Address—R. Thonney
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Let's begin our meeting with #278.
You'll notice this This hymn is really a prayer.
And so let's challenge ourselves as we sing it.
That we sing it in sincerity to the Lord as a prayer. Savior, we long to follow Thee daily, Thy cross to bear it. Count all elsewhere ere it be unworthy of our care. Notice the last verse.
Oh, teach us, soul, the power to know of risen life with Thee not we may live while here below, but Christ.
Our life may be.
278.
Savior we long to follow.
Thee.
I miss stuck it brethren, somebody else help me.
And.
What were they all the art?
We are.
I love you, my love.
Sunshine.
Oh God.
My strength and grace.
Let's pray.
00:05:00
Like to start out with well known gospel verse in John 5.
In verse 24.
And read verse 24 and 25.
Verily, verily, I say unto you.
He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me.
Hath eternal life, everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation, but his past from death into life. Verily, verily, I say unto you, the hour is coming.
And now is when the dead shall hear.
The voice of the Son of God, and they that hear.
Shall live.
Want to speak on this subject of eternal life?
Where does it start? And here in both verses 24 and 25, you have a verse, a word that's repeated. It's hearing.
Starts in verse 24. He that heareth my word and believeth on him that sent me. It's often been mentioned that that's our part in this verse.
God's part in the remaining three things it says, Has everlasting life shall not come into condemnation, and his past from death unto life.
But it comes through hearing. Now notice verse 25. The hour is coming and now is that's this present time in which we live when the dead, these are not the physically dead, but the spiritually dead. The person has not accepted the Lord Jesus as their Savior. They are looked at as dead.
In trespasses and sins, no.
Life movement towards God.
Spiritually.
And it says, the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall live. This is a miracle. How do dead people hear?
You know, we might have stood outside the grave of Lazarus.
He'd been buried and was in the grave for four days.
And if we would have stood outside there, we could have hollered all we wanted and he would have never heard anything we said.
But there was one who came to that grave. He was the Son of God. And when the Son of God speaks the dead here, and he said Lazarus come forth. And Lazarus, even though he is all wound up with those grave clothes, the way they used to bury people, he came out.
Why? Because the Son of God, the One who created the whole universe, had spoken and said, come forth.
He had to come out and he did. And to me it is a most wonderful thing to see God communicating this new life, this eternal life or everlasting life. You want to put it that way? It's the really same word in the original.
Eternal life.
By his word.
You know, we're all born into this world through the natural processes and through the seed of a man. We have been born by a woman and we have natural life.
You and I didn't decide to be born, that was our parents choice.
I want to say to you something else. If you are born again, you did not decide to be born again either. You may at certain time have made a decision to accept Christ as your Savior. That's great, and that's important.
But even spiritual birth is because of the will, not of man, nor of the will of the flesh, but of God. And so God sends forth his word, and so often in the Scriptures it says he that has an ear, let him hear. Oh, if there's anything, I want to encourage you.
00:10:13
This afternoon is to open the ears of your heart.
Listen to what God has to say. I don't care if you don't particularly like my form of speaking and you want to ignore what I say, but listen to what God says because it's going to make an eternal difference. Listen.
Hear what he has to say, because when he speaks, even the dead here. And so begins a life.
Eternal life, What is eternal life? You know, I find that lots of people have the idea that eternal life, and it's not wrong idea is a life that never ends. That is true.
But so much more than that because I find that people think, well, I accept Jesus as my savior and I have eternal life now I'm going to live forever.
Yes, that's true, but it's far more than just living forever, and I'd like to look at a few portions of scripture that give us to understand what eternal life really is.
We're in John's Gospel, so let's turn over to the 10th chapter and the Lord Jesus is speaking here in the 10th chapter and we're going to read.
Verse 10.
The thief cometh not but for to steal.
And to kill and to destroy. Now this part.
I am come that they might have life and that they might have it more abundantly.
Your translation leaves more out.
That they might have life abundantly. Eternal life is life in abundance. It's not so much the duration of the life, it's the quality of the life. There are people that are living in prison and misery.
Would you call that abundant life? No, not exactly. They're living, but eternal life is life in abundance.
