Praise, honor, glory, and delight belong unto Thee.
For Thou alone art to be worshiped.
Thou alone art God.
There is none else besides Thee.
Enable us, O Lord Jesus, to pour out
our souls in humble confession.
O Lord, it is a faithful slave and
worthy of all except Christ Jesus came into
the world to save sin.
Do Thou enable us truly to appreciate His
matchless glory as the Redeemer, as the one
who was dead but who is alive again
and who has the keys of hell and
enable us to apprehend in His exaltation as
the great High Priest who is passed into
Jesus the Son to apprehend Him also as
the King of kings and Lord of lords
as the one who when He had by
Himself purged our sins notwithstanding
all our unworthiness our guiltiness our hell-deserving
notwithstanding all our wretchedness grant that He may
always come between us and the desert that
we may have such understanding of Him as
the one mediator between God and man that
we shall always have to plead His merit,
His righteousness His mediatorial lordship and His intercession
as the great High Priest of our profession
and in this confidence that He is able
to save to the uttermost all that come
unto God through Him may we have strong
faith may we have this faith as the
anchor of the soul both sure and steadfast
so that when the floods seem to overwhelm
we may not be overcome but that we
shall know indeed that we have an advocate
with the Father Jesus Christ the righteous who
is the propitiation for our sins and not
for ours only but also for the whole
world grant that we may constantly do honor
to Him in whom thy supreme good pleasure
went that there may be that convergence of
judgment by which we shall place out our
men to the testimony of God the Father
that this is my beloved Son in whom
I am well pleased O Lord, as thou
hast brought us to reminding us again that
the days of our years shall at least
go years and tens do thou give us
grace that we may dwell in the secret
place of the Most High and under the
shadow of the Almighty and consider all things
but love for the excellency of the knowledge
of Christ Jesus that although oftentimes the experiences
of this life and the dispensations of thy
covenant providence cause us grief and sorrow yet
we may always be more than conquerors through
Him that loved us persuaded that neither death
nor life nor angels nor principalities nor powers
will be able to separate us from the
love of God which is in Christ Jesus
our Lord we do beseech thee that in
each one of us Christ may perform the
hope of glory so that we may rejoice
with exceeding great joy that Christ is our
Redeemer our Savior, our Lord and that we
may live in this life as those who
are pilgrims and strangers in the earth looking
to the Lord for we know that if
our earthly house of this covenant were dissolved
we have a building of God a house
not made with hands eternal in the heavens
and so on to the end of the
ninth verse the end of one year and
the beginning of another remind us of the
passage of time and the passage of time
is a constant reminder to us that
the history of this world is characterized by
cycles of divine appointments in the book of
Genesis there is a very striking intimation of
that fact in the promise for in the
earth we may not see time and harvest
and cold and heat and summer and winter
and day and night shall not cease that
constant cycle by which the history of this
world is characterized is not however to be
everlasting the perspective with which the biblical
revelation provides us is not that of a
manless cycle in pagan thought there has been
that conception that the history of time is
a constant cycle that goes on indefinitely but
the biblical perspective is what we call linear
rather than cyclical and what I mean by
that is that world history has a beginning
and it has an end it moves from
creation to consummate and we are constantly reminded
of that feature of life in this world
by the transitoriness of life which belongs to
each one of us we have been singing
in the words of the psalm thou turnest
man to destruction and sayest return ye children
of man and again the wind passeth over
it and it is gone and the place
thereof shall know it no more forever thus
we are and to thus we must return
now what is to be the attitude of
Christian faith with reference to the cycles by
which history in this world is characterized and
with reference to the transitoriness of individual life
in this present in this chapter we are
provided with the attitude that is with the
perspective which ought to characterize each one of
us in our life in this world and
very briefly the first feature of the teaching
of the apostle in these verses is something
that is very significant for us if we
have Christian faith and it is very significant
in that it is a criterion of Christian
it is that which you find in verses
7 and 8 for we walk by faith
not by strife we are confident I say
and willing rather to be absent from the
body and to be present with the Lord
of course the Christian outlook is to be
faithful to those vocations and appointments which God
has assigned to us in this particular world
you remember that the apostle Paul in other
epistles very, very severely upbraised those who were
a busybody who were idle who were more
concerned about other people's business than they were
about the vocation to which God had called
them and he characterizes that as a disorderliness
which is quite, quite incompatible with Christian faith
