'd been orbit landed and he was back in town they chuckled about that and Somebody else said you'll never believe this but there are some people even think that you're Jeremiah is if you look that miserable and Some people think you're this prophet and some people think you are said some say that John the Baptist others Jeremiah or one of the prophets Lord Jesus to them, but whom say Ideas they may cherish.

To what conclusion have you come? Simon Peter answered and said about the Christ the son of the Living God The Anointed One and Moses greater priest than Aaron greater King than David. Comprehended all those office or shadowed Of his coming blessed art thou Simon bar Jonah flesh and blood.

Hath it not revealed this to you? But my father which is in heaven haven't in other words come to this conclusion because you're smart. Because my father God in heaven has been pleased to reveal it to you all truth ultimately is by revelation.

Imagine that having thus identified the Lord Jesus Together with the others who not would have added no doubt would have added their affirmation. Highly qualified to go out into the highways and the byways and tell the world that Jesus the Messiah had arrived.

The ones of them all Israel had been waiting all down the centuries. Comes sometimes as quite a surprise to discover in the 20th verse of that chapter That the Lord Jesus then charged his disciples no man soon as they had discovered his identity and Plucked up enough courage to bear testimony to the fact just placed them under a total prohibition and Forbade them nobody that he Jesus was the Christ.

You might wonder why it was that the Lord Jesus called men to be his disciples some of them named to be apostles and Then forbade them under any circumstances to tell anybody that he Jesus was the Christ.

And the answer of course is very simple. At this stage of their understanding they hadn't a clue what it was all about and I don't mean by this that they didn't have a sentimental attachment for the Lord Jesus or that they Didn't have an affection for him motivated by a considerable amount of loyalty to his person and to his cause a considerable amount of enthusiasm.

To get the movement off the ground to say that the Lord Jesus was the Christ is one thing but to understand What is the Christ he'd come to do declare that he was the Messiah? One thing to understand his messiah panic mission and at this stage.

And that's why the Lord Jesus told me to keep their mouth shut. They hadn't yet learned enthusiasm dedication. Activity would be a substitute and they did not yet know the truth from that time forth in the 21st verse of that 16th of Matthew it goes on to say began Jesus To show under his disciples how that he must raised again.

The third day the Lord Jesus gave them a simple panoramic Preview of that which he had come to accomplish now I was going to do it and nothing of what he said would startle us here tonight. It would be old hat having known of it most of us from our mother's knee that the Lord Jesus would go to the city of Jerusalem and there he would be delivered into the hands of Wicked men be done to death.

The third day he would rise again from the dead the conqueror over death and sin and hell. And the devil himself, but Peter took him to rebuke him a bit far from the Lord. This shall not be unto thee for all his dedication for all his loyalty for all his affection for the Lord Jesus then Placed himself squarely between Christ.

He didn't understand the cross understand the cross because he didn't see the need for the cross. He didn't see the need for the cross because he didn't understand his own case in common With a whole race fallen men, and he said to Peter Favors not the things that be of God, but those that be of your concepts your philosophy.

Your theology is of the earth and the one whose lips a while before had been the mouthpiece of the Father God in heaven with the next moment the mouthpiece of the devil himself. Sad isn't it that when the Lord Jesus said whom do men say that I the son of man am they could quote every Tom Dick and Harry Knew everything that man had to say about the Lord Jesus the one thing they did not know because of this abysmal ignorance of the issues involved that the Lord Jesus placed them under this total prohibition inhibition that is Repeated in the following chapter as well.

The Transfiguration and the Necessity of the Resurrection

You know in the 17th chapter in the Mount of Transfiguration yielding that you might imagine would well have undergirded their faith and Motivated them to go out with added enthusiasm. Came down verse 9 from the mountain Charged them saying tell the vision till the Son of Man.

There was no matter what you may have seen no matter what you may have heard there in the Mount of Transfiguration. Not a word the Son of Man be risen again from the dead the Lord Jesus knew perfectly well.

Despite of all their affection and dedication to his cause nothing would make sense. That's why you May well discover from the book of the Acts as also Constantly in the epistle the disciples were excited about the resurrection of the Lord Jesus.

