Genesis 49. In verse one, we read, and Jacob
called unto his sons and said, gather yourselves together, that
I may tell you that which shall befall you in the last days. Gather yourselves together and
hear, ye sons of Jacob, and hearken unto Israel your father. We've said this before when discussing
the last days of David, that the last words of a dying man
should never be taken lightly, especially when the words of
that dying man are coming from a patriarch like Jacob and like
David. Jacob calls his sons together
here unto him so he can tell them what shall become of them
in their last days. In the latter day, the end times,
the last days, there's only going to be two classifications of
sinners and only two eternal destinations. First, there'll
be two classifications of sinners. All are sinners. There'll be
lost sinners, those who have not the Son of God, And there
will be saved sinners, those who have the Son of God. And that's what the beloved Apostle
John tells us so plainly and so simply that no one can misunderstand
it. He said, he that hath the Son
hath life, and he that hath not the Son hath not life. Secondly,
there will be two eternal destinations for sinners. First, a place where
lost sinners will be cast into outer darkness. The scripture
says where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth and where the
worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched. We call it hell. And secondly, there'll be a place
that Christ himself has prepared for them that love him. He said,
in my father's house are many mansions, and I go to prepare
a place for you, that where I am, you may be also. And you know
that, I am so thankful for that passage of scripture. Oh, we're
saved sinners, a place where saved sinners will always be
with their Lord and Savior. A place where John said, God
shall wipe away all tears from their eyes. No more tears, no
more sadness, no more death, neither sorrow, no crying, neither
shall there be any more pain. Oh, can you imagine that? I'm
telling you anymore, I'm just wracked with pain. Some of you
know something about that. I'll tell you, if I knew I was
going to live so long, I'd have taken better care of myself,
wouldn't you? Anyway, where all things will be forever gone,
no more pain, no more sorrow, no more tears, no more death.
Everybody wants to go to heaven. Nobody wants to go to hell. It's
always been that way. And some think that God loves
everybody and that Christ died for everybody. So everybody must
be going to heaven. That seems to be the common thinking
today. While God loves folks too much
for anybody to go to hell. Everybody must be going to heaven.
For none that Christ died for shall perish. If he died for
everybody, then there's none gonna be in hell, I can assure
you of that. No one in hell, right? No, that's
wrong. You see, if Christ died, and
you've heard this, but it's so true, and if people would just
stop and think about it. If Christ died for all the sins
of all the people, then all will be saved. Because there's none
that he's died for that shall perish. There's none that he
paid the debt of sin for that will perish. If Christ died for
some of the sins of all people, then none would be saved. Why? Because you've got to be perfect
to be accepted. And if only some of your sins
put away, then you cannot be saved. And then thirdly, but
if Christ died for all the sins of some people, then some will
be saved. So which is it? Well, it has
to be the third. The third one. The last one. Why? Because we know that not
all will be saved, yet we know that not all will be lost. Why? He said to that thief on the
cross, today you'll be with me in paradise, so we know that
he was saved. There are some that are saved
and there are some that are lost. So it has to be that Christ died
for all the sin of some people. And I know this much, all for
whom Christ died will be saved, every last one of them. And that's
where I find my security. That's where I have my assurance.
and trusting in the fact that Christ died to put away my sin. Now, in the verses before us
tonight, we have, I believe, a very clear picture of the kind
of folks that are lost without hope and without God and without
Christ in the world, and also a picture of chosen, called,
justified sinners who are saved by the grace and mercy of God
in the Lord Jesus Christ. And my greatest desire again
tonight is that you might see, that I might see, and you might
see the Lord Jesus Christ and that He is the salvation for
sinners. No salvation, no redemption apart
from that which is found in Him. The work of righteousness that
must be done in order to be saved must be done by him because we
can do no work of righteousness that God will accept. So let's
jump right on into this. Look at verse three. Here we
see Jacob's word to Reuben, his firstborn son. In verse three,
he says, Reuben, thou art my firstborn, my might, and the
beginning of my strength. the excellency of dignity and
the excellency of power. And don't you know about the
time he gets through with that, that probably Reuben's chest
is stuck out a little bit. He's thinking, well, this is
going pretty good. And did you notice the language that Jacob
uses concerning Reuben? He says, you're my firstborn,
you're my might, my power, you're the beginning of my strength.
the excellency, the best of my dignity, the excellency, the
greatest of my power. In other words, what Jacob is
saying here is that Reuben was the best that Jacob could produce
in and of himself. But that doesn't mean much coming
from a man. And then Jacob says this, look
at verse four. He says, Reuben, you're unstable
as water. Unstable as water. Isn't that
what we are by nature? The child of God knows that to
be so. We're unstable. Water's unstable and so are we.
