Sermonette: Being There

The Second Resurrection
#FT01-14s
Mike Ford (1955-2021)
Given 09-Oct-01; 23 minutes

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Good afternoon to all of you. I would like to start off telling you about my maternal grandfather. It is a man named Glenn Wool. We called him Grampa Wool, and he was a fine man. Now my mother was the youngest of eight children. So when her five kids came along, Grampa Wool was well up into his 60s. But this man took us out and played baseball and he had been a semi-pro player in his younger days, so he was still pretty good. He took walks with us. We went hiking. He told us jokes. He told us stories. Life was a little better every time Grampa Wool was around.

Now he had a lot of grandchildren, obviously, with eight kids of his own. But each and every one of us has fond memories of Grampa Wool. Now when my mom started attending what was then known as the Radio Church of God back in 1967, taking her five little stair-step children with her, and I was the oldest. I do not remember any change in the way Grampa Wool treated us. Now we did get some flack from aunts, uncles, cousins from this move into a strange religion, as they saw it. But not from Grampa Wool. Always got the love and affection we had always expected from him.

When my little grandson Evan was born 13 months ago (and I know what you are thinking. "I'm too young to have a grandson." But I do.), we had to figure out what I would be called. Well, I remembered Grampa Wool and the kind of grandfather he was to me, so in honor of him, I said I wanted to be called Grampa. Now we have not succeeded in teaching Evan to call me that yet. Yesterday my mom watched him for 3 hours and he was the perfect angel. I had him for 10 minutes last night and he proceeded to slide face-first down some stairs, and so he has got a messed up nose today and he may not call me Grampa but maybe something else.

To the best of my knowledge, Grampa Wool did not attend any church or organized religion. But he was honest, he was hardworking. He was faithful to my grandmother, positive and outgoing. But God did not choose to call him during his time on this earth. But he is going to be in the second resurrection. He is going to be given the chance to follow God's way and to reap the benefits that that way of life brings. He is going to be there at the Last Great Day.

"Being There" (if you want a title for the sermonette) is what it is all about. Matthew 6:33 tells us to "Seek first the kingdom of God." That is why we are here and that is why we live this way of life. It would be shameful indeed if Grampa Wool was there, and I was not. Who better to teach him than his own family?

Well, he has been dead now for decades. His body has returned to dust; his spirit returned to God. But he is going to be there in the Kingdom of God at the second resurrection. Will I be there to greet him? Will you be there?

In times past when people left the church, especially if they were friends or family, we would say, "Well, they weren't converted, maybe they weren't converted." We hoped and prayed they were not converted. We did not want them to end up in the Lake of Fire. Now only God knows if these people that have left us were converted or not, only God knows what resurrection they will be in.

But to turn your back on God's calling is a serious matter. People have done it, possibly more will. But those of us here today continue to fight the good fight. It is not an easy thing. I will be the first to admit that. It is possible that after years of effort, striving for obedience, we could turn our back on this way of life. We could become tired. We could become discouraged. But God does not want even one person to miss out on the opportunity of being in His Kingdom.

You do not have to turn to these verses, but I would like to read a few to you. II Peter 3:9, "The Lord is not willing that any should perish." First Timothy 2:4, "God desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth." First Corinthians 15:22, "For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ, all shall be made alive." Romans 11:26, "All Israel will be saved."

In Revelation 20, we know that there are three resurrections shown in verses 4 through 15. The first resurrection will be the firstfruits, those called, chosen, and faithful. The second resurrection, pictured here today, or by the Last Great Day, we will include all those God did not call in this life. And then of course the third resurrection will be those that God has called, those that were converted, but turned their back on this way of life.

On that Last Great Day, billions of people—that's a hard thing to comprehend—will be resurrected and most every one of these will have no real knowledge of God. They are going to have 100 years to learn, to grow to become like God. And they are not going to have to fight the pull of Satan. He is going to be out of the picture at that time. And they are going to have millions of teachers, teachers that were born into God's Family in the previous 1,000 years. I thought about that and it did not seem fair somehow. They get it so easy. No Satan. A world ruled by Christ and millions of examples, good examples, fine examples for them to follow. That is true.

But we here have the opportunity to be firstfruits, as we heard a little bit about this Feast. To have positions of great responsibility, to be there at the very beginning of God's Kingdom.

Now Grampa Wool lived a rich and a full life, but he never knew why he had been born. Now to me, despite the attacks of Satan and the trials that God might allow to come upon us, I cannot imagine enduring without knowing that there is a purpose to all this. And as we draw closer to the return of Christ, I suspect, as Richard said, "You ain't seen nothing yet!"

