1 Thessalonians chapter four. So we are in 1 Thessalonians
chapter four. Let me read at verse 13 and go
through verse 18, and then we're going to continue where we left
off last week. But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren,
concerning them which are asleep, that you sorrow not even as others
which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus
died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus
will God bring with him. For this we say unto you by the
word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the
coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend
from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, with
the trump of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we, which are alive and
remain, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet
the Lord in the air, and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore,
comfort one another with these words." Obviously, the reason
for which the apostle would bring up the subject of the return
of Christ and those mysteries that surround it, which is where
we are in our studies. As we deal with the subject matter
of the return of Christ, the end of time or what we call eschatology
proper those factors that have to do with the last days we are
dealing with mysteries it's very important that you know that
because as we work through the concepts of his return you want
to be careful not to be dogmatic you want to be grounded but you
don't want to be dogmatic because mysteries are just that they
are mysteries there are a lot of things about mysteries that
you cannot be absolutely definitive of or concretely sure of outside
of the things that scripture says so what we did was put together
a basic presentation around the title of this series and that
is several things with regards to the return of Christ, seven
general facts about his return or coming as you have in your
outline. So when I use the term general facts, I'm talking about
things that we can substantiate in the scriptures, but not expand
or develop to the extent of dissolving or abrogating potential questions
that rise up in this serious study of in time things. So I will say this again as we
launch into several aspects of our outline. When you're talking
about the return of Christ, Paul called it a mystery in 1 Corinthians
chapter 15. I show you a mystery. It was something that believers
believed in all the way back to the earliest days of the Bible. Even Job acknowledged the return
of Christ as we talked about on in sunday's class uh... with regards to the doctrine
of rewards he says i know my little redeemer lives and i will
see him he will return in the resurrection and i will see him
with my own eyes well i behold him sold the idea of the resurrection
is something that's universally hailed by all christians the
bodily resurrection but there are facets to it that are very
very complex and difficult so you want to be careful to stay
humble enough to try to hold all of these concepts in uh... intention, if you will, within
the framework of your own mind, particularly if this is a new
study for you. It's never wrong to have questions
about a doctrinal truth, as long as those questions are proffered
or are given with the humility of, I just want to know, if I
can know sufficiently, what this really and truly means. So the
end time study is a fascinating study. And we started off last
week dealing with the seven points and they are in your outline
under point number one, a resurrection of the just and the unjust. And
then I began to deal with what I consider the seven things that
will sequentially unfold. The return of Christ will be
followed by or preceded by a resurrection. So when Christ actually returns,
we're gonna deal with the return of Christ in terms of the grammar
tonight. When he comes, it will be followed
by a resurrection. The argument is given in chapter
4 of 1 Thessalonians verse 15. For this we say unto you by the
word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the
coming of the Lord shall not prevent them or go before them
which are asleep. And we defined this a couple
of weeks ago as the bodies of true believers. You guys remember
that? the bodies of true believers. The soul of true believers do
not sleep. Every true believer upon physical
death where his body separates from his soul, his soul essence
directly goes into the presence of God. His body then lies in
the grave, deteriorates, returns to the dust, becomes trees and
roads and everything else that we make out of it, waiting for
that powerful manifestation of Christ when he raises the dead
and so our text says Christ comes and then it says in verse 16
for the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with the shout with
the voice of the Archangel and with the trump of God and the
dead in Christ shall what rise first so he comes and there's
a resurrection of the dead in Christ He comes and there's a
resurrection of the dead. So I'm giving you the order of
events. When Christ comes, the first thing he's gonna do is
snatch up the bodies of all of his elect, of all of his people
from the beginning of time to the end of time. Their bodies
are gonna be recovered and reunited with their soul. And they're
gonna be one whole unit again. Which means when we go to heaven,
absent of our physical bodies, We are a personality, but we
don't bear the totality of our being until our bodies are recovered. So I said this as well a couple
of weeks ago. In Christian doctrine, one of
the cardinal doctrines that we hold is the value of our physical
bodies. The value of our physical bodies
And in paganism, most pagan religions and a lot of paganism has poured
over into Christianity as well. The body has been diminished
in terms of its significance and its purpose. And even that
view has captured the minds of many Christians. where we fail
to understand that this body was ordained by God for you as
the unique tabernacle or expression and manifestation of God's will
in your life. So to the degree that you neglect
your body or distort its purpose and design, you neglect and distort
the glory of God. because your body was designed
to honor God as the means of expressing your unique person
in your relationship with him. That ought to help you then with
regards to the few days you have left in your body to take care
of it. Those of you who have ever been
really ill and sick know exactly what I'm talking about. One day
you're healthy and you take for granted your health and then
you lose your health and you realize how magnificent your
body is because now you've lost your health. And then you begin
to understand how easy it is to waste our time on things in
our lives that really don't amount to any eternal good and how we
can abuse our bodies in ways that are fundamentally selfish
and narcissistic and have no eternal value. One of the reasons
we are teaching Rewards right now in our first Sunday service
is to help the believer recapture recapture What it means to redeem
the time and live for the glory of God down here because we are
very wayward in our conduct in our lives and And I'm afraid
that we're gonna wake up one day and realize as mr. John Piper
puts it so well that many of us have wasted our time. Many of us have wasted our time.
And your body is the only vehicle that you have for any form of
expression. You have a soul and your soul
can communicate with God, but your soul can't communicate with
another person without the vehicle of your body. Even if you don't
have a voice, if you are dumb, we can communicate with you through
sign language, via your eyes and other forms of expression,
but they all come through cure. And that's what God is gonna
redeem, the body of the believer. Then we which are alive and remain,
if Christ should come before we die, we shall be caught up,
that we're caught up is your Greek term, harpejo, from which
you get the doctrine, the what? The rapture, right? And so we
shall be caught up together with them in the clouds. That's the
great gathering of all God's elect, the great gathering of
all God's people in the air. And so shall we ever be with
the Lord. The final line there in verse 17 underscores the permanent
union of God and his people forever, which implies that there's a
sense in which we are separated from Christ right now. Is that
true? Right. There's a sense in which we are
separated from him. We shall forever be with him,
never to be separated again. So under the first heading of
the general facts about the return of Christ is the resurrection
of the just and the unjust. And we looked at that. The second
event that I believe will take place upon the resurrection of
the just and the unjust. And we looked at those doctrines,
John chapter five and verses 24 through 28. And then again,
we'll see that idea again in Acts chapter 24, 15. And I think
we looked at it. The resurrection of both the
just and the unjust is gonna be the time when God then begins
to bring to account every person's life. The resurrection is a day
of accountability. and accountability for the things
that we have done in our bodies. So the return of Christ will
be met with the resurrection. The believers will be with Christ.
