1 Kings

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ, based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the

Apostle Paul said, But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.

In short, if you like smooth, watered -down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn't for you.

By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes, as we're called by the divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her

King. Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. Our Father, we do pray that you would be honored, that you would speak from the word, that Christ would stand forth from the text, and that we would remember

Jesus and be strengthened by the grace that is found in Christ alone, and that we would receive it through faith alone, to your glory alone, in Jesus' name,

Amen. So as I just prepared this message, it was about a little under a year ago,

I prepared it and was never able to give it to the context

I prepared it for, but I prepared it initially as because Christy was sick and she wasn't able to make it to church for quite a while.

So this was kind of written out of the context of our last year, and this is the first time that I've been able to preach it since she passed, but I do pray that it encourages you, and if you walk out of here today and there's one thing you want to remember, or somebody asks you what was the message about,

I wasn't able to make it to church on Sunday, this is the thing that I hope the Lord has ringing in your ears, maybe among other things, but the one thing

I hope is impressed upon your soul from the text is that Jesus secures us and sustains us for a great salvation.

Jesus secures us and sustains us for a great salvation. Many of you might know the famous novel,

A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens, it opens this way, it was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope and the winter of despair, and these are the opening lines of Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities, and it could well describe the 9th century

BC in the land of Israel, and in some ways it describes our time in AD 2022.

It describes the season of these early kings in 1

Corinthians 16, you have Ahab, who is the king of Israel, 874 to 852

BC, and his reign, it was the turning point in the history of Israel, which is clear from the fact that 6 chapters at the end of 1

Kings are dedicated to his reign alone, so a lot of ink is spilled just unpacking his reign, so you know this is a transitional moment in the history of Israel, but this transitional moment, it was also one of the lowest points since the period of the judges, one commentator, one writer says this, it looked like Antichrist had arrived ahead of time, but if your main concerns in life were for the economy, prosperity, and overall social stability, these days didn't seem so bad,

Ahab had reigned for 22 years, and there were no insurrections, no coups, no assassination attempts, and then he had this shrewd marriage alliance with the ambitious Phoenician princess herself,

Jezebel, and what this did was it secured unlimited access and privilege to the world famous Phoenician seaports and seafaring ships, so the context is that business is booming, the economy was making record strides, there was no felt need for the old school

God of their forefathers, this was the age of progress, of human flourishing, and the

Bible says in 1 Kings 16 .30, Ahab did evil in the sight of the

Lord, more than all who were before him, his obsession with Baal worship, serving and worshiping

Baal, building an altar and a temple to Baal, building a huge idol of Baal, it all angered the

Lord more than any other king had, and then that marriage to the Baal mistress herself,

Jezebel, was a major headlong leap into uninhibited rebellion to God, and moreover,

Ahab, he rebuilt the temple, excuse me, he rebuilt Jericho, and that's not insignificant trivia, why is that?

Why is it important to note that he rebuilt Jericho? Because it demonstrates, it's indicative of how dark this time was, after the destruction of Jericho, Joshua declared a curse over anyone who ever would rebuild the city, so that curse forbade anyone, and Ahab, certainly with the best historians in the land, and most educated advisors, willfully did this without fear of God, and so it's upon this dark backdrop that the writer of 1

Kings is painting, Ahab and Jezebel are the evil antagonists, or the bad guys in the story, so you have to ask the question, if they're the antagonists or the bad guys, well, who's the good guy?

Who's the protagonist? Who's the pro -Yahweh protagonist?

Who's the hero? Then, the very next verse, at the beginning of 1 Kings 17, 1

Kings 17 verse 1, it abruptly introduces an obscure prophet, of whom we've never heard before, his name is

Elijah, which means my God is Yahweh, and so unlike any other scriptural introductions of major characters, the details of Elijah's resume, his pedigree, where he came from, are mysteriously withheld to focus on his prophetic message to Ahab.

One writer, pastorally, fleshes out the significance of the suddenness of Elijah's appearing.

He says this, for to see him, that is Elijah, appear so suddenly, it reminds us that we need not despair when we see great movements of evil achieving spectacular success on this earth, for we may be sure that God, in unexpected places, has already prepared his counter -movement.

