I'm privileged to bring the word
of God to you this morning. and my topic this morning is
the subject of citizenship that's where we want to be and thinking
in terms of where people live what is their habitation what
in the scripture is presented to us as a city to dwell in it's
a great scriptural theme and you see it in part in the lovely
psalm that we read psalm 107 it's a great and comforting truth
of the gospel. And it's a truth that we all
have some natural understanding and knowledge of, that we understand
what it is to be a citizen. And it has an importance, of
course. It means if you're a citizen,
you have a home somewhere. You belong somewhere. In our
sad world today, there are many people who are homeless and displaced,
having fled to other countries, and they don't have a citizenship.
They wander. And this is something that's
picked up, of course, in the scriptures we shall look at later.
They have nowhere they can call their own. And we know there
are many of these people, we understand why, who want to come
here. They think England's the promised
land, and compared with where they are, it probably is. But
it's not perfect, is it? We know that a huge number of
people spend a lot of money, and they face great dangers to
come here. And when we preach the gospel,
we set before people the greatness of the gospel. We set before
them the kingdom of God. But we find the natural man doesn't
flood towards the kingdom of God on the opposite. Men are
repelled by it. They find the gospel an offence. But worldly things are attractive,
yes, when people think, well, we will find peace, money, security,
and so on. In England, they give us somewhere
to live and feed us. They want to go there. It's a
mystery of the gospel. We set forth wonderful truths,
but it needs the grace of God to bring them to people. I've
often said it, and I'll say it again, the truths of God are
like a big and precious diamond. If you see a diamond, it has
many faces or facets. and you turn it round and they
all, this is why people like them, of course they glint and
glisten, it's all the wonderful colours, it's an amazing thing,
of course it's pure carbon isn't it, it's a pure solid carbon,
it's an amazing thing, how these things develop in the world and
it's a mystery isn't it, God allows such beautiful things
to develop and there are all these great truths and week by
week we set forth don't we different parts but there's a whole in
any one doctrine you haven't got the whole truth you need
all those doctrines that's why we set them forth and here we
have another truth citizenship it is a great truth and it's
related of course to the doctrine to free and sovereign grace which
we hold to firmly in this chapel and we love these verses verses
four to seven of this psalm people they wandered in the wilderness
in a solitary way they found no city to dwell in people like
that in the world hungry and thirsty their soul fainted in
them then they cried unto the Lord in their trouble and he
delivered them out of their distresses and he led them forth by the
right way that they might go to a city of habitation And in
a sense here we see in these figurative words something of
the gospel experience, the salvation experience. People suddenly find
they're in a wilderness, they feel it. That's because God the
Spirit works in us. Most of the people around us
are quite content with themselves. They wouldn't feel they were
in darkness or a spiritual wilderness, far from it. Men today are full
of light, aren't they? Full of truth, they know everything.
When God comes, oh, they found no city to dwell in. They became
hungry, thirsty, their soul fainted. They cried unto the Lord. Have you known that? Do you know
what it is to cry to the Lord? Come to Him. that you might be
led the right way. All that men would praise the
Lord for his goodness because there is a heaven. People mock
and they make cartoons up about heaven. It's a sort of joke subject.
Ah, but there is a heaven. It's not like the Islam heaven. their paradise. It's a place
of carnal pleasure. That's what they present, these
Imams. They told the young men, you go and fight in the Middle
East and you lose your life fighting for Allah, you'll go straight
to paradise and you'll get all sorts of things. The sort of
things that people do that they hate in this world, that they
bomb. But no, our heaven's not that. That's not the Christians'
hope. They're going to seek God to be with him. That's our hope. That's heaven. to be with God,
to know as we are known, to see Him, Christ, as He is. That's
our hope, to praise Him and to worship Him for eternity. We only get glimpses of this
in the book of Revelation. There is a place, and we just
look at some of these references, some of them you'll know well.
John, at the beginning of chapter 14, words that we always love
to come to, these words. I find them very comforting.
