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[silence] This is Glendale Presbyterian Church People Moving Power. This tape includes the reading of scripture and a message by Dr. Bruce W. Thuman titled "Twelve Gates to Glory."

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At the conclusion of side number one of this cassette, be sure to turn immediately to side number two for the remainder of the message. This tape is copyrighted and all rights are reserved. Any public or commercial use, in full or in part,

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requires the advanced written permission of Dr. Bruce W. Thuman. The private use of this material for the spiritual gain of yourselves or others is heartily encouraged. ...reverent attention to the reading of God's Word as it is reported in the twenty-first chapter of the book of Revelation.

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Beginning at the verse which is numbered ten, John's great description of the New Jerusalem. "And in the Spirit he carried me away to a great high mountain and showed me the holy city, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God.

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Having the glory of God, its radiance like a most rare jewel, like a jasper, clear as crystal. It had a great high wall with twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and on the gates the names of the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel were inscribed.

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On the east three gates, on the north three gates, on the south three gates, and on the west three gates. And the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the land. And he who talked to me had a measuring rod of gold to measure the city and its gates and walls.

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The city lies four square, its length the same as its breadth. And he measured the city with his rod twelve thousand stadia. Its length and breadth and height are equal. He also measured its wall a hundred and forty-four cubits by a man's measure, that is an angel's.

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The wall was built of jasper, while the city was pure gold, clear as glass. The foundations of the wall of the city were adorned with every jewel. The first was jasper, the second sapphire, the third agate, the fourth emerald, the fifth onyx, the sixth carnelian, the seventh chrysolite, the eighth varro, the ninth topaz, the tenth chrysophrase,

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the eleventh jacenth, the twelfth amethyst. And the twelve gates were twelve pearls, each of the gates made of a single pearl. And the street of the city was pure gold, transparent as glass. And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God, the Almighty and the Lamb.

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And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine upon it, for the glory of the Lord is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb. By its light shall the nations walk, and the kings of the earth shall bring their glory into it, and its gates shall never be shut by day, and there shall be no night there.

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They shall bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations, but nothing unclean shall enter it, nor anyone who practices abomination or falsehood, but only those who are written in the Lamb's Book of Life. And may God bless to us and to our understanding this reading from his holy word.

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Let us pray. [Gavel] In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, amen. I was working late in my study one night, and fell asleep at my desk.

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And behold, I dreamed a dream. And in this dream I found myself at the gate of the kingdom of heaven. And I was told that before I could enter into the kingdom, I would have to take a piece of chalk. And with that piece of chalk on an immense and gigantic blackboard,

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I would have to cancel out all of the sins and iniquities of my life. And here was this blackboard that was wider than I could see, and higher than I could see. And on it written, "Sin after sin after sin." And they gave me a piece of chalk that was about four feet long and a foot thick.

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And I went over with this great piece of chalk under my arm and started up this ladder, reaching up for each rung above. And I would go up a rung, and then lean over and scratch out a sin. And then go up another rung, and then lean over and scratch out a sin.

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And then go up another rung, and lean over and scratch out a sin. And higher and higher I went, until when I looked down, I could not see where I had begun. And yet the list seemed to go on endlessly. And the weight of the chalk grew heavier and heavier the higher I climbed.

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And as I leaned over, there was a strain on the arm, so that I began to wonder whether I would be able to hold on to the ladder long enough. And just when I'd gotten to the point where I really felt that I might have to give up, just then I reached up to the next rung, and someone above me stepped on my hand.

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And it was excruciatingly painful. And I looked up, and here it was Don Fontana coming down for another piece of chalk. [laughter] Now it's true, we don't know exactly what heaven will be like.

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We can be reasonably assured it will have nothing to do with chalk and blackboards and desperate people. And in like manner, we can be reasonably assured that it will be something like that magnificent description written in the Book of Revelation by John.

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Of course, John is attempting to describe that which is by its very nature indescribable. And so he uses various symbols to convey ideas. He posits a city which is two and a quarter million miles square, and suggests by this the immensity of heaven.

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He talks about gold, because gold is the metal which does not tarnish, signifying the eternity of heaven. He talks about the radiance which will be there, which emanates from God and from the children of God.

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He uses various symbols to convey to us what this place will be like. And amongst those symbols, he writes these words, "And there shall be twelve gates. On the east three gates, and on the north three gates,

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on the west three gates, and on the south three gates." John says there will be twelve gates to glory. Now it's obvious that he is suggesting by reference to these gates the catholicity of our faith.

