Bible Teaching

Calvary Temple Teaching Library

No Second Chance Pt.2

Amen. Let's go ahead and turn back to I John. We'll pick up where we were this morning. It's always exciting, isn't it? Just refresh ourselves with the doctrine of the blessed hope, and that promise that He's gone and prepared a place for us and He will doubtless come again and receive us unto Him, that where He is, there we may be also. Exciting time, praise God. That, that we were talking about this morning, He's gone and prepared a place that eye has not seen and ear hasn't heard, hasn't entered into the heart of man the things that God has prepared for those of us that love Him. We talked about the external motivation.

We're not just talking about the fire escape clause and wanting to escape the judgment of God. How many of you would rather not go to Hell? How many of you find Hell, once it became a reality to you, a motivating factor? I think all of us would just as soon bypass that. When you realize the reality of it, it affects different areas of our lives. I can remember the reality after having just been born again and my grandfather committing suicide and having shared the Gospel with them and seeing it rejected and the reality of knowing the judgment and the justice of God. I know in having talked to some people a few years when my father died, and people came, and they said, "How did that affect you? All of those years that you sowed into his life, and you challenged him, and the miraculous and all of those different areas, to know that he didn't accept the Lord and the consequence of it." I said, "It never does." It doesn't really enter my mind. I understand it as a fact. It's a reality, but the justice of God and the mercy of God to have given him so many chances to hear is so real and so established as a fact, that the just consequences of hating God doesn't in any way affect your thought processes. It doesn't even become something that you spend time thinking upon because God's justice has been satisfied.

You realize that it's just, but it's a horrible consequence. It's part of, to you and I that accept it as a reality, part of a motivating; it's not what keeps us doing right. It's what keeps us appreciating the free gift of Jesus and the price that was paid to deliver us from it. We realize that reality and the consequences of it, and we think, "Why should we go there when the blood of Jesus has already been shed and the price paid?" What a waste of the precious blood for anyone like you and me to end up in an eternal Hell. Yet, how many people who name the name of Jesus and go to church when it's convenient for them will end up there?

For you and me, chapter 3 of I John says, "Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not. Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like Him; for we shall see him as he is. And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure." We talked about the blessed hope being the primary motivation for our holiness. I made that statement this morning; I want to make sure that you're clear.

I'm not talking about the blessed hope being the assurance of us escaping Hell, which motivates us to righteousness. The blessed hope, or the sure coming of the Lord Jesus Christ and how that motivates us, is, again, through the appreciation of the free gift provided, of the justice of God that's going to be met, of the opportunity to see Him and be like Him, to be free from all of this power of sin that still works in our members and holds us captive. It's an expectation of the finished work and the fulfillment, the redemption, of our bodies, the apostle said. It's a motivating factor, and it causes us to rejoice and to continue to press on and expect that imminent return and that imminent deliverance from sin's power.

We saw this morning as we were closing in the Scriptures in Philippians, it says we're to have our conversation, our living, in Heaven from whence we also look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. We ask ourselves the question tonight then, "Is my conversation in the heavenlies?" That word conversation just means our lifestyle. Are we living?

It used to be something that people would throw out as a criticism, "You know, that person is so heavenly minded, they're no earthly good." You ever heard that one? People would make those kinds of statements. I think we're a people that are a lot more earthly good than they are heavenly minded. People are a lot more caught up in the earth and trying to do good for their friends and make out well for their children and get them educated and leave them an inheritance and build a nice little family nest. The ladies are fluttering around the home and fluffing pillows and hanging curtains.

I want to ask you a question tonight. How heavenly minded are we? Is our conversation in the heavens? Do you spend more time trying to match materials than you do, really, the living of causing the cleansing of our hearts and the preparation of our offspring for the eternal things?

As the apostle speaks to us here and tells us where our conversation or our living is supposed to be, it says, the heavens. We look for the coming of the Lord, and we realize that there is a separate kingdom; that we're a people that are in the world, but, of course, we're very clear of the fact that we're not of it. We can all quote that.

How's your battle going with the weights and the sins that so easily beset us? We all face it, don't we? Every one of us faces this, the weights. What is it that you seem to be dragging? People have the weights of trying to make a provision for their families. The old statement that the men years ago used to refer to their wives as the old ball and chain. What is it that you feel like you're dragging through life, and it's dragging you down and hindering you?

