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For those of you who don't know who I am, I am Lee Brainard. I am a independent Bible teacher and a prophecy teacher, independent researcher. We live in Drumright, Oklahoma. But we are going to talk here today on our infinite inheritance. The reason I love to talk about this subject is I think many believers, when they think about heaven eternal state, they're not really sure what's going to be up there. They have a suspicion it's not going to be any. Bear any analogy or relationship to what we have down here on planet Earth. And they kind of think we're to be somewhere between ghosts and angels and it's going to be kind of boring. Now, it'll definitely going to be better than going to hell, but it'll be boring kind of. And then we feel guilty because, well, how can it be boring being in the presence of the living God? So some people have this struggle. I remember as a young believer reading a passage in Revelation, I was just a couple of years old in the Lord, I'm still in the 2nd Range Battalion. And this thought comes in my mind. I'm reading the Bible, you shall be pillar in the house of God. You shall never go in or never go out. And I'm thinking, oh my. I'm just going to stand there like a pillar. And I just. My heart was sinking. And then I rebuke that evil spirit in the name of Jesus. And I said, listen, I probably don't understand something here, but I know whatever's up there is going to be great. And it's. As I studied the Scriptures, it is proven to be great. Now what we have is the infinite inheritance is. Are my slides are not really showing. Showing up all the way, are they? No, they're kind of messed up. So I'm sorry. Let's see what we're getting the worst. We're getting the most of it. So the internal inheritance is supposed to be a powerful motivation. We're supposed to be laying up treasure in heaven. Matthew 6:19 through 21 should be something in heaven. That's treasure supposed to glory in the glory that shall be revealed to us in Romans chapter 8:18. And we have a living hope, an inheritance that's going to be incorruptible, undefiled and unfading. So the Lord is laying these motivations before us. He wants them to excite us, to fill us with desire to continue to fight the battle. He wants us to be motivated for eternity and not motivated to lay up treasure down here on earth. And this is the way it's designed that God has designed the message of heaven he put in the Bible so that it appeals to the human heart as a human. And this is so contrary to the message I hear Calvinists say all the time, and sometimes Armenians. Everything we do, we should do for the glory of God. If you're, if you're doing anything so that you can earn a reward, you're a carnal dog. And if you're doing anything so that you can actually have eternal life, you're a carnal dog. You're supposed to do everything for the glory of God and not for yourself. And in my mind, you should not contrast those two things because the same Bible that says do everything the glory of God also commands you to lay up treasure in heaven. And God cannot speak out of both sides of his mouth. These two things fit together perfectly. So there's two common mistakes that undermine this appeal to glory. The first one is people appeal to the theory of unknowability. They say, we just can't know, brother. We can have. The Bible doesn't give us any clues. So all you can do is speculate with empty human speculation. And another one that undermines it, it says, is the theory of 24, 7, 365 formal worship. Your only job in glory is going to be to stand around the throne of the Father 24:7, 365. You will never turn around, look at the stars. You will never, ever have another drink at coffee. All you're going to do is formal worship. So let's look at these points. Let's start with the theory of unknowability. And I got to move the slides on my computer as well as. There we go. The theory of unknowability says that whatever heaven is going to be, it's hid behind these locked doors, it's hid behind revelation, it's not revealed in revelation, and you're just going to have to wait and see. But whatever it is, it probably doesn't bear any likeness to what you have down here. It doesn't bear any likeness to the creation that we live in right now. It doesn't bear any likeness to the universe that we're in. Is. They use this theological word called other. If you hear theologians starting to talk about other run when they start talking about the eternal state and the spiritual state and it's other. And it bears no analogy to this life. These guys have no idea what they're talking about. But these people say there's nothing revealed. We can only speculate. The only thing that we, that these men are certain of is it's not going to bear any relationship to this creation. I think it's a big mistake. How about the theory of 247 formal worship? There's no activity, according to this understanding, in heaven, but formal worship. Around the throne, around the clock, 24 7, 365. Every believer will spend every minute of every day of every year for all of eternity. Informal worship. That's it. You'll never engage in human activity after the Rapture. You will never again drink a coffee with a friend in a coffee shop. You will never go on a hike. You'll never look at the sunrise. You'll never walk with your bare feet on a sandy beach. You, you will never watch the sunrise again because you'll be engaged in 247 