The Future God Visualizes for Us

Well, I know Mr. Thompson did some real high-tech, you know, things this morning. Well, I have something high-tech I want to do. Now, does anybody want to take a guess of what that is? A red dot. That's a person who's a realist, okay? A red dot. A what? A blood moon, okay?

There's a person who's been reading certain books by certain evangelists. Okay, anybody else? A very rare steak. There's a man that's hungry. Okay, Mrs. Locker. A heart. You'd expect her to say that. An Easter egg. Someone said that this morning.

An Easter egg. I never thought of that. There's a pagan. Now, I'll tell you what this is. One more. What is it? A what? A cell. Yeah, you know someone this morning said DNA. Yeah, a cell. I'll tell you what it is. It is an awful lot of white space with infinite possibilities. You can draw pictures on here. You can write mathematical formulas on here. You can write a sonnet on here. This is a lot of white space with an incredible number of possibilities. Now, I have to admit, I've done this in seminars and even in sermons.

Never have I had anyone think of that. Now, if I did it with children, I figure the children, some child would come up with it. As adults, you know what we do? We zero in on that dot. And forget, wait a minute, what's the rest of this? The ability to see that white space as having possibilities is what is known as mental vision. The ability to see things different than everybody else. Every once in a while, you'll meet someone with a mental vision and they just see life differently. I don't mean in a kooky way, I mean in a remarkable way that inspires all the rest of us.

Well, you and I have been keeping these holy things because we talk about all the time where the holy days give us a vision of God's plan, of what God is doing with humanity. Well, today I'm going to talk a little bit and hopefully leave with you as you leave these services with a vision of what God is doing with you personally.

Then when we talk about these macro concepts, we need to bring it down to your daily life and what God is doing with you personally. I've been giving some fairly complicated sermons the last couple of months. We talked about Passover types in ancient Egypt. We did two sermons on holiness in the series that I've been doing on holiness. We won't be covering anything as complicated as why a woman should marry her husband's brother.

We won't be covering anything like that. We're going to be zeroing in on something very specific about God's vision for you and how it should apply to your life. I have a number of books in home by a man who writes for...he's a motivational writer and businessman. I quote him and use him all the time. His name is Glenn Van Eckerin. He says this about vision. He's talking in the sense of the business world.

I want to break this down a little bit into spiritual visions. They have a mental vision of what their business is supposed to look like. What are we supposed to look like? What is our future supposed to look like? He says this, your vision describes the ideal future for you to attain. When he teaches people, as a motivational speaker, how to visualize their ideal future, I'm not here to tell you to visualize your ideal future.

What we're trying to capture is the future God visualizes for us. So this isn't come up with these concepts, and let's work this out so you can figure out your future. What is God's ideal future for you? What is it He wants for you? So we talk about this vision here. We're going to talk about the ideal future for you that your Creator wants for you.

He goes on, He says it provides meaning and direction while forcing you to break through present limitations. If we have the vision of God's ideal future for us, we will have meaning, we will have direction, and we will be forced to break through the limitations that we're facing right now in our lives. He says holding a clear picture in your mind of the desired future will mobilize your creative efforts and generate the desire and energy to perform. You know, if you've been in the church for a long period of time, and some of people, you know, we have a number of people here that haven't been in the church very long, they've only been coming a few weeks, a few months, some of them aren't even baptized yet, they have a hard time understanding.

Some of you that have been doing this for 20 years, you don't have the same energy they do. Why don't we? Well, we've been doing this for 25 years now, why don't we? It has to do with the spiritual vision we have for our lives. Do we see what God sees? He says vision that is quite simply a mental picture of what tomorrow will look like. Now, He says that to a group of businessmen, and they're supposed to come up with what they want their tomorrow to look like, and that's not what we're doing.

As we keep these holy days, God is giving us a mental picture of what He wants our tomorrows to look like. And that's the vision that has to motivate us, drive us, and give us the energy. Because if you don't have the vision, you will run out of energy. Some of you might work at a job where you don't know what you do. You ever work at a job in some cubicle, and maybe you take information and put it into a computer, and you have no idea what it means?

You don't even know what your company produces. You just show up, and you do your job. You know, I talk to people like that, and they'll say, oh, I make good money, but I hate my job. Why? I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know why I do it.

