Good morning. Let's open this morning's service
with hymn number 62 in your hardback timnal. Number 62, crown him
with many crowns. Let's all stand together. Crown Him with many crowns, the
Lamb upon His throne. Hark how the heavenly anthem
drowns all music but its own. Awake, my soul, and sing of Him
who died for thee, and hail Him as thy matchless King through
all eternity. Crown him the Lord of love, behold
his hands and side. Rich wounds yet visible above,
in beauty glorified. No angel in the sky, Can fully
bear that sight, But downward bends his wandering eye, That
mystery so bright. crowned him the lord of life
who triumphed o'er the grave who rose victorious to the strife
for those he came to save his glories now we sing Who died
and rose on high, Who died eternal life to bring, And lives that
death may die. Crown Him the Lord of Heaven,
One with the Father known, One with the Spirit through Him given,
From yonder glorious throne. To thee be endless praise, for
thou for us hast died. Be thou, O Lord, through endless
days, adored and magnified. Please be seated. Good morning. Things are progressing outside.
And plans are that the slab will be poured on Tuesday of this
week. And the contractor told me the
other day it would take him about three days to get all the walls
up. So either this week or next week, we should be able to see
the shape of a building out there. Trusses ordered, so we'll probably be waiting on
those for a few weeks after the walls get up to get the trusses
in before we can put a roof on it, but it's looking good. Very thankful. Would you open
your Bibles with me to Acts chapter one? I've titled this message
Mount Olivet, or as we normally refer to it as the Mount of Olives,
but in our text, it's referred to as Mount Olivet. The significance of what takes
place on this mountain speaks great hope and comfort to the
hearts of God's people in terms of their salvation. So let's
ask the Lord to bless his word. And we'll be looking at verse
12 in Acts chapter one. Our glorious, merciful, loving
heavenly father. What great hope we have in knowing
that you are faithful to all of your promises. That you have called us into
your presence. And you have provided for us
everything necessary for us to stand in thy holy presence, robed
in the righteousness of thy dear son, looking to him for all of
our acceptance, knowing that he has satisfied your law, that
he has fulfilled all justice. Lord, that you enable your people
in Christ. To enter into a spirit of worship. Worship that's done in the power
of your spirit and worship that's done according to the truth of
your word. Lord, we thank you for your word.
We know that it is given by inspiration of the spirit. And we confess
to you our dependence on that same Holy Spirit. To enlighten
the eyes of our understanding to cause your word to be sharper
than any two edged sword, to be effectual and alive in our
hearts and to reveal to us more of your glory. and more of the
accomplished work of the Lord Jesus Christ. For it's in his
name we pray, amen. You have your Bibles open to
Acts chapter one. We know that all scripture is
given by inspiration of God. Every word of it, every word
of it is profitable. It's profitable for God's people,
for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in
righteousness, that the man of God may be thoroughly furnished
unto all good works. There's not a single word in
this book that's superfluous. There's not a single word that's
unnecessary. It's all God's word to his people. Much of it we don't understand
the significance of it. Well, none of it do we understand the
significance of it. Much of it we don't understand
anything about. We read passages of scriptures
and we think, well, that's just there to kind of give us bearings.
But we know that's not true, that holy men of God wrote as
they were moved by the Holy Spirit. And we're going to read one verse
of scripture in Acts chapter 1 that speaks of Mount Olibet. Mountains are significant in
the word of God. The most significant things that
happened in the salvation of God's people are demonstrated
for us on mountains. And this Mount Olivet is one
of the most glorious mountains that there is in the scriptures. It's located a little bit more
than a half a mile, the scripture tells us, outside of the city
of Jerusalem. I hope that the Lord will give
understanding and comfort to our hearts as we consider what
he did on this mountain. You remember now the Lord has
told them, you go back into Jerusalem and the Holy Ghost will come
upon you and you will be my witnesses. in Jerusalem, in Samaria, in
Judea and Samaria and unto the outermost parts of the world.
