Are You Ready to Rule?

WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW overall For gallantry, bravery prior to the Civil War. Nobel Peace Prizes are given out. Apparently they don't mean as much today as they have in the past. That's an unusual reaction. During the Olympics, there are a lot of medals, as we know, that are given out.

1936, Jesse Owens won four gold medals. Hitler had talked about the Aryan race being so far superior that they were putting on the Olympics in Berlin. They were going to show all of the other races. He made it a racial thing. Here Jesse Owens just literally ran off and left everyone 100 yards, 200 yards. He ran, I think, probably the anchor on the 400th relay. I believe he won the broad jump that year. Last year, Michael Phelps won eight gold medals at the Olympics in Beijing. Back in Athens, four years before, he had won six gold medals.

He's going to come back again and try to break the existing record for the most gold medals. When Olympic athletes, somebody wins the World Series, someone wins the NFL Championship, many times they're ticker type of parades. You find that they're given the keys to the city. There are even many cases, once they are honored by a parade, city officials, large crowds, are brought to the White House.

The President is there to honor them, pay respect to them for their accomplishments. I don't know if there's anyone here who's ever been to the White House and been honored by the President or been in a ticker type of parade. But believe me, brethren, what they experience is nothing compared to what you and I are going to experience in just a few years. In 2 Peter 1, verses 10 and 11, Peter describes an event that's going to take place that you and I will have the opportunity to participate in and to share in.

2 Peter 1, verse 10, It says, Therefore, brethren, be even more diligent to make your call on election sure. For if you do these things, you will never stumble. For so an entrance will be supplied to you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. There's going to come a day when God will open the door to immortality, to eternal life, and you and I will walk in. You and I will have the opportunity to go through. That's the good news translation of these two verses.

Verse 10 again. So then, my brothers and sisters, try even harder to make God's call and choice of you a permanent experience. If you do so, you will never abandon your faith. In this way, you will be given the full right. You will be given the right to enter the kingdom of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

God has been waiting 6,000 years. I think that was mentioned earlier in the feast for our birth. You and I wait nine months for a child to be born, but God has been waiting 6,000 years after he created man. But God has actually been waiting for eternity to add to his family and to bring us into that family. The Father and the Word plan, even before the angels were created and even before the physical creation, they planned this whole plan of salvation out that they were going to share with us eternal life.

Titus 1, verse 2, you might just jot it down because we'll say right here, Titus 1, 2, talks about the hope of eternal life, which God, who cannot lie, promised before time began. Time began. Time is a measurement in the physical universe. Time is not a measurement that has anything to do with God, but it does with the physical. And God, as it says, who cannot lie, has promised to give us eternal life. Now, when you go back again to verse 10 here in Peter, you find that it talks about an abundant, I think as it expressed here, will supply you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom. This word in the Greek language was a phrase to describe the welcome to Olympic winners when they would come home and when they returned home, that they were big crowds just like today that would welcome them into the kingdom or into their homes.

Notice the contemporary English version of the Bible on verse 11 has this to say, Then our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will give you a glorious welcome into his kingdom that will last forever. So, brethren, there is coming a day when all of the millions of angels are going to line up. Jesus Christ is going to be there, not the President of the United States, but Jesus Christ himself. And there will be a glorious welcome extended to each one of us as we are changed and made immortal that will far surpass anything that athletes receive today.

There will be two words that every one of us will want to hear at that time. I think every one of you know what those two words are. Well done! Christ will look at you, look you in the eye and say, Well done! He'll say, Well done, Mary Ann! Or, Well done, Jerry! Or, Well done, Phil! Or, whoever you are! God will say, Well done! And he will give you a bear hug. He'll shake your hand. He will welcome you into the very family of God. Well done, good and faithful servant.

So notice what that says. Well done, good, faithful, servant. All of us. That describes what we need to be doing now. The word entrance means road into, so the door will be wide open for us to enter into God's family. In Isaiah 57, verse 15, we read this about God Himself. Isaiah 57, verse 15, For thus says the high and lofty one who inhabits eternity, whose name is holy, I dwell in the high and holy place with him who has a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.

God inhabits, dwells in eternity. The word in the Hebrew means to abide, tabernacle, resides. He resides in eternity. The word for eternity means perpetuality forever. It talks about ancient times, which refers to the past. It talks about forever, which refers to the future. And it talks about now. And actually isn't that God's name? He is the Eternal, the one who has always existed, the one who exists now and who will exist forever in the future.

