Mike Bickle emphasizes the significance of overcoming temptation through a personal relationship with Jesus, highlighting the rewards promised to those who resist immorality and idolatry. He explains that these rewards, including hidden manna, a white stone with a new name, power over nations, and the morning star, are not just gifts but reflections of how deeply Jesus values our love and commitment to Him. Bickle encourages believers to understand the eternal implications of their choices and to pursue a deeper connection with God, assuring them that their struggles are seen and cherished by Him. The sermon calls for a commitment to resist temptation, reminding listeners that their faithfulness will be rewarded in ways they cannot yet imagine.

David and me and his father have been good friends for 30 years. David, stay here for a second. He grew up in our neighborhood when he was about 7 years old to about 12 or 13, some numbers like that. Yeah, just take it if you want. I might ask you a question. And him and his three brothers. And I was committed to playing sports with my boys that are the same age, my two sons. So every day I would come home at 3 in the afternoon and I'd play baseball. We did that for about 6 or 7 years, 9 months a year, every day. And I'd come at 3 o'clock and my sons Luke and Paul and David and your brothers and this little guy. I fell in love with him at 7 years old. He would dive for first base and I'd call him out and you'd get mad. Then he would get up and his little brother would strike out and he'd cry. I loved you so much. Then he grew up and then he came to the prayer meetings when he was 7, 8, 9, 10. And his brothers did and they would sit there. And then 25 years go by or whatever, 30 or 20, whatever it is, you got big. You got anointed. You have the same passion. But they see you like, oh, I love you. This guy, if you call him out and he's safe, that's not going to work for him. But anyway, I didn't say anything. I just want to say how much I appreciate this man, Mike Bickle. Nobody here. The permission that he's given to those all around the world who have longed for so much more than just the short expression on a Sunday morning of those singing to the Lord and you're singing at home to the Lord and even that's not enough. You long to lead people into that same place of encounter with the Lord. So I just want to say amen to that and I'm just so excited. I love it. Last word, you ended up anointed. I love it. And dedicated and cool and a lot more. Thank you, David. I love your brothers too. He's got three brothers, amazing young men. All dedicated, all three of them, the other ones were on Misty's team for some time and still are, some of them. There you go. Thank you, Paul. That must have been Paul back there. Let's pray. Father, we thank you in the name of Jesus and we say we love you. We hardly know you, but we want to know you more. We love what we know, but we want to know so much more about you. We ask you now to talk to us about the rewards that you thought of yourself to give us. Thank you that you think this way. Touch us now in Jesus' name, amen. Well, we're on page 49, Roman numeral 4. We're on the same set of notes that we were on in the last session, encountering Jesus overcoming temptation. We're looking at the four. Now, here's the specific point. These are the four rewards Jesus said if you understand them, they will motivate you to say no to immorality and idolatry. And I believe these four rewards are part of, not the whole answer, but part of the answer to the church in America resisting immorality to see what Jesus devised, what he thought of. He thought of these rewards himself. There's 18 of them in Revelation 2 and 3. And again, each one of these rewards are just a hint, just a phrase. It's like the Holy Spirit saying, I have a lot more in the Bible on it. Come after me. Search it out. And some folks look at these phrases and they just kind of quickly read over them, but I feel the Spirit saying I have much more from Genesis to Revelation to tell you about each one of those 18 rewards. But the amazing idea is that Jesus thought these up for us. He was thinking of you when he thought of these rewards. He was saying, you'll really like them. Let's read it. Revelation 2, verse 17, and then 26 and 28. To these same two churches, Pergamos and Thyatira. Verse 17, to him who overcomes. Don't forget that phrase, to him who overcomes. To the believer that will resist immorality and idolatry. They will say no. Even if they fail, they rise back up and they say no. No, I'm not giving in. I'm not going to just make peace with those sins and live in them. I'm going to resist them all my days. So these are not just rewards given automatically to every believer. Our salvation is a free gift. We get into the eternal city as a free gift. The new Jerusalem. We get into the family as a free gift. These are for people who Jesus said resist specific temptations and they persist in it. He goes, there's something I want to give them for doing that. Because I want to show them how I feel about the way they loved me. And continually resisting those sins. Do you know when you resist immorality? Because you love Jesus. And your mind, your emotions, your body wants to yield. But you say no because you love Jesus. Did you know he takes that personally? He looks at you and he goes, I take that personally. Thank you. You love me. Your mind has these ideas. Your emotions are stirred. Your body is saying this. But you say, I love you, Jesus. No to those. Jesus says, that moves me. And I'll never forget it ever. I will remember it forever that you love me that way. Beloved, when it becomes, when we know that it's personal to him, we're far more motivated to stay steady. Because he takes it personal when we do stay steady. Well, let's read these four rewards specifically. There's 18 total, but there's four related to immorality. He goes, I will give some. I will give some of the hidden manna to eat. The reason he says some, because the vastness is eternal. There's an eternal supply. I mean, this manna will go on forever and forever. We'll look at it later. Number two, I will give him the white stone. With a new name written on it. Hidden