Mr Darris McNeely

Sermon Transcript

December 29, 2001

The Golden Key

I am glad for the opportunity to speak with you here this afternoon.

My mother came into the church when I was twelve years old, and I never ate in that redwood building; I sat in it in terms of services. I did eat at it; I was too old to lay on the floor, so I had to sit in the seats by the time we started going to the Feast of Tabernacles in those years. But, you know, when we began to attend, my sister and I, with my mother, we had to adjust to a lot of different ideas, and a lot of different customs and traditions that were totally new to us: the Sabbath was one; no Christmas; taking that away was a major adjustment as well; going off to the Feast of Tabernacles the first time - that was a nice trip. East Texas was okay, but it was a nice trip, and away from home. The only downside of that was I didn't make the junior high football team when I got back; my name was off the roster, and that effectively ended my football days at that particular point.

Along came the knowledge of unclean foods, so a lot of things went out the window, and the first springtime, I had to get used to this little flat thing called a matzo, and start eating that, and figure exactly how that fit in. Things were different. In some way, they were a bit cumbersome. I began to stick out. I looked different from all my other friends in the neighborhood and at school because of these new ideas and these new teachings that I was learning from my mother and from the church. But over a period of time, I came to understand, gradually, the value of what I was hearing each week in church, and what I was hearing or reading as I would pick up the literature occasionally, and in spite of my desire to walk away from the church in my early teen years and middle teen years because it cramped my style, because it made me a little different, however, I came to understand that what I was learning was giving me some answers to some of the major issues of life - why was I born? - how to make life work. A lot of other questions began to come into better focus as a result of some of the things that I heard every year at the Feast of Tabernacles and through the sermons.

I came to understand that what my mother had found was the key to understanding the meaning of life. She had come to understand a vision of the kingdom of God. It was a key. It was like a key. It was like a golden key that opened her mind, and mine, and many of yours to an understanding of the great principles of life, and in time, with not a little bit of difficulty, my mother passed that key on to me. What my mother had come to find was a little bit like what Christ talked about in Matthew 13. If you would, please turn there. Matthew 13: two separate, short parables here, at this point. Christ talked about the value of the kingdom of God.

Matthew 13:44 - Christ said, "Again, the kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and hid; and for joy over it he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field." A priceless opportunity for him.

Verse 45 - "Again, the kingdom of heaven," He said, "is like a merchant seeking beautiful pearls,

Verse 46 - Who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had and bought it." And so, Christ, here, speaks of two examples: a pearl and a field that to Him was of the greatest value that everything had to be liquidated in order to obtain what was behind that field. Now, we understand and know that that is talking and telling us about the kingdom of God, and it's talking about this type of an idea that I like to talk about as a golden key of understanding and opportunity.

I brought a key with me today. This is not a golden key. It's gold in the sense that it's brass. My budget wasn't large enough to buy and to obtain an actual gold key. But it's a brass key, and it's as close as I could come to illustrate what I'm talking about here: as a golden key of understanding and of opportunity.

You see, my mother, your mother, your father, your grandparents, your great-grandparents, as we've already heard, received this key, and it opened up a new world of understanding to them. Now, they, and the church, want to pass that key on to those of you who are young here in the faith and in the church. Of course, that's the nature of a parent. That's the nature of the church, to want to pass on this key to each generation. That's really what's behind this weekend, and a lot of our other, or all of our other, youth programs within the church. It's to pass on this key of understanding that we have come to value very highly, and at a great cost to many of us over the recent years especially.

Why is that? Well, turn if you will over to Acts 2. Why are we so desirous in putting so much energy into this. In Acts 2, in the middle of this great sermon that Peter gave on the day of Pentecost, the beginning of the church.

Acts 2:39 - Peter talks here of a promise. He says, "For the promise," and if you will, we can say that that promise is like this key. It's a key of promise, if you will. "This promise is to you," Peter said, "and to your children, and to all who are afar off." Peter didn't understand just how far off that was when he spoke these words. God knew. He says, "as many as the Lord our God will call." The calling is of God, always has been and always will be. But he says, "The promise is to you, and to your children," to the future generations. That's why we put so much time into it. That's why it is so important for us, for my mother, for all of the other mothers and fathers that are here today, to pass this on because of what it has meant to us. And this golden key is available to our children, and we have to pass it on.

