See the Future

Well, what a wonderful sound. I'd certainly like to thank the choir on only behalf of everyone here for the excellent job they've done, for the wonderful job Janelle Johnson has done. I know the many hours that you've put into this, it is a labor of love, and we do appreciate it. Several have mentioned about Todd Carey and all the work that he's done here. And I'd like to thank him, because I know the coordinators do a lot of work. He works for three months or more. He works all year long, but it's about a three-month job, actually, to be able to put all of this together, all the details.

There are literally hundreds of details that you have to look after. And I'll guarantee you, he didn't do it by himself. Gloria was there to assist him, to help him. And we couldn't do our job without our wives, so I know that he appreciated it. This site is wonderful. It's a millennial setting. It makes you want to come back again next year. So, you know, it's something that I know I hope that we will be able to use. Mr. Thompson, this morning, gave a wonderful message about our coming future, what God is going to do with all humanity.

And actually, if you understand what he had to say, it's the skeleton of God's truth. In essence, it's the backbone that holds everything up. Because you can understand that one doctrine about the resurrection, and what God is going to do with humanity. Your mind is open. And I've always felt, in dealing with new perspectives, that if they understood that basic fundamental truth, that God was really working with them and calling them.

And I'd like to finally thank all of you, because our attendance has been remarkable. We have not varied that much. We've been over a thousand, generally around a thousand to one hundred every day. And so that means you're here for the right purpose and the right reason. And it's not just to eat, but it's to hear the messages, to fellowship with one another. And I've seen many of you sitting around for an hour or more after services talking, getting reacquainted. And that's a wonderful thing. I'd like to start today with this. Most of you can't make this out. Those who are in the back might be able to see it on the big screen.

I'll tell you what it is. It's a cup full of dirt. Now, what could you do with dirt? You could maybe make bricks or clay. You out of clay dirt. You could make bricks if you had some straw. You could take those bricks and you might build a house. You could actually put dirt in the flower plants or plant and grow flowers in it. You could plant a garden in dirt and grow vegetables. The plant kingdom all grows in the soil. Trees, grass, the floor and the flannel live off of the soil in what it produces.

We vacuum dirt, don't we? We get a little dust, a little dirt in our house. We vacuum it up, we sweep it, and we try to get it out of the house. Our clothes get dirty, so we throw them in the washer. Years ago, I remember visiting with some people who were not that well off in the south, and they had dirt floors. I visited with people in Mexico who lived in houses that you could see through the walls and who had dirt floors. We wash our face, our ears, our body to get rid, basically, of dirt or crud or whatever might be there. But let me ask you another question. What can God do with dirt?

What can God do with it? Well, God actually said that He created every animal and every bird out of the ground. So God can actually create animals and birds out of the dirt. In the book of Genesis, we find that God created man out of the dirt. You know, the only one who was not created directly out of the dirt that I know of was Momen. He took her out of the man. Everybody else came up out of the dirt in some form or fashion. But God is taking dirt, bags of dirt, that's you and me, sitting here right now. And He is transforming us into His image to be like Him.

If you wanted a title for this, it would be, Dust to Glory, Dirt to Divine, whichever one you'd like to choose. The Bible says even the angels desire to look into what God is doing. They look down and they are amazed. Let's go over to 2 Peter, 2 Peter 1, verses 10 and 11. We read, therefore, brethren, be even more diligent to make your call and election sure, for if you do these things, you will never stumble.

And so an entrance will be supplied to you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord. God Almighty has been waiting for 6,000 years for our birth. Some of you women, when you were pregnant, can remember very vividly the last few months of your pregnancy. You thought, well, that baby never come. My wife used to feel that way because she would get rather large. And the last few months were very uncomfortable. Well, God's been waiting for 6,000 years for us.

The Father and the Son had this all planned out before the angels were created or before the physical universe was created. Now, you stop and think, as far as human beings counting time, how far back would that be? Well, nobody knows. It could be millions of years.

Somewhere back in eternity. God had to sit down and plan everything out. If God wanted to share life with his sons and daughters, how was He going to do it? How would He bring it about? How could He create us and make it so that we rejected Him, that we would cease to exist, but give us the opportunity to be able to live forever and become a part of His kingdom?

As Titus chapter 1 and verse 2 tells us, Titus 1-2, that the hope of eternal life was promised before time began, before God even created the physical creation. Because you don't have time in the spiritual dimension. You have it in the physical dimension. Now, you notice in this scripture, it says that we would be abundantly welcomed into God's kingdom. That word in the phrase in the Greek describes the welcome that was given to the Olympic winners when they returned home, back in Greece.

Let me read you the contemporary English version of this. Verse 11, it says, Then our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, will give you a glorious welcome into the kingdom that will last forever. There's going to come a day when you and I, if we are privileged to be in the resurrection, and we are changed and we come into the very kingdom of God, that God will give us a glorious welcome. The closest thing that I can think of that would compare to that today is when a team wins a Super Bowl.

Look how crazy the city goes where they won. There may be hundreds of thousands of people who turn out to cheer their team on. Well, when you and I are welcomed into the kingdom of God, and as we step into eternity, God is going to say, Well done, Joe. Well done, Susie. Well done, Sally. Or whatever your name might be. I knew you could make it. I've been rooting for you. I've been working with you.