manna, a white stone with a new name. Verse 26, I will give him power over the nations. I will give him power over the nations. And he shall rule them. And it goes on in that verse to say, he will rule them with me. And the point isn't just that we would rule. The point is we would rule in partnership and under his authority, in proximity to him. I don't want to just be over something. I want to do it with him. I want to be in the staff meetings with him in the age to come. I know he'll have a lot of them where he'll bring his team together over different countries and talk to them. I want to be in some of those meetings. I want to see what he wants to do and I want to be part of it with him. Now not everybody is going to be over nations, but overcomers will in various ways. Everybody that loves Jesus is saved, but not everyone saved will be over nations or be over cities or be in government. Not everyone is in the government. I want to be in the government because I want to rule with him. Not so I can strut in front of you, so I can sit with him around the table and plan and talk to him about what he wants to happen in whatever little area I'm involved in. I go, Lord, I want to be there. I want to do it with you. Then he goes on to say, well, all four of them are like, whoa, I will give them the morning star. Then he goes on later in the book of Revelation and he says, John, I'll solve the mystery. I am the morning star. It's me I'm going to give them more of. I am the morning star, John. Because John, when he said I'll give them the morning star, he might have thought, okay, I don't really know what all of these are. I don't know what John thought. But Jesus solved that morning star one, clearly saying it's me I'm going to give them. Now I want to encourage you to go on a lifetime journey. I'm on this journey to cultivate understanding of eternal rewards. I've been on this journey for years, meaning I really care about understanding the age to come. You will not make sense of this age in its lusts, its prosperity, its pressures. You can't make sense of this age without some understanding of the age to come. This age is confusing if all you see is prosperity, pressures, pleasures, and you don't see it connected. It's very confusing to interpret it. The New Testament anchors our understanding of this age and our understanding of the age to come. But here's the problem. It takes time to grow in that understanding. You have to study it. There's much in the Bible on it. But over the years, I don't find almost anybody talk about it. We're talking about how to get a bigger ministry now, how to get more friends, more money, make life easier now. It doesn't make sense if it's not anchored into those rewards and to another age. It really doesn't. Our interpretation is off of what's happening right in front of our eyes. Okay, let's look at paragraph B. Now, I have several principles that we're going to look at for a minute before we look at the rewards themselves. And again, it's a hint. It's just a briefest statement on the rewards. My real goal isn't to explain these rewards in great detail. I mean, there's much about them I don't know, but there's a bit I do know from the Bible. And there's some of it, it's speculative. I'm not sure it's this, but it might be. But the real thing I'm after is to get you connected, committed. I'm going to study these 18 rewards. I'm going to learn them because Jesus thought of them himself when he was thinking about us. And if he thought of them and he thinks I want them, I got a feeling I really do want them if I understand them. Now, most people, most believers, greatly underestimate the glory of these rewards. Like even when you read the 18, kind of read them fast, they think they're little simple things. Like he says, I'll give you a white stone with your name on it. And I read commentators, and it just leaves me so empty. Well, the white stone is, it's a little pebble, and he'll write your name. Like the Jesus of the resurrection who created the new Jerusalem is going to give me a little dull white rock. Hey, Mike, thanks. Here. Like there's this Mike on it. Thank you, Jesus. Put it in my pocket. That was cool. I don't think so. He created the new Jerusalem. That white stone is awesome. Trust me, it's not a little boring dull white rock. I promise you that. That I assure you. Principle number one, paragraph B. The eternal rewards, and I don't understand even just a fraction of where they might go in glory, but I'm trying to understand them using the Bible. Eternal rewards will far surpass the most creative producers in Hollywood have never even dreamed of where these things are going. How do I know that? Paul said it. 1 Corinthians 2. He said, I has not seen. No one's even heard it with their ears. The story of how great it's going to be. I mean, you get the greatest storyteller. You get Steven Spielberg times 10 other guys better than him. Multiply it 100. It's never entered their mind. The story's never been told what God's prepared. It's so much greater. Then Paul says, well, it's even more intense than that. It's never entered into the imagination of a man. Whatever you can imagine, it's far more glorious. Is that exciting? And he prepared it thinking about you. I mean, this is the way he loves us. So we know this. These rewards, these 18 rewards, there could be many more than 18. These are just the 18 Jesus identifies. They correspond in glory to the New Jerusalem. How glorious is the New Jerusalem? The city of precious stones. Glittering like diamonds in the glory of God. These rewards will have that kind of glory. They will correspond to that. They will correspond to the resurrected body. I mean, you're going to have a physical, material, resurrected body with the glory of the power of God in your body, in your mind, in your heart. And you're not going to get some dull little rock to put in your pocket. Doesn't correspond at all with the Jesus who designed the New Jerusalem. Here's my point. Each reward is spectacular. So when you read the commentary, and it says the rock is a little stone, and they put your name on it and say, not. It's spectacular. So I begin to ask the Lord. And I don't have the answer. I'm not claiming