formal worship. And you're done with carnal things. Now, personally, I think this is a mistake. When God created this universe, he did not say, this is carnal and it's temporary. What did he say? He said it is good fact. He said it's very good. Even the way he made man, when he knew that man was going to fall into sin and he knew that most of the human beings were going to rebel against God and go serve the devil. Despite that, he still said the way he made creation and the way he made man was very good. Now, why would he say that, knowing that most men were going to fall? Because the only way to get people who supremely love the Lord Jesus Christ with all of their heart and soul and might, and who really worship God, who really honor God, who really respect God, is to make creatures with the free will who are very susceptible to sin, but they're also very susceptible to the promptings of the word of God, to the promptings of the Holy Spirit, and to the promptings of the glorious promises of God. Promises made by the best man in the universe. Now, the way that most people look about at heaven reminds me of Klaus Schwab. There will be nothing physical to own, nothing physical to handle, nothing physical to engage in. And you will be happy. I personally think this teaching is a satanic effort to undermine the goodness and the glory of God, to undermine the wildness of heaven. Heaven is going to be so amazing that you, every day that you walk the streets of glory, every day that you do whatever you're going to do in heaven, whether formal worship or informal worship, and we'll go into the distinction in a little while, you will have fresh wow. You will always be filled with wow, the same kind of wow that you get Right now and you see an amazing sunrise, say, wow, God, you are so amazing. The same kind of wow you get when you hear a bird singing in your backyard and you say, God, you are so amazing. The same kind of wow you get when you see the Grand Canyon for the first time, you go, wow, God, you are amazing. The same way when you see Mount Rainier or some other glorious mountain for the first time, you say, God, you are so filled with wow. You are so amazing. This is our experience for all of eternity. So that every time we go before the throne for formal worship in eternity, and you will come to the throne with fresh wow. You will never be bored in heaven. Now, this theory of unknowability is problematic. It's a dogma. Excuse me. It's a dogma from the dark side. It's a dogma that comes from Gnosticism, Platonism, and the Roman Catholic Church. And they say heaven is other. It's. It's beyond our ability to understand. It's different than what we have down here. Completely different. This is all Gnosticism. Now let's look at some of the. The theological proof for unknowability. This is where they go first. Corinthians 2, 9. It says, it is written the I has not seen nor the ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love him. Now, I believe this statement. I believe it absolutely. It is the written word of God. It's the truth of God. But I think people draw false conclusions from here. People say, see, we can't have any idea what heaven is going to be like. Absolutely no idea. The Bible says your eye has not seen it, your ear is not heard about it. It's never entered in the heart of man. So we just have absolutely nothing to go on. And I say, have you guys ever read the next verse? But God has revealed them to us through the Spirit. I love this. God has revealed them to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. Now how did he reveal it? Did somebody go and fast for 40 days, do a prophet's fast and they're up on top of a mountain and they get this glorious revelation and they write a book and it's a New York Times bestseller. No. Hundreds of hints in the Bible on what the eternal state will be like. Hundreds of them. And we just have to trust every one of those hints. They come in about 100 different passages. All these hundreds of hints. Let me point this out. The Bible is filled with snapshots and hints of what the glorious eternal state's going to be like. We simply need to trust the plain statements of Scripture with childlike faith. Take approach what the Bible says about having the eternal state with the same interest that we approach when we study Bible prophecy. We, when we study salvation by faith alone. When we study out any solid doctrine that we believe we approach with the same childlike faith. We just gather up all the clues. You ever seen one of these movies where the hero was trying to solve a crime or trying to solve a mystery? He's got this wall of cork boards and there's pictures and maps and charts and thoughts and they're all over the place and he's connecting the dots. Folks. This is what you do with everything in the Bible on the doctrine of heaven. Solve the mystery of heaven until it's no longer a mystery of heaven. And by the way, when we talk about heaven, there's two senses and we use them interchangeably. We often don't think about it clearly. Heaven technically is the city of New Jerusalem. That's the dwelling place of the Father. That's where we're going to go at the Rapture. We're going to spend seven plus years there and then we're going to come down with the Lord Jesus at the second coming. But we also talk about heaven in a more general sense, which is the infinite eternal inheritance. The new heavens and the new earth, I think both are legit. And