Sunday night, and I only got
the two points of it, and the title of it was Understanding
the End. And I started over in Psalm 73,
where Asaph said that he was envious at the most foolish things,
at the prosperity of the wicked, how that they had all that hope
and help could desire. But he said, when I went into
the sanctuary, Then I understood the end of the wicked. I understood
it, how that God's going to destroy them, how that God's going to
bring them to desolation in a moment. And so we dealt with that. Then
I went over to 1 Romans chapter 10 and verse 4 and talked about
Christ being the end of the law for righteousness to everyone
that believes. And this is one thing, this one
point that I wanted to make about that is, is that if the law could
do nothing for us before we were converted, but to make us know
our sin, what could it do for us after we are converted? It certainly couldn't sanctify
us. It certainly couldn't save us, when all it was was to make
us come to Christ and show us our sin. And so when it says
Christ is the end of the law, that means that He is just what
it says. He's the fulfillment of it. He's the termination of
it. It's not a rule of life. Abraham, he lived by faith. Every
child of God that just shall live by faith, not by law. Not
by law. And then tonight, I want to pick
up where I left off, and that's here in 1 Timothy chapter 1 and
verse 5. Timothy 1 and verse 5. Now the
end, talking about the end, understanding the end, understanding so many
ends. Now the end of the commandment is charity out of a pure heart
and of a good conscience and of faith unfeigned. Now the goal
of the commandment, the end of it, the aim or the purpose of
it, what is it? Charity. Charity, love. That was the purpose of it. That's
the end of it. That's the goal of it. That's
the purpose of it. What was the purpose of the commandment? Charity. Charity. And the aim
of the law, what it is, is to engage our hearts to love God
and love one another. When it talks about that, look
with me in Matthew 22, and I'll show you what I'm talking about.
Matthew 22 and verse 35. You see, beloved, the law hangs
upon two things. Two things. And you know, anything that,
in the gospel, this is the end. You know, our Lord says, a new
commandment I give unto you, a new commandment I leave you
with, and that is that you love one another. You know, the law,
as far as the Pharisees taught it, that was eye for an eye,
tooth for a tooth. And you know, only love them
that love you. Well, the gospel takes it further
than that. And look what he said here in
Matthew 22 and verse 35. Then one of them, which was a
lawyer, asked him, asked the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, look
what the thing is. It's a lawyer asking. The reason
he's asking is to tempt him, is to tempt him, hoping he'd
make him say something he shouldn't say. And he tempted him, tried
to tempt him with the law, make him say something against the
law. Master, which is the great commandment
in the law? Our Lord said unto him, Thou
shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul,
and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment.
And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor
as thyself. On these two commandments hang
all the law and the prophets. Just hang them on that right
there. Now see the gospel. That's the aim of the law. But
now, beloved, the law cannot give us and produce this love
in us. It can't do it. And that's why,
you know, we have the gospel, where the gospel tells us not
only to love one another, but to even love our enemies, to
do good to those that hate us, to those that despitefully use
us. And I mean, beloved, if a scripture says that if we have the voice
of tons of angels and the voice of an angel and said, have not
charity, we become a sounding grass and tinkling cymbals. And so, see, the law, the purpose
of it is to engage our hearts to love, and yet, beloved, only
the gospel and the new birth can produce this love in our
hearts. That's the only thing it can do. When God gave the
commandments, and Moses comes down off the mountain with those
tablets in his hands, the first one up there is, Love God. Have
no other God before me. Love God. And all those folks
said, We'll do that. I mean, ain't no sinner got it
out of their mouth. And they were dancing naked around
a golden calf. So what in the world is going
to cause us? The goal of the law is to cause us to love. But
can the law produce this love? No, only Christ can produce this
love. Only the Holy Ghost can produce
this love. But I do know where the gospel
comes, it will produce this love. Now I want to look over in Romans
13 with me just a moment. Romans 13. And this is what Paul says in
that, and I know this is so. Charity, charity, oh my, to produce
charity. And most folks who want to use
the law to be sanctified by as a rule of life, the last thing
in the world they've got on their mind is charity. The only thing
they're interested in is discipline in the church, discipline somebody.
