Jack Jurgens's Ministry Library

Stamp eternity on me.

[0:00] Close out my little sketch on godliness. I admit that that’s what it’s been, an amateur sketch, but it has been a burden on my own heart personally, and hopefully it will be a blessing to especially those of you who are younger.
1st Corinthians 15, and we’ll just read at verse 19. The Apostle Paul says, If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.
And drop down to verse 58, this was read at the hymn sing yesterday, Therefore my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, for as much as you know that your labor is not in vain in, the Lord. And then over to 1st Timothy again, chapter 4. 1st Timothy, chapter 4.

[0:54] But refuse profane and old wives’ fables and exercise, discipline thyself rather unto godliness, for bodily exercise profiteth little.
But godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and, of that which is to come.”, Yesterday, really, by and large, we were looking at the imperative in this section for godliness.
The Apostle Paul is telling his son in the faith, Timothy, Timothy, go in for this. Discipline yourself.
Put your all into this. This is vitally important.
It’s a command that the Apostle Paul is giving to Timothy.
Discipline yourself for godliness.
And in the next 20 or so minutes, I want to look at the, not the imperative, but the incentive.
Why?

[1:47] If godliness, as I hope you would have agreed with me, is a great need, a crying need in our country for godliness, and yet if it’s a very difficult thing as we try to look at, like, if we take some of those things on board, it’s going to mean practically making real changes in our everyday schedule to make time for disciplines of prayer, Bible reading, and loads of other things that we didn’t mention.
If it’s going to be that much work, if it’s going to be, as our brother said, going to the spiritual gym, is it really worth it?
And Paul is going to answer that in these verses. He’s going to give the incentive.
And we use that today. I have a relative who was told—he’s not very old, but he was told from a young age that if he did not shore up his diet, he was going to pass away rather suddenly when he reached 50.
And he was told that, you know, he really should improve his diet and stop eating this and stop eating that, and, you know, it’s not very good for his diabetes and not very good for his heart, and he didn’t really care until that nurse told him just straight out, you’re going to die at 50, man.

[3:02] And then the incentive made him make radical changes in his life.
And I think we all live in that way, whether it’s business or school or family, we live, by incentives. Richard Dawkins, Professor Dawkins, who usually is quoted for the ridiculous things he says, he has said something that’s rather witty. He said on this topic of incentives, he said, I’ve noticed that the rabbit runs faster than the fox because the rabbit is running for his life.
The fox is running for his lunch.
You see, incentives, they play a role. And what the Apostle Paul is telling Timothy is, Timothy, godliness, vitally important. As the baton of testimony is being passed, no more apostolic succession. It is going out to Timothy and Titus. They’re going to appoint elders.
And as the baton is being passed, here’s the great principle that’s going to govern how the church should function in a spiritual way, godliness, godliness. But it’s going to, take a lot of work. But here’s the incentive. Paul says this, 1 Timothy 4 and verse 7.

[4:16] 4, verse 8, because bodily exercise, perhaps referring to some of the things being talked about in the background here in 1 Timothy, some of those fastings and don’t eat these foods and keep these holy days. He said bodily training, bodily discipline profits. It has some benefit for a little, but godliness is profitable unto all things. Then he’s going to explain that.
What do you mean, Paul, all things? He says it has a promise. It has a promise for the life that now is and of that which is to come. Two incentives for godliness. Number one, it, will radically and greatly benefit the life that now is. It will change this life. But the Apostle is moving to also what we’ve just concluded with there with our brother Ian, of that which is to come. But let me just begin with this part, the life that now is. We talked about this yesterday in the panel. You You see, godliness frees a man, although it is discipline, godliness frees a man to live as man was intended to live.
How were you intended to live?
Were you intended to live for your job?

[5:38] Were you intended to live for your family? The Bible says we were made by Him, through Him, for Him. Godliness frees a person to live as they were intended to live.
And as a result, godliness will make a person’s life, in this life, the most beneficial.
Now, I don’t want you to get the wrong idea. I’m not saying that if you have a biology test that if you study your Bible you’re gonna ace the test.

[6:13] That’s ridiculous. In fact, that’s probably ungodliness. You should be a good steward when you’re a biology student, right? Nor am I saying that when somebody is godly—I would never want to give this impression. I hope that the challenge has been heard, by the way, during the conference, that there may be, young men, young women, families here who the Lord is calling, and if they were to take godliness seriously and see themselves in the sight of God, the Lord is calling to devote themselves to serving in a different way. But please understand godliness has far more to do in preaching and teaching. Godliness comes right down to how you go to work on Monday. Says the Apostle in Ephesians 6, he says that when a person goes to work who’s godly, they don’t do it with eye service. As a man pleaser, they serve Christ when they’re going to work from their heart. So please understand that godliness is far more than just preaching and teaching, which is a very specific group of people who God is so gifted to do that. Please understand it has to do with the wife, and has to do with the mother, and has to do with the person who’s going to work, or the student in school. And it has a promise for the life that now is, that I will be what would change my marriage, what would make my marriage the marriage it was intended to be.
Would it be more date nights? My wife says probably, but no.
Would it be more vacations, cruises?

