Faith for the Future — Robert B. Thompson

Abraham’s Faith and the Heavenly City

By faith, Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. By faith, he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country.

He lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God. By faith, Abraham, even though he was past age and Sarah herself was barren, was unable to become a father because he considered him faithful who had made the promise.

And so from this one man, and he as good as dead, came descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as the sand on the seashore. All these people were still living by faith when they died.

They did not receive the things promised. They only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own.

If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country, a heavenly one. Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them.

The Just Shall Live by Faith

Now, back in the 8th verse, this whole 11th chapter is a definition of the just shall live by faith. It is how the righteous live. And back in the 10th chapter, in the 38th verse, a couple of verses from the end of chapter 10, it says, but my righteous one will live by faith.

The just shall live by faith. It appears four times in the Bible. This is the last one. And it is the cry of the Protestant Reformation as we know. The just shall live by faith. It's a way you live, the just live by faith.

The opposite is living according to your own strength, wisdom, and talents, and desires. That's the opposite of living by faith. The righteous live by faith in God. And this is given in many illustrations in the 11th chapter of Hebrews.

And interestingly, all the illustrations are from the Old Testament. So that shows us that the only way the righteous have ever lived from the time of Adam, and it goes back there and it talks about Abel, the only way the righteous have ever lived is by faith.

We're not in a new dispensation of faith. That is not a scriptural expression. There's a continuity to the Bible. God has always required the same thing of people. You've shown me, O man, what is good.

And what does the Lord require of you but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with God? That never changes from covenant to covenant, whether it's the covenant of Noah, or the covenant of Moses, or Abraham, or Adam and Eve.

God always is after the same thing. That we live in righteousness. That we do not trust ourselves. We do not follow our own way. The righteous live by faith. That's how they live. And all of these are illustrations of what it means to live by faith.

Faith as Active Relationship with Jesus

It's all action, by the way. We sometimes think of faith as being belief or assent to a theological position. That is not what faith is. That is not what faith is. The demons know more about God and Christ than we do, but they're not saved.

Faith is not an assent or a mental position. There's no life in that. There's no salvation in a mental position. Your mental position has to bring you to Jesus. Christianity is a relationship to Jesus.

A relationship to the living Jesus. Not the Jesus of history, but the living Jesus. And if you are a righteous person today, you are today, you have contact with Jesus. You're praying. You're going to Him about everything that you do.

He is living in your life. If not, you're not living by faith. You may be religious. You may at one time have made a profession of faith. But believe me, that's yesterday's manna. It won't work today.

You have to touch Jesus today, which means that your life, you can't live the ordinary American life and be all engrossed in what's in the television, the internet, and the newspaper. You have to be involved with Jesus now in everything in your life.

And anything that you can do that you don't need His help is loss for Him and loss for you. Believe me, you need His help. I need His help. And so the Lord spends a lifetime getting us into this consciousness of Jesus, especially hard in this country because there are so many opportunities.

Our country is a very difficult place to serve the Lord. We're too rich. And so that makes it difficult to enter the kingdom. A very difficult place. As I look out on you, I don't know all of you, but I do know that your life is very busy.

It's frantically busy with all kinds of things. But there's only one thing that matters. And that is, all these things should just be a carburetor for you. All your problems should just be a carburetor.

That's all it should be. It's supposed to be mixed with Jesus. If you want the engine to go, you've got to mix all these problems with Jesus. Sometimes we say, well, when this problem is over, when I feel better, my health is better, the relatives leave, or whatever it is, I'm going to serve the Lord.

When the kids are grown, I'm going to serve the Lord. And when I got through college, I'm going to serve the Lord. Believe me, it will never happen. It will never happen. You're deluding yourself. These things come upon you to give you an opportunity to press into Jesus.

The problems are God's way of bringing you to Jesus so you won't be wasting your time just living like an animal, which we would do if left to our own devices. We'd eat, sleep, work, play, and reproduce.

That's the life of a horse. We've got more than that, but only if we touch Jesus. All eternal life is in Jesus. There's none of it in theology. There's none of it in our head knowledge. It's all in the man.

And he's alive, and he's here. And while you're sitting there worrying, take it to Jesus. Let it be a carburetor. And God will mix Christ with it, and the engine will go. But if you don't mix Christ with it, you're just going to sit there and worry.

