Are You a Romantic?

Thank you, Mrs. Bumgardner. I know in Portsmouth we tend to take special music for granted because we have so many singers and musicians up there. We get to hear them very often. So I'm glad when we get to have it here. It occurred to me, Mrs. Bumgardner, since she's the only pianist, she rarely gets to sing in church. So I'm glad you took the opportunity. I'm not expecting a phone call, but I'm going to put this out here because my watch is all fogged up on me. That's one thing. I buy these really cheap watches because I expect myself to destroy them before they wear out.

And that's what happened. My five-dollar watch went in the tank when we put Kurt Bledsoe under the water, and I wasn't even thinking about taking it off. So I wore it, and it's all fogged up. Well, it's not going to show me this. I'll just pull it out and check it now and then. We're in good shape. And happy to be here on a very special occasion. I want to start off by asking you a question.

It might be an unusual one, you think, to start a sermon, but are you... Thank you, Mr. Howe. That will be useful. I'm going to be like the ministers in the old days. You used to always see him take the watch off. It reminds me of an old joke I heard at services. A young boy was there with his dad, and he saw the minister go up, take his watch off, and set it down.

And the boy said, Daddy, what does that mean when he takes his watch off? And his father said, Not a thing, son. Not a thing. Hopefully it'll mean a little thing here. But getting back to that question, are you a romantic? Are you a romantic? Now, by that, I don't necessarily mean someone who buys flowers or sends sentimental cards. We use the term in that way, but I'm thinking more in the literature way, where we call someone a romantic if they might be captivated by adventure.

If they're entranced by things that seem larger in life. You know, and a romantic might be emotional, but not necessarily, and certainly not related to a negative feeling. But romantics sometimes will tend to be dreamers, looking ahead to the horizon and wondering what's out there. And when I started writing this, actually, as I was writing the words, I couldn't help but what I had to write next was the vision came to me of a movie that I saw when I first when I was, I think, 14 years old. Star Wars. And most of you have probably seen it.

There is this scene, you know, sci-fi movie. Luke Skywalker is a boy growing up on this distant planet. He's out on a farm, and there's one scene where, you know, he's been talking about dreaming of going off to adventure, and it shows him watching the sunset. I think there are two sons, and this romantic music comes off. And you just got swept up in this. And it makes you think, I'm sure many of us have likewise looked off somewhere and thought, what more is out there?

And you want to go and engage it and join in. There's something bigger than this. That's a common theme in books and in movies. Not only Star Wars, there's lots of books about people going off to adventure and finding their destiny. And you see it showing up in a lot of songs. One of the famous ones from Back to the Wild. I'm not sure if it goes earlier. I know it was made famous by the Wizard of Oz. Somewhere over the rainbow.

That's somewhere over there. The bluebirds fly. And of course, I'm from a younger generation. When I hear over the rainbow, I think of Kermit the Frog. And he sang a song at the beginning of the movie. I've worked all these movie references in, but why are there so many songs about rainbows? And what's on the other side? I know we'll find it. The rainbow connection. The lovers, the dreamers, and me. I love that song.

I've been trying to teach it to Connor. But do you wonder, why do humans long for something more? Why is it such a common theme? Is it books, movies, songs? Well, I think the answer is to a large degree that God built it into us. Let's turn to the book of Ecclesiastes. Let's talk about a romantic and someone who thought of these bigger things. Ecclesiastes 3, verse 11. I'll see an answer. I'm reading specifically from the New King James because I think it renders it...well, I carry the New King James. But the Old King James translates it differently, and I prefer the New for this particular one.

Ecclesiastes 3, verse 11 says, He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, He put eternity in their hearts. And it goes on from there, but I wanted to stress that God put eternity in our hearts.

I believe that's why people have this feeling that there's something more out there, because of course there is. There is something that we don't see, can't feel, but we have this understanding that there is more. And we as Christians, God's called out ones, have something even more than that. God has given us a preview of what's ahead, of a much bigger world, of a bigger universe and a life. We have a glimpse of the future, and we know that the best is yet to come. While we're here in Ecclesiastes 3, let's look at the latter part of the chapter, beginning in verse 18. Here Solomon asks an interesting question. He says, The spirit of the sons of men, which go upward, and the spirit of the animal, which goes down to the earth. I'm going to stop there, because we could look at this and say, what is he saying here? Is there a spirit in man? Or how about a spirit in animals? He says, who knows the spirit of the men that goes up, or the spirit of the animals that goes down, and that might cause us some confusion.

