Eschatology Pt. 4

Thank you. It's a delight to be here. Uh my wife has someone she wants you to meet. Just one second. Oh, really? Oh, you don't talk. Oh, you whisper. Okay. All right. You want me to tell everyone? All right. Snuggles wants to remind you tonight that Jesus loves you. Yes. Yes. Yes. Jesus loves you so much. Yes. Oh, we forget. Sometimes we do. Yeah. Yeah. We should love one another. Yeah, they do that. Yeah. Oh. Oh, you do that. You give snuggles. May I have one? Oh, thank you. There's somebody here today that needs a snuggle. Oh, I see her.

She's right here. Yes, she does. He does. Okay. He said you did. Oh, he said you did. She does. Okay, I'm going. Is it okay if Snuckles comes by you? Okay. He does. Yeah, he said you did. Yeah, she does. Okay, I see her. She's right here. Oh, okay. I'm going. She's right here. Yes. Here she is. Yes. You want to do the whole room? Well, honey, I I don't think I don't think we have time for that. Okay, if you'll turn to your neighbor, give your neighbor a hug, then Snuggles can say bye-bye. Oh, beautiful. Beautiful. Yes. tonight.

Uh, well, Snuggles is doing overtime work here. Tonight I want to give you my best answer of what happens when someone dies. Um, now you may have a little different take on that. And if you do, that's fine. And if the church teaches something officially some other way, that's the right answer. So, I I want to make sure that I'm not trying to uh hurt but help and uh try to make things easy rather than complicate them. Uh the next thing I want to talk about is um what's called the judgment seat of Christ. Um and I'll explain what that is.

Uh and then if I get through all of that, I have two questions that were given me last week and I I'll try to answer them. And then if I get through that, I have two late breaking questions that were just texted me by u brother pastor Brad. So if I happen to get through all of that, that will be a minor miracle. But we'll give it our best shot and see what we do. Let's put up the first picture and then that'll make me feel good that we're making progress.

So in order to uh think about what happens when you die, you have to think about uh what does it mean to be human? What are our constituent parts? Well, if you would read 1 Thessalonians 5:23, Paul says, "Now I may the God of peace himself uh sanctify you completely and may your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved uh blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." So if you asked, "What are you made up of?" Here's a simple answer. Your body, your soul, and your spirit. Your body, your soul, and your spirit.

When I was growing up, uh, our family, we had six kids in our family. My dad had a like a pretty normal factory kind of job, so he was not a wealthy man. My mom was not a wealthy woman. So, uh, but we it was fine. We we um were clothed and fed and all that. One of the things she did was she canned. Now, maybe you don't know what I'm talking about. Does anyone know what I mean by canning? Raise your hand. Oh my. Okay, I'm in the crowd here.

I don't know why they don't call it jarring, but it's when you you get like the there's a whole uh harvest of peaches and pears and all this stuff and you put it in this c well, you boil it on a stove somehow and if it's sometimes there's juice in there. you're well there has to be and juice in there that you're boiling it in and then you seal it and then at the appropriate time you go down to the basement or wherever you're storing that and you take it up and then you feed your kids. That's what was the plan in our family.

Tomatoes, pears, peaches, whatever. I'm using this as an analogy for what it means to be human. So I'm going to liken and okay, no analogy is perfect, okay? And I realize we have to be holistic and I could give you 14 other uh reasons why you should nuance this but I I'll just keep it simple. In my analogy, the body is the jar. The jar and the soul uh is like the peaches itself. That's the you are your soul. That's you your soul. And in this analogy the your spirit is like the juice around the peaches.

Now, if you just didn't cook it and stuck peaches in a jar and put it in the basement, that would not be a pretty sight when you went to there would be mold and whatever. So, this is a correct procedure. And so, your spirit and soul work together. Uh I I realize it's a lot more complicated than that and there's different ways to talk about the spirit and soul, but work with me on this people. So, I'm using the soul spirit to talk about your immaterial self. Your immaterial self.

