Revelation Insights

Travelogue: Florence - Sermon: The Prayer Not Answered Yet

Three Angels Broadcasting Network

Program transcript

Participants: Pr. Lyle Albrecht

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Series Code: RIN

Program Code: RIN000010


01:00 Welcome to each of you.
01:03 Are you ready to travel?
01:04 Have your seatbelts fastened?
01:06 Alright.
01:07 We're going to go, tonight, to a lovely, lovely city.
01:12 It seems that when men, after the dark ages,
01:15 took a renewed interest in the arts and sciences,
01:20 sculpting and painting and writing,
01:23 that renewed interest, now known as the renaissance,
01:28 happened largely in and around this city.
01:31 We're going to Florence.
01:33 We've said so many times the major cities of the world
01:36 are born on the banks of a river.
01:38 In Paris, it's the Seine.
01:42 And in London, it's the Thames.
01:45 Here, it happens to be the Arno.
01:48 And this is a shot of downtown Florence.
01:52 You can see several bridges across the Arno river.
01:54 There's one in particular that we're going to talk about and
01:58 visit in just a little bit.
02:00 But let me tell you about my appreciation for the
02:03 style of the city.
02:05 It's hundreds of years old, of course.
02:07 But there has been a city statute that says that
02:11 the buildings, homes or businesses in the downtown area,
02:16 now of course that stretches for miles, must be of a
02:20 cream colored stucco on the outside and must have
02:24 burnt orange tiled roofs.
02:27 And it makes the city unique.
02:29 In my mind, it makes it look clean and neat
02:32 and somehow organized.
02:34 So let's get down then and have a close-up of the city.
02:38 From this panoramic view, I shall point out to you
02:41 the three major places that we're going to visit.
02:44 So go to the extreme right and the upper of the screen.
02:47 And there we see the tower of the Medici Palace.
02:52 That tower had a very famous occupant.
02:55 We're going to talk about him.
02:56 And that's where we're going to begin in just a little bit.
02:59 At the Medici Palace and tower.
03:01 And then we're going to go to this building.
03:04 That is the second largest Catholic cathedral in the world.
03:08 That is the cathedral of St. John the Baptist.
03:11 And after visiting there, we're going to end up visiting
03:14 over at this cathedral.
03:16 This is the cathedral of Santa Croce, or the Holy Cross.
03:23 A good way to see the town without a lot of expense
03:27 is to get aboard the Florentine taxi.
03:30 There it is.
03:33 But because we need the exercise and because it's a
03:35 very short distance from here to where we want to go,
03:38 we're going to just walk.
03:40 And we find ourselves then in front of the Medici Palace.
03:45 And I want you to notice a couple of things.
03:46 Firstly, you see a lot of folks gathered around,
03:49 you see bleachers.
03:51 And this picture is, of course, taken at night.
03:54 This was taken at the time of the Florentine rodeo.
03:59 Now, we're use to rodeo's and horse races in all of
04:03 this part of the world, aren't we.
04:04 We have bull riding and barrel races and bucking bronco's
04:12 and bareback and all that sort of thing.
04:15 Here, it's quite different.
04:17 It begins with 5 days of imbibing alcoholic beverages.
04:23 That's putting it mildly.
04:26 And when everyone is pretty well drunk, then they
04:28 ribbon off several streets throughout the city.
04:32 This direction and that and over here and
04:34 over there and there and there.
04:35 And that is the race track.
04:38 And then they bring out their cowboys
04:40 who are now well oiled.
04:42 And they put them on the backs of these wild bronco's.
04:45 And the first guy to get around and through, and there are
04:49 folks watching their every step and every movement,
04:52 the first guy to get through this obstacle course
04:55 and back to the point of beginning is the winner
04:57 of a large purse and he becomes the hero,
05:00 the all around cowboy of Italy.
05:03 Nearly every year, there are some who are seriously injured,
05:08 either riders or spectators or both.
05:10 And oft times, there are some who lose their lives.
05:13 But they continue on with the Florentine rodeo.
05:17 Now, I want you to next notice the style of the
05:21 architecture of the building.
05:23 You'll see that this palace is about four and a half
05:26 stories in height.
05:27 And at the roof level, there is a cantilever with arches.
05:31 Right across there.
05:34 An overhang.
05:35 Now, we have overhangs over our roofs here
05:38 in this part of the country and in other places
05:40 of the world, of course.
05:41 Especially where there's a lot of rain or snow or whatever.
05:44 But the overhang here was for a different purpose.
05:47 The cantilever has these arches which are open
05:51 to whatever is below.
05:54 There were enemies of the Medici.
05:57 Of course, there are political enemies of any ruling family,
06:01 or any government, I suppose, for that matter.
06:05 And so they had bars and shutters over the windows
06:08 and they were able to make the doors quite secure.
06:10 But if someone really began to batter and was determined
06:14 to break in then the defenders up on the roof, and this is
06:18 24 hours around the clock, they had fires going up there
06:23 atop which they boiled oil,
06:27 olive oil.
06:28 And if someone was insistent on causing a problem down below,
06:32 through those arches, they could pour down the boiling oil
06:37 on the troublemakers down below.
06:39 And that had a tendency to discourage them a fair amount.
06:42 You can imagine.
06:44 Now, if on the other hand someone did gain entrance
06:48 through a door or a window at the first or second level,
06:50 then the royals could go up into the clock tower,
06:54 the bell tower, it's one and the same.
06:56 And up in the very top, the place is designed
06:59 in the same way.
07:01 And in fact, now we have a better picture of it.
07:03 You can see that much of it has fallen away now, tragically.
07:10 The tower was more often used as a place of imprisonment
07:14 than it was a place of security, or a safe room
07:18 as we might call it.
07:19 You know, many of the homes today, the wealthy families
07:22 have a safe room.
07:24 If someone tries to break in, if your alarm goes off,
07:27 folks go to this room that is more solidly built than others
07:32 and is suppose to be doubly safe and many of them
07:34 even bullet proof.
07:35 And mom and the kids go inside and lock the door.
07:38 Well, the safe room here was way up in the bell tower.
07:43 I want to talk to you now about the most famous
07:45 prisoner every held in that tower.
07:49 His name was Girolamo Savonarola.
07:52 Now Savonarola was a pastor, and a very dedicated pastor
07:57 and a very serious student of the word of God.
08:02 And he loved, particularly, the writings of the apostle Paul.
