Alright, this morning I want
you to first turn to 2 Timothy chapter 1, but I also want you
to find Romans 13. Romans 13. I know it's a lot
to ask of you this early to find two verses, but you go ahead
and find it. Two passages of scripture. My
text is actually Romans 13 for the message this morning. But
I want to start off with 2 Timothy 1 because I've used that verse
so much in these messages I've been preaching concerning biblical
salvation. What is biblical salvation? And
I've talked to you about salvation in three realms. There's actually
four realms. I'm going to begin the fourth
this morning. And I've got at least two messages on that one
that I want to deal with starting today. But it's salvation in
four realms. And in Brother Joe's prayer,
I mean, he laid the foundation for what I'm going to say, that
salvation is of the Lord. All the realms of salvation,
they're of the Lord, they're all in Christ Jesus, conditioned
on Him, None of them are conditioned on us, and I'll tell you, if
we know our frame, we thank God for that, don't we? But we've
talked about salvation in the eternal realm. That's the source
and origin of salvation, purposed and planned by God before the
foundation of the world. You read about that in Ephesians
1, but Paul, writing to Timothy, he brings that out here in verse
9, talking about God who has saved us, called us with a holy
calling, not according to our works, but according to His own
purpose and grace which was given us in Christ Jesus before the
world began. And that's an amazing thing.
We were given to Christ And all the blessings of salvation were
given us in Him. They weren't applied to us in
our experience. We weren't even there. But they
were given us in Him because in Him all the promises of God
are yea and amen. That's the everlasting covenant
of grace. That's why Christ prayed. He
said all that the Father giveth me shall come to me. And him
that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. So the salvation
that this Bible teaches is a salvation that's eternal. in that sense,
purposed and planned by God. The second realm is the legal
realm, and that's the ground of salvation. That's salvation
accomplished, salvation secured and fulfilled by the Lord Jesus
Christ as the substitute and surety of His people. And here's
what I'm saying about the legal realm. You see, God must be just
when He justifies a sinner. God saves in love and grace and
mercy, but not at the expense of His justice. His justice must
be satisfied. And that's why He sent Christ
into the world to save His people from their sins. That by His
death on the cross for our sins charged to Him, He might satisfy
that justice, pay our sin debt in full. That's why the Bible
speaks of Him as the suffering sacrifice, the suffering substitute. That's why there was so much
blood shed in the Old Testament as types and pictures of the
Lord Jesus Christ. because God's justice had to
be satisfied. And what that means is that everything
that God requires in order to secure salvation for His people
is met and fulfilled by the Lord Jesus Christ. That's right. And that's summed up in that
term, the righteousness of God, Romans 1, 17. That's what's revealed
in the gospel. You see, in order to be saved,
we don't need the righteousness of men, for men have no righteousness. We need the righteousness of
God. And that's the legal realm of salvation. Then I spoke several
messages on the spiritual realm, talking about salvation, as it's
applied and experienced by each and every one of Christ's sheep
in time. That's the fruit of salvation.
That's the work of the Holy Spirit. And that's an act of providence,
God bringing his people under the preaching of the gospel.
It's an act of resurrection. That's the new birth. It's an
act of preservation. It's an act of perseverance.
That's the spiritual realm. Well, today I want to talk to
you about the glorified realm. That's the final, the complete,
the culmination of salvation for the people of God. It's also
a fruit of salvation because it's what Christ earned for us.
That's why I read that opening passage in 1 Peter chapter 1.
You notice there, he talked about an inheritance that's incorruptible? Now, what does that tell you?
Well, first of all, whatever we're going to receive as the
culmination of salvation, it's an inheritance. Now, that means
we didn't earn it. We didn't work for it. Somebody
else did. And that's the Lord Jesus Christ. He earned it. He
worked for it. And then it's incorruptible.
Now what else does that tell you? It tells you we didn't have
anything to do with it. As far as gaining it or maintaining
it. Because I'll tell you, if our hands or our works were in
it, it'd be corrupted. We're sinners. You're either
a sinner lost in your sins or a sinner saved by the grace of
God. But aren't you glad if you're in Christ, if you're looking
to Christ for all your salvation, that you are the possessor of
an inheritance that's incorruptible? Well, I am. And that's what we're
going to talk about, the glorified realm of salvation. Paul speaks
of it here in 2 Timothy 1. In verse 10, he talks about how
this salvation is now made manifest by the appearing of our Savior,
Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death. Now, we know he's not
talking about physical death. He hasn't abolished that. He
himself died physically. We're going to die physically.