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He is saying that people can come from the four corners of the earth and they will be received by Jesus Christ into the kingdom of heaven. But as I meditated upon this truth, it seemed to me that the number of the gates

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was not so important as the directions in which the gates face. I don't know whether John had this in mind when he was writing these words or not, but it seems to me at least that those directions say something very definite and explicit to us. And I'd like to pause to ponder these truths for a few moments this morning.

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He says first of all, and I think it's significant that he mentions it first, that there are three gates which face to the east. Now the east is the place where the sun rises. It is the place where the new day begins.

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It is then the place of beginning. It is the place of the young, as it were, the place where those who are just beginning the adventure of life start out on their walk. John is saying that there are three gates to glory, especially open to young people.

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Now young people today are asking many questions about life. They're not satisfied with the answers of old institutions and organizations. They're probing to the very heart and center of the human experience, and they're asking if life is really worthwhile.

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And that's not a bad question. A flower, by its very nature, grows and blooms and is beautiful. But I'm not so sure that a flower would want to grow and bloom and be beautiful if there were no one about to appreciate its beauty.

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Why bother to labor to be beautiful if no one will ever see the beauty? Well, just so our young people look at life and say, "If life has no point or purpose, if I'm going to spend my days accumulating things, and then one day I'm going to die, and all of those things are going to pass on to another,

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if that's all there is, is life really significant and important enough to be worried about?" If it's simply a course of days and weeks and months and years that begin and end, and I am the same way at the end that I am at the beginning, that is, without life and without existence, if that's all there is, then why bother?

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There's no purpose to that. There's nothing in that which makes me really worthwhile. And that's a very legitimate question. I always think of our young people in terms of that jailer

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that the Apostle Paul met in the city of Philippi. After the earthquake, when the prisoners were released, you will remember that the jailer cried out to Paul, "What must I do to be saved?" That is, "What must I do to find hope?

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What must I do to be made whole? What must I do to discover purpose and worthwhileness in my life? What can happen to me?" Now, Paul does not turn and say to the jailer what the world often says to young people today.

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He doesn't turn and say, "Well, now, these earthquakes only come every once in a while, and you don't have to be excited about the vicissitudes of life. Just surround yourself with the things which give comfort and luxury and rest and relaxation. Just surround yourself with those things on which you can finally and irrevocably depend,

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at least for as long as you're alive, and forget about the hard moments." He doesn't say that. And Paul doesn't turn to that jailer and say what the world often says to young people. "Look, what you need is a new start.

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Just get your life on a new track. Begin to think new and positive thoughts. Say goodbye to yesterdays and hello to your tomorrows, and just begin all over again." That's rubbing salt in the wound, for no one of us can begin again,

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and every young person is smart enough to realize that his life is already on course. So Paul doesn't turn to the jailer and say, "Just start all over again." Paul turns to that jailer and he says, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved." In Jesus Christ you'll find point and purpose.

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In Jesus Christ you'll find reason for living. In Jesus Christ you'll find worthwhileness. You'll find that which gives your days hope and your hours light. And what Paul said to that jailer, the Church is saying in the name of Jesus Christ to young people today.

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I think this morning of a young man I knew a good number of years ago, who came from a very difficult and hard home, a home in which he suffered all kinds of abuse. I came to know him through a Christian athlete group, although I don't think the boy was really a Christian at the time when he joined the group.

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And one day as part of the program of that group, he was called upon to give a little speech, and it was a speech about honesty. And in order to illustrate honesty, at one point in the speech, he asked for all of the lights in the auditorium to be extinguished,

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and he lighted a single match. And of course, although it was a large auditorium that seated 2,000 people, you could clearly see that match in all the darkness. And he said, "Just as this light is visible to all of you in the midst of this darkness,

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so the truth is always visible in the midst of the blackness of the world." I thought it a very good illustration, and when the speech was over, I went to congratulate him. But before I could say a word, he said to me, "You know, I was talking to myself today, and I suddenly realized that there is one light shining for me, and that light is Jesus Christ,

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and that if I'll follow that one light in the midst of all the darkness and the blackness of where I'm living now, I'll find my way home." Well, just four weeks ago, I sat down with that young boy and his wonderful wife now, and met his two splendid children.

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He's a very successful young executive with the Xerox Corporation, and there's a great radiance and beauty about him. He told me about his Sunday school class and the youth group in which he is a sponsor, and he's the youngest man ever to be elected an elder in the Presbyterian Church of which he is a part.

