Darkness and His Glory

I'm going to turn our Bibles to Isaiah chapter 6, Isaiah chapter 6, verses 1 through 5. And here we go. In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him were seraphs, each with six wings.

With two wings they covered their faces. With two they covered their feet. And with two they were flying.

And they were calling to one another, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty. The whole earth is full of his glory. At the sound of their voices, the doorposts and thresholds shook, and the temple was filled with smoke.

Woe to me, I cried, I am ruined, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips. And my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty. I just finished another little booklet.

It hasn't gone to Mark Overton yet, but it's called Full of His Glory. And I really think I am writing for the people of the future, who are young people today. Because this is going to be one of the real essential devices that we're going to need.

We're going to have to, we're entering a dark moral time. We can see that in this country. We're entering a time of darkness.

Perhaps all of us have been free from it. But there's many families this morning that are experiencing that darkness. Some in America, some in other countries.

And we feel for them. Maybe it hasn't hit us yet, praise God, but it may. And when that happens, our tendency is to get drawn toward the darkness.

You know, and just in this area, over the last several months, we've had many rapes, many murders, many robberies, many instances of children being brutalized. And when that happens, it's hard to see that the whole earth is full of His glory. You see, that's what I'm talking about, the earth being full of the glory of God.

That was in verse 3. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty. The whole earth is full of His glory. And when there's so much darkness, and there's so many things going wrong, we want to get out of here.

We want to go up to heaven. We want to leave this veil of tears. Isn't that so? Well, you know, when everything's going all right, it doesn't seem so pertinent.

But when things are really bad, I told you last couple of times, I was reading a book called The Silver Chalice, and it told how the slaves were treated in the time of Nero. When you came to the palace, there were attendants there, slaves, but they were chained to the wall. And these slaves were abused so much that they readily accepted the gospel that was preached.

And so many of the slaves in Rome were Christians because it gave them hope. And I'm sure many of the black people that labored in the cotton fields and other places were being whipped and their families broken up. The gospel sounded pretty good.

I mean, there's hope. And the gospel really is a hope for the future. The kingdom of God is at hand.

Set your treasures in heaven, not on the earth. And then when the Lord comes, we'll receive our treasures. So the gospel, in its essence, is a hope for the future.

It's hard for us in America when we're well fed and there's no real danger facing us. We're not dealing in the imminence of torture and death or imprisonment. You get pretty wrapped up in this world.

And so the gospel, we would wish it would make as few demands on us as possible because we want to get on with the job of living. But when you're a slave in Rome or when you're in a Chinese prison, one of those prisons, one of those cages they had, you couldn't sit down, you couldn't lay down, and you couldn't stand up. There's a man in there for 15 years.

Now imagine if you preach the gospel to a man like that, it would sound pretty good. Let's remember, everybody in the world isn't living like we're living here. And so our biggest problem is getting too wrapped up in the present.

And so I think in the future, God in His goodness is going to allow the terrorist to come to maturity. And we're going to see a lot of things, some of which may touch us. I remember when we were living in Palo Alto, there was a woman there, a lady of family.

I had the child in school and they're very nice people, very oriented toward the left politically. But nonetheless, we got along great and they were very respectful of me and of my classroom. But they got a threatening note from some weirdo.

And I remember the woman writing, they were interviewing her because they were well-known people in Palo Alto. And she said, you know, everything was so sunny before, everything was so wonderful. And now it's dark, it's dark.

We wake up in the morning, we don't know. We go to bed at night, we don't know if somebody's going to burn the house down. We get up in the morning, we don't know if the kids are going to get killed on the way to school.

We just don't know. There's probably a lot of people in the recent school shootings that their world has suddenly turned dark. Before that, it was bright and happy and you wake up in the morning and think, I'm going to have a great day and we're going to go over and have a Coke and some cheeseburger.

And that's about the biggest problem of the day. But for a lot of people, it isn't. And throughout history, it's been kind of the exception.