special revelation. I go, Lord, I want to know everything possible about these 18 rewards. They excite me. I daydream about them. I'm in the prayer room, and I'm thanking Jesus. I want to know you as the one who gives me the white stone. I want to understand what's in your heart towards me. Related to the white stone, the hidden manna. I want to know you as the Jesus who is the morning star, who will reveal yourself to me that way. I talk to him related to these rewards. I really want them. Principle number two, see. They're only given in abbreviated form. I've already said that. The implications are far bigger than that little phrase. And we can develop our understanding a little bit. We're only going to get a little bit more. But a little more understanding is a whole lot more than just a little dull white rock put in your pocket. A little more understanding will take you a long way. I know one thing. Jesus is incredibly generous. He's incredibly creative. He remembers every act of love, and he pays so well when we do so little. That's the Jesus we love, and he's the one who thought of the rewards. Paragraph E, principle three. His rewards are expressions about how he feels about the way we loved him. I've said that several times because people, they imagine themselves to be more humble than Jesus. They go, I don't want rewards. I just want him. I just want a little cabin at the end of glory. I don't want rewards. They go, well, I disagree. Jesus taught on rewards more than any other man in the Bible. Are you saying Jesus kind of like, was kind of giving false motivation because Jesus didn't get it? I think you don't get it. I think you will want those rewards. He taught on these rewards more than anybody. People go, well, I don't want to be over people, strutting around, showing everyone how great I am. That's not what the rewards are about. Get out of a pride paradigm. Get rid of your paradigm of pride about rewards. It's about proximity to Jesus. It's about him expressing the way he felt about the way you loved him. You don't want those rewards. You don't want those expressions of how he feels. When you say no to immorality, even a little bit, the small beginnings or the big test, and it moves him and he wants to tell you about that, you don't care? Well, maybe I do care. Trust me, you care. You just don't get what the rewards are, or you don't get why he's giving them to you. He's giving them to you because he's saying, this is how I feel on that lonely afternoon when everyone's against you, and you're depressed and tired, and you were tempted, and your body said yes, your mind said yes, your emotions were stirred, but you go, no, I love you, Jesus. No. And you went the other way. He goes, oh, I loved, I loved that day, and no one else even saw you go through it, but he will never forget it. Paragraph F, principle four. Every person will have a different measure. The rewards that you have will be very different from the measure of the rewards the person next to you have. They are not the same. Nobody is the same in this age, and you will not be the same in the age to come. Yes, salvation is free. Our entrance into the city is the same. We get it as a free gift by the blood of Jesus. But the glory that the Lord gives you in terms of the measure of your encounter of him, your position, your function, your garments, your crowns, all of these things will differ in glory for every single person. Now, some theologians don't like that. They want everybody to get the same reward, kind of like a benevolent communism system. Everything is the same. Everyone looks the same, acts the same, wears the same, everything's the same, and then it doesn't really matter if you're obedient in this age or not. You're going to get the same anyway, so who cares? That is an absolute deception. It does matter, and it will matter to you. In the age to come, it will matter to you what you did in this age and how the Lord responded to it. Anyway, look at 1 Corinthians 15. It says this. It says that, for one star differs from another star in glory. So also is the resurrection of the dead. Now, when you look up at the Milky Way galaxy, say you look up at the sky, there are 100 billion stars in our galaxy. 100 billion. Now, you can only see about 10,000 with the naked eye, so a fraction of a percent. 100 billion just in our galaxy. And by the way, there's 100 billion galaxies. The Milky Way is only one. There's a lot of stars. A lot of stars. Many of them are far bigger than our sun. Far bigger. Here's the point. Paul said, every single star in all of the created order is different from every other star, and it will be the same way in your resurrected bodies. You will all be different. Some of you will have the glory of God in your resurrected body far greater than others. Others of you will have the glory of God in your clothing far more than others, just like angels do. Angels are all different in the spheres of glory. There's mighty angels. There's all kinds of ranks of angels, and the same is true in the resurrection. Some of you will have far more in sight, even in the age to come, than others. Some of you will have garments far more glorious than others. Look at top of page 50. Principle 5. Now, this is just a theory, but it's a theory based on how God is like. So I think it's a sound theory. Principle 5. I believe that each one of these 18 rewards has great diversity. Like, I don't think there's only one white stone. I think there's, I don't know the numbers, so that would be foolish to say it. There may be a thousand different expressions of the white stone. Why do I think that? God is so creative. He's so creative. The ultimate creative designer. Well, how do you know God's so creative? Well, go look at the fish in the sea. You know, there are so many fish in the sea that humans never see. We don't eat them. We don't see them. We don't go, wow, isn't God glorious? There are so many we don't even know about. Why? God says, well, I create. That's what I do. I love diversity. There are so many flowers on the tops of mountains that no one ever sees. You know, some explorer gets up there, beautiful flowers. Nobody can see them. God says, it's just who I am. It's who I am. It's what