I've preached on these words. Verse 2, in my father's house
or many mansions or rooms or places, if it were not so I would
have told you. I go to prepare a place for you,
says Christ. And if I go and prepare a place
for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself, that
where I am, ye may go also. Of course, they're asking questions
about this. You've got to be with Christ. That's what we mean
by heaven. And Christ does not dwell in
time. does not dwell, as it were, in
this world. We know that Godhead dwells in
eternity, and that's something we can't understand. And that
we know that this world and time shall be no more. There will
be a new heavens and a new earth. Remarkable. And we find a lot
about this in the book of Hebrews. We want Hebrews chapter 11 and
verses 10 and 16. It's a wonderful book, Hebrews,
there's so much in it, it never ceases to amaze us what we find
in it. And I'm one of those who thinks
that the great apostle Paul wrote it, we can't prove it, but I
think he did write it. Verse 10, oh, I've got the wrong
chapter, I apologise. for he looked, this is Abraham,
what was Abraham looking for? He had these promises God showed
him, promises, there were covenants made with Abraham, what was Abraham's
great hope from all that faith he received, all that God said
to him, he looked for a city which have foundations, whose
builder and maker is God. He's looking for that eternal
city. Yes, there are promises to Abraham. He would have this
inheritance as the sand on the seashore, the stars in the heaven
would be his spiritual progeny. that he looked for a city, and
then verse 16, and others, you see, who died in faith, not having
received all the promises, what were they looking for? They desired
a better country, that is, and heavenly. Wherefore God is not
ashamed to be called their God, for He hath prepared for them
a city. There's a place. God has prepared
a place. And then Hebrews again, chapter
12 and verse 22, Excuse me, my fingers don't work
very well these days. and you'll come unto Mount Zion
and unto the City of the Living God, to heavenly Jerusalem, unto
an innumerable company of angels, to the General Assembly and Church
of the Firstborn, which are written in heaven. There's this heavenly
place. There's all those who were in
the Lamb's Book of Life, there they will be in this eternal
place. It's the word for City is the
word polis and I think it's the root of words like political
and so on. And if you look at the meaning
of it in the word book, it means a walled place. Actually paradise
means a walled place. It's a walled place. It's a certain
place. It's meant to be. It's meant
to be specific. That's why God says a city. We're
not talking about some vague general notion. We're not like
Eastern religion, where we get into a kind of eternal sleep,
almost like a drug-induced sort of trip, and that's heaven. No. And you're still just yourself,
alone. No. We see this is a communal
thing, it has a place, it's bound. We will be with the people of
God, we will be with the angels of God, we will be worshipping
God. That's what we're told, isn't
it wonderful? And it's prepared by God for his people. And so
there is a citizenship in this world, but there's a citizenship
in heaven. And truly that God is the King,
the King of that place and when we see God as King we think of
the triune God as King and sometimes we read things of God and they
are of Christ but they're all Godhead and they speak of Him. I want to turn you to Psalm 24
and verses 7 to 10 Lift up your heads, O ye gates, and be lift up, ye everlasting
doors. We're thinking of a city here.
And the King of Glory shall come in. Who is this King of Glory? The Lord strong and mighty, the
Lord mighty in battle. Lift up your heads, O ye gates,
even lift them up, O ye everlasting doors, and the King of Glory
shall come in. Who is this King of Glory? The
Lord of Hosts. He is the King of Glory. There
is a King of Heaven. There is a Kingdom of Heaven.
And we speak of a spiritual kingdom. There are kingdoms in this world.
but there is a greater kingdom we see that prophesied through
Daniel's great prophecy this kingdom that would replace all
the worldly kingdoms it would come down like a stone and crush
all the kingdoms of this world so superior the kingdom of God
and of Christ this is the true Israel isn't it? by faith not
by birth in this world I said you have a kingdom by birth,
but there is a spiritual kingdom, a heavenly kingdom. How is it
you come into this? There is a birth. Yes, you become
a citizen by birth, but it's a new birth. That's what the
gospel says, what Christ declares. There is a new birth. You shall
be born again. And we remember Nicodemus saying,
well, how can that be when a man is old? Can he enter again into
his mother's womb? He was a teacher in Israel and
he said you should understand these things. We declare a new
birth by God's sovereign grace. There is a change, a real change
in people. It's not because we, as the Church of Rome said, we
become gracious because we live well, we do good works, we give
money away, we afflict ourselves. No. It's nothing of us. That's our doctrine. all of God. God comes by his mercy and grants
grace. We are loved, we are saved by
Christ, and in Christ it's all his work, it's not our work.