So our problem is we're apt to get pretty soft spiritually, not much iron in us, pretty soft. And then when real dark things happen in our family, with our children, with our future, this could very well happen in America within five or ten years as sin becomes legalized and we have to make some decisions that might get us end up in jail. Or Audrey's been telling about the Holocaust and some of the people there that had to, young people had to stand up straight and say, I'm a Jew, when the Germans were offering to them a way out.

Because all the Germans weren't bad and they were forced to do what they did and a lot of them didn't like it, but they did it. And you know, to stand up when you're facing a concentration camp and you could get out, if you would just say, well, I had a Gentile father or mother or something, to stand up straight and say, I'm a Jew, knowing what it would mean, a child. If you don't think that Holocaust was bad, I've been reading a book about it, about Pope Pius XII and what went on, he was a Pope during Hitler's regime, and the way the Jews were treated, you cannot believe it.

Hundreds of people locked in boxcars for days on end, families with no toilets, nothing. Just jammed in there. People in Rome were telling, the Italians tried to help them, the Pope wouldn't help them at all, but the Italian people tried to help them, but they couldn't.

But they could see the faces of the children in the windows of the train. They didn't even look like they were in just another world, their eyes were glazed at the terror of it. You've never experienced that.

But if you were experiencing it, you would have a hard time with this verse. You'd have a hard time saying the whole earth is full of his glory. You see the point? And when days like this come in order to survive, we're going to have to fix our eyes on Jesus Christ.

It depends on where you're looking in the world, whether you see foulness and darkness, or whether you see glory. And you can train yourself to see glory. When things get dark, you can say, Lord, the whole earth is full of your glory.

I don't see it, I don't feel it, and it looks like I'm at the end of my rope. You know, as Daniel was being thrown down into the lion's pit, it would be hard for Daniel to say, the whole earth is full of your glory. But when he got down there, and these pussycats began to purr and rub against his legs, he could say, the whole earth is full of your glory.

Even the lions are your servants, Lord. The same with Job, when he was in the middle of it, of his boils and the pain. It would be hard to say, the whole earth is full of your glory.

When his trial was over, and God restored to him everything, he lived for 140 years with three daughters, seven sons, I believe. He could say, the whole earth is full of your glory. You see it? God hadn't changed when he had his boils.

The whole earth was still full of his glory. God hadn't changed when Daniel was grabbed to be thrown into the lion's den. The whole earth was full of his glory.

He could have looked at it and said, oh, this is my reward for serving the Lord. You know, now I'm going to get eaten alive. Or Joseph, this is my reward for being righteous.

But God hadn't changed in that time. The whole earth was full of his glory. And there's going to be darkness coming.

I feel I'm writing and preaching for the future. And some of the young, when Audrey and I are long gone, June and a few others, you're going to have to build your own fire. And no matter how dark it gets, just remember, you can look at the devil if you want to, but you don't have to.

You can look at the foulness and the darkness, but you don't have to. You can just say by faith, the whole earth is full of your glory, Lord. Most of you have been in a jet.

And you'll notice that it can be overcast, it can be rain. But when you're in the middle of your flight and before you begin to descend into Lindbergh Field, the sun is shining brightly. And then as you go down, you begin to get into the clouds and the rain and the fog and everything.

But the sun was still shining brightly above the clouds. And it always is. It always is.

No matter what the weather is like down here, it can be a hurricane up there, the sun is shining. And up there, the earth is full of His glory. And the heavenly personages cry that, Holy, Holy, Holy, the earth is full of Your glory.

One of the things that Satan tries to get us to do is to fret. Don't spend any of your time fretting because it is sinful. In Psalms 37, if you can do something about the darkness, do it.

But if you can't, don't insult God by fretting. God has promised you that He will deliver you from all your fears. That's in the 34th Psalm.

God has promised you that He will deliver you from all your fears. In the 91st Psalm, He has promised you no plague will come nigh your dwelling. In Isaiah, I believe it is, He will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee.

Again, it says, He shall not be afraid of evil tidings. His heart is fixed, trusting in the Lord. When you're reading your Bible and you're standing on those verses and refusing to look at the darkness, you're seeing the glory of the Lord.

