Only Known to God

Well, throughout human history, the overwhelming majority of people created in the image of God have lived their lives and died unsaved and unfulfilled. Most lived in human cultures that didn't know or understand the concept of a single, all-powerful God. Imagine growing up in the Asian world, which traditionally had the largest number of population at any given time, where they believed in many gods, where they had no understanding of Western civilization, no understanding of a single God, no understanding of the Hebrew Bible or the New Testament or the things that we take for granted here.

Most never heard of the Old Testament or the New Testament. Most never even heard a single word of the Gospel. They were born, they lived, they accomplished things, and they died. And that's been going on for millennia, for thousands and thousands of years. They had unfulfilled skills and talents. They had their own goals, hopes, and dreams.

And perhaps for a few of those who lived in civilizations with a written language, we may even find a brief acknowledgement that they once existed. But the truth is that 99% of all human beings who have ever lived, there is no record of their existence. No tombstone, no proof that they were ever alive, except maybe through some DNA tracking. No memory of them. Who and what they were known only to God. Let's go to Psalm, chapter 1, 47, and we'll begin in verse 1. Psalm 147, beginning in verse 1.

It says, Praise the Lord. For it is good to sing praises to our God, for it is pleasant and praise is beautiful. The Lord builds up Jerusalem. God wants to edify things. He builds up people. He wants to build a new world and a new kingdom. He gathers together the outcast of Israel, all of those who had been scattered to every continent on this earth. He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.

He counts the number of stars and calls them by name. Great is our Lord and mighty in power. His understanding is infinite. I want to focus on the statement here that he counts the number of the stars. It's interesting that that's inserted immediately after a discussion about returning the outcast of Israel. There's a purpose for that. There's a reason that we go from gathering the outcast of Israel to God knowing the number of stars.

Thanks to the Hubble telescope, it's now estimated there are one billion trillion stars in the observable universe, observable, obviously, in the Hubble telescope. That's a one with 21 zeros after it, a little more than most of us can comprehend. So if God has counted and remembers the names of one billion trillion stars, which is what the psalmist tells us here, do you think he has any difficulty remembering the names of a mere, perhaps, 100 billion people who have collectively ever lived on Earth throughout history?

The number truly is unknown how many have ever lived, but we could just say 100 billion to round it out. Revelation 20 and verse 4. That's why we look forward so much to this day. Revelation 20 and verse 4. Because God has not forgotten a single soul. He knows everyone who has ever existed from every continent and every part of this Earth by name. He knows what was in their heart. He knows their goals, their untapped talent, their potential that seemingly is lost forever. Revelation 20 and verse 4. And I saw thrones, and they that sat on them are the saints, and judgment was committed to them.

Then I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their witness to Jesus and for the word of God, who had worshipped the beast, who had not worshipped the beast or his image, and had not received the mark on their foreheads or on their hands.

Regarding these saints, it says, and they lived and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. And then verse 5. But the rest of the dead did not live again until the thousand years were finished. Regarding those who are sitting on thrones. And it says, this is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he who has a part in the first resurrection. Of course, Paul talks about that in Thessalonians chapter 4 and verse 15.

How the saints at the return of Jesus Christ will leave this world, go into the air, and meet the returning Christ in the clouds. And as Zachariah, the prophet Zachariah reminds us in chapter 14, Jesus Christ will return to this earth and his feet will stand on the Mount of Olives. And of course, his saints will be with him. Those are the individuals who are blessed to be part of that first resurrection.

Continuing here, blessed and holy is he who has a part in the first resurrection. Over such the second death has no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ and shall reign with him a thousand years. You see, brethren, every life is precious to God. And he intends to provide a real chance to everyone who has ever lived, a chance for them to know him and to receive at least one opportunity for salvation.

It's been about 28 years since I stood before the open coffin of Amal. His son Gary turned to me and said, I think he's finally at peace now. I think he's at peace for the first time in his life. Perhaps no other words could have more appropriately described Amal's life. I personally never knew Amal well, so I inquired about his life from his son Gary and his daughter Sharon and his ex-wife.

