Address—Don Rule
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Yesterday afternoon we.
Started.
The reading meeting by singing hymn #278.
I wish us to sing that same hymn again. And I want to emphasize before we start.
The first line of the Hem. Savior, we long to follow thee.
And verse four, thy life is now beyond the grave.
Verse 50 teach us so the power to know.
Of risen life with thee not we may live while here below.
But Christ our life might be. We'll sing the whole hymn 278.
Save your way.
I.
'M ready all the world.
We are.
Now.
Dreams, by the law of the day, our life.
Our.
Life's rain and grace.
It has been.
Alive, oh Lord, Amen.
Let's turn with me to begin to Mark's Gospel Chapter 3.
Mark's Gospel, chapter 3.
And verse 13.
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And he goeth up into a mountain, and called unto him whom he would, And they came unto him, and he ordained 12 That they should be with him, and that he might send them forth to preach and to have power.
Here's the Lord Jesus.
As he was here on earth.
And he calls.
Some to himself.
I look upon you this afternoon as a company of people that the Lord Jesus has called to Himself.
In order for the word of God, for the truth of God to.
Have its proper effect upon us. We need to make it personal.
I've recently started sometimes for myself using the expression. We need to personalize the truth.
And in order to.
I trust of the Lord to seek to make the truth personal. We're going to this afternoon together.
Take a journey with the Lord Jesus.
And I hope that as we take this journey in our hearts and in our consciences.
You will and I will respond to it personally.
Here the Lord Jesus.
Has taken.
Some personally.
For three things.
1St that they might be with him.
And 2nd.
That he might send them forth.
And further in sending forth.
That they might have power.
So in our journey this afternoon.
The first step.
We believe we have already been called to himself. Last night we had that calling to himself and I trust that each one in the room has responded to it. But now we find here a desire.
Of the Lord Jesus.
He says that they might be with him.
We're going to take the journey from a village to a village to a village.
And as we do so.
We're not going to go alone. In fact, we're not even the ones that chose.
The village, those that we go to.
We're going with someone else who's asked us to come with him.
And so this afternoon we would have the Lord Jesus.
Speaking to us.
And would say to you and to me, follow me.
We're going, and I trust here this afternoon that the response of my heart and your heart is to go. Yes, Lord, I want to go with you. I want to be with you.
Isn't that a nice expression of heart that they might be?
With him.
Then you consider this afternoon that there is anyone's company you would rather have this afternoon than the Lord Jesus.
Well, here in Mark.
He says that they should be with him.
We'll turn over to the same point.
In Luke's Gospel and see a little more about the journey in Chapter 9.
So let's turn to what the Lord says to us as we're about to begin a journey with Him.
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Luke Chapter 9 to get the context he says in verse one.
Then he called his 12 disciples.
You're not one of the original 12.
I'm not, we're not one of the next 70 that he calls, but we are equally called to go with him. And so you and I this afternoon.
Have the spiritual privilege. They had also the physical one, but we have the spiritual privilege.
Of going with him.
Now turn over to verse 51.
Luke 9, verse 51.
And it came to pass.
When the time was come that he should be received up.
He steadfastly set his face to go Jerusalem.
The first part of the journey that we're going to take with the Lord.
Is really in spirit the last trip he made on earth?
It's interesting in the gospels that a large part of the gospels are taken up with his last trip.
The same point in John's Gospel he comes to in chapter 12.
And in the whole of the John's Gospel, approximately, or close to half of it is about the last six days of his life.
John 12 one It's six days before the Passover, the Passover, the time of his death, And here we have him taking a last journey in spirit.
And so he sets his face steadfastly.
To go to Jerusalem.
Or he's going to die.
And he would say to you and to me in spirit.
This afternoon, will you go with me?
Are you willing to take the journey with me?
For me, and in spirit for you, the journey we're going to take together is going to end in death.
So they start out.
Verse 52.
He sent messengers before his face and they went and entered into a village.
Here's the first village they went to, the village of the Samaritans.
But verse 53 they did not receive them.
Those in Samaria.
It says of them they did not receive him because his face was set as though he would go to Jerusalem.
As a people, the Samaritans had nothing to do with Jerusalem. They had set up their worship elsewhere.