Because it fills the earth. The earth is full of the glory of the Lord. It depends on where you're looking.

Satan does not like to be ignored. He'll do anything to keep from being ignored. He'll threaten you.

He'll put things in front of you. Worry about this. Get anxious about that.

But whatever you do, don't ignore me. And so you have to pray and say, Lord, I want to ignore the devil. The Bible doesn't say the whole earth is full of the glory of the devil.

The whole earth is full of the glory of the Lord. And you can choose to look at that. And if you do, it will heal you.

Praise the Lord. And sometimes it's hard. Sometimes it's hard for months on end because there's something hanging over you.

Maybe a biopsy. Maybe something else that a lawsuit will terrorize people. I knew a lawyer once that got sued.

I never saw such a panic-stricken man in my life. And I said, you need to learn what it feels like to be on the other end, brother. I've been sued, and I know what that feels like.

I said, it'd be good for you to have some mercy on people who are being sued. It's a good thing that you're being sued. You'll learn.

He was absolutely panic-stricken. When they're walking down the hall of the court with their briefcase and their back straight, they don't realize the people sitting on the benches, how they feel. When I was sued, I remember, man, my heart was in my mouth because they sued us way above our insurance and everything.

And the plaintiff was proven on the stand to be a liar. So we got off scot-free. But I noticed him going back down.

That was in the superior court in Buffalo, New York. And I noticed him going back down in the elevator. The attorneys were all talking about going out and playing golf.

I thought, oh, that's cool. All right. Psalm 37.1. Here's a commandment.

This isn't a suggestion. And there's wisdom in it. Do not fret because of evil men.

Hello? You say, well, if I don't fret, they'll all get away with everything. Listen, your fretting isn't going to do anything except cause spiritual static and cause you to lose your faith and everything else. It isn't doing any good.

And I hope if you've been fretting this morning, you read the paper, you're fretting about the government, fretting about the politics. You need to get up at this altar and repent because you are sinning. It says this in here.

My eye's going down here somewhere. Yes, in the eighth verse. Refrain from anger and turn from wrath.

Do not fret. It leads only to evil. Thank you.

I didn't write it. I'm just preaching it. And this is going to be so important in the future because things are going to get worse.

And the only and if you fret, which is what, of course, Satan wants you to do. You're not saying the whole earth is full of his glory. You're saying the devil's running the show.

What will I do? Rapture me out of here, Lord, before I perish. The earth is full of his glory. The earth is full of his glory.

Don't fret. But what about the politics? What about all this? The Bible says it's working for your good. It's working.

How can it be working for my good? The Bible says it's working for your good. What are you doing fretting about it? What are you fretting about something that's working for your good? Doesn't make any sense. The whole earth is full of his glory.

Hallelujah. And that hasn't changed and it isn't going to change. The earth is the Lord's.

And the fullness thereof. The world and they who dwell therein. And Satan doesn't own one stick and stone on this planet.

You have to give it to him. His authority was destroyed on the cross. And he hasn't got anything unless he can play with your mind and get you to believe him.

And he's a liar so you're whipped before you start. The earth is full of God's glory. Think about your circumstances today.

How many are worried? What are you worried? Are you worried? Well, of course not. You'd be afraid to stick up your head. Well, just think about your miserable situation and the prognosis of absolute doom.

Just think about it. And then just lay on it. The whole earth is full of his glory.

Hallelujah. And all things work together for good. Well, I may get to it this morning or I may not.

But there's another side of this coin. And that is why we go through such dark times. There's a reason for it.

It isn't because the devil's getting a lick in. The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord. You don't have to worry about that.

The Bible says the steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord. Hallelujah. And Satan cannot touch that.

The angel of the Lord camps round about those who fear him and delivers him. And he will. And the Bible hasn't changed and it isn't going to change.

So, Satan has to get you to bite. He has to get you to look at something he's doing and then bite on it. And that way he pulls you down from your heavenly place in Christ Jesus.

He pulls you down with worry. Worry is a form of unbelief. Worry is a form of ignorance of God's promises.

