Brethren, we have met to worship and adore the Lord our God. It's time for the Holy Manna radio broadcast with Brother Byron Chesney, pastor at Highland Baptist Church. For the next few minutes, Brother Byron will be bringing you some truths from God's Holy Word. So have your Bible ready and follow along with Brother Byron. You have the Calvinistic approach and we all know what that view is that man has no decision in salvation. God decided beforehand who's going to be saved and you can't be saved regardless of whatever anybody says or whatever you do or whatever you believe that there's no way if God did not elect you then you couldn't be saved. I want to know how the Calvinists know they were the ones that were elected. How do they know? Well, listen friends, that also takes God's sovereignty out of the thing and it takes out the whosoever will of the Bible. You see, that's the problem with Calvinism. It completely forgets about the doctrine of whosoever will, which means what? Whosoever will, not the elect, not the predestined, not this or not that. And so the Calvinist view takes away that important Bible doctrine of whosoever will. You see, the Calvinists believe that only the predestined or elected, the elect, are the ones saved. But what they fail to see is nowhere in the Bible do you find the teaching that only the elect are saved. You're not going to find it in there. If you can tell me where it says only the elect are saved and nobody else, show me. Prove to me. You can't prove it because it's not in the Bible. In fact, the Bible over and over and over, can I do it again, and over teaches that it's whosoever can be saved. In fact, what's the verse? John 3, 16. Everybody knows it. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that the elect, does it say that? No, it does not. It says, whosoever. It didn't say the elect. That whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life. And so in fact there's 14 different verses in the New Testament that states whosoever can be saved. Now we've preached on this before, I'm not going to re-preach it, but the Lord didn't save us just to ensure us a home in heaven. I talked about that last week. If that was all it was about, He'd save us, strike us down dead, bring us up to heaven, and we'd be up there rejoicing in heaven. But that's not what He did. In fact, He saved us for a purpose. And the Word of God tells us what the purpose is. Romans 8, 29, the purpose is to be conformed to the image of His Son. So God's purpose for us is not to go wandering around this world as a free agent, doing whatever I jolly well please because I'm saved and that's all that matters. It doesn't matter about anything else. That is not the truth. The truth is you were saved for a purpose, for a reason. I talked about last week or the week before that one of the reasons was to share the Gospel with every creature in this world. But the purpose was, as we just read in our Bibles, to be conformed to the image of His Son, His Son Jesus. And that is why we go through that sanctification, so we can get into that form of being conformed to that way. So the fact is this morning, if you are saved, then God did choose you. He knew before the world was created. And so don't be concerned about the elect and all this stuff. Just be concerned about whosoever. And if you believe the gospel message, then you can be saved. So verse 30 of our text says, moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called, and whom he called, them he also justified, and whom he justified, them he also, there's the word glorified. So we're chosen, called, justified, and then our final destination is being glorified, glorification. And you may wonder, well, what does that mean? What does it mean I'm going to be glorified? What's glorification? Well, we saw during the sanctification that God's purpose was for us to be conformed to the image of his son. We just said it. That was in verse 29. So glorification is when we are completely conformed or transformed into the image of Christ. Now, this is going to involve many things. It's going to involve a change of our heart, a change of our mind, a change of our soul, a change of our spirit. so that we would have the mind, soul, spirit, just like Christ would have. And I can safely say there's none in this world today that has reached that place yet. None of us. And you say, well, I don't know. My granny was awful good. Yes, she probably was. Mine was, too. But I want you to know there's nobody, until they reach heaven, has ever reached the perfectness, the complete conformness unto Christ's image. And we know that they were first called Christians there in Antioch. Little Christos is what they were saying. It was a derogatory term. Look at those people acting like that Jesus, those little Christians. And so it was a bad word to be called a Christian then. Today, we can take that term Christian and we can apply it to our lives and say, yes, we are trying to walk like Christ. We are trying to be in his image. And so, yes, we take that title proudly. We are Christians. And so I believe some people need to drop it and just call it a non-practicing Christian, though. But listen, glorification is when we are completely conformed into the image of Christ. And it's going to involve more than those things I just mentioned. And the main purpose of glorification, as you read the Bible, it's this body. these bodies that we live in. And listen, salvation is wonderful, it assures us a place in heaven, it justifies us for God, but there is also a great reward for salvation. And that is our final glorification. When God takes this vile, corrupt, cankered, cancerous bodies of ours and completely transforms them into something perfect. Something in the image of Christ, a body like Christ would have. And so the Bible says this in 2 Corinthians 5, 1 and 2, which is from heaven. And so what Paul's talking there to the church of Corinth is these old bodies. And when I preach a funeral message, I usually bring something up about that passage of scripture. This old tabernacle that we live in, this tent. That's what that word means, it's a tent. We're nothing but skin stretched over bone, filled up with muscle and blood and things like that. But this old tabernacle of ours is going to dissolve, the Bible says. And y'all know, many of y'all, you've watched your tabernacle dissolve over time. I was talking to Scott this morning about, I was working in the yard yesterday over at our house and cutting down these big weeds and trees and things and cleaning out and it was 90 something degrees and I got overheated. And in my mind, my mind was still back when I was 19 years old and when I could work out there all day and do all that and it not bother me and then go out and do something else afterwards. That was in my mind. But this body, this tabernacle that's dissolving said, wait a