this morning, and I think this is going to be a three-part series, I'm going to be giving the address that I gave at the Spring Road Evangelical Church Conference, the Wessex Conference, back in February of this year. I caution you if you just got your copy the Evangelical Times, when you turn its pages, you'll find a shockingly large picture of me, as there is a report of that conference there. I opened that page there and nearly fell over, but anyway, why they quite put so large a portrait of me in there, I do not know, and I shall have stern words with the editor over this. Anyway, forget the picture, the summary of the conference is there. When I say forget the summary of the conference, you're going to be hearing the address that I gave there over the next three Sunday mornings. I had a subject which I actually chose to address and entitled it changed from glory into glory, subtitled keeping up the progress in our sanctification. Keeping up the progress in our sanctification is what we believe in, progressive sanctification. that we are not somehow by conversion or somehow by some second experience holy, as if burned out from within us are all the wrong thoughts and passions, and that we're the finished article, if you like. No, we don't believe that. We believe actually it's hard work, sanctification, and requires prayer and effort and toil and the close study of the word of God and the help the help of the Holy Spirit. So over this sermon and beginning of next week's sermon, God willing, we'll be looking at particularly hindrances to sanctification, hindrances to sanctification. We'll change from glory into glory. I draw your attention to 2 Corinthians 3, verse 18. we all with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory just as by the Spirit of the Lord. Well that's a very deep text actually and there's far far more in it than three sermons will be able to account for and it's a very stirring text. Weighty and wonderful is the thought transformed into the same image, that is, the image of Christ from glory to glory. Well, it must have struck a chord with Charles Wesley in his great hymn, Love Divine or Love is Excelling. We won't sing it this morning, but we'll perhaps sing it at the end of this three-part series, because in it he has the following lines, a verse that runs as such, Finish then, Thy new creation pure and spotless may we be. Let us see thy great salvation perfectly restored in thee, changed from glory into glory, till in heaven we take our place, till we cast our crowns before thee, lost in wonder, love, and praise. As I say, we won't sing that today, we'll be singing it in the future. what words those are so beautifully put so clearly in that line change from glory into glory taken from 2nd Corinthians chapter 3 verse 18 and that's so typical of Charles Wesley his hymns are full of bible and it's set in its proper context the thought of glory as in Charles Wesley's hymn takes us finally to heaven itself it's a transformation transforming us which finds its proper end point in us being made fit, ready for heaven and the worship of heaven. But let's not get to heaven too quickly. Stay a while on earth and reflect over these sermons on what it is to be our present experience. Now, according to our text, written under inspiration by the Apostle Paul, we're being transformed from glory into glory. The glory, as we will see more fully in a moment, is actually Christ-likeness. And this is not spoken of by way of a promise, although there is certainly a promise bound up with it. Rather, it is a matter-of-fact statement, speaking of great events and spiritual operations, but spoken of as something we would be able to agree with based on actual observation and experience. We're not meant to marvel and think, what a wonderful prospect. I hope it happens to me one day. Now the way I've phrased this points to the main thrust of what I want to speak about today and, God willing, next Lord's Day. It is to be brutally frank with ourselves and ask whether we are seeing this as something that is happening to us now. Are we being changed from glory into glory? Are we becoming more Christ-like? And if we are, is it happening quickly and thoroughly enough? Or worse, have we actually stalled? Has the process got stuck at some point? We read 2 Corinthians 3, verse 18 well enough, and we sing the Wesley hymn enthusiastically enough, but aren't we the real deal? And I ask it of myself, not just as a pastor, but as a person professing to know the Lord Jesus Christ and whom I believe to have saved me from my sins. So we're going to look, first of all, actually in more detail at the text itself in its proper context. And we'll be especially taken up with the thought of glory. What is this glory? How does it relate to progressive sanctification? We'll have a brief look at sanctification as more than not doing certain things. I'll suggest that that is too narrow a focus and perhaps has dogged the church a little overmuch over the years. Then we'll look at the obstacles. We're gonna be starting on the obstacles this morning, continue with them next week. And we'll look at some of the false answers and solutions that are out there to, if you like, stalled sanctification. because those false answers and solutions actually themselves become obstacles to our actual sanctification. Then there are the problems at the depth of our being, weights that are entangling us. Some of these hindrances might not be as obvious as we might