Except if you look in a lexicon to look at the original Hebrew, the word that's translated there is spirit, is ruach. R-U-A-C-H is how we put it in English letters. And it's often interpreted not as spirit, but as the word breath. Ruach is translated often as spirit. It's not incorrect to say spirit, but also breath, meaning something that can't be seen but has some kind of force. I think the reason the translators translated as spirit here is that they were having trouble knowing from the context. Generally, you look at the context to see whether the writer meant spirit or breath. Here, they weren't sure, because they thought, well, Solomon could have been saying that as physical, breathing creatures, there's no discernible difference between man and animals. And scientists seem to say that. They look at us, and sometimes they say, well, men are just more advanced animals. But then again, using the term spirit, perhaps Solomon was saying that there is a difference between men and animals, but it has to do with something that can't be seen. It's not something the scientists could learn by running tests or looking under a microscope. Job asked another similar question, and this should be familiar, but let's go to Job 14, verse 14. We want to focus in on what is that difference, and why do men have that something they're longing for? This is an age-old question, and it's common for us to read this at funerals, because we get the question and the answer.

Job 14, verse 14, says, If a man dies, shall he live again? All the days of my hard service I will wait till my change comes. You'll call and I will answer you. You shall desire the work of your hands. So, Job asked the question, and then answers, yes! I'll wait. It's not going to be instant, but if a man dies, he will live again, after waiting in the grave until the change comes.

Now, this doesn't tell us the question, or doesn't answer whether or not animals have a similar possibility of living again. And perhaps it raises other questions. What is it that makes it possible for mankind to live again? We can find the answer to that later in this book, in Job 32. Job 32, verse 8. I just flipped all the way into Psalms. Here, we're going to focus in on some of that difference. Job 32, verse 8 says, this is when Elihu was answering all the elders. He'd waited for them to speak and realized they were missing an important point. Part of what they're missing, he says here, But there is a spirit in man, and the breath of all the Almighty gives him understanding.

Notice, I said earlier, that the Hebrew word ruach could be used to mean either one.

Elihu specifically used two different Hebrew words in this. This isn't ruach translated two different ways. He says, there's a spirit in man and the breath of the Almighty. He makes it clear. He wasn't... There's no confusion. He meant there's a spirit in man, not just a breath. It becomes clear that there's something in man, a spirit, that's not in animals. There's nowhere in the Bible that gives any indication that there's a spirit in animals.

Apparently, that's not what Solomon meant earlier when he said, Who knows the spirit of animals goes down, or the spirit of man goes up.

I made myself a note to say, that's not to say bad things about animals. Probably none of you took it that way. Animals can have a degree of intelligence. Some of them are pretty bright.

I tend to think that God made some animals to be our companions, dogs in particular. I'm a dog person. I love having dogs around. I know some people that say, I'd never let a dog in the house. When Sue and I got married, we had to decide to stop letting the dog sleep in the bed. That's how much we both like dogs. But they're still not the same. And then you can look at dolphins, chimpanzees. They have brains as large as ours, and they have all this great intellectual capacity.

But they can't do the things that we can do. Man can do things like write and appreciate poetry and music. We can build cities. We can invent calculus and use it to design things. A man can invent iPads and cell phones. No chimpanzee or dolphin can do anything even close to that.

And I suspect that no chimpanzee or dolphin ever looks at the sunset with a music plane in the background and wonders, what more is out there? They don't have that sense of what it is. They don't ask, why was I born?

Let's look at how it all started to see some of the fundamental difference. Genesis 1. I'll begin in verse 25.

I realize much of this is review for all of you, but we want to focus on that looking ahead, knowing that there's something more.

This is part of the creation, of course. It says, God made the beasts of the earth according to its kind, cattle according to its kind and everything that creeps on the earth according to its kind, and God saw that it was good. And then, after making all the animals after their kind, then God said, Let us make man in our image according to our likeness. Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over the cattle and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. No animals were made in God's image. Only man was. We were made after the God kind, as Mr. Armstrong liked to say.

Let's see it again in verse—well, I just read it in 27 and 28. God created man in his own image, and in his own image, in the image of God, he created him, male and female. He created them. This goes to show woman is in the image of God as much as man. And God blessed them and said to them, Be fruitful and multiply.

Fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves. So again, this difference isn't just that God made us look like him, and it's not just that he gave us dominion. I think the more important difference is that God put eternity in our hearts. He put a spirit in man that's not in the animals.