That's a personal prerogative of Christ that will be fully
and totally answered according to his prayer in John 17. Father,
I will that those you have given unto me be with me. It will also
be a reciprocating satisfaction because true believers by the
time Christ comes will want to be with him then too. Even though
you may not have a zeal to be with him now. God has a way of
tearing up your life so much so that by the time he comes
for you, you're going to want him to come for you. And so there
will be a great, great satisfaction on the part of the union of the
believer with her husband. And at that point, subsequent
to that, there will be then the resurrection of all men. And
that's in your outline. A transformation will take place.
Our second point under the return of Christ, a transformation will
take place that we call what? The glorification. Do you guys
see that in your outline? We tested on that last week.
I'll develop that a little bit, but not much right now because
the thought about the glorification is a tremendous thought that
really requires several studies. But let me say it like this,
the doxa of the glorification or that point in which God will
be honored for who he is by all people is called the glorification.
It's the point at which God will be honored for who he really
is by all people and all angels and all devils, every conscious
being will give God glory for who he is in the glorification. So when we use the term glorification,
it might be in your mind a very small concept, but let the word
glorification expand itself and encompass everything that takes
place when Christ returns or when you leave this earth. So
I'm gonna share a few prepositions to help this concept come home.
Because we use that word in our evangelical church a lot, and
it's like a sweater that's basically stretched out of its form to
the glory of God, the glory of God, the glory of God, right?
There's a point at which a word can lose its meaning by over
usage. But when we talk about the glory
of God, we are talking about the manifestation of God's being
exactly as he really is. We are talking about the manifestation
of God's being exactly as he really is and that manifestation
impacting everything around it exactly as it really should. So when we talk about the glory
of God, again another mystery, but attached to the glory of
God is the idea of the impeccability and transcendence and magnificence
of the being of God. impeccability, transcendence,
and magnificence of the being of God. So when we use the word
glory, whether in the Old Testament or the New, it's a word that
basically means the outshining of his being in character. The
outshining of his being in character. We use the word in the Hebrew
called the Shekinah. It's not really a biblical term,
but it's a theological term. And in the New Testament, the
doxa is a term we use for praise and honor, as a response to the
manifestation of God's glory when properly comprehended. And it has to do with a true
assessment and awareness of the presence of God. Whenever God's
glory actually impacts the agency of a person, they are moved one
way or the other. Whenever God's glory impacts
you, Whatever it whenever it makes an impression upon you
you are moved So when we think about the glory of God think
about the glory of God in terms of our entering into it its presence
among us and its impact on our life so that fundamentally the
entrance into it its existential presence around us and then its
intrinsic our pervasive impact in our life, in our being, not
just our life. And I may not be doing a fair
job explaining why I want you to capture it this way. But let
me see if I can just give you a few Bible verses. The scripture
says, on the part of the Lord Jesus, when he's talking to his
disciples, the boys on the road to Demas are upset because they
don't understand why it is that the Messiah was crucified, killed
and buried. And he explained to those two
boys, ought not the son of man to have suffered all these things
and to enter into his glory. That's the way Luke 24 puts it. And what Christ was saying to
those two boys was, you caught the suffering, but you missed
the glory. And while you missed the glory,
you're gonna be perplexed by the suffering Because the suffering
is not the true eschaton. It's just a transition point.
And if you miss the true eschaton, you miss the meaning of the suffering.
And so when he began to speak to them on the road from Emmaus,
from Jerusalem to Emmaus, if you guys remember, the glory
of Christ manifested in their heart as he expounded in all
things through the scriptures, the things concerning himself.
So there was an impact of revelation that took place in their heart
that revealed to them that they were in the presence of Christ. You guys remember that, right?
So at that point, their life changed. Why? Because the risen
Christ had given them a taste of glory. I'll talk more about
that when we deal with the different nouns around the revelation of
Christ in a moment. But Christ made it very plain
that he's gonna enter into his glory. When believers die, there's
a sense in which we enter into glory upon death. Remember what
I said, 2 Corinthians 5, 8, to be absent from the body is to
be present with the Lord. If I am present with the Lord,
I am in the presence of glory. If I delete this life, then I
have entered into glory, which means down here on this earth,
in this physical dimension, there's a sense in which I am not in
glory. That's logical. So then when
you read in Matthew chapter 17 or Luke chapter 9, where it says,
and Moses and Elijah appeared and talked with Jesus on the
Mount of Transfiguration. Do you guys remember that? Do
you remember how the authors described Moses and Elijah as
being what? In glory. Moses and Elijah appeared
in glory. Now here are two men who have
been in heaven for a long time. paradise or Hades heaven and
two men who are in heaven separated from their physical bodies but
they are in a body form enough for the Apostles who were disciples
at that time to recognize them but when the author gave a description
of both Moses and Elijah what he did not describe was their
personal visage or form but rather the glory of that basically encompass
their being. So when we leave this life, we
enter into glory. Now Moses and Elijah, well, also,
well, not Elijah. Elijah received his, his body
went up into heaven with him. He didn't die. Moses did die,
and it's a controversy as to whether or not Moses' body will
be raised, or whether or not his body was raised at the resurrection
of Christ, for which Jude argues, or at least gives us insight
into the argument that the devil had with the angel Michael over
the body of Moses. That's a whole other discourse
itself. But it implies that the devil knows that the body of
the believer is the property of God. But if he could, he would
take it because the objective of the devil is to steal God's
glory at any point he possibly can. How tragic then is it that
a man or a woman who was created in the image of God, bearing
the likeness of God, the attributes and characteristics of God, in
a physical body out of the dust of the ground, did he make them,
that body being originally dusted to Immortality how tragic is
it then that the body would only be raised to perish in hell and
that's the goal of the devil to Cause men and women to perish
in the same perdition that he will So for the believer as we
read in first Corinthians chapter 6 chapter 5 rather The Apostle
Paul makes it clear that we have been bought with a price the
precious blood of Jesus Christ and Therefore glorify God in
your what bodies which are his So the body is to be preserved
for service to God It should be sanctified and set apart to
first Thessalonians chapter 5 verse 23 pull that up I want to just
nail this home while I'm tying two concepts together to make
sure you guys get it I'll say this because right now I'm dealing
with funeral procession and events surrounding it I get this repeatedly
with professing Christians. And even professing Christians
who, and leave it there, who I know grew up under sound doctrine,
but right at the time when loved ones die, if it's not themselves,
it's other people surrounding them, and they all profess to
be believers. For some reason, paganism sets
in, agnostic theology takes over, and they fail to want to glorify
God in their bodies. So I'm gonna say that again and
get the CD, share it with your loved ones. I think the way you
die is just as important as the way you live. I think when you
say, I don't care how I go out and I don't care what you do
with my body when I die, I'm going to be with the Lord, is
unbiblical and unchristian and pagan. And what it means fundamentally
is that you don't understand the redemptive nature of death.
