An 8th Day Gift from God

My wife and I are children, our grandchildren and family. We're all very glad to have been able to be here with all of the rest of you here from the Feast and Oceanside this year. It has been said and mentioned a different Feast experience, but I think that it's been evident God's Spirit is still moving among us in many different ways through the fellowship and the messages, the music, and all to give us certainly a feast of fat things, to find things during this period of time.

So we're glad to have been here with you. As usual, it's just gone too fast. And here we are. The Feast of Tabernacles is over, and we are on the eighth day. Twenty-nine years ago, I was awakened by a telephone call in my hotel room in Dayton, Ohio, on the eighth day. I think it was about 5, 5.30 in the morning. My brother was calling me from our home in Missouri to tell me that my father had died in the night.

Now, my father was never a part of the Church of God. My mother was the one who came in, was called by God back in the early 1960s. And my father never was a part of the Church, and as is typical in those situations, he was antagonistic at first. But he mellowed and accepted what his wife, my mother, was doing. And even in his later years, became supportive and a friend of the Church to many members. But he never became a member of the Church. And so, when he died on the eighth day, God gave me a gift. I don't remember the day of the month, or the September, but I don't remember the day anymore.

I just know that my father died on the eighth day. And I will see him again on the eighth day. When this day becomes a reality. A few days after that event, we traveled back to Missouri, and I was asked to do the funeral for my father. Always a difficult thing to do for a son. And I read in the service before his brothers and sisters, big family, none of them in the Church, of course, and all having their beliefs and faith.

And I read to them the Scriptures about life and death. But I read this Scripture to be sure. And I'd like to read it with you this morning. We'll turn over to Revelation, Chapter 20. Because among the things that I had learned when my mother began to drag me to the Feast of Tabernacles at age 20, literally dragging me in those years, but then I willingly began to get the point and to attend.

But I began to learn through the festivals, the purpose and the plan of God. And so, though I was sad my father had died, I didn't sorrow as those without hope, as Paul says, in Thessalonians. And I didn't want his brothers and sisters, some of whom very devout, felt that my dad's soul, life, whatever, was down below, and he would not be with them in heaven, whatever. And I was reading these words for their benefit, really, to help try to give them a little understanding of the truth. And, you know, when you're reading Scripture to family, that's always a challenging thing to do, because I was just Daris Lynn.

They'd all watched me grow up, and what did I know? Beginning in verse 11, where it says, Then I saw a great white throne, and him who sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven, fled away, and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, standing before God, and books were opened, and another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged according to their works, by the things which were written in the books. And so this period of time is a period of judgment, as well, for those that are a part of this resurrection.

And it says in verse 13, the sea gave up the dead who were in it, and death and Hades delivered up the dead who were in them, and they were judged, each one according to his works. And so John, in vision, saw into the future, to this event, to the events, and to the time that is all portrayed by this great eighth-day festival.

And so this was kind of the centerpiece of the message that I gave to my dad's family and friends who gathered at the graveside that day to help them to understand a bit about God's plan and great purpose.

My dad was, in a sense, right here in verse 12, my dad was part of the small. He wasn't a great person by worldly standards. He lived his life. He did his job, raised his family. My dad did one great thing in his life. I've always remembered him for that. He took part in the Normandy invasion of France on D-Day. He was among the first on to the beach that day, on Omaha Beach. And everything in his life from that point forward just kind of was all downhill. That was the apex of his life, in one sense, in terms of what he lived through.

And did live through it, obviously, and came home and remembered, I'm sure, that day for the rest of his life, in ways that I never could fully fathom and to understand. I learned too late, I think, how to ask my dad and talk to my dad about those matters. And so he took most of his memories on that day from that day to the grave. But he will rise in this time, along with all the other dead, small and great, and stand before God and have the books open to him.

And so, as I said, God gave me a gift on that day, when my father died. Because I not only remember what happened on the eighth day, in terms of that event, but it has made that this day, and it's teaching all that more important to me, knowing that one day I'll be able to, in a sense, then help my dad have that gift of understanding about his life and purpose, and his mind will be open.

As it is given to every one of us, as we come to understand this one great truth that is embodied in this day. Distinctive in so many ways, in terms of what the Bible reveals, and that God has given to us all a gift through his calling and through his spirit to understand the meaning of this day.