I do. Stars in the sky. There are billions more than we'll ever be able to understand in this age. The Lord says, you guys got to get it. I'm creative. And don't think when it comes to eternal rewards, I lost my creativity. My creativity will never, ever be altered. So I think all of these gifts have great diversity. Number six, paragraph H. These rewards are not automatic to every believer. You may have some of these rewards and not others. You may have none of these rewards. If you live in a certain way, even in the kingdom. You may have all of the rewards. You may have some far greater than others. All the diversity. I don't know. Here's the point. It's a dynamic reality. It's not an automatic, it's not an automatic thing at all. It's in response to the way we loved Him. So I want to give you those kind of six initial principles because when you read this little phrase, you know, I'll just keep using the one, the white stone. If you don't know how powerful He is, the God who designed the New Jerusalem. You don't know how creative and diverse and spectacular. You think it's a little white pebble with your name written on it. That's unthinkable. This stone will be so spectacular. There will be, I'm guessing, so many types of these stones. Just like there's so many types of jewels, precious stones. There's not one kind of precious stones. The city of God, the New Jerusalem, is filled with precious stones. All different kinds. Big ones, little ones. In this life, you know, there's earrings and necklaces and there's the big stone the Queen of England has and the little one and the diamond and the ruby. There's so many types of stones. Well, God has the same creativity forever that He has now. Well, let's look. I'm going to go brief on these because I want to just, I'm going to spend a little bit more time on the white stone just because I just want to because it's, well, they're all so awesome. But this is, now I get to say this over and over. This is my favorite one. The hidden manna. But the other ones are as well. The hidden manna is amazing. Jesus said, I'll give you hidden manna. Now, late in John 6, verse 48, 49 and 51, right through there, He says, I am the manna. He said it with His own mouth. The hidden manna is Him, the Word of God. I'm going to feed you. Now, He's going to give us the morning star. So, food and light are different. He's talking about food for our soul. That's different than light. It's a different kind of reward. It has a different impact on it when He's the morning star. Now, the hidden manna, why is it called hidden manna? Well, most of you know, the manna, in the physical sense, because this is spiritual manna, it fell down from heaven when Moses led the children of Israel out of Egypt and they were in the wilderness. So, for 40 years, they ate manna every single day, besides the Sabbath. The manna fell from heaven. I mean, the loaf of bread came from the sky. What a bizarre way to go shopping every day. They would go to the place, pick up a supply of the manna, come home, eat it. You know, fry it, bake it, microwave it. They did everything to it, I guess. And they ate the manna. I mean, there's so many points to that that I don't even want to go into that. But then Jesus comes along in John 6. He goes, you know what? That Old Testament physical manna, it was good. It was a picture. I am the Word of God. I will feed you. What he's talking about right here, in the age to come, but also in this age, because the neat thing is, every one of these rewards have a little bit of application to our spiritual life in this age. A little bit. Mostly, it's for the age to come, but it does have application even now, a little bit. In the age to come, let's talk about in the age to come, not so much right now. He says, you obey me. Now, you will have even a greater capacity for living understanding of who I am, even in that age. So he is linking, he is linking our capacity to feel the power of the Word of God, to understand the Word of God, to our responsiveness in resisting immorality. He links it. Now, you can be saved, and God loves you, and struggle with immorality. But you will never grow in the Word to the level you could have grown, unless you resist it in a continual way. I told you a little bit in the last session. You know, I'm 17, 16, 17, 18, 19 years old. I love Jesus. I mean, I'm reading the biographies of all the great, you know, many missionaries. I want to be like them. I want to be deep in God. But I don't like the Bible. It's like, ugh. And again, worse, I didn't like prayer. If you would have told me when I was 18 years old, yay, says the Lord, you will lead the house of prayer in Kansas City, that would have been worse than a prison sentence. I would have said, Lord, I beg you, anything besides, like, pray all day, torture! Ah! That would have been horrifying to me. I mean, I love Jesus. You know, keep me active, you know. Let me go on trips. I'll do that for you. I'll die for you, but don't make me pray. I beg thee. I mean, what a hilarious turn of events that I, like, do the Bible in prayer. I mean, I was the one guy who would never do the Bible in prayer, I thought. I mean, I teach the Bible, as long as I memorized the sermon from someone else so I had something to teach. I didn't mind it at all. I took everybody's stuff. The only problem is when the guy asked me, what do you mean by that? I go, I don't know. I just memorized it from some other guy. I don't know what I mean by it. Well, I'm 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, and I stayed with it, though. I stayed with it. And suddenly, I don't even know when, I start loving the Bible. I love it. I can't wait to read it. I remember, I don't know, 22, 23, 24, somewhere, it doesn't take you that long, because it took me that long. So don't think that. Say, well, man, it's five more years. No, I had wrong ideas of God. I had wrong ideas, so many wrong ideas in my mind, so I didn't have the confidence that I needed to even approach the Lord in the right way. I thought He had eyes that were angry at me, not eyes burning with desire for me. So I ran from Him, not to Him, when I read the Bible, and that changes a lot when you see who He is. I tell you, beloved, the