And for those of you whose Bible does just fall open to the Book of Revelation, I guess I’ll have it do a series in Genesis next to make your Bible wear out evenly. We’ve enjoyed Revelation chapter 1 as we have been going through verse by verse on each Sunday. And we have gone from verse 13 through verse 16 and seen the description of Christ as He has described to us in these details. And then in verse 17 as we come to this verse, we see John’s reaction to, of course, what He saw.
And when I saw Him, I felt that His feet is dead. How needful it is in our worship today that we have such a reaction to. Chapter 4, if you turn one page to your right, and verse 9 describes the scene in heaven even among the angels and the resurrected saints, when those beasts give glory and honor and thanks to Him that sat on the throne, who liveth forever and ever. Verse 10, the four and twenty elders fall down before Him that sat on the throne, and worship Him that liveth forever and ever, and cast their crowns before the throne, saying, Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power for Thou hast created all things, and for Thy pleasure they are, and were created. Look at chapter 5 and verse 8 and 9. When He had taken the book, the four beasts and four and twenty elders fell down before the Lamb, having every one of them harps and golden vials full of odors, which are the prayers of the saints, and they sung a new song saying, Thou art worthy, to take the book and to open the seals thereof, for Thou wastes slain and hast redeemed us to God by Thy blood. In verse 14 at the end of that chapter, the four beasts said, Amen. The four and twenty elders fell down and worshiped Him that liveth forever and ever. Surely if such things happen in the throne room of God, where all things are holy and all things are cleansed and all things are pure, we ought to strive in this life that we live in to come before Him in such manner. Darrell Hardt, an author that I’ve enjoyed reading lately, said, Christian worship is in fact a bold political act. It subverts the world’s values by assigning glory and praise to the one whom the world despises.
And if that’s what we must do, then that’s what we should do. You know, I’ve used a phrase I didn’t originate. I heard it some years ago now that I think aptly describes worship in our day, and it’s just worshiping worship. You know, we have decided that we just like the act of worshiping, and especially in churches that have all the paraphernalia, the sights and sounds and everything, they just enjoy worshiping the worship.
And they are watching themselves worship and creating new ways to do it and creating new things to do about it. John Blanchard, who used to be in rock music himself before he was converted, said, however sincere the rock singers motives are, however genuine his personal devotion to the Lord, whatever his songs are saying, what so often comes across as not, behold the Lamb of God, but look at me saying, behold the Lamb of God. Edward Farley recently commented that contemporary worship creates a tone that is casual, comfortable, chatty, busy, humorous, pleasant, and at times even cute.
He goes on to suggest that if the Seraphim assumed this Sunday morning mood, they would be addressing God not as holy, holy, holy, but as nice, nice, nice. And Jack Wheaton, who used to teach music at USC in Southern California, but is also a music director at a large church there, said, we are so divorced from understanding spiritual warfare that we cannot understand that Satan wants to undermine and compromise our worship. Have we so given in to society and to our teenagers, his words not mine, that we look the other way while evil slithers into our churches all because we want to attract more worldly non-believers Quite an indictment I think coming from people like that. Do you know that in our pulpits today we have things that are popular like cussing preachers? Do you know that it’s becoming a popular thing to use vulgarities and the rest in the pulpit because people enjoy those? We have homosexual preachers. We have rockstar preachers. We have preachers that are advising people when you go out and sin, sin big. That way your confession will really be meaningful.
Honestly, I’ve heard that myself. But in our pews and our churches we have a certain compartmentalization where we can be what we need to be here in this hour and then go out of here and be whatever we want to be. We have, you can try to become Miss California and stand virtually undressed before the whole world and then turn around and claim at the same time that you’re going to give testimony to the Lord Jesus Christ. Just kind of pick and choose which type of Christianity you want at the moment. We have a certain multiculturalism, kind of a Christianity plus. You know, Christianity plus the occult. Christianity plus psychology. Christianity plus politics. Christianity plus culture.
And we have a certain deconstructionism too. Christianity minus. Christianity minus morality. Christianity minus doctrine. Christianity minus reverence. Christianity minus any lordship of the Lord Jesus Christ at all. The one who is known as the cussing preachers named Mark Driscoll.
And now if you would Google cussing preaching, you would be amazed what you would find, how many of these kinds of ministries are out there. Mark Driscoll, you know, in two weeks I’ll be in Edinburgh, Scotland. And I’ll be there at a place where John Knox instigated that great reformation. And about 125 years ago, D. L. Moody and Ira Sankey were holding great revivals there. And just a few weeks ago, this Mark Driscoll was there in Edinburgh preaching, the cussing preacher in Edinburgh.