That goes nowhere. The only significant thing in any of our lives, the only significant thing in any of our lives is our relationship to Christ. And the rest is just spinning out, just like the family dog, just eating, sleeping, working, playing, and reproducing.

Eating, sleeping, working, playing, and reproduce. We work so we can eat, sleep, play, and reproduce. Yeah, you'll end up somewhere old, and tired, and probably incontinent, and wondering what happened.

What happened was you didn't touch eternity. You didn't touch the Lord, because it's in Jesus. He said to the Pharisees, go ahead and read the scroll. But there's no eternal life in it. You won't come to me.

Here's life looking at you. Got your nose stuck in the book. And everybody said, amen. All right, now this is what faith is. By faith, Abraham, when called to go to a place, he would later receive as his inheritance.

Obeyed and went, even though he didn't know where he was going. You're not going to figure God out. You're not going to figure out what God is doing with your life. In fact, you don't even know your real name.

Your mother named you arbitrarily after someone in the family, or something she read somewhere, or heard in the movies, or something. You don't even know what your real name is. You don't know anything.

You don't know any more than I do what God's plan is for your life, or anything. You have to obey Him, and go where He tells you to go. And if you wait for Him to explain it to you, you'll be sitting around a long time.

Faith is going out where God shows you. Faith is an enduring belief and trust in the goodness, the power, and the faithfulness of God. Faith in God for everything. Every spoonful you put in your mouth.

And you're going to have to do that over in Ireland, because this hoof and mouth disease floats all around, all over the place. You're going to have to be protected by the Lord. It isn't fatal. It isn't like mad cow disease.

But it is a disease. It's actually more of a threat to the livestock industry than anything else. But nonetheless, if you don't get blown up with a bomb, or shot by some zealous Irishman, you come back safely.

Oh, what an optimist we've got here. All right. Well, that's Christianity. Hasn't always been safe. All right. Well, you can say that, Thompson. Stand up here. All right. He obeyed. And you know, faith and obedience are almost totally synonymous.

They're almost totally synonymous. You cannot have a genuine faith in God and be disobedient. You have to do... People say, well, you can't obey God. Nobody's obeying God. Well, that came right up out of the pit.

God expects to be obeyed. He's your Father, and He expects obedience. And He'll never tell you anything you can't do without His grace. Huh? You can do it with His grace. Otherwise, He's just frustrating you.

And God's not in the business of frustrating anybody. We've heard that line long enough. God wants us to obey Him. His commandments are not grievous. It's Satan's commandments that are grievous, not God's.

They're a blessing. And if we'll obey Him and let go of our own way and just do what He says, it's a dance. What's the problem? Of course we obey God. To disobey God is absolutely unthinkable. Unthinkable.

Disobey the Creator of all. Why? That's craziness. Abraham... I knew you'd like that. He did not know where he was going. By faith, he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country.

Living as Strangers in the World

This world here, right here, right now, this is our eternal home. Well, of course, this one's going to pass away, but there'll be a new earth. Earth. Man was made on the earth. That's where we belong.

Right now, we're not at home in the world because the spirit of the world is the spirit of Antichrist. And it's money-driven. It's a money-driven world we're in. And if we're all involved in it, we're not pleasing God.

Whoever will be the friend of the world is the enemy of God, it says. Now, but the earth, the meek inherit the earth. This is our turf. This is ours here. Now, right now, just like Abraham, we're wandering in a place that one day will be our possession.

But we're not part of the world system. We're not part of it. Don't be part of it. Jesus has called us out of the world. He said in John 17, you are not of the world. If you're of the world, the world would love you, but you're not of the world, therefore the world hates you.

We are not of the world. People, it's very difficult in America not to be part of the world because we're being bombarded with media, and media brings everything toward a group consensus. You have to swim upstream if you're ever going to serve Christ in America.

Take up your cross, follow the man. Boy, it takes a lot of doing. He made his home in the promised land. That land he was in, the land of Israel, that belonged to Abraham, but when he was in it, he was a stranger and a pilgrim because it was inhabited by Amorites.

In our world, it's inhabited by people that are led around by the devil, and it's not our home. And if you're getting comfortable here, God's love will make you uncomfortable to save you. To save you.

