Choose Life

Well, good morning, brethren! Gorgeous, beautiful morning outside. Nice covering of snow. God says He's the one who controls the storehouse of the snow, and He covers the mountains like wool. It's kind of a nice image to think of whenever you see the snow outside, like we do.

I hope all of you have thoroughly enjoyed this past seven days of the Feast of Tabernacles. I do want to also mention that clearly our women's choir was very wonderful today. I thank all of you for raising our spirits, because that's what praising God and worshiping song actually does. My wife Pat and I have surely enjoyed sharing this feast with all of you. All of us, as the children of God, are really blessed to be able to meet here in a location like this. I too want to thank Mr. and Mrs. Mollire and all of the department heads and many, many volunteers who've been serving here. You are not only helping all of us, but learning a great deal in the service that you give. I do bring greetings to you from Kansas City, from the congregation there, and the people who live in Topeka, and from the Fulton, Missouri congregation, because we have some of the people here from those congregations. We do have a few here, but we have about half of our congregations who normally are attending in Branson, as Mr. Mollire mentioned. We normally attend there. We have about half of them attending there. We have others scattered around the world where God has placed His name in Estonia, or in Wales, or Jamaica, or Florida, or Bend, or Wisconsin Dales, or even in Canada. To those of you here in Colorado, I do have a special greeting to you from Hansel and Rochelle New, who are now in the Kansas City area. We're very thankful to have them. They're up in Canada this time.

This is really an incredible place to come and observe the feast. I have to say, being here in this self-contained building, you can really be isolated from the world.

Some of you, I know, have to come in. Many of you are staying in the building, but some of you come from the surrounding area. It really can create an atmosphere of family, an atmosphere of camaraderie and love that it might be very difficult to get in any other setting. I think we have reason to thank God, to thank Him for providing such guidance and encouragement throughout the feast. It's really a lovely setting that we're able to enjoy. I know this is a really great mix of brethren. I say mix because some of you are seasoned members of the church. Seasoned children, I guess you could say, because some of you have been attending the feast for a long, long period of time. And yet, in this site, this isn't always the case. Many times in Branson, we have a lot of older people who are able to get there. So maybe half the congregation is, I would call, senior. And yet, here you've got a large number of younger people, younger families, young adults, many of you, many of you younger adults. I see a larger group here than I've ever seen at the feast, at least recently. And, of course, many, many children. Lots of children. Those of you seated in the back section there, you know what I'm talking about.

As I see the children there, I was thinking back many years ago to the feast in Lake of the Ozarks, because, again, we lived there for a while and attended the feast there for several years with eight or ten thousand people. A lot bigger group, a great big building. You have the same type of thing at that time up in Wisconsin Dells. So you had a great big building. You had an even bigger parking lot. Were any of you in that type of setting? Were any of you attend? Okay, see, some of you know, at least a quarter of you, have some idea of what I'm talking about. And, of course, in that kind of building you've got lots of chairs. We had a lot of big chair parties and were able to set up and take down the chairs. And so it was quite a project. But I'm reminded of a young family who was seated fairly close to the stage with their little son starting to get fussy. And after a while, Dad picked him up and headed to the back of the giant building where the restrooms were. And remember, they were right up front. And so it was hard to, you know, hard to get back to the back and all through these rows of chairs. And I'm sure Dad thought that there's hundreds of eyeballs that are staring at him. And about halfway back, this little but loud voice cried out several times, somebody help me!

I'm sure he made it okay. But I think he may have had an idea of what was coming.

I know many of us begin family traditions during the feast. Again, Pat and I would, with our two boys, when they were younger, would buy little gifts to give to our sons each day of the feast. We'd try to spread them out, try to make it a little bit special. I think many of you probably do that. And one year we were sorting the gifts and wrapping them in a downstairs room and told the boys to stay upstairs until we were finished. And then we were downstairs and talked about who we were going to give what to and when. And we kept hearing this sound of footsteps on the stairs. And then finally we saw little heads peeking around the corner. And so after several times, telling them to get back up, you don't have to know anything right now. After that happened several times, our older son said, but Dad, he who has ears to hear, let him hear!