And what God is going to do is He's going to bring us into eternity to where we're no longer subject to the physical as we know it and see it around us today. There's going to come a time when we will step into a different dimension, the spiritual sphere. We will live in a different realm. Right now, there could be 10,000 angels in this room, but you and I don't see them.

You don't know if there's one here, a hundred here, a thousand here, or how many angels could be here at this time. And they are glorified. They are created beings. And yet, we can't see them because they dwell in a different realm. One day, you and I will step into that realm and we will become spirit beings. And not only will we be able to see in the spirit realm, in other words, we will be able to see God. We'll be able to see the angels. We'll be able to see gravity, whatever that is.

We'll be able to see things that we don't know today, but we will also be able to see into the physical realm. God can see both ways. You and I don't. How many realms are there?

You and I probably think, well, there are at least two. Colossians chapter 1 verse 16 tells us that there are at least two. That Christ has created all things that are in heaven, that are in earth, visible. That's what we see, the physical realm, the visible and the invisible. That's what we don't see, the things that are invisible. Are there other dimensions that have not yet been revealed to us? Well, we don't know. We'll have to wait and see what God has in store for us.

Brother, what is it going to be like to be in the kingdom of God forever?

To live forever? Our minds have difficulty comprehending that, because we've never seen the spirit world. We have no idea what it means to live forever. God has given us, during this festival, and He gives us, in this book, a glimpse into the future.

But He doesn't reveal everything to us. There's going to come a time when you and I will not only just glimpse at it, but we will experience it, because we will step into it. What will it be like for all eternity, beyond the white throne judgment? Well, today we want to take a look at that. We want to take a look at what God has in store for us. I don't want to do a lot of speculating. I just want to talk about what God has revealed and focus our minds on that, because, brethren, we have the most glorious calling, the most wonderful opportunity. And if we lose sight of that during this coming year, shame on us, because God has called us to share with us His family existence, His quality of life. God is not limited as we are, as we will see. He wants to share with us the future. So we're going to cover scriptures that cover the broad spectrum of the millennium, white throne judgment, and the future. Let's start out back in Psalm 145. Psalm 145 verse 10.

Psalm 145 verse 10. Notice how this is written. It says, All your works shall praise you, O Lord, and your saints shall bless you, and they shall speak of the glory of your kingdom, and talk of your power, to make known to the sons of man his mighty acts, and the glorious majesty of his kingdom, and your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom.

Now, who's going to do this? I want you to notice it talks about various aspects of the kingdom of God and what God is like. You and I try to think about what would an angel look like?

What would a spirit being look like? What does God look like?

And yet we don't know because we haven't seen. At that time, you and I will see.

We will mingle with Jesus Christ. We will talk to him. We'll see millions of angels. We'll see seraphim. We'll see caribim. We'll see all kinds of angels. We will have the inside dope on the kingdom of God. And so when people start talking about what is God like, you and I will be able to appear. We will be ruling over cities, nations, and we will sit down with people. We'll say, well, let me tell you what God's like. And we will begin to describe God, not from a theoretical perspective, but we will be able to talk about God because we have seen him.

Notice what it says here. We will speak of the glories of the kingdom. People want to know what is it like to be in the kingdom of God. And I think that's sometimes where we fall short.

We want to know what it's like in God's kingdom. We try to visualize it, but it's hard for us to see.

Well, again, we'll have firsthand knowledge, and we'll be able to talk about the glory of the kingdom. We'll be able to talk about the power of God and what that power is like. We'll talk about the mighty acts of God and the majesty of God. In 1 Corinthians 15, in verse 42, we find that these very qualities described here, where you and I, as those who have been born into the very family of God, will reveal to human beings what God has said. I want you to notice here that these same qualities describe us in verse 42. It says, So also is the resurrection of the dead. The body is sown in corruption. It is raised in incorruption. It is sown in dishonors, raised in glory. It is sown in weakness. It is raised in power. It is sown in a natural body. It is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and then there is a spiritual body. So you'll notice that we will become incorruptible. We will be glorified. We will have power. We will be spirit beings, and we will be made immortal, as it says later on.

Many of the qualities that we will be describing to human beings about the Kingdom of God, we will actually be experiencing ourselves, because we will have bodies that are glorified. We will have powers that our minds can't imagine as spirit beings.