the fact of the matter is at the end of the thousand years, the New Jerusalem, heaven is going to come down to earth. And for all practical purposes, heaven will be on earth for all of eternity. That is going to be an amazing day. So let's go back to this theory of 247 formal worship. It reminds me of a 10 of sardines. Everyone gets three square feet. That's it, about 20 inches by 20 inches. That's all you get. That's the limit of your inheritance. But actually, I don't believe this is correct. I think this is false. I think it's to be rejected. I think everything that comes out of the Gnostic camp, everything that comes out of the Platonic camp, everything comes out of the Roman Catholic Church and everything comes out of the perverted theology of Geneva. I think we need to reject it. What's missing here, it's the sonship of the believer. This is one of the least understood doctrines in the Bible. If you understand the sonship of the believer, it will revolutionize your understanding of what God has for us. Now and in the future. So let's move on. The sonship of the believer. Galatians 4:17. I love this. You are no more a servant, but a son. And if a son than an heir of God through Christ. There's a servanthood element to Christianity, but the sonship transcends the servanthood. We're not servants for eternity. We're sons for eternity. Psalm 16:11 says, at your right hand are pleasures forevermore. At the right hand. If. If we were in front of the th throne for formal worship for all of eternity, the Scriptures would say, in front of the throne are your servant pleasures forevermore. Right, With a little asterisk, a little footnote. It doesn't say that says at your right hand. The right hand is the place of the sonship. The air, royalty, privilege. We also read a Revelation 3:21. To him who overcomes, I will grant with him to sit on my throne, as I also overcame and sat with my father on his throne. We're with Christ on his throne. Now we can add to this sonship some other beautiful elements that speak of intimate relationship. The bride of Christ. Ephesians 5, Revelation 19:2nd Corinthians 11:2. The bride of Christ. The bride's not a servant. This destroys a few marriages from time to time. Does it? When the husband thinks his bride is a servant. No, bride's a partner. They serve each other. They encourage each other, they build each other up. And we're also the body of Christ. First Corinthians 12 and Ephesians 5:23. The body of Christ is not going to be serving the head of Christ. That's a stupid idea. The body of Christ is part of the Son. This is the whole mystery in Revelation 12, isn't it? With the man child, where the head has already gone up in. In the resurrection, and the body's going to join him in the near future and there will be one new man in glory. The sun, the fullness of the Son. So let's look at what's going on here. I'm going to take you in the next half hour where probably no teacher has ever taken you before. And I'm going to enjoy this. Maybe a few of you have thought this way before, but usually when I teach this subject, people have never had their mind blown the way I intend to blow your mind. Because what's going to happen here is when you follow the clues in the Bible to their glorious conclusion, you just go from clue to clue to clue. You're going to find an amazing treasure. You're going to be in wide eyed amazement and it's going to make the treasure of national treasure look like finding a tarnished penny on the sidewalk. It's going to make smog the dragon's cave filled of treasure look like finding a tarnished nickel on the sidewalk. So let's start following these clues. Creation without a purpose. Is there such a thing? If our only job at eternity is 247365 formal worship then what in the world is the purpose of the new Jerusalem if we're all going to be packed in like sardines 247365 around the throne Informal worship. We're never going to turn around and look at anything else. We're never going to do anything else. Then why do we need a new Jerusalem? Why do we need the streets of gold? Why do we need that amazing park with the river of living water and a Tree who has 12 different fruits, one every month? We're never going to pick one. We're never going to eat one. We're never going to swim in the river. We're never ever going to again. Going to walk on a sandy beach with the sand between our toes. We're never going to watch a sunrise again. What's the purpose of the new Jerusalem? We only need a few square miles to pack everyone in a few cubic miles. And what is the purpose of the new heavens and the earth? You'll never turn around, look at the stars, much less go visit them. So what's their purpose? And what's the purpose of the resurrection body if it's only 247 formal worship around the throne? You don't need a resurrection body. You're never going to hand handle a cup of coffee again. You're never going to eat a hamburger or a steak again. You're never going to use your hands to play a violin or a guitar again. Why in the world would we need a resurrection body? Folks, I think this really comes down to the doctrine of the economy of God. God never does anything. He never makes anything that does not have an eternal purpose. Here's another point that a lot of people miss in the Resurrection. You will not cease to be a human being. Nothing in the Bible states necessitates or implies that you will change to something less than or different than a human being. Everything