I want you to turn back again
to the book of Titus and that second chapter this morning. We saw last Sunday in the first twelve verses what
the grace of God teaches His people, which is to live soberly
and righteously in this world. Grace is no license to sin, but it is rather the only true
motivation to good works. And if you remember, at the end
of that message, I read that 13th verse, where we find another reason
for godly living, which reminds us that Jesus is coming. Paul writes, "...looking for
that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great God and
their Savior, Jesus Christ. But His appearing is more than
just a reason to live in a way honoring to Him. It is also a reason for hope
and comfort and joy and gladness. Paul calls it that blessed hope. And the thought of this gives
hope and causes us to be hopeful for the future. If there's one
thing that seems to characterize our day, it is a general Hopelessness. But here the apostle talks about
this blessed hope, and he tells us what the posture is of all
these who are saved by God's grace in Christ. They are looking. They are looking,
not sleeping. Not playing, but rather looking
and watching. And the thought here is looking
with expectation. Looking with anticipation. Because where grace appears,
and that's what he has just told us, that the grace of God has
appeared, wherever grace appears, faith appears, and faith believes
the promises of God. the promises that are all said
to be yes and amen in Him, not the least of which is the promise
of His second coming. Hold your place and look back
in John's Gospel chapter 14. The Lord Jesus, says to His disciples
in every age, let not your heart be troubled. Ye believe in God,
believe also in Me. In My Father's house are many
mansions. If it were not so, I would have
told you. I go to prepare a place for you,
and if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and
receive you unto Myself, that where I am, there ye may be also."
In other words, one part of Christ's work assures us of the accomplishment
of another part of His work. The fact that He has already
appeared assures us that as He has promised, He will appear
again. And so the Lord's people are
truly to be looking forward to what the apostle here calls His
appearing. And when He appears, He will
not be a babe lying in a manger. He won't be that young man with
tools in his hand in a carpenter shop in Nazareth. He will not
be a man walking on the shore of Galilee in the clothing of
a pauper and sandals on his feet. And I assure you, He will not
come as the one portrayed in modern movies. I assure you of
that. As a matter of fact, He will
not be a man hanging on a cross. But His second coming will be
like His first in that it will mean different things to different
people. even for the greater part of
the masses of humanity, it will mean the beginning of endless,
eternal suffering and the wrath of God to come." Because without Christ, Paul
says, we are without hope. But on the other hand, it will
mean the beginning of endless joy and glory for His people. And only by God's free and sovereign
grace in Christ, only by that marvelous grace, Could it be so for such sinners
as we are? How could we ever look with anticipation
toward meeting the Lord of glory? But the Apostle Paul writes in
Romans 5, and he says this, "...much more than being now justified
by his blood, We shall be saved from wrath through Him." The
thing that would separate us, the thing that would bring fear
to our hearts and ought to outside of Christ, we have been promised
as those who are justified by His blood, that is through His
death, that we shall be saved from wrath through Him." And that same apostle also said
this very thing. He said, if in this life only
we have hope in Christ, we're of all men most miserable. He didn't have that false piety
like men have in our day and say, well, if there was no heaven
or no hereafter, I'd just be glad to be a Christian today.