In Hebrews 2 and verse 10, Hebrews 2.10, we read a scripture here that summarizes what God is doing, the hope that He has that He extends to all mankind. It says, for it was fitting for Him. And I'd like to read this, actually, out of the NIV translation. Verse 10, it says, In bringing many sons to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the author of their salvation perfect through suffering. Both the one who makes men holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers. Now, I want you to notice, you and I will be of the same family that Jesus Christ is. And what family is He a part of? What's the family of God? You and I will be a part of that same family. So Christ is forever going to refer to us as His brothers, His sisters. We will be a part of a wonderful family that will continue to exist forever. In fact, in Matthew chapter 25, beginning in verse 21, we read about that future.

This is what I was referring to earlier, but notice Matthew 25 and verse 21.

His Lord will say to Him, Well done, good and faithful servant. You were faithful over a few things. I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of the Lord. And then verse 23 says the same thing. This is talking about individuals who use their talents, multiply their talents, that God will give us responsibilities. And as it says here, enter into the joy of your Lord. Now something we don't stop to think about too often is the fact that once we enter into God's family, we're transformed from human to spirit beings, that we will be given joy on a level that our minds can't comprehend. I'm sure that all of us will leave this feast very happy, excited, joyful, turned on, inspired, motivated, wanting to move forward. But can you imagine being joyful all the time? Being happy and excited? Who would want to live forever in misery, suffering, pain? I don't think any of us would. In fact, as we get older, a lot of times a person will say, you know, I've lived my 70 or 80 years, whatever it might be, I'm ready to go, because the quality of life isn't that great. Well, God will increase the quality of our life. In fact, Isaiah, excuse me, Psalm 16, Psalm 16 in verse 11, ties in with this and tells us this. You will show me the path of life, Psalm 16 in verse 11, and in your presence is fullness of joy. We will be full of joy.

What is the second fruit of God's Spirit? Love and joy. God will magnify that within us. It'll be fun to be in the family of God. We will have joy, hope, instead of pain and suffering, mental anguish, emotional problems. We'll be happy all the time. We will be able to experience joy to the full. Joy on the spirit level far surpasses joy on the human level, anything that we could experience as human beings. In the Millennium and the White Throne Judgment, we will have the joy of seeing people be gotten, perhaps our own children, our grandchildren. Maybe in the Great White Throne Judgment, see our parents, a child who died prematurely, a husband who was killed in warfare or an accident. Those people will come up and we will have the joy of working with them, teaching them, educating them, seeing them be gotten by God's Spirit. We'll have joy simply from the point of view that we're no longer burdened with the problems of the flesh, because we won't be flesh at that time. The broadcasting of Satan will have no influence on us whatsoever, and of course he's going to be bound at that time. So what you find, there will be fullness of joy in the family of God and everything that that translates into. Now, in Psalm 149, David wrote quite a bit in the Psalms about the kingdom of God. In Psalm 149, beginning here in verse 4, says, The Lord takes pleasure in his people, and he will beautify the humble with salvation. Let the saints be joyful in glory.

Let them sing aloud on their beds. Now, when I hear something like the hallelujah chorus, I want to sing. I haven't been given a singing voice, so that's something I'm looking forward to.

Can you imagine? Here we had, you know, choir 40 or so individuals. Can you imagine a million sons and daughters of God singing together in a choir? And what kind of sound that that would produce? You'd have to put them a few hundred miles away, maybe, to be able to listen to them. But in the world tomorrow, we will go to concerts. Is it a matter that human beings like music, and therefore, once you're in the kingdom, you never listen to music again?

You never hear a concert? You never hear beautiful music created? Well, I think for all eternity, we will hear music, and we will sing. And as it says here, let the saints be joyful in glory.

We'll sing on our beds. Now, why would we need a bed? Well, again, I think, as Mr. Salyer explained, this is probably speaking figuratively, but in Revelation 21, just jot it down, verse 9, our home for all eternity is going to be the New Jerusalem. The bride, the New Jerusalem, is the home of the bride. So you and I in the first resurrection will have the opportunity to reside in the New Jerusalem. And we will be there in assisting Jesus Christ forever. And we will be joyful for eternity, sharing, living, learning from the Father, from Christ, from others in the kingdom. See, we will have the opportunity—I don't care how many billions of people there will be in the family of God—we will have an opportunity, because we have eternity, to get to know each one of them personally, to know their name. Now, right now, I have difficulty remembering people's names. And I don't know—I always blame that on senior moments. But we all have trouble remembering things. At that time, that will not be a problem. It won't be a problem to remember billions of names and to get acquainted with people. I've talked to people before who maybe lost a child, and you have cried bitter tears because they've said, well, you know, I wanted them to live into the millennium. And obviously, we all would like to see our younger children do that. But you realize that you will have them for eternity. If we're all in the family of God, that we will be able to spend eternity together, that we will be able to fellowship.

