Armerding, Carl: Three Things ~ Things Man Is Aware Of

This afternoon, I invite your attention to the book of Job, chapter seventeen. If you have any difficulty in locating this book, it comes in just before the book of the Psalms. Job chapter fourteen, I should say. Job chapter fourteen and verse fourteen. If a man die, shall he live again? All the days of my appointed time will I wait till my change come. Thou shall call, and I will answer thee. Thou wilt have a desire to the work of thy hands. When I was just a lad, we lived next door to a church which had a very godly pastor, and because it was so handy, my father said that we could attend Sunday school there, services, heard the word of God. And one thing that impressed itself deeply upon my mind was a sermon I heard one Sunday afternoon, because they had afternoon services as well as morning, afternoon, and evening. The minister made this remark, that there were three things of which every normal person was aware. The first of these was that he's aware of deity. Now, somebody may say to you, but what about the atheists? My reply to that is that, so far as I know, no one is ever born an atheist. He becomes an atheist by trying to eliminate God from his thinking, but he's actually born with a, in a consciousness of deity. The second thing that our minister brought out was that he's not only conscious of deity, but he's a conscious of accountability, because it stands to reason that if God is God and I'm his creature, I must be accountable to him. This began to make me think very s- very seriously. And then he said the third thing of which men are naturally aware, and that is immortality, that is a life after this. And I found myself agreeing with these three statements, I suppose largely because I was born and brought up in a Christian home. I never knew the time when I didn't hear my parents talk about God. I never knew the time when they didn't remind me that there'd be a time when I'd have to face God. I never knew the time when I was made to doubt that there was anything like a life after this. As I look into the word of God, I find that this was the case with these men whose lives are recorded here for us. And this is certainly the case with this man Job. As we read in those two verses, he raises the question, says, if a man die, shall he live again? And then he answers his own question by saying this, all the days of my life, my appointed time, will I wait till my change come. In other words, he didn't look upon this present state of this present life as being a permanent thing. And I take it that most men are aware of that fact, that you're not here for always. Some have lived longer than others, and but, uh, the time comes when they answer the call. And there's a change coming, and it is a change, not into oblivion, not into annihilation, but as the, as, uh, Job himself reminds us here, he says, uh, thou shalt call and I will answer thee. Much as to say, my change will be the result of a call. God will call me. And he says, and thou wilt have a desire to the work of thy hands. Now, to me, this is an interesting text, because I believe the scripture gives us some wonderful answers to these questions, questions. If a man dies, shall he live again? In all the days of my appointed time will I wait until my change come. And it so happens that in the New Testament, we do have three answers to that question as to what this change will be. The first of those, uh, passages is a very familiar one. I hardly need to ask you to turn to it because I suppose most of you have memorized at least a part of the fourteenth chapter of John. But in the fourteenth chapter of John, we do get, uh, an answer to the question about a change. The Lord Jesus starts that chapter, as you know, by saying, let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God, believe also in me. You may wonder just why the Lord should begin a chapter like that, but the answer to that is found in the fact that that chapter division really comes at the wrong place. In order to appreciate the words of our Lord Jesus in John fourteen, you have to go back into chapter thirteen, and there you'll find the things which are really troubling their hearts. It was, first of all, the treason of Judas Iscariot. The Lord Jesus revealed that one of his chosen apostles was going to betray him. And then, what to me is even more sorrowful, is that one of his choice apostles, Peter, who claimed to love him better than all the rest, was going to deny him. I can quite understand how those two things would trouble their hearts, and this will account for the opening of the fourteenth chapter of John, let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God, you trust God, believe also in me. And you know, there isn't a human being on the earth that is able to make that sort of a claim. There was only one who could say, you believe in God, believe in me. For me to use language like that would be tantamount to blasphemy. But the Lord Jesus could use it because he was and is equal with God. Therefore, he could invite the same faith that you and I put in God, whom we've never seen. Says, you believe in God, believe also in me. And then immediately he goes on to tell them about a place outside of this world altogether, a place that he gives a very lovely name. You know, we have where various ways of describing the place to which we expect to go when we leave this world. Some people, of course, give it the ra- rather commonplace name of upstairs, and