But we come into the church. We're concerned with what am I supposed to do? Okay, God says, what are you supposed to do? Stop eating pork. What are you supposed to do? Stop lying. Stop cheating. What are you supposed to do? Stop drinking. Stop abusing alcohol. What am I supposed to do? Start keeping the Sabbath. How? So then you start learning the how. But you know what? The what and the how only has so much energy in it. We have to do those things, and those are what we start with. At some point, we buy into the why. We buy into a goal. Then we're just not sitting there doing some kind of work for God, entering numbers into a computer. That we are called by God for a purpose, and there's a goal. There's a future. And God is preparing that future, and what we do now has a profound effect on that future. A profound effect on whether we reach that future. If we don't have that future, that vision, a number of things will happen to us. One, we'll start to compromise with sin because it seems like it's more fun. That we'll just start compromising with sin. It just seems like it's more fun.

We'll stop doing things that we know we should do. We won't visit the sick. We won't come to Sabbath services every week. We know we should do those things. We won't do it because we won't have the energy to do it. We'll use our energy doing something else. I'll tell you something else that happens. When we don't have the vision that God gives to us for our future, we begin to suffer from anxiety and fear. I'm going to tell you why in a minute. We begin to have an awful lot of anxiety and fear. And in that anxiety and fear, He begins to give us emotional difficulties and He begins to make us sick. We actually become physically ill. So what we're looking at here is something that has to affect every single aspect of your life. And it's taught to us through the Holy Days. It's taught to us through the Holy Days. You know, I'm going to go to, like I said, this is a very simple sermon. We're not going to go to complicated concepts today. This is just a simple, here's what God wants and here's what the Holy Days show us. Let's go to Hebrews 11. Let's just start here. Hebrews 11.

Hebrews 11 verse 13. Now we know the Hebrews 11 is the faith chapter.

And here Paul gives us all these examples of people who follow God. There are heroes. These are the men and women we look at and say, wow, God was involved in their lives. I wish He could be involved in my life like that. Why did they do what they did? How did they do what they did?

Well, he tells us why. Verse 13. These all died in faith.

He said, okay, they all died believing God and obeying God. But it's the rest of this that's so important. God having received the promises, not one person, Mary the mother of Jesus, Abraham and Sarah, Paul, David, nobody has received the kingdom of God yet. Nobody has received the vision that they were given. They all died expecting it to happen. They all died saying, I know that's my future. And it's a very important point he makes here because I'm going to show you by the end of this chapter, he ties it into you and me. He says they died not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, way out there, the future. Wouldn't you like to know the future? Now, I can tell when you're a child of the 80s by what I'm going to say next. How many of you like Back to the Future? There's a few old buddies out there, but okay.

If you could know the future, if you could go in, because change in the future always is bad, and you know, if you ever beat yourself in the future, it's really bad. But anyways, if we look at the future, we see if we could just know what's going to happen.

They saw a future. Now, they didn't know what was going to happen between this point and that point. They only knew what the final point was, and they said, I want that more than anything.

They saw it afar off. They were assured of them. Now, these are promises, by the way. Now, you just heard a sermon ad about if you say something, you're going to do it. Write it down. Right? I'm going to have you before the end of the sermon, write down some things that God has said to you personally. I will do this. The only variable is whether you will follow or not. But he has already said, I'll do this. It's a promise. He doesn't have to write it down.

You have to be assured that he's going to do what he says he's going to do.

The Almighty God. And you can't say, yeah, well, he said this to Abraham because he said it to you.

There's things he says to you.

He says he goes on, having seen them afar off, or assured of them, embrace them. And when they embraced them, something happened. They confessed that they were strangers of pilgrims on the earth. You are a stranger. If you embrace this, there comes a time when the values of God's kingdom will come in direct conflict with the values of society, and you will have to choose. The values of God's kingdom will come in direct conflict with the values of your job, or the values of your school, or the values of your friends. And you will have to choose. And that means you have to embrace them and say, these are God's promises to me.

And you have to believe it that much. Because if you don't, he says something here, for those who say such things declare plainly that they seek a homeland. We're not Democrats. We're not Republicans. We're not independents. We're monarchists.