But look what he said here in Romans 13.8. Oh, no man anything
but to love one another. Oh, my goodness. Are you paid
up? Are you paid up? Oh, no man anything
but to love another. Oh, you reckon you'll ever get
that debt paid? By love serve one another? And
then where he goes on to say, for he that loveth another hath
fulfilled the law. So you see, beloved, by the very
fact that God put this love in the heart, that in and of itself
fulfills the law, this love. For this thou shalt not commit
adultery, thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt
not buy false witness, thou shalt not covet. And if there be any
other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying,
namely, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. Now watch what it
says here. Love worketh no ill to his neighbor. Do you all wonder
about what you're going to do to your neighbor, how you're
going to get even with him? How are you going to beat him out
of something? How are you going to deceive him? Going to poison
his well? Drop a dead dog in his well or
something like that? No! You don't even think of your
neighbor. And watch this. Therefore, love
is the fulfilling of the law. And so, when we have this love
that the gospel puts in our heart, that the grace of God puts in
our heart, that in and of itself fulfills the law. Now, look what
else it says back over here in verse 5, 1 Timothy 1. The end
of the commandment is charity out of a, now watch this, out
of a pure heart. Out of a pure heart. Why in the
world does it mean a pure heart? An honest heart. A true heart. Paul says, you know, that we
may draw near with a true heart full of assurance. What is a
pure heart? Well, the Lord Jesus says, blessed
are they that the pure in heart for they shall see God. Now,
being pure in heart's not our goal. Being pure in heart is
our starting place. When the gospel comes, it purifies
our heart by faith, and blessed are the pure in heart. Now, this
is not something we attain and then we see God. Blessed are
the pure in heart, for they shall see God. And, beloved, because
God has purified our hearts by faith, and because it's called
a true heart, it's an honest heart. One thing, Old Martyr
said this, and he said it several times, God does not send honest
men to hell. He don't do it. And the only
time you'll ever be honest is when God comes to you and makes
you honest. You'll be honest before Him.
And if you're honest before Him, you'll be honest with everybody
else. I mean, beloved, this is a pure and an honest heart. God
gives us a pure heart. You say, well, my heart ain't
pure. As far as God's concerned, if He purifies it, it is. You
know, it's what God says. You know, when God says something,
it's so. It's not whether we feel it or not. Ain't that right? And he says we got a pure heart,
purified our hearts from pain. You know, and when we look
at it ourselves, ain't nothing to it, but that's not what God
said. Blessed are the pure in heart. If God says you got a
pure in heart, that's what you got. You reckon God would say
something's not so? And then not only is it a pure
heart, but a good conscience, a good conscience. Oh, my goodness. A good conscience. Where in the
world are you going to get a good conscience? By doing good? By thinking good? By acting good? My conscience
don't condemn me. My conscience tells me that I'm
all right. Well, listen, if you get a good conscience, you know
how you got it? A conscious void of office toward
God and toward man. is because the Holy Spirit took
the Word of God, took the blood of Christ, and as Peter said,
he says, you know, we've been brought under the sprinkling
of the blood of Christ Himself, and the Holy Spirit takes the
blood of Christ and sprinkles our consciences, sprinkles our
hearts, and applies it to our hearts, and beloved, our conscience
are purged from dead works, and we turn to the living God. We
deny everything that we've ever done. until Christ does something
for us. And our beloved old Scott Richardson
said, you know, the only thing that will satisfy a conscience
is a perfect sacrifice. And I tell you what, when your
conscience is never satisfied, it's because you've never seen
a perfect sacrifice. If you have a sacrifice that's
perfect, not something you bring in yourself, Not something you
dream up, not something you hope you can get your hands on, but
when you see that Christ satisfied God, Christ offered a perfect
sacrifice to God, that Christ was that Lamb of God slain from
the foundation of the world, that satisfied God Himself, and
when you understand that God's satisfied, and He's satisfied
with Christ, then your conscience will go to rest too. Peggy said
that today. She was talking about that today.