Amal was born in 1917 to a large family. His father Tom was an immigrant. He had emigrated from Wales around the turn of the century, around the year 1900. Amal's father Tom, like himself, was very talented and was a very gifted man. Tom was musically gifted. He played the piano. He was a very accomplished piano player. He played a command performance before Queen Victoria, but there was little opportunity in South Wales, so he emigrated around the year 1900 to the United States. Tom, Amal's father, was kind of a restless man. He could never seem to put all the puzzle pieces of life together and make it fit.

About age 40, he decided to retire and stop working. He wasn't financially able to retire. He just got tired of the drudgery of employment, and he stopped working for a living and expected family and other people to care for him and pay his bills and take care of him for the next 30 years of his life.

He had no visible means of support. When Amal and his brothers reached 13 years old, their father kicked them out of the house. Now, this may have come from a tradition that occurred in South Wales. People lived in such poverty that it was about age 13 that sons were sent to the pits, that's the coal mines, to work deep in the mines in order to bring in more income for the family.

So, about age 13, your education ended, and you were sent down into the pits in order to mine coal. That's maybe where that came from. But at 13, his sons were told it's time to make it on their own. Tom was an alcoholic. One comment made by someone, because he was very good at his hands, he was a very talented individual.

Sometimes he worked on cars. Cars in the 1920s and 30s were becoming far more common, and he did some mechanic work. And one gentleman remarked, Tom is an excellent mechanic when he's sober. His son Amal grew up during the Great Depression, and it only seemed to nurture his own sense of restlessness. Like many who grew up during those times, he was a junk collector, thinking that everything would have a need someday, and there was so much scarcity during the Great Depression that he virtually hung on to everything that he had.

As the Second World War started, Amal was denied enlistment because he had a minor physical fault. However, he turned his attention to the skill of tool and dye making, and he was an outstanding tool and dye maker. He was naturally gifted in the skill of making very precise dyes. He would create a number of dyes that greatly helped the war effort during World War II and was used by the automotive industry.

Amal also possessed many other natural talents, including a splendid singing voice. As the war was ending, Amal wanted what everyone wanted who came back from the war. He wanted a family, a home, happiness, and all the wonderful things that life is supposed to provide. Amal would even receive a few patents for the inventions he created. After the war, he married. He began a family. He seemed to have it all. As the 1940s ended, he had a prestigious job as a respected tool and dye maker, and those were the days when tool and dye makers wore white coats, like lab coats.

It was a highly respected and prestigious career. He had a good income. He had a family. Matter of fact, he was the co-founder of a company in Cleveland, Ohio that still exists to this day. But like his father, he also drank too much, and he eventually lost co-ownership and influence in that company.

His restless nature surfaced because something was missing in his life. He began to drink heavily and consistently, and it changed him. It changed his personality, and it changed his life forever. He became violent and abusive. His young wife divorced him. She took custody of their three children. He became bitter at these circumstances, and for spite, because he had a very marketable trade, he traveled from state to state to avoid paying any child support. I hope I'm not the cause of that siren. Does that happen every week, or is it just me?

Alright, it's quieting down. So again, he became bitter at the circumstances of his divorce and his wife receiving custody of his children, and he traveled from state to state to avoid paying child support. He abandoned his youngest son. By age 40, he was an alcoholic with a broken family, shattered dreams, and a ruined life. He would never marry again for the next 35 years until his death. At age 75, he lived alone. He died in a small trailer.

Late in life, he attempted to establish a relationship with his children and grandchildren, and even at this, he seemed uncomfortable. He struggled. He was like a fish out of water. He just couldn't put the puzzle pieces of life together.

His restless spirit would usually cause him to arrive unannounced at the house of one of his children, who may not even be there, or may have just been leaving to go somewhere else when he would show up unexpectedly for a brief visit. His nephew described Amel in one word. He said Amel was a lone wolf. Amel smoked most of his life, as did, frankly, most people in his generation. And about five years before he died, he was diagnosed with throat cancer. He survived that. He did well with that. But a few years later, he was diagnosed with lung cancer.