I think they wanted to know. It's been a delight to be able to listen to the messages throughout the week that God has provided. I want to certainly keep with the speaking theme here that has been created by the speakers. And so I thought the title of the sermon today should be Naked Jonah. Don't write that down, brethren. Yeah, we are of all people on earth most blessed. Blessed by our Heavenly Father, blessed by the One who began. Our inclusion in the family of God. We can say that all we want, but if we really understand what God is doing, then we have a lot of motivation.

And yet I hope to encourage us even more so today. We are picturing during the feast a time when the world will be completely different. It will be truly a world that is out of this world. It will be remarkable. You could say to that point, kind of unparalleled. And yet, there are some things that we need to consider no matter what time we think about. We want to envision the kingdom of God. I think about it because of the work of the United Church of God. I think about it with our program Beyond Today. That's really what the world tomorrow will be. It's the time beyond today, and it's the beginning of the kingdom of God. I will tell you that throughout the sermon today, I'm going to be reading out of the new Revised Standard version, so that may be a little different than what you might read. But it is one that I commonly use and one that I will be using today. I want us to begin in Philippians chapter 2, because in Philippians chapter 2, you have an incredible revelation. Philippians chapter 2 is really an amazing revelation that God gives through the apostle Paul. And you see in what Paul mentions here, I think many of you again being rather seasoned and veteran members of the church, but seasoned children of God. You know what Philippians chapter 2 is about? It states some incredibly important things, and I'm not going to even approach trying to talk about several of these things. Paul starts talking about the mind that Jesus had in verse 5. He says, "...let this same mind be in you which was in Jesus Christ." And then he describes how that though he was in the form of God, he didn't regard equality with God as something to cling to, but he emptied himself and taking the form of a servant and being born in human likeness, being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death, even death of the cross. Now again, that's far more than you can cover in numerous sermons, and I'm not even wanting to approach that. What I want to focus on is what it says in verse 9 and 10 and 11, because Paul is inspired to explain the outcome of God's plan for man.

Here in verse 9 it says, "...therefore, because of what the Word was willing to do, because of what He has already done in paving the way for us, in showing us the perfect example of what it is to be humble and what it is to be a servant, how it is to be in subjection to the Father." That's what he is. And yet we see this outcome described in verse 9. The Father, God has exalted Him and given Him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee would bend. In heaven and earth and under the earth and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of the Father. Now see, brethren, that's describing an outcome. I know many of us get on our knees every day or in the morning, evening, at night, and we acknowledge God. We acknowledge Him. We call on the name of the Lord, as we've had explained well throughout the feast. We've been shown how important that is, how significant that is. And yet what we see in this description in verse 10 and 11 is the outcome.

It's what God wants to see from every human being who has ever lived.

As we heard in our sermon at today, we're given an opportunity to do that today. And see, what this says is that all who are in the family of God, all who have received the message of God and who have responded to that message and who have been faithful to that calling, you know, whenever God deals with them, they will have chosen chosen. This was mentioned several times during the feast, but I'm going to mention it again today. They will have chosen to obey and honor and worship the Father and the Son.

It's a choice. You know, we read about this choice throughout the Bible. I want to go back to Deuteronomy 30 because God explains it to Israel as He gave this information through Moses.

Deuteronomy 30 verse 15.

I've said before you today life and prosperity, death and adversity. If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I'm commanding you today by loving the Lord your God, walking in His ways, observing His commandments, decrees and ordinances, then you shall live and become numerous and the Lord will bless you in the land that you are about to possess.

But in verse 17, if your heart turns away and you do not hear, but your lettuce straight, bow down to other gods and serve them, then I declare to you today that you shall perish.

You shall not live long in the land that you are crossing with Jordan to enter and possess.