We also have to hold on to it, and sometimes that is difficult too. That's challenging, to hold on to what this key represents. And we have to use it as well in our lives, and we have to use it properly. But you know what? As you come to possess this key, as you come to use it, we don't always appreciate it. It gets a little bit awkward. It gets a little bit cumbersome at times. It can even can be a little embarrassing. You see, this key is not the size of an ordinary key. It doesn't fit too well on a key chain that you'd use for your house keys or for your cars. It's a little bit big.

And if you take this key and if you put it in your pocket, which I'll try to do right here, and put it out here to the side, at least with the pants I've got on today, it hangs out. It sticks out. Put it in the back pocket, and it's still going to stick out. Now I see some jeans and pants worn today that the pockets are big enough to hold this and a whole lot more, I recognize. But for the rest of us, with normal pockets, I'm saying, this key's going to stick out. You know, I can put it wherever, and it's going to be there, and it's a little bit too big. But you have to carry it. You have to hold on to it; you have to keep it. You have it in your hands, and you don't always understand what it unlocks.

You see, this key unlocks the answers to the big questions of life, like why were you born, what I like to call the franchise question. The franchise doctrine of the Church of God is "Why Were You Born." That starts and ends in telling us all that we need to understand in one sense, in terms of our calling. This key also tells us about the purpose of our life. This key, when you understand all of its ramifications, gives us the reason for the suffering and the evil of this world; a question that men have struggled and labored to find in every generation of human existence. And so far, in all my readings, I've not come up with any better explanation for the suffering and evil of this world than what we have from the scriptures, and from the holy days, the Day of Atonement, for instance. Those are better answers than anything that I've ever found. The questions of God, His existence, this key helps to understand that.

What is truth? How we determine right from wrong, moral absolutes, this key helps us to unlock that understanding as well. And in the church, we want to pass on to each generation, the golden key of understanding. We have terms like "the calling", "our calling", "being called to the truth" to describe all of this. And it's a difficult time in human history. It's a very challenging period of time for us to pass this truth, and even preserve it, as we've all learned, and to pass that on to another generation. There are a lot of factors working against us in this society. Many of the values that are taught in today's society run contrary to the values of God and to what this key represents and to all that is taught in the scriptures.

Those of you that are still in school, you young people, in high schools and in your colleges, your curriculum are full of moral relativism. Classes and professors teach you how to deconstruct, how to dissect. One of the things that we teach in the Church of God is that God's word, the golden key, if you will, teaches you how to construct, and how to decide, and that's very, very important. It's a very difficult time, very difficult period in today's world. In some ways, very much different than when I grew up, and many of the rest of us in this room. Although, many of the challenges are still the same. And regardless of our generational perspective, regardless of who we are or when we grew up, we all have to face the same challenges, and at some point, when it comes to deciding as to whether we are going to hold on to this key or not, we all have to make the same decision. It is a decision that is open to every generation.

I always like to go back to the example of Jacob, back in Genesis 28. If you will quickly turn back to Genesis 28. Jacob was a man who had a father in the church, if you will. His father, Isaac, knew the truth. His grandfather, Abraham knew the truth as well, and had a relationship with God. And so here was the third generation, if you will, from at least Abraham in the sense of Jacob who came to, in a sense, have access to this golden key, this understanding. It was there for the taking on his part, but in Jacob's case, it took a long time to grasp the importance of it. When he was an adult, and at a time where there was a family crisis that had erupted, Jacob made a wrong choice. He was prompted by his mother, and he caused a big disruption in the family, and Jacob had to leave. And here in Genesis 28:10 we find where Jacob has to leave from Beersheba, his home, and he began to go toward Haran. He was actually being kind of exiled toward his uncle's area, his Uncle Laban, and so he came to a certain place.

Genesis 28: 11 - "and he stayed there all night because the sun had set. And he took one of the stones of that place and put it at his head, and he lay down in that place to sleep."

Verse 12 - "Then he dreamed. And behold, a ladder was set up on the earth, and its top reached to heaven; and there the angels of God were ascending and descending."

Verse 13 - "And the Lord stood above it, in the vision, and said, I am the Lord God of Abraham thy father and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give to you and your descendants."

Verse 14 - "Also your descendants will be as the dust of the earth." This is the same promise that had been made to his father and his grandfather.

