precious name. Now we're turning today to 1 Corinthians and the chapter 15. 1 Corinthians and the chapter 15. We'll begin our reading at the verse 50 of the chapter, and as you turn there, if you do have pastoral needs, please do not hesitate to pick up the phone and speak on the telephone. If you've prayer requests or needs, please do that. We're here to help in these days just to emphasize that again. And so I trust that you know that and that you'll avail yourself of that. 1 Corinthians chapter 15 and the verse 50. Behold, I show you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed. In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump, for the trumpet shall sound and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruptible, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass a saying that is written, death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law, but thanks be to God which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, for as much as ye know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord. Amen. Let's stand, please, for a word of prayer. Our loving Father, we now come to the ministry of Thy word. We thank Thee for a word given, confirmation of it, dear God, in a week that has passed. Therefore, Lord, bless, O God, this ministry today, the pulpit ministry of this church we ask of Thee. Grant every soul to be blessed and comforted and challenged in whatever the need would be. O God, may it be found today in the word as it is preached. Bless those who join us outside and those who join us on the various platforms that are now being employed. We do cry to thee that all will run smoothly. Grant, Lord, now the blessing that God alone can give to the preaching of the word. Fill me with thy spirit and grant, Lord, me now to preach with the anointing of God the Holy Ghost. I pray this in and through the Savior's precious name. Amen and amen. You may be seated. The doctrine of the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ has been a matter of much debate and sadly much division within the church of Jesus Christ down through church history. Now, there are three main schools of thought regarding this important eschological doctrine. Those three main schools of thought are amillennial, premillennial, and postmillennial. Those who hold to amillennialism believe that Christ will not come again until the day of judgment. They deny the doctrine of an earthly millennial reign. Such hold to the belief that the 1,000-year period that is frequently spoken of in Revelation chapter 20 is, but only to be seen as symbolic Symbolic of the completeness and the perfectness of the rest that the saint of God enjoys in the intermediate state from the time that their souls enter heaven until the day of resurrection when soul and body will be reunited. The amillennialism view finds support among Dutch theologians such as Drs. Abraham Kuyper and Herman Bavnik. Those who hold then to the historical premillennialism, a thought of school, place the coming of Christ before the millennium. pre-millennium, before the millennium. They believe that Christ is going to return to the world and resurrect the righteous dead, set up his throne or seat of government in Jerusalem and usher in the millennial kingdom. After those thousand years have lapsed, he will then raise the remainder of the dead. And thus premillennialists teach that the second resurrection mentioned in Revelation chapter 20 is really but the resurrection of those who are not righteous but those who are the unrighteousness After that, Christ will then judge the world. Now, those who purport historical premillennialism as compared to dispensational premillennialism are individuals as far back as the second century, individuals like Justin Martyr. He believed in premillennialism. Then those who hold to postmillennialism, they believe that the coming of Christ will be post, after the millennial reign. Postmillennialism assert that the millennium shall be ushered in through the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, blessing the everlasting gospel of grace in all land. Such will be a golden age of gospel blessing upon the ministry of the church at the end of that age, Christ will return. There will be a general resurrection of the just and the unjust, and then the final resurrection or judgment will take place. Postmillennialism has widely been held by the Puritans. It was the dominant view among Reformed theologians in both the 18th and the 19th centuries. It was taught For example, by men such as Jonathan Edwards, Charles Hodge, A. A. Hodge, B. B. Warfield. Sadly, the debate and the division that has been caused because of these eschological matters, it has robbed the truth of Christ's second coming from the comfort that it was intended to bring to the lives of God's people. I go to prepare a place for you, Christ would say to his disciples, and if I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again. It was that coming again that was to calm their troubled and their perturbed hearts. Let not your hearts be troubled. And the thought was that the thought that Christ was returning was a great comfort for these disciples. Yes, I will depart soon from this world, but I'm coming again. I would wholeheartedly agree with the sentiments of Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones when he said these words. He said, the great doctrine of the second advent has, in a sense, fallen into disrepute because of this tendency on the part of some to be more interested in the how and the