rich get richer. When you like it a little bit, it touches you just a little bit, then you want more. Then it touches you more. Then it touches you more. Jesus said it. To him that has, I will give more. The rich get richer. The more you touch it, the more you need it, and the more you love it, you can get just addicted to it. It is the most glorious way to live. Now I'm not trying to sound like a hot shot, but I know what it means to go from total spiritual boredom and lethargy and a dull spirit to craving being alone to read the Word and weeping and my spirit brightened. And I know that feeling so well. And like I said last session, I would give up everything in the world before I would give that up. And Jesus was telling them, you say no to immorality, you will grow in hunger and capacity to feel me in the Word. You dabble with immorality, I still love you. I still want you in my kingdom. You'll never enjoy my Word. It will always be a boredom to you. Beloved, turn off the pornography 100%. 100%. I mean, don't dabble with it at all. Again, I want to make a statement. I don't want to overdo this because I have plenty of weaknesses, but I made a decision many years ago. I will not look at internet pornography once, not once, in my entire life for even two seconds. And the Lord has helped me to keep that. I don't want to do it once. Maybe you say, well, I've already done it. Well, start today. Say never again. I said I'm going to my grave, never doing it one time ever. Why not? And I tell you that decisions like that, and that's not the big decision, but I'm telling some of you young men and women, just burn the bridge. He can, I can. I mean, I didn't feel anointed. I just said I'm not going to do it. It's not an option. If it's an option, you'll yield occasionally. I just said it's just not an option, zero. Never once. That's just how it's going to go. And again, some of you say, I'm five years in and I'm so messed up. No, no, make that commitment starting today. It's from Job 31 verse 1. That's the verse I used. I skipped it in the last session. Job 31 1, Job said, I made a covenant with my eyes. I will never look on what entices my soul in immorality. Job 31 1, write that down if that's a new verse to you. I made a covenant with my eyes, Job said. I won't go there. But here's the good news. It will increase your ability to receive the hidden manna, the word of God. You will feel its power. Not every day, all day. I don't want to exaggerate. You let some years go by and you look back, you will be a satisfied customer. But that's this age. The hidden manna has its greater reward in the age to come. I want the deepest things that God will give the human spirit. That's what I want. The deepest things you will give the human spirit. I want them. The Lord says, I'll give them to you. But I want you to say no to immorality and idolatry. And I will give you the hidden manna. Anyway, there's much more to say about that. Let's move on to the next one. Roman numeral 6. We're on page 50. I'll give you power over the nations. Whoa, it's pretty intense. You get power over the nations a little bit right now. It's called impact in ministry. Even if you're impacting three people. That's a little expression of power over the nations. But he means much more than that. He means more than impact in this age. Though that's just a token of that promise. In the age to come, he's going to give weak and broken people like us, who chose to love him, he says, I want you to be on my leadership team in close proximity to the things that are so dear to me, ruling the nations. I want you near me in doing what is dear to me. You know why I'm going to give you that position of proximity in my leadership team? Because back when you were on the earth in this age, when all the pleasures and temptations came, you so many times, not every time, because we all said, you said no to them. And the Lord is saying, because you loved me, that's the kind of man and woman I want on my leadership team in the age to come. Someone that loved me when it was hard to follow through. That's the kind of person I want ruling the earth with me. That when they had the chance to compromise, many times they decided not to. Again, nobody is perfect. We've all failed many times. And you're thinking, oh, I failed so many. Forget yesterday. I'm telling you, push delete on yesterday. Say, Lord, forgive me. And you think, no, my last ten years, you had no idea. It doesn't matter. Your sin and perversion is not stronger than the blood of Jesus. It's not. It's not. You just confess it to him. You say, I'm done with it. And say, Lord, I might even stumble, but if I do, I will war against it every time. Push delete. Stand before the Lord as one of his favorite ones. All one billion of us are his favorite ones. I am your favorite one. Here I am. It's me, Lord. Eyes of fire. And move with confidence. And forget ten years ago. Start today as a first-class citizen in the kingdom. Today. With boldness. Say, man, I got habits. I got memories. Those things will get cleansed in time. Stay with it. Now look at paragraph B. He says this. Proverbs 16. He that rules his spirit is stronger than the person who rules a city. Who captures a city. So this is what Solomon is saying in Proverbs. A man that can rule, meaning he can control his spirit. His appetites. His urges. He has the urges. He has the appetites. He has the anger. He has the crazy emotions. But he rules them. He restrains them. He goes, if you'll rule your spirit, you're actually a mightier person than the guy that takes over a city. It takes more power to rule your internal than it does to conquer a city. And Jesus is saying this. You rule your spirit by saying no to immorality because you love me. I will see to it you will rule nations with me. I mean, the correlation is there. I want to be as close to Him not just in understanding the Word. I want to be close to Him in the transformation of the nations. I want to be close to Him in impacting the age to come. I want to be close to Him in the work, not just in the Word. I want to touch Him in the work as well. He says, I'll give you both. But you must say no to immorality. I'm watching. And I'm not canceling you out if you