Keys to Spiritual Growth - Part 2 — John MacArthur

And, really looking at the keys to spiritual growth, what are the very vital ingredients in spiritual maturity process? In our first lesson last time, we focused on the concept of the glory of God. Based on our study of 2 Corinthians chapter 3, verse 18, where we see that as a believer focuses his life and attention on the glory of God, as he does that, he will be changed into the very image of the Lord from one level of glory to the next by the Holy Spirit.

Now, the Holy Spirit then is the energy in spiritual growth. Spiritual growth is becoming more and more like Christ. And the pull that pulls us along, that gives the Spirit of God the thrust, is as we gaze at the glory of the Lord.

As we focus our attention on giving glory to God, we are then pulled in the process of spiritual maturity. Now, we closed our last study by saying we wanted to share some practical ways in which we glorify God.

Confessing Jesus as Lord

If glorifying God is the master key to spiritual growth, what are the other keys that make up that master key? First of all, we glorify God by confessing Jesus as Lord. Now, that's where it all begins.

If my life is to be focused at glorifying God, that means that initially I must focus my attention on the Lordship of Christ. Now, what do I mean by that? Well, Philippians chapter 2 gives us the answer, verses 9 through 11.

After the great passage on the kenosis, or the humiliation of Christ, talking about how He became a man and took upon Him the form of a servant, was found in fashion as a man, humbled Himself, became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross, then the Word of God says this, "...wherefore God also hath highly exalted Him, and given Him a name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven, in earth, and under the earth.".

Now, listen, "...and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.". Now, listen, the humiliation of Jesus Christ was an act of obedience to the Father. In response, the Father glorified Jesus Christ and exalted Him, and then He calls on everything in the universe to confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, and then gives this closing statement, "...to the glory of God the Father.".

The reason, then, that we are to confess Jesus as Lord is because it glorifies God the Father. Now, that is the basic principle of salvation. We are to confess Christ as Lord, that is salvation for the glory of God.

Now, I believe that most people think that we should be saved for other reasons than the glory of God. If you ask the average person, why do you share Jesus Christ? Why do you communicate your faith? They'll probably say, well, because we want to keep people out of going to hell.

We want them to avoid eternal punishment. Now, that's a valid reason, but not the major one. The major reason for people to be saved is not to avoid hell. Someone else might say, no, I present Christ because of love.

The love of Christ constrains me, because God loves them, and because I love them, I tell them about Christ. And that's a valid reason, but not the main one. And someone might say, well, I speak the gospel because I'm commanded to do that.

I'm commanded to go into all the world and preach the gospel, make disciples, teach them all things whatsoever Christ has commanded. I'm commanded, or I love, or I want to keep people out of hell, and all those are valid and all of those are biblical reasons for evangelism, but they don't come to the apex.

The major reason to preach the gospel, the major reason to become a believer is for the glory of God. It boils down to this. To live without salvation is to deny Christ, and to deny Christ is the greatest affront possible to God.

It is the one sin that is unforgivable. If a person continues in unbelief, that is an unforgivable sin. In fact, that is the major sin of man. Jesus said in John 16 that he would send the Holy Spirit to convict the world of sin.

What sin? Because they believe not in me. The greatest sin that a man can commit is the failure to believe in Jesus Christ. Why? Because that is to say that he is not God. He is not the Savior. He is not to be worshiped.

He is not to be Lord. And to say that is to dishonor the Father. In John chapter 5, for example, Jesus says so pointedly in verse 23, all men should honor the Son. Listen, even as they honor the Father, he that honoreth not the Son honoreth not the Father who sent him.

You cannot give glory to God unless you give glory to his Son, who is the fullness of his glory. So, listen, we begin then to give glory to God when we give glory to Christ. And how do you do that? By confessing him as Lord.

And that simply means salvation. He's not talking about some second act. You don't say, well, I've taken him as Savior, but later on I'll make him Lord. No, no. Those aren't two distinct things. When you are saved, you confess Christ as Lord.

That is salvation. In Romans 10, 9, and 10, it says, If thou shalt confess with thy mouth Jesus as Lord and believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. In other words, salvation is a matter of confessing the Lordship of Christ, that he is God, that he is sovereign, that he is Lord.