We can see that indicated in some other parts of Scripture. 1 Corinthians 2, verse 11. 1 Corinthians 2, verse 11 says, For what man knows the things of a man, except the spirit of man which is in him? This matches up well with what we read in Job, where Eliyahu said, There's a spirit in man. Here it says, What man can know the things of a man, except for that spirit in him? That's the eternity that God put in our hearts. The spirit is a non-physical something. It doesn't decay.

It doesn't grow old. It's eternal. And that lets us answer Solomon's question. Who knows if there's a difference between men and animals, whether the spirit of one goes up, or the breath of one goes up, or the other one goes down?

Solomon actually knew the answer to that. I posed the question without going to the end of Ecclesiastes, but now I want to ask you to go back with me to Ecclesiastes chapter 12. In Ecclesiastes 12 and verse 7, we'll see a little bit more about this spirit, this non-physical something that's eternal, that's in us. Ecclesiastes 12 and verse 7, and we're reaching the point where, after Solomon spent many chapters discussing life, and it's bigger questions, and looking what makes man happy, and what futility it is to focus on the flesh, he comes down to the end of the book, and the end of life, so to speak, and focuses on what's important.

And he says here, then the dust will return to the earth as it was. The bodies that we live in now will decay. But he says, and the spirit will return to God who gave it. The spirit, that non-physical something, goes back to God, and that tells us, by going back to him, shows us where it came from in the first place.

The spirit returns to God, and that's how mankind can be resurrected to live again. Job asks, if a man dies, can he live again? Well, yes. And it's not the same way for animals, because they don't have that spirit. And now, I want to say the spirit is not the immortal soul that some describe, and I wasn't thinking of movie references, but there are plenty of movies that show people that go on, they're dead, and they're looking back at themselves, and, you know, it goes up to heaven or down to hell.

I'm not talking about that. I'm not talking about a consciousness. The spirit, well, in the past, sometimes we likened it to a cassette tape. They could record something, and you take it out of the machine. The machine can be broken, but you could plug that cassette into another machine and play back what you heard. I think a better example might be nowadays with computer software. You can have something on a computer, save the program, and then transfer the, take the program out, put it in another piece of hardware, and it works fine.

But it needs the hardware. The program itself can do nothing. It needs the computer that it works in. Similarly, the spirit that's in man doesn't think on its own. The brain thinks. It doesn't see or hear. The eyes see and the ears hear through our human brain. But that spirit gives us the intellect. Again, looking at software, a computer, a microprocessor, is an amazing device, but without the software, it can't run and do things. So God puts a spirit in men, and that makes it so our brains are able to think and do things that animals can't.

And then when our brain dies, the spirit can go back to God. When he wants us to live again, he can create a new body, a new physical body if he wants. Remember, when Christ died, people were resurrected. And there are other cases. Lazarus was in the grave three days. Christ was at four days. All I remember for sure is that he was beginning to smell bad.

Christ called him back to life. God put a spirit back in and healed that body. That spirit is a wonderful thing. So as we think of this understanding, and remember, from the time the church started, in the 1930s, we didn't quite understand that. And over time, studying the Scriptures, we grew. I say we, I wasn't around during the 1930s, but members of the church grew in understanding what the Scripture was telling us.

And we might just stop there and say, well, that's terrific! What a wonderful thing God has done for us! And when life is going well and we can appreciate it as human beings, it seems really good. As I said, we can enjoy poetry and music and all kinds of wonderful things that the animals don't. But, then we stop and say, like the romantics, we might stop and say, is there still something more? You know, life is really good and we're different from the animals, but what more is out there?

And as I said, like Kermit the Frog and the Lovers, the Dreamers, and me might be wondering about that. The spirit of man makes it possible to wonder, what is there more? And I want to tell you the story today. I'm going to make a reference to another man in history.

And when I was studying this, I thought of him and he didn't have the spiritual understanding, but he had this idea that there was something more in life. He had that feeling that we had when God started calling us. The person I'm thinking about is Frederick Douglass. I brought an early version of his biography. Frederick Douglass was one of the more famous former slaves in American history. Now, bear with me and I'll show you the connection I'm getting here.

After he gained his freedom, he was born in slavery, he ran away, and he gained some education and became a prominent abolitionist. He wrote, he published newspapers, he did lecture tours. Later on, after the Civil War, when slavery was ended, he actually served in government positions and became an ambassador.

Matter of fact, he was so accomplished that before the Civil War, some people didn't believe that he had ever been a slave, that he's just too smart. There's no way he was a slave. He's making this up. So, to prove them wrong, he wrote his autobiography. It went through different versions because he wrote his first version when he was fairly young. Then he lived another 20 years.

