and some of the struggles he's
having right now, and Bert. So I want to pray for them. But
I failed to mention, I've mentioned him recently, Ryan's dad, Steve. Hospice is ministering to him
right now, and they've prepared the family. So Ryan, we pray
for you and your family. Isaiah chapter 42 beginning at
verse 1. Behold my servant. Another way
to interpret those three words would be look to Christ. Look
to Christ. Whom I uphold. The father speaking of his son.
Mine elect. I chose him. As the Savior. his people. In whom my soul delighteth. This is my beloved son in whom
I am well pleased. The father is pleased with his
son and those that are found in his son. He cannot be pleased
with anything that we offer. Our offerings are fraught with
sin. but the offering that the Lord Jesus made of himself to
his father on Calvary's cross. The father saw that offering
and he saw the travail of his soul. And the father said, I'm
satisfied. I have put my spirit upon him.
He's the Christ, the anointed one, and he shall bring forth
judgment to the Gentiles. He's going to satisfy divine
justice. He's going to satisfy the demands
that God has for a perfect obedience to the law and a sacrifice sufficient
to put away sin. He's going to do that. He shall
not cry, nor lift up, nor cause his voice to be heard in the
street. He's not begging men to let him have his way. You
listen to most preaching today and you have a Jesus in heaven
that's wringing his hands, wishing that men would let him have his
way. He loves everybody and died for everybody, but bless his
heart, he just can't get them saved without their cooperation.
No, that's not our God. That is the figment of men's
self-righteous imagination. A bruised reed shall he not break. Child of God, how oftentimes
sin has left us as a bruised reed, a broken reed. Normally you would take a broken
reed and just go ahead and break it the rest of the way. He doesn't
do that. He binds it up, straightens it up. A smoking flax he will
not quench. Here's the flax in an oil lamp
that's running out of oil. The oil being the oil of gladness,
his spirit. And how oftentimes we get low
on oil and the flame is but just a smoldering flax putting out
more smoke than fire. The Lord refills the lamp with
oil and blows his spirit on that wick and rekindles that flame.
That's what our hope is every time we come before him, every
time we gather for worship. Lord, I'm a smoking flax. Restore
the flame of grace and spirit. He shall, I'm sorry. He shall not fail, verse four. Till he has set judgment in the
earth and the aisles shall wait for his law. He shall not fail. Oh, I'm so thankful that we have
a successful savior who did not fail to do what he came to do,
save his people. He saved him. He actually saved
him. Let's pray together. Our Heavenly
Father, thank you for the simplicity and the clarity of your word. Clear, Lord, only because your
Holy Spirit has given us eyes to see and ears to hear. Lord,
left to ourselves, we will rest the scriptures. We will pervert
your word. We will distort its meaning.
and put ourselves on the throne of God. Lord, thank you. Thank you for speaking truth
and peace and hope to our hearts. And Lord, we pray that you would
do that again. Oh, how we need thee. Oh, how
we need our sin to be covered once again. How we need to have
eyes to see and hearts to believe on Christ. Lord, we Pray for
Ryan and for his family and ask Lord that you would give light
in this time of great trial and darkness. The light of the gospel
might shine in their hearts. Lord, we thank you for Bert and
for you go and pray, Lord, for your help and encouragement to
them. Both in body and in spirit. We ask it in Christ's name, amen. Number 199 from your hardback
temple, let's all stand together, 199. ? Silver's Jesus will receive ?
