From the MLJ Archive

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: The words to which I should like to call your attention this morning are to be found in Paul's epistle to the Ephesians in the first chapter and the 18th verse: "The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints."

I really want to call attention this morning to the last statement, the last phrase, "and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints." But let me again remind you of the context. The apostle is here praying for the members of the church at Ephesus and other Christians, and he puts it like this. "Wherefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus, and love unto all the saints, cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers; that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him: the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of his power to usward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power, which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places."

Well, now, we are working our way through this tremendous statement, this great prayer that the apostle tells these Ephesians that he is constantly offering for them. He realizes to whom he is praying, the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory. And what he desires for these people above everything else is that they may know him. That is only possible if God gives them the spirit, the Holy Spirit, of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him.

But given the spirit, the Holy Spirit, who alone can give us the knowledge and enable us to see it, we may know God. The knowledge of God, that's the first thing and it is the supreme thing. But having put that in the first position, the apostle now goes on to tell them that he is also praying for them in detail. There are certain things he is anxious they should know and know increasingly.

In particular, there are three of them that he mentions. The first was the one we dealt with last Sunday morning, namely, that they might know what is the hope of his calling. By which we suggested he means this: that we should be certain of our hope. The hope is there, set before us. Yes, but we must be certain of it. We must be sure of it. And so, the apostle prays that we may have assurance of salvation, that we may, if you like, make our calling and election sure, that we may not remain in uncertainty or in any doubt as to whether we are God's children and God's people, but that we may have a sure and a certain hope, so that we will go forward steadfastly.

Well, now then, we come this morning to this second particular petition. You notice that each one of them introduces with the word "what": "that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, what is the exceeding greatness of his power toward usward that believe."

Now, as we come to consider this, I must again emphasize this thing which the apostle here puts so prominently and which he himself repeats. What we're going to talk about this morning can only be understood by those who have their eyes, the eyes of their understanding, opened or enlightened. You see, the apostle is very careful to say that first. He's already put it in general by praying that we may have the Holy Spirit of wisdom and of revelation.

But again, he says, the eyes of your hearts, the eyes of your minds, the eyes of your understandings being opened. Because if they're not opened, we sha'nt see these things. We've never seen them, and we shall not be able to see them. So, perhaps it wouldn't be a bad thing for us to ask ourselves a simple question before we go any further.

Did we sing that hymn of Richard Baxter's which we've just been singing? Did we sing it from the heart? Can we say honestly, "Father, it belongs not to my care whether I die or live"? If life be long, well, it's simply an opportunity to go on obeying. If life be short, I'm not grieved because it just means going to be with him and to enjoy him. Is all this real to us?

That's a very good way of testing whether the eyes of our understanding are enlightened. Are these things real to us? These unseen, these spiritual realities? That's the question. Well, the apostle's argument is, as it is, of course, the case of the entire Bible, that to the natural man, as I'm going to show you in a moment, these things mean nothing at all. They're absolutely unreal.

And therefore, it is an utter necessity that the eyes of our understanding should be enlightened, that we may know the things that are revealed in this book, the things that are set before us. The things, indeed, we may have read many times, but we may never have seen them. There's a difference between seeing and perceiving. There's a difference in being aware of something and really apprehending it. Well, now, that's what the apostle prays for, that they may have this enlightenment, what the Apostle John in his first epistle means when he talks about, "But ye have that anointing, that unction of the Holy One." It's the same thing.

So, let us pray as we go on that all of us may have the eyes of our understanding enlightened this morning, that we may together look at things unseen and have a glimpse at the glories that are there awaiting the people of God in eternity. Well, now then, let's proceed and look at it like this.

What exactly is the apostle praying for here? What does the petition mean exactly? There are two main views with respect to this: "and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints." Now, there are some who think that this means God's own inheritance, that God's own inheritance is the saints. Now, there's an Old Testament scripture that gives some color to that view of the matter. There is a statement to the effect, "The Lord's portion is his people."

There are phrases in the New Testament which mean very much the same thing. You remember the Apostle Peter in his first epistle and in the second chapter, in the ninth verse, says of Christians, "Ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people," says this Authorized. It really means a people for his own peculiar possession. A peculiar people, his own personal, peculiar possession.