That's when it happened not until the Lord Jesus was risen again from the dead did they discover a prince. It's all of what happened in the 24th chapter of Luke's gospel. Remember when the women came Excitedly telling them that because they sought the lead had seen an empty to the way even to break the good news to his disciples they had Seen him words in the 11th verse James John and the other of The disciples come talking that kind of nonsense idle tales we buried now.

That was the only gospel. That was the only good news that the disciples had at that time could to tell the world Jesus is dead Under the Lord Jesus told me keep their mouth shut. They didn't want the cross and didn't believe in the resurrection.

But something happened to them as it has formed barely is intended in God's timeless economy to transform Yours and mine from the dead and appeared to his disciples in the upper room it repudiated the testimony of the two disciples who too had Encountered the Lord Jesus on the road to Emmaus though.

They didn't recognize him Telling their risen Lord about their dead Jesus. And he revealed himself as they constrained him to spend the night under their roof and sat at his table. Though their guests playing the role of host he took the bread.

It says their eyes were pairs of eyes watch one pair of saw the prints in the nails. Then he disappeared vanished out of their sight and they came to excitedly within us. While he opened as they'd up spake telling the other disciples how they had Encountered the Lord Jesus and was known of them in the breaking of bread verse 36 as they thus spake Jesus himself stood in the midst Of them and he said peace beyond he.

They were terrified and the fright. Supposed they'd seen a spirit treated in terror thought he was a ghost and the Lord Jesus said why are you troubled? Why do thoughts arise in your heart behold my hands and my feet.

Didn't you hear what these two disciples said about my hands when? I broke the bread at their table. Well behold my hands and for good measure have a look at my feet. That it is I myself. Handle me and see they rediscovered the Lord Jesus and the consequences were immediate.

We're told they could hardly believe for joy characteristic of somebody who knows Experientially from within their own hearts that Jesus is alive not just academically not giving a mental consent to a theological proposition.

Not saying I believe it because the Bible says it. Oh, it doesn't you have the right to believe it, but saying it because you know experientially every moment of every day. That he having Suffered a death like yours you right now are enjoying and sharing a resurrection like this.

Jesus is alive because he lives in me and Momentarily I am drawing upon those illimitable resources that have become mine by virtue of who he is my once crucified now risen Lord. Living now where he does within my heart sharing his life.

Clothing his divine activity with my redeemed humanity who has been added to the Lord as a living individual member in Particular of that new body corporate that the father gave him on the day of Pentecost.

Not an institution not a piece of real estate. But a fellowship of redeemed sinners cleansed in his blood indwelt by his Holy Spirit pulsating with the divine energy. Hopefully anticipating every new day to dawn so that they can let God loose in the world in which they live.

By virtue of their availability to his divine indwelling. I am as exciting of course as life is always intended to be. Once you've learned the principle to live by that Jesus is alive. And all that he is you've got lives within you as once the father lived within him.

You can't have more you need never ever in a new joy to the word for the Lord Jesus. Which I spake unto you while I was yet with you that all things must be fulfilled. Which were written in the Lord Moses and in the prophets and in the Psalms concerning me and he opened their understanding that they might Understand the scriptures and added to their new joy.

They got a new Bible a Bible that made sense. Said he and to rise from the dead the third day that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name. I have accomplished that reconciling act.

That will allow allow you to the uttermost ends of the earth to proclaim Forgiveness in true repentance toward God. Will put their trust in God's Son and claim cleansing a new joy a new Bible a new message.

And said he to them in the 48th verse. You are witnesses added to your new joy the new Bible added to your new Bible a new message. On the basis of my redeeming atoning death and now a new responsibility.

It said you're not ready yet to discharge that responsibility because you haven't learned a principle to live. Well, you've come to recognize that I didn't drift to disaster. Death upon the cross was not that of a noble idealist who lived before His day.

I didn't pay the price of being too progressive. Nor was it simply a sentimental gesture. I laid down my life a ransom for many. I'd the last demand of a holy God in all time. One sacrifice for sins, but in spite of the fact that you've now come to understand why I died in the city of Jerusalem until you be endued with power that of my atoning work upon the cross was that you being reconciled to a holy God might become the recipients again of That quality of life for which man was made Created man that the presence of the Creator within the creature is indispensable to his humanity.

