Identity Theft - Are You a Victim?

The title today, Identity Theft, Are You a Victim? Are you a victim of identity theft? You might respond immediately, no, I'm not, but don't be too sure. Identity theft is the fastest growing crime in the U.S. People steal Social Security numbers, driver's license, and other personal information so they can pass themselves off as a person to whom those credentials really belong to. Identity theft occurs every day, 79 seconds.

Every 79 seconds, an identity is stolen. From someone, maybe you know, or other people abroad, the probability is high that either you or someone that you know will be a victim of identity theft every 79 seconds. The Federal Trade Commission reports that for the fifth year in a row, identity theft topped the list of consumer complaints. Identity theft accounted for over 37 percent of all complaints lodged by the Federal Trade Commission.

It is estimated that almost 11 million people have had their identity stolen. There's been a victim of this crime, identity theft. Identity theft occurs when a criminal uses another person's personal information to take on that person's identity. Identity theft is much more than misuse of a Social Security number. It can also include credit cards, mail fraud, and many other things. So I ask you, are you a victim of identity theft? You say, well, no, not that type. But there are many types of identity theft.

There's the kind that I briefly described above. That's the kind we hear about in the news. But are there other insidious forms of identity theft? Incidious is a word that means more dangerous than it seems. Identity has to do with who you are. In today's world, you're asked to show your ID just about anything you want to do that you're especially applying for, like driver's license, credit, getting a loan, many other things you're asked to show your ID. Are you really who you say you are? They want to know. All the peoples of all ages in this world have had their identity stolen at one time.

Many of us have had our identity stolen at one time. But those of you who are what's called second, third, fourth, probably even fifth generation Christians now in the Church of God, you don't have to have your identity stolen. So many people in the human race, back almost everybody, has had their identity stolen. They don't know why the human race was created. Why was the human race created? When one forgets who he or she is, they call it amnesia. And in some cases that might be true if you're a victim of some kind of trauma and you don't know who you are. But the kind of identity theft that I'm talking about is more insidious and deceitful than any form of amnesia. Do you know who you are? Do you know why God created the human race?

And what is the greatest sense of identity that a person could realize about himself or herself? The greatest sense of identity? Would it be that they are children of John and Jane Doe? Well, I'm the son of, I'm the daughter of, and you fill in the blank. Well, that might be a part of your identity. Would it be your home, your school, your education, your social status, your wealth, your material possessions, your social and other connections? Just what is the greatest sense of identity that you could realize about yourself?

Most people in the world have been robbed of a sense of abiding identity, and there is a greater, more consecrated and concerted effort than ever before to rob all the peoples of the world from their sense of identity. The godless theory of evolution is one of the main ploys that is being used to rob people of their sense of identity. Are you the result of blind chance and some kind of theoretical evolutionary process? Did you come from some microscopic one-cell organism of Aeon's past? Did you come from the apes? How did you come to be? From the highest to the lowest institutions of learning, the gullible, anchorless peoples of the world are taught that they are just another species of life.

They have no anchors of the soul. They don't know who they are. No wonder we are descending farther and farther into the abyss of ignorance. Let's look at Isaiah. The prophet Isaiah promised a time of a time. Of course, Israel had its ups and downs through the ages.

And it continues, and to this day the peoples of the world, not really knowing who they are, and especially the peoples that God called out and the peoples of Christianity, the peoples of the church of God who claimed that we really know who God and Christ are. And notice this. It's Isaiah chapter 1, verse 2. Here, O heavens, give ear, O earth, for the eternal has spoken. I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me. The ox knows his owner, and the ass the master's crib. But Israel does not know my people do not consider.

They don't know who they are.

A sinful nation of people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, a children that are corruptors. They have broken the...

they have forsaken the eternal. They have provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger. They are gone away backward. People not knowing who they are, not knowing who God is, what God is, what is his purpose, who is man, what is man, what is his purpose, what God and Christ have planned for us. So let's turn now to Genesis 1.26. And let's see what our identity really should be, and we should be sobered by, you know, on the various identity forms on your driver's license or on your passport. It will be a picture of you and what do you look like.

