Address—Bruce Conrad
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Let's start our next meeting by singing together hymn #141.
141 in deep eternal counsel.
Before the world was made.
Before its deep foundations on nothingness were laid, God purposed us for blessing.
And chose us in his son.
To him to be conformant when here our course was run 141. If someone could start the tomb that's local to here please.
It's great.
Let's turn, first of all, to a verse in First Corinthians chapter 3.
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And verse 11 for other foundation can no man lay than that is laid which is Jesus Christ. Now if any man build upon this foundation, gold, silver, precious stones.
Wood, Haystable. Every man's work shall be made manifest, for the day shall declare.
It's not my thought to take up building.
But I have been thinking of late of these first three aspects as kind of broad categories.
In one way of looking at it as of the truth of God.
There's gold, there's silver.
There's precious stones.
As I was pondering this on the way here.
I thought of how in Genesis chapter 24. I can turn to it really quickly here.
When the servant arrives at his destination.
And is taken to the family of Rebecca.
In Genesis 24 verse 53, the servant brought forth jewels of silver, jewels of gold, and raiment.
And gave them to Rebecca. He gave also to her brother and to her mother. Precious things.
The gold.
To me in scripture.
Speaks of the wonderful divine glories of God and God's Son.
Our brother yesterday in the address, clearly his exercise was to take up the gold.
The study of that line of things will absorb the rest of our days if the Lord tarries.
The glories of God in Christ.
I remember once my wife and I were reflecting.
Upon a gospel meeting we heard at a conference.
And the brother that stood up on that Saturday night?
Spoke about Christ, the eternal Son of God.
I don't remember all that was taken up.
Because all he spoke about in the gospel.
The good news, The gospel.
Of the glory of Christ.
After all, it is the gospel of God. It's his good news.
And the next morning at the Lord's Supper at the Lords Table, it was stunning.
I don't know one of the word to use. It was striking the tone that the Spirit of God had in our hearts, having taken up the glories of Christ.
And I applaud our brother for taking it up. And I told him when he sat down we should have a lot more of those kind of meetings.
And us brothers and sisters.
Would do well to steep ourselves more.
In the wonders of God's beloved Son, He is the center.
Of everything.
He's the nail fastened in a shore place and every glory.
Is hung and depends upon that nail.
It's the center of God's counsel.
His purpose?
And Christ as all, as the apostle could say it in all.
And that's what you and I are going to experience for all eternity.
But then it says silver and silver is.
A common figure or symbol in the Scriptures of Redemption.
And these things kind of blend together because it was the person that did the work.
The person as we had before us this morning that added all the value to the work.
And the work glorifies the person.
The silver has to do with the truths of the Gospel.
Redemption.
Justification.
Sanctification.
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The purchase.
Reconciliation, propitiation, we heard in prayer this morning.
These are lifetime delightful, precious subjects to be occupied with young and old.
If I could say this, if you'll bear with me not being too out of place and saying this.
But I sometimes feel that we denigrate the gospel.
Of the grace of God, or that is its preaching.
By.
The way we assign it.
How we take it up in the local assembly?
I don't mean to be to be toss a hand grenade into everyone's situation.
But you know, the Gospel is an exalted, exalted subject.
We would know nothing of it except God has given us a revelation of it, brought it down to us at the cost of the life of the everything of His own Son.
We don't assign the gospel meaning we ought not to.
To every male that's over 16 years old or something like that.
It's not the truth of Scripture as we have it in the assembly. Going off topic here, I admit.
To just have every male get up here and practice.
Telling the Gospel.
Before the Saints on Lord's Day night.
Scripture assumes that ministry is the exercise of a gift given from the risen Christ.
And the assembly is one of those spheres in which those gifts are exercised.
And that the local assembly is exercised to have the gospel preached.
Then the scriptures would say it needs to be someone who has the gift for that.
Now there are I'm sure brothers that are 16 or 18 or 20 or 22 or whatever age that have that gift and gives take development.
But brethren, let's not just look upon the gospel as like the bottom rung of ministry. It's not.