God has always his ways of working underground, to undermine the stability of evil.

God can raise men for his service from nowhere, therefore, the situation is never hopeless where God is concerned.

Whenever evil flourishes, it is always a superficial flourish, for at the height of the triumph of evil,

God will be there, ready with his man, and his movement, and his plans, to ensure that his cause will never fail.

In other words, there is a man in Israel, whose name is Elieh, my

God is Yah, and his message is what marks him, his message is what distinguishes him from the prophets of Baal, and what is the first mention of his message?

It's a rebuke to Ahab's covenant breaking, a pronouncement of the covenant curses from Deuteronomy 11,

Elijah shows himself to be a true prophet of God, because his prediction of drought, based upon God's covenant curses, it actually comes to pass, his prediction.

Elijah surges with passion for Yahweh worship. So you have to ask the question, what's so special about this man?

In 1 Kings 17 -18, I'm just going to summarize in just broad strokes,

Elijah is recorded as a transitional figure in the history of the kings and the prophets, and one reason you know he's so transitional is because, like Moses before,

Elijah's ministry is marked by signs and wonders. In redemptive history, when

God's purposes experience a sudden, big, major shift, typically it's accompanied by a series of miraculous events.

Consider Moses' miracles in the Exodus, Jesus' miraculous three -year ministry, the apostles' miraculous ministry in establishing the

New Testament church in Acts, and in this instance in Israel's history, the prophetic office inaugurated through Elijah is just ramping up, and Moses represents the law to the people,

Elijah represents the prophetic word to the people. The law is like the covenant contract between God and his people, and the prophets are like the legal attorneys that apply the law to the context of God's people and make charges, warnings, and promises and assurances to them in order to turn them back to the

God of the covenant and to trust in him through faith alone. And some of these miraculous records in the life of Elijah on numerous occasions entail things like hearing the voice of God directly, miraculous provisions of bread, just like Moses, man in the wilderness, miraculous provisions of meat, just like quail in the wilderness, provisions of water, miraculously, like the rock split open in the wilderness.

God provides food through a widow, and then through Elijah God provides food for the widow during the famine.

Three years later, after the famine is ending, which Elijah predicted, remember, he boldly goes to meet

Ahab, and during this famine apparently Jezebel has killed all the prophets of God that she could find, though there are about a hundred who are all safely hidden away from her wrath.

Jezebel and Ahab are like the classic crime family, an

Old Testament foreshadow of maybe the beast and the false prophet. Knowing that his life, his career, security are in danger, nevertheless,

Elijah summons Ahab. As you know, they might say, quite the chutzpah, right?

In some ways, Elijah is the most wanted man in Israel. He has a target on his head.

He is a national security threat. He is Ahab's fall guy, his patsy, his scapegoat.

The nation hates Elijah, why? Because the word on the street is that Elijah brought about this three -year famine.

He's getting blamed for it. And so you can hear Ahab's hatred for Elijah and Elijah's boldness in their interaction in 1

Kings 18, 17. When Ahab saw Elijah, Ahab said, is it you, you troubler of Israel?

And he answered, I've not troubled Israel, but you have, and your father's house, because you have abandoned the commandments of the

Lord and followed the Baals, and now therefore send and gather all Israel to me at Mount Carmel, and the 450 prophets of Baal, and the 400 prophets of Asherah who eat at Jezebel's table.

Then, you know, you know the story, the prophets of Baal gather on Mount Carmel, and Elijah instructs them, and you call upon the name of your

God, and I will call upon the name of the Lord, and the God who answers by fire, he is

God. So, you know, just to put in contemporary terms, this is like the

Old Testament version of Doc Holliday at the gunfight of O .K. Carmel, right?

So the prophets of Baal, they cry out, hours and hours, and Elijah teases and he mocks them, and after most of the day has passed, he takes his turn.

He pours, you know, jars of water all over the altar so that it is running over, spilling over into the trenches.