He said, boy, I'd better add to my autobiography. But I want to tell some of the story of what appealed to me in his early life history, about how he became one of those dreamers, wondering what more is out there. When Douglass was about seven or eight years of age, he was sent to a new owner. As I said, he had been born in slavery. He moved to Baltimore, which for a slave in the South, living in Maryland was better than a lot of other states. Living in the city was even better.

He was going to be trained to be what was called a house slave. His master, the mistress of the house, began to teach him to read. I want to begin reading from his autobiography on page 57. I'll mention here, he uses a word that's become unacceptable in today's society. I'll use the word, Negro, where he uses another one, just for the sake of if anybody would take offense.

Let me read it here in his own words. Very soon after I went to live with Mr. and Mrs. Auld, she very kindly commenced to teach me the A-B-C. After I had learned this, she assisted me in learning to spell words of three or four letters. Just at this point of my progress, Mr. Auld found out what was going on and at once forbade Mrs. Auld to instruct me further, telling her, among other things, that it was unlawful as well as unsafe to teach a slave to read. To use his own words, he said, if you give a Negro an inch, he'll take an L. A Negro should know nothing but to obey his master.

To do as he's told to do. Learning would spoil the best Negro in the world. Now, he said, if you do teach that Negro, speaking of myself, how to read, there would be no keeping him. It would forever unfit him to be a slave. He would at once become unmanageable and of no value to his master. And it could do him no good, but a great deal of harm. It would make him discontented and unhappy. Now, Frederick Douglass says, these words sank deep into my heart and stirred up sentiments within them that lay slumbering, called into existence an entirely new train of thought. He goes on, I'm going to move to the next page, because he reveals that he would learn to read anyways.

He said, from that moment on I understood the pathway from slavery to freedom, and it was just what I wanted, and I got it at the time I least expected. Though conscious of the difficulty of learning without a teacher, I set out with high hope and a fixed purpose at whatever cost the trouble to learn how to read. The very decided manner with which he spoke and strove to impress his wife with the evil consequences of giving me instruction served to convince me that he was deeply sensible of the truth he was uttering. It gave me the best assurance that I might rely with the utmost confidence on the results which he said flow from teaching me to read.

What he most dreaded, that I most desired. And I move to page 60 to show. It says, the plan I adopted, the one by which I was most successful, was that of making friends with all the little white boys whom I met in the street. As many of these as I could, I converted into teachers. With their kindly aid obtained at different times and in different places, I finally succeeded in learning to read. When I was sent to Aaron's, of course he was going to be a house slave, he'd be sent out doing Aaron's, I would go about one part of the Aaron very quickly, and then found time to get a lesson in before my return.

I used to carry bread with me, enough of which was always in the house, and to which I was always welcome. For I was much better off in this regard than many of the poor white children in our neighborhood. This bread I used to bestow upon the hungry little urchins, who in return would give me that more valuable bread of knowledge.

So Douglas thus learned to read. Notice there's several stages in this, but when he learned that his master didn't want him to read, it gave him that sense that there was something out there worth having, and he would learn to read. But then he discovered that this new understanding gave him a desire for much more. He couldn't be content with just that very beginning, because his mind began then focusing on something greater. Let me read from his description of that on page 61.

The reading enabled me to utter my thoughts, and to meet the arguments brought forward to sustain slavery. But while they relieved me of one difficulty, they brought on another, even more painful than the one of which I was relieved. The more I read, the more I was led to abhor and detest my enslavers. As I read and contemplated the subject, Behold! the very discontentment which Master Hugh had predicted would follow my learning to read, had already come to torment and sting my soul to unutterable anguish. I writhed under it. I would at times feel that learning to read had been a curse rather than a blessing. It had given me a view of my wretched condition without remedy. It opened my eyes to the horrible pit, but to no ladder upon which to get out. In moments of agony I envied my fellow slaves for their stupidity. Says, The silver chump of freedom had roused my soul to eternal wakefulness. Freedom now appeared to disappear no more forever. He longed to come out of his lowly condition. He longed to leave that for something better. I think that's worth pondering next time we read the book of Ecclesiastes, where Solomon was looking. The lowly condition he considered was living in flesh and blood. Solomon said, I've got all this great stuff, and I'm just going to die and leave it to someone else.

So the more he understood how good life could be, the more he said, there's something more out there.