and love and hope if a man will
not provide for his own and especially for
those of his own household he has denied
the faith and is worse than an infidel
yes, we have to be faithful to the
appointments to the vocations which God has assigned
to us in this world we are to
use this world and we are not to
abuse it and we are not to live
in this sort of mystical abstraction from the
realities of life in this world we must
be faithful and diligent in that particular sphere
in which God has placed us but the
point to be emphasized in this connection is
that we are not to be so attached
to life in this world that we are
unready to be called hence if the Lord
so markets we are confident, I say, and
willing rather to be absent from the body
and to be present with the Lord it
is not of faith to be so much
afraid of the event of death to be
so much, as it were, obsessed with the
fear of death that we shall not be
willing to be called hence when God's time
comes and the reason which the apostle Paul
intimates in this particular passage is that to
be absent from the body is to be
present with the Lord the apostle in another
epistle said that he was in a great
betwixt two having a desire to depart and
to be with Christ, which was far better
nevertheless, to abide in the flesh he says,
is more needful for you and having this
confidence I know that I shall abide and
continue with you for your furtherance and joy
of faith and it is perfectly proper for
a believer to desire of the Lord that
he might continue in this life in order
to fulfill a certain vocation which God has
given him many of the people of God
have prayed that they might be spared until
they might fulfill in the interest of the
kingdom of God a certain task upon which
they had set their hearts but you see
their thinking in such an instance is determined
by the interest of the kingdom of God
I know that I shall abide, he says
for your furtherance and joy of faith nevertheless
the apostle in that other passage in Philippians
and in this particular passage in this chapter
makes it perfectly clear that he had a
desire to depart to be with Christ and
he was willing rather to be absent from
the body than to be present with the
Lord and the reason is this that to
be present with the Lord is immensely superior
it's an immensely superior form of life and
an immensely superior experience to that which can
characterize any person in this particular life and
it is that burning love which the apostle
Paul had to the Saviour which made him
utter these words that he was confident rather
to be absent from the body than to
be present it is well for us to
examine ourselves in the light of that particular
criterion oh if we are so attached to
this world that we cannot contemplate with any
equanimity the thundering of the chord that unites
us to life in this world then there
is something wrong something radically wrong with our
attitude something radically wrong with our perspective and
something radically wrong in respect of our relationship
to the Lord and Saviour it is worldliness
that causes us to be so attached to
life in this world that we cannot with
any joy and with any equanimity contemplate the
thundering of the bond that unites us to
life in this world and let that be
impressed deeply upon our hearts so that we
may be able to determine the extent really
of our true spirituality in reference to our
Christian faith now the second observation that we
can elicit from this particular passage as it
bears upon what we may call the perspective
of faith is that which we have in
verses two through four for in this we
grow we say earnestly desiring to be closed
upon with our help which is from heaven
if so be that being closed we shall
not be found naked for we that are
in this tabernacle do groan being burdened not
for that we would be unclosed but closed
upon that mortality might be swallowed up with
life now when the apostle says here not
that we would be unclosed but closed upon
he is referring of course to the unclosing
that takes place in death that is to
our divestiture as it were of this tabernacle
the tabernacle which can be dissolved and that
points us to the particular thought that the
apostle has in these verses not that we
would be unclosed that is not that the
connection between body and spirit would be thundered
and that we would be disembodied spirits of
what is he saying just of this that
the preeminent desire on the part of the
apostle was that Christ would come the second
time so that there would be no necessity
for death at all that was the paramount
the paramount thought of the apostle and perhaps
we are we are not disposed to think
in these terms but if you read your
New Testament very carefully you'll find that the
New Testament is steeped in that expectation in
that hope of the Lord appearing in the
clouds of heaven with great power and glory
and it is that undoubtedly that the apostle
has in mind in these three verses that
mortality might be swallowed up of life not
that we would be unclosed but closed to
power and he is thinking you see of
Christ coming when the believing dead will be
raised but the believing living will not die
but be changed and that shows the extent
of which there was in the interest in
the hope in the faith of the apostle
the appearing of the glory of Christ when
he will come the second time without sin
unto salvation now what I was trying to
express upon you last Sabbath night that is