Sound this word of praise to all ? Through the heavenly pathway
lead ? All who linger, all who fall Christ, receive us in your blessing Christ, receive Cure me, Lord, of all my sin. Cleanse me from all spot. Satisfy its last demand. Sing it o'er and o'er again. Christ, receive this sinful man. Christ, receive a sinful man. Christ, receive a sinful man. He will be with all my sin. Purged from every spot and stain. Heaven with Him I enter in. Christ, receive this sinful man. Make the message clear and plain. Christ, receive this sinful man. Please be seated. I love that hymn. And oh how
I hope the Lord will make the message clear and plain. When something's full, that means
there's no room for anything else, it's full. It's full. A person who sees themselves
as being sinful, everything about them is sinful. No room for anything
else. That's how we come, just as we
are, without one plea. We come to the sinless one. Lord, we're full of sin. When Christ comes into the heart,
I believe what we have in our text this morning will be an
encouragement to sinners. This is a faithful saying, and
this saying is worthy of all acceptation. It's worthy to be
accepted in its entirety. Christ came into the world to
save sinners, of whom I am chief. If that's how you see yourself
as a sinful person in need of a Savior. There's a story here
in 1st Samuel chapter 5 that I believe, I know it was an encouragement
to me and I believe it'll be an encouragement to you. 1st Samuel chapter 5 verse 1. And the Philistines took the
Ark of God and brought it from Ebenezer onto Ashdod. And when the Philistines took
the Ark of God, they brought it into the house of Dagon and
set it by Dagon. And when they of Ashdod arose
early in the morning, behold, Dagon was fallen upon his face
to the earth before the ark of the Lord. And they took Dagon
and set him in his place again. And when they arose early on
the morrow morning, behold, Dagon was fallen upon his face to the
ground before the ark of the Lord. And the head of Dagon and
both the palms of his hands were cut off upon the threshold, only
the stump of Dagon was left to him. Therefore, neither the priest
of Dagon nor any that came into Dagon's house tread on the threshold
of Dagon in Ashdod unto this day." The word Philistine translated
means an immigrant. These people had immigrated to
Palestine from Crete and they were strangers in the land that
God had given to his people. And what I would like, what I
hope the Lord will show us this morning is that there is a spirit
of the Philistines in each one of us. We're immigrants. We're strangers
in a foreign country. This home, this land, this world
is not our home. Scripture calls us sojourners. And there is a part of this Philistine
spirit that we have that is contrary to the things of God. You know, generally speaking,
it's wrong for us to categorize a group of people. But there's
a place in the Scriptures where that exactly is done. When Paul
wrote to Titus, Paul had left Titus on the island of Crete,
that's where these Philistines were from, to set in order the
things for the church in the island of Crete. And here's what
Paul says in the book of Titus to Titus about the Cretans. He says, the Cretans are always
liars, evil beast, slow bellies. And then he says, this witness
of them, this was a common saying that was said about the Cretans.
They're liars. They're like evil beast. and they're of slow bellies.
The belly is a picture of the flesh in the scriptures. And
then Paul says, this witness of them is true. So inspired of the Holy Spirit,
the apostle Paul categorizes all the people from Crete as
liars, evil beasts, and slow bellies. and this was where the
Philistines came from. Sinful man, is there any part
of that description of the Cretans that you can identify with? Can you see that though we seek
to tell the truth in all things that we are Often presenting
stuff to make ourselves look better. That we present information
in such a way and we interact with one another in such a way
as to promote ourselves. Evil beast. How oftentimes we Act like our
flesh, our slow bellies caused us to be no better than animals. This is who we are by nature. By nature from the head of our,
from the top of our head to the sole of our feet we are sores
and putrefying sores and bruises The heart is evil and desperately
wicked, no man can know it. Our throat is an open sepulcher.
