Turn with me to the Book of Philippians. As far as I can tell now, in my part of the conference, I would like to take up some of the figures that are used in the New Testament that explain to us what the local church is like, the local company of believers. If I use the word church or assembly interchangeably, I do it purposely. I don't think that we ought to use the word church when we're speaking only of the body of Christ and then assembly when we're speaking of the local company because it's the same word. And whatever word we use, we want to understand that it is a company of the Lord's people called out and which is a part of the sum total of the church. Now the church which is his body is composed of all believers, I believe, from the day of Pentecost on down to the return of Christ. I don't believe the church occurs in the Old Testament. I don't think there's any teaching about the church in the Old Testament. In fact, I think it was a mystery hidden in the Old Testament. We have to turn to the New Testament to find out about the church. According to the sixteenth of Matthew, the Lord Jesus said, it was a future thing at that time. He said, upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I believe that this is what the Lord is doing today. I wouldn't say that's what the Lord's people are doing. I think we're doing a lot of things for which we have no sanction, no instructions, and no promises. I remember a dear man, I got acquainted with him some years ago, and he decided that the Lord's Day had been dishonored, and it has been. So he formed an organization, and he was the founder and first and only president of it. It died when he died. The poor fellow was so set on promoting the Lord's Day, that he formed what he called the Lord's Day Alliance, incorporated. And he wanted all of the Lord's people to try to get laws enacted that nothing could be done on the Lord's Day that wasn't compatible with the Lord's Day as a Christian observes it. And I saw him just about two months before his death And he had then been working at it for twenty-five years. And he was terribly discouraged. And I said to him, well, what are you really trying to accomplish? Well, he said, I want laws passed so that no business can be done, no stores can be kept open, nothing can be done except Christian things on the Lord's day. Well, I said, how would unsave people do Christian things? Well, he said, if they get and have it, maybe they'll like it. strange ideas that he had. And the whole thing was just in order to form rules and regulations and pass laws and get things to be done to consecrate the Lord's Day. After he had told me about all this, I said, well, how are you coming along? He said, not very well. I said, well, do you think maybe you might have missed the vote? Do you think you might have? Oh, no, he said, I think it's been well worth my while. Well, I said, what have you really accomplished? Well, he said, not much of anything. Strange that we sometimes think that things are well done when nothing is done. Now, what do you believe the Lord is doing? What do you believe the Lord is doing here in this world, at this time, I believe that he is building a church. And I believe that all of us who are believers are part of that church. And I believe that any group of Christians in any given area ought to set forth by their living and examples. They ought to set forth just exactly that for which the Lord intends the whole church. I think that each individual company of believers, each local church, should be an expression of the church, which is his body. I think if it's anything less than that, it's failed. And of course we have to acknowledge the failure. I think if it's anything more than that, it's the purpose. We need to learn just exactly what the Lord is doing. Now with that big front porch, let's get to the house. Chapter three of Philippians, verse seventeen, brethren. He said that in verse thirteen, brethren. And he said it several other times, too, in this little book. We are brothers in the Lord. Perhaps we shall take that up another time. Brethren, be followers together of me, and mark them which walk so as you have us, for an example, or an example. For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things. For our conversation is in heaven. Now, you know, of course, that the word conversation means a great deal more than just talk. Talk is cheap, my father-in-law used to say, and I won't tell you the rest of it. Talk is cheap. It isn't simply that we're to talk. The Lord wants us to behave ourselves. He wants us to live in a certain way. I'm not a Greek scholar, but I've been told that this word is one from which we get our word politics, as the inference of citizenship. And we could really say our whole association, our whole manner of living, our whole aim in life, ought to be anyway, at least, in heaven itself. Our conversation is in heaven. From whence also we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. who shall change our vile body. I know people object to that. They say, well, it's our body of humiliation, but if you don't think your body is vile, you go without a bath for two weeks in August. We need to get accustomed to the things that the Lord says about us, and we don't smell too sweet, either physically or spiritually. The Lord wants us to know that there are great many changes that need to take place, and brother and sister, we badly need a change. We need a new body. I need a new body. I'm very aware of that. In the last few years, I've been much more aware of it than at any other time in my life. We need a new body. You need a new body. He shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body, or body of glory, according to the working whereby He is able