And Christ could even say, I died for you. To make it possible for you to be here, so that we can share eternity together. The word entrance means the road into. So God is going to give us an abundant welcome into His kingdom. In Isaiah 57 and verse 15, we read, Thus says the high and lofty one who inhabits eternity, whose name is holy. I dwell in high and holy places with him who has a contrite and humble spirit.

So the Almighty God looks down on us as His people. If we have a contrite and a humble spirit, and so if we want God on our side, we don't have Him on our side if we're puffed up, proud, vain, cocky, and in this manner, but if we are contrite and have a humble spirit. The word for eternity, when it says that God inhabits eternity, means perpetuality or forever, continuous future, ancient of past time, forever in the future time, continuous existence. God has always existed, and He is not limited by the physical.

There's going to come a day when you and I will step into another dimension, as we heard this morning, John Ross Schroeder talking about that. We will step into the spiritual dimension. There is such a thing, if you want to call it that, as parallel dimensions. Right now, in this room, there are probably thousands of angels. Now, if God opened our eyes as He did Elijah's servants to see them, or to see horses and chariots and see angels, you and I would be done struggling. We'd be flabbergasted.

But yet, they're here, but we don't see them, because they're in another dimension. They can exist right here with us. They're in a different realm. We don't see spirit in its glorified form, because if we did, we'd be burned to a crisp. We would die. We couldn't exist there as human beings. We will, once we're in God's kingdom, be able to reappear into the physical realm, just as angels have, Christ did after His resurrection.

We'll be able to walk through walls. We'll be able to talk to people. What I want us to look at and focus and think about as we lead this feast to Tabernacles and Last Great Day is, what is it going to be like to be in God's kingdom forever? What does God reveal to us? Our minds have difficulty comprehending what it's going to be like, because we've never seen the spirit world.

When you experience something, my wife has experienced childbirth five times. Now, I've been there. I held her hand. I grunted. I encouraged her. Come on, you can do it. But I'll tell you, I never had the baby. And until you experience that, you don't really know what a woman goes through. All of you women who have had children know what other women are going through when they have children. So it is here. You and I have never seen the spirit world. We haven't existed in the spirit world.

We've not interacted in the sense of visibly being able to see the spirit world. Therefore, we try to think about what it would be like. And that's all I can do. And I realize that I'm very inadequate as a human being, and try to put words together to describe that.

But God does give us a glimpse of the future. And there is going to come a time when you and I will experience it, when we will step into that dimension. What will it be like for all eternity beyond the great white throne judgment?

Today we're going to take a look at how God the Father and Jesus Christ will complete the plan of salvation, how they will finish creating their family. We want to take a look at God and see if we can expand our understanding and comprehension of His ability, His power, and His concern to accomplish what He said He would do. Because, let's realize, there is no force, there is no power in the universe, that can prevent God Almighty from doing what He said He will do.

And He has a plan, He has a purpose, and He will carry that plan out. And that plan includes you, includes me, includes all of us, every human being. And so, in looking at this, we'll find out that God is not limited in the way that we are.

God does not function according to limitations. We're going to become a part of that Kingdom. And today, you and I are... we're handicapped by the physical. We're handicapped, you know, we can have all kinds of problems. We can be blind, we can have hearing difficulty, we can lose our hair, we might not be able to walk properly.

The physical handicaps, but in the resurrection, the physical will lose its grip on us. It's as if it will just sort of fade away from us. And we will be able to live on the other side, in that other realm, in a different dimension, with God and with Jesus Christ.

So I want to cover a group of Scriptures today that we can apply to us today and how we should be living to the world tomorrow, to the great white throne judgment, and for all eternity. Let's begin back in Psalm 145, verse 10, Psalm, chapter 145. And we will begin reading here in verse 10.

Verse 10 says, "'All your works shall praise you, O Lord, and your saints will bless you. They will speak of the glory of your kingdom and talk of your power and make known to the sons of men his mighty acts and the glorious majesties of his kingdom.'" Now think what that Scripture is talking about. You and I, in the millennium, in the white throne judgment, will be able to convey to human beings an element that we don't have today. Because, see, we will live in this other dimension, and we will deal with human beings. And we will be able to talk to them about, yes, I've seen Jesus Christ.

I've seen the angels. And let me tell you a little bit about His glory, about the power that He has, His majesty, His mighty acts, and how things function there. And so we will be able to paint a picture for them that will be much more real, something that hopefully will motivate them. We will speak of the wonders of Christ, as it says here. And we will talk to the sons of men about that. We will give them the inside dope on the kingdom of God. We will also, as members of the family of God, possess many of these same qualities.

In 1 Corinthians 15, beginning in verse 42, 1 Corinthians 15, verse 42, we read about the change that will take place for us. It says, "...so also is a resurrection of the dead. The body is sown in corruption. It is raised in incorruption. It is sown in dishonor.

It is raised in glory." See, we will talk to human beings about some of the glory of God. But what about us appearing to humans? It may be shining a little bit. Just give them a little glimpse of what glory is like. It says, "...it is sown in weakness. It is raised in power. It is sown in a natural body. It is raised in a spiritual body." So here we find we will be incorruptible. We will have glory also. We will have power.

