First of all, the invitation to be with
you for this conference, and for the kind
hospitality of those responsible for Park of the
Palms, and for the worship we have enjoyed
with you.
I'm sure that most preachers who come here
to Park of the Palms probably come alone.
Some of them may bring a wife, but
I have come with my wife and three
children, so that certainly multiplies the number of
meals we've enjoyed, the two rooms we have
occupied, and for all of those things we
wish tonight to express our thanks.
Now, as I share with you this closing
message in connection with God's purpose to glorify
man, I realize that in one short hour
we do not have adequate time to speak
on the greatness of the subject of our
glorification in its bodily form or shape.
Even when it comes to the scriptures, one
is at a loss just to know where
to read, for there are many portions in
the New Testament which speak very clearly of
this great hope before us.
I have chosen just two or three tonight,
and we will begin in 2 Corinthians 5.
Now, as you look for the portions, let
me share with you that in Santo Domingo
a few years ago, when we had what
we call our frustrated revolution.
Perhaps I've told you before that all of
the foreign residents of the capital city of
Santo Domingo were evacuated by the U.S.
Marines.
My wife and three children were amongst the
last to be taken away by ship, a
naval ship, to San Juan, Puerto Rico, from
where they were able to fly back to
your state of Florida.
I remained in Santo Domingo with one or
two friends, including John Shannon, and during the
time when we had our city divided into
two sections and when there was a great
deal of fighting, in the home in which
we lived we gathered together about twelve fellow
Christians, including one little girl about five years
of age.
And one afternoon we had sensed that around
our neighborhood everything was absolutely quiet.
You felt like you were in a cemetery,
nothing moved, there was no sound, and that
is very, very strange in Latin America.
And then we did hear a sound, and
I went through the window, and coming down
the street we saw an army tank and
a number of soldiers, and they came down,
and we were very quiet, no movement in
the house, nothing to attract attention.
But when the tank came just in front
of our home, it stopped.
And then it aimed its cannon, it looked
like it was coming straight for our home.
But fortunately, between where we lived and the
next neighbor down the street, there was a
vacant lot, and actually the tank was firing
its shot down through the vacant lot to
some object on the other street behind us.
The noise was deafening.
We gathered, the twelve of us, in a
little center passage in the home, and we
lay on the floor.
And I remember with great love one of
the Latin American Christians, he prayed out loud
in a quiet voice one of those prayers
that was said in words.
Every time there was a moment of quietness
between the firing, we would hear a continuation
of the prayer.
And I remember going into one of the
rooms and looking out the window and seeing
the soldiers and the guns and so on.
And I lay on the floor, and I
think for the first time perhaps in my
life, I was conscious that all we needed
was just one shell, just a little off
its direction, and that would bring our house
and all of us in it down.
I'd never thought before about death in that
sense, of something that was very possible that
could happen, and I've never had an experience
like that since.
But it did teach me a lesson that
I share with you tonight.
I think it is wrong to be obsessed
with the thought of death.
On the other hand, I think it is
wrong not to be realistic and to remember
that it is very possible that many of
us, while we wait for the coming of
the Lord Jesus, may pass through the experience
of death.
So, to be obsessed with it is wrong.
On the other hand, to completely ignore it
is also wrong.
Now, Paul comes to chapter 5 of 2
Corinthians, down through chapter 4.
I know there were no chapters when he
wrote this letter, but as you come down
through chapter 4, especially towards the end of
the chapter, he speaks of the outward man,
and he says it is wasting away.
Now, that is not the same term that
Paul uses in other places.
He often talks about the old man.
Now, the old man is what each of
us were prior to conversion.
The new man is what we are after
conversion.
But when Paul talks about the outward man
and the inward man, he has something else
in mind.
Now, this is not our subject tonight, but
let me share with you briefly.
The outward man is all that we project
to those that surround us.
It is not just the body.
It is, perhaps, to use our common phrase,
all or the wholeness of human constitution.
All that we are mental and muscular, practical
and perceptive.
So, when Paul says the outward man is
wasting away, in the case of some, we
have often witnessed this, you find that the
mind begins to disintegrate.
The body remains strong.
