[Jeff Richards] You know, our opening message talked about… Mr. Griswold talked about asking us if we had a vision of the Kingdom. And I talked about that in the opening night a little bit about our anticipation, what we expect out of these next eight days. Today I'd like to talk about as we're in the midst of the Feast of Tabernacles, and we celebrate this Kingdom that Christ is going to bring when He returns. I'd like to talk about what you expect to be doing for 1,000 years. When I was growing up, I remember hearing the stories about the wolf, and the lamb, and everybody could play and not worry about anything dangerous and all that. But as you get older and you're baptized, I don't think there's going to be a huge amount of time for that. There's going to be a lot that we need to be doing. Now over the many, many decades, I'm sure you've heard hundreds or thousands of sermons even on what the world tomorrow, what the Kingdom of God is going to be like. I've attended the Feasts since the mid-70s. And over those years, I've heard message after message describing in detail about having a life without the kinds of problems that we have in this world, and that there would be solutions in various ways. But I didn't often feel like I could see myself exactly what I would be doing.

When you become a minister, you sort of just assume, okay, the kinds of things we do know we'll do later. But before that, I used to ask myself, what exactly will God have me do? And I'm sure that's a question you might have had a few times in your life. I'd like to start this morning if you turn over to 1 Corinthians 15. We're going to read verses 50 through 53. 1 Corinthians 15. We'll start in verse 50. It says, ”Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; nor does corruption inherit incorruption. Behold, I tell you a mystery."

So up to this point, there were things that people understood. But, you know, if you read the Gospels and Christ will talk about things, and then even His disciples don't quite really know what He's talking about when He would talk about, He's going to have to die and then rise again. And then when He was going to die, they acted, like, all surprised, like He'd never said it before. And He would describe in some detail different aspects of the kingdom, but still, people didn't quite get it. And so when the apostle Paul here would talk about some of these elements, I believe this was news to a lot of people. “Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed— in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.”

This is something that we all know in the backs of our mind. But when you think about some of the sermons you've heard about the Kingdom of God, oftentimes we hear about them in their physical detail. And if you are going to be spirit, incorruptible spirit, what are you going to be doing? And it's kind of hard to wrap your brain around something that you can't really envision. So I'd like you to think about that today as we go through this message. Today, I'm going to try to help you with some creative thinking. That’ll help picture yourself in that environment, and what it will be like to walk in the Spirit. In fact, that's the title of the sermon today, "Walking in the Spirit." What's that going to be like? How do you walk in the Spirit? First of all, as a spirit, you won't need to walk, you can float. So will you walk? Why? I would like to think you will. But what would that be like, walking if you don't have to? You know, Christ talked about those who eat from Him will never be hungry again. But God likes to eat. But He doesn't eat because He's hungry. You know, a lot of us like to eat. We're enjoying eating here. But the whole hunger, blood sugar, all those kinds of things that we have to deal with in this life, it does get to be quite bothersome, doesn't it?

So let me ask you a question. It's a very serious question. Does the spirit being have pockets? You know, Christ has robes. So, you know, we know that there's clothing of some sort. But does that clothing have pockets? And if you had pockets, what would you need to have in them? I mean, for instance, here's a wallet. I don't leave home without that wallet. If I didn't have pockets, I'd be in real trouble. In this wallet, driver's license, can't go anywhere without a driver's license, different bank cards, business cards, a number of things, and occasionally, it actually has money in it. You don't go anywhere without that wallet. Do you need a wallet as a spirit being? Try to picture that in your mind. You know, Jesus was in every sense, human. He understood what it was like to go through life as we do. And when He needed money, did He pull out His wallet? No, He had a fish spit it up. I mean, it's a different world, isn't it?