And like most things in his life, Amel decided to go it alone. He didn't want any help. He didn't want any support. He received radiation treatments, but they only made him sicker one night in the spring of 1993, alone, and wracked with pain. Knowing that he would not feel any better and he would not recover, Amel put a revolver to his temple, and he pulled the trigger.

He was discovered two days later by his nephew. It's kind of a sad story of Amel's life. It isn't really that much different from most who have ever lived. He was born with so much potential, so much talent, yet he never really achieved much in his life.

Amel's life was filled with so much promise, yet he was never able to put all those pieces together and make his life work. He could never seem to find personal fulfillment or real, lasting happiness. Most of the hopes and dreams and desires and potential that Amel had were never attained in his life, and they died along with him.

All of his accomplishments, like all human accomplishments, were brief and fleeting. But is Amel's life really that much different than most people who have ever lived? Let's go to Ecclesiastes chapter 3 and verse 10. Ecclesiastes chapter 3 and verse 10. Ecclesiastes can sometimes be a discouraging book, because actually the theme is what life is like without having a relationship with God. So it isn't often very positive in major portions of the book of Ecclesiastes. It says, I've seen the God-given task with which the sons of men are to be occupied.

He has made everything beautiful in its time. He also has put eternity in their hearts. Deep-wired within humanity is a desire to continue to live, to fight and struggle and live. He's put eternity into their hearts, except that no one can find out the work that God does from beginning to end. No one can understand this plan that God has, except of course a very few who later in the New Covenant would be shown God's plan of salvation. But certainly at the time of this writing, no one can find out or understand the work, find out what God is even doing from the beginning to the ending of time.

Verse 12. I know that nothing is better for them than to rejoice and to do good in their lives, and also that every man should eat and drink and enjoy the good of all his labor.

This, to enjoy your labor, to enjoy the wonderful blessings of this physical life, this is the gift of God. I'm going to read verse 11 from a different translation, the translation of God's word. Quote, it is beautiful how God has done everything at the right time. He has put a sense of eternity in people's minds, yet mortals still can't grasp what God is doing from the beginning to the end of time.

Again, that's the God's word, translation. Only God can reveal to his sons and daughters his plan for humanity, including those billions of souls who once lived, loved, accomplished things, died without ever having access to God in any way. There's a deep-seated desire that we have as the human race to live forever. It's so deep-seated that sometimes humankind has invented false doctrines like the immortal soul, which is kind of interesting because Paul wrote in Romans chapter 6 and verse 23 that the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. If you're an immortal soul, you already have eternal life.

It would not be a gift. But humankind wants desperately to live forever, so much so that we even create doctrines that are not biblical, like reincarnation, that somehow you're reborn into different creatures, maybe from a butterfly to a frog to eventually, I guess, if you have enough sins, you become a human being. I don't know how that works, but reincarnation. To satisfy this inner desire that we have to live forever.

Perhaps tombstones have become so popular because it's hoped that as stone, they will last for many generations is saying, I once was here. I lived.

But given enough time, even tombstones erode and eventually turn to dust.

In ancient Sparta, which was in Greece, only two types of citizens were allowed to have a tombstone by law. One was a warrior who died in battle. The second, according to law, was a mother who died in childbirth. So much was the respect given to women who bore children. If you were to ponder the amount of resources and money that we spend in health care in the United States to extend life, to cure disease, we'll spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to keep someone alive another 30 days. Maybe we can keep them alive another three months, another six months. We'll spend an enormous amount of money and resources to extend human life. And why? It's because of our wired desire for eternity. As a culture, any step that we can take towards extending human life is considered a step in the right direction, considered a step towards immortality. But we are mortal. In 2008, while visiting the Feast of Tabernacles in Italy, I took a side trip to the American World War II cemetery at Anzio. It's a beautiful park maintained by the United States government. 77 beautiful, well-manicured acres. There are 7,861 white crosses in a gentle arc, a number of arcs that sweep across the landscape. In addition, on a white marble wall in the chapel are the names of 3,096 missing whose remains were never found. A total of 10,956 young men are memorialized at the site. Their average age was 26 years old. They basically died because they tried to have a beachhead on Anzio. American strategy was flawed, and for months and months they were stuck there, just pounded by the Germans. It wasn't until four months later that they were able to break out of that beachhead and get farther on land. It was terrible.