In that sense, the outward man is wasting
away.
On the other hand, there are those whose
minds are clear, but the body begins to
disintegrate.
That is the outward man wasting away.
Now, it is a process which is common
to all mankind, Christian and non-Christian.
Just because we know God does not mean
that we will be spared that experience unless
the Lord Jesus comes first.
What makes us special, and I speak tonight
not with pride but with sincere thanksgiving, is
that we have, besides the outward man, what
Paul calls the inward man, which is being
renewed day by day.
Now, the outward man, beginning with youth, begins
the long decline which, in the normal course
of life, ends in death.
When we are born again, the new creation,
the inward man, begins that climb, if you
like.
I the word is inadequate, but that upward
-forward movement which will never stop until we
reach the presence of God and we stand
beside the Lord Jesus in his glory.
So, the natural man, as this process of
the outward man disintegrating, as that takes place,
he moves more and more into the narrow
confines of death, followed by judgment.
The Christian, the inward man, well, he's like
a lamp.
He goes on and on in that upward
movement until he reaches the visible, tangible glory
of God.
So, having talked about this, Paul says at
the close of chapter four, don't concentrate on
the things that can be seen.
Concentrate on the things that cannot be seen,
for the things that can be seen, including
our own bodies today, they are temporal and
they are passing.
We are to concentrate on the things that
are invisible because they are spiritual, and because
they are spiritual, they are eternal.
Now, having said all that, Paul comes face
-to-face with what we call the prospect
of death.
Again, just before I read these verses, I'd
like to emphasize tonight that when you read
the Bible, you will never find that the
Bible minimizes the importance of death or the
overwhelming catastrophe of death.
In other words, God had a great purpose
for man.
We talked about it Saturday night.
God, who is the God of glory, made
man for life, vitality, creativity, and glory.
When man sins, the wages of sin is
death.
That is the ultimate insult to the creative
work of God when he made man.
He never made man.
But because of sin, our human race must
face the possibility, the prospect of death.
And so, in the Bible, when death is
talked about, it is referred to in Job
as the king of terrors.
It is referred to in the New Testament
as the last enemy that will be destroyed.
So Paul begins in 2 Corinthians 5, and
this is what he sings, For we know
that if our earthly house of this tabernacle,
this tent, were dissolved, we have a building
of God, an house not made with hands,
eternal in the heavens.
In that verse, whether we like it or
not, Paul speaks of the fragile impermanence of
our body.
We are not here forever.
He uses the term tent, and I think
he has in mind the camp life of
the Israelites when they traveled through the desert.
They have their tents.
They could be collapsed in a moment and
taken on and put stable or permanent about
the camp life of the Israelites.
We bought for Jimmy, when we lived down
here in Gainesville two or three years ago
for his birthday, we bought him a small
tent, and we had many happy times putting
up the tent and taking it up.
It certainly is not something permanent or stable.
So when Paul uses the term, he is
emphasizing through the use of this word how
fragile and impermanent is our present situation.
In contrast to the tent in the Old
Testament, you have the temple that was solid
and permanent.
You remember about Abraham?
It is said that Abraham, together with Isaac
and Jacob, they dwelt in tents, but they
were looking for a city whose builder and
maker is God.
So again, you have the contrast.
There was nothing permanent about Abraham's situation.
His thought of permanence was anchored in God
and the city that was coming, which had
foundation and comes from the hand of God.
Now, this tent, this earthly body, it may
be destroyed.
Thus we read, we know that if our
earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved.
So that's a real possibility.
We have just come from the home of
Mr. and Mrs. Thacker, and they have shared
with us an experience we knew nothing about,
where in their own family in recent months,
one they loved was suddenly taken.
The experience they have gone through as a
family, we as a family are going through
now.
You see, the tent may be dissolved.
It is very possible it may happen in
old age, it may happen in youth, but
the tent, it can be destroyed, dissolved.
This is the same word the Lord Jesus
used when he said, you see all these
temple buildings?
Do you not?
Truly I say to you, there will not
be one stone upon another that will not
be thrown down.
Now, that's the same word.
And as the temple was destroyed, so our
earthly bodies are susceptible to destruction.
