Would you open your Bibles to
the 13th chapter of the book of 1 Corinthians? 1 Corinthians chapter 13. When I heard that Brother Wes
had had a stroke, knowing how poor his health already was, I figured that it wouldn't be
long before we would be preaching his funeral. So I began to think
about what would I preach on. And about the middle of the week,
John brought me a piece of paper where Wes had written down how
he would like his funeral to go. And he had chosen a text
of scripture already, which I will use. Him that comes to me, I
will unknowwise cast out. But that scripture wasn't gonna
play well into what I had planned to preach. So what I had been
thinking of is what I'm gonna preach now. What the child of God learns
when he dies. Or we might well call it now
and then. Because in verse 12 of 1 Corinthians
chapter 13, Paul says, now we see but a poor reflection, as
in a mirror. Then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part, then I shall
know fully, even as I am known. I know that there is, with any
death of someone whom you know, there's always a certain amount
of that shock. Even though we knew Wes, his
health had been declining for several years, and we could see
the endgame, and he had already far outlived what the doctors
told him a year and a half ago. We knew that it couldn't be too
long, but even so, it has that effect on us. In fact, this morning already,
as I was walking down the aisle, an image of Wes coming in that
door there came to my mind and it hit me. I'll never see that
again. And I also recalled this. Last week, we preached from the
text of scripture where our Lord says, do not worry about your
life. And I remember making this particular
point. I said, to those of you who feel
you may be drawing near the end of your life, the Lord said,
don't worry. And I remember thinking, I hope
Wes doesn't think that's too pointed. Well, neither he nor
I knew just how pointed that was. The next day he had a stroke
and over the week, of course, his declined and then the Lord
was pleased to take him to glory last night about 1030. But while
there is a certain amount of that shock, of that natural feeling
of here he was and now he's gone, that's unsettling to us. Because
for all that we may say about it, the fact is nobody here this
morning has ever died. None of us have any experience,
personal experience, with death. We don't know what the transition
is like. We've seen it happen a few times
in this congregation, certainly not very many compared to the
30 years we've been together. This is only the fourth. But we've had family members
die, and it always gives us that unsettling feeling. Death is a real thing. And the closer we are to that
person, the more we feel the sense of loss. And yet I tell
you that this morning, I am happy for Wes' sake. We all We've known Wes here for
several years. I mean, some of you have known
him a lot longer than that, but I mean, he's been here in our
congregation for several years, and his life during that time,
it seemed like, was one disappointment after another, and health decreasing,
and him having to keep adjusting, and his life narrowing down.
And that made me sympathetic towards him. There's nothing
I could do about it. I mean, that is the way of life. That's
the path that God has laid out for some of his people. But it's
difficult to watch a brother endure those difficulties and
to seem to have so little opportunity for that joy and happiness most
of us just take for granted. But no more. Whatever it was, that may have
been a disappointment to him then is not a disappointment
now. Whatever was experienced then as a loss is no loss now. And as I said last week, I preached
where the Lord said, do not worry about your life. I can tell you
according to the scriptures, Wes is not worried about anything.
Not a thing. He's not even worried about us.
I don't, you know, people say, well, they're looking down from
heaven. I, I don't know that those who've gone to glory have
any clue what's going on here. And if they did, I mean, I don't
even know why they bother looking. I mean, he's home. Why should he
look back to the foreign land he came from? He's with his father,
both of them, as I said to someone. His earthly father and his heavenly
father. But even if he knew what was
going on with us, he wouldn't be worried about it because he
knows there's nothing to worry about. Right now, You and I have only
the faintest sight of the truths which we say we believe. Paul
wrote there, we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror. Now, you and I go to a mirror
in our day, we get a pretty good reflection. And we know what
we look like, unfortunately, most of the time. We get a pretty
accurate representation of ourselves, but remember mirrors in this
day are not like what we have. There were two ways they made
mirrors. They could take a piece of metal and polish it, or they
could take a piece of very dark stone and polish that. Now if
your mirror was made of dark stone, you could look in there,
you get some kind of reflection of yourself, kind of an outline,
Maybe you could see it well enough to know whether your hair was
combed right or not, but that's about all you could get. It was
a dark picture. Or if you maybe were of the wealthier
sort and could get one that had been made out of metal, yet they
didn't have the ability to make metal nice and flat like we do
now, and so it would be distorted image. In fact, the word that's
translated here It says poor reflection. The word is actually
the word we get our word enigma from, a riddle. We see things
like a riddle. And you know, that's why sometimes
we are so, I wonder what that's about. Most of life is a riddle. We can't make sense of it. Things
happen, and we have no clue why, they just happen. And our understanding of the
things of God is something like that. There are things I read
in the scriptures, and I'll be honest, I say to myself, why
did God do it that way? I don't know. Or what did he
mean by that? How far can I take that point? And sometimes, and I'm sure all
of us run into this if we give any time to looking into the
scriptures, we find scriptures that seem to be at war with one
another. And we're puzzled. Why is that? Well, I thank God for this book. But if I knew everything written
in it, I would still be looking as in a dark, or distorted mirror,
because I have, naturally speaking, dark and distorted eyes. I've
got the mirror up, the scripture's kind of like a mirror, you know,
and it's as though Christ is behind us, and we can see him
reflected in there. But who of us would make a boast
that we know Christ to the same extent He knows us. This should produce some humility
and a spirit of moderation in us as we go into the world and
declare God's truth according to the grace of understanding
that He's given us. No matter how much we understand,
it's a dark and distorted understanding. Now that's the way it is now.