What can we do to ensure that we are there as our unconverted loved ones rise at the Last Great Day? And I do not mean to imply in any way that we can somehow earn our salvation. We know that Christ has done that for us, but we are also aware that we have certain responsibilities within this calling. We still have to overcome the sin. We have to put our deliverance from Satan into practice. II Peter 1:10 tells us to "be even more diligent to make your calling an election sure."

So in the time I have remaining, I would like to spend it in Hosea 14. We do not go there all that often. Chapter 14 of Hosea, at least to me, describes the time of the Last Great Day. A time when mankind is resurrected and repents. The time when God forgives and blesses. And this chapter does this through a series of metaphors, some word pictures. And I think that these symbols, even though they are described in the future time, and using the principle of duality, I think that these word pictures can help us in being there.

Hosea 14:1-3 Oh Israel, return to the Lord your God, for you have stumbled because of your iniquity; take words [this means expressions of heartfelt repentance, not physical sacrifices] with you, and return to the Lord. Say to Him, "Take away all iniquity; receive us graciously, for we will offer the sacrifices of our lips. Assyria shall not save us, we will not ride on horses, nor will we say anymore to the work of our hands, 'You are our gods.' For in You the fatherless finds mercy."

Now these first three verses set up what comes now starting in verses 4 through 8. This is where we see a vision of the time after the Great White Throne Judgment.

Hosea 14:4-5 "I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely, for My anger has turned away from him. I will be like the dew to Israel; he shall grow like the lily, and lengthen his roots like Lebanon."

That phrase, dew to Israel, is symbolic of God's Holy Spirit. It is working in us and it is necessary to produce the things that will follow here. The phrase, "he shall grow like the lily." The word he symbolizes Israel, which is then, by extension, symbolic of all mankind, and it shows them using the Holy Spirit to grow.

Now for those of you not familiar with the lily, it is one of nature's most productive plants. A long time ago in the first century, the Roman scholar Pliny the Elder wrote a book on natural history. And he said that the lily of his time and place could produce as many as 50 additional bulbs from one root. Now the exact lily that we are talking about here, we do not know exactly what kind it is. I am sure it was common to that region and that day and time. If you remember Christ said the lilies of the field are every bit as glorious as Solomon's robes. So we have a bulb buried in the ground all winter long, receives the dew, and it quickly shoots up, sometimes 2 to 3 feet tall, topped by a lovely bloom.

You remember the early days of your conversion, when God opened your heart and your mind and you began to receive knowledge fast and furious, and you grew quickly like the lily. But the lily is not a complete metaphor for a Christian. And I will tell you why. Its roots are shallow. It is very easy to pull up a lily. So God adds that we should lengthen our roots as the cedars of Lebanon.

Now the cedars of Lebanon, we have all heard of those, and they are mentioned quite often throughout the Bible. But these trees are evergreen. They are slow growing, stately, long-branched, durable, and sweet smelling. I think by themselves they are a very good metaphor for a Christian. Smith's Bible Dictionary was written well over 100 years ago, and I found something neat there. He mentioned a specimen, a cedar of Lebanon living at that time on Mount Lebanon that was over 70 feet tall, 63 feet in circumference, and estimated to be over 2,000 years in age back at that time.

Another writer said that the roots of a cedar can go down into the ground as far as the tree is tall. Now that is something I easily pulled up.

Yet every one of these mammoth trees started out as a little tiny seedling. It could have been pulled up. It could have been eaten by a grazing animal. If it survived a year or two and started to gain some size, it still had to endure drought, storms of all types, many environmental concerns, but every year its roots would push a little deeper into the soil, building strength and gaining a more solid footing all the time.

I think you can see the parallel to our lives.

Hosea 14:6 His branches shall spread; his beauty shall be like an olive tree, and its fragrance like Lebanon.

Now if you picture in your mind a tree 70 feet tall with a girth around of over 63 feet, the branches are going to extend well over 100 feet from side to side, and that is going to be a monster of shade tree. It is going to keep you cool in the summer. Protect you from the winter winds. But then if you notice the contrast which is again, we are to be as beautiful as the tree. Now it is not that the cedar tree is exactly ugly, but it is not exactly a classic beauty. It is kind of a sprawling tree.

There is a cedar tree near where I live that I estimated to be about 30 feet tall, about 7 feet around. I guess its age between 50 and 100. It is the biggest and oldest one that I have ever seen. Most cedar trees do not make it to a ripe old age. They get used for cedar posts or furniture. This one has a lot of character. The bark is very deeply furrowed. There is a lot of gaps where branches have died and fallen off. But it just reeks of character. But it is not beautiful.

Now the olive tree is used in the Bible to symbolize beauty as well as peace and prosperity. And like the cedar tree, the olive tree is an evergreen. It does not lose its leaves or its needles in the winter. It is not deciduous. The Christian walk, our way of life, is not a part-time thing, if you see the comparison there.