when of the second coming rather than in the fact of the second coming. So many are interested in how and when it will happen. But Jones believed that we should think primarily and solely on the fact that Jesus Christ is coming again. Though there are differences of opinion on this matter within even our own denomination, all that hold to one of these three schools of thought concerning Christ's second coming believe that Jesus Christ is coming again. On that point, there is no debate. It is a fundamental of the faith as to how and when. Well, that's left to individuals' interpretation of the Scriptures, but there is no doubt and there is no debate among all who hold to either one of the three schools that Jesus Christ is coming again. It is a truth that we need to keep very much to the forefront of our minds as we live in the last days of this age. It will be this truth that will govern how we live and what we do for Jesus Christ in light of the Savior's second coming. It is with this in mind, then, that I want us to think about what will happen, the child of God, when Christ comes again. This is what the Apostle Paul wants the saints of God in Corinth to think upon when he says there in 1 Corinthians 15 verse 51, Behold, I show you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed. I want us to look at this behold of Scripture and think about things that are yet future for the child of God. You see, as we look around us today, there's very little to encourage us as believers We look at the falling away, we look at the sin within our own nation, we look at the circumstances in which we're now found with regard to COVID-19, and all we would say is almost despairing, and all is very much sad, and yet here's a truth, here's a doctrine that should cheer the heart of every child of God. Jesus Christ is coming again, and He's coming for me. and he's going to take me to glory. What an encouraging thought to ponder today. Now, the Apostle Paul speaks here about showing to his readership a mystery. Behold, I show you a mystery. This isn't the first time that the Apostle Paul has used this word, and it will not be the last, this word mystery. Twenty times throughout his letters and his epistles, Paul uses either the word mystery or mysteries. In 1 Corinthians and the chapter number 4 and the verse number 1, Paul uses this term. Let a man so account of us as of the ministers of Christ and stewards, as custodians, as those who are entrusted with the mysteries of God. Now, when the word mystery is used today, it is used in the sense that what we are speaking of is something that is difficult or something that is impossible to understand or something impossible to explain. That's how we would think of the word mystery. But biblically speaking, the word mystery, when used in the Bible, refers to that which was formerly hidden, but is now revealed by God. A Bible mystery is something that was once concealed, but is now plainly revealed. It is a truth, yes, that is beyond comprehension, the comprehension of nature and sense and reason and logic. And although it is hidden from the wise and the prudent, it is revealed unto us who are babes by the Spirit of God. And so, when we read this word mystery, we must not think that this is something that we'll not be able to decipher or understand, but rather this was something that was concealed in the past, but now is being revealed by the apostle Paul. Now, the Christian minister is to be a custodian, a steward. He has been entrusted with the mysteries of God. What are some of those mysteries? Well, I think of the mystery of the Trinity. There's a great mystery revealed in Scripture. Yes, what about the mystery of the incarnation, the mystery of the gospel? What about the mystery of the cross and all that occurred there? The mystery of the Son of God's resurrection. These are but some of the mysteries of God that I believe Paul refers to in 1 Corinthians 4, verse 1. But here in 1 Corinthians 15, in the verse 51, we have another mystery, and it is the mystery of the resurrection of the child of God, the believer. Now, there are only two matters that I want us to think upon today. Firstly, why Paul deals with the resurrection here in 1 Corinthians 15? Why Paul deals with the mystery of the resurrection of the Christian here in 1 Corinthians 15? Well, just as in our day. The New Testament church in its fledgling, its infancy years had to contend with the skeptics and the cynics of their day. It is not that this is a generation that has more cynics and skeptics than in the days of the New Testament church. No, there have always been cynics and there have always been skeptics. To teach that there was such a thing as a physical resurrection of the body was looked upon by skeptics and those cynics as being ludicrous. Such a thing could never happen. The body dies. How could a dead body ever be reanimated again and brought to life again? Such was seen to be fanciful. Such was seen to be erroneous. You'll remember the Lord Jesus Christ and his earthly ministry. He had to contend with a number of groupings of people on a daily basis who opposed his earthly ministry. We think of the Pharisees. We think of the scribes. But there was another sect in Jewish society that he had to contend with, and they were known as the Sadducees. I didn't remember very much in RE and school, but I remember this. The Sadducees were sad, you see, because they didn't believe in the resurrection. That's how we remembered what the Sadducees didn't believe in. They were a sad, morbid, grouping