And so God laid it out to Israel. He told them, and of course we read it today and benefit from that same instruction, because He says, I call heaven and earth before you to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing. And so what does He follow that up with? He says, choose. Choose life. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live. See, that's what God is offering to mankind. He's not just offering us something and we don't have to do anything to obtain it. We have to do. We've had messages about repentance. We have messages about learning to serve, about learning to call on God's name, learning to accept the calling, the calling that God gives us. But see, ultimately, when you boil this down, it's a matter of choosing. And each and every one of us have got to choose, and we all do, we choose every day. We choose what we're going to do. We choose everything we do. We choose what we get up, put on, what we eat, everything, all those lesser things. But we have to be mindful that we are choosing either life or death. See, we have to choose to love God, choose to obey God, choose to hold fast to God. And each of us, I think, should consider, what am I choosing? I think the answer for many of us could be, I'm choosing life. I am determined. I'm committed. I'm devoted. I know whatever the length of my life is, I need to fulfill that faithfully to God. But in some cases, it's a little harder to do than just to say it. We have to do it. And so, you know, the amazing thing about God's divine creation, the way that He has created human beings, is that we all have free will. We have free will. We had a good program on Beyond Today several weeks ago that dealt with free will. It was telling everybody on earth, we all have free will. You know, what are we doing with that? And, of course, I would say in many ways that might be falling on deaf ears at times. And yet, that shouldn't fall on deaf ears to us because having free moral agency carries with it the responsibility to choose life.

See, the amazing thing about the spirit in man that God has differentiated us with, we're far different from the animals. We're similar in some ways, but we have the spirit in man that enables us to think, to reason, to decide, to make decisions, to make choices. That's on purpose, brethren. That is by God's design. He gave us that ability, that capacity in order, you know, to be able to make a choice because He's not going to just grant us eternal life, if we don't choose to accept it. You know, in Revelation 21, Revelation 21 is where I want to go next. And we see at the end of the book of Revelation, this same thing mentioned. As we consider our choosing each day, and not only here during the feast, which is a wonderful time and a blessed opportunity to be together with one another, but even as we go home, as we go home and as we are back in our local settings, you know, what is it that we are going to choose every day? See, as I said, God wants us to choose life. He wants us, we've already read it in Deuteronomy 30, verse 19, He wants us to choose life. But He is not going to make us do that. That has got to be a voluntary choice. We have to choose. And it's important for us to remember that. Here in Revelation 21, where I was going, I want to read in verse 7. Of course, this is talking about, again, the outcome of what God is going to do and about the New Jerusalem. It talks about the heavenly Jerusalem. But it says in verse 7, those who conquer or who overcome will inherit these things, and I will be their God, and they will be my children. But to the cowardly or the faithless or polluted or murderers or fornicators, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their place will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death. Again, God frames this throughout the Bible in different ways, and it needs to be understood, perhaps, in different ways.

But Mr. Mollier did a great job the other day expressing this in the terms of either acceptance or forgiveness. He was talking to all of us, but even to our young people.