In Genesis 1.26 and 27, we see here, we'll read it in just a moment, that God created humans in his image, and he gave you as an act of creation, certain faculties of mind and emotion that are akin to God. So let's read verses 26 and 27. And God said, Let us make man in our image after our likeness. Let him have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the thal of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God, created he him, male and female, created he them. And you can read in the Old Testament and in the New Testament how that God and Christ are anthropomorphized. Anthropomorphized means that human-like qualities are ascribed unto God. In Revelation chapter 1, you see Jesus Christ walking among the seven golden candlesticks, and various human features are ascribed unto God. So God and Christ are, in that sense, anthropomorphized. In other words, human-like qualities are ascribed to God. But as we shall see, of course, God is spirit, and man is physical, mortal, subject to sin and death. Now the impact and the import of the fact that we are made in the image of God basically escapes humanity. And to some degree, I think it probably escapes us. Let's look at James chapter 3. James chapter 3. The fact that we are made in the image of God and we are children of God by creation. More about that a little later. Being children of God by creation is not the same as being children of God by spiritual birth, as we shall note later. But in James chapter 3 and verse 8. James chapter 3 and verse 8.

But the tongue can no maintain. It is an unruly evil and full of deadly poison. Therewith, bless we God, even the Father, and therewith curse we men which are made after the homeosis, the similitude, and the likeness of God.

Now one of the things that it says in Matthew about if you...

Let's turn there. Matthew 5, 21. With regard to your respect for another human being, see, in our world today, respect for other humans is practically lost. The fact that we're created in the image of God is one of the primary reasons why Christ said what he said here in Matthew 5, 21 through 24. Every person has the potential of being a spirit-born child of God, made in the image of God. In Matthew 5, 21, you have heard that it was said to them of all time, you shall not kill, and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment. But I say unto you that whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment, and whosoever shall say it to his brother Rekha, that is, shall be in danger of the council. But whosoever shall say thou fool shall be in danger of Gehenna, fire.

So God expects us to respect the fact that we are made in the image of God. And that is, in one sense, our principle identity. In fact, you were created in the image of God, means, of course, that you owe your very existence to God, each one of us. There is identity, and then there is identification. So, identity has to do with who you are, are you who you say you are, and can you really prove that you are who you say you are? Then identification is the process of developing a sense of sameness or oneness with other people. To a large degree, identification has to do with relationship. We might say, I just don't identify with him or her, or I was never able to identify with that, whatever that might be. So aspects of identification include understanding, to get or perceive the meaning of something. You identify with it, you understand it, you relate to it, you connect to it through thought and actions, you agree to consent, be in harmony with, or the same opinion. If you identify with it, you are probably convicted of it, you commit to it. Commitment has to do with keeping of a charge or trust. But once again, perhaps the most important aspect of identification has to do with relationship. On the 9th, Jesus was crucified. Well, not crucified, but betrayed before he was crucified the next daylight time. So on the night that he was betrayed, the disciples refused to identify with Jesus. Remember that Jesus had told Peter before the cock froze three times, you shall have denied me three times. So on that night, every last one of the disciples forsook him and went their own way. So who do you identify with? And what is your priority of who and what you identify with?

Our greatest identification should be with God and Christ and with the truth. God loved us first, and he loved us so much that he gave his only begotten son, his only begotten son, loved us so much that he gave his life that we might be reconciled to the Father and have our sins forgiven. You know, Jesus said, I and my Father are one. In his prayer in John 17, verses 21, off and on back to the end of the chapter, we can say that we probably identify with our family, our physical family. We identify with our church family.

In fact, it says in Romans 12, verse 5, that we are members one of another.

If we are in God and Christ, then we are members one of another through the Holy Spirit.

So we ask the question, do you realize that you are a son or a daughter of God by creation? And do you identify with who you are? Who you are?

To not do so is to commit spiritual suicide.

