Clear Vision and a Rear View Mirror

00:02 Amen. Praise the Lord. Let the church say amen. And I'll tell you, it is good to be able to look out over the audience and see an audience. 00:11 It is rather disconcerting when you stand up here to preach and there's nobody out there except by cyberspace. But anyway, it is good to see the church filled this morning and welcome each one. And praise the Lord that we do have this measure of freedom to assemble clearly and openly in the house of the Lord. 00:32 I want to just share just a little bit with the children this morning. You have not been having children's class, and so we're kind of mindful of that. So I'm going to come down here again this morning and talk to the children. I want to talk to you about your eyes. Anybody? I don't think there's anybody that's blind here, but maybe some people that can't see very good. 00:53 But children, have you ever thanked God for your eyes? And what would it be like to not have good eyes? And as you get older, your eyes kind of get dimmer. But what are some things this morning, children, that can keep us from seeing well? Have you ever thought about that? 01:12 What are some things that can keep us from seeing well? How about... Well, some people are born blind, and so that would keep them from seeing well. Or they're born with a bad, maybe a tumor or something on an eye, and that keeps you from seeing well. 01:33 What are some other things that can keep you from seeing well? Okay? Can you say it louder? 01:40 Darkness. 01:40 Darkness. Yeah, right. You need to have light to be able to see well. Okay? 01:47 Staring at bright lights. 01:49 Staring at bright lights. Yes. In fact, I remember my grandpa used to do a lot of welding in his shop. And I remember as a boy, when my dad would be around or I was out there with grandpa, and they would tell us, "Don't look at the weld or you'll go blind." And that scared a little boy. You know, 02:07 I said, "I'm going to stay as far away from that thing as I can get. Or I'm going to get struck with blindness." Yeah. But it's a bad thing. But anyway, looking at bright lights, look at the sun, and then you look away from the sun, wow, you can't see for a while. Who else? Okay. Way in the back. 02:26 Sun. 02:28 Sun. Yeah. And that'll make a different perspective on life. Okay. How about over here somewhere? Anybody have an idea over here? 02:41 Tim was trying to get my attention. Oh, okay. I thought there was somebody over here. Okay. Well, how about did you ever get something in your eyes? Maybe you were out close to the lawnmower, and the lawnmower was blowing dirt, and you got a piece of dirt in your eyes, and your eyes started watering. And that'll keep you from seeing very well. 03:00 Sometimes people have to go to the doctor if they get a piece of metal or something in there. That'll keep them from seeing well. Some people are colorblind. Have you ever heard of being colorblind, where you can't distinguish one color from another, the right colors? And some people have to look at the stoplights, the traffic lights, and see the position of the light because they can't tell whether it's red, 03:21 brown, red, brown, yellow, black, or white. And sometimes it's just not paying attention. Right? Have you ever not paid attention well? I was down in Jamaica last fall with Brother Clyde Byler and his family, and we were walking out on the beach one day, 03:40 and we'd seen all kinds of fish, and we were kind of distracted with that. They were bringing the boats in with the fish in them. And I was walking along the beach, and all of a sudden, Pastor Todd was laying down on the ground because he wasn't paying attention. And he tripped on a piece of something or other, a net or something that was there. And I fell, 04:00 you know, because I wasn't looking out. I wasn't paying attention very well. Do you ever do that, not pay attention very well? Well, God wants us to be able to see well. Now, sometimes people can't see well for some reason. And he wants us to not only see with our physical eyes, but he wants us to see with our mind. 04:21 And we're going to talk this morning about seeing, about looking, about seeing life clearly. And there's two kinds of seeing in the Bible, at least two. One is to see something with your eyes and pay attention to it and see it clearly. The other is to understand something with your mind. Have you ever been in school, 04:40 and then the teacher explained something that you didn't understand, and they said, "Do you see it now? Can you see it?" Well, of course, it's sitting there on the paper. But what they really mean is, "Do you understand it?" And somebody may say, "Oh, now I see." It doesn't mean that they saw it different on the paper. 