even to subdue all things unto Himself." Now, they tell me that in the first century there was a Roman custom And this probably is brought out in the twenty second of Acts, as clearly as anywhere else. You might turn with me and read that portion, twenty second of Acts. There was a custom among the Roman peoples, and Rome governed the world pretty well at that time. Even Palestine was an occupied country. It was said that there was a custom at that time that any city which met qualifications could be a Roman colony, and that citizenship in that particular country or city would also be tantamount to citizenship in the Roman Empire. That a person might be a citizen of, say, Philippi, and Philippi was such a city, could be a citizen of that place, never have been in Rome at all, never even visited Rome, knew very little about Rome, and yet he would be a citizen of Rome. Each individual colony would be a little colony of Rome itself. Now, we don't want to represent Rome, but we do want to represent heaven. And that's the very simple lesson that I want to try to teach you this afternoon. How can you and I be a part of a little colony of heaven? Acts chapter twenty-two, and they arrested Paul. We won't read about that. They cried out in verse twenty-three, cast off their clothes, threw dust into the air. The chief captain commanded him to be brought into the castle, and bad that he should be examined by scourging, and he might know wherefore they cried so against him. And as they bound him with thongs, Paul said into the centurion that stood by, Is it lawful for you to scourge a man that is a Roman and uncondained? When the centurion heard that, he went and told the chief captain, saying, Take heed what thou doest, for this man is a Roman. Now, Paul had never even been to Rome. He got to Rome later. He'd never been to Rome, but he was a Roman. Then the chief captain came and said unto him, Tell me, art thou Roman? He said, Yea. And the chief captain answered, With a great son obtained I this freedom. And Paul said, But I was freeborn. Then straightway they departed from him that should have examined him. And the chief captain also was afraid, after he knew that he was a Roman, and because he had bound him. On the morrow, because he would have known the certainty, wherefore he was accused of the Jews, He loosed him from his bands and commanded the chief priests and all their counsel to appear and brought Paul down and set him before them. Roman citizenship had great value. I hope that you and I appreciate American citizenship. I'm not much of a flag waver, but I do appreciate American citizenship. I appreciate being permitted to live in a country where we have the measure of liberty that we have. And I pray God daily, and especially in the election year. I think we ought to pray earnestly that God would lead the right men to get into the right offices, not necessarily the best man. The right man isn't always the best man. God had some plans to work out in the Old Testament. under Pharaoh, under Nebuchadnezzar, under different ones. God has different ways of working with the people today. But I think we ought to pray very earnestly that we will use our American citizenship, that we will use the liberties that are given to us. We don't always use them. We have a great many benefits that we don't take advantage of at all. Roman citizenship was greatly valued. It was obtained either by birth, as the case of the Apostle Paul, which meant no doubt that his father had done something for the Roman government, and he was given citizenship, and then his children automatically became citizens when they were born. They were citizens of Rome without ever being there. Or it could be obtained, as this man had obtained it, at a great price. He had paid for citizenship. It had cost him something to get this citizenship. All of these things I should hope to bring back to your memory and lay a parallel between these two. Spiritually, you and I... as individuals have citizenship in heaven. That is, heaven is our homeland. When I was a boy, I had strange notions about the old country. I grew up in a neighborhood where practically everyone in fellowship in the group where I was, where I was saved, and where my parents went, practically everyone was from the British Isles. And they all talked about the old country. I had strange ideas about this worn-out place that was called old, and this was not called new. And then I thought, well, isn't it strange that people want to always go back to the old country? And they want to go back and see the old country. And I didn't realize that what really attached them and attracted them to this place was... But they were still citizens of the old country. They still belonged to that country. Most of them were born there, and they felt that this is really home. Where's your home? Well, I feel sorry for you if the only home you have is here on this earth. I really feel sorry for you. It isn't very much, is it? If this is the only home that you have, I feel sorry for you. But we do have a better home than this. We have a home, a homeland, and we attain that by birth, by the new birth. The Lord Jesus said, Except a man be born from above. Born from above. The new birth is not just the new of the same kind. It's a different kind of a birth. We're born from above. I belong to heaven. I've never been there. But I belong to heaven. I belong to the Lord. And most of you, under the sound of my voice this afternoon, belong to the Lord. You're His because you were born into His family. There are many other ways in which we're his. We're his by purchase. We're told in First Corinthians six, you're not your own. You're bought with a price. You really belong to the Lord because he bought you. He paid