suppose, and they have a lot to do with our thinking, some of which we may not even be aware of. And then towards the end of the series, we'll tie in our call to be Christ-like with a consideration of some aspects of the life and character of our Jesus Christ. We'll come to that when we come to it. Well, a subheading now. Moses, mirrors, and glory. Moses, mirrors, and glory. Our text, 2 Corinthians 3, verse 18. occurs in the midst of a quite complicated chain of thought and reasoning the apostle is following. That's why the verse actually is very dense. It contains actually a lot of material, a lot of truth, and in a way it reflects the fact that Paul has been carefully following a chain of reasoning to get to that point. If you quickly survey the passage from, say, 2 Corinthians chapter three, verse seven to verse 18, you might be struck by how often the word glory or gloriously, as rendered in the English, crops up. Well, Paul is having to deal with his critics, anything but glorious things actually in 2 Corinthians. You find out how sanctified a man is from how he deals with criticism. Paul has to spend some considerable time in this letter defending himself and his ministry. The verse we're using for our thoughts today arises at the end of a train of thought, beginning in chapter three of 2 Corinthians, verse six, about being a minister of the new government. If you look there, he is claiming to be sufficient through Christ to be a minister of this new covenant, a life-giving ministry through the Spirit in contrast to the ministry of the law, which on its own condemns and sentences to death. In other words, Paul has been a minister of good things that exceed the things that were available under the old covenant. His critics needed to hear that. So he develops the contrast between what the old covenant brought compared to what the new covenant brings. The argument is quite subtle, and we have to try to follow it carefully, because that's where the thought of glory comes in. True, the old covenant was glorious. It had much to honor, esteem, prize, and praise. That is how we recognize and respond to something glorious. Moses, the recipient of that covenant, showed the glory of that covenant visibly by his radiant face, having been in the presence of God, receiving the commandments. His ministry, given the impossibility of perfectly keeping the law he'd received, was then technically a ministry of condemnation, verse nine, and of death, verse six. The sacrificial system, with its hope of a savior, sparing all covenant people from tipping into despair. Its glory, like that of Moses' radiant face, was due to pass. The new covenant ministry, represented by Paul's teaching about Christ, was deeper and richer in its effects, eclipsing the glory of the previous covenant and the benefits it brought. It is the ministry of righteousness that exceeds much more in glory, verse nine. It is the glory that excels, verse 10. It is that which is much more glorious, verse 11. It has more to admire, value, celebrate, cherish, and adore. And that is the meaning, again, of something glorious. That's how we respond to it. But alongside the theme of glory in both the covenants, Paul cleverly uses the theme of the veil over Moses' face, concealing visibly the glory to make some new points about the more excellent things which have now come to us through our Lord Jesus Christ. Sometimes, you see, we simply do not appreciate them. They have no glory to our mind. So the veil stands for an obstacle between the people and access to the glory of God. The veil becomes a figure for the work and the effects of the sinful human heart. What does that sinful human heart do? It blinds, it blocks out light, it prevents people seeing the wonder of God and his promise of salvation in Christ. So Paul says that the unbelieving majority who witnessed Moses' radiant face, but learned nothing from it, their minds were blinded, verse 14. Even in Paul's day, the effect was the same. Verse 15, but even to this day, he says, when Moses is read, a veil lies on their heart. The removal of the veil or the clearing of the mind and the cluttering effect of sin brings freedom. This is important. We'll come back to it in a moment. This is the hallmark of the Spirit's work, as we have it recounted in verse 17. His work is to remove the veil and give clarity of perception, thought, and action. The person is set free to repent and believe, set free to come to the glorious Christ held out to them in the gospel. This is to know the truth, which can make us free. John 8, verse 37. Now Paul moves the metaphor of the veil on a bit further. taking us back to Moses with his veiled face, and then to us now as new covenant believers, who with unveiled faces, verse 18, beholding us in a mirror, the glory of the Lord. When you see the fullness of the glory is still too much for the human eye to see, or for the soul to be able to comprehend without being overwhelmed. So the glory is seen as in a mirror. It is mediated to us, but it is an authentic representation just as the mirror does not lie. So this mirror of God's truth in Christ does not deceive either. It shows us the glory of the gospel, which is the glory of Christ. And we're not left oblivious to it. We're having a veil over our face, a blanket of unbelief, making even what is perfect and excellent seem incomprehensible, not worthwhile, and even foolishness. And this beholding, the beholding of the glory of Christ is vital to our