I'd like you to turn over to Luke 1. We're going to read verses 18 through 20. Luke 1:18-20. This is a story of Gabriel telling Zacharias that he's going to be a father. This is the birth announcement for John the baptist. And Zechariah starting in verse 18 of Luke 1, "And Zacharias said to the angel, ‘How shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is well advanced in years?’ The angel answered and said to him, 'I am Gabriel, who stands in the presence of God, and was sent to speak to you and bring you these glad tidings. But behold, you will be mute and not able to speak until the day that these things take place. Why? Because you did not believe my words.’"

Zacharias should not have asked Gabriel for his ID. You don't ask a spirit being for his ID. So, you will not need to prove to anyone who you are. The power in which God will bestow upon us is all the ID that we need. So I'm guessing it's not a good idea to go around and think that we're going to need some sort of identification. You know, our wallets also have pictures in them of our family and whatnot with a perfect memory. I don't think we're going to need to look at pictures to remember what things look like, what our family and friends, and all of those things look like.

I mean, you can replay any part of history at any time. I'm really looking forward to being able to see what some of the famous events in history were all about. Like, going back and watching the movie, but instead of reenactments, we get to actually see what it was really like. Because God has got a perfect memory, and He can share with us in any which way He would like for us to see the history of this world. In fact, the plan of God is intricately tied into the history of the humanity project where man decides whether he can or can't live separate from God. And so man has to be able to go back and see how he's done. Not just take someone's word for it, but actually go back and see that the ways that we have chosen to live in this life do not work when we choose to live separate from God. So what else do you have in your pockets? Let's see. Keys. I don't go anywhere that my keys.

You know, we'll be out working in the backyard, and my wife always asked me, "Do you have your keys with you?" Because she wants to get into the shed. Shed keys right here. Don't go anywhere without my keys. Car keys got to have them. House key, key to our local congregation, my dad's house, our front door, all of these different keys for different purposes. Does a spirit being need keys? Now I do know from Scripture, there is a key to the bottomless pit. But I don't think there's a lot of copies of that one. And I doubt God's going to trust me with it. So I'm not saying there's never anything that will ever be locked. But people talk about growing up in the world back in a simpler time when nobody used to lock their doors. What would that be like to live in a world where people didn't constantly have to lock everything up? I've got a wood splitter in my back yard. I didn't want somebody to take it while I was gone. So I locked the gate to get into the back. It's too heavy to carry. So as long as the gates locked, I know it's okay. What would it be like not to have people constantly worried about that?

Now the spirit being, if you don't need pockets, you probably don't need a back yard to store your wood splitter. Do you need car keys? You know, God can go anywhere in the universe at any time and/or as He's omnipresent. He's everywhere and all the time anyway. But you can be instantaneous, anywhere in the universe. You know, like, you know, men like fast cars.

We like to feel those g-forces. The speeds that you are going to be able to travel, you're going to be very grateful you will not feel any g-forces. Because to go as fast as we're going to be able to go, we'd be crushed if we were physical. So we will not need any of these things to carry them all the time. Just to think about that, the weight that you have to carry around. What else? Who doesn't carry one of these? People call it their brain because it has their phone numbers. It's got their appointments. Sometimes you can even talk to people. All of that right there. And yes, my ringer is off. Okay, somebody decides I'm going to call the number in the book. You know, when we pray, do you doubt that God can hear you from wherever He is in the universe? God doesn't need Bluetooth to hear us. And we don't have to have long-distance to reach Him. So, when we think about trying to communicate, what if God could not only hear us but we could hear God back? What a lovely conversation that would be. That we don't just pray to God, we talk to God. And we talk to one another, wherever we may be. I hate having to hope that some of these numbers in here, their contact information because I could never remember that many. The contacts go on and on, and I don't know, you could spend a lifetime going through your contacts and updating them because, you know, people move. They get new phones, all of that information.

