Philippians (Lesson 41)

And here we go again.

I'm Brother James, and I greet you one more time in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world, and I welcome you once again to the Preaching of the Cross Radio Broadcast.

This program is a ministry of the Bible Baptist Church in the land of Florida, but heard on this station and by the grace of God around the world through your prayers and God's wonderful blessing, and it is a joy today to be speaking to you over this radio station.

Glad you've tuned in.

Hope you can stay with us for the next half an hour.

I don't know if you have noticed, those of you that listen for years, we've been on the radio since 1981.

Those of you who have listened for many, many years, I don't know if you've noticed that whenever we get on this subject of the coming of the Lord, I just bogged down and can't seem to get off of it.

My blessed hope is not in political reform.

My blessed hope is not in man ending his inhumanity to man.

My blessed hope is not in winning something tomorrow or going to buy something tomorrow or meeting someone tomorrow.

My blessed hope is that Jesus Christ Himself is going to take me into His presence in a place where there is no more sickness, sorrow, pain, nor death, in a place where there is nothing left to pray about, no burden left to bear, no trial left to endure.

My absolute one and only great hope in this life is the coming of the Lord.

I enjoy my life.

My life has been very, very good.

God has been good to me.

I have enjoyed a fair measure of health, sufficient, more than I deserve, that's for sure.

I have been blessed with parents that loved me, with a wife that loves me, with some wonderful church people that love me, care for me.

I've been blessed with children that love and care for me.

God's been very good to me.

I've been able to travel this world.

I've been up and down these United States so many times it's hard to keep track of it.

I've been allowed the great honor and privilege of preaching God's word, seeing souls saved, lives changed.

Listen, I am not wanting to leave this world because I'm miserable.

I'm wanting to leave this world because where I'm going is so much better than the best of days down here.

Because the place where I'm going is so much better than the best of places one could visit down here.

I am not discontented, I am not lacking in satisfaction.

I'm just telling you it's so much better in glory with Jesus than it is down here on this earth, even with Jesus, that I have, as the Bible says, a desire to depart and to be with Christ, which is far better, and it is.

Now we have been discussing this phrase, one little phrase, one little section of Philippians chapter number three, where the Bible says, For our conversation is in heaven.

That's in contrast to those people whose conversation is entirely earthbound.

We read about them in verse nineteen, their God is their belly.

They mind, that's what they think about, that's what they concentrate upon, that's what they're governed by.

They mind earthly things.

Now in contrast to people who have nothing but life on this earth, we have a conversation, an entire life in heaven.

And from whence, from heaven, that's where he is, we look for the Savior.

You know how disappointing it must be to be one of those people who keeps looking for a savior in Washington, DC?

What a what a horrific letdown it must be every four years or every eight years when some of you buy into the lies and the hype and the propaganda and actually believe that someone is about to get elected to office who cares about you.

Haha what a that's that's the biggest joke since Santa Claus.

But over and over again people fall for that gag only to be disappointed.

Others of you, others of you sincerely hope every so many years when one Pope dies and isn't resurrected, of course, that the next one is going to be the one to bring peace on earth and good will to man and establish that kingdom of whatever that you keep thinking some man is going to bring about on this earth.

What a terrible disappointment it must be.

When one after another these so called saviors who show up on the earth, who come from the earth prove themselves incapable of saving anyone from anything.

Oh I'm looking for a savior.

There's no question about that.

I'm looking for someone who can right the wrongs.

I'm looking for someone who can make the bad good.

I'm looking for someone who can change all of this sorrow into joy, but I'm not looking for his arrival from any point on this earth, north, south, east, north.

I know where our help is coming from, when it comes.

I don't know when the help is coming, but I know from whence that help will arrive.

And so we look to heaven for the Savior.

And who is that savior?

He is the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now, the people that put out the New International Version, they have many Saviors.

And so they call Jesus a Savior.

But those of us that have the Holy Bible, we know that Jesus Christ is the Savior.

There's only one.

He's not one among many, he's not the one we chose, and other religious groups and organizations and people chose another one.

We know Jesus is the only Savior.

And so we look for the only hope for mankind, and that is the coming of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ.

Now, when he comes, he is going to, according to this passage, he is going to make some changes.

And the first of those changes is to change our vile body.

Your body is the villain.

The bad guy is your flesh.