Now, Paul faced that possibility.
He didn't face it in the natural course
of life.
He faced it in the possibility of shipwreck,
in the possibility of dying in a dungeon,
of the possibility of being put to death,
or of the possibility of being beheaded.
These were all of the dangers that surrounded
Paul, so he speaks from personal experience.
But when we face up to this, we
read on in verse one, we have a
building of God, and house not made with
hand, eternal in the heaven.
Now, I want you to think of that
phrase going back to the opening words, for
we know.
What do we know?
That we have a building of God, and
house not made with hand, eternal in the
heaven.
Now, the contrast is obvious.
What awaits us is something stable and eternal.
Now, there's a technical phrase in verse one.
Perhaps you are familiar with it, that phrase,
the second last phrase, and house not made
with hand.
Now, that doesn't mean that our present bodies
were made by hand.
This term is used of those things that
are beyond our full comprehension in the presence
of God.
Let me give you one illustration.
But when Christ appeared as high priest of
the good things that have come, then through
the greater and more perfect tent, and then
in brackets, not made with hand.
Now, here's the key.
That is, not of this creation he entered
once for all into the holy place.
Thus, in Hebrews, in connection with the heavenly
tabernacle, the phrase not made with hand simply
means it is heavenly in contrast to that
which is earthly.
Now, our present body belongs to this planet.
It belongs to this atmosphere.
It is temporal and earthly.
We have a house, a building that comes
from God, not made with hand, which means
it is heavenly and spiritual, eternal in the
heavens.
So with this in mind, I would like
to go back to that opening word again
in chapter five, verse one.
We know.
I don't know if you've read very many
of J.
B.
Phillips' writings.
He was a man that translated the New
Testament in contemporary English.
He also wrote a number of booklets.
One of them is called The Serendipities of
J.
B.
Phillips, and you may know the meaning of
the word serendipity.
It refers to coming across something unexpected which
is very pleasant and wonderful.
It is not a word that we use
in our common vocabulary, but he had a
little article called The Serendipities of J.
B.
Phillips.
Things he came upon unexpectedly in the scripture
that were so wonderful, and one of them
is the authority that the apostles had when
they thought and wrote and spoke about our
coming blessings with the Lord Jesus, and this
is what he said, J.
B.
Phillips.
It is the authority which stabbed the spirit
brought away.
Paul and John wrote because they knew.
The Christian revelation was not to them a
tentative hypothesis, but the truth about God and
men experienced, demonstrated, always alive and powerful in
the lives of men.
Now, notice how often Paul says, we know,
there's no doubt, there's no uncertainty, that if
this body should be destroyed, we have a
building from God, a house not made with
hands, eternal in the heavens.
Well then, if this is true, is there
any light in the scripture that would give
us some indication of what that body will
be like that awaits us?
Well, I think when you bring up this
matter, you must go back and remember the
death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus.
Maybe you have noticed, as I have, how
Paul will say, for instance, in 1 Thessalonians
4, if we believe that Jesus died and
rose again, then we have hope in death
and hope after death.
But it all rests on if we believe
that Jesus died and rose again.
1 Corinthians 15, Paul begins with the gospel,
how that Christ died for our sins according
to the scripture, was buried, rose again, was
seen of many witnesses, and then he was
received up into glory.
Now, on that firm foundation, Paul moves down
one of the most glorious avenues of the
New Testament, 1 Corinthians 15, and he speaks
of our coming glory.
But there is no ring of truth to
1 Corinthians 15 if you have any doubt
about the dense, burial, resurrection, and exaltation of
Jesus Christ.
So we must go back and remember what
happened to him.
Now, when we do this, we sometimes use
the term the bodily resurrection of the Lord
Jesus.
I don't want to wander tonight, but you
remember in Colossians there were what we call
the Colossian heretics, and they had great theories
about the fact that God was transcendent.
That, of course, is true.
That God is so holy, well, that also
is true.
But then they took it to an illogical
conclusion, and they said, because God is transcendent
and holy, he could never come down and
touch man, for man dwells in a body.
Body is matter, matter is evil, thus God
can never come and touch a man.
Now, that is a very derogatory concept of
the body.
