Heaven. Last week we looked at eternal judgment, this week heaven. 1 Corinthians chapter 2 and verse 9. Let us hear the word of the living God is from 1 Corinthians chapter 2 and verse 9. Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love him. This is the word of God. God has created us for eternity. heaven is mentioned 550 times just by that name alone and there are other references to heaven which uses other terms for example the prophets described as the better country that they're sought for in Hebrews 11 and verse 10 we read it is the city that has foundations whose builder and maker is God when the Roman Empire was falling and people were saying it's the end of the world, it's the end of all hope and civilization Saint Augustine in North Africa wrote City of God using this verse Hebrews 11 verse 10 to depart from speaking of how there are cities that men build and men destroy those cities but there is a city built by God which can never be destroyed we are dual citizens we may be citizens of a country or kingdom on earth, but we who are believers are citizens of the kingdom of heaven which will last forever. Our Lord Jesus Christ said in John 14 verse 1 to 2, let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. Heaven is a real place. Jesus said he goes to prepare a place for us and the Greek word for place is topos from where we get the word topology the writing of places and where we get topology the study of places from the Bible distinguishes between three different heavens when you read about the heavens in the Bible it may be referring to the air where the birds fly which Jesus said in Matthew 6 verse 26 about the birds flying in the heavens For some people, when they're speaking about heaven, they might be thinking just, you know, the space, the air above us where the birds fly. But there's also, for example, Acts 7.42 referring to the heavens as space. The place where the stars shine, the planets are. But then there's also paradise. In Matthew 6, verse 9 to 10, Jesus speaks about heaven as the place which is God's home. Paradise. Now atheists have always vigorously campaigned against the concept of heaven. Because heaven implies a creator and therefore accountability. So heaven is absolutely taboo subject for an atheist. So after the Russians sent the first cosmonaut into space, he was sent on propaganda tours of the schools and colleges in Russia in order to inform the teachers and students that he had been into space and he could assure them he did not see God nor did he see heaven. What more proof can anyone possibly want? And there was this young girl at one of the schools who stood up and said, but comrade, the Bible says only the pure in heart will see God. Recently this cosmonaut undertook a far more significant journey than his Sputnik orbiting of Earth. They lowered his body into the grave and by now he will know that there is a God, although he may not get much time to see Heaven. We don't know if he was converted before he died, but we do know that the premise of his propaganda looks more and more ludicrous the more we get to know about the Heavens. because you just need to take a visit to Creation Museum or go into any of the Arsene Genesis materials and you will see that our solar system is just one of thousands, perhaps millions of solar systems. There are other suns that are so small we can barely see them and from which perspective our galaxy would look almost insignificant. Considering the extremely small space between Earth and the Moon, he didn't even go that far that this little Sputnik orbited. It's ludicrous. It's like somebody walking around this property here and saying, well, I didn't see heaven or God, so it obviously doesn't exist. There is no way that Yuri Galin covered a fraction of 1% of space. How could he come up with such a comment? It's ludicrous. There is an appointment that not one of us can miss. There is an appointment not one of us will even be able to be late for. Hebrews 9.27, it is appointed unto man once to die and after that the judgment. So you have an appointment. There is nothing more certain than death and there is nothing more uncertain than the time of dying. We should therefore be ready at all times for that which may happen at any time. Someone in the crowd urged the Lord Jesus to help him obtain a better share of the inheritance from his brother. And the Lord responded with a warning, Be on your guard, take heed, beware of covetousness, for your life does not consist in the abundance of the things you possess. So Luke 12, our Lord Jesus rebuked this man who was trying to obtain more of this world's riches. he was missing the main purpose of life, which is not the accumulation of things. I've seen a bumper sticker, the one who dives for the most toys wins. Well, you know, they say that the only difference between a man and a boy is the price of his toys, and so men like to accumulate big toys, yachts or cars, motorbikes, whatever it is, and, but the point is, He who dies with most toys still dies. And then who will have all the things he has accumulated for himself? The Lord Jesus told them this parable. There was a rich man. He was a productive