And that is a personal application of that reality. Somebody asked me not long ago if I was a Lordship salvationist. I wasn't sure what that was. I thought you were supposed to stand on a corner and play a trumpet or beat a drum if you were one of those.

But that isn't really what he meant. A Lordship salvationist, he meant, is somebody who believes that you must believe that Jesus is Lord to be saved. He said, Do you believe that way? I said, I don't know any other way to accept Christ.

He is Lord, and I accept him on his terms, not mine. I don't redefine Jesus as something less than he is and take him that way. Is he Lord? I said to this person. He said, Yes. I said, Then how do you take him?

You must take him as he is. If you confess Jesus as Lord, it is to the glory of God. Now simply stated, no one has the capacity to go beyond that in spiritual maturity. No one can glorify God until they start right there.

That's the touchstone. That's where it all begins. Let me take this a step further for those of us that are Christians. I believe that if Christ is Lord in our lives, if we have received him and we're born again and he rules, and he does rule, by the way, all our lives, it's only a question of whether we obey it, not whether he rules.

And as he rules in our lives, we must keep in mind that the preaching of the gospel is mainly so that he may rule in other lives for his own glory. In other words, the great sin of man is to live and not glorify God.

Henry Martin, who was a great missionary in India for many years, when he first went there, went into a pagan temple, and he saw all these people worshiping their pagan gods, and he burst out the back door, and with tears in his eyes, he ran from the place, and he came to his place of abode, and he took out his dyer, and he wrote these words in it, I cannot endure existence if Jesus is to be so dishonored.

In other words, the great reality in his life was that he couldn't tolerate somebody who didn't glorify Christ. In Romans chapter 1, Paul says that we preach obedience to the nations for the sake of the name.

He says we don't preach the gospel for their sake. We preach the gospel for his sake. In 3 John chapter 7, he says we go out preaching for the sake of the name. Same thought. Not for their sake, for his sake, so that he might be acknowledged as Lord, and that's where it begins.

If you're not a Christian, you've never confessed Christ as Lord, there is no capacity within you to live to his glory. It's an utter impossibility. It cannot be done, because that's where it all begins.

You cannot say, I deny Christ. He is not my Savior. He is not my Lord, and then proceed to try to grow spiritually, or proceed to try to glorify God in another way. You are slapping God in the face at the very most vital point.

If you dishonor the Son, you dishonor the Father. So glorifying God then begins, as Paul says in Philippians 2, with confessing Jesus as Lord to the glory of God the Father. And so we say that salvation is a necessary beginning for spiritual growth.

The fact is, you can't grow until you're born. Now a second truth. The second thing that I want to share with you along this line is this. We will glorify God, firstly, by confessing Jesus as Lord, and secondly, by aiming our lives to obey his Lordship.

Obeying Christ's Lordship in Everyday Life

Secondly, by aiming our lives to obey his Lordship. When we allow God to clothe us with the purple robe of his righteousness, he is glorified. When we open our hearts and receive his Son, he is glorified.

When his Spirit takes up residence in our lives, he is glorified. When we call Jesus Lord, he is glorified. But then there's a second corollary. Having received the Lord, we are to respond to his Lordship.

The key verse I want you to understand, and this is 1 Corinthians 10 .31. It says this, whatever you do, whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all to the glory of God. Now you have confessed Jesus as Lord to the glory of God.

Now, whatever you do, whether you eat or drink or whatever it is, and by the way, eating and drinking is simply symbolic of the most mundane, menial functions of life. Even something as minimal, as routine, as ordinary, as common, as constant as eating and drinking should have as its focus the glory of God.

And so that would really give us grounds to back up and do a few messages on how to eat to the glory of God and how to drink to the glory of God, because it starts even at the most minimal level of life, the routine things, and it ascends from there.

No matter what you do, do it all to the glory of God. The idea then is that that becomes a pervasive attitude. No matter what I do, it is to the glory of God that my focus must be made. Now, certainly this is the way that Jesus lived.

In John chapter 8 and in verse 50, Jesus says this, I seek not mine own glory. There is one that seeketh and judgeth. Back in verse 49, I honor my Father. Jesus said, I'm here for one reason, not my glory, but His glory.