It's appointed unto the man once to die, and after that, the judgment.
But what happened here, he says, and hath brought life and immortality
to light through the gospel. Now that life is spiritual life,
it's eternal life. And that immortality is just
exactly what I'm going to be talking about in this glorified
realm of salvation. Now you turn over to Romans chapter
13. Since the fall of man, sinful, rebellious, ignorant
man, And that's all of us by nature. This is what we got from
Adam, a spiritual death. Since the fall of man, man has
always sought to make himself righteous or to find in himself
or claim in himself the perfection of righteousness. He's always
done that. That's what man's religion is
all about. You see, that's why God's religion,
the religion of Christ, the true religion, the religion of true
Christianity is salvation by grace, not by works. It's righteousness by grace through
Jesus Christ, not by the works of men. But man has always tried
to do that. But we cannot, in this life,
ever claim righteousness by our works or even the perfection
of righteousness within ourselves. Now that's so. Somebody asks,
well, where do we claim righteousness? Only in Christ. That's where
we claim righteousness. Jesus Christ is Jehovah Sidcanu. That's Jehovah the Lord, our
righteousness. And we're in Him. That's why
Paul prayed, O that I may know Him and be found in Him, not
having mine own righteousness which is of the law, but that
which is through the faith or the faithfulness of Jesus Christ,
the righteousness which is of God by faith. So there's no way
in this life that we can claim within ourselves, within our
thoughts, Our minds, our affections, our will, even I'm talking about
regenerated, born-again people now. There's no way that I could
tell you I have a desire for righteousness. I can tell you
that. David expressed that over in Psalm 17 that Brother Joe
read. He said in verse 15 of Psalm
17, As for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness, I
shall be satisfied when I awake with thy likeness. The purpose
of God in salvation is to glorify himself in bringing to himself
eternally a people who are perfectly conformed to the image of Christ. Now, there's no way that I can
tell you that I am right now perfectly conformed to the image
of Christ in my thoughts, in my attitudes, in my heart in
any way. I can tell you that I look to
Christ for all salvation. That's the work of the Spirit
within. That's faith in Christ. I can tell you that I reject
all my works, even my best, as forming any part of the ground
of my salvation. That's why I love that song so
much that I quote so much, my hope is built on nothing less
than what? Jesus' blood and righteousness.
And I dare not trust the sweetest frame." You know what the writer
meant there? The sweetest frames are the things
that men exalt and highly regard. That's why the Lord said that
which is highly esteemed among men is an abomination to God.
Because what's highly esteemed among men will not make us righteous
and holy and perfect in God's sight. So I dare not trust the
sweetest frame, but holy, W-H-O-L-L-Y, that means in everything, lean
on Jesus' name, on Christ the solid rock I stand, and all other
ground is sinking sand. Some people say, well, I'm getting
more and more conformed to the image of Christ. Well, the Bible
speaks of growth in grace and in knowledge of Christ, but I
got news for you. You're not really getting better
and better. And I'm not either. But that's another message. And
I will deal with that. I want you to see some. And listen,
I'm not saying we don't improve in our character and conduct.
We do. We do. I hope we do. But that's not
our righteousness. That's not our holiness. That's
not our claim. That's not our foundation. That's
not what secures salvation for you and me. The only one who
can secure salvation for you and me is Jesus Christ and Him
crucified and risen. His blood to wash away all my
sins, even the contamination of my best efforts to worship
and serve God. His righteousness to clothe me
and give me a complete eternal right standing before God. The
Bible speaks of salvation in three tenses. We can honestly
say, we who are saved now, we can say, we have been saved. You can read that in Ephesians
2, 8 through 9. For by grace, it says there in
the King James Version, it says, by grace are you saved? Literally
it would be, for by grace have you been saved? through faith
that not of yourselves is the gift of God not of works lest
any man should boast for we are his workmanship created in Christ
Jesus unto good works not because of good works but unto good works
which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them so
we can say we've been saved now what he's referring to there
is the spiritual realm of salvation that's the new birth I've been
born again by the Spirit I've been turned to Christ for all
my salvation. Actually, if you want to talk
about salvation in the past tense, you can go farther back than
that because we've been talking about the eternal realm, can't
we? The eternal realm of salvation. But the next tense is the present
tense, and that is we are being saved. You can find that in 1
Corinthians 1 and verse 18 where he talks about the preaching
of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing. That
is, their whole life is a process of perishing. And what he's talking
about is ultimately people who never come to a saving knowledge
of Christ, who never come to faith in Him and repentance of
dead works. But he says, but unto us who
are being saved, it's the power of God, the preaching of the
cross is. God forbid that I should glory save in the cross. We're
being saved. So our life is a process of being
preserved by God. Now that's not to say, I've heard
preachers use that and they say, well see, we've been saved but
we're not saved yet. Yes we are. We're saved in the
Lord Jesus Christ. That's a sure thing in Him. And
it's not because we're getting better and better. It's because
He's the ultimate perfection of all things. So we can speak
of the assurance of salvation, all right? But then the Scripture
speaks of salvation in the future tense. Now that's where we're
at in the glorified realm. We will be saved. Now look at
Romans 13, look at verse 11. Now what Paul is talking about
here by inspiration of the Spirit, basically beginning back in Romans
12, is how we who are Christians, we who are believers, should
live our lives. That's what he's talking about.