05:00 It means that they understood it. Right? And so God wants us to understand life. He wants us to see clearly. And that's what we want to talk about this morning from the book of Malachi. So in your copies of the Scriptures, turn to Malachi chapter 3. We're making our way through the book and finding some things in it that are a challenge to understand, 05:20 a challenge to explain, a challenge to put together. But we want to look at verses 13 through the end of the chapter this morning from Malachi chapter 3, where God says to the people, "Your words have been harsh against me," says the Lord. "Yet you say, 'What have we spoken against you?'" You see, they didn't see. 05:41 They didn't see what God saw. They didn't hear what God heard. Verse 14, "You have said, 'It is useless to serve God. What profit is it that we have kept his ordinance and that we have walked as mourners before the Lord of hosts?' So now we call the proud blessed, for those who do wickedness are raised up. 06:03 They even tempt God and go free. Then those who feared the Lord and spoke to one another, and the Lord listened and heard them. So a book of remembrance was written before him for those who fear the Lord and who meditate on his name. 'They shall be mine,' says the Lord of hosts, 06:22 'on the days that I make up my jewels. And I will spare them as a man spares his own son who serves him. Then you shall again discern between the righteous and the wicked, between one who serves God and one who does not serve him.'" Well, we can think about a lot of things this morning that keep us from seeing clearly physically. 06:44 But what about the things in life that keep us from seeing things spiritually and understanding life? Sometimes it's the pain of life. People's pain keeps them from seeing well and understanding. Sometimes it's prejudice and bias. Bias against certain things or towards certain things is a bent. 07:03 And a prejudice is a rejection of certain aspects or people or ideas because of racial prejudice is one thing we hear a lot about today. Or what about stereotypes where you kind of write a whole bunch of people off with the same you paint them with the same brush. And that keeps us from really having spiritual vision like God has it. 07:25 Sometimes past experiences condition people to see things in a particular way, and they can't see clearly because of past experiences. Sometimes we don't see clearly because fear is our focus. And we're afraid. We worry. We're not trusting God. And just sin, plain old sin, 07:44 will keep us from seeing well because sin blinds the eye to see the work and plan and person of God and Jesus Christ. Sometimes it's poor depth perception. Poor depth perception. You're not able to judge depth, and you're not able to see the significance of something that is truly significant and grasp that depth of that situation. 08:06 Sometimes it is just simply a secular worldview that keeps us from seeing God at work and God's plan and God's truth. Sometimes it's compromise, where we compromise a little bit here and a little bit there and a little bit over here, and then we find ourselves looking at life from a different perspective rather than from God's perspective. And sometimes it's just plain old being cynical, 08:28 being negative, being pessimistic, 08:33 glass half-empty kind of people. And so we're cynical. All those things are just a few of the things that keep us from seeing well. And what is it that we want to see? We want to see life from God's perspective. We want to see God, first of all. We want to have our vision of God the way it ought to be. We want to see life as God sees it. 08:52 We want to see truth as God sees it, as God defines it, and God declares it. We want to see Scripture as God sees it. We want to see others as God sees them. And we want to see ourselves as God sees us. And one of the things that was happening here in Malachi chapter 3 was the people were not seeing well. They were not seeing and perceiving God, 09:14 and they were not perceiving God's will and God's nature very well at all. They had a dysfunctional view of God. And so God gives them the accusation. And this is one of those final question and answer periods that Malachi gives to us. And God makes the accusation, "Your words have been harsh against me," says the Lord. 09:35 And the people then respond, "What have we spoken against you? And then you have spoken, 'It is useless to serve God.'" And he gives them the definition of his accusation against them. And so he says, "Your words have been harsh against me. They have been hard. They have been arrogant. 09:55 They have been arrogant." And basically, the people were saying, "Why serve God? Why serve him? It really doesn't make any difference whether you serve him or serve another God. Why obey his commands? Why show repentance? Why would we keep his ordinances? 10:13 Why would we walk as mourners or as people repentant about being sorry for our sins?" And after all, the people were saying, "Bad things happen to good people, and good things happen to bad people. 