We find that very hard, we still want to try, our natural hearts
want to try and do things to be good, but it achieves nothing
for us, it's all being done for us in Christ. In the world, how do you become
a citizen? Usually by birth, don't you? And people can apply
for that. People come to this country and
we are very good in this country. We assimilate many people. We've
been very kind over the years. And of course, over many years,
we've been invaded by all sorts of people. We have a very mixed
history. All of us, if we knew our genetic
makeup, would be quite surprised at the mixture that we have in
such a land as this. There's no pure birth in England. We might think there is, but
there's not. And we think of Paul in Acts, I like this piece
in Acts 22, verse 25. If we can turn to Acts 22, when
Paul is arrested and the centurion speaks to him, Paul has to declare
that he's a Roman citizen because they're about to scourge him.
And they're not allowed to do that because he's a Roman citizen.
Let me see if I've got the right chapter. I'm very sorry if I've
got the wrong chapter there. Verse 25. Yeah, they bound him with thorns. I think it's the right one. Sorry,
I've turned two pages. Yes, they bound him with thorns,
and Paul said unto the centurion that stood by, Is it lawful for
you to scourge a man that is a Roman, and is a Roman citizen,
and uncondemned? Because he had rights and privileges,
you see, and the Romans were separated. When the centurion
heard that, he went and told the chief captain, saying, Take
heed what thou doest, for this man is a Roman. Then the chief
captain came to him and said, Are you a Roman? And he said,
Yeah. And the chief captain answered,
With a great sum I obtain this freedom. And Paul said, But I
was free born. Now in the Gospel you can't obtain
it by a great sum. The Church of Rome pretends you
can't to this day. You can pay money and earn credits,
as it were, for yourself. And we know this is what inflamed
Luther, really. This is where the Reformation
started. Indulgences. That man, Tetzel. The indulgences. He was so crossed by them. And
it worked in his spirit, and the grace of God came. And he
looked carefully in his Bible. He was teaching his students
Romans. And he saw justification by faith. The Church of Rome
pretended it could sell this, but you can't. But in the gospel,
as in this, I'm English, and I've got, I'm gonna break a few
rules today, I've got visual aid. That's my passport. Terrible photograph in it. And
it also says European Union on it, which I don't like. But I
open it up, and I look inside, and look at this photograph of
myself. Somebody opens this up and says,
who's this person? If I can find the right page.
And it's got Martin Penson, it says, British citizen. That means
a lot, doesn't it, in this world? To be a British citizen. Not
to be a displaced person from Syria or something. I'm a British
citizen. That's great. It's like Paul, isn't it? He
was a Roman. That's a tremendous privilege that wasn't paid for,
wasn't earned, was it? It's just by birth. It's the
same, you know, with the Gospel. Get a passport by what you do. You cannot do it by good works,
by what you do. It's by birth. It's by the new
birth. It's by the grace of God. Well,
is there a passport? Well, I think we can be careful
here, but there is a passport, a heavenly passport. It's faith. God grants faith. It is a gift
of God, not of man. And then, as we've given that
faith, we have that new birth. We come alive, don't we? God
the Holy Spirit comes to us, and we have faith, and we have
trust in Christ. Then, by the grace of God, we
become citizens, not just of this world, but of heaven. If
you're in Christ, you have two citizenships. You have one down
here and you have one that's up there. An eternal citizenship. Isn't that wonderful? In this
psalm we read here of the redeemed, verse 2. If redeemed from the
hand of the enemy, God has redeemed. Sovereign grace. God is at work
in salvation. Not accident, is it? He gathers
them out of the lands from the east and from the west. Jesus
said no man can come except I draw him. We believe God is gathering
people from all over the world. We know that there are many,
there are huge numbers, you know, being saved. Not in this country
necessarily, in the Far East. Huge numbers. You'd be surprised
in the Philippines, in Korea, in China. God is doing a great
work. We don't see it necessarily.
from the West, from the North, from the South, and we see they
wandered. You say, how men are in this?
Well, they're wandering in the wilderness. Men are in darkness, that's what
the New Testament tells us. They're wandering in the wilderness,
they're in darkness, aren't they? They didn't find a city to dwell
in. People have got careers, goals
and aspirations, they're all seeking for something, but do
they ever find it? And then they get into despair,
don't they? They get older, their powers
wane, they haven't achieved all they wanted to achieve. You see,
there's a hunger and a thirst, but what is that? There's a real
true hunger and thirst when God comes to you, you'll receive
a hunger and thirst and you see their soul fainting. It's a soul
hunger and thirst. That's what we need and we need
it to continue with us. Then they cried unto the Lord.