She said, I'll never forget when I understood what Christ done
for me, that He washed me in His blood and brought me to rest,
and I've been resting ever since. She said, I can rest here in
the condition I'm in, whole, whole and diseased, facing God
so good to me. And she couldn't hardly get her
breath. She said, God is so good to me. How do you get a conscience like
that? Especially when you get ready to leave this world and
you can't get your breath and your chest is just hurting so
bad. And you face God and say, Oh! I'm ready to go! And lay there
and say, Lord, you're good to me. Can't get your breath. Lord,
you're good to me. How do you do that? Having a
good conscience. Oh, beloved, your conscience
will never ask for anything else. When Christ, the blood's applied
to your conscience. You'll never ask, but your conscience
will never say, I need to do something else to satisfy God.
I need to do something else to get peace with God. If I could
just do this or do that, then I can really have peace. And
beloved, when the blood of Christ is applied to that conscience,
when the blood of Christ, and you see that Christ, Christ,
that you're perfect in Him, perfectly sanctified in Him forever, your
conscience will never ask for anything else. And when it does,
when you say or do something and your conscience bothers you,
you'll immediately go back to Christ. And that conscience is... Ain't that right? And Luke, what
else it says? Now the end of the commandment
is charity out of a pure heart, a good conscience, and I love
this, a faith unfaithful. That word faith means to be fake,
it means to be phony. A phony faith. And so a faith
unfeigned here means a real, genuine belief of the truth. The faith he's talking about
here is not our subjective faith, but what we believe. A faith
that's I mean, that believes. A faith that's true. A faith
that's honest. A faith that's not phony or put
on. that they really believe the
truth. This is a faith, beloved, that
says, that's true, and I believe it. I believe it. And because
of this faith, that's not phony, this real, genuine belief of
the truth, because of this faith, these people who have this clarity,
who have this Pure heart, you have this good conscience, this
unfeigned faith. They really love, they really
need, they must have Christ. They must have it. They must
have the gospel. They cannot live without the
gospel. They desperately need the gospel,
they want the gospel, and they need the fellowship of the Lord's
people. Now I'll tell you something,
wherever there is charity in a person's heart, these things
are the fruit of it. Good conscience, pure heart,
an unfeigned faith. I mean, that's all the fruit
of it. Let me show you, look over here in 1 Peter 1.6 with
me just a moment. 1 Peter 1.6. I'll show you another
one. The end, talking about understanding
the end. Understanding the end. Now look
what else is said here. 1 Peter 1.6. wherein you greatly rejoice,
though now for a season, if need be, if it is necessary, you are
in heaviness through manifold temptations." You weighed it
down. You've got heaviness. "...that the trial of your faith,
being much more precious than of gold that perishes, Lord,
be tried with fire." might be found unto praise and honor and
glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ, whom having not seen,
ye love, and whom though ye see not, yet believing, ye rejoice
with joy unspeakable." Now watch this, "...receiving the end of
your faith, the salvation of your souls." You know what the end, the goal
of your faith is, and what the purpose of your faith is? The
day you get into Christ's presence. That's what he's saying here.
He said, you may be being greatly tried right now. You may have
great, great evidence right now. And it's necessary that it happens
to you. But he said in all of these things,
the only reason that you're being tried is because your faith,
the end of it, the goal of it, the purpose of it, is for which
we look as the salvation The day that our souls, as the old
preachers used to say, will be plumb saved. I mean, step from
one world to the next. Go to sleep here and wake up
there. That's what we're talking about. The salvation, the plumb,
you know, we have been saved. We are being saved. And Pop Peter
here is talking about the end of it. The end of it. Because
once you get to the end of your faith, you won't need it anymore.
Am I right? You won't need faith when your
souls are saved in glory. You won't need hope when you
get into glory. You won't need any of those things.
