Phil Beach Jr. emphasizes the importance of longing for the Lord's coming and the transformation it brings to believers. He encourages the congregation to avoid bitterness and division, urging them to maintain a heart aligned with God's love. Beach highlights that the anticipation of Christ's return should not be a mere doctrine but a passionate desire that reflects the mutual longing between Christ and His church. He calls for a deep, spiritual transformation that detaches believers from earthly concerns and ignites a fervent desire for immortality and the glory of God. Ultimately, he stresses that the coming of the Lord is the culmination of the redemptive process initiated at salvation, leading to a life that reflects Christ's image.

Come and lift up Jesus Christ. Praise God. Thank you, brother. What a absolute joy it has been fellowshipping with you dear folks. My heart is delighted that I know now that I have a family in Wilkesboro, Pennsylvania. A real family. A family that loves the Lord. A family that recognizes Jesus as everything. And a family that is ever increasing in a hunger for Him. Amen? Just a hunger for Him. Don't you long for Him? I want to ask you a few questions tonight. First of all, do you love everyone in here tonight? Do you have hard feelings? I know hard feelings sometimes can be difficult. We go through things. Misunderstandings. Let me just encourage you. Don't allow a hard feeling to develop in your heart toward any member of the body of Christ. Now maybe you can't prevent the way someone feels about you. But you pray for that person. And don't, don't beloved, yield to bitterness or unforgiveness. Don't. And if you find that you're weakening, go to Jesus. Say, Lord give me something of your heart in regard to this matter. The one way the devil can really ruin what God is trying to do, whether it's in two people, or 20 people, or 50 people, or however many, is if he can get in through creating a division. Bitterness. Jealousy. Rivalry. Unforgiveness. Gossip. So, be determined by God's grace, beloved, to keep yourself, as the scripture says in the book of Jude, in the love of God. Keep yourself in the love of God. Stay full of the Spirit of God. Always remember what you cannot do, Jesus Christ can do. What you cannot do, Jesus Christ can do. So, be sure that your heart is always right before the Lord. And we can never say, I love God, and not love those born of God. We can't do it. Amen? So, let's stand together. Stand together tonight as a family, committed. To not letting the enemy get a foothold in your heart toward anyone, no matter what happens. When Jesus was slandered and reviled, he reviled not. But he committed it to the Lord. Amen? He committed it to the Lord. Don't speak harsh words one to another within the family. Whenever you feel that there's something brewing and you are inclined to become harsh or sharp, be humble and say, wait a minute, wait, wait, wait. We can't let this go on. Let's pray. Let's pray. If you sow, Brother John and I were talking about this this afternoon, if you sow harshness into your family, guess what you're going to reap? Harshness. If you sow critical spirits among your conversations at home, guess what you're going to reap? Critical spirits. It's very difficult to try and teach your children about the meekness of Jesus when they see the harshness of your own self. So it's these little things that the Lord wants to really get a hold of in our life. Amen? He really wants to get a hold of it in our life. Well, there's so much in my heart, so much in my heart tonight. I had to pray and say, oh Lord, what is it that your thought is for tonight? What is it that's on your heart tonight? And the Lord put in my heart what I believe to be a very encouraging message for us. And I think it's going to help us understand a lack. And if we're honest, we're going to have to admit it's in our life, but it's everywhere. We're going to identify this lack, we're going to understand why it's there, and we're going to see how God can cure that lack so that we can have a right attitude toward this all-important thing the Lord is after tonight. If you have your Bibles, I want to invite you to open them to, uh, let's go to Hebrews chapter 9. Let's all try and listen tonight with our hearts in the Lord. Maybe we're going to ask the Lord to help us. Because we want to catch this. We want to catch the Lord's heart on this whole subject, because this is a subject that, that in many, many Christians is, is something that we believe because we know we have to believe it. We know we've got to, if we're an evangelical born again, particularly a spirit-filled Christian, we've got to believe this subject. And we know it's got to be a significant part of our life, but we sense the lack, and we wonder why, and we just sort of lift up the carpet and put it under the carpet. But, but tonight I believe the Lord can, can resurrect something in us that is so important to Him, and it will be important to us, and it'll be important one to another. Alright? Hebrews chapter 9, verse, verse number 28, beginning in verse number 26, or excuse me, verse number 27. And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment, so Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many, and unto them that