progressive sanctification. This is where the transformation is taking place in the most vital sense that it does. The mirror shows us what we're meant to be. It shows us Christ. We behold his glory, his excellence, his worth, his wonder. We too are meant to be serious image bearers of the Lord Jesus Christ, imitating him. And this is accomplished by the removing of the veil. This is the work of the Spirit, the Holy Spirit, verses 17 and 18. And the change from one degree of glory to another points to the change in us as we become nearer and nearer replicas of our Lord Jesus Christ. It's not an intrinsic glory of our own, as if we are the authors of it, the designers of it. The glory that is emerging in us is as ever more faithful imitations of the Lord Jesus Christ. The glory is in the eye of God as he beholds the glory of his son being reproduced in us by the power of his spirit. He affirms that as good. He is pleased to see more and more of his son's life and character, his works and his priorities appearing in us. Not always appreciated by the professing church, Our ethics are too high for many of them. Our approach to life is too challenging. The principles we adopt are too denying of the flesh. It is a narrow gate and a difficult road, and there are few that go by it. But this is the true fellowship among believers. We love to see the work of grace in other people. It delights us to see such things as humility, self-denial, gentleness, and faithfulness as quick examples. my next heading then. A new nature needs new thinking. A new nature needs new thinking. And this is progressive sanctification. This is the process of spiritual growth and development where we lose our affinity with the world of sin and show ever increasing Christ-likeness. It's where we seek to replace the damaged people we are, damaged through our sin, damaged through the sin of others, we often sinfully respond to that, and where we aim instead at higher things. This is us becoming more holy. Christ is at the center of it, the very key to it. So we will be thinking more upon him as it were, him himself, in the lessons and sermons we'll come to later. But in identifying hindrances to progressive sanctification, will be compelled to observe that failing to behold the glory of Christ adequately will lie behind our failures here. Our vision, you see, is wrong. There are still vestiges and remains of the veil of unbelief obscuring our understanding. As non-Christians, our minds are blinded by the God of this age. We'll see that in the next chapter in 2 Corinthians, chapter four, verses three to four. Romans 1 verse 21 tells us we're foolish in our thinking. Ephesians 4 verse 17 tells us there is futility in our minds. That's the non-believer, that's the non-Christian, summed them up. But it does not all get put right at conversion. It requires progressive sanctification and some of that futile thinking is deep-rooted. Wrong thinking in the depths of our being there is hindrance to us changing from glory to glory. And those thoughts, those attitudes and the depths of our being, those futilities of mind, those unrenewed aspects, they have to be repented off. They may have been with us all our Christian life, but they're not our friends. They're obstacles and should go. Sometimes, you see, we conceive of sanctification too negatively. as though to put off or stop doing certain things is all that it requires. It certainly does require it, but it requires more than this. We can certainly see there are things to be put off. Colossians chapter three, verses five and verse eight. It says there, therefore, put to death your members which are on the earth, fornication, cleanliness, passion, evil design, covetousness, which is idolatry. But now you yourselves are to put off all these, anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy language, out of your mouth. I don't know. Maybe we're feeling we're doing okay on these things. We're not blaspheming and using filthy language. I rather hope that we're not. Likewise, that you're not stealing or getting drunk. Good. But progressive sanctification is more than the putting off which we might be doing tolerably okay with. What about the things we're to put on? How are we doing with these? Staying with Colossians 3, reading now verses 12 and 13. Therefore was the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, long-suffering, bearing with one another and forgiving one another if anyone has a complaint against another. Even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do. Those things are asking a lot of us, aren't they? These are not just sort of behaviors, if you like, that we have to just stop in one degree and start just doing these things. These attitudes speak of deep, deep change in the heart. They require in us the establishing of solid Christian character, from which follow good works, acts of mercy, clear speaking, reliability, all that we've just read about in Colossians 3, verses 12 to 13. These things do not happen with a click of a switch. There's been work in the depth of the soul. Ephesians chapter four, verse 23, exhorts us to be renewed in the spirit of your mind. we could also see in the context of putting off and putting on. Being renewed to put off the things that don't belong, but then being renewed to put on the things that do belong, which are often very deep, deep things. The mind needs to be renewed. Romans 12 verse 2, And there are things we are thinking we may need to get in