Paul destroyed the whole heretical apparatus when he
says in Colossians chapter 2 that great verse,
for in him, in Christ, dwells all the
fullness of the Godhead bodily.
And that last word destroyed the Colossian heresy.
God came down and took upon himself our
humanity.
That includes our bodies.
There is nothing evil about the human body.
I remember that Martin Luther, I saw his
film, and of course I've read the biographies
of Martin Luther.
In the monastery, St. Augustine Monastery, he used
to take a little rod and would beat
his back and his body so intensely and
so forcefully that he would finally fall unconscious
and collapse on the floor of his little
cell.
The reason for this was a misunderstanding of
the importance and the place of the body.
I don't know if it is that we
have misunderstood Genesis chapter 2 and verse 7,
where you read that God formed man out
of the dust of the earth, and then
God breathed into his nostrils the breath of
life, and man became a living soul.
Some have misunderstood that to mean that God
made a house, a body, and then God
breathed into the house man, who is a
soul.
Now, man is not a soul inhabiting a
body.
Man is an ensouled body, for the totality
of man is spirit, soul, and body, and
we must never think of the body in
a derogatory sense.
So, you can think of many truths, just
one that I share with you.
The spirit of God indwells those that belong
to God.
Thus he comes and makes his home in
us.
That includes our bodies.
You remember the Lord Jesus said, if you
love me, you will keep my commandments, and
I and my Father will come and make
our home in you.
Now, that includes the totality of man, spirit,
soul, and body.
I remember reading a sermon by J.
B.
Watson, one of the great Bible teachers in
England some years ago.
He preached this sermon in London on the
subject of the Trinity, and as he came
to a close, he spoke on the great
mystery of God, and this is what I
read.
God is transcendent.
God is beyond and above our highest thoughts.
There are things about God that we have
no understanding.
If you could totally understand God, then God
would be smaller than you are, and I
personally thank God tonight that God is transcendent.
He is greater than we are.
You come to the Bible and you find
the great mystery of the Incarnation.
The transcendent God becomes God manifest.
So, when you come to the Gospels and
you watch the Lord Jesus eating and drinking
and working and teaching and doing miracles and
in a wedding service and weeping, you are
watching God, for His name was Emmanuel, with
us gone.
But J.
B.
Watson added, God transcendent, God manifest, but that's
not enough.
What each of us needs is what he
calls God experience, when the Almighty God, wonder
of all wonders, comes into our lives, into
our hearts, into our minds, and He makes
His home in us.
So God indwells us today by the presence
of the Spirit of God, and that gives
great dignity to the human body, which is
part of the totality of man.
Well, then, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ,
the perfect man, went to Calvary and He
died, and He was buried.
Now, I know you've heard this many times,
but may I emphasize tonight, He really and
truly died.
On our drugstore bookshelf for the last two
or three years, there has been a book,
not as popular now as it was a
year or two ago, called The Passover Plot,
another modern attempt to talk away the reality
of the death of Jesus Christ.
But He really died, and He was really
buried, and three days later, He rose from
the dead.
Now, this brings us face to face with
the body of resurrection.
I would like simply to say to you
that God did something in history.
God did something in a certain place in
Jerusalem.
He did a certain thing.
He brought back from the dead our Lord
and Savior Jesus Christ.
He did it at a certain time.
It was done on the third day.
Thus, the Lord Jesus becomes the first-begotten
Revelation 1, or the firstborn, Colossians 1, from
the dead.
He is the first-risen of a new
humanity, and all those that belong to Him
are going to share in His glory, and
that includes the glory of His risen, glorified
body.
So, when He rose from the dead, there
are two basic things that I want to
share with you.
The first is this.
He rose in a substantial body.
It was the Lord Jesus that said, "'It
is I myself.
Handle me and feed.'" In other words, He
was not a spirit.
He was a total man, spirit, soul, and
body.
So He said, "'It is I myself.
Handle me and feed.'" He invited the disciples
to see His hands and His feet.
He asked for, and He ate broiled fish.
Women held Him by the feet, Matthew 28,
and also He lifted up His hands in
the act of blessing.