And that's what he's talking about. The purpose of our faith
for which we look is the salvation of our souls. Let me go back
over here to Hebrews 10 just a moment. Hebrews 10. And he says, though you see not
now, though you have not seen Christ, you see, though you see
not, you rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory. But we have,
though we haven't seen Him face to face, though we have not laid
physical eyes on Him. We see Him by faith, we look
at Him by faith, we trust Him by faith, and we'll receive the
end of that faith when we actually see Christ Himself. Here in Hebrews
10.36, For ye have need of patience, after that ye have done the will
of God, that ye might receive the promise. For yet a little
while, and he that shall come will come, and he won't tarry,
he won't wait. Now they're just to live by faith.
I mean, beloved, I mean the just live by faith and get up in the
morning, they live by faith at noon, they live by faith at six,
they live by faith at ten, they live by faith twenty-four hours
a day, seven days a week, until Christ comes again. They live
by faith. Now, listen to it. But if any drawback, any, if
any man drawback, he draws back from Christ. He
draws back from the gospel. He draws back from what the only
sacrifice for sin there is, the Lord Jesus Christ. If any man
draws back to law, to rituals, to ceremonies, to legalism, to
fundamentalism, if any man draws back, my soul shall have no pleasure
in it. But now, what's this between?
We are persuaded better things of you than you the things that
accompany salvation, but we are not of them who draw back unto
perdition." That word perdition means damnation or hell. Going down to perdition all the
way into hell itself. Draw back unto perdition. But
we are them who believe to how long? To the saving of our soul. It's like Abraham. He just looked,
and looked, and looked, and looked, and looked, and looked for a
city whose builder and maker was God, and he found it when
he was going. Oh, we love it. And oh, listen,
go back over here to 1 Peter. And it always talks about, you
know, that our faith might be found in praise and honor around
it. We desire faith to honor Him right here and now. And we
want to glorify Him at His appearance. Oh my! And then he talks about
that in verse 5, and how we're kept by the power of God. Through
faith. Through faith. And oh beloved,
and how much is this faith kept by the power of God unto salvation
ready, 1 Peter 1.5, ready to be revealed in the last time.
Oh, this salvation that's ready to be revealed. And I mean, it's
going to be revealed. God's going to, He's going to
come, and I tell you, beloved, everybody's going to then know
who was who then. And you know what else He keeps
us to? Now look back up here in verse
3, talking about receiving the end of our faith, and we're kept
by the power of God through faith unto salvation, ready to be revealed
in the last time. Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to His abundant mercy
hath begotten us again unto a lively hope, a living hope, by the resurrection
of Jesus Christ from the dead." Now watch this, "...to an inheritance
incorruptible and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved
in heaven for you." And that's what we're going to have, that's
the end of our faith. This inheritance that we're going to have, God
going to keep us through this faith? And, beloved, in the end
of that faith is that we shall, we shall, the salvation of our
souls will be over and done with, finally, finally, finally. Let me show you another one real
quick. Look over in John 13, talking about the end, understanding
the end, looking to the end. Now, before the feast of the Passover,
when Jesus knew that his hour was come, that he should depart
out of this world unto the Father, having loved his own which were
in the world, he loved them unto him. Simon Peter just got to tell
him he's going to deny him three times. Love you to live. John's going to run off naked.
Love you to be. Oh, my. And what does it say
there? Having loved his own. His own. Are you one of his own? That's
the thing. He loved only his. Only His own. He don't love just anything and
everything or everybody. He loves His own. His elect. His sheep. And back over here
in John 17, you know, we're His by gift. How did we become His
own? Well, God gave us to Him. God gave us to Him. God gave
us as a gift to the Lord Jesus Christ. He said there in verse
six, he said, I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou
gavest me out of the world. Thine they were, and thou gavest
them me, and they have kept thy word. Well, here's the idea.
