Address—Bill Prost
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Could we sing together part of hymn #79?
Hymn #79 Be nice to sing it all, but it's a bit long, so let's start at verse 9. Hymn 79, beginning at verse 9. Called by that secret name of undisclosed delight. Blessed answer to reproach and shame.
Graved on the Stone of White, number 79 beginning.
At verse 9.
Oh boy.
My soul experience.
This morning, it's going to happen.
By siren, the Lord accepts you, my Lord.
I'd like to talk this afternoon about 3 rather basic things, all of which have been much on my heart lately.
Truth. Joy.
And eternity.
Truth, joy, and eternity.
We might wonder how those three are connected, but I believe they are.
And let us look first at the subject of truth.
Turn with me, please, first of all, to John's Gospel.
John's Gospel.
Chapter.
22.
Sorry.
Getting mixed up. John doesn't have 22 Chapters does he? Chapter 18, John's Gospel chapter 18 and verse Well we won't read the whole thing but verse 37.
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John 18 and verse 37.
Therefore said unto him, That is to the Lord Jesus, Art thou a king? Then Jesus answered, Thou sayest that I am a king, or as we would say it, what you say is true.
To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world that I should bear witness unto the truth. Everyone that is of the truth, hearest my voice, and Pilate Seth unto him. What is truth?
And then if we could turn back to the 8th chapter of John. John chapter 8.
And verse 31.
John 8 and verse 31.
Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him.
If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed.
And here it is, and ye shall know the truth and the truth.
Shall make you free.
And then one more verse in Ephesians book of Ephesians.
Ephesians chapter 4.
And.
Verse 17, Ephesians 4, and verse 17. This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk in the vanity of their mind, having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them because of the blindness of their heart.
Who, being past feeling, have given themselves over unto lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness.
But ye have not so learned Christ, If so be that ye have heard him, and have been taught by him.
As the truth is in Jesus.
Man went away from God.
After the fall back in the book of Genesis.
And we remember that Cain went out from the presence of the Lord, founded a city, called it after the name of his son, and then established, in essence, the whole world system that we have about us today.
And in that world system, man has been seeking for truth ever since. You have it right here in the university in which we are. There's the model right up there, Vince University.
And underneath in French it says to the freely translator to be instructed in order to serve. Man is seeking after truth.
And man has discovered much with his own abilities and in the technological sphere, in the universe in which he lives, in the planet on which we are, man has discovered many things.
We're thankful for many of those discoveries.
But in the moral and spiritual realm.
That phrase that Pilate spoke echoes down through the ages.
What is truth?
Because what man has done has been to seek to find the truth concerning himself, concerning his existence, concerning his future, concerning where he came from, but he has been seeking to do it apart from the Word of God.
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And all down through the ages.
He has had to say to himself, what is truth?
The popular line of thinking today is there is no absolute truth.
You may have your truth, and I may have mine, and even if they contradict each other, well, that's all right, because you do what works for you and I do what works for me, ignoring, of course, the definition of truth, which by its very, very definition excludes what is not the truth.
But what it really brings us to is that I cannot know the truth on any moral and spiritual subject.
Without divine revelation.
And we want to emphasize a few things this afternoon in that.
And I hope this doesn't tread on anyone's toes this afternoon or insult anyone's intelligence, because this is an address for believers. But allow me to say, perhaps from a perspective of one who's getting a little older and who has had the opportunity, as many others here, to have observed the way the world is gone.
Throughout a lifetime of 50 or 60 years.
I am concerned that.
The thinking of this world, at least in some cases, overtakes us.
In Christianity.
And instead of that precious truth which comes through so clearly in the Word of God.
Which comes not from man, but from God himself. There is the tendency to seek to mix it with what man has been able to find out.
Let us always remember that in the first place, in any sphere.
Man is a discoverer, never a creator.
Man is a discoverer, never a creator.
And man gets himself all puffed up by what he has discovered.
Not realizing, of course, that what he discovers is only scratching the surface, probably of the depths of knowledge that could be obtained.
And in a moral and spiritual realm, what happens when man tries to use his own mind?
Oh, we won't turn to it, but it's given to us in Romans one, it says, professing themselves to be wise. They became fools.