[7:36] It would change greatly if I was more godly.

[7:43] And it would change greatly if you were more godly. And we sacrifice that, and we fill that, and substitute that, and supplement that with, all the other things to our own detriment.
We really do. This holds promise for the life that now is, whether it’s our families, our jobs, and many of these other things.
But I want to move to this second point. Not just where we’re at today.
Surely godliness would change, even as you’ve heard today, our local assemblies.
Like imagine, and it’ll be easier for you to imagine the person you maybe don’t like.
What if that person was more godly?

[8:31] But then imagine if you were more godly, in your assembly, like imagine how it would change our conversations.
Imagine how it would raise the fellowship. We call it fellowship, but really it might just be socializing, right?
We talk about where we went on vacation and what we’re… But fellowship is about Christ and about His Word and about eternity.
Imagine how it would raise if we were all just a bit more godly, right?
It would change everything, in my opinion, and I know it’s easy to exaggerate, but I really believe that.
I really think it would change so much in this life.
But says the apostle, godliness holds promise, Timothy, not only for the life that now is, but also for that which is to come.
You see, the power of perspective is a big thing. I’ve appreciated this, actually, going through the life of David, just in my own reading a couple of weeks ago. Interesting to notice the perspectives of David, right?
Like as he comes to the Valley of Elah and his brother says, oh, you’ve left those few sheep in the wilderness, and David says, they were my father’s sheep.

[9:50] And then they’re all worried about this giant, this man of war from his youth.
And David says, who is this dog?
And then they say, well, how can we take him? We’re just servants of Saul.
And David says, who is this that defies the armies of the living God?
Perspective.
His perspective is just totally changed. Humorously, somebody said like this, that David went into the, that when the people were standing in the Valley of Elah, they said, Oh, he’s so big.
We can never win.

[10:26] And David said he’s so big, I couldn’t miss.
You see, perspective, perspective, it changes things. And wouldn’t it change things if we had an eternal perspective? It was a man by the name, we wouldn’t certainly agree with everything he did, but nonetheless, he was a great man here in the United States by the name of Jonathan Edwards.
As a young man, only 18 years old, he wrote this, resolved. I love that word, resolve.
Resolve, kind of like the word henceforth.
Things are changing today. Resolve to live as I shall wish I had done when I come to die.
Resolve to live as I shall wish I had done 10,000 years from now.
And he prayed this very famously known, Lord, stamp eternity on my eyeballs.

[11:25] He understood that Christian life, and you read through the New Testament, Christian life must be lived through the lens of eternity, with an eternal perspective.
And I don’t know if we live that way, especially here, those of us who are here in North America.
I was very troubled. I hope you don’t think this is too controversial. I was just very troubled when I heard an apologetic that was floating around, I’ve heard it in the broader evangelical world for years, but then it was coming a little bit close to home, and I heard somebody use this and they said, it seemed like a great one, right? It seemed like a winner. They said, you know, this This is what I tell people who are not saved.
I tell them, if I’m wrong, I’ve lost nothing.

[12:17] But if you’re wrong, you’ve lost everything.
I don’t know if you’ve used that. It seems pretty powerful, like it’s a winner.
If I’m wrong, I’m right. If you’re wrong, of course I’m right.
Right? The problem is it’s not biblical. You know what the apostle said?
If only I had hope in this life, I am, of all people, the most to be pitied.
He said, if I’m wrong, I’ve lost everything.
Imagine that apologetic, imagine it. Imagine looking at William Tyndale being burnt at the stake, and saying, if I’m wrong, I’ve lost nothing. Nonsense! It’s talking about living for a coming age. And brothers and sisters, we are destined for eternity.
Sometimes we preach this in the gospel, right? If you died tonight, where would you be? Are you ready to meet God? Brothers and sisters, are you ready to to meet Christ?
Are you happy to meet Christ the way you’re living? Am I?

[13:38] We preach eternity. Honestly now, I don’t—I wonder if we were to take a poll.
I know for myself, this is what awakened me when it came to salvation. It wasn’t the beauties of Christ. It wasn’t His love. It was the reality of eternity. And I think that the reality of eternity needs to wake Christians up again. Eternity! Eternity! That’s what the apostle is saying here, that this is what godliness holds value for, the life that is to come.
And so Paul is telling Timothy, Timothy, listen, you might not get all the dividends here, surely you won’t. There’s going to come a time later, 2 Timothy, he’s going to say, they’re going to have itching ears, they’re not even going to want to listen to you.