too much for you, too. I don't mind telling you that. You'll never be able to earn your salt. You'll never be worth your keep. The Lord paid too much for you, but he loved you. He loved me, and he wanted us. And he purchases us with the blood of his own. That a marvelous price to pay? I only have two boys of my own. My wife and I raised five hundred others with the help of a good staff at the children's home, but I only have two boys of my own. And I couldn't give either one of them. for the best man who ever lived, or for all the men who ever lived. I couldn't find it in my heart to give them up, to purchase others, and certainly not my enemies. But God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, and whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. you'll be thanking him for all eternity for this, brother and sister. He purchased us at such a cost. The Lord Jesus laid down his life for us. We're told not only that he loved the church and gave himself for us, but the Apostle Paul said in Galatians two twenty, the Son of God loved me and gave himself for me. So we have been purchased to be members of the citizenship of heaven. When Second Corinthians chapter five, the Lord tells us that we have a ministry now, you might just turn to that, we have a ministry, every Christian participates in this, it is a ministry of reconciliation. That is, you and I have the responsibility of telling people, that the Lord Jesus Christ was a propitiation for our sins. Two things go together. Propitiation is Godward, reconciliation is manward. They should always be thought of together. Because the Lord Jesus suffered and died in our place, God is propitiated. That doesn't mean that he's appeased. I know the Webster Dictionary says that, and I know that the ancient Greeks thought that their gods had to be appeased, but propitiation is still another thing. Propitiation simply means that God is able now to righteously do what he wanted to do all the way along. He wanted to bring us to himself. He wanted to bring us into his family. He wanted to make us his own. And the Lord Jesus, by his suffering, has propitiated God. Now, on the basis of that propitiation, God can reach down the human beings and bring this to himself in reconciliation. Now, I know that there's a hymn, but it's not scriptural. If anybody gets his theology from hymn books, he's going to be pretty badly fouled up. Most of our hymns are... The Dutchman said they just couldn't be wronger. Most of our hymns are not very good theology at all. And when you read in a hymn, God and sinners reconcile, just mark it off. It isn't so. God is not reconciled to anything or anyone. It doesn't need to be. God is right. We're wrong. We're the ones that need to be reconciled to Him. And that's why he says in Second Corinthians, the fifth chapter, In verse eighteen, all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation, or the service of telling others that they can come to God, to be reconciled to him, to wit that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing the trespasses unto them, and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation. Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ. As though God did deceit you by us, we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God. For he have made him to be sinned for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. We have the ministry of reconciliation. We are ambassadors. I was passing through a town and looked up at a church building. I don't know anything more than this that I'm telling you, but I just looked up at the sign as I went around the corner and it said, Join the ambassadors for Christ. Now, I don't know what in the world they had in mind, but I can tell you you couldn't do that. You couldn't join the ambassadors for Christ. We are ambassadors of Christ. Every believer is an ambassador of the Lord Jesus Christ. And if you're not a believer, you couldn't join. There's no such thing as joining ambassadorship. I often thought that it would be rather a nice thing to be appointed by a president to be an ambassador to some country. This is sort of a job for old men that are retired, more or less. And I just don't have any hope for that at all. In fact, the last three presidents that came through Colorado Springs didn't even call me up. I'm sure they're not about to give me any ambassadorship, but I often thought it would be a kind of a nice thing, you know, to be a representative of your country. And there are a lot of fringe benefits as well. Well, I have an ambassadorship, and so have you, brother and sister. We are ambassadors for Christ. We represent the Lord. We represent him in the foreign country. The world is a foreign country. Heaven is our home. We are here as strangers and pilgrims. I know we don't act much like it, but that's what we are. You know the difference, don't you, between a pilgrim and a tramp. A pilgrim is going someplace. And you and I are going someplace. We're headed for home. We're on a circuit, but we're headed for home. We're here as ambassadors for the Lord. One of these days he's going to recall us. It may be that he'll have to recall us because we have been mistreated. Many ambassadors have been recalled for this purpose, for this reason. It may be that he'll have to recall us simply because we've outlived our usefulness. Or maybe, perished the thought, he would have to recall us because we've been unfaithful to him in this present time. But we are ambassadors for the Lord Jesus, and we have a ministry of reconciliation. Now, let's think a little bit about some of the things that a colony of heaven, or a colony of Rome, for that matter, might want to do. A little colony of Rome would be controlled by the Roman laws, much