Who and What Can You Trust

It's a treat for us and all of us to be together on the Sabbath here today. I've heard about the Houston congregation for years. You've heard about Houston and its resilience in various economies that come and go. It's a treat here to be with you on God's Sabbath. The Sabbath is about God and obviously the people of God. And we come today, as some of the hymns we just talked about, about honoring Him and focusing on Him.

And yet at the same time, we are humans. And we have this gray matter with synapses flashing in our mind. And we come up with various concepts in our mind of what should be, what is, what's reality, what's important.

I'd like to talk to you today about reality.

The life that you live began when you were a child. On the way in the door this morning, we saw a baby or two, some little children.

Walking around.

As a little child, you look up and you look out.

And you see all the possibilities of life.

You see going up and down the roads, things that are for sale, houses that are available.

You see opportunities for careers. You see other people and potential mates. You see families. You see vacation opportunities.

There are so many things available that God has built into the universe that some children want to become astronauts and go up there and explore.

What is the reality that we humans can expect?

We all have very high expectations from birth, really.

And sometimes those expectations include things like your parents and your siblings are there for you.

Mom and dad, that's my family. My brothers, my sisters, we're a bonded family and an extended family. They are there for you.

Friends.

Those who are your special friends, they declare that you're best friends. You may even have a bracelet or have swapped a drop of blood or something and decided that, you know, you're friends forever.

And declared yourselves to be brothers and sisters and friends and confidence that only you and your best friends can share secret things with, private information with.

You go to school and college and your teachers educate you and you can trust that they have the knowledge, they have the science, they have those things of math and learning that you need. And they are there for you to help prepare you as you step into adulthood, step into careers. They're going to guide you. They're going to transition you into that expectation you have for life.

Your neighborhood, your town, your country, they are there for you. And you realize that every aspect of that civilization that surrounds you is reliable.

There are police, there are courts, there's infrastructure.

And it all brings a security that is tight, it's locked down, it's dependable.

You can rely upon that.

When you turn on the tap, there will be water. The municipal water, electric, sewer, gas, that stuff is there. You go to the gas station, the pump, you have fuel. It's economical and available.

It's there to support your needs, along with transportation.

You can get anywhere you need. If you don't have your own, you've got public transportation.

It is an expectation of life that these things will exist.

You know that there are farmers, and they are busily creating crops, and there will always be good food for you, and that there are grocery stores that provide that good food. There is support for your physical body, and you will not starve, you will not go hungry.

The food and the people providing the food are very stable, and following them are doctors, medicine, hospitals. Should something happen to you? Should some freak of nature take place? You know that with a 911 call, that somebody will respond, and people who know how to put your body back together will take care of you with emergency services of various types.

When you go to work, your employer, your company, they are loyal to you, and they are there, they're going to help enrich your life. They're going to give you a salary, you're going to have a job and a paycheck, and they're building in some retirement. That's a long way down the road when you're young, but you know that that's going to be there with some insurance.

Life has very good expectations. You have money that you store in a bank, and that bank is secure, and it speaks of security, and it talks about security, and that bank is there to support and help you and to lend to you and help you invest, to make sure that all your aspirations and dreams come true, and they will guide you, and they're there for you.

Then you have insurance.

Your insurance company or companies will ensure that your home your automobile, your life, your health, everything is going to go as planned, and if it doesn't, they are there to take care and put it right back on track.

You have airplanes that the U.S. government and other governments ensure are safe, and trains and ships and buses that will take you where you need to go, and those people are focused on you, and they're going to ensure that your experience will be a rich one, and it will be safe, and everything's going to work out very well.

You have a spouse, eventually, that you fall in love with, and this young gal or this young guy is all about you, and they are absolutely bound to your happiness and your success and to support you and give you those things that you need, especially with the man, the respect and the support and following for the ideals and the objectives that he has, and for the young lady that she's going to be recognized, he's going to be appreciated, she's going to be focused on, and she's going to be protected, she's going to be secure, along with the children that come along in that family.