God gave us, and you gave them to me. You gave them to me out
of the world. Then the scripture says, All
that the Father giveth me shall come to me. And him that cometh
to me, I'll never cast him out. Why? Because having loved his
own, he loved him unto the end. And then there he is because
he purchased him. He laid down his life for sheep. Not goat, sheep. Goats are not
made into sheep. Goats are goats, and that's all
there'll ever be. Sheep are sheep. There's lost
sheep and found sheep. But there's still sheep. And
my sheep hear my voice, not the goats the sheep do. And that's
what he's talking about. Then look what he says here.
You're talking about a miracle. You're talking about a miracle,
and we all understand this miracle to some degree, and thank God
for it. Look what it says there in verse
11. I've been, you know, kept in this world. What a miracle
of God's grace and power, and the effect of the blood of our
Lord. He says in verse 11, And now I'm no more in the world,
but these are, these men are still in the world. They're out
here in this world. They're out here where they're
not loved, where they're not appreciated, where they're not
understood, where nobody knows anything about their faith or
their love for Christ. But I come to thee. Holy Father,
keep through thine own name those that has given me that they may
be one as we are. Now, I mean, keep them in the
world. Now watch this. While I was with
them in the world, I kept them in thy name. I kept every one
of them, Lord, in your name. I said, Father, they're yours.
You gave them to me, and I keep them in your name. Like we say,
Christ, for Christ's sake, Lord, for your name's sake, would you
do this? Would you do that? Like we give
our children over to Him. And those that thou gavest me,
I have kept, and none of them is lost. Not one of them. But
the son of perdition that the Scripture might be fulfilled.
And look what he says down in verse 15. Now, this is a miracle,
beloved, that we're kept here. That's what he says, kept through
faith to the salvation ready to be revealed. I pray not that
thou shouldest take them out of the world. All he had to do
was say, I want them to be with me right now. That's what he
said to that thief. Today thou shall be with me in
paradise. And he was out of this world
just like that. I mean, he took it just like that.
And I tell you, Bill Evans, one of these days, that's the way
he'll do us. We'll just leave here just like that. But oh,
the power and effect and the grace and mercy of the blood
of our Lord Jesus Christ. Don't take them out of the world.
Don't take them out of it. They'll glorify me in the world.
They'll believe me. They'll trust me. But he said,
this is what I want you to do for them. Keep them from the
devil. Keep them from the evil one.
Don't let him overthrow, don't let him destroy. And so, oh,
what a miracle that we're in this world, and yet God keeps
us. You're out on the job, God keeps you. You're around people
and the things they say, and God keeps you. The language you
hear, and God keeps you. You got children that's out in
the world, and they're grief to your heart, they're burden
to your heart, and God keeps you. You had great afflictions and
yet God keeps you. Body breaking down, God keeps
you. And it's amazing, God keeps us
in spite of ourselves. In this world. Old Walker W. Pink says God keeping
his children in this world is like a woman with a white wedding
dress on going down the middle of a muddy street and not getting
one spot of mud on it. He said, that's what God's keeping
us in this world amounts to. We go through this world and
as far as God's concerned, we don't even get spotted by it. Makes me want to just lift
up my hands and say, Lord, bless your holy name. Bless your holy
name. Oh my, let me show you this and
then I'm through. Over in 1 Corinthians, chapter
15. 1 Corinthians 15, verse 24. Oh, here's that. Oh, he loved his own. Keeps his
own. Look what he said here now in
verse 24. Then the end. Then the end. Watch this. When he shall have
delivered up the kingdom, to God, even the Father, when He
shall have put down all the gruel, and all authority, and all power."
And what does that mean? That means when the year comes,
Christ is going to reign. Christ is reigning right now.
Look what it says back. Verse 25, "...for He must reign
till He hath put all enemies under His feet." Now, beloved,
We see not all things put under his feet, but the scripture says
that we see Jesus, who is made a little lower than the angel,
for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor. And beloved,
he is reigning right now. People say he's going to be a
king. He's going to come back and reign for a thousand years.