You remember the story of the woman at the well in Samaria, and she said to the Lord, we don't have anything to do with your people.
We're our own. And so perhaps as a word to the conscience this afternoon.
Is it possible that you didn't get the message last night and didn't receive him for yourself? Well, I say to you, the rest of us are going to go on a journey, but you're not.
You won't, you have said. No, I do not receive him.
And where he goes, he goes, my life goes my way, His life goes his way. And so you choose to stay there were the disciples who didn't have a right spirit about that at that point, and they didn't. They were ready for fire to come down from heaven and take care of the villagers there. That's not the spirit that he chose.
And so they.
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Go on.
Verse 56.
With the Son of Man has not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them.
And they went to another village. And so here we come with the Lord Jesus to another village.
And perhaps this afternoon in your own spiritual life.
Life.
You didn't start out this journey as the Lord did with the 12.
Or perhaps with the 70 that came after, but now the Lord's coming to the village where you live.
And are you going to join?
To be with him.
Well, here's what comes up.
He says verse 57 it came to pass as they went in the way.
A certain man said unto them, Lord, I will follow thee.
Whithersoever thou goest, here's one that says I'm willing calls him Lord. I'm going to go with you.
Let's take the journey wherever you go. I'm ready to go.
I'm perhaps at first enthusiasm or whatever, as a young person, we reach that point where we say yes, Lord.
Whatever you say, I'm ready. Let's go.
The Lord is not like we are in many things and so.
He immediately responds to that statement of the man. Maybe that man or woman is you, and he says to you or to me. Verse 58 Jesus said unto him, Foxes have holes.
Birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man hath not where.
To lay his head.
He sang in response.
Following me.
As a cost.
Not free.
The world would say it's not all fun and games. There's a seriousness about it.
And in fact.
It means.
Giving up?
Having a nice little comfortable.
Place for yourself on Earth.
We all kind of naturally like to have.
A nest.
Or a bird type, A place that we consider ours, our home, our comfort zone, the place that we can be and enjoy for ourselves and others.
And so we wherever we tend to be, we tend to be nest builders.
We tend to find something that we can be comfortable with and settle down in.
The Lord said I don't have it and if you're going to go with me on this journey.
And be with me. It's something that you need to count the cost.
Here's what it is. We don't know. It doesn't tell us how that person responded. I don't know how you yourself this afternoon respond to the call.
It we don't know about this person, but you know.
You know, he knew whether he left his nest and started down the road with the Lord or he didn't.
So there's another person there in verse 59, he says to another. Follow me.
Here. The Lord asks.
This one, the first one volunteered. Perhaps you didn't exactly volunteer to follow the Lord. You didn't say in your heart this afternoon. Yes, Lord, I'll go wherever you go. Just that I hear you're going to take a journey. I want to go too.
But the Lord says to this one.
Again, I say my burden is make it personal. Make it personal for yourself.
Imagine.
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That the Lord Jesus right now.
Is speaking to you as an individual and he says to you, follow me.
Follow me.
We get a response to the Lord's request or statement.
The response is Lord. That's a good not first word, isn't it Lord?
Lord means to acknowledge the authority of that person.
You probably didn't say Lord to a single other person in this room, and probably will. Not this weekend.
That word Lord is not used for everybody in every situation.
It is a word that speaks to us of one who we recognize as authority over us.
And it's a statement of giving respect to that person, Lord. And so the first word is a good one, Lord.
You said follow me.
But what are the next words?
Suffer.
Me first to go and bury my father.
Suffer means allow. We don't use suffer in this way.
In our present vocabulary, very much the word we would use is allow, Lord, allow.
Me first.
To go and bury my father.
2 words I want to give emphasis to here me and my.
Me is pretty important Speaking of the first person, right?
When we use the word me or my, we're talking about ourselves, and we are talking about ourselves in a very personal way.
We say, I say to you, please make it personal.
To yourself this afternoon, in your heart. And so here it's me and my.
I say Lord, but when it comes to walking out of town, down the road with the Lord and leaving the nest.
Am I like? Is this my response?
Don't just be a visitor listening to somebody else. Talk to somebody else. It's not the Lord talking to this man this afternoon. It's the Lord talking to you and me.
And the Lord says to you, follow me.
