Dear Brethren and Friends,

Welcome to the Filipino Worship Service!

We praise the Lord that Romans 8:28 was written, is still and will always be in the Bible—thanks for God’s Verbal Plenary Preservation of scriptures—“And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.” As we come here in RELC, we have to see the higher hand of our loving Lord Who caused us to be here. There is a hymn that says, “It is not mine to question the judgments of my Lord, it is but mine to follow the leadings of His Word; but if to go or stay, or whether here or there, I’ll be, with my Saviour, content anywhere! If Jesus goes with me, I’ll go anywhere! ‘Tis heaven to me, where’er I may be, if He is there! I count it a privilege here His cross to bear. If Jesus goes with me, I’ll go anywhere.” Let us glorify the Lord our God!—JTGL

ETERNAL LIFE! (Abridged) 1/2

(Charles Haddon Spurgeon February 6, 1887, Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit)
https://www.spurgeon.org/resource-library/sermons/eternal-life-2/
“This is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.” (John 17:3)

OUR subject is concerning laying hold on eternal life; and I thought that I would say a little more about eternal life. Many people, when they hear or read that expression, suppose that it means heaven; it does mean that, but it means much more. Eternal life commences here; it begins in the believer as soon as he is born again. Then he receives into him that same life which he will have throughout eternity. Eternal life is not a thing of changes; the river widens and deepens, but it is ever the same river of the water of life; it always flows from the same source, it is always constituted in the same manner. The life of the new-born Christian, who only a few minutes ago began to pray, is precisely the same life which is to be found in yonder bright spirits that have now been thousands of years in perfection at the right hand of God praising his name. Death does not transport believers into a new life; it simply rids us of certain impediments that hamper our true life in its upward flow. The life of the Christian here is the life triumphant that is to be enjoyed hereafter, it is one and the same life so far as its real nature is concerned.

The question for us now to consider is, wherein does this eternal life consist? I do not propose to answer the question, as it might be answered, in various ways, but only according to our text.

ETERNAL LIFE CONSISTS IN THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE ONLY TRUE GOD

Brethren, what is this knowledge of God which is eternal life? Let us talk a little about the meaning of this knowledge. It is not eternal life to know that there is a God. A great many people know as much as that, and still remain dead. Those who know not that there is a God are dead in the dark; and those who know that there is a God, and yet do not trust him, are dead in the light. That condition is, perhaps, the worse of the two; at any rate, it involves a greater responsibility. Yet, to know that there is a God is not the same thing as knowing God. I may know that there is a Queen of England, but I may not know her. I know that there are many persons in the world whom I do not know; and it is a sad thing for anyone to know that there is a God and yet not truly to know God.

To explain what is meant by knowing God, I must say, first, that it is to know him as God, that is to say, to know him as God to us. I have already told you that everybody has something that is god to him, something that is superior to himself, and which overrules him, something to which he looks up, and which he worships. Now, the great invisible Jehovah, the one God that made heaven and earth, in whose hand our breath is, who has revealed himself in the Trinity of his divine persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, the God of the whole earth, must be God to us. That means, that we reverence him that we bow before him as worshippers, that we submit ourselves to his law that we seek to do his pleasure. No man really knows God who does not know him as God, and does not accept him as his God; and to accept God as your God, is eternal life. This is how eternal life becomes yours; and if you have come to that point, you have eternal life.

Still, that statement does not fully explain what it is to know God; it is, to be on terms of personal acquaintance with him. The Lord is not to be seen, neither can his footfall be heard; but to know God is to be conscious of his presence by an inward sense which does both see and hear, to feel that he is everywhere, on the land or on the sea, and, knowing that he is there, to rejoice in being with him; in fact, to find great delight in this God who is not far from any one of us; to be (let me put it very plainly) on speaking terms with him, to be so reconciled to him that you have no dread of him, no bondage and fear when you think of him.

You then regard God as your best Friend, whom you love, and in whom you delight, to whom you talk as naturally as you talk to friend or father, into whose bosom you pour your griefs, into whoso heart you tell your joys. God is nearer than your most familiar friend, nearer to you than eyes and ears, nearer to you than your own body, for he gets within your soul, which your body can never do. If you really know, experimentally, what I am talking about, you have eternal life. If this is so, that you know the only true God, distinctly recognizing his presence, speaking with him, and rejoicing in him, and if, above all, you are striving to be like him, if his Spirit in you is photographing the image of God upon your nature, so that the old image, which he gave to Adam, but which was effaced by sin, is being reproduced in you by the Holy Ghost, then you know the only true God; and this, dear friends, is eternal life.

Now, let me briefly speak of the connection between the knowledge of God and eternal life. A man without God is a living man, of course, for he works, he eats, he drinks; yes, but he has missed the only true life, he has missed a secret happiness which is the very essence of life, and without which life is realty death. You do not know it, dear hearer, if you have never believed in Christ, and I do not expect you to believe what I say; but let me tell you that there is a something that makes life worth living when you once come to know God. There is a secret bliss,—I cannot call it anything less than bliss,—there is a little heaven, a compendious, compressed, essential heaven, which God drops into that soul that lives with him, so that we know that which makes us leap for joy, and makes us bless God that ever we were created. If I had no God, I could say, “Cursed was the day in which it was said to my mother that a man-child was born into the world;” but now I thank God for my existence. Sometimes, when in great pain and anguish, yet having God with me, I have felt inclined not to curse the day of my birth, but to rejoice that I was ever born, even if I had to live a life of perpetual pain, seeing that I have a God who is indeed my own.

To have God, also means that you have a grand object in life. Look at many of you, how you work hard from morning to night just to provide enough to keep body and soul together. With God, all conditions of life become life that is life indeed; but without him, there is nothing to live for. Here is a poor fellow, who lives till he has accumulated millions of money; it must be all the harder to die and leave so much, must it not? What is the good of it? To get a paragraph in a Newspaper saying that So-and-so died worth so much? Oh, the misery of having existed for so small a result! But when you have God, you have something to live for, something that makes every little thing sublime, and turns the commonest actions of daily life into a holy exercise of a royal priesthood unto the Most High.

A man with God, —you may strip him, but he is clothed in light. A man with God,—you may shut him up in prison, but he is perfectly at liberty, for his spirit soars into the immensities. A man with God,—he may be afflicted with a hundred diseases at once, but he has the best of all health, even the sanity of his soul. A man with God has a window to his room; a man without God goes round, and round, and round, and looks, but does not see anything at all. Sometimes he thinks, “I wish that I could see something, but there is nothing to be seen.” To those who are without God, the future is all a blank; they call themselves “agnostics”; that is, men who do not know anything. But you who have God, look for eternal life in his presence. If men talk to you of joy, you say, “Oh, yes, there must be joy to one who is at peace with God; it cannot be that any man, who loves God, and is reconciled to him, should be perpetually unhappy!” That cannot be; so that, in knowing God, there springs up in the man’s heart a hope, nay, an assurance that it must be well with his soul, and that, though heaven and earth should pass away, God’s Word can never pass away, and therefore the safety of the man who clings to that Word must be secured. Yes, to know the only living and true God is to get where life is life, to get into eternal life;—not mere existence, but into that which is worthy to be called life indeed.