No, he said, if in this life only we have hope, I am of all
men most miserable. Because where grace appears,
Glory always follows. Always follows. Granted, grace
must precede glory. But where grace appears, glory
always follows. And part of this glory is this
appearing of the Lord Jesus Christ from heaven. You see, way back
in the Old Testament, it was prophesied that this coming would
take place. And he records this for us in
the book of Jude. where Jude writes, and Enoch
also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of this saying, Behold,
the Lord comes with ten thousands of his saints. This is not some
new promise. And not only that, the angels,
who by the way were the first on earth to proclaim it, They
proclaimed His first coming, announced it, and they also were
used of God to announce the fact that He'd come again. In Acts it says that they said,
"...Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven?" This
same Jesus. which is taken up from you into
heaven shall so come in like manner as you have seen Him go
into heaven." This same Jesus. Not another
one, not a different one. The One that came and as a man
was taken to a cross and crucified and died and put in a tomb. God
raised up and He ascended back into heaven, but He's coming
back from heaven, this same Jesus. And the Holy Spirit, all throughout
the writings here in the New Testament, He inspired these
apostles in all that they had to say about Christ to weave
into this message of the gospel this unchanging truth and blessed
promise of His coming. Turn over to Hebrews chapter
9. Hebrews chapter 9 and look down
in verse 26. where he contrasts the work of
our great high priest to all those other priests there under
the Mosaic economy, and he says in verse 6, if he had been just
like them, he said, he would have gone often times like they
did and offered sacrifices. For then must he often have suffered
since the foundation of the world, but now once in the end of the
world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of
himself." And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after
this the judgment, so Christ was once offered to bear the
sins of many, and unto them that look for Him shall He appear
the second time without sin unto salvation." When He died on that
cross, when He appeared that first time, The sins of all His
people were laid on Him. But it says here that when He
appears the second time, He'll appear the second time without
sin unto salvation. What does that mean? It means
He appears without sin because He put their sins away. He made
an end of their sins and He appears in this role in His second coming
again to save them. We have been saved. We are being
saved. We shall be saved. He comes to
save us. This same Jesus. And so Paul
writes in 1 Thessalonians 4, he says, "...for this say unto
you by the word of the Lord, that we which alive and remain
unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep,"
or those who have already died in Christ, For the Lord Himself
shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the
archangel, and with the trump of God. And the dead in Christ
shall rise first. Then we which are alive and remain
shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the
Lord in the air, and so shall we ever be with the Lord." Now
listen to this, Comfort one another with these
words. Our Lord is going to appear again. As surely as He appeared that
first time in human flesh, He is going to appear again, this
same Jesus. And it is our comfort. It isn't
our enemy coming. It isn't someone that the Lord's
people do not know. It isn't someone that we don't
know anything about. The fact that it is our Lord
and our Savior and He's coming again and coming for us, that
is to comfort us. And when He comes, there are
a few things that will characterize what the Apostle calls here His
appearing. And one of the things is this,
there will be and He will bring a glorious revelation. A glorious revelation. Because the glory of this appearing
Rather than being associated with all the things that fallen
religious men talk about concerning heaven and mansions and streets
of gold and playing golf and being not sick again, all these
things, that's not the glory of His appearing. The glory of
His appearing is the revelation of Himself. The second coming, and the glory
of it, is the one who's coming. And that's what the Lord's people
delight in and look forward to. It's not merely being at ease
from all their troubles and trials, though that certainly has a glory
to it, but the glory of this appearing is the revelation of
the Lord Jesus Christ. The word appearing here is epiphaneia. And that word means brightness. Brightness. And the other word
that we find in Scripture in the New Testament talking about
His coming is the word parousia. And sometimes those two words
are used in the same verse. One assures His coming and assures
who's coming, and the other speaks of the brightness or the manifestation
of His appearing. He's not coming secretly. Christ will, without a doubt,
come, as Paul writes in 2 Thessalonians, and he says, "...and then shall
that wicked be revealed, the wicked one, whom the Lord shall
consume with the spirit of His mouth, and shall destroy with
the brightness of His coming." That sounds good to me. He won't even be able to lift
up accusation against Christ. He nor all his legions will never
be able to speak a word in that hour of resistance or defiance. Christ will destroy them in the
very brightness of His coming. And he'll come, as the Bible
says, as a thief in the night. But when he comes, it says, and
every eye shall see him. Isn't it amazing how the various
schemes of prophecy and eschatology, how they just kind of really
come into question just by a few statements and phrases in Scripture? Every eye shall see Him. And He won't be the man with
nowhere to lay His head, but on His head will be the crown
of glory. As a matter of fact, the Scripture
says, on His head are many crowns. What does that mean? It means
that He's the King over everything. And He will come in the brilliance
of holiness. He will come as the King of righteousness. He will come as the King of kings
and the Lord of lords. And every knee will bow down
to Him. And every tongue that will confess that He is Lord
to the glory of the Father. They'll confess He's the Lord.