Every time I go to look for somebody information that I haven't talked to recently, it's changed. It's such a bother to deal with. It is nice to be able to take pictures. It is nice to some of the technology that's available. But as a spirit being, will you need to do any of that? Will you need technology to be able to do your job? No. It comes with the car. You know? You buy a car and you get to talk to people. You get a spiritual body, you get to talk to people. You get a house and it comes with all these things to keep you dry from the weather. It keeps you warm or cool depending on the time of the year. With a spiritual body, you don't get any of those worries. You know, when they built the Tabernacle and God lived in a tent with His people, at one point, we read that God tells David, "You know, you live in houses, I live in a tent." It doesn't bother God that it gets cold out and the tent isn't necessarily as warm as a house. Because as a spirit being, it's a different kind of concept. You're not bothered by all the atmospheric issues, whether it's cold out, or it's windy out, or any of those things. Now, I could have done this whole sermon with my wife's purse because it has enough stuff in it to talk about for about a week. She has the kind of stuff in her purse that would make Noah envy. No matter where we go, if we need something, she has it. If there are kids around and they need toys, she has them.

If we're at Home Depot and I need a tape measure, she has it. She can do minor surgery. She's got just about everything she would ever need because she’s… Like, Mr. Griswold talks about that detail-oriented type of person and always wants to be prepared. What if you could materialize anything you would ever need at the moment you need it, and then you don't have to carry it. When I'm working, I'll start stuffing stuff into my pockets that I'm going to need for the day. And as you go through the day, you're pulling stuff out, looking for the item that you put in there. That is just a pain. It would just be nice to say, "I need something, here it is." Or you even better, "I need something done, there it's done. I don't have to have something to do it with it.

You know, when you start looking at life in that kind of aspect, everything that we do and everything that we feel like we need changes. You know, I was talking to the big family that was living in Bend, and David, and Rebecca, and they moved to Germany, and they said they are gearing up for a very different lifestyle in Germany because in America, things are quite a bit different. In America, you go to your house and you build stuff in your backyard. You spend your weekends at Home Depot. You collect things, you build things, and you do that. In Europe, you leave your place whenever you want to do something. You don't have big amounts of things. You don't have four cars and a wood splitter and a snowblower and a chain saw and a whole bunch of power tools. And you sure wish you had a shop because you would love to set up the woodshop tools and all those kinds of things.

People live very simply, most of them and I keep thinking, you know, in some respects, it's similar. They're not centered around things. They're centered around experiences with people. People say, "Well, on the weekend, I went to Lisbon and I went to the South of France." And, you know, we would see that as a lifetime vacation. They see it as a weekend. So I see a kind of a similarity there.

There's another difference that we're going to be looking at as a spirit being. If you can conjure up wealth anytime you need it, acquiring wealth really won't have the same level of value to us. I mean, there'll be nice things for the sake of nice things when you read in Revelation 21 about the new heavens and the new earth and the new Jerusalem and how it's built with all these precious stones and all of these precious metals and all these other things. And at one point, we see gold is used for pavement. When God uses gold for asphalt, wealth has a different meaning. It really does.

So the things that we do to acquire wealth, to have things, to have all these possessions that we center our life around, everything will change. And that's where we spend a huge amount of our time. You work, you acquire wealth, you buy things that you need. And if there's any time left over, we try to do something useful with our lives. God's people are going to start seeking righteousness, not fame, not wealth, not possessions.

So how do you go from the values that we have in this world today to the values that God says is coming in the Kingdom of God? This is where we come in. So we got all these mad skills now. We can do all this cool stuff. What do you do? Well, we're going to have our hands full helping people in this whole change-your-value system. It's not going to be easy. There's going to be a transition period where God sets up His Kingdom in Jerusalem and then it spreads out as it grows and we're going to have quite a role to play.

Turn over to Ezekiel 9. Ezekiel was a prophet who worked during the last days of the monarchy in the southern kingdom of Judah. At this time, the northern 10 tribes are in captivity. They were removed and scattered throughout the Assyrian empire. In the south, the end is near. God has sent prophet after prophet. People just don't seem to listen. God has warned them and warned them that He was going to punish them like never before.

