Let's open this second hour with
a hymn that I've always considered this to be Joe Terrell's hymn.
Even though Don Fortner wrote the words to this hymn, Joe wrote
original music, which is what we're gonna sing now, acapella.
Joe wrote this song. Let's all stand together. Number
12 in your spiral hymn book, number 12. Upon my great and sovereign God,
I cast my soul and rest. My Father's hand controls the
world, and what he does is best. So be still, my heart, and doubt
no more. Believe and find sweet rest. God's wisdom, love, and truth,
and power combine to make thee blessed. In raging storms and
fiery trials, He keeps me from all harms. He walks with me and
holds me in His everlasting arms. So be still, my heart, and doubt
no more. Believe and find sweet rest. God's wisdom, love, and truth,
and power combine to make thee blessed. My God with skill infallible
and great designs of grace, with power and love that never fail,
shall order all my ways. So be still, my heart, and doubt
no more. Believe and find sweet rest. God's wisdom, love, and truth,
and power combine to make thee blessed. My life's most minute
circumstance is ordered by my God, who promised that in all
things he will ever do me good. So be still, my heart, and doubt
no more. Believe and find sweet rest. God's wisdom, love, and truth,
and power combine to make thee blessed. Please be seated. Morning. If you could open this
morning with me to Psalm 13. Psalm 13, start at verse one. How long wilt thou forget me,
O Lord, forever? How long wilt thou hide thy face
from me? How long shall I take counsel
in my soul, having sorrow in my heart daily? How long shall
my enemy be exalted over me? Consider and hear me, O Lord,
my God. Lighten my eyes, lest I sleep
the sleep of death. Lest mine enemies say I have
prevailed against him, and those that troubled me rejoice when
I am moved. But I have trusted in thy mercy.
My heart shall rejoice in thy salvation. I will sing unto the
Lord because he hath dealt bountifully with me. Let's pray. Dear Lord, we thank you for the
message that we heard that first hour. We pray, Lord, that you
be with all of our brethren, all of our preachers that are
hearing messages this morning, and that you bless those messages
for your good. We pray, Lord, that you have
mercy and grace on those that are going through difficult and
troublesome times. And we pray, Lord, that in this, you use those
troubles for your good. In your most holy and perfect
name we pray, amen. Number six in the hardback temple,
number six, let's all stand together, number six. Come Thou Almighty King, Help
us Thy Name to sing, Help us to praise. Father all-glorious,
Lord all-victorious, Come and reign over us, Ancient of days. Come Thou incarnate Word. Turn on Thy mighty sword. Our prayer attend. Come and Thy people bless, and
give Thy word success. Spirit of holiness on us descend. Come, holy God of mortar, Thy
sacred witness bear In this glad hour. Thou who almighty art,
Thou rule in every heart, And e'er from us depart, Spirit of
power, ? To the great one in three ? Eternal praise as be
? Hence evermore ? His sovereign majesty ? May we in glory see
? And to eternity love and adore Please be seated. Let's open our Bibles together
to John chapter one. John chapter one. Donny and Mary is Nikki and I
want us to as a church family have a moment of want us to remember them. Let's pray together. Our Heavenly
Father, we thank you for the miracle of life. Thank you for
a little cadence and Lord, we pray that you would cause her
to grow in grace and and pray Lord that you would give Chad
and Nikki and Donnie and Mary the wisdom to raise her in the
nurture and admonition of the Lord. We pray that you would
give her ears to hear, that she would be brought in time, in
your time, to faith in Christ. Lord, we pray for all of our
children and so very thankful for them and pray Lord that you
would give us as a church family the love and the grace and wisdom
to minister the gospel to them. We ask it
in Christ's name, amen. All right, you have your Bibles.