And you remember that precious experience when He
talked to Thomas, and He told Thomas to
put His fingers into the wound in His
hand, and His hand into the wound in
His son.
So the Lord Jesus rose bodily from the
grave.
Having said that, and let me say it
once more, He rose in a substantial body.
I must add that He rose from the
dead in a body that belongs to a
new order.
For the Lord Jesus did things that He
never did before.
For instance, in a room, perhaps not exactly
like this, but with the windows closed and
the doors closed, He appeared in the midst.
Now, He did not do things like that
before.
You remember when He went with the two
down the road to Emmaus, and then, compelled
by the two, He went into their home,
and they sat around the table, and they
had their evening meal, and the Lord broke
the bread.
And in the breaking of the bread, He
made Himself known to the two from Emmaus.
And they saw Him, and they recognized Him,
and they knew who He was, and He
was gone.
So though He rose from the dead in
a substantial body, it was a body that
belonged to a new order.
And so He could say, and I do
not correct this tonight, I make this simply
as a suggestion, He said to those two
on the road to Emmaus, While I was
yet with you.
Now, He was with them, and yet He
used that rather awkward term, while I was
yet with you, in the sense that He
was with them now in a way that
He had not been with them before.
There was a difference.
So when you come to the resurrection of
the Lord Jesus Christ, though it may seem
to be a contradiction, you have established two
things.
Continuity.
He rose from the dead in a substantial
body, but you also have established discontinuity, for
it was a body that belonged to a
new order.
And so our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ
could make His glory known to people like
Stephen, to one like Paul, and yet He
could withhold it from the two that went
with Him down the road to Emmaus.
There are things about the resurrection of the
Lord Jesus and His body that the keenest,
most influential mind, sanctified mind, have never fully
been able to understand.
And that ought not to present to each
of us a problem tonight, because He rose
in a body capable of passing through the
universe to sit at the right hand of
the Majesty on high where He is tonight,
and in that new body of glory we
await His coming.
Now, I want to take you to a
second portion just briefly, because in this portion,
in Philippians chapter 3, you have in the
closing verses the climax to Paul's personal testimony.
Let me share it with you.
Philippians chapter 3 and verse 21, "...who shall
change our..." Now, we must not use the
word body.
That is not true of our human body.
That may have been an old English word,
but the accurate word is lowly.
"...who shall change our lowly body, that it
may be fashioned like unto His body of
glory, according to the working whereby He is
able even to subdue all things unto Himself."
So His body is referred to as a
body of glory.
Now, you need not turn to this verse,
but I want to read to you one
verse from Revelation about the great new city.
And I read from Revelation 21 and verse
23, "...and the city had no need of
the sun, neither of the moon, to shine
in it."
So you raise the question, why?
And the answer is given, "...for the glory
of God did lighten it, and the Lamb
is the light thereof."
Now, some translations, most translations, translate that last
phrase, "...and the Lamb is the lamp thereof."
Now, Philippians 3, the last verse, makes reference
to the body of glory that belongs to
the Lord Jesus.
In the new city, there is no need
for light.
Why?
Because it is lighted by the glory of
God, and the Lamb, our Lord and Savior
Jesus Christ, is the lamp thereof.
Thus, His body is a body of glory
in which the glory of God is manifested
and revealed, and it lightens the new city
referred to in the Revelation.
Now, in Philippians 3, as you read down
that chapter, you can't help but notice how
overpowering, how overwhelming is the desire of this
man called Paul to know the Lord Jesus.
He knew Him initially outside of Damascus.
He grew day by day in the knowledge
of the Lord Jesus, but he has what
I sometimes call a holy impatience to know
Him and to see Him as He really
is.
And as Paul comes down through the chapter,
he comes to verse 21, which would seem
to imply that we will never really know
the Lord Jesus in His fullness, in the
brilliance of His glory, until our bodies are
changed.
And then we are going to know as
we are known to this, and that will
be for each of us a great moment
of glory.
Now, as I close tonight, we have just
a few moments left, and I cannot omit,
naturally, 1 Corinthians 15.
So turn with me as we close our
service and read just two or three verses
about our bodies, our new bodies, our transformed
bodies.