I tell a story about Moody and Sankey when they first came to Edinburgh. It was so stiff and all that Sankey would sing his songs simply with an organ. And they were so not used to organ music that they had a hard time just getting used to Ira Sankey of all people singing hymns with an organ. And one little old Scottish lady stood up in the middle of the service and she said, let me you to let me you. What would John Knox think of the like C. E. and ran out of the service because he was singing with an organ.
And here a few weeks ago, Mark Driscoll goes there and stands before huge audience of young people and says, well, you got three choices. I can preach on the holiness of God. There was silence in the auditorium. I can preach on the grace of God’s silence in the auditorium. Or he says, I can preach about raw sex from the song of Solomon and everybody stood and cheered and that’s what he preached on. Vulgar sermon. I read part of the text and I wouldn’t even read it to you in public what he was preaching. There where that great congregation chafed a little bit even at Moody and Sankey.
What days we live in that has changed over these years. If you go back to your left a little ways to 1 John, ask yourselves as you read a few verses of this great apostle 1 John chapter four. And I wonder if John at all would be comfortable in many of our churches today.
1 John chapter four and verse four, you are of God, little children, and have overcome them because greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world. They are of the world. He’s speaking of preachers now. Therefore speak they of the world and the world heareth them. We are of God and he that knoweth God heareth us and he that is not of God heareth not us.
Hereby know we the spirit of truth and the spirit of error. The apostle John speaking. Second John then in his second little letter, verse nine, whosoever transgresseth and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ hath not God.
He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son. If there come any unto you and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God’s speed. For he that bideth him God’s speed is partaker of his evil deeds. Or look at third John, verse 11, beloved, follow not that which is evil, but that which is good.
He that doeth good is of God and he that doeth evil hath not seen God. I wonder what John himself would think of much of our worship that goes on in our day. There are great cathedrals that are called St. John’s and I doubt if John was here he’d even go to church there. There are cathedrals called St. Peter’s of course and if Peter were alive today he wouldn’t darken the doors.
And there are St. Paul’s and if Paul were alive today he wouldn’t go there either. But I wonder in our own churches and I’m aware that any time you point one finger at somebody else you’ve got three or four pointing back at you, right? And I’m speaking to us and I’m speaking to our kinds of churches and I’m speaking to our fundamental, our evangelical, our Baptist churches. If we that call ourselves by various names, if we call ourselves Bethel Baptist Church, are we really the house of God?
Which is what that word means. Or if we say we are Bethany Baptist Church, is it where people come and sit at the feet of Jesus? Or if it’s a Berean Baptist Church, is it because we really search the Scriptures daily to see whether these things are so or Mount Tabor Baptist Church? Is it where we sit on the mountaintop with Christ as He’s transfigured before us?
And I wonder if it’s a Metro Baptist Church. If we are a testimony to a city in which we live as we ought to be. As we read this verse, it ought to strike us the same way.
When I saw Him, I fell at His feet as dead. Now I think there are four things we need in our worship and this verse gives us these four things. First of all, we need a knowledge of Christ. We need to be as John when He said, when I saw Him.
Now let me put a footnote in there for those of you who are not used to our kind of theology. I’m not saying you ought to go out and try to have some kind of a vision where Jesus is going to appear to you or God gives you some sign in the sky. Or you see a hand writing on the wall. I’m talking about in the pages of Scripture where we meet Christ face to face. When the Holy Spirit brings these words to your heart, are you able to see Christ?
Does the Holy Spirit in the Word of God make Him real to your heart? We need that today folks. We need that kind of vision of Christ. John saw, as Joseph Weese called it, the unalloyed Christ. He saw Him in all His glory.
Not overcome by His humanity, but in all His glory. Not in a manger as a little baby wrapped in swaddling clothes and crying with the smells of the manger around Him. And not either in the carpenter’s shop with sweat and dust on Him or not in Galilee among the fishing nets and among the boats.
And not even in Jerusalem. Not even carrying His cross, but now glorified, coming and appearing as He will be as He is now and will be forevermore. This is how we need to see Christ.
Unveiled from humanity, if you will. They saw Him this way on the Mount of Transfiguration, didn’t they? They saw Him and it says, when the disciples heard it, they fell on their face and were sore afraid.