And Elijah calls upon the name of the Lord to make his name known, and God sends fire from heaven, and consumes the sacrifice, burning up all the water, and the people who saw it, they fall on their faces, declaring that the

Lord is God. And then Elijah, what does he do? He seizes and slaughters all the prophets of Baal.

But then we get to 1 Kings 19, which is always lost in the shadow of 1

Kings 18. We love 1 Kings 18, but there is a chapter that follows that we never get to. So what happened to Elijah?

After this savage massacre, and indeed it was a savage massacre, Elijah is a force to be reckoned with.

He makes David's mighty men look like junior varsity. His massive victory didn't turn out the way

Elijah had hoped. Chapter 19, verses 1 to 3, Ahab tells Jezebel, she's so, so raving mad.

Remember, she killed most of the prophets already. She swears she's going to kill Elijah by the next day.

So he takes off for the wilderness, probably making signs that say Elijah didn't kill himself.

He is afraid of this woman. Verse 4, But he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness, and he came and he sat under a broom tree, and he asked that he might die, saying,

It is enough. Now, Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my father's. And he lay down and slept under a broom tree.

And behold, an angel touched him and said to him, Arise and eat. And he looked and behold, there was at his head a cake or bread baked on hot stones and a jar of water, and he ate and drank and lay down again.

And the angel of the Lord came again a second time and touched him and said, Arise and eat, for the journey is too great for you.

And he arose and ate and drank and went in the strength of that food 40 days and 40 nights at Horeb, the

Mount of God. There he came to a cave and lodged in it. And behold, the word of the Lord came to him and he said to him,

What are you doing here, Elijah? And he said, I've been very jealous for the Lord, the God of hosts for the people of Israel have forsaken your covenant.

They've thrown down your altars. They've killed your prophets with the sword. And I even I only am left and they seek my life to take it away.

And he said, Go and stand on the Mount before the Lord. And behold, the

Lord passed by and a great and strong wind tore the mountains and broke in pieces the rocks before the

Lord. But the Lord was not in the wind. And after the wind, there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake.

And after the earthquake of fire, but the Lord wasn't in the fire. And after the fire, the sound of a low whisper, when

Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his cloak and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. And behold, there was there came a voice and and said,

What are you doing here, Elijah? And he said, I've been very jealous for the Lord, the God of hosts for the people of Israel.

They have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars and killed your prophets with the sword. And I even

I only am left and they seek my life to take it away. The Lord said to him, Go return on your way to the wilderness of Damascus.

And when you arrive, you shall anoint Hazael to be king over Syria. And Jehu, the son of Nimshai, you shall anoint to be king over Israel.

And Elisha, the son of Shafat of Abel -Mechelah, you shall anoint to be the prophet in your place.

And the one who escapes from the sword of Hazael shall Jehu put to death. And the one who escapes from the sword of Jehu shall

Elisha put to death. Yet I will leave seven thousand in Israel and all the knees that have not bowed to bow and every mouth that has not kissed him.

So this ends chapter 19. What's amazing? What what is?

Don't fly over that. Don't fly over this. What is so amazing about this account? Is it amazing that this mighty man, this man of God, this prophet of prophets, cowers in fear of Jezebel?

That Elijah runs from Jezebel is quite out of character, especially after confronting

Ahab to his face, after raising a child from the dead, after predicting a famine, after seeing

God provide food for him through birds, for calling fire out of heaven after slaughtering 850 priests of Baal and praying for rain and outrunning

Ahab's chariot. So don't write him off as some sort of prophet with a manic depressive disorder, which, of course, were complex beings, and there could have been lots of things going on in his body chemistry.

But the text gives clues that there's more going on than chemistry. It was his convictions.

Something deeper is happening here. There's a theological rock bed underneath all of this that's driving him.

He is wrestling with the mysterious providences and purposes of God.

His noble expectations of turning the nation back to Yahweh apparently don't seem to fit

God's timing and plan. After he flees to the wilderness, he comes to rest under a tree.

There, in the wilderness, in the hiding, in the darkness, in the remoteness, the angel,

THE angel of the Lord ministers to him. And we know from the rest of the Bible that THE, with a definite article, angel of the

Lord, is the pre -incarnate Messiah. Isn't it interesting and beautiful that he didn't just send a myriad of other servants and angels to wait upon Elijah?