fall, but I will remember it and take it personally in these ways if you say yes to me. Let's look at the top of page 51. The morning star. Well, Jesus said in verse 28, I'll give you the morning star. Then in chapter 22, 16, He goes, I am the morning star. I am Him. Now, John, when Jesus identified, He goes, you know what the morning star is, John? It's me. Remember when you fell like a dead man before me back in chapter 1? In chapter 1, verse 16, Jesus' face was like the sun, like a star. And the glory of God was in Jesus' face. And John went, ah, it's too great. My capacity for your glory doesn't match. And he fell like a dead man. And Jesus kind of woke him up and says, no, John, John, it's me, it's me. Don't worry, I'll turn it down. It doesn't work that way, but yeah, I forgot, John. So John gets up and I'm making this up, you know, Jesus turned the manifestation of glory emanating out of His being, His brightness. So John goes, okay, okay, now I can listen. Don't do that to me again until I get a resurrected body. You are awesome. And Jesus could say more than this, trust me, this is only a little bit. I just had it a little bit high right now. I'll remember that next time. Now, Jesus as light and brightness, this is, I mean, it's close to Him being like the Word, the manna, but it's different. This, when Paul the Apostle saw the light of Jesus, Jesus stood in front of him as a great light, Paul was touching the realm of God's glory. Now this talks about the Spirit touching us on the inside, making our spirit bright with God's brightness. I mean, it's like making this, our spirit bright with God's brightness. That's what's going on here. And so, as John, look here in paragraph B, John the Baptist was a burning and shining lamp. When Jesus is the morning star to me, at what level? And Jesus might say, what level do you want me to be the shining one who brings you into the realm of my spirit? What degree do you want it? Do you want a dull spirit? No, I want a bright spirit. And I want to communicate this bright spirit to others by the grace of God. I mean, look at John chapter 5, verse 35. It says that John the Baptist was a, this is Jesus talking. He said, my forerunner, John the Baptist, he was a bright and shining lamp. I mean, this man had a bright spirit. Now some people understand the Word in a deep way, but their spirit is still dull. I don't know how that works. Other people, they move in the spirit, but they don't do the Word very much. I want to move in the spirit, and I want to encounter things in the supernatural realm. I want the realm of His bright glory, but I want to go deep in the Word. I don't want to choose one or the other. And I don't want to just go deep in the Word, and the brightness of the realm of the Spirit and the glory, I want to rule the nations. I want to change the nations. I want to make a difference in the earth. I want to do all three of them. I want His Word, His Spirit, and His work is what I want. That's what you want. Well, we could go on and on about this, but the realm of His glory, the brightness, He will give you in this age, but He's talking, yes, to the saints for this age. He said, turn immorality, say no to it, and idolatry, I will give you brightness in your spirit even now. You won't be spiritually bored. Your spirit won't be dull. You won't be lethargic. It won't be so much effort for you to talk to me. I mean, could you imagine, and our spirit is reinvigorated with God, the place where it's not effort to talk to God, but do, you know how Misty was talking about this a little bit in her session, how when you daydream, it's kind of where you go in your mind, it's kind of when you kind of escape all the pressures and you kind of get into that daydream, whatever it is. Well, what the Lord wants is that our daydream, our getaway, our great escape is just talking to Him. That's where we draw back. When all the pressures, and we're kind of just fantasizing in the holy sense, we find ourself talking to Him. Most Christians say it's so much effort to talk to Him. I have to stop, you know, turn off everything. Okay, Jesus, I love you. You love me. The word says it. It's an hour of prayer meeting, oh, 58 minutes to go. Okay. Yes, you're my everything. I give everything to you. You're my everything. 57 minutes. And it's effort to talk to Him. I understand that. That is so normal. But I have felt some over these years where when things are happening, I find myself daydreaming without even thinking about it. I'm thinking about these rewards of talking to Him. And the word of God, I go, Lord, how did this happen? And the Lord's answer is, I'm touching you a little bit with my light. It's just a little bit. I go, wow, it takes kind of a little bit more work to get back to work. I go, wow, this is different. In the early days, it was so much work to sit down and talk to you. And every now and then, it's not always this way, it takes work to stop talking. I go, wow. I go, I'm a weakened, broken man. How did that happen? And I think the Lord's answer is, it's a little bit of me as the morning star. Where is this going in the age to come? Beloved, in the age to come, you will have a spiritual capacity to receive and even to release the light of God related to what you did with immorality in this life. This is why Jesus said, if you won't stop it, I'm gonna break in and help you stop it because the rewards are stunning more than you know and they last forever. You really do want me to break in and wake you up. Trust me, you do. People go, if he breaks in, how can he be a God of love? How can he be a God of love if he didn't break in with his discipline to stop us? Because he knows how glorious what he has for us. Well, let's look at the top of page 52. This is up. I love all of them. I love them so much. The white stone. The little dull rock that isn't. So much more than this. He says this. We'll just take the next five minutes on this and then we'll ask the Lord to touch us. This is a... I believe this will be, just my opinion, one of our most precious possessions in the age to come. You'll have your crown, some of you. You'll have garments. You'll like those. All of you will have different garments. They won't all be the