How that God uses death to bring lost people to Christ when he
wants to. in that crucible or that crisis
period of them being separated from people they love, but because
they were Christians, they were able to leave a testimony of
their faith in Christ and their belief in the bodily resurrection. So what you and I should be doing,
which most Christians don't, this is fascinating to me. I
can tell I'm not gonna get through my seven points tonight. This
is fascinating to me. There's one thing I know that's
gonna happen if the Lord don't show up We're gonna all die That's
I'm sure of that I'm sure of that But most Christians Act
like they won't die Now watch this and therefore they don't
prepare for death How many of you? have a sufficient insurance
policy to make sure that when you die, you can glorify God
in your death. See, that's 50%. You know what
that means? Either you were ignorant of this
topic of which we are speaking, or you are negligent. So let
me ask you the question while I'm doing a little pastoral aside. Who gonna take care of you when
you die? Who did you leave your body in
care of when you die? I mean, we can't just put it
in a plastic bag and set it out by the garbage can and let the
garbage disposal company come by and take it. I kind of like
that idea personally, but it doesn't correspond with the gospel. But I'm going to ask you again,
who's going to take care of your body? How are you going to check
out of here? Are you going to check out of
here As a testimony of grace and biblical truth, are you gonna
check out of here as a person who never knew God and could
care less? Are you guys hearing what I'm saying? This is very
important. Very important because I'm looking
at a group of 80, 90, 80 people here. Some of you could die between
now and next Friday. And the question is, have you
taken care of that business? And how important it would be
if you had put your house in order and made sure that you
had everything necessary for a proper burial. So when the
few folks are the ton of folks, depending on how you live your
life, this is why I'm teaching rewards this year. Because if
you live a raggedy Christian life, there's a good likelihood
that only a handful of people might come out to see you go. Do you guys understand what I'm
talking about? When we live an unprincipled life, where we don't
impact people with the love and grace and mercy of Christ, they'll
take about 10 seconds to say, oh, that's too bad. And then
they'll go on with their life. As the preacher puts it, those
that die, their remembrances are forgotten quickly and life
moves on. So the point is, is our life,
Redemptive enough. Is it valuable enough for us
to make an impact on people so that when we go, they miss us
and are willing to take time off from work even to come to
a funeral, to acknowledge that loved one that they won't see
until they get the glory. This is why our life does matter
because God knows how to use every bit of our life and especially
our death. So it's very important for you
and me. Listen to what this text says. Um, And the very God, let
me go back to verse 22. I want you to get, we'll start
the promise here. Abstain from all appearances
of what? That's huge. That's the premise
for Paul's exhortation to the church at Thessalonica. The man
or the woman that has as the axiom of their life, not living
a life filled with overt expressions of evil. Evil is everything that's
contrary to God's will. Evil. Abstain from every appearance
or every form are every pattern, if you will, more faith, of evil. Abstain from it. Abstain from
everything we know to be viewed as evil. Don't live a life that
people will have to question whether or not your Christianity
had any substance to it. Are you guys hearing me? Abstain
from every form of evil. That's the believer's sanctification. Verse 23, listen to this. and
the very God of peace will sanctify you what? Completely, completely,
mind, body, and soul. So when, this here's another
very strong admonitive contemplation that I don't wanna draw out,
but you wanna live a life that's fulfilling? Ask God to set you
apart. Ask him to get ahold of you,
lock, stock, and barrel. I don't give you 80 years old.
End well. You may not have started well,
but end well. Ask God to take hold of you and
take the totality of the rest of your life and use it for his
glory. And when the heart gives itself
over to God like that, here's the promise of God to you. He
will sanctify you completely. That means he will provide what's
necessary to make you a vessel of honor for him until you die
Doesn't matter what your circumstance is. I'm not saying that you'll
live healthy wealthy and prosperous We're not preaching a prosperity
gospel here. We're saying if even if God made
you sick in the hospital He's gonna sanctify you to use you
as a witness for his glory He's going to keep your spirit alive.
He's going to keep your spirit healthy. He's going to keep it
vital. He's going to keep your head
clear enough where you can testify to the goodness of God in Christ.
And you'll be able to let everybody in the hospital know you have
a hope at the end of your death. Brother Daniel Donovan, our young
brother who lost his life a few months ago, was dying a slow
death from, he had diabetes. severe case of it and so he had
several strokes as diabetes will lead to that when you don't do
what you're supposed to do and many of his limbs were being
cut off because circulation comes to an end. You guys know that.
It was a sad thing to see. I grew up with him from a little
boy and he was younger than me but he was in the hospital, half
his body cut up, blind as a bat. Couldn't see no one. He heard
my voice and got super excited. Pastor, is that you? And then
he started telling everyone in the room, that's my pastor. That's
the one I was telling you about. He's the one I was telling you
you need to listen to every day. Pastor, could you come here?
I want you to talk to him. The other guy over in the other
bed, miserable as could be. But Daniel, while he was perishing
outwardly, was thriving inwardly. He got up, put his clothes on,
couldn't see, and started going through the hallways telling
people, about the opportunity they have now that his pastor
is here. My pastor is here, I told you, come on, let's talk. You
see what I'm getting at in terms of the attitudinal aspect of
every day of your life, no matter what your circumstances are.
Now that was God sanctifying Daniel. Because you know, we
can be in the hospital sick, miserable, and our life completely
covered over, right? Completely covered over. Daniel
had hope in his death, didn't he? And he bore witness to the
glory of God, and his funeral did the same thing. In the very
God of peace sanctify you wholly, and I pray God your whole what?
Spirit, soul, and what? Body be preserved blameless unto
the what? Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Now mark what he says, ladies and gentlemen, blameless in spirit,
soul, and body. Blameless, got it? That's a promise that God makes. All right, so that's part of
the idea of the return of Christ is the glorification of our bodies. Look with me at Philippians chapter
three, verse 21. Here's a promise around that.