And of course, to sum it up, he's talking about how we should
live our lives in obedience to Christ, to the praise of the
glory of His grace, in grace, love, and gratitude to Him. We're
not to be rebellious, disobedient people. We're to be a loving
people. We're to be kind. We're to be
generous. We're to be truthful now. We're to stand firm and
bold for the truth. We're not to compromise the truth
to win the favor of men or to win friends and influence people,
but we're to be obedient. And he mentions how we're to
be obedient to the civil government and all of that. But listen to
what he says in verse 11. He says, now this is the reason,
here's the foundation of it or the motivation for it. He says,
and that knowing the time. This time is short, isn't it?
That's what, we know something about time. Now, some of you
strong, strapping, young people, you don't know a whole lot about
time yet. But you're learning. You're learning. And, you know,
just talking about this perfection thing, you know, time doesn't
really support this idea of perfection in ourselves, does it? Has it
for you? Did you look in the mirror this
morning? I did. Time's not supporting this idea
of perfection in me. Say, I look to Christ for perfection
now. And then we have the infirmities
of the flesh, and then as we get older, we see how short this
time is, isn't it? I mean, don't you, you who are
elderly, don't you look back, doesn't it just seem like it
just went by like that? And that's what he's talking
about, knowing the time. We know something about time.
The great thing about that, the comforting thing about that is
what the Scripture says when it says, our times are in His
hands. Isn't that right? Whatever time
I have. I mean, it could be a short time
like our brother Abel. Remember him? It was a very,
very short time on earth, wasn't it? Especially compared to the
time that they lived back then. Or it could be a very long time.
I think I mentioned the other day, somebody told me, said that
the scientists are saying now that maybe 10, 20, 30 years from
now, it won't be anything for a person to live 150 years. I don't see that, but you know,
I don't know. I know this, that's nothing compared
to Methuselah. He lived 969 years. The only
testimony the Bible gives about him is he died. Methuselah lived
969 years, but he died. So we know something about time.
And the Bible tells us to use our time wisely in honor and
glory of the Lord, doesn't it? And then he says, now it is high
time. High time means it's ready. There's no waiting here now.
There's no waiting room here. This is not a time to put it
off, he said. To awake out of sleep. To awake
out of sleep. He's talking about sleeping believers.
I told somebody last week, you know, that I'd heard that somebody
had accused me of believing in soul sleep. And I told them,
I said, I think you misunderstood them. I think they were telling
you that I've just put a few souls to sleep during my sermons. But I don't believe in soul sleep. Even if I do put you to sleep.
But it's high time to wake up asleep. And listen to what he
says. For now our salvation is nearer
than when we believed. Our salvation is nearer. Now
there's two applications of that. First of all is our impending
physical death. When our spirits leave this,
what the Bible calls the vile body. The vile body. and goes to be with the Lord.
And then secondly, you could apply it to the second coming
of Christ and the glorification of God's people, our final glory
in Christ. You see, Christ has saved us,
if we're saved now, Christ has saved us from the penalty of
sin. And I'll tell you what, don't ever get over that. Don't
ever let anybody put that down or cast it off as legal or anything
like that, like it's nothing. Here's what I'm saying to you,
listen to me. You cannot, if you're in Christ, you cannot
be charged with sin before God's court. Now, that's not to say
we're not sinners, we are. But in Christ, God does not impute
or charge or account sins. David said in Romans 4, he said
in Psalm 32, Paul repeated in Romans 4, blessed is the man
to whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity. Do you really understand
how blessed a person like that is? Unto whom the Lord imputeth
not iniquity. Does not charge me with my sins.