And that's really what we're saying. You're going to grow spiritually. You're going to focus on His glory when that becomes the pervasive element of your life. Now, what does a hypocrite seek to do? What do men seek to do?

Well, they seek to steal the glory of God and in its place, substitute their own. In Matthew chapter 6, for illustration's sake, we find in verse 1, the Lord says, Take heed that you do not your alms before men, that is your giving, to be seen by them, otherwise you have no reward of your Father who is in heaven.

In other words, if you're trying to put on a production so everybody will think you're spiritual, you're not going to be rewarded. Therefore, when thou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, watch this, that they may have glory from men.

What always stands in the way of glorifying God is us seeking glory from men. Just what we read, didn't we, in the Old Testament, where Jeremiah says, Don't be proud, give glory to God. So, if I am to aim my life at this, if I am to submit in obedience to the Lordship of Christ, there will be an attitude of humility.

There will be the death of pride. We must beware of self-worship. We must aim always and only at God's glory. Now what does that mean? To say that I submit in obedience to His Lordship, to say I aim my life at that, to say whether I eat or drink or whatever I do, I do it all to the glory of God, just exactly what does that mean?

Well, let me say it this way, and I'll just give you a few sub-points right here. First of all, it means that you will give God glory no matter what the cost, no matter what the cost. Now, that's a pretty heavy statement, but that's the essence of what it means to submit to His Lordship, to aim your life at His glory.

You will glorify Him no matter what it costs. In John 12 and verse 27, Jesus said this, "'Now is my soul troubled, and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour, but for this cause came I unto this hour.

What should be my prayer as I anticipate the cross? God, bail me out. This is the hour for which I came. Father, glorify Thy name.'". And there came then a voice from heaven saying, "'I have both glorified it and will glorify it again.'".

"'God,' He says, "'humanly I'd like to get out of this. This is an incredible price to pay, pain, anguish, sin-bearing, but Father, glorify Your name no matter what it costs me.'". See? Now, that's what it means.

As you learn to live your life content to do God's will at any cost, content to glorify Him no matter what the price, you'll be fulfilling that second great principle of spiritual growth, that second great key.

Peter's Willingness to Glorify God Through Death

You'll be unlocking that area of obedience to His Lordship. Let me give you another illustration by having you turn to the end of the book of John, John chapter 21. And here we run into this situation with the Apostle Peter.

We'll be coming back to this very same incident in our story because it illustrates several great truths of spiritual growth. Peter has been earmarked by God since before the foundation of the world for very important functions.

Peter is to be the key to the first twelve chapters of the book of Acts. He is the key in the apostolic preaching of the cross as the church is born in Jerusalem and moves out around the world. He is to be a dynamic and gifted leader.

And so it's very important that he be firmed up, rooted, set in place for the task to which God has called him. But unfortunately, Peter is a little flaky, to put it in a contemporary term, and it's very hard for Peter to make a commitment.

He's got all kinds of verbiage, he just doesn't hang in there. Every time he was given a test, he flunked. If he was a seminary student, he would have long been gone. And yet the Lord knows that this is a very needed man.

And so even though he has helped Peter in the past, he's gone out of his way to show him his power to walk on water, he has fed him at the point of the feeding of the five thousand, he was there at the transfiguration, he has heard the great confession and really it came out of his own mouth, but from God's heart, thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.

Peter has been on some tremendous adventures with Christ, where he has seen displays of power, even in the garden as the soldiers came and when Jesus spoke, they all fell over backwards like dominoes.

I mean, Peter has seen some great things. Amazingly enough, he's even seen the resurrected Christ in the upper room, and by this time of John 21, had a personal audience with the resurrected Christ. And yet, after all of that, he's still flaky, he's still...

I think he felt inadequate, I think he looked at himself and said, Peter, every time you've ever been given a test, you blew it, who's to say you're going to pass one now? And Jesus said to him, Peter, you go into Galilee and go in a mountain and wait, and he was testing him, and wait till I come, he said, don't go anywhere, just stay there.

Well, Peter is there in chapter 21, but he's getting an itchy tunic, and he's not going to be able to sit on the side of that hill much longer. He was kind of a hyper guy to start with, and it's kind of tough to just sit up there and wait.