We will have spirit bodies and mortality. See, not to the same extent that the Father and Jesus Christ had. They are the Almighty God, the Eternal God. But we will have the same qualities in His family. We'll talk more about this as we proceed through the sermon.

Remember I read that there will come a time that we will enter into that glorious kingdom and be received abundantly? In Matthew 25, verse 21, This notice, the first thing that's going to be said to us by God who welcomes us into the kingdom, "...the Lord said to him, Well done, good and faithful servant. You were faithful over a few things. I will make you ruler over many things." Sometimes our minds are limited.

We wonder, how could I possibly rule over five or ten cities? Can you imagine yourself right now ruling over five or ten cities? Many of us have difficulty comprehending that. But what we have to realize is in the resurrection our abilities are going to be expanding, as we will see. And we are going to have greater capacity. But as we read here, not only does he say, well done, good and faithful servant, but he also says, Enter into the joy of your Lord.

You and I are going to enter into a realm where joy and happiness reigns supreme. The word joy here means that. It means joy, mirth, happiness, gladness. It will be fun to be in God's kingdom. I remember talking sometimes to our youth in the past. And they have mentioned, well, I don't want to be in the kingdom of God in the first resurrection.

Because look at all that I will miss out on in this life. And we tend to look at the fact, yes, of having a family and having children. And all of the fun and excitement it will be to do that, then eventually to have grandchildren. But you and I are going to have so much joy and excitement, happiness, just like a glass or a fountain of water that's just always bubbling over and brim full and bubbling over. Instead of the suffering and the pain and the mental and the emotional agony that human beings go through today.

We'll have the joy in the millennium, white throne judgment, perhaps, of seeing our own children converted. Maybe we will have a hand in helping them be converted. Seeing our grandchildren grow up and go God's way. The joy of seeing people healed, of learning God's way, of taking God's truth to the whole world, to all humanity, and then begin to work with them. Now, the burdens of the flesh will no longer be there for us, the temptations. The broadcasting of Satan will no longer be there, and you and I will be able to help them.

We read back in Psalm 149 and verse 4, chapter 149 and verse 4 of the book of Psalm, about something that we're going to do in the kingdom. It says, the Lord takes pleasure in his people, and he beautifies the humble with salvation. So God grants us salvation as a gift. And when that happens, notice verse 5, Let the saints be joyful in glory. Let them sing aloud on their beds.

Now, that's what I'm looking forward to. Ability to sing. I hear all of these wonderful voices up here and people able to sing, and I'm just waiting for the time when I have a voice and I can sing. And I'm not going to be as limited as I am today. But it talks about the time that we will be joyful in glory. We will have a bed or a room, an office.

We'll have some place to be able to relax. Not that we need to relax. We'll never get tired. But a place that we can sing and we'll be happy. Maybe just like I've observed here at the Feast of Tabernacles. We've had so many people. You walk down the hallways, the doors are open, and the rooms are full. People are sharing food and they're talking with one another.

And there is this excitement and this fellowship taking place. Back in Revelation 21, Mr. Cowan touched on this yesterday. In the sermonette that he gave, you'll find in verse 9 here, Revelation 21, that the New Jerusalem is compared to the bride, or the bride to New Jerusalem. The New Heavens and New Earth is going to be the home of the bride.

It will be the operation center from where God operates. This is where the Father will come, where Jesus Christ will be. It will be the center of the whole operation in the universe. And God will function from there, rule from there. And you and I will be there. And if we're a part of the work, we may be part of the pillars. And after the foundation, pillars are some of the most important positions in a building.

In verse 24, it gives us a little indication of what things will be like at that time. Well, let's go back to verse 23. Jesus, the city had no need of the sun or the moon to shine in it, for the glory of God illuminated it, and the land is its light. And the nations of those who are saved shall walk in its light. Who are these nations that walk in the light of the New Jerusalem? And the kings of the earth bring their glory and their honor into it.

Is it possible that the New Jerusalem is simply the home of the bride, those who partake in the first resurrection, and those who come into the kingdom later reside in other cities, and they come up to the New Jerusalem, much like you and I go up to a feast site, and that that will be the center of operation forever?

And you and I, as part of the bride? My wife, who is my bride of some 44 years, we have had the opportunity to work together. A husband and wife work together. God gives us physical analogies in the Bible that are spiritual in nature, and marriage is a spiritual relationship between Christ and His Church. It's a type of that. And so what we find is that we will work with Christ, assist Him, and that we have been prepared to assist Him.

Just like a wife assists her husband is a help me, so we will be a help meeting. Whatever God is doing in the universe, God will use us, and we will be there. And we will be joyful for all eternity sharing, living and learning from the Father, from Jesus Christ, and for others who are over us in the kingdom of God.

So, brethren, it's a wonderful opportunity to look forward to. In Psalm 16, Psalm 16 and verse 11, we read that you will show me the path of life. In your presence is fullness of joy. Not joy with kickbacks. What you find is that too often today, in the society that we live in, that people have kickbacks. People are looking for happiness and for joy, for pleasure, in many different ways, many different arenas.