It's a beautiful picture that the divine angel of the Lord himself stoops down to serve

Elijah by preparing some hot bread and cool water while he sleeps under the shade of a tree.

It's as though this picture of the angel of the Lord is foreshadowing him as a servant to God's people, coming not to be served but to serve.

To serve his people with living bread, with water of life, as they rest under the shade of his tree.

And after the angel of the Lord, this Christophany revives Elijah's depleted health with bread and water, what does he do?

He goes to Mount Horeb. Why is that significant? Well, Mount Horeb has another name,

Mount Sinai, the place where the covenant was both given and broken. And 40 days and 40 nights were the times of Israel's unfaithfulness and the time of Moses's intercession.

Moreover, what other prophet would someday spend 40 days and 40 nights in the wilderness?

And in showing his glory to Moses, Yahweh in Exodus 33 verses 19 to 22, it says

Yahweh passed by Moses just as he now passes by Elijah in verse 11.

It's the same exact Hebrew word on the same mountain. Elijah knows he is

God's man on God's holy mountain. He spent 40 days and 40 nights at Sinai, which echoes the ministry of Moses.

And he's so passionate for the covenant law of God and Yahweh's honor that he goes back to the most holy place in his mind, that sacred place where Moses saw the glory of Yahweh.

Maybe the last place that Jezebel's defiling religion hadn't yet reached. And he goes there because he has a passion for Yahweh's glory.

It dominates his soul and he is jealous. He is jealous for Yahweh's name to be honored in Israel.

And he's afraid that if Jezebel kills him, the light will be snuffed out of Israel.

The Lord asks him, why is he at Sinai? And you can hear his passion for God's name in verse 10, which he then repeats again in verse 14.

He says, I've been very jealous. I've been very jealous for the Lord, the God of hosts. The people of Israel have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars and killed your prophets with a sword.

And from his perspective, I, even I only am left and they seek my life to take it away. So from the start,

Elijah has been portrayed as the man of God in Israel.

The only one who stands for Yahweh, even in the literal face of the most powerful man in Israel. He has one holy passion, the name of Yahweh.

Like the Scottish reformer, John Knox, he said of Scotland, give me Scotland or I die.

Or Rachel, who wanted to extend the messianic line through Jacob, she says, give me children or I die. Elijah would likewise cry out, give me national revival or I die.

His motives are righteous, they're good. They're certainly pleasing to God. Indeed, his self -denying passion to glorify

Yahweh through bringing about this God -centered revival, probably far superior to most of our life's goals.

And maybe even our ministry mission statements sometimes. Though grateful for the few who turned to Yahweh and Mount Carmel, Elijah was despairing.

He was discouraged that what he had been praying for, what he'd been working for had not broke out.

National revival did not come. The royal family did not repent. And so for such an astonishing miracle, like calling fire down from heaven, there's such a minuscule

ROI, such a low return on investment in this ministry. Only a few turn to Yahweh.

And after this thrilling climax of his prophetic ministry, God didn't come through on his end of the bargain as Elijah perceived it.

What's the point of trying, God? I just want to die. I'm the only one left. Instead of rebuking him as a whiny, emotional prophet who just can't get his act together, the

Lord who previously provided food and water for him while he slept.

Isn't it interesting also that some of the greatest movements in redemptive history is when God acts on behalf of his people as they sleep.

Think of Abraham, the patriarchs, the disciples in the garden. God acts for us when we are most at rest in his care.

God works for him as he sleeps. That same merciful Lord now speaks to Elijah through power in a tornado, earthquake and fire.

But no, he speaks to him in a low voice. The Lord gives him instructions to anoint Jehu as king, Elisha as Elijah's prophetic successor.

And he assures him to press on in courage because there are 7 ,000 silent saints who have not yet bowed to bow.

Jesus knows how to secure us and sustain us for his great salvation.

And now fast forward eight and a half centuries knowing the deepest desires of his servants' hearts.