look for Him shall He appear the second time without sin unto salvation. The final groaning is what we want to talk about tonight. The final groaning. There is something in the Lord's heart that He so eagerly is longing to see in the church corporately. And that which is in the Lord's heart, which He so longs to see in our lives, is a groaning. There's a groaning in the Lord's heart, a travail in the Lord's heart, a burden in the Lord's heart, a longing within the Lord's heart. And this longing is in relation to His appearing. It's in relation to His appearing. And He is looking, listen closely, He is looking for a corresponding longing in us that matches the longing He has. It's like a bride and a bridegroom, a bridegroom and a bride. There ought to be a corresponding desire, a mutual desire shared within each one, a passion, a flaming desire, insatiable, unquenchable. Nothing can put that desire out. It ought not to just be in the bridegroom. How sad it would be if the bridegroom had this, in a good way, violent, in a good way, an intense longing to meet and to consummate with his bride-to-be. And it just consumed him. It consumed him. It consumed his thoughts. It consumed his meditations. And then he got close to his bride-to-be, the one who he is espoused to, and he sensed deep in his spirit that though she talked to him about the time of their consummation, though she talked to him about the day when they will become one, yet he longed, he sensed in his spirit that there wasn't an equal longing there for him as he had for her. Oh, I suppose that that would be troublesome to him. That would be troublesome to him. I suppose that he would be most delighted, exceedingly delighted, beyond a description, if he discovered though that suddenly something happened and the longing within her heart began to correspond with the quality of it, the intensity of it, the purity of it, the freshness of it began to correspond to the one in his heart. Oh, I mean, he would be delighted. And isn't this wonderful? Now we've got a mutual sharing here. We've got a mutual longing for one another. Amen? This is what the Lord is after. As the scripture says here, he died for the sins of many and unto them that look for him. Now, this look for is an interesting word. It's just not a casual, uh, let me see. No, he's not there yet. It's not a casual kind of a glance, but this look for is the idea of standing on tiptoes and anticipating with great zeal. That's what the idea here is. So he's coming for those who are spiritually speaking, and it's all right if you even do it literally. Might be good, a little exercise. But spiritually speaking, he's coming and he's looking for those who are longing for his appearing with intense desire. No less, beloved, no less than the desire he has for us. Okay, now the lack, you feel it. And I'm not overplaying this at all. If anything, I'm underplaying it. We say in our spirits, yes, that's true, absolutely, yay, amen. I know that's true. My spirit bears witness. The Holy Ghost witnesses to me. I can read it. It's black and white. I see it, but I want it. I want that. I hear it. I don't want the lack. I feel it. Let's turn our Bibles to 2 Timothy chapter 4. The final groaning, the final groaning. What is going to be corporately occurring, corporately occurring within the body of Christ that's going to proceed, that's going to come right before the Lord appears in glory? What is it? What's the groaning? What's the longing? I'll tell you one thing, it's not going to be a worked-up longing, a human-manufactured longing. I want you to rest tonight, beloved. This is no call to conjure up some kind of a religious, emotional frenzy over the coming of the Lord, that strange fire. The Lord doesn't want that stuff, and you don't have to feel obliged or obligated to somehow come up with a longing, because hopefully, by God's grace, when we're done with this message, you're going to see exactly how your life can be revolutionized, and you can genuinely, through and through, find yourself literally driven in a spiritual way with an intensity for the Lord's longing that you've never known before, and you'll be able to say, praise God, it's all of Him, and I didn't even have to work it up. Is that what you want? And I tell you, beloved, such a kind of a passion spreads like wildfire. People recognize it, and there's a very simple reason why this longing and this passion has been virtually lost within the body of Christ. I didn't say the doctrine's lost. The doctrine's there, every good evangelical Bible-believing church acknowledges the Lord's coming, acknowledges that He's coming, acknowledges that they're the ones He's coming for, they hope, anyway. Every church acknowledges it. The Lord wants something more than that, and we'll find out why the lack is present. It's not very difficult at all. Second Timothy, chapter 4, verse 8, beginning in verse number 6. For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I've kept the faith. Henceforth, there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day, and not to me only, but unto all them that also love His appearing. They're incredible words, to love His appearing, to so passionately long for His appearing. That is who the Lord is coming for. It's very clear, isn't it? He's