Simeon Sees the Savior (Luke 2:21-26) | Worship Service

Kootenai Church Worship Service and Scripture Reading

Welcome to Kootenai Church. We're glad that you're here today. Would you please stand as we sing Joy to the World.

I just need to remind you of two events coming up. Our Christmas Eve service on Christmas Eve at 6 .30 that evening. And then also we have Justin Peters coming on January 14th and 15th for his seminar.

And there are some ladies who are putting together a co-op to handle childcare for that event. So if you are interested in that and would like to take advantage of that, talk to Kathy Conger. And if you're not sure who Kathy Conger is, talk to me, I'm the one in the bright shirt and I will point you in the right direction.

Turn please now to Luke chapter two for the scripture reading. Luke two, we're gonna read this passage that we have been looking at last week and are going to be in again this week. Beginning at verse 21, Luke chapter two.

Beginning at verse 21. And when eight days had passed before his circumcision, his name was then called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb. And when the days for their purification according to the law of Moses were completed, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord.

As it is written in the law of the Lord, every firstborn male that opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord and to offer a sacrifice according to what was said in the law of the Lord, a pair of turtle doves or two young pigeons.

And there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon. This man was righteous and devout, looking for the consolation of Israel and the Holy Spirit was upon him. And it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ.

And he came in the spirit into the temple. And when the parents brought in the child Jesus to carry out for him the custom of the law, that he took him into his arms and blessed God and said, now Lord, you are releasing your bondservant to depart in peace according to your word.

For my eyes have seen your salvation which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light of revelation to the Gentiles and the glory of your people Israel. And his father and mother were amazed at the things which were being said about him.

And Simeon blessed them and said to Mary, his mother, behold, this child is appointed for the fall and rise of many in Israel and for a sign to be opposed. And a sword will pierce even your own soul to the end that the thoughts from many hearts may be revealed.

And there was a prophetess, Anna, the daughter of Panul of the tribe of Asher. She was advanced in years and had lived with her husband seven years after her marriage. And then as a widow to the age of 84, she never left the temple serving night and day with fastings and prayers.

At that very moment, she came up and began giving thanks to God and continued to speak of him to all those who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem. Will you stand with me as we pray? Let's bow our heads.

Christ as Salvation, Revelation, and Glory

Father, it is only by and according to your great mercy that we are able to gather here together as your people. We gather in freedom and comfort and convenience and it is the joy of our hearts to be able to do so.

And we thank you for these blessings. We thank you that we can enjoy such rich fellowship in and because of your son. We thank you that we have the blessings of salvation that you have brought to us through our savior Christ the Lord.

We thank you for his living for us, his dying for us, and that by him and by his work, you have imputed to us all of his righteousness and taken away our sin. We thank you again for this reminder of our salvation, how free it is, how glorious it is, how it is the fulfillment of promise and expectation all the way through the Old Testament.

You have kept your word and you will continue to do so. So cause us, we pray, to trust in you and to trust in your word and to, with bold and faithful and faith-filled hearts, to give you glory and honor and praise for all that you have done for us in your son.

We pray that as we gather here in worship that our fellowship may be sweet, that our unity may be evident, that your grace may be poured out upon us and that your name may be honored in all that we say and all that we do.

We ask this in Christ's name and all God's people said, amen.

See the star shine on the virgin thing and light up What brings out in a new born Christ the one

Matthew chapter two, verses 10 and 11. It says, and when they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy. And after coming into the house, they saw the child with Mary, his mother, and they fell to the ground and worshiped him.

Then opening their treasures, they presented to him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. You may be seated.

And now back in Luke chapter two. Let's begin with prayer before we start our study. Our Father, we ask that in your word and through your word, you would speak to our hearts today, that you would show us the glory of Christ and the greatness of your plan of redemption and all that you have accomplished for us in and through your son.

As our hearts meditate upon these things, we ask that your spirit would be our guide and our teacher and that your word would be made, that we would see the living quality of it and that we would see and apprehend in your word wonderful things.

We pray that you would illuminate us today, our hearts and our minds, through your word and by the power of your spirit. In Christ's name we pray, amen. Last week we began studying this section in Luke chapter two, this very intriguing man named Simeon.