You know, we sing that song at Christmastime. Veiled in flesh, the Godhead see. Hail the incarnate deity. But you know, He is unveiled now and He is in all His glory now and standing just beyond our sight around this auditorium. Standing in the world that God and Christ inhabit.
He is watching us and we are worshiping Him and He is in all the glory that He has. That John saw Him in. Do you remember Isaiah 6? You remember when Isaiah saw Him and saw the angels? It says in the year that King Uzziah died, I also saw the Lord sitting upon a throne high and lifted up and His train filled the temple. And above it stood the seraphim.
Interesting. Those angelic creatures around the throne of God. Now in the presence of God, each one had six wings with twain or two. He covered His face. The seraphim themselves cover their face and veil their eyes from looking up into the glory of God Himself.
With two, He covered His feet because they were uncovered and with two, He did fly. And one cried unto another and said, Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of His glory. We sing a song called immortal invisible God only wise and the third verse says great father of glory pure father of light thine angels adore thee all veiling their sight all praise we would render oh help us to see it is only the splendor of light hideeth thee yet in many of our services today we stand brashly before God and parade ourselves before him and dare God to watch us do what we’re doing holy holy holy we sing all the saints adore thee casting down their golden crowns around the glassy sea cherubim and seraphim falling down before thee which word and art and evermore shall be and that font folks is the need of believers today is it not old-day W toes are writing back in the early 60s said I believe that the very last thing God desires is to have shallow minded and worldly Christians bragging about him and in the same day J. Siddlebackster wrote breeziness and singiness are no compensation for lack of depth and dignity in the house of God and that was that was 50 years ago folks from where we are now what we need is 2nd Corinthians 12 if you would find that and hold your place there I’ll refer to it a couple times this morning but in 2nd Corinthians chapter 12 is where Paul himself was taken up to the third heaven and saw God himself can you imagine he got that privilege John gets that privilege here in Revelation and here it says in chapter 12 of 2nd Corinthians it is not expedient for me doubtless to glory I will come to visions and revelations of the Lord because these apostles had these visions and revelations I knew a man in Christ above 14 years ago he is referring to himself but he is so humble about it he will not say himself in the first person parenthesis whether in the body I cannot tell whether out of the body I cannot tell God know it such a one caught up to the third heaven I knew such a man whether in the body or out of the body I cannot tell God know it how he was caught up into paradise and heard unspeakable words which it is not lawful for a man to utter of such a one will I glory Paul says if I’m going to glory at all before you I will talk about the throne room of God and I will talk about how it is when you stand before God and how we ought to behave ourselves in such way you know we need a knowledge of Christ and we need a vision of heaven and hell like Paul saw it there we need to hear unspeakable words and say this is holy holy holy before the Lord God Almighty and yet you and I walk by faith folks and not by sight you and I don’t get the advantage of being taken up to the third heaven and with these eyes singing you and I don’t get to stand on a mount or on amount of transfiguration or on an island like Patmos and have Jesus appear to us you and I have to understand these things by eyes of faith maybe that is our handicap isn’t it and so we say well I didn’t see anything my mind’s kind of turned off I’m not thinking here today I’m not reading the scripture I’m not filled with the spirit and we go away walking in this physical world and never understand the world where Jesus Christ exists we have to see these things by faith we need that faith today folks we need to understand these things in our churches so first we need a knowledge of Christ secondly we need a humility of self we need to learn humility again so I fell at his feet as dead I remember a pastor and I know him and he was speaking at a at a national pastors conference and and he would run around on the stage and at certain times he would run over to the side and he would jump up in the air with his hand up as if he were giving God high fives and he would give God a high five and come back and he’d preach a little bit need to run over there again jump up give God a high five and come back I thought good grief I don’t see John here on the Isle of Patmos going up on the highest rock and jumping up and giving the Lord high five And yet we need this. Here is a spirit-filled apostle. Let me describe to you for example, Ezekiel when he saw that wheel in the middle of a wheel, as the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud in the day of reign, so was the appearance of the brightness round about. This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord. And when I saw it, I fell upon my face, and I heard a voice speaking to me. Or Daniel, I heard a man’s voice between the banks of Uly, which called and said, Gabriel, make this man to understand the vision. And he came near where I stood, and when he came, I was afraid and fell on my face.