Let's read up just one more section from this, moving ahead a few pages, because I think, as I said, Frederick Douglass, for someone who was born in slavery, was very eloquent in describing some of his feelings. This is later on when he was moved living on a plantation near the Chesapeake Bay, which can be a very beautiful body of water.

He said, Our house stood within a few rods of the Chesapeake Bay, whose broad bosom was ever white with sails, from every quarter of the habitable globe. These beautiful vessels, robed in purest white, so delightful to the eye of freemen, were to me so many shrouded ghosts, to terrify and torment me with thoughts of my wretched condition. I have often, in the deep stillness of a summer Sabbath, what they called Sunday, stood all alone upon the lofty banks of that noble bay, and traced with saddened heart and tearful eye, the countless number of sails moving off to the mighty ocean. The sight of these always affected me powerfully. My thoughts would compel utterance, and there, with no audience but the Almighty, I would pour out my soul's complaint in my rude way with an apostrophe to the moving multitude of ships. And he said, This to the ships, you are loosed from your moorings and are free, I am fast in my chains and am a slave. You move merrily before the gentle gale, and I sadly before the bloody whip. You are freedom's swift-winged angels that fly around the world, and I am confined in bands of iron. Oh, that I were free! Now, I'm not suggesting that reading itself is a spiritual thing, but I do believe that it's the spirited man that enables us to have the intellect to read. But I want to draw this parallel, as I said, that as Frederick Douglass' understanding grew, he began to sense that there was more out there, and he longed to trade his condition. I want to draw that parallel between this emotion that he described, I think fairly well, and the spiritual process that Christians go through with their calling. You might guess that I'm referring to a spiritual understanding. He was referring to intellectual, but it's a spiritual understanding that's made possible in Christians by the Holy Spirit. It begins to open our minds to greater things. Just as for Frederick Douglass, reading began to open his mind to a life beyond slavery. Let's go back to 1 Corinthians 2, and I want to finish reading the part of the Scripture that I deliberately left off and didn't finish. 1 Corinthians 2, verse 11.

Paul wrote, For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so, no one knows the things of God except the spirit of God. So there, he said, we can understand the things that animals cannot, but when the spirit of God starts working with us, now we can understand things beyond what any other man could do. We're able to begin to comprehend spiritual matters that are unintelligible to most people. Let's continue in verse 12. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the spirit that is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God. These things also we speak not in words which man's wisdom teaches, but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man does not receive the things of the spirit of God. They're foolishness to him. Nor can he know them, because they're spiritually discerned. And that spiritual discernment can give us a longing for something more than even the best of this physical life. A person who has the Holy Spirit perceives the mind of Christ. That person knows there's something more out there. It doesn't just wonder, but knows and has a pretty good idea of what it is. And most of us are at that stage. We weren't always there, but with God's Spirit in us, we have that comprehension. Now, do you remember what it was like? And I'm sure all of us do. We can think back to when that understanding started to come to us, that you had never had before. You might have read a booklet, or got hold of a magazine, or someone might have started telling it to you. And that's sort of as when Frederick Douglass began reading those simple things, and it started to unlock greater understanding. I've enjoyed telling the story for my grandmother, and I think I've shared it in sermons before, but you might not mind hearing it again. It was in 1968. She was a relatively young woman, and her husband, my grandfather worked, I think it was the second or third shift at the Timkin roller-bearing plant in Columbus. So she found herself at home alone a lot of times in the evening. This particular night, she happened to be awake at midnight, and they had a brand new radio set. They'd ordered it, and it had been delivered, and she didn't want the workmen around the house much, and she hadn't decided where to put it, so it was right in the middle of the living room. She said she started turning the dials, and as she was going across, she heard the voice saying, bringing you the plain truth about today's world news and prophecies of the world tomorrow. And then that voice that came on and said, greetings, friends. And I don't know what else he said that day, but I didn't hear that program, but I know exactly what he said to start, because he always did. And she said she heard that voice, and she listened to the program. In her words, she said, it made sense of all that craziness out there. Suddenly, she had this insight, and she didn't know where it came from, but she said when she heard him speaking and explaining the Bible, she said, that's it! That's the truth! And her life was never the same again. Somehow, she seemed to understand things that she hadn't before.

Now, I know and you know it wasn't because Mr. Armstrong could explain them so well. Now, he could explain things very well, but the person hearing had to have something else. God's Spirit had to be working in her mind. John 644, Jesus says, no one could come to him, except the Father draw him. At that point, the Father was drawing my grandmother. And as I said, you've all experienced something similar, or you wouldn't be in this room.