Then I wanna go on through our seven subsequent points. We may
have enough time maybe to begin to deal with the nuances of the
term coming. Philippians chapter three. So
in the New Testament, one of the areas Of what we call eternal
hope for the believer is the area of our bodies being renewed
and Glorified and fit for eternity and here is one of the statements
that's made around it too in Philippians Chapter 3 verse 21
the Apostle puts it this way as he's speaking to the church
at Philippi He says over, I'm gonna start at verse 18, for
many walk of whom I have told you often and now tell you even
weeping that they are enemies of the cross of Christ. These
are people who have defected from the gospel, no longer believe
in the centrality of Christ or the atoning work of his death
on Calvary. And now they are teaching a very
carnal self-centered theology, basically kind of a liberal progressive
ideology of, you don't need to worry about judgment or the wrath
of God. Verse 19, whose end is destruction,
whose God is their what? Belly. So for them, their God
is their nature, their carnal craving, and whose glory is in
their shame, who mind earthly things. What he did with verse
19 was develop a composite of the man who has fallen from grace
back again under sin, not truly saved, but now he is manifesting
himself to never ever have been born again, and he looks just
like every earthly man whose hope is in this life. That's
the composite that he sketches here. Whose end is destruction,
their God is their belly. Their glory is their shame, and
they mind earthly things. This is an unconverted person
who has never been born again, verse 20. For our conversation,
and the word should be lifestyle, our conversation is in what? From whence we also look for
the Savior the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall change our vile body,
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. So there is a hope for the changing of these vile
bodies. Daniel can identify with that.
His body was vile because of sin and corrupted, but the hope
for Daniel is one day God will raise that body up. Some of us
are older. You young people don't believe
your bodies are vile. But us older people know our bodies
are vile, don't we? Yeah. The word vile doesn't necessarily
connote some kind of obnoxious thing. It means lowly. Because of seeing it so weak
and so flawed that it doesn't remotely bear the image for that
which it was destined originally. The gap between what it was designed
for and what it is is so broad that the only appropriate word
is the word vile. Vile. It's the term that Job
used when he finally saw God's glory. I heard of you with the
hearing of the ear, but now my eyes have seen you. I put my
hand over my mouth and I put my face in the dust because I
am vile and corrupt compared to the ineffable bless of your
person. And that's speaking to the vast,
vast change that will come when our bodies are glorified. That's
going to be a great day and a great work worthy of full development. So a transformation that is a
glorification of all believers will take place when Christ comes,
when there is a resurrection, both the just and the unjust.
And that sequence is important for some of you who struggle
with your conscious around your conduct. Now, if you're a Christ,
if you're truly Christ, you can be sure that upon the resurrection,
when you and your body are fully united, before you answer to
him in the public display of accountability, there will be
a glorification of your whole being. Are you guys following
the logic? We talked about this in our reward
study, how comforting this doctrine is. that if I am glorified before
I am called to public account for my life, because of my union
with Jesus Christ and because of his death for me and because
of faith in him, no matter what the implications of the judgment
seat of Christ for believers is, because I am glorified that
is in the totality of my body and my soul. And again, we are
dealing with the mystery because we are not fully comprehending
what it's like to have a glorified mind and spirit because we don't
have one as of yet. Though we have a measure of glory
having begun in us, Christ in you the hope of what? And because
we are being renewed daily by the Spirit of God, if in fact
we are, we have a sense of it, do we not? But we don't have
enough of a sense of it for us to escape the kind of mental
culpability that gets a hold of us when we think about having
to answer to God for our life. Isn't that true? Right. That's
because you are still united with your physical body. You
still have a corrupt nature that rebels against God. And it does
not allow you to freely boast in what you shall be. Though
the word of God is very clear. That's what you shall be. Which
means down here, we must never boast as if we are already in
a state of full and total glorification because we don't even know what
that's like. We have no idea how to frame that as a point
of reference in our thinking about being in the presence of
the Lord, having transitioned from death into glory, having
then been overcome or swallowed up by the presence of God and
the restoration of our body and our soul in a state of perfect
newness where we are thinking like God. We don't know what that's like.
We don't have that ontological reference point yet. We only
have it as a hope. The hope of what? Glory. So right
now there's enough trepidation that has us very ginger about
Coram Dale and the total sense being in the presence of the
Lord. Am I making some sense? As well it ought. As well it
ought. because where there's enough
trepidation, then you might just make your calling and election
sure and not end up in hell with those who presumed that they
were all right because they did a bunch of good works separated
from dependence upon Christ. Are you guys following my logic?
The people that miss Jesus miss Jesus because they did Jesus
without Jesus. That's good. Did you get that? So when you
do Jesus without Jesus, when Jesus shows up, Jesus don't say,
I wasn't in it. And I don't know you. Does that
make some sense? All right. So the, the key to
all of our labors of love and works of faith and aspirations
for glory and confidence, as Paul said in second Corinthians
five, whether absent from the body and present with the Lord
or not, we have this confidence. We have this confidence. that
what we do will be accepted of him because we are trusting in
him, truly trusting in him. So this area of rewards and works
is rooted in an objective, and that is to make sure you and
I are laboring to make our calling in election sure. And understanding
that all that we do, we're doing not only for the Lord, but by
his strength. So you hear this phrase, I've
heard it before, Whatever is done for Christ will what? Last. I don't believe that. Sorry.
Sorry. Don't leave it. Whatever is done by Christ will
last. Was Matthew chapter seven teaches
me you can do all these things in his name. Isn't that what
it says? Matthew seven, 21 through 24.
In that day, they shall say, master, did we not not do many
mighty works? Did we cast out devils in your
name? Didn't we heal in your name? They use Jesus name. They
use his name. They made sure he got all the
external glory for it, but it wasn't associated with a heart
relationship that was bound to Jesus as their only hope. They
were meriting their reward. This is what I was teaching on
Sunday. There's a difference between meriting reward and anticipating
reward because of the promises of God. There's a big difference,
isn't it? It is important for you to know that. It's important
for you to know that many people will miss glory because they're
not united to Christ. And so many will say to me in
that day, Lord, Lord, have we not? And all of that in verse
23 is the indictment. It's a dreadful indictment. When
we talk about the glorification, when we talk about the glorification,
then we are talking about entering into it upon death or his return. It entering into us and pervasively
changing every molecule in our being Qualifying us as sons of
God in total to take a position with God in judgment Get the
CD and listen to I'm not gonna repeat it over it's a profound
concept When God qualifies his sons and daughters is called
the manifestation of They will be able to stand before God themselves
in the presence of the ungodly and God will prove By their lives
his own righteousness and then they will sit in judgment with
God upon the unbeliever as God condemns the unbeliever for rejecting
the gospel that his people declared Are you guys following the logic?
This is why we say the idea of being a witness for Jesus is
too serious to play with. Because these are courtroom matters.
These are courtroom matters. Either you're a false witness
or a true witness. And only that day will actually
bear that out as we will see when we work through the text.
So I think I pressed on glorification enough. The third subsequent
event that will take place His return, the resurrection of just
and unjust, the glorification of all believers, a destruction
of the evil one and this world system. Do you guys see that?