So when we say you die, you have to be careful about thinking about what does that mean when you die. Some people think you just go to don't exist anymore. Some people think you go to sleep. But uh 2 Corinthians 5 and verse one says this. We know that if our earthly house, this tent is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. So you have existence, you have subsistence before uh when Jesus Jesus used this language to uh Martha, I'm the resurrection of life.

He who believes in me though he does dies he shall live. And then he said something strange which everyone must think it's strange because he was trying to push the envelope here. He says and if you live and believe in me if someone does that you'll never die. Like what? Yes. Oh, I'll say it, too. You, my friends, will never die. Jesus said it, so I can say it. You, my friend, will never die. You say, "Well, I'm getting pretty old.

I think I might die at some point." Well, what's going to happen is your body may die, but your soul spirit, that immaterial self will leave your body and it has cognizance in reality. And it says there in the same chapter to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. So, uh when your body dies, it dies, but your immaterial self lives on. Now, um, there's a sequence in the Bible, and I'll, again, this is Dave Norse theology. You can do with what you want, but I'm going to try to take you through the sequence.

Go to the next slide, and we'll see where it goes. I had some really cool effects on this. People were dying, going up and down, this and that. But my effects have been just splattered whenever I tried to do them, so I'm keeping it simple. Uh, as you can see, it doesn't get much more simple than that. They lived, they died. Now, sometimes the Bible speaks of sleep. And there is that. I a a quick answer to that is it generally has to do with your body. There will be taught both in the Old Testament and New Testament a resurrection of the body.

But that doesn't mean you don't have cognizance what happened to a person when they died in the Old Testament. Well, I will tell you uh in the next slide. Cute. So 65 times in the Old Testament it uses the word shiel. Shol is the main word that's used for the abode of the dead in the Old Testament. Um, and it's the abode of the dead which both someone who um was in covenant with the Lord went to and someone who was not in covenant with the Lord went to.

Unfortunately, sometimes in the King James it's translated hell and it sounds like these good people are going to hell. Um, but it actually um it's probably a poor uh translation. Um, in in a lot of versions now they're leaving it untransated. They're just saying sh. Um, so for example, Psalm 139 you're familiar with. Where can I go from your spirit or where can I flee from your presence? If I ascend into heaven, you're there.

If I make my bed in hell, King James says, "Behold, you're there." But again, most translations are just leaving that sh because it's the abort of the dead. And you see, it's not uh esqueological. It's not final because it goes on to say, "If I take the wings of the morning, if I dwell in the uttermost part of the sea, even there your hand will lead me and your right hand will hold me." So um shiel in the Old Testament is um the abode of the dead in the New Testament and oftentimes words don't exactly correspond.

There's some semantic overlap but this is pretty close. The word shol Hebrew is equivalent to the Greek word Hades. I'll say that again. The word shol in the Old Testament is equivalent to the Greek word Hades. All right. So, let me try to spell this out for you. This is the Old Testament uh a boat of the dead. Flip to the next slide and I'll go through this with you. You're familiar with this narrative. It's Jesus telling about a rich man and Lazarus. And u some people get rid of the narrative in a number of ways.

Well, it's just telling a folk tale about how you should be um have hospitality and has nothing to do with the escaton. Or some people say, well, it's a parable and you can't trust a parable, so why should we believe anything that Jesus is saying in the parable? All right, so let me just say more about that. Jesus never told a parable about Martians. He he never told a parable about anything that did not exist that didn't have some reality.

So I think you can take the words of Jesus and say although we may not understand every aspect of them we can understand them pretty much. So Luke 16 now a certain there was a certain man a man who was clothed in uh fin and purple and fared sumptuously every day. But there was a bigger named Lazarus, full of sores, who was laid at his gate, desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man's table. So uh it was that the uh baker died and was carried by the angels to Abram's bosom. The the rich man also died and was buried.