Now why is that possible? Because he charged them to Christ.
He charged my sins to Christ. And Christ paid that penalty
in full. He didn't leave anything for
me to pay. Thank God. What is the payment for sin?
Eternal deaths. Christ suffered the equivalent
of eternal death. I don't know how to explain that.
And I really don't care to. I just know it's true. Christ
put away my sins on that cross. The chastisement of my peace
was laid upon Him, Isaiah 53. You know what that means? That
means the punishment that was due unto me to bring peace between
God and me was laid upon Christ. And He fulfilled it. That's why
He's the Peacemaker. That's why He is the Prince of
Peace. That's why the peace that exists between God and His people
is by the blood of His cross. He brought reconciliation. We're
saved from the penalty of sin if we're in Christ. And we didn't
have anything to do with it. Because if we did, it wouldn't
have worked. Why? Because we're sinners. And then
Christ has saved us from the power of sin. Now in what sense? Well, by the work of the Holy
Spirit, He's brought us to see the reality of our sin and drove
us to Christ for salvation, for relief, for peace, for comfort. That's how He's delivered us
from the power. He hasn't delivered us from the power of sinning
because we still sin. He hasn't delivered us from the
contamination of sin because we're still contaminated with
sin. Now, don't fool yourself. You are. The best, listen, the
Holy Spirit has enabled me and you who are born again to love
Christ. Is that right? If any man loved
not the Lord Jesus Christ, he's none of His. Can we honestly
say that we love Christ? But now let me ask you this.
If we're born again, yes we can. But can I say right now that
my love for Him is perfect? Uninterrupted? uncontaminated? And I'll prove it to you that
you can't say that. Do you ever have a struggle with sin at all?
If you ever have any struggles with sin at all, you can't say
you love Him perfectly. Now, you know you do. I know
I do. So, we're not saved from the
power of sin to contaminate us or influence us. We're not saved
from the presence of sin yet. But we're saved from the power
of sin to deceive us so that we remain in the darkness of
unbelief. We've been shown by the power
of God, the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. And let
me tell you something, you don't even see it perfectly yet, do
you? We see it, but we see, as Paul wrote, through a glass darkly.
John said, it does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know
this, we'll see him for we shall be like him. So we've been saved from the
power of sin in that sense, but not in the sense that I'm perfect
in myself, perfectly without any influence, presence, or contamination
of sin. And that's where this final glory
comes in, the glorified realm of salvation. This is the sure
and certain purpose of God It's the sure and certain objective
of a sinner saved by grace, all by the power of God's grace and
mercy in Christ. One preacher asked the question,
are you sure for heaven as if you were already there? Many
raised their hand. Somebody says, that's presumption.
Only, only if it's conditioned on you. Then it is presumption. Let me tell you something. If
you're in Christ, I want to tell you, Christ is on the throne. and you're there in him. Not
in your own person yet, not in your own experience yet. That's
when the glorified realm comes in. The glorified realm is that
realm of existence into which God brings all of his elect people,
all who have already been justified and redeemed by the blood of
Christ, all who have already been born again by the Holy Spirit
and preserved by the grace of God, to spend eternity with Christ
in the new heavens and the new earth. The glorified realm is
a state of complete, perfect holiness and blessedness with
no presence of sin or death or sorrow. Can you imagine that?
You know, we can't even imagine what that's like. I can't. The glorified realm is that immortality
that Paul spoke of in 2 Timothy chapter 1, because it's the eternal
bliss of perfect conformity to Christ, not just legally, which
we already are, but in our minds, our affections, our will, to
think like Him perfectly in every way without any presence of sin,
without any influence of sin, without any corruption or contamination
of sin. The glorified realm is the consummation
of our personal salvation. It's the final stage of the application
of Christ's work for us and in us. It's the resurrection of
our bodies, not the spirit. It's not the resurrection of
our spirit because our spirit never dies. It's the resurrection
of our bodies. But look back here at Romans
13. He said, Awake out of sleep, for now is our salvation nearer
than when we believed. Look at verse 12. He says, The
night is far spent, the day is at hand. Let us therefore cast
off the works of darkness. Now again, see, he's talking
about how we should live our lives in light of glory. And listen, in light of the fact
that we're going to die, and our spirits are going to be with
the Lord, and then one day we're all going to be glorified together.
