But noticing many other things that go with these verses, we hope, this is the revelation that God gave to Jesus, who gave to His angel, who gave to John, who gave to us. The revelation is an opening. It’s a revealing.
It’s not a closing. It’s not a mystery. These things are given to us to understand.
We’re fallible creatures that are wrong a lot of the time. My pastor that I grew up with said he was traveling home one time. He had been speaking somewhere and his wife heard him.
On the way home, things were kind of quiet in the car. She said, you know, John, you’re wrong about two-thirds of the time. And he said, well, you know, I don’t know any major league ball player who wouldn’t like to be batting 333. So you know, for most of us, if we can bat that, we’re okay. But God has given us His word to read, right, and to understand.
And we have it, and that is a blessing. We have here in this verse eight an interesting statement. This I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end.
Sayeth the Lord. And as David read to us, the other places in this chapter where we have, and probably in your Bible in red letters, right? I am Alpha and Omega in verse 11, and I am the first and the last in verse 17 and verse 18.
These are fantastic statements when you think about it. And in verse eight, we really only have two choices as to who the speaker might be here. And there are those who have thought that this would be God the Father speaking, because He says He is the Almighty.
But of course, we have it in red letters, not that those were any, you know, John didn’t have red ink when he was writing this. But I think that that is correct. And that is the other choice. And I think by far the more clearer and greater choice is that this is the Lord Jesus Christ speaking. There is no doubt about that in verse 11 or verse 17 or verse 18. And I think that in verse 8 also, we have to understand that this is the Lord Jesus Christ.
He is the only speaker here. God the Father does not speak in these chapters at all. The descriptions where it is plain that it is the Lord Jesus Christ, also we have these characteristics in verse 8. And even of that phrase, the Almighty, Linsky, I think a great Lutheran commentator, by the way, said, this is a designation of Christ by Christ, and it is never used by the Father as a designation of Himself. You never have God saying this of Himself. It’s said of Him by His servants, by His angels and others. But for Christ to often say what He is the first and the last in these things and saying that He is the Almighty, I think that’s exactly what this is. Now if we’re right about that, which I think obviously we are, which in 2,000 years of church history, as I’ve scanned the men who have read that, this is by far what we as the Church of Jesus Christ have said. This is Jesus Christ saying He is the Matthew Henry, the old great Puritan, by the way, writer, who said, here our Lord Jesus justly accepts the same honor and power that is ascribed to the Father in verse 4. He is the Begotten Almighty. He is the eternal and unchangeable one, and surely whoever presumes to blot out one character of the name of Christ deserves to have His name blotted out of the book of life. John Walbert, somebody we all read who’s one of our contemporaries, said, if no more had been written than that contained in this introductory portion of chapter 1, it would have constituted a tremendous restatement of the person and work of Christ such as found in no other place in Scripture. So this is the Lord Jesus Christ. I want you to notice that He says I am the Lord. And I want you to turn with me, if you will, for a few minutes all the way back to the beginning of your Bible, but to the book of Exodus, the second book of the Bible.
And chapter 3. And you’ll remember where this title came from that He is the Lord. When Moses had fled Egypt and He was on the backside of the desert and He met God at a burning bush in chapter 3, verse 2, describes that bush. And then as God brings Him to stand before Him with His shoes off on holy ground, He We find in verse 13 that Moses said unto God, Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you, and they shall say to me, What is his name?
What shall I say unto them? And God said unto Moses, I am that I am. And he said, Thou shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I am hath sent me unto you. In verse 15, God said moreover unto Moses, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, The Lord God of your fathers. The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, hath sent me unto you. This is my name forever. And this is my memorial unto all generations.
When he adds in verse 15, The Lord God, he is adding the name I am to the word God. Now, I’ve taught on this sometimes, and you probably have heard it many times from different places. I am that I am is the simplest statement of existence that we can say.
We call it the 2B verb. I am. I just, I am. And God is saying to Moses, I exist. I have always existed. I always will exist. And so I want you to take the statement of my existence, I am, and pronounce it to the children of Israel. And when you pronounce it, you will say Yahweh. In the language that he was speaking, you will say when you say I am, you will say Yahweh.