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And his whole life is a testimony to the fact that there is purpose, and there is goal, and there is possible beauty because Jesus Christ makes it so. By standing at the gateway at the end of life, the gateways which point to the east where youth are, by standing there with his arms spread wide and saying, "Follow me,"

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and by turning yourself so that you do follow him through life with purpose and positivity, and on beyond life into the city which is eternal, this is the way to glory, to glory now and to glory tomorrow. But John goes on to say that there are also three gates that point to the north.

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Now, the north is the place of cold, the place of icy winds, the place of bitterness and freezing snow. And I think John is saying to us, or suggesting to us by this, that to those who are in the icy hours of life, to those who are in times of hardship and pain

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and anxiety and fear, to those people too, Christ comes. And there are three gates which point expressly to those who are in their northern hours. I believe you see that that hurt leads us to a unique sensitivity of soul. I've learned something. I've learned this.

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That the people who are always saying that because there's pain there can't be a God, or because there's hardship there can't be a beneficent power behind all things that are, these people who are always raising these questions, these skeptics, are rarely people who have suffered much in their own lives.

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I've discovered that great sufferers are very often great saints, because in their very hours of ice, in their very times of suffering, they've encountered God in a way that many people never encounter Him. I think of it in terms of a little child.

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As long as that child is playing, the mother doesn't pay much attention. But let that child hurt itself or be hurt by another and begin to cry, and immediately the mother hurries to the child's side. Now, the child may, in a fit of temper, throw itself on the ground and kick its heels,

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or it may strike out against the piece of furniture against which it barked its shin. It may even hit out at its mother that's trying to comfort it, and if it does that, of course, it's simply lost in its own loneliness and has to bear its hurt all by itself.

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But in most instances, the child runs into the mother's arms and there finds a strength and encouragement not available anywhere else. Well, just so with many people. They go through life and then there comes some circumstance which hurts them,

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and in the midst of their pain they cry out, and God in infinite love gathers about them with special closeness, and they find in His arms a nearness they've never experienced at any other time. Look at the great hall of the heroes that's scribbled on the pages of Hebrews.

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Who are those who are listed as being specially close to the heart of God by faith? They're not the people who have not known hardship. They're the people who've walked through the fiercest and coldest storms, people who were sawn asunder, who were tempted and tormented and crucified

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and driven into the wilderness. These are the people who come to know Him with special love. It's as if these people stand, not like those who stood at the foot of Christ's cross

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and looked up at Him and said, "If you are the Son of God, don't just stand there. Do something." Instead of that, these people look up at Christ and they say, "You are the Son of God, so don't just do something. Stand there.

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Stand there with me in the midst of my pain. Stand here with me in the midst of my sorrow and my bereavement and my loneliness and my fear." And He does stand there.

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And because He stands there with hands extended, we find three gates to glory, even in our northern hours. There was a woman who was confined to a bed of great pain for a long time, and her minister called on her again and again

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and tried to lead her into the discipline of prayer and into communion with Christ as she was caught up in this suffering. And somehow it didn't seem real to her, and she testified to the lack of reality in it over and over again.

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And so one day the minister said, "Well, I know this is just a device, but perhaps it will help." And he took a chair and he put that chair beside her bed. Now he said, "You imagine every time you look at that chair

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that Jesus is sitting there. His presence is as real as if He were sitting in that chair. So when you look at that chair, see Him and talk to Him there. Personify His presence there. Address Him there."

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And she did. And prayer became more natural to her. And she never permitted that chair to be taken away from her bed. And when friends would come, she would tell her

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that this was where the Lord was seated beside her in the midst of all the suffering which was hers. And sometimes even her friends would, with her, pray to Christ, looking at that chair as they prayed.

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And one day the minister got a call that the woman was dying, and he rushed to her home, but he was too late. She had already gone on when he got there. But when he entered the room, he found her hand on that chair.

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You see, she'd walked through those weeks hand in hand with Christ, and at the moment when she passed through those northern gates into glory, she was holding his hand in hers. Three gates to the north.

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And then John says also that there are three gates to the west. Now, the west is the place where the sun sets. It's the place where the day ends. And this, it seems to me, symbolizes those who are coming toward the end of life,

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those who have accumulated a great number of years, those who know the burden of age. John says there's three gates to glory, especially for the aged. Now, it's a little bit hard for me to talk about age.