God brings us in salvation. He brings us to the point where
we cry unto Him. We look to Him. We cry unto the
Lord in your trouble. Have you been brought to that
place? Oh, that God will bring every one of us to the place
where we see we need Christ. We can't work it up in ourselves,
but when God works, we feel that need. I can remember as a boy
at school at 17, we were reading Romans 10. I've said this before
in the class. Whoever calls upon the name of
the Lord shall be saved. You know, God spoke to me. It's
a wonderful passage. Just in an RE lesson. And I felt
that need. I felt my need of Christ. I felt
the weight of sin. I felt that need to call upon
Him. And I believe by His grace He
brought that truth to me in salvation. We read He delivered them out
of their distresses. When we are his, when the Lord
has delivered us, when the Lord is sovereign in our lives, what
does the Lord do? We read this lovely verse 7,
and he led them forth by the right way. And we've got before
us here the right way. That's what we seek to declare.
Our pastor puts faithfully to us, week after week, opening
and expounding the right way. Where will we go? That they might
go to a city of habitation. That's the city of God. That
is heaven. The place to go to. The people
of God. There is a kingdom of God. people
get confused in scripture they say well there are lots of kingdoms
but they are the one kingdom has different names be careful
there's the kingdom of God which is the kingdom of heaven which
is the kingdom of righteousness which is the kingdom of the son
of God these are all one and the same places ultimately that
eternal heaven if you read in Matthew's gospel it's usually
referred to as the kingdom of God and you can read also of
the Kingdom of Heaven, you can read the Kingdom of Righteousness,
but we can read also of Satan's Kingdom. And you could say, well
how can that be? We know in this world there are
principalities and powers, says the Word of God. Powers of darkness. There is hidden to us a warfare.
We see it at times declared to us, a warfare going on. Sometimes
we feel it in ourselves. We feel we're in a spiritual
warfare. We feel like when we see the state of our country,
we feel, what is Satan doing in our land? What effect is he
having? Luke 11 and verse 18, he has
a kingdom. It's not spelled out in detail. We don't need it to be, we don't
want it to be, but it is alluded to. And our Lord spoke of it,
you see, because he was accused of doing the works of Satan.
Because they believed in it. They sought a sign from him,
you see, in verse 16. He knew their thoughts. He said,
every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation.
And a house divided against a house faileth. And he said, if Satan
be divided against himself, how shall his kingdom stand? You
say, I'll go in the work of Satan. Well, he'd lose Christ there,
he'd lose to the kingdom of Satan because of what I say. Isn't
it awful to ascribe the works of Christ to Satan? What a day,
what awful people they were. No, it is the Son of God. Let's look at Colossians chapter
1 and verse 13. And these great truths are there. This truth is right through Scripture.
This is one of the things you discover when you look up the
whole topic of the city of God. It's there before us. If we could
just see it and know it. Colossians 1 and 13. let's go back to verse 12, giving
thanks unto the Father which has made us meet to be partakers
of the inheritance of the saints in light who have delivered us
from the power of darkness, what is this power of darkness? It's
the kingdom of darkness the kingdom of this world, it's the kingdom
of Satan you see there are two kingdoms we have to face there is the
kingdom of Christ righteousness, the kingdom of God but there's
the kingdom of Satan, and it's a powerful kingdom, spiritually,
but when we are in Christ, we're translated, we're moved, we're
taken, we're totally removed from the kingdom of darkness,
and so we're physically taken and placed into this kingdom
of light, it's so powerful, which is the kingdom of his dear, ultimately
the kingdom of his dear son. Now I'm gonna break another rule
this morning, I've got here a book I've had over 50 years. By Augustine. He's called Saint
Augustine, but all the children of God are saints, aren't they?
But by Augustine of Hippo. Much to commend. He wrote this
book, City of God. It took him 14 years. His great work really, Opus Major. It's called the City of God because
the Christian religion was under great attack in the Roman Empire. And there were many who said,
look, the Christian religion has replaced the old Roman religion. And now, since we've done that,
we've got the Goths, the busy Goths coming. The Goths have
sacked Rome. and plundered and murdered and
therefore the people say, you know why this has happened, it's
because we've changed our religion we're not worshipping the old
gods anymore, we don't have Jupiter anymore and so on and so he wrote
this book really as a defense against that, but it's also a
setting forth of the gospel, let me just read a little bit
from it, very worthwhile he says, in regard to mankind I have made
a division on the one side are those who live according to man
and on the other those who live according to God and I've said
that in a deeper sense we may speak of two cities or two human
societies the destiny of one being an eternal kingdom under
God while the doom of the other is eternal punishment along with
the devil and he says further here now the first man born of
the two parents of the human race was Cain he belonged to
the city of man The next born was Abel and he was of the city
of God. Notice here a parallel between
the individual man and the whole race. written in the fourth century.