Do you have a response of me first?
You say Lord, yes I recognize your claim over me, but does the response also say me first?
And my father.
I have some.
Claims for myself.
Me and mine.
And yes, Lord, I recognize you as Lord, but I have something. Let me do it first, and then after I've taken care of my things, then I'll follow you.
I would suppose that the Lord left the village with that man left behind or that woman left behind.
So he turns to another.
Verse 61.
And to another also the Lord said, Lord, I will follow thee.
Same starting point.
But notice what he also says.
But let me first.
Go and bid them farewell, which are at home at my house, my nest, my house.
It's repeated in spirit twice here, showing us.
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But these are things that.
Very basically.
May keep us.
From taking the journey with the Lord.
There's something in our heart, there's something in our life, there's something that we call our own.
That comes first.
Very legitimate, very natural things that are talked about here.
My house, my family.
My things.
We would say they're all legitimate.
As far as it goes, they are.
But are they first?
Or is the Lord's claim first?
Surreal test.
It's not an easy test.
It's easy for me in a certain way to say the words.
Because their words.
But it's quite another thing that those words that I don't doubt that you understand.
I've learned something a little bit. I've repeated it a number of times in recent months.
My wife to be and I exchanged 16 months of letters.
During courtship and engagement.
And I found in rereading those letters.
That were saved.
At the time I was 20 years of age.
There are a lot of things that I understood and believed of this book.
I understood what I'm talking about this afternoon in my head.
And I do not doubt that as you stand in the room or sit in the room this afternoon, what I'm saying to you, you're not having much difficulty understanding up here.
But in making the truth personal to you, whether you are.
20 years old, Oregon. 15 years old, Oregon. 50 years old.
Or older.
It's only for me, roughly 6 feet from here to my feet, but unless what's in the head gets to the feet, you're not going to go with the Lord Jesus.
And I have found some things that have been in my head 50 years and more haven't traveled 6 feet to the feet.
To walk in them, it's a serious and solemn thing to recognize that to get from here down to the feet, to walk with the Lord, there's a heart and there's a conscience in between, and the truth of God needs to get through the conscience and reside in the heart, and then the feet will follow.
And so for you and for me, the challenge is the Lord's heading to Jerusalem.
Are we going to, he picks us up here at the village, Are we going to go with him or is it just going to be something in the head? We say, Lord.
But then the hindrances but small 2 words me first.
And we stay at our nests.
OK, we're going to continue this, not here in the gospel, but we're going to take it up in a figurative way or in a picture story way in an Old Testament story. Go with me to 1St Kings.
Chapter 19.
Here in First Kings Chapter 19, we're going to pick up the story of a journey connected with.
Elijah and Elijah.
And we're going to look at Elijah as a picture of the Lord Jesus.
And our story and our journey, and we're going to look at Elijah as ourselves.
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So we're going to pick it up here at the point at which.
Elijah comes into the life.
Of Elisha.
And in First Kings chapter 19.
Verse 19. First Kings, 1919.
And so he departed. That's Elijah. He departed thence and found.
Elisha, the son of Shaphat, who was plowing with 12 yoke of OPS in before him, and he with the 12Th. And Elijah passed by him and cast his mantle on him. And he left the oxen and ran after Elijah and said, Let me, I pray thee, kiss my father and my mother, and then I will go follow thee. You get that from the story we've been reading.
Of the Lord. And he said unto him, Go back again, for what have I done to thee? And he returned back from him, and took a yoke of oxen, and slew them, and boiled their flesh with the instruments of the oxen, and gave unto it the people, and they did eat. Then he rose and went after Elijah, and ministered unto him. I just pick up the story back here to get a connection to what we've just read.
We're going to look at Elijah as.
His last journey of his life as the Lord took the last journey of his life and the villages through which he passes and.
Elijah is.
To go with them and he has his challenge.
Until he says yes, and he goes, and maybe you've had your challenge and your soul about truly following the Lord through this life in which you're living and going with Him in it. And you may hesitate, but we will assume that you say yes and you're willing to take up the journey. So let's pass over to 2nd Kings Chapter 2.
Where we will perhaps spend the rest of our time.
Second Kings chapter 2.
