OUR AWESOME DESTINY
Part 1
Eleven weeks ago today, where were you? You were keeping the Last Great Day of the Feast—eleven weeks ago today. Eleven weeks ago we completed another cycle of God’s festivals. As you know, each year God commands us to keep those festivals in order that we rehearse annually His great plan for man. Thirteen weeks from tomorrow evening we will be gathered together to keep the Passover. Thirteen weeks from tomorrow evening we will begin one more time the cycle of God’s festivals.
God established a plan of salvation for man because He had a purpose. We have mentioned that in the funerals we have had just recently. There was a purpose. There was a purpose that God had. That is the reason He established this plan of salvation for man. That purpose involves man’s destiny. What is our destiny? What is your destiny?
I know that you have considered that. I know that you know what the church has taught. I know what you have read from this Book. How deeply has that settled down into your consciousness from the standpoint that you think about it as you conduct your daily lives? What is your destiny?
I’d like to begin in Philippians 1. In verse 1, Paul
here—writing to the church at
Philippians 1:1-2 Paul and Timothy, [servants] of Jesus
Christ, To all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in
He addresses the letter to the
saints in Jesus Christ who are in
Philippians 1:3-5 I thank my God upon every remembrance of you, 4 always in every prayer of mine making request for you all with joy, 5 for your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now.
I think most of you know the meaning of the Greek word that is rendered “fellowship.” It is koinonia, and we have talked about it numerous times in the past. It has been a while since we have mentioned it. According to Thayer’s, it means the share which one has in anything. In other words, “participation.” [It means] the share which one has in anything—participation, intimate participation.
Paul may have been primarily
mentioning the fact that they had participated in the spreading of the gospel.
They had assisted in the spreading of the gospel. It says, “for your fellowship
in the gospel.” We know the gospel has to do with the good news of what God is
doing—the good news of the
Here these individuals had a level of understanding of their part in what God is doing, of God’s purpose. In other words, they had a level of understanding of their destiny. They had a part in spreading the gospel, but they also had an understanding of their part in what the gospel message was saying.
Philippians 1:6 Being confident of this very thing [Paul says to them], that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it unto the day of Jesus Christ.
It is better worded in the Revised Standard Version, where it is rendered this way: “And I am sure that He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.”
Now, a question: What is the good work that God has begun? What is the good work that God had begun in them? What is the good work that God has begun in you and me, if we are included in this same group? This work that is mentioned here is a work that begins in those specially called individuals—those who are here called “the saints.” What does that completed work involve? What does the completed work involve? It has everything to do with our destiny, and what our true destiny is.
The last sermon that I gave here was titled JESUS IS THE CHRIST, THE SON OF GOD. In that sermon, I attempted to show that the scriptures clearly reveal Jesus the Christ to be now God—as God is God. If you remember, we went through numerous scriptures that just nail that down. There is no question about who He is. As we pointed out in that sermon, when He became flesh, He emptied Himself of His position as God’s equal. You read that in Philippians 2:6-7. He emptied Himself of being God’s equal in order to come to this earth, to become a servant, and in order to die. Following His resurrection from the dead, He reassumed the position that He held before. He reassumed His position along side the Being who He revealed while He was here as His Father. In Hebrews 1:3 it clearly states that He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high—reassuming that position that He had held before.
Two weeks prior to that sermon, if you can remember, I gave a sermon titled THE BUILDING OF THE CHURCH. In that sermon I attempted to show that Jesus the Christ is building His church on the foundational knowledge of the fact that He is the Christ, the Son of God; and that He is building His church to perfectly fill the role of His wife. The church is being prepared and built to fill the role of Jesus Christ’s wife—just as physical Eve was made, or built, to perfectly fill the role of Adam’s wife.
It is very difficult for us to (you might say) get our minds around the fact that Jesus Christ is going to take many as His wife. He is going to take the church to be His wife, which is going to be composed of many individuals. It is really hard. It is hard for me to get my mind around that. I don’t know just exactly how that is going to work. but the scriptures are very clear on this point. They are very clear!
I Corinthians 1:1-2 Paul, called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ through the will of God, and Sosthenes our brother, 2 To the church of God which is at Corinth, to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all who in every place call on the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours.
