![Revelation One - Verse by Verse Revelation One - Verse by Verse](http://sermons.aletheiabaptistministries.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Rev1VBV-Square-150x150.png)
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References: Revelation 1:13
It’ll be 20 messages. This description that John begins now in verse 13 and goes through verse 16, also a description he gives in chapter 19, if you remember 11 through 16, when he comes on a white horse. These are interesting, aren’t they? To see the Lord in this way looks far different than Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. It’s encouraging too, because we’re seeing the Lord the way He will be for eternity, and it’s either comforting or frightening depending on whether you know the Lord or not. To see Him this way is not like you knew Him as a Sunday school picture, is it? Sometimes we just kind of picture Him in a little drawing, always with little children and lambs around Him and so forth. That’s not the way He will always be throughout eternity.
Maybe sinners wish He would always be that way, but He will be the Lord of Lords and King of Kings. This isn’t Matthew, this is the book of Revelation, as we see Him now standing before John. I was thinking of John’s acquaintance with Jesus. You know, John has known Jesus a long time.
If this is 95 A.D., Jesus died in 32, 33 A.D. But even before that, if you remember a little of your New Testament history, that He knew Him as family. As a matter of fact, the mother of Jesus and the mother of James and John were sisters, if you remember, that is, Salome was James and John’s mother, and Mary were sisters. As a matter of fact, there was a third sister in that family, her name was also Mary, not unusual in those days to name both daughters by the name Mary. She married a man named Cleopas, if you remember, who also had a son named James, he’s called the less, and Joseph. So Mary and Mary and Salome all had sons, and they all had a son named James.
So James, come if you will. Well, also you remember that Mary, after Jesus, had boys named Jude and James, and they wrote books of the Bible, and Joseph and Simon, and Matthew 13 says, and his sisters, and we don’t even know how many sisters Mary and Joseph had. So, believe it or not, John and Jesus were acquainted with each other, no doubt, by family, long before they began serving together.
Interesting, isn’t it? Then John knew Jesus as a disciple. He had followed John the Baptist for a while, because John was calling righteous people to repentance and baptizing them, and John followed, and James. And they were glad to until one day, Jesus came walking by, but now John points out Jesus, his cousin, their cousin, as the lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world.
And I think from that moment on, the relationship between Jesus and these boys was far different. And now they follow him as a disciple, leaving the fishing business, leaving what they were doing, and follow him. Then they knew him as a witness, because after Jesus died, and Jesus rose from the dead, and of course, John, Mary was committed to John’s care and keeping. But when Jesus rose from the dead, and now they see him as the risen Lord, and they are committed to him as witnesses of these things. And they go throughout the book of Acts, and wherever they go, they give testimony to the fact that Jesus died and rose again.
But now, John calls himself a servant in verse one, and throughout this chapter. And you might say, now he knows him in his glorified Christophany. A Christophany is the appearance of Christ.
We even have those in the Old Testament as the Son of God, and as the Lord appeared in the Old Testament. Now, of course, he appears here on the aisle of Patmos, and he appears in his glory. He appears in the way that after he had gone and presented himself to the Father, and is sitting at the right hand of the Father, making intercession for us, John sees him this way. Just imagine in the life of John all that he knew, the changes that he had seen and gone through in those years.
Quite amazing. John now sees him and describes him as he is now, folks. In the year 2009, he is still this way, the way John is describing him, at the right hand of the Father, glorified, interceding for us. Remember these verses in your New Testament. John writes in 1 John 3, 2, Beloved, now are we the sons of God. It doth not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.
We’re not even sure what that’s going to be. We just know that when he comes again, somehow he’ll make us in a way that we can exist with him in this glorified state and we will ever be with the Lord. Paul said, wherefore henceforth, know we no man after the flesh.
Yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more. No more going back to those days. No more going back to those simple days in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Now he will exist like this for eternity. Hebrews 928, so Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many and unto them that looked for him.
Shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation? No more sin. No more corruption in our lives.
No more chance of backsliding falling away. We will forever be with him. When Christ who is our life shall appear, then shall you be with him. Of what heaven will be like, a few tidbits here and there thrown out to us to make us hungry and thirsty for those things. But I don’t even think we know what we will want to think about Jesus when we get to heaven. You know, right now we say, well, I want heaven to be like this. You know, when I see Jesus, I kind of want it to be like this. And we’re thinking totally humanly.
We have no idea how we will think and how we will be affected when we see those things. As a matter of fact, I thought, you know, maybe most of the average Christian’s theology about heaven and hell probably comes from the jokes that he hears, right? You know, you heard about the guy who died and went to heaven, you know, and his name was St. Peter was at the gate.
The Bible nowhere says that that’s the case, you know, and couldn’t find his name on the list and says, I want to see my lawyer and Peter says, well, you won’t find any lawyers up here. You’ll have to take the elevator and go to the bottom floor. You know, something like that. And that’s where we get our idea of what heaven and hell is like, I think. We, we get glimpses of the reality of it here in the scriptures. And yet we are told this when we’re there, folks, and when we see Jesus like this and when we see him in the throne room of God, oh, it will be grand and we will love it. And if we think, oh, I don’t know if I could stand at being like that for eternity and doing those things for eternity. That’s because you can only think humanly now.
Some day we will think even as he thinks. You know, I used to think when I was young, I didn’t want to grow old, you know, so I woke up not long ago and found out I’m too old to die young, you know, but I, but you know, when you’re strong and young and you think, boy, you know, I don’t know what it would be like to be so old, you know, you have your 40th birthday, you know, on a 40th birthday when they bury, you know, you have all that black stuff around you and, and you’re so old and everything. And now I think back 40, I remember having a birthday about like 40 one time.
But you know what? Even though when you’re young, you think, oh, I don’t want to grow old. I don’t want to get like that. Folks, I don’t know about you, but even at this stage in my life, I don’t want to go back either. You know, yeah, you were young, you thought a certain way, but knowing what I know right now and the more you learn about heaven and the more you learn about the Lord, I don’t want to go back. I want to go forward. I want, I want to go on. And the closer I get to heaven, the better it will be for me.
This year I will, I’ll turn 59. And, you know, I have, when I was in third grade, I have this one memory of something that happened in third grade. Come to think of it, maybe the only thing I can remember through one grade, one through eight, but I remember I was in third grade and over Christmas and New Year, the New Year, we turned from 1958 to 1959. And for some reason I remember the first day back in class in 1959 and the teacher always had the habit of writing the date on the chalkboard, you know. She came in and wrote 1950 and she went nine and the tail of the nine went all the way down the blackboard.