Where so many don't. I've searched and read through the years of books on religion, philosophy, ideas that people have, cosmological ideas about the purpose and the meaning of the universe and life and everything else. And no, nothing comes near to what this day pictures and teaches us. I've found no other philosophy, no other religion that teaches it. I came across once years ago a book written by a mathematician, a scholar in physics and all in cosmology.

The book review that I read piqued my interest because the author was putting forth from a mathematical formula the idea that at some point out in the far distant reaches of time in the universe, there will be what he called the Omega Point, the Omega Point, the ending point. And at that point, as the universe reaches its furthest point of expansion, this author came to the conclusion that all life that had ever lived will come back. And he had done this through his knowledge of mathematics and physics, apart from the Bible. Read bits of it, found a book one day and one time, and started to read that part of it.

And it has nothing to do with, again, the purpose and the meaning and what God shows us. But at least that's the closest I've ever come to finding any other teaching that comes close to what the eighth-day teaching from Scripture gives to us about life and the hope of the dead. Who've never had a chance for salvation and to know Jesus Christ and the purpose of life. Christ spoke about this in the comments that he made back in Matthew chapter 11. You will just turn back there.

You can read this part, this recording of it. Because Christ showed that there will be a time in a judgment when the wicked, the immoral, those of cities like Tyre and Sidon and Sodom and Gomorrah will be judged. Beginning in chapter 11 and verse 21, where Christ was speaking very directly to the peoples of Corazene and Bethsaida, two cities in Galilee. Because they didn't believe what he did and who he was. And Christ said in verse 21, if the mighty works which were done and you had been done entire in Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I say to you, it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the day of judgment than for you.

A day of judgment for Tyre and Sidon. To a Jew in Galilee hearing this, it was a slap in the face, being told that Gentiles, those among the other nations, will have more grace, if you will, extended to them. And to Capernaum, he said in verse 23, you're exalted to heaven. You'll be brought down to Hades, for if the mighty works done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. And again, the people of Capernaum hearing that those of Sodom, the epitome of sin, if you will, and destruction, God's judgment from the book of Genesis, will receive the grace of God in the day of judgment.

And they will, in a sense, find themselves behind them. I say to you that it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment than for you. Pretty powerful words, but almost spoken out of a context of what do you mean? Christ, a discerning mind would have asked then and should ask now, what day of judgment?

When? What? What does this talk about? And it's one of those statements that Christ lays out that have to be understood through a complete understanding of Scripture. Mr. Valesco began to read about that when he turned to Leviticus 23 and quoted there from verse 39. Again, almost tucked in there, right after the seven days of the Feast of Tabernacles, there's an eighth-day assembly. There's another day. And it's very clear when you read through that the Feast of Tabernacles is only seven days.

And then there's this other solemn assembly, which is an eighth day. And there's nothing said about it there. And again, you have to then know the complete, well, the Scriptures, but also what those, what the other six festival days teach that are mentioned there in Leviticus 23. And to what they, do they point to begin to understand what that day is. You know, the Jewish people today are well known for keeping their Passover Seder.

They keep it in a completely different fashion than we keep the New Testament Passover. And then they keep the, they're well known. They keep the Rosh Hashanah, the head of the year, the Day of Trumpets. That's well known. You can see that on most calendars. And then, of course, Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, is well known.

And even some of, you know, the most non-observant of Jews will be in synagogue on Yom Kippur. They'll note it on that day, because even within Jewish tradition, it is very, very important and very, very high. We observe it with the understanding of Christ and His atoning sacrifice. And if you go to Jerusalem today in Israel right now, well, not right now, it won't be quite that way this year. But on any other year, Jerusalem would be decked out for the Feast of Tabernacles. And pilgrims from all over the world would be coming in, many of them Christian evangelicals observing Tabernacles in some way to understand something about the meaning there.

And Jerusalem still swells on that Holy Day. Again, not quite this year, but that eighth day isn't understood. Among the Jews, the eighth day has a name called Shemeni atzeret. Shemeni atzeret. One book that I read about this, the Jewish festivals, all they could say was that it is a Holy Day looking for a purpose. A Holy Day looking for a purpose. And obviously, there's no purpose, no understanding because of the lack of complete understanding. You cannot understand the eighth day without understanding what Jesus said here in Matthew 11.

You cannot understand the eighth day without having read Paul's writings, particularly in Romans, chapters 9, 10, and 11. And chapters 9, 10, and 11 of Romans are scriptures that sometimes we just kind of gloss over because Paul goes into the whole book of Romans is pretty deep. It's a deep dive period. But those three chapters are unique in that they raise the eternal question of what about Israel. Paul couldn't figure out what was Israel's faith and purpose, and he comes around to explain it.