You have possessions, and you try to buy quality possessions, because these things are important, and they're going to last, and you receive guarantees and warranties, and you know that these are good. They cost a lot of money, these possessions, some become memorabilia, they become treasures, they become the things that you protect and that you depend upon in your life. You know that these things will always be with you, and you have your electronics, your computer, your smartphone, your tablet, these various things that, again, we depend upon, that you depend upon with their operating systems, their programs, and you know that they are secure, and their files are secure, and they're stored with security, and there's various types of security built in and backups, even in the clouds, that secure these things and guarantee their security. And you have a body that God created that's very functional, it's very perceptive with five senses, an incredible eyesight and hearing and smelling, and this body transports you, and it brings you through and takes you to all your highest expectations, and you know that that body will always be there, will be functional, and it will take you where you want to go, and if there's a problem with it, God will heal you, and he will fix and continue your progress. You have a church that you attend, and it has ministers, it has members, it has structure, they're highly reliable, and you depend upon them, and you know they will always be there for you. And such are the common expectations that we have in our life, that we begin with as children, and we grow into as adults, and these expectations are what we tend to carry with us, and if they don't work out, there's a panic, there's a something's happened, it's an earthquake in our life, what has gone wrong? Today, I'd like to ask you a question. What is the reality of what is really dependable in your life? What is really truly dependable? The title of the sermon is, Who and What Can You Count On? Who and what can you count on? What can you be absolutely certain that will not let you down? Of all the things that I've just mentioned, plus all the other expectations that you build into life, which of those can you be absolutely certain will not let you down? Again, we're all human, and this gray matter in our physical realm, in our ideals and the promises that were made, the assurances were made, the insurances that were given, we come to depend upon. It is that reality. Let's take a look in the Bible and see what the real reality is, and what we should be depending upon in our lifetime. Paul said in 1 Corinthians chapter 13 and verse 8, that love never fails. But he goes on, he says, where there are prophecies, they will fail.

Wow! We stopped for a minute. Think about that. Prophecies are of God.

Why would a prophecy fail? Well, a prophecy at some point in time will expire. It will run its course.

And in fact, before the prophecy takes place, it's usually seen through a glass darkly, and so the expectations oftentimes are for something a little different than what actually happens.

And the prophecies finally expire, and within the perception of people of what that prophecy was going to be, they often fail. They fail the personal expectation, not what God had prophesied.

Whether there are tongues, they will cease. Languages, the need for languages, the ability to speak, at some point in time, communication will end as we know it or as we use it in our daily life.

Whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away. All of the knowledge that exists, you think this is really prime knowledge. My father recently died, and he had a degree from the University of Texas, and it was in engineering. But you know, a lot of the knowledge that he got had vanished and had been replaced over time with newer knowledge, better knowledge, higher engineering knowledge than what was taught when he went to college. And so, these things run their course, and they do not, over time, remain. If you brought a person who was an excellent linguist from England 200 years ago to this room today, you probably wouldn't be able to understand him. You know, that's how language, speech, changes over time, the vernacular, the not only just the dialects interplay and change until they really get written down, but sometimes also the accents, even the structure of sentences change over time, within the same language. Those things fail. What should your realistic expectations be of this life? If some of the things that God said are here now, but someday will burn up, just be gone, then what can we realistically lean on and count on? Proverbs 14 and 15 makes this statement, The simple believes every word, but the prudent considers well his steps. If you and I are simple-minded, we will tend to believe what we're told by teachers, by insurance companies, by banks, by employers, by potential spouses, by spouses, by parents, by siblings, by ministers, by members, by whatever. We'll tend to believe it. The simple believe. But he says, the prudent considers well his steps. The Bible is full of warnings from Jesus Christ himself about us having a type of prudency in considering our steps, because we are walking down a very difficult way that tends to be in the dark, in a very dark age, full of all kinds of traps and deceptions. And it's a very difficult way, and we need a certain light. We need to consider well each step of the way. We need to do that. Let's consider the reality, then, of some of the things that we have as expectations in life. For instance, that parents and siblings are there for you. Parents and siblings intend to be there for you. They want to be there for you. They say they'll be there for you. But is that something that can always be counted on? You know, that this is a world that is not God's world. This is a world where sometimes things change. A 2008 study from the Center for Marriage and Families reported this. Divorce, unwed births, and cohabitation have now become so widely accepted that it is not a world that is accepted and practiced that a politician today risks alienating voters, if he even mentions family or some of those things. Births outside of marriage account for 40 percent of all children in the United States. Secular individualism is a growing value set which consists of the gradual abandonment of religious attendance, religious beliefs, a strong leaning toward being preoccupied with personal autonomy and self-fulfillment. The greater the dominance of secular individualism in a culture, the more fragmented the families. As America continues to move in this cultural direction, the family can be expected to continue to weaken. So that which we come into this world expecting is by by secular accounts weakening and fragmenting greatly, even if you began it with parents. Friends and confidence are there for you. We know, we expect, and yet the reality is when you step into other relationships and marriage and then job transfers that take place, family relocations, choices that individuals make, beliefs that individuals take, differences of focus, it takes friends and confidence in very different paths down different directions.