man. He was a man who had plenty. He had power. He had prosperity. He had possessions. And he could live for pleasure. Take your ease. Eat, drink, and be merry, he said. But God said to him, fool! this very night your soul will be required of you. Then whose will those things be which you have provided for yourself? That's in Luke 12 20. This is how it will be for anyone who is rich in storing things up towards himself but is not rich towards God. This reminds one of Sabina von Brandt who said before she went to prison she was very poor but when she went to prison she became very rich because she had the only possession that was of any value in prison. She had the word of God stored up in her heart and mind and she was able to make many other people rich with her Bible memorization. Luke 12 tells us that this rich man was productive. He had plenty of possessions. He had power and prosperity and he could live for pleasure, but he was unprepared for eternity. He had no greater purpose than accumulating things for himself and living for pleasure. And the Lord calls him a fool. We're told in the Bible not to be calling people fools, but God calls this man a fool. It's a foolish thing to be unprepared for eternity. You imagine, if you're going on a journey, you prepare for it. You need visas, you might need inoculations, obviously baggage, you need to think what type of climate, what type of clothes you're going to need, what kind of shoes you're going to need, and there's all sorts of things you prepare for, for a journey. You're going into an area like I was just in, mosquito nets, insect repellents, very important, and you've got to consider all these things, water purification systems, Even if you're just taking a journey for a night, somewhere, just an hour's drive away, you need to do some preparations. We plan and prepare for the shortest journey. To fail to prepare for eternity is foolishness in the extreme. Psalm 14 verse 1 declares, the fool has said in his heart, there is no God. They are corrupt. They have done abominable works. There's not one of them who does good. An atheist, someone who denies the existence of God, is foolish. And to be unprepared for eternity is foolishness in the extreme. Now this rich man was living like a practical atheist. He was living as if God did not exist. He probably didn't deny God, but he ignored Him. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Denial of God is foolishness. But this man did not fear God. This man did not even seem to think about God. That is foolish. Proverbs teaches us that those who do not choose to fear the Lord, the turning away of the simple will slay them and the complacency of fools will destroy them. Proverbs 1 to 9, the complacency of fools will destroy them. We see a lot of complacency of fools. The rich man was a fool because he was unprepared for eternity. Each one of us should be constantly aware that we can die at any moment and face God's judgment, because death can strike each one of us at any moment. Car accidents are one of the most common ways that people die. every time we go on the road. In fact, I've got to remind our missionaries, one of the most dangerous things that we do, forget the lions, the mosquitoes, the snakes, and all the rest of it out there, and the tsetse flies, and the funny diseases, vehicle accidents are the most common way of missionaries being killed these days, even in spite of persecution. Far more likely to die in a car accident than one is to die in a plane accident or from even a terrorist attack from ISIS. Even if you're living in the Middle East, vehicle accidents are still the greatest threat. And the amount of missionaries and mission leaders I know who have died in vehicle accidents. And yet many people get into a vehicle and don't even think of praying for God's protection while in the vehicle, which, if you think about it, it makes more sense than even praying before our food. Because when we drive, especially the kind of reckless, irresponsible people on the road today, and angry hasty people and taxi drivers out there, it's like going into a war zone. Each one of us should constantly be ready to face God's judgment and give an account of our lives because death could strike at any moment. The rich man in his parable in Luke 12 was a self-centered fool. He uses in those three short verses 11 times you read the words me, myself and I, the trinity of evil. He was a self-centered fool. He was a godless fool. He was purposeless. He was unprepared for eternity and therefore he was a doomed fool. Jesus warned us in Matthew 6, 19, Do not lay up for yourselves treasures here on earth, where moth and rust destroy, where thieves break in and steal. But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, there neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. The more of heaven we cherish, the less of earth we will covet. C.S. Lewis wrote, if you read history, you will find that the Christians who did the most for the present world were precisely those who thought the most of the next world. Some people speak of those who are too heavenly minded to be of any earthly use. Well then they're not really heavenly