First of all, if you would turn with me to second Corinthians chapter four four verses sixteen through eighteen. I want to speak to you tonight. I wrestled back and forth with what to do and praying, seeking the face of the Lord and my heart and mind finally rested here. Several other things I was wanting to do and brother Greg Pastor Nichols even almost tempted me this morning to go without notes extemporaneously and give an overview exposition of Psalm 23. And I was tempted, brother, you're a tempter. But I did not. I yielded to more sane reasoning. And this psalm needs, it's so, as I said, so Himalayan, it needs more than just an overview exposition. But I want us to look tonight at these verses and consider this the Christian eyeing eternity. Now, when I. Since as I was studying and preparing and came to this passage of Scripture number of years ago, I gave this title, I said this morning, I'm not good at titles. And then I was reading the cripple gate series of lectures of morning lectures at cripple gate. You remember those huge volume six volumes of the Puritan lectures after the great ejection when the Puritan one hundred and three or one hundred and four ministers were kicked out of their churches and they weren't allowed to preach within a mile of the church. So they lectured and there's six volumes of the cripple gate lectures and one of them in there is by a man named Samuel Annals Lee. and if you do not have you not heard of him you surely have heard of his offspring. He had as a grandson a man named Charles John and Charles Wesley and he from this text of Scripture preached a sermon on the soul eyeing eternity and I thought well I'm on track here and so I want to speak to you tonight from these verses, chapter four, second Corinthians, verses sixteen through eighteen on the Christian eyeing eternity. Let's hear now what the Lord God says. Therefore, we do not lose heart, even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. For our light affliction which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. While we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal. And may the Lord add His blessing to the reading of His Word and grant us ears to hear this evening. Let's pray. Great God, our Father, we bow before You. Triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Lord of the Scriptures, we pray tonight that You will make Your Word effectual in each of our hearts. Father, we have looked too much at the things that are around us, the things that are seen. Cause us to look beyond that and see the things that are not seen. And may it be a mark of us as Your people that we're constantly eyeing eternity. Grant that as we study your word tonight. In the worthy name of Christ our Lord we pray. Amen. This context is one that I'm not going to take much time to develop, but let me suffice it to say From 2 Corinthians chapter 2 verse 17 up to this point, Paul has been defending not only his apostleship, but his call into the ministry. There had come into the church at Corinth these mega-apostles, these hyper- or super-apostles. They denigrated Paul's ministry. They ran him down. But Paul would begin in chapter 2 verse 17 and say, we are not as those who peddle the Word of God. We're not hucksters. I've sought to be faithful to the whole counsel of God. I have sought to give you not what you thought was best, not what would make you feel good, but I've sought to deliver unto you the very revelation of God as we have inscripturated in the blessed scriptures. He defends his apostleship, and there are times where it is right and just for us to defend ourselves. I'm not going to get into his whole defense. It's a wonderful, marvelous defense of himself. But he ends that defense basically in verse 15 of chapter 4. And then, as I noted this morning, the title of my sermon this morning was A Divine Interlude. Here is another interlude in a sense. Paul is notorious for that. Another thing that Paul was notorious for was chasing rabbits. You know what I mean by that? My wife said, darling, you chased rabbits again this morning. I said, ah, that makes me feel good. I'm very Pauline. Very biblical there. But Paul would interject things. And here is one of those sections where I believe as the Spirit of God had moved upon him and is carrying him along and he is penning down, writing down the exact very Word of God, the Spirit of God moves upon his soul and he pens these words. It is Paul stressing that we do not lose heart and we do not faint. He will mention that as he starts out in chapter four, verse one. Notice, therefore, since we have this ministry, as we have received mercy, we do not lose heart. And then he picks that up and says again in verse seventeen. Therefore, we do not lose heart before I even begin this passage. Let me ask you this question as a Christian, not counting pastors. I know the answer. If I ask you elders this question, how many of you have ever wanted