And you know something, when I read that, I take a little
comfort in that because sometimes I think to myself, how could
I be a child of God and understand things so little? I mean, for
40 years I've been preaching. For 40 years I've been reading
this book, and I still feel as though I understand so little.
I really get into so little. How can that be that I've been
born of God, taught by His Spirit, and yet I have such a dark and
distorted view of what is written here in this book? Well, I'm
glad Paul said that's how it is here, and that's how it's
going to be. And that's further why We, as
he says, in another place, we live by faith, not by sight. No matter how much we learn,
our knowledge here will only be partial. He says, now I know
in part, and that's the apostle saying that. the apostle who
saw Christ on the way to Damascus, the disciple, excuse me, the
apostle who was personally taught by the resurrected, glorified
Christ. And he says, we know in part.
Now brethren, if the apostle Paul said, I only know this partially,
what shall we say of our understanding? And also that means that we need
not fret ourselves over our lack of understanding. We give ourselves
to understanding as much as we can. We seek the Lord's blessing
upon our studies, upon our preaching, upon our listening, because we
do want to know Him better. We want to see things more clearly.
And the Lord does give us clearer light from time to time. But the fact we only see darkly
and distorted does not mean that we do not see. There's a difference
between dark and distorted vision and blindness. The older I get, the more my
natural vision is dark and distorted. We got one of those big-screen
TVs. You'd think anybody would be able to read the text that
goes across one of those big screens. It's so big, it's getting
now to where I squint at it. We bring up the online guide
for TV shows and I'm squinting to say, well, what is that? Well,
that's the way it is, but I'll tell you this, As much as I wish
I had the same ability to see as I did when I was 20 years
old, I much prefer the vision I have than being blind. And
brethren, as brothers and sisters in our Lord Jesus Christ, we
don't see fully, but thank God we see something. Because the
scriptures say the God of this age, and the reference there
is to the devil, But he says the God of this age has blinded
people. Most of the people in this world
are blind. Many live where there is no light
and many who live where there is light are blind and can't
see it. How blessed to be able to see
at all. That's the now, but the time
is coming when our dark and distorted understanding will be made perfect. I said it's like we've got this
mirror and the Lord's behind us. Someday, either by our individual
departure from this life or when the Lord returns, we will turn
around and see him face to face. face-to-face let me ask you something
even if you had a really nice mirror you held it up like that
and your spouse was behind you would you be satisfied with what
you saw in the mirror or would you not immediately turn around
to see the real thing and brethren no matter how good our grasp
of Christ and his truth may be. It is nothing compared to turning
around someday and seeing him face to face. He says here, now
I know in part, then I shall know fully, even as I am known. In Philippians, Paul says that
his great desire was that I may know him. Say, Paul, don't you
know him? Well, yeah, I want to know Him
like He knows me. Our Lord has known His people
where He knew them before He made the world. He loved them before He made
the world. He knew them inside and out,
knew every detail about them. I feel that my knowledge of Christ
is so small. Someday I'll know Him. with the
depth that he knows me. Right now we live in a state
of faith. Then we shall live by sight.