This is the only place in all of scripture that Simeon is mentioned and though Matthew does also have a birth narrative of the Lord Jesus Christ, it is Luke who spends more time than any other gospel writer on the events surrounding the birth of Christ.

Less than two months after the birth of Jesus, Joseph and Mary went up to Jerusalem. This is all just by way of review to catch us up to where we're gonna be looking at in our passage today. They went up to Jerusalem to offer a sacrifice and to present Jesus to the Lord and of course all of that was to fulfill the Mosaic law, the demands of the law regarding the infant Jesus.

Mary and Joseph wanted to ensure that their son would be considered a son of the covenant, that he would have fulfilled the law in its earliest stages and even in his infancy. While he was yet frail and vulnerable and unable to fulfill the law on his own behalf, his mother and father saw to it that the law was fulfilled for him.

And then we are introduced to Simeon, this righteous and devout man whom scripture says in verse 25, he was righteous in that he had faith and so he had an imputed righteousness, the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ.

That's the only righteousness that's ever imputed to anybody, is the righteousness that Christ earned through his death on the cross and his living the perfect life and living in obedience to the law.

Simeon also was devout, that is to say he was careful in his obedience to the law of God and in his walk with God. He demonstrated his piety, his devoutness in his obedience to God. And he was waiting for the consolation of Israel, looking for and expecting the Messiah and the Holy Spirit was upon him.

That's the wonderful biography of this man of whom we know very little else other than just what is right here in scripture. We just know that he was righteous, devout, waiting for the Messiah and that the Holy Spirit was upon him.

And I suggested last week that if those were the only four things that could ever be said of you, those are the four best things that could ever be said of you. That's quite a biography. This is an intriguing man.

In some fashion, the Holy Spirit revealed to Simeon that he would not see death until he saw the Lord's Christ. Now we don't know how old Simeon was when that was revealed to him. Was he a teenager and then now he is very old?

Or was there some point when Simeon had become sick in his old age and thought that maybe that was the time that God was going to call him home and the Spirit of God revealed to him that no, you're not gonna die until you see the Lord's Christ.

We don't know how old he was. We don't even know how it is that the Spirit revealed that to Simeon or how long he waited to see the Christ before he actually did in the temple that day. There's a lot about that encounter we don't know.

We don't know what Simeon was expecting. Was he expecting to see the Messiah come back.

In clouds with great glory?

As the Old Testament seemed to suggest that the Messiah would come. By the way, he will come. It's not the first coming, the second coming. Was that what Simeon was waiting to see? Was he expecting to see Mary and Joseph, a young, unassuming, poor Jewish couple in the temple that day?

What was he looking for and anticipating? We don't know any of that. But the Lord had promised a Messiah back in the Garden of Eden. In all of the Old Testament writings throughout the course of Israel's history had promised that this Messiah would come and fulfill the promise given in the Garden.

Abraham expected one who would be the seed who would bless all the nations. It would be from his descendants. David expected that one of his long-descendant sons would end up ruling the nations and bringing in a kingdom of peace and righteousness.

That was what David's expectation was. All the prophets expected this Messiah, anticipated him, described his judgment and his coming, and all of that was anticipated. And then you have Simeon who has this longing to see the consolation of Israel as a devout Jew.

He would have had that Old Testament expectation and been looking forward to it. And then listen, then to have it revealed to you that you were not going to die before you saw the Christ in your own lifetime.

What would that have been like? To have that confidence? Someone saying, you know, Simeon, you've gotta get ready to meet the Lord. He could, you could die at any moment.

Oh, no, no.

No, no, I know it's 5 p .m. right now, but I have not seen the Lord's Christ today, so I know that I shall live until I see the Lord's Christ. He had that confident expectation. What would that do for you if you knew that you would see the Lord return in your own lifetime and that you would not die until you saw the face of Christ?

Until you, in the words of Job, saw your Messiah take his stand, your God take his stand upon this earth. If you knew you were going to see that in your own lifetime and you could not die before that happened, what would that do to you?

Would it motivate you a little bit? Would you arrange your life's priorities just a little bit? Would you live with this confident expectation, this eager anticipation, this sort of zealous motivation to do for the Lord what you can while you can?

I can imagine that for Simeon, this would have been not only a source of great confidence, but something that would have just thrilled his heart, that expectation that at any day the Lord could return.