And it’s a good thing she did because again, I wouldn’t have remembered anything from third grade, but I remember, I remember that. So I’m thinking, 1959, maybe I’ll stretch it out as far, you know, 59 years old as far as I can get, you know, like we did at 39 or whatever. Now, when we get close to the Lord, we’re anxious to see Him.
Let the time go by. Let Him come. Even so come quickly, Lord Jesus, John said. Now, John sees Jesus.
here among the candlesticks. And seeing Him this way gives us four attributes or pictures or things about Jesus that He wants us to know. So back to verse 13, it says, first, in the midst of the seven candles, let me back up to verse 12, I turned to see the voice that spake with me, remember, from last week. Being turned, I saw seven golden candlesticks and now 13. In the midst of the seven candlesticks, is one likened to the Son of Man. First of all, we have this glimpse or this knowledge of His divine presence.
He is in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks. In the middle, of course, the word midst means. Do you remember, Matthew 1820, where two or three are gathered together in my name? There am I in the midst of them.
In the middle, I am present with them. Or Jesus saying, go you therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you and lo, I am with you always. I am in your midst. Jesus is here today. He meets with His church.
He was among the candlesticks then. He does it today and even unto the end of the world or the end of the age, His presence is here. You know, we often pray simply in our own language when we’re praying for someone and we’ll say, Lord, be with that person. They’re in the hospital. Lord, be with them. And you know, we stop and think sometimes and say, I wish I could think of a better word or I wish I could say something a little more descriptive of what’s in my heart, but you know what? Jesus is with us and He’s with them.
And it’s a good thing to pray and ask for all. Does it mean just space? Jesus is here in some physical sense. Does it mean influence? His influence is among us. His power is here among us. His word is here and He is the living word.
This is the written word and so where the word goes, it doesn’t return void. His Holy Spirit is everywhere as He is omnipresent. I think all of those things are true. Jesus is in the midst in those ways and many, many more that we have. Now we know that there is a body in heaven, folks. Jesus’ body is at the right hand of the Father. Did He not come out of the grave bodily? Didn’t He ascend back into heaven bodily?
Yes, He did. At the right hand of the Father there is body, soul, and spirit where it should be where He is designed to be. Then how is He present among the churches?
Well, be illustrated like this. If I’m standing here and I’m speaking to you in this church today, many pastors are doing the same thing. And am I present here in this church? I am present here. You are present here.
Am I present to someone sitting on the front row? Terry is listening. Okay, I’m present and he’s listening. If I am present in this room to someone on the front row, am I present to someone sitting on the back row? Am I present in the room to them also? Or if someone were at the back row of the balcony, would I be present with them?
Yes, that’s true. I’m present wherever you are in this room. Now, suppose it is not I, but it is the Lord Jesus Christ and He is, we are saying He is present here.
If it’s the risen Christ, then the room begins to expand drastically because not only is He present here in this room, He’s present in Kansas City. He’s present in the United States of America. He is present in the world, is He not? Because He is divine, He’s omnipresent, He is God. He is present, this is His creation. The world is His footstool. Is He present in the universe?
Yes. Is He present in heaven and hell? Psalm 139 says, wither shall I go from thy spirit, wither shall I flee from thy presence. If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there. If I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the earth, even there shall thy hand lead me and thy right hand shall hold me. He is in all of the world and present wherever, and He can say, I am in the midst of the churches, and we can say He is here with us today, though we know, of course, He’s at the right hand of the Father. You know, we might say, the law is always with us.
us. You know you’ll drive out of here today and you’ll come down to the corner and there will be a red sign there and you’ll do what? You’ll stop. Why? Because there’s a policeman sitting at the corner? Well I hope you will if he is there.
But I hope you will if he’s not there. Because the law is present there. The law is present even when the symbol of the law is not there.
It is everywhere just like Jesus and his law and his power is everywhere. Back in Fort Collins for a while there they passed a law that they could take a picture of you going down the road and so they had the radar gun and a camera on it and didn’t even have to have a patrolman there. And you might be going down the street somewhere and all of a sudden you realize in the back of a little blazer parked beside the road a flash went off because they were watching you coming down the street and in about two days you got this nice souvenir in the mail with your picture behind the wheel and the license plate of your car and a little note that said 40 and a 35 mile an hour zone.
U.S. whatever and people would hang those on their visors you know because they got souvenir from I think my kids all had souvenirs from the Fort Collins Police Department you know. Yeah not very often but the law is always near us and whether the Lord catches us as we say whether the Lord chastises us or punishes us he is always in our midst whether we realize it whether we think about it whether we’re going too fast or too slow he is always there. But you know what the second coming of Christ is coming and we’re going to be like John was on the Isle of Patmos we’re going to see him as he is no longer in a glass darkly but then face to face and I reckon then that the sufferings of this present world are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us. We stand before the Father so his divine presence is talked about here and yet here 2000 years later he is still in the midst of his churches. Secondly his everlasting humanity is mentioned here his divine presence and his everlasting humanity in the midst of the seven churches was one like unto the Son of man.
You know that this was Jesus’ favorite expression for himself and though he was always the Son of God from eternity he was always God he became the Son of man and he became the Son of man for us for purposes of redemption had he just remained the Son of God and never taken upon himself the human form he would never have died for our sins and he would never be the Savior and so Jesus almost always referred to himself as the Son of man and here the emphasis then when John sees him among the churches to us is that he is the Son of man he’s our Savior he’s the God man he’s the one that died for us he is one like unto remember that word it means similar it means the similitude it’s the word Homo eon and remember he telling you that back in then in Nicaea in 325 AD there was a man named Athanasius who believed in in the deity of Jesus Christ that he was always God and then there was a man named Arius who denied that he was God denied that he was deity and they had a debate and they debated whether he was Homo Useus the same as God or Homo E. Useus similar to God and the difference in their two arguments boiled down to one little iota in the middle of the word is he the same as God or Homo E. Useus similar to God yes there was it did make one iota’s worth of a difference and Athanasius won that debate because he showed from the scriptures of course that he was God but in the human sense when we look at him then he became man it would have been right to argue that way he became man you remember Philippians 2 let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus who being in the form of God thought it not robbery to be equal with God but made himself of no reputation took upon him the form of a servant was made in the likeness of men the same word is here like unto the son of man made in the likeness of men and being found in fashion as a man schema the schematic of a man he humbled himself and became obedient unto death even the death of the cross and so though he was fully man and that body is in heaven today body soul and spirit he became that for you and me son of man praise God that the son of God became the son of man that the sons of men might become the sons of God And we can then become children of God because He became the Son of man. And so the Bible calls Him the last Adam. There was the first Adam who made this human race. And then the last Adam, the second Adam He’s called, who made a new creation. And that is those who are born a second time by this man and become part of His family, then become part of the family of to be at the right hand of the Father, forever making intercession for us.