08:06 The Romans, the Galatians, the letter to the Ephesians
08:10 where righteousness by faith was so clearly taught.
08:14 "By grace are you saved through faith, that not of yourselves.
08:18 It is the gift of God. "
08:20 And this pastor began to share these ideas and these teachings
08:24 with the folks and it was like pouring water on dry ground.
08:28 The folks coming out of the dark ages hadn't
08:31 heard anything like this.
08:33 They had been taught for centuries, and also had their
08:36 fore bearers, that you gain God's pleasure
08:39 by going on pilgrimages, by lighting candles,
08:43 by flagellating your back, by on occasion walking on
08:47 glass in your sandals.
08:49 And when Pastor Savonarola began to teach that
08:53 righteousness was by trusting in what Jesus had already
08:57 done for us, when he began to explain salvation by grace
09:02 and justification in Jesus the folks came to hear him en masse.
09:09 What he was teaching, now, was contrary to what the church,
09:12 at the time, was teaching.
09:13 And the church and the state were one and the same.
09:17 This was long before laws against church and state
09:20 being joined together.
09:22 And many of the countries of the world, of course today,
09:24 still do not have any such laws.
09:26 We're fortunate that here in the United States we believe
09:30 still strongly in the separation of church and state.
09:35 Savonarola was threatened, "You must stop your preaching
09:38 the righteousness of Jesus. "
09:41 And Savonarola said, "It's the good news, it's the gospel.
09:45 How can you tell me to stop?"
09:48 And so he continued to share.
09:50 And ere long, the officers came and arrested him.
09:53 There was a farce of a trial here and then because he refused
09:58 to change his ways, he was taken up into the top of the tower.
10:02 We're going to go up in there in just a little bit.
10:04 And there a cell had been prepared for him.
10:07 It did have one window out of which he had a southern view.
10:11 And there he was held for years and years and years
10:15 with no appeal.
10:18 But after some many years, he was called down
10:22 for an examination.
10:26 And the judge said to him, "Pastor, I am willing
10:29 to let you go home today, but you must promise me
10:34 that you'll stop talking about the righteousness of Jesus. "
10:38 And Savonarola said, "I have no desire at all
10:42 to be a firebrand or to proselytize or to cause
10:47 a disruption within the church.
10:49 That's not my aim, not my plan.
10:51 But, what if folks come and ask me about
10:55 the righteousness of Jesus?
10:56 Surely you can't expect me to say that I don't know or
10:59 I can't tell you or anything such as that?"
11:02 And they simply said to him, "I'm warning you.
11:05 Be very careful, be very careful. "
11:10 We'll finish that story of Savonarola, after we just
11:14 for a moment look inside the chapel.
11:17 This is where the Medici who'd arrested Savonarola worshipped.
11:22 And it is made lovely by some of the most precious marble
11:26 in all of the world.
11:27 Italy not only produces still today some of the finest,
11:31 some of the most expensive marble, but it also still today
11:35 provides the finest marble workmen and tile setters,
11:40 I guess we might call them in our language,
11:43 in our setup today.
11:44 Well, out in front of the chapel, in front of the palace,
11:51 there is a monument in the pavement today
11:55 about the end of Pastor Savonarola.
11:58 And here's the end of his story.
12:01 He was released and allowed to go home after the warning,
12:05 "You must stop talking about the righteousness of Christ. "
12:07 And as soon as it was announced that he was released, the people
12:10 came from every direction you can imagine,
12:13 hungry more to hear about the righteousness of Christ.
12:17 And Savonarola began to share and crowds came and grew.
12:21 So he was arrested again, taken again up into the tower.
12:26 But only for a short while.
12:28 One day the soldiers went stomping up the staircase
12:31 and into his little cell where they strangled him to death.
12:36 Then dragged his body, bumpity bump, down the staircase
12:40 and out in front where the people had gathered.
12:44 There they burned his body.
12:47 Where that happened, there is today a monument,
12:50 as I mentioned, with some very kind words
12:53 about Pastor Girolamo Savonarola.
12:57 This in his memory, on the spot where he was burned.
13:03 Many, many years later, other pastors;
13:07 Martin Luther and John Calvin and John Knox, Huss,
13:12 would find not only spiritual direction,
13:18 not only theological guidance, but also courage and strength
13:27 from the example of Girolamo Savonarola.
13:29 So I would say to each of us tonight, whether our Christian
13:33 back ground is from some branch of Protestantism
13:37 or from the Roman Catholic church, I believe each of us
13:40 owes a debt of gratitude to Pastor Girolamo Savonarola.
13:45 And if ever you're in Florence, you be sure to go to this spot.
13:49 Because in many ways, it's sacred.
13:51 We're now up in the little room where Savonarola was held.
13:54 And that was his view.
13:56 He had a really wonderful view of the bell tower
13:59 of the second largest cathedral in the world.
14:01 We're going to just put the camera out with
14:04 the wide angle lens.
14:05 We see again the coloration, the configuration of the city.
14:09 And right in the center, our next stop.
14:11 And this is, by the way, the best picture you're going to get
14:14 of this lovely large cathedral.
14:18 The cathedral of St. John the Baptist.
14:20 I mentioned earlier that it is the second largest
14:24 Catholic cathedral in the world.
14:27 But it is the third largest cathedral.
14:31 The largest cathedral in all of the world is the
14:34 cathedral of St. Peter inside the Vatican
14:36 where we're going to visit in a few evenings.
14:39 I'm going to take you right inside the Pope's home
14:42 and into the Sistine Chapel where the popes are elected.
14:46 I'm going to take you down the main nave of St. Peter's
14:49 which is longer than two football fields end to end,
14:53 to give you just a little bit of a feel for the size.
14:55 So that's the largest cathedral in the world,
14:57 St. Peter's in the Vatican.
14:58 The second largest cathedral is the cathedral of St. Paul
15:02 in the city of London.
15:04 And we had a brief glimpse of it our first night together here.
15:08 We visited London if you'll recall.
15:11 But that's an Anglican cathedral, you see.
15:13 The Church of England owns that one.
15:15 Built by the direction of Christopher Wren.
15:18 That makes this one then the third largest cathedral,
15:22 but the second largest Catholic cathedral.
15:25 It is made out of a very diverse combination
15:31 of colors of marble.
15:33 The dominant color and the largest section is made of
15:38 Carrera marble.
15:40 The Carrera quarry, or mine, is only just a short distance
15:45 or just short miles from here.
15:47 And I think it's the most beautiful marble
15:50 in all the world still, the white Carrera marble.