And the disciples are standing there on the Mount of Olives
gazing up into heaven, watching the Lord ascend back into glory. And the angels appeared and said,
men of Galilee, why stand you here gazing up? The same Jesus,
the same Jesus that you've watched, go back and resume his rightful
place at the right hand of the majesty on high. What great comfort
we have in that, knowing that we have an advocate with the
Father. The Lord Jesus Christ said, I
go and prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place
for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself, that
where I am there you may be also. That's what's being taught us
here. That's what's being declared,
God's promise to save his people. And that's exactly what the Lord
Jesus is doing now. And so, out of obedience of what
the Lord has told them, the scripture says in verse 12, then returned
they to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is from
Jerusalem, a Sabbath's day journey. Now, we know that In one sense,
mountains are used in the scriptures to represent our sin. The Lord said, if you have the
faith of a mustard seed and you say unto this mountain, be thou
removed, in that sense, the mountain is a picture of a barrier between
us and God. Your sins have separated you
from your God. That's the barrier that keeps
us from the Lord. It's our sin, isn't it? And the
Lord makes it clear that our faith looking to Christ and his
accomplished work of redemption causes that mountain to be cast
into the depths of the sea so that there's no more barrier,
no more hindrance from entering into the very presence of a holy
God knowing that he has put away our sin by the sacrifice of himself. Mountains are used to illustrate
the the arrogance and pride of man. Man in his self-righteousness
holds himself up as a mountain. And the Lord says that when I
come, I will make valleys out of the mountains. And he brings
the mountains low, doesn't he? And then he says, I exalt the
valleys. That's a work of grace too. In
our pride and self-righteousness, the spirit of God causes us to
acknowledge our sin and to see our complete dependence on the
Lord, our inability to save ourselves, and he brings us down. And then
as he brings us down, he lifts us back up. He lifts us back
up and enables us to once again have the experience of a mountain. not a mountain that creates a
barrier, not a mountain that's haughty or self-righteous or
proud, but a mountain on which the Lord performs works of grace. And that's our hope. That's our
hope, that the Lord will do that. How many mountains we see in
the scriptures? Mount Sinai, that's the mountain of the law,
isn't it? Moses went up and and received the law and the Lord
hid him in the cleft of a rock which is a picture of Christ
and Moses being a picture of type of Christ as the lawgiver
and that mountain quaked, the scripture says, and it was on
fire and it shook. And if any man touched it, he
was to be put to death. And even if an animal was to
touch Mount Sinai, he was to be thrust through with a dart. And so what is the Lord telling
us about Mount Sinai? You can't approach God by his
law. You can't come into the presence
of God by something that you do. That's a holy mountain that will
destroy you if you try to come into the presence of God by the
law. There's Mount Nebo before the
children of Israel entered into the promised land. The Lord had
to take Moses out of the picture. Moses, as a type of the law,
could not bring the children of Israel into the promised land.
And so the Lord took Moses up on Mount Nebo and showed him
all the land that would be provided. And Joshua, Joshua the type of
Christ, after Moses was buried by God. And there's two pictures
there. The Lord knew that if the children
of Israel had any remains of Moses' body, they would end up
worshiping him, just like they did the serpent that was put
on a pole. But also the Lord saying, the law's been put away.
It's been put away its head. And Joshua had to lead the children
of Israel into the promised land. We have another picture of the
law. I mean, a picture of a mountain
at Carmel, don't we? Mount Carmel. When Elijah proved
the power of our God over all the gods of Baal, when he saturated
that altar with a sacrifice with water and call down fire from
heaven. And he said this, he said, the
God that answereth by fire, he is God. And who's the God that
answered by fire? We know that's not just a picture
of what happened on Mount Carmel. All these mountains point to
what Christ did in the redemptive work of salvation for sinners.
The fire that fell from heaven and consumed the sacrifice is
the fiery wrath of God's justice that fell on Christ on Calvary's
cross. He's that sacrifice. Over and over again throughout
the scriptures, the church is referred to as Mount Zion, a
very special place, an elevated place, an exalted place, a place
that is brought into the very presence of God. by the work
of Christ, and Mount Zion, all the blessings of God are provided
for her, and that's where we are right now. We don't know
much about physical mountains living here in Florida, do we? Closest thing we've got, Mount
Dora, and it ain't much of a mountain, but... But we can have some understanding
of these things, can't we? I think the highest elevation
in the state of Florida is somewhere between Tallahassee and Pensacola.