Paul says, beginning in verse 42 of 1
Corinthians 15, "...so also is the resurrection of
the dead."
Now, it would be very nice to read
more of the chapter, but let's break in
at verse 42.
Paul has established the truth of the resurrection.
He has illustrated it by things from nature,
but now he leaves the illustrations behind, and
he comes to the actual contrast between our
present body and the coming-changed, glorified body.
Verse 42, "...so also is the resurrection of
the dead.
It is sown in corruption."
Now, that refers to our present body.
You see, and I speak very kindly tonight,
our present bodies are perishable.
They are capable of disease and death.
I've already shared this with you, but I
talked yesterday with my brother Bob, and he
said to me, Jim, he said, You remember
two weeks ago, I have four, three brothers,
there are four of us, and we went
out just about two weeks ago, a night
or two before I left Vancouver, the four
couples, the four boys and our wives, and
had a wonderful night out at a restaurant,
an intimate evening, the four, the eight of
us together, for a very close family relationship.
And Bob says, You remember that night just
two weeks ago?
Well, he said, You'd hardly recognize Bill today.
You see, the body that we have is
sown in corruption.
It is perishable.
It is capable of disease and death.
Now, having said that, we read the last
part of verse 42, "...it is raised," that
is the new body, "...it is raised in
incorruption."
In other words, one of the great truths
about our new bodies is that they are
imperishable.
They are immune to all disease, decay, and,
of course, death.
They are incorruptible, immortal.
So the present body is sown in corruption,
but the new body is raised in incorruption.
Verse 43, "...it is sown in dishonor."
Now, my brother Bill, and you'll bear with
me tonight, Bill, of the four of us,
has always been the most outgoing, a strong
personality, not in the sense of domineering, but
in the sense of joy and of optimism.
And it is very sad to see a
person like that begin to think that he
can no longer control the body.
Many times as a pastor I have sat
beside those who are sick and near the
end of their lives, and I have witnessed
how sometimes a man or a woman with
great strength of spirit, character, personality, will do
the utmost to make the weakened body respond
to the desires of the mind and the
heart.
For one of the greatest tragedies of our
human situation is to come to that moment
when the body brings to us dishonor, for
we can no longer use it, control it
the way that we would like.
So we feel disgraced and humiliated.
Well, the body is sown in dishonor, but
Paul adds, "...the new body, it is raised
in glory."
That is, the new body has the supreme
divine approval.
There is no dishonor, no disgrace, no humiliation.
And so in that coming day we will
stand in the presence of God, and our
bodies will bear, so to speak, the seal
of the divine approval.
Paul goes on in verse 43, the latter
part, to say, "...it is sown in weakness."
Now, I don't know how you take that.
I think that in the moral and spiritual
sense.
Many times, as Christians, we know that our
bodies have not responded as they should to
the will of God, and we have experienced
our weaknesses in the body.
But, Paul adds the last phrase of verse
43, "...the new body is raised in power."
So that in that coming day of our
glorification, we will have a body that will
perfectly and fully respond to the will of
God, and we will do with delight and
joy all the things that are in harmony
with God's will.
And then finally, Paul says in verse 44,
"...it is sown a natural body."
Now, that simply means that the body we
have now, if it goes through the experience
of death, that body belongs to this planet.
It is an earthly body, and so it
is sown a natural body.
The new body, it is raised a spiritual
body.
Now, don't misunderstand that phrase.
It is still a substantial body, but it
is a body adequate and equipped for the
new Jerusalem, or if you like, for heaven,
for the presence of God.
It is our eschatological body.
Not a body for this planet, but a
body for that atmosphere, that place we call
and refer to as heaven.
So as we think of those we love,
and perhaps as we think of ourselves, we
go on with the confidence that if this
earthly tabernacle is dissolved, we have a house
from God, a building made without hand, eternal
in the heaven.
I'm not going to take you back to
2 Corinthians 5, but I want to add
this note of joy and optimism as we
close tonight.
Paul knew that it was very possible that
he would go through the experience of death.
Paul had no fears, but you can see
as you read 2 Corinthians 5 that what
Paul wanted was to be here when the
Lord returned, so that our mortal body would
be swallowed up in the wonder of the
new, transformed body.