15:53 And then there is a hot pink marbling that is used for trim
15:56 along with kind of a dark green.
15:59 Now generally we would not think of putting those
16:01 colors together probably.
16:03 If a lady wore a suit and a purse with those combinations,
16:07 someone would say that they clashed, I suppose.
16:11 But here, somehow it fits. It really does fit.
16:14 Now we're going to back away a little bit and give you a feel
16:17 for the size and the style.
16:20 The architecture, for your interest sake, is called
16:22 Tuscan Romanesque.
16:24 Kind of a combination of Tuscany, where we are here,
16:27 and the Roman style of architecture.
16:31 And you can see the beauty.
16:32 And oh, by the way, be reminded that this thing was built about
16:35 a thousand years ago by men with crude hand tools.
16:38 And you see the statues above, high above the entry doors.
16:42 Well, look down toward the doors.
16:45 There are three main doors.
16:47 One on the left over here that you see.
16:49 And one over on the right.
16:51 And then one right in the very center.
16:53 This is the main door that gains you access to the main nave.
16:58 That's where the folks go in to worship.
17:01 We can see where the folks are waiting to go inside.
17:04 Let's look at the main door.
17:05 There it is, there's the top of the door right up there.
17:08 And down at the bottom of the screen, there are the heads
17:11 of the people waiting to go inside.
17:14 I've, I guess, never felt much smaller or insignificant
17:18 than when I stepped inside for the first time,
17:20 this massive church.
17:22 It is so huge and it is so very, very lovely.
17:27 Now there are three buildings here that comprise
17:31 the church complex.
17:33 This is the main one of course, the cathedral.
17:35 Next to that is the campanile or the bell tower.
17:38 And then when we turn around 180 degrees,
17:41 we see another building, separate or apart,
17:43 but a part of the complex.
17:45 This, ladies and gentlemen, is the baptistery
17:47 named in the honor of St. John the Baptist.
17:53 Some very important men have been baptized
17:55 inside that baptistery.
17:57 And I'll just take a moment to mention one of them for you.
18:01 His name was Dante.
18:04 Dante Alighieri was baptized inside this baptistery
18:09 when he was just a young person.
18:11 And it was Dante, you remember from reading in your
18:14 high school literature, who wrote the "Divine Comedy. "
18:17 And a portion of that is called,
18:19 "Sinners In The Hand Of An Angry God. "
18:21 Dante would represent God as vengeful and angry
18:26 and waiting for the least excuse to drop folks, His children,
18:29 into the tar pits of hell where they would roast and burn
18:32 and fry forever and ever.
18:34 Tragically, Dante's theology was passed down into the church
18:39 and down through the ages.
18:40 It is my considered opinion that Dante Alighieri has done more
18:45 to defile the character of our Father God
18:49 than any one other single person.
18:54 I want you to take a close-up of the doors of the baptistery.
18:59 There was a man by the name of Ghiberti who was commissioned
19:02 at the time of the construction of the cathedral and
19:05 the baptistery to design the entry doors.
19:09 Ghiberti was a gifted artist.
19:12 He could draw, he could sculpt.
19:14 But his main gift, it seemed, was working with brass
19:19 and with bronze.
19:21 He was able to take a sheet of metal; brass, bronze, or a
19:26 combination thereof, and begin to shape it and fashion it
19:30 until it became almost three dimensional.
19:33 In other words, the figures out in the front of his design
19:38 would stand out, sometimes 6 or 7 inches from
19:42 those of the background.
19:44 So we're going to move in for a close-up of these doors,
19:49 the doors of the baptistery.
19:53 They tell the story of the history of God's children,
19:55 the Jews, and about their deliverance from Egypt
19:59 and about the crossing of the Red Sea.
20:01 Here, we see them doing just that.
20:04 Now, these frames, ladies and gentlemen,
20:06 are a bit larger than 3 feet square.
20:10 And again, be reminded, they're done out of one piece of metal.
20:14 That's called bas-relief, for your interest sake.
20:18 And these bronze pieces were here for hundreds
20:21 and hundreds and hundreds of years.
20:23 But because of pollution and acid rain
20:26 and all that sort of thing,
20:27 they began to show some wear.
20:29 And so only just a few months ago, they were taken down
20:33 and replaced with copies that had been made from forms
20:38 taken from them, beautiful copies out of the same material.
20:42 And the copies now replace the originals.
20:44 And the copies are covered over with a water proof
20:48 sort of a plastic material.
20:50 Alright.
20:51 Now, here's the really good news.
20:54 Copies of these doors are going to be displayed in a few months
21:00 over in Seattle, Washington.
21:01 And I'm telling you folks, it's worth the drive to go
21:04 from here to see them.
21:06 And if you'll log onto National Geographic or some such source,
21:11 or just look for the doors of Ghiberti, you'll find
21:15 when they're going to be over in Seattle.
21:16 I think it's going to be quite soon now
21:18 but I'm not certain of the date.
21:19 They're going to display them here in 3 major cities,
21:23 I believe, and Seattle happens to be one of them.
21:26 The doors of the baptistery.
21:27 Let's look at one other, shall we.
21:29 Here is the depiction of the Queen of Sheba
21:32 coming over to Solomon's temple.
21:34 And the King James Bible says she was greatly impressed
21:38 by the ascent, the new translations say,
21:41 "by the staircase," that went up to the temple.
21:43 And one of these nights, we'll have a look at
21:45 what's left of that.
21:46 And you'll notice now, again, how these figures stand out
21:50 from the background.
21:52 And you'll just think that they had been made separately
21:54 and then placed there individually.
21:56 But they were not.
21:58 We're down on the Arno river now.
22:02 Framing our picture through one bridge to the second bridge.
22:06 The second bridge is the one that we're going to spend
22:09 some time talking about and regarding just a little bit.
22:14 This, ladies and gentlemen, is the oldest bridge in the world.
22:18 Therefore, it has been given that name.
22:20 Ponte Vecchio, the old bridge.
22:23 Now if ever you have been to Venice, and you remember
22:27 a few evenings we went.
22:28 If you were here with me, we went to Venice
22:30 and we went down the Grand Canal.
22:33 And we saw there a bridge that was sort of V shaped
22:36 and kind of like an arch, and it was called the Rialto.
22:39 And I told you it was built in 1588.
22:41 That is the second oldest bridge in the world.
22:43 But this one is older by more than 200 years.
22:48 1345, this bridge was built.