And let's not weary the Saints being very plain.
By putting up those that do not have the gift for that.
Yes, that has become customary amongst the gathered Saints.
But there's a guy, and that's what you and I have.
Does that mean only two or three brothers out of 100 or maybe gifted to teach or to preach the gospel? Maybe so in the assembly? Does that mean the other 99 or the other 97 or the other 150 sisters or no?
Because there is an aspect where all God's people are priests.
And it's part of our priestly privilege and our priestly function.
To tell the gospel. To share the gospel.
To be pondering the gospel.
If we're in communion with Christ.
The love of God is expressed in the Gospel of the grace of God will ooze out of our pores.
And that's everywhere and every day.
My younger sister got saved in her early 20s.
And we were reflecting.
How we had been taken to Sunday school religiously from when we were.
Potty training.
And I said, you know, I never remember hearing the gospel.
What I heard was just Jesus came and everything's good, so just go on and live a nice life.
And she said, you know, I did hear the gospel.
When I was six years old, it's in the playground and Scott Mcclay was on the swing next to me, and while we were swinging, he told me about being saved and he told me that Jesus was coming.
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And she said, you know, I had forgotten about that, but I remembered it those 1516 years before.
I'm not opposed, certainly, who would be to the gospel of the grace of God.
But this precious silver and the truth of it?
Should be taken deeply seriously by us.
And not a bolt on.
Brother spoke at the end of the breaking of bread.
Yeah, I know he was overtime. Yeah, I know.
Western We in the Western world, we're all.
Get sideways about that someone's due.
But.
You know he was sharing the precious silver.
The gospel, the truth of the gospel, the grace of God. And I thoroughly enjoyed it. I'm sure you did too. I'd like to have heard that right through lunch.
I could have skipped lunch and I said keep going.
Wonderful.
Young brothers and sisters.
Dig in and educate yourself.
It'll take you the rest of your life.
On the truth.
Of the work of Christ.
What he has done, the effect of it.
It stirs the soul.
It's the foundation of our joy and worship Lord's Day morning. It's the foundation of what we say in the gospel.
That's the silver you'll see. You saw in Genesis 24, the silver came first and then the gold.
Than the garment, and that's the way it is in the order in our lives.
Generally we hear the gospel and we lay hold of it for ourselves.
And then we start to learn who it was.
The glory of the one that did that work.
We maybe just touched the hem of his garment and we're made whole.
And then we go on to learn about the gold.
But my exercise, and I guess you wouldn't know it because I've used up a lot of time already.
Is the precious stones.
The precious stones is that aspect where the Lord Jesus is occupied.
With you and me as individuals.
Preparing us for our eternal destiny.
And as we know, He could have saved us. We were fit for heaven the moment we put our trust in Christ.
One of these little boys and girls this morning.
Decided today was the day when they would put their trust in Christ. They're all as ready as the oldest St. in here.
But God has a purpose and I hope to take that up a little bit.
In the precious stones.
You, if you put your trust in Christ, are a precious stone.
Now, the word precious in English language has a connotation. It's kind of a a feminine word.
You know you don't hear. You don't hear men ever use the word precious, do you?
I don't know how it is in Spanish, maybe it's a similar. I don't know if the connotation is the same.
But, you know, I've heard my boys use it, you know, in facetiousness, you know, to to the younger brother say, oh, that's precious.
And they're, they're adopting the feminine.
Side of things. You hear women and the grandmothers and look at the little baby and say, oh, aren't you precious?
It has that connotation.
It's not the way it is in the original language, precious. I think it's stimulus.
It means highly valuable.
Highly honored. Deeply esteemed because of its cost.
It's not some sort of sentimental.
Sappy.
Sweetness.
It's better than that.
Precious stones. They're precious because of the cost.
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And I don't intend to go on a word study.
I'm not sure Paul uses the word again in his epistles.
And we all probably know that Peter does a number of times in his offices.
He speaks of the precious blood of Christ shed for you and me.
And then he goes on to speak about.