And the Lord's going to change that.

And what's what he's going to do is he's going to fashion it like unto his glorious body.

Can I read to you a portion of Scripture back in the Old Testament?

In Job chapter 19.

Job 19 · chapter mention

Job chapter 19.

Job 19 · chapter mention

You may be able to turn there with me if you can do so.

You'll enjoy reading this.

You'll want to mark this place in your Bible.

It's really good.

In Job chapter 19, the Scripture says, and by the way, as far as we know, as far as anyone can determine, the book of Job is the oldest piece of literature existing on the earth.

Job 19 · chapter mention

So that means not one verse of Scripture had been written when Job lived.

He's got nothing to go on but what God has revealed to him.

And I'm telling you, God showed him plenty.

In Job 19, verse 25, listen to these words.

Job 19:25

For I know that my Redeemer liveth.

See, Job was trusting the Redeemer before he came.

Let me ask you something.

You might be listening today out of curiosity, or because the Holy Spirit of God is drawing you to Jesus Christ, you might be a member of the sect known as Jehovah's Witnesses.

Or you may have been raised in or by the sect known as Jehovah's Witnesses.

And you have been taught that in some sort of marginal way, Jesus is the Redeemer.

Though you don't believe you've been redeemed or don't believe you can be redeemed, you believe you have to redeem yourself, so you don't really have a redeemer, but but you know that if there is in the Bible a redeemer, you know that Redeemer is Jesus.

Or you'd have to admit that even if you weren't entirely sure of it.

Now let me ask you something.

If there's only one Redeemer, and there is, we'd all we'd all agree the Bible teaches there's but one Redeemer.

If there's only one Redeemer, and he was alive when Job was alive, thousands of years before Mary gave birth to a baby and named him Jesus, does not Job nineteen twenty-five, if you believe it, does it not state that the Redeemer predates his coming to this earth in a body of human flesh?

The only Redeemer is Jesus Christ.

Job, Job trusted that Redeemer, not himself, he trusted the Redeemer, and he said, I know that my Redeemer liveth.

Way back then, way, way back then, the Redeemer was alive.

Now he had not come to earth as man yet, but he was alive.

Jesus Christ predates his arrival in the manger at Bethlehem.

So Job said, I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth.

Job knew the Redeemer was coming.

Job was looking for the Savior to come from where?

Well, if he's if he's not on the earth, but he's going to come and stand on the earth, then Job, listen, long before there was the book of Philippians, Job was looking for his redeemer to come from heaven.

He was possessed of the same hope that you and I hold.

Not a hope in himself, not a hope in his ability to deliver himself from his troubles, but he possessed a hope that someone would come from heaven and redeem him.

How about you, my friend?

Where's your redeemer?

Where's your hope?

Verse 26.

Job nineteen, verse twenty six says, And though after my skin worms destroy this body.

Now how's that?

For an honest look at the future that matches what we have written in Philippians chapter three in the Holy Bible.

Job said, and and keep in mind now, Job had been up until just a few days or weeks before this book, uh the events in this book are recorded or took place.

Job was a very wealthy, influential, powerful man.

So what happens to the physical bodies in which wealthy, influential, powerful men live?

Well, eventually, maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, maybe not in a month, but eventually worms eat the body.

You say that's that's an awful thought.

It is an awful thought, but it's one that needs to be thought.

That thought deserves thinking.

Because my friend, all of this camouflage, television, radio, movies, ball games, vacations, activities, all of this is designed to keep your mind so occupied that you will not have time to give a sincere and honest thought to the fact that your future, as far as your body is concerned, your future is to feed worms.

You say, Now, Brother James, that's the kind of talk that you know, usually I like your program, I like to hear you preach and I learn things, but when you start talking like this, it makes me so uncomfortable.

Not me.

Not me.

You see, if worms are eating my body, it means that I am with Jesus in heaven.

That's what I'm looking forward to.

Now why would you get all unhappy and uncomfortable when you heard a preacher talk about the future of your body as though you weren't all that sure about or all that excited about where you are going to be when the worms begin to crawl in and the worms begin to crawl out and the worms begin to play peanut, okay, well you you know the song.

Now I'm asking you, I I'm I'm just I'm being as serious I can be I'm not trying to be uh smart, Alec, I'm not trying to uh just get some attention here.