minute, buddy, you're not 19 anymore. In fact, you're 52 years old, about to be 53. And before I knew it, I was laying on the ground, blacked out. I had to call Mary to come and help me. She had to come from the house and go over there and bring me water and more shreds. I didn't know if I was going to recover, but this old tabernacle was about gone. But praise God, one of these days we won't have to worry about these vile bodies. There'll be no more concern about these. Job understood this. He said this in Job 19 and 25. And by the way, Job, we believe to be the oldest book of the Bible. While it may not be first in the number of the way it's put in your Bible, we believe Job to be the oldest written book of the Bible. And even back then, he knew it. He said in Job 19 and 25. For I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth, and though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God, whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold and not another, though my reins be consumed within me." See, Job understood the doctrine of glorification. He says, listen, even when these old bodies eat up with skin worms, one of these days my eyes are going to behold him. But perhaps the greatest teaching that you're going to find about this new body we're going to get, this glorified body, is found in the New Testament. And again, it's the Apostle Paul. And he says this over in Philippians chapter 3, verses 20 and 21. He says this, he says, for our conversation is in heaven. from whence also we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, and he says in verse 21, who shall change our vile body that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself. You see, you've got absolutely nothing to do with your new body. If you did, you'd mess it up. You'd mess it up for sure. I heard one preacher say even the women's going to be not be satisfied with their glorified body. Friends, that's not true. You're going to be very satisfied with it. There's not going to be a problem with it. And Jesus is the one that does this. And he takes this old vile body of ours and he fashions it into a glorious body. like his. Friends, these new glorified bodies, they'll be not vile. They won't be subject and prone to sin and flesh nature and carnal nature. No longer have these problems we have, aches and pains. Diabetes, having to go on chemotherapy and having to have these things done to us. The high blood pressure, I won't have to take medicine for that anymore. High cholesterol, you know, I can't wait to look at my doctor and say, look, doctor, I don't have to worry about that anymore, you know. He's awful concerned about it, more than I am. But no more this, no more coughing and sneezing. Sister Becky's been sick all week. Scott said she's coughing and stuff, and no more of that. Brother Frank's been coughing a lot lately, no more of that. Brother Kurt, no more Wednesdays of going and getting shots in your eyes. I mean, it's just amazing what's going to happen to us. It's going to be so different than what it is now. I told you at the beginning of the service, we sung that song, how much different it's going to be in heaven. You can't even imagine how different it's going to be. We've become, now we've become in this routine and pattern that we understand certain things down here is going to happen. And so we know that we got a doctor's appointment on this day. We've got to take this medicine at this time, this time in the morning, this time at night. We've got to do these certain things to keep these bodies running and going. And so we're used to that routine and pattern. You might as well forget all that stuff. That's done with. When you get to heaven, there's no routines and patterns. There's no more having to go through this daily ritual of taking medicine to be able to function. None of that. So we'll have these perfect bodies. In essence, you could say one of our rewards of being saved is this glorified body. Now, when do we get them? Everybody wants to know that. I want mine now. I want it now. Well, from reading our Bible, when a believer dies, we know, Paul also taught this in 2 Corinthians 5 and 8, he says, we are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord. So our bodies, these vile ones, these tabernacles that dissolve, they will go into the ground. They will, as Job said, be eaten by skin worms. They'll be rotten. They'll go away. There'll be nothing but bone and dust laying there in that gravesite. But your spirit, your soul will ascend and go up in the presence of the Lord immediately. There's not a holding place for that. The Roman Catholics teach there's a holding place where people go and they wait and people pray for them to get out of a place they've made up called purgatory that's not in the Bible. And that they can go there and they can even go to a priest and pay some money and have that priest pray them out of that place and assure them a place that's all phony baloney. That's false doctrine. The Bible teaches us, if you're a Christian, to be absent from the bodies, to be present with the Lord. And so our bodies will remain in the ground and we'll turn back into dust, but our soul goes up to heaven to be in the presence of the Lord. But there's going to be a day, when even all the dead in Christ shall rise. And it is the day when the Lord Jesus raptures his church out of here. He calls, he snatches us up. It's a snatching is what that word rapture means. Snatches us up. And then we're gonna see things happen. If you wanna look at it in First Thessalonians chapter four, verses 13 through 17 describes it. Because those people in Thessalonica, they were concerned Once they become saved, they wondered about those people that died before them. And they wanted to know, if Christ came right now and my relatives were dead, but yet they believed in Him, what's going to happen to them? Are they going to remain in the ground and be forgotten about? Are the only ones going to heaven those that's alive and remaining when Jesus comes? Is that how it happens? And so they were real worried about it. And so Paul is trying to help them. First Thessalonians 4 and 13. He said, but I would not have you be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep. That word asleep means dead. that you sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. He's talking about those that died that believed in Jesus. That's what he's talking about. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord that we which are alive and remain under the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. We pray that this has been a blessing to you. If you feel led to help us with the cost of the broadcast, our address is Highland Baptist Church, 6014 Beyblade Road, Knoxville, Tennessee 37924. Until next time, may the Lord richly bless you. comes down. Brethren, pray, and holy manna will be showered all around.