in the Bible says you'll be a glorified human being. You can be more than you are. You can't be less than you are now. Jesus was still a human being in his resurrection body. That's the message of the upper room, right? It's also the message of the shore lunch. He looked and he handled like a human being. He literally had flesh and bones. And he ate a shore lunch of fish and bread. In John chapter six, his lowly body was transformed to a glorious body, Philippians 3:21. And our lowly bodies are going to be transformed as his glorious body to the likeness of it. We also read in First Corinthians 15:44 that our soul ish body is going to be transformed into a spiritual body. Now, this passage confuses a lot of people because in 1st Corinthians 15, some people read this like we're going to go from a physical body to a non physical body. But that's not what it's saying. We're changed from a soulless body, a physical, tangible, touchable body that's first and foremost connected to the soul. The soul is a seat of your desires, your tastes, your interests, your preference. That's why you like Pepsi better than Coke or Coke better than Pepsi. It's why you prefer coffee or why you prefer tea, why you like bass fishing better or trout fishing better. It's why you like sports cars better or motorcycles better. This is all in your soul. But in the resurrection, our body is going to be moved from being a soulless body to a spiritual body. The first connection, the immediate connection, is going to be the body connected to the spirit. This is going to completely undo the sin nature. Your sin nature is in the soul. It's your sin nature is when you're desiring things you should not desire and you don't have the power to to overcome those desires. The fact of the matter is, if you did not have an indwelling Holy Spirit sealed in you until the resurrection, you would not have the ability to have power over temptation. You could not walk a victorious Christian life. All of your good efforts and ambitions would continually fall in their face. We struggle enough as it is, right? But with the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit, we can have consistent victory. And there's enough failure there to keep us all humble, to keep us plugged into the Lord Jesus. Now we're also going to have the same soul in eternity that we have right now. The only difference is our soul's going to be purged of sinful desires. What a blessing. This is math. People misunderstand these passages. Matthew 16:25 says, if you save your life, you'll lose it. Now, this is not the word for life. It's actually the word for soul. If you save your soul, you will lose it. If you lose your soul, for Jesus sake, you'll find it. Mark 8:35 says a similar thing. If you save your soul, you lose it. If you lose your soul, for Jesus sake, you save it. Luke 17:33 says the same thing. If you save your soul, you're going to lose it. If you lose your soul, you preserve it. In John 12:25 says, if you love your life or your soul, you're going to lose it. If you hate your life, you hate your soul in this world, you're going to keep it under life eternal. So what he's saying here we all have a soul. What is the temptation every human being has to live for what our soul wants right now in this world? On the earthly level, on the worldly level, this world holds out all kinds of fun and treasures and pleasures and rewards and careers and everything that it holds out to us. But chasing these desires is like chasing soap bubbles. Soap bubbles are hard to catch and impossible to keep, but chasing the treasures and pleasures of heaven, they're easy to catch and and impossible to lose. So what the Lord is saying, take your soul and decide. I am not going to live for fulfillment of the pleasures and treasures that are earthly and worldly and sinful and ungodly. I'm going to take my life down here, my soul down here, and I'm going to live the battlefield life for Jesus. I'm not going to live the playground life and put a Jesus bumper sticker on. I'm going to live the battlefield life and have heaven's approval. And when we do this, the Lord says, if you give me your soul to live a battlefield life down here, I'm going to give you your soul back in the glorious utopia of eternity, where we have an infinite utopia with infinite time, infinite energy, infinite resources, and infinite opportunity given to us by an infinite God on an infinite throne. What a glory that's going to be. So we go from a situation where we can strive and strive, and we probably are not going to lay hold of our dreams down here. And if we lay hold of them, we cannot keep them, they fall through our fingers and we lay hold of something in heaven in an infinite utopia where it's so amazing it'll blow your mind. It's going to blow your mind 100 times more when you get there than just thinking about it right now. If you didn't have a resurrection body, you would just go into meltdown. It's an infinite reward, folks. Infinite. Psalm83 6 is an amazing passage and I'll just read a portion of it when I consider the heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you have ordained. What is man that you are mindful of him and the Son of Man that you visit him for. You have made him a little lower than the angels and have crowned him with glory and honor. You made him to have dominion over the works of your hands. You put all things under his feet. So this, this is first and foremost looking