And it's, what, 100 and something feet above sea level. That point
doesn't compare to the height of the mountain that we're sitting
on the top of right now. This is the highest point. In
this state. I know anything about. This is
Mount Zion. Elevated into the presence of
God. We have a. a mountain called
the Mount of Transfiguration where the Lord Jesus took Peter,
James, and John and the veil of his humanity was temporarily
taken away and he became like the noonday sun and they were
brought to see the deity and hear the voice of God say, this
is my beloved son in whom I'm well pleased, hear ye him. What a glorious mountain that
would be. And Peter speaks of that mountain later when he says,
We did not bring to you cunningly devised fables. We handled the
word of God, and we saw his visage. We saw his image, the glory of
his deity on the Mount of Triton, and we heard the voice of God
speak. And yet, we bring to you a more sure word of testimony.
That's the message. This is God's Word describing
the real meaning of these mountains. And the hope is that faith comes
by hearing and hearing comes by the Word of God, that the
Lord would reveal to us more of the glory of Christ by His
Word in our hearts, showing us the significance of these mountains. No mountain reaches the elevation
of Mount Calvary. Mount Calvary. When the Lord
Jesus Christ willingly laid down his life for his sheep. When he paid the price for all
the sins of all of God's people. shedding his precious blood as
a covering for our sin, satisfying all of God's holy justice, being
our righteousness, obedient even unto death, bowing his mighty
head and crying, it is finished. Everything that God requires
for you was accomplished by me and all of those Old Testament
mountains reached their summit at Mount Calvary, don't they?
Prior to Mount Calvary, we have the Mount of Olives. What is
the picture here? What is the type that we're to
understand in terms of, by the way, those mountains I just mentioned
are but a few. There's two or three times that
many more mountains mentioned in the scriptures, and each of
them have a different picture of Christ. The Mount of Olives, in order
for us to understand the Mount of Olives, we have to have a
little bit of understanding of the olive and the olive tree
and the olive oil and what it represents. The first mention
of the olive in the scripture is when the deluge of Noah's
flood had ceased and the waters are beginning to return to the
sea. And the Ark is settling on Mount
Ararat, and Noah sends out a raven, you remember? And the raven doesn't
return, which convinces Noah that it wasn't yet time to leave
the Ark. The raven was feeding on the
dead carcasses of the animals, I suppose. And a picture of man's
flesh. He can feed himself on dead flesh. But then he sends out a dove. And the scripture says that the
dove found no place to light her feet, or to rest her feet,
and she returned to the ark. And you know what that ark is.
Well, there's another mountain, by the way, Mount Ararat, isn't
it? Where the Noah's Ark settled. And you know what that ark is.
That ark is Christ. He was pitched inside and out.
It was a picture of the atonement, the covering. And the dove had
to return to the ark in order to find rest. There was no place
in the world for her to rest her feet. And so it is with us. What does the dove represent?
The dove represents peace, doesn't it? Peace with God through the
Lord Jesus Christ. Until finally, the dove comes
back to the ark and what does she have? She's plucked off the
leaf of an olive tree. And Noah knew then that all was
well. There is peace with God. There
is life. There is hope. And that's what
that olive tree represents. And so the oil of the olive was the
oil of anointing that represents the spirit of God that was poured
out. And it pictures the anointing
of God's spirit on his people. In Romans chapter 11, the olive
tree, it represents Israel. And the Gentiles represent the
wild olive tree that was grafted into the good olive tree. That's
what we were by nature. We're just wild olive trees.
