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  FAITH REALIZES ETERNAL REALITIES
  by Thomas Brooks
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Summary: Thomas Brooks emphasizes that faith enables believers to
perceive and realize the eternal glories and blessings God has prepared
for them.

Topics: "Eternal Life", "Faith"
Scripture References: Matthew 6:20, John 14:2-3, Romans 8:18, 2 Corinthians 4:18, Philippians 3:20, Colossians 3:2, 2 Timothy 4:8, Hebrews 11:1, 1 Peter 1:4, Revelation 21:4

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DESCRIPTION
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Thomas Brooks emphasizes the power of faith in realizing eternal
realities, urging believers to focus on the glory and blessedness that
God has prepared for those who love Him. He explains that faith
transforms the unseen into the seen, making absent joys, riches, and
divine favor present to the soul. By faith, believers can perceive the
invisible God and the eternal rewards awaiting them, which are far
greater than anything earthly. Brooks illustrates that faith allows the
soul to experience the richness of God's promises and the joy of
salvation, drawing a vivid picture of the heavenly treasures that await.
Ultimately, faith is the lens through which believers can grasp the
profound and glorious realities of eternity.

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CONTENT
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Faith should set and fix upon that glory, blessedness, and life, which
God has laid up for those who love Him. The things of eternity are the
greatest things, they are the most excellent things. They are most
excellent in their natures, in their causes, in their operations, in
their effects, in their ends; and upon these faith looks and lives.
Faith realizes eternal realities; it makes absent things present. "Faith
is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen,"
Heb. 11:1. Faith makes absent glory present, absent riches present,
absent pleasures present, absent favors present. Faith brings an
invisible God, and sets Him before the soul. Moses by faith saw Him who
was invisible. Faith brings down the recompense of reward, and sets it
really though spiritually before the soul. Faith sets divine favor
before the soul. It sets peace with God, it sets pardon of sin, it sets
the righteousness of Christ, it sets the joy of heaven, it sets
salvation, before the soul; it makes all these things very near and
obvious to the soul.

Faith makes invisible things, visible; absent things, present; things
which are afar off, to be very near unto the soul. Faith trades in
invisible things, in eternal things. Its eye is always upwards, like the
fish uranoscopos, which has but one eye, and yet looks continually up to
heaven.

Faith enters within the veil, and fixes her eye upon those glorious
things of eternity, which are so many that they exceed number, so great
that they exceed measure, so precious that they are above all
estimation. Says faith, "The spangled skies are but the footstool of my
Father's house; and if the footstool, the outside, is so glorious, oh
how glorious is His throne! Truly, in heaven there is that life which
cannot be expressed, that light which cannot be comprehended, that joy
which cannot be fathomed, that sweetness which cannot be dissipated,
that feast which cannot be consumed; and upon these pearls of glory I
look and live!"

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Source: https://sermonindex.net/speakers/thomas-brooks/faith-realizes-eternal-realities/
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