God looks down from heaven, he sees that every imagination of
the thoughts and intents of the heart are only evil and that
continually. We want other men to consider
us to be a good person in this world. But when we stand solely
before God, we are brought to see that in me that is in my
flesh dwelleth no good thing. No good thing. I'm a Cretan. I'm a Philistine. So we know what the ark is a
picture of. We saw that last Sunday and I
guess there's people still looking for the old ancient ark. That ark, if it was to be found,
would be no better than that brazen serpent that Hezekiah
called a worthless piece of brass. It'd be a box of shidom wood
overlaid with gold that has no value whatsoever. No value. Men would set it up as something
to be worshipped but we know that when the Lord Jesus Christ
came into the world that he fulfilled all the types and pictures that
were represented by that ark. Nevertheless in the Old Testament
the ark is a physical picture of the person and work of the
Lord Jesus Christ from the The manna that was in the ark, Christ,
Jesus, the Lord is the bread that came down from heaven. He
is our prophet. He is the one who brought the
word of God by bringing himself as the word of God into the hearts
of his people. He is our priest. That Aaron's
rod that was in the ark is a picture of our intercessor, the Lord
Jesus Christ, who goes before God Almighty and presents himself
as our sacrifice and intercedes on our behalf. We've got to have
a priest. And he is our king, represented
by those tablets of stone that were inside the ark. He was the
one who gave the law, and he is the one that fulfilled the
law. And everything about that ark represents Christ, most especially
the mercy seat that was on top of the ark, where the priest
on the Day of Atonement would go into the Holies of Holies
and put that blood sacrifice. God saw the blood. And he passed
over the sins of the people until the Lord Jesus Christ came and
shed his precious blood on Calvary's cross. And that's what the picture
here is. If you've If you're following
me and you've caught what I'm trying to say, we're talking
about the Ark, the Lord Jesus Christ coming into the heart
of a Philistine and the old nature that remains in that heart. Now, the Ark was captured in
a bloody battle. Turn back with me to chapter
4. And look with me at verse 10.
And the Philistines fought, and Israel was smitten, and they
fled every man into his tent. And there was a very great slaughter,
and there fell of Israel 30,000 footmen. And the ark of God was
taken, and the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were slain. Now Hophni and Phinehas are those
false prophets who abused the gospel and told lies about God. And what happens now when this
ark is taken by the Philistines, it's taken in the midst of a
bloody battle. 30,000 men died. The number 30 is very significant
in the Bible. The Lord Jesus Christ began his
public ministry at 30 years old. David began his reign at 30 years
old. The Old Testament priests could
not serve in the tabernacle until he was 30 years old. It's a picture
of completion and maturity and preparation and readiness. The
number 1,000 is a very significant number in the Bible. It's a number
of fullness. And so here we have 30,000 men
being slain. The Lord Jesus Christ was sold
for 30 pieces of silver. The price of a slave, the atonement
price and in all picturing The bloody battle that the Lord Jesus
Christ fought on behalf of his people on Calvary's cross when
he shed his precious blood and took that blood and put it not
on a mercy seat here in this world, not one made with the
hands of men, but one that was in heaven, the mercy seat of
God. And God said, when I see his
blood, I'll pass by you. This Ark. cannot be taken by
the Philistines except through the shedding of blood. Without
the shedding of blood, there's no remission of sin. God required
that shedding of blood and the slaughter that took place on
Calvary's cross cannot be compared to this slaughter that took place
here with 30,000 men dying in one battle. We've got the sinless Son of
God shedding His precious blood, spilling it out. The Lamb of
God, the one that Himself is without sin, without spot, shedding His precious blood.
That's the picture here. The ark was taken in a bloody
battle by men who are by nature liars, evil beast and slow bellies and is put into their temple,
put into their temple. We are the temple of the Holy
Ghost. When the Lord Jesus Christ comes
to reside in the hearts of his people, Oh, this battle. This battle
began in the covenant of grace before the world ever began.