Joseph Seiss, and I noticed in the last song that we sang this morning, his name was at the top of that song. What a great prophetic writer he was. He said, it is a mischievous error to suppose that the Son of God’s assumption of human nature was only for the immediate private end of redemption of fallen man, a mere phenomenon in the Godhead, ever busy in the administration of things. A simple act of like which has never been before may never be again.
No, it is the abiding miracle of eternity. Forever we can behold the scars in His hand. Forever He will have that scar in His side. Forever He will be the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world.
What a wonderful miracle that was. So His divine name is the Son of God. His Jewish name was the Son of David. But we might say His racial name is the Son of Man. What race is He of? He’s of the human race.
He is the Son of Man. Adam had a race. He was the head of a fallen race. But Jesus came as the second Adam and became the head of a new race. And when you place your faith and trust in Him, you take on His name and His family and you become part of that new humanity.
What a wonderful thing that is. There is a human being in heaven right now. Now you know that the spirits of our loved ones and of all saints are in heaven, but their bodies are in the grave.
We learned that last Sunday night. You want to see David’s body go down to the city of David and look in his sepulcher. You’ll find the bones of David there if you want to find them. You’ll find the bones of John, if you could, find them somewhere. But they’re somewhere. But you won’t find the bones and you won’t find the body of Jesus Christ because in heaven there is one body, one human body, the Son of Man at the right hand of the Father even now.
Showing His scars, showing His redemption for us. And you know what? Their body, soul and spirit, He’s arranged for all of His relatives to come. You know how it is when the relatives come home. You know, you have a good time in the Father’s house.
Well, our older brother, if you will, has gone on to heaven and he is there making ready things for his whole family when they come home. I may have told this story before, but it’s a true story that back in the early part of this, or at the turn of the last century actually, D.L. Moody was in Denver to preach at a great meeting. And there was a young boy, 12 years of age, and he wanted to hear Moody. He just had that desire, but he had to go down there by himself. When he got there, people were standing outside and they couldn’t get in and he was so small he couldn’t squeeze his way in and he was standing outside very disappointed. And about that time, this kind of little fat, frumpy man walked up and said, young man, would you like to go in? And he says, oh yes, I’d really like to. He says, grab ahold of my coat tail. And he grabbed ahold of that man’s coat tail and in he went behind him and that man kept going right down the aisle all the way to the front row and sat down and sat the boy there and the man was D.L.
Moody himself. And he sat there and enjoyed it. And that young man became one of the sons of man. I will go into the father’s house and I will take you with me.
And that’s exactly what he intends to do. Now quickly, also, number three, not only is divine presence in his everlasting humanity, but thirdly, Jesus in his royal dignity, garment down to the foot. He’s clothed with a garment. Do you know that a garment in this sense denotes royalty?
It denotes dignity. As a matter of fact, we usually call this his train, you remember. And whether a queen or a king with the long flowing robes, this was the train.
And the length of that robe kind of depends on the importance of that person. Now in the UK where we go, we see lots of pictures of the coronations of kings and queens. And if you go with me there next month to in May, we’ll go to Westminster Abbey and you’ll see where all of the queens since 1000 AD and the kings were coronated.
And you see these pictures, long robes walking down these aisles and all that goes with it. Right? Why? Because it’s the king or because it’s the queen. Now in the United States, because we don’t have kings and queens, we don’t have such things happening though that may change quickly. But we’re not supposed to have kings.
So maybe the closest thing we come to seeing a site like this is with our court system and our Supreme Court justices, for example, when there’s an inauguration, when there’s a state of the union address and everyone else is in coat and tie, here are these men in their robes, in their long robes. And why? Because it denotes royalty, dignity, properly so. These are judges. These are Supreme Court judges.
And even lesser judges still wear their coats and so forth. What a fantastic thing it is then to see Jesus this way. May I remind you of Isaiah 6. In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne high and lifted up.
And what? His train filled the temple. And above it stood the seraphim. Each had six wings.
With twain or two, he covered his face. So holy is this site. The angels do not dare to lift their sight. With twain or two, he covered his feet because if his feet are uncovered, they must be covered before the holy one on the throne. And with two, he did fly. And one cried unto the Lord, and the other cried unto the Lord, and the other cried unto another, said, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts.
And what? The whole earth is full of his glory. His train fills the temple. The whole earth is filled with his glory. Here’s Jesus standing with a robe down to his foot in all of his glory as he will appear forever by the throne of God.
Oh, what a sight that is. And shouldn’t we take this in its full sense, its whole sense, and that is Jesus will always be clothed this way? There is no nakedness in heaven, folks.
There is none of that before heaven, just because heaven and earth are passed away here. Every time we see God the Father, is he not clothed the way Isaiah describes him? And every time we see Jesus, is it not the same way? And every time we see angels, isn’t it this way? As a matter of fact, Matthew records it at the tomb after Jesus had risen. They went and they saw an angel there, and his countenance was like lightning and his raiment white as snow.
And Mark records it this way. Entering into the sepulchre, they saw a young man sitting on the right side clothed in a long white garment. And they were afraid. And isn’t that the way it is around the throne of God?
Yes, it is. And how will saints appear around the throne of God? Don’t they appear the same way? Listen to Revelation 19. When he comes back in glory in the heavens, he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood. His name is called the Word of God.
And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses clothed in fine linen, white and clean. And so we will take this as it is too. That means this is the way we will be clothed. And when we appear before the throne of God, we will be fully clothed because he is holy, holy, holy.
Now, nakedness often appears in the Scripture symbolically, and even to the church at Laodicea, we’ve read this many times in chapter 3, who thought that they had everything and God says in verse 18, By of me gold tried in the fire that thou mayest be rich and white raiment that thou mayest be clothed and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear. Well, I think he’s talking about their sins. He’s talking about their moral condition. And the Bible often says that. But if the reality is not true, the symbol cannot be true. If the reality is not that we should be clothed before God, then how can he use such a symbol to talk about clothing the nakedness of our moral shame? So here’s the Lord Jesus Christ clothed in a garment down to his, his foot, not only clothed physically with a robe, which he will wear forever, but clothed in the righteousness, the holiness of God, which he will wear forever, his royal dignity.