The Kingdom of God Within

And of course he enlarged upon this in the first Chapter the of the book of Acts and we might turn to that for a moment if you would care. So did his chapter the book of the Acts Treaties that of this his second book as he was the author by inspiration of the Holy Spirit of the gospel of Luke.

The former treaties have I made of theophilus of all that Jesus began both to do in the teaching. Until the day in which he was taken up after that he through the Holy Ghost Had given commandments unto the apostles whom he had chosen to whom also he showed himself alive after his passion by many infallible proofs being seen of them 40 days.

And Speaking of the things pertaining. What do you think the Lord Jesus was talking about during those 40 days when he spoke to them of those things that pertained? To the kingdom of God, but he wasn't talking about heaven of course as heaven Indeed will be for said the Lord Jesus in my father's house and many mansions.

If it were not so I would have told you if I go I Will prepare a place for him and if I go to prepare that place for you I will come again that where I am there you may be also marvelous. But he wasn't talking about that.

He had already talked a whole lot about that to them. But it wasn't this that he talked about on this occasion when he for 40 days Spoke to them concerning the kingdom discover what he was talking about.

We need just to flip the pages back though. We will return to this chapter. To the 17th of Luke when there were those who came to the Lord Jesus in the 20th verse of the Pharisees the kingdom of God Should come.

He has answered them and said the kingdom of God cometh and not with observation. Literally, and you probably have it there in the marginal translation that you'll have in the center of your Bible. Not without which show the kingdom of God can't be defined in terms of religious real estate.

It can't be defined in terms of it a religious body an organizational entity a denominational group or Evangelistic crusade. It won't be represented by a bunch of people dressed in peculiar clothes swinging incense.

It doesn't come by outward show. Said he neither shall they say oh here. It is look there. It is said the Lord Jesus him of God is within you within you see you were made that way. It is in such a way that the presence of the Creator as king in his kingdom is indispensable to a man's humanity.

Kingdom of God where God should be king is within you. So if God being and you and I are the kingdom. Where should the king be. And this is what the Lord Jesus was talking to his disciples about during those 40 days?

What was involved in this? Reconciling act that would restore guilty men on the grounds of redemption to that relationship to a living God that would allow him Actually to re-inhabit their humanity. So That they would literally be added as individual members to a new body corporate that the father Intended to give to his son so that as once incarnate in the flesh and blood that was born on that first Christmas morning in Bethlehem.

He might now occupy another body that body which is his church and Incarnate in their flesh and blood. Continue with their hands and continue through their lips to do and teach the things that he had begun to do and begun to teach.

In the body the first the father first gave him when we was born. He said what it's going to take for you to discharge your new Responsibility is those who having a new joy in a new Bible in a new message Are being commissioned to go to the last ends of the earth and tell the world that there is redemption through the shed blood of Christ.

Repentance and remission of sins. What it's going to take for you to discharge this responsibility to God's holy satisfaction is the restoration to you of that quality of life for which man was made and Which was lost in Adam in the day that he fell.

Which was the day that man? Do you know why I was born lived and died and though now at last though somewhat reluctantly you admit that? I'm risen again from the dead. You are not yet equipped purpose which having first created you I have now redeemed you being assembled he commanded.

He didn't just throw out the suggestion come on. He commanded them that they should not depart from Jerusalem. That is in the discharge of their new responsibility get on with the job. They were not To depart from Jerusalem so the father he went on to explain what the promise of the father was that had not yet been fulfilled and For which they were to wait that they might be enabled for their new responsibility.

John he said truly baptized with water ye shall be putatence baptized with the Holy Ghost. Not many days hence the promise of the father which you have already heard of me. Long since I've told you about it during those three years in which I was with you I told you that this was the ultimate purpose of my coming my living my dying and my rising.

That that might be restored to you was forfeited in Adam the life. But not many the day upon which the father God in heaven presented to the son the new body on which the first 120 men and women in all human history since Adam fell Were restored to life again from above In receiving the gift of God in the person of the Holy Spirit through whose presence in life their state of death would be abolished.