22:52 Now, this is the only bridge across the Arno river,
22:57 for miles and miles in either direction,
22:59 that was not blown up during the time of World War II
23:03 by the allies.
23:04 The Americans and the British fighting against the
23:08 central powers, the allied powers of Germany.
23:10 Because this is a main communication line, you see,
23:13 between Hitler in the north and Mussolini down south.
23:15 And so they blew up the bridges across the Arno,
23:18 but they saved this one for two reasons.
23:21 It is so narrow that you couldn't, certainly couldn't
23:25 get a tank across it.
23:26 You couldn't drive a jeep through it.
23:28 And you could not march soldiers in any number.
23:31 And so it was not a threat in that way.
23:33 But more importantly, I'm sure because of its antiquity.
23:37 It's the oldest bridge in all of the world.
23:39 Now I want to point out a couple of things here to you.
23:42 Let's look up toward the top.
23:44 Maybe the next picture, yes.
23:46 This one is even more clear.
23:48 Look up across the top of the bridge there
23:50 and you'll see windows.
23:51 And those windows have bars across them.
23:54 And those windows give light to a very, very special sidewalk.
23:59 I guess that's the best way to say it.
24:02 The Medici family had their palace on one side of the river
24:06 and they had their places of government on the other side.
24:12 The home was on one side and the governmental offices were on the
24:15 other side of the river.
24:16 In order to get to work, you had to cross the river.
24:18 In order to get back home, you crossed the river.
24:20 And they had political enemies as we mentioned earlier when
24:24 we talked about the design and the architecture of the palace.
24:27 It would not be safe for a royal to walk down with the
24:31 commoners and down in the street,
24:33 especially in a narrow and confined place.
24:35 And so they built this special sidewalk so that the Medici
24:40 could cross the river in safety.
24:42 What's on the bridge today? Well I'll tell you.
24:45 There is a Jewish family that does gold jewelry.
24:52 They're said to be the finest goldsmiths in all the world.
24:56 And I can tell you ladies that their jewelry is
24:59 very, very expensive.
25:01 And the main shop is here on the bridge.
25:04 And when they make a piece of jewelry, they mark it
25:07 with their family mark and with the
25:09 old bridge mark, Ponte Vecchio.
25:11 And they say that as soon as it is stamped in that way,
25:14 it has instant antique value.
25:17 Now that sounds to me like a contradiction in terms, but
25:20 none the less, you would pay twice or perhaps three times
25:24 as much for the same piece here made on the bridge
25:28 as you would for the piece that that was made a block
25:31 or two on either side.
25:33 But if you're like me, you'd probably just as soon
25:37 put new tires on the car.
25:41 Well, we're going to stop now at the Gallery of the Academy
25:44 and we're going to see what I believe to be some of the most
25:46 beautiful marble carvings in all of the world.
25:52 I can't tell you who's done this, one but I can tell you
25:55 that it's a solid piece of marble.
25:57 And you notice the folds of the dress, the delicacy.
26:02 We're going to move inside the main theatre and take a look
26:06 at Michelangelo's David.
26:08 Standing there on a raised stone platform some 30 feet
26:11 is Michelangelo's David.
26:13 Now let me tell you a bit about the background.
26:16 Out at the Carrera quarry, there was an accident.
26:19 The miners were taking off a large chunk of marble
26:23 when a piece on the end slivered off.
26:25 It was icicle like, long and narrow.
26:28 And they felt that it would be of waste but Michelangelo said,
26:30 "No, give it to me. "
26:32 He happened at the time to be about age 24.
26:36 They took the marble downtown and there was a
26:39 tent built around it.
26:40 And this young man began to chisel and chisel and chisel.
26:44 And two years later, he had the unveiling.
26:46 Michelangelo's David, perhaps the most famous marble carving
26:50 in all this world.
26:52 Now you'll notice that he kept the one arm tight to the side
26:56 and the other arm that holds the sling
26:59 is near to the body as well.
27:01 But we're going to move in, you and I, for some close-up.
27:05 I want you to look at the hand there.
27:09 And you see the cords that open and close the fingers.
27:13 And you look at your own hand and you exactly the same thing.
27:17 And then we're going to move over to the neck we see the
27:20 great cords that turn the head.
27:24 And we're going to move up this cord, and right there
27:28 we see a blood vessel.
27:32 And we just have to pinch ourselves to be reminded
27:36 that this done with a man with a hammer and chisel.
27:40 Amazing.
27:41 How was he able to bring out such detail?
27:43 And by the way, if you're ever looking at art,
27:45 the finest art is classified by its detail.
27:49 If you're looking at a sculpture,
27:50 if you're looking at a bronze, if you're looking at a Cousinet,
27:53 if you're looking at a Dresden piece of something of humanity;
27:57 if the fingers are webbed together, that's not the finest.
28:00 But if the detail is fine, if the fingers are separated,
28:04 if the lace is individual, then it's the finest stuff.
28:08 And so we find it here.
28:10 How was he able to bring out this detail?
28:12 Before ever he began to paint or sculpt, he had been a student
28:16 of the human anatomy.
28:18 He had been a part of the dissecting several cadavers.
28:20 He knew all the muscular system and the circulatory system.
28:24 And he was able, somehow, to make it come to life in stone.
28:27 Here are a couple of graves, a couple of sarcophagi inside
28:32 the Gallery of the Academy, and male and female figures.
28:38 And one is day and the other is night.
28:40 And that is the tomb, by the way, of Lorenzo de' Medici.
28:43 Now our final stop is this cathedral, Santa Croce,
28:48 the Cathedral of the Holy Cross.
28:51 We're not going to go inside because it's not elaborate
28:54 and it's not terribly large.
28:57 We are going to go over into a crypt in just a little bit
29:00 to see one place of burial.
29:03 But this one, for my mind, is important because of four men
29:07 who are buried inside.
29:08 To say that these men were contemporaries
29:10 wouldn't be exactly correct.
29:12 But to say that, to the large degree, their lives overlapped
29:15 would be correct.
29:16 One of the men buried inside is Machiavelli.
29:21 Niccolo Machiavelli was only about 20 years of age when
29:26 he wrote a book entitled, "The Prince. "
29:28 And it was his own design for the way cities and states
29:31 ought to be governed.
29:33 And in his writing he said, what is important is
29:37 political expediency.
29:39 I think that's the best way to say it.
29:41 And he promoted the idea that the end justifies the means.