We either accept what God is offering or we reject what God is offering. Another way of saying that is that we either choose life or we choose death. Those are the only two alternatives. Are we really motivated to choose life from here on? I would certainly hope to encourage all of us to understand how much God wants us to choose life. As God deals with humanity, as he has dealt with humanity in the past and even now, all of us today, and in what he will do in the future, he determines. He alone determines a few things. One of them is he determines who he will work with. When we read the Old Testament, we see the examples, the few examples, it seems, that he directly was working with. He chooses and he chose to create a church after the life and death of Jesus after his resurrection. He created a church that he would work with up until the time when he would send his son back. So he determines who he will work with and who and when he will offer an invitation. So we have to think about, you know, if I have an invitation, then I need to choose life. He's the one who draws us to Jesus Christ, and he gives us knowledge of his truth, knowledge from the Bible, from the Word of God, and from the Spirit of God. We have information from God, and then God gives all of humanity. We apply it to ourselves, but God gives all human beings. He's going to require that all of them make a choice, a choice to obey from the heart. If we jump back a page here to chapter 20 in Revelation, verse 14, again, at the very conclusion here of chapter 20, death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. Anyone whose name is not found written in the book of life was thrown in the lake of fire. See, what's that describing? What's it describing ultimately death being destroyed when God has fully completed the human project. See, that project has been going on for 6,000 years. He's been dealing from Adam to all of us in our time today, and he's going to deal with another thousand years, we believe. And yet, whenever that human project is complete, everyone, all men, will have been given knowledge, the truth of God, and they will have made a knowledgeable choice. And we either choose for our name to be in the book of life, or we've chosen the second death. And it's not that God is an author of fear religion, but that the fear of God, or awe, I think it's what we like to think of it, the awe of God, is what we want to appreciate. It's necessary to choose to accept God's gift of eternal life. Now, I'd like to go back through and just have you think a little bit about how important it is to make this important choice. See, and this is not a momentary choice, this is a lifetime choice. This is a choice that we make, and we have to continue to make if we're going to be faithful. We have to make it throughout the remainder of our lifetime. And we have to make it regardless of what we face.

Because I know many of you are facing challenges today. Many of you face struggles. Many of us have health challenges that we would have never imagined. You know, I would have never thought that I would be the age I am. That wasn't really something I thought much about, didn't make any difference. Fifty years ago, everything was fine anyway. But see, as you get older, you have more challenges and you actually have more losses. And as young people grow up in this chaotic and ungodly world today, you're going to face some choices that are incredible. And I don't know, you know, I read the other day what Paul said about when Christ returns, the dead in Christ are going to rise first. That sounds good. And then he talks about those who are alive and remain.

Now clearly that wasn't Paul, but that could be us. And what are those who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord? What are we going to go through? You read the book of Revelation, it's not pretty, it's terrible. And you find that people have to continue to make the right choice. They have to choose life and not death. They have to want eternal life with God more than anything on earth. And of course, that's what God wants too. He wants us to make that choice.

See, if we look back at the angelic realm, clearly some of the angels following Lucifer made some terrible, terrible choices.

I'm not going to take the time to read through Ezekiel 28. That's a chapter we all should be very familiar with. But when you look at Ezekiel 28, you see what it was that Lucifer was, a created archangel. How it was that he had given all ability, all power. He was given beauty of his skill and talent. He was smarter than anyone else. He was gorgeous. He had everything going for him. And yet, I'll read at least a little bit. It says in verse 13 on the day that you were created, these things were prepared. Verse 14, with an appointed carolberg guardian, I placed you on the mountain of God, and you walked among the stones of fire, and you were blameless. You were perfect in your ways in the days that you were created. See, that's not just something to read. That's something for us to fully comprehend about the spirit realm that, of course, God created before the creation of the physical universe and before he even set man on earth. But he says in verse 15, you were blameless in your ways from the day that you were created until you made a chaotic choice, until iniquity was found in you, and in the abundance of your trade, you were filled with violence. See, he revolted against God and sinned, and so I cast you as a profane thing from the mountain of God. He says in verse 17, your heart was proud because of your beauty, and you corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendor. This seems like describing insanity. It seems like crazy for a great archangel, as Lucifer was, to begin to think that I think I can overthrow God, that I'm going to resist God, that I'm going to defy God, that I'm going to demand my own way.

See, that's what Lucifer did. He made the choice to defy God and to try to overthrow the throne. See, as I read that, I think about it and realize, obviously, the angels are greater and more powerful than we are today. We're human, and we have God's help, but he says we've been made a little lower than the angels, and yet the fact remains that Lucifer forgot. He forgot that he was a creature of God, and he was a creature of God. He was a creature of God, and he was a creature of God. He forgot that he was a created being. He forgot that I'm not yet. I am in subjection, or I have to be in subjection to my Creator. So he completely forgot that. He actually deceived himself and chose to rely on himself. His opinion of himself became too great. He became arrogant and self-reliant. He's the author of pride. He's the author of doing what's right in our own eyes, or his own eyes.