even refer to God as the man upstairs. But to me, it's something more than upstairs. Again, there are people who describe it as, uh, the beautiful Isle of somewhere. Well, sometimes when I hear that solo song, I wonder if they're talking about the beautiful Isle of nowhere, because it, it just doesn't, uh, it doesn't say anything to me, the beautiful Isle of somewhere. But you notice that the Lord Jesus Christ gives this place a wonderful name. He doesn't even call it Heman, heaven. When I was leaving California to come over here, one of the old ladies in the home said to me, I hear you're going away, brother. I said, yes. She says, where are you going? I said, I'm going to God's country. God's country? Are you going to heaven? No, I said, I'm going to Texas. She was amazed at that. But, uh, this, uh, this is the idea people have, you know, that, uh, it's just another country. But the Lord Jesus gives it this heartwarming name of the Father's House. Can you imagine anything that warm your heart more than that? That the place to which you and I are going is the Father's House? You know, to me, this m- this means I'm going to have a welcome when I get there, a welcome for which I've been waiting for a good many years. Yes, to see the Father. The question was once raised in my presence. A person said to Mr. Paul J. Loazzo, one of the founders of the Loazzo Bible Truth Depot in Ne- Neptune, New Jersey, Mr. Loazzo, do you think we'll see the Father? He said, do you think I could be in the Father's house and not see the Father? To him, it, uh, it was just one of those natural answers to the question. And so the Lord Jesus refers to this place to which his own are going. He says, in my Father's house are many mansions, many abiding places. The word mansions in English generally brings up the image of a palace or something like that. I'm not denying that it will be palatial, but on the other hand, I think the word in the original gives it even a sweeter meaning. The word mansion is a, is a, an English equivalent of a word which means an abiding place where you'll never have to change your address. You won't have to tell the postmaster, please forward my mail to so and so. It's going to be an abiding place where you'll never have to change your address. What a change that's going to be. You know, some of us are living where perhaps it's a bit difficult, difficult climate-wise, difficult otherwise because of the moral conditions under- under which we live and so on, and we long for a better place, and thank God we have it. Yes, to depart and to be with Christ is going to be far better, even apart altogether from any physical changes it makes in my body, I'm going to have a better residence than I've ever had, the Father's house, many mansions. And the many mansions, of course, suggests that there's much room there. And I don't think any of those rooms will be for left forever. But as far as my reading of the Bible goes, some of those rooms are still untaken. That is, they haven't been claimed. And I'm wondering, as I face this group this afternoon, whether I'm talking to somebody who hadn't made any arrangement for that change. You know, it's, it's a good thing to be ready for that move, because you never know what's coming. I'm sure those hundreds of people on those two airplanes that were crashed together in the Canary Islands the other day were hardly aware of the fact that they were due for a change so rapidly that perhaps they never even realized it when it came. So I want to speak very seriously for a moment or two to anyone present here this afternoon who has never yet contemplated the fact that you're going to have to make a change. Now, according to my text from Job, Job was waiting for his change. He's waiting for it. And as we've seen in the scripture from which we've just now been looking at in the fourteenth chapter of John, we have a right to look for that change. Many mansions. Not as one preacher heard it, as I heard him put it when I've lived in New Zealand. One Sunday, after coming home from our remembrance meeting, while my wife was preparing dinner, I, uh, tuned in Australia, which is about a hundred, a thousand miles west of, of Wellington, New Zealand, where we live. And the preacher was dealing with the fourteenth chapter of John. And he came to this verse, this should be many mansions. And you know what he said? Of course there'll have to be many mansions, because some of us are preachers, and some of us are poets, and some of us are something else, all beginning with the letter P. It was very alliterative. And I let out a chuckle, and my wife said to me, what's so funny about that? Well, I said, it really isn't funny when you come to think of it. I'd hate to be boxed up in the same box with all the preachers I've ever known. But, uh, to think of this, that a mansion just suited to your daily advocation, as that preacher put it. I don't think that's going to be the case at all. I believe what our blessed Lord is leaving, wants to impress us with in that text in John fourteen uh is that there's plenty of room, many abiding places. If it were not so, I would have told you. So, my dear friend, without taking too much more of your time, but it's worth all the time I take, if you have never made any arrangement for that change, I beg of you, don't put it off, because tomorrow's sun may never rise to bless thy long deluded sight. This is the time. Oh, then be wise. Thou wish to be saved, why not today? No better time. You're in the most