The next meeting of the conference will be tomorrow night at seven o'clock, commencing at seven o'clock, and we'll go on till eight forty-five. I'd be glad to see all who can come to consent themselves via the marinate and leave it known widely that the meeting is the marinated deadness clock going on to what is now. Praise to Ecclesiastes. and the eleven shepherds. This is our brother, Mr. A.M.S. reading from the morning. We will have a disadvantage in the first meeting in the charge of the people living here in Owing to this incident not being tricked on. So we have the opportunity now of hearing this. Thank you. The Corinthians chapter eleven, verse eight. Yet if a man lived many years and rejoiced in them all, yet let him remember the days of darkness, for they are many. All that cometh is vanity. Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth, and let thy heart cheerily in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thy heart, and in the sight of thine eyes, but know thou that for all these things God will bring me into judgment. Therefore remove sorrow from thy heart and put away evil from thy flesh for youth and the prime of life. That's the revised version. Youth and the prime of life are vanishes. Remember thy theatre in the days of our youth. Why the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when they shall say, I have no pleasure in them. Why let the sun, or the light, or the moon, or the darken, or the stars be darkened, and the clouds return after rain, and so on? Verse five, also when they shall be afraid of that it is high, and tears shall be in the way, The almond tree shall blossom, and the grasshopper shall be a burden, his eyes shall trail, because men goeth to his longhold, and the mourners go about the strip. Forever ever the silver cord be loosed, and golden barrels are broken, or the picture be broken at the frunges, or the wheel broken at the cistern. Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was, and the spirit return unto God who gave it. Vanity of vanity, said the preacher. Oh, Peter. The writer of Ecclesiastes is, of course, doing things as they were seen under the sun. While he was a man who knew God, He represents in this book the outlook of men whose horizon never goes beyond the earth. He says of infancy, it's vanity. He says of youth and the prime of life is vanity. He says when the silver cord is loose and the golden bowl is broken, it's vanity. but a morbid picture of the fainter of life from its beginning to its end. Very much like the picture that the whirlwind has of life these days. They wonder what we're here for. What life will it mean when they reason that way they're in line with ecclesiastes? It's emptiness. It's not in there. It's there. There are in the encouraging verses of Ecclesiastes twelve some delightful pictures of life. There's a silver cord and a golden ball and the picture coming to the fountain and the wheel connecting with the system. Pictures of the beauty of life and the utility of life. Notice the preacher says the golden bowl is great. The silver cord is snapped. The picture that often comes of a fountain and found refreshing one day comes to the very last time. But it's broken. Dust returns to the earth. It's all valid, faith. And it's a morbid picture of the Old Testament. Light. Death. Sheldon to the writers of the Old Testament see a ray of light through the gloom. They talk about darkness. and dim dark and gloom. That's how they look into the field. I know that there are exceptions in the Old Testament. Job must have had a wonderful knowledge of the glories of resurrection. Yet in my flesh shall I see God, see him for myself and not a stranger. Abram, when he buried his wise in the cave of Matila. Did he have the idea of a door in and a door out and blast the proof of resurrection? One wrote, I shall be satisfied when I shall awaken my light source. Lovely shaft of light, shafts of light like golden threads against the background of black material. It is when we turn the pages of the Old Testament, the New Testament, that glory begins to encircle the dead of death. Glorious hope shatters the gloom of leading this world. The New Testament has some lovely ideas of life and death. Visualize in that particular way. Remember the New Testament does talk about the grass. It says all flesh is the grass. It talks about the glory of man being as the flower of God. The grass witherous and the flower thereof, fall of the wife. An idea comes from the Old Testament, repeated in the New Testament. That's pure glory. And that almost disappointing is. Again, the New Testament talks about death. Talks about death as a shining of home. A home down here. And a home up there. The New Testament talks about vessels, trading an idea from Gideon's vessels, possibly linking up with a vessel we've read of, including the earthly. We have this treasure in earth and vessels. Vessel, great. But again, the New Testament has the idea of tabernacles. If the earthly house of this can't this tabernacle be dissolved, being taken down. And Peter had been told that, I will soon put off this tabernacle. Then says to the New Testament, that death is likely laying down of one's very fine clothes, being found thereafter, unclothed. And so is it go off. of the New Testament pictures of death. I want to