Go with me to 2 Thessalonians 2, 7 and 8. I want you to see
this. I want to share with you two verses on this and draw off
the implications and then move forward. Again, this is the way
that I see it after having studied the Bible for 35 years and having
cut my teeth on eschatology. And having worked through some
of the nuances of his complex system, I actually like the way
the Bible lays out the order of events, even though the order
of events are so simple that you really can't write books
and make a bunch of money off of it. You have to add a bunch
of fodder, a bunch of artistic license in order to make money
off of the return of Christ. Second Thessalonians chapter
one says it like this. The context is the suffering
of the Thessalonians, which is the general tenor of the believer's
condition down here. Listen to what he says in verse
three through verse eight. We are bound to thank God always
for you, brother, and as it is meet because that your faith
grows exceedingly. And the charity of every one
of you towards each other, what? Is that a great attribute? Is
that a great resume for believers? Your faith is growing exceedingly.
and your charity towards one another abounds. Do you see that?
The reason that's happening is because they are a suffering
church. They don't live in the ease of
a Western culture where you can spend most of your life preoccupied
with your own things. So a suffering culture is striving
to just eat every day and willing to share everything they have
with one another as a common pot and wait for the Lord to
come. This is the demise of Western
Christianity. I know you agree with me. That
we don't have an impetus to live to the full standards of a Christian
testimony because we're at ease in Zion. And that's a battle
that we're fighting. But Paul commended this church
because it knew how to bear fruit in the midst of tribulation.
And that's what tribulation does. Verse four, so that we ourselves
glory in the churches of God for your patience, the word really
should be endurance and faith in all your, here it is, persecutions
and tribulations which you endured. There it is. Common Christian
context is suffering for the gospel. Verse five, which is
a manifest token of the righteous judgment of God. Do you see the
first line in verse five? Let me capture that and give
it to some of you. When God allows his people to suffer, at the
hands of the ungodly and unbelieving. It's going to justify God on
the last day. It's the token of God's righteous
judgment, having already condemned the ungodly, but to execute justice
on them on the last day. And for God to have told us now
that your suffering is going to merit his righteousness against
the ungodly is designed for you to see your suffering the way
God sees it, with an endgame in view. You guys follow the
logic? You're going to learn this as
we go through the life of David. David's already taking hits for
God. We'll have a few hiccups along the way because it's hard
to see the end game when you are in the midst of trouble.
So the apostle as a good shepherd is encouraging them to stay the
course and suffer for Christ to know that in the eschaton,
God will be justified when he punishes the wicked because of
their persecution of the righteous. Notice, which is a manifest token
of the righteous judgment of God that you may be counted worthy
of the kingdom of God. Ah, there it is. Again, in Sunday's
evenings class, I told you that when you get this rewards doctrine
down, it's going to be like road bumps, speed bumps on the road,
that you will hit those bumps. And every time you hit those
bumps, you'll see the reciprocating principle of labor and reward.
That's one of them. Are you seeing it? That's one
of them. Do you see it? Notice what he says, which is
a manifest token of the token of the righteous judgment of
God, in order that you might be counted, what? Worthy of the
kingdom of God. See, so that terminology is not
the first time that it's used, being worthy of the kingdom of
God, being worthy of the kingdom of God. That's terminology that's
both Old Testament and completely the language of Christ. Are you
living worthy of the kingdom of God? That's what he meant
when he says, except you take up your cross and deny yourself,
you cannot be my disciple. And if any man puts his hand
to the plow and then turn back, he is not worthy of the kingdom.
Now, remember the overarching subject that we're dealing with
is what? The kingdom. Are we not? We're dealing with
the kingdom. And one of the goals that I'm trying to do is strip
us of false Christianity that will leave you undone when it
comes to this issue of the Kingdom of God. Because false Christianity
does not acknowledge the Kingdom of God. It does not acknowledge
the lordship of Christ in our life. And therefore it doesn't
understand the rules of engagement. It doesn't understand the constitution
of the kingdom of God. It doesn't understand the resources
and supplies of the kingdom. It doesn't understand the blessings,
the protocol. It doesn't understand the social
culture of the kingdom of God, because it's basically just taking
the tickets and I want to go to glory, but it doesn't know
how to function in the kingdom. And yet constantly what Christ
is saying is there is a life that is lived, that is worthy
of the kingdom. It's worthy of the kingdom of
God. I got an impulse. Should I, should I, do I need
to press this home for anybody here? Anybody raise your hand
if I need to press this home. Okay. I'm not trying to preach,
but I really do want you to get the importance of the worthiness
of the Christian life in your own time. Read first reading
Ephesians chapter four, the first, 11 verses around the worthiness
of the kingdom But I'm just gonna share with you one more verse
surrounding this topic and then I'm gonna come back here to our
text in 2nd Thessalonians Go with me your Bible to Luke 21
And in Luke 21, this is where our Lord uses the same language
that the Apostle Paul is using here, too I want you to see it. I'm in Luke 21. Are we there?
In Luke 21, I'm gonna start at verse 11 33 and go through verse
36 and you'll see it Verse 33 of Luke 20 21 here it is heaven
and earth shall pass away But my words shall not pass away
verse 34 take heed to yourselves See it Take heed to yourselves. Is that a good Shepherd? Lest
at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness
weighed down with the heaviness of the cares of this life. With
surfeiting and then drunkenness is always a term that indicates
that a person uses the wrong means to overcome the trials
of life. Surfeiting and drunkenness. And
more, it also implies that you find your comfort in this life. Now, mark what he says. Cause
I can tell you now most Christians, most Christians, particularly
younger Christians who are your Gen Xers and your millennials,
but this happened to us old goats too. So I don't want no old goats
gloating. It happened to you too. Again,
because of a lack of understanding of sanctification and because
of a lack of understanding of the appropriate use of our bodies,
young people think that it is cool to spend significant portions
of their life partying. even as Christians. So there
is a category of their life that's given over to inebriation and
drunkenness as a social decorum and social norm. Am I making
some sense? And that category will completely destroy your
capacity for commitment to Christ because serpentine and drunkenness
is one of the primary ways the devil distracts you from the
sobriety that you need to be a witness at the very time that
everybody else is drunk. So he says, take heed to yourselves
lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting
and drunkenness and the cares of this life. So that that day
come upon you unawares. What is that day? The day when
Christ comes or you die. They both amount to the same
thing. They both amount to the same thing. You know how many
young people die every day in the world? Hundreds of thousands. In other words, young people
die just as fast as old people today. Are you following the
logic? They die just as fast. And so
when our ethic is not one of a sober missional perspective,
we'll give ourselves over to the excesses of things that can
be Useful tools, but most of the time become snares as our
Lord says in verse 35 for as a snare It shall come upon all
them that dwell on the face of the whole earth What will come
on them as a snare verse 34? Verse 34 is a snare Verse 34
is the snare If you have a television in a remote Every time you go
to a movie channel And it gives you all of the characteristics
of verse 34. Go, snared. Snared. Snared. Snared. Snared. Snared again. Snared. They are trapped in that system. That's the goal of the devil.