You know, water will gravitate downward to seek and find the
lowest possible level. It just gravitates to the lowest
level that it can. That pretty well describes me
by nature. Water will find the path of least
resistance, and so do we. By nature, we will do whatever
comes easiest to us. Water is inanimate, and that
just simply means that it's lifeless and it doesn't have a will or
a choice in anything, and so it is with us and our cold, dead
hearts, without life. Water takes the shape of its
environment. You pour it into a round glass
and it's round. You pour it into a square bowl
and it's square. It takes the shape of whatever
it's contained in. And by nature, boy, that's us. We conform to the world and the
things of it. We're constantly gravitating
downward, always remaining unstable. And Jacob goes on here to say
to Reuben, he said, thou shalt not excel. Do you see that? Why
do we think we can, in and of ourselves, excel or do anything
that would be acceptable of God? He says, thou shalt not excel.
And trust me, friends, in our flesh, because of our fallen
nature, neither will we. We cannot excel. That's what
the Lord Jesus said. He said, it's the spirit that
quickeneth the flesh profiteth a little. No, that's not what
he said, did he? The flesh profiteth nothing,
absolutely nothing. The words that I speak unto you,
they're spirit and they are life, John 6, 63. Reuben, you will
not excel. Why will Reuben not excel? The
same reason that we don't by nature, because look what he
says, because thou winnest up to thy father's bed, then defilest
thou it. Now, if you remember, Reuben
committed fornication with one of Jacob's concubines. But we,
by nature, commit spiritual adultery and fornication. By nature, we're
so unfaithful to Christ our husband. Idolatry is spiritual adultery,
and we worship so many things. That's what Moses said to Israel.
He said, you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land
and you take their daughters into your sons and you go a whoring
after their gods. We spiritually fornicate and
commit such atrocious acts against our Savior who loves us and gave
Himself for us. And I am so thankful that our
salvation has nothing to do with our faithfulness to Him and everything
to do with His faithfulness to us. I tell you, that's a wonderful
thought. I'm ashamed of my lack of faithfulness
to Him. I really am. but I am thankful
for his faithfulness to me." He's faithful, they promised.
What a glorious thought. Reuben provides such a clear
picture here of our human nature. And then we have Jacob's word
to Simeon and Levi. He groups these two together,
not because they're full brothers, not because they have the same
mother and father, but because they're just alike. And the picture
here is that all flesh is just alike. Look at verse four, or
excuse me, verse five. Simeon and Levi are brethren.
Instruments of cruelty are in their habitations. Now, do you
remember what God told Isaiah to cry? He said, he told Isaiah
to cry, and Isaiah asked, what shall I cry? And God said, cry,
all flesh is grass and all the goodliness thereof is as the
flower of the field. All of it, all of it, all flesh
is just alike. By nature, there's no difference
in any of us. It's so plain, the scripture
said, there's none that doeth good. That throws us all in the
same category. All of us have gone astray. Not
a bit of difference between any of us. There's none that seeketh
after God. There's none righteous, no, not
one. We're all the same. All the grass withers and all
the flowers fall away. Isaiah went on to say, because
the spirit of the Lord blows upon them, surely the people
is grass. You see the external excellence
of man perishes at the breath of God. The spirit of God reveals
that our righteousness is filthy rags. How anyone could think
that they could stand before God in a work of righteousness
that they do is beyond the believer. Why? Because God has shown us
what we are, that our righteousness is as filthy rags. Our so-called
good works are nothing more than just shining sins. Everything
we are and do is insufficient. to justify and save us. Jacob
says you're instruments of cruelty. Well, that pretty well describes
human nature, doesn't it? Is there anything more cruel?
Now really, when you think about it, is there anything more cruel
than what men do to men? You don't have to watch the news
long today, in our day, to see that. Do you remember what Simeon
and Levi did? Shechem, that was a fella's name. I suppose the town was named
after him because that's what it was called. And he defiled
Simeon and Levi's sister, Dinah. You remember that story? That's
been a while ago. And after he did so, he wanted to marry her. So Simeon and Levi, they were
furious about this. Well, they were her brothers,
her full brothers. And Shechem and his father, they
came to Jacob, and they wanted to make a covenant with him.