Well, God promises to give us joy forever. And let's notice the last part of this verse, in verse 11. In your presence is fullness of joy, and at your right hand are pleasures evermore. There are going to be pleasures that we can experience on the spiritual level that our human minds can't comprehend. Perhaps we believe that marital relationship is the greatest joy that a person could possibly experience. Or eating a wonderful meal, or drinking a great wine, or having friends that you see, you know, you love. These things are certainly wonderful, but there are going to be pleasures.

Delights, as the word means. In the Hebrew, the word means delightful, sweet, lovely, agreeable. It's something that is beautiful, that you and I will experience pleasures that God has for His children. That, again, it doesn't enumerate what they are, doesn't tell us, but we know they're there. God holds them out to us, and God wants to share it with us.

Do we believe that God the Father and Jesus Christ have lived a boring existence all their lives? That, you know, it's been a dull existence, that they haven't had anything to do? That they are the most happy, the supreme happy, if you want to use that, or the happiest beings in the whole universe, filled with the greatest joy and an abundant life.

And God wants to share a little of that with us. Jump over to Psalm 36, verses 8 and 9. Psalm chapter 36 and verses 8 and 9. It says, They are abundantly satisfied with the fullness of your house, and you give them drink from the river of your pleasure. So it's compared to a river of water that flows out, and God allows us to drink out of that river. As I mentioned earlier, people today are searching for pleasures. Their lives are empty too often.

They turn to drugs, they turn to alcohol, to escapism. As we heard the other day, spirit beings can eat, we can drink, or be able to laugh. All kinds of scriptures talk about how God laughs. We will be able to go to concerts. If we think this is beautiful music, what do you hear a million angels sing?

Or what do you hear a choral group made up of who knows tens of millions of spirit beings who will literally not just rattle the raptors, but rattle the universe, who will be able to sing glorious music. You and I will be a part of that. God will take society in every element that is good and elevate it to His level, and we will be able to experience that. Spirit beings, again, can eat. We won't need to eat. We don't need food to sustain our lives or drink to nourish us. But Jesus Christ did say at the last Passover that I will not, again, drink wine until I drink it new with you in the kingdom.

So there is going to be at least a marriage feast. Let's go on here to the next verse, verse 9. For with you is the fountain of life, and in your light we see light. The fountain of life. Notice that expression.

And in your light we see light. All life comes from God. There is no life without God. And God is going to give us eternal life, immortal life. 1 Corinthians 15, verse 28. I'll just jump over and read that. 1 Corinthians 15, 28. He says to say, Now when all things are made subject to him, to the Son, then the Son himself will also be subject to him, to the Father, who put all things under him, that God may be all in all. That simply means that all of us will owe our existence, our life to God.

We owe our physical life to God, and we will owe eternal life to God. It is a gift from God that God will give to us. And God sat down with the Son, and they planned out a plan who knows how far back in eternity. For they said, Okay, how can we share this level of existence, this happiness, this joy, this abundant life, this level of living? How can we share it with others? And God devised the plan of salvation, and you and I are privileged to be among the first to participate in it.

So eventually, all who are left alive, God will be all in all, in all of us, and he will have granted us life. Now, in Psalm again, it says, In your light we see light. In the kingdom, we will be able to see God's example. We'll be able to see His glory, His light. But it goes beyond just that. It means His example. For all eternity, the way He lives, the way He does things, we will see His perfect example, and we will strive to be like it. And even though we will not sin at that time, we can still do things better, and we will see that perfect example. It's amazing what David wrote about the future.

Let's back up to chapter 17 and verse 15 in the book of Psalm. Psalm 17 verse 15. David said, As for me, I will see your face in righteousness, and I shall be satisfied when I awake in your likeness. So he said that he would come up, and he would look like God. He would awake with His likeness, and he would be able to see His face. In 1 Timothy 6, 16, I'll just refer to that.

We read that God only is immortal right now, and that He dwells in unapproachable light. Light that is so powerful that no human being could ever approach unto it. And so there is going to come a time in the resurrection when you and I will be like God. We'll no longer be on the human level, but we will be elevated to the kingdom of God, the divine family of God. We will be a part of that spiritual realm. In Revelation 4, verses 2 and 3, Revelation 4, verses 2 and 3, we find a partial description of what it looks like in the very throne room of God, where He dwells. And what you find is an amazing display of power, glory, colors, brilliance.

Beginning in verse 2, it says, Immediately I was in the Spirit, Revelation 4, 2, and behold a throne, and in heaven, and one sat on that throne. And he who sat there was like a jasper and a sardus stone in appearance.

Okay, you go home and look up what a sardus stone looks like. In jasper, we saw part of that the other day when it came to the New Jerusalem.

But God is brilliant colors as far as the glory that emanates from Him. And there was a rainbow around the throne in appearance like an emerald. So when God set a rainbow in the sky and said that He would no longer destroy the earth by water, what was He referring to? By His own nature, power, He would make sure that that would never occur again. In verse 5, it says, "...and from the throne proceeded lightnings and thunders, and voices and seven lamps of fire were burning before the throne, which are the seven spirits of God." And so here we have the power emanating now from God's throne. There's beauty that radiates out from God. There is power. He is called the Almighty God, the all-powerful God, the ever-living God. And we will see how much we will be like Him.