He's been waiting and waiting and waiting, and Christ hasn't appeared, and so finally he says in verse 3, I'm going fishing, Aristence, final action. I'm going back to what I used to do. I never did believe myself in this ministry deal anyway.

I've bombed out every time I've had an opportunity. There's one thing I can do, and it's fishing. I'm going back, and he was the leader, of course, and so all the other six guys, like a bunch of rubber ducks, came down the same hillside and said, we're going, too.

So they all waddled down and got in a boat. Peter was the leader. That's the whole point. God wanted to use him. What happened in verse 3? They entered into the boat, the Greek says, which may indicate they went back and picked up Peter's own boat.

He was going back to his old profession, and they were all going with him. They were all his fishing buddies. But there was one thing they couldn't do, it was fish, because the Lord had rerouted every fish in the Sea of Galilee, so they couldn't catch him to get his point across.

So they fished all night and caught nothing. The Lord appeared in the morning, had a confrontation with Peter, checked out his love, and we'll get to that text later. And then when Peter told him three times he loved him, he comes back with this in verse 18, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, When thou wast young, thou girdest thyself and walkest where thou wouldest.

Now, just stop for a minute. Peter, you've pretty much had it your own way. You called the shots, put on your own belt, and went where you wanted to go. Girding up yourself was a picture of preparation for a journey.

Whenever you wanted to do what you wanted to do, you did it, but when you shall be old, that's going to change. You will stretch forth your hands, and that very phrase is used in extra-biblical literature to speak of a crucifixion.

You're going to stretch forth your hands. Somebody else is going to gird you and take you where you don't want to go. Verse 19, watch it, This spoke he, signifying by what death he should, here it comes, glorify God.

Now, notice this, Peter would come to the point in his life where he would glorify God by dying. How? Because he would be willing to pay any price before he would deny the will of God, even death. Now, that was news to Peter, because every other time he'd face death, he reneged on his testimony.

On one occasion when they confronted him with the fact that he was a follower of Jesus Christ, he cursed and took God's name in vain and swore that he was not, and made an oath that he never kept. So, you see, this is news to Peter, but what the Lord is saying is, Peter, there's going to come a day when you will die for Me, and in dying glorify Me.

Why? Because that will be My will, and you will be content to die for My sake. That's the way it was with Paul, for me to live is Christ and to die is gain. If I live, I live unto the Lord. If I die, I die unto the Lord.

So whether I live or die, I'm the Lord's, and what's the difference? I'm the Lord's. You see, to aim my life at the glory of God, now that I'm a Christian, to focus on doing whatever I do, whether it's eating or drinking, to the glory of God means that if it has to be death for His sake, let it be.

Let it be. I think of the tremendous story of the missionaries throughout the history of Christian missions, story after story after story, becoming one great composite story of people willing to die for Christ.

I think of Hebrews chapter 11, the heroes of the faith who are listed there who died in the great anticipation of glory and resurrection, of whom the world was not worthy. There was no price too high for them.

In fact, in Isaiah 24, 15, Isaiah cries to the remnant and says, glorify God in the fires. I think of Latimer and Ridley who were burned at the stake for their faith, singing praises to Jesus Christ. I think of Savannah Rolla, the great preacher in Italy who had preached the gospel of Jesus Christ, and the system took him and burned him at the stake.

Again and again through history, there have been those willing to do anything for the cause of Christ. I always go back to the story of John Payton, that great missionary who went to the New Hebrides.

He graduated from school, and he was sent to the New Hebrides with his wife, and there were only man-eating cannibals there. They landed on that little place. They had to row a dinghy because the ship went by, didn't even go to the shore, and they rowed to shore, didn't speak the language, didn't know anybody.

All they knew, people had come there and never returned. They had become somebody's lunch. And so, they got on the shore. It's pretty tough, you know, to get on the shore of a place inhabited by cannibals whose language you don't speak and figure out how you start, right?

I mean, you don't put a little sign that says, Sunday school class, Sunday at 9 .30. We welcome you all. That isn't really the way you do. What do you do? You don't know the language, you don't know the people, and your threat of life hangs over your head.

I remember reading in a particular book something of the story of that, and later on the chief was of the tribe in that area was saved, and he came to John Payton, and he said to him, Mr. Payton, I want to ask you a question.