Somebody gave me some fruit the other day, and I tried to eat
a piece of it and found out it was a sour orange, a wild orange. You ever try to eat a wild orange? You take a seed from an orange
tree and plant it, and it'll grow an orange tree, but it's
not going to be edible. That thing is so sour, I mean, it's
the sourest thing you ever tasted. And that's what the Lord said
about us. We're just wild olive trees. But he grafts us in to the church,
to Zion, to the good olive tree. Jeremiah 11, verse 16, the Lord
called thy name a green olive tree of good fruit, fair and
goodly fruit. In Psalm 52 verse 8, but I am
like a green olive tree in the house of God, I trust in the
mercy of God forever. So this olive tree represents,
it represents peace with God, it represents life with God,
and it represents the fruitfulness of His grace and mercy in faith. That's where the Lord ascended
into glory. In Zechariah chapter 14, when the return of
Christ is described as the apostles tell us here, I mean, as the
Lord told the apostles here in Acts chapter 1, the angels, this
same Jesus that you see being caught up into heaven is coming
in like manner. In Zechariah chapter 14, the scripture says
that when he puts his feet on the Mount of Olives, it's going
to cleave in half. He's going to divide the The
mountain, which is a picture of the Lord dividing his sheep
from the goats in his return. Who will have the hope? Well, those that are above the
olive tree, those that have been grafted in. Those that have peace
with God through the Lord Jesus Christ. We're not going to have
peace with God. You know, you hear people sometimes speak of
someone on their deathbed. Have you made your peace with
God? What are you going to do to make your peace with God?
What kind of offering are you going to offer God to make up
for your sins? There's nothing we can do, is
there? That's what the Lord Jesus Christ did. He's the prince of
peace. He's the only one that can make
peace with God, and that's what he did by the shedding of his
blood. All that's represented by this
Mount of Olives. David, you remember, now the
Mount of Olives, the scripture says, was a Sabbath day's journey
from Jerusalem. About 2,000 cubits was the Sabbath
day's journey. And David, you remember, when
he was leaving Jerusalem, Absalom, David's son, taking his throne
and his rightful place away from him. David's grieving and the
scripture says that he leaves Jerusalem barefooted and weeping. And he goes across the river
or the tributary, the creek, which by the New Testament time
had become a sewer, Kidron. that creek that goes between
the Mount of Olives and Jerusalem. David goes across that creek,
weeping with bare feet and pleading with God for his mercy. And now,
a thousand years later, the Lord Jesus Christ, in fulfilling that
prophecy, comes back the Mount of Olives across the Kidron Valley
into Jerusalem to offer himself to the Father for the sacrifice
of our sins. All that happened on the Mount
of Olives. This is what takes place on the
Mount of Olives. You remember the Lord Jesus Christ
took his disciples to the Mount of Olives just before he goes
across the Kidron, just before he crosses that sewer, which
is a picture of our sin, and enters into the city of Jerusalem
and lays his life down for his sheep. offers himself up to the
father, he was praying in the garden of Gethsemane. Now, the
word Gethsemane means the oil press. Olives, I guess, in order
to get the oil out of them have to be pressed. And I'm sure that
there was an olive press somewhere on the Mount of Olives. And what's
the significance of that? The Lord Jesus Christ is being
pressed out. He's being pressed out by the
wrath of his father, by the justice of God, that the oil of gladness
might come out and be there for us to be convicted of our sin
and to be given faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. So he's pressed
out. And this begins his, it begins
his sufferings on the Mount of Olives. That's where, that's
where he went before the Father in prayer and said, Father, if
there be any way this cup can pass from me, let it be nevertheless
not my will, but thy will be done. What was the cup? It was
the cup of our sins, the bitter dregs of God's wrath. It was
the cup of justice. And he began right then. The
scripture says he, he sweat great drops of blood on Mount Olivet. And now he's ascended back into
glory. You see the olive and the olive tree and the olive
oil have everything to do with what the Lord Jesus Christ accomplished
in our salvation on Mount Olivet. And it's appropriate that he
would ascend back into glory from that mountain and that he
would come back to this earth right on that mountain. So when the Lord leaves the Mount
of Olives and goes into Jerusalem, he's fulfilling everything that
was prophesied in David's experience with his own son. He said, they
hated me without a cause. We were the, just as Absalom
was David's son, so are we the children of God. And it was because
of our rebellion against God and our attempt to usurp his
authority and to take his throne that he had to do what he did.