The Lord Jesus Christ is called the Lamb that was slain before
the foundation of the world. So there's never been an atonement
for God's people. There's never been the possibility
of Christ living in the hearts of God's people apart from His
shed blood. The blood was shed in God's eternal
purpose. before it was shed 2000 years
ago on Calvary's cross. But in our lives, in our Lord's
sacrifice, it began in the garden, didn't it? There is some significance
to the fact that he sweated drops of blood, blood. And that's when he began to bear
the full burden of all the sins of all of God's people, buried
them in his body. and carrying them to the cross
and nailing them to the cross and putting them away once and
for all. This is what this bloody battle
is about. The Philistines are able to take
the ark and put it into their temple where their false god
was and This battle ended, it ended,
when the Lord Jesus Christ bowed his mighty head on Calvary's
cross and he cried with a loud voice, it is finished. The battle's over. Victory has
been won. Comfort ye, comfort ye my people,
saith the Lord. Speak ye comfortably unto Jerusalem. Tell them that their warfare
is accomplished. Oh, their iniquity has been taken
away. The Lord Jesus Christ got the victory. He defeated Satan. He put away our sin. He conquered
the grave and death and hell. that the Ark might come in and
find its residence in the temple of an idolater, a Cretan, a Philistine,
an immigrant. We are idolaters by nature. All
the tools necessary for fashioning an idol are in our hearts from
birth. In the absence of the knowledge
of God, it is only natural for us to create a God that looks
like us. But not only does he look like
us, but he is subservient to us. One thing is consistent about
all the variations of idolatry, the gods that men fashion are
gods that are subject to man. Man will control him. 2 Thessalonians
chapter 2, the man of sin has set himself up on the throne
of God. He's fashioned for himself a
god. who must respond to his demands. And so that's why we hear men
talk about letting Jesus come into your heart and getting saved
and all those sorts of things where man can present an offering
to God. Now as we saw in the first hour,
when it comes to our salvation, we are takers. We have nothing
to offer God. We've got nothing he needs and
he has everything that we need. But here's what we are by nature.
We create an idol fashioned in the imagination of our own sinful
darkened hearts, just like these Philistines did. Now you can
look it up, Google it sometime, Dagon. There's actually statues
left over of Dagon that exist today that you can see a picture
of. It's the body of a fish with the head and the arms and hands
of a man. It's called the fish god. It's
a god of fertility that the Philistines worshipped. What a picture. Turn with me to Romans chapter
1. Romans chapter 1. Look at verse 22. Professing themselves to be wise,
they became fools and changed the glory of God, the glory of
the uncorruptible God, excuse me, into an image made like to
corruptible man and to birds and four-footed beasts and creeping
things, and yes, fish. Wherefore, God also gave them
up to uncleanness through the lust of their own hearts to dishonor
their own bodies between themselves who changed the truth of God
into, now the letter A there is an indefinite article, A. But in fact, what's implied in
the text is the definite article, the, the. They've changed the
truth of God into the lie. The lie. What is the lie? I have a free will. I can choose God when I want
to. God's obligated to save me if I demand it from him. I can offer something to God
that will that will satisfy his demands for justice, whether
it be my will or my works. God loves everybody. Christ died
for everybody. God wants everybody to be saved.
But he can't do anything about it unless I... You see, that's
the lie. The lie is that I'm God. That's
idolatry. That's what we are by nature.
We fashioned We've taken the incorruptible God and we've fashioned
him into beast, changing the truth of God. What is the truth
of God? The truth of God is that he is
the glorious, self-sufficient I am. He is the sovereign, successful
savior of sinners. He hath done whatsoever he wills. No man can stay his hand or say
unto him, what doest thou? He's God. He's God. He actually accomplished the
salvation of his people. But men change these things about
God and they worship and serve the creature more than the creator
who is blessed forever. In other words, just because
men fashion for themselves an idol that looks like themselves
and makes God subservient to themselves doesn't change the
fact that God is God. He's not threatened. He's not
threatened. Oh, the kings of the earth have
set themselves up against the Holy One. And He shall hold them
in derision. He shall laugh at them. Who is
this that darkens my counsel without knowledge? Oh, what foolish, what fools
we are by nature. Come to this world with a God
complex and unless the battle is won in a bloody battle, and
the ark of God comes into the heart, the statue of Dagon will
not fall." It will not fall. You know there's more dignity.
You look at these pagan cultures and you think, they made a god
out of a fish? Or they set up some other thing
to worship and dance around and make sacrifices to? You know
there's more dignity in making a fish or a cow a god than there
is in making man a god? Let me show you that. Turn with
me to Isaiah chapter 1 verse 3. Isaiah chapter 1 verse
3, the ox knoweth its owner, and the ass his master's crib. But Israel does not know. My
people did not consider a sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity,
a seed of evildoers, children that are corruptors. They have
forsaken the Lord. They have provoked the Holy One
of Israel into anger. They are gone away backwards.