There are three sets that you can establish,
and the first is this, to know the
Lord is a great and wonderful experience now.
To be absent from the body and in
the presence of the Lord without a body
is an even greater experience, but the greatest
experience of all will to be in the
Lord's presence glorified spirit, soul, and body, and
that's what Paul wanted as he longed for
the coming of the Lord.
Now, in the purposes of God, that experience
was not granted to the apostles, but it
may be that some of us sitting here
tonight will never go through the experience of
death, but will see the Lord Jesus as
he returns from heaven, and we will be
caught up and transformed, and so will we
ever be with the Lord.
I have this closing thought.
At the end of Philippians chapter 3, when
Paul says that the Lord will change our
lowly body, and fashion it like unto his
body of glory, he goes on to refer
to the power of the Lord to subdue
all things unto himself in the purpose of
God.
Now, we leave to one side the cosmic
implications of that phrase, and we bring it
down to the personal application tonight.
Christ has the power to bring each of
us in the wholeness of our person, spirit,
soul, and body into complete and full harmony
with himself, just as he has power to
subject all things in that coming day.
Now, when that happens in our personal, individual
case, then all failures will be passed, all
limitations will be over, and then in glorified
bodies we will have the capacity to know
the Lord Jesus in a sense that we
can never achieve now.
And so we look forward to his coming,
and we await our full and eternal glorification.
I want you to take your hymn books,
and as we close tonight, we'll sing a
verse or two of hymn number 10.
I think this is an appropriate hymn, though
it may not refer specifically to our theme,
but it gives honor to our Lord and
Savior Jesus Christ, through whom all that we
have talked about will be possible.
And as we sing this hymn, hymn number
10, we will stand and sing verses 1,
2, and 4, and after we sing verse
4, I would like to ask Mr. Willie
to commend us to God.
Hymn number 10, we will stand and sing
verses 1, 2, and 4.
A future,
is there a future for man?
And we thank thee thou hast proved to
us from thy word this weekend that there
is a glorious, glorious, magnificent future.
For all those who put their trust in
Jesus Christ, without thy beloved son we would
be lost forever.
And that awful sentence about which we've been
listening this during these last days, the soul
that sinneth it must die, the wages of
sin is death.
That awful sentence must have been passed upon
us for all eternity.
But we thank thee that thy beloved son
came down into our sphere, and at the
place called Calvary thou didst deal with this
whole question of sin in the person of
the Lord Jesus Christ.
And we're not only saved, that's wonderful, but
we thank thee Lord thou hast given us
a glorious, wonderful future in thy beloved son.
And we owe it all to him, and
we bow at his feet tonight in adoration
and worship and praise.
And to him of whom we've been singing,
who sits upon the throne adored and magnified,
to him we say be glory and dominion
and majesty and power forever and ever.
We thank thee that we shall parallel the
existence of God in a glorious eternal atmosphere,
when these bodies which are so rebellious today,
and these wills of ours that are so
rebel against thyself, will be utterly submitted to
thee.
And in that glorious day these bodies will
then do thy will.
O Lord, how we long to do this
now, but we seem to be held back
because we are here in an earthly body.
But we thank thee in that glorious day
when the past will be done with and
forgotten and put behind, and we shall be
transformed, and this lowly body shall be conformed
to the image of thy son.
We thank thee for this future, we thank
thee for these studies, we thank thee for
our brother to whom thou hast revealed these
wonderful truths, so that he might give them
to us.
Help us, Lord, to be better men and
women as we separate tonight.
And now we lovingly commend to thee our
beloved brother and his brother and his brother's
wife and family in this hour of sorrow
and trial.
Be with them and bless them.
And those who have to travel, Lord, there
are many who have to travel tomorrow, leaving
us.
We pray, Lord, go with them, and we
ask that the savor of these meetings might
go with each one, and our lives might
bring glory to thy name.
We thank you for another wonderful conference at
Park of the Palms, and if the Lord
Jesus be not come, we look forward to
more days of joy and rejoicing and glory
in our days.
Dismiss us now with our blessing and receive
our thanks.
In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,
Amen.