He is referring to Christ, the preciousness.
And he quotes passages from the book of Isaiah and elsewhere in the Psalms, referring back to the prophetic Scriptures that spoke of Christ's coming as the chosen One and as the shore foundation.
He is precious, and to us who believe he is the preciousness.
He also speaks about.
Exceeding great and precious promises.
And he speaks of our faith as precious.
Why is your faith precious?
The faith that you have, that you've been given.
Is like a. It's like a.
Hopper or hoot?
And it it effectually brings all the value of the work of Christ, and all that he has won is a victorious man.
The breadth of all that, all the valuables work.
It's flooded into your life.
To your account.
You and I now have his liberty, his life.
We are to have His joy and so on. What a thing faith is just opens up that floodgate of blessing for you and me.
In the beginning of Paul's of Peter's epistle.
I think it's in the first chapter, he says.
Pick it up first, Peter One.
Say, I don't mean to dwell on this too long.
Verse seven of the first chapter, The trial of your faith.
Being much more precious than of gold that perisheth there would be tried with fire.
Might be found to praise and honor and glory at the.
The appearing of Jesus Christ.
It's it's ponderous, isn't it?
How when Abraham offered was about to offer Isaac?
And the Lord restrained him and provided a substitute.
And he says, now I know.
Thou fearest God.
Didn't he know before? Yes, he knew before.
But it was proven.
The trial of our faith is like that. It proves out.
What God has put there and what he seeks to perfect.
The Lord Jesus, when He ascended on high, gave gifts unto men. Why? For the perfecting of the.
Saints for those precious stones.
Now let's turn to Romans chapter 8.
It may not be something you're used to hearing or that I'm used to hearing.
That our blessings in Christ as individual.
Take the highest place.
Clearly.
The Scriptures of the New Testament and the types in the old weave together both our collective privileges and status, if you will, with our individual.
So that in Matthew 13 for example.
He sees treasure in a field.
In the next parable he sees a Pearl. Great price.
I suppose we tend to speak more about the Pearl or think more about our collective aspect.
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And perhaps it's in the spiritual effort.
To learn the truth of God as it pertains to assembly life.
The truth of the one body and how we express that.
And so I suspect almost all of us are schooled in that line of truth in the scriptures.
That there is one body.
But I suggest perhaps we under emphasize somewhat.
The truth that as individuals we have a special relationship with the Son of God Himself.
And if this is not a thought you're used to hearing, just put it in that place where you put things that you ponder and say, well, I'll put that I used in my in basket. I used to have like a pending layer, you know, like just something I'm going to ponder a little bit. And you read through the scriptures the next time you do and you see if that is installed.
The Spirit of God in the in the address of the churches in Revelation 2 and three.
Especially towards the end, to Laosia, to Philadelphia, to Sardis.
The appeals not to the collective, though there is that, but to the personal, if any man hear me.
If any man opened the door.
And so on.
We know that there will be a time after the Lord takes us up, perhaps today.
When everyone of us will give account of ourselves, no.
Everyone of us will give account of himself before God.
So there is individual responsibility.
There's individual conscience.
There's individual.
Charges to us according to how the Lord has fitted us.
Naturally, and with a gift that is coordinated with that and so on, and that is woven through Scripture.
And so looking at Romans 8 for a minute.
And picking up in verse.
28.
And we know that all things work together for good.
To them that love God.
To them who are the called according to his purpose.
For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his son.
That he might be the first born.
Among many brothers.
Moreover, whom he did predestinate them he also called.
And whom he called them he also justified, And whom he justified, then he also glorified. What shall we say then?
What shall we then say to these things?
That's a summary.
Of your career, of your life.
As one of the sons of God.
He's kept the best wine until now.
And this is the place, this is the process.
This is what's happening.
And because of the very last step, the last shoe to drop, so to speak.
In our personal history is to be glorified with Christ. In this book, which takes up the purpose of God in the gospel and in everything else, it's looked upon as something already accomplished. It's as good as done.
To for know.