God created each one of us. Every human being that's ever lived or ever will live was created for a great transcendental purpose, to become members of God's own family, to become a spirit-born being in the family of God, in the kingdom of God. So why did God create you in his image with the faculties of mind and emotion and other qualities that God himself possesses? He created you that way because he wants to share who he is and what he is with you in a family unity. Your identity is being created in the image of God should be one of the most important aspects of your being. To fully realize who you are and that you are created by our loving, merciful, heavenly Father is very humbling. You are not the result of some blind evolutionary phenomenon. You were created in the image of God. You didn't evolve from a microscopic one-cell organism. You didn't come from any other species through some mutation.

You were created in the image of God. And that identity should be in our minds at all times and also with regard to other people. They are also created in the image of God with the same potential. So we are created in the image of God but not of his essence.

God's essence, what he is, we would use the word composed of, what he is, he is Spirit. John 4, 24 says, God is Spirit and those who worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. So we look at Genesis 2.7. In Genesis 2.7, of course, that is the great gulf that must be some way bridged between our mortality and immortality, created in the image of God 16 elements from the dust to the ground as we read here. And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils of breath of life and man became a living nefesh. When all is said and done, nefesh, soul, has to do with life potential.

We are a living, air-breathing creature, a creation by the hands of God. You know, in Matthew 10, 28, it says, fear not him who is able to destroy the body, but fear him who is able to destroy both body and soul. That is life potential. Of course, when you are put into the lake of fire, that is the second death, and there is no more life potential. You are no longer a living being and never will be again if you experience, of course, the second death. So we need the Spirit of God to become spirit begotten and eventually spirit-born and sons, spirit-born sons and daughters of God. Let's go to John 1, and John 1, verse 12. I've already mentioned this, said we would pursue it some more, that by creation we are all children of God. Now, you hear various people today talking about, especially when it comes to the watchword of the day is toleration, toleration of all forms of behavior.

You have to be tolerant, you have to be loving, because after all, we are all children of God, and so we are by creation. We're all children of God by creation, but God wants us to go to another step in being His children, not just children by creation, but children by spiritual birth. To a large degree, this is summarized here, John 1, 12. But as many as received Him, speaking of Christ, to them gave He power to become the sons of God. This is spiritual sons of God, as we shall see. Even to them that believe on His name, which were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. Born of God. Revelation 1, 5 says that Jesus Christ is the firstborn, prototikos, from the dead. It also says in Romans chapter 8 that He is the firstborn among many brethren. So God and Christ want us to become spirit-born children of God. Let's look at Romans chapter 8. What we're talking about here today is if the world could just remotely understand it. If we could really understand it. And I, of course, having so many people that I have known through the years, from family members to dear friends, that have, for some reason, surrendered their sense of identity, or surrendered their spiritual identity. Having loved this present world. You know, you read about in 2 Timothy chapter 4 where Titus and others had forsaken Paul having loved this present evil age. And if you really know who you are and what life is about, to go the other way just really defies my ability to describe it.

Okay, we're Romans 8 verse 14.

For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. So God wants us to go from being children by creation to being sons, daughters of God, eventually born into the family of God and spirit beings. For you have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you have received the spirit of sonship. The old King James says adoption, the Greek word there is otheia. It means sonship. Why is it sonship? Because we have the same essence in us of the Spirit that God is. We talk about God's Spirit in us. So we are spirits, begotten sons of God, daughters of God. We're by the spirit of sonship, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God. See, that's the children of God. It's not just by adoption. In adoption, you may have the same rights and privileges legally as those of biological birth sons and daughters, but you do not have the DNA of your parents, whereas those who are sons and daughters in the birth sense or in the begotten sense have the essence of the Father and the Mother in them.

In the spiritual sense, the Spirit of God and Christ in them. The Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God, and if children then heirs, heirs of God, and join heirs with Christ. If so be that we suffer with Him, that we may be also glorified together. But you will never attain to the greatest identity of all that is Spirit begotten and born sons of God if you don't understand and accept your primary identity. You have to know who you are and what the purpose of human life is. You were created in the image of God. That's who you are at birth. And Satan in this world's system has stolen humanity's identity. They don't know who they are. Many believe that they are, I would venture to say, billions.

Believe that they are the result of some kind of evolutionary process. And Satan is doing everything he possibly can to rob you of your identity.