minded because a person who's really heavenly minded lives for eternity and seeks to make his life count for eternity by obedience to God, by ministry, by education, by all the different things we should be involved in here on earth. As Martin Luther said, if I knew the Lord was coming back tomorrow I'd plant a tree today. C.S. Lewis also wrote, aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth, you'll get neither, heaven nor earth. E.M. Bounds wrote in his book, Heaven, a Place, a City and a Home. Earth is but a pilgrim's day, a pilgrim's journey, a pilgrim's tent. Heaven is a city, permanent, God built, God planned, whose foundations are as stable as God's throne. The great Puritan writer John Owen was the chaplain to Oliver Cromwell when he was Lord Protector of England. John Owen wrote, The Lord Christ leads none to heaven but those whom he sanctifies on earth. In other words, we are on earth to be sanctified in preparation for heaven. Chrysostom, the pastor of St. Sophie in Constantinople, which was the greatest church in the world at that time. Chrysostom declared, if one man should suffer all the sorrows of all the saints of the world, yet those sufferings would not be worth one hours of glory in heaven. The suffering is temporary, the glory is eternal. John Newton, the author of Amazing Grace observes, when I get to heaven, I will see three wonders there. The first wonder will be seeing many people there whom I did not expect to see there. The second wonder will be to miss many people whom I did expect to see there. And the thirdest and greatest wonder will be to find myself there. He's the one who wrote Amazing Grace, I speak the sound that saved a wretch like me. A man who was a slave trader, a servant of slaves, as low, he went as low as he could go, and he found that God saved him uttermost of the guttermost. In his book, Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis observed, creatures are not born with a desire unless satisfaction of those desires exists. A baby feels hunger. Well, there is food. A duckling wants to swim. Well, there is water. He said, we have many deep desires and aspirations which cannot be satisfied with, which points to the reality of heaven, because we cannot fulfill every desire on earth, there must be a reality where those desires can be satisfied, such as justice. We do not see justice on earth, not complete justice. Too many times the wicked and some of the most wicked get away with it, it seems, but they will not get away with it ultimately, eternally, because there's a day of judgment and there's a God in heaven who will see that the righteous are rewarded and the things done with nobody noticing, are awarded. And the wicked done which people think they got away with it because they were well placed and well protected. They thought they cheated the hangman's noose of the Day of Judgment, but they will not have escaped anything at all. And so he says, I must make it the main object of my life to press on to that other country and to help others to do the same. C.S. Lewis wrote, that the main business of heaven is joy. The real question is not, has a place been prepared for us, but are we prepared for that place? Will your name be called when the role is called up yonder? Is your name written in the Lamb's book of life? Jesus said, I'm the way, I'm the truth, I'm the life, no one comes to the Father except through me. So, what will heaven be like? Well, we actually have a lot of descriptions in the Bible. We get a lot of descriptions from Jesus and from the prophets and the apostles which tell us these facts about heaven. There will be no more hunger. There will be no more war. There will be no more sorrow, crying, pain or death. There will be no more night. The apostle John was given a glimpse of heaven and he said, I looked and behold a great multitude which no one could number. of all nations, tribes, races and tongues standing before the throne and the Lamb, clothed with white robes, with palm branches in their hands. The martyr Stephen, as he was dying, being full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and he saw the glory of God and he saw Jesus standing at the right hand of the Father. The Apostle Paul wrote, For we all know that if our earthly hope, this tent which is destroyed, We have a building from God, a house, not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. Colossians 1 verse 5 says, Because of the hope which is laid up for me in heaven, of which you heard, therefore, in the word of truth of the gospel, in heaven we are told that there will be reunion with loved ones who have gone on ahead. We will experience glory. We will experience the presence of God. will experience divine comfort. The tree of life which has been denied to man since the rebellion in the garden. Communion with God as Adam and Eve had in the garden. Coming into possession of the treasures we sent into heaven while on earth. Opportunities to please God. Gain. Paul speaks about to live as Christ, to die as gain. Being with Christ which is far better perfection, safety from the second death, authority over the nations and the morning star. Christ will confess our