It says of Christ he was foreknown. That's what the prophet said.
He foreknew you, you say? Well, yeah, he foreknows he knows everything. Yes, he does. He knows everything, and he knows the end from the beginning.
No, it's, it's, it's different than that. It's better than that.
E4 New youth in June.
And somebody was quoting yesterday after the reading meeting from Amos.
You only have I known of all the peoples on the earth.
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That's foreknowledge.
For knowledge is not God knowing the end from the beginning and knowing that you would have enough sense to believe the gospel and get saved, and so therefore you would be one of his elect. That's ridiculous. That's.
Not his brother John's. That's not the truth.
I like the way he said that.
Election has to do with persons.
Not groups. Israel was an elect nation, yes.
And He will bring that nation into blessing.
In the future.
And that nation will be populated of those that enjoy the blessings of the New Covenant on the basis of the blood of Christ, sins forgiven, knowledge of the Lord, and so on.
But God elects persons.
And if you're a believer, as we had before us yesterday.
It's because he foreknew you.
And he chose you, and I don't know why he did that.
Really.
But he did. He chose you. And having chosen you, he had in mind a destiny that he would.
Put you to.
Having chosen you, there is a destination he would put you in ultimately.
And he explains what that is.
It's to be conformed to the image of his son.
That he might be the head of the body? No, that he might be the first born among many brethren.
And for years I puzzled. Stephen knows this.
Over Over John chapter 20.
He's probably got clear on it years ago. I'm slower.
Why does the Lord, when he's risen, breathe upon the disciples and say, Receive ye, Holy Ghost?
I had a very well taught.
Labour, whose name I won't mentions with the Lord.
I told him what I thought. He got so mad I think he might have left the table.
No, he got over it.
Impatient with my ignorance.
But we're familiar with the fact that when the Lord went up on high, he ascended on high. He sent the Holy Spirit down on the day of Pentecost in Acts 2 and united the different believer, individual believers together into one body. We're all good with that. We understand that, most 95% of us, right?
And we enjoy that.
But there's another, and that's corporate, and there's another sign in John 20 as the risen Christ. He takes the place, though it's not given out yet, of the last Adam who is a life giving spirit.
And he communicates, he breathes on them. The Spirit of God is trying to get us to connect the dots back to Genesis. I believe breathing on that.
And we, you and I as individuals, have a new life in a new creation with a new head. And it seems to me the Spirit of God goes out of His way to separate those two things so that we would be able to enjoy and appreciate each.
We are already new creatures, a new creation in Christ. I believe it's going to go on forever.
The truth of the one body is predominantly, I would suppose, for now.
And so that individual line of things is important.
With the.
Enabling us to have a proper sense of relationship and responsibility and comfort and guidance and all the rest.
And it certainly doesn't take away from our enjoyment of being members one of another.
And of being members of one body.
That they are two different aspects. Colossians in chapter one and Tim may have referred to it yesterday, takes up both.
And so we're chosen.
The destiny is picked out in advance to be conformed to the image of his son.
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And then he calls us.
And he calls us effectually because there's different kinds of callings in the word of God.
There's your natural calling.
Your vocation, you may be a construction guy, or you may be an accountant, or you may be this or maybe that you're calling. And then as believers, we now have a calling.
As Saints of God we have a high calling, a heavenly calling, a holy calling, and you'll notice some of the epistles they start out in the Spirit of God refers to that write off called Saints, Saints by calling of all them that are called. You can look it up.
It's important.
There is a sense in Matthew's Gospel I think twice, where it says many are called but few are chosen.
That's a different aspect, a different truth, in that the love of God is such.
That it goes out to all in a bona fide offer to whosoever will to come.
And Lord Jesus prophetically could say, I stretch forth my hands all the day.
No man regarded.
Look down from heaven to see if there was a just man now.
On.
And it's helpful to understand that we cannot fully grasp.
Because it's part of the divine mind, the concept of election. Unless we take a step or two back and we first see that it's the love of God. God who is love, who made provision for all. Someone texted me the other day because one of my boys said did God?