10:26 And it's all just kind of one convoluted mess." And really, and so they were guilty of praising the wicked and elevating the wicked and tempting God 10:40 in doing so. And even the people that were, they would look and see people that were not living for God, and they would go free. They would not pay the price for their sins. And these people were short-sighted because they saw no immediate punishment for sin. And so they came to the conclusion that it really doesn't pay to serve God. 11:01 And they came to the conclusion that there's no consequences for doing wrong because they were not looking clearly down the road as God looks at it. They were judging only by immediate circumstances. Have you ever stopped to think when you thought that somebody had done something wrong, and they ought to pay for it? 11:22 You know, they ought to be in trouble for it, whether it be a politician or a group of people or somebody who did something wrong or mom or dad or the son or daughter or brother or sister who did something wrong. And they ought to have to pay for that. And they don't have to pay for it. It looks like they just kind of get by with it. 11:40 And maybe even somebody did something really wrong, and they get by with it. And so the temptation is to see, is to say, "Well, you know, I guess if they can get by with it, then I can get by with it." And that's what people were saying. 11:53 If the wicked can get by with it without being punished by God, in fact, they even get elevated by the people and exalted by the people in their wickedness, then there's no use to serve God. That's what the people were saying. Their problem was they were short-sighted, measuring everything by immediate results. 12:15 Now, sometimes God judges sin on the spot. Enter Ananias and Sapphira. You know, he does. And Ananias and Sapphira were judged on the spot. Their life was taken by God. They were cast out into eternity in rebellion against God. And God judged that. 12:36 And the Bible says that fear came on all the church. But more often, God does not judge sin immediately. Or I guess we could say that sin is already judged, but we don't see the consequences of that sin being judged for a period of time. And sometimes people can go for years, 12:57 and their sins just kind of accumulate and accumulate and accumulate. But don't ever think that because God doesn't judge sin immediately, that he will never judge sin because the Bible makes it clear that there is a judgment coming on sin. 13:18 And if you insist on taking your sin with you into eternity, God will judge both the sin and the sinner. Don't ever think otherwise. But the problem here was really boiled down to a lack of fear of the Lord, a lack of respect and reverence for God. 13:40 They had no respect for what this could mean and what God was actually doing. And they were foolishly courageous. In verse 13, the word harsh there and hard actually means courage. In other places, it may be translated courage or courageous or courageously. 14:00 These people were courageously accusing God, not reverencing God, not worshiping God, not allowing God to be sovereign over them, not allowing God to have his way in his timetable, in his day of mercy and day of wrath, 14:22 but foolishly accusing him of being unjust, unloving, unconcerned, uninvolved. And they had a distorted view of God. And so I want to ask you the question this morning. Does it pay to serve Jesus? Does it? 14:42 I mean, you see all kinds of people living in sin around us, and it seems like God doesn't do anything about it. Well, at least not that we can see. But let me guarantee you, God is at work even in the heart. And the law of sowing and reaping, at least, begins upon the sowing of the sin, of the seed. 15:03 The harvest doesn't come until the end, but the law of sowing and reaping begins at the beginning. It begins at the beginning. So does it pay to serve Jesus? Does it pay in the short term? Does it pay in the long term? And the answer is an obvious yes, or I wouldn't be here this morning. 15:24 If I didn't believe it paid to serve Jesus long term and short term, I'd be doing something else right at this moment. But I believe it pays to serve Jesus. It pays to invest in the kingdom of God. It pays to be connected to the source of life, the Lord Jesus Christ himself. For this is life eternal: to know thee, 15:45 the only God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. It pays short term and long term and eternal benefits. In the short term, we have this payment of peace and joy. It's a gift. It's a gift that God gives to us, a gift of peace, a gift of joy. We have the gift of contentment. 