So here Paul clearly is writing
to the
II Corinthians
1:1 Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ
by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, to the
So once again, writing to members
of the
II Corinthians 11:1-2 Oh, that you would bear with me in a little folly [Paul writes.]—and indeed you do bear with me. 2 For I am jealous for you with godly jealousy. For I have betrothed you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ.
So here Paul, seeing his role in the ministry at that time as an apostle of Jesus Christ, views himself in the role of the friend of the bridegroom—if you understand that role as far as the Jewish tradition was concerned. He sees himself as the friend of the bridegroom, and he sees himself as the one who is betrothing these individuals to Christ. It clearly says, “I have betrothed you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ.” Very clearly here Paul is showing that the church is to become the wife of Jesus Christ.
Now notice what we read over in Ephesians 5. These are scriptures that are very familiar to us all, but I am building up to something. Here Paul is concluding a discourse regarding husband and wife relationships, and he states:
Ephesians
We are going to read a few verses, beginning in verse 22, about husband and wife relationships. But the emphasis and the focus are NOT on the husband and wife relationship, but rather on the church and Jesus Christ relationship. That is where the focus, the emphasis, is.
Ephesians 5:22-24 Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. 23 For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church; and He is the Savior of the body. 24 Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything.
So the human marriage, then, is a type of Jesus the Christ and the church. We are to pattern our physical relationship after what the spiritual relationship between the church and Jesus Christ should be.
Ephesians
As we have pointed out so many times, that could be rendered that “He gave Himself up for it.” Mr. Giacopelli mentioned how He emptied Himself of the position that He had, in order to come to this earth. He gave Himself up for the church. Now, He actually gave Himself up for all of mankind, not just the church. But the emphasis here is on the church and the role that the church will play. Therefore, the focus is on the church.
Ephesians 5:25-27 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself [up] for it, 26 that He might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, 27 that He might present it to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish.
Now, when you think of the
Here He is clearly saying that He is going to present this church to Himself. He is going to present it to Himself as a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such things, but that it should be holy and without blemish. When is this condition achieved? How is it achieved?
Revelation 19:7 Let us be glad and rejoice and give Him glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come.
So obviously here the apostle
John, while on the isle of
Revelation 19:7-9 Let us be glad and rejoice and give Him glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His wife has made herself ready. 8 And to her it was granted [We mentioned here, some time back, that the key word in these verses right here is the word “granted.”] to be arrayed in fine linen, clean and bright, for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints. 9 Then he said to me, “Write: ‘Blessed are those who are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb!’” And he said to me, “these are the true sayings of God.”
So these individuals who are there, who are participating, it clearly says have been called. “Blessed are those who are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb!” [These are] the very same individuals that we have been reading about that Paul was addressing—the saints, those individuals who had received a special calling. If we are included in that group (and, again, I hope that all of us consider ourselves to be), can we put on this fine linen that is clean and bright? This fine linen, it says, is the righteous acts of the saints. Can we adorn ourselves that way? Can we bring ourselves to a point where we can be clothed in that way? And bring ourselves to the point where we can stand before Jesus Christ to be taken as His bride? When this great God is taking His wife? Can we? It says it will be granted for the wife to be able to clothe herself in this way.
Let’s turn back to I Peter 1 and notice something there. We can read in the scriptures much about the grace of God. And we have heard the saying, “But for the grace of God, there go I.” We have said those kinds of things. And I believe we know that it is through the grace of God that we understand what we understand. It is because of God’s grace that we have been called to the understanding that we have been called to, and that we understand what we do at this point. It is by the grace of God that we can keep the holy days. God has extended His grace in many different ways and steps through His process of working with us and bringing us to where we are today. And that grace is going to continue to be extended to us yet in the future.
I Peter
So God’s grace has not ended with the fact that Jesus Christ came to this earth, gave His life in sacrifice for our sins—and now we don’t have to do any more because He has done it all for us; and grace is complete. No, grace is yet to be extended! It is through God’s grace that we will be granted to be able to put on that apparel and be adorned that way. We are not going to get there without that—without God’s grace being extended to us.