What is truth?
All I see to each one of us here the truth about everything.
Every moral and spiritual subject, and ultimately the gateway to truth in any sphere is found in this precious book.
The Lord Jesus came into this world and he could say of himself, I am the way, the truth and the life and I want to say to each one here, and this is not a gospel meeting, but there may be someone here that is not saved. If you are not saved, there is only one Ave. to the truth concerning who you are and perhaps more important, who God is.
And that is through divine revelation. You cannot know where this world came from. Except by divine revelation, you cannot know where you came from. Oh yes, man postulates the theory of evolution, which is so ridiculous that if it were not having to do with the moral and spiritual realm, no scientist of any sort would even believe it for a moment.
But because it gives man the opportunity to persuade himself that he doesn't have to answer to God for his conduct.
Intelligent men grab hold of it and make absolute fools of themselves by latching on to something that never had any basis, and if there were anything that they could even point to as a possible basis that perhaps have been totally knocked out from under it in the last 20 years.
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Man will believe anything if he can avoid his responsibility from God.
But does a man know what the future holds to go in the other direction? No. Only a revelation from God himself will tell us that. And more than that.
Whenever anything vital is involved, either for you who may not be saved, or for those of us here that are believers, God never refers us to experience. He refers us to His Word.
There is a great deal of emphasis being placed today on experience.
I was in a Christian bookstore the other day and where my wife, my wife was picking up a few things and I ventured to take a look at some of the books that were available there. And yes, there were a few books that fell into the category of what we might call exposition, but by far the greater number of them were taken up with experience.
Your experience? My experience.
And there is a place for that, I don't deny that at all. But once again I repeat what I said a moment ago, when anything vital is involved in your life and mine, God never refers us to experience. He refers us to His word. Are you not saved? You can be saved, but the assurance of salvation does not rest on feelings.
It rests on God's precious word.
But there is much more than simply being saved in the Word of God, and that's why the Lord Jesus could say to His disciples in what we had read, to what we read there in John chapter 8 And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. Now I quoted that, but I left out the verse that is before.
Let's read it again, because it's extremely important.
And often, if I can speak of myself forgotten, let's read it again in John's Gospel, chapter 8.
And verse 37, verse 31, I should say.
Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him.
If you continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed?
Oh, the truth of God is found in his Word, and then the Lord says, And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
I've said this before.
It amused me at the time, and it happened more than once. Probably many of you know that I did surgery for a good part of my medical career, and there were various people at various times who needed surgery and who desperately, desperately did not want to have a general anesthetic.
Some were afraid that something would happen to them, but most of them that wasn't the problem. Most of them would say because if I'm under an anesthetic for that period of time, I'm not in control of my life.
And usually whatever I did could be done under local anesthetic and I would smile and say that's no problem. Of course, what they did not know was that sometimes the.
Rigors and sound of an air driven bone saw and a few other noises.
During bone surgery were a little bit disturbing and the anesthesiologists would slip little goodies into their IV so that they really weren't very much in control of things anyway. But the point was they felt they had control of their lives.
Does a man really have control of himself? No, he doesn't. His man really free? No, he isn't. Oh yes, you and I may see we're say we're living in America. We are free. And America was founded on that watchword of freedom.
And it is a wonderful way to be able to live where we have liberty. Yes, indeed it is, and we thank God for it. But when it comes to the kind of freedom that the Lord is talking about, man is bounded by time. First of all, man is bounded by his sinful tendencies. Man is bounded by all kinds of things that are part of a world in which sin has done its sad work.
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And Satan manipulates man like a puppet with all of those lusts and pleasures.
And leads him down a broad Rd.
And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. You know, it's a wonderful thing to be free from the course of this world, but only God can do it. And only the liberty that God brings you and me into as believers will bring that liberty. What liberty is it? It's the liberty of seeing things from God's side.
And many want to see things from God's side.
But here is the catch.
I have had people say to me.
And this has happened more than once.
And we're talking now about believers, and we have sat down together sometimes.
And opened up the word of God and looked at the way that Scripture presents the truth. Now it may be at one time this aspect of the truth. It may be at another time that aspect of the truth.
And more than once, the question has arisen.
Well, if that is really the truth.