16:04 We can actually view our possessions and our opportunities and our life around us with contentment instead of continual lust and craving for more. We have the blessing of a cleansed conscience. Do you realize what a blessing that is? Brothers and sisters, if you don't have a cleansed conscience this morning, you're missing out on a blessing. 16:25 You're missing out on a blessing. Delay your head down on the pillow at night and to know that all is well with your soul. That should I, if I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take, and he'll take it. 16:37 And that's a blessing to know that you can go to sleep at night with a clear conscience, that you can walk through the day, and you don't have to worry about accusations coming your way or somebody finding out what you tried to keep hidden in the closet. 16:53 There's a blessing of trusting God to carry us through. I don't know how the world does it. Psychiatrists say, psychologists oftentimes say that Christianity is just a crutch. The world says Christianity is just a crutch, just a crutch for weak people to invent a God to take them through. Well, let me tell you what. There isn't one of us that's strong. 17:12 We're all weak unless we're deluding ourselves. You see, God carries weak people, and I'm thankful that he does. It's not a crutch unless you—it is a crutch in the sense that you need someone to lean on when the times get hard and when the way gets rough. 17:31 You can trust God to carry you through COVID-19. You can trust God to carry you through the loss of a job or the pain of life. And you can know that even if you were to die, there's a home in heaven awaiting for you. Yes, serving Jesus pays. Walking through life, being able to view life with the truth, 17:52 a worldview to help us properly understand and make sense of this world around us, the blessings of a life lived for God. And that's just some of the few of the positive things that it pays to serve Jesus. And one of the things that the other side of it is that you can escape some of the corruption that is in the world. 18:12 Now, we can't escape being near it, but we can escape it affecting us. You know, when you live your life for God, you don't have to worry about having a broken marriage. When two live for each other and live for the Lord, and they're bound together as husband and wife in the covenant of marriage, 18:31 and they're serving the Lord Jesus Christ, let me tell you what, it's a beautiful thing. It's a beautiful thing, the intimacy that comes with marriage that the world may understand a little bit about in some of their covenant marriages, but they don't understand oneness of spirit. They don't understand the beauty of praying together, 18:50 the beauty of hearing God together, the beauty of seeking the Lord together, the beauty of worshiping together, the beauty of having your partner of 39, 37, 40, 50, 60, 20, however many years you've been married sitting there with your family worshiping the God of the universe. 19:08 They don't understand the beauty of that and the intimacy that comes from that. And they're plagued with addictions. You don't have to worry about addictions when you're serving God. You don't have to worry about the brokenness and the continual lust for more substances to put into our body to give us satisfaction in life. 19:30 You don't have to worry about the sense of purposelessness, seeing life as a hodgepodge of unrelated molecules, a molecule here and a molecule there colliding and exploding and creating sense out of nonsense, and it's still nonsense. You don't have to worry about all that because in the Christian worldview, 19:51 there's purpose. There's purpose in life. There's purpose in death. There's purpose in work. There's purpose in family. There's purpose in life all the way through. We have a place to go when we have the pain of rejection and fear and anxiety. We have a person to go to. 20:09 We have a Lord to dump our things on who can carry them. We need not be shackled by the pain of abuse. Yes, abuse happens in the world around us, and bad things happen to people. 20:23 And sometimes those people are tempted to say, "God, it really doesn't pay to serve you." And yet it does pay because the world has no place to go with their pain, no place to go with their abuse. But the Christian does. We can take it to Jesus. We can take it to the foot of the cross. 