I was a young Christian about this and it's lovely to dip into.
He understood. We don't go along with everything,
every doctrine of Augustine, but he was a man who stood on
the authority of the word of God. That's why he achieved greatness. And that distinguishes citizens. There is a distinguishing mark. How do we know? How do we know? where it says when God brings
you faith, he brings you a knowledge, he does bring you an assurance,
you know within you, your whole person is changed, you know that
you have a love for God, that becomes a priority. I use another
analogy quite often, which is the compass. And when we've been
out walking in the past and we've got ourselves in the middle of
nowhere in the Yorkshire Dales and a loss, we've got the compass,
we've got the Ordnance Survey map, and the compass tells us
where north is, and as long as we get the map in the right place,
we look, we say, oh yeah, I can see that hill, and there's a
stream down there, that's where we are, there's the path, and
we can find our way. It always points north, but let
me tell you, when you become a child of God, something terribly
wonderful happens, your polarity changes, if I can put it that
way, and the compass, instead of doing north, it goes south. towards God. That's towards darkness
and the devil. That's towards God. And when
you have the new life, as it were, that compass of your life,
the way you are led, is God. Yes, we slip and we fail and
we backslide, but then we are drawn by His grace back to Him. God reveals this to us. The orientation
in our life changes. How do we know grace We feel,
we know, there should be something of grace about this. It says
in our articles, there is a change. In article 19, there is a change
in the person. We don't believe in progressive
sanctification, because Christ is our sanctification, but we
do believe that there is a work of grace in the heart of a man. It's terribly important to say
that. And there's fruit. I won't ask
you to tell me today, but is there fruit in your life? Should
be. Remember the parable of the grounds and the sower? There
were three cases, there was no fruit. Evidence of life? Well one was no evidence of life,
two there seemed to be some life, but the fourth case There was
fruit, 30 fold, 60 fold, 100 fold. What's the fruit? If there's
new life, there is fruit, must be, or there's nothing. There
must be a change in character. We become different persons,
don't we? We should do, by the grace of
God, we're not, we should not be what we are. And again, as
we go back to Hebrews in chapter 11, where that is set forth for
us, God works a real change in the heart. You see, faith is
the substance, the ground, there's something there you see, the
substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things seen.
I've said this before, let me say it again. God gives us faith. I say to the children when I
go to Hedge End, I say, imagine if I got a lovely box, perhaps
it's birthday or Christmas, somebody gives you a box, it's all got
lovely bright coloured wrapping paper, and a bow round it, and
a nice tie at the top, and a card with your name on it, you go,
oh, there must be something good in here. And you open it up,
take the bow off, open the box up, and it's empty. It's just some, well, faith isn't
some empty notion, is it? It's a ground, it's a substance. When God gives you faith, he
gives you a something. And it's that principle, Jesus
describes it, doesn't he, to the woman of Samaria, it's like
a well, isn't it? Welling up to eternal life, that's what
faith is. Have you got that within you? Do you exercise it? Do you
feel that welling up to eternal life? There must be proof. We
are his people. There's this lovely passage,
I'm sure you know this one well, in 1 Peter chapter 2, verses
5 to 10. It's one of my most favourite
parts of scripture. And I just love this. It says
everything about our privileges as believers, what it is we have,
where we are. And the position of the believer
is such a wonderful one. Do we understand that? 1 Peter
chapter 2. 5 Ye also, as lively are living
stones, have built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to
offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. Wherefore also it is contained
in the Scripture, Behold, I lay in Zion a chief Cornister, elect
precious, that's Christ of course, and he that believeth on him
shall not be confounded unto you therefore which believe he
is precious but unto them which be disobedient, the stone which
the builders disallowed, the same is made the head of the
corner." That's just a wonderful, wonderful word there of scripture
and we thank God for it. We thank God for every truth
that's in that particular passage. Let me draw your attention to
this, that we are chosen. You see, verse 9 there, we are
chosen in Christ and that's just a wonderful position to be in,
a chosen generation, the great word there you know is eclectos
and we get the word elect from it. People do not like this doctrine,
they shiver, they don't like the doctrine of election, but
it's right through scripture. Why, even Israel themselves were
God's chosen people, we cannot deny that God, and they are a
type of the church, God will have a people gathered to him. any cause of a royal priesthood.