We realize that every one of us is faced with these same weights, the sins that try to beset us or to take us off course. Where's our living? Is it in the heavenlies? What is it that we're preparing ourselves for on a daily basis? Do we understand? We spend so much time trying to take care of this physical man. Do we realize that Romans 8 tells us that we're waiting for the adoption, to know the redemption of our bodies? This body isn't to take all of your time. It's going to be done away with. This body is going to decay. This thing is going to be changed. Oh, there needs to be a provision for this house of God, but I'd encourage you to begin to see it in the light that the Scripture does; and that's how temporal it is and how quickly it can change.

Those of you that are beaten down, and you've dealt with prolonged sickness and all of these things and it seems to be such a trial and such a burden, can I remind you that this life is just a vapor? And those ten, twenty, thirty, forty years of sickness and weakness are going to be over in just a moment and if you've used it as a time of understanding that we're waiting the adoption of these bodies into His glorious image, and we will be like Him, praise God. As we just remain faithful in these trials whichever it might be that we're facing in our lives. Oh, we get too caught up in the temporal, don't we? The things that really aren't that important, these things are going to change in a moment.

We look and the Scripture tells us in II Thessalonians 3 that it's to be a patient waiting for Christ. Now, we're waiting for Him. We have an expectation of the imminent return of the Lord, but it's to be a patient waiting. Now, that word patience doesn't just mean endurance. It means what? Consistency. How many of you are waiting for the Lord, you really believe He's coming, but it's this kind of a waiting: Up and down, on fire for God, caught up in the world, depressed, exuberant?

The patient waiting--our lives if we really are expecting the coming of the Lord, and we're expecting the eternal reward, and we're expecting these promises that are yeah and amen, it ought to cause a consistency to our lives. We're not tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine or by our emotions. We're not double-minded in all of our ways. There's a steadfastness. There's an understanding of the eternal purpose, and that the course that we're on is ordered of God and He's not only ordering our strength, but He's under-girding us with His presence and His promises. He's gone before us, the Scripture says, and His glory is our rear guard, so we rest in the Lord. There's the patient waiting for Christ.

I think II Thessalonians as it speaks toward that in that third chapter, the fifth verse, it's...remember what's happening. These are a people in the Thessalonian church that were under great persecution. That's why some of them were thinking that they were in the tribulation, and they were being persecuted by the Gentiles to the same degree that the Jews in Judea were being persecuted by--the converts were being persecuted by the Jews in Judea. Grave persecution and they were perplexed, and they were beaten down, and he said, "Have you lost sight of the patient waiting for Christ? This isn't going to last. The worse thing that can happen is they'll send you to be with the Lord. That's a time of celebration, a time of rejoicing." You see, death is just a perspective, isn't it, on what the end of this is going to be. Death isn't the end; it's the beginning.

We realize then that the blessed hope, this doctrine, covers so many different areas of our sanctification, of our constant living of righteousness, of the fact that now these circumstances aren't perplexing me. I'm not beat down. I'm not going to quit and give up. Why? I'm patiently waiting for the return of the Lord.

We hear the stories of some of the brothers and sisters over the years, not only from the coliseum in the first century but up into the twentieth century in China, and those who were persecuted. Those people, we've heard the stories, about them being confined just in little boxes, four by six boxes and locked up, and they never lost the joy of the Lord. It was because of the doctrine of the imminent return of the Lord. It was because of their patient waiting. They believed that at any moment their deliverance was at hand. Would they be found faithful when Jesus came?

How easy is it for you to just kind of under your breath say, "Well, I must as well just quit" because you stubbed your toe somewhere in business? Had to take a ten-dollar an hour cut. It's a whole different perspective when you see the purification that's on the church worldwide and what the body of Christ historically has been subjected to, and that our eyes are not to be on the comfort zone of daily life but on the eternal presence of God and His imminent return and this promise to patiently wait. Oh, beloved, we've talked about it so much in the last couple of years, the rocking of a people to sleep in this nation through our affluence. We've quoted the Scripture, the eschatological Scripture that says, "And Antichrist will destroy them by their prosperity." This secret power of lawlessness that's pervading in every area, the lives of each one of us. Are we aware of the hour that we're in and the jeopardy that we're in? Are we patiently waiting, consistency, with our eyes fixed on the heavens? Is that where our conversation is? Can we say it's in Him alone that I live, move, and have my being? This doctrine affects so many areas of our lives, and we have that promise that He's coming.

