What Doth the Lord Require of You — G.W. North

I would like to make a comment to my beloved brother, Harry Merchant, and say to him, brother, if we had you in the churches, we wouldn't need a Daily Light. A Daily Light is not a book, it's the spontaneous revelation of the truth of God into your soul today.

And we wouldn't need these things if we had men and women that knew their books completely, cheer up you young people, you've got a wonderful opportunity in front of you, and responded utterly to the Lord.

From Old Testament Shadows to New Testament Reality

Amen. What a precious thing it is. Not that I'm going to preach on what brother Merchant said, but immediately my heart wanted to sing, who is like unto thee, O Lord among the gods. I love that chorus, I want to make a comment about it, it's this, I hope that you know this deeply in your own soul, that when you're using Old Testament scriptures, as that one, for instance, you must see that God has given us greater things than anything that these people knew.

For instance, Moses sang, who is like unto thee, O Lord among the gods. Well, that's because when you read your Old Testament, it's full of gods, Baal, Moloch, Ramphan, and all these other gods that changed their names according to nations, becoming sort of Diana of the Ephesians, and all these Astarte and so on, wherever you go in this mythology of the Old Testament background.

But when you come to the New Testament, you won't find gods talked about at all, because by this time you're supposed to have graduated to the knowledge that there is only one God, and so you never sing about any others.

They just don't exist. We know that an idol is nothing in the world. That's Paul. Hallelujah. You understand that, don't you? But we are taken from the outward front, the face. The face is the idol. The front is the idol.

The idol is the facade of the devil. We are taken through that into that which is behind now. We don't have anything to do with gods. We have to do with the principalities and powers that are behind the gods.

Do you see that? You've come from the outward to the inward. You've come from that which is seen into the unseen. I hope you notice these things when you read your Bible, and see the immeasurable world, infinity of difference and distance between the old and the new.

God raise up ministers who can show it to us, and lead us into it, so that we're not always concerned with the things that are seen. Old Paul says, we look not on the things that are seen. Amen. For us, they don't exist.

They're there. Other people see them. We are blinded to them, quite. We don't see those. We are moving in another realm altogether. We're at the realm of power. We're moving in the realm of principalities.

We're moving in the realm of being. And this is the thing that our hearts have to understand. It's principally because we do not understand this difference, that so many, many people who had experiences of God know in themselves.

They're not right. They're not related properly. They're not. They know it, despite all the ambitious things that are said to them, and despite all the things that are fed to them, within. And that's the sure guide, beloved.

That's the sure guide. Within. What are you like within? Who are you? What are you? Whence came you? Whither go you? These are the great things with which we have to do. Touching on this then, for a while this morning, just one angle of it, I want to meditate a little on the great truth of what doth the Lord require of you.

Micah’s Requirement: Justice, Mercy, and Humility

You will know the famous text in Micah 6 and verse 8. If you start at verse 6, it's a marvellous and significant thing that you would expect an Old Testament prophet to prophesy about. And remember that except these men, moved by the Spirit of Christ that was in them, according to 1 Peter 1, prophesied in a really futuristic, prophetic manner.

And not all prophecy was to do with the future. All their foretellings, which were not foretellings, as much under the power and inspiration of the Spirit, as though they had been foretelling, all their foretellings revolved around the status quo.

They revolved around the things which were in their day. I wish everybody understood that. That was a New Testament prophet. I wish they understood this. And so when you read, say, in Micah chapter 6, verse 6, shall we start?

Wherewith shall I come before the Lord and bow myself before the High God? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves of a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil?

Think of it. The staggering reach of this man's mind as he moves under illumination of the Spirit and sees into reality. Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?

That can't be right. Get it. He hath showed thee, O man, what is good. And what doth the Lord require of thee with that revelation of good to your soul? What does he require of thee but to do justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God?

The Lord's voice crieth unto the city, and a man of wisdom shall see thy name, hear ye the rod, and who hath appointed it? Hallelujah. There is a rod. If I may say so, there is a yardstick, or perhaps I ought to change it into the past tense.

In Micah's day, praise God, the rod never really changed. It always meant the same thing. The psalmist talked about the rod. Moses had a rod in his hair. Always meant the same. Invariably it stood for the same things, but in itself it never, never varied even though it embraced many, many truths.