Look down here at verse 13. Paul says, and now these three
remain, faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is
love. Now why would he set one of these
good things above another. I mean, is it more important
that you love than that you believe? Not at all. Is it more important that you
love than have hope? No. The reason he says the greatest
of these is love is that faith and hope are temporary things.
Love is eternal. You say, why is faith, why are
faith and hope temporary? Well, you believe what you do
not see. and you hope for what you do
not have. But when we are in the presence
of Christ, we shall see and we shall have. And therefore neither
faith nor hope has a place there. I don't hope for a wife, I got
one. I got one. I don't believe that
I have a house on Fir Avenue, I've seen it. And someday, brethren,
I will no longer hope to be like Christ. I will be like Christ. I will possess that nature which
he gives by grace. And the time will come when I
no longer believe the just shall live by faith. I will see it.
I will see it. My brother Wes already does.
A couple of years ago, little Timothy
passed away we wrote that poem one hour in glory because I got
the news about Timothy's passing about an hour after he passed
away and I got to thinking what must it be like the first hour
in heaven and the first stanza says one hour in glory oh what
that must be seeing what others can only believe Today, Wes sees what you and
I only believe. But someday, our faith will give
way to sight, and our hope will give way to possession. We believe the word of God to
be true, but we do not profess to know all that the scriptures
say with perfection, do we? By that I mean we don't see with
perfection what the scriptures have to say. So what does a child of God learn
when he dies? What's the difference between
now and then? Well, the first thing, and this
kind of encompasses all the rest of them, The child of God when he dies
is going to come to a full and complete certainty that everything
that God has said is completely true. Completely true. Now because you and I are still
in the now and we live in faith and in only partial understanding,
that means that doubts come about? Doubts come about maybe about
whether what the scriptures have said is true in the first place,
or have we understood it? Look over here, I'll give you
an example. Romans chapter four, verse five. Romans four, verse five. Now you listen to this claim
written in the scriptures by the hand of Paul, but by the
inspiration of God. However, says Paul, to the man
who does not work, but trusts God who justifies the wicked,
his faith is credited as righteousness. Now I'll tell you this. I believe
that, sort of. Can I be that honest and put
it to you that way? The reason is we're still in the flesh,
and the flesh will receive only what it can see. And quite frankly,
I've never seen anybody justified. That's not something you can
see. But let me ask you this, does God actually justify the
ungodly, the wicked? Without them first becoming godly
and righteous Does he really do that? Is this matter of being
righteous in the sight of God and understand this if God doesn't
see you as righteous? You're toast That point if God
doesn't see you as righteous his wrath will fall on you and So the question should be not,
how can I get to heaven? The question has to be, how can
I appear righteous in the sight of God? And how can someone like
me, wicked, ungodly, sinful? And God's not dumb. God knows
all things. Then how can somebody like me
appear righteous to someone like him? That's the issue. That's
what Job said the issue is. How can a man be righteous in
the sight of God? Well, here it says through faith.
Faith is credited, is imputed as righteousness to us. Now, is that really so? That God looks upon the one who
believes on him and credits him righteousness. According to this scripture,
that's exactly how it happens. And he does it without them doing
one good thing. It says to the man who does not
work, there are people who try to play both sides of it. They
say, well, looks to me like he's saying that salvation is completely
by grace through faith. And that sounds good, but just
in case. I'm going to do some good works,
some righteous works to go along with that. And I'm going to add
some ceremonies to that and some church going and some Bible reading
and some praying. I'm going to be as religious
as I can to hedge my bet. The scriptures say that faith
is not a matter of trying to play both sides of this. It is
to refuse to work for salvation and simply receive it as a gift
by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, is that really true? Did God really say that? Sure
looks like he did. But once again, I've never seen
that happen. A lot of other things the scriptures
say. And we can't see them, because
they're not things that can be seen, they're invisible. Jesus
Christ claimed to be the Son of God. Well, I never saw Jesus
Christ. And the ones that did see him
weren't convinced by what they saw. Is all this true, brethren? The moment we leave this life
and come into the presence of God, we will see everything that
God said is exactly as he said it. I don't know about you, but I get
weary hearing from people, particularly powerful people. They're really
bad about lying. I hardly bother with the news
anymore because I don't know of anybody that's telling the
news without putting a slant on it. Because it's not like they want
to inform you, rather they want to form an opinion in you and
therefore they say it this way and that way and of course every
two to four years the politicians descend on us and they talk this
and they talk that and everybody gets caught up in it and say
I'm voting for such and such because he said this and he's
going to do it and then they go back and they don't do it. Paul wasn't kidding when he said,
let God be true and every man a liar, because that's the truth
of it. God's true and every man's a liar. I'm so glad God's true. I'd rather be lied to about my
politics and about my soul. God tells the truth. And everything,
brothers and sisters, is exactly as he said it. And someday, someday,
delivered from this flesh, we shall see that it's exactly like
that. We doubt our understanding. We doubt if God's testimony truly
is like it is in the scriptures. But when we die, oh, what a difference. No more doubts. No more conflict. No more saying, I believe God
and having some atheist twist our mind up in a bunch of silly
arguments. Look over it, 2 Corinthians 1,
verse 18. Verse 18 of 2nd Corinthians chapter
1, but as surely as God is faithful. Brethren, I want to be faithful,
but thank God my salvation is not founded upon my faithfulness,
it's founded upon God's faithfulness. God is faithful. Our message
to you was not yes and then no, For the Son of God, Jesus Christ,
who was preached among you by me and Silas and Timothy, was
not yes and then no, but in him it has always been yes. For no
matter how many promises God has made, they are yes in Christ. And so through him the amen is
spoken by us to the glory of God. We say amen, or at least the
church I was raised in, amen was just something you said.