names before the Father and His holy angels, the waters of life and opportunities for real worship in spiritual truth. We will have glorified bodies, our senses will be enlarged greatly in the capacities We know that compared to other creatures on this earth, we are virtually blind and deaf. There are creatures far greater senses of hearing than we are, who can hear things on a far greater range and pitch than we can. We know that God has given eagles the ability to see 15 to 20 times better than we can. The best human eyesight is a fraction of the ability of an eagle, and some eagles have the ability for telephoto for being able to switch to ultraviolet, to be able to... In so many different ways, these eagles, when they look, they can look in infrared capabilities in some cases. What will it be like in heaven when we have enhanced capabilities? Human beings today are barely a patch on what Adam and Eve would have been originally, before sin. When you think of full, healthy bodies and intellects, Einstein declared that he didn't think that the best human used 4% of his intellectual capacity. And I've never seen anyone suggest that human beings are using 10% of our mental capacity, even the best. So some people probably aren't even using 1%. Imagine when we, freed from the dullness and all the distractions and all the weaknesses and frailties of human life, and all that sin has damaged, all the damage that's been done by drugs, drink, and so much other evils, and so imagine the incredible intellectual stimulation of inhabiting a sinless universe, our fallen human intellect cannot even begin to grasp all the possibilities of heaven. Imagine when suddenly you are in eternity and you're able to interview the greatest personalities of the Bible in history. You're able to, it would be even better than being in the best library on earth because from the perspective of eternity you could say Could we see how it worked at creation? I mean, imagine being able to see how everything unfolds, see the original Garden of Eden, to be put into the middle of the Battle of Waterloo, see how it actually worked out, to be at some of the greatest times in history, to be able to, it wouldn't be like putting on a video, you can actually be there from the perspective of eternity and see Martin Luther before the Emperor, be at some of the greatest events in history and come to understand what really happened, instead of all the weak, distorted, bits and pieces of fragments that we get now and even our best history books today are nothing compared to the reality that we'll be able to learn there. Imagine being able to get rides on dinosaurs and fly with golden eagles and pterodactyls. There's been no end of potential in heaven, which I've got people saying, what are you going to do in heaven? Well, they don't have much of an imagination if they can ask that question, because from that perspective, imagine being able unrestrained by all of our human frailties, that you could explore the universe, and not just the universe that exists, but back in time, just from an eternal perspective. You can go back in time and see what it was like in your parents' and grandparents' and great-great-great-great-great-grandparents' time, and what it was like. The libraries of heaven will be wide open, and all the possibilities will be there. If you think of life, where sorrow and aches and pains are history, past, grief and selfishness, freed of anger and impatience, freed of all the different pride and deceit and darkness and malice that lurks in almost any heart and soul, when it's removed, if we can appreciate beauty in this fallen world, and it's pointed out by our friends in Institute for Creation Research, the world we are in now is not the world God created. The world God created was destroyed in the flood. What we see is the world that survived the flood, which is not as great as the original world God made. And the original human bodies God made were made far better. The ravages of sin through the generations and the millenniums have made human beings actually now a a pale imitation of what Adam and Eve would have originally been. We have fallen so far. And so, if we can enjoy beauty today, how much more beautiful will it be with increased capacities and increased eyesight and everything else? And music, if we can enjoy Handel's Messiah in music today, imagine when our hearing has been restored to what it should be and we've got the capabilities of the redeemed children of God to appreciate the music of heaven, which will be far better than the best orchestras on earth can possibly produce. And we read in Revelation 21 verse 4, And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor sighing. There shall be no more pain, for the former things will have passed away. Imagine, life in all its fullness as God intended it to be. Now we do not know when our lives will come to an end, We do not know under what circumstances our lives will come to an end. But we do know that when we die, we will face our eternal creator, our eternal judge, and we will have to give an account of our lives. And this is something that should sober us, because Jesus said in John 5, verse 