coming for those passionately longing for, loving, and, spiritually speaking, standing on tiptoes with intense anticipation. Okay, the lack. Why? The Lord's coming, beloved, was never intended by God to become a doctrine, simply a teaching that we believe. But the Lord's coming is intended by the Lord to be directly related to, not disconnected from, but directly related to, a process that began when we became born again. When the Lord's coming is no longer some kind of an event, which it is, but it's not simply an event unrelated to the process, but becomes the completion of a process that the Lord began in our lives, then the second coming of the Lord is no longer simply a profession of dead faith, or a profession of a doctrine that we know we have to believe, but it becomes a longing and a passion within our heart because we recognize it, His coming, to be the very thing that's going to bring into total and complete manifestation and expression that which He began when He saved us. The coming of the Lord is not an unrelated doctrine, and it cannot be. The coming of the Lord is God's thought in completing what He has begun. Now, what has He begun? What did He begin, beloved, in us the day we were saved? 2 Corinthians chapter 3, 2 Corinthians chapter 3, 2 Corinthians chapter 3, verse number 17. Now, the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. Now, oftentimes we interpret that scripture as, when the Spirit of the Lord is present, there is liberty, and we equate that liberty to freedom to worship, or freedom to clap our hands, or freedom to dance before the Lord, or freedom to whatever you equate liberty to. And I suppose that's true, but, beloved, this scripture's not talking about that kind of liberty. The scripture here, when it says, where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty, the liberty that the scripture's speaking of there is an emancipation. It is a deliverance from the law and the bondage of the law and the bondage of the dead letter into a unitive life with God through the Holy Ghost. It is a liberty from the corruption of what we are into the incorruption of what Christ is. It is an emancipation from the dregs of sin, from the dregs of self, from the dregs of satanic power into the freedom and liberty of the Son of God who says, He whom the Son sets free is free indeed. It is a total transition from one covenant which ministered death and bondage and judgment into the new covenant which ministers life, life, life. What the Lord began when He saved us is a process. We spoke on that this morning. It's the process of planting us in His Son, planting us in the kingdom of God. We've been translated out of the kingdom of darkness. You've been translated out of the dominion of darkness, beloved. You are no longer under the dominion of darkness if you are in the kingdom of God, if your eyes have been opened and you're born again. You are not part of the kingdom of darkness. You have been translated into the kingdom of God's dear Son. You have literally been created in Christ Jesus, bone of His bone, flesh of His flesh, sharing the identical same life, nature, and character that the blessed Son of God has in heaven. You have now. You say, well, I don't see it. Beloved, we don't look at the things which are seen. We look at the things which are not seen. The things that are seen are temporal. The things that are not seen are eternal. And we don't see with these eyes the fact that we are one with God in Christ, but with our spiritual eyes we know it's true because the Word says it. So the process that God began at the new birth is translating us out of the kingdom of darkness, planting us into the kingdom of His dear Son, and now He is conforming us into the very image and likeness of Jesus Christ. Now remember, all of this relates to the Lord's coming. This is what ignites the doctrine of the second coming into a living hope that we should possess. The second coming of the Lord ought to be the most exciting, the most talked about, the most anticipated thing that the church can imagine. And the reason why it's not is because it has become an unrelated doctrine rather than that which we know will bring to completion that which God has begun in us. The coming of the Lord will be the ultimate day when the Lord gets everything that the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ secured for the Father. It's going to get it. That's the day He's looking for, and He wants to produce in a people the same kind of longing. Now listen, 2 Corinthians chapter 3, verse number 18, where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty, but we are with open face beholding as in a glass or mirroring, mirroring the glory of the Lord. Now watch what it says, but we are with open face beholding as in a glass or reflecting as a glass does the glory of the Lord, are changed, transformed into the same image from glory to glory even as by the Spirit of God. God's thought for the church is nothing less, beloved, it's nothing less than to transform a people from the inside first into the image of the Lord Jesus Christ consummating, coming to a completion by enabling a people to actually literally conquer death itself. Do you believe that? Do you believe that death is your friend or your foe? Do you believe