29:45 And it's alright to be involved in a little immorality,
29:48 it's alright to cheat a little, it's alright to lie a lot
29:50 as long as you have the best political result in mind.
29:54 And it seems, to my mind, that has caught on in a lot of
29:57 political circles today.
29:58 Did it ring any bells in your head? Yea.
30:01 That whole idea is called today, Machiavellian attitudes.
30:05 Machiavelli is buried inside.
30:09 And then another that we have spoken of.
30:12 Michelangelo Bounarroti is buried inside.
30:15 This is not his tomb.
30:17 But it is a tomb of a contemporary, in a sense.
30:20 This is the tomb of Galileo Galilei.
30:24 Galileo was born in the same year that Michelangelo died.
30:29 And they're both buried inside.
30:33 And then the fourth man of importance is Dante Alighieri
30:37 of whom we spoke a bit earlier.
30:39 Dante is buried inside.
30:41 If you folks haven't read a couple of good biographies
30:44 of Michelangelo, and Galileo certainly, you need to do that.
30:49 Galileo didn't invent but he perfected the telescope.
30:52 And made it a working tool and traced the movements
30:54 of the heavenly bodies with an accuracy
30:56 that still stuns astronomers today.
30:59 I thank you for traveling with me.
31:04 And now to our subject.
31:06 The Prayer Never Answered Yet.
31:11 Would you open your Bibles please to Matthew chapter 6.
31:13 Matthew's gospel chapter 6.
31:16 And I'm going to read verses 9 and 10.
31:19 Matthew chapter 6, verses 9 and 10.
31:22 The context is this.
31:24 The disciples have obviously heard our Lord Jesus pray
31:27 oft times, and they were impressed by His pray
31:30 and by His style.
31:31 And so they asked Him, "Lord would You each us to pray?"
31:34 And Jesus did.
31:36 And we now refer to His teaching in this area as
31:39 the Lord's prayer.
31:40 And I want to read just a couple of verses.
31:42 Matthew chapter 6, verses 9 and 10.
31:46 Jesus said, "After this manner, therefore, pray ye;
31:50 Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name.
31:56 Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done.. "
31:59 Now you tell me what it says.
32:01 Thy will be done where?
32:02 "... on earth as it is in heaven. "
32:07 That is the prayer, my dears, not answered yet.
32:11 Lord, could Your will, Your way, Your love
32:14 be demonstrated daily here on earth?
32:16 Could Your kingdom come, could people love one another?
32:19 Could they treat folks decently?
32:21 Could they train their children in the right way?
32:23 Could they live a healthful live?
32:25 Could Your kingdom come now?
32:28 Here on earth, it hasn't happened yet.
32:31 I'm sorry to have to report to you.
32:35 The world news in the last three days.
32:38 I've taken a couple of notes here.
32:40 They found a baby again in the dumpster day before yesterday.
32:43 It's getting so folks throw their kids away with the
32:46 morning trash and the kitchen garbage.
32:48 And not very many hours prior to that, there was a guy who
32:52 got angry with his wife over the divorce settlement and said,
32:54 "I'll get even with you. "
32:56 And he took the kids and threw them into the bay
32:59 and off of the bridge.
33:00 A couple of days later another guy, evidently getting the same
33:03 idea, decided he would shoot his three kids to death
33:06 to get even with his wife.
33:08 And he did that and then he killed himself.
33:10 And then you'll remember the tragedy of just yesterday.
33:13 In the fast food store, a guy goes into the restroom
33:17 and for no reason at all pulls a semi automatic pistol
33:21 and shoots six people and then takes his own life.
33:28 "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. "
33:33 Not yet.
33:34 I want to read you a little something here.
33:38 But before I read it, I want you to turn with me to Matthew
33:41 chapter 24 verse 12.
33:43 We've alluded to Matthew chapter 24 and Luke 17 and 21
33:47 so many, many times in the last several evenings
33:49 because they go together.
33:50 They're referred to by theologians these days,
33:53 by the way, as the Olivet discourse.
33:55 The disciples have asked their Lord, "What will be the sign
33:59 of your coming and of the end of the world?"
34:00 And He said it's going to be like this and this and this.
34:03 And then He gives, in verse 12, this little bit of information.
34:09 Chapter 24.
34:14 "Because iniquity shall abound, the love of many
34:20 shall wax... " How?
34:22 Get better and better?
34:24 No.
34:25 Natural love shall wax worse and worse,
34:29 and colder and colder still.
34:33 I want to read you something from a man who said it, I think,
34:35 better than I could ever say it.
34:38 He said, "Love's growing cold in the last days is
34:42 really the root of not only religious persecution,
34:47 but racial bigotry as well.
34:48 The breakdown of the family unit in our century
34:51 is directly related.
34:52 We're stunned, not only by bizarre crimes where parents
34:55 and children murder one another, but by a growing multitude of
34:59 sad eyed boys and girls who are mournfully adrift
35:02 between separated parents.
35:04 Some physically and mentally abused.
35:06 Some who's faces stare at us for perhaps the last time
35:10 from the milk cartons and the newspaper mailings. "
35:14 He said, "Selfishness is today completely suffocating
35:19 God's love. "
35:21 Some say that the coming of Jesus, which I believe
35:24 will finally bring an end to this kind of tragedy
35:27 and finally will bring the answer to that prayer,
35:29 "Thy will be done. "
35:31 "The coming of Jesus," some say, "is an invisible thing.
35:36 It happens in the heart.
35:37 When you accept Him as your Lord and Savior,
35:40 that's the second coming of Jesus. "
35:42 There have been others who said, "No, no.
35:44 Jesus comes when you die.
35:46 When a believer dies, that's the second coming. "
35:48 And then there is another and growing group that have said
35:51 that He's already here in a literal way.
35:53 That He came in 1914 or 1917.
35:56 Others say, "He's never coming. It's only an allegory.
35:59 It's never going to happen.
36:01 It's just the kind of a pious platitude that's dished out
36:04 to those that are hurting and suffering at times of accident
36:08 and tragedy and illness and disease and death. "
36:13 Ladies and gentlemen, we're not the only ones, you and I,
36:17 who believe that something has to happen.
36:20 And I'm going to enlarge upon that in just a little bit.
36:23 But I first want to put into your minds another passage
36:26 that's very directly related to the inhumanity;
36:30 one man to another, parents to children, children to parents
36:33 and grandparents.
36:34 In Matthew chapter 24 and verse 6, there our Lord Jesus
36:38 talked about the war and rumor of war.