So that you surrender that identification card that is stamped with the blood of Jesus Christ and ratified by His blood, and you plunge back into this world, people who are robbed of this identity develop a reprobate mind.

And it's made very clear in the Bible. So let's go there. We're in Romans. Let's turn back to Chapter 1. In Romans chapter 1, verse 22, Romans 1-22, "...provesting themselves to be wise, they become fools." Oh, yes, they are the enlightened ones. How could you believe in the fables of the Bible, they would say? "...and change the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like a corruptible man into birds and four-footed beasts and creeping things. Wherefore, God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lust of their own flesh to dishonor their own bodies between themselves, who changed the truth of God into a lie and worshiped and served the creation more than the creator, who is blessed forever. For this cause, God gave them up unto vile affections for even their women to change their natural use into that which is against nature. And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, turned in their lust one toward another, men with men working out which is unseemly and receiving in themselves that recompense of their own error which was fitting. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind to do those things which are not convenient. And it goes on describing what those people are like, and you can read about it, hear about it in the news media every day, the result thereof. All they may be brilliant scientists or fabulously wealthy with great social and political standing, but in the identity and the identification that matters most, they don't know who they are. All they may give lip service to God, and many do. They have lost their primary sense of identity, their foolish hearts and minds are darkened, their minds have become reprobate, and oh yes, Satan wants you to lose your identity. Throw it away and come to disrespect the one who gave you life in the first place. There would be no human life unless God and Christ at that time, the word and love, decided they wanted to share who they are and what they are with humanity and create human beings. So do you really understand reverence and respect who you are?

When you come to a holy convocation, as we are here today, we open with prayer, we ask, as it was the case today, that God would be here in spirit, and we are saying that we are appearing before God.

And, doubtlessly, God is present. His spirit is here. I believe the spirit of God is with us in a special way on the Sabbath. There's something about the internal clock. You don't have to tell me that it is Friday afternoon getting late or mid-Friday afternoon. It seems that the internal clock begins to change, and then the Sabbath day comes, and it's just different. So if He is present, why would you dare to come into His presence without offering up spiritual sacrifices and really knowing who you are? Let's look at Psalm 100 that addresses this. Psalm 100 verse 1. Psalm 100 verse 1. Psalm 100 and verse 1. Make a joyful noise under the eternal all you lends.

We open services with song service, and I believe song service is a very important part of our worship. Come before His presence with singing. Serve the Lord with gladness. Come before His presence with singing. Know you that the Lord He is God. It is He that hath made us, and that not we ourselves, we are His people, and the sheep of His pasture. Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, and into His courts with praise. Be thankful unto Him, and bless His name. For the eternal is good, His mercy is everlasting, and His truth endures to all generations. Psalm 100. Five verses there. So meaningful. Coming into the presence of God and telling us how to come. Enter into the gates with thanksgiving, into His courts with praise, and be thankful, and bless His name. For He is good, His mercy is everlasting, enduring for every. Every child who is able to read should know that they are made in the image of God, and that is their identity. That's who they are. Teach them that cradle to the grave.

Our children are taught that God, that is the children of the schools of this world, the society of this world. They are taught that God does not exist.

But we know that God does exist, that He is the great loving Creator, God, who made heaven and earth and everything therein. God and Christ created all things. They are constantly assaulted with the notion that they are descended, that is, our children, from lower life forms. How sad, how tragic, that human beings can be so brilliant in one way, and so ignorant in another way. You know, like Hosea prophesied in Hosea 6.4, my people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Satan and his agents have blinded the peoples of the world as to who they are, and Satan has stolen the identity of the whole human race. And we need to face the fact that the human race stands at a critical, crucial juncture in human history. We're not living in normal times. And we need to face the fact that the human race and the normalcy that we experience is such a blessing. But that's not what a lot of the world, so much of the world is experiencing on this Sabbath afternoon.