I don't wanna camp on this too much, but just to remind you, the Lord has promised that he is going to return. He is going to come. Now, whether you see him in your lifetime or not, I can't promise you that.

And if anybody here or anybody watching or anybody emails me and says the Lord has revealed to me that I will see the Christ in my own lifetime before I die, I'm calling hooey on that. That is not true.

That is baloney. He's not gonna do that. No man knows the day or the hour, but we do long to see that and we do have that confident expectation that he shall return and we will be with him. For some reason, the Lord chose Simeon to be the special recipient of that special blessing, to know that he would not die until he saw the Christ.

Verse 27 says that he came in the spirit into the temple. Verse 26 is the promise. It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he saw the Lord's Christ. Verse 27, and he came in the spirit into the temple, and when the parents brought in the child Jesus to carry out for him the custom of the law, he took the Christ child into his arms and blessed God and said.

Now in some way, the Spirit of God led Simeon into the temple that day. Here's what we do not know, because when I say the Spirit of God led Simeon into the temple, there's all kinds of scenarios that might be playing out in your mind, so let's be clear about something.

We don't know how this providentially worked out. It might be that this is simply Luke's description that Simeon came into the temple to worship that day. He was in the spirit in the sense that he was in an attitude of worship and he was coming in to offer his sacrifice and to worship God in the temple as he did maybe several times that week or at least weekly that he came into the temple for that purpose and that this is just Luke describing that in the spirit, that is in a spirit of worship and desiring to worship, he came into the temple.

We don't know if that's what is being described. It is also possible that because the Spirit of God had revealed to Simeon that he would not taste death until he saw the Lord's Christ, that the Spirit of God also revealed to Simeon every step along the way what he was to do and what he was to expect.

That's possible, isn't it? Now, these are obviously two separate extremes on the experiential paradigm, as it were, right? It's possible that Simeon woke up that morning and the Spirit of God revealed to him, spoke to him and said, Simeon, today is the day.

I need you to go to the temple. It needs to be at 9 a .m. and you need to go to the northwest, and I'm just making this stuff up, corner of the temple complex. It was a big complex and you ought to be looking for a young Jewish couple.

He's gonna look like sort of a ruffian type of a guy. He's a carpenter, after all, and they're not gonna have a lot of money. They're going to be theirs. You're gonna be holding the Christ child in the arms and you're gonna recognize the child because it's going to be a male wrapped in a blue blanket with a blue beanie on top of its head.

I don't know what it was the Spirit of God revealed to him. The Spirit of God might have revealed all of those details to Simeon so he knew exactly where to go, where to be, when to be there, on what day to go, and what he was looking for.

That is possible. Or it is possible that Luke is just simply here describing that even though Simeon walked into the temple that day, not feeling any liver shivers or getting Holy Spirit bumps or hearing any audible voices, that the Spirit of God was providentially guiding his steps so that though from Simeon's perspective, he was just living life, going through the motions, doing what he normally did, but from the divine perspective, it was the Spirit of God who was guiding and providentially guarding those steps and directing them to that end.

That is what I think most likely happened. There is a whole segment of Christianity that thinks that the Spirit of God is not working unless we feel it and we see it and it's some supernatural reality.

But I would submit to you that the Spirit of God works in all kinds of ways all around us all the time. Most of it, the vast majority of it, is unperceived by the children of God. I think this is just Luke saying Simeon went that day and you see this chance coincidence of this meeting of Simeon with this young couple.

Oh no, no, Simeon was going about his business but the Spirit of God was providentially guiding his steps so that it was in the Spirit that Simeon did this. And the Spirit ends up bringing Simeon to the Christ child and not only that, but the Spirit ends up prompting this confession that is on Simeon's lips beginning in verse 29 where he starts talking about and describing this Christ child.

This is, I think, working out in a physical way, something that we have to understand and confess happens in the spiritual sense as well. Who was it that directed Simeon's steps and brought him to the Christ and then revealed to Simeon who this was?

However that revelation happened and the guidance happened, we're not told that by Luke. What we do know that is in the moment when he saw that child, he could not have known that that child was the Christ unless the Spirit of God revealed that.

There were all kinds of children, possibly in the temple, likely around Jerusalem, and if Simeon comes into the temple that day, the reality that this was the Christ is something that would have been revealed by the Holy Spirit to Simeon.