Starting in verse 3, we see what God is looking for in the people who are about to see their world come to an end. In Ezekiel 9 starting in verse 3, "Now the glory of the God of Israel had gone up from the cherub, where it had been, to the threshold of the temple. And He called to the man clothed with linen, who had the writer's inkhorn at his side; and the Lord said to him, 'Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem and put a mark on the foreheads of the men who sigh and cry over all the abominations that are done within it.'"

God wanted to know who these people were that were sighing and crying over the abominations of the land. Now, as a contrast, think about Lot living in Sodom before the end. Why was Lot living in Sodom before the end? I plan on asking him because the last we know, Lot and Abraham, they have so much herdsmen, so many herds. They go into a valley. There wasn't room for all of the people and all of the animals. They had to separate because we basically had two cities trying to coexist in one place. So Lot moves his family to the plains and found all of this lush, green pastureland, sounds wonderful, but that these planes stretched out as far as Sodom, it said.

When you get to the part where Sodom is going to be destroyed, Lot's living in town. And when the angels come and pull him and his family out, what does Lot leave behind? Everything. His married daughters, they stay behind. His unmarried daughters, he takes with him. His herdsmen, his cattle… He leaves with the shirt on his back. You know, we always give Lot's wife a hard time, but think about it. He had so much wealth. He had everything going for him and he traded it all to live in a corrupt city. He left with the shirt on his back.

You know, God wants people who will sigh and cry over the world. Why? Because when He starts fixing it, He needs people who know the difference. He doesn't want people helping Him fix it that says, "Well, you know, it wasn't that bad. It wasn't horrible all the time. There were some good stuff." That's not what God is looking for in the spirit beings that are going to be helping Him. People who sigh and cry in this world, whether you can relate to Jeremiah right at the very end there and what it was like for him to sigh and cry over the sins of the people or whether you can relate to Lot and say, "Why did he still live there?" that's what God is looking for.

Are we sighing and crying over the abominations we see all around us? If we are, then we are uniquely qualified to help God bring about this new world order, this Kingdom of God that is going to come and reorder and manufacture peace. True peace is not the absence of tribulation. True peace is manufactured by those who teach and live by God's way of life. You manufacture peace by the way we live.

So let's take a look at what this world could look like based on what you know that you sigh and what you cry about in your prayers right now. When you think about your neighborhood, your state, your country, or your world, the things that you talk to God about, let's think about how you would approach the Kingdom of God with that. Take a look at Luke 8:1-3, Luke 8:1-3. When Christ was introducing Himself, He was also introducing the concept of the Kingdom of God. In verse 1 of Luke 8, it says, "Now it came to pass, afterward, that He went through every city and village, preaching and bringing glad tidings of the kingdom of God and the twelve were with Him, and certain women who had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities."

So as Christ went out and preached the gospel, He was talking about the coming Kingdom of God. And as part of that gospel, He was looking after the poor, the infirmed, the brokenhearted. These are the people who needed help and hope. And so He brought that as part of His message. He combined them together. When we see that glad tidings of the Kingdom of God is about lifting people up who are downtrodden…

I think we see this in just about every town, especially on the west coast. The big cities see this all too well. The homelessness problem is truly abominable, the conditions that some people are living in. Why are these people in this situation? People argue all the time. What do we do? Some cities are giving these people bus tickets to somewhere else, you know, hoping someone else will solve the problem for themselves. Christ has a solution to homelessness. Christ has a solution for poverty.

These people have all sorts of stories. You can't just simply say, "Well, the people should've known better. It's their own fault." Yes, Christ did say, "The poor you will have with you always until they are healed, until they are taught." Eventually, everyone will have a choice to make, the choice that we've all made to be here. But you get to be a part of that process of helping them make that choice. Think about that. What if you could heal people of whatever mental illness? Are they demons that they're dealing with? Maybe. Maybe it's just mental illness. Maybe they're just down on their luck, as some would say.