I'm asking you if leaving your body means that you have gone to be with Jesus Christ in heaven, why would you consider a Bible verse talking about that body after you have left it to be an unpleasant, uncomfortable, or a negative thing?

I don't understand that.

I know, I know you don't understand my way of thinking, I don't understand your way of thinking.

My way of thinking lines up with the Word of God.

Yours lines up with someone who is afraid of dying because they don't know what's gonna happen to them.

Come on now.

Job says, yet, though after my skin worms, destroy this body, yet, yet, despite that, in my flesh shall I see God.

Well, here is a man without the book of Philippians who believes what the book of Philippians would someday say.

He believes that when he leaves the body of sin and death and corruption in which he has passed his earthly sojourn, that God will make a change in him so that he will stand in flesh and see God.

You know what he believes?

Absolutely believes beyond any shadow of a doubt.

He believes in life beyond the grave.

He believes that life beyond the grave will be for him a better thing than the life he's living this side of the grave, and he believes that not on the basis of good deeds that he has done, but he believes that because he has a redeemer.

Now wouldn't you wouldn't you think that if Job knew all that, was sure of all that, was persuaded enough to stand upon those promises in the hour of his deepest need?

And he has no, listen, he has no Bible to read, no Holy Spirit living inside him to guide him into all truth, if Job is that certain of his future.

How about you, my friend, with a Bible, with a New Testament, with a resurrected Jesus Christ, if you're saved with the indwelling Holy Spirit, how is it that you have so many fightings and fears without and within?

You ought to have at least as much confidence in your future as old Job had in his.

Now, Job said, I don't I don't have to figure it out.

I don't know how he's gonna do it.

God is going to track down every, every single, solitary man, woman, boy, and girl that has ever trusted him.

And he is going to see to it that they enjoy the blessings of eternal life in his presence.

Now I believe that.

I believe just as surely as Job did.

In fact, in fact, listen to this.

I have a more sure word of prophecy than that which Job had.

Job, by faith in the revelation God put within his soul, believed these things.

I have them in writing.

I have a written document whereby God bound himself with his own words to provide for me a resurrection, a glorified body, and life everlasting in his presence.

That sure takes the scary part out of death, doesn't it?

The Bible says in Job twenty seventh verse of this chapter, whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another.

Though my reins be consumed within me.

He said, If I'm destroyed from the inside out, or if I'm destroyed from the outside in, if there's nothing left of me but memories, I have a promise of God.

He's going to change my body and make it like his.

You know the Bible says in Matthew 6, lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt.

It's not a maybe thing, it happens.

It happens.

Whatever you got on this earth, it's not going to last.

And where thieves break through and steal, somebody might take it away from you.

But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal.

What did he just say?

He said everything down here is subject to change.

Everything down here is subject to being lost.

That's what he said.

It could vanish.

But but ho ho everything laid up in heaven.

See that?

Everything laid up in heaven is permanent.

It can't be stolen, it can't waste away, it can't be lost, it can't be taken from you.

So why would anyone live for the temporal, uncertain things of earth when they could live for the permanent, certain, unending joy and blessings that God has laid up in heaven for those who have trusted the Redeemer, the Lord Jesus Christ?

I want to know something, my friend.

In this world of broken promises, why would you not trust the God who cannot lie?

In this world of abandonment, why wouldn't you trust the God who said, I'll never leave you nor forsake you?

In this world where people hurt you because they care only about themselves, why would you not want a God who so loved you that he gave his only begotten Son that you might believe on him and not perish but have everlasting life?

My friend, in this world, so full of tears and heartache and burdens and trouble and sorrow and disappointment, why would you not want to live every day of your life in the blessed reality that one day soon and maybe this very day you could leave all this behind and step into a world without graveyards, without funerals, without betrayal, without backstabbing, without gossip, without lying, without crime, without violence, without war, without bloodshed.

Wouldn't you like to live in that hope?

Job did.

Paul did.

You can through the person of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Look, this verse says 321, Philippians 321, he is able even to subdue all things unto himself.

If I wanted to make all your trouble go away, I couldn't.

If I wanted to give you eternal life, I couldn't do it.

If I wanted to provide for you a home in heaven, it's beyond my capability, but Jesus Christ is able.

He doesn't just promise, he's able.

Trust him today.

Please.

Please.

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