Sure, we suffer a lot of stuff to save us. Save us. Our suffering saves us from the world. He that has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin. 1 Peter 4 .1 He lived in tents as did Isaac and Jacob.

Now, he could have lived, you know, he's fabulously wealthy. Egypt had a tremendous civilization. He'd been there. He could have hired people out of Egypt to build himself a castle. Fancy thing, and he chose to live in a tent.

People, let's choose to live in tents. Don't get your mind on this world. Keep it up. God gives us the things we need. But this generation that's coming up, and things are in such a turmoil that I don't know if they're going to be able to do like we've done to this point and get a mortgage and put a down payment on a house and get a mortgage and two cars and be consumers.

I'm not sure that's going to work out for the kids coming up. It may be much more of a fluid situation than that, in which case they'll be better able to enter the kingdom. So don't get your heart set on retiring, because things are afoot.

Hallelujah. Kathy, did you retire, did you? Kathy, Kathy worked all these years and retires. Well, wonderful. All right. He lived in tents. He was looking forward to the city with foundations, and he saw the foundations, whose architect and builder is God.

Seeking the City Built by God

Somehow, Abraham, by the Spirit of God, he was a man of prophecy, and by the Spirit of God, he saw the new Jerusalem. And the new Jerusalem has foundations. This world does not have foundations. The 24th Psalm tells us that God has established a world on the floods and the seas.

There's no foundation in the floods and seas. How are you going to stand in the floods and seas? There's no foundation in this life. Sometimes we're lured into believing that we're safe. You're never safe.

One way of getting safe is to crawl in bed and pull the covers over your head. Did you ever get safe and secure that way? I did that one night. But I always go to bed. I say, well, I will lay me down in peace and safety in the Lord.

But I guess I didn't that night. I woke up about 11 o 'clock. My face didn't feel right, so I looked at myself in the mirror. My eye was swollen up like that. And I thought, what in the world? So I went down to Kaiser to find out what in the world.

Well, they didn't know. And so anyway, I sat there, and it all went away. They say, well, you don't have faith. Well, you do as you please. When I feel like going to the doctor, I go. I don't sweat it.

And so anyway, something bit me. So I set off a couple of bug bombs. And then later, I found crouched under the heater, it was a perimeter heater, was a tarantula. And here I was, all safe under the covers.

How can you be safer than that? Tarantula had no business doing that. If I'd have seen him, I'd have opened the door and booed him out. I like, you know, they've got a place in the world. But to bite your eye when you're asleep, that's dirty pool.

The only way that you're safe, the only rock is Jesus. This world is very much of a flood. And you think, oh, I've got it. I've got all my money in the bank. And then what happens? You do some foolish thing and hit somebody and kill them with your car, and then you're sued and you lose your shirt.

All happens. Well, you're not as safe as you think you are. But in Jesus, in Jesus, you're safe. Hallelujah. Heaven is not our place of safety. Christ is our place of safety. Our problems are coming down from heaven, according to Ephesians.

Christ is the place of safety. You can count on it. By faith, Abraham, even though he was past age, I'm sensitive about that, and Sarah herself was barren, and she is sensitive about that, was unable to become a father because he considered him faithful who had made the promise.

God’s Faithfulness to His Promises

Now, there's something about God. Now, when Abraham came to him in the 15th chapter of Genesis, he didn't say, oh, God, what will I ever do? Fast and pray. I've got to have a child. If I don't have a child, I'll die.

Who was it that said that? Rachel said to Jacob, give me children or I die. Well, he didn't do that. He just discussed it with the Lord. You can see that in the 15th chapter of Genesis. He said, well, Lord, I want you to remember that my heir is going to be this Eliezer of Damascus.

It won't be somebody born. How about it? So there's a time to rend and tear the heavens, and there's another time to discuss your problems with God. And the reason that God heard him so readily was because he obeyed God.

And if you obey God and you call, he says, here I am. The problem is people don't serve the Lord as they should, believers. Then they call on the phone and they say, Pastor, I need a conference. Well, I'm talking about people outside the church.

One calls Saturday. And I said, well, all right. I said, if you'll give me, we were in the middle of something, I said, if you give me your phone number, I'll see that someone gets back to you and we'll work on this problem.