What would you do if you had the power to fix that? You're driving along with your keys and you see somebody holding a cardboard sign and your heart goes out to them and you think, "Do I have any money I could give them?" If you did, would it make a difference? And you wrestle with that in your mind. Is there somebody you could call that might possibly have an answer to this person's predicament? If they get the kind of money they're hoping for that day, will the sign come down? Will they go get a house? Will they live in it? Will they work in a job?

We live in a time where unemployment is relatively low and yet these people are still on the street. There's something wrong that needs to be fixed. In our physical state, what can you do for them? Really, what can you do? But as a spirit being, think about what you can do. You can take them off of the street. You can take them somewhere where they can get cleaned up. You can heal them of whatever's broken, even if it's just a mental problem. You can teach them. You can guide them and you can give them hope. You can put them back on their feet.

We don't need to live in a world where there are tents outside and they're talking about we need to have needle exchange programs and public bathrooms everywhere. We can actually fix it. Are you sighing and crying for it today? And are you envisioning what you would do when it's your turn to help? Mr. Sexton read this passage yesterday, Isaiah 52:7-8. Isaiah 52:7-8. As we read this, don't think of the future, per se. Think of yourself being there, talking about where you're going to be, and what you're going to be doing as a spirit being. Think about that.

Isaiah 52:7-8. "How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of Him who brings good news, who proclaims peace, who brings glad tidings of good things, who proclaims salvation, who says to Zion, 'Your God reigns!’ Your watchmen shall lift up their voices, with their voices they shall sing together; for they shall see eye to eye with the Lord when the Lord brings back Zion." This is talking about you, brethren. How beautiful are you to the people that you will be ministering to? When you can bring glad tidings, when you can heal them of their infirmities, when you can rid them of whatever's tormenting them, you can give them hope.

When they say the only reason they're in this situation is because life has been horrible to them, you can say, "You know what? Life was horrible to me, but I have a Redeemer, and so do you, and let me tell you how that works." You won't need to show them your ID. With the power of what God is going to give us, you'll be able to show them what their life could be like.

What have you overcome, brethren, in your life? Anger? Sadness? Have you overcome fear, even laziness? What have you overcome? What type of an example could you be to somebody that you see in this world that life hasn't really worked for them? Because the people that are going to be alive in that world, depending on their zip code, if they're close to Jerusalem, life is going to be better. If they're out in one of the four corners of the earth, might not be the same.

Turn over to Matthew 4. Every so many years, we've got to go through another election cycle. You know, Peter Eddington at the home office talks about cord-cutters, people who disconnect themselves from cable or broadcast TV. If you're one of those people and it's an election year, you count yourself blessed because it gets pretty ugly, doesn't it?

We're going to live in a world where the government is going to be wonderful. There's not going to be elections. There's not going to be commercials. There's not going to be people making promises that can't keep them. Every problem that exists, it will have a solution for those willing to embrace it. There will be security. There will be jobs. There will be clean air. There will be clean water. Everyone will have access to healing. Think about that.

Matthew 4:23, "And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, healing all kinds of sickness and all kinds of disease among the people." It's connected. He wanted them to see that with the Kingdom of God comes a better life from whether people have a demon, whether they were blind, whether they could not see, whether they had epilepsy. Whatever their infirmity was, He was showing them that the Kingdom of God equals a life without pain, without sorrow, with hope. And we live in a world that needs all those things. And we don't want to just go through the world with our head down and just say, "You know what? I'm not letting it get me," because that's Lot's approach." He didn't let it get him. But if He had noticed really how bad it was, He wouldn't have left with the shirt on His back.

Over in Matthew 9 starting in verse 33, Matthew 9 starting in verse 33, we see another instance just like this one. Starts off in, "When the demon was cast out, the mute spoke. And the multitudes marveled, saying, ’It has never seen like this in Israel!’” It was never seen like this in Israel. Nobody could grasp how this is different than life. Life has changed from what we're used to. When you can see this type of miracles happen as it relates to this message of hope… moving down to verse 35, "Then Jesus went about all the cities and villages."