You might be somewhere on a job or responsibility, but we will come back and we'll have the opportunity to see each other. God is not a lazy God. He works. Christ said, you know, my father works, and he did. And so we will have work and responsibilities and duties that we will carry out at that time. Turn back to Psalm again, Psalm 16, verse 11. We did not read that whole verse.

I want you to notice here the last part of verse 11.

We read earlier that in your presence is fullness of joy, and at your right hands are pleasures evermore. So there are pleasures in the family of God. The word pleasure means delights, things that are lovely, delightful, agreeable. Also, it implies singing. So, you know, I hold on to that part of the definition. So there will be pleasures in the kingdom of God.

How many young people have I talked to over the years who have told me, well, I'm not yet ready to commit to the church because I want to experience life. I want to go out here and experience everything in life. I want to have a family. I want to have children. I want a wife. I want to experience what it's like later on. I'll make a commitment. And they think that God's way, for some reason, isn't pleasurable or exciting. In Psalm 36, just over here a few pages, in Psalm 36 and verse 8, it describes the kingdom of God and what it's going to be like.

In verse 8, it says, they are abundantly satisfied with the fullness of your house, and you give them drink from the rivers of your pleasure. For with you is the fountain of life, and in your light we see light. Notice God will allow us to drink from the river of his pleasure.

People search for pleasure today. They want pleasure. They want excitement.

So they turn to drugs, they turn to alcohol, they turn to escapism. Many want to experience every pleasure in this human body or human life. They turn to sex, drink, food, drugs, anything that would stimulate them because they think that they won't experience this type of thing in the kingdom of God. The idea almost is that the kingdom of God is like a nunnery or a monastery. Once we make it, we're there. Is it going to be exciting? Are we going to live eventful life? There are pleasures on the spirit level that our minds cannot comprehend.

Remember the Scripture says, Eye is not seen, ears not heard, neither is it entered into the hearts of men the things that God has prepared? Okay. God has revealed a lot to us, hasn't he? But there are things that God has prepared for us that we don't know. We couldn't comprehend them. He hasn't written them down. He may give us an inkling, a glimpse of it. Rivers of pleasure tell us that there will be pleasures on the spirit level that you as a human being cannot even begin to comprehend. Now, spirit beings can eat and drink and laugh, go to concerts, learn and grow, but human beings can do all of those things, too. What is it that God has in store for us that we can't even comprehend, that we don't know? Now, we realize as a human being, I mean, as a spirit being, we do not need food to sustain our life or drink to nourish us, but we will be able to sit down at a feast day with maybe your physical family, if they live over into the world tomorrow, and be able to sit down and eat a meal with them and appear to them. And after the meal, say thank you and disappear. You're back on the other side. You go into this different dimension. Spirit beings can experience pleasures vastly magnified beyond our knowledge to comprehend.

That's because, on a spirit level, everything is greatly magnified, as we will see.

Now, you'll notice here in verse 9, also it says, with you as a fountain of life, all life comes from God, and He will give us eternal life, immortal life. And then it says also, in your light, we see light. Light is symbolically used of understanding the truth the right way. So, in God's light, when we see Him, we see His example. We will have God's example to follow for all eternity. We will see how He lives, how He conducts things, how He answers questions, how He thinks things out, and we will emulate that. Now, in Psalm 17, in verse 15, we read this, As for me, I will see your face in righteousness. I shall be satisfied when I awaken your likeness. So, you and I, one day, will awake with the very likeness of God.

In 1 Timothy 6, 16, it says that God dwells in unapproachable light. Light that is so powerful that a human being could not approach it. And even on the spirit level, we will be in awe of God. It also states that God only has immortality. Do you realize that only God has immortality? As far as we know, the angels do not. If it says only God does, I think that means only He does. But guess what? God is going to share immortality with us.

As we know in 1 Corinthians 15, the resurrection chapter, in two places it mentions that this mortal will put on immortality. And it's the same word in the Greek. We will have immortality.

And what is immortality? Well, again, it means more than deathlessness. Actually, one of the best definitions that I've found is in Vines' dictionary, where it says that immortality suggests the quality of life enjoyed. That God dwells, He has eternal life, He also has immortality. And whatever that implies, it is a quality of life that God will share with us. So our quality of life will be greatly enhanced.

And we will be like God. Eventually, the Father Himself will come to the earth.

