The title of this message is what will man be like for countless future ages?

What I have in mind is not primarily what our human nature is now, nor the process by which we will become what we will be,

nor the events of death and the intermediate state between death and resurrection, nor the act of resurrection,

but rather the final condition of redeemed humanity when history, as we know it, is over.

Completely passed, resurrection is passed, judgment is passed, new heavens and new earth are come,

the final condition of what we will be like for countless, yes, everlasting ages in the future.

Now why would a question like that be important to think about the final condition in which we will spend billions and billions of ages of millennia?

Why might that be important?

To answer that question, I'm going to quote from J.I. Packer, who is largely quoting from Richard Baxter, who thought more about the saints everlasting rest than probably anyone is the quote.

The importance of clarity about what lies at the end of the Christian pilgrimage seemed to Richard Baxter incalculable.

The more strongly one desires an end, the more carefully and diligently one will use the means to it.

The love of the end is the poise and spring which set us every wheel a going.

I'm coming back to that.

The love of the end is the poise and the spring that set us every wheel to going or a going.

But he says, an unknown end will not be loved.

It is a known and not merely an unknown God in happiness that the soul does joyfully desire.

Such desire then gives wings to the soul.

It is the heavenly Christian, that is the lively Christian.

It is strangeness to heaven that makes us so dull.

It is the end that quickens to all the means and the more frequently and clearly this end is beheld, the more vigorous will be our motion.

We run so slowly and strive so lazily because we so little mind the prize.

That's the mind of the apostle, isn't it?

...