to give up? How many have ever wanted to just throw down the towel and say, that's enough. I can't take any more. How many of you ever wanted to go home and crawl in bed and not speak to anybody, not talk with anybody, just be left alone? We've all been there, haven't we? We've all faced these very things. And you say, now, how can a spirit-filled, abundant life Christian be that way? That is the spirit-filled, abundant life Christianity, I think at times. We've all faced that. We've all lost heart. We've all wanted to faint. We've all wanted to give up. We've all wanted to throw in the towel and say, uncle. Not the least of which is this mighty apostle. This man who came behind none of the other apostles in gifts, in power. He raised people from the dead. Has anyone in here raised anyone from the dead recently? No. None of us have. I'm being facetious. Yet he did. And he faced great times of stress and pressure. There are three things I want us to see from this passage of Scripture this evening. And the first one is this. A statement of seeming contradiction. A statement of contradiction. Seeming contradiction. Notice what he says. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. The phrase here, outward man, refers to our bodies, our mortal frame, this shell case, that covers the bones and the sinew and the tissues and the organs of our inner man, our body. It is our physical fact, the outward man here is basically a description of all of our physical faculties. And I don't care, you young people, I don't care how much you run, I don't care how much you keep in shape, and you should, and you should. But you are going to get older if the Lord lets you live. You're going to begin sensing your oldness. And you may look at your parents and you think, oh, they're really old. Don't say a word. Soon, if the Lord's gracious to you, you'll be right there. Our outward man, Paul says, he uses a very strong word here. Perishing. has this concept of decaying. It's actually undergoing constant decay, and it is moving steadily toward the grave. You say, Pastor, that's not very encouraging tonight. I am being factual with you. This is real life. You know, one of the things that I enjoyed about living in Southern California in the L.A. area, just a few, I didn't enjoy it that much, But one of the things that I did enjoy, two things I did enjoy. People would come and say, oh, I said, I'd like to show you around anywhere you'd like to. Oh, we'd like to go to Hollywood. I'd say, I'd love to take you to Hollywood. I think I took you all to Hollywood, didn't I? Or somebody took you all to Hollywood, somebody? You go to Hollywood, and all of a sudden, you're going up the 101 freeway, and you cut off Hollywood Boulevard. And you see people there, oh, what is it going to be like? And you turn left on the Hollywood Boulevard, and it is one of the dirtiest, filthiest streets that you can even think of. I mean, it's filthy. I said, this is the real world. You're expecting what you see on TV to be Hollywood. That's not Hollywood. Most of that's made up in Culver City in the studios. But the second thing I like to see is out there often you would see you be driving along the freeways and you see these actors or actresses. I don't think actresses politically correct nowadays. I don't really care. They are females and their actresses. I'll never forget. I was driving along the 405 freeway one day and I looked over there and I saw this car going around me and I thought I didn't give him a second look, I gave him three or four looks. I thought, is that really? He passes by and I speed up and I pull up beside him and I, yes, it is. Guess who it is? It's Sean Connery. But you wouldn't have known it because he's minus all of his makeup. And then I, I won't call her name, but I saw this. If you were to see her on TV, you'd think she's such a beautiful actress. I saw her one time at LAX, at the freeway, I mean at the international airport, LAX there, and I didn't even recognize who it was, and somebody said, hey, hey, do you know who that is? That's Julia. And they called the rest of the name, you probably figure, I thought, no, that's not, she's prettier than that. But you take away all of the facade and you take away all of the glitz and the glamour and the glitter and you have what? Decay. Simple decay. We're in a continual state of perishing. It's present tense which denotes a constant, irreversible process. The outward man is perishing. You, young people here, you are in a state. You are perishing right now. Your body is not getting better. It's getting worse. The second law of thermodynamics applies here, doesn't it? Everything is in a continual state of degeneration. The moment you were born, you began to die. I know this is not popular, but it's true. Though the outward man perishes, there is, however, a contrast for the believer. that is not present with the unbeliever. Notice what he says. Though the outward