And in chapter 11, he really gets into an explanation about this day. You can't understand what Paul says in those three chapters without understanding that there is this day when the dead, small, and great will rise. But if you reject the Old, the New Testament as the revelation of God, and certainly, if you reject Jesus Christ as the Son of God, the Messiah, you're not going to understand the meaning of this day, and it will be labeled a holy day looking for a purpose.

You have to have all of the scripture. You have to have all of it to put it together to begin to understand the grace, the love, the sacrifice, the complete mercy of God. Worked out from before time began as the ladies were singing about here in that wonderful special music there. How can it be? And the meaning of this day brings it all together. When the dead, small, and great stand before God, and they begin to understand the books that will be open to them, and they begin to understand what the purpose of life is all about, that will be a time when all the hurts will be healed.

That will be a time when all of the questions will be answered. Every one of them asked from the beginning of time. That will be a time when all the injustice, all the injustice of the world will be made just. As only God can do it through a resurrection to life, and through the opening of the mind to knowledge and to understanding of the great God, and of the great purpose that has been worked out, and of the life-giving effects of the Spirit of God, the very mind of God, the very essence of the being of the God family made available.

And then that light that that brain's opened up to them in just such a way, that will then begin to make just all the injustice of the years and the decades and the epics of human experience, of the poor ground into the dust, of the mighty and of the great, as John has led to describe it. As Mr. Velasquez was also saying, the king standing on the head of those that they conquered and all the injustice that comes with that, all of that will be made right.

In John 7, we see the passage of Scripture, where Christ was keeping the Feast of Tabernacles, and his teaching on that last day of the Feast of Tabernacles, John 7, which begins in verse 37. Christ had sent his disciples up early to keep the Feast, he came later, and then was walking and in the temple teaching, and it came to that last day, it says in verse 37, that great day of the Feast. I was taught and understood this in my younger days in college, exactly what this was, that this was that last day of the Feast of Tabernacles. And he stood then, and he cried out, saying, If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink.

He who believes in me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water. The Jews would pour out water by their tradition on this day as part of a festival. All the sacrifices had wound down during this period. Those sacrifices actually representing sacrifices for all of the nations, all the other peoples.

And Christ made a very direct point, even as it would seem at this moment when it was happening, that if you thirst, and of course the Jews of his day were thirsting. He invited them to come and drink of him. And that same invitation is there today to drink of the waters that come from him, as he said, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water because of what one professes in belief in Christ, the Son of God.

Verse 39 says, He spoke concerning the Spirit, whom those believing in him would receive. The Holy Spirit was not yet given because Jesus was not yet glorified. And of course, all the other holy days beginning with Passover and Unleavened Bread began to show us all of this purpose and plan that God is working out. It began with that sacrifice. And then all that that meant in terms of the reconciliation with the Father and the forgiveness of sin and through Pentecost, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit being made available, and the first fruits and the great meaning that that offers to us within the Church.

That we are a group of called first fruits of God's plan, of God's purpose, and that God is bringing to pass this great purpose and plan. Christ hit to that here on this seventh day of the Feast of Tabernacles when he brings out this meaning. And of course, it was met with more questions.

The religious leaders continued to reject and conspire amongst themselves. And John concludes the events of this day through verse 52 with an insight into the rejection of Christ's very teaching of the Spirit symbolized by the water. And then in verse 53, everyone went to his own house that evening. Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. The Feast of Tabernacles was over. And in verse 2, early in the morning, he came again into the temple, and all the people came to him, and he sat down, and he taught them.

This is the eighth day. This was that eighth day assembly, then, that Christ came back into the temple very early, the point is made. And he sat there in the very temple, which was all of that great symbolism of the throne of God, how to approach God, but ultimately knowing, as it would be revealed through Paul's writings, that the people, the church, the first fruits, are the temple being built up into a holy habitation.

And there is where Christ began to give this teaching. Very early in the morning, the people came to him, he sat down, and he taught them. And then the Pharisees and the scribes brought to him a woman caught in a great sin of adultery. You know that story. They sat her in the midst, and they said to him, teacher, this woman was caught in adultery in the very act.

They quote the law of Moses as to what should be done, the very letter of the law. And Jesus' answer, as we know, a marvelous instruction in and of itself. He stooped down after saying to them, He who is without sin, among you let him throw a stone at her first. He stooped in the ground down and wrote on the ground, Those who heard it were convicted in their conscience, verse 9, and one by one, beginning with the oldest to the last.