And as you think about that, and we see how he has adversely affected the world, you know, he's infected all of us with that attitude, and you know, many times we think a lot more of ourselves than we should. And yet, we also know that God has been very merciful to us.

But when you think about the effect of that terrible, terrible choice, at least for me, it affected a third of the angels. You read in 2 Peter 2 about the angels who sinned, the ones who turned against God, the ones who they chose to resist, the one who created them. Now, again, like I said, this makes no sense at all to me, and yet it is something that we clearly need to keep in mind. Let's move beyond the angelic realm and come to the pre-flood world. The Bible calls that the world that then was. The time of Adam and Eve in Genesis 3. All of us, again, are familiar with that story. What went on?

They were placed on the earth. God created Adam and Eve. He created them physical, temporary, human, very limited. He gave us life, but a limited form. And then, because he wanted us to be in his family, he wanted us to choose life. But what do we find with Adam and Eve? They chose to disobey God. They chose to resist the knowledge of the truth. They chose to disrespect God. And actually, in our choices, whenever we choose to sin, which at times we do, when we sin and we're just wrong, then we have to acknowledge, well, I'm disrespecting my Creator. That's what Adam and Eve were doing. And of course, they couldn't really, or maybe they didn't really comprehend the incredible power that Satan had to overrule, to deceive them, to lie to them. They didn't comprehend that, and so they easily, it appears, fell prey to that.

And so we see in Genesis 6, verse 5 through 8, that the hearts of men were only evil continually. And so what happened in the first fifteen, sixteen hundred years of human existence? Well, God needed to press the reset button. You know, men are so corrupt. Men make such bad choices that I need to start over. And He did. He did with Noah.

So if we go from the angelic realm to the first quarter of man's history, you see the same thing repeated, the Creator being rejected, being resisted. Now we come, of course, to this present evil world. That's the world that we know the best. It's our time for salvation, though, brethren. And this would be what the Bible describes the present evil world as the world of Old Testament Israel, the time from Abraham down through the kings, the coming of Jesus, and the beginning of the church age, the beginning of the spiritual Israel of God. All of us are a part of the Israel of God, as described in Galatians 6-16. The church is that chosen people. And clearly God worked with a very few chosen people among the seat of Abraham. But I want us to take a look at what we read here in Galatians chapter 1 because this is written to the New Testament church. It's written to us. It's written to the people who lived in the middle part of Turkey in Galatia.

And so it's not just talking about what we read about in the Old Testament and read about, perhaps, in the book of Acts and other places. It's talking about a New Testament church, like it could be the church here in Denver or the church in Kansas City or up in Minneapolis or the Twin Cities or in Wisconsin. This is a letter to a church, members of the church who had been baptized and who were recipients of the Holy Spirit and who had a gift from God. Paul says in verse 3 of chapter 1, grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to set us free from the present evil age. So that's why, of course, we call it that because that's what it is. Paul calls it that, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom we glory forever and ever. Paul usually starts out like that, but then he points out here in verse 6, something that's very sad. He says, I am astonished at your very poor choices. I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you in the grace of Christ and you are turning to a different gospel.

See, now Paul had to provide a good deal of direction and correction in many of his letters. Here he was just appalled. He was amazed. Why, when you have been drawn to a knowledge of the truth and been given a gift that allows you to relate to God, why?

Why could you possibly forget what the gospel is, what the gospel was that I presented to you? See, he was explaining to them. He was astonished about that. And, see, that applies to all of us today. You know, we've been given many blessings. We've been given many gifts. But God wants us always to make choices and make right choices. And, as he points out, I want you to choose life.

Let's project into the future. We know what we're going through today and obviously that directly affects us. What about the world to come? You know, we read in Zachariah 14, and we've read this earlier in the feast about people being asked to come up to the feast. You know, I need to read portions of this to be able to point out to you what I want.