the focal point of Christian hope and expectation
there is such a thing as a morbid
and utterly un-Christian craving for the event
of death itself it is not Christian it
is not death itself that constitutes the focal
point of Christian hope and it is not
Christian to desire death in itself death as
death don't forget what we have noted in
connection with verse 8 that the apostle was
willing to be absent from the body and
to be present with the Lord because of
the reality of that translation into heaven where
Christ came and to be present in his
disembodied spirit with the Lord thus this advises
us that what is most central in the
apostle's expectation and desire is that the Lord
himself would come and that there would not
be the necessity for unclothing that there wouldn't
be the necessity at all for death but
that mortality might be swallowed up of life
in accordance with that other word of the
apostle that we shall not all sleep but
we shall all be changed in a moment
in the twinkling of an eye when the
trumpet will sound and the dead will be
raised incorruptible and we shall be changed and
if you examine these three verses verses 2
through 4 I think you will find that
that is unmistakably what the apostle has in
mind we that are in his tabernacle do
grow be burned not so that we would
be unclothed that is, not that we would
experience death but that we would be clothed
upon that the heavenly health that the heavenly
habitation might be as it were imposed upon
us without the necessity of that transition that
we know as death as disembodiment may I
just underline that that it is not Christian
to regard death itself as something that is
good death itself is unevil death itself is
the wages of sin and it is unenemy
it is the last enemy that will be
destroyed and therefore it is not something that
in itself is to be desired because it
is the purpose of God that death itself
will be destroyed you know the disembodied state
is not the idea in pagan thought that
is oftentimes the perception or the perspective that
is entertained that the body is as it
were a hindrance that it's essentially a clog
a protrude spiritual aspiration that is not the
conception of Scripture the grand concept that is
presented to us in the Scripture is that
death itself will be destroyed that it will
be swallowed up in victory that as the
last enemy it will be dropped to naught
and that it is in the embodied state
that the consummation of bliss and the consummation
of glory and it is that that is
reflected in these verses in which we are
concentrating now not that we would be unclothed
but clothed upon that mortality might be swallowed
up of life now the third feature of
this particular passage that it provides us with
the true Christian perspective is that which you
have in the first verse of this chapter
we know that if our earthly house of
this tabernacle were dissolved we have a building
of God and house not made with hands
eternal in heaven now what the apostle is
concentrating there is the event of death the
possibility that the earthly house of this tent
that he really speaks of it the earthly
house of this tent he is thinking of
death of the reality of that physical dissolution
that takes place in the event of death
and what is the faith that he entertains
that he contemplates that event it is this
that if this earthly house of the tabernacle
were dissolved we have a building of God
and house not made with hands eternal in
heaven now it is true of course that
some people have interpreted that as meaning the
mansions in heaven which Christ has prepared for
his own people for example when he says
to his disciples in my father's house are
many mansions if it were not so I
would have told you I go to prepare
a place for you but that cannot properly
be understood as that of which the apostle
is speaking here he is thinking of the
resurrection and that is what is in view
when he says we have a building of
God and house not made with hands eternal
in heaven it is the resurrection body what
he is contrasting here is the temporary abode
which we have in this life he calls
it the earthly house of this tent it's
a tent dwelling you know that some people
live in tents it's very temporary those who
travel from one place to another live in
the tent and they take down the tent
and then they pass on to some other
place and he is contrasting you see the
idea of dwelling in a tent with dwelling
in a permanent abode that's the contrast if
our earthly house of this terminal that is
tent were dissolved we have a building that
is a stable edifice a building of God
and house not made with hands eternal in
heaven and how grand is that conception that
is at the very center of our Christian
hope that if we pass out of this
pass from this life if we undergo the
event of death what is it that is
focal in our expectations it is that there
will be a resurrection body that will never
die it is soul in weakness always in
the first epistle to the Corinthians it is
soul in weakness it is raised in power
it is soul in natural body it is
raised in spiritual body it is soul in
corruption it is raised in incorruption for flesh
and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God
that is to say the weakness and infirmity
it is a body that will be adapted
to the eternal kingdom to the eternal realm
of glory and of bliss and of life
everlasting is the expectation the first desire of
the apostle Paul first was this that Christ