We believe in a king, and we follow that king. And the values of that king is going to put us in direct opposition to the land we live in sooner or later. It's just the way it is.

I love the United States. I pay my taxes. I obey the laws. But its value system is not mine. My wife, you can ask her the details of this. I hope I get the details right. But she was called the jury duty here recently. And she went in. She told the judge, you know, she explained that she's a pastor's wife, that her values as a Christian are not the values of the law of the land. So they excused her. But they still made her go through the process. So they picked 55 jurors. You have to understand, here in San Antonio, they bring in 500 to 600 jurors every day. They have that many trials going on. They picked 55 of them, and they took them over to the room, and they started asking them questions. This wasn't a criminal trial. This didn't have to do with murder or theft. This had to do with a young couple that were getting a divorce. They were suing each other over the child, a seven-year-old child. One man got up and said, he said, this is ridiculous. He said, you too are going to let 12 strangers determine the future in the life of your child. Of course, he got an excuse. You know, they didn't want that. So they started asking questions. She said the questions were interesting. How many of you have been… how many of your parents were divorced, you said, a majority? How many of you have been divorced, a majority? How many of you were abused as a child, a majority?

Those were the people they wanted on the jury. As she went to lunch, she said she was sitting at the table eating lunch, and a woman came over and said, can I sit with you? She said, sure. She said, down she said that you work here for the court system. She says, oh, yes, I'm a court recorder.

She says, how do you live with this every day? And she, you know, court recorders have to record all the trials, right? Everything that's said. And the woman looked at her and said, all I can tell you… and I'll paraphrase a moment. My wife knows the exact… she almost hasn't memorized because it was so shocking. The woman said, all I can tell you is our country has no future. Because basically, the jurors are just as messed up as the criminals.

How many of you have been to a custody battle, the majority of the 55?

That's the country we live in. We don't belong here anymore. We never did. We just thought we did. Once God called you, you just don't belong here. These people knew they didn't belong.

They embraced it. Well, we know we don't belong. Why? Because we see something else. And that's what we want. Because God is going to give it to us.

Look what he goes on and he says, and truly, if they had called to mind that country from which they had come out, they would have had opportunities in return. I guarantee you, you have plenty of opportunities to go back. What are we talking about here, Days of Unleavened Bread, coming out of Egypt as part of what we talked about? Israelites had plenty of opportunities to go back.

You'll have it. You have plenty of opportunities to go back. And if you don't have this vision, you probably will run out of spiritual energy and you'll start back. Verse 16 says, But now they desire a better, that is a heavenly country. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them. Two amazing things. God has prepared a city for them. We say, yes, He prepared a city for all them. He's prepared a place. I'm going to tell you in a minute, He's prepared a place for you, too. He says, I'm not ashamed to be called their God. Is your God ashamed to call you God? That's a remarkable, remarkable question, isn't it? Is He ashamed to call you... He says, I am that person's God.

Is He? You just took the Passover. And the answer is, no.

See, you all think the answer is yes, because you see your sins, you see you're not perfect, you see your problems. The answer is, no. He's not ashamed to be called your God. Now, He didn't say you're perfect, but you have to understand He's made promises to you. The only way those promises won't happen is you make them not happen. You make them not happen, because He's going to do what He says. He just won't take away our free will.

You know, how many times have you heard quoted Proverbs 29, 18, where there is no vision?

It's translated, revelation sometimes. In fact, the exact translation would be prophetic vision. Where there is no vision, where there is no vision of what the future God has for us is there, then what happens? The people cast off restraint. What are the translations? They run amok. They just go crazy. How do we keep that vision there? And what is that vision?

Now, when I talk about vision, we say, okay, we've got to talk about the future, but the Holy Days are more than just the future, and there's a reason for that. To have a clear vision of the future, you have to put it in a context, and this is very important.

That means the first thing you have to do is if you have a vision, you have to understand the past as it relates to that vision. What are we doing during these spring Holy Days?

We look back a little bit, don't we? We look back at how sin comes along and how we were cut off from God, and we look back about how God sent His Son for us, and we look at His sacrifice. We understand the wave sheet, it's His resurrection. We're looking back a little bit, but you know, these spring Holy Days aren't just about the past. They're about the present, and they're about the future. Every Holy Day has something to do with the past, present, and future. It's the context of the past. Now, if you stay in the past, that's not very good.