He will dwell in the New Jerusalem. And we will see Him. And we will be like God. We will have glorified bodies that will radiate like God. When you read through all of the scriptures in the Bible about what a spirit being is like, you'll find it's like looking at the sun. Energy, power, radiating out. Actually, the book of Revelation describes God, that there's a rainbow around His throne. That there are various colors around the very throne of God. That God radiates power, radiates energy, He radiates beauty. And so will we at that time. We will never be as powerful as God, all-knowing as God, because that's God, the Father in Christ. But what we will be is we will be members of His family. The very same family. Now, God is not limited as we are.

Do you ever get tired? As the feast wore on, we started getting tired. It's a little more difficult to get up in the morning. Do we get weary? Do our physical bodies hold us back? Do they bind us? Well, they certainly do. But let's notice about God in Isaiah chapter 40 and verse 28 that God is not limited in the same way that we are. Isaiah chapter 40 and verse 28 says, Have you not known? Have you not heard that the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator, the ends of the earth neither faints nor is weary? His understanding is unsearchable?

God is referred to as the Almighty God, the all-powerful God. There is no power greater than God in the universe. When you and I pray today and you get down and you say, Our Father, which art in heaven, do we realize that we are praying to a being who has all power, who is the most powerful being, that he is not limited?

As Romans 1 and verse 20 tells us, we can look at the creation, and the creation can tell us several things. It can show us the power of God. It also reveals his divinity. It's hard for us to realize a being as powerful as God is, and too often we limit God.

We limit what he is able to do for us. Let me use the example of the sun as an example that we might learn from. There's a lot of energy contained in the earth, but it's absolutely nothing compared to the sun. We receive energy from the sun on a daily basis. The sun is 866,000 times the size of the earth, in the diameter of the earth. It has 1,200,000 times the volume of the earth. The sun radiates 330 trillion horsepower of energy to the earth's surface daily.

That's hard to imagine. 330 trillion. Sun radiates 1.5 horsepower of energy per square yard, and that's 4,600,000 horsepower per square mile. That measures out to 330 trillion horsepower of energy. The total energy the sun emits in one second is greater than all of the energy that the human race has used since it's ever been on the earth.

One second. Yet, in one second, we can receive 330 trillion horsepower of energy. The earth intercepts, at any given time, only 1-2 billionths of the energy generated by the sun. So, all of that other energy is radiating out and going out into space. Here we are over here, and we're receiving a little bit of it, and that's equivalent to 330 trillion horsepower.

Now, we've been told by scientists that the sun is only one star in the Milky Way galaxy, and actually it's a medium-sized star. Scientists tell us that there are billions of stars in the Milky Way galaxy. With the Hubble telescope, we found that there are many more galaxies than what we had assumed, that there are actually billions of galaxies.

Now, stop and think about this. There are billions of galaxies, each galaxy having over 100 billion stars in it, many of them so vast that they make the sun look small in comparison, and yet they're all radiating power. They're all radiating energy out. Where'd that come from? Man tells us, well, it just happened. One day there was a Big Bang, and all at once, all this energy came into being. Well, it didn't happen that way. What you find is that the sun converts about 4 million tons of sun mass every second into energy. That's 4 million tons. Notice what we did with the pea-sized piece of uranium?

We destroyed the city of Hiroshima. That's just a small portion of uranium, and yet here are all of these galaxies out there with all of these stars, each converting matter into energy at the rate of millions of tons every second. That's power, and yet God created it. Not only did He created it, He sustains it, and He is greater than all of that. If God wanted to, He could snap His fingers, and the whole physical universe goes out of existence because He's in charge. That's how great He is. So, brethren, what we need to realize is that when we get down on our knees and pray to God, we're praying to a being who has the power to create all of this, to sustain all of this, and He has the power to intervene on our behalf according to His will.

We will never be equal to the Father or to Jesus Christ as far as power, glory, and authority. In fact, Christ said the Father was greater than He was, but we're certainly much greater than the angels. We'll be a part of His family, and the Father in Christ will always be all-powerful, the Almighty God, but we will be a part of that family. And God wants to share part of His power with us.

Now, when we stop and think about that, God wants to give us the ability, maybe to go out, create a few million stars somewhere, or sons. We don't know exactly what God has in store for us, but He will give us the power and the ability. But, brethren, He will not give it to us unless we can control it. He's not going to give us that type of power and ability unless we are able to rule over it and control it and not misuse it. And so that's why we are going through the trials, the tests, the difficulties that we go through today. What about our capacity to work, to learn, to accomplish at that time? Will we be able to do that? Well, look at how God relates to man today, and in the future, you'll find that you and I can generally only do one task at a time.