What were their dreams? Their talents? The potential of all these young men?

Average age, 26 years old. Who knows the individual potential that each young man who died there?

Only God knows. Who knows the remains and the hopes and the dreams of the 3,096 missing who there weren't even enough parts left over to put into a grave and put a white cross on that grave?

God knows exactly where they are. God knows what their hopes were, what their dreams were.

Does someone want to marry the girl next door? Take over their father's business, raise a family, go to college after the war, develop a hobby or a career? We'll never know.

But, brethren, there's a reason why God made us physical.

Let's find out what that reason is in Genesis 3 and verse 22. There's a reason why, after the sin of Adam and Eve, God determined that human beings would live a certain period of time in this world of sin and then they would die. Genesis 3 and verse 22.

Then the Lord God said, Behold, the man has become like one of us to no good and evil. And evil in the hands of human beings is destructive and painful. It causes dysfunction. It causes war, violence, hatred, disease to no good and evil. And now lest he put his hand out of his hand, and take also the tree of life and eat and live forever, therefore the Lord God sent him out of the Garden of Eden to the ground from which he was taken. So he drove out the man and he placed carobim at the east of the Garden of Eden and a flaming sword which turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life. God would not allow Adam and Eve to partake of the tree of life. To do so would have resulted in eternal life. An eternal life without a purpose and without living in harmony with God's laws would have resulted in perpetual misery or sorrow. Could you imagine what it would be like to grow old and be in pain 24-7 but live forever with that pain? Could you imagine what it would be like to have been born with a physical disability and to live forever with that disability? Adam and Eve sinned and this sin resulted in them cutting themselves off from their Creator and cutting off humanity from our opportunity of real fulfillment. Cutting off humanity to try to do it on our own. To cutting off humanity from reaching our potential. Because of sin, they would now be driven from their home, that garden that God had created for them. Their home was intended to be with God in that paradise called Eden. Humanity's home from the beginning was intended to be in the paradise of God. So since they were driven out of Eden, the paradise of God was created in the paradise that God is going to restore to this earth is the kingdom of God. And mankind has been trying to find his own way home ever since. We've been trying to do it our way instead of relying on God for the instructions. We've been trying to create our own civilizations, our own cultures, our own religions, our own governments. We think politics will solve our world's problems.

Brother and politicians are a lot like diapers.

They need to be changed regularly for the exact same reason.

Politics is not the answer. Governments of man are not the answer. This world's religions and its cultures and its languages and science are not the answer. God, and having a relationship with him, is the answer. Let's see what the prophet Isaiah wrote about our attempt as a race of people to do things our own way. Isaiah chapter 26 and verse 17. Let's go there and see what the prophet reminds us. Again, Isaiah chapter 26 and verse 17. Paul used a similar analogy in Romans chapter 8 and verse 22. He talked about how creation labors and it groans with birth pangs.

The convulsions we have in this world war and disease and famine and hatred, hatred among the races, hatred among peoples of so much diversity. The prophet Isaiah said this very succinctly, chapter 26 and verse 17. As a woman with child is in labor and he cries out in her pangs, this is what the world is like trying to do it our way without seeking God. When she draws near the time of her delivery, so have we been in your sight, oh Lord. That's what a human race has been like since we left the Garden of Eden.

We have been with child. We have been in pain. We saw in the sermon the other day how many millions and millions of people have died in various wars, even in the last century how many people Nazi Germany killed, Stalin, Mao Zedong, many others, even in the 20th century we've had many, many millions die, 21st century we've had many, many millions die due to war. We have been in pain.

We have, as it were, brought forth wind. Instead of bringing forth something positive in these labor pains the earth is in, instead of bringing forth anything productive, all we bring forth is wind. We have not accomplished any deliverance in the earth, nor have the inhabitants of the world fallen. Now that's kind of a muddled translation. Other translations have it. I'm reading from the New King James. Other translations have it, nor they have the inhabitants created anything new that's worthwhile, nothing that's been born that is positive or important. And then the prophet shifts from the statement of our world today into a prophecy. Verse 19. Your dead shall live together with my dead body. The prophet is referring to himself. They shall rise, awake and sing, you who are due, you who dwell in dust.