And he said, cast off the works of darkness and let us put on
the armor of light. Paul talked about the whole armor
of God in Ephesians chapter 6. That's the armor of light. Verse
13, let us walk honestly, That word, honestly, you may have
it in your concordance, means decently, that means according
to God's revealed will, as in the day. In other words, don't
walk around not trying to get caught doing things, you see.
As in the day, Ope, not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering
and wantonness, not in strife and envying. Now look at verse
14, but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ. How do you put Him on?
By faith. Believe in Him, look to Him,
rest in Him, immerse yourself in Him, and make not provision
for the flesh to fulfill the lust thereof. Turn over to Philippians,
with me, chapter 3. Philippians chapter 3. Now, as
I said, let me say this again. This glorified realm is the consummation
of our personal salvation. It's the final stage of the application
of Christ's work to us, and for us and in us. It's the resurrection
of our bodies. That's what glory is, the final
glory. Again, understand, it's not the
resurrection of the Spirit because our spirits never die. When we
die, our spirits leave this body and go to be with the Lord. And
then we await this stage of final glory and the resurrection of
our bodies. Look at Philippians chapter 3
and verse 20. He says in verse 20, for our
conversation. Now that word conversation is
citizenship. That's what it is literally.
Our citizenship is in heaven. Now, what does that tell you?
Are we waiting to be citizens of heaven? No. We're already
citizens of heaven. This world is not our home. Christ
said that. He said you're not of the world.
You're in the world. Just like in the wilderness,
but you're not of the world, you're citizens of a heavenly
kingdom. And so for our citizenship is in heaven, from whence also
we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. That's his second
coming. We look for him to come again. Don't know when he's coming
again. It's wrong for us to try to figure
out when he's coming again. But we live our lives in expectation
that he could come any time. And verse 21, who shall change
our vile bodies. Now that word vile means humiliation. Our bodies of humiliation. And
my friend, now you know, and I'm not just being funny here,
but that's what they are, isn't it? This body of humiliation. If it doesn't humiliate you now,
just wait around a little while. It'll humiliate you, won't it?
I've seen people and I've been in situations myself where I've
been totally humiliated because of this vile body. You know,
you go in to the hospital and they put you under and you don't
know who's in there looking at you or whatever they're doing.
And there you are. You just open up to the world,
you know, and then they cut into you and open up and they see
the inside. What a humiliation that is. And it gets worse and
worse, doesn't it? You get to the point you can't
do this, you can't do that. It's a pitiful, pitiful thing.
And I'm not just trying to be negative. I'm trying to show
you the effects of sin. This is what sin does to us. Why is this a body of humiliation?
Well, the body is dead because of sin. That's it. And that doesn't change for a
believer. These people who talk about these faith healers, do
they ever wonder why any of them ever die? I mean, they ought
to be living forever if they do what they say they can do.
No, this is the effects of sin. Sin has wracked these bodies.
But that's going to change. That's what this book says. Now,
this used to be one of the things that kept me from believing the
Bible when I was infidel. Because, you know, I just couldn't
believe in what I call this pie-in-the-sky religion. You know, everybody
wants to walk the streets of gold and all that. Now, I'm going
to talk about stuff like that later, all right? I'm going to
get caught up in that. But, you know, well, yeah, I
mean, you just got to think there's something better than this, you
know. But no, this is a reality, and I know it's so because Jesus
Christ arose from the dead and ascended unto the Father. and
under many, many eyewitnesses, and we'll talk about that next
week. But this is all going to change. Verse 21, "...who shall
change our body of humiliation, 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." Now, you see what
he's saying? This is going to change. And
we're going to have a new body like His glorious body. And that's really the closest
that we can come to understanding from the Scriptures of what it's
going to be like when we look at Christ after the resurrection.
And I'll get into some more of that later on too. But I know
1 Corinthians 15, His body was called a spiritual body. But
then it did have some physical qualities because He ate. All
right. But now also, he says here that
all of this is according to the working whereby what? Do you
see those next three words? He is able. You see, this has
nothing to do with our ability. We're dying. In this physical
body, we're dying. We have spiritual life. We have
eternal life through Christ. But this physical body is dying,
so this change, this glory that we're talking about, it doesn't
have anything to do with our ability. It's He is able. Now, isn't that good? Don't let
words like that just wash over you. Sit and think about that. He is able to save to the uttermost. Well, here it is. Here's the
uttermost. Them that come unto the Father by Him. He is able. This is what it's all about.