You can only listen to one thing at a time as a general rule. And yet, on any given Sabbath, hundreds are praying simultaneously to God or having overlapping prayers. Now, which one does He listen to? What if I really need God to hear my prayer and you need God to hear your prayer?

Which one is He going to listen to? And is He going to shut for you off to somebody else?

Can God hear more than one prayer at a time? Have you ever wondered or thought about that?

God can do more than one task at a time if He chooses to. I'm not saying that He always does, but if He chooses, He certainly can. Now, if God hears more than one prayer, can You hear three? Can You hear three? Can You hear four? You hear four, and you go on and on with this.

You and I carry on a conversation. We're talking to one another, and we hear other people over here.

You might hear snatches of what they're saying, but you can't listen to three or four conversations. Think about society in the millennia. Billions of people on the earth. Any given Sabbath, they'll get up and they'll pray to God. And if they pray to half hour, any given half hour period, there could be 208,333,333 praying to God at the same time. Does He hear any other? Or will He hear those prayers? Who does God hear first? Who does He answer? How does God decide to answer a prayer? My father-in-law, who my wife's dad, Curtis Cowan, had an incident that occurred to him on one occasion. He was in the ministry. He's retired now in his 80s, but he was driving down a road, and a car passed him with his lights on bright and blinded him temporarily. And when he got his sight back, he realized the road he was on teed. He was out in the middle. He had gone through the stop sign 60 miles an hour, and he's in the middle of a two-lane highway. And there's a bank on the other side. Now what do you do? He prayed, help! And all at once, something grabbed the steering wheel and turned that car 90 degrees.

And just like this, rocked a little bit and went down the highway. You can't turn a car like that, for one thing, non-humanly speaking, without turning it over. But this just went down the road. Obviously, God intervened at that time and heard his prayer. Now, did God miss somebody else's prayer while he was saving his life? How was God able to answer so quickly? Have you ever asked yourself, how can God answer a prayer so quickly? Does God have the capability, if he wants to do more than one thing at a time? Maybe an analogy will help us. I'm always thinking of analogies and ways to try to explain things. What about how a computer works? Have you ever stopped to think about how a computer works? And is God greater than a computer? Is God's mind greater than a computer? Is it faster than a computer? Can he remember more things than a computer?

I think so. I have a son who has worked many years for Microsoft, and I asked him one day about this. I asked him to write me up something that would explain how this works.

Being more simple-minded and he was more technical-minded, he did. He says, when a computer appears to do more than one operation at once, it is said to be multitasking. Doing more than one task, most computers can only perform one instruction at a time, and these instructions are done in order that they are received by the central processing unit. So how can you have many users, as an example, 200 or 300 or 1000, attached to a mainframe or a mid-range computer and all using it at the same time? It's achieved by time-slicing. You slice the time up. In the little sections, the computer will give a user a tiny fraction of time before it passes on to the next person, and that time the computer will accept the user's input or send something back to the user. The computer is able to do this so quickly that it appears to be doing more than one thing.

In actuality, it's doing everything in order, but at an extremely fast speed.

It's called today MIPS or BIPs, gigaflops, you know, they've got all of these terms.

Computers today can do like 250 billion different operations in one second.

I mean, that's how fast they can be, some of these super computers. Well, you could have 10,000 people hooked to that, and if it's able to do that many functions in a second, it's sitting there idle, basically, because you might be typing something. It goes to you, it goes to the next one, it goes to everyone, comes back to you and goes by you. It may go by you a thousand times in a second, seeing what you're doing, and then it'll come back to you again.

Now, our minds can't phantom that, but yet that's exactly how a computer can work. Now, if the mind of man can come up with that, can you imagine what the mind of God is like?

The depth that God has, that God has the capacity to intervene and to hear more than one thing if He so desires. Back here in Isaiah chapter 40 and verse 26, notice Isaiah 40 and verse 26, says, "...lift up your eyes on high and see who has created these things, who brings out their hosts by number and calls them all by name, by the greatness of his might, and the strength of his power. None, or not one, is missing. God calls all the stars by name." Now, stop and think. Billions of galaxies, billions of stars in each galaxy, and God calls them all by name. There's probably only one person in this room, that's Ed Smith, who could recall everybody he's ever met by name. The rest of us flunk the test. Or maybe you have a brilliant mind, you can remember that. But God has a capacity. You and I don't even have a vocabulary of a billion, or billions, and yet God has that type of capacity. Estimated 250 billion galaxies, 100 billion stars in each one, and God calls them all by name. Our vocabularies are comprised of only a few thousand words. We can read tens of thousands, but not much more. And as verse 28 again says, his understanding is unsearchable. You and I cannot phantom the understanding of God. God had to sit down, just to give you an idea, human body. How many systems are in the human body?