Now we translate it for our English into L-O-R-D. And when you see it in our English, in the capital letters capital L and capital O-R-D, you are seeing that exact same Hebrew expression. I am or Yahweh. And if you will go with me to chapter six of Exodus also, you’ll see something further that’s interesting. In chapter six, verse two, God spake unto Moses and said unto him, I am the Lord. Now very literally, I am the I am. I am Yahweh. And I appeared unto Abraham and Isaac and Jacob by the name of God Almighty. But by my name, I am Yahweh. And sometimes we have it, Jehovah, exactly the same Hebrew word.
The same expression was I not known to them, but now I am. And so Yahweh or Jehovah, and as we say it, Lord, is the eternal God who has always existed. And this is his name, I am. I am the Lord.
I am the I am. And that’s exactly what the scripture means when it uses this expression. How many times did we read it in Revelation one? Jesus said, I am the first and the last.
I am the beginning and the ending. One other stop on your way back to Revelation is in John chapter eight, if you will, in the Gospel of John chapter eight. And remember these words, that Jesus in Jerusalem, speaking with the leaders of the nation who had a hard time understanding that this Galilean claimed to be Messiah, they understood that when Messiah comes, he will be the Almighty. He will be God in the flesh, Emmanuel God with us, but they had a hard time understanding that Jesus was that person. So in verse 24 of John eight, he says to them, I said therefore unto you, you shall die in your sins for if you believe not that I am he, you shall die in your sins. Now you notice that expression I am he, in our Greek language from the New Testament, it says I am. Ego, which is like we say ego, I, and Amy, which is I am. And so Jesus is saying to them, if you do not understand that I, I am, you will die in your sins. You have to understand that God has become flesh, God has become man, that Jesus Christ is the eternal God here to die for your sins.
They had a hard time with that. In verse 42, he said unto them, if God were your father, you would love me. I proceeded forth and came from God, neither came I of myself, but he sent me.
We’ll come back to that concept in a minute. And then in verse 58, finally he says, verily, verily I say unto you, before Abraham was I, I am. Before Abraham was I always existed. I have always existed because I am God in the flesh. He’s saying it that plainly.
to them. And one other stop in chapter 18 and then we’ll go back to Revelation 1 and John, I mean 18. John 18, he’s in the garden of Gethsemane. The soldiers come, Judas is leading them to take him prisoner and Judas has said to them, I will kiss him and you’ll know that that’s the one and then you arrest him. And so they come to him and verse 4, Jesus therefore knowing all things that should come upon him went forth and said unto them, Whom seek ye? They answered him, Jesus of Nazareth.
Jesus saith unto him, here’s our expression, I am. Was that a powerful statement? Did they understand what he was saying?
Notice, Judas also which betrayed him stood with him and as soon as he had said unto them, I am, I am he. They went backward and fell to the ground. And you know why? Because they understood what he was saying. Whether they agreed with him or not, they knew he was saying you are about to lay hands on the one that spoke to Moses at the burning bush.
You are about to lay hands on the one who is eternal, I am. And from that expression they went backwards and fell to the ground. Now I know as we go back now to Revelation that this expression obviously can be used in any sentence as the verb of the sentence. But when Jesus uses it and repeats it the way he does here, with the statements of eternal existence we cannot miss the implication that he is saying I am God. He is not just a prophet as Mohammed claimed to be or a Joseph Smith claimed to be or any other religious leader who many have gotten millions to follow him. He is not just a prophet and he is not just an angel as the Gnostics or the modern day Jehovah’s Witnesses.
It is too bad isn’t it? That they say they are witnesses of Jehovah and don’t know who Jehovah was. Jesus Christ, the eternal God, not a created angel that called himself Jesus or Dan Brown who has some fantastic explanation from the Da Vinci Code and so forth as we see all around us today. And he was not just a teacher, a reformer, a holy man like the Lord Mitreah who evidently is putting a commercial even on Fox News who is going to claim to be the Messiah but he’s just a lord, a teacher that is a reformer, a holy man that is going to be everybody’s Messiah actually advertising himself now. We may be close to Antichrist. We may be close to false prophets that will come and deceive the whole world but no Jesus has a name which is above every name. That at this name one day every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that he is Lord. He is Yahweh, the glory of God, the Father.
Jesus Christ. Has it ever occurred to you that the name Jesus Christ, as a matter of fact our song book is full of songs that talk about how we love the name of Jesus Christ and why because it’s only believers who can love this name. Did you ever notice that unbelievers do not like this name and if they use it at all how do they use it? They blaspheme God with that name and yet this name if it’s used as an endearing term to speak of our Savior people do not want to hear it and yet God’s people love to hear it.