We don't need other priests. We're called a royal priesthood.
That's our holy worship. We're called a holy nation, citizens
of a holy nation, and we're called a peculiar people, a distinct
people and we thank God for that to God's grace who calls them
out of darkness into his glorious light as we read in Colossians
1 13 they're translated from the kingdom of darkness the kingdom
of his dear sons now as citizens let me i won't go into detail
but you have rights of course you do and privileges and the
scriptures tell us let me tell you also that you have duties
things you must do. And Jesus said, if you love me,
you will keep my commandments, you will obey me. And we must
obey him, because we love him. That should be a Christian's
motivation. Sometimes I'm sure we're asked why we do certain
things, because we love Christ, we want to live as Christians. And we know the gospel is an
offence, don't we, in 1 Corinthians chapter 1. It's a foolishness,
isn't it, to men. It's a stumbling block to the
Jews. It's an offence to the Greek,
to the others, the Gentiles. The gospel comes and it is as
an offence to people. We tell people they're sinners.
I suppose today if I was at a place of work and I told somebody I
was a sinner, I'd probably get the sack. That's the day we live
in. If you talk about your religion
or your Christian, I've just seen a case, if you speak about
your Christian religion at work, you could be fired. It's a strange
thing. The gospel is a great offense. And because we have said there,
there is a kingdom of this world, a prince of this world. But we
have a great prince who stands for us, a great prince. who has
died for his people and looks for them. If we're lost, we have
no desire for the gospel. But if Christ is coming to us,
he works within us by the Holy Spirit a desire for the gospel,
that we want these things, that we see this world, the kingdom
of this world for all it is, how tawdry, let's be honest,
how tawdry it is, transient it is. And though sometimes things
seem to be shiny and glittery, often behind they're filthy,
they're vile, and we want to avoid them. If we really want
the good things, the clean things, the things that are beneficial,
the things that are good for our souls, things that are good
for our total well-being, just be honest. We want the Kingdom
of God. There's nothing like it. We want
to follow Christ, but we have to look to Him. We cannot work
this up in ourselves. We're called there by His grace. My last reference, 1 Thessalonians
2, verse 12. I flip one page and I find I
get three going over. Sorry about that. Verse 12. I got the wrong chapter. that we should walk worthy of
God who have called you unto his kingdom and glory. God calls
us to this kingdom. Ultimately, that's how you get
to the kingdom of God. You are called there. And you
are called there in Christ. And you come there by birth.
You come into this world, I've told you, my passport says I'm
a British citizen by birth. That's on my birth certificate.
But you come into heaven by birth. and it's the new birth. You can't
come there any other way. People think they can. You can
go to other places and they'll tell you how to come to heaven.
You can do an alpha course or you're confirmed in the Church
of England or whatever. Or you go on a pilgrimage. But
let me tell you, that's not the case. It's by the sovereign grace
of God. And finally, then if we feel
our need, whoever we are, We must turn to Christ if we are
in distress. We turn to Christ. They cried
unto the Lord in their trouble and he delivered them out of
their distresses. That's where we want to go. That
we get them forth by his right hand. And ultimately that we
might and they might go to a city of habitation. Is that where
you want to be? That's where I want to be. And we're there
now. If you're a Christian, you haven't
got to wait. Because if you have a new birth,
you are now a citizen of heaven. You haven't received it all.
It's an inheritance, isn't it? It's what the new covenants is. It's the promise. We are heirs,
aren't we? Joint heirs with the sun. We
become citizens of heaven by birth. We're there now. We've
got to live now. It's a challenge to me. Live
now as true citizens of heaven. Oh, by God's grace, so we shall
be enabled. We thank God for this great truth,
that there is a city. a heavenly city. We see it in
Revelation, don't we, coming down from heaven, the new Jerusalem,
when all things are passed away. It's wonderful, it's there. I
didn't have time to look at this particular reference, but there's
a new Jerusalem. And we're there by the grace
of God. Well, there is a heavenly citizenship. We thank God for that great truth. Amen.