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28“Truly I say to you, there are some of those who are standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom.”

Chapter 17
1Six days later Jesus took with Him Peter and James and John his brother, and led them up on a high mountain by themselves. 2And He was transfigured before them; and His face shone like the sun, and His garments became as white as light. 3And behold, Moses and Elijah appeared to them, talking with Him. 4Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here; if You wish, I will make three tabernacles here, one for You, and one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” 5While he was still speaking, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and behold, a voice out of the cloud said, “This is My beloved Son, with whom I am well-pleased; listen to Him!” 6When the disciples heard this, they fell face down to the ground and were terrified. 7And Jesus came to them and touched them and said, “Get up, and do not be afraid.” 8And lifting up their eyes, they saw no one except Jesus Himself alone.

Anniversary of Roe V Wade was on Friday. Some of the politicians had a celebration.

57,762,169 Jeeters.

Do I have to explain what a "jeeter" is in Tonopah Nevada? A redneck. Walmart people. Right from the website. Stupid people. Low IQ people. Men with stock car racing ball caps who wear wifebeater sleeveless shirts with a homely woman following him who screams obscenities at the 5 or 6 little kids following along behind them, one or two on her hip.

Nobody needs any more jeeters. We have all we can accomodate, right?

57,762,169: The number of abortions performed in the United States since Roe v. Wade. As of the 43rd anniversary.

(from) Woman and the New Race, by Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood; 1920 ch. 6: “The Wickedness of Creating Large Families.” Here, Sanger argues that, because the conditions of large families tend to involve poverty and illness, it is better for everyone involved if a child’s life is snuffed out before he or she has a chance to pose difficulties to its family.
Sanger quote;
[We should] apply a stern and rigid policy of sterilization and segregation to that grade of population whose progeny is tainted, or whose inheritance is such that objectionable traits may be transmitted to offspring.

from; “Plan for Peace” from Birth Control Review (April 1932, pp. 107-108)

Article 1. The purpose of the American Baby Code shall be to provide for a better distribution of babies… and to protect society against the propagation and increase of the unfit.
Article 4. No woman shall have the legal right to bear a child, and no man shall have the right to become a father, without a permit…
Article 6. No permit for parenthood shall be valid for more than one birth.

“America Needs a Code for Babies,” 27 Mar 1934

Give dysgenic groups [people with “bad genes”] in our population their choice of segregation or [compulsory] sterilization.

The Negro Project (1939) was but a precursor to what eugenists wanted to implement on a much larger scale. Think Hitler.

“…those of us who believe that the benefits of Planned Parenthood as a vital key to the elimination of human waste must reach the entire population, also believe that a double effort must be made to extend this program as a public health measure to Negroes whose need is proportionately greater.” (hmmm. negroes are doubly human waste??)

— Dr. Dorothy Ferebee 1942

one final quote from the New York Times I think; "Yes, the ruling about that surprised me. [Harris v. McRae — in 1980 the court upheld the Hyde Amendment, which forbids the use of Medicaid for abortions.] Frankly I had thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don’t want to have too many of." JUSTICE GINSBURG: 2009

It turns out, jeeters, like it or not, are created in the image of God. They DO possess souls even though racists argued they do not.

Murdering babies created in the image of God, in our land is the single deepest offense against God, among many others, that our nation bears.

58 million voters and taxpayers that are missing. That's one in 6 folks.

That's bad enough but what I wanted to highlight, is the arrogance of so-called progressive people in our land. Nothing's really changed since Sanger in 1920 and Ginsberg 90 years later. They know who the unfit population is, and they want to get rid of those folks.

We have a rift in our ideology in America that is getting increasingly wider. If you dig way down, you'll find that one group still believes in some degree, in a God with unbreakable standards, and the other group has dismissed that God, because they know better. They are arrogant enough to think they can fix what's broken.

They can fix the climate. They can adjust the parameters of who lives and who dies. They can legislate morality (immorality!). All those things some old sky god used to do. They can do it better. The arrogance is staggering.

So staggering, in fact, one has to ask; Where is God? Why hasn't he squashed all of this? You look in the Bible and He squashed other civilizations that weren't nearly as arrogant as this one. Where is He??

