Marks of a Godly Servant

Genesis 24

     I thought as we meet together on these Wednesday nights when I can be with you, I really enjoy the opportunity to be here.  I assume that there are times when I'm here and you'd like to ask me a question about the Church or about something, and you don't get that opportunity very often.  So, maybe as we can do it, if we have a little bit of time when we get together, we can have a little opportunity for you to do that.

     If anybody has anything on their heart they want to ask me; any questions you've got in your mind about the Church or about something I've said, I want to be open and available, or just about anything that may be of some concern to you; something that's legitimately been on your heart.  This is not, 'let's see if I can think up a question and stump John.'  That's not hard, but if there was something on your heart, it does give me the opportunity to know what's going on.  And yes?

Audience Question: (Inaudible)

     Are we gonna' see God when we get to heaven?  Are we gonna' see God in His full glory?  Are we gonna' see Him in His full glory?

     My understanding is no.  I think we'll see a lot more than we can see now, but if you go back to 6 Isaiah, you have the cherubim there in the presence of God and with six wings and with two they covered their faces.  And I think because they are created beings and we are created and then recreated beings, there will still be some limitation to the reality of God which we can comprehend.

     In 33 Exodus, God says, "No one can see me and live."  We will know, as we are known, as it says in 1 Corinthians 13, "We will be made like Christ."  That is to say, we will have a glorified and resurrected body of the same nature as His, and yet, we won't be Christ.  We won't become God.

     So, there will still be some separation between what a man is, even a glorified man or a glorified woman and what God is.  And there's still going to be an incomprehensibility to God.  So, we'll be able to apprehend a lot more of God and not be consumed because our sin will be set aside.  But, as to whether or not we will be created in glory to the degree that we can embrace all the fullness of God, I would find that hard to say yes to, because if we could completely absorb all the fullness of God, we would be equal to God.  And I don't think, though, we will be like Christ, that is to say we will have a glorified body like He has a glorified body.  We will not become God.  And so there will always be something immense and something transcendent about Him.

     We will still be spatially identifiable.  That is to say, there's a place that He's preparing for us and we'll go there, and we'll be like the glorified Christ.  And we'll have, therefore, the limits of our own glorified humanity, whereas God will be immense as He's always been immense and fill all of endless reality.  So, there will be an incomprehensibility to God, I think.

Audience Question:  (Inaudible)

     Doesn't say anything; doesn't say what's gonna' happen to the children at the rapture.

Audience  Question (Inaudible)

     Well, she's saying what about babies at the rapture?  And some people have said that if the parents are Christians, the babies will go in the rapture.  Well, some people do say that, but, the bible does not say that.  It doesn't say anything.

     So, the best assumption that the dead in Christ will rise first, and then we which are alive and remain -- We being those who believe in Christ.  Children are not even discussed.  So, the assumption would be that those children -- There's nothing that tells us they're gonna' be raptured; the assumption is they're gonna' be left.  Then, they will have the opportunity, if they grow to the age of accountability during the time of the tribulation, to believe.

     If they have not reached an age of accountability by the time the tribulation is over, they would be treated like anyone under the age of accountability.  I think God would treat them with grace and mercy and take them to glory, rather than judge them.

     But, I know that's a burden for a lot of people.  And that's a very difficult issue because the scripture doesn't say anything about it at all.  It doesn't say anything about it, even if you say that's one of the reasons I don't want to be pre-milk, because I don't want to leave, and have all my kids who are under the age of 12 or whatever left here on the earth.  Some people don't look forward to the rapture because they worry about that.

     But, you would have the same problem no matter when, if you said, "I want to be post-tribulational and I'll just believe the Lord will come and setup His kingdom."  Well, you have the same problem, 'what's He gonna' do with the children?'  And the answer at that point is that they would be taken into the kingdom if they were -- if they believed.  And if they didn't believe, they wouldn't, but if they were below the age of accountability, we still don't know what God does with them.  So, there's really no answer to that.  But, whatever God does will be loving and just.  And that's where it has to reside.

Audience Question: (Inaudible)

     He's asking about living wills.  Ed is asking about living wills, and you don't want any heroic efforts to preserve your life if it gets down to that.  You want to write out something that says when I reach a certain point, pull the plug.

     And basically, the bible really doesn't speak to that issue specifically, but the assumption is, and I think it's a very, very strongly grounded assumption that man is created in the image of God.  And therefore, assuming that to be true, we would then assume that everything should be done within possibility to maintain the life of an individual.

     Obviously, there comes a point, and if I talk to medical doctors they'll always tell me the same thing.  They'll always tell me once you get a flat EEG, you might as well pull the plug because your heart may stop and it can be kept alive and you're alive, but, when the brain goes flat, there's nobody home.

     Sad to say, there are some people who want to keep the thing running because it's clicking over the dollars like your gas meter.  It becomes an economic issue.  But, I think it's a reasonable decision for anyone to make that when they've reached a point where the quality of life is absolutely marginal and all you're doing is sustaining someone's bodily functions, past the point where their mind is functioning, that it's reasonable to say they want to pull the plug.