He's reigning right at this moment. I was a preacher years ago. I've
told you all this. And God began to teach me the
gospel. And there's a strong, there's a strong fundamentalist
church. and a strong premillennialist. And I could not bide premillennialism
to save my life. You can't do it. That you know
Christ is going to come, reign for a thousand years, set up
a throne over in Jerusalem. And so I got to preaching, and
I preached from Acts and went over here and used this first
scripture that Christ must reign. He's not a coming king. He's
reigning right now. And then I got to preaching on particular
redemption, talking to those deacons there about it. He got
really upset with me, and they eventually excluded us from that
congregation. Even the little children voted
to exclude us all out. Called me a heretic. But to make
a long story short, that fellow, that preacher, big old, great
old, big gruff guy. Big old tall fella. And he despised
the sovereignty of God, despised the grace of God. You mention
grace to him, mention election to him, he'll get frightened
mad. And anyway, one night we was leaving and he come up, got
right in my face and got right up against me and started poking
me in the chest. Al Doogie was standing there,
a little bitty fella. And he started poking me in the
chest. And he'd be preaching, you know, he'd take his shirt,
take his jacket off and say, you better think twice before
you want to tackle me. I'll hit you right between the eyes of
this songbook. Real mean guy. But anyway, he got right up in
my face and he started poking me in the chest. He poked me
in the chest and said, God's going to kill you if you keep preaching
that, believing that. I said, good, I'll get out of
this mess. Then he poked me and said, God
will kill your wife. I said, good, she'll get out of this
mess. Then he poked me in the chest again and he says, well,
God will take your son. I said, good, he'll get out of
this mess. And he says, you know, Pope McGee
said, God will kill your daughter. And I said, good, sure, get out.
He couldn't stand it. He didn't scare me, he didn't
intimidate me. And you know what this fellow
done just a few weeks ago? Took a gun, blowed his own brains
out. And he went to the hell that he justly deserved because
he hated God with a passion. He hated grace, he hated election,
he hated the fact that Christ reigns right now, he hated the
fact that Christ died only for his people, and he'll never ever
put his finger in another man's chest and call him a heretic
for preaching the grace of God. He was the kind of guy, let me tell
you this about him. He had a big ash tree out in
the back of his house. And he'd go out there and put
ashes all over him and get in sackcloth. Do you think of it? Get in sackcloth. And then get
up and talk about how he got down in sackcloth and ashes. I'm not going to get in sackcloth
and ashes. Christ bore all my guilt and all my shame. And I'll
tell you, the last time I saw this fellow, I was in a garage
up here about three years ago, and he spoke to one another,
and I told him about something that was going on, and I said,
you know, that's the will of God. He said, no, no, no, no,
that's not the will of God. You know it's not the will of
God. He said, you know it's not the will of God. Did anybody
be sick? Anybody be this, that, and the other? And I just walked
off, and I said, well, forget it, Don. Just forget it. He's
in eternity now. There wouldn't be any shoes for
10,000 worlds like this. And I don't bother me a bit.
If He went to glory, then I'm going to hell, because our message
is diametrically opposed. Well, so this reminds me of that. Look here, the end, the end.
Let's start back up here in verse 20 and deal with this. is Christ risen from the dead
and become the firstfruits of them that slept. Now the firstfruits,
the firstfruits is like the harvest. You bring in the firstfruits
and then you get the rest of the harvest. Well, Christ is
the firstfruits from the dead. He is the one that rose from
the dead by his own power. For since by man came death,
by man came also the resurrection of the dead through Christ. As
in Adam all died, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.
And we are made alive in Christ just like we died in Adam, Christ
brought us life. But every man in his own order.