more than by the local laws. The children's home, with which I have been connected for forty years, has had some real problems because we not only have, we have to be subject to many of the local laws, but we have to be subject to state laws and federal laws. When we first began the home, forty years ago, we didn't have to give an account to anybody at all. I went to the local authorities and asked if I couldn't have some kind of a paper just to protect me because I was taking children into our own home and I wanted to have some protection. They said, well, you don't need anything. Well, I said, I want it for my own benefit. And so they wrote out a little letter saying that I was doing this work with their blessing and so on. It wasn't very much. But they made up for that in the meantime. I was talking to the young man who is now superintendent or director of the home, and he said, the last time I went over this thing, we were making reports and making them in quadruplet, too, by the way, to sixteen different agencies. And three of those were fire departments. And they couldn't agree on what they wanted to do to make it safe for the children in the home. There was the local fire department. There was the city. We're outside of the city limits. And then there was a state industrial commission. And this controlled fire prevention. We're even under the water pollution board. Don't ask me why, but then I guess in case we happen to walk in some muddy water. Now you have to be subject to all kinds of rules and regulations. But I'll tell you one thing, we always take the top one. If there's a federal law, we say, well, we're going to meet their requirements, and then that'll be sure to meet the state, and if the state, we meet the state, then that'll be sure to meet the local ones. We go to the top. We take the most strict. Now, you and I ought to be subject to the laws that be here in our country. We ought to be subject to authority, as long as we can be subject to the Lord Himself. But we ought to obey God rather than man. If there's a choice, if we have to make a choice, then we must obey God and go to jail for it. And let me vaccinate you against this, because it just could happen right here. very easily. It could happen right here in the United States. Our nation and many of its authorities are not that kind and not that willing to help us at all as Christians. But now we are to be subject to the laws that are above all other laws. A citizen of Rome should be subject to Rome the laws of Rome, the rules and regulations of Rome, and then Philippi secondarily. But then there's another thing we need to think about, not simply the laws, but the customs. You and I are really much more subject to customs than we are to laws. Many of the laws we don't have any choice about. We say, well, it's either that or pay the penalty. But custom is something else. What customs are you subject to? Many Christians feel that we ought to be subject to the customs around us. Somebody said when you're in Rome, use Roman candles. Well, that isn't exactly a quote, but that's the general idea that people have, that they're supposed to be subject to all these various things that are around you. Oh, no. Let's go back beyond that. Let's go back to the customs of heaven. Now turn the table with the rest of this message is on the other side. But custom is something else. What customs are you subject to? Many Christians feel that we ought to be subject to the customs around us. Somebody said when you're in Rome, use Roman candles. Well, that isn't exactly a quote, but that's the general idea that people have, that they're supposed to be subject to all these various things that are around you. Oh, no. Let's go back beyond that. Let's go back to the customs of heaven. You remember... The Apostle Paul said, somebody objected to something he said, and he said, We have no such custom, neither the churches of God. We are not bound by the customs of this world. We ought to be bound by the customs of heaven. What is it customary to do in heaven, far differently from what is done on earth? And if we're part of that citizenship, we will be willing and glad to obey the customs of heaven, adapt to them. fit in with them, live under them, show by our behavior and our actions that we are citizens of that country. Could people really tell now, could they tell in your behavior, in your life, could they really tell that you are a citizen of another country? And then we ought to be speaking the language The Roman soldiers learned the coiny Greek, and they also learned a language which later developed into a kind of Latin language. There were a number of languages spoken in the first century, but Roman citizens had to see to it that they understood whatever language was blessed at that particular time by Rome. Do you speak the language of heaven? I heard a man speak. Don't ask me his name. I wouldn't tell you. But I heard a man speak. And the minute he started out, I knew that he was thoroughly familiar with the culture of our day. I knew that he was familiar with the literature of our day. I knew that he was familiar with the teaching in school, the things that were taught, the disciplines in school. I knew that he was familiar with those. He quoted two verses in speaking about twenty minutes, and he misquoted both of them. I'm not setting a judgment on that man. When I've told you what I've told you, you know exactly what was wrong with that man. That man spoke the language of this world, and he did not speak the language of heaven. He was not familiar with the Scriptures. He was familiar with everything else under the sun. Young people, when you get married, please do something. about defining your home as a Christian home. Put some gospel text on