But they were apprehensive about that. I said, well, when you feel comfortable, just call us and we'll do something about it. But what it is, people, they don't take up their cross and follow Jesus. Well, sooner or later, they've got bad problems.

Well, then they want to come to the pastor and the pastor will figure it all out and fix it up so that they can go on their way without the Lord. That's what people do. I'm not in that business. I don't have any time for that.

I'll be glad to counsel people till the cows come home, providing they're serving the Lord. If you're serving the Lord, you call out. God says, here I am. But if you're not serving the Lord and you call out, you may not get heard as readily.

Abraham was serving the Lord, so he didn't have to go through some big thing and weep and wail and cry and have a tantrum. He was disgusted with the Lord. And the Lord said, let me tell you something.

I'm going to tell you what I'm going to do. I'm going to give you your seat. Do you have any seat, Abraham? Right, check. All right, I'm going to make your seat in number like the stars of heaven. This is kind of heavy for a guy 75 years old with no kids.

Yeah, that's right. OK, you said it, chief. I believe it. If I never see it, I believe it. What I'm pointing out in this is that God is able to answer your prayers beyond your wildest dreams. Did you get that one?

We're talking about God that stretched out the heavens. Now, some of the things he promised Abraham did not come to pass in Abraham's life, but they're coming to pass, and they shall come to pass. So don't limit yourself to this world.

You know, we're in perilous times. We need to get one foot in heaven. I'm telling you that. We need to be citizens of two worlds and not get all locked into the present world. Oh, you'll be on stronger ground if you are, because someone dies in your family, you don't go crazy.

Get a bigger look at life than just these pitiful years we have here. God said, 400 years from now, I'm going to bring your seed into this land. Their sins, they're not bad enough for me to drive them out.

400 years. Our country's only been in existence for around 250. You've got to get the big picture. When you pray, Jesus said, you shall ask what you will, and it shall be done. Now, if somebody else said that, prudential life insurance or something, it might mean something, or it might not.

But when God says it, so when you pray for something, the machinery starts operating. Can you hear me out there? Hello? When you ask God for something in Jesus' name, there's a covenant there. You shall ask what you will, and it shall be done.

There's a covenant there. God said that. Now, what God does then, and you say, well, He didn't answer it. Sure He answered it. How can He not? Is He a liar? Of course He answered it. What is He doing?

He is preparing you so that when you get the answer, it will be a blessing, and you can keep it. If you're praying for something that will not bring you love, joy, and peace, and no matter what you pray for, what you're really praying for is love, joy, and peace.

And you may be praying for a new car, but that's just a symbol of love, joy, and peace. You wouldn't want a car if you knew a month later it was going to drive it so powerful it got out of control and climbed up a pole with it.

So you're not praying for a car you just think you are. You're praying for love, joy, and peace. And if not, there's something wrong with your scrambled eggs up here, because what we all want is love, joy, and peace.

And we think, oh, this will bring me love, and this will bring me joy, and this will bring me peace. Well, maybe it will, maybe it won't. But God is good. And when you come to Him, He wants to bring you to love, joy, and peace.

So if what you're praying for is not going to do that, God is going to work with you and bring you experiences and work in your spirit until you're finally praying for what you really want. That's one thing.

The other thing I just said a minute ago is so that it will be a blessing to you, and you can keep it when you get it. Now, Adam and Eve were in paradise. You could not have a better environment than Adam and Eve had.

I mean, that was it. I mean, love, joy, and peace. You got the whole ranch right there. Love, joy, and peace, OK? Well, what was wrong? They couldn't keep it. There was something wrong with them. They couldn't keep it.

So God doesn't want that to happen again with you, that He brings you into the paradise that you envision, and then you can't keep it. So He's answering your prayer. But what He's doing, He's doing it the right way so that when you get it, whether it's in this world or the next, and what's the difference?

I'm old enough now, I'm looking down the hill. I'm anxious about the future. You can dream about the past, or you can dream about the future. And I choose to dream about the future. Consider the pit out from which I am being dug, and the glory toward which I'm moving.

Hope in the Future and the Promised Land

The realistic thing to do is to dream about the future. Don't you agree? Oh, yes. I agree with myself on that. So when I pray for something, I'm not going to bind God to do that in this world, as long as He does it.