How sweet the name Jesus sounds. I heard this week that in many libraries across our country that our Islamic friends want all of the Koran’s taken from any bottom shelf on a library and placed on the top shelf because they cannot stand it that that Muhammad and their Allah is placed any lower than any other book in the library and we’re doing it in our libraries putting it on the top shelf. Did such a thing ever offend a Christian?
No. You can’t take away from the name of Jesus Christ. You can’t do anything to destroy this name. He is God everlasting and he will rule one day and every knee will bow to him one day.
People either love this name or hate this name and you know why that is because it has omnipotent power. Now back to our text in Revelation 1. I want to go through just a few thoughts that Jesus says here then about himself.
If I may again I am skipped down to the Lord. I am a few things yes saith the Lord. He is truly saying he is the second person of the Godhead. Think with me for a minute about God the Father God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.
The trinity as we call it is the eternal expression of God in three persons. The eternal expression of God. You know there’s a term that theologians use, they call it the eternal generation of the Godhead. The eternal generation. Meaning that even the Scriptures, and we read one in John 16, say that Jesus Christ came out from God and the Holy Spirit came out from God and from Jesus Christ.
And how can that be? Did God at some time in the past, who existing as only one person, begin to exist as three? No, because then Jesus would not be eternal. Jesus is eternal and yet God the Father, or God the Son and God the Spirit all came out of God.
An eternal generation of God manifesting himself in three persons, yet one God. Again, John 16, 27, for the Father himself loveth you because you have loved me and have believed that I came out from God. I came forth from the Father and have come into the world. John 15, about the Holy Spirit, when the comforter has come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father shall testify of me. And that’s why folks, in that great Psalm, Psalm 2, we have this statement, I will declare the decree, the Lord hath said unto me, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee.
And what day is that? The only conclusion is the day of eternity. Forever God hath said, Thou art my Son, from the beginning of time to the end of time. And so that is the God that we worship. He, one person of the Godhead, is no less God than the other, and no person of the Godhead is more God than the other. One God in three persons. You know, there have been numerous attempts to try to make analogies of this.
And I think they’re all worthy of an attempt, but maybe they all fall short. You know, there is cloud and rain and condensation. All the same thing, but three expressions of the same thing. There is sunlight and heat, and then a rainbow, so you have a visible aspect of it. Or there’s the oil and the wick and the flame, but one lamp.
Or the root and the trunk and the branches, but one tree. And on and on the analogies go, trying to capture this truth, which is very difficult for us to grasp and to capture. I remember, I’ve told you this before, and this is an old symbol, but in an old church in St. Paul, when I was in seminary up there, the old church I attended had an old stained glass window in the back of the church and a big circle in that stained glass window. And it was like a wagon wheel with a hub and three spokes and a rim around it. And in that, God’s name was on the hub. And then it had Father, Son, and Holy Spirit at the end of the three spokes. And so the one spoke said, God is the Father. The second one says, God is the Son. God is the Holy Spirit. And then around the rim it had, but the Father is not the Son, and the Son is not the Spirit, and the Spirit is not the Father. Trying somehow to express this eternal truth, this eternal generation.
May I remind you that when God created man, he said, let us make man in our image after our likeness, because Elohim is not singular and not dual, but it’s plural at least. Let us do this. And when man sinned at the tower of Babel and God saw that the wickedness of man would spread over the earth, he said, let us go down there and confound their language.
Let us do that. And who was speaking, and to whom? God, the Father, to God, the Son. And so in Psalm 110-1, the Lord said unto my Lord, sit thou at my right hand until I make thine enemies I footstool.
Always been a puzzling thing to those who can’t accept the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord said to the Lord, sit at my right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool. Or Psalm 110-4 and 5, the Lord hath sworn and will not repent, thou art a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek, the Lord at thy right hand shall strike through the kings of the earth. or, and I like Psalm 45 maybe the most, thy throne, O God, here is the Son, thy father saying of the Son, thy throne, O God is forever and ever, a scepter of righteousness is a scepter of thy kingdom. Therefore God, thy God hath anointed thee. Thy throne, O God, the Son, therefore God, the Father hath anointed thee. In these statements we have the exact expression of the Trinity, the eternal manifestation of God in three persons and often speaking to one another in the Old Testament scriptures. No wonder Isaiah could say, therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign, behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, his name shall be called what? God with us, Emmanuel, God here with us, and now in the flesh, or unto us a child is born, a son is given and the government shall be upon his shoulders and his name shall be called wonderful, counselor and what? The mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.