This will complete the work that God has begun in the specially called. This will complete the plan of salvation for those particular individuals. It will be the final step in the extension of God’s grace to the specially called. Their salvation will be complete. They are at this time [here in Revelation 19] entering into a new level of existence as members of the Family of God—as the wife of Jesus the Christ.
Revelation
If we are among the specially called—those who have been called to the marriage supper of the Lamb—if we are among those specially called individuals, then our destiny is to sit beside Jesus Christ on His throne. I think we understand, hopefully, that Jesus Christ is not spending all the time, from the time of His resurrection until now, sitting on a throne next to His Father. I think we understand that. This is not what this means. It is the position (you might say), or the role, where He stands in relationship with His Father. He is sitting with Him on His throne.
And the relationship that we will have with Jesus Christ will be sitting with Him on His throne. We will sit there as His wife. Again, it is difficult for us to comprehend how that many of us will fill that role; but the scriptures are very clear. Our destiny involves entering the Family of God then, as His wife—as Jesus the Christ’s wife. Now, remember, Jesus the Christ is now God—as God is God. What will His wife be? What is our destiny?
As we look forward to the festivals of God this year, I would like to help myself actually—and, hopefully, we can help you at the same time—keep them this year with perhaps more meaning than we have ever kept them before. If we can get our minds around who we are and what we have been called to, we will be able to keep the festivals in a way that we have never kept them before. We will be able to sit down on the night of Passover with a perspective that we have not had before, if we can fully get our minds around who we are and what we have been called to. I would like to attempt to help us all get to the point to where we can do that a little bit better, perhaps, than we can now. I would like for us to seriously consider what our destiny is!
If you want a title to this message, it is OUR AWESOME DESTINY. Our awesome destiny! This is going to be part one. I don’t know how long it will take to get through this. Mr. Lee mentioned last week, as I have said before that Mr. Meeker has said so many times, that there are certain scriptures that we ought to read real slow. The two verses that we are about to read are such verses that we need to read very slowly. We need to really contemplate what they are saying to us.
I John 3:1 Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God!
That is something that we ought to let just roll around in our minds a little bit, and think about. What manner of love the Father has bestowed on us that WE should be called children of God!
I John 3:1 Therefore the world does not know us, because it did not know Him [speaking of Jesus the Christ].
The world did not—and does not now—know the true Jesus Christ of the scriptures. They didn’t know then, and they don’t know now, the true Jesus Christ of the scriptures. Likewise, the world does NOT know the purpose He has in building His church. It does not know Him. It does not know the role that the church will play. The world has no clue as to what the destiny of the church is.
I John 3:2 Beloved…
Now, he is speaking to us (as he was in verse 1).
I John 3:2 Beloved, now we are children of God.
We really do need to try to grasp fully what that means. Now we are children of God. Then he says:
I John 3:2 And it has not yet been revealed what we shall be.
It has not yet been revealed to the people of this world what WE shall be. The world is totally oblivious to the role that the firstfruits will play. They don’t know. It hasn’t been revealed to them. But I want us to think about something. Even to us, who read these words and apply them to ourselves—even to us, it is hard to grasp what we have been called to. It is hard for us to grasp what we shall be. That is, what our destiny is.
I John 3:2 But we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.
We know this scripture. We can say the words—just like the apostles could say the words, “Yes, You are Jesus the Christ, the Son of God.” when they didn’t fully grasp what they were saying. We can say these words now. We can apply this to us—that, yes, we are going to be like Jesus Christ. Who is He now? What is He now? We are going to be like Him! Can we get our minds around that? How real is this to us? As we live our daily lives, is this part of our consciousness? Are we thinking about this, in these terms? It says here “But we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him.”
Over in Romans 8 is a very important statement that I haven’t really focused on before in this set of verses. We have read this so many times. As I’ve said, this is probably my favorite chapter in the Bible. I’ve read it so many times.
Those are very similar words to what John says over there in I John 3. “We are children of God.”
Romans
When Jesus Christ returns to this earth, it appears from all that I read that it is going to be revealed to the human beings left alive on this earth who this Being is. He is going to be glorified, and that has to do with making known who He is. But He is going to be glorified along with the saints. Those who become His bride will be glorified together with Him. So it will be revealed to humanity who Jesus the Christ is; and, at the same time, His wife will be revealed also (for who she is, for the role that she is going to play).