Turn over to Titus for just a moment, and let's look at the passage. It's one that we're all very familiar with, the great holiness statement of Titus, chapter 2, verse 11. "For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world." The grace of God teaches us that we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world. Right now in this crummy old world, we're to live soberly, righteously, and godlike. Now, how do we pull that off, this walking in the Spirit that would cause us to live this kind of a sanctified life? Look at verse 13. "Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ; Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all [sin], and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works. These things speak, and exhort, and rebuke with all authority. [Do not let any] man despise [you for it]."

You see, this is a doctrine that's despised, and it's despised by the earth-dwelling Christians. They're concerned that we're not as caught up with the temporal things as they are. We're not looking to lay up treasures for ourselves on earth; we're looking to lay up treasures in Heaven. The context of this passage in Titus, of course, has to do with sanctified living. It has to do with what our real treasures are. It has to do with the fact that we can live different than the world in the midst of all of these temptations and all of the draw that the world system has upon us. It's the grace of God that enables us. What causes it is the constant looking for that blessed hope. You can't live a sanctified life without the doctrine of the imminent return of the Lord being prominent in your life. It's impossible. You will be overcome. You will be brought down by the weights and the sins if there's not a constant looking up and an expectation of the coming of the Lord.

The doctrine has to become practical for us. It has to be one we saw in Matthew that causes a constant watching. I think that it's interesting if you would look at this, that in each of those examples that Matthew 24 and Matthew 25 give when it talks about the constant watching it talks about an imminent relationship of two individuals. Two are in the field and two are grinding, and the Scripture goes on and says, two are in the bed. I'd say it this way, "And two are in the church, and a married couple, and parents and their children." You can be in the same geographical location. You can be of the same vocation. You can even be of the same ideology, but are you both looking? Are you both ready? Do we have those around us prepared?

One of the biggest problems we have is the fact that this is a discipline, and many of us don't want to--"I don't want to have to be hard on my wife or my children" or whatever the case may be. We got to understand that there're other responsibilities, and there're all of these other excuses that we can make. Where is your treasure today? Where is the treasure of your heart? What is the course that's set for your household and for your lives? Is there a watching because you don't know the day or the hour? Every one of us here, Jesus said in His teaching, "If you knew, you would have been prepared."

I'm here to tell you tonight, "You know. What you know is this: That you don't know." We have to be prepared constantly. Can you say, "Right now my house is ready? We're ready. Let the strong man come. We're ready. Let the trumpet blow." Or will we tragically say, as we were reciting some of the words of that song, "I wish we'd all been ready?" But God will give us another chance. He's a merciful God and longsuffering and not willing that any should perish. We looked this morning and saw, no, there're not going to be any second chances.

I wonder why it is that people would hold to that particular doctrine. You know, we talked about the series of books that Tim LaHaye and whoever else the co-author was of that and the little movie that's out, and how it's not really doctrinally pure. That's not what the Scripture teaches. There're too many parables, beloved, there're the five wise and the five foolish that the Lord has spoken to. Thessalonians cannot be misunderstood that those who have rejected the love of the truth, God will send them strong delusion. They'll believe a lie.

Let's turn over there again just real quickly to refresh our minds with that passage in Thessalonians to see how important it is that you're ready today, that your household is ready today. Now, can you make somebody ready? Of course not. Do we plead with them and say, "You know, you just really need to get ready?" I could get up here and start crying and tell scary stories and everything. That's not going to change you.

In fact, the Holy Spirit doesn't refer to that. He refers to, if you'll look at the second chapter of II Thessalonians, you either will or will not receive and have a love for the truth. They received not the love of the truth. The grace of God makes available to every man the ability to love the truth. God's grace makes it available, and no man is seeking God. God is seeking every man. He's not willing that any would perish. He died for every one of us, and every one of us has the same opportunity afforded by the grace of God and the mercy of God and the free gift of God to accept the great gift of redemption, the benefit of reconciliation that's on the heart of God. That's why there's no weeping and no judgment of God when sinners, whether they are parents or spouses or children, are dealt forth just recompense because every one of us has had the same opportunity. There are those that receive and those that reject.

The miracle--and I believe that it probably is beyond our ability to comprehend--but the miracle of a sovereign God giving free will to man, each remaining in their proper roles, God remaining sovereign and omnipotent and man being able to reject His wooing and His gift and His call and pursuing the worship of the creature more than the creator; because of that, God will let them continue in their folly. Not only that, when the god that they worship manifests with all power and signs and lying wonders, verse 9, and all deceivable and unrighteousness in those that receive not the love of the truth, because of that being their heart's desire, verse 11, for that cause God shall send them strong delusion that they should believe a lie. Two people seeing the same thing.