And if He gives me assurance and says, we know that if He hears us, we have the petition, then I'm going to get it. If it's in this world, fine. If it's in the next world, fine. What does it matter? Unless we're so glued to flesh and blood, we think this is the best God can do.

But Abraham lived in faith and died in this belief that God had a better city. And let me tell you, part of real down-home salvation is living in that hope of the future, knowing that what you have now is not the best that God can do.

You've got to believe that God can do better than what you've got right now. What if the Jews, there they were at Mount Sinai, 140 in the shade. They're down at the bay. And what if they said, oh, how wonderful.

God has brought us out from Egypt into this marvelous desert. Isn't this wonderful? There's no water. We're living by manna. You can't have farms out here. There's no irrigation. Oh, this is so wonderful.

Thank you, Lord, for saving me. Isn't that about it? Patote, let me die. Don't bring me into the land, Lord. Don't bring me into a place that's absolute peace and joy. Whatever you do, let me stay here at Sinai so I can go around it.

And in the meanwhile, people are setting up fast food stores and selling magazines so that when you're going around Mount Sinai, it's interesting. There's always someone with an eye on business. Well, this is wonderful, Lord.

Here we are out here in Sinai. Isn't this great? God, don't move me. I've just now got my tent set. That's the person I want it set next to. Don't let me move. Whatever you do, live in fear. This world is not the best God can do.

If you want to know the truth, this is the valley of the shadow of death we're living in. So keep your perception pure. This is a rotten place. Not the earth, but the world. Sickness. I think of Children's Hospital every now and then.

I think of the agony that's going on down there. This is not a nice place to be. And if you're able to sit up and pay attention and breathe today, you're better off than a lot of them. And everyone said, amen.

Testing and Knowing the Will of God

Well, you're out there. I knew you were out there. And God's word, I mean, such a miracle. You know, there's three things about knowing the will of God. There's three things. I could only think of them two of them Tuesday night, but I finally thought of the third one.

Three things if you know the will of God. I want to test the will of God. There's three things for you. One, it must not be against the scripture. God has said something to you. You feel the burden of it.

It must not be contrary to the scripture. OK? He's not going to tell you to go out and do some immoral thing. God isn't going to do that. Or like people say, I went down and tried to drown myself because the Lord told me.

You get this kind of stuff. God is not going to tell you something contrary to the scripture, Mike. It isn't going to happen. Secondly, if it's God's will, it will give you joy inside. It will give you peace inside.

When you think of it, it feels kind of good. Sometimes conscientious people get themselves strung out on duty. And they think, and then Satan takes advantage of that and says, well, the Lord wants you to go to Tibet and just wear a sweater.

And conscientious people, they believe it and they don't. They're not old enough to know the voice of the Lord. And they say, I'm going to Tibet. God has called me to Tibet as a missionary. I knew a young man, God had called him to, where was it, Indonesia or some place like that.

And I thought, oh yeah, you're going to go there and get sick and come home. And that's all that's going to happen. It's in the water. It'll make you sick. Well, we do. We're conscientious and so we strive.

But when we think of it as a sinking feeling, that's not the Lord. You're just racking yourself for nothing. You're just making things hard for yourself. Whenever you find that you go through two weeks running and it's hard, I mean, you get up in the morning, it's hard.

You go to bed at night, it's hard. It's just grievous. The whole thing is grievous for two weeks running. Check it out. You may be bringing it on yourself. Now, I know there's hard times. I've been through hard times.

But usually there's a little something along the way. The Lord lets you know, yeah, I'm here. It's going to be okay. But when there's an unrelieved nightmare, watch it. Because that's not the way of the Lord.

He gives us joy and that's our strength. We go through hard times. I know that. But watch it. If there's no relief for weeks at a time, check it out. Say, Lord, am I bringing this on myself? If you want me to endure this burden, fine.

You've got your pack animal right here. But if I'm bringing this on myself, please get me out of here. You like that? First, it must not be against the Scripture. Second, it must bring, when you think of it, there must be something that kind of sings in there.

Oh, this is good. And the third thing, if I can remember it, is the outer circumstances the world must concur. In other words, the rooster must crow. There must be something. Ordinarily, God does not lead you to some strange and weird thing that everyone around you says, well, this is crazy.

This doesn't make any sense. Watch it. Because God eventually makes sense. And so what? Now, here with Abraham, where God told him this, He didn't tell him to go out and do anything. He just said, this is what's going to happen.