Regeneration the renewing of the Holy Ghost recognized and we may need to touch upon this very lightly tomorrow night again. That there was a time lag between the understanding of the redemptive and the regenerative purpose the coming of the Holy Spirit in spiritual new birth the baptism of the Holy Ghost whereby they were to be added to the Lord and Added to his body baptized into that body.

A time lag of course that no longer exists. Because the Holy Ghost the life of God restored to the soul of man was not yet given because Jesus was not yet He hadn't ascended from the Mount of Olives into his father's presence so that from his father's presence They're glorified he might in the person of the Holy Spirit come to inhabit their humanity as for 33 years He had allowed the father to inhabit.

He is the father sent me I'm going to send you on exactly the same basis and With the same resources at your disposal as the father sent me Marvelously furnished by his divine indwelling for every act in which I was to engage every word that I was to speak Everything that I was to do so I'm going to send you Marvelously furnished by my divine presence every word every decision.

I without my father could do nothing. So you without me can do nothing. That's why you're to wait till this endearment. This endearment with powerful man I when the Holy Ghost is come said he ate first first chapter then you will.

It's not Power as an impersonal entity that God gives you it's a person Somebody in whom you'll draw upon all those illimitable resources that will become yours by virtue of the fact that through his presence in you You will share my life as for 33 years by his presence in me I shared the life of my father Jesus be full of the Holy Ghost.

Pentecost and the Indwelling Life of Christ

The day of Pentecost came that for which the Lord Jesus died who said I am come that you might have See what God gave on the day of Pentecost life through whom they were to share the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

And on that day Peter stood up excitedly for at last it had penetrated he had learned a principle to the book of Acts verse 22. Peter standing up on the day of Pentecost said you men of Israel here these words Discovery that Peter made on the day of Pentecost had long since recognized his deity.

Co-equal in deity with the Father and the Holy Ghost in the triune Godhead the one who was in the beginning with God was God and by whom all things were made and Without whom was not anything made that was made the creative deity and in him alone that life.

Which is the life of men that long settled for his deity, but the great discovery on the day of Pentecost. Humanity for all those years and in particular while he taught them during those latter three years He'd been trying to tell them what it takes to be a man.

That my presence in you will be as imperative through the Holy Spirit as the presence of my father in me their Pentecost. Peter suddenly understands you men of Israel here these words Jesus of Nazareth a man six of a God approved man.

Or Peter goes on to explain. You men of Israel here these words Jesus of Nazareth a man Approved of God by miracles signs and wonders which realize now. What was the dynamic of his life? Who died and rose again and Ascended to be with his father the dynamic of his life kept telling us.

But though we listen and listen and listen we never heard. The father who lived in me does the word. And at last on the day of Pentecost it penetrated miracles signs and wonders which God did prove man and Peter discover what it means to be a God approved man.

A God approved man is a man with that state of heart that lets God, but this was life transforming for Peter. I See it now the Lord Jesus though God played the role of man though the crazy came to fulfill the role of creature.

In the sinlessness of his humanity he allowed the father to play that role in him as man. That he our Lord Jesus as God intended always that he should play as God in us. And he was trying to teach us the whole time.

Without my father I can do nothing. My father is imperative to every act in which I engage every decision that I make every word I speak. The words that I speak unto. I speak not of myself. My doctrine is not mine, but his that sent me.

But now our Lord Jesus having accomplished the redemptive act having shed his blood to cleanse our hearts is now risen from the dead. He's been ascended to the father. He's glorified there and he's come in the person of the Holy Spirit to live in us and be to us now as God.

All that stuff for 33 years he allowed his father to be to him as God. I see it says peace. I realize now why he died for us. He died for us that dealing with our sin he risen from the dead might come again to play that role in us as God.

For which man was made and Which he allowed his father as God to fulfill in him. Sky's the limit. He just suddenly realized as men will be prepared now to be to the Lord Jesus as God what he as man Was prepared to be to his father as God.

He the Lord Jesus now as God will be to us. All that the father as God was to him. This sublime simplicity for the Lord Jesus uncome that you might have Quality of life for which man was made. In other words something fantastic had happened to Peter.