You ever know somebody who just lives in the past? After a while, you don't even want to be around them. Because usually people stay in the past are either depressed.

You know, I had an aunt that used to tell me, my best days of my life were when I was a teenager. I'd say, oh my! I wouldn't have been doing it for the last 50 years, you know.

Besides, I wouldn't want to go back and be a teenager for all the money in the world.

People live in the past. Now, we have to know the past. Now, we also have to understand the present. We understand, you know, during this time of unleavened bread, we understand God's forgiveness.

But, you know, you take all... every day you've taken in the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

You've taken in the present that God is working you in the present, that Christ comes into you in the present. We're about to go into the next season, which is Pentecost. And what is Pentecost about? How God gives us the Holy Spirit. Past, present, future. Past, He gave the Holy Spirit in Acts 2. Present, you have God's Spirit now, just as much as they did. Not the same gifts, same fruits. Well, we're not as great as they were. They spoke in tongues. Paul said, speaking in tongues is meaningless if you don't have a God faith. Same fruit.

And then it's the future when the Holy Spirit poured out on the whole world.

So all these Holy Days bring us into the context of the past. Zero is in on the future, what we're doing right now, what God's doing right now, and give us the vision of the future. So we have to have all three of them. If you live only in the present, you know, why do it? If you live only in the future, you know, you see people that live only in the future, that's sort of sad, too. They have all kind of prophetic knowledge, but their lives are in accordance with God now. All they could quote verses, they could open this book up, and they could tell you all about prophecy. But what does it mean now?

See, if it doesn't have any importance in our lives now, prophecy is just knowledge. No one has been ever saved by prophecy.

So we have to put these three things together to have a real vision. I mean, give you an example of this. By going back to the second Passover, you know, that we had the first Passover in Exodus 12. Well, the second time the Passover is mentioned is in Numbers 9. So let's go to Numbers 9. Numbers 9.

We'll start at verse 1.

Numbers 9, verse 1. Now, the Lord spoke to Moses in the wilderness of Sinai in the first month of the second year, after he had come out of the land of Egypt, saying, Let the children of Israel keep the Passover at his appointed time. So this is one year later.

On the fourteenth day of this month at twilight, you shall keep it at his appointed time.

According to all its rites and ceremonies, you shall keep it.

So Moses told the children of Israel that they should keep the Passover. And they kept the Passover on the fourteenth day of the first month at twilight in the wilderness of Sinai, according to all that the Lord commanded Moses so the children of Israel did.

So one year later, they keep the Passover. But they're not in Egypt anymore. They've crossed the desert. Now, they're still in Sinai. They're still in that wilderness, but they're coming up to the promised land. Not long after this, Moses says, Okay, we're going to have to go look out that promised land. We're going to see what it looks like. And he sends out 12 spies. Now, you think, where did these spies come from? It's very important, the men he picked. I mean, did they come from the Israeli spy school? You know, I want 001 through 012, you know, because 007 would be there. Never mind. You've got to explain. It's not worth it. Okay. Did they come from the Israeli spy school? I mean, how did he pick 12 men? Well, let's go to Numbers 13 verse 1.

And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Send men to spy out the land of Canaan, and I am giving that I am giving to the children of Israel, that I am giving to them. They had had a vision for the time they were slaves, and Moses said, God is going to take you out of this, and God is going to take you into a place, and He's going to give you a land. They talked about it when they watched the Red Sea turn to blood. They talked about it when the frogs came, and the hail, and the first forward died, and they walked through the Red Sea. And they talked about it the first time Moses struck the rock and the water came out. And they talked about it when they stood before Mount Sinai, and God thundered out ten commandments. God was taking them to a place. That was their future, a future promised by God, dealing with anything they could ever imagine. And it's a year later. He said, Send men out to spy the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the children of Israel, and each tribe of their father shall send a man, every one a leader among them. So Moses sent them from the wilderness of Poran, according to the command of the Lord. All of them were heads of the children of Israel.