And the Lord was showing these people what he required of them. Bless the name of the Lord. Got through the place of sacrifice. Hallelujah. What is it that it's all about? I mean, why were the sacrifices in the first place ever instituted?

Sacrifice, Atonement, and Holy Living

They were to establish a basis for the operation of the law of God in a man's life. The sacrifices, the blood, they were all established for that. That having got right with God by atonement and sacrifice, a man should live as God wants him to live.

That's what sacrifice was about. That's why it was introduced, to deal with the sin that prohibits a man from living as God wants him to live. But once the sacrifice had been made, he now had to live as God wanted him to live and fulfill the requirements of God.

Well now, beloved, this is a full-time job, of course, living for the Lord. Amen. I hope you understand this. Why I was reading, browsing in scripture earlier this morning and God made this whole thing stand out all over the precious book of God.

That we're to live as he wants us to live. And we saw here that the requirements of God through Micah to that backslidden people was this. He wanted to and he required it of them in verse 8, to do, to do justly, to love mercifully and to walk humbly with him.

That's what God was asking of them at that time. Of course, you will know that at that time there was no ark. There were no tables of the covenant. Really, the whole Jewish system of worship was a farce.

The ark had been destroyed in the Babylonian captivity, yet they still had a veil hanging up as though God was living behind there and he wasn't. Long before John Baptist came, long before Micah finished, Malachi finished his prophesying.

Oh, these things had gone into oblivion. They didn't exist anymore. Yet they kept it all up as an outward show. Acting as I always was there and there was nothing. So God is moving them knowing that there was no basis for atonement now.

Knowing that there was nothing of that, he came on the law every time. That they were to do this as Micah said. Well, they knew plainly what God required of them. It was do, do, do, do. I wonder if you really know what it is that God's after in your life.

If I came round and asked you, have you got a clear understanding of what it is God wants of you? Somebody's honestly shaken his head. No, he doesn't know. Do you? You're sitting there this morning. Perhaps conforming all of us to a general pattern of worship and so on and so on and so on.

And if you've all enjoyed it this morning as much as I did, and I hope you weren't sitting there trying to be grown up and looking upon all that as distasteful and probably out of place. I don't know where the place for it is, but this isn't the place for it apparently.

If you take this line of thinking, I don't know how you were. I did observe to the gentleman on my left, while we were talking that my dear brother Merchant wasn't old enough to understand when he was standing up when he should sit down and sit down.

I said, you can see he's not old enough. He hasn't grown any hair yet. He obviously couldn't be expected to understand when to stand up and sit down. And I discovered another ploy in these circumstances is to hold a child on your lap and then you needn't stand up and sit down.

That's another way of getting out of it. It's very easy. It's ever so easy. But I don't want to tell you any more little tricks. Praise the name of the Lord. But we may, not just in those things, though we have a little light relief, but in the general ways, you may be just conforming along a certain line and believing much that you hear.

And yet, and I speak from private council chambers, if I may say this without revealing anything about it, but I find over and over and over again that basically people haven't got a clue what it is. Jesus is one.

They haven't really. They hear choruses about he wants you to praise and worship and quite often, much to my dismay, as I move around, I find that I haven't long been in meetings before somebody will purport to give a message in tongues and somebody else will purport to give the interpretation will be God wants his people to praise him.

He wants them to rejoice and be happy in his presence. And he dwells in their praises. It always comes out. I hope you don't follow that pattern here, brother, because I should become disgusted. This is the sort of thing.

And people still haven't got a clue, but they're lovely and obedient. And there's a great thing abroad in the today about discipline and subjection and obedience and all this sort of thing and recognition and relativity.

And I don't know. I don't think they mean Einstein's. I thought relationships are better. Well, I think in this context and we we we we're moving. We want to be and we want to be what God wants us to be, don't we?

We want to have the best. We want to live for Jesus. We we do, don't we? With all our hearts, don't you? Well, would you like to know what Jesus really wants of you? Would you like to know? I'm not a prophet.

I'm simply going to point you to the book. I'm not going to sort of give you a private word of knowledge about your life or anything like that. I find so often and it makes my heart ache. And sometimes, although I'm not a crying sort, believe me, you ask my wife, I get very near to tears when I think along certain lines of people are hungry.