I went and saw that movie, and one of my favorite parts of that whole thing was when they came out of that meeting. For those of you who didn't see the movie--somebody asked me today, they said, "Is it worth seeing?" I said, "If you can catch a matinee." I don't think it's worth full price. One of the things that's interesting was when they came out of this meeting that they had, and the Antichrist had killed this guy before their very eyes and caused them to believe that something else actually happened. They were discussing this thing, and the guy who wasn't yet deceived asked the person, "What did you see in there?" Two people saw the same thing, but did they?

That's what deception is all about. You're looking right at it and believing something other than the truth, incapable of seeing the truth. That's where those who have rejected the truth will be when the trump of God sounds, and the dead raise, and those of us that remain and are changed are caught up into the presence of the Lord. Those of you that are left behind will not be able to sit down, find chapter and verse and find your way out. You will never again be able to see the truth. This is the strong delusion that the Word of God speaks of, sent of God, and it's the justice of God.

Now, at this particular time, people will be saved during the tribulation. I'm not going to get off into that right now, but in Revelation Chapter 7, Revelation Chapter 14, you begin to read that there are those that are saved out of every nation, kindred, tongue, and tribe. We understand that the angels will be flying through the heavens and declaring the Gospel, and those in the most remote regions of the world will hear the Gospel. Literal angels will be ministering. Who knows whether they're going to be riding satellites or what they're going to be doing, but the message will come from the heavens. It'll come to the earth, and everyone will hear. But what about those who have already heard and rejected? Those who will be involving themselves as the greatest zealots of the apostate religious system, those who are turned over to believe the lie, those who now refute the Christian dogma that they once said they believed; and all of those radicals of whom they were a part having experienced the judgment of God, destroyed, disintegrated, removed, so that true unity and harmony and peace can be introduced to the world. I don't know how it's going to happen. I do know that strong delusion is going to be sent. I do know that those who have rejected the truth will now believe a lie.

You see, it's one thing to believe a lie. It's another thing to follow it. Those who rejected the truth will now believe the lie that they were pursuing. They may have believed that the truth and been living the lie, but now they will believe the lie. I'm talking about intellectually believing not in the true Biblical definition. The Scripture says it's going to take place that they might be damned.

We talked about Hell a little bit earlier. There's not always a lot of talk about Hell in our society today. If it is, it is mocked. You got people down in Hell doing the backstroke with the devil and telling dirty jokes or making some kind of plan to thwart humanity or whatever it might be. It's not a laughing matter. Being damned by Almighty God, the ultimate consequence of the rejection of the free gift, the ultimate consequence of self-exaltation and the deification of our own will and our own purpose, the final fruit of the horrible power of pride and self-will, is the consequence, the Scripture says, of the rejection of this truth. It is the consequence to every one of us who misses this great catching away that's imminent, that can happen at any moment. Damned those who believe not the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness. Now, remember what that is.

That pleasure in unrighteousness, it doesn't mean some kind of an out of control lascivious lifestyle. The pleasure is the pride, the self-assurance, the knowing better, the looking down your nose and laughing at those who need the mental crutch of religion. It's not just the drug addict, the sex addict, the alcoholic, the egomaniac, and the lover of money. The pleasure in unrighteousness is anything that is working in the heart of man that gives self-assurance and satisfaction in their rejection of God, that they're doing things their way. "I don't need counsel. I don't need God's--I don't need anything but my own way." Damned who believe not the truth.

The truth now in these two passages has to do with the rejection of the lordship of Jesus. Remember what the whole Thessalonians, the context of this chapter, is. They thought they were in the tribulation. They were being told that the finished work of Jesus wasn't sufficient--all of these different things that were manifesting.

I don't want to get too far off on this right now, but if you read down into the third chapter, as you read the context of this, II Thessalonians is such a small little book. It's obvious that Paul had just one thing on his mind when he was writing this second epistle. He's talking about the judgment of the evil one and those that are his agents through the first chapter. He talks about the fact that the doctrine was clear that they haven't missed the rapture, that they are not in the tribulation.

