At Home With the Lord

You may be in the prime of your youth and vigor, but your body belongs to this earth and it's corrupt and it cannot follow. It's made of stuff that just simply can't go to where we're going. We must leave it behind and put on immortality.

Brethren, I want you to think. The thing is, before we meet again, if we have this conference again next year, some of you may be gone. There is things that are described about our heavenly future.

I mean, it says where the Lord calls it sleep. And that has been no small comfort to me. I've gone to sleep many times.

I'm not a stranger to sleep. Sleep is okay. And so it's like the Lord's wanting to tell us, it's all right, you know, sleep in the Lord, sleep in Jesus.

It's called home. At home with Christ, immortality begins. I'm trusting in Him every step of the way.

And even as of now, I'm still battling cancer. And I must say that despite going to these different kinds of so-called faith healers and crusades and not getting healed, I'm so thankful God never healed me of cancer. I'm so thankful because I would have been robbed of the many glorious moments I've had with the Lord.

Some of you may have already had this moment come and go. But you think about the moment, and it may be close. You heard about the pastor and his wife down in Austin.

They're just driving home. Get hit head on, and they're in glory. It happens so fast.

And there is just a thin veil. Death is so close. We're clay pots.

We're fragile. Death is, it doesn't take much to end our lives physically, to separate our spirit from body. Time is short.

You never know when you're going to go. You never know when your death day will be. It could be tomorrow.

It could be at this moment. So please, just make sure, make sure that you're right with God. Make sure that you know Christ, because life is totally meaningless.

Life is meaningless apart from Him. Sin is not worth it. I'm not going to give in.

I'm not going to go that way. I'm not going to side off with Him. I'm not going to envy the sinner.

I'm going to keep on with Christ. I'm going to stay away from sin. I'm going to abhor the world.

My citizenship is in heaven. I'm not going to be earthly minded. I'm going to live for Christ, live for eternity.

My home is not here, it's there. Can you all say with me, we're happy to let Paul speak for us when he said it's our desire to be absent from the body and present with the Lord. Don't you desire that? To be rid of that.

To be free. This is our hope. No more body of death.

No more corruption, but purity and that forever. Forever. Brethren, our sins are here.

The death sentence is upon them. You may fight them today, but fight on in hope and be courageous, brethren. The day is coming.

That moment is coming. Take courage. Those sins you've grown under now, that you wage war against now, that you fight and weep over now, they are temporary.

Christ. Christ. He is everything for Him.

All for Him. He deserves it all. He gets it all.

I want to do all for Him. I want to be all for Him. I want to finish well.

I want to be on the stretch with God. You come to the end. And I'm telling you, brethren, one thing that you don't want to have around your house, one thing you don't want to have around your heart, is sin.

It's contraband. You especially come to the end. And you want a pure heart.

You want a clear conscience. You don't want to have sin dabbling around, hanging around your head. You don't want to be messing with it.

You don't want to be struggling with sin. You want to come to the end with victory over sin, where you've got dominion, where you've got victory. We don't just put off this body and we're just done with sin.

It says that we are going to be like Him. We've been given a taste of the powers of the age to come. It says taste in Hebrews 6. You better believe it.

Just a taste. And if we've just been given a taste, how much more there is. The streams of earth I've tasted.

Far deep, more deep I'll drink above. And so, blessed are the dead who die in the Lord. That's it.

That's the ultimate unless the Lord comes first. And we go without dying.