They're so hungry that you can imagine a thousand sheep in a flock all racing for one square yard of grass. And they feel like sheep that need a shepherd. They they want someone to tell them, want someone to show them.

That's not confined to English congregations either. All over the world, the same great cry goes up. We've had this and this experience. So and so has prayed for me, or this kind of thing. But oh, oh, I heard a man, for instance, in Kerala say, the last time I was there, he said, Mr. North, brother, he said, where are the teachers?

He said, I can get, I can get hundreds of preachers. They come here, they stand up, they preach, they tell their stories, people laugh and all sorts of things. He said, but I can't get a teacher. Can you send me some teachers?

They say. That's right. The preaching office is spectacular. You can display all your latent talents in it. You can bring out all the stories. You can do all sorts of things. But in the end, it leaves men crying for food as those who hunger for reality when baubles are being given to them.

And exhortations handed out that we ought to do this and we ought to be that God knows that when that blessed holy one has come to indwell. And this I tell you from my own experience. All the people exhort you to be is all known within.

And the precious Holy Spirit illuminates the inward self and impels a man along the way of God, which of course is Jesus Christ. He only has to be submissive to the spirit. He only has to want Jesus. He only has to abide by the infallible movings of the anointing within his own heart.

And lo, he is as safe as though time was a thing of the past and heaven was a present reality. Now God wants us to turn then, I believe this morning, and I want to make the link in Galatians chapter 3 to an understanding somewhat, God help us, of what the Lord is really wanting from you.

The Law, Faith, and Justification in Galatians

The link I want to make is this. Verse 10 of chapter 3. As many as are of the works of the law. Now will you notice the difference between the law and the works of the law? People don't understand this.

You've got to understand it. Nothing wrong with the law. Old Paul wrote in Romans 7, he said, now we know that the law is spiritual. But he said, I am carnal, sold under sin. That's what he said. The law is spiritual.

Will you, will you understand that? The law is spiritual. Amen. But it's those who are of the works of the law that are depending upon doing things that are wrong. It says, if you're under the works of the law, you're under the curse.

It's written, cursed is everyone that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them. But that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God, it is evident. For, and this is quoted from the Old Testament, they were told there by their old prophets, the just shall live by faith.

That's from Habakkuk 2 and 4. And the law is not of faith, even though it's spiritual. Now understand, but the man that doeth them shall live in them. The law is all do, do, do. You see, what doth the Lord require of thee?

Do. That's what the Lord requires of people under the Old Testament. But in the New, it's not that at all. And Jesus comes, praise God. He shows that the law is spiritual because he was made of a woman, made under the law, and lived the utterly, one totally spiritual life from birth to death of any person, of any man that's ever lived on the earth.

And he lived it under the law. Amen. And he died under the law. Praise God. What a marvelous thing it is then for us to understand that the law is spiritual. And Jesus Christ filled out the law in 24 hours a day of spiritual living.

Hallelujah. And then, having fulfilled it, did not dismiss it and say that is now done away with, but brought it into a place in the spirit in every one of us. He, as it were, shifted our gaze onto higher things, greater things.

That's what he's done. And the Lord is wanting something from you this morning. I can tell you this quite seriously. I'll say it first and then I'll deny it afterwards. That's the proper way of being a preacher.

If he doesn't deal in paradoxes, he hasn't reached spiritual truth. Do you understand that? He isn't after your money. But he does want your money. Do you understand that? You see, I said it and then denied it.

Christ’s Poverty and the Gift of Grace

That's paradox. That's spiritual reality. But he only wants your money as it comes with the prime thing he wants. That's right. The first thing. I think perhaps we can get it in the second printing letter.

I'm ever so pleased that it's all written in this book. If it wasn't written in this book, well, we'd have no ground to stand up and preach, would we? When you turn to the second book of the Corinthians, you come to a wonderful section in chapters eight and nine.

The outstanding verses of chapters eight and nine are eight verse nine. You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes, he became poor. I want you to notice this.

Please will you notice this? Because if you're not careful, you will be in great danger because the human mind and the carnal pressures always think wrongly when it reads the scripture. Always. For instance, that this book does not say, though he was rich, yet for your sakes, he became very generous.