20:39 We can take it to the healer, and the healer ministers that healing ointment and the balm of Gilead to our hearts. Same with despair and depression and loneliness and deception of giving your life to something and finding out it was all wrong. It pays to serve Jesus, 20:59 payment of joy and of abiding in Christ, the place of safety and security and knowing that you're secure in the Lord Jesus Christ. That come hell or high water, Jesus will not forsake you. Knowing that our lives are secure in Him, knowing that we can invest in an eternal kingdom that will not fade. 21:21 It will not even slightly diminish. That we can see life and eternity with unclouded eyes. And if you drop down to verse 18, you'll see this is what God wants them to experience. "Then you shall again discern." You shall see. The word there discern means to see, 21:41 not just to see physically, but to see with the mind, to understand that light, what I call a light bulb moment. When the light bulb goes on and you see something that you didn't see before, you will discern between the righteous and the wicked, between one who serves God and one who does not serve Him. 22:04 Well, this is all news to these people. They need to learn how to walk with God. And I want to give you, in the time that remains here this morning, the next several minutes, I want to give you some blessings of walking with God, some blessings of walking with God from this passage. First of all, you'll notice that those who walk with God need not walk alone. 22:25 You need not walk alone. Verse 16, "Then those who feared the Lord spoke to one another." They spoke to one another. They communicated with one another, the goodness of God. They communicated their worship of God. They communicated to bear one another's burdens, to communicate that you are not alone. 22:45 Remember Elijah who was so distraught, "God, I'm the only one left." God said, "No, you're not. There are 7,000 that have not bowed the knee to Baal." And that was a great encouragement, a great encouragement to Elijah to know he was not alone. 23:07 I don't know how it would be. And I feel for some of you that are single and you've been alone in these times of COVID-19, the quarantine 2020. You know, we were talking about all this seeing clearly in 2020. I think we're as confused today as we've ever been in some cases. 23:28 2020 vision turned out to be a hoax. 23:32 And I feel for those who are alone, but you're not alone. You're not alone. God is with you. The church loves you, cares for you. And there are people in our community that we can reach out to each other. The Bible says in Psalm 68:6, 23:51 "God sets the solitary in families." I think that's more than just the mom and pop and the kids. I think that is the family of God. Psalm 119:63 says, "I am a companion of all them that fear thee and of them that keep thy precepts." 1 John 1:7, "If we walk in the light as he is in the light, 24:10 we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sins." Now, there may be times when we are called to walk alone. But even Jesus, in those times of loneliness, knew it was good for people to go two by two out into ministry. 24:30 And there may be times when we feel alone. It's like Chaplain Bill Babb, who was a chaplain at Miami Correctional for many years and also at Indiana State Prison. 24:40 He says, "Many were the times when I walked on those ranges in the prison, and I walked there by myself, but I was never alone." Consciousness of the presence of God. 24:54 There's great fellowship in the family of God. Luke 24, "Now behold, two of them were traveling that same day to a village called Emmaus, which was seven miles from Jerusalem." And they talked together of all those things which had happened. Thank God for telephones during quarantine 2020, right? 25:13 Telephones and Zooms and digital Facebook and all those Twitters and Instagrams and all those things that people could stay connected, could stay connected. 25:27 We need to reach out to those who are not connected, who are feeling disenfranchised. You see, you need to be a part of the body. You need to be a part of the family of God. You need to be a part of the body when you celebrate birth, when you grieve death, when you struggle with depression. There's great comfort in the body. 25:47 You need to be a part of the body when you move, when you age, when you get married, when you face financial crisis, when you raise a handicapped child or you have no child to raise. We can face those things together as the people of God communicate with one another and speak to one another. 26:09 What a blessing. What a sorrow it is to go through life alone. I think one of the saddest things about quarantine 2020 are the people who died alone. But those who died with Christ were not alone. Those who died without Christ, 26:29 brothers and sisters, they're still alone. They're still alone with no hope and comfort of ever having any comfort again. 26:42 And so there's a ministry of prayer warriors in one's local church who can stand in the gap and speak to God on behalf of the people and speak to one another on behalf of God. You need not be alone. The second blessing of walking with God is that you are heard by God. 27:01 You are heard by God. Verse 19, "And the Lord listened and heard them." Now, I'm glad for that word that he listened because there's times when we are heard, but we're not listened to. And there's sometimes when we hear, but we don't listen. 