Chapter 14 verse 16 of Zachariah, all who survive as a nation that have come against Jerusalem should go up year to year to worship the king, keep the feast of tabernacles. We commonly read that because it's one of the reasons why we're here. And yet, it also describes needing to provide knowledge, needing to provide understanding of the Word of God, and then to see what they choose to do.

And it says, if any, verse 17, of the families do not choose to go up to Jerusalem to worship the king, then there'll be no rain. So, you know, God will encourage and God will point out how the benefits of obedience are much greater than the benefit or disadvantage of disobedience.

And yet, he goes ahead to say the family of Egypt doesn't go up and doesn't present themselves. Then the Lord will inflict on them a plague. They don't go up to keep the feast. See, there's two different things. They're going to keep the feast and presenting themselves before the Lord. That's what you are doing today. You are presenting. We are presenting ourselves before God when we go where He has said His name. And yet, even in that scenario, there's a matter of people learning the truth and then having to choose to obey.

Unfortunately, we read here in Revelation 20 that at the end of the millennium, kind of an amazing thing is going to happen. Revelation 20, verse 7 through 9, in conclusion of the millennium, after people have been living under God's rule for a thousand years. Revelation 20 is an amazing chapter, brethren. It gives us a framework. It gives us an understanding of things that without it, it would be hard to know all of this. And yet, it talks about the thousand-year rule of the saints on earth. It talks about Christ's rule and reign. It talks about a resurrection as Christ returns. It talks about another resurrection a thousand years later. And yet, it says in verse 7, when the thousand years are ended, Satan's going to be released from his prison and come out to deceive the nations at the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, in order to gather them to battle.

There's numerous as the sand of the sea, and they marched upon the breadth of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints, beloved city, and yet fire came down from heaven and consumed them. And the devil who deceived them was thrown in the lake of fire. Now, you can easily read that and not think too much about it, but how could anyone fall? How could anyone fall for this predicted event? This is going to be occurring at the end of the millennium when people have lived a thousand years under the rule of Christ and under our guidance and under our supervision or our tutelage, I guess we could say, if we're going to be teaching, how could they possibly again be deceived, even when you can read it in Revelation 20, that that's going to happen.

See, God says this is going to happen. Why does God allow that to happen?

Well, he allows it to happen because he wants to see if human beings will choose life more than anything else. Life with God, life eternal. That's what he's offering. That's what he's holding out before us. All of us today are in faith training. God is teaching us, and we often think about it as we go through our struggles and our trials. We want to learn to draw close to God. We want to learn to have faith in God. We want to learn to trust God.

But I would say that God also wants to learn. He wants to learn if he can trust me.

He wants to learn if he can trust you with eternal life.

See, clearly Satan, Lucifer at the time, couldn't be trusted. He couldn't be trusted to always remain faithful because he wasn't. It's obvious. But, see, dealing with mankind who, you know, we're all temporary. We can be put out of our misery. The second death is final. It's the end. But, see, God, he wants to be able to trust us. You know, you have an example in Genesis 22 about Abraham, and he was truly tried. Tried, I know, since that, you know, it's hard to even imagine offering your son. And yet, what you read in Genesis 22, verse 12 about Abraham is he was willing to do something that seemed just incredibly, not only difficult, but seemingly out of character for what he thought he was supposed to be doing. In verse 12 he says, Now I know that you fear God.