Did you notice that? There's your thing. Well, if you're rich, you've got to be generous. That's not what it says. That's not grace. That's natural thinking in a decent mind. You know, if you're rich, be generous.

Yet for your sakes, he became poor. That you through his poverty, not his generosity. He could have made you rich in some ways by being generous to you, but he could not have reached you and got the thing he wants from you unless he'd become poor.

That you through his poverty might be made rich. Isn't that lovely? You do see grace there, don't you? And this is why so few people have grace. They haven't really understand the ground of operation of grace.

They don't really see the principle of grace. They've got something for nothing for someone that doesn't deserve anything or unmerited favor. That's much more dictionary. And these are the things that they believe with all their heart.

But my beloved brothers and sisters, Jesus Christ isn't words. He's the life that gives words their meaning and effect. And unless you understand the poverty of words, when arraigned against the person of Jesus Christ, who is the word and the first word and the last word on everything, words will be nothing else but a spider's web upon which you will catch your flies.

The Long Way Around as True Teaching

And the Lord wants us to understand it. And that then is the basic glorious word of the eighth chapter. And then I turn into the ninth chapter. We're not finished with the eighth. I always go a long way around, but it's best to go a long way around.

I'll tell you why. When I went to school, that was a long time ago. My teacher, she was a terror really. She always wanted to see how I arrived at my conclusions, because she thought I cheated. If not, you see, it's very easy to copy down an answer.

Show me how you did it. That's teaching. The rest is pumping knowledge into people. Do you understand that? That's teaching. I want to see. Put it down here. See? Glory be to God. So people think I go rambling, but it's nice to go on a ramble.

Have you ever been on a ramble? God save us from these people who always go on a march. I want to go and poke down this lane and see these violets under this head. That's what I want to see. You can go on march if you like.

I'll catch up with you sometime if I feel dispersed. It doesn't mean to say because you ramble you lose yourself. This then, it's coming to an understanding of that lovely clump of primroses down there, that the marcher, he didn't see that.

He couldn't see his goal. At least he thinks he can. He misses so much, by the way. Pray for him. And in chapter nine, it says this. This is probably the marvellous verse of chapter nine. I think so. It's the last one.

15. Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift. Go on. Thank you. Hang on. Paul didn't write that for you to read it and pass on. You're only reading when you do that. You're not involved. Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift.

Giving Oneself to God

Now God wants an unspeakable gift from you if you want to know what he requires from you. There will not be a box at the door. It's all right. Some gifts had better be spoken, not spoken that way. Written on a check would be better.

Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift. God's wanting an unspeakable gift from you. Have you ever got the place where you can't talk? You may wish that I come there soon. Have you ever got to a place, beloved, where you've realised at last that your words don't count?

Anymore. That you've moved into a realm of nothingness, save spirit. And it's everything. Have you ever given God this unspeakable gift? Let's have a look. Chapter eight. Let's start. Moreover, brethren, we do you to wit of the grace of God bestowed on the churches of Macedonia.

How that in a great trial of affliction, the abundance of their joy and their deep poverty abounded unto the riches of their liberality. If you don't understand the spirit of that, you'll get muddled up in Paul's language.

Unless you understand the spirit of it. Now let's go on. For to their power I bear record, yea, and beyond their power they were willing of themselves. Now if you're going to give God this unspeakable gift this morning, are you willing?

Willing to the point of action. Not agreeing to the point of docility. Are you willing to the point of action? I don't mean by a great big eruptive thing in the mind. But is there in your soul and has there been growing within you a clear determination, sort of an awakening and a quickening of you inside as something within you starts to move out onto something as yet you know not what.

Yet this being the power of the hand of God upon you, your mind being bypassed in this. Something in you knows that you're coming to the brink of is that right? Well I'd like to tell you you're at the brink of the great gulf of God's love.

You're about to be swallowed up in all that you want to be swallowed up in. Providing you know what the Lord is requiring of you. Here we go. They were willing of themselves praying us with much entreaty.

Think of these people. This isn't word spinning, it's reality. Praying us with much entreaty that we would receive the gift and take upon us the fellowship of the ministering to the saints. It's something you love isn't it?