It's, you know, just an expostulation. How's that for a word? When somebody
likes what they heard the preacher said, amen. You know, amen has
a meaning. It's a Hebrew word and it means,
so be it, or that's the way it is. When we read in the King
James Version that our Lord said, Verily, verily, I say unto you.
What he actually said was, Amen, Amen, I say unto you. And so
what Paul is saying is this, our gospel, this message, is
not yes now, but later on it's going to be no. You and I, week
by week, gather, we open up this book, we read what's in here,
and we, by the grace of God, believe it, and yet we struggle
with doubts, but thanks be to God, when we put off this flesh,
that yes, that we heard for all those years shall become a glorious
amen. It's exactly as he said it was
going to be. Isn't that a wonderful thing
to think about? Amen. Secondly, the child of God is
going to learn that God is much holier and much more merciful
than he thought, and that he himself was much more sinful
than he ever imagined. And I put all three of those
together because they go together. First of all, we say God is holy
and we may stand and sing, holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty.
And Isaiah would have said that. And then in chapter six of Isaiah,
he said, I saw the Lord high and lifted up, seated upon a
throne. And the seraphim were saying,
holy, holy, holy is the Lord. The whole earth is full of his
glory. And the next words to come out of Isaiah's mouth were,
woe is me, I'm a man of unclean lips. For I have seen, I'm ruined for
I've seen the King. I've seen God the King. Isaiah knew something about the
holiness of God, but even in that vision of God's holiness
that he was given, he saw so much more of it. It just cut
him down. He suddenly realized that it
was no longer woe is all these Jews out here sinning, it's woe
is me, I'm a sinner. Job said, I heard of you with
the hearing of the ear. Now my eye sees you and I abhor
myself and repent in sackcloth and ashes. The more you see of
God's holiness, the more you will see of your sinfulness.
And I think when we open our eyes in glory and we see what
the holy God is really like, we're going to see just how wicked
we really were. And then we are going to be utterly
amazed at how merciful God was to us. We do our best to understand
those things now, don't we? We got a little glimpse of his
glory in the face of Christ Jesus, in the preaching of the gospel.
We've got some understanding of our sin. We know it's bad. We know it's power yet within
us. It's powerful, it's stubborn,
persistent. but I don't think we've got the
slightest understanding of the sheer wickedness of sin. We will then, and we'll, well,
we'll sing Amazing Grace then. We'll be much more amazed by
it then than we are now. Thirdly, when the child of God
dies, He, and then you can be turned
over to 1 John chapter one. When the child of God leaves
this world, he is going to learn that the blood of Jesus Christ,
God's son, truly is able to purify us from all sin. You know, salvation, The work
of salvation has a two-pronged effect on us with regard to sin.
First of all, there is its legal effect. According to the Scriptures,
we are criminals in the kingdom of God. We are guilty of crimes
against God's kingdom. And so there's a legal problem
to be taken care of and that's what Paul often talks about.
When he talks about being justified that word simply means to be
declared righteous or in a court of law it just be not guilty.