Let's look at the 17th chapter already read in this chapter this today, but in the 17th chapter, I want you to.
Read with me verse 3.
This is life eternal that they might know.
The the only true God in Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent. So eternal life. What is it? It is the life of knowing God and Jesus Christ whom he sent to me. It is the most wonderful thing to be able to say.
That eternal God that never had a beginning.
I know him.
Can you really say that? If you know the Lord Jesus, you can say that?
That's what eternal life is. It's not what I am, it's what He is. There's the focus on Him, not on us.
Oh, it's wonderful, brethren, to think about it. You and I can know God in the fullest sense of the word because of what the Lord Jesus did, because He came to reveal to us the Father.
And so annoying him, we are brought into the knowledge of God.
In all his fullness.
Often have mentioned that the Muslim religion says God is.
Unknown and unknowable.
Poor people, over a billion people in this world today pledge allegiance to a God that they don't know and that they cannot know.
And you say you know God.
That is eternal life.
00:15:02
The knowledge of the true God.
In the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. Another verse I want to read in First Timothy chapter 6. Actually 2 verses here.
Verse 12.
Paul is addressing Timothy here and he says fight the good fight of faith.
Lay hold on eternal life, where unto thou art also called, and has professed a good profession before many witnesses.
Notice verse 19.
Laying up in the store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come that they may lay hold on eternal life. If you look at the new translation, it says lay hold on that which is really life. You know, people think that doing their own thing in this world is living it up.
I'm going to tell you it is not living it up.
If you want to really know what living is.
Lay hold on that which is eternal life. In other words, there is a necessity of you and me to exercise our faith, to lay hold of something. And this is the exercise I have, brethren, is that I see young people.
They're doing so often their own thing and they're not satisfied, they're not happy.
Sometimes I say I'm bored.
Why? Because they don't know that.
They're not living the right life, the eternal life that God has set before us. They think that just living down here in this world and spending money and then doing things that they like to do, and this is life. That is not it. That's not what we're talking about.
And oh, brethren, I'd like to speak a little bit more about this life that we're talking about because there are some characteristic things that are very distinctive than the life, the natural life that we have here in this world.
When we're born, we're born with a sin nature.
And sin.
Is that which separates from God, because God is naturally is holy.
He is intrinsically holy. In other words, His Holiness is something that cannot be compromised.
And so if you and I are going to have fellowship with God, if we're going to know him, it's got to be on a basis.
Where sin has been addressed and the Lord Jesus came into the world with that purpose in mind to address that sin question, and he did it.
On the cross and this is the mystery of mysteries, the.
Eternal Son of God, the Creator of the universe.
Hung on a cross of wooden outside of Jerusalem.
Not only rejected by man, but in three hours of darkness.
God laid on him the iniquity of us all, and the storm of divine judgment fell on him in all its fury. For three hours the waves and billows Divine judgment broke over him.
Never understand it.
The eternal Son of God addressed that question. He settled it because before he died, he said it is finished. The work of redemption is done. God has been satisfied with what Jesus did, and then he died. He laid down his life.
Didn't stay dead.
Buried in the third day, he rose from the dead by the power of God.
And he is living now.
And now, because of what He has done on that grass, He offers eternal life to all those who will simply believe in Him.
But we have to understand this life, this eternal life.
00:20:05
Where is it? And I'd like to go back to Romans chapter 6 to speak about it a bit because it's important that we understand the position that God sees us in. If we are believers in the Lord Jesus, I know that there may be those who are newer in their faith.
In the Lord Jesus. But I want to say to you, this is true of you just as.
Much it is as the one who has been in the Lord for many years. This is true of you. So I want you to be able to understand the way God views you, your position before him. Now if you have believed in the Lord Jesus, notice the end of the 5th chapter and verse 20 it says.
Moreover, the law entered that.
The fence might abound, but where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.
For God's grace you cannot limit it. And if God is going to be gracious, he has to have a basis to do it on, and he does.
Because of what Jesus did on the cross. But now notice in chapter 6 and verse one.
What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? If we just keep on sinning, then grace will abound more and more. Is that the Christian position? Verse two. God forbid. How shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein?
Know ye not that so many of us as we're baptized?
