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All right, and then Rich. I mentioned 
this one to you when I emailed you because I think there's one, 
this is a brief sort of version of the question. It gets later 
developed or expands a bit later on, so I hope you did take a 
peek ahead on the list. But one of the persons writes, 
often I struggle with the idea of eternity in heaven, that there 
is nothing we graduate from or to. What will our quote unquote 
days in heaven look like aside from singing the praises of our 
God? eye has not seen, neither has 
ear heard all that the Lord has in store for those who love him. You know, Jude, that's first 
Corinthians, Jude 24 and 25, in his blameless, in his presence 
with exceeding joy, so you want me to define what exceeding joy 
is, like, based on my experience. What I'm getting at is... You're 
not sure. I'm not sure, but I do know this. 
Ephesians 2, 7 says this, that in the ages to come, ages, plural. Is there time in what we call 
the eternal state? If we say yes, it doesn't sound 
eternal because it's timeless. Eternal is used in more than 
one way. God's eternity is one thing. Eternal life for us is 
a temporal experience with successive stages of development in this 
life, and I'm going to argue successive stages of spiritual, 
mental, soulish development in the life to come as well, partly 
from here, that in the ages to come, He might show the exceeding 
riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. From 
this side of things, already, we haven't tasted the knot yet. 
Well, we have in seed form. Grace is glory in the bud. So 
we do have the down payment, the guarantee, the spirit. But 
it's just a snippet of glory. We don't have full-fledged experience 
of beatific vision, whatever that is. So it's hard for us 
to make the, intellectual step from my experience now, because 
it's hard to go to church now. You know, sometimes you don't 
even want to go to church. And the questioner is going, 
yeah, and I don't know how's that going to translate into 
24-7. Well, here's the thing. Is God 
infinite? Does God have bounds? Is God 
limited? Is he circumscribed? No. Are we going to be infinite or 
finite in the eternal state? Finite. Can we ever comprehend 
the infinite? No. It's weird for us to think 
about this, because you can pretty much become an expert in certain 
intellectual endeavors, except the more I try to become an expert 
in Christian theology, the farther the goal seems to be. The more 
you know and the more you realize, I didn't know about that article 
or that book, and it takes you into a whole world of thought. 
So I think we need to be careful not to undersell the glory of 
God. He's way bigger than we realize, 
and we're never going to exhaust. It's not a bucket that has a 
bottom. It's a bottomless—God is infinite. He's infinitely 
blessed, happy, and he's—why did he create? I think to share 
that. So we're going to participate 
in God. All I can say is it's way better 
than the best sermon you've ever heard. It's way better than all 
the great hymns you've ever sung, or the most spiritual you've 
ever felt. Yeah, one of the things that 
I have thought through, you had told me many years ago, I just 
asked you about Rick Anderson, pastor in Oxnard. I remember 
he said, it's a breathtaking thing. So if you take your child 
to some place that they love. Disneyland. They come around, 
I don't like to use Disneyland anymore. Well, that's what he 
used. I remember that. You come around the corner and, 
Their breath is taken away. So, when the finite comes into 
the presence of God Most High, it's a perpetual, just, you're 
blown away with who God is. The glory of God. Can I enter 
into the conversation here? Please, absolutely. truth that has to be brought 
to mind is that we cannot compare God with ourselves. We want to, 
and we read language like we're made in the image of God. He 
made us to be like Him, but we can't reverse that direction 
and make God into a greater image of us. We may have His image, 
but He does not have our image. He is God, and there is none 
like Him. And so when we begin to think 
about concepts that relate to who God is, and can I use the 
phrase, the experience of being God? Sure. Okay? We can't enter into that. What 
eternity is, is beyond our capability to understand. Because we have 
a beginning, we have an end. That will come for all three 
of us. That day will be when our loved ones will put us into 
the grave, and that will be the end of our lives on this earth. 
But that can never be said about God, so we can't understand eternity 
in the way that God is able to understand eternity. I think 
you're exactly right, Rich, that for us, eternity will be temporal, 
though for God it is not temporal. Yeah, so you're basically saying 
maintain the creator-creature distinction even in the eternal 
state. Absolutely. I was in Utah a couple 
of weeks ago, and of course the Mormon doctrine is that we all 
become gods, the men become gods, and the goal of each man is to 
have his own planet that he saves and he rules over. Wait a minute, 
what? That sounds like a good deal. What a bunch of nonsense 
that is. We will never ever be like God. 