open them again to the first chapter of John. Verse 29 will be our text this
morning. I was thinking about that verse
that we looked at in the first hour, Psalm 76 verse 10, Surely
the wrath of man shall praise thee, and the remainder thou
shalt restrain. And so anytime that we see the
unrestrained wrath of man, we know that God's going to use
it for his praise and for his glory. And The one time in the
history of the world that man's wrath was most on display was
at the cross. And the father did not restrain
that, he could have. He could have stopped it, but
he didn't. And the greatest glory that God
gets is from the unrestrained wrath that man had at the cross
when they put to death the Lord Jesus. And I remember someone
asking where was God when my son was killed, not in relation
to the circumstances we discussed in the first hour, but just in
years past, I've heard people ask that question. And the clearest
and simplest answer to that question is that he was in exactly the
same place he was when his son was killed. On his throne, nothing
ever changed that. And that is our hope, isn't it? That we have a God who reigns
sovereign and that that is always, always right in whatever he does. We've been several weeks now
in the Gospel of John, and we find ourselves this morning at
that glorious declaration that John makes when he sees the Lord
Jesus coming to where he was baptizing. And the Holy Spirit
comes down like a dove on Christ. And God had already revealed
to John that the one on whom you see the Spirit of God descend,
he is the Christ. And John knew that he had been
sent of God as a forerunner, but he has yet not know who the
Christ actually was until now. And he sees the Lord Jesus coming. And God reveals to him, as God
must reveal to you and to me, who the Lord Jesus is. And here's
John's declaration in verse 29. The next day, John seeth Jesus
coming unto him and saith, behold, the Lamb of God which taketh
away the sins of the world. It was interesting to me to look
up this word behold in preparation for this message. And I found
out that it's in the second person. First person I, second person
you, third person they. So God is saying, you behold. And it's an imperative, it's not a suggestion,
it is an imperative, it's a commandment. And so when John, the audible
voice of God, as are his prophets and preachers who are just simply
articulating the truth of God, speak, they are saying, you are
commanded to look in faith to Christ. All men everywhere commanded
of God to believe and to repent and if they don't they will bear
the full responsibility for their unbelief for God has spoken you
imperative behold my son this is my beloved son in whom I am
well pleased here ye him." Now some might be thinking, well
if it is an imperative and it's a command and all men are responsible
to believe and if we don't believe we bear the responsibility of
our unbelief then that must imply our ability to believe and it
doesn't, it doesn't. Again, we will look at a verse
that we considered last Sunday. I think it was, if you'll turn
back to verse 12 of this same chapter. But as many as receive
him, to them gave he the power to become the sons of God. Yes, one must receive the Lord
Jesus Christ to become a son of God. Believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ and thou shalt be saved. Does that imply ability? Though we are responsible, are
we able? And the Lord clears that question
up in the next verse. Verse 13, who were born? The only way that you and I are
gonna be able to receive Christ is to be born of the Spirit of
God. The new birth, a sovereign unilateral
work of grace performed by the Holy Spirit in the heart through
the preaching of the gospel. The new birth necessarily precedes
faith. God must birth us, he must give
us. Faith is the response to the
new birth. Just as when a baby's born, it
breathes because it's alive. It doesn't become alive because
it breathes. If a baby is born alive, it breathes
as evidence of that life. And so it is in the new birth.
We breathe the breath of faith because we're birthed of God
first, who were born. You see that in verse 13? Read
the rest of verse 13. Not of the will of the flesh,
not by dedication, not by determination, nor by the will of man, not by
descent, not because, well, I'm sorry,
not of blood, that's descent. We're not born into the kingdom
of God because we were born into a Christian home. The new birth
must take place for each one of us who were born not of blood,
that's descent, nor of the will of flesh, that's dedication and
commitment, nor of the will of man, that's decision, but of
God. So the new birth is a work of
grace performed by God which enables us to believe on Christ. So now John says, there he is,
there he is. There's the Lamb of God. Behold,
believe on him. I must decrease, he must increase. He's the one who takes away the
sins of the world. Now, many will hear this declaration. and they won't believe it. I had a man I was talking to
just recently and he said, you know, he said, I don't believe
the Jesus story. And he said, I think there's
a God but I don't believe the Jesus story. And I sent him a
message. and hopefully he will. But many will hear the story
of Christ and if they're honest enough to be able to say, I don't
believe it. Behold the Lamb of God which
taketh away the sin of the world. Who is it that will believe? Well, I've already answered that
question, haven't I? Those who have been born of the Spirit
will believe. But let's go back to a picture that God gives us
in his word. It's in the book of Numbers chapter
21. You don't have to turn now, I'll just tell you the story.
Most of you are familiar with it. The children of Israel are in
the wilderness. They've been delivered from Egypt.