For your due is like the dew of the herbs and the earth shall cast out the dead.

The prophet himself looked forward to a time, in spite of all the confusion that we live in in our world today, in spite of our futile efforts to do it our way, apart from God, that God still has a plan. And he's going to bring people back to life at the end of the thousand years that we read about a little bit earlier. And give all of those who never had an opportunity for salvation, never had an opportunity to know him, have a relationship with him, to have that kind of a relationship. The aspirations and personal dreams of billions cry out in the dust. Most died thinking their hopes and their dreams were forever lost. Let's read about just a couple of verses here in Ezekiel chapter 37. She'll turn there with me. A prophecy that's often called the valley of dry bones. Looking forward to this time that we're talking about today. Just look at a few verses.

Ezekiel chapter 37.

And we'll read verse one.

Ezekiel chapter 37 and verse one. It says, the hand of the Lord came upon me and brought me out in the Spirit of the Lord and set me down in the midst of the valley, and it was full of bones.

It says these are dry bones, meaning they are, some of them are old bones. They have been dead for thousands and thousands of years. This is the prophecy, the vision, that God gives Ezekiel. Now we'll pick it up here in verse 11. And he said to me, Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They indeed say our bones are dry, our hope is lost, we ourselves are cut off.

They say we're sinners, we died sinners.

No one even knows who we are anymore. No one knows our hopes. No one knows our dreams.

But someone does. Verse 12. Therefore prophesy and say to them, Thus says the Lord God, Behold, O people, I will open your graves and cause you to come up from your graves and bring you to the land of Israel. Then you shall know that I am the Lord. When I have opened up your graves, O my people, and brought you up from your graves, I will put my spirit in you and you shall live. And I will place you in your own land. Then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken it and performed it. They think their hope is lost.

They think because they were human beings and had sinned that they don't have a future, that their dreams will never be fulfilled, that no one even remembers them or knows who they are.

But God does.

God never forgets his children. She knows every one of their names. He remembers every individual hope, every goal, every desire, every one and any one has ever had.

Brother, the greatest collection of human knowledge and talent and wisdom is not in our libraries. The greatest collection of human knowledge, talent, and wisdom is not in our think tanks or our universities. The greatest collection of human knowledge and talent is located in our cemeteries, in the dust of the earth. God has not forgotten a single individual.

Mary Cadwell Fisher was a volunteer nurse who did nursing duties in the Second Corps hospital during the Battle of Gettysburg. About half the deaths in the Civil War, you may or may not know, were due to disease rather than combat. Here's what she wrote about a young drummer boy she met on July 6th, a few days after the battle. And I'm going to read directly these words. These are from her diary. She wrote, and I quote, one beautiful evening after long day's hard work, one of the boys came out to me and said, there's a little chap out there who heard there was a woman from his home and he wants to see you. I found him at the farthest extremity of the hospital with a half a dozen other hopeless cases. He was a lovely boy, scarcely more than a child, who had run away from his home in Providence, Rhode Island to join the Drum Corps. He was a brave boy and a great pet among the soldiers who nursed him as tenderly as possible but could poorly supply a mother's care.

How he longed for one more look of her dear face, and once again to hear her sweet words of love.

He was so frail and slight, it was a marvel how he could have endured the fatigue and privation for so long. He was not disfigured by wounds but by constant marches, insufficient food, and often sleepless nights. They had exhausted his strength and he had not vitality to resist the sharp attack of fever. He was perfectly conscious but too weak to say much. I asked the poor child what I could do for him. He said, oh, I want my mother. I sat down on the ground and taking him in my arms tried to comfort him. He turned his face to me, saying, I am so tired.

Laid his head against me and appeared to sleep. The last rays of the sun touched the lovely figures of the dying boy. The long-drawn shadows vanished in the gathering darkness.

Silence unbroken, saved by the plaintive moan of some poor victim, succeeded the hum of the busy day. The pitying dews shed a balm upon his brow.