What an amazing truth that is. And when Thomas had trouble understanding that Jesus was God in the flesh and Jesus invited him to feel his wounds and he could say, my Lord and my God. And when Philip said, show us the Father, what did Jesus say?
Have I been so long with you, Philip, and now has not known me, he that hath seen me hath seen the Father? You and I think of these things that our mind actually becomes boggled, but the fact is when Jesus says I am, I’m Alpha and Omega, I’m the beginning and the end, but I’m saying the Lord, I am the Lord and he is. And secondly, if you will then, as we back up in our verse and take those expressions, Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, he is saying I am God in all of his fullness, all that God is I am. I’m Alpha and Omega, and of course that’s the first letter and the last letter of the alphabet, the Hebrews often said, a laf and towel, because that’s their first and last letter. You know that when you talk about the alphabet, you’re saying the first two letters of the Greek alphabet, right?
Alpha, beta, so we say alphabet. And here he’s saying from the beginning to the end, everything God is from A to Z, I am also. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending. May I read to you from Isaiah 41, four again, who hath wrought and done it, calling the generations from the beginning, I am the Lord, the first and with the last, I am he. And chapter 44 verse six, thus saith the Lord, the king of Israel, and his redeemer, the Lord of hosts.
Let me back up and read that again. Thus saith the Lord, the king of Israel, and his redeemer, the Lord of hosts. I am the first and I am the last, and beside me there is no God. And though some say, well, if you believe in a Trinity, you believe in three gods.
You have some polytheism, no. I am the Lord, I am the Father, I am the Son, I am the Holy Spirit, and beside me there is no God. The Lord our God is one.
Alpha and Omega, everything that he is. And so Christ, Paul prayed to the church that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith. This is what Christ is saying to John here, that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith, that you being rooted and grounded in love may be able to comprehend with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and depth and height, and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge that you might be filled with all the fullness of God. He is Alpha and Omega. And when Jesus said that, he’s saying, I am all that God ever was and God ever will be. I am the beginning and the end.
Follow these verses with me, if you will, in Revelation one and verse 11 again. I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last. And verse 17 at the end, I am the first and the last. Look at chapter two and verse eight. Under the angel of the church at Smyrna, right, these things sayeth the first and the last, which was dead and is alive. Chapter three and verse 14. Under the angel of the church of the Laodiceans, right, these things sayeth the amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God. Who is this speaking? Obviously it’s Jesus Christ speaking to the churches, is it not?
And yet he’s ascribing to himself the exact same attributes as the eternal God. Chapter four and verse eight, then in the throne room of God. God. The four beasts that had six wings about Him, they were full of eyes within, and they rest not day and night. By the way, do you know that rest is the enemy of worship? Just thought I’d throw that in in a Sunday morning service. Here’s the service that goes on forever, and they never have to rest.
We have 30 minutes, and it’s hard for us to make through it, right? But they rest not day and night saying, Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God, notice Almighty. Which was and is and is to come. Or chapter 5 and verse 14, at the end the four beasts said, Amen.
The four and 20 elders fell down and worshiped Him. That liveth for ever and ever. How can we describe what God is and what He has done?
Some time ago I read an article in Ken Ham’s magazine, Answers and Genes’ and I thought it was great. And matter of fact, I think I’ve used this as an illustration before. Though you said there are three dimensions of time, three dimensions that we exist in, time and space and matter. Time has three parts to it, past, present, and future.
Space has three parts to it, length, width, and height. And the writer of the article said, you can make three possible movements. You can go forward and backward.
You can go right and left, or you can go up and down, and every other thing is a combination or a part of one of those. Matter has three elements to it, protons, neutrons, and electrons, and now we know that each of those has three parts to them. What they call quarks, I call quarks because it is to me, but that’s not the exact same thing, because God has made the world in much of its way in three parts.