36:40 And we alluded to this on another evening.
36:42 But I want to read this to you tonight.
36:44 It's a recent study.
36:46 It suggests that we travel, in our minds, eastward.
36:49 We go from Iran to the Soviet occupied Afghanistan.
36:53 And then we go to India with its racial turmoil.
36:56 And then we move to the ravaged countries of Laos and Cambodia
36:59 and eventually to Vietnam.
37:01 We go to the Korea's.
37:03 And then we move on south to the Philippines,
37:06 that ticking time bomb.
37:08 And then we're going to head across the Pacific to the
37:11 troubled Central and South America's.
37:13 Across the Atlantic then to Ireland.
37:15 Down to South Africa.
37:17 Over into Libya where there has been the export of terrorism.
37:21 And we arrive again finally in the Middle East
37:23 where the strife is as complex as it is implacable.
37:27 "You'll be hearing of wars and rumors of wars," said Jesus.
37:31 "How very true," says the author, "all around the world. "
37:35 And then in addition to that, as we also mentioned
37:37 on another evening, there is the ethnicity, the fighting of gangs
37:41 in the neighborhoods because of this color against that color
37:44 or this neighborhood against that other neighborhood.
37:47 And so, the folks of the world have known,
37:49 some for a long while have felt that something is
37:52 going to happen.
37:53 And while there is the idea out there in the secular world
37:57 that only religious fanatics believe in a literal
38:01 second coming of Jesus, I thought that I would
38:03 just share with you some of the other perspectives
38:07 from other points of view.
38:09 Let's talk about the Native American.
38:11 The idea of end time belief has been held by Native Americans
38:16 for many, many years.
38:18 A Sioux medicine man by the name of Ogallala said that the world
38:22 would grow out of balance and natural disasters like floods,
38:25 fires, and earthquakes would, in the final days, increase.
38:28 And then he said, "There will come a white buffalo.
38:32 When the white buffalo is born, there will soon come
38:35 a return of balance and harmony and
38:37 spiritual awakening in the world. "
38:39 "And some of the tribal leaders still today," I'm reading.
38:42 "Some tribal leaders still today feel that this may well have
38:45 begun when a white buffalo was born in 1994."
38:50 Interesting.
38:52 The Hopi Indians.
38:53 Alright, a little nearer to home perhaps for some.
38:56 Several Hopi tribal leaders have prophesied that the coming
39:00 of the white man to their part of the world was the signal
39:03 of the end times.
39:05 And they began to say and teach that about 250 years ago.
39:10 And then there's the Judaic perspective.
39:12 The Talmud states that the world as we know it today
39:16 will last only 6000 years.
39:19 And by the way, in their calendar it is now 5766.
39:25 And that relates to our calendar year 2038.
39:34 Only just a few years away is the way they
39:37 believe about it all.
39:38 And then there's the Islamic perspective.
39:40 And we could go on and on and on.
39:42 But to those who suggest that it just an illusion,
39:45 it's only just a symbol, it's a metaphor.
39:47 I'm here to say to you tonight once again that it is
39:50 indeed a reality.
39:52 And it is not only the blessed hope,
39:54 it's the world's only hope.
39:55 As we've said also on several prior occasions.
39:58 Our Lord Jesus, in an upper room to His very best friends,
40:01 gave this promise.
40:02 They were gathered to celebrate for the last time,
40:04 the Lord's supper.
40:05 To celebrate, rather, for the last time the Passover feast.
40:10 And then to put it in it's place, the Lord's supper.
40:13 And in that context, while His twelve best friends are
40:16 gathered around Him, Jesus says, "I'm going to have to leave you.
40:20 Where I'm going, you can't come. Not now, not yet. "
40:23 And their hearts are broken.
40:24 They've just come to love Him totally
40:26 and trust Him explicitly, completely.
40:29 And they begin to show their concern.
40:32 "Lord, why?
40:33 Please don't desert us. Please don't. "
40:36 And into this troubled environment,
40:39 Jesus speaks words promise.
40:41 John chapter 14, verses 1-3.
40:44 And I read not long ago in my study for this subject
40:48 that this verse has been learned by more children in
40:51 church and Sunday school and elsewhere than perhaps
40:54 any other single verse.
40:56 John 14, verses 1-3.
40:59 Jesus in the upper room said, "Let not your heart be troubled.
41:03 You believe in God, believe also in Me. "
41:06 "In My... " now tell me. Where?
41:10 Somewhere out in outer space?
41:11 Somewhere among the clouds in some ethereal place?
41:14 In some misty nebula sort of a notion in your mind?
41:18 No. "In My Father's house, there are many mansions. "
41:23 "Many rooms," say other translations.
41:25 "If it were not so, I would have told you.
41:27 I'm going to go to get one ready for you.
41:29 And if I go, I will come again; that where I am,
41:34 there you may be also. "
41:38 "In My Father's house. "
41:40 In 1 Corinthians chapter 15, verses 19-29;
41:44 and I want you "A" students to write it down.
41:46 And before you go to sleep tonight, go home and read it.
41:48 Because it's so very, very encouraging.
41:51 But the apostle Paul would say to those who want to suggest
41:54 that heaven and the earth made new is a metaphor,
41:57 he would say this.
41:59 "If in this life only we have hope, then we are of all men
42:03 most miserable. "
42:06 If this is all we have, if this is it, if this party is all
42:11 that we're entitled to then we are of all men, most miserable.
42:17 The Bible refers to our Lord Jesus as the paradigm
42:21 of resurrection.
42:22 "He is the first fruit," says the King James Bible.
42:25 That means He is the supreme example.
42:28 And we could, then, let our minds be reminded
42:32 of the resurrection of our Lord Jesus.
42:35 When, on that resurrection Sunday, the stone was
42:37 rolled away, did Jesus come out as some kind of a ghost
42:40 or a vapor or an essence or kind of a metaphor sort of?
42:44 No, He came out a real man.
42:46 A real man.
42:47 Mary from Magdala, the last to leave the cross,
42:50 is the first at the open tomb.
42:52 And when she gets there in the early morning before
42:55 the sunlight really has arrived, as she looks through her tears
42:58 and sees that the stone is rolled away and her heart is
43:01 broken, and she moves nearer and looks inside and sees
43:05 His body is gone.
43:07 And she's thinking, "Will they never let Him alone?
43:09 Will they torture and torment Him always?
43:11 They tortured Him during His life, they won't let Him
43:13 have peace in death?
43:14 Is there nothing sacred any longer?"