And fourthly, folks, Jesus in his priestly intercession, because there’s one more thing that he has on and that is he is Gert about the paps with a golden girdle. In that language, as we understand it from years ago, means wrapped about the chest with a golden sash. We might, we might call this girdle a sash. You know that word appears often in the scripture. And often the girdle is the belt, even on the armor of God in Ephesians 6. It had a girdle or a belt.
And usually of course the belt is worn around the midsection and when it’s worn lower around the waist it has to do with serving. It has to do with a servant or with someone who had gird up their loins and serve. But when it’s worn higher, when it’s worn around the chest it means that the heart is covered and it is a priestly thing.
It means dignity, it means privilege, it means glory and beauty as a matter of fact. If you’ll write down and turn to later or if you’d like to turn to Exodus 28 you will see the description of the High Priest’s robes. And in verse 2 it says, here he is saying to Moses, Thou shalt make holy garments for Aaron thy brother for glory and beauty. You make them for the glory of God and you make them beautiful.
I mean as beautiful as they can make it. And in verse 8 it says, and the curious girdle, that is this sash that the High Priest wore around his chest, the curious girdle. And I was curious about that word, curious. And what it means is to be embroidered. The word curious in that way means to be embroidered. So listen, the curious girdle of the effed, which is upon it shall be of the same according to the work thereof, even of gold, of blue and purple and scarlet and fine twined linen. Golden, meaning woven and into the girdle or the sash of the High Priest was woven golden threads and other threads. But our High Priest, the Lord Jesus Christ is wearing a girdle or a sash that is all of gold and not just twined with gold like the human priests of the Old Testament had to wear, but all of gold. And everything in the tabernacle was made according to a pattern that was given to Moses from heaven and so Jesus, the right hand of God wearing this golden sash, he commanded Moses to make one for Aaron that at least had gold sewn into it. And remember that it’s made for glory and beauty.
I like that expression in Exodus 28, it’s expressed twice in that chapter. What we do for God folks ought to be done with glory and with beauty. For the glory of God and also with all of the beauty, the talent, the effort that we can put into it. We do it for glory and beauty. Sometimes we’re a little better at the glory than we are the beauty. Sometimes we’re a little better at the beauty than we are for the glory.
But we have patience with one another and we help one another to achieve in both of these areas. A little Sunday school child who’s given a sheet of paper with an outline of the face of Jesus on it and he goes to color on that sheet can sure do it for the glory of God, although the beauty may be far lacking. And a Rembrandt can paint the face of Jesus far better than a Sunday school child, but he may not paint it with the same glory as that child can paint it. But we’re to do it with both. We’re not to be slackened either. We’re supposed to be sometimes, you know, we sing our songs and we stand and sing and sometimes we sing beautifully, but we’re not thinking of giving God the glory for what we’re singing and then it’s done for beauty, but not for glory. And sometimes some of us can just kind of bellow out a bunch of sounds and it’s for the glory of God, though the person next to us may not think so much of the beauty of it, right?
But with whatever we have in us and whatever talent God has put on us and whatever gifts he has bestowed upon us, let us use them all to the glory and the beauty of God in every way that we can. As we see the royal dignity of the Son of God and the priestly intercession of the Son of God in such royalty that his train fills the temple in the heavenly places and the whole earth is spread with his glory, then let’s come before him like that, acceptably with reverence and godly fear, because our God is also a consuming fire. This Jesus that John sees here is ever interceding for you.
When John saw him in 95 A.D. folks, he had been interceding for half a century. He had already been before the throne and he is pleading every sinner, begging sinners to come to him, having long suffering, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. Let me remind you of what Hebrews says, seeing then we have a great high priest that is passed into the heavens. Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession.
That was written in 70 A.D. and the writer has already said who is passed into the heavens. So let’s hold fast our profession. Let us therefore come boldly under the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time.
of need. Wherefore, he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them. And having therefore brother and boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which he have consecrated for us through the veil that is to say his flesh, having a high priest over the house of God who is in the midst of the churches, who is the head of the church, who is the vine and we are the branches, he is over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering because he is faithful to the promised and let us consider one another to provoke unto love and good works. There Jesus saves me and keeps me clean, glory to his name. We are washed in our conscience and we are washed in on you and learn of me from my yoke is easy, my burden is light. You know we come to the Lord in our physical existence with our mind that can only comprehend so much and our lives that fail before him often because we have not been glorified yet.
We have, we are still in this flesh, we still have a long way to go. Life can be pretty just from Oregon and ended up in Kansas City and now she has a five month old child and the boyfriend is gone and life has been pretty rough to her. I am wondering where she can turn next. You know I was glad to be able to say and she grew up as a Sunday school child. She was in church as a little girl and I was glad to be able to say the same Jesus is interceding for you and the same one that you say you put your faith and trust in still claims you as his own and you need to come back and run to him and put your arms around him and say this is where I need to be and if I am at the side of Jesus then other things will work out right and I was glad that I could tell her that.
You know what I can say from these four things that we have learned, four promises. Number one, Jesus is with you. He is in the midst of his church. He is in the midst of your heart.
It’s not wrong for a little child to say Jesus come into my heart. He’s in the midst of us. He’s in us and Jesus knows your pain.
A politician can’t really say that but Jesus can. He knows your pain. He knows what has happened.
He knows you intimately. He is the God, the Son of Man and Jesus can bring us to the Father’s throne. He has the ability to bring us to God and to present us there faultless before his throne and Jesus will ever intercede for us. He will never leave us nor forsake us.
He will be with us forever. Aren’t those wonderful promises from God’s Word? We ought then folks when we see our own sin to fall on our face before him and say Lord forgive me, restore me, help me and cause me to walk in a way that would glorify you. We ought to be doing that daily. We ought to be every evening, every morning kneeling before him saying Lord I need this. Lord use this life to be like you. Be holy for I am holy. No excuses.
Always striving to be like him. We ought to fall on our face and ask the Lord to help us do those things. So I want us to stand if you will.
We will sing a song of invitation. You know your heart before him. You know how you stand before him and maybe you need to use this altar this morning. Maybe you need to just bow your head and pray before you or as you sing you do and respond the way God wants you to this morning. Let’s pray to him. Now Father as we stand before you we do not take it for granted that you are in our midst. We don’t take it lightly that the Holy Spirit lives in the holy of holies of our heart.
Father we praise you that before the Father’s throne even this very moment you are interceding for us. There are broken hearts here today, broken lives. There are disappointed people.