That's something he could have only known by revelation. So whatever is orchestrating this encounter, however this encounter is taking place, it is in the moment that he sees the Christ child that he recognizes that is what the Christ child is.

It is then when he sees that baby, he understands the value of that child, the significance of that child, the significance of the birth. And listen, this is what the Holy Spirit does to us and to anyone who gets saved.

This is what the Spirit of God has done for everybody in here who is a believer in Jesus Christ. You did not come to Christ on your own. You came to Christ because the Spirit drew you to Christ. No man comes to the Father, right?

No man can come to Jesus, Jesus said in John 6, 44, unless the Father who sent me draws him and I will raise him up at the last day. No one comes to Christ in the flesh. No one comes to Christ on his own.

No man seeks after God. No one has that ability. It's not that no man is unwilling, he is. All men are unwilling to do that unless the Lord does that work. But this is something playing out in the physical realm that is true spiritually.

Nobody comes to Christ on their own. It's the Spirit of God who does that. It's the Spirit of God who providentially directs our steps so that he may bring to God his elect in that perfect timing. Because it is God who has chosen, it's the Son who would die, it is the Spirit who draws in God's people.

And that's what the Spirit of God is doing for Simeon here in a providential way and in a physical sense. I want you to notice also the Trinitarian moment that's unfolding right here before our eyes. He came in the Spirit into the temple and the parents brought the child Jesus to carry out the custom of the law and took his arms and he blessed God.

And then what he says in verses 29 through 32 is his confession to God. This is a Trinitarian moment. Notice that you have the Christ child there in the temple. This is even as an infant, he is God in human flesh.

This is one person with two natures. This is God incarnate, the eternal second person of the Trinity, the Word made flesh. He is, this is not something that would happen later in his life. This is something that is true of him even in his infancy.

This is the God man. This is the perfect sinless Son of God present in the temple. And then you have Simeon whose steps and whose words and whose eyes are all being worked upon by the Holy Spirit to bring Simeon there to that point.

So the Spirit of God is there and the Son is there and then he begins to speak to the Father about the Son. So what we have here is the confession of a devout Yahweh worshiper under the influence of the Spirit speaking to the Father about the Son.

This is somebody under the influence of the third person of the Trinity describing the second person of the Trinity to the first person of the Trinity. This is quite magnificent, isn't it? It's a Trinitarian moment.

All three persons of the Trinity are there. The Spirit of God has been working to bring Simeon there and then speaking through Simeon exactly what it is who this Christ child is. He's blessing God and speaking to the Father, not telling the Father anything that the Father didn't already know.

None of us do when we praise or bless God. But he's describing the Son to the Father by the power of the Holy Spirit. That makes this entire encounter something that is worthy of us spending the time and attention to it that we are.

And notice where this happens. All this takes place where? In the temple. The Spirit of God could have directed Simeon to go to the home where Joseph and Mary were staying at the end of the house or wherever it was.

The Spirit of God could have arranged for Simeon to meet Joseph and Mary out on the road between Bethlehem and Jerusalem. He could have arranged to have Simeon meet them down in the marketplace in Jerusalem or outside the temple complex or up on the Mount of Olives or down in the Kidron Valley or at the Garden of Gethsemane or anywhere else.

But where does the Spirit of God providentially bring together Simeon and Mary and Joseph and this child? It is in the temple. Do you understand the significance and the symbolism of what is being played out there?

What did the temple symbolize? It was God dwelling with his people. That's where the ark was. That's where the cherubim were. That's where the glory of God appeared between the wings of the cherubim over the mercy seat on the Ark of the Covenant behind the Holy of Holies in the temple.

That's where God met with his people. The temple was the visible symbol that God was with us. And in comes Emmanuel, God with us, into the temple in his infancy. And that is where Simeon begins to confess all of this about God's salvation.

It is Emmanuel, the fulfillment in the presence of the temple which symbolized God with us. And what else went on in the temple? Oh, by the way, that is exactly what John was talking about in John chapter one when he says the word became flesh and dwelt, tabernacled among us.

That's the word for tabernacle, pitched his tent. God became flesh and pitched his tent among us and dwelt among us so that Jesus Christ, in the truest sense of the word, is God with us because he tabernacled with us.