it's an enemy or a friend? Death is an enemy. Death is an enemy. Did you know that? Listen, 2 Timothy chapter 1, 2 Timothy chapter 1, the Lord wants a people so detached from earth, so detached from this life, so detached from walking to the drumbeat of this world, so detached from walking to the drumbeat of society, so detached whose eyes are so focused on him, who are consumed with an insatiable passion that the Lord might get the glory that is due his name. Beloved, you don't have to conjure this stuff up. You don't have to work it up. All you have to do is pray, Lord, open up my eyes and let me see Jesus. Let me see the Son of God. Beloved, if you want to know what pleases Almighty God, if you want to know what brings ultimate satisfaction to the heart of eternal God, you know, we might know what brings satisfaction and joy to our close friend. We might know what makes our wife happy. We might know what makes our husband happy. We might know that what makes our children happy. But beloved, you want to know what makes eternal God happy. You want to know what makes the Father in heaven happy? See Jesus. Get a greater revelation of Jesus Christ and you will see the satisfaction of God. Everything that God has ever longed for from eternity past unto eternity future is found in the person of Jesus Christ. Everything that God has ever imagined to be beautiful and lovely is found in Jesus Christ. And where are we? In Jesus Christ. God has taken all of the loveliness and all of the beauty and all of the righteousness and all of the holiness and all of the character that is in His Son, Jesus Christ, and has planted it by the new birth into the church. Beloved, there is a revolution going on today. There is a revolution going on, but the eyes of men cannot see it. But in the heavenlies, in the spirit realm, there's a revolution going on. God is preparing a people to share in the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is preparing a people to be emancipated from everything that is not according to Christ, that is not like Jesus Christ. The work begins through the new birth. It begins through the Spirit of God coming to live inside of us and then the process of the working of the cross. We see we've been crucified with Christ. We see that God not only has forgiven us as sinners, but He crucified us. We're not just forgiven sinners. We're crucified. That is, the totality of what we are apart from Christ in God's eyes, in God's thought, is no longer there. He has rejected it. We don't have to bear the burden anymore because in Christ Jesus, when Jesus died, He took you and He took me down with Him to the grave. He took you down with Him. You don't have to do it. Jesus did it. And when He raised up from the dead, He brought you with Him so that now your life is His life and your old life is buried with Him. I am crucified with Christ. 2 Timothy 1, verse 7, For God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. Be not therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me, His prisoner. But be thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the power of God, who hath saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began, but is now made manifest by the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ. Listen now, beloved, who has abolished death and hath brought life and what? Immortality to life through the gospel. Now, beloved, this directly relates to the Lord's coming. Jesus Christ has brought to life, He has brought to life, life and immortality through the gospel of Jesus Christ. The coming of the Lord Jesus Christ is directly related to a people who, through the working of the Holy Spirit, through the Word of God, through the power of the cross of Christ, working in them, detaching them more and more and more from life, from this life, and igniting in them a passion for Jesus Christ more and more and more. The second coming of the Lord is in direct relation to that process being worked in a people. Now, beloved, what is the completion of the process of our redemption? What is the completion of it? What is it that we are being conformed into? The very image and likeness of Jesus Christ. Now, let me ask you a question. Is Jesus Christ earthly or heavenly? Did you know that it's your inheritance in Christ to be heavenly? Did you know the Bible commands you to seek for immortality? Do you know that? You say, well, where does it say that? Turn your Bible to Romans, Romans chapter 2. Now, beloved, let me tell you, this is not some strange, weird doctrine. This is not some new revelation. God forbid if we should think it to be that. It is a sacred, holy calling that God wants to put in our hearts. It will detach us from things. We will give such a longing for the Lord Jesus Christ. We will see what he's after and what we are called to be for his glory. Romans chapter 2, verse number 6, beginning in verse number 5, talking about people who don't repent when they hear the gospel. But after your hardness and unrepentant heart, you treasure up for yourself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God who will render to every man according to his deeds. Now, watch closely. To them who by patient continuance and well-doing seek for glory and honor and what? Immortality. Right there it