There are some hurting in body and soul. And Father they need your help and perhaps even today there’s someone here that doesn’t even know you as Savior that needs to come to Jesus while he knows the Spirit is drawing him and while he’s thinking of these things and accept you as Savior may that be your will today. And so Father as we begin to sing may we sing the truth of our heart and our mind and our conscience. Help us to do these things. Father whatever we need draw us to that purpose today and help us Father to walk with you from this moment on and we’ll thank you for it. In Jesus name amen. We’re going to turn to page 297 only trust him we know this song well. As we’re singing you may come and kneel here at the front if you’d like to use this altered
Maybe sinners wish He would always be that way, but He will be the Lord of Lords and King of Kings. This isn’t Matthew, this is the book of Revelation, as we see Him now standing before John. I was thinking of John’s acquaintance with Jesus. You know, John has known Jesus a long time.
If this is 95 A.D., Jesus died in 32, 33 A.D. But even before that, if you remember a little of your New Testament history, that He knew Him as family. As a matter of fact, the mother of Jesus and the mother of James and John were sisters, if you remember, that is, Salome was James and John’s mother, and Mary were sisters. As a matter of fact, there was a third sister in that family, her name was also Mary, not unusual in those days to name both daughters by the name Mary. She married a man named Cleopas, if you remember, who also had a son named James, he’s called the less, and Joseph. So Mary and Mary and Salome all had sons, and they all had a son named James.
So James, come if you will. Well, also you remember that Mary, after Jesus, had boys named Jude and James, and they wrote books of the Bible, and Joseph and Simon, and Matthew 13 says, and his sisters, and we don’t even know how many sisters Mary and Joseph had. So, believe it or not, John and Jesus were acquainted with each other, no doubt, by family, long before they began serving together.
Interesting, isn’t it? Then John knew Jesus as a disciple. He had followed John the Baptist for a while, because John was calling righteous people to repentance and baptizing them, and John followed, and James. And they were glad to until one day, Jesus came walking by, but now John points out Jesus, his cousin, their cousin, as the lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world.
And I think from that moment on, the relationship between Jesus and these boys was far different. And now they follow him as a disciple, leaving the fishing business, leaving what they were doing, and follow him. Then they knew him as a witness, because after Jesus died, and Jesus rose from the dead, and of course, John, Mary was committed to John’s care and keeping. But when Jesus rose from the dead, and now they see him as the risen Lord, and they are committed to him as witnesses of these things. And they go throughout the book of Acts, and wherever they go, they give testimony to the fact that Jesus died and rose again.
But now, John calls himself a servant in verse one, and throughout this chapter. And you might say, now he knows him in his glorified Christophany. A Christophany is the appearance of Christ.
We even have those in the Old Testament as the Son of God, and as the Lord appeared in the Old Testament. Now, of course, he appears here on the aisle of Patmos, and he appears in his glory. He appears in the way that after he had gone and presented himself to the Father, and is sitting at the right hand of the Father, making intercession for us, John sees him this way. Just imagine in the life of John all that he knew, the changes that he had seen and gone through in those years.
Quite amazing. John now sees him and describes him as he is now, folks. In the year 2009, he is still this way, the way John is describing him, at the right hand of the Father, glorified, interceding for us. Remember these verses in your New Testament. John writes in 1 John 3, 2, Beloved, now are we the sons of God. It doth not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.
We’re not even sure what that’s going to be. We just know that when he comes again, somehow he’ll make us in a way that we can exist with him in this glorified state and we will ever be with the Lord. Paul said, wherefore henceforth, know we no man after the flesh.
Yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more. No more going back to those days. No more going back to those simple days in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Now he will exist like this for eternity. Hebrews 928, so Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many and unto them that looked for him.
Shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation? No more sin. No more corruption in our lives.
No more chance of backsliding falling away. We will forever be with him. When Christ who is our life shall appear, then shall you be with him. Of what heaven will be like, a few tidbits here and there thrown out to us to make us hungry and thirsty for those things. But I don’t even think we know what we will want to think about Jesus when we get to heaven. You know, right now we say, well, I want heaven to be like this. You know, when I see Jesus, I kind of want it to be like this. And we’re thinking totally humanly.
We have no idea how we will think and how we will be affected when we see those things. As a matter of fact, I thought, you know, maybe most of the average Christian’s theology about heaven and hell probably comes from the jokes that he hears, right? You know, you heard about the guy who died and went to heaven, you know, and his name was St. Peter was at the gate.
The Bible nowhere says that that’s the case, you know, and couldn’t find his name on the list and says, I want to see my lawyer and Peter says, well, you won’t find any lawyers up here. You’ll have to take the elevator and go to the bottom floor. You know, something like that. And that’s where we get our idea of what heaven and hell is like, I think. We, we get glimpses of the reality of it here in the scriptures. And yet we are told this when we’re there, folks, and when we see Jesus like this and when we see him in the throne room of God, oh, it will be grand and we will love it. And if we think, oh, I don’t know if I could stand at being like that for eternity and doing those things for eternity. That’s because you can only think humanly now.
Some day we will think even as he thinks. You know, I used to think when I was young, I didn’t want to grow old, you know, so I woke up not long ago and found out I’m too old to die young, you know, but I, but you know, when you’re strong and young and you think, boy, you know, I don’t know what it would be like to be so old, you know, you have your 40th birthday, you know, on a 40th birthday when they bury, you know, you have all that black stuff around you and, and you’re so old and everything. And now I think back 40, I remember having a birthday about like 40 one time.
But you know what? Even though when you’re young, you think, oh, I don’t want to grow old. I don’t want to get like that. Folks, I don’t know about you, but even at this stage in my life, I don’t want to go back either. You know, yeah, you were young, you thought a certain way, but knowing what I know right now and the more you learn about heaven and the more you learn about the Lord, I don’t want to go back. I want to go forward. I want, I want to go on. And the closer I get to heaven, the better it will be for me.
This year I will, I’ll turn 59. And, you know, I have, when I was in third grade, I have this one memory of something that happened in third grade. Come to think of it, maybe the only thing I can remember through one grade, one through eight, but I remember I was in third grade and over Christmas and New Year, the New Year, we turned from 1958 to 1959. And for some reason I remember the first day back in class in 1959 and the teacher always had the habit of writing the date on the chalkboard, you know. She came in and wrote 1950 and she went nine and the tail of the nine went all the way down the blackboard.
And it’s a good thing she did because again, I wouldn’t have remembered anything from third grade, but I remember, I remember that. So I’m thinking, 1959, maybe I’ll stretch it out as far, you know, 59 years old as far as I can get, you know, like we did at 39 or whatever. Now, when we get close to the Lord, we’re anxious to see Him.