Now, John Rochroder this morning mentioned Matthew 13.43. I'll just refer to it. Matthew 13.43, where it says that the righteous will shine forth as the Son in the kingdom. We will shine like God, but not quite as bright, no probability. We will have a glorified body. We will radiate power. We will radiate energy. We'll radiate force. You see, you and I have never seen spirit, so we don't know what it looks like.

It's sort of like power and energy and force compacted into a form and radiating out from that, just like the Son radiates energy and power out from it. And it will all be controlled by God's character. See, God is not limited as we are. God doesn't get tired. You ever get tired? Ever get run down, weary? I've heard people begin to talk, you know.

We've been here eight days. I'm getting a little tired now. And after a while, we are thankful that we have eight days. I don't know that we could do it for another eight days, but we might. But we would find that our bodies are limited, are they not? God never grows tired. Isaiah chapter 40, verse 28, describes the Almighty God in his spirit state.

And this is what you and I are going to be like. Again, we're going to be like our Father. We will look like Him. We'll be able to see Him as He is. And here in Isaiah 40, verse 28, it says, Have you not known? Have you not heard? The everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator, the ends of the earth, neither faints nor is weary.

His understanding is unsearchable. God is the Almighty God, the all-powerful God. There's no power greater than God. When you and I get down to pray, we need to remind ourselves every day that I'm praying to the greatest power in the universe. And God is a God of love. He's a God of compassion and mercy and of forgiveness. And when I come to Him and I ask for God's help, when I beseech Him for His aid and assistance, then there is no greater power in the universe than to whom we are praying.

So God is not restricted in His power or His ability to help us. His power is awesome. We have no idea of how powerful God is. Romans 1 and 20 reveals to us that the creation was given to us to give us an inkling of God's power. Give us a little bird's-eye view to be able to see a little bit about His power and His authority. Romans 1 and 20. For since the creation of the world, His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made. Even His eternal power and God-hip are divinity, so that they are without excuse, God says.

Human beings are without excuse. So we should be able to look at the physical creation and be able, in some way, some form, get an idea of how powerful God is. God has given us the physical to help us understand the spiritual. Well, let me just take one of those things that you should be able to go out every day and look up and see and say, Boy, that shows me how great God is.

And I'm talking about the power generated by the sun. Now we read that we will shine like the sun. We will have glorified bodies like the stars or the suns. The energy contained in the earth is absolutely nothing compared to the sun. We receive energy from the sun. That's why it's warm. And we don't receive a lot. It's cold. The sun is 866,000 times the diameter of the earth and 1,200,000 times the volume of the earth.

So it's much, much bigger than the earth. The sun radiates 330 trillion horsepower of energy to the earth's surface daily. 330 trillion horsepower. The earth's surface is constantly being bombarded by energy from the sun. Sun radiates, if you want to break that down, 1.5 horsepower of energy per square yard.

To the earth's surface, that's 4,600,000 horsepower per square mile. If you add all that up, that's 330 trillion horsepower. The total energy that the sun emits in one second...

That's the sun emitting. Energy. In one second is greater than the whole amount of energy the human race has used since it's been on the earth.

Tremendous amount of energy there. The earth intercepts, at any given time, 1-2 billion of the energy being generated by the sun.

So we only intercept... See, we're one little ball away out here. Over here is the sun. We only get 1-2 billionths of it, and that 1-2 billionths amounts to 330 trillion horsepower every day. So how powerful is the sun? Where did all of that power come from? Where did that energy come from? It just happened? No, it didn't just happen. The Creator God made it. Hebrews 11 tells us... I didn't have this written down, but let's notice Hebrews 11. Where it comes from...

Verse 3, By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the Word of God, so that things which are seen, such as the sun and the stars, were not made of things which are visible. So they're made of things that are not visible. So God knows how to take Spirit, energy, power, compact it, and make matter. And how He does that, I don't know. See, that's one thing we'll learn. In the Kingdom, we're going to learn a lot. You know what gravity is? I'd like to see gravity. I'd like to see centrifugal force. I'd like to see all kinds of things, but you and I haven't seen it. Now, we realize that the sun is only one star in the Milky Way galaxy. It's actually a medium-sized star. Scientists tell us that there are billions of stars in the Milky Way galaxy. With the Hubble telescope out there, we found out that there are billions of more galaxies in the universe than we first imagined. You might remember it only took a pea-sized fraction of uranium in an atomic bomb to destroy Hiroshima back in the Second World War. The sun converts about 400 million tons of the sun mass every second. 400 million tons. The sun is just one medium-sized star in our galaxy of 100 billion. Our galaxy is one of an estimated 250 billion.

Now, some of you mathematicians can multiply that. 100 billion times 250. Each is converting matter into energy at the rate of millions, perhaps billions of tons a second.

That shows some of the power out there. Where did it come from? It comes from God. God created it. He sustains it. He is Almighty. And He's going to share that with us. In 1 Corinthians 15, verse 41, 1 Corinthians 15, and we will read here in verse 41.