The olive tree though, the bigger difference is that it is fruit bearing. And the cedar tree is not. We have all known professing Christians of this world, and if you have noticed, they tend to talk a lot about how good they are, how righteous, how much money they give to their church, so on and so forth. But you may have also noticed that if not watched carefully, they could lie and cheat and steal, maybe even bury you if they could. No fruit. They produce little, if any, fruit.

Matthew 7:15-20 warns us of false prophets and tells us we will know the good from the bad by their fruit. Now this is true not just of the ministry, this is true of all people. In our walk through life, we will produce good fruit as we grow and overcome using God's Holy Spirit, and if we do not, the same passage in Matthew 7:19 says we will be cast into the fire. That would be the opposite result of being there.

Next we read that our fragrance will be like Lebanon. Verse 7 also says that our scent will be like the wine of Lebanon. Now the scent of the olive tree, and I could not tell you this personally, but by some accounts it is not so good. So we switched back to the cedar tree, which we all know if you have ever had a cedar chest, it is a very sweet-smelling wood. Also on Mount Lebanon you have trees of frankincense and you have many other plants. It is by all accounts a very sweet-smelling place.

Well, the prayers of the saints are described as incense in Revelation 5:8. And the church is spoken of as a garden of spices in the Song of Solomon. Likewise, our sacrifices carry a sweet aroma to God (Genesis 8:21). When we live a life of obedience, as we striving to do now, when Israel does so as a nation in the Kingdom of God, our fragrance will be like Lebanon.

Hosea 14:7 Those who dwell under his shadow shall return; they shall be revived like grain, and grow like the vine. Their scent shall be like the wine of Lebanon.

Now you could take this shadow to be God's shadow, but in verse 6, his branches, his beauty, and his fragrance all referred to Israel, and the church by extension. So then in verse 7 this phrase "his shadow" refers to the church. It denotes the protection and the reviving in the shelter of the church. Notice it says, those that dwell under his shadow shall return. Now we have all sought relief at one time or another from the harsh rays of the sun under the spring branches of a tree. Likewise, if you got caught in a sudden downpour, the same thing, you go up under the branches of a tree. The lesson there is that there is protection under the shadow of the church.

Over the centuries, God has called many, many people into His church. Unfortunately, a great many of these did not stay. When the sun went behind the cloud, when the showers stopped, they left the safety of the shadow of the church. Some, however, dwell there. Some never leave the church, and these shall be revived like grain. These shall grow like the vine. And if you think about it, grain, when it is sown, first dies and then revives. It is a wonderful analogy to the resurrection of the firstfruits and of course those of the Last Great Day.

It says those of the church will grow like the vine. Again, producing fruit as we have heard so many times.

In these few verses, 4 through 8, we have learned five things. Five things become clear if we use these plants as types.

First of all, God gives us His Holy Spirit, which is the dew, to open our minds and then we use it for growing into productive Christians like a lily. Secondly, after an initial burst of growth, we settled into a slower but steady movement forward, putting down the roots of the cedar. Third, we are to be an evergreen like both the cedar and the olive tree, not relaxing our vigilance for even a moment. Not sleeping (as we heard this morning). I Thessalonians 5:6. Building a solid foundation unseen by people but evidence to all by our fruit, like that of an olive tree. Fourth, we are to live a life of obedience. Our prayers and sacrifices wafting up to God as sweet-smelling incense, fragrant as the hills. of Lebanon. Fifth, God has given us a place within His church. Our protection is there under its shade. Leaving the church is not an option.

In the remaining time, let us looked real quickly at verses 8 and 9.

Hosea 14:8 "Ephraim shall say, 'What have I to do more with idols?' [And God answers with] I have heard and observed him. I am [That is God speaking.] like a green cypress tree; your fruit is found in Me."

Ephraim, symbolic of all Israel, all mankind really, will see the benefits of following God's way, and they are going to renounce their idols. And these are not just idols of wood and stone. These are the idols of the heart. And God will take notice of their repentance and He will be an evergreen tree Himself, offering the protection of His trunk and branches.

Hosea 14:9 Who is wise? Let him understand these things. Who is prudent? Let him know them. For the ways of the Lord are right; the righteous walk in them, but transgressors stumble in them.

The wise are those who understand the truth. It is not of their own wisdom. It is through the sacrifice of Christ. It is through the mercy of God in His calling of us. The prudent God will know by their fruits.

As to the ways of the Lord, there is only two ways to go. You are either for them or against them. Only two ways you can choose.

John mentioned our marching orders earlier. Our marching orders: seek first the Kingdom of God, and obviously the instructions are found throughout the Bible. But I think that in Hosea 14, there are some examples there, there are some instructions there that can give us help. Not just so that we might be here at the Feast, or here next year, wherever here is. But so that we might be there.

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