This is Daniel who was not afraid of King Nebuchadnezzar, not afraid of the lions in the lion den, but when God and his angel Gabriel came near him, he fell on his face. You know what? You know what I believe? I believe that we are born with a certain innate fear of the spirit world, and it’s a proper and good thing. It’s a certain reverence we have for the world where God is, for that fear that we normally cannot see, and we won’t see until we die, but we have a certain fear of that that we’re born with, and we ought to have a fear of it. I don’t know about you, but when I was a kid, lived in the woods a lot, you know, we lived out in the country, and I remember a lot of times running through the woods at night scared.
I don’t know what, I don’t know why or what I thought was following me, but I was sure it wasn’t human, you know? And so we had these paths through the woods, and I remember when our dad was building the house, Don, and we were over here in the old house, and you could go a quarter mile down to the corner and another quarter mile up to where he was building that house, or you could cut through the woods. So I remember lots of times it was dark, and I knew that path.
I knew where to duck under the limbs and jump over the logs, you know? And you never saw a seven-year-old kid run so fast in your life, and I had been about ten years old actually, as I was running those nights, because we have a certain fear, and yet we do the wrong things with those fears, but we ought to have a certain respect for that realm where Jesus comes from. What happens to us when we grow older? We get bolder, do we? We don’t believe in those things anymore?
We’re too brash to be afraid and to fear in those ways that we should? We talk about ghosts, and we talk about things like that, and it’s really demons running in this world. Here was John, somebody said if John hadn’t been in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day, he probably would have died of fright. But here he is in the Spirit, and yet he hadn’t even seen the rest of the book yet. Think of what John’s going to see in this book.
Think of what he’s going to understand. You know, John Calvin once said, every man makes a God of himself and virtually worships himself when he ascribes to his own power what God declares belongs to him alone. We make gods of ourselves.
We’re so proud of ourselves. Back in 2 Corinthians 12 again, where we were a minute ago, this is the passage where Paul says, it, well let me read it to you in verse 7, lest I should be exalted among measure through the abundance of the revelations that was given to me. You know, we have been given a lot by God, though we have not been taken up to the third heaven. We know God through Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit lives in us. We have the Word of God in our hands. But so that I wouldn’t be exalted above measure, I was given the end of verse 7, a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure.
For this thing I besought the Lord thrice that it might depart from me. Oh Lord, I’m not too good looking. My eyes run, my nose is crooked. So Lord, make me good looking so I’ll be a better preacher for you.
And I, you know what Paul found out? God doesn’t deal in divine eugenics. God’s not into the kinds of prayers. Well Lord, I’m short, make me tall. Lord, I’m kind of fat, make me skinny. Lord, I’m kind of ugly, make me pretty.
Lord, I’ve got too much hair, make me bald. All of those things you know that we pray to make yourselves better. But God’s not into it. And notice what else he says in verse 9. He said unto me, my grace is sufficient for thee. For my strength is made perfect in weakness.
Why do you want to be strong? And then have only your power when you can be weak in the way I have made you and be strong in me? And Paul answers most gladly, therefore, will I rather glory in my infirmities?
That, the power of Christ may rest upon me. Yet we spend our days praying that God deliver us from all of these things. You know, God make us something different. God do something else. We need a humility of self. or we fall down at the feet of Jesus Christ and say, Thy will be done.
You do what you want. You know, yes, we should remember we’re made in God’s image. We are creature, we are God’s people, not animals. We are human beings made in God’s image.
If we know the Lord Jesus Christ is our Savior, the Holy Spirit lives in us. He takes up as a bode in us. He calls us children of God. He calls us joint heirs with Christ.
He calls us friends. And yet folks, what happened to humility? What happened to bowing our head and bowing our knee before Him? Because we know Him and we know who He is. We don’t bow anymore.
We have no reverence before Him. Where is the quietness? Where is the fear that ought to be there? We need like John had to know the Lord to see Him and to fall at His feet as dead. Two more things. Thirdly, we need thirdly a dependency upon Christ.
Because then it says, He laid His right hand upon me. Let me help you here. Let me direct you here. He laid His right hand upon Him.
Listen again. Or to Daniel, behold, a hand touched me, which set me upon my knees and upon the palms of my hands. And He said unto me, O Daniel, a man greatly beloved, understand the words that I speak unto thee and stand upright, for unto thee am I now sent. And when He had spoken this word to me, I stood trembling.