Explained it very simply two great discoveries that became his after the resurrection. Let's glance at those two verses of the first to Comprehend the two great discoveries that completely revolutionized his life.

I read it to you and to me if we're to enter into the good of all that so which the Father God in heaven in infinite compassion and love and mercy sent his son for as much as you know that you were not redeemed with corruptible things as Silver and gold from your vain behavior a tradition from your father's but with the precious blood of Christ I am without blame verily was foreordained for the foundation of the world Manifest in these last times at the Peter.

This is the same Peter who said not so Lord that can't happen to you. This is the same Peter Jesus laid that total prohibition and said not a word tell nobody that I Jesus in the cross who didn't want the cross out of God's dear son forever.

The world was Far from thinking that Jesus had drifted to disaster that they had buried him the grounds of our redemption. With better to come so it would not have been adequate. For his salvation the five New Testament or less could be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

This mercy a living hope of Jesus Christ from again through his. Peter has made this dual Discovery that our redemption demands his shed blood and our redemption regeneration our new birth demands his resurrection Deemed by his death and we're born again by his resurrection.

He's a suffered a death like ours. Redemptively we now might share a resurrection like his. Regeneratively, it's the death of Christ to reconcile us to God Redemption and it takes the life of the Lord Jesus Christ to restore to us what it takes in Regeneration to fulfill the function for which man was made.

Because Peter has learned that man was so engineered if I may dare to say it again in such a way that the presence of Creator somebody his humanity. And Peter has discovered that the death of the Lord Jesus for him wouldn't be enough if it went for the life of the Lord Jesus death of the Lord Jesus for him that redeems him and the life of the Lord Jesus in him that Regenerates him.

Then something had to happen between his death for us and his life in us and the Lord Jesus knew perfectly well until That nothing would make sense after the gospel was to become there could be no resurrection Apart from the death of the Lord Jesus.

Nor would God in heaven in his holiness have the right to restore the life of God to anybody apart from that atoning death. That would be accomplished Vicariously by the Lord Jesus Forrest. But Peter fully understood that the death of the Lord Jesus Forrest would never have been adequate in itself to make us once more functional from God's point of view.

But what happened when man fell into sin was that he forfeited the divine content and only the restoration of that divine content God himself Could ever make a man Morally competent to discharge the office for which he was made.

Divine Nature and Spiritual Life

That's why he enlarges upon this in the first chapter of his second epistle. And I'd like you to turn to that in the second of Peter's two epistles. And of course he addresses himself to those obtained like precious understand what Peter means by that Who've learned to adopt that disposition towards God that gets God going and lets God do it.

That's the nature of faith he indicated to you I believe created by what you were doing for God what you're doing for Christ that only Demonstrates faith in yourself that you've got the capacity to do it.

And God says you don't if that disposition that God Demands of you and me without which it's impossible to please him is a disposition that recognizes. I can't. God never said I could and always said he would.

It's a principle to live by those you will obtain like precious faith Who've learned by disposition to let God do his divine power pertains to being a something he says which? Demanded the release of all the illimitable dynamic of Deity all the power of God according to his divine power.

It pertains to being alive. Without making it complicated has confronted with a man four days dead and stinking. But reluctantly at his command rolled away the stone and the Lord Jesus wanted now to give that man back all that pertain to being Physically alive.

What did the Lord Jesus have to give to him? It's the Lord Jesus four days late four days before he had forfeited physical life. Jesus knew perfectly well, but if Lazarus was ever again to be physically alive.

They had to be restored to him. That which pertains to being physically alive to life well what pertains to being spiritually alive. Jesus comes to you and to me recognizes as he does that we were born as the seed of a fallen Adam spiritually bankrupt Alienated from the life of God dead in trespasses and sins and the Lord Jesus wants to restore to you and restore to me what it Takes all that pertains to being spiritually alive.

What's he got to restore question is what is spiritual life? I mean we talk glibly and sing glibly and preach glibly and Pray glibly about eternal life, but what is eternal life into a million times more wonderful than that?

This is the record that God has given to his eternal life. And this life that he's given to us that which pertains to being spiritually alive life is in his son. He that has the son he that doesn't have the Son of God a person actually resident within him doesn't have life.