Worry is a form of denying that the whole earth is full of his glory. Worry is a way of denying that all things are working together for good to those who love God. Worry is a way of denying that.

I know it's difficult. And you have to fight. It isn't called the good swim of faith, or the good float of faith, or the good tea party of faith.

It's called the good fight of faith. And you have to fight. And you have to fight off the lies that the devil tells us all day long.

This is going to happen. Get your eyes on me. I'm going to do this.

Boo, boo, boo. This is just what's going to happen to you. Be afraid.

Fear. I'm going to hurt you. Get your eyes back up on Jesus.

In fact, he's insulted and gets very disappointed when we give the devil any credit at all. He's a king. And he's jealous when we pay homage to another king.

He says, what are you doing that for? Don't you believe I have all authority in heaven and on the earth? If you want to serve him, go serve him. That's right. But if you want to serve me, then believe what I say and do what I say, and you'll be fine, and there is nothing that can hurt you.

Hallelujah. Jesus is all there is that means anything. Now, another one along this line, which is not a suggestion, but a commandment, is Philippians 4.8. How many think the Bible is full of suggestions? Philippians 4.8. The Ten Suggestions.

All right. Philippians 4.8. Now, Paul was sitting in his Walnut Line study with five concordances and his CD-ROM and wrote this. You'd say, well, that's fine, Paul, for you, but I've got problems.

The muck is going over my head. But when Paul wrote this, he was in prison. And he was at a time when the politics in Rome were such, Paul didn't know whether he was going to live from one day to the next.

And the emperor had absolute authority. All he had to do was snap his fingers and Paul was a dead man. And eventually it happened.

Because the tradition says Paul was decapitated on the outskirts of Rome. But I know, as the headman's axe was coming down, Paul was saying, the whole earth is full of your glory. Hallelujah.

And in another couple of minutes he knew it for sure. Yes, sir. Up above the clouds the sun is always shining.

Remember that song? Yeah. Finally, brothers, whatever is true, think about such things. Not a suggestion.

Whatever is noble, think about such things. Whatever is right, think about such things. Whatever is pure, think about such things.

Well, that won't leave me any time to think about the Democrats. And worry about whether they're going to be elected four years from now. Whatever is lovely, think about these things.

Whatever is admirable, think about these things. Doesn't leave you much time for anything else. If anything is excellent, there are a lot of things that are excellent, think about these things.

If anything is praiseworthy, think about such things. Now, that's a commandment. And if Paul could say that, in peril of his life, unable to keep the Jewish ceremonies, chained to a Roman soldier, listening to the profanity and the filthy stories, watching them gamble on the floor of his prison, and he can say to us, think about these things, then I think we'd better do it.

So the Old Testament tells us, do not fret. It leads only to evil. And then Paul says, think about the things that are lovely.

Well, you say, my mind is like a tree full of birds, and people keep shooting off shotguns, and they fly up in every direction, and then when I finally get them settled down, another shotgun goes off, and off they go. Is that your mind like that, especially in the morning? Well, you've got to use some devices to get a hold of your mind in the morning. And it's good to have what the Hindus call a mantra.

Get some two or three syllables, because if you try to think of five words, you'll lose your train of thought, and you'll be thinking about eight other things. Get something simple like, Lord, I love you, and say it 100 times. Well, you'll get about to 10, and you'll forget to count, and your mind will be off on something else.

And as soon as you can get those birds back in the tree, start again at number 11, and keep going again, and pretty soon you'll have control of your mind. Yeah, oh, it works. Oh, yes, it works.

But if you try to get it too long, like, Lord, I'm going to praise you all day long, no matter what, four times you'll say that, and your mind will be off on something else. So you've got to get something simple like, your will be done, Lord. Your will be done.

Walk around the house. Your will be done. Your will be done.

Pretty soon you'll have your mind corralled. Or you can just empty it, and every ungodly thing you ever heard of will go through it. Right? So you've got to get something, some simple thing.

And when you first wake up, and keep saying it, and saying it, and saying it. Well, if you can remember a long thing like this, the whole earth is full of your glory. That's a wonderful thing.