That's the angel dust he throws at you every day. Party, get
high, have a bunch of sex. Party, get high, have a bunch
of sex. Party, get high, have a bunch of sex. And it has permeated
even the Christian church. As a snare shall it come on all
them that dwell upon the face of the earth. Now Christ is what
we call the quintessential prophet. So his perspective on the conditions
of the world are always right. So this is not a wild-eyed prophet
or some perverted pastor that wants to scare you into heaven. These are the sober assessments
of our Lord concerning the world that he made. I happen to agree
with him. Funny, 35 years ago, I was, 37
years ago, I was about 18 years old when the Lord was dealing
with me. And when I read this text, It
was clear that that was the world he had delivered me out of. He
delivered me out of that world. 37 years later, that world still
exists. And it's more acceptable today
as common nomenclature and parlance than it was when I was growing
up. When I was growing up, that was the dark side of the street.
You had a realm and arena of decency It had its hypocrisy,
but it has bled over now to where there's no decency. It's all
part of the same. It's all part of the same. That's
the battle that we are fighting. Now watch our Lord's words that
correspond to Paul's words in verse 36. Watch ye therefore
and pray always. See that first line? It's an
imperative. And what an imperative is? It's
a commandment. It's not a suggestion. It's not
an indicative. Because indicatively, the church
does not watch. And indicatively, the church
is not praying. That's crazy. A lot of you are
visitors. You have your own home church.
There's your own home church has as a central exclusive meeting,
a prayer meeting. Raise your hand. An actual prayer
meeting. Serious about prayer. I mean,
I mean serious. I ain't talking about two or
three showing up cause I'm talking about serious about prayer. Like
if every other ministry in the church fell apart, we're going
to have a prayer meeting. You know, that's how the church
was started. Do you understand that? That the church was started
on prayer meetings. It wasn't started on entertainment
programs and all of the other stuff who was started on prayer
meetings. because it was in tribulation. So what our master says is, if
the system of this world can get you, it will stop you from
praying. And a church that doesn't pray
is dead. You got that? It's dead. I don't
care how much noise it makes, it's dead. Watch you therefore
and pray always that you may be accounted, what? Is that the
same term? That you may be accounted worthy
to escape all these things that shall come to pass and to stand
before the son of man. One last statement about that.
Our master is indicating that if we take serious sanctification,
he will assure you that even though these things come upon
you to take you and they would take you if you would let them
and they would take you if they could, he promises to intervene. He promised to actually intervene
and protect you from being swallowed up by those things. If you were
determined to live for Christ's glory and to be set apart and
sanctified, he'll come in to protect you. Even those of us
who have committed our lives to sanctification and service
to Christ have to fight like hell not to be swallowed up by
that stuff. I mean, fight like I don't know
what, not to be swallowed up by that stuff. Can I get a witness? It's true. It's true. and the
people that are not watching and praying are already swallowed
up. I've seen it many times. Adrift on the sea of the currents
of this world system and they have no way back. So now let's go to our fourth
point session where we basically left off last week. We'll do
20 minutes and we'll close. So what's interesting about where
we're going now, I'm sorry, Go back to 2 Thessalonians chapter
2, 7 and 8. I want to show you what that
statement says there about the consummation or the judgment,
final judgment of all things, because I need to make that point
before we go on. And then I'll close with the
session and I'll take a few questions and then we'll go home. He says
for us then over in verse 5, which is a manifest token of
the righteous judgment of God, that you may be counted worthy
the kingdom of God and in this sense I am believing that the
kingdom of God here the emphasis of it is the Eschatological kingdom
that will come where in glory will be promised to all those
that believe Remember when we were talking about the kingdom
of God how that the kingdom of God is spiritual and present
For those who are truly born again, we enter into the kingdom
of God by faith in Christ, right? Except you be born again. You
shall not see the kingdom or enter into it. I But upon a legitimate
regeneration where you are a new creature in Christ, God has translated
you out of darkness into the kingdom of his dear son. And
in the sphere of the kingdom of God, all of the things that
scripture talks about are the reality of the present kingdom.
You can identify and you can concur with the kingdom of God
is leading the people in missional works and works of service. Devotion
and worship and witness to the world that God is a reality.
That's the nature of the kingdom That's where we are presently,
but there's a day when the kingdom will come in full manifestation
In the meanwhile, we are obeying Jesus's Word in Matthew 6 where
he says when you pray you pray our Father who art in heaven
hallowed be your name your kingdom come Obviously for Jesus the solution
to all of this crazy hellish stuff that's going on is the
presence of the kingdom, right? First, the presence of the kingdom
of God and the conversion of sinners. When a man or woman
is born again, the kingdom of God comes in power, doesn't it?
That's 1 Corinthians chapter 4, around verse 14. And then
we're talking about the coming of the kingdom of God finally
on the last day to solve all of this brooding evil that our
world is now facing, right? We believe that the only hope
for this world is the return of Christ. And that's what he's
stating here in verse 5, that you may be kind of worthy of
the kingdom of God for which you are suffering. So only suffering
that is for the kingdom is the kind of suffering that affirms
the worthiness of your call as a believer. Verse 6, seeing it
is a righteous thing with God to do what? Seeing it is a righteous
thing with God to do what? See the word recompense? That's
your word reward. As we will develop on next first
Sunday. Remember what we learned? God
will reward every man according as his word shall be because
he's a just God, right? So what Paul is doing is comforting
the believer with the fact that God will not let their suffering
go unpunished or unrewarded. There will be a reward for that.
And what will he reward them with? Tribulation to them that
trouble you. Tribulation to them that trouble
you. Well, notice verse seven and eight, and I have to get
to 10 because 10 is going to consummate my thoughts. And you
who are troubled rest with us when the Lord Jesus shall be
revealed from heaven with his mighty angels. See it? You who
are going through trouble rest. Now, how are you going to rest
in the midst of trouble? except resting in your soul through
the knowledge of God's promise that he's going to deliver you
through this trouble. You're going to glorify him by
it. The wicked are going to suffer because of it, and you're going
to be redeemed through it. But when? When the Lord Jesus
shall be what? Revealed from heaven with his
mighty angels. That's one of our words we'll
have to deal with next week. There are three words we've got
to deal with. Revelation, Apocalypse, Apocalypse appearing Epiphanius
and the coming of Christ or Kermi or Komi and Parousia are two
terms that are used for the coming of Christ where we have to deal
with this revelation. But in verse seven, it's saying
that there will be a day where Christ who has been revealed
to us in the gospel will be revealed when he comes or Komi and is
present Parousia to show the world that he is sovereign Lord
when he dispenses his mighty angels. Verse eight, in flaming
fire to take vengeance on them that know not God and that obey
not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. So you see the nature
in which Christ is coming? It will be one of vindication.