You say this is the word of God. You say this is the truth. Why are not more people following it? And more pertinent, why are not more believers walking in it? Why don't people want the truth?
Hard question sometimes, isn't it?
Hard question why do not more people want the truth?
Several reasons. One of them comes to mind.
Remember, while reading a story about a man, and we don't need to go into detail, but he believed in all kinds of charismatic teaching, that the gift of healing and the gift of tongues and all those things were just as extant today and just as available to believers as they were in the days of the apostles. And evidently he met up with someone.
Who knew his Bible well and.
A friend of his listened to them talk and by the end of the conversation.
The friend thought to himself. Well.
That other believer certainly finished him off from Scripture as to where he's at. He doesn't have a leg to stand on, which he didn't.
But on the way home in the car, the man who had been totally backed into a corner with scripture was just as upbeat and justice as happy.
And just as confident as he ever was until the other believer ventured to say to him, what about what happened tonight, What that other brother said from Scripture totally blew everything that you're saying right out of the water, so to speak.
What about all that? Oh, he said. That kind of thing doesn't bother me. Whatever he wanted to say. I just go by experience. I can't deny experience.
And when experience is the benchmark by which things are judged, the imagination of man's heart can take him anywhere.
Don't let us fall into that category.
But there's another reason why sometimes the truth is not more popular.
And it's a reason that makes me bow my head.
Because.
In order to have that precious truth as a living reality in my life, I have to have the walk that goes with it.
If what does the Lord say in John 8 and 31? If He continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed? Ah, there is a catch.
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And then we go on to the book of Ephesians, and we have a list of all those things that man does and his ignorance.
And then it says, But ye have not so learned Christ.
And even the true believer can say, yes, that's written about fallen man, but there's a lesson for you and me in it.
If you and I.
Want to follow the ways of this world? We can't do that and still have the truth of God. Many believers want that today. There is a real desire to know truth.
But I wanted on my terms and in my way and don't let it upset my lifestyle.
And the devil's done a good job today of persuading people you can be a Christian, but you don't have to change your life. You don't have to be any different because after all, God is a forgiving God. And God understands the difficult world in which you live. He understands how hard it is in school today, in college, in the world you live in. He understands the moral environment.
In which you have to live and move in the work scene or wherever you are.
So you don't have to change your lifestyle too much. That's that's not what's critical. And he has dragged Christianity down to the level of this world.
And many dear believers, sad to say, have bought into it so that open sin in believers lives is being tolerated right alongside of the truth of God, as if it didn't matter anymore. Because after all, God is a forgiving God.
One of the words used there in that 4th of Ephesians is lasciviousness, a long word, but what it means is simply using the grace of God as an excuse to sin.
And what does it say there going down a little bit to verse 21?
If so, be.
That ye have heard him.
And have been taught by him. And notice this expression.
Does it say referring back to verse 20 as the truth is in Christ? No, it doesn't. It says you have not so learned Christ referring to what He was in his perfect manhood. But then it says as the truth is in Jesus.
It's an interesting study if you have the time to look at the number of times in the New Testament that the name of Jesus is mentioned without his titles.
Now it's important to give the Lord Jesus his titles.
I believe that with all my heart, especially his title as Lord.
I said I didn't want to step on any toes.
And I don't quote someone else in order to avoid that.
My late father-in-law, Albert Hayhoe, used to say to us as young people, young brothers.
Close your prayer in the name of the Lord Jesus, not just in the name of Jesus or in Jesus name. I just leave that with you, but going back.
To what we have here, the truth as it is in Jesus, what does that bring in? It brings in the fact that the truth is not merely an intellectual body of knowledge that I keep in my head up here. It is all of that, but much more. It is the truth connected with that blessed man who came into this world.
About whom, it could be said.
And thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall save.
His people from their sins.
That blessed man who walked through this world in every way as an example for us, who met every difficulty.
Yes, with the truth of God, but also with love and with grace. Take the woman at the well in John 4, for example. Did the Lord Jesus mince words with her or somehow gloss over her sin? No, He did not. He brought it before her.
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But did she run away and say, I don't like this man, I don't want to be around him, He knows too much.
I don't want to be around somebody that exposes my whole.
Sad lifetime.