man perishes, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. This contrast. The body is decaying. The body is perishing. But something else is going on. This inward man has something interacting with it. Being renewed, the indicative mood is present. It is not active voice. It's passive voice. I remember as a young Christian hearing this pastor say, quote this verse, though the outward man is perishing, the inward man is being renewed day by day. What you need to do is you need to renew that inward man every day. Read the scriptures and pray. And don't get me wrong, I'm very much in favor of that. I think every day we as believers need to open up our Bibles and expose our souls to the God of heaven and the God of glory and grace and commune with him and have his word feed our souls and wash our minds and we in turn commune with him, communicate back with him. But that's not what this verse is teaching. Paul doesn't say you should be renewed day by day. He says the inward man is being renewed. It's in the passive voice. It means that we're not renewing ourselves. It's not something that we do. We're not renewing ourselves, but we are being renewed. Regeneration, once begun at the new birth, is continually being made new in a day-by-day-by-day-by-day process. From the start through the continuing, even to the consummation, salvation is of the Lord. And so we find here a marked contrast. Perishing and being renewed. Perishing and being renewed. And so we see a statement of seeming contradiction. I want you to know before we go to the second point, be certain of this, that you are actually decaying. You are actually your outward body, your outward man is actually perishing. But also be certain of this, that while no one will live forever in this life, the Lord is ever renewing us so that we will live forever in the life to come. The second thing I would have us to see here is the certainty of what I call effectual distress. Now, why do I use that term effectual distress? Notice what Paul says in verse seventeen. For our light affliction. What is the word affliction? I can remember growing up in the mountains and listening to these old country preachers and they would come to church and they'd say, now let's pray for the sick and afflicted. I never could figure out who, I knew who the sick were, but who were the afflicted? And I'll remember when I was taking Greek for the first time, first year of Greek, the professor gave us the word for affliction. Phlipsis. Oh, I could understand that. It's something that all of a sudden hits us, and it flips us. I could remember that mnemonic expression. Help me to remember it. What is affliction? Well, I could give you this simple definition. It's something that flips us. But what affliction is? First of all, it's a certainty. Every believer in Jesus Christ, whether you're old, middle-aged, young or younger, every Christian faces affliction. Affliction is a certainty. And it can be in the body. It can be in the mind. It can be financially. It can be socially. It can be spiritually. It can be in many realms. It's one of those general words here. It's something that brings distress upon distress. It's something that brings pressure upon pressure. Trial upon trial. I remember one of the Puritan writers, I believe it was John Reynolds, who had headaches constantly. And he called these headaches. Probably if he had lived in our day, the doctors could have done something about it. In those days where they didn't have modern medicine, he lived with this affliction of continual headaches. Well, it's not just something bodily. It can be in many different realms. But it is something that brings distress. It is something that brings pressure. It is something that brings trial. Notice, he says here, for our light affliction. I want you to notice something else. Not only are afflictions certain, but afflictions are effectual. They are part of God's design. In his providence, he brings about afflictions in the life of a believer, the life of a Christian. Why? Well, I think, first of all, to purify us. We have roots too deep in this world, do we not? We need to be weaned from the affections of this world. And we need to have greater yearnings for the world that is to come. And sometimes we get too comfortable in this life. Sometimes things are going just too good for us. And the Lord says, you know, this child has his roots or her roots too deep in this world, I need to bring a little affliction to remind them of certain realities. Not only that, but to keep our minds focused on Christ in heaven. And when afflictions come, and they will come, we often fall into a tendency that can be very damaging to us as believers. We can fall into a tendency of questioning. Why? Why is this happening to me? Why is this happening to me now? I remember this young lady. My former church. Godly young lady. Beautiful young lady. Was engaged to be married. And all of a sudden, A