You were called. You were invited to come out of the world and become part of a small body of people. Now, sometimes coming out of the world, or like me, you know, I mostly grew up in the church. But at some point, the teachings of the Bible are something you realize that you want to keep because you believe it, not because your parents are telling you you have to do it.

Now, let's do turn to John 14. Jesus Christ explains why that's so. Now, of course, as we know, it seems not long ago we were in this very room keeping the Passover ceremony. During Christ's last night with the apostles, he said he had a lot of things he wanted to teach them. But he did say, you're not ready to understand most of it. And, of course, after he was crucified, about 50 days later, they gained the ability to understand. They received a power that opened their minds in a new way.

But let's look what he told them on that night, John 14, beginning in verse 15. Of course, he said, If you love me, keep my commandments. And I'll pray the Father, and He'll give you another helper, that He may abide with you forever, the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him, but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you.

Now, I can make note here, because of the Greek having what we call gendered nouns, and I didn't realize this until I studied French in high school, that in some languages, every noun has a gender. It's a he or a she, and they don't have a word for it. As in English, we have the neutral. So that's why it's translated into he, but it doesn't mean it's a person. It means it's that something, that spirit, that power of God. But Jesus Christ made the point to telling the disciples, the Spirit had been dwelling with them, but would be in them.

There's a distinction. We've long used that terminology in the church, but I like to point out, it's not that we made it up. We're using it because Christ used it. We know that the Father must call someone for them to come to Christ. As we said, none can come to Me except the Father drawing, and He uses the Spirit to draw.

The Spirit is what does that drawing, and beginning to give that comprehension, that knowing that there's something more, and wanting to know what it is. But when the Spirit works with a person and gives them a preview, they tend to want more.

As I said, maybe that's similar to Frederick Douglass, beginning to learn the ABCs and read words, and saying, This is my ticket. This is going to lead me to something better. That's what it's like when the Holy Spirit starts leading us. We say, I want to know more. I want to read not just three or four-letter words. I want to be able to read whole books. I want my mind open. Well, spiritually, before the Spirit is in us, we have some comprehension, but we want more.

We have that vision. I said, looking off the horizon, saying, I know there's more out there. Let's look at a particular example of that in the Apostle Peter. We'll start in Luke 5. Of course, Peter was not always the Apostle Peter. At one point, he was Simon the fisherman. But he began to get a glimpse that there was something more than just being a fisherman working for his father.

We see that here in Luke 5. It happened when it began to happen when he met Jesus Christ. Maybe I should rephrase that, because we suspect he might have met Jesus well before then. But when Christ started his ministry, Peter began to see that there's something more to this carpenter. Luke 5 and verse 1. So it was, as the multitude pressed about him to hear the word of God, he stood by Lake Gennesaret. And he saw two boats standing by the lake, but the fishermen had gone from them. They were washing their nets.

So he got into one of the boats, which was Simon's, and asked him to put out a little from the land. And they sat down and tossed a multitude from the boat. Of course, he was using the natural acoustics of the water to be able to talk to more people. And when he had stopped speaking, he said to Simon, Well, launch out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch. And Simon answered and said, Master, we worked all night.

We caught nothing. Nevertheless, at your word, I'll let them down, or I'll let down the nets. Sort of like saying, well, I'll do it just because you say. And when they had done this, they caught a great number of fish. So much that their net was breaking, and they signaled to their partners through the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both of the boats so that they began to sink.

When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' feet and he said, Depart from me. I'm a sinful man, O Lord. Here he had that glimpse that this isn't just some carpenter. He is something more, and Peter realized he wasn't. But Jesus didn't say, Yeah, get away from me because you're sinful. And here it says, All of them were astonished. So also were James and John the son of Zebedee. And Jesus said to Simon, and by implication to the others, he said, Don't be afraid. From now on, you'll catch men. So Jesus didn't say, Get away from me because you're a sinner. He let him know that you caught a glimpse that there's something more here. And I'm going to give you more of that. The other versions say, From now on, you'll become fishers of men. Later we'll see that Peter had come to see, as time progressed, he became to see the value of Christ's teaching. If we'll go to John 6.

John 6 and verse 66.

And we know from that time, Peter left the fishing boats. His other count said, They left the boats in the nets with his dad and the servants. They all went off to follow Jesus Christ. And we'll see an explanation why. Now, John 6 is one of the longer books because it goes to a lot of Christ's teaching. And he said some things that most people couldn't understand, and they got offended and walked away. And that's where I want to pick up. Here in verse 66.