sympathetic, uh, congregation that you'll ever be in. There are hearts here who, perhaps even now as I speak to you, are praying that you may make that decision. God help you to do it. But now the question is, when will this happen? Well, it's going to happen when the Lord Jesus says, I'm coming again. He says, if I go and prepare a place for you, and you know how some preachers interpret that verse, that it must be a wonderful place since he's been at it so many years. I beg to differ with that interpretation. I don't think that the ble- the people of God are going up to an unfinished place. I don't think our Lord was referring to that when he says, I go to prepare a place for you. I think what he was talking about was what he was about to do at Calvary's cross, so that our old preaching brethren, when they said that heaven was a prepared place for a prepared people, were absolutely true. Gonna be fine. You and I have no idea what it's going to be like. You've never had a residence like it. I don't know that anybody's ever been quite satisfied with their earthly residences, even though they may have planned them ahead of time. I knew a young couple in the state of Wisconsin, who sometime before their wedding, they had plans drawn up of the little home that they were going to build for themselves. In fact, they wanted to build it because before they got married. I understand they weren't in it two weeks after the wedding before the bride said, I wish, mm-hmm, that this cupboard was there, and that window was there, and that so-and-so there, and not there they were making changes after two weeks. Won't have to do that because the divine architect will make no mistakes. Abraham looked for a city whose architect, as it should read in Hebrews eleven, whose architect and builder is God, and he knows all about our needs. I don't know just exactly what he's got fixed up for me, but I hope I got a study where I can study my Bible. I like that. You looking forward to anything like that? Yes, thank God he's gone to prepare a place, and that, if I'm correct in my interpretation, that that refers to his work at Calvary's cross, what a preparation it was. To think that he could say, even before he had finished it, I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. Finished. And you know, when he finishes something, it was perfect. It didn't, nobody had to add anything to it. I remember the plant where I worked, where I was originally an engineer. I was talking to a man about these things, and he couldn't, uh, couldn't believe that there was such a thing as a finished place to which we would go. One day he asked me to come out and inspect a piece of work that he had done. I said, are you all finished with it, John? He said, yes, I'm all finished with it. He gave me the blueprint, and he said, now this is it, and that's my work, and all I need is your okay. I looked it over, and it was a beautiful piece of work from an engineer's standpoint. I measured it with the latest, uh, measuring instruments, micrometers and what have you, and he was looking for me to put my okay on his work. When I said to him, John, let me have a cold chisel and two pound hammer. For you ladies, you may not know what a two pound hammer means, a ha- hammer with a head on it that weighs two pounds. And, uh, he brought them to me, wondering what I was going to do with them. I raised the chisel over the work and raised the hammer as well. He says, hey, what are you going to do? I said, oh, I'm just going to finish this. He said, but it is finished. I said, yes, John, I've been trying to tell you that about Christ's work at Calvary, and you've de- you've determined you're going to add something to it. I said, that would be just like me taking this chisel and plowing it into this piece of work that you've just finished. The Lord Jesus said, it is finished. That's it. Can't add anything to that. I sometimes think of my dear old father. He's been in glory now for some years, impressing that on a fellow sailor as they were fly- sailing into the harbor of Rio de Janeiro. The man was dying of yellow fever, and my father gave him that one text. It is finished. Es ist vollbracht, he said in German, vollbracht. Or as we would say in Spanish, consumado es. It's done. And that's the way it is with the work of Christ. This is the wonderful place to which we move. Now, sometimes we're at, we're cur- curious to know just what it's going to look like. Well, perhaps the nearest we could come to it would be the twenty first chapter of Revelation, in which we have a wonderful description of that city which came down from God out of heaven. And I delight to live, look over that, uh, description of that wonderful city and look forward to the day when I'll actually be a resident there. So much for the first change. Suppose we could go to that place with this body. Now, you may have a perfect body. I question it because, um, as I have discovered in my nearly eighty eight years, I've yet to find a man with a perfect body. Something's wrong with him. He perhaps wears glasses, that shows that his eyes are not perfect. He wears a hearing aid, and that shows me that his ears are not perfect. He wears a cane, and that shows me that he's like me, his knees are not perfect. And then if I was to put a stethoscope on his chest, I'd find out that his heart was not perfect. And if I took his blood pressure, I'd find out that wasn't perfect. And yet, to all appearances, he means a perfect young fellow. Yes. Having been in