A declaration of not guilty. So the first thing that we see
in the gospel is that Our sins are forgiven. In fact,
in 1 John 1, verse 9, it says, if we confess our sins, He is
faithful and righteous and will forgive us our sins. So there's
just forgiveness. But every one of you here that
believes, your sins are now completely forgiven. All the sins you've
already done, the sin you're doing right now, and all the
sins you shall ever do are already forgiven. The slate's been wiped
clean and no one's ever going to be allowed to mark on it again. There is no crime, no sin registered
to your account. But there's something more. I've
been forgiven. But I am not pure. Are you? I'm still the same guy I was
before I found out God forgave me. I've still got all the same
sinful directions and impulses that I had before I confessed
my sin. Something more needs to be done.
Brethren, I don't want to go to hell, but I don't want to
live like this forever either and therefore it says If we walk
in the light, this is verse 7 of 1st John 1 if we walk in the
light as he is in the light We have fellowship with one another
and the blood of Jesus his son purifies us from all sin I Want
you to think about that now Now the child of God, the one that's
been born again by the Spirit of God, he's been born of the
Spirit and his spirit is pure. But this old flesh is the same
thing it always was. And the sin clings to us and
makes us say like Paul did, oh wretched man that I am, who will
deliver me from this body of death? I thank God through Jesus
Christ my Lord. The blood of Jesus Christ was
good enough, righteous enough, righteous enough and worthy and
valuable enough in the sight of God to pay our debt against
God and clear all legal charges against us. And it is pure enough,
or excuse me, powerful enough to actually, in the proper time,
purify us and make us like Him. That's something to look forward
to. To be the kind of person God
made humans to be. To be free of every sinful impulse
and desire. To be free of all that unbelieving
doubt that constantly pesters. To no longer have to say the
spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. The blood of Christ that cleansed
our record will purify our persons to where we shall not only be
declared righteous, we actually shall be righteous. I don't know about you, I'm looking
forward to that. And the older I get, the more
forward I get in looking for it. Let's add him all to be like
thee, blessed Redeemer. Fourthly, Child of God, when
he dies, he will learn that even though he may have wasted many
hours, days, and years of his life, God did not waste a moment
of his life. And I mean the believer's life.
Now brethren, when we think about all the wasted time, Things that we could have occupied
ourselves with something much more important. I've heard people
say, particularly if God didn't save them until late in life,
and they say, look at all those wasted years when I could have
been believing God. Well, you may look upon them
as a waste, and from this viewpoint, I guess it sort of is, but you
know something? God wasn't wasting those years of your life. God
was working in your lives something that would bring Him glory that
would be for your good. You say, years of unbelief, good? Well, the unbelief's not good,
but didn't our brother read to us from Romans chapter eight?
And we know that all things work together for the good of those
that love God, who are the called according to his purpose. All
the wasted years are used by God and made useful by God in
the accomplishment of his purpose. In the book of Ecclesiastes chapter
3 it says he set the vanishing point in our minds so that we
can't figure out what he's doing. And you know how if you look
down a set of railroad tracks you know eventually it looks
like they become one. And that doesn't seem to make
any sense. But more than that we can look down there and we
don't know where they're going unless we walk all the way down.
The point is with a vanishing point, there's only so far you
can see. And we can only see so far behind us with any accuracy
and much less in front of us. All we see is what's going on
around us. And a lot of times it doesn't make any sense. It
seems like it's useless and vain and a waste of time. But he goes
on to say in Ecclesiastes 3, God has made everything beautiful
in his time. And in time to come, we'll see
that beauty. I remember Brother Mahan preaching
on that text of scripture, and he talked about going down south
to one of those carpet mills, and this was back in the days
when carpets weren't just a solid color, they were more like a
tapestry. And he looked at the carpet mill
and he says, if you go on the side that's got all the yarn
on it, that they're making the carpets out of, he says there
is, all these different colors of yarn. Makes no sense whatsoever. And it's noisy. And there's this
machine clattering away. And then you see the yarns being
pulled and they're shaking and you can't make any sense out
of that. You look at those spools of yarn
and then all those strings going together and they disappear into
that machine. You say, how can anything good come out of that?