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I can talk about youth because once I was young, and I can talk about being middle-aged because now I'm middle-aged. But I've never been old, so I can't talk very much about being old. I've heard a lot about it.

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I know, for example, that old age always seems to come as a surprise. Birthdays come and birthdays go, and they don't draw much emotional response from us. And then one day, she's pushing her way through a department store,

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and out of the corner of her eye, she sees an old gray-headed woman in a mirror going down between two counters, and she says, very ungrammatically, "Why, that's me." And suddenly old age is there.

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I have a friend named Herbert Taylor who had a heart attack, and as a result of it has to do a lot of walking. He's got about 80 years accumulated, but he never thought of himself as old. And then one day, he went to the store,

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and when he left the store, he forgot a package. He left his little cart that he always used when he went to the store by his home, and then went back to the store, walking again for the exercise, and he was shocked when he got there to find the package on the counter,

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and on top of it a note which read, "This belongs to the old man with the go-cart." Never-- [cicadas buzzing]

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[silence] Man with a go-cart. Well, I guess that's the way age kind of sneaks up on you. It comes as a surprise,

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and it's a beautiful thing to encounter those people who have come to age after wintering and summering with Jesus Christ for many years. I remember reading once about an 85-year-old woman who was asked how she felt as she got toward the end of her life,

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and she responded, "Well, it's just like back on the farm on Saturday afternoon when all the chores were done and we sat around waiting for Sunday." I thought that had a certain loveliness about it, waiting for Sunday. That's a beautiful thing, and one of the richest treasures

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that this congregation has is many of its old and sainted persons. You know, I have a marvelous mailbox. I wouldn't trade my mailbox for any mailbox that I know. It has just enough junk mail in it for me to complain about,

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just enough bills to keep me on my toes but not frighten me too much, just enough business mail to make me think there's some point and purpose to it all. But more wonderful than any of these things, I get letters from people who are part of this fellowship.

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Now, I won't deny it. Occasionally, there are letters written in bile and sealed with bitterness. But by and large, overwhelmingly, those letters are encouraging and uplifting and cheering, and the vast majority of those letters come from our older members,

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from people who've known Jesus Christ for a long, long time. And out of the richness and beauty of that relationship, they minister to me. And I appreciate it. Many letters in response to last Sunday's service,

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and most all of them from our older people, deeply, passionately concerned about our younger people. I say it again. We have no greater treasure than those older ones in our fellowship who have been close to Him.

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But let's face it. There are also older people who do not know Him. The fact that a person has accumulated many years does not automatically give them a close relationship to Jesus Christ.

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And it's a sad thing when you see a person come to the sunset time not knowing Him. Three gates to the west, but they don't seem to know the way to those gates. Now, there might have been some time in their lives when there was a stirring of the Spirit in their hearts.

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There might have been some days in which they felt very close to Him. It's rather like that fable from Brittany in France that there was supposed to be a giant city on the coast of France called Ise. And one day, suddenly, that city, the whole thing, just settled beneath the waves.

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And according to tradition, occasionally the French fishermen will, on sunny days, see the spires on the tops of the buildings of that city shimmering above the water. And the people on the cliffs on the shore can hear the bells pealing from beneath the deep waves. Well, there are, I think, older folks who look back over their lives

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and can remember a time when they had a vision of the holy city too. But now the water of years of indifference has settled over the vision. The only bells they hear seem to be muffled by the flotsam and the jetsam of a lot of wasted years. And it's sad to see that.

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But the gospel is this, that Jesus Christ still cares for those people, that there are three gates that open to the West, and that no person, no matter how long ago there was spiritual brightness in his heart, no matter how long ago that was, no matter what has happened between now and then,

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they can reclaim that. Like Jacob, they can go back to their Bethel. Perhaps it was when you stood with your bride or your husband at the marriage altar. Maybe that was the moment when the Spirit was close to you.

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Perhaps when you presented your first child for baptism. Perhaps at the memorial service for your mother. There was some moment, some time when you felt the whisper of God's Spirit, and you can go back to that moment.

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You can reclaim that again and know the beauty of crossing over through those gates into glory. You see, age has its eroding powers, and you gradually bend beneath the weight of the years. And one day you discover that you're old and you're sick, and you no longer seem to have a grip on life.

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You seem to be caught up in the power of unknown forces. But when you're with Christ, those unknown forces become a loving God, and your weakness becomes that moment when God pulls apart the fibers of your experience in order that He might penetrate you more deeply than ever before

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and draw you into Himself. Age becomes, you see, that which purifies you and liberates you and frees you. And that dark tunnel which you see ahead, where shapes are indefinable, holds no final fear because you go into the tunnel holding the hand of God.