Teachers in schools that educate us, they will educate us. Academia.org states this, higher education may never be more irrelevant than when it tries hard to be relevant.

That is a mixed bag of individuals with ideas that are not always based on ethics and truth and values and the ideals that are right and will lead a person the direction they need to go.

Neighborhood, your town, your county, your country, your infrastructure, the laws will support you.

In fact, it's more common now that they will fee and fine you, that they will be more about trying to maintain some sort of a policy with an internal policy and have an economic bailout than something to actually work for the citizens that they're supposed to serve. You'd say the police, the courts, the legal system, they defend, they protect you, and yet it's become a system of expediency and a certain amount of fear from actually enforcing the law and a pullback from that to where, as the Bible proclaims, there's not so much justice in the land, and it can be a scary thing to fall into the hands of man. The water, the electricity, the fuel, the transportation, all these things to support our need, suddenly there's scarcity.

There are rising costs. The production of those things begin to impact the environment.

People go on strikes. Our farmers, our crops, our stores, the food that sustain you. You know, there have been films like Food, Inc., and others that have, quite a few others that have been made to expose what's really going on with the food and the stores and the crops and the farmers.

It's become for-profit industry with a lot of GMO, which is not considering the people who eat the food, but those who grow it. It's a control of money. It's a control of power. And the result has been a gross health impact on the people that it's supposed to be serving. The doctors, the medicine, the hospital, the emergency services that are there for us, oh yes, that we raise for us, oh yes, that we rely upon. One medical journal wrote, science and logic would suggest that you go to the hospital to feel better, not to get sicker. And yet, hospital-acquired infections kill 31,000 patients a year in this country. Besides, if you look on television at some of the advertisements for the medicines that are getting pushed, and they're getting pushed because of money, the little short ad for the benefits is outweighed by the long statements and warnings of the severe side effects that people experience from them.

Your employer, your company, your job, your paycheck, your retirement, they're all there for you. Okay? Well, we know different, don't we? Because corporations' loyalty has now switched over to its shareholders. That's who they're loyal to. No longer the employee. Corporate raiders have come in and taken away the big accounts, and now you're stuck with a 401k that you have to somehow manage. But there are leeches in the 401ks, and so much of that just got extracted in the last six years. And even then, if you did have money, the U.S. dollar is only worth 5% of what it was originally. That's how far the value has fallen.

We look at insurance for our home. Auto life, medical, dental, vision, that protecting us. Well, you know, if you suffer a major loss, those insurance companies have more attorneys and a battery of attorneys that go about protecting their payouts for the corporate profit side, then you will be able to fight. You know, it can be a rude awakening to lose your entire house and have somebody run out with a check for a partial amount that on the back, as you sign it, says, this is the complete and full payout. And you find yourself all alone with only a portion of what you were expecting. You know, those airplanes and trains and cruise ships and buses have all been in the news lately, haven't they? Plunging off cliffs, crashing, sinking, smashing into each other. What's all that about? My wife and I were recently on a cheap cruise, and we looked over at a really ritzy cruise ship. They paid $5,000 a person to be on that other cruise ship.