your wall. A Christian forty or fifty years ago wouldn't have been caught dead in such a place, in a home without any scripture text, without anything to mark them off as being Christian. I realize there are other ways of marking it off, but are you ashamed of the Word of God? Don't you want scripture texts on your walls? Don't you want to think about the language of heaven? There was a dear old man passed away. I had the privilege of preaching his funeral out in Colorado. C.W. Wilson. He was a Kansan. He grew up at Concordia, Kansas. I got acquainted with him before I was married, and that's forty-five years ago. And that man, though he was nearly blind, he had never had real eyesight, even though that man was nearly blind, he had read the Scriptures and memorized the Scriptures until when he prayed, it was just almost a stringing together of Scriptures. He could express almost anything to the Lord in the words of Scripture. He didn't need much of anything else. And I felt it was a real honor to speak at that man's funeral. And I hope that I used a number of scriptures that made people think of him because he was constantly, constantly reverting to the scriptures. Do you speak the language of heaven? There are a lot of Christians today that are guilty of what has been called mixed or minced oaths. They wouldn't swear. They wouldn't curse and damn things, but they would use the word darn, which is just a cheap way of saying damn. They wouldn't use the name for that awful place of punishment, hell. But they would use the word heck. They start to say the word, and then they chop it off and put something else to it. And their minstos indicate that they would like to swear, but they don't dare. Do you have your language strung full of that kind of thing? I know these are practical things, but let's get down to business. We live here as representatives of heaven. How well do we represent heaven? Not very well. We represent this world. and not the Lord. If someone was a Roman citizen, he learned the songs of Rome. We're citizens of heaven. What are your songs? I don't say that they all have to be the same tunes. Many years ago it was considered really very awful, very unspiritual. to sing a hymn to Walt's time, two, three times. Now half of our hymns, nearly in our hymn books, are in two, three times. It's gained respectability. Some who are older just can't take some of the modern music that the young people are singing. That doesn't bother me in the least. It's the words that bother me. I don't care what you sing it to. Maybe it's because I'm not very musically minded. I don't care what tune you sing it to, but for goodness sake, sing the truth. And don't sing a hypocritical lie. Don't sing something that isn't real. Don't sing something that has no real meaning to it. When you sing, sing the songs of heaven. Exalt the Lord Jesus. Give him first place. Sing about heaven. Sing about homes. Sing about the coming of the Lord. Is the coming of the Lord real to you? Do you really expect Him to come? I said this a night or two ago at Tulsa. Brothers and sisters, do you really expect the Lord Jesus to come? Well, I can tell if you expect the Lord to come. I can tell if I expect the Lord to come. If I really expect the Lord to come, I'm going to let loose of many of the things here on this earth. I'm going to take a different view of things than if I was trying to accumulate everything in the world I can and get it all around myself so that I can live here for the next hundred years. You really expect the Lord to come? Sing about it. It's a great theme for Christians. We ought to be singing the songs of heaven. You know, Solomon wrote many songs. only one of which got into print. That'd be very discouraging, wouldn't it? If you wrote all the hymns, all the songs, and only one of them got published, you'd say, well, I'm not very successful as a hymn writer. But I think Solomon was, aren't you? Because the one hymn, the one song that got published, was the song of songs. The song of songs which is Solomon's. It's a song about the Lord Jesus and His people. And that's true music. And then if we really are citizens of a new country, really citizens of heaven, then we're going to honor and own the King of heaven and the Lord of heaven. Now the Lord Jesus is not our King. I know some of our hymns say that. He's not our King. Many years ago, the daughter of the King of England, who was getting into her early teens, said to her parents that she would like to see her father go through the streets of London in the state coach. She had always been in the coach. She never got to see it, and she wanted to really see the parade. And so her nanny, her teacher, took her down. and got a good location at one of the corners. And then they saw all of the excitement, you know, of the king coming down in the state coach. And she was so overcome with the excitement that she broke away from the old lady who was looking after and ran out to the coach. When she got almost to the coach, in which her father and mother were riding, a soldier stepped up with a spear and stopped her. And he said, little girl, you can't go there. That's your king. And she looked at him and she said, Maybe it's your king, but it's my father. Now, the Lord is not our king. He is our lover and friend, our bridegroom. He is our Lord and worship thou him. He ought to have the place of lordship, but not kingship. We're going to sit on the throne with him, not be subjects of him. That's not hair splitting. We ought to get things straight. We ought to know that this is exactly what's ahead in the coming days. Regardless of all the hymns about the king, you and I are not looking for the king to come back. We're looking for the king to come back, but not for us, not