Romans
The glory which shall be revealed
in us!
Romans
In the sermon, JESUS IS THE CHRIST, THE SON OF GOD, remember that we put emphasis on what those words meant—that He was the Son of God. This word “sons” here is the same Greek word that was used for Jesus Christ as the Son of God.
Now, what does this mean to us? If we are included in this group, we will be revealed to humanity at that time as the sons of God. Remember, Jesus the Christ is the firstborn among many brethren. He is the firstborn Son of God, but He is the firstborn among many brethren.
Now I want to begin to wade through a number of scriptures. Eventually we will work our way back to some of these we just read. My hope is that, when we get back there to them, we will be able to come a little bit closer to getting our minds around them. I want to go all the way back to Genesis 1. As we have said so many times, and as I have said here today, God had a purpose. We have talked about that, again, in the funerals just recently—that God created this earth and life on it. Primarily He prepared this earth and established everything He did on this earth for the support of human life—because it was human life that He was most interested in. It was human life that He did this for. And His purpose involves the destiny of the human life that is on this planet. We can read up in verses 1 and 2 about how the surface of this earth had been affected by devastation. God set His hand to refurbish it for the existence of man.
Genesis 1:20-21 Then God said, “Let the waters abound with an abundance of living creatures, and let birds fly about the earth across the face of the firmament of the heavens.” 21 So God created great sea creatures and every living thing that moves, with which the waters abounded, according to their kind, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw [said] that it was good.
God established a “kind after kind” law within the realm of these living creatures that He made. Kind reproduces after its own kind.
Genesis 1:22-24 And God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters of the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.” 23 So the evening and the morning were the first day. 24 Then God said, “Let the earth bring forth the living creature according to its kind: cattle and creeping thing and beast of the earth, each according to its [own] kind”; and it was so.
So both the creatures of the water and the creatures of the dry land were to be consistent with this law of “kind after kind.”
Genesis 1:25-26 And God made the beast of the earth according to its kind, cattle according to its kind, and everything that creeps on the earth according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 26 Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness.
Very clearly here, there is a distinction between all these living creatures and man. Man is after the image of God! The animals are after their own kind. But there is a distinction here when They came to create man. It says, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness.” They didn’t say that about any other living thing that was made—only man. Man is not just different from the animals (even though he is). Man is like God. Among the physical things that were created, [only] man is like God. Man is after the God kind. Not animal kind, and not angel kind. Man is made in the likeness of God.
We can read through the scriptures and we know that man’s physical body is patterned after God’s spiritual body. We see many scriptures of the fact that God has legs; He has feet; He has arms; He has hands; He has a face; He has ears; He has eyes; and so forth. He is made in the same spiritual form as human beings are made in the physical form. But that is just the beginning of the way that man is like God. Man has a mind. No other living thing has a mind—that can reason, that can plan, that has emotions—like human beings have. Even though certain animals do have certain levels of emotions, it is built into their makeup. But they don’t have a mind to be able to discern and recognize, and intelligence to be creative. Animals can’t do that. Only man can.
It goes on to say here that God gave them [man] dominion over the rest of the living things. So man was created with the ability to rule over, to manage, the other living things. And more than anything else, man was created with the ability to make choices. Not only created with the ability to make choices, but he is required by God to make choices. We have to do that! And by that, you see, man is capable of character development. Each individual human being can develop character.
Now, as we have discussed before, it goes beyond that in that God immediately established human beings into a family—when He brought Adam and Eve together as husband and wife, and told them to reproduce. And so the human family God established, patterned after the God Family that He was in the process of establishing. Let’s go ahead and read about three verses here and notice what it says.
Genesis
As God rules over His universe, He has given man to have dominion over what He has made upon this earth.
Genesis
So man was created with God-like abilities to do these things.
Genesis 1:27-28 So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
Genesis 5:1-3 This is the book of the genealogy of Adam. In the day that God created man, He made him in the likeness of God. 2 He created them male and female, and blessed them and called them Mankind in the day they were created. 3 And Adam lived one hundred and thirty years, and begot a son in his own likeness.