from the bondage of the slavery that they were under in Egypt
and they're in the wilderness and they're murmuring and complaining. The vast majority of them did
not believe the gospel. And the Lord sent fiery serpents,
the Bible says, into the camp of the Israelites, venomous snakes. And And these snakes began to bite
people. And a bite from this snake was
fatal and people were dying. And the Lord told Moses, he said,
fashion a serpent and put it on a pole and raise that pole
up among the people. And here's what the scripture
says in Numbers 21. Those who have been bitten when
they look shall live. Only those who have been bitten
by the fiery serpents would look to the brazen serpent on a pole
raised up to be healed from that snake bite. And the Lord Jesus
Christ said this. He said, as Moses lifted up the
serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted
up. And I, if I be lifted up, will
draw all men unto me. So the Lord Jesus Christ though
he himself was without sin, was made sin, that we might be made
the righteousness of God in him. So God imputed all of the sins
of all of God's people on the Lord Jesus and he bore our sins
in his body upon that tree. That's why Moses was to make
the image a serpent. That serpent which was on the
pole is a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ as our sin bearer,
bearing the guilt and the penalty and the shame of the sins of
his people. Who's going to look to Christ?
Only those who have been bitten. Only those who have a death sentence
coursing through their veins will be the ones who will look. And every one of them will look.
If any man, let me read this verse, everyone, here's what
it says, everyone who is bitten when he looks shall live. Only those who have been bitten
will look and every one of them will live. What are you saying,
preacher? I'm saying that God's got to
make you a sinner. The Lord has to cause you to
believe that apart from looking to Christ, trusting in Christ,
believing on the Lord Jesus Christ, you have a condemnation of death as a result of your own sin. And everyone who is bitten, when
they look, shall live. It's the same thing that our
Lord said in Matthew chapter 11 when he said, all ye that labor. There was a lot
of people in the camp of Israel that were laboring to stay away
from the snakes. I'm sure there were snake killers, snake handlers,
they were avoiding the snakes and trying to kill the snakes.
They were laboring to keep from being bitten. And a lot of people
today that are laboring with their sin. But here's what the
Lord Jesus said, all you that labor and are heavy laden. Now to be heavy laden means that
I have a weight that I can't bear. I've got a burden that
this sin problem that I have can't be fixed. I can't just
kill the snakes. I can't just cut off a limb. I'll tell you a true story and
I'll tell you this story as an example. I think it's very appropriate. Years ago, I was in Africa and
we were going out into the bush and our guide had a long machete
and before we would go out every morning he would survey the group
and ask us to decide then, before we went out, if we got bitten
by a black mamba. He said, I can take your leg
off at your knee, because you're probably going to get bit in
the lower part of your leg. And within the first few seconds,
if I take your leg off, you'll live. But you've got to decide
now. We're not going to make that
decision out there. Otherwise, you've got three minutes to live. I always said, don't cut my leg
off, you'll find out it's a garter snake after you take off my leg,
you know. But that was the deal, that true
story, that was the deal. Now why do you tell that story
preacher? Because I think there's a whole lot of people cutting
off their limbs thinking that that's somehow going to save
them from the poison of the serpent that they've been bitten by.
Oh, if I just quit doing this and quit doing that, if I just
change my life, if I just clean up my act, I'll just turn over
a new leaf. I'll wash the tomb. I'll clean
up the outside of the cup when the inside is still full of corruption.
Here's the problem. You and I were bitten by that
serpent in our father Adam. It's too late. Are there things
that we ought to cut out of our lives? Of course there are. Are
there things we ought not to be doing? Certainly there are.