You know, we spend a lot of time reading the story of Jesus between Him and this Pharisee or these Pharisees or in this situation when this happened. But when you realize, it's just kind of mentioned here and there, “Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every sickness and every disease among the people.”

You know, as a minister, I get to anoint people and have this vial of oil. And I have watched people healed of all kinds of horrible things. And I've watched people healed of all kinds of simple things like a sore elbow. You think, "Well, you know, save it up for something big." No. I've seen God take care of infirmities large and small. But you know what else I've seen? I've seen God not heal infirmities large and small. It'd be easy just to say, "Well, it's all about faith," but we know the apostle Paul had faith and God didn't heal him completely, did he? "My grace is sufficient," is what he was told.

We don't always know why God chooses to heal and what He doesn't. But we know when the Kingdom comes, that will change. It won't be just, "I wonder if God's going to choose to heal at this point." That's not how God wants people to live in His kingdom. When those people come to Him and ask and they're willing to change their life and become somebody that God sees in them as potential, think about the transformative power of that. And not just they have to go back and live in their cruddy town with the people who doesn't like other people and they… you know, they don't recognize the Messiah and they're persecuted once again. No, they get to go and live in a world that respects God and the knowledge of God is everywhere. The Kingdom will change all of that.

Continue reading verse 36. "But when He saw the multitudes, He was moved with compassion for them, because they were weary and scattered, like sheep having no shepherd." He gave all this hope, but He looked around and He just saw so much need. It was everywhere. And then He said to His disciples, "The harvest is truly plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest." That's what we're going to be doing, laborers of that harvest. People won't have to say, "Wow. If only somebody could teach me." We'll be there. He scales the Kingdom up. He has the saints to help. He doesn't bring everybody up all at once.

We get to learn how to teach properly, how to give hope properly. And the Kingdom ramps up. Think about your neighborhood for a minute. Think about those concerns you have every day when you ask yourself, "Did I remember to lock the door? Because if I didn't, I might come home to nothing." And you think about that. "Did I remember to do that? Is there a bad guy in my neighborhood? Do I have to look at some registry to see if my kids are going to be safe waiting out there for the bus? Are the roads safe from drunk drivers?" We worry about so many things. And we heard in the first message Mr. Griswold said, "We're not supposed to worry. We're supposed to have faith." But it's really hard when you live in a world that's getting worse by the day.

Turn over to Isaiah 65. At the core of the Kingdom is this message here. Isaiah 65:23-25. Here we see that one day people will raise families in peace and security. If somebody happens to be living in a bad part of the country… and we read that God is going to be collecting His people from the four corners of the earth and bringing them back to their homeland. And we're going to be a part of that process. And Isaiah 65 starting in verse 23, "They shall not labor in vain, nor bring forth children for trouble; for they shall be the descendants of the blessed of the Lord, and their offspring with them. It shall come to pass that before they call, I will answer; and while they are still speaking, I will hear."

Part of that's going to be us. We're going to be helping Him do this. Yes, God can be in all places at once, but He says He needs our help. "'I will hear. The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, the lion shall eat straw like an ox, and the dust shall be the serpent's food. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain,' says the Lord." As the Kingdom of God expands, this is the hope that we get to show people that might be living in a world in a part of the country that maybe people aren't living the way they should. And we do know that there will be a period of time, and for some, it might take the entire 1,000 years for them to be tried.

Turn over to Zechariah 14. Zechariah 14. Think about these words. "They shall not destroy or hurt anybody in all My holy mountain." When you come to where the Kingdom is and you see how wonderful it is, you understand why so many people are migrating and moving to that spot, but it won't be perfect everywhere in the Millennium. Zechariah 14, starting in verse 16, it says, "And it shall come to pass that everyone who is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem…" So we're looking back to the great tribulation and this world that we're currently in, looking back at all those people.