And then he concluded the article by saying, in the beginning, that’s time. God created the heavens, that is space, and the earth, that’s matter. And so from the beginning to the end, Jesus Christ is all of those things, has controlled all of those things, and by Him all things exist. Colossians 2.9 says, for in Him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. In Jesus Christ you have everything that God is, everything that He moves and lives and has His being inside this one person. Somebody said, how can that be if Jesus Christ is here and God is everywhere and existing in all time? Jesus Christ is here on the earth in this body.
How can that be? And He answered it by saying, well, suppose you said, I am going to drink the ocean. But you went down to the ocean and you took a glass and you scooped up one glass of water out of the ocean and you drank that, you would in that glass of water have every element, every particle that makes up the ocean. Every part, everything that makes up the ocean also makes up what is in this glass. And if you drink this, you could truly say, I drank the ocean. And so in that body dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, in that glass, in that container, is everything God ever was, is, or ever will be in that one person.
I don’t know if I can understand it, but we can read it, can’t we, and try. Now, not only is, He says, I am God in all His fullness, I am God in all His ages, if you will, if you allow me, God in all of His ages, because He says, which is, which was, and which is to come the Almighty. Let me put these in the chronological order, which was, I am the Lord, which was. Again, we go back to our little expression of I am, and put it in the past and it will be I was, and put it in the present, it will be I am, and put it in the future, it will be which is to come. John 1.1, the same writer of this book, starts his gospel out by saying in the beginning, was the word, and it’s the exact same word that we have here, which was.
This one existed. In the beginning was Jesus Christ existing with God the Father in eternal fellowship. Do you know that all of our love and all of our fellowship and everything we seek after between human beings to try to make our relationship right, we are simply copying what God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit have had since all eternity. And if we will let him be God be our Father and Jesus Christ be our brother and the Holy Spirit live in our hearts, we will have some taste of the fellowship that is within the God. He spoke the worlds into existence.
By Him were all things made that are made. He hovered over the face of the water in the person of the Holy Spirit. He revealed Himself at sundry times in indiverse manners to the fathers by the prophets in various ways. He then became incarnate as a man.
Which was and which is. And where is Jesus Christ right now? Right now bodily in heaven.
Right now at this moment. Before the throne of God with His blood there. Interceding for us that we can meet together and bow our heads and pray so that we can try to bring the offerings of our lives to Him. And worship Him that way. And God looks at the Son. And then looks at us and accepts our offerings to Him. Because of Jesus Christ He is doing that for us. And He is reconciling the world unto Himself through the gospel as it’s preached throughout this world.
He was and He is and He is to come. No matter how bad this world gets folks there’s coming a day when this world will hear a shout. And then the voice of the archangel and then the trump of God. And Jesus Christ will gather His church to Himself to be married in the father’s house and become the bride of Christ. He will return to judge this world and bring everyone into account before Him.
Who would not acknowledge these things beforehand. And He will reign in Jerusalem and then eternally in the new Jerusalem. He was, He is and He is to come. Nor death nor life nor earth nor hell nor times destroying swaik and air a face us from His heart or make His love decay. Each future period that will bless has as is blessed in the past. He loved us from the first of time. He loves us to the last.
And that’s the assurance that we can have from Him. And one last thing about this Lord Jesus Christ of ours. He is the Almighty. Maybe that’s the expression that many people struggle with because it is used so often of God in the Old Testament. But this term only appears ten times in the New Testament and nine of those are in the Book of Revelation.
The only other time is to come out from among them and be separate. Sayeth the Lord and I will receive you and I will be a father unto you and you should be sons and daughters unto me. Sayeth the Lord Almighty. And every other expression of that term is here in the Book of Revelation. I’ll not read all ten of them but I want you to notice a few with me if you will with your Scripture. In chapter 4 and verse 8. In chapter 4 and verse 8, before the throne of God and that great scene, the four beasts each had them six wings about Him and they were full of eyes within and they rest not day and night saying, Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God Almighty which was, which is, which is to come.
God has these characteristics and He’s called Almighty, right? But go as far as chapter 19. Though we could read all the ones in between but 19 is so clear and I think we should see it. Here is when Jesus comes out of heaven and returns to the earth on a white horse in the armies which are in heaven follow Him and He’s coming to reign. And so as that scene is preparing, it says in verse 6, I heard as it were the voice of a great multitude and as the voice of many waters and as the voice of mighty, thundering, saying, Alleluia for the Lord God omnipotent is Reyneth, literally the Lord God Almighty Reyneth.