is. There are a people whom God has had and who are presently alive now. Perhaps we ourselves are among that group who are seeking for glory, honor, and immortality. Now, notice what he says. To them, eternal life. But to them that are contentious and do not obey the truth but obey unrighteousness, indignation, and wrath, tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man that doeth evil of the Jew first and also of the Gentile. But glory, honor, and peace to every man that worketh good. To the Jew first and also to the Gentile. There you have it, beloved. God longs for a people who so want to know Jesus and so want Jesus to be glorified in their life and so experience the healing and discipline and scourging and child training of God in their life insofar as the Lord makes them sick of this world. Does the world make you sick? It should. Do the things going on in this world make you nauseous spiritually? It should. The Lord wants a people that realize everything about our new citizenship is heavenly. What kind of a spirit do we have? A Holy Spirit. What kind of a Jerusalem are we a part of? A holy, heavenly Jerusalem. What kind of a calling are we partakers of? A holy calling. What kind of a Father do we have? A heavenly Father. Where is our citizenship now? In heaven. Where's the Savior going to come from? Heaven. What kind of a man is Jesus? A heavenly man. Everything about us, everything about the new birth and the new creation and the new man that God has created is heavenly, heavenly, heavenly, heavenly, heavenly. What's the consummation of that groaning? What's the completion of that revelation when we see the man in glory is the one in whom God is totally satisfied and now he wants a people who are conformed into the very image and likeness of the man in glory. What's the consummation to that? I'll tell you, beloved, it's not a belief in the second coming of the Lord in order to escape. It's not a belief in the second coming of the Lord so that Jesus comes back and destroys all the enemies, although both of those will occur at his coming. We will escape and the Lord will destroy his enemies, but beloved, that ought not to be our chief desire for longing that he might come. Our chief desire for the longing of the Lord ought to far exceed the thought of us escaping or the thought of the Lord coming and destroying all the enemies. Our chief desire ought to be that the Lord's coming will be the completion of a process where the Lord gets in me and in the church the full expression, the full manifestation, the full demonstration of his glory by revealing his Son. It ought not, listen, it ought not to be, and this is why the Lord's so sad, the coming of the Lord in most Christians is self-relating. Oh, I can't wait for the Lord to come because it's going to affect me this way. I'm going to escape. I'm going to get out. Oh, I can't wait for the Lord to come because if he doesn't, I might have to get persecuted, or I can't wait for the Lord to come because if he doesn't, I might lose all the money in the bank account that I have, or I might not be able to fulfill my dreams, and the fact is if I can't fulfill my dreams, well, it's best the Lord come because there'd be no reason then really for me to live if I can't, you know, travel around the world or own a mansion and a yacht. I'm not suggesting anyone in here has those, but just for the sake of understanding, you know, and this is basically the extent to which there is a belief within the church for the Lord's coming. It's related to and it's connected to a self-relating desire. The Lord has to come so we get saved, but beloved, the Lord wants to deliver us from that. He wants to deliver us from that because chiefly everything the Lord does in our life is for himself. He's getting something out of it. What's the Lord getting out of it? What's the Lord gonna get when he comes again? It's not so much what we get, it's what the Lord gets. You see, our whole way of thinking as Christians must be renewed. It's not what can I get from the Lord. You know, so many times we become Christians and we're under this impression now that we have a heavenly Santa Claus or, you know, a Barbara Eden, I Dream of Jeannie, and we carry the Bible around in our back pocket as if it's a rabbit's foot, and now we go to the Lord and we see him as our eternal supplier of whatever we want, whatever we need, whatever we desire, but beloved, that whole concept of understanding salvation is warped. It's not right. There may be an initial crisis that we all come to where we come to the Lord because we see our need, but we should grow out of that so that it's no longer my need and God is the answer to my need. We need to grow into the kind of passion that Jesus had. Jesus lived on this earth with a passion not as everything didn't revolve around him, it revolved around his Father. He was incredibly desirous to fulfill God's need, to fulfill God's desire. Wouldn't it be wonderful if the church, corporately speaking, would awake out of the realm of, I see everything God is and has done in relation to how it affects me, into the concept, into the mentality of everything God is doing is not revolving around me. Thank God for that. Can you imagine if everything God did revolved around us? Isn't that a warped