See, God needs to know if not only if we fear God, but that we will trust God and we will endure all in order to honor God throughout eternity. God needs to trust us that we would never consider. See, it's a matter of the heart. We've had this discussed before. It's a matter of the heart. It's a matter of God's way involving complete submission to God's rule in our lives. And see, this is an individual matter. Complete submission to God's rule in our lives. He wants a family that is in complete harmony with his way of love. And I think it's important for us to think about that. The people at the end of the millennium, they're going to know, what are we going to do? If I can read that to them, I'm going to tell them, this is what's going to happen. Don't fall forward. You need to have a heart that is faithful to God. Maybe we can even skip beyond that to what we know is also here in Revelation 20, to the white throne judgment. You know, a time beyond. A time beyond a thousand years. In verse 11, I saw a great white throne, the one who sat on it, the earth and heaven fled from his presence. No place was found for them. I saw the dead, small and great standing before the throne. The books were opened, and another book was opened, the book of life, and the dead were judged according to the works recorded in the books. See, that's a description of the education that God is going to provide out of the Bible, out of the books of the Bible, the knowledge of the truth of God. And then, how will people's name be written in the book of life? Well, it's receiving the Holy Spirit, but it's also choosing to be in complete submission to God. And even, of course, in we read one of these verses in chapter 21 and 22, regarding the new heavens and the new earth, the new Jerusalem. Again, all of the timeframes that God reveals in the Bible from the far distant past to the Old Testament to our New Testament time to the world tomorrow and to the time beyond that, as God deals with it. Human beings, as he deals with man, he wants man to choose to obey God, choose to love God. Now, obviously, choosing life is a great simplification of the many, many things that God teaches, and yet it's still the bottom line. It's the bottom line between life and death. Here in Revelation 21, again, he says in verse 23, this is describing the new heavens, new earth. I saw no temple in the city. Its temple is the Lord, God Almighty, and the Lamb. The city has no need of sun and moon to shine on it, for the glory of the Lord is its light, its lamp is the Lamb. And so, clearly, this is talking of a time of peace, a time of harmony, of cooperation, a time when the entire family of God is in complete harmony and love. But in verse 27 it says nothing. Unclean will enter it. No one who practices abomination or falsehood, but only those who are written in that Lamb's Book of Life. See, we want to be written in the Lamb's Book of Life, and that involves receiving the Holy Spirit. That's really a beginning, and that's a beginning that is surely not understood by us initially. I certainly didn't understand it. I knew what I was supposed to do, but I didn't comprehend the depth of what God was doing.

See, the Father, whenever we think about what the Father is doing, the Father is bringing many sons to glory, and He is beginning that process by begetting us with the Spirit of God and beginning the process of being born from above. That's exactly what He's doing, and He's the only one who initiates that. He draws us to Jesus Christ, and through Christ we have access to Him and are able to rejoice in that. But even as we see this description here in describing the new heavens and the new earth and the family of God, you find people in complete harmony with God. Members of the family of God who love God, who honor God, who serve God, who revere God, who worship God, who praise God, who praise His holy name. You know, I'm again familiar with some of you in the audience, and I know that many of us comprehend what God is doing and how great He is and how holy He is and how holy is His name. When you see the angels praising God around His throne in Revelation 4, when you see that, what are they doing? Praising God. You can think, well, why are they doing that? That's what they do. That's what the righteous angels do. But even beyond that, see, God is bringing sons to glory, and He's beginning that process with the receipt of the Spirit of God, and then from the rest of our lives we're growing, we're changing, we're overcoming, we're conquering, and we're choosing, choosing every day to be in full submission to God.

And because of that, we can be greatly blessed. As I said, we're going to go back here in a few days, a couple of days back home. And all of us do face certain struggles, and I don't know what yours are. I kind of know what mine are, and don't know yet what they might be in the future.

And yet, God wants, He expects us to endure unto the end.

All of you know several verses that would verify that.

But even more than that, He wants us to overcome unto the end. He wants us to choose life in our words, in our deeds, in our actions, in our prayers, in our yieldedness to God.