Is that somehow going to save us? Regardless of how many reforms
you make or how you live your life? No. No. Why? Because the poison of sin
was injected into your veins when you were still in the loins
of your father Adam. David put it like this in Psalm
51, he said, he said, in sin did my mother conceive me. Now
he wasn't talking about the act of conception being sinful, he
was saying that from my conception I've been a sinner. From the
time that I was in the womb of my mother, I was conceived as
a sinner. Here's the problem. Cleaning
up your life or cutting off your limbs is not going to save your
life. You've got to be bitten by the serpent. And everyone
that is bitten, when they look, when they look, they live. They live. That's what John's
saying. Behold, Behold, look, you look, it's an imperative
for you. It's not just a general announcement. It's particular for those who've
been bitten. Those who believe themselves
to have a sin problem. Those who are not just laboring
with their sin, but they're overburdened with their sin. They have a weight
they cannot carry. They're in need of a Savior.
They've got to have a sin bearer. You see, it's not our goodness
that brings us to Christ, it's our badness that brings us to
Christ. It's our sin that brings us to Christ. The only thing that'll keep a
man from Christ is his righteousness. That's it. If you believe that
you've got some righteousness, if you believe that you've got
some ability to overcome your sin problem and to present yourself
acceptable to God apart from the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lamb
of God, then that self-righteousness will be your judgment before
God, amen? Everyone who is bitten when he
looks will live. Have you been bitten? You got a problem you can't fix. You know, the world The world
says, yeah, men have a problem, but it's not really their fault.
That's the wisdom of the world. You know, your circumstances,
or maybe, you know, everything's got a disease to label to it
now. Every sin is labeled with a disease, with a name. So you've
just got this disease or that disease. And the world says,
you got a problem, but it's not your fault. Religion says, you've
got a problem, but you can fix it. You can mend your ways. You can change your life. You can accept Jesus. You can
live a better life. You can stop doing this and stop
doing that. And you can fix this problem. The gospel says this, you've
got a problem and you can't fix it. That's the gospel. You've been bitten in your father,
Adam. You were conceived in sin and
you can't fix it. You've got to have a savior.
That's what John's saying. Behold, there he is. There's
the Lamb of God. There's the one who takes away
the sins of the world. All ye that labor and are heavy
laden. come unto me and I will give
you rest. Take my yoke upon you, learn
of me, my burden is light, my yoke is easy. You see the Lord
Jesus Christ bore the full weight and penalty of all the sins of
all of his people and he put them away by the sacrifice of
himself on Calvary's cross. The Lamb of God. There's a lot of pictures that are given
to us in God's Word of the Lord Jesus Christ, but none so often
as a lamb. A lamb. None of God's creatures are so
innocent, affectionate, vulnerable, harmless, meek, gentle as a lamb. And John says, look, there he
is. There he is. Look to him. first mention and really, the
lamb's not mentioned by name but you know it was a lamb. When Adam took of that forbidden
fruit and ate of it, he was innocent before that but
now fear has gripped his heart and In an attempt to cover his
nakedness, he sews together fig leaves. Sews together fig leaves. I've never done this before,
but we have a fig tree in our yard and I went out this morning
and I picked a leaf to a fig tree. And I don't know of a tree
that has a leaf that looks more like a man's hand than a fig
tree. God in his wisdom gave us this
fig tree to illustrate what men do. You see, people are still
sowing fig leaves together. The hand represents the works
of man. Whatever we put our hand to,
that's our work. And the Lord Jesus Christ is
called the strong right arm and hand of God. But our hands are
defiled. Who shall stand before God? Those
who have clean hands and a pure heart. And everything we touch
with our hands, we defile it. And yet we go about, we go about
trying to fix our sin problem with our works. If I'll just
work a little harder. I can cut that, I can cut that
leg off. I can cut that arm off. I can
fix that problem. And men spend their whole lives
sowing fig leaves together trying to cover their nakedness. And the Bible says that God,