Verse 15 - "Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land, for I will not leave you until I have done what I have spoken to you."

Verse 16 - "And then Jacob woke up from this vivid dream, and he said, Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it." It's kind of like a lot of us say from time to time, God's in this place; God is in this act; God is in this church; and I didn't know it. And I didn't understand it.

Verse 17 - "And he was afraid, and said, How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven!"

Verse 18 - So he "got up the next morning; took the stone that he had put at his head, set it up as a pillar, and poured oil on top of it."

Verse 19 - "And he called the name of that place Bethel," the house of God.

Verse 20 - "And Jacob made a vow." And he said "if God will be with me, and keep me in this way that I am going, and give me bread to eat and clothing to put on," Notice the condition here of, "if".

Verse 21 - "So that I come back to my father's house in peace, then the Lord shall be my God." Then the Lord will be my God.

Jacob had a lot to learn at this point. He sees the kingdom. He sees the future reality of God on this earth through this vision. Really, he's seeing the kingdom of God; one of the few who have granted such a privilege and a vision from the scriptures. He saw the pearl of great price. He saw the golden key. But, you know, in Jacob's case, it took him another twenty-plus years before he finally learned the lesson to use this key to unlock the source of blessings that he had been promised; that his father, his grandfather, had been promised. He had more than two decades of lessons to learn before he could fully come to realize that. But in the end, Jacob, just like all the rest of us, like every generation from his time, had to make the decision.

You see, no matter if we're second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, whatever generation of Christian, as we might call them within the church, every generation has to come to the point where they make a decision - to repent - according to the guidelines that God has laid down before every generation regardless of how we view our times and understand life at a particular point because of the histories and times in which we've lived. Every generation has to come to the point where they make a decision - the same decision God gives to each generation.

So there's one calling; there's one hope, one baptism; God gives to each generation basically the instruction which is - to repent - when that comes, when it comes to us as far as that knowledge. We're all really one generation, and in the end, we will all own the golden key. That's God's purpose, and that's God's plan.

And so, there's two ways to see this golden key. There's one way to see it as obtrusive. It's going to stick out, and it's going to cause you to stick out. You can't really put it away as long a you're holding it. You can't put it completely out of sight, and it can be a little cumbersome. It can be heavy to carry around at times. It causes us to stick out among our friends and within our families. And even, if you let it, it can be embarrassing. That's one way to see the golden key.

You can also see the golden key as an opportunity, as a key that gives an openness to life. And as a key to true freedom in life. That is how God hopes, and we hope, all of us will see the golden key in time.

Now, right now, many in this audience have the opportunity and a time to decide. Everyone comes to that point in their life. I had to, at a certain time, I had to make a decision. Was I going to lay this down and walk away from it? Or was I going to keep it. And it was a struggle; it was a challenge for me in my time, my way, at that place. And many of you can tell your story as well. But we all have the opportunity to seize it, to use it, to open up a life of opportunity and freedom.

But we all know that sometimes people throw this key away. They just let it drop. They toss it aside, because it's too heavy, and they don't want to be embarrassed by it any longer, and that's going to happen with some of us. But you know, there's going to come a time when you're going to hit a wall in your life. There's going to be a time of trial. There's going to be a difficulty. You're going to have a marriage difficulty. That beautiful boy and charming girl who came along and promised you the sun, moon and the sky, and you made a choice, and ultimately found out what they delivered was a bag of dirt; you have to make another choice.

There's going to be times, perhaps, when there's going to be a job conflict. And the career and the path that was chosen, when you threw that key down, doesn't always turn out to provide everything that at one time we thought it would. Personal doubt can enter in, a need for God. When you have your first child, that changes a lot of perspectives, especially among women, young girls. When those children start to come along, then you begin to realize you need to teach them. You need to pass along something, and what are you going to go to.

You know, death might strike very close that might wake you to the frightening reality of life. You may be gliding along thinking that you have life by the tail and all is great, and suddenly it comes crashing down. You have your own 911. That's when you're going to need to reach for the golden key, and what it represents, and its values, and its teaching that the church, your parents, your grandparents, other adults in the church, ministers tried to teach and explain in their imperfect ways over the years. That's when you're going to need that.