of individuals. They were a very influential sect within Jewish society at the time of the Savior's earthly ministry. They controlled two important institutions of Jewish society. They controlled the Jerusalem Temple, known as Herod's Temple, and the Jewish Sanhedrin. And as I've said, they held to the belief that there was no resurrection at all. When the soul died, that was it. The body and the soul, they died. There would be no future state. Your time on earth was that. That was all that you would ever exist. Now, there are various scriptures that highlight their very belief. Matthew 22 verse 23, Mark 12 verse 18, Acts 23 verse 8. Each of those references read as follows, the Sadducees would say that there is no resurrection. the Sadducees would say that there is no resurrection. And so this thought of a body being raised from the grave became a bone of contention and sharp conflict between the Judaizers of Paul's day, those who held to the Jewish beliefs and to the beliefs of the Sadducees, a bone of contention between them and now those who had embraced Christianity that did believe in the resurrection of the body. And so Paul's dealing with the issue of the resurrection is because there is an issue here within the Corinthian church. It is obvious, Paul, dealing with now this matter, that something had happened. There had been an infiltration of those who held to a non-resurrection view, and they were trying now to impose their teaching on this new church that had been established in the city of Corinth. There was a philosophy in Corinth at this time that there was no such thing. And so Paul is dealing with this matter of a bodily resurrection. Now these people, they weren't having a problem in believing concerning salvation. They had settled on that. Neither did they have a problem in believing that the soul would continue to live on for eternity in God's heaven. They had no problem in believing that. But what they did have a problem was that the bodies that they had put into the ground of their saved loved ones, that such would never rise again. The physical resurrection of the body was something that they were having trouble in believing. And thus to affirm The truth and the reality of a bodily resurrection, Paul writes this monumental chapter. I suppose we can learn from that that error must always be confronted with the truth. We can't allow error on these great fundamentals of the faith to go unchecked, but rather the minister is to earnestly contend for the faith. So when it comes to erroneous teaching on the key tenets of the truth, the church, which is the pillar and the ground of the truth, must unashamedly preach and teach that which is found in the record of Scripture. And this is a task that Paul is now taking to hand. How does he affirm this great teaching that the saints of God and those who die, all who die will be raised? Well, he's speaking here primarily to believers, and so his appeal is to the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ. He always goes back to Christ, the apostle Paul. You'll never err when you always trace your doctrine back to Christ. And so Paul, he takes these individuals and he shows them. Look there at the verse number 20. of 1 Corinthians chapter 15. You see, the resurrection of Jesus Christ is not simply a miracle, but rather it is a pledge of our resurrection. He's described here, verse 20, as the firstfruits. If you listen to the Reverend McClung, a few weeks ago, you'll know what the firstfruits were. They were the first leanings of the harvest brought in, into the temple of God, into the house of God, and we have before God. They were the pledge, they were the evidence that the harvest The harvest was going to be brought home. It was going to be brought in. And so Jesus Christ, He becomes the firstfruits. He has already entered heaven. How did He do that? Bodily. In His own glorified body, Christ ascended back to heaven. And as He has gone into heaven, so shall we go into heaven. He is but the firstfruits. We are the harvest. And every child of God that leaves this world behind are brought in by the grace of God into the presence of God. The resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is then the sure evidence of the rising of our bodies from the grave. But brethren and sisters, this is not the only passage of Scripture that we could appeal to. If we wanted evidence to find in Scripture that we will be raised from the grave in our bodies, you don't even have to go to the New Testament Scriptures because this is a doctrine that was taught in the Old Testament, believed to be by one of the oldest patriarchs, a man by the name of Job. The words are familiar to us, but if you want to turn and see them, Job chapter 19 and the verse 25 through to 27. This is what Job said. He says, "'For I know that my Redeemer liveth, and He shall stand in the latter day upon the earth, and though after my skin worms destroy this body, Yet in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another, though my reins be consumed within me." Job was confident. And though the body would decay in the grave and worms would eat and decompose that body in a miraculous way, this body would be brought back together in every molecular form, in every shape with eyes to see and to behold Christ on that day of general resurrection. Mine eyes shall behold Him. When He returns, mine eyes will behold Him. Oh no, Job, you're dead. You're dead for thousands of years. Ah, but here was the hope of Job. It is the hope of every believer. Every believer, every