I'm going to give you my take. My usual disclaimer. Take what I say and $2.45 and get a cup of coffee at Starbucks.

I believe God is restraining His fierce wrath against America because we're right on the precipice of the great tribulation. Final judgement.

Maybe my introduction is a "no extra charge" bit. IF you're trying to figure out how it fits with what we want to look at this morning . . . We'll get there. This idea of arrogance against a God who in in control and has set standards in a book.

People who believe in a sky God are the problem. They're holding everything back. Stupid people praying to their stupid sky god. They need to shut up and get out of the way.

Vs. 28 of chapter 16 just made my jaw drop last week as I considered it for the first time in depth.

You realize the chapter and verse designations were added later by well meaning monks. And they're infinitely helpful. But they don't always come at logical breaks in ideas.

That's the case with vs. 28 of chaper 16. It really could be the first vs. in chapter 17. It's a bridge that ties the events of chapter 16 to an earth shatteringly important event in chapter 17.

So I wanted to touch on it last week and go at it again this week in view of the transfiguration. But as I began to think about it last week, as sometimes happens, and I believe in the Holy Spirit as helper. I think He comes and gives my mind help. My mind needs lots of help.

OK, first let me qualify that. The bad ideas are mine. The good ideas are often from the Helper. The Holy Spirit.

Well, last week as I began to think of what I should say, briefly, about vs. 28, a whole flood of ideas came in! So many, all at once, that I had to get a pad and write them down, or it would be lost.

Everything I'm going to say devolves around the word "see" in vs. 28. As in to see, with your eyes, in a body of flesh. Seeing. We take it for granted, right Carl? It's a precious gift.

28 “Truly I say to you, there are some of those who are standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom.”

R. C. Sproule has written a book titled, Everyone's a Theologian. We all have ideas about God. All peoples. Even the die hard Agnostics and Atheists, have ideas about God. They can't help it. They dismiss their idea as something Jeeter's like me thought up, but nevertheless, they have an idea.

Most of those ideas are flights of fancy. No basis in reality. Then there are those who study this one book where the God of creation reveals Himself. What James called, the Once for all delivered to the Saints faith. That God. Anything that is knowable about God, comes from this source. This single book.

But no one has seen God. Gary Larson, The Far Side cartoonist, is not helpful. I'll give you a minute to dismiss those thoughts. God in front of a computer screen that says "God's computer" on it and there's a guy on the screen walking under a piano hanging on a rope out a window and God's finger is hovering over a key that says "smite". Not helpful.

As I studied vs. 16 last week, all of these verses about seeing God, flooded into my mind! Something we rarely think about. Because we can't, right now. God is hidden from our sight. So we forget that a day is coming when we will! See Him with these eyes.

There's a whole forgotten theology that revolves around seeing God! The unveiling of God. The appearance of God of very God, to humans. So fasten your seat belts and let's take a tour of this book. The verses are still flooding in even as I type this now. This may be all we get this morning. Vs. 16.

The first verses that came to mind is the story in John's gospel about some greeks who ask the disciples if they can see Jesus. Remember it?

Jn. 12:20 - 26 Now there were some Greeks among those who were going up to worship at the feast; 21these then came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida of Galilee, and began to ask him, saying, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” 22Philip came and told Andrew; Andrew and Philip came and told Jesus.

We talked about how approachable Jesus was last week. Peter grabs Him by the elbow and says, No, you're not going to Jerusalem mister. And then he gets a surprise. Humans, even called out humans, don't tell God what He's doing. God tells them.

After that, Philip is a bit more cautious. Notice he doesn't just charge in like Peter did. He goes and gets Andrew. Andrew's always bringing somebody to Jesus. Every time we see Andrew mentioned, he's bringing someone to Jesus. That's his speciality. Philip's like, I'll go get the expert. They go ask together in behalf of the Greeks.

Jesus, doesn't grant the greek guys a session; then. At this late point, He's on His way to the cross. But he tells them how they can SEE Him in eternity. It's a repeat of last week. Want to SEE Jesus?

23And Jesus answered them, saying, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. 24“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. 25“He who loves his life loses it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it to life eternal. 26“If anyone serves Me, he must follow Me; and where I am, there My servant will be also; if anyone serves Me, the Father will honor him.