And the glory that you could say flickered on the Mount of
Transfiguration and glimmered just a bit again and blinded
Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus, it will shine with
unending brightness. Brightness. And the glory that
Isaiah saw when he saw Christ high and lifted up, the glory
that those living ones speak of all around the throne right
now when they cry, Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God Almighty, He'll
come with breathtaking glory that renders all men speechless. You hear these fools talk about
what they're going to tell Jesus when He comes. They're not going
to tell Him anything. He'll come in infinite glory
and eternal glory, and especially in the glory that belongs to
Him alone as the God-man. There are so many ways that the
Bible teaches that the Lord Jesus Christ and His people are one,
and says that as He is, so are we in this world. And that is
so true. But don't ever forget that He
has an exclusive and particular and distinctive glory as the
God-Man. as the man Christ Jesus, and
Scripture says we'll see Him as He is. Not as He was in His humility,
but as He is in His infinite glory as the Mediator. Paul writes to Timothy, he says,
"...I give thee charge in the sight of God, who quickens all
things, and before Christ Jesus, who before Pontius Pilate witnessed
a good confession, that thou keep this commandment without
spot, unrebukable, until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ." which in his times he shall show
who is the blessed and only potent date. Somebody says once in a while
to me, where do you get this word sovereign from? I've not
seen it in the Bible. There it is. potentate, the one
and only potentate, that is, sovereign Lord over all things. He will show at His appearing
who is the blessed and only potentate, the King of kings and Lord of
lords, who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no
man can approach unto, whom no man has seen nor can see, to
whom be honor and power everlasting. Amen." He's coming in glory. And it'll be the great revelation. Nobody will wonder who Jesus
Christ is. No one will mistake Him for somebody
else. And I'll tell you this, when
He comes, all who have embraced what Paul warned of as another
Jesus, they're going to look at their Jesus. And He's going
to be like one of those plaster idols they make down in Mexico
and bow down and worship to. You might could even say it'll
be less like the guy in the movie, you know, when the Australian
fellow, when the man comes out of the alley and pulls a knife
on him, you got a little knife, and he reaches there and he pulls
out this big knife, he says, now this is a knife. This is
a Savior. This is the Lord of glory. This
is the Lord Jesus Christ. You won't speak of Him in some
unholy familiarity. You won't speak of Him in terms
as equals. You won't speak of Him in terms
of being over Him and Lord over Him. He's the Lord of glory. And nobody will mistake Him.
Every eye will see Him. And not only when He comes at
this appearing will there be this marvelous revelation of
Himself in His person, but also there's going to be this glorious
vindication. His gospel will be vindicated. Somebody said, well, that's just
what you think. That's just what you folks believe.
That's just what you preach. Everybody's got an opinion, everybody's
got a doctrine, everybody's got a philosophy of life. Every man takes his own opinion,
his own thoughts, his own way. No. When the Lord Jesus appears,
It will be obvious painfully and for so many eternally obvious
that it was not many ways he was the one way to God. They may say now, oh there's
a lot of truth out there and some's got some and some's got
the other and oh no, it'll be revealed that he is the truth. He is the life. He is salvation. Turn over to 2 Thessalonians. 2 Thessalonians chapter 1 and verse
7. Listen to what it says. He says,
"...and to you who are troubled, rest with us." The Lord's people
on this earth are always a troubled people. They're troubled by the
world. I remember reading about the
prophet that went down and stood before the king, and the king,
when he saw him, he said, oh, let's don't call for him. He
doesn't ever have anything good to say about me. There's a reason
why the gospel preacher doesn't have anything good to say about
you. It's because there is nothing good about you. But he said,
I don't want you to call that prophet because he never has
any good thing to say about me. And when he came down finally
at the request of the other king to hear what the word of the
Lord was, they said, here comes that troubler from Tekoa. Who's your pastor? Gary Shepherd. Oh, oh. He's that troubler. from Jacksonville. He said, "...and to you who are
troubled, rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed
from heaven with His mighty angels in flaming fire, taking vengeance
on them that know not God and that obey not the gospel of our
Lord Jesus Christ." It'll be clear then. what the gospel is,
who it's about, what He accomplished, who He did it for, who shall
be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence
of the Lord and from the glory of His power when He shall come
to be glorified in His saints and to be admired in them that
believe because our testimony among you was believed in that
day. Be clear who they are. It'll
be clear who He is. And it'll be clear whose gospel
was the gospel. Paul called it our gospel. He
referred to it as my gospel. But he referred to it most of
all as the gospel of God, and the gospel of grace, and the
gospel of God's Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, and the gospel
of your salvation. You ever heard the gospel of
your salvation? Most people hear the gospel of
how to be saved. The gospel of what to do to be
saved. That's not the gospel. Paul said,
it's the gospel of your salvation. It's the word and message, glad
tidings of good news that God has saved you. All will know that the gospel
of His free and sovereign grace in Jesus Christ and Him crucified,
that is the gospel. It's just one gospel. And most will learn too late
the truth of it, the reality of it. His gospel is the gospel of unconditional
election and grace. His gospel is the gospel of particular
redemption. His gospel is the gospel of predestinating
grace, of keeping grace. Our Lord says, "...whosoever
therefore shall be ashamed of Me and of My words." Do you think
you're going to get by separating somebody named Christ from the
words of Christ? If you're ashamed of His words,
you're ashamed of Him. Whosoever therefore shall be
ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful
generation, of him also shall the Son of Man be ashamed when
He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels." He said, I'll be ashamed of them.