And now the tabernacling God comes into the temple, brought in there by his parents. And what went on in the temple? Sacrifices were offered, right? Sacrifices, what did the sacrifices symbolize? Sacrifices were the reminder of sin, of course symbolized that greater sacrifice that was to come.

So here Mary and Joseph bring in the Lamb of God to the place where the lambs were sacrificed. They bring in the one who would offer himself as a sacrifice, the full and final and perfect sacrifice that would put an end to all the other sacrifices.

And again, you have here the fulfillment of the symbol being brought into the place of the symbol. And who offered the sacrifices at the temple? The priests did. The priests stood day after day and offered the same sacrifices which could never take away sin.

And their priesthood was merely symbolic of another priest who was to come because there was one who is a priest, according to the order of Melchizedek, he is an eternal priest, an undying priest. He ever lives to make intercession for those who come to him.

He is able to save forever all those who come to God by him. Hebrews seven, it was fitting for us to have such a high priest, holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners and exalted above the heavens who does not need daily like those high priests to offer up sacrifices, first for his own sins and then for the sins of the people because he did this once for all when he offered up himself for the law appoints men as high priests who are weak but the word of the oath which came after the law appoints a son made perfect forever.

He is a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek. So here he was brought into the temple and he is among hundreds of priests who filled a priesthood that was merely symbolic of the priesthood that he would one day fulfill.

He's the better priest. So he's the better temple, the better sacrifice, the better priest, the fulfillment of the Old Testament law brought right into ground zero of all of the old covenant symbols and features and forms.

Right there in the temple is where all of that comes together. The temple symbolic, the priests are symbolic, the sacrifices are symbolic and Mary and Joseph brought him there in order to fulfill the law which was symbolic and there at ground zero of the entire old covenant, he is presented here in front of Simeon in the presence of the Trinity.

So you have the symbolism all coming together, all of these themes are colliding in Luke chapter two and you have all three persons of the Trinity who are there and then this devout worshiper from the old covenant who is testifying to the efficacy of this one who is the mediator of the new covenant and all of that is happening right here at the temple.

And here's something that nobody on the scene knew at the time but that this Christ child would end up by his death, his burial and his resurrection putting an end to all of the symbols. He would fulfill them all and he would render all of it obsolete and this one would eventually leave the temple someday in the week before his crucifixion and he would look back upon the temple and he would pronounce judgment upon the temple for their rejection of him.

And this is just where it begins. This is first time in the temple. Well now, we need to get to what Simeon actually says. Verse 29, now Lord, you are releasing your bondservant to depart in peace. I want you to notice verses 29 through 32 is what he says to the father.

Verses 33 through 35 is what he begins addressing to Mary and Joseph. So Simeon is going to address two different audiences here. First, he praises God for his provision and Simeon is aware here that two things are true.

First, God has fulfilled all of his promises of the Old Testament. Sorry, not all of them but all of the ones concerning the coming of the Messiah. He has fulfilled all of those by bringing into the temple and by bringing into the world this Christ child.

Second, Simeon knew that now he can die. Now he's seen it. And if the Lord had promised you you will not die until X happens and then X happens, then you know that at that point you can start counting up the days and say, okay, every one of these days is a gift of grace to be here on the earth.

So Simeon begins to confess that now that he has seen the Lord's Christ, it's time for him to go. He knows now that he can depart. So he says in verse 29, Lord, you are releasing your bondservant to depart in peace according to your word.

What was the word?

The word was, I would live to see the Christ child. Now I've seen the Christ child. God has fulfilled his word, not just to all of Israel by bringing this child into the world, that this is the Messiah, the son of David, this descendant of Abraham who will fulfill all these promises.

Not only has God fulfilled that promise, but God had fulfilled his promise to Simeon himself by allowing him to live to see this child. And now that God has fulfilled those promises, Simeon can die in peace.

So he says, you are releasing your bondservant to depart in peace. I want you to notice the slave language that is used. He refers to God as Lord. That is a word that is, it was the word despotis, which was the word from which we get our word despot.

It referred to one who is an absolute master, ruler, owner, and Lord. And then Simeon describes himself as a doulos, a slave, not just a servant, not just one who would serve at his own will like an employee, but a slave.