Let the time go by. Let Him come. Even so come quickly, Lord Jesus, John said. Now, John sees Jesus.
here among the candlesticks. And seeing Him this way gives us four attributes or pictures or things about Jesus that He wants us to know. So back to verse 13, it says, first, in the midst of the seven candles, let me back up to verse 12, I turned to see the voice that spake with me, remember, from last week. Being turned, I saw seven golden candlesticks and now 13. In the midst of the seven candlesticks, is one likened to the Son of Man. First of all, we have this glimpse or this knowledge of His divine presence.
He is in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks. In the middle, of course, the word midst means. Do you remember, Matthew 1820, where two or three are gathered together in my name? There am I in the midst of them.
In the middle, I am present with them. Or Jesus saying, go you therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you and lo, I am with you always. I am in your midst. Jesus is here today. He meets with His church.
He was among the candlesticks then. He does it today and even unto the end of the world or the end of the age, His presence is here. You know, we often pray simply in our own language when we’re praying for someone and we’ll say, Lord, be with that person. They’re in the hospital. Lord, be with them. And you know, we stop and think sometimes and say, I wish I could think of a better word or I wish I could say something a little more descriptive of what’s in my heart, but you know what? Jesus is with us and He’s with them.
And it’s a good thing to pray and ask for all. Does it mean just space? Jesus is here in some physical sense. Does it mean influence? His influence is among us. His power is here among us. His word is here and He is the living word.
This is the written word and so where the word goes, it doesn’t return void. His Holy Spirit is everywhere as He is omnipresent. I think all of those things are true. Jesus is in the midst in those ways and many, many more that we have. Now we know that there is a body in heaven, folks. Jesus’ body is at the right hand of the Father. Did He not come out of the grave bodily? Didn’t He ascend back into heaven bodily?
Yes, He did. At the right hand of the Father there is body, soul, and spirit where it should be where He is designed to be. Then how is He present among the churches?
Well, be illustrated like this. If I’m standing here and I’m speaking to you in this church today, many pastors are doing the same thing. And am I present here in this church? I am present here. You are present here.
Am I present to someone sitting on the front row? Terry is listening. Okay, I’m present and he’s listening. If I am present in this room to someone on the front row, am I present to someone sitting on the back row? Am I present in the room to them also? Or if someone were at the back row of the balcony, would I be present with them?
Yes, that’s true. I’m present wherever you are in this room. Now, suppose it is not I, but it is the Lord Jesus Christ and He is, we are saying He is present here.
If it’s the risen Christ, then the room begins to expand drastically because not only is He present here in this room, He’s present in Kansas City. He’s present in the United States of America. He is present in the world, is He not? Because He is divine, He’s omnipresent, He is God. He is present, this is His creation. The world is His footstool. Is He present in the universe?
Yes. Is He present in heaven and hell? Psalm 139 says, wither shall I go from thy spirit, wither shall I flee from thy presence. If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there. If I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the earth, even there shall thy hand lead me and thy right hand shall hold me. He is in all of the world and present wherever, and He can say, I am in the midst of the churches, and we can say He is here with us today, though we know, of course, He’s at the right hand of the Father. You know, we might say, the law is always with us.
us. You know you’ll drive out of here today and you’ll come down to the corner and there will be a red sign there and you’ll do what? You’ll stop. Why? Because there’s a policeman sitting at the corner? Well I hope you will if he is there.
But I hope you will if he’s not there. Because the law is present there. The law is present even when the symbol of the law is not there.
It is everywhere just like Jesus and his law and his power is everywhere. Back in Fort Collins for a while there they passed a law that they could take a picture of you going down the road and so they had the radar gun and a camera on it and didn’t even have to have a patrolman there. And you might be going down the street somewhere and all of a sudden you realize in the back of a little blazer parked beside the road a flash went off because they were watching you coming down the street and in about two days you got this nice souvenir in the mail with your picture behind the wheel and the license plate of your car and a little note that said 40 and a 35 mile an hour zone.
U.S. whatever and people would hang those on their visors you know because they got souvenir from I think my kids all had souvenirs from the Fort Collins Police Department you know. Yeah not very often but the law is always near us and whether the Lord catches us as we say whether the Lord chastises us or punishes us he is always in our midst whether we realize it whether we think about it whether we’re going too fast or too slow he is always there. But you know what the second coming of Christ is coming and we’re going to be like John was on the Isle of Patmos we’re going to see him as he is no longer in a glass darkly but then face to face and I reckon then that the sufferings of this present world are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us. We stand before the Father so his divine presence is talked about here and yet here 2000 years later he is still in the midst of his churches. Secondly his everlasting humanity is mentioned here his divine presence and his everlasting humanity in the midst of the seven churches was one like unto the Son of man.
You know that this was Jesus’ favorite expression for himself and though he was always the Son of God from eternity he was always God he became the Son of man and he became the Son of man for us for purposes of redemption had he just remained the Son of God and never taken upon himself the human form he would never have died for our sins and he would never be the Savior and so Jesus almost always referred to himself as the Son of man and here the emphasis then when John sees him among the churches to us is that he is the Son of man he’s our Savior he’s the God man he’s the one that died for us he is one like unto remember that word it means similar it means the similitude it’s the word Homo eon and remember he telling you that back in then in Nicaea in 325 AD there was a man named Athanasius who believed in in the deity of Jesus Christ that he was always God and then there was a man named Arius who denied that he was God denied that he was deity and they had a debate and they debated whether he was Homo Useus the same as God or Homo E. Useus similar to God and the difference in their two arguments boiled down to one little iota in the middle of the word is he the same as God or Homo E. Useus similar to God yes there was it did make one iota’s worth of a difference and Athanasius won that debate because he showed from the scriptures of course that he was God but in the human sense when we look at him then he became man it would have been right to argue that way he became man you remember Philippians 2 let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus who being in the form of God thought it not robbery to be equal with God but made himself of no reputation took upon him the form of a servant was made in the likeness of men the same word is here like unto the son of man made in the likeness of men and being found in fashion as a man schema the schematic of a man he humbled himself and became obedient unto death even the death of the cross and so though he was fully man and that body is in heaven today body soul and spirit he became that for you and me son of man praise God that the son of God became the son of man that the sons of men might become the sons of God And we can then become children of God because He became the Son of man. And so the Bible calls Him the last Adam. There was the first Adam who made this human race. And then the last Adam, the second Adam He’s called, who made a new creation. And that is those who are born a second time by this man and become part of His family, then become part of the family of to be at the right hand of the Father, forever making intercession for us.