27:22 Sometimes children hear their parents give instruction, and then the parent has to stop and says, "Are you listening to me?" In other words, are you paying attention? Sometimes wives have to do that to their husbands. Sometimes husbands have to do that to their wives. You see, it's sometimes difficult for me to know that my wife can multitask. She can be listening at the same time that she's doing something. 27:43 And sometimes I have to tell her, I said, "I need to see you. I need to see you listening," and vice versa. But God listens to those who fear him, to those who love him, to those who meditate on his name, verse 16. For those who fear him and who meditate on his name, 28:05 the Lord listens and hears. The Lord took notice and listened, one translation says. The Lord paid attention and heard them. Psalm 34:15, "The eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous, and his ears are open unto their cry. But the face of the Lord is against them that do evil, to cut off remembrance from them from the earth." Isaiah 59, 28:27 "Behold, the Lord's hand is not shortened, that it cannot save, neither is his ear heavy, that it cannot hear. 28:33 But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear." Such it was in the case of King Saul, where it came to the place where God would not hear him anymore because he would not listen to God. 28:52 But for those who have dealt with sin and who have trusted in Christ and who are walking in the fear of the Lord, God actually listens, pays attention, and hears us when we call. 29:06 The third blessing of walking with the Lord is that you have a connection to the past or what I call you have a rearview mirror. Now, I'm sure you're wondering where we were getting the rearview mirror in this message. Clear vision? We get that. But the rearview mirror, I thought we weren't supposed to live by looking in the mirror. 29:25 Well, this is true. You don't govern your life by the past. But let me tell you, there's a reason that the rearview mirror is in the car. Amen? It's to give you some perspective. And this word here says that a book of remembrance was written, a book of remembrance. 29:45 It's a connection to the past, a connection to the past. You don't live in the past. You can't go back and redo the past, but you can be connected to the past. Some people have no past. They have no one to know. They really don't know where they came from. They don't know who they were. 30:04 They don't have a perspective of an extended family or of a heritage of a people behind them. It doesn't mean that they can't move forward. It just means that they're kind of cheated out of that perspective of the long haul from past, present, to future. 30:23 And especially, though, as we walk with God, there are things that happen to us that we really ought to keep record of. You really ought to keep record of it. You ought to have a journal. I should have done this. I wish I would have done this 40 years ago, 30 years ago, and just kept track of all the places I went and experiences I had. 30:43 And I have a few things written down. And every once in a while, I go back to those things. I run across that notebook and say, "Wow, man. God, you really did something there. You really did something." A book of remembrance. What is the remembering? Well, sometimes it's a remembrance for us to refer to. 31:04 Sometimes it's a remembrance of us that God refers to. By the way, everything that we're doing and everything that we do is being written down by God in a book, the Bible says. And at the end of time, the books, notice in Revelation it says, "The books, the books will be opened, 31:27 and each one will be judged according to the deeds." And so everything that we do is being recorded, recorded, recorded. I talked to a psychologist some time ago. He said, "Todd," he said, "we now know by studying the brain that the brain is like a tape recorder." Well, that was a few years ago when they still used tape recorders. But he said, 31:45 "The brain is like a recorder that records everything that you've ever done, said, how you felt, what you did, how you responded. Everything is recorded." You know where one of the places of recording is right up here. And all God has to do to judge us is just open the books. Just open the books. 32:07 The main book that we need to have our remembrance in, and that is in the book of life, the book of life. 32:15 The New Life translation, New Living translation, translates this verse as saying, "He recorded the names of those who feared the Lord." So a book of remembrance was written before him. Some translations say, "For those who fear the Lord," there's helping us remember. 