28 to 29, Do not marvel at this, for the time is coming. The hour is coming, is the actual word. The hour is coming in which all who are in the graves will hear his voice and will come forth. And those who have done good to the resurrection of life and those who have done evil to the resurrection of condemnation, the day is coming, the hour is coming in which all who are in the grave will hear the voice of the Lord and will come out and face judgment, whether for good or for evil. At death we leave behind everything we have, all of our possessions, and we take with us everything we are, our character. The character with which we die is the character with which we will stand at the judgment. Which is why one of the prayers in the liturgy is to protect us from dying unready. And this is a deep concern of Christians for most of the ages. The Catholics distorted this into having the last rites. as though a ceremony or a liturgy or a ritual could make up for a lifetime of discipleship and character, which is the whole point that C.S. Lewis tries to emphasize. Every decision we make makes us more a creature of heaven or hell. Every temptation we resist makes the next temptation easier to resist. Every temptation we give into makes the next temptation easier to give into and harder to resist. And so we don't get to heaven or hell by one choice, so to speak, in a sense, but by thousands of choices. Because each choice sort of impacts and impounds and strengthens another. Just as in the Jungle Doctor book, when it speaks about these naughty monkeys going to the rhino and saying, you are so strong, I bet you could break vine that he wrapped around his legs, well of course he could. Five, of course he could just snap it to the ease. Ten, no problem. Fifteen, no problem. And it just carried on, and the pride in this rhino, how strong he was, and after a while the monkeys tied him up with so many times with the vines that the rhino just fell over helpless. He couldn't break the vines, because while a vine owns nothing, thousands of those vines, even the strongest rhino found he is helpless. And so it is that if we give in to a temptation we can create a habit and after a while it can create a character and the character is the real problem and the biggest problem we've got is our character because we are our own worst enemies because so often we've found we've made decisions and we get into a habit of decisions that damage us at our core and that is the issue of where discipleship and sanctification is aimed at to prepare us for heaven and very few people are in actually being prepared for heaven, which is why the Roman Catholics invented another heresy, which is purgatory. The idea that, well, we know we're not ready for heaven, so when we die, we're going through a period of temporary suffering to prepare us to be good enough for heaven. But there's not a hint or word in the Bible about purgatory or any intermediary state. The Bible is clear. Jesus is clear. there's a resurrection of the righteous, and there's a resurrection of condemnation. There's no suggestion of something in between. There's not the slightest hint of another opportunity. There is one appointment, one day of judgment. There's a point in man once in a while that comes to judgment. If you are prepared to die, then you are prepared for anything. Until you're free to die, you're not free to live. That immediately makes me think of Anthony Duncan, our missionary, who in 1994 died in a mission to Angola. I would trust that everyone in the mission is ready to meet the Lord, but Anthony Duncan was more than ready, he was eager. I would say he is about the most heavenly-minded person we ever had pass through our ranks. He even said, I'm not going to make 30. He's convinced he'd be with the Lord before he turned 30, and he was. And it's an extraordinary thing, this very heavenly-minded young man, who had, as we said, as many lives as a cat, because he'd come off his motorbike at 160 kilometres an hour into a milly patch and survived. who was charged by Reiner and trampled into the mud during a Reiner relocation program when he was a game ranger and survived. He was charged by two lion, although he had a revolver and a rifle, he put his rifle down through stones at them because, like myself, he is very soft hearted and came to the lines and couldn't bring himself to shoot these magnificent animals. So he threw stones at them to deflect their charge because he was in their territory, he was a game ranger on foot and he was agitating them. But he couldn't bring himself to shoot them, he didn't even shoot a warning shot. So he was afraid that might aggravate them even more. And Anthony Duncan survived gunfights with game rangers at Atosha Game Park, he was part of their anti-poaching unit. They had AK-47s, he had a bolt action and he won. He survived fighting terrorists when he was in South African Infantry. And with this mission he was going to be sent up the N7, my favourite route into Angola, and at the last minute I changed his mission plan and I sent him via the Transvaal. And there wasn't a very good reason for it except that I liked to keep people not knowing what our