Fainter and fainter grew the breath and more feeble the clasp of the little hand, when suddenly he opened his eyes, blazed in death, and looking long and earnestly in my face said, kiss me, lady, before I die. Clinging still closer to the stranger who could but faintly represent the fond mother's tenderness he so eagerly craved. He dropped away his heavy eyelids and slept away from his brief life as peacefully as a child goes to sleep in his mother's arms.

I gently laid the lifeless form down on the hard earth and left him to a soldier's burial and a nameless grave. Poor fellow! What an Adam he seemed to be in all of this mass of wretched, suffering, dying humanity. Yet he was all the world to the heart of that mother, who wept and prayed for her darling, safe return from a distant home, that never again would echo his boyish step or his ringing laugh.

This young boy was never identified and is believed to be buried in one of the unknown soldier plots at Gettysburg National Cemetery. Here again is an example, just a mere boy who died before reaching manhood. Who did he want to be? He was caught up in a conflict that wasn't of his making. Did he want to be a musician? A doctor? Did he want to be married someday?

Did he want to be a father? What went through this young boy's mind as he literally knew and understood consciously that his life was ebbing away? We'll never know any of these things, but God does. And he'll allow this little boy to live out his dreams and the desires he had in a world that will nurture and love him like a loving mother. Ephesians chapter 5 verses 6, Ephesians chapter 5 verse 6, just a short verse that I'll read here.

Ephesians 5 verse 6, therefore he says, Awake you who sleep, arise from the dead, and Christ will give you light. He's quoting, actually, a portion of us. Isaiah chapter 26 and verse 19 that we read earlier.

Paul is saying there's coming a time when those who are dead, those who are asleep, will awaken and they'll rise and live again. But they won't live in a world like the one they died in.

They will live in a world in which Jesus Christ gives the world light, in which Jesus Christ has restored a government and established a kingdom of love and mercy and compassion and grace and opportunity that will give everyone that chance at fulfillment. Everyone that opportunity to reach their God-given potential. Everyone to fulfill their dreams.

Across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C., is a large plot of land. It was owned after the American Revolution by the descendants of George Washington, and they were named the Custis family.

In 1802, the family began construction of a mansion called Arlington House.

The house was later occupied by Mary Custis and her husband, Colonel Robert E. Lee. But Colonel Lee decided to support his beloved Virginia and the Confederacy, and the family abandoned Arlington House and the land that was around it. Afterwards, Union troops occupied Arlington House, and the land was confiscated by the United States federal government for unpaid taxes.

And today, Arlington National Cemetery has within it over 400,000 graves.

Yet almost in the center of Arlington National Cemetery is a special place. I've been there twice in my life, once as a young child taken there by my parents another time a number of years ago, when we kept a feast at Tabernacles nearby, and I took that journey. It's a very special place. It's a tomb, and it's called the Tomb of the Unknowns. And it's one of Arlington's most popular tourist sites.

The tomb contains the remains of unknown American soldiers from World War I, from World War II, from the Korean conflict, and until 1998, the Vietnam War. Actually, through DNA, they were able to determine who that individual was from the Vietnam War, and they sent that person back home to be buried by their family. It's a very sober, a very somber place.

The tomb is guarded 24 hours a day and 365 days a year by specially trained members of the Third United States Infantry. The idea behind the tomb of the unknown soldiers is simple. Inside the tomb are the remains of people whose identities are unknown.