He says, in those early months that you were here, he says, who was the army that girded your place of dwelling every night and protected you? God's holy angels apparently even became manifest in that protecting time.

But Payton stayed there. After a few weeks, his wife gave birth to a baby. The baby died. A few days later, she died. He slept on their graves for three or four nights to keep the natives from digging them up and eating them.

He stayed there alone, and he stayed there for 35 years. He says in his biography that at the end of those 35 years, I don't know of one native that hasn't made at least a profession of faith in Jesus Christ.

He went there with all the great hopes. The only thing he ever loved really in the world was his wife, and then the cherished baby had to sleep on their graves, and all alone he stayed. But God used him because he was content to do God's will no matter what it cost him, and that's what it means to aim your life at His purposes.

If you're charting your own course, if you're saying, Lord, here's what I'll do and here's what I won't do, if you're saying, Lord, I've got it all outlined here, if you're not willing to pay the price of a little bit of embarrassment, if you're not willing to pay the price in humility of being defamed and dishonored by the world, if you're not willing to pay the price of a little less possessions in this life, then maybe you'll never know what it is to be content with His will at any price, and maybe you'll never really know what it is to grow spiritually because you'll not be aiming at His glory.

It's when you are consumed with His glory and not your own comfort and not your own ease and not your own plans and your own will. So if I am then to aim my life at His glory, no matter what it is, from eating and drinking to dying, it means I have to be content with that will no matter what it costs me.

Feeling the Pain of God's Dishonor

Secondly, if I aim my life at His glory, it means that His glory becomes so consuming that I hurt when He is dishonored, and this is a very important concept. I can usually tell when someone is aiming their life at the glory of God by how they react to God being dishonored.

For example, David in Psalm 69, 9 looked at the temple, and he looked at the worship of Israel and his heart broke. He said this, "'Zeal, for thine house has eaten me up.'". In other words, David said, "'I have such a tremendous love for you and such a tremendous hatred for what dishonors you.

I concern myself with your temple and your presence and your worship so that it literally tears me up.'". Then in the remainder of the verse, he said this, "'The reproaches that fall on you fall on me.'".

In other words, when you're dishonored, I hurt, and I'll tell you I understand that a little bit as a father. You hurt my child, you hurt me. You hurt my wife, you hurt me. You hurt somebody I love, you hurt me.

I've cried more in my life over things that have happened to other people I care about than I've ever cried about things that happened to me. In fact, it's pretty hard for me to cry about things that happened to me.

It's much easier for me to cry with somebody whose heart is broken for whom I care, and that's because I identify with them in love. And when you have identified with God, the things that break your heart will not be the things that happen to you, but the things that dishonor God.

And that's the kind of mentality that really is saying, I am so focused on God's glory that what breaks His heart breaks my heart. And David said, "'Zeal for your house has eaten me up, and the reproaches that fall on you fall on me.'".

And you know who quoted that verse in the New Testament? Jesus did. Jesus said, "'Zeal for your house has eaten me up, the reproaches that fall on you are fallen on me.'". And you know when He said it?

He said it just before He made a whip in the temple. And when He made the whip, He started whipping people all through the temple, and He said, "'You've taken God's house, the place of His glory, and you've turned it into a den of thieves.'.

And He rebuked them, and He blasted away at them with His whip, and He overturned their tables, and He chased them out. And He did it twice, once at the beginning of His ministry and once at the end. You see, He couldn't tolerate God being dishonored.

That's the mark of someone who lives for God's glory. Jesus was never concerned with His own pain. He was never concerned with His own agony. He was never concerned with His own defamation. He was only concerned with God being dishonored.

Do you live your life that way? That is aiming at the glory of God. That is focusing on God's glory. Number one, you don't care what it costs, and number two, you're consumed with how things affect Him.

The Church at Ephesus and Hatred of Evil

You know, one of the greatest statements made in the book of Revelation is easily passed over. It is made in chapter 2 in reference to the church at Ephesus. It's a little word, but it's a very, very important one.

Of the church at Ephesus, it was said, Thou canst not bear them that are evil. That was one of the great characteristics of that church. They couldn't tolerate people that were evil. Why? Because they knew evil impinges upon the holiness of God and His will.