Wake up in the morning. All right, so now we have said that. All right, now let us take a look at Hebrews 11, verses 32 through 35.

All right. And what more shall I say? I do not have time to tell about Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel, and the prophets, who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, and gained what was promised, shot the mouths of lions, quenched the fury of the flames, escaped the edge of the sword whose weakness was turned to strength, and who became powerful in battle and routed foreign armies. Women received back their dead, raised to life.

Again, others were tortured and refused to be released so that they might gain a better resurrection. Now, this is all under the Old Testament. I haven't even come to the New yet.

All these things. Well, tell me something. You've all read your Bibles.

How many people have you found in the Bible that trusted God and God let them down? Now, you stop and in your mind go through the whole list of heroes of faith, and you tell me how many trusted God and God let them down. Anybody got one? Now, you're wishing you read the Bible instead of true romances, aren't you? All right. Now, I'll make it easy for you.

There is no account in the Bible of someone who put his trust in the Lord and ended up ashamed. Not one. There are instances where Israel went out as a pity, as like two little flocks of goats, and the Midianites came against them with overwhelming forces.

And they still won. Because they trusted the Lord. There are many accounts in the Bible, in the Old Testament, when the Jews did not trust God, but trusted Egypt or Damascus or something else.

And every time they got whipped. Even when they had every right to win, they got whipped. Well, now you read so many of these, and there's no exception, you begin to get the message.

Maybe if you trust the Lord, you won't be ashamed. You won't be put to shame. Because I'm certain of one thing.

God is not going to begin with you or me. He's not going to break His record with you or me. And here He looks down and we're trusting Him.

He said, oh well, you know, who's perfect? He is not going to fail you if you trust Him. Amen. We all go through many dangers, trials, and snares.

But the Lord brings us through. And up above the clouds the sun is shining. And if we die in the faith, who cares? Who cares? We're going up to the meadows of God.

Is this so bad? Better than going to Oregon. Go up to the meadows of God. Oh, hallelujah.

I love meadows. Especially if they've got a hill and a big tree and you lay down there under that tree and look at the sky. I tell you, that's living.

If you were to die right now, that's where you'd go. End of peace and rest. On the way up you can throw out your credit cards.

You can't be hurt. He delivered those who all their lifetime were in bondage because of the fear of death. Oh, death, where is your sting? There's no sting because Christ has removed that sting of sin.

And if we're serving God, we don't have to fear death. So what is there to fear? Well, the spiritual darkness keeps us in an uproar. And God says the earth is full of His glory.

Now, I think I do. I think my mind is switching over. I'm going to talk a little bit about suffering.

Suffering. We've talked about the word of His testimony. We've talked about the blood of the Lamb.

We haven't talked too much about loving not your life to the death. But in order to do that, you've got to remember that the earth is full of His glory. And just because you're not a happy camper at this time hasn't changed that.

But there's a purpose for it. There's a purpose for it. If you're suffering this morning and you're serving the Lord and it's not your fault, something's come on you, there's a purpose.

There is a divine purpose in it. And God is in control. Let's take a look at one of my favorite verses, 1 Peter 5.10. This is one of my favorites of favorites.

Because I've been through it. Audrey's been through it. Many of you have been through it.

And you know we didn't ask for it. And it just happened. And we weren't sinning at the time.

But it happens. And you have to keep your mind on the glory of the Lord. I don't know how long this is going to last, Lord.

But the earth is full of Your glory. The God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while. Now what does that tell you? It's controlled.

It's controlled. It's not out of control. Your suffering is not out of control.

It's controlled. It's for a purpose. It's for your good purpose.

After, will Himself restore you and make you strong, firm, and steadfast. Well, the implication there is that before you suffered under the hand of God, you were not strong, firm, or steadfast. And so it did you good, didn't it? It did Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego good.

I'm sure they came out saying the whole earth is full of His glory, and some of it was in the oven. Because we saw them walking around. Oh, how wonderful.

Well, you never have a testimony like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, unless you're in the fire. And then think what you can say at the full gospel business meeting. You give your testimony.