few months before she was to be married, she found out that her fiancé had been unfaithful to her. And she's sitting in my office and she's crying. And she says, why, Pastor? Why? Why now? I said, God loves you, dear one. Aren't you glad you found out about it now? Instead of four months after you're married? Right? You see, the Lord is not anyone's lackey. He loves His people. And He cares for us. And He cares enough of us to afflict us. And they're part of His sovereign effectual design for our lives. To shave off those rough edges. To shave off those angularities. to smooth off those rough surfaces to make us look more like the Lord Jesus. We not only question, but sometimes these afflictions can lead to frustration. And frustration leads to anger, which can lead to depression, which leads to self-pity. Which leads to that old biblical King James word being dismayed. I like the Hebrew meaning of the word dismayed. Remember what God said to Joshua in Joshua 1 8. Be strong, therefore, and courageous. Neither be thou dismayed. The Hebrew meaning. Has this idea of laying down of yet? That's what I was talking about earlier. You ever been so? stressed and under such trial and difficulty, you just wanted to lay down. That's what he's talking about here. This matter of being dismayed, which leads to hurt, which leads to laying down, all of which are unbiblical. Paul says, for our light affliction, these are effectual certainties in our lives that God brings. But there is another way of looking at these afflictions. And I think it's found here in this passage of Scripture. There's a biblical way to look at the stress or affliction or trials or pressures or difficulties that we face in our lives. Some of you tonight are dreading to go to work tomorrow because the pressures on you to compromise biblical truth. Some of you are dreading tomorrow because you're out of a job and pressure is on you to pay bills. to meet the house payment, to pay the utility bills, and you don't have work. These are pressures. These are real things. How should we look at them? Well, I want to suggest to you that this verse, verse 17, tells us five ways that we should look at afflictions. First of all, we should look at them as being light. Oh, Pastor, don't give me that stuff now. Isn't that what Paul says here? for our light affliction? I remember I was talking about this man. He said, Pastor, it's not light that my wife died. I said, I understand. I'm not trying to be flippant here. I'm not trying to be facetious, funny here with you. But Paul says, these afflictions are to be viewed as light. Not heavy. I remember one time my wife and I burdened so heavily for our son. And we knew that he was in bad shape. And the heart of the parent wanted to reach out and snatch him out of that hard place. But I knew that would be the worst thing for me to do. and I'm walking in my kitchen and tears are in my eyes and my wife and I look at each other and we start quoting this verse together for our light affliction. Secondly, we should not only look at our afflictions as light, but as momentary. And you say, why would you say something like that? Notice what Paul says, for our light affliction, which is but for a moment. Pastor, I've been in this trial for six months. Don't tell me that's momentary. Yes, it is. I'm going to explain why it is in just a minute. Not only momentary, but we need to view afflictions as working for us. Isn't that what he says here? For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us. I remember laying there in that hospital bed. And as I said this morning, pain so intense, so unrelenting. And I look up and I see my son sitting right there beside me. And there's no laughter, there's no mirth here that the world tries to superimpose into our lives. I see His hands and His face like this, and I couldn't speak because I'm on a ventilator. And I'm praying, Lord, if it even takes my life to bring Him to repentance and faith in Your Son, then so be it. And I thought to myself, did the Lord bring me here to this moment, through all of this, for a, as He puts here, working in us for a more exceeding and eternal way to glory. If this is the means to bring my son to the end of himself, then Lord, I bow and bless your name and kiss your hand. But afflictions not only are light and momentary, but they're working for us. They're working in us. I don't care what kind of trial or difficulty. I don't care what kind of distress or pressure you find yourself under this moment. Some of you young people, I was talking to some of our young people in our church and this one young lady, she's a beautiful young lady and she said, Pastor, I'd like to talk with you. And I said, OK. She said, you know, I just don't know that I'll ever get married. I said, why is that? And she said, oh, I'm just I don't think I'm Very pretty. I don't think I'm attractive to young men. And what godly young men? I said, oh, dear one. Oh, me. Don't