Bible says in 1st John, and now little children abide in him that when he shall
appear we may have confidence and not be ashamed before him at his coming. He
says the reason why you need to abide in him, the reason why you need to do these
things to mortify the members to put on the new man, is that when you appear with
him in glory, when you appear you may have confidence and not be ashamed.
There's going to be some people that day saved, that's not going to change, but
they're going to, they're God's children, but they're going to stand there and it's
going to start to slowly dawn on them that they wasted their opportunity. And
you know what, they're going to stand up and they're going to give an account and
they're going to have to hang their head. And that realization is going to hit
them like a ton of bricks. I wonder how long it will take a person like that to
figure out that the preacher was right. In that moment how long will it go through
their mind? You know what, the preacher was right. I should have mortified my
members, I should have gotten out of fornication, I should have put off the
old man, I should have walked after Christ, I should have done those things.
So the question is, you know, how much of your work will abide? We're all going to
have works that burned up. The wood, hay, and stubble there, I believe that's just
the things, the kind of things we have to do in this life just to survive. The
kinds of things that, you know, wood, hay, and stubble, those are all useful things.
They're not necessarily the most valuable things, but they all have, they
all could serve a purpose, but they will burn up. The question is, will you have
anything left over that you did for Christ in your life, outside of your job,
outside of just doing the things that you had to do in this life to survive?
Will there be anything left over? You know, I heard a preacher say this once a
while back and it's always kind of stuck with me. The fact that, you know, if it's
if it's this literal where there's going to be a fire that burns up our works, I
can't explain how that could be. Well let's say, okay, and whatever's left over
in that fire is yours. If you can go through and you can find the gold, you
can find the silver, and you can find the precious stones that remain of your works
that are burned up, those are yours. Those are your rewards, right? But I wonder how
many people are going to get down and start to look through that ash and
realize that's all they have. It's just ash. Can you imagine walking around heaven
and everybody else has just got crowns and gold and silver and precious stones
and all you've got is ash. Maybe you've got a whole wheelbarrow full of ash, I don't
know. How careful you'd be, I mean, how careful you'd be with that ash to not let
it blow away. That's all you got for all of eternity. That's a sad thought. I
wonder, is that what we're gonna have when we stand there before God? How many
people are just going to realize all they have to offer, the God that saved
them, the God that glorified them, the God that has set them in his kingdom, all
they'll have to offer is smash. That's a sobering thought, at least it ought to be.