They wanted to make marriages. They said, give us your daughters,
and we'll give you ours. And you shall dwell with us.
We'll share everything. We'll do business together. This
is gonna be a good thing. It'll be profitable for all parties
involved. And it sounded good naturally,
fleshly speaking, but there was just one thing majorly wrong
with it. God forbid it. It was an abomination
to God. The sad thing is that for the
most part, Jacob himself was for it. but the sons of Jacob
weren't. And I can assure you that Simeon
and Levi weren't for it. So deceitfully, the sons of Jacob
said, well, we can't do this. We can't give you our sister. We can't give our sister to one
that is uncircumcised. That's against our religion.
That's a reproach to us was the exact language. But if you'll
consent to be circumcised, every man among you, then we'll give
you our daughters, and we'll take your daughters unto us,
and we'll become one people. We'll just be one happy family."
But they were being deceitful. That was never their intention.
You remember this story? So they agreed, and then we find
out the rest of the story. After three days, When the men
of that city were sore and recuperating from their circumcision, Simeon
and Levi, Dinah's brothers, took their swords and they came upon
that city and they slew every male in that community. Every one of them. They took
their sheep, their oxen, their asses. They took all that was
in the city, all that was in the field. They took all their,
their wealth and their little ones and their wives, and even
all that was in their houses, they just took it all. And in
anger, I'm telling you, men can be extremely cruel to one another. And look here in verse six, Jacob
says, oh my soul, come not thou into their secret, into their
assembly. In other words, don't associate
with them. He's telling his other sons, don't have anything to
do with them. And again, he says, they betrayed my honor, had nothing
to do with them, for in their anger, they slew a man, and in
their self-will, they do as they please. That's what he's saying
here. And again, what a picture of our nature. Naturally, men
and women are angry and self-willed. In regards to what was done to
their sister, there was nothing wrong with them being angry.
Anybody would have been upset. But in their anger, they murdered. And they didn't just slay a man,
they slew all of them. All of them. In anger, they murdered. And it was the action that followed
their anger that made this such a lethargic sin. Now in Ephesians four, you don't
have to turn there, but in verse 26, Paul said this. He said, be angry and sin not,
and let not the sun go down on your wrath. Now, have you ever
thought about what that means? Well, when anger arises from
a true zeal for God and for the gospel, it's not a sin. Well, what do you mean? Well,
when anger is kindled against sin and not people, It falls
under the category of what many call righteous indignation. When displeased and angry over
our sin, do you ever get angry over your sin? Do you ever get
angry with yourself because of your sin? When displeased and
angry with idolatry, the things that we put before God and God
shows us, how about when you hear false doctrine preached?
Doesn't it, let's just be honest, doesn't it anger you a little
when folks lie on God? When you hear erroneous preaching
that's not true, that when preachers put your Lord and Savior in a
light that you know is not so? Oh, it angers me when men say
things like God wants to do something and God's trying to do something.
Why? Because my God's in the heavens
and He's done whatsoever He's pleased. That's the truth. And to say anything other than
that's a lie. and it's portraying my God erroneously,
falsely. Well, that kind of anger is not
sin. When displeased with gross immorality,
like the abuse of children, well, that just fires me up. Or the
abuse of mentally challenged, that upsets anyone with half
heart. But to take matters into our
own hands, as Simeon and Levi did, it becomes wrong in the
worst way. Why is that? Well, first of all,
because we know that God is the first cause of all things. If I remain angry about something
that God has brought to pass or something that God has allowed,
then really my anger is directed at Him. Right, are you following
me? If I remain angry and I desire
to do something about what he has caused or he has allowed,
then I'm desiring my will above God and I've become self-willed. Anger unchecked by grace gives
Satan an avenue of which to work and we're not to give place to
the devil. You remember what James wrote
to believers. He said, wherefore my beloved
brethren, he said, let every man be swift to hear, slow to
speak and slow to wrath. For the wrath of man worketh
not the righteousness of God. Now, every child of God, every
believer should be swift to hear, swift to hear good instruction,
swift to hear wholesome advice, swift to hear others' experiences
of grace. I love to hear folks older than
me tell stories of how God's been gracious to them. And above
all, we ought to be swift to hear the word of God. Swift to
receive God's word with readiness to obey it. And in that, God
is glorified. And then he said, slow to speak.