universe? We've got the gospel as a gospel that revolves around us, but see, God's plan is more vast than revolving around us. Though we are included in God's plan in Christ, we're not the center of attention. We're not the center of attention. One of the most difficult things to teach children when they begin to grow, when they begin to understand a little bit about life, is life does not revolve around you. It's so hard to teach, isn't it? Everything is related to them. Everything they see, everything they hear, everything they feel is interpreted by how it relates to them. It's the human dilemma. It's the human dilemma. But God wants to emancipate us. There is no escape from that mentality, except through the Lord Jesus Christ. There is only one man that ever lived on this earth whose life did not revolve around himself, but it revolved around the Father in heaven, and that man is Jesus Christ, the Son of God. And the only way that you and I as Christians can be emancipated from a self-relating life where everything we do and think revolves around how it affects us into a greater life where everything we do, we're looking for what is the Lord getting out of it? What's the Lord getting out of this? What's the Lord securing for himself? The only way we can come into that kind of a renewal of the mind is if we meet the man Jesus in a greater way, meet him in a greater way. So, consequently, his coming, not a way out, his coming, not, ah, finally he'll bring revenge. All that may be true, but that ought not to be what is stirring in us. Those motives will not be sufficient to create in us the longing that God wants. Do you know why? Because when they're the motives of our longing for his coming, Jesus knows it's not, it's not exclusively because you want him or something there for me. The Lord doesn't want that. He wants a bride who is dead, and her whole passion is for her Lord, for her Lord. Now is it beginning to dawn how the coming of the Lord can become something so incredible, so wonderful, such a passion, such a longing that you never imagined it was possible when it's understood in the biblical way and not in the traditional way of just confessing a doctrine, yes, we believe he's coming, but rather we see it as the consummation. God will have a people who long for his appearing because they have seen the man in glory, and everything he is is God's satisfaction, and as long as we are falling short in experience of what he is, God has not yet gotten what he's after. Did you know that Paul had a longing and a groaning in his heart for immortality? Because Paul understood that his full inheritance was indeed life and immortality. This is, listen, this is why the early church had such a passion for his longing. This is why the early church longed for his appearing. This is why the early church was any moment looking for him. It didn't have time to become a dead doctrine. It was understood by the early church as the consummation to the process. Has that process begun in you? Are you saved? Are you born again? Does the Spirit of Jesus Christ live in you? If so, is God bringing an inner groaning inside of you to be more and more and more brought into the likeness of Jesus? Well, let me tell you, if God is doing that, and you keep minding the Lord and keep letting him work in your life, do you know where it's going to end up? It's going to end up with a God-wrought groaning in your spirit to put death right under your feet. Right under your feet. And you're going to see death under your feet directly related to the Lord coming, and you're going to say, even so, Maranatha, come Lord Jesus. It's not going to just be a dead confession. It's going to be the longing of your heart. But on the way to that road, beloved, be prepared for the Lord to bring a continual inward change. How can the church groan for immortality when they are in love with their mortality? Now see, we could take this and work it down this path, and it really touches home. Let me ask a question. Do you know the Bible is called a mirror? Let me ask you a question. Do you look in that mirror more often than you do the one that shows you your physical body? Dare I ask, do you spend more time in front of the mirror in your bathroom than you do before the mirror of God's Word showing you what manner of man you are so that you can look to Jesus and see the kind of man you ought to be? Our mortality. It's got us. No, I'm not denying it, and I'm not saying it's wrong, but I see Jesus. There's the man after God's own heart. There's the man of God's thought. That man has got to become the obsession of the church. How can we be seeking? Let me ask a question. How many Christians do you know that are groaning for immortality? Not many. I know some that are groaning because they didn't get three weeks vacation, and they're bickering, and they're angry. Sometimes it's good to feel our need, isn't it? We shouldn't feel condemned, but we should feel a lack, but we shouldn't feel a lack without hope. The element of hope is always in the Lord's dealing. The Lord's dealing is always redemptive. If He deals with us in a strong way, it's only because He wants to move us up higher with Him. Immortality will never become something we long for until the Lord begins an inside work of