Then it came up on CNN that the people on that cruise ship were being fed food that was not up to standards. And to avoid inspection, they were carting the food and requiring the employees on the ship to hide it in their rooms from the inspectors. You know, this is a crazy world where people are worried about themselves and the expectations that others have tend to fall very short. We think about our possessions, our quality possessions, and the memorabilia and the treasures. In Matthew 6, verse 19, let's notice what Jesus says about that. Matthew 6, verse 19, "...do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal." There's a problem that we have with our expectations, is that whenever you get something and you think, oh, this is a beautiful new vehicle, this thing's going to last forever. It's not going to be like that one parked over there. The paint's all flaked off, and the doors don't seal anymore, and it smokes out the back. No, this is going to last. This one's quality. Before you know it, yours is the one over there. And you could say that about a property, about any type of thing that you buy or own. How many times have you bought a real quality computer that, before you knew it, you had to throw it away, and even the garbage people didn't want to take it because it had too much mercury or something in it? That's just the way things go. Styles. You think, oh, by this is quality. Next thing you know, it either doesn't fit, or no one wants to see it. These things that we kind of rely upon and put a lot of treasure, a lot of stock into, they're very, very temporary, as Solomon mentioned in the book of Ecclesiastes.

Your computer and its files and smartphone and tablet and operating systems and programs, they're always going to be there. Of course, that's kind of a joke, isn't it? You know it's not only not going to be there. The computer's going to break and it's all going to go away, but all of those programs are going to be updated and updated to make money to where they don't work anymore, and they get so large, your current computer won't run them anymore. So you've got to get one of these real fast ones in order to even see them, and then your files disappear. And then somebody breaks in. You've got spammers that put stuff on your computer that jeopardize what you've placed there. But of course, your spouse's support, now that is reliable. That's dependable. That is one that you can really count on in life. The reality, of course, is the expectations are pretty much false. A woman sees the focus and she knows she's going to have the focus. She's going to be first, she's going to be attractive, she's going to have the security, she's going to have the safety, she's going to always be number one, and that's the intention. But the reality is the man has a job to do, and he has not only a job to do, but he has a lot of maintenance. He's got a lot of other things. He's got a lot of work. He's got this and that, but distract and take him away. Plus, there's a lot of other ladies out there that tend to attract him as well. The next thing you know, he's talking to one of them, or smiling at one of them, or makes a comment positive about somebody else, as the woman begins to transition through life, through various phases.

The man who knew that he was going to be respected and honored is always being told, you're not doing this good enough. That was dumb what you do. What you're doing is not smart. I can't trust you. I think you said something to me that wasn't exactly accurate and brutal enough.

You're lying to me. Both husbands and wives, men and women, tend to have expectations that don't get realized. That's why Ephesians 4 talks about that. The husband needs to love his wife like Christ loved the church and sacrificed it. It's not there as, oh yeah, we do that automatically.

And wives need to respect their husbands. It's not there because they do that automatically. Those are the let-downs that take place in marriage. We expect our body will remain functional and you can be healed of illnesses. So we're going to be just fine.

Ecclesiastes 12 verse 1 says this, about your body remaining functional, Remember now your Creator in the days of your youth before the difficult days come.

Before your body and all of its parts start letting you down, and then Solomon starts marching through part by part that lets you down. That's biblical. The body is going to let you down.

And the years draw near when you say, I have no pleasure in them. And regarding healing, Paul appealed to God three times to remove this ailment that he had, a huge ailment.

And God said, no.

No. No. He said, no. My grace is sufficient to you.

There is a process by which our bodies take us all the way to death and let us down.

And stop functioning entirely.

And finally, your church members, your ministers, highly reliable, highly dependable, really trust and count on them. Let's go to Matthew chapter 24 verses 10 through 11.

Matthew 24 verses 10 through 11. Prophecy of the times that we are in and heading into.

Matthew 24, 11 says, then many, not a few, many false ministers will rise up and deceive many.

That's a lot. When he says many, that's a lot.

And because lawlessness abound, will abound, the love of many will grow cold.

Verse 10, many will be offended. Many will betray one another and will hate one another in the church.

What is it that you and I really, really can depend upon?

These are important things for us to realize. He's not saying this to tarnish his own church. He's not saying this to tarnish his own shepherds that are righteously shepherding.

He's saying this because he wants us to endure to the end as godly children and be part of the firstfruits at the seventh trumpet. And there are many, many things that will let us down along the way. And we should not depend upon. Who is the one today that we're worshiping? It's not any human being. It's no human icon. It's God the Father in Jesus Christ. He is the Lord of the Sabbath.