43:17 And then through her tears, she looks.
43:19 And it's becoming a bit more lighted in the garden.
43:22 And she sees someone whom she believes to be the gardener.
43:26 And so she calls out, "Sir, if you've taken His body
43:28 somewhere, tell me where you've taken Him
43:31 and I'll take care of Him. "
43:32 I've always admired the faith of little Mary.
43:37 "You just tell me where His body is and I'll
43:39 take care of it now. "
43:41 And who was it?
43:43 It was Jesus.
43:45 And He said to her, "Mary, Mary. "
43:50 And she recognized Him by His voice.
43:53 And she ran to Him.
43:54 And the picture in the New Testament is,
43:56 from John's gospel chapter 19 and chapter 20, that she
44:00 fell down and threw her arms around His ankles.
44:03 She was never going to let Him out of her sight again.
44:05 And Jesus said, "You can't hang on to Me, Mary.
44:07 I have not yet ascended.
44:09 You can't hold Me here. I have work yet to do. "
44:12 He came out of the grave a real man with a real body.
44:16 He appeared later that day to the disciples.
44:19 And there was one who was absent, you remember.
44:22 Thomas, the man from Missouri, had to be showed.
44:25 And when the other disciples said,
44:27 "Boy, you missed something wonderful.
44:28 Jesus is not dead, He just stopped by. "
44:31 And Thomas said, "There's no way, there's no way. "
44:33 That was some kind of a ghost, some kind of a
44:35 spook that came by here. "
44:37 And so a week later, Jesus stopped by again
44:39 and this time Thomas was home.
44:41 And Thomas still refused and backed away.
44:43 "Don't come near me. "
44:44 Jesus said, "Grow up Thomas. Stop this nonsense.
44:48 Come and put your finger into My wound. "
44:51 And then Jesus said, "A spirit, a ghost, doesn't have a
44:54 flesh and body as you see that I have. "
44:57 Jesus, 40 days later, ascended up into the skies.
45:01 And the Bible says a cloud received Him out of their sight.
45:05 And you read this in Acts chapter 1 verses 9-11.
45:09 And then an angle stood beside some of the folks that were
45:11 watching and said, "You men of Galilee, why are you
45:13 gazing up into heaven?
45:14 For this same Jesus that you've seen going into heaven
45:18 will so come in like manner as you have seen Him go. "
45:22 He went up into heaven and He's coming back to take His children
45:26 to the places there that He has made.
45:28 And then the prayer will be answered;
45:29 "Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done. "
45:33 I've been asked often times, "Where is heaven?"
45:36 Where is it?
45:37 Is it in outer space or where is heaven, what is this?
45:42 I'm going to give you several answers as regards the
45:45 New Testament language when it speaks about heaven.
45:48 And for want of time now, I'm going to have to insist that
45:51 you just take notes and it'll all be on the taping, of course.
45:55 I want to allude to 2 Corinthians
45:57 chapter 12 verses 1-4.
46:00 There the apostle Paul talks about a vision that he had.
46:03 2 Corinthians chapter 12, the first 4 verses.
46:06 He said, "I was caught up to the third heaven.
46:08 Whether I was there in my mind and vision, or whether my body
46:12 was literally taken, I'm not sure.
46:14 But I know I was there. "
46:16 The third heaven.
46:17 Now, it's a matter of simple logic.
46:20 It is a matter of deduction that if there is a third,
46:26 there must, of necessity, also be a first and a second.
46:31 So let me then give you some of the ideas.
46:34 The first heaven, I believe, is the aerial heaven.
46:37 Revelation chapter 19 and verse 17 gives the suggestion.
46:41 That's where the birds fly, up there in the atmosphere.
46:45 And I'm not suggesting, by the way, the three degrees of glory.
46:48 I don't want anyone to get the mistaken notion that I'm
46:51 suggesting some kind of spiritual progression.
46:57 But the atmosphere where pollution is.
47:00 And where the rain comes from, where the birds fly.
47:03 Psalm 19 verses 1-6 tell us about that part of the heavens
47:09 that's called the stellar heavens then.
47:11 That's where the stars are.
47:13 And so that, I believe, is the second heaven.
47:14 And the third heaven, as is alluded in 2 Corinthians
47:18 chapter 1 verse 4 and also in Revelation chapter 2 verse 7,
47:23 speaks about Paradise.
47:25 And it tells us that's where God's throne is.
47:27 And that's where also the tree of life is.
47:30 In Paradise.
47:31 And so I see then, the 3 heavens the apostle Paul talked about.
47:35 There is the atmospheric heaven where the birds fly.
47:38 There is the starry heaven where the stars shine down upon us.
47:42 And then there is Paradise where God's throne is
47:45 and where Jesus is going to come and take us to
47:48 when He comes in His second coming.
47:51 Moses and Elijah were taken to the third heaven.
47:55 Moses was resurrected to represent and symbolize those
47:59 that will be taken out of the graves when Jesus comes
48:02 in His second coming.
48:03 Elijah, on the other hand, was translated.
48:05 That's a Bible word.
48:06 That mean that he did not die.
48:08 The Bible says he was taken up in a chariot of fire.
48:11 I was talking to one lady not so very long ago about
48:14 the realities of heaven and how wonder it's going to be.
48:17 And how we're going to build mansions and grow gardens.
48:20 And she said this, "The thing that delights me is,
48:22 to just think, there'll be no more trailer houses. "
48:27 No more trailer houses.
48:29 Yeah permanence, that was her idea.
48:32 Finally, permanence.
48:33 It true, we're going to have a home in the city built
48:35 by our Lord Jesus.
48:36 It's also true that we're going to go out into the countryside
48:39 and build our own according to our own design and our own plan.
48:43 And that's why folks sing that lovely spiritual,
48:46 "Plenty good room, plenty good room in My Father's house.
48:50 Plenty good room in the Kingdom. "
48:52 The size of the city is enormous.
48:55 The book of Revelation tells us, and when you compute it
48:58 into our ways of measuring, it's about 375 miles square.
49:04 Some have suggested, it's about the same size
49:07 as is the state of Oregon.
49:08 141,000 square miles.
49:13 I have a buddy with whom I was talking not long ago.
49:16 A buddy that I appreciate so very much for his lifestyle.
49:20 He graduated from Loma Linda University with a
49:22 degree in dentistry.
49:23 And then went to California to practice where he
49:27 could have made tons money.
49:28 But got disgusted by the rat race and the lifestyle and
49:32 the competition and the way others were doing.