And verse one, and it came to pass when the Lord would take up Elijah into heaven by a whirlwind, that Elijah went with Elijah from Gilgal. We're going to look at several villages here that have meaning in Scripture and we're going to take thoughts from the general meaning of that's associated with those villages in the journey.
But the point is, the Lord Jesus was going to Jerusalem and his journey.
That meant death.
And here this is the last journey of the life of Elijah, as it was a last journey for the Lord Jesus, and he is going to be taken out of this life.
And so.
Elijah.
Is going to heaven in a whirlwind, and Elijah goes with him.
1St place they leave as Gilgal and verse one it says he went with Elijah from Gilgal.
This psalmist suggested this is not the same Gilgal that the children of Israel went to as soon as they crossed the Jordan River into the Promised Land with Joshua.
But I'm going to use the name Gilgal and what it stands for, whether it's the same place or not.
Gilgal, when the children of Israel came into the land, was the place they first went to. Before they had any battles or any conflicts in the land of Israel, they went to this place.
And there they were circumcised.
Circumcision has to do with the cutting off and a separation, and we're not going to try to get deeply into that, but I'm just going to take the thought.
To follow the Lord Jesus.
Requires the willingness.
To go with him.
When it requires separation.
Separation from those things.
That attract the flesh.
Let me illustrate it in a practical way.
You may say I'm following the Lord Jesus in my life.
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Let's take last week.
A week of your life and mine.
And I'm going to turn it around as if instead of you last week followed with the Lord Jesus, with the Lord Jesus was going with you.
Would you feel comfortable?
If you stop and think about it, that everything you did last week.
You were happy and content and comfortable to have the Lord Jesus participate in it.
Everything you watched or saw.
Everything that you occupied your time with.
Everything that you did and how you did it, you were very comfortable and content that the Lord Jesus was right at your side. Last week they picked one week.
I find that pretty challenging for my own soul.
But it isn't that reverse it.
Gilgal in one sense is a reminder to take a journey with the Lord.
Is to be willing to be separated from anything and everything that he would not participate in.
But to go with him?
In those activities, in those patterns of thought, in that behavior, in that activity that he would be involved in.
Another thought about it is Joshua, a picture of the Lord Jesus after the people were in the land. We read the life of Joshua and we find that he very, very frequently.
Went to Gilgal himself and in fact when people wanted to.
Have a meeting with them. They went to Gilgal to see him.
I just suggest to you that it was a place of strength.
Was a place of separation, but it was a place of strength.
And our strength is independence on God, not ourselves.
And so, to go with the Lord Jesus, he was often found himself alone on the mountain.
His place of strength and fellowship with God in prayer.
If we're going to go with the Lord Jesus.
We have the assurance that the path that he takes and the path that he leads us into and with himself is a place of separation and strength.
So verse two, Elijah says unto Elijah, Terry here I pray thee, for the Lord has sent me to Bethel, you know.
When you're taking a journey, there are lots of opportunities generally, probably many of you, if you traveled much distance to get here, you stopped at least at the gas station or for food or some of you perhaps even for overnight lodging and so on. There isn't a journey multiple times where there's different villages and there is stopping and.
In the spiritual journey, there's also the opportunity to stop.
And not go on.
Something that attracts, something that gets the eye, as we had yesterday afternoon. All the kings of Israel that had a good start and a bad finish. They stopped somewhere along their journey.
And something else got their attention, or their heart, even the best of them.
Had that tendency, like Solomon, one of the greatest, stopped.
When his heart got attracted to something other than walking with the Lord.
And so here there's this question. I'm going on to Bethel. Were you, are you going to stay here? Are you going to go on with me?
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Lord in one sense didn't force the disciples to keep going. They didn't beat Him into subjection. It was a matter of their own hearts responding to Him. And you will find on your journey of life, if it's with the Lord, that he's not going to beat you. He's not going to force you to take the go on with him to the next village.
He's going to encourage your heart to do it. He's going to give you something to draw out your heart to himself.
But God loves a cheerful giver. God loves one who is willing and responsive. And thank God the Spirit works to make us that way. But here he goes on to Bethel.
That's all you remember in the history was.
Jacob.
I don't know 1500 years or more or 500 years or more before this.
Jacob had been fleeing.
And he?