So, there are those who say that what is meant here is the sum total of God's people when they shall have been finally gathered in. God is calling out a people unto himself from this present evil world. He is calling out people from amongst the Jews and amongst the Gentiles. There will be a day when the fullness of the Gentile shall have been gathered in and all Israel shall likewise have been saved, and there is the totality of God's people.

And now, the argument is that here the apostle is looking forward to that, and that he is praying that these Ephesians and all of us as Christians may come to know the exceeding greatness of God's own inheritance in the saints and in his own people, that we may have some dim understanding of this glorious company of the redeemed to which we belong and amongst whom we shall spend our eternity. That is one possible explanation, and it certainly is a possible explanation.

And those who generally hold that view, of course, have held the same view with regard to verses 11 and 13, where we read the apostle says, "In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, in whom you also," he says in verse 13. They would say that that means in whom also we have become an heritage of God. That's one view.

But the other view, of course, is this: that what the apostle is praying for here is that the eyes of our understanding may be so enlightened that we may come to know the character of the inheritance to which we are going. It is God's inheritance, "the riches of the glory of his inheritance." His inheritance means the inheritance that he is preparing for us. "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." His inheritance, the inheritance prepared for us by God, says this second explanation.

And that therefore what the apostle is praying for is that we may come to see more and more of that, that we may have more frequent glimpses of it, that it may not be something remote and strange to us, but that we may really have not only looked at our title deeds and the specifications, but that we may by faith have an occasional glimpse of the land itself and stand, as it were, with Moses on the top of the Mount Pisgah and look into the promised land of our inheritance.

Now, there are the two possible explanations. and it's quite impossible for us to say dogmatically or categorically that one is right and the other is wrong. It's a matter of personal preference, and for myself, I do not hesitate to take the second view as I took it in expounding verse 11 and verse 13. And I do so for this reason, that somehow or another, it doesn't seem to me that the idea of God having an inheritance is a biblical conception.

Everything belongs to God, the whole universe. Everything is God's, so that it seems to me somewhat inappropriate to use the expression "God's inheritance" in that sense. Whereas on the other hand, what is more appropriate than to look at it in the other way? It seems to me that all the argument of this first chapter runs in that direction. Paul says that we not only have believed, but we have been sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession.

The possession has been purchased for us by the blood of Christ. We are already heirs, we are inheritors in that sense, but here we are still left in this world. Well, how are we kept going? Well, God gives us the earnest of the Spirit. He gives us a foretaste, and that keeps us going, as it were, until we enter into this purchased possession, the final redemption of it, when we enter in upon it at the end of the age and at the end of time.

But of course, from the practical standpoint, it really makes very little difference as to which of the two explanations we adopt. Because what the apostle is really praying for is this: that we may come to know that state and that condition, whether you look at it in terms of the great assembly of the redeemed or whether you look at the way in which this great assembly is going to spend its eternity. It comes to the same thing.

In other words, in both cases, it is a prayer that we may come to know something of that glorious state to which we are going and for which God is preparing us, when with all the redeemed we shall be safely gathered in and we shall enjoy to all eternity the benefits of this great salvation. Very well. Having thus defined the prayer, the exact meaning of the prayer, let me ask another question.

Why should we consider this? Indeed, let me ask another question. Is it a right and a suitable thing for us to do? Now, I put that question for this reason: that there can be no doubt at all but that this whole idea is heartily disliked at the present time. There are so many people today who say, "Yes, that's typical of your Christianity. Here you are in this troubled modern world with all that we've experienced in this 20th century, with our two horrible wars, with all the discord and the turmoil and all the uncertainty and the possibility of another war, and all the confusion in the international situation and all the possibilities of this atomic power, and yet you're proposing to spend a morning in trying to glimpse into heaven and to talk about life after death. Why don't you say something?" says someone.

"To try and stop the manufacture of armaments? Why don't you make a protest against the manufacture of the atomic bomb? Why don't you address an appeal to the governments and organize your people to send up appeals and get the whole Christian church to enter into politics and do something about it? Your pie in the sky, your remoteness from life, your turning your backs upon the difficulties, that's been the curse of humanity throughout the centuries."

Isn't that the argument? Christianity, what is it? The dope of the people. Some kind of sob stuff to make people feel happy, to give them a comfortable feeling by persuading them to turn their backs upon reality and just to go into some ethereal atmosphere and to dwell in some realm of fantasy. How frequently people take that view. The modern man dislikes this whole idea of looking into the unseen and the eternal, this other-worldly emphasis, this thing that the apostle is here praying for.