The human beings that resulted from this very first marriage were like the parents. So human beings continued then to be produced in this way—to be like God. All human beings down through history have been the same. All of us have minds. All of us have these same kinds of abilities that God created in Adam and Eve. And clearly here God is telling them, “You reproduce.” Why? Because He is in the process of reproducing. He is in the process of reproducing God-life.
Now, Genesis 9. This took place after the Flood, and notice what it says here.
Genesis 9:1 So God blessed Noah and his sons, and said to them: “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth.”
So this process was to continue. This reproduction of human life was to continue.
Genesis 9:2 And the fear of you and the dread of you [as human beings] shall be on every beast of the earth, on every bird of the air, on all that move on the earth, and on all the fish of the sea. They are given into your hand.
So there is a clear distinction here, between animal kind and man kind.
Now, we know that we read other scriptures and it makes a clear distinction between those animals that are edible and those that are not. Here it is not addressing clean and unclean meats. What it is saying here is that man can kill the animals without any punishment. Man has dominion over the animals. There is no punishment for killing them. They are within his control to do that. And the reason why I say that we’ll see as we go on and see what it says beyond this point is because it is making a distinction between the lifeblood of an animal and the lifeblood of a human being.
Genesis 9:4 But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood.
We know from the scriptures that we are not to consume animal flesh with its blood in it. We are to drain the blood out. The animal should be bled well before we consume the flesh of the animal.
Genesis 9:5 Surely for your lifeblood I will demand a reckoning.
An animal’s blood can be spilled without punishment. Not so with human blood.
Genesis 9:5 Surely for your lifeblood I will demand a reckoning; from the hand of every beast I will require it.
Remember the laws? If you own an animal and it kills somebody, that animal dies.
Genesis 9:5-6 From the hand of every beast I will require it, and from the hand of man. From the hand of every man’s brother I will require the life of man. 6 “Whoever sheds man’s blood, by man his blood shall be shed.”
In the civil laws that God
established for
Genesis 9:6 For in the image of God He made man.
There is a distinction between the lifeblood of a human being and the lifeblood of any other creature that He made. There is a clear distinction between the value of life of a human being and the value of life of any animal. Why? Because man is made in the image of God. There is a purpose for human life, and that purpose goes beyond this life.
Psalm 8:1 O LORD, our Lord, how excellent is Your name in all the earth, who have set Your glory above the heavens!
Psalm 8:3 When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have ordained.
David was able to recognize the awesomeness of God’s physical creation. And, as I have expressed before, I am quite certain from David’s vantage point that he really had a good view as he looked up into the stars, the moon, and all that he was able to see. He didn’t have the corruption in the air that we have today that prevents us from clearly seeing those lights like no doubt he could at that time. But he was able to get at least to some level of recognizing the awesomeness of this physical creation.
If David only had access to the information that we have today, I wonder if he would have even put more emphasis on this? I don’t know that David was able to understand the incredible distances that are involved in the universe that he was looking up into there. He probably didn’t realize that some of the lights that he was actually seeing had emanated from those stars years and years and years prior. And, in some cases, possibly the light emanated from the star before he was born. That is how incredible the distances are out there, and how long it takes for light to get from one point to another in this incredible universe. But he was able, to some degree, to recognize the awesomeness of what he was looking at; and then he posed the question:
Psalm 8:4 What is man that You are mindful of him, and the son of man that You visit him?
The marginal rendering in my edition of the New King James Version for “visit” here is “give attention to, or care for.” What is man that You are mindful of him, and the son of man that You care—You give Your attention to him? Apparently David had come to realize that man is actually the central part in all of this creation. He is the reason for what God has made. Man is the central point in all that God has made.
Psalm 8:5 For You have made him a little lower than the angels.
We have pointed out so many times that (if you look in the margin and you have the same edition that I have) it will show that “angels” is rendered from the Hebrew “Elohim.” In the New Revised Standard Version it is rendered this way: “You have made them a little lower than God.”