She stayed there. Why?
Ah, because there was something there that attracted her. And that brings us to the third reason.
As to why the truth is not sometimes walked in as it should be.
And it's a voice to my own heart, and a voice to each one of us.
Is my display of the truth of God in my life the truth as it is in Jesus?
We talked about entering into the truth of God in Ephesians chapter one.
And it's wonderful and verses were read during the reading meeting that referred us back to the Old Testament and to the land of Canaan and how it speaks of entering into that whole blessed truth of heavenly things.
But there was a verse we did not read and we won't bother turning to it. But it's in Deuteronomy.
Where they were told.
Not to conquer the land too quickly.
Not to take it too quickly.
Lest the beasts of the field multiply upon it.
What does that mean?
Oh, if they were to take more land than they were able to cultivate and look after, then of course the beasts of the field would start encroaching on it and make their homes there. And there was nothing wrong with that from the point of view of the beasts of the field. But what does it mean? I would suggest that the beasts of the field encroaching on the land that is not cultivated.
Represents the activity of the flesh in you and me.
When there is more up here.
Than there is down here.
More talk and not enough walk.
More knowledge and not enough of the truth as it is in Jesus and I am guilty of it. I would be the first one to admit and then others look on and say well if that's the truth of God, I guess I don't want it.
Course, that is what happens, and I say to each one here, if you are tempted to do that, if you say it's nice to have the truth, but I don't like the way some people walk in it and I don't like the slant they put on it because some people get out of balance with it.
It happens, it happens, and I am guilty of it too.
And I don't think you will ever look at anyone, any fellow Christian, and say he or she has it perfectly in balance. No, there is only one who does. But that's the one God points you and me too. The truth as it is in Jesus. And it reminds me of the verse of a poem concerning that precious truth.
And some will recognize the poem and where it comes from.
Free from myself, Lord Jesus, free from the ways of men.
Chains of thought that have bound me. Never can bind again. Oh how precious.
He shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. There is nothing like a believer that walks through this world in the full liberty of the truth of God.
That lifts him above this present world.
But if properly understood, it does not make the believer.
Unfit for any good in this world.
You know, I heard it from one of my uncles once who wasn't gathered to the Lord's name and he referred to a brother in Christ who was gathered to the Lord's name and he said something like this. He said that man is too heavenly minded for any earthly use.
It was his idea.
Was that true? No, it was not.
No, that man would not go down to the level of this world in order to do good. But the believer who has the truth of God before him, and on whose heart the truth has a grip, is the most useful believer that there could be in this world, because, as was brought out in the reading meeting, he comes to an as an ambassador.
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And when he presents the truth, he does what one brother did one time when a moral question was put to him that everyone in the community was.
Trying to sort out and they asked him for his opinion.
He gave a superb answer. He said friends, my opinion is worth no more than anyone elses.
But he said.
I represent another country.
I represent God himself. I want to give you my government's opinion on the subject because that's what counts. And he went to the word of God. That carries weight.
Well, let's turn to something else because perhaps you say, but we do know the truth. But I want to have the present living enjoyment of it. Let's turn to Philippians chapter 4 for a verse.
Philippians 4.
And verse 4.
Rejoice in the Lord.
Alway.
And again I say, rejoice.
One more verse, Second Corinthians 4.
2nd Corinthians, chapter 4.
And this verse was also referred to in the reading.
2nd Corinthians 4 and verse 18.
The apostle Paul writing to the Corinthians, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen, For the things which are seen are temporal.
But the things which are not seen are eternal.
And then one further verse in John's Gospel again.
John's gospel again.
Chapter 15.
And verse 11.
But we're going to read verse 10, because once again, verse 10 has an important bearing on verse 11. Verse 10. If ye keep my commandments, he shall abide in my love, even as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love. These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you.
And that your joy might be.
Full. And there's another old brother used to remind us. Not half full, brethren, full.
It's not the kind of joy that this world gives.
You can see the kind of joy that this world pretends to have.
If you watch the entertainment of this world.
But is it a present living reality in the soul? Does it leave that?
Wonderful joy and blessing afterward, no.
Each one will have to admit if he or she is honest with themselves.
That it only emphasizes what Solomon found out way back thousands of years ago.