Jesus said to the twelve, Well, do you want to go away? Do you also want to go away?

Peter had that sense of something more. You've got the words to eternal life. He didn't say, I understand all about eternal life now, but he knew where to look for it. He said, we've come to believe and to know that you are the Christ, the Son of the living God.

Now, Peter knew that Jesus was teaching the way to eternal life. And I said, just like as my mother was listening to Mr. Armstrong and reading her Bible, and she began to know that that was the way to truth. Just as many teens grow up in the church, and they start to read their Bible, and they realize it's true, that it's something that makes a difference. And then later, Peter came to a fuller understanding. We'll read about that in Acts 2. There's this progression. He caught a glimpse that made him willing to follow Jesus. Then he gained more understanding as the Spirit worked with him to know that that was the way to eternal life. But he would come to a much greater realization once the Holy Spirit was poured out, once the Spirit was in him, not just with him.

I was right. I said yesterday we'd probably read this again today. I would have forgotten that it was directly in my notes. But we can't read this too much on Pentecost. So when the day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. Suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing, mighty wind, and it filled the whole house. Then there appeared to them divided tongues as of fire. One sat upon each of them, and they were filled with the Holy Spirit. It wasn't just working with them, they were filled with it. They began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. Now we know if we read on, some people thought they were drunk. But Peter spoke up and said, we're not drunk, it's still morning. And he explained what was going on. Let's drop down to verse 14.

The Holy Spirit made it possible to understand eternal life in a way that they knew. And he said, I will pour out my spirit on all flesh. Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy. Your young men shall see visions. Your old men shall dream dreams. And on my menservants and on my maidens, I will pour out my spirit in those days, and they shall prophesy. The Holy Spirit made it possible to understand eternal life in a way that they knew. The Holy Spirit made it possible to understand eternal life in a way that they never had before. Just as Frederick Douglass began to understand freedom in a way he never had when he began to read. Of course, understanding eternal life is much better than understanding freedom, but you see the progression, the growing. Peter's writings show even more. Let's go to 1 Peter, chapter 1.

1 Peter 1, we'll read verse 10.

Here he says, Of this salvation the prophets have inquired, and searched carefully, who prophesied of the grace that would come to you, searching what or in what manner of time the Spirit of Christ, which was in them, was indicating. So the prophets had the Holy Spirit, and they wanted to understand more. When he was testified beforehand that the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow, to them it was revealed that not to themselves, but to us they were ministering the things which they have now reported to you, through those who preach the gospel to you, by the Holy Spirit, sent from heaven, which things the angels desired to look into.

Therefore, gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and rest your hope fully upon the grace that is to be brought to you, at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Now Peter had this understanding, and he wanted to share it. That understanding had grown from just a preview, that idea, the belief that there was something more out there, to a full comprehension of something that was only made possible by the Spirit of God.

Those of you here who have been baptized and had hands laid on you and received the Holy Spirit, you have that same understanding that Peter had. Now you've gone from a feeling that you could gain more understanding, and that desire to get that, to having that vision, to knowing these things. But the story doesn't end there, and that's where we want to make clear we're past the meaning of the day of Pentecost in a sense, that we've reached that point.

God's Holy Spirit is available to His people, but God's Holy Spirit, in a sense, opens up a longing for something even more, a new feeling, that there is still something more out there.

We're here in 1 Peter, I want to read verse 13 again.

Therefore, gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and rest your hope fully upon the grace that is to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. That's that hope. A hope is that understanding that there's something better yet ahead. And we have it by the power of God's Spirit. And it's by that that we can see our true destiny. Our true destiny isn't to be physical beings that have an understanding made possible by the Holy Spirit.

We're looking to something even better. Let's go to 1 Corinthians. 1 Corinthians 13.

It's a well-quoted section of the Bible.

We'll begin in verse 9.

This shows where we are now. And it gives us an idea of where we want to go.

It says here, now, For we know in part, and we prophesy in part, and that's with God's Spirit in us. But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away. So we know in part, but we know something's going to be better. When I was a child, I spoke as a child. I understood as a child. I thought as a child. But when I became a man, I put away childish things.

We see in a mirror dimly, or I believe the old King James says, I glass darkly, but then, meaning in the future, face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I am known. When the time comes, we'll see face to face. We'll know God because we'll be like Him. Let's see it also in Romans 8. Romans 8, beginning in verse 16.