And then in the New King James, it leaves at Hades. And being in torments in Hades, he lifted up his eyes and saw uh Abraham a far off and Lazarus in his bosom. Then he cried and said, "Father Abraham, have mercy on me and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue for a minute in this flame." Let me just stop and say a couple words. Almost always Jesus parables turned the prevailing wisdom on their head on its head. This is one of those examples as well. Um it's folk theology.

It's also American folk theology that if you are a child of God, you will be blessed financially. Now there's some truth to that. I mean it's in proverbs the principles are there. But some people take the evidence of wealth as evidence of God's blessing. And maybe it is, but maybe it isn't. So if the story were told according to the folk wisdom, it would not have been uh the rich man who was in the place of torment. It would have been Lazarus because obviously something was wrong with him. Who sinned? Him or his parents? I mean, come on.

Somebody must have sinned otherwise he wouldn't be there begging. Jesus flipped that on its head. It's the rich man. And you notice the rich um I I don't want to seem angry against rich people, but um it's there's a tendency of rich people to tell people what to do. They just get used to that. They're used to power. And so what does he do? He says," he says, "Father Abraham, have mercy on me and send Lazarus." Like s Lazarus was his like what? Send Lazarus like he's my the guy who should be waiting on me. And he was so much in pain.

He said, "Just dip his finger water and cool my tongue before I enter the plane." Uh Abraham, now here's the other thing. He's full of sores. Full of sores. That's important in the story. That means he's unclean. That means don't touch him. But in the picture, this man that was so broken in this world is being held like a little baby in Abraham's arms. Well, that shouldn't be. He's unclean. He's holding him in his bosom. He's holding him in a place. That's the metaphor of God's comfort. A total metaphor of God's comfort.

So he says, uh, remember that in your lifetime, you received your good things and Lazarus as evil things. And now he's comforted your tremendous. Besides all this, between us and you, there's a great confix so that those uh who want to pass from us to you cannot, nor can those who uh pass from you to us.

So he says this um he says well I beg you father send him to my father's house I've got five brothers and he testified to them lest they come to this place of torment they said they have Moses and the prophets let them hear them have you under I do believe that God does miracles and draws people to the Lord by miracles I believe that I believe that's the church but I don't think it's a guarantee that when someone sees a miracle that they will come to the Lord or when they see the miraculous or the unusual um how many internet stories are there about so many weird things and so you tell them like well I've heard of that one before on some internet site only it was some other so uh Abraham says well uh they have Moses and the prophets with them here says no if someone rose from the dead, they would repent.

And uh Abraham says if they don't believe Moses and the prophets, they're not going to be persuaded though someone rise from the dead. Guess what? Someone did rise from the dead. Amen. Amen. I know we can tell our story. I know we can testify. But you can't coersse anybody to do what they don't want to do. Well, I'm um that's Old Testament. That was a picture of the Old Testament because something happened in the New Testament. Um and let's flip to the next slide. All right.

So most of the time we think of uh the work of the cross as a lamb slain from the foundation of the world as uh Jesus as a substitute for us on the cross. But there are all kinds of word pictures that talk about all the things that happened when Jesus died on the cross. One of those um they call this atonement theories. You won't have to remember that. This will not be on the quiz. One of the atonement theories is called Christristus Victor and it's the it's the the stream of tax, the theme in the Bible. How um the work of Christ redefes heaven.

It redefes the place of the dead. It redefes the future. It redefineses the past. It redefineses whose kingdom this is in this world and how the kingdom of God will proceed. Let me uh try to that's a big order trying to explain all that. Um my my um well I'll go ahead and start. So uh they thought Jesus was crazy. Even his family thought he was a little off. And then they they told other people, "Well, he's casting out demons, sure, but he's casting them out by Beelba." And uh so he's doing evil by evil.

Jesus says in Mark 3:22, he said, "How can Satan cast out Satan if kingdoms divided against itself? Cannot stand. House is divided against itself. It cannot stand. If Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand but has an end. No one can enter a strong man's house and plunder his goods unless he first binds the strong men and then he'll plunder his house. The work of the ministry of Jesus was to destroy the essentially destroy the power of Satan in uh he did that by being the second Adam.