That all is vanity and vexation of spirit.
We don't need to go and try it all. Solomon did it for us, and he had more than I suppose anyone will ever.
Oh, it's true. Solomon didn't have a car, Solomon didn't fly a plane. Solomon didn't have the Internet and a few other things.
But he had more riches, I suppose, than anyone of us can ever dream of having. Excuse me?
And if it was within his grasp, or rather if it was available, it was within his grasp, he tried it.
And have brought him nothing but vanity and vexation of spirit. Why? Because according to Ecclesiastes chapter 3, God has put the world in your heart and my heart. And you could translate that He has put eternity in their heart. Man knows innately that he is made for eternity and not merely for time. And there is a longing for that.
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Which goes beyond this present scene.
Oh yes, he may try and deny that and say he's an atheist or an agnostic or something like that.
The more I go on, the more I am persuaded that man deep down inside cannot be an agnostic because he has a God conscious part to his being. And allow me to say that I have seen those from this country and from Canada and from Europe over in lands like India desperately searching for something to satisfy that longing because they realize there's more.
And somehow they are persuaded that the materialism and technology of the West.
Just doesn't have the answers and they're going to go over to a country that has emphasized the spiritual side of things and the mystical aspects of life far more than it has been in Western culture. And do they find what they are looking for? No, they don't They have may have all kinds of esoteric experiences and Satan getting into the ACT may provide the.
Kinds of things that make them think that somehow.
They are getting hold of that which is beyond this world when really all they are getting hold of is satanic influences and it's sweeping this country and Canada as well. It's a terrible thing and man is once again putting his faith in experience rather than in the word of God. I say to you and to me fellow believers, true joy comes through verse 10 of what we have here in John chapter 15.
If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love. A brother used to say to us many years ago concerning the ninth verse.
Memorize that verse and repeat it to yourselves every day of your life.
I can't say that I've done that, even though I heard that strong exhortation well over 50 years ago. But it's true. We have true joy when we abide in His love.
But here's the key.
True joy does not come from reaching for the joy.
Does that sound like a paradoxical statement that doesn't make sense? Maybe it does. After all, if you want something, don't you go after it?
In the material realm, it's true.
But in the spiritual realm, if we could put it this way, joy is a byproduct. And man in this world, when he seeks for happiness, never finds it. And the believer, if all you are seeking for is happiness, you will never find it. Why? Because your whole approach, my whole approach to the subject.
Is wrong.
Why is that? Because if I am looking for joy, I am occupied with myself.
And as we said yesterday in the open meeting, the Christian, or the unbeliever for that matter, who is occupied with himself.
Is never happy. Never, never.
And the Spirit of God never occupies you and me with ourselves except to judge sin and to deal with it. Yes, God does that and it's a needed work. But as someone has said.
The work of self judgment is not food for the soul, it's medicine.
And we need medicine once in a while, don't we? Yes, we do. Sometimes. When we're sick, we're in no shape to take in food. We need medicine so that our body will get well, so that we can take in food.
But it's not a normal state to be living on medicine, is it? No, God doesn't occupy you and me with ourselves. He occupies us with Christ. And when the apostle Paul said there in Ephesians, rejoice in the Lord alway and again I say rejoice. It wasn't saying go out and look for joy in order to rejoice. No, he was saying there is one up there.
And he had outlined that Blessed One in the second and third chapters of Philippians.
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Because the 2nd chapter is Christ in manhood, the third chapter is a risen Christ in glory. And that's where Paul was pointing those Philippians believers for their joy.
There are many believers today that are not happy.
And I don't mean when I talk about happiness, that we always need to be.
I don't know what the expression is. I suppose in the modern jargon of the world we would say flying high.
I'm not always flying high. There's nothing wrong with it and I love to see that in a believer, someone who is just bubbling over all the time.
But there are times in our life when we have sorrow. There are times in our life when we are sober and we're told to be sober. In Scripture, there are things that burden us quite properly.
Notice being burdened is not the same.
As being wretched or being discouraged. They're different, very different. I can carry a heavy burden, the Lord Jesus did. But the Lord Jesus was never discouraged, nor did he ever feel wretched. No. Why? Because there was that calm peace that flowed. And we get that here in the verse that we read.