And Jesus was left alone with the woman standing in the midst. And he said to her, Woman, where are those accusers of yours? Has no one condemned you? No, Lord, she said, no one is here. Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more.

The accusers. If this was on the eighth day, and it was, and a trap had been sprung, and we could speculate as to the backstory of all of this, but what it tells us is that Jesus said, Where are your accusers? And they're gone. By the time we get to the eighth day, Revelation 20 shows us the accuser of the brethren is finally gone. Satan the devil. And his influence is removed one last time from mankind, because those who come up in the resurrection, the great white throne, the dead small and great, have already spent a lifetime being deceived by Satan.

And they will be deceived no more. The accuser of the brethren will finally be removed. There were no accusers before this woman, and she again experienced the full grace of God, of the pardon, and then told, Go and sin no more. Go and sin no more. And then he spoke to them again in verse 12. I am the light of the world. He who follows me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.

What an amazing thought for the eighth day. I am the light of the world, Jesus said, who follows me will not walk in darkness. My father walked in darkness in large part because he just wasn't called. He was a good man. He was not a religious man. I can remember him only being in church twice most of my life. And he lived in this church, and both times he came and happened to come to hear me speak. And he never commented on what I said. Never said it was a good job or a bad job or whatever.

And I always wondered what he thought, but he came to hear me speak. But he was not a religious man. I think he'd seen too much in World War II. And in business and in life, he saw the rest, and it wasn't for him. He walked in darkness, as so many do, but they're good people. And that darkness will be gone on the eighth day, in the time of the great white throne. They will have the light of life, and it is going to be coming from the Lamb.

Revelation tells us, there will be no light there in that temple. The light is the Lamb of God. Christ spoke this on the eighth day, the day before he talked about water. Water and light. Two basic elements that we must have to have life in this world. Water and light. I don't know about you, but I have always wanted to live in a home full of light. I've hated dark spaces. I had an office for a period of time, one of the rooms in the home office, without any windows.

And finally, someone vacated another office, and I was given one with a small window. And that was great. Still is. I have to have light coming in. I like big ceilings, and I like big windows, and I like light. That's why I like sunrise and sunset in its own way, and the light in between coming to the ocean. For a time like this, you get water and you get light. And you can just sit and think and understand all of that meaning and what it means. We live in light.

We dwell in light. Christ is the light of life. He is the light of the world. And He will be for all to come on this day, as all of that is pictured. Christ had one more thing to share. That's why He came back on that eighth day, back into the temple. One more thing. And it was light that He wanted to give. The gospel of our salvation gives light and understanding, and it's a wonderful thing when that happens.

One of the great miracles, perhaps the greatest has been called, is that when God opens the light to a human mind and opens the mind to understand. I never cease to marvel, as I think it through, through the years in the church, in the ministry, in working with people, and even today, seeking and trying through writing and through using media to communicate the gospel to people in such a way that you do, as a human instrument with God's help, hope to be able to get the right word, the right emotion, the right comma, the right crossing of the key in place, and the right sentence and paragraph and article and program, to get the word out to people to help them to understand the truth that I have been gifted with, that you've been gifted with.

And all in all, knowing you're just a feeble, frail human instrument struggling in your best days with God's help to get it done, and knowing that you can only plant, you can only sow the seed, God gives the increase. And it's a miracle when he does. And he still does. Not as much as I would like to see or you would like to see, but he still does open the mind to understand and provide a life. And those of you that have come to that understanding in your life in recent times, thank God for it.

Give God the credit, because that's where it all happens, by his Spirit. And he has poured out that light upon us, because that is his plan. And it all is centered upon the work that he is doing through his Son, the one whom he sent, Jesus Christ.

In Ephesians chapter 1, one of the great chapters of the Bible, Ephesians the first chapter, the Apostle Paul weaves in this chapter a tapestry of understanding about the plan of God, the purpose of God, which we're here on the Cabernacles and now this eighth day to put the capstone on and understanding. And we'll have a few months to the spring of next year and the Passover of next year, hopefully fueled up, recharged, energized by what God has given us during this festival to get back into our lives.