His coming will be a vindictive return to rescue his bride. Do you see that? To rescue his
bride. Verse nine, who shall be punished? The antecedent to who is the
ungodly, who shall be punished with everlasting destruction
from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power.
Do you see it? The phraseology there simply
means that the presence of Christ and the glory of his power will
so overcome the wicked that they will be utterly destroyed in
judgment everlastingly. Verse 10. This is a wonderful
concept. When He shall come not first
to destroy the world, though he must do that because his nature
is one of holiness and justice. You guys have learned about the
intrinsic quality of God in his glory, right? The intrinsic qualities
of God in his glory are seen in Exodus 33 and 34. I am the
Lord, the Lord God. I am he who exercises mercy,
long suffering. I am gracious. I am kind. I forgive. I will punish sin. I will destroy
rebels. I will not let iniquity go. So the two sides of the coin
of God's nature is mercy and justice. And that's what the
whole world is going to see when he comes. This is what we mean
by the revelation of God. Today, people don't believe in
neither God's mercy or his justice. Is that true? Yeah. Yeah. People are mad at God and
bitter and angry with God right now because they don't think
that God is a just God. I hope you know that we have
many categories of people like that. Your atheist fundamentally
who was a former agnostic, our former believer, believed in
the idea of a personal God who exercised vengeance and justice
upon the ungodly. But when he sees a world filled
with what appears to be delayed justice, he gets mad at God.
He says, where is God? Ah, there is no God. If there
was a God, he wouldn't allow all these things to happen. Have
you heard it before? They're mad at God because God's
timetable is not their timetable So I'm getting but the point
I'm getting that is that God will punish sin But right now
what he's doing is showing mercy Did you get that he's showing
mercy now Mercy is the front end of God's divine attributes
intrinsically Exodus 34 Justice is the back end of God's intrinsic
quality They will be executed too. That's why the judgment
is on the last day Every day you and I live and breathe and
have our being is a day of mercy for the ungodly to the God is
merciful to let the wicked raise his fist and cuss God out and
Call him evil and unkind and mean and wrathful and unjust. The only way they can do that
is the mercy of God. Right. And he's merciful to you
and me, too, because of our continual sin against him. Peter's argument account that
the long suffering of God. Leads to salvation. Because if
he wasn't long-suffering, some of us would be in hell, having
sinned so wickedly against God in the face of His grace that
He has shown us. But notice what it says in verse
10. And in my mind, verses 6 through
9 are parenthetical. Verse 5 and 10 go together. Verse
five, which is a manifest token of the righteous judgment of
God that you may be counted worthy of the kingdom of God for which
you also suffer when he shall come to be glorified in the saints. You see what I did? Did you guys
see what I did? I made verses six and following
six through nine parenthetical. I demonstrated that the primary
objective of God in coming is to glorify himself and his people.
That's his primary objective. Like his primary objective is
not that he can show the world how big his fist is. His primary
objective is to come get his people and bring us into this
thing called glory, of which I told you at the beginning of
the study, I can't fully unpack. Because I'm still willing, I'm
still reeling from it. But the idea of glory has to
be the measured, incremental, increasing, manifestation of
God's glory in all that he is and in all that he does when
he returns, including what happens to his saints. The glory of God
has to be that increasing manifestation of the beauty and splendor and
power and magnificence of all that he is and all that he does
as it manifests itself when he comes in the life of God's people
and upon everyone else. And what I mean by that is there's
a sense in which the glory of God encompasses men and women
perishing in hell as well. And that when it's all laid out,
God will be present with both his elect and the non-elect who
will suffer in an eternal torment in the presence of the Lord,
in the full reality of their conscious being, of which we
don't have now in this present life. While God's elect will
be in the presence of his glory, in the splendor, fullness, blessing,
and enjoyment of all of the promises of God, which are yes and amen
in Christ, that are given to them and promised to them in
this state called the glory. In the glory, where this mystery
that we are a part of now called the fallen life, the mystery
will be unveiled. God will be revealed. His elect
will see him face to face as metaphor, right? Revelation 21,
and they shall see his face. and they will rejoice and they
will be glad and there will be no more crying and no more tears
and no more weeping. They will serve him day and night
though there'll be no sun and no moon and no stars and they
will be in the presence of his glory forever and ever and ever.
That's the language, right? That same quorum Deo for all
of God's people will also include the quorum Deo or the presence
of the Lord for the destruction of the ungodly. Revelation 14
and 15 they shall be destroyed in the presence of the Lord and
the smoke of their torment shall go up Forever and ever in the
presence of the Lord. That's the picture. What that
means is this What that means is this when Christ returns Everything
that we're talking about by faith now will be a reality What that
means is every means by which there is a mediation or a veil
or a dividing wall or a separation between the creature and its
creator will be removed. Every veil will be removed. Every
barrier will be removed. Every partition will be removed.
Are you guys hearing me? Every boundary, every parameter,
everything that right now allows us to live in the presence of
an angry God will be removed. It'll be removed from our conscious.
It'll be removed from our physical being. It'll be removed from
our universe. And the heavens and the earth
fled away and there was no place found for them. Do you see the
picture? Everything moves out of the way.
Everything moves out of the way. Everything. Now, there are no
trees to hide behind. And we hide behind trees today.
Don't we hide behind trees today? We hide behind trees. We make
excuses for not bowing the knee to Christ because we can hide
behind the trees. We can hide behind the trees of time. I ain't
got time. We can hide behind the trees
of work. I'm too busy working. We can hide behind the trees
of our emotion. I'm too distracted. And that day we won't be able
to hide behind any trees. Are you guys hearing me? hiding
place on that day. And thus we will all stand before
the judge. The believer will be glorified.
The unbeliever will be resurrected. The believer will be judged according
to his works, rewarded or not. They will take their place at
the judgment seat with Christ. Daniel chapter 7, Psalm 149,
1 Corinthians chapter 5, Revelation chapter 21, and we'll sit in judgment of
angels and men. There will be a righteous judgment.
The rebels will be cast into a burning hell, whatever that
symbolism implies in its real, real form. And there will be
a new heavens and a new earth where in dwells nothing but righteousness
and all of God's people in it. That's the vision you guys got.