And of course, all of that puts a responsibility on us in the church, all of us as parents, adults, all of us in the ministry who have made the decision to hold that key and to hold on to it and to teach it and to present it. That puts a lot of responsibility on us. We have to understand that the golden key in our hands is something we have to keep bright. We can't let it tarnish in the eyes of the next generation.

If we've made it sometimes too heavy, or unattractive, then our kids may not want to hold on to it. And that may give them reason to think that its something to throw away. They will not use it to open up the doors, the right doors, at least, of life, as we've come to understand.

I've been working with youth in the church for over twenty-five years, and its been an interesting, challenging period of time that we've lived through. Sometimes you see that the children are not always offered the golden key. And that's where we in the ministry, all of the adults, all of the parents in the church, have to stand back and analyze a lot of things. And certainly the younger generation has to understand it as well. We've all had our difficulties. You know, God never said it would be easy, this calling, holding on to this golden key, living this way of life. He did make a statement at one point, through Paul; He said that it is through much tribulation that you will enter into the kingdom of God. And so, it's part of the process, when we see problems, call it hypocrisy, call it political problems, whatever. Call it upsets and splits that will render the Church of God as it has. Call it just bad examples of individuals. Whatever it is, it's part of the process. Sometimes it's brought on by mistakes and human beings, and sometimes it's brought on by other means as well. But it's all part of the process, and we can't blame the process. There is ultimately, as we all come to realize, individual responsibility. We have to hold on to the golden key when we make the right decisions, and it is what God holds us all accountable for. We all have the responsibility.

Some are not always convinced that the golden key is worth it. An example sometimes compromises the whole situation and teaching that comes out. Sometimes we're afraid to take a stand clearly and teach and show by example the value of our calling and of the golden key.

One of the things that I have learned over the twenty-five plus years in my work in the ministry, and especially working with youth is that I've never seen a group of young people that did not want to be taught some values. They want values. They want a standard of truth. They want adults and parents and ministers and other members to speak with a clear voice on what's right and wrong. They don't always want or even need rigid lists of dos and don'ts. Now there's a time and a place for guidelines and rules depending upon the form and the situation, but really, they need to know that someone cares. They need to know that the church, the ministry and all, every parent has their best interest at heart. They also need to know that we won't give up on them, when we're tempted to give up on them. Really, when you stop and think about it, isn't that what everybody wants? That's really what we all want at any stage in life.

I was reading a book recently that I picked up at Borders called "Closing the Gap". This is written by a young man named Jay McGraw. Jay McGraw is the son of Dr. Phil McGraw of the Oprah television fame, and his young son, Jay, wrote a book here and it has some very interesting points in it, but it had an interesting story at the beginning of the book that I thought I would share with you here of a situation that evidently had taken place in his father, Dr. Phil's, one of his seminars and where he had adults and parents and kids together trying to resolve some problems and the things that lead to the gaps between generations. Let me quickly jump into this as he relates the story of a young girl named Jeanine.

When Jeanine first stood up, I wasn't sure if she was going to get sick or scream. She was pale and trembling, but her eyes flashed anger. The fractured bones of her life had just been laid bare by her parents. She'd made a wreck of things, so they'd brought her to my father's life strategy seminar looking for answers. She'd had a baby at seventeen, quit high school, been married and divorced, twice. Been in and out of drug rehab, one mess after another. Most recently, she'd gotten drunk, totaled her car and crushed her leg. They'd had to replace her entire knee. The fresh bandages and life-long scars were a constant reminder of all that she'd done wrong. Her parents recited the sad story as if they'd been the victims of a plane crash. In their minds, it was their ordeal, not their Jeanine's.

The parents claimed that they'd given her every possible advantage as a child, and as a teenager, they'd done everything right. They had loved and trusted her, but now she was a twenty-five-year-old crash and burn artist, and they were at a loss at what to do. They felt they were out of options. They feared that she would be dead by year's end if allowed to continue her self-destructive course. That's when Jeanine stood up. Her hands and arms were shaking. She looked weary and defeated at first, shaking with emotion, she glared at her parents. For a minute, I thought Dad's seminar was going to go "Jerry Springer". But this wasn't a side show. This was a woman who had been self-destructing, but was now fighting for her life. She and her parents had allowed a huge gap to grow between them.

As I watched from the back of the room, I wondered if this was their last chance to reconnect. I sensed that Jeanine's time was running out. Half sobbing, half raging, she confronted her mother and father. From deep in her gut, the rage came.