What is it that we're looking forward to? Why just reaching the day of Pentecost isn't enough. And I don't want to say anything bad about the day of Pentecost. I'm thrilled for the day of Pentecost, but we always get here, and we start getting excited about the other holy days in this calendar. We also want to be excited about the spiritual meaning of those days. Romans 8 and verse 16. The Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit. That is, the Spirit in man, but the Holy Spirit working with it, bears witness that we are children of God.

Children of God! And if children, then heirs. Heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ. If indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together. For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us. That's what we're looking for. God's Holy Spirit works with the Spirit in man that all humans have, and it gives us that glimpse, that look ahead, that view of the future, that will be children of God and heirs with Jesus Christ.

As I said, we can be kind of like Luke Skywalker looking off at the horizon, or like Frederick Douglass looking at the ships on the Chesapeake. But we're dreaming of something much greater. We're not dreaming of just an adventure or of freedom. We know that the sufferings of this life, and we know the sufferings, as we get older, our bodies break down, or people we know are hurt and suffering. But we know that the suffering is nothing compared to the glorious fulfillment of eternal life. That's what we look forward to. And it's God's Spirit that gives us that understanding and preview.

Let's go to Ephesians 1. Ephesians 1 will begin in verse 13. It says, "...in Him you also trusted after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and whom also having believed you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise. Who is the guarantee..." or I should say, "...which is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession of the praise of His glory." That's interesting. When it says, we were sealed, it's almost like saying, you were processed and marked by the Holy Spirit. You were made different. And then the Spirit that's in us says, a guarantee.

I like the Old King James says it's in earnest, which is the old term for a deposit. It's like a guarantee. Here, I'm giving you some now to show you what you're going to get later on. It's the initial down payment of what's going to happen when you're transformed into Spirit. We'll read one more good example, I believe, in John chapter 3. Jesus Himself explained this process to someone who didn't quite understand it at the time, but we think perhaps did come to a fuller understanding later.

John chapter 3, this is the famous story of where the Pharisee Nicodemus came to Jesus. He came by night. Well, instead of telling you, I'll just read it. Beginning in verse 1. There was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to Jesus by night, and he said to him, Rabbi, which means teacher, we know you're a teacher come from God. No one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him. And then Jesus said, Most assuredly I say to you, unless one is born again, he can't see the kingdom of God.

Unless you're born again, you can't even see it. Now Nicodemus was thinking of a physical birth. He said, how can a man be born when he's old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born? And Jesus went on to explain. He said, Most assuredly I say to you, unless one is born of water and the spirit, he can't enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh. That's all of us. We were born of a physical mother. We're flesh and blood. But that which is born of the spirit is spirit.

So don't marvel that I said to you, you must be born again. The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but can't tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who's born of the spirit. In other words, you become something different, something spirit, invisible.

Having God's spirit in us now gives us a preview of that, but it's only a glimpse. We start down the road, even though, as I said, the spirit of man lets you glimpse that there's something more. Then when God's spirit begins calling you, you know, oh, there's some understanding I want to have. And then the spirit is in you and you have that understanding. But we're still looking at the horizon because now we want to become spirit. We want to be born as sons of God. Let's look back to 1 Peter. 1 Peter 1. Sorry, I should have told you to keep your finger there. 1 Peter 1. We'll read verse 3.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us, again, into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you. And once again, begotten is an English word that I guess I'm familiar with. I don't think of it as a word that's not common, but I guess for people not in the church it's not. But it equals roughly being conceived. Like when a woman becomes pregnant from a man's seed and a new life begins, that's what happens when the Holy Spirit joins with the spirit in man. It makes us an embryonic child of God. He's begotten us. And just as a woman's embryo, of course, grows within the woman's uterus and prepares to begin a new life, we as Christians are growing and developing. God is preparing us for really the start of our real life. And I don't know, I guess a uterus or an embryo isn't thinking, boy, I wish this would get over because I want to get to what's ahead. It doesn't have that glimpse of what's ahead, but we do. And we're getting ready to be born as children of God. And because we are conscious-thinking creatures, we have the spirit of man now joined with the spirit of God, you can see that future. You can know that God has given you a small part of Himself. And that's a lot of what this day commemorates, that God putting His Spirit in us, making it available, that it's dwelling in us. This knowledge and this understanding of life can make you seem somewhat of a romantic and a dreamer. Some people might look at what you believe and think, oh, that's pie in the sky, how silly, you think you're going to be born into an eternal family. But we're not looking off at just a horizon, we are gazing at eternity, and we know what it is. We don't wonder what lies over the rainbow, we know what's over there. We have a small taste, a preview, of life as a spirit being because God has put His Spirit in us.

Thank you.