We are to get our business of physical preparation for six days done, just like He did at creation, so that we can have spiritual work on the seventh day, just like He did with Adam and Eve.

We are to be focused on God, godliness, on the people of God, the mindset of God, the kingdom of God.

That is our goal. It's our focus. It's what He taught us to begin our prayers with.

How many times would we begin a prayer about one of those things that I've mentioned, one of those expectations, God, this isn't working out for me. There's a let down here. There's a crisis on earth. You've got to fix this. No, He says, start out with our Father in heaven, your kingdom come.

Your will be done. There's something there that we can learn from. If we want to be real, we want to have the real knowledge, real understanding, and the real wisdom coupled with experience and really have the realistic expectation of what is true, what's really going to happen, what is dependable. Well, Proverbs chapter 14 verses 13 and 14 says something that we might not want to hear. Proverbs 14 verse 13, even in laughter the heart may sorrow, at the end of mirth may be grief. In other words, even joy will let you down. Wow, if there's anything in life that maybe could put a smile on our face, afterwards, even that will let us down. But he goes on, he goes on. The backslider in heart will be filled with his own ways.

If you're after the empty dreams, if you believe all the empty promises, if you really trust in this civilization and you have all those childhood expectations and that's what you're putting your emphasis on, it says that individual will be filled with his own ways, but a good man will be satisfied from above. All those things aren't going to satisfy us. We're not looking for those to satisfy. We're actually looking, as the prayer teaches us, above to our Father in heaven, to what he is like, to a relationship with him, to a relationship with his family that lasts forever.

Begin to see who and what we can count on, and it's not things of this earth.

Proverbs 14 verse 12 says there's a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death. Its end is not only the way of me dying and a kind of a dying life, things don't work out, which is true, but the whole preoccupation is things that we've already read that are expiring, aging, letting us down in a universe that is going to be dissolved and done away with.

There's no future in that. Let's go to Psalm chapter 23. Since the way that seems right to us is letting us down, what is secure and what is dependable? Now, the 23rd Psalm is interesting because David here speaks of himself as a sheep. He's a dumb sheep. How many of you out there are dumb sheep?

That's a good place to start. That's a good starting position to have.

And so David says, after all, I try to do all this stuff my way and now I find, the Lord is my shepherd. I'm just a sheep. And I'm not going to be in want if he's my shepherd.

He's not going to let me down. He makes me to lie down in green pastures.

There's a lot of food to eat for a sheep. He leads me beside the still waters where a sheep can actually drink. He restores my life. He leads me in the paths of righteousness for his namesake.

They are forming a relationship that's eternal with an eternal family. And yes, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, and we will, I will fear no evil for you are with me.

There's one that does not forsake us. Not like parents, not like siblings, not like friends, not like confidence, not like society. This one is with us. Your rod and your staff, they comfort me. Oh, a rod and staff that works two ways. A rod can chase away wolves. It can also smack you, and chase in you, and scourge you, like he says, like he does for his sons whom he loves.

Verse 5, you prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.

When they don't have a table, I have a table, and it's secure. You anoint my head with oil. My cup runs over. In your eyes, I am something that is unique, a special individual among special people that are holy. And surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Now, that is a different type of security and a higher expectation. And yes, we do have to work in this world, but we're not to be of this world.

We're not to be minded of the physical realm, and pursuing just a bunch of materialism and relationships in the handshake, a good old boy system that somehow will help us all aspire.

In Hebrews 11, verse 1, we find here a certain trust that has to take place. Hebrews 11, verse 1. This depending on something that's invisible and spiritual rules that do not sort of sync up with our human logic, that's a risk. And spending your whole life over in something that is illogical to human nature, that is based solely on trust, is a great risk.

To dealing with those things that you can see, those things that you can touch, you can taste, and you can feel. And so he says, faith is the substance of things hoped for.

It's play on words, I guess, because it's not a substance at all. It's not this. But Paul is saying, faith is this. It's the substance. It's the real thing of things you hope for.