Going from the Mount of Olives back into the city and now ascended
into glory from the Mount of Olives. All of God's word fits together
and all speaks of Christ in the volume of the book. It is written of me. There's not an insignificant
word in it, is there? It's all for our edification.
That's all for our comfort. And most importantly, it's for
our salvation. The Lord is speaking. He's revealing
himself through these types and shadows. Go back with me to our
text, verse 12, then returned they to Jerusalem. Now, you know
what Jerusalem is. What's going to happen in Jerusalem,
the spirit of God is going to come upon them. And, and Jerusalem
is the, what we, in the new Testament, we read about the new Jerusalem
coming down from heaven, that city of God. And the word Jerusalem
means the city of peace. It's where God makes peace with
his people through the shed blood of Christ. And just as Zion is
where we are right now, so we're in Jerusalem. Now, when physical
Jerusalem is spoken of in the New Testament, after the ascension
of Christ, Revelation chapter 11, she is spoken of as Sodom
and Egypt. Sodom, a picture of decadence
and rebellion against God and Egypt, a picture of lawmongering,
attempting to earn favor with God by your own works. being
under the taskmaster of the law, and that's what the Lord refers
to as Jerusalem. The Jerusalem that is now, that
city over there in the Middle East, is called Sodom and Egypt. They no longer are worthy of
the name Jerusalem. This is Jerusalem. This is the
city of peace. Only if you have spiritual ears
to hear, spiritual eyes to see, can you rejoice in that. This
is where all the blessings and promises of God are fulfilled. And so just like they went back
into Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives, so we go from understanding
what the Lord Jesus accomplished on the Mount of Olives and we
come to Jerusalem and we wait for the blessing of the Spirit
of God. Which is from Jerusalem. a Sabbath
day journey. I suppose that these apostles
were probably still counting their steps on how far they walked
on the Sabbath day. The Jews, the scriptures are
not explicit on how far they could walk on the Sabbath. You
remember in Exodus when the children of Israel were given that manna
from heaven which is a type of Christ and they ate of that manna
for 40 years and they were instructed to gather the manna only six
days a week. And on the seventh day they weren't
to go out looking for manna. And the scripture says the first
Sabbath, the first day of rest, some of the Israelites went out
looking for man and there was none and Moses rebuked them and
told them you don't you don't go out you don't you don't go
out of your home you don't you don't travel you stay here and
you trust God six days you gather the man of the seventh day you
rest and and all through the Old Testament
that seventh day represented the day of rest. When God created
the earth, six days, he created the earth, and on the seventh
day, he rested. Why did God rest? What does that
day of rest represent? You're tired, I get it, you know,
you work six days a week, you are tired, you need a day off,
don't you? It's smart for us to take one day a week off at
least. That's a good thing. But that's
not the... God rested because He was finished. There was nothing else left for
Him to do. But the children of Israel were instructed not to
work on the Sabbath. Now what is that a picture of?
Turn to me to Exodus chapter 31. Jerusalem was a Sabbath day's
journey from Mount Olivet. Exodus chapter 31, look at verse
13, speak thou also unto the children of Israel saying, verily
my Sabbaths you shall keep for it is a sign. Now tell me what
other What other law of God? This is the fourth of the Ten
Commandments. What other law of God is called a sign? Those
were moral laws. They weren't signs. The Sabbath
is between the first part of the Decalogue and the second
part of the Decalogue as a sign. What is it a sign of? What's
it a sign of? a sign between me and you throughout
your generation that you may know that I am the Lord that
doth sanctify you. That's what it's a sign of. I'm
the Lord that make you holy. I'm the one that makes you acceptable
in the presence of God. You shall keep the Sabbath therefore
for it is holy unto you. Everyone that defileth it shall
surely be put to death. For whosoever doth any work therein,
that soul shall be put off from among the people. Six days you
shall work, but on the seventh it is the Sabbath of rest, holy
to the Lord. Whosoever doeth any work on the
Sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death." You remember when they brought
a man to Moses who had been picking up sticks on the Sabbath day,
I guess, to make a fire and cook dinner, I don't know, you know,
something Seemingly innocent enough and and he was violating
the sabbath by working on the sabbath day And they brought
him to moses and moses went before the lord and the lord said make
an example out of him kill him And they put him to death and
his whole family What is the picture What's the
same picture of uzzah putting his hand to the ark and God killing
him. It's the same picture that we
see when the Lord said, when you build an altar, don't use
your hands to hew the stone. Pile the stones up raw because
as soon as you put your hand to the altar, you defile it.