in the day of my brightness and glory, in the day of my appearing."
Revelation, it says, "'Behold, he cometh with clouds, and every
eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him, and all kindreds
of the earth shall wail because of him.'" What does John say
after that? Does he say, oh, that's a cry
in shame? No, he says, even so. Amen. Even so, amen. And not only will that gospel
be manifested and vindicated and the brightness of it revealed,
but also the righteous themselves shall be vindicated. They're despised now. Persecuted
now. Hated now for His namesake. I used to remember reading in
the New Testament, in the Gospels, where Christ talked about what
would happen to those who identified with Him. I thought, surely that must have
been for the apostolic time. Because here I am, a preacher
and a Christian, and everybody seems to like me pretty good.
But I found out what He was talking about. When the Lord revealed
the truth to my heart, salvation is of the Lord. And when you
begin to talk about or bear witness to or preach about that doctrine
that lays to waste all the works and ways and religion of men,
you take from them the very thing that's most precious to their
hearts? It doesn't matter the fact that
it's unable to save them, or they're prayed to a God that
cannot save, no matter that it's an idol, but it's that thing
that their hope is built in. You take that away, you take
away their hope. You say, you're cruel. No. I
want you to have a true hope. A real hope. Christ says in Matthew
13, "...the Son of Man shall send forth His angels, and they
shall gather out of His kingdom all things that offend, and them
which do iniquity, and shall cast them into a furnace of fire. There shall be wailing and gnashing
of teeth. Then shall the righteous shine
forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father." The righteous. How could that be when the Bible
says there's none righteous, no, not one? There's none righteous
in themselves. There are none righteous by their
doing. There's none righteous by their
feelings or whatever it is. These He's talking about here
who will shine in their brightness. It'll be manifested. It'll be
clear who the Lord's true people are. They're the righteous because
they've been made by God, the righteousness of God in Christ. They'll shine, as old Bunyan
wrote in a sermon and a message he had one time, they'll shine
with the brightness and the glory of an imputed righteousness. They've been made the righteousness
of God in Christ. He said again, "...and shall
not God avenge His own elect, which cry day and night unto
Him, though He bear long with them? I tell you that He will
avenge them speedily." That's why you don't have to fight back
when the enemies of God do despite to you and say wicked things
about you and lie about you and scandalize you. You don't even
have to raise a hand. Right into the Corinthians, Paul
says, "...therefore judge nothing before the time until the Lord
come, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness,
and will make manifest the counsels of the heart. And then shall
every man have praise of God." Every man? Every man in Christ. He says, "'Dearly beloved, avenge
not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath, for it is written,
Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord.'" He's going
to, at His appearing, vindicate all His people. When men and women determine
who is a Christian, and this is one of the most deceptive
things in our day, They determine Christianity on the basis of
morality. That's a deadly thing. Because by the standards of modern
religious thinking, those who meet that standard of morality
and zeal and dedication and sincerity and all that, They would all
make very good Pharisees, whom the Lord called a bunch of snakes
and vipers. He looked at those whose moral
failings were noted. He rebuked them. He sent men to teach them the
way that they should do. But they never scolded them as
those who are lost, like He did the Galatians, whose morality
and such was never questioned, but the fact that they were mixing
works and grace. Paul said, I'm in doubt of you. I tell you, the Lord knows them
that are His. And I can tell you over about
30 plus years of trying to preach the gospel, some of those I thought,
boy, if ever these were the Lord's people, I mean, they're a real
deal. Only to prove that they were
just false professors. Left the gospel. Identified with
the false gospel. And some I've looked at, mainly
my own self, and said, I don't know if he'll make it or not.