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You and God alone. And God is stronger so that His love burns and sets you ablaze. And in the midst of that blaze, you are, by the power of His Spirit, welded into oneness with Him.

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That's what death is meant to be. Welded into oneness with God. Sweetness and communion. My older friend, I love you, and I say to you, there are three gates to the West.

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If you do not know Him, claim Him now that you might be one with God in glory. And just one last word. What about if you're not old and you're not young,

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and things aren't going hard for you? Does John have any word for you? Yes, he does. He says there are three gates to the South. Now, the South is the place where balmy breezes blow,

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where everything is easy and comfortable and relaxing, and the barometer always reads "fair." That's the reason the South is such a dangerous place in which to be. The young cry out to God for purpose, and the old cry out to God for peace,

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and the suffering cry out to God for ease, but when you're comfortable, you have a tendency to cry out to God, "Not at all!" Caught up, you see, in the midst of the way everything is going, just wonderfully for you and yours, there is no need of God,

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and you forget that it will not always be so. The word for you is that there are three gates that open to the South. George MacLeod, the great Scottish clergyman, came one time to Southern California here,

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and he saw the lush orchards, and he saw the high mountains, and he saw the broad deserts, and he knew that the highest living standard in the world was enjoyed right here, and so he said,

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"You know, there is something wonderfully sane about this place." And I find that very interesting. We have the highest divorce rate in the world. We have the highest rate of narcotic addiction in this country.

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We have more weirdo and far-out religions than any other place in America. More psychiatrists are practicing in Southern California than anywhere else in the 50 states. You see what the problem is?

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We look at the fair exterior and say it's all so fine, and in point of fact, it begins to smell a lot like hell. And that's what happens to people. They get caught up in the midst of their comfort and say,

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"I am the master of my fate, and I am the captain of my soul, and I can go it alone." And they become cruel and indifferent to others, not recognizing their indebtedness to others, thinking they achieved it all by themselves.

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And they begin to die intellectually like some trees die from the tops down. No other ideas are meaningful except their own ideas, and they confuse livelihood with life. They confuse the things that they possess with that which they ought to be.

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And then they lose joy. Their conscience never strains. Their soul never quests for something higher. Their heart is never wrung within them in compassion.

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Everything you see for them is just ducky. I mean it spiritually for the birds, because they don't recognize that there is within them, you see, always, as for all other men, a deep need for God.

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And they must admit that. And if you're not old or young or knowing hardship, if you are one of those living in the lap of luxury, feeling that you can go it alone, my friend,

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it's only those who hunger and thirst after righteousness that will be filled. So cry out and admit that you need God, and if you don't feel that you need God, then admit to God that you don't want to admit to God that you need Him.

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And let Him begin there, but let Him begin somewhere. There was a bank whose employees went on strike, and the executive staff was operating the windows in the bank, the teller windows, and a lady called and she said, "Is the bank open?"

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And the person addressing her said, "Yes, we have two windows open." It was a long pause, and then she said, "Do you mean if I come that I can't come through the door?" The gospel is, you see, that nobody has to try to climb in the window.

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The gospel is, you see, that there are 12 gates to glory and that they face every kind of human experience. Old, young, hard or easy, Jesus Christ the way stands with arms spread. Ready to give welcome home to that city which is eternal.

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It must be like a great cathedral that's bronze by sunset or flowers at the dawn, and it's lighted with the radiance of a million, million candles. I remember once in the most beautiful cathedral in the world, the Cathedral of Chartres in France, I knelt in prayer,

00:34:49.300 - 00:35:22.100

and as I prayed, I heard the choir sing, "Te, lucis, ante, terminem, to thee, before the last light fades, O creator of all things, we pray." Well, before the light of these moments fades,

00:35:22.100 - 00:36:04.200

would it not be well for each of us, in the privacy of our hearts, to pray and to say, "Oh, Jesus, I will be yours. Lead me through the gate that is open just for me, into the presence of your Father, into the glory that is stored up for those who believe."

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Let us all so pray. [Pause] Perhaps you've prayed the prayer before. Perhaps you pray it now for the first time.

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But whisper to God about your gate to glory and about the Christ who is the way. [Pause]

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And the Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you. The Lord lift up the light of his countenance upon you and give you welcome home.

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[Audience "Ohs"] [Pause]