there in the garden, and I can only imagine that this lamb would
have been a lamb very special to Adam perhaps. And God took
that animal and slew it and shed its blood right there in the
garden. and covered Adam's nakedness with skins of the animals." What a picture. You know, to this day, you buy
the most expensive clothing you can find and what is it? with
all the modern inventions of synthetic fibers and all the
things that we have advanced to, what do we find? To be still
the best fabric, fine wool, fine wool. Oh, what a glorious picture
of the Lord Jesus Christ. who is the Lamb of God and only
His shed blood and His coat of skin, His righteousness can cover
our nakedness before God. No amount of fig leaves sewn
together will justify us in the sight of God. We must have a
Lamb. When Cain, you know, the Bible
begins with a murder and ends with a murder. I know a lot of us have been
thinking a lot about that this week. But the first crime recorded
in the Bible was a brother killing his brother. Cain killed Abel. And the last crime committed
in the Bible was when God allowed man to place his hands on his
own son and nail him to a cross. And all throughout the Bible
there's examples of murder as horrible as those crimes are. It's man at his worst, isn't
it? It's the wrath of man. And we see in that story of Cain
and Abel, a picture of a lamb. The Cain brought the fruits of
his labors. Cain brought that which he had
worked to perform. Cain sewed together some fig
leaves and put together works that he had done and brought
them into the presence of God and God had no respect for the
offering of Cain. Abel, on the other hand, brought
the firstlings of his flock. Abel had been taught by his father,
Adam, that blood must be shed, a sacrifice must be made, a lamb
must be brought. We see the same thing with Abraham
and Isaac, don't we? When Abraham was told of God
to go up on the mountain and sacrifice his son, his only son,
Isaac, to God, And as they're going up on the mountain, Isaac
says to his father, father, here's the fire and here's the wood,
but where's the lamb for the sacrifice? Where's the lamb? And what did Abraham say to his
son, Isaac? God will provide himself a lamb. God will provide himself. And
God did the providing and God provided himself and God provided
the lamb to himself. And that's what happened on the
cross. And that's what John's pointing to. John's saying, behold,
you've been bitten. You've got a burden you can't
bear. You've got death going through your veins and you were
born with it and you can't fix it. There's the Lamb of God. He's been pictured from the very
beginning in the garden. He was pictured when Abel slew
the blood. He was pictured when Abraham
was up on that mountain, was gonna sacrifice his only son. And as Abraham lifted up his
arm, his hand to kill his own son, the Lord stopped him. And the scripture says that Abraham
looked behind him and he saw caught in a thicket, a ram. And that's what you and I must
do. We must look behind us. We must look back 2,000 years. We can't look to anything in
our lives We can't look to any experiences or any feelings or
any works. We must look all the way back
to Mount Calvary. And then we must, by God's grace,
look further back than that and see what the Lord said in Revelation
chapter 13, that the Lord Jesus Christ is the lamb that was slain
before the foundation of the world. And so the Lord Jesus
Christ, even before God made the first lamb, was the Lamb
of God, which taketh away the sins of the world. He was in
that covenant of grace before time ever was. And he agreed
to become the sinner's sacrifice. He's the Lamb. Abraham looked
behind him. And he saw caught in a thicket. And that's what we do. We look
back and we see the Lord Jesus Christ willingly caught in a
crown of thorns, willingly nailed to a Roman cross, willingly lifted
up and suspended between heaven and earth to be our Advocate,
our sin bearer before God. That's what John's saying. John's
saying what we say every time we come together. Behold, look,
it's an imperative, it's a command, and it's in the second person,
it's for you. You look. Have you been bitten? And everyone that was bitten,
when they looked, lived. lift. In Acts chapter 8, the Ethiopian
eunuch was reading from the book of Isaiah and he read those words,
he went as a lamb before the slaughter and his sheep before
his shearer He opened not his mouth. And the Ethiopian eunuch
asked Philip, does the prophet speak of himself or is he speaking
of another? And the scripture says in that
very passage, Philip preached unto him Jesus. No, he was speaking
of another. He wasn't speaking of himself.