The way to see Jesus is to die to yourself in this life, and see Him face to face, in the next. That's hard for us to even imagine. To be in eternity and to see God. The Son of God.

Let's follow this whole idea of SEEing God through the old testament and into the new.

The oldest book in the Bible is Job. Right before Psalms. Job, chapter 19. Vss. 25 - 27, and Job makes a spectacular prophecy.

IN my flesh I will see him - Job 19:…25"As for me, I know that my Redeemer lives, And at the last He will take His stand on the earth. 26"Even after my skin is destroyed, Yet from my flesh I shall see God; 27Whom I myself shall behold, And whom my eyes will see and not another. My heart faints within me!…

Job says, somehow, even though my flesh will rot in the ground, I'm going to see God, in my flesh, at the last time, taking His stand on the earth. We'll see God with our redeemed flesh. Not spiritually. Physically see.

Where did that come from? How did Job know that? There's an even older author. We don't have everything he said, but we have one little quote in the book of Jude. Enoch.

Jude 14 It was also about these men that Enoch, in the seventh generation from Adam, prophesied, saying, "Behold, the Lord came with many thousands of His holy ones, 15to execute judgment upon all, and to convict all the ungodly of all their ungodly deeds which they have done in an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him."…

Sounds like a direct quote to our generation from the seventh generation after the first man, Adam.

And that brings us to a dichotomy.

All flesh will SEE God. All flesh will see God. But for some, that is a dread and a terror. And for others, it's a blessing promised.

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God Mt. 5:8

BEHOLD, HE IS COMING WITH THE CLOUDS, and every eye will see Him, even those who pierced Him; and all the tribes of the earth will mourn over Him. So it is to be. Amen. Rev. 1:7

14The sky was split apart like a scroll when it is rolled up, and every mountain and island were moved out of their places. 15Then the kings of the earth and the great men and the commanders and the rich and the strong and every slave and free man hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains; 16and they said to the mountains and to the rocks, "Fall on us and hide us from the presence of Him who sits on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb;…Rev. 6:14 - 16

25"There will be signs in sun and moon and stars, and on the earth dismay among nations, in perplexity at the roaring of the sea and the waves, 26men fainting from fear and the expectation of the things which are coming upon the world; for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. 27"Then they will see THE SON OF MAN COMING IN A CLOUD with power and great glory.…Luke 21

For the wicked, seeing God is unimaginable terror and dread. X2 At the giving of the 10 commandments on Mt. Sinai, God visits the top of the mountain in smoke and cloud.

18All the people perceived the thunder and the lightning flashes and the sound of the trumpet and the mountain smoking; and when the people saw it, they trembled and stood at a distance. 19Then they said to Moses, “Speak to us yourself and we will listen; but let not God speak to us, or we will die.” 20Moses said to the people, “Do not be afraid; for God has come in order to test you, and in order that the fear of Him may remain with you, so that you may not sin.” 21So the people stood at a distance, while Moses approached the thick cloud where God was.

God is dreadful. To the sinner, to the wicked, He is a dread and a terror.

But to believers, who have had their sins forgiven, who have been bought, ransomed out of this world, seeing God is what we wait for. It will be our greatest delight.

Psalms 16: 9Therefore my heart is glad and my glory rejoices;
My flesh also will dwell securely.

10For You will not abandon my soul to Sheol;
Nor will You allow Your Holy One to undergo decay.

11You will make known to me the path of life;
In Your presence is fullness of joy;
In Your right hand there are pleasures forever.

So, this idea of seeing God, in our flesh, not this flesh, but a changed flesh with eyes, real eyes, is to the righteous, our greatest hope and delight.

But to the unrighteous, to the arrogant and rebellious, it is unimaginable terror and dread.

We find it all over the Bible from the most ancient author, 7 generations from Adam, to the final author, John who reveals to us the glorified Jesus in Revelation. We shall see Him.

I feel like this has been heavy with scripture and light with interpretation. There are just a couple more places I want to visit.

In John's letter to the saints, he says that this hope, of seeing Jesus, purifies us.