Every man there's an order that God has in this world. Christ
is the first fruit. He's the first one to go to glory
of his own will, of his own power, of his own ability. Raised himself
from the dead. And afterwards, watch this, they
that are Christ's at his coming. Now, where's the harvest? He'll
bring all the sheep in, bring all the wheat into the garden. Now watch this. After that's
done, then the end. Then the end. What's he going
to do? He's going to take the kingdom of God. He's going to
take all of the Lord's people. He's going to take this world
and everything that's in it. And he's going to bring it to
God after he's destroyed all power and all authority and put
down the last enemy, which is death itself. And he'll put everything,
bring it up here, for he has put all things in verse 27 under
his feet. Now when he says he put all things
under his feet, it's manifest that he is accepted. One person
is accepted. Which did put all things under
him. Who put all things under him? God the Father did. He said,
Son, you reign until I make the enemies your footstool. You reign
and you put down all authority. You reign and you put down all
power. You reign until death itself is sent back to hell and
never be brought out again. You do that. And you bring the
kingdom and everything that you've whipped and everything you've
brought under subjection, you bring it to me and you turn it
over to me as the trophies of your power and your authority
and your glory that I gave you. And that's what it says in verse
28. And when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall
the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things
unto him, that God may be all in it all. He said, I'm going
to give it all to God's sake. My son, here's everything that
he accomplished. And he brings it to him. And
oh, beloved, reigning with him guarantees, guarantees I'll reign
with him. And let me show you this. And
I'll tell you, beloved, he must reign. I mean, he's reigning
right now. People say that he ain't. And that's another thing.
Peggy said today, looked with me over in Revelation 12. She
said, God's reigning right now. I said, there ain't nothing happened
to me or nobody else that God ain't controlling right this
moment. Now, I tell you, that's faith. There's nothing that God
ain't controlling right now. And people say, well, why does
he let this happen? Why does he let that happen?
I tell you what, it's man's sin. that grace calamities into this
world, man's sin and his rebellion. And he's under the curse, and
that's why there's so much suffering in this world. God made a way
out through the blood and righteousness of his blessed Son. And a man
will either come to Christ and suffer with Christ in this world,
or he'll suffer on his own and suffer throughout all eternity
without Christ. And look what he said here in
Revelation. He's talking about the last entity destroyed is
death. Look what it says, Revelation 20, verse 12. And I saw the dead. Now this is talking about dead.
God's people's not dead. We're alive in Christ. Oh, Lazarus,
you know, he's dead, Lord, he stinketh. Oh, no, though he's
dead yet, you believe it in me, he'll live because I'm the resurrection
of life. And I saw the dead, small and
great. That means from nobody to everybody. Stand before God
and the books were opened and another book was opened, which
is the book of life. And the dead were judged out
of those things which were written in the books according to their
works. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death
and hell delivered up the dead which were in them, and they
were judged, every man, according to the works." Every man that
did not know God, did not know Christ, dead, people, all that.
Every dead man, everybody. And listen, and watch what happens. And death and hell. shall be
cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And
whosoever is not found written in the book of life was cast
into the lake of fire. Now watch what happens for the
Lord's people now. Verse 21. Chapter 21. I saw a new heaven
and a new earth. No dead ones here now. For the
first heaven and the first earth were passed away, and there is
no more sea. And I, John, saw the holy city of Jerusalem coming
down from God out of heaven had prepared us a bride adorned for
her husband, and I heard a great voice out of heaven say, Behold,
the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them,
and they shall be his people, and God shall be with them, and
be their God. Now watch it now. And God shall
wipe away all tears from their eyes. Now listen. And there shall
be no more death. Not dead, no more death. When
this new heaven and earth come round, there'll be no more funerals,
be no more castings, be no more reason to cry, no more sorrow,
no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, neither shall be
any more pain, for the former things have passed away. And
he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new." Everything's brand new. I'll
be brand new, new world, new heaven, new earth, new bodies,
new city. It'll all be loving. And he said,
write, for these words are true and faithful. And I'm going to
close with one verse of Scripture, and mark this in your Bible,
Psalm 39, verse 4. Mark this in your Bible. And
I'm going to close with this, understanding the end. Understanding
the end. Psalm 39 and verse 4. And look at this. This is what
I'm going to close with right here. Psalm 39 and verse 4. Lord, make
me to know my end. My end. My end. I understand the end of these
other things, but, Lord, make me to know My end, in the measure
of My days, what it is that I may know how
frail I am."