These were people with individual hopes and dreams and desires that went unfulfilled, and we know nothing about who they even were. We know they existed because we have their remains, but aside from that, we know absolutely nothing about them. On the western panel of the tomb are inscribed these words. Here rests, in honored glory, an American soldier known but to God. The truth, brethren, is that the overwhelming number of human beings who have ever lived throughout human history and died, they have no headstone or memorial. No one even knows their names. So many generations have passed that no one even knows they ever existed. And their mortal remains have turned to dust, to earthen soil. They, too, like these soldiers, are known but to God, and He has not forgotten a single one of them. They, too, are intended to be part of His plan. God said to Adam in Genesis 3 and verse 17, For in the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken, for dust you are and dust you shall return. And that has been fulfilled for millennia with the remains of billions and billions of individuals who lived, who loved, who accomplished some things, who died, and eventually turned to dust. Let's take a look at Ecclesiastes chapter 9 and we'll take a look at beginning in verse 5. Again, the book of Ecclesiastes can sometimes be considered a rather discouraging book because its emphasis is on what a life is like without the knowledge of God. This is chapter 9, beginning in verse 5. It says, for the living know that they will die, and you and I have that awareness, that consciousness, every day when I look in the mirror and I'm to the point in my life when I comb my hair that I take the hairs out of the comb and put them back in place in my head. So we're obviously growing old if we're honest with ourselves and we look in the mirror and we see that we're aging, we know that we have a limited shelf time. For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing. They don't have immortal souls. They're not aware of what's going on in the world. They know nothing. And they have no more reward. Nothing else for them to do. They lack consciousness. They're waiting for a resurrection from the dead. For the memory of them is forgotten. And again, the memory of the overwhelming majority of human beings who have ever lived is totally, completely forgotten. So many generations when they lived, 800 BC, the 15th century, so many generations have come and gone that even anyone who was alive when they were is long dead like they are, not mentioned in history anywhere, no proof that they even existed. Indeed, the memory of them is forgotten. Also, their love, their hatred, and their envy has now perished. Every desire that they had, the fulfillment they wanted to have in their lives, the talents they wanted to develop, the potential that God had given them within their DNA, all of those have now perished. Never more will they have a share in anything under the sun. And that's certainly true in this age. But God has not forgotten them. And in another age, the kingdom of God, they are going to be resurrected from the dead. Go and eat your bread with joy, and drink your wine with a merry heart, for God has already accepted your works. Let your garments always be white, and let your head lack no oil. Live joyfully with the wife whom you love all the days of your vain life, which He has given you under the sun, all your days of vanity, for that is your portion in life, and in the labor in which you perform under the sun. Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might, for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom in the grave where you are going.

That's pretty distressing to read that. But there is hope. And that hope is represented by this very day, the eighth day or the last great day of the Feast of Tabernacles, where these individuals who have no hope, who have no knowledge, no wisdom, no consciousness in the grave, will be resurrected, and will have an opportunity to know God and know His way of life. This very day, this eighth day, added immediately following the Feast of Tabernacles, is part of God's plan for the billions of people who lived and died and are forgotten but are known to God.

Now, for those of us who have accepted Jesus Christ as our Lord and have received His Holy Spirit, our faithfulness will be rewarded upon the return of Jesus Christ. And Paul talks about the first resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15.

But for the vast majority of those who have ever lived and died, this day in God's plan shows that God loves all His potential children, and He has not forgotten a single one of them.

A merciful and loving God would not go through the effort to remember the names of everyone who has ever lived, and, on the other hand, condemn them to an eternal hellfire because they lived in the part of the world in which they never even heard the name of Jesus.

The Word of God answers God's plan for all humanity.

I've never had the privilege of knowing any of the boys who died at Anzio or Gettysburg or the individuals whose bodies lie in the tomb of the unknown, the young drummer boy. They're known only to God. However, I'm looking forward to the fulfillment of this day in God's great plan.

I know that the time will come after a 1,000-year millennium when the billions of souls will be resurrected who have not known God and will live again.

And at that time, I'm looking forward to the resurrection.

And to say this to Amal.

Hi, Dad.

This is your youngest son, Greg. It's great to see you again.

I know that your life wasn't what you expected it to be.

And I know right now you must be confused, afraid.

But everything is going to be all right.

This is a world that God has prepared for you. This is your chance to do it right and to achieve all the dreams you ever had.

And those talents and your incredible potential.

God has great plans for you, Dad, because He loves you.

That's why He's just resurrected you. To give you a real opportunity to know Him and to understand what Jesus Christ did and why Jesus Christ died for you.

You're going to love this world and all the beautiful things that God has created and established for you to grow and thrive and reach your God-given potential.

What lies ahead for you will be wonderful and exciting.

And I promise you that I will be there to help you and to love you every step of the way.

Dad, welcome to the Kingdom of God.