He didn't just pick anybody. He could have picked 12 soldiers. He didn't. He picked 12 men, because he said, if they're leaders... Well, what happens if you send leaders and they come back? People will believe them. People will believe them. Pick out 12... We're going to pick out 12 guys and everybody's going to say, well, who are you? We're going to be having 12 men that everybody knows. These are leaders. Their word has value, and they're going to go. So they did. And they came back. And they came back, and 10 of them said, it's just like they told us. It's better than Goshen. It is a land like nothing we've ever seen. But there be giants in them hills. I thought about just naming this sermon, there be giants in them hills. Okay? There's giants there, and there's walled cities there, and there's warriors with horses and chariots there. And they will kill us, and they will take our wives, and they will take our children, and they will make them slaves. And this is the worst nightmare we could ever dream of. Now, those men were picked because they were trusted. And those men came back and said, we can't do this. The problems are too great. And Caleb and Joshua had a different viewpoint.

They said, oh, no, no, no, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. There's giants there.

But our God's bigger than them. This really comes down to the ten looked at the size of the giants, and the two looked at the size of God.

And Ted said, we can't beat them. And two said, they're so overmatched by God, don't even worry about it. Two different viewpoints. But remember, they had a vision. They had been given a vision. Let's go to Numbers 14. Look at verse 6. As I find this next thing that happens here very interesting too. Verse 6, but Joshua the son of Nun and Caleb, who were among those who had spied out the land, tore their clothes, and they spoke to all the children of our congregation, the children of Israel, saying, the land we pass through to spy out is exceedingly good land. If the Lord delights in us, then he will bring us into this land and give it to us a land of flows of milk and honey. While they do not rebel against the Lord, nor fear the people of the land, for there are bread. We'll eat these people up.

There are bread. We'll break them up. Why? Because he said, we're mighty warriors. All Israel, we're mighty warriors. Let's beat our shields and do some kind of warrior dance, and then we'll go put... No! He knew where their strength was coming from. Their protection has departed from them, and the Lord is with us. Do not fear them. Do not fear them.

Interesting thing about people who lose the vision. These people had lost their vision. They lost what God was doing, and they became so filled with fear and anxiety because of the problems in front of them that when two men come along and say, no, no, no, let's trust God, here's their reaction. And all the congregation said to stone them with stones. Now the glory of the Lord appeared in the tabernacle of meeting before all the children of Israel.

They were going to kill Caleb and Joshua, and the only reason they didn't is because God intervened. Interesting. All they were saying is, no, no, no, no, no, let's get back to the vision. And their anxiety, their fear was so great, no, we have to go back.

It's too hard. We had no idea it was going to be that hard.

Now, what you think about this a minute, how they had lost context entirely. Let's talk about the past context in relationship to the past over the days of 11 bread. It was one year earlier that God had turned the Nile to blood. It was one year earlier that He had killed all the first born in Egypt. It was one year earlier that He had opened the Red Sea. It was only months earlier that He had given them water. It was only months earlier that He had given them quail. It was only months earlier that we had helped them win a battle against the Midianites.

They had lost total context with their past. Now let's talk about the present. What was it like to be an Israelite in their present every day? Well, the first thing they did was they got up every morning, stretched, you know, went outside and picked up miracle food off the ground called manna. God was with them every day. Oh yeah, oh yeah, I could see the from here I could see the tabernacle. Look, the pillar of clouds still there. I guess we're not moving today.

Interesting about miracles. You see them long enough. They're not miracles anymore. They're just everyday happenings. God performs miracles for us all the time, but if God performed a miracle for you every day, he, you know, every day you went open the shelf. Oh, there's my manna today. After a while, if you went open it and there was no manna there, you'd be mad at God.

Just like they were mad at Caleb and Joshua. We get used to it. We feel we're entitled to everything. So they actually wanted to kill them. Now, the really sad part of this is God says to Moses, okay, send them back. Not to Egypt, but back out into the wilderness. And we're going to wander around there for 39 years so this entire generation dies off. And when Moses came and told them that, a bunch of them said, oh no, no, we want to go now. And they tried to go into the promised land. They were ambushed by some Canaanite tribes and they were killed by the thousands.