"Why didn't you make me do right? Why did you let me con you? Why didn't you stand up to me like real parents? Why did you let me throw my life away when you knew better, and I was being a complete moron? You had to know, you had to know, and now look at me, and look at you."

Real story, and a sad story. I don't know what the outcome was, but it sometimes represents some things that we go through, and some things that I have seen and watched develop over the years as well. You see, we need to be proud of our faith. We need to teach absolutes. We need to talk to our children. We need to expect a lot from them. We need to trust them, and we do, and when we do, we'll get a lot.

So I ask the question for all of us: what condition is your key in? Is it shiny, polished, attractive? Or tarnished, rusted or corroded? You see, a rusted, tarnished key can't open a door. We don't need to be afraid of anything we are, or of anything we believe and teach as a church. When a generation wants to adopt the world's extremes of this culture at any given time, we should say, as parents, we should say as a church - no.

We are a holy, chosen people. We're set apart for a special mission in life. We're called from darkness into life. We should say, very strongly and firmly, we don't go there, when we seen encroachment into our culture from this present world. We need to be strong, and we need to put that in a right way, and if our golden key is shining brightly, it will be more attractive than anything that this world has to offer because our young people want things that we can give, and it's not material things. It's the truth. It's values. It's understanding. It's everything that is represented by this golden key And, of course, that's the continuing challenge, isn't it, for all of us, to pass that along.

It really comes down to this: all of us need to really take a long hard look at how we view our calling. How we view what God has called us to become, and what He has placed in our hands.

In I Corinthians 1:26 the apostle Paul said to his church there in Corinth, he said:

I Corinthians 1:26 - "For you see your calling, brethren." We know that scripture. He goes on to say "that not many wise are called, not many noble, not many mighty are called."

Verse 27 - He says, "God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise."

As I've gone through this subject and thought it through, I choose not to focus on the fact that I'm not noble, mighty or wise. I see that from the scripture pretty well. I think what we should focus on is that we have been chosen. That God has chosen us. That's what Paul is saying. He has called us. That's an amazing, miraculous event, when He placed that golden key in our hands, and as many as He has worked with down through the years, He's working with us today. Joseph, Jacob, that we just read about, Esther, others that we can read about in the scriptures and in the Bible, we can find and we can see where God has placed people to fit within the body as it has pleased Him. God leads His servants by his Holy Spirit. He always knows where He's going. He knows where the church is going as well.

We read in Revelation 19 a statement about the condition of the church at the return of Christ, and it's always amazed me to read that and realize that its, in a sense, made in the past tense. It says that "the bride has made herself ready." When Christ returns the church has already been prepared. That's because Christ is the head of the church. Christ is the one who is the head of the church, and it's being built up into Christ as the head. It's a mystery in some ways as we read about that. But it's Christ work to bring the church to a finished product. And Christ will bring His church to a finished product, and He's working to do it now. We don't always see what He's doing. You know, it's been interesting to observe, as we all have, as we've heard the reports of the group of people in Ghana in west Africa, that formerly have been called the Remnant Church of God, now have become a part of the United Church of God, a group of people of several hundred evidently, that we have concluded, over the recent months, are fellow workers in the gospel.

Now, as I have understood and at least as it has been presented and understood, their background and their story, it seems that God has been working, and had been working with that group to bring them to the point where they ultimately came in contact with us, but God was working with that group for years prior to that contact. And I have to ask the question - where else might He be working in other ways with other groups of people or other individuals, perhaps even in ways that we don't know about. It all brings me back to this point again of God choosing and God calling and placing us where he wants in His body. In his time and manner, we will know where people are, as God brings them into contact with… as the church is brought together. It says: "The church will have been made ready."

God works even when we don't see, and in places and in ways that we don't see. You see, God began to give this group in Ghana the golden key in a little different way than perhaps we would have normally thought about that. He places us in the body as it pleases Him. But we have a place. We have a roll to perform according to God's will. Do we really believe that when it comes down to our level? You and I, the individual level as well, that God is guiding our steps to see and understand that He leads us even when we don't know that He is leading us. We might think we're, in a sense, off on a detour, and God's not quite as attuned and concerned about some of our needs and cares as we might be.