He was speaking of one that would come, who would go as a lamb
to the slaughter, as a sheep before his shearers. He would
open not his mouth. Why didn't he open his mouth?
Two reasons. He went to the cross willingly.
No man took his life from him. Secondly, he was guilty before
God. He had no defense. He was bearing
the shame and the separation and the sorrow that the sins
of his people would bring. And he was bearing all of that
on himself. He had drank from the bitter
dregs of the cup, starting in the garden and finishing when
he bowed his head and said, it is finished. Father into thy
hands, I commend my spirit. He suffered and he died willingly
and shamefully because he was guilty. before God. And here's the hope so that we
would not have to bear that guilt. The sins that He put away have
been put away. They've been put away. They've
been separated from you as far as the East is from the West.
God remembers them no more. The Scripture says He buried
them in the depths of the sea. He's cast them behind him. There's our hope. In beholding
the Lamb of God, who himself was successful in taking away
the sins of the world, who fulfilled all those Old Testament types.
When Moses was to bring the children of Israel out of Egypt, what
did God say? take a lamb, a lamb for every
household, every man must have a lamb and bring that lamb into
your home. This was a, I've never been around
small sheep, we're not talking about full-grown budding sheep,
dirty, we're talking about a little lamb. The harm, I've read about
them, I understand they're very Lovable. Bring that lamb into
your home and inspect it for three days and make sure that
there's not a spot. Make sure there's not an image.
Make sure there's not any sickness. Make sure there's nothing wrong
with that lamb. Inspect it from head to toe.
And that's exactly what the world did when the Lord Jesus Christ
entered into his public ministry for three years. He publicly
declared himself as the Lamb that is without spot and without
blemish. And he was able to stand before
his enemies and say, if any man can find sin in me, bring it
on, show me. And in the end, the only sin
they could come up with was that of blasphemy because he, being
a man, made himself out to be God. and they thought he was guilty
of blasphemy. The truth is that the Lord Jesus
Christ is the fullness of the Godhead bodily, and you are complete
in him. He is who he said he was. He is the Son of God. He is the
Lamb of God. He is the one that John testified
to. Behold, you behold, The Lamb of God. Take the blood of that Lamb,
Moses, slay it on the third day, and take its blood and put it
on the doorpost and the lentil of every household. What a picture
of the cross. We see the shed blood of the
Lord Jesus Christ on Calvary's cross, right there on the front
door of every Jewish home, every Israelite's home. And God said the death angels
coming through Egypt, and the firstborn of every household
will die. But, and by the way, when the
firstborn is killed, it is a judgment on the entire household. That's
the significance of the firstborn being killed. And the Lord Jesus
Christ is called the firstborn among many brethren. He is the
firstborn of his father. And it's a judgment that passed
on to all his household. So what he suffered on the cross
was for all of his people. God said to those Israelites,
when I see the blood, I will pass by you. And for the next
1500 years, day after day, the Lamb was brought into the tabernacle.
Later into the temple, blood was shed as a picture of what
the Lord Jesus Christ himself would accomplish when he came
as the Lamb of God. Turn with me to Revelation chapter
6. 30 times in the book of Revelation
alone, the Lord Jesus Christ is referred to as the Lamb, 30
times. And here in Revelation 6, at verse 16, verse 15, and the kings of the
earth And the great men and the rich men and the chief captains
and the mighty men and every bondman and every free man hid
themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains."
Now there again, that's a picture of exactly what Adam was doing. It's a picture of what Cain did. in trying to hide from God by
sewing together fig leaves or bringing together. God said if
you had the faith of a mustard seed you could say unto this
mountain be thou removed and it would be cast into the sea.
Well what was cast into the sea and what is it that separates
us from God? That's what a mountain does.