The evidence of things that is not seen. Faith is something that God has, that he can give us. It's a gift. And we have to pray and ask for faith. And God, through his Spirit and him living in us, can show us things, give us experiences, and cause us to come and trust him more and more. But at some point, we have to step away from that which we can see, touch, and feel. And we have to commit to that which we know to be trustworthy. In verse 6, a good example here, it says, Without faith it is impossible to please God, for he who comes to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him. By faith, Noah. Now, just put your name there instead of Noah's. You could put John, or Mary, or Jim, Susie. By faith, Noah, being divinely warned of things not yet seen, end time prophecies, things that are going to happen to this world, moved with godly fear, and prepared an ark for the saving of his household. It's a prepared a church for the saving of the god family. We built up, as Ephesians 4, 16 says, we built up that spiritual house, that we built with the edifice, the structure of the body of Christ by every part doing its share in love. By which he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness which is according to faith. That's what we're involved in. Building things that aren't physical is what we're about. That's what we're called to do. We're called to go into all the world as the family, as the lights, and find individuals to disciple and teach to obey all things that God commanded. God wants people who obey him to be ready to be the bride of Christ.

That's what we need to be busy about. This building up of the body of Christ. The building up of every individual temple to be constructing and building this up as a receptacle of God's Spirit where he can live through the Holy Spirit and prepare us for membership in his family, which will come at the seventh trumpet which is not that far away.

Either because of the number of years you have left to live or the number of years that this present evil age has before it expires.

Our lives can be very busy with putting money into bags with holes, as the book of Haggai warns. That's what we can be about. Putting our things into bags with holes. And everything that we buy, everything that we make soon is obsolete.

There are almost every city. You have one here. Almost every city has a mountain growing outside. Some have too. This mountain is a dirt mountain and it grows. And you might see the mountain once in a while and that's a little mountain. You come back a few years later, well that mountain's getting pretty big. Mountain always has some trucks on top. It might have to get some binoculars out there, but those are the trash trucks. You know, your local trash picks up and it goes to a facility and dumps all that trash and gets compacted and put on bigger trucks that go out to the mountain.

And the mountain used to be a hole in the ground. See, they dug a big hole in the ground, they started throwing the trash in the hole, and they take the dirt that used to be in the hole and they cover the trash with it every day. And so the trash and the dirt form a mountain and the mountain gets bigger and bigger and every town, city, has one or more of these mountains of all the stuff that was so important to us at one time. All that stuff was just so valuable and yet it constantly flows into our little mountain. And it's so useless. Nobody wants to be around it.

Nobody wants to see it. Nobody wants to smell it. They just want to go back and buy something new.

Our lives can be that way. Jesus said in Luke 12 33, provide yourselves money bags which do not grow old, a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys. That is something dependable forever. It doesn't grow old. It doesn't get stolen. It's always going to be perfect. That's your body in the future. That's your possessions in the future. That's your relationships. That's the family structure, the church as it were, in total perfection. While we don't have that in this lifetime, we seek that in the future. Who and what can you really count on? What is it that you and I can go out of here today and really count on? One of the things is found in Luke 16 and verse 15.

Jesus said it's easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one tittle of the law to fail.

One thing that's dependable are the laws of God. They're not going to be swept away.

Not now. Not ever. God and the mindset of God is permanent. And if you learn that mindset and incorporate that mindset, it is reality, it's truth, and it lasts for all of eternity. You know, in Matthew chapter 28, the commission of the church to go into all the world, preach the gospel in every creature, and baptize, disciple, teach them to observe all things.

One little statement we often don't really remember is, and lo, I will be with you always, even unto the end. There is something that doesn't fail. Jesus Christ will never leave us or forsake us. He'll never let us down. He'll not be like parents or siblings or friends or any humans or any promises. He will always be there. We can have absolute confidence that He will never leave us. And so, therefore, we should put a precedence on developing that relationship above all others. My wife tells me that she wants to be number two in my life. And she says that fairly often. I want to be number two in your life. And I want to be number two in her life. You know, it's God that we want number one. He is the one, realistically, not just figuratively or religiously. No, realistically, He needs to be number one in our life. It all begins and ends with that relationship, which will last forever.

The goals that we have, the life that we have, the body that we have, the stuff that we have, the people that we have, will fail us over time to some extent. They will let us down in some way or move away or cease to be or whatever it is. But assurances from God and the family of God, those are the only things that are dependable. They are the only things that we can rely on.