And then a very, very sad despondent hundreds of thousands of people turned around and started back out into a wilderness that nobody, except some no-mans, wanted to live in. They stood right there. The vision that had been told to them, the thing they had talked about and thought about was right there. But there was giants in those hills and they lost track of what God was going to do. You see, you have to have faith in that vision because you have to have faith in the one who gives you the vision. We have to believe that God is going to do what He says He is going to do. Enough to say, okay, walled cities, giants, people with chariots will go.

Because I want to tell you something.

I want to tell you about the Promised Land. It's there. It's more than what you and I can imagine. But I'm also going to tell you something else. There are giants in those hills.

There are walled cities. There are warriors with chariots. And you and I have to face them. There's no way to get to the Promised Land without doing it.

And either God helps us do it or the vision was false to begin with.

And either we trust in God to help us do it or we head back out into the desert because that's all that's behind us. That's all there is. That's all there is.

We've gone to the place in life where our options are actually very narrow.

You either go back into the desert or you go surrender to the giants and you say, okay, God, you're bigger than giants.

I'm going to go back to Hebrews for a minute.

It's time to stop obsessing over the size of the giants.

It's time to start thinking about the size of her God.

Hebrews 11. You know, we read about the vision of the people in Hebrews 11.

Temple Sermon again. Scriptures were read so many times. It's complicated about this.

Hebrews 11. All through Hebrews, he talks about all these people. All these people called by God, chosen by God, used by God in amazing ways. Then we study and say, oh, if we could just be like that, why doesn't God do that today?

Well, understand. You really want to go through what they went through? You think your problems are tough? Let's look at some of the things they went through.

Verse 32, Paul says, and what more shall I say? For the time would fail me to tell you of Gideon and Barak and Samson and Jephthah and also of David and Samuel the prophets. He said, I'd have to tell you that we have to sit here and I'd have to go through the entire Old Testament.

But then we could add new people, all the people of... Or we'd have to talk through the whole Old Testament, all the New Testament. We'd have to talk about Dorcas and Peter. We'd have to talk about all these people, Mary Magdalene, James, John, who through faith, subdued kingdoms, worked righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions. Yeah, I like that. I want to do that. Quench the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness remained strong, became valued in battle, turned the flight the armies of the aliens.

Women received their dead, raised to life again. Yes, we want that. You say, well, how can this ever happen in my life? You and I are fighting spiritual battles all the time, and God is involved in those spiritual battles. And I guarantee you, the enemy you fight in your spiritual battle is a whole lot bigger than the sons of Anak. Those were the giants that Joshua was talking about. He's a whole lot bigger than they were. You're fighting an unseen battle every day. That giant is trying to destroy your eternity. So don't think you're disengaged. If you think you're disengaged, you've all—you're losing, okay? You're losing. You're engaged.

Here's the other side of this coin. Others were tortured. No, no, no. I want to be this one up here that becomes valued in battle. I like that one. You know, when you're 5'8", you really want to do that, you know, because it's not natural. Okay, so others were tortured, not accepting deliverance. Not accepting deliverance. Why? Here's what's important. That they might have paid a better resurrection. They looked ahead and said, that's better. I look at the past. I look at the present, and that vision, that's what God promises me is better. So I'll go there, but we're going to kill you. That's not really a great presence. You know, it's not what I want right now, but okay. Because I'll take that any day. That's where we're going to have to be.

I'll take that every day. No matter what the world throws at me, no matter what my giants throw at me, no matter what walled cities I come up against, that's what I take every day. That's what I choose every day, is that. So others had trials of mockings and scourging, yes, and chains and imprisonment. They were stowed. They were sold in two, were tempted, were slain with the sword. They wondered around in sheepskins and goatskins being destitute, afflicted, and tormented. Oh, yes, the other side of the coin. We don't get to the promised land without crossing the Sinai. It's that simple.

And we don't get to the promised land until we stand here, we look across, and we see the giants.

Don't be so anxious about the coming collapse of the United States. Don't be so anxious about the beast power. Don't be so anxious about the economy collapsing.

They're just giants.

They're just giants. Who's bigger? Your God? Is your God bigger? That's the question of the answer. I can't answer that for you. Is your God bigger?

He says in verse 38, of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and mountains and dens and caves of the earth. Oh, but as the economy collapsed, I may have to wander in dens and mountains and caves of the earth. So be it. Because we searched for something else.