In Revelation 2, we have a, it's actually, again, an outcome. This is in the message to Thyatira. But in Revelation 2, verse 25, it says, you need to hold fast to what you have until I come, to everyone who conquers, to everyone who overcomes and continues to do my works to the end. I'll give authority over the nations to rule them with a rod of iron. And so obviously, He says in verse 28, even as I've received authority from my Father, the one who conquers, I will give the morning star. See, He wants us to be overcomers. He wants us to be continually making the right choices. Now, admittedly, you know, we make mistakes and we need to be forgiven. And clearly, I'm a sinner and I need the mercy of God more than anything. And yet, He wants us to choose life no matter what we face. I want to read a small section of a letter from one of the members of the United Church of God who lives in the Philippines. Now, some of you are familiar with who this is. Her name is Jed Tsai. She is a member of the Church of God. She's a member of the United Church of God. My brother David and his wife Denise visit them as they go to the Philippines on several times throughout the year.

And we sometimes have reported on Jed. I know Mr. Kubik has mentioned Jed Tsai before. She's in prison. She and her brother both were in prison. They were wrongly imprisoned. But they labor under a condition that most of us are not laboring under. They don't have the contact with brethren that all of us have, mostly every week or more. They don't have that. And yet, her focus in this letter, she wrote a letter to her beloved brethren. And I just want to read a part of it because it fits in with what I'm saying about how much God expects us to choose life, how much he wants us to do that, and how much he yearns for us to be in subjection to him. Jed, and again, they've been in prison for 15 years, and they are given a considerable amount of blessing and favor even there. But, of course, that isolation is difficult. And yet, she starts out her letter by quoting even some of the verses that I read there in Galatians chapter 1.

And she says, the book of Galatians is one of my favorites.

And the story of the apostle Paul has always encouraged me when I encounter the same experiences that he had through the rough and tough times, his grace abounds, so that I can stand in his purpose and be able to share with my fellow believers the hope that we have that we must all hold fast to the end. She actually teaches and preaches to others in prison. She says, his present evil world is unstoppable from the family and the society and everywhere there is trouble. And yet, she says, we can't control what is happening, but we still have a choice. We still, the choice is ours, even in that type of a dire setting. As long as we put Jesus Christ and our Father at the center of our life, the inner being remains steadfast. Easier said than done, but as long as we stay focused, that it's not about us, it's about him who called us, and it's about his purpose, then we can triumph from whatever evil does come our way. Now, Jed, you know, she needs our prayers, and her brother needs our prayers, but you know, they're facing things that, you know, we may not focus in quite the same way that they do.

And so, I do want to just read that in a sense closing. I want to read one other verse here as we conclude, but you know, when others who are in even worse condition as far as physically than I am, when they can see the big picture, and when they can see what God is doing, and when they can see the reason to get focus off of me and on to God, they are choosing life, and I, all of us, need to do that. You know, in many ways we have incredible distractions with our blessings. We have distractions with all the stuff that's available to us, and so I want to conclude here with a verse that Mr. Kubik read yesterday. It's in 1 Corinthians 15, and of course it is describing how Jesus was raised from the dead. He's the firstborn to be raised, and then there's going to be an order in verse 23. 1 Corinthians 15, 23. There's an order that he's going to reveal knowledge to people through ages, and ultimately there will be a conclusion to that in verse 24. It says, then comes the end. See, that's when the human project will have been complete. Everybody has chosen whether or not they will yield to God. At last it says, in verse 25, death will be destroyed. Verse 26, excuse me, the last enemy to be destroyed will be death. But then in verse 27 and in verse 28, we see how it is that the Father and the Son work together in complete harmony.

Verse 28, well, let me back up to verse 27. God has put all things in subjection under His feet, talking about Christ. But when it says all things are put in subjection, it is plain that this does not include the one who put all things in subjection under Him. So when all things are subjected to Him, then the Son Himself will also be subjected to the one who put all things in subjection under Him, so that God may be God, or that God may be all in all. See, that's talking about the Son being in subjection to the Father for all eternity. And of course, all of us are going to be in subjection to the Son and to the Father if we continue to choose life through the remainder of our lives.

And so the question for all of us today is, will we, will I, choose life? Will we choose God's gift of eternal life with Him? You know, there's a clear path to what the outcome is. And will we choose daily to live in God's family forever and forever? And so the real title for this sermon, one that I hope that you will remember, is choose life.