When a mighty apostle of God you know has to be the sort and entreated to take on the fellowship of ministry to the saints. If Paul hadn't written this you would never believe it. But he did. That isn't to say that he'd never been ministering to the saints but this was along a line of ministering and Paul and his companions at this point and he'll always be a be an apostle if he can do this was just the little errand boy of the church.

If you like if you're prepared to be an errand boy of the church then you can you might be somewhere getting towards apostleship. This is what the Lord said. He that would be great among you should be your servant, your slave, your errand boy.

Isn't that lovely? Jesus had to learn to be an errand boy a long time before he became the great apostle to Israel. The messianic messenger boy what a lovely lovely person he was. No wonder his name shall be called wonderful counselor as we have said because he's been through all the stages and phases and he's learned in every condition so that he can give the wise and right counsel.

And he wasn't moved by a spasmodic thrust of the spirit to utter a word of wisdom. He just simply spoke out of life. That's a marvelous thing. Let's go on and it says this um this they did verse five this is the this is the verse not as we hope but first gave their own self to the Lord and unto us by the will of God.

Now that's what the Lord is requiring of you. Your self. That's basic. Here is the great and glorious revelation. Beloved it's a matter of giving. They're going to get much of it. Tell them not to hurry.

I give you a dispensation. Don't worry. Here it is beloved. Have you realized that this is really what God is after? Your self. That's what he's after. It's all so simple. It's a matter of giving. God gives.

I give. And it's simply because so many people don't realize this that they're in the condition that they're in. What is this self that Jesus is after? You realize beloved that it's this that the Bible speaks of as the inward man.

The Inward Man and the New Birth

Now that is what Jesus Christ is primarily after. The inward self. You see that's what God lost in the garden of Eden. He lost Adam's inward self and so he refused to have his outward self turn him out of the garden.

He didn't want a gardener. Isn't it an amazing thing that Mary thought he was the gardener? He would have been old Adam if he'd been there. Yeah Mary thought he was the gardener. Isn't the scripture marvelous?

Isn't the truth just beyond words? Doesn't it leave you with this inward consistency of God? Now I've said if I sat down now that's spoken volumes to you hasn't it? From that. Just that very thing. God didn't want a gardener.

I know you can conjure up marvelous pictures mostly based on the Old Testament you know. My heart may be like a garden fair. Lovely thoughts and words and deeds are blossoming there. Or it may be a place of poison weeds growing into ugly thoughts and words and deeds.

Oh Jesus make my heart a garden fair. Come thou thyself and be the gardener there. You see the thoughts of the Old Testament are not comparable with the thoughts of the New. The thought patterns from which they came they were consistent with the revelation that they had in that time.

God save us we'll get a revelation of what true ministry and prophecy is if we'll listen. And we'll understand that inspiration is a marvelous thing. Not that I want just to dwell on that. He isn't the gardener because God didn't want a gardener and he turned him out.

He'd lost the inward man and he rejected the outward man because he hadn't got the inward man. And the outward man's efforts labors and presence were unacceptable in his paradise. Nevertheless in his grace he started to establish on prophetic basis the means of reconciliation.

Even then because he wanted this. He wants you beloved wants you. And it's that inward self that he's after. That's the self that's dead. That's the self that died. The inward man died in the garden. That's it.

And that's what he's after and until you see this he's not just coming to a man just to forgive him. He instituted a new system of forgiveness in Israel by John Baptist. And having instituted forgiveness the Baptist said it's him you've got to look to now you're all forgiven.

Do you see that? Jesus came not to bestow forgiveness although he had power to forgive sins on earth. And John of course only received his power and authority to forgive from Jesus. But the Lord has set it out so clearly for us that we should see it.

Then why ever did Jesus Christ come? Isn't he satisfied that men can be forgiven? No. It's you he's after. Jesus Christ came we're told a life-giving or quickening spirit. The law from heaven. That's him and he came and he speaks with the voice that wakes the dead.

So we're told in John chapter 5. And somehow this dead thing inside here hears. It doesn't know it's hearing. It wouldn't describe it as hearing. You must remember when you read the bible that God is explaining things on a heavenly basis.

And he uses terms about hearing and seeing and feeling and knowing and understanding as they are there. It's the bringing of this doubt into the human world so it's reachable by us. And he comes and he speaks and a man doesn't know what's going on inside him.