We read, There is one glory of the sun, another glory of the stars, for one star differs from another star in glory. So also is the resurrection of the dead.

Now, is it a matter that in the kingdom that we will have different degrees of glory? We'll all be glorified, but as one star is greater in glory than another, that we may have different degrees of glory. I don't know that. I'm not stating that as fact. It's just one of those interesting things that you find as a possibility in the Scriptures. You see, we will never be equal with the Father or Jesus Christ as far as power, glory, might, and authority. They will always be in charge. There's the Father, there's Christ, and then right on down. Jesus Christ, when He was on this earth, said the Father was greater than He. But you and I will obviously be much greater than the angels, because we'll be members of the divine family of God.

Hebrews 2, verses 6 and 8.

Hebrews 2, verses 6 and 8 shows us that we were created on the human level, and for a little while, notice what it says. Verse 6. One testified in a certain place, saying, What is man that you are mindful of him, or the Son of man, that you take care of him?

You've made him a little lower than the angels, and you've crowned him with glory and honor, and you've set him over the works of your hands, and you've put all things and subjection under his feet. Now notice, all things. For in that he put all in subjection under him. He left nothing that is not put under him, but now we do not yet see all things put under him.

So right now, we don't rule over the universe. We have trouble ruling over ourselves, don't we? But there's going to come a time when God is going to give us much greater responsibility and authority. What about our capabilities at that time? To work, to learn, to accomplish? Will we be able to do things at a much greater clip, at a much greater rate? Well, let's look at how God relates to man, and could do it any time he wants to. Can God do more than one task at a time, if he chooses to do so? Can God do more than one thing? I can read a book and watch television.

Not either one very well. Because you're either going to give your attention to the one, generally TV is going to grab your attention, and you're not going to be able to do another. Now, what I mean by that, is it possible for God to hear more than one prayer? Two prayers at the same time.

And if two, can he hear three? If he hears three, could he hear four? Is there a limit to what God could hear? On any given set, I would say this morning, somewhere between eight and ten, there were hundreds of us here praying. And maybe there were a few hundred of us praying at the same time. Which prayers did God hear? Which did he not hear? Or did God hear them all? You and I can carry on a conversation, and we can hear snatches of what others might say.

We humans are not capable of concentrating on three or four conversations at once. But think about the way society will be in the millennium. There will be billions of converted people on earth. Thousands or millions of them could be praying at the same time. If you had five billion people on earth, and they all prayed at once during a 24-hour period, you would have 208 million people praying at the same time. How could God possibly hear 208 million? How does he do that? How would God decide to answer? I'll give you an example, and all of you could give examples like this.

My father-in-law one night was driving down a road, and a car passed him with its lights on bright, blinded him. Just as soon as the car went by, he realized that he was at a road that teed. And it was just a regular two-lane highway in front of him with a bank. He was doing 60 miles an hour. There was a stop sign there. He didn't see it. He went right through it, 60 miles an hour. He asked, help! And he cried out to God.

And someone grabbed the steering wheel and turned that car, and it went, wobble, wobble, wobble, and went on down the road. You can't turn a car in the space of about 8 to 16 feet, doing 60 miles an hour. There had been several angels sitting on each side, holding that thing from flipping over and turning it. Now, there was an answer instantly to prayer.

How many of us have had God instantaneously answer our prayers? I have anointed people, and they have gotten up, and they have been healed. I have anointed people, and they have been healed a day or two later. We have all seen miraculous protection that God has given us. Does God miss some people's prayers and answer others? How is God able to answer so quickly?

God has the capability of doing more than one thing at once. Now, I don't know that that's the way He operates, but I say He has the capability. There are many analogies that might help us to understand this. Let's take a look at a computer. And maybe a computer would help us to understand.

In businesses today, we have what's called CPU's, or Central Processing Units, that can handle thousands of users at one time. We have this big computer, thousands of people hooked up to it, and they are all typing away, and they are all using the same Central Processing Unit.

And it's able to handle all of their work. How does that happen? Let me read to you from a write-up I had. It's a little old by now, but it still illustrates the point I'm making here. When a computer appears to do more than one operation at once, it is said to be multitasking, doing more than one task. Most computers can only perform one instruction at a time, and these instructions are done in order that they are received by the Central Processing Unit.

So how can you have many users, an example of hundreds or thousands of people, attached to a mainframe or a mid-range computer, all using it at the same time? How is that possible? It's achieved by time slicing. Slicing time into little sections. Now, we slice time into years, well, centuries, millennia, years, decades. We go into a year itself, months, hours, days, minutes, seconds, fractions.

Well, when it comes to a computer, they do the same thing, except they slice it into millions, billions, and trillions of activities in a second. There are computers out there who can do a billion or more computations in a second. So, I mean, they're so fast that they're sleeping most of the time. Since the computer will give a user a tiny fraction of time before it passes on to the next person, in that time the computer will accept the user's input or send something back to the user, the computer is able to do this so quickly that it appears to be doing more than one thing at a time.

And actually, out of everything it's doing is in order to add an extremely fast pace. They have words like MIPS, standing for millions of instructions per second. I know they have BIPs, billions of instructions per second. Now they may have TIPS, I don't know, trillions of instructions per second. Any activity a computer performs is made up of usually a combination of instructions.