You walk around the other side of the machine, you see something
beautiful. God's taking all these various
threads of our lives, of our experience, if we're in Him,
if we're one of His. And they may look chaotic. Some
of them may look beautiful on their own. Some may be dark. Some pure white. Some striking
colors, whatever. But we look at the strings, we
can't make any sense out of them. But we know that God's making
something out of them. And it will be beautiful into
his glory. And in that day we shall say,
Lord, I know I complained a lot, but looking at it now, I would
not change one moment of my life. I love to repeat what Brother
Scott Richardson said. If we had God's power, we'd change
everything. If we had God's wisdom, we'd
change nothing. And someday, brethren, we'll
see that. Now all we can do is believe it, but we shall see
that God always knew what he was doing. Fifthly, we've only
got six, so we're coming in on the end here. Fifthly, the child
of God, when he dies, he will learn that Christ promised never
to leave him was absolutely true. In Hebrews chapter 13, verse
five, We might as well turn there, it's good to see it. Verse 5 of chapter 13 in Hebrews,
keep your lives free from the love of money and be content
with what you have because God has said, never will I leave
you, never will I forsake you. When our Lord went back to glory,
he told his disciples to go preach the gospel, make disciples, and
he says, lo, I am with you even to the end of the age. The psalmist
said, yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil, for you are with me. Now here's the thing,
that doesn't mean that as we approach our death and it's imminent,
that suddenly Jesus Christ comes to meet us. The valley of the
shadow of death is not your last illness. The valley of the shadow of death
is this, the life we now live. That could be translated, maybe
better understood, with David saying, yea, though I am walking
through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil,
for you are with me. Our Lord was with our brother
Wes every step he ever took. He was with Wes When he was born,
he was with Wes as he grew up. He was with Wes through all his
adulthood. He was with Wes when he moved
here. He was with Wes when he got sick. He was with Wes when he had a
stroke. And when our brother Wes died,
the Lord didn't come for him. He was already there. And all that happened was Wes's
eyes were open to see what was always true. God never leaves his people. They have been in his bosom from
eternity. They are in his hands and the
Lord said, none shall pluck them from my father's hands. Now we can't see that, and we
live most of our lives not thinking about that. But brethren, the
Lord is with you. The Lord is with you when you
get up, and he's with you when you lay down, he's with you all
night long. He is with you when you thought you were doing good,
and he was with you when you knew you were doing bad. And
he wasn't smiling one moment and frowning the next. He always
sees his people in Christ. He may discipline his children,
he never punishes them. Punishment is, you see the word
punitive in that, it's always exacting a price. The Lord never
exacts a price from his people. Jesus Christ paid the price.
And God doesn't make people pay twice. He had discipline. But in all things the Lord is
with us and in all times. And we will see that when we
die. And lastly, When the child of
God dies, he will come to the complete realization that just
as our Lord said, there never was anything to worry about. Now, if anybody says they don't
worry, I'm gonna tell them not only do you worry, you lie about
it. It's just the way we are, isn't
it? As I told you in the beginning
of this message, our brother Wes is not worried about anything
right now. He's not worried about paying
bills. He's not worried about how long he shall live. He's
not worried about the next doctor appointment. He's not worried
about whether he'll have friends. He's not worrying about anything.
And he now knows that he never had to worry about any of that.
Our father knows what we need. And he will not fail to give
his people everything they need for this life until the time
for this life is over with, and then he shall take them to the
next life where there's already everything we could ever need. We never have to be worried to
the point of distraction. And the child of God, when he
stands there beholding Jesus Christ, I imagine one of the
thoughts that goes through his mind, why did I ever worry about
anything? Why did I worry about death?
This is the best day I ever had, the day I died. The day I left that place of
sin under the curse of God and came to behold the face of
my savior. I know this, Wes is not asking
the Lord. You think I could go back for
a little while? I remember somebody preaching,
this was way back in my early years of 18 or 19. I listened
to a preacher and he was talking about the raising of Lazarus
from the dead. And he said, can you imagine
how disappointing that was to Lazarus? There he is in glory. With all the other saints that
are already there, maybe talking to Abraham and all of them, and
an angel comes up and says, hey, what? You gotta go back. Huh?
I gotta go back? Yeah. Nobody in heaven wants to go
back. Seriously. I like that country
song that says everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants
to go now. Brethren, we ought to change that. I know we've
got loved ones here. If you've got children, you want
to stick around until you've got them fully raised, fulfill
your obligations as parents and all that. And I know we've got
natural fleshly inclinations, but brethren, we ought to long
for heaven as longing for home, as longing for our family, as
longing for our Father, because that's where they are. And in time to come, we'll see
it.