What comprises a cell? God had to sit down and think, all of this out, if I do it this way, will it work? No, it'll disrupt this over here, that won't work, I'll do it this way, and you'll begin to put all of this together. And when he got through with it, God said, it's good.

It'll work. It'll operate. And there were no problems. Let's turn back here to Psalm 147, and verse 4.

Rather, we worship a wonderful God. And can we imagine that that great God wants to share this with us? Psalm 147, in verse 4, He counts the number of stars, He calls them by name. Great is our Lord, and mighty in power, His understanding is infinite. His understanding is infinite.

God planned, designed the universe, He planned the number of stars.

He had to think it out, He had to create matter, He had to create all the floor and the fauna, the planets, the stars, He had to create energy. He had to make sure it all works in harmony.

He had to sustain it. He has to give life. He created a plan of salvation, and there's no limit to His abilities. You and I, as human beings, are limited. Our mental capacities are limited.

We've made amazing discoveries in science. We've been able to send a man to the moon.

We invent computers, and we are greatly impressed by what we have done, what man is able to do.

And yet, we don't know what gravity is. Can anybody here tell me what gravity is?

We know it's a law, but how does it operate? What is it? I mean, it's there. It operates.

Isn't it going to be wonderful one day to be able to be on the other side and see how laws operate? What holds gravity? What is that power? How does Christ sustain it? How does He sustain everything? Every law, what we would call physical laws in the universe? And yet, He is able to do so. If you'll back up here to Psalm 139, Psalm 139, verses 1 and 2.

David said, O Lord, you have searched me and you know me. You know my sitting down, my rising up, and you understand my thoughts afar off.

God perceives our thoughts from the third heaven. Now, where is the third heaven?

It's not right next to us here. It's a little distance away. How is God able to perceive our thoughts in the third heaven when we're down here on the earth? He is able to read our minds, see our actions, see what we're up to, and be able to read people's minds.

Brethren, in the world tomorrow, when we're sitting down and talking to people, we're not going to be fooled by anybody. We will be able to see their minds, their thoughts. We will be able to discern what is going on. We're not going to be limited the way we are today.

So you'll find that God Almighty is able to do so. You'll find that God is not restricted by time.

I read to you Isaiah 57.15, where it says that God inhabits eternity. Time is a function of the physical world. You and I have a beginning. We have an end.

Back in Psalm 90, in verse 2, it describes this. Psalm chapter 90, and in verse 2, it says, Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, you are God.

You turn man to destruction and say, Return, O children of men, and a thousand years in your sight are like yesterday when it is past. Now, this scripture is quoted back in 2 Peter 3.8, where it says, A day is like a thousand years with God.

Have you ever stopped to think about that? What could that potentially mean? That a day is like a thousand years with God? There are 364,000 days in a thousand years.

God is comparing one day to 364,000 days.

God is not bound by time like we are or restricted by time.

From God's point of view, He can put time on hold if He wants to.

Time, again, is a physical element.

Remember the computer? I talked about how a computer operates. A second in our time could be like ours to God.

Now, you and I think of a second, you know, a thousand one, a thousand two, a thousand three, you know, 60 seconds makes a minute.

Well, can we stop and realize that from God's perspective, if a thousand years are like a day, that that's equivalent to 364,000 days?

God is able to stop and analyze things.

God could handle thousands of things just like a computer could, and He could do that from His side.

He's capable of sitting down, talking to Christ about it, talking to the angels about it.

He may have looked at my father-in-law and said, uh-oh, he's about to have a wreck, and the dispensing angel, and the angel goes, and right before the accident takes place, he intervenes, and he protects him, and then God's off over here on something else.

God is capable of doing those type of things. Brethren, God has the ability to intervene on our behalf at any time that He wants to, and you and I will be able to share some of those abilities in the future.