He did that by being the servant of Yahweh from Isaiah. He did that by being tested and tempted and never uh succumbing to the temptation of Satan. He is tempted in all points like as we are yet without sin. Um, and the reason that he that he was incarnate was because he had to become like us so we could become like him. And he had to become like us so he could destroy the work of the devil.

King James says in Hebrews chapter 2:14, "For as much then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself took part of the same that through death he might destroy him that had power over death." that is the devil and deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. Something happened on the cross when Jesus said in John 19:30 it is finished to tell us die. It wasn't like I've finally suffered enough. No, no, no, no. It was said like I've accomplished this. It's finished.

like a a conquering general to tell us it is finished. Colossians chapter 2 verse1 15 says that Jesus disarmed. Okay, let me back up. Ephesians chapter 4:es 8-10 says before he ascended he first descended into the lowest parts of the earth. That's what he did. First descended in the lowest parts of the earth. Now that he uh descended, what is it? He uh now ascended uh also the one that ascended far above all heavens that he might fill all things. It says in verse 8, he led captivity captive. I'm going to come back to that. He led captivity captive.

No, I won't. I will tell you what it means right now. This is what it means. I found this in a journal. It was so cool. I just got to tell you. One person translated, "He took the whole prison captive with him." Anyone ever played capture the flag? I had great uncanny nothing on Capture the Flag. All right, then. Forget that example. I will not tell it to you. It will mean nothing. Um, okay. So, go back to the go back to the uh some picture up there that I just had. Okay. Uh, go to the next one. believe what that does for me. No, it doesn't do anything.

Go back to that one. Colossians 2:15 says, "He disarmed principalities and powers and made to show them openly." Uh, King James, I like that. It says he spoiled them. He walked down. Um 1 Peter 3:19 says he preached to souls in prison. Now the word there preach is coruso. He's not converting people. He's declaring victory. Um uh fu fuk is prison. That's what's carried. Uh go back to another slide. This will help. Go back again. Go back again. All right. There. That's the one I want.

He didn't take all the people that are in torment, but everybody that's in comfort. That's the one he took. He descended, ascended. Now, when you die, it never speaks of down. It only speaks of up. It's directional because it means that we're with the Lord. He took the whole prison with him. He gave gifts to men like a conquering hero uh on a chariot and they're throwing out the spoils of war. Uh and that's what the church gets right now. We get the gifts to men. We get more later. Praise God. Okay. So that whole top boxy thing goes. All right.

So now when we die, work with me people. Now when we die, the language typically is that we go to paradise. Paradise doesn't speak too much of sh. What does that mean? Jesus said to the thief on the cross today. You will be with me in paradise. Think of Paul. 2 Corinthians chapter 12 verses 1-4 which we will put on the screen.

2 Corinthians chapter 12 verses 1-4 he said u and he's talking about his qualifications to be an apostle with them he said uh it is doubtless not profitable for me to boast I'll come to visions and revelations of the lord so he speaks of himself in sort of the third person I know a man in Christ who 14 years ago whether in the body or uh I do not know or whether out of the body I do not know. God knows such a one caught into the third heaven. Now notice this is equivalent to paradise. And I know such a man whether in the body or the body I do not know.

God knows I was caught up into paradise and he heard ineffable words inexpressable words which is not lawful for a man to utter. All right. So 14 years before this what happened? Uh, others disagree, but I'm sure I'm right. Paul was stoned at Lististra. Remember that. First they thought he was God's. It was great. People can change your opinion very quickly about you. Then they go, they then they stone them. How about that? Uh, now when they stone people, they do not use pebbles. It's you with a snowball. I'm going to stone you with a stick. No.

A cruel bad spirit gets over people. They take the biggest rocks. Let's see who can crush the skull. Let's see who can they stone them. When you you get stoned, you are dead. You say, "Duh." Okay. All right. Work with me. So, he was no doubt dead. And then it just says in Acts like and then he got up and went in the city. Like seriously, not the hospital, not physical therapy. What was going on? Okay, Dave Norris, is my opinion. I think he died. I think he went to paradise. I think he he saw some things that absolutely changed his life.