would come and that they would be clothed
immediately without experience death with the habitation which
is from heaven with this permanent dwelling place
but nevertheless he recognized that that may not
be the will of God that Christ should
come and raise the dead and change the
living and so he contemplates the possibility that
for himself he would have to pass through
the event of death as he actually did
but in contemplation of that eventuality of that
event he says we have this assurance that
we have a building of God and house
not made with hands eternal in heaven and
that is the other crisis to us the
significance that attaches to the human body in
the glory that will be administered in terms
of God's redemption it isn't a disembodied spirit
that the people of God will enjoy the
full glory of God and the full glory
of their inheritance no it is in a
reconstituted body that will be endowed with God's
character and with God's qualities which will be
eternal everlasting and no death no change will
ever invade that resurrection now the fourth and
last lesson that has derived from this particular
passage is that which you find in verse
9 wherefore we labour that whether present or
absent we may be accepted of him to
see the absolute recognition of the absolute power
and will of God for his paramount desire
was that Christ would come and that they
would not that believers would not be unclothed
but that mortality would be swallowed up with
life he is entirely willing to be absent
from the body and to be present with
the Lord he has the assured conviction that
if he passes through the experience of death
nevertheless at the resurrection he will have a
house not made with hands eternal in the
heavens but he'll see the resurrection whether present
with the Lord that is whether going to
be with the Lord now or whether living
in this life for a period in accordance
with God's sovereign appointment whether present or absent
we may be accepted of him and in
the original it is we may be well
pleasing now that's the governing principle of
faith and love and hope to be well
pleasing to Christ that is the principle that
should govern us and we have to recognize
that the will of Christ is paramount for
this reason Christ died and rose again that
he might be Lord of our death Lord
of the dead and of the living and
the recognition of the supremacy of his will
and humble resignation to his will and above
all obedience to his revealed will is the
governing principle of the Christian life and you
see how faith, hope, love and obedience are
therefore reflected in this in the first epistle
you remember Paul says now abideth faith, hope
and love these three but the greatest of
these and how eloquently this particular passage be
speaks the exercise of all these graces of
these graces which characterize the Christian in this
life faith, hope, love you see how love
is exhibited in that very expression to depart
and to be with Christ which is far
better or as it is in this passage
willing rather to be absent from the body
and the apostle didn't desire death I said
there is no virtue in death I said
but nevertheless notwithstanding the evil that death entails
notwithstanding its abnormality because of immediate presence with
Christ he was willing be present with the
Lord why?
just because of him and
where is hope?
oh it is in that verse that we
just thought of we know that if our
earthly house of this heaven were dissolved we
have a building of God a house not
made with hands eternal in heaven and what
about faith?
in verse 6 therefore we are always confident
knowing that whilst we are at home in
the body we are absent from the Lord
for we walk by faith you see how
this particular passages and the dwellings of penetration
with the exercises which are the pivotal exercises
of the Christian life faith hope love and
love enable that whether pleasant or unwell
pleasing my friends at the beginning of another
year for myself first of all and for
myself more needfully than for any of you
for myself first of all and then for
you may it be that the governing principle
that whatever God will for us in his
providence may be of all of us that
we shall have the constant unshearedness of the
Lordship of Christ that we shall have the
constant consciousness of his presence with us in
accordance with his promise so that whatever he
may in his sovereign in his sovereign goodwill
has in store for us he shall be
acceptable in his life and that when he
calls us hence or if it is his
will that he should come again the second
time without sin unto him a joy in
his presence because we know him in all
the reality of his redeeming oh
may I the absolute supreme
Lordship of Christ and the joy and the
liberty of total commitment to his true liberty
the liberty of unreserved of Christ
will make us free we shall be free
indeed paradoxical as it is the way of
the Christian life in this world is the
bond's permit to Christ and it is just
as we are the bond's permit our call
upon God's name O thou that dwellest to
triumph our way we pray that thou wouldst
touch us and deliver us from the bondage
of the children of God O forbid that
we should be the bond slaves of Satan
or of iniquity that we may walk in
the light that thou art in the light
may know the liberty that is in Christ
Jesus and stand fast in that liberty so
that we shall not be the bond slaves
of men but that we shall know that
none other is man that we may call
O man father within heaven