For example, displaying a single letter to a screen may involve a hundred instructions. A common rating system to determine the speed is MIPS. It measures how many of these instructions a computer can perform in a second. And it goes on to show that back at the time this was written, and this is outdated, the fastest computer could do 250 million, but now they're up into the billions, and they're approaching trillions. So what we find is that here you have a computer that actually can do billions of things in a second.

Is God greater than a computer that a human mind can devise and create? Computers are limited, even with this. You find they have what are called supercomputers, where they link up thousands of computers together, and they try to work on gigantic mathematical scientific problems to be able to resolve those. And yet God computes it all in His mind. He thought it all out in His mind.

And He created everything so that it would work in harmony, balance together, nothing would cause disruption or disharmony, and that it would all function. And then man comes along and messes it all up when it comes to the earth. Is God greater than the computer that the mind can invent? God has the ability to listen if He wants to simultaneously. In the millennium, God will have the ability to listen and respond to the prayers of millions, if that's how He does it. Now, I list this and show you this because it illustrates that our capacity of minds will be greatly expanded at that time.

You and I in the Kingdom will no longer just function on the human level, but our minds will expand. Let me show you a little bit about that expansion back in Isaiah chapter 40 and verse 26.

Isaiah chapter 40 and verse 26.

It says, Lift up your eyes on high and see who has created these things. Who brings out their host by number? He calls them all by name, by the greatness of His might and by the strength of His power. Not one is missing.

Now, God calls all the stars by name. Remember, 100 billion times 250 billion? How many words? How big of a vocabulary does God have? If He can call them all by name. God's vocabulary, there's no limit to it. There's no limit to His mind, to the depth of His mind, to His ability to think, to create. How well do you and I remember names?

How many people have you met here and you see them again? You know, what was their name? And you forget names. I wake up in the morning, I remind my wife who she is, she reminds me who I am. And that's the way we function.

Our vocabularies are limited to a few thousand words. But this is an indication of the capacity of God's mind. And God wants to share that type of capacity with us. Now in verse 28, we read, Have you not known, have you not heard, that the everlasting God, the God, the Creator of the ends of the earth, neither faints nor is weary, His understanding is unsearchable? It's bottomless. There is no end to God's understanding and comprehension. He planned the universe out, as Psalm 147 in verse 4 says. He designed it, He created it, and He planned and He numbered the stars. We humans are limited, our capacities are limited. We've made amazing discoveries in science, such as computers, sending rockets to the moon, television, and yet we don't even know what gravity is. People can't really tell you what electricity is. They can define you, give you a definition. They can say it's a force. They can say it works. What is it? What makes it work? What sustains it? Well, what you find, God is able to do all of this. In Psalm 139, Psalm 139, verses 1 and 2, we find something else about the capacity that we will begin to have, at least greatly multiplied and increased. It says, O Lord, you have searched me, you know me, you know my sitting down and my rising up. You understand my thoughts from afar or far off. You comprehend my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all of my ways, for there's not a word in my tongue. But behold, O Lord, you know it all together. God can perceive even our thoughts from the third heaven. That's a scary thought, in one sense. God knows what you're thinking. So we better be careful. Even in our thoughts, God knows what we're thinking. And He does it from the third heaven. You and I cannot read people's minds. I'm looking at this audience and I might be able to say, well, I wonder what that person is thinking. I wonder what they think of this sermon. And I can look at you, I have no idea. You know, I can't read your mind. And especially I can't read it from billions of miles away, like God can. But He has the capability. In the future, we will be able to do this. We'll be able to see into humans. And people will not pull the wool over our eyes. They will not say one thing and be thinking something else without us being able to know it. So you and I, brethren, are going to begin to be as God is. You see, God is not restricted by time, by the physical as we are. Remember back in Isaiah 57.15, the God-in-habits eternity? Well, God has always existed. Psalm 90, verse 2 says that God is from everlasting. Psalm 90, verse 2, He is called the Eternal. And we find, as far as God is concerned, in 2 Peter 3, 8, we will read that. 2 Peter 3, verse 8, says, But, beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day with God. So one day to God is like a thousand years.

There are 364,000 days in a thousand years, give or take. God is comparing one day that you and I might live to 364,000 days to a thousand years. God is not bound by time, and neither will we be restricted by it in the future. From God's perspective, from His side of how He deals with things, He could actually put time on hold. If He wanted to, He might have the capacity to freeze it, stop it, and decide what He wants to do. Remember the computer, the example I gave you about a computer. A second of our time would be like an hour to God or days to God. A computer is able to process information at an extremely high speed. God is able to also do the same thing, to intervene, to answer our prayers. A central processing unit has something on it that's called an interrupter controller. It assigns priority. There were certain jobs have greater priority than others. Which to answer first. Let me give you a physical example we could all understand. A housewife is vacuuming the house. She's cleaning. Phone rings. That is a greater priority over the vacuum cleaner. It shuts the vacuum off, goes and answers the phone. It interrupts her work. For that moment, it has a greater priority. Now, while she's on the phone, maybe she hears her child scream.