Then he goes into the third chapter, and he says, "Pray for us, that the Word might have free course, that we could continue to bring this same Gospel message." "And that we may be delivered from unreasonable and wicked men: for all men have not faith. But the Lord is faithful..." We're confident that the work in you is going to be finished, verse 4. It's our desire that "...the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God, and into the patient waiting for Christ. Now we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye withdraw [yourself] from every brother that walketh disorderly, and not after the tradition which he received of us. For [you] yourselves know how ye ought to follow us: for we behaved not ourselves disorderly among you;" He talks about the idleness and the deception that was taking place. Disorderly--those that behave themselves disorderly, and we've talked about that, what this disorderly behavior is. It's obvious that what he's speaking toward here are those that are not living in the pursuit of that blessed hope. There're a people who've rejected this doctrine. He said, "You got to understand that they're going to influence you in a negative way, and they're going to rob you of your hope." And they could, as he said in Timothy, steal your crown. Don't let any man steal your crown. You have got to finish this race. Who are you investing your time into and your energy?

Now, this doctrine of the rapture of the church that we're talking about, this blessed hope of the coming of the Lord to take us away and to take us into His presence--a lot of the people who want to argue, of course, they say that the word rapture is not in the Bible, and it's not. When we talk about the word, the word rapture just really means a catching away. We've talked about it numerous times, but let's go back and look at the Scriptures and see what's really going to happen here. Let's find out whether this is, in fact, what should be occupying a lot of the time and energy in our lives.

If you just look back into I Thessalonians, we can check out a couple of passages. Verse 16 of Chapter 4 begins to set the doctrine for us. "For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together [there's the rapture] with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord." Look at verse 18. "Wherefore [what?] comfort one another with these words."

Now, remember to whom he's writing. He's writing to the church of Thessalonica. They're under great persecution. They're being tortured. They're being oppressed. They're being starved out. They're being ex-communicated socially and religiously. He says in the midst of this, comfort one another. This isn't our life. We're not about the temporal; we're about the eternal.

Now, we can learn one thing about this. All of the comfort went forth to the church of Thessalonica, and circumstances ultimately changed for them; but the Lord didn't come. The very thing they were looking for didn't happen. Here we are 2001, and Christians are being persecuted like that all around the world; and they're still comforting one another saying, "At any moment."

Well, is this some kind of a false expectation? Is just this some kind of mental game to get us through hard times? Of course not. It's been decreed. This imminent return is an established fact. The Lord shall come. The Lord Himself shall descend. Now, we don't know at what juncture it's going to take place, and in the midst of adversity, we need to comfort ourselves realizing that this temporal life isn't where our hope is; but the fact of the matter is this: That He will come, and that He will take us away, caught up. "Harpazo" is the Greek, a forceful seizure is what Vines rendering of this word in the Greek would be. No one can stop it. No one can thwart God's purpose. Swift and resistless, Vincent says. Nothing will prevent this event from taking place. There's no power that can resist this power of Antichrist. The power of sin is overcome. The dead will rise. The living will be changed.

That's the doctrine that we're to be propagating. That's what we're to be doing when we come together, and forsake not the assembling of ourselves together as the manner of some is, and even more as you see that day approaching.

I want to tell you one thing. The more you believe in the return of the Lord, the more you'll gather together with believers. Church won't be something you have to do; it'll be something you get to do. You get to come and comfort and you get to come and stir up your heart and your expectation of the coming of the Lord Jesus. The fact that we're here as His agents to propagate this Gospel, and how can we better affect those that God brings into our lives.

I Corinthians 15 says it this way. Turn over there to the fifteenth chapter of Corinthians, and as we're talking about the "harpazo", the great catching away. I Corinthians Chapter 15, the nursery passage, verse 51, " . . . We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed. In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed." The trumpet shall sound.

What is this trumpet sound? It's the voice of the Lord crying forth. As you study the Scriptures, and you realize that Exodus 19, that on Mount Sinai when the Lord appeared, the trumpet sounded twice at that particular time. This trumpet blast is the Word of the Lord. It caused fear to smite their hearts, but for us it's going to cause joy.

The trumpet's going to sound. There'll be a blast, and the dead will rise. There'll be another blast most likely, and those of us that are alive will be changed; and we'll be caught up into the presence of the Lord. Now, everybody around is not going to hear a big trumpet blast. We know in John 12, verse 28, and also in Acts 9:4 that God spoke; and it thundered. It sounded like a trumpet. It sounded like thunder, and some, in fact, said it thundered, but only God's people really heard the voice or the words that were spoken.