A different kingdom. A different kingdom. This was always going to fail, folks.

Every human system fails, and this one will fail, too.

You didn't know that?

We were told that. That's why we seek a different kingdom. Nothing human works in the long run. That's not a negative thing. Look what he says here.

Did all these. Now, all these people who did God did great things through it, people who suffered, all these having attained a good testimony to faith did not receive the promise. They have not received the kingdom yet. They have not received their future yet. Abraham wandered around his entire life in a land that God promised to him and never owned the foot of it during his lifetime.

Never owned a foot of it. It's the next statement here, though, that's amazing.

God, having provided something better for us, for us, that they should not be made perfect apart from us. You know why Abraham hasn't been resurrected yet? You know why John hasn't been resurrected yet? You know why Sarah and Moses haven't been resurrected yet, or Zachariah, or Isaiah, or Mary, or Dorcas? Why aren't these people resurrected yet? Because God's plan, outlined in the Holy Days, isn't done yet. They're waiting for us to be finished.

Oh, how important are we in this? I think in the history of God, we're just a little afterthought. We're like, oh yes, there were some people around. There's always a remnant. We're the remnant.

But at least we're mentioned, right? And there was a remnant. Oh, that was us.

And he was not finished yet. You know what? What if there's two more generations before Christ comes back? I don't believe that. I hope not. But you know, God hasn't revealed anything to me yet either. So what if there's two more generations left? What if Christ doesn't come back for 50 years, and most of this room have died? I hope there's somebody telling them, you know what? I was going to tell you about the promised land.

And you know why you're here? You know why your parents haven't been resurrected yet?

Because God's not done with you yet. He didn't have with you yet. And sooner or later, he's going to say, okay, it's ready. And he's going to say Christ back. I'm done. I've finished the first fruits.

They haven't been resurrected because God's not done. And we are what he's not done with. How much more should we have the same vision they had that they are waiting for us?

There are giants in them hills. There be giants.

What I want to do, I want you to write down some scriptures. I'm going to give you four scriptures. Very simple scriptures you've read a hundred times. But I want you to do something.

I want you to write them down for a very similar reason that you were asked to write something down in the sermon. But only this is, God will do this because he says he will do this.

In your life, God will do this because he says he will do this. The only reason it won't happen is because you and I do not let it happen. That's it. What is it God says that he will do? Luke 12. Luke 12. Breaking in the middle here of a long dissertation by Jesus Christ.

Luke 12.32.

Do not fear, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. He says, yeah, but I'm giving up so much now. It is God's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. It doesn't say he sort of wants to, you know, maybe he'll give it to you.

It is his pleasure. It is what he takes joy in. He wants to, well, yeah, maybe that's true for, you know, this person over here, this person over there, because they've been in the church a long time. That's not true for me. I want you to write this out and put it on a post-it note. And I want you to stick it on the face of your computer or the face of your television or right on your refrigerator. And I want you to write this down on some three by five cards and stick it in some books, maybe your favorite cookbook. So every once in a while you're going through here and you find it. Because this is a promise God's made to you. He says, I want to give you this.

This is what gives me joy. This is what gives me pleasure, God says, is I give you this.

That's part of the vision you have to have. Oh yeah, I know Christ goes back and he sets up the kingdom and there's a millennium and he brings people in and there's a resurrection. That's an intellectual understanding of doctrine. And yet you have to have that or what I'm saying makes no sense. But just the intellectual understanding of the doctrine, we can be before the the promised land to be just like the ancient Israelites. Oh yeah, yeah, I know that. I know that. But man, there's giants in the hills. Do not fear, little flock, for it is your father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Philippians 1.6, write this one down.

It's breaking in the middle of a sentence that there's a complete thought here.

Philippians 1.6, being confident, being confident, you know that you're assured of it. You have embraced it. Being confident of this very thing, that he who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ. Write that down. Post that around. Put that in places, you know, put that in your stack of work and your inbox so that a couple days from now you're going through your stack of work and there's a card there or a post-it note and you pick it up and it says, this verse, confident that he will complete what he started in you.

That's why I tell people all the time, well, why is God keeping me alive? He's not done with you yet, but he is. How are they in your funeral? Now, that sounds worth it.