[14:21] But you’re still going to have to preach the word, because there’s one who is ready to judge, and you’re preaching ultimately for him. And this is about eternity, Timothy. And the apostle, as he faced all kinds of things, the Apostle Paul, judgments that were coming. Are you really an apostle? He said, listen, it’s a small thing if you judge. I don’t even, I’m not even the final judge myself. It’s almost like the Apostle Paul consistently was living like this thing from Jonathan Edwards. Eternity imprinted, stamped on the eyeball. That’s pretty vivid, right?
Eternity. Could you imagine? Could you imagine looking at your life? I want to tell you that the ideologies in this world, like this quote-unquote American dream, is totally against what I’m saying here tonight, today. It is totally against this view of eternity. The American dream, is not great indulgence, it’s just have a good life. Like, get married, raise a lovely family, Send them to nice colleges, retire early, relax, enjoy that retirement.

[15:35] And Paul says, no, it’s not about this life. It’s about eternity! Eternity!
It’s about the age to come. This is dress rehearsal, right? And as we heard, I would go a long way with what my brother said yesterday. Godliness, it is filling a capacity that we will enjoy. Enjoy Christ for eternity. We’re all going to heaven, those of us who are saved.
We’re all justified by faith in the Lord Jesus, but we’re not all going to enjoy it the same way.
I think it was David Gooding who put it like a Christmas party or some kind of a party, and everybody’s coming and everyone’s going to have a good time.
But he says, you know, the little toddler who comes, who just gets a bit of the cream, from the birthday cake or the Christmas cake, and that toddler just enjoys that cake until he passes out. He still enjoys the party, it’s great. Then he moves on to a little bit older, and they’re playing with the trains, and they’re playing with the toys, and they’re enjoying it way more than the toddler, but they’re still enjoying it. Then he moves on to the kids who are having snowball fights outside, and they’re enjoying the party a lot more, and they’ve even got gifts for one another. But then he moves on to the mature, the mature people who sit at the the table and they enjoy the other things too, but they’re really coming into the good and the full blessing.

[17:03] You see, we’re all going to enjoy heaven, but we’re not all going to enjoy it to the same extent.

[17:11] Please understand, like I can’t live the way I’m living and one day get to heaven and say, Paul, you and I are going to enjoy heaven the exact same.
Are we living for eternity? And that’s what godliness has the benefit for.
I think eternity is really quite an awesome thing to think about. What is eternity?
Spurgeon I think explained it in relation to time. Any explanation or analogy fails, right, when we’re talking about the eternal as we have heard. But he said, time is like a drop of water. Eternity is like an ocean. I ask, you again, I challenge you, especially young people. I appreciate you staying this late in the conference in the middle of a school semester. Listen, are, Are you living for the drop of water?
Is it all about the drop of water?
What about the ocean?
What about eternity?
Lord, stamp eternity on my eyeballs.

[18:32] Someone has said, five minutes inside eternity. Now again, I don’t know how much shame we will have, but he put it like this, five minutes inside eternity.
We will all wish that we had sacrificed more, wept more, grieved more, prayed more, and given more.
Like just imagine, imagine. We were singing this morning hymns to the Lord Jesus Christ.
We’ve just been hearing about the one who is in glory today.
Imagine, like we say this in the gospel, right? Before the night is over.
Imagine if tomorrow you and I were looking into the face of the Lord Jesus.

[19:17] Are you happy with how you’re living? Says the apostle, godliness has profit.
Godliness pays dividends in the life that is to come.
I’ve been thinking in a few ways, the eternal perspective. in the gospel, believe it or not, I’m a fairly shy person myself, and I find it a difficulty to share the gospel, and I don’t want to ruin anybody’s day, and I know that they would rather talk about politics and who I like in the election, and who won the Michigan football game, and but the moment that you start talking about spiritual things, I realize that people turn off to that.
Anyone like that here? Do you know that sharing the gospel is a spiritual discipline? We’re not all supposed to share it the same way. Not everyone is a preacher, right? Not everyone can write really nice tracts, but we’re all supposed to share it. Every believer is supposed to share the gospel. Says again, Mr. Spurgeon, a Christian is either a missionary or an imposter.
Gulp. You’re either sharing it, and you’re a Christian, or you’re not a Christian.

[20:32] But, but, ah, I just don’t know how to bring it up. Now, I don’t want to come up with just some simplistic answer, but one thing that’s helped me is thinking about eternity, that my neighbor is actually going to a place where the fire never quenches. And the worm doesn’t die.