Joseph Seiss, and I noticed in the last song that we sang this morning, his name was at the top of that song. What a great prophetic writer he was. He said, it is a mischievous error to suppose that the Son of God’s assumption of human nature was only for the immediate private end of redemption of fallen man, a mere phenomenon in the Godhead, ever busy in the administration of things. A simple act of like which has never been before may never be again.
No, it is the abiding miracle of eternity. Forever we can behold the scars in His hand. Forever He will have that scar in His side. Forever He will be the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world.
What a wonderful miracle that was. So His divine name is the Son of God. His Jewish name was the Son of David. But we might say His racial name is the Son of Man. What race is He of? He’s of the human race.
He is the Son of Man. Adam had a race. He was the head of a fallen race. But Jesus came as the second Adam and became the head of a new race. And when you place your faith and trust in Him, you take on His name and His family and you become part of that new humanity.
What a wonderful thing that is. There is a human being in heaven right now. Now you know that the spirits of our loved ones and of all saints are in heaven, but their bodies are in the grave.
We learned that last Sunday night. You want to see David’s body go down to the city of David and look in his sepulcher. You’ll find the bones of David there if you want to find them. You’ll find the bones of John, if you could, find them somewhere. But they’re somewhere. But you won’t find the bones and you won’t find the body of Jesus Christ because in heaven there is one body, one human body, the Son of Man at the right hand of the Father even now.
Showing His scars, showing His redemption for us. And you know what? Their body, soul and spirit, He’s arranged for all of His relatives to come. You know how it is when the relatives come home. You know, you have a good time in the Father’s house.
Well, our older brother, if you will, has gone on to heaven and he is there making ready things for his whole family when they come home. I may have told this story before, but it’s a true story that back in the early part of this, or at the turn of the last century actually, D.L. Moody was in Denver to preach at a great meeting. And there was a young boy, 12 years of age, and he wanted to hear Moody. He just had that desire, but he had to go down there by himself. When he got there, people were standing outside and they couldn’t get in and he was so small he couldn’t squeeze his way in and he was standing outside very disappointed. And about that time, this kind of little fat, frumpy man walked up and said, young man, would you like to go in? And he says, oh yes, I’d really like to. He says, grab ahold of my coat tail. And he grabbed ahold of that man’s coat tail and in he went behind him and that man kept going right down the aisle all the way to the front row and sat down and sat the boy there and the man was D.L.
Moody himself. And he sat there and enjoyed it. And that young man became one of the sons of man. I will go into the father’s house and I will take you with me.
And that’s exactly what he intends to do. Now quickly, also, number three, not only is divine presence in his everlasting humanity, but thirdly, Jesus in his royal dignity, garment down to the foot. He’s clothed with a garment. Do you know that a garment in this sense denotes royalty?
It denotes dignity. As a matter of fact, we usually call this his train, you remember. And whether a queen or a king with the long flowing robes, this was the train.
And the length of that robe kind of depends on the importance of that person. Now in the UK where we go, we see lots of pictures of the coronations of kings and queens. And if you go with me there next month to in May, we’ll go to Westminster Abbey and you’ll see where all of the queens since 1000 AD and the kings were coronated.
And you see these pictures, long robes walking down these aisles and all that goes with it. Right? Why? Because it’s the king or because it’s the queen. Now in the United States, because we don’t have kings and queens, we don’t have such things happening though that may change quickly. But we’re not supposed to have kings.
So maybe the closest thing we come to seeing a site like this is with our court system and our Supreme Court justices, for example, when there’s an inauguration, when there’s a state of the union address and everyone else is in coat and tie, here are these men in their robes, in their long robes. And why? Because it denotes royalty, dignity, properly so. These are judges. These are Supreme Court judges.
And even lesser judges still wear their coats and so forth. What a fantastic thing it is then to see Jesus this way. May I remind you of Isaiah 6. In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne high and lifted up.
And what? His train filled the temple. And above it stood the seraphim. Each had six wings.
With twain or two, he covered his face. So holy is this site. The angels do not dare to lift their sight. With twain or two, he covered his feet because if his feet are uncovered, they must be covered before the holy one on the throne. And with two, he did fly. And one cried unto the Lord, and the other cried unto the Lord, and the other cried unto another, said, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts.
And what? The whole earth is full of his glory. His train fills the temple. The whole earth is filled with his glory. Here’s Jesus standing with a robe down to his foot in all of his glory as he will appear forever by the throne of God.
Oh, what a sight that is. And shouldn’t we take this in its full sense, its whole sense, and that is Jesus will always be clothed this way? There is no nakedness in heaven, folks.
There is none of that before heaven, just because heaven and earth are passed away here. Every time we see God the Father, is he not clothed the way Isaiah describes him? And every time we see Jesus, is it not the same way? And every time we see angels, isn’t it this way? As a matter of fact, Matthew records it at the tomb after Jesus had risen. They went and they saw an angel there, and his countenance was like lightning and his raiment white as snow.
And Mark records it this way. Entering into the sepulchre, they saw a young man sitting on the right side clothed in a long white garment. And they were afraid. And isn’t that the way it is around the throne of God?
Yes, it is. And how will saints appear around the throne of God? Don’t they appear the same way? Listen to Revelation 19. When he comes back in glory in the heavens, he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood. His name is called the Word of God.
And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses clothed in fine linen, white and clean. And so we will take this as it is too. That means this is the way we will be clothed. And when we appear before the throne of God, we will be fully clothed because he is holy, holy, holy.
Now, nakedness often appears in the Scripture symbolically, and even to the church at Laodicea, we’ve read this many times in chapter 3, who thought that they had everything and God says in verse 18, By of me gold tried in the fire that thou mayest be rich and white raiment that thou mayest be clothed and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear. Well, I think he’s talking about their sins. He’s talking about their moral condition. And the Bible often says that. But if the reality is not true, the symbol cannot be true. If the reality is not that we should be clothed before God, then how can he use such a symbol to talk about clothing the nakedness of our moral shame? So here’s the Lord Jesus Christ clothed in a garment down to his, his foot, not only clothed physically with a robe, which he will wear forever, but clothed in the righteousness, the holiness of God, which he will wear forever, his royal dignity.
And fourthly, folks, Jesus in his priestly intercession, because there’s one more thing that he has on and that is he is Gert about the paps with a golden girdle. In that language, as we understand it from years ago, means wrapped about the chest with a golden sash. We might, we might call this girdle a sash. You know that word appears often in the scripture. And often the girdle is the belt, even on the armor of God in Ephesians 6. It had a girdle or a belt.