the educational field, I had a chance to see some of these young fellows that come up for football. Ah, they were fine specimens of humanity. I used to love to see them. Sometimes I'd go in after a game just to see these fine fellows with their beautiful physique, taking their showers after a meal. What a wonderful thing, but when I talked to them, they had their ailments. They had their ailment, just like we all do. Imagine what it's going to be like when you won't have that. But you say, have I got any guarantee of that? Yes, I've got two passages in the New Testament to prove it. Turn with me, please, first of all, to First Corinthians fifteen. First Corinthians chapter fifteen, where the Apostle Paul talks about this very subject. And since he devotes pretty nearly a whole chapter to that, based, of course, primarily on the resurrection of our Lord Jesus, I take it that this is a very important subject, one that people are much interested in. So in this fifteenth chapter of first Corinthians, you notice that Paul says here, uh, in verse forty two, so also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption. It's been, it's been threatened with that all the while. If you've ever been where you could see an operation being performed in a hospital, and I've had that privilege, of course I was put at a safe distance from the patient who was being operated on. What in- what intrigued me was the way the doctors wore masks, the nurses wore masks, they wore gloves, every instrument was handled with gloved hands. What are they afraid of? Corruption. Afraid of corruption. And at the end, we lay them away, Paul says it's sown in corruption. But notice this change. Verse forty two, the latter last part of the verse, it is raised in incorruption. And you'll never have to be afraid of infection or anything like that anymore. It's going to be a wonderful body. But he isn't satisfied with that. He says in verse forty three, it is sown in dishonor. Well, it is somewhat of a dishonor, isn't it? You come to think about it. You've served the Lord in a body like this for some years, and then suddenly it's useless, so much so that they have to get rid of it. They have to embalm it to make it presentable even for the funeral. Yes, it's really sown in dishonor. We bury it out of our sight. Even the most precious of our loved ones, we bury them out of our sight. But thank God for the next phrase, it is raised in glory. I like that. You know, dear friends, Christianity is the only system that I know of that has anything like this as a prediction for the future life. Raised in glory. But that isn't all. We read here in verse forty— it i- i- i- verse forty three, the latter part of the verse, it is sown in weakness. And that's true, the strongest man that ever lived, but it is raised in power. Think of what it'll be when you and I'll never get tired. You ever look forward to that day when you'll never get tired? I have. Sometimes it's been with regret, with regret that I've finished the day's work and find that I had to go to bed. Most of my friends in the home where I live, they go to bed somewhere around eight o'clock. I just haven't formed that habit. I got to stay up at least till ten, even though I do get up at five thirty every morning, so that, uh, you don't waste too much time in bed. The thing is going to be when you won't have to even go to bed to refresh yourself. Praise and power. Great. Tremendous. You'll have a zest for work that you never had before. Great. I hope you have that zest. Well, let's a little further here. It is sown a natural body, and the word translated natural means a body that's governed by the soul. And this, of course, is a very prominent thing in these days. When I went to school, I was presented with a dictionary, and at that time, the words beginning with the syllable psych, like you have in psychology and so on, were very few in number. As I remember my old dictionary when I was a boy, I don't think there were more than three or four words that began with that syllable psych, which is the Greek for soul. And that's the word that's used here, psychical body. A body governed by the soul. But Paul says it's going to be better than that in the day to come. He says it is raised a spiritual body. You see, instead of being governed by something which is lower than the best, it's governed by the highest part of our nature. Spirit, soul, and body. Yes, we're tripartite beings, and the new body is going to put the spirit in its own place. The spiritual body. As it is written, verse forty five, the first Adam, man Adam was made a living soul, the last Adam was made a quickening spirit. Now let's look at another verse that describes the same change. Turn to Philippians chapter three. Philippians chapter three. I'm so glad this is a Bible conference so we can turn to the Bible, and for our texts, at any rate, this is what I appreciate about the addresses which I've heard so far in this conference. But here in the third chapter of the Epistle to the Philippians, we have another reference to this change that is going to take place. Verse twenty, verse twenty of the chapter, Philippians three verse twenty: Our conversation, or as you were reminded in the margin of some of your Bibles, our citizenship is in heaven. Our citizenship. This word conversation doesn't ref- refer to an exchange of ideas or thoughts. It refers to a, a, a real s- new state entirely, our citizenship. We have a dual citizenship as Christians. In a sense, we have dual