[20:57] And a co-worker and a friend. Lord, stamp eternity on my eyeballs.
Remove the indifference and the coldness, right? This is what Asaph was thinking when he was envious of the wicked, and then he goes into the sanctuary, right? We were talking about that for godliness. He goes into the sanctuary and then he understands their end.
And he actually has pity for them. They’re in slippery places. They’ll pass away in a moment.
Eternity changes the perspective. Eternity from the vantage of looking at trials from the vantage point of eternity. You get that with the Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians.
Likely, in this conference, behind the smiles and the nice to see you again, there’s some, believers here who are going through valleys.
And it’s been a great weekend. I hope it has been for you. I hope you’ve been encouraged.
I hope you’ve been blessed by being here and listening to teaching and being with each other.
But come Monday, wherever you go back to, you might just go back right into a trial.
A trial that you’ve been waiting and praying that God would take you out of, but he hasn’t.

[22:16] Yet. You know a great perspective to see trials? Eternity. Says the Apostle Paul this in 2nd Corinthians chapter 4, therefore we do not lose heart. Though, our outer man is decaying, the trial of persecution, yet our inner person is being renewed day by day. For our momentary light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but the things which are unseen.
For the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are unseen are eternal.”, In other words, the apostle says this, I look at the eternal perspective on trials.
I understand that God is going to use this to weave it in my life to accomplish that great good, when all things work together for good, when I will be made conformed to His precious Son.
I view trials from that lens.

[23:20] And you can see how the hymn writers could say that they’re sweet, the trials that the Lord sends.
Count it all joy when you face many trials, trials from the lens of eternity. What about labor?
I wonder if there’s a believer here today. I wonder if there’s a Sunday school teacher, somebody involved in children’s work. I wonder if there’s an overseer, somebody who’s sharing the gospel, somebody who’s trying to get involved in the local assembly, And you find your labor just met with a wall of discouragement, disillusionment.

[23:53] And you never thought you’d get a little bit more pat on the backs. You thought you’d have a little bit more encouragement for what you’re doing. But no, you haven’t had that. And maybe you’re thinking of just of just letting it all go. None of the results are happening. More people are leaving. Nobody’s being saved. Those who are saved are not being taught. They’re going other places.
And you get discouraged. You probably will get discouraged if you’re really involved in the work of God. Get discouraged. And that’s what we read in 1st Corinthians 15. The Apostle Paul is telling those believers that, do you want to know why your labor is not in vain in the Lord? Eternity! That’s why. He says, therefore, therefore, your labor is not in vain in the Lord. In regards to what? In regards to the fact that there is a real resurrection. In regards to the fact that there is an eternal destiny and there is coming a day where, the risen Christ with wounds in his hands and feet will reward you and, remember you for every prayer, every visit, every tract, every little sermon, that never really reached anyone, but you prepared it sincerely to please God. It It will count in eternity!

[25:12] And so we live for eternity, brothers and sisters. That’s what we live for, not for here and now.
I’m reminded of a story. You’ve probably heard this one. About time for a story.
Getting kind of heavy. A story of a preacher named Henry Morrison.
I don’t know too much about him, except that he was a preacher in Africa.

[25:35] It says, I’ll just read it to you here. It says that he was a faithful missionary who the Lord over in Africa for 40 years. He recalled an emotional day when he and his wife boarded a ship on their way home to the United States. His mind was flooded with memories of the wonderful experiences they had enjoyed on the mission field, and he began wondering what it would be like to return to his Midwest hometown, and will anyone be there to remember us and speak with us.
Aboard the same ship that day, with Henry and his wife, was the former president of these United States, Teddy Roosevelt.
He was returning from a big-game hunting trip to Africa. And when the ship pulled into the New York harbor, thousands of people were gathered to meet the president, of course.
The crowds cheered. The bands played. There were signs and banners and billboards everywhere.
Home. Mr. Morrison and his wife left the ship and they saw that not one person had come to welcome them home.

[26:46] With a heavy and discouraged heart, Henry Morrison went to the hotel room that day, and he told his wife this, Honey, for forty years we have poured our lives into this ministry and service.
We have come back to America, and not a single soul has come to welcome us home.
His wife came, sat down next to him, put her hand on his hand, and said, Henry, you’re not home yet.

[27:25] Eternity. It’s going to count in eternity.
Live for eternity. Lord, stamp eternity on my eyeballs. Impress it.
And it brings me now to this topic that I’ve been trying to take up this weekend.
Weekend. Godliness. Godliness will count in eternity. Those who are godly will have a capacity, to enjoy the Lord in a different way than those who are not. It will count in eternity, brothers and sisters. Reminded of the story of William Kelly. Now, for those of you who are young 18, 19, 20, mid-20s, this man, William Kelly, what I’m about to tell you is when he was just a young college student. And after he was an exceptional student, brilliant, and those who have read his writings will understand that he was brilliant. But the principal warmly congratulated William Kelly, I’m just getting this from his biography, upon his scholastic brilliance.
The principal offered Kelly a post upon the college staff, hinting that if Kelly were to accept, said the principal, you would make your fortune in the world.
To which Kelly replied two words, Which world?

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