To be converted; to be lead by God's Holy Spirit is to be aware of what God is doing in our lives, and to think that way and to realize as we read over in John 15 that this is talking to me, to you. It's an individual calling; it's an individual bit of information that guides our lives.

John 15:16 - As Christ says to us here: "You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you." Christ said, "You did not choose me, but I chose, and I appointed you."

So, are we walking with our hands in the hand of the master potter? Do we believe that? God is preparing and placing us, even ahead of time, in a place that will ultimately be ours to fulfill in His work, and that He is preparing us right now for that.

I'd like to go back to the story of Joseph, back in Genesis 45, the story of Joseph has always been…of course, it offers so many lessons. We all know Joseph's story of being sold into slavery after incurring the jealousy of his brothers, the stories of his life in Egypt. One of the most amazing parts of the story is later on, years later, when Joseph and his family comes down; they don't know that he is the second in command to the Pharaoh in Egypt, and he provides them grain to help to save them, and he toys with them after a while. It's a very emotional time, and perhaps Joseph didn't really know how to bring all of this out, but ultimately, he does, and in Genesis 45:5, he says:

Genesis 45:5 - "But now," he says, as he reveals himself to his brothers, and he says:"I'm Joseph. I'm the one that you sold into slavery, and all this has happened to me." He says, "Do not therefore be grieved or angry with yourselves because you sold me here; for God sent me before you to preserve life." It's an amazing thought, to realize that God worked out in his life through the greed and envy of his brothers, through their plain human nature, and all the other humans that he came in touch with, Potiphar and his wife and Pharaoh and the servants of Pharaoh's household and everything else, God was working through that.

Verse 6 - "For these two years the famine has been in the land, and there are still five years in which there will be neither plowing or harvesting."

Verse 7 - "And God sent me before you to preserve a posterity for you in the earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance." So, now it was not you who sent me here, but God, and He has made me a father to Pharaoh and lord of all of his house and a ruler throughout all the land of Egypt. How long do you think it took Joseph to come to that conclusion? A long time, I reckon. It didn't happen when he was sitting in prison, perhaps. It took a number of years, I think, before Joseph came to realize that, "God sent me here". "God was working in my life", and He was working to prepare and to save Joseph's family. And God works that way. He works in our life; He prepares us; He's prepared all of His servants. He prepared later on, David, when Samuel walked into the village where David and his family lived, God already knew who He had in mind to be the next king. He knew where that man was. Jeremiah, we are told, was known from his mother's womb. He prepared parents for Jesus Christ. That wasn't anything that was done accidentally. Paul felt the same way about his own life and his calling as well.

I think God still works that way, although your name and mine may not be written in the Bible in the same way that we read about Paul or Joseph. People are still being prepared for positions in the future work of God. Do we really believe and understand that He is preparing us now for the future, because if we do, then that ties back in to how we hold on to that golden key. And how we present it, and teach it to others, if we really believe that.

Christ said in John 14, He said: "I'm going to My Father's house and I'm going to prepare a place for you," He said. "I'm going to prepare a place for you, and if I go to do that, I will come again."

Christ is preparing, right now, a place in His kingdom for us and for others who are yet to come. A major key to our preparation for God's kingdom is taking the gospel to the world. Historically, when you view that and understand that mission, and historically when the Church has focused on that, the Church grew. There was a measure of success. We read about that in the book of Acts. There was a measure of unity.

The growth and unity wasn't always in numbers. The unity was, I think, in the vision of a purpose and a mission to take the true gospel to the world. But even in our own time and age, when we've had our mind properly focused on the work that is before us with the right vision of preaching and teaching and pointing the way to that vision of the kingdom of God, God has blessed that. That is a historical reality of the Church. Conversely, when the Church has lost that vision and mission, it faltered, and grew susceptible to attack from within and without. So, the Church itself, has to see its' calling and keep visually focused on that; zeroed in on it with laser proficiency. We cannot lose sight of that.

So, brethren, again I ask, as we paraphrase the words of Paul: Do we see our calling? Do we see with spiritual perception that we're being trained and prepared by Christ now? Through His spiritual community called "the Church" for a job, not just now, but also in the age to come. So much so that we seize the big picture of our life and our calling and what it is all about and what lies ahead for this world and for the Church and understand the real reason for a weekend like this, and others that are held throughout the year in other locations: summer camps, Ambassador Bible Center, Sabbath services, all of the programs that we have in the Church to prepare rulers and teachers for God's coming kingdom.