God, imagine with me, let's just imagine God says to Elijah in heaven, Elijah, I want you to meet someone.

Now, go take Moses, go down to that mountain. And so Moses and Elijah, two servants, very passionate for the glory of God, the

Old Testament representative mediator and the Old Testament representative prophet, they go down and they wait on a mountain.

And suddenly in their midst, the angel of the Lord shows up, but in a man's body with a bearded face of a

Jewish rabbi. His glory that they knew as the second person of the trinity in heaven 30 years earlier is now revealed in the gritty face of a man.

And there with him are Peter, James, and John who have only known the human face of this

Jewish rabbi. And now they see the radiance of his divine glory that he had before the foundation of the world, the glory that passed by Moses and passed by Elijah on the same mountain.

For the first time, Elijah meets the better prophet who speaks a better word, who turns the hearts of his people to Yahweh, who writes the law on their hearts.

Elijah's hopes and prayers are all realized in the face of Yeshua, Messiah, Jesus, Messiah.

He was God's plan A all along and still is. And so here's for a

Old Testament narrative, here's an application for all of us. The Lord knows our deepest, truest, purest desires.

Those good desires, those dreams of fruitfulness in discipleship making, fruitfulness in great commission service.

Those good desires he's given us, just like Elijah had. There are those who seem to go from one victory to another, never struggling, never grieving where maybe we secretly battle.

That family whose children all grow up loving the Lord, marrying wisely, finding secure jobs.

Living nearby with great community, that friend who has so much energy, no health problems.

That missionary biography that everybody loves to talk about, about a life that is truly surrendered to the Lord. That life that God blesses, that everybody wants to talk about, that minister that always has great stories about how well ministry is going.

Always talking about how God has blessed them with so many good things. God is good all the time. Amazing house, amazing kids, amazing marriage.

Amazing vacations, amazing devotions. Amazing job, amazing food, amazing health.

And then there's many of us, we struggle. Struggle to walk in victory over secret sins.

You're shamed maybe of those entertaining addictions that you just can't kick. You wonder if your kids will ever respect you again.

You wish you had parents that love the Lord. You grieve over the decadence of the country that you poured your life out for in its service.

You just want to give up when you've spent your all for something good in this life. And it just doesn't seem like there's much return on investment.

Most of your efforts to serve God's people maybe have resulted in backstabbing slander and suddenly departed church members.

You're jealous for God. You're jealous for God and his glory. But he doesn't seem to come through on his end of the bargain in your life.

When Jesus called you to pick up your cross, maybe you had no idea how inglorious or tedious or discouraging or mundane it would be.

You'd never say this to anyone, but you maybe sometimes you secretly wish that God would just take you home. As Paul says, for we know, we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now.

And not only the creation, but we ourselves who have the first fruits of the spirit grown inwardly as we wait eagerly, eagerly for adoption of sons and redemption of our bodies for in this hope we were saved.

Now, hope that is seen is not hope for who hopes for what he sees. But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.

And if that's you, that inner groaning for final deliverance, you're not alone.

Welcome to the normal Christian life. Knowing that you would be tempted to give up and give in from the constant anxiety and pain and distress and worry and confusion and frustrations of this life.

Paul calls Christians to look beyond the pain and hope to the dawning glory of God. He says in Romans 8, 18, for I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing to the glory that is to be revealed to us.

So what does he mean that this glory is not worth comparing to our suffering? What is that?

Well, he says in 2 Corinthians 4, 16, he says, So we do not lose heart. Why? Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day.

For this light and momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory.

Beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen, but to the things that are unseen, for the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.

Forward -looking faith is hope. By faith, we look back and trust in the things that Christ has done on our behalf.

And then by faith, we look forward to what God has promised and hope in his faithfulness to fulfill those promises, just as he already has fulfilled so many other promises in Christ.

We base our hope upon his trustworthiness in fulfilling those promises in the past. So from start to finish, it's by grace alone.

It's a grace race. Grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone, bolstered by the scripture alone to the glory of God alone.

Jesus secures us and sustains us for a glorious, a great salvation.