plans are and it's important in ministry in restricted access areas that you've got a unpredictability. I encourage mission teams to often change their plans at the last minute so that nobody can really guess where they are, when they're crossing or what point they're crossing at and so on. What I did not know was his parents were divorced and his parents lived up in Transvaal and on his way up he's able to visit both his mother and father and brother and sister and urged him to get drunk with God and urged him on many different issues. And it was the last chance to witness to his family. And I learnt this when they came down for the funeral. He went up, he ministered, did what he had to do in Zambia, went to Tangola, delivered a ton of Bibles and books. And on the way back, he stopped at Etosha Park, where he had been a game manager, went up the hill where he had been converted, spent the time in prayer, and as the sun set, He came down, he found his kits had been stolen out the vehicle. All he owned was his Bible and his boots and clothes he was wearing. Backpack and everything else was gone. He didn't see the sunrise again. He saw the sunset because that night they had on the way, in the early hours of the morning they had a head-on collision after driving through the night. Now Anthony Duncan was ready and the amount of people who testified at his funeral of how he had rebuked and witnessed them in his last days on earth. He had a great impact. But there was someone who was prepared to die, and he self-consciously, in devotions, I remember 24 Harlequin Road, I'm taking devotions before you head up there, and he had this attitude like, I'm not coming back. Now, there was a lot of dangers in Angola, and I was thinking, so when he came out there was safe. In fact, the team was ambushed, arrested, imprisoned. I was in Lusaka at the time, heard about this and managed to put pressure through the Zambian government for them to be released, because at that very time, by God's grace, there was the Zambian government hosting peace talks with the UNITA Freedom Fighters of Angola, the MPLA Communists of Angola, and they were in Lusaka. And Frederic Chiluba was hosting this, and I knew his Vice President. General Godfrey Miander. He got the word through and he got the President to say to the Namibians who also part of us, let these people out. The peace talks will not go forward further until you let these missionaries free. And so that incident also enabled him to get out. So many things happened, but at that point I thought, Antony is safe. He's out of Angola. I mean, Angola is where the danger is. But he was ready and some of the Lord had prepared him. It should be our business every day to prepare for our last day. If we take care of our life, God will take care of our death. In the Bible we're told it's better to go to a funeral than to go to a party. Ecclesiastes 7 verse 2 it actually says, it is better to go to a house of mourning than to a place of feasting. Better to go to a funeral than to a party. Why? Because the living should always remind themselves that death waits for us all. That actually should make us sober and purposeful and wise and protect us from the things that are distractions that don't really matter in the light of eternity. Ecclesiastes 3 verse 1 to 2, for everything there is a season. There is a time for every purpose under heaven. There's a time to be born and there's a time to die. Our days on earth are like a shadow, we read. 1 Corinthians 1 Chronicles 29 verse 15. Our days on earth are but a shadow. Psalm 39 verse 5. Every man at his best state is but a vapor. In fact we now learn that 85% of our body is liquid actually. Water makes up a huge amount of us. We're only one heartbeat away from eternity. Which is another interesting thing to consider. Ecclesiastes 8.8 No man has power over the spirit to retain his spirit. No one has power in the day of his death. You can't actually stop it when it comes. James 4.14 Whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow, what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes. and this is in the context that people shouldn't boast about today and tomorrow we're going to do this and that and so on and so forth and you don't even know what's going to happen which is why in some circles they put DV when you put plans meaning God willing 2 Samuel 14 14 for we shall surely die and become like water spilt in the ground which cannot be recovered so we must die being mindful of death should not be morbid it should make us serious industrious, conscientious, focusing on what really matters. The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing. Only one life it will soon be past. Only what's done for Jesus Christ will last. So we need to work out our priorities in light of eternity. We need to invest our time in what really matters. We need to invest our talents into what really counts. We need to invest our treasure into those things that are going to last for eternity. What is going to last for eternity? The people of God will last for eternity. The creatures of God will last for eternity. The Word of God will last for eternity. The Kingdom of God will