Or Daniel ate. Now when He was speaking with me, I was in a deep sleep on my face toward the ground. But He touched me and set me upright. And He said, behold, I will make thee know what shall be in the last end of the indignation for the time appointed is at hand. And so we ought to understand that He puts His right hand upon us when we bow before Him. It’s His strength.
We’re dependent on Him for what will come next. You know, there’s a great illustration in the Old Testament of Jacob. Jacob the supplanter, you know, Jacob the conniver. And in Genesis 28 it is where Jacob goes to a place and he has a dream and he sees that ladder set up into heaven, Jacob’s ladder. And he has that understanding of God and God reveals Himself to Jacob. And so Jacob calls the name of that place Bethel, Bethel, the house Beth of God. Like Bethlehem is the house of bread, Bethel is the house of God. And so he names that place.
Well then Jacob takes off on all of his conniving journey. He even tithed the God there he promised to anyway and did one time. And so here he is going about his way, having named it Bethel, having seen God in that revelation until God humbled Himself and brought Him back to Himself and brought Him low and brings Him in Genesis 35 back to Bethel. And God reveals Himself again to Jacob as if to say, Jacob are you now ready to serve me? And Jacob because he was and because he wrestled with God there, named the name of that, you find it in Genesis 35, El Bethel, the God of the house of God. You know, sometimes we know that church is the house of God, but we don’t know the God of the house of God. And finally when Jacob understood how dependent he is on God Himself, he called it not just Bethel, but El Bethel, the God of the house of God.
And then God said, all right, I’m going to change your name from Jacob to Israel, from Suplanter to the people of God and all of your descendants now will be called Israelites and we are, and we still call them by that name. We are dependent upon him. And you know what our needs are when God’s right hand is upon us, it means direction, doesn’t it? God directs us, God gives us security, God has ownership over us, God corrects us. And what we really need is chastisement.
It’s too bad that our English ears take that word to be a little more than it is, as if it were always spankings, always whippings, but chastisement simply means child training. It’s the word Pidea. And we use it in a book called Encyclopedia. And the Encyclopedia takes the child and trains him from A to Z, Encyclopedia. And so we train a child from A to Z and the word chastisement, it comes from the word Pidea. It is child training.
And so we ought to, and what we need is to say to God, Lord, teach me. me. Make it hard on me too. Train me in the way I… Did you ever join a team, an athletic team for example, where you have to train and the rest and the coach comes to you and says, now I want you to do these things to get better. You say, I have no interest in doing those things.
No. You say, what should I do? If you have some physical therapy coach, what should I do here? How do I get stronger?
How do I go through the pain to get better? That’s chastisement. And our need is not so much chastisement.
It’s the desire for chastisement. God helped me to do this. Listen to the Apostle Paul.
He says to the Philippians, that I may know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings being made conformable unto his death or in 2 Corinthians 4. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels that the excellency of the power may be of God and not of us. We are troubled on every side yet not distressed. We are perplexed but not in despair, persecuted but not forsaken, cast down but not destroyed, always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body.
We, our prayer life consists of Lord, spare me all pain, spare me all hardship. Lord, take this away from me. Don’t ever let me go through these things. Lord, always give me everything and more than I need. And what we’re really praying for is Lord, don’t let me be conformable to your death. Don’t let me know the fellowship of your sufferings. And yet as a witness for Christ and in the cause of Christ, we ought to ask Lord grow me through the hardships. Lord, take water and press it through the rocks and make pure water out of it. That’s what I need.
And so we need that and we have that dependency on Christ. I remember when a high school teacher of mine, back in the 60s when it seemed like everything was falling apart and rebellion and burnings and everything and it seemed like kids were just rebelling and they were against most things. I was in high school from 64 to 68. So right in the middle of that time, there was Mr. Holly who said, I’m going to make a proposal that we close the school. Just lock the doors. Don’t let anyone in until one student says, Hey, I want to know something. And he says, then we’ll reopen the doors and start from there. I wonder sometimes if God doesn’t say, you know, I’m just going to, I’m going to lock the doors to the church until my people say, Lord, I want to know something. Lord, I want to do something for you.
I want you to do something with me. We have a dependency on Christ. He puts his hand upon us because he wants to stand us on our feet and use us not in our own power anymore, but in his power.
And so the last thing that we need is this assurance before God also. So in verse 17, I saw him. Secondly, I fell at his feet as dead. Thirdly, he laid his right hand upon me. And fourthly, he said, fear not, which is where we’re going to stop today.