I'm amazed how few Christians understand this. I'm amazed how many Christians are so consumed in their own will, so consumed with their own comfort, so absorbed in their own problems that they don't really feel the pain when God is dishonored.

They feel it mostly when they are dishonored, and that's the wrong focus. But once in a while, somebody gets the message, and boy, is it exciting. I remember a young girl who came to California some years ago.

She came out here to live with a guy at UCLA who was a student. She was not a Christian. He was not a Christian. Obviously, they were just living together. She was a high school girl. After a while, he decided to kick her out.

She'd come all the way from a little town in West Virginia, and he was tired of her, and so like some old half-used rag, he just threw her aside. She wandered around a little bit and tried to take her life and had slashed herself many times in many places on her hands and arms with razor blades, and bled, and somehow or another always been spared death.

He came across this girl, had the opportunity to lead her to Christ. I'll never forget that time, my sister and myself talking with her, and she opened her heart to Christ. She said, my life has changed, and I want to go back to my hometown.

I want to tell my mother about Christ, and I want to tell my friends about Christ, and I want to get everything straightened out in my life. And I said to her, I said, well, is there a church there that you can go to?

Is there somebody that can disciple you? She said, no, I don't know of a church in our little town except a Catholic church. And she said, I really don't know any other Christians there, but I'm going to go back.

And I gave her the Bible, you know, in great fear that I'd have to leave her up to the Holy Spirit, right? Make sure he could do the job without me. So anyway, off she went, and I prayed for her, and she decided to attend the Catholic high school because she knew if she went back to her old high school, she had such a rotten reputation, she'd likely fall into the same patterns.

So she wanted to meet some new people. Well, she'd been gone three or four months, and she wrote me a letter. And as I saw the letter, I was deeply concerned with what it might say, fearful that she had probably wandered away and was writing for some counsel in the midst of a terrible situation.

But this was what I read, I hope everything is well with you. I've really begun to put things together in the Bible. By reading the Old Testament, I've been able to see how God deserves much more recognition than He's getting.

I can see how He gave people so many chances and how they continued to break His heart by worshiping idols and sinning. God wanted the world to belong to Him. God also wanted Israel to sacrifice lambs and goats and oxen and things like that as an atonement to Him for sins.

He is God, after all, and He had to have some payment for the terrible sins of men. Let me interject at this point that she didn't have any tapes or study books that I know of. This was just from a reading of Scripture.

She says further, to think that God actually talked and was in the visible presence of these people, and yet they kept on complaining and sinning. Listen, I can almost feel the unbearable sadness that God feels when someone rejects and doesn't glorify Him.

What an amazing insight for such a new believer. He's God, she said. He made us. He gave us everything. We continue to doubt and reject Him. It's awful when I think of how I hurt Him. I hope I can make it up.

And then she goes on at the end to say, I have a soft spot in my heart for God now. I can feel His jealousy when I see people worshiping idols and other gods. It's all so clear to me. God must be glorified.

God must be worshiped. He deserves it. It's long overdue, and I can't wait to just tell Jesus and thus tell God indirectly that I love Him and kiss the ground He walks on because He should be worshiped.

I want God to be God and take His rightful place, and I'm tired of the way people keep putting Him down. It's amazing, isn't it, that somebody so new in the faith understood the whole picture of living to the glory of God so that you hurt when God is dishonored.

Being Content to Be Outdone

Now, listen, I glorify God by confessing Jesus as Lord, and then I glorify God by bending my will to that Lordship no matter what it costs me, and so that I feel the pain that God feels. There's a third element of this second point, and that's this.

You aim your life at the glory of God, watch this one, when you are content to be outdone by others. Hang on to that. You can always tell somebody who's really living for the glory of God because they're content to be outdone by somebody who does exactly what they do better.

That's a tough one. You know, somebody said that when Satan fell, he landed in the choir loft. I don't really know if that's true, but you know, every once in a while you get in a choir, everybody wants to sing solos, and when somebody doesn't get to sing the solo, then everybody else begins to complain, say, I never get to sing the solo.

They're not so concerned about God being glorified, they're concerned about them being heard. I know one pastor who has so many people bugging him to sing solos that once a year on a Sunday night he has solo night, and everybody who wants to sing gets one verse, and they parade across the platform, sing their verse, and on comes the next one, he gets it all over with in one night.