It's His ability. It's God's grace. It's God's
power. It's Christ. It's all of Him. And He says, even to subdue all
things unto Himself, even death, He subdued death, disease, sorrow,
the grave. He's able. He's able. And you see right now, we have
what the Bible calls over in Ephesians chapter 1, the earnest
of the Spirit. Let me just read that to you,
Ephesians chapter 1. And that Ephesians chapter 1
gives you the whole four realms of salvation there. He talks
about how that believers, verse 12 in Ephesians 1, will be to
the praise of the glory of God who first trusted in Christ.
We trust in Christ. Believe in Him. Hope in Him.
And it says in verse 13, in whom you also trusted, after that
you heard the word of truth. See, that's that spiritual realm
of salvation there. The gospel of your salvation,
in whom also after that you believed, you were sealed with that Holy
Spirit of promise. That's like a stamp, an identifying
mark. And how do we know we're sealed
by the Holy Spirit of promise? We look to Christ for all salvation. We rest in Him for all salvation. His blood for the forgiveness
of all my sins. His righteousness for my total,
complete, eternal justification before God. But look at verse
14, which is the earnest of our inheritance. Now that's that
same inheritance Peter talked about. It's incorruptible. Reserved
in heaven for you, for you who trust Christ. until the redemption
of the purchased possession unto the praise of his glory." That's
our glorification. The redemption of the purchased
possession. Now, the Holy Spirit is the earnest. That means He's the down payment.
He's the guarantor that I can know that I'll be glorified with
Him. That when I die, my spirit will
go to be with Him. And when He comes again, I'll
be glorified together with Him. Let me show you one more verse
today. We're going to pick up here next week, and I'm going
to deal with 1 Corinthians 15. If you want to read about final
glory, 1 Corinthians 15 is the passage that really puts that
forth. And I'm going to get to that.
I'm going to do a whole message on that. But I want you to to look
at Romans chapter 8 and verse 10. In every believer, the Holy Spirit has imparted
a longing to be like Christ. To be rid of these vile bodies
which are racked with sin and pain and sorrow, and headed for
death. That's why David said, I will
be satisfied when? When I awake with thy likeness.
Paul said it in Romans chapter 7. Look back up there in Romans
7.24, since you're there at Romans 8. He says, O wretched man that
I am. He's talking about the struggle
with sin. Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?
That's a longing, you see. And he says, I thank God through
Jesus Christ our Lord, so then with the mind I myself serve
the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin. Well, look
over at verse 10 of Romans 8. I quoted this before, but it
says, And if Christ be in you, be in you by His Spirit and His
Word, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life
because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of Him that
raised up Jesus from the dead, dwell in you, he that raised
up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies."
Now that's glorification. Understand that. We'll talk more
about that. Here's what the Bible teaches. When we die, our spirits
leave this vile body of humiliation and go to be with Christ. And
we await that time, it's appointed, when Christ comes back. And we'll
talk about this too, how the saints who have gone on to be
with Him, they'll come back with Him. And those who are left on
earth will be raptured. There is a rapture. That just
means taken up. They'll be caught up with Him.
And our bodies will be changed in the twinkling of an eye, He
says. And this is what will happen. He'll quicken our mortal bodies
by His Spirit that dwelleth in you. And therefore, brethren,
we're debtors not to the flesh, to live after the flesh. For
if you live after the flesh, you'll die, that is, eternally. But if you through the Spirit
do mortify the deeds of the body, that's repentance, he says you
shall live. For as many as are led by the
Spirit of God, they are the sons of God." Now this final glory,
the Bible teaches a lot on it, and probably not enough to fill
our curiosity. Because we do have a lot of questions
about it. But we're going to study the Scriptures on this
subject. And hopefully God will open our understandings in these
areas. Alright. We're going to sing
as our closing hymn, More Love to Thee. And while we're singing
that, we're going to be preparing for a baptismal service. Our
sister Ramona Williams is going to confess the Lord in believers'
baptism. So Ramona, if you want to go
on back and start getting ready. And then after the offertory,
after we take up the offering, we'll have the baptismal service. Alright? Okay. More love to thee. It's hymn number 323. Is that
right?