In John 15 and 11, he says that my joy rate might remain in you.
Did the Lord Jesus have joy in his heart in that sense when he wept at the grave of Lazarus? I believe he did. Why did he? Oh, he groaned.
He wept because of the sorrow and heartache that sin had brought in, but at the same time.
He looked beyond it all to the work of the Cross, and on the basis of that work he could raise that man from the dead.
There was joy there, in spite of sorrow.
And you and I can have that joy and that peace in our hearts as we go through this world, whatever the circumstances are. Why? Because to go back to what we said before, the truth has made us free.
I think her brother Jim was mentioning it last night in the gospel, how he saw people in the business lounge of an airport watching the news on different stations, on different screens at opposite ends and people watching them who are intelligent as to the world and then turning away because they didn't want to see anymore.
And man already is beginning to get into that mode.
Where his heart is failing him for fear, as scripture tells us, and are looking for those things that are coming upon the world.
He doesn't know what's coming.
You and I can have peace. Do we feel the burden of what's happening in this world? We should. Does it make us have more of a heart for souls? Yes, we should. But in order to have that heart, in order to have that largeness of heart, there has to be peace in my own heart and joy if I'm all mixed up and occupied with my own circumstances and cast down.
If I'm cast down.
Because of all the things I'm.
Concerned about in my own life.
For all the problems, let's say it in my local assembly.
Or someone else's difficulties.
Feel them, take them to the Lord. Amen.
Seek to be a help, absolutely.
But within, I need to walk in that love and in that joy.
That enables me to rise above it all and yet come down to meet those problems, those difficulties, as the Lord met them.
His joy fulfilled in US, the Lord Jesus prays.
In the 17th of John, that we might, he says that they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves.
Now we want to talk about eternity.
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And let's read those verses again in 2nd Corinthians 4.
I read them a moment ago.
Because our joy is connected.
With looking beyond.
Temporal things.
2nd Corinthians 4.
And we'll read verse 17 this time.
For our light affliction.
Which is but for a moment.
Worketh for us. Notice that phrase worketh for us, not against us.
Not even neutral works for us.
A far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.
While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.
And then one more verse in second Second Timothy chapter one.
Second Timothy. Chapter One.
And verse 12.
For the which 'cause that that's referring back to verse 11, the preaching and the teaching he was doing, the Apostle Paul, For the which 'cause I also suffer these things. Nevertheless I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed, and I'm persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him.
Against that day.
In the few moments that remain, we want to talk about eternity.
You and I can't understand eternity.
And I've said this before, but I'll repeat it how that I can remember as a small boy before I even was old enough to go to school.
Going out into the backyard.
And pondering what my mother had just said.
That if we knew the Lord Jesus as our Savior, we would go to be with him. And how long would we be there? I asked. And when would we come out? Oh, she said, We'll never come out. We'll be there forever. We'll never come out.
And I remember going out and trying to wrap my mind around that.
And I thought, I can't, I just can't get my mind around that concept.
And over 65 years later, I'm no further ahead than I was then. Why?
Because once again, although man was made for eternity and not for time, we are bounded by time and we can't think in terms of something that doesn't have a time frame attached to it.
But the devil is using that to make believers come down to the level of this world and to have their lives ordered.
And planned out and lived out as if time.
And not eternity were important.
The natural man does that and as he misses opportunities in this world.
As he finds himself or herself getting older and perhaps things have not been done properly.
There's a problem I read the other day about how someone got a hold of a good many people.
In Middle Life and beyond and ask the mall the same question.
Do you have regrets in your life, and if so, what is your major regret?
You can imagine what they were.
That job opportunity that I didn't get or that I didn't follow up, that was a big one.
That business that I should have started and I didn't do it.
That stock that I should have bought, how I should have bought in the Dell computers or bought into Amazon or a few things like that. 25 years ago my I would have been a multi millionaire today.
Others had regrets over a missed romance.
That girl that I didn't pursue, I wished I'd gone a little further and a little faster. I'd been on. I wish I'd been a little smarter.
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That childhood sweetheart. That high school sweetheart that somehow didn't work out.