Did God make hell for men? No.
For the devil and his angels.
But he's going to assign those.
Who have rejected?
Islam.
Who have chosen and will choose to believe a lie?
Where else they go?
Nowhere else to go.
But God in love reached out to all.
He gave himself a ransom.
For all, he died for all.
And as the brother, I think one of the brothers quoted this morning, he is the propitiation for our sins, not for ours only, but for the whole world.
That doesn't mean that the sins of the whole world.
Have their have the individuals guilt transferred away from them?
Doesn't mean that it's God's side.
Propitiation is God's side.
It's the righteous basis.
Accomplished by the work of Christ on Calvary's cross, whereby God can justly come out and justify the vilest Sinner and still be just in doing it.
It's why God in the coming day can bring that nation that has ignored, defied.
And everything else that Christendom is done as a matter of fact, and bring them into blessing as the head of all the nations, you say, is that fair? We're not talking about fair here. We're so beyond fair.
But he's righteous to be able to do it.
Because of his son's death on Calvary's cross, he died for that nation, one of their own sin, prophetically.
God came out in love to all.
And no man regarded. And So what does he do? He says, you know what, he could have closed up shop and he would have been righteous and gone back and gone back alone.
Left you and me here.
To eternal doom.
Instead.
On he went.
So you know what?
Some of them are going to come.
And so he compels him to come in.
And everyone that's in, who will be in?
Will be in because they were compelled.
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So you're inside, you said. How did you get here?
I was just compelled.
Go from person to person with that spiritual understanding. How did you get in?
I was compelled.
You're not going to find anybody, you know. I weighed all the options. I figured it all out. I put a.
You know the pluses and minuses. I thought this was the way to go. It won't be one.
Not one.
That is in because of that.
And so that's the context of election.
It's God having come out in full and perfect and undescribable love and man rising up.
In profane hatred.
And despicable.
Rejection of God's beloved Son.
That's the backdrop.
For choosing can God choose?
Is it OK for God to be God?
Because eventually that's what it comes to.
Who art thou that replies against God? Shall the thing form say to him who made it? Why hast thou made me thus?
No sooner or later.
That's where we come to you.
And so conformed and cold.
There is a calling in the gospel of the grace of God.
God is glorified in that message going out, whether it's accepted or whether it's rejected.
He's glorified in it going out. It's a savour of Christ in them that are saved, and in them that perish.
But the effectual call to you and me.
It doesn't miss its mark.
When guard fishes, he gets the fish.
And he gets us because he chose us. He had a destiny picked out.
And at the right time and in the right way, he called us.
Now there is a whole line of things which we.
Won't get into.
I'm lost on the What does that mean? 12? Is that 12 minutes to go?
It's about 1/4.
2:45 OK.
The Spirit of God, just like in Genesis chapter one, moved upon the waters when there was nothing but darkness and void in your soul and said, let there be light.
And when you start to see in Scripture that there is a life giving, communicating power exercised by the Spirit of God in the lives of those who have been chosen.
And you see the result of that.
Is life.
Faith, Faith.
And so in John Three, he told Nicodemus.
Hold on a minute.
Hold on right there, Nicodemus was just trying to walk right in.
Hola, you must be born again. You can't even see the Kingdom of God.
You can't enter it. You can't receive anything.
You can't.
Come nothing.
But at the end of the chapter, John chapter 3, what do we have? Do we have?
As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, Even so must the Son of Man be lifted up.
And you have that which faith can lay hold of.
A finished work that faith lays hold of and gets the blessing. And we don't perish, but we have everlasting life.
So that is the beginning, you might say, of the actual effectual inward work that God does, because it's God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.
And God has accomplished a work on Calvary's cross before you and I were ever around.
But then God did a work in your soul and in mine.
So that faith, the Word of God mixed with faith, lays hold. All that blessing comes down upon us and envelops us and will for all eternity.
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God has a purpose.
Enjoyed a comment one of the brothers made yesterday. Might have been between the meetings.