you know? Don't you know what God is doing? You feel like that you are so way out there and no one will really want you? I said, you consider that a burden, don't you? She said, it's an awful cross. Don't get mad at me, young people. You know how sometimes our young people can really exaggerate things. I know there are about three young guys that have got an eye on her in the church, but she doesn't know about it. They haven't got the courage to work up the, they haven't got the nerve to work up the courage to approach her. I said, dear one, just remember God's working. He's got the right one for you. Just be patient. So they're light, they're momentary, they're working for us or in us. But fourthly, we should see that they are leading to an eschatological end. Paul uses some beautiful words here, beautiful in the Greek, beautiful in the English. They're working for us a far more exceeding weight of glory. I don't know that I have the words to fully unpack all that he is saying here. But let me just say this, all the afflictions that God brings upon us, Christ brings upon us, are working toward an eschatological end. A far more exceeding weight of glory. And fifthly, we should see these afflictions as being the means to cause us to eye eternity. We're going to come back and look at this exceeding weight of glory as I close a little bit later. So be certain that difficulties, afflictions, distresses, pressures, and trials will come into your life. But certainly be encouraged that the Lord God makes them to be in your life effectual. Whatever trial, whatever problem, whatever difficulty you face as a Christian, whatever struggle, whatever anxiety, just remember that God is working in them and he is working in them a far more exceeding weight of glory. And then the third thing I want to leave with you tonight is the reality of eternal destiny. Verse 18. Notice what he says. While we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. Now Paul, have you been drinking that North Carolina moonshine a little bit here? What in the world are you talking about? I mean, we don't look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. How can you see things that are not seen? Tell me. Paul says, we don't look at the things that are seen that are evident. We look at the things that are not seen. How many times have you ever gone to a beautiful state park or a beautiful site and you see someone standing out there just looking around and you say, what are you looking at? And they'll say, well, I'm looking at things not unseen or not seen. I'm looking at things unseen. You never. You say, what are you looking at? Oh, isn't that vista beautiful? Isn't that gorge marvelous? Isn't that waterfall spectacular? We're looking at things that are seen, but Paul says we don't look at the things that are seen. We look at the things that are unseen. Is he talking out of both sides of his mouth? He gives an explanation. First of all, three things here. He makes an assertion that is reality in the life of the Christian. We do not look at the things that are seen, but at the things that are unseen. Really? How many of you looked at unseen things today? Yes, we have looked at unseen things today, haven't we? I love this word that Paul uses here for look. Your pastors know this far better than I, but in the Greek language there are two basic words for see or look. Blepo. Always remember that. Blepo. And then there's this word that Paul uses here. It's taken from the word skopeo, gaze. It's where we get our word microscope or our word telescope. You see someone at a microscope and they're looking through it and they're studying intensely whatever it is that's on that slide. You watch someone looking through a telescope, and they're looking intensely at some object up there in our Milky Way. That is the same word that Paul uses here. For we do not look at the things that are seen, but, in essence, we look at the things which are not seen. We're gazing at the unseen. Secondly, Paul makes a declaration of monumental significance that should impact our lives daily. Notice what he says in the last part of verse 18. For the things which are seen are what? What are the young people? For the things that are seen are what? Temporary. Really? Really? Yes, for the things that we see are temporary, but the things that we do not see, he says, what? Are eternal. That puts a new perspective on life, doesn't it? Had this man come and he says, oh pastor, a couple years ago, pastor, I've lost They're saying that most people have lost 30 to 35 percent of their portfolio in the stock market crash. He says, I've lost over 50 percent. And I said, my dear brother. Perhaps very few people in our country have been untouched by this. But what we're doing when we consider these things, we're only looking at the temporary, the temporal. One day, These Fortune 500 companies are going to be nothing but rubble and dust. Wall Street. Wall