And usually of course the belt is worn around the midsection and when it’s worn lower around the waist it has to do with serving. It has to do with a servant or with someone who had gird up their loins and serve. But when it’s worn higher, when it’s worn around the chest it means that the heart is covered and it is a priestly thing.
It means dignity, it means privilege, it means glory and beauty as a matter of fact. If you’ll write down and turn to later or if you’d like to turn to Exodus 28 you will see the description of the High Priest’s robes. And in verse 2 it says, here he is saying to Moses, Thou shalt make holy garments for Aaron thy brother for glory and beauty. You make them for the glory of God and you make them beautiful.
I mean as beautiful as they can make it. And in verse 8 it says, and the curious girdle, that is this sash that the High Priest wore around his chest, the curious girdle. And I was curious about that word, curious. And what it means is to be embroidered. The word curious in that way means to be embroidered. So listen, the curious girdle of the effed, which is upon it shall be of the same according to the work thereof, even of gold, of blue and purple and scarlet and fine twined linen. Golden, meaning woven and into the girdle or the sash of the High Priest was woven golden threads and other threads. But our High Priest, the Lord Jesus Christ is wearing a girdle or a sash that is all of gold and not just twined with gold like the human priests of the Old Testament had to wear, but all of gold. And everything in the tabernacle was made according to a pattern that was given to Moses from heaven and so Jesus, the right hand of God wearing this golden sash, he commanded Moses to make one for Aaron that at least had gold sewn into it. And remember that it’s made for glory and beauty.
I like that expression in Exodus 28, it’s expressed twice in that chapter. What we do for God folks ought to be done with glory and with beauty. For the glory of God and also with all of the beauty, the talent, the effort that we can put into it. We do it for glory and beauty. Sometimes we’re a little better at the glory than we are the beauty. Sometimes we’re a little better at the beauty than we are for the glory.
But we have patience with one another and we help one another to achieve in both of these areas. A little Sunday school child who’s given a sheet of paper with an outline of the face of Jesus on it and he goes to color on that sheet can sure do it for the glory of God, although the beauty may be far lacking. And a Rembrandt can paint the face of Jesus far better than a Sunday school child, but he may not paint it with the same glory as that child can paint it. But we’re to do it with both. We’re not to be slackened either. We’re supposed to be sometimes, you know, we sing our songs and we stand and sing and sometimes we sing beautifully, but we’re not thinking of giving God the glory for what we’re singing and then it’s done for beauty, but not for glory. And sometimes some of us can just kind of bellow out a bunch of sounds and it’s for the glory of God, though the person next to us may not think so much of the beauty of it, right?
But with whatever we have in us and whatever talent God has put on us and whatever gifts he has bestowed upon us, let us use them all to the glory and the beauty of God in every way that we can. As we see the royal dignity of the Son of God and the priestly intercession of the Son of God in such royalty that his train fills the temple in the heavenly places and the whole earth is spread with his glory, then let’s come before him like that, acceptably with reverence and godly fear, because our God is also a consuming fire. This Jesus that John sees here is ever interceding for you.
When John saw him in 95 A.D. folks, he had been interceding for half a century. He had already been before the throne and he is pleading every sinner, begging sinners to come to him, having long suffering, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. Let me remind you of what Hebrews says, seeing then we have a great high priest that is passed into the heavens. Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession.
That was written in 70 A.D. and the writer has already said who is passed into the heavens. So let’s hold fast our profession. Let us therefore come boldly under the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time.
of need. Wherefore, he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them. And having therefore brother and boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which he have consecrated for us through the veil that is to say his flesh, having a high priest over the house of God who is in the midst of the churches, who is the head of the church, who is the vine and we are the branches, he is over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering because he is faithful to the promised and let us consider one another to provoke unto love and good works. There Jesus saves me and keeps me clean, glory to his name. We are washed in our conscience and we are washed in on you and learn of me from my yoke is easy, my burden is light. You know we come to the Lord in our physical existence with our mind that can only comprehend so much and our lives that fail before him often because we have not been glorified yet.
We have, we are still in this flesh, we still have a long way to go. Life can be pretty just from Oregon and ended up in Kansas City and now she has a five month old child and the boyfriend is gone and life has been pretty rough to her. I am wondering where she can turn next. You know I was glad to be able to say and she grew up as a Sunday school child. She was in church as a little girl and I was glad to be able to say the same Jesus is interceding for you and the same one that you say you put your faith and trust in still claims you as his own and you need to come back and run to him and put your arms around him and say this is where I need to be and if I am at the side of Jesus then other things will work out right and I was glad that I could tell her that.
You know what I can say from these four things that we have learned, four promises. Number one, Jesus is with you. He is in the midst of his church. He is in the midst of your heart.
It’s not wrong for a little child to say Jesus come into my heart. He’s in the midst of us. He’s in us and Jesus knows your pain.
A politician can’t really say that but Jesus can. He knows your pain. He knows what has happened.
He knows you intimately. He is the God, the Son of Man and Jesus can bring us to the Father’s throne. He has the ability to bring us to God and to present us there faultless before his throne and Jesus will ever intercede for us. He will never leave us nor forsake us.
He will be with us forever. Aren’t those wonderful promises from God’s Word? We ought then folks when we see our own sin to fall on our face before him and say Lord forgive me, restore me, help me and cause me to walk in a way that would glorify you. We ought to be doing that daily. We ought to be every evening, every morning kneeling before him saying Lord I need this. Lord use this life to be like you. Be holy for I am holy. No excuses.
Always striving to be like him. We ought to fall on our face and ask the Lord to help us do those things. So I want us to stand if you will.
We will sing a song of invitation. You know your heart before him. You know how you stand before him and maybe you need to use this altar this morning. Maybe you need to just bow your head and pray before you or as you sing you do and respond the way God wants you to this morning. Let’s pray to him. Now Father as we stand before you we do not take it for granted that you are in our midst. We don’t take it lightly that the Holy Spirit lives in the holy of holies of our heart.
Father we praise you that before the Father’s throne even this very moment you are interceding for us. There are broken hearts here today, broken lives. There are disappointed people.
There are some hurting in body and soul. And Father they need your help and perhaps even today there’s someone here that doesn’t even know you as Savior that needs to come to Jesus while he knows the Spirit is drawing him and while he’s thinking of these things and accept you as Savior may that be your will today. And so Father as we begin to sing may we sing the truth of our heart and our mind and our conscience. Help us to do these things. Father whatever we need draw us to that purpose today and help us Father to walk with you from this moment on and we’ll thank you for it. In Jesus name amen. We’re going to turn to page 297 only trust him we know this song well. As we’re singing you may come and kneel here at the front if you’d like to use this altered
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