same. Yes, you do get all the standard white gown, the white t-shirt that's really full of glory. You all get that coming in the city, but much more than that. That's not the fullness of your wardrobe. Like I said the other night, Jesus didn't forget the wardrobe. The food is great. The music's great. The fragrance is great. The visuals are great. The diamonds are everywhere. The water is awesome. Everything is great, but we're stuck with one glorious white t-shirt to live for billions of years because he forgot the wardrobe. No, he didn't. He is spectacular in his creative design of clothing. He is spectacular in a designer of clothes. He gets it way more than we get it. And he's going, you're going to wear, you're going to wear the way you loved him in this age. You're going to wear it in the age to come because you're going to have garments that are going to be communicating how he feels about the way you loved him. Beloved, it is so worth it saying no to immorality and idolatry. It really is. Well, these are the things Jesus told them. If you get a hold of these, you'll be motivated. Okay, the white stone. Let's finish with this one. Verse 17. To the one who overcomes, again, this is not everybody. Not everybody, again, gets the free gift into the city, but he's talking specifically about overcoming immorality and idolatry in a specific way. So don't take this out of context. He's addressing two specific sins they were compromising with in that city. I'll give you a white stone. And on the stone, I'll put a new name. This new name is critical. He's going to put the new name on the stone. And the third point, it's a name nobody knows. The name will even surprise you. So, first of all, what I think, and again, I'm using a little bit of my holy imagination. I'm basing it on the Bible that I know, but I'm saying this. I go, Lord, I only have a little bit of insight on this. And I'm basing it by how God used stones and how God showed that he remembered our dedication in the days of old. There's plenty of Bible verses where he proves to us he remembers our dedication. Matter of fact, this reward is a reward of remembrance. It's a reward like a trophy where he's shouting at you, I remembered everything you did. This is different than the manna, the morning star in the ruling of the nations. This is a trophy. This is a memorial. This is a statement of remembrance about how you loved him and about how he felt about the way you loved him during your 70 years on the earth. Now, the name. You understand what a name means in the Bible. The name is the story of a person's life, is their name. The name is insight into their character, insight into their destiny. When the Lord says, I'm putting your name on it, he's not just, you know, inscribing on a little white pebble, you know, in my case, Mike. You know, bro, that's not what he's doing. Hey, bro, good to have you. Yeah, no. You know, with a little nickname. It's not a nickname. Your name is the story of who you are. I believe he's saying this. In that stone, I will tell the story of the way you loved me and the way I felt about it and how it moved him. Let's look at B. Now, the word white. I'm just going to leave most of this to read on your own. The white stone B, I believe, most probably, it relates to a precious stone, like diamonds, rubies, sapphire, that kind of thing. C, the actual word white is used, related to Jesus even, to mean glistening, brilliant, shiny. This isn't a dull rock. This is something far more glorious than a diamond. Though I believe there will be many expressions, very little ones, like a little earring one. I don't mean you'll put it in your ear. That's not my point. My point being, little ones to big ones, but I'm just going to picture one standard one just kind of for the analogy. Again, I'm making this part up. I picture something about the size of just one of these thousands of expressions that might be of this white stone. I picture something like a soccer ball. So just get a soccer ball like this, in your mind. Now the soccer ball, it's not a soccer ball. It is far more glorious than the most brilliant diamond that's ever been on the earth. I mean it has supernatural glory of God in this stone. It's a stone, but much more than an earthly stone. It is a glorious New Jerusalem stone. So I'm not saying it's that big, but that's just how I picture it. I like to picture, Lord, give me that white stone. I picture Him handing it to me and my heart broken with joy. Oh Lord, look at the glory of God. I mean it's way beyond a shining diamond. And then the Lord says, look closely. I'm making this conversation up. Look your names on it. I put the story of how you loved me in that stone. Look. We look at the stone and I imagine that this stone has, where do I have this written here? Let me see. Let's go to page 53. Okay. Well, let's go to J. Top of page 53. Middle of page 53. J. This is my last two, three minutes here. This stone has a name no one knows. You don't even know the name. The reason I think you don't know the name, because you don't know how much your love moves Him until He tells you on that day. On that day, I'm just making it personal to me. This is how I imagine it. When the Lord says, you know those little days that were boring, mundane, lonely, hard days and you chose to say yes to what I told you to and you obeyed me? Let me tell you how I feel about that. And I go, oh my goodness. I had no idea that this is what you meant to me. And this is what you mean to me now. I go, Lord, there's this unthinkable that I never knew. And He says, that's what I mean. It's a new name. It will surprise even you the way your weak little life touched me. I believe that's a dimension of the name that no one knows. Paragraph K. Now we're moved by telling stories. We love to tell stories. I love to read a biography about some great man of God. You know, my favorite was J. Hudson Taylor to China in the 1850s. I love J. Hudson Taylor. When I was 18, 19, I told J. Hudson Taylor stories, missionary stories, because I didn't know Bible verses. So my Bible studies, I told stories of missionaries. And I read all the missionaries, you know, Charles Finney and Jonathan Edwards and David Brainerd and John G. Lake