Street doesn't impress God. We could almost say to the Lord God, what about Wall Street, Lord? And the Lord might hypothetically say, Wall Street, where's that? You see, the things of this world doesn't affect the God of heaven. And we're so bound by the things of this world that we fail to realize the things that we see today one day will not be. And the things that we do not see shall be forever. Am I confusing you? Are you following me? You understand what I'm saying? He is making this declaration of monumental significance that should affect our lives daily. What we see is temporal and what we do not see is eternal. And furthermore, the Christian actually sees the unseen. He makes, finally, an observation on the fruit of grace. How is it that the Believer sees that which is unseen through the grace of faith. The Christian sees the things that are not seen with the eye of faith. The things we see are not those that we can look at with our naked eye, but through the eye of faith. See, that's one of the things that is so confusing to the world. to the unbeliever. They can't understand us. They can't understand Christians. We are loony tunes for sure. I tell them. See, I grew up in, as did Pastor Nichols, we grew up in the 60s. And they say if you can remember the 60s, you didn't actually live through them. I can remember part of the 60s. You remember that song? Na, na, na, na, live for today. Some of you old fogies, you're nodding your heads. You know what I'm talking about. And that was the philosophy, wasn't it? Live for today. I want to say to you tonight, don't. Live for the world to come. Live for that which is not seen. Live for eternity. And let eternity's values govern and direct and dictate to your heart what you should believe and what you should do and what you should not do. And to illustrate it, as Stephen is being stoned, and here is Saul of Tarsus consenting to his death, holding the cloaks of those who are picking up rocks and stoning him to death, Stephen makes an unusual statement. He says, I see Jesus. And they're looking around, and they're probably saying, what in the world? He got hit too hard by too big a rock. He's bonkers. But he says, I see Jesus. Not sitting, he had already gone through his enthronement and had been seating at the Father's right hand in session There is the mediatorial Lord of heaven and earth. But now the first martyr is about to give his life for the cause of the gospel. And as they're stoning him to death, Stephen looks up to heaven and he says, I see Jesus standing at the right hand of God. How did he see that, brother? He saw it with the eye of faith. John Calvin in his exposition of this passage says, a moment is long if we look at the things around us. But once we raise our minds to heaven, a thousand years begins to look like a moment. I would exhort you tonight, brethren, lift up your eyes to heaven. Keep your gaze. This is illustrated in our hymns. You sing number 294, I'm sure. We sing it. Let our choir's new anthems raise that great hymn about the martyrs. As one stands in there, I love so much. Never flinched they from the flame, from the torture never. Vein the foeman's sharpest aim, Satan's best endeavor. For by faith they saw the land decked in all its glory. where triumphant now they stand with the victor's story. By faith. By faith they look beyond the things that are seen and saw the unseen. Look beyond the things that are temporal and saw the eternal. We also sing it, Am I a soldier of the cross? The four stanzas says, Thy saints in all this glorious war shall conquer though they die. They view the triumph from afar and seize it with their eye, with the eye of faith. Be certain that the things that are seen are only temporary. We must look for the reality of that exceeding weight of glory to come. Let me close with just a few points of application. First this, the Christian life is really a series of contrast, whether you realize it or not. It's a series of contrast. The outward and the inward, the light and the weighty, the momentary, the eternal, the things seen, the things not seen, affliction and glory. That's why the world can't understand this. Secondly, what is true of the regenerate is not true of the unregenerate. What do I mean by that? With both the believer and the unbeliever, the regenerate and the unregenerate, the same thing is going on in our bodies. Our bodies are decaying. Being a Christian doesn't keep your body from decaying, your body from perishing. But what is true of the regenerate, of the believer, of the Christian, is not true of the unbeliever, the unregenerate, the non-Christian. Both of our bodies are perishing. Both of our bodies are decaying. But with the believer, our inward soul, our inward man is being renewed. Notice the word Paul used in verse 16, day by day. You know why, as I started out, I asked you this question. Have you ever wanted to give up? Have you ever wanted to throw in the