Now that's a Bible vision. Whether you, whether you know
it or not, you just got a Bible vision. Any questions, anybody
got any questions? Questions going once, questions
going twice, good. Now, I don't know who, you got
a question? Okay, what's your question? You
can talk up, he gotta run, but you can talk. It's back when you were talking
about the body. You got it. The body. The mic
has to turn up. The body. Up, up, not down, up.
Up. Good. The body. I always use
it, just start rapping. Okay. All right, Pastor. Okay, so my question has to do
with the body. You got to keep the mic up because
they can't hear you. The body. Okay. And how when people die, they're
reunited with their body is my understanding of what you said.
In the resurrection. And so then I'm just wondering
about Joan of Arc. because she didn't have a body.
Joan of Arc? Yeah, was burned. She does have
a body. Everybody has a body. So you
mean her burned body? Her burned body. Her charred
body? Her charred body. Her body that changed its form
but didn't change its substance? Because God made this universe
where nothing actually loses its ontology. It changes form,
but it doesn't change its ontology. OK, then what is What's wrong
with cremation? What's wrong with cremation is
it doesn't bear the testimony of the resurrection of a body
that's sanctified by God. So when you read in your Bible,
you never read the Bible ever promoting cremation. It always
warns against cremation and it demonstrates that by the ungodly
in the Bible being burnt up. For instance, in the days of
Nebuchadnezzar, What did he do? For those who rebelled against
him, he threw them into a fiery furnace. Almost all pagan religions,
which are a departure from Christocentric theology, deny the significance
of the physical body in the new life. They hold to a different
form. Are you going from one body to
another, but not an integration of both body and soul for eternity?
They all deny that. And this is what I'm saying Christians
do today. When they buy into Gnosticism, they think that it's
okay to throw the body away. And when you cremate just because
of the economic benefits, you basically are saying that the
testimony of the preservation of the body is not significant
enough for me to want to bear record that God has preserved
my body as well. And that's what you see in the
Bible with regards to believers. They were always buried unless,
of course, they were assaulted by the enemy. Always buried. Read Hebrews 11. Read the book
of Acts. That's what the whole point of
the resurrection. And look, ladies and gentlemen, smack dab at your
savior. Do you see how careful Joseph
of Arimathea was and Nicodemus was of wanting the body of our
savior? And do you see how careful our
sisters were with spicing his body? even though they knew that
there would be a resurrection. Because the promise was giving
to the believing people of God that the body would be raised.
And so Abraham and Isaac and Jacob would purchase burial plots
for the bodies. I got a feeling. I'm glad that's
a good question. One more question. I'll answer
one more. I saw a hand go up. My sister back there in the tan
back there. She looks like she might be from
France. With my kin, folks, hold on for a second before you respond.
I do have a feeling that one day, because of the voracious
nature of our political system and the economic trends and trajectory
of our present world, and because believers just don't sacrifice
anything, I believe that this conversation will be passe, that
there will be more cremations of Christians because of his
pragmatic implications, then there will be the arduous task
of preserving the physical body because it takes work to do that.
It takes work to make sure you die without putting an economic
burden on your family, which most of you will who didn't raise
your hands. If you die tonight, your family will have to come
out of the pocket with a minimum of three, $4,000, even if they
decide to turn your body into ashes. This is a tragedy that I find
happening all the time, particularly in African-American communities.
It's epidemic in African-American communities that they don't take
care of themselves in preparation for death. And they just leave
the task to the family. In the church, we're not paying
that bill. Just want you to know now, We're
not paying that bill. I got a whole bunch of bodies
stashed in the back right now. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. I pay
somebody to drive them out to Pleasanton out there in the big
pit and just open the back glass and drive at 100 miles an hour.
Do, do, do, do, do, do, do. But the church should not be
expected to pay a bill that the believer was negligent in. And
under those circumstances, I tell the family, do what you got to
do. Because that knucklehead believer had plenty of time to
go buy a very minimal insurance policy of $5,000 to $10,000.
And many funeral parlors know how to help people with that
now. You have a question with that, call my office. We've got
people that work with us who can help you with that. And this
is not to sell anything. It's just a dreadful thing when
we will consume money on coffee and cakes and clothes and temporal
things and leave that burden to believers. And it's just like
the argument that my sister is building, not in a pejorative
way that I'm saying it, but she's asking what's wrong with that.
She used Jonah as an argument. Well, the church knows that believers
have been being burnt up for centuries. We're being burnt
up right now in the Middle East. They're killing us, cutting our
heads off and burning us to pitch. That's not a problem in the resurrection.
But what we're talking about is witness. When you have it
in your power to bear record of the fact that you recognize
that your body is the Lord's and he's giving you the resources
and you live in a country where you can pay for it and do it. Even poor countries and third
world countries, they bury bodies 24 hours after they die. But
they bury them. They don't burn them. Are you
hearing what I'm saying? All right. Right there, my sister.
You answered my question with your last comment. My question
was, my auntie passed away trusting God as her Redeemer, trusting
in her salvation and what he did for her on Calvary. But she
was cremated. And my question was, in your
opinion, did she lose her salvation? Of course. It's not possible
to lose your salvation if you're truly, authentically born of
God. And it's possible that that may not have been her request.
But family members, again, being very opportunistic and giving
to wanting to save the money and not understanding witness.
And this trend is common today. Does that make some sense, ladies
and gentlemen? It's common. And I don't I don't mean to put
any burden on you on a financial level. In a sense I am. Let me turn
that around. In a sense I am, in this sense
I am, that if you actually have the money, but you want to play
hard, that's between you and God. I'm going to leave it like
this. If God graced you to be able
to have the money, but you decide to do it your way, Please understand
that there are consequences to everything we do, and especially
when we have the power to do it. There is always the law of
reciprocity. Always the law of reciprocity.
And when believers are doing God's will, which I don't find
many of them doing, I don't find that. I'm a pastor. I sit in
a position and I look at a lot of people all around the world.
Most Christians are very, very, very selfish. They're just glad
to be saved, which totally misses the point. When we practice ungodliness
on any level as the people of God, we strengthen the hands
of the wicked and the ungodly. And when we do it right, We glorify
God and that one believer that really needed a testimony of
how do you die for God's glory is liberated from the power of
consensus and trends and majority thinking. And then they do the
right thing. And I'll say, like my master
says, whatever you do in my name, you will not lose your reward.
Let's close in prayer. Father, thank you for this time.
Thank you for my brothers and sisters. As we go our way, give
us a traveling mercies, prepare us to worship on Sunday in our
respective churches. If it be your will, gather us
together again. We pray in Jesus name. Amen.