Comes to this place and he puts his head down and he's ministered to by angels.
And he's given a message from the Lord to encourage him, and he says, surely this is the House of God. That's what Bethel means, the house.
The House of God El Bethel.
He says this must be the House of God. He found God there.
In the angels who minister to him.
If you go with the Lord.
The Lord is going to take you to God's house.
Even in your journey.
We're going to have the joy of coming in spirit into the House of God.
Enjoying the privilege and the fellowship of it. That's the trip the Lord Jesus takes.
And.
Another factor that's important in the Bethel is later on in the life of Jacob.
Some of his family got taken up with idolatry and there was idols in the household.
But, you know, sometimes in the path of life, we or those that are identified are part of our families or with us in some way or another. Sometimes idolatry. What's idolatry? It's anything.
That has a place in my life.
More important than the place God should have.
Anything that's.
Is becomes a substitute for the place that God should have in my life is an idol.
Doesn't have to be a physical image.
And in its sense to us, probably none of us in this room have such an image.
I'm confident we don't, but it's very possible.
For us to have something that gets a place in our life.
Solomon.
The greatest of all the kings, in his honor and glory.
In his personal life got carried away first with many wives and then by their idols.
And so his heart was taken away from the Lord by it, and.
Here they come to Bethel and with the Lord Jesus. And for Jacob he was told, you get back to the House of God, and he did so. And when he went back to the House of God, it was an exercise to his conscience, and the idols were put away.
And the Lord would take us to his house.
In that way that it would bring us back to himself and separate us.
From anything that's at that point has a more important place in our lives.
So we journey with the Lord. We go to Bethel.
We don't stay there, he says.
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Verse four, we're going to have to skip a little in view of time. Verse four, it says.
And Elijah said unto him, Elijah, tarry here, I pray thee, for the Lord has sent me to Jericho.
You remember Jericho was the place that when the children of Israel first came into the land.
They had to fight the people of Jericho, the high walled city.
And there was conflict there.
The Lord.
I deface.
The world.
When he went to Jerusalem.
He had to face the whole power of Satan.
Arrayed in Satan's greatest effort to turn him aside at this the beginning of his public ministry, Satan came and tempted him, and then he leaves him alone for a time, and he comes back with all the power he could Marshall at the time of the Lord being in Jerusalem, to turn him aside from being faithful and going on.
To death.
And so.
Elijah was going to have to or have the privilege of going with the Lord even to the place of conflict and to the place where the Lord Himself.
But if you.
We remember it was a hard place. Do you remember how John acted? Do you remember how Peter acted when they were with him on the journey?
Remember how the rest of the disciples were affected by the way John and Peter acted in the upper room and the last time when they instituted the breaking of breath, and how they went out from there and Peter faced the palace. He went that far with the Lord.
But then he had to go out and weep bitterly when he came short. And so here it was not easy, not easy thing in reality, to truly follow the Lord all the way.
So they go from there.
And they come to the Jordan verse 7 and.
The 50 men of the sons of the prophets went and stood to view afar off, and they too.
Stood by Jordan.
It's very personal. You know there may be 50 people in the room to view you.
But when it comes to the choices we're talking about, it's personal.
The others, in that sense view you.
But your response this afternoon isn't to the person next to you. It isn't to the 50 others that my or more 150, whatever others that might be viewing.
It is they too, that you and the Lord.
That's before his heart this afternoon. It's the Lord in your heart that have to connect, not somebody else in the Lord or not us and the Lord here. So he says they too went over on dry ground.
And it came to pass, when they were gone over, that Elijah said. Elijah said unto Elijah, What shall I do for thee before I'm taken away? Now again, our time's passing quickly. But this is a picture. The crossing of the Jordan is a figure of going through death.
And here we see the Lord Jesus.
In figure.
He's gone through death.
And he's on the other side.
Colossians tells us that's what we do if you be dead with Christ.
Colossians says to us, if he be risen with Christ.
And so in our spiritual journey with the Lord Jesus, as he goes into death, we are seen as going into death with him. And we are seen in the way the New Testament presents the doctrine to us. We're seen as coming up on the other side of death.
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And we're with the Lord still.
But with the Lord. And so the two of them are together.
But look, now we come to a point of parting.