One who has no rights, one who is owned and has no rights whatsoever. Simeon's language here gives us some indication of how he viewed himself in terms of his relationship to Yahweh. Yahweh is the master and he is nothing more than the slave.

This is the perspective of all righteous people. If you are righteous and you know who you are and what your role is before God, you would see yourself as a slave and him as the absolute master, ruler, and God.

And there's no room at all for rebellion in such a relationship. And he now felt that he was being released and that word released means to depart or to be set free or to be let go. It was used in two ways and this of course is slave language as well.

It described one who escaped from confinement or one who was delivered from toil. There's no better description of the death of a Christian than that. One who escapes confinement and is delivered from toil.

Think about that. In this world, in your flesh, you are confined. You are shackled to this sin-cursed, fallen, reprobate, doomed world. You are shackled to it as long as you are in your flesh. But death for you is being released from that confinement.

We're in this world and we have no chance or no choice, I should say, of being anywhere outside of this world until death sets us free from that. So death is for the Christian truly a release from confinement.

It's also a deliverance from toil because as long as we are in this world, we have to work and fight against sin. We have to strive for holiness. We have to pursue it. We have to love the Lord. We have to serve him while it is still day, knowing that night is soon coming.

And all of our efforts to serve the Lord are restricted. Our energy is restricted. Our time is short. There are a thousand things that compete with it. And yet we strive to honor him and to serve him and work to mortify the flesh.

Everything about our life is toilsome. It's vexing. It's intended to be because this whole world is under a curse and you're shackled to it. Death for you in every sense is a release from that confinement and a deliverance from the toil that God has called you to.

And only for a Christian is this true that we can depart in peace. You see, it is only when Simeon knew that he had seen the Lord's salvation that he can say, now I can depart in peace. That is absolutely true of you and I as well.

Only if you know salvation can you expect to depart in peace. Because for the unbeliever who has no payment for their sin and is under the wrath of God, your departure from this world, if you die in your sin impenitent, is not going to be a release in peace.

It is going to be an escape into a whole nother kind of confinement. An entirely different type of toil. You'll die and not know a moment of peace for all of eternity. And even if you do manage to die in some state of emotional, spiritual, intellectual peace here on this earth, it is the last moment of peace you will ever know or ever understand if you die outside of Jesus Christ.

Only the believer can say that God has released him, delivered him from his confinement, and set him free from his toil, and that he can die in peace, because the believer knows that he goes into an eternal peace at the right hand of God.

Forever and ever.

I love the way J .C. Ryle describes Simeon. J .C. Ryle says he, that is Simeon, speaks like one for whom the grave has lost its terrors and the world its charms. He speaks as one for whom the grave has lost its terrors and the world its charms.

That's magnificent.

Before you are a believer in Jesus Christ, the grave is filled with terrors and the world is filled with charms. You love this world and you wanna cling to it because it truly is all you have. And you're not sure how many trips around the sun you get to make on it, but you do know that those trips are limited, and that your time is gonna come to an end.

And you probably want and long to be here and to stay here for all of eternity in a world like this, because this is the only thing that holds any charm for you. That is the perspective of the unbeliever.

But then when you become a Christian, if you understand truth rightly enough, then you understand that the grave has lost its terrors, though the world might still be filled with charms. An unbeliever, the grave is filled with terrors and the world is filled with charms.

For a brand new believer, the grave has lost its terrors because we know one who has been victorious over Satan, and he was the one who had the power of death, so we no longer fear the grave. We no longer fear eternity.

Knowing that we have peace with God through the Lord Jesus Christ, and that there's no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, you and I as believers, even the newest of believer, can look at the grave and understand that this is just simply me leaving one realm and going into another, and I'm passing immediately into the presence of God, and to depart and be with Christ is far better.

To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord, but the world might still have its charms. We do kind of enjoy things here, right? We enjoy the nice things that God gives us in this world. I'm not looking forward to not having steak.

I hope there's steak in heaven, but I want, I enjoy those things here, so this existence has some charms, but then as you become an older believer, the grave has still lost its terrors, but now the world has lost its charms, and dare I even say that the grave starts to take on a certain charm, right?

Because then you understand this world has nothing for me, and everything that I once loved, I don't love any of it anymore. You start to look at the prospect of seeing the Lord face-to-face, and you think to yourself, I could do without steak.