detaching our hearts from this life, detaching our hearts from the cares of this life. The love of money is the root of all evil. I hope that every single person in this room can take a hundred dollar bill and burn it in a second. I hope you can. I hope everyone in this room can take every ounce of money that you have in your bank account and give it away in a second. I hope you can, because if you can't, then that might indicate that that means more to you than it should. Where your treasure is there is your heart. How can you be longing for immortality if your treasure is in your bank statement? See, all these things come into perspective. It's not through law, beloved. It's not through bondage. It's simply by seeing the man in glory, seeing Him. That's it. There's one thing we're called to do as a church, individually in our prayer closets and corporately. We've got to see Him. If you see Him, you'll catch it. And if you keep seeing Him, you'll keep catching it. Don't you want to be apprehended, seized apart? How about Paul? I count all things done, refuge. Do I hear an amen in your heart? Do you consider everything in this life, everything going good for you in this life, might not be bad, might not be bad, but can you consider it all in a moment's time to be rubbish, dung, something you could turn your back to in a second in relation to knowing Him? Can you let go? Are you detached? Does anything have a hold on you, beloved? Pray, God, loose me. I just want you to have a hold on me. This is where we're going to close. This is where we find a genuine, true, God-wrought desire for the Lord's coming to begin to well up in our life, when it's connected to the inner workings of a life being transformed, being more and more weaned and severed from earth and everything that's earthly, and more and more brought into a vision of the heavenly man as God's pleasure, and that's the only way it can happen. And as long as the doctrine remains unrelated to the process, it'll only be a doctrine and will just conjure up an emotional hope. Yes, He's coming, praise God. I guess that sounds pretty emotional. I guess I sound pretty convincing. But when you bring the two together and you see them unseparated, without even trying, it happens. Lord, because that's the only way I'll know that you'll be ultimately glorified in a people. One last scripture, 1 Corinthians chapter 15. I want to show you something. You say, well, what happens if the Lord doesn't come and I die? Beloved, if the Lord doesn't come and you die, just so long as you die knowing that by faith, death was under your feet. Just so long as you die knowing that life and immortality, and when He does come, though you had to go the way of the grave, He'll bring you with Him. Do you remember what Joseph said when he died in Egypt? What'd he say about his bones? Joseph said, don't leave my bones in Egypt because I belong in Canaan. See, that's a picture of dying, but by faith, seeing the vision. All the saints who have gone before us, who have caught a vision of the man in glory, have had to go the way of the grave, but many of them, many of them went the way of the grave with death under their feet, and when the Lord does appear, they will appear with Him because they longed for His appearing. 1 Corinthians chapter 15, verse number 22. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive, but every man in his own order. Christ the first fruits, afterward they that are Christ at His coming. Then the end, when that He shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father, when He shall have put down all rule, all authority, and power. For He must reign till He hath put all things under His feet. Verse 26, that's what we're destroyed is death. Is that what it says? The last what? Enemy. Don't ever forget it, beloved. Death is not our friend. It's our enemy. I know it's difficult to think in this way because we're so accustomed to death. Everything is corruptible, including our mortal bodies, but it's not our friend. Sin is everywhere, but we certainly don't claim allegiance to it, do we? Death might be everywhere, but in our new identity in Christ, nothing to do with it. We should see it as an enemy, but you can't see death as an enemy until inside God has wrought a process of detaching you from all that is not godly, all that is not like Jesus in this life. When your heart gets detached, it'll affect you, and you'll realize life and immortality is the reason why He's coming again, and then He will be corporately displayed in a people who will bear His image and His likeness, who alone hath immortality. Incorruptible. He died once. He dies no more. He has a body that cannot die. So may the Lord cause His coming to become real to us through understanding it as a process whereby we're being weaned daily from all that is not like Jesus so that we all begin to groan for total redemption so that He can be glorified through and through. Let's bow our heart. Now, Lord, we acknowledge that this is costly. There's a lot of implications in this. Father, we just want to commit it all into Your hands. We know Your Word will bring forth fruit, and Father, I pray that You'll show us that to seek for life, glory, and honor, and immortality, to seek for these things means that our heart...