touch with because they're bound up actually with our sinful nature and what has been absorbed and critically biased perhaps when we're non-Christians or perhaps since we became Christians. Progressive sanctification involves getting to grips with some of these unbiblical, controlling influences and engaging in renewal of the mind. And so here are a few suggestions, we'll look at two this morning, where we might look for these obstacles and blockages. That heading that I come to now is this, the obstacle of false solutions, right? The obstacle of false solutions. A lot of people in the church recognize that we have often stalled in our progressive sanctification. Our behavior has not changed that much. We still think the same. We still react the same. We still talk the same. We still pray the same. What has gone wrong? And people pile in with answers, many of which are downright unhelpful. Some attribute our problems, our sinful habits and the like to demons. For every bad behavior you could mention, for every temptation that you could list, there is thought to be a demon that is enslaving us. Power lies there. So we need to find someone able to name the demon and then cast it out. Many believers fall prey to this suggested solution. In this earnest longing to be better people, to be away from bad habits, sinful vices, people search out supposedly anointed people who are versed in casting out these demons. Well, to those of us who do not believe, a child of God can be simultaneously indwelt by the Holy Spirit and an unclean spirit, the futility of this approach is quickly apparent. For those who do not believe that, there is therefore, I think, a fruitless quest lying ahead of them. Some ritual form of exorcism, often carried out by well-meaning people, but sometimes not, leaves the person hoping that this time the roots of the problem has really been addressed and the demon controlling their behavior and thinking has really been finally cast out. But then those thoughts return. The old bad behavioral pattern begins to reassert itself. What then? The person maybe finds another exorcist or goes back to the first one again. Perhaps the demon somehow came back in again. Maybe Entertaining some wrong thought was the open door to invite the demon back who might also have brought some others with him. So someone supposedly skilled in these arts is called upon again to discern what is happening in the soul. More ritual exorcism may be needed. There may never be an end in sight. There is no solution found. Hopes are raised that the demon really has gone, only to be dashed again. It's a false solution. It's wasting the person's time giving the wrong people an authority over their spiritual welfare. All for nothing. The theology is wrong. No wonder the solution is never found. It was an illusion, a false diagnosis based on false, unbiblical reasoning. We must also watch for those solutions that rely upon us blaming someone else for everything that is going wrong in our lives. There are things that other people do or say to us that have far-reaching and negative effects. We'll look at some of these in due course. But any solution that absolves us of any responsibility or has us to focus exclusively on other people rather than on ourselves as a source of the problem, they must be adjudged unbiblical. Neither are we at liberty to lay all our unhappiness at the door of government, or the wider ills of society. We're not to find the cause of our moral failures or our unrealized hopes of character development in the present capitalist system, or in the supposed systemic racism, where we've been victims of the behavior and privileges of other races. It is perhaps a hindrance to believe our moral choices were taken out of our hands because we were oppressed. Maybe truth and reality in that. and that our free agency was stolen from us by another class or race or gender can be so unhelpful because then we fail to heed the call to ourselves as individuals to repent. People are called upon to repent, not races, nor particular genders. It is individuals who are responsible for their actions and inner attitudes in the sight of God. Back to Genesis 3, we read part of it earlier. Well, Eve blamed the serpent in the garden, Genesis 3, verse 13, and Adam blamed the woman. Notice that's what he calls the woman. The Bible actually talks about her as being his wife, but he blames the woman whom you, God, gave to be with me, Genesis 3, verse 12. The shifting of blame onto another did not work then, at the beginning of our history, and it does not work now. It's also a sad fact discernible from Adam's reply to the Lord, that somewhere in his protest, he was attaching blame to God. It is as if God was to blame for having given the woman to him in the first place. So Adam shirks his responsibility, and in his horrible exercise of excuse making, presumes to find fault in the Lord's choice of Eve as his companion. We too can be guilty of charging the Lord with wrongdoing. That's not to say that there have been no situations that we found ourselves in perhaps early in life where we had no control over what was happening to us and where we might have thought the Lord was conspicuous by his absence. There are hard questions, ultimately I think unanswerable questions about the Lord's providences. Yet to blame God for our early losses would be the kind of temptation that Job, for example, was being encouraged to capitulate to. and to charge the Lord with wrongdoing, being