And then I think God miraculously raised him up. I think that's what happened 14 years ago. And he says, "Well, they're in the body. I don't know." He didn't know how it was. Like I have no idea what but I saw it. I saw stuff no one else says. I think that's one of the reasons in Philippians he says uh well to live is Christ to die is gain. I mean he was that he'd been there. So like you know I know what I'm getting so they want to kill me. That's okay. But I better pray because it's better for you if I stay here. That's Philippians.

Well, I don't know exactly where I am now, but you'll find something on here. All right. Uh, all right. Let me just say a word about this. So, to be absent from body is to be present with the Lord, but we're not whole yet. Is paradise different from heaven? Well, let me say this. Paradise is heaven, but paradise is not all that heaven will be. Let me say that again. Paradise is because where Jesus is, that's kind of heaven and but we'll still be without our mortal body. Then we'll have some kind of shape or bodily form.

We won't be just spirits floating around like this or that. We'll have some kind of shape, but we won't be complete. Now, uh Hebrews uh 12:22 and 23 speaks about heaven and it says, you know, there's angels and so on and so forth, and it says the spirits of just men made perfect are there. So, heaven, paradise. I think you could say someone goes to heaven. And I don't think it'd be theologically wrong. But here is what everything is waiting for. It's the next thing that will happen escatologically, and that is the Lord coming back for his church.

Now, when the Lord comes back for his church, we will be reunited with our bodies. You say, "How's that possible?" You know, when you die, you decay, you go into dirt, and the dirt gets nutrients, and then it goes up into the grass, and the cow eats the grass, and then someone drinks the milk. And every breath you breathe, they say there's some molecule of Julius Caesar in there. So, how, my friend? How? They're cremated. How? Okay, I'll give you I'll tell you the answer. You ready for this? Here it is. Because he's God.

And God can do that sort of thing. He's actually done it before. You know, he started out with mud and I mean, like, come on. All right. So work with me. So our spirit soul tell says someplace our body is wherever our body is wound up at the coming of the Lord. They're going to sound effects. Don't extra church. They're going to come together and it's going to be really cool. You say, "Do you have scripture for that or are you just making all this stuff up?" All right.

All right, let me give you a couple scriptures and see if you can agree or at least be happy about something. All right, so 1 Corinthians chap 15 51- 52. Behold, I tell you mystery, we shall all sleep, but we shall be changed. In a moment, a twinkle of night, the last trumpet, the trumpet will sound on the devil raise incorruptible, we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. Now, some people think that's parallelism. I think it's talking about two different things.

If you're dead, you're corrupt. this corruptible must put on incorruption. And the whole chapter is about heavenly bodies versus earthly bodies. If you're mortal, that means you're not corrupt. I mean physically um you're good. You're mortal. You're alive. Breathe in. Breathe out. You have just proved it. You are mortal. All right.

So the I think this links back to 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 where it says the dead in Christ shall rise first and we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with the Lord uh and so shall be there with the Lord. I think that links together and plus there's another a bunch of scriptures that tell us that we're going to be like Jesus. They say, "Oh, let name them." Okay, I will. So, Philippians chapter 3 verse 20 says that our citizenship is in heaven from which also we look for the savior our lord Jesus Christ.

Now listen to this 3:21 it's pretty cool. Who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to his glorious body. How many ever had any pains? Anyone? Couple people I can raise my hand. Glorious body according to the working by which he's able to s do all things himself. When you are in the presence of the Lord. Um I'll give you another one. This is another good one. 1 John 3:2. This is pretty cool. 1 John 3:2. It says, "Now are we the sons of God.

uh it has not yet been revealed what we shall be but when we know that when he is and I like kings better when he appears it's the same word as means the same thing it's talking about the escaton when he appears when you see him face to face uh we we shall be like him why for we shall see him as he is you'll never die and then your body will never die. Now, you can get in enough pain where you wish you died and you're ready to be with the Lord, but there's something on the other side.