So like Elijah, the reason you do not lose heart is because God loves you and wields all his might for you and your sanctification and your inevitable future glorification to save you for himself.

You are saved in Christ by God, from God, for God. His enduring love and mighty power to save are overflows of who he is.

He is infinite. So his love and his power to save are infinite. His love and power to save are eternal.

His love and power to save are immutable. It's unchanging. Malachi 3, 6,

I love this for, I the Lord do not change.

Therefore, you're not consumed. That's good news. Consider those experiences of devastating darkness, merciless disappointment, nightmarish sadness, unremitting pain, and maybe we describe the burden as unbearable, overwhelming.

The Bible does indeed validate the experience of human pain, but it describes it as what?

Light, momentary affliction. So how is that possible? Because the glory of the resurrection is not even worth comparing to our sufferings.

And it's beyond all comparison to our sufferings, according to Paul in 2nd Corinthians. So what does that mean?

What is this weight of glory that today, Elijah and the great cloud of witnesses before the resurrection have, they now have died in faith.

Faith, what do they now impart before the resurrection and joy? 1st Peter 1, 4 says it this way.

It describes it as an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept, guarded, protected in heaven.

For you in heaven and in the resurrection, there will never, never, never be one moment of regret, remorse, discontentment, envy, jealousy, discouragement, anger, trauma, lust, addiction, slander, or anything else that crushes and disqualifies our souls as condemned and corrupt in this life.

Indeed, we will likely not even recall to mind those things from this life either.

How do you know that? Well, Isaiah 65, 17 is great news. It says this, for behold, I create a new heavens and a new earth, and the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind.

And elsewhere in Isaiah, the Lord says this in Isaiah 54, 4. He says this, Fear not, for you will not be ashamed.

Don't be confounded, for you will not be disgraced. Why? For you will forget the shame of your youth and the reproach of your widowhood.

You will remember no more. Any recollection of this life will probably be like a fading dream, waking up after a dream as we go through a day, the dream fades.

We have some sort of hint, some part of our dream, maybe, but in light of reality and our daily living and any reminiscence of a dream is trivial.

It's irrelevant to reality. And so the love of God for us in Christ will swallow up all that is momentary and transient in this life.

And God lovingly leverages all that he is for us and for our good in the resurrection so that the weight that feels so burdensome, so overwhelming, so crushing in our momentary affliction, now will be translated into a heavy, a heavy, immeasurable weight of glory.

And the Hebrew word for glory is literally weight or weighty or heavy. Paul's translating a common

Hebrew theological idea into the Greek, basically saying, our heavy pains in this life should point us away from them and look to the unseen promises heaven, the weight of glory or the heaviness of glory or literally the weight of weight so that when we get to heaven, never will we fully fathom the depth of God's wisdom and goodness and holiness and love and power and justice and grace.

Every day in glory will get better and better and better and better.

Never will you fully comprehend, know, and enjoy God's love for you.

You'll never, you'll never plummet the depths of that. At the end of every day, if there are days in heaven, you will say something like, that was the best day of my life.

I can't wait for tomorrow. God, the Holy One, loves even me.

For the Christian, the best is always yet to come. Heaven, you see, is the presence of the

Father and the Son and the Spirit's holy, infinite, eternal and immutable love. A land of heavy, glorious love in Christ so that day after day and age after age, you will be weighed down with the love of God.

So that, so much so that if you were to experience it in this life and you're not yet glorified state, you would probably cry with heaving gasps.

I can't take it anymore, Lord. Please stay your hand. You're beautiful beyond description, too marvelous for words, too wonderful for comprehension, like nothing ever seen or heard.

And you'll say, who can grasp your infinite wisdom? Who can fathom the depths of your love?

You're beautiful beyond description, majesty enthroned above. And in heaven on the new earth, time will be inconsequential.

We all know what that's like. We don't, we all know what it's like when you lose track of time. You're caught up in the moment in something you enjoy so much.

Maybe, you know, watching your favorite team win the Super Bowl. The year you fell in love, the day you got engaged, your wedding day, your honeymoon, the birth of your child, your grandchild, scoring the winning points of a championship game, performing flawlessly in a senior recital, running across the finish line in a marathon,

Christmas morning when you're a child, enjoying Christmas Eve and morning with your grandkids all under your roof.