towel? You know why you haven't? Not because you have bulldog tenacity. Not because you've got a backbone like a saw log. Not because you have a head like stubborn as a Missouri mule. None of those reasons. I'll tell you why you haven't thrown in the towel. Because behind the scenes, the unseen hand of God is renewing your soul day by day. And when you thought that you could not lift up your foot and put your left foot in front of your right and your right in front of your left and take another step or another two steps, you found yourself doing it. And when the heavens were as brass and all you saw as clouds, and you wondered if God was hearing your prayers, or you wondered if the Lord was really listening, He is behind the scenes saying, my child, you are going to make it. I'm going to usher you personally in the glory. It is that supernatural work of the triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, begun at regeneration, being carried through until the consummation in our hearts and in our lives. The Christian is perishing, yet being made alive day by day. The non-Christian is perishing and dying, dying, dying. And that's why you that are here tonight, if you're outside of Christ, you're not only dying, but you're dying. You're perishing, but you are going to everlastingly perish. Unless you come to him who is life everlasting. In Christ, as I said this morning, Christ is the only one that can give meaning to life and death. Thirdly, The world of unbelievers focuses upon and is content with the outward, the moment and the scene. May we never be content with those. And let me quickly close. You've been very patient. Again, Calvin says in the reprobate, the outward man also decays, but without anything to compensate for it. Fourthly, afflictions, rather than hurting us, actually do us good. Do you believe that? Oh, I do. I don't like it. This is true even if you don't feel it. One day as I'm finally, after I get up and I take 10 steps, 10 steps out, 10 steps back. The next day I take 30 steps, 15 steps out, 15 steps back. my precious sweetheart allows me to walk outside. And we're walking, and she says, how do you feel, sweetheart? I said, it doesn't matter how I feel. I feel terrible. But it's good for me. It's good for me. And while I've been through what I've been through, I would not wish it upon the worst person in the world, but I wouldn't trade it for a $3 trillion portfolio. Because I know that our Father in Heaven, who loves this vile, wretched, good-for-nothing sinner who saved me by His grace, loved me unconditionally, sent His Son to die for a rascal like me, will give Himself no rest until He brings me safely into glory at last. And if you're a Christian, it's the same with you tonight. Afflictions, rather than hurt you, actually do you good. Fifthly, I'm going to close. The things seen can lead us astray if we're not careful. What is it you have your gaze fixed upon tonight? What is it that has captured your attention? What is it that brings a thump to your heart? What is it that makes you have a zippity-doo-dah day? Brethren, for the believer, it should be the glory of Christ in all of His resplendent majesty. The things that we see can easily lead us astray if we're not careful. And then the things that can not be seen can be seen, but only with the eye of faith. And then I close with this. I have application for all this, but I'm shortening it. You've borne with me very patiently, and so I'll close. The Christian is one who ultimately has his or her gaze fixed upon eternity. I leave you with this. Three simple words. Glory. Glory is coming. It's coming. One day this world as we know it, the Lord of glory himself shall fold it up as a vesture, as a garment. And this world as we know it shall be purged with fire. And there shall be new heavens and a new earth wherein dwell righteousness. And the Lamb and the Lion of the tribe of Judah shall have all the praise and all the adoration and all the glory. And I say, even so, come quickly, Lord Jesus. Keep Your gaze upon that. Let's pray. Oh, blessed Father, thank You for the eternal verities of Your Word. Our feelings are so subjective. They betray us all the time. Our emotions, oh, go against us at times when we want to stand firm. They sneak in behind us and overtake us and almost flip us. But we thank You, O Father, for Your great grace. Thank You that we are being renewed. That You, by Your Son's atoning work, by Your Spirit's effectual efforts, by the means of grace, public and private, we are being renewed as You with Your sovereign hand, day by day, strengthen us. Help the brethren here. Help this church. beginning with the elders all the way down to the smallest little child in this congregation. Cause each one here to have his or her gaze fixed upon glory to come. May we live with eternity's values in view. Grant us this grace as we ask in the worthy name of Christ Jesus our Lord with thanksgiving. Amen.