actually evil. He refused, so should we. And refusing to blame the Lord, if we have been, might be the key to us moving forwards. Perhaps very relevant today, and linked to the lack of interest often in the subject of holiness, we might observe that there is an atmosphere, calling it that, of lazy antinomianism that hangs in the evangelical ether. This belief system claims, for various reasons, that the law, the commandments, no longer are necessary or indeed helpful for the Christian. We're apparently grown up enough now to make up our own minds, and with our inbuilt love for Christ, we'll surely not fail or miss our way. A zeal for holiness becomes categorized as legalism or salvation by works. Words such as obedience or duty or service are shooed out of evangelical conversation lest they interfere with a reliance, so it's imagined, on free and sovereign grace. What about a kind of spontaneous response to God that does not require the over-close inquiry of the law and commandments? People, I guess, like us, are chided for not having slacker standards in what is appropriate for a believer to wear, watch, talk about. If we insist on straightforwardness and truth-telling, it is as if this is a hopelessly outdated expectation, and that, to quote a T-shirt I saw somebody wearing, everyone lies, it said. Well, I suppose one's almost compelled to agree with that in one sense, and we'll come back to that in the future. But it cannot be right in the sense that we can deliberately, knowingly, bend the commandments to suit our present needs, and somehow feel that it's okay because that's what people out there are all up to. If we're cherishing these ideas, it should be no wonder to us that we're struggling morally, maybe with something significant in our lives. Or worse, that we're offering up no resistance to something hugely questionable, if not totally wrong. Our conscience may have been defiled by exposure to this species of casual antinomianism. Well, my final heading this morning is this, the obstacle of false guilt. The obstacle of false guilt. There is real guilt. It's there in Genesis 3, in the garden. It is a proper evaluation of our responsibility for our sinful behavior before a holy God. But there is also false guilt. We hold ourselves responsible for more than we should, and take upon ourselves to feel guilty, but the Bible actually would give us leave for a more robust response. In fact, I think this is a crippling and deeply damaging affliction that many, many in our churches suffer from. Perhaps it's us. We might even think that our false guilt is a sign of sanctification. Well, for the thought, that's wrong thinking. I would argue it actually interferes with our sanctification because it robs us of the ability to think clearly and act decisively. It's very understandable how false guilt arises. After all, it is true that we are guilty before a holy God and that our righteousness is as filthy rags. But from this, we can feel we are responsible for everything. If a person takes offense at us, even though they're not entitled to, It's followed by soul searching and a great loss of peace of mind. If someone is unhappy, we assume it must be our fault. If there is something wrong somewhere, we assume that we must put it right, even though we might not have been the reason for something going wrong in the first place. If someone is angry with us, we imagine that they must be in the right and that we must be in the wrong. If some task is not accomplished, we think it was down to us that it failed. there is a problem here with the conscience. It is too sensitive and too liable to be alarmed. Sometimes shops sell alarms that are forever going off, even though there is no actual ground for them firing off like that. And somewhere inside us is a message going around in our system, telling us we're always in the wrong, that we can never do anything right, and that we're useless. We can see, yes, the truth of it. If you, Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? Psalm 130, verse three. Well, we're all sunk and defeated, but that's not the point of the question in the psalm. It goes on to say in verse four, but there is forgiveness with you that you may be feared. Well, there is particular forgiveness for particular transgressions, but in Christ, there is a sense of His forgiveness pervading all that we do and all that we are. We are unprofitable servants who have only done what was our duty to do, no more, no less. Yet we are encouraged that our failures are made good in Christ. Otherwise, like the man with one talent, we would conclude the Lord was a hard man and hide our talents away. Wrong response, as we know from that parable. Preachers shake their heads at themselves as they enter the pulpit. Are we adequately prepared? Who is sufficient for these things? Have we prayed as we should? Have we lived up to the doctrine we're about to preach? And strictly speaking, we are chargeable with hypocrisy of the first order. At least I find myself guilty of that. So what do I do? Not come, stay away? Or we cast ourselves into the loving embrace of Christ? I maybe hope one day the Lord would raise up more able and competent ministers of the gospel from the present crop. But in the meantime, it's not a day for moping or sitting around paralyzed with guilt because we're weak, needy, and hugely inadequate sinners. There is a work to be done. Because think about this. The Apostle Paul was a man of like nature as