Those blissful moments. Time ceases to exist. In those sublime moments, those happy moments, nobody worries about what happens tomorrow.

Nobody cares to recall what happened yesterday. Nobody is bored and nobody checks their watch. You're caught up in the moment of the immediate presence of joy and love and laughter.

Those heavenly moments, they swallow us up and remind us that we're made for something otherworldly.

We're made for someone otherworldly, something pure, joyful, holy, timeless, unchanging, unbreakable, and undefiled.

In heaven, nobody will say to creative thinkers in this life, like maybe C .S. Lewis or J .R .R.

Tolkien, you know, you had a better imagination than God does. Never, never will you be tired, bored, in pain, discouraged, hungry, irritated, sad in heaven.

On the new earth, it'll be a land of laughter and singing and energy and discovery and joy and peace.

And on the new earth, you will have a reputation and responsibility that you love.

But isn't it interesting how many jobs won't be needed? There'll be no doctors, no lawyers, no insurance agents, no military, no diplomats, no

FBI, no pastors, no missionaries, no counselors, no pharmacists, no mechanics, no policemen, no firemen.

Think about it. The arts, humanities, engineering, space exploration, agriculture, and the like will all abound and resound to the glory of Christ, a land where the curse can be found no more.

Like Elijah, you can get up in the morning, endure another day in the thankless, heavy, mundane, discouraging world in which we're merely exiles and sojourners.

And how do you keep on going when your prayers and God's providences don't seem to match? The Bible says be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the

Lord. Why? Knowing that in the Lord, your labor is never in vain.

It's what you know, and it's who you trust that makes all the difference. And how do we know

God's promises will come to pass, his purposes for us will be fulfilled, and he will not let us go but bring us safely home to heaven?

Is it dependent upon how well you do, how faithful you are, how much you really mean it this time when you say you believe in him?

No. I love this. The Bible says in 1 Thessalonians 5, 23, now may the

God of peace, implying that we are riddled with anxiety, may the God of peace himself.

In the reflexive, what does that mean? Well, my boys are strong boys now, they can chop wood just fine, but not many years ago, they were small and they wanted to help me chop wood.

And, you know, I said, you know, this, I, dad himself will chop the wood.

You guys watch, you learn, I will do it myself. What does that say? There's none of you in this.

I'm doing it. May the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, not just mostly.

He does 90%, you do 10 % completely. And may your, now pay attention to the big descriptors, the superlative language, may your whole spirit and soul and body, all of the totality of who you are, be kept, guarded, protected, blameless, blameless.

If you ever worried that you might be blamed for something at the return of Christ, there's good news. You will be kept blameless at the coming of our

Lord Jesus Christ. And just in case, there's still a little bit of shreds of doubt in us. He who calls you is faithful.

And one more time, he will surely, he will surely do it.

You can take that to the bank. God will do it. He himself is faithful.

And I love this last quote of C .S. Lewis from the last battle. It depicts the hope, the heavenly hope that we have.

And as he spoke, meaning Aslan, of course, he no longer looked to them like a lion, but the things that happened, that began to happen after that were so great and so beautiful that I cannot write them.

For us, this is the end of all the stories. And we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after.

But for them, it was only beginning of the real story and all their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page.

And now at last, they were beginning chapter one of the great story, which no one on earth has read, which goes on forever, in which every chapter is better than the one before.

It's good news, Christian. There's good news for God who loves you, who has covenanted through the slaughter of his son to secure you and sustain you for a great salvation.

Let's pray. Our God in heaven, you are great and greatly to be praised. We don't even know the weight of weight in heaven, but in part, we get glimpses even through the revealing of your word.

And Lord, may we forget ourselves and rest in Christ under the shade of his tree, feeding on the bread and water of life.

Thank you for serving us when we could not and would not serve you. In Jesus name, amen. in West Boylston.

Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life transforming power of God's word through verse by verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at six. We're right on route 110 in West Boylston.

You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.