He's dead only two kinds of people as you well know on the earth those who are Indwelt by Jesus Christ and those who are not. That's the essential difference between a person who's born again and one who isn't.

Because this life which alone is eternal God's life is in his son in him was life this life that was in him. There's Peter. It's according to his divine power that he has given to us what pertains to being.

Any way that he can give us what pertains to being spiritually alive? But in this third verse say that that which pertains to being alive is that also which pertains to? God likeness other words if ever by what you and I do say and are we to reveal the glory be restored to image.

So that others in us see him then his presence within us is as the one who by his Holy Spirit shares his life with us and Who through that Holy Spirit now is allowed by us as the father was allowed by him to teach our minds?

Control our emotions so direct our wills that he Christ from within Might govern our behavior. So by his divine power God has given to us all that pertains to being spiritually alive and that which pertains to being spiritually alive.

Christ living within us is that which pertains. That's why of course Paul to which we shall later return in the Chapter 26 27. Christ living in your heart is your only Hope and for all have sinned and come short of thee and Christ living in your heart his presence that pertains to being alive.

Is that which alone? Pertains to being resmidge in which man was made a simple way. Have you ever sat after dark in a room? You know with the light on writing a book. Writing a letter or reading a book and something the light goes out and you fiddle for the switch wonder whether it was half-cocked.

And it suddenly flipped. But you discover that it's on. So you think well, maybe a fuse but under the crack. Beneath the door into the next room you can see light and so far as you know, it's on the same circuit yourself.

Well, it couldn't be a fuse. Because this is on the same circuit as that. The current the light must be flowing through the wires. So the switch is on the currents flowing. But there's still no light.

Will you say it must be a broken lamp? So you unscrew it or and take it out of the socket take it into the room where there's light new. Examine the bulb very carefully and to your surprise you discover that the filament is intact.

It isn't broken. So now you're presented with quite a dilemma. The switch is on the current flows. The bulb is intact, but there's no light. But as you examine the bulb a little more closely you discover that at the point of contact.

Now you understand what's happened at the point of contact. Where the life that flows should get in as that when the dirt got in Sublime simplicity there you've got the story of the fall of man into sin.

I thought actually is a very beautiful picture of a man. You know, it's got a pot our bodies tend to take on that shape after a bit. We don't call it bulb. We call it bulge. There's the body is the body through which the light is Released into the world a readable audible body that God gave us in the bulb.

There's the filament. That's the soul mind emotion and will that's your behavior mechanism. Where the life of God through the Holy Spirit teaching the mind controlling emotions directing the will governs behavior so that he controlling your behavior Will reveal through your body to the world God behaving or righteousness God likeness.

You see if it's God who teaches your mind God who controls your emotions and God who directs your will so that God through mind Emotion and will governs your behavior. Who will other people see when you behave?

He made us that way the Lord Jesus in the sinlessness of his humanity who allowed only the father by the Holy Ghost Indwelling his human spirit to have complete total unchallenged access to his soul teaching his mind Controlling his emotions and directing his will always governing his behavior who testified without my father.

I can do nothing. He could say he that has seen me Seen my father if there's a bow Representing the body if there's a filament representing the soul. There's got to be a point at which the life of God gets in to motivate the soul to produce that Righteousness that is revealed through the body to the world in light God gave to man as opposed to any other form of animal life that allows God By the Holy Spirit within the human spirit to impart his life to man.

So that man is not only physically alive But spiritually alive so that that life God's life in the person of the Holy Spirit might have access to the soul. The so motivate our behavior patterns that what we do say in art reveals his righteousness now.

What happened when Adam fell into sin was that came in the life went out and the light went off as by one man? Sin came into the world and Death by sin life out life and this life was the light of men.

And when the life went out the light went off and man Was plunged into the abysmal darkness of spiritual death. And now tell me this if this were to happen to you What would you do about it? What do you say?

I get some sandpaper and I clean the dirt off. Well, that's reasonable. So you get the sandpaper and you clean the dirt away so dirt out. So now you've got a nice clean lamp. Or if you like a redeemed lamp the dirt has been removed for the blood of Jesus Christ.