Verse 9 Gain to pass When they were gone over the Elijah said to Elijah, Ask what I shall do for they before I'm taken away from thee.
And Elijah said, I pray thee, let a double portion of my spirit be upon thee. And he said, Thou sask a hard thing, nevertheless, if thou see me when I'm taken up, it shall be so unto thee, but if not, it shall not be so. And it came to pass, as they still went on and talked, that behold, there appeared a chariot of fire, and horses of fire imparted them asunder. And Elijah went up.
And a whirlwind into heaven. And Elijah saw it.
Quickly turn with me to Acts chapter one. We'll continue the story.
Acts chapter one.
Verse six. When they therefore were come together, they asked him, saying Lord.
Wilt out this time. Restore again the Kingdom Israel. Here's the Lord Jesus.
On the other side of the Jordan, here's the disciples and figure on the other side of the Jordan with him.
The other side of death.
And he's getting ready to separate from them. They're not going to be able to continue with him in the same way, in the same journey. And so here they've been with him and he's ready to go up.
And he's going to depart from them. And if we had time, we'd read it here. They watch him until the cloud receives him out of their sight. But he says to them, But I'm going to give you, as he had promised, to ask the Father for them. I'm going to give you power.
And the Holy Spirit descends.
And in.
I'm looking at a room, I believe, full of people.
In which God the Spirit is in.
You.
Sit there in your seat.
And the Spirit of God.
Is within you.
Is that sufficient power to walk?
Is that enough? He says that they might be with him and that he might send them forth.
With power.
In a few minutes we have we're going to talk about the sending forth.
We've had a journey with the Lord.
And we've gotten to go with him.
All the way to death and on the other side of it.
But now we are to go forth, and here's the key point in the power of resurrection.
You know, back in Elijah.
It's time at the end of that chapter 2, if you read it, there were some of the prophets, the sons of the prophets, and they say let's go look for him. And they tried to find him, but they were trying to find him on the wrong side of death. They said maybe Elijah's still here, let's go look and they wanted to take.
And embrace him as they had had him before there were some young children.
Who said go up, thou bald head, go up? And what were they saying? They didn't believe in the truth of Elijah and resurrection going to glory.
Another point that's there is he goes back.
To Jericho.
And the people of Jericho say it's a nice place here, except the waters. Not pure.
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And so they trace the source of the impure water.
And in figure.
A lie secures the water with the salt, and it becomes pure, and the Lord Jesus is going to go to the source of the impure water of the world.
At the time that he sets the world right in the Millennium, and he's going to make it pure.
But the point for you and I this afternoon, I believe, is this.
If you live.
On the other side of the Jordan, in the resurrection life, you will recognize that the whole system of the world in which you live, no matter how pleasant it appears on the outward, it's missing one thing, they said, and that was pure water.
The water was polluted. You will find that the system, the whole system of the world in which you live, is madly deadly.
Trying to make it a pleasant place.
But the source is polluted because Christ has no place in it.
He's been crucified from it. He's on the other side of the Jordan in heaven. And if you're going to live.
As sent forth by him to be a light for him in this world you've got to live.
On that side, the resurrection side, and recognize that you're serving him as light and testimony for him in a place he is no longer at himself.
But it must be in the sense of your soul that you live.
On the resurrection side.
You've got a life that belongs to the resurrection side.
You have eternal life that doesn't belong to this world.
That's the life God gave you that doesn't belong to this world. I was thinking this morning.
In the reading meeting, God introduced time.
For a temporary purpose.
He introduced the wonders of the creation for a temporary purpose.
So that He could have us, mankind, and bring us into a relationship with Himself, that we would participate in eternity with Him as His children and as His family. Are you going to live for time?
That's the other side of the Jordan. Or are you going to live for eternity?
And spend your time, as He did for its temporary purposes, of drawing us into that which is eternal. Are you a light to your neighbor, to your fellow man of that which is eternal, that which is beyond the time? Or are you going to live in your nest for time?
And have a lost life.
Or are we going to go with the Lord Jesus all the way?
1St in our spiritual experience to the Jordan.
To cross it, to watch our Lord ascend into the glory.
And the rest of our lives spent as a testimony sent forth for the Kingdom of God's sake, of that which is in the glory.