last for eternity. These are what are ultimately most important. And so, in the light of eternity, knowing that we will die and we will stand before Almighty God, our Eternal Judge, we need to review our life's work, our family relationships, habits, our activities. One day we will stand before the judgment seat of Christ where God will judge the secrets of men. Romans 2.16 speaks of God judging the secrets of men. And 1 Peter 1.17 has got who without partiality judges each man's work. You can imagine sometimes the nervousness at school or some assignments where your work's being evaluated. I think you mean for your common sense inspection army. If they weren't happy with your inspection, got a fire bucket of sand thrown over the bed, and a fire bucket of water thrown over, and then next inspection, one hour. Oh, you've got to get that ready in one hour for another inspection. But that was the kind of way they let you know they weren't satisfied with your work. Matthew 12, 36, got a very horrible verse. Jesus says, but I say to you, that for every idle word men may speak, they will have to give an account of it on a day of judgment." Every idle word. I mean, how many idle, frivolous, foolish, and shameful words do we speak? Romans 14, 12, "...so then each one of us shall give an account of himself to God." This is an ongoing emphasis in the Scriptures. A day of reckoning, a day of judgment, a day of accounting is coming. In eternity, Will any of us standing within the shadow of the judgment seat of Christ, will any of us think, I should have watched more TV? I mean, will any of us be sitting there saying, I spent too much time studying the Bible, I was too serious about prayer, I spent too much time being evangelistic, you know, I sacrificed too much, I should have held on to the church for longer. I shouldn't have been so forgiving. Will any of us in the light of eternity regret any sacrifice made for the Kingdom, any seriousness in taking God's Word seriously? I don't know how many have heard of Frank Jenner's testimony, this sailor in Sydney, Australia, who every day of his life witnessed at least 10 people on Georgia Street, the first street ever in Australia, in New South Wales. a street where a lot of prayer had been put in, where churches had had people like Samuel Marsden ministering, where there'd been some great revival moves, in fact, in the past. Well, Frank Jenner was a sailor who was converted to Christ, and every day would go out for the last 45 years of his life, and he would go up to at least 10 people and say, excuse me, may I ask you a question? If you were to die within the next 25 hours, where would you spend eternity? Heaven or hell? A lot of people were offended, rushed off. He witnessed to tens of thousands of people like this. And it turned out that one pastor gave this testimony of how this strange little man in George Street, Sydney had asked him this question and led him to come to Christ. And then someone else stopped and said, well, you know, that's how I came to the Lord also. Funny old man in George Street. And they tracked down, as his testimony was given around the world, others started to say, well that happened to me too. Many of them were sailors who came through either Royal Navy or American Navy, stopped off in Sydney, and many of the sailors would go down George Street. And this converted sailor witnessed it. And he didn't know of how many people had come to the Lord. when somebody did a research, and they've now got a film out in it, and it's a book out on the sailors testimony, and he kept asking this question, if you were to die within the next twenty five hours, where would you spend eternity, heaven or hell? And the funny thing is when he had people coming and giving him the feedback, he had witnessed for decades not knowing if any soul had come to Christ through his witness. He just did out of faithfulness. They're ministers and missionaries all over the world, as far apart as India, America, Canada, New Zealand, Britain, all over. Extraordinary. When they tied the dots together, they didn't know the name of the man anymore, but when it all was worked out through a Kazakh convention preacher who used this testimony, and then a whole lot of others started saying, well, that was my testimony too. Which of us will regret challenging people on where they'll spend eternity? If you knew that you were going to die next year and you've got only one year, what would you do differently in this next year? Work out your priorities in the light of eternity. You must be ready at all times for that which can happen at any time. Are you ready? Let us pray. Lord God, we want to thank and praise you for your word, the Bible. We want to thank and praise you, Lord God, that you are the way, the truth, and life, and no one comes to Father except by you. We thank you, Lord, that you have assured us that eye has not seen nor ear heard, nor has entered the heart of man, the things which you have prepared for those who love you. Lord, we do love you. We do trust you. We pray, Lord God, that you would help us be more heavenly minded so we can be of far more earthly use. We pray it in Jesus' name. Amen.