Into Jesus Christ we are baptized into his death, therefore we are buried with him by baptism and to death. That like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, Even so we also should walk in newness of life.
So he says.
In Christ we are looked at as dead to sin.
Does a dead man sin? Have you ever seen a dead man sinning?
Might have been a person who is a drunkard all his life.
Always grabbing the bottle.
He died.
Now offer him a drink, will you? Is he going to stick out his hand to take it?
No, what happened? He died. And you and I, when we accept the Lord Jesus as our Savior, God looks at us as dead indeed unto sin.
What do you do with dead people?
Why you bury him? And so it says, we are buried with him.
By baptism into death.
So when a person is accepts the Lord as a savior and they're baptized.
That is.
Figure of burial.
Once the person is buried, do you go out and check in the cemetery and see how they're doing, open up the casket and see how they're doing once in a while?
No, you don't do that.
Why not? It's going to get worse every time you open that casket.
And I see young people, they start looking back at themselves and.
And they get terribly discouraged.
And they get depressed.
I want to say to you.
If you are a believer in the Lord Jesus, God looks at you as dead and buried.
Leave it where it has been put. It's not something that you and I do. It's something that God has done for us. We are dead and buried and it doesn't end there because it says at the end of verse four that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, Even so we also may walk in newness of life so we are identified with the Lord Jesus.
In his resurrection as well. In other words, the life that we're talking about, that eternal life, is a life that is beyond death.
00:25:05
I like to think of it this way sometimes, the life that I naturally possess.
In this world we live, and then the final is we die.
But in the life that we're talking about, this eternal life, death comes first, and then we have a life that will never, ever die. Not wonderful to think about. That life can never be touched.
Death may touch this body because it's connected with the first creation.
But it can never touch the life that I possess in the Lord Jesus. Wonderful realities. I know we understand these things to explain them, but what exercises me, brethren, is that it doesn't seem worth living the life that we have been given.
And I want to challenge you to live it.
So if you go down a little bit further in this chapter, notice verse 11.
Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lust thereof. Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin.
But yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your.
Members as instruments of righteousness unto God for sin.
Shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under the law, but under grace.
So here it says, Reckon ye yourselves to be dead indeed, and to sin.
Reckon simply as an old word we don't use too much today that means think this way.
Reckon ye yourselves think that you are really dead to sin and alive to God.
You know what my reaction was when I was younger? I don't feel very dead to sin. When their sins temptation around. I feel like doing it. There's something inside of me that says do it.
Yes, that's the sin nature that's there. But we are to think that we are dead to sin. And is there temptation for a dead man? As we've already mentioned, there's no temptation for a dead man. It's for a person that's living that there's temptation and we are dead indeed. And so when temptation comes.
We need to think this way.
Remember, when it presents itself, there may be inside you a impulse on the part of the flesh, because the flesh lusts against the Spirit and the spirit against the flesh, and these things are contrary to one another, so that you might not do the things that you ought to, but.
It's that we need to think God's thoughts about this.
Don't go by your feelings, merely go by God's word. Feelings vary. Feelings change. You can't trust them. Feelings are very real. I'm not going to say that they're not real. They are real. But don't trust your feelings. Trust the Word of God. Reckon ye yourselves to be dead, indeed unto sin, but alive unto God.
Remember when I was younger the struggle I went through?
In this issue.
Of things that I felt in my life were grieving to the Lord, and I would confess it to the Lord and say I'm sorry and I'd get up with more determination not to do it again.
And before I realized I was doing it again.
It was the struggle that sometimes I think we all go through it in a more or less in different phases of it depending on our particular personality, but.
It was a struggle and I finally came to myself and said what is the problem here? What am I not getting that I keep on doing this?
00:30:08
And then the Lord showed me the simplicity of His word.
You're dead indeed to sin. The next time the temptation came up, I said to myself, I'm dead to that, and there was no struggle at all.
It was just simply to think God's thoughts about it. And so I just want to express these things because if you're going to live eternal life, if you're going to lay hold of it, then I want to say it's on the other side of death in resurrection territory. That's where God sees us.
In chapter 6, we are dead to sin.
In Chapter 7, we're dead to something else. Look at.
Verse 4.
Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ, that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God. So we're not only dead to sin, we're dead to the law.
There's a dead man laying out on the floor there. Would you feel free to come up here and and give him the commandments of the law? Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy might, and with all thy strength, and with all thy soul.
Has no effect on him. He's dead.
That's our position too. You know what? If I was living, that law would be a stimulus to my fleshly nature. It provokes the flesh.
When God says to this sinful nature, don't do that, I want to do it. When he says do that, I don't want to do it because the flesh is contrary to God. Always is, always has been, always will be, never can be. Any change in that. That's why God has given us a completely.
New life in Christ eternal life, and so the sin, the the law is the.
Power of sin. In other words, it provokes sin into action. But since now I'm dead, I'm not only dead to sin, I'm dead to the law.
If there was a man that was condemned to die in the Cook County jail, I don't know how they do it here in Illinois.
Or they have capital punishment. I don't even know that. But if he was condemned to die tomorrow morning at 8:00.
That was the sentence of the law.
And tomorrow at 7:30, the jailer goes in to take him out so that he can be executed.
But he finds when he gets in there that the guy has died during the night.
What are they going to do with them now? Are they going to execute him?
No, why not?
He's dead. The law does not apply to dead people, it applies to people that are alive.
And so these are points to think about.
Then further down in this chapter, you're going to find that the person that's speaking here.
Is really struggling just notice it verse 14 for we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin.
For that which I do, I allow not for what I would that do I not, but what I hate that I do. You see the struggle that's going on inside them, pretty violent struggle. If then I do that which I would not, I can send into the law that it is good. There's no problem with the law. Problem is with me.
Verse 17.
Now then, it is no more I that doeth, but sin that dwelleth in me.
There is a positive step. He's learned something. What is it that it's not I that do it, but sin that dwells in him? There are two natures there that are battling it out, and that's why he's struggling. So. For I know that in me that is in my flesh dwelleth no good thing, for to Will is present with me. But how to perform that which is good, I find not.
00:35:13
You know, we're taught.
Especially in this country to have healthy self esteem.
I'm not sure what they would say about this verse 18. I know that in me.
That is, in my flesh dwelleth no good thing. And I think sometimes the reason there is such a struggle is that we do have a high esteem for what we are.
We have to realize that before God, there is nothing there that God can appreciate. Absolutely nothing.
Verse 19 For the good that I would, I do not, but the evil which I would not that I do. Verse 20 Now if I do that which I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me again I say he's.
Realizing now that there's two principles inside of him that are battling it out. One is that sin, nature, and then those of us who have been born of God.
There's the new nature and they are contrary to one another. And so there is this struggle, and it goes on to the end of the chapter when he says in verse 24, Oh, wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?
I understand that in Roman times, one of the punishments inflicted on for certain crimes was to chain a dead body to a person, and he had have to live with that dead body strapped to him until it completely rotted off of him. That's the figure of speech that is given here.
Oh, wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death.
And the answer is in verse 25. I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I serve the law of God, but with the flesh, the law of sin.
The answer is in the Lord Jesus.
We are now looked at as dead with Christ buried and risen again. Now notice in chapter 8 there is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus. What is your position in Christ Jesus? Isn't this wonderful?
You know, it's not looking at what we are, it's looking at who he is.
In the Old Testament, Noah built an ark and he and his household went into that ark, and God shut the door after he was in that ark. You might have asked, where is Noah? Don't see him around anymore. He's in the ark. And so they looked in that direction. All they could see was that ark with all its strength.
To save them from the judgment that was going to fall.
On this world we are in Christ Jesus, and worse, Christ Jesus.
He is there in the glory of God, in our position as in Him.
Is there any possibility that condemnation could fall on the Lord Jesus? Absolutely impossible.
And we are in Christ Jesus, no condemnation. But now notice verse 2. For the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. There's two laws, you might say, two principles of life.
The law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus. That's what's characteristic of Christianity. But then there's the law of the sin of sin and death that prevails in this world. And it's the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus that makes us free from the law of sin and death. Somebody has used the illustration of the law of gravity. If I let loose of this pen, what's going to happen? It's going to fall to the ground.