49:34 So he and his wife went to Africa as missionaries.
49:37 And they spent the rest of their working time there.
49:40 And still, from time to time, go there.
49:42 And not long ago, he and I were visiting.
49:44 We graduated from high school at the same time.
49:47 And I said to him, "George, sometimes I look at the lack
49:52 in my life and what I haven't provided for my family. "
49:56 And by the way, my friend George is living in a mobile home.
50:00 And I said, "I look around at some of the others that
50:03 graduated with us and they have big bank accounts
50:06 and beautiful homes. "
50:10 He said, "That's alright, Lyle. "
50:14 He said, "We have a friend who's building us
50:17 a mansion up there. "
50:19 Yeah.
50:22 A mansion.
50:25 Fine.
50:26 But I want to tell you folks tonight, Lyle's going to be
50:29 happy and satisfied if Jesus will just let me in the door.
50:37 Just let me inside, Lord.
50:41 Just give me a corner there somewhere.
50:44 And I shall be forever satisfied.
50:47 David, you remember, in Psalm 84 verse 10 said,
50:52 "I'd rather be a doorkeeper," that means a servant.
50:55 "I'd rather be the guy that opens and closes the door
50:58 in the house of God than to dwell in fancy places
51:02 with wicked folks. "
51:05 Just let me inside.
51:08 Imagine it now, in the earth made new.
51:11 Our Lord's going to take us to heaven.
51:13 We're going to be there with Him for 1000 years.
51:15 And we're going to talk about the
51:17 millennium in a few evenings.
51:18 And it does matter what you believe.
51:19 And be sure that you're here when we study passage,
51:22 Revelation chapter 20 and that passage.
51:24 Make sure that you're here.
51:26 We're going to spend a thousand years in heaven where
51:28 Jesus has gone to prepare the mansions.
51:30 And then the holy city is going to come down, as we've read
51:33 again and again in Revelation 21.
51:35 "I, John, saw the New Jerusalem, the holy city coming down
51:39 from God out of heaven prepared as a bride
51:41 adorned for her husband. "
51:43 And when the prayer of Jesus is answered,
51:45 "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven,"
51:50 then there'll be no more hospitals.
51:52 Thank God for the doctors and the nurses.
51:55 And there are many here.
51:56 And I've told you nurses especially, how I appreciate you
51:58 and how I love you because I have two of my kids
52:01 that are nurses.
52:02 Thank God for hospitals and for nurses.
52:04 And there's a necessity of jails and prisons,
52:06 and even for reform schools.
52:08 But not any longer when the prayer is answered.
52:11 Now when God's will is done on earth as it is in heaven.
52:14 No longer the cemeteries.
52:16 Don't you want to go to heaven?
52:18 Don't you want to go? I'm ready right now.
52:21 Some have the mistaken notion that there are only 144,000
52:24 that are going to go there.
52:25 And I don't have any great burden about that.
52:29 I really don't believe it in that way.
52:33 I don't care very much, as long as I'm one of them.
52:38 Just let me in the door, Lord.
52:41 I looked in the mirror not long ago.
52:56 I saw someone I didn't know.
53:07 Since our boy died, my face has caved in.
53:20 And I, half jokingly and half seriously,
53:23 had a little conversation with a plastic surgeon.
53:31 Could you help me?
53:32 He half jokingly said, "Well Lyle, I wouldn't know
53:36 where to start or where to stop. "
53:41 And he said, "Besides that, if I gave you my part free
53:44 you still couldn't afford it. "
53:46 I said, "Well I was afraid you'd say that. "
53:51 "Well," he said, "don't feel bad, Lyle. "
53:53 He said, "Keep your chins up. All three of them. "
53:58 One day, I'm going to be changed.
54:00 One day.
54:01 The face I see in the mirror more and more
54:04 is a stranger to me.
54:06 More and more, I see myself becoming a man
54:09 I never thought I'd be.
54:10 You go through the airport these days and they put you through
54:14 trials and tribulations, and you got to go through all of those
54:18 machines that beep no matter what.
54:21 And you have to undress and take off your shoes
54:24 and some of the rest of your clothes.
54:25 And they have cameras now, they tell me, that are
54:27 taking pictures of you but they're real careful not to let
54:30 just everybody see them.
54:31 That's good for me.
54:34 And I went through one such, not so very long ago.
54:37 And I was complaining a little bit.
54:39 And the person on the other end where I was getting my shoes
54:42 said to me, "Sir we didn't check the bags under your eyes. "
54:45 I said, "That's not funny. "
54:48 That is not funny.
54:49 But one day, I'm going to be changed.
54:52 One day.
54:53 Oh, what a day.
54:57 I saw on a television program a couple of days ago,
55:01 a medical program, two little girls, twins they were.
55:08 Born with some serious health problems.
55:13 And they were both deaf.
55:18 And they were both completely blind.
55:25 And I thought much about those little girls.
55:31 Never heard a human voice, never seen a human face.
55:39 But one day soon, there's going to be the blowing of a trumpet.
55:44 There's going to be the shout of an angel.
55:47 "Awake ye that sleep in the dust. "
55:49 There's going to be the call of Jesus, "It's time to get up. "
55:52 It's getting up time.
55:53 And the graves are going to open.
55:55 And imagine those two little girls.
55:57 Their ears are going to be unstopped,
55:58 and their eyes are going to see.
56:00 And the first voice they hear is the voice of Jesus.
56:03 And the first face they see is the face of Jesus Christ.
56:06 Oh what a day that will be.
56:08 Even so, come Lord Jesus.
56:11 Let Your prayer be answered.
56:13 "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. "
56:17 And let us pray.
56:27 It's pretty tough here Lord. And You know that.
56:32 You've been through it.
56:37 But You have promised that one day soon,
56:40 it's going to be much better.
56:45 And it's not just some make believe notion or idea.
56:48 You've gone to build a real home in a real place
56:52 where You're going to take Your real children to spend
56:55 a real eternity
56:57 with no sickness, suffering, sorrow, or heartache.
57:01 Then as my daughter-in-law has said so many times lately,
57:04 "I have so much to tell Terry. "
57:07 We're home sick, Lord. Home sick for heaven.
57:11 It seems we can't wait.
57:15 We're longing to enter Zion's pearly gate where there's
57:17 never a heartache, never a care.
57:22 We long for our home over there.
57:26 Come quickly.
57:28 Amen.


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Revised 2014-12-17