A mountain is a barrier. What is the barrier that separates
you and I from God? The scriptures are clear. Your
sin has separated you from God. And your sin shall be cast into
the depths of the sea. So faith in the Lord Jesus Christ
is the only thing that moves that mountain. And now what are
these men who don't believe on Christ saying? The Lord Jesus
has come. What are they saying? Oh, mountains
fall on us. What are they doing? They're
calling upon their works to hide them from God. They're calling
upon their presumed righteousness to protect them from God. And they said to the mountains
and to the rocks, fall on us and hide us from the face of
him that sitteth on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
Lamb of God. Yes, he's holy, he's harmless,
he's undefiled, he's separate from sinners, he's higher than
the heavens. Oh, he's so meek and gentle to
his children. But don't think for a moment
that there's not gonna come a day when the Lamb who in Revelation
chapter five is also called the lion of the tribe of Judah, the
lamb, which the whole church is worshiping in Revelation chapter
five. And what are they saying? Worthy
is the lamb to receive glory and honor and power and praise
for he has prevailed. But this lamb, is going to come with great vengeance
against all those who would not hear. Behold the Lamb of God
which taketh away the sins of the world. Revelation chapter 22, verse
1. And he showed me a pure river
of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne
of God and of the Lamb." What is that river of life? Well,
Christ is the river of life. He said, I'll give you living
water. If any man thirst, let him come
unto me and drink freely from the river of life. Where do we
find Christ? We find him in God's word. The
word of God is the river. We don't separate God's written
word from the living word of God. So we find the living word
in the written word. And here's the river that flows
clear as crystal. There's nothing contaminated
about this river. It's pure, it's crystal clear,
it's perfect, it's true. Every word of it can be believed.
You can hang the hopes of your immortal soul on every word that
God has spoken. That's what faith does. And it
proceeds from the throne and from the Lamb of God. And in
the midst of the street of it and on either side of the river,
you and I are on one side of the river now. We're drinking
from the river of life. When we get to glory, we'll be
on the other side of the river and we'll still be drinking from
the same river of life. And in the midst of the street
of it and on either side of the river, Was there the tree of
life, which bear 12 manner of fruits and yielded her fruit
every month. And the leaves of the tree were
of the healing of the nations. And there shall be no more curse,
but the throne of God and the lamb shall be in it. And his
servants shall serve him and they shall see his face and his
name shall be in their foreheads. And that just simply means that
they're going to just be thinking about him. And though they'll have no memory
of this life, they'll see his wounds and they'll know that
those wounds on their Savior is the only reason that they're
there. He's the Lamb that was slain
to take away The sins of the world. And there should be no night
there. And they need no candle. Need the light of the sun. For
the Lord God giveth them light. And they shall reign forever
and ever. And he said unto me, these sayings are faithful. And
true. And the Lord God of the holy
prophets sent his angel to show unto his servants the things
which must shortly come to pass. At the beginning of the book
of Revelation, the elders of the seven churches of Asia are
referred to as angels, an angel is just simply a faithful minister. If I have been faithful, and
I'll leave that for God to judge and for you to determine whether
or not what I've told you this morning is faithful to God's
word, then God has sent a messenger
He sent an angel and these words are faithful and true and they
will surely and shortly come to pass. Thank God, thank God he sent
a lamb to take away our sins. Our Heavenly Father, thank you
for your Word. Thank you for thy dear Son, the
Word that was made flesh and dwelt among us. Oh, might we
behold his glory as the glory of the only begotten of the Father,
full of grace and full of truth. Amen. 125, let's stand together. ? I hear the Savior say ? Thy strength
indeed is small ? Child of weakness, watch and pray ? Find in me thine
all in all ? Jesus made it all ? All to Him I owe ? Sin had
left a crimson stain O Lord, now indeed I find Thy
power and Thine alone, And change the leper's spots, And melt the
heart of stone. Jesus paid it all, All to Him
I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain
He washed it white as snow For nothing good have I Whereby thy
praise to claim I'll wash my garments white In the blood of
Calvary's Lamb Jesus paid it all, all to Him I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain,
He washed it white as snow. And when before the throne I
stand in incomplete, Jesus died my soul to save, my lips shall
still repeat, Jesus paid it all, all to Him I owe. Sin had left
a crimson stain, He washed it white as snow.