What God is saying is that the ox and the ass have more sense
than we do. There's more dignity in worshiping
an ox or an ass or a fish than there is in worshiping a man.
And yet all men by nature set themselves up as God. A dumb animal knows his master.
and can be taught to obey, we don't know our master and we
refuse to obey him. There's more dignity in those
ancient cultures. Yeah, I've said this before.
You look back at some of these ancient cultures even down in
Mexico back hundreds of years ago when they would sacrifice
their children unto God's? I think, how pagan is that? They had a higher view of God
than men today do. We think today that we can satisfy
the demands of God's justice by just offering Him a prayer.
Well, I'll just invite Jesus into my heart. I'll just do this
or do that and God will be obligated to save me. You think those people sacrificed
their children gleefully, happily? No. They did it with much tears and
agony, but they knew that if there's a God, the only way to
satisfy his demands was the ultimate sacrifice. the ultimate sacrifice
for them was their own children. Those people had a higher view
of God than we do. Worshipping an animal has more
dignity than we do. Here we are in the 21st century,
modern man, so educated and so well-off and we're a bunch of
ignorant fools when it comes to God. And that's what God says,
we will increase in knowledge and become fools in our heart
toward God. We are more foolish toward God
as a people with all of our supposed outward dignity than those ancient
cultures were. And with every passing generation,
we become more and more foolish. about the true nature of God. And unless a bloody battle is
fought and the ark comes in, our little fish God, Dagon, and
notice that the fish God has the head of a man. You know, we're not gonna bow
to a God who's not being controlled by our mind and our thoughts. We're a God that cannot be satisfied
by the works of our hands. You're there in Isaiah. If you're
still there, turn back with me to Isaiah chapter two. Isaiah chapter two. And look
with me at verse 20. In that day, the day of salvation,
shall in that day a man shall cast his idols of silver and
his idols of gold which they made each one for himself to
worship to the moles and to the bats to go into the cliffs of
the rock. and into the tops of the ragged
rocks for fear of the Lord and for the glory of his majesty
when he ariseth to shake terribly the earth." They will cast away their idols
when the Ark of the Covenant, the Lord Jesus Christ, comes
into the darkened heart of an idolater. And that's what we
are. What happens? Our God falls over. And we realize that all the thoughts
that we once had about God were not true. The statue fell in front of the
Ark of the Covenant. It fell to Christ. And the second
time it fell, the head and the hands broke off of it. What a
picture. You know, when the Lord first
saves us, we see, we see that He is God. But it's not until
the Lord begins to teach us that we come to realize how wrong
our thoughts were about God all along. And the more we grow in
grace and the knowledge of Christ, the more we see the error of
our thoughts. And the more we see what God
says when he said, your thoughts are not my thoughts. Your ways
are not my ways. As the heavens are high above
the earth, so are my thoughts above your thoughts. And so, the idol falls over and
then he gets stood back up. Do you have that problem? Do you have a problem with standing
your idol back up every time it falls over? Oh, I hope it's
falling over right now. And I know if it is, you're gonna
stand it back up before this day's over. And by God's grace, I pray he'll
knock it over again. And every time he knocks it over,
the head will break off of it. And you realize that we will
realize that the thoughts that we're having are not God's thoughts.