Who knows what the natural ear is going to hear. I believe that we'll hear something like this, "Come up hither." Or if He doesn't speak in King James, He can say something like, "Y'all come," but there's going to be the cry of our coming to His presence and the finished work of the redemption of our bodies, the fulfillment of all of these promises. Let's watch because we don't know what hour the Lord's returning. I wish we'd all be ready.

Now, Thessalonians 4:14 says that those asleep in Jesus, He's going to bring with Him. In other words, there's going to be the spirits that have departed, they're already with the Lord. To be absent from the body is to be what? Present with the Lord. The dead that are going to rise, these people are not soul sleeping. The Spirit is in the presence of the Lord. The body's going to be raised. It's going to be changed. Corruption, Chapter 15 here says in verse 53, the corruptible must put on incorruption, and the mortal immortality. "So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, [the] mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory" (I Corinthians 15:54).

There's been a question with the dead in Christian burials, and shouldn't we, I mean, cremation seems wrong because there needs to be a bodily resurrection. I don't want to get off into anything on this to dwell upon it, but how many Christians have died in plane crashes and in the wars and been destroyed by napalm? How many Christians were burned at the stake? Don't worry. God will be able to round them up. What about those that have been cut asunder and mutilated and members all over the place and unable to identify them? Don't get caught up in traditionally thought.

The Spirit is already with the Lord, and the body's every molecule being transformed from the physical into the spiritual in whatever way God chooses to construct it. We'll take on a new body, and we'll see Him and be like Him. We're to comfort one another, the Scripture says, with these words. It's our expectation. It's the hope of those of us who are believers. The sequence: The dead in Christ first.

Don't mourn for those, the Scripture tells us, that have gone on. They're already with the Lord, and they're going to rise and their bodies will be changed. Then this transformation that you and I are going to go through, and who knows exactly what it is going to be? They're going to be raised incorruptible. They're going to be raised in glory, verse 42 through 44 says in this fifteenth chapter. They're going to be raised in power, and they're going to be raised a spiritual body, verses 42 through 44, I Corinthians 15.

We see this event taking place. It's going to be glorious. It's going to be done in power irresistible. It's going to be a spiritual body, the Scripture says. What we're looking for is the transformation from the natural into the spiritual, from the temporal into the eternal; and that's our expectation. That's our hope.

Some say, "Well, you know, then if that's the case, I'd just as soon live a great healthy prosperous life, die at say 150 or whatever, and then be one of those that gets caught up first. Why should I pray, 'Come quickly, Lord Jesus?'" You haven't finished this course. How do you know what a 150 years of prosperity might bring you? If these things were dangerous to us, if this world that we're living in is, in fact, the enemy of our souls, then I would be thinking that we want out. Amen? What is it that you love here? What is it that you want to stick around for? What is this affinity that you have for the natural, the temporal that overrides your desire for the things that eyes have not seen? What are the treasures, really, of our hearts? That's what we have to ask as we're dealing with this doctrine of the blessed hope.

For anyone--let me ask you a question, "Do you think that would have entered one mind (that, that I just spoke of)? Do you think that would have entered one mind of one member of the Thessalonian church?" What is it that would cause it to come into our minds then? What? Our prosperity, our ease, our comfort, our heaven on earth. Not one of those guys would have said, "You know, life's pretty good, man, I just wish the Lord would let me experience another 75 years of this persecution."

If that becomes your heart's attitude, how quickly do you think things can change? According to Thessalonians, can we then change our heart's direction any time we want? Well, I used to love the world, but now I'm going to love God. You can't change your allegiance like that. The only way you can pursue God is based upon His grace and His mercy and His call. God will not always strive with man. What are you doing with the grace that's been afforded us this evening? What are we doing with the gift of God? Are we squandering the grace and the call and the wooing of God on this temporal prosperity, and then like Samson going to rise up someday and shake ourselves and the spirit's gone, and we didn't even know it? You see, this is what the understanding of the blessed hope's all about.

You read on in the fourth chapter of Thessalonians. Let's turn back there for just a second, verse 15, "...we which are alive and remain...[will] not prevent them which are asleep." There seemed to be a concern. Well, what about those that have already died and gone on? He said, "Don't worry about it. God's got it taken care of. They're going to be raised." There was the false doctrine that was being propagated concerning the departed and the evilness of the body and these different things and that the corruption of the physical man would cause an inability to be reconciled back to God. That's what the doctrine of the whole bodily resurrection was about.