     That's a far cry from euthanasia which is to take older people who aren't making a contribution, or ill people who aren't making a contribution and just leave them there to die.  I think we have to do everything we can to preserve life.  I mean, if we take life, according to 9 Genesis, then we should give our life.  That's how sacred life is.  That's the law of capital punishment and God is very, very clear about it.

     Jesus even said to Peter -- Peter pulled out a sword and He said, "Those who take up the sword; die by the sword."  And what he meant by that was, if you take a life, Peter, they have every right to take your life, so you're playing in a very dangerous area here, by doing this, because it can cost you your life.

     And I think God is there saying that life is to be preserved because it's created in the image of God.  So, we want to do everything we possibly can, but I think it's very reasonable to say when I get to a point where it is clear that I can no longer; my EEG is flat; or I've gone beyond the point of any redeemable level of humanity that I don't want to be kept alive.

     And most medical doctors can talk to people about what that point is.  I get with Christian people a lot who ask me that question.  They've got a dying mother, father; when is it proper to do that?  And generally speaking, sensitive Christian people, when they work closely with the medical folks can discern when a person's past the point when there's any hope for any kind of recovery, other than just sustaining people on a machine.  Okay?

Audience Question: (Inaudible)

     Yes, he's asking for an update on Fred Barshof, first of all, then Pat Howell and his family in South Africa.  Fred is basically dying and it's just a matter of days.  I've been trying to get over there but I can't get there, 'cause I don't have the time; I can't find the time when I'm not speaking somewhere or preaching or whatever and I can't get there.

     Hawaii's on the way to no place.  It's the opposite of everything, so I haven't been over there.  But, Gary Ezzo just came back a few days ago, and he said Fred is now -- They're taking him off all chemo and he said Mary has really accepted the fact that he's gonna' go and be with the Lord and she's doing well through all this.

     Fred is great and wonderful, confident, happy, joyous self and is giving a great testimony for the grace of Christ in the face of all these doctors and everybody working with him.  It's a matter of time.  They put him on some steroids now which enables him to go up and down the stairs where he lives. 

     He's been using his little computer that we gave him to write out some stuff that's on his heart, and what he's writing is something that I think is gonna' be extremely significant.  He is writing all of his thoughts and all the things that are in his heart as he faces death.  So, that's gonna' be a wonderful legacy for all of us when it's done.  He's writing about how to face death and what God's grace means to him in the face of all that.  He will probably fade off into heaven, having not finished his last little piece of work on that computer because he's fiddling with it all the time. 

     But, we just continue to pray for them as they go through this time.  I've heard that they don't expect him to live through the month of July.  So, when I get back from Canada -- See, I have to again over to Atlanta for that Sixth Christian Booksellers Convention and then I have to preach a couple of places in Alabama and Michigan.  So, I just -- I'm trying to get over there and I hope I can see him.  If not here, I'll see him in heaven.

     With regard to Pat Howell, Pat is having a tremendous time.  He sends us regular faxes that are like five, six, seven pages of single spaced, tiny little type.  He is a very, very wonderful guy.  He is a tremendous guy.  And God is using him there in a great way to work with church leaders. 

     The original plan was to get that church started called Grace Community Church of Campton Park and that church has kind of gone its own way, and another church has started that needs his help more, and so he's involved in that church.  And it's really started off of our tapes and radio program.

     So, it's -- And then he's traveling around some with Peter Gruner who represents Grace to You in South Africa, and meeting with pastors.  He feels that I need to come there, so now it looks like I'm gonna' have to go in '94 down to South Africa again and minister.

     April 27, 1994, will be the, really the great day in the history of South African modern history because that's the day when they're gonna' have an open election.  And basically, the NAC will win because Blacks, tribal Blacks outnumber the rest of the population 70-percent - 30-percent.  The ANC will win.  The ANC, by the way, is Mandela, which poses a very interesting situation.

     Mandela, you know about him from the media, but what you may not know is Mandela was in prison for being a terrorist.  He murdered people; he used the ring of fire, where you put a tire around somebody's neck and light it on fire with gasoline.  And that's why he spent so many years in prison, because he was a terrorist.  I mean he was a murderer, mass murderer. 

     And most of that stuff has to do with -- it isn't really a racial thing.  It's the Xhosas.  They say it when they click the Xhosas and the Zulus, are these two huge tribes of tribal Black people who have fought for centuries and they're still at it.  And the primary war is between the Xhosas and the Zulus. 

     It's going to be interesting because the ANC is Zulu.  And if the ANC win and Zulu people become those who are in power, the Christian people that I know over there, the people in the Church that I know love Christ.  As I told you earlier, we've been working with a wonderful Black church and a Black pastor that is a partner with what Pat Howell is doing over there.

     There is a real love between the Blacks and the White Christians there, Afrikaans Christians and English speaking Christians.  And there's another group called colored, and those are non-tribal Blacks that basically come from other parts of the world.  They may even come from Europe or somewhere.

     And then the second largest population of Indians is in Durbin, outside India.  So, you have all of these various factions, but the real war is between these two huge Black tribes. And when you see the riots and the wars going on, that's w