That is the main opposition to it, I think. But you notice that the opposition to this is not confined to the world that is outside. It isn't only the Communists and others who object to this viewpoint. You will find that there are many in the church who take the same view exactly. There are certain hymns which you'll find in the hymnbook which tell us that we should not be animated by a fear of hell, nor by a desire for reward and for glory.

Oh no, we must be altruistic. We really believe in Christianity for the sake of Christianity. We've got nothing mercenary about us. We are not interested in our own soul's salvation, we are not personal at all. No, no, we are just detached, we are such wonderful people that we believe in truth for truth's sake, and we are not interested in possibilities of punishment nor of reward. That's carnal, we are told, and we are spiritual, and we take a purely spiritual view of these things—the things for themselves and for their own sakes.

You're familiar with it. That view began to be very popular towards the end of the last century, and there have been many expressions of it in this present century. You remember the old story of the woman, the old woman in the Middle East country, who was found one day walking along carrying two buckets. And in one of them she'd got fire and in the other she'd got water.

And the men stopped her and said, "What are you doing with those two buckets?" And she said, "Well, I'm carrying one in order to burn heaven, and I'm carrying the other in order to drown hell." And that is regarded as marvelous. You see, neither heaven nor hell, we mustn't be interested in either, just pure truth, this purely spiritual concept. Oh, there are many who hold that view. And there are those who even object to a preaching of personal salvation first.

You see, you mustn't think about yourselves and your own problems, you must be interested in society and in the whole social condition. And they say the curse of this evangelicalism has always been that it's been so personal and self-centered and narrow and selfish.

What is the reply to all that? Well, of course, we need go no further than our text this morning. The Apostle Paul prays in a manner that gives the lie direct to all that I've been saying. He prays that we may know what is the hope of our calling and the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints. But my dear friends, apart from that, there is nothing I sometimes think that is quite so fatuous as a criticism of this other-worldly view that is commended in the scripture as that particular argument. And for this reason.

History alone, and in and of itself, proves this beyond any doubt whatsoever: the greatest benefactors that this world has ever known, the men who have done most for life in this world, have been the men who have emphasized most of all the importance of seeing the unseen. Now, it was in order to bring out that argument that I read to you that section from the 11th chapter of the epistle to the Hebrews just now.

If you can give me a list of greater men, well, I'd be very glad to hear it than the list you found in that chapter. Those have been the world's greatest benefactors. These are the men who stand out in history. And they're all men, you see, who lived in this way: they had their eye not on this world so much as on the next. That didn't mean that they ignored this world. They were not monks, they didn't go and live in monasteries.

You see, that's where Roman Catholicism has bedeviled this whole question. The alternative to this view that is being advocated is not monasticism. No, no, these men didn't segregate themselves from society. What they did was this: they started with the next, with the unseen, and then in the light of that, they applied themselves to the present.

But it's not only true of these great men in the scriptures, it is true throughout history. Where did hospitals come from? Who started the hospitals? The answer is the hospitals were started by the saints. It is men who have a true view of men and of life who are always most concerned about human suffering. The man who takes a this-worldly view is a man who generally lives to himself in his selfishness and doesn't worry about the man next door.

It is the most spiritual men who have always introduced the greatest reforms. Hospitals and education and culture and all these things have come through the church, through saintly people who have been concerned about knowing the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints. Now, let me say this, that is true of Roman Catholic saints as well as Protestant saints. And it has been particularly true of the Protestant saints.

There was no man who was more concerned about decent, proper living in this world than a man like John Calvin. Read the story of that man and how he reformed the life of Geneva and how others have borrowed his ideas, and it has spread and has been the greatest motive power in democracy. As democracy, it worked itself out in this country in the Puritans who laid the foundation of the greatness of this country.

Those Puritans led by that great man Oliver Cromwell, they were all men who lived in the light of the unseen. No man was more aware of the unseen than Oliver Cromwell. He certainly was concerned to have the eyes of his understanding enlightened that he might know the hope of his calling and the riches of this glory. He was a man with an other-worldly view, but that didn't mean that he neglected this world.