32:34 And some translations say it was written before him, "of those who fear the Lord." The New Living translation says, "It was written with the names of those who feared the Lord." And so is your name written down? Is your name written down? You fear the Lord? Do you have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ? 32:55 Have you given your heart to him? The Bible says, "Rejoice because your names are written in heaven." Philippians 4 refers to those whose names are in the book of life. Hebrews 12:23 says, "We are come to the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven." Revelation 3 says, 33:15 "He that overcometh the same shall be clothed in white raiment, and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life. Whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire." Revelation 21:27, speaking of those who enter the eternal city, but they which are written in the Lamb's book of life. 33:38 And so he said he wants us to know clearly if we're written or not written. Verse 18, again, coming to discern and clearly see whether you're in or out, whether you're on or off, whether you're with God or against God, whether you're living for God or whether you're not living for God. There is a line, and you want to know which side of that line you're on. 33:59 And so the fourth thing that is a blessing of walking with God is that you will be spared. You'll be spared. He said, "I will spare these people of the judgment that's coming. I will spare these people of the judgment of coming." You see, the Bible says that there is a time of outpouring of the wrath of God. 34:19 This is one of the reasons that I am a, when it comes to the tribulation and the rapture of the church, that I am a pre-trib believer in the rapture pre-tribulation or possibly mid-trib. But I don't believe that God is going to pour out his wrath on his church. That was poured out on Christ. 34:41 That was poured out on Christ. And while we are in tribulation as a church in the church age, there's coming that time of great tribulation divided up into three and a half years, seven-year period divided up into three and a half years, the first three and a half being less severe than the last three and a half. 35:00 And it's clear from scripture that God's wrath will be poured out on this world and on the people in the world. That's one of the reasons I believe that God will not have the church here during that time is because we have been spared from the wrath of God, 35:23 the wrath of God. John the Baptist warned people to flee from the wrath to come. Romans 2 talks about their hardness and impenitent heart treasuring up for themselves wrath in the day of wrath of revelation of the righteousness, righteous judgment of God. Romans 2:8 talks about indignation and wrath, 35:43 tribulation and anguish coming on every soul of man who does evil. Ephesians 5:6, "Let no one deceive you with empty words. For because of these things, the wrath of God comes on the sons of disobedience." Revelation 6:17, "But the wrath, the great day of his wrath has come, and who will be able to stand? 36:04 But for the child of God, there is a refuge. It is found at the cross of Jesus Christ, the person of Jesus Christ, who if you have Christ, you're saved from wrath." Romans 5:9, "Much more, having been justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him." 1 Thessalonians 1:10, "To wait for his Son from heaven, 36:24 whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus Christ, who delivers us from the wrath to come." One thing God wants you to see clearly this morning is which side of God's wrath you are on. Verse 18, that you would be able to discern between the righteous and the wicked, between one who serves God and one who does not serve God, 36:45 to see it clearly. 1 Thessalonians, a beautiful verse in 5:9, "For God did not appoint us to wrath." And if you have Jesus Christ as your Savior and you fear the Lord and are walking with God, you can trust him to spare you from the coming wrath, 37:08 not to spare you from all trouble, but to spare you from wrath. 37:15 The next thing that we are spared or that we are blessed with is that you are treasured. And we're out of time this morning, but I want you to just see this, that you are treasured. You are a treasured possession. Those who fear the Lord, they shall be mine. 1 Thessalonians 17 says, "The Lord of hosts, on the day that I make up, 37:34 make them my jewels." Oh, we sing that little children's song. We call it a children's song, but I think it's an adult song. "When he cometh to make up his jewels, all the pure ones, all the bright ones, his loved and his own, they shall shine like the stars of the morning in their great adorning." He will come and make up his jewels, 37:56 that which is precious. The Newer translations translate that a treasured possession, a special possession. And you can know this morning as you walk with God that God values you. 38:08 You are more valued than Jacob, who was called the apple of God's eye. You are more valued than Zion, who was said was a royal diadem in the hand of God. You are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people, a people of his own. It's interesting in the Old Testament talks about those who fear the Lord, 38:29 and it ends with jewels, him gathering his jewels. We're almost to the last chapter of the Old Testament. And if you look in about the last several chapters of the New Testament, you find out that God is into jewels again. And you see that city coming down as a bride. His bride has made himself ready, and it's full of precious jewels. 