Slow to speak against the things that we've heard. The good advice,
the good instruction, the wholesome advice, others gracious experience,
God's infallible word. Slow to speak against it. Oh,
may God enable us to be quietly content, quietly content, and
to think before we speak. Oh my, so many times I speak
without thinking. God help me not to do that. If
we're swift to hear and slow to speak, we will most likely
be slow to wrath. Now, no one by nature likes to
be corrected or reproved. Amen or oh me, it's up to you.
But that's the truth. We don't like to be corrected
or improved. When sin is exposed, it's often
embarrassing and it hurts, and the natural response is to be
filled with wrath. We get angry. Well, who are you
to tell me? Well, what makes you think you
know so much? But wrath greatly hinders the
usefulness of the word. And when the Lord, you remember
when the Lord came to his hometown and he stood up in that synagogue
and he spoke, he read from the book of Isaiah, and then he began
to tell the folks some things and they didn't much like what
he said. They heard him that day. He said some things that
exposed them. And the scriptures say when they
heard these things, they were filled with wrath. And they rose
up, and they thrust him out of the city, and they led him up
to a hill upon which the city was built, that they might throw
him off. Well, they had murder in their
hearts. They were ready to throw him
off headfirst from that hill. And when we hear the word of
God and we're approved by it, may God enable us to be swift
to hear, slow to speak and slow to wrath. Why? Because he tells
us the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God. Now
here in verse seven, Jacob said of Simeon and Levi, he said,
cursed be their anger for it was fierce. And it was. And he said, and their wrath,
for it was cruel. They didn't show any mercy, did
they? They killed every man in that town. There was only one
man, Shechem, that defiled their sister, but they killed the whole
lot of them. And he said, it was cruel, and
I will divide them in Jacob and scatter them in Israel. You know,
in our flesh, and because of our sin nature, in our fierce
anger, We're cursed, and in our cruel wrath, we're a divided
and a scattered people if God doesn't deal graciously with
us. And in these first three sons,
I believe we see a very clear picture of ourselves by nature,
Reuben, Simeon, and Levi. Now in the remaining nine sons,
I believe we see ourselves in Christ. So I want to just spend
the time that we have left tonight to look at that. Look at verse
eight. Here's the third thing. We have
Jacob's word to Judah. Now I'll need to hurry to get
through all these, but pay close attention to each son here, and
I believe you'll find a great blessing in this. All the remaining
of these sons in some way represent and picture Christ and us in
him. Now, if you remember the name
Judah means praise. The believer is one who praises
God. We praise God for everything
that we are and we praise Him for everything that we have.
We truly know that it's He that made the difference. We have what we have by the grace
of God. Do you remember that Judah was
the surety to his father for Benjamin? How that pictures Christ,
our surety before God Almighty. Look at verse nine. Judah is
a lion's whelp. From the prey, my son, thou art
gone up, he stooped down. He couched as a lion and as an
old lion, who shall rouse him up? You see, Jesus Christ is
the lion of the tribe of Judah. That's the tribe through whom
the posterity or the lineage of Christ came. And he says,
as strong as a lion's whelp, that's a lion's club, a cub,
excuse me. And it says he stooped down,
and my, didn't our Lord condescend? He couched as a lion, it says,
as an old lion, a mature lion. And such a lion is the symbol
for royalty, courage, valor, and conquest. You remember what
John wrote? John in the book of Revelation
said, and I wept much because there was no man able to open
the book, neither to look thereon. And one of the elders said unto
me, he said, weep not. Weep not. The lion of the tribe
of Judah, the root of David, hath prevailed. He's mighty in
power. He's prevailed to open the book
and to loose the seven seals thereof. As the line of the tribe
of Judah, Christ receives all praise, all honor and glory for
the salvation of his people. So there, I think we see a beautiful
picture of Christ. Then in verse 13, we have Zebulun
mentioned. Zebulun means dwelling. Look
at verse 13. Zebulun shall dwell at the haven
of the sea, and he shall be for a haven of ships, and his border
shall be unto Zidon. You know, a haven is a place
of safety. It's a place of refuge. It's
a covering, like the ark was for Noah and his family. Jesus
Christ is our haven of rest, our safety, our ark of covering,
our city of refuge. We've discussed that many times.
So what, there again, we see Christ and our standing in Him. Look at verse 14. Issachar. Issachar means he will bring
reward. Christ is the believer's reward.