and I'd give a few Bible verses and tell stories. I got good news for you. Jesus loves to tell your story just like we love to tell the story of others. He goes, I love to tell your story. You think you like J. Hudson Taylor stories? The Lord says, I like J. Hudson Taylor stories much better than you do. They moved me and they will touch me forever. My point is He desires to tell the stories forever and He will tell the story about you many, many times to you, maybe to those that are near you. I don't know how it works. But don't think that one time you're going to shake His hand, He's going to hug you, give you a wedding ring. Next! Go on, get to work. Next one in. No. He loves your story and it will be told forever and forever. Not just His story. We sing the hymn, we love to tell the story. We do. That's our favorite story is His. But part of His story is the way we moved Him. Beloved, the dignity we have to Him is beyond anything we understand it really matters. Let's go to M. The last point here. I'm going to get my media team get ready in just a second. Not yet. This is wild here. Paragraph M. I saved it to the last. And this isn't exactly how it is. But I want to push you in your holy imagination. How spectacular will these white stones be? If somebody took this soccer ball, hypothetical, it's not a soccer ball. They put the most advanced technology, I mean the smartphone times a million inside that soccer ball. They made it crystal clear. Brighter than diamonds. The glory of the resurrection. I mean and multiply all these capacities. It has... Imagine if that little soccer ball that's now a big diamond had all the advanced technology of video, music, color, light, fragrance. We're talking about the Jesus of the New Jerusalem. I mean He's really creative and really powerful. And He loves to stun us with His love. He's creating something so big. He's going to hand it to you. And so I'm imagining that I look in this stone. He goes, Look, if you think technology is good, you ought to see the power of the Holy Spirit. I don't need technology. I can give open visions. I can recall anything, anytime, anywhere I want and show as many people as I want. Look at that. Your name with that stone. I'm just wondering, what if every episode of your life of choices to love Him is in that stone? It's part of the new name that will even move you forever. Well, I was telling some of the worship leaders this. I go, I can't picture it. It's no matter what I thought, it's... Paul said, it's never even entered the mind of a man. Whatever you think, it's far superior to anything you can think. So Misty said to me the other day, some months or two ago, whatever, she goes, Have you ever seen a plasma ball? I go, Never heard of plasma ball. She goes, They're weird. They're weird things. Let me show it to you. So, a few of us got together and I saw it. I go, I like that. I'm picturing something a million times better, but I like it. I go, That's the soccer ball that's like a diamond that has all the stories of my love for Him in it. I go, Misty, these others sit around the table. I go, If I get one of these, I'm going to invite you over and show you how He felt when I loved Him. And I want to see how... I want to see the one with your name on it. Anyway, we're just having fun. But I want to show you these about just a couple video, I mean, clips. Just to kind of push you a little bit on it. Now, this isn't what it looks like because that's what a plasma ball looks like. Look at that. Imagine a ball like that with all of the stories of your life in it. And Jesus hands that to you times a thousand or a million. More glorious than that. Now, that's not a little white rock, is it? A little white rock would not motivate me. Can we move that on or we're stuck on the timing? I like it though. Somebody like... I'll kick it. See if it moves. Anyway, isn't that a cool soccer ball? Could you imagine what if 40 years ago when I first started really seeking the Lord, the Lord says, look, let me show you a part of your name. Here's that one day. I can't remember. Remember when you were 16 and you did this? No, I don't. He goes, here, look. I'll show it to you. Oh, here's another one. Maybe the soccer ball's like that with diamonds and lightning and thunder. You know why I like lightning and thunder? Because lightning and thunder comes out of the throne. What if it comes out of that stone? I don't know. But I like it. I go, maybe the soccer ball's that way, but a million times better. Okay? Maybe not. But who knows? But here's the point. It's not a dumb little white rock you put... a pebble you put in your pocket and you go, well, in that case, I'll say no to all immorality now that I got that little pebble. I don't think so. Amen. Let's end with that. Let's stand. Go ahead and we turn the... Let's turn the little toys off there. Those are toys. I'm imagining something that's real, not a toy. Luke, come on up. We're just gonna respond for five, seven minutes just to say, Lord, we love you. Lord, I want everything. I want everything. I want to be lost in what you are thinking about me and what the Father thinks about you. I want to... Everything is for you in between us. Beloved, it's worth... Our dedication is worth it. It is worth it. Now, I'm looking at some of you, you're smiling real big. This is like real stuff. This is rewarding. You should be smiling. You're going like, come on. No, it's way better than I just told you. Lord, we come to you. We ask you, Lord. We don't understand these things. We want something glorious to touch our heart. We want the spirit of wisdom and revelation. Tell the Lord right now, I say no to immorality. I don't care what that guy is saying or what that girl is saying or what that youth pastor is preaching. I say no. I say no. He's worth it. I'm doing it His way. Now, say no to shame. Say no to shame and condemnation. I've blown it so much, you might say, the last three years or ten years. Just push delete and start over. First class citizen right now today. Say, starting today, I'm going a whole new way. Forget yesterday. And if you blow it, that doesn't mean you're a hypocrite and you're just a loser. Recommit again and push delete again and start new that day.