He was a great reformer, a great benefactor, and so were all his coadjutors and all his contemporaries who worked with him. And if I brought you along to the history of the 18th and the 19th centuries, you'd find exactly the same thing. There is no question, it's granted even by secular historians, that the evangelical awakening of the 18th century undoubtedly saved this country from a revolution similar to the French Revolution.

And it did it, of course, because it led men to seek reforms and to improve life as it was lived in this world. In other words, it is out of spiritual revivals that secular improvements have always come. It was true of the 18th and the 19th century. Let me be right up to date. Where did trade unionism come from? There is only one answer to the question. Trade unionism came into being as the result of the activities of men who had been saved by this gospel, and who began to see that working men should not live as animals in drunkenness and in vice and in ignorance.

You see all these things about which men boast and talk so much today have come from the minds and the lives of men who have realized the importance of the next world and the next life. Indeed, I can even venture to put it like this: it is when mankind forgets the next world that things always go wrong in this world.

That is a great principle that can be proved from history. How wonderful it seems to be to be concentrating on this world and this life. Yes, but if you do that without knowing about the next, if you don't put this into the context of the next, you will always find that this world will degenerate. Now for the last 30 or 40 years, the emphasis has been altogether on this world, hasn't it?

And the preaching about heaven and glory has been unpopular. Yes, but look at this world. You see what happens in it? When you forget the next world and concentrate on this, this becomes a kind of living hell, and you have confusion and lawlessness and immorality and vice. What a fatuous argument this is. It is only men who have a complete view of life who really know how to live in this life.

The only man who really respects life in this world is a man who knows that this world is only the antechamber to the next world. It is only a man who knows himself a child of God and that this world is God's world who is really concerned about decency in this world. So, if you want to live this life in this world in a right and a true manner, the high road to that is to consider the world to which we are going, "the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints."

Well, there I've spent my time in answering this foolish, fatuous argument. But let me be positive. Why should we look at these things? Why should I trouble to know something about the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints? One sufficient answer as far as I'm concerned is this: the comfort of it all. Do you remember how the Apostle Paul puts that in writing to the Romans in the eighth chapter?

He says, "For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us." That's how he uses it. Those Roman Christians were having a hard and a difficult time, and the apostle really has no comfort to give them but just that. He says, "I admit things are bad. Christianity is always realistic."

It never believes in just pretending that there's nothing wrong and putting on a cheery smile and saying that all is well. Not at all. "In this tabernacle we do groan being burdened. We ourselves," says the apostle, "that have the first fruits, even we ourselves groan within ourselves." The Christian is not a fool who puts on a smiling grin and pretends that there's nothing wrong and that he's never got any troubles. "And now I am happy all the day." No, no, he doesn't say that; that's a false psychology.

The Christian above all men knows what a terrible world this is. But he knows something else. "I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed." He says the same thing to the Corinthians in his second epistle to them. "Our light affliction," he says, "which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory."

That's it, the comfort of it all. And therefore, of course, the encouragement and the stimulus. Is there anything more encouraging? Is there anything more stimulating? Take how the apostle works it out in the great 15th chapter of 1st Corinthians. He says, "If there is no resurrection from the dead, if this life is the only life and when we die that's the end of the story, well then," says Paul, "let us eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die. Evil communications corrupt good manners. If there is no other life, why have I troubled to fight with beasts at Ephesus?" and so on. No, no, it's all nonsense.

There is nothing that so encourages us to Christian living. There is no greater stimulus to it all than just to realize these things. The more I know of them, the more I'll be encouraged to forsake sin and to mortify the flesh and to prepare myself for that which God has awaiting me. It's the greatest incentive to holiness and to holy living; there is none comparable to it.

"He that hath this hope in him," says John, "purifieth himself, even as he is pure." And I have sometimes thought that the marked absence of holiness amongst modern Christians is due to this very thing. We don't spend sufficient time in meditating upon the glory. We are too much in this world and think of salvation too much in terms of present experiences rather than this glory which awaits us.

It is the high road to holiness. But there is an argument which puts this matter once and for all. It is what we are told about our blessed Lord himself. And this is how the author of the epistle to the Hebrews in the 12th chapter and the third verse puts it: "Looking unto Jesus, the author and the finisher of our faith." That's what we're to do. We're to run the race, we're to lay aside every weight and the sin that doth so easily beset us, looking unto Jesus, the author and the finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him, in the light of the joy that was set before him, because of the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame."