Christ is the believer's reward. Christ knows something about
our burden of sin. Look at verse 14. Issachar is
a strong ass couching down between two burdens. Immediately I thought
about the passage in Hebrews that says, for we have not a
high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities,
but was in all points tempted like as we are yet without sin. Christ knows something about
our burden with sin. Look at verse 15, and he saw
that rest was good. Christ our Lord said, come unto
me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, burdened with sin. And I'll give you what? I'll
give you rest. Christ is cast between our burdens
of sin. He said, learn of me and you
shall find rest for your souls. Christ saw that rest was good. Read on, verse 15. He saw in
the land that it was pleasant, or that word means agreeable.
And the word land here means earth, world, wilderness. And
for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son.
Why? Because of his people in that land, in that world, on
that earth. And in our salvation by union
with Christ, the land, this world in which we live is pleasant.
It wouldn't be without Christ, would it? I hate to think. I cannot imagine. what this life
is like for those who don't have Christ. Can you? How hopeless,
so hopeless. But we have a good hope. We're
not without hope because we have God and we have Christ in this
world. In our salvation by our union
with Christ, this world in which we live is pleasant. Behold how
good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in
unity. We're dwelling together in unity.
That's why this world's pleasant unto the Lord. And again, I'll
quote the writer of Hebrews who said, forsake not the assembling
of yourselves together. Why? To exhort one another, to
encourage one another, to console one another. That's why we meet
together to hear the gospel. And you know, I'm thankful for
the, The technology that we have today right now on this phone,
if someone is tuned in, they're hearing this message. And I'm
thankful for that. I'm thankful for that technology.
But there's nothing like meeting together. Believers, meeting
together. Hearing the word of God together. Why it's so encouraging to see
you here, to see each other. We console one another, we encourage
one another, that's why we meet together. And he says, so much
the more as you see the day approaching. What day? The latter day. The
end of days, that day when Christ shall judge every man and woman
according to this gospel. That's what he's talking about. That's why we don't forsake ourselves
in this assembling together. Look at the last part of verse
15. It says, and he bowed his shoulder to bear and became a
servant under tribute. Well, if that's not Christ, I
don't know what is. What did Christ bow his shoulder
to bear? The cross of Calvary. He bowed
his shoulder to bear the burden of the cross. I love that hymn,
How Great Thou Art, but my favorite verse in that hymn is when I
think that God, His Son not sparing, sent Him to die. I scarce can
take it in. I can't. Can you? That God would
send His own beloved Son into this world to die for wretches
like you and I. He said that on the cross, my
burden, couched between burdens, Oh, on the cross, my burden gladly
bearing, he bled and he died to take away my sin. And what
can we say to that? How great thou art. How great
thou art. Christ became a servant unto
tribute. Did you see that there in verse
15? The Hebrew word for tribute means task. Christ became a servant
unto the task at hand. What was that task? The redemption
of his people. When he said it's finished, that's
what was finished, the redemption of his people. And the word tribute
not only means task, but you can look it up in your concordance,
it means a disconfitted task, an embarrassing task. I thought that was amazing. Christ's
task of dying on the cross was a shameful task. Who being Christ,
who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be
equal with God, but made himself of no reputation and took on
the form of a servant and was made in the likeness of men and
being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself and became
obedient unto death even. the death of the cross. Oh, he
despised him. Looking unto Jesus, the author
and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before
him. Isn't that an amazing statement? How could going to the cross
and dying be a joy to the one that went there? The joy that
was set before him, he endured the cross, despising the shame,
disconfitting, He sat down on the right hand
of the throne of God. And to answer the question, the
reason it was a joy is because as that old song says, when he
was on the cross, child of God, you was on his mind. And that's
why it was a joy for Christ to pay your sin debt on Calvary's
cross. Do you know something about the
burden of sin? Christ did, and he died the just for the unjust
to bring us to God. Okay, look at verse 16. Dan shall judge his people as
one of the tribes of Israel. That's what the name Dan means. It means judge or judging. And I think little needs to be
said about Christ, our great judge. I'll read you just a couple,
three verses. For the father judges no man,
but hath committed all judgment unto the son. John 5.22. And hath given him authority
to execute judgment also because he's the son of man. John 5.27. Christ said in verse 30 of John
chapter five, I can of my own self do nothing as I hear, I
judge and my judgment is just because I seek not my own will,
but the will of the father which hath sent me. We also know according
to Paul in 2 Corinthians, we shall all stand before the judgment
seat of Christ. And according to Acts 17 31,
our Lord Jesus will judge the world in righteousness. He is
judge. Christ is faithful and true and
in righteousness, he does judge and make war, Revelation 19 11.