Are you sure this is going to happen every time? Yeah, it's going to always fall to the ground. You sure that sometime I let it loose, it might not go up and touch the ceiling? Yeah, I'm sure. Why? Because there's the law of gravity. It always is true.
00:40:02
What? We're going to introduce a different principle here. We're going to take a helium balloon and we're going to tie it to this pen, and now I'm going to let it loose. What happens? It goes up. Hey, what happened to the law of gravity? I thought you said everything always goes down. Yes, but you introduced a different principle, and that's what we're talking about here. The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.
To me, it is a wonderful thing to realize we have been made free.
From the law of sin and death. Now notice verse 3 for what the law could not do. Now it's if the context is the law of Moses here.
In that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh.
Notice how carefully it guards the Lord's.
Holy humanity and the likeness of sinful flesh. Not in sinful flesh and for sin condemned sin in the flesh. You know what? God Forgives our sins. But that sin nature that produces those sins God never forgives. He has condemned it once and for all.
When the Lord Jesus came, there was perfect goodness in him. And what happened to him?
They gave him the worst treatment possible. They nailed him to a cross.
They let him die there. God says the test is over. There's nothing good in man, in the flesh, absolutely it's condemned. And you know, sometimes we don't accept that. We think, oh, there might be something good yet in me. No, I know Paul said in Chapter 7 that in me that is in my flesh dwelleth.
No good thing, And so it's condemned.
That notice verse 4. The righteousness of the law doesn't say that the law might be fulfilled.
But the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in US who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.
Because the characteristic of a real believer is walking after the Spirit, not after the flesh. The flesh is still in us, but we are not in the flesh, we are in the Spirit, it says. And it's important to realize those things and to lay hold of them if you're going to understand what we've been talking about of laying hold of eternal life. Notice verse 5. For they that are after the flesh to mind the things of the flesh, but they that are.
The Spirit, the things of the Spirit.
What kind of things do you mind?
If I would go to your house.
I would go to your room.
Where you have the Internet.
And where you're looking at things on the Internet.
Would it be evident that you are living according to the flesh?
Or according to the Spirit, there are things that get ahold of people. *********** has been one that has been a terrible problem even amongst those that say they're Christians. And I want to challenge you. If you are a real believer in the Lord Jesus, are you living your eternal life? Or are you just kind of hold that off on the corner and say.
I'll take care of that sometime, but I want to do some of this other stuff too.
You are robbing yourself of the enjoyment of what God means you to have in eternal life.
Verse six For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life.
And peace, because the carnal mind is enmity against God, for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then they that are in the flesh, notice that cannot please God.
Pretty dramatic statement. They that are in the flesh cannot please God.
Notice verse 9. But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit. If so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. So Christian position is in the Spirit. So the flesh may impulse you to react in a certain way.
00:45:03
Don't give place to it.
Don't give your members as instruments of unrighteousness. You get up in the morning, commend yourself to God, and as you do so.
Present yourself to God as alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness.
Oh, it's wonderful when we can simply live this out in our lives. Dear brother and sister in the Lord Jesus, I just like to.
Read a few more verses that talk about this because I find it so challenging in the world that we live in.
Brethren, the life that we have is not a life of self pleasing.
The last Christian that came out was.
A pamphlet that said Self.
And that is the American way of life.
Have it your way.
You deserve it.
All the focus is on what we are. That is not Christianity.
Even Christ pleased not Himself.
The life that we have in the Lord Jesus is a life of self sacrifice.
Let's look at some verses before we get to the end of our time here in Galatians chapter two, well known verse, verse 20.
I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless I live.
Yet not I, but Christ liveth in me, and the life which I now live in the flesh. I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. To me that's beautiful.
What kind of life is it? He says. I'm crucified with Christ. Would you find it particularly nice to be crucified?
I'd find it pretty excruciating and sometimes to say no to that flesh of ours. We're not going to find it that pleasant.
But he says the life that I now live in the flesh, it's not I, but it is Christ.
And he says I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. It's a giving.
God is a giving God and He wants His people to be giving people. Brethren, we're living in such a tremendous world of need. I see the pictures of down in Haiti.
Just Lemoyne sent me the other day an article.
Of areas of Haiti, 90% of the dwellings have been totally destroyed.
Does that say anything to your heart? Mind?