Election is just not an end in itself, as if God is capricious or arbitrary.
Not at all. God has purpose.
He has a purpose which he calls an eternal purpose.
And for myself, I take great comfort and encouragement by the types and the pictures and shadows in the Old Testament.
Before the work of Christ and before all these precious things were revealed that you and I are able to enjoy because it shows me that it's not a response or an afterthought.
Like man would do.
Man would say, well, I, I really wanted this nation to be a special nation And I called them out and I gave them special privileges and I hedged them about like, like the vineyard and I and I did everything possible and I wanted them to be the light of the world and to be a testimony that men everywhere and every nation could see what God was like in that nation.
They would be that light and that testimony, and men would come.
To it.
And Israel would display that.
But they failed, so God is not saying speaking reverently. Now what am I going to do?
He shows that all along in his counsel.
He knew.
How that would play out, and the prophets speak of how it will play out and how it would play out, and speak not only of how it would play out in this resulting in the sufferings and rejection of Christ, but in His coming glory.
And that in between the sufferings and the glory, there would be something that was not ever revealed before in the prophets.
Which is called technically in the New Testament, the mystery.
Of Christ in the church together.
And of Jew and Gentile being joined together in one body.
And of having a place that the prophets never prophesied about, that we should be sons of God, that we should be arrayed with Christ and new creation, He the first born among many brethren. And so it's not an afterthought. And God just Peppers the word of God with pictures and shadows and types of this which wasn't revealed until after.
Israel is temporarily set aside.
Showing that it was in his mind all along.
That's one of our teachers used to tell us a type is a type of nothing until the substance of it is revealed.
Men and women of faith in Old Testament days didn't walk around Jerusalem or anywhere else saying, isn't that beautiful, you know, with Adam and Eve and.
How took took out of his side and made a woman and they were one. And isn't that beautiful in Genesis 24? How the Spirit goes and brings up no.
The substance hadn't been revealed.
Type, his brother Roy used to say, is a type of nothing.
But now in the end of the age, in this fullness that God has been pleased to reveal to you and me, he shows types and shadows and with with explicit words in the Word of God that it was an eternal purpose and that you weren't chosen as a fill in, as a replacement for someone or something that didn't work out.
But now all alone.
Before the foundation of the world, He chose you to have this place of blessing.
We certainly don't have time to take up.
The way.
Thank you, we certainly I left my phone there because I thought that life to deal there with guide me, but we certainly don't have time to take up the aspect of how he works with the stones.
When we hire Masons, we don't want to messing with stones. We want them to lay in rock laying stone. Probably some people here in this room do that too. Put it near them. Here's here's the mortar lay block laystone. We don't want to mess and live.
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God is occupied himself with you and me as individuals.
Winnowing our path as as the psalmist would say, organizing our circumstances with divine wisdom, with divine love, with divine patience. Because he's like a Potter with the clay.
He's working in your life and mind because he has a purpose.
But that is not really taken up here in the in Romans 8, and certainly in Romans 9 through 11.
We have the purpose of God, that he has a purpose in what he has done, He has a purpose in what he has allowed, and he has an end or a purpose in view. And his purpose was to take the children of Israel out of Egypt. And it's not a long drive. If there wasn't all the Today, there's political challenges, but it wouldn't be a long drive from Egypt.
Into the southern part of Israel. Even on foot, they say it would be a short journey.
But in his counsel he allowed the 40 years of the wilderness, and in his counsel he allows you and I.
These experiences.
And he chastens us. To chase him means to teach by discipline.
And it's a privilege that you have as a child of God to be chastened because if you're not chastened, you're just, you're just running wild on the streets. You're a ******* and not a not a son, not a child. But when you're in the family, when you're in, he's got an interest in you.
And you can you and I can say like Jacob, like he said to Jacob, I will not leave thee.
Until I have done that.
Which I had spoken to the elf.
What it goes next from from.
Calling.
Them he also justified.
In the truth of justification is one of those things.
One of those aspects of the silver that you can take up, brothers, if you preach the gospel.