at the man Jesus Christ. But everything that applies to him applies to all of his co heirs. I want you to think about this. You made man to have dominion over the works of your hands. I believe that God in. When we get to. I don't know if it's going to start before the millennium or after the end of the millennium, but he is going to take that creation mandate given to Adam and Eve in the garden to subdue the earth and he's going to expand it to the entire infinite universe. Can you imagine that? Every. I mean there's millions and billions and trillions of galaxies and galaxy clusters. The whole thing is given to the children of God. You will have dominion over the works of his hands. Now this is also amazing. There is a glorified man in heaven. We think about Jesus, we keep thinking about God. But when Jesus took on humanity, he didn't take it on just temporarily for the cross. He took on humanity for eternity. There is a glorified man in heaven. So that when you pray to heaven, you're praying to a man who understands you, who feels you, who knows your weakness. The great High Priest. What a blessing this is. There is a human being now in glory on the Father's throne. There is a human being who's going to come down in glory and take the throne of this earth. A human being is going to rule over the entirety of creation. A human being. And you are his bride. You are his co heirs. You are as co regents. I want you to try and enter into this amazing privilege that we've entered into. Because once you enter into this man, it helps the battle go much easier once you understand what an amazing infinite inheritance and reward we have coming. Oh man. You can endure anything that happens in your foxhole. It won't matter how bad your C rations are. It won't matter how wet your sleeping bag gets. It won't matter that you run out of ammo and your feet are rotting right in the battlefield. You got a glorious eternity coming. We're going to be above the angels in the resurrection. We are going to be co heirs with the Lord. Here's another amazing passage. First Corinthians 15, 47, 49. The first man, Adam is of the earth. The second man, Jesus is the Lord from heaven. As the earthly man, so those that are earthly and as the heavenly man, so also those that are heavenly. And as we have borne the image of the heavenly, so also we shall bear the image of the heavenly. Excuse me. As we have borne the image of the earthly, so we also shall bear the image of the heavenly. Now this passage has long been glossed by the allegorizers in the Catholic church and amongst the Protestants. And they get it from course the Gnostics and the Platonics. So a gloss is an official interpretation of a passage that people accept. And so sometimes you read the Bible, you don't really read the Bible, you're reading the gloss. And when you do that, you lose part of the Bible. Now the allegorizers here, when they treat this passage, they say that there's a distinction between carnal and spiritual. That's what they're saying folks. This passage is not talking about the distinction between carnal and spiritual. It's talking about the difference between earthly and heavenly. It's not the same thing. Right now we're earthly. We are made out of the dust of the earth. We have to have oxygen and water or we cannot survive. We're made out of the earthly stuff, just like Adam. But we're going to in the new birth. We're made after the heavenly man. We're made in such a way in the resurrection body when that glorious day comes. We're not limited to water and oxygen. We're not limited to earth. You could go walking on the red dust of Mars and let that red dust squeeze between your toes. You could have a grill out on Mars. Throw the corn cobs and the steaks on the grill. You're not limited. You could go anywhere in the universe you please. You could go swimming in those frozen cold methane pools on the moons of Uranus or Jupiter. You'll be able to interact with creation. You will not be limited by creation in the resurrection. We're not limited to earth, air and water. Here's another amazing passage. Revelation 21:7 says, he that overcomes shall inherit all things. Now let's do a basic 6th grade grammar lesson here. When we see the word all, does it mean some? No. When we see the word all, does it mean most? Does it mean many? What does it mean? It means all folks. Means all. He that overcomes shall inherit all things. And the context tells us how we're going to inherit all things. Remember, there's a man in glory who is the heir of all creation. And we are his co heirs. We're his co regents and we are his bride. There's no way into the son that we don't share in everything he inherits. What a blessing this is because there's a man inheriting it. We get it. This is the glories of the incarnation. But this raises a question. How can he who created the universe inherit it? Right. If he created the universe, how does he inherit it? Because he created it is the eternal infinite son of God. The word of God who spoke everything to existence. He inherits it as a human being. He's a human being forever. And with a human being as the heir, then human beings are the co heirs. As a human being as the regent, human beings are the co regions. If the human being is the bridegroom, then the human beings are the are the bride. What an amazing truth this is. There's a glorified man in heaven right now. Now, when we inherit all things, what are we going to inherit? Well, it's