Now, look at verse 19. We have the name Gad. And as
I said, I'm hurriedly along here because time gets away quick. I want to cover as many of these
as I can. Gad, a troop, shall overcome
him, but he shall overcome at the last. Boy, I just see Christ
in every one of these. Gad means invader. Isn't that
what Christ does in the lives of his people? He divinely invades. He divinely interrupts and intervenes
in the lives of those who sought Him not. We've been talking,
I've been thinking a lot because we've been studying that impotent
man at the Pool of Bethesda. Was he seeking Christ? No, he
couldn't walk. Did he recognize Christ when
Christ came up to him? No, he didn't even know His name
when he was asked after the Lord healed him. Was there anything
special about this man that he would draw Christ's attention?
No, he was in the same condition as all those that are around
him. John 5.3 says that there lay a great multitude of impotent
folk, blind, halt, withered, waiting for the moving of the
water. He was there like everyone else, waiting on the work of
religion to do something for them. Do you know how they cried for
salvation? Would someone please put me in the water? And that man said, I have no
one to put me in the water. He was trying to do something
himself. He was trying to get in the water. And God the Son
divinely invaded. He interrupted and he intervened
in this man's sad, pathetic life. And I'm telling you, that's what
he did for me. He intervened in my sad, pathetic life. And did you notice there in verse
19, a troop shall overcome him, but he shall overcome at the
last. I'll just comment on that with another verse. The kings
of the earth stood up and the rulers were gathered together
against the Lord and against his Christ. And for a truth against
thy holy child, Jesus, whom thou hast anointed, both Herod and
Pontius Pilate with the Gentiles and the people of Israel were
gathered together for to do what thy hand and thy counsel determined
before be done. No doubt a troop overcame our
Lord Jesus, but in the end, he was the overcomer. He's the one
who overcame. Well, I've got to finish, but
look at verse 30. Out of Asher, his bread shall
be fat, and he shall yield royal dainties. Asher means happiness. Happy are those whose iniquities
are forgiven and whose sins are covered. Do you know what royal
dainties are? Well, it's food fit for kings
and royalty. That's what God's people are,
children of the king. God provides for us royal dainties,
spiritual pom-poms, bonbons. Okay, verse 21. Naphtali, that means wrestling. Christ our Lord is our substitute. For our redemption wrestled against
principalities, against powers, against the rulers of darkness
in the world, against spiritual wickedness in high places, and
he gloriously prevailed. Verse 22, as you know, Joseph
means increase. John the Baptist said it best.
He said, Christ must increase, I must decrease. And that has
to be the case for us to be saved. We've got to decrease. We've
got to get ourselves out of the equation. We've got to trust
in Him. He's got to increase. Christ
is how we grow, increase in the grace and in the knowledge of
God. Only God can give the increase. Paul said, I water Apollos, I
plant Apollos waters, but God gives the increase. The increase
is in Christ alone. Okay, verse 27, Benjamin, that
means son of the right hand. Where is Christ our Lord right
now? Well, he's seated at the right
hand of God making intercession for us. So what is the believer's
latter end? Well, in Christ, it's too wonderful
to put into words. In Christ, our latter end is
righteousness. Perfect righteousness. That's
what God requires. In Christ, our latter end is
peace. Peace that passes all understanding.
Not peace as the world gives, but peace that passes the understanding
of our finite minds. In Christ, our latter end, it's
a rest. It's a rest of soul that can
never again be disturbed. Rest forever with my Savior. In Christ, our latter end is
life, eternal life, eternal fellowship with our Redeemer. It's being
forever conformed to the image of Christ. It's being just like
Him. Being without sin. That's just
inconceivable by us. We can't conceive that. We can't
perceive or just don't understand it. It's being like Him, being
without sin. That's why I love what the scriptures
say. Beloved, right now, now, right
now, Are we the sons of God? Right now, right this minute,
those of you that are trusting in Christ are the sons and daughters
of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be. It's just too
magnificent for us to fathom. But we know, we know that when
he shall appear, now this is something that we know, that
when he shall appear, We shall be like Him. Wow. Wow. For we shall see Him as He is.
No more sin. No more tears in my eye. I can
see clearly. And I'll see Him as He is. And
every man, woman, sinner that hath this hope in Him is pure,
even as Christ is pure. Well, that's a word we don't
know much about. But in Christ, I'm as perfect as He is. I'm
as righteous, holy, and just as He is.