citizenships of, uh, dual citizenship apart from our new birth. Uh, my understanding of the United States law is this, that you are first of all, if you live in Texas, you're a citizen of the state of Texas. Secondly, you are a citizen of the United States. But here is a word which transfers that even to heaven itself. And Paul it is who gives us this, and yet he, on more than one occasion, claimed his Roman citizenship, but he says our citizenship is in heaven. I like, uh, Moffat's, uh, paraphrase of this. I say paraphrase because it, I don't know that it's exactly a, a translation. And then I again, I don't, I don't, uh, endorse Moffat's translation altogether, but Moffat has given us a rather happy rendering here when he says, we are a colony of heaven, of heaven. You know, that challenges me. That means, beloved, that in this assembly here, Polk Street Chapel, there is a colony of heaven where we're expecting people to behave like citizens of heaven, to talk like citizens of heaven. I had an illustration of this when I was on the mission field in Central America years ago. It was in the days of the First World War, and I was invited by the British consul in the city where I lived, in San Pedro Sula. I was invited to what he called an at home, and I had never heard this expression at home with regard to a social function. So I came home to my citizen, to my senior missionary, Mr. Knapp. I said, Chris, I've been invited to something, and I don't know what it is. He said, well, what did they call it? Well, I said, they invited me to an at home. Oh, he said, uh, I think if you put on your best white linen suit, your nice white shoes, go down there, you'll find out what it is and you'll enjoy it. And I did as I was told, put on my best white linen suit, my white shoes, and made my way to the British Consulate. To get there, I had to walk down streets which would have served a village some three hundred years before. Dirt streets, ox- ox teams pulling two-wheeled carts, everything was three hundred years old. But when I crossed the threshold of that garden, because this British consulate had a beautiful garden around them, you couldn't imagine an Englishman living anywhere else in those days. I got inside this garden, and it was so different from the street that I had just left behind. I got to the door, rang the bell, a maid came to the door, welcomed me in the very finest of English. I stepped across the threshold of that room. I suspected the carpet which I'd stepped on was probably woven in England. The tablecloths on the table were probably woven in Ireland. The silver, the china, Wedgwood, de Havilland, what have you, pictures on the wall, and all the people present were talking about the things over home. That was a colony of Britain. Do they get that impression from you and me, beloved, that we are a colony of heaven? You know, this thing challenges me. The apostle says we are a colony of heaven. Our citizenship is in heaven. From whence also we look for the Savior? I wonder why our Lord Jesus is described as a savior in this verse. Uh, in First Cor- First Thessalonians chapter one, he is described as God's son. The Thessalonians turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God and to wait for his son from heaven. But here he's described as a savior. I believe it's with real meaning because salvation will be completed in that moment when this glorified body of ours will be given to us. Then salvation will be complete. We're saved so far as our souls are concerned now, but what it'll be when the body itself can be considered as being saved as well. From whence also we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus, and to look for him is something more than just simply saying I'm waiting for a date. You know, one time I was, I went to an airport to meet my dear wife. Somebody says to me, what plane are you waiting for? I said, I'm not waiting for any plane. What are you doing in the airport? I said, I'm waiting for my wife. Oh, a little difference between waiting for your wife and, and the airplane, isn't it? We're waiting for God's son, the Savior, who shall change our vile body. Get that in that verse? Says here, who shall change, verse twenty one, our body of, our body of humiliation, as I believe the margin puts it, doesn't it? Who shall change our body of humiliation? And the word for change is a very interesting one, very interesting one. It means to change the whole scheme of it. For you Greek students from the seminary in Dallas, it's the word metaschematidzo. To change the whole scheme of it. And I will not be nobody, no, no have, no, nobody, no have to provide anymore for, shall I say, clothing or food or anything like this. I'm not denying we may eat food in heaven. Our Lord ate food in his risen state. But surely our whole manner of life will be different. He shall change our body of humiliation and fashion it liken to his own body of glory. And what a wonderful body he had. No longer subject to weight, a body that was weightless. Because when he wanted to go up to heaven, he didn't even have to press his foot down on the Mount of Olives, he went up. The scripture says he was taken up. First chapter of the book of the Acts, he was taken up. Four times in the first fo- first chapter of Acts, you have it, the Lord was taken up. A cloud received him out of their sight, and that wasn't a cloud of vapor. That was a welcoming cloud. And I'd like to think, dear friends, that in that welcoming cloud will be loved ones