I've actually told him they started laughing. Oh, that makes sense! Yeah, say they with me someday. Someday some minister is going to say, well, Gary, you know, looks like he may be done with you. I don't know. I fear I'm going to have to live 200 years for God to be done with me. That's my greatest fear. Okay. You know, 200-year-old people don't get around very good.

But do we know what that says? That's what God says. He needs to have confidence in this. I will finish it. If you just follow, I will finish it.

Romans 828. Romans 828. Write this one down.

And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. Do you love God? Is your life dedicated to obeying God, doing what God wants? Do you care about what God wants? Is it important to you? You know, you gave an offering this morning. Did you give that offering because you were commanded to? Well, good. I'm glad you're obeying God. But you know, that's an even-tour reason. Did you give an offering because you love God? Do you want to please God? Because if you love God, if you gave the offering because the core of your being, it doesn't matter what you gave.

It doesn't develop as a man.

Is your day spent pleasing God? If your days are spent pleasing God, trying to want Him to be in your life, then it says all things will work out for good, even our mistakes. God will take your mistakes and turn them into something good.

God can take the pain of our own sins and lead us to forgiveness and turn it into something good.

Write that down. Put that on your computer. Put that inside a book.

Put that on your fridge. Put that on your mirror when you shave in the morning.

Okay. God will do this. I can believe that. I can believe that.

Last scripture. 1 Peter.

1 Peter. There's actually a couple of verses to this one. 1 Peter 1.

It's been a long day. 400 miles is a long way to drive in one day. 1 Peter 1, verse 2.

Let's turn to verse 3.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. I started this verse because it gives us a context. It gives us the past and the present.

He says, remember here that our Father has given us mercy through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. And because of that, in your present life, you have a living hope. He didn't just say a hope. It's interesting. He put these words together. It's living. It's alive. It has energy. You and I have a living hope.

Verse 4. To an inheritance. That's our future. The kingdom of God. His family. Verse 5. To an inheritance, incorruptible and undefiled, that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you. Reserved in heaven for you.

What have you done tonight? You know, maybe after the Sabbath, you and your wife, it's your anniversary, and you're going out to the fanciest restaurant in San Antonio. And right now, you know that. And you know that there's a table at that restaurant that has, you know, this really nice china and some flowers that it says reserved for.

Now, you know that that's there for you. You can close your eyes and see it. If you've been to the restaurant before, you can even think of where it is and how it's set up, everything about it. And it is reserved. You know, the only question is whether you'll show up or not.

You don't have to show up, but it is reserved.

You have, according to what Peter says here, you say, yeah, Peter had that reserved. No, you have. If you have received God's Spirit, you have reserved in heaven, prepared for you. When Christ comes back, you have reserved in heaven your inheritance, and it already has your name stamped on it, and it's reserved. There's only one question. Will you cross the Jordan to go get it?

That's any question. It's not whether it's there or not, but, promisely, it was there.

They could see it. Could you imagine what it was like to walk up to the top of a high hill as you're headed back out into absolute, desolate wilderness, and you could see it over there?

Could you imagine what that must have felt like?

How we're going away from the promised land. God's taking us away. We could see it. It was right there.

It's right there, folks. It's right there.

It's reserved. Your name's already written down on your little reserve card.

The table's already set. It's already reserved. Our question is, and what we have to face is, do we have the vision of that?

And do we believe our God will take us there?

There are giants in their hills.

There are walled cities. There are men of war with chariots, and you and I are going to have to face them.

The question is, are we like the ten?

It was interesting. He sent leaders who came back and said, the problems are too great. Do we think the problems are too great? Nothing can be solved. There's no human solution to this. Many, many times in your life, God is going to bring you to the point where there's no human solution. That's the way it is. That's what faith is. And do we stop and say, like Caleb, like Joshua, oh no, that's just food for us. We'll eat this up, because our Lord is with us, our God is with us, because that's a land He promised to us. That's a kingdom He promised to us.

And Satan and the demons, all those giants out there, don't mean a thing.

Don't mean a thing. Now, you've got to fight, but you have to believe you're going to win.

So is your concern the greatness of the giants or the greatness of our God?