And the Lord is preserved. At that hour, there's going to
be a glorious resurrection. The epiphany of Christ. The appearing
of Christ will bring a glorious resurrection. Paul said, For
if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them
also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him. For this
we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive
and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them
which are asleep. For the Lord shall descend from
heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, with
the trump of God. The dead in Christ shall rise
first. Then we which are alive and remain
shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the
Lord in the air. And so shall we ever be with
the Lord. There's always a debate about
whether you ought to be cremated or buried, whether you ought
to be this or that and the other, or what about this one who's
blown to bits in a bomb, or burned up in a fire and all that. That
doesn't matter. Because the Creator God is also
the Savior God. He made me from the dust in the
start. If I get burned up in a fire
or blown to bits, you don't have to be too concerned about how
to bury me, because He knows where every molecule, atom, whatever
you want to go to, the lowest common denominator of me is,
and He's going to raise me from the dead. And you know who I'm
going to be? I'm just going to be me, the
sinner, saved by grace, glorified. For since by man came death,
by man came also the resurrection of the dead, for as in Adam all
die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive, but every
man according to his own order. Christ the firstfruits, afterward
they that are Christ at His coming. at His appearing. There will also be this wonderful,
glorious transformation. Turn over to Philippians, the
third chapter. I love these verses. Philippians
chapter 3, verse 20 and 21. For our conversation is in heaven,
from whence also we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall change our vile body."
Now you may get up, as you did this morning, and wash, and as
we used to say, primp, Put on all your pretties and look in
the mirror and say, well, I'm not a bad-looking gal. I'm not
a bad-looking guy. But you're a bow-body. Because
you're a sinner. Granted, you look better than
me, act better than me, but I'm not the standard. The standard
is the man Jesus Christ. And you can take a yardstick
you made for yourself and make it about this long and call it
a foot if you want to. No. But He's going to change
at His appearing our vile bodies, that it may be fashioned like
unto His glorious body according to the working whereby he is
able even to subdue all things unto himself." I've never been
able to do that. I've never been able to subdue
this corrupt body, this fallen nature. But he's able to subdue
all things. John says, "...Beloved, now are
we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall
be. But we know that when He shall appear, we shall be like Him. For we
shall see Him as He is, and every man that hath this hope in Him
purifieth himself, even as he is pure." God's people in Christ are pure. And in light of that hope of
His appearing, and being at His appearing as He is, pure, that
moves us to seek to purify ourselves. Not just in our actions and such
as that, but in our minds, in our conscience. How are our consciences
purified? by the Spirit of God applying
to us the blood of Christ, bringing us back always to the cross and
the sufferings of our substitute. For the Son of Man shall come
in the glory of His Father with His angels, and then He shall
reward every man according to his works." You say, Preacher,
I thought you didn't believe in works. Oh no, I do. But it says, he shall reward
all his people according to his works. I don't mind being rewarded
according to his works, do you? I sure do mind it with my works. And when the chief shepherd shall
appear, Peter says, he shall receive a crown of glory that
fades not away. Therefore, gird up the loins
of your mind, and be sober and hope to the end for the grace
that is brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ." Paul is saying, when Christ,
who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with
Him in glory. Where is glory? wherever Christ
is. Henceforth there is laid up for
me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous
Judge, shall give me at the day, and not to me only, but unto
all them that love His appearing." Then I'll just say one more thing.
There'll be a glorious completion. A glorious completion. Turn to 2 Peter chapter 3. 2
Peter chapter 3. Peter writes in this third chapter, He says, "...this second epistle,
beloved, I now write unto you, in both which to stir up your
pure minds by way of remembrance, that ye may be mindful of the
words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and of
the commandment of us the apostles of the Lord and Savior, knowing
this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers
walking after their own lusts, and saying, Where is the promise
of His coming? For since the fathers fell asleep,
all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation."