All sorts of things happen. A woman can't understand the despairs that come after reaching out and not attaining. After trying your best and failing. After wanting. Wanting, wanting above all. Oh God you know I wanted.

I know I've been through that. I've been through that. That's how I can talk to you. I've discovered this thing. Lord above everything else. I'll go anywhere. I'll do anything. For you Lord you know I would.

Many weepings. Much kneelings before men. Not that you worship the men but because they you feel here's someone you think can help you. Out of the morass. Out of the wilderness. Out of the disappointments.

The darknesses. The frustrations. The striving and giving up because it's the same old trail really. It's only had tarmac put over the dirt underneath. It's the same old road. Don't you understand? Sure you understand or else I'm not talking truth and I'm not in the spirit.

For when a man's in the spirit he gets to the spirit of man and that's the thing that's got to be reached. That's the thing that's got to be reached. It's that that he wants. But you see the death of the spirit of man was not a passive death.

It's an active death. It's dead in trespasses. It's dead in sins. It isn't that there's something in me that's quiescent and never acts. It does. It acts. It erupts. It moves by passions. It won't listen to reason.

It undermines my will. It goes against my desires. It twists me. It knots me off. It dashes my hopes. It breaks my results. That's the inward man. It's alive, most active in sin. Now beloved, listen. Here then is the nexus or the crux of the whole matter.

Surrendering the Sinful Self to Christ

It's that that Jesus is after. That. That that rose up to sin. That that rose up to curse, swear, fornicate, go rotten, whatever it is. I don't want to go through the terrible list of it. But Paul's not afraid to use the list of them.

The works of the flesh, adultery, fornication, witchcraft, goes through the whole lot. That's what the inward man is active in. But he's dead. He's dead. He's actively dead. Deadly active. And the whole terrible thing is that.

Now beloved, listen. If you've been like that all your life, and I meet far too many who are like that, who say they've even been baptized in the Spirit. I meet far too many like that. If you're like that, beloved, then listen.

If you realize that that's the thing, the inward self of you, that Jesus Christ is after, and move to him with as much dynamic power as you move to sin, then you'll be there all right. That's what he's after.

It's no good sitting back and being passive and wanting something to happen to you and come on you and all this kind of thing. I'm dead. But you're not dead in the sense that you are very virulently active and have been.

Isn't that right? Now that's what it's all about. That's what he's requiring of you. And until you give him that utterly without any reserves, nothing going ticking over in the back of the mind, no tongue in the cheek, nothing at all, nothing.

It's got to be an unspeakable gift unless you haven't touched the realm of grace. And grace is to enable you to do it unless you come to this unspeakable gift at the end of your long, long prayers. I just don't mean in the moment, but that's been going over and over in your heart for ten years, five years, six or seven days, or what it is, that you come to the end of it and realize it's a power transaction.

And the weary road by which a man follows his own ego down to its death and corruption in the tomb of self has come to an end. And you're at the furthest point out and the deepest place down. And you have nothing to say, not one justifying word, nothing, not a plea now, not a bringing forth of the correct scriptural texts as the premise upon which you stare, but realizing that God loves you and he loved you in a world where there wasn't any scripture.

And he loved you in a realm that scriptures all be written about, the blessed dynamic scriptures. When you realize it's in power and it's in being and it's in personality and it's in you and it's in God and it's in nothing else and you realize that and you come to that which cannot be spoken for even God couldn't speak it.

He gave a son and said and called that the word, he's the word, gave a being, gave a person, gave a self. And you realize then that it doesn't lie in a prophecy you've heard, though bless God for prophecies, it doesn't lie in a book you've read, it doesn't lie in a prayer you've prayed, it doesn't lie in work you've done.

We're not in the realm of do, we're in the realm of you. He knows what he wants, he knows what he's after in you, he knows how to take from you what and having taken it he knows how to keep it. Say Jesus take from me what you want.

It's the divine marriage, it's the glorious truth, it's the meeting of spirits, it's the eternal life, that's what it is. How often have you gone round and round and round believing devoutly in this, believing wholeheartedly in that, exhausting all your known manner and means of faith until at last you come to the place of no love and you come to the place of no faith and you come to the place of no hope and you come to the place of no thing.