You know what happened to me? No. Well, I was thrown in the fire. You were, yeah.

But there was someone else in there with me. All right. Now, we were looking at Isaiah 6, verses 1 through 5, but I don't know if you noticed the clause, in the year that King Uzziah died.

How many saw that? Well, you don't see the glory of the Lord until King Uzziah dies. All right? Well, let's see what was true of old King Uzziah. That's the way the Jews would pronounce it.

They wouldn't say Uzziah. They'd say Uzziah or Uzzi. His friends call him Uz for short.

All right. Now, 2 Chronicles 26, verse 16. 2 Chronicles.

That's in the Old Testament. 26, verse 16. All right.

Let's take a look at it. Now, Uzziah had been a very successful king. God was with him in everything that he did.

And he was mighty in war and he built all kinds of huge war machines and catapults and everything else you could think of. But, as often happens with Christians, when we become successful, after he became powerful, his pride led to his downfall. And he went into the temple to burn incense on the altar.

Oh, you don't do that, king or no king. That belongs to the priests. Azariah the priest with 80 other courageous priests.

Now, you want to remember, these guys were built like butchers because they're all the time lifting these sides of beef. And he got the message. They drove him out.

And you notice in verse 19, he's raging at the priest. And he was a leper till the day of his death. Now, Uzziah stands for presumption.

Do it self, mother. Well, I was successful in war. I've got a big standing army.

And I'm a big hero around here and everything. Well, I guess I'll just go in and finish the job and act like a priest. Self-will.

Presumption. I know all about it. I don't need to listen to anybody.

I'm Uzziah. Get the message, kids. I'm Uzziah.

And you see what a record I have? Oh, I've been successful. You should see my email. It's clogged five times.

I can't stand what's coming in. So, I just got an idea. I think I'll go on the large Mike Coast and try something else.

I think I'll replace the pastor for a while. He's kind of a nothing. Well, anyway, I'm not trembling.

I wish you're good. The more success you have, that's my success. You won't see the glory of the Lord.

You won't see it. You don't see it until King Uzziah dies. Selfish ambition dies.

The desire to show off dies. The desire to be a hot shot in religious things dies. Until King Uzziah dies, you'll never see the glory of the Lord.

And you won't realize that you're a person of unclean lips. You won't see your own sordid condition. You won't see anything because you're puffed up.

How many here are puffed up? Don't raise your hand. In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord. Oh, hallelujah! When that old self-presumption, personal ambition dies, you see the Lord high and lifted up and His train fills the temple.

In the year that King Uzziah dies, oh, God let him perish. I want to see the Lord. How about you? I want to see His glory filling the earth.

I know you do too. And hear those tremendous words from God who will go. Alright, so much for King Uzziah.

Revelation 2.10 Well, we all know this by heart. Stan knows this one by heart. He's heard it so many times.

Stan, you can take a breather. Revelation 2.10 This is a good one to have in your bag of tricks. Yes, if you want to survive in the foulness that's to come.

Do not be afraid of what you are about to suffer. You know, half of the problem that we have when bad things come is the fear. Honestly, the actual thing that happens isn't nearly as bad as the fear.

You know that? Try to tell that to your baby when they're going in for a vaccination. There's nothing to fear. It's all over.

They're hard to convince. Babies are hard to convince. But older people can be convinced.

Our problem is fear. Oh, this happens. And if it does happen, the Lord's grace is there.

And you go through fine. And you've burned all those calories being scared. Did you ever notice that? Amen.

That's why he says, do not be afraid of what you're about to suffer. Well, I'm about to suffer. Don't be afraid.

Well, I'm about to suffer. Oh, hallelujah. That's great preaching.

It's not easy to live. I tell you, the devil will put some of you in prison to test you. Therefore, fear the devil and cast him out.

Go to Texas and get prayed over. The devil will put some of you in prison to test you. Well, how come the Lord doesn't prevent it? Because He's got something good in mind for you.

So when the hard things come, don't start yelling and screaming. Say, Lord, is this You? If not, take it away from me. If it's You, help me to go through it.