And then we'll start walking through the plan of God all over again with Passover and Unleavened Bread next spring. But it is a purpose, it is a plan, and it's a plan that has been there since before the foundation of the world, is what Paul says here. Let's begin in verse 3, read a few verses here. Paul says, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Mr. Darnett was mentioning the other day in his study about the, you know, our understanding of who God is, who and what God is. God is a family. There are two beings in that family. Paul says that right here and many other places, the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

And they are both in agreement. They are both in perfect harmony as to the plan and to the purpose that has been working out. But Paul puts the focus here on the Father beginning in verse 3, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. It is a plan, been called a compact, and that's a nice phrase to express it as well, that has been put in place.

And it is being done in Christ. Just as He chose us in Him, the Father chose us in Christ. Before the foundation of the world, this was already in place before that big bang or whatever it was in the beginning, that real beginning was of time and space and this physical universe. All of it was already worked out. Beginning and the end was in place and known. And then time began. It was all there from the foundation of the world that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love. Having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself according to the good pleasure of His will, is the good pleasure of the Father's will to bring us into a relationship as a son in that family relationship through Christ Jesus.

That's what He's saying here. To the praise of the glory of His grace by which He made us accepted in the beloved. In Him we have redemption through His blood, that is through Christ. The forgiveness of our sins according to the riches of His grace which He made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence.

Having made known to us the mystery of His will according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Himself. That mystery has been made known. And the outlines and the details and the hope and the promises of God's purpose and plan is not a mystery to those that are called and chosen and faithful. It's not a mystery. There are details that we don't know.

There are many aspects we don't fully understand that God has kept to Himself. But the promises, the hope, that has been made known to us. How it is being done. What we should do to inherit eternal life as the gift of God. And what God expects in return from us when He grants His grace to us.

What we reciprocate with. Love. Obedience. Faith. God's grace demands an action on our part. We must reciprocate that grace and show our love toward Him. To love our God. As Mr. Helge was bringing out in his message. And then to love one another. The two great points of the law. In verse 10 he says that in the dispensation of the fullness of the times, He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth in Him.

Verse 10 is perhaps the great verse in this great chapter. I could be so bold as to say. Verse 10 is worthy of our thought, study, meditation, wonder, joy, study for what it tells us. And the eighth day helps us, I think, to understand verse 10. In the dispensation of the fullness of time, of times, all the times, pictured by all the other holy days. Those are parts of those times as well that show God's progression and His purpose and His plan. And when the fullness of the times has come, He will gather together in one all things in Christ, all things in heaven and earth in Him.

Now, I think the knowledge of this day can help us to appreciate that. Because all the other times have gone. A thousand years of the reign of Christ on the earth and the rebuilding through many generations of this earth. Satan bound and finally then put away again at the end of that thousand years a resurrection. Great knowledge and a punishment and the beauty and the abundance that the millennium and experience, pictures. And then this day comes. And then all began to be brought together in Christ in that way.

And the Father is doing that. He is gathering together one and all things. The eight day, I think, shows that. It shows this truth. And it also shows when.

It has not yet been full. We are living in times where there's still darkness, deception, war, division, strife, injustice. Whatever you want to pick and choose as a cause, as a sin, and it's all sin. And it's all evil before God. And again, the Holy Days show us where sin comes from, how sin is forgiven, the source and where evil originates. All of those are parts of the days. When we come to the eighth day, that's all gone. And mankind, those that are part of that period of time, the Great White Throne Judgment, are learning the truth. That's the when. And God is going to begin to bring it all together in Christ during that point in time.

Which is why Christ will have no problem giving the Father the kingdom. Mr. Velasquez read from 1 Corinthians 15, when the end comes, Christ will deliver up the kingdom to the Father.

You know, I used to, when my father would come home from work when I was a little kid, I used to run through the house and jump into his arms and just hope that he caught me. And my dad ran a gas station, a Texaco gas station. My dad always smelled of sweat, gasoline, oil, and a time or two beer. At the end of the day when he would come through the door. But I would run and jump into his arms and he always had a half-grisled face, a day or two of growth and pain. He just rubbed that on my face and, you know, roughed it up a little bit. I kind of grew out of that, as we all do, and those expressions as we grow older. But it was a joy to jump into my father's arms. I kind of think that it will be a joy for the Son to give up the kingdom to the Father when the end comes, in the fullness of the times. Knowing what that will do. He will give to the Father. Can I say, He will gift the Father with the kingdom? All of that which they discussed, all of that which they agreed to, from before time began. And it will all be brought together in Christ. That's one of the full meaning of that out of verse 10 here is one of the great mysteries that is yet to come. And to fully understand. This is the future, but we're not there yet, are we? We're not to all of these events. That fullness of time is off into the future.