Now, which one has a greater priority? Well, the child scream. So the phone drops and immediately she goes and looks after her child. Well, God can assign priority. He has the capability and time to process millions and billions. They're called gigaflops of information. In a second!

And he can actually, he and the angels could be sitting around discussing what to do. Something could happen to us, like the automobile that I was describing my father-in-law was in. And in the split second, it seemed, an angel intervened. God could have been discussing that with the angels for ten minutes. What should we do? How should we handle this? Should we let him have the accident? Should we allow this to go on? We're going to save him. We're going to need him in the future. And so, okay, you go down and you handle that. Or maybe there's an angel there on the scene. And the signal goes to him. You take care of this. You turn that car. And, boom! It takes place. For us, it's quick. For God, it may have taken place over a period of what we would call time. You see, brethren, we should never doubt God's ability to intervene on our behalf in the physical realm. The physical realm is nothing to God. God is not limited by it. God has his plan. He has his purpose. And he's going to work that plan and purpose out until it is ultimately accomplished. You and I are in one spot at one time. I'm behind a podium right now. You know where I am. But God is in one spot, as far as we know, but his Spirit. And we don't fully understand how the Spirit functions, but it radiates from God. His power, the Holy Spirit, can reach everywhere in the universe. We've used many analogies to try to explain this, like a power generator producing electricity. Electricity can be sent out, and it can go to millions of homes from one generator over here, producing it. And it provides electricity in all those homes. Here we all are, and we all have God's Spirit dwelling within us. God is sustaining the whole universe by his power. He upholds it. Everything. And God sustains the laws. God's in charge. How does he do that? He does it by his power. We realize that you can send radio waves through the air, TV signals. They can come from one source, and we can all be connected. We can all turn our radio on, or we can turn our TV on, and we can watch it. So we realize on the human level that we understand a little bit about waves and energy going out and power. Well, God is so powerful that his power radiates through the whole universe, and he wants to share that with us. See, on the physical level, you and I can't travel very far. If you came here from L.A., you probably flew. I know the shoulders. I did. God is able to travel faster than the speed of light. He's never late to hear a prayer. God answers by the speed of thought, or quicker. Matter, energy, and light are limited in how fast they can travel. Yeah, Einstein's theory of relativity says that things can't travel faster than the speed of light. Now they're beginning to wonder if that's absolutely true now. But using that, the closest star is four light years away.

Now, what if it took God that long to answer a prayer? Well, four years from now, you could be in deep trouble if we're waiting that long. No, God answers prayers instantly. In Isaiah 65 and verse 24, talking about the time here in the future, not only the millennium but the white throne judgment. Notice what God says here. It shall come to pass before they call. I will answer. So even before people call, God will answer. And while they're still speaking, I will hear. And so God will act instantaneously. So, brethren, God wants to share all of this with us. He will always be the Almighty God, the All-Pier for God, the only one who has existed for all eternity. But God wants to share His level of existence, living in a different dimension, at a different level, so that we can experience life to a much higher degree. The joys, the pleasures, the happiness, the abundance that comes from a great life. In Romans 8, in verses 16 and 17, Romans 8, verses 16 and 17, we read that the Spirit, His self, bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God. And if children, then heirs, heirs of God, enjoint heirs with Christ. If indeed we suffer with Him, we also may be glorified together. You and I will be joint heirs. Whatever Christ inherited, we jointly will inherit it also.

Hebrews 2, as we read earlier, states that all things in the future will be made subject to man. Christ and the Father excluded, obviously. But all things will be made subject to man. We will have rule over this vast universe. We have no concept of why God created it and what He's going to do with it. We will be intricately involved with it. And God has a plan that will extend for all eternity. And He wants to share that plan with us. He wants to share His life. And we will work, we will produce, we will live productive lives, we will be happy, we will live exciting lives forever and ever. One last scripture here in Revelation 21, verses 6 and 7.

Revelation 21, verses 6 and 7, talking here about the New Jerusalem, New Heavens, New Earth. All things have passed away. There's no more death, no more sorrow, no more crying. The former things have passed away. All things have been made new. Verse 6, He said to me, it is done. There's going to come a time when God will say, it's done, it's accomplished. Every human being has had an opportunity to be in my family. They've been given a chance, I've been fair, and it's done. And those who made the right choice will be there. Those who didn't will cease to exist. I'm Alpha Omega, the beginning and the end, and I will give of the fountain of the water of life freely to him who thirst. And so you and I will have eternal life. He who overcomes, we find here, in verse 7, shall inherit all things. As the margin says, all these things. We're going to inherit all of this. And I will be his God and he shall be my son. So God's purpose from the beginning was to create man. And he created us out of this, out of dirt. We were created physical so that if we reject his plan, that God and his love would destroy us and we would cease to exist. But how can God take this, shape it, form it, breathe life into us, put a spirit within us, a spirit in man, give us his Holy Spirit, and through a process of conversion bring us to the point where this is left behind, we become a divine member of the family of God. It is a mystery how God can do this, how God can take dirt and create a family. But brethren, he's doing it. And the Bible tells us about the spirits of just men made perfect.

So as we leave this feast, let's keep in mind what God has done. That he has thought all of this out. He has handpicked you and me. And he wants to share his level of life in existence with you.