we haven't seen for a long time. When my dear father died, I tried to imagine what it would be like, for dad outlived mother by more than twenty years. Mother was just a young lady when she died at sixty seven, but dad was nearly ninety two. And I tried to imagine what it was like. The Lord just tapped my dear mother on the shoulder and said, Annie, Ernest is coming. You be on the reception committee. Friends will be there I've loved long ago. Yeah, I believe that. That's poetry, but I believe it's justifiable. Wonderful welcome back home. But now, having described these two wonderful things, a change of residence and a change of body. Anything else to be desired? Yes. I've got something inside of me, and you have it inside of you, that has plagued me ever since I could confess the Lord Jesus Christ as my savior. That's my evil nature. When I lived here in Dallas and taught here at the seminary, we had a visitor to the seminary who claimed he had been delivered from every earthly desire. He couldn't sin anymore. And I can remember the look with which Dr. Chafer, the president of the seminary, the way he looked at this friend of ours. Wondered what he was going to say. Didn't say anything that day, but the next day they were taking a little walk along Swiss Avenue, and it was a, there'd been a prize fight the night before, and little newsboy was intent on selling newspapers. The days before we had all these reports by television and so on, you had to read it in the paper. And having been a newsboy myself, you know, in my boyhood days, I could sympathize with this little kid trying to sell his newspapers. Read all about it, you know, pull it out and wave it in your face. And as he did this to this friend of Dr. Chaffer's, he became so annoyed that he reached out his hand and slapped the little new boy, newsboy, and sent him spinning. He had no sooner done it when he said to Dr. Chafer, he said, Lewis, I didn't know it was in me. And Dr. Chafer says, I knew it was there all the while. It'd be a wonderful day when we're rid of that, isn't it? Is there any guarantee that will be? Yes, turn to First John chapter three. This will be my last scripture for this. afternoon. First John chapter three, where I think we have something to em- encourage us to believe that there will be a change. First John three, beginning at verse two: Beloved, now are we the sons or children of God, and it does not yet yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he shall appear, we shall be like him. Now, I know some interpret this verse to mean that we're all gonna look like the Lord Jesus when he was thirty three years of age. I don't believe it. Does that spoil it? No. I got something better than that. You know, the one who made the stars and didn't ne- didn't make two of them alike, and we have photographic proof of that. He didn't make two snowflakes alike, and we got photographic proof of that. He didn't make two blades of grass, the two leaves on the tree alike. He's too versatile for that. He's not going to be- have heaven filled with millions of duplicates. Well, you say, what does the text mean, we shall be like him? Well, it means just what it says, be like him. It doesn't say look like him, it says be like him. And the word, the words which follow here show that it refers not to a physical likeness, but to a moral likeness. Look at this. It says, we shall beseech him as he is, and every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure. Oh, how pure is that? That's perfectly pure. We're going to be like him. The very thing that you and I have craved for more than once, when we've been plagued with evil thoughts and evil deeds and evil words. How, how we've longed for the day when we no more is here, mid snares we'll fear a thought or wish unholy, no more to pain a lamb once slain, but live to love him holy. What a day that'll be. Yes. We shall see him as he is, and he is pure. But that isn't all. You notice it says here, and every man that hath this hope in him, verse three, purify themselves even as he is pure. It does something to you. The fact that you're going to be like this in the future does something to you now. Verse five, and you know that he was manifested to take away our sins, and in him is no sin. I'm going to be like him. Imagine when I'll never have another evil thought. Great. If you've ne- if that thing has never gripped you before, I hope that the Holy Spirit will take it this afternoon and give you an idea of what it's going to be like when you never will have to think another evil thought. Never say another evil word. Never do another evil deed. In him is no sin. I'm going to be like him. And that isn't all. Verse seven: Little children, let no man deceive you. He that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous. Oh, what a moral character will be mine and yours. I believe these three verses interpret for what it means when it says we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. That'll be a great day. Three wonderful changes. Now, to put this in poetic language, to close this with what I sometimes refer to as the closing paragraph of my sermon, I'd like for you to turn, please, to hymn number six hundred and twenty nine. six hundred and twenty nine. And is it so I shall be like thy son? Is this the grace which he for me has won? Father of glory, thought beyond all thought, in glory to his own blessed likeness brought. Number four— six hundred and twenty nine. and for a change of position, let's rise to sing.