38:50 Those are people, the trophies of God's grace. And the last one this morning is you will seek life and eternity clearly. That's the last blessing of walking with God that we'll mention this morning. 1 Thessalonians 18, we've referred to it several times. I just want to make this comment about it is that in this day and age in which we live, 39:12 a pluralistic society, 39:15 pluralism means that it's mixed up and made up of all kinds of faiths and all kinds of ideas and all kinds of people and all kinds of belief systems. And it's just kind of a, I tell you, living in America today in Western culture is just like having a great big vat that you just throw everything into and mix it all around. 39:37 And somebody comes along with a new religion, you throw it in. Somebody comes along with an old religion, reborn, you throw it in, and you mix it all up. And then people choose out of that big vat what they want to believe in and what they want to identify with. 39:50 And God says, "I want to clear up this confusion between the people who really know me and those who don't." I want to clear up the confusion. And in that day, you will have clear vision. I'm here to tell you this morning, 40:10 according to God's word here in 1 Thessalonians 18, that there is a line between those that are in and those that are out. There is a line between those that are saved and those that are not saved. There's a line between those who fear God and those who don't fear God. Which side of the line are you? Which side of the line are you? 40:27 It is sorrowful when someone lacks the assurance that they're on the right side. Satan will get you in any way he can. If you're on the right side, he'll make you think you're on the wrong side. If you're on the wrong side, he'll make you think you're on the right side. But you got to go to God's word and say, "What does God say about this truth? 40:46 What does God say so that I can see clearly and be in this book of remembrance?" It's sad when someone's on the wrong side. It's even sadder when they're on the wrong side and don't know it. 41:02 And the saddest thing of all is when they're on the wrong side and think they're on the right one. 41:11 And oh, that God might give us the reality to see reality of who he is, of what his word declares, and of who we are both in Christ and outside of Christ. Let's pray. Father, this morning, 41:31 you're teaching us, you're speaking to us about being in Christ, about fearing the Lord, about being on the right side. You're speaking to us about a clarity, a clarity of seeing life from God's perspective. You're speaking to us about the truth of God. You're speaking to us about having our names written in the book of life. 41:51 You're speaking to us about being saved from the wrath, knowing that there is wrath that is coming on sin and sinners. 42:02 And I pray, Father, that there be one soul here this morning that does not know Jesus Christ, 42:09 that they would repent this very day, this very moment, that they would come to you right now in simplicity and in brokenness and in humility, saying, "God, be merciful to me, a sinner, 42:26 and save me now by Jesus Christ and his death and resurrection." Lord, 42:37 bring us to that place of repentance from sin and fullness of joy in abiding in Christ. And if there's someone here this morning that does not know Jesus and you would have liked to have someone to pray with you this morning, 42:59 seek one of us out, seek one of us pastors out at the end of the service, saying, "Would you pray for me? I want to come to know Jesus Christ. I want to know him. I want to serve him. I want to be on the right side." People talk about being on the right side of history. I want to be on the right side of eternity. Oh God, 43:20 thank you for your word and for your glory in Jesus' name. 43:25 Thank you that you are coming to take up your jewels as a priceless possession of the Most High God through Christ. Amen. Let me invite you to stand. Brother Aaron, come and lead us. 43:44 I asked him to lead us in that song, "When he cometh, when he cometh, to make up his jewels." Don't sing it like a—I mean, sing it like a child. Don't sing it just for the children, but sing it for all of us. Amen.