We will always be caught up with his glory. And so long as we, 
from a temporal position, know eternity, we will never ever 
comprehend God as he comprehends himself. There may be a further 
revelation of his glories that we we are able to comprehend 
and that we rejoice in, but we must maintain that distinction 
of who God is. Able to apprehend. Able to apprehend, 
okay, yeah. Even with that, can we, you know, 
the Ephesians 2, 7 verse, I preached it recently, I was thinking about 
preaching it here, I couldn't find the sermon. The older I 
get, I lose what file that I put it in, but could it be, Could 
it be that in the eternal state, things God has not revealed about 
God get revealed to us? Or are we just going to be Bible 
students the whole time? Does the Bible exhaustively reveal 
to creatures everything God's ever going to reveal to creatures? 
And I would say, I don't I don't think so. Is God free to show 
more God to us? Are we going to be reading Bibles 
in the eternal state? Will we need Scripture? Those 
are good questions, but difficult. I think that some of the statements 
in the Bible, and then hymnody, I think it helps to underscore 
the infinite finite. When Paul says it's better to 
depart, it's much better for me to go on than be here with 
you Philippians, but it doesn't mean fruit if I am here. So, 
there's this expectation on the part of the apostle, and you 
know, I hasn't seen. He has, by God's grace, been 
given some revelation that we didn't, but there's an anticipation 
on the part of the apostles. 2 Timothy chapter 4, he knows 
he's going to die, and he's not, you know, nervously biting his 
fingernails. He says, I'm going to receive 
the crown. And so are all those who have been faithful to the 
Lord. It's not just him in that category. And then, of course, 
Newton. When we've been there 10,000 years, bright shining 
as the sun, it's poetic flourish, but I think it does underscore 
we can't exhaust God. If we could exhaust God, we'd 
move on to the next puzzle. And that's never going to happen. 
God is way better than we'll ever know. And there'll be no 
tedium. Right. To our learning about 
God. That's right. Right now, all 
of us get tired of reading books and we have to rest. That won't 
happen. We'll be so pleased with what 
we see and what we know. We'll continually seek after 
more. That's right. Yeah. There's something 
else, I think, that goes on in the eternal state that maybe 
gets depreciated sometimes because The two greatest commandments 
are love God with all your heart, soul, mind, strength, and neighbor 
as yourself. We're going to be able to do 
both of those seamlessly. There's going to be a corporate, 
the city of God. The church triumphant, yes. And 
I don't know what that's going to be. I don't either. I don't 
have that experience now. You know, the Lord's Day 24-7. 
And I, you know, you had mentioned just when we started off, you 
know, coming to church at times, I mean, we don't always have 
the Psalm 122. I was glad when they said unto 
me, let us go to the house of the Lord. But there will be something, 
I think, much different in heaven. You're not looking for your kids' 
shoes. You're not having to marshal the Klan out to the car. Everybody's 
there in the presence of the Most High. So, yeah. I'm reminded of Hebrews chapter 
2 and the citations that we have here from several Old Testament 
texts, where it's Christ who comes and leads his people into 
worship. I will declare your name for 
my brethren in the midst of the assembly. I will sing praise 
to you. And again, I will put my trust in him. And again, here 
am I and the children whom God has given me. So even our Savior, 
the God-man, One person, two natures, true human nature, comes 
and joins us in the worship of God. Yes. Or in the midst of 
the lampstands in Revelation chapter 1. That's where the Son 
of God is. You're calling him first chair, 
worship leader, right? No, I am not calling him that. 
I'm saying that This Hebrews chapter 2 tells us that he comes 
into our midst and we worship the triune God as he leads us. 
Yes. I just referred to that little 
book, I think it was on Sunday, that Jonathan Landry Cruz, What 
Happens When We Worship? I thought that was very good. 
I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it very much. So, yeah, 
lots to think about, but certainly some creaturely limitations in 
terms of what exactly it would be.