We will see him as he is. - 1Jn. 3:1See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called children of God; and such we are. For this reason the world does not know us, because it did not know Him. 2Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is. 3And everyone who has this hope fixed on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.…

The hope we have, that our saviour will appear, at any moment, to take us unto Himself, purifies us for the very reason that Moses told the children of Israel. The dread of God will keep you from sinning. The very thought that our Saviour will return at any moment, and soon, should fill us with dread if we're dabbling in sin, and with joy, if we're walking in the Spirit with Him.

Paul says about what we see now, in this book, and what we will see then, face to face, this famous quote to the Corinthian christians. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known..

This forgotten doctrine. Seeing God. Seeing the Glorified Jesus. This is so important that Jesus asks His Father to guarantee it. In John 17 we have these words of Jesus, in His High Priestly prayer.

Jn. 17:24 “Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am, so that they may see My glory which You have given Me, for You loved Me before the foundation of the world.

That brings us full circle back to where we started. 28“Truly I say to you, there are some of those who are standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom.”

Next week we'll get into Chapter 17. Jesus transfigured on the mountain. Jesus in Glory. Shining like the sun.

John could say; And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth. Jn. 1:14

We long for that day. We walk in His Spirit in purity so that we won't have to dread His appearing.

I'll let Paul finish these thoughts for us. If this was a lot to take in all at once, I encourage you to go to the web site and read through these things again. The doctrine of seeing God. Face to face.

In the letter to the Philippians Paul says; 2:…9 For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, 10so that at the name of Jesus EVERY KNEE WILL BOW, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

All flesh will SEE God! EVERY knee will bow. Every tongue will confess that Jesus is Lord. Some in unspeakable terror and dread. And some with unspeakable joy!

The quote is from Isaiah the prophet. Isa.45:22 - 24 "Turn to Me and be saved, all the ends of the earth; For I am God, and there is no other. 23"I have sworn by Myself, The word has gone forth from My mouth in righteousness And will not turn back, That to Me every knee will bow, every tongue will swear allegiance. 24"They will say of Me, 'Only in the LORD are righteousness and strength.' Men will come to Him, And all who were angry at Him will be put to shame.…

I'm not a preacher who goes much beyond opening the truth and simply allowing it to have it's affect.

But, this one time, let me urge you. Don't be among the rebellious ones who will see God in terror. Who will bow the knee and acknowledge Him as Lord in shame, and then inherit eternal terror after the judgement.

Be redeemed. Come out of this sinful world and give your life to Christ now. Join those who are longing to see His face, in the air, when He comes to take home His own. Belong to Him now. Give the sin to Him, and take His righteousness as your own. It's the difference between unspeakable joy, or unspeakable dread and terror, when we see Jesus.

We'll close our thoughts in 1 Crinthians 15 where Paul describes how we will see the Saviour.

50Now I say this, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. 51Behold, I tell you a mystery; we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed, 52in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. 53For this perishable must put on the imperishable, and this mortal must put on immortality. 54But when this perishable will have put on the imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then will come about the saying that is written, “DEATH IS SWALLOWED UP in victory. 55“O DEATH, WHERE IS YOUR VICTORY? O DEATH, WHERE IS YOUR STING?” 56The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law; 57but thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

58Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord. 1 Cor. 15

All flesh will SEE God. Every person. Those of us who know God, intimately and personally have all experienced an indefinable longing deep inside us. We are fish out of water here. Sojourners.

C. S. Lewis in his book Surprised by Joy talks about this longing to be . . . home. I believe . . . that the old stab, the old bittersweet, has come to me as often and as sharply since my conversion as at any time of my life whatever. But I now know that the experience, considered as a state of my own mind, had never had the kind of importance I once gave it. It was valuable only as a pointer to something other and outer. While that other was in doubt, the pointer naturally loomed large in my thoughts. When we are lost in the woods the site of the signpost is a great matter. He who first sees it cries, ‘Look!’ The whole party gathers around and stares. But when we have found the road and are passing signposts every few miles, we shall not stop and stare. They will encourage us and we shall be grateful to the authority that set them up. But we shall not stop and stare, or not much; not on this road, though their pillars are of silver and their lettering of gold. ‘We would be at Jerusalem.’

Eliza E. Hewitt's old refrain is very familiar to many of us;

When we all get to heaven,
What a day of rejoicing that will be!
When we all see Jesus,
We’ll sing and shout the victory!

When we SEE Jesus, we're home. Live now, for that day.