Christian is buried in what? The sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life. You see, someday if Christ tarries and we die and our bodies are placed into some grave plot somewhere in this world, someday these bodies of ours will shake the dust from off them the dust of the grave, and we will come forth reunited with our souls on the day of general resurrection." What a glorious thought. What a glorious thought for us to think about. What a day that will be for us, child of God, when in our flesh and with these eyes of ours, we will behold our God. We will see Him. I wonder today, would there be some skeptic, some cynic, maybe listening to this message and you doubt whether or not your body will be raised from the dead on the day of resurrection? Ah, you say, preacher, I'm not going for burial. I'm going for cremation. Going to make sure that my ashes are scattered to the four winds off this world. And you would doubt whether this will take place. Well, can I say to you, and I remind you of the words of the Lord Jesus Christ, and then I leave it between you and Him. I leave it between you and Him as to see who is to believe on this very matter. The Son of God said these words in John chapter 5 and the verse 28 and verse 29. John 5 verse 28 and verse 29. Marvel not. at this for the hour is coming in which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice and shall come forth they that have done good on to the resurrection of life and they that have done evil on to the resurrection of damnation. Sinner, on resurrection day your body will be raised from the grave Your scattered ashes will be gathered from the four winds, and that resurrected body of yours will be reunited with that soul of yours. However, it will not be for the resurrection of eternal life, but it will rather be on to the resurrection of damnation. It is the settled will of God, verified from the lips the judge of all men, Jesus Christ. And so I pray that today you will be saved and on that day of resurrection you will be resurrected on to life. And so Paul is dealing here with this issue obviously because of the error that had crept in to the church in Corinth. But as we continue to look at this thought today I want you to think about what occurs at the resurrection I confine my comments simply to those to whom are being addressed here in 1 Corinthians 15 as to the saints of God, the redeemed, those who have a saving interest in Jesus Christ. Note with me what Paul says here in verse 51, we shall not all sleep. We shall all be changed. Someone has said that this is a great text to put up in some nursery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed. Speaking of children, but we shall not all sleep. Now, the apostle Paul is obviously not speaking about physical sleep. He's speaking about death. If you want evidence for that, turn to John chapter 11, and I'll show you that is the case. This is the chapter that deals with the death and the resurrection of the friend of Christ, Lazarus. Look there at the verse 11 and verse 12 of John chapter 11. These things said he, and after that he said unto them, Our friend Lazarus sleepeth, but I go that I may awake him out of sleep. Then said his disciples, Lord, if he sleep, he shall do well. These individuals, these disciples thought that Christ was simply talking about a man having 40 wings, going to bed and having a good rest and a good sleep. But John clarifies what Christ meant when he spoke about sleeping. If you look on down now to the verse 13. There's another passage. that speaks about someone sleeping. It's found in the book of Acts chapter 7 and the verse 60. This is speaking of Stephen when he came to be murdered and stoned to death. It says in the verse number 59 of Acts chapter 7, And they stoned Stephen, calling upon God and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. And he knelt and he kneeled down and cried with a loud voice, Lord, lay not this sin to their charge. And when he had said this, he fell asleep. And here we have again this thought, death is equivalent to a sleep, to a sleep. And what a beautiful picture that is for the child of God. Whenever we die, we just sleep. Now what does sleep produce? It produces rest. We rest in our sleep. We go for a rest. And that's what death is for the child of God. It's a death rest. It's an eternal rest. It is an eternal Sabbath. This is what we're going to, child of God. Oh, we don't rest now. We shouldn't. We should be working, laboring for the master from the dawn till setting sun. But then we're going to enter into an eternal rest. Oh, this is the hope of the Christian. And what do we rest from? We'll rest from our struggles. And we'll rest from our toil, and we'll rest from our labors, and we'll rest from our fears, and we'll rest from our anxieties, and we'll rest from the battle. We'll rest. Such as death, it is a rest. And so, child of God and Christian today who maybe has in recent times laid The body of a believer, a loved one who knew Christ and Mother Earth, and I say to you that that body is simply sleeping. It's just resting. It's waiting for the resurrection, for the day of general resurrection when all will be raised to life. Their glorified spirits are enjoying heaven at this very moment, but the body, that flesh, that earthly tabernacle has been brought down, decommissioned. Now it just waits for a day, and it shall be raised again. Now, there are a number of things that Paul affirms here. He affirms that whenever Christ appears, again, that there are going to be some