do an unusual thing. I want to talk to you about Christian Zion. Oh, I know in Northern Ireland, I heard the dear preaching, brethren, pray it, the Lord's blessing. They say we're not waiting for the undertaker, we're waiting for the uptaker. Well, that's true. I'm waiting for the uptaker too. But like you, at the back of my mind, I have an idea that the Lord may come before, and the Lord may not come before I pass through the article of death. And so as I approach the truth of the coming of Christ, and I expect to be alive when he comes, I have to say to myself, but what if I'm not? And so the New Testament has the uptaker and the undertaker. No, no. So can you prove that from the New Testament? Yes. When Paul talks about the rapture, he says, we which are alive and remain, you say rightly, Paul was expecting to be among the company who would be alive when the Lord said, yes, yes. Paul also said, if the earthly house of this tent be taken down, wind. Just as he put himself in the wind, which are alive and remain, he put himself in the wind, if the earthly house of this tent can take us down, wind. And so he was a balanced Christian. He believed in the coming of the Lord Jesus and his one longing was to be alive when the phrase occurred. that he wasn't afraid of us. He wasn't afraid. The Lord doesn't count for us. The majority of us here today will pass through what men call death, what the Bible calls sleep. You're not afraid of the coming of the Lord Jesus. Oh joy, oh delight, that will go without dying, praise God for that. Suppose he doesn't will you go that way. Suppose he wills that you go home by way of death. What do you know about that? I'm not going to talk to you about the pain of dying for another doctor. I'm not going to talk to you about the weakness of God. But on those things I couldn't help you. The Word of God I want to talk to you about the fact of God. See what the Word of God says. Sharma said, When I pass through the valley where death cast its shadow, I will fear the evil for valorous. You might sing it and read it, but is that, dear child of God, honest faith, pure sentiment when you think about God? It is. After all, if you have some kind of fear, some kind of dread, At the moment when the waters will touch your feet, you won't be able to hold them back. They'll be going out into God's eternity. Do you see it? Do you know anything about it? Do you have a solid ground of the Word of God to put your two fingers on them? What's the book there? Do you think, first of all, of what the Savior said to that people from the cross? The thief wasn't a man who lacked intelligence about the scriptures in us. Think of what he said. He said, Lord, remember me when thou comest in thy kingdom. Why that expression? contains a terrific knowledge of Old Testament proof. First of all, he'd appreciated that Lord Jesus was a Messiah. He'd appreciated the fact that that man on the center cross was shortly to leave this world. He appreciated in that the proof of resurrection that he would live again. He appreciated the fact that this one on the center cross would come in his kingdom. So he got something, hadn't he? What a bit of truth there. He hadn't got a new testament revelation. He'd got a good grasp of Old Testament truth. What a failure is that. Failure said to God. What does a thief say? The sheep had saved two thousand years ahead. I'm not great at sin. I'm putting that to you and I to understand what I mean. The kingdom hasn't started yet. The Lord Jesus hasn't come to a goal yet. So we'll say just for a figure, two thousand years the sheep was looking ahead. And two thousand years ahead he had a kingdom and I'd like to be in the kingdom. Remember me. So the Lord Jesus not two thousand years ahead but today. Not a mere subject in the kingdom, but with me. Not here on earth in Jerusalem, but in paradise. And that was the same event for the people on the cross. Somebody says, you know, paradise, your Old Testament idea. Is it? Is it the word in the Old Testament? It must be a new testament by this. Remember that in writing to the church at Ephesus, the hymn that overcometh, he shall enter the tree of life which is in the paradise of God. So Christians, when they leave this world, they go to paradise. Now, what have we done? This tells me this, this word to the thief on the cross. Those words spoken by the Savior before twelve o'clock that day were literally fulfilled before six o'clock that afternoon. Shortly after three o'clock the Savior dismissed, he said it, The thief who was not then dead died afterward because they broke his way. And immediately he was with Christ in paradise. Not for long period of time of oblivion and nothingness. Not some waiting in some eerie waiting room before you see the face of Christ. At the very moment the deity closed his eyes to her, he was with God in paradise. Those words mean anything. They mean what they say, don't they? Of course, the way to interpret the word of God, you know, you need what he says. With Christ is companionship. With Christ is fellowship. With Christ means consciously being with him and enjoying him. With Christ means seeing him, looking on his face. all the toll to that dying feet. When immediately the other side of death, he looked into the face of the Lord's feet. Eucharady was one day writing