Here's what it's a picture of. It's a picture of man adding
his works to God's. That's all it is. God said, I'm
finished. The work of redemption is accomplished.
Don't add your work to it. Don't add your free will to it.
Don't add your decisions. Don't add your obedience. Don't
add anything to the work of Christ. It is finished. And if you put
your hand to the work, does that mean that if you work on Sunday
that God's going to kill you? No. You know better than that.
But I tell you what, you put your hand to what God has done
in Christ and you will die, not just physically, spiritually.
You'll spend eternity separated from God. The Lord said, I'm
not sharing my glory with another. He's done it all by himself.
That's the picture. So this Sabbath day journey,
they were, they would count their steps on the Sabbath to make
sure that they didn't violate the Sabbath lest they die. Now
Pentecost is about to come in just a few more days and the
Lord is going to reveal to them what that sign really meant and
what the purpose of the Sabbath really was. Those who are still
trying to keep the Sabbath by what they do on Saturday or on
Sunday are in fact violating the Sabbath by their very attempt
to keep it. And people have to be manipulated
to come to church by telling them that God's given us a law,
and it's the Sabbath law, and you need to be here, and you
need to not work, and you need to do this. God's people don't have to be
put under the law to come to church. They don't have to be
manipulated. by those sort of things in order
to want to worship God. They want to be there. They want
to worship the Lord. I've said this before, you don't
want to come, don't come. And your children are in the
back so they didn't hear that. Okay? Because I know they were going
to say to you, see preacher said I didn't have to come if I didn't
want to. Young people, you got to do a lot of things you don't
want to do and come to church one of them. Okay? You don't want
to brush your teeth, you don't want to Eat your vegetables.
You don't want to go to bed and you gotta do it. Why? Because
mom and dad know what's best for you. I'm not talking to you.
You're being blessed if your parents make you come to church.
And you'll be even more blessed when you have a desire to be
here without having to be made to come. But. That's. We're not. We're not keeping the Sabbath
by coming to church. You know the fastest. denomination,
religious denomination in America is a Seventh-day Adventist. And
you talk to them, they're proud. They got the Sabbath figured
out. And that's their righteousness, going to church on Saturday.
Years and years ago, one of my first jobs I got out of the Navy
was a bill collector. Boy, that was a horrible job.
I mean, I'd knock on people's doors and collect bad accounts.
And I remember one time this guy cracked the door open. He
said, I'm Seventh Day Adventist. I can't talk to you today. I
was on Saturday. And he slammed the door. I thought,
you hypocrite. Pay your bill and I won't have
to come around here on Saturday and bother you. But I thought,
you know, that's... Keeping the Sabbath has absolutely
nothing to do with what you do or don't do on Saturday and Sunday.
God's people want to worship their Lord because they are resting
like that dove who came back to the ark and rested the sole
of her feet on that ark. They are resting in the finished
work of Christ. They have peace with God through
the Lord Jesus Christ. They want to hear more about
who he is and what he's done for them and how his word is
a comfort to their souls. Christ is our Sabbath. Hebrews chapter four is as clear
as any passage in God's word. about the Lord Jesus Christ being
our Sabbath. We labor not to keep the Sabbath. We labor not to keep his law. We labor to enter into his rest. That's what it says in Hebrews
chapter 4 and that's a spiritual labor because by nature we want
to do something to earn favor with God. And the spiritual labor
of faith is to enter into his rest. The disciples went to Jerusalem
from the Mount of Olives, which was a Sabbath day journey. They're
gonna gather together in an upper room and we're gonna look at
the next three or four verses in a few minutes. So let's take
a break.