Take it up.
We're justified by grace, justified by faith. We're justified in his blood.
Justified by works and James and so on.
And the perhaps the one we rejoice in equally or even more is we have justification of life. And I like the way one writer put it said one aspect of justification is looking back.
And all that I was and all that I had done has been righteously addressed by God, and it's wiped away from me and I am justified from it.
But the other aspect, justification of life, is kind of a forward look.
Now I'm in a new place. I have a life as it was Tim was reading yesterday. I have a life that cannot sin. I am before God in the character of life.
That has been assigned to me because of not only the death of Christ, but the place He has taken has arisen man.
And the scripture in Romans 5 speaks of it as justification of life.
A lot to ponder there.
Then he also justified in whom he justified them He also glorified.
Now a brother that we all know wrote somewhere.
That we use the misuse the word glory.
He said glory is not a place, it's a condition.
I said to myself, wow, I never thought of that.
And so, you know, we all, most of us have strongs on our phones, but I got out my old fashioned big Strong's Concordance and I methodically went down through and I said, man, he's right.
Because we say in hymns and we say casually, you know, where's your dad? My dad's in glory.
Or, you know, all the hymns and poems that speak about it as a place. Heaven is a place, I think scripture says.
But glory is a condition.
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And so there is only one man who is glorified.
He's the first fruits or the 1St installment of the first resurrection and his body, soul and spirit. He's a glorified man.
And those of us that have buried our loved ones.
Who are asleep in Jesus?
They're absent from the body, present with the Lord. They're not glorified.
That awaits.
That awaits the first resurrection. That awaits the Shout.
We shall be changed, we shall bear his image as we've borne the image of the Earthy 1.
We shall bear the image of the heavenly one. We will be glorified.
With body, soul, spirit.
Suited perfectly.
To being with Christ. To having communion with Christ.
To serving Christ not only throughout the ages of the Kingdom.
But throughout all eternity.
Glorified together.
Just to finish Second Thessalonians chapter 2's.
A verse that ties some of these things together if I remember right.
2nd Thessalonians 2.
Verse 13.
We are bound to give thanks always to God for you, brethren, beloved of the Lord.
Because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation.
Through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth. That's the work in you.
Where until He called you by our gospel to the obtaining of the glory.
Of our Lord Jesus Christ.
What a verse.
In the previous chapter it says when he comes he's going to be glorified in his Saints and to be admired in all them that believe.
And the work that he has done in your soul.
And the crowning proof of the value of his work on Calvary's cross.
Is going to be seen in you and me.
As precious stones that day.
In all, in the whole universe can look upon you.
And say Christ.
Is glorified Christ is beautiful.
He will put His comeliness upon us, and He will be admired in all them that believe what a thing.
I'm finished.
Clark says so.
Brother called me recently and.
Sitting in my driveway, finishing the call. It's dark.
It's his brother.
Who?
Who was around to watch?
The first creation.
I said, Well, in the book of Job it says that the stars of the morning, the sons of God, shouted for joy.
Angelic enjoyment.
He says, well, there's going to be a new heavens and a new earth at the end of the thousand years. There's going to be a transformation, and Peter speaks of it.
The heavens and earth, which now are going to be dissolved, and he's going to create a new heavens and a new earth.
Let's go and see that.
Where are you going to be?
He said. You know, brother, I think we're going to see that.
I said man, I'm just to see him.
Looking forward to the judgment seat of Christ when all these hard questions and you get his answer, you get the resolution of all these things, failures, our weaknesses, our sins, our questions, all going to be it'll be wonderful to experience personally the judgment seat of Christ and then the marriage of the Lamb, the marriage supper of the lamb.
Reigning with him, seeing his rights indicated here, all wonderful.
It's hard to take in.
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I don't think we're going to be parked somewhere.
Because you, you guys go over here, I'm going to, I'm going to remake it. I think we're going to.
I think we're going to observe that. It's amazing.
To be glorified, to live together with him, What a thing.
It's no time for him, let's just give thanks.