But there will be no more tears, no more sorrow, no more pain with the former things that pass away. God's got that waiting for you. God's got that waiting for you. I wonder if we could just lift our hands and thank the Lord for that. We love you Lord. Praise you God. We thank you Lord. We glorify you. Praise you Lord in Jesus name. Glorify Lord Jesus name. Jesus name. Amen. It's 808. I'm flying. I'm um this is part two. I'm already to part two. That's pretty good. This is about what I'm calling the judgment seat of Christ.

Let's flip it to the next slide and I'll try to explain what this is. All right. So, there's some scriptures that are pretty scary. You find in Matthew where every idle word you're going to have to give an account for on the judgment day. You have the same thing in Luke where what's in darkness will be light. It's saying the secret so openly and you're like, man, that's scary stuff. Every thought I've got to give an account for this this bad stuff. I don't I don't want that. I want I have good news for you.

Um there is a final judgment and you will be there but you won't be judged there. You say what? What's that about? Well, let me try to explain. Revelation chapter 20 verse 11 says, "And I saw a great white throne and him sat on it uh before it was faced the earth and flooded heaven fled away and there saw no place for it. And I saw the dead small and great stand before God. Uh and the books were open. Another book was almost the book of life and the dead were judged according things which were written in the book of life.

Um se gave up the dead which death in the 80s gave the dead um and it was judged according their works. Okay. All right. Let me just stop there. But here's my claim. My claim is the only way you'll be there is part of the heavenly procession of the of of the group that's with God. Let me give you a scripture that uh will help you understand this. In 1 Corinthians chapter 6, when people were suing each other, good Christians that they were um uh Paul says, "What's what's wrong with you?

Just go to the elders of the church, have them settled." And then he says in verse two, he says he says, "Do you not know that the saints shall judge the world?" Uh, and if the world's going to be judged for you, can't you just take care of the smallest things? And then he says in verse three, "Don't you not know that we're going to judge angels?" Now, how are we going to judge the world? How are we going to be uh judging angels? Well, the answer is we're part of that heavenly court where God is giving the final meeting of the judgment. Okay?

Then go back to the other slide that I just was at. Then when do we get judged? Here, look at me. This is good news. Are you ready for this? You get judged at the cross and you're judged a sinner and you're judged lost. But he who knew no sin, but he who knew no sin became sin for us. Your sins are forgiven sins. Amen. Well, you say then what is this judgment seat of Christ? I'm glad you asked. So, uh the word there is is is BMA. And the word BMA was like a a raised throne uh raised platform where they gave think of the Olympics.

They're calling out people's names. They are uh putting their flag on and they're putting gold medals on. That's the judgment seat of Christ.

Paul writes in 1 Corinthians uh chapter 9 uh he said don't you know verse 24 those who are unra run but one receive prize so run that you so may obtain uh if you're wrestling striving for master you're tempered in all things they do it for a corruptible crown they had laurel reefs that they were given and they were given honor and so on and so forth he said but we for an incorruptible crown an incorruptible crown I do believe uh there are different rewards.

Um 1 Corinthians chapter 3 uh verse six I Paul is trying to address some leadership issues where there's division and some people are doing different things. He said I planted verse six I planted Paul's water but God gave the increase. Uh so neither's he who plants anything he waters but God gives the g increase. In verse 8, he says this, "He who plants and heals water one." And then he changes the subject. And this is what he says. Every man shall receive his own reward according to his own labor. I'll say it again.

His own reward according to his own labor. Um, skip some verses. I'm going to go down to verse uh 12. Um so verse 11, Jesus Christ is the foundation. And then he says, now this is your life. You can build on the foundation. You're Okay, let's start out with the baseline. You're saved. You say, "What if I'm carnal?" You're saved. How carnal are you talking about? Just you're saved. You need to rest in your covenant relationship with God. But because we're saved, we get to work for him. And so, we're building the metaphorical church with our life.

You can build it with all kinds of different things. You can build it with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, or straw. But it's going to be tested in the escaton. Look at verse 13. It says, "Everyone's work is going to uh the day of declare be revealed by fire. For the fire will test everyone's work of sword." It is. Look at verse 14. It says, "If any one's work abides which is built on you should see a reward." If you built it with gold, what happens in the fire? Going to be okay. Silver, yeah, those precious are fine.

But if you did wood, hay straw, uh, it's probably not going to stand up. Look at verse 15 though, what it says. It says, "If his work is burned, he shall suffer loss. Yet he himself will be saved yet so through fire." So uh this is about okay. So let me just give you shortand because of time thing. I believe that when we are caught up to be with the Lord, there will be like that Hebrews 11, a great stadium full of people.

I believe that God will think of think of the state of the union where everyone gets honored for this, honored for that, honored for that, honored for the other thing, and multiply it times 100. You say, "What if I just want to barely make it in? What if I I don't want to uh get all kinds of honor and I don't want to compete with it. You're not competing with anyone. Too much is given much is required. And God if he gives you gifts will give you opportunities to it's not a curve. It's like what did you do with the gifts that he gave you?

You say what will happen? Well, here's what I believe will happen. I believe that everything will be known about your life. Everything. Yes. Even my sins. Yes. But I will I go back down the chute down to the other place because of my sins. No. When somebody gets up and says, "I was this and I was that and I was that, but Jesus saved me. Your sins, whatever our sins are, will show up as the grace of God. Forgiven testim forgiven. It's the grace of God, that kind of testimony. And it will all give glory to God." Let me read a little section here.

Um, I'm taking this from Tim Stevenson and he wrote a book called The BMA, obviously fiction, and there's some uh, okay, we may or may not get to the questions, but I'm going to do this. Um, this is this is his picturing of the Bay. There's a heavenly stadium filled with hundreds of millions of people in the stands. Jesus Christ is on the throne on a raised disma. Angelic host attends him in this place of honor. Time means nothing for everyone can everything can be known at once. A life story condensed to a single flash of knowing by all who see.

So he paints this picture. There's a blue clad angel standing. He strikes the platform three times with a staff and announces the name Tim Himalayas Germanicus of Lagnum. Immediately saint flew to the floor of the stadium landing beneath the floor of the bayoni under his own power with angelic assistance. I do not know. He stood for a moment and walked up the steps watching him. I nearly felt his holy fear. How could anyone approach him who sat there? In the back of my mind, I counted the steps as he climbed. There were 10.

Because he was a Christian, because Emperor Deusius gave the order for them to be persecuted, Himalayas was offered a lethal choice. He could either denounce Christ and escape or he could endure torture that would end with martyrdom. Meekly, he chose the latter, not supposing his real story would be known to anyone beside those few enemies who inflicted the pain. His body was scraped, that is, the flesh was torn from him in pain and agony. Still alive, his mangled body was dumped into the arena to be devoured by lions and leopards.

His last words heard only by the man who threw him down was my name is Timausas. I'm a Christian. There was a blinding flash and Timausas was transformed into a creature of beauty and glory that surpasses my powers that passes my power of description. He was made like the Lord, face gleaming like the sun. There appeared around his head crowns, though like the Lord's. I could not tell they was literal. I'm inclined to think it was facets of glory. Jesus stands behind him, turns him by the shoulders to face the crowd.

He he then puts one hand on the back of him, the man who gave his life and presents Tim Himalayas. This is my beloved Tim Himalayas Germanicus in whom I am well pleased. The subsequent shouts and cheering are deafening. God does not measure by what position you have. He doesn't measure by um you can't really count and know what your life is.

The Bible says in 1 Corinthians 4:5, "Judge nothing before the time the Lord come who will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, make manifest the counsel of heart, and then everyone will have praise of God." That is, God will praise you. He will praise you. I'll be there. The things you thought no one saw, the sacrifices you made, that no one seemed to know anything about, the things that you uh gave up, that nobody uh would totally or could understand will be known in that day and you will have praise of God.

Every prayer, every sacrifice, everything you did makes a difference. The world tells you that honor means nothing, the country means nothing. That like it's all selfish. Who gets glory when you get glory? The church, your family, um Jesus. Look at this uh slide. I had him look this up. This from last night. This man is uh his name is uh Scott Ruskin. He's just a petty officer uh in the Coast Guard. But there was that catastrophic flooding. Remember that in Texas 2025?

and uh they let him down off a helicopter and in the GL Baloop River and he saved the little girl. She was there last night to see it. And then he saved another and then another and another and another and another until 160 young girls and others were helped last night. Rightly so. They gave him the Legion of Merit at the State of the Union. But someday, I only use that as an illustration that someday we'll stand before the Lord and all my brokenness will come as forgiven sin, grace, and he'll honor it.

And and when you receive honor that day, you'll be honoring others. Um Paul said, "If you're going to run a race, run it to win. Don't run to just be in the grand stands. If you're going to run this thing, run it with all your heart, with all your might. Save somebody. Do something." You say, "Well, I don't know that my life means." You don't know what your life means. If you've given it to the Lord, it has eternal eternal eternal. Every prayer you prayed is is in heaven right now. Every sacrifice that you've made is known by God if not by others.

And someday we're going to get to celebrate that in a very public way because of what Jesus did for us and because we get this. Would you just love the Lord with me together? We love you, Lord. We give you our life. We give you our self, Lord. Praise God. Praise God. Praise God. Praise God. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. If you're wondering whether it's worth it, it is only one life. So, soon it will pass. But those things you do and have done for Jesus, that's really what's going to last.

Let's love him again. Lord, we love you. Thank you, God. We praise you, God. We glorify you, Lord. We magnify you, Lord. Jesus name. Jesus name. Jesus name. I am going to answer uh four questions very poorly. Uh they all deserve about 10 minutes. I'll give them about 30 seconds each. First question is up there. Oh, what about the great falling away? What's the Dave Norris take on the great falling away? Um, I refer you to my book where I go on and on about this. Uh, it's on page 1771.

So uh first Thessalonians their problem was um they believe that the people that were died missed missed any opportunity to go to heaven. So that's why he explains what the rapture was. Second Thessalonians, they had somebody a false letter written by Paul saying, "Well, you know what? The the antichrist is already here." And so his second Thessalonians chapter 2 is uh he's basically saying uh tainto. You don't see the great falling away. You don't see uh all these things coming to pass.

Um you don't see some guy sitting on a throne proclaiming himself to be God. So, um, it's not really saying that the Antichrist will be there when the church is saying. It's basically saying because you don't see it, you're not in it. So, just chill. So, that's the Dave Nor's answer to that. It's not a very good one. That's all you got. That's what you're getting. Next question. If the saints don't go in the tribulation, what are all these people in the tribulation dying for? What do they why do they look like saints?

Okay, so let's do that. Um, three groups of martyrs. You have um chapter six, you have that group of martyrs. You have another group in chapter 7. It says a great multitude, no one number of all nations, tribes, people tongues came before the throne. And then you who are these? Well, these they come out of the great white uh they come out of the great tribulation, wash their roses, made them white in the blood of the lamb. They actually have died. And then you've got some more in chapter 15.

And these apparently are Jews because they sing the song of Moses and the lamb lamb of God. So here's my quick answer on that. When you look at the saints language from Revelation 13, it goes back to Daniel 7. Daniel 7 uses saints. Those saints there are Jews. And so quick answer is I think people will get saved in the tribulation. I think a number of Jewish people will be saved in the tribulation. U but I think that'll be uh I mean they're dying. They're off of their heads, you know, like that kind of thing.

So they are people that uh have paid extreme price for that. Uh but I believe that's who they are. And that's all I got because I'm out of time. So here we go back to uh Peter, the Reverend Peter right here.