That's our blessed Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. He didn't disdain keeping his eye upon the recompense of the reward. It was because he was looking unto the joy and the glory that awaited him that he went through it all; it helped him to go through. And in the 17th chapter of John, you will find that he prays about the same thing, that he may have again that glory which he shared with the Father before the foundation of the world itself.

My dear friends, to object to this prayer, which prays that we may come to know these things, is not only unspiritual, you see, it is unscriptural also. Shall I give it you in the form of a commandment? Here it is again: Paul to the Colossians. "Set your affections on things above, not on things on the earth." Set them there. Have you ever set a compass? Have you ever really set an instrument?

You put the thing, the needle, at the exact point. That's it. Set your affections. Keep them trained there. Steadfastly gaze upon, set your affections upon things which are above, not on things which are on the earth. Very well, therefore, let us get rid of this false spirituality which prides itself on being unusually good because it isn't interested in heaven and hell. Not to be interested in heaven and hell is to be unlike the Lord Jesus Christ.

It's to be unlike all the apostles. It's to be unlike all the saints and the best people this world has ever known. How much time do you spend in thinking about heaven, my friend? How often do you set your gaze there? Have the eyes of your understanding being enlightened, that you know these things? That is what God has for his people. And I don't hesitate, therefore, to assert this: the more spiritual we are, the more we shall think about heaven.

The near we are to Christ, the more we shall meditate upon the glory which he has prepared for us. It is an invariable test of true spirituality. Very well, that brings me to my last point, which is this: what are these things that we are to know, therefore? It is only the Holy Spirit who can make it plain to us. And even then, I think Richard Baxter is absolutely right when he says, "My knowledge of that life is small, the eye of faith is dim."

We don't know much about it, do we? There are people who sometimes are in trouble about this. I've often been asked that question as a pastor. They say, "Why don't we know more about heaven and that life we're going to? Why are we not told more about it?" I think there's a very simple answer to that question, and the answer is this: that it is so glorious, so marvelous, so wonderful, that language, our human language, is incapable of conveying it.

The glory is so marvelous that were an attempt made to describe it, because we have debased the coinage of our language, that we should have unworthy conceptions of it. To describe it would be to detract from it in a sense. And therefore, God in his mercy hasn't told us much about it. But you see, this is the sort of thing we are told: "the riches of the glory."

He piles a superlative on top of a superlative. There's nothing greater than glory, but he talks about "the riches of glory." In other words, to give us some conception that it is so transcendent in its glory that we can't have a true conception of it. But we're just told that it is "the riches of his glory." So don't be troubled about that, my friend.

Heaven is infinitely more wonderful than you and I can ever imagine or hope. It's entirely beyond the reach of all our categories. But we are told certain things such as this: what is this glory? Well, the central part of the glory is this: that we shall be with him. "Let not your hearts be troubled. Ye believe in God, believe also in me. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself, that where I am, there ye may be also."

You know, that's really enough—to be with him. That's Paul's view of death. He's no longer worried about death. Why? Well, death means to be with Christ, which is far better. And our Lord, you remember again in his high priestly prayer in the 17th of John, he prays that very special petition to his Father. "Father," he says, "I will that they may be with me, that they may see my glory, that I share with you."

His greatest prayer for us is that we may see him as he is and in his glory. There's nothing beyond that. It's all there. So John again in his first epistle in the third chapter puts it like this: "We know not yet what we shall be, but we do know this," he says, "that we shall see him." And still more marvelous, "we shall be like him."

Do you know, my friends, when we arrive in this glory, our very bodies shall have been changed? "He will have changed this body of our humiliation and fashioned it like unto the body of his own glorification." We shall be perfect and entire without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, absolutely reflections of him. We know that. I know another thing, and let me tell you about it.

The Apostle Paul, you know, on the road to Damascus, was given a glimpse of it. It's not surprising he talks about "the riches of the glory." You remember how there on the road to Damascus he saw the face of the risen Lord, and it was so shining and so glorious that he was blinded. It was above the brightest shining of the sun at noonday, and it was shining upon him—the glory of the Lord. He never forgot it. How could he forget it?