Who is that? Is it not Jesus Christ who is about to reign? And if you’re not convinced by that look at verse 15 of this same chapter. Out of His mouth goeth a sharp sword with, that with it He should smite the nations and He shall rule them with a rod of iron and He tredeth the wine press of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. Who is the Almighty? He is the Lord of hosts. That Lord of hosts in the Old Testament as Amos said, the Lord God of hosts is He that toucheth the land and it shall melt and all that dwell therein shall mourn. This is the Lord of hosts, the Lord God Almighty. And again Isaiah 9.6, He is the mighty God the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. Now why do we have that here in Revelation 1? Why is it here at this time in our Scripture? One writer said it is one of the tasks of the last time and we may be living in the last time. It is one of the tasks of the last time to hold fast this assurance not withstanding all appearance to the contrary. Regardless of how bad things may appear to be and how much you think God is out of control and how bad the world is getting and how bad people are getting hold this always.
The Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever, and He is under control. In chapter 4 and verse 1 of this great book, John is going to… or chapter 6, I mean, in verse 1, he’s going to have to say, he heard the noise of thunder. When you hear thunder rumbling in the background, you know the storm is coming. You know the rain and the lightning and the winds are coming. When you hear the thunder in the background. And John is going to say, there’s thunder in the background when the tribulation period is near. It’s coming to this world. You see it building.
You hear it building. You always remember that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Thank God for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who will catch us up to be with Him in the air. And so here’s how Paul said to young Timothy. When he faced the trials of life, and we sang part of this this morning, that thou keep this commandment without spot, unrebukeable, until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, which in His time He will show who is the blessed and only potentate, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who only hath immortality dwelling in the light, which no man can approach unto whom no man hath seen nor can see, to whom be honor and power everlasting. No wonder we sing immortal, invisible, the God only wise, in light and accessible hid from our eyes. This is the Lord Jesus Christ.
He will come back. You know, in a great Psalm in the Old Testament, expression of the return of Christ, Psalm 2 begins this way. Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? Why do the worlds around us rage? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against His anointed.
And to this day that is true. Why do they do that? Why do the heathen rage? But in the end of that Psalm, David says, be wise now therefore, O ye kings, be instructed you judges of the earth, serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling. And then he says this, kiss the Son, S-O-N, kiss the Son, lest he be angry with you and you perish from the way. That is the invitation, folks, as the Scripture always gives it. And that is to come and embrace the Son, to come and accept Him, to come and believe in Him, accept His claims, know who He is, and know that only God in the flesh, only the eternal God who knew no sin, neither was Gael found in His mouth, has a right to die for your sins.
And He did. And He died for your sins that by your faith in Him, they may be washed away, and yet they will not be washed away without your faith and trust in Him. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry with you. So every time you hear the Gospel and you know that you don’t know Christ is Savior and you’ve rejected Him, God is giving you one more opportunity to come to Him and embrace Him and say, I need Him as my Savior. And even as we stand in a minute and sing this song, maybe you need to come and meet me here at the front and say, I need to accept Christ as my Savior. Let someone show you from the Word of God what the Bible says about that plain and simple.
And so I trust that you will if that’s your condition. And what of His children? What of those of us who hear the news every day and we see the world situation and we wonder what in the world the future holds even within the next few years. Remember what Jesus is saying to John. He is the Lord.
He’s the first and the last. As we’re standing, let’s bow our heads before we open our song books and let’s go to Him in prayer and let’s ask His blessing on our time here in these next few minutes. Father, we thank you again for your Word and I thank you, Father, for such promises. And though, Father, it seems sometimes when we read these things and try to study them through your Scripture, our head swims with such trues.
How can we know the depth of these things and the breadth and the width? How can we understand these things of God? Our thoughts are not your thoughts and our ways are not your ways. But Father, you’ve given us a revelation. You’ve given us an open Scripture so that we may open it. You’ve given us the Holy Spirit to teach us in our hearts.
Help us to understand these things. And Father, I pray that there’s one here that doesn’t know Christ to Savior that this might be the time when the Holy Spirit opens that heart and brings that person to faith in Christ. And may that happen even in this service today. Bless your children and your family. Father, draw us to yourselves. Help us to serve you the way that we ought. Now, blessing this time that we sing in Jesus’ name, amen. On page 308 in your song book, Jesus is calling. We’re going to see you.