to us, to your sister who had recently lost her husband, wrote, Threat thee, my dear sister, I envy your husband. He has seen the face of my Lord, and I have not. He found face to face with Christ my Saviour. Of course that is true of the rapture because then in our glory by bodies we shall look upon this. But it is equally true at death. For then the eyes of our souls will gain about this, will come in fact. So you think it's today. It implies immediate. It implies no waiting. For loved ones who have passed away, we who, if the Lord doesn't come quickly, we shall follow on never. Later, with Christ, in parallel. What's the idea of paradise? Well, there is a paradise in the Old Testament that is not called that name. It's called the Garden of Eden. And in the Garden of Eden, God displays the greatness in his heart. You'll notice Genesis one is the God chapter. God is, God is, God is, God is, God is. Genesis two is the Lord God chapter. For the Lord God is not the idea of supremacy, that's God. But the Lord God is God in His kindness and grace. So in Genesis two I read, the Lord God planted a garden. And the Lord God put the things in the garden. And the Lord God put the man in the garden. And the Lord God said it is not good for the man to be alone. These were all the kindnesses of the door door. So the idea of Eden is a resplendent place that God in his graciousness and kindness made, in which there was everything for the rest and pleasure and the might of man, and in the midst of which was a prayer of God. The New Testament takes that up, that hedonic idea up, transfers it to the New Testament word paradise, said the saviour to the man, today shall they be with me in a garden. Well, please don't go away and say that I said there were trees in heaven, will you? Remember, it's a spiritual fear I'm talking about. It's a spiritual counterpart of Eden's God. Just as Eden's garden was that place of rest and delight, of care, of pleasure, and of continuous supply, so the paradise of God was a place of rest, pleasure, comfort, and care. And just as there was everything in the original Eden to meet the desires of the pair that were placed there is. So there is everything in that Eden, that paradise, to bring satisfaction, pleasure to those that in God's will occupy. In the Old Testament Eden there was a tree of life that they could eat and live forever. Sadly there was a tree of knowledge of good and evil, but there was a test there. But in the paradise of God there is the tree of life. But there is no tree of knowledge and evil, no test there. The days of tests are over. No fall can ever enter that princely fear. There's a revelation to him that overcome it easily. Of the tree of life. which is in the midst of the paradise of God, you delight to recognize every time you gather together that he has said, there am I in the midst of that paradise, but in the midst of that paradise where the feet were, and where the departed saints seemed and read, in the very midst of that place there is a stream And that tree is Christ, the counterpart of every Old Testament picture. And they feed on Christ. Notice the other letters of church, each of the tree of life. Man of church, each of the hidden manor. so that the occupation of the dear ones who pass from time into eternity, who we may follow unless the Lord comes with us. The occupation in that lovely sphere is received on Christ and all Christ and more of Christ above all. So that I will be with me in you. But you're the only passage in the New Testament that talks about paradise. You don't know that your prepositions in the New Testament. I mean the in and the input of the verse I'm going to talk about, because like me, you hardly know what a preposition is. But anyway, in second Corinthians chapter twelve, Paul talks about a man who, fourteen years ago, had had a certain experience. I don't think any of us would doubt that that man was taught. He says on that occasion he was caught up through the third heaven. He was caught up into paradise. The Spirit of God just doesn't change words and prepositions just for the sake of making things look prettier and making themselves better. He only changes his prepositions when he has something to teach. The word to means to come to the door of, to touch the wall, but not to go in. And I learned French and I told me that the word into meant inside with a door shut and the lid down. and into. How, says Paul, that man fourteen years ago, he was caught up to the third heaven. He only touched the wall. He was caught up into paradise. He got right inside us. Well, the face of God today, in paradise. Where will the saints of God be after the rapture?" said the Savior. In my father's house, not the garden, the house, but the house. In my father's house are many places to live. If it were not so, I would have told you I go to prepare a place for you. He has got to prepare. in a spirit realm of faith for men and women in glory by bodies as well. We shall receive them at the rapture when we shall take up that building of God, a house not made with hands eternal in the heavens. Let me tell you this, the saints of God are in the dust. waiting to go into the house. The image that he used is that paradise is a wondrous garden, surrounding a glorious house, both in the garden and in the house. The