We're here to learn the solutions to the world's problems. We're learning by serving one another. All of the programs of the Church are designed to prepare us for the kingdom of God. We have to keep that in mind. That's why we do this. That's why those who have done all the work, as we heard about, in staying up through the night, even conceiving the idea of something like this; it's done not just for activity, but it's done for a purpose. It's done to help pass on that golden key to all of us to encourage us; to keep it shining brightly in our lives.

It takes vision for all of us to see how all of these various programs and all these entities, and even, yes, even some of the difficult things that we go through, how they all fit together to prepare us for a future roll ruling five cities, ten cities, teaching people how to feed themselves, teaching people how to rise up and above life as it is today with a vision of the kingdom of God.

This world today, brethren, is being herded very quickly into a box canyon. One day Satan is going to spring the trap, and there's not going to be any way out. There will be no escape. Events are shaping around this world to which most are oblivious. One day we'll wake up and find that it's a different world than what we had before, and a different world than we thought it would be. There will be a time of tribulation; there will be a time called, "Jacob's trouble". There will be a time when no work can be done, and so we must work now.

Out of this time is going to come a new world, the kingdom of God. A new leader, Jesus Christ, and those who help Him will have been made ready, prepared to rule, and prepared to reign with Him. I believe that. That's what I learned sitting in the chairs of a metal building in east Texas and other locations. That's what I learned, and that's what I've believed, and that's what I've passed on. Do you believe that? I believe that God has called us all according to a divine plan. He knows us by name. We're being prepared for a future role that's greater than any of us can imagine. It has not entered into our minds what God has prepared for us. That's what I believe.

Brethren, all of us, we've got to pick up the key. We've got to pick it up. We've got to hold on to it, and we have to pass it on. That's our responsibility. God has given us a place - a golden key of opportunity in our hands. We can use it to open the door to the future; we can lay it down and walk away to an uncertain future. The choice is ours. The choice is all of ours.

I was recently talking with a very good friend of mine, who has a small, eleven acre plot of land in east Texas; he calls it his "mini-ranch". And he was telling me about a stand of trees that are on his property, which he figures to be in the last phase of their life. Every year several fall over. If that continues, in a few years, he won't have any trees left. So he has a plan to begin planting new trees as they fall over. He'll plant a few at a time, and it will take years for those trees to grow to maturity, but when then do, and as his older trees die and fall, he'll still have a stand of mature trees on his property to provide shelter and beauty to his land.

When he was telling me that story, it reminded me of another story that I had read some years back. It was a story that took place in Oxford, England, at the University, the great university in England. In the late 1300's, when they were building Oxford and its' great buildings, the facility members at Oxford moved into a fine set of new buildings on their campus, and these were huge buildings, major buildings, the first of their kind to serve their growing student body. This is the late 1300's. Now those buildings were built to last.

On the north side of the quadrangle, the four-sided part of the main campus, there sets a chapel and a building they call, "the Great Hall". These are all beautiful stone buildings, and they have, of course, over many, many years provided the focus of life for the college. However, nothing lasts forever. In the middle of the 1800's, almost five hundred years later, it was discovered that the roof of the Great Hall, and the great oak beams that supported the hall, had badly rotted. They would have to be replaced. So, the college hired an architect, a man by the name of Sir Gilbert Scott to restore the roof of the hall.

Now ordinary building materials would not do for this massive job. To restore such a building, you don't go down to Lowe's and buy timber. It takes a special type. Now at that time, this was in the 1800's, it was known that preparation had been made long in advance for just such a time.

Years before, in another generation, people of vision had seen what would be needed. And so the representatives of the college, with the Architect, Sir Gilbert, they visited a place called, "Great Hall Woods", in Berkshire, where they expected to find trees for the replacement beams needed in the Great Hall's chapel. And sure enough, when they got to the woods, the replacements were standing there waiting to be hewn from the living oak trees that had been planted a century before for just that purpose by another generation.

Now if men can plant oak trees a mere one hundred years in advance of their need, what kind of vision does God have for his eternal kingdom? God has given us all the golden key. He's placed it in our hands; He's planted us in His church. And He's working with each one of us, brethren, young people, we are all part of the future kingdom of God. Let's all hang on to the key. Christ is preparing a place for you now.