Everyone who's left alive, so those people that live into the Millennium and they're picking up their pieces of their lives after war, "Of all the people that are left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem shall go up from year to year to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, and to keep the Feast of Tabernacles." You know, when somebody asks, "Why do you do that, you know, that legalistic thing that you do every year, where you go and you keep this Feast of Tabernacles?" We're going to keep the Feast of Tabernacles in the Millennium. It's a promise here.

And it says here in verse 17, "And it shall be that whichever the families of the earth do not come up to Jerusalem to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, on them there will be no rain.” It would be lovely to say that in the Kingdom of God, it will be perfect everywhere all the time, but it always comes down to choice, doesn't it? People have to choose. And there are going to be people that live into the Millennium that have no concept of the way that you are living right now. It will take time for some of them to get it.

Now, you say, "Well, Christ is going to rule with a rod of iron. So when somebody gets out of the line, He's going to push the smite button and He's going to hold it down." But that's not what it says here. If somebody chooses not to obey, on them there will be no rain. That's a slower punishment. Let's face it. It's not a wonderful one. If it doesn't rain, there will be no crops. If there's no crops, there's very little food. But it is a way for Christ through those that He's working through, those spirit beings can reach people that are just not wanting to change who they are. They don't necessarily value the safe streets and the wonderful healing and all those things. They enjoy what they're used to. And it will take some time for them to understand this.

"This shall be the punishment of Egypt and the punishment of all the nations that do not come up to keep the Feast of Tabernacles." So when people decide, "I don't want what God is offering," He's going to let them learn through punishment but not super severe. There's not going to be beatings and whipping things and all of the horrible… soldiers coming in, surrounding their cities and putting everyone to death that ancient Israel put up with and had to deal with because they rebelled against God.

God is going to gently teach them and you'll be able to come in to their life and say, "You know, I was just on the streets of Jerusalem. And let me tell you what it's like there compared to here. There's greenery everywhere. The crops in the fields are lush. The children are playing in the streets. There's nobody hurt or injured or sick. Do you really want to live like this?" And there will be people that say, "Show us. Show us a better way to live." And you'll get to do that also. Watch somebody.

You know, when I was a kid, people would come into the Church every week. We were getting new families. The Church was growing, it felt, exponentially. You're going to see that kind of growth again in the Kingdom of God as people say, "Teach us. I want to learn that way." And when you go to these four corners of the earth to teach them, you won't need a car to get you there. You won't have to worry if you have enough money to pay the guys holding signs because there won't be guys holding signs.

You know, when you see strife in a family and you just wish, "If the family could talk and they could just get together and reconcile, how much happier would they be?" or people can't figure out how to talk to one another. They can't figure out how to get along with one another. They don't know how to say no to their children when they need to say no to their children and say yes to the children when they need to say yes to the children. You'll be able to help them through that because you've lived this life and you know where the boundaries should be. Think about all the sighing and crying you've done in your life. Can you envision that reality?

You know, when I see homelessness, when I see broken people, I don't know whether they're just holding a sign because it's a good living. I would hate to sit on the side of the road all day long and get money. I've heard that it can be lucrative. It's not just the demeaning part of it. It's the boredom of it. What a worthless existence to sit there and hold a sign for your whole life and rely on others to take care of you.

What if you could help someone like that, show them the honor of a good day's work: something that they would build with their own hands and feel like they've done something, they've accomplished something? Those people that come out of war and you get to dry their tears and fix broken hearts. You move people to where the food is. We don't do a very good job of that in this world. You fix roads. You fix bridges. You start showing people that there's a better way of life. Can you envision that in your mind?

As we practice this over these eight days, have those kinds of conversations with one another, of those passions that you have, the problems that you see that you wish you could make a difference in and share your ideas of how you are going to make a difference, how you hope Christ is going to put you to work. Be a difference in somebody's life in the next world by thinking about that in this world. Can you envision being able to make a difference in the world? Can you picture that world? And maybe, can you even envision something you might put in those pockets?