In Chapter 4, verse 15, he precedes it in verse 13 by saying, "[I don't want] you to be ignorant... concerning them which are asleep. [Don't] sorrow [as those] which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so [those that are asleep will Jesus bring with Him]." You see, there seemed to be a thinking that death was the end of it all. They're saying, "No, stop and think about the resurrection. And Jesus is the first fruits, and those that have departed, He's going to bring with Him. They're with the Lord. To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord." It creates again an excitement that we're going to see loved ones before us. David believed that, didn't he? When he talked about the child, he said, "He can't come to us, but we can go to him." You remember the death of the child and the judgment and the justice of God?

It's amazing how the doctrine changes the perception of death. The Holy Spirit said it over in I Corinthians 15. He talked about the victory over death. Death is something that humans fear. It's like this: The unknown is what causes people to be afraid. Those of us that are believers, it's not unknown. We know exactly what's going to happen when you die. It's nothing to be feared.

In fact, we can even make Biblical comments that cause people to look at us like we're stupid. Really, the Bible says that we're to mourn at birth and rejoice at death. Of course, none of us Christians would do that. We're just like the world. A baby is born: Ah, praise, ah, time of celebration. This little life has to now battle sin for every day that he draws breath on this earth. This little child has just been introduced to sin, to hatred, to warfare, to poverty because he was conceived in iniquity and born into a family of the Adamic nature. Then he's introduced to Jesus and becomes a new creation and dies. What a time to celebrate! We all weep. Oh, I'm not minimizing the natural loss and these different areas. I'm talking about the belief of eternal life and the spiritual realm and the blessed hope. These are the things that we can measure it up against in our lives, the real things. When you really face these issues. What's real to you, the spiritual or the natural?

Let me wind up with this for this evening. We'll pick it back up on Wednesday. As we start winding down a little bit for this evening, we see the necessity of a changing taking place in I Corinthians 15. In verses 51 and 52, as we looked at earlier, we saw that this change was necessitated before we could be like Him and before we could be in His presence.

Philippians 3:20 and 21 says it this way. It says that the Lord Jesus shall change our vile body that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body. So what does that tell us about this temporal body we're hauling around? It's vile, isn't it? It's got to be changed. I'm just saying all that to say this, "How much time do we spend on the temporal? How caught up are we with the temporal? How does it look? How does it feel?"

It's really--some of you haven't got there yet. Some of you have already been past it. When you look in the mirror and you see your parents, a real eye opener. You say, "How did they get in my mirror? What is this?" I see some of you have passed it. Some of you are looking in there and seeing your grandparents now. Not many, we're a pretty young congregation, but some have experienced that.

We're living in a society when tons of money is being spent on cosmetics and trying to do away with every wrinkle. We're wanting to keep ourselves fit, and that's fine. Are you wanting to be fit so that you can have more energy to work, or you wanting to project some kind of an image? What's motivating you in these different areas? You begin to ascertain, "How much time is being spent on this body?" We put it to bed, and it lies there for eight hours. We get up, and we feed it for three hours. There's eleven of the twenty-four hours gone. We brush our teeth. We shave. We wash our hair. We curl our hair. We pick our pimples. We pull out ingrown hairs. We pluck our eyebrows. We cut our toenails. We--what? What's this all about? I mean, it would just be, if we could just like have some kind of thing, like a big fire hydrant, and you just line--puhhhh-- and everybody's ready to go. All the bacteria's gone, and we're trucking. Everybody's primping. This thing's going to die, man. It's going to be changed. Isn't life more than the body and raiment we saw in our teaching on prayer?

I don't want to revert back into the prayer, but what are you praying about? How much time's being spent about praying about those kinds of things? We talked about it and praying for. . . There's people that want to pray. I'm praying just for the Lord to bless and for a better job. You're not praying for a better job. You're praying for a better pair of shoes. They may not even be better. They may just have a name on them that makes people think they're better.

Saw a thing this afternoon as I was waiting to watch the beginning of the race, the Daytona 500. There was about fifteen minutes before the race started, so I was surfing. I was hanging ten; I was doing about ten channels surfing and checking things out. I went by this one channel. It had on the greatest TV sales of all time. You know, those things that people stay up late, watch, believe, and spend their money on that don't work? There could be something that works, but most that stuff doesn't work. That's why it's only $19.95. If you buy it today, you get this plastic thing and this thing that breaks, and this thing that doesn't work and this...