Now, you can go to Hebrews 2:7; and there these very verses are quoted. And there it shows in the margin that “You have made him for a little while lower than the angels.” Let this roll around in your thinking a little bit too. As David states this: “You have made him a little while lower than God.” You have made him for a little while lower than Elohim. Elohim, as we all know, is the plural form of God. It is the Family name of God. “You have made him for a little while to be lower than Elohim.” Clearly the implication is that it is for a little while; but, beyond that, then no longer lower than the angels or lower than Elohim.
Psalm 8:5-8 You have crowned him with glory and honor. 6 You have made him to have dominion over the works of Your hands; You have put all things under his feet, 7 all sheep and oxen—even the beasts of the field, 8 the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea that pass through the paths of the seas.
So David very clearly understood this, that man had God-like abilities.
Psalm 8:9 O LORD, our Lord, how excellent is Your name in all the earth!
Now, I’d like to go to Hebrews 2; and I think we’ll finish there. These are the very same verses that Paul quotes here; but he goes on to say something that we need to hear today, I believe.
Hebrews 2:5-8 For He has not put the world to come, of which we speak, in subjection to angels. 6 But one testified in a certain place, saying: “What is man that You are mindful of him, or the son of man that You take care of him? 7 You made him [and again, the marginal rendering is…] for a little while lower than the angels [or, lower than Elohim]; You have crowned him with glory and honor, and set him over the works of Your hands. 8 You have put all things in subjection under his feet.” For in that He put all in subjection under him, [And these are Paul’s words now, Paul’s comments.] He left nothing that is not put under him. But now we do not yet see all things put under him.
So man was made in
the physical to have certain God-like rulership responsibilities, but the
fullness of that has not happened yet. Paul is clearly saying here, “You
haven’t seen anything yet!”
Hebrews 2:8-9 For in that He put all in subjection under him, He left nothing that is not put under him. [Notice that. He left nothing that is not put under him.] But now we do not yet see all things put under him. 9 But we see Jesus, who was made [for a little while, again] lower than the angels [or, for a little while lower than Elohim].
He too took the same position that we are in now, so that He could become our Savior.
Hebrews 2:9-10 But we see Jesus, who was made [for a little while] lower than the angels, for the suffering of death [We see Him now…] crowned with glory and honor [Yes, He is set down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.], that He, by the grace of God, might taste death for everyone. 10 For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the captain [author] of their salvation perfect through sufferings.
So it was fitting for this Being who created human life, who placed human life on this earth, who established the human family, who gave to these human beings God-like characteristics—it was fitting for Him.
Hebrews 2:10 It was fitting for Him, for whom are all things and by whom are all things, [notice] in bringing many sons to glory, to make the captain [author] of their salvation perfect through sufferings.
We pointed out before, in that sermon THE BUILDING OF THE CHURCH, how Jesus Christ suffered. He came to this earth and experienced humanity. Up close and personal, He experienced sufferings. He experienced the effect of evil. But, as we pointed out, He could only go so far. He couldn’t go beyond a certain point. He couldn’t sin. But He is requiring of His bride to do that. He is requiring these sons who He is bringing to glory to experience that so that they can contribute to the God Family, and be able to help and assist when all of those millions are resurrected back to life again. We will be able to say, “Yeah, we did that. We walked in your shoes. We’ve done what you have done.” And there will be somebody within the bride of Christ that has done whatever man can do. Whatever sins man can commit, there will be somebody within the bride who has done it. “I’ve been there. I’ve done that. And, yes, the grace has been extended to me.”
But, you see, He had to be the author of their salvation. There had to be a plan of salvation. They had to be salvaged, because all of these individuals who had this awesome destiny of becoming sons of glory at some point in the future—all of them had that destiny—but they couldn’t get there on their own. There was no way for any one of us to salvage our lives. There was no way for any one of us to put those garments on and stand there before Jesus Christ adorned with that clean and white apparel. It took Jesus Christ’s sacrifice in order to do that, and He is the author of our salvation. And He made it perfect through sufferings.
Hebrews
Brethren, we have an awesome destiny. An awesome destiny! There are going to be many other scriptures that we are going to go through, and that we are going to read, that are just so clear—that will bring us back to the ones we read at the beginning of this sermon today. And, hopefully, by that time we will be able to at least better get our minds around what OUR DESTINY truly is.
Transcribed
by PLH March, 2004