lamb is all the glory of God. put him again about the moment of time. You see, Paul again was talking about that man fourteen years ago. See what he said? He said, whether he was in the body or out of the body, I cannot care. If that was Paul, and I think it was, Paul was writing about his own experience. He said, you know, I don't know if I was this side of the line or that side of the line. I don't know whether I was still living or what men call dead. I don't know if I've gone over if I was still here. Look at this. It teaches me this, that Paul believed the passing over was so terribly easy and painless and peaceful. If you could pass over into the presence of prayer, you're out of joy, you're out of joy, you're out of joy, you're out of joy. Is that one of the reasons I'm going to find you? You need me, baby. It's easy, do I know that. Let me repeat what the psalm says. I will see you knowing you. So thou art in case of hate is part of one. What do all say about things the other time? I think I was dead and I wasn't the one that long. He said that in that experience fourteen years before, he says, I come to visions for the dreams of them. He came to words that he said they were unspeakable words. He tells me this. But in that fear where our loved ones have gone to be with Christ, in that fear the New Testament calls paradise, in that faith that the Lord carries to it, you and I shall go to wait for return to Savior. There are things to sin. that we couldn't describe to folk down here. There's a language in heaven that can't be interpreted in the language of earth. Oh, there's so much, he said, we know in the New Testament scriptures. Yes, we know a little bit of Christ, but only a little bit of Christ. We know a little bit of what God has laid up for us, but only a little bit. But the other side, there are things that are so wondrous that nothing on earth can destroy them. Words to hear so glorious that nothing on earth can translate. said Paul, unspeakably. Things that it is impossible for a man to utter belong to that celestial sphere where dear loved ones will part on before. You say, are you sure that the things they contemplate and the things they listen to and the things that they sing are so excessively wonderful? When lower down the chapter, Paul sort of reveals to us that he is the one who, fourteen years ago, had that experience. He said that it was necessary for him to receive a thorn in the flesh in order that he might not be exalted above me. so that what he had seen and what he had had which was peculiar to him and the rest of the saints didn't know. If he hadn't have had a thorn in the flesh, he would have been exalted so very high that God would have had to do some misdemeanor. For that reason, God gave him a thorn in the flesh. He just reminded But while he'd seen the wonders of paradise, and he'd heard the very language of heaven, was it an eye trouble with which he was afflicted? Was it? If it was an eye trouble with which he was afflicted, he would be constantly reminded by the terrible pain of those torn like jazz in his arms, he would be reminded that he was no longer looking on the sights of heaven, but walking in a world where he had naturalized. He'd heard unspeakable things that that body that the Corinthians despised and that faith that was contemptible in him. He'd constantly remind the man who'd heard the language of heaven that he was still walking in a steer where he taught the language of heaven. This would keep him humble, but he needed to be kept humble because in that wondrous experience he'd had. He'd seen the glories of paradise and listened to the language of heaven. You and I need not be. Like the firmness we can say, though I pass through the valley where death casts its shadow, I will hear no angel for thou of this. The words of the faith should stabilize all art. The moment we close our eyes to earth, to earth, with me is that. Absence in the body. presence of the Lord, depart from this world to be with Christ. So Paul is far apart. Now at this juncture of the meeting, I would like to make the following announcement. In the Ormo Gospel Hall, the annual ministry meeting will be held God willing. on Saturday next, the twenty ninth at seven p.m. The speakers will be our brother, Mr. Jim Allen of Malaysia, Mr. Jim Hutchinson from Dundonald, and Mr. Albert Leckie of Erdrich. These will minister the word of God, and a cordial invitation is extended to all the Lord's people. Lower Windsor Gospel Hall. Mr. Boyd Atkins of Taiwan, Formosa, will God willing give a missionary report on Saturday the twenty-ninth at seven thirty. All welcome. In the Albert Bridge Gospel Hall on Monday the thirty-first, that is Old Year's Eve, New Year's Eve, ministry meeting at seven p.m. And then there's a note here from the Ebenezer Gospel Hall Old Park Road to purpose God willing on Old Year's night, that is Monday the thirty-first, to have a testimony meeting. What time is this? Eight o'clock tonight. And could I ask you When the meeting is over, would you fold your hymn sheet with hymn number one uppermost and leave it at the end of the row? Now this meeting goes on for another five or ten minutes over, half past seven. Please remember that the public transport is only every hour. That is, at eight o'clock, at nine o'clock, pan on the Lord.