believers on earth, who they are, and when they have come to Christ, I'll leave that between you and all your eschological thoughts, who these individuals are, but there's believers going to be here because he says, he says, we shall not all sleep. So there's going to be people alive who know Christ, who are believers when Christ appears. And although not all sleep, there is something that will happen to the believers who are alive and to those whose bodies are in the grave. Though we may not all sleep, he does say we shall all be changed. We shall all be changed. And he emphasizes that again, verse 52, we shall be changed. Now, the word change I thought would be metamorphic, but it's not. It's the Greek word alasio, and it simply means to make different. Now, does that not thrill your heart to think that you're going to be different? You're going to be changed. You're going to be made like something that you've never been like before. When Christ appears, a transformation is going to take place in the body of every Christian that will make us different. Now, there are a number of things that I need to quickly say before we go to the communion's feast. I want you to notice, first of all, the necessity, the necessity of this transformation. Folks, God does not do things for the sake of doing things. There's always a purpose, there's always a reason, there's always a goal in why God does anything. And it is such the case with regard to this change, with regard to our physical bodies, there is a purpose, there is a goal, there is an aim behind it. This is something necessary. Now, you may ask yourself the question, could we not go into heaven? Could we not go into glory with the bodies that we presently occupy? Of course we couldn't. No, those who remain and those who are alive at the coming of Christ will undergo a change. For this reason, it will make them fit for heaven. These bodies of ours, if they went into their glorified state without being changed, would crumble as we behold the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, as we enter the land of eternal bliss. As we come to enjoy all the benefits of redemption fully and entirely and completely, these bodies of ours would not be able to cope. And thus, we must be changed. It is necessary. We are presently housed in corruptible, decaying bodies. We only have to look at ourselves. over a period of time, and we know that. However, there is no corruption in heaven. Think of that. Nothing that defiles, nothing that corrupts, nothing that decays in heaven. And therefore, how could I go to heaven in a corruptible body, in a decaying body? No, I need a new body. I need a body that is incorruptible. I need a body that was once mortal. I need a body that is now immortal. If I am to endure time in heaven, think of that child of God, there's no death in heaven. And therefore, I need a body that will live forever. I need a immortal body. And this is why I must be changed. We read about it that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of heaven. What a blessed thought, this body of flesh that is so subject to frailty and to sickness and to failure and to sin and to death and decay is going to be changed and it's going to fit me for heaven. Note the certainty of the transformation. The word shall, we shall all be changed. There's the word of certainty. No doubt about it. Every individual, all will be changed. The change is going to take place. There's no reason for us to doubt it then. We have it in the inspired word. We shall all be changed. Believe it, brother. Believe it, sister. Note the extent of the transformation. Paul goes on to say that we shall all be changed, all of us. Not a believer left unchanged. Young and old, the mature and the immature, the spiritual, ah, the carnal, the strong, the weak, all will be changed. Maybe you fear that you'll be left unchanged. Not am I reading off the Scripture here. You and I will be changed along with every saint that has ever lived and is living and is yet to live. The extent of it all, all will be changed. Note the speed of the transformation. The Apostle Paul says we shall all be changed in a moment. In the twinkling of an eye, this is no gradual change that is taking place. We'll not, over the decades and eons of eternity, be changed and eventually after millions and billions of years, we'll come to that state of perfection. Ah, no, this is an instantaneous change. The word moment, it translates to mean an atom of time. a point of time that cannot be cut or divided into another. We would think that it's going to take God an eternity to change us, especially if you know yourself. But Paul states in an infinite estimable period of time. We will all be changed. The analogy that Paul goes on to use, if you look there at the verse number 52, is in the twinkling of an eye. He doesn't say in the blink of an eye. That's a different period of time, not a blink of an eye, but in the twinkling of an eye. One writer suggests the twinkling of an eye is the time that takes for light entering the iris to reach the retina. It is believed to be a sixth of a nanosecond. Now, a microsecond is one millionth of a second. A nanosecond is one thousandth of a microsecond. And the twinkling of an eye is one sixth of a nanosecond. Now, that's fast to every way you want to look at it, but that's how quickly we're going to be changed. Before the eye would even blink. Such will be the change. Our bodies certainly grown within us, waiting for the adoption to the wit, waiting for the adoption to the wit to