And Abraham believed it, and it was fantastic. And then it came to pass. It came to pass in the real world. When people get off, and Pentecostal people often do, because they're attuned to the supernatural.

And when they get off, they'll get a thing going where there's no reality. You try to point out to them, they'll say, well, God called me to be a mighty prophetess, or God called me to do whatever, some great thing.

And you look at them, and you think, well, that isn't real. That just isn't real. You're not a witness to it, but they're so bound into it. And we get this way. We're clutching it, clutching it. I think God told me that.

And people are saying, cool it. Cool your jets. It's good to listen to people. It's good to listen to your husband and wife, husband or wife. It's good to listen to the elders of the church, and it's good to listen to unsaved people.

And if your boss on the job says you're a religious nut, then go back and say, Lord, am I acting nuts? Don't say, well, he's just unsaved. This man smokes cigarettes and swears like a drill sergeant. He doesn't know God.

This is just Satan. How do we do this all the time? If we would listen to the people in the world, you want to find out how to live? Ask somebody that's unsaved. They'll tell you how you're supposed to live.

We have violated that in Christianity. And the world looks at Christianity and says, if that's God, save me. And you know, when that's going on, you don't withdraw into your spiritual ivory tower and say, well, if they were saved, they'd know what a jewel I am.

Well, the truth is, they see you as you are, and they're not wearing religious blinders. So reality is a real check on the will of God. Could you remember those three things? It must not be contrary to the Word.

Second, it gives you peace in your heart when you think about it. Oh, boy, that sounds good. Not, oh, Lord, I don't feel right about this. And what's the third thing? Yeah, the dog and the cat will tell you pretty well if you're on the right track, because they're not religious.

That's right. So God, and I like what I'm hearing. I didn't get to go to the Saturday conference, but everything Audrey told me about it was marvelous, marvelous beyond words. It all sounded so down-home and so right.

You know, when God moves, it isn't with Hagar, it's with Sarah. Good old Sarah, as perverse as they come, tells Abraham to take Hagar for his concubine. Then when he does, and she gets pregnant, and then guess what Sarah does?

Blames Abraham. Don't you love it? But she's the one that God chose, not Hagar. So, just go with it. And watch God, because he works in a down-home way. Not in strange, weird, spiritually different ways.

He works just in life. And I think if the American people saw a church that was just interested in being people and relating well to God and relating well to people, there's a lot of people that accept the Lord.

But they get turned off by the religion. And who can blame them? All right, you're still there, and I'm still preaching in spite of everything. All right. All these people were still living by faith when they died.

Persevering in Faith Until Death

Did you see it? How many saw that in the Bible? 11, 13. All these people were still living by faith when they died. Now, in the famous rapture passage in 1 Thessalonians the fourth chapter, it says, the dead in Christ shall rise.

I don't think people pay enough attention to that, the expression in Christ. They say, well, once you make a profession of Christ, you're going up in the rapture. Not so. You can make a profession of faith in Christ and accept Christ in the terms we use or make a decision for Christ, which is totally an unscriptural expression, but whatever we do to satisfy our religious demands and then not live by faith.

None of this would be applicable to us. We don't go out following God. We don't believe God for miracles. We don't hear from the Lord or anything else. But 15 years ago, by gum, I accepted Christ. Well, it doesn't work that way.

It says the dead in Christ. That is, like it says here, they were living in faith when they died. You've got to be in Christ when you die. Not what you did 20 years ago. You've got to be living in Christ when you die.

If you expect to meet the Lord when He comes. Can you do that one? You know what it says? Well, it's not in there to take up space because the writer was getting a nickel of word. They did not receive the things promised.

Well, if I don't get it while I'm alive, God can keep it. They didn't get it while they were alive. So it's all lost because who knows what's in the next world will float around like ghosts in Halloween with a pumpkin for a head.

People say, well, I know my loved one after death. Well, you know your loved one for crying in the soup. Of course you'll know your loved one when you die. What do you think they're going to be? Some kind of a wraith?

A ghost? Ooh, boo! They'll be their same old ornery self. Well, you may not believe that, but it's closer to the truth than a lot of things. That's what Christ did. He removed the fear of death. He removed the fear of death so that we can have confidence.