It was going through and showing all the different sales, and one of the things that it showed was the Ginsu. Anybody ever heard of that. Let me see your hands. How many of you ever heard of Ginsu? How many know what Ginsu is? It's a knife. How many of you know what Ginsu means? Ginsu means nothing; they made up the name. The knives had already been on sale for forty years as some of the cheapest cutlery in department stores ever made. They were taken, sold, with the cutting--nobody ever needed to cut an aluminum can until Ginsu came about; right? You wouldn't do this with a tomato. Get a Ginsu. Of course, you wouldn't do that to a tomato. I could cut that tomato with my hair comb. They're taught--how in the world did I get over here? Grace? Yeah, so anyway, it was the race was going on, getting ready to go on, and I was watching this thing. Oh, we were talking about the body and the overemphasis on the body and all the things that we think we have to have, how we're just being sold a bill of goods. They package this thing up, and they're selling us all of these cosmetics and all of these clothes. We talked about praying and asking God for a better job. That's how I got over there, and said, you didn't want a better job, you just wanted a better pair of shoes. That's how it happened. It was just a name, and you thought you were getting something that is non-existent.

We really need to examine our hearts and ask, "Why am I doing this?" It all comes out to be pride. It all comes out to be self-will. It all comes out to be image. It all comes out to be ease and comfort and lust and all of these other things that cause us to be drawn here and there and pursue this because we're not content with what God's giving us. One of the greatest contributing factors to contentment is the doctrine of the blessed hope, the patient waiting for the return of the Lord. If you're patiently waiting for the return of the Lord, you're not going to get caught up in all these temporal things that need to satisfy.

We talked about the body and how it's going to be changed and the inordinate amount of time that we spend upon it, but this corruptible must put on incorruption. As always, we're talking about the balance and where our conversation is. As we close for tonight, the dead in Christ have already finished their course. Those of us that are wanting to live these great long lives of comfort and ease and prosperity, it may be the stumbling block that damns you. I think we need to pray, "Come quickly, Lord Jesus" because if the time were not shortened, even the very elect won't make it, the Scripture says. How strong is this delusion? Even the very elect would be susceptible. Are you the exception? Yeah, amen. You better believe amen. It will be. Amen just means so be it. It's going to be.

Now, where is your conversation, and where are your treasures? Can we mentally ascend to all of this doctrine that we've been talking about? Or do we really believe that at any moment that trumpet's going to sound, and the verdict is still out on those of us that remain? Are you looking for and hastening to that coming of the Lord? Only you can answer that question tonight. Where's your heart? Where are your eyes, in the heavenlies or in the next little acquisition of the temporal?

Father, give us eyes to see and ears to hear what the Spirit says to the church. Father, cause us as a people to be ready and to be watchful because we don't know the day or the hour when the Son of Man comes. Now, if we'd known, we would have been ready. We would have been prepared--the strong man at hand. Where are we today, Father, in our preparation? What are our goals, and what are the standards of our household? What're clearly the treasures that we pursue? Make it real to us and ours Father, we ask in Jesus name. Amen. Let's stand before the Lord.

As Gary plays for us here, we'll just take a moment. I believe that the Holy Spirit is ordered us into this area again just as a way of preparing our hearts that we don't fall into the slumber of a Samson. And allow us to judge ourselves on our intentions and all the while we're not living for or living like we believe in an imminent return. One other thing that the belief in the imminent return of the Lord will do to you: It will cause you to be an evangelist. It'll cause you to share freely what you've received, rather than rushing through life and not being concerned with those that are being damned. How can they hear without a preacher? What is it that's important to tell them? Where that big sale is and where you got that bargain and how they can buy this stock and how they can beat the system in this way? What is it that we're spending our time telling people? It's all going to burn. It's all going to burn up. Amen. Amen? The weights and sins, the destroying force of strong delusion and prosperity, the spirit of iniquity is already at work. Have you seen professed Christians whose eyes are already blinded? Come quickly, Lord, and save us.

Let's sing it together. Hallelujah, Jesus! Oh, Lord, cause our hearts to be renewed and refreshed, a spirit that pursues the eternal, Lord, and understands the jeopardy of all that surrounds us that cries for our souls. Let no man steal our crown, Father. Cause us to finish this course, to finish this race by Your grace and for Your purpose, to hear the trump of God, to see You and be like You. It's our heart's desire, Father, and we ask it in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. Before you go, turn to somebody around you and say, "We're going to see Him." Amen. Go in peace. God's love go with you.

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