the redemption of our body. But in less time than it takes for you to blink the eye, in an instantaneous moment, you will be changed. Note the timing of it. Paul tells us that this change will take place at a certain time at the last trumpet. For the trumpet shall sound and the dead shall be raised incorruptible and we shall be changed. Now the trumpet even in our day is employed to do things. Primarily, it is used within our own nation to announce the approach of a king or queen. Just watch any service in Westminster Abbey that our queen attends, and as she enters the building via the great west door, the herald of the royal trumpeters is sounded on the state ceremonial trumpets. The trumpet sounds the coming off the queen. Here she comes. She's entering the building. All rise to greet the royal procession. The last trump indicates for us that the king is coming. That trump indicates, or as it is stated here, it is the last trump. No trumpets will sound after this one. This will be the last, the final sounding off the ceremonial trumpets, heaven's trumpets, and it'll mark the end of time. It'll mark the end of warfare. What happened today at certain cenotaphs across our country, there was a sounding off the trumpet or the bugle, the last post. And then what is known as the arousal, the last post. means the cessation of all warfare. The arousal is the rising from sleep. It was sounded for the soldiers to get out of their beds. The morning had arrived, and this is a thought that we can even bring here into this passage of God's Word. Yes, the trumpet, it's going to send the end of warfare, but it's also going to sound the bright and glorious morning, the eternal morning. That will never end. It will announce that our King is coming, that His kingdom is being established. Oh, what a sign that will be, child of God, for us. Are you looking for His coming? Are you listening for His coming? Think about the nature of the transformation. It says in verse 52 and 53, the dead shall be raised incorruptible and we shall be changed for this corruptible must put on incorruption and this mortal must put on immortality. The change between our present and future conditions will not destroy our identity, will not destroy our character. There is a change in the qualities but not in the substance. Still going to be bone and flesh. qualities of it will change. We who were once mortal will become immortal. We who possessed a corruptible body, we will take on in corruption. Paul writing to the saints in Philippi in chapter 3 verse 21 said that God shall change our vile body. that it might be fashioned like unto His glorious body. John, 1 John 3 verse 2, when Christ shall appear, we shall be what? Like Him. Like Him. They point us to the fact that our resurrection bodies are going to be like Christ's glorified body. Adam Clarke wrote, the bodies of true believers shall be raised up in the great day in the same likeness, immortality and glory of the glorified humanity of Jesus Christ. Maybe that body of yours today is wracked with pain. Maybe it's afflicted with some physical ailment, some mental sickness, some other kind of disability or deformity. Well, let this thought comfort your heart today. There's coming a day when you will be made perfectly whole. You'll enjoy perfect health in that body, a body that will be free from sin and from temptations, appeals. We shall be like him. William Jay said this about this statement, we shall all be changed. What a change is here, from time to eternity, from earth to heaven, from the company of the wicket to the presence of the blessed God from ignorance to knowledge, from painful infirmities to present it faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy. This is the hope of the Christian. Behold it, consider it. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed. And the trumpet sounds. and time shall be no more. I asked you, sinner, what will it be like for you to hear that trumpet on that day, and for that soul and body of yours to be reunited and to be summoned before the judgment bar of God, and for you to be judged according to your works, and for then your body and soul to be cast into hell, It's hardly worth even contemplating. I say to you now, today is a time for you to secure yourself a part and a place in the resurrection of the just. How do I do that, preacher? I do that by repenting and believing the gospel. Will you do that? Will you be saved? And while we as Christians wait for this day, the day that will be changed, we are to do something. Paul encourages these people to do something while they wait the day when they will be changed. Verse 58, therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast. unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord. For as much as ye know, that your labor is not in vain in the Lord. May we live in light of his coming, and may we labor for him in light of that day. And then we will forever be with Christ. which for us will be far better. May the Lord bless His word to our hearts. Let's bow our heads in prayer. Our loving Father, we commit now this meeting into Thy care. We thank Thee for that which lies before us as believers. We rejoice, O God, that we will be changed, and this old body O God, that is so prone to sin will be brought to a state, O God, that it will never sin again. We rejoice, O God, in the hope of the believer, the one who dies in Christ. May all come to share in that hope by faith alone in Christ alone. Answer prayer and bless us around the table. We offer prayer in Jesus' name.