right here in the context verse. Verse 7 of Revelation 21 says, we're going to inherit all things. Verse 1 mentions the new heavens and the new earth. Verse 2 mentions the new Jerusalem. Verse 3 mentions God the Father dwelling with redeemed mankind on a redeemed earth. Verse 4 says, no more tears, no more death, no more sorrow, no more crying, no more pain. The former situation has passed away. Can you imagine what this is going to be like? Sometime in glorious eternity? You'll be with your friends, sitting around a campfire. Whether it's on a beach, if you're a beachy, or in the mountains, if you love the mountains in the Northwoods, if you love the north woods, in the Kalahari, in Africa. If you love the Kalahari. No matter where you are, you're going to be around a campfire and you're going to say, you know, Joe, it has been 10,000 years since I shed a tear. It's been 10,000 years since my heart was broken. It's been 10,000 Years since I was disappointed or discouraged. I can't even remember what it's like to be disappointed or discouraged. I can't remember what it's like to have a broken heart or a broken dream. Some glorious day when that trumpet blows, brokenness is gone forever. Tears are gone forever. Disappointment is gone forever. You enter into this folks, and it will revolutionize your spiritual warfare. Verse 5 adds, all things are renewed, all things are made new. In verse six, you're going to drink from the river of Life or the Fountain of Life freely. Here's one of my favorite pictures. This is a quote from Copernicus. The universe was built for us by the best and most orderly workman of all. The universe was made for us. The angels don't need it. God doesn't need it. He made it to wow mankind for all of eternity so mankind would worship him with wow for all of eternity. I get excited when I think about this. I really believe that we will inherit the entire universe. I personally, when the Lord says in scripture, in that day, you'll ask me whatsoever you will in the name of the Son, and I will give it to you. I personally intend to ask for 10 galaxy clusters. Not 10 galaxies, 10 galaxy clusters. And to some people, it's, oh, man, you're asking big. Asking God for 10 galaxy clusters is like asking Bill Gates for 2 bucks to buy a cup of McDonald's coffee. It's pocket change. This is an infinite universe, folks. It's not finite. If you travel in a straight line. In this universe, you could travel in a straight line for 100 million billion trillion years at a thousand times the speed of light. You would never come to the end of the universe. You would never come to offense that says, warning, do not go past here. There's nothing out there. You would. You would not circle back according to relativity and come right back to where you start. This is an infinite universe that declares the infinite glory of God. And in all of eternity, you will never uncover or never see the last cool thing in this universe. This is an infinite gift from an infinite God for his infinite people. Now, personally, I also think when you think of how the universe is structured, you're probably familiar with the Goldilocks Zone. The Earth is in the Goldilocks Zone for our sun. I suspect that the vast majority of the suns in our galaxy and in every galaxy have at least one planet in the Goldilocks Zone, many of them already filled with flora and fauna for the people that love outdoors and love science to have the time of their life. And I think there's some ready to go to be terraformed for those who like that kind of stuff. Anyways, let me move on. Second Corinthians 4:17, that we have a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory coming. Our light afflictions, which are butch for a moment, work for us a far more exceeding and infinite Way to glory or eternal weight of glory. Now, my brain can compute far more exceedingly. I just have to imagine, okay, 100 container ships filled with containers full of cool stuff, right? I can picture that. Now, what do you do when you put in eternal or infinite? Now, sudden you not. There's not a supercomputer on the planet that can calculate this. Can you imagine a billion billion billion trillion, trillion, trillion, quadrillion, quadrillion container ships full of glory or a billion galaxies filled with glory? You can't wrap your mind around it. This is the infinite God that we serve in the infinite reward that's being given to us. You're in. Your present sufferings are not worthy to be compared to the glory that shall be revealed to you. Now, this is interesting because we go through this life. Some people suffer some severe health maladies, right? Sometimes they only last a few years, but sometimes they go for decades their whole life. People fight discouragement and frustration their whole life. Or maybe they're in general good, but they go through five or six years of just deep, dark, tragic. And God can say, your light afflictions. And we wonder, well, how in the world can he call those light afflictions? Well, he's not saying they're light intrinsically. He's saying when you compare them to what's coming, they're light. He empathizes with us in our sorrows and tragedies, our struggles, our trials, our battles. He's with us. But I want you to start thinking of every one of these trials and battles that you face as an investment opportunity. I want you to think of them like hot stocks guaranteed to go to the moon. All right? Because they are. Every time you trust