And a lot of other romantic illusions that never quite made it. And then there were other things, real regrets that would bring tears to your eyes. Things that had been said and done, that had hurt other people, hurt their own families, and had never been able to be made right. People who had passed on.
To whom they wish they could have said something or done something, but the opportunity was gone.
I suppose if I were to go around this room, there might be regrets in this room because all of us can look back on our lives and say I wish there were things that I had done differently.
But what Satan is doing, and he's reaching, sad to say, into the hearts and minds of believers, is pulling them down South that this world is the horizon of their thoughts instead of eternity.
Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it's unimportant to have a career.
And I will tell you quite openly.
And I hope that's OK to talk for one moment about myself.
If I had my time over again.
And someone, someone said to me this the other day, would you go into medical school again? And my, my answer without a moment's hesitation was I would do it again in a heartbeat.
I'm not saying there's anything wrong with a good education, far from it.
There's nothing wrong with.
Doing what God has fitted you to do. There's nothing wrong with having a husband or a wife and all of the things that perhaps we look up, look forward to or would like to have.
But what I do say to you, and I say to my own heart, are all these things subservient to the will of God.
Am I willing to die to whatever my ambitions are in order to say, Lord Jesus, that thou mightest have the preeminence in my life? Am I willing to do that?
And they're willing to live in view of eternity.
That's what Paul did.
He said. I'm making a deposit toward that day. That's where the deposit counts. That's where it's going to mean something that's going to pay dividends for all eternity.
Again, I'm not saying it's wrong to plan ahead down here. Not far from it.
But let us all remember that it's a means to an end, not an end in itself. The things which are seen are temporal.
Many, many years ago, in a Bible reading long before my time, and I only read it, a brother raised the question concerning that last verse of 2nd Corinthians 4, What are the unseen things? And he looked around at those that were listening. What are the unseen things?
And no one could give an answer.
And he wouldn't answer it for them, he said. I'm not going to tell you. I leave you to consider the question.
What are the unseen things? I suggest that at least one of them is.
All of those spiritual blessings that we've been considering in Ephesians one and throughout the book of Ephesians in chapter 2 and chapter 3, in parts of chapter 4, and so on, all those things that are above and beyond everything in this world.
What else are unseen things that eternal home to which we are going?
Allow me to go overtime for a moment or two because it's fresh in my mind.
I was mentioning this at the home where I'm staying here but a few days ago.
More than that, maybe a little over a week ago, I bought a book that someone had said to me, I want you to read this book and tell me what you think of it was a book written by a medical doctor, a neurosurgeon, obviously a brilliant man, and he had had what is conventionally known as a near death experience, a most unusual one, one of the most unusual I have ever read about.
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He was in a coma for one full week.
With a severe case of meningitis, where the chance of recovering from it, even to come out of it alive where?
Less than 1% and to come out of it with the faculties that he had before he got sick were pretty well absolutely nothing. And Eddie did come out of it and he's relating what he tells.
It's very interesting.
But I say to you and to me, to my own heart, the message in that book reminded me of the Scripture that says God shall send them strong delusion so that they shall believe a lie. Because Satan gets into the picture and persuades men of what eternity is going to be like, and he mixes enough truth with it that man thinks he's got a handle on the real thing.
And this doctor thought he had it, and he thinks now that somehow he's got a relationship with God.
And so on. Because he saw as he thought what heaven was like, oh, I say to each one here. And I don't think I need to worry about that in this company. But don't be misled by things like that.
All things that pertain unto life and godliness are in this precious book, But all those unseen things, those eternal realities, await that day when we will be within like Christ.
That is a wonderful prospect. Now I don't try and speculate about it, but can I enjoy in my heart what it will be like to be there, to be like Christ, to enjoy in its fullness all that He is and all that He has won for me, As was emphasized over and over in the reading meeting, I will not be more blessed up in heaven. I will not have more blessings than I have now. The only thing that will.
Will be my enjoyment of them well May God give you and me the grace. On the one hand, to appreciate what it is to know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. Secondly, what it is to rejoice in the Lord always and again I say, rejoice, but to remember the conditions that are attached to that as well as to being free in the truth.
And finally, to live and to walk as we get near the Lord's coming.
In view of eternity and not for time, let's close in prayer.