After today, we have to go home. We return to the everyday issues of life. The job, the family, further hopes and dreams and trials. Maybe waiting for a medical diagnosis to come down to us. We'll get back into the issues of life. We'll put the masks back on, perhaps. A little bit more in some cases. We'll see what the next few weeks bring for our nation. And then the world. And we will move on. And we will wait and we will hope. To be real honest, I said that this week has gone so quickly as it always does. I guess it's a function of age. Next year, God willing, for those of us who live on, it will be here very quickly as well. So what do we go back to? I'd like to leave you with three things for you to think about here this morning.

First one is a question. What have you learned in your keeping of the Feast of Tabernacles this year, and now the eighth day?

What has God gifted to you? I mentioned that God gave me a gift by my father dying on the eighth day. God hasn't stopped giving me gifts, nor has he to you. What has he given you during this experience? What has he gifted you this year, if you will, the last 12 months? It's been quite eventful. Have you learned patience? Have you learned that what we have, or what is physical, or what can be, can turn on a dime just like that? I'm still figuring out how quickly things happened there about mid-March of this year, where one day it was full throttle wide open. It seemed like the next day the curtains came down. The airports were empty. NBA canceled its season. Job shut down, offices closed. We were in lockdown.

It just happened so quickly in a turnaround like that. And we've been living with the consequences, the after-effect of that since then.

One of the things that I've learned is patience. Patience. Patience. Through a number of situations that came upon me, I've had to learn patience. Not just in myself and not just in the daily hours, but really real patience in God. To let God work His perfect will.

What have you learned? What have you learned during this feast?

I like to ask people, as we look at the Feast of Tabernacles, no matter how many this might be for you, I mentioned on the first day this was number 57 for me. Have you kept one feast 57 times without learning anything? Have you kept one feast 30 times, whatever number you've kept? You keep the same feast over and over again, and it's kind of all the same. Or have you kept 37 feasts, each one learning more and growing in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ? In other words, every year is a growth experience. Ask yourself that. What have you learned? What have you learned? Because it will help you in moving into the coming weeks and months. A second point.

As we go back to our lives, don't let bitterness creep into your life. It can. It can happen very quickly.

If you're treated unjustly, if you're falsely accused, if it's not your fault, take it. Don't let bitterness, from any source, any way, anything that happens to you, don't let it come in. Don't let it get that foothold. Again, be patient. Give it to God. Give it up to God. And let Him work His perfect work in you. But don't let a spirit of bitterness take over, because if it does, you won't be here next year.

It'll take you in a different direction. Third point. Don't get caught up in pride.

Again, if there's one lesson to learn from this time, it is how quickly the physical can change and how quickly the physical can be removed. And that which we think is stable, secure. Those things that we take pride in, our bank accounts, our 401Ks, they can go south just like that. They can come back north just like that. And they can go back wherever they may go. What you've built up over a period of time, what's in your bank account, the pride of your life, enjoy it, which is what Solomon says in Ecclesiastes, give God thanks for what you do have, but don't put your faith there.

Don't let it take you away from the brethren. Don't let it take you away from the church. Don't let it take you away from service. Don't let the pride of your life take you away from Jesus Christ and God the Father.

Because of your bank account, your home, your cars, what you have, your health, your life, what you cherish sometimes even before God. Don't let it become a point of pride that gets in the way of the relationship with God, His church, and each other.

We're going to have to work a little bit harder, I think, among ourselves because of all of this social distancing. What an oxymoron. Social distancing.

We hesitate whether we should even bump, shake hands, and, you know, I guess we really take liberties if we hug, but we miss all of those things. We're going to have to work hard in the coming months to keep those fires and that light shining among the people of God.

And it's going to take courage. It will take courage.

One of the things that tells us in the book of Revelation, chapter 21, is that heavenly Jerusalem that is pictured there, the cowardly will not be there. It says, which means we better have courage because the opposite of cowardice is courage. I think it's going to take courage. So find your courage. Find your strength. Live in the light. Live in the light of Jesus Christ and the Father and the purpose and the plan that He has purposed for us. Live in the light of the knowledge and the meaning of this eighth day and all of those that you will see and know and have the opportunity to be a part of their lives again. And to get all your questions answered and to find all of the justice. Live in the light of the meaning of this day and live in the light of eternity.