Are we going to just say, well that's interesting and pass on?
Rather than that's not the life that we've been given, it's a life of giving. I don't know how the Lord may touch you to be exercised. There's not only Haiti, there's so many other parts of this world.
But to live in this life and just to live it up for ourselves as is the American Dream is not the answer. That is not laying hold of eternal life. And I must say I have found those who have given up their lives to serve others with sacrifice and let me tell you, it is the most rewarding thing there is.
That's the way we brought up in this land.
And I must say, to visit other countries to see poverty has been a challenge to me. Don't think I'm trying to point the finger at anybody here. I have to point the finger right at myself. I know that naturally speaking, I like to have things comfortable the way I like them to be.
That is not eternal life. Eternal life is to live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me. Go over to Colossians.
Colossians Chapter 2 we have what we've already mentioned.
Just going to point it out.
Verse 13, it says you being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, we're dead. Notice verse 12, buried with him in baptism. There's the second thing, we're buried.
00:50:19
We're in also. Ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead.
So we're dead bearing and risen again. Now go to chapter 3, verse one. If then ye be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God.
Set your affection or your mind on things above, not on things on the earth, for ye are dead.
And your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory.
Oh, this is wonderful.
We are if you are a real believer, you are risen with Christ.
And the exhortation is set your mind on things above, not on things on this earth.
Let me tell you, that speaks to my own heart a lot.
So often I come to the end of the day and say, how much time have I given to thinking of those things that are above? I'm afraid it is mighty small the amount I've been thinking about things about. But brethren, we are called not to earthly glory. There's going to be earthly glory in this world.
We're called to eternal glory, heavenly glory.
And are we not going to be thinking a little bit about it before we go?
That's what it's talking to us about here, the importance of setting our mind on things. Above says you are dead and your life is hid with Christ in God. In other words, the world around is not going to understand us because our life is hidden. What in the world those Christians live, they defy and they deny themselves as so many things I don't understand they might say.
Yeah, that's true, because our life is hid.
Verse four says, When Christ, who is our life shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory.
Now, this is the appearing, This is not the rapture that it's speaking about, but you know the.
Teaching of Scripture that at the end of that great tribulation period.
Is going to be what is called the glorious appearing or the appearing of the glory of the great God in our Savior Jesus Christ?
I think it will be the vastest display of glory that there will ever be in this world is when God introduces His Son into this world. At the end of that tribulation period, heaven is going to open.
And that man that hung dead on the cross is going to come.
With the myriads of heaven, all his Saints, and.
Also the hosts of the mighty angels.
You and I are going to be there. We are going to witness it first hand. We need to live in view of that day, that glory, that eternal glory.
Oh, brethren.
Are we just living, trying to get by down here in this world, just struggling, just kind of messed up in our thinking? Are we trying to please ourselves in some way? You know, when I see the Lord Jesus and his life down here, the simplicity of his life, He didn't have hardly anything.
He could say.
The birds of the air have nests, the foxes have holes. The Son of man has not where to lay his head. The glorious eternal Son of God, the Creator of the universe, did not have a place to lay his head. He probably spent a lot of the nights out into the stars.
You never have any record of him having a piece of money in his pocket.
When it was the need of others, he always had with what the wherewithal to supply it, but he did not do anything for his own pleasure. He had miraculous power to do miracles, to heal, to raise the dead, but he never did any miracles for his own benefit. That was not his life. That's not our life either.
00:55:24
To do things for our own benefit? Yes, a father is responsible to provide.
For his children and provide covering and food that is very clear in Scripture, but to be more simple in our living habits, brethren, the Lord help us to do that because we're getting down to the end when everything is going to.
Be left behind at a moment's notice.
O brethren, the Lord grant us that we could live in view of that coming day. Do you want to go back again to?
First Timothy 6.
To just read again that verse we read at the beginning.
Verse 12. Paul's injunction to Timothy.
Fight the good fight of faith. Lay hold on eternal life.
Or if I can paraphrase it, what it is in the 17th verse or in the 19th verse lay hold on that which is really life. Are you hearing me? Young people, older ones too? Are you hearing what God says?
Lay hold on that which is really life.
Let's pray.