But then you remember he tells us that there came an occasion in his life some 14 years before he was writing about it, when he was lifted up into the heavens. He went into the third heavens, he tells us. And what happened there? He says, "I heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter." That's it. The apostle was lifted up and was, as it were, given a vision, a glory of this glory and of heaven.

And he said, "I heard unspeakable words. I dare not utter them. It's not lawful to utter, the glory is so tremendous." But he saw it, and he never forgot it again. It's not surprising, therefore, that he does speak in the way that I've already quoted to you, of "a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." We know that. And then if you read the 21st chapter of the book of Revelation, you'll find it all described in symbolical language.

Don't forget that it is symbolical: the streets of gold and so on. The glory is so tremendous there was no temple there. Why? "The temple is unnecessary, God himself is there. There was no sun there, there was no moon, no stars. Why? The Lamb in the midst is the light thereof." The face of Jesus Christ with its glory is illuminating and irradiating everything. We simply dwell in his glorious and eternal presence. That's what it means.

"The eyes of your understanding being enlightened, that ye may know what is the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints." That's where you're going to. But listen to Peter in his own language, which is much more prosaic than that of Paul. He puts it like this: "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead." To what? "To an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven by God for us."

You notice what he says about it: incorruptible. Nothing sinful there, nothing unworthy. It can never decay. Incorruptible and undefiled, and that fadeth not away. Of course, we can't conceive of that, can we? We are accustomed to a world of sin. We are accustomed to death and decay. Flowers are beautiful, they are, but look at them tomorrow and the next day and you'll throw them out into the dustbin.

There's decay, there's pollution in everything, and in our physical frames subject to illness, old age, and so on. But not there. Incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away. There'll be no sorrow there, no sighing, no tears, no sin, no separation, nothing that makes unhappy or depresses. "The riches of the glory of his inheritance."

And who is it for? "In the saints." Only for the saints. "Naught that defileth shall enter in there. Outside are whoremongers and adulterers and dogs and thieves." Read your 21st chapter of Revelation, and you'll find it all. They're all outside. What I've been talking about is only for the saints. You remember again how the Lord Jesus Christ puts it in Matthew 25: "Come," he says, "ye blessed of the Lord, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world."

It's only for you it's been prepared—the saints. Those who've loved his little ones and have visited them in prison and given them water and clothing and so on, as if they were doing it unto him. The kingdom has been prepared for them and for them only before the foundation of the world. Or again as Paul puts it, he says that he is to call people from darkness to light and from the power of Satan unto God, "that they may have forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith which is in me."

In other words, it comes to this: while we're in this life and in this world, there is a great process of separation going on. God lays his hands upon and apprehends those who are to go to this glory, this inheritance. They are called "saints." The saints are those who are separated, set apart by the Holy Spirit. Set apart for God, and because of that, the work of the Holy Spirit within also purifies them. But remember, sanctified means primarily "set apart for God."

And we're all of us at this moment either saints or else we are sinners. And this glory that I've been speaking about is only for the saints. It is for them and nobody and nothing can rob them of it. Neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth nor any other creature. My friend, if you're a saint, if you're one of God's people, you are going to this glory of which I've been speaking, and nothing can prevent it.

Do you know that you're a saint? Are you certain that you're one of God's people? Make certain of it. And then having made certain of it, oh then dwell upon this. Apply your mind to it. Read the scriptures, delve into them, commit them to memory if you like. Understand them. Say, "Ah, that's what I'm going to. That's the inheritance that's been prepared for me. That's how I'm going to spend my eternity."

How often do we spend our time in doing that, Christian people? Let us pray for ourselves what the apostle prayed for the Ephesians. Let us pray God by the Spirit to enlighten the eyes of our understanding, that these things may become real to us, that we shall not spend our time in thinking only about this world and this life, but about that which is coming for certain and which is so glorious, "the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints."

Oh, may I end with the apostolic exhortation: "Set your affections, set your affections, your heart's desire, upon him and upon the things which he hath prepared for them that love him." The crowning day is coming by and by. There is a glory awaiting us, which eye hath not seen nor ear heard, which hath not even entered into the heart of man. Beloved people, let's get to know them. Let's look upon them. Let's live in the light of them. And then as men who've seen them, let us live our life in this world which is passing to the maximum, telling others about this glorious God and what he does for all who trust in him. Amen.