ourselves. He had some history, he really did. He was responsible for putting people to death. He proactively sought to destroy the church. This is why he was making his famous journey to Damascus. He met the risen Lord, and the rest is history. His work could have been greatly hindered by actual, yes, actual deeds that he had done. But he does not allow guilt to stop him. He puts it behind him, does not forget it, but does not indulge it, believes it to be forgiven, gets on with the work at hand. There are plenty of other moments, not necessarily related to his past before he's converted, but where the apostle is invited to feel guilty about himself and his work. Mentioned earlier in 2 Corinthians, his critics are everywhere. And Paul, and this is a key thing, has a clear conscience. He's not claiming to be perfect, but he is innocent of great transgression. He knows, searching his conscience, that the accusations against him are without foundation, and he's able to appeal to evidence to shame his detractors. Here's an example. Responding to criticism circulating around the church in Thessalonica that he was on the make, and simply looking to enjoy a bit of power and control over the people. he does not begin some lengthy public self-examination and indulge in some process of fault-finding with himself or his fellow workers. No opportunity for false guilt here. Instead, he rebuts the accusations very firmly. 1 Thessalonians chapter two, I'm gonna read the first six verses, it's what he says. For you, writing to the church in Thessalonica, for you yourselves know, brethren, that our coming to you is not in vain, But even after we had suffered before and were spitefully treated at Philippi, as you know, we were bold in our God to speak to you the gospel of God in much conflict. For our exhortation did not come from error or uncleanness, nor was it in deceit. But as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, even so we speak, not as pleasing men, but God who tests our hearts. For neither at any time did we use flattering words, as you know, nor a cloak for covetousness, God is witness. Nor did we seek glory for men, either from you or from others, when we might have made demands as apostles of Christ. Well, that answers those accusations well and truly. He could have been guilt-tripped here into the pathway of false guilt, hearing the accusations and believing them to be substantially true about himself. Instead, the idea that Paul was a covetous man, making up a story to exploit them with, is solidly and emphatically rejected. Paul reads his own heart correctly and is able to call God as witness. Indeed, he remarks that God tests the heart, verse four of that reading, including his own. But he has emerged from that process exonerated, not condemned. To have found himself guilty would have been to fly against the witness of God as attested by his conscience and his proper and healthy functioning. It would have made a travesty of justice, and he allowed their accusation to settle with him. Paul would have succumbed to false guilt in that case. And where would that have led? Perhaps he would have felt uncomfortable being so bold in preaching the word to the people. Perhaps he'd been wracked with self-doubt, a sad legacy, that, and false guilt. He did not sink under the weight of these accusations. Instead, he had plenty of observations to make of his own. And he appeals to his own conduct when among the people to ground his case. He had not behaved in the way his detractors had described. He puts this now to their consciences. See how often he repeats that the people actually know. You know, he says, as you yourselves know. And he says it frequently. He is appealing to verifiable facts and events. So we should be careful not to sink too quickly under the weight of criticism. We should not imagine too swiftly that it must have been us in the wrong. People tell lies. And I wish I could say they never do it in the church, but they do. They lie against you and they lie against me. People also take offense for no good reason. Some people are prickly and testy, and much of that is to do with pride, and it doesn't speak well of them. You and I might have been on the receiving end of what they say. Well, I suggest we should not lose sleep over it. We should be able to examine our conscience and come to a definite conclusion that actually the problem lies somewhere else. To entertain false guilt can be paralyzing and self-defeating. It may have about it the hallmarks of spirituality and humility. True, we should always be ready to repent, to put something right we've done wrong. Yet to keep ourselves on trial through imagined offenses loses us a much needed spiritual power and energy. It stops us growing up in spiritual truth and making actually sound moral judgments. It can even make us tolerant of the sins of others, more ready to excuse their sin than we are to uphold our own standards of righteousness or those of others. We allow a wrong to be committed against the truth, and the truth suffers. We suffer through the loss of moral agency and introduce a confusion into ourselves that is the opposite of the liberty that is spoken of in our text. False guilt holds us in bondage. False guilt is the enemy, not the friend, of progressive sanctification. Well, God willing, we'll pick up again this theme and our next heading when we come to it, next Lord's Day, will be fear, fear as a hindrance, an obstacle to progressive sanctification.