We need to face the facts of where we are in the annals of history. And if we don't make the right decision in these critical, crucial times, we are in for hard times that will make the trials of the past seem like a picnic. The leaders of the world are so busy trying to solve geopolitical, military, economic, and social problems apart from God. There are no solutions apart from God. All there are things that will help along the way, but there are no permanent solutions apart from God. They're trying to deal with the effects of the human race losing their identity and not focusing on the cause. We're sick from the head to the toe. When humans lose sight of the fact that their fellow humans were created in the image of God, and that they were created for a great transcendental purpose, when you lose sight of that, then life becomes meaningless. We hear wars and rumors of war every day, and the world becomes more dangerous, more dangerous every day.

Witness the great turmoil in the Middle East, and for that matter, the whole world. The peoples of this world are on edge. They don't know where the next missile will fall. They don't know where the next terrorist attack will take place. Will you be at the mall, or will you be standing in line, and they run over you with a vehicle? From the weakest to the strongest nations, the leaders are struggling for power and dominion. Let's look at what the prophet Joel says about the time in which we live. Joel chapter 3. This is one of the most apt and accurate descriptions of the times in which we're living that you'll find in the whole Bible. In Joel 3 and verse 9. Joel 3 verse 9.

Proclaim you this among the nations, the Gentiles. Prepare war. Wake up the mighty men. Let all the men of war draw near. Let them come up. Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruning hooks into spears. Let the weak say, I am strong. So you have a nation like North Korea with its ruler, Kim Jong-un, who has never had the identity and the understanding that he too was made in the image of God, a child of God by creation, but a long ways from being a child of God by spiritual birth.

And the small nations are scrambling for arms. And from time to time you read, the U.S. has sold so many armaments to Egypt, to Saudi Arabia, to Iraq, and it goes on and on. Assemble yourselves and come, all you heathen. Gather yourselves together round about, round about. Their cause, the mighty ones who come down, O Eternal.

Let the heathen be awakened and come up to the valley of Jehoshaphat, for there I will judge all the heathen round about. Yes, the day of the battle, the great day of God Almighty looms on the horizon, and Western leaders refuse to face the fact that the peoples of Islam are waging what they call holy war, jihad.

When all is said and done, all the unrest and the turmoil that has extend on the face of the earth today stems from people losing their identity and turning into on to Satan's wavelength, not understanding who they are and what they are and what their purpose is.

We now have people killing their fellow humans who were made in the image of God in the name of God. The spirit of the prince of the air, the spirit that works in the children of disobedience, Satan the devil, has stirred up the peoples of this world in a way like we haven't seen in our lifetime. Satan's warfare is so pervasive and so persuasive that he has caused the peoples of this world to lose their sense of identity. Once again, all peoples were created in the image of God by the great creator, our Heavenly Father.

The Apostle Paul standing on Mars Hill, the cradle of western democracy, Mars Hill is an area region there in Athens, Athens, the cradle of western democracy and education. The Germans patterned their educational system after the Greeks, and we basically patterned our educational system after the Germans. You know the history of western education.

So Paul stood there in this arena on Mars Hill at one time in the midst of the philosophers of the day, delivered one of the greatest speeches ever given. Let's read that speech. Let's go to Acts 17 in verse 22. Acts 17 and verse 22. Acts 17 and verse 22. Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars Hill and said, You men of Athens I perceive that in all things you are too superstitious. They had lost their sense of identity. They didn't know who they were. They didn't know how they came to be.

They thought through human reasoning they could discover it. For as I passed by and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with the inscription, To the unknown God whom therefore you ignorantly worship him declare I unto you. Paul said, you don't really know who the real God is, and I'm going to declare the real God to you. Maybe you will grasp some of this so that you might have a sense of identity. God that made the world in all things there in seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth dwells not in temples made with hands.

Neither he worshiped with man's hands as though he needed anything, seeing he gives to all life and breath and all things, and hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on the face of the earth. Yes, we are all children of God by creation, but not by spiritual birth or spiritual begetal. And had determined the times before appointed and the bounds of their habitation, that they should seek the Lord if happily they might find after him, and that they through him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us.

For in him we live and move and have our being, as certain also of your own poets have said, for we are all his offspring. For as much then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold or silver or stone graven by art and man's device. And the times of this ignorance God winked at, but now commands all men everywhere to repent, because he is appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained, that is Jesus Christ, wherefore he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead.