Fear not an assurance before him. Let me go back to Isaiah six, if you will, and listen to Isaiah when he sees the Lord high and lifted up and he sees the throne room of God and the angels veiling their faces before God then said, I woe is me for I am undone because I am a man of unclean lips and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts. Don’t you sometimes feel like we dwell in the land of people with unclean lips when these eyes and these lips have seen the Lord. Then flew one of the seraphim unto me having a live cold in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from off the altar. And he laid it upon my mouth and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips and thine iniquity is taken away and thy sin purged. Also I heard the voice of the Lord then saying, Whom shall I send?
And who will go for us? Then said I hear my send. me. First, we need to truly have a knowledge of Christ and truly humble ourselves secondly before Him, prostrate before Him, saying, Father, forgive me of my sin.
I am undone and I am a man of unclean lips. And then we need to know that growing dependency upon Christ as He picks us up again and says, now, son, daughter, walk this way. And then lastly, we need this reverent holiness where we would rather die than disobey God. Hebrews says, wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved and we will be there in His presence someday. Let us have grace whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear for our God is a consuming fire. You know what believers need today?
We don’t need man’s evaluation. And yet the church is dying today to have the world like us. We put out surveys, we ask questions, we do everything for the world’s sake. We’re afraid of the world physically, we’re afraid what they’ll do to us physically, we’re afraid of the world psychologically with our own fears, we’re afraid of the world most of all socially, we’re afraid of what they will think of us, we’re afraid that they won’t think well of us, that we serving Christ and going about doing what God has called us to do, that Godless men without the spirit of God won’t like us. We’re afraid of that. But what we need is God’s evaluation. We need to know what God thinks of us. Paul said to the Galatians, do I now persuade men or God? Do I seek to please men? If I please men, I am not the servant of Christ. He said to the Thessalonians, but as we are allowed of God to be put in trust with the gospel, even so we speak, not as pleasing men but God which trieth the hearts.
And he does and he will try the hearts. You know over in Acts chapter 24, Paul stands before Felix who’s the governor of Judea and he stands before the governor, brought in chains as a prisoner and he begins to speak before Felix of what? Sin of righteousness and judgment to come. Preaches the gospel to him. Our own sinfulness, the righteousness of Christ and judgment to come where we’ll have to stand before him and answer one day.
And it was Felix who said, when I have a more convenient season, I’ll call for you. I think sometimes we hear of God’s, we hear of sin and we hear of Christ’s righteousness and we hear of judgment to come and then we say to God, well when I have a convenient time, I’ll do these things. When I, when it’s convenient to me, I’ll worship. When it’s convenient to me, I’ll clean my life up. When it’s convenient, I’ll begin to serve you or I’ll put this and that away.
We sing a song from that some more convenient time. And yet what do we need today? We need to see the Lord as John saw him. We need to humble ourselves before him and we need to ask forgiveness for our sins. And we need to have a growing dependence on him and less of a dependence on ourselves and let him stand us on our feet and say, now you’re ready to serve me. Go and serve me in my fields.
That’s what he wants from us. I want you to stand with me if you will. As we’re standing, we’ll bow our heads before we open our song books and we’ll go to God in prayer and ask His blessing in our service while we’re standing.
Let’s pray. Now, Father, you know my heart, you know our hearts, you know the heart of Metro Baptist Church, you know, Father, our needs, you know, our faults. You are standing at our elbows today. You are standing in that world that we cannot see, but we understand and know because we know it by faith. You look into every heart, you know every thought, not only yesterday and today, but tomorrow. You know our hearts, you know our desires. And so, Father, you know our great need. We humble ourselves before you right now and ask you, Father, to look inside us and to cleanse us, cause us to see also our own sin, cause us to see, Father, the way you see things and to confess these things, to speak the same things as you speak. So, Father, if we need to be on our knees this morning, take us to our knees. If we need to confess to you where we’re standing before we sing, help us to do that. If we, Father, need to come and humble ourselves before you, I pray you would help us to do that. May we as a church learn to serve you and to be the people we ought to be. Now, Father, there may be someone here that doesn’t know Christ as Savior. They’re in our services today.
We’re so thankful that they are. And may it please you that your Holy Spirit speak to that heart. May that heart be open to his pleading. And, Father, I pray that that person would come today to know Jesus Christ as Savior. Now, Father, have your will in your way in this time that we sing and we ask it in Jesus’ name. Amen. On page 345, the song, Pass Me Not, O General Savior, I think a good song for today. And here is a