And the works that we're looking to for the hope of our salvation
are not God's works. You remember when Naaman came
down from Syria? Naaman was the, Syria at the
time was the strongest nation in the world. And Naaman was
the commander in chief of the army. And he was afflicted with
leprosy. And he heard that there was a
prophet down in Israel that could heal him. And he came down with
his gifts and with his entourage to meet with Elijah in Dothan. And Elijah sends his servant
out. Elijah, this lowly prophet living,
I can just see it, a little log cabin in the backside of Dothan,
and here Nathan comes with all of his troops and all of his
gifts. And the prophet wouldn't even
come out and face him. wouldn't even come out and talk to him. He sends his servant out and
he told him, he said, tell him to go down to the River Jordan
and wash seven times. And Nathan was enraged. Naaman,
I'm sorry, Naaman. And here's what Naaman said,
I thought that the man would come out and raise his hands
and speak to me. I thought that he would come
out and perform some sort of ritual. He wants me to go down
to the river Jordan and bathe. I've got better rivers than that
back in Syria. He was offended by the fact that
this prophet would not come out and talk to him. Why was he offended? First two words he spoke, I thought. That's our problem, isn't it? God looked down from heaven,
saw that every thought of the imagination of the heart was
only evil and that continually. Oh, how many times you hear people
say, well, follow your heart. Don't follow your heart. Your
heart's evil. Well, do whatever your heart
says. No, no, don't do it. And yet we do. We follow our
hearts instead of following Christ. And we bow to our thoughts rather
than His word. And we stand that idol back up,
don't we? We stand him back up. We glue
his head back on. And we glue his hands back on
and then we hear the gospel and we have the ministry of the Holy
Spirit convicting us of our sin and causing us to see our need
for Christ and he says, who shall stand before my holy hill? He
that hath clean hands and a pure heart. He's the only one that's
going to be. How pure are your hands? I hope
they get broken off on the threshold right before they got right before
the Ark of the Covenant. Oh, Lord, break off my hands.
Break off my head. Lord, my head is sick. My thoughts
are wrong. Give me the grace to bow to what
you've said and to believe you. and to quit following my feelings
and my affections and my desires and my thoughts to believe God. We keep standing that idol back
up, don't we? Oh, I mentioned this last Sunday,
I think, when Uzzah was walking beside the ark when it was put
upon a cart and the cart must have got a dip in the road or
something and the ark can just see it. Uzzah thought, well,
that's going to fall and he reached up there to stop it, hold it
in place. God killed him just like that.
As soon as he put his hand to that ark, God killed him. So
what do we do? We put our hands to the work
of Christ. Oh, we want to fashion an altar. God says when you build
an altar, don't put your hands to the stone. Don't try to carve
them and make them more attractive and more beautiful. You stack
up those stones and you put the sacrifice on top of uncut stones
because as soon as you put your hand to it, you've defiled it. He was wounded for our transgressions. and he was bruised for our iniquities. And if you look at the wounds
of the Lord Jesus Christ, why did he have nails pierced through
his hands? Because that's where our sin
is. Our sin is in what we do with our hands. Why did he have
a crown of thorns pressed into his brow? We're by those Those spikes of thorns were blunted
against his very skull and the blood flowed forth. Why? Why? He was wounded for our transgressions,
our thoughts. But here we are, Philistine,
immigrants, Cretans, slow belly, stupid, more stupid than animals. trying to satisfy God with something
other and looking to something other than the Lord Jesus Christ. And the ark comes in to that
temple of Dagon. And Dagon falls. He falls. When you first heard and believed, the hope of your salvation changed. You no longer rested the hope
of your salvation in something that you had done. That idol,
God killed it. He killed it, he broke off the
head, he broke off the hands. Oh how we We keep standing him
up, don't we? Turn with me to Hebrews chapter
8. I want to show you something here. This I hope will be an
encouragement to you. Hebrews chapter 8. I've heard
men say that you can miss heaven by 18 inches. referring to having right thoughts
about God but not having him in your heart. And I suppose there is such a
thing as having some truths, plural, small t without having
the truth, but when you articulate those truths You're just parroting
something that you heard. It's not really in your head.
If it was really in your head, it'd be in your heart. You can't believe something in
your head without it being in your heart. You can't. And I'm going to show
you that from God's Word. Look at me in Hebrews chapter
8 verse 10. This is the covenant that I will
make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord.