They are the expectations that we should have, that we should treasure, that we should share, that we should encourage one another. In Hebrews 13 and verse 5, it says, let your conduct essentially be a godly conduct. And He describes a godly conduct from that mindset of the God family. For God Himself has said, I will never leave you nor forsake you. Those are powerful words. When God says that, He cannot lie. And He is forever, and He will be with us forever. He will never leave or forsake us. We know that the Father comes down and He dwells.

In Revelation 21 and 22, He dwells with those who were humans before, and they are there forever together. It goes on in Hebrews 13, so we may boldly say, the Lord is my helper. There's our helper. There's the one who intercedes with the Father for us. Our lives are like a brief fog. They can be very, very short. I have in my body a tendency to, if I'm stung by something, go into anaphylactic shock and die in about eight minutes.

And you know, crawling around my Bible, I've got this big wasp on my notes and everything. You never know when life will end. You never know when you're going to be someplace, and some part of an airplane is going to fall out of the sky and smash your car. You just don't know. We're like a fog. We can't depend on that, but we can depend on something else. Titus 1 and 2, God offers us something that is rock-solid permanent.

Titus 1 and 2 says, in hope of eternal life, which God who cannot lie promised before time began. Eternal life. It's hard for us to grasp what eternal life is. It's not in a human body that goes on. It's some kind of a complex spirit being giving off a lot of light. You look at some of the descriptions in Ezekiel and other places about what Jesus Christ is like and is thrown.

It's just a different dimension, but that is permanent, and that's promised by a God who cannot lie. Revelation 21 verses 5 through 7 contains other promises. He who sat on the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And there's not going to be anything used or old or anything that would decay or be able to decay.

Spirit things do not. And he makes all things new. And he said to me, Right, for these words are true and faithful. When God says something's true and faithful, we can believe it. He said in verse 6, I will give of the fountain of the water of life freely to him who thirsts. He who overcomes shall inherit all things. Spiritual things that won't go away, won't be stolen. And I will be his God and he shall be my son.

A relationship that will never be broken, will never get strained. Verse 9. You think about marriage and the propensity we have as humans to not fulfill the expectations of our partner at all times in marriage. We try, but we're physical. We're human. We make mistakes. We're sinful. We're struggling. We're trying. But notice in verse 9, then one of the seven angels came saying, Come, I will show you the bride, the Lamb's wife. You know, there's a relationship where the groom, the husband, Jesus the Christ, never in any way lets down the wife. And the wife never in any way lets down the husband, but is a perfect relationship on which the physical marriage union is based, according to Ephesians 4.

These are the things that are long-term dependable. And in conclusion, in some way or another, everything associated with your physical life will eventually let you down. It just will. However, the big question is, what am I going to do with that knowledge? What am I going to do with realizing that it's God and the kingdom of God and the things to do with God that are absolutely reliable, trustworthy, and will endure forever?

Versus this human propensity to deal with the physical and try to manage these things that we can see. What am I going to do with that? It's a good question. Luke 18, verses 7-8, Jesus Christ makes a statement or two and then asks a question. It's a good question. The question is for you and me.

Luke 18, verse 7. Shall God not avenge his own elect who cry out day and night to him? Why are they crying out? What do you cry out to God about? We cry out when things let us down, when things don't go as expected, when people and things let us down. We cry out. Though God bears long with us, verse 8, Jesus said, I tell you that God will avenge them speedily.

Now, nevertheless, interesting word, sweep everything away in this discussion. Nevertheless, changing of the subject, when the Son of Man comes, will he really find faith on the earth? That question isn't to the world. I know they won't be of faith. The question is to those he's speaking on. Speaking of us and the Church, do we trust God? Are we putting our first focus on him, on his way, on his kingdom, on the treasures in heaven, on the things that last forever, on the relationship, a commitment to Jesus Christ as a type of a bride that we will submit to him, that we will honor him, and we will always do the will of God for all of eternity?

So, then we are beginning to rely on things that will uphold our expectations. So, who are you learning to trust? Is it your banker? Is it your investment? Is it your family member, or your friend, or your spouse? Who is it? Is it the software people? Is it the car manufacturers, the tourist industry? Where are we placing our trust? And what are our expectations? If you, as a young person, are looking at life, what are your expectations while you live here on earth? Starting now, count on God and his kingdom to fulfill all of your expectations.