That's not true. All things don't continue in
the same way they did from the beginning of creation. There
was the fall of man. That changed everything radically. There was the flood. He says,
"...for this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word
of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of
the water and in the water, whereby the world that then was being
overflowed with water perished. But the heavens and the earth
which are now." by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto
fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men."
He said, by the same word that brought the flood, the same word
keeps there from being another worldwide flood and holds that
fiery judgment that is to come in store but not accomplished. But beloved, be not ignorant
of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand
years, and a thousand years as one day. God's not operating
on your clock, calendar, or mine. The Lord is not slack concerning
His promise, as some men count slackness, but is longsuffering
to usward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should
come to repentance." He said, this judgment is coming, and
our Lord Jesus is coming. But He hasn't, and He won't until
such a time. until such a time as there is
this glorious completion." What is that? The salvation of
everyone of His elect. The salvation of everyone that
the Father loved in Christ before the world began. The salvation
of everyone Christ died for on the cross. They must be saved. Why? Because it's not His will that
any of them should perish. He's long-suffering to us-ward. Not willing that any of the us-ward,
which is simply as you look at the first of this epistle and
the first epistle of Peter, the elect of God to us-ward. but that all should come to repentance." There will be a glorious completion,
and that is the calling out of that last one of God's sheep. And the completion of that building
that is described as His body, And when He puts that last one,
makes manifest that last one, that last stone, your living
stones, is that not what He said? When He puts that last stone
in the building, there's completion, and it says, with shoutings of
grace, grace. This is the building of grace.
This is the body of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is that complete
church. This is that complete body over which He's the Head. Nobody will be looking around
heaven and say, well, where are all these missing seats? There
are no missing seats. He'll have them all. He loves them all. You love anybody or anything
in this world so much that you... whatever power you have to preserve
it, you'll preserve it. You think He's got less of a
love than you've got? He has more of a love and more
of power. He's not willing that any of
them should perish. He's not willing that any man
can make his work to be of none effect for those he died for. And the Spirit of God is going
to come to them and give them life and call them to Christ. Paul said, He's coming. And we're to be looking. Looking
with anticipation. looking, remembering who's coming,
remembering what He's bringing, remembering how it'll be after
that, maybe even kind of wondering
what it is altogether He'll bring. One thing I'm sure is He'll bring
His people a greater capacity to know Him, to love Him, to
worship Him, to praise Him forever. There's an old hymn. You see, even when we gather around
the Lord's table, we show the Lord's death till He comes. The coming of the Lord draws
nigh. Let your moderation be known unto all men. The Lord
is at hand. Now, little children, abide in
Him, that when He shall appear, we may have confidence and not
be ashamed before Him at His coming." John gets down to the last verse,
the last chapter of this book. He writes, "...he which testifieth
these things saith, Surely I come quickly." Amen. And what does the bride say?
What's the response of the Lord's bride? Even so, come Lord Jesus. I don't know all the words of
this hymn. I'm almost hesitant to quote it when I'm not sure
of the words of the hymn, but I just remember the chorus of
it a little bit. It said, Oh, that will be glory
for me. Glory for me. Glory for me. When by His grace I shall look
on His face, That will be glory. Be glory for me. Will that be
glory for you? When you think about the coming
of our Lord Jesus, can you say with the bride, even
so come, Lord Jesus, even so come quickly, looking for the appearing that
blessed hope, the appearing of the great God and our Savior,
Jesus Christ. Father, this morning we give
You thanks that such prospect, prospect of grace, prospect that
is only or could only be ours in our Lord Jesus, we look and we long for His appearing,
the brightness. Will the coming of this same
Jesus that we find set forth in Your Word hasten that day? For some of Your people, it will
be when You come for them in death. But that's alright. Whether You come for us in death
or whether we're alive at Your coming, We'll rejoice in your
appearing. That is our hope. And Christ,
too, is our hope. We pray that you'd bless your
word to those who would hear it. Get all the glory and honor
to yourself. For we pray in Christ's name,
Amen.