I will put my laws in their minds and write them in their hearts. And I will be to them a God and
they shall be unto me a people. This is a quote from Jeremiah
31. And he's not talking about the
moral law. The moral law according to Romans
chapter two is written on every man's heart. He's talking about
the law of sin, the law of righteousness, the law of grace, the law of
the spirit, the law of liberty. These are the laws that God says
I will put my laws in their minds and write them in their hearts.
Now the same penman quotes the same passage one, two more chapters
over in chapter 10 at verse 16. And this is the covenant that
I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord. I will
put my laws in their hearts and write them upon their minds.
Do you see what he did? You see what the Lord did? In
the first instance, he said, I will put my laws in their mind
and write them on their hearts. And in the second, he says, I
will put them in their hearts and write them on their minds. Child of God, your mind and your
heart are the same thing. You can't have something in your
mind you don't have in your heart. If it's not in your heart, it's
really not in your mind. The disconnect is not between
the head and the heart. The disconnect is between the
heart and the lips. Men will say things they don't
believe. They will say things they don't
understand. They will say things they don't
know. Just because they speak them doesn't mean that they're
in the mind or in the heart. You can teach a child to say
words they don't have a clue what they're saying. You can teach a man to talk about
total depravity and unconditional election and limited atonement
and irresistible grace and perseverance of the saints and they can learn
those terms But just because they can speak them doesn't mean
they're written in their heart or put in their minds or put
in their heart and written in their minds. What you believe in your mind,
you believe in your heart. One final point from our story
back in 1 Samuel chapter 5. What a hopeful truth for the child of God who every day stands up his stupid
Dagon, his fish god. And God every day knocks him
down and he bows to that ark. The ark fell on the threshold.
The threshold is a stone seal entering into the doorway. And
the scripture says these priests would not step on that threshold
anymore, they stepped over it. And Zephaniah chapter 1 verse 9 says,
In that day I will punish all who leap over or avoid the threshold. So they saw some significance
in the threshold of this door. But they wouldn't touch it after
that. They leaped over it. They jumped over the threshold.
They wouldn't step on it. What is that threshold? Well,
we know the Lord Jesus Christ is the doorway into the sheepfold.
He said, I am the door. He's the only way in. He's that
door into heaven. He's the door symbolized by those
pearly gates that we see in the New Jerusalem coming down. In
Isaiah chapter 6, when the seraphim cried, holy, holy, holy is the
Lord God of hosts, the scripture says the post, and that word
post is the word threshold, of the door shook in the temple. This threshold is Christ. In
2 Chronicles chapter 3, the threshold in the temple of God was lined
with gold. The Levitical priests are said
to have served at the threshold. And in Ezekiel chapter 9 verse
3, it is a place where God's glory rested. And in Ezekiel
chapter 47 verse 1, water flowed out of the threshold. We talk about standing at the
threshold of something. Christ is that threshold. He makes up the whole door. This idol, this false god, fell
on the threshold. That's where the hands and the
head broke off. There is a rock lined with gold
from which the water of life flows. the threshold of God,
don't leap over it. Don't leap over it. Stand on it. Stand on that rock. It's the only safe place to be. When the storms come and the
wind blows and the rain falls, that house that's built upon
the rock, it'll stand. It'll stand. Our Heavenly Father, thank you. Lord, when we are unfaithful
and we perpetually set up our stupid idols, you remain as faithful
for you cannot deny yourself. Lord, thank you for faithfully,
persistently, bringing that arc back before our idols, causing
them to fall on the threshold. Lord, might we find the hope
of our salvation at that threshold. For it's in Christ's name we
pray, amen. 126, let's stand together, number
126. clap for me. Let me hide myself
in Thee. Let the water and the blood from
Thy womb inside me flow. Keep us in the love of God, safe
from wrath and making poor. Could my tears forever flow? Could my zeal no longer know
These poor sin could not atone Thou must save and Thou alone
In Thy hand, O Christ, I pray Simply to Thy cross I plead And my eyes shall close in death,
when I rise to worlds unknown, and behold thee on thy throne. Rock of Ages, flatter me, let
me hide myself in thee.