God in a trial, a tragedy, a struggle, a difficulty that you're facing the thorn in your flesh, you trust God. This is investing in an infinite inheritance opportunity that bears, pays, infinite interest and infinite dividends. You cannot lose on this. This is amazing. Your light afflictions are working for you. A far more exceeding and eternal way to glory man. Once you enter into this, it revolutionizes your spiritual warfare. I've come to the point now where in my life and I get ripped off by a contractor or something happens and things just fall apart on something that we had great plans for and you feel like, oh, then I remember, it doesn't matter. I got eternity coming. I got eternity coming. So what if the contractor ripped me off twice on my house? It doesn't matter. My mansion in heaven is impeccable. And I got 10,000 caverns on 10,000 lakes in the Rocky Mountains. It doesn't matter. And I got 10,000 cool beach cabanas on 10,000 islands. It doesn't matter. If you have human desires in your heart that are not fulfilled, that are not intrinsically wrong, I'll guarantee you they're going to get fulfilled in glories. Now, maybe this view of heaven seems hard to believe. Kind of seems like, wow, that sounds kind of like Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster. I just want to encourage you to trust the plain statements of scripture at face value on this subject. Just take him at face value. Daddy said it, I believe it. That's the end of the matter. So what's your job description in heaven? Are you going to be assigned work in heaven? Absolutely. We're getting close. Oh, the mic is down. You get these Pentecostal preachers throwing their hands around. Got to quit bringing them in. They just throw their hands everywhere. All right, we got a job description in heaven. We absolutely do. And we have a twofold job. Our primary job in heaven is going to be formal worship, but we're also going to have regular, informal worship. Now, what's the difference? Formal worship is going to be like on the Sabbath, the new moons, the feasts. We're going to be gathered around the Lord in formal worship, but the rest of the time is informal worship. It's just like you do right now when you're just spontaneously pray, spontaneously worship God, you're amazed by the goodness. I mean, when people go hunting or fishing or when they're working their wood shop, they're working their cars, they enjoy what they're doing and they worship God, right? We're going to be doing this for all of eternity. Informal worship. You'll never cease to be amazed. So formal worship, there'll be 24, 7, 365, but not every individual will be there 24, 7, 365. In Revelation 4 and 5, you have the. The 24 courses of elders, right? These elders are the heads of the 24 courses of the royal priesthood of the New Testament. Every one of us is going to be assigned to one of these 24 courses, which just like the courses of the priesthood in the Old Testament, you'll have two weeks a year when your course is involved in 24, 7, 365 worship for the Lord, right? So he's always receiving his worship. You'll also be there for the Sabbath of the new moons. However, the rest of the time you'll be engaged in informal worship, doing whatever else the Lord has assigned to you for a job and doing whatever else your heart desires to do. Here's informal worship. Ooh, that one didn't show up the way I wanted it to. Let me see if we can get this in the go. There we go. Informal worship. Now, this picture is me. I got a picture of a spaceship and a cowboy. That's my eternity, all right? And here's my business on Mars. It's called Red Planet Beans. I'm going to grow coffee beans under a big glass dome. And if anyone shows up up there, I'll give you a free cup of coffee. In fact, you can have all the coffee you want. Now, this is just my imagination running wild, but I think it's legit imagination. Here's one more. This is my backyard in glory, right? It's going to be the. My backyard is going to be a mixture of Canada and Siberia and Alaska and the Rockies and Maine and Scandinavia and Switzerland. It's going to be a glorious mixture. But your backyard will be whatever you can imagine. The Lord is not here to withhold in eternity. He's here to give. And this raises a question. What are your dreams for eternity? I encourage you to spend a few minutes every day, especially if you're in a moment of discouragement, to think about the glories of eternity. It will revolutionize your prayer life. It will revolutionize your devotional life. It will revolutionize your spiritual warfare life. It will help wean you off the temptations of this world. No man is a fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose. Jim Elliot. There we go. So folks, you have one short life to be a good soldier. And you have one long eternity to be a fulfilled human being. So enter into this, take your little life, your soul now, and enter into the battlefield life, being fulfilled as a soldier on the battlefield, and wait for eternity to be entirely fulfilled as a human being. Now you have obligations as a is a husband or a wife. You have obligations to family, you have obligations to work. You have obligations to the church. And we're not going to undermine these. But beyond those basic God given obligations, use your life for battlefield things and you will be rewarded in infinite way in eternity. Eyes wide open, brain engaged, heart and fire. And we will see you next time.