God is not limited by the physical, and neither will we be in the future. You and I inhabit one spot at a time. I'm right here behind this podium, and that's where I am. Now, when I walk off the stage, I'll be in someplace else. But God is in one spot, but through His Spirit, He can reach everywhere. Now, God, again, I think allows us to understand a little bit about this. We have power generators today that generate and produce electricity, and electricity can be sent to millions of homes, factories all over the place. We send it over wires, and this generator is generating all of this power and all of this electricity. We have radio waves. We have television signals that go out, and you and I can be driving down the road. You can drive home. You can turn on your radio. You pick a signal out of the air. I can turn to the same station, and I can pick the signal out of the air, and somebody else can pick the signal out of the air. Millions could be listening to that radio station or watching that television station. That gives us an idea of how God operates. That God Himself, from everything we know, is in one spot, but His Spirit, His power, His energy radiates out from Him throughout the universe. God is able to travel at the speed of thought. And won't that be wonderful for you and me, for all of us in the future, to be able to travel at the speed of thought? Consequently, He's never late to answer a prayer or to send someone to answer a prayer. In the physical realm, matter, energy, light are all limited.

According to Einstein's theory of relativity, they're about the fastest thing, the speed of light, 186,000 miles, I think, a second. The closest star is four light years away. What if God only operated according to the speed of light? We asked and we prayed about something, and He's four light years away. Well, we're not going to get an answer to that prayer. But God is able to instantly answer our prayers. Brethren, in the white throne judgment in the world tomorrow, God will answer immediately. This was read earlier, but let's go over to Isaiah 65.

Isaiah chapter 65 and verse 24. Isaiah 65 and verse 24, shall come to pass that before they call I will answer, and while they're still speaking I will hear, and God will answer the prayers of people. Brethren, remember that we have an awesome God, and that God wants to share all of this with us. In Revelation chapter 22, Revelation 22, beginning in verse 3, we find, as Mr. Salyard described here, the new heavens, the new earth being described. I want you to notice, beginning in verse 3, in Revelation 22, that there shall come a time when there will be no more curse, there will be no more breaking God's law, in other words, but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it, referring to the New Jerusalem, and the Lamb shall be in it, and his servants shall serve him, and they shall see his face, and his name shall be on their forage. And there shall be no night there, they need no lamp nor light of the sun, for the Lord God gives them light, and they shall reign forever and ever. What are we going to reign over forever and ever?

You see, this says, and this is talking about the New Jerusalem, that we forever will reign over something. So we will be given responsibilities and duties to reign, to rule, and it doesn't tell us what. But, brethren, it's very clear that we will. In chapter 21, in verse 6, he said to me, it is done. There's going to come a time when the plan of God has been fulfilled, has been finished, it's done. I'm Alpha Omega, Omega, the beginning and the end, I will give of the fountain of the water of life freely to him who thirsts. He who overcomes shall inherit all things, and I will be his God, and he shall be my son. Brethren, we are going to inherit all these things that God promises to us, and it is absolutely certain because God cannot lie.

In fact, there's going to come a time—one last scripture here in 1 Corinthians 15 and verse 28.

1 Corinthians 15, 28.

There's going to come a time when the plan of God has been carried out. Every human being has had an opportunity for salvation, and we find that at that time when all things are made subject to him, then the Son himself will also be subject to him. Talking about Christ being subject to the Father, who put all things under him that God may be all in all. So, brethren, at that time, God will be all in all. All of us. God will be in us. I don't think we fully understand or comprehend the depth of that statement that is made here. But there will not be anything in the universe that is not subject to God, has not agreed with God. Satan and his demons will be cast, as far as we know, into outer darkness, and the family of God will rule this universe.

So, brethren, God will be in all of us, and he will rule.

You know, God created us. He created us physical. He's given us this life to develop character.

And, brethren, as we go away from this feast, we go away realizing that we have a responsibility.

God wants to share all of this that I've been describing to you with all of us, with every human being who's ever lived. It's his desire that everyone come to repentance, and that God, you know, he wants to share with us. But it's our responsibility to develop the godly character, to yield to God, to be his servants, to obey him. And this is why we are created, that we have this opportunity now, and we are the first to have this wonderful blessing, this opportunity. But we have to prove ourselves to God. So, as we go out this year, let's redouble our effort to make sure that we are going to continue to obey, to serve God, to ask for God's help and strength, and to realize what a great God we have that we serve.

God wants to share his level of life and existence and quality of life with us.

We have a glorious future ahead of us, a future that our minds can't even begin to comprehend.

God gives us a glimpse, a tiny peak, so to speak, at the future kingdom of God.

So, brethren, let's make sure that we grab hold of that, we hold on to it, that we don't quit, we don't give up. And as we read, or not read, but as we sing many times, let's make sure if we're still alive, God allows us to live another year, that we come back to meet before him again. And as the song says, God be with you till we meet again.