to reign over us. We are looking for the Lord. The coming of the Lord draws near. Is he your Lord? Is he your Lord? Does real lordship belong to him. And do you accord that to him? Do you give it to him? Do you put him in that place? Do you say, Lord Jesus, I want thy will in my life? This is what it means to really live as a citizen of heaven. It doesn't mean that we're oddities. It doesn't mean that we're... interested, disinterested in other people. Doesn't mean that we're proud of this. I can't look down upon any of the other people here in Wichita and say, I belong to heaven. You don't. I can't do that. But it does mean that my heart is attached there. And when everything else is laid aside, I can go back and thought to heaven. I can close my eyes and be it in the nineteen twenty six Woodburn Street quicker than you could say it. Because that's home. That's where my wife is. I'd like for it to have been with me, but she couldn't. That's home. And I can just close my eyes and be there. And when my eyes are closed, that's usually where I do go in thought. I want to be there. I'll be glad that Monday afternoon I can take a plane and arrive there. Is this the way you feel about the Lord Jesus? Do you really want to go to heaven? See, loving His appearing, according to Second Timothy chapter four, is more than just saying, I believe the Lord is coming back. So love is appearing means that we want nothing else more. We want nothing else more than for the Lord to come. What do you really want? What do you say I'd like to make a success? Well, put that in quotes, because nobody knows really what success is anyway. You'd like to be a success, would you? What do you say I'd like to be happy? Put that in quotes, too, because happiness is something that's connected with happenings. What do you really want? Do you really want him? Do you want to see him? Do you want to be with him? That's what's really worthwhile. Now, just let me add a little practical note to this. You know, in the book of Judges, you have sixteen chapters that have to do with the kingdom, the nation. And it was one awful conglomeration. The nation of Israel was in terrible shape. The history of the judges was just a history of failure and difficulties and problems. But after sixteen chapters of telling you what it's like in the nation, then God takes the lid off of it and he said, Now I want to show you in the last five chapters what it's like inside of the family. Because the state of the nation as a result of the state of the family. The local church, the local assembly of believers is exactly what is composed of all families, all homes, all groups within that assembly. How do you live in your own home? parents, let me talk to you first of all. I can't brag about my parenthood. I feel very badly about some that I've had responsibility for. Have you really tried to bring up your family in the nurture and admonition of the Lord? Have you really tried to bring Christ before them? Have you really tried to live Christ before them? And if you have, is there some response? Is there some desire on their part that your home should be a little colony of heaven? Because if the home is not what it ought to be, then the assembly will not be what it ought to be. And the whole community will not be what it ought to be. You and I need to live in such a way with our families. But let me say a word to the young people. Young people, you have a tremendous responsibility. Dad and mother can't do it all. All right, what are you doing to make your home to be a little colony of heaven? And all of you who are members of a local assembly of believers all of you who are in fellowship with other Christians in a certain community, what about you? What are you doing to make your company of believers, the assembly with which you're associated, to be a little colony of heaven? I hope that I've stirred up some real difficulties in your mind. I hope that I have made you to be a little uneasy. I hope that I have made you to feel. It's no wonder the conditions are in the local assembly what they are when the conditions are what they are in my own family. It's no wonder that my children have ambitions to go out into the world and to accumulate things when I have spent so much time like this. A man said to me not long ago, he said, I just don't understand my children. I just can't figure it out. He said, I've tried to teach them that these things are not worthwhile. There's wrong for them to reach out and to try to get a whole lot of things here on this earth. And I was cursed with a Dutch nature, and I just simply don't hold things in very well. I said to him, why would you expect them to believe you? Why would you expect them to believe you? You have spent your whole lifetime accumulating. You live in a hundred thousand dollar home. You have three of the biggest cars sitting in your driveway and there's only two people in your family. They've got three cars in case one gets pinned in. They've got another one with the curb to use it, I guess. I don't know why else. Three of the biggest cars that you can get. Why is it that you want your young people to pay no attention to these things, and just live for spiritual things. You've already made it. You've already got it. And now they've got a chance to get it. They're coming along in the same business behind Dad, and they want it to. Brothers and sisters, we ought not to be hypocritical. We ought to say that we are not looking for the Lord from heaven if we're not. We ought to say that we're not citizens. of a little colony of heaven, if we're not. But if we are, then let's live it. Let's show to those around us that we really belong to another world, and that we are here only as ambassadors for the Lord Jesus Christ.