And when they heard about the resurrection, they went wild. And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked and others said, we will hear this again about this matter. So Paul departed from among them, albeit certain men claved unto him and believed, among the which was Dionysus, the arrow Pagite, and a woman named Amaris, and others with them. It's one of the greatest speeches ever delivered in human history, where Paul tried to give these people who were steeped in pagan idolatry a sense of true identity of what life is all about. The people of the U.S. need to wake up.

We all need to wake up to the fact that the real battle is for our very life essence. The problems of peoples of the U.S. are facing raises an even greater danger, a more urgent threat, and the failure of leadership to address these concerns. None of the problems we face can be solved without effective leadership.

It seems to me that there's an unconscious, almost conspiracy to discourage and suppress genuine leadership. You read the papers. You know what's going on. One of the great paradoxes of our time is that people speak of individualism, but they really practice conformity, yielding to peer pressure. One of the great paradoxes of our time. To lead is to make oneself vulnerable to the criticism of the conformers, and anyone who dares to take stand is oftentimes dismissed. You know what happened to Moses when he took a stand? You know what happened to Jesus Christ?

Well, we are engaged in spiritual warfare.

And so, if we're engaged in spiritual warfare, we need to have spiritual weapons. So, let's read once again about our spiritual weapons in Ephesians chapter 6.

We tend to want to blame, on the one hand, we desperately need leadership in all dimensions of our lives. We need husbands to lead, as they should in the family unit. We need men and women in the community to lead, as they should in all the institutions, in all the world. We need, of course, godly leadership. On the one hand, human beings say they want godly leadership, and on the other hand, they kill the very prince of life, Jesus Christ. Jesus talks about in Matthew how that they killed all the prophets that were sent to them.

In Ephesians chapter 6, the apostle Paul pins the label and puts a responsibility on the head of the one who is ultimately behind all of it, that is Satan the devil, and also emphasizes our need to put on the whole armor of God, to really realize who we are and what God has called us to at this critical crucial time in human history. You know the story of Esther, in which her uncle Mordecai challenged her to go before the king on behalf of the Jewish people, and at first she didn't want to do it. Then she acquiesced and said, let's call in three days fast, and after the fast she did go, and the king received her and winds up with the evil Haman being put to death and the Jewish people spared. One of the greatest lines in the book of Esther is what Mordecai challenged Esther with, this line, who knows whether you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this. In Ephesians 6, we'll start here in verse 10. Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might, put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against rulers in the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. You know, we read from Romans 1 about natural affection being given over to a reprobate mind. How could people in the name of God and religion go out and kill fellow humans in an indiscriminate kind of way? Innocent women, children, anybody that's standing in their way, trying to gain the upper hand.

We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places, wherefore, taken to you the whole armor of God. And this armor is not like the armor we read about in Joel, of beating your swords into plowshares and all of that, beating the plowshares into swords. Let's see. It's spiritual armor. Wherefore, taken to you the whole arm of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all to stand, stand therefore, having your loinsgirt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness. All your commandments are righteous. Psalm 119.172. And your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace. You're ready to take the gospel to the world, the emblem, United Church of God, preaching the gospel, preparing a people. Above all, taking the shield of faith wherewith you'll be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. You know, you know, that you know that God will deliver you if you remain faithful. And take the helmet of salvation, which is defined in 1 Thessalonians 5.8 as hope, that which permeates the mind and the heart, the big picture. The helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. And when you stop reading and studying the Bible, your faith is going to diminish. It is a spiritual axiom. Faith comes by hearing, hearing by the Word of God, praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints. So will we have the express image of Jesus Christ stamped on us when He knocks on the door? You know, at midnight hour, the bridegroom came and He knocked on the door. Five were wise, five were foolish. What will our Lord say to us? Will He say, well done, good and faithful servant, you've been faithful over a few things. I will make you ruler over many things. Enter you into the joy of your Lord. Or will He have to say, and then will I profess unto them, I never knew you. Depart from me you that work iniquity. Your identity is not accepted here. You don't have on a wedding garment. So take Him and remove Him from the party.

So we want to make sure that we have the right ID.