Don't take it for granted. Pray. Don't say, oh, I'm suffering because I had so many revelations.

Don't talk yourself out of deliverance. The Bible says, by whose stripes we were healed. Stand on it.

You'll get healed sooner or later. But if you have to go through a hard time, bear it patiently. It's doing you something.

It's necessary. The devil isn't in control here. Christ is in control.

When in the case of Peter, Christ said Satan's going to sift you as wheat. He didn't say I'm going to prevent it. If you pray and fast, you can escape.

He said when you're converted, strengthen your brothers. Because they're arguing about who's going to be the greatest. Well, after God gets through... Listen to me.

I've been talking, I'm going to say something. After God gets through sifting you, you won't care who's the greatest. That's the truth.

Lord, just give me a little tent on the edge of glory. I'm tired of trying to be an apostle. Oh yeah.

I speak what I do know. Oh yes. After you're converted, where are you converted from? Trying to be boss.

Trying to be chief. Trying to be great. That's what you're converted from.

After you get sifted enough, you let somebody else be great. Shoot at them for a while. And you will suffer persecution for ten days.

See, Christ doesn't say the devil's got you now, I don't know what to do about it. He says this is going to happen for ten days and then it's over. I'm the Lord.

I have spoken. He lets Satan have at Job. But he put limits on it.

Don't touch his life. Satan couldn't have touched Job's life for all the tea in China. Couldn't have done it.

God said you can go so far, no further. That's it. You got it? Okay.

Don't mess around. Alright. I'll have my fun when I can.

Be faithful. That means don't quit. Whatever you do, don't quit.

You want a mantra when you wake up in the morning? There is. Don't quit. No matter what happens, don't quit.

Everybody say it with me. Don't quit! It's one of the big secrets of the Christian life handed down by apostles and prophets. Many languages.

Don't quit! God comes on the scene at the last minute. He loves dramatic entrances. Be faithful, even to the point of death.

So I die for what? We'll never know it. Be faithful to the point of death. Boy, that's a message of faith.

And I will give you the crown of life. Now that's more than eternal life. That's a crown of life.

That's the authority to rule by the greatest power in the world, which is incorruptible resurrection life. That's the life that raised Christ right out of the clutches of hell. Power.

Authority. Oh, you'll never get authority like this unless you suffer. The cross and the crown go together.

That's what I tell you. Just trust God. And if God's got some high place in the kingdom for you, then you're going to have to be dealt with so that you can do it once you get there.

How many here want to get put in a high place and then blow it somewhere in the middle of the thousand-year kingdom age? Well, God's planning for the future. You know, God is marvelous at planning for the future. He's a great planner for the future.

And He knows where you are. He knows where you're going to be a thousand years from now. And if you're going to be in some big position and a lot of people are going to be dependent on you, then He's going to fix it now so that you don't wreck everything when you get there.

Does that make sense? That's true in the army. It's true in a medical school. It's true in anything where you get out, where you're going to, if you're going to be an officer or something, you're going to be in a place where people are going to, lives are going to be depending on your judgment.

Well, you're not going to be, you know, graduate from high school and that's the end of it. You've got to be prepared. You've got to be competent.

And depending on where God has called you, you'll be a little flower in the kingdom. Finally, God isn't going to make you a mighty man of war. You're not going to have to suffer.

How many would like to be a little flower in the kingdom after that? You're not going to have to go through much. It doesn't take much to make a flower. God just wants to look at you because you're beautiful and graceful.

But if he's going to make you some kind of a hulking brute, riding a man of war, doing war fighting, leading legions of God, then God has got to be sure that you're not going to be disobedient in the middle of it. Does that make sense to you? Isn't that true on earth now, in life? Anything you get in the spirit realm, you can always bring it down. If it's not true in life, it's probably a fantasy.

It's true. It's true today. Where God is going to put you, he's going to make you competent so that you don't mess up when you get there.

So, if you're suffering under the hand of God, be patient. It means that God has something special for you. And the specialer it is, the more you're going to be tested and tried and worked with until you've got some steel inside instead of marshmallows.

Yes. You will receive a crown, a crown of life, and you will rule by the power of life. People, you'll be saying to one, you can enter the kingdom, and another one, you can't enter the kingdom, and this one has eternal life, and that one goes into darkness, and so on.

You think that God's going to let some untested kid do a thing like that? Man, you have to come to know God, and you've got to have compassion, judgment, obedience. You've got to be fearless, judging angels. Whoa, it's quite a course.

It's more rugged, I think, than the Navy SEALs. It's a rough one. Alright.

Are you there? Yes, we're here, Brother Thompson. We're holding on for dear life. Hebrews 11.13 Fasten your seatbelt, shoulder harness, and both side and front airbags, and you'll be alright.

No matter what happens, you ought to survive, at least. If nothing else. Alright, now look at this.

Hebrews 11.13 I love this. I mean, it puts an end to so many things. Like, we've got to have it now.

If you've got faith, you've got to have it now. Blah, blah, blah, blah. Boy, the doctrine that's gone forth in the last few years is enough to make a horse laugh.

Hebrews 11.13 All these people were still living by faith when they died. There's such a thing as dying in faith. Alright.

They did not receive the things promised. I'm not going to get it now. Maybe 20 years from now.

No, you may not get it till the next world. Well, that put an end to it. Because I know that God cannot do anything better than this life.

I know that. And this body is the best body that ever could possibly be. God cannot do anything better than this.

How many know that's true? You're only one step away from an animal. Do you realize that? Do you realize some babies are born with tails? Which gives rise to the ridiculous hypothesis of evolution. What you are is a smart ape.

Well, that's what the doctors would tell us. Well, we know there's more to it than that. But nonetheless, this body that we have is not all that different from an ape.

Hello. And you thought you had something in your little jewel case that was precious beyond words. This is the body of our humbling.

Rotherham calls it. Ah, forget King James. This is the body of our humbling.

Our death doom body. Whatever you want to call it. It's the vehicle in which we are tested before we get the real thing.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry. You can clutch your rags if you want to, but God's got something better.

Oh, God has something better. Oh, hallelujah. And the older you get, the more you'll appreciate it.

Oh, yes. God has something better. Hallelujah.

He has an eternal body that doesn't get tired and doesn't get weak and doesn't have to go to sleep at night and doesn't get sick when it doesn't die. And all it does is good. Furthermore, its inclinations are righteous.

Now beat that one if you can. You can do all the acrobats you want. In fact, you can jump and keep on going up as long as you want to and break every record that ever was.

Throw a javelin until it went up into orbit. We are really bound with gravity in this stupid, sinful flesh. Well, you don't all have to say amen.

I mean, I don't want to get flattered until I go out of here. My hat doesn't fit anymore. Alright.

They did not receive the things promised. They only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. How do you think they're doing now? How do you think the Apostle Paul is doing now? How do you think Jesus is doing now? How do you think Abraham and all the patriarchs are doing now? Oh, yeah.

Great's hardly the word. They admitted that they were aliens and strangers on the earth. Oh, hallelujah.

I'm not going to preach anymore. I'll let that sink in. I think if I'm hearing right, I'm preparing people for the future.

It isn't always going to be like it is now. And we've got to be people of two worlds. We've got to be very much responsible and alive in this world.

But we've got to be living so if we see 10,000 fall around us, it doesn't bother us. Because we're able to live in the next with no problem. God takes our families and everything away from us with no problem.

Because we know where they are and we know they're safe. It can't be hurt. If we're killed, big deal.

It just makes everything a lot easier and simpler. I want to lift you up this morning. The whole earth is full of His glory, people.

There's nothing the devil can do. He has no power except what you give him. He can't take your peace unless you give it to him.

You keep your mind fixed on the Lord. Just remember, the whole earth is full of His glory now and always. Above the clouds